Keir Starmer has issued a warning to his expected successor Andy Burnham over his approach to foreign policy.

The outgoing prime minister, who was dubbed “never here Keir” by his critics due to his frequent trips abroad, reminded the new MP for Makerfield that he will have to put the same effort into international relations.

He claimed internal issues, like the rising cost of living, are linked directly to the UK’s standing on the world stage.

Burnham, who is currently running uncontested to be the next PM, is expected to focus more on his domestic agenda when he gets into No.10 on July 20.

Speaking to the BBC, Starmer said: “If you’re prime minister and you care about what bills are going to be like in any part of the country, you have to care about finding a lasting solution to the situation in Ukraine, you have to care about what happens in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine meant European allies stopped buying Russia’s cheap oil exports.

Meanwhile, the US-Israeli strikes on Iran saw Tehran close the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping lane which transports a fifth of the world’s oil supply.

A strain on international fossil fuels subsequently pushed prices up all over the world, including in the UK.

Starmer said he is “proud” that the UK has been a crucial part in dealing with both of these crises.

“I’m proud that the UK is now regarded as a leader, that other countries look to and want to engage with, and that is in our best interests here at home,” he said. “It’s not sensible to think we can just separate these two things out.”

He added: “The suggestion that in the modern era you could simply split up international and domestic… it just doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true, it isn’t right.”

“Whoever’s my successor is going to face the same global conflict,” Starmer continued. “We keep saying, and it’s true, we’re in a more dangerous and volatile world than we’ve been in for probably most of my lifetime. That’s not just a phase, that’s reality.

“That’s not going to change. And the domestic challenges aren’t going to change.”

Burnham has dodged a lot of scrutiny since winning a seat in parliament by not holding any press conferences.

He invited the public to ask him anything during a Reddit forum on Friday, where he said he would “100%” give the same amount of support to Ukraine as Starmer and wanted to continue his efforts to broker a closer EU relationship.

However, he did not answer any questions about his approach to Donald Trump.

Starmer has committed to staying on as MP for Holborn and St Pancras but promised to “keep my mouth shut” when his replacement takes over, adding that he has “always got on” with Burnham.

The outgoing prime minister had vowed to stay in post after Burnham won the Makerfield by-election last month, but – amid growing pressure from his party – U-turned three days later.

He told the BBC that it was a “really, really tough” decision, adding: “Taking the decision that your political career is over, it is an intensely personal matter, or at least it was for me. I wanted to do that with [my wife] Vic, and that’s what I did.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

President Donald Trump on Friday railed against communism during a bizarre speech at Mount Rushmore.

But as critics were quick to point out, his definition of what “communists” do sounds a lot like what he, his family and his associates have been accused of doing since he returned to the White House last year.

“Our American ancestors did not shed their blood at Concord and Trenton, Gettysburg and Shiloh, Midway and Normandy, just so that a band of thieves, radicals and lunatics could come in and loot, pillage our nation,” Trump said days after financial filings showed he earned more than $2 billion last year.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board this week accused Trump and his family of “profiting off the presidency in ways that demean the office.”

Trump’s windfall includes more than $1 billion from his crypto businesses ― money he pocketed, while The New York Times reported that some 764,000 other crypto wallets suffered massive losses.

The president has also struck gold by buying stocks in companies just before his administration announces decisions favourable to those firms.

“The Trump clan is cashing in on the Presidency in big and sketchy ways,” the Journal said.

Meanwhile, Americans have been struggling with a spike in the inflation rate ― something Trump dismissed only last month.

“I love the inflation,” the president insisted.

Trump’s speech was full of other lines about supposed “communists,” a word he is turning to with increasing frequency. The president has been falsely calling everyone who disagrees with him a “communist” as he tries to drum up Red Scare tactics. The move comes amid a deep plunge in his approval ratings and an increasing likelihood that his party will lose the House and possibly even the Senate in November’s midterm elections.

But it was his line about looting and pillaging ― which comes amid his own massive increase in wealth ― that had everyone pointing the finger right back at the president:

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

It’s been 25 years since Elle Woods got into Harvard, introduced the world to the bend and snap and taught us all to never judge a book by its cover.

Legally Blonde premiered in 2001, becoming an instant hit with fans, inspiring viewers all around the globe and catapulting Reese Witherspoon to the A-list.

