GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy this week proposed that a physical fitness test be added to the college admissions process as a “simple way” for colleges to diversify. “It’s a fact that those who perform well on math & reading tests tend to perform more poorly on the 1-mile run, and vice versa,” he said. That’s not a fact. In fact, numerous studies show just the opposite.
President Joe Biden met with the Israeli president in July at the White House. A clip from that meeting is circulating online with the false suggestion that Biden was “falling asleep” during the meeting. The full video shows Biden was consulting notecards and wasn’t asleep.
A TV ad attacks Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s decision during the COVID-19 pandemic to release more than 1,800 prisoners convicted of non-violent or non-sexual felonies. But the details of the case featured in the ad don’t fit the ad’s narrative.
People with cancer are particularly vulnerable to severe disease and death from COVID-19. Vaccines provide needed protection. It has not been shown that COVID-19 vaccines cause or accelerate cancer. Nor does a recent paper about a mouse that died of lymphoma “prove” that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine induced “turbo cancer,” contrary to social media claims.
After a fatal shooting at the University of North Carolina, Fox News displayed a photo of the suspect with this caption: “UNC Police Release Picture of Person of Interest.” But an altered screenshot of the news report circulating online shows this caption under the photo: “Shooter Described as ‘Mostly White Asian Male.'” A Fox News spokesperson called that caption a “fake.”
Our article about the first Republican debate of the 2024 election was the basis for this fact-checking video segment produced by Hearst Television — one of our media partners.
Democrats tend to win in densely populated counties, while Republicans win more sparse, rural counties. In 2020, the counties won by President Joe Biden had 67 million more residents than counties won by former President Donald Trump. Yet a social media post falsely asserts that because Biden won with fewer counties than Trump, “something isn’t adding up.”
The U.S. is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases, so it may be prudent for people to wear masks when out in public and take a few extra precautions. But the government is not planning to implement mask mandates or “lockdowns,” despite claims from the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
At the first Republican presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touted his military experience, saying he “was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq” and “deployed to Iraq alongside U.S. Navy SEALs.” That’s accurate: He was a Navy lawyer who advised a SEAL commander.
Documents show that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins received 58 royalty payments from 2010 to 2021 for their research. Only three of the payments came in 2020 or 2021; the rest were made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But social media posts falsely claimed all the payments were “for allowing companies to use their COVID-19 vaccines.”