Christensen, Laerke. ‘Did RFK Jr. Claim Children Circumcised Early Had “double” Rate of Autism Tied to Tylenol Use?’ Snopes, 29 May 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/rfk-jr-autism-circumcision-tylenol/.
Kasprak, Alex. ‘FACT CHECK: Would Breaking a Vaccine Vial Necessitate Evacuating a Building?’ Snopes, 15 May 2017, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/vaccine-vial-evacuating-building/.
New item…
Rascouët-Paz, Anna. ‘RFK Jr. Repeats False Claim That MMR Vaccine Contains Fetal Tissue’. Snopes, 31 Aug. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/rfk-mmr-vaccine-fetal-tissue/.
New item…
Rascouët-Paz, Anna. ‘Yes, RFK Jr. Said Autistic Children Will Never Pay Taxes, Hold a Job, Play Baseball or Write a Poem’. Snopes, 18 Apr. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/quote-rfk-jr-autistic-kids/.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Articles | Snopes.Com. https://www.snopes.com/tag/robert-f-kennedy-jr/?pagenum=1. Accessed 2 Sept. 2026.
Wazer, Caroline. ‘RFK Jr. Has Suggested Vaccines Caused 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic at Least Twice’. Snopes, 1 Apr. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/04/01/rfk-vaccine-spanish-flu-pandemic/.
The claim that U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once testified that brain damage prevented him from holding a job remains under investigation.
The rumor stems from a 2024 New York Times report that cites a 2012 deposition Kennedy reportedly gave in the context of divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who died by suicide that year.
The Times’ story said Kennedy argued in his deposition that his alleged brain damage caused cognitive issues that impaired his ability to make a living. It’s worth noting that the report did not state that Kennedy specifically claimed he could not hold a job.
According to the Times, Kennedy said in his deposition that a parasitic worm ate part of his brain. He appeared to confirm this in an X post he shared during his 2024 presidential campaign. Further, his campaign reportedly confirmed he had a dead worm in his brain but had made a full recovery.
While we found a document that appeared to be part of the aforementioned divorce proceedings, we could not find the deposition The New York Times referenced in its 2024 story. For this reason, we’ve left the claim unrated.
Snopes will update this report if and when additional information surfaces. We have reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment and await a response.
In late summer 2026, a rumor circulated that U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once sought to avoid paying alimony by claiming during divorce proceedings that severe brain damage prevented him from holding a job.
The claim appeared on Threads and Facebook. One post on X said Kennedy had asserted he “was too brain damaged to work so therefore couldn’t pay alimony.” (archived):
Snopes readers also searched the website and emailed us to confirm the veracity of the rumor.
The claim stemmed from a 2024 New York Times report that cites a 2012 deposition Kennedy reportedly gave in the context of divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who died by suicide that year.
According to the newspaper, Kennedy said in his deposition that his brain damage “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”
We found one document that appeared to be part of these divorce proceedings, but we could not find the deposition the New York Times referenced in its 2024 story. While we have no reason to doubt the veracity of the Times’ reporting, Snopes relies on primary evidence, including documentation, to rate claims. For this reason, we’ve left the claim unrated until we learn more.
We reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment and await a response. We also asked the Times to direct us to the deposition and will update this story if we hear back.
The Times’ story said Kennedy argued in his deposition that his cognitive issues impaired his ability to make a living. It’s worth noting that the report did not state that Kennedy specifically claimed he could not hold a job. The report stated:
Some of Mr. Kennedy’s health issues were revealed in the 2012 deposition, which he gave during divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. At the time, Mr. Kennedy was arguing that his earning power had been diminished by his cognitive struggles.
Kennedy appeared to confirm there was a worm in his brain in an X post (archived) he shared during his 2024 presidential campaign. However, his post boasted that his cognitive state was still superior to that of his competitors — then-former President Donald Trump and then-President Joe Biden.
“I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” he wrote.
