A man whose arrest led to protests outside a hotel in Essex has been jailed for a year after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.

Hadush Kebatu, from Ethiopia, was found guilty of touching and trying to kiss the girl during incidents in Epping on 7 and 8 July.

His arrest led to a wave of demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel, where Kebatu was staying as an asylum seeker.

The defendant's barrister, Molly Dyas, said: "Mr Kebatu's firm wish is to be deported as soon as possible."

A judge at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court said it must have been "disgusting and sickening" for the girl, who was wearing school uniform, to experience.

"Every time I go out with my friends I am checking over my shoulder," the girl said in a statement.

After a trial, Kebatu was found guilty of two sexual assaults, harassing the girl, inciting her to engage in sexual activity and an attempted sexual assault.

It happened eight days after he arrived in the UK by small boat, having travelled through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France.

Under the UK Borders Act 2007, a deportation order must be made where a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months.

Kebatu attempted to kiss the girl and placed his hand on her thigh, before asking her to kiss another child as he watched, the trial heard.

A woman who later intervened said Kebatu "took advantage of my kindness" when he placed his hand on her thigh as she tried to help him with his CV.

She called the police when she later saw Kebatu go and speak to the girl and her friends.

Kebatu insisted during his three-day trial he was "not a wild animal", adding: "I can't do these kind of things, this is anti-Christian – these are just children, innocent children."

But sentencing him, District Judge Christopher Williams said: "You seeked to portray yourself as a victim and that you'd been made to be a scapegoat."

The judge said Kebatu had tried to take his own life in prison, having been aware his offending caused "mass demonstrations" in the UK.

"He says because of the situation, Epping was in chaos and he'd got a lot of other migrants in trouble," prosecutor Stuart Cowen said.

"There was also comments made by Mr Kebatu where he states that he didn't know how strict the UK was."

During the trial, a child witness claimed to have heard Kebatu telling the girl and her friend "come back to Africa, you would be a good wife" on 7 July.

Kebatu had seen them eating pizza in Epping town centre and invited them back to The Bell Hotel.

"Out of nowhere, he said: 'I want one baby from you and one baby from your friend'," the girl told police.

Kebatu was seen telling her she was pretty and attempting to kiss her on a bench the following day, before placing his hand on her thigh.

She told detectives she "froze" during the encounter and told Kebatu "no, I'm 14", but claimed he responded "age did not matter".

The judge added: "It must've been abundantly clear to you that your behaviour was unwanted."

Kebatu was overheard telling the girls he paid €2,500 (£2,155) to arrive in the UK on a "rubber dinghy", the court heard.

At the trial, he gave his date of birth as December 1986, making him 38, but court records suggested he was 41.

Giving evidence, Kebatu told the judge he was a "teacher of sports" in Ethiopia and described children as "the future of tomorrow, the new generation".

However, the judge said he posed a "significant risk of reoffending" and that he became "visibly aroused" by asking the girl to kiss another child.

Judge Williams said Kebatu then "acted ignorantly and repulsively" when he sexually assaulted the woman who tried to help him, who later saw him troubling the children.

"She is a confident woman who rightly stood up for herself and, just as importantly, stood up for those more vulnerable than her."

The assistant chief constable of Essex Police, Stuart Hooper, said the victims showed bravery in securing Kebatu's conviction.

He said: "They came forward and trusted us with their experience and today I want to say a personal thank you to them for their courage."

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The public relies on measured, careful statements which are rooted in robust scientific research when deciding what medicines or vaccines they or their children should take.

When US president Donald Trump claimed on Monday in the Oval Office that taking Tylenol, known as paracetamol elsewhere, "is no good" and that pregnant women should "fight like hell" to only take it in cases of extreme fever, he delivered conjecture, personal opinion and gut feeling.

On paracetamol there is recent research - a review of studies - which suggests an association between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism in children, but no causal link.

Other researchers found no connection, but President Trump went much further in his comments, urging women not to take the medicine during pregnancy unless they couldn't "tough it out".

Health officials in the UK have stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: "I trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this."

Mel Merritt, head of policy and campaigns at the National Autistic Society said: "This is dangerous, it's anti-science and it's irresponsible.

"President Donald Trump is peddling the worst myths of recent decades. Such dangerous pseudo-science is putting pregnant women and children at risk and devaluing autistic people.

"Let's be clear – painkillers do not cause autism and vaccines do not cause autism."

But it was on vaccines where the president made perhaps his most alarming comments without any recourse to science or statistics.

He said fragile babies were being pumped full of liquid like they were "horses" and that combination vaccines were harmful.

He singled out the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine as one that should be given in single doses rather than a combined shot, and that he had heard a lot of bad things about it over the years.

This has echoes of the totally discredited claims of Andrew Wakefield - the British doctor who was struck off the UK's medical register for his unethical research and his debunked claims that linked the MMR jab to autism.

President Trump's comments on vaccines will be roundly rejected and condemned by UK policy makers, but they can't be ignored. This is because they risk further undermining trust in immunisation - one of the great health success stories of the past century.

If parents refrain from getting their children vaccinated as a result of his unfounded claims, it risks the re-emergence of diseases like measles, whooping cough and polio which are already beginning to make a worrying comeback.

Combination vaccines are the mainstay of childhood immunisation. They spare children from dozens of repeat visits to be injected.

President Trump suggested vaccines should be given in single doses, but this means children would be left unprotected for long periods while waiting for the next dose.

Health policy deserves hard facts.

What we saw last night at the White House was comment and the potential for huge confusion.

The public and science deserves better.

The Duchess of York has so far been the great survivor of the royal world, bouncing back from embarrassments that would have sunk many others.

But she is now mired in a deep scandal about her connection with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that seems much harder to resolve.

Charity patronages are falling off her like autumn leaves, with seven charities no longer wanting to be associated with her as their patron or ambassador.

She's an author of Mills and Boon books now, in one of her many entrepreneurial ventures, but she will struggle to write herself a happy ending. And the efforts she's made to return to the royal fold could now go into reverse.

This latest PR disaster for Sarah Ferguson follows the publication of an email she sent to Epstein in 2011, in which she called him her "supreme friend" and said she wanted to "humbly apologise" for publicly rejecting him and knew Epstein would "feel hellaciously let down by me".

Her apology was because a few weeks before she had denounced him in an interview, saying it had been a "gigantic error of judgement" to have had dealings with him and vowed to "have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again".

It's not a good look, even with her spokesperson's explanation that she was trying to "assuage" Epstein after he threatened to sue her for defamation. Heading off the lawyers wouldn't usually mean such an emotional appeal to "you and your heart".

It was serious enough for a charity that had been associated with her for 35 years, the Teenage Cancer Trust, to sever its connections.

During that time, she had separated from her husband Prince Andrew, been photographed having her toes sucked by a US financial adviser and caught in a tabloid sting offering access to her ex-husband for an alleged £500,000.

More recently a damning book by Andrew Lownie, Entitled, had painted her in a brutally unflattering light as someone caught up in a loop of debt, excessive spending and then risky attempts to raise money.

But Sarah Ferguson - invariably known as Fergie - has survived all that. Her fallibility has been part of her likeability. She is good with people, with an outgoing friendliness and sense of fun, which is why charities have previously wanted her as an ally.

Like that famously terrible It's a Royal Knockout game show from 1987, she seemed to have a knack of being unceremoniously knocked off life's ladders but still being able to climb back up again.

She didn't get an invitation to the coronation of her ex-brother-in-law, but didn't moan about it. Then she appeared to be back in the fold, when in 2023 she was invited for a royal Christmas at Sandringham, her first time there in decades.

The following Christmas there was more royal approval for her, with grateful murmurings from the Palace that she had helped persuade Prince Andrew to stay away from family events, in the wake of his involvement in a Chinese spy scandal.

She had also gained public respect for her energetic efforts encouraging women to get checks, after her own breast cancer diagnosis and operation.

But now this latest problem is causing profound problems. There couldn't be a more toxic connection than with Epstein and it is going to be particularly difficult for her when so much of her charity work was associated with children.

As a children's author, there must be a risk her brand is going to be damaged by the Epstein link.

The whole Epstein story is like a spreading oil spill, and both the duke and duchess of York must be wondering what might appear next.

There have already been claims that the King and the Royal Family will exclude the duchess from even more events.

But Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson are already not allowed to attend official royal events - and there doesn't seem to be any suggestion they would be barred from family gatherings, such as funerals or church services.

Both were there as mourners at Westminster Cathedral for last week's funeral of the Duchess of Kent.

What seems to be one certainty is that Prince Andrew and Sarah will stay together, living in some style in Royal Lodge, Prince Andrew's Windsor home, no longer married, but holding hands as they sink in the reputational quicksand.

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The drone incursion that stopped flights at Copenhagen airport on Monday night was "the most severe attack on Danish infrastructure so far", Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.

Kastrup airport in Copenhagen was forced to shut for several hours from around 20:30 (18:30 GMT) on Monday following the sighting of a number of drones.

"It says something about the times we live in and what we as a society must be prepared to deal with," Frederiksen told reporters.

Russian involvement could not be ruled out, Frederiksen added - although Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the allegations "unfounded".

The Danish PM made a link between last night's events in Denmark and the recent Russian drone incursions in Poland and Romania, as well as the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets.

Frederiksen said that the motive for the incursion in Copenhagen had likely been to "disrupt, create unrest... to see how far you can go and test the limits."

Danish intelligence mirrored this assessment, saying the country was facing a "high threat of sabotage".

"Someone may not necessarily want to attack us, but rather stress us out and see how we react," said Flemming Drejer, director of operations at Denmark's intelligence service PET.

In nearby Norway, Oslo airport too was closed for a period after possible drone sightings.

Around 20,000 passengers were impacted by the closure of Copenhagen airport, which resumed operations after midnight local time.

Earlier on Tuesday Danish police stated they did not know who was behind the drones, but that evidence suggested it was a "capable actor."

A number of large drones which had come from different directions "quite a long way away" had been observed at Copenhagen airport, said police Inspector Jens Jespersen.

He added the drones, which turned their lights on and off as they approached the airport, had been operated by someone who had the "will and tools to show off... perhaps also to practice."

Police did not shoot down the drones because the airport is located in a densely built-up area and because there were planes in the air, Insp Jespersen told reporters.

In a post on social media Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referenced "Russia's violation" of Nato airspace in Copenhagen on 22 September.

Insp Jespersen refused to comment on Zelensky's allegations.

"It's not because I don't want to, it's because I simply don't know," he said.

The Norwegian Police Security Service said it was working to clarify whether the unconfirmed drone sighting at Oslo airport could be related to the drones observed in Denmark.

Oslo airport was closed between 00:30 and 03:30 and fourteen flights had to be diverted.

Norway's government said Russia has violated Norwegian airspace three times in 2025 - in April, July and August - adding that it was unclear if this was deliberate or the result of navigation errors.

"Regardless of the cause, this is not acceptable," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said.

Tensions have been escalating recently after Russian drones and aircraft ventured into central and eastern European airspace, three and a half years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier in September at least three Russian drones were shot down by Polish and other Nato aircraft in Poland's airspace. Moscow denied it had been trying to target facilities on Polish soil.

A similar incident occurred in Romania only a few days later when a drone flew into Romanian airspace before disappearing from the radar.

