Tag: Fact-checking

CLAIM: Australia has announced plans for mass injections of mRNA vaccines into livestock.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Officials have announced no such plans and there are no mandatory vaccinations for livestock, the country’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry confirmed to The Associated Press. The claim misrepresents an announcement about research into potential mRNA vaccines for animals that could be used if disease outbreaks occur.

THE FACTS: While officials and experts have credited COVID-19 vaccines with saving millions of lives since their debut in late 2020, false and misleading claims continue to circulate daily. Among them: erroneous assertions that the mRNA vaccines or others using that technology will be administered to humans through food.

Social media posts this week peddled a falsehood that food animals in Australia will all soon receive mRNA vaccines.

“Australia has announced plans for mass injections of mRNA vaccines into livestock,” reads one widespread tweet.

A headline on The People’s Voice, a website known for spreading misinformation, similarly claimed: “Australia Approves Mandatory Bill Gates mRNA Vaccines for ALL Agriculture.”

But a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry told the AP in an email that the country does not mandate vaccines for livestock and that it had made no announcement for “mass injections” of animals with mRNA shots.

The story on the People’s Voice referred to a May announcement from Meat & Livestock Australia, an industry research and marketing body that works closely with the government.

“Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) has recently funded a project to produce and test mRNA vaccines that can be rapidly mass produced in Australia in the event of a lumpy skin disease (LSD) or other exotic disease outbreak,” the announcement said.

MLA spokesperson Jack Johnston also confirmed that the government isn’t requiring livestock to receive any vaccines — and said no mRNA vaccines are currently approved for food animals in Australia.

“No livestock vaccines are ‘mandated’ for livestock in Australia,” he said in an email.

But, he said, immunizations play an important role and “can help prevent common endemic livestock diseases, leading to improved animal health, welfare and productivity.”

“We advise that producers should be aware of the endemic diseases in their region in Australia that can be prevented by vaccination and assess the risk based on previous local district and property history,” Johnston said.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: An image shows former President Donald Trump dancing with a teenage girl at a party at Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Trump’s campaign and an expert on synthetic images say the image isn’t real. The visual has the telltale signs of one made using programs powered by generative artificial intelligence.

THE FACTS: Social media users are claiming they’ve found new evidence of misconduct by the former Republican president.

Many are sharing an image that appears to show Trump dancing with a young girl at a party years earlier. Wearing a dark suit and tie, Trump appears to clutch the blonde-haired girl in a red dress as people mill around in the background.

“Photo of Donald Trump at Epstein’s private island dancing with a 13 year old girl,” the text superimposed over the photo reads, referring to the disgraced financier who killed himself in a New York City jail while facing federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in 2019.

“Trump was in his 50s when this was taken,” the text on some of the images adds. “What kind of man does that?”

Some posts even juxtapose the image with actual footage of Trump and Epstein chatting animatedly at a gathering. The text of the clip says it’s from November 1992 in Palm Beach, Florida and shows the two “discussing women.”

But while Trump was at one point among the many powerful associates Epstein amassed over the years, the picture of Trump with the young girl is fake, according to his campaign and an outside expert.

Hany Farid, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in digital forensics, misinformation and image analysis, said the image has many of the hallmarks of a fake likely created using generative AI.

He noted a man standing in the background appears to have six fingers grasped around his glass. Generative AI programs, while increasingly sophisticated, are notoriously bad at properly rendering hands and fingers.

Farid also noted a slight inconsistency in the reflection in the girl’s eyes. Her left eye clearly shows a specular reflection, but her right eye does not, he said.

Other giveaways include the girl’s right forearm and hand, which appears elongated and misshapen as it disappears into Trump’s underarm, Farid said. It also does not match the more tanned skin tone of the rest of her arm.

Social media sleuths noted still other AI-generated tells, such as the overly shiny and smooth skin and hair texture on both Trump and the girl, which gives them an almost cartoonish quality.

Raina Saboo, head of business at Optic, also said the image was made using AI, not a camera, based on analysis by the San Francisco-based company’s “AI or Not” image detection tool. She said the program noted color and brightness variances in the visual that aren’t necessarily perceptible to the human eye.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, also confirmed the image was a forgery. He accused the campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — which has previously shared a fabricated image of Trump embracing Anthony Fauci — of spreading the visual.

