Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts after they lost the confidence of other administration officials and found themselves without allies at the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The exit of Waltz and Wong marked the conclusion of a fraught tenure. In March, Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.

The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, but reportedly decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz’s error was a mistake.

The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other senior officials.

In the days after the Signal group chat episode, Waltz sought advice from JD Vance and others in the vice-president’s circle about how to reset relations. Vance counseled Waltz to be more deferential to Wiles, who had pushed for him to get the job, and throw around his weight less.

But Waltz also came under fire from other corners. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America First” agenda.

That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. And there was also a campaign to oust Waltz and Wong led by Steve Bannon and separately by the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who pushed a conspiracy that Wong had loyalties to China. Loomer weakened Waltz’s power after she went to the White House last month at Trump’s invitation and successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers. She also unsuccessfully advocated for Wong to be fired at the time.

But the gutting of Waltz’s staff was widely seen to have weakened his position inside Trump’s orbit. As Carlson, Bannon and Loomer separately pushed a whisper campaign that Waltz would be out before June, officials in the White House concurred that Waltz’s influence was waning.

This week, it was quietly made clear to Waltz and Wong that their time at the national security council would be coming to an end. Waltz tried to extend his tenure by attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday but was informed of his removal on Thursday, one of the people said.

The Trump administration has unveiled a news-style website that publishes exclusively positive coverage of the president on official White House servers.

White House Wire, published at the government domain WH.gov/wire, resembles the rightwing website the Drudge Report, with a list of headlines from right-leaning outlets praising the administration.

It also promotes White House press releases and social media posts by high-level officials.

The administration’s launch of what it describes as a news “wire” comes amid its ongoing efforts to restrict real news wire services from accessing the White House. Journalists with the Associated Press, the non-partisan news agency, remain barred from Oval Office events despite winning a recent court ruling that ordered the administration to re-admit it. Trevor McFadden, a district judge, ruled that the administration’s attempt to punish AP for not using the new term “Gulf of America” instead of the globally accepted “Gulf of Mexico” was a violation of the first amendment.

A White House official told Axios that the new site is “a place for supporters of the president’s agenda to get the real news”, describing it as providing “transparency”.

While previous administrations would often send emails promoting positive news coverage or interviews with senior officials, it appears to be the first time federal resources have been used to build a website that curates partisan news coverage.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has been attempting to sideline the established press in favor of friendlier media. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, now follows her regular press briefings with special ones exclusively for pro-Trump “Maga influencers”, who have used these sessions to ask softball questions and to echo administration talking points.

Matt Drudge, a conservative critic of Trump and founder of the Drudge Report site that seems to have inspired the government’s design, teased the launch on his own website and jokingly threatened a “$1tn lawsuit” in comments to Status News.

Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his department have made a series of misleading statements that alarmed vaccine experts and advocates in recent days – including that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine includes “aborted fetus debris”.

Health department officials released statements saying they could alter vaccine testing and build new “surveillance systems” on Wednesday, both of which have unnerved experts who view new placebo testing as potentially unethical.

“It’s his goal to even further lessen trust in vaccines and make it onerous enough for manufacturers that they will abandon it,” said Dr Paul Offit, an expert on infectious disease and immunology and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, about the statements and Kennedy. “It’s a fragile market.”

In this same week, Kennedy exhorted parents to “do their own research” in a talkshow interview – the phrase has become pop culture shorthand for a shallow internet search that casts people into the arms of the disinformation ecosystem.

“All new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure – a radical departure from past practices,” an HHS spokesperson told the Washington Post in response to questions about general vaccine policy and the measles vaccine. The department did not clarify what it meant by “new vaccine”.

The department spokesperson also described new surveillance systems for vaccines, “that will accurately measure vaccine risks as well as benefits – because real science demands both transparency and accountability”, but did not elaborate on the design of those systems.

Prior to being confirmed to the role of health secretary, Kennedy was arguably the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine advocate and led a non-profit known for prolific misinformation. He also earned money by referring clients to law firms suing vaccine makers.

Among the claims Kennedy spread was that medications cause “autoimmune injuries and allergic injuries and neurodevelopmental injuries that have long diagnostic horizons or long incubation periods, so you can do the study and you will not see the injury for five years”, he said in an interview in 2021, according to reporting by the Post.

Kennedy also claimed this week that the MMR vaccine includes “aborted fetus debris”. The rubella vaccine, like many vaccines, is produced using decades-old sterile fetal cell lines derived from two elective terminations in the 1960s, including the rubella vaccine.

Vaccines against new pathogens, such as Covid-19, are placebo tested. However, experts consider new placebo-controlled trials for long-time vaccines, for instance measles, to be unethical because it would effectively deny a patient a known intervention while potentially exposing them to a dangerous disease.

“No institutional review board at any academic center would ever accept that – so he’s asking what personal injury lawyer invariably asks for, which is the impossible to be done,” said Offit.

Although Kennedy has made false and misleading statements about vaccines generally, the Covid-19 vaccine appears to be especially in the administration’s crosshairs.

In response to recent questions about Covid-19 strategy from the Guardian, the administration responded: “The Covid-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

Health officials have reportedly required all research grant applications on messenger RNA technology, which powers most Covid-19 vaccines, be flagged to Kennedy’s office. They have also ended research that tested for the Covid-19 vaccine’s safety and efficacy in special groups, such as pregnant women, as part of an $11bn clawback in grants from states.

Most controversially, the Food and Drug Administration has delayed expected approval of a new Covid-19 vaccine from Novavax, reportedly on the review of a political appointee known to be skeptical of vaccines.

Over the weekend, FDA commissioner Marty Makary addressed the delay by describing annual updates to the vaccine’s strains as a “new” product, creating confusion about whether vaccine makers have to conduct new safety and efficacy trials. Such trials would not be a normal part of routine updates.

On Monday, the company released a statement that said in part the FDA had demanded a clinical trial as part of post-approval surveillance, and that it would continue to work with the FDA.

Banks in the City of London have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing “carbon bombs” – huge oil, gas and coal projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global consequences – according to a study.

Nine London-based banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds are involved in financing companies responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 – the year after the landmark Paris agreement was signed – and 2023, according to the study.

If the projects go ahead, the study says they will have the potential to produce 420bn tonnes of carbon emissions, equivalent to more than 10 years of current global carbon dioxide emissions.

