For anyone who lived through the tabloid years of the aughts, Lindsay Lohan’s joyful return to the big screen isn’t just cause for celebration, it’s something that once seemed highly implausible. Lohan, the preeminent teen screen icon of the Y2K era, was subjected to a brutally judgmental media landscape in her young adulthood, which picked apart her partying, appearance, love life, erratic behavior, career choices and general mischief-making before she eventually slipped off the radar. In the past few years, she’s mounted a comeback via Netflix originals and a cameo in last year’s “Mean Girls” reboot, but seeing her star in a fun, fresh revival of one of her signature early 2000s hits feels nothing short of miraculous.

It’s also a miracle that “Freakier Friday” is as funny and entertaining as it is, because reboots and sequels bear a heavy burden of comparison to their beloved originals. Mark Waters’ 2003 film “Freaky Friday” (a remake of the 1976 film based on the book by Mary Rodgers) was a bona fide hit, and what’s clear — and crucial — in “Freakier Friday” is that writer Jordan Weiss and director Nisha Ganatra (Elyse Hollander has a story credit) have a true love and appreciation not just for the original film, but for Lohan’s filmography, and the entire subgenre of Disney Channel Original Movies. They throw the concept of a “guilty pleasure” to the wind and craft a comedy that’s giddily liberating in its celebration of every corny trope.

Somehow, “Freakier Friday” is self-aware but not sarcastic, knowing but not ironic, slapstick while remaining sincere, clever without being glib. It’s not a teardown or parody of the teen girly genre but a reaffirmation of it with a modern lens. It’s the kind of movie that an elder millennial mom and her Gen Alpha daughter can both enjoy on their own levels.

While “Freaky Friday” is a love letter to moms and daughters who learn to walk in each other’s shoes, “Freakier” is a sister story, and what it means to fold new family members in with the old. Our former teen rocker Anna (Lohan) is now a successful music manager in Los Angeles and a single mom to surfer girl Harper (Julia Butters). Her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), a therapist with a podcast, has assigned herself as grand-co-parent, and Anna chafes against her mother’s overbearing insertion of herself into her parenting.

That storyline quickly fades when Anna falls for another single parent, Eric (Manny Jacinto), who happens to be the father of Harper’s lab partner, Lily (Sophie Hammons). Too bad the girls can’t stand each other, and Lily wants to return to her native London while Harper can’t bear to be far from the beach. With Anna and Eric’s wedding looming (their courtship is depicted in a rapid-fire montage of snapshots and love notes), a peace accord must be forged. There’s only one thing that can resolve this battle of wills: body swap!

A visit with kooky psychic/spiritual grifter Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer) leaves the teen girls with a mantra, “change the hearts that are wrong, and you will find where you belong.” A mysterious earthquake, a full moon, and boom: it’s a double swap. Mother and daughter Harper and Anna wake up in each other’s bodies, while Lily ends up in the body of her future step-grandmother Tess. Does that track? Not really. But if it gets Curtis into a bunch of wacky costumes, we’ll take it, and the excellent costume design by Natalie O’Brien does a lot of heavy lifting, story-wise.

Curtis is the hands-down superstar of “Freakier Friday.” While this may be Lohan’s big comeback, with the love story and the big climactic rock star moment, the movie belongs to Curtis. She gets the biggest material to play with, as the whiny fashionista teen princess Lily, and jumps at the opportunity to play the physical comedy to the max.

It’s nice to see Lohan having fun again, even if the spunk that made her a teen star feels slightly sanded down. Ganatra and Weiss throw a ton of high jinks, jokes, references and comedy heavy-hitters into the film so that it never slows down — even if it’s stuffed to bursting with bits. Almost every supporting actor from the original is back, and “Freakier Friday” manages to hit a sweet spot of nostalgia without being an outright period piece.

It’s easy to question the necessity of reboots and legacyquels in this IP-obsessed movie landscape. But “Freakier Friday” feels genuinely restorative, not just for Lohan’s reputation, but for the inner child who once loved movies like this, delighting in silly tropes like food fights, hunks tossing their hair in slow-motion and makeover montages. Ganatra has delivered us a love letter to that movie, and it’s a true joy to revel in that playground once again.

‘Freakier Friday’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references)

Running time: 1:51

How to watch: In theaters on Friday, Aug. 8

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By ISABELLA VOLMERT, Associated Press

Vice President JD Vance visits Indiana on Thursday to discuss redistricting with Republican leaders as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on GOP states to redraw congressional boundaries and give the party more winnable seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

Vance is scheduled to hold private meetings with Gov. Mike Braun and others before attending a GOP fundraiser Thursday night in the solidly Republican state. Braun told reporters Tuesday he expects to discuss several matters with the vice president — including redistricting — but said no commitments have been made.

“It looks like it’s going to happen across many Republican states,” Braun said.

Vance’s visit comes after Texas Democrats successfully stalled a vote there this week on a redrawn congressional map, part of a bid to secure five more GOP-leaning congressional seats at the expense of Democrats before the midterms. The White House’s goal is to give Republicans an easier path to maintaining control of the House.

Indiana is staunchly Republican, but opponents of any redistricting attempt are planning to make their objections known Thursday with protests and a news conference by the two Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Protestors, including Linda Lynn, Cent, of Indianapolis, cheer during a really against redistricting at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Braun would have to call a special session if he chooses to start the redistricting process, but lawmakers have the sole power to draw up new maps.

Braun’s office has not responded to multiple emailed requests seeking more details about Vance’s visit.

