ReportWire

Tag: Fact-checking

  • Fact vs. Fiction: Did Epstein’s Brother Ask If Putin Had Photos of Trump “Blowing Bubba”?

    [ad_1]

    Claim via Social Media

    Viral social media posts in November 2025 claimed that Mark Epstein, brother of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sent his brother an email asking him to “ask Steve Bannon if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”

    Explanation

    This claim is true — the email exchange is authentic and confirmed by Snopes, which independently reviewed the files released by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The message, labeled “HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030719,” was part of over 23,000 documents made public on November 12, 2025.

    In the thread dated March 2018, Mark asked Jeffrey, “Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba?” Jeffrey replied, “and I thought—I had tsuris,” using the Yiddish term for “trouble” or “distress” (Merriam-Webster). The “Bannon” mentioned was then-former White House strategist Steve Bannon, and “Putin” referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    It remains unclear who “Bubba” refers to—some speculate Bill Clinton, but neither Clinton’s name nor any corroborating details appear in the emails. The exchange may have been tongue-in-cheek, as the brothers also joked about remaking the 2015 comedy film Get Hard.

    Conclusion

    Fact or Fiction? Fact. The email exchange between Mark and Jeffrey Epstein is real, verified within the official congressional document release. However, the intent and the identity of “Bubba” remain speculative.

    Read More

    Do you appreciate our work? Please consider one of the following ways to sustain us.

    MBFC Ad-Free 

    or

    MBFC Donation

     

    Subscribe With Email

    Join 21.2K other subscribers

    [ad_2]

    Media Bias Fact Check

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump says Thanksgiving dinner will cost 25% less this year. His numbers are misleading

    [ad_1]

    With Thanksgiving less than three weeks away, the question of how much this year’s turkey and trimmings will cost looms large, especially with grocery prices 2.7% higher than they were in 2024.

    President Donald Trump has claimed over the past two days that costs for the Thanksgiving meal are down 25% this year, citing a prepackaged Thanksgiving meal basket from Walmart.

    “I just saw that Walmart came out with a statement last night, they’ve done it for many years, that Thanksgiving this year will cost 25% less than Thanksgiving last year,” he said during a news conference on Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    But Trump’s numbers are off. Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Walmart prices show that the cost of Thanksgiving dinner is 25% lower in 2025 than in 2024.

    THE FACTS: This is misleading. While Walmart’s 2025 meal basket costs about 25% less than the one from 2024, that’s because it offers fewer items and different products that make it more affordable.

    “It’s not apples to apples, right?” said David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University. “What this does highlight is individual retailers’ strategies for getting customers in the door.”

    The 2025 basket costs less than $40 and feeds 10 people, about $4 a head, according to Walmart. In 2024, a basket for eight cost approximately $56, less than $7 per person. That’s about a 25% decrease, possibly more depending on price fluctuations. John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., touted the savings in a LinkedIn post last month.

    But the baskets differ significantly. For example, this year’s includes just 15 items compared to last year’s 29. It is missing many dessert items, including a pecan pie, mini marshmallows and muffin mix, as well as savory items such as sweet potatoes, yellow onions and celery stalks.

    The superstore retailer has also substituted some products. Instead of 12 sweet Hawaiian rolls, the 2025 deal includes 12 dinner rolls. Both are from Walmart’s store brand. It also offers Kinder’s crispy fried onions as opposed to French’s.

    Plus, the amount of each item varies. Customers were promised a 10-16 pound turkey in 2024, but a 13.5 pound one this year. And they’ll get one can of cream of mushroom soup instead of two.

    “They’re marketing it that ‘hey, this is a more affordable way,’ yet that implies that ‘man, stuff’s a lot more expensive,’” Anderson said. “I guess it’s good marketing.”

    A Thursday press release from the White House also cited cheaper Thanksgiving deals at Lidl’s, Aldi’s, Target and Schnucks.

    Target’s four-person meal costs less than $20, about the same as in 2024, but substitutes green beans and cream of mushroom soup for French bread and frozen corn — also not an apples-to-apples comparison.

    Schnucks provided The Associated Press with a press release saying the retailer is offering consumers its lowest price on a frozen store-brand turkey in over 15 years. It declined further comment. Lidl US said it is offering its Thanksgiving meal at the lowest ever price and Aldi said its price was lower than 2024. Target and Walmart did not comment.

    According to a recent report from Wells Fargo, the cost of a 10-person Thanksgiving meal has fallen 2% to 3% since 2024, depending in part on whether customers go for national name brands or cheaper store labels. The White House press release also cited this report.

    Some economists have concerns about the price of turkey. Purdue University’s College of Agriculture reported at the end of October that wholesale prices are up 75% since October 2024, while retail prices are 25% higher than a year ago.

    An earlier analysis from the American Farm Bureau Federation found that wholesale turkey prices were up about 40%.

    And yet, that doesn’t mean every bird will be pricier in 2025. Anderson explained that because certain retailers, such as Walmart, contract their turkeys well in advance, the price for customers might be much lower than the market currently indicates.

    “That gives them the flexibility to run those types of specials,” he said.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Looking back at Pelosi and PolitiFact

    [ad_1]

    Almost since PolitiFact’s 2007 founding, we’ve been covering Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who announced her retirement, effective in January 2027.

    We first fact-checked the former House speaker on Aug. 25, 2008, when she characterized then-presidential candidate Barack Obama as a state legislator with a history of bipartisanship, a claim we rated Half True. In all, we have rated Pelosi’s statements 56 times on Truth-O-Meter, with a median rating of Half True.

    Political analysts consider Pelosi, 85, one of the most effective legislative leaders in recent U.S. history. With small margins, Pelosi was mostly able to keep her caucus united behind legislative goals on health care, the environment and other issues.

    Her ability to raise money for Democrats was one reason she remained as minority leader when she lost her speaker’s gavel after the 2010 midterms and ascended again to speaker in 2018, when the Democrats won the majority. Pelosi lost the speakership when the GOP won the chamber in 2022. She left her leadership position but remained as a rank-and-file member.

    Pelosi was known for her effectiveness outside the public eye — in Capitol cloakrooms and private dinners. Republicans targeted her sometimes awkward rhetorical style in front of television cameras, combined with her representation of one of the nation’s most liberal districts, in San Francisco.

    On the internet, Pelosi has been falsely accused of being drunk (many, many times); of spending extravagantly on her hair; of falling; of crying in public; of being arrested; of palling around with drug kingpin El Chapo; of calling Americans stupid; of being expelled from the House; of being divorced by her husband; of being arrested and disappeared by U.S. marshals; of committing treason; and of being executed.

    When a hammer-wielding intruder attacked her husband Paul in their home in 2022, conspiracy theories flourished, fanned by President Donald Trump and others, including that the entire episode was a “false flag” event. 

    Here’s a rundown of memorable Pelosi moments in recent fact-checking history.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gestures during her weekly news conference on June 11, 2009. (AP)

    Pelosi vs. Trump: Ripped speech, policy fights, Jan. 6 

    Pelosi and Trump have a long-running rhetorical feud. When a reporter asked Trump about Pelosi’s retirement announcement hours after she made it, Trump called her “an evil woman.”

    In 2018, Trump falsely said Pelosi “came out in favor of MS-13,” the criminal gang. Pelosi had criticized Trump for using the term “animals” during an immigration meeting, but she hadn’t said anything positive about MS-13. 

    In 2020, after Pelosi dramatically ripped up a paper copy of Trump’s State of the Union address from her seat behind the president, Trump said, “I thought it was a terrible thing when she ripped up the speech. First of all, it’s an official document. You’re not allowed. It’s illegal what she did. She broke the law.” 

    We rated that Pants on Fire. Pelosi ripped up her own duplicate copy of Trump’s address, not the official version sent to the National Archives under the Presidential Records Act, so it would not have been illegal to destroy it.

    Pelosi earned a Mostly True for saying in 2017 that Trump’s first-term tax bill “would have cut his taxes by $30 million in 2005.” 

    But she earned a False in 2020 for saying Trump is “morbidly obese.” Trump had told reporters that he was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent against COVID-19, an approach that mainstream doctors called dubious; she said it was not a sound idea for someone “in his, shall we say, weight group.” Even if Trump was fudging his official height and weight, he would have needed to be substantially heavier to meet a level of morbid obesity.

    The pair’s most bitter exchanges revolved around Jan. 6, 2021, the day Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Congress formally counted the 2020 electoral results. Rioters entered Pelosi’s office and called for her as they marched through the Capitol.

    Trump has repeatedly said he requested “10,000 National Guardsmen” to provide security at his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, rally but that Pelosi “rejected it.” As early as Feb. 28, 2021, we rated that False. In subsequent fact-checks, we found no new information to support Trump’s assertion about Pelosi and National Guard troops.

    Pelosi played a central role on landmark health care legislation

    One of her biggest policy legacies is the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which was Obama’s top policy priority in 2009. The bill dominated the early political debate of his presidency, and Pelosi, as speaker, had a key role in securing Democratic support for Obama’s vision.

    Pelosi accurately discussed some policy differences between Democratic and Republican health care bills, such as the Democratic proposals’ protection for people with a preexisting condition. 

    But we also found truth in one Republican criticism involving the bill — that Pelosi had said Democrats “have to pass their terrible health care bill so that the American people can actually find out what’s in it.” That was close to what Pelosi really said, though that Republican Party of Texas’ synopsis ignored her comments about why the legislation made her proud.

    Pelosi was a star fundraiser, but we found one of her money claims misleading

    Between 2000 and 2024, Pelosi raised $86.6 million for her campaign committee and an additional $51 million for her leadership political action committee, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance information. 

