News Round-Up

• “Biden tests positive for COVID-19, returns to isolation” – President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 again, the Associated Press reports, three days after he was cleared to exit isolation. The White House says it’s a rare case of ‘rebound’ following treatment with Paxlovid, an antiviral manufactured by Pfizer
• “Doctors demand NHS funds Covid drug to protect vulnerable patients” – More than 100 doctors have been joined by 19 charities to write to the Government demanding funding for Evusheld, a Covid drug which can protect patients who don’t respond to vaccines, reports the Mail on Sunday
• “How widespread is long Covid? It’s incredibly hard to pin down” – Post COVID-19 condition now appears to be much less common than previously thought, says Adam Miller for CBC News
• “I’m an epidemiologist. Here’s why San Diego Unified’s mask mandate won’t slow COVID-19.” – The San Diego Unified School District has adopted a mask mandate due to the high numbers of Covid cases. It will “likely not reduce the spread” says John W. Ayers in the San Diego Tribune
• “Death of doctor who faced threats over COVID-19 shocks Austria” – The body of Dr. Lisa-Maria Kellermayr was found at her practice office in northern Austria, the Associated Press reports
• “The Pentagon Owns Its Recruiting Crisis” – The “Pentagon’s vaccine mandate may prove its deepest self-inflicted wound”, writes P. Michael Phillips for the Brownstone Institute
• “I bet $1M that the virus originated in a lab. Anyone want to bet against me? I didn’t think so.” – “Nobody on earth seriously believes the ‘natural origin’ story,” says Steve Kirsch. If they did, they’d take his bet
• “Garbage In, Garbage Out: 96% of NOAA Temperature Stations Fail ‘Uncorrupted Placement’ Standards” – Breitbart reports on a study finding that 96% of National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration weather stations fail to meet NOAA’s own ‘uncorrupted placement’ standards
• “Toyota warns Government it may stop manufacturing in U.K. if it bans hybrid cars” – Toyota says that restrictions on the sale of hybrids will impact the company’s “manufacturing, retail and other business activities” and its “future investment” in the U.K., the Sunday Telegraph reports. More economic harm due to the Net Zero policy?
• “UN, World Economic Forum Behind Global ‘War On Farmers’: Experts” – Zerohedge flags a report in the Epoch Times, pointing the finger at the United Nations’ ‘Agenda 2030’ Sustainable Development Goals for the regulatory attack on farming
• “Tree hugging. What the hell next?” – When Roger Watson heard about the inaugural Scottish Tree Hugging Championships, he thought it was a joke, he says in the New Conservative. “In the hierarchy of pointlessness, this one surely take pole position”
• “Ban Chinese Solar Genocide Panels” – Michael Shellenberger calls for the energy bill proposed by Senators Manchin and Schumer to include a ban on Chinese-made solar panels
• “Britain is broken and hungers for reform. That’s why I’m backing Liz Truss” – Dan Hannan explains why he’s backing Liz Truss in his Sunday Telegraph column
• “China has Britain by the throat. The new PM must loosen its grip” – For too long we have turned a blind eye to China’s stranglehold over our economy, argues Simon Heffer in the Telegraph
• “How to end Big Tech censorship of free speech” – “It’s time Big Tech companies uphold American values and become fair stewards of the speech they host,” write Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers and Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon in the New York Post
• “Watchdogs and new internet laws mean free speech in U.K. is under threat” – In the Express, GETTR CEO Jason Miller warns that the Online Safety Bill poses a grave threat to free speech
• “Does Nadine Dorries understand her Online Safety Bill?” – “The Bill is jam packed with unintended consequences that the Secretary of State does not appear to understand,” says David Davis MP in the Spectator
• “Twitter said governments are requesting social media user information to censor content” –“We’re seeing governments become more aggressive in how they try to use legal tactics to unmask the people using our service,” Twitter head Yoel Roth has said, according to Tech Outlook. “And also using legal demands as a way to silence people”
• “Senior Whitehall officials accused of wasting time on ‘woke projects’” – Six permanent secretaries – on salaries between £170,000 and £200,000 – have become Civil Service ‘champions’ of a range of woke causes on top of their official duties, the Telegraph says
• “Mass hypnosis and the gateway to tyranny – The Conservative Woman” – Woke is “perhaps the most glaring example of living in your head instead of the real world” says John Roberts in TCW Defending Freedom
• “Cecil Rhodes listed plaque set to be ‘reinterpreted’ by Oxford college” – Oriel College, Oxford plans to denounce the 120 year-old plaque commemorating its benefactor Cecil Rhodes, as well as the statue of Rhodes, with another plaque alongside it, reports the Telegraph
• “Call drag queens ‘pantomime dames’ to fool protesters, librarians told” – The Sunday Telegraph reports on a training session for council librarians hosting a country wide tour by Drag Queen Story Hour U.K.
• “BBC ‘disappearing women’ as gender quota filled by trans guests who self-identify” – The BBC is allowing a 50-50 quota for programme guests to be filled by those who self-identify as female, the Telegraph reports
• “Criminalising catcalling would be Orwellian overreach” – Wolf-whistling may be annoying, but it hardly counts as worthy of the resources of our already pinched criminal justice system, writes the Sunday Telegraph’s Zoe Strimpel
• “Air Force Includes Drag Show In Woke ‘Diversity’ Festival At Langley” – According to the Daily Wire, the drag show featured in the family-friendly Diversity, Equity and Inclusion summer festival
• “How Stonewall turned against gay rights” – “With friends like this, who needs homophobes?” writes Andrew Doyle in Spiked  
• “The root cause of the problem is the lack of a free speech act” – The police need some training from the Free Speech Union, says a Kemi Badenoch supporter, after the police arrest a man for posting an offensive meme

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