Category: Fact Checking

Claim:

Tom Brady endorsed CBD gummies.

Rating:

Since at least early December 2022, Facebook has been approving numerous, sexually explicit scam ads that showed nude women with a male bodily fluid on their faces and breasts. These ads came from brand-new pages that had 0 followers. The links in the ads led to websites that falsely claimed Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and talk-show host Dr. Phil had endorsed CBD or keto gummies.

In this story, we’ll show the journey from the ads to a fake CBD gummies endorsement article. We’ll also dive into the history of other celebrities whose image and likeness were used without their permission for various CBD and keto gummies scams.

‘A Tragic End’

The Facebook ads showed the headline, “A Tragic End Today For Tom Brady.” In some of the ads, the words under the headline read, “Guess This Is Why Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen Are Divorcing.” Others mentioned clothing. We’ll explain why later in this story.

Some of the ads showed three pictures. One photograph of a woman, either clothed or not, was combined with two other pictures of the NFL star and his former wife, Gisele Bündchen. The couple announced their divorce in late 2022.

The scammy ads were misleadingly trying to hint that Brady cheated on Bündchen with the nude women who were pictured.

We censored these ads for our article.

We found evidence that this CBD gummies scam with Brady’s name had been in circulation in Facebook ads (and perhaps even on Instagram) since at least Dec. 3, 2022. This meant that it had been going on for well over one month.

Hiding the Evidence

The reason why some of the ads mentioned sweaters, skirts, and other clothing in the subheading under the “tragic end” headline was simple.

Scammers had designed websites that showed a CBD gummies scam if you navigated to the page through one of the Facebook ads. However, sharing the link to friends would for them instead show a nondescript, fake online store.

This was an attempt by the scammers to hide the scam, kind of like throwing a blanket over something you don’t want someone else to see. Scammers appeared to use an iframe (inline frame) in the code of the website, so that anyone who tried to investigate the link would only see the fake online store. Sadly for the scammers, this strategy failed.

Fake ‘Fox News’ Article

As previously mentioned, any users who clicked on the ads were led to a scam website. In this case, the scam website was misleadingly designed to fool readers into believing they were on FoxNews.com. Readers were also tricked into believing Brady and Dr. Phil, whose real name is Phil McGraw, endorsed CBD gummies, something they never did. Their image and likeness were being used by scammers without authorization.

On the fake “Fox News” website, the URL (website address) was “men-health.usmagazine.live/tom-1130/track-nr.html.”

According to the URL’s inclusion of “men-health” and usmagazine,” the scammers were potentially pretending to be Men’s Health Magazine and Us Weekly. Also, “tom-1130” appeared in the URL, which may have indicated that this scam began on Nov. 30, 2022.

The scam article showed the headline, “ESPN Cutting Ties With Tom Brady Over Breach Of Contract? He Fires Back With This!”

Fox News never published this article.

The fake story claimed that Brady and McGraw had combined forces on their purported endorsement of CBD gummies. However, this was all absolutely false. Neither men had anything to do with this. (Nor did Dr. Oz, for that matter.)

Part of the fake article read as follows:

What exactly was it that Tom was willing to risk his career to pursue? A solution for erectile dysfunction. That’s right. The secret the guest on his show revealed was the erectile dysfunction business Tom and Dr. Phil started together. The next day, Tom caused a frenzy when he and Dr. Phil unveiled their new Erectile Dysfunction fix on Dr. Phil’s show.

“Dr. Phil and I have done our research, spoken to specialists and industry insiders,” Brady said when he appeared on Dr. Phil’s Show. “And they helped us create this product Natures Remedy CBD Gummies and boy can I tell you, this stuff is potent. I’ve tried Viagra, I’ve tried Red Ginseng, I’ve tried Cialis. Natures Remedy CBD Gummies blows them all away.”

The product is repeatedly selling out within minutes and Brady says his number one struggle is sourcing enough product. Natures Remedy CBD Gummies is 90% cheaper and five times more effective than others on the market.

Big pharma was predictably furious, calling for his apology and resignation from his upcoming movie roles. If those companies thought Tom was going to back down, they clearly didn’t know him. He appeared again on live TV the next day, not to resign, but to offer viewers free samples.

It’s unclear why the words in the Facebook ads (ex. “Today Is A Tragic Ending For Our Tom Brady”) appeared to be a poor translation to English, but the fake Fox News article looked like it was written by someone with a strong grasp of the language.

So Many Celebrity CBD Scams

Scammers have run this same kind of ridiculous celebrity endorsement scam for CBD gummies and keto gummies in the past. For example, we’ve seen this familiar scam playbook used with Tom Selleck, Oprah Winfrey, Ree Drummond, Dolly Parton, and so many others.

We’d be remiss to not mention the fact that Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood won two lawsuits after his image and likeness were used without permission for fake CBD endorsements.

In 2021, Eastwood won $6.1 million in a lawsuit against Lithuanian scammers. Then in 2022, a second ruling awarded him $2 million in compensation from California-based, internet-marketing company Norok Innovations, according to IndieWire.com.

Sources:

Bahr, Sarah. “Clint Eastwood Wins $6.1 Million CBD Lawsuit.” The New York Times, 3 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/movies/clint-eastwood-wins-cbd-lawsuit.html.

Italie, Leanne, and Fred Goodall. “Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen Announce Divorce after 13 Years.” The Associated Press, 28 Oct. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/tom-brady-gisele-bundchen-divorce-1176a61b7f7f01cab1876a47bf5daf55.

“Meta Global Revenue Per Quarter 2022.” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/422035/facebooks-quarterly-global-revenue/.

Zilko, Christian. “Clint Eastwood Awarded $2 Million in Fake CBD Endorsement Lawsuit.” IndieWire, 2 July 2022, https://www.indiewire.com/2022/07/clint-eastwood-cbd-lawsuit-1234738550/.

Claim:

World Wrestling Entertainment is being sold to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the country.

Rating:

As World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Chief Vince McMahon returned as chairman of the company in January 2023, just months after retiring following sexual harassment allegations, many speculated about the future of the professional wrestling juggernaut. Rumors even circulated that WWE was going to be sold to the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, also known as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which would subsequently make WWE a private company.

So far, we have no real confirmation that such a sale is taking place. We have reached out to WWE to learn more and will update this story accordingly.

But tabloid TMZ claims that the company has not been sold to Saudi Arabia, even as rumors circulated that McMahon secured a “massive payday” for handing over the company to the nation.

According to CNBC, McMahon’s return is to help facilitate a sale of the company, and WWE had hired JPMorgan to advise it in the process. CNBC also reported that legacy media, streaming giants, and entertainment holding companies could all submit bids. Any potential sale would likely take place before mid-2023, which is when television-rights renewal deals were being negotiated. 

Sports journalists also tweeted out that there was no such deal, and the original tweet claiming as such had been deleted:

Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has a long history of human rights violations, including the suppression of women’s rights activists and critics of the royal family. Many have speculated that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018. 

Many online wondered about what a sale to Saudi Arabia could mean for women and LGBTQ wrestling talent.

We should note that WWE already has a pre-existing, 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia to hold wrestling competitions in the kingdom, which were part of an effort by Saudi sports authorities to increase sports initiatives and events. Indeed, rumors about the WWE have increased accusations of “sportswashing,” which many argue involves the country spending billions of dollars on high-profile sports and entertainment events to distract from their human rights violations.

At this moment, however, we do not have enough available information. While some journalists have claimed the WWE rumor is false, we will await a response from the group. For now we rate this claim as a “Research in Progress.” 

Sources:

Haynes, Cassidy. “Exclusive: WWE Sale To Saudi Investment Fund Done, Company Going Private.” BodySlam.Net, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.bodyslam.net/2023/01/10/exclusive-wwe-sale-to-saudi-investment-fund-done-company-going-private/. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

“Jamal Khashoggi: All You Need to Know about Saudi Journalist’s Death.” BBC News, 10 Oct. 2018. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

“Saudi Arabia Signs 10-Year Contract with WWE.” Al Arabiya English, 1 Mar. 2018, https://english.alarabiya.net/sports/2018/03/01/Saudi-Arabia-signs-10-year-contract-with-WWE. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Sherman, Alex. “Vince McMahon Is Back at WWE to Ensure a Smooth Sale Process. Here’s Who Might Want to Buy It.” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/07/who-would-buy-wwe-as-mcmahon-returns-to-board-to-pursue-sale.html. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

“Stephanie McMahon Resigns as WWE’s Co-CEO.” ESPN.Com, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/35422004/stephanie-mcmahon-resigns-wwe-nick-khan-now-sole-ceo. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

“WWE Sources Say Company Not Sold to Saudi Arabia.” TMZ, https://www.tmz.com/2023/01/11/wwe-sources-company-not-sold-saudi-arabia/. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Zidan, Karim. “Report: Saudi Arabia in Talks to Buy WWE, Expand Sportswashing Empire.” Bloody Elbow, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2023/1/11/23549833/saudi-arabia-bid-buy-wwe-wrestling-politics-sportswashing-news. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Claim:

U. S. President Joe Biden was building a wall on his beach house property using taxpayer money in 2023.

Rating:

Context

These types of security enhancements allow for more efficient Secret Service protection and are commonplace for current — and even former — U.S. presidents.

On Jan. 9, 2023, the Daily Mail reported on construction at U. S. President Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, beach home. The project, the Daily Mail reported, is the addition of a large security wall, and is funded by the Department of Homeland Security: 

The project has a price tag of nearly half-a-million dollars. … Plans to put up fencing around Biden’s beach home began in 2021 when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded a contract for additional security barriers at the president’s private residence at the beach in Delaware.