After Elle first donned her pink courtsuit, Legally Blonde became a global phenomenon, spawning a 2003 sequel, a Broadway musical and countless memes.

Now, the iconic character is back on our screens in the new prequel series Elle, which explores the iconic character’s life as a 16-year-old in Seattle in the 1990s.

To commemorate 25 years since the release of Legally Blonde, and the premiere of Elle on Prime Video, here are 21 behind-the-scenes facts you might not have known about the cult classic…

The Reese Witherspoon film is based on a 2001 novel by Amanda Brown – also called Legally Blonde – which itself was inspired by her own life at Stanford.

The author shares more than a passing resemblance to Elle, admitting to the San Francisco Chronicle: “I wanted to go to Stanford when I saw the mall.”

During her first week at Stanford Law, she realised how difficult it was to find another woman who shared her interests in fashion and shopping. So, she started writing letters home, lampooning her lecturers and students. These 300 pages became the basis of her book.

“I was sitting in tort class when the novel popped into my head,” recalled Amanda Brown to Stanford Magazine. “I wanted to do a parody of law school.”

“I wrote it all on pink paper, with my pink furry pen,” Amanda told the SF Gate in 2003, claiming she “finally found an agent” when they picked out of a pile of manuscripts solely “because it was on pink paper”.

Amanda self-published her book, but it soon found its way onto the desks of a production company, who then sent it to the team who would go on to write the Legally Blonde film.

“It immediately struck us as one of the greatest movie ideas ever, and we pitched it as ‘Clueless meets The Paper Chase’, one of those law school movies from the 1970s. I might have worn a lot of pink in the meeting,” writer Kirsten Smith said, as reported by The News Daily in an oral history article.

Legally Blonde has become known as a modern-day feminist classic, addressing topics like misogyny, sexual harassment in the workplace and power dynamics between men and women. But, the original script was much raunchier and had far less of a positive female-empowerment message.

“The first script was very raunchy, to be honest, in the vein of American Pie,” Jessica Cauffiel, who plays Margot, told The New York Post in 2021.

“What we know now as Legally Blonde, and what it began as are two completely different films. It transformed from nonstop zingers that were very adult in nature to this universal story of overcoming adversity by being oneself.”

The writers also explained there were a few other differences between the original manuscript and the final product.

“It wasn’t a murder trial, and she ended up with a professor, so we made some changes. It was a matter of finessing the details and adding a few characters, like Paulette and her friendship,” screenwriter Karen McCullah explained in that same interview.

In the Legally Blonde book, Elle attended Stanford, like its author. However, this was changed in the film adaptation, for the simple reason that the university wouldn’t let filming take place there.

The university has long implemented a no-filming rule due to “year-round campus activity” and in order to protect “the privacy and safety of its students, faculty and staff.”

After being turned down by Stanford – where, ironically, Reese Witherspoon also studied – the producers approached USC, which rejected the offer, telling Vulture that there was “too much stereotyping going on” in the script for their liking. The team then reached out to UCLA, Yale, and the University of Chicago — all of whom also wanted nothing to do with Elle Woods.

Finally, Harvard agreed to being mentioned in the film, although they didn’t want the movie filmed there.

If you think the film’s campus looks sunny for Massachusetts, where Harvard is actually situated, that’s because the movie they filmed at institutes in California.

While USC and UCLA didn’t want to be associated with Elle, they were happy for the filming to take place on their campuses all the same.

“We [talked] an entire sorority into going out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Reese offered to buy them free margaritas all night,” Jessica recalled to the New York Post.

“She leans over to me as the drinks are on the way and goes, ‘We’re not drinking anything. We’re drinking water’. We stayed sober as they got tanked, and we took notes.”

In a 2001 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Reese called her time with the sorority girls “an anthropological study”.

“You learn what they eat, how they behave, how they take care of their young, that sort of thing,” she quipped. “Seriously, though, I’ve learned that people don’t know what their worst characteristics are.”

She added: “It’s inherent to our nature that we don’t know what, in ourselves, is abhorrent to other people. So it’s really easy to infiltrate people’s lives. They showed all sides of themselves. Sometimes I’m shocked, like, I can’t believe they just said that to me!”

Jennifer Coolidge co-starred in the movie as Elle’s manicurist turned BFF Paulette.

In one of the decade’s most iconic film moments, she tries the infamous “bend and snap”, a move which “has a 98 percent success rate of getting a man’s attention”, according to her trainee lawyer friend.

