News Round-Up

• “Did Eat Out to Help Out rekindle Covid? A look at the data” – The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson responds to the claim made in the Observer that the Eat Out to Help scheme drove up Covid infections by between 8% and 17%.
• “The Blitz regalvanised Britain’s will. The lockdowns just infantilised us” – “The measures taken during the pandemic were much more psychologically damaging and intrusive than the wartime restrictions,” says Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph.
• “The war on disinformation is really a war on dissent” – “The British state’s monitoring of lockdown sceptics is a democratic outrage,” writes Tom Slater in Spiked.
• “Boris Johnson may lose legal funding if he ‘undermines’ Government’s Covid position” – The Cabinet Office says former PM will lose legal aid if he “knowingly frustrates” No 10’s position on “the inquiry”, the Telegraph reports.
• “Trump the Covid Cuomosexual” – The New York Post takes Donald Trump to task over his praise for Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the Covid crisis.
• “Face masks to return at Tour de France to limit COVID-19 cases in the peloton” – According to Cycling News, new COVID-19 protocol requires riders, team staff and officials taking part in the Tour de France to wear face masks at sign-on and in the team paddock. Riders will also be banned from signing autographs.
• “Vaccinated veterans more likely to die from Covid, VA study proves” – Igor Chudov highlights an “unexpected finding” in study that was recently published by the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
• “Judge in Missouri v Biden ain’t buying what the Government’s shovelling” – Hot Air’s Beege Welborn with the latest on the Missouri vs Biden case, the lawsuit which sprang from “the underhanded censorship dealings the Biden administration began with the social media companies”.
• “Six ancient zombie viruses unleashed on the world from climate change” – The Mail reports that an international team of researchers has warned that the risk of ancient viral particles remaining infectious has been underestimated, and is “bound to increase” due to global warming.
• “Time’s up for Drax’s tree-burning racket” – “Net-zero is falling foul of EU voters,” writes Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times. “But still this crazy scheme continues.”
• “Solar panels – an eco-disaster waiting to happen?” – Solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years, and according to the BBC, there are millions of them in the U.K. But the country is lacking the infrastructure to scrap and recycle them.
• “Irish farmers revolt over plan for cattle cull to meet green target” – The Telegraph reports that farmers in Ireland are mounting a rebellion against Government plans to cull 65,000 cows a year for three years to help the country meet its climate change targets.
• “Police crackdown stops climate protesters in their tracks” – Climate activists from the Last Generation group had been blocking the streets of Berlin on a regular basis, the Telegraph reports, until a series of police raids stopped them in their tracks.
• “Starmer urged not to U-turn on new North Sea oil and gas ban” – Environmental groups, trade unions, the Women’s Institute and numerous other organisations have written a joint letter in support of Kier Starmer’s pledge to block new North Sea oil and gas exploration, urging him not to do a U-turn.
• “Petition the King to keep our national powers” – In TCW Defending Freedom, Graham Wood calls on readers to petition the King to stop U.K. powers being handed to international agencies without a referendum.
• “Why Africa is turning its back on the eco-obsessed West” – “The developing world needs rapid growth, not lectures on sustainability,” write Joel Kotkin and Bheki Mahlobo in Spiked
• “BBC criticised over non-binary Casualty character discussing top surgery” – The Telegraph reports that the BBC has come in for some criticism from the Safe Schools Alliance after a recent episode of Casualty showed a non-binary character talking enthusiastically about their forthcoming top surgery – a double mastectomy – and was broadcast before the watershed.
• “U.S. state bans Bible in primary schools over ‘vulgarity and violence’” – Primary schools in Utah have been forced to ban the Bible after its “vulgarity and violence” was deemed to fall foul of censorship laws, according to the Telegraph.
• “Political and cultural corruption have wrecked New Zealand” – Writing for Spectator Australia, Amy Brooke takes aim at the recent pay-out of $NZ835 million to part-Maori individuals.
• “Blaming victims for failures of government” – “Democracy is being let down by our elected officials,” says Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia.
• “Elon Musk’s brain implant company is approved for human testing. How alarmed should we be?” – The Guardian wonders if Elon Musk’s brain-implant company – Neuralink – can be trusted to oversee the development of an invasive medical device that is capable of reading brain signals.
• “Hannah Gadsby’s art exhibition is roasted by art critics” – Aussie comedian Hannah Gadsby has attempted to create a feminist takedown of Picasso with her exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, Daily Mail Australia reports, but art critics say “don’t go”.
• “Shadowy ‘Disinformation’ Censorship Group Paid Public College For Online Blacklist Report” – The Global Disinformation Index (part-funded by the Foreign Office) gave $90,810 to the Global Disinformation Lab at the University of Texas-Austin to conduct research and develop a contentious report on conservative media outlets, Reclaim the Net reports.
• “Texas bans gender-affirming care for minors after governor signs bill” – Texas has become the most populous state so far to ban gender-affirming care for minors, CTV News reports, after Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation on Friday.
• “‘Truth’ is being weaponised in our sinister new age of disinformation” – “The only way to defend truth in an open society is open challenge, freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech and the promotion of genuine pluralism,” says Nick Timothy in the Telegraph.
• “The Government’s secret units set up to monitor critics of the lockdown” – Watch Andrew Doyle and Michael Shellenberger discuss the “very heavy-handed pressure by Governments on social media companies to censor… disfavoured views”. Part 2 is available here.

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