US Senators have spent more than 24 hours negotiating amendments to a mega-bill on tax and spending that appears to have stalled without enough votes to pass.

Four Republicans in the Senate have said they cannot support the nearly 1,000 page legislation as it stands, but with a slim margin of control the party needs to win over only one senator.

Once the bill passes the Senate, it will need to return to the House of Representatives where it faces another tough battle as Republicans control the chamber by only a few votes.

While President Donald Trump previously told Congress he wanted the legislation on his desk by 4 July, on Tuesday he conceded it would be “very hard” to meet that deadline.

By mid-morning on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was pacing up and down the centre aisle of the Senate floor, alone, arms crossed, chewing gum.

The bill’s ultimate success, or failure, largely falls on his shoulders. Republican leadership appeared increasingly confident of having the numbers to pass it, and indicated final votes would take place late on Tuesday morning.

Republicans appear to have, for now, lost the support of four Republicans: Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky’s Rand Paul.

As they can only have three defectors, Vice-President JD Vance arrived on Capitol Hill just after 6:00 EST (12:00 GMT) to cast tie-breaking votes.

He helped push one amendment over a tight margin, and is expected to play a key role in the bill’s fate.

The amendments process is wrapping up and Republican Senate leadership are conversing and negotiating with their dissenters to get the necessary number of votes. Leadership will not bring the bill to a final vote until they have the numbers they need. It’s unclear when that could happen.

The bill – essential to Trump’s second-term agenda – would extend large tax cuts the president put in place during his first term.

To make up for that loss of revenue, Republicans want to cut spending from a variety of programmes, including healthcare for lower-income Americans and food subsidies. But within the Senate, Republicans disagree on where those cuts should come from.

Trump previously requested that the Republican-controlled Congress send him a final version of the bill to sign into law by Friday.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

But following more than 24 hours of debate over amendments to the bill, called a vote-a-rama, which underscores clear divisions over the bill, he softened his tone on the 4 July deadline.

“I’d love to do July 4th but I think it’s very hard to do July 4th…. I would say maybe July 4th or somewhere around there,” Trump told reporters as he was departing the White House.

In May, the House of Representatives passed their version of a budget bill by a one-vote margin. When the legislation arrived in the Senate, Republicans made numerous changes to it.

So when the bill does pass the Senate, it will need to go back to the House of Representatives for another vote, where Republicans are expected another uphill battle.

Democrats in both chambers do not support the bill and in the Senate they have attempted to throw some obstacles in the way of its passage.

Three people have been killed and 35 taken to hospital following an attack by Ukraine on a factory in the city of Izhevsk – more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the border, Russian authorities say.

Of those injured ten had suffered serious injuries, the governor of Udmurtia Aleksandr Brechalov said, adding he had briefed President Vladimir Putin on the attack.

Drones reportedly targeted the Kupol Electromechanical Plant – a military factory which is said to produce Tor surface-to-air missile systems and radar stations.

The plant also specialises in the production of Osa air defence systems and has developed drones, according to Ukrainian media.

An Ukrainian official confirmed to BBC Ukraine that two long-range drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) struck the Kupol plant from a distance of around 1,300 km (807 miles).

“Each such special operation reduces the enemy’s offensive potential, disrupts military production chains and demonstrates that even deep in Russia’s rear, there are no safe zones for its military infrastructure,” the source said in comments reported by Ukrainian media.

A video posted on social media and verified by the BBC showed an explosion on the roof of a building, followed by a large plume of black smoke rising over a factory-type chimney.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator Rosaviatsia imposed restrictions on operations at Izhevsk airport, before lifting them a few hours later.

This is second Ukrainian drone attack on the Kupol factory since November – although that strike had not resulted in any casualties.

For its part, Moscow continues to carry out attacks in Ukraine. At the weekend Russia launched a record 537 drones and missiles on various locations across the country, including Kyiv and the western city of Lviv.

On Monday Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky granted the Hero of Ukraine award posthumously to an F-16 pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustymenko, who was killed while trying to repel the aerial attack.

On the battlefield, while Russia’s advance on the Sumy region seems to have stalled, Moscow appears to be targeting the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media suggested Moscow’s forces took control of the first village in the region.

Two rounds of talks aimed at agreeing a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow have taken place at the behest of US President Donald Trump since May, but have failed to produce tangible results.

Last week, President Putin said Russia was ready to hold a new round of peace negotiations although he said that the Russian and Ukrainian peace proposals were “absolutely contradictory”.

On Monday Zelensky again expressed scepticism of Putin’s intentions. “Putin has already stolen practically half a year from diplomacy… on top of the entire duration of this war,” the Ukrainian leader said.

“Russia is not changing its plans and is not looking for a way out of this war. On the contrary, they are preparing for new operations, including on the territory of European countries.”

US senior envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg echoed this on Monday, when he wrote on X that Russia could not “continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine”.

Moscow swiftly pushed back, saying it was not “interested in stalling anything” and thanking the US for its support.

US President Donald Trump has suggested that Doge, the cost-cutting agency Elon Musk helped set up, could be used to hurt the billionaire’s companies – as the former allies continue their public dispute over Trump’s budget plans.

“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far,” he wrote on social media. “Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

The tech billionaire wrote in reply: “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.”

Musk has repeatedly criticised Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, suggesting that it undermines the work he undertook to cut government spending.

A row between Trump and Musk first blew up last month, with the pair trading barbs publicly before Musk backtracked on some of his attacks.

Congress is currently voting on Trump’s bill. The president’s Republican Party holds majorities in both chambers, though some lawmakers in the party have voted against it – siding with opposition Democrats.

The proposed legislation includes increased spending for border security, defence and energy production that would be partially offset by controversial cuts to healthcare and food-support programmes.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• Senate Republicans struggle to push Trump’s budget bill over finish line
• Trump and Musk: The 10 days that unravelled their relationship

Musk was in charge of Doge (the Department of Government Efficiency), which has been tasked with finding ways of cutting government spending, until his acrimonious White House departure over the “big, beautiful bill”.

Trump has suggested that the dissent from the Tesla and SpaceX owner relates to a part of his bill that would remove incentives to buy electric vehicles, such as those Musk produces.

The president has also threatened to remove government subsidies from which Musk’s companies benefit.

“He’s upset that he’s losing his EV mandate, he’s very upset, he could lose a lot more than that, I can tell you that,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning.

“Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. He gets a lot of subsidies,” he added.

Musk, however, has argued he is ideologically committed to cutting government spending. If passed, Trump’s bill would add an estimated $3.3tn (£2.4tn) to the national debt.

Among a string of posts on his social media platform X while voting took place, Musk shared a graph showing US debt over time with the caption: “When are they going to flatten this curve?”

In another, he wrote: “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!”

Musk said he would make sure these lawmakers lost their primary races next year. The billionaire businessman – who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Trump’s re-election bid last year – has even touted the idea establishing a new party to run against both Republicans and Democrats.

In an apparent response to Trump’s claim about EV incentives, Musk reposted a clip from an interview in which he said removing them would see Tesla’s “competitive position would improve significantly”.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court has suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who has come under mounting pressure to resign over her leaked phone conversation with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

The clip, in which Paetongtarn called him “uncle” and criticised a Thai military commander, sparked public anger and a petition for her dismissal, which the court is now considering.

That could make Paetongtarn the third politician in the powerful Shinawatra clan – which has dominated Thai politics for the past two decades – to lose power before completing their term.

Her ruling coalition is already teetering with a slim majority after a key conservative ally abandoned it two weeks ago.

The Constitutional Court voted 7-2 to suspend her while they consider the case for her dismissal and she has 15 days to present her defence.

In the meantime the deputy PM will serve as the country’s acting leader. Paetongtarn, however, will remain in the cabinet as culture minister, a new appointment following a cabinet reshuffle that was endorsed hours before she was suspended.

On Tuesday, Paetongtarn apologised again, adding that the purpose of her phone call with Hun Sen was “more than 100%… for the country”.

The call was about the border dispute between the two countries – although it’s decades old, tensions have risen again since late May when a Cambodian soldier was killed.

The leaked audio especially angered conservative lawmakers who accused her of appeasing Hun Sen and undermining Thailand’s military.

But she defended herself on Tuesday, saying, “I had no intent to do it for my own interest. I only thought about how to avoid chaos, avoid fighting and to avoid loss of lives.

“If you listened to it carefully, you’d understand that I didn’t have ill intentions. This is what I’ll focus and spend time on explaining thoroughly.”

If she is eventually dismissed, Paetongtarn will be the second prime minister from the Pheu Thai party to be removed from premiership since August last year.

At that time, her predecessor Srettha Thavisin was dismissed, also by the constitutional court, for appointing to his cabinet a former lawyer who was once jailed.

Days later, Paetongtarn – whose father is Thailand’s deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra – was sworn in as prime minister.

Tuesday’s decision once again underscores the constitutional court’s power to unmake governments, which critics say can be weaponised to target political opponents.

This court has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, including the reformist Move Forward, which won the most seats and votes in the 2023 election but was blocked from forming the government.

“This has become a pattern in Thai politics… a part of the Thai political culture, which is not what a true political process is supposed to be,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political science lecturer at Ubon Ratchathani University.

“The suspension by court order shouldn’t have happened but most people could see its legitimacy because the leaked conversation really made people question if the PM was genuinely defending the interest of the country.”

Paetongtarn, 38, remains the country’s youngest leader and only the second woman to be PM after her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra.

Already struggling to revive a weak economy, Paetongtarn saw her approval rating fall to 9.2% last weekend, down from 30.9% in March.

The court’s decision comes on the same day as Paetongtarn’s father, who was seen as the driving force behind her government, battles his own political troubles.

Thaksin is fighting charges of insulting the monarchy over an interview he gave to a South Korean newspaper nine years ago. His trial started on Tuesday.

The controversial political leader, who returned to Thailand in 2023 after 15 years in exile, is the most high-profile figure to face charges under the country’s notorious lese majeste law.

Thaksin’s return was part of a grand compromise between Pheu Thai and its former conservative foes.

They include the military, which deposed two Shinawatra governments in coups, and groups close to the monarchy.

The wait is over, K-pop fans – BTS are back. The South Korean band confirmed their highly-anticipated comeback on Tuesday, scheduling a new album and tour for next year.

Announcing the news during their first live stream since all band members completed their mandatory military service, the seven-strong group said they would head to the US later this month to begin working on new music.

“Hey guys, we are back,” Jimin said, with the group adding that their album would be released in spring 2026.

“We’re also planning a world tour alongside the album. We’ll be visiting fans all around the world, so we hope you’re as excited as we are,” the band said.

It will be BTS’s first world tour since the group’s Permission to Dance on Stage tour back in 2022.

And the new album will be the band’s first full-length release since 2020.

All South Korean men must do 18 months in the military, which forced the world’s most successful boy band in recent years to pause their careers at the height of their global fame in 2022.

According to a statement, the band told fans on fan platform Weverse on Tuesday: “Starting in July, all seven of us will begin working closely together on new music.

“Since it will be a group album, it will reflect each member’s thoughts and ideas. We’re approaching the album with the same mindset we had when we first started.”

Fans – collectively known as the ARMY – have been desperate to see the boys back together again following their enforced hiatus.

Suga was the final member of the band to complete military service last month.

BTS are believed to have staggered their military service so that all seven members were unavailable for no more than six months. J-Hope, who was discharged last October, has since wrapped up a solo world tour and will headline Lollapalooza Berlin on 13 July.

The band made their debut in 2013, having formed three years earlier, and have gone on to become the most successful K-pop band globally.

They were the biggest-selling music artists in the world in 2020 and 2021, with six number one albums and the same number of chart-topping singles in the US.

Listen to Jim read this article

There’s a saying that Robert F Kennedy Jr is very fond of. He used it on the day he was confirmed as US health secretary. “A healthy person has a thousand dreams, a sick person only has one,” he said as he stood in the Oval Office. “60% of our population has only one dream – that they get better.”

The most powerful public health official in the US has made it his mission to tackle what he describes as an epidemic of chronic illness in America, a catch-all term that covers everything from obesity and diabetes to heart disease.

His diagnosis that the US is experiencing an epidemic of ill health is a view shared by many healthcare experts in the country.

But Kennedy also has a history of promoting unfounded health conspiracies, from the suggestion that Covid-19 targeted and spared certain ethnic groups to the idea that chemicals in tap water could be making children transgender.

And after taking office, he slashed thousands of jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services and eliminated whole programmes at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

“On the one hand, it’s extraordinarily exciting to have a federal official take on chronic disease,” says Marion Nestle, a retired professor of public health at New York University. “On the other, the dismantling of the federal public health apparatus cannot possibly help with the agenda.”

Kennedy is reviled by parts of the medical and scientific communities. He was described to me as an “evil nihilist” by Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

But even some of Kennedy’s critics accept that he is bringing drive and ambition to areas of healthcare that have been neglected. Is it possible that the man who attracts so much criticism – and in some quarters, hate – might actually start making America healthy again?

There’s one industry that Kennedy had set his sights on long before joining the Trump administration: multinational food companies have, he has said, poisoned American children with artificial additives already banned in other countries.

“We have a generation of kids who are swimming around in a toxic soup right now,” he claimed on Fox News last year.