Legally Blonde’s writing team have revealed to Entertainment Weekly that they invented the famous move at the L’ermitage Hotel bar in Beverly Hills over some drinks.

“We were in between meetings and working on the script,” writer Karen McCullah recalled. “And we were trying to come up with a B-plot that happened in the nail salon and we were working in weird directions. Like, maybe it gets robbed, all sorts of crazy stuff.”

The writing duo then realised that they were overthinking the moment, which is when the “bend and snap” was invented.

“Kirsten jumped off her barstool and was like, ‘Like this?’ And then she did that move,” Karen said, revealing that the team came up with the “bend and snap” name the spot.

“It just cracks us up that that’s become such a lasting thing that people remember. It’s literally the silliest thing in the movie,” Karen added.

The now-iconic move was choreographed by 80s icon and Mickey singer Toni Basil.

“I choreographed iconic things for David Bowie and Tina Turner,” Toni told The New York Times in 2021. “People interview me and they go, ‘You did the bend and snap?’ It’s like, ‘what, a one-and-a-half-minute number in the movie?’. But it was such an integral part.”

The original idea was for the bend and snap to be a full-length musical number, but this was eventually shortened for the final cut.

Ultimately, Reese explained, “it just felt odd” to have a full bend and snap number, “because there was just one musical sequence”.

Screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith didn’t picture any specific star in mind when adapting Amanda Brown’s book.

However, they were delighted when Reese Witherspoon signed on to play the lead, as she was a rising star at the time, having already appeared in Election and Cruel Intentions.

“We loved her in Freeway. She had so much moxie in that,” Kirsten told Business Insider. “She had the perfect balance of comedic ability, the intellectual vibes, and the real dramatic chops, too. She’s the entire package.”

Reese doesn’t look back too fondly on her Legally Blonde audition, explaining to The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 that her manager told her to dress sexy, to differentiate her from her “shrew” character from Election.

After a string of failed auditions and missed roles, her team had an idea.

“My manager finally called and said: ‘You’ve got to go meet with the studio head because he will not approve you. He thinks you really are your character from Election and that you’re repellent,’” she explained.

During the audition process to play Elle, Reese had to speak to studio execs while in full glam.

“I remember a room full of men who were asking me questions about being a coed and being in a sorority, even though I had dropped out of college four years earlier and I have never been inside a sorority house,” she recalled.

Dead To Me star Christina Applegate admitted she rejected the lead role in Legally Blonde, calling the decision a “big fucking mistake”.

In a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair, Christina said she turned it down as the role was too similar to her famous sitcom character in Married With… Children.

“I wouldn’t toy with the idea of Legally Blonde because it felt too fresh getting out of Married…With Children,” she explained, referring to her dumb blonde character Kelly Bundy in the family comedy. “It was very similar on paper.”

She joked that she would have “Witherspoon money” now if she had signed on to the role, but conceded: “You can’t imagine anyone playing Elle Woods other than Reese Witherspoon? I would have completely screwed it up.”

Interestingly, both Christina and Reese went on to play sisters of Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel in Friends, although they never shared the screen in the award-winning sitcom.

Producer Marc Platt put Britney Spears’ name forward as a suggestion when Christina Applegate turned down the part.

“Marc once [mentioned] Britney Spears, and I was like, ‘No, that’s not a good idea’,” writer Kirsten Smith revealed. “I think she hosted SNL the night before, and his kids were into her, so he threw her name out there.”

While Britney writes about being offered roles in Chicago and The Notebook in her autobiography, The Woman In Me, she never mentions Legally Blonde, so it could be that the pop diva was unaware her name was ever on the table.

Selma Blair’s performance as the “frigid bitch” Vivian Kensington is now considered iconic, but another actor almost wore those infamous pearls.

“I remember talk about getting Chloë Sevigny to play Vivian,” screenwriter Kirsten recalled to The New York Times. “That didn’t work out, and we ended up with our queen Selma Blair.”

She noted that “Selma and Reese were close, because they had done Cruel Intentions together”, meaning their friendship served as a “great anchor for everything” on screen.

“I was the last person cast, and I remember Chloe Sevigny passed,” Selma also told Entertainment Weekly.

“Her fingers are much too elegant; they needed someone with a bony little finger,” the actor joked.

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Coolidge recently reunited for a 25th anniversary catch-up, where they shared their experiences of working on the film.

