Sky News has learnt that Britain's biggest water company made the delayed seven-figure payment to Steve Buck, who joined the company in April 2025, at the end of last month. The money to pay Mr Buck is understood to have been drawn from an emergency borrowing facility made available to Thames Water by a syndicate of lenders which are trying to persuade the government to back a solvent rescue plan for the company. The £1m signing-on payment came 15 months after Mr Buck joined the struggling utility, and followed legal advice taken by Thames Water over its obligations. A Whitehall source said the payment was disclosed in a letter sent last week by Sir Adrian Montague, Thames Water's chairman, to MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs select committee. It can also be revealed that Thames Water has reached settlements over retention payments to 14 other executives, including two who have now left the company. Many of these are understood to involve Thames Water paying smaller sums than those originally envisaged under the retention scheme, and over a longer period. The payment to Mr Buck, a former finance chief at Pennon Group and Anglian Water, was part of a signing-on package constructed to persuade him to join Thames Water as it fought to avoid being taken over by the Labour government. One source said the £1m payment had been deferred with Mr Buck's agreement when he arrived, but that Thames Water's board had ultimately decided it could not avoid handing it to him accordance with his contractual rights. A wider retention payments scheme set up last year to avert the mass defection of Thames Water executives did not make agreed payments at the end of last year or on June 30 after directors decided to "pause" the programme amid a political outcry. Whitehall insiders who have seen Sir Adrian's letter said it acknowledged that customers would regard it as unfair that senior managers were being paid significant sums while service standards had yet to improve. The letter, which was copied to Ofwat and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), is likely to spark fresh demands from campaigners for Thames Water's immediate nationalisation. In its annual results last month, the company disclosed that chief executive Chris Weston's total pay package had risen above £1m last year - although he does not participate in any bonus schemes provided by Thames Water. Sir Adrian is said to have made it clear to MPs that it had taken legal advice on the retention programme's participants' rights under employment law. According to one source, he told them that Thames Water had been struggling to recruit and retain senior staff during the ongoing crisis, which has left its future shrouded in uncertainty for the last three years. Sir Adrian's letter comes amid a wider row over executive pay in the water industry, with several companies offering 'allowances' to bosses in order to circumvent bonus restrictions imposed by Ofwat. The regulator has said it would pay close attention to retention payments which are not linked to performance, with a review of the practice expected to take place next year. "Retention payments are not an uncommon practice but are often for limited exceptional periods which justify the need for retaining leadership, such as during mergers and acquisitions or leadership transitions," Ofwat said last year. The likelihood of a further pay row at the industry's biggest company will pose a headache for Angela Eagle, who was appointed as environment secretary by Andy Burnham last month. Thames Water's fate, and whether it can be resolved silently, is among the most pressing challenges facing her, with a revised rescue proposal from creditors expected to be submitted within weeks. Ms Eagle's predecessor, Emma Reynolds, appeared to increase the prospects of Thames Water being placed into a special administration regime (SAR) when she told Ofwat in June that a proposed rescue deal was inadequate. "I am not yet convinced that the Proposal demonstrates sufficient protection for consumers' interests," she told the watchdog. A new proposal, which will include a golden share for the government to satisfy Mr Burnham's desire for greater "public control" of the water industry, is widely regarded as a last chance to avoid a SAR, which would wipe out billions of pounds of value for Thames Water's owners. Sky News revealed last month that the group of investors engaged in a rescue bid for Thames Water have hired litigation specialists to prepare for a legal battle with the government if it forcibly nationalises the company. The London & Valley Water consortium has been formed by a syndicate of fund managers including Apollo Global Management, Elliott Management, Farallon Capital Management and Silver Point Capital, which collectively hold £17bn of Thames Water's £21bn debt pile. They have so far proposed a £10bn deal to take control of Thames Water, which includes injecting £3.35bn of fresh equity into the company. The funds would also provide a total of £6.25bn of new debt, while writing off £9.6bn of Thames Water's existing borrowings. Under their plans, the creditors would not pay any dividends to shareholders until the 2030s, with a plan to return the company to the public markets in about five years' time. Ofwat is required to hold a three-month public consultation on a private sector deal, meaning that time is running out for such a process to be launched. Thames Water repeated a warning this week that it would run out of money by the end of the year, although creditors have stated their intention to continue financing the company into 2027. On Monday morning, Thames Water declined to comment on Sir Adrian's letter.

