Tag: Snopes News

In early October, a claim (archived) circulated that Ukrainian strikes on Russian bot farms caused right-wing or MAGA social media activity to decrease.

Yandex, a Russian technology giant that provides search engine, email and cloud services and facilitates payments, ride hailing and food deliveries, confirmed on Telegram and to local media that drone strikes damaged its servers in Sasovo, Kaluga (archived) and Vladimir from Oct. 7 to 11. Work to restore services affected by the strikes continued on Oct. 13.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 12 that Ukraine had struck “Yandex data centers” and that “a lot of people” had seen fewer Russian bots on social media platforms as a result.

The Facebook page Occupy Democrats, which spread the claim about the consequences of Ukrainian strikes against Russian bots, wrote:

Zelenskyy might just have saved our democracy. The genius is brilliantly bombing Russian data centers linked to FAKE NEWS pro-MAGA bot farms in Moscow. Without them, Putin’s midterm influence will accidentally fall from a 30th floor window.

MAGA, an acronym for Make America Great Again, is a political movement supportive of U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S. has previously accused Russia of using “bot farms” to create false social media accounts that spread disinformation in the U.S. 

On Oct. 11, Tomáš Zdechovský, a member of the European Parliament, shared data (archived) he claimed showed a drastic decrease in online activity around Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland political party in the days following the strikes. Other social media users claimed searches for various health-related topics (archived) and the number of social media accounts advocating for Alberta to seek independence from Canada (archived) also fell after Ukraine’s strikes.

Whether Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers had indeed taken Russian bots that spread propaganda or misinformation offline was unproven at the time of this writing. As we will lay out below, social media users claiming a direct connection between Ukraine’s strikes and falling web traffic generated by Russian propaganda bots tended to identify correlation rather than causation.

Darren Linvill, who studies the tactics, strategies, and impacts of foreign information manipulations and interference at Clemson University, told Snopes via email on Oct. 13 that the Russian propaganda campaigns he studies do not use physical infrastructure within Russia for their efforts, meaning they would be unaffected by Ukraine’s strikes. Linvill, along with U.S. and international media, also said that a lot of the traffic that was affected by the strikes was likely legitimate, automated traffic, such as web crawlers that index Yandex’s search engine. 

Data from the global internet infrastructure company Cloudflare shared by some accounts (archived, archived) as proof of Russian “bot traffic” decreasing after Ukraine’s strikes showed graphs accounting for all automated traffic, not propaganda bot accounts specifically. Linvill described measuring a drop only in Russian propaganda bot accounts as “exceedingly difficult.”

Lacking credible proof that Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers starting on Oct. 8 took Russian propaganda bots offline, we leave this claim unrated.

On Oct. 13, Zelenskyy’s office appeared to redefine his statement from the previous day that there was “less hate, less division, and fewer provocations because there were fewer bots” online after Ukraine’s strikes. The office reportedly told the BBC that Zelenskyy was “talking about the atmosphere on social media” rather than a fall in bot activity.

Snopes has contacted Zelenskyy’s office to verify this statement to the BBC.

Parsing the ‘evidence’ of falling Russian bot activity

Some social media users shared data from the global internet infrastructure company Cloudflare that they suggested showed that Russian bot traffic “dropped to nearly zero” after Ukraine’s strikes. 

The data in question, called “Bot vs. Human Traffic,” tracked HTTP requests, which are messages that a client (this could be a browser or a mobile app) sends to a server. Cloudflare assesses HTTP requests a given client sends and scores them according to whether it thinks a human or a bot sent the request.

Cloudflare’s data showed that HTTP requests from Yandex bots dropped on Oct. 8 and again on Oct. 10, dipping to 0.3% of maximum levels. Bot requests had been at 88.2% of maximum levels the week before. Cloudflare’s data also showed that almost all (99.6%) of the HTTP requests sent by Yandex clients were automated, which Cloudflare described as being from bots.

It is important to note that “bot” in Cloudflare’s terminology is not just propaganda bots but any requests that the company classifies as automated. The technology publication Mashable and Euronews reported that Yandex’s automated traffic likely included web crawlers, which are tools that search engines use to keep their database of websites up to date. Mashable reported that damage to a Yandex’s data centers or servers would bring traffic such as web crawlers to a halt.

