Upending decades-old guidance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted to no longer issue a blanket recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Throughout the meeting, many panelists made misleading claims about the vaccine.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that he received “total exoneration” in an investigative report by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General regarding a Signal group chat about a military attack in Yemen. But the report contradicts that assessment, concluding that Hegseth’s messages “created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”
President Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, on Dec. 1, claiming without evidence that his prosecution had been a “setup” by the Biden administration and that Hernández was targeted because he was president of a country where drug cartels operated.
The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division claimed in a leaked email that “at least 10 children” died from COVID-19 vaccination, using that to justify major vaccine regulatory changes. Experts, however, say too little information was provided to verify the claim.
In the aftermath of the deadly ambush shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump and others in his administration immediately blamed Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, for failing to vet the Afghan national accused of the attack. Here, we’ll answer some questions about what we know so far about the suspect and the vetting process.
The vaccine advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet Dec. 4 and 5. On the agenda: the hepatitis B vaccine, the overall childhood vaccine schedule and specific vaccine ingredients. We’ll summarize what we’ve written about these topics and what the committee has said about them in recent meetings.
The House voted nearly unanimously on Nov. 18 to force the Department of Justice to release “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. In the days before and after the bill passed, representatives from both parties hurled accusations against political opponents related to Epstein and the contents of some recently released documents.
After six congressional Democrats released a video advising members of the U.S. military and national security community to “refuse illegal orders,” President Donald Trump said the lawmakers should be tried in court for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” But legal experts told us this was not sedition and that the legislators were restating the law that only lawful orders must be followed.
Addressing a meeting of McDonald’s restaurant owners, President Donald Trump distorted his predecessor’s record on employment, falsely claiming that government jobs were increasing while “real jobs” were declining. The number of private-sector jobs increased every year under former President Joe Biden’s term and was up about 12% by the time he left office.
Today, we’re launching our annual end-of-year fundraising drive. Please consider donating to FactCheck.org.