    Despite her fundraising prowess, she exaggerated in 2017 when describing Wall Street money raised by Republicans and Democrats. She said, “Wall Street comes out en masse with its money against House Democrats every election.” But she had cherry-picked three campaign cycles in which Republicans held the House majority while ignoring election cycles in which the Democrats were in control, including two in which Pelosi was speaker. We rated the statement Mostly False.

    Pelosi’s Pants on Fires 

    Pelosi’s four Pants on Fire ratings included:

    • Her 2010 blog post saying that then-House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, “admits ‘we are not going to be any different than we’ve been’” by returning to “the same failed economic policies” that “wrecked our economy.” We found that Boehner had been talking specifically about social issues, not the economy, and that the video clip she shared removed that context from Boehner’s statement.

    • Her decision in 2011 to promote a chart showing Obama has “increased the debt” by 16%, compared with his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who had increased it by 115%. The chart included a major calculation error, ignored different lengths of presidential tenure and cherry-picked the most favorable measure.

    • Her 2016 claim that until shortly before her statement, China and Russia had “never voted with us at the U.N. on any sanctions on Iran.” We found eight Security Council resolutions over a decade threatening, imposing or continuing sanctions against Iran in which Russia and China approved.

    • Her 2019 statement that a voter-roll purge in Wisconsin would mean that more than 200,000 registered Wisconsin voters would be prohibited from voting. We found that a purge could have potentially removed more than 200,000 people from the voting rolls, but they would not be “prohibited” from voting; anyone could re-register, including on Election Day.

    That one time we fact-checked Pelosi in real time, kind of

    We once fact-checked Pelosi in person, on television, in real time. And this time, it wasn’t on policy.

    In 2018, this reporter was president of the Washington Press Club Foundation, which mounts an annual black-tie congressional dinner. Pelosi has been a frequent guest speaker at the event, and that year, she began her remarks by thanking members of the head table, including “President Louis Jacobson of FactCheck.org.”

    I interrupted her. “Actually, PolitiFact.” As the audience laughed, Pelosi quickly pivoted. 

    “That’s OK, staff,” she said. “It was Mostly True.”

    (C-SPAN)

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Democrats did not shut down the government to give health care to ‘illegal immigrants’

    [ad_1]

    President Donald Trump and other high-ranking Republicans claim Democrats forced the government shutdown fight because they want to give free health care to immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

    Democrats are trying to extend tax credits that make health insurance premiums more affordable on marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and reverse Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big bill passed this summer. But immigrants who entered the country illegally are not eligible for either program.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts:

    CLAIM: Democrats shut down the government because they want to give free health care to immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.

    THE FACTS: This is false. Democrats say they are pushing for the inclusion of key health care provisions in the next congressional spending package. In particular, they are seeking an extension of tax credits that millions of Americans use to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange and a reversal of Medicaid cuts made in the bill Trump signed into law in July. However, immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal health care programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements — which would be reduced under Trump’s bill — for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. This spending accounted for less than 1% of total Medicaid spending between fiscal years 2017 and 2023.

    Sabrina Corlette, founder and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, called the Republicans’ claims “a flat-out lie.”

    “The law is very clear,” Corlette said.

    Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday about a deal with Pfizer to lower drug prices, Trump predicted the shutdown and made the false claim: ”We’ll probably have a shutdown because one of the things they want to do is they want to give incredible Medicare, Cadillac, the Cadillac Medicare, to illegal immigrants.” He added later that “they want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive health care at the cost to everybody else.”

    Asked by a reporter to clarify what his comments referred to, Trump said “when an illegal person comes, a person who came into our country illegally, therefore breaking the law,” adding that “we just as a country cannot afford to take care of millions of people who have broken the law coming in.”

    Other Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, have made similar claims.

    The Senate’s Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, rebutted these allegations, calling them “a lie, plain and simple.”

    Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for insurance bought on the Affordable Care Act exchange or for Medicaid. To qualify for the former, an enrollee must live in the U.S., be a U.S. citizen or have another lawful status and not be incarcerated. A Medicaid enrollee must meet certain financial requirements, be a resident of the state in which Medicaid is being received and be a U.S. citizen or have a qualifying lawful status.

    Health care premiums for millions of Americans could skyrocket if Congress fails to extend tax credits that many people use to buy insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Those subsidies were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic but are set to expire.

    Among the Medicaid cuts Democrats are seeking to reverse is a reduction to reimbursements hospitals receive when they perform emergency care they are legally mandated to provide on people who would qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. This would affect the 40 states, plus Washington, D.C., that have adopted a Medicaid expansion created by the Affordable Care Act.

    The law Trump signed would also restrict the eligibility of lawfully present immigrants such as refugees and asylees for insurance through the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and Medicare.

    Some states use their own money, not federal funds, to provide health care to immigrants who don’t have lawful status. An earlier version of Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill tried to curb these programs, but the provisions did not make it into the final version.

    “It’s a compelling talking point to say that Democrats want to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, but it’s just not true in terms of the cuts they’re trying to reverse,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF.

    ___

    This story was first published on Oct. 1, 2025. It was published again on Oct. 3, 2025, to correct that to qualify for insurance bought on the Affordable Care Act exchange, not for Medicaid, an enrollee must live in the U.S., be a U.S. citizen or have another lawful status and not be incarcerated.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme

    [ad_1]

    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.

    “It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.

    But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    The protests

    TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”

    THE FACTS: There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then: On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”

    The protests at the ICE facility, which is outside downtown, have largely been confined to one city block and have attracted a range of participants. During the day, a handful of immigration and legal advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers. Daytime marches to the building have also included older people and families with young children. At night, other protesters arrive, often using megaphones to shout obscenities at law enforcement.

    While the administration claims protesters are antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for decentralized far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    The building was closed for three weeks from mid-June to early July because of damage to windows, security cameras, gates and other parts of the facility, federal officials said in court filings submitted in response to a lawsuit brought by Portland and Oregon seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard. The building’s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up.

    Protesters have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that this has impeded law enforcement operations and forced more personnel and resources to be sent from other parts of the country.

    However, in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration’s move to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard on Sept. 28, most nights drew a couple dozen people, Portland police correspondence submitted to the court shows.

    Protests began growing again after the National Guard was ordered to Portland over the objections of local and state officials.

    Since June, Portland police have arrested at least 45 people, with the majority of those arrests taking place in June. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged at least 31 people with crimes committed at the building, including assaulting federal officers; 22 of those defendants had been charged by early July.

    Is Portland on fire?

    TRUMP: “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there’s nothing wrong.”

    THE FACTS: Fires outside the building have been seen on a handful of occasions. In June, a man was arrested after he lit a flare and tossed it onto a pile of materials stacked against the vehicle gate, according to federal prosecutors, who said the fire was fully extinguished within minutes.

    More recently, social media videos of the Labor Day protest showed a small fire lit on the prop guillotine. And in early October, following the announcement of the National Guard’s mobilization, videos on social media showed a protester holding an American flag on fire — and conservative influencer Nick Sortor stomping the fire out.

    There have also been some high-profile confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. In late September, conservative media figure Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole and suffered a laceration, police logs show. In early October, Sortor, who has more than 1 million followers on X, was arrested along with two other protesters following an altercation. Local prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him after finding that one of the protesters had pushed him and that “any physical contact he had with other persons was defensive in nature.”

    While Portland police correspondence submitted to the court notes a few instances of “active” energy and disturbances between protesters and counterprotesters, many entries describe low energy and “no issues” in the weeks leading up to the National Guard’s mobilization.

    A new tongue-in-cheek website has also launched in recent days: isportlandburning.com shows multiple live cameras in the city and near-real-time data from the city’s fire department.

    Shops and sewers

    TRUMP: “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland. You don’t even have sewers anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.”

    THE FACTS: This is false. Portland does have sewers — its sewer and stormwater system “includes more than 2,500 miles of pipes, nearly 100 pump stations, and two treatment plants,” according to the city’s website. The largest sewer pipe is the East Side Big Pipe, which has an inside diameter of 22 feet, while the smallest are only six inches in diameter.

    Local and state officials have suggested that many of Trump’s claims appear to rely on images from 2020. Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of large-scale unrest and violent protests after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police that year. Police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires.

    But Portland has largely recovered from that time. Under a new mayor and police chief, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown — which has more than 600 retail shops, many with glass storefronts — has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic. This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the coronavirus pandemic, and a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

    Gov. Tina Kotek said she told Trump during a phone call that “we have to be careful not to respond to outdated media coverage or misinformation that is out there.”

    Accusation of a cover-up

    KRISTI NOEM, Homeland Security Secretary: “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon, and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.”

    THE FACTS: Noem did visit Portland on Tuesday and met with Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson. Both officials disagree with Noem’s narrative.

    Kotek has repeatedly said that “there is no insurrection in Portland,” including in conversations with Trump and Noem, and that the city does not need “military intervention.” She has also continually called for any protests to be peaceful and said that local law enforcement can “meet the moment.” After Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland, Wilson said in a statement that the city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”

    Observations on the ground in Portland support Kotek’s statement. While the nightly protests at the ICE facility have been disruptive for nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from crowd-control devices — life has continued as normal in the rest of the city. There is no evidence of the protests in other areas of the city, including the downtown area about two miles away.

    Portland residents have taken to social media to push back against the Trump administration’s statements about their city with the hashtag #WarRavagedPortland, posting photos and videos that show protesters in inflatable unicorn and frog costumes, along with people walking their dogs, riding their bikes and shopping at farmers markets.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • No, Taylor Swift did not turn down the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift says she did not turn down the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, which will be headlined by Bad Bunny.

    “The Life of a Showgirl” singer paid a visit to “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Monday and dispelled a few rumors. Most notably, she shared she did not turn down the NFL’s biggest stage because she wouldn’t be allowed to own the performance footage, as claimed in a popular internet rumor.