Linvill also credited the fall in “bot” traffic from Yandex to legitimate, automated traffic such as web crawlers not operating from damaged servers. He wrote that Cloudflare’s data did not suggest there was “a particular reason to believe the strikes would have a significant impact on social bot activity from Russia.”

Other claims about a decrease in Russian bot traffic failed to directly connect Russian bots to any perceived changes in online activity. For example, Zdechovský’s post presented a graph with no source that did not specify what it measured. Another post that claimed a decrease in Google searches for various health-related topics compared data across only two weekends, which was unlikely to be enough to establish and analyze a trend.

An account that claimed accounts calling for Alberta to seek independence from Canada “fell off the face of the earth” after Ukraine’s strikes provided no supporting evidence for the claim that linked it to Russian propaganda bots.

We contacted Zdechovský to ask for the source of his graph and await a reply.

Russian propaganda campaigns hard to track

According to Linvill, actually documenting a fall in Russian propaganda bot activity would not be straightforward. He wrote: 

It would be exceedingly difficult to measure. You would first have to figure out what it was, exactly, you were measuring? There is no one path to influence and no one way malign propaganda is conducted. These efforts are run on global systems across a multitude of platforms and emanating from multiple actors even within the same country. They make it hard on purpose.

Linvill added that the Russian campaigns he followed did not use bots they ran themselves, instead paying for services run from outside Russia. He wrote: “It has clearly become important for Russia to outsource these services than to run them in house. It’s likely cheaper and easier, but also more secure and decentralized.”

In sum, readers should be cautious of blanket claims that Ukraine’s strikes on Yandex’s servers heavily affected Russia’s propaganda operation. While that may be the case, there was no credible evidence at the time of this writing directly linking strikes on servers to a fall in Russian propaganda activity online. Linvall suggested that Russian propaganda campaigns could come from overseas, meaning domestic strikes would not be effective against them, a point that Mashable’s reporting also made.

For further reading, Snopes previously published a guide to spotting bots on social media.

DeepL.com provided translations from Russian to English.

Sources

On Oct. 11 U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Ukraine and Russia had “agreed” to an “energy ceasefire” in their war. Such an agreement would means neither country would attack the other’s energy sites. 

The ceasefire appeared to be news to Ukraine and Russia, however, with Trump unable to provide any evidence that the two countries had actually reached such an agreement.

Numerous posts claimed Trump had not actually managed to get the countries to agree. When a reporter pointed out to Trump that both sides said they had not agreed, Trump replied: “Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said, ‘You agree.’ That’s why.” 

It wasn’t clear whether Russia had or hadn’t agreed to a ceasefire before Trump’s announcement, but news reports stated that Russia violated the ceasefire shortly after. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he didn’t know about the supposed ceasefire agreement beforehand but would support it only if Russia agreed to follow it. 

“Even after yesterday’s messages from [Trump] … Putin attacked our gas infrastructure,” Zelenskyy told Fox News. “When we speak about energy ceasefire, it means only one thing: that they don’t attack our energy infrastructure and we don’t respond on their energy infrastructure.”

Snopes reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry to seek comment on Trump’s announcement and a response to Ukraine’s accusations that Russia violated the ceasefire. We will update this story as we get more information. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the media on Oct. 12 that “contacts are ongoing.” 

Snopes has covered a great deal of misinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war since Russia invaded the former Soviet republic on Feb. 22, 2022.

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Claim:

Ahead of the 2026 midterm election, Georgia removed candidates’ political party affiliation labels from ballots.

Rating:

What’s True

In May 2026, Georgia Governor Bill Kemp signed House Bill 369 into law, which would make several county-level races in some of Georgia’s most Democratic counties “nonpartisan” — meaning that local candidates would run for office without party labels on the ballot. The law would only apply to five counties, including and surrounding Atlanta, the most diverse region in the state.

What’s False

However, the law doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2028, and as of this writing, county district attorneys are challenging the constitutionality of the bill in court. The law wouldn’t apply to the entire state, which the DAs argue violates Georgia’s uniformity clause.

