Chancellor’s plan to slash red tape could raise financial risks and do little to help households, say architects of UK’s post-2008 reforms

Rachel Reeves has been warned by City grandees that her plan to slash financial red tape could have little benefit for British households while increasing risks in the banking industry.

The chancellor used a speech to City bosses attending the annual Mansion House dinner on Tuesday to argue that in too many areas regulation was acting as a “boot on the neck of business”, as she pledged sweeping changes to help revive the economy.

Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr return for a goofy, slickly made legacy sequel stuffed with fan service

Rushed into production after the surprise success of 1996’s Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer has forever lived, and suffered, in the same bracket. Sure it’s another slasher with another cast of unblemished faces and sure it’s also written by Kevin Williamson but it’s always been a far simpler, straighter, sillier film. Scream was trying to reinvent the wheel while I Know What You Did Last Summer was just trying to keep it going.

As a franchise, it then quickly became the very thing Williamson was poking fun at in the first place with a rubbishy Bahamas-set sequel (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer!) and, at the time, an inevitable, tossed off, straight-to-video follow-up (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer!). People quickly gave up caring what anyone had been up to during any summer on record and as the subgenre died, it wisely followed. But as Hollywood continues to fixate on millennial nostalgia, history is repeating itself as a revival of Scream (with two new films both hitting bigger than expected and a third on the way) is now being followed by a return for the fisherman, still thrashing away in the shadow of Ghostface, grunting dumbly while his predecessor delivers a self-satisfied lecture on the state of genre film-making (like Scream, there was also a limp TV resurrection that’s best ignored).

James Corden and John Goodman join the singer voicing the Belgian creatures in this uninspired, unengaging kids’ animation

The star vocal turn of the very moderate new Smurfs film is Rihanna, phoning in an undemanding audio contribution as the female character named “Smurfette”. But there is little to no music in this laborious slice of content, one of the many frustrating and disconcerting things about it. And for me, this film shows yet again that there is something about the Smurfs, those little Belgian creatures with blue skin and floppy-protuberant hats, which is basically kryptonite to comedy and entertainment.

The script by Pam Brady (justly respected for her work on South Park and Team America: World Police) follows the template of being pretty bland for the sweet Smurfs themselves, but is sharpened up with one or two properly funny lines for the all-too-brief scenes featuring the evil wizard characters Razamel and Gargamel (both voiced by JP Karliak) whom the Smurfs are up against.

New research has shed light on the psychology of ‘self-invitation’, and why people hold back from asking to join others’ plans

I’m at the pub with my friend, catching up over drinks, when her friend walks in – let’s call her Clara.

Clara mentions the party she’s throwing next weekend. Our mutual friend is counting down the days, but it’s news to me.

I’m an adult. Why do I regress under my parents’ roof?

I like my own company. But do I spend too much time alone?

People say you’ll know – but will I regret not having children?

People often assume my job skills are impressive, while their own aren’t worth a mention. What they don’t realise is that I’d swap with them in an instant

Life. Work out what you want to do with it, what kind of job you want. And then find that job. Hopefully, it won’t be something that it’s thought AI will do better. And, hopefully, it’s a job with meaning, with a point to it.

It must be great to be a doctor. What do you do? Oh, I’m a doctor. And what’s the point of that? Well, I try to keep people alive. And with that the question of the point of your life is answered. Nobody, I suggest, ever expresses doubt about the purpose of doctoring. Just like nobody asks a broadcaster and writer what the point of their work is. They should. We get too much credit for what we do.

Durham is thought to be first UK local authority to rescind its statement, in a move condemned as a ‘very dark day’

A Reform-led council is thought to have become the first in the UK to rescind its climate emergency declaration, a move condemned as “a very dark day” for the authority.

Durham county council, which has had an overwhelming Reform majority since the May local elections, passed a motion to rescind a declaration made in 2019. More than 300 local authorities have declared a climate emergency.

The tech giant will buy 3GW of US hydropower in deal to fuel AI and data center growth across eastern states

Google has agreed to secure as much as 3GW of US hydropower in the world’s largest corporate clean power pact for hydroelectricity, the company said on Tuesday, as big tech pursues the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters.

The deal between Google and Brookfield Asset Management includes initial 20-year power purchase agreements, totaling $3bn, for electricity generated from two hydropower facilities in Pennsylvania.

The Reform leader is trying to import Doge’s cuts to spending and ‘DEI’. It’s clear what he gets out of it – not so much the British voter

A popular maxim on the American right is that politics is downstream from culture. In the UK, it increasingly feels like politics is simply downstream from the US. With Reform UK ascendant in the polls, Nigel Farage – officially MP for Clacton, unofficially Donald Trump’s emissary to the UK – is setting the terms of the national conversation, and he is importing them directly from across the pond.