DeSantis’ campaign rejected the notion. “This has nothing to do with us and isn’t from us,” said spokesperson Bryan Griffin.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A stagnant glass of water seen in videos of Chinese astronauts proves the footage wasn’t actually filmed in space.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Experts say the footage is consistent with how water behaves in zero gravity, and there is no reason to doubt China’s presence in space. Other videos show one of the astronauts carefully putting the water in the glass using a container with a straw, as well as strips that adhere the glass to the table.

THE FACTS: A compilation of footage filmed aboard Tiangong, the Chinese space station, has raised suspicion online about its actual location, thanks to the glass of water.

News footage from a 2021 science lecture by Tiangong’s Shenzhou-13 crew and of the crew’s return to Earth plays throughout the compilation. The water glass is highlighted in a circle that has been edited into the footage.

“How did they get the water into the glass?” text in the video asks. “And how is it not floating out of the glass?”

One Instagram post featuring the compilation suggests this is proof that the footage wasn’t actually taken in space: “How could they get away with such a massive deception? Wouldn’t other countries call us out?” The post had received more than 36,500 likes by Friday.

But the footage is not proof of deception: There’s a basic scientific phenomenon that explains the water’s behavior, an expert told The Associated Press.

“Water molecules like to stick to glass and also to other water molecules more than they like to disperse in the air,” Jordan Bimm, a postdoctoral researcher and space historian at the University of Chicago, told the AP. “So if there is no external force, water remains in ‘clumps’ in the weightless environment, and in this case inside the glass.”

He added that surface tension — a property of a liquid’s surface that helps define its shape and allows it to resist external forces — “also works to help maintain the static shape and presents the illusion of how water would act on the ground.”

A separate video posted on Weibo, a social media platform popular in China, in June 2022 by China’s manned space program shows behind-the-scenes footage of the Shenzhou-13 crew preparing for their livestream lesson by carefully pouring water into the glass through a straw so that it stays in place. It also clearly shows strips adhering the glass to the table.

During their lesson, the taikonauts also demonstrated another behavior of water unique to zero-gravity environments by submerging a ping pong ball in the glass. The ball would float to the top on Earth because of water buoyancy, but in space it stays submerged.

Other astronauts from around the world have also posted videos about how liquids work in space, including how they make coffee or what happens when they wring out a wet towel.

There is also other evidence backing up the fact that Tiangong is indeed among the stars.

“It is extremely unlikely that the video was faked, as Chinese space program actors have very little reason to fake a video,” said Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester who has studied the Chinese space program. “The presence of the space station has been verified by international actors, including China’s biggest space competitor the US.”

Silk explained that China has even offered United Nations member states to send their astronauts to Tiangong — “an offer that would be extremely unlikely if China indeed did not have a space station to send people to.”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A video of President Joe Biden speaking at the White House during a “Take Your Child to Work Day” event shows him being interrupted by a child who yells, “shut the f— up.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered video. C-SPAN footage of the April event has been edited to add the disparaging outburst. No such comment can be heard in the original video, nor is it reflected in the White House’s transcript of the event. The audio was taken from a years-old clip of a classroom graduation ceremony, and has been edited into other videos in the past.

THE FACTS: A popular Instagram video that spread online in recent days has been edited to make it seem as though the obscenity was yelled at the White House event.

“I want to thank you all, all you kids, for bringing your parents to work,” Biden states in the footage.

The video’s audio then makes it sound like a child in the crowd screams the objectionable command, which is followed by a number of people shouting “hey!” and one saying “that’s not nice!” Meanwhile, Biden appears to continue his remarks without acknowledging the outburst.

As of Monday, the post had received more than 35,400 likes.

But no such interruption occurred at the April 27 event, during which Biden answered questions from the children of White House staff as part of “Take Your Child to Work Day.”

The original C-SPAN footage shows Biden speaking without any unexpected disturbances from the crowd. A White House transcript of the event also does not include the obscenity. The additional audio comes from an unrelated video that has been shared online since at least 2019.

In the clip, a young child can be heard cursing at a teacher during a classroom graduation ceremony as adults try to quiet the situation. It is unclear where the video was taken, but its audio has since become a widely-shared sound effect, often used in comedic ways.

The same disparaging audio has been edited into videos of first lady Jill Biden in the past.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: An image shows a CNN news story that reported the OceanGate submersible on its way to the Titanic wreckage site was found empty.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The image is fabricated. CNN did not publish any such story, a spokesperson for the network told The Associated Press. The submersible had not been found at the time of publishing.

