As a psychologist working with children and families, I often meet parents at a moment of both clarity and uncertainty.

They may have started to notice that their toddler experiences the world a little differently. Perhaps their child becomes overwhelmed in busy environments, struggles with communication or finds social interaction more difficult than other children their age.

For many families, recognising neurodivergence brings a sense of relief. But it is usually followed by a daunting question: how do we get the right support for our child?

In the UK, that journey can be particularly complex during the early years.

According to the Department for Education, around 1.6 million pupils in England are identified as having special educational needs, representing roughly 18% of the school population. Yet families with preschool children often face long waiting lists for assessments and limited access to early support.

This delay matters. Early childhood is a critical period for brain development. Evidence shows that early support programmes for neurodivergent children, particularly those on the autism spectrum, can significantly improve communication, social skills and everyday functioning.

When support arrives early, it does not change who a child is, nor should it. What it can do is help children develop strategies that make learning and taking part in daily life much more manageable.

The period after recognising that a child may be neurodivergent can be one of the most stressful times for parents.

Families are often required to navigate complex systems across health, education and social care, while also supporting their child’s day-to-day needs.

Research has shown that parents of neurodivergent children report significantly higher levels of stress during the early stages of seeking support, particularly when services are delayed or fragmented.

In practice, many parents become the main coordinator of their child’s support: they research therapies, push for assessments and adapt their home routines to help their child manage emotions and sensory challenges.

Yet this expertise is not always recognised by the professionals they encounter.

In my clinical work, I still hear well-intentioned but outdated advice offered to parents of neurodivergent toddlers. Comments such as “they will grow out of it” or “they simply need firmer discipline” reflect a misunderstanding of how neurodivergent children develop.

Research increasingly shows that behaviours often described as disruptive are more accurately understood as a child trying to express sensory, emotional or communication needs.

When a child struggles to join in with group activities or becomes overwhelmed in a busy environment, it is rarely deliberate defiance. It is often a sign that the environment does not yet suit the way their brain works.

A more helpful approach shifts the focus away from controlling the behaviour and towards understanding what is behind it.

Nurseries and early years settings are well placed to support neurodivergent children before formal schooling begins.

However, according to the Department for Education, many staff feel underprepared to recognise and respond to the different ways children develop and learn.

Inclusion means more than simply allowing neurodivergent children into mainstream settings. It means adapting those environments with calmer spaces, flexible routines, visual aids and genuine collaboration with families.

When these changes are made, the benefits extend to all children. Every young learner does better in an environment that feels predictable and safe.

One young child I worked with struggled to join in at nursery and was frequently described as disruptive. Staff were unsure how best to respond.

After introducing a simple visual timetable and a quiet space where the child could go when feeling overwhelmed, the difference in their participation was remarkable.

What changed was not the child but the environment. This reflects a broader principle: when we adjust our surroundings to meet a child’s needs, their ability to engage often grows considerably.

Dr Marguerita Magennis is a psychologist, educational consultant, counsellor and psychology tutor at FindTutors.

Rock icon Bruce Springsteen had a blunt message for US leader Donald Trump and his administration on Tuesday night, during a politically-charged tour opener in Minneapolis.

“The America that I love, the America that I’ve written about for 50 years, that’s been a beacon of hope and liberty around the world, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration,” Springsteen told fans at the start of the show, to cheers from the audience.

The singer then called on the crowd to choose “resistance over complacency, unity over division and peace over war”, with that last word signaling the start of a rousing cover of The Temptations’ War, followed by his own 1984 hit, Born In The USA.

Later in the show, Springsteen accused Trump and his “corrupt White House” of turning the United States into a “reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation”.

“This is happening now,” he repeated throughout his comments.

Variety reported that Springsteen slammed Trump for waging an “unconstitutional and illegal war”, for “abandoning NATO” and for threatening “our neighbours and our allies”.

He added: “Our museums are being told to whitewash American history of any unpleasant or inconvenient facts like the full history of the brutality of slavery. You want to talk about snowflakes? We have a president who can’t handle the truth.”

Springsteen also lashed out at Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming she “prosecutes our president’s perceived enemies, covers up for his misdeeds and protects his powerful friends”.