“Despite the UK’s seemingly ambitious climate plans, it is astonishing how much money has flowed from UK banks to companies worldwide developing the biggest climate-wrecking and damaging projects since 2016,” said Fatima Eisam-Eldeen, a lead analyst at the Leave It in the Ground Initiative, the climate thinktank that produced the study. “Real climate ambition and leadership would mean proper financial regulation not only within the country but also beyond the country’s borders by stopping all financial flows to companies exacerbating the climate crisis we all suffer.”

The report follows a Guardian investigation that revealed how big fossil fuel companies were quietly planning scores of vast projects that threaten to shatter the effort towards the international goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

In that investigation the countries found to have the most carbon bomb plans were the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia and China, with the UK playing a minor role.

However, the findings, which look at how the companies behind these projects are being financed, reveal the UK is a key financial hub for destructive fossil fuel mega-projects, financing companies that are involved in more than a quarter of the carbon bombs identified across the globe.

Lucie Pinson, the director of the campaign group Reclaim Finance, said UK banks were turning the City of London into “Europe’s stronghold for financing fossil fuel expansion, undermining the role the UK has played in advancing climate finance”.

She added: “As international tensions escalate, these banks must now choose which world they want to help build, Trump’s world of fossil fuels, where the most powerful profit at the expense of millions, including their own fellow citizens, or a world where economic, financial and political leaders roll up their sleeves and drive the ecological transformation of our economies.”

The new study used the list of carbon bomb projects identified in the original 2022 research then worked out which companies were behind them. It then tracked who was financing these companies.

When approached by the Guardian, some banks objected to the study’s methodology, questioning whether it was fair to attribute the entire emissions of a carbon bomb to a bank that had given finance to a company as a whole rather than to the specific project.

But the researchers say that banks usually fund the company rather than specific fossil fuel development, and that this finance is critical in allowing the companies to push ahead with these destructive projects.

The report found HSBC is financially supporting companies involved in the most carbon bomb projects: 104. It calculated that emissions caused by burning the extracted fossil fuel from these projects would add up to 392 gigatons – or 392bn metric tonnes – of carbon dioxide.

Standard Chartered bank came next, supporting companies involved in 75 carbon bombs, then Barclays, financing companies involved in 62 mega-projects. Lloyds backed firms involved in 26 and NatWest financed firms involved in 20.

HSBC, Lloyds and Standard Chartered declined to comment on the report when approached by the Guardian.

A Barclays spokesperson said it could not comment on individual projects but that the bank provided “financing across the energy sector: supporting energy security, working with customers and clients on their low-carbon transition and mobilising sustainable and transition financing with a target of $1tn by 2030. We are taking pragmatic steps to meet our 2030 financed emissions targets, while helping the world meet its energy needs securely and affordably.”

A spokesperson for NatWest said it had lent more than £93bn in climate and sustainable funding and financing since the start of 2021, against a target of £100bn by the end of this year. They added: “Whilst we recognise the importance of the entire energy industry in furthering the goals of decarbonisation and energy security, our lending to oil and gas represents less than 0.7% of our financing activity.”

The US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share profits and royalties from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.

The minerals deal, which has been the subject of tense negotiations for months and nearly fell through hours before it was signed, will establish a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund that the Trump administration has said will begin to repay an estimated $175bn in aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” said Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in a statement.

“President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine. And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, confirmed in a social media post that she had signed the agreement on Wednesday. “Together with the United States, we are creating the fund that will attract global investment into our country,” she wrote. The deal still needs to be approved by Ukraine’s parliament.

Ukrainian officials have divulged details of the agreement which they portrayed as equitable and allowing Ukraine to maintain control over its natural resources.

The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said that the fund would be split 50-50 with between the US and Ukraine and give each side equal voting rights.

Ukraine would retain “full control over its mineral resources, infrastructure and natural resources”, he said, and would relate only to new investments, meaning that the deal would not provide for any debt obligations against Ukraine, a key concern for Kyiv. The deal would ensure revenue by establishing contracts on a “take-or-pay” basis, Shmyhal added.

Shmyhal on Wednesday described the deal as “truly a good, equal and beneficial international agreement on joint investments in the development and recovery of Ukraine”.

Critics of the deal had said the White House is seeking to take advantage of Ukraine by linking future aid to the embattled nation to a giveaway of the revenues from its resources. The final terms were far less onerous for Ukraine than those proposed initially by Bessent in February, which included a clause that the US would control 100% of the revenues from the fund.

On Wednesday, Trump said a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine. “The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” he said at a cabinet meeting.

Speaking at a town hall with NewsNation after the deal had been signed, Trump said he told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recent meeting at the Vatican that signing the deal would be a “very good thing” because “Russia is much bigger and much stronger”.

Asked whether the minerals deal was going to “inhibit” Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump said “well, it could.”

UK foreign secretary David Lammy welcomed the agreement in a post on X, adding that “the UK’s support for Ukraine remains steadfast”.

It was unclear up until the last moment whether the US and Ukraine would manage to sign the deal, with Washington reportedly pressuring Ukraine to sign additional agreements, including on the structure of the investment fund, or to “go back home”. That followed months of strained negotiations during which the US regularly delivered last-minute ultimatums while cutting off aid and other support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia.

Ukraine’s prime minister earlier had said he expected the country to sign the minerals deal with the US in “the next 24 hours” but reports emerged that Washington was insisting Kyiv sign three deals in total.

The Financial Times said Bessent’s team had told Svyrydenko, who was reportedly en route to Washington DC, to “be ready to sign all agreements, or go back home”.

Bessent later said the US was ready to sign though Ukraine had made some last-minute changes.

Reuters reported that Ukraine believed the two supplementary agreements – reportedly on an investment fund and a technical document – required more work.

The idea behind the deal was originally proposed by Ukraine, looking for ways to offer economic opportunities that might entice Trump to back the country. But Kyiv was blindsided in January when Trump’s team delivered a document that would essentially involve handing over the country’s mineral wealth with little by way of return.

Since then, there have been various attempts to revise and revisit the terms of the deal, as well as a planned signing ceremony that was aborted after a disastrous meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House in February.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that the Ukrainian justice ministry had hired US law firm Hogan Lovells to advise on the negotiations over the deal, according to filings with the US Foreign Agents Registration Act registry.