And on Saturday three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian skies and remained there for 12 minutes, leading Nato jets to be scrambled. The incursions were part of a "wider pattern of increasingly irresponsible Russian behaviour," Nato said in a statement on Tuesday.

In recent days Poland stated it would shoot down any objects that violated its airspace, while Sweden promised to do the same if it spotted any Russian aircraft in its skies.

In response to Russia's incursions into Poland and Romania, Nato has pledged to move troops and fighter jets eastwards.

Planes from the UK, France, Germany and Denmark are taking part in air defence missions over Poland in a bid to bolster the alliance's eastern flank.

US President Donald Trump has claimed there is a link between the use of painkiller Tylenol by pregnant women and an increased risk of autism in some children.

Going against current scientific advice and medical opinion, he said the drug, also know as paracetamol in many countries, "is no good" and women should "fight like hell" to only take it in extreme cases, such as for high fevers.

Medical bodies say the drug is safe and that it remains the best treatment for pain and fever during pregnancy.

What is autism and how is it diagnosed?

Autism is a form of lifelong neurodivergence and disability that affects how people experience and interact with the world.

It is a spectrum, meaning it includes a wide range of characteristics which vary from person to person.

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.

Some autistic people may have intense interests, prefer order and routine, and use repeated movements or actions to calm themselves or express joy.

Autism is not a learning disability or a mental health condition.

However, the UK National Autistic Society says around a third of autistic people also have a learning disability, and rates of mental health problems are higher.

There is no blood test or brain scan to determine who has autism. Instead, a diagnosis is based on a doctor's observations.

How many people have autism?

The number of children diagnosed with autism has risen sharply in many countries.

In the US, one in 31 children were identified with autism in 2022, up from 1 in 149 in 2000. The rate for eight-year-old boys was significantly higher than for girls.

In the UK, research published in the Lancet medical journal in 2023 found that one in 34 children aged 10 to 14 years old were diagnosed with autism (in 2018).

Comparing autism rates for different countries is difficult. The way the figures are collected tends to change based on diagnostic practices, awareness levels, healthcare access and cultural differences.

Research published in 2022 looked at 71 studies and found an average prevalence of around 1%. Numbers ranged from 0.075% in Bangladesh to 3.9% in Australia.

Why have rates of autism been rising?

While the number of people officially identified or diagnosed with autism has risen sharply, most researchers believe that this reflects increased awareness and changes to the way it is classified.

For example, some people who have difficulty with social interaction and non-verbal communication were once told they had Asperger's Syndrome.

But, in 2013, the diagnostic criteria of ASD – or Autism Spectrum Disorder – was broadened to include people with Asperger's Syndrome in the US.

The same wider definition has been used in countries, including the UK, which saw an eight-fold rise in new autism diagnoses between 1998 and 2018.

A 2007 study in the UK found that as, long as the same criteria was being used, rates of autism were similar in adults and children. This supports the idea that it is more recognised today than in the past.

However, US Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr has sharply criticised that view, describing it as "epidemic denial".

At a news conference in April, he described autism as "preventable" and blamed an environmental trigger for the increase in children diagnosed.

Does Tylenol cause autism?

No, there is no evidence that Tylenol causes autism.

Trump's comments have shocked many medical bodies, which recommend the drug for pain and fever during pregnancy.

The widely held view of researchers worldwide is that there is no single cause of autism. It is thought to be the result of a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors.

For scientists looking at the data, it is difficult to separate out the effects of one action, like taking a painkiller, from other factors such as parental health, genetics and environmental conditions.

The Trump administration has cited some recent studies which have shown a potential association, which means the drug could increase the risk of autism in some children. But there may be other explanations for that link.

In August, a team led by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the US analysed 46 older studies.

Of these, 27 reported a link between the use of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the painkiller, and an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and ADHD. Nine showed no significant link and four indicated an opposite, protective, effect.

The authors said more work was needed to confirm their findings but recommended "cautious, time-limited use" of the painkiller during pregnancy.

Another study, in 2024, analysed 2.5 million babies born in Sweden. It compared autistic children with their siblings to control for genetic factors, and found no evidence to support a causal link between autism and the use of the painkiller.

A Japanese study published in 2025 also looked at what happened to siblings after birth and found a small increased risk of autism linked to acetaminophen. But it said "misclassification and other biases may partially explain these associations".

The Autism Science Foundation, a US charity, says that based on existing data there is not enough evidence to support a link between Tylenol and autism.

But it says that taking any medication during pregnancy should be approached with caution and medical advice should be sought.

In a statement to the BBC, Tylenol maker Kenvue said the science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism.

"We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers."

What is the advice on pain relief in pregnancy?

Acetaminophen, or paracetamol, is the recommended first-line medication for pain and fever during pregnancy by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the UK's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and other medical organisations worldwide.

There is some evidence that high fevers during pregnancy, particularly during the first trimester, can harm the baby, with a higher risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, or birth defects called NTDs, or neural tube defects.

Following Trump's announcement, health officials stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: "I trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this."

Ibuprofen is not usually recommended, unless it's prescribed by a doctor, especially if someone is more than 20 weeks pregnant, because it can affect the baby's circulation and kidney function.

Among the general population, acetaminophen is considered generally safe but there is an overdose risk if more than the recommended dose is taken.

For adults, the usual dose is one or two 500mg tablets at a time, up to four times in 24 hours, according to the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

It describes paracetamol as the "first choice" pain killer for women who are breastfeeding.

What is folinic acid or leucovorin?

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr also signalled that a drug called leucovorin, normally given to cancer patients to reduce the side-effects of chemotherapy, would soon be approved as a treatment for children with autism.

But researchers have cautioned that the science is still in the very early stages, and more work is needed before any firm conclusions can be reached.

Folate, also known as vitamin B9, is found in many foods and helps the body form health red blood cells.

The Autism Science Foundation says that low folate levels during early pregnancy have been linked in some studies to an increased risk of autism in children, though the findings are not consistent.

Studies in Norway, the US and Israel found that mothers who took folic acid supplements around conception had children with a 30-70% lower likelihood of autism. Other studies did not find a significant association.

The charity says the suggestion that folate may improve some symptoms comes from trials of a cancer drug known as leucovorin or folinic acid.

Some research has shown that unlike regular folic acid, folinic acid can more easily cross the blood brain barrier and address a deficiency of the vitamin.

Four small, randomised trials, all using different doses and measurements of success, have been carried out.

One, from 2016, studied 48 autistic children in the US and found improvements in verbal communication compared with a placebo.

Writer Jack Thorne has praised the "remarkable" journalists who exposed the use of phone hacking in some parts of the media, ahead of a new TV series about the scandal.

ITV's forthcoming drama The Hack stars David Tennant as Nick Davies, the investigative Guardian reporter who exposed the extent of hacking at Sunday tabloid the News of the World.

Thorne, who also wrote Netflix hit Adolescence, told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I thought I knew this as a story, I thought it was a story about journalists behaving badly, I thought the story started and ended with that.

"But actually... you see it's a lot more than that. It's a relationship between the press, politics and the police that's really troubling. And what we try to do in this show is uncover the detail of that."

The News of the World was closed down in 2011, after it emerged journalists at the paper had hacked phones of public figures in an effort to obtain exclusive stories.

Davies published several stories about phone hacking throughout the scandal, but public outrage reached a new level when it came to light that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's voicemails were among those which had been hacked, giving her parents false hope that she was still alive.

For the ITV dramatisation of the scandal, Thorne has collaborated with some of the same team who made the hugely successful Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

"The difference between this and Mr Bates, which I think is really fascinating, is that Mr Bates was about the fact that journalism couldn't get purchase on this," Thorne told presenter Justin Webb.

Several journalists working for outlets including Computer Weekly, Private Eye and the BBC covered the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, but the story cut through to the public in a much bigger way after ITV's dramatisation aired in January 2024.

"There were brilliant journalists doing amazing work in the post office case," Thorne said, "but in this case, this is a celebration of brilliant journalists who actually managed to call their own industry to account.

"And I've thought a lot about that when working on this," he continued. "I think that I am instinctively a coward when it comes to looking at problems and calling out things within my own industry.

"The brilliance of these people [the journalists who exposed phone hacking]... to look at what's happening within the media sphere, and to do damage to that industry, is quite remarkable."

The Hack tells the story from two different points of view - that of Davies, as the journalist reporting on it, and police detective Dave Cook (played by Robert Carlyle), who investigated the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.

Tennant is one of more than 1,600 celebrities and other public figures to have settled out of court with News Group Newspapers, the publishers of the News of the World, over the phone hacking scandal.

The launch of The Hack comes after another of Thorne's TV dramas, Adolescence, dominated the Emmy Awards earlier this month.

The series, co-created by actor Stephen Graham, told the story of a schoolboy named Jamie Miller accused of murdering a female classmate, and explored the impact of smartphones and social media on teenagers.

Asked if there would be a follow-up, Thorne said: "Certainly not a sequel, I think we've told the Miller story as well as we possibly can.

"We might, well we're trying, Stephen [Graham] and I are trying, to write something which uses the same techniques, works with the same group of people, to shed light on a different aspect of our society."

The Hack begins on Wednesday 24 September at 21:00 BST on ITV1 and ITVX

GPs in England are being urged to "think again" if they see a sick patient three times and can't pin down a diagnosis, or find their symptoms are getting worse.

The new NHS initiative, called Jess's Rule, is named after Jessica Brady who contacted her GP on more than 20 occasions after starting to feel unwell in the summer of 2020.

She was told her symptoms were related to long Covid and that she was "too young for cancer". She died from advanced stage 4 cancer later that year, aged 27.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said her death was "a preventable and unnecessary tragedy" and the rule would improve patient safety by helping GPs "catch potentially deadly illnesses".

'Her body was failing her'

Jessica Brady was a talented engineer at Airbus, involved in the design of satellites.

Her mum, Andrea, told Radio 4's Today programme that Jess was a very healthy young woman when the pandemic hit in 2020.

But in July of that year, she didn't feel right and contacted her GP practice repeatedly over the next five months about her symptoms.

Over time they became "increasingly debilitating", Andrea says.

"She had unintentionally lost quite a lot of weight, had night sweats, chronic fatigue, a persistent cough and very enlarged lymph nodes.

"But because of her age, it was obviously considered there wasn't anything wrong."

Jess had contact with six different doctors at her GP surgery and three face-to-face consultations with a family doctor, but no referral to a specialist was made.

"Her body was failing her," says Andrea.

"It was hard for Jess to advocate for herself. She was saying 'What's the point? Nothing will happen.'"

When the family decided to arrange a private appointment and she was referred to a specialist, it was too late.

Jess was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in November and died three weeks later - just days before Christmas 2020.

The family hopes Jess's Rule will help to increase awareness of the importance of GPs acting quickly for patients who are steadily deteriorating.

"She wanted to make a difference," Andrea says.

"Jess knew her delayed diagnosis was instrumental in the fact she had no treatment options open to her, only palliative care.

"She felt strongly she didn't want this to happen to other people."

Jess's Rule is not a law, but a strong reminder to GPs to take a "three strikes and rethink approach" after three appointments, to prevent avoidable deaths.

This could mean arranging face-to-face consultations with a patient previously only spoken to on the phone, ordering extra tests or asking for a second opinion from a colleague. GPs should also consider referring patients to a specialist.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), which was involved in drawing up the guidance, said no doctor ever wanted to miss signs of serious illness, such as cancer.