The document we found was a 2011 affidavit by Kennedy in which he alleged his second wife had physically abused him, stolen from him, abused his children from a previous marriage and threatened to commit suicide. However, this document, which was published by Newsweek, did not include any information about Kennedy’s alleged brain damage affecting his earning power.
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.”
A rumor spread in late summer 2026 that a federal judge ruled the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the right to free speech, protects certain artificial intelligence-generated child sex abuse material.
A number of Snopes readers emailed to share an image that relayed 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 read. Meanwhile, one X post shared a screenshot of a post by The Washington Post making the claim, saying the judge’s decision “normalises child sexual abuse” and “feeds the depravity” (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 obscene material. “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 Oklahoma Department of Corrections contracted inmates to work for a call center company that handled making calls for a conservative super PAC.
Rating:
A rumor circulated in early September 2026 that incarcerated people in the state of Oklahoma were contracted to work for a call center company that handled telemarketing for a conservative super PAC.
Users on social media shared the rumor, with some claiming the Oklahoma Department of Corrections earned $10 per hour from the vendor but that prison laborers were getting paid only $2 per hour.
The rumors circulated as the United States approached the Labor Day holiday, which has celebrated the labor movement since the late 1800s.
The claim was true, according to a service contract between the state prison department and telemarketing company HBW Leads, embedded below.
The document originated in reporting by Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative journalism outlet, which published the article on Aug. 24, 2026.
One current inmate, Steve Wilbanks, was named as a source. Snopes confirmed Wilbanks was a prisoner at the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena and has been in state custody since 2015. Oklahoma Watch cited three other inmates used as sources anonymously.
According to the service contract, tasks inmates could perform were:
1. outbound calls related to marketing lead generation; and 2. conducting or assisting with political opinion polling, subject to applicable laws and regulations.
The contract further says Oklahoma Correctional Industries, a division of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections whose website says it “employs offenders who lack marketable job skills,” would earn $10 per hour of work per inmate. However, the contract states the corrections department can “withhold up to but not to exceed 80 percent of the wage rate per inmate hour worked,” which matches the rates reported.
The Oklahoma Watch piece stated:
BW Leads agreed to pay the Department of Corrections $10 per inmate hour worked. Prisoners employed at the call centers earn $2 per hour, plus possible bonuses for generating leads or completing surveys.
The remaining $8 per hour is allocated as overhead for Oklahoma Correctional Industries, a self-supporting sub-entity of the Department of Corrections that provides work programs and job training to inmates.
We reached out to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for further comment on the report. We also asked for the specific reasoning behind inmate pay structure and why telemarketing doesn’t appear on the list of services provided by Oklahoma Correctional Industries. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
HBW Leads’ website identified the Oregon-based company as generating “insurance leads” gained through telemarketing on behalf of the clients who hire them. The website said, “Our lead specialists spend, on average, 4-7 minutes with each potential prospect asking them a series of qualifying questions on your behalf.”
HBW Leads made no mention of political calling on its website, but a subsidiary company operating out of Toledo, Ohio, Visible Trends, specializes in “polling, fundraising, legislative outreach, or GOTV,” referring to get-out-the-vote efforts.
One of Oklahoma Watch’s sources said some of the statements they read during their telemarketing jobs specified that the calls were paid for by conservative super PAC Make Liberty Win, whose website described them as specializing “in mobilizing voters to engage in primary and general elections through direct voter contact.”
An FEC filing (archived) showed at least 38 payments totaling more than $400,000 from Make Liberty Win to Visible Trends between from March 2026 and June 2026, the same term length shown in the service contract between HBW Leads and the corrections department.
Though it was clear the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and HBW Leads had established a contract to use inmates as telemarketers, Snopes couldn’t independently verify whether the inmates made political calls on behalf of Make Liberty Win specifically.
Oklahoma Watch’s reported one of its sources said they made political calls that resembled push-polling, in which the caller purports to be asking survey questions but actually aims to influence voters, a practice generally frowned upon in campaigning.
