Trump has yet to nominate a permanent CDC director and the Senate confirmation of his pick for top doctor is in limbo

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

The Trump administration’s “Make America healthy again” (Maha) agenda appears to be stalled as two of the government’s most influential public health positions sit empty.

Donald Trump has yet to nominate a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leaving an agency that has been plagued by turmoil for the past year without a leader. At the same time, the president’s controversial pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, remains in limbo as her nomination stalls in the Senate.

BMA’s decision to withdraw from talks with government and NHS chiefs has sparked a war of words

NHS bosses have accused resident doctors of seeking to cause “maximum harm” to patients by striking for six days next month over pay and jobs.

Wes Streeting has given resident – formerly junior – doctors in England until 2 April to reconsider their rejection on Wednesday of his “generous” offer to end the dispute. It would have given them £700m in extra pay over the next three years.

Wes Streeting pronounced the UK’s health system ‘broken’. An upbeat survey does not mean that it is fixed

For the government, news that public satisfaction with the NHS has increased for the first time since 2019 came as a huge relief. After 20 difficult months in office, ministers can point to proof that one public service at least is getting better, in spite of doctors’ strikes. The annual survey also found that the proportion of people who are dissatisfied with social care provided by councils has fallen, although the change here is less marked.

Given the low base from which this boost has been measured, and ongoing problems in multiple areas, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, was careful to temper his evident glee in a speech on Wednesday, with pledges of further improvement. Since the NHS is widely regarded as his party’s proudest achievement, and the UK’s most cherished institution, a figure of 26% declaring themselves to be satisfied, compared with 51% who are dissatisfied, sounds more like a cause for concern than celebration.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The comments were part of a broader address in which he condemned Nato allies

Yesterday the Conservative party said that it wanted to ban political parties from distributing campaign literature in a foreign language. Announcing a plan to propose an amendement to the representation of the people bill to make this law, the shadow communities minister Paul Holmes said:

Campaigning in a foreign language as the Greens did in Gorton and Denton only fosters greater division. A coherent national culture relies on shared values, and an inclusive electoral process relies on a common tongue.

I think it’s for political parties to choose how they campaign and communicate with British voters. If they’re using British money that is funding their campaigns and they’re speaking to people who have the right to vote, then why would you not show those voters the respect of communication?

What fuels division is Nick Timothy standing up and singling out Muslim forms of worship for a ban when he’s not applying that to forms of worship that other religions are talking about.

It just doesn’t compute, does it? I worked in Number 10. Briefly, I had a Number 10 phone. There was a paranoia about devices like that falling into other people’s hands.

And so whether it was the Met Police, whether it was Morgan McSweeney, and what sounds like pretty evasive set of reporting, even when you look at that transcript, or whether it was the Number 10 security team following up something that at the time they could not have been sure had not been taken by a state actor, a phone with all sorts of government secrets potentially in it, that’s precisely why people in government have two separate phones.

I don’t believe McSwindle had his iPhone stolen

Honest believe, Matt. It’s smacks of the liar Johnson defence of ‘lost all my WhatsApp messages’. We mustn’t take the public for fools. And I am afraid this smacks of too convenient by far. I won’t do it. I will say what I actually think. And I don’t believe it. End of!

I believe the report was made. McSwindle didn’t mention that he was the chief of staff to the PM. A significant omission of he’d wanted the police to prioritise the offence.

Readers respond to an article on having to care for parents if you had a complicated relationship with them

Stephanie Woods is right to draw attention to how hard it can be to care for someone who didn’t care for you (The impossible task of caring for ageing parents who did not care for you, 20 March). While some carers find it a privilege to look after someone they’ve had a loving relationship with, others feel trapped by a sense of duty, or by societal expectations, to care for someone they aren’t close to or who doesn’t value them.

Changes to how social care support is funded and provided cannot come soon enough for anyone who feels that they have no choice but to care. In reality, if unpaid family carers stopped providing daily practical and emotional support to people living with dementia, there would be chaos. There are simply not enough professional home-based carers, care home places, or hospital beds, to manage the consequences of thousands of vulnerable people left alone and at risk in their own homes.

Ejaculation v sleep | Night-time stress | Brabazon legacy | Learning from mistakes | Pint or pony of porter

I was struck by two adjacent headlines: “More frequent ejaculations may boost men’s fertility” and “Extra 11 minutes’ sleep each night can reduce heart attack risk”. What a terrible dilemma.
Prof Gareth Williams
Rockhampton, Gloucestershire

• Given the impact of stress on the risk of heart attacks, I wonder how the worry about not sleeping for an extra 11 minutes is going to help me.
Richard Barnard
Wivenhoe, Essex

One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He’s just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounter

Towards the end of 2024, Dennis Biesma decided to check out ChatGPT. The Amsterdam-based IT consultant had just ended a contract early. “I had some time, so I thought: let’s have a look at this new technology everyone is talking about,” he says. “Very quickly, I became fascinated.”

Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling “a little isolated”. He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to “chill”, but had done so for years with no ill effects. He had never experienced a mental illness. Yet within months of downloading ChatGPT, Biesma had sunk €100,000 (about £83,000) into a business startup based on a delusion, been hospitalised three times and tried to kill himself.

