Author: SKYNEWS

A pair of Dame Edna Everage’s glasses have sold at auction for £37,800, 25 times their estimated value.The glasses were expected to sell for between £1,000-£1,500, according to Christie’s auction house, who facilitated the sale. They were being sold as part of the personal collection of Barry Humphries.Dame Edna was one of Humphries’ best-known characters and became a hit in the UK in the 1970s. Image: The yellow-lacquered possum spectacles by Anglo American Eyewear. Pic: Christie’s Images Image: Barry Humphries at Ascot in 2016. Pic: David Davies/PA The Australian star, who was known for his satirical characters including Dame Edna…

Stormzy did not delete an Instagram post in support of Palestinian liberation because of his recent collaboration with McDonald’s, sources close to the rapper have told Sky News.The 31-year-old grime artist has faced a backlash for removing an old post that said “Free Palestine” after working on a campaign with the fast-food chain. But sources close to the Vossi Bop rapper exclusively told Sky News that it “is simply not true” that the “archiving” of his Instagram post and the release of the McDonald’s campaign are linked.Stormzy’s recent McDonald’s partnership packages his “go-to” order as a limited meal option, which…

Crisis-hit Thames Water has launched a bid to charge its customers more over the next five years than the industry regulator will allow, arguing it has been unfairly treated.Britain’s biggest household supplier, which is in a battle for survival as it grapples a £19bn debt pile, had sought a 53% hike to bills from 2025-30. That demand was rejected in December by the industry regulator Ofwat, which settled on a 35% rise as part of a price determination for all suppliers across England and Wales.The level of the inflation-busting increases granted to many firms are designed to unlock record investment…

TikTok is back on Apple and Google’s US app stories after President Trump said the tech giants would not be fined if they reactivated it.They removed the hugely popular video-sharing app after a law came into effect on 19 January – the day before Mr Trump was inaugurated – requiring its Chinese owner ByteDance to sell up or face a ban. There were concerns that Beijing could use TikTok to spy on American users and the app, used by almost half of all Americans, briefly went dark.But the service was restored after Mr Trump said he would sign an executive…

Grimes has criticised former partner Elon Musk’s decision to bring their son to an Oval Office news conference.The 36-year-old singer, who has had an on-off relationship with Mr Musk since 2018, apparently only learned via social media that he had taken X Æ A-12 – or X for short – to the briefing with Donald Trump on Tuesday. In response to a comment on X about her son being “very polite”, Grimes said: “He should not be in public like this. I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh.”Mr Musk, 53,…

Yes there are all sorts of provisos.The UK economy is still flatlining. A 0.1% expansion is about as close as you can get to zero. Gross domestic product per head – a better measure of our living standards – is shrinking (indeed, it’s been shrinking for two quarters). And the UK remains far weaker than the leading G7 economy – the United States.But even after taking all that into account, it’s hard not to conclude that the chancellor will be celebrating today’s GDP figures. After all, economists had expected the economy to shrink by 0.1%. Thanks to a late spurt…

Scarlett Johansson has condemned the use of AI after her likeness was used in a viral video of celebrities condemning Kanye West’s antisemitism.The AI-generated clip shows celebrities such as Johansson, Ben Stiller, Mila Kunis and Steven Spielberg wearing white T-shirts featuring the Star of David inside a hand sticking up its middle finger above Kanye’s name. It finishes with an AI version of Adam Sandler sticking his middle finger up at the camera and the words: “Enough is enough. Join the fight to end antisemitism.” Image: An AI David Schwimmer also appears in the video. Pic: Ori Bejerano But Johansson…

Naya Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Dorsey has – for the first time – shared details from the day she died.Speaking to People, the 41-year-old actor said that “the last thing she said was his (her son’s) name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore”. The Glee actress, 33, died after drowning in a California lake in July 2020 – when she was swimming with her young son Josey. Instagram This content is provided by Instagram, which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can…

It’s hard to imagine anyone listening to Donald Trump announcing his new policy on straws with a greater sense of glee than Ross Boyajian, the president of a business manufacturing plastic straws in Glendale, California.Mr Boyajian, an Armenian-American, has owned Diamond Straws since 1995. His factory produces more than 800 straws a minute, supplying large US cafes and restaurants, including Peet’s Coffee and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse. Diamond Straws currently employs 15 people but is anticipating an uptick in business in the wake of President Trump’s executive order declaring that the US is “going back to plastic straws” and moving…

Kanye West’s Yeezy online shopping platform has been taken down after selling T-shirts featuring a swastika.The rapper, also known as Ye, used a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday to send people to his website to buy the clothing emblazoned with the Nazi symbol – an image often used by the extreme-right. The ecommerce platform Shopify, which hosts many online shops and businesses, has deactivated his site and his domain name yeez.com is being sold for $98,999 (£79,692).Shopify said in an emailed statement to Sky News’ partner network NBC News: “All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform.…