His first target was food colourings, with a promise to phase out the use of petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2026.

Chemicals, with names like ‘Green No. 3’ and ‘Red No. 40’, have been linked to hyperactivity and behavioural issues in children, and cancer in some animal studies.

“What’s happening in this administration is really interesting,” says Vani Hari, a food blogger and former Democrat who is now an influential voice in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. “MAHA is all about how do we get people off processed food, and one way to do that is to regulate the chemicals companies use.”

There are some signs this pressure may be paying off.

The food giant PepsiCo, for example, said in a recent trading update that Lays crisps and Tostitos snacks “will be out of artificial colours by the end of this year”.

Kennedy struck a voluntary agreement with the food industry but it only came after individual states from California to West Virginia had already started introducing their own laws.

“In the case of food dyes, companies will have to act because states are banning them [anyway] and they won’t want to have to formulate separate products for separate states,” says Prof Nestle, an author and longtime critic of the industry.

More recently Kennedy has signalled he backs a radical food bill in Texas that could target additives in some products ranging from sweets, to cereals and fizzy drinks

Packets may soon have to carry a high-contrast label stating, “WARNING: This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.”

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents some of the largest food manufacturers, opposes this, saying the ingredients used in the US food supply are safe and have been rigorously studied.

It’s difficult to imagine that kind of regulation could ever be signed off in a state like Texas without the political backing of Kennedy and President Trump.

“He can’t change everything in a short amount of time, but I think the issue of food dyes will soon be history,” says Ms Hari, who testified before the Senate on this subject last year.

But others worry that the flurry of announcements on additives is tinkering around the edges of what is a much wider problem.

“While some of these individual actions are important, they are a drop in the ocean in the larger context of chronic disease,” argues Nicola Hawley, professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. “There is a focus on personal choice and access to natural food, but that completely ignores the big, systematic and structural barriers [to healthy eating] like poverty and really aggressive marketing of junk food to children.”

The US government, for example, still heavily subsidises crops including corn and soya beans, key ingredients in processed foods.

Kennedy is now updating the US national dietary guidelines, an important document used to shape everything from school meals to assistance programmes for the elderly. A reduction in added sugars and a switch to more locally sourced whole foods is expected. Plus he has called on states to ban millions of Americans from using food stamps, a welfare benefit, to buy junk food or sugar-sweetened drinks.

He has also backed local officials who want to stop adding fluoride to drinking water, describing it as a “dangerous neurotoxin”. It is used in some countries, including in parts of the US, to prevent tooth decay, and whilst there is still debate about the possible health effects, the NHS says a review of the risks has found “no convincing evidence” to support any concerns. Other fluoride research has found the mineral only has detrimental health effects at extremely high levels.

Prof Hawley also argues there is a tension between Kennedy’s “important message” on food and chronic disease, and what she feels is a lack of policies backed by solid scientific evidence.

“You’ve got this challenge of him drifting into misinformation about the links between additives and chronic disease, or environmental risk factors,” she argues. “And that really just undermines the science.”

That tension is even clearer when it comes to another of Kennedy’s big concerns.

Vaccines are still listed on the CDC website as one of the great public health achievements of the last century, alongside family planning and tobacco control. They prevent countless cases of disease and disability each year, and save millions of lives, according to the American Medical Association.

Kennedy, though, is the best-known vaccine sceptic in the country. The activist group he ran for eight years, Children’s Health Defense, repeatedly questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

In 2019 he described the disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield as the “most unfairly maligned person in modern history” and told a crowd in Washington that “any just society” would be building statues of him.

Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 after his research falsely linked the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine to autism, leading to a spike in measles cases in England and some other countries.

Over the last year, Kennedy has repeatedly insisted he is not “anti-vax” and will not be “taking away anybody’s vaccines”. Faced with a deadly measles outbreak in unvaccinated children in west Texas, he posted that the MMR was “the most effective way to prevent the spread of the disease”.

In other comments though, he described vaccination as a “personal choice” and emphasised alternative treatments such as vitamin A supplements.

A huge deal with the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine to combat bird flu in humans was scrapped, and new rules were brought in which could mean some vaccines need extra testing before they can be updated each winter.

In May, Kennedy posted a video on social media saying the government would no longer endorse Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women.

However, some doctors point out that reducing eligibility would simply bring the US into line with other countries, including the UK, where free Covid boosters are restricted to those over 75 or with weakened immune systems.

“They are really just aligning themselves with everyone else, which is not in any way outrageous,” says Prof Adam Finn, a paediatric doctor and one of the UK’s leading experts on vaccines.

Then in June, Kennedy suddenly sacked all 17 members of the influential expert committee, which advises the CDC on vaccine eligibility. He accused the panel of being “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and rubber-stamping new vaccines without proper scrutiny.

A new, much smaller, committee handpicked by the administration now has the power to change, or even drop, critical recommendations to immunise Americans for certain diseases, as well as shape the childhood vaccination programme.

“It underscores just how much we are backsliding now,” says Dr Amesh Adalja, the infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University. “I think increasingly the panel will become irrelevant if RFK Jr is able to shape it the way he wants to.”

The new panel made its first decision last week, voting to stop recommending a small number of flu vaccines that still contain the preservative thimerosal, something Kennedy wrote a book about in 2015.

His critics say that a new era of vaccine policy has arrived in the US. Whilst his supporters say no subject, including vaccine safety, should be considered off-limits.

“Everything has to be open to discussion and Bobby Kennedy is not anti-vaccine, he’s anti-corruption,” argues Tony Lyons, who co-founded the political action committee that supported his independent presidential campaign.

“It’s about being pro-science, pro-capitalism, and believing you have an obligation to the public to do a thorough job of researching any product that is put in the arms of 40 million children.”

Weeks after Kennedy took office news emerged that the CDC would open a research project into the link between vaccines and autism.

Since Wakefield’s now-discredited Lancet paper in 1998, which linked autism to the MMR vaccine given to children, there have been numerous international studies that have looked at this in detail and found no reputable link.

“There is nothing to debate any more, it has been settled by science,” says Eric Fombonne, an autism researcher and professor emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University.

Kennedy, though, has hired David Geier, a noted vaccine sceptic, to look again at the data.

Today autism is widely understood to be a lifelong spectrum condition. It can include those with high support needs who are non-speaking, and those with above-average intelligence who might struggle with social interaction or communication.

Most researchers believe a rise in cases over decades is down to a broadening in the way children with autism are defined, as well as improved awareness, understanding and screening.

But in April, Kennedy dismissed that idea, describing autism as “preventable”. He blamed a mysterious environmental trigger for the increase in eight-year-olds being diagnosed.

“This is coming from an environmental toxin… [in] our air, our water, our medicines, our food,” he said.

He pledged a massive research effort to find that cause by September and “eliminate those exposures”.

Dr Fombonne strongly disputes this. “It is nonsensical and shows a complete absence of understanding,” he says. “We have known for many years that autism has a strong genetic component.”

In the same speech, Kennedy said that many autistic children will never “pay taxes, never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

Many in the autism community are angry. “What we’re seeing here is a fear-based rhetoric and [a] misleading narrative that is causing harm and perpetuating stigma,” says Kristyn Roth from the Autism Society of America.

But some parents of autistic children are more supportive.

Emily May, a writer who is the mother of a child with autism, wrote in The New York Times that she found herself “nodding along as Mr Kennedy spoke about the grim realities of profound autism”.

“His remarks echo the reality and pain of a subset of parents of children with autism who feel left out of much of the conversation,” she wrote.

The administration has since watered down that promise to find the reasons for autism by September but it is still promising detailed findings of its research by March 2026.

Ultimately, Robert Kennedy has only been in the job a matter of months. Already though he’s asking some big questions – particularly about chronic disease – which have never been asked in the same way by a health secretary before.

For the first time that issue has both political attention and bipartisan support in the US.

He is clearly not afraid to take on what he perceives to be vested interests in the food and drug industries, and he is still firmly supported by President Trump.

Tony Lyons, who has published books by Kennedy, calls him “uniquely qualified” for the most powerful job in US public health. “He’s a corruption fighter. He has seen what all these kinds of companies do, not just pharmaceutical companies but food companies, and he wants them to do a better job,” he says.

Robert Kennedy’s background as an environmental lawyer taking on big business and the establishment has clearly shaped the views he holds today.

But Jerold Mande, a former federal food policy advisor in three administrations, worries that Kennedy’s own views and biases will mean some of the solutions he’s reaching for are predetermined and unsupported by the evidence.

Now a professor of nutrition at Harvard, Prof Mande describes Kennedy as an imperfect messenger and says he has “great concerns” about the administration’s approach to aspects of public health, from tobacco control to vaccination, where there is “no question that what he’s doing is going to result in enormous harm.”

“At a high level, I’m optimistic… but you still need to come up with the right answers, and those answers can only be found through science,” says Prof Mande.

“We now have a shot and he’s provided that by making it a priority. But it’s how you use that shot that’s going to determine whether it’s a success or not. And that is where the jury is still out.”

Three former senior staff at the hospital where nurse Lucy Letby murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven others have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.

They worked on the senior leadership team at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016 and were bailed after being questioned on Monday.

The arrests came after an investigation into potential corporate manslaughter at the hospital was opened in 2023, and then widened in March this year to include gross negligence manslaughter.

Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole life prison sentences after targeting babies at the hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

She was convicted of making two attempts to kill one of the babies.

Cheshire Police said the arrests “did not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offences of murder and attempted murder”.

Det Supt Paul Hughes said the corporate manslaughter element of the investigation focused on the senior leadership of the hospital and its decision-making, “to determine whether any criminality has taken place concerning the response to the increased levels of fatalities”.

He said gross negligence manslaughter was a separate offence and “focuses on the grossly negligent action or inaction of individuals”.

Corporate manslaughter can carry an unlimited fine for an organisation but no jail sentence for any individual, whereas gross negligence manslaughter can result in a life sentence for a person convicted of it.

The three people arrested have not been named by police, in line with normal police procedure.

Cheshire Police said it was also carrying out a separate investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies in Chester and in the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where Letby trained for periods, going back to 2012.

Det Supt Hughes said there were “no set timescales” for the manslaughter investigations.

Letby has maintained her innocence and her barrister, Mark McDonald, submitted an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) earlier this year.

The application included the findings of 14 medical experts who agreed to re-examine the evidence heard at trial and concluded Letby had not harmed any babies.

The CCRC, which has the power to refer cases back to the Court of Appeal, said it was reviewing the application and could give no timescale on when a decision would be reached.

Mr McDonald said the news of the arrests had come at a “very sensitive” time in his client’s case.

“Despite this the concerns many have raised will not go away, and we will continue to publicly discuss them,” he said.

He added that “internationally renowned experts” had concluded that no babies were murdered and called for a new public inquiry into “failings” in neonatal and paediatric care at the Countess of Chester.

Last month former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for an “urgent re-examination” of Letby’s case due to what he called “serious and credible” questions raised by the expert panel.

His Conservative Party colleague, Sir David Davis, has also been supportive of attempts to have Letby’s case looked at again.

But lawyers for the families of Letby’s victims described the expert panel’s conclusions as “full of analytical holes” and “a rehash” of the defence case.

A public inquiry into the circumstances around Letby’s offending is also due to publish its findings in early 2026.

The Thirwall Inquiry heard evidence from the senior leadership team at the hospital about when concerns were raised about a rise in the deaths of babies on the neonatal unit.

Danish women now face being called up for 11 months of military service when they turn 18, after a change in the law came into effect.

Under new rules passed by Denmark’s parliament, women are to join teenage males in a lottery system that could require them to undertake a period of conscription.

The change was brought in as Nato countries boost defence spending amid heightened security concerns in Europe.

Up to now, women were allowed to participate in military service when they turned 18, but on a voluntary basis.

From Tuesday, both men and women turning 18 will be required to register to be assessed for potential military service. Volunteers will be recruited first, with the remaining numbers made up through the lottery system.

The change will also see the period of conscription for teenagers rise from four months to 11 months.

About 4,700 Danish men and women undertook a short period of military service in 2024 – about 24% of them being female volunteers. The new rules on conscription are expected to see the overall number doing military service annually rise to 6,500 by 2033.

Denmark is following the example of neighbouring Sweden and Norway, which both brought in conscription for women in recent years.

The government in March also announced a 40.5bn Danish crowns (£4.3bn, $5.9bn) increase in defence spending over the next five years to meet Nato targets.

There are about 9,000 professional personnel currently serving in Denmark’s military.

Colonel Kenneth Strom, head of the Danish military’s conscription programme, said the change was “based on a political decision and a political agreement made by the parties”.

He added: “And obviously, it’s based on the current security situation in order to get more combat power and have those skills that are needed for either the Army, Navy, Air Force or even the Special Operations Forces.”

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Katrine, a current volunteer in Denmark’s military, said: “In the world situation we’re in right now, it’s necessary to have more conscripts, and I think that women should contribute to that equally, as men do.

“I think it’s a positive change.”

Millions of websites – including Sky News, The Associated Press and Buzzfeed – will now be able to block artificial intelligence (AI) bots from accessing their content without permission.

The new system is being rolled out by internet infrastructure firm, Cloudflare, which hosts around a fifth of the internet.

Eventually, sites will be able to ask for payment from AI firms in return for having their content scraped.