"Many conditions, including many cancers, are challenging to identify in primary care because the symptoms are often similar to other, less serious and more common conditions," said Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chair of RCGP.

"If a patient repeatedly presents with the same or similar symptoms, but the treatment plan does not seem to be making them better - or their condition is deteriorating - it is best practice to review the diagnosis and consider alternative approaches."

Research suggests younger patients and people from ethnic minority backgrounds often face delays before being diagnosed with a serious condition, because their symptoms don't appear similar to white or older patients.

RCGP has worked with Jess Brady's family to develop an educational resource for GPs on the early diagnosis of cancer in young adults.

The Department of Health said many GP practices already used the correct approach, but that Jess' s Rule would make this "standard practice across the country".

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting thanked Jess's family, saying they had campaigned tirelessly through "unimaginable grief" to ensure Jessica's legacy helps to save the lives of others.

"Patient safety must be the bedrock of the NHS, and Jess's Rule will make sure every patient receives the thorough, compassionate, and safe care that they deserve, while supporting our hard-working GPs to catch potentially deadly illnesses," he said.

Paul Callaghan, from Healthwatch England, which represents people who use health and social care services, said the rule should be implemented "quickly and consistently".

"It's also imperative that specialist teams have the resources to deal with potential increases in demand, resulting from increased referrals," he said.

Britain and France's recognition of a state of Palestine at the United Nations is a historic moment in the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But it is also a diplomatic gamble illustrating how major European powers believe the conflict has reached the point where it requires them to take such an unprecedented move.

Faced with the current catastrophe in Gaza, and meting out condemnation for both Israel and Hamas, French President Emmanuel Macron said "right must prevail over might".

His move, co-ordinated with the UK and under Saudi sponsorship, is meant to keep the two-state solution on life support.

They believe this long-held international formula for peace is the only path to a fair, shared future for the two societies.

The alternative, UN Secretary General António Guterres told a UN conference in New York, was a "one-state" solution, meaning Israeli domination and the "subjugation" of Palestinians.

Nothing, he said, could justify their collective punishment, starvation or any form of ethnic cleansing.

Israel is furious and is threatening to respond.

It sees the UN conference - along with recognition of a Palestinian state by the UK, France, Canada, Australia and others - as a reward for Hamas after its attack on Israel and its hostage taking of 7 October 2023.

Some Israeli ministers want the response to be an announcement of annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, forever ruling out a viable Palestinian state on the territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, including far-right figures whose avowed policy is to expel Palestinians and build Jewish settlements in their place, is intent on pulling the plug on a two-state solution.

President Donald Trump's administration continues to back its Israeli ally, rejecting the Europeans' move, punishing Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

It barred him from attending the conference in New York and he spoke via video link instead.

The Palestine conference and the Trump administration's reaction marks the deepest ever split between Washington and its European allies over how to solve the Middle East conflict.

But the Europeans believe they have been left with little choice given the situation on the ground.

Israel is now deploying a third army division into Gaza City, with dozens of Palestinians being killed every day; Hamas continues to hold nearly 50 hostages, many of them dead; while the West Bank is in the grip of Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence.

All this nearly two years on from the 7 October attacks, with few signs that further military pressure will force the surrender by Hamas that Israel seeks.

Macron's strategy is an attempt to show that diplomacy offers a viable alternative.

First to get a workable end to the war in Gaza, followed by a longer term solution in the form of two states - Israeli and Palestinian.

The European countries argue Israel's strategy has failed, resulting only in further civilian suffering and endangering the remaining hostages.

Crucially, the UN conference was also led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the Arab League.

The French argue this shows its form of diplomacy can exert leverage over Hamas because key Arab countries at the conference have now called on the group to disarm, hand its weapons to the PA, adding it can have no future leadership role for Palestinians.

Macron believes the process therefore creates an incentive for Israel, while it also keeps the door open to a normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia - a long desired goal for Netanyahu and Trump.

But the decision to recognise a Palestinian state against the wishes of Washington amounts to a significant diplomatic gamble.

Watching Macron at the podium in front of the United Nations, you saw a president trying to take on a global leadership role to find a way out of the "nightmare" of Gaza, as the UN secretary general put it, and find a shared Israeli-Palestinian future.

But, speaking in terms of raw power, this was the wrong president.

Without the US leading the effort, there isn't the same kind of meaningful pressure that only Washington can bring to bear on all sides.

And the Trump administration continues to reject the Europeans' approach.

Trump travels to the UN on Tuesday where he will speak and later reportedly meet Arab leaders, entirely separately from their work with the Europeans on Monday.

This lack of co-ordination between key countries adds to the sense of dysfunction, while Qatar as the previous mediator between Israel and Hamas still refuses to become involved again after Israel attacked Hamas leaders on its soil earlier this month.

Both Macron and Starmer brought up their countries' colonial legacies in the Middle East.

They recalled how, after Britain pulled out of historical Palestine in 1948, the international community recognised the state of Israel.

Now, they said, they were recognising the equal right of Palestinians to their own state.

Palestinians welcome their recognition from the Europeans nations, but they also know these are the superpowers of the past.

Their decisions don't count like they once did.

Palestinian statehood only becomes feasible if it's backed by the superpower of today, the United States.

And President Trump so far has other ideas.

Growth in the global economy is expected to be stronger this year than previously thought, an influential global policy group has said.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) raised its global forecast to 3.2% from the 2.9% it had predicted in June after growth was more resilient than expected in the first half of the year.

This was partly due to "front loading" of activity as firms sought to complete deals before new US tariffs kicked in. However, the OECD warned growth would "soften noticeably" in the second half of the year as the impact of higher tariffs is felt.

It also increased its UK growth forecast for this year to 1.4% from its previous estimate of 1.3%.

Responding to the OECD's forecast, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figures "confirm that the British economy is stronger than forecast - it has been the fastest growing of any G7 economy in the first half of the year".

The OECD still expects growth in the UK to slow to 1% next year - unchanged from its forecast in June.

It said this slowdown would be caused by a "tighter fiscal stance" - referring to either higher taxes or lower government spending - as well as increased trade costs and uncertainty.

Reeves is expected to put up taxes or cut spending at the Budget in November in order to stick to her own rules on government borrowing.

The UK inflation rate forecast for this year has been raised to 3.5% from the previous estimate of 3.1%, with the OECD noting that the UK is one of several countries seeing sharp rises in food prices.

The most recent official UK statistics indicated that food price inflation rose for the fifth month in a row in August, with beef, butter, milk and chocolate prices continuing to surge.

In the US, growth has been helped by strong investment in tech areas such as Artificial Intellgience (AI), and the OECD has increased its growth forecast for the US this year to 1.8% from 1.6%.

Globally, the US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump this year continues to affect future prospects for growth. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods and Trump has imposed such levies on products arriving on American shores from various countries.

The OECD said US tariff rates had increased on almost all countries since May, with the overall effective rate hitting 19.5% at the end of August, the highest since 1933.

Trump has argued the import taxes will boost US manufacturing and jobs, but several economists have warned it will push up prices for US consumers.

The scramble to complete trades before the tariffs led to surge in activity in the first few months of the year, the OECD said, but this is now tapering off.

It added the full impact of the tariffs has yet to be seen. Some changes are being phased in over time, it said, while some companies are accepting smaller profit margins for now.

However, it said the impact was "becoming increasingly visible in spending choices, labour markets and consumer prices".

"Growth is expected to soften noticeably in the second half of this year, as front-loading activity unwinds and higher effective tariff rates on imports to the United States and China dampen investment and trade growth," it said.

In the spy romance series Tempest, Jun Ji-hyun, one of South Korea's biggest stars, plays a diplomat trying to uncover the truth behind a deadly assassination.

"Why does China prefer war? A nuclear bomb could fall near the border," her character says in one episode of the new Disney+ series.

This fictional scene led to real consequences over the weekend, with many Chinese social media users taking it to be a malicious mischaracterisation of China as belligerent. Many are now calling for brands to sever ties with the Korean actress.

The uproar has also reignited debate over an unofficial Chinese ban on South Korean entertainment, which has been in place for nearly a decade.

While China has never admitted to a ban, the abrupt dearth of K-content since 2016 is widely believed to be a protest against South Korea's decision to deploy a US anti-missile system in 2016, which China sees as a threat to its military operations in the region.

Things had appeared to be easing in recent months, with a few South Korean performers holding concerts in China. But the controversy over Tempest has triggered a fresh wave of support for the ban.

"Keep the K-drama ban to the death, thank you," reads one Weibo comment liked by 10,000 users.

While much of the anger has coalesced around Jun's line about China, social media users have also dug up other examples from the series which they view as offensive.

For example, scenes meant to portray China's Dalian city feature a bunch of dilapidated buildings, believed to be shot in Hong Kong, which some people say paints China in a bad light.

In another scene, a group of people are seated at a table set on a red carpet with yellow stars, which social media users say resembles the Chinese flag.

When Jun recited an ancient Chinese poem in another instance, viewers criticised what they viewed as her wonky accent.

All this has led to a concerted effort against Jun on Weibo, where users are pressuring brands to punish her.

According to sharp-eyed Weibo users, American skincare brand La Mer, French luxury brand Louis Vuitton and Swiss watchmaker Piaget have all scrubbed Jun from their social media accounts.

"Besides removing Jun Ji-hyun advertisements, quickly terminate her contracts globally. Otherwise we'll boycott LV forever," reads one comment on Louis Vuitton's Weibo account.

Jun's agency told local news outlet MBC on Tuesday that the actress's brand campaigns were "unrelated" to Tempest and had ended before the show's release.

Chinese consumers are known to harness their massive spending power in pressure campaigns when they perceive insults to Chinese national pride.

Brands from Swedish fashion giant H&M to Japanese clothing chain Uniqlo and most recently Swatch - for an ad featuring an allegedly racist gesture - have all found themselves the target of such boycott campaigns.

Some people have come to Jun's defence, arguing that she was not the one who wrote the controversial line.

"Jun Ji-hyun is just an actor. It is impossible for her to understand the history of a country, the emotions of the people, and the intricate relationships between countries before making a movie," one Weibo user wrote, blaming the incident on the "ignorance" of the show's crew and writers.

But such sentiments have been drowned out by heated opposition. "Even a washing machine can't whitewash something as well as you," reads a comment to the post.

"She isn't a small-time actor. She has a choice of script, she can read the script! Who can force a popular star to do this?" another wrote.

Jun swept to stardom with the 2001 rom-com My Sassy Girl, which took Asia by storm and established her as a noughties 'it girl'. Since then, she has found enduring success with her roles, from the 2013 fantasy romance series My Love from the Star, to the 2021 Netflix thriller Kingdom.

But like many other South Korean celebrities, she has been conspicuously missing from China's entertainment scene since the 2016 ban.

Optimism had surrounded a lifting of the ban earlier this year, as bilateral ties appeared to be warming.

In March, South Korea's foreign ministry said that the two countries' foreign ministers agreed to work on restoring cultural exchanges. The following month, South Korean hip-hop band Homies became the first all-Korean group to perform in mainland China in nearly a decade.

But it's hard to say how much K-pop and K-dramas will be let back into what was once its biggest market.

In May, K-pop boy band Epex was slated to perform in Fuzhou, in what would have been a landmark concert for K-pop in China. But their show was cancelled weeks before the event, with their management agency citing "local circumstances".