THE FACTS: As rescuers race against the clock to find the Titan, the lost submersible operated by OceanGate Expeditions, social media users on Wednesday shared a fabricated CNN report that falsely claimed the vessel has been found with no one inside.

“Missing OceanGate Submarine Found Empty,” reads the headline. The report continues, saying “the submarine” was found but without any passengers, falsely attributing the information to Wendy Rush, the wife of Stockton Rush, CEO of the company and pilot of the expedition. The report incorrectly identifies her as co-founder of OceanGate. She lists herself on LinkedIn as director of communications and expedition team member for the company.

The fabricated report features an image of an OceanGate vessel below the text. The image also shows a red bar at the top of the screen that reads “CATEGORY.” The byline for the story reads, “CNN News.”

The false claim circulated on Facebook and Instagram.

Emily Kuhn, a spokesperson for CNN, confirmed in an email to the AP that the image was fabricated and this was not a real news report from CNN.

Kuhn also noted the news report does not match CNN’s design or font. The image featured at the bottom of the report is also inaccurate and features the Cyclops 1 Submersible, not the missing Titan submersible.

Altered images from CNN broadcasts and fabricated headlines allegedly published by the outlet have previously spread online.

At the time of publishing, the search continued for the vessel, the Titan went missing on Sunday in the Atlantic Ocean and could be about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface, near the watery tomb of the Titanic, according to AP reporting.

The five missing passengers include a renowned Titanic expert, a world-record holding adventurer, two members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families and Stockton Rush. As of Wednesday, searchers had covered an area twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2 1/2 miles deep.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online.Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: Vaccines developed for COVID-19 contain a cancer-causing virus DNA found in monkeys.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Public health officials and the lead researcher of a study cited in many of the social media posts say there’s no monkey virus DNA in the inoculations approved by government regulators. Some COVID-19 vaccines utilize DNA molecules derived from Simian Virus 40, but that’s not the same as the virus itself and the molecules aren’t cancer-causing.

THE FACTS: Social media users are claiming a dangerous ingredient has been discovered in coronavirus vaccines: cancer-causing “monkey virus” DNA.

“Green Monkey DNA confirmed present in COVID jabs,” read one tweet that was retweeted more than 2,500 times.

The post shared an article reporting on the claims with the headline: “Monkey Virus DNA Found in COVID-19 Shots.”

“Found: Cancer-Promoting Simian Virus 40 (SV40) in Pfizer Vials,” read another headline shared in a screenshot on Instagram.

But there’s no evidence to support the claim that the COVID-19 vaccines contain monkey DNA nor the virus known as SV40, according to public health officials and the lead researcher of a recent study cited in some of the social media posts.

Spokespersons for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration referred to their respective websites, where the ingredients of approved vaccinations — and the long running myths and concerns around them — are explained.

“There is no evidence to indicate the presence of SV40, a virus found in monkey kidneys that can potentially cause cancer in humans, in the formulation of COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote Alessandro Faia, a spokesperson for the European Medicines Agency, the Netherlands-based European Union agency that regulates pharmaceuticals, in an email.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer also confirmed in an emailed statement that no monkey DNA was used in creating its version of the COVID-19 inoculation.

“The vaccine is a completely synthetic vaccine,” the company wrote. “There were preclinical animal challenge studies utilizing rhesus macaques; however, no part of our vaccine or studies utilized green monkeys. The claim that the vaccine includes monkey DNA is inaccurate.”

Kevin McKernan, one of the authors of the study cited in some of the posts, dismissed the claims as “fear mongering” and “click bait.”

He says researchers involved in the study, which is a “pre-print” that has not been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, discovered an “SV40 promoter” in the Pfizer vaccine.

But that’s not the same as finding the full SV40 virus in the shot, stressed McKernan, a former research director at MIT’s Human Genome Project who now runs Medicinal Genomics, a Massachusetts company that sells DNA testing kits and other laboratory materials to cannabis companies.

“Promoters” are DNA sequences that help stimulate gene expression and have been long used in molecular biology, McKernan and other experts explained. In the case of the SV40 promoter, it happens to be derived from the SV40 virus.

“It’s just the volume knob that drives high level expression of anything put under its control, which in this case is just an antibiotic resistance marker,” wrote Phillip Buckhaults, director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at the University of South Carolina who was not involved with the study, in an email.

“The fear about the SV40 sequences is total nonsense,” he wrote. “The vaccine is not going to cause cancer. There is no cancer causing gene in the vaccine.”

