News Round-Up

• “Border Force fails to intercept small boat” – The Home Office has launched an investigation after five migrants landed undetected on a Kent beach, reports the Sun.
• “Calais charity helps migrants posing as children to claim asylum” – A British asylum charity repeatedly tried to persuade judges that lying adult migrants were children, according to a Telegraph investigation.
• “Rayner’s office investigates deleted Islamophobia definition evidence” – A top civil servant has ordered a review of his department’s decision to destroy evidence submitted to devise a new Islamophobia definition, reports the Telegraph.
• “Muslim police group ‘undermining impartiality’ with pro-Palestine views” – A Muslim police association has been accused of undermining the service’s impartiality by espousing pro-Palestine views, says GB News.
• “Greens urged to back ‘Zionism is racism’ as party policy” – Activists leading the party sub-group Greens for Palestine have tabled a motion to declare Zionism a form of racism as official Green Party policy, reports the Times.
• “Green council moves to ban Union flags on lamp posts” – Bristol City Council is reportedly planning to outlaw residents from hanging flags from lamp posts on the grounds that they “can be a source of concern or division”, notes the Mail.
• “Nadiya Hussain shares video accusing Ed Sheeran of ‘white tears’” – The Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain has accused Ed Sheeran of shedding “white tears” and making himself “the victim” following his grovelling apology over the Palestine row which has engulfed his US tour, reports the Mail.
• “Why is the BBC taking sides in the Ed Sheeran Gaza row?” – The BBC’s selective coverage of Ed Sheeran’s statement on Gaza left out some pretty important context, revealing whose side the corporation is really on, notes Stephen Pollard in the Spectator.
• “Just one in five new London homes sold to British buyers” – Developers are increasingly offloading new London properties to investment funds rather than domestic buyers, with British purchasers accounting for just one in five sales, reports the Telegraph.
• “One in four London houses could be caught by mansion tax” – One in four detached homes in London will be caught by the mansion tax as Labour considers lowering the threshold to £1.5 million, according to the Telegraph.
• “Former teacher takes charge of Reform Wales” – In the Spectator, Steerpike profiles former English teacher Helen Jenner, Reform’s new leader in Wales and leader of the opposition in the Senedd.
• “The clichés at Lib Dem conference give you early-onset rigor mortis” – In the Mail, Quentin Letts slams the Lib Dem conference in Brighton as a masterclass in platitude.
• “Air traffic control is in perma-crisis. Here’s why” – With NATS’ infrastructure outdated and a chronic shortfall in staff compounding the problem, Britain’s air traffic control system faces a deepening crisis with no easy fix in sight, writes Christopher Jasper in the Telegraph.
• “Trump to challenge Burnham over defence spending” – Donald Trump is set to press Andy Burnham on the UK’s defence spending commitments when the two meet for the first time in New York on Tuesday, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump declares oil crisis in extraordinary admission” – Donald Trump says Russia has “lost control” of its diesel industry after a Ukrainian blitz, according to the Mail.
• “All major TV networks end Trump on-camera coverage amid CNN ban” – The major US broadcasters are refusing to televise Trump’s visit to the UN General Assembly, banding together to boycott his ban on CNN and MSNBC, says the Mail.
• “Fury as Labour refuses to say when NHS will apply law on single sex spaces” – Eighteen months after the Supreme Court ruled on biological sex, ministers are continuing to drag their feet over NHS guidance on single-sex spaces, writes Giles Sheldrick in the Express.
• “Granit Xhaka confesses to Covid vaccine certificate fraud” – Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka has been axed from the Switzerland squad and faces the prospect of jail after admitting he used a fake Covid vaccination certificate in 2022, reports the Mail.
• “The long shadow of ‘Long Covid’” – With no biomarkers, no clear definition and a 30-strong list of symptoms, Dr Roger Watson asks on the Right Times Substack why Long Covid still gets taken so seriously.
• “The Kennedy exception” – On his Substack, Dr Robert W. Malone questions whether loyalty has replaced scrutiny now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heads US Health and Human Services.
• “Boys behave differently to girls within hours of birth, Cambridge study finds” – Cambridge scientists have found that infant girls show a natural preference for faces within hours of birth while boys do not, adding fresh evidence to the debate over innate sex differences, reports the Telegraph.
