Author: SKYNEWS

Sean “Diddy” Combs has pleaded not guilty to additional charges of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, which were added to the indictment against him earlier in April.The new allegations take the total number of criminal charges against the rap mogul to five – following the three original counts, which also included racketeering conspiracy, filed in September.Combs, 55, has already pleaded not guilty to the original charges and strenuously denied all allegations against him.He appeared in court on Monday to enter his additional plea before US District Judge Arun Subramanian in Manhattan, New York. Image: Combs sketched at…

A sassy crew, a billionaire and a celebrity circus in the desert. Space missions don’t get any weirder.But this is the new world of Blue Origin and its publicity machine. It brought together six women – all at the top of their game – and dressed them in designer flight suits. One of them, singer Katy Perry, said they “put the ass into astronauts”. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 2:44 Katy Perry’s journey into space They launched in a rocket called New Shepard, rising to 65 miles above the Earth, where they unbuckled and floated.Perry…

The City financier Edi Truell has tabled a fresh proposal to buy De La Rue, the Bank of England’s currency printer, fuelling hopes of a broader bidding war for the 211-year-old company.Sky News has learnt that Mr Truell’s vehicle, Pension SuperFund Capital, wrote to the board of De La Rue on Monday night to indicate its willingness to offer 132.17p-a-share for De La Rue. If formally confirmed, that would trump a recommended 130p-a-share offer from private equity firm Atlas Holdings disclosed by Sky News and confirmed by the London-listed company in a statement on Tuesday morning.The Atlas bid values De…

The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has called a sketch making fun of her teeth “mean and unfunny”.The 31-year-old British actress posted an Instagram story about the joke on US TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL), in which comedian Sarah Sherman used exaggerated prosthetic teeth to do an impression of her. Image: Pic: HBO In the skit, titled The White Potus, Donald Trump and his family were reimagined as The White Lotus’s Ratliff family, dealing with the backlash to the US president’s recently introduced tariffs.The third season of Mike White’s hit hotel drama has just concluded on Sky Atlantic.While…

The amount of electricity needed to power the world’s data centres is expected to double in the next five years, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report.Most of the increase is being driven by the development and use of increasingly powerful AI models. By 2030, data centres could consume 945TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity each year, the report found – three times more than the entire UK.The rise in demand, predicted to be highly concentrated around the world’s tech and population hubs, will put pressure on utility companies, grid infrastructure and the planet. Image: Fatih Birol, executive director of…

Four more people have attempted to take their own life in relation to the loan charge scandal, which has left tens of thousands of contractors facing huge bills for tax their employers should have paid, Sky News has learnt.HMRC has made 17 referrals to the police watchdog (Independent Office for Police Conduct) over the suicide attempts of 14 people, up from the 13 referrals of 10 people previously known about in October 2023. The figures, revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request by Sky News, come on top of the 10 known suicides of people caught up in…

The Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom through resentencing can continue with the hearing scheduled for Thursday, a judge has ruled.Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, received life sentences without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Lyle was 21 at the time, Erik was 18.Last year, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon asked a judge to change the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. That would make them immediately eligible for parole because they committed the crime when…

It’s been more than 60 years since a woman travelled into space without a man. And now six of them are blasting off from Earth.Popstar Katy Perry, author Lauren Sanchez, journalist and TV presenter Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, former rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn are due to launch in Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket on Monday. It will be the latest flight of the New Shepard programme, named NS-31, and is aiming to “create a lasting impact that will inspire generations”, with the women forming the first all-female crew since Russian engineer Valentina Tereshkova’s…

China’s most recent retaliation raises the stakes, but it does so within what are now relatively predictable parameters.The latest tariff hike follows the pattern we have seen throughout the week, when Chinese retaliation has exactly matched what Donald Trump has done. There is, however, one key difference to the announcement this time.China has said that anything further is just a “numbers game” and they will simply ignore any subsequent raises from Trump.There’s a sense they are calling time on what has felt like a relentless tit-for-tat escalation. They are right, of course.Once tariffs exceed 50% or so, trade is basically…

Abercrombie & Fitch’s former chief executive is not fit to stand trial on sex trafficking charges as he is suffering from dementia, both prosecutors and his lawyers have said.Mike Jeffries has Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and the “residual effects of a traumatic brain injury”, his defence attorneys wrote in a letter filed at a federal court in Central Islip, New York. The 80-year-old needs around-the-clock care, they added, citing evaluations by medical professionals.Prosecutors and defence lawyers are calling for Jeffries to be placed in the custody of the federal bureau of prisons for up to four months. They say…