Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: Philippine House of Representatives elections
Election Date: 12/05/2025
The 2025 Philippine House of Representatives elections were held on May 12 as part of the general election, with all 317 seats contested, including 254 district and 63 party-list seats. Lakas-CMD remained the dominant party with 104 seats, while key changes included new districts from redistricting laws, the Makati and Taguig boundary ruling, and the creation of new municipalities in the Bangsamoro region.
#Politics
StopFake
False: Trump said hersuaded Putin not to strike Kyiv while western leaders were there.
A fabricated quote falsely claiming Donald Trump convinced Vladimir Putin not to shell Kyiv during a European leaders' visit is circulating via pro-Russian sources, but no credible evidence supports it. Trump made no such statement on Truth Social or in U.S. media, and instead criticized Putin on May 11, while European leaders in Kyiv issued a joint call for a 30-day ceasefire and threatened increased sanctions if Russia refused.
PolitiFact
False: Pope Leo XIV was a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland Autonomous Zone known as CHAZ.
A New York Times spokesperson told us the newspaper did not publish a headline that said, "Pope Leo XIV sas a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland autonomous zone known as CHAZ."The "autonomous zone" was not located in Portland, Oregon. In June 2020, protesters in Seattle established the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, also referred to as CHAZ.Searching the Nexis news database for "Pope LEO XIV" or "Robert Prevost" and "autonomous zone" returned no results.
Snopes
True: During a May 8, 2025, news conference, U.S. President Donald Trump called the toy company Mattel a country.
While it is true that Trump referred to Mattel as a country, he quickly said "his toys" — referring to Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz — would have to bear 100% duties, indicating he understood Mattel made toys. He also added, "I wouldn't want to have him as an executive too long," which suggested he may have known Mattel was a company.
#Economy
PolitiFact
True: China makes 80% of all toys and 90% of all Christmas goods sold in the U.S.
Data supports Charles Blow’s statement that roughly 80% of all toys and 90% of Christmas goods sold in the U.S. are manufactured in China.The U.S. International Trade Commission’s 2024 data showed 78.3% of all U.S. toy imports and 85% of Christmas-related imports came from China.Another data source, the Observatory of Economic Complexity, said of the United States’ $41 billion imports in toys, games and sports equipment in 2024, $30 billion or about 73.3% came from China.
PolitiFact
Half-True: Canadian tourism to Florida has declined by 80%.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st U.S. state. More than 3 million Canadian tourists visited Florida in 2024, representing about 2% of all tourist visits to Florida. So far in 2025, Canadian travel bookings to Florida airports are down. The estimated decrease varies depending on the information source.
#Healthcare
Snopes
True: Pope Francis donated a "popemobile," one of the vehicles the late pope used for transportation, to a Catholic relief organization to convert the vehicle into a mobile health unit for children in Gaza.
In May 2025, Pope Francis donated one of his popemobiles to Caritas to be converted into a mobile health clinic for children in Gaza, a move confirmed by Vatican News and supported by photos of the conversion process. While the clinic is fully equipped and staffed, its deployment depends on the reopening of the humanitarian corridor, as aid access to Gaza has been blocked since March 2, 2025.
Lead Stories
Mostly False: Florida study shows Pfizer COVID vaccine killed 470,000 Americans.
A draft research paper found only that those who got the Pfizer vaccine had a higher rate of death from all causes than did those who received the Moderna vaccine but it did not make comparisons with the unvaccinated. The research paper did not conclude that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine caused more deaths than it prevented and an expert said the 470,000 estimate amounted to "mathematical malpractice".
#Conflicts
Factly
False: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar apologised to the world for launching Operation Sindoor.
These viral videos, which claim to show Prime Minister Modi, Amit Shah, and Dr S. Jaishankar apologising to the world for launching Operation Sindoor, are deepfakes. They are AI-generated and have been circulated online to disseminate false information. It should be noted that these videos are primarily being shared by Pakistani and pro-Pakistani social media users.
Factly
False: Amid rising India–Pakistan tensions, ATMs across India will remain closed for 2–3 days due to a ransomware cyberattack by Pakistan.
The viral claim that ATMs across India would be shut down for 2–3 days due to a Pakistani ransomware attack is false. Both the Government of India and the State Bank of India confirmed in early May 2025 that all ATMs and digital services are fully operational, and the related hoax has circulated since at least 2016.
India Today
False: Indian troops waved a white flag at the Line of Control to retrieve the bodies of dead soldiers.
Following India's Operation Sindoor on May 7, Pakistani social media users shared old and misleading videos falsely claiming Indian soldiers waved white flags to retrieve bodies at the Line of Control. Fact-checks revealed the main video was from 2019 and showed Pakistani soldiers retrieving their dead under a white flag, while no credible evidence supports the claims of Indian surrender or white flag incidents in recent operations.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Vikings believed a goat whose udders produced an endless supply of beer waited for them in the afterlife.
A long-running online rumor claiming Vikings believed a goat in the afterlife produced endless beer is partly true but inaccurate in key details. Norse mythology describes a goat named Heiðrún who lives in Valhalla and produces an endless supply of mead, not beer, for fallen warriors. This myth appears in both the Poetic and Prose Eddas, and the image often shared with the claim comes from an 18th-century manuscript of the Prose Edda.
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