The drug industry’s self-regulatory body criticised Theramex for ‘alarming’ compliance issues One of the biggest producers of hormone replacement therapy has been censured by regulators for “systemic failures” that put patient safety in jeopardy. Theramex, the UK producer of HRT drugs Evorel and Intrarosa was found to have breached fundamental compliance standards including not updating crucial prescribing information – in some cases for several years – and not making it clear that a drug must not be used during pregnancy. Continue reading...

⚽️ Updates from this 8pm BST KO at Turf Moor ⚽️ Premier League table | Email Simon Tonight’s lineups are in, and are here: Burnley: Dubravka; Walker, Ekdal, Humphreys, Esteve, Hartman; Tchaouna, Ward-Prowse, Laurent, Anthony; Flemming. Subs: Broja, Edwards, Foster, Florentino, Lucas Pires, Tresor, Ugochukwu, Weiss, Worrall. Manchester City: Donnarumma; Matheus Nunes, Khusanov, Guehi, Ait-Nouri; Bernardo Silva, O’Reilly; Semenyo, Cherki, Doku; Haaland. Subs: Ake, Foden, Nico Gonzalez, Kovacic, Omar Marmoush, Savinho, Reijnders, Stones, Trafford. Referee: Andy Madley. VAR: Stuart Attwell. Continue reading...

On Tuesday, the president read from the Bible in a taped message. Religious scholars were not impressed This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday Donald Trump, who recently posted an image on social media which portrayed him as Jesus Christ (or, rather, “a doctor”), and who seems unable to stop attacking the pope, read the Bible to America on Tuesday night. Sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, hands resting on a book that looked like a Bible, Trump stared straight into the camera (presumably there was a teleprompter) as he recited from the book 2 Chronicles. It’s a passage which has become fashionable among the right wing, and which quotes God as saying: Continue reading...

Whitehall has its flaws, but reform can only be successful in a climate of trust, not fear The announcement of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador ensures that 20 December 2024 will be recorded as a fateful day in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. Less remarked on, but relevant in hindsight, is a speech that the prime minister made earlier that month to launch a “plan for change”. Sir Keir set out ambitions to improve public services and lamented caution in the civil service. Whitehall, he said, was too often comfortable “in the tepid bath of managed decline”. The prime minister was feeling thwarted by the machinery of government. In that context, it is easy to see how he might have been persuaded that Lord Mandelson would make a better emissary to the US than the long-serving professional diplomat in post at the time. Impatience with a slow-moving apparatus is conveyed also in the account given by Sir Olly Robbins, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, of a department under “constant pressure” to complete Lord Mandelson’s security vetting. The prime minister told the Commons on Wednesday that no such pressure existed. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

The pontiff’s criticisms of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran indicate a welcome resolve to follow in his predecessor’s footseps One year after the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican this week hosted the premiere of a documentary tribute by Martin Scorsese. For a pontiff whose charisma and crowd-pleasing style helped cut through to a secular audience, marking the anniversary with the help of one of the world’s most famous film directors was a nice touch. Francis’s successor, Leo XIV, is a far less flamboyant personality. In his inaugural year in St Peter’s chair, the first pope to come from the United States has generally taken a cautious, circumspect approach to his role. But it turns out that an aura of mildness and restraint makes him no less effective when criticising the posturing that passes for Christian piety in Donald Trump’s Washington. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

‘Massive drop-off’ in successful prosecutions Police are ‘not getting the information in time’ One of the UK’s leading police officers in prosecuting online harms has said the ability to secure identifying information from the social media company X has become “significantly worse” over the past 12 months. Mike Ankers, the deputy director of the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), said there had been a “massive drop-off” in successful prosecutions in 2025, and that the Elon Musk-owned platform was “hiding behind” legal processes that delayed the identification of users posting hateful content online. Continue reading...

Iranian forces seize two ships in critical waterway as Washington and Tehran maintain separate blockades Middle East crisis – live updates Iranian forces have seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz as the US and Iran doubled down on imposing separate blockades of the critical shipping waterway that have choked global energy markets. The standoff over the strait – through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied fossil gas passed through during peacetime – has raised doubts about whether stalled peace negotiations will resume. Continue reading...