Rule change follows high court challenge brought by two doctors prevented from working in specialist fields

Doctors who have been prevented from working in the NHS while they wait for asylum decisions are celebrating after the Home Office agreed to lift the ban. The changes come into force on Thursday.

The changes to the immigration rules follow a high court challenge by two specialist doctors who had the relevant qualifications to work for the NHS but were prevented from taking up work. Doctors who have a break in their practice can quickly become deskilled. Until now, the ban has remained in place despite shortages of doctors and other healthcare professionals in some parts of the NHS.

Professionals from across Europe urge MEPs to reject plans, saying ‘climate of fear’ could stop people seeking care

More than 1,100 healthcare professionals from across Europe have urged MEPs to reject proposed measures aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning they could threaten public health by transforming essential public services, including hospitals, into sites of immigration enforcement.

The draft plans, which are due to go to a vote on Thursday, have been in the works since last March, when the European Commission laid out its proposal to target people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries.

British Medical Association blame government for longest proposed walkout so far, with NHS leaders warning it could cost £300m

Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.

The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.

Exclusive: Parental consents in Greater Manchester up 40% as demand surges in various parts of the country

School immunisation services and pharmacies are reporting surging demand for routine vaccinations after the Kent meningitis outbreak in which two teenagers died.

Thousands of teenagers across England have booked or received jabs in the past fortnight against the A, C, W and Y strains of meningitis (MenACWY), and diphtheria, polio and tetanus (Td/IPV).

Shadow cabinet officer minister claims ‘this whole thing stinks to high heaven’

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has urged people to reject “conspiracy” theories about the loss of Morgan McSweeney’s phone.

Readers respond to the news that some of the world’s poorest countries are going to lose aid from the UK

The recent announcement that the UK government is set to make significant cuts to direct aid to Africa and the Middle East is deeply disappointing (Report, 19 March). It is plumbing new depths by proposing to balance increased defence spending on the backs of the world’s poorest by slashing development aid.

Such a move also breaks Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledge to restore development spending at the level of 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) “as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”.

Move comes after judge voided Kennedy’s ACIP picks, leaving key flu, Covid and RSV vaccines in limbo

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

Amid upheaval to the US vaccine advisory committee Robert Malone, the former co-chair and controversial figure who has opposed vaccines, says he has been pushed out and will not be involved in any future decisions. The move comes after a federal judge stayed the appointment of 13 members of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), essentially invalidating their roles on the committee and the decisions they have made.

Those new advisers were all hand-picked by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he fired the previous 17 members of the ACIP in June – but the judge ruled they were unqualified and not selected properly.

East Kent hospitals NHS trust says officials could have acted sooner to notify UKHSA after first reported case

East Kent hospitals NHS trust missed an earlier opportunity to alert the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) over the meningitis outbreak in Kent, it has been reported.

According to the BBC, the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate first reported a case to the UKHSA on the afternoon of Friday 13 March.

Wes Streeting set to hail result as proof of progress, but Britons remain frustrated with long waits for GP hospital care

Public satisfaction with the NHS has risen for the first time since 2019, but people remain deeply frustrated with stubbornly long waits to receive GP, A&E or hospital care.

The proportion of voters in Great Britain satisfied with the way the NHS runs has increased from the record low of 21% seen last year to 26%. At the same time dissatisfaction with the health service fell 8% – the biggest drop since 1998 – although it remains high at 51%.

Non-coated silicone implants found to lead to higher levels of scarring, infections and necessity for further operations

Women with breast cancer who have reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy are much less likely to have complications if they have a polyurethane-coated implant, according to research.

About 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year, of whom about 30% have a mastectomy. Many of these will subsequently have radiotherapy.

Need for abstinence before fertility treatment questioned as study finds sperm deteriorates as it stays in body

Encouraging men to have more frequent ejaculations may boost their fertility, according to researchers who found that sperm deteriorates over time as it remains in the body.

The longer men went without sex, the more their sperm showed signs of DNA damage and oxidative stress, and the more tests rated the sperm as less viable and poorer swimmers.

UnMute has been founded to overhaul ableist booking practices, representing artists with specialist access requirements often deemed too costly by venues

Musician Andrew Lansley hid his autism diagnosis for 10 years, scared of losing opportunities to perform if he asked for the adjustments he needed regarding lighting and noise controls. Now, the double bassist has created the UK’s first roster of disabled musicians, aiming to get artists with disabilities on to lineups and address the career barriers they face.

Launched today, the UnMute roster has been developed with the hope it will make promoters, venues and festivals more comfortable in booking disabled artists.

Experts warn of ‘over-diagnosis’ dangers as social media prompts the worried well to seek out unnecessary and expensive scans and blood tests

Medical tests are marketed on social media as a way to empower people to take control of their health, but experts are warning to be wary of the harms influencers don’t mention.

Three controversial tests – full-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, blood tests for testosterone levels and the Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) or “egg-timer” test, which surveys a woman’s egg count – are the focus of a campaign backed by the University of Sydney based on its own research trying to combat misinformation online.