News Round-Up

• “Dolly Parton dies aged 80” – The country music legend, who had recently spoken of “hard times with my health”, has died at the age of 80, reports the Telegraph.
• “Dolly Parton obituary: wisecracking queen of country” – Singer, songwriter, businesswoman, philanthropist and Glastonbury legend, Dolly Parton – one of the most beloved entertainers of the 20th century – has died aged 80, says the Times.
• “Kemi Badenoch poised for Tory reshuffle within weeks” – Kemi Badenoch is set to shake up her shadow cabinet before the Conservative conference in Birmingham in October, reports the Mail.
• “The two top Tories who can save Kemi Badenoch from failure” – With ground to make up on immigration and other key issues, Kemi Badenock should make Nick Timothy the Shadow Home Secretary and Katie Lam the Shadow Chancellor, writes James Frayne in the Telegraph.
• “Russia threatens to attack UK factories for supporting Ukraine” – A senior Putin adviser has warned that Russia views the UK as “evil number one” and is preparing a more aggressive response to British support for Ukraine, according to the Mail.
• “Russia threatens to attack British factories” – Russia has threatened strikes on British factories after the UK supplied Ukraine with the blueprints to manufacture its own Storm Shadow missiles, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump’s CIA chief makes surprise trip to Moscow for secret meeting” – A US Air Force transport jet made a highly unusual landing in Moscow yesterday, sparking intense speculation about the nature of the CIA director’s clandestine visit, reveals the Mail.
• “PM admits tax hikes could be on table amid strain on public finances” – Andy Burnham has conceded the country faces a “challenging position” as he shelves plans to place Thames Water into administration because of the eye-watering costs involved, notes the Mail.
• “‘Boycott’ fears as Burnham plans to sanction Israeli settlements” – Andy Burnham is poised to announce “robust” new sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank despite warnings the move could spiral into a wider boycott, says the Times.
• “Muslim gangs force white prisoners to convert to Islam” – One in five Muslim prisoners in UK jails is Caucasian – nearly four times the general rate – as Muslim gangs are reportedly coercing white inmates into converting to Islam, according to the Telegraph.
• “Cambridge’s Farah Ahmed: study engineering ‘to produce weaponry for Jihad’” – In the Spectator, Andrew Gilligan reveals that Cambridge’s education faculty hired an academic who wrote that Muslims should study engineering “to produce weaponry for Jihad”.
• “Labour opens door to banning cousin marriage” – The Ministry of Justice has acknowledged it is considering whether to back legislation banning first cousin marriage in the UK, reports the Telegraph.
• “Migrant boat smashes into swimmer, 17, in sea, breaking multiple bones” – Footage appears to show a migrant vessel striking a 17-year-old swimmer off an Italian beach and continuing towards the coast without stopping to help the injured teenager, notes the Mail.
• “I tricked my way on board a migrant boat. This is what I saw” – In the Telegraph, Christian Drogan reports on his undercover journey aboard a migrant dinghy crossing from France to the UK.
• “Inside the asylum centre ‘holiday camp’ at a former RAF base in Essex” – A visit to the Wethersfield asylum centre finds 800 residents enjoying luxury sports facilities and wanting for practically nothing, says the Mail.
• “Locals fear wildfires caused by residents of South Downs ‘shanty town’” – The Soberton caravan site in the South Downs has been illegally occupied for more than a decade, with locals warning that residents repeatedly burning rubbish inside the tinder-dry national park poses a serious wildfire risk, according to the Mail.
• “Councillor short of money set up fake heritage group, court hears” – Jason Zadrozny, 46, an independent Nottinghamshire councillor, allegedly named himself chairman of the fabricated Ashfield Heritage Society and then applied for grants for ‘good causes’ before withdrawing the funds in cash, reveals the Mail.
• “Britain’s bloated university system is a drain on the economy” – A swollen university sector saddling graduates with crippling debt that squeezes their disposable income for years is doing more harm than good to Britain’s finances, notes the Telegraph.
• “The returns to expanding higher education could be even worse than we thought” – The financial returns from expanding higher education may be even worse than a damning IFS report suggests, writes Neil O’Brien on his Substack.
• “Landlords are trying to offload flats: why is nobody buying them?” – The property market is awash with landlords desperate to sell flats amid falling profits and stricter regulations, yet buyers are nowhere to be found, reports the Mail.
• “Trump ‘giving serious consideration’ to renaming Lake Ontario” – Donald Trump has raised the prospect of renaming Lake Ontario as Washington imposes 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after trade talks collapse, according to the Mail.
• “Civil war on the French Left is undermining its chances against Le Pen” – With polls suggesting 2027 could be Marine Le Pen’s moment, bitter infighting on the French Left is eroding its ability to mount a credible challenge, reports the Telegraph.
• “Birmingham moves to become England’s first 20mph city” – In what was once known as Britain’s ‘motor city’, Birmingham is pursuing plans to impose 20mph limits on all roads, says the Telegraph.
• “Heat-related deaths” – Medical journals are serving up a predetermined and misleading narrative on heat-related deaths, writes John Ridgeway in Climate Scepticism.
• “EDF: Net Zero fuelling rise in energy bills” – A new EDF report says household energy bills will rise by nearly £130 by the end of the decade as the mounting costs of the Government’s Net Zero policies take hold, according to the Telegraph.
• “Pursuit of Net Zero has failed to cut British energy bills” – A damning new report from Cornwall Insight finds that Britain’s rush to Net Zero has left large manufacturers paying around four times more for energy than their international competitors, reveals the Times.
• “Britain’s homes are cracking under the strain of hotter summers” – With subsidence claims surging past 10,000 in a single summer, Britain’s housing stock is increasingly vulnerable to the structural damage wrought by prolonged heatwaves, reports the Telegraph.
• “International study links bird deaths to Chinese solar panels” – A new international study finds that China’s breakneck expansion of solar panel infrastructure has damaged local ecosystems and caused a significant decline in bird populations, says Breitbart.
• “Why climate sceptics are winning” – In the Spectator, Philip Patrick argues that the climate debate is fatally compromised by institutional bias and data so unreliable it has handed sceptics the upper hand.
• “Wrong, Deutsche Welle, there is no such thing as a “super El Niño,” nor is it on team climate” – Anthony Watts dismantles Deutsche Welle’s claim that a developing “Super El Niño” is exacerbating climate change to make 2026 one of the hottest years on record, writes Anthony Watts in ClimateRealism.
• “Newsnight ‘could be axed’ as BBC bosses battle to save £500 million” – After more than 40 years on air, staff at Newsnight fear the flagship programme could be shut down by the end of next year as the corporation shifts focus to its streaming service, says the Mail.
• “Harry Potter reboot struggles to keep the magic alive” – Beset by death threats and high-profile drop-outs – including Nicholas Hoult, who has now left his role as Gilderoy Lockhart – the troubled HBO Harry Potter reboot faces fresh questions about whether it can survive, according to the Mail.
• “Candace Owens joines the Scooby Gang!” – Amusing AI creation of a clip from the finale of a Scooby Doo episode in which Candace Owen joins the cast.

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