He and his E Street Band were joined by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello for the show, which was nearly three hours long.

Springsteen has a habit of getting under Trump’s skin.

Last year, he spoke out against Trump during a tour of Europe, which triggered a social media meltdown, prompting the president to verbally attack Springsteen, branding him “a pushy, obnoxious JERK” and “dried out ‘prune.’”

Trump also told Springsteen to “KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT”. Springsteen has done just the opposite.

Earlier this year, he released the anthemic protest song, Streets Of Minneapolis, after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good – two Americans who were protesting against Trump and his violent immigration crackdown in the city.

Soon after, Springsteen announced his Land Of Hope And Dreams American Tour, which he will bring to Trump’s doorstep when it wraps up in Washington, D.C., in May.

WASHINGTON – A quarter century after retired general and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell warned against invading Iraq by citing what became known as the Pottery Barn rule of “you break it, you own it,” President Donald Trump is unveiling his own motto for his war on Iran: I broke it, someone else can fix it.

In a social media post on Tuesday, followed up with statements to reporters, Trump is walking away from any responsibility for the global energy crisis he created when he attacked Iran 32 days ago, particularly Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a full fifth of the world’s oil flows.

“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,” Trump wrote in a morning social media post. “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

He subsequently told the New York Post that “the strait will automatically open” when the US leaves the area and told CBS News that if other countries want the oil, they should just go get it. “Let them come up and take it. They didn’t want to give a hand to anybody. NATO is terrible, and they’re all terrible. So if they want oil, come up and grab it,” he said.

And in an Oval Office photo opportunity later in the afternoon, he said he would likely end the attacks in “two or three weeks” after destroying all the targets he wants to hit. “In a fairly short period of time, we’ll be finished,” he said.

The suggestion that he is ready to wash his hands of opening the strait to unfettered navigation contradicts what he promised on March 3 — “the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible. No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD” — and again on Monday, when he demanded that Iran open the strait “immediately.”

“It’s a major geopolitical failure,” said Robert Kagan, once a senior State Department official in the Reagan administration and now with the Brookings Institution.

“If Trump TACOs now, the net effect of the war will be to give China unprecedented influence in the Gulf, and therefore over the world economy,” he added, using the shorthand for “Trump Always Chickens Out” coined by Wall Street traders when he backed down from his massive tariffs a year ago. “Substantially worse than the status quo ante.”

While Powell specifically denied calling his advice the “Pottery Barn rule,” pointing to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as the originator of the phrase, he admitted to warning former President George W. Bush about the responsibility for nation-building after an invasion. (Pottery Barn does not actually have a “you break it, you buy it” policy.)

Trump, who campaigned as a critic of the war in Iraq and American nation-building efforts there and in Afghanistan, has largely avoided talking about improving the lives of everyday Iranians and has instead claimed that Iran was an imminent threat to the United States while pushing a might-makes-right goal of confiscating that country’s oil.

His decision to start a major war without consulting any of America’s traditional allies has inflamed the nation’s relations with much of the world. In recent days, Spain and Italy have refused to let the US use air bases on their soil for attacks on Iran, while France has forbidden the use of its airspace for military flights to assist Israel, which is also attacking Iran.

While Americans have seen gasoline prices jump a dollar a gallon and truck drivers are seeing increases of about twice that for diesel fuel, Trump’s war is wreaking even worse havoc around the planet. Egypt has ordered earlier closing hours for businesses. China has stopped exporting refined petroleum products. Sri Lanka has declared Wednesdays national holidays, while Slovenia has become the first member of the European Union to impose fuel rationing.

It’s unclear whether Trump knows or much cares about the effects on other countries. Thus far, he has claimed that he expected fuel prices to rise much higher and the stock market to fall much lower in the United States and that he expects gasoline prices to fall “like a rock” when the war is over.

Still, with air attacks likely to produce diminishing returns and with the only remaining alternative to escalate further by deploying ground troops, Trump may finally decide to declare victory.

“I think Trump is looking for a way out, not for strategic reasons, but for domestic political reasons,” said John Bolton, a longtime advocate of forcing regime change in Iran and one of Trump’s first-term national security advisers. “That’s always a mistake.”

