How to pick the stories Sky News sends to your phone: Keep up to date with the news you care about
Want to stay up to date on the stories and issues that matter most to you?
Sky News has now introduced topic-based push alerts which mean the articles you are most interested in will be delivered directly to your phone as and when we publish them.
Whether it’s a major election, a gripping trial or a celebrity scandal everybody is talking about – you will be among the first to learn about the latest developments.
Here’s how to sign up for topic-based push alerts.
First things first
From now on, when you open a story you will see the topics that have been covered displayed below the headline.
In the story below you will see the topics are “Budget 2024”, “Labour” and the chancellor “Rachel Reeves”.
To the right of the topic, you will see an image of a bell – symbolising that you can turn on alerts for that specific subject.
When you click on the topic the words and the bell will turn blue – indicating you will now receive a push alert when we publish stories related to it.
What if I don’t have push notifications already turned on?
If this is the case, clicking on the topic will direct you to your settings.
Once there you can simply swipe across to “allow notifications”.
You will know that notifications have been turned on when it changes to green.
What happens when I receive the alert?
If you already subscribe to Sky News push notifications you will know that when there’s a breaking news story or an article we think you’ll be interested in, we send an alert directly to the home screen of your phone.
All you have to do then is click on the notification and it takes you to the story.
Topic-based alerts work in the same way.
If it’s a breaking story we might send it with a sound to indicate its significance. However, unless it is a story with an unusually high amount of importance, we only include a sound between the hours of 7am and 10pm.
In most cases, if we are simply sending you the latest story about one of your selected topics, we will not include a sound at all.
Example of push notifications on an Android
Example of a push notification on IOS
How do I turn them off?
If you don’t want to receive a specific topic-based push alert anymore, turning them off is easy.
Simply go into a story that covered that particular topic and then click on the bell below the headline – just like you did to turn it on.
You will know the alert has been turned off because the topic you clicked on will turn from blue to grey.
Alternatively, you can turn an alert off by going into the “settings” section of the Sky News app, where all of the notifications you have subscribed to will appear in blue.
Simply click on them to turn them off.
You will know they are turned off because they will no longer appear blue – like “Budget 2024” below.
Finally…
Don’t forget to subscribe to your favourite topics and stay up to date with all the latest developments on the Sky News app.
US
America will not put up with it for much longer!’: Donald Trump hits out at Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy once again
A state of emergency has been declared in South Carolina as wildfires caused by dry and gusty conditions have forced people to evacuate some areas.
More than 175 fires covered 6.6 square miles in the state on Sunday as the National Weather Service warned of an increased risk of blazes in the region.
The number of fires was down to 163 by early Monday, the state’s forestry commission said.
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Sunday to support the wildfire response effort and a state-wide burning ban is in effect.
People in eight neighbourhoods were forced to evacuate as several fires raged in the state’s Horry County, officials said.
Soldiers used two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water 600 gallons at a time on the blazes, the South Carolina National Guard said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, firefighters made progress containing a fire in Carolina Forest, where people had been ordered to evacuate several neighbourhoods, according to Horry County Fire Rescue.
Footage showed some people running down the street as smoke filled the sky.
However, Horry County Fire Rescue announced by late Sunday that Carolina Forest evacuees could return home.
The Red Cross of South Carolina said approximately 135 Carolina Forest residents had taken shelter in a county recreation centre.
Smoke is seen rising from fires in Horry County. Pic: AP/Horry County Fire Rescue
The fire in the area had burned 2.5 square miles as of Sunday evening, the South Carolina Forestry Commission estimated.
No structures had succumbed to the blaze and no injuries had been reported as of Sunday morning, officials said.
It came as fire crews were working to contain multiple wildfires burning in four forests across North Carolina.
The largest covered around 0.6 square miles and burned in Uwharrie National Forest – about 50 miles east of Charlotte.
The North Carolina Forest Service said on Sunday that it had been made progress on the fire, reaching about one-third containment.
People flee an area in Myrtle Beach. Pic: AP
The small southwestern town of Tryon in Polk County, North Carolina, had urged some residents to evacuate on Saturday as a fire spread rapidly there.
The evacuations remained in effect on Sunday.
A decision on whether to lift the evacuation orders was expected to be made on Monday after intentional burns are set to try to stop the fire from spreading.
That fire had burned about 0.8 square miles as of Sunday evening, with 0% containment, according to the Polk County Emergency Management and Fire Marshal’s office.
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A helicopter drops water to help contain a fire in the Carolina Forest area. Pic: AP
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The North Carolina Forest Service was conducting water drops and back-burning operations on the ground and residents should expect a lot of smoke during those operations, officials said.
It comes as at least six active fires were burning in Georgia on Sunday, with nearly 5.8 miles burned in a seven-day span that brought the region gusty winds and low humidity, according to a Georgia Forestry Commission fire summary.
Officials have not said what caused any of the fires.
The dry and gusty conditions fuelling the fires are expected to fade as a cold front pushes out the dry air mass over the southeast of the US and brings rain by Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
The convergence of warmth, dry air and gusty winds is not inconsistent with the season’s La Niña weather phenomenon, which is associated with warmer, drier winters in the Carolinas, according to North Carolina State University.
The blazes come after two wildfires in Los Angeles killed 29 people and scorched thousands of acres across 24 days.
More than 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the deadly Eaton and Palisades blazes, which swept across California in January.
Cryptocurrency prices have jumped after Donald Trump revealed he would like Bitcoin and other lesser-traded tokens to be in a new US strategic crypto reserve.
He said his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano (ADA).
The names had not previously been announced.
The American president said in a post on Truth Social: “A US Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration, which is why my Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.”
“I will make sure the US is the Crypto Capital of the World.”
“And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve,” he said in a follow-up post. “I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose over 11% to $94,164 after Sunday’s announcement.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up around 13% at $2,516.
XRP surged 33% while the token tied to Solana jumped 25%. Cardano’s coin soared more than 60%.
Bitcoin was trading up around 20% from last week’s lows.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on cryptocurrencies in January. Pic: Reuters
The total cryptocurrency market rose about 10%, or more than $300bn (£238bn), in the hours since the announcement, according to cryptocurrency data and analysis company CoinGecko.
This is the first time Mr Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” rather than a “stockpile”. While the former assumes actively buying crypto in regular installments, a stockpile would not sell any of the crypto currently held by the US government.
Mr Trump is hosting the first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, and investors will be watching closely for more clues about the direction of the reserve plans.
His family have also launched their own coins, including his wife Melania.
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Mr Trump first introduced the idea of a Bitcoin stockpile, which would “keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future” last summer at major industry conference Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville.
After his re-election to the White House in November, there were more calls for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, helping to send the price of the flagship cryptocurrency to new all-time highs.
Under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, regulators cracked down on the industry in an attempt to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering.
Under Mr Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn investigations into several crypto companies and dropped a lawsuit against Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US.
But in recent weeks, crypto prices have fallen sharply, with some of the biggest digital currencies erasing nearly all of the gains made after Mr Trump’s election win triggered excitement across the industry.
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