In a post on Facebook, Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko gave further details of the fund, which she said would “attract global investment”.

She confirmed that Ukraine would retain full ownership of resources “on our territory and in territorial waters belong to Ukraine”. “It is the Ukrainian state that determines where and what to extract,” she said.

There would be no changes to ownership of state-owned companies, she said, “they will continue to belong to Ukraine”. That included companies such as Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest oil producer, and nuclear energy producer Energoatom.

Income would come from new licences for critical materials and oil and gas projects, not from projects which had already begun, she said.

Income and contributions to the fund would not be taxed in the US or Ukraine, she said, “to make investments yield the greatest results” and technology transfer and development were a “key” part of the agreement.

Washington would contribute to the fund, she said. “In addition to direct financial contributions, it may also provide new assistance – for example air defense systems for Ukraine,” she said. Washington did not directly address that suggestion.

Ukraine holds some 5% of the world’s mineral resources and rare earths, according to various estimates. But work has not yet started on tapping many of the resources and many sites are in territory now controlled by Russian forces.

Razom for Ukraine, a US non-profit that provides medical and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and advocates for US assistance, welcomed the deal, and encouraged the Trump administration to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the invasion.

“We encourage the Trump administration to build on the momentum of this economic agreement by forcing Putin to the table through sanctions, seizing Russia’s state assets to aid Ukraine, and giving Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself,” Mykola Murskyj, the director of advocacy for Razom, said in a statement.

There is cautious optimism in Kyiv over the terms of the long-discussed US-Ukraine minerals deal, signed on Wednesday, which appear to be more advantageous for Ukraine than most had expected.

Many details are still to be finalised and will be written into a yet-to-be-signed further technical agreement, suggesting that the long saga over the deal may not be quite over. But Ukrainian analysts have noted that Kyiv has apparently been able to extract some major concessions, despite Donald Trump’s repeated claim that Ukraine “has no cards” to play.

“Ukraine held the line. Despite enormous pressure, every overreaching demand from the other side was dropped. The final deal looks fair,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote on X.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said on Thursday that his country would retain “full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources”. Notably absent from the final text was the insistence that Ukraine should repay previous military US assistance via the deal, something Trump has previously repeatedly demanded. Volodymyr Zelenskyy had rejected signing something that would obligate “10 generations” of Ukrainians to repay. Future potential military assistance to Ukraine, however, will count as investments.

The signed agreement also makes it clear that its terms will not jeopardise Ukraine’s potential future integration with the EU, and also does not subject Ukraine to US legal jurisdiction. It does not lock Ukraine in to partnering only with the US on projects in future, and guarantees only access to bidding processes for US companies on fair terms.

“There’s no requirement to sell everything to the US, or to channel all investment through the fund. The obligation is to give the fund fair market access to future projects,” wrote Mylovanov.

The original idea of some kind of “rare earths” deal was thought up by Zelenskyy’s team. It was part of a “victory plan” unveiled before the US election last year, with the specific goal of interesting Trump in an economic partnership, amid fears that a potential Trump administration would not be as amenable to a values-based argument to support Ukraine as the Biden administration had been.

However it seemed that the gambit had backfired when, soon after taking office, Trump dispatched the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to Kyiv with the draft of an agreement that “looked like it had been written on the train”, according to one source. The plan appeared to lock Ukraine into all kinds of obligations, while offering Kyiv nothing in return by way of security guarantees, save the rather thin claim that Washington taking a stake in Ukraine’s economy was itself a kind of security guarantee.

Since then, there have been various attempts to revise and revisit the terms of the deal. In late February, Zelenskyy was meant to sign it during a meeting in Washington, but after the vice-president, JD Vance, goaded him into an argument in front of the cameras in the Oval Office, Ukraine’s president was kicked out of the White House without signing.

Earlier this month, it transpired that the Ukrainian justice ministry had hired the US law firm Hogan Lovells to advise on the deal, according to filings with the US Foreign Agents Registration Act registry.

The deal will need to be ratified by Ukraine’s parliament, while discussions will continue over the “technical agreement” that also needs to be finalised and signed. The overall agreement is unlikely to have a huge impact in terms of contracts signed as long as fighting between Ukraine and Russia continues, but the Zelenskyy team hope that getting it signed will increased goodwill towards Kyiv in the Trump administration. The US president in recent days has continued to paint Zelenskyy as a bigger obstacle to a peace deal than Vladimir Putin – although he has gradually inched towards criticism of the Russian leader.

The first rhetorical noises from Washington on the deal were positive. After signing the agreement, Bessent called it the start of a “historic economic partnership” and claimed it showed that the US remained committed to Ukraine as an ally.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” said Bessent.

Ukrainian and Russian civil society leaders have called for the unconditional release of thousands of Ukrainian civilians being held in Russian captivity, pushing for world leaders to make it a central part of any peace deal.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, said most of the discussion on ending the conflict, led by Donald Trump’s administration, focused solely on territories and potential security guarantees.

“It’s a huge problem that we lose the human dimension in this political process. Only with solving the human dimension can we find a path to sustainable peace,” she said.

On Tuesday, the Guardian and its reporting partners launched the Viktoriia project, an investigation into the death of the Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna in Russian custody, as well as a report on the systemic torture and mistreatment of thousands of civilian detainees seized by Russian occupying forces.

The European Commission on Wednesday condemned the killing, with foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper saying it showed life under occupation “remains a constant threat to Ukrainians”.

Jan Braathu, the media freedom representative for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said he was “appalled” by the evidence emerging in Roshchyna’s case. A preliminary autopsy suggests she was tortured before she died, and her brain and other body parts were removed in order to conceal the cause of death.

In a statement, Braathu said her treatment was a breach of international law, including the Geneva conventions and the UN conventions against torture – to which Russia is a signatory. “I condemn these grave abuses by the Russian Federation,” he said.

The Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that as of April 2024 the number of people registered as having disappeared stood at 16,000, but that calculating an exact total was impossible.

Those detained are often socially and politically active people Russia fears may resist occupation, as well as former military personnel or Ukrainian government officials. Some are simply in the wrong place in the wrong time and are pulled into a nightmare of torture and mistreatment.

