In 2016, a woman used sheep to map the Faroe Islands after Google left the islands off of Google Street View.
Rating:
In mid-2026, some people on social media celebrated a story from the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago north of Scotland.
Apparently, 2026 marked the 10-year anniversary of the time a Faroese woman allegedly strapped cameras on sheep to map the country when Google wouldn’t, according to a post on X (archived). The opening of the post read:
Google would not send a Street View car to the Faroe Islands, so in 2016 a Faroese woman strapped a camera to a sheep and mapped the country herself.
The grievance was legitimate. Eighteen islands in the North Atlantic, some of the most spectacular road in Europe, causeways and tunnels and single track cut along the edge of a cliff face, and none of it on Street View. Google had been up Mont Blanc. Google had been to Greenland. Google had been above the Arctic Circle in half a dozen countries. The Faroes had about fifty thousand people and a coastline, and they were simply not on the list.
Durita Dahl Andreassen worked for the tourist board in Tórshavn. Her reasoning was straightforward and, in its way, unanswerable. There are more sheep on the islands than people. They walk freely. They go everywhere. They have no schedule and no other commitments.
So a fellow islander built a harness. Onto it went a 360 degree camera, a mobile phone and a lightweight solar panel to keep the batteries up, the whole rig weighing under a kilo. The camera was set to fire every minute. Five sheep in five locations were fitted out and released to do what they were going to do anyway, which was walk about eating grass on the edge of some of the most photogenic drops in the North Atlantic.
The images came back tagged with GPS coordinates, over a mobile signal, from a sheep. Andreassen uploaded them to Google Maps.
They called it Sheep View 360. Her job title, for a period, was Sheep View 360 Project Manager, which remains one of the finest lines ever printed on a business card.
The one technical hitch, reported by the tourist board with total sincerity, was motivation. The sheep had to be encouraged to go to the interesting bits, which meant somebody standing behind them doing the thing you do to move sheep. The technology worked perfectly. The talent needed direction.
The claim is true. Visit Faroe Islands (archived), the island territory’s official tourism board, celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its “Sheep View 360” campaign on July 12, 2016.
Leading the campaign for Visit Faroe Islands was Durita Andreassen, who explained the project in a video on the Visit Faroe Islands Sheep View 360 webpage. The day Visit Faroe Islands launched the campaign, it released a video showing the sheep walking around with the cameras on their backs.
A map from the campaign shows Andreassen’s sheep captured images of the Hosvik area. There are three spots near Hosvik on Google Street View in which the Sheep View 360 can still be seen today.
The campaign worked. On Aug. 11, 2016, Google announced it had started working with the Faroe Islands to bring Google Street View coverage to the area.
Just over a year later, Visit Faroe Islands proudly announced that the territory now had Google Street View coverage.
For further reading, Snopes has previously fact-checked claims about sheep, including a miscaptioned photo that incorrectly asserted sheep went through a fence gate that wasn’t there.
Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has given a televised address to defend a deal to hand over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil to the United States. Caracas has been under pressure to meet Washington’s demands since the US abducted President Nicolas Maduro in January.
Demonstrators rallied against a ‘Universal Oneness’ celebration in New York City that was hosting Mohan Bhagwat, chief of India’s Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Footage shows an Arkansas state patrol officer pulling a passenger by his hair and punching him during an arrest following a high-speed police chase. The man was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental operations.
A federal judge rule certain AI-generated child sex abuse material is protected by First Amendment.
Rating:
Context
In his decision, Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, referred to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1969 and 2002. The first says people have the right to keep obscenity in the privacy of their homes and the second says child sex abuse material that does not depict real children is not child pornography and is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The judge also said that while he is bound by precedent, he is concerned by “the lines these cases draw.”
In August 2026, a rumor spread that a federal judge ruled certain child sex abuse material generated by artificial intelligence was protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the right to free speech.
Several Snopes readers emailed to share an Instagram post relaying the story. “A federal judge has ruled that the First Amendment protects an individual’s right to privately possess child sexual abuse content created using Al if it does not depict a real person and remains in the home,” the image in the post read. On X, severalpeople amplified the claim, with one calling it “disgusting” (archived):
In sum, the claim was true, but it lacked crucial context. In his Aug. 25, 2026, decision, Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, said precedent forced him to make this ruling, pointing to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. He added that the current state of technological advance meant the court had “concerns” about the “lines” set by these two Supreme Court decisions.