The false claims play on decades-old fears of SV40 and increased risk of developing cancer, adds Michael Imperiale, a molecular biologist at the University of Michigan Medical School who was also not involved in the research.

From 1955 to 1963, up to 30% of polio vaccines administered in the U.S. were found to have been contaminated with SV40, which came from monkey kidney cell cultures that had been used to make the vaccines, according to the CDC website.

But subsequent studies found “no causal association” between the SV40-contaminated polio vaccines and cancer development, the CDC writes.

What’s more, the SV40 promoter, on its own, can’t cause cancer, said Imperiale. The part of SV40 that’s potentially cancer-causing, known as the T-antigen, isn’t present in the vaccine.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: Photos show children who were trafficked as “sex slaves” being rescued from tunnel systems beneath Central Park in New York City.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The images all show other events, mostly efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, including at a field hospital in Central Park and a U.S. Navy hospital ship, also in New York City.

THE FACTS: A video spread online in recent days misrepresenting the early pandemic images as the supposed rescue operation.

As photos flash across the screen, a woman’s voice claims that “highly-equipped ships” had been sent to New York City “to take care of children rescued from tunnel systems under Central Park.”

She continues: “Children that were born into sex slavery in these tunnel systems, kept as sex slaves. They are deformed and completely shattered and broken.”

But the images largely show healthcare operations in the early days of the pandemic, mostly in New York City.

For example, an image of a large white ship with red crosses on it was taken by an Associated Press photographer on March 30, 2020. It depicts the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship sent to New York City to treat non-COVID patients while hospitals focused on people with the virus.

Several other images are cropped versions of a photo taken by a U.S. Navy photographer that shows sailors treating what appears to be a young patient aboard the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship that was deployed in San Diego around the same time, also for non-COVID patients.

Three other photos in the video show an emergency field hospital set up in Central Park by Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian relief group. One was taken by an AFP photographer on March 30, 2020, while another was captured the same day by a photographer for Getty Images. The third was taken for Untapped New York, a tour company which publishes an online magazine about hidden gems in New York City.

Another image of military troops surrounded by empty portable cribs was taken by a Texas Air National Guard photographer on April 1, 2020, and shows a field hospital set up in response to COVID-19 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas.

The video also includes a screenshot of a Travel + Leisure article titled, “There’s a Secret Tunnel Under Central Park.” But the 2016 story is about an old subway tunnel under Central Park that was repurposed for an extension of one of the system’s train lines — not tunnels used to imprison children.

A short clip at the start of the video shows troops in a military plane, one of whom is rocking a baby in his arms. While the origin of the video is unclear, it has been online since at least late August 2021, with posts at the time suggesting it was taken near Afghanistan. This was around the same time the Taliban seized control of the country’s capital, leading to a withdrawal of U.S. troops and desperate attempts by Afghans to flee.

Asked whether there had been any reports of sex trafficked children being rescued from tunnels in Central Park, the New York Police Department wrote in a statement to the AP that it is “not aware of this alleged incident.”

False claims about child sex trafficking and other abuse are part of a common misinformation narrative that has spread in different forms for decades.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: Chelsea Clinton said, “It’s time to force-jab every unvaccinated child in America.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no evidence of Clinton ever making such a comment, and a spokesperson confirmed she has not. The fabricated quote stemmed from a website that is known to publish false news and misinformation. Clinton recently spoke at a conference on a new global health initiative called “The Big Catch-Up,” which aims to boost childhood vaccination rates, but does not involve mandatory immunization and will not focus on the U.S. .

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a screenshot of a baseless article with a headline reading: “Chelsea Clinton: ‘It’s Time To Force-Jab Every Unvaccinated Child in America.’”

“Chelsea Clinton has declared that unvaccinated children in America must be forced to take the mRNA jab with or without parental consent,” reads one Twitter post that shares the headline. The post has more than 19,000 likes as of Tuesday. The headline was also shared on other platforms, including Instagram.

The headline came from a website called The People’s Voice, which was previously known as News Punch. The website has published numerous stories based on conspiracy theories and has promoted fabricated information and quotes in the past.

The article itself is based on real remarks Clinton made at a recent conference on global health, where she spoke about the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a nonprofit founded by her father, and a new global initiative it’s working with called “The Big Catch-Up.”