In the weeks leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, a claim circulated that Georgia lawmakers had removed political party labels from ballots in an effort to give Republicans a leg up in counties that have seen steady electoral wins for Democrats.

Social media posts sounded the alarm, warning Georgia voters to bring sample ballots or memorize candidates before heading to the polls to avoid voting for someone on the basis of name recognition alone.

“Georgia voters- It seems our Trump loving election denying Republican led election board has decided to remove the (R) and the (D) that normally appears next to candidate’s names on the upcoming midterm ballots. And you’re not allowed to use your phone while voting to look up affiliation,” an Oct. 4 Facebook post that was shared thousands of times read (archived). “They want you to either not vote in that category or hopefully choose the wrong one. A lot of incumbents are Republican so they’re hoping you’ll just choose by name recognition.”

We looked into the claim and found that while it was true Georgia Gov. Bill Kemp signed House Bill 369 into law in Georgia in May 2026, making several county-level races “nonpartisan,” the law would not take effect until Jan. 1, 2028 — and only in five Atlanta-area counties, not the entire state. As a result, we’ve rated the claim a mixture of true and false information.

The five counties’ district attorneys — all of whom are Black women representing the most diverse region of the state — argue the law is unconstitutional because it’s geographically limited to that region. Those counties include and surround state capital Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold.

HB 369 applies the nonpartisan distinction to counties in which the elected office of county coroner has been abolished. It’s unclear precisely how lawmakers made the connection between nonpartisan coroner elections and the need to remove party affiliation labels from other candidates’ names.

According to The Associated Press, state Sen. John Albers, a Republican from Roswell (an Atlanta suburb) said during a legislative session that he “believed it will promote public safety.” State Rep. Trey Kelley, also a Republican, reportedly claimed that “by passing this legislation, we’re giving voters the opportunity to rid themselves of district attorneys who are more concerned with playing partisan games than prosecuting and delivering justice.”

In June 2026, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced she was filing a lawsuit challenging the law. She was accompanied by three out of the other four county DAs. We reached out to all five DA offices for comment, and a spokesperson from Clayton County responded reiterating that if the bill held by 2028, it would only deal with certain elected officials.

A June 3 statement outlining the three grounds on which Boston’s lawsuit challenged the validity of the law read:

1. Violation of Georgia’s Uniformity Clause – The Georgia Constitution requires that laws must work the same way throughout the state and prohibits lawmakers from enacting local or special laws that change the rules for one area of Georgia.  The Georgia Supreme Court has repeatedly held that laws that target just one or a handful of counties are unconstitutional.
2. Violation of the Georgia and U.S. Equal Protection Clauses – Both the Georgia and United States Constitutions mandate that laws must protect all people equally. State lawmakers did not give any legitimate reason for treating the 5 metro counties, their elected officials, and their voters differently from the state’s other 154 counties.  They set them apart on the basis that they have medical examiners instead of coroners, which has no connection to the need for nonpartisan elections.  In addition, the five counties targeted have large Black voter populations and Black female District Attorneys.
3. Violation of Georgia’s Rejected Bills Clause – Before lawmakers passed the nonpartisan county elections bill as HB 369, the same proposal failed a full vote of the Senate as SB 573.  Before the Legislature can take up a measure it previously rejected, the Georgia Constitution requires a two-thirds vote by the rejecting chamber.  That did not happen with HB 369.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, in her August lawsuit of a similar nature, wrote that the law’s medical examiner distinction “is arbitrary and has no rational relation to the partisan status of county elections.” The lawsuit continued: “There is simply no reason why a county with a medical examiner should have a nonpartisan election for district attorney but a county with a coroner should have partisan elections for district attorney.”

We also contacted state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat from Georgia, who has spoken about the bill on her social media. In a statement to Snopes via email, Clark’s office wrote that if voters want to see who and what are currently on their ballot, they can print a sample ballot at Georgia’s voting information page.

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Claim:

Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk and political historian Heather Cox Richardson had a public confrontation during a panel in which Kirk said to Richardson, “Sit down, you 63-year-old academic.”