The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on whether the agency intends to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Law hasn’t caught up with AI, judge suggested
In 2024, a man named Steven Anderegg was arrested on charges of fabricating, possessing and distributing AI-generated child sex abuse material, as well as sending some of this material to a minor. Anderegg asked for the charges of production and possession to be dismissed, which a federal district court in Wisconsin granted on grounds that these counts ran against decided caselaw.
The prosecutors then appealed this decision, but Lee agreed with the lower court, citing two decisions the Supreme Court rendered in 1969 and 2002.
The first decision, Stanley v. Georgia, said the First Amendment protects people who privately keep obscenity. “The First Amendment does not allow a state to criminalize the private possession of obscene matter,” read the summary of the case on the Justia website, a free online collection of all U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The second decision — Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition — came six years after the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. It ruled that child sex abuse material that does not depict real children is not child pornography, and that it is protected by the First Amendment. This decision explicitly covered digital images.
“The statute sought to outlaw all speech that was related to the possibility of child pornography, including images of adults who look like children and computer-generated images,” the case’s Justia page reads.
While Lee said he was compelled by judicial precedent to make this ruling, he also expressed “concerns about the lines these cases draw,” given how quickly AI technology is evolving. The judge also said that fabricated child sex abuse material that does not depict real persons was becoming more and more difficult to distinguish from such material that showed real children, making law enforcement more difficult.
“Recent data suggests that the influx of AI-generated images reported to the NCMEC [National Center for Missing and Exploited Children] CyberTipline imposes increasing burdens on law enforcement,” the judge wrote in his decision.
A paragraph in Lee’s decision summarized his rationale (Page 3 of this document):
We now live in an age where GenAI [generative AI] models can render images depicting the abuse of virtual children that are virtually indistinguishable from those depicting the abuse of actual children. This case illuminates how this evolving technology complicates the lines drawn by the Supreme Court in Stanley, Osborne, and Free Speech Coalition. Indeed, in Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court addressed the scope of First Amendment protections for virtual CSAM, but that was nearly twenty-five years ago, and the image-generation technology available today was likely unimaginable back then. Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves.
In other words, Lee said he could not on his own change a precedent set by the Supreme Court. It would therefore fall upon the Supreme Court to change the interpretation of the law to account for current technology and its consequences.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recalled 30,000 pounds of Argentine beef that the administration of President Donald Trump had imported to bring down domestic beef prices.
Rating:
What’s True
The USDA recalled 29,628 pounds of raw beef products imported from Argentina on Aug. 7, 2026, because the Food Safety and Inspection Service had not reinspected it upon entry to the U.S.
What’s False
The recalled beef was not part of the Trump administration’s announced plan to import 300,000 metric tons of “product for ground beef.” An Aug. 26 presidential proclamation said imports under that plan would start on Sept. 1, 2026.
In August 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the U.S. Department of Agriculture recalled 30,000 pounds of Argentine beef that the Trump administration had imported to bring down domestic beef prices.
Around a week before claims circulated, on Aug. 21, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump announced (archived) on Truth Social that his administration would allow the import of 300,000 metric tons of “product for ground beef” to lower domestic beef prices.
One Threads user who appeared to connect the recalled beef with the Trump administration’s import plan wrote:
This was predictable, but the Trump administration is now frantically recalling 30,000 lbs. of foreign beef they brought into the country. Here’s an idea — maybe we just buy from American ranchers for a while.
The claim was a mixture of true and false elements.
It was true that the USDA recalled approximately 29,628 pounds of raw beef products imported from Argentina on Aug. 7, 2026. The department said the imported product had not been reinspected when it entered the U.S., meaning the Food Safety and Inspection Service could not ensure it met U.S. safety standards.
However, the beef the USDA recalled was not part of the Trump administration’s plan to import 300,000 metric tons of “product for ground beef.” According to an Aug. 26 presidential proclamation, the Trump administration would start those planned beef imports on Sept. 1, 2026.
The recall
According to the USDA’s recall, a Florida-based company called Corte Argentino USA LLC had imported the Argentine beef products, which were produced between May 15, 2026, and May 20, 2026, and carried use-by or freeze-by dates between Sept. 15, 2026, and Sept. 20, 2026.
The USDA listed the following products for recall:
Various weight cardboard boxes containing “FrigorIfico Gorina SAIC” boneless beef “Top Sirloin Butt” (“Cuadril Sin Tapa”)
Various weight cardboard boxes containing “FrigorIfico Gorina SAIC” boneless beef “Knuckle” (“Bola de Lomo”)
The FSIS recalled the beef because it had not been “reinspected” upon entry to the United States. Imported meat must pass this inspection before it can be sold in the U.S.
