Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2024
This week's election: Sri Lanka Presidential Election
Al Jazeera
Election Date: 21/09/2024
Sri Lanka will hold a presidential election on September 21, the Election Commission says, setting a date for a vote expected to determine the future of reforms in a country still struggling to emerge from its worst financial crisis in decades. Wickremesinghe, 75, took office in July 2022 after widespread protests caused by the debilitating financial crisis forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign. Parliament elected Wickremesinghe to serve out the rest of Rajapaksa’s five-year term, which began in 2019. Other prominent candidates include Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the NPP, and Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
#Politics
USA Today
False: Tim Walz misrepresented his military record in a speech about Afghanistan.
A Instagram post claimed that Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz lied in a speech about going to Afghanistan during his time in the National Guard. Walz did not embellish his military record in the speech. The post mischaracterizes comments from Walz, who made clear he was talking about a trip he took to Afghanistan as a congressman.
PolitiFact
Half-True: “As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, for the first time this century” according to Kamala Harris.
A Defense Department spokesperson has stated that the U.S. is not currently engaged in a war, nor does the U.S. military have service members fighting in any active war zones. However, some U.S. military service members are stationed in areas the U.S. government recognizes as combat zones. In 2024 alone, several U.S. service members have been killed or injured during military operations abroad.
Snopes
True: Former U.S. President Donald Trump said that Taylor Swift would "probably pay a price" for endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump did say this during a Sept. 11, 2024, phone interview with "Fox & Friends". However, foreshortened versions of the quote that were in news headlines were sometimes misleading. Trump's full quote was, "she'll probably pay a price for [endorsing Harris] in the marketplace."
Africa Check
False: Mbuyiseni Ndlozi has resigned from South Africa's EFF party.
A Facebook page using the name of Economic Freedom Fighters president, Julius Malema, posted a resignation letter from member of parliament Mbuyiseni Ndlozi. However, the party’s spokesperson refutes the claim.
#Healthcare
Reuters
False: A German study found that mRNA shots ‘eat away’ at children’s immune systems.
A German study published in July 2024 did not find that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines damaged children’s immune systems. This is contrary to posts shared online suggesting the study found signs of an immune disorder known as IgG4-related disease. This disease is not associated with vaccines according to immunology experts.
PolitiFact
False: The proposed Nevada constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights would put “essentially no limit on access to abortion.”
Nevada’s proposed constitutional amendment to protect abortion access would largely codify existing state law. The state could still restrict abortions after fetal viability, typically considered to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy, and abortions after that point could be performed if needed to protect the health of the pregnant woman. Abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy are extremely rare, and they’re almost all because of medical complications.
#Economy
Full Fact
Half True: The state pension will increase by more than any loss of the Winter Fuel Payment.
Context is needed with this claim. Both the full basic and new state pensions are set to increase next year in cash terms by amounts higher than the maximum value of the Winter Fuel Payment. But that won’t offset the loss of the Payment this winter, and the real terms increase is set to be lower.
Full Fact
Half True: Starbucks stores in the UK are going cashless from 1 October 2024.
Claims that coffee chain Starbucks is going cashless in the UK are being shared on social media. Many include a picture of a shop sign which says: "We're going cashless from 1st October 2024 - We will only be accepting card, contactless & Starbucks rewards payments". Although Starbucks says it does not have a cashless policy in the UK, some licensee-operated stores may have different rules.
#Conflicts
AFP
False: Ryan Wesley Routh, the second man to attempt the assassination of Donald Trump, is a registered Democrat.
Social media users are variously claiming the man accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf club is registered as a Republican or Democratic voter, attempting to pin the attempted violence on one side or the other. But North Carolina state voting records list Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, as unaffiliated, and other public filings and his chaotic writings online reveal a complicated political history.
PolitiFact
False: A video shows a body that Israel embedded with a bomb exploding during a Palestinian funeral procession.
The video was taken during a funeral procession near Damascus, Syria in 2012, NBC reported. Activists told CNN in 2012 that the explosion was caused by a Syrian government-organized car bombing.
#Nordics
Faktisk
Det meste er usant: «Vi ser en utvikling der barn helt ned i åtteårsalderen blir rekruttert av gjengkriminelle nettopp for å selge narkotika og illegale rusmidler.» ifølge Ingeborg Bjørnevik.
Oslo-politiet kjenner til episoder der barn blir utnyttet og brukt til å selge narkotika, men de er ikke kjent med at dette gjelder barn helt ned i åtteårsalderen.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Quaker Oats Funded MIT Research That Fed Radioactive Cereal to Kids
Quaker Oats, MIT, and Harvard conducted or funded research on children deemed "mentally retarded" that involved feeding them radioactive breakfast cereal. These unwitting subjects, the story goes, were given gifts and trips to baseball games in return for their uninformed consent. They were told they were part of a "science club." Members of the club would eat cereal mixed with radioactive milk for breakfast or digest a series of iron supplements that gave them the radiation-equivalent of at least 50 chest X-rays. These experiments sought to see what effect cereal and other breakfast foods had on the absorption of elements like iron and calcium.
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