Last week, when asked about the postponement of another concert in Hainan province that was set to feature multiple K-pop groups, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that China did not oppose "beneficial cultural exchanges" with South Korea.

Over the last decade, China has proven to be a pop culture juggernaut in its own right, capable of keeping its population of 1.3 billion entertained with homegrown media. And for many Chinese viewers, the ongoing controversy surrounding Tempest has given them another reason to steer away from K-content.

"It's already 2025 and you're still watching K-dramas, how tacky!" wrote a Weibo user.

Trump officials are expected to link the use of pain reliever Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, according to US media reports.

At an Oval Office event on Monday, the US president will reportedly advise pregnant women in the US to only take Tylenol, known as paracetamol elsewhere, to relieve high fevers.

At the Charlie Kirk memorial service on Sunday, Trump said he had an "amazing" announcement coming on autism, saying it was "out of control" but they might now have a reason why.

Some studies have shown a link between pregnant women taking Tylenol and autism, but these findings are inconsistent and do not prove the drug causes autism.

Tylenol is a popular brand of pain relief medication sold in the United States, Canada and some other countries. Its active ingredient is acetaminophen, which is called paracetamol outside North America.

Tylenol maker Kenvue has defended the use of the drug in pregnant women.

In a statement to the BBC, it said: "We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers."

Acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women, it added, and without it, women face a dangerous choice between suffering through conditions like fever or use riskier alternatives.

The BBC has contacted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for comment.

In April, the leader of HHS, Robert F Kennedy Jr, pledged "a massive testing and research effort" to determine the cause of autism in five months.

But experts have cautioned that finding the causes of autism - a complex syndrome that has been researched for decades - would not be simple.

The widely held view of researchers is that there is no single cause of autism, which is thought to be the result of a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors.

• Tylenol-maker shares hit after report of autism link

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology said doctors across the country have consistently identified Tylenol as one of the only safe pain relievers for pregnant women.

"[S]tudies that have been conducted in the past, show no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during any trimester and fetal developmental issues," the group has said.

The drug is recommended by other major medical groups as well as other governments around the world.

In August, a review of research led by the dean of Harvard University's Chan School of Public Health found that children may be more likely to develop autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders when exposed to Tylenol during pregnancy.

The researchers argued some steps should be taken to limit use of the drug, but said the pain reliever was still important for treating maternal fever and pain, which can also have negative effects for children.

But another study, published in 2024, found no relationship between exposure to Tylenol and autism.

"There is no robust evidence or convincing studies to suggest there is any causal relationship," said Monique Botha, a professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University.

Dr Botha added that pain relief for pregnant women was "woefully lacking", with Tylenol being one of the only safe options for the population.

Autism diagnoses have increased sharply since 2000, and by 2020 the rate among 8-year-olds reached 2.77%, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Scientists attribute at least part of the rise to increased awareness of autism and an expanding definition of the disorder. Researchers have also been investigating environmental factors.

In the past, Kennedy has offered debunked theories about the rising rates of autism, blaming vaccines despite a lack of evidence.

British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been freed and reunited with his family after almost six years of imprisonment in Egypt.

One of the country's most prominent political prisoners, he was pardoned by President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi on Monday, reportedly after a request from the National Council for Human Rights.

Video of the blogger and pro-democracy activist, 43, at home after his release shows him grinning widely and jumping up and down as he celebrates with his sister and mother.

Laila Soueif, who went on extensive hunger strike during her son's imprisonment, said on his release: "Despite our great joy, the biggest joy is when there are no [political] prisoners."

Abdel Fattah was released from Wadi al-Natrun prison late on Monday and celebrated reuniting with his family at his mother's apartment in Giza.

"I cannot yet comprehend that this is real," his sister Sanaa Seif said.

The activist was arrested in 2019 during a crackdown on dissent and sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of "spreading false news" for sharing a post about a prisoner dying of torture.

Two weeks ago, Sisi ordered the authorities to study the NCHR's petitions for the release of Abdel Fattah and six others, which the institution said it had submitted "in light of the humanitarian and health conditions experienced by [their] families".

His family said he should have been released in September 2024 but the two years he spent in pre-trial detention were not counted as time served by Egyptian authorities.

When Abdel Fattah was not released at the end of his five-year sentence, his mother Laila Soueif started an extensive hunger strike to call for his release.

She was hospitalised at St Thomas' Hospital in London and came close to death twice during the 287-day strike, which ended on 14 July after then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament he "expected [Abdel Fattah] to be released" on 25 June.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had previously said he would secure Abdel Fattah's freedom and there has been widespread cross-parliamentary support for his release.

It is unclear if Abdel Fattah will be able to travel to the UK to be with his son, though his sister said on his release that his release would "feel more real" when "his son arrives here from travelling".

The activist first rose to prominence during the 2011 uprising in Egypt that forced long-time President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

He has spent most of his time in prison since 2014, the year after Sisi led the military's overthrow of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi.

Sisi has overseen what human rights groups say is an unprecedented crackdown on dissent that has led to the detention of tens of thousands of people.

Although Abdel Fattah acquired British citizenship in 2021, Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit by British diplomats.

In May, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention - a panel of independent human rights experts – found that Abdel Fattah had been arbitrarily arrested for exercising his right to freedom of expression, had not been given a fair trial and had remained in detention for his political opinions.

According to the panel, the Egyptian government said he had been afforded "all fair trial rights" and that his sentence would be completed in January 2027.

"At what point did we become North Korea?" That was the question Nigel Farage posed when asked by a US congressional committee about limitations on freedom of speech in the UK.

He was condemning the "awful authoritarian situation we have sunk into", which he claimed had led to various arrests including that of Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan over his views on challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

When I heard the question, I confess I thought that the leader of Reform UK had gone over the top.

Farage was comparing his country - my country - with a brutal dictatorship that murders, imprisons and tortures opponents.

And he was doing it in front of an influential audience of American lawmakers.

When I interviewed his deputy, Richard Tice on Radio 4's Today, I asked him whether he really believed that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was the same as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Three times I asked the question. Three times Tice swerved it, suggesting Farage was simply using "an analogy".

But Farage is not alone in questioning how far restrictions to freedom of speech have gone in the UK.

Tensions around the limits of free speech are nothing new and since the advent of social media in the mid-2000s, the arguments have been simmering.

Now, though, they're reaching a boiling point.

During his recent visit, US Vice-President JD Vance said he did not want the UK to go down a "very dark path" of losing free speech.

The US business magazine Forbes carried an editorial this month that took this argument further still.

In it, editor-in-chief Steve Forbes condemned the UK's "plunge into the kind of speech censorship usually associated with tin pot Third World dictatorships".

He argues that, in stark contrast to the United States - where free speech is protected by the first amendment to the constitution, "the UK has, with increasing vigour, been curbing what one is allowed to say, all in the name of fighting racism, sexism, Islamophobia, transgenderism, climate-change denial and whatever else the woke extremists conjure up".

So, how exactly did we get to the point where the UK is being compared to a dictatorship and, given how inflamed the conversation has become, what - if anything - would it take to turn down the heat?

Big tech dialled up the debate

The case of Lucy Connolly has become a cause celebre to some in the UK and beyond.

The former childminder from Northampton, who is married to a Conservative councillor, had posted an abhorrent message on X, calling for people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers following the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024.

It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times at a time when the threat of violence was very real.

Connolly had pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing "threatening or abusive" written material on X. And yet she was given the red carpet treatment at the Reform party conference, as "Britain's favourite political prisoner".

The length of her prison sentence - 31 months although she only served 40% before she was released - was questioned by many, including people who were appalled by what she had written.

It is just one case that highlights how much social media has changed the shape of the debate around free speech and made heroes and villains of ordinary people.

And I use the word "ordinary" deliberately because views similar to Connolly's will have been expressed up and down the land by others who might well have said, as she now does, "I was an idiot".

But while it's unlikely that any action would have been taken had she said what she did in a coffee shop or a bar, the fact she posted it on social media changed things.

What's more, big tech firms have changed their approach in recent years.

After Musk bought Twitter, which he re-named X, he changed content moderation, which he regards as "a propaganda word for censorship" - and he talks a lot about people spreading "the woke mind virus".

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also changed the rules governing Meta and Instagram.

In the case of Connolly, her post was "accelerated by the algorithm" and spread far more widely, according to Lilian Edwards, an emeritus professor at Newcastle University.

Dilemma around policing speech

The arrest of Graham Linehan at Heathrow, too, raised further questions around policing freedom of speech - and put the way issues are handled under renewed scrutiny.

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley has voiced his own concerns. "It's a nonsense to pretend that with all of the (online) content out there that enforcement is the answer to that," he has said.

What these cases both illustrate is the lack of consensus about what can and should be policed online in the UK, and by who.

And a lack of consensus too about how we can set apart the unpleasant, offensive, ugly and hateful things said online from those that are genuinely threatening or dangerous.

In the UK, the Human Rights Act does give protection to free speech but as a "qualified right".

This means that "governments can restrict that right… provided that the response is proportionate - [or] 'necessary in a democratic society' is what people tend to say", according to Lorna Woods, professor of internet law at the University of Essex.

But some of the comments made at the protest in London earlier this month, billed by far-right, anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson as a "free speech rally," demonstrate that, despite other controversies, that right isn't that qualified.

Like nailing jelly to the wall

"Violence is coming" and "you either fight back or die", the billionaire X owner Elon Musk told flag-waving protesters via video link.

Along with his call for the overthrow of the government, some might argue that his words at the rally were an incitement to violence.

But the UK's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, the barrister Jonathan Hall KC, has said that Musk's words would not have broken the law.

"Politicians use martial language all the time, don't they?" he told BBC Radio 4's Today. "Metaphors such as fights and struggles are pretty normal. And he was talking about it contingently, wasn't he? He wasn't saying: 'Go out immediately.'"

Yet the fact both men were able to address a huge crowd in London is perhaps evidence that there is rather more leeway for free speech in this country than those likening the UK to a "tin pot dictatorship" suggest.

According to Essex University's Prof Lorna Woods, the lowest level of views that can be prosecuted in British criminal law are those deemed "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".

These are concepts that few people without a law degree could easily define, let alone agree upon.

It is the job of the police initially, but ultimately the courts, to try to nail that particular piece of jelly to the wall.

The UK is "out of whack" with other countries, according to Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who later became right-hand man to Zuckerberg. He believes the UK needs to "think long and hard" about "whether we've overdone it" on policing speech.

"Surely part of the definition of being in a free society is people say ghastly things, offensive things, awful things, ugly things, and we don't sweep them under the carpet," he has said.

Free speech versus 'me speech'

What the British public want is another story.

Earlier this month, in a survey by YouGov, 5,035 British adults were asked what was most important when it came to online behaviour: 28% said it was that people were able to express themselves freely but 61% prioritised keeping them safe from threats and abuse.

"People tend to prefer safety to free speech [online]," argues Anthony Wells, a director at YouGov.

What's more, there seems to be a generational divide.

In my conversations with young people in their 20s and 30s - the age of my own children - I often hear the view that far from being an ideal to be strived for, free speech is the cause of much of the anger, division and fear they live with every day.

In recent years a "cancel culture" has emerged in which those with "unacceptable" views can be hounded out of their jobs, no platformed as speakers or intimidated as students.