Rating:

A rumor is circulating that a confrontation took place between Turning Point CEO Erika Kirk and historian Heather Cox Richardson during a panel. According to numerous Facebook posts over the past several months, Kirk insulted Richardson by poking fun at her age.

One Facebook post stated: 

Erika Kirk Insults Heather Cox Richardson: “Sit down, you 63-year-old academic” — But Her Response Shocked the Entire Nation

Erika Kirk delivered the sarcastic remark with a cold, defiant stare that silenced the entire auditorium. Heather Cox Richardson did not react immediately — at least not for the first few seconds. The historian and public intellectual simply raised an eyebrow, tilted her head slightly, and offered a calm, knowing smile, as though she had grown accustomed to pressure, criticism, and high-stakes moments throughout years of service.

Slowly, Heather Cox Richardson picked up the microphone, rose to her feet, and faced Kirk directly with the steady composure of someone who has spent a lifetime studying history and engaging the public with clarity and conviction.

When Richardson finally spoke, her words were measured, confident, and deeply grounded — the voice of a woman in her 60s fully aware of her journey, her purpose, and her identity.

Rather than reacting emotionally, she transformed the moment into something far greater than the insult itself.

“I’m proud of every one of my years,” she said calmly. “They represent study, teaching, service, lessons learned, and the responsibility of standing up for something bigger than yourself. Age isn’t an insult — it’s a record of what you’ve contributed.”

The Facebook post also linked to an article an ad-filled blog with the headline, “A Public Insult Sparked Silence—Then Heather Cox Richardson’s Response Changed Everything Forever.” 

The above Facebook post and article describe an incident that never took place. The post is an example of “AI slop” — low-quality content that’s easy to create thanks to artificial intelligence tools. Such content can overwhelm social media feeds, leaving users unsure of what’s real and what’s not. As such, we rate this claim as false.

News organizations would have covered the alleged dramatic interaction between the two public figures if it ever took place. However, our searches of Google, DuckDuckGo (archived) and Bing for any legitimate news coverage about such an interaction or panel found no results. 

The post in question notes under the poster’s name that this is “AI content.” It links to an article on a blog that is clearly not a legitimate news organization. 

(Facebook user “Carl Paoli”)

The article does not give us a date or time of this interaction and did not even report on the exchange. When such stories spread online about controversies between public figures and without mentioning specifics of the events but encouraging readers to click on articles from unknown websites, they are often acting as “clickbait” — directing social media users to online advertising and unrelated content.

The story also closely resembled other rumors we looked into about one public figure telling another to “sit down.” For example, one similar false claim involved U.S. President Donald Trump telling Pope Leo XIV, “Sit down — you’re just the pope.” In another, Trump’s son Barron allegedly told astronaut Christina Koch, “Sit down, you’re just an astronaut.” 

Kirk gained prominence after the assassination of her husband, conservative activist and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk, on Sept. 10, 2025. She took over as the organization’s CEO after his death. A political historian, Richardson has been a vocal critic of Trump.  

Snopes has debunked many AI slop rumors and written an explainer on this trend. 

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Claim:

A black-and-white photo authentically depicts Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders inspecting a model of a triumphal arch planned for Berlin.

Rating:

In September 2026, a black-and-white photo spread widely purportedly showing Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party officials inspecting a model of a triumphal arch they hoped to build in Berlin.

Beneath one Reddit post (archived), commenters compared the arch, which was never constructed, to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to construct a massive triumphal arch of his own in Washington, D.C., just outside the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

Snopes readers contacted us to determine whether the picture is real.  

In short, the photograph is authentic.

Among the many unfinished projects of Nazi Germany was a plan to redevelop the capital, Berlin, and rename it “Germania.” Nazi Party chief architect Albert Speer was put in charge of the design and built a model of the planned city.

Among the buildings was a massive, triumphal arch. The black-and-white photo authentically shows Hitler inspecting the model, presumably designed by Speer.