During this chat, they spilled some gossip, including why Jennifer auditioned for the movie.

“I thought this was the funniest thing. I was so lucky to get cast in this movie, and it is one of my favourite jobs of all time,” she recalled, joking: “But I stupidly thought that when I was auditioning, I thought I was gonna be Elle.”

Jennifer Coolidge’s gives an iconic performance as Elle’s beautician, but she wasn’t their first choice.

In The New York Times’ piece on Legally Blonde, Jennifer shared some of the other actors she’d heard were in the line-up to play Paulette.

“I don’t know if they’re true [but I heard] that Courtney Love was up for [my] role,” she claimed. “I heard Kathy Najimy was up for it, [too].”

Future Euphoria star Alanna Ubach used an unusual tactic to land the role of Elle’s sorority sister.

Jessica Cauffiel had already been cast as fellow Delta Nu Margot when she met Alanna in the bathroom during a chemistry read.

“She’s like, ‘Hey, hey, are you in this movie?’” Jessica recalled during the virtual 20th anniversary reunion.

Jessica then claimed that Alanna begged for help booking the job, telling her: “I don’t have any money, I need to make rent, will you help me make rent?”

“She was so funny and so ballsy, I said, ‘Okay’,” Jessica continued.

From there, the two put their heads together and “choreographed simultaneous moves”, which Jessica made the casting directors think they were naturally in sync.

“We spent a lot of time faxing the casting director, like ′Luke Wilson, Luke Wilson!’” Kristen explained.

“And then, finally, after the table read where a different actor played Emmett, we were like ‘Luke Wilson, Luke Wilson!’. And he was like, ‘That’s a really good idea.’ We were like, ‘We’ve been telling you!’”

Luke was subsequently offered the role without even needing to audition.

While the Legally Blonde script didn’t leave a lot of room for improvisation, the screenwriters recalled to Business Insider that the cat still found room to add a personal touch to their characters.

During rehearsals, Jason Christopher came up with the line “you bitch!” – which his character shouts after his boyfriend Enrique denies their relationship in his testimony.

The screenwriters also revealed that it was Alanna Ubach’s idea to speak fluent Vietnamese at the nail salon.

“I thought, ‘How funny would it be if we frequent this nail salon so much that I’ve been immersed in Vietnamese and I’ve picked up the language?’” the actor said.

Reese took on the role of Elle Woods just months after welcoming her daughter Ava in September 1999. As a result, while she looked fresh and bright on camera, she didn’t always feel that way.

“Some nights Ava would wake up screaming because she had the flu, and I would spend most of the night trying to rock her back to sleep and then have to be on the set at seven in the morning for make-up!” she explained to Cinema.com in 2001.

“And then you throw in the fact that I’m supposed to be playing a very bubbly and energetic California preppy who is smiling all the time!”

“I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to kill myself! I’m never going to make it!’” she joked.

While putting Legally Blonde together, screenwriter Kirsten had read an article which said that video applications were the done thing when trying to impress professors at places like Harvard – and they wanted Elle’s to be extra special.

“We wanted to shoot [Elle, Serena and Margot] chasing Judge Judy wherever she tapes her show and them being like, ‘Judge Judy! Judge Judy! Can we get an autograph?’ Kirsten said. Unfortunately, the team couldn’t get the real-life judge on board, so the idea was ditched.

Alanna Ubach’s alternative idea was also cut.

“I thought, ‘Reese, what if Ryan Phillippe played a really famous judge who had his own show, and we have him on billboards’,” the actor said of Reese’s then-husband.

Reese wasn’t keen on the idea of adding her partner to the film, though, reportedly telling her: “Alanna, no one’s going to believe that my husband’s a judge. Are you kidding me?”

In a 2001 interview with Movieline, Matthew admitted he acted like a “bumbling idiot” around his co-star because of his crush – despite her being married to Ryan Phillippe at the time.

“At first I was such a bumbling idiot with her, the producers pulled me aside one day to see if I was OK,” he revealed.

When the actor later confessed his feelings to the Election star, she let him down gently.

“She was like, ‘That’s so sweet!’,” he explained. “OK, let’s work on the scene…’.”

In hindsight, Matthew admits his behaviour on the set of Legally Blonde wasn’t always the most professional.

