Author: SKYNEWS

Two people have been arrested after Just Stop Oil protesters painted several private jets orange at an airfield – where they claim Taylor Swift’s jet landed just hours before.It’s not clear if Swift’s jet was one of those that has been targeted by the eco-protesters, who said they are demanding an “emergency treaty” to end the use of fossil fuels by 2030. In a statement, Stansted Airport said Essex Police had arrested two people and “as a precaution runway operations were suspended for a short period”.”Shortly after 5am, Essex Police arrested two protesters who had entered the private aviation area…

Sainsbury’s is to sell its banking business to NatWest.The agreement could see NatWest take on around one million customer accounts, as well as £1.4bn of unsecured personal loans, £1.1bn of credit card balances and £2.6bn of customer deposits. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.Sainsbury’s said customers would “not need to take any action” and there would be no immediate changes to its terms and conditions.It comes after the supermarket giant announced in January it was winding down its banking division to focus on the retail side of its business. Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon…

Inflation falling back to 2%, the magic number as far as the Bank of England and the increasingly desperate Conservative election campaign are concerned, is unequivocally welcome news.It has been a long road down from the peak of 11.1% in October 2022 and a great deal of hardship has been felt along the way. The return to earth poses questions for the Bank of England, the government, both current and future and, most importantly, in the real world, where households are desperate for relief from relentless cost pressures.The most immediate issue is for the Bank, whose Monetary Policy Committee meets…

Name any major tech brand – from Google to Amazon to Tesla to ChatGPT – and the chances are Nvidia is involved in some way.The company – which makes computer chips – may not be a household name in the UK, but it has just leapfrogged Microsoft and Apple to become the most valuable public company in the world. It is now worth more than $3.3tn (£2.6tn) – with its share price up by almost 600,000% from when it first traded on the US stock market back in 1999.If you had invested $10,000 (£7,850) in the firm back then, the…

Ariana Grande has responded to criticism about a change in her speaking voice after an interview clip went viral, explaining she shifts her tone intentionally to protect her vocals for singing.The clip was taken from an interview on the Podcrushed podcast with You actor Penn Badgley. In the footage, Grande begins speaking about recording new music in a deeper voice, before shifting to a higher-pitched register. Captioned “the voice change??”, it went viral on the video sharing app TikTok as fans commented on the difference in the US star’s tone. TikTok This content is provided by TikTok, which may be…

Bridgepoint, the London-listed buyout firm, is closing in on a takeover of Alpha Financial Markets Consulting (Alpha FMC), the FTSE-250 specialist consulting firm.Sky News has learnt that Bridgepoint and Alpha FMC are nearing agreement on a deal worth in the region of £550m. An agreement worth approximately 500p-a-share is expected to be announced before a Takeover Panel deadline expires on Thursday.A firm offer from Bridgepoint will come weeks after both it and rival private equity group Cinven approached Alpha FMC about a potential deal.The specialist financial services consultancy is the latest London-listed company to attract takeover interest from private equity…

American singer Taylor Swift impressed her fans in Cardiff on Tuesday by opening her concert in Welsh.She greeted the audience with “Croeso i Daith Eras” (“Welcome to the Eras Tour”). One of her backing vocalists also used the Welsh term “Ych a fi” – used to describe something disgusting – when the star passed the mic over as part of their performance.The Principality Stadium is known as the home of Welsh rugby, but the venue was transformed to host the 34-year-old’s concert on Tuesday.There were road closures in place in Cardiff city centre for much of the day, and commuters…

Wall Street’s biggest bank is lifting Brussels’ bonus cap for its London-based staff, weeks after rival Goldman Sachs fired the starting gun on a post-Brexit era in industry pay.Sky News can reveal that JP Morgan Chase was in the process of notifying staff on Wednesday that it would preserve some elements of the remuneration packages introduced after the European Union’s cap on variable pay came into force in 2014. The system prevents material risk-takers (MRTs) working in lenders’ operations in the EU from earning more than twice their fixed pay in variable compensation.Sources said that JP Morgan, which employs 22,000…

A police officer who pulled Justin Timberlake over before his arrest for alleged drink-driving did not recognise the star, according to a US media report.Timberlake had been in Long Island, in New York state, reportedly having dinner with friends before his arrest in the early hours of Tuesday. Sag Harbor police chief Robert Drake said the 43-year-old star failed to stop at a stop sign and could not stay in his lane while driving a 2025 BMW at 12.37am. Court documents stated his eyes were “bloodshot and glassy”. Image: Pic: Sag Harbor/Reuters Page Six, the New York Post’s celebrity and…

There was “possibly a criminal conspiracy” at the Post Office, according to an independent forensic accountant drafted in to investigate the controversial Horizon accounting system.Ian Henderson, one of the two forensic accountants from Second Sight paid by Post Office (POL) to review sub-postmaster convictions involving Horizon in 2012, told the public inquiry into the scandal that former chief executive Paula Vennells “frequently and consistently” tried to steer him away from probing miscarriages of justice. Mr Henderson explained how he had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the Post Office and claimed he later faced a “thinly veiled threat” from the…