    “No, no, no,” Swift said.

    The Super Bowl halftime show is produced by the NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation — the latter founded by music mogul Jay-Z.

    “Jay-Z has always been very good to me. Our teams are really close. Like, they sometimes will call and say, ‘How does she feel about the Super Bowl?’ And that’s not like an official offer or, like, an official conference room conversation,” Swift told Fallon. “We’re always able to tell him the truth, which is that, like, I am in love with a guy who does that sport on that actual field,” she continued, referring to fiance Travis Kelce — a star tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and a Super Bowl champion.

    Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, right, is congratulated by Taylor Swift as they celebrate the Chiefs victory over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

    “Like, that is violent chess. That is gladiators without swords. That is dangerous. The whole season I am locked in on what that man is doing on the field,” she said.

    “Can you imagine if he’s out there every single week, like putting his life on the line, doing this very dangerous, very high pressure, high intensity sport and I’m like, ‘I wonder what my choreo(graphy) should be?,’” Swift joked.

    “‘I think we should do two verses of ‘Shake It Off’ into ‘Blank Space’ into ‘Cruel Summer’ would be great.’ And this is nothing to do with Travis, he would love for me to do it, I’m just too locked in.”

    Last month, it was announced that global superstar Bad Bunny will bring his Latin trap, reggaeton swagger and Puerto Rican pride to the Super Bowl live from Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California.

    It’s an ideal casting: Bad Bunny is fresh off a historic Puerto Rico residency that drew more than half a million fans and is leading all nominees at the Latin Grammys in November.

    “What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history.”

    On Saturday, Bad Bunny hosted the season 51 premiere of “Saturday Night Live” with a few jokes about his forthcoming Super Bowl halftime show.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Facts about Tyler Robinson, suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting

    [ad_1]

    As soon as officials announced the name of the alleged assassin of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, internet theories about the suspect’s background and motives quickly outpaced confirmed facts.

    Authorities said Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, shot and killed Kirk Sept. 10 on the Utah Valley University campus. Kirk was close to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

    Officials took Robinson into custody in the evening of Sept. 11. Announcing the arrest Sept. 12, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox shared four phrases etched on bullet casings found with a gun investigators believe was Robinson’s.

    When the news became public, Americans began searching for information on Robinson and sharing theories about him and his family. Much of that information, especially in the early hours after the news broke, was inaccurate. Some online users chased wrong leads and implicated innocent people in the process. 

    Here is some confirmed information about what’s true and what’s not in Robinson’s background, as of Sept. 12.

    Sign up for PolitiFact texts

    Suspect is not the person who donated to Trump

    One X post identified a $225 donation to Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign from a Tyler Robinson in St. George, Utah. But that’s a different Tyler Robinson than the suspect, according to records.

    Federal Election Commission records show that a person with that name in St. George contributed $224.48 on Oct. 5, 2020, to Trump’s Make America Great Again Committee. The donor listed their occupation as an entrepreneur, and other records show a person with that name and zip code is 32 years old.

    As of the date of the donation, the Robinson who is the suspect would have been 17 years old. People who are 17 can legally donate to candidates under certain conditions, but we did not find donations in federal records from the suspect.

    Robinson was an unaffiliated, inactive voter

    An X post said Robinson was a registered Republican in Utah, “according to state records.”

    That’s not what records show. The website voterrecords.com — which draws from public government records — shows a person with identifying information that matches the suspect reflects he was an unaffiliated, inactive voter.

    We contacted the Washington County, Utah, elections department to ask questions about his voter registration and did not hear back.

    An inactive voter is a registered voter who has not voted in two regular general elections and has failed to respond to a notice sent by the county clerk.

    Inactive voters must verify or update their address before receiving a ballot. Ballots are mailed only to active voters.

    About 27% of active registered voters in Utah are unaffiliated, and about half are Republican. 

    This photo released by the Utah Governor’s Office Sept. 12, 2025 shows Tyler Robinson. (Utah Governor’s Office via AP)

    No evidence that Robinson is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America

    Social media users said Robinson was a member of the Salt Lake City Democratic Socialists of America. The organization said he is not a member of any of its chapters, and the photos and videos users have pointed to as evidence of his affiliation do not show Robinson. 

    Priscilla Yeverino, a national spokesperson for the organization, said the group has no members named Tyler Robinson “anywhere in the country.” Yeverino said the organization has received several photos of people alleging they are Robinson, “which is vehemently false.”

    Users shared a video they allege showed Robinson speaking at an event for the Salt Lake City chapter days before the shooting. The full video from Sept. 6 shows the speaker is chapter co-chair Matty Jackson.

    Other users have shared a photo of a man they allege is Robinson wearing a red t-shirt with a bee that says “Salt Lake DSA.” Before Robinson was confirmed as the suspect, some users on social media shared the same photo identifying the man as Jack Bellows. Bellows describes himself as a community organizer and is running for Salt Lake City Council. A screenshot from an Instagram live video of Bellows has also been shared on social media posts identifying him as Robinson.

    Internet finds meanings for mysterious etchings on bullet casings

    Before Robinson’s arrest, online posters and eventually the Wall Street Journal had reported on an internal, unreleased FBI memo that said etched phrases on bullet casings could have expressed his support for transgender rights. But law enforcement officials later walked that interpretation back, as did the newspaper. 

    At the press conference, Cox announced the specific texts etched on four bullet casings found with a Mauser Model 98 .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle:

    • “Notices bulges, OwO what’s this?”

    • “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao”

    • “Hey fascist! Catch!” followed by an up arrow symbol, a right arrow symbol, and three down arrow symbols

    • “If you read this, you are gay LMAO”

    The phrases unleashed speculation about their meaning. Some users familiar with video game culture zeroed in on potential sources, with many of them couched in layers of irony and sarcasm.

    According to the website “Know Your Meme,” the phrase “Notices bulges, OwO what’s this?” has been circulating online since at least 2013, particularly to parody online role-playing subcultures, including “furries,” a community that dresses up as anthropomorphized animal characters.

    On the surface, the phrase “Hey fascist! Catch!” seems to indicate that the person who fired the weapon was someone on the political left opposed to fascism. However, X users said the phrase and the arrow sequence comes from the game Helldivers 2, which envisions battles involving fascist-uniformed fighters. A move in that game that involves pressing a series of arrows allows players to drop a 1,100-pound bomb — the game’s most destructive weapon.

    “Bella Ciao” is an Italian song with antifascist roots from World War II that have made it a popular resistance song in various international contexts. Commentators, including journalists, also said it has been used in the World War II-themed video game “Hearts of Iron IV” and has sometimes been adopted, in an ironic way, by far-right groups.

    “These reported messages seem to be sending strong ‘subcultural batsignals,’” said Whitney Phillips, a University of Oregon assistant professor of information politics and ethics who has researched shooters with ties to internet meme culture.

    Phillips said she first used that term in a 2015 book on internet trolling “to describe the winking self-referentiality you often see in trolling and trolling-adjacent communities, and which have appeared in many shooter manifestos in the last 10 years,” including a 2019 mass shooter in Christchurch, New Zealand.

    But Phillips added that phrases like the ones on the bullet casings go further, by seeking to provoke the public.

    “These don’t seem to be messages intended to be, essentially, private sigils — an expression of private rage from the shooter to Charlie Kirk,” Phillips said. “There seems to be a further aim of maximum publicity, specifically publicity aimed to arouse the strongest possible responses in as many audiences as possible.”

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: No, taxpayers will not receive new stimulus checks this summer

    [ad_1]

    Don’t splurge just yet.

    Rumors spread online Friday that the U.S. government will soon be issuing stimulus checks to taxpayers in certain income brackets.

    But Congress has not passed legislation to authorize such payments, and, according to the IRS, no new stimulus checks will be distributed in the coming weeks.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have approved $1,390 stimulus checks that will be distributed to low- and middle-income taxpayers by the end of the summer.

    THE FACTS: This is false. Taxpayers will not receive new stimulus checks of any amount this summer, an IRS official said. Stimulus checks, also known as economic impact payments, are authorized by Congress through legislation and distributed by the Treasury Department. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri last month introduced a bill that would send tax rebates to qualified taxpayers using revenue from tariffs instituted by President Donald Trump. Hawley’s bill has not passed the Senate or the House.

    The IRS announced early this year that it would distribute about $2.4 billion to taxpayers who failed to claim on their 2021 tax returns a Recovery Rebate Credit — a refundable credit for individuals who did not receive one or more COVID-19 stimulus checks. The maximum amount was $1,400 per individual.

    Those who hadn’t already filed their 2021 tax return would have needed to file it by April 15 to claim the credit. The IRS official said there is no new credit that taxpayers can claim.

    Past stimulus checks have been authorized through legislation passed by Congress. For example, payments during the coronavirus pandemic were made by possible by three bills: the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act; the COVID-related Tax Relief Act; and the American Rescue Plan Act.

    In 2008, stimulus checks were authorized in response to the Great Recession through the Economic Stimulus Act.

    The Treasury Department, which includes the Internal Revenue Service, distributed stimulus payments during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Recession. The Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, formed in 2012, played a role as well during the former crisis.

    Hawley in July introduced the American Worker Rebate Act, which would share tariff revenue with qualified Americans through tax rebates. The proposed rebates would amount to at minimum $600 per individual, with additional payments for qualifying children. Rebates could increase if tariff revenue is higher than expected. Taxpayers with an adjusted annual gross income above a certain amount — $75,000 for those filing individually — would receive a reduced rebate.

    Hawley said Americans “deserve a tax rebate.”

    “Like President Trump proposed, my legislation would allow hard-working Americans to benefit from the wealth that Trump’s tariffs are returning to this country,” Hawley said in a press release.

