During Thursday’s edition of MS NOW’s “The Last Word,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) criticized the Trump administration’s approach to immigration and turned his focus to Elon Musk, calling him an immigrant who, in Raskin’s view, has failed to embrace the country’s core democratic principles. Raskin cited equal protection, due process, the First Amendment and representative government as values he said Musk does not genuinely support.

“This sort of forbidden thought occurred to me, Lawrence,” Raskin said. He argued that Musk is part of a Trump administration that has “denounced immigrants and reviles immigrants,” despite Musk’s own immigrant background. Raskin further claimed that Musk “never really inhaled the real values of our country” and alleged that the asylum system had been reshaped to admit white Afrikaners whom he characterized as “unreconstructed racists.” According to Raskin, those changes were influenced by Musk, whom he accused of showing little interest in constitutional protections and representative democracy.

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Raskin added that Musk and others who support establishing a civilization on Mars may be so detached from Earth that he was “starting to think he was born on Mars.”

Thirty-two Government services are currently offline and another four are operating with limited availability as officials respond to possible cyber-security risks, a minister told peers.

The disruption comes as organisations worldwide move to address a serious vulnerability in PHP, a programming language that supports a large proportion of the internet.

PHP is used to create and operate websites, including Government platforms that handle services such as tax submissions, driving and other licence applications, and benefits claims.

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, the technology minister, told the House of Lords that 32 Government services were unavailable, while four others were only partly accessible.

She explained that most of the disruption was linked to precautionary action, with systems being protected while security patches and other safeguards were put in place.

The minister did not name the affected services. However, officials confirmed that the Office for Budget Responsibility website had been taken offline temporarily.

The move followed a warning from cyber-security authorities that a critical PHP flaw had been identified. The software is used by nearly 70 per cent of websites, according to cyber-security company Cloudflare.

Baroness Lloyd said the National Cyber Security Centre was informed about the vulnerability by OpenAI last week, allowing the Government to take preventative steps before details of the issue were made public.

The NCSC has advised organisations to install the latest secure version of PHP. Where an immediate upgrade is not possible, website operators have been urged to consider taking their sites offline.

Downing Street said earlier that a small number of Government services could be taken offline temporarily while potential cyber-security weaknesses were investigated. It stressed that no major UK public-facing critical services had been affected.

A No 10 spokesman said work had already been carried out across Government to identify and address possible exposures. Cyber-security specialists are also continuing to coordinate with OpenAI and international partners.

The spokesman added that no major critical public services were affected by the exercise, although some limited services could remain offline during the security work. He stressed that temporary unavailability did not mean those systems had been hacked.

Downing Street said it was not normal practice to publish a full list of the Government services involved.

She also said: ‘Organisations of all sizes should follow NCSC guidance to protect their system.’

Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander has insisted that the security of next week’s Government Budget has not been compromised by the critical security flaw.

He was asked whether the issues identified with PHP could result in major Budget leaks because the OBR had to take down its website.

Mr Alexander told Times Radio this morning: ‘No, I’ve had no indication whatsoever that there’s any problem in terms of a breach of Budget security.

‘Indeed John Healey, who I was with yesterday in Scotland, as I understand it initiated new security protocols reflecting his experience in the Ministry of Defence when he came to the Treasury as Chancellor in the summer.’

Last year, the OBR’s Budget analysis was mistakenly published online ahead of then chancellor Rachel Reeves’ statement to the Commons, allowing for early access to market sensitive information.

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Organisations have already been urged by the NCSC to update to a new, fixed version of the PHP software – or consider taking their websites offline if they cannot be upgraded immediately.

The security issue identified could allow attackers to remotely control any web servers running PHP, which underpins popular platforms such as WordPress and Magento.

Many attempts at exploiting the vulnerability were spotted within hours of it being announced, according to Amazon and Cloudflare.

In an update published on the Amazon Web Services’ security blog, the company said its threat intelligence team found the flaw was ‘now being broadly exploited in the wild’.

Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince said today the firm spotted hundreds of thousands of hacking attempts within two hours of the announcement, with millions ongoing.

In a post on X, Mr Prince said: ‘In the ten hours before it was publicly announced, across the Cloudflare network we saw thousands of attempts to exploit it.

‘That jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within two hours and millions now.’

PHP developers had reportedly planned a security update today but the release was brought forward after details of its work to address the vulnerabilities leaked online.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Alan Woodward, a visiting computer science professor at the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security (SCCS), said: ‘The cat was let out of the bag rather earlier than it was supposed to have been.

‘There was an embargo on this, and there’s always a window between the flaw being publicly known about and it being patched so that the attackers can’t successfully get in.

‘And what happened, unfortunately, the day before the patch was out, somebody let the cat out of the bag.

‘There was an initial version of the patch that was released, and so it was very easy to compare the original with the patched version and see which bit of code you needed to go and exploit.

‘And that people like Amazon, Cloudflare, all sorts of companies that monitor what’s going on on the web, saw that this was being probed for.

He added: ‘We don’t know whether it’s being attacked but certainly people were probing websites to see, have you got that flaw?’