Since the plan is a government contract, taxpayers will foot the $490,324 bill for ‘purchase and installation of security fencing’. The new price is a nearly $34,000 increase from the original contract price…

These statements are factual. They can be verified through the U.S. government website usaspending.gov — a database of government contracts. The contract discussed by the Daily Mail is for the “purchase and installation of security fencing” at the address of Biden’s Rehoboth beach property. 

The secret service regularly provides security enhancements to the private residences of presidents. They also sometimes enhance the security at the private residences of former presidents.

In fact, the cost of the Biden wall is less than the cost of another Department of Homeland Security contract awarded “to provide Mar-a-Lago” — former president Donald Trump’s private residence — “with a physical security build-out upgrade.”  The price tag on that project, which began after Trump left office, was $580,600. 

Because taxpayers are funding the construction of a wall around Biden’s Rehoboth Beach property, the claim is “True.”

Sources:

Caralle, Katelyn. “EXCLUSIVE: Biden IS Building a Wall… at His Delaware Beach House.” Mail Online, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11616243/Biden-building-wall-Delaware-beach-house.html.

Fandos, Nicholas. “Congress Allocates $120 Million for Trump Family’s Security Costs.” The New York Times, 1 May 2017. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/secret-service-trump-protection.html.

“Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower: Could a Federal Law Force Trump to Choose?” WLRN, 20 Mar. 2017, https://www.wlrn.org/news/2017-03-19/mar-a-lago-or-trump-tower-could-a-federal-law-force-trump-to-choose.

USAspending.Gov. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70US0921C70090048_7009_-NONE-_-NONE-. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

—. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70US0921C70090071_7009_-NONE-_-NONE-. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

The Justice Department is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the discovery of classified documents by personal lawyers for President Joe Biden inside his former office in November. The White House publicly acknowledged the federal review this week.

In this story, we will review what we currently know about the documents, as well as how this situation compares to the FBI’s recovery of highly classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. We also address Trump’s unsupported claims that China “saw” Biden’s documents and funded the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, where Biden’s office was located.

The Biden Documents

In a statement issued to reporters, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said Biden’s attorneys found “a small number” of documents with classified markings “in a locked closet” on Nov. 2, when the lawyers were packing up the office that Biden “periodically used” at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. The University of Pennsylvania-affiliated think tank was established in 2017, after Biden was no longer vice president, and its offices opened in February 2018, about a year before Biden took a leave of absence to run for president. 

The “roughly 10 documents” were in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, CBS News first reported on Jan. 9, citing unnamed sources. CBS News said its sources “revealed neither what the documents contain nor their level of classification,” only offering that the documents “did not contain nuclear secrets.”

Biden himself said in a Jan. 10 press conference from Mexico City that he does not know what is in the documents and that he “was surprised to learn there were any government records that were taken there to that office.”

Earlier that day, CNN, citing “a source familiar with the matter,” reported that the documents included “US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.” The source also told CNN that the documents were dated between 2013 and 2016, during Biden’s second term as vice president.

Sauber’s statement said that after discovering the documents, Biden’s attorneys immediately notified the National Archives and Records Administration, which took possession of the documents the next morning. After being contacted about the documents, NARA notified the Justice Department, news reports said.

Under the Presidential Records Act, which has governed presidential and vice presidential records since 1981, all presidential and vice presidential documents are required to be turned over to NARA for secure storage at the end of each president’s administration. (Personal records are not subject to the federal law.)

“The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives,” Sauber said in his statement. “Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden administration documents are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”

NARA has not yet released a statement about the documents, and the agency told FactCheck.org that it has no comment at this time.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has tapped U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review the documents and investigate how they ended up at the Penn Biden Center, sources told the New York Times. The Times said it was told that Lausch, who became a U.S. attorney during the Trump administration in 2017, was chosen because his work was more likely to be viewed as “impartial.”

Garland will determine whether to launch a criminal investigation and appoint a special counsel to oversee the review.

NBC News reported on Jan. 11 that Biden aides found “at least one additional batch of classified documents” in a different location when doing a search for any other such materials. This is a developing story, and we’ll update this article when more information is available.

How Biden’s Case Differs from Trump’s

After CBS News published its story, Trump and several Republican lawmakers seized on the news — questioning whether Biden would receive the same federal scrutiny as Trump, who is already under criminal investigation for his handling of presidential records after leaving office in January 2021.  

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Jan. 9, referring to the FBI’s execution of a court-ordered search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Aug. 8. “These documents were definitely not declassified.”

But based on what we know so far, there are some key differences between Biden’s and Trump’s situations, including the number of documents involved and how they were returned to NARA.

To start, hundreds of documents with various classified markings were found in unsecured areas at Mar-a-Lago. Some of the documents were labeled “Top Secret,” which is the highest level of classification because, as the National Archives explains, the classified information, if released, could cause “exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

As we said, news outlets have reported that about 10 documents with classified markings were found in Biden’s old office, including some that were “sensitive compartmented information,” or SCI, which also are highly sensitive files. But the Washington Post, citing “a person familiar with both inquiries,” reported that some of the materials recovered from Trump were categorized as “Special Access Programs,” or SAP, records the paper said only a small group of high-level military and intelligence officials can access.

“Some SCI programs have hundreds and thousands of people who have access, but SAP programs are much more limited,” the Post quoted the person with knowledge of the investigations as saying.

Again, NBC News reported that Biden aides have since found additional classified documents at a separate location. But the story did not say how many documents were discovered.

Trump has made the dubious claim that, as president, he issued a “standing order” declassifying all of the documents that were taken to his Florida estate. As we wrote in August, numerous experts on national security and the law surrounding classified documents say that is not plausible. Also, Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, told the New York Times he never heard of Trump’s alleged standing order and that it is “almost certainly a lie.”

Furthermore, in his statement, Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, indicated that Biden’s attorneys voluntarily turned over the documents found at the Penn Biden Center and then notified NARA of their existence. As we also have written, in Trump’s case, federal officials contacted his team about the missing presidential records and then had to negotiate the return of the materials over a series of months before the FBI obtained a court-authorized search warrant for Mar-a-Lago because Trump wasn’t fully cooperating.

In January 2022, Trump representatives initially transported 15 boxes containing presidential records to the National Archives and said they were searching for any additional records, according to a NARA statement. That was after NARA made multiple requests between May and December 2021 for the missing documents, according to the Justice Department. (For more, read “Timeline of FBI Investigation of Trump’s Handling of Highly Classified Documents.”)

Then, in June, in response to a May grand jury subpoena seeking more documents, Trump’s lawyers gave the FBI an envelope containing dozens of additional classified papers. At that time, Trump’s lawyers assured FBI agents in writing that, to their knowledge, all of the presidential records, including all classified material, had been returned. 

But when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August, after obtaining the search warrant, agents recovered thousands of additional documents from Trump’s office and a storage room, including more than 100 documents with classified markings, according to a DOJ court filing. 

In the court-approved search warrant, the DOJ cited potential violations of three statutes that involve “[o]bstruction of federal investigation,” “[w]illful retention of national defense information” and “[c]oncealment or removal of government records,” the DOJ court filing said.

Garland has named Jack Smith, a former federal prosecutor, as special counsel for the investigation of Trump’s handling of highly classified documents.

The Penn Biden Center and China

On Truth Social, Trump also made the unsupported claim that the Penn Biden Center was funded with tens of millions of dollars from Chinese donors who had been given access to the documents found in Biden’s old office.

“The amount was 54 Million Dollars that the Biden Think Tank received from China,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 9 post. “That’s a lot of money. They saw the Classified Documents!”

But there is no evidence that China directly funded the center that bears Biden’s name or that China reviewed the classified documents now under federal review.

Prior to his post linking Biden and China, Trump shared a hyperlink to an April New York Post story that said the University of Pennsylvania – not the Penn Biden Center – “raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China,” with most of the money being donated after the creation of the Penn Biden Center was announced in early 2017.

In response to our questions about Trump’s claims, a spokesperson for the university sent us the following statement: “The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity. In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017 there have been three unsolicited gifts (from two donors) which combined total $1,100. Both donors are Americans. One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds.” 

FactCheck.org has been a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania since 2003. We disclose all donations of $1,000 or more on our website.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

Claim:

The YouTuber known as MrBeast announced that he would be renting out Disney World’s Magic Kingdom park to shoot a new video.

Rating:

On Jan. 11, 2023, the Disney fan blog Mouse Trap News published the headline, “MrBeast Will Rent Out Disney World for Epic New Video.”

The story referenced the popular YouTuber known as MrBeast, whose YouTube channel has more than 127 million subscribers and well over 21 billion video views. His real name is Jimmy Donaldson.

Through the MrBeast YouTube channel, Donaldson has become known for giving away money to charity, as well as handing out cash, cars, islands (yes, islands), and other prizes, in some of the most-viewed videos on the platform.

As for the rumor about MrBeast renting out Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, the truth was that Mouse Trap News publishes satire. In other words, guests visiting Disney World in the future need not worry about the park closing for a day. This rumor was nothing more than a work of fiction that had been created for a harmless bit of fun.

Mouse Trap News published part of its satirical story like this:

MrBeast is one of the most popular YouTube creators of all time. He creates high-production YouTube videos that are very engaging. For example, MrBeast rented out an NFL stadium for a giant game of hide and seek and gave away $1,000,000! Now, MrBeast will Rent out Disney World for his next big video.

