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It started with a plea from the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona. “We respectfully but urgently request that you send all available law enforcement resources to the border in defense of our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona wrote June 10 in a letter to […]

A TikTok video suggests that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate in Australia risked infecting people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In the video, a narrator talks about a vaccine that contained a protein that is a “tiny fragment of HIV,” and a person interviewed says “there is absolutely no risk from this type of vaccine,” […]

Is it safe to fire up the barbecue and party like it’s 1999 — or maybe just 2019? When President Joe Biden set the goal of 70% of all Americans getting  at least one vaccine shot by July Fourth, he dangled the nation’s birthday party as a reward. “We need you to bring it home,” […]

Correction, June 30: When PolitiFact Virginia initially published this report on June 29, we failed to include comments Youngkin made outside of an U.S. Export-Import Bank conference that were on similar topics, because in our reporting process, we failed to reach out to the McAuliffe campaign. This goes against our reporting standards, which require us to contact […]

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the group Children’s Health Defense against the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Facebook, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The lawsuit alleged that PolitiFact, a project of Poynter, had censored a truthful public health statement about vaccines through its fact-checking relationship with Facebook. Susan Illston, […]

Editor’s note: PolitiFact has reviewed court filings and other information for hundreds of defendants facing charges related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in an ongoing effort to document what role misinformation played. This report reflects our initial findings about the way that hundreds of false claims about the 2020 election being […]

Critics of President Joe Biden are saying that his proposal to increase corporate tax rates could break one of the highest-profile promises of his 2020 presidential campaign — that “if you make less than $400,000, you won’t pay a single penny more in taxes.” For instance, recent posts shared by several websites affiliated with the […]

Is the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin a “cure” for COVID-19? We’ve rated False claims such as “mountains of data” show ivermectin “basically obliterates” COVID-19 transmission. Some limited studies suggested that ivermectin can help treat COVID-19; others show no significant impact. Many of the studies had small sample sizes and other limitations. At the same time, ivermectin […]

The Carroll Times Daily Herald raised an interesting question in a June 14, 2021, story: could the life of Iowa historical figure Chief Black Hawk be taught under a new Iowa law that prohibits scapegoating anyone based on race or sex to highlight current problems that exist? The law, passed by the Republican-led Legislature along party lines and signed by […]

We’re inviting you to take part in our membership campaign this summer. Since PolitiFact launched in 2007, we’ve made it our mission to produce public-service journalism that informs and empowers the electorate.  2020 was a whirlwind of a year for all of us, PolitiFact included. Between the loss of advertising revenue and having to reinvent […]

John McAfee, the British-American entrepreneur behind McAfee Antivirus, the first commercial antivirus software, was found dead in a Barcelona prison cell on June 23. McAfee’s lawyer, Javier Villalba, and the Catalan justice department said his death appeared to be the result of suicide.  In October 2020, the U.S. Justice Department said McAfee had been arrested […]

Due to the American Rescue Plan Act passed in March, most families with children under 18 will get a minimum of a $3,000 tax credit for each child. For any child younger than six, the amount rises to $3,600. Not only is the tax credit higher than in years past, but for the first time, […]