The reinspection process allows the FSIS to check that products are “safe, wholesome, and accurately labeled” according to domestic standards.
Speculation swirls about Trump beef import plan
Trump signed a proclamation about the import plan on Aug. 26 that said the additional imports would take place in three 30-day windows, starting on Sept. 1. Neither the proclamation nor members of the Trump administration had confirmed where the imported beef would come from at the time of this writing.
On Aug. 25, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, whose department would inspect the incoming beef under the new plan, told (video time code 07:19) reporters at the White House she was “not privy” to discuss where the imported beef came from.
Despite, or perhaps because of the lack of information about the plan, online speculation swirled that Trump would import Argentine beef that China had rejected because it found an antibiotic in a shipment of meat that was banned in both countries.
Snopes’ reporting found that China did suspend imports of beef from a single facility owned by the Argentine meatpacker ArreBeef after inspection found one shipment from the facility contained the antibiotic chloramphenicol.
The beef that the USDA recalled on Aug. 7, 2026, did not come from this supplier.
For further reading, Snopes previously investigated a rumor that the Trump administration’s imported beef would come from slaughtered wild horses.
Snopes reporter Emery Winter contributed to this report.
Annapurna Post. Annapurna Post Facebook Page. 26 Aug. 2026, https://www.facebook.com/reel/1552643429217959.
‘Google Maps’. Google Maps, https://www.google.com/maps/place//@28.2802568,85.37749,282m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!1m5!3m4!2zMjjCsDE2JzUxLjIiTiA4NcKwMjInNDAuNiJF!8m2!3d28.2808889!4d85.3779444?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgyNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.
Gyirong Port Introduction| Location, Transportation, Accommodation, Attractions. https://www.tibetdiscovery.com/tibet-ports/gyirong-port/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.
Important Notice: Intermittent Control of Roads in the Gyirong Port Area! https://www.tibettourism.com/gyirong-port-intermittent-control.html. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.
Lee, Liz, et al. ‘Hundreds Missing after Flood Hits Nepal-Tibet Border, 157 Bodies Recovered’. Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/nepal-flash-flood-washes-away-villages-project-sites-near-tibet-border-2026-08-26/.
Shrestha, Niranjan, and SHRISTI KAFLE Leer en español. ‘Catastrophic Floods Kill over 390 in Nepal and Tibet, with More than 1,400 Missing’. AP News, 27 Aug. 2026, https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-nepal-tibet-glacier-collapse-floods-61b592d428e4631add31ce052d0daf1f.
‘Think It’s Hot Now? The next Five Years Will Smash Records, UN Says’. AP News, 28 May 2026, https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-warming-heat-wave-record-future-53d79525a06f09d9ace45a141dbebb01.
– YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCanRmchkL0. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.
中国新闻网. English: China Gyirong Port of Entry Building. 5 Aug. 2019, Video screenshot at timestamp 1:03 of YouTube: 西藏吉隆口岸 记录时代的变迁 – View/save archived versions on archive.org. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_Gyirong_Port_of_Entry_building.png.
Country singer Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library donated books to children in Israel.
Rating:
Context
The organization PJ Library, which provides free books for Jewish children — including children in Israel – was inspired by Parton’s Imagination Library but did not have a formal relationship with it. The Imagination Library operated in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland and Australia. Parton expressed support for PJ Library’s efforts in an 2023 interview.
Amid news of singer Dolly Parton’s death at age 80 in August 2026, many people looked back at her charitable work through the Imagination Library, an organization she founded that has provided millions of free books to children in the U.S. and other countries.
An online debateensued on X about whether Parton had donated books to Israeli children, part of a broader discourse about her alleged views on the state of Israel. Some posts claimed Parton worked with PJ Library (archived), an organization that sends free books to Jewish children worldwide, including children in Israel.
One X user wrote: “People accusing Dolly of being evil because she MAYBE donated books to some Israeli children?”
(X user @K1TKATCLUBS)
There is no evidence the Imagination Library has ever operated in Israel. According to its website, the organization operates only in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland and Australia. In 2022, the Library announced it would provide free books each month to 200 refugee children in London until they turn 5.
We reached out to the Library for a response to claims about its ties to Israel. Tracy Long, a director with the Dollywood Foundation, which funds Imagination Library, directed us to its website where it states its operations are limited to the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland and Australia.
PJ Library is a program run by The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, a Jewish philanthropic organization. It operates in Israel through a Hebrew-language counterpart, Sifriyat Pijama, and Arabic-language companion program, Maktabat al-Fanoos. While PJ Library was inspired by Imagination Library, the two organizations were not formal partners. Parton expressed support for PJ Library’s work in an interview, but according to a PJ Library spokesperson she did not support it financially.