Prisoners are often held incommunicado, without charge or access to legal support, and are not allowed to send and receive letters. Their fate is one of the lesser-reported aspects of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The Guardian and its reporting partners, in a collaboration led by the French newsroom Forbidden Stories, have gathered testimonies from former detainees at one of the most notorious holding facilities, Taganrog pre-trial detention facility No 2. They show civilians and prisoners of war are being subjected to severe food rationing, with little or no medical care, and that torture including electric shocks, physical and sexual violence and waterboarding is meted out by Russian guards.

“When you hear about the conditions and the torture, there is a clear understanding that some of these people have no chance to be alive by the time the political process has ended,” said Matviichuk.

Trump met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral in Rome on Saturday, while his envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. Trump claimed Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” and has said he wants the two sides to meet soon.

A draft of the supposed US peace plan, published last week by Reuters, covers territory, economic issues and security guarantees, but says nothing about prisoners.

Karyna Malakhova-Diachuk, the co-founder of an organisation that brings together the families of civilian detainees, said she was hoping that the freeing of these prisoners would come before a deal on territories and other elements that the US wants to nail down on the way to a lasting peace.

“First, there should be an agreement to bring all the people home, and only after that they should start other negotiations. Otherwise everything will stay frozen on this issue,” she said.

During the first year of the war, civilians were frequently included in prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine but it is now rare. Malakhova-Diachuk’s organisation comprises relatives of 380 detainees, and she said there had been no releases for more than a year of those linked to the group.

The emotional toll on relatives was hard to express, she said, adding that the horror stories to emerge from Russian prisons made the waiting and uncertainty all the more painful. “You see the PoWs return and they tell these horrific stories of torture and injuries and the things that happen there and there is just nothing you can do.”

A minority have been charged and given long prison terms for “terrorism” and other crimes, which could present further obstacles if Russia claims they are convicted criminals and so cannot be part of a deal.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy aide, said that civilian detainees, along with prisoners of war and the Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia, would be a key part of Ukraine’s demands in any peace deal. He added that even those who had been given prison terms in Russia should be freed as part of a peace deal.

“These courts have no legal weight for us. We don’t consider these people to be convicted of anything. And we will do everything for our citizens to be returned to Ukraine,” he said.

The human dimension has been absent from most of the western countries’ public messaging around the push for a peace deal, with the focus instead on territories and security guarantees.

“We’ve heard nothing at all from Trump. We are knocking on different doors of different governments,” said Oleg Orlov, head of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, which was also awarded the 2022 Nobel peace prize.

Memorial and the Centre for Civil Liberties are two of about 50 Ukrainian and Russian organisations that have created a campaign called People First, which calls for the freeing of all prisoners of war, civilian detainees and Ukrainian children taken to Russia, at an early stage in the peace process.

While the all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war is a normal part of the end of military hostilities, the mechanism to free civilians is less clear. “Russia should let them go without any conditions, but it will be very hard to achieve this,” said Orlov.

He said one solution could be for Ukraine to free citizens it had arrested on charges of collaboration with Russian occupying forces and offer them passage to Russia. “You can’t swap civilians, but there could be a possibility of a simultaneous freeing of these people with detained Ukrainian civilians,” he said.

Amid concerns about his health, Ozzy Osbourne has insisted he will perform in July at what is being billed as his final concert, fronting the original lineup of Black Sabbath.

Speaking along with his bandmates to the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis in an interview to be published on Friday, he said: “I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.”

The concert, titled Back to the Beginning and held at the band’s beloved Villa Park in Birmingham, features an all-star supporting lineup of metal greats including Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. But this week, the frontman of another supporting act, Tool, voiced doubt about Osbourne’s ability to perform.

“I’m cautious about saying, ‘Yeah! All in, he’s gonna do it’,” Maynard James Keenan said. “I don’t know what kind of modern miracles we’ll come up with to get him on stage to do the songs, but this is gonna be a challenge for them. So, I’m honoured to be a part of it, but I’m kinda preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best.”

Osbourne has experienced an extraordinary run of back luck with his health in recent years, including a 2019 fall that exacerbated an earlier spinal injury, requiring numerous surgeries. He has also suffered pneumonia and a longstanding infection, and has been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s.

Speaking to the Guardian, he acknowledged the psychological toll: “You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong. You begin to think this is never going to end.” He said the reunion concert was conceived by his wife, Sharon, as “something to give me a reason to get up in the morning”.

Back to the Beginning will reunite Osbourne with his original Black Sabbath bandmates for the first time in 20 years: guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. After forming in 1968 in Birmingham, the almighty weight of their sound, topped with Osbourne’s penetrating holler, ushered in an entire genre of heavy metal and resulted in classic albums such as Paranoid and Master of Reality. Osbourne left in 1979, then returned in 1997. The classic lineup played together until 2005, continuing without Ward for further tours and a final studio album, 2013’s 13.

Osbourne detailed his preparation for the reunion concert to the Guardian. “I do weights, bike riding, I’ve got a guy living at my house who’s working with me. It’s tough – I’ve been laid up for such a long time. I’ve been lying on my back doing nothing and the first thing to go is your strength. It’s like starting all over again. I’ve got a vocal coach coming round four days a week to keep my voice going. I have problems walking. I also get blood pressure issues, from blood clots on my legs. I’m used to doing two hours on stage, jumping and running around. I don’t think I’ll be doing much jumping or running around this time. I may be sitting down.”

He said he won’t be performing a full set. “We’re only playing a couple of songs each. I don’t want people thinking ‘we’re getting ripped off’, because it’s just going to be … what’s the word? … a sample, you’re going to get a few songs each by Ozzy and Sabbath.”

Elsewhere in the Guardian interview, the other band members speak about their own reasons for returning, and Sharon details her and Ozzy’s plans for retirement.

The concert, on 5 July, will raise funds for three charities: Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Birmingham-based Acorns Children’s Hospice.

Amid concerns about his health, Ozzy Osbourne has insisted he will perform in July at what is being billed as his final concert, fronting the original lineup of Black Sabbath.

Speaking along with his bandmates to the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis in an interview to be published on Friday, he said: “I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.”

The concert, titled Back to the Beginning and held at the band’s beloved Villa Park in Birmingham, features an all-star supporting lineup of metal greats including Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. But this week, the frontman of another supporting act, Tool, voiced doubt about Osbourne’s ability to perform.

