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.

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© 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 The claim of a link stems from an unethical, fraudulent study that was retracted years ago, and its author was stripped of his medical license.

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The president’s push for data centers is driving a boom in gas-burning power plants. Texas is leading the way.

© The New York Times

It was the fifth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to drop offshore wind projects.

It was the fifth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to drop offshore wind projects.

© Joshua A. Bickel/Associated Press

The administration will impose a minimum import price for polysilicon, a key component for semiconductors and solar panels, as well as tariffs for products made with the material.

© Christian Monterrosa for The New York Times

Since April, the Defense Department has halted all military reviews for wind projects, stalling dozens of projects nationwide.

Since April, the Defense Department has halted all military reviews for wind projects, stalling dozens of projects nationwide.

© Nick Oxford/Reuters

A die-off of seabirds has some experts thinking an El Niño weather pattern is to blame, a look at data centers and pollution, and more climate news.

© 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.

The voluntary review process will cover closed-source artificial intelligence models, but exclude those that publish the underlying code.