Many prominent writers, artists, musicians and actors have accused AI firms of training systems on their work without permission or payment.

In the UK, it led to a furious row between the government and artists including Sir Elton John over how to protect copyright.

Cloudflare’s tech targets AI firm bots – also known as crawlers – programmes that explore the web, indexing and collecting data as they go. They are important to the way AI firms build, train and operate their systems.

So far, Cloudflare says its tech is active on a million websites.

Roger Lynch, chief executive of Condé Nast, whose print titles include GQ, Vogue, and The New Yorker, said the move was “a game-changer” for publishers.

“This is a critical step toward creating a fair value exchange on the Internet that protects creators, supports quality journalism and holds AI companies accountable”, he wrote in a statement.

However, other experts say stronger legal protections will still be needed.

Initially the system will apply by default to new users of Cloudflare services, plus sites that participated in an earlier effort to block crawlers.

Many publishers accuse AI firms of using their content without permission.

Recently the BBC threatened to take legal action against US based AI firm Perplexity, demanding it immediately stopped using BBC content, and paid compensation for material already used.

However publishers are generally happy to allow crawlers from search engines, like Google, to access their sites, so that the search companies can in return can direct people to their content.

Perplexity accused the BBC of seeking to preserve “Google’s monopoly”.

But Cloudflare argues AI breaks the unwritten agreement between publishers and crawlers. AI crawlers, it argues, collect content like text, articles, and images to generate answers, without sending visitors to the original source—depriving content creators of revenue.

“If the Internet is going to survive the age of AI, we need to give publishers the control they deserve and build a new economic model that works for everyone,” wrote the firm’s chief executive Matthew Prince.

To that end the company is developing a “Pay Per Crawl” system, which would give content creators the option to request payment from AI companies for utilising their original content.

According to Cloudflare there has been an explosion of AI bot activity.

“AI Crawlers generate more than 50 billion requests to the Cloudflare network every day”, the company wrote in March.

And there is growing concern that some AI crawlers are disregarding existing protocols for excluding bots.

In an effort to counter the worst offenders Cloudflare previously developed a system where the worst miscreants would be sent to a “Labyrinth” of web pages filled with AI generated junk.

The new system attempts to use technology to protect the content of websites and to give sites the option to charge AI firms a fee to access it.

In the UK there is an intense legislative battle between government, creators and the AI firms over the extent to which the creative industries should be protected from AI firms using their works to train systems without permission or payment.

And, on both sides of the Atlantic, content creators, licensors and owners have gone to court in an effort to prevent what they see as AI firms encroachment on creative rights.

Ed Newton-Rex, the founder of Fairly Trained which certifies that AI companies have trained their systems on properly licensed data, said it was a welcome development – but there was “only so much” one company could do

“This is really only a sticking plaster when what’s required is major surgery,” he told the BBC.

“It will only offer protection for people on websites they control – it’s like having body armour that stops working when you leave your house,” he added.

“The only real way to protect people’s content from theft by AI companies is through the law.”

Filmmaker Baroness Beeban Kidron, who is campaigning for more protection for the creative industries, welcomed the news saying the company had shown leadership.

“Cloudflare sits at the heart of the digital world and it is exciting to see them take decisive action,” she told the BBC.

“If we want a vibrant public sphere we need AI companies to contribute to the communities in which they operate, that means paying their fair share of tax, settling with those whose work they have stolen to build their products, and, as Cloudflare has just shown, using tech creatively to ensure equity between digital and human creators on an ongoing basis.”

After 17 years in the US Army, Maj Kara Corcoran, 39, was preparing to graduate from an elite military leadership programme.

But there was a complication.

Two days before the ceremony, Kara was told that she would need to conform to male regulations, which meant wearing male uniform and cutting the long blonde hair she had grown since she told the Army she identified as a woman in 2018.

The directive had come from the Pentagon, and filtered down through her chain of command at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“Nothing about me is a man, but we’re going to force me into male regs just so I can walk across the stage with my peers,” she said in the hours leading up to the ceremony. “It’s not my choice to cut my hair. I’m doing it because I have to.”

Kara is one of several thousand transgender people affected by a ban, announced by US President Donald Trump in January, that prevents them from serving in any job in the US military.

A previous ban in his first term focused on new recruits and allowed some exceptions, particularly for those already serving. The 2025 policy removes virtually all of the exceptions.

Official figures say there are about 4,200 transgender service members in the US armed forces, however other estimates are much higher, at about 10,000.

The new policy states that a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria – where a person feels their gender differs from their sex registered at birth – is “incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service”.

An executive order outlined Trump’s position that “the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology” and that the policy would ensure staff were “free of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalisation”.

The order also stated that “a man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honour this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.

A Gallup poll in February this year suggested that 58% of Americans “favour allowing openly transgender men and women to serve in the US military, but support has declined from 71% in 2019 and 66% in 2021”.

Critics have called the ban discriminatory and legal challenges have been filed from serving transgender officers and human rights groups.

Since February, the BBC has followed the lives of Maj Kara Corcoran and an officer in the Navy, Lt Rae Timberlake, as they navigate the uncertainty of their military careers. They have shared their thoughts and feelings in a personal capacity, not as spokespeople for the US military or other colleagues.

Kara has spent most of her adult life in the US Army. Her combat deployments included time in Afghanistan where she was both a platoon leader and a company commander, when she was living as a man, before she transitioned. Since then, she says she has legally changed her name and gender and uses female pronouns.

Transgender people were disqualified from all jobs in the military until 2016, but over the past decade, as governments have changed, US policy has flip-flopped.

• 2016: Obama lifts ban on trans people serving, allowing them access to funding through the military for gender-related treatment
• 2017: Trump announces ban on trans people serving, citing medical costs and potential disruptions
• 2021: Biden signs order restoring the right of trans people to serve
• 2025: Trump announces new ban and bases are told to initiate separation proceedings against personnel with gender dysphoria

“For a long time, I stayed silent,” says Kara. When she joined up in 2008, women were not allowed in combat positions either.

Kara married a woman and had children, although the relationship broke down and ended as she grappled with her identity.

Kara came out as a transgender woman in 2018 and began her hormonal and surgical transition. She says she had the support of her commanding officers, who were still working to the previous set of guidelines, despite Trump’s 2017 ban. She tells the BBC that the transition improved her ability to serve.

“It’s made me more focused, more resilient,” she says. “There’s a common misconception that transitioning is a liability. For me, it’s been the opposite.”

Now, with Trump’s latest policy in effect, Kara has been told that unless she leaves voluntarily, she may be forced out of the service against her will through a process called involuntary separation.

Involuntary separation happens when someone is discharged and they do not choose to leave of their own accord. It can affect any service member, not just people in combat roles.

As well as losing their jobs, people can also potentially lose benefits, such as pensions, healthcare and disability provisions.

The Department of Defense said that if someone went involuntarily they may get half what they would get if they left voluntarily – the difference could be tens of thousands of dollars.

Despite this, Maj Kara Corcoran says she does not want to walk away.

“I’m not going to get voluntarily separated,” she says. “I’ll go through the involuntary separation and what that looks like and how horrific they want to make that for me and other service members.”

Others such as former US Navy Seal, Carl Higbie, support Trump’s ban, though. Carl now hosts a TV show on the conservative network Newsmax.

He believes that transgender people are not fit for service in the US military, arguing that gender dysphoria may require ongoing medical care and accommodations that could affect deployability.

“You can’t take Ritalin [which is used to treat ADHD] or certain types of prescription medications and be an eligible service member in combat. Why should you be on hormone therapy, which we know has sometimes emotional effects?” he asks.

When asked if he thought that biological women, who may be on other medications containing hormones, such as treatment for the menopause, are fit to serve in the armed forces, he said: “I think there are certain times where we should be more concerned about killing bad guys than making sure that we have gender quotas on a combat operation.”

• Listen to Inside the US trans military ban on BBC Sounds

The ban on transgender service members is part of a broader shift in US military policy – Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Trump appointee and former army officer, has moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

“I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength’,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon event in February.

And in April, he posted on X that he “proudly ended” the Women, Peace and Security programme, an initiative to invite more women and girls to be part of conflict resolution. He called it a distraction from the core task of “war-fighting”.

Many had seen the policy shift coming. In the early hours of 6 November, when Trump secured his victory in the 2024 US presidential election, Lt Rae Timberlake made a decision.

A non-binary navy officer, Rae joined the Navy aged 17 and has served aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and in the Middle East.

Rae falls under the trans umbrella because, although they were registered female at birth, they identify as neither male nor female and use they/them pronouns.

Rae says that coming out as non-binary in 2020 and transitioning brought clarity to their identity. “The moment I heard the word ‘non-binary’, I knew it fit,” they told the BBC.

But with the 2024 Trump victory, Rae felt the clock was ticking on their career. They requested to transfer from their West Coast base, to a base closer to family in the east, who could give them support.

Rae, their wife and daughter moved in the middle of a school term, in the anticipation that a possible separation from the Navy was imminent.

“It felt like the safest move for us, in case I was forced to leave the service,” says Rae.

They add that they weren’t surprised by Trump’s executive order in January, or a memorandum from the Department of Defense the following month.

The memo specified that military bases must identify service members diagnosed with or exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria. The final deadlines to come forward voluntarily were eventually set as 6 June for active-duty personnel and 7 July for reserve and National Guard members.

In May, the Department of Defense said 1,000 service personnel had self-identified as trans, but there has been no update of the number since then.

The military has 30 days from a deadline to start involuntary separation proceedings.

The memo includes a provision for people to be considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis. There are a few conditions including that staff must have “never attempted to transition to any sex other than their sex”.

By the time the memorandum was published, Rae had taken a new post in Maryland, and the family was adjusting to their new home.

“Watching Rae lose their career, it’s painful,” their wife, Lindsay, says. “We’re in survival mode. We haven’t had time to connect as a family. We just keep making hard choices.”

For Rae, the emotional cost has been high. They have decided they want more control over the future, so have requested to retire from the Navy, and believe that in doing so have self-identified for voluntary separation. The application hasn’t been accepted yet, but Rae believes it will be.

They expect the financial implications to be substantial. Without completing 20 years of service, Rae says they will likely forfeit eligibility for a military pension. They estimate pension payments could have added up to about $2.5m (£1.8m) over the course of their retirement.

While the Department of Defense says the ban will maintain consistent medical and readiness standards across the forces, opponents argue that the policy targets a vulnerable group unfairly.

Three lawsuits have been filed challenging its legality.

In one high-profile ruling, a federal judge blocked the ban temporarily, citing concerns over its constitutionality and suggesting it discriminated based on gender identity. However, in April, the Supreme Court lifted the injunction, allowing the policy to move forward while litigation continues.

The legal back-and-forth has left transgender service members in limbo.

Rae has found job hunting in the civilian sector tough. “I applied for a position that had over 800 applicants in one day,” they say, adding that civilian life will offer less security than the Navy. “It’s competitive and daunting out there.”

But they say the next chapter is about not feeling “under threat for who I am”.

Kara didn’t self-identify by the 6 June deadline, so is waiting to see if the military flags her for separation – the 30-day window means that should happen by 6 July. She will see what unfolds from there.

The US Department of Defense declined to give a statement to the BBC but pointed to previous statements saying it was committed to treating all service members impacted by the policy with dignity and respect. A US defence official said that “characterisation of service will be honourable except where the service member’s record otherwise warrants a lower characterisation”.

For now Kara remains at her base in Fort Leavenworth but is prepared to leave with little notice if she has to. She has turned her car into a mobile home with a chunky power bank, cooking equipment, and a fold-out mattress. “On top I’ve got an eight-gallon water tank. I fill it up, pump it with an air compressor, and I can take a shower out in the wild. At least I have somewhere to live.”

When she graduated from the leadership programme with distinction, after complying with male uniform and grooming standards, she said it “meant a lot, but how I had to do it felt like erasing my identity”.

“This is about people who’ve dedicated their lives to service, now being told they’re no longer fit, not because of performance, but because of who they are.”

Aged just 19, Alawia Babiker Ahmed miscarried as she was fleeing on foot the devastating war that has ravaged Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

“I was bleeding on the way,” she told the BBC, before hastening to add that she saw people who were “worse off” during her traumatic three-day walk of about 70km (45 miles) from the besieged city of el-Fasher to the small town of Tawila.

Dodging air strikes and militiamen after her miscarriage, Alawia said she and her family came across an infant crying for his mother, who lay dead by the roadside.

Alawia said she picked up the child and took him with her: “We covered the mother and kept going.”

Sudan has been wracked by a civil war since fighting broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, causing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises with more than 12 million people forced to flee their homes.

Darfur has been a major flashpoint, with the RSF controlling most of the region – except for the city of el-Fasher that has remained in the hands of the army and its allies.

El-Fasher has come under intense bombardment as the RSF tries to seize it. In April it announced plans to form a government to rival the one established by the army, raising fears that it could lead to Sudan’s partition.

Alawia said that as the bombing intensified last month, she and her family were forced to flee and walk to Tawila, west of el-Fasher.

Her brother, Marwan Mohamed Adam, 21, told the BBC that he was assaulted along the way by RSF-allied gangs – including being “beaten on my neck, arm and leg” and robbed of the few belongings that he was carrying.