    Neither the Senate nor the House had passed the American Worker Rebate Act as of Friday. It was read twice by the Senate on July 28, the day it was introduced, and referred to the Committee on Finance.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump says he has ended seven wars. The reality isn’t so clear cut

    [ad_1]

    President Donald Trump has projected himself as a peacemaker since returning to the White House in January, touting his efforts to end global conflicts.

    In meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders Monday, Trump repeated that he has been instrumental in stopping multiple wars but didn’t specify which.

    “I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars, Trump said in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. He later added: “If you look at the six deals I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires.”

    He raised that figure Tuesday, telling “Fox & Friends” that “we ended seven wars.”

    But although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.

    Here’s a closer look at the conflicts.

    People take pictures of smoke rising from an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. (AP Photo, File)

    Israel and Iran

    Trump is credited with ending the 12-day war.

    Israel launched attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership in June, saying it wanted to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon — which Tehran has denied it was trying to do.

    Trump negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Iran just after directing American warplanes to strike Iran’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. He publicly harangued both countries into maintaining the ceasefire.

    Evelyn Farkas, executive director of Arizona State University’s McCain Institute, said Trump should get credit for ending the war.

    “There’s always a chance it could flare up again if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program, but nonetheless, they were engaged in a hot war with one another,” she said. “And it didn’t have any real end in sight before President Trump got involved and gave them an ultimatum.”

    Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council who is an expert on Israel-Iran tensions, agreed the U.S. was instrumental in securing the ceasefire. But he characterized it as a “temporary respite” from the ongoing “day-to-day cold war” between the two foes that often involves flare-ups.

    Egypt and Ethiopia

    This could be described as tensions at best, and peace efforts — which don’t directly involve the U.S. — have stalled.

    The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River has caused friction between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan since the power-generating project was announced more than a decade ago. In July, Ethiopia declared the project complete, with an inauguration set for September.

    Egypt and Sudan oppose the dam. Although the vast majority of the water that flows down the Nile originates in Ethiopia, Egyptian agriculture relies on the river almost entirely. Sudan, meanwhile, fears flooding and wants to protect its own power-generating dams.

    During his first term, Trump tried to broker a deal between Ethiopia and Egypt but couldn’t get them to agree. He suspended aid to Ethiopia over the dispute. In July, he posted on Truth Social that he helped the “fight over the massive dam (and) there is peace at least for now.” However, the disagreement persists, and negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have stalled.

    “It would be a gross overstatement to say that these countries are at war,” said Haas. “I mean, they’re just not.”

    Indian security officers patrol in armored vehicles in Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, after assailants indiscriminately opened fired at tourists. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

    Indian security officers patrol in armored vehicles in Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, after assailants indiscriminately opened fired at tourists. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

    India and Pakistan

    The April killing of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir pushed India and Pakistan closer to war than they had been in years, but a ceasefire was reached.

    Trump has claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire, which he said came about in part because he offered trade concessions. Pakistan thanked Trump, recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize. But India has denied Trump’s claims, saying there was no conversation between the U.S. and India on trade in regards to the ceasefire.

    Although India has downplayed the Trump administration’s role in the ceasefire, Haas and Farkas believe the U.S. deserves some credit for helping stop the fighting.

    “I think that President Trump played a constructive role from all accounts, but it may not have been decisive. And again, I’m not sure whether you would define that as a full-blown war,” Farkas said.

    Serbia and Kosovo

    The White House lists the conflict between these countries as one Trump resolved, but there has been no threat of a war between the two neighbors during Trump’s second term, nor any significant contribution from Trump this year to improve their relations.

    Kosovo is a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Tensions have persisted ever since, but never to the point of war, mostly because NATO-led peacekeepers have been deployed in Kosovo, which has been recognized by more than 100 countries.

    During his first term, Trump negotiated a wide-ranging deal between Serbia and Kosovo, but much of what was agreed on was never carried out.

    People protest in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, against the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels' advances into eastern Congo's capital, Goma, on Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

    People protest in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, against the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels’ advances into eastern Congo’s capital, Goma, on Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

    Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Trump has played a key role in peace efforts between the African neighbors, but he’s hardly alone and the conflict is far from over.

    Eastern Congo, rich in minerals, has been battered by fighting with more than 100 armed groups. The most potent is the M23 rebel group backed by neighboring Rwanda, which claims it is protecting its territorial interests and that some of those who participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled to Congo and are working with the Congolese army.

    The Trump administration’s efforts paid off in June, when the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers signed a peace deal at the White House. The M23, however, wasn’t directly involved in the U.S.-facilitated negotiations and said it couldn’t abide by the terms of an agreement that didn’t involve it.

    The final step to peace was meant to be a separate Qatar-facilitated deal between Congo and M23 that would bring about a permanent ceasefire. But with the fighting still raging, Monday’s deadline for the Qatar-led deal was missed and there have been no public signs of major talks between Congo and M23 on the final terms.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan

    Trump this month hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House, where they signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict between the two nations. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the signed document a “significant milestone,” and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed Trump for performing “a miracle.”

    The two countries signed agreements intended to reopen key transportation routes and reaffirm Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s commitment to signing a peace treaty. The treaty’s text was initialed by the countries’ foreign ministers at that meeting, which indicates preliminary approval. But the two countries have yet to sign and ratify the deal.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter conflict over territory since the early 1990s, when ethnic Armenian forces took control of the Karabakh province, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and nearby territories. In 2020, Azerbaijan’s military recaptured broad swaths of territory. Russia brokered a truce and deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region.

    In September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lightning blitz to retake remaining portions. The two countries have worked toward normalizing ties and signing a peace treaty ever since.

    This photo released by the Royal Thai Army shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine, being airlifted to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, July 23, 2025. (The Royal Thai Army via AP, File)

    This photo released by the Royal Thai Army shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine, being airlifted to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, July 23, 2025. (The Royal Thai Army via AP, File)

    Cambodia and Thailand

    Officials from Thailand and Cambodia credit Trump with pushing the Asian neighbors to agree to a ceasefire in this summer’s brief border conflict.

    Cambodia and Thailand have clashed in the past over their shared border. The latest fighting began in July after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Tensions had been growing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a confrontation that created a diplomatic rift and roiled Thai politics.

    Both countries agreed in late July to an unconditional ceasefire during a meeting in Malaysia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pressed for the pact, but there was little headway until Trump intervened. Trump said on social media that he warned the Thai and Cambodian leaders that the U.S. would not move forward with trade agreements if the hostilities continued. Both countries faced economic difficulties and neither had reached tariff deals with the U.S., though most of their Southeast Asian neighbors had.

    According to Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and University of Michigan doctoral candidate, “President Trump’s decision to condition a successful conclusion to these talks on a ceasefire likely played a significant role in ensuring that both sides came to the negotiating table when they did.” ___ Associated Press reporters Jon Gambrell, Grant Peck, Dasha Litvinova, Fay Abuelgasim, Rajesh Roy, and Dusan Stojanovic contributed.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: RFK Jr.’s reasons for cutting mRNA vaccine not supported by evidence

    [ad_1]

    Although mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. incorrectly argued they are ineffective to justify the Department of Health and Human Service’s recent decision to cancel $500 million in government-funded research projects to develop new vaccines using the technology.

    The longtime vaccine critic said in an X video posted Tuesday evening that mRNA vaccines do not adequately prevent upper respiratory infections such as COVID-19 and the flu, advocating instead for the development vaccines that use other processes.

    COVID-19 is the only virus for which real-world data on mRNA vaccine effectiveness is currently available, as mRNA vaccines for other diseases, including the flu, are still under development. The two scientists whose discoveries enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 won a Nobel Prize in 2023 for their work.

    Kennedy’s claim ignores how mRNA vaccines work, according to experts. They prevent against severe infection and death, but cannot completely prevent an infection from occurring in the first place. Plus, years of research supports the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA technology.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    KENNEDY: “As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.”

    THE FACTS: His claim is contradicted by scientific evidence. Countless studies show that vaccinated individuals fare far better against COVID-19 infections than those who are unvaccinated, while others have estimated that COVID-19 vaccines prevented millions of deaths during the global pandemic. The mRNA vaccines do not prevent respiratory diseases entirely, experts say. Rather, they can prevent more serious illness that leads to complications and death. For example, an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 may prevent an infection in the upper respiratory tract that feels like a bad cold from spreading to the lower respiratory tract, where it could affect one’s ability to breathe.

    “A vaccine cannot block a respiratory infection,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. “That’s never been the standard for a respiratory virus vaccine. And it’s never been the expectation, and it’s never been that realistic.” He called Kennedy’s claim “misguided.”

    Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University, had a similar outlook.

    “Vaccinations don’t have to be neutralizing, meaning that you’re not going to get COVID,” he said. “But the important part of a vaccination is that they reduce hospitalization and death. And a reduction in hospitalization and death is proof of an effective vaccine.”

    HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Vaccines have traditionally required growing viruses or pieces of viruses called proteins and then purifying them. Then a small dose of the vaccine is injected to train the body how to recognize when a real infection hits so it’s ready to fight back. But this method takes a long time. The mRNA technology speeds up the process and allows existing vaccines to be updated more quickly.

    The “m” in mRNA stands for messenger because the vaccine carries instructions for our bodies to make proteins. Scientists figured out how to harness that natural process for vaccines by making mRNA in a lab. They take a snippet of the genetic code that carries instructions for making the protein they want the vaccine to target. Injecting that snippet instructs the body to become its own mini-vaccine factory, making enough copies of the protein for the immune system to recognize and react.

    Scott explained that mRNA vaccines are not a “magic force field” that the immune system can use to block an infection, as it can’t detect whether a virus is nearby. It can only respond to a virus that has already entered the body. In the case of COVID-19, this means that the virus could cause an upper respiratory tract infection — a cold, essentially — but would be significantly less likely to cause more severe consequences elsewhere.