Republican U.S. representatives outnumber Democrats in Indiana 7-2, limiting the possibilities of squeezing out another seat. The constitutionality of the move would also almost certainly be challenged in court.

Indiana lawmakers have been wary of the national spotlight in recent years, especially after a special session in 2022 resulted in lawmakers enacting a strict ban on abortions. Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state with a strong base of loyalists to the president.

But Indiana is also home to Mike Pence, the former vice president and a past governor whose more measured approach to partisan politics still holds sway among many state lawmakers.

The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state’s northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen as a possible pickup in recent years as manufacturing union jobs have left the area, said Laura Merrifield Wilson, a professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis.

Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable towards Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes that also gave a boost to the GOP in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.

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Mrvan won reelection in 2022 by a respectable margin and easily retained his seat again in 2024. In a statement Tuesday, Mrvan said the Trump administration knows its policies are “wildly unpopular.”

“They know that their only hope to maintain control is to pressure the Indiana General Assembly to violate the Indiana Constitution and redistrict U.S. House of Representative(s) seats mid-decade,” he added.

The more dramatic option would be to zero in on Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis.

Indiana’s legislative leaders, House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, held their same positions four years ago when the Legislature finalized the new maps. Both expressed approval of the final product and said the borders fairly reflected the makeup of the state.

“I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,” Bray said at the time.

Both leaders have been quiet on the possibility of a special session. Bray and Huston’s offices did not respond to multiple messages left over the phone and email Wednesday.

Republicans hold a supermajority in the Indiana House and Senate, meaning Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend.

Julia Vaughn, director of Common Cause Indiana, said a costly redistricting process will not look good for Republicans who tightened the belt on the state budget this past legislative session due to revenue forecasts. Common Cause is one of the leading groups nationally opposing Trump’s push to redistrict.

“I don’t think there is any way they could rationalize spending taxpayer dollars to come back to Indianapolis to redraw maps that were just drawn four years ago for purely partisan purposes,” Vaughn said.

By JOSH BOAK, MIKE SCHNEIDER and JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has instructed the Commerce Department to change the way the Census Bureau collects data, seeking to exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally, he said Thursday.

The census’ data collections will be based on “modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” the Republican president said on his social media platform, an indication he might try to inject his politics into survey work that measures everything from child poverty to business operations.

Trump stressed that as part of the changes people in “our Country illegally” will be excluded from census counts.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, Aug. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

His Truth Social post fits into an overall pattern in which he has tried to reshape basic measures of how U.S. society is faring to his liking, a process that ranges from monthly jobs figures to how congressional districts are drawn going into the 2026 midterm elections. But there could be legal challenges if he were to reshape the census, which also guides the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal funds to the states for roads, health care and other programs.

In a 2019 decision, the Supreme Court effectively blocked Trump from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” should be counted for the numbers used for apportionment, the process of allocating congressional seats and Electoral College votes among the states based on population.

The last time the census included a question about citizenship was in 1950, and the Census Bureau’s own experts had predicted that millions of Hispanics and immigrants would go uncounted if the census asked everyone if he or she is an American citizen.

Changes to the census could also play into the efforts by Trump to urge several Republican-led states, including Texas, to redraw their congressional maps ahead of schedule in ways that would favor GOP candidates.

Redistricting typically occurs once every 10 years following the census, as states adjust district boundaries based on population changes, often gaining or losing seats in the process.

Despite Texas having redrawn its maps just a few years ago, Trump is pressuring Republicans in the state to redistrict again, claiming they are “entitled” to five additional Republican seats. Texas Republicans have cited population growth as justification for redrawing the congressional map.

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Trump’s team is also engaged in similar redistricting discussions in other GOP-controlled states, including Missouri and Indiana.

Last Friday, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after standard revisions to the monthly jobs report showed that employers added 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported in May and June. The revisions suggested that hiring has severely weakened under Trump, undermining his claims of an economic boom.

The White House insists that the problem was the size of the revisions and that it wants accurate numbers.

Trump’s census posting raised the question as to whether he would embark on a mid-decade census, or simply change the standards for 2030 or change how the estimates operate between censuses. It was unclear what his changes would be.

It would be almost logistically impossible to carry out a mid-decade census in such a short period of time, New York Law School professor Jeffrey Wice said. Any changes in the conduct of a national census, which is the biggest non-military undertaking by the federal government, also would require approval from Congress, which has oversight responsibilities, and there likely would be a fierce fight, he said.

“This isn’t something that you can do overnight,” said Wice, a census and redistricting expert. “To get all the pieces put together, it would be such a tremendous challenge, if not impossible.”

AP writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report. Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.

For just the second time since 2016, the Timberwolves will play multiple preseason games at Target Center this fall.

Exhibition contests aren’t money makers for the home team in the NBA, and aren’t a desired asset for season ticket holders. The Wolves have often traveled for the bouts, playing the majority of their preseason games in road arenas or at neutral sites.

But Minnesota will host the defending Eastern Conference champion Pacers and the Guangzhou Loong Lions from the Chinese Basketball Association in October.

Minnesota’s exhibition slate opens against Denver on Oct. 4 in San Diego at Pechanga Arena. That arena is part of the Nuggets’ ownership group’s 48-acre Midway Rising redevelopment.

Here is Minnesota’s complete preseason schedule:

Oct. 4: vs. Denver in San Diego

Oct. 7: vs. Indiana at Target Center

Oct. 9: At New York

Oct. 13: vs. Guangzhou Loong Lions at Target Center

Oct. 16: At Chicago

Oct. 17: At Philadelphia

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