Over the past few months, Reform has sought to launch “Doge” initiatives (referencing Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency), waged war on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) employment schemes, and called for the UK government to embrace crypto and create a bitcoin digital reserve at the Bank of England, following Trump’s lead. It seems the Brexiteers were right: Britain doesn’t make anything any more – not even its own bogeymen.

Samuel Earle is the author of Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over

Iceland’s weather agency advises residents to stay indoors because of high levels of toxic gas from 1.5-mile fissure

A volcano erupted on Wednesday on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula in the south-west of the country, the ninth eruption in region since the end of 2023.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said the eruption had begun just before 4am local time (05:00 BST), and live video feeds showed lava spewing from a fissure in the ground.

Thanet wants to use a public spaces protection order to fine people £100 for ‘foul or abusive language’. And it’s not the first to try it …

Name: Swearing.

Age: It never gets old.

Firm revises new terms of service that had suggested uploaded files could be used to ‘improve machine learning models’

The popular filesharing service WeTransfer has said user content will not be used to train artificial intelligence after a change in its service terms had triggered a public backlash.

The company, which is regularly used by creative professionals to transfer their work online, had suggested in new terms that uploaded files could be used to “improve machine learning models”.

• Athlete won bronze in ski cross at 2010 Vancouver Games

• 49-year-old died of injuries after being taken to hospital

Olympic ski cross medalist Audun Groenvold has died after being struck by lightning, the Norwegian ski federation announced on Wednesday. He was 49.

Groenvold won bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Descendants of Terminal Island’s Japanese community see parallels between the second world war and Ice raids today

John Tonai was enraged when he learned that a human-made island in San Pedro Bay was being used as a staging ground for the workplace raids unfolding across Los Angeles.

To Tonai, Terminal Island isn’t just one of the country’s busiest container ports. It’s the site of a small fishing village where his parents and thousands of other Japanese immigrants helped establish California’s tuna-canning industry.

The electropop duo’s vocalist mj shares what brings her joy online – including odes to napping, crying and rainbows

I try to spend as little time on the internet as possible. I didn’t get a cell phone until I was 19. I stayed mostly away from screens and spent a lot of time in the woods, on the water and in my head. As far as I’ve seen, those were and always will be better places to find ourselves.

I ended up skipping some of the internet’s best years – they’re long gone, along with the dream of what the internet could have been. In all the hours I spend doomscrolling I can say I haven’t gained much but the following makes some of that time feel worth it.

For over-80s at the world championships, the game is played on a smaller court with extended shot clocks – and in this age category, competition can sometimes feature courtside defibrillation

Oscar Carlson describes himself, rather self-deprecatingly, as “just an old bloke that does stuff”. Only doing stuff – in this 84-year-old’s case – extends to representing his country on the international sporting stage.

Last month, Carlson was a member of the Australian 80-year plus men’s team at the World Maxibasketball Championship in Switzerland. The Boomer Boomers, if you will. The championships feature national teams in age categories from 35-plus and upwards; games are played under ordinary basketball rules, with minor modifications for older age categories – including an extended shot clock and smaller courts.

Coach Adrian Hurley (top left) addresses the team during a timeout in a game

From the new Superman geeking out on Star Wars to the Wicked cast crying, actors’ personality insights are now distilled into reel-friendly clips and internet boyfriend-baiting soundbites

The new Superman is a tricky proposition to market. Not only does it represent a new reimagining of an 87-year-old character, but it also has to tell everyone who David Corenswet is. The new Superman is a complete unknown to many of us, and you suspect that a hefty slice of the film’s promotional budget has been given over to selling the guy to the world.

In the old days, this would have been achieved with wall-to-wall press interviews. Big, hefty cover stories in key publications in every territory, where interviewers would attempt to plumb the depths of his psyche to see if he can pass muster. But that hasn’t really happened. Instead, there is a very big chance that – if you’re the right age – you will have learned everything you need to know about David Corenswet from a couple of TikToks.

• Governing body’s CEO: ‘We had a really good discussion’

• Portrush tee times moved to avoid loyalist march

The R&A says it has held a “really good discussion” with Donald Trump’s family over the thorny issue of when their Turnberry course might stage the Open again.

The governing body’s new chief executive, Martin Darbon, said he had met with the president’s son Eric and held positive talks about infrastructure improvements needed for Turnberry to host the event for the first time since 2009.

Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff pushed out and three trade envoys lose roles

Keir Starmer has removed the Labour whip from four MPs for repeatedly breaching discipline and stripped three further Labour MPs of their trade envoy roles in an effort to assert his control over the party.

The Guardian understands that the four MPs who have lost the whip are Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff. They were informed on Wednesday afternoon and told their positions would be kept under review.

Late-night hosts discuss AI at the defense department, new Trump tariffs and the Maga schism over the Epstein files

Late-night hosts mocked the Department of Defense’s contract with Elon Musk’s Grok AI, Donald Trump’s White House decor and Maga infighting over the Epstein files.

Intervention comes as clashes between the Syrian army and Druze militias in the south of the country escalate

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Israeli military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus twice on Wednesday as it intervened in the clashes between the Syrian army and Druze fighters in southern Syria in the country’s deadliest violence in months.

The strikes collapsed four floors of the ministry and ruined its facade. Syrian state media said at least two officers had been wounded and staff were reportedly sheltering in the building’s basement.

Ilyass Alba also said ‘goeiedag’ on train in Dutch-speaking region but he breached country’s strict language rules

A complaint against a Belgian ticket inspector who gave passengers a bilingual greeting in Dutch-speaking Flanders has been upheld, shedding light on the country’s strict language laws.

The conductor, Ilyass Alba, said Belgium’s Permanent Commission for Linguistic Control had upheld a complaint made by a commuter in 2024. The passenger had objected to Alba’s use of the French word “bonjour” while the train was in Dutch-speaking Flanders.

In heart-tugging drama Mix Tape, two ex-lovers are thrown back together with the music they wooed each other with 20 years earlier. Here, writers dig out their most treasured tapes and CDs full of meaning, mishaps and mega-tunes

At 18 my go-to albums were Dog Man Star, His ’n’ Hers and a mix tape called Really, Basically, In a Sort of a Way, Volume 1. Named after the mutterings of a particularly long-winded lecturer, it was the first of many TDK D60s – always the same brand! – from my mate Pat. We had met at our university’s registration day a few weeks earlier and would be friends for more than 20 years until his death in 2018. By then he’d not only been on staff at the NME – teenage Pat’s dream job – but also written a book about its history.

Destruction is the order of the day as DK embarks on his first standalone adventure in a decade. The team behind his return reveal all

When you think of Nintendo, it’s almost impossible not to picture Donkey Kong. The ape that started it all, Donkey Kong’s tie-donning, barrel-launching arcade antics introduced Mario to the world and almost bankrupted Nintendo in the process, after a near-miss legal battle over alleged King Kong copyright infringement. Yet despite Donkers’ undeniable place in gaming history – and obligatory appearances in Smash Bros and Mario Kart – for the last few console generations, Donkey Kong platformers have been MIA. Enter DK’s first standalone adventure in 11 years, Donkey Kong Bananza.

While Mario’s recent adventures saw him exploring the reaches of outer space or deftly possessing enemies with an anthropomorphic hat, DK’s grand return is all about primal rage. Employing a similar voxel-based technology to Minecraft, DK’s Switch 2 adventure swaps the former’s thoughtful Lego-esque world-building for gleeful destruction, letting players shatter every colourful level into smithereens.

‘When I look at this photograph I want to be that guy. He’s super alive and in the moment. Everything about it is energising, masculine, powerful’

I’m not a cowboy and I don’t ride horses, but I’ve been around them my whole life. My dad had a furniture store near the stockyards in south Omaha, and I would watch the cattle being moved between pens ready to go to auction. I sensed a freedom in the cowboys that I related to. I’ve always been an explorer, it’s my nature. I’m more comfortable and I feel most alive in situations I’m not familiar with. I am always drawn to this same type – I’ve photographed test pilots and astronauts – the strong, quiet, self-directed types who seem to be in control of their destiny.

This shot of Mark, a friend of mine, was taken in 2014. All my images are productions, I don’t just happen to be there. I build a narrative and visit locations – it’s more like making a movie, it’s very intentional. I scout locations that connect to what I want to represent. This was a rugged area of northern Colorado. The shoot was really about speed and energy, and I wanted open spaces that could allow the cowboys to do what they wanted. I wanted harder surfaces and dramatic skies – although you never really know what you’re going to get. I take references from historical paintings and drawings of the American west, and ideas I carry on pieces of paper, so I go with a visual feel of what I want to do. I wanted to separate the colours of the landscape: the colour of the hat, the horse, its saddle blanket, were all selected deliberately. The image is all about power and grace – the gesture of the animal is so forceful, and the cowboy is so in control.