copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: claims Ron DeSantis received a $2 million donation from Sequoia Capital Bank, which is purportedly owned by Dominion Voting Systems (Post, 2023-08-07)
Evidence (2024-01-22): Important date approaches this week for those expecting £600 - UN migration agency seeks $7.9 billion to help people on the move and the communities that host them - Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with son X and meets holocaust survivor weeks after facing huge backlash for endorsing an anti-Semitic post on X as he continues to fight claims hate speech has exploded on his site since Hamas' Oct 7 invasion of Israel - Ron DeSantis uses fake Churchill quote in final message to voters - Amer Sports targets up to $8.7 bln valuation in US IPO - Scotland have dealt with World Cup disappointment, says Townsend - Sterling in narrow range versus dollar before PMIs - China lobbies countries to praise its rights record ahead of UN review - diplomats - Hugh Jackman's fans notice very surprising detail in his workout video as he trains for Deadpool 3 - Taliban enforcing restrictions on single and unaccompanied Afghan women - UN - Ewan McGregor is covered in blood as he carries co-star Beau Gadsdon while filming the final scenes for upcoming TV series A Gentleman In Moscow - Relief for households as energy bills are set to fall by £450 a
Claim: claims Ron DeSantis received a $2 million donation from Sequoia Capital Bank, which is purportedly owned by Dominion Voting Systems (Post, 2023-08-07)
Evidence (2022-02-01): Ron DeSantis said his political opponents were trying to 'smear' him by asking him to condemn neo-Nazi demonstrators 2022-02-01T03:48:50.289Z [...] Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis calls for 'voting integrity unit' in Florida as Biden presses Congress for voter protections 2022-01-11T20:30:00.355Z
Claim: claims Ron DeSantis received a $2 million donation from Sequoia Capital Bank, which is purportedly owned by Dominion Voting Systems (Post, 2023-08-07)
Evidence (2023-09-07): Ron DeSantis Promises To ‘Start Slitting Throats’ In Government On ‘Day One’
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-07): The original video, uploaded to YouTube by the British Columbia Wildfire Service (BCWS), shows a planned ignition in response to the Donnie Creek Wildfire. A spokesperson for the BCWS confirmed a planned ignition occurred in response to the wildfire via an email to Check Your Fact.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-02-09): The record-setting Canadian wildfires in 2023 were caused mainly by lightning igniting forests that were unusually hot and dry, in part due to climate change. But the recent conviction of a Quebec man led to false claims on social media that the majority of the fires were the result of arson. [...] On Jan. 15, a Quebec man, Brian Paré, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life. In May, with 12 active fires already burning in Quebec, Paré, a conspiracy theorist, began setting his own fires with the intention of finding out "whether the forest was really dry or not," Quebec Prosecutor Marie-Philippe Charron told the court. Paré claimed on social media posts that the previous fires had been set by the Canadian government to convince people to believe in climate change, the Canadian Press reported. [...] Plante, Caroline. "‘Historic wildfires in Quebec, says SOPREU, after 4.5 million hectares of forest burned in 2023." CTV. 14 Nov 2023.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-08-20): The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was unprecedented in its scale and intensity, spanning from mid-April to late October and across much of the forested regions of Canada. Here, we summarize the main causes and impacts of this exceptional season. The record-breaking total area burned (~15 Mha) can be attributed to several environmental factors that converged early in the season: early snowmelt, multiannual drought conditions in western Canada, and the rapid transition to drought in eastern Canada. Anthropogenic climate change enabled sustained extreme fire weather conditions, as the mean May–October temperature over Canada in 2023 was 2.2 °C warmer than the 1991–2020 average. The impacts were profound with more than 200 communities evacuated, millions exposed to hazardous air quality from smoke, and unmatched demands on fire-fighting resources. The 2023 wildfire season in Canada not only set new records, but highlights the increasing challenges posed by wildfires in Canada. [...] Undoubtedly, the increasing potential for wildfires in Canada is symptomatic of the changing climate; in fact, it was estimated that the heat dome would have been 150 times less likely to occur without the ongoing anthropogenic climate disruption13.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-29): Officials have said the number of wildfires Canada has seen so far this year is "unprecedented" for this early in the wildfire season, which typically lasts from May to September. [...] Fires in western Canada began at the start of May and continue to burn. British Columbia is still battling its largest wildfire on record - Donnie Creek - burning at more than 550,000 hectares.