A reverse image search revealed the picture is on stock image website Alamy, which credits the photograph to the archives of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Though the “Date taken” information reads Jan. 1, 1939, Alamy also says the picture is “undated.” Berlin is noted as the location. The “More information” caption reads:

Adolf Hitler inspects a modell of a planned triumphal arch. Adolf Hitler and other party functionaries inspect the modell of the triumphal arch, which was planned to be built after the end of the war in Berlin. Undated picture. Date created: 01/01/1939-31/12/1945

Snopes contacted Süddeutsche Zeitung to learn more about the photo’s history. A spokesperson for the paper said in a statement that it licenses images from its historical archives through Alamy. Therefore, the picture came from the archives of a reputable news publication.

Running the photograph through several tools that detect content generated using artificial intelligence software uncovered no signs that it was AI-generated.

A history of triumphal arches

Historians trace the history of triumphal arches back to ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, the “triumph” was an extravagant parade the Roman Senate granted to a Roman general (and his army) following a particularly remarkable conquest. Three triumphal arches were built during this period, according to Britannica, but none survive.

During the imperial period, however, Roman emperors frequently declared triumphs for themselves (regardless of their military accomplishments), often building arches as a commemoration. There are three — the Arches of Titus, Septimus Severus and Constantine — still standing in Rome.

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, built to commemorate the conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte, is one of many arches still extant around the world that pay architectural homage to the Roman triumphal arch. They are built for many reasons —  New York City’s Washington Square Arch commemorated 100 years since George Washington’s inauguration, for instance, while New Delhi’s India Gate is a war memorial.

Trump first mentioned the idea of a triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., in October 2025. When CBS News asked who the arch was for, Trump pointed at himself and said “me.” The arch — which has been the subject of multiple lawsuits claiming its construction was not approved in the proper manner or could pose risks to aviation safety and emergency services — would stand 250 feet tall, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The Nazis, art and architecture

The ideology of the Nazi Party, beyond the genocidal antisemitism, homophobia, racism, xenophobia and other assorted discriminatory practices, was built on a vision of completely remaking the nation of Germany. This remaking — or a “rebirth” — aimed to turn the state itself into a sort of religion, warping and twisting every aspect of society along the way.

Attendance at this metaphorical “church,” of course, was mandatory. “Disagreement is a sign of diversity,” Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco wrote in his 1995 essay, “Ur-Fascism.” Diversity, therefore, would not be tolerated under Nazism.

Part of this “spiritual” rebirth involved attempting to influence the nation’s arts and culture. In 1937, the Nazis ordered the confiscation of thousands of modern art pieces the party felt “insult[ed] German feeling.”

The Nazis then had the confiscated works exhibited for the public to see in Munich. The exhibition was called “Degenerate Art.”

The crusade against “degenerate art” also impacted architecture. The influential Bauhaus art school, pioneers in modern architecture, closed in 1933 on the orders of the Nazi regime. Speer, the architect (and Nazi Party member), quickly rose up the party’s ranks and found himself in Hitler’s inner circle. 

While most of Speer’s designs for Germania were never constructed, at least one part of the vision remains. The “Schwerbelastungskorper,” German for “heavy load-bearing body,” is a massive concrete cylinder located in the Tempelhof neighborhood at the corner of General Pape Strasse and Loewenhardtdamm. 

According to the structure’s Information Center website and The Guardian newspaper, it was built as a test for the planned triumphal arch’s northeast pillar, because engineers were concerned that Berlin’s swampy soil would not be able to hold the weight of the monumental structures. The cylinder was built in 1941, at least partially by prisoners of war. 

Sources

Claim:

In September and October 2026, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative, received treatment at a mental health facility in Ohio.

Rating:

In October 2026, a rumor spread that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas Democrat, had received treatment at a mental health care facility in Ohio. 

The claim erupted after Talarico, a state representative, disappeared from the campaign trail for nearly 10 days. On Oct. 11, the candidate told Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS’s Phil Prazan in a video interview he’d been lying low at home due to a bout of influenza (archived).

Still, social media posts claiming he had actually been hospitalized at a mental health facility the whole time multiplied on Facebook and X, where one post said, for example, “the flu thing was a BIG FAT LIE” (archived):

Many Snopes readers emailed, asking us to verify whether the rumor was true. 

