Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: 2025 Northern Cypriot presidential election
Election Date: 19/10/2025
The 2025 Northern Cypriot presidential election is scheduled for October 19, 2025, with incumbent President Ersin Tatar (running as an independent with support from UBP, DP, and YDP) facing Republican Turkish Party leader Tufan Erhürman as the main challenger. The election comes amid economic crisis stemming from Turkish lira devaluation and 2025 protests over secularism triggered by a headscarf regulation, with the winner serving a five-year term until 2030.
#TrumpCheck
Lead Stories
False: Trump rages as Gavin Newsom wins Nobel Peace Prize in 2025.
The story originated on a well known satire publication named The Borowitz Report. There were no actual news reports about Newsom being awarded the prize nor Trump being angry at this fabricated instance.
Snopes
False: President Donald Trump has "plenary authority."
During an October 2025 CNN interview, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller stated that President Trump has "plenary authority" under Title 10 of the U.S. Code to deploy National Guard troops, before experiencing a technical issue that cut him off mid-sentence. Legal experts have disputed this claim, noting that the law actually places constraints on presidential power to federalize the National Guard, with multiple federal judges blocking such deployments and the matter potentially heading to the Supreme Court.
#Politics
Newschecker
False: Election Commissioner of India reveals that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “personally” told him and the Chief Election Commissioner to "add a million fake voters across various constituencies in Bihar."
A keyword search on The Wire’s official website, where the report was purported to originate from, yielded no article containing the alleged claim about PM Modi or the Election Commission. There are also no credible media reports corroborating such a statement or incident. Newschecker could not find any record of such a story in The Wire’s archives, social media feeds, or Google search index.
Africa Check
False: Kenya's former prime minister Raila Odinga is in critical condition in hospital.
A photo of former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga on a hospital bed has gone viral on social media in October 2025, with users claiming he is critically ill. However, the photo is from 2017.
#Healthcare
PolitiFact
False: Democrats shut down the government because they want “health care for illegal aliens and funding for free abortions.”
Democrats are seeking to roll back around $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts and extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire. None of the provisions fund health care for immigrants in the country illegally. The legislation would restore access to certain health care programs for legal immigrants who will lose access under the Republican’s tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed this summer. The Affordable Care Act bars federal funds from being used for abortions except in cases or rape, incest or to save the life of the pregnant woman. The law requires non-federal funds to be separated and used exclusively to pay for abortion services.
Snopes
True: Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism.
During an October 2025 Cabinet meeting, RFK Jr. accurately stated that studies show circumcised children have double the rate of autism, attributing this to Tylenol use during the procedure. However, the studies he referenced have faced criticism for small sample sizes and only established correlation rather than causation, with researchers noting that many other factors affect autism rates.
#Economy
Africa Check
False: The Nigerian government hasn't introduced 5% surcharge on petrol products from January 2026.
Multiple Facebook posts claim that Nigerian president Bola Tinubu’s administration has introduced a 5% fuel surcharge starting January 2026, along with new tax laws. But the charge is not new, and it won’t necessarily take effect in January.
#PopCulture
Snopes
True: Conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA announced an alternative 2026 Super Bowl halftime show featuring "Christian American performers."
In October 2025, Turning Point USA confirmed it would host "The All American Halftime Show" as counterprogramming to Bad Bunny's 2026 Super Bowl halftime performance, promoting the event as celebrating "faith, family, and freedom." The announcement came after Turning Point contributor Jack Posobiec's viral but unauthorised social media post suggesting the organisation should host an alternative show featuring the band Creed, which generated significant media attention and public interest before the official announcement on 9 October 2025.
#Conflicts
Snopes
True: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sprayed "pepper pellets" on a Chicago pastor.
In September 2025, an authentic photograph captured Rev. David Black, a Chicago pastor, being hit with pepper spray or pellets by ICE agents during a protest outside a detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. The incident occurred during protests against "Operation Midway Blitz," a Trump administration ICE operation targeting undocumented immigrants in the Chicago area that resulted in over 500 arrests by mid-September.
Agence France-Presse - AFP
False: Israel suffered extreme amounts of damages after Huthi attack.
Yemen's Huthi rebels have launched repeated drone and missile attacks on Israel, but online rumours of a large-scale assault causing massive damage in early September 2025 are unfounded. Videos shared in the false posts depict old air strikes, including in Gaza and Damascus.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: Der er afsløret en muslimsk slavemarked, hvor kvinder kan købes og sælges.
En viral video, der hævder at vise en »muslimsk slavemarked«, viser faktisk gadekunst af den irakiske kunstner Aryan Rafiq, filmet i Arbil, Irak, i marts 2023, kaldet »The Unheard Screams of The Ezidkhan Angels« (De uhørte skrig fra Ezidkhan-englene). Kunstværket blev skabt for at øge bevidstheden om Islamisk Stats folkemord på yazidiske kurdere i det nordlige Irak i 2014, hvor tusindvis af yazidiske kvinder og piger blev kidnappet og solgt som sexslaver på markeder i Syrien og Irak.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: A study showed that dogs could show jealousy.
A 2014 study by UCSD psychologist Christine Harris found that 78% of dogs tried to push or touch their owners when they interacted affectionately with a stuffed dog, compared to only 42% when handling an inanimate object, suggesting dogs display jealous behaviours to protect important social relationships. While the study received some criticism for not testing dogs' reactions to objects without owners present, Harris argues the findings support the theory that jealousy evolved to help social species guard valuable interpersonal bonds.
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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