We recently reported here that Disney will allow people to rent out the Disney World Parks for a day. We recommend you read the article for full context. However, here is a quick summary. It will cost between $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 to rent out a Disney World park for the day. The cost fluctuates based on how busy the parks are as well as which park you rent out. This is an incredible experience… if you have the money.

Renting out Disney World for the day opens the door to unique opportunities. MrBeast sees this as an excellent opportunity for a new viral video. The combination of his massive popularity on YouTube, as well as the popularity of Disney World, is the perfect equation for virality. MrBeast understands how popular Disney is and realizes this will likely be a top-performing video for him.

Any readers who visit the “About” page on Mouse Trap News are greeted by a disclaimer that alerts them to the website’s satirical nature:

Mouse Trap News is the world’s best satire site. We write fake stories about Disney Parks stuff. From Disney Park announcements to Disney Hotel and resort news to made up Disney partnerships, you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun. So technically our slogan “The Moused Trusted Name in Disney News” isn’t true, but we thought it was creative and funny, so we are running with it.

Mouse Trap News was created on a whim to have some fun and write stories about Disney we wish were true. Some Disney sites write deceptive stories for clicks. We write 100% made up stories for your enjoyment. We also hope that Disney sees how much people like some of our stories and decide to actually make one of our stories a reality!

While you read our articles, be sure to keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the vehicle at all times and remember these are strictly fictional for your enjoyment. Please share any articles you enjoy reading with your Disney friends and on social media to help us grow and continue to put out fun articles.

The satirical article about MrBeast renting out Disney World also appeared in a TikTok video that was put out by Mouse Trap News:

We previously published other stories about rumors that originated on Mouse Trap News after we received inquiries from readers.

For example, one such fun story said that Disney had filed a patent for a roller coaster that jumps the track. Another article talked about how Disney World would be lowering the drinking age to 18. A third one said that a man lost his hands on Space Mountain, which resulted in Disney deciding to keep the lights on permanently. All of these were works of fiction that had been created for fun by Mouse Trap News.

Sources:

Liles, Jordan. “Did a Man Lose His Hands on Space Mountain?” Snopes, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/man-loses-hands-on-space-mountain/.

—. “Did Disney File a Patent for Roller Coaster That Jumps Tracks?” Snopes, 17 Nov. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/disney-coaster-jumps-track/.

—. “Is Disney World Lowering the Drinking Age to 18?” Snopes, 22 Aug. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/disney-world-drinking-age/.

@mousetrapnews. “Where Would You Hide in the Magic Kingdom?” TikTok, 10 Jan. 2023, https://www.tiktok.com/@mousetrapnews/video/7187197196301913390.

“MrBeast.” MrBeast Wiki via Fandom.com, https://mrbeast.fandom.com/wiki/MrBeast.

“MrBeast Will Rent Out Disney World for Epic New Video.” Mouse Trap News, 11 Jan. 2023, https://mousetrapnews.com/mrbeast-will-rent-out-disney-world-for-epic-new-video/.

On Jan. 7, news broke that 18-year-old mixed martial arts fighter Victoria Lee had died nearly two weeks earlier. 

Her sister, Angela Lee Pucci, shared on Instagram that Lee died Dec. 26. She gave no cause of death, but ended her post urging people to “check on your loved ones.”

“Give them hugs and tell them how much they mean to you,” Pucci said. “You just never know.” 

But some social media posts suggest Lee died because of a COVID-19 vaccine. 

“Murdered by injection,” a Facebook post said. An Instagram post about Lee’s death used hashtags such as #diedsuddenly and #vaccinationdone.

These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We contacted Lee’s sister and the funeral home that published her obituary about rumors that she died because of the vaccine and didn’t immediately hear back. 

But as with previous claims that a vaccine was responsible for high-profile deaths in the past couple of years, we found no evidence to substantiate this one. 

We found no mention of the vaccine in remembrances shared by her family or friends. Chatri Sityodtong, chairman and chief executive officer of ONE Championship, in which Lee competed, said on Facebook that he was “heartbroken” by her death. (ONE Championship also did not respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the vaccine claims.) 

There are no credible news stories connecting Lee’s death to a vaccine.

Reports of people dying after they receive a COVID-19 vaccine are rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as are other serious health events. Doctors and experts have told PolitiFact that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing disease, hospitalization and death.  

If evidence emerges that Lee died because of a COVID-19 vaccine, we’ll reconsider our ruling. For now, these claims are unsubstantiated, and so we rate them False. 

RELATED: Young and healthy people get benefits and low risk from COVID-19 vaccine, despite claims to contrary

RELATED: ‘Died Suddenly’ repeats debunked COVID-19 vaccine claims, promotes conspiracy theory

President Joe Biden, who recently made his first visit as president to the southern border, and Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who greeted Biden in Texas, offered competing versions of who’s to blame for a spike in illegal immigration. But both twisted some facts to fit their partisan narratives.

In remarks prior to his trip to his Jan. 8 trip to El Paso, Texas, Biden said that on his first day in office he proposed a comprehensive plan to “overhaul … a broken immigration system” but that “congressional Republicans have refused to consider” his plan. Republicans opposed his plan, but the bill never came up for a vote because it also did not appear to have enough support among Democrats.

In a letter he hand-delivered to Biden, Abbott claimed, “Under President [Donald] Trump, the federal government achieved historically low levels of illegal immigration,” and “by contrast, America is suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country” under Biden. Apprehensions of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally have soared in Biden’s presidency, but apprehensions were not at historic lows under Trump.

In fact, after falling in his first year in office, apprehensions rose in 2018, spiked in 2019 and were higher in 2020, Trump’s last year in office, than the year before he took office in 2017.

As a record number of migrants continue to attempt to cross illegally into the U.S., Biden has faced growing criticism from Republicans for failing to address what Biden has acknowledged is a “difficult challenge.”

In remarks to reporters from the White House ahead of his trip, Biden blamed Republicans for the problems at the border, while in Abbott’s letter to the president, he accused Biden of enacting “open-border policies” that violated the president’s “constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws.”

We’ll sort through two misleading points each made in making their case.

Biden Blames Republicans

In his remarks on border security and enforcement on Jan. 5, Biden outlined executive actions he planned to take to deal with “our situation in the southwest border.” Since Biden took office, just over 4 million people have been apprehended by border patrol agents while attempting to cross the border illegally.

As we wrote in our last “Biden’s Numbers” story in October, that represents a historically high surge, and apprehensions over the last 12 months have more than tripled compared with the number of apprehensions in Trump’s final year in office.

While Republicans have blamed Biden for the surge — we have detailed some of the factors beyond his control as well — Biden laid blame for the problem on Republicans.

“On my first day in office … I sent Congress a comprehensive piece of legislation that would completely overhaul what has been a broken immigration system for a long time: cracking down on illegal immigration; strengthening legal immigration; and protecting DREAMers, those with temporary protected status, and farmworkers, who all are part of the fabric of our nation,” Biden said. “But congressional Republicans have refused to consider my comprehensive plan.”

Biden accused Republicans of “using immigration to try to score political points” even as they “reject solutions” that could improve what he said has become “a difficult problem” at the border.

It’s true that on his first day in office, Biden sent Congress an immigration bill that he said would “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.” The proposal would have provided a pathway to citizenship for many of those currently in the country illegally, increased diversity visas and increased assistance to countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the country of origin for many of the immigrants trying to cross the border at that time.

The bill also sought additional funding to “implement a plan to deploy technology to expedite screening and enhance the ability to identify narcotics and other contraband at every land, air, and sea port of entry.”

Based on Biden’s plan, the following month, in February 2021, Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez formally introduced the U.S. Citizenship Act in the House. An identical bill was introduced in the Senate by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.

The New York Times described the bill as “a lengthy wish list for pro-immigration activists and a down payment on Mr. Biden’s campaign promise to provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. It would allow virtually all undocumented immigrants to eventually apply for citizenship; increase legal immigration; add measures to secure ports of entry and speed processing of asylum seekers; and invest $4 billion in the economies of Central American countries to reduce migration.”

Neither bill came up for a vote even though Democrats enjoyed a majority in both houses of Congress.

Biden is right that Republicans opposed the bill. The New York Times noted that many Republicans said the bill didn’t invest enough in border security and would only encourage illegal immigration.

“This blatantly partisan proposal rewards those who broke the law, floods the labor market at a time when millions of Americans are out of work, fails to secure the border, and incentivizes further illegal immigration,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, who was the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee at the time.

A month after the bill was proposed, the New York Times reported on March 15 that not only Republicans were opposing the comprehensive legislation, but also “progressives and moderates” were at odds over the bill.

According to the New York Times, “Moderate Democrats have been hesitant to take difficult votes on a bill they know will be pilloried by Republicans and are pushing for a change in approach to more closely resemble past efforts that traded legalization of undocumented workers for tighter security at the border.”

As an example, the story quoted centrist Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas saying he would like “something a little more moderate, especially when it comes to border security.”

“Speaker Pelosi has discovered that she doesn’t have support for the comprehensive bill in the House, and I think that indicates where it is in the Senate as well,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

A year later, in April 2022, the nonprofit news site Documented reported that the U.S. Citizenship Act “was ultimately abandoned by lawmakers in favor of smaller separate bills, given the unlikelihood that such sweeping reforms would gain enough support from Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass the Senate.” But even some of the smaller measures “stalled in Congress while others have perished as part of the broader Build Back Better bill,” the report stated.

