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.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open a migrant detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
Speaking before making the act official, Mr Trump said that thousands of migrants who cannot be deported to their home countries will be held at the complex, on the island of Cuba.
“I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.
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“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.
“Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”
It comes as Mr Trump’s controversial pick for health secretary – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – faced a hearing committee where he was grilled on his views, including on vaccines and abortion.
At its peak, about 680 people were held at the American-run prison in Cuba. File pic: AP
Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 by then president George W. Bush to hold detainees in the wake of 9/11 and the War on Terror.
Only 15 prisoners – including Ramzi bin al Shibh, accused of being a 9/11 co-conspirator – remain at the detention centre.
At its peak, about 680 people, most suspected of terrorism and being “illegal enemy combatants”, were held at the American-run prison in Cuba.
The facility has been criticised by human rights groups and legal campaigners over potential breaches of international laws and conditions.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel deemed the decision as “an act of brutality” in a message on his X account, and he described the base as one “located in illegally occupied Cuba territory”.
In response to Mr Trump’s announcement, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci – who briefly served under the previous Trump administration – said: “Also known as a concentration camp.
“Yet no dissent. No courageous political leader willing to stand up to this.”
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RFK Jr faces Senate hearing
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Kennedy – the president’s pick to be health secretary – faced a grilling over his views on vaccines, abortion and Medicaid at a Senate confirmation hearing.
Appearing at the Capitol, Democratic senators raised some of the 71-year-old’s previous remarks comparing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Nazi death camps, linking school shootings to antidepressants, and his claim that “no vaccine is safe and effective”.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr was grilled on vaccines, abortion and Medicaid at his confirmation hearing. Pic: AP
One senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, told Mr Kennedy “frankly, you frighten people” when discussing an outbreak of measles in Rhode Island – its first since 2013.
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The nominee said he did “not have a broad proposal for dismantling” Medicaid – a state and federal taxpayer-funded healthcare programme – and dismissed claims he was anti-vaccine by saying his children were vaccinated.
Mr Kennedy – the son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of former US president John F Kennedy – was also questioned on his previous support for abortion and was shown statements as recent as from when he was running for president as an independent.
He said he now agrees with the president that “every abortion is a tragedy”.
Federal funding pause memo rescinded
It also comes after Mr Trump’s budget office rescinded an order freezing spending on federal grants – less than two days after it sparked legal challenges across the US.
The order on Monday sparked uncertainty over a financial lifeline for states, schools and organisations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Sky’s US partner network NBC that the freeze itself has not been withdrawn and that it was simply a cancellation of the memo ordering it.
Lord Mandelson says calling Donald Trump a “danger to the world” in 2019 was “ill-judged and wrong”.
The former Labour minister has been named as the next UK ambassador to the US, although there have been questions about whether President Trump will accept him.
Speaking to Fox News, Lord Mandelson walked back his criticisms from the president’s first term in office.
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The 71-year-old told the conservative-backing US TV channel: “I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill-judged and wrong.
“I think times and attitudes towards the president have changed since then.
“I think people have been impressed, not just by the extraordinary second mandate that he has received from the American people, but the dynamism and energy with which he approached not just the campaign but government as well.”
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Many Labour figures, including the now Foreign Secretary David Lammy, criticised Mr Trump before, during and after his first term in the White House.
Now they are in government and Mr Trump is back in power in Washington DC, language has become more diplomatic.
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Trump aide calls Mandelson a ‘moron’
Lord Mandelson told the Alain Elkann Interviews podcast previously: “What Donald Trump represents and believes is an anathema to mainstream British opinion.”
He added: “Even those who have a sneaking admiration for Donald Trump because of his personality, nonetheless regard him as reckless, and a danger to the world.”
The likely new ambassador criticised Mr Trump’s attitude to a previous holder of that office, and said the president was “little short of a white nationalist and a racist”.
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Speaking now, Lord Mandelson praised Mr Trump, saying he was a “nice” and “fair-minded person” who could become “one of the most consequential American presidents I have known in my adult life”.
He added: “I think that with the approach he is taking to government, which frankly just seems to us in Britain so much more organised, it’s so much more coherent, he seems to be so much more clear in what he wants to do, we take encouragement from that, that gives us greater confidence.”
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