“I felt starstruck by all this because it happened so quickly and I hadn’t adjusted,” he told Teen Vogue in 2017. “I definitely wasn’t cool. At the first table read, I just kept going on and on about how much I loved her work, fawning all over her.”

Matthew told News.com.au that he also “adored” his on-screen girlfriend, Selma Blair, during filming.

“I developed a crush on her at the time but she was with someone else — I think she was dating the guy from Rushmore [actor Jason Schwartzman] but he was coming around and I was kind of like ‘who is this guy?!’” Matthew shared.

Legally Blonde famously ends with Elle freeing her client, graduating at the top of her class, becoming best friends with her former nemesis and staying with doting boyfriend Emmett.

However, the cast told The New York Times that the ending in the script was markedly different.

“The first ending was Elle and Vivian in Hawaii in beach chairs, drinking margaritas and holding hands,” said Jessica Cauffiel. “The insinuation was either they were best friends or they had gotten together romantically.”

At the 2015 Vulture Festival, the screenwriters revealed that their original script wrapped at the courthouse right after Elle won the case, with her and Emmett kissing on the steps.

“It was just kind of a weak ending,” Karen McCullah admitted. “The kiss didn’t feel right because it’s not a rom-com — it wasn’t about their relationship.

“So test audiences were saying, ‘We want to see what happens – we want to see her succeed.’ So that’s why we rewrote for graduation.”

“We screened the movie two or three times, and every time people didn’t want to end it with a kiss,” she also explained to the New York Times.

“They thought it wasn’t a story about [Elle] getting a boyfriend, which was really cool to have people say that.”

An interesting part of this axed ending would have fast-forwarded to a year later, with Elle and a now-blonde Vivian starting their own Blonde Legal Defence Club at Harvard Law School.

“There was an ending that Vivian was blonde, and I did [go blonde],” Selma admitted to the podcast Shut Up Evan. “I have the Polaroids. I looked just like Faye Dunaway in Bonnie And Clyde – the beret was on and the blonde.”

Legally Blonde is now streaming on Prime Video, as are the first episodes of Elle.

You probably already know that exercise can help us to live longer.

Research has shown that walking 7,000 steps a day can lead to a 47% risk reduction in all-cause mortality, while strength training has been linked to up to four years of extra life.

In fact, the Mayo Clinic stated that strength training could “slow and, in many cases, reverse the changes in muscle fibres associated with ageing”.

But why exactly does that happen? And what do we mean when we talk about exercise “reversing” or “slowing” ageing?

A paper published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science said: “Current evidence suggests that exercise favorably modulates all 14 hallmarks of ageing.”

Here’s what those markers are, as well as how exercise improves them:

As we get older, our DNA is more likely to mutate, sustain damage, and lose the ability to repair itself.

This amounts to “genome instability”, which has been described in some research as the main driver of physical ageing.

But, the paper reads, regular physical activity “appears capable of promoting genome stability by reducing DNA damage and enhancing DNA damage repair”.

Our telomeres – DNA structures that humans have at the ends of our chromosomes, and which keep our cells working better for longer – tend to shrink when we age.

Telomeres have been compared to “the protective plastic caps at the end of shoelaces”. Shorter telomeres are associated with a shorter life.

Thankfully, the review said: “Exercise can also activate telomerase [a special enzyme that maintains telomere length] and increase telomere length and thus decrease telomere attrition”.

Epigenetic factors are those that seem to be able to switch certain genes on or off without changing a person’s actual DNA. Those genes could be beneficial or harmful to someone’s health.

“Remarkably, recent evidence suggests that changes in epigenetic information are not merely consequences but also potential drivers of mammalian ageing,” the paper said.

Exercise could help our bodies to express our genes in a more beneficial way, they added.

“Accumulating evidence indicates that exercise-induced epigenetic modifications contribute to improved health outcomes in older adults” by regulating things like our DNA “off switches” (DNA methylation).

Proteostasis is the short term for “protein homeostasis”. It refers to the “delicate balance between protein synthesis, folding, trafficking, and degradation, which is essential for cellular function and organismal health”.

As we age, that network of processes can fall out of whack, increasing our risk of disease and, possibly, brain degeneration.

But “Increasing evidence indicates that exercise can restore proteostatic mechanisms disrupted by ageing”, the review said.

Ageing well isn’t just about keeping the things we want going for longer. It’s also about getting rid of the stuff we don’t want and preventing unwanted buildups – which is where autophagy, sometimes called the body’s “cellular recycling system”, comes in.