The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the flaw was discovered in August by Ryan Austin, a researcher at the cybersecurity company Calif, using an advanced AI model developed by OpenAI.

Professor Woodward explained the vulnerability had in fact already been identified by human researchers in 2024, but it was then believed exploiting this security flaw would be ‘too complicated’, and nothing was done.

‘What then happened was during this year, as the large language models became more and more effective at analysing these things, people worked out how to exploit it, and that’s what’s been happening in the last week behind the scenes,’ Professor Woodward told BBC Radio 4.

‘People have been scrambling away, saying, “Well, actually, yes, you can exploit it, and we now need to patch it”.

‘And the patch came out yesterday afternoon – luckily, the PHP Foundation issued one, so that’s why everybody’s scrambling to make sure that that’s in place.’

Meanwhile an outage affecting MOT testing services in the UK is understood to have been related to the PHP incident.

The DVSA system, through which garages log their MOT records after testing vehicles, started experiencing issues yesterday afternoon until the issue was resolved this morning, according to the DVSA website.

Instead of filing information through the DVSA website, garages were instructed to use a paper system and upload the data at a later date, meaning tests could continue as normal during the outage.

An update on the DVSA website late this morning said the incident had been resolved.

READ MORE: Worldwide website emergency explained: How a critical PHP weakness sparked a global cyber-security alert – and exactly what it means for you 

Cutting carbohydrates is often promoted as a strategy with benefits that extend well beyond losing weight.

Supporters claim that the established approach—limiting foods such as bread, rice and pasta—can send diabetes into remission, cut liver fat by as much as 70 per cent and even help prevent epileptic seizures.

But if the potential benefits are so wide-ranging, why do many scientists remain cautious about recommending low-carb diets?

Professor Tom Sanders, one of the UK’s leading nutrition science specialists, says the approach usually increases the amount of fat consumed. In turn, he warns, this could damage blood vessels and eventually raise the risk of heart disease.

Adding to the concern, an alarming study published earlier this year indicated that removing carbohydrates from the diet might promote the growth of cancerous tumours.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that mice fed in this way were more likely than control animals to develop cancer in the small bowel.

So where does the evidence really lead? Here, leading nutritionists examine the often-conflicting science surrounding low-carb eating.

Can the diet shift persistent weight when other methods have failed? How much bread can you eat? And who should avoid this approach altogether?

How does it work? 

Most low-carb plans—from the 1990s’ popular Atkins diet to meat-focused ‘carnivore’ regimes—fit broadly within the ketogenic diet category.

They restrict carbohydrates sharply, while deriving most calories from fat and protein.

That generally rules out bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, cereals and sugar-rich fruits such as bananas, along with root vegetables.

Meat and fish provide protein, while foods including cheese, butter, eggs, olive oil and leafy greens are typically included.

The precise balance remains contested, but a standard keto diet usually gets about 70 to 75 per cent of its calories from fat, 20 to 25 per cent from protein and only 5 to 10 per cent from carbohydrates.

In practical terms, carbohydrates become a small accompaniment rather than the foundation of a meal. Instead of centring dinner on pasta or a jacket potato, a typical plate might feature protein such as salmon, added fat from avocado or oil, and green vegetables.

Most studies, however, use an intake of roughly 30g of carbohydrates per day—the amount found in about two slices of bread or one large banana.

When carbohydrate consumption falls, the body has less of the nutrient it normally uses to produce or store energy, and insulin levels begin to drop.

Insulin is produced by the pancreas and helps transport sugar from the bloodstream into the body’s cells, where it can be used immediately for energy or stored for later.

After several days, the body can enter ketosis, a metabolic state in which it moves away from burning sugar, or glucose, and begins using fat stored in the liver as fuel.

The liver turns that fat into substances known as ketones, which the brain and other organs can use as an alternative energy source.

Studies have found this process can help people lose weight and improve blood sugar control. 

But whether keto is superior to other healthy diets in the long term remains fiercely contested. 

Will going low-carb help me shed a load of weight – and keep it off?  

One of keto’s biggest selling points is the speed at which weight loss can occur. 

Within the first week of adopting a keto-style diet, slimmers can lose up to six pounds, studies suggest. 

Other research has found that going low-carb can reduce levels of hunger hormones like ghrelin, with some papers suggesting the appetite-suppressant effect is  comparable to blockbuster jabs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy.

But this doesn’t mean carbohydrates themselves are responsible for weight gain – or that removing them entirely is an effective approach, explains nutritionist and author Rhiannon Lambert.

‘One of the reasons people often notice a relatively rapid drop in weight when starting a low-carb or keto diet is because of changes in the body’s stores of glucose,’ she says. 

‘This means that much of the initial weight loss can be attributed to water rather than body fat – and this is an important distinction given how often rapid weight loss is promoted as evidence that keto diets are somehow superior.’ 

What’s more, the speedy drop in weight isn’t the case for everyone – it can take two to four days on a low-carb diet to enter ketosis, Ms Lambert adds.

The most reliable evidence shows a weight loss of roughly 10 per cent of body weight within a year. For the average person weighing 13st this is roughly a stone. 