Even back in 2021, a YouGov poll of Britons found that a majority of those surveyed - some 57% - had sometimes stopped themselves from expressing political or social views because of the fear of being judged or negative responses.

For those who believe that free speech is under threat in the country, these figures can be used as evidence that decades of political correctness has had a chilling effect on people's ability to express their opinions.

"Our definitions of what constitutes hate speech, and I think a very broadened definition of what constitutes harm, is meaning that people feel like they are walking on eggshells and they're frightened - not just that they'll have the police around, but that they'll be cancelled if they say the wrong thing," the former Brexit Party MEP Baroness Claire Fox told the BBC's The World Tonight.

But dig deeper and this debate, like so much else, is also about politics and the deepening and, increasingly, angry and violent divisions in our society.

What can America teach us?

Even with its constitutional protection for free speech, plenty in the UK question what basis Americans have to lecture Britain on free speech, given the arguments they are having back at home.

The anger and division sparked by the assassination of the conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk in Utah this month ramped up the debate further on that side of the Atlantic over where the boundaries should lie between what is offensive, hateful and dangerous.

Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi appalled many conservatives when she declared that, "There's free speech and then there's hate speech".

It seemed to take her into precisely the territory, which has caused so many problems here in the UK.

President Trump himself has threatened to sue the New York Times for $15bn (£11bn) over what he calls defamation and libel, adding to the long list of media outlets he has taken to the courts over stories - the newspaper has called it "intimidation tactics" - and he celebrated the sacking of the late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel as "great news for America".

The US historian Tim Snyder, who is an outspoken public critic of the direction America is heading under Trump believes that free speech should be distinguished from what he calls "me speech".

"Me speech is a common practice among rich and influential Americans," writes Mr Snyder. "Practitioners of me speech use the phrase free speech quite a bit.

"But what they mean is free speech for themselves. They want a monopoly on it.

"They believe that they are right about everything, and so they should always have giant platforms, in real life or on social media.

"The people with whom they disagree, however, should be called out and intimidated in an organised way on social media, or subjected to algorithmic discrimination so that their voices are not heard."

As much about listening

This issue is one I've felt strongly about for as long as I can remember. My grandparents knew first hand what it was to be persecuted for who you were and what you thought or said. They were German Jews who fled the Nazis for what then was the relative security of China and later had to flee the Communists there.

As a child, I recall watching in reverential silence as each day, after lunch, my grandfather held a huge radio on his lap and turned the dial, skipping stations until he found the BBC World Service. There, he had learned, he would find news he could trust and speech which was free of political control.

So important was this to him that he had risked hiding with his wife and daughter (my mother) in a cupboard in their home in Shanghai to listen to it on a banned shortwave radio.

That is why I find any comparison between the UK and a dictatorship a little hard to swallow.

What I learned as the grandchild of those who had fled not one but two murderous ideologies was that free speech was about listening as much as talking.

What mattered above all else is being able to hear both sides of an argument and learn the facts behind them - without having that information controlled by governments, rich and powerful media owners, or anyone else.

Nick Robinson is presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme and Political Thinking.

Top image credit: Carlos Jasso / Getty Images

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Staff at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will be out of work for at least another week as the business secretary prepares to meet suppliers of the car maker who are at risk of closure.

JLR's production lines ground to a halt in late August following a major cyber attack, and fears are growing that the company's suppliers could go bust without support.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle will visit JLR to meet firms in the supply chain for the beleaguered carmaker.

JLR said in a statement on Tuesday that it would not be resuming production until October 1 at the earliest, an extension from the previous date of September 24.

"Our focus remains on supporting our customers, suppliers, colleagues, and our retailers who remain open," the statement said.

"We fully recognise this is a difficult time for all connected with JLR and we thank everyone for their continued support and patience."

Industry minister Chris McDonald said he was visiting JLR alongside the business secretary to "host companies in the supply chain, to listen to workers and hear how we can support them and help get production back online."

He said in a statement: "We have two priorities, helping Jaguar Land Rover get back up and running as soon as possible and the long-term health of the supply chain.

"We are acutely aware of the difficulties the stoppage is causing for those suppliers and their staff, many of whom are already taking a financial hit through no fault of their own - and we will do everything we can to reassure them that the government is on their side."

Suppliers are anxious to be heard, according to Johnathan Dudley, the head of manufacturing for accounting and consulting firm Crowe UK. The firm is based in the West Midlands, which is where the Solihull and Wolverhampton plants are.

"Obviously, they're being very, very cautious because they don't want to create panic, and equally, they don't want to be seen to be criticizing people further up the chain," he said.

"It's not a blame game, but it is a cry for help, because there are businesses now seeing people not paying [staff]."

The halt in production had hit profits by about £120m already, and £1.7bn in lost revenue, according to David Bailey, Professor of Business Economics at the University of Birmingham.

The UK government should offer discount visas to US cancer scientists who have had their research cancelled by the Trump administration, Sir Ed Davey will say.

"The UK should step up and say: If Trump won't back this research, we will," the Liberal Democrat leader will say in a speech to his party's conference in Bournemouth on Tuesday.

He will propose the setting up of a fellowship scheme for US scientists seeking to escape the US government's "anti-science agenda".

The Lib Dem leader has stepped up his attacks on the US president this week and accused Reform UK leader Nigel Farage of wanting to turn the UK into "Trump's America".

His staunch criticism of Farage, President Trump and his allies is expected to be a big theme of Sir Ed's keynote speech on the final day of his party's conference.

In February, the US government cut billions of dollars from overheads in grants for biomedical research as a part of broader cost-saving measures.

The US government said it was "vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overheads".

At the time, the boss of the American Society of Clinical Oncology said the move "would be devastating to the pace and progress of cancer research in America".

"Slashing federal research funding at a time when science is revolutionising cancer care risks leaving millions of patients without the promise and potential of life-saving breakthroughs," said Clifford Hudis.

According to a poll conducted by the Nature journal, 75% of its readers were considering leaving the US and heading to Europe or Canada as a result of the actions of Trump.

The Liberal Democrats have not set out what level of discounts the UK government should offer to researchers wanting to come to the UK. Costs to purchase a visa can exceed £1,000.

In his conference speech, Sir Ed will argue that the UK should be "stepping into the vacuum left by Trump's anti-science agenda - leading the world in the fight against cancer".

The Liberal Democrat leader is also expected to criticise Reform UK party members for applauding a US decision to cut research for mRNA vaccines.

Twenty-two projects had been examining how the vaccine technology could counter viruses such as bird flu.

Sir Ed will say: "It is hard to express the cruelty and stupidity of cutting off research into medicine that has the power to save so many lives."

In addition to criticising Trump, Sir Ed has also been increasingly vocal in his attacks on the billionaire and former Trump ally Elon Musk.

On Sunday, he called on the UK's communications regulator Ofcom to "go after" Musk over "crimes" he claims are being committed on the tech mogul's social media platform X.

Sir Ed has also accused Musk of "inciting violence" when he addressed a rally in London via video link. In response, the X owner called the Liberal Democrat leader a "craven coward".

Asked by Sky News if he was worried about legal threats from Musk, Sir Ed said: "If he ... sues me, let's see how he fares, because I don't think he'll win."

The Lib Dems have become well known for their political stunts alongside a policy offer focused on social care and other priorities under Sir Ed's leadership.

It brought them success at last year's general election, with the party winning 72 seats in the House of Commons - its highest ever share.

But the Lib Dems have struck a more serious tone at this year's conference, as the party considers it's next move ahead of local elections next year.

On the opening night of the conference, former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron draped himself in a flag and called on members to "reclaim patriotism" from the far right.

Farron told a hall full of activists to "stop being so flaming squeamish and English" and reclaim the UK's flags from groups who seek to "divide and destroy".

Unusually for the Lib Dems, they have gone out of their way to claim that they are the true patriots, in contrast to Farage, who they have dubbed a "plastic patriot".

In an interview with the BBC, Sir Ed said his party has a moral duty to keep Farage and his Reform UK party out of power.

Making a claim to an insurance company can be worse than the distress of the original incident, according to Which?, as it launches a rare type of action against the sector.

The group's super-complaint - which is an action by a consumer body on customers' behalf - says the home and travel insurance sectors are "broken".

Which? highlighted cases including an insurer initially refusing to pay out for a cancelled holiday, because the trip had technically started before the flight was turned back after two hours.

The insurers' trade body said providers worked hard to help customers, handle claims efficiently, and had paid out many millions of pounds.

Rocio Concha, director of policy at Which?, said that serious failings in the travel and home insurance markets had been "tolerated for too long" by the insurance industry and the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

"We have heard heartbreaking stories from people who have found the experience of dealing with an insurance company worse than the distressing life events that led to their claim," she said.

She added that a super-complaint was "a major intervention". Such a move is rare, and only used by consumer advocates when they believe a large number of consumers are being significantly harmed by practises across a particular sector.

Refused insurance claims

Millions of people across the UK take out insurance policies they hope they will never need to draw on.

Estimates suggest around 30 million people have buildings and contents insurance, with a similar number buying either annual or single-trip travel cover during last year.

Which? said that 99% of car insurance claims were upheld, but acceptance rates fell to 63% of buildings insurance claims and 80% of travel insurance claims.

It pointed to the case of Yvette Greenley, whose flight from Luton to Egypt was sent back owing to technical difficulties.

Mrs Greenley said the problem with the flight and a lack of alternatives meant her holiday to celebrate her 60th birthday with her sister, Beverley, was over. She cancelled her leave and went back to work.

While the airline refunded the cost of the ticket, the insurer initially refused the £140 claim for accommodation and travel to and from the airport because the holiday had begun.

"I was flummoxed, then fuming about it. They seemed to dismiss the fact that the plane turned around," she said.

The insurer later apologised, settled the claim and paid compensation.

In recent years, BBC News has reported cases including:

• A man whose home was damaged by Storm Darragh, but the insurer initially refused to pay for repairs because the windspeed was 2mph below its definition of a storm
• An insurer initially claiming a woman with a brain injury should be repatriated, against medical advice
• Charities warning some people with cancer being priced-out of travel insurance

Analysis of cases, in addition to surveys and research by Which? have led to the super-complaint that, by law, requires a response within 90 days.

'A number of failures'

The complaint is based on three areas of concern. The first is the way that claims are handled, with many being outsourced by insurers to specialists.

The second is the sales practices of insurers, which the consumer group argues are inappropriate and lead to widespread confusion over what is covered in a policy.

Finally, it accuses the FCA, as the regulator, of failing to provide an appropriate degree of protection for consumers.

It has received support from James Daley, managing director of independent consumer group Fairer Finance.

"The FCA has only recently finished a number of studies looking at this market - and while it acknowledged a number of failures, it seems to have no appetite to tackle these," he said.

A spokesman for the FCA said it would respond to the super-complaint in due course, but had been "focused on raising standards".

"We uncovered issues when we recently reviewed insurers' home and travel claims handling. We'll be holding them and their senior managers accountable for the changes needed," he said.

They included issues over outsourcing and storm definitions.

The Association of British Insurers, which represents providers, said that its members worked hard to ensure customers knew the details of policies and handled claims as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"In the first half of this year alone, insurers have paid out over £1.7bn for more than 300,000 home insurance claims. Last year, travel insurers also paid out £472m across more than 500,000 claims," a spokeswoman said.

"We're working closely with the regulator to ensure good outcomes for customers and will engage with Which? to understand the details of its concerns."

