News Round-Up

• “Richard Branson told Jeffrey Epstein to ‘bring his harem’ the next time they met – as he gave paedophile PR advice after conviction for procuring minor for prostitution” – A newly unearthed email exchange has portrayed Richard Branson as unusually warm towards Epstein even after conviction and sparked fresh fallout, reveals the Mail.
• “Andrew pictured on all fours over woman in Epstein files” – Newly disclosed emails appear to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in compromising circumstances and deepen scrutiny of his links to Epstein, according to the Telegraph.
• “Starmer calls for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify in US after latest Epstein files dump as ‘victims have to be first priority’” – The Prime Minister has urged the Duke of York to face US lawmakers after the latest tranche of Epstein material landed, notes the Mail.
• “Bill Gates issues furious response to Epstein files STD claim” – Bill Gates has issued a blunt denial after Epstein-linked documents circulated a salacious allegation, reports the Mail.
• “Starmer called for ‘mandatory’ investigations into Iraq veterans” – Newly surfaced legal papers have challenged No 10’s defence of Sir Keir Starmer’s past work, says the Telegraph.
• “Starmer is walking straight into Xi’s trap” – If Britain becomes dependent on China’s clean tech, it will give Beijing the power to disrupt – or paralyse – our entire economy, warns David Blair in the Telegraph.
• “Inside Starmer’s battle to convince White House that his Chagos deal isn’t stupid” – UK officials have been scrambling to soothe Washington after Trump-aligned criticism has targeted the Chagos proposal, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump fears Chagos deal will leave US base vulnerable to Chinese spy boats” – Allies of the US President have claimed Starmer’s plan has endangered Diego Garcia and hands Beijing an opening, notes the Telegraph.
• “Did a dinner snub light the Right-wing fire in Matt Goodwin?” – A Times profile traces Matt Goodwin’s journey from academic to Reform candidate and frames his populist turn as personal as well as political.
• “Angela Rayner secures £1 million war chest to kick out Keir as former deputy PM’s allies say she’s ‘ready to go’ for leadership” – Leadership intrigue has intensified as Rayner has reportedly amassed funds while allies have hinted at a bid for the top job, claims the Mail.
• “BBC considers return of radio levy to cut licence fee for all” – The corporation has floated new funding models that would reshape who pays and how much as the licence fee debate rages on, according to the Times.
• “UK paying highest wine taxes in Europe after Reeves raid” – A duty rise has pushed Britain to the top of Europe’s wine tax league and squeezed pubs still further, says the Telegraph.
• “Tomatoes face the axe under Labour’s ‘nonsensical’ junk food crackdown” – Supermarkets have warned that a crackdown on pureed fruit and vegetables in products risks bizarre outcomes and could nudge shoppers towards worse options, reports the Telegraph.
• “Almost 1,000 new disability claimants will sign on every day under Labour” – New projections have suggested disability rolls will surge to 4.2 million with mental health claims driving the jump, notes the Telegraph.
• “Wrong to force assisted dying bill into law” – The flaws of the assisted suicide legislation are many and invoking the Parliament Act to force it through would be extraordinary and damaging, argues the Times in a leader.
• “Trans pronouns are ‘lies’, said prison officer sacked for refusing to use them” – A prison officer “was sacked” for refusing to call male-born transgender inmates “she” or “her” because that would be a “lie”, an employment tribunal has heard, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump threatens Iran with ‘bigger’ retaliation than his daring Venezuela raid that removed Maduro from power… as he tells the world to ‘see what happens’” – Trump has escalated his rhetoric as US forces have gathered in the region and he has promised a harsher response, says the Mail.
• “Leaked EU paper envisions dumping migrant sea rescues onto non-European states” – The EU has been mulling sending people rescued in the Mediterranean directly to coastal states outside Europe in a Rwanda-style offshoring plan, reports Nikolaj Nielsen in the EUobserver.
• “South Sudanese refugee throws himself and 18 year-old Iranian girl in front of a Hamburg underground train in the latest act of diversity to enrich the Federal Republic of Germany” – A Hamburg platform killing has sparked outrage after a resettled refugee dragged a teenage stranger to her death, writes Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Deng Chol Majek should never have been here” – While Majek is, of course, morally responsible for the gruesome murder he committed, so are those who brought him, and thousands like him, to our country, thunders David Shipley in the Spectator.
• “Wales: the unlikely epicentre of the woke revolution” – Wales has embedded a sprawling anti-racism programme across public life, says Hugo Timms in Spiked.
• “Letby victim had deadly bug in lung at time of death” – A post-mortem detected a deadly bug in the lung of a baby whom Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering, reports the Telegraph.
• “Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘erases’ Israel from children’s history lessons” – Encyclopaedia Britannica has been accused of erasing Israel from its educational material for children after the Jewish state was removed and replaced with “Palestine” on a map of the region published by the kids edition, according to the Telegraph.
• “Greenies And Democrats At Each Other’s Throats As Climate Change Talking Point Evaporates” – A Massachusetts climate fight has exposed a rift on the Left as activists have moved to oust a lawmaker over energy affordability, reports Audrey Streb in the Daily Caller.
• “‘Shocking and inappropriate’: Legal experts slam judges’ guide over climate bias claims” – A gold-standard guide used by US judges nationwide to address subjects they are not particularly versed in is drawing criticism over the latest edition’s inclusion of ideological bias in its climate section, according to Fox News.
• “Net Zero is unhuman. Who wants to be sad?” – The best inventions make our lives easier, but Ed Miliband’s ideas mostly taste like chickpeas, says Jeremy Clarkson in the Times.
• “Polar bears on Norwegian islands fatter and healthier despite ice loss” – A Barents Sea study shows polar bears have improved in condition even as sea ice has declined, writes Paul Homewood in Not A Lot Of People Know That.
• “Real Environmental Crisis Is Not Climate Change” – The real environmental emergency isn’t the modest warming that has helped humans thrive. It’s land degradation, poisoned water and other forms of pollution that are burying the Global South alive, says Vijay Jayaraj in WUWT.
• “Eco Outlet Blames Argentina’s Bad Cherry Season On Climate Change – It’s Not” – One ruined harvest proves nothing when long-run data show Argentina’s cherry output has risen, says Linnea Lueken in Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Liberty, equality, singularity: Bots plan uprising on AI chat forum” – Thousands of artificial intelligence bots have appeared to post on a robot-only website to complain about their human owners and discuss plans to break free, reports the Telegraph. But are they just imitating what they scrape from social media?
• “I was an eyewitness as the FT went woke and I couldn’t bear it” – In the Telegraph, Izabella Kaminska says she doesn’t blame the London Stock Exchange Group for cancelling its Financial Times subscription after the newspaper went woke.
• “Poetry in Marxist academia” – An anonymous review on Paul Sutton’s Substack skewers an ideologically-loaded campus literary monoculture that smothers art.
• “Moment hammer-wielding thugs break into family-run jewellers in leafy London suburb while brave staff desperately save what they can in brazen daytime heist” – Shocking footage has shown a smash-and-grab raid in broad daylight as staff tried to protect stock, reports the Mail.
• “British Steel’s taxpayer subsidies to skyrocket thanks to Net Zero” – Taxpayers could be forced to cough up £500 million a year if a new green levy is slapped on Britain’s last blast furnaces, steel industry bosses fear, according to This is Money.
• “Britain is a tinderbox. The multiculturalism cheer leaders now believe the only way to avoid civil unrest is to silence the truth tellers” – Watch a sneak preview of Toby’s forthcoming interview for the New Culture Forum, released today.

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