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A senior Labour MP has written to the foreign secretary demanding answers about the vetting process for UK diplomats in the wake of Peter Mandelson’s sacking as US ambassador.Emily Thornberry, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has outlined a series of questions in a letter to Yvette Cooper about the appointment of Lord Mandelson and his subsequent removal over his links to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She also urges Ms Cooper to “look again at pre-appointment scrutiny so that it might prevent such embarrassing diplomatic incidents as this from occurring again”. Image: Ms Thornberry highlighted ‘potentially…

Perplexity is finding out that not everyone’s thrilled about its rise.  This week, Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sued Perplexity, accusing it of copyright infringement, trademark violation, and stealing away precious web traffic. The complaint, filed in New York federal court, paints a picture of Perplexity as a clever-but-rude houseguest: it eats the food (content), doesn’t ask permission, and leaves crumbs (AI summaries) that keep people from ever visiting the original sites.  Britannica and Merriam-Webster, who rely on traffic to sell ads and subscriptions, say the AI tool is “free riding” on their hard-earned work, and in the process, “cannibalizing” their…

Black folks need to wear sunscreen. But deep down, you might believe that because you have been blessed with a burnished brown skin tone, you are naturally protected from the sun; think again. Dr. Alexis Stephens of Parkland Dermatology in Coral Springs, Florida, says that the protection we think we have is not enough. “Despite the prevalent misconception that melanin-rich skin doesn’t need sunscreen, it’s crucial for everyone to use it. While melanin provides some natural protection against UV radiation, it is insufficient to prevent skin damage, premature aging, or skin cancer. Sunscreen shields the skin from harmful UVA and…

Palestinian militant group Hamas said Friday that its chief negotiator in Gaza truce talks, Khalil al-Hayya, survived an Israeli strike on a Hamas compound in Doha earlier this week. “Under special security arrangements, Dr Khalil al-Hayya… took part in the funeral prayers in Qatar for his martyred son Hammam and the other martyrs of the cowardly assassination attempt in Doha,” Hamas said in a terse statement. Hamas provided no photograph of Hayya at Thursday’s funeral for the five Hamas officials and a Qatari guard killed in Tuesday’s strike.

A man has been charged after a major fire at an MP’s constituency office.Joshua Oliver, 28, has been charged with arson after a blaze at the office of Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, at Vermont House in Washington, Tyne and Wear. The fire also wrecked a charity base and an NHS mental health service for veterans.Oliver will appear at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on Saturday. Image: Hodgson, who has been an MP since 2005, winning her seat again in 2019. Pic: Reuters Northumbria Police previously said it was “alerted to a fire at a premises on Woodland Terrace in the Washington area”…

[WASHINGTON] The US budget deficit for August fell US$35 billion or 9 per cent from a year earlier to US$345 billion as President Donald Trump’s tariffs pushed net customs receipts up by about US$22.5 billion for the month, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.With one month to go in the 2025 fiscal year, the year-to-date deficit rose US$76 billion, or 4 per cent to US$1.973 trillion. A US Treasury official declined to predict whether the deficit would top US$2 trillion for the full fiscal year ended Sep 30 but told reporters that September typically has higher revenues than August because…

Whenever there’s a Nintendo Direct in September, you can be pretty sure that it’ll be a major edition of the showcase. Given that Friday’s one was scheduled to be about an hour long and that Nintendo has a whole new console to put games on, it was already likely that there was going to be a lot of news.Even then, it managed to be a jam-packed Direct. Let’s take a look at all the biggest announcements from the showcase, including what’s obviously the most important one: a Switch 2 version of Overcooked 2.Mario’s 40th anniversarySeptember 13 is the 40th anniversary…

Oil prices rose on Friday after a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian port suspended loadings, outweighing pressure from oversupply concerns and weaker U.S. demand risks. Brent crude futures rose $1.01, or 1.52 per cent, to $67.38 a barrel by 11:32 a.m. CDT, (1632 GMT) and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 56 cents, or 0.9 per cent, to $62.93.The drone attack on Russia’s northwestern port of Primorsk, one of the country’s largest oil and fuel export terminals, led to a suspension of oil loading operations overnight, an official from Ukraine’s SBU security service said.”Those attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have room to drag down Russian…

The Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL have been out for a couple of weeks now and we’ve been testing them for even longer. If you want to hear our thoughts on this year’s flagships from Google, the time has finally come. As you are likely aware, Google released the Pixel 10 Pro models with pretty minor upgrades over the Pixel 9 Pro models, kept the same design, and tossed in even more AI, some of which will likely just end up on the 9 Pros at some point. We do get their new Tensor G5 chip, which…

👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈 He may have described himself as a “fighter not a quitter”, but even Peter Mandelson couldn’t survive new and lurid revelations about his relationship with convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. The ultimate political animal, Lord Mandelson was no stranger to scandal – having twice been forced to resign from Tony Blair’s cabinet. But brought back into the Labour fold by Gordon Brown after a successful stint as European commissioner, the former spin doctor went on to enjoy a career renaissance – which eventually took him to Washington as the UK’s…