Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: Albanian Parliamentary Elections
Election Date: 11/05/2025
Albania will hold its parliamentary elections on 11 May 2025 to elect 140 MPs through a regional proportional representation system using the d'Hondt method, with recent amendments introducing diaspora voting via the PER app and updated rules on gender representation and candidate lists. The ruling Socialist Party (PS) currently holds a majority with 74 seats, while the main opposition, the PD–AN alliance, holds 59, and the electoral campaign unfolds amid constitutional reforms and debates over electoral standards.
#Politics
Lead Stories
False: Trump says he will "erase Pakistan" if it attacks India.
The video in which he says this uses old footage of Trump from before he was President and added an AI-generated audio track. In the fake audio Trump can also be heard saying he will "warn China" and that he loves "Indian people".
PolitiFact
False: Video shows Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saying effective June 1, “all vehicles manufactured before 2000 will be gradually phased off Canadian roads due to safety and emissions standards.”
A TikTok video falsely claimed that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a plan to phase out cars made before 2000 starting June 1, but the audio was AI-generated and no such policy exists. Canada's actual plan targets banning new gas and diesel vehicle sales by 2035, not existing cars.
#Economy
Lead Stories
False: U.S. gas prices drop below $1.98 a gallon as President Trump claimed in a May 2, 2025 Truth Social post.
The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.18 on May 2, 2025, according to the AAA survey. The cheapest gas was in Mississippi, where the average price for regular unleaded was $2.66 a gallon, the AAA survey said. The national average was $0.49 lower than on the same date a year earlier when a gallon cost $3.67.
PolitiFact
Half-True: “It's estimated” that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will mean “American families would have to pay about $4,000 more a year.”
Four of five independent groups with varying political ideologies estimated that the average per-household loss from President Donald Trump’s tariffs will range from $3,100 a year to $4,900 a year. The fifth group estimated a $1,243 loss. Calculating tariffs’ impact requires guesswork even in the most straightforward cases; the five estimates’ variations stem from different assumptions about how the tariffs will be absorbed into the economy. Making projections is complicated by Trump’s starting and stopping of certain tariffs, so these estimates could change.
#Healthcare
Reuters
False: Cleveland Clinic posted COVID vaccine survival rates.
A false claim circulating online misrepresented a Cleveland Clinic webpage to suggest that millions of COVID-19 vaccine recipients would die within five years, citing a misinterpreted statistic about myocarditis survival rates. The Cleveland Clinic confirmed it never made such a statement and clarified that COVID-19 infection poses a greater risk for myocarditis than vaccination, with rare and generally mild cases reported post-vaccination.
Full Fact
Mostly False: Under Reform UK, a GP visit could cost £129, an MRI scan £457, an A&E visit £1,368, an appendix removal £10,958 and coronary bypass surgery £71,997.
These are hypothetical figures produced by Labour—Reform UK has said it will keep the NHS free at the point of delivery. Labour has based some of these figures on median costs for equivalent treatments in the US.
#Conflicts
AFP
False: The Indian Army attacked Saikot in Pakistan.
Arch-rivals India and Pakistan have traded gunfire along their border almost every night since gunmen killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22, 2025. But a video of people fleeing bombardment is unrelated to the attack and in fact shows Israeli air strikes near a hospital in Gaza in November 2023.
Newschecker
False: A government advisory urged Indian citizens near border areas to take safety precautions due to escalating India-Pakistan tensions.
This advisory is fake. It lacked an official source and date. A PIB Fact Check on May 6, 2025, confirmed the government issued no such notice and advised the public to rely only on official channels for accurate information.
India Today
False: This video shows the gates of India's Kishanganga Dam bursting after India tried stopping water flow towards Pakistan.
This video is from 2019 and shows a spillway failure at Lake Dunlap in the US. It has nothing to do with India and Pakistan.
AFP
False: Indian passenger plane shot down by Pakistan.
Days before India and Pakistan exchanged missile and artillery strikes in a major escalation of hostilities, a video showing the aftermath of a May 2020 plane crash surfaced in posts falsely linking it to the current conflict. There have been no reports of either side downing a passenger jet, contrary to the false posts.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Sandt: 84 procent flere indvandrere fra muslimske lande kommer til Danmark end i 2019.
Det skriver Dansk Folkeparti i deres nyhedsbreve, i en spørgetime og i Facebook-opslag. Tallet er korrekt og kommer fra en beregning fra Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet. Men kigger man nærmere på tallene, skyldes udviklingen indvandrere, der kommer til Danmark for at arbejde eller studere, og en dokumentgennemgang viser, at det især er iranske sygeplejersker, der kommer til Danmark for at arbejde.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Outer Space 'Only an Hour Away' if You Could Drive Straight up at 60 MPH.
Outer space is just an hour's drive away if you could drive straight up at 60 MPH, referencing the commonly accepted Kármán Line at 62 miles above Earth. While there's no exact boundary between the atmosphere and space, NASA acknowledges this approximation as broadly true. Though physically impossible, the idea humorously illustrates how close space is in terms of distance, even if reaching it in a car isn't feasible.
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