The Guardian says Nigel Farage is facing cross-party condemnation for his proposals to deport some legal migrants if Reform UK wins the next election. The i Paper calls the idea both "radical" and "sketchy" while the Daily Mirror labels it "disastrous".

The Times says European sources have dismissed any prospect of downgrading the status of EU nationals who are resident in Britain and were given rights by the post-Brexit treaty: one diplomat asks, "Why would we agree to make EU nationals worse off than they are now?".

The Sun's editorial accepts there are some unanswered questions about the plan but says it is likely to prove popular with voters and that the government must "wake up" to the issues Reform is highlighting.

The Times says health officials in the UK have reassured pregnant women that paracetamol is safe to take, after US President Donald Trump said it was "not good" and linked to autism. The paper says scientists were "dismayed" by his comments and have pointed to a body of evidence refuting any link.

The Daily Telegraph says British experts condemned "fear-mongering".

The Daily Mail asks how the Royal family can continue to "indulge" the Duchess of York, after charities cut ties with her because of her links to Jeffrey Epstein. Its headline reads "Will the King now banish Fergie?"

The Times sets out how, "one by one, charities left the Duchess behind" yesterday. It says that what started as a trickle at lunchtime led to the dam bursting at teatime. The Mirror says Sarah Ferguson's life in the public eye now "lies in tatters".

The Telegraph leads with the call from a think tank with close ties to the government for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to cut national insurance and increase income tax in the Budget. The paper says the Resolution Foundation has often been the "petri dish" of Labour policy in recent years, and that the Treasury is packed with its former staff. It calls the idea a "£6bn raid on pensioners, landlords and the self-employed".

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France has formally recognised a Palestinian state, becoming the latest in a wave of countries to take the step.

Speaking at the UN in New York, President Emmanuel Macron said "the time for peace has come" and that "nothing justifies the ongoing war in Gaza".

France and Saudi Arabia are hosting a one-day summit at the UN General Assembly focused on plans for a two-state solution to the conflict. G7 states Germany, Italy, and the US did not attend.

Macron confirmed that Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra and San Marino would also recognise a Palestinian state, after the UK, Canada, Australia and Portugal announced recognition on Sunday.

International pressure is ramping up on Israel over the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza and settlement building in the West Bank.

Israel has said recognition would reward Hamas for the Palestinian armed group's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and 251 people were taken hostage.

More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Israeli forces are currently carrying out a ground offensive aimed at taking control of Gaza City, where a million people were living and a famine was confirmed last month.

The French leader told the conference that the time had come to stop the war and free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. He warned against the "peril of endless wars" and said "right must always prevail over might".

The international community had failed to build a just and lasting peace n the Middle East, he said, adding that "we must do everything in our power to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution" that would see "Israel and Palestine side by side in peace and security".

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud also addressed the UN, on behalf of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He reiterated that a two-state solution was the only way to achieve lasting peace in the region.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres referred to the situation in Gaza as "morally, legally and politically intolerable" and said a two-state solution was the "only credible path" for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - who was blocked from attending the UN General Assembly in person after the US revoked his and other Palestinian officials' visas - addressed the conference via videolink.

He called for a permanent ceasefire and said Hamas could have no role in governing Gaza, calling for the group to "surrender their weapons" to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

"What we want is one unified state without weapons," he said.

Abbas also condemned Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel and addressed Israelis saying: "Our future and yours depends on peace. Enough violence and war."

Macron said France was ready to contribute to a "stabilisation mission" in Gaza and called for a transitional administration involving the PA that would oversee the dismantling of Hamas.

He said France would only open an embassy to a Palestinian state when all the hostages being held by Hamas are released and a ceasefire had been agreed.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Dannon spoke to reporters shortly before Macron's announcement.

Dannon said a two-state solution was taken "off the table" after the 7 October attack and called this week's talks at the UN a "charade". He also refused to rule out Israel annexing the occupied West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted there will be no Palestinian state to the west of the River Jordan, and President Isaac Herzog said recognising one would only "embolden the forces of darkness".

Ahead of Macron's announcement, the Palestinian and Israeli flags were displayed on the Eiffel Tower on Sunday night. A number of town halls in France also flew Palestinian flags on Monday, despite a government order to local prefects to maintain neutrality.

Pro-Palestinian protests also took place in some 80 towns and cities across Italy, where Giorgia Meloni's government said recently it could be "counter-productive" to recognise a state that did not exist.

In Germany, the government has said Palestinian statehood is not currently up for debate, and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul explained as he left for New York on Monday that "for Germany, recognition of a Palestinian state comes more at the end of the process. But this process must begin now".

GPs in England are being urged to "think again" if they see a sick patient three times and can't pin down a diagnosis, or find their symptoms are getting worse.

The new NHS initiative, called Jess's Rule, is named after Jessica Brady who contacted her GP on more than 20 occasions after starting to feel unwell in the summer of 2020.

She was told her symptoms were related to long Covid and that she was "too young for cancer". She died from advanced stage 4 cancer later that year, aged 27.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said her death was "a preventable and unnecessary tragedy" and the rule would improve patient safety by helping GPs "catch potentially deadly illnesses".

'Her body was failing her'

Jessica Brady was a talented engineer at Airbus, involved in the design of satellites.

Her mum, Andrea, told Radio 4's Today programme that Jess was a very healthy young woman when the pandemic hit in 2020.

But in July of that year, she didn't feel right and contacted her GP practice repeatedly over the next five months about her symptoms.

Over time they became "increasingly debilitating", Andrea says.

"She had unintentionally lost quite a lot of weight, had night sweats, chronic fatigue, a persistent cough and very enlarged lymph nodes.

"But because of her age, it was obviously considered there wasn't anything wrong."

Jess had contact with six different doctors at her GP surgery and three face-to-face consultations with a family doctor, but no referral to a specialist was made.

"Her body was failing her," says Andrea.

"It was hard for Jess to advocate for herself. She was saying 'What's the point? Nothing will happen.'"

When the family decided to arrange a private appointment and she was referred to a specialist, it was too late.

Jess was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in November and died three weeks later - just days before Christmas 2020.

The family hopes Jess's Rule will help to increase awareness of the importance of GPs acting quickly for patients who are steadily deteriorating.

"She wanted to make a difference," Andrea says.

"Jess knew her delayed diagnosis was instrumental in the fact she had no treatment options open to her, only palliative care.

"She felt strongly she didn't want this to happen to other people."

Jess's Rule is not a law, but a strong reminder to GPs to take a "three strikes and rethink approach" after three appointments, to prevent avoidable deaths.

This could mean arranging face-to-face consultations with a patient previously only spoken to on the phone, ordering extra tests or asking for a second opinion from a colleague. GPs should also consider referring patients to a specialist.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), which was involved in drawing up the guidance, said no doctor ever wanted to miss signs of serious illness, such as cancer.

"Many conditions, including many cancers, are challenging to identify in primary care because the symptoms are often similar to other, less serious and more common conditions," said Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chair of RCGP.

"If a patient repeatedly presents with the same or similar symptoms, but the treatment plan does not seem to be making them better - or their condition is deteriorating - it is best practice to review the diagnosis and consider alternative approaches."

Research suggests younger patients and people from ethnic minority backgrounds often face delays before being diagnosed with a serious condition, because their symptoms don't appear similar to white or older patients.

RCGP has worked with Jess Brady's family to develop an educational resource for GPs on the early diagnosis of cancer in young adults.

The Department of Health said many GP practices already used the correct approach, but that Jess' s Rule would make this "standard practice across the country".

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting thanked Jess's family, saying they had campaigned tirelessly through "unimaginable grief" to ensure Jessica's legacy helps to save the lives of others.

"Patient safety must be the bedrock of the NHS, and Jess's Rule will make sure every patient receives the thorough, compassionate, and safe care that they deserve, while supporting our hard-working GPs to catch potentially deadly illnesses," he said.

Paul Callaghan, from Healthwatch England, which represents people who use health and social care services, said the rule should be implemented "quickly and consistently".

"It's also imperative that specialist teams have the resources to deal with potential increases in demand, resulting from increased referrals," he said.

All names have been changed to protect the identities of hotel residents and staff

As I eat a meal cooked on the floor of a shower, I realise nothing has prepared me for what life is like for the residents of an asylum hotel.

I have been invited to join Kadir and his family for dinner - not in the hotel restaurant, but up in the rooms where he lives with his wife, Mira, and their three children.

An electric cable, covered in thick insulating tape, has been extended into the bathroom. Behind the door, Mira is crouching over a small cooker in the shower tray. Pans are precariously placed on a hob and she is stirring away.

As a pan full of oil starts to spit, I worry about the smoke alarm, but I needn't bother. The sensor in the room has been sealed tight with plastic bags.

This set-up is illegal and unsafe, but Kadir tells me his family would rather take the risk and make their own meals, than settle for the free hotel restaurant fare provided.

He dismisses that as "chips and chicken nuggets" and says hotel residents have complained it makes them feel ill.

The smell of herbs and spices wafting through the corridors seems to suggest they are not the only ones who feel this way.

"Everybody, they're cooking in their rooms like this," claims Kadir. "We all do it, but we do it undercover."

I visited four hotels this summer for File on 4 Investigates to try to get an impression of what life was like for those living and working there.

Two sites accommodated families, and the others were for single people - most of them men. But the stories in all four places - snapshots in time - were similar.

To protect the safety of residents and staff, I am not saying where the hotels are.

I heard from families who have been waiting in the UK for nearly a decade for their cases to be decided - and from people who have had babies in the misguided belief that doing so will automatically guarantee mother and child being given British passports.

There were uplifting stories of human spirit - including an elderly couple, both with serious health problems, who still managed to help others in their hotel with food and emotional support.

But, at the same time, I have seen signs of hotel residents working illegally in the black economy and discovered that the asylum system appears to require an extraordinary number of taxi journeys.

The government has pledged to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029. They currently house about 32,000 people across the UK, down from 51,000 in 2023.

Asylum hotels - including two of those I visited - have become a focus for vocal and sometimes violent protests this summer, after a resident of one hotel in Epping, Essex, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

Journalists aren't normally allowed inside the hotels, but I gained access through migrant contacts who had made the journey across the English Channel from France.

The hotels were never intended to be used like this. The rooms look smart on review sites on the internet - with sofas, televisions, double beds, ensuite bathrooms. Everything is there, and you would be pleased if one was yours for a couple of nights.

What the pictures don't show is the wear-and-tear and the build-up of possessions that come from continuous occupancy over months and years.

Where reception once was, there are now security desks. Outside, there are bollards and warnings that the public aren't allowed in.

At the hotels housing families, I am struck by the number of prams in the reception areas, and by how many babies and toddlers there are. With little or no communal space, younger children are left to play in empty corridors.

In one of the hotels, a friendly security guard, Curtis, shows me a makeshift running track he has set up for the children in an unused car park - and the bikes in the storeroom he has found and repaired.

When I ask the Home Office how many children have been born in asylum hotels, it tells me there are no figures available.

One of the first babies I meet is proudly held aloft by his father - they arrived from Somalia just weeks earlier and he tells me this is a "British baby", born on "British soil", who will, one day he believes, hold a British passport.

This is not, in fact, the case. The Home Office can still deport asylum seekers who have babies in the UK, although, according to Jon Featonby of the Refugee Council, there are extra safeguards which make it harder to forcibly remove them.

