Your weekly fact-checks
#TrumpCheck
Snopes
False: U.S. President Donald Trump said he would bomb Norway if he is not awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
A satirical article falsely claimed that Donald Trump threatened to bomb Norway if he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, prompting confusion online. The claim originated from The Borowitz Report, a known satire site, and there is no evidence Trump ever made such a threat.
Snopes
True: In June 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a parody song online of a 1965 song by the Beach Boys in which the lyrics "bomb Iran" replaced "Barbara Ann" over video of B-2 fighter jets dropping bombs.
In June 2025, Donald Trump posted a parody video on Truth Social using the song "Bomb Iran," a spoof of The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann," which he shared after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The parody, originally released in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis, has been referenced by political figures before and is unrelated to the original song’s lyrics.
#Conflicts
Reuters
False: EU defence deal prevents the UK from using its military independently.
Britain’s new defence and security pact with the European Union could see the UK participating in EU defence missions. The deal makes no mention of preventing Britain from using its own military independently. Spokespeople for the European Union and European Commission, as well as independent policy analysts, said the claim was false.
India Today
Mostly False: People in Tel Aviv were jumping from a burning house during the Iran-Israel conflict.
This video shows a fire that broke out in a villa in Tiberias, an Israeli city, on March 1. It’s not related to the Israel-Iran conflict.
StopFake
False: Bombs dropped on iran were intended for Ukraine, specifically Zelensky.
Ukraine’s President did not state that the bombs dropped on Iran on the night of June 22 were supposed to be used by Ukraine. Propaganda has spread a fake screenshot of a Radio Svoboda news story in another attempt to create the impression that the West no longer supports Ukraine.
#Politics
PolitiFact
False: New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a communist.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s platform proposes free buses and day care, rent control and city-owned grocery stores to make city living more affordable. Mamdani’s platform is not akin to communism, a system of government which calls for government takeover of private property and control of industry. Mamdani describes himself as a democratic socialist, which in the U.S. generally refers to generous social insurance programs such as heavily subsidized child care and high tax rates to pay for education and health care.
Snopes
False: In June 2025, the U.S. Democratic Party was considering a 2028 presidential ticket featuring Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for president and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for vice president.
The rumor originated from an unofficial Walz fan account on social media. Additionally, Mamdani was not born in the United States and therefore is not eligible to run for president or vice president.
Snopes
True: In June 2025, U.S. embassies introduced a new social media disclosure policy compelling non-immigrant visa applicants to set their social media accounts to "public" for review.
The U.S. State Department implemented a new policy requiring F, M, and J non-immigrant visa applicants to list all social media usernames from the past five years and set their profiles to “public.” While widely criticized online, including comparisons to authoritarian surveillance, the government stated the move was for national security and warned that failing to comply could result in visa denial.
#Economy
Factly
False: India has not borrowed from the World Bank in the past three years under the Modi government, alongside other the progress of India’s economy under Prime Minister Modi.
The research and consultancy company, Morgan Stanley, has never claimed that the Modi government stopped borrowing from the World Bank; in fact, India has consistently taken World Bank loans from FY2014 to FY2025–26. Aside from a 2017 projection that India could become a $6 trillion economy by 2027, none of the viral post’s claims were made by Morgan Stanley, making the post.
PolitiFact
Mostly-True: Undocumented immigrants paid more taxes last year than Amazon, GM, IBM & Netflix combined.
The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally paid $19.5 billion in federal income taxes in 2022.Yale University’s nonpartisan Budget Lab estimated that people in the U.S. illegally paid $22 billion in federal income taxes in 2023. Tax disclosures by Amazon, General Motors, IBM and Netflix show the companies paid just over $5 billion in federal income taxes in 2022 combined and $15 billion in 2024.
#Healthcare
Africa Check
False: Covid-19 has had a resurgence in Uganda and there is an impending lockdown.
The country’s health ministry has confirmed that there is no new Covid-19 outbreak and that the situation remains stable. It added that old content was being shared again to mislead the public.
#Climate
Euronews
True: "Extreme heat is no longer a rare event - it has become the new normal".
Europe is experiencing increasingly intense, frequent, and persistent heatwaves due to human-driven climate change, with scientific consensus linking rising global temperatures and altered atmospheric patterns to these extreme events. As land and sea temperatures soar (particularly around the Mediterranean) experts warn of heightened health risks, more frequent wildfires, and a sharp rise in heat-related deaths without urgent climate mitigation.
#WTF?! What The Fact of the week
Snopes
True: Civil War veteran Jacob Miller lived more than 50 years after surviving a musket ball shot to the forehead.
Jacob Miller, a Union soldier wounded in the forehead at the Battle of Chickamauga, survived with an open head wound for decades, eventually receiving a pension and sharing his remarkable story in a 1911 interview. Despite being left for dead, he escaped capture, endured years of pain as fragments of the bullet gradually exited his wound, and lived until 1917.
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