“I anticipate he walks claiming victory and says the Europeans and the Gulf states have to sort out the strait,” agreed Jim Townsend, an analyst with the Center for a New American Security and a former staffer at the Pentagon and NATO.

At this point, Kagan believes, an unwarranted declaration of victory may well be the least bad of the options available.

“Because he could also go in on the ground, lose lots of Americans, commit war crimes, and still end up with that result,” Kagan said. “On top of destroying the alliances.”

The BBC has issued an apology for its response to an allegation raised with the broadcaster last year about former Radio 2 host Scott Mills.

On Monday morning, it was announced that Mills had been abruptly fired by the BBC due to an allegation about his personal conduct.

It later emerged that he’d previously been questioned by the police as part of an investigation into “allegations of serious sexual offences against a teenage boy”, who was under 16 at the time.

The Mirror claimed that Mills’ firing came following a complaint made about this police investigation, though this remains unconfirmed by the BBC.

Since then, The Telegraph reported that a separate allegation about “inappropriate communications” involving Mills had been raised with the BBC by a freelance journalist last year.

According to the journalist, they questioned the BBC about whether they were “aware of or involved in any related matters” or had ever received “formal or informal complaints” about Mills “relating to safeguarding, inappropriate conduct or harassment”, but did not receive a response.

The BBC then apologised as part of a statement (as reported by The Guardian) on Tuesday, which read: “We received a press query in 2025 which included limited information. This should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions. We apologise for this and will look into why this did not happen.

“More broadly, we would always urge anyone who has concerns or information to raise it with us.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told The Mirror earlier this week: “In December 2016, the Met began an investigation following a referral from another police force.

“The investigation related to allegations of serious sexual offences against a teenage boy. These were reported to taken place between 1997 and 2000. As part of these enquiries, a man who was in his 40s at the time of the interview, was questioned by police under caution in July 2018.

“A full file of evidence was submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, who determined the evidential threshold had not been met to bring charges. Following this advice, the investigation was closed in May 2019.”

In response to this, a BBC spokesperson told HuffPost UK they had no further comment, other than to reiterate a previous statement, which read: “While we do not comment on matters relating to individuals, we can confirm Scott Mills is no longer contracted to work with the BBC.”

HuffPost UK also contacted Scott Mills’ team for further comment but did not receive a response.

Before his sudden firing, MIlls had worked with the BBC for almost 30 years, joining the corporation in 1998 as a presenter on Radio 1, before making the jump to Radio 5 Live and Radio 2.

Last year, he took over at the helm of Radio 2’s flagship breakfast show from outgoing host Zoe Ball.

Over the years, he has also helped present coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest and competed in the BBC reality shows Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Race Across The World, winning the latter in 2024.

Megan Thee Stallion is in hospital after falling ill on stage in New York on Tuesday night.

The Grammy winner recently took over the role of Zidler in the Broadway production of the musical Moulin Rouge!.

During her latest performance, Megan was forced to leave the stage mid-show, and was subsequently rushed to hospital due to an undisclosed illness.

The Hot Girl Summer rapper’s representative told Variety: “During Tuesday night’s production, Megan started feeling very ill and was promptly transported to a local hospital, where her symptoms are currently being evaluated.

“We will share additional updates as more information becomes available.”

The Texas-born musician began performing as Zidler last week, taking over the role from RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob The Drag Queen.

She previously enthused: “Stepping onto the Broadway stage and joining the Moulin Rouge! The Musical team is an absolute honour.

“I’ve always believed in pushing myself creatively and theatre is definitely a new opportunity that I’m excited to embrace.

“Broadway demands a different level of discipline, preparation and storytelling, but I’m up for the challenge and can’t wait for the Hotties [Megan’s name for her fans] to see a new side of me.”

Megan’s breakthrough moment came in 2019 with the Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign collaboration Hot Girl Summer.

The following year, Beyoncé recorded a guest feature on her hit Savage, with Megan and Cardi B later teaming up on the hit WAP, which reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic and generated a lot of conversation due to the song’s sexually-charged lyrics and music video.

In 2021, Megan was awarded Best New Artist at the Grammys – beating stiff competition from the likes of Doja Cat and Phoebe Bridgers – as well as picking up Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for the Beyoncé mix of Savage.