    Myriad studies on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have been published since they first became available in late 2020. Although protection does wane over time, they provide the strongest barrier against severe infection and death.

    For example, a 2024 study by the World Health Organization found COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths in the WHO’s European region by at least 57%, saving more than 1.4 million lives since their introduction in December 2020.

    A 2022 study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases found that nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year. Researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. The main finding — that 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.

    Another 2022 study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, reported that two mRNA vaccines were more than 90% effective against COVID-19.

    Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to facilitate the development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, began under the first Trump administration.

    “What I don’t understand is why is President Trump is allowing RFK Jr. to undermine his legacy that led to a medical intervention that literally saved millions of lives?” Coller said. “Why is Trump allowing RFK to undermine U.S. leadership in biomedical research and drug development?”

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump claims cashless bail increases crime, but data is inconclusive

    [ad_1]

    As his administration faces mounting pressure to release Justice Department files related the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, President Donald Trump is highlighting a different criminal justice issue — cashless bail.

    He suggested in a Truth Social post this week that eliminating cash bail as a condition of pretrial release from jail has led to rising crime in U.S. cities that have enacted these reforms. However, studies have shown no clear link.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    TRUMP: “Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”

    THE FACTS: Data has not determined the impact of cashless bail on crime rates. But experts say it is incorrect to claim that there is an adverse connection.

    “I don’t know of any valid studies corroborating the President’s claim and would love to know what the Administration offers in support,” said Kellen Funk, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies pretrial procedure and bail bonding. “In my professional judgment I’d call the claim demonstrably false and inflammatory.”

    Jeff Clayton, executive director of the American Bail Coalition, the main lobbying arm of the cash bail industry, also pointed to a lack of evidence.

    “Studies are inconclusive in terms of whether bail reforms have had an impact on overall crime numbers,” he said. “This is due to pretrial crime being a small subset of overall crime. It is also difficult to categorize reforms as being ‘cashless’ or not, i.e., policies where preventative detention is introduced as an alternative to being held on bail.”

    Different jurisdictions, different laws

    In 2023, Illinois became the first state to completely eliminate cash bail when the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law abolishing it. The move was part of an expansive criminal justice overhaul adopted in 2021 known as the SAFE-T Act. Under the change, a judge decides whether to release the defendant prior to their trial, weighing factors such as their criminal charges, if they could pose any danger to others and if they are considered a flight risk.

    Loyola University of Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice published a 2024 report on Illinois’ new cashless bail policy, one year after it went into effect. It acknowledges that there is not yet enough data to know what impact the law has had on crime, but that crime in Illinois did not increase after its implementation. Violent and property crime declined in some counties.

    A number of other jurisdictions, including New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., have nearly eliminated cash bail or limited its use. Many include exceptions for high-level crimes.

    Proponents of eliminating cash bail describe it as a penalty on poverty, suggesting that the wealthy can pay their way out of jail to await trial while those with fewer financial resources have to sit it out behind bars. Critics have argued that bail is a time-honored way to ensure defendants released from jail show up for court proceedings. They warn that violent criminals will be released pending trial, giving them license to commit other crimes.

    A lack of consensus

    Studies have shown mixed results regarding the impact of cashless bail on crime. Many focus on the recidivism of individual defendants rather than overall crime rates.

    A 2024 report published by the Brennan Center for Justice saw “no statistically significant relationship” between bail reform and crime rates. It looked at crime rate data from 2015 through 2021 for 33 cities across the U.S., 22 of which had instituted some type of bail reform. Researchers used a statistical method to determine if crime rates had diverged in those with reforms and those without.

    Ames Grawert, the report’s co-author and senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, said this conclusion “holds true for trends in crime overall or specifically violent crime.”

    Similarly, a 2023 paper published in the American Economic Journal found no evidence that cash bail helps ensure defendants will show up in court or prevents crime among those who are released while awaiting trial. The paper evaluated the impact of a 2018 policy instituted by the Philadelphia’s district attorney that instructed prosecutors not to set bail for certain offenses.

    A 2019 court decree in Harris County, Texas, requires most people charged with a misdemeanor to be released without bail while awaiting trial. The latest report from the monitoring team responsible for tracking the impact of this decision, released in 2024, notes that the number of people arrested for misdemeanors has declined by more than 15% since 2015. The number of those rearrested within one year has similarly declined, with rearrest rates remaining stable in recent years.

    Asked what data Trump was using to support his claim, the White House pointed to a 2022 report from the district attorney’s office in Yolo County, California, that looked at how a temporary cashless bail system implemented across the state to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in courts and jails impacted recidivism. It found that out of 595 individuals released between April 2020 and May 2021 under this system, 70.6% were arrested again after they were released. A little more than half were rearrested more than once.

    A more recent paper, published in February by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, also explored the effects of California’s decision to suspend most bail during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reports that implementation of this policy “caused notable increases in both the likelihood and number of rearrests within 30 days.” However, a return to cash bail did not impact the number of rearrests for any type of offense. The paper acknowledges that other factors, such as societal disruption from the pandemic, could have contributed to the initial increase.

    Many contributing factors

    It is difficult to pinpoint specific explanations for why crime rises and falls.

    The American Bail Coalition’s Clayton noted that other policies that have had a negative impact on crime, implemented concurrently with bail reforms, make it “difficult to isolate or elevate one or more causes over the others.”

    Paul Heaton, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies criminal justice interventions, had a similar outlook.

    “Certainly there are some policy levers that people look at — the size of the police force and certain policies around sentencing,” he said. “But there’s a lot of variation in crime that I think even criminologists don’t necessarily fully understand.”

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: A look back at some of the questionable claims made during the Democratic convention

    FACT FOCUS: A look back at some of the questionable claims made during the Democratic convention

    [ad_1]

    The Democrats’ star-studded, four-day convention drew to a close as Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination for president. The festivities were high on entertainment and praise for Harris and running mate Tim Walz. But while most speakers stuck to the script — and the facts — the convention was not without false information or statements that begged for additional context.

    Here’s a look at the facts around some of those claims.

    Trump’s views on an abortion ban

    VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS said Trump would “ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.”

    THE FACTS: While Trump has said in the past that he would support a national ban on abortion, he said Thursday morning on Fox & Friends: “I would never. There will not be a federal ban. This is now back in the states where it belongs.”

    In April, he said he would leave the issue up to the states in a video on his Truth Social platform.

    Days later, asked by a reporter upon arriving in Atlanta whether he would sign a national abortion ban, Trump shook his head and said “no.”

    But just a month earlier Trump suggested he’d support a national ban on abortion around 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also often brags about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

    Trump has previously supported a federal ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. In a letter to anti-abortion leaders during his 2016 campaign, Trump expressed his commitment to this view by vowing to sign the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

    The Republican presidential nominee advocated for the bill again in 2018, at that year’s annual March for Life festival in Washington. The bill, which included exceptions for saving the life of a pregnant woman, as well as rape or incest, was passed by the House in 2017, but failed to move forward in the Senate.

    Trump told CBS News on Monday that he would not enforce the Comstock Act to restrict the sale of abortion medication by mail. The act, originally passed in 1873, was revived in an effort to block the mailing of mifepristone, the pill used in more than half of U.S. abortions.

    Trump and Project 2025

    COLORADO REP. JASON CROW: “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would abandon our troops, abandon our veterans, our allies and our principles.”

    THE FACTS: Many speakers at the convention have linked Trump to Project 2025. Trump has repeatedly disavowed the conservative initiative, saying on social media he hasn’t read it and doesn’t know anything about it. At a rally in Michigan, he said Project 2025 was written by people on the “severe right” and some of the things in it are “seriously extreme.” He has also denied knowing who is behind the plan.

    Project 2025 has also said it is not tied to a specific candidate or campaign. And yet, it is connected in many ways to Trump’s orbit. Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior officials from the Trump administration. The project’s former director is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.

    Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was featured in one of Project 2025’s videos. John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, is a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire earlier this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, penned the forward of a yet unreleased book written by Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025.

    __ CROW again: “Trump plans to do Putin’s bidding by abandoning Ukraine and walking away from our NATO allies. In chapters two and three, he plans to fire our national security and military professionals and then replace them with MAGA loyalists.”

    THE FACTS: In regards to the Russia-Ukraine war, Project 2025 lays out three schools of thought about U.S. involvement, one of them being that it should not continue. However, it does not advocate for any one over the other.

    Crow’s claim that national security and military professionals will be replaced with Trump supporters does ring true. Among its recommendations are that senior CIA leaders “must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.” It also states that the National Security Council should be made up of “personnel with technical expertise and experience as well as an alignment to the President’s declared national security policy priorities.”

    Trump’s alleged comments about those captured or killed in military service

    ARIZONA SEN. MARK KELLY: “Trump thinks that Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice are suckers and losers.”

    THE FACTS: Kelly was among many DNC speakers who brought up similar claims. He was referencing allegations first reported in The Atlantic on Sept. 3, 2020, that Trump made disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including referring to the American war dead at a World War I cemetery outside Paris in 2018 as “suckers” and “losers.”

    But the truth is that it hasn’t been proven definitively, one way or the other, whether Trump actually made these comments.

    The Republican presidential nominee said the day the Atlantic story came out that it is “totally false,” calling it “a disgraceful situation” by a “terrible magazine.”

    Speaking to reporters after he returned to Washington from a campaign rally in Pennsylvania soon after, Trump said: “I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. No animal — nobody — what animal would say such a thing?”

    And yet, a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of the events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of his remarks to The Associated Press after the Atlantic story was published, including the ones about “suckers” and “losers.”