Marwan added that his life was spared only because he lied to the gangs about where he had come from.

He said the attackers took away and “executed” young men who revealed they were from el-Fasher, so when he was interrogated he claimed that he was from Shaqra, a stopover on the way to Tawila.

“You feel fear, you feel like you are already dead,” the 21-year-old told the BBC, adding that he saw three bodies on the way.

Another woman, Khadija Ismail Ali, told the BBC that “bodies were scattered all over the streets”.

She said 11 members of her family were killed during the shelling of el-Fasher, and three children died during their four-day journey from the city to Tawila.

“The children died from thirst along the way,” Khadija said.

Her family’s village, el-Tarkuniya, was attacked last September by RSF-allied militias, who stole their harvest.

They fled to the famine-stricken Zamzam camp, and then to el-Fasher and now to Tawila.

Medical charity Alima said the gunmen took the land and farms of most families when attacking villages.

Severe malnutrition, especially among children arriving in Tawila, had reached an alarming level, it added.

Alawia said her sister dropped the little food they were carrying while fleeing the air strikes and shelling that they encountered after passing Shaqra.

“It was leftover beans with a little salt we had carried in our hands to feed the children,” she said.

Without food or water, they trudged on and met a woman who told them they could find water in a nearby village.

The family set off after midnight for the village, but little did they know that they were walking into an area controlled by RSF fighters.

“We greeted them, but they did not answer. They told us to sit on the ground and they searched our belongings,” Alawia recalled.

The fighters took the 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33; £24) that was all the family still had, along with the clothes and shoes that they were carrying.

“My shoes weren’t good, but they still took them,” Alawia said.

She added that the RSF gunmen refused to give them water, so they all pressed on until they reached el-Koweim village. There, they spotted a well guarded by RSF fighters.

“We asked for water for at least the orphaned child, but they refused,” Alawia said, adding that she tried to push her way to the well, but the men assaulted her and beat her back.

Thirsty and exhausted, the family kept walking until reaching Tawila, where Alawia said she collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

She was discharged after being treated. Marwan was also treated for the injuries he had sustained during the beating.

Alawia said they then searched for relatives of the infant they had rescued, and after finding some of them, handed over the child.

Alawia and her family are now living in Tawila, where a family has welcomed them into its home.

“Life is OK, thank God, but we worry about the future,” Alawia told the BBC.

Marwan said he wanted to go abroad so that he could continue with his education and start a new life.

This is something that millions of Sudanese have done, as their lives have been shattered by a war that shows no sign of ending.

• Sudan in danger of self-destructing
• Fear, loss and hope in Sudan’s ruined capital
• From prized artworks to bullet shells: how war devastated Sudan’s museums

“Your brother is a hero.”

This is what Emad was told after finding out his brother had been killed in a suicide explosion at a church in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

His brother, Milad, and two others had tried to push the suicide attacker out of the church building. He was killed instantly – alongside 24 other members of the congregation.

Another 60 people were injured in the attack at Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Dweila on 22 June.

It was the first such attack in Damascus since Islamist-led rebel forces overthrew Bashar al- Assad in December, ending 13 years of devastating civil war.

It was also the first targeting of the Christian community in Syria since a massacre in 1860, when a conflict broke out between Druze and Maronite Christians under Ottoman rule.

The Syrian authorities blamed the attack on the Islamic State (IS) group. However, a lesser- known Sunni extremist group, Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, has said it was behind the attack – though government officials say they do not operate independently of IS.

Milad had been attending a Sunday evening service at the church, when a man opened fire on the congregation before detonating his explosive vest.

Emad heard the explosion from his house and for hours was unable to reach his brother.

“I went to the hospital to see him. I couldn’t recognise him. Half of his face was burnt,” Emad told me, speaking from his small two bedroom-home which he shares with several other relatives.

Emad is a tall, thin man in his 40s with an angular face that bears the lines of a hard life. He, like his brother, had been working as a cleaner in a school in the poor neighbourhood, which is home to many lower to middle class and predominantly Christian families.

During Bashar al-Assad’s rule, members of Syria’s many religious and ethnic minority communities believed the state protected them. Now, many fear the new Islamist-led government, established by the rebels who overthrew him last December, will not do the same.

While interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his government have pledged to protect all citizens, recent deadly sectarian violence in Alawite coastal areas and then in Druze communities around Damascus have made people doubt its ability to control the situation.

Many of Emad’s family members echoed this sentiment, saying: “We are not safe here anymore.”

Angie Awabde, 23, was just two months away from graduating university when she got caught up in the church attack.

She heard the gunshots before the blast.

“It all happened in seconds,” she told me, speaking from her hospital bed as she recovers from shrapnel wounds to her face, hand and leg, as well as a broken leg.

Angie is frightened and feels there is no future for Christians in Syria.

“I just want to leave this country. I lived through the crisis, the war, the mortars. I never expected that something would happen to me inside a church,” she said.

“I don’t have a solution. They need to find a solution, this is not my job, if they can’t protect us, we want to leave.”

Before the 13-year civil war, Christians made up about 10% of the 22 million population in Syria – but their numbers have shrunk significantly since then with hundreds of thousands fleeing abroad.

Churches were among the buildings bombed by the Syrian government and allied Russian forces during the war – but not while worshippers were inside.

Thousands of Christians were also forced from their homes due to the threat from hardline Islamist and jihadist groups, such as IS.

Outside the hospital where Angie is being treated, coffins of some of the victims of the church attack were lined up, ready for burial.

People from all walks of life, and representing different parts of Syrian society, attended the service at a nearby church, which took place under a heavy security presence.

In a sermon at the service, the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Syria, John Yazigi, insisted “the government bears responsibility in full”.

He said a phone call from President Ahmed al-Sharaa expressing his condolences was “not enough for us”, drawing applause from the congregation.

“We are grateful for the phone call. But the crime that took place is a little bigger than that.”

Sharaa last week promised that those involved in the “heinous” attack would face justice.

A day after the bombing, two of the suspects were killed and six others arrested in a security operation on an IS cell in Damascus.

But this has done little to allay fears here about the security situation, especially for religious minorities.

Syria has also seen a crack down on social freedoms, including decrees on how women should dress at beaches, attacks on men wearing shorts in public and bars and restaurants closing for serving alcohol.

Many here fear that these are not just random cases but signs of a wider plan to change Syrian society.

Archimandrite Meletius Shattahi, director-general of the charitable arm of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, feels the government is not doing enough.

He refers to videos circulating online showing armed religious preachers advocating for Islam over loud speakers in Christian neighbourhoods, saying these are not “individual incidents”.

“These are taking place in public in front of everybody, and we know very well that our government is not taking any action against [those] who are breaching the laws and the rules.”

This alleged inaction, he says, is what led to the attack at the Church of the Prophet Elias.

Last year the BBC won a Bafta for its Glastonbury coverage. This year it’s being attacked for it. Or, to be more precise, for one hour of it, two at the most, if you count Kneecap’s set, which followed Bob Vylan’s on the West Holts stage on Saturday afternoon.

I had arrived early to cover the Belfast rap trio’s performance, aware that the prime minister had said it shouldn’t go ahead, that the festival organisers had stood firm against political pressure, that one of the band’s members is on bail on a terror charge, which he denies, and that the BBC had announced that morning it wouldn’t stream the show live.

I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of Bob Vylan. But I don’t imagine many others had either. Of the millions who tuned in to the BBC’s coverage over the weekend, the live streamers of the Bob Vylan set would have likely been a tiny proportion.

But you’d have to have been under a rock (or perhaps partying too hard on a Somerset farm) not to have heard of the punk duo now.

As I stood in the crowd and caught the lead singer’s comments – about using violence to get your message across, and leading the crowd in chants of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” – it was clear, as the festival’s organisers said afterwards, that a line had been crossed.

This was not the peace-loving, welcome-to-all vibe that Glastonbury tries to project.

Police have launched a criminal investigation into Bob Vylan’s set to ascertain if statements made on stage broke the law.

Some people in the crowd chanted “death to the IDF” back. They appeared to be on board. Bob Vylan also platformed the controversial “From the river to the sea” slogan.

Some use the chant as a call for Palestinian control of all land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including Israel. Critics say the slogan is a call for the destruction of the state of Israel.

That interpretation is disputed by pro-Palestinian activists who say that most people chanting it are calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza, not the destruction of Israel itself.

I made a note at the time that from my vantage point, conversely that slogan did not get a great deal of reaction from the crowd.

The scrutiny has been on the band, the festival organisers and the BBC. But where does the freedom of expression for the thousands in that Saturday afternoon crowd begin and end?

After Kneecap’s set, I spoke to fans in the crowd who supported that band’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war and were pleased that they were sending a message to the British government.

But I also spoke to Jewish festival-goers who told me they had to hide their identities at Glastonbury this year because they feared the response they might get. One told me in a place that is so optimistic and accepting of everyone, “there’s a difference if you’re a Jew”.

Both perspectives should be heard.

In that field on Saturday, it felt to me that the BBC had spent so much energy on how it would deal with Kneecap at Glastonbury, that it had missed Bob Vylan’s potential to cause it problems. Sometimes, when you are focused on one potential controversy, another one arrives to bite you.

It could not have known exactly what Bob Vylan would say or do on stage. There are questions whether due diligence was done in the run up. I’m told it was. It’s the BBC’s reaction as the set unfolded, and the perception it was too slow to act, that is a bigger problem.

I’ve covered quite a lot of BBC ‘scandals’ in my time as media editor at BBC News and as I look at the headlines across the media, and the bashing the BBC is getting, I keep in mind that stories about the BBC are often used by other media organisations as a stick to hit the corporation. And sometimes, there are other corporate interests at play for those who want to see a weaker BBC for their own benefit.

But the BBC has said it regrets not pulling the live stream during the performance. From memory, the comments came towards the end of the set, but there was still time to take action. It would have needed to have been a quick decision though. So if the team had to refer up for editorial advice, it’s possible the performance was already over – and it was later pulled from repeat viewing on the iPlayer.

The BBC says it’s looking at its guidance around live events so that “teams are clear on when it’s acceptable to keep output on air”.

Freedom of speech, the freedom to express opinions and the right to artistic expression will have been in the BBC’s mind as it went into the festival.

As the sea of Palestinian flags in the crowds at the performance illustrated, solidarity with the Palestinian people (and for some, the accusation that Israel is committing genocide, which it denies) is shared by many at Glastonbury and wider. The BBC would not want to be seen to be censoring opinions.

Incitement to violence, though, isn’t an opinion. It can be a criminal offence.

Culture often holds a mirror up to politics and what has been playing out at Glastonbury is illustrative of the wider, heated debate raging across the country about what’s taking place in Gaza.

The Bob Vylan set has rightly begged questions of both the BBC and the Glastonbury organisers, as well as the performers themselves. They were the ones who made the comments in the first place, although it’s right that the BBC, as a publicly-funded organisation, faces scrutiny.

And in the contested times we live in, what’s happened has compounded problems for the corporation with its coverage of Israel and Gaza already called into question.

An investigation is ongoing into a documentary it already broadcast about the children of Gaza and another documentary about doctors in Gaza was dropped by the BBC and will now be broadcast on Channel 4.

Millions of fans are bidding farewell to Squid Game, the Emmy award-winning TV series that has topped Netflix’s charts and become a symbol of South Korea’s ascendance in Hollywood.

The fictional show follows cash-strapped players as they battle it out in a series of traditional Korean children’s games – with a gory twist, as losers are killed in every round.

Squid Game has sucked in viewers since 2021 with its candy-coloured sets and bleak messages about capitalism and humanity. And with its third and final season released last Friday, fans across the world are returning to reality.

Some South Koreans, however, have found themselves reflecting on the society that inspired the dystopian series.

“I feel like Squid Game 3 revealed the true feelings and raw inner thoughts of Korean people,” reads one YouTube comment under a clip from season three.

“It reflected reality so well like how in real life, at work, it’s just full of ruthless people ready to crush you. This show nailed it.”

Squid Game was born against the backdrop of cut-throat competition and widening inequality in South Korean society – where people are too stressed to have children and a university placement exam is seen as the defining moment of a person’s life.

The diverse characters of the show – which include a salaryman, a migrant factory worker and a cryptocurrency scammer – are drawn from figures many South Koreans would find familiar.

The backstory of protagonist Seong Gi-hun, a car factory worker who was laid off and later went on strike, was also inspired by a real-life event: a 2009 strike at the SsangYong Motor factory, where workers clashed with riot police over widespread layoffs. It’s remembered today as one of the country’s largest labour confrontations.

“The drama may be fictional, but it feels more realistic than reality itself,” Jeong Cheol Sang, a film enthusiast, wrote in his review of Squid Game’s final season.

“Precarious labour, youth unemployment, broken families – these aren’t just plot devices, but the very struggles we face every day.”

Those darker messages seemed to be brushed to the side on Saturday night, as a massive parade celebrated the release of the blockbuster’s final season. A giant killer doll and dozens of faceless guards in tracksuits – among other motifs of the deadly games – marched down central Seoul to much fanfare.

For South Korea’s leaders, Squid Game has become a symbol of K-drama’s success on the global stage. It is also part of a string of successes – along with K-pop act BTS and Oscar-winning film Parasite – on which newly elected president Lee Jae Myung wants to capitalise as he sets his sights on exporting K-culture far and wide.