Abbott Blames Biden

Shortly after Biden arrived in El Paso on Jan. 8, Abbott greeted the president with a handshake and a letter attacking his immigration policy.

“Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late,” the letter began. “Moreover, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.”

Abbott accused Biden of failing to enforce immigration laws enacted by Congress, and called for a return to the policies under Trump.

“Under President Trump, the federal government achieved historically low levels of illegal immigration,” Abbott wrote. “Under your watch, by contrast, America is suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country.”

It’s true that apprehensions of people attempting to cross illegally into the U.S. along the southern border shot up after Biden became president.

But it’s misleading to say the number of apprehensions was “historically low” under Trump. As we wrote in “Trump’s Final Numbers”: “Illegal border crossings, as measured by apprehensions at the southwest border, were 14.7% higher in Trump’s final year in office compared with the last full year before he was sworn in.”

The number of apprehensions plummeted in the immediate months after Trump took office in January 2017 — what an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute referred to as “the Trump Effect” — after constant talk on the campaign trail about building a wall and cracking down on illegal immigration. The monthly low of 11,127 apprehensions in April 2017 is unmatched in Customs and Border Protection monthly records going back to 2000. For the entire fiscal year, the number of apprehensions totaled 310,531, according to CBP data dating to fiscal year 1925. That’s the lowest fiscal year total since 1971. But it’s not a record.

The apprehension numbers from fiscal years 1925 through 1946 were in the tens of thousands before spiking in the late 1940s and into the mid-1950s, and then dropping below 100,000 again from 1956 to 1967.

So the total in Trump’s first year was low compared with numbers in the last several decades, but not a historical record.

But more importantly, the number of apprehensions started to creep back up in late 2017. The number of apprehensions during the Trump years peaked in calendar year 2019, when nearly 800,000 people were caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border. That was higher than any year going back to 2007, and was higher than any year during President Barack Obama’s tenure, based on our review of monthly CBP data. In 2020, aided in part by the pandemic, numbers fell from the 2019 totals, but they were still higher than all but one of Obama’s eight years in office.

And again, in Trump’s final year in office, illegal border crossings, as measured by apprehensions at the southwest border, were higher than the last full year before he was sworn in.

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An outage in key computer systems that pilots need to fly safely resulted in hours of  cascading grounded and delayed flights across the U.S. the morning of Jan. 11, 2023. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency that oversees civil aviation in the country, initially ordered all flights to be grounded in the early-morning hours but lifted that order just before 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). 

However, the cumulative effect of the stoppage was the delay of more than 7,000 flights into and out of the U.S. and 1,000 cancellations, with those numbers continuing to snowball through the morning. Not long after the news spread, many speculated about the reasons for the outage:

Around 9 a.m. the FAA tweeted that normal air traffic operations were “resuming gradually,” and that the agency would “continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.” 

Soon after the stoppage ended, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg tweeted that he was directing an after-action inquiry to “determine root causes.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted around 7:40 a.m. EST, “There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed [Department of Transportation] to conduct a full investigation into the causes.”

In an interview with CNN around midday that day, Buttigieg responded to questions on whether the outage was a result of a cyberattack. “There’s been no direct evidence or indication of that, but we are also not going to rule that out until we have a clear and better understanding of what’s taken place,” he said. 

He also said the dramatic stoppage of flights was out of an abundance of caution. “FAA will always act to make sure that passengers are safe,” he said. “Part of what you saw this morning was an act of caution to be sure — until it was 100% airtight that the system was working properly even just delivering messages — that we had that ground stop.” 

So what really happened? Before a flight commences, pilots are required to consult the Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMS), which detail potential adverse effects on flights, like runway constructions, icing, etc. Before, pilots used to call flight service stations on the phone for this information, but now this service is online. According to the FAA, the NOTAM system broke down at 8:28 p.m. EST on Jan. 10, 2023, preventing important updates and notices from being distributed to pilots. The agency resorted to a telephone hotline to allow departures to continue overnight, but the system was soon unable to handle the daytime traffic. 

NOTAMS was created in 1947, according to The New York Times, and modeled after similar messages used to alert ship captains to hazards at sea.

Military air traffic was not impacted because the military has its own NOTAMS system that is separate from the FAA. European air traffic into the U.S. also did not appear to be impacted. 

On the evening of Jan. 11, 2023, officials had traced the problem to a corrupted file. “The FAA is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage,” the agency said in a statement. “Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack.”

Given that we have no more publicly available information about the reasons behind the NOTAM outage and the flight disruptions, we will continue to monitor the situation and update this story when we learn more. 

Sources:

“Air Travel across US Thrown into Chaos after Computer Outage.” AP NEWS, 11 Jan. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/flight-delays-us-faa-updates-5805d15f520de8eadf52abb7b170487f. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

“Corrupted File to Blame for FAA Aviation Stoppage That Delayed Thousands of Flights.” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-flights-grounded-faa-outage-rcna65243. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023.

“FAA Computer Outage Brings U.S. Flights to a Standstill as Departing Planes Grounded.” PBS NewsHour, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/faa-computer-outage-brings-u-s-flights-to-a-standstill-as-departing-planes-grounded. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Sangal, Aditi, and Adrienne Vogt. “Live Updates: Flights Delayed across the US after FAA System Outage.” CNN, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/faa-system-outage-us-flight-disruptions/index.html. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Victor, Daniel, et al. “Live Updates: Flights Resume Across U.S. After F.A.A. System Failure.” The New York Times, 11 Jan. 2023. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/11/business/faa-flights-grounded. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023.

Claim:

The FAA flight stoppage of Jan. 11, 2023, was the first time the agency grounded all U.S. flights since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rating:

On Jan. 11, 2023, Fox News published the headline, “FAA orders all flights grounded for the first time since 9/11.”

Hours earlier, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had ordered that all U.S flights be grounded due to what was referred to a computer system outage.

It’s possible that some of our readers were curious if this FAA order truly was the first time that all U.S. flights had been grounded since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a day when terrorists hijacked four airplanes and killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Two of the airplanes crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, which both collapsed soon after. A third plane struck the Pentagon. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and was “the only one of the four hijacked aircraft that failed to reach the terrorists’ intended target that day,” thanks to the “unity, courage, and defiance in the face of adversity” that was shown by passengers and crew, according to NPS.gov.

As for the claim made by Fox News, we found data from authoritative sources that supported this rumor.

For example, The Washington Post quoted a former FAA official who could not recall another time since 9/11 when all flights had been grounded:

The nationwide flight stoppage imposed by the FAA on Wednesday was the first of its kind since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to Michael McCormick, a former agency official.

“This is unheard of, and then the action that the FAA had to take in grounding all the flights makes it even more significant,” said McCormick, now a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The Associated Press (AP) also mentioned the historic nature of the FAA’s flight-grounding order:

Longtime aviation insiders could not recall an outage of such magnitude caused by a technology breakdown. Some compared it to the nationwide shutdown of airspace after the terror attacks of September 2001.

“Periodically there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically,” said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and now a consultant in Minneapolis.

Beyond these two reports, we were not yet able to find any other dates between 9/11 and January 2023 when any such grounding order had been given by the FAA on a nationwide scale.

We reached out to the FAA’s press office to ask about the rumor and will update this story if we receive an official response.

The Cause of the Outage

As for the outage in January 2023, the AP published that the White House said there were no initial signs of a cyberattack. U.S. President Joe Biden also told reporters that the U.S. Department of Transportation was investigating.

According to the AP, the cause of the outage looked to have been an “antiquated computer system”:

Whatever the cause, the outage revealed how dependent the world’s largest economy is on air travel, and how dependent air travel is on an antiquated computer system called the Notice to Air Missions System, or NOTAM.

Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system used to be telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but has moved online.

The NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday, leading to more than 1,000 flight cancellations and more than 6,000 delayed flights by 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

This story will be updated if we further information comes to light.

Sources:

Chapman, Michelle. “Air Travel across US Thrown into Chaos after Computer Outage.” The Associated Press, 11 Jan. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/flight-delays-us-faa-updates-5805d15f520de8eadf52abb7b170487f.

Duncan, Ian. “Nationwide Flight Stop Is First of Its Kind since 9/11, Former FAA Official Says.” The Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/11/faa-notam-outage-flights-us/#link-4MIXEW57T5AMJJV5DCAXNH6DFU.

FAA News. Twitter, https://twitter.com/faanews.

“FAA Orders All Flights Grounded for the First Time since 9/11 | Fox News Video.” Fox News, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318506567112.

“Flight 93 Story – Flight 93 National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service).” NPS.Gov, https://www.nps.gov/flni/learn/historyculture/flight93story.htm.

Claim:

A red carpet event in Los Angeles was flooded due to heavy rains in early January 2023.

Rating:

Los Angeles, and Southern California in general, are known globally for their hot, dry climates, but early 2023 ushered in an historically cold, wet winter. That was on display on the night of Jan. 9, 2023, during a red carpet event for HBO. A video circulated on social media showing “The Last of Us” star Pedro Pascal giving an interview while standing in a sloshing puddle:

The video showed actual events that occurred during the show’s premiere at the Regency Village Theater on L.A.’s Westside.

The series is set to premiere for the general public on HBO’s streaming service on Jan. 15, 2023. And as entertainment news site Variety observed, “Los Angeles’ pouring rain and red carpet flooding leaned into the post-apocalyptic ambiance” of the show.