The joint effort between the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other partners aims to boost routine vaccination among kids, which fell off during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to rising rates of measles, polio and yellow fever, according to a WHO press release announcing the initiative. The campaign will focus on 20 countries, which does not include the U.S. as the headline falsely claims.

At no point during her speech did Clinton say that kids should or would be forcibly vaccinated.

Sara Horowitz, a spokesperson for Clinton, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that Clinton did not say, “it’s time to force-jab every unvaccinated child in America.”

“She did not say this but very much believes (and did say) that no one should die of polio or measles or pneumonia including in this country where we also need people to be vaccinating our kids,” wrote Horowitz.

Daniel Epstein, a WHO spokesperson, pointed to the organization’s press release, and added: “There are no mandatory vaccinations associated with this effort.”

Instead, the campaign aims to boost vaccination rates by “working with countries to strengthen health care workforces, improve health service delivery, build trust and demand for vaccines within communities, and address gaps and obstacles to restoring immunization,” the release states.

The People’s Voice did not immediately return a request for comment.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A screenshot shows a May 11 piece published by The Guardian in which columnist George Monbiot says he caught COVID-19 23 times despite “dozens of boosters.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered image. A screenshot of a real column has been edited to add a fake headline. That headline does not appear on The Guardian’s website and the British outlet confirmed to The Associated Press that it never published that piece.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing the purported screenshot, suggesting it shows a real column.“I’ve caught Covid for the 23rd time despite having had dozens of boosters (I’ve lost count). Thank heavens for the vaccine,” reads the headline in the image, which is made to appear as a screenshot of a column dated May 11 on the Guardian website. The supposed column is attributed to Monbiot.

One Thursday tweet sharing the image, paired with clown emojis, received more than 3,700 likes.

But there is no record of that headline on The Guardian’s website under Monbiot’s author page. As of Thursday, his most recent column was published May 3 and focused on water pollution.

The Guardian further confirmed that the screenshot circulating online is bunk.“We can confirm that the link shared has never been a published Guardian headline or story,” the outlet’s press office told the AP in an email statement.

Monbiot also called out the falsehood on Twitter.

“Another one who fell for this fake headline,” he wrote, showing one example of someone sharing the fabricated image. “Is there anything such people won’t believe?”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: An image of U.S. Rep. George Santos in a gray sweater and blue jacket is a mugshot taken Wednesday after he was indicted on federal charges.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. No mugshot has been released. The image circulating on social media is a cropped and edited version of a news photo taken on Jan. 10, 2023, outside a House Republican Conference meeting in the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Department of Justice generally does not release mugshots as a matter of policy, a spokesperson confirmed.

THE FACTS: As Santos pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the Eastern District of New York on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress, social media users spread the image online, falsely claiming it is his mugshot.

“Whatever you do, please don’t retweet this brand new mugshot of Trumper Congressman George Santos,” reads one tweet that received more than 7,900 likes and 5,500 shares as of early Wednesday evening.

But the image has nothing to do with Santos’ criminal case. It matches a photo that was taken in January by a staff photographer for CQ Roll Call, a congressional news outlet, and shows Santos outside a House Republican Conference meeting in the U.S. Capitol.

The version spreading on social media is cropped to show only Santos’ head and shoulders. Certain details, such as his clothing and the position of his hair, match the original exactly, but it appears that the social media version was edited to give Santos more of a frown and to decrease the color saturation.

Video and photos of Santos outside the Central Islip, New York courthouse where he was arraigned Wednesday afternoon show he was wearing a brown sweater and no tie, rather than the gray top and blue tie in the supposed mugshot.

Danielle Hass, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of New York, told The Associated Press that “it’s against DOJ policy” to release mugshots. The only exception, as the agency’s website outlines, is “when there is a law enforcement purpose for doing so like in a fugitive situation.”

Santos, who is infamous for fabricating his life story, is being accused of duping donors, stealing from his campaign and lying to Congress about being a millionaire, all while cheating to collect unemployment benefits he didn’t deserve. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Following his arraignment and release on a $500,000 bond, he told reporters outside the courthouse that he won’t drop his bid for reelection, defying calls to resign.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A Pfizer subsidiary called Zoetis has injected mRNA vaccines into 100 million wildlife animals in the U.S.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The company, which was a Pfizer subsidiary but is now independent, does not have any messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines for animals, a representative confirmed to The Associated Press.

THE FACTS: The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna for humans use mRNA to instruct cells to create a spike protein to fight the disease.