There are signs the Squid Game hype may even go further: the show’s final scene, where Cate Blanchett plays a Korean game with a man in a Los Angeles alley, has fuelled rumours of an American spinoff.

The series ended on an “open-ended” note, Lee Jung-jae, the star of the series, told the BBC. “So it poses a lot of questions to the audience. I hope people will talk about those questions, ponder upon themselves about the questions and try to find an answer.”

In the show’s later seasons, viewers follow Gi-hun’s quest to bring down the eponymous games, which are packaged as entertainment for a group of wealthy VIPs.

But his rebellion fails, and by the end Gi-hun is forced to sacrifice himself to save another player’s baby – an ending that has polarised viewers.

Some argued that Gi-hun’s actions did not square with the dark portrait of reality that showrunners had developed – one that had so well captured the ruthless elements of human nature.

“The characters’ excessive altruism was disturbing – almost to the point of seeming unhinged,” reads a comment on popular South Korean discussion site Nate Pann. “It felt like a fake, performative kind of kindness, prioritising strangers over their own families for no real reason.”

But others said Gi-hun’s death was in line with the show’s commitment to uncomfortable truths.

“This perfectly describes humanity and the message of the show,” another commented on YouTube.

“As much as we wanted to see Gi-Hun win, kill the frontman and the VIPs, and stop the games once and for all before riding off into the sunset, that’s just not the world we live in and it’s certainly not the one that Gi-Hun lived in.”

Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, told reporters on Monday that he understood the “mixed reaction” to the final season.

“In season one there were no expectations, so the shock and freshness worked. But by seasons two and three, expectations were sky high, and that makes all the difference,” Hwang said on Monday.

“Game fans wanted more games, others wanted deeper messages, and some were more invested in the characters. Everyone expected something different.”

For some, at least, Gi-hun’s final choice offered a hopeful reflection of reality: that even in times of adversity, kindness can prevail.

“That paradox – of cruelty and warmth coexisting – is what made the finale so moving,” said Mr Jeong, the film blogger. “Watching the Squid Game made me reflect on myself. As someone who has worked in education and counselling, I’ve questioned whether kindness can really change anything.”

“That’s why I stayed with this story. That’s why I call this ending beautiful.”

The deaths of two brothers in Russian custody have laid bare a diplomatic rift with Azerbaijan, as it challenges Moscow’s dominant role in the South Caucasus and establishes itself as a regional power.

Both Azerbaijani men showed signs of trauma, officials in Baku revealed on Tuesday and pro-government media have blamed Russia’s Vladimir Putin for police violence.

Azerbaijan authorities have already arrested two Russian state media employees, accusing them of being FSB agents.

Tensions were already high between the two neighbours. Last December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijani Airlines plane was shot down apparently by a Russian anti-aircraft missile fired by mistake.

This latest spat began last Friday when Russian police operation in the city of Yekaterinburg targeted suspects as part of cold case murder inquiries dating back to 2001.

Two of the suspects, Azerbaijan-born brothers Ziyaddin and Guseyn Safarov, died in custody, and several others were taken to hospital.

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General has now launched a criminal case accusing Russian police of torturing and deliberately killing the brothers. A post-mortem conducted in Azerbaijan found they died from “post-traumatic” shock after being severely beaten in custody.

Russia’s law enforcement says one of the men died of a heart attack and the cause of the second death has not been confirmed.

In response, Baku cancelled an upcoming visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, as well as all shows involving Russian artists.

Azerbaijani media outlets with ties to government have criticised Putin, saying his rule is even more brutal than that of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who sent millions of people to death camps.

When the Azerbaijan Airlines plane went down last December, Putin offered an apology, but that failed to satisfy Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

Aliyev demanded a full admission of responsibility and a comprehensive investigation. That triggered a propaganda war, with Baku accusing Russian cultural organisations of espionage and demanding the closure of the Baku office of Russian state media outlet Sputnik.

Sputnik remained operational until this week, when Azerbaijani police raided its Baku bureau and detained two employees, named as Igor Kartavykh and Yevgeny Belousov. Authorities allege both are affiliated with the Russian security service, the FSB. Russia denies this, saying the arrests are “unjust”.

Since the fall of Soviet Union in 1991, a newly independent Azerbaijan has largely kept its distance from Russia, partnering with the West to develop its vast oil and gas resources. A particular sticking point was Moscow’s support for Armenia in the First Nagorno-Karabakh war of 1992-1994, which saw Azerbaijan defeated.

But when Ilham Aliyev took over as president from his father in 2003, the young, Moscow-educated ruler managed to find a common language with Putin.

In 2020, Russia stood aside as Azerbaijan emerged victorious from a new war with Armenia. That victory has changed the power balance in the South Caucasus, where Aliyev now sees himself as a dominant player – not only economically, but also militarily.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further eroded Moscow’s influence in the region.

Although Aliyev and Putin signed a declaration proclaiming two countries allies, Azerbaijan maintained an independent stance — calling Russian-held parts of Ukraine “occupied” and sending humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

Despite their differences, Moscow continued to have close ties with Baku, in part due to Azerbaijan’s role in major energy and transport routes, including a North–South corridor linking Russia to Asian markets.

Azerbaijan is not directly competing with Russia, but it has been challenging Russia’s dominant role in the South Caucasus, according to Zaur Shiriyev, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

He believes Baku is wary of a potential resurgence of Russian influence in Georgia, a key transit country for Azerbaijani exports.

Officials in Azerbaijan are equally resistant to the return of pro-Russian factions in Armenia, particularly those opposed to reconciliation efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh.

By engaging now in a public war of words, “Azerbaijan appears to be sending a message that it is no longer willing to accept Russia’s actions passively, especially when its own interests are at stake,” Shiriyev told the BBC.

More than 130 charities and other NGOs are calling for the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to be shut down.

Over 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF started operating in late May, following Israel’s three-month blockade of Gaza, the organisations said. Almost 4,000 have been injured.

The organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, say Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on Palestinians seeking aid.

Israel denies its soldiers deliberately shoot at aid recipients, and has defended the GHF system, saying it provides direct assistance to people who need it, bypassing Hamas interference.

Tuesday’s joint statement from some of the world’s biggest charities says the foundation is violating all norms of humanitarian work, including by forcing two million people into overcrowded and militarized zones where they face daily gunfire.

Since the GHF started operating in Gaza, there have been almost daily reports of Israeli forces killing people seeking aid at these sites, from medics, eyewitnesses and the Hamas-run health ministry.

The GHF aid distribution system replaced 400 aid distribution points that were operating during the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire with just four military-controlled distribution sites, three in the far south-west of Gaza and one in central Gaza.

“Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement says.

“Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.”

The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies. On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “inherently unsafe”.

From the start the UN condemned the plan, saying it would “militarise” aid, bypass the existing distribution network and force Gazans to make long journeys through dangerous territory to get food.

The Israeli military has said it is examining reports of civilians being “harmed” while approaching GHF aid distribution centres.

According to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday, unnamed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites to drive them away or disperse them.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report, calling the allegations “malicious falsehoods”.

The Israeli military also denied allegations of deliberately firing at Palestinians waiting to collect humanitarian aid.

In a statement on Monday, the IDF said it was reorganising access to the sites and this would include new “fencing” and signposting, including directional and warning signs in order to improve the operational response.

But the 130-plus aid organisations said GHF “is not a humanitarian response” for the Gazans.

“Amidst severe hunger and famine-like conditions, many families tell us they are now too weak to compete for food rations,” the groups said.

A British teenager held in prison in Georgia was “tortured” into smuggling drugs, she told a pre-trial hearing as she was refused bail.

Bella Culley, 19, from Billingham, Teesside, appeared at Tbilisi City Court and pleaded not guilty to charges of possession and trafficking a large amount of illegal drugs.

Mr Malkhaz Salakaia, representing Miss Culley, said she had been threatened with a hot iron to coerce her into travelling with the suitcase filled with drugs.

Miss Culley stood in front of the judge in the courtroom and showed her right wrist which had a scar on it.

Speaking in court, the 19-year-old said: “I did not want to do this. I was forced to do this through torture.

“I just wanted to travel. I am a good person. I am a student at university. I am a clean person. I don’t do drugs.”

Miss Culley initially went missing in Thailand before being arrested in Tbilisi International Airport on 10 May.

Mr Salakaia, who does not speak English and specialises in juvenile law, said the teenager was not aware of what was in her suitcase.

Addressing the court, Mr Salakaia said the teenager tried to inform customs officers in Thailand “but nobody paid attention”.

“She was instructed to fly to Georgia – she did not even know where Georgia was located geographically.”

He also told the court that Miss Culley was 18 weeks pregnant.

Her family were ready to pay 50,000 georgian lari for bail money to get her out of prison, he said.

Miss Culley had been detained for 52 days before trial while the prosecution investigated where the 12kg (26lbs) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lbs) of hashish found in a travel bag came from, and whether she was planning on handing it over to someone else.

Judge Lela Kalichenko remanded her into custody until the next court hearing scheduled for 10 July.

Miss Culley’s father, aunt and grandfather were all in attendance at the small courtroom in Tbilisi.

Georgian Police said officers had seized marijuana and the narcotic drug hashish in a travel bag at Tbilisi International Airport.

The BBC understands Miss Culley arrived in Tbilisi on a flight from Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, on 10 May.

The BBC has been told the British Embassy has advised the teenager’s family not to speak to the press.

A Georgian police spokesperson said the arrest was the result of a joint operation between multiple departments and, if she was found guilty, Miss Culley could face up to 20 years in jail or life imprisonment.

Elon Musk has appointed a product developer responsible for several successful youth-focused social media apps to a senior role at X.

Nikita Bier has been made X’s head of product three years after publicly suggesting on the platform – then known as Twitter – that it should employ him.

“I’ve officially posted my way to the top,” he wrote in a post on X announcing the role.

X has been on a rollercoaster ride since it was bought by the world’s richest man for $44bn (£38.1bn) in October 2022.

It has faced problems with advertisers, seen high profile users quit and wrestled with the emergence of new rivals Bluesky and Threads.

However, experts say Mr Bier’s appointment could boost its prospects with a key demographic.

Drew Benvie, chief executive of social media consultancy Battenhall, said Mr Bier’s experience in developing features that engage younger users, like anonymous polling, makes him hopeful his arrival could bring some “X-factor” to the platform.

“Getting that knack for what consumers want, and Gen Z users in particular, is precisely what X needs right now to turn things around, as all is not lost for the once-greatest social network,” he told the BBC.

Social media expert Matt Navarra said offering “fresh energy for younger users” in the form of more interactive, immersive and positive content would be key.

But he added that while “rebooting product thinking” could benefit the platform, translating it into material growth and retainment of younger users would require more immediate changes such as more content formats, brand safety controls and monetisation options for creators.

A former student at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr Bier grew to prominence after launching a slew of anonymous apps aimed at teens.

These included tbh (an acronym for “to be honest”), a platform allowing US high school students to participate in anonymous, friendly polls. It was acquired by Meta in 2017.

In 2023, his compliments-focused app Gas was bought by Discord, after it climbed up US app download charts.

Venture capital firm Lightspeed referred to Mr Bier as the “king of virality” when he joined them as an advisor last year.

But the means by which Bier’s now defunct app tbh reportedly targeted younger users were also somewhat controversial.

Buzzfeed reported in 2018 that it had obtained a memo in which tbh’s founders told Facebook colleagues, post-acquisition, of “a psychological trick” that could be used to amass teen sign-ups.

It included scouring Instagram for high school students’ accounts, it said.

• How Musk transformed social media giant X in 2024

In his post on X Mr Bier described his new employer as “the most important social network in the world”.

“While I already spend every waking hour on this app, I’ll now be spending that time helping others unlock that same value,” he said.

This would include “leveraging the power” of X’s generative AI chatbot Grok to develop “hyper-relevant timelines,” he added.

X’s usage and popularity has fluctuated under Musk’s leadership of the platform.

He said in March that the platform had more than 600m monthly active users.

But according to Pew Research Centre findings published in December, 17% of US said they use X – down from 23% in 2022 and 33% a decade ago.

The appointment of Mr Bier at X comes at a time when tech firms are jostling for top staff, namely sought-after engineers, to spearhead their AI development.

Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “superintelligence” team at Meta on Monday, after reports it had targeted OpenAI staff with $100m-plus compensation offers.

It includes Nat Friedman, former boss of software development platform GitHub, Alexandr Wang of data annotation firm Scale AI and co-creators of OpenAI’s models.

One OpenAI executive likened the company’s approach to its staff with huge compensation offers to a break-in, according to an internal memo seen by Wired.

Mark Chen, its chief research officer, reportedly said he was working with OpenAI boss Sam Altman on “creative ways to recognise and reward top talent”.

The BBC has asked OpenAI for comment.

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A father jumped into the ocean to save his daughter after she fell from the fourth deck of a Disney cruise ship travelling from the Bahamas to the US on Sunday afternoon, witnesses say.

Videos showed passengers cheering as the two were pulled onto a rescue boat after apparently treading water for 10 minutes.

The girl appeared to fall when her father took her picture against a railing, witnesses said. A man overboard alert was broadcast on the ship, and crew rushed to recover them.