In that time, Oasis had pretty much bypassed mid-size venues, progressing from small clubs straight to stadiums, to hosting Britpop's biggest party at a stately home in Hertfordshire. "This is history," Noel Gallagher famously told the Knebworth crowd. "Right here, right now, this is history." The tickets were £22.50 and the line-up included The Prodigy, Manic Street Preachers, The Chemical Brothers and The Charlatans, depending on which night you were there. It is estimated more than 2.5 million people applied to go, breaking box office records, and the stories from the shows are the stuff of music legend: the helicopter arrival, Liam Gallagher's golf buggy joyride, the celebs mingling backstage; Mick Hucknall, for some reason, the one that everyone seems to have a tale about. But the real story of that weekend is that of the band's unique relationship with the fans, says Jake Scott, director of the 2021 documentary Oasis Knebworth 1996. Interspersed with footage from the two gigs, the programme took the viewer back to the 90s, to the buzz of finally of getting through to buy tickets on the landline, the excitement building on car trips, the queuing to get as near to the stage as possible. "Everyone wanted to be there," Scott tells Sky News. "It was already famous before it happened, the biggest rock concert on British soil in history. "The contact between the band and the crowd, I think, is palpable. It's a tangible thing. And for a lot of those people who went, it was maybe their first gig ever. There's a lot of stories. And those anthems really resonated with that audience because it sounded like them." Michael Spencer Jones, a photographer behind Oasis's albums and singles covers during that period, says that after first seeing the band play to just a handful of people less than three years earlier, it was a momentous weekend for those who had been with them since the beginning. The rise and rise of Oasis "You spend all this time with a band and you get to know them... there's huge emotional investment in the music and what it means to everyone. So being in the crowd and thinking, 'wow, they've gone from playing in front of, like, 12 people to this in just over two-and-a-half years'. It was astonishing, that journey from humble beginnings to the whole country being completely captivated." Scott's documentary is an unapologetic celebration of the band in its heyday and of the 1990s, setting the gigs up against the backdrop of Euro 96, the explosion in the art scene at the time, and "this bloke Tony Blair who was going to change everything". It also highlights how different things were at gigs before camera phones came into play. Even Spencer Jones, off-duty for Knebworth, has only two quickly snapped pictures from the weekend, one of the fans and another of the clean-up. "I think Noel once said that the only problem with being in Oasis was that he never got to see them," he says. "So it was nice, not having the responsibility of taking any photographs and just being able to watch." 'It was so intense' Many who were there - including Liam and Noel - have said they don't remember a lot of it. Not necessarily because of alcohol or drugs - "speculation about anyone being drunk or high on stage or anything like that is quickly dismissed [when you see the footage] because you can't be that good, for two nights and sustain it like that, and be out of it, it's just not possible", says Scott - but perhaps the intensity of the occasion. "I watched both nights from the stage, so I had the best view in the house," says Brian Cannon, the band's artwork designer at the time. "But I don't remember a single second of either gig - not because I was hammered, because I wasn't. "I remember vividly other bits of the event, but the actual gig itself, I genuinely can't remember a single thing about it, which, funnily enough, is what both Liam and Noel say. It's like it was almost... it was just so intense, it just wiped itself from my memory." What Cannon recalls most is "the insane size" of the event. The backstage guestlist, for about 7,000 people, was in itself bigger than most gigs. "I remember thinking I'm glad I'm not a punter out the front there because I couldn't imagine using a toilet or getting a drink or food or anything, it was just immense," says Cannon. "That was the overarching memory for me." The 2021 documentary features emotional fan accounts of the weekend - the guy who found out just before that he was to become a father, another who ended up with Liam Gallagher's tambourine as a souvenir, and the particularly poignant story of the girl who attended with her brother, not knowing he would soon be diagnosed with cancer and this would be one of her last memories of the pair together "just enjoying life". There is also an anecdote from the fan who ended up being invited into a limo to give directions to a driver transporting Kate Moss and Anna Friel. As well as those stories, the programme highlights the relationship between Noel and Liam at the time, before things turned acrimonious. "You're only as good as your frontman, any band, and if that is Oasis at its peak - which it is - it's because Liam's at his peak," says Noel in the programme, his younger brother's distinctive, snarling live Slideaway playing in the background, demonstrating his point. "A big part of telling the story was showing that camaraderie and brotherhood," says Scott, who first met the band when he directed the video for Morning Glory in 1995. "They're two brothers, with their best mates... the meteoric trajectory of [playing Knebworth] and they're having a laugh and mucking about it, really enjoying themselves. I love seeing that relationship, the spontaneity of it... There's a sweetness in it and something very emotional about it." The documentary is all about the good times. Both Spencer Jones and Cannon say that even at the gigs, there was a sense that things couldn't get any bigger than Knebworth. 