News Round-Up

• “Pupils’ SATS results plummet following Covid school closures” – Only 59% of Year Six pupils in England met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths this year at end of primary school, reports the Telegraph.
• “Just five more Covid deaths recorded in England and Wales last week” – Covid deaths have yet to spike in England and Wales despite infections doubling in the past month in sign some experts say is “almost certain” proof the darkest days of the pandemic are behind us, reports the Mail.
• “Chinese city of 13m shut down for week to avoid Covid ‘explosion’” – Businesses, schools and restaurants in Xi’an will close for one week after the Chinese city logged a handful of COVID-19 cases as outbreaks nationwide strain Beijing’s zero-tolerance virus approach, reports the Mail.
• “We must not follow China into a never-ending lockdown nightmare” – Early success in containing the virus has for China turned into a never-ending nightmare of economically crippling shutdowns and mass testing, as despite the vaccines, President Xi has dismissed a ‘herd immunity’ approach as he claims in China it “would lead to consequences that are unimaginable”, writes Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph.
• “Is your summer holiday in danger of being ruined by Covid?” – Spain, France and Germany are all logging a rise in infections, while further afield in Caribbean hotspots cases are creeping upwards, reports the Mail.
• “Vanishing vaccine mandates” – This week, with hardly a whisper from its chief public health officers, Australia largely abandoned its vaccine mandates, but with no apology from the once-so-zealous public health officials, writes Rebecca Weisser in the Spectator.
• “Australia to dump Covid vaccine requirements and travel exemptions for international arrivals” – People arriving in the country will no longer need to use the digital passenger declaration under changes to come into effect next week, the Guardian reports.
• “What has Two Brains Willetts got against the older generation?” – The actions of this Government, with its mendacious and evil Covid policies and its fanatical and ruinous Net-Zero ‘green’ agenda, has had a disastrous effect on all of us, young and old, writes Frank Palmer in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “A judge ruled this morning that L.A. Schools’ student Covid vaccine mandate was illegal, blocking LAUSD from sending kids to independent study for not getting the Covid vaccine” – A welcome judgment in the USA.
• “German drugmaker accused of stealing Covid vaccine technology” – CureVac claims BioNTech has taken the mRNA technology behind Britain’s Covid booster jab, reports the Telegraph.
• “The MHRA, the watchdog covering up the truth about vaccine deaths and injuries” – Kathy Gyngell in TCW Defending Freedom lays out the charge sheet against the U.K. medicines regulator.
• “Electric police cars ‘running out of puff’ on way to emergencies” – The blue lights and sirens drain the batteries and there are not enough charging points, a Police and Crime Commissioner warns, according to the Telegraph.
• “Say Goodbye to Your Email Job” – Progressive, multiracial, demisexual rage is coming, as the core social groups driving progressivism in America are hit the hardest by layoffs and the end of Silicon Valley subsidies, and it may have no brakes, writes Malcom Kyeyune in Compact Magazine.
• “Roy Chubby Brown blasts ‘woke culture’ as council axes another one of his shows after petition accusing him of being ‘racist, homophobic, and misogynistic’ which gained just 59 signatures” – The controversial 77-year-old stand up was due to perform at a Lancaster City Council run venue in Morecambe, Lancs., in August this year, but the event has been axed due to concerns over his jokes, the Mail reports.
• “I stand with Macy Gray” – Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator writes that the singer is the latest female celebrity to risk cancellation by standing up for, er, biology.
• “Now even The Railway Children have gone woke, it’s clear the culture war is lost” – The sequel to a classic children’s story shows there’s nowhere to hide from the obsessions of the modern Left, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Wanted: more MPs as brave as Danny Kruger” – Parliamentarians should be free to speak on matters of conscience without fear of being cancelled, says Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
• “The dangers of gender-affirmative care” – American doctors are unnecessarily harming children, writes Eliza Mondegreen in UnHerd.
• “Children’s commissioner to review ‘horrendous’ and age-inappropriate sex education teaching after hearing about a nine-year-old ‘who came home from school shaking after being taught about rape’” – The Mail reports that Dame Rachel de Souza told the Commons Education Committee on Tuesday that she would be looking into the teaching of relationships and sex education (RSE).
• “BBC warns Antiques Roadshow to be mindful when discussing history” – A report in the Mail that the BBC has warned Antiques Roadshow to be mindful of the “reputational risk” of discussing colonial history, according to a BBC document.
• “The antidote to America’s race wars” – The narrative of the 1619 Project has been dismantled, says Oliver Wiseman in his UnHerd review of David Hackett Fischer’s “magisterial” new book, African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals.
• “Under our new law, never again will Florida families be denied the right to visit a loved one in the hospital” – Watch Ron DeSantis sign into law Florida’s new protection for hospital visitor rights.

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