    Walz’s accomplishments as governor

    MINNESOTA SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, touting Tim Walz’s accomplishments as governor of the state: “Tim has delivered — paid leave, school lunches and the biggest tax cut in Minnesota history.”

    THE FACTS: Over the last two years, Walz has indeed signed legislation to create a paid family and medical leave program in Minnesota, and for free school breakfasts and lunches for all students regardless of income.

    Walz also signed what his administration and Democratic legislative leaders have touted as the largest tax cut in state history, about $3 billion worth as part of the two-year budget approved last year. It included a one-time refundable tax credit of $260 for single filers and up to $1,300 for a family with three children. It also established a child tax credit of up to $1,750 per child for lower-income families, subject to income limits. In addition, it exempted more people from state taxes on Social Security income, but left the tax in place for higher-income seniors.

    But critics take issue with his characterization of it as the biggest tax cut in state history. The Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank, points out that low-income Minnesotans don’t pay the state income tax, so in its view giving them tax credits amounts to income redistribution and welfare — not tax cuts.

    Republican legislators tried to hold out for permanent tax cuts for everyone, but Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and went for targeted relief instead.

    Bill Clinton’s keeping score

    FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON on Wednesday: “Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans one.”

    THE FACTS: The math shows Clinton is technically right, but the underlying story is more nuanced. There were four recessions since the end of the Cold War — each of them beginning during the Republican presidencies of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. That’s the simplest explanation for the trend outlined by Clinton.

    Let’s get precise: The U.S. economy has added almost 51.6 million jobs since January 1989, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes a net 1.3 million jobs added under Republicans.

    It’s worth noting that this simple scoreboard is incomplete. There can be reasons for a recession that have nothing to do necessarily with the president — as market economies can have minds of their own. There can be bad policy choices in previous administrations that led to downturns happening later. And job growth generally comes from the combination of rising populations, improvements in workers’ skills and the actions of private employers. The U.S. economy is big and diverse enough that areas in the industrial Midwest struggled even as parts of the Sunbelt boomed.

    After George H.W. Bush endured a brief downturn, the economy recovered and 2.3 million jobs were added during his term. But Americans still felt the economy was poor and elected Clinton.

    Growth jumped during Clinton’s eight years as more women entered the labor force and 22.9 million jobs were added. But shortly after he left office, the tech bubble in the stock market burst and the U.S. economy entered into a brief recession. The economy shed jobs for a little over two years, then mounted a comeback only to slam headfirst into the mortgage bust and the 2008 financial crisis that produced the Great Recession and mass layoffs. Still, over eight years, George W. Bush added a little over 2.1 million jobs because the U.S. population was still growing.

    Democrat Barack Obama inherited the disastrous economy in early 2009 and endured a grindingly slow but successful recovery. The U.S. economy added 11.3 million jobs.

    Trump took the presidency and promised an unprecedented economic boom. The job market continued to build on its health during Obama’s final four years, only to get crushed by the coronavirus pandemic as shutdowns for health reasons led to unemployment. As a result, the country had 3.1 million fewer jobs when his term ended.

    President Joe Biden oversaw a recovery with additional pandemic aid and other investments that accelerated hiring, but it was accompanied by higher inflation that left much of the public feeling pessimistic about the economy. Still, his presidency — still ongoing — has added more than 15.8 million jobs.

    Whether Trump said women should be punished for having abortions

    ALEXIS MCGILL JOHNSON, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on Wednesday: “Do we want a president who said women should be punished for having abortions?”

    THE FACTS: Asked whether he would be comfortable with states deciding to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned, Trump said in an April interview with Time magazine: “The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”

    Trump said outright during his 2016 campaign that women who get illegal abortions should receive “some form of punishment.” The comment came during a heated exchange with MSNBC host Chris Matthews at a town hall taping in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

    But Trump quickly did an about-face. His campaign sought within hours to take back his comment in two separate statements, ultimately saying he believes abortion providers — not their patients — should be the ones punished.

    The first statement said he believed the issue should rest with state governments, while the second entirely rejected the idea that a woman should face repercussions for undergoing an illegal abortion.

    “If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said in the second statement. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”

    Trump faced backlash from both abortion-rights supporters and anti-abortion activists, The Associated Press reported at the time.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin in New York, Josh Boak in Chicago and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

    FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

    [ad_1]

    In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.

    Here’s a look at some of those claims.

    CROWD SIZES

    FILE – Crowds are shown in front of the Washington Monument during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

    CLAIM: “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken — I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.

    But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.

    Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.

    Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at the Ellipse, a grassy area just south of the White House.

    ___

    JAN. 6

    CLAIM: “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6.”

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Five people died in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress’ effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

    Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. Four additional officers who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.

    Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.

    ___

    DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.”

    THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. That process is determined by the Democratic National Committee.

    Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for “present,” the only other option on the ballot.

    The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party’s deadline following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on July 21.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    ___

    THE ECONOMY

    CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: “You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they’ve gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.”

    THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president’s control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn’t get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine’s wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.

    Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level earlier this year.

    Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn’t cause inflation all by itself. And Trump supported $2,000 stimulus checks in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.

    Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden’s, such as France, Germany and the U.K., though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia’s invasion.

    ___

    IMMIGRATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “Twenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration — 20 million people — and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn’t provide sources.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.

    In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.

    U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.

    All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.

    There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as “got-aways” in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn’t publish that number.

    ___

    CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she’s not the border czar anymore.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address “root causes” of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.

    ___

    NEW YORK CASES

    CLAIM: “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases brought against him in New York — one civil and the other criminal.

    Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The civil case was initiated by a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, brought the criminal case. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

    ___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    __

    An earlier version of this story mixed up “latter” and “former” in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference

    FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference

    [ad_1]

    Former President Donald Trump on Thursday gave his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket ahead of next week’s Democratic National Convention.

    At his New Jersey golf club, the Republican nominee blended falsehoods about the economy with misleading statements and deeply personal attacks about his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden

    TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”

    THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.

    Separately, the U.S. economy was growing quickly as it reopened from COVID in 2020, as Trump’s term ended, and it continued to do so after Biden took office. Growth reached 5.8% in 2021, Biden’s first year in the White House, as the rebound continued, faster than any year that Trump was in office. Mortgage rates were low when Trump left because of the pandemic, which caused the Federal Reserve to cut its key rate to nearly zero. Gas prices fell as the economy largely shut down and Americans cut back sharply on their driving.

    ‘Foreign born’ is not the same as ‘migrants’

    TRUMP: “Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.”

    THE FACTS: This is a misinterpretation of government jobs data. The figures do show that the number of foreign-born people with jobs has increased in the past year, while the number of native-born Americans with jobs has declined. But foreign-born is not the same as “migrants” — it would include people who arrived in the U.S. years ago and are now naturalized citizens.

    In addition, the data is based on Census research that many economists argue is undercounting both foreign- and native-born workers. According to a report by Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson at the Brookings Institution released this week, native-born employment rose by 740,000 in 2023, while foreign-born rose by 1.7 million. Much of the disparity reflects the fact that the native-born population is older than the foreign-born, and are more likely to be retired. In addition, the unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 4.5%, lower than the 4.7% for foreign-born.

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump talks after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    A thief is not allowed to steal up to $950

    TRUMP: “You’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950. … If it’s less than $950 they can rob it and not get charged.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was referring to regulations in California that allegedly allow for theft under $950. But his claim is not correct — a 2014 proposition modified, but did not eliminate, sentencing for many nonviolent property and drug crimes.

    Proposition 47 raised the minimum dollar amount necessary for theft to be prosecuted as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, from $400 to $950.

    Alex Bastian, then-special adviser to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Prop 47, told The Associated Press in 2021 that the minimum was raised “to adjust for inflation and cost of living,” but that most shoplifting cases were already prosecuted as misdemeanors any since they didn’t exceed $400.

    Prop 47 was enacted to comply with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court order, which upheld that the state’s overcrowded prisons violated incarcerated individuals’ Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. It instructed California to reduce its state prison population by 33,000 individuals within two years.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Harris has not said in this campaign she wants to defund police

    TRUMP, on Harris: “You know, she wants to defund the police.”

    THE FACTS: Harris expressed praise for the “defund the police” movement after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, questioning whether money was being effectively spent on public safety. However, she has not said during her current campaign that she is in favor of defunding law enforcement.

    The Biden administration tried to overhaul policing, but the legislation stalled on Capitol Hill, and Biden ultimately settled for issuing an executive order. It also pumped more money into local departments.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens to a question after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    Trump did not win Pennsylvania in 2020

    TRUMP: “I won Pennsylvania and I did much better the second time. I won it in 2016, did much better the second time. I know Pennsylvania very well.”

    THE FACTS: False. Trump did win the state in 2016, when he beat Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. But he lost the state in 2020 to President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native. According to the official certified results, Biden and Harris received 3.46 million votes, compared to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million votes, a margin of about 80,000 votes.

    Oil production in U.S. hit record under Biden

    Trump says he will bring energy prices down by reversing President Joe Biden’s policy of encouraging renewable energy at the expense of fossil fuels.

    TRUMP: “We’re going to drill baby drill, we’re going to get the energy prices down, almost immediately.”

    THE FACTS: Oil production in the U.S. hit an all-time high under Biden’s administration.

    The U.S. Department of Energy reported in October that U.S. oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, passing a previous record set in 2020 by 100,000 barrels. Department statistics also show that the U.S. has produced more crude oil per year than any other nation — for the past six years.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    Economy has shown recent signs of strength, not evidence of collapse

    TRUMP: “We’re going to have a crash like the 1929 crash if she gets in.”

    THE FACTS: The economy has shown recent signs of strength — not evidence that America is on the edge of economic collapse.