“The ship was moving quickly, so quickly, it’s crazy how quickly the people became tiny dots in the sea, and then you lost sight of them,” passenger Laura Amador said.

“The captain slowed the ship and turned it around, and then they deployed a tender ship with people on it to go get them, and we saw them rescue the dad and daughter,” she told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

The 4,000-person capacity Disney Dream, was returning to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after sailing for four days around the Bahamas.

Disney confirmed in a statement that two passengers were rescued, but offered few details about what occurred.

“The Crew aboard the Disney Dream swiftly rescued two guests from the water,” a Disney Cruise Line spokesperson said. “We commend our Crew Members for their exceptional skills and prompt actions, which ensured the safe return of both guests to the ship within minutes.

“We watched it, you could see two little things…it was crazy, it was horrific,” passenger Gar Frantz told NBC News, describing how he witnessed the two enter the ocean and nearly disappear into the horizon.

The incident took place on the last day of the cruise, and the ship returned to port in Florida as normal.

While it is rare for passengers to fall from cruise ships, rescues are not often successful when they do.

According to a Cruise Lines International Association report from 2019, 25 people fell overboard that year from cruise ships and only nine were saved from the water.

US President Donald Trump has signed a memorandum which will impose tighter restrictions on Cuba.

The move is aimed at reversing some of the measures introduced by the Biden administration which eased US pressure on the Communist-run country.

The White House said it would enforce an existing ban on American tourists going to Cuba more stringently, and oppose calls by international organisations such as the UN to end the US economic embargo on the Caribbean nation.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the memorandum “strengthens the aggression & economic blockade that punishes the whole Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our development”.

In a fact sheet published on its website, the White House said it would end “economic practices that disproportionately benefit the Cuban government, military, intelligence, or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people”.

US citizens are already banned from travelling to Cuba solely for tourism activities but there are 12 categories of travel which are permitted, including family and educational educational visits, humanitarian projects and sports competitions.

The new memorandum says compliance with the existing policy will be enforced through regular audits and “mandatory record-keeping of all travel-related transactions for at least five years”.

It also prohibits US citizens from doing business with GAESA, a conglomerate run by the Cuban military which owns many of Cuba’s hotels.

Tourism is one of the main sources of hard currency for the Cuban government, but numbers of visitors have dwindled as shortages on the Caribbean island have become more severe and several nationwide power cuts plunged it into the dark.

The memorandum stresses that President Trump “is committed to fostering a free and democratic Cuba, addressing the Cuban people’s long-standing suffering under a Communist regime”.

The policies listed in the document build on measures Trump has implemented in his first term in office and also in recent months.

Shortly after being sworn in to a second term, Trump reinstated Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which had been lifted just days before by the then-president, Joe Biden.

Trump and his iron-fist policy towards Cuba had strong backing from the Cuban-American community in the US.

However, the Trump administrations decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Cubans – as well as Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans – was met with widespread disappointed by many Cuban-Americans.

US President Donald Trump has suggested that Doge, the cost-cutting agency Elon Musk helped set up, could be used to hurt the billionaire’s companies – as the former allies continue their public dispute over Trump’s budget plans.

“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far,” he wrote on social media. “Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

The tech billionaire wrote in reply: “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.”

Musk has repeatedly criticised Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, suggesting that it undermines the work he undertook to cut government spending.

A row between Trump and Musk first blew up last month, with the pair trading barbs publicly before Musk backtracked on some of his attacks.

Congress is currently voting on Trump’s bill. The president’s Republican Party holds majorities in both chambers, though some lawmakers in the party have voted against it – siding with opposition Democrats.

The proposed legislation includes increased spending for border security, defence and energy production that would be partially offset by controversial cuts to healthcare and food-support programmes.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• Senate Republicans struggle to push Trump’s budget bill over finish line
• Trump and Musk: The 10 days that unravelled their relationship

Musk was in charge of Doge (the Department of Government Efficiency), which has been tasked with finding ways of cutting government spending, until his acrimonious White House departure over the “big, beautiful bill”.

Trump has suggested that the dissent from the Tesla and SpaceX owner relates to a part of his bill that would remove incentives to buy electric vehicles, such as those Musk produces.

The president has also threatened to remove government subsidies from which Musk’s companies benefit.

“He’s upset that he’s losing his EV mandate, he’s very upset, he could lose a lot more than that, I can tell you that,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning.

“Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. He gets a lot of subsidies,” he added.

Musk, however, has argued he is ideologically committed to cutting government spending. If passed, Trump’s bill would add an estimated $3.3tn (£2.4tn) to the national debt.

Among a string of posts on his social media platform X while voting took place, Musk shared a graph showing US debt over time with the caption: “When are they going to flatten this curve?”

In another, he wrote: “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!”

Musk said he would make sure these lawmakers lost their primary races next year. The billionaire businessman – who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Trump’s re-election bid last year – has even touted the idea establishing a new party to run against both Republicans and Democrats.

In an apparent response to Trump’s claim about EV incentives, Musk reposted a clip from an interview in which he said removing them would see Tesla’s “competitive position would improve significantly”.

US Senators have spent more than 24 hours negotiating amendments to a mega-bill on tax and spending that appears to have stalled without enough votes to pass.

Four Republicans in the Senate have said they cannot support the nearly 1,000 page legislation as it stands, but with a slim margin of control the party needs to win over only one senator.

Once the bill passes the Senate, it will need to return to the House of Representatives where it faces another tough battle as Republicans control the chamber by only a few votes.

While President Donald Trump previously told Congress he wanted the legislation on his desk by 4 July, on Tuesday he conceded it would be “very hard” to meet that deadline.

By mid-morning on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was pacing up and down the centre aisle of the Senate floor, alone, arms crossed, chewing gum.

The bill’s ultimate success, or failure, largely falls on his shoulders. Republican leadership appeared increasingly confident of having the numbers to pass it, and indicated final votes would take place late on Tuesday morning.

Republicans appear to have, for now, lost the support of four Republicans: Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky’s Rand Paul.

As they can only have three defectors, Vice-President JD Vance arrived on Capitol Hill just after 6:00 EST (12:00 GMT) to cast tie-breaking votes.

He helped push one amendment over a tight margin, and is expected to play a key role in the bill’s fate.

The amendments process is wrapping up and Republican Senate leadership are conversing and negotiating with their dissenters to get the necessary number of votes. Leadership will not bring the bill to a final vote until they have the numbers they need. It’s unclear when that could happen.

The bill – essential to Trump’s second-term agenda – would extend large tax cuts the president put in place during his first term.

To make up for that loss of revenue, Republicans want to cut spending from a variety of programmes, including healthcare for lower-income Americans and food subsidies. But within the Senate, Republicans disagree on where those cuts should come from.

Trump previously requested that the Republican-controlled Congress send him a final version of the bill to sign into law by Friday.

• A look at the key items in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

But following more than 24 hours of debate over amendments to the bill, called a vote-a-rama, which underscores clear divisions over the bill, he softened his tone on the 4 July deadline.

“I’d love to do July 4th but I think it’s very hard to do July 4th…. I would say maybe July 4th or somewhere around there,” Trump told reporters as he was departing the White House.

In May, the House of Representatives passed their version of a budget bill by a one-vote margin. When the legislation arrived in the Senate, Republicans made numerous changes to it.

So when the bill does pass the Senate, it will need to go back to the House of Representatives for another vote, where Republicans are expected another uphill battle.

Democrats in both chambers do not support the bill and in the Senate they have attempted to throw some obstacles in the way of its passage.

Three former senior staff at the hospital where nurse Lucy Letby murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven others have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.

They worked on the senior leadership team at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016 and were bailed after being questioned on Monday.

The arrests came after an investigation into potential corporate manslaughter at the hospital was opened in 2023, and then widened in March this year to include gross negligence manslaughter.

Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole life prison sentences after targeting babies at the hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

She was convicted of making two attempts to kill one of the babies.

Cheshire Police said the arrests “did not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offences of murder and attempted murder”.

Det Supt Paul Hughes said the corporate manslaughter element of the investigation focused on the senior leadership of the hospital and its decision-making, “to determine whether any criminality has taken place concerning the response to the increased levels of fatalities”.

He said gross negligence manslaughter was a separate offence and “focuses on the grossly negligent action or inaction of individuals”.

Corporate manslaughter can carry an unlimited fine for an organisation but no jail sentence for any individual, whereas gross negligence manslaughter can result in a life sentence for a person convicted of it.

The three people arrested have not been named by police, in line with normal police procedure.

Cheshire Police said it was also carrying out a separate investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies in Chester and in the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where Letby trained for periods, going back to 2012.

Det Supt Hughes said there were “no set timescales” for the manslaughter investigations.

Letby has maintained her innocence and her barrister, Mark McDonald, submitted an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) earlier this year.

The application included the findings of 14 medical experts who agreed to re-examine the evidence heard at trial and concluded Letby had not harmed any babies.

The CCRC, which has the power to refer cases back to the Court of Appeal, said it was reviewing the application and could give no timescale on when a decision would be reached.

Mr McDonald said the news of the arrests had come at a “very sensitive” time in his client’s case.

“Despite this the concerns many have raised will not go away, and we will continue to publicly discuss them,” he said.

He added that “internationally renowned experts” had concluded that no babies were murdered and called for a new public inquiry into “failings” in neonatal and paediatric care at the Countess of Chester.

Last month former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for an “urgent re-examination” of Letby’s case due to what he called “serious and credible” questions raised by the expert panel.

His Conservative Party colleague, Sir David Davis, has also been supportive of attempts to have Letby’s case looked at again.

But lawyers for the families of Letby’s victims described the expert panel’s conclusions as “full of analytical holes” and “a rehash” of the defence case.

A public inquiry into the circumstances around Letby’s offending is also due to publish its findings in early 2026.

The Thirwall Inquiry heard evidence from the senior leadership team at the hospital about when concerns were raised about a rise in the deaths of babies on the neonatal unit.

A British teenager held in prison in Georgia was “tortured” into smuggling drugs, she told a pre-trial hearing as she was refused bail.

Bella Culley, 19, from Billingham, Teesside, appeared at Tbilisi City Court and pleaded not guilty to charges of possession and trafficking a large amount of illegal drugs.

Mr Malkhaz Salakaia, representing Miss Culley, said she had been threatened with a hot iron to coerce her into travelling with the suitcase filled with drugs.

Miss Culley stood in front of the judge in the courtroom and showed her right wrist which had a scar on it.

Speaking in court, the 19-year-old said: “I did not want to do this. I was forced to do this through torture.

“I just wanted to travel. I am a good person. I am a student at university. I am a clean person. I don’t do drugs.”

Miss Culley initially went missing in Thailand before being arrested in Tbilisi International Airport on 10 May.

Mr Salakaia, who does not speak English and specialises in juvenile law, said the teenager was not aware of what was in her suitcase.

Addressing the court, Mr Salakaia said the teenager tried to inform customs officers in Thailand “but nobody paid attention”.

“She was instructed to fly to Georgia – she did not even know where Georgia was located geographically.”

He also told the court that Miss Culley was 18 weeks pregnant.

Her family were ready to pay 50,000 georgian lari for bail money to get her out of prison, he said.

Miss Culley had been detained for 52 days before trial while the prosecution investigated where the 12kg (26lbs) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lbs) of hashish found in a travel bag came from, and whether she was planning on handing it over to someone else.

Judge Lela Kalichenko remanded her into custody until the next court hearing scheduled for 10 July.

Miss Culley’s father, aunt and grandfather were all in attendance at the small courtroom in Tbilisi.

Georgian Police said officers had seized marijuana and the narcotic drug hashish in a travel bag at Tbilisi International Airport.

The BBC understands Miss Culley arrived in Tbilisi on a flight from Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, on 10 May.

The BBC has been told the British Embassy has advised the teenager’s family not to speak to the press.

A Georgian police spokesperson said the arrest was the result of a joint operation between multiple departments and, if she was found guilty, Miss Culley could face up to 20 years in jail or life imprisonment.

Three people have been killed and 35 taken to hospital following an attack by Ukraine on a factory in the city of Izhevsk – more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the border, Russian authorities say.

Of those injured ten had suffered serious injuries, the governor of Udmurtia Aleksandr Brechalov said, adding he had briefed President Vladimir Putin on the attack.

Drones reportedly targeted the Kupol Electromechanical Plant – a military factory which is said to produce Tor surface-to-air missile systems and radar stations.

The plant also specialises in the production of Osa air defence systems and has developed drones, according to Ukrainian media.

An Ukrainian official confirmed to BBC Ukraine that two long-range drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) struck the Kupol plant from a distance of around 1,300 km (807 miles).

“Each such special operation reduces the enemy’s offensive potential, disrupts military production chains and demonstrates that even deep in Russia’s rear, there are no safe zones for its military infrastructure,” the source said in comments reported by Ukrainian media.

A video posted on social media and verified by the BBC showed an explosion on the roof of a building, followed by a large plume of black smoke rising over a factory-type chimney.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator Rosaviatsia imposed restrictions on operations at Izhevsk airport, before lifting them a few hours later.

This is second Ukrainian drone attack on the Kupol factory since November – although that strike had not resulted in any casualties.