The vaccines are safe and effective, but there have been persistent false and unfounded claims about the technology – including a recent widespread narrative that they are being added to the food supply via animals.

In a similar vein, a popular video shared on Instagram this week is erroneously claiming that a pharmaceutical company is injecting wildlife en masse with mRNA vaccines.

“Wild & domestic animals getting MRNA injected,” text on the video reads.

The video shows a clip taken from a February episode of the online show of conservative talk duo “Diamond and Silk,” now hosted by Rochelle “Silk” Richardson. Her sister Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway died in January.

“There’s a company, a subsidiary company of Pfizer, that’s called Zoetis,” a guest on the show claims. “They’ve already mRNA-injected 100 million wildlife in America. I guarantee you they’re doing it to pets too.” He later cites deers and elk as examples of wildlife “being mRNA-injected for COVID.”

But the claims don’t check out.

There are no COVID-19 mRNA vaccines licensed for animals, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently told the AP.

Moreover, Zoetis — a pharmaceutical company focused on animal health that is actually a Pfizer spinoff — does not have mRNA vaccines against any disease.

“We do not have any mRNA vaccines for any animals,” Zoetis spokesperson Christina Lood said in an email to the AP.

Zoetis has made an animal vaccine against COVID-19, which is not mRNA-based, that has been used in some animals considered susceptible for the disease — such as some zoo animals.

Livestock in the U.S. are not legally required to receive mRNA vaccines, or any immunizations for that matter. Those decisions are made by ranchers and farmers to protect their animals.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul approved a memo “denying white people certain medical treatments.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The post is referencing a memo from 2021 concerning the distribution of antiviral therapies for COVID-19 that said being “non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity” could be considered a risk factor to receive such treatments. It did not say white people with other risk factors couldn’t access the treatments.

THE FACTS: A blog and related Facebook post are distorting old guidance from New York state to suggest that Hochul recently acted to withhold medical treatments from white people.

“Governor Approves Memo Denying White People Certain Medical Treatments,” reads text paired with an image of Hochul that was shared on Facebook Sunday.

The post includes a link to a story on a blog that references a New York State Department of Health memo concerning “COVID-19 Oral Antiviral Treatment” — which it misleadingly suggests is new.

In reality, the memo in question is from December 2021 and noted that the Food and Drug Administration had authorized two oral antiviral treatments, Paxlovid and molnupiravir, for patients with COVID-19 who were at high risk of severe disease.

The memo noted that patients should meet several eligibility criteria for such treatments, including having “a medical condition or other factors that increase their risk for severe illness.” It added: “Non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.”

It did not state white people couldn’t receive the therapies.

Such policies allowing doctors to consider race as a risk factor when allocating scarce COVID-19 treatments came under conservative criticism at the time, as The Associated Press reported, though health officials have long said there is a strong case for considering race as one of many risk factors in treatment decisions.

“The assertion that certain race or ethnic groups were prioritized regarding eligibility for an oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment is patently false,” Cadence Acquaviva, a state Department of Health spokesperson, told the AP in an email this week. “Neither race nor ethnicity would disqualify an individual from receiving treatment.”

The guidance was based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because COVID-19 mortality rates were higher in certain demographic groups, Acquaviva said, noting that legal challenges to the department’s guidance were unsuccessful.

A federal lawsuit filed in early 2022 by a Cornell University law professor and conservative law firm against New York’s then-health commissioner over the inclusion of race in the risk criteria was later dismissed.

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This story has been updated to add comment from the New York State Department of Health.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: CNN cut short its primetime town hall with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The cable news network says it had allotted one hour for the forum but it ended up running about 10 minutes longer. The New Hampshire college that hosted the event also confirmed the expected runtime for the event was an hour, not the nearly two hours that some claimed online.

THE FACTS: CNN’s Wednesday night town hall with the former president wrapped up at 9:09 p.m. EST — 69 minutes after it began at its scheduled time of 8 p.m.

Immediately following the broadcast, however, social media users began claiming that the network had deliberately truncated the event.

“Lol, CNN ended the town hall with Trump early,” one user on Twitter wrote in a post that’s been liked or shared more than 21,000 times as of Thursday. “Biggest ratings they’ve had in years and they tapped out.”

“Note: The CNN Town Hall was a 90 minute broadcast, though the network expected the actual event to go as long as 75 minutes,” wrote another Twitter user in a post that’s been liked or shared more than 4,000 times. “They stopped less than 70 minutes in. In other words, they could have gone longer if they wanted—which is usually what executives do with big ratings draws.”