As such, we rate this claim as false.
Snopes reached out to PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation to ask about the rumor. Spokesperson Mark Gold told Snopes over email that Parton was never formally involved in the group’s work (emphasis ours):
No, there was never a formal partnership between PJ Library and the Imagination Library, nor did Ms. Parton donate books or funds to PJ Library or PJ Library initiatives in Israel. Mr. Grinspoon was inspired by the Imagination Library, but the PJ Library program was developed independently of the Imagination Library. PJ Library is funded by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and other partners who contribute directly to the PJ Library program. Sifriyat Pijama in Israel is a program of Keren Grinspoon (the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in Israel) and is funded by that foundation. The ministry of education for the State of Israel is also a partner in Sifriyat Pijama as well as in the related program “Maktabot al Fanoos” that provides free books to Arabic speaking children in Israel.
PJ Library also acknowledged that it was inspired by the Imagination Library shortly after Parton died, when the library posted a picture of Parton with Grinspoon on Instagram:
PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation team are sad to learn of the passing of musician, philanthropist, and American legend Dolly Parton. Dolly’s Imagination Library helped inspire Harold Grinspoon to found PJ Library in 2005.
When Harold had the privilege of chatting with Dolly in 2023, she shared the following with him: “I am honored to get to help inspire a love of reading in children. They truly are our future.”
Parton’s 2023 interview with PJ Library is archived here. She expressed support for the library’s work, saying:
PARTON: Well, I’m always honored when my Imagination Library inspires others, like Harold Grinspoon and PJ Library. That is so very special to me — especially because the Imagination Library comes from a very personal place for me …
PJ LIBRARY: We love keeping up with the Imagination Library and its many accomplishments! In 2023, you celebrated the incredible milestone of gifting 200 million books to children. PJ Library is also celebrating: Last year we sent our 50 millionth book, and this year is our 18th birthday. What is most important to you about continuing to do this work?
PARTON: First of all, congratulations, PJ Library! I’m thrilled to celebrate milestones with you! Of course, I am very, very proud of how far we’ve come with the Imagination Library. We were thrilled to celebrate our 100 millionth book in 2018, and here we are just five years later celebrating 200 million books worldwide. Isn’t that amazing?
Separately, the Grinspoon Foundation sponsors some of the Imagination Library’s activities in Massachusetts. Gold told Snopes over email:
The Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation is still the sponsoring organization for Imagination Library in Springfield and West Springfield Massachusetts. Approximately 675 children in this region receive a monthly mailing to their home of a book at no charge as a gift from the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation as part of the Imagination Library program.
In sum, Parton expressed broad support for PJ Library’s work, but she did not specifically send books or funds to Israel through her Imagination Library. The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which runs PJ Library, has separately sponsored branches of The Imagination Library in Massachusetts.
Parton often shied away from discussing her political views in public. Snopes has covered numerous rumors and false claims about Parton.
Sources
About Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. https://imaginationlibrary.com/about-us/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
About PJ Library | PJ Library. https://pjlibrary.org/about-pj-library. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
“Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Gave the Gift of Books to Millions of Children.” NPR, 26 Aug. 2026. Obituaries. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5944531/dolly-partons-imagination-library-gave-the-gift-of-books-to-millions-of-children.
“Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation | Local Impact.” Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation | Local Impact, https://hgcf.org/hgcf-programs/imagination-library/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
Ibrahim, Nur. “15 False and Misleading Dolly Parton Rumors We’ve Debunked.” Snopes, 28 Aug. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//collections/dolly-parton-false-claims/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
Ibrahim, Nur. “Yes, Dolly Parton Declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom 3 Times. Here’s Why.” Snopes, 13 Jan. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/dolly-parton-presidential-medal/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
“PJ Library’s Israel Hub.” PJ Library. https://pjlibrary.org/israel. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
“Q&A with Dolly Parton.” PJ Library, Dec. 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20250110150533/https://pjlibrary.org/about/become-a-pj-partner/proof/articles/2023/december/q-a-with-dolly-parton. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
Shaffi, Sarah. “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to Give Books to Refugee Children.” The Guardian, 9 May 2022. Books. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/09/dolly-parton-imagination-library-books-refugee-children. Accessed 28 Aug. 2026.
The US has revoked an award-winning former Iraqi finance minister’s visa after the FBI placed her on a ‘terrorism watchlist’. The move comes four years after Washington honoured Taif Sami Mohammed al-Shakarchi for her work fighting corruption.
