Your weekly fact-checks
#Elections2024
This week's election: Sri Lanka Parliamentary Elections
BBC News
Election Date: 14/11/2024
Sri Lanka is set to hold parliamentary elections on 14 November 2024 to elect 225 members to the 17th Parliament, following the dissolution of the 16th Parliament on 24 September 2024. The Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance (SLPFA) held a strong majority in the prior parliament, but their tenure was marked by significant challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crises, and political turmoil, which led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation and eventual replacement by Ranil Wickremesinghe. In the recent 2024 presidential election, Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected president, defeating Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. Dissanayake subsequently dissolved parliament as part of his mandate, triggering early elections.
#Politics
PolitiFact
False: Pacific Gas & Electric Co. deliberately shut off power “on Republican voters” in California on Election Day.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co., aka PG&E, which provides electricity to large areas of California, announced a potential power shut-off for some areas on election night, citing public safety concerns over high winds and wildfire risks. A PG&E spokesperson told PolitiFact that five polling locations fall within the scope of the shut-off, but shut-offs are forecast to begin after polling places close. Just in case, PG&E has provided polling centers with generators. In 2020, President Joe Biden won Solano, Lake and Santa Clara County where the affected polling stations are.
Snopes
False: In 1998, Donald Trump said he would run as a Republican in a presidential campaign because they are the "dumbest group of voters."
For years, claims have spread that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump once told People magazine in 1998 that Republicans are "the dumbest group of voters in the country." The alleged quote began to spread online again around the same time as the 2024 U.S. presidential election, in which Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris. There is no evidence Trump ever said Republicans are "the dumbest group of voters," or that the quote was published in a People interview.
AFP
False: WHO reported 2,038 suicides the day after Trump was elected.
Crisis hotlines reported an uptick in calls after US President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 race for the White House, but social media posts sharing supposed World Health Organization (WHO) data showing a spike in suicides are false. The agency does not report such deaths daily, and no available figures support the claim.
PolitiFact
Half True: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have been ordered NOT to wear their uniforms or badges when they vote today" so as not to intimidate noncitizens.
Federal law prohibits Immigration enforcement activity at polling places. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said employees were reminded not to wear uniforms and insignia to avoid confusing voters. Noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections.
#Healthcare
AFP
Mostly False: Fluoride is a toxic waste product which causes bone, teeth and brain issues.
Dentists and health experts say regulated levels of fluoride in public drinking water help protect against tooth decay. Social media posts amplifying claims by former independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the mineral is an industrial waste product causing adverse health effects including bone and neurological problems mislead about research on the impact of high doses of fluoride.
PolitiFact
False: Abortion is never medically necessary in the last trimester. Literally never. They just do a C-section.
Some complex medical situations can affect a fetus or pregnant patient. Although rare, these situations can require medically-necessary abortions later in pregnancy, OB-GYNS and reproductive health experts said. Although a cesarean section is typically not a preferred method for terminating a pregnancy, experts said it may be used depending on the patient’s case.
#Economy
PolitiFact
False: US inflation-adjusted weekly wages “are lower today than they were 50 years ago.”
Two measures that economists most commonly use for inflation-adjusted wages show that wages are higher now than five decades ago. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ office pointed to a different data set showing that wages for a specific group of workers, called nonsupervisory, are lower now than in February 1973. However, that month represented an unusual high point in wages because of Nixon-era price controls. When price controls were lifted, wages plummeted. A 50-year comparison, using September 1974 as the starting point to align with the most recent data for September 2024, shows wages up by 2.8% beyond inflation.
#Conflicts
Africa Check
True: Most out-of-school children are in the northern regions affected by poverty and conflict according to former lawmaker Dakuku Peterside.
Peterside was right that the majority of out-of-school children are in Nigeria's northern states. This is in line with the higher poverty rates in these regions. The former lawmaker was mostly correct about the number of applicants vying for limited places in tertiary education, and that education funding in Nigeria is well below an international benchmark of 15 to 20% of the national budget. Peterside was however wrong about Nigeria having the highest rate of out-of-school children in the world, the unemployment rate of graduates and the number of unqualified teachers in the country, among other incorrect claims.
Snopes
False: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in November 2024, "If Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, I will personally expel the United States from the alliance.
There was no real evidence of Rutte making this statement, which would have generated news headlines if he had actually said it. The quote was fabricated. A NATO spokesperson said the claim was "bogus."As secretary-general, Rutte does not have the authority to "personally expel" a country from the alliance. While he leads the alliance, according to NATO's website, "authority for taking decisions is invested only in the member governments themselves."
#Nordics
Tjekdet
Det er forkert: »De lande, vi modtager flest asylansøgere fra, har alle en højere fertilitetsrate end Danmark. Denne udvikling fører til en langsom, men vedvarende ændring i Danmarks demografiske sammensætning.«
Ifølge Anders Vistisen fra Dansk Folkeparti og flere andre højreorienterede politikere vil danskerne i fremtiden blive erstattet af indvandrere fra muslimske lande. Fertiliteten er meget højere i de lande, hvorfra vi modtager flest asylansøgere, end i Danmark, hvor den er rekordlav, lyder det. Men den seneste befolkningsprognose viser et andet billede, og forskerne peger på, at ikke-vestlige indvandrerkvinder i Danmark i dag føder færre børn end kvinder med dansk oprindelse.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939.
Hitler’s nomination came from a Swedish anti-fascist politician who intended to present it as a satirical criticism of Swedish political debate. He later withdrew the nomination following backlash. Swedish leftist groups protested against this nomination, calling Brandt clumsy, insane, and a traitor to the working class. His lectures at various clubs were also canceled. Brandt, in an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Morgonposten, said that the nomination of Chamberlain made him nominate Hitler as a provocation against the leader and Nazism.
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