Rachel Reeves’s plan to mandate how pension funds invest was always a mistake | Nils Pratley

A simple principle lies at the heart of pension investment: the pension manager must invest in the best interest of the client. UK ministers have often wished UK funds would show more home bias by channelling more pensioners’ cash towards domestic assets in the interests of economic growth, but the fundamental rule of the game has always been understood. You don’t mess with the fiduciary duty.Thus, when Rachel Reeves a year ago unveiled her Mansion House accord – a pledge by 17 of the biggest providers to earmark a slice of workplace pensions for UK private assets – it was made clear the arrangement was voluntary. What’s more, as the signatories emphasised, the commitment was “subject to fiduciary duty and the consumer duty” and “dependent on implementation by the government and regulators of critical enablers”

Oil nearing $120 a barrel for first time since 2022 as Trump maintains Iranian blockade – as it happened

A late update: Oil is now approaching its highest level since the Iran war began.Brent crude has risen over $119 a barrel, up 7% today, after president Donald Trump told Axios he will not lift a naval blockade of Iran’s ports until he secures a deal with Tehran to address the country’s nuclear program.This decision extends the ongoing standoff over the Strait of Hormuz that has caused a global energy crisis.Trump said in a phone interview Wednesday, according to Axios:double quotation mark“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig

Friendly AI chatbots more likely to support conspiracy theories, study finds

The rush to make AI chatbots more friendly has a troubling downside, researchers say. The warm personas make them prone to mistakes and sympathetic to crackpot beliefs.Chatbots trained to respond more warmly gave poorer answers, worse health advice and even supported conspiracy theories by casting doubt on events such as the Apollo moon landings and the fate of Adolf Hitler.Researchers at Oxford University discovered the trade-off during tests on chatbots that had been tweaked to make them sound friendlier. The warmer chatbots were 30% less accurate in their answers and 40% more likely to support users’ false beliefs

I’m addicted to checking my phone. Could a blocking device stop me?

Wake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something – what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the pesticides causing lung and bowel cancer, so everyone who eats salads is now at risk of cancer; meditate for 20 minutes, then fire up x.com, a place I thought I’d never want to revisit, with its carnival barkers and supplement salesman, and have you seen the Lego thing calling Trump a paedo?, you gotta see the Lego thing, and this is before my first coffee, yet x.com is the coffee and the tea, whatever Elon has done to the For You algorithm is evil genius, it’s like the global collective id, nasty and funny and addictive and compelling – like gawking at a car crash, like soaking in a hot bubble bath of anger, and memes, and geopolitical dramas, and Trump, Trump, Trump – soaking in Trump, and then, For Me (just as Elon promised).So begins the circuit around my phone, that goes all day and night, around the tiny screen with its icons (when a born-again Christian once told me he had favourite icons, for a long time I thought he meant apps, not pictures of the Virgin Mary). I started to feel like I was in Canberra, on one of those enormous roundabouts, rotating between the icons – not Joseph, not Jesus, but X and WhatsApp and TikTok and even LinkedIn for Christ sakes – round and round from one app to the next, just checking, checking in case something is happening

The Spin | Knight-Stokes Cup sets up much-needed platform for state school cricket

As a state school-educated international cricketer, the former England bowler Sajid Mahmood has always been in the minority. A report from the Sutton Trust charity last year found 59% of professional male cricketers in England went to independent schools, ranking the sport behind only the armed forces (63%) and senior judges (62%) as the country’s most privately educated profession. Yet Mahmood has become even more of an outlier since his playing retirement.While it is common for former professional cricketers to take up positions as private school coaches once they hang up their playing boots, Mahmood has spent the past eight years teaching the sport to state school students in west London. It is a path so uncommon that he is yet to encounter another England cricketer in the state system

Luka Dončić and the manosphere: why the scrutiny of his body never ends

In Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary Inside the Manosphere, he interviews podcasters, streamers and influencers from across the Red Pill ecosystem. But the most profound moments are when he speaks with their followers. Regular, everyday American men who struggle to make a living, find love, get laid and start a family.One of them is a Latino man in his 20s living in Miami. He explains that Andrew Tate’s message helped pull him out of homelessness