For the fiscal year ending in September, spending on police is expected to account for 37% of general fund expenditures in the city of Uvalde, Texas. But police spending is projected to make up about 17% of the city’s total operating expenditures, contrary to imprecise claims made by some politicians and news organizations.
Jacob Albarado, who has been described in media reports as an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer, helped students escape the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24. But online rumors falsely claim he was the CBP officer who killed the shooter. Albarado has said in interviews, “I didn’t shoot the guy.”
Police are still investigating the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, but as of May 26 they had shared no evidence about the shooter’s gender identity. Despite that lack of evidence, Rep. Paul Gosar and others claimed the gunman was transgender. Social media posts making the baseless claim have shared photos of a person unrelated to the attack.
The majority of United States residents who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 are white, according to available state data and survey research. That contradicts Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s claim that, “in most states,” Black residents are “the biggest group” of unvaccinated people.
Cases of COVID-19 are increasing in Texas, but it doesn’t have the “highest COVID positivity rate and case count in the nation” — contrary to what Democrat Julián Castro recently tweeted.
Some popular online posts suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to El Paso is “over 1000 miles away” from the “border crisis.” It’s true that other areas — including the Rio Grande Valley — are experiencing higher levels of border activity, as critics have noted, but El Paso is a hotspot for illegal immigration.
Animal testing and clinical trials were conducted before the COVID-19 vaccines were authorized for use in the U.S. But a Texas state senator falsely claimed at a hearing that animal tests were “stopped” because the “animals were dying.”
The U.S. Department of Energy approved a request to allow power plants in snowstorm-battered Texas to temporarily bypass some environmental limits during its energy crisis, in order to produce more power. Viral headlines falsely claim the department rejected the request.
Several high-profile conservative figures — including the Texas governor — have wrongly placed the blame for power outages in Texas on wind turbines.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Texas after a winter storm began wreaking havoc, and held a call with its governor as the state experienced power outages. But Facebook posts misleadingly claim there has not been “one word” on the emergency from Biden.