We reached out to Make Liberty Win to ask whether it was aware of Visible Trends using prison laborers and will update this article if we hear back.
Oklahoma Watch reported that the super PAC’s executive director, Barrett Young, told the outlet that the group was unaware of the use of prison labor and has since canceled the contract for performance reasons.
Target uses a Bluetooth device on its baskets that tracks shoppers in store.
Rating:
Context
Some Target baskets carry a Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon that transmits its location to “smart” lights in the store. The lights can interact with the beacons and Target’s app to find a shopper’s location, help them navigate around a store or send location-specific offers. Because the basket-mounted beacons transmit only locations and do not collect information about the shopper, it is technically Target’s app that tracks shoppers, not the beacons.
In August and September 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the retailer Target used a Bluetooth device on its baskets that tracked shoppers in store.
The claim came from an Aug. 29 TikTok video in which a person who appeared to be a Target employee claimed the retailer fitted its baskets with trackers that followed shoppers throughout the store.
The alleged employee said:
Hello, I just want to make a PSA: You are now being tracked at Target. These baskets, this thing, that’s a tracker, so they’re now tracking shoppers at Target, at your local Target, for, supposedly, “consumer habits.”
In short, Target does track shopper locations using the basket-mounted Bluetooth beacon that the TikTok user showed in their video. The beacon transmits its location to Target’s “smart” overhead LED lights, which in turn can communicate location information to its app.
Acuity Brands, which Target said supplied its LED lights, explained in a news release in 2017 that by using its lights and beacons attached to items such as shopping carts it could deliver “highly accurate, real-time positioning services for customers” through a retailer’s app. Acuity Brands said Target renewed a multiyear deal for products including its indoor location services in 2020.
According to its privacy policy, Target still used LED light and Bluetooth technology to track shoppers in-store in August 2026. The policy advised that customers who did not want to share their store location data could disable location sharing on their device or in the Target app.
We contacted Target to confirm how it collected and used data about customers in store using Bluetooth beacons, as well as how customers could opt out of tracking. We await a reply to our query.
What we know about Target tracking
The TikTok user who shared the video about Target’s basket-mounted beacons on Aug. 29 shared another video (archived) the day after, identifying the exact product Target used to track shoppers as a Bluetooth beacon from Acuity Brands. A Reddit user who posted (archived) about the device six months earlier showed a device with the same FCC ID as the one the TikTok user identified.
The Federal Communications Commission grants FCC IDs to products that meet the necessary regulatory standards for wireless communication.
The product’s user manual said it is a Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon that “communicates its position to Atrius Assets,” the software that Target has used since at least 2020 for indoor location services.
Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons are small devices that send out radio signals that can be picked up by nearby devices. Beacons can only transmit — not receive — data, so they generally rely on apps to interpret and use the data they are sending.
In terms of tracking, if many beacons are sending their location, a device can interpret those signals and triangulate the location of an individual beacon, or individual shopper holding a basket fitted with a beacon. Target wrote in its news release in 2019 that its lights interacted with its app to find customer locations, suggesting that the basket-mounted beacons sent their signals to the lights.
It was unclear from the available information whether Target used the data it gathered about individual shoppers’ routes through their stores beyond providing location-based offers through the app or guiding customers to specific products.
Target used Bluetooth beacons since at least 2015
The technology publication TechCrunch reported that Target and other retailers have used beacon technology to track shoppers in store and send them location-based offers since at least 2015 and that the retailer added Bluetooth beacon-driven indoor mapping to its app in 2017.
Target appeared to still use this technology in 2026. Itsprivacy policy in August 2026 said Target might use location information shared by customers’ phones to “help you find nearby Target stores; or, in-store location through the use of your phone’s blue tooth signal, LED light chip technologies or other technologies will permit Target to find nearby products for you, get you real-time deals, auto-sort your shopping list and more.”
Target said in its privacy policy that shoppers who wished to opt out of sharing their in-store location could prevent their devices from sharing their location with Target “by adjusting the permissions on your mobile device or within the relevant app.”