“I’m cautious about saying, ‘Yeah! All in, he’s gonna do it’,” Maynard James Keenan said. “I don’t know what kind of modern miracles we’ll come up with to get him on stage to do the songs, but this is gonna be a challenge for them. So, I’m honoured to be a part of it, but I’m kinda preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best.”

Osbourne has experienced an extraordinary run of back luck with his health in recent years, including a 2019 fall that exacerbated an earlier spinal injury, requiring numerous surgeries. He has also suffered pneumonia and a longstanding infection, and has been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s.

Speaking to the Guardian, he acknowledged the psychological toll: “You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong. You begin to think this is never going to end.” He said the reunion concert was conceived by his wife, Sharon, as “something to give me a reason to get up in the morning”.

Back to the Beginning will reunite Osbourne with his original Black Sabbath bandmates for the first time in 20 years: guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. After forming in 1968 in Birmingham, the almighty weight of their sound, topped with Osbourne’s penetrating holler, ushered in an entire genre of heavy metal and resulted in classic albums such as Paranoid and Master of Reality. Osbourne left in 1979, then returned in 1997. The classic lineup played together until 2005, continuing without Ward for further tours and a final studio album, 2013’s 13.

Osbourne detailed his preparation for the reunion concert to the Guardian. “I do weights, bike riding, I’ve got a guy living at my house who’s working with me. It’s tough – I’ve been laid up for such a long time. I’ve been lying on my back doing nothing and the first thing to go is your strength. It’s like starting all over again. I’ve got a vocal coach coming round four days a week to keep my voice going. I have problems walking. I also get blood pressure issues, from blood clots on my legs. I’m used to doing two hours on stage, jumping and running around. I don’t think I’ll be doing much jumping or running around this time. I may be sitting down.”

He said he won’t be performing a full set. “We’re only playing a couple of songs each. I don’t want people thinking ‘we’re getting ripped off’, because it’s just going to be … what’s the word? … a sample, you’re going to get a few songs each by Ozzy and Sabbath.”

Elsewhere in the Guardian interview, the other band members speak about their own reasons for returning, and Sharon details her and Ozzy’s plans for retirement.

The concert, on 5 July, will raise funds for three charities: Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Birmingham-based Acorns Children’s Hospice.

Subjecting your neighbours to early starts is nothing to crow about, the owner of a cockerel has discovered to his cost.

Harold Brown has been fined nearly £4,000 after his neighbours cried fowl over his rooster shaking its tail feathers from 5am every morning for years.

New Forest district council (NFDC) found the bird created “unacceptable levels of noise” that disturbed the sleep of the community. The ruling followed initial complaints from eight households living near Brown’s home in Hampshire in October 2022.

But despite being served with an abatement notice in December that year, Brown refused to make his chicken fly the coop. Instead, the bird continued until further complaints from 12 households in 2023. Brown was prosecuted and convicted in November 2024.

Brown subsequently appealed against the conviction, but his case has been dismissed at Southampton crown court, with Brown sentenced to £200 in fines, legal costs of £3,651.95 – and, in what neighbours consider to be a particular feather in their cap, an £80 victim surcharge.

A NFDC spokesperson said. “The diary evidence kept by local residents highlighted that the crowing regularly affected their sleep from as early as 5am each day.”

Dan Poole, a councillor who is the portfolio holder for community, safety and wellbeing, said: “We are committed to protecting our residents from unacceptable levels of noise and supporting them when issues arise.

“Everyone has the right to the peaceful enjoyment of their home, and when informal approaches fail, we will not hesitate to take legal action where necessary.”

The UK has had the warmest start to May on record as temperatures continue to soar, prompting warnings of wildfires and the “hidden dangers” of open water swimming.

Kew Gardens, in south-west London, registered 28C on Thursday, the Met Office said, taking it past the previous 1 May record high of 27.4C at Lossiemouth in Moray in 1990.

Temperatures were still climbing, the agency added, with Thursday also the warmest day of the year, beating the previous high of 26.7C reached in Wisley, Surrey, on Wednesday.

Last month was the sunniest April in the UK since records began in 1910, while it was also the third warmest April on record, the Met Office said.

The recovery of a 16-year-old boy’s body from a lake prompted emergency services to warn about open water swimming. The boy got into difficulty while swimming at Colwick country park in Nottingham on Wednesday evening and his body was found a few hours later, Nottinghamshire police said.

Ch Insp David Mather said: “While work is now under way to understand how the boy came into difficulty, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight this case as a reminder of the devastating consequences of entering open water – regardless of whether people do so deliberately or inadvertently.

“As in this tragic case, open water can have hidden dangers that can prove fatal and I would urge anyone who spends any time on or near open water to use this case as a devastating reminder of that – particularly during the recent warm weather we have been experiencing.”

The Nottinghamshire fire and rescue service group manager, Tom Staples, said: “This tragic incident serves as a stark reminder of the hidden dangers of open water. We urge everyone to take care around lakes, rivers and other natural bodies of water.”

The London fire brigade urged caution around open water swimming after a 32% increase in water-related incidents last month compared with the same period last year.

Patrick Goulbourne, the London fire brigade assistant commissioner, said: “With the hot weather, we understand the temptation to cool off in rivers, lakes or other bodies of open water. But even when the sun is shining, water temperatures can be dangerously cold. Cold water shock can affect anyone, regardless of fitness or swimming ability.

“It can lead to water inhalation and, in the worst cases, drowning. Be particularly careful near the water’s edge – it’s easy to slip or fall without warning. Always think twice before jumping into open water. Unlike designated swimming areas, these environments often lack lifeguards and have hidden hazards.”

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution offered similar warnings.

Fire services also warned the warm weather meant there was a “heightened” risk of grass and wildfires which could spread more easily during the dry spell. Temperatures are expected to ease by Friday, and Saturday will bring cooler conditions of 14C to 18C across the UK.

Stephen Dixon, a Met Office spokesperson, said on Thursday afternoon: “Temperatures tomorrow will be slightly reduced from what we’ve seen today, possibly 26 or 27 degrees in the far south-east of England through the day tomorrow.”

The RAC also cautioned drivers on the roads, with spokesperson Rod Dennis saying breakdowns were expected to “soar”.