Several reviews have concluded that, ultimately, low-carb results in roughly the same weight loss as any lower calorie diet. However, experts say it may appear easier to shift pounds on low-carb because it is a simple plan, making it easy to follow.

But even when weight is lost, in many cases, at least some of it is regained once the diet is stopped. 

A recent study involving 294 adults on a low-carbohydrate diet found that after an average follow-up of about three years, half had regained at least a quarter of the weight they had initially lost. 

According to Dr Federica Amati, one of the UK’s leading nutritional scientists, low-carb is not supposed to be a ‘forever diet’ – but rather a way to help people start to lose weight before transitioning to a more flexible Mediterranean-style diet.

This approach prioritises gut-healthy fibre, lean proteins and healthy fats, while keeping some low-carb principles in place. The key mistake made by most people, Dr Amati says, is that they forget the transition and instead stick to low-carb which, in most cases, is doomed to eventually fail.

‘When we think about long-term health, legumes, healthy fats, wholegrains and fibre have been shown to be some of the most important food groups when it comes to longevity and healthy ageing,’ Dr Amati says. 

‘Low carb diets are not sustainable long-term interventions, but they can help people achieve the initial weight loss they need to see to drive long-term habits.’ 

Could going low-carb help cure diabetes? 

In 2021, a team of international experts published a major analysis that would go on to influence diabetes treatment across the globe.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the scientists reported results that showed low-carb diets were more likely to achieve diabetes remission than any other eating plan. 

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The findings were so influential that even the NHS recommends the diet for type 2 diabetics. 

‘As carbohydrates are broken down into glucose during digestion, reducing carbohydrate intake can help limit rises in blood sugar after eating,’ Ms Lambert explains. 

However, more recent evidence seems to suggest that much of the beneficial impact for type 2 diabetics is a result of weight loss – rather than the reduction of carbs specifically.

In the BMJ study, the researchers found that many of the patients saw their diabetes return after a year because they had regained weight. 

‘Sustained weight loss can play a role in achieving remission – and a low carb diet is one way to do this,’ says Ms Lambert. 

Today, the NHS recommends a very low calorie diet for type 2 diabetes, which involves eating just 800 or 900 calories a day for 12 weeks, before calories are increased gradually over the course of a year. 

Studies show that around a third of diabetics who follow the plan can put their condition into remission and lose around two and a half stone in a year.

The diet CAN reverse liver damage 

Contrary to popular belief, eating more fat and fewer carbohydrates could help dramatically reduce dangerous fat in the liver. 

In a study – published in the journal Cell Metabolism – researchers split 55 volunteers into three groups, each instructed to follow a popular diet programme. 

All were obese and had prediabetes as well as fatty liver disease, where fat builds up in the organ and can eventually cause serious liver damage. 

Together, the conditions are known to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. 

But researchers found those who ate a keto diet – restricting carbs in favour of high-fat foods such as meat, eggs and cheese – not only lost around 10 per cent of their starting weight, but nearly 70 per cent of fat in their liver. 

And, there were no significant differences between the diets when harmful LDL cholesterol was tested for – despite the diet’s high fat content. 

Experts say this could be due at least in part to the fact that overeating carbs and carrying excess weight can trigger inflammation, increasing the risk of chronic disease.  

The dark side of low-carb…there’s a serious cancer risk

One of the major drawbacks of low-carb diets is that many people end up eating less fibre than they already do.

In the UK, adults are advised to eat around 30g per day of the nutrient that’s found in wholegrains like brown rice and wholemeal bread – but most of us fall short, consuming just 17g a day. 

It’s thought that around a third of bowel cancers in the UK could be prevented by eating more fibre.

As the body cannot break down this type of carbohydrate, it passes to the large intestine where it plays a vital role in digestion – helping to move waste products out of the digestive tract. 

‘Eliminating carbohydrate-rich plant foods also means missing out on valuable sources of fibre, vitamins, minerals and beneficial plant compounds,’ Ms Lambert said. 

‘Fibre plays an important role in digestive health, cholesterol regulation and supporting our gut microbiome, so severely restricting these foods may have wider implications for long-term health.’

A recent study from the University of Bath found that after 12 weeks, people following a keto diet had a lower fibre intake, higher bad cholesterol and reduced beneficial gut bacteria. 

There is also some evidence that following this restricted eating plan can cause a number of nutrient deficiencies including magnesium, zinc and B vitamins which are typically found in wholegrains. 

Over time, this can cause brain fog, persistent headaches, hair loss and fatigue – as resources are directed towards more important organs and processes. 

Experts are also concerned that keto diets high in processed meat, butter and cheese could increase levels of LDL cholesterol and potentially raise the risk of bowel cancer, although evidence remains mixed. 

But slimmers can mitigate the risk by upping their intake of leafy green vegetables and prioritising unsaturated fats, found in oily fish, nuts and seeds. 

An analysis published earlier this year found intriguing links between people who ate a low-carb diet and a reduced risk of dying young.

However, the association only applied to those who ate a ‘healthy’ low-carb diet – consisting of leaner protein and plenty of fibrous fruit and vegetables.