Colbert not set for new show with Democratic representative

With the planned cancellation of “The Late Show” with host Stephen Colbert, some social media users appear to know what is next in store for the comedian.

“SHOCKING TWIST: AFTER THE LATE SHOW CANCELLATION, STEPHEN COLBERT TEAMS UP WITH JASMINE CROCKETT FOR EXPLOSIVE NEW SHOW — IS THIS THE FUTURE OF LATE-NIGHT TV?” read an Aug. 1 Instagram post. Similar posts also appear on TikTok and Facebook, with many positive comments such as, “Yo this will be amazing!!.

But this claim is false, according to Snopes. There is no evidence to support this, and it hasn’t been reported by any news services.

A blog article linked to the false claim, which appeared to be created by using artificial intelligence, included a report of the debut show by Colbert and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

“The duo's unscripted late-night show premiered online last Friday, and within hours, it was trending across social media platforms,” the article said

However, Colbert is scheduled to host “The Late Show” until May 2026, and neither Colbert nor Crockett made any reference to the show beginning on their social media accounts.

Crockett appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show in May and provided “unfiltered comments” about President Donald Trump and his administration, Snopes said.

Trump wrong about hand counting

President Donald Trump, during an Aug. 18 meeting at the White House, said he wanted to end the use of mail-in ballots and change voting machines.

“The machines, I mean, they say we're going to have the results in two weeks. With paper ballots, you have the results that night,” the president said.

But Trump is wrong about the efficiency of voting machines, according to PolitiFact.

“Scanners make results faster, not slower,” Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director for Verified Voting, a nonprofit that studies election administration, told PolitiFact.

Using only paper ballots would slow down the process.

“Hand-counting all ballots on election night and tabulating all the results would be a vast challenge,” Lindeman said. “How many people do you need to hire, vet and train? How much space, in how many places, do you need to accommodate all those people and ballots?

University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden told PolitiFact that hand counting ballots only works for smaller elections without multiple races.

“Countries such as Canada that hand count ballots on election night typically have only one contest on the ballot,” he said.

Arrest not for ordering food

A video posted Aug. 12 on X shows a teenage girl in England being taken away by police.

“ARRESTED FOR A BIG MAC,” reads the headline on the top of the post. “In Britain, a teenage girl is arrested at McDonald’s after ordering food past 5 p.m., a new rule banning minors after that hour. When did fast food become a police matter?”

But this video isn’t recent, according to Reuters. And the teen was not arrested for ordering food.

In June 2024, the police were called to a McDonald’s in Liverpool, England, for a report of young people threatening to assault the restaurant staff.

“She was arrested on suspicion of common assault and escorted to a police car during which she assaulted a police officer,” a spokesperson for Merseyside Police told Reuters. “Her mother attended the scene, and she was de-arrested into her mother’s care.”

In an effort to assure safety, a different McDonald’s in Liverpool had issued a temporary rule in 2022 that banned anyone under 18 years old from being in the restaurant after 5 p.m., without an accompanying adult.

Animals not leaving Yellowstone

Recent TikTok video posts supposedly show animals leaving Yellowstone National Park, headed to Salt Lake City, Utah. Some posts suggested that wildlife was fleeing because of a potential supervolcano.

“Now elk are leaving Yellowstone National Park in droves thousands and thousands of them they’re following the grizzly bears and the mountain lions that started leaving last week and it is baffling the scientific community. … All of the elk are headed in the direction of Salt Lake City, Utah,” a narrator on one post said.

But this isn’t happening, according to PolitiFact. The videos are pieced together from unrelated clips.

“We are aware of the reports and videos circulating on social media and can say that wildlife is not leaving Yellowstone National Park in large numbers,” Yellowstone National Park spokesperson Linda Veress told PolitiFact. “There is no scientific evidence that wildlife can sense impending earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”

The earliest version of this claim appears to be a video posted on TikTok in July showing mountain lions leaving the national park. However, that video wasn’t from Yellowstone, rather it was taken at the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile’s Patagonia region.

Other clips were shot in other parks around the U.S.

The National Park Service addressed the claim in a July 26 Facebook post.

“You may have seen videos or ‘herd’ online that the bison population in Yellowstone was leaving. That is false. In conclusion, as Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘don’t believe everything you see on tiktok.’ Something like that,” the post read.

• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.