News Round-Up: UK Paedophiles Evade Prison While Online Comments Lead to Lengthy Sentences, Arctic Sea Ice Stable for Decades, and US Targets EU’s DSA

Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.

Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:

• UK: jailed for an online comment while the rapist, paedophiles and terror offender spared prison.

• No decline in Arctic sea ice since 2005.

• US targets EU’s Digital Services Act to finalise trade deal.

• COVID-19 vaccine recipients more likely to suffer respiratory illness: study.

• Germany sends male convict posing as a woman to women’s prison.

UK: jailed for an online comment while the rapist, paedophiles and terror offender spared prison

Lucy Connolly, 42, a former childminder, who was jailed for 31 months for a post on X was released last week. Connolly was arrested in August 2024 following the Southport killings. To recall, on July 29, 2024, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, a son of Rwandan immigrants born in Wales, murdered three girls, aged 6, 7 and 9, at a children's dance studio in Southport and stabbed other participants, several of whom were taken to hospital with serious injuries. The tragedy triggered protests against mass immigration and even riots in the streets. Some rioters gathered around hotels housing asylum seekers, with photographs showing clashes between crowds and riot police, destruction of hotel property, and a rubbish container set on fire.

While some took to the streets, many Brits expressed their frustration online, including Connolly, a mother of a 12-year-old daughter. On her X account, she called for the immediate mass deportation of immigrants, adding that the “treacherous” government and politicians should be deported with them. In her post, she also stated that if all hotels housing asylum seekers were set on fire, she would not care. “I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me a racist, so be it,” she wrote, referring to the families who lost their children in Southport. She deleted the post less than four hours later, but not before it had been viewed 310,000 times. She was swiftly arrested, tried, and sentenced to 31 months in prison, serving over 300 days before her release.

After her release, she shared a detailed account of her ordeal in an interview with The Telegraph:

In a separate article, The Telegraph points out, serious criminals received lighter sentences during the same period, including a rapist, a terror offender, a domestic abuser, and paedophiles. Here is a list of examples provided by The Telegraph:

Huw Edwards: The BBC newsreader admitted to accessing indecent images of children. He paid a paedophile, from whom he received 41 illegal images of child sex abuse, and requested more images even after being told the individuals in the pictures “looked young.” He received a six-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Jac Davies: Received child abuse images from the same source as Edwards and argued he should receive similar treatment. He was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Rees Newman: A convicted child rapist avoided jail in 2023 due to prison overcrowding.

Daniel Ashbrook: Found to have been mentally, physically, and emotionally abusive to a woman over three years, he was given a 21-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Mansoor Khan: A former top NHS consultant and father of four was found with over 100 “abhorrent and perverted” images of children on his phone. In 2023, he was spared jail and received an eight-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Nikhil Chopra: Pleaded guilty to sexual assault and indecent exposure and was given an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Charles Cannon: Convicted in 2024 of seven charges of possessing terrorist information, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years.

No decline in Arctic sea ice since 2005

The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed down dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005, The Guardian reports.

The publication notes that this finding surprises researchers, given that carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning have continued to rise and trap ever more heat over that time. The researchers said natural variations in ocean currents that limit ice melting had probably balanced out the continuing rise in global temperatures.

They said this was only a temporary reprieve and melting was highly likely to start again at about double the long-term rate at some point in the next five to ten years.

The findings do not mean Arctic sea ice is rebounding, according to the article. The extent of September sea ice, which is when it reaches its annual minimum, has halved since 1979, when satellite measurements began. The climate crisis remains “unequivocally real”, the scientists said, and the need for urgent action to avoid the worst impacts remains unchanged.

This does not seem to be entirely accurate. Tony Heller points out on X that Arctic sea ice has increased 22% over the past 13 years:

The natural variation causing the slowdown is probably the multi-decadal fluctuations in currents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which change the amount of warmer water flowing into the Arctic. The Arctic is still expected to see ice-free conditions later in the century, harming people and wildlife in the region and boosting global heating by exposing the dark, heat-absorbing ocean.

Just as a reminder, the climate alarmist circles have long anticipated an ice-free Arctic summer. It was a popular talking point some 15 years ago. In 2009, the then-US Senator John Kerry, who later became Secretary of State and served as a Special Presidential Envoy for Climate under Joe Biden, made the claim that the melting ice would lead to the first ice-free Arctic summer in 2014.

US targets EU’s Digital Services Act to finalise trade deal

The European Union is trying to prevent the United States from targeting the bloc's digital rules as both sides work through the final details of a delayed statement to formalise a trade deal reached last month, The Financial Times reported last Sunday, Reuters reports.

EU officials said disagreements over language relating to "non-tariff barriers", which the U.S. said include the digital rules, are among the reasons for the hold-up of the statement, the newspaper said.

The statement had originally been expected days after the July announcement by the EU President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Donald Trump, according to FT.

The July deal imposed a 15% import tariff on most EU goods – half the initially threatened rate – and helped avert a broader trade war between the two allies, who together account for nearly a third of global trade.

The U.S. wanted to keep the door open for possible concessions on the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies, according to FT, which added that the commission has said that relaxing these rules is a red line.

The EU's DSA is a landmark law meant to make the online environment safer and fairer by compelling tech giants to do more to tackle illegal content, including hate speech and child sexual abuse material.

The commission had anticipated that Trump would sign an executive order by August 15 to cut tariffs on EU car exports to the U.S. from 27.5% to 15%. However, a U.S. official signaled that this would be delayed until the joint statement was finalized, according to FT.

Study: COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients More Likely to Suffer Respiratory Illness

People who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine were found by researchers to have greater odds of suffering from respiratory illness, The Epoch Times writes.

Vaccinated people were more likely to have one or more episodes of influenza-like respiratory illness or experience fever and a respiratory symptom, such as cough or sore throat, researchers said in a study published on August 9 by Nature Communications Medicine.

Among unvaccinated participants, 33 percent suffered from one or more episodes of influenza-like illness. For people who had received one or two doses of the vaccine, it was 44 percent. For people who had received three doses, it was 45 percent, and for those who had received four doses, it was 42 percent.

Researchers also discovered that people who were unvaccinated or had received two or fewer doses were less likely to be absent from work for at least one day.

“We saw that those with more recent SARS-CoV-2 vaccination seemed to have a slightly increased risk for respiratory illness and workday loss,” Dr. Philipp Kohler of Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen’s Division of Infectious Diseases, Infection Prevention and Travel Medicine in Switzerland, told The Epoch Times via email.

Germany sends male convict posing as a woman to women’s prison

A German neo-Nazi will serve a prison sentence in a women’s jail after using a new government policy to change his gender, The Daily Mail reports. Sven Liebich, who now identifies as Marla-Svenja Liebich, will serve an 18-month sentence at Chemnitz women’s prison in Saxony.

In July 2023, the far-right extremist was sentenced for a series of offenses, including incitement to hatred, defamation, and insult. At the time, Liebich did not identify as a woman. However, by the end of 2024, Liebich had changed his gender entry in official records from male to female and adopted a new first name, in accordance with Germany’s Self-Determination Act. This act allows individuals to change their gender and first name through a declaration at a registry office, rather than requiring a judicial ruling. Liebich now appears in public wearing women’s clothing, but retains a mustache.