‘Making films is who I am’: Tom Cruise gets lifetime achievement Oscar

The Hollywood star – who had been nominated for multiple Oscars but never previously won – was honoured at the Academy’s annual Governors awards, along with Dolly Parton, Wynn Thomas and Debbie Allen

TotalEnergies buys €5.1bn stake in Czech tycoon’s power plants business

Daniel Křetínský to become a major shareholder in French oil firm as part of deal creating 50/50 joint venture

Thames Water bidder says it is offering £1bn extra cash injection

Castle Water says restructuring plans do not go far enough and extra funds will help resolve pollution crisis

AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief

Artificial intelligence will become smarter than ‘most or all humans in most or all ways’, says Dario Amodei

WPP shares leap amid takeover bid speculation

Advertising group declines to comment on reports of interest from rival Havas and private equity groups Apollo and KKR

Undisciplined? Entitled? Lazy? Gen Z faces familiar flood of workplace criticism

A new generation of younger workers are being derided as delusional and unreliable, just as millennials were

Reeves could allow holiday tax on English hotel and Airbnb stays

Move to give mayors powers to raise funds through levies, but industry says it will ramp up prices and inflation

Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track

Former Beatle and artists including Sam Fender, Kate Bush and Hans Zimmer record silent LP Is This What We Want

FCA’s first deputy CEO calls for stronger grip on vital tech firms

Sarah Pritchard suggests City regulator will make use of oversight powers amid growing number of outages

Asking prices fall as UK housing market hit by budget speculation, Rightmove says

November drop of 1.8% is biggest for this time of year since 2012, with chancellor’s plans looming

Roman Abramovich makes claim of ‘conspiracy’ against Jersey government

Move threatens to throw open parts of secretive legal battle on Channel island about ex-Chelsea owner’s wealth

Joe Rigby obituary

Other lives: Head of programme planning for Granada Television in Manchester for 20 years

Merchants’ ‘victory’ over credit card fees will just complicate things more for them

Do small business owners think that Visa and Mastercard won’t just recoup their fees elsewhere?

UK watchdogs need to step in on rip-off bills, which are bad for consumers and the economy

From mobiles to insurance and subscriptions, firms are able to exploit the fact they know more than customers

Inside Trump’s scramble to reduce US dependence on Chinese rare-earth metals

The White House has made it a top priority to return the rare-earth industry to US shores. But is it really feasible?