As we outline below, we found no credible evidence to support the claim Talarico had received treatment at a mental health facility. Both the facility named in these rumors and Talarico himself denied the claim on social media. In addition, the timing of his alleged discharge didn’t match Talarico’s schedule. Snopes obtained visual evidence, which we reviewed but aren’t publishing due to privacy concerns, that Talarico was at his home in Austin every day for the entirety of his bout of flu.

For these reasons, we rate the claim false.

Two conservative influencers, Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, started the rumor, offering as evidence the recording of an alleged employee of the Lindner Center of Hope in Ohio appearing to say Talarico had just been discharged.

Both Talarico and the Lindner Center of Hope denied he had ever been treated there. 

We reached out to Sorter and Amacher, as well as to Talarico and the Lindner Center of Hope, for clarity and we will update this report should we receive a response.

The rumor originated on X

The rumor spread less than a month before the election, at a time when almost all polls in Texas showed Talarico narrowly ahead of his Republican opponent in the race, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

On Oct. 11, Sortor and Amacher posted a short audio recording on X of a phone conversation between a male voice asking for “James Talarico” and a female voice, allegedly that of someone who worked at Lindner Center for Hope, appearing to say he was discharged earlier that evening. 

Sortor (archived) and Amacher (archived) posted within minutes of each other, just after 1 p.m. Eastern time. Both claimed Amacher had had the exchange with the purported employee. In his post, Amacher wrote that a person who he understood to be an employee of the center said Talarico had been discharged “within the previous 24-48 hours”:

I personally contacted @LindnerCtrHope in Mason, Ohio, to determine whether Talarico was or had previously been a patient. 

During my recorded call, an individual identifying themselves as a female facility employee reportedly stated that Talarico was no longer a patient and had been discharged within the previous 24–48 hours.

In the recording, however, the person tells Amacher the patient was “just discharged this evening.” The recorded exchange went as follows:

ALLEGED EMPLOYEE: I do not find anyone with that name for the last four days that’s been discharged, and they’re not here in the building.

AMACHER: OK, so nothing for James Talarico?

ALLEGED EMPLOYEE: Um… let’s see, looks… well… this is what it’s today… Looks like he was just discharged this evening. That’s why I don’t have it.

Amacher’s post included a purported screenshot of a call log showing he had attempted to contact the facility three times that day: at 8:53 p.m., 8:56 p.m. and 8:59 p.m.

A subsequent X post by Amacher on Oct. 11 indicated the exchange took place “yesterday” — Oct. 10. We reached out to him for more details. 

Talarico’s whereabouts on Oct. 9 and 10

On Oct. 9 — the day before Amacher’s alleged call — Talarico made an appearance at the Austin City Limits festival, as photographs on the reputable image bank Getty Images show. 

The evening of Oct. 10, Talarico attended Kacey Musgraves’ concert in Dallas, according to a post by Talarico’s campaign at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 11, indicating the video had been shot in the hours before (archived):

(An earlier post by another X account confirmed Talarico was at the concert.)

Musgraves played in Dallas Oct. 10 and 11, according to the website of the venue, the American Airlines Center.

In a seeming attempt to justify the discrepancy between the time the alleged employee told him the patient was discharged and Talarico’s appearance in Austin the day before, Amacher posted again on X saying that the time of a patient’s discharge could be registered some time after the person has left the facility (archived):

Mental health facility denies Talarico was a patient

On Oct. 11, in response to the rumors, the Lindner Center of Hope posted on X to say Talarico had never been a patient (archived):

Talarico shared the post, adding that he has never been to Ohio (archived):

Further, Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis posted on X that the claim was a “lie” to “promote a pathetic conspiracy theory” (archived):

Lastly, Snopes obtained visual evidence of Talarico being at home every day from Oct. 1 to 8, the day before he went to the music festival in Austin.

Talarico has long been open about having Type 1 diabetes, a condition that increases the risk of complications when the person comes down with the flu, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For further reading, Snopes has covered several rumors about Talarico, including the claim that he is vegan.