For its part, Moscow continues to carry out attacks in Ukraine. At the weekend Russia launched a record 537 drones and missiles on various locations across the country, including Kyiv and the western city of Lviv.

On Monday Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky granted the Hero of Ukraine award posthumously to an F-16 pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustymenko, who was killed while trying to repel the aerial attack.

On the battlefield, while Russia’s advance on the Sumy region seems to have stalled, Moscow appears to be targeting the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media suggested Moscow’s forces took control of the first village in the region.

Two rounds of talks aimed at agreeing a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow have taken place at the behest of US President Donald Trump since May, but have failed to produce tangible results.

Last week, President Putin said Russia was ready to hold a new round of peace negotiations although he said that the Russian and Ukrainian peace proposals were “absolutely contradictory”.

On Monday Zelensky again expressed scepticism of Putin’s intentions. “Putin has already stolen practically half a year from diplomacy… on top of the entire duration of this war,” the Ukrainian leader said.

“Russia is not changing its plans and is not looking for a way out of this war. On the contrary, they are preparing for new operations, including on the territory of European countries.”

US senior envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg echoed this on Monday, when he wrote on X that Russia could not “continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine”.

Moscow swiftly pushed back, saying it was not “interested in stalling anything” and thanking the US for its support.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court has suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who has come under mounting pressure to resign over her leaked phone conversation with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

The clip, in which Paetongtarn called him “uncle” and criticised a Thai military commander, sparked public anger and a petition for her dismissal, which the court is now considering.

That could make Paetongtarn the third politician in the powerful Shinawatra clan – which has dominated Thai politics for the past two decades – to lose power before completing their term.

Her ruling coalition is already teetering with a slim majority after a key conservative ally abandoned it two weeks ago.

The Constitutional Court voted 7-2 to suspend her while they consider the case for her dismissal and she has 15 days to present her defence.

In the meantime the deputy PM will serve as the country’s acting leader. Paetongtarn, however, will remain in the cabinet as culture minister, a new appointment following a cabinet reshuffle that was endorsed hours before she was suspended.

On Tuesday, Paetongtarn apologised again, adding that the purpose of her phone call with Hun Sen was “more than 100%… for the country”.

The call was about the border dispute between the two countries – although it’s decades old, tensions have risen again since late May when a Cambodian soldier was killed.

The leaked audio especially angered conservative lawmakers who accused her of appeasing Hun Sen and undermining Thailand’s military.

But she defended herself on Tuesday, saying, “I had no intent to do it for my own interest. I only thought about how to avoid chaos, avoid fighting and to avoid loss of lives.

“If you listened to it carefully, you’d understand that I didn’t have ill intentions. This is what I’ll focus and spend time on explaining thoroughly.”

If she is eventually dismissed, Paetongtarn will be the second prime minister from the Pheu Thai party to be removed from premiership since August last year.

At that time, her predecessor Srettha Thavisin was dismissed, also by the constitutional court, for appointing to his cabinet a former lawyer who was once jailed.

Days later, Paetongtarn – whose father is Thailand’s deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra – was sworn in as prime minister.

Tuesday’s decision once again underscores the constitutional court’s power to unmake governments, which critics say can be weaponised to target political opponents.

This court has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, including the reformist Move Forward, which won the most seats and votes in the 2023 election but was blocked from forming the government.

“This has become a pattern in Thai politics… a part of the Thai political culture, which is not what a true political process is supposed to be,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political science lecturer at Ubon Ratchathani University.

“The suspension by court order shouldn’t have happened but most people could see its legitimacy because the leaked conversation really made people question if the PM was genuinely defending the interest of the country.”

Paetongtarn, 38, remains the country’s youngest leader and only the second woman to be PM after her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra.

Already struggling to revive a weak economy, Paetongtarn saw her approval rating fall to 9.2% last weekend, down from 30.9% in March.

The court’s decision comes on the same day as Paetongtarn’s father, who was seen as the driving force behind her government, battles his own political troubles.

Thaksin is fighting charges of insulting the monarchy over an interview he gave to a South Korean newspaper nine years ago. His trial started on Tuesday.

The controversial political leader, who returned to Thailand in 2023 after 15 years in exile, is the most high-profile figure to face charges under the country’s notorious lese majeste law.

Thaksin’s return was part of a grand compromise between Pheu Thai and its former conservative foes.

They include the military, which deposed two Shinawatra governments in coups, and groups close to the monarchy.

A father jumped into the ocean to save his daughter after she fell from the fourth deck of a Disney cruise ship travelling from the Bahamas to the US on Sunday afternoon, witnesses say.

Videos showed passengers cheering as the two were pulled onto a rescue boat after apparently treading water for 10 minutes.

The girl appeared to fall when her father took her picture against a railing, witnesses said. A man overboard alert was broadcast on the ship, and crew rushed to recover them.

“The ship was moving quickly, so quickly, it’s crazy how quickly the people became tiny dots in the sea, and then you lost sight of them,” passenger Laura Amador said.

“The captain slowed the ship and turned it around, and then they deployed a tender ship with people on it to go get them, and we saw them rescue the dad and daughter,” she told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

The 4,000-person capacity Disney Dream, was returning to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after sailing for four days around the Bahamas.

Disney confirmed in a statement that two passengers were rescued, but offered few details about what occurred.

“The Crew aboard the Disney Dream swiftly rescued two guests from the water,” a Disney Cruise Line spokesperson said. “We commend our Crew Members for their exceptional skills and prompt actions, which ensured the safe return of both guests to the ship within minutes.

“We watched it, you could see two little things…it was crazy, it was horrific,” passenger Gar Frantz told NBC News, describing how he witnessed the two enter the ocean and nearly disappear into the horizon.

The incident took place on the last day of the cruise, and the ship returned to port in Florida as normal.

While it is rare for passengers to fall from cruise ships, rescues are not often successful when they do.

According to a Cruise Lines International Association report from 2019, 25 people fell overboard that year from cruise ships and only nine were saved from the water.

Danish women now face being called up for 11 months of military service when they turn 18, after a change in the law came into effect.

Under new rules passed by Denmark’s parliament, women are to join teenage males in a lottery system that could require them to undertake a period of conscription.

The change was brought in as Nato countries boost defence spending amid heightened security concerns in Europe.

Up to now, women were allowed to participate in military service when they turned 18, but on a voluntary basis.

From Tuesday, both men and women turning 18 will be required to register to be assessed for potential military service. Volunteers will be recruited first, with the remaining numbers made up through the lottery system.

The change will also see the period of conscription for teenagers rise from four months to 11 months.

About 4,700 Danish men and women undertook a short period of military service in 2024 – about 24% of them being female volunteers. The new rules on conscription are expected to see the overall number doing military service annually rise to 6,500 by 2033.

Denmark is following the example of neighbouring Sweden and Norway, which both brought in conscription for women in recent years.

The government in March also announced a 40.5bn Danish crowns (£4.3bn, $5.9bn) increase in defence spending over the next five years to meet Nato targets.

There are about 9,000 professional personnel currently serving in Denmark’s military.

Colonel Kenneth Strom, head of the Danish military’s conscription programme, said the change was “based on a political decision and a political agreement made by the parties”.

He added: “And obviously, it’s based on the current security situation in order to get more combat power and have those skills that are needed for either the Army, Navy, Air Force or even the Special Operations Forces.”

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Katrine, a current volunteer in Denmark’s military, said: “In the world situation we’re in right now, it’s necessary to have more conscripts, and I think that women should contribute to that equally, as men do.

“I think it’s a positive change.”

Listen to Jim read this article

There’s a saying that Robert F Kennedy Jr is very fond of. He used it on the day he was confirmed as US health secretary. “A healthy person has a thousand dreams, a sick person only has one,” he said as he stood in the Oval Office. “60% of our population has only one dream – that they get better.”

The most powerful public health official in the US has made it his mission to tackle what he describes as an epidemic of chronic illness in America, a catch-all term that covers everything from obesity and diabetes to heart disease.

His diagnosis that the US is experiencing an epidemic of ill health is a view shared by many healthcare experts in the country.

But Kennedy also has a history of promoting unfounded health conspiracies, from the suggestion that Covid-19 targeted and spared certain ethnic groups to the idea that chemicals in tap water could be making children transgender.

And after taking office, he slashed thousands of jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services and eliminated whole programmes at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

“On the one hand, it’s extraordinarily exciting to have a federal official take on chronic disease,” says Marion Nestle, a retired professor of public health at New York University. “On the other, the dismantling of the federal public health apparatus cannot possibly help with the agenda.”

Kennedy is reviled by parts of the medical and scientific communities. He was described to me as an “evil nihilist” by Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

But even some of Kennedy’s critics accept that he is bringing drive and ambition to areas of healthcare that have been neglected. Is it possible that the man who attracts so much criticism – and in some quarters, hate – might actually start making America healthy again?

There’s one industry that Kennedy had set his sights on long before joining the Trump administration: multinational food companies have, he has said, poisoned American children with artificial additives already banned in other countries.

“We have a generation of kids who are swimming around in a toxic soup right now,” he claimed on Fox News last year.

His first target was food colourings, with a promise to phase out the use of petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2026.

Chemicals, with names like ‘Green No. 3’ and ‘Red No. 40’, have been linked to hyperactivity and behavioural issues in children, and cancer in some animal studies.

“What’s happening in this administration is really interesting,” says Vani Hari, a food blogger and former Democrat who is now an influential voice in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. “MAHA is all about how do we get people off processed food, and one way to do that is to regulate the chemicals companies use.”

There are some signs this pressure may be paying off.

The food giant PepsiCo, for example, said in a recent trading update that Lays crisps and Tostitos snacks “will be out of artificial colours by the end of this year”.

Kennedy struck a voluntary agreement with the food industry but it only came after individual states from California to West Virginia had already started introducing their own laws.

“In the case of food dyes, companies will have to act because states are banning them [anyway] and they won’t want to have to formulate separate products for separate states,” says Prof Nestle, an author and longtime critic of the industry.

More recently Kennedy has signalled he backs a radical food bill in Texas that could target additives in some products ranging from sweets, to cereals and fizzy drinks

Packets may soon have to carry a high-contrast label stating, “WARNING: This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.”

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents some of the largest food manufacturers, opposes this, saying the ingredients used in the US food supply are safe and have been rigorously studied.

It’s difficult to imagine that kind of regulation could ever be signed off in a state like Texas without the political backing of Kennedy and President Trump.

“He can’t change everything in a short amount of time, but I think the issue of food dyes will soon be history,” says Ms Hari, who testified before the Senate on this subject last year.

But others worry that the flurry of announcements on additives is tinkering around the edges of what is a much wider problem.

“While some of these individual actions are important, they are a drop in the ocean in the larger context of chronic disease,” argues Nicola Hawley, professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. “There is a focus on personal choice and access to natural food, but that completely ignores the big, systematic and structural barriers [to healthy eating] like poverty and really aggressive marketing of junk food to children.”

The US government, for example, still heavily subsidises crops including corn and soya beans, key ingredients in processed foods.

Kennedy is now updating the US national dietary guidelines, an important document used to shape everything from school meals to assistance programmes for the elderly. A reduction in added sugars and a switch to more locally sourced whole foods is expected. Plus he has called on states to ban millions of Americans from using food stamps, a welfare benefit, to buy junk food or sugar-sweetened drinks.

He has also backed local officials who want to stop adding fluoride to drinking water, describing it as a “dangerous neurotoxin”. It is used in some countries, including in parts of the US, to prevent tooth decay, and whilst there is still debate about the possible health effects, the NHS says a review of the risks has found “no convincing evidence” to support any concerns. Other fluoride research has found the mineral only has detrimental health effects at extremely high levels.

Prof Hawley also argues there is a tension between Kennedy’s “important message” on food and chronic disease, and what she feels is a lack of policies backed by solid scientific evidence.

“You’ve got this challenge of him drifting into misinformation about the links between additives and chronic disease, or environmental risk factors,” she argues. “And that really just undermines the science.”

That tension is even clearer when it comes to another of Kennedy’s big concerns.

Vaccines are still listed on the CDC website as one of the great public health achievements of the last century, alongside family planning and tobacco control. They prevent countless cases of disease and disability each year, and save millions of lives, according to the American Medical Association.

Kennedy, though, is the best-known vaccine sceptic in the country. The activist group he ran for eight years, Children’s Health Defense, repeatedly questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

In 2019 he described the disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield as the “most unfairly maligned person in modern history” and told a crowd in Washington that “any just society” would be building statues of him.

Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 after his research falsely linked the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine to autism, leading to a spike in measles cases in England and some other countries.

Over the last year, Kennedy has repeatedly insisted he is not “anti-vax” and will not be “taking away anybody’s vaccines”. Faced with a deadly measles outbreak in unvaccinated children in west Texas, he posted that the MMR was “the most effective way to prevent the spread of the disease”.

In other comments though, he described vaccination as a “personal choice” and emphasised alternative treatments such as vitamin A supplements.

A huge deal with the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine to combat bird flu in humans was scrapped, and new rules were brought in which could mean some vaccines need extra testing before they can be updated each winter.

In May, Kennedy posted a video on social media saying the government would no longer endorse Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women.

However, some doctors point out that reducing eligibility would simply bring the US into line with other countries, including the UK, where free Covid boosters are restricted to those over 75 or with weakened immune systems.

