Your weekly fact-checks
#TrumpCheck
DW - Deutsche Welle
Mostly False: "The People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files"
The declassified documents show voter registration data from six states was accessed by a Chinese actor, but the intelligence community found no evidence any foreign actor altered voting processes, and concluded China considered but did not deploy influence efforts to change the 2020 election outcome. While one dissenting official noted China took low-level steps to shape perceptions of Trump, nothing in the documents supports his claim of an "unprecedented election security nightmare."
DW - Deutsche Welle
Mostly False: Canvassers admitted to FBI agents that they forged signatures and submitted fake voter registrations for pay.
A Muskegon clerk flagged fraudulent 2020 voter registrations tied to a GBI Strategies canvasser, but none led to actual votes cast. After a five-year probe spanning both administrations, the FBI closed the case in 2025, under Trump, finding no criminal violation.
#Politics
Africa Check
False: South Africa's electoral commission offering '2026 recruitment intake' through social media.
Claims that South Africa’s election commission is offering a “2026 recruitment intake” through dodgy-looking links on Facebook are scams. Legitimate IEC vacancies are posted to the IEC’s official platforms only.
Lead Stories
False: Hillary Clinton made appeal to China to meddle in 2020 election during TV interview.
Clinton posed the hypothetical question while mocking special counsel Robert Mueller in a televised interview. In his report, Mueller had dismissed Donald Trump's call for Russia to help obtain Clinton's private emails in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Agence France-Presse - AFP
False: Ethiopian army chief Birhanu Jula criticised Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for failing to safeguard the country’s peace and national sovereignty.
Ethiopia recently experienced renewed security tensions in the northern part of the country. A clip circulating on Facebook claims that Ethiopian army chief Birhanu Jula criticised Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for failing to safeguard the country’s peace and national sovereignty. However, this is false; in the original speech, Birhanu was giving his opinion on the general characteristics of a state that has lost its sovereignty, not describing Ethiopia’s current condition. The clip was edited to omit this context.
Factly
False: The video shows a four-year-old personal video of Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janata Party, kissing a young woman.
The video does not show Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke. It features Bangladeshi journalist SK Jewel Rana and his wife, Nupur Doll. Rana confirmed to Factly that the woman in the video is his wife and clarified that he does not know Abhijeet Dipke.
#Healthcare
Snopes
True: In July 2026, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced testosterone screening for U.S. troops, along with replacement therapy.
Hegseth announced mandatory annual testosterone screening for troops 30 and older (optional for younger service members), with replacement therapy offered but not required. Framed as boosting "warfighter readiness," the policy makes no apparent exception for women, despite their naturally lower testosterone levels.
DW - Deutsche Welle
False: Statins are [the] number one reason dementia is rampant.
Strong evidence, including a 2026 Lancet analysis of over 123,000 participants across 19 randomised trials, finds no increased risk of cognitive decline or dementia from statins. Some experts go further to suggest statins may actually lower dementia risk by reducing blood lipids linked to vascular dementia.
#Technology
Snopes
False: In April 2026, Apple removed the names of villages in Southern Lebanon from its maps application.
A viral claim that Apple deliberately deleted Lebanese village names from Apple Maps is false. Historical screenshots dating back to 2020 show southern Lebanon's sparse labelling predates Israel's 2026 strikes. Apple told Wired and France 24 those towns were never labelled to begin with, as its more detailed map rollout simply hasn't launched in Lebanon yet.
Snopes
False: The Waze terms of use say Israeli courts and laws govern the navigation app's service and terms, the Israeli government secretly uses the app to surveil users and former Israel Defense Forces members founded the app.
It's true that Waze, founded in Israel in 2008 and acquired by Google in 2013, includes terms of use that reference Israeli courts and laws governing the app's legal matters. Waze's co-founders also reportedly served in the Israeli military. However no credible evidence confirmed or debunked the claim that Israel's government, its military or Israeli officials use the app to surveil its users.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: A 2007 photograph authentically shows 2022 World Cup winner Lionel Messi bathing 2026 World Cup winner Lamine Yamal when he was a baby.
The photos are genuine: they show a 19-year-old Messi bathing baby Yamal during a 2007 UNICEF fundraiser photoshoot in Barcelona, confirmed by the photographer, UNICEF itself, and Yamal's father. The image resurfaced ahead of Spain and Argentina's 2026 World Cup final, where the two players ended up on opposing sides nearly two decades later. Spain and Yamal ultimately beat Messi's Argentina 1-0 in extra time to win the title.
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