It did not appear from the beacon’s manual that shoppers could turn the device off themselves, meaning Target would still collect information about where the basket traveled if a shopper used it, but could not connect that data to a specific phone or customer if the device’s owner turned off location sharing or did not use the Target app.
For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated a number of rumors about Target.
Sources
Acuity Brands, Inc. Demonstrates Retail Indoor Positioning System Solution with New Asset Tracking Technology at Shoptalk 2017 | Acuity Inc. https://www.investors.acuitybrands.com/news-releases/news-release-details/acuity-brands-inc-demonstrates-retail-indoor-positioning-system. Accessed 3 Sept. 2026.
Akpinar, Ege. Bluetooth Beacons: Everything You Need to Know. 8 July 2023, https://www.pointr.tech/blog/beacons-everything-you-need-to-know.
‘ATG2 Asset Tag User Manual – FCC ID 2ADCB-ATG2’. FCC ID, https://fccid.io/2ADCB-ATG2/User-Manual/User-Manual-4729214#google_vignette.
Perez, Sarah. ‘Target Launches Beacon Test In 50 Stores, Will Expand Nationwide Later This Year’. TechCrunch, 5 Aug. 2015, https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/05/target-launches-beacon-test-in-50-stores-with-expanded-rollout-later-this-year/.
———. ‘Target Rolls out Bluetooth Beacon Technology in Stores to Power New Indoor Maps in Its App’. TechCrunch, 20 Sept. 2017, https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/20/target-rolls-out-bluetooth-beacon-technology-in-stores-to-power-new-indoor-maps-in-its-app/.
Why Is FCC ID Important? | Lenovo UK. https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/glossary/fcc-id/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2026.
Why Target Stores Flipped the Switch to These Energy-Saving Lights. https://corporate.target.com/news-features/article/2019/04/led-lights. Accessed 3 Sept. 2026.
A meme accurately cites facts and fundraising figures in comparing prosecutors charging Lindsay Clancy with killing her three children, with Clancy receiving more than $1 million in fundraising, and the story of Emma Schols sustaining severe burns while rescuing her six children from a house fire, then receiving only $42,000 in fundraising.
Rating:
What’s True
The meme provides some factual information about both stories and, as of this writing, an accurate GoFundMe tally of donations earmarked to defray Clancy’s parents’ travel and housing costs as they attended the trial. Also, it’s true that a Swedish news outlet reported that a church deacon in that country organized a fundraiser equaling, at current currency conversion rates, about $42,000. However …
What’s False
… the meme omits additional fundraisers and sponsors who pledged to help rebuild Schols’ home, according to information found in the same Swedish news outlet mentioned above and her 2022 book.
In late August and early September 2026, people shared a meme comparing the alleged stories of two mothers.
Emma Schols’ story of heroism, which involved saving her six children from a house fire and sustaining severe burns in the process, appears on the meme’s left side, with a fundraising figure of $42,000.
The right side features Lindsay Clancy, the mother at the center of a highly-publicized Massachusetts murder trial — which ended in a mistrial Sept. 4 — in which prosecutors charged her with killing her three young children, along with a purported GoFundMe fundraising figure exceeding $1 million.
X user @CodyManners2 posted (archived) the meme, which reads under photos of Schols: “Mother pulls all 6 of her children out of raging house fire, going back in three times despite burns covering 93% of her body. Money raised: $42,000.” Clancy’s caption reads: “Mother kills all 3 of her children by strangling them to death with exercise bands. Claims she is victim. GoFundMe: $1,044,318+.”
In sum, Schols’ book and news media outlets’ reporting confirm the meme features a few specific facts but also omits key information. For these reasons, we have rated the meme’s content as a mixture of true and false information.
Snopes emailed Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, and Schols to request comment. A reverse image search found no posts displaying the meme older than X user @CodyManners2’s post. We reached out to that user to ask whether they created the meme and will update this article if we receive further information.