Live Premier League and Championship updates You can email Niall | Sign up for Football Daily Which team currently has the longest unbeaten run in any of Europe’s “big five” leagues? Bayern? Barcelona? No, it’s Bournemouth, who haven’t lost in 13 [thirteen] Premier League matches. Not even Andoni Iraola announcing his summer departure could stop them – if anything, results have improved. Having emerged from trips to the Emirates and St James’ Park with six points in the bag, the Cherries can climb to sixth with a win tonight, a first European campaign within reach. Continue reading...

Budget outlines funding for autonomous drone warfare program as experts say military unprepared for risks The Pentagon is aiming to increase funding more than a hundredfold for an autonomous drone warfare program, according to budget documents released this week, signalling a major pivot towards AI-powered war. In its 2027 budget, the Pentagon has asked for over $54bn to fund the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, a 24,000% increase on last year. Continue reading...

Despite punching through the Premier League’s glass ceiling, attempt to climb further has led to a steep plunge “Is it the players, do they not care? Have you put your trust in the wrong people? This is the football club that we love and it’s down in League One, we just want to know what’s going on!” Those were some of the thoughts aired by one board member of the Foxes Trust as Leicester fans sought to challenge their club’s owner, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, outside the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night. If they were unable to put a finger on quite why their club had been relegated to League One, then the man known as “Top” was none the wiser. “I cannot blame anyone,” he replied to his inquisitors. “I can blame myself if you want to. I tried everything, we all tried, but it was not enough.” Continue reading...

Winner of six grand slams is changing her strategy after a run of poor results, helped by time in Spain with Rafael Nadal Iga Swiatek had little interest in tennis as a teenager, but the one exception was Rafael Nadal. She spent her formative years idolising the Spaniard, who won 22 majors and, from afar, soon became one of his most avid students. His influence is evident in the heavy topspin the Pole generates with her forehand, still a singular weapon on the women’s tour, proof of the intensity she demands of herself on every point and her four French Open titles earned by the time she was barely 23. Continue reading...

Readers respond to the former civil servant’s testimony to MPs in the foreign affairs select committee While watching Olly Robbins give evidence at the Commons foreign affairs committee (Olly Robbins’ account of Mandelson vetting piles pressure on Keir Starmer, 21 April), what I heard was that Robbins – who boasted of his quarter century as a civil servant and who had been appointed to one of the highest positions in government – felt unable to resist the pressure of an unspecified source he called “Downing Street” regarding perhaps the most important and far-reaching foreign post of all. Robbins showed little will to discover the detail of Peter Mandelson’s failure to gain clearance and, incredibly and most unlike a civil servant, he decided not to keep a record of what he described as a “crucial” meeting. He also appeared to not distinguish between reporting the fact that there had been an issue with Mandelson’s clearance and explaining the details of the issue, which he correctly said should have remained confidential. But he then broke that principle by disclosing a specific element in the vetting, that the reservations about Mandelson did not involve links with Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...

Oliver Goodhall wants to see a national vision to provide culture regardless of income, while Ian Flintoff speaks up for live theatre A V&A everywhere. It’s not such a silly idea (Editorial, 17 April). Labour’s postwar conviction that good things should be available for everyone led to the founding not only of the Arts Council but also the NHS. Universal basic healthcare: a good idea, right? What about universal basic culture? I can see a new era of cities thriving with agency to imagine and create the conditions in which more inclusive, diverse, devolved, responsive and self-driving culture emerges – regardless of income. The UK can be a global creative powerhouse. We know the way in which the economic arguments stack up for the creative industries. But we shouldn’t be trapped into setting out an exclusively economic argument. Continue reading...

Ruth Tanner sets out the wider environmental and economic ramifications of factory-farmed poultry in response to a letter on chicken feed Prof Julian Wiseman’s letter (14 April) makes important distinctions on the diet of poultry, but misses our point. My claim was never that chickens cannot physically eat other things, but that the factory-farming business model cannot function without cheap imported soya. Modern, fast-growing broilers – the Ross 308 or Cobb 500 being the dominant commercial examples – were selectively bred over decades in an environment of cheap, abundant soya protein, and their genetics and feed system are now coadapted. Their rapid growth relies on the dense protein that soya bean meal provides. Soya underpins modern global poultry production. Reliance on it carries mounting environmental and economic risk, with soya linked to illegal deforestation. Wiseman is correct that soya is the most complete plant protein. That is precisely the problem. UK soya bean production is negligible: soya doesn’t grow well here. To produce meat at scale, the UK imports more than 3m tonnes of soya annually – 68% comes from South America, with over 1m tonnes used for broiler chickens alone. These birds are also more prone to digestive stress from their unforgiving, rapid rate of growth. Mounting evidence shows slower-growing breeds, raised in less intensive systems, can thrive on a wider range of feeds and offer a more resilient and humane alternative. Continue reading...