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-06-27): Canada’s 2023 wildfires made international headlines, causing billions of dollars in property damage, displacing thousands of people from their homes, and spewing air pollution that traveled as far as Europe and China. A new analysis shows that the wildfires also had a massive effect on greenhouse gas emissions. [...] The 2023 wildfires in Canada accounted for more than a quarter of all tree cover loss globally that year and were largely driven by unusually hot temperatures and low precipitation. Québec, Northwest Territories, Alberta and British Columbia all experienced record high tree cover loss due to fires in 2023. [...] The reality is that the lines between "natural" and "anthropogenic" wildfires are blurring. Research shows that roughly half of all fires in Canada are directly started by people and, on average, they account for about 20% of the area burned each year. Furthermore, human-driven climate change is making fire seasons longer, resulting in larger and more frequent wildfires. By excluding all emissions and removals in managed forests affected by natural disturbances, Canada’s national GHG inventory may be underestimating land-based carbon emissions.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-09-04): Roughly half of all wildfires in Canada are caused by lightning; due to climate change, lightning-caused fires are happening more frequently, and lightning strikes are expected to double by the end of the century.[18][30][31] In terms of wildfire acreage, lightning-caused fires account for about 85% of land burned.[32][33] Lightning-caused fires often happen in clusters in remote locations.[34] The other half of wildfires in Canada are human-caused, often unintentionally sparked[35][36] by things such as discarded cigarette butts,[32] abandoned smouldering campfires,[37] sparks from braking trains, off road vehicles, and land clearing activities.[36] While false claims of arson gained traction on social media, arson is generally a minor cause of wildfires in Canada.[38][39] [...] - ^ a b "Canada wildfires spark 'ecoterrorist' conspiracy theory". France 24. Agence France-Presse. June 9, 2023. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023. [...] - ^ a b "Truth or Fake - These satellite images do not prove that Canadian wildfires were caused deliberately". France 24. June 15, 2023. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-08): The Canadian government says the risk of wildfires is expected to recede in Quebec and Ontario in July, but the potential is expected to expand next month into the Yukon in north-western Canada.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-09-09): Wildfires are spreading fast in Canada — we must strengthen forests for the future [...] But wildfires in Canada have been increasing in number, size and intensity since the mid-twentieth century4,5. This is mainly the result of anthropogenic climate change and the accumulation of undergrowth and other fuel after decades of fire suppression as a way to manage forests. [...] Wildfire agencies in Canada are beginning to show an interest in incorporating Indigenous fire practices — known as cultural burning — into forest landscape planning processes. For example, the We Are Fire project involves Indigenous knowledge holders using cultural fire practices to improve biodiversity in the Saskatchewan River Delta.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-09-03): NASA Earth Observatory. 2015. "Canadian Wildfires Produce River of Smoke." June 29. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86151/canadian-wildfires-produce-river-of-smoke [...] Natural Resources Canada. 2024a. "Canada’s record-breaking wildfires in 2023: A fiery wake-up call." May 21. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/simply-science/canadas-record-breaking-wildfires-2023-fiery-wake-call/25303 [...] Webber, Tammy, and Noah Berger. "Canadian wildfires hit Indigenous communities hard, threatening their land and culture." Associated Press, July 19. https://apnews.com/article/canada-wildfire-indigenous-land-first-nations-impact-3faabbfadfe434d0bd9ecafb8770afce
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-07): If Your Time is short - Video circulating on social media is being framed as evidence the recent wildfires in Canada were planned. That’s wrong. Footage of so-called planned ignitions show a strategy to combat wildfires, not start them. [...] Also, Strong said, recent wildfires in British Columbia "were not planned." [...] We rate claims that this footage proves wildfires in Canada were planned False.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-06): No evidence wildfires in Canada were set intentionally [...] There have been no reports the wildfires in Canada were set intentionally. [...] A June 6 TikTok shared a June 2 video from the Weather Network, a Canadian TV channel, which reported that a state of emergency had been declared in Quebec as a result of the wildfires. Text across the TikTok read, "When you learn these fires were planned."
