This Is Why

Every day more than 3000 pupils miss school because they have been suspended. It’s a record number that has shot up since the pandemic, especially for girls, who are being sent home at twice the national rate. It’s raised concerns these suspended students are slipping through the cracks, but leading teachers say a national shortage of alternative forms of education is putting unprecedented demand...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has crossed the border into Russia for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. This is the first time since 2019 that Kim has left North Korea – and a lot has changed since then. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson sits down with security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke and Sky’s Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay to unpick what each leader is looking...

The emergence of a new COVID variant, BA.2.8, has pushed forward the winter vaccination programme, with the rollout starting on Monday in England for older adult care home residents and immunosuppressed people. All over-65s will be offered the jab during the next few weeks. The other nations are also beginning their vaccination programmes this month. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined...

It's been one year since King Charles took to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. In this episode of the Sky News Daily podcast, royal correspondent Laura Bundock takes to the presenter chair to reflect on the first year of King Charles's reign. She is joined by the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, a close friend of the King, plus historian Sir Anthony Seldon, the headm...

Terror suspect Daniel Khalife's escape from HMP Wandsworth – believed to be by strapping himself underneath a delivery lorry - led to a police manhunt involving all 43 forces in England and Wales. The 21-year-old ex-soldier was on remand charged with collecting information which might be useful to an enemy, understood to be Iran. The justice secretary, Alex Chalk, has told MPs that an independent...

Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, has effectively declared bankruptcy, confirming in a statement that all new spending except for protecting vulnerable people and statutory services, must stop immediately. But how does a council go bust? On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by our politics and business correspondent Mhari Aurora, as well as Iain Murray from the...

China's economy has slipped into deflation as consumer prices declined in July for the first time in more than two years. Ballooning local government debt, weak import and exports, challenges in the housing market, and growing youth unemployment are all contributing to the country's downturn. On the Sky News Daily Dominic Waghorn speaks to our Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith about why China's e...

MPs returned to Westminster after their summer break, but the same can't be said for thousands of children expected in classrooms for the Autumn term – due to the crumbling concrete crisis. More than 100 schools stayed shut on Monday due to safety fears about reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete - or RAAC – while the education secretary Gillian Keegan was caught on camera complaining about not b...

It's been 20 years since the Iraq war and the capture of dictator Saddam Hussein. Once Saddam was found, he was kept prisoner in his palace with 12 US soldiers guarding him. Saddam proved to be great company and the troops developed a strong friendship with him - they would play chess with him, exercise with him, and talk about their lives. One soldier, Specialist Adam Rogerson, has spoken to the...

Former transport and energy secretary Grant Shapps has been named as the new head of the Ministry of Defence after Ben Wallace stood down from the role on Thursday morning. Mr Wallace had overseen one of the biggest international responses to the war in Ukraine - with the UK behind only the US in terms of support since the war began, having committed £4.6bn in military assistance. On the Sky News...

Since their World Cup victory, the Spanish team's success has been overshadowed by Spanish football president Luis Rubiales non-consensually kissing player Jenni Hermoso. Hermoso described the actions of Rubiales as an "impulse-driven, sexist out-of-place act without any consent". Rubiales denies this and says it was "spontaneous" and "mutual". The kiss has caused a backlash across football and in...

The travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people were thrown into chaos on one of the busiest days of the year for airports, as the UK's air traffic control systems suffered a "technical fault". UK airports are still struggling to recover from the hours-long failure of processing flight plans – with warnings delays could last for days. Downing Street has ruled out a cyberattack, but there is sp...

One of the biggest mafia trials in Italian history is expected to deliver its verdict in the coming weeks. Prosecutors have asked for sentences totalling more than 4,000 years in jail for hundreds of alleged ‘Ndrangheta collaborators. One prosecutor of the ‘Ndrangheta, Nicola Gratteri, cannot travel without a heavy police escort, nor see his children for more than a few hours every couple of month...

Russians have been paying tribute to Yevgeny Prigozhin after it was reported the Wagner leader was among ten people who died when a private jet crashed near Moscow on Wednesday. President Putin has praised his former ally as a “talented businessman” who worked “with good results” in Russia and across Africa, but also said he had “made serious mistakes in his life”. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Pat...

Russian aviation authorities say Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was among ten people killed in a plane crash near Moscow on Wednesday. Earlier this summer, the mercenary group leader led a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s top brass. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by military analyst Sean Bell as they examine what we can glean from footage of the private jet falling to the ground...

Japan is due to start releasing treated radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, despite opposition from neighbouring countries. A 9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan's east coast in 2011, killing 18,000 people and displacing a further 150,000 from an exclusion zone around the plant. Some 1.34 million tonnes of water - enough to fill 500 Olympic-size pools - have been st...

New data published on the rate of drug deaths in Scotland show they have decreased, after decades of constant rises, but the number is still higher than the rest of Europe. Just over 1,000 people in Scotland died as a result of drug misuse in 2022, the lowest number since 2017. On the Sky News Daily with Niall Paterson, our Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies combs through the latest figures, wh...

Britain's worst child serial killer Lucy Letby will spend the rest of her life in prison. But the former neonatal nurse refused to appear in court to hear either the victim statements or the judge hand down a whole-life sentence. One of the baby victims' mothers has called Letby's defiance a "final act of wickedness from a coward". On the Sky News Daily, Sky News‘ home editor Jason Farrell discuss...

Lucy Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies while working on a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. The 33-year-old nurse was also convicted of seven counts of attempted murder following a trial that lasted nine months. Families of her victims sobbed and comforted each other in court as the jury delivered their verdicts over several days...

With six wins and a place in the World Cup final under their belt, the Lionesses have a fighting chance of bringing football home for England. But who is the woman at the helm? Manager Sarina Wiegman took over as Lionesses manager in 2020 and is the first non-Brit to lead the team, originally from the Netherlands. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by Rob Harris, our sports correspond...

Students waiting for their A-level results this year are the "unluckiest cohort" in recent years, according to one education expert. Pandemic disruption, rising grade boundaries, and a larger than average number of people applying for university places have all placed pressure on A-level grades. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson speaks to Grace Brookes, who picks up her A-level results on Thur...

The deadliest wildfires to hit the US in over a century have turned vast swathes of the island of Maui to ash and taken the lives of at least 99 people. The governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, has warned that the number killed will rise as only 25% of the affected area has been searched so far. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson hears from our US correspondent Martha Kelner, who is in Maui, about t...

It was billed as 'small boats week' – a series of government announcements designed to show progress on the issue of cross channel migration. But the reality of the last seven days has got in the way. The 30 or so migrants who had been moved on to a housing barge off Dorset had to be moved out after Legionella was found onboard and Thursday also saw the highest daily number of people crossing the...

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery, one of Britain's most notorious crimes, which involved the hijack of a London-bound Royal Mail train and the theft of millions of pounds. Bruce Reynolds planned the robbery with a 15-strong gang of thieves, crooks and conspirers, becoming one of the most notorious criminals in British history. Bruce's son said he never realised his...

Football’s world governing body FIFA wants pay and prize money for men and women to be the same by the next tournaments. But how it gets there is a little less clear. On the Sky News Daily, Sally Lockwood is joined from Australia by our sport correspondent Rob Harris and Lioness Lucy Staniforth, who was on standby for the World Cup squad. They discuss the financial disparities in the sport, as wel...