Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Reeves to announce ‘megafunds’ shake-up of local government pension scheme

Rachel Reeves has told the Financial Times that her plans will create eight pension “megafunds”.

She has told the Financial Times that these eight pools, worth an average £50bn by 2030, would end the role of local councils in administering the money and boost “fast-growing British businesses and infrastructure”.

“Everything will go through the pools rather than through local authorities.

This will deliver the megafunds that have eluded the UK for too long.”

“As the UK’s largest pension provider, we warmly welcome today’s announcement. These proposals will help get more savers into larger schemes that can offer better value and more opportunities for productive investment”.

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The actor, writer and director mines his own backlog of unmade projects to create an exhilarating collection

Rupert Everett prefaces his suite of short stories with an account of the showbiz ruse that provides the title, a grim little routine whereby American film producers intoxicate a would-be screenwriter into feeling that a deal has been done, only to then forget them entirely. Will Everett’s readers offer up the English equivalent, murmuring “Darling, you were marvellous” before moving swiftly on? Well, the collection certainly delivers what Everett’s fans will be hoping for: quality time in his inimitable company. But it also delivers much more. Sometimes, it is simply the energy and poise of the prose that arrest one’s attention; often, it is Everett’s combination of studied carnality with an outlandish gift for invention. This is a storyteller unafraid to spike his black comedy with sudden and strongly brewed emotion – and vice versa.

In his frequent interjections, Everett is disarmingly frank about these stories’ origins. In 20 years of making pitches to TV and film producers, only one project of his has ever landed. This was his directorial debut, The Happy Prince, a meditation on Oscar Wilde’s fall from grace which got considerably more of Wilde’s rage and sorrow on to the screen than many more respectable versions (elements of the film are reworked in the second of these stories). But that was back in 2018, and these days, Everett’s phone isn’t ringing. A rainswept encounter with a former Soho contact sparks the idea that he could usefully bring some of his rejected ideas into a new kind of life. The result is intriguing, not least because these vivid little adventures aren’t really short stories at all; they are scenes from unmade films, reimagined as prose.

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Beautifully shot among Shetland’s epic scenery, Charlie Hamilton James’s documentary follows Billy and wife Susan, as Molly changes their lives in the most uplifting way

This rather lovely film tells the story of a man called Billy Mail, and his otter – a pup he rescued after spotting it half-starved on the pontoon bobbing in the Atlantic at the bottom of his garden in Shetland. Billy called the otter Molly, and started feeding it. On the voiceover his wife, Susan, says Molly took over their lives, and she’s not kidding. By the end of the film, Molly is living in a handbuilt miniature bothy in the garden, dining on haddock; we get to feast on Shetland’s epic scenery, beautifully shot by wildlife cameraman and National Geographic photographer Charlie Hamilton James.

Otters are apparently extremely shy, so Molly must be desperate, Billy reasoned when he found her in March 2021. He bought a book about otters, which was no help at all trying to raise a pup, so he made it up as he went along. “I felt a bit daft sometimes,” he says over footage of himself filling a tub with brightly coloured plastic balls for Molly to play in. But, like a good mummy otter, his plan was to get Molly to the point where she could go it alone and survive the winter. Susan wonders if the relationship flipped from Billy keeping Molly going to the other way round.

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It was once the envy of the world – but now its arrogance and failure to change or take risks lie at the root of its decline

About 50 years ago, a man named Hans Bauer who worked in marketing for a German carmaker came up with the slogan Vorsprung durch Technik or “advantage through technology”. Poetry it wasn’t. The slogan seemed a little clumsy and too heavy on consonants, sounding harsh even to German ears. But it stuck because it captured something that rang true. The Germans had an edge in manufacturing cars and other machines.

The company that employed Bauer was Audi, which has used the slogan ever since. For a long time, there seemed to be no need for adjustment. True, whenever the Germans experienced an economic downturn, they asked themselves whether the all-important carmakers had lost their edge. But then some tweaks would be made, and the engine would roar back to life. This time feels different. And that’s not just because of recent bad news, which includes BMW and Mercedes posting profit warnings , Volkswagen pondering massive job cuts and, on top of it all, Donald Trump threatening to slap steep tariffs on US imports. It’s because the Germans are now realising they may have lost that special something called Vorsprung .

Konstantin Richter is a Berlin-based writer who is now working on a book about the history of corporate Germany

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The acclaimed photographer spent two decades photographing his hometown of Buffalo, New York – capturing its ‘quiet resilience and strange beauty’

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The medieval Lombardy town in the Valtellina Alps will host the skiing in the 2026 Winter Olympics, but for now it’s full of under-the-radar charm

Viewed from the top of the 2,255-metre-high Stelvio piste, the town of Bormio far below looks like a Christmas cake, with pine trees and church spires poking out of a snow-filled scene. The two are connected by a run which, with a vertical drop of 1,010 metres and gradients reaching 60%, is one of the most technically demanding and physically gruelling descents on the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Ski World Cup circuit. The men’s downhill and super-G events are held here regularly, including this December.

Luckily for someone who has never been, and will never be, a natural-born skier, I’m not here to tackle this beast of a piste. My bird’s-eye view of the town is instead part of an enjoyably energetic snowshoe hike with guide Luca in the Stelvio national park , Italy’s largest at more than 500 square miles (1,300 sq km).

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Oscar winners Mark Rylance and Olivia Colman among those writing to Rachel Reeves about excluding fossil fuels

Leading British actors including Mark Rylance, Olivia Colman, and Benedict Cumberbatch have called on the chancellor to increase investment in clean energy by reforming pensions.

Members of the performing arts union Equity have written an open letter to Rachel Reeves before her Mansion House speech on Thursday asking her to make “smart, strategic reforms” that could unlock £1.2tn from the pensions sector for growing clean energy and infrastructure in the UK.

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Is the end nigh for the Lewis family in Everyone Else Burns? Plus: the Taskmaster champion is crowned. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Channel 4

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Donald Trump wasted no time in assembling his top team, with picks like Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard causing consternation among friends and foes alike

• Profile: who is Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general
• How a Republican trifecta makes way for Trump’s agenda

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