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-12): Did climate change cause Canada's wildfires? Isabella Kaminski digs into the science on the role climate change and other factors play in wildfires. A spate of serious wildfires across Canada have become a global story in recent weeks, accompanied by photos of murky orange-hued landscapes. [...] Researchers have also long drawn attention to the way that Canadian forestry policies moved away from traditional and Indigenous practices of planned burning which safeguard valuable timber resources and people. Regular, controlled burning clears the forest understory and reduces the risk of larger fires spinning out of control, but this had been stopped in much of the country.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-06-15): June 12, 2023A recent TikTok video, posted by DW's environment series Planet A, explained some of the triggers behind the ongoing wildfires in Canada, including extreme heat, drought and human carelessness. [...] Several commenters pointed out how "unusual" it was that the wildfires in Nova Scotia "all started at the same time," with some suggesting they were intentional. [...] The wildfires haven't been limited to Canada's East Coast, either. Firefighters are currently battling blazes in Ontario and Quebec, and out-of-control fires in the western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate in May.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-07-21): And yes, this wildfire season is extremely bad "This Canadian wildfire season is unprecedented, the most damaging on record in terms of area burnt," Fischer said. [...] Canada has been struck by around 4,300 wildfires, year-to-date, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. British Columbia has been hit particularly hard, as electrical storms torch woodlands reeling from a long drought.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2024-06-27): Catastrophic Canadian warming-fueled wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than West Virginia, new research found.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-08-27): There have been more than 1,000 wildfires across Canada in the last week - a record number. As he toured a local evacuation centre I asked the province's premier, David Eby, if he thought that climate change might be partly responsible for the spike in such incidents.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-08-31): The wildfires in Lahaina were still raging as the first questions about whether they might have been "deliberately set" emerged online. Though all current evidence points to an accidental start, potentially exacerbated by negligence, much discourse online suggested something far more sinister: that the creation of large-scale wildfires on the island of Maui was part of a secret plan. The reasons suggested for this plan varied, from the purported desire of the federal government to "fake" climate change impacts, to the claim that particular elites desired to burn long-standing landholders off of their property to expand their land holdings. [...] Though some events are ambiguous enough in their causes to present difficulties with identifying unfounded speculation, the Lahaina wildfire presents no such difficulties. To those who have followed the recent history of wildfires, the patterns are remarkably familiar. A mixture of weather conditions (sometimes the result of climate change, sometimes not) and poor land management creates tinderbox conditions; imperfect response or lack of preparedness multiplies the human cost. These issues are often magnified along racial or class barriers. The exact admixture of these factors in the case of Maui is still to be determined, but there is nothing to suggest the need to stray beyond the same combination of factors that have explained so many recent tragic fires. In light of these explanatory factors, any claim that the human and economic costs of the Maui fires were the result of a deliberate, coordinated plan would require substantial evidence, far beyond anything so far surfaced.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-08-16): False claims about the deadly wildfires in Hawaii - including that shadowy forces orchestrated the disaster with a laser beam - have gained traction online. [...] Videos and images claiming that the wildfires were not a natural disaster - and were instead caused by a "directed energy weapon", a "laser beam" or explosion - have been viewed millions of times.
Claim: purports the recent wildfires in Canada were planned (Video, 2023-06-07)
Evidence (2023-09-25): Canada’s recent wildfires burned vegetation at an offset project. A forest offset programme funded by companies including Microsoft and BP was also impacted by US fires in 2021.
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2020-05-20): Microbiologists say the spike proteins found in the new coronavirus are different from the ones found in HIV. There is no evidence to suggest the coronavirus was genetically modified.
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2020-06-11): Unlike human genetic information, which is encoded in double-stranded DNA, the new coronavirus, like all coronaviruses, stores its genetic information in a single strand of RNA. The human genome contains around 3 billion base pairs tightly packaged inside the nucleus of each of our cells. In contrast, the new virus’s RNA genome has fewer than 30,000 bases. [...] Those labs had years of shared experience working on the protein structures for related viruses, like the coronaviruses that cause SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a disease first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Because these viruses are similar to SARS-CoV-2, the scientists could look at the RNA sequence of the new coronavirus and immediately find the sections coding for the proteins they were interested in. The shapes of the proteins looked similar too. [...] The first labs to determine SARS-CoV-2’s protein structures may have had a background in coronaviruses, but other structural biology groups are now rolling up their sleeves to get involved too. To observe social-distancing guidelines while advancing science, many structural biology facilities are now open only to coronavirus-related projects and researchers.