Kadir and Mira - the couple who cooked me a meal - have also had a baby since being in the UK. Kadir says he, his wife and their two older children were forced to flee Iraq. In his home country, Kadir says he had worked as a translator but was targeted by criminals.

The family has been moved between different hotels all over the UK since they arrived nine years ago. The Home Office initially rejected Kadir's case because of what it said was lack of proof. Two unsuccessful appeals followed. A third is currently under way.

The family occupies two adjoining hotel rooms - one for Kadir, Mira and their baby, and the other for their 12-year-old daughter, Shayan, and 14-year-old son, Roman.

Kadir says he wants to work, but won't do so illegally. However, he says he knows plenty of hotel residents who seek to supplement the £9.95 a week they receive from the government.

Kadir introduces me to Mohammed, who arrived from Afghanistan a few weeks ago.

Mohammed fixed up a job before he even hit UK soil, he says, as his cousin was already here and working illegally. He is now earning £20 a day for shifts that he says can last 10 hours, sometimes longer.

When I challenge Mohammed on why he is breaking the law, he says he has no choice because his family owes money to people-smugglers. It is a story I hear from other asylum seekers too.

Mohammed wants to send money back to his wife in the hope that one day - if he is allowed to remain in the UK - she will be able to join him.

In all four migrant hotels I visit, there are men and women coming and going at times that suggest they are working. Sometimes, delivery bikes are parked around the side of the buildings and occasionally vans pick people up.

In July, the Home Office conducted a UK-wide crackdown on illegal delivery drivers. It says 1,780 individuals were stopped and spoken to, leading to 280 arrests for illegal working activity.  A total of 53 people are now having their support reviewed as a result.

Staff in the hotel tell me it isn't their job to check these things, but security guard Curtis says he is not surprised. "You've got nothing to occupy these guys. So of course, they're going to go out there and work."

There seems to be a constant stream of cabs arriving and leaving the four sites I visit - although the Home Office says it doesn't have figures for the amount of money it spends on taxis at asylum hotels.

While residents are issued with a bus pass for one return journey per week, for any other necessary travel - for example, a visit to the doctor - taxis are called.

Proof of an upcoming appointment needs to be shown at the reception desk, where a taxi is booked on an automated system. Public transport or walking is not presented as an option.

This can result in some unusually long journeys and others that are unusually short.

For instance, when migrants move between hotels, they sometimes keep the same NHS doctors - especially for GP referrals. Kadir says a knee problem meant he was told to take a 250-mile taxi ride to see the consultant who had treated him at his old address. He says the taxi driver told him the return journey cost £600.

"Should the Home Office give me the ticket for the train? This is the easy way, and they know they spend too much money," Kadir says. "We know as well, but we don't have any choice. It's crazy."

I accompany Mira and Shayan as they go for a walk to a local chemist to pick up a prescription. It means braving a line of protesters shouting "Go home!" at them. They keep their heads down as police escort them through.

Later, I ask 12-year-old Shayan how she feels about the protests.

She says she wants to engage with the protesters and is frustrated the hotel staff won't allow her: "Me and my friends have always wanted to go up to them and speak to them face-to-face. What is their problem with the kids as well?"

Shayan and her brother say they are often reluctant to take the school bus that comes to collect them each weekday. "You never know what [the protesters] will do to the bus," she says, adding that she is afraid one of them might try to board it.

She wants to stay in the UK, she says, but her life so far has been spent in uncertain circumstances: "Once we get settled in a place, then they move us, and then we've got to learn where we come from, like, learn that area, go to a new school, make new friends, and then once we've done that, they move us again."

Since talking to me at the asylum hotel, Kadir and his family have been told they are to be moved on once more - to two hotels in different cities. Kadir and his baby daughter have been offered accommodation in one hotel, and Mira, Shayan and Roman in another, nearly 200 miles away.

But they are refusing to go. Kadir has already been told he has lost his weekly benefit and there is a chance the family will be deemed to have made themselves intentionally homeless.

The future for the family - like many other asylum seekers - remains anything but certain.

British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been freed and reunited with his family after almost six years of imprisonment in Egypt.

One of the country's most prominent political prisoners, he was pardoned by President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi on Monday, reportedly after a request from the National Council for Human Rights.

Video of the blogger and pro-democracy activist, 43, at home after his release shows him grinning widely and jumping up and down as he celebrates with his sister and mother.

Laila Soueif, who went on extensive hunger strike during her son's imprisonment, said on his release: "Despite our great joy, the biggest joy is when there are no [political] prisoners."

Abdel Fattah was released from Wadi al-Natrun prison late on Monday and celebrated reuniting with his family at his mother's apartment in Giza.

"I cannot yet comprehend that this is real," his sister Sanaa Seif said.

The activist was arrested in 2019 during a crackdown on dissent and sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of "spreading false news" for sharing a post about a prisoner dying of torture.

Two weeks ago, Sisi ordered the authorities to study the NCHR's petitions for the release of Abdel Fattah and six others, which the institution said it had submitted "in light of the humanitarian and health conditions experienced by [their] families".

His family said he should have been released in September 2024 but the two years he spent in pre-trial detention were not counted as time served by Egyptian authorities.

When Abdel Fattah was not released at the end of his five-year sentence, his mother Laila Soueif started an extensive hunger strike to call for his release.

She was hospitalised at St Thomas' Hospital in London and came close to death twice during the 287-day strike, which ended on 14 July after then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament he "expected [Abdel Fattah] to be released" on 25 June.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had previously said he would secure Abdel Fattah's freedom and there has been widespread cross-parliamentary support for his release.

It is unclear if Abdel Fattah will be able to travel to the UK to be with his son, though his sister said on his release that his release would "feel more real" when "his son arrives here from travelling".

The activist first rose to prominence during the 2011 uprising in Egypt that forced long-time President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

He has spent most of his time in prison since 2014, the year after Sisi led the military's overthrow of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi.

Sisi has overseen what human rights groups say is an unprecedented crackdown on dissent that has led to the detention of tens of thousands of people.

Although Abdel Fattah acquired British citizenship in 2021, Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit by British diplomats.

In May, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention - a panel of independent human rights experts – found that Abdel Fattah had been arbitrarily arrested for exercising his right to freedom of expression, had not been given a fair trial and had remained in detention for his political opinions.

According to the panel, the Egyptian government said he had been afforded "all fair trial rights" and that his sentence would be completed in January 2027.

"At what point did we become North Korea?" That was the question Nigel Farage posed when asked by a US congressional committee about limitations on freedom of speech in the UK.

He was condemning the "awful authoritarian situation we have sunk into", which he claimed had led to various arrests including that of Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan over his views on challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

When I heard the question, I confess I thought that the leader of Reform UK had gone over the top.

Farage was comparing his country - my country - with a brutal dictatorship that murders, imprisons and tortures opponents.

And he was doing it in front of an influential audience of American lawmakers.

When I interviewed his deputy, Richard Tice on Radio 4's Today, I asked him whether he really believed that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was the same as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Three times I asked the question. Three times Tice swerved it, suggesting Farage was simply using "an analogy".

But Farage is not alone in questioning how far restrictions to freedom of speech have gone in the UK.

Tensions around the limits of free speech are nothing new and since the advent of social media in the mid-2000s, the arguments have been simmering.

Now, though, they're reaching a boiling point.

During his recent visit, US Vice-President JD Vance said he did not want the UK to go down a "very dark path" of losing free speech.

The US business magazine Forbes carried an editorial this month that took this argument further still.

In it, editor-in-chief Steve Forbes condemned the UK's "plunge into the kind of speech censorship usually associated with tin pot Third World dictatorships".

He argues that, in stark contrast to the United States - where free speech is protected by the first amendment to the constitution, "the UK has, with increasing vigour, been curbing what one is allowed to say, all in the name of fighting racism, sexism, Islamophobia, transgenderism, climate-change denial and whatever else the woke extremists conjure up".

So, how exactly did we get to the point where the UK is being compared to a dictatorship and, given how inflamed the conversation has become, what - if anything - would it take to turn down the heat?

Big tech dialled up the debate

The case of Lucy Connolly has become a cause celebre to some in the UK and beyond.

The former childminder from Northampton, who is married to a Conservative councillor, had posted an abhorrent message on X, calling for people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers following the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024.

It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times at a time when the threat of violence was very real.

Connolly had pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing "threatening or abusive" written material on X. And yet she was given the red carpet treatment at the Reform party conference, as "Britain's favourite political prisoner".

The length of her prison sentence - 31 months although she only served 40% before she was released - was questioned by many, including people who were appalled by what she had written.

It is just one case that highlights how much social media has changed the shape of the debate around free speech and made heroes and villains of ordinary people.

And I use the word "ordinary" deliberately because views similar to Connolly's will have been expressed up and down the land by others who might well have said, as she now does, "I was an idiot".

But while it's unlikely that any action would have been taken had she said what she did in a coffee shop or a bar, the fact she posted it on social media changed things.

What's more, big tech firms have changed their approach in recent years.

After Musk bought Twitter, which he re-named X, he changed content moderation, which he regards as "a propaganda word for censorship" - and he talks a lot about people spreading "the woke mind virus".

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also changed the rules governing Meta and Instagram.

In the case of Connolly, her post was "accelerated by the algorithm" and spread far more widely, according to Lilian Edwards, an emeritus professor at Newcastle University.

Dilemma around policing speech

The arrest of Graham Linehan at Heathrow, too, raised further questions around policing freedom of speech - and put the way issues are handled under renewed scrutiny.

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley has voiced his own concerns. "It's a nonsense to pretend that with all of the (online) content out there that enforcement is the answer to that," he has said.

What these cases both illustrate is the lack of consensus about what can and should be policed online in the UK, and by who.

And a lack of consensus too about how we can set apart the unpleasant, offensive, ugly and hateful things said online from those that are genuinely threatening or dangerous.

In the UK, the Human Rights Act does give protection to free speech but as a "qualified right".

This means that "governments can restrict that right… provided that the response is proportionate - [or] 'necessary in a democratic society' is what people tend to say", according to Lorna Woods, professor of internet law at the University of Essex.

But some of the comments made at the protest in London earlier this month, billed by far-right, anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson as a "free speech rally," demonstrate that, despite other controversies, that right isn't that qualified.

Like nailing jelly to the wall

"Violence is coming" and "you either fight back or die", the billionaire X owner Elon Musk told flag-waving protesters via video link.

Along with his call for the overthrow of the government, some might argue that his words at the rally were an incitement to violence.

But the UK's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, the barrister Jonathan Hall KC, has said that Musk's words would not have broken the law.

"Politicians use martial language all the time, don't they?" he told BBC Radio 4's Today. "Metaphors such as fights and struggles are pretty normal. And he was talking about it contingently, wasn't he? He wasn't saying: 'Go out immediately.'"

Yet the fact both men were able to address a huge crowd in London is perhaps evidence that there is rather more leeway for free speech in this country than those likening the UK to a "tin pot dictatorship" suggest.

According to Essex University's Prof Lorna Woods, the lowest level of views that can be prosecuted in British criminal law are those deemed "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".

These are concepts that few people without a law degree could easily define, let alone agree upon.

It is the job of the police initially, but ultimately the courts, to try to nail that particular piece of jelly to the wall.

The UK is "out of whack" with other countries, according to Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who later became right-hand man to Zuckerberg. He believes the UK needs to "think long and hard" about "whether we've overdone it" on policing speech.

