Organisations that pumped money into overturning Roe v Wade are making inroads in Europe. Women’s rights are truly at risk

With Donald Trump as president, there is now a heavy strain of Christian nationalism driving the US political agenda. From draconian abortion policies to ending birthright citizenship, some of Trump’s first executive orders sound startlingly like something out of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian novel turned TV show set in Gilead, a fundamentalist, fascist version of the US where women have no rights. But it is urgent we understand that what is happening in the US could happen here. This road to Atwood’s Gilead is charting a course straight through the UK and Europe, and we may well be sleepwalking on to it.

In November 2024 I debated with the American conservative lawyer Erin Hawley at the Oxford Union. The motion was “This house regrets the overturning of Roe v Wade”, the US supreme court’s landmark decision that once protected the right to have an abortion at the federal level. Hawley is vice-president of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an “ anti-LGBTQ+ hate group ”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, founded by the US Christian right. She is also a high profile lawyer and supported the state of Mississippi on the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that overturned Roe.

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Livia Tossici-Bolt given conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,000 costs in case that drew US state department concern

An activist whose case had been cited by the US state department over “freedom of expression” concerns in the UK has been convicted of breaching a buffer zone outside an abortion clinic.

Livia Tossici-Bolt, an anti-abortion campaigner, went on trial at Poole magistrates court last month accused of breaching a public spaces protection order on two days in March 2023 near to a clinic in Bournemouth. On Friday she was found guilty of two charges of breaching the order.

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Health secretary says the scrapping of NHS England is ‘beginning, not end’ of bid to slash ‘bloated bureaucracy’

The health secretary has declared that scrapping NHS England is “the beginning, not the end” and has vowed to continue “slashing bloated bureaucracy”.

Wes Streeting suggested hundreds more quangos could be in the line of fire after the prime minister announced this week the end of the body overseeing the health service in England.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Streeting said: “ The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end.

“Patients and staff alike can see the inefficiency and waste in the health service. My team and I are going through budgets line by line, with a relentless focus on slashing bloated bureaucracy.”

NHS England has managed the health service since 2012, when it was established to cut down on political interference in the NHS – something Streeting described as an act of “backside-covering” to avoid blame for failures.

But on Thursday, Keir Starmer announced this would come to an end as he unexpectedly revealed the government would abolish NHS England in an effort to avoid “duplication”.

In his Sunday Telegraph article, Streeting suggested more was to come, saying new NHS England chair Penny Dash had “identified hundreds of bodies cluttering the patient safety and regulatory landscape, leaving patients and staff alike lost in a labyrinth of paperwork and frustration”.

The move towards scrapping NHS England and other health-related quangos marks a change in direction for Streeting, who in January said he would not embark upon a reorganisation of the NHS.

He told the Health Service Journal he could spend “a hell of a lot of time” on reorganisation “and not make a single difference to the patient interest”, saying instead he would focus on trying to “eliminate waste and duplication”.

But in the Telegraph article, Streeting said he had heard former Conservative health ministers “bemoan” not abolishing NHS England, adding: “If we hadn’t acted this week, the transformational reform the NHS needs wouldn’t have been possible.”

The government expects scrapping NHS England will take two years and save “hundreds of millions of pounds” that can be spent on frontline services.

But during the week, Downing Street would not be drawn on how many people were facing redundancy as a result of the changes.

The Guardian reported on Friday that the jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought.

The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000 .

Many thousands more people who work for the NHS’s 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) in England will see their roles axed , as well as the 10,000 working for NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) who have already been earmarked to go.

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Trial will determine whether electrical pulses can control and decrease yearnings

Surgeons are to put implants into the brains of alcoholics and opioid addicts in a trial aimed at testing the use of electrical impulses to combat drink and drug cravings.

The technique is already used to help patients control some of the effects of Parkinson’s disease , depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Now a group of doctors and researchers – from Cambridge and Oxford universities and King’s College London – are preparing to use deep brain stimulation to try to decrease addicts’ yearnings and to boost their self-control.

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Cambridge scientist behind VR platform says it could help those put off by high cost of speech anxiety treatment

A free online platform that allows speakers to practise in front of thousands of virtual spectators has been released to help with the anxiety many feel when presenting to an audience.

Dr Chris Macdonald, the founder of the Immersive Technology Lab at Cambridge University and who created the online platform, said the approach was an attempt to reduce the lengthy waits or high costs people often face when seeking help.

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The US has now recorded over 300 measles cases just three months into 2025, exceeding the yearly case counts for all years after 2019. The bulk of this year's cases are from an outbreak that erupted in an undervaccinated county in West Texas in late January, which has since spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma .

As of the afternoon of March 14, Texas reports 259 cases across 11 counties, 34 hospitalizations, and one death, which occurred in an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl. New Mexico reports 35 cases across two counties, two hospitalizations, and one death. That death occurred in an unvaccinated adult who did not seek medical treatment and tested positive for the virus posthumously. The cause of death is still under investigation. Oklahoma reports two probable cases linked to the outbreak.

In addition to Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, 12 other states have reported at least one confirmed measles case since the start of the year: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this year has seen three measles outbreaks, defined as three or more related cases.

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Loss of staff will be at least twice as big as thought, as new NHS England chief tells regional boards to cut costs by 50%

The jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought, with other parts of the health service now being downsized too.

The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000.

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Though many would rather forget the pandemic, we are living with its consequences. Are we any better prepared for the next one?

“When asked what was the biggest disaster of the twentieth century, almost nobody answers the Spanish flu,” notes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, of an event that killed as many as one in 20 of the global population. “There is no cenotaph, no monument in London, Moscow or Washington DC.”

Most of us will better understand that absence after Covid-19 , which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization five years ago this week. Some cannot put those events behind them: most obviously, many of those bereaved by the 7 million deaths worldwide (not including those indirectly caused by the pandemic ), and the significant numbers still living with long Covid . Others want to forget the loss of loved ones, the months of isolation and the costs to businesses, families and mental health.

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 .

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With measles declared eliminated from the US in 2000 and national herd immunity strong, health experts have recommended that American children get two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine—the first between the ages of 12 and 15 months and the second between the ages of 4 and 6 years, before they start school.

Before 12 months, vulnerable infants in the US have been protected in part by maternal antibodies early in infancy as well as the immunity of the people surrounding them. But if they travel to a place where population immunity is unreliable, experts recommend that infants ages 6 to 11 months get an early dose—then follow it up with the standard two doses at the standard times, bringing the total to three doses.

The reason they would need three—and the reason experts typically recommend waiting until 12 months—is because the maternal antibodies infants carry can interfere with the vaccine response, preventing the immune system from mounting long-lasting protection. Still, the early dose provides boosted protection in that 6-to-11-month interval.

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