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2021-06-22): The theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was triggered by the Sars-CoV-2 virus being leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China was recently given new life following an explosive article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in which the authors claimed "the most compelling reason to favour the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science". But does the science really support the claim that the virus was engineered in a laboratory? [...] An important way scientists can determine the origin of a virus is by looking at its genome. In the WSJ article, the authors, Prof Richard Muller, an astrophysicist, and Dr Steven Quay, physician and chief executive of Atossa Therapeutics, claim Sars-CoV-2 has "genetic fingerprints" of a lab-origin virus. They say that the presence of a particular genetic sequence (CGG-CGG) is a sign that the virus originated in a lab. [...] Disappointingly, many other media articles appear to have accepted and repeated the claims from the WSJ piece. The origin of Sars-CoV-2 may remain unresolved, but there is no evidence presented in the WSJ piece that scientifically supports the concept of a lab leak of a genetically engineered virus.
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2020-04-29): We came to the conclusion that there was manipulation around this virus. […] To a part but I do not say the total […] of the coronavirus of the bat, someone added sequences, in particular of HIV, the virus of AIDS. […] It is not natural. It’s the work of professionals, of molecular biologists. […] A very meticulous work. [...] Does the Novel Coronavirus Contain HIV-Related Genes? [...] Nobel Prize-winner Montagnier truly said that COVID-19 was created in a lab by researchers who were attempting to make an AIDS vaccine. However, that doesn't mean what he said was accurate. In fact, a peer-reviewed study from the Scripps Research Institute that was published in the journal Nature in March 2020 found "no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered."
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2020-12-10): Wong, M. C., Javornik Cregeen, S. J., Ajami, N. J. & Petrosino, J. F. Evidence of recombination in coronaviruses implicating pangolin origins of nCoV-2019. bioRxiv (2020).
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2024-02-20): As SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has spread throughout the world, many observers have failed to take note of the millions of illnesses and deaths caused by HIV—another virus that has approached pandemicstatus during its history. Now an HIV variant that is more virulent and transmissible has been discovered in the Netherlands, where it apparently has been circulating for decades, according to new research. Luckily, none of the variant’s new mutations make it resistant to widely used therapies. But the finding may offer a warning for how the COVID pandemic could proceed in the coming months: viruses do not necessarily evolve to become milder. [...] William A. Haseltine, an infectious disease researcher who founded Harvard University’s cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments and now chairs the think tank ACCESS Health International, has written extensively about the potential of SARS-CoV-2 assume a more dangerous form. Haseltine spoke with Scientific American about why a more virulent variant of HIV—a virus that has been known for nearly half a century—is just coming into focus now, whereas the new coronavirus has spawned several "variants of concern" in a matter of months.
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2023-04-05): Sanderson, T., Hisner, R., Donovan-Banfield, I., Peackock, T. & Ruis, C. Identification of a molnupiravir-associated mutational signature in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing databases. Preprint at medRxivhttps://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.26.23284998 (2023). [...] Coutard, B. et al. The spike glycoprotein of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV contains a furin-like cleavage site absent in CoV of the same clade. Antivir. Res.176, 104742 (2020).
Claim: the new coronavirus has HIV proteins that indicate it was genetically modified in a laboratory. (Viral post, 2020-05-20)
Evidence (2021-04-16): Therefore, the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 continues to diversify due to its propensity for mutation and recombination. In addition, widespread infection among humans is now posing additional threats to other mammals that interact with human populations, as secondary and even tertiary transmissions between humans and other mammals can occur65. Such cross-specific transmission can further enable the emergence of potentially dangerous recombinant SARS-CoV-2 strains. It is imperative that epidemiological, genetic, and functional studies of variants be fully utilized to determine how to slow down and ultimately eradicate within- and between-species transmissions. [...] Fiorentini, S. et al. First detection of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein N501 mutation in Italy in August, 2020. Lancet Infect. Dis.https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00007-4. [...] A confluence of historic gene swapping and evolutionary optimizations and adaptations helped make the coronavirus causing COVID-19 so infectious to people. Devika Singh and Soojin Yi from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA, discuss the molecular evidence for ancestral recombination events and natural selection in the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. In particular, the spike protein that enables viral entry into human cells shows ample signs of these evolutionary processes, which probably facilitated the virus’s spillover from other animals into humans. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have rapidly spread during the pandemic point to ongoing evolutionary processes, including effects of both potential functional alteration and random genetic drift. A better understanding of the virus’s evolutionary trajectory could help inform efforts to contain SARS-CoV-2 and prevent future pandemics.