"Surely part of the definition of being in a free society is people say ghastly things, offensive things, awful things, ugly things, and we don't sweep them under the carpet," he has said.

Free speech versus 'me speech'

What the British public want is another story.

Earlier this month, in a survey by YouGov, 5,035 British adults were asked what was most important when it came to online behaviour: 28% said it was that people were able to express themselves freely but 61% prioritised keeping them safe from threats and abuse.

"People tend to prefer safety to free speech [online]," argues Anthony Wells, a director at YouGov.

What's more, there seems to be a generational divide.

In my conversations with young people in their 20s and 30s - the age of my own children - I often hear the view that far from being an ideal to be strived for, free speech is the cause of much of the anger, division and fear they live with every day.

In recent years a "cancel culture" has emerged in which those with "unacceptable" views can be hounded out of their jobs, no platformed as speakers or intimidated as students.

Even back in 2021, a YouGov poll of Britons found that a majority of those surveyed - some 57% - had sometimes stopped themselves from expressing political or social views because of the fear of being judged or negative responses.

For those who believe that free speech is under threat in the country, these figures can be used as evidence that decades of political correctness has had a chilling effect on people's ability to express their opinions.

"Our definitions of what constitutes hate speech, and I think a very broadened definition of what constitutes harm, is meaning that people feel like they are walking on eggshells and they're frightened - not just that they'll have the police around, but that they'll be cancelled if they say the wrong thing," the former Brexit Party MEP Baroness Claire Fox told the BBC's The World Tonight.

But dig deeper and this debate, like so much else, is also about politics and the deepening and, increasingly, angry and violent divisions in our society.

What can America teach us?

Even with its constitutional protection for free speech, plenty in the UK question what basis Americans have to lecture Britain on free speech, given the arguments they are having back at home.

The anger and division sparked by the assassination of the conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk in Utah this month ramped up the debate further on that side of the Atlantic over where the boundaries should lie between what is offensive, hateful and dangerous.

Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi appalled many conservatives when she declared that, "There's free speech and then there's hate speech".

It seemed to take her into precisely the territory, which has caused so many problems here in the UK.

President Trump himself has threatened to sue the New York Times for $15bn (£11bn) over what he calls defamation and libel, adding to the long list of media outlets he has taken to the courts over stories - the newspaper has called it "intimidation tactics" - and he celebrated the sacking of the late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel as "great news for America".

The US historian Tim Snyder, who is an outspoken public critic of the direction America is heading under Trump believes that free speech should be distinguished from what he calls "me speech".

"Me speech is a common practice among rich and influential Americans," writes Mr Snyder. "Practitioners of me speech use the phrase free speech quite a bit.

"But what they mean is free speech for themselves. They want a monopoly on it.

"They believe that they are right about everything, and so they should always have giant platforms, in real life or on social media.

"The people with whom they disagree, however, should be called out and intimidated in an organised way on social media, or subjected to algorithmic discrimination so that their voices are not heard."

As much about listening

This issue is one I've felt strongly about for as long as I can remember. My grandparents knew first hand what it was to be persecuted for who you were and what you thought or said. They were German Jews who fled the Nazis for what then was the relative security of China and later had to flee the Communists there.

As a child, I recall watching in reverential silence as each day, after lunch, my grandfather held a huge radio on his lap and turned the dial, skipping stations until he found the BBC World Service. There, he had learned, he would find news he could trust and speech which was free of political control.

So important was this to him that he had risked hiding with his wife and daughter (my mother) in a cupboard in their home in Shanghai to listen to it on a banned shortwave radio.

That is why I find any comparison between the UK and a dictatorship a little hard to swallow.

What I learned as the grandchild of those who had fled not one but two murderous ideologies was that free speech was about listening as much as talking.

What mattered above all else is being able to hear both sides of an argument and learn the facts behind them - without having that information controlled by governments, rich and powerful media owners, or anyone else.

Nick Robinson is presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme and Political Thinking.

Top image credit: Carlos Jasso / Getty Images

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Porsche's stock tumbled by more than 7% on Monday after warning last week that delays in its electric vehicle (EV) rollout will dent the carmaker's 2025 earnings.

Caught between electrification and its iconic petrol-powered sports cars, the German firm said it will slow its push for EVs as demand weakens.

Shares of its parent Volkswagen also fell by more than 7% on the same day after saying it will spend billions to overhaul Porsche's line-up of vehicles.

The companies' struggles reflect the challenges for European manufacturers, who are faced with intense competition from Chinese rivals and a slowing economy that's dampening demand for luxury cars.

Porsche said in a statement on Friday that it has reduced its projected profit margin from up to 7% to 2% or less.

It cited the "US import tariffs, the decline in the Chinese luxury market, and the slowdown in the ramp-up of electric mobility" among its challenges.

The company also said it would delay the launch of its newest EVs and that it will extend production of combustion engine models, even as the European market faces a 2035 deadline to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

Industry executives have urged the authorities to relax that target, arguing it is not feasible.

In a strategic shift, Porsche said an upcoming line of sport utility vehicles, originally planned as fully electric, will now launch exclusively with combustion engines and plug-in hybrid options.

Current models like the four-door Panamera and Cayenne will continue to be available with non-electric options well into the 2030s, it added.

Luxury carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also been slashing costs to keep up with rivals.

European carmakers are facing fierce competition from Chinese brands like BYD and XPeng, which are caught in a price war in the domestic EV market.

Many international carmakers have struggled to compete in China, where average car prices have dropped by an estimated 19% over the past two years to around 165,000 yuan (£17,150; $23,190).

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GPs in England are being urged to "think again" if they see a sick patient three times and can't pin down a diagnosis, or find their symptoms are getting worse.

The new NHS initiative, called Jess's Rule, is named after Jessica Brady who contacted her GP on more than 20 occasions after starting to feel unwell in the summer of 2020.

She was told her symptoms were related to long Covid and that she was "too young for cancer". She died from advanced stage 4 cancer later that year, aged 27.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said her death was "a preventable and unnecessary tragedy" and the rule would improve patient safety by helping GPs "catch potentially deadly illnesses".

'Her body was failing her'

Jessica Brady was a talented engineer at Airbus, involved in the design of satellites.

Her mum, Andrea, told Radio 4's Today programme that Jess was a very healthy young woman when the pandemic hit in 2020.

But in July of that year, she didn't feel right and contacted her GP practice repeatedly over the next five months about her symptoms.

Over time they became "increasingly debilitating", Andrea says.

"She had unintentionally lost quite a lot of weight, had night sweats, chronic fatigue, a persistent cough and very enlarged lymph nodes.

"But because of her age, it was obviously considered there wasn't anything wrong."

Jess had contact with six different doctors at her GP surgery and three face-to-face consultations with a family doctor, but no referral to a specialist was made.

"Her body was failing her," says Andrea.

"It was hard for Jess to advocate for herself. She was saying 'What's the point? Nothing will happen.'"

When the family decided to arrange a private appointment and she was referred to a specialist, it was too late.

Jess was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in November and died three weeks later - just days before Christmas 2020.

The family hopes Jess's Rule will help to increase awareness of the importance of GPs acting quickly for patients who are steadily deteriorating.

"She wanted to make a difference," Andrea says.

"Jess knew her delayed diagnosis was instrumental in the fact she had no treatment options open to her, only palliative care.

"She felt strongly she didn't want this to happen to other people."

Jess's Rule is not a law, but a strong reminder to GPs to take a "three strikes and rethink approach" after three appointments, to prevent avoidable deaths.

This could mean arranging face-to-face consultations with a patient previously only spoken to on the phone, ordering extra tests or asking for a second opinion from a colleague. GPs should also consider referring patients to a specialist.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), which was involved in drawing up the guidance, said no doctor ever wanted to miss signs of serious illness, such as cancer.

"Many conditions, including many cancers, are challenging to identify in primary care because the symptoms are often similar to other, less serious and more common conditions," said Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chair of RCGP.

"If a patient repeatedly presents with the same or similar symptoms, but the treatment plan does not seem to be making them better - or their condition is deteriorating - it is best practice to review the diagnosis and consider alternative approaches."

Research suggests younger patients and people from ethnic minority backgrounds often face delays before being diagnosed with a serious condition, because their symptoms don't appear similar to white or older patients.

RCGP has worked with Jess Brady's family to develop an educational resource for GPs on the early diagnosis of cancer in young adults.

The Department of Health said many GP practices already used the correct approach, but that Jess' s Rule would make this "standard practice across the country".

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting thanked Jess's family, saying they had campaigned tirelessly through "unimaginable grief" to ensure Jessica's legacy helps to save the lives of others.

"Patient safety must be the bedrock of the NHS, and Jess's Rule will make sure every patient receives the thorough, compassionate, and safe care that they deserve, while supporting our hard-working GPs to catch potentially deadly illnesses," he said.

Paul Callaghan, from Healthwatch England, which represents people who use health and social care services, said the rule should be implemented "quickly and consistently".

"It's also imperative that specialist teams have the resources to deal with potential increases in demand, resulting from increased referrals," he said.

Hong Kong has shut schools and some businesses, while the airport will ground most flights from Tuesday evening as the city braces for a super typhoon - the strongest storm of the year so far.

Fresh food and bread were wiped off supermarket shelves as residents prepared to hunker down, while shop owners piled sandbags in front of their stores.

Super typhoon Ragasa, which killed at least one as it lashed through a remote island in the Philippines on Monday, is due to hit the Asian financial hub later on Tuesday.

Millions could be impacted by the storm, which is expected to move towards northern Vietnam and China's Guangdong, where authorities have said to prepare for a "catastrophic" situation.

Hong Kong International Airport says it expects "significant disruption to flight operations" from 18:00 local time Tuesday until the next day.

More than 500 Cathay Pacific flights are expected to be cancelled, while Hong Kong Airlines said it would stop all departures from the city.

Many cities in Guangdong province have shut schools and some workplaces, as well as suspended public transportation.

The Chinese city of Shenzhen, which neighbours Hong Kong, has seen 400,000 people evacuated.

In the Philippines, where the storm is referred to as super typhoon Nando, at least one person was killed by a landslide in the country's nothern Luzon island and hundreds of families were displaced as a result.

More than 10,000 people were evacuated in the Philippines before the storm made landfall on Monday afternoon. Schools and government offices were shut in large parts of the country, including in the capital Manila.

Super typhoon Ragasa - equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane - packed wind gusts of up to 285km/h (177mph) at its highest point on Monday.

Ragasa will "pose a serious threat" to Hong Kong, says Eric Chan, its Chief Secretary for Administration, comparing it to two other typhoons which left behind trails of severe destruction.

Super typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 - to date the most intense typhoon to strike the city - injured 200 people, sunk ships and wrecked infrastructure, with the weather agency estimating economic losses of HK$4.6bn ($592m).

In 2017, typhoon Hato unleashed serious flooding and smashed and injured more than 100 people in the city.

All flights to and from Denmark's largest airport have been suspended after drone sightings, police have said.

Between two to three large drones were seen flying in the area around Copenhagen Airport, according to authorities.

Take-offs and landings at the airport have been suspended since around 20:30 local time (19:30 BST).

"[The airport] is currently closed for take-off and landing, as 2-3 large drones have been seen flying in the area. The time horizon is currently unknown," police said in a statement on X.

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