News Round-Up

• “Public urged to get next-generation Covid vaccine” – All over-50s are likely to be offered an updated Covid vaccine, the Times says, to reduce the risk of illness over winter and ease pressure on the NHS
• “‘It will restore trust in medicine’: Medics call for end of Covid vaccine mandates” – The Express reports that leading medics are calling for an immediate end to Covid vaccine mandates, claiming they fuel antivax support
• “U.S. First Lady Jill Biden tests positive for COVID-19” – The First Lady is experiencing mild symptoms and has been prescribed Paxlovid, according to Sky News
• “COVID-19 Vaccines Harmed My College Experience” – Elize Aquila shares her student experience in the No College Mandates Newsletter
• “How does the Considerable Become Slight?” – The Icelandic reinfection study did not show that the double-jabbed’s chances of reinfection are slightly higher, says Thorsteinn Siglaugsson in an update to his recent post. It showed they are considerably higher!
• “California church that was fined over $200,000 for defying COVID-19 restrictions gets fines dropped” – Fox News reports that Calvary Chapel in San Jose, which defied pandemic restrictions on First Amendment grounds, has now had $200,000 of fines overturned by the California Court of Appeal
• “How Data Compelled a Columbia University Researcher to Fight Mandates” – Tessa Lena interviews Dr. Spiro Pantazatos, an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology who co-authored a paper on risks associated with COVID-19 injections
• “The Suppression of Useful COVID-19 Treatments“ – Writing for Quadrant, Professor Robert Clancy looks at how “the cheapest, safest and most effective drugs” are being denied to Australians as they suffer high levels of COVID-19 infection
• “My Gratitude For the Apologies and Sincere Expressions of Regret” – The Brownstone Institute publishes Thomas Harrington’s sardonic letter to his friends, thanking them for their support for Covid heretics “now that the mainstream discourse on this ‘unprecedented threat to our safety’ lies in tatters on the ground”
• “Xi Jinping Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize Far More Than WHO” – The World Health Organisation is a current frontrunner to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, bookmakers say. But Michael P. Senger has a far more deserving candidate to recommend for the honour
• “I put Media Matters on notice just now” – Steve Kirsch throws down a gauntlet to Media Matters: they must either prove or retract their claim that he lied about the Covid vaccine on Fox News or he will sue them for defamation
• “The long-term solution to the energy security is clear – we need more gas” – “When it comes to dealing with the looming energy crisis, there are no good options available,” writes Ben Wright in the Telegraph  
• “Eat what we tell you” – Alexandra Marshall takes aim on behalf of Spectator Australia at the ‘climate friendly’ proposal that would see supermarkets add ‘eco labels’ to over 57,000 products
• “‘Children were being sterilised but no one could speak out’” – Helen Joyce tells of how of the silencing of the trans debate has caused immense harm to children in an edited extract from her conversation with Brendan O’Neil in the latest episode of the Brendan O’Neill Show
• “Christian parents ‘vindicated’ by Attorney General speech” – Rebecca Bensted of the Christian Legal Centre comments on Suella Braverman’s recent speech on schools and trans guidance
• “J.K. Rowling accuses Chocolat novelist Joanne Harris of ‘betrayal’” – J.K. Rowling has accused Joanne Harris of betraying female writers, MailOnline reports. The Society of Authors Chair had mocked her with a tasteless twitter poll about death threats
• “Policing comedy is no way to fix society” – “The banning of an ‘offensive’ Edinburgh Fringe performer shows that free speech is losing out to liberal consensus,” writes Sarah Ditum in the Times
• “Let’s give these woke comedy hypocrites a taste of their own medicine” – “Attacks on freedom of artistic expression are far more damaging and offensive than any joke Jerry Sadowitz could tell,” says the Telegraph’s Michael Deacon
• “The Truth About the Jerry Sadowitz Cancellation” – “The cancellation of Jerry Sadowitz is “more of a sad inevitability than a surprise to those of us who’ve been paying attention”, according to Konstantin Kisin
• “Without blasphemy the West would have no free speech” – “We still have to defend the liberty to blaspheme,” writes Mick Hume in Spiked, “not only against Islam and all religions, but also against the new secular restrictions on freedom of thought and speech”
• “Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter” – Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi student at Leeds University who returned home for a holiday, has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for retweeting dissidents and activists, the Guardian reports
• “RAF recruitment chief quits amid row over ‘effective pause on hiring white men’” – The head of the Royal Air Force’s recruiting team has resigned, according to the Telegraph, claiming that the service has effectively put a pause on recruiting white men in order to meet diversity targets
• “Ep 51. Banned from Twitter! (Find out why)” – The Real Normal podcast has been put in Twitter jail for a week. Listen to the latest episode to find out why  
• “Council accused of ‘mansplaining’ menstruation after appointing man as ‘period dignity officer’” – SNP-led Dundee City Council stands accused of “peak gender idiocy” after it appointed a man as its first ever ‘period dignity officer’, the Telegraph reports
• “We’ve created Billionaires – I call it the Covid Industrial Complex” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells Lucy Johnston that “we basically created an interest group to keep the pandemic going”. The full interview on Sketch Notes on a Pandemic is available here

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