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration declined to invite observers from Europe’s Organization for Security and Co-operation for the 2026 midterm elections, marking the first time the OSCE had not received an invitation to observe a federal U.S. election since 2002.

Rating:

In October, rumors circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration did not extend an invitation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international body that aims to preserve democracy and human rights across the globe, to observe the 2026 midterm elections. 

The OSCE explains that its goal in observing elections is to “assess the extent to which fundamental freedoms are respected in the campaign and if the elections are characterized by equality, universality, political pluralism, confidence, transparency and accountability.”

Social media users who shared the claim noted that it was the first time since 2002, when the OSCE first started observing U.S. elections, that the group had not received an invitation. One post featured an image of Trump with text reading, “Trump demands ‘secure’ elections, yet rejects independent scrutiny and offers no explanation. Perhaps security was never the point.”

The rumor circulated after Trump’s Department of Justice said it would deploy its own election monitors, sparking concerns from Trump’s opponents. 

The claim was true. 

In a statement posted to its website Sept. 23. the OSCE confirmed that the U.S. had not invited it to observe the 2026 midterm elections.

“The decision not to invite the OSCE to observe the 2026 midterm congressional elections in the United States is regrettable, particularly given the long-standing co-operation with the country in the field of election observation,” the organization said.

They wrote that the decision was “not in line with the 1990 Copenhagen Document,” which the group describes as an outline of basic human rights and freedoms that “broadens the scope of human rights matters to include election commitments” and “recognizes that the presence of international observers can enhance the electoral process.” 

The OSCE confirmed in its statement that the 2026 midterms marked the first time it was not invited to observe a federal U.S. election since the group first began observing elections in the country in 2002. That year, the OSCE sent representatives to the Florida gubernatorial election. 

The 2002 observation occurred after the contentious 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore that resulted in a recount in Florida. The matter ultimately ended up with the Supreme Court, and the United States didn’t see a president-elect officially declared until that December.

According to a 2004 article by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe about the history of the U.S. inviting OSCE to observe elections, following its 2002 observation in Florida, OSCE observed the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger won. 

OSCE said it has observed 12 federal elections, including six midterms, since 2002. 

The CSCE wrote in 2004 that the U.S. had formally invited observers to its elections in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002, noting that 2002 was the first election that OSCE had observed. 

In the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections in November, Trump continued his attempts to implement voting restrictions and pitched giving Americans $5,000 each if Republicans won, sparking opposition from critics. 

A White House official told Snopes via email that “no other nation has done more to advance the cause of human freedom and representative government” than the United States and added, “American elections will be administered, participated in, and observed by American citizens.”

The White House did not deny that it had declined an invite to OSCE observers and provided no explanation for departing from decades of precedent. 

We reached out to the OSCE and the Justice Department for further comment and will update this article if we receive responses.

For further reading, we fact-checked a claim that Trump thanked billionaire Elon Musk for artificially increasing votes for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms.

In October 2026, social media posts multiplied claiming the CIA offered eight months’ pay and benefits to employees who agree to quit. 

Several posts on Facebook and X included a video of Fox News presenter Jesse Watters saying, “The Wall Street Journal has reported the CIA has reportedly just offered a buyout to its entire workforce” (archived):

(X user @WikiLeaksQ)

The claim is not new. It has been circulating since at least February 2025. 

The rumor stems from a Feb. 4, 2025, article from the Wall Street Journal that cited “officials” as saying the scheme was a “bid to bring the agency in line with President Trump’s priorities” — namely, downsizing the government. The story also said the CIA was “freezing the hiring of job seekers already given a conditional offer.” 

The report also quoted an unnamed CIA spokesperson as saying “the move was part of an effort to ‘infuse the agency with renewed energy.’”

We could not corroborate the report independently, so we left it unrated.

We reached out to the CIA for more details on staffing plans and we will update this story should we receive a response. 

Since the publication of the Wall Street Journal article, more reporting has appeared on the staffing situation at the CIA. Layoffs started as soon as March 2025, according to The Associated Press.

Further, in May 2025, the Washington Post reported that the agency’s then-new Director John Ratcliff had announced he wanted to slash 1,200 at the organization, which works to gather foreign intelligence. 