“We’re urging everyone travelling to ensure they have plenty of water for themselves and any passengers in case they get stuck in traffic or break down, as well as having sunscreen, hats or an umbrella with them to protect themselves from the sun,” Dennis said. “Drivers must avoid driving if the low coolant light appears on the dashboard as there’s a serious risk of engine overheating.”

The NHS also reported that searches for hay fever advice had doubled from Monday to Wednesday.

British fathers are being urged to join the world’s first “Dad strike” to protest about the UK’s statutory paternity leave, which campaigners say is the least generous in Europe.

Fathers are planning to protest with their babies outside the Department for Business and Trade in London on 11 June in an effort to force the government to improve leave for dads and non-birthing partners.

The strike, organised by campaign group the Dad Shift, is being hailed as a “revolutionary” moment in the UK’s gender equality movement, with organisers arguing that women will continue to face maternity discrimination if low take-up of paternity and parental leave continues.

Ministers were accused of “betraying” new fathers this week after it emerged that a promised “day one” right to paternity leave would not include the right to statutory pay under Labour’s flagship employment rights bill.

George Gabriel, from the Dad Shift, said low paternity leave pay meant many fathers could not afford to take any time off after the birth of their children. Research by the group shows that the average British father spends 57% fewer waking hours with their child in the first year of life – 1,403 hours compared with 3,293 for the average mother.

“The UK’s rubbish paternity leave system means from the day our kids arrive most fathers are forced to make an impossible choice – between going out to work and provide for our families, and providing them with the one thing that matters most, our presence,” said Gabriel.

Eligible UK fathers and non-birthing parents currently get two weeks on less than half the minimum wage, with self-employed co-parents not qualifying for state support. Eligible mothers on maternity leave receive 90% of their average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then £187.18 for 33 weeks.

Society and companies were far ahead of the government, said Gabriel. According to new polling by Whitestone for the Dad Shift, most children under 11 are picked up from school or nursery every day by their mothers, even though 86% of respondents agree “it’s better when both parents have opportunities to be equally active caregivers”.

Companies are increasingly offering partners better parental leave, with the BBC offering 52 weeks on a pay structure, while Aviva’s co-parents get 52 weeks with the first 26 weeks at full pay, according to a Paternity League Table released this week by the childcare provider Koru Kids. Barclays, HSBC, KPMG, and BDO LLP offer only two weeks on full pay.

Marvyn Harrison, a self-employed father of two and a founder of the podcast Dope Black Dads, said the strike would play a key role in showing fathers who wanted to spend more time with their kids that they were not on their own. “The most important thing we have to do is awaken men to the problem,” he said. “Fighting for paternity leave and paternity pay is a [way] for us to start to interrupt how we over commit in the workplace and don’t commit enough in our families.”

UK paternity leave, at £187.18 a week, is the least-generous statutory offer in Europe, with the UK ranked 40th out of 43 countries in the OECD. It accounts for 1.9% of all government spending on parental leave, with the rest spent on maternity leave. According to the Fatherhood Institute, which is campaigning for six weeks’ well-paid leave in the baby’s first year, this leaves an average-earning, full-time working father more than £1,000 worse off.

Take-up is also low compared with other countries. For every 100 babies born, only 31.6 men receive statutory paternity pay, compared with an average of 57 men in the 18 OECD with available data, according to evidence the group provided to the women and equalities select committee.

Companies are being urged to give fathers the afternoon off work to strike, with the communications agency The Romans and On The Tools, a platform for plumbers, electricians and other trades, pledging their support. “So many dads in our industry feel they’re missing out on crucial time with their children,” said Lee Wilcox, the chief executive of On the Tools

Pete Target, who works in local government, said he was going to strike because he remembered how he felt when, after two weeks with his newborn baby, he suddenly found himself thrust back into work. “Being apart from my baby felt awful,” he said. “I was busy bonding with him and it was a massive wrench.”

He hopes the strike will start a dads’ revolution, and force the government to listen. “No more gritting teeth and just kind of pushing through,” he said. “It’s time to be more open about the struggles dads face and to show up and say, ‘This is what we need. We have needs too’.”

British fathers are being urged to join the world’s first “Dad strike” to protest about the UK’s statutory paternity leave, which campaigners say is the least generous in Europe.

Fathers are planning to protest with their babies outside the Department for Business and Trade in London on 11 June in an effort to force the government to improve leave for dads and non-birthing partners.

The strike, organised by campaign group the Dad Shift, is being hailed as a “revolutionary” moment in the UK’s gender equality movement, with organisers arguing that women will continue to face maternity discrimination if low take-up of paternity and parental leave continues.

Ministers were accused of “betraying” new fathers this week after it emerged that a promised “day one” right to paternity leave would not include the right to statutory pay under Labour’s flagship employment rights bill.

George Gabriel, from the Dad Shift, said low paternity leave pay meant many fathers could not afford to take any time off after the birth of their children. Research by the group shows that the average British father spends 57% fewer waking hours with their child in the first year of life – 1,403 hours compared with 3,293 for the average mother.

“The UK’s rubbish paternity leave system means from the day our kids arrive most fathers are forced to make an impossible choice – between going out to work and provide for our families, and providing them with the one thing that matters most, our presence,” said Gabriel.

Eligible UK fathers and non-birthing parents currently get two weeks on less than half the minimum wage, with self-employed co-parents not qualifying for state support. Eligible mothers on maternity leave receive 90% of their average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then £187.18 for 33 weeks.

Society and companies were far ahead of the government, said Gabriel. According to new polling by Whitestone for the Dad Shift, most children under 11 are picked up from school or nursery every day by their mothers, even though 86% of respondents agree “it’s better when both parents have opportunities to be equally active caregivers”.

Companies are increasingly offering partners better parental leave, with the BBC offering 52 weeks on a pay structure, while Aviva’s co-parents get 52 weeks with the first 26 weeks at full pay, according to a Paternity League Table released this week by the childcare provider Koru Kids. Barclays, HSBC, KPMG, and BDO LLP offer only two weeks on full pay.

Marvyn Harrison, a self-employed father of two and a founder of the podcast Dope Black Dads, said the strike would play a key role in showing fathers who wanted to spend more time with their kids that they were not on their own. “The most important thing we have to do is awaken men to the problem,” he said. “Fighting for paternity leave and paternity pay is a [way] for us to start to interrupt how we over commit in the workplace and don’t commit enough in our families.”