Autophagy can help your cells to work more efficiently. But it slows down when we get older, giving e.g. cancer and other diseases better odds of taking hold.

“Several studies have shown that exercise can reverse ageing- and diet-induced impairments in autophagy across various tissues,” this study stated.

Our nutrient-sensing network helps us to recognise the nutrients in our body and tells our cells how to respond appropriately.

A faulty nutrient-sensing network “has emerged as a key mechanism that contributes to ageing and age-related disease,” the review said.

“Importantly, exercise is capable of modulating multiple nutrient-sensing pathways, and thus exerting anti-ageing effects and promoting healthy ageing.”

You probably learned in secondary school that mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. More specifically, they generate a lot of the energy our cells need to do their jobs.

And – you guessed it – ageing doesn’t exactly help our mitochondria to excel.

Yet “In elderly individuals, regular exercise is associated with improved mitochondrial health and enhanced physiological outcomes, including greater insulin sensitivity, superior muscle function, and elevated exercise capacity and efficiency, even when compared to older adults who engage in recommended daily [physical activity] levels but lack structured training,” the paper reads.

Older people have more senescent cells, sometimes called “zombie” cells, which stop dividing and build up over time. As they accumulate in larger and larger amounts, our bodies are at greater risk of ageing-related diseases.

A process called senolysis usually clears these “zombie cells” away, but when we get older, that cleaning system becomes less efficient.

Regular exercise seems to help lessen the burden of senescent cells.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is the non-cellular part of our body that supports and maintains our tissues and organs. When it’s not working well, issues like arthritis and organ fibrosis can appear.

“ECM remodelling is a prominent feature of ageing tissues,” said the paper.

But “increasing evidence indicates that regular exercise can counteract these detrimental ECM alterations and preserve tissue structure and function”.

A decline in the regenerative power of our stem cells – very adaptable cells which are considered the building blocks of the body, and which can renew themselves – is considered “one of the defining hallmarks of ageing… resulting in impaired tissue maintenance and repair”.

However, regular “exercise has positive effects on the function of multiple types of stem cells and can promote tissue regeneration in aged organisms”.

Our cells have to communicate with one another to make our body function. Changes to this communication form yet another “hallmark” of ageing.

But exercise seems to improve it. In fact, “exerkines”, which are secreted by tissues when we exercise, “mediate many of the systemic adaptations to exercise and play crucial roles in mitigating aging-related decline”.

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about “inflammaging” – a term GP Dr Suzanne Wylie told us refers to “the low-grade, chronic inflammation that develops as we age, even in the absence of obvious infection or illness”.

It can increase our risk of age-related disease.

Luckily, per the research, “An increasing body of epidemiological research indicates that engaging in regular physical activity or exercise can reduce aging-related chronic inflammation”.

Dysbiosis – a disruption to or imbalance in your gut’s microbiome, or community of microorganisms – could become more likely as we age.

And, the review found, that might “contribute to frailty and the development of age-related conditions”.

Once again, though, regular exercise might make dysbiosis less likely.

“As individuals age, they often face a gradual contraction in the size and quality of their social network, increasing their vulnerability to social isolation and loneliness,” the review said.

That’s a shame, as isolation and related mental health struggles are linked to a higher risk of dementia and even a shorter lifespan.

“Increasing evidence suggests that the mental health of the elderly can be improved through exercise,” though, the paper ended.

The Atlantic used the Fourth of July as an opportunity to republish a 10-year-old op-ed that sharply criticized then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, comparing him and and his MAGA politics to heroin.

“We are republishing it on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment of the man he now serves as vice president has stood the test of time,” read an editor’s note from the publication.

Vance’s July 4, 2016, op-ed, titled “Opioid of the Masses,” argued that Trump was offering the public an “easy escape” from their pain.

“He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t,” Vance wrote. “Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein.”

The editor’s note stated that the piece was published not long after Vance published his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” The book deals, among other topics, with the opioid crisis in rural America. In his op-ed, he wrote that “many Americans have reached” for a “new” pain reliever.

“It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump,” he wrote.

Read the 2016 op-ed here.

Vance, of course, went on to become Trump’s vice president in his second term. He has repeatedly addressed his once fierce criticism of the president — including reportedly musing that Trump could be “America’s Hitler.”

