Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: 2025 Czech parliamentary election
Election Date: 03/10/2025
The Czech Republic holds parliamentary elections on October 3-4, with billionaire populist Andrej Babiš's ANO party leading polls at 30%. They are positioned to potentially form a government that could clash with the EU on migration, climate policy, and Ukraine support. No party is expected to win a majority, and forming a stable coalition will be challenging given that mainstream parties refuse to work with ANO while any ANO-led government would likely require support from far-right or far-left parties.
#TrumpCheck
Agence France-Presse - AFP
False: Trump claims Amish communities 'have essentially no autism'.
US President Donald Trump falsely claimed Amish people living in the United States "have essentially no autism" during a White House announcement billed as offering findings on causes and treatments for the neurological and developmental disorder. Experts said he is misguided; autism does exist in the traditionalist Christian communities, which are known for rejecting modern technologies.
Newschecker
False: Google CEO Sundar Pichai confronted US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum (WEF) summit.
According to social media sharing, Trump allegedly belittled India on the global stage, triggering a “bold response” from Pichai. The post is fake however. There is no record of any such exchange between Trump, Pichai, and Jaishankar at WEF.
Agence France-Presse - AFP
Mostly False: Trump urges Kenya to shut borders & expel foreigners in UN address.
Somalian football fans sparked outrage for desecrating the Kenyan national flag after their club lost a Champions League preliminary match in Nairobi in September 2025. Following the incident, a TikTok video claimed that US President Donald Trump had urged Kenya to close its borders and expel foreigners, in his address to the UN General Assembly. But the clip is misleading: it combines remarks by Trump on migration with clips of fans abusing the Kenyan flag and screenshots of crime reports involving Somali nationals in Kenya. Trump did not mention Kenya or the football incident in his UN speech.
#Politics
PolitiFact
Mostly-True: If the US government shuts down, members of Congress still get paid. Staff like janitors never get paid.
Members of Congress continue to get paid during a government shutdown. They are not subject to furlough. Federal law says employees will receive back pay after being furloughed during a shutdown. The law is silent on back pay for contractors, which includes companies that hire janitors. In 2023, some Senate Democrats proposed a bill to pay federal contractors back pay, but it did not advance.
Factly
False: The Supreme Court of India has banned PM Modi from contesting in elections for six years after declaring his degree fake.
The Supreme Court has not issued such orders in recent times. In August 2025, the Delhi High Court set aside a 2016 order by the Central Information Commission (CIC) that had directed the Delhi University to disclose information about Narendra Modi’s bachelor’s degree.
Soft Media Hub LLP
True: There were massive protests and disruption in Italy after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni refused to recognize Palestine.
The claim is true. Key frames of the videos, news reports and timelines being referenced on social media confirms the claim is largely accurate. The video aligns with documented clashes during pro-Palestine protests in Milan on September 23, 2025.
#Healthcare
PolitiFact
Barely-True: "Republicans have effectively ended medical research in the United States of America."
President Donald Trump has already eliminated grants, capped indirect research funding and reduced employment at agencies involved in medical research. He’s also proposed aggressive medical research cuts at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies starting in 2026. If Trump gets his way on cutting NIH funding by 39%, the institutes would still be budgeted for more than $27 billion in fiscal year 2026. Appropriations committees in both the Senate and the House have already rejected Trump’s proposed cuts to medical research, voting for stable or slightly increased funding.
#Economy
PolitiFact
False: The U.S. currently has “no inflation.”
By two measures — the inflation rate and the Federal Reserve’s target for "price stability" — the statement is inaccurate. The inflation rate is not zero; it’s currently at 2.9% year over year. That’s higher than the Fed’s 2% "price stability" target. The inflation rate also has been rising for the past four months.
Lead Stories
False: All of India's telemarketers are threatening to go on strike permanently if President Trump places tariffs on country.
No media organizations reported that. The viral post that resurfaced at the end of September 2025 appeared as a joke online.
#Conflicts
StopFake
False: Ukrainian Armed Forces to Be Sent Abroad to attack Transnistria and the Kaliningrad region.
A screenshot of the bill «On sending units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to other states», registered on September 22, is being circulated online. Russians speculate that the proposal was made to attack Transnistria and, through Poland, the Kaliningrad region. However, the bill clearly states the purpose of sending troops to Turkey and the UK: for the servicemen to undergo training and receive the necessary equipment.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: Økologisk mad har reduceret CO2-udledningen med hele 38 procent på Randers Regionhospital.
Denne påstand stammer fra direktøren for Dansk Økologisk Forening, Rasmus Prehn. Men økologisk mad udleder ikke mindre CO2 end ikke-økologisk mad. I stedet har hospitalet reduceret udledningen af drivhusgasser ved at servere mindre oksekød og flere grøntsager.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: A man named Robert Smalls escaped slavery, along with his family and other slaves, by stealing a Confederate ship and was later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1839 and became a skilled pilot on the Confederate steamship Planter. In May 1862, he commandeered the ship with his family and other enslaved people aboard, navigated past Confederate checkpoints by impersonating the white captain, and surrendered it to the Union blockade along with valuable artillery. He became a war hero and celebrity, later serving five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives during Reconstruction before Jim Crow laws rolled back Black political power.
Check out the new Factiverse blog post
This week's blog post: The digital battlefield: how elections are being manipulated now
Elections worldwide are increasingly targeted by foreign disinformation campaigns, with countries including the US, European and Asian countries experiencing coordinated efforts by Russia, China, and Iran to manipulate voters. Social media platforms' inconsistent content moderation and lack of safeguards are enabling these attacks, which prompts the question of how democracies protect themselves from this.
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