Your weekly fact-checks
#TrumpCheck
Snopes
Mostly False: U.S. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin accurately claimed that New Jersey has at least 35,152 noncitizens on its voter rolls.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that 6,600 noncitizens were added to New Jersey's voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024 due to a software error that improperly labelled people who truthfully answered that they weren't U.S. citizens as citizens. Sherrill said fewer than 400 of these people, who were scattered across the state with different partisan affiliations, cast ballots. Neither Trump nor Mullin provided evidence to back the number in their claim.
FactCheck.org
False: Trump said the CIA had reporting on a Maduro-regime plot to digitally rig Venezuela's 2020 elections undetectably.
Trump claimed CIA documents proved Venezuela's Maduro regime successfully rigged its 2020 elections digitally, using this to justify tightening US election security. But the actual CIA reporting only assessed that Venezuela had developed interest and "likely some capability" for such manipulation as a theoretical exercise, and separate assessments found no evidence the plan was carried out or that Venezuela had any ability to compromise voting systems outside its own borders.
#Politics
Lead Stories
Half true: Democrats voted against a bill that only included a ban on members of Congress and their spouses trading individual stocks.
While H.R. 7008 includes a ban on stock trading, it also includes a separate provision requiring voters to provide photo identification. A vote against the bill was not necessarily a vote against the stock trading ban. Lawmakers may have opposed the voter ID provision, the stock trading ban, or both.
Snopes
True: In June 2026, the U.S. Postal Service proposed a rule in which it would stop delivering mail ballots for states that do not give the federal government voter lists.
The USPS has only proposed a rule that would stop delivering mail ballots to states that refuse to share their voter lists with the federal government. It hasn't been finalised and faces ongoing legal challenges that could still delay, change, or block it. Claims that a judge ruled all 50 states "must" send in voter rolls misread a single ruling that merely stayed an injunction a temporary, litigation-pending outcome while ignoring other lawsuits still working to stop the rule.
News Mobile
False: Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi claims that 20,000 Sikh and Muslim soldiers resigned from the Indian Army.
A viral video claiming former Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi criticised PM Modi and said 20,000 Sikh and Muslim soldiers had resigned is a deepfake. It was traced to genuine November 2025 footage of Dwivedi speaking at Defence Dialogue 2025, with an AI-generated audio track (95.2% likely AI per Hive Moderation) added to fabricate the statements.
#Healthcare
Snopes
False: Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the U.S. president during the COVID-19 pandemic, had a pulmonary infarct that was a side effect of a COVID-19 vaccine months earlier.
Fauci wrote about doctors discovering a "pulmonary infarct" (lung tissue death due to blockage of the blood supply) on CT scans in a diary entry dated June 19, 2021, which was almost six months after he got his first COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 22, 2020. The CDC does not list pulmonary infarction as a common side effect of any approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccine that is used in the U.S., despite some claims that suggested Fauci's infarct was connected to his vaccination of that type.
Agence France-Presse - AFP
False: Food and vaccines are being used to alter people's sexual orientation in Indonesia.
Rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment in socially conservative Indonesia has triggered conspiratorial claims online that a secretive "global elite" is using food and vaccination to alter people's sexual orientation. The false posts reference a so-called "depopulation agenda" that has been repeatedly debunked since the hoax gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple experts told AFP the circulating claims are not backed by any science, adding the narrative undermines public health and promotes fear.
#Conflicts
Misbar
False: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps deploying thousands of snipers near the Strait of Hormuz to counter potential threats.
Fact-checkers investigated the circulating video and found the claim to be misleading. The video actually shows a ground military exercise conducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and does not depict the deployment of thousands of snipers near the Strait of Hormuz.
Misbar
False: The destruction of Amazon servers in Bahrain by a drone attack or an Iranian missile strike.
The footage does not show the destruction of Amazon servers in Bahrain or any Iranian military attack. The video actually shows a fire at a commercial warehouse in Russia on July 24 as part of media coverage of attacks targeting logistics complexes and warehouses belonging to the Russian e-commerce company Wildberries. The attacks caused widespread fires and left several people injured.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Bananas are a popular pizza topping in Sweden.
A 2017 Curators of Sweden tweet dubbed pineapple-banana-curry pizza "the most Swedish pizza there is," and Snopes confirmed several Stockholm pizzerias (and even a California Swedish restaurant) do serve this "Tropicana" combo. Sweden's banana obsession dates back to 1906, when the fruit first arrived from the Caribbean, eventually working its way onto pizza toppings decades later.
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