Breaking down the Schols-Clancy meme
Schols, who lives in Sweden, saved all six of her children in a Sept. 3, 2019, house fire, taking three trips to remove all of them from the inferno. Her 2022 coauthored book, “Ärren bär jag med stolthet: branden i Edsbyn och livet efteråt,” which translates to “I Carry the Scars with Pride: The Fire in Edsbyn and Life Afterwards,” tells her harrowing story, including the fact that 93% of her body sustained burns, as the meme claims.
In September 2019, Swedish news media outlet SVT, quoting church deacon Christer Schwartz, reported Schols’ fundraising total at 400,000 Swedish krona, or at current exchange rates about $42,000. According to that report, Schwartz’s fundraiser was one of several on Schols’ behalf but no other figures were reported.
On top of Schwartz’s and other fundraisers, a February 2020 charity hockey match reportedly collected an additional 200,000 Swedish krona ($21,000). Schols says in her book that people and companies also initially pledged to sponsor the rebuilding of her house, though she adds some of those sponsors pulled out after she separated from her partner.
As for Clancy, The Associated Press, Reuters and other outlets reported she admitted strangling her children with exercise bands on Jan. 24, 2023, and pleaded not guilty to her initial charges, which included three counts each of first-degree murder, strangulation and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors later dropped the strangulation charges, saying they were redundant to the murder charges.
The organizer of the Clancy case GoFundMe (archived), titled “The Musgrove Family Fund,” described the purported recipients of the fundraiser as Clancy’s parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove, citing their hotel, travel and relocation costs to stay close to their daughter over more than three years. The in-question meme does not mention Clancy’s parents, instead making the allegation that Clancy herself will one day collect the funds. At last check, the fundraiser had grown to more than $1.1 million with a goal of $2 million, bringing in more than 33,500 individual donations.
The meme adds that Clancy has claimed she’s the victim. During her criminal trial in summer 2026, Reddington, her attorney, said “there is evidence of lack of criminal responsibility” and suggested “a required finding of not guilty should be entered on the case.” He repeatedly argued Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis, a disorder an estimated one or two in 1,000 women experience after giving birth that can include delusions, depression, hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia and other changes in behavior. Prosecutors, on the other hand, argued she knew what she was doing.
Schols’ harrowing rescue story
On Sept. 3, 2019, Schols awoke before 6 a.m. in her home to early-morning light shining through her window, with the faint memory of minutes earlier hearing some of her children playing in another room.
In Schols’ book, which we translated to English, she said her then-partner, Anders, was working a night shift, leaving her to sleep alone. She wrote of the morning, “Great, I think, now I have a few minutes to lie down and catch up before I have to start my morning routine.”
Moments later, the book recounts, she felt a very different sense of “fear, panic and desperation” when one of her children screamed from downstairs, “Help, mom, there’s a fire. There’s a fire in the TV room!”
She wrote, “To make sure all the children have woken up, I scream at the top of my lungs: ‘Everyone has to get out of the house!’”
In the minutes that followed, Schols first managed to guide her young children Albin and Oliwer out the front door, then looked for William, Melwyn and Nellie. After seeing William and showing Melwyn to safety, she made it to her youngest child, Mollie, who was standing in her crib with a full diaper.
Schols became unable to move from the flames covering her body. She wrote, “If I have managed to give birth to six children, I will swear to get six children out of this burning house,” and that she gathered strength, picked up Mollie and looked to escape. She described William as positioning a ladder they happened to have left out from a long-neglected painting job as their method of escape from the balcony.
Once outside, Schols described hearing her dog, Sally, inside making noises and thinking of her cat as well. A neighbor, seeing burns all over Schols’ body, told her it was too late to save her pets.
Several Swedish outlets publishednews of the fire on the same day.
Following extensive hospital stays for her burns and a period of rehabilitation, Schols returned home.
In her book, Schols wrote of Schwartz, the deacon, organizing the fundraiser following the fire. A Facebook post from days after the incident mentions Schwartz by name.