Responding to an article by Nils Pratley, Simon Oldridge writes that the climate risk would outweigh paltry returns from new licensing, while Alex Chapman says Britain’s projected demand is often overstated I was surprised to read Nils Pratley’s recent column arguing for more North Sea gas (The UK needs more North Sea gas, not greater reliance on US imports, 14 April). Nils rightly questions reliance on costly and highly polluting imported US liquefied natural gas, but I think the analysis gives insufficient weight to the scale and immediacy of the climate and nature crisis. Continue reading...

Police catch woman, 28, climbing colossal 16th-century statue of Neptune to touch its genitals as a dare A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank. Experts said the woman caused thousands of euros of damage to the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria. Continue reading...

A survey of US adults reveals many of them think they have extraordinary powers of intuition – especially those in younger age groups Name: The psychic generation. Age: You tell me. Continue reading...

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some great new paperbacks, from Booker-listed novels to reportage from Ukraine *** Continue reading...

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The PM’s failure was being a spectator as Morgan McSweeney set about finding jobs for his mates This is the end, beautiful friend. It is the tragedy of almost all prime ministers that they are the last person to realise the game is up. Their race is run. The backbenchers are the first to know. They spend time in their constituencies. They get it in the neck from voters who have had enough with whoever is in No 10. They are the ones who get told nothing seems to work any more and that the prime minister has to go. Then comes the cabinet ministers. They are more protected from the real world and may feel a residual sense of loyalty to the person who gave them a job. But even they are not immune to the tsunami of discontent. Continue reading...

Rosenior has taken charge of only 23 matches Calum McFarlane in interim charge for rest of season Liam Rosenior has left Chelsea after Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton. The head coach has gone three and a half months into a six-and-a-half-year contract after taking charge of only 23 matches. The loss at Brighton was Chelsea’s fifth in a row in the Premier League without scoring and extinguished any realistic hope of finishing in the top five spots that would guarantee Champions League qualification. Continue reading...

Janet Fordham died in crash after travelling to see man who claimed he would help to recover money from earlier scams A British woman who was scammed of up to £1m in a string of so-called “romance frauds” died in a road crash after travelling to west Africa to try to recoup some of her lost fortune, an inquest in Devon has heard. Janet Fordham, 69, was cheated of her life savings and her home over five years by fraudsters apparently based in the UK, Germany, the US and Ghana, the inquest in Exeter was told. Continue reading...

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The British composer is once again missing from the Proms schedule – that’s our loss. Instead, here’s my pick of the brand new music you can catch at the summer festival There may currently be no less fashionable music than the hyper-romantic symphonies and orchestral works of Arnold Bax. The British composer’s music featured in pretty well every Proms season throughout the 1930s and 40s and early 50s, yet he has been the rarest of visitors to the Royal Albert Hall since then. When was the last Bax symphony heard at the Proms, you ask? 2011! Far too long for a fan like me (and Ken Russell), and – well, perhaps not long enough for others. Bax was born in 1883 in London to a family so wealthy that he was able to devote himself to the single-minded pursuit of his passions. He was a brilliant pianist and, as a composer, he could transform his creative and personal obsessions into every bar of his music. That meant the exoticism of Russia in his early years and, later, the romance and fantasy of the Celtic Twilight (Bax even assumed a pseudonym, Dermot O’Byrne, to write Irish-inspired poetry), and the landscapes of north-west Scotland. His romantic infatuations were just as intense and colourful. Continue reading...

There’s nothing to make you feel old like finding out that something you used to do all the time is now completely beyond you I decided to do some press-ups. They’re good for you, apparently. A calisthenic classic. This much I picked up in a doomscrolling session. Some algorithm somewhere must have decided I’d be open to the idea and, not for the first time, the algorithm was right. I used to do lots of press-ups, perhaps 20 or 30, most days. I can recall how this started. It was 1985 and I was spending a gap year working for my dad’s scaffolding company. That I was the boss’s son didn’t stop my workmates from sharing with me their thoughts on my shortcomings. One such shortcoming was identified by a muscly scaffolder called Andy. “Your arms are puny,” he told me. “Do some press-ups,” Andy advised. So that’s what I did, and my arms bulked up a bit. Thank you, Andy. Continue reading...