Author: SKYNEWS

Elon Musk has attacked NASA’s administrator – and claimed he isn’t smart enough to hold the top job.The billionaire’s criticism of Sean Duffy came after the space agency said it was open to using moon landers that weren’t manufactured by his company SpaceX. On X, Musk accused Mr Duffy of “trying to kill NASA”, and wrote: “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.” Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 2:16 Lift-off for SpaceX’s Starship! While NASA has been planning to use SpaceX’s Starship rocket system to land on the lunar…

A security guard jailed for plotting to kidnap, rape and murder TV star Holly Willoughby has lost an appeal against his life sentence. Gavin Plumb was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years last year after being convicted of soliciting murder and encouraging or assisting others to rape and kidnap. A trial at Chelmsford Crown Court heard that police found bottles of chloroform and an “abduction kit” with cable ties when officers raided the 38-year-old’s flat in Harlow, Essex.Plumb’s kidnap plan involved attempting to “ambush” Willoughby at her family home, jurors heard.Plumb argued in his defence that…

A Norwegian investment group has abandoned talks about an investment in Ovo, one of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers, amid concern that the industry’s regulatory regime is obstructing efforts to attract new capital.Sky News has learnt that Verdane, which is based in Oslo, had been in detailed talks as recently as this month about injecting a substantial sum into Ovo in return for a large stake in the business. Sources said on Tuesday, however, that Verdane had withdrawn from the talks partly as a result of uncertainty prompted by the energy regulator Ofgem’s capital adequacy rules.Ovo acknowledged earlier this month that…

If you ever fly to Washington DC, look out of the window as you land at Dulles Airport – and you might snatch a glimpse of the single biggest story in economics right now.There below you, you will see scattered around the fields and woods of the local area a set of vast warehouses that might to the untrained eye look like supermarkets or distribution centres. But no: these are in fact data centres – the biggest concentration of data centres anywhere in the world. For this area surrounding Dulles Airport has more of these buildings, housing computer servers that…

Graham Linehan will face no further action after being arrested over his social media posts about transgender people.The Father Ted and IT Crowd creator said his lawyers had been told the case wouldn’t proceed. The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed the move. Linehan, 57, was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence when he landed at Heathrow from his home in the US on 1 September.The incident drew criticism of the police and government from some politicians and free-speech campaigners.Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said his officers were in an “impossible position” and should not be “policing toxic culture wars debates”.…

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 -…