The show is based on a PlayStation video game by the same name, and is set in a post-apocalyptic future, the theme of which might strike close to home for many in the post-COVID-19 world. Here’s how HBO described it:

The series takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

Joel is played by Pascal and Ellie is played by Bella Ramsey, who won hearts with her portrayal of the tiny but mighty noble Lyanna Mormont. 

Sources:

“The Last of Us | Official Website for the HBO Series.” HBO.com. https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Weakland, Russ. ‘The Last of Us’ Cast on Video-Game Adaptation Challenges and Why a TV Series Was Better Than a Film.” Variety, 10 Jan. 2023, https://news.yahoo.com/last-us-cast-video-game-193521263.html.

Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers that are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias. When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)

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MOSTLY FALSE	Claim by Donald Trump (R): As president, Donald Trump “marshaled the full power of government to stop deadly drugs, opioids, and fentanyl from coming into our country. As a result, drug overdose deaths declined nationwide for the first time in nearly 30 years.” PolitiFact rating: Mostly False (The overdose death rate did drop in 2018. However, this is a cherry-picked view of the trends on Trump’s watch. In the other three of his four years in office, the overdose death rate rose, including a record increase in 2020.) Trump touts one year’s decline in drug overdoses, ignoring three years of increases
UNPROVEN	Claim via Social Media and left-leaning news outlets: Republican U.S. Rep. George Santos flashed the white power symbol when casting a vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy for House speaker in January 2023. Snopes rating: Unproven (could be just the way he was holding his hand. There is no way to know what his intent was.) Did George Santos Flash the White Power Sign When Voting for McCarthy?
BLATANT LIE	Claim via Social Media: Photo shows ‘QAnon shaman’ at attack on Brazil’s capital. PolitiFact rating: False (the photo is from a September 2021 rally in São Paulo and the Qanon Shaman is in jail.) Viral photo of copycat ‘QAnon shaman’ in Brazil wasn’t taken during 2023 riots
BLATANT LIE	Claim via Social media: Video shows Rubio expose Fauci ‘fake data crime’ after Fauci begs for money. USA Today rating: False (No, it does not.) Fact check: No video doesn’t show Rubio accuse Fauci of ‘data crime’
FALSE	Claim via Redacted: The tabletop exercise “Catastrophic Contagion” means that “Bill Gates and WHO have announced when we will see the next pandemic” Health Feedback rating: Unsupported (No available data indicates that the tabletop exercise “Catastrophic Contagion” revealed the place, date and nature of a future real-world pandemic.) Simulation exercises such as “Catastrophic Contagion” are a normal part of pandemic preparedness; they don’t predict future pandemics Redacted Rating
FALSE	(International: India): Photograph shows Rahul Gandhi having alcohol and chicken on Bharat Jodo Yatra. The Quint rating: False This Photo Doesn’t Show Rahul Gandhi Drinking Alcohol During Bharat Jodo Yatra

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These sources exclusively use humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. Primarily these sources are transparent in that they are satire and do not attempt to deceive.  See all Satire sources.

• Overall, we rate Dunning-Kruger-Times as a satire website based on full disclosure on its about page that they are satire.

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Claim:

A video shows Bryan Kohberger attending a vigil for Idaho murder victims.

Rating:

In early January 2023, social media users shared a video with the claim that it showed Bryan Kohberger attending a vigil for the four University of Idaho students with whom he would later be charged with murdering.

One popular news headline that appeared on a handful of publishers’ websites read, “Online sleuths claim Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger attended victims’ vigil.”

In a static, wide-shot video from the vigil, a tall, thin, white man can be seen walking from left to right while wearing a blue jacket with his hood down. He was wearing glasses and also wore grey pants.

One Twitter user posted, “The blue coat guy at the vigil for the slain Idaho college students appears to have identical profile as Bryan Kohberger being escorted into court today. Same weak chin, same long nose same, hollowed out eyes and same height of hairline. It’s Bryan at that vigil! #BryanKohberger.”

Another user posted, “Bryan Kohberger was actually there, brazen to attend glorifying in the murders he had just committed amidst family and students.”

However, the truth of the matter was revealed by Inside Edition Chief Correspondent Jim Moret, who had attended the vigil.

Moret (or a videographer colleague) recorded raw video at the vigil, which showed a closer view of the man in the blue jacket. That closer look revealed that he was not Kohberger.

The moment in the report that’s relevant to this fact check begins at the 1:16 mark below.

For readers who are unfamiliar with this case, The Associated Press published an explainer on Jan. 4.

Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30 and charged with first-degree murder:

It’s been weeks since four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in their beds, and now some of the mystery surrounding the case may soon fall away.

Bryan Kohberger, who was attending a nearby university around the time of the killings, was returned to Idaho on Wednesday to face charges of first-degree murder after his arrest last week. Court documents that could shed light on many unanswered questions are expected to be unsealed soon, even as a magistrate judge issued a sweeping gag order prohibiting anyone from discussing the case with media.

Kohberger was arrested Dec. 30 in connection with the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

This story will be updated if more details come to light.

Sources:

Boone, Rebecca. “EXPLAINER: Next Steps and New Details in Idaho Killings.” The Associated Press, 4 Jan. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/idaho-indiana-crime-b3f0d08e8d750a602429cc728e9a639e.

Inside Edition. “A Facebook Post Has Many People Wondering If Accused Killer Bryan Kohberger Was Secretly Posing as a Citizen Sleuth Investigating the Murders of Four Idaho College Students.” Twitter, 9 Jan. 2023, https://twitter.com/insideedition/status/1612600106661838849.

@t.vmoments. “Not Bryan Kohberger.” TikTok, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.tiktok.com/@t.vmoments/video/7186854450844142894.

On Jan. 9, 2023, several outlets including CBS News and The New York Times reported the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank containing an office once used by U.S. President Joe Biden from 2017 to 2019. According to these reports, the documents date to when Biden was vice president and were found on Nov. 2, 2022, by personal attorneys to Biden.

In 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) compelled the recovery of hundreds of documents with classified markings from former President Trump’s private club and Florida residence Mar-a-Lago. At the time, President Biden described Trump’s handling of these documents “totally irresponsible.” 

Following the public revelation of classified documents improperly stored by Biden, some politicians and pundits suggested the discovery highlighted both hypocrisy and a double standard in how the Department of Justice (DOJ) handled classified document cases. In this article, Snopes compares and contrasts the two discoveries. 

How Many Documents Were Discovered?

According to Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, the Biden-associated files contained “roughly 10 documents marked classified.”  The New York Times reported in August 2022 that the Trump documents included more than 300 documents with classified markings. 

What Are Their Contents?

CNN, citing an unnamed source, reported that “the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president … are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.” CBS News, also citing an unnamed source, reported that “the documents did not contain nuclear secrets.” Some of these documents included the top secret classification. 

The Trump materials contained “secrets about nuclear capabilities” among other documents. The cache of files also included material with the highest level of classification: “top secret/sensitive compartmented information.”

Where Were the Documents Found?

The Biden documents were discovered in the office of a University of Pennsylvania-associated think tank physically located in Washington, D.C. According to Sauber, the special counsel to the president, “The documents at issue were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal lawyers were packing files kept in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center” and were “contained in a folder that was in a box with unclassified papers.” 

According to CBS News, “the center’s sixth-floor offices sit at the foot of Capitol Hill … the center’s staff largely comprises former Obama administration officials, many of whom have left the center to serve in the Biden administration.” 

The bulk of the Trump documents were initially recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago is the primary residence of the former president, but it is also “a private club reserved for 500 members and a venue for parties and fund-raisers that are frequently attended by hundreds of people at a time.” At the time of their initial discovery, many of the documents were contained in an unlocked storage area near places to which members had access. 

According to The New York Times, “members and their guests have access to much of the 20-acre property.” There have been several notable security incidents at Mar-a-Lago.

Were the Documents Voluntarily Handed Over?

According to Sauber, “The White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives and Records Administration of the discovery that day, and the agency retrieved the Biden materials the following morning.” Though the discovery was made a few days prior to the November 2022 midterm elections, disclosure of the documents’ discovery did not occur until January 2023. 

The documents taken by Trump were recovered after he and his lawyers resisted several efforts by NARA to secure their return. They were recovered only after the DOJ issued a subpoena and had to be secured through an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago. 

The Bottom Line

While both the Biden and Trump cases appear to involve improperly retained classified information, the number of the documents involved  — 10 versus over 300 — differs substantially. Further, the Biden documents were found in a professional office, whereas the Trump documents were found at a personal residence doubling as a pay-to-play club and event hosting space. Finally, the Biden documents were immediately returned to NARA, and did not require an FBI raid to be recovered. 

 

Sources:

Biden Docs Revelation Fuels Republicans as They Flex New Power. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-biden-classified-documents-think-tank-republicans-criticize-trump-mar-a-lago/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Haberman, Maggie, et al. “Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago.” The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html.

Reid, Jamie Gangel, Marshall Cohen,Evan Perez,Paula. “Exclusive: US Intelligence Materials Related to Ukraine, Iran and UK Found in Biden’s Private Office, Source Tells CNN | CNN Politics.” CNN, 10 Jan. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/10/politics/biden-classified-documents-iran-ukraine-united-kingdom-beau-funeral/index.html.

Singhvi, Anjali, et al. “Inside Mar-a-Lago, Where Thousands Partied Near Secret Files.” The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/us/mar-a-lago-trump-documents.html.

