A brush fire erupted today about 30 miles north of Los Angeles in Santa Clarita. By 8 p.m., the blaze had scorched about 650 acres and continued to burn unchecked, prompting evacuations. The North Fire was reported at about 1:45 p.m. in the area of 29330 The Old Road, east of the Golden State (5)
Business
Nestlé is to make almost 600 people redundant as it closes a factory in the UK and moves some of its production to Europe. The Swiss multinational said products currently made at Fawdon near Newcastle would move to other plants in Britain and on the continent. Fawdon, which opened in 1958 and makes products including
Facebook hit 2.85 billion monthly active users, or MAUs, last quarter (up 10%) and 1.88 billion daily users (up 8%) as ad-driven revenue surged 48% to $26.2 billion, crushing forecasts. Earnings per share of $3.30 — up 93% – were also a beat as the social media giant’s advertising muscle powers through the cloud of
Sainsbury’s has reported a £261m loss for the year as it counted the cost of falling fuel sales and COVID-19 measures. Britain’s second-biggest supermarket chain said grocery sales for the year to 6 March climbed by 7.8% but overall revenues were flat as fewer motorists used their cars during a year of lockdowns. COVID-19 costs
Refresh for latest…: Sony Pictures Entertainment saw its full-year 2020 profits rise 21%, to $762M, despite a 25% decrease in sales to $7.2B. Both are results of the impact of the coronavirus. With movie theaters shut around the world for a large portion of the year, and amid a production slowdown, revenues were affected. Conversely,
Premier Inn owner Whitbread has slumped to a £1bn annual loss – but hopes to benefit from a “staycation” boom over the summer. Revenues for the year to 25 February fell 71% to £589m with the group’s hotels and restaurants closed for much of the period while 27,000 workers were furloughed and about one in
For the first time, Los Angeles has qualified for the least-restrictive tier of California’s reopening Blueprint. It’s a remarkable development for a county that, in early January, was the epicenter of the worldwide pandemic. Los Angeles County’s adjusted 7-day test positivity rate fell to just 1.9%. That’s below the 2.0% threshold to qualify for the
HSBC’s profits have surged by a better than expected 79% to $5.8bn (£4.2bn) in the first quarter, largely thanks to an improved economic outlook in the UK. The upturn allowed the banking giant to release $435m (£313m) that had been set aside to cover bad debt, boosting its bottom line despite a squeeze on revenues
An NFT created of the late Chadwick Boseman for the 93rd Academy Awards is being redesigned after sparking backlash online. Andre Oshea, one of the artists hired to produce the non-fungible token, took to Instagram Monday to announce the redesign, and to apologize “for any upset caused.” “I now recognize that Chadwick’s face is a
The UK is on course for its strongest annual growth since the Second World War after a resilient performance through latest lockdowns, according to a respected economic forecaster. Gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to expand by 6.8% this year, according to the EY ITEM Club – which would be the fastest pace since 1941.
EXCLUSIVE: Harry Macqueen, writer-director of the critically acclaimed film Supernova starring Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, has signed with Anonymous Content. Released in January 2021 by Bleecker Street Films and Studio Canal, Macqueen’s second film Supernova recently was longlisted for the 2021 BAFTAs for Outstanding British Film and Best Supporting Actor. It was selected as one of only 12
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has quit boardroom positions at retailers Morrisons and Dunelm as well as her role as a Church of England minister after a major miscarriage of justice. It comes after 39 sub-postmasters had their wrongful convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting overturned on Friday by the Court of Appeal.
At the outset of this year’s very unusual Oscarcast, Regina King noted the Derek Chauvin verdict this past week, telling viewers, “If things had gone differently this week in Minneapolis, I may have had to trade in my heels for marching boots.” Then, she added, “I know that a lot of you at home want
Paula Vennells, the ex-Post Office chief executive, is quitting the boards of two major retailers days after her former employer was found culpable over one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Sky News has learnt that Ms Vennells’ departure as a director of Wm Morrison, the supermarket chain, and home furnishings
The NFL draft is coming to Clubhouse. The buzzy social media audio app has teamed with the National Football League to produce a lineup of original programming around the 2021 NFL Draft. You’ll be able to find out where Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence or Alabama’s DeVonta Smith is drafted after the NFL became the first major
A ‘blank cheque’ company set up by the Japanese technology giant SoftBank is in talks to merge with a start-up which competes with the likes of Google Maps in the provision of sophisticated location data services. Sky News has learnt that Mapbox is in detailed negotiations to go public through a special purpose acquisition company
On Saturday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released new Covid-19 data, reporting 16 new deaths and 443 new positive cases of the virus. While the number of hospitalizations continues to decrease across the County as more vaccines are given, the number of deaths and confirmed cases reported today may reflect delays in
Football bosses are kicking off talks about the future of the Women’s Super League (WSL) that could trigger a bidding war between private equity investors. Sky News has learnt that the Football Association (FA) has appointed Rothschild, the investment bank, to advise it on financing options for the WSL. Sources said the process, which is
UPDATED with latest: The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration on Friday evening accepted the recommendation from CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine be recommended once again in the U.S. A tweet from the CDC read, “CDC and @US_FDA lift
Thirty nine sub-postmasters who were wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office have had their criminal convictions overturned. The appellants, some of whom were imprisoned for crimes they never committed, had been accused of theft and false accounting because of a faulty computer system. In court, Sam Stein QC, the barrister representing several sub-postmasters, said the