'It couldn't get any bigger' The band were getting "harder and harder to be around", says Spencer Jones, purely because of the level of fame they had reached and the growing amount of people working around them. And the cracks in the brothers' relationship were there. "When they were together, they were very funny and witty," he says. "It was incredibly entertaining to watch... They were close. But there was always that frisson between them. "I think Liam described it perfectly. He said, 'if we had a fruit and veg store, we'd argue about where to put the tomatoes', and I think that really summed up their relationship. There was a serious fault line. The irony is that it created that creative relationship, the very thing that ultimately drove them apart was the very thing that made that relationship special." "Where do you go from that?" says Cannon, of the Knebworth shows. "It couldn't really get any bigger. I mean, they carried on in terms of excess because they recorded Be Here Now, a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool on the cover. The excess continued, just not in terms of big gigs." Read more:A high-five and a hug as Oasis reunite on stageOasis: the reunion that felt like it might never happen Not of Knebworth size, at least. The band continued to fill arenas until Noel eventually called it a day in 2009. For years, he made it clear he had no plans to kiss and make up with his brother. Then came 2024, when the band's comeback was announced, and those triumphant reunion shows followed in 2025 - Oasis sounding as good as they ever did. A new documentary, Don't Look Back In Anger, will be released next month, telling the story of those shows, of the brothers making up, and featuring their first interview together in more than 20 years. So the Oasis juggernaut is still going strong. Liam has said there is more to come. So 30 years on from their biggest ever shows - and with everything in place for gigs to happen - is it time for a Knebworth encore? This article is an updated feature first published in 2021

In a letter to Westminster City Council, London's mayor said that its proposed licensing policy would undermine his efforts to support London's pubs by treating the city's nightlife as a "luxury". He said that under the licensing system, "make or break" decisions were "skewed towards the interests of a handful of highly vocal residents and councillors, without giving enough weight to the effects on London's wider economy and culture". In a statement to Sky News, Westminster City councillor Tim Barnes called the criticism "simply a relentless power grab of licensing laws" and called for the London mayor to address "the real challenges to the industry". It comes amid a row over restricting standing-up drinking in London, which followed the publication of the council's draft alcohol policies encouraging venues to prioritise sitting areas over standing space in a bid to discourage so-called "vertical drinking". Paul Swaddle, the Conservative leader of Westminster City Council, said "there is no plan" to stop standing-up drinking in his borough. Included in the authority's draft policy is an intention to "discourage excessive drunkenness and encourage the provision of more seating in premises that serve alcohol for people to sit and enjoy a drink and order food by table service in place of open bar space that caters for high-volume vertical drinking". One proposed policy is to "normally refuse" pub, bar, fast food or music venue licences in an area known as the West End cumulative impact zone - the area roughly between Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square, including Leicester Square and Soho. "The introduction of measures to reduce the extent of, or to remove opportunities for, vertical drinking could address the underlying reasons for the policy," the document reads. In response to Westminster's consultation on the policy, which closed on Sunday, Lord Khan urged the council to reconsider and scrap the proposed presumption against new licenses in Soho. He also said policies that emphasise an evening economy ending at 10pm, and expect pubs, restaurants and nightclubs to close by 11.30pm on weekdays and midnight at weekends, are "overly onerous and archaic". "Ultimately, this is about the kind of city we want London to become - a place where the rules which govern public space serve the common good for the benefit of all," he added. Read more from Sky News:Andy Burnham to start national tourProfessor in plagiarism row cancels events No 10 also asked Westminster City Council to change course, with a spokesperson saying: "Busy pubs full of people talking to each other is not a public nuisance, it is British life and it is thousands of jobs." "Soho did not become world famous by taking last orders early, switching the lights off at 10 o'clock," the spokesperson added. Laws passed earlier this year mean Westminster is legally required to consult Lord Khan on licensing rules. Councillor Tim Barnes, deputy leader of Westminster City Council and cabinet member for growth and planning, said: "We talk to pub and bar owners all the time, and their real issue is not licensing - it is the ever-mounting costs being loaded on them by central government, with venues facing rising bills and the increasing cost of employing staff. "Cuts to policing mean people are worried about safety when they go out and an inadequate public transport network which doesn't allow them to go home when it gets late. Both of these are squarely the responsibility of the Mayor's office. "If the Mayor was genuinely interested in helping the pub industry rather than simply a relentless power grab of licensing laws, he would address the real challenges to the industry."

