A look at what didn’t happen last week


November 19, 2017 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

A roundup of some of the most popular, but completely untrue, headlines of last week. None of these stories are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked these out; here are the real facts:

Not real: “Trump abruptly shuts down Dogs for Wounded Warriors program, leaving vets high and dry on Veterans Day!”

The facts: Officials at Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., did issue a stop-work order to an animal-therapy group contracted with the hospital, but it came Oct. 27, more than two weeks before Veterans Day. The order to the Warrior Canine Project came from hospital officials, not the White House. Hospital spokeswoman Sandy Dean says it’s looking to restructure its animal-therapy contracts to improve patient care. She adds that therapy dogs continue to be available for patients at Walter Reed.

Not real: “British intelligence seizes Clinton Foundation warehouse, $400 million in cash”

The facts: Several websites have posted a story claiming the Clinton Foundation was leasing a British warehouse owned by a man on the U.K.’s terrorist watch list, quoting an unnamed assistant to Chelsea Clinton stating that the facility was “rented through an agency.” Foundation spokesman Brian Cookstra tells the AP the story is “totally false.” He adds: “We don’t rent a warehouse in the UK, the quote from ‘Chelsea Clinton’s assistant’ is made up, and nothing in this story seems to be based in reality.” A photo included with the story is a picture from Britain’s The Sun newspaper that shows unrelated police activity in Kent, England.

Not real: “Iceland mandates mental-health warnings on all Bibles”

The facts: No warnings are required to be put on Bibles sold in the island nation. A widely shared hoax story from the website Patheos offers a clue to the joke by naming the prime minister of the country as Andrew Canard. Canard is a seldom used word that means a fabricated report. The actual prime minister of Iceland is Bjarni Benediktsson.