Timeline: The Government’s Efforts to Get Sensitive Documents Back from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-search-timeline-mar-a-lago-justice-department/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

U.S. Attorney Reviewing Documents Marked Classified from Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency Found at Biden Think Tank. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-center-classified-documents/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

In early January 2023, concerned parents posted on Facebook about a rumor that claimed to show a “cut yourself” self-harm and suicide game of “dares” that was being shared to kids on the online game platform Roblox.

In our research for this story, we read through Roblox’s own community standards, which showed that the company had already implemented very strict guidelines and parental controls to keep children safe on the platform. We provide details about all of these policies later in this story.

Further, as of this writing, we currently view this rumor as being unsupported. We haven’t yet been able to uncover any evidence that showed this “game” truly was being spread to kids on Roblox.

We contacted Roblox with questions. We also reached out to one of the parents who posted that she saw the rumor being shared in a Facebook group for moms.

By email, a spokesperson for the company said an investigation had found no evidence of the content on its platform. This story will be updated if we receive a response from the Facebook user.

What Is Roblox?

For readers unfamiliar with what Roblox is all about, the platform allows players to use the company’s Roblox Studio software to create their own games. Those user-created games can then be played with other users on the platform.

When did Roblox grow into what it is today? According to The Associated Press, “It became became wildly popular after the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and kept children indoors looking for something to do.”

Aside from creating and playing games, Roblox offers the ability to fill out a profile, build a friends list, and send and receive messages, among a number of other features. With these features come an extensive set of guidelines and parental controls, which, again, are covered later in this story.

Self-Harm ‘Game’

On Jan. 2, a Facebook user who identified herself as a mother posted, “TRIGGER WARNING! If your kids play Roblox, check their messages. There’s a list of ‘dares’ going around encouraging self-harm and ☠️.”

Included with the post was a screenshot from a phone that showed instructions for a self-harm game, which included various dangerous “dares.” The instructions showed a date of “09-16-2022” and was titled, “The Game.” As an example of the kind of dangerous content that was shown in the screenshot, the first part mentioned, “Part 1 – Use a blade to cut yourself, or make three eraser marks to equal one cut.”

Other concerned parents who shared the post included a similar screenshot that was titled, “The Game-update.docx,” which indicated that the instructions screenshot for the game likely was originally a Microsoft Word file attachment.

It’s unclear who originally shared the screenshot on Facebook. Also unclear was who created the instructions for the dangerous game. Additionally, we don’t know why a document dated from Sept. 16, 2022 was surfacing seemingly for the first time in January 2023.

Note: We have chosen to not show the screenshot of the instructions for the “game” as it contains information about self-harm and suicide.

Roblox’s Community Standards

According to the screenshots shared by parents, the self-harm and suicide game that was supposedly being shared to children was sent via a .docx Microsoft Word file, “The Game-update.docx.”

However, there’s just one problem with that: Roblox’s messaging system does not allow users to send attachments.

If this document truly was being shared to kids, the only way that it could have been sent to them was by first directing the children to visit a link on YouTube, Facebook, Discord, Twitter, or Twitch.

The reason we mention this is because Roblox’s community standards explicitly say that links shared between users may only go to those five websites. Links to any other websites are prohibited and cannot be sent.

The guidelines also say that it’s against the company’s policies to direct users to one of the five permitted websites if the goal of the sender is to get the recipient to visit a second, unpermitted website, such as a tweet that includes a link to a .docx file.

Further, Roblox’s community standards say that users under the age of 13 aren’t even permitted to share links and that it’s against the rules to try to send filter-breaking or partial links to get around the messaging system’s protections:

When using Roblox, you may not link to any external websites or services, except for: YouTube, Facebook, Discord, Twitter, and Twitch. Links to any of those approved sites must be wrapped in the applicable Policy API or listed in the Social Networks and Social Links settings of your profile or experience description page. Links that appear in locations where the API cannot be deployed – such as text chat – are prohibited. Any other links are prohibited, including:

• Links that contain Roblox-inappropriate content
• Partial links, filter-breaking, and permitted website links to non-permitted websites
• Encouraging others to visit unpermitted external links

For their privacy and safety, we don’t permit users under 13 to share links.

Roblox also allows parents and guardians to turn on an “Account Restrictions” setting, which does the following:

Enabling Account Restrictions will lock an account’s Contact Settings so that no other user can send messages nor chat in-app or in-experience. None of these Contact Settings can be individually adjusted when Account Restrictions are turned on.

Account Restrictions will also limit play to only experiences that are on a pre-approved list that has been verified as appropriate by Roblox. These experiences may contain some mild cartoon combat, but are less violent and do not feature guns. To ensure the best experience for younger players, our list is grounded in child development research and informed by industry standards.

On top of all of these policies, users are not allowed to share content regarding suicide or self-injury:

At Roblox, we take our users’ well-being very seriously. We’re here to help provide resources for those struggling with mental health, and we may communicate with law enforcement regarding credible threats of self-harm. We don’t allow content or behavior that depicts, glorifies, or encourages suicide or self-injury, including:

• Describing methods for suicide
• Content that supports or depicts instances of self-harm

Other stipulations within Roblox’s policies are that the company doesn’t allow users who aren’t friends to message children who are under the age of 13, nor does it let users change their ages on existing accounts to try to get around various age restrictions.

In other words, Roblox has created an extremely robust array of policies and parental controls in an effort to help keep children safe on the platform.

This story will be updated if any new information is brought to our attention.

Sources:

“Account Restrictions.” Roblox Support, https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000375686-Account-Restrictions.

“Guides for Parents and Caregivers.” Roblox Support, https://corp.roblox.com/safety-civility-resources/?section=Families&article=1.

“How Do I Change My Age.” Roblox Support, https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/360031323611-How-Do-I-Change-My-Age-.

“Roblox Community Standards.” Roblox Support, https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/203313410.

“Safety Features: Chat, Privacy & Filtering.” Roblox Support, https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/203313120-Safety-Features-Chat-Privacy-Filtering.

“Unhappy Halloween: Gaming Platform Roblox Crashes.” The Associated Press, 30 Oct. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-media-social-media-california-6a80e33f6fc03fc486995fb104d49365.

Soon after news broke that classified documents had been found in an office belonging to President Joe Biden at a Washington-based think tank, former President Donald Trump and his allies compared it with the classified files seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. 

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” Trump posted Jan. 9 on his social media platform, Truth Social. “These documents were definitely not declassified.” 

“Joe Biden took classified documents from the White House when he was Vice President,” U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted on Twitter. “The VP does NOT have the power to declassify, only POTUS. Joe Biden stole classified documents. This is a very serious crime. DOJ & NARA can’t sweep this under the rug AND persecute Trump.”

This is an evolving story, and many details are still not known, including the documents’ contents and classification level. But what is known so far suggests that the two situations are not equivalent. 

The National Archives sought records from Trump’s team for more than a year, and at least 100 documents were ultimately retrieved. Biden’s team discovered roughly 10 classified documents in Biden’s office and quickly delivered them to the National Archives.  

Here is what we know.

Biden’s documents

Information about Biden’s documents broke Jan. 9 when CBS News reported that Biden’s lawyers on Nov. 2 discovered documents, some with classification markings, in a locked closet. They said the finding was made as they were cleaning out Biden’s post-vice presidential office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington D.C.

The White House confirmed the story. Biden’s team said the attorneys promptly notified the National Archives, which took the materials Nov. 3. The Justice Department is reviewing the documents.

“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden, said in a statement.

Speaking Jan. 10 at a press conference during a visit to Mexico City, Biden said he was “surprised to learn there were any government records taken to that office.”

Biden started the Washington D.C.-based think tank as an affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania, where Biden held a part-time position after his vice presidency. He used the office periodically between mid-2017 until he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in April 2019.

The content of the files, and their classification level, have not been confirmed. 

Trump and others have also used the news to baselessly claim that the Penn Biden Center is “funded” by China and that foreign agents had access to the documents.

The university as a whole received $54 million in donations from entities in China from 2014 to 2019, according to an April 2022 New York Post article. But this is a common practice among U.S. institutions. From 2013 to 2020, U.S. universities received nearly $1 billion fromChinese entities, according to Bloomberg News reporting.

A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson told the New York Post in April that the Penn Biden Center has “never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity.”

PolitiFact contacted the center for comment but did not hear back. 

Trump’s documents

The FBI’s high-profile August seizure of documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida followed an extensive 19-month back-and-forth between Trump and the government over whether he possessed any presidential documents, how many he may have had, and whether Trump had been transparent about the questions that government officials had about the documents.

Efforts to retrieve the documents started shortly after Trump left the White House in January 2021 and shipped presidential documents to Mar-a-Lago that, by law, were supposed to have been sent to the National Archives. The Presidential Records Act sets out the broad categories of papers and other items that need to be given to the National Archives after a president leaves office.

In May 2021, National Archives officials alerted Trump’s team to documents it believed were missing from its collections and requested their return. Trump handed the files over in January 2022.

The head of the National Archives, David Ferriero, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February 2022 that his agency had recovered 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago. Ferriero said the boxes included “items marked as classified national security information.”

Because the boxes combined classified and nonclassified materials, the Justice Department opened an investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents and later issued a subpoena for any files in Trump’s possession that had classification markings.

Justice Department officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago in June, where they received a package that included some classified files. 