• “Meta launches legal challenge against UK media regulator over Online Safety Act” – Meta has launched a legal challenge against Ofcom over the Online Safety Act, as social media companies face accusations of using the courts to slow down the law’s implementation, says the Guardian.
• “Sir Nick Clegg in line for up to £30 million from AI deal” – Sir Nick Clegg stands to pocket as much as £30 million from the Wall Street flotation of an AI company he joined just six months ago, reports the Telegraph.
• “Don’t slow down on AI” – Sir Tony Blair has urged governments not to slow down on AI despite acknowledging significant risks ranging from cyber attacks to biological threats, says the Telegraph.
• “North Sea has lost 25,000 jobs under Labour: industry chiefs demand windfall tax is scrapped” – A North Sea Transition Taskforce report warns that the windfall tax must be scrapped immediately to prevent a “disorderly decline” in an industry that has already shed 25,000 jobs under Labour, according to This is Money.
• “Real-world data do not show droughts getting worse globally – scientists invented a ‘rubbish’ measure that does” – Researchers only created an assumptions-dependent drought index after rainfall measurements failed to show any worsening trend, then applied it retrospectively to historical data, reveals Michael Shellenberger on the Public Substack.
• “Bloomberg-backed climate group shuts down after years of funding state AG lawyers” – A Bloomberg-backed climate group has quietly closed its doors after years of placing paid lawyers inside state attorney general offices to pursue litigation against energy companies, reports Thomas Catenacci in the Free Beacon.
• “Al Gore is still sounding the climate alarm and the ‘moral case’ of fighting it – warns of ‘the immorality of inaction’ and concedes Trump has ushered in ‘dark times’ for activists” – Al Gore is headlining an event called “The Immorality of Inaction”, insisting that “the moral case is the central case” for climate action, according to Climate Depot.
• “UN panic: what if President Trump vetoes all the globalist climate warrior Secretary General candidates?” – With the UN’s favoured Secretary General candidates failing to impress Team Trump, a potential compromise candidate who might satisfy all sides is now being floated, writes Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That?
• “China will dominate global nuclear energy through 2035, analyst says” – China is on course to overtake the US in nuclear power, while its new IAEA deal to share reactor technology marks a striking shift from secrecy to cooperation, says Haley Zaremba in OilPrice.com.
• “Trans sex offender who raped young girl nine times jailed for 20 years” – A trans rapist who identifies as a woman and groomed and abused a vulnerable young girl has been jailed for more than 20 years, reports the Mail.
• “The Lib Dems’ trans madness is a symptom of the Left’s cowardice” – Only the Conservatives and Reform can be relied upon to uphold women’s rights, says Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “Meryl Streep sparks backlash after being cast as Aslan in Narnia film” – Christian critics are furiously condemning the casting of Meryl Streep as Aslan in the forthcoming Narnia film, slamming the decision as a “woke” gender swap, reports the Mail.
• “Why Meryl Streep shouldn’t voice Aslan” – In the Spectator, Thomas Casemore argues that casting Meryl Streep as the voice of Aslan betrays the profound spiritual significance that C.S. Lewis’s lion holds for generations of Christian readers.
• “J.R.R. Tolkien to have memorial in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey” – An ornate wooden artwork depicting Tolkien’s “tree of tales” is to be installed in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, beside the memorial to his friend C.S. Lewis.
• “Tripadvisor not selling horse racing tickets another victory for the woke brigade” – Tripadvisor’s ban on selling tickets to horse racing meetings on the grounds that the sport fails to meet its animal-welfare policy is poorly thought-through and – when viewed alongside its other offerings – wildly inconsistent, says Charlie Brooks in the Telegraph.
• “Earl Spencer’s attacks on the King are deplorable and irrelevant” – In the Telegraph, Charles Moore slams Earl Spencer’s attacks on the King as divisive and disloyal.
• “Guardian offices infested with bedbugs” – A bedbug outbreak at the Guardian‘s offices is adding an unwelcome new front to the newspaper’s already fraught battle with staff over working from home, reports GB News.
• “Unlike all of the content on Drag Race, these sketches are actually funny” – A Mitchell and Webb sketch taking the mickey out of makeover shows, in which a burka-clad contestant later reveals they’re in blackface, is one of 11 sketches the BBC has pulled from That Mitchell and Webb Look on iPlayer.

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