Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: 2025 Cameroonian presidential election
RFI
Election Date: 12/10/2025
The presidential elections held on 7 October 2018 resulted in incumbent president Paul Biya—who has been in power since 1982—winning another seven-year term. This followed a 2008 constitutional amendment that abolished term limits, enabling Biya to seek re-election. Despite his advanced age, Biya has expressed his intention to continue serving the nation, making his candidacy for the 2025 presidential election plausible. However, this has sparked controversy within the Cameroonian government. Opposition candidate Akere Muna has filed a petition before the Constitutional Council seeking Biya’s disqualification, citing concerns over his age, recurring health-related absences, and alleged reliance on third parties.
#TrumpCheck
Snopes
True: "Trump 2028" hats were on the president's Oval Office desk during a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Congressional leaders.
Congressional leaders meeting with President Trump and VP Vance on September 29, 2025, were confronted with red "Trump 2028" hats displayed on the president's desk, despite Trump being constitutionally barred from a third term by the 22nd Amendment. The hats, which are sold on Trump's official retail website and appeared in photos Trump posted to Truth Social, drew varied reactions—from Fox News calling them a "taunt" to House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries describing their appearance as "the strangest thing ever."
Lead Stories
Mostly False: The White House announced that the U.S. Treasury would produce official one dollar coins bearing President Trump's face.
There is no record or reporting of any such announcement by the White House on its website or by President Trump on his Truth Social account. The U.S. Treasurer replied to a post on X that included a "first draft" of a Trump coin design, saying it was a real "first draft." Any proposal for a Trump coin in 2026 would need approval from Congress, since two current laws prohibit the image of a living former president or current president being used on U.S. currency.
#Politics
Agence France-Presse - AFP
False: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu 'beaten by crowds'.
As the Gaza war nears its second year mark, misinformation about the conflict continues to spread in Africa. A video circulating on Facebook in Ethiopia claims to show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being beaten by a crowd of people. However, this is false: the man in the video is not Netanyahu but Eli Dalal, a lawmaker from the prime minister’s Likud party who fell while trying to make his way through a crowd of protesters on September 20, 2025.
Snopes
True: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: "It's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticised "fat" troops and generals, mandating that all service members pass physical fitness tests twice a year and meet height/weight standards to remain in the armed services. Hegseth also announced daily mandatory PT for all ranks, eliminated grooming standard exceptions (banning beards with a "no more beardos" declaration), and criticized diversity initiatives in the military.
#Healthcare
PolitiFact
Half-True: Thirty percent of U.S. medical residents are international medical graduates, and 10,000 of 43,000 residency spots are filled by H-1B visa holders.
Approximately 30% of U.S. medical residents are international medical graduates, but that includes foreign international graduates and U.S. citizens who graduated from international schools. Ten thousand total U.S. physicians hold H-1B visas, including those in residency and those who have completed their residency.
PolitiFact
False: “Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.”
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are generally ineligible for federally funded health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and subsidized private insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Democrats’ funding proposal would restore access to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace for legal immigrants who will lose access once certain provisions of the Republicans’ tax and spending law take effect.
#Economy
Snopes
True: Construction of U.S. President Donald Trump’s $200 million White House ballroom expansion is continuing as planned despite the government shutdown.
The ballroom construction was reported to be funded by the president and private donors rather than taxpayer funds.
#PopCulture
Lead Stories
False: NFL teams petitioned the NFL to replace Bad Bunny as the performer for the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show.
There have been no team announcements of such a demand, and no news media have reported on it. Similar false claims have been made about singer Bob Seger petitioning the NFL. The only source for the claims is a series of websites and Facebook sports fan pages operated out of Vietnam.
#Conflicts
Soft Media Hub LLP
False: Sweden warns Israel to release Climate Activist Greta Thunberg within 24 hours or Face Swedish Actions in the Mediterranean Sea.
The claim is false. No evidence supports an official Swedish ultimatum or any kind of Swedish actions in the Mediterranean Sea.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: En erfaren sportsanalytiker forudsiger resultaterne i den danske fodboldliga med en nøjagtighed på 96 %.
Dette hævdes i et stort antal annoncer på Metas platforme, der er målrettet unge danske mænd. Men ifølge eksperter i spilafhængighed er dette et fupnummer, der er designet til at narre personer med begrænsede ressourcer og spilproblemer.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: McDonald's did away with its spoon-shaped coffee stirrers because people were using them as cocaine spoons.
In the late 1970s-1980s, McDonald's small plastic coffee spoons became widely used as drug paraphernalia for measuring and snorting cocaine and PCP, with doses even being called "McSpoons" in some cities. In 1992, McDonald's redesigned the stirrer from a spoon to a flat paddle to distance the family-focused company from illegal drug use.
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.
Use Factiverse to extract crucial insights in real-time to strengthen your reporting
Factiverse helps media organizations and government teams monitor and analyze real-time reporting, identifying false narratives in elections before they spread. Reach out for a consultation to see how our tools can strengthen your reporting strategy