    On Thursday the S&P 500 jumped 1.6%, its sixth gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also increased Thursday, as did the Nasdaq composite.

    Recent economic reports show that shoppers increased their retail spending last month and fewer workers sought unemployment benefits.

    Fears the economy was slowing emerged last month following a sharp drop in hiring and higher unemployment rates. But those worries were assuaged earlier this month when better-than-expected jobless numbers led to Wall Street’s best rally since 2022.

    Harris was not named border ‘czar’

    TRUMP: “She was the border czar but she didn’t do anything. She’s the worst border czar in history. … She was the person responsible for the border and she never went there.”

    THE FACTS: Biden tapped Harris in 2021 to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration and the challenges it creates. Illegal crossings are one aspect of those challenges, but Harris was never assigned to the border or put in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees law enforcement at the border.

    Black unemployment is lower under Biden

    TRUMP: “The Black population had the best numbers they’ve ever had on jobs, on income, on everything. The Hispanic population had the best numbers.”

    THE FACTS: It’s true that Black and Hispanic unemployment fell to then-record lows under Trump, but that was upended by COVID. When Trump left office, Black unemployment had soared to 9.3% and Hispanic unemployment to 8.5%. Under Biden, Black unemployment fell to a new record low of 4.8% in April 2023, while Hispanic unemployment in September 2022 matched the all-time low of 3.9% it had reached under Trump.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    __

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Flags at the US Capitol are lowered for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, not Biden

    Flags at the US Capitol are lowered for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, not Biden

    [ad_1]

    CLAIM: U.S. Capitol flags are flying at half-staff in honor of President Joe Biden, who has died.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The flags are at half-staff in honor of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who died Friday night, according to the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Biden is not dead. He was seen arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Tuesday afternoon for a flight back to Washington, according to a White House pool report. Multiple AP photos show Biden at the base. The president is expected to address the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday evening.

    THE FACTS: Following a positive COVID-19 test and his announcement on Sunday that he had dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, social media users are pointing to the Capitol flags as alleged proof that Biden has passed on.

    “Capitol Flags are flying Half mast,” reads one X post that shared two screenshots showing live views of the Capitol. “Joe Biden is dead.”

    Another X post that also included an image of the Capitol stated: “Flag is at half mast at the Capitol Building in D.C. Biden is dead and they killed him. Will blame on Covid.”

    Other users shared screenshots of Capitol live streams, while claiming that they showed the White House flag at half-staff.

    It is true that the Capitol flags could be seen at half-staff on Tuesday in live shots of the building. But they have been lowered in honor of Jackson Lee, not Biden, Johnson’s office confirmed to the AP. White House live streams showed its flags were seen at full-staff on Tuesday.

    Jackson Lee, a Democrat who helped lead federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday, died Friday night. She announced that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on June 2.

    Biden is alive. He arrived at Dover Air Force Base at 1:41 p.m. on Tuesday for a flight back to Washington after isolating with COVID-19 at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, according to a White House pool report. He exited his motorcade at 1:44 p.m. and responded, “I’m feeling well,” when asked about his health. The president boarded Air Force One at 1:45 p.m.

    Multiple AP photos show Biden at the base.

    Biden was previously last seen in public late Wednesday after arriving at the same Dover base, after testing positive for COVID-19 while campaigning in Las Vegas earlier in the day.

    The president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said on Tuesday that Biden tested negative for COVID-19 and that he continues to perform all of his presidential duties.

    “The President’s symptoms have resolved,” O’Connor wrote in a White House memo. “Over the course of his infection, he never manifested a fever, and his vital signs remained normal, to include pulse oximetry. His lungs remained clear.”

    In an X post, Biden wrote that he will address the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening “on what lies ahead” and how he will “finish the job for the American people.”
    ___
    This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Posts misidentify old videos as Paris Olympics torch lighting

    Posts misidentify old videos as Paris Olympics torch lighting

    [ad_1]

    CLAIM: A video shows the Olympic torch being lit at a church in Paris.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video is a combination of two unrelated clips, neither of which has anything to do with the 2024 Paris Olympics. One from 2023 shows an Easter tradition in Florence, Italy, called the Scoppio del Carro, which translates to the Explosion of the Cart. The other shows a 2023 concert performed by German band Rammstein.

    THE FACTS: Amid the Games’ opening ceremony on Friday, social media users falsely claimed that the clips are from the Olympic torch relay.

    In the first, a small rocket flies out of a church after a clergy member lights its tail on fire. The video transitions to the second clip so that the rocket then appears to hit a large tower, igniting fireworks and large plumes of flames.

    “Lighting of the olympic torch, from a París church,” reads one X post that had received more than 6,700 likes and shares as of Friday. “Spectacular!” The user acknowledged in a follow-up post that the first clip was not filmed in Paris.

    But neither clip is at all related to the Summer Games.

    The first shows the Scoppio del Carro, an Easter tradition celebrated in Florence. As part of the complex ritual, the archbishop of Florence lights a dove-shaped rocket called the Colombiana symbolizing the Holy Spirit, according to the city’s tourism website. The rocket then flies out of the city’s cathedral on a wire and sets off fireworks stored in an ornate, centuries-old cart outside the church.

    Firenze TV, an Italian broadcaster based in Florence, posted the clip on TikTok in 2023. “Also for this year the flight of the Colombiana was perfect,” reads a caption on the video, written in Italian. “An extraordinary show, Happy Easter.”

    Distinct architectural details, such as three stained glass windows behind the altar and a large clock above the main door, can be seen in the clip and on the website of the Florence cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.

    The second clip is from a 2023 concert performed by Rammstein, a German industrial metal band. Rammstein went on a European stadium tour in 2023 and although it is unclear which city the clip shows, the same stunt can be seen in images posted on the group’s official Instagram.

    A modern tradition, the Olympic torch relay for the Paris Games began in April at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece, where the first torch was lit. The flame then traveled to France by boat, where it was passed among 11,000 torchbearers on a tour of the country. Finally, it was used to light the Olympic Cauldron in Paris at the end of the opening ceremony.
    ___
    This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

    FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

    [ad_1]

    Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her economic agenda in a speech Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    The Democratic presidential nominee laid out plans including a proposal for a federal ban on what she called price gouging on groceries, as well as $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes. She also spoke at length about lowering drug costs and criticized the platform of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

    Here’s a closer look at some of her promises and claims.

    The impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs

    HARRIS: Trump “wants to impose what is in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. … And you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was referring to Trump’s proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports — he has mentioned both figures — and up to 60% on imports from China.

    Most economists do expect it would raise prices on many goods. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates it would reduce average incomes in the top 60% of earners by 1.8%. And the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, has calculated that the higher tariffs would cost households an extra $3,900 a year. However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.

    Lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs

    HARRIS: “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.”

    THE FACTS: Harris made this promise while referencing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate medication costs directly with drug companies. While it is difficult to predict whether she will be able to keep it, especially without more details, recent policy can provide some clues.

    For example, the White House announced Thursday that it had inked deals with manufacturers that could save taxpayers billions of dollars by knocking down the list prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. However, there are a number of factors — from discounts to the coinsurance or copays for the person’s Medicare drug plan — that determine the final price a person pays when they pick up the drugs at their pharmacy.

    Powerful drug companies unsuccessfully tried to file lawsuits to stop these negotiations. They ended up engaging in talks and executives hinted in recent weeks during earnings calls that they don’t expect the new Medicare drug prices to impact their bottom line. However, the manufacturers have warned that the Inflation Reduction Act could drive up prices for consumers in other areas.

    Both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved $35 insulin copay caps for certain Medicare recipients. Biden’s caps have a wider reach, as they apply to all insulin products covered by any Medicare Part D or Part B plan, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF. Trump’s applied only to some insulin products covered by a voluntary subset of Part D plans.

    A federal ban on grocery ‘price gouging’

    HARRIS: “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans. … And I will work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    THE FACTS: While grocery prices are 25% higher than they were before the pandemic four-and-a-half years ago, they have settled down recently and it’s not clear that much price gouging is now going on.

    In the past 12 months, grocery prices on average are up just 1.1%, comparable to pre-pandemic increases. Also, prices for most goods and services, in general, don’t fall significantly except in steep, painful recessions. Instead, most economists expect that wages will rise enough so that Americans can adjust to higher costs. Still, prices remain higher overall than they were just a couple of years ago.

    Addressing housing shortages and helping home buyers

    HARRIS: “And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals. … While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”

    THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million.

    Harris’ proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws, higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.

    Harris is also promising to cut red tape that restricts new building, but that is mostly a state and local concern, and many localities are already moving to make it easier build homes.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Information Pollution: The Tragedy of the Commons and Well-Poisoning on the Internet

    Information Pollution: The Tragedy of the Commons and Well-Poisoning on the Internet

    [ad_1]

    Discover how the internet propagates “information pollution” and how it threatens our collective understanding of facts and truth. Here’s how to navigate the chaos and find clean water to drink.

    In a healthy and functional society, shared common resources are essential for the well-being and sustainability of the community.

    These resources can include natural goods such as land, water, and the environment, as well as man-made goods such as public schools, parks, and libraries.

    Generally, the ability to manage, sustain, and distribute these resources determines the success of a society, community, or nation as a whole.

    The Tragedy of the Commons

    The tragedy of the commons is a concept introduced by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, describing a scenario where individuals, acting in their own self-interest, overuse and deplete a shared resource, ultimately harming the entire community.

    Classic examples include overgrazing on common land, overfishing in shared waters, and pollution of air and water. The key issue is that while the benefits of exploitation are enjoyed by individuals, the costs are distributed among the entire community.

    Information as a Shared Resource

    One common resource that is often neglected is news and information.

    Over the last century, newspapers, radio, TV, and the internet have become the lifeblood of many nations, shaping public opinion and collective consciousness.