But CNN officials maintain they always intended the broadcast to run an hour. In fact, they say, it ran slightly over the allotted time.

Matt Dornic, a senior vice president at CNN Worldwide, took to social media Thursday to address the claims, maintaining that network officials were consistent in the days leading up to the town hall that it would last just an hour.

“We gave it room to bleed over some for editorial flexibility,” he explained in a tweet. “It was ultimately just shy of 70 mins.”

The network didn’t respond to a follow up email seeking additional information on the tweet, but Paul Pronovost, a spokesperson for Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, where the forum was held, backed up Dornic’s comments.

“I can confirm that is what was shared with the college in advance as well,” he said in an email, referencing the one-hour run time.

Additionally, TV Guide’s listing for the Wednesday broadcast shows it was slotted from 8 p.m. to 9:15 p.m., or about 75 minutes. It was then followed by a show analyzing the event that ran until 11 p.m. and featured CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper and other experts.

During the forum, Trump took questions from CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and a live audience of local voters who intend to vote in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.

The event came a day after a New York jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing a woman nearly 30 years ago and defaming her when she spoke about it publicly.

It also marked something of a denouement between the New York billionaire and CNN, which Trump infamously branded as “fake news” and refused to grant interviews to during his four years in the White House.

Wednesday’s broadcast helped the cable network draw 2.2 million viewers during primetime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), besting rivals Fox News and MSNBC, which drew roughly 1.6 million and 1.4 million viewers, respectively, according to Nielsen data CNN provided to The Associated Press.

It also marked the network’s best performance in prime time since the 2022 midterm elections in terms of total viewers, the network said. Among all CNN single-candidate town halls since 2016, the Trump forum ranked second in viewership behind a town hall featuring Joe Biden in 2020.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A video shows Sen. Dianne Feinstein returning to the U.S. Capitol in a hearse on Wednesday following her two-and-a-half-month absence due to illness.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered video. The video was edited to add in the hearse. In the original footage, Feinstein can be seen getting out of a silver Lexus sedan.

THE FACTS: The 89-year-old California Democrat, who was briefly hospitalized with shingles in early March, returned to the Senate for an afternoon vote on Wednesday. Social media users began spreading the doctored clip online in the hours that followed.

In the footage, Feinstein appears to be helped out of a traditional black hearse and into a wheelchair by aides before she is greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“Breaking News: Dianne Feinstein Dropped off at the Capitol by a hearse,” reads one tweet that was shared hundreds of times.

Others used the video as proof that Feinstein is too old to continue her congressional duties. “If you have to show up in a hearse to your job in the senate, it’s time for you to go,” another tweet states.

But Feinstein did not actually show up to the Capitol in a hearse. The video circulating on social media matches footage tweeted by CNN’s chief congressional correspondent on Wednesday. In that footage, Feinstein emerges from a Lexus LS 460 with a California license plate.

The Lexus is also visible in other photos and video from Feinstein’s return. Even in the edited clip, the silver sedan can be seen through the phones of multiple reporters who are filming the scene, rather than the hearse that has been edited into the clip.

Feinstein is using a wheelchair to get around the Capitol as she continues to recover from side effects of the shingles virus and said in a statement that she will work a reduced schedule, the AP reported. While she had returned to Washington on Tuesday, she missed a vote that evening and two votes on Wednesday morning before returning for the afternoon vote to confirm a Department of Education nominee.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: A video taken from a balcony shows a sea of protesters packing the street outside former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s London home in response to this week’s arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video shows a protest outside Sharif’s residence in April 2022. That protest was over Khan being ousted as prime minister.

THE FACTS: Numerous videos circulating online this week do show unrest and protests in response to Khan’s arrest on corruption charges, including in London. However, some social media users are sharing a video of the 2022 protest, falsely claiming it is recent.

The video appears to be taken from a balcony, looking down on a London street filled with protestors, many holding protest signs and waving Pakistan’s flag. Horns are blaring in the background as a large crowd surrounds multiple cars on a street.

“Imran Khan protest goes global – A large number of Pakistanis are protesting Imran Khan’s arrest in front of Nawaz Sharif’s house in London,” reads one post sharing the video on Twitter with more than 20,000 likes as of Friday.

Another Twitter post reads, “Pakistanis all over the world are angry of #ImranKhan abduction.”