The five-time major champion, back on the PGA Tour after a four-year hiatus with LIV Golf, posted a final-round 70 at Sedgefield Country Club on Sunday. Koepka was tied for 70th when his round finished, way short of the fourth-place finish he needed to secure qualification for next week's St Jude Championship. Latest golf headlines, reports and highlights 🏌️‍♂️PGA Tour: Full 2026 schedule and key dates 📆Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺 "I struck the ball great," Koepka explained. "It's just all on the greens. I don't know what the deal is. "Got zero confidence, can't putt. I don't know. There's going to be a lot of changes here soon." Asked to sum up his disappointment at missing the playoffs, Koepka didn't hold back, adding: "Pretty disappointed. I think it's pretty pathetic that I can't get through. "Zero top-10s basically in two years. To be in the prime of my career and be as good as I think I am, I think that's very pathetic, disappointing. "I just need to go home and completely re-evaluate everything." Koepka, 36, has not made a PGA Tour post-season appearance since 2021, having featured every year, except 2020 when he was injured, dating back to 2015. The American has secured just one top-10 finish in the 16 tournaments he has played since returning to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf. Watch the PGA Tour's FedEx St Jude Championship live on Sky Sports Golf and Sky Sports Main Event from 7pm on Thursday. Get Sky Sports or stream golf with no contract through NOW.

It comes after the UK saw a record number of days with temperatures above 30C across the country this year - with more to come by Wednesday. Temperatures of at least 30.6C were recorded on Sunday, bringing the total number of 30C-plus days in 2026 to 35 - a new UK record. Check the weather where you are While Monday starts the week comparatively cooler, temperatures will rise again by Tuesday before peaking midweek. Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said that "we'll probably see highs reaching the mid-30s quite widely on Wednesday, and indeed on Thursday too" in England and Wales." He added: "Thursday, at this stage, looks the most likely hottest day of the week. There's a small chance it could get even higher than [36C]." Read more from Sky News:UK water company made £1m payment to chiefFlight cancelled as child refuses to sit down Mr Morgan also said that the Met Office "sometimes issue extreme heat warnings, amber and red warnings, which we did back in June, so that's under consideration at the moment". It came amid predictions of food shortages and price rises, as UK farmers warn this year's dry weather has been a "disaster" for crops. Ahead of this week's heatwave, the Met Office has warned of the impact on infrastructure, such as railway lines and power networks. On Sunday, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident while 14 crews tackled two separate fires near Mansfield. In Hampshire, 26 fire engines attended a blaze near the A31 after a vehicle fire spread to nearby heathland, the fire service said. While half of England and all of Wales struggle under drought conditions, more than half a month's rainfall fell in north west Scotland in the last 48 hours, the Met Office said. "They've seen over 100mm of rain on Friday and Saturday, so the rain isn't far away and there is a little bit of rain in northern England and Northern Ireland today too," Mr Morgan said. This summer's extreme weather has included two record-breaking heatwaves in May and June that led to more than 2,700 excess deaths. The highest temperature of the year was 38C, recorded at Lingwood in Norfolk on 28 June. Two more heatwaves last month, the driest July in England and Wales since records began, have fuelled drought and wildfires. Nineteen counties across England recorded 1mm or less rainfall across the month, with half of England and all of Wales plunged into drought. In recent weeks, large blazes broke out at Dunwich Heath in Suffolk, Headon Warren on the Isle of Wight, Llanwonno in the Rhondda Valleys, South Wales, and the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. The dry conditions come after last year's drought summer, with the UK facing more extreme weather fuelled by human-caused climate change, mostly as a result of burning fossil fuels.

Swift has not recently spoken about the US president, but the singer-songwriter backed then-vice-president Kamala Harris, Mr Trump's Democratic rival, in the 2024 election. The 36-year-old superstar also posted on social media that Mr Trump was "WELL AWARE we do not want him as our president" during the previous presidential campaign in 2020. Swift has repeatedly been criticised by Mr Trump, who said he "hated" her in an online post after she endorsed Ms Harris. "Has anyone noticed that, since I said 'I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,' she's no longer "HOT?"," Mr Trump wrote last year. Dozens of artists, ​such as Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande, have called on the Trump administration not to use their songs. A TikTok video on 3 August that included Swift's song August posted to the account for Trump's campaign has had the sound removed. The video shows Donald and first lady Melania Trump watching fireworks while standing on a balcony, with the text, "Mood because it's August and Donald Trump is your president." And the caption read: "I'm sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song!" Fans have recently noticed that the track was removed from the Trump TikTok. One of the comments on the video was from a user who said "TAYLOR REMOVING THE AUDIO QUEEEEEEN", while another read, "Sorry, what was that? cant hear the song." A video posted on 6 August, which features the text, "Did you know Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about the color of the Republican Party", has also had the sound removed. And a video, posted on 6 November 2025, which included Swift's track Father Figure, also has had the audio removed, Variety reported. Read more from Sky News:Hilton 'stable' after self-harming on TikTokTrump lashes out after court blocks ballroom While Mr Trump has been critical of Swift following her decision to back Ms Harris, he did congratulate Swift on her engagement to NFL player Travis Kelce last year. "Well, I wish them a lot of luck," he said. "He's a great player, and I think he's a great guy, and I think that she's a terrific person, so I wished them a lot of luck." Swift and Kelce married in New York City in July. The White House and a representative for Swift have not commented on the removal of her songs from the posts.