“They are really just aligning themselves with everyone else, which is not in any way outrageous,” says Prof Adam Finn, a paediatric doctor and one of the UK’s leading experts on vaccines.

Then in June, Kennedy suddenly sacked all 17 members of the influential expert committee, which advises the CDC on vaccine eligibility. He accused the panel of being “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and rubber-stamping new vaccines without proper scrutiny.

A new, much smaller, committee handpicked by the administration now has the power to change, or even drop, critical recommendations to immunise Americans for certain diseases, as well as shape the childhood vaccination programme.

“It underscores just how much we are backsliding now,” says Dr Amesh Adalja, the infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University. “I think increasingly the panel will become irrelevant if RFK Jr is able to shape it the way he wants to.”

The new panel made its first decision last week, voting to stop recommending a small number of flu vaccines that still contain the preservative thimerosal, something Kennedy wrote a book about in 2015.

His critics say that a new era of vaccine policy has arrived in the US. Whilst his supporters say no subject, including vaccine safety, should be considered off-limits.

“Everything has to be open to discussion and Bobby Kennedy is not anti-vaccine, he’s anti-corruption,” argues Tony Lyons, who co-founded the political action committee that supported his independent presidential campaign.

“It’s about being pro-science, pro-capitalism, and believing you have an obligation to the public to do a thorough job of researching any product that is put in the arms of 40 million children.”

Weeks after Kennedy took office news emerged that the CDC would open a research project into the link between vaccines and autism.

Since Wakefield’s now-discredited Lancet paper in 1998, which linked autism to the MMR vaccine given to children, there have been numerous international studies that have looked at this in detail and found no reputable link.

“There is nothing to debate any more, it has been settled by science,” says Eric Fombonne, an autism researcher and professor emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University.

Kennedy, though, has hired David Geier, a noted vaccine sceptic, to look again at the data.

Today autism is widely understood to be a lifelong spectrum condition. It can include those with high support needs who are non-speaking, and those with above-average intelligence who might struggle with social interaction or communication.

Most researchers believe a rise in cases over decades is down to a broadening in the way children with autism are defined, as well as improved awareness, understanding and screening.

But in April, Kennedy dismissed that idea, describing autism as “preventable”. He blamed a mysterious environmental trigger for the increase in eight-year-olds being diagnosed.

“This is coming from an environmental toxin… [in] our air, our water, our medicines, our food,” he said.

He pledged a massive research effort to find that cause by September and “eliminate those exposures”.

Dr Fombonne strongly disputes this. “It is nonsensical and shows a complete absence of understanding,” he says. “We have known for many years that autism has a strong genetic component.”

In the same speech, Kennedy said that many autistic children will never “pay taxes, never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

Many in the autism community are angry. “What we’re seeing here is a fear-based rhetoric and [a] misleading narrative that is causing harm and perpetuating stigma,” says Kristyn Roth from the Autism Society of America.

But some parents of autistic children are more supportive.

Emily May, a writer who is the mother of a child with autism, wrote in The New York Times that she found herself “nodding along as Mr Kennedy spoke about the grim realities of profound autism”.

“His remarks echo the reality and pain of a subset of parents of children with autism who feel left out of much of the conversation,” she wrote.

The administration has since watered down that promise to find the reasons for autism by September but it is still promising detailed findings of its research by March 2026.

Ultimately, Robert Kennedy has only been in the job a matter of months. Already though he’s asking some big questions – particularly about chronic disease – which have never been asked in the same way by a health secretary before.

For the first time that issue has both political attention and bipartisan support in the US.

He is clearly not afraid to take on what he perceives to be vested interests in the food and drug industries, and he is still firmly supported by President Trump.

Tony Lyons, who has published books by Kennedy, calls him “uniquely qualified” for the most powerful job in US public health. “He’s a corruption fighter. He has seen what all these kinds of companies do, not just pharmaceutical companies but food companies, and he wants them to do a better job,” he says.

Robert Kennedy’s background as an environmental lawyer taking on big business and the establishment has clearly shaped the views he holds today.

But Jerold Mande, a former federal food policy advisor in three administrations, worries that Kennedy’s own views and biases will mean some of the solutions he’s reaching for are predetermined and unsupported by the evidence.

Now a professor of nutrition at Harvard, Prof Mande describes Kennedy as an imperfect messenger and says he has “great concerns” about the administration’s approach to aspects of public health, from tobacco control to vaccination, where there is “no question that what he’s doing is going to result in enormous harm.”

“At a high level, I’m optimistic… but you still need to come up with the right answers, and those answers can only be found through science,” says Prof Mande.

“We now have a shot and he’s provided that by making it a priority. But it’s how you use that shot that’s going to determine whether it’s a success or not. And that is where the jury is still out.”

After 17 years in the US Army, Maj Kara Corcoran, 39, was preparing to graduate from an elite military leadership programme.

But there was a complication.

Two days before the ceremony, Kara was told that she would need to conform to male regulations, which meant wearing male uniform and cutting the long blonde hair she had grown since she told the Army she identified as a woman in 2018.

The directive had come from the Pentagon, and filtered down through her chain of command at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“Nothing about me is a man, but we’re going to force me into male regs just so I can walk across the stage with my peers,” she said in the hours leading up to the ceremony. “It’s not my choice to cut my hair. I’m doing it because I have to.”

Kara is one of several thousand transgender people affected by a ban, announced by US President Donald Trump in January, that prevents them from serving in any job in the US military.

A previous ban in his first term focused on new recruits and allowed some exceptions, particularly for those already serving. The 2025 policy removes virtually all of the exceptions.

Official figures say there are about 4,200 transgender service members in the US armed forces, however other estimates are much higher, at about 10,000.

The new policy states that a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria – where a person feels their gender differs from their sex registered at birth – is “incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service”.

An executive order outlined Trump’s position that “the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology” and that the policy would ensure staff were “free of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalisation”.

The order also stated that “a man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honour this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.

A Gallup poll in February this year suggested that 58% of Americans “favour allowing openly transgender men and women to serve in the US military, but support has declined from 71% in 2019 and 66% in 2021”.

Critics have called the ban discriminatory and legal challenges have been filed from serving transgender officers and human rights groups.

Since February, the BBC has followed the lives of Maj Kara Corcoran and an officer in the Navy, Lt Rae Timberlake, as they navigate the uncertainty of their military careers. They have shared their thoughts and feelings in a personal capacity, not as spokespeople for the US military or other colleagues.

Kara has spent most of her adult life in the US Army. Her combat deployments included time in Afghanistan where she was both a platoon leader and a company commander, when she was living as a man, before she transitioned. Since then, she says she has legally changed her name and gender and uses female pronouns.

Transgender people were disqualified from all jobs in the military until 2016, but over the past decade, as governments have changed, US policy has flip-flopped.

• 2016: Obama lifts ban on trans people serving, allowing them access to funding through the military for gender-related treatment
• 2017: Trump announces ban on trans people serving, citing medical costs and potential disruptions
• 2021: Biden signs order restoring the right of trans people to serve
• 2025: Trump announces new ban and bases are told to initiate separation proceedings against personnel with gender dysphoria

“For a long time, I stayed silent,” says Kara. When she joined up in 2008, women were not allowed in combat positions either.

Kara married a woman and had children, although the relationship broke down and ended as she grappled with her identity.

Kara came out as a transgender woman in 2018 and began her hormonal and surgical transition. She says she had the support of her commanding officers, who were still working to the previous set of guidelines, despite Trump’s 2017 ban. She tells the BBC that the transition improved her ability to serve.

“It’s made me more focused, more resilient,” she says. “There’s a common misconception that transitioning is a liability. For me, it’s been the opposite.”

Now, with Trump’s latest policy in effect, Kara has been told that unless she leaves voluntarily, she may be forced out of the service against her will through a process called involuntary separation.

Involuntary separation happens when someone is discharged and they do not choose to leave of their own accord. It can affect any service member, not just people in combat roles.

As well as losing their jobs, people can also potentially lose benefits, such as pensions, healthcare and disability provisions.

The Department of Defense said that if someone went involuntarily they may get half what they would get if they left voluntarily – the difference could be tens of thousands of dollars.

Despite this, Maj Kara Corcoran says she does not want to walk away.

“I’m not going to get voluntarily separated,” she says. “I’ll go through the involuntary separation and what that looks like and how horrific they want to make that for me and other service members.”

Others such as former US Navy Seal, Carl Higbie, support Trump’s ban, though. Carl now hosts a TV show on the conservative network Newsmax.

He believes that transgender people are not fit for service in the US military, arguing that gender dysphoria may require ongoing medical care and accommodations that could affect deployability.

“You can’t take Ritalin [which is used to treat ADHD] or certain types of prescription medications and be an eligible service member in combat. Why should you be on hormone therapy, which we know has sometimes emotional effects?” he asks.

When asked if he thought that biological women, who may be on other medications containing hormones, such as treatment for the menopause, are fit to serve in the armed forces, he said: “I think there are certain times where we should be more concerned about killing bad guys than making sure that we have gender quotas on a combat operation.”

• Listen to Inside the US trans military ban on BBC Sounds

The ban on transgender service members is part of a broader shift in US military policy – Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Trump appointee and former army officer, has moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

“I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength’,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon event in February.

And in April, he posted on X that he “proudly ended” the Women, Peace and Security programme, an initiative to invite more women and girls to be part of conflict resolution. He called it a distraction from the core task of “war-fighting”.

Many had seen the policy shift coming. In the early hours of 6 November, when Trump secured his victory in the 2024 US presidential election, Lt Rae Timberlake made a decision.

A non-binary navy officer, Rae joined the Navy aged 17 and has served aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and in the Middle East.

Rae falls under the trans umbrella because, although they were registered female at birth, they identify as neither male nor female and use they/them pronouns.

Rae says that coming out as non-binary in 2020 and transitioning brought clarity to their identity. “The moment I heard the word ‘non-binary’, I knew it fit,” they told the BBC.

But with the 2024 Trump victory, Rae felt the clock was ticking on their career. They requested to transfer from their West Coast base, to a base closer to family in the east, who could give them support.

Rae, their wife and daughter moved in the middle of a school term, in the anticipation that a possible separation from the Navy was imminent.

“It felt like the safest move for us, in case I was forced to leave the service,” says Rae.

They add that they weren’t surprised by Trump’s executive order in January, or a memorandum from the Department of Defense the following month.

The memo specified that military bases must identify service members diagnosed with or exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria. The final deadlines to come forward voluntarily were eventually set as 6 June for active-duty personnel and 7 July for reserve and National Guard members.

In May, the Department of Defense said 1,000 service personnel had self-identified as trans, but there has been no update of the number since then.

The military has 30 days from a deadline to start involuntary separation proceedings.

The memo includes a provision for people to be considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis. There are a few conditions including that staff must have “never attempted to transition to any sex other than their sex”.

By the time the memorandum was published, Rae had taken a new post in Maryland, and the family was adjusting to their new home.

“Watching Rae lose their career, it’s painful,” their wife, Lindsay, says. “We’re in survival mode. We haven’t had time to connect as a family. We just keep making hard choices.”

For Rae, the emotional cost has been high. They have decided they want more control over the future, so have requested to retire from the Navy, and believe that in doing so have self-identified for voluntary separation. The application hasn’t been accepted yet, but Rae believes it will be.

They expect the financial implications to be substantial. Without completing 20 years of service, Rae says they will likely forfeit eligibility for a military pension. They estimate pension payments could have added up to about $2.5m (£1.8m) over the course of their retirement.

While the Department of Defense says the ban will maintain consistent medical and readiness standards across the forces, opponents argue that the policy targets a vulnerable group unfairly.

Three lawsuits have been filed challenging its legality.

In one high-profile ruling, a federal judge blocked the ban temporarily, citing concerns over its constitutionality and suggesting it discriminated based on gender identity. However, in April, the Supreme Court lifted the injunction, allowing the policy to move forward while litigation continues.

The legal back-and-forth has left transgender service members in limbo.

Rae has found job hunting in the civilian sector tough. “I applied for a position that had over 800 applicants in one day,” they say, adding that civilian life will offer less security than the Navy. “It’s competitive and daunting out there.”

But they say the next chapter is about not feeling “under threat for who I am”.

Kara didn’t self-identify by the 6 June deadline, so is waiting to see if the military flags her for separation – the 30-day window means that should happen by 6 July. She will see what unfolds from there.

The US Department of Defense declined to give a statement to the BBC but pointed to previous statements saying it was committed to treating all service members impacted by the policy with dignity and respect. A US defence official said that “characterisation of service will be honourable except where the service member’s record otherwise warrants a lower characterisation”.

For now Kara remains at her base in Fort Leavenworth but is prepared to leave with little notice if she has to. She has turned her car into a mobile home with a chunky power bank, cooking equipment, and a fold-out mattress. “On top I’ve got an eight-gallon water tank. I fill it up, pump it with an air compressor, and I can take a shower out in the wild. At least I have somewhere to live.”

When she graduated from the leadership programme with distinction, after complying with male uniform and grooming standards, she said it “meant a lot, but how I had to do it felt like erasing my identity”.

“This is about people who’ve dedicated their lives to service, now being told they’re no longer fit, not because of performance, but because of who they are.”