Business

Interest payments on the national debt rose to their highest level ever last year, as the UK’s public finances reel from the huge cost of the pandemic.  The government’s statistics department said the debt pile stood at £2.3tn last month, with interest payments rising to nearly £70bn, a record amount according to the Office of

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is out with the winners of the 73rd annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. The trophy ceremony was held tonight at the Wynn Encore Ballroom in Las Vegas, in partnership with the National Association of Broadcasters as part of its convention. The ceremony was hosted by Rich

Twitter has reached an agreement for the billionaire Elon Musk to buy the social media platform in a $44bn (£34.6bn) deal. The announcement follows, what were reported to be, extensive discussions between Musk and Twitter’s board starting on Sunday that stretched into Monday. Musk announced an offer to buy the social media platform on 14

EXCLUSIVE: Actor, singer, and producer Diego Boneta (Rock of Ages, Luis Miguel: The Series) and his production company Three Amigos have signed an overall deal with Prime Video. As part of the deal, Boneta will produce and star in a full slate of shows in development while also creating movies, series, and reality shows coming

Oil prices have hit near two-week lows, with analysts pointing to events in China and the US as possible reasons for a fall in demand. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was down by $3.15 or 3% early on Monday, falling to $103.50 a barrel. Earlier in the session, it hit $103.41 –

The Price is Right host Drew Carey, accepting an award at the NAB Show, believes the syndicated game show “could be around for 100 years on American television, because it’s just that strong.” Carey appeared on the first day of NAB, which is being held in Las Vegas in person for the first time since

Twitter is facing increasing pressure from shareholders to seek a deal with Elon Musk. The world’s richest man has offered to buy the social network for $43bn (£33.5bn) – and has accused the company of failing to uphold free speech. Twitter recently adopted a “poison pill” strategy in an attempt to resist a hostile takeover,

UPDATED: CNN+ is on its way out, but the new leadership at Warner Bros Discovery has given every indication that there could still be a future for some of its programming. Much of the speculation has centered on the future of the highest-profile hire for the streaming service, Chris Wallace, who stunned his Fox News

Rishi Sunak will this week attempt to put his recent political troubles behind him when he courts City figures at a Conservative donors’ dinner designed to bolster party finances. Sky News has learnt that the chancellor will speak at the event in central London on Tuesday evening, with guests being charged £10,000 for a 10-person

EXCLUSIVE: There’s been a lot of biting rumors around STX Entertainment during the past four months, from a potential sale to Lionsgate to possibly filing Chapter 11. These are not coming to realization as the Hustlers and Bad Moms studio now can breathe a sigh of relief, having fully closed its sale to The Najafi Companies, with Birch

Supermarkets across the UK have placed limits on how much cooking oil that customers can buy due to supply-chain problems caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most of the UK’s sunflower oil comes from Ukraine, which has resulted in restrictions applying to that product as well as olive and rapeseed oils at some supermarkets. Tesco

The European Union on Saturday announced a provisional agreement on the Digital Services Act which, according to the organization “will help to keep the digital space safe from illegal goods, content and services, and to protect fundamental rights online.” More practically, it should mean that massive tech companies like Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon and others

The three final bidders for Chelsea FC are being pressed to provide more details of the club’s proposed administration and governance arrangements as they inch closer to becoming the new owners of last season’s Champions League winners. Sky News has learnt that the remaining consortia vying to buy the Blues for well over £2bn were

Covid test positivity in California is up 47.6% in the past week, according to the California State data dashboard. One week ago, the 7-day daily test positivity rate was 2.1%. Today, it sits at 3.1%. That’s quite a jump for a metric that is averaged over seven days to account for daily fluctuations in data

The owner of Britain’s biggest chain of upmarket holiday villages is lining up bankers to oversee a review of its options, which could pave the way for an auction valuing it at £4bn. Sky News understands that Brookfield Property Partners, the Canadian property giant, is close to appointing Barclays to advise on the future of

Total compensation last year for Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts was $33.9 million, up 3.8% from $32.7 million the year before. Roberts pay package includes a salary of $3.2 million; stock awards of $13.5 million; option awards of $8.5 million; non-equity incentive plan compensation (cash bonus) of $8.6 million and other items worth close to

Retail sales plunged by 1.4% last month – far more than expected – as consumers tightened their belts in the face of the squeeze in living costs, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the decline was largely driven by a drop in demand for online purchases and pointed to dented

An outage has hit Hulu this afternoon, with users around the country reporting that the Disney streamer is down and/or that they cannot access the service. “We are aware of a technical issue impacting Hulu,” the company said in a statement. “We are working to resolve it quickly.” There was no estimate on when the

CNN’s parent company is shutting down its CNN+ streaming service just a few weeks after its highly anticipated launch.  After being touted as CNN’s bold entry to the so-called “streaming wars”, the service will cease operating on 30 April, the company said in a statement. The network originally intended to invest more than $1bn into