Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2025
This week's election: 2026 Bangladeshi general election
The Diplomat
Election Date: 12/02/2026
Following mass protests that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee in August 2024, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus leads an interim government preparing for the 2026 general election, from which the Awami League has been banned after being outlawed in April 2025. The election, scheduled to include approximately 127.7 million eligible voters, will feature new reforms, including postal ballots for expatriates and a "no vote" option for single-candidate constituencies.
#TrumpCheck
Lead Stories
True: President Trump posted a video on Truth Social that portrays Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes.
Shortly before midnight on Feb. 5, 2026, Donald Trump posted a 1-minute, 2-second video from the PatriotNewsOutlet.com. The video promoted a debunked conspiracy claim about voting machines during the 2020 election. The video ends with a 2-second clip of a meme video showing the Obamas as cartoonishly rendered apes with the intro of the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" song. Trump's post was later removed.
PolitiFact
Half-True: “We right now have more factories and plants being built in our country than we've ever had before.”
Factory construction remains at a high level compared with recent history, but most of the increase came under President Joe Biden, and there are signs that that boom has faded under President Donald Trump. Analysts said some Trump policies have aided companies seeking to build factories, but others — including his tariffs — have offset some of those gains.
#Politics
PolitiFact
Half-True: Under Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, there are “fewer families living in poverty” than under her predecessor.
The poverty rate under Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has ranged from 13.1% to 13.5%. The state’s poverty rate remains higher than the national average. The rate is lower than it was under her Republican predecessor, Gov. Rick Snyder. But it dropped during Snyder’s tenure from a high of 17.5% in 2012 to 14% in 2018. Michigan’s poverty rate declines mirror national trends.
PolitiFact
False: Jeffrey Epstein is “still alive and walking the streets of Tel Aviv,” Israel.
The original, noncropped image shows the logo of Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot. The image was first shared in a Reddit forum for AI images. The image seemed to show Hebrew street signage, but the street name doesn’t match any in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Factly
False: A newspaper clipping resembling The Indian Express reports that Prime Minister Narendra Modi destroyed all evidence of his marriage to Jashodaben.
The viral newspaper image is fabricated. The Indian Express has denied publishing any such report and confirmed that the photograph of Jashodaben used in the graphic originates from an older, unrelated news report.
#Economy
Soft Media Hub LLP
False: China banned all new investments in Israel.
The claim is a misrepresentation. There is credible evidence that one Chinese investment fund, Ballet Vision, claimed risk classification to avoid honouring a contract in Israel. However, this does not constitute an official, public or economy-wide ban by the Chinese government.
#Healthcare
Lead Stories
False: In the Epstein files, document DOJ-2024-EF-7721 exists, and it is about medbeds and something called "medbirth".
The online library of released files from its investigations of the now-dead sex trafficker doesn't include that document ID number. Searching for those phrases without the file number yields zero matches.
#Conflicts
Rumor Scanner
False: Radical Islamists burnt to ashes the musical instrument shop of a Hindu businessman named Taal Tarang in Rangpur due to religious reasons.
The claim that radical Islamists set fire to a Hindu-owned musical instrument shop in Rangpur for religious reasons is false. The fire was caused by an electrical short circuit and damaged three shops (two Muslim-owned, one Hindu-owned), with all parties confirming there was no communal motive.
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Falsk: Drew Horn, en tidligere rådgiver for Trump, hævder, at demonstrationen mod Trump i Nuuk i midten af januar hovedsageligt blev overværet af danskere, ikke grønlændere.
Fotos og videoer fra demonstrationen viser, at masser af grønlændere demonstrerede mod Trump.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Some species of turtles can breathe out of their butt when underwater.
Some turtle species, including the North American bog turtle, can absorb oxygen from water through their cloaca—a multipurpose opening that functions as their "butt"—in a process called cloacal respiration. This ability, which became widely known after being mentioned in Disney's "Frozen 2," allows turtles to stay submerged for extended periods by pumping water through special blood vessel-lined chambers that extract oxygen.
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