Schols said locals helped find clothes for her children, writing, “I am struck by the incredible care that exists in our country.” Other examples of that care included “Playing for Emma,” a charity hockey match organized in Schols’ honor in February 2020. Schols wrote about the match, as well as her family’s home insurance situation at the time of the fire:
On Sunday, February 2nd, a tribute match will be held for me, where the money raised will go to help me and my family get back on their feet. For all the years we have had home insurance, but just a month or so before the accident, we had, due to our financial situation, fallen behind on that particular bill. This fact is something I am ashamed of today. As I have been mulling this question over here in the hospital. This very month, when the house burns down, we were forced to skip that bill. What are the odds of that?
Later in December 2020, the Swedish Heroes Gala awarded Schols the title “Lifesaver of the Year.”
Near the end of her book, Schols wrote that some companies and people sponsoring the rebuilding of their former home pulled out after she and Anders separated.
To close her book, Schols thanked numerous locals and medical personnel, as well as her family, former partner and friends, saving a message for her children for last:
My biggest thanks go to William, Nellie, Melwin, Albin, Oliwer and Mollie. I may have saved your lives, but you are the absolute biggest heroes in this whole story. You are my everything and I love you with all my heart.
Barry, Ellen. “A Troubled Mother Faces Murder Charges in Her Young Children’s Deaths.” The New York Times, 8 Feb. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/health/lindsay-clancy-child-murder-charges-massachusetts.html.
Bergström, Marie. “Så mycket samlades in under Playing for Emma: ‘Känns fantastiskt att kunna göra något.’” Söderhamns-Kuriren, 29 Mar. 2020, https://www.soderhamnskuriren.se/halsingland/sa-mycket-samlades-in-under-playing-for-emma-kanns-fantastiskt-att-kunna-gora-nagot/.
Casey, Michael, and Jennifer Peltz. “What to Know about the Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial.” The Associated Press, 27 Aug. 2026, https://apnews.com/article/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-what-to-know-775003a75689cfde13750257849187ae.
“Children in Sweden.” Sweden.Se, 9 July 2026, https://sweden.se/life/society/children-in-sweden.
Cruz, Timothy J. “Duxbury Woman Arraigned in Murder of Her Three Children.” Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, Plymouth County Office of the District Attorney, 7 Feb. 2023, https://plymouthda.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/DuxburyARR2.7.23.pdf.
Eriksson, Jan-Peter, and Emma Åhlström. “Dramatisk Räddning När Mamma Fick Ut Sina Sex Barn Ur Brinnande Villa i Edsbyn.” SVT Nyheter, 3 Sept. 2019, https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/brand-i-villa-i-edsbyn-pa-morgonen. Gävleborg.
Fagerström, John. “Mamma räddade sina sex barn från villabrand – blev svårt brännskadad.” Aftonbladet, 3 Sept. 2019, https://www.aftonbladet.se/a/zGbobb.
Kammerland, Erik. “Insamlingen till Edsbyfamiljen Förlängs – 400 000 Kronor Har Skänkts Hittills.” SVT Nyheter, 19 Sept. 2019, https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/insamlingen-ar-uppe-i-400-000-kronor-till-edsbyfamiljen. Gävleborg.
Khan, Melina. “What Could Happen to Lindsay Clancy after Trial Verdict.” USA TODAY, 24 Aug. 2026, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/crime/2026/08/24/lindsay-clancy-verdict-what-happens-next/91382978007/.
Öhagen, Angelica. “Sexbarnsmamman Är Årets Livräddare: “Nu Känner de Igen Mig”.” Aftonbladet, 17 Dec. 2020, https://www.aftonbladet.se/a/2dvlV4.
Raymond, Nate. “Family Says Massachusetts Mother Who Killed Children Struggled with Mental Illness.” Reuters, 17 Aug. 2026, https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/massachusetts-woman-searched-online-postpartum-psychosis-days-before-killing-2026-08-17/.
Rev.Com. https://www.rev.com.
