President Trump signed an executive order Monday that makes sweeping, unilateral changes to federal vaccine recommendations. The order aims to reduce the number of lifesaving vaccines all children are recommended to get—from 18 to 11—while also splitting them up and spacing them out over more time and more medical visits.
The vaccine changes are not backed by evidence or spurred by new findings. Rather, they are based on false anti-vaccine fearmongering about harms, including the debunked claim that they cause autism, and misinformation that multiple vaccinations can "overwhelm" children's immune systems. This false claim has also been repeatedly debunked and explained.
During a signing event at the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump falsely claimed that pediatricians "have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda," that is "poured into a little child's body, and bad things happen in too many cases. This is an explosion; this is an epidemic," Trump said.
© Getty | Bonnie Cash
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
In April, Gil Durán was permanently banned from Elon Musk’s X for posting just two words. Durán was responding to a post from the tech company Palantir outlining its 22‑point “technological manifesto”, which praised American “hard power”, western culture and AI weapons, denounced inclusivity and called for compulsory national service. Durán responded: “TLDR: Fascism” (TLDR is short for “too long, didn’t read”).
Durán didn’t break any of X’s written rules, he points out over a video call from San Francisco – so much for Musk’s “free-speech absolutism”. His ban might just have had something to do with his preceding tweet, showing the cover of his new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. The book’s central argument is that big tech is no longer our friend, as many of its billionaire owners have seized economic and political control and are steering the fate of the planet towards their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions.
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© Photograph: Winni Wintermeyer/The Guardian
© Photograph: Winni Wintermeyer/The Guardian
© Photograph: Winni Wintermeyer/The Guardian
Lord Sumption was a hero during Covid, standing up against the pandemic tyranny. But his recent attempt to paint Donald Trump as a despot of totalitarian bent couldn't be wider of the mark, says Professor James Allan.
The post Lord Sumption is Wrong: Trump is No Despot appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
It won't come as a surprise that Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) didn't save taxpayers nearly as much as it claimed. Analysis from outside the government showed savings claims were heavily inflated, and now the government's own watchdog has said it wasn't able to confirm savings claims made in DOGE's so-called "Wall of Receipts."
For example, DOGE reported savings of $49.2 billion from cutting grants, but almost none of it could be verified, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in its report yesterday. The GAO is the auditing and investigating arm of Congress and issued the DOGE report in response to a June 2025 request from Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
"The Wall of Receipts did not provide sufficient information to verify the method DOGE used to calculate savings, or what the savings consisted of, for 13,553 of the 15,887 grants it reported as terminated. This corresponds to about 96 percent of the DOGE-reported grant savings," the GAO report said.
© Getty Images | Samuel Corum
The White House is drafting an executive order on the disproven link between vaccines and autism, according to independent reports from The Washington Post and Bloomberg, which both cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the efforts.
Bloomberg reported that the executive order, which is still taking shape and is subject to change, could be issued as soon as next week. The Post said the order's drafting so far is aimed at the childhood vaccine schedule, autism research, and parental choice for vaccinations.
Dozens of high-quality studies encompassing data from millions of children worldwide have already been carried out on the topic and have consistently found no link between childhood vaccines and autism. The claim of a link stems from an unethical, fraudulent study that was retracted years ago, and its author was stripped of his medical license.
© Getty | Tom Brenner
© The New York Times
© Joshua A. Bickel/Associated Press
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© Nick Oxford/Reuters
© American Bird Conservancy
President Trump went on another rambling tangent about electric cars at a Las Vegas rally Wednesday night, telling the crowd he “ended the electric mandate” and mocking EV owners for worrying about range – claiming they have a “disease.”
Out of the entire unhinged rant, Trump did say one accurate thing: the EV take rate in the US is roughly 7%. The problem is that he said it proudly while the rest of the world is rapidly moving to electric transport.
© Allison Joyce/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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