US

Ireland’s Prime Minister has apologised for a comment apparently referencing Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky during a speech in Washington. Leo Varadkar was addressing the Washington Ireland Programme and was speaking of his experience as an intern in the American capital in 2000, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. It was two years after

Microsoft has revealed an AI “copilot for work” that can write your emails and allow you to catch up on skipped meetings. The tech giant is bringing the ChatGPT-like assistant to all of its Office apps, including Word, Teams, and Outlook. A recorded video showed the bot summarising calls, taking notes during meetings, and answering

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is axing another 10,000 jobs to cut costs. The company said on Tuesday it will reduce the size of its recruiting team and make further cuts in its tech groups in late April, and then its business groups in late May. “We expect to reduce our team size

FIFA is set to approve an expansion of the men’s World Cup today with 40 more matches from the 2026 tournament in North America, Sky News understands. The decision to grow from 64 to 104 matches – rather than the 80 originally planned in 2026 – is due to come at a meeting of the

US inflation dropped to 6% over the 12 months to February, complicating the picture for interest rates as banks and stock markets feel the hit from the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said the consumer price index (CPI), the measure of inflation, was down from 6.4% in the

China has hit out at the US, UK and Australia over their pact to create new nuclear-powered submarines, saying they have “gone further down a dangerous road”. It follows Rishi Sunak meeting US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in San Diego to announce the next stage of the Aukus partnership plan.

Joe Biden’s administration will approve a scaled-back version of a controversial $7bn oil and gas drilling project. The move comes despite criticism from environmentalists who say the development of the three drill sites in northwestern Alaska conflicts with Mr Biden’s highly-publicised efforts to fight climate change. The US president has also pledged to shift to

Donald Trump has been invited to testify before a New York grand jury next week as part of an investigation into hush money payments made on his behalf during the 2016 presidential campaign. Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for the former president, confirmed the news, telling the Associated Press: “To me, it’s much ado about nothing.”

Millions of rats living across New York City are susceptible to COVID-19, researchers have found. Like humans, the rodents have proved vulnerable to multiple variants of the virus, from the original to Omicron, including high levels of infection in their upper and lower airways. A World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2021 concluded that the

A US woman who was declared legally dead after disappearing more than three decades ago has turned up alive in Puerto Rico, her family and police have said. Patricia Kopta, now 83, had last been seen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1992 when investigators began looking into her disappearance. She was known to be an “eccentric”

Tennessee has become the first US state to ban public drag performances. The state’s Republican governor Bill Lee signed the bill, which classifies the performances as adult cabaret, into law on Thursday. While the word “drag” does not appear in the bill, it changes the definition of adult cabaret in Tennessee’s law to mean “adult-oriented

Drugs designed to treat diabetes and repurposed as miracle diet aids have taken over TikTok. The weight loss caused by these weekly injectables is rapid and previously unattainable, people boast, showing off newly svelte bodies. But what are these drugs, how do they work – and what were they originally designed to do? Mounjaro, Ozempic,

Police are searching for rapper Travis Scott after he allegedly punched a sound engineer and caused $12,000 worth of damage at a nightclub in New York, authorities have said. Officers were called to Club Nebula in Manhattan at about 3.25am local time (8.25am in the UK) on Wednesday to reports that a man “was involved

The director of the FBI has said the agency believes COVID-19 “most likely” came from a lab leak in China. “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Christopher Wray told Fox News. Mr Wray said he could not

China has denounced the US over its TikTok bans, saying it has been “abusing state power”. Congress and more than half of US states have banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices, following cybersecurity concerns. TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teenagers but there is concern in Washington that China could use its legal and

Disney’s self-governing district that it uses to run its Florida theme parks has been taken over by the state’s governor, in an apparent punishment for its opposition to legislation about LGBTQ+ education. Ron DeSantis, who is widely tipped as a challenger for the White House next year, signed a bill taking control of Reedy Creek

Former US president Donald Trump has bid “good riddance” to Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon following her shock resignation announcement. Referring to Ms Sturgeon as a “failed woke extremist”, he also accused the outgoing leader of the Scottish National Party of fighting him over his golf courses in Scotland. Criticising her government’s controversial gender reforms

Elon Musk donated around $1.95bn (£1.6bn) worth of Tesla stock to charity last year, according to documents filed in the US. The billionaire gifted about 11.6 million shares between August and December of 2022, the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed. It didn’t list which organisations were the recipients of the shares.

At least three people have been killed after a shooting at a US university – with the gunman apparently dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A manhunt was launched for the attacker who was described as a short black male in a cap, red shoes and a jean jacket. Police said five people were also

China has claimed US high-altitude balloons have flown over its airspace more than 10 times over the past year. Beijing has made the claim after Washington accused China of operating a fleet of surveillance balloons around the world. The development comes a day after US jets shot down a fourth flying object that the Pentagon