But that still wasn’t everything. After interviewing additional Trump staffers and reviewing surveillance footage, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August and foundfiles with classification markings in at least 12 boxes in two rooms, along with thousands of pages of additional presidential records that Trump wasn’t supposed to have.

How similar and different are the two situations?

The two situations are similar in some ways — but only up to a point, experts told PolitiFact. 

Bradley Moss, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who works on national security cases, told PolitiFact that “threshold similarities” exist between the cases.

“Both Mr. Trump and President Biden had documents with classification markings stored in unauthorized locations while they were private citizens,” Moss said. “That is impermissible and a violation of federal law.”

But Moss and other experts said that other aspects of the cases are markedly different, at least based on what is publicly known so far.

“The Biden team and the Trump team approached this in completely different ways,” Moss said. “The Biden team did what is supposed to be done, namely immediately notifying the government of the issue after locating the documents and returning them to government control.   As far as we know from the media reporting, the Biden team has been cooperative with the inquiry.”

By contrast, Moss said, “the Trump team did none of that. The Trump team time and again delayed, procrastinated, and obfuscated” efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to recover the records at Mar-a-Lago. “They even went so far as to submit a sworn declaration to the Justice Department from one of the attorneys, falsely stating there were no more records. There were, of course, more records, as the search warrant execution revealed.”

At least 100 documents were recovered in the Mar-a-Lago search compared to a reported 10 in Biden’s case. And that doesn’t include the boxes of documents that were handed over by Trump’s team prior to the search.

One aspect that remains unclear is whether the two cases also differ on motive.

As more details about the Biden case are confirmed, “one thing I will be looking for is state of mind,” said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas. “Were these documents taken knowing they were classified, or by mistake, perhaps because they were mixed in with other things?”

Accidental misplacement of classified documents after government service would not necessarily rise to the level of a crime, experts say. The cases that are prosecuted tend to be knowing, intentional violations. At this point, Biden said the discovery was a surprise.

Meanwhile, there’s at least one more difference between the two cases.

Because he’s now serving as president, “Biden cannot be prosecuted while he is in office,” said James Robenalt, an attorney with the firm Thompson Hine who has studied government legal scandals dating back to Watergate in the 1970s. Trump, as a private citizen, can be prosecuted.

RELATED: Comparing Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s boxes of files

RELATED: Why Trump is wrong to suggest Obama personally kept ‘33 million pages of documents’ 

House conservatives who held up Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s House speaker vote demanded that lawmakers review criminal investigations by the Justice Department and FBI.

Republicans are planning to create a panel that will probe federal investigations related to what they consider a “violation of the civil liberties of citizens of the United States” and the “weaponization of the federal government.”

On ABC’s “This Week” on Jan. 8, host George Stephanopoulos asked U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., whether he would pledge not to serve on such a subcommittee since he is part of a Justice Department investigation related to events that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Perry did not say he wouldn’t serve on such a panel and suggested that federal officials have overreached their power.

“We’re talking about parents that go to school board meetings for the schools that they pay for with their taxes and having the temerity to question the curriculum, and then they’re put on, you know, the red flagged, they’re flagged by the Department of Justice and the FBI for attending a meeting,” Perry said. “That’s not what America is supposed to be about. That sounds like some tinhorn Third World dictatorship.”

Perry echoed a misleading and false Republican talking point that suggests federal officials target parents for their views about schools.

Garland’s school threat memo set off backlash

In September 2021, following threats against school officials, the National School Boards Association wrote a letter to President Joe Biden requesting assistance to address concerns about school employees’ and board members’ safety. 

On Oct. 4, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a five-paragraph memo to the FBI and federal prosecutors acknowledging a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school officials. Garland directed the FBI to hold meetings across the country and bring together government leaders to discuss strategies to address those threats.

“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” Garland wrote. 

The memo focused on criminal conduct, not parents’ views about COVID-19 policies or school curriculum.

The memo led to misinformation such as the debunked claim that parents who “challenge school curriculums” were being labeled “domestic terrorists.”

A Trump-nominated judge dismissed a case by parents challenging the memo. The judge concluded that the memo does not target protected conduct under the Constitution and covers only criminal conduct.

Ohio lawmaker said federal officials were using threat tags against parents

We contacted Perry’s office to ask whether he had evidence that federal law enforcement officials flagged parents for questioning curriculum. We received no response. 

An FBI spokesperson told PolitiFact that the agency does not “flag” parents for attending meetings and questioning their children’s curriculum. 

It’s possible Perry’s claim is based on a letter Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote to Garland in November 2021. 

Jordan wrote that he had information from a whistleblower showing the FBI was compiling threat assessments related to parents. Jordan’s letter said the FBI created a “threat tag” called EDUOFFICIALS.

The FBI uses “threat tags” to track information and spot trends — it does not necessarily signal a full investigation, which occurs if there is evidence of potential violence and violation of federal law, an FBI spokesperson told PolitiFact. The EDUOFFICIALS tag was created to track instances of threats directed against school officials.

House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee published a report in November that said the FBI had opened investigations with the EDUOFFICIALS threat tag in almost every region of the country, according to a whistleblower. But the report doesn’t detail the outcome or full scope of any investigation. 

The report cited tips received by the National Threat Operations Center. One tip led to a mother being interviewed by an FBI field office after she allegedly told a local school board, “We are coming for you.” The mother, who is a member of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty, told the FBI agent she meant her group would seek to vote school board members out. The House Republicans’ report doesn’t explain whether that was the end of the FBI’s query into the mother.

Our ruling

Perry said that “parents that go to school board meetings” and question the curriculum are being “flagged by the Department of Justice and the FBI for attending a meeting.” 

Perry’s office provided no evidence and his claim echoes misleading statements about a 2021 Justice Department memo directing federal law enforcement to hold meetings nationwide about criminal threats against school officials. 

The memo focused on monitoring criminal conduct; it wasn’t about investigating parents who spoke about curriculum at school board meetings. 

The FBI created an EDUOFFICIALS “threat tag” as a logistical tool to track threats of violence against school officials, not to flag parents for attending meetings or questioning curriculum.

We rate Perry’s statement False. 

RELATED: No, the FBI isn’t adding ‘threat tags’ for parents who protest school boards

RELATED: Rick Scott wrongly warns FBI coming after loud parents at school board meetings

Claim:

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is planning to ban gas stoves over concerns surrounding climate change.

Rating:

What’s True

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a federal agency, is currently considering a ban on gas stoves if they can’t be made safer, due to concerns over harmful indoor pollutants that cause health and respiratory problems. Numerous cities and counties have already enforced policies requiring a shift from fossil fuel-powered buildings.

What’s False

The ban has not been put in place, though a CPSC commissioner said, “Any option is on the table.” The CPSC also told the media that no regulatory action is currently in place and it would “involve a lengthy process.”

A January 2023 rumor about a possible ban on gas stoves in the United States worried consumers, particularly as noted in conservative media outlets. Some social media users claimed that U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration was considering such a ban over climate change concerns.

This is not completely accurate. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is currently considering a ban on gas stoves in the event the appliances cannot be made safer, but has not proposed any regulations yet. Anything the group proposes would follow a very lengthy process.

Richard Trumka Jr., a CPSC agency commissioner, said in an interview with Bloomberg that a rising concern about hazardous indoor pollutants caused by gas stoves means a possible ban is on the table. 

“This is a hidden hazard,” he said. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have linked air pollutants from gas stoves to a range of health concerns, including cardiovascular problems and cancer. Peer-reviewed research published in December 2022 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found around 12 percent of current childhood asthma cases in the U.S. could be attributed to gas stove usage. 

While the commissioner did not specify that climate change was one of the factors in this possible policy change, state and local policymakers have already urged a reduced reliance on natural gas in buildings in order to reduce climate-warming emissions. 

In December 2022, a number of lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote a letter to the CPSC expressing their concerns “regarding the risks posed to consumers from indoor air pollution generated by gas stoves.” They pointed out that more than 40 million homes in the U.S. rely on gas stoves for cooking, and “methane leaks from gas stoves inside U.S. homes were recently found to contribute the equivalent climate impacts as about 500,000 gasoline-powered cars.” They added that the cumulative effect of such emissions has a disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, and low-income households.

They also recommended a number of steps for the CPSC to take, including “mandatory performance standards for gas stoves” that address health risks and leakages and have warning labels on gas stoves to educate consumers, and to launch a public education campaign. They did not call for an outright ban, however.

According to RMI, a non-profit group focused on clean energy, as of August 2022, around 94 cities and counties in the U.S., “adopted policies that require or encourage the move off fossil fuels to all-electric homes and buildings.” In 2021, a New York City law went into place that bans the combustion of fossil fuels in new buildings, and accelerated the construction of all-electric buildings in the city. 

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) and American Gas Association oppose such measures. 

“Ventilation is really where this discussion should be, rather than banning one particular type of technology,” said Jill Notini, a vice president at AHAM. “Banning one type of a cooking appliance is not going to address the concerns about overall indoor air quality. We may need some behavior change, we may need [people] to turn on their hoods when cooking.” 

Karen Harbert, president of the AGA, said, “The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and EPA do not present gas ranges as a significant contributor to adverse air quality or health hazard in their technical or public information literature, guidance, or requirements. The most practical, realistic way to achieve a sustainable future where energy is clean, as well as safe, reliable and affordable, is to ensure it includes natural gas and the infrastructure that transports it.”  

