Author: SKYNEWS

Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has said allegations of abusive behaviour on the show came as a “shock”.Last weekend, professional dancer Graziano Di Prima said he was leaving the BBC show after claims about his treatment of reality star Zara McDermott – including confirmed reports he kicked her during a rehearsal. There have also been allegations about the teaching methods of professional dancer Giovanni Pernice, which he has dismissed as “simply false”.Speaking to radio presenter Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales, Revel Horwood said he only found out about the allegations “through the press”.”For me it’s a shock,…

The NHS has warned of “continued disruption” to GP services into next week following the global IT outage – as airline passengers reported lengthy delays and lost baggage this weekend.The outage spread globally on Friday morning after an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many Microsoft Windows PCs offline with a “blue screen of death” appearing on screens. The company’s founder confirmed it was caused by a bug in the update and not a cyber attack, as some had feared.NHS England reported its systems were “coming back online in most areas” on Saturday afternoon but were “still running slightly…

Travellers around the world are facing a second day of chaos in the aftermath of Friday’s global IT outage. Here, Sky News looks at what you can do if you’re affected by the disruption. Air passengers Friday was meant to be one of the busiest days of the summer as families jetted off on holidays at the end of the school year.But more than 300 flights to and from the UK were cancelled, with many more suffering significant delays, while others reported lost baggage. The bad news is that as the global IT outage was an extraordinary circumstance, compensation is not…

TalkTalk, the telecoms group founded by Sir Charles Dunstone, will meet bondholders next week to discuss proposals for a £200m-plus capital injection from its owners.Sky News understands that the company and a group of key lenders and their advisers, will hold talks on Tuesday about plans for Sir Charles and other shareholders to inject the new funding. TalkTalk is one of Britain’s biggest broadband providers, with nearly 4m customers.The discussions will come after months of attempts by the Carphone Warehouse co-founder to hammer out a solution to fix TalkTalk’s balance sheet.If it progresses, the £200m injection from Sir Charles, Toscafund…

The owner of Homebase is in talks about selling the DIY retailer to one of Britain’s biggest general merchandise chains, as it prepares to launch a wider auction of the business it rescued six years ago.Sky News has learnt that Hilco Capital, which took control of an ailing Homebase in 2018, has had an approach from The Range, which has quietly become one of the country’s biggest retail successes, about a deal. City sources said the discussions were not certain to lead to an agreement but analysts suggested that if they did, The Range was likely to want the bulk…

Disruption caused by the global IT outage has continued this weekend as airline passengers reported long delays and lost baggage, while pharmacies tried to deal with a backlog in medicine deliveries.The outage spread globally on Friday morning after an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many Microsoft Windows PCs offline with a “blue screen of death” appearing on screens. The company’s founder confirmed it was caused by a bug in the update and not a cyber attack, as some had feared.Experts have warned it could take weeks for systems to fully recover and problems at airports were being reported…

The National Lottery says it is investigating after users reported being unable to access its app and website.Both its website and app appeared to be offline today – a day after the global IT outage led to widespread disruption at airports, businesses, the NHS and broadcasters. Downdetector received thousands of reports of outages beginning around 8.30pm on Friday night.It is unclear if the issues facing the lottery are connected to Friday’s outage.In a post on X, the National Lottery said: “We are aware that some players are having issues accessing our website and app. “Apologies for the inconvenience, our team…

A five-year-old boy has been able to leave his home for the first time in six months after he received a stem cell transplant made from a baby’s umbilical cord blood which was donated in 2008.Gunner Lewis-Vale, from Shropshire, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder in March 2021, when he was about 17 months old. At the time, his parents Holly and Jamie Lewis-Vale, both 34, were told that without a transplant, the toddler would only live for a year or two.But after a previous transplant from a donor in Germany failed, Gunner found a match with stem cells…

Rihanna, sex toys and role play – Slave Play has it all but it’s the show’s “black out” nights, which invite a black-only audience, that are getting more attention than the play’s themes of race, sexuality and identity.Black out nights were conceived in 2019 by Slave Play’s writer Jeremy O Harris. The official website describes the nights as being for “an all-black-identifying audience” that’s “free from the white gaze”. When they were announced, there was outcry from parts of the mainstream press and on social media, with Rishi Sunak even weighing in. “Restricting audiences on the basis of race would…

A new film that uses virtual reality (VR) technology to immerse users in the acid house party movement in 1989 has started its tour of the UK in Birmingham. The film, In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats, sees the user become a character in a scene where, before mobile phones were available, party-goers listened to pirate radio for a number to call to find the secret location for a warehouse rave on the outskirts of the West Midlands. Users are fitted with a VR headset and a haptic suit which allows them to feel vibrations. Image: The film, In Pursuit Of Repetitive…