News Round-Up

• “‘Twindemic’ and Strep A crises may have peaked: ‘Flu-nami’ admissions fall for first time this winter, scarlet fever cases plunge five-fold and Covid numbers drop 40% post-Xmas – amid warnings ‘Kraken’ will trigger fresh virus surge” – NHS data show the number of patients in England hospitalised with flu and Covid spiked around the turn of the year and have been trending downwards since, the Mail reports.
• “White House extends COVID-19 public health emergency once again” – The Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday officially renewed the ongoing public health emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic amid concerns over a more transmissible viral mutation and broad pandemic fatigue, reports the Hill.
• “Moderna begins trialling mRNA shot that is injected directly into the heart to treat heart attack patients” – What could go wrong? Report in the Mail.
• “Anti-vaxxer MP Andrew Bridgen vows to continue asking ‘reasonable questions’ about Covid jabs despite being kicked out by the disgusted Tories for comparing the lifesaving roll-out to the Holocaust” – Disgraceful smear piece in the Mail by David Wilcock.
• “Is this the true, devastating cost of lockdown?” – Up to 100 times more may have been spent on preventing each Covid death than on preventing each non-Covid death, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “In Defence of Jay Bhattacharya” – Professor Donald Boudreaux comes to the defence of the sceptical Stanford professor in Brownstone.
• “Outspoken Ontario Physician Against Covid Vaccination Has Licence Suspended” – A physician who has taken a publicly critical stance to pandemic measures such as COVID-19 vaccination was suspended by his college on January 5th, reports the Epoch Times.
• “Our Only Option Is the Narrow Road” – “We must all join forces in the fight for the right to express ourselves, to think, to doubt, to come together in the public square to discuss, reason and shape society,” writes Thorsteinn Siglaugsson.
• “Rare Earths, Electrification Mandates and Energy Security” – Rare earth minerals, on which the forced transition to ‘clean energy’ depends, are critically constrained by many of the same factors as fossil fuels, says Mark Krebs in WUWT.
• “The German Greens are playing into Russia’s hands” – The push for clean energy may, perversely, lead to more demand for Russian gas, says Ralph Schoellhammer in UnHerd.
• “New gas boilers could be banned within a decade” – The Net Zero review by MP Chris Skidmore has predictably called for even more radical changes, including a ban on new gas boilers within a decade, an “onshore wind revolution” and a five-fold increase in solar panels – but admits household costs will rise by up to £6,000, reports the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s electric car dream is all but over” – Britishvolt’s chances of success are fanciful despite expectations of a last-ditch bailout, says the Telegraph‘s Ben Marlow, in the latest sign the green economy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
• “University of Southern California department removes the word ‘field’ because it is ‘racist’” – The word ‘field’ has been declared to have racist connotations and will no longer be used in a department at a leading American university, according to the Telegraph.
• “NHS trans plans will make maternity care ‘the next Tavistock’, midwives warn” – NHS England wants to hold ‘gender inclusive training’ classes but midwives said the scheme could have “real implications” for mothers, reports the Telegraph .
• “Critical Race Theory has captured the Church of England” – Robert Tombs writes in the Telegraph that the Commissioners’ research surprised him by showing the very limited degree of the Church’s involvement in slave trading.
• “Sturgeon’s gender bill poses a problem for the Tories” – Stephen Daisley in the Spectator on a new paper from Policy Exchange by Glasgow University law lecturer Michael Foran, which explains that “those possessing Scottish gender recognition certificates who travel to England, Wales or Northern Ireland will have to be legally recognised in their acquired sex”.
• “Gender neutral Brit Awards sees only men nominated in top category” – The artist of the year nominees for the 2023 Brit Awards are all male, after organisers opted to make the category gender-neutral, the Telegraph reports.
• “Coleman Hughes: asking ‘where are you from?’ isn’t racist” – The writer responds to Prince Harry and Ngozi Fulani in UnHerd.
• “Andrew Tate and the hysteria of modern feminism” – No, the misogynist influencer is not producing a generation of rapists, writes Ella Whelan in Spiked.
• “The Parthenon is special, but not unique” – If we must return the Elgin marbles, why not any other artefact, asks Mario Trabucco della Torretta in the Critic.
• “Chippendales star Kumail Nanjiani says Hollywood is now scared of casting non-white guys as baddies – industry’s effort to be more woke is limiting interesting roles for non-white actors: ‘I want to play more bad guys’” – Kumail Nanjiani doesn’t believe he would have got his role as Chippendale villain if it wasn’t based on a true story as he said Hollywood is scared to cast non-white actors as bad guys, according to the Mail, as wokery backfires once again.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.