Author: SKYNEWS

The prime minister is visiting Norway to launch a new green energy deal before attending a defence summit in Estonia.Sir Keir Starmer will travel to a carbon capture and storage site today and meet his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store to discuss the new Green Industrial Partnership. Number 10 said both leaders intend to sign the deal in spring 2025.Read more: Major shake-up of UK energy system could ‘lower bills for good’Sir Keir said the energy partnership with Norway, which has a border with Russia, would help to boost growth and protect against spikes in international energy prices like those…

“Drastic change” is needed to end the “backwards” British stunt industry’s use of men in wigs pretending to be women, according to leading female stunt experts.”From my point of view, it’s heartbreaking,” says stunt co-ordinator Tiger Lilli Rudge talking to Sky News at Space Studios in Manchester. A stunt performer for 15 years, she now helps train other women with the skills needed to work in film and television, all too aware from her own experience that they will be fighting on multiple fronts.”Women put in all the time and effort and are more than capable to do a job…and…

Royal Mail has been fined £10.5m for missing postal delivery targets.Regulator Ofcom said 74.7% of first class mail and 92.7% of second class was delivered on time in 2023/24. The targets were 93% and 98.5%.It is the second time Ofcom has fined Royal Mail since the pandemic and it “needs to do much better”, the regulator saidThe company blamed a “challenging financial position” for its poor performance, Ofcom said in a statement. There were also “delays to the ballot on a deal that followed the previous year’s industrial action”.But Ofcom said it did “not consider either of these to be…

There’s a reason previous governments baulked at the net zero challenge – it’s absolutely colossal, something Labour’s new Clean Power 2030 plan lays bare.Offshore wind generating capacity, which has taken 20 years to reach 14.8GW, must more than triple to about 50GW within just six years. The plan calls for a tripling of solar generation too, and a doubling supply from onshore wind turbines.And to get all that clean, locally produced power to where it is actually needed will require an overhaul of the National Grid not seen since the current system was planned in the 1950s.The government projects that…

Kanya King, the founder of the MOBO Awards, has revealed she has stage four bowel cancer. Ms King, who is chief executive of the awards which celebrates and elevates black music in the UK, said her diagnosis is something she “never saw coming” and she is “still processing this unexpected reality”. Speaking as she accepted a lifetime achievement prize at the Live Awards, the live music industry event, at London’s Troxy venue, she said her diagnosis isn’t the end of her story but a chance for her to “inspire resilience, raise awareness” and use it to amplify the message of early…

Plans by Donald Trump to impose blanket tariffs on all imports to the US will have an “insignificant effect” on the UK economy, according to a poll of international economists.While policymakers at the Bank of England fret over the impact of threatened tariffs of up to 10% on UK goods and the prospects for a global spat, the study by Reuters suggested the UK could even be spared the charges altogether. Their reasoning, the news agency found, was explained by the fact that the incoming US president was focused on correcting US trade deficits with other countries and trading blocs.Money…

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are back online after experiencing a “technical issue”, their owner Meta has said.In a post on X it apologised “to those who’ve been affected” and said it was “99% of the way there” and “just doing some last checks”. “Thanks for bearing with us!” it added,According to Downdetector, which allows people to report problems with popular apps and websites, there was a big spike in reports of issues with Meta services around 6pm.At 6.07pm there were 25,807 reports about Facebook in the UK and 106,401 in the US. Meanwhile, the number of reports in the UK…

Cineworld says it is closing another six cinemas, bringing the total of closed sites to 11.The cinema chain already closed sites in Glasgow Parkhead, Bedford, Loughborough, Yate and Swindon Regent Circus earlier this year as part of its restructuring programme. Now it has confirmed it will also shut down its branches in the following areas:CastlefordLeighMiddlesbroughNorthamptonPooleWeymouthThe Weymouth branch is set to close on 30 December, while the five other cinemas will close on 19 January, Cineworld has confirmed.It had also earmarked its Hinckley site for closure, but this was granted a reprieve after a new property deal was agreed. The move…

A $10bn-plus takeover bid for one of America’s biggest pharmacy chains is set to trigger a fresh auction of Boots the Chemist after a string of aborted attempts to sell the British retail giant.Sky News understands that Sycamore Partners, the private equity firm, is expected to seek separate ownership for Boots if it succeeds in taking Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), its current New York-listed parent, private. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Sycamore Partners was in talks to buy WBA, which has seen its market value plummet to less than $8bn in recent months.Stefano Pessina, the Italian dealmaker…

The world’s landmark Paris Agreement is “more fragile” than it has ever been and disagreements risk “imploding” it, the UK’s climate ambassador has warned.The seminal treaty obliges countries to produce regular plans on how they will cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to slow climate change. Since it was signed in 2015, predicted levels of global warming have fallen, the cost of wind and solar have plummeted and net zero targets have proliferated.But the Paris Agreement is “more fragile now than it has been in the nine years up to now”, the UK’s new climate envoy Rachel Kyte said yesterday…