Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
Donald Trump has flown back to the US after his whirlwind visit to Scotland.
During his four-day trip, the US president promoted his two Scottish golf courses, met with John Swinney and Keir Starmer, and agreed a trade deal with the leader of the EU’s European commission.
There was significant coverage of his trip in the media and online, and several claims were made relating to Trump’s time in Scotland.
The US president’s trip was described as a private visit, and was intended to promote his golf courses in Scotland. While he did meet with politicians including the first minister and prime minister, it was not an official state visit.
This led to criticism online about how much the trip, which was primarily made to promote private business interests, would cost the US taxpayer, with claims online that the security and logistics bill for Trump’s visit would cost $10m (£7.6m).
The claims stem from an article by online media outlet HuffPost, published as the president arrived in Scotland, which analysed the cost of various parts of his trip.
Huffpost gave a “conservative estimate of $9.7m (£7.4m) for the five-day jaunt”. To get this figure, the website included “the hourly operating cost of Air Force One; the need to ferry Marine One helicopters and motorcade vehicles across the Atlantic aboard C-17 transports; (and) secret service overtime expenses” among other expenses.
However, it did not provide detailed breakdowns of its methodology.
The costs were estimated by looking at averages from a report by the US General Accounting Office, a non-partisan watchdog that analyses how public money is spent.
Its 2019 report looked at the cost of four visits president Trump made to his Mar-a-Lago holiday estate in 2017 during his first presidency.
Much of the cost is down to Air Force One, the private plane that the president travels on. The hourly cost of operating the aircraft has been estimated at between $177,843 and $273,063. Huffpost used the higher figure to estimate the cost of travelling from Washington DC to Scotland and back as a six hour and seven hour journey respectively, costing $3.8m. The $9.7m figure also included the use of a second plane for presidential and security staff.
However, it is an estimate based on previous costs reported, and doesn’t account for inflation, which increases costs. It does reveal the actual bill from the 2017 trip, and is instead intended to be illustrative of the potential cost of a visit to Scotland for this length of time. The White House has not revealed the actual cost of the visit, and did not respond to queries from Ferret Fact Service.
During the US president’s visit, he played a round of golf at his Trump Turnberry course on the west coast of Scotland. A video was widely-shared online purporting to show Trump cheating during his round, with a ball dropped by one of two men who were acting as caddies.
The video shows the president driving up to a section of the course near a bunker, with the two caddies walking ahead of him. Trump then gets out of the golf buggy, and one of the other men appears to drop a ball behind him from his left hand onto the course.
The video appears to be legitimate, taken by an onlooker as Trump played a round of golf on Sunday 27 July. Other images published by Getty and videos on YouTube by Associated Press show Trump playing the same course on the same day.
It’s not likely that Trump was playing a competitive round, but the way the ball was dropped would violate the rules of the game.
The rules of golf in the UK are set out primarily by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews (R&A), which provides a rule book, periodically updated. Its American equivalent is the US Golf Association (USGA).
What Trump’s caddy appears to be doing is what’s called a ‘drop’ in golf. This is when a player’s ball is either unplayable, such as if it’s out of bounds or in a penalty area like a pond or river. The player then takes a ‘drop’, where they are required under R&A rules to drop the ball from knee height onto the ground, usually in line with where their ball entered an unplayable area.
While we don’t know where Trump’s original ball ended up, Trump’s caddy appears to throw the ball without attempting to discern the correct drop zone, and R&A and USGA rules say the ball must be dropped by the player themself. The USGA rules state: “Your caddie is not allowed to drop your ball”.
President Trump was able to meet with Keir Starmer, John Swinney and Ursula von der Leyen, leader of the EU’s European commission during his visit.
Supporters of the president were quick to highlight the value of those meetings, with social media posts claiming the trip to Scotland secured a “$1tn” in trade deals for the US.
The most significant agreement was made between the US and the EU, with the two sides committing to a 15 per cent tariff on most EU goods entering the US. Trump had previously threatened to impose a 30 per cent rate.
As part of the deal, EU countries will procure US liquified natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy products valued at $750bn, and the European Commission said that companies in the EU “have expressed interest in investing at least $600bn” into various sectors in the US by 2029.
This would be a combined value of more $1.35tn (£1tn), although it has yet to be delivered.
The deal is not legally binding, but is a political agreement that the two sides will continue to negotiate the details of.
The latest figures for 2024 show the US bought $235.6bn more from the EU than it sold to the bloc, a significant trade deficit that the US president’s tariffs are attempting to reduce.
Main image: President Donald Trump participates in the grand opening ceremony of Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen, Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Credit: Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok.
Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
Footage of farmed trout suffocating, haemorrhaging, and being beaten with batons in a slaughterhouse has prompted an official complaint to a government regulator.