UK paternity leave, at £187.18 a week, is the least-generous statutory offer in Europe, with the UK ranked 40th out of 43 countries in the OECD. It accounts for 1.9% of all government spending on parental leave, with the rest spent on maternity leave. According to the Fatherhood Institute, which is campaigning for six weeks’ well-paid leave in the baby’s first year, this leaves an average-earning, full-time working father more than £1,000 worse off.

Take-up is also low compared with other countries. For every 100 babies born, only 31.6 men receive statutory paternity pay, compared with an average of 57 men in the 18 OECD with available data, according to evidence the group provided to the women and equalities select committee.

Companies are being urged to give fathers the afternoon off work to strike, with the communications agency The Romans and On The Tools, a platform for plumbers, electricians and other trades, pledging their support. “So many dads in our industry feel they’re missing out on crucial time with their children,” said Lee Wilcox, the chief executive of On the Tools

Pete Target, who works in local government, said he was going to strike because he remembered how he felt when, after two weeks with his newborn baby, he suddenly found himself thrust back into work. “Being apart from my baby felt awful,” he said. “I was busy bonding with him and it was a massive wrench.”

He hopes the strike will start a dads’ revolution, and force the government to listen. “No more gritting teeth and just kind of pushing through,” he said. “It’s time to be more open about the struggles dads face and to show up and say, ‘This is what we need. We have needs too’.”

Children under the age of six should not be exposed to screens, including television, to avoid permanent damage to their brain development, French medical experts have said.

TV, tablets, computers, video games and smartphones have “already had a heavy impact on a young generation sacrificed on the altar of ignorance”, according to an open letter to the government from five leading health bodies – the societies of paediatrics, public health, ophthalmology, child and adolescent psychiatry, and health and environment.

Calling for an urgent rethink by public policies to protect future generations, they said: “Screens in whatever form do not meet children’s needs. Worse, they hinder and alter brain development,” causing “a lasting alteration to their health and their intellectual capacities”.

Current recommendations in France are that children should not be exposed to screens before the age of three and have only “occasional use” between the ages of three and six in the presence of an adult.

The societies suggest the ban on screens should apply at home and in schools.

They wrote: “Neither the screen technology nor its content, including so-called ‘educational’ content, are adapted to a small developing brain. Children are not miniature adults: their needs are different needs.”

They add that every day health professionals and infant school teachers “observe the damage caused by regular exposure to screens before they [children] enter elementary school: delayed language, attention deficit, memory problems and motor agitation”.

The experts suggest regular exposure to screens – however brief – has also had a negative effect on children’s social and emotional development. They suggest the problem affects all social groups, but particularly disadvantaged households leading to greater “social inequalities”.

Alternatives including “reading aloud, free play, board games or outdoor games, physical, creative and artistic activities”.

The letter says: “It would occur to no one to let a child of under six cross the road on their own. Why then expose them to a screen when this compromises their health and their intellectual future?”

Last year, a report commissioned by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, found that French three- to six-year-olds spent an average of 1 hour 47 minutes a day in front of a screen in 2014-15, the latest available research. Since then, however, only one of the commission’s recommendations, concerning the exposure of under-threes to screens, has been implemented.

Former prime minister Gabriel Attal has gone further, proposing to ban children under 15 from social media, with an online “curfew” for 15- to 18-year-olds halting their access to social media at 10pm.

MPs are expected to vote on whether to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales this summer, with two Labour backbenchers to put forward amendments to government legislation to change the law.

The Labour MPs Tonia Antoniazzi and Stella Creasy are believed to be putting forward separate amendments.

For six decades, abortion in England and Wales has been largely governed by the Abortion Act 1967, which has allowed women to end their pregnancies under medical supervision up to 24 weeks, or beyond in certain circumstances, such as if the life of the mother is at risk or if the foetus has a serious abnormality.

In 2020, emergency legislation introduced during the Covid pandemic brought in telemedicine and with it the biggest shake-up in abortion provision since 1967. Instead of women seeking an abortion in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy needing to take the first pill under medical supervision, they could receive both pills by post after a remote consultation. It was made permanent in 2022, with MPs voting 215 in favour to 188 against.

However, inducing a miscarriage remains a crime, punishable with up to life in prison, and in recent years several women have found themselves in the dock for ending their own pregnancies outside the strict legal parameters of the 1967 act.

According to freedom of information data from the Crown Prosecution Service, 13 people made a first appearance at a magistrates court charged with abortion-related offences in 2022; four people in 2019; and three in each of 2020 and 2021. The numbers include both men and women.

Separate data, from about half of Britain’s police forces, showed at least 11 people were arrested in 2023 on suspicion of child destruction or inducing a miscarriage, including a 31-year-old woman in north Wales “reported to have taken illicit substances to initiate an abortion”.

Until 2022, it is believed that only three women had been convicted of having an illegal abortion in the 150 years since the introduction of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, under which illegal abortions are most commonly prosecuted.

In the last parliament, MPs had put forward proposals to change the law under the criminal justice bill, with Creasy and a fellow Labour MP, Diana Johnson, proposing different changes to the law. However, the plans, along with the legislation, fell by the wayside with last summer’s general election.

Johnson, now a Home Office minister, can no longer table amendments to government legislation. Antoniazzi’s amendment is believed to be similar in scope to the one put forward by Johnson in the last parliament.

It is the second so-called vote of conscience in quick succession, with assisted dying legislation expected to come before the Commons before any abortion vote.

In a referendum in 2018, Ireland made abortion legal on request up to 12 weeks, and later if the foetus would be likely to die before or shortly after birth or if there was a risk of death or serious harm to a pregnant woman.

In 2019, Northern Ireland’s abortion laws were also modernised, allowed up to 12 weeks – and later under limited circumstances.

However, in the US, change has gone in the opposite direction. In June 2022, the supreme court ruled that there was no constitutional right to abortion, with the laws now decided at state level. About 22 million women of reproductive age have had access restricted, with abortion banned in more than a dozen states.

Whether either of the amendments are selected for debate and put to a vote will be a matter for the speaker. But with broad cross-party support for a change in the law, it is likely there will be a vote on the issue.