    Truth and reliable information function as shared resources critical for various societal functions, including governance, public health, and social interaction.

    Just as a community depends on clean water, society relies on accurate information to make decisions, build trust, and maintain peace and harmony.

    When these information resources are polluted, the consequences can be severe, leading to mistrust, division, and poor decision-making.

    Information Pollution

    Information is a shared resource that is susceptible to degradation through neglect or deliberate actions, leading to a type of “information pollution.”

    This phenomenon mirrors the “tragedy of the commons,” where the self-interested actions of individuals can spoil a common resource for everyone.

    Information pollution occurs when false, misleading, or harmful information is introduced into the public discourse. This can happen through:

    • Misinformation: Incorrect or misleading information spread unintentionally.
    • Disinformation: False information spread deliberately to deceive.
    • Malinformation: Information that is true but presented in a misleading context to cause harm.

    All three types of information pollution hurt people’s ability to discern truth from fiction.

    Well-Poisoning on the Internet

    The internet can be a wonderful place to learn new things, but it’s also littered with information pollution, especially on social media sites filled with bots, spammers, and grifters.

    When a water well is poisoned, everyone in the town ends up drinking dirty and contaminated water. The same is true for information pollution on the internet – and social media is dirty water.

    There are a lot of factors that drive information pollution on the internet, but key ones include:

    • Clickbait and engagement farming – For most people, the only measure of success on the internet is how much attention you get. An outrageous lie or falsehood will get a million impressions before anyone tries to confirm what’s been said. People rarely correct themselves if a lie is getting them a lot of impressions.
    • Grifting and easy money – Many people see the internet as an opportunity for a quick buck, so a lot of content you see is purely money-driven, including advertisements, sponsored content, or superficial merchandise (mugs, t-shirts, diet supplements, brain enhancement pills, etc.) If you see anyone selling these types of products on the internet, you can be certain that truth is not their main motivation.
    • Bots and algorithm-hacking – Artificial engagement on the internet is a huge problem. A lot of viral content you see these days is pushed by bot farms and clever algorithm manipulation. Organic growth by independent thinkers and creators used to be a genuine thing about a decade ago, but most big e-celebrities and influencers you see today are completely astroturfed.
    • Politics and propaganda – A lot of misinformation and disinformation is politically driven propaganda. Governments and corporations are known to create their own bots and internet campaigns to shape public opinion in one direction or another.
    • Echo chambers and groupthink – While it’s natural to associate with people who think like us and share the same beliefs, the internet tends to heighten this tendency. People only spend time on online spaces that confirm their existing beliefs and very rarely seek out different perspectives.

    All of these factors make the internet a less reliable place for seeking truth and information. These phenomenon have only increased over the past decade, making the internet increasingly harmful and stupid (to be frank).

    Filtering Dirty Water

    Now more than ever we need to find ways to filter the information we are being exposed to online. Effective strategies you can employ include:

    • Pay attention to your digital environment – Ideas and information can often seep into our brain without us even realizing it, especially when we are consistently exposed to the same information over and over again. What are the top five websites you visit? Where do you go for news and current events? What’s your social media feed look like? All of these make up a part of your digital environment which is having an influence on you whether you realize it or not, so pay close attention to the types of online spaces you’re spending time in.
    • High value vs. low value information – Not all information is created equal. A random social media post that goes viral doesn’t have the same level of rigor as a peer-reviewed study. The information pyramid is a helpful guideline for assessing what information sources tend to be more trustworthy, accurate, and high value. Please note that this doesn’t mean a social media post is always wrong, or a scientific study is always right, just that one source tends to have more substance than another and you should generally give it more weight.
    • Be your own fact-checker – Too many people take funny memes, shocking screenshots, and catchy headlines at face value without ever digging deeper. This causes a lot of misinformation and disinformation to go viral, and it can also lead to some comical and embarrassing errors (“You actually believed that?!”). While there are many professional “fact checkers” on various sites, even those can be misleading and ideologically motivated. Unfortunately, in our low trust information world, there’s only one fact-checker you can really count on and that’s yourself. Learn how to double-check sources, dig up original links, and read full articles so you understand the context before accepting something as true.
    • Learn basic statistical literacy – Numbers can be very persuasive on a purely psychological level; if someone can make a claim with a statistic to back it, we tend to automatically think it must be true. However, statistics and graphs can be easily manipulated and deceptive. Understanding basic statistical literacy (such as knowing “correlation doesn’t mean causation,” or checking the “y” and “x” axis before looking at a graph) can give you a clearer idea of what a number is really telling you, and what is just being speculated, guessed, or misunderstood.
    • Beware of personality-driven consumption – Many people get their news and information from famous personalities such as news commentators, celebrities, influencers, or podcasters. While it’s natural to listen to people we like and trust, this can backfire when we end up mindlessly accepting information rather than confirming it on its own merit. For many, there’s an entertainment factor too: it’s fun to root for your “leader/clan” and make fun of the other “leaders/clans,” some people even form parasocial relationships with their favorite personalities, seeing them as a type of best friend. However, what often happens in these hyper personality-driven spaces is that they devolve into petty drama and gossip. That may be “fun” to participate in for some people, but it’s not education.

    If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to navigate the dirty waters of the internet more effectively and hopefully find some springs of fresh and clean water to drink from.

    Conclusion

    Truth and reliable information are vital commons that underpin a healthy and functional society. Just as communities must manage natural resources responsibly to avoid the tragedy of the commons, societies must actively protect and nurture the integrity of their information ecosystems. Each of us plays a role in managing the information commons and minimizing information pollution.


    Enter your email to stay updated on new articles in self improvement:

    [ad_2]

    Steven Handel

    Source link

  • Photo edited to make it appear Secret Service agents were smiling after attempt on Trump’s life

    Photo edited to make it appear Secret Service agents were smiling after attempt on Trump’s life

    [ad_1]

    CLAIM: A photo from the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday shows Secret Service agents smiling as they surround him after the shooting.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo was edited to make it seem as though the agents were smiling. In the original, taken by an Associated Press photographer, the same agents can be seen with neutral expressions.

    THE FACTS: After the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, social media users shared the altered image, with some suggesting that it was evidence that the assassination attempt had been staged.

    The photo shows Trump with blood on his face and ear, pumping his fist in front of an American flag while Secret Service agents surround him. Three agents whose faces are visible seem to be grinning as they protect the former president.

    “Why are all 3 Secret Service agents smiling, at least that is how it appears to me,” reads one post on X. “Do to the seriousness of the situation, I would think their expressions would be grim + determined. Now, if it was a staged event, these expressions would make more sense.”

    But the agents were not smiling at that moment. The photo was edited to make it appear otherwise.

    The original image, which was taken by an AP photographer, shows the same three agents with neutral expressions. One man is positioned behind Trump, a second man stands by his left shoulder and a woman is bent over on his right side, beneath his raised arm.

    Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing-home employee from suburban Pittsburgh, fired multiple shots at Trump with an AR-style rifle from a nearby roof at a rally for the presumptive Republican nominee on Saturday. He was killed by Secret Service personnel, officials said. Trump was bloodied and wrote on his social media platform that he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” A spectator was killed and two others were critically injured.

    Authorities said the shooting was an attempted assassination, but haven’t yet determined what motivated Crooks to try to kill Trump, the AP has reported.
    ___
    This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Posts misrepresent photo to claim Trump was shot in the chest and saved by a bulletproof vest

    Posts misrepresent photo to claim Trump was shot in the chest and saved by a bulletproof vest

    [ad_1]

    CLAIM: A photo shows a bullet hole in former President Donald Trump’s suit jacket, proving that he was shot in the chest during an attempted assassination on Saturday.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo actually shows a fold in the suit jacket of a Secret Service agent protecting Trump. Another Associated Press image taken moments before clearly shows that there is no hole in Trump’s jacket. What appears to be a hole can be seen diminishing as the agent moves in video of the shooting’s aftermath.

    THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing the photo from the assassination attempt at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, to claim that the former president was shot in the chest. Some posts suggest he survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

    In the image, what seems to be a small hole appears inches below Trump’s right underarm. Many posts use a zoomed in version of the photo that has a circle around the supposed hole to emphasize the hard-to-notice detail.

    “#Trump was also shot in the chest,” reads one X post. “The bulletproof vest saved him #We support Trump.

    Another X post similarly reads: “It appears that Trump was shot in the chest, as the bullet seem to have pierced his suit; he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”

    But the apparent hole is actually a fold in the sleeve of a Secret Service agent’s jacket, not the aftermath of a bullet.

    The photo, taken by an AP photographer, shows the agent bending over as she protects Trump, her jacket appearing slightly darker than the former president’s. The fold can be seen by following the edge of the agent’s jacket from her neck to just below her left shoulder. It is also visible in video of the shooting’s aftermath, where it can be seen diminishing as the agent moves.

    Moreover, another AP image taken moments before the one with the supposed hole clearly shows the right side of Trump’s jacket as he raises his fist. No hole can be seen in the jacket.

    Trump wrote on his social media platform that he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” Photos and video of the assassination attempt show blood on his right ear and on the right side of his face.

    The Secret Service declined to comment on details of the shooting, including where the bullets hit, and did not respond to a follow-up inquiry about whether Trump was wearing a bulletproof vest. Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing-home employee from suburban Pittsburgh, fired multiple shots at Trump with an AR-style rifle from a nearby roof at a rally for the Republican nominee on Saturday. He was killed by Secret Service personnel, officials said. A spectator was killed and two others were critically injured.

    Authorities said the shooting was an attempted assassination, but haven’t yet determined what motivated Crooks to try to kill Trump, the AP has reported.
    ___
    This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

    [ad_2]

    Source link