“I don’t hide from that,” Vance told Sean Hannity in 2024. “I was certainly sceptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind. I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

President Donald Trump evoked the threat of a “communist menace in our land” on Friday to push Republican lawmakers to pass his SAVE America Act and end the filibuster, promising them election wins for the next century if they do.

“America will never be a communist country. We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish, stupid and unwise,” Trump said in front of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. “But if we terminate the filibuster as we should do and immediately vote for the SAVE America Act, then we will not lose an election for 100 years.”

The president has been urging Republicans to end the filibuster for months, causing a greater divide in the party. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said, “The votes aren’t there, one, to nuke the filibuster, and the votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster.”

In addition to the filibuster’s termination, Trump demanded Congress pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, more commonly known as the SAVE Act, legislation that would require voters to provide in-person proof of citizenship to register to vote.

“We do that, we’re not going to lose an election for 100 years,” Trump said before going on an anti-communist tangent.

The president’s pressure on Republicans comes amid right-wing fear-mongering about democratic socialists following their recent primary victories, mislabeling them as “communist,” which is a distinctly different ideology.

“The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work. Communism is a loser. It always was, and it is right now,” Trump said. “It’s a big loser. Look at the people that are promoting it. They are not the people you’re going to follow.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

For some neurodivergent women, birth trauma is not just about one terrifying moment in a delivery room.

It can begin during pregnancy, build through months of feeling unseen or unsupported, and follow women into the earliest days of motherhood.

As a midwife, I have supported many of these women through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood, and have seen first-hand how much additional pressure these experiences can place on those whose brains process the world differently.

Autism and ADHD do not disappear when someone becomes pregnant, yet maternity care still often assumes that every woman experiences these life-changing transitions in broadly the same way.

For some neurodivergent women, pregnancy can bring an overwhelming loss of certainty. Their body is changing, routines disappear, decisions come quickly and uncertainty becomes part of daily life.

Many have spent years developing routines and coping strategies that help them navigate the world, only to find pregnancy disrupts them completely. Busy waiting rooms, unfamiliar clinicians, rushed appointments and changing plans can unintentionally add to that sense of overwhelm, particularly for women who are already carrying previous trauma, fertility struggles or baby loss.

I have also cared for women who found group antenatal classes so overwhelming that they simply stopped attending because they felt there was nowhere they truly belonged.

Once the baby arrives, attention quite naturally shifts towards the newborn, but that can leave mothers feeling invisible at exactly the point they most need support.

A neurodivergent woman may be processing a difficult birth while navigating sensory overload, sleep deprivation, feeding challenges, physical recovery and the relentless demands of caring for a newborn.

At the same time, many feel under pressure to appear grateful and happy because everyone around them is focused on the baby.

Trauma does not always look dramatic from the outside, it may be the mother who cannot stop replaying her birth experience, becomes overwhelmed by constant noise or touch, panics when plans change or feels consumed by anxiety about getting everything right.

Sometimes it is the woman who simply needs a few quiet minutes after giving birth before she feels ready to hold her baby because her nervous system is completely overwhelmed, but worries she will be judged for not responding in the way people expect.

Many neurodivergent women have spent years learning to mask distress, meaning they can appear calm while internally feeling exhausted, frightened and unable to process everything that has happened.

Through my previous work in the NHS, and now at Cocoon Healthcare, where we support women through pregnancy and early parenthood, I have learned that understanding the mother in front of me is every bit as important as understanding her pregnancy.

Often the biggest improvements come from remarkably simple changes: allowing more time during appointments, offering clearer communication, reducing unnecessary sensory overload where possible, improving continuity of care and recognising that every woman will experience pregnancy differently.

Birth is never experienced in isolation, it is shaped by previous experiences, mental health, communication preferences, sensory needs and the support women receive before, during and after.

When we talk about birth trauma, we need to think beyond labour itself. We should be asking how safe women felt throughout pregnancy, whether they felt listened to, and whether the support they received reflected who they were as individuals.

Neurodivergent mothers do not need special treatment, but they do deserve maternity care that recognises there is no single, universal way to experience pregnancy, birth or early parenthood.

When women feel understood from the very beginning, they are far more likely to enter motherhood feeling confident and supported, and that benefits babies and families too.

Kate Mortimer is lead midwife at Cocoon Healthcare, a Yorkshire-based pregnancy and women’s wellbeing clinic.