“In the last five years, around 100 women have been investigated by police for a ‘crime’ that does not even apply in two nations of the United Kingdom,” Antoniazzi told the Guardian.

“The damage this outdated law is inflicting upon women affected is immeasurable. I feel a moral imperative to act. I am leading a cross-party group of parliamentarians and have been working with the sector on the reform we desperately need to put a stop to this. I will be laying an amendment in that vein to the crime and policing bill in the coming weeks.”

Heidi Stewart, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said: “BPAS, alongside a coalition of royal colleges, medical bodies and women’s rights groups, are calling on MPs to reform our archaic abortion law and end the prosecution of women accused of ending their own pregnancies. We fully supported the amendment tabled by Diana Johnson MP to the criminal justice bill in 2024 and we hope that this parliament will take these proposals forward as a matter of urgency.”

Creasy’s amendment seeks to write a human right to access abortion into law. “Other countries have enshrined a human right to access abortion – doing that here and writing this right into law for the first time ever could help prevent any rollback in rights and provide a future for ensuring everyone can access a safe and legal abortion if they choose to do so,” she said.

The Football Association and England Netball have banned transgender women from women’s teams on a day when the effects of the supreme court ruling on single-sex spaces rippled through sport.

The governing body of cricket, the England and Wales Cricket Board, will do likewise when it meets on Friday, with an insider telling the Guardian “the legal advice is that we will have to follow a similar route”.

Sports bodies took legal advice in the wake of last month’s supreme court ruling, which said the term “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman.

The FA’s announcement came only a month after it had said it would continue to allow transgender women, who have undergone male puberty, to play in the women’s game as long as they reduced their testosterone levels to 5 nmol/L for at least 12 months.

However its U-turn came after advice from KCs that it had to fundamentally alter its policy after the court ruling.

“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” the FA said.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 April means that we will be changing our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England, and this policy will be implemented from 1 June 2025.”

Campaigners have long called for football to follow sports such as rugby union and hockey and restrict women’s sport to those born female, citing safety and fairness concerns. However the FA, along with netball and cricket, have also stressed the importance of being inclusive to those transgender women who wanted to play in the female category.

After announcing its policy change, the FA promised it would reach out to the 20 or so transgender women it will affect.

“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify,” it said. “And we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.”

The FA’s decision was welcomed by a Downing Street spokesperson, who said that while it was up to each sport to set their policies, they had to comply with the law.

“We have been clear that biology matters when it comes to women’s sport, that everyone should be compliant with the law,” he said. “And we will continue to ensure women and girls across the country can enjoy sports and we will continue to support bodies to protect the integrity, fairness and safety of the game.”

England Netball also confirmed that it would be banning transgender women from female sport from 1 September, but said a “mixed netball” game would be available to everyone.

“The female category will be exclusively for players born female, irrespective of their gender identity, whilst mixed netball will serve as the sport’s inclusive category, allowing players to compete under the gender with which they identify,” it said.

“This new policy is designed to prioritise and uphold fairness on court within the female category.”

English cricket currently allows transgender women to compete in the female category at grassroots level. However, it will change that policy on Friday.

The decision of the FA and England Netball was welcomed by the campaign group Sex Matters, which has called for clarity about biological sex in law and life.

“This is welcome but long overdue,” said Fiona McAnena, Sex Matters’ director of campaigns. “Every other sporting body now needs to re-establish a genuine women’s category. Anyone who cares about women and girls in sport will see that this is the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile the campaign group SEEN in Sport, which represents players and coaches who believe in biological sex in sport, said that more should have been done earlier. “It has been a failure of leadership for them to ignore the legitimate concerns of the people who care about the integrity of the women’s game,” it added.

However, the LGBT+ charity Stonewall was critical of the FA’s decision, and a similar one made by the Scottish FA on Tuesday. “The FA and Scottish FA’s decision to ban trans women from women’s football has been made too soon, before the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling has been worked through by lawyers and politicians or become law,” it said.

“It is incredibly disappointing, especially as the FA has been a long term and vocal supporter of our Rainbow Laces campaign advocating for inclusion in sport for all ages and at all levels of the game.”

More than 1,000 women a year in England could benefit from a new pill for endometriosis.

The condition occurs when tissue similar to the womb lining grows elsewhere in the body, such as the pelvis, bladder and bowel. It can cause chronic pain, heavy periods, extreme tiredness and fertility problems.

According to the World Health Organization, endometriosis affects about 190 million women and girls globally. In the UK, approximately 1.5 million are estimated to have the condition.

In final draft guidance published on Thursday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) approved a daily tablet for adult patients of reproductive age who have had unsuccessful previous treatment for endometriosis.

Linzagolix, also known as Yselty, works by blocking the hormones that contribute to the symptoms of endometriosis. It is taken once a day alongside “add-back” low-dose hormonal therapy to help manage potential menopausal symptoms and bone loss.

In clinical trials, linzagolix was shown to reduce painful periods and non-menstrual pelvic pain, compared with a placebo drug, and is already approved for treating moderate to severe symptoms of uterine fibroids.

It is the second take-at-home pill for endometriosis to be made available on the NHS, after Nice approved relugolix combination therapy in March. It is estimated that more than 1,000 women a year will be eligible for the new treatment.

Helen Knight, the director of medicines evaluation at Nice, said she was “pleased” to recommend linzagolix and that it offered “a convenient way for people with endometriosis to manage their condition and helps to ease pressure on NHS services”.

Welcoming the announcement, the women’s health minister, Gillian Merron, said: “This could be a gamechanger for thousands of women battling endometriosis, which can be a debilitating and life-limiting condition.”

Dr Sue Mann, the national clinical director in women’s health at NHS England, said: “This is welcome news for women with endometriosis who haven’t found relief from previous therapies or surgery – it’s another treatment option which will help women take control of their health and better manage the symptoms of this often painful and debilitating condition.”

Emma Cox, the chief executive of Endometriosis UK, said: “Everyone with endometriosis should be able to choose the most appropriate management and treatment for them. But there are far too few options due to historic lack of research into the disease.

“We welcome the approval of linzagolix for NHS use in England, however as it results in ‘medical menopause’ it will be suitable for only some with endometriosis. And as with many hormonal medications, it is not suitable for those trying for a pregnancy. We urge more investment in research to provide those with this sometimes debilitating disease, more options to help them live their lives.”