“The CIA does not publicly disclose the size of its workforce, but it is believed to be about 22,000,” the report read. “It is unclear which parts of the spy agency would be most affected.”

Then, in August 2026, another story from the Washington Post said the intelligence agency was struggling to keep up with demands for retirements from former employees due to the sheer number of departures. 

The agency “gave retirees two toll-free numbers to call if more than six months had passed since they’d received their final paycheck,” the article read. “One former official said she recently spoke to a colleague who retired in March and had just received their first, partial retirement check.”

For further reading, Snopes has covered several claims about the CIA over the years, including the rumor that late feminist Gloria Steinem had worked for the agency.

Christensen, Laerke. “Rumors Are Swirling about ‘lab-Grown’ Eggs Being Sold in the US. Here’s What to Know.” Snopes, 21 Aug. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/lab-grown-us-eggs/.

Deng, Rae. “Bill Gates-Backed Company Created Lab-Made Butter.” Snopes, 15 Aug. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/bill-gates-butter/.

Loe, Megan. “Inspecting Claims Campbell’s Soup Uses ‘bioengineered Meat’ and ‘3-D Printed Chicken.’” Snopes, 25 Nov. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/11/25/campbells-soup-bioengineered-meat/.

Rascouët-Paz, Anna. “Dutch Factory Is 3D-Printing Meat from Stem Cells?” Snopes, 29 Mar. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/3d-printed-meat-netherlands/.

Winter, Emery. “Are US Stores Selling 3D-Printed Meat?” Snopes, 7 Oct. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/us-stores-3d-meat/.

Wrona, Aleksandra. “Did Bill Gates Donate $50M to Create ‘biologically Modified’ Crops? Here’s the Truth.” Snopes, 9 Mar. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/bill-gates-modified-crops/.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2026.

Since at least February, people have shared a meme alleging that 163 Democratic Party votes for former U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory all came from the same Oklahoma address.

The rumor touched on President Donald Trump’s long-standing false claims that fraud plagued the 2020 election in battleground states. In 2021, The Associated Press investigated all of Trump’s claims in six key states and found nowhere near the amount of fraud needed for Trump to have won.

In an email, a Snopes reader shared the meme, which featured an image of a modest single-level home in a rural-looking setting with a one-car garage and what appears to be a twin-size mattress leaning against the wall on the front porch.

The meme read, “Why do we need voter ID? Because in the 2020 election, 163 Democrats used this one address to cast a vote for Joe Biden.” The reader asked, “Any truth to this?”

A reverse-image search found other people sharing the same meme both in Facebook posts (archived) and comments (archived), as well as on LinkedIn (archived), Reddit (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived).

(@250_Revolution via X)

As of this writing, we have not yet located enough evidence to conclusively debunk (or confirm) what appears to be a false rumor. We also have not yet determined who created the meme, which we found showed a house in rural Oklahoma. As such, we have not added a fact-check rating to this story.

Researching the meme and finding the house

Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets or political blogs reporting about 163 votes being cast for Biden using the address of the home pictured in the meme. That complete lack of reporting included conservative blogs, which would widely report on such a purported Democratic Party election fraud attempt — had it actually happened. Our searches also failed to locate evidence of users promoting the rumor prior to this year, more than five years after the 2020 election concluded.

A reverse-image search for the home pictured in the meme found real estate listings displaying a similar photo of the same house, for example on Realtor.com. The listings featured the address 401 N. Sycamore Ave. in the town of Stratford, Oklahoma, in Garvin County. The home appeared in Google Maps Street View on the east side of Sycamore.

Snopes emailed the Oklahoma State Election Board, a Garvin County elections official and the Garvin County Sheriff’s Office. We presented the claim and asked whether officials were aware of any such election-related crimes occurring in relation to the home address.

We will update this article if we locate or receive any further credible information.

Trump secured more votes than Biden in every county in Oklahoma in the 2020 election, defeating Biden by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Trump also earned more than 81% of the vote in Garvin County.

For further reading, we previously reported about a rumor that Trump thanked tech billionaire Elon Musk for making every Republican vote count three times.

Sources