Paramount Skydance makes $108.4bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery, challenging Netflix’s offer – as it happened

Newsflash: Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros Discovery, in an attempt to derail Netflix’s bid for the movie studio and streaming network.Paramount claims that its offer “provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion to WBD shareholders” than the Netflix offer, which has led to a backlash since it was announced last Friday.Paramount are offering to pay $30.00 per share in cash for Warner Brothers Discovery, which equates to an enterprise value of $108.4bn – ahead of Netflix’s offer which was worth $83bn

Bank of England cutting jobs as part of overhaul after critical Bernanke review

The Bank of England has said it is cutting jobs amid sweeping changes at Threadneedle Street after a highly critical review into its failure to forecast surging inflation.Under budget pressures as it responded to the report from the former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, the Bank has opened a voluntary scheme last week as part of an efficiency drive to find savings.The process, which will run until mid-January, with staff expected to leave in March, was first reported by Bloomberg. The Bank said it was “a mutually agreed, time-limited scheme for staff to choose to apply to leave.“We are now implementing a significant, multiyear transformation of our operations and this will condition our decisions

Scores of UK parliamentarians join call to regulate most powerful AI systems

More than 100 UK parliamentarians are calling on the government to introduce binding regulations on the most powerful AI systems as concern grows that ministers are moving too slowly to create safeguards in the face of lobbying from the technology industry.A former AI minister and defence secretary are part of a cross-party group of Westminster MPs, peers and elected members of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislatures demanding stricter controls on frontier systems, citing fears superintelligent AI “would compromise national and global security”.The push for tougher regulation is being coordinated by a nonprofit organisation called Control AI whose backers include the co-founder of Skype, Jaan Tallinn. It is calling on Keir Starmer to show independence from Donald Trump’s White House, which opposes the regulation of AI. One of the “godfathers” of the technology, Yoshua Bengio, recently said it was less regulated than a sandwich

A robot walks into a bar: can a Melbourne researcher get AI to do comedy?

Robots can make humans laugh – mostly when they fall over – but a new research project is looking at whether robots using AI could ever be genuinely funny.If you ask ChatGPT for a funny joke, it will serve you up something that belongs in a Christmas cracker: “Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts.”The University of Melbourne’s Dr Robert Walton, a dean’s research fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, is taking a different approach to working out whether robots can do comedy.Thanks to an Australian Research Council grant of about $500,000, he will train a swarm of robots in standup. And, at least in the beginning, they won’t use words

Ross Byrne says escort defender crackdown could see locks converted to wings

The Gloucester fly-half Ross Byrne believes international head coaches could convert second-rows into wings for the next men’s Rugby World Cup in 2027 to capitalise on the crackdown on escort defenders.Last October World Rugby instructed referees to scrutinise and punish defending teams obstructing opponents chasing high contestable kicks, a move that has had a profound tactical impact on the elite game.The former Leinster No 10 said it is a “backward step” and a “negative” development that will fundamentally change the sport long term.“Unfortunately I think it’s changed how everybody plays,” Byrne said. “Everybody knows the stats: because of the new rules whoever kicks the ball is most likely to get it back

McCullum’s ‘overprepared’ Ashes remark may prove England’s Bazball epitaph

Brendon McCullum hated the term Bazball from the moment it entered the lexicon, deeming it to be reductive and perhaps knowing how it might be weaponised down the line. Now, 2-0 down in an away Ashes series that began with high hopes, it has become the butt of Australian jokes.But McCullum has not helped himself, either. After the gutting at the Gabba, his insistence that, if anything, England trained “too hard” before the day‑night match was like trying to put out a bin fire with petrol. It risks becoming his epitaph as England head coach if performances do not take an upturn