Author: SKYNEWS

Cliff Nicholls runs two trampoline parks and indoor play centres: one in Tamworth in the West Midlands, the other in Bolton, Greater Manchester. He’s already feeling the pressure from the government’s latest budget measures and has been forced to abandon further investment plans.”The national minimum wage increases coming in April, combined with the reduced thresholds for national insurance and the increased rate of employers’ national insurance, will have a very significant impact,” Cliff said.To cut costs, he’s already made drastic changes. “We’ve had to take some fairly radical decisions, reducing our opening hours, making a senior staff member redundant because…

A newly discovered bat coronavirus could at some point spread to humans like COVID-19, Chinese researchers have found.The virus, HKU5-CoV-2, does not enter human cells as readily as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, the scientists reported in the journal Cell. However, they found that the bat virus uses the same cell-surface protein, ACE2, as SARS-CoV-2 to help it enter human cells.In lab experiments, HKU5-CoV-2 infected human cells with high ACE2 levels in test tubes and in models of human intestines and airways.Read more science and technology news:How AI is being used to manipulate German votersNew prostate cancer screening trial announcedDonated placenta…

A man has been found guilty of attempted murder for attacking author Sir Salman Rushdie.The 77-year-old British-American writer was stabbed multiple times as he was preparing to give a speech in New York in 2022. He was blinded in his right eye in the incident, suffered a severely damaged hand, and spent months recovering.Following a trial in Chautauqua County Court, a jury convicted 27-year-old Hadi Matar of attempting to murder Sir Salman, after less than two hours of deliberations.He was also found guilty of assault for wounding Henry Reese, who was on stage with Sir Salman at the time. Matar…

Shops were given a surprisingly big boost in January as official figures showed retail sales rose by 1.7%.Only a 0.3% rise had been forecast by economists polled by Reuters. It’s the first growth since August and follows a fall of 0.6% in the key shopping month of December, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.Not since May has there been a rise this large.The December drop was even larger than first thought. Initially, only a 0.3% contraction was recorded by the ONS. Money blog: What are your rights if you have bad phone signal?The large rise in January came…

A Spanish photographer has been named Underwater Photographer of the Year for his picture of a humpback whale and her newborn calf in French Polynesia. Alvaro Herrero beat more than 6,750 other entries to take home this year’s prize. His photo shows “a mother’s love and communicates the beauty and fragility of life in our ocean”, the competition’s organisers said.Judge Peter Rowlands added: “This delicate yet powerful study of a mother and calf’s bond says all that is great and good about our world.”We face our challenges, but the increasing populations of humpback whales worldwide shows what can be achieved.” Image:…

Speculation about the next James Bond was rife even before Daniel Craig confirmed once and for all that he was stepping down.Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Idris Elba? Henry Cavill? James Norton? A female 007? Three-and-a-half years on from No Time To Die, already delayed due to COVID and other problems, there has not been a scrap of confirmation.But now – plot twist – comes the announcement that Bond’s long-time producers and custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson are handing creative control to Amazon MGM Studios. Image: Daniel Craig in his first outing as Bond, Casino Royale, in 2006. Pic: Rex/Shutterstock It’s…

What happens when you put a boyhood fan in charge of their club?They discover it’s not so simple to run after all. And the fans you sat with many years ago are as impatient as ever. Anger reverberates exactly a year since Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS organisation gained day-to-day control of football operations at Manchester United. Image: Sir Jim Ratcliffe at Old Trafford. Pic: PA Fans are furious about ticket price rises.A charity helping former players has had funding slashed. And rank-and-file staff – many loyal for years without Premier League salaries – have been swept out with…

After he was squirted in the eye with battery acid, Paul Laskey thought he would lose his eye entirely, until a donated placenta helped save some of his sight. Paul, 43, was attacked after he confronted 21-year-old Robbie Scott, who had mugged his son in Newcastle just minutes earlier. “[My son] phoned us, hysterical, saying he had been robbed,” the father-of-three told Sky News. Scott had “pulled a knife on him and ripped a gold chain off his neck”.When Paul went to confront Scott, he squirted him with battery acid from a drinks bottle.”I knew instantly. I couldn’t see anything,…

The trial of the only suspect ever to be charged with the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, almost 30 years after his death, has been postponed for almost a year.During a short hearing in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said she had little choice but to reschedule given new developments presented by Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ lawyers. Davis, 61, was charged with Tupac’s murder in September 2023 and has been in jail since his arrest. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and his trial has already been pushed back twice, from June…

Inflation has risen a surprising amount to the highest in nearly a year, official figures show. This means prices are rising even more than at any time since last March, according to data from the Office for National Statistics for January. The consumer price index (CPI) ticked up steeply to 3% from 2.5% a month earlier. A lower rise to 2.8% was forecast by economists polled by Reuters and by central bank the Bank of England.The rise has come from more expensive transport and food and non-alcoholic beverages costs. Flight prices did not fall as much as usual for this…