Schols, Emma, and Frida Funemyr. Ärren bär jag med stolthet: Branden i Edsbyn och livet efteråt. Norstedts, 2022. Google Books, https://www.google.com/books/edition/%C3%84rren_b%C3%A4r_jag_med_stolthet/cNMRzwEACAAJ.
“TV: Se höjdpunkterna från galan Playing for Emma – allt det bästa på under 15 minuter.” Hudiksvalls Tidning, 4 Feb. 2020, https://www.ht.se/halsingland/tv-se-hojdpunkterna-fran-galan-playing-for-emma-allt-det-basta-pa-under-15-minuter/.
Ungar, Laura. “What to Know about Postpartum Psychosis, Which Can Affect a New Mom’s Sense of Reality.” The Associated Press, 28 July 2026, https://apnews.com/article/postpartum-psychosis-baby-blues-e1dd28bee97a984f3d58132c4fbd2e28.
Yee, Curtis. “As It Happened: Deliberations in Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial End for the Day without a Verdict.” The Associated Press, 27 Aug. 2026, https://apnews.com/live/lindsay-clancy-trial-08-27-2026.
———. “Live Updates: Mistrial Is Declared in Lindsay Clancy Child Killings Case after Jury Deadlocks.” The Associated Press, 4 Sept. 2026, https://apnews.com/live/lindsay-clancy-trial-09-04-2026.
In early September 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change the name of New Mexico to “New America.”
Rating:
A claim that federal officials approved a plan to change the name of the state of New Mexico to “New America” spread online, with one popular post going so far as to claim U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order changing the state’s name in early September 2026.
The claim emerged following a real order Trump signed Aug. 27, 2026, to change Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in the United States.
X user @DailyNoud shared the claim on Sept. 1 that New Mexico’s name also would be changed (archived), writing: “Donald Trump has signed an executive order to change the name of New Mexico to New America.” The post received more than 2.7 million views, as of this writing:
Variations of the claim also spread on Instagram, Threads and Facebook. Some people seemed to interpret it as true, and Snopes readers contacted us in search of more information.
To investigate the claims legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Bing. If officials in Trump’s administration had really approved plans to change the state’s name — or if Trump had signed any such executive order — these searches would have uncovered such evidence.
That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting about an official move to change the name of New Mexico.
We identified the claim’s original source: satirical social media account Casper Planet, which describes its output as “Snews that doesn’t matter.” This post didn’t explicitly say Trump signed an executive order, rather — it claimed that “federal officials have reportedly approved plans to rename the state of New Mexico to New America.” (X user @DailyNoud also was a satire account.)
New Mexico To Be Renamed New America Following Federal Geographic Naming Changes
WASHINGTON – Federal officials have reportedly approved plans to rename the state of New Mexico to New America, continuing a recent effort to update geographic names across the country.
According to officials familiar with the change, the word “Mexico” was identified during a routine review of American maps and was determined to be geographically confusing.
The change is expected to affect highway signs, government documents and approximately 14 million souvenir coffee mugs.
Residents will officially become New Americans, while people born there before the change will reportedly be allowed to continue identifying as New Mexicans during a two-year transition period.
Mexico has not been consulted.
In addition to a location tag on “Satire Street,” its Facebook bio reads (archived):
Delivering the Snews that doesn’t matter directly to your Snews feed. Did we say this is satire? Well it is, names/locations are made up
We reached out to the page owner for comment in January 2026 regarding a claim about AI-generated images of massive snow bank on Wyoming’s Devils Tower. The account’s administrator, Justin Hathaway, told Snopes over the phone: “I just love doing this satire stuff, it’s such an outlet for me.” He continued: “Another reason is people don’t really read things fully anymore, and it’s a good way to educate people on reading stories fully if they sound somewhat unbelievable.”
Other Casper Planet posts Snopes has debunked include a claim that Yellowstone National Park rangers warned the public that ravens had learned to open car doors and another that a man received a DUI while riding a bear.