The prime minister will spend much of the rest of August in "listening mode" as he travels across the country, officials said. He also plans to use the national tour to tell voters about his 10-year plan for the UK. Mr Burnham is set to unveil several measures intended to help people with bills and give them "breathing room" - after already announcing cuts to energy costs and a £2 cap on bus fares during his first week in Downing Street. A spokesman for the prime minister said he will be "meeting people where they are", adding: "He thinks Westminster has got used to telling people that everyday hassles - like hidden pricing and consumers being ripped off - must be accepted as part of life. "He doesn't think that's right. That's why he's going to start rolling out a series of pro-consumer cost of living measures to give people some room to breathe." The cost of living remains a major concern for the public amid the fallout of the Iran war, keeping inflation higher than expected. A poll published by Ipsos at the end of July found 30% of people were particularly concerned about the economy, while 22% cited inflation or prices specifically. Opposition figures have criticised Mr Burnham for the measures announced so far, which include temporarily cutting the 5% VAT on energy bills to zero, a £2 bus fare cap, and a 20% cut in business rates for the majority of pubs and other hospitality venues. Reform UK's economic spokesman Robert Jenrick said the prime minister should "scrap green levies and taxes on energy bills" and rule out tax rises in October's budget. He added: "It's high time the Labour Party cut the ballooning benefits bill so we can relieve pressure on the hardworking majority that hold our country together." Green Party leader Zack Polanski, writing in The i Paper, said the prime minister was "tinkering at the edges" with his announcements. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride accused Mr Burnham, who vowed to also focus on improving high streets, of "breathtaking hypocrisy" as tax hikes and "red tape" were "hammering our high streets", forcing businesses to close and driving up prices. He urged Mr Burnham to scrap business rates for thousands of high street firms. Read more from Sky News:UK heat record likely to be brokenHuge wildfire spreads in Canada His comments were echoed by Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper, who said Labour's tax hikes and "unnecessary new red tape" had pushed high street businesses "to the brink". She said to "breathe life back into our high streets", Mr Burnham should reverse the job tax, deliver a VAT cut for hospitality, replace "broken" business rates and crack down on ghost landlords leaving shopfronts vacant.

Brennan had a run of five straight birdies between the fourth and eighth holes, and recovered from a bogey on the 11th by picking up further shots on the 13th and 18th holes, saving par on the 17th with an excellent second shot after running into the rough with his tee-shot. Hossler, who shared the overnight lead with Brennan, had kept himself in touch with a birdie on the third and an eagle at the par-five fifth, but then bogeyed the ninth and 12th holes as Brennan surged forward. Latest golf headlines, reports and highlightsPGA Tour: Full 2026 schedule and key datesGet Sky Sports or stream contract-free on NOW "I did great for nine holes," Brennan said. "I felt really good on the front nine. Just playing my game, I was really staying within myself, hitting good shots. "Felt like I was really in control. Got a little nervous around 10 and 11. I made a really nice par putt on 12 and that kind of steadied me a little bit going through and I'm just glad to make a few putts coming in. "It's everything. I mean, I don't want to be done playing golf. I feel like I've played the best golf I have all year the last couple weeks. "Unfortunately, a couple tough Sundays, but outside of that, I've been playing really solidly. This is my sixth week in a row and so seven's a lot, but I think I'm going to be perfectly happy running on fumes next week." England's Harry Hall finished with a round of 65 to take a share of fifth place, one shot clear of compatriot Matt Wallace who had a share of seventh after he also closed with a 65. Watch the PGA Tour's FedEx Playoffs St Jude Championship live on Sky Sports Golf and Sky Sports Main Event from 7pm on Thursday. Get Sky Sports or stream golf with no contract through NOW.