The video does show a protest outside Avenfield House in Mayfair, which were revealed to be owned by Sharif’s family in the so-called Panama Papers. Sharif was ousted as prime minister in 2015 after being convicted of financial irregularities revealed in the leaked documents; he has been living in self-imposed exile in London since 2019 after authorities released him on bail so that he could travel abroad to seek medical treatment.

However, the video is from a protest that took place outside the building on April 17, 2022, after Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote a week earlier. Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, then became Pakistan’s prime minister.

Longer versions of the same footage were posted to social media on April 17, 2022. Several similar photos of the protest were also posted on Twitter the same day. The video and these images show key similarities, such as two black cars in the exact same place on the street.

Several UK news outlets also reported on protests taking place in London outside of Sharif’s residence on April 17, 2022.

Local and Pakistani news outlets have also reported on protests in London in response to Khan’s arrest this week. The former prime minister is facing around 100 criminal cases filed against him by various government agencies.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Khan’s arrest was illegal and, while it freed him from custody, it ordered him kept under protection of security forces in a safe location in the capital, Islamabad, according to Associated Press reporting.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

CLAIM: The Federal Reserve is launching a new program that will give it the power to monitor, freeze and even seize private bank accounts based on a person’s behavior or political beliefs.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Fed officials and banking experts say the new FedNow service does not give the agency additional surveillance and enforcement authorities. They say the service simply replaces the agency’s outdated system for banks to process checks and electronic payments.

THE FACTS: A post circulating widely on social media claims a new government program will give the Federal Reserve broad powers to monitor and seize people’s personal bank funds.

“The U.S. banking nightmare is about to get a lot worse,” reads the post, which has been liked or shared more than 4,500 times as of Tuesday. “A new Federal program with the power to control your money goes into effect in as little as 30 days.”

The post and other similarly worded ones link to a lengthy blog piece with the headline “U.S. Government Docket No. OP-1670 Exposes New Fed Power to Seize Control of U.S. Bank Accounts.”

The blog item claims a secretive government initiative “gives unelected officials the power to closely monitor or even freeze your account based on your behavior, and potentially even based on your political views.”

It also claims the system would give government officials the power to monitor a person’s investments, restricting how much they can invest or contribute to certain companies, causes and political parties.

The effort would even give government officials the power to pressure people to get vaccinated, “or worse,” the post claims.

But the government document referenced by the post — Docket No. OP-1670 — suggests nothing of the sort, Fed officials and banking experts say.

Instead, they say, it details the creation of FedNow, a new service set to launch this summer that will allow banks and credit unions to speed up the dayslong process of clearing checks and electronic payments.

“FedNow is an instant payments service that the Federal Reserve will offer to banks and credit unions to transfer funds for their customers,” the agency said in an emailed statement. “The Fed and FedNow cannot access individuals’ bank accounts or control how they choose to spend their money.”

Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C., concurred, saying the claims are part of a “nonsense campaign” that has “no basis in reality.”

The Fed is simply revamping its outdated Automated Clearinghouse system, which is the network financial institutions use to send each other electronic credit and debit transfers such as payroll direct deposits, social security benefits and tax refunds, he said.

“They are upgrading their current system that runs on 1950s tech to one that’s modern,” Klein explained in an email. “It’s like changing from Blockbuster to Netflix.”

Nicholas Anthony, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, another Washington-based research group, noted that banking institutions are already required to report suspicious financial behavior and other potential threats under the federal Bank Secrecy Act, which was enacted in 1970 to crack down on money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

“While there are many sound concerns around FedNow being an unnecessary expansion of the Federal Reserve’s footprint,” he wrote in an email. “I do not share the same concerns that FedNow will expand surveillance.”

There isn’t anything secretive about the planned system, either, as the blog post claims, Anthony noted.

The Fed has provided regular updates on the process, launched a frequently asked questions page and even published a notice in the Federal Registerearly in the process in order to solicit public feedback.

The blog post appears to wrongly conflate the forthcoming FedNow system with digital currency, commonly referred to as a “central bank digital currency,” or CBDC, which the Fed has also said it is exploring, Anthony and other experts say.

Fed officials have stressed FedNow is unrelated to the notion of a government-run digital currency, which social media users also falsely claim would lead to the elimination of cash.

“The Federal Reserve has made no decision on issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) & would not do so without clear support from Congress and executive branch, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law,” the agency wrote in a series of tweets last month. “A CBDC would not replace cash or other payment options.”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.