Trumka also told Bloomberg that the CPSC would open up public comment on the hazards of gas stoves later in the winter of 2023. Another option besides imposing a ban on the import and manufacturing of gas stoves was to set standards on emissions from the stoves. 

But there will be some time before any of this is implemented. In a statement to CNN, CPSC said it had not proposed any regulatory action on gas stoves at this time, and that any regulations would “involve a lengthy process.”

“Agency staff plans to start gathering data and perspectives from the public on potential hazards associated with gas stoves, and proposed solutions to those hazards later this year. Commission staff also continue to work with voluntary standards organizations to examine gas stove emissions and address potential hazards,” the statement said. 

While the CPSC commissioner has said that an unsafe product like gas stoves could be banned, the agency is a long way from carrying such a proposal forward, as the group plans to do more research and assess a range of solutions. As such, we rate this claim a “Mixture.” 

Sources:

“Biden Administration Considers Banning Gas Stoves over Health Concerns.” National Review, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-administration-considers-banning-gas-stoves-over-health-concerns/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Booker, Beyer Lead Colleagues in Urging CPSC to Address Dangerous Indoor Air Pollutions Emitted by Gas Stoves. 21 Dec. 2022, https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/booker_beyer_lead_colleagues_in_urging_cpsc_to_address_dangerous_indoor_air_pollutions_emitted_by_gas_stoves.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

“Capital Matters Warned You about Gas-Stove Hysteria.” National Review, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/capital-matters-warned-you-about-gas-stove-hysteria/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Gruenwald, Talor, et al. “Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan. 2023, p. 75. www.mdpi.com, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010075. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Maruf, Ramishah. “A US Federal Agency Is Considering a Ban on Gas Stoves | CNN Business.” CNN, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/business/gas-stove-ban-federal-agency/index.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

“Mayor de Blasio Signs Landmark Bill to Ban Combustion of Fossil Fuels in New Buildings.” The Official Website of the City of New York, 22 Dec. 2021, https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/852-21/mayor-de-blasio-signs-landmark-bill-ban-combustion-fossil-fuels-new-buildings. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Mills, Ryan. “How Local Governments and Communities Are Taking Action to Get Fossil Fuels out of Buildings.” RMI, 9 Aug. 2022, https://rmi.org/taking-action-to-get-fossil-fuels-out-of-buildings/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

Natter, Ari. “US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears.” Bloomberg, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety-agency-to-consider-ban-on-gas-stoves-amid-health-fears. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

As a highly transmissible coronavirus variant begins to dominate new infections in the U.S., social media users are sharing a video clip from vaccine scientist-turned-anti-vaccine activist Dr. Robert Malone.

In a TikTok clip of Malone’s remarks shared Jan. 3 on Instagram, Malone falsely called COVID-19 vaccines “experimental genetic therapy” and said they “provide zero benefit relative to risk for the young and healthy.”

He didn’t define young.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The COVID-19 vaccines are not gene therapy; they do not alter DNA. 

COVID-19 generally poses more of a health threat as people age, but experts say younger people still share in vaccination’s benefits, including a reduced chance of serious illness if they contract the virus.

As for the risk of vaccination, myocarditis, a rare heart muscle inflammation, occurs far more often among young people who get COVID-19. 

Studies back up the experts on both points.

Who is Malone?

We’ve written about Malone before. He has promoted several false and misleading claims about the COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic. 

In January 2022, Malone was banned from Twitter for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies; YouTube removed videos of a controversial interview he did with podcast host Joe Rogan. Malone’s Twitter account was restored in December.

Malone didn’t reply to our requests for information for this fact-check.

Serious COVID-19 less common among young

It’s long been known that serious illness and death from COVID-19 is much less common among young people, even though the largest number of cases is among 18- to 29-year-olds. The latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back that up.

For example, as of Dec. 28, the COVID-19 hospitalization risk among people ages 85 and older was 15 times higher than among people ages 18 to 29; the COVID-19 death rate was 350 times higher for the older cohort. 

Because the risk of severe COVID-19 is low for the young and healthy, “there are people who feel like the benefit isn’t worth it,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Medicine.

But Wachter said there is evidence that vaccines for young people lower the risk of a severe case, the probability of long COVID and the probability of transmitting the virus to others.

Clear benefits of vaccination

Dr. Matthew Laurens, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and researcher at the University of Maryland’s Center for Vaccine Development, said vaccination protection against serious COVID-19 complications, including hospitalization and death, apply to both healthy people and those with underlying illnesses.

A study published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine found that vaccination reduced the risk of omicron variant-associated hospitalization by two-thirds among children ages 5 to 11 years. The same month, a study published in the journal Nature Medicine found that vaccination reduced the probability of long COVID — long-term effects from infection — by 15%.

Other benefits of vaccination to younger people, said Dr. Davidson Hamer, interim director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at Boston University, include preventing lost time from work or school because of infection and preventing infection spread to other people.

Ten children were being treated for COVID-19 at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on Jan. 9 when we called Dr. Paul Offit, director of the hospital’s Vaccine Education Center.

Malone “should come to a children’s hospital and see children suffering,” Offit said, citing the importance of COVID-19 vaccination. “When you see children suffering and it’s preventable, you prevent it,” he said.

Low risks of vaccination

Vaccine critics sometimes cite myocarditis as a COVID-19 vaccination risk, particularly among younger people. But the risk is often overstated.

Hamer said there is “very low risk” among young people of myocarditis and the condition stemming from vaccination tends to be mild to moderate, and temporary. Moreover, he said, cardiac complications “are more common after the disease itself as opposed to vaccination.”

Laurens pointed to a CDC study that found that from March 2020 to January 2021, patients ages 16 to 39 with COVID-19 had seven times the risk for myocarditis compared with patients who did not have COVID-19. 

The findings underscored the importance of vaccination “to reduce the public health impact of COVID-19 and its associated complications,” the study said.

News stories in January reported that a new variant, XBB.1.5, was quickly becoming the dominant strain in parts of the United States. The World Health Organization described the strain as the omicron variant’s most transmissible descendant. The strain has been causing 25% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., up from 10% in December, Johns Hopkins University said Jan. 9.

Our ruling

 

Malone, an anti-vaccine activist, said COVID-19 vaccines “provide zero benefit relative to risk for the young and healthy.”

Although younger people face less of a health threat from COVID-19, vaccines reduce their chances of developing serious disease from the virus. As for risk, heart inflammation from the vaccines is rare among young people, and occurs more commonly among young people infected by COVID-19.

We rate the statement False.

RELATED: Who is Robert Malone? Joe Rogan’s guest was a vaccine scientist, became an anti-vaccine darling

RELATED: Coronavirus fact-checks

RELATED: More deaths among vaccinated Americans not a reason to avoid vaccines, experts say

A scam review for a so-called “odd ice hack” or “ice twist” weight-loss diet supplement named Alpilean has been making the rounds online for at least several months. The review appears as an article on a page that was designed to fool readers into thinking they’re reading USA Today. A link to the page was sent to us by a reader.

We previously published a story about how YouTube removed at least one video ad for Alpilean that had been viewed more than 1.5 million times. According to YouTube, the “Alpine ice hack” ad violated the company’s policy on “spam, deceptive practices, and scams.”

Despite this removal, we have since received word from readers that other uploads of YouTube ads for Alpilean were still being displayed.

We reached out to both Alpilean and YouTube but did not receive any responses to our emails.

Fake ‘USA Today’ Article

As for the Alpilean scam review article that was sent in by a reader, it showed the page title “USA Health Today.”

It’s unclear if this page was created by an affiliate marketer.

To the left of “USA Health Today” was a blue circle, which is the same design that’s used in the real and legitimate USA Today logo. In reality, USA Today had nothing to do with any of this.

The real USA Today logo looks much like logo in the scam.

The review article for Alpilean showed the headline, “LIFE-CHANGING: Stanford Scientist Reveals ‘Ice Hack’ That Torches 13 lbs Every Week.”

However, a Google search for Stanford University and “ice hack” only led to results for affiliate marketers and paid-for sponsored content articles on websites that appeared to be based in India.

‘Diane’

Near the beginning of the review on the “USA Health Today” scam website, the article claimed to feature a before-and-after picture of Alpilean helping a woman named “Diane.”

“Diane, 64, mother of 3 tested it and was 50 lbs lighter in 27 days thanks to the ‘Ice Hack.’ See her incredible transformation for yourself,” the article read.

This woman’s weight loss journey had nothing to do with Alpilean.

However, the picture of “Diane” was actually of a woman named Michelle who had appeared on the Code Red Lifestyle Facebook page in January 2018.

Alpilean doesn’t even appear to have existed as a product until late 2022, which made the inclusion of this woman’s photos extremely misleading.

‘Emily Senstrom’

We found variations of this same sort of fake story that swapped out schools and numbers, such as, “LIFE-CHANGING: Harvard Medical Student Discovers 1 Secret Mineral That Helps You Lose 52 lbs In 28 Days.”

This headline and story appeared on a scammy page that misleadingly used the Women’s Health Magazine logo to push CBD or keto gummies products. Just as USA Today had nothing to do with the other scam, Women’s Health also had no involvement in this one.

Women’s Health did not publish this story.

The article claimed to feature a woman named “Emily Senstrom,” a purported “top medical student at Harvard University.” However, the pictures of “Emily Senstrom” actually showed Kiah Twisselman Burchett of CoachKiah.com, who has nothing to do with any weight loss diet supplements, as Lead Stories previously reported.