Author: SKYNEWS

A 91-year-old man has become the first person in England to be fitted with a ground-breaking artificial cornea.Cecil ‘John’ Farley, 91, said his sight was now improving thanks to the procedure, which he underwent after 15 years of suffering from problems with his eyes. The cornea is the clear outer layer at the front of the eyeball – and is described by the NHS as the “window to the eye”.A person can suffer from vision problems and pain if the thin transparent covering is damaged by disease or injury – with those affected often left facing a long wait for…

Reality TV star Joey Essex has entered the Love Island villa as the show’s first ever celebrity contestant.The 33-year-old, who rose to fame on The Only Way Is Essex, has said he is taking part in the show because he is “extremely single right now” and hopes to leave the island “hand in hand with the love of my life”. The ITV dating series returned on Monday, introducing more contestants to the villa in Majorca, Spain, with host Maya Jama making an entrance in a white dress.Jama told the contestants: “Well it’s good to see you’re all settled in, as…

The founder of Getir, the grocery delivery app which is exiting the UK with the loss of hundreds of jobs, is at odds with investors over a rescue plan to keep the company afloat.Sky News has learnt that Getir is just weeks away from running out of cash amid shareholder demands to overhaul the governance and leadership of the company. Sources said on Monday that a tranche of funding worth tens of millions of pounds needed to restructure Getir’s Turkish business would not be handed over unless Nazim Salur, the company’s founder, implemented previously agreed changes.These would include him stepping…

The Chinese fast fashion giant Shein appears to be moving towards London, rather than New York, for its planned stock market listing.On the face of it, this would be an enormous fillip for London, especially given the soul-searching last year over its attractiveness after a clutch of big UK and Irish companies moved their main stock market listing to New York. Money blog: Rolex increases prices – here’s how much one will set you backThere will doubtless be some degree of cynicism about Shein’s decision to list in London, rather than New York. It will be suggested, for example, that…

The stock market influencer behind the so-called meme stock frenzy of 2021 has triggered a fresh surge in shares of GameStop, the struggling US videogame retailer.Keith Gill, who goes by the name Roaring Kitty online, revealed a $116m (£90.8m) position in GameStop on Sunday. Gill told his followers he controlled 1.8% of GameStop’s available stock – a holding of five million shares – plus call options that gave him the right to buy more later this month.Money latest:HSBC announces mortgage rate increasesA return to his Reddit account last month, for the first time in three years, was credited then for…

What are your rights if you’ve returned an item by post and the company says they never received it? Or if your delivery never turned up in the first place?Money blog reader Lee asked: “I purchased two pairs of shorts from Nike a year ago. I shortly after returned them for a refund as they didn’t suit me. Nike are saying I can’t be refunded due to them not receiving the returned items. Even though I have supplied the Royal Mail proof of postage.” We asked consumer rights champion Scott Dixon, also known as The Complaints Resolver, to answer this…

Wholesale costs for natural gas have hit their highest levels across Europe since December last year after key Norwegian export operations were shut down due to a cracked pipe.The damage, discovered aboard the Sleipner Riser platform, prompted wider energy infrastructure to be halted including the Nyhamna processing plant which exports gas to the UK, pipeline operator Gassco said. Alfred Hansen, the company’s head of pipeline system operations, told the Reuters news agency: “This has big consequences from a supply perspective.”Money latest:First direct flight to Vegas from the North launchesHe added that while there were options for bypassing Sleipner, they were…

Virgin Atlantic has announced it will resume flights between London Heathrow and Israel after it suspended them after the beginning of the conflict with Hamas.From 5 September it will operate a daily flight in each direction. Many carriers suspended flights to Israel in October last year after Hamas militants rampaged across the border with Gaza, sparking the nearly eight-month war.Wizz Air resumed operations in March, with British Airways doing the same in April.But easyJet has extended its suspension of flights to Israel until at least late October. Virgin Atlantic also announced a new codeshare partnership with Israel’s El Al, aimed…

A contraceptive gel that men rub on their shoulders to lower their sperm count is safe, effective and starts working more quickly than other similar methods, new research shows. The gel lowered men’s sperm count to the threshold deemed effective for contraception within eight weeks on average – faster than the nine to 15 weeks seen with male contraceptive injections. This could make the birth control choice more attractive to men, according to researchers from the Contraceptive Development Programme at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).The 222 men who took part in the trial rubbed 5ml – about a teaspoon…

Colin Gibb, a founding member of the novelty pop group Black Lace, has died aged 70.The band were best known for their hits Agadoo, Superman and Do The Conga, which were staple songs at summer discos across the UK throughout the mid-1980s.They also performed in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing in seventh place.Gibb’s wife Sue Kelly announced his death on Facebook, writing: “It is with heartbreaking news that I am letting you all know my dearest husband Colin Gibb died this afternoon.”I love you Colin, spent 22 years living your Agadoo dream, we were due to retire to Spain…