Author: SKYNEWS

The discount retailer B&M has seen its market value plunge by almost a fifth after a downgrade of up to £40m in annual profit expectations due to an accounting blunder.The company said its chief financial officer was leaving the business while updating the market on its outlook, which had already been cut earlier this month on the back of tough trading and rising costs, including from budget measures. Mike Schmidt had decided to step down, B&M said.Money latest: Cosmetic doctor reveals most cost-effective treatments Its statement explained: “The Group’s financial half-year end results consolidation process has identified, after the announcement…

Dozens of websites, banks and apps are being affected by a major internet outage. The problem, which started on Monday morning, appears to be related to an issue at Amazon Web Services (AWS). As of 9.20am, there were more than 2,000 reports of the Amazon Web Services outage in the US alone, according to Downdetector, which monitors issues and outages in real-time.Follow live updates hereOn its service status page, the company said it was seeing “increased error rates” and delays with “multiple AWS services”. Here’s what we know so far.What has been affected?Multiple banks, the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website,…

Sam Rivers, the bassist with US nu-metal group Limp Bizkit, has died aged 48, his bandmates have said.In a post on Instagram, the group paid tribute to their “brother” and a “once-in-a-lifetime kind of human”, describing his presence as “pure magic”. Bandmates Fred Durst, Wes Borland, John Otto and DJ Lethal all shared the tribute, which said: “Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player – he was pure magic. The pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound.”From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could…

Brexit will have a negative impact on the UK’s economic growth “for the foreseeable future”, the UK’s most senior banker has warned.Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said a decline in the UK’s potential growth rate from 2.5% to 1.5% over the past 15 years was linked to lower productivity growth, an ageing population, trade restrictions – and post-Brexit economic policies. But he did add that the economy is, however, likely to adjust and find balance again in the longer term.”Over the longer term, there will be – because trade adjusts – some at least partial rebalancing,” he added.Speaking at…

Ministers have unveiled their flagship plan to train and recruit workers for the booming clean energy sector, which it is hoping to supercharge in the next five years.Up to £18m of new money has been pledged by the UK and Scottish governments specifically to move those working in the oil and gas sector into new roles. Their jobs are about to fall off a cliff as the industry declines, with at least 40,000 of the current 115,000 jobs forecast to disappear by the early 2030s.Almost all of those roles are thought to be fairly easily transferable into green industries -…

Laurence Fox’s claim for libel after being called a racist on social media will go to a retrial, the Court of Appeal has ruled.However, the controversial actor-turned-activist failed to overturn a finding he libelled two people himself by calling them paedophiles. Fox was originally ordered to pay drag artist Crystal and Stonewall boss Simon Blake £90,000 each after losing the case last year.He called them “paedophiles” during a row on X over Sainsbury’s marking Black History Month in October 2020.Fox, 47, called for a boycott of the supermarket and was called a “racist” by Crystal and Mr Blake, as well…

The former BT Group chief Philip Jansen is being lined up as the next chairman of Heathrow Airport as Britain’s biggest aviation hub prepares to deliver an expansion costing close to £50bn.Sky News has learnt that Mr Jansen, who chairs the FTSE-100 marketing services group WPP, is in advanced talks with Heathrow’s board and shareholders about taking on the role. If the discussions reach a successful conclusion, sources said an announcement could come within weeks.Mr Jansen is said to have emerged as the frontrunner from a shortlist of candidates compiled by headhunters at Russell Reynolds Associates.His experience as the boss…

Five men have been arrested in London as part of an investigation into alleged crypto scams that may have cost victims more than £1m, police have said.Detectives from the Met Police’s economic crime team said the scams allegedly involved several websites claiming to offer pre-sale investment opportunities in new cryptocurrencies. Investors were promised cash returns that could more than double in value when listed on major exchanges, according to the police.However, the websites rarely had any intention to list them on exchange websites and could not guarantee returns in cash, the Met said.A London-based “boiler room” operation was then suspected…

A BBC Gaza documentary breached the broadcasting code, an Ofcom investigation has found.The regulator said the failure to disclose that the 13-year-old boy narrating the programme was the son of a deputy minister in the Hamas-run government broke the rules and that it was “materially misleading” not to mention it. In July, the BBC said it breached its own editorial guidelines by failing to disclose the full identity of the child narrator’s father in the Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone documentary.The documentary was made by independent production company Hoyo Films, and features 13-year-old Abdullah Alyazouri, who speaks about life…

A Post Office Capture victim says delays in the justice system have left him fearing he may never live to see his name cleared.Steve Marston was convicted in 1998 of stealing nearly £80,000 from his branch, based on faulty computer software called Capture that pre-dated the infamous Horizon scandal. His case has been with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) for nearly a year, but has still not been referred to the Court of Appeal. Image: Steve Marston fears he won’t be alive to see his name cleared ‘Sleeping isn’t easy’Mr Marston, who turns 70 in February, told Sky News:…