News Round-Up

• “Bondi Beach hero who disarmed shooter ‘saved many lives’” – A Muslim shopkeeper in Sydney tackled a gunman during the Chanukkah attack at Bondi Beach, an act of bravery that officials say prevented an even greater massacre, writes the Times.
• “How the Bondi Beach shooting unfolded — in maps and video” – The Times has produced a visual reconstruction of the gunmen’s movements at Bondi Beach, showing minute-by-minute how the attack on a Jewish Chanukkah celebration unfolded.
• “Jews like me have been warning about an attack like this for years” – In the Telegraph, Shadow Attorney General David Wolfson argues that the rise in tolerated antisemitism has been paving the way for precisely the sort of violent attack we saw in Sydney yesterday.
• “Mahmood: rights of foreign sex offenders prioritised over safety of British girls” – The Home Secretary has set out plans to make it easier to deport foreign criminals who have abused women and girls, having framed the issue as a long-overdue test of whether Britain will put public safety ahead of offenders’ rights, reports the Telegraph.
• “Shackled and beaten: the UK teen ‘abducted’ to Somalia by mother for becoming ‘too Westernised’” – A British teenager has described how she has been abducted to Somalia, chained to the floor and brutalised in an Islamic ‘rehab’ centre after her mother decided she had become too Western, a story that has raised urgent questions about safeguarding and consular protection, says the Mail.
• “Five arrested over plot to attack German Christmas market” – German authorities have detained five suspects, including an imam, over an alleged plan to ram a vehicle into a Christmas market, reports the BBC.
• “Half of hospitals are battling their worst ever flu outbreak as raging ‘superflu’ crisis sparks nhs meltdown and Covid-era stay-at-home pleas” – Hospitals across England have been plunged into their worst-ever flu crisis, prompting Covid-style pleas for people to stay at home as wards have buckled under a tidal wave of ‘superflu’ cases, says the Mail.
• “Academic reported to police after saying ‘Zionist’ Jewish schools should be ‘put to an end’” – David Miller has been reported to the police after claiming ‘Zionist’ Jewish schools should be put to an end, says the Telegraph.
• “Ministers braced for islamophobia law backlash” – Ministers have been warned that a new statutory definition of ‘anti-Muslim hatred’, expected to be published this week, could chill free speech and criminalise robust debate about religion, warns the Telegraph.
• “Author who warned of totalitarianism in west censored under online safety laws” – An essay on Substack by Rod Dreher linking a contemporary art exhibition to Europe’s migration policies has been age-gated under the UK’s online safety regime, according to the Telegraph.
• “The Left has succumbed to Farage Derangement Syndrome” – In the Telegraph, Annabel Denham accuses the Left of obsessing over Nigel Farage’s teenage antics instead of addressing its own failings.
• “How ‘soft-touch’ Britain has become the immigration capital of Europe” – New figures have shown that Britain has taken in 1.27 million foreign nationals in a single year, more than any other European country and enough to fill a city the size of Birmingham, reports the Mail.
• “The death of France’s centre-right” – Nicolas Sarkozy’s overtures to Marine Le Pen marks an end to France’s traditional centre-right, writes Henry Samuel in the Telegraph.
• “Divide and sell” – In Trust the Evidence, Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson argue that modern elites are dividing the public into warring camps with alarmist narratives in order to sell them ‘miracle’ fixes.
• “Children targeted in urgent NHS vaccine drive” – Health chiefs have launched an urgent vaccination campaign for schoolchildren to curb the spread of so-called ‘superflu’, reports the Mail.
• “NHS surgeons only operating once a week in ‘crumbling’ hospitals” – An investigation has revealed that some NHS surgeons have been left performing operations just one day a week because of bed shortages and failing estates, piling pressure on Wes Streeting to reform the health service, according to the Telegraph.
• “Nuclear proliferation might be the way to keep Putin at bay: Clark” – Ross Clark in the Mail argues that allowing more countries to acquire nuclear weapons may be the only way to deter Vladimir Putin from further aggression in Europe.
• “Greens’ Zack Polanski is most popular party leader” – A new Opinium poll has found Green leader Zack Polanski edging ahead of his rivals on approval, a result that underscores Keir Starmer’s struggles to connect with voters, according to the Mail.
• “Labour’s nutty EV policies are pushing us towards economic catastrophe” – Labour’s electric-vehicle rules are pushing the UK car industry towards collapse, writes Liam Halligan in the Telegraph.
• “Tories pledge to scrap Net Zero car subsidies” – Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap Labour’s subsidies for electric vehicles, says the Telegraph.
• “Banks under fire for using flawed Net Zero study” – Major lenders have been accused of relying on a flawed climate-risk model that overstates the economic damage from global warming, reports the Telegraph.
• “Wicked films leave big carbon footprint on yellow brick road” – New analysis shows that Universal’s Wicked prequels have generated more UK emissions than other recent blockbusters, according to the Times.
• “Justice is meant to be blind, not to hallucinate” – Dominic Lawson in the Times fulminates against the judge in the Sandy Peggie case who is suspected of making too much use of AI in composing his judgement.
• “Shoplifters could escape prosecution thanks to court ruling” – A recent judgment has threatened to derail a private-security crackdown on theft by forcing ‘private bobbies’ to hand cases back to overstretched police, raising fears that more shoplifters will have escaped justice, warns the Telegraph.
• “Publisher under fire after ‘fake’ citations found in AI ethics guide” – Scientific publisher Springer Nature has come under scrutiny after an AI ethics handbook was found to contain dozens of bogus or non-existent citations, notes the Times.
• “The word safeguarding has become a tool of persecution” – The language of safeguarding has been weaponised to silence people with mainstream views, turning a child-protection concept into a means of ideological policing, writes Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times.
• “Stop saying ‘ladies and gentlemen’, planning inspectors told” – Planning inspectors have been instructed to drop phrases like ‘ladies and gentlemen’ to avoid causing offence,  reports the Telegraph.
• “The heresy of putting the baby Jesus into a people-smugglers’ dinghy” – A nativity display outside a church depicting the infant Jesus in a migrant dinghy trivialises both the Gospel story and the Channel crisis, argues Gavin Ashenden in the Conservative Woman.
• “Santa would vote Green and Scrooge would go for Reform, poll finds” – A poll asked voters which parties Santa and Scrooge would back, with predictable results, reports the Times.
• “Woman ‘in constant fear’ after Slapp lawsuit stifles her business” – A small business owner has described living in constant fear after being dragged into a costly SLAPP lawsuit over online comments, reports the Times.
• “Comedian Robin Ince quits BBC Radio 4 show over ‘problematic’ views” – Comic Robin Ince has quit his Radio 4 programme, claiming his pro-trans views make him too controversial, reports the Mail.
• “The police came to Allison Pearson’s door on Remembrance Sunday and wouldn’t tell her why” – Allison Pearson tells Liz Truss about her ordeal at the hands of Essex Police.

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