Section

Fact checks

Verdicts on viral claims about payments, deadlines and programs, each settled by the law, rule or agency notice that decides it.

A claim reaches this desk when it is circulating widely and can be settled by a document: a payment that a law would have to authorize, a deadline an agency would have to publish, a rule change that would appear in the Federal Register. Each fact check states the claim as it circulates, names the document that decides it, and gives a verdict of true, false, misleading or unproven. The verdict is revisited if the record changes, and the page keeps a dated log of every revision.

The same test is applied every time: is there a law, and is there an official announcement? Where neither exists the verdict says so plainly. Readers can send a claim to tips@factfiled.com with a screenshot or link; the ones that recur most, such as a new stimulus payment, have standing pages that are updated rather than rewritten.