Author: SKYNEWS

Gossip Girl and Buffy The Vampire actress Michelle Trachtenberg has died aged 39.The actress was found dead at her home in New York City after officers responded to a 911 call just after 8am local time this morning.An investigation into her death has been opened but “criminality is not suspected”, police said.”The family requests privacy for their loss,” Trachtenberg’s representative, Gary Mantoosh, said in a statement on Wednesday. Image: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Pic: Rex/20th Century Fox/Everett/Shutterstock Trachtenberg was best known for her role as Dawn Summers in Buffy, the younger sister of…

How much have America, Britain and the rest paid Ukraine in aid since the Russian invasion? And do they have any hope of getting money back in return? These are big questions, and they’re likely to dominate much of the discussion in the coming months as Donald Trump pressurises his Ukrainian counterparts for a deal on ending the war. So let’s go through some of the answers. First off, the question of who has given the most money to Ukraine rather depends on what you’re counting.War latest: Ukraine agrees minerals deal with US – sourceIf you’re looking solely at the…

Something has changed dramatically in your home in a way you won’t have even noticed.The electricity in your plug socket no longer comes from coal, the workhorse of the industrial revolution that powered our economy for decades but which is also the most polluting fossil fuel. Now it is generated by cleaner gas, renewable and nuclear power.That shift has helped the UK cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% since 1990 – a world-leading feat – and you won’t have batted an eyelid.That’s about to change. The country’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), say in new advice today that…

A 37-year-old man has pleaded guilty to stalking Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas over the course of six years.Kyle Shaw admitted stalking the 64-year-old dancer and TV star between 31 August 2017 and 29 November 2023. According to the charge, he caused Ballas “serious alarm or distress, which had a substantial adverse effect on her usual day-to-day activities”. Image: Shaw at court earlier this month. Pic: PA The court heard he made continued attempts to contact Ballas, including posting an image of her house on social media.He also tried to contact family, friends and colleagues, monitored her online and…

The average annual energy bill will increase to £1,849 from April as the industry regulator Ofgem increases the price cap for the third time in a row. The new figure represents a 6.4% a year – or £9.25 per month – increase in the typical sum the vast majority of households face paying for gas and electricity when using direct debit. This means typical bills will be £159 more expensive than last year’s. It’s the first time the April cap has risen above the January cap since quarterly updates began in 2022. Only those on fixed-rate deals, around eleven million…

Apple’s decision to withdraw its most secure cloud storage service from the UK is just the latest turning point in a battle that has been rumbling on between US tech companies and successive British governments for some time.The dispute centres on end-to-end encryption, a method of secure communication which enables only the sender and receiver to view messages. Ministers have long argued that the technology, in its current form, is preventing law enforcement agencies from catching criminals, including terrorists and paedophiles.However, Apple along with its fellow tech companies say they are not prepared to dilute the privacy commitments they have…

Grammy-award winning singer Roberta Flack has died at the age of 88, her publicist has announced.The American singer was best known for her hit songs Killing Me Softly With His Song and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Image: Flack pictured in 1972. Pic: Photoreporters/Shutterstock One of the top recording artists of the 1970s, she died on Monday surrounded by her family, her publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement.In 2022, Flack announced she was suffering from motor neurone disease (MND), and could no longer sing.Rising to fame in her early 30s, Flack became an overnight success after…

Just Eat Takeaway.com has agreed a takeover by a Dutch-based technology investor which says it wants to create a “European champion” for food delivery.Prosus, which already has a 28% stake in global rival Delivery Hero, said its all-cash offer valued Just Eat at €4.1bn (£3.4bn). It represented €20.3 euros per share on the Amsterdam exchange – a 22% premium on the highest value of its stock over the past three months.Money latest: I work a 34-hour week and regularly finish at 1.30pm Just Eat said the offer was unanimously supported by its management and board.Europe’s biggest meal delivery firm also…

Heist highlights concerns over crypto industry security Anyone who owns crypto may well be feeling a little nauseous after the biggest ever theft of funds by hackers. Bybit is the second largest cryptocurrency exchange. It would have had careful security protocols. And yet somehow their systems were penetrated and an as-yet unidentified individual or group made off with around £1.1 billion in assets. The breach happened while the company was making a routine transfer of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, from its offline “cold” wallet to top up its “warm” wallet that covers daily trading. The transfer needed…

Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks.The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago. “It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News.”People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into…