Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has flouted international law more dramatically than almost any other military incursion since the end of World War II. Prior to the invasion, Ukraine had been a sovereign nation, recognized around the world for some three decades, and it had made no militaristic moves against Russia. Yet Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, […]
PolitiFact has had the same mission since it started in 2007: To give people the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy. Never has that mission felt as important as it does in 2022. The Jan. 6 insurrection was a dramatic moment of democracy under assault. But it was the outward manifestation of […]
During the public comment period of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration online advisory committee meeting on vaccines in September, Steve Kirsch took the virtual floor with a slide presentation and a troubling claim: that the Pfizer vaccine was killing five times as many people as it saved. Kirsch is not a medical professional, scientist […]
In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released developmental milestone checklists for infants and young children to help parents track their child’s development and intervene if it seemed a child was delayed. The benchmarks, part of the CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early” developmental monitoring program, remained unaltered for decades. But that changed […]
As news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spread across the world, misinformation quickly followed. Social media feeds are filled with distressing images, videos and stories with descriptions that convey they are scenes from the ongoing crisis. And while legitimate coverage of the operation has shown troubling scenes of destruction and turmoil, many of the images […]
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the sanctions unleashed against Russia, are expected to destabilize the world economy. But how important is Russia within the global economy? While casting a large geopolitical shadow as a nuclear-armed power, economically, Russia is a mid-level player. Still, it’s big in oil and natural gas exports, so any disruptions […]
The 11-point Republican agenda that Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., released on Feb. 22 identified a number of priorities, including finishing the border wall, enacting a national voter ID law, and setting term limits for members of Congress. One part of the agenda, at the bottom of page 35, touched on U.S. tax policy. “All Americans […]
As the omicron variant of COVID-19 loosens its grip on the United States, public health officials and lawmakers are deliberating which rules and restrictions to ease. But ever-evolving pandemic public health guidance and recent efforts by states to lift restrictions have given rise to social media claims that contend something nefarious is afoot. Scientists and […]
Russia recognized the independence of two eastern provinces in Ukraine and followed up by sending Russian troops across the Ukrainian border. What Western leaders called a major violation of international law, Russian President Vladimir Putin cast as the end of an erroneous division of land that took place more than a century ago. “Since time […]
Police in downtown Ottawa began clearing out protesters Feb. 18 in an effort to end a weeks-long demonstration in Canada’s capital by Canadian truckers angry about the country’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. It wasn’t long before social media was hot with rumors that a woman was trampled to death by a horse in Ottawa, which is located […]
The one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump prompted some social media users to draw comparisons to another event nearly 40 years earlier. “This is Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, two left wing activist, who on November 7th, 1983 placed a bomb […]
The coronavirus pandemic is now stretching into its third year, a grim milestone that calls for another look at the human toll of COVID-19, and the unsteady progress in containing it. The charts below tell various aspects of the story, from the deadly force of the disease and its disparate impact, to the signs of […]