Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: 2025 Canadian federal election
Election Date: 28/04/2025
The 2025 Canadian federal election, held on April 28, resulted in a fourth consecutive Liberal government—led by new Prime Minister Mark Carney—despite prior polling favoring the Conservatives. The campaign centered around economic issues and threats from the U.S. under Donald Trump, whose trade war and annexation rhetoric helped rally support for the Liberals. Notably, three party leaders lost their seats, and the election marked a sharp polarization in Canadian politics, with both major parties surpassing 40% of the popular vote while the NDP suffered historic losses.
#Politics
PolitiFact
Half-True: Trump denied North Carolina’s request for FEMA relief from Hurricane Helene.
Federal Emergency Management Agency did reject a request from North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein. Stein asked for FEMA to continue paying for 100% of certain recovery costs. FEMA rejected that request, but will continue paying for 90% of those costs.
AFP
False: Canadian elections workers are taking votes home without safeguards.
A claim circulating online states that as Canadians hit the polls, a video shows elections workers driving ballot boxes full of votes home without proper safeguards. This is false; Elections Canada said the cartons the workers were carrying in the recording did not contain marked votes, but were instead being used to transport the materials needed to set up polling stations. A strict chain-of-custody procedure governs the handling of completed ballots, which are kept in boxes closed with an official signed seal to prevent tampering.
PolitiFact
False: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia “had ‘MS-13’ on his knuckles tattooed.
The figures M, S, 1 and 3 and words below the symbols don’t appear in other photographs of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s hand, including one shared by the Salvadoran government. Experts in MS-13 and other gangs say the pictorial tattoos shown are not typical designs for MS-13 or other gangs.
Snopes
True: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used a private jet to travel between Bakersfield and Sacramento, California, during their "Fighting Oligarchy tour."
Neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez own private jets — they chartered flights on a private jet. There were no commercial flights between Bakersfield and Sacramento, California, where the two held two separate rallies on the same day. Driving that distance would have taken around five hours, meaning the logistics would have been nigh-impossible to manage without taking a charter flight.
#Economy
PolitiFact
False: “We had a couple of states where gasoline was at $1.98 a gallon.”
The lowest statewide price during the week President Donald Trump made this remark was $2.66 per gallon, and the national average was about $3.14.April 23 data from GasBuddy.com showed that no gas station out of roughly 150,000 nationally sold gasoline for $1.98 per gallon. While Trump also said his policies are responsible for lowering gasoline prices nationally, there is no evidence of a significant uptick in drilling or production. Analysts credit a gasoline price drop during the past two weeks to an oil production increase by other countries, and concerns about Trump’s policies hurting the U.S. global and economic outlook.
#Healthcare
Full Fact
False: Reform UK wants to scrap the NHS and replace it with private health insurance.
Reform UK has said it is committed to keeping the NHS free at the point of delivery and will “never” charge for its use. Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage has repeatedly suggested he is open to re-examining the NHS’s funding model, however.
Reuters
False: Cleveland Clinic: Millions of Covid-Vaxxed Will Die Within '5 Years.
False claims circulated online that the Cleveland Clinic warned millions vaccinated for COVID-19 would die within five years, based on a misrepresented statistic about myocarditis survival rates. In reality, the Clinic never made such a statement, and experts clarified that the risk of myocarditis is higher from COVID-19 itself than from the vaccine.
#Conflicts
Africa Check
False: South African soldiers in DRC are pawning their weapons in 'Guns-for-Busfare Initiative'
A message claiming that South African soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been instructed to pawn their weapons to pay for their passage home is doing the rounds on social media. But the message was originally clearly posted as satire. It has since been republished without this context, as though it were an actual news story.
Snopes
False: A recently declassified CIA document confirms that after Soviet troops shot down a UFO in 1987, the aliens turned 23 soldiers into stone.
In April 2025, a viral social media claim falsely alleged that a declassified CIA document confirmed aliens turned 23 Soviet soldiers to stone after a 1987 UFO encounter; the story gained traction across platforms and was even discussed by public figures and news outlets. However, the document in question was merely a translation of a fictional article from the tabloid Weekly World News, and was never an official, classified CIA report.
Newschecker
False: Photos show a distraught Himanshi Narwal near the body of her Navy officer husband, Vinay Narwal, who was killed by terrorists in Pahalgam.
The two viral photos were not found in any mainstream media coverage of the terror attack or the couple involved. The original widely shared image was distributed by the Press Trust of India through a local stringer in Srinagar, while the newer images appeared overly smooth and painting-like, suggesting they may have been AI-generated.
#Nordics
Faktisk
Sant: Oslos vann fra springen inneholder skadelige kjemikalier fra skismøring som ikke fjernes skikkelig under rengjøring.
Drikkevannet i Oslo gjennomgår strenge tester, overvåkes ukentlig og oppfyller alle krav i drikkevannsforskriften. Det er trygt å drikke, og det er ikke nødvendig med vannfilter. PFAS kan forekomme i drikkevannet, men nivåene ligger langt under grenseverdiene.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: A Mickey Mouse gas mask was produced during World War II.
A widely shared claim that Mickey Mouse gas masks were made for children during World War II is true; around 1,000 were produced by the Sun Rubber Co., with Walt Disney contributing to their design. Intended to make gas masks less frightening for children, these masks were not widely used but did exist on the home front.
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