Author: SKYNEWS

Drag queen James Lee Williams – known as “The Vivienne”- died after taking ketamine, their family has said.Williams, who won the first series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in 2019 under their drag name, was found dead at the age of 32 at their home in Cheshire on 5 January. In a statement shared in an Instagram story today, Williams’ manager Simon Jones said the “family and I feel it is important to say how James tragically died”.Mr Jones continued: “We hope that by us releasing this information, we can raise awareness about the dangers of ongoing ketamine usage and…

Thousands of government credit cards are being cancelled because some of the expenditure is “not justified”, a cabinet minister has said.Appearing on Sky News’ Breakfast with Wilfred Frost, Pat McFadden was asked if the crackdown on government procurement cards (GPCs) was because civil servants are “fiddling their expenses”. Politics live: What to expect from benefits cutsHe said he would “not use that phrase”, but added: “I don’t think some of the lines of expenditure I’ve seen are justified.””This is public money – I think people need to take care with it,” he said. “So the process now will be, if…

Two astronauts stuck in space for more than nine months have left the International Space Station on their 17-hour journey back to Earth.Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams blasted off to the ISS on 5 June, and were meant to be up there for just eight days. They were testing out Boeing’s long-awaited Starliner, a ship designed to rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon that is currently used to ferry astronauts into space.Read more: What can being in space for so long do to your health? Image: NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Pic: NASA Johnson But by…

US rock band Semisonic has criticised the White House for using their song Closing Time in a social media post that showed a shackled deportee. The Trump administration shared the video on Monday two days after hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members were controversially deported by the White House to a supermax prison in El Salvador. The video, which also showed deportees boarding a plane, was captioned with the song’s lyrics: “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”Semisonic said in a statement after the video was shared: “We did not authorise or condone the White House’s…

OakNorth, the British-based digital bank, will this week unveil a milestone US deal that will pave the way for it to launch a significant expansion on the other side of the Atlantic.Sky News has learnt that OakNorth, which is chaired by the former City watchdog chair Lord Turner, will on Monday announce that it has agreed to acquire Community Unity Bank (CUB), which is based in Birmingham, Michigan, in an all-share deal. The purchase price was unclear on Sunday, although one insider said it was likely to be valued in the tens of millions of dollars.OakNorth declined to comment.Launched in…

This week’s eclipse has been photographed from the moon’s point of view.But rather than being the lunar eclipse that was seen from Earth, on the moon it was a solar eclipse. The images were taken by a camera on board the unmanned Blue Ghost spacecraft which successfully landed on the planet earlier this month. Image: Blue Ghost pictured ahead of its launch and subsequent moon landing. Pic: Firefly Aerospace Operator Firefly Aerospace said it was the first time in history that a commercial company had operated actively on the moon during an eclipse.In a total lunar eclipse, the Earth lines…

Twenty years on from her breakout hit Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall is refreshingly candid about her early career: “I was a totally crap pop star,” she tells Sky News.The Scottish singer-songwriter may have a Brit and Ivor Novello to her name – won the year after she outsold every other female artist in the UK – but she’s not taking any prisoners. Image: KT Tunstall performing in 2023. Pic: AP Images “You have an idea of what you should be as an artist, I think it’s really, really important to kill that.”She goes on: “The whole point of being…

English rugby union’s top teams and the sport’s private equity backer are in advanced talks to fund a multimillion pound loan to Newcastle Falcons to help it meet financial criteria allowing it to play next season.Sky News has learnt that the nine other Gallagher Premiership Rugby sides, which include current league leaders Bath, Saracens and Harlequins, and CVC Capital Partners are drawing up plans for a loan worth about £4m to the north-east club. The Falcons, who are propping up the Premiership table with just two wins from 11 matches, are said to need the additional funding in order to…

A crew has entered the International Space Station (ISS) to replace the astronauts who were stranded there for nine months.A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts on Sunday on a mission to allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – who have been on the ISS since June 2024 – to return home. The Dragon craft, with the Crew-10 astronauts inside, docked with the orbiting laboratory at 4.04am UK time, around 29 hours after it had been launched on the top of the Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image: Butch Wilmore (back row centre) and Suni Williams…

Gangs Of London is one of the most violent shows on television and has gripped audiences since its release in 2020.Definitely not for the faint-hearted, it follows undercover police officer Elliott Carter, played by Sope Dirisu, working in the heart of a top-level criminal organisation after infiltrating the infamous and powerful Wallace family. Now in its third season, familiar faces return, and new villains emerge as the battle to lead the criminal underworld rages on.Note: Mild spoilers ahead”Every year we’re trying to go a bit further,” Dirisu told Sky News. The London-born actor is the cop-turned-criminal whose life was turned…