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Claim: Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks once said during a July 2020 interview, "If you can't wear a mask and wash your hands and social distance, I don't understand. I've got no respect for you man." Rating: In September 2023, users on X shared an old video and claimed that it showed Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks saying he had "no respect" for people who wouldn't wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most popular post from Sept. 19 earned millions of impressions. The video upload in the post was attributed to a January 2023 post made by the account @healthbyjames, which...

LINK ONLY per FreeRepublic posting guidelines: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/01/06/fact-check-false-claim-terms-global-warming-and-climate-change/10957295002/

CLAIM: President Joe Biden signed an executive order in March 2022 that will introduce a cashless society, make paper money worthless, give government new power to inhibit purchases and create a social credit score system like the one in China, which would punish people financially for certain behaviors. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The executive order doesn’t do any of these things. It urged Federal Reserve to explore whether central bank should create its own digital currency and directed Treasury Department and other federal agencies to study the impact of cryptocurrency on financial stability and national security. THE FACTS: In March, Biden...

A film opening in hundreds of theaters across the United States this week uses a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election nearly 18 months after it ended. Praised by former President Donald Trump as exposing “great election fraud,” the movie, called “2000 Mules,” paints an ominous picture suggesting Democrat-aligned ballot “mules” were supposedly paid to illegally collect and drop off ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But that’s based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data,...

Unlike most fact checkers, Glen Pyle actually has legitimate credentials.I first ran into Glen after my friend Professor Byram Bridle was attacked for his views by Professor Pyle and others at the University of Guelph. Pyle and others at the university, when challenged to debate the facts, refused to respond. Apparently, they can dish it out, but won’t defend their position.Pyle is basically on the wrong side of history.Athlete deaths fact checkI thought I would fact check three of the fact checks he wrote, starting with a fact check on the athlete deaths.Dr. Pyle concludes that the vaccines are perfectly...

There is no evidence currently that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to an increase in sportspeople collapsing or dying due to heart issues such as myocarditis.Numerous montage videos showing sports stars collapsing or suffering chest pains during matches are circulating on social media (here, here).One clip shared on Facebook (here) shows several incidents of football players collapsing on the pitch. It also includes news headlines about similar cases from around the world of sport, both professional and amateur.Another post (here) includes a link to a blog (here) which strongly suggests the incidents are related to COVID-19 vaccines.Reuters presented the posts to...

Contrary to online claims, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 does not have a 100% survival rate, as some social media users suggest. The variant identified by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern on November 26, 2021, has been a contributing factor in worldwide deaths. A misleading statement published to Facebook, which reads: “The survival rate for Omicron currently is 100%! You’re statistically more likely to die from literally anything else” is viewable here Similar posts are visible here and here . According to the guidance (here ) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public...

Some social media users have been saying that Merck’s experimental COVID-19 antiviral product molnupiravir is a rebranded version of the anti-parasitic Ivermectin. Two disease experts have told Reuters that this is not the case and that the chemical make-up of the two drugs is different. One tweet (here ) reads, “Ivermectin is a safe cure that was removed from CDC treatment protocol. Merck refurbishes it and *poof, it’s a miracle pill. Further proof that Big Pharma is in the business of creating customers.” Similar posts on Facebook are visible here and here .One reads, in part, “The pharmaceutical giant Merck...

A pre-print study which claimed that there is a 1 in 1,000 risk of contracting a heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis has since been retracted due to a calculation. The study which was conducted by researchers at The University of Ottawa Heart Institute, was featured in numerous blogs and social media posts as proof that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe for use. “New Study Shows 1 in 1000 Develop Heart Inflammation After Covid Vaccination; Myocarditis and Other Related Heart Conditions Have Increased Death Rate Within 5 Years,” the headline of an article published on September 21 on The Gateway...

Bret Baier responded to a statement former President Trump released in which he specifically named Baier, who was anchoring for Fox News when the network called Arizona for President Biden. In the statement, Trump made several baseless claims of election fraud in Arizona, all of which Baier fact-checked. “The former president points to a third-party audit presented to the Arizona state Senate showing 168,000 ballots were printed on illegal paper. An elections official in Maricopa County says it uses paper approved by Dominion Voting Systems, which makes the tabulation equipment." “Former President Trump says 74,000 mail-in ballots were received that...

President Donald Trump isn’t giving up on his false accusations of a rigged election now that his administration is making room for President-elect Joe Biden to proceed with the transition of power. Trump on Tuesday spread distortions about voting in Wisconsin and suggested that his administration’s decision Monday to let the transition begin should not be taken to mean he’s giving up on trying to engineer another term in the face of his defeat. In tweets Tuesday: TRUMP: “Remember, the GSA has been terrific, and Emily Murphy has done a great job, but the GSA does not determine who the...

“There’s a lot of things that could go wrong,” one expert said. President Donald Trump has suggested multiple times that a coronavirus vaccine could come within months, an accelerated timeline that prominent health experts and veteran vaccine developers say is unlikely absent a miracle. "We're looking to get it by the end of the year if we can, maybe before," Trump said Friday during in a Rose Garden event centered on his administration's efforts to fast-track a vaccine. “Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year,” Trump tweeted on Thursday. “I think we’re going to have a vaccine...

Washington (CNN) -- President Donald Trump and his campaign are spreading disinformation about an incident in Pennsylvania where nine ballots were improperly discarded, and are falsely claiming it proves widespread "voter fraud" and that Democrats are "trying to steal the election." According to federal and local authorities, an election worker improperly threw out nine military ballots in Luzerne County, and seven of the ballots were marked for Trump. Election experts said the incident raised legitimate questions about election procedures, but also condemned the Justice Department for politicizing the situation by highlighting that the votes were for Trump. Team Trump has...

First Lady Melania Trump concluded the second night of the Republican National Convention with a speech in which she said, "Total honesty is what we as citizens deserve from our president." We certainly haven't received total honesty from President Donald Trump. And we certainly didn't get it on Tuesday night. The convention programming was littered with false or misleading claims, including some from the President's son Eric Trump, as well as a number of other claims that were missing important context. Here's a look at some of the notable claims from Tuesday night and the facts behind them. Former Florida...

The Republican National Convention started off with a parade of dishonesty, in stark contrast with last week's Democratic convention. While CNN also watched and fact-checked the Democrats, those four nights combined didn't have the number of misleading and false claims made on the first night of the Republicans' convention. Here are some of the most noteworthy falsehoods from night one of the RNC:

President Donald Trump has long been fond of turning supposedly official events into de facto campaign rallies. Even by his own standards, though, his Tuesday speech was extreme. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, at what was billed as a "press conference" in which he would give remarks about China, Trump delivered a rambling 52-minute monologue filled with pre-scripted attacks on Democratic opponent Joe Biden. As usual, Trump's comments were filled with egregious lies and other false claims. We haven't yet had a chance to comb through the entire transcript, but here is a list of the 19 false...

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump prefaced the revival of his campaign rallies with days of self-congratulation, a familiar pattern that has not been disturbed by the traumas of this time. ... A look at claims and the reality from the past week: TRUMP: “Biden got failing grades and polls on his clueless handling of the Swine Flu H1N1. It was a total disaster, they had no idea what they were doing.” - tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: This is a distorted history of a pandemic in 2009 that killed far fewer people in the United States than the coronavirus is killing...