Facts Matter: Belgium protest wasn’t against Christmas
A Facebook post appeared to show a protest denouncing Christmas.
“Pro-Palestinian Extremists Invade Brussels Christmas Market on Opening Night,” read the Dec. 5 post, which included a video showing protesters chanting, banging on a drum and holding smoking flares. “Islamic extremist invade Christmas market in Brussels to protest against christmas many of them are Palestine refugees living in Belgium.”
But this claim has nothing to do with the celebration of Christmas, according to Reuters. The post is miscaptioned.
The video is real. It shows a protest that happened Friday, Nov. 28, outside the stock exchange in the city of Brussels, Belgium. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were showing opposition to the conflict in Gaza. The protest was happening as the Belgian’s Plaisirs d’Hiver, or Winter Wonders festival, began in that same location.
However, that group of protesters has been gathering and demonstrating every Friday, in that same spot, since October.
“A static action for Gaza took place on the evening of Friday, 28 November during Plaisirs d’Hiver,” a Belgian police spokesperson told Reuters.
A caption for the original video said, “We need to keep being loud until Palestine is free,” and people in the clip can be seen holding signs that read, “Save the Children of Gaza.”
Inflation hasn’t ’stopped’
President Donald Trump said “inflation is stopped” during a Dec. 17 speech on the economy, which was broadcast on several TV networks.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I’m fixing it,” the president said. “When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years and some would say in the history of our country.”
However, inflation hasn’t been stopped, and 11 months ago, inflation was not the worst it’s been, according to FactCheck.org.
During President Joe Biden’s term, the consumer price index increased 9.1% in the 12 months ending in June 2022, the largest increase since February 1981, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. But by the end of 2024, as Trump took over, inflation was just below 3%.
The worst inflation increase in the U.S. was following World War I, when it topped out at 23.7% in June 1920.
And for Trump’s claim that inflation has “stopped,” the day after his speech, the Bureau reported that inflation was up 2.7% over the past year.
Law not on the books
A recent social media post had a message about driving in North Carolina.
The long post, from a user named “North Carolina Legislature,” began, “Effective today, December 1, 2025, North Carolina has a new ‘Hands-Free NC Act’ that prohibits the use of wireless communication devices while driving. Drivers cannot hold or use a device for tasks like texting or watching videos, though voice-activated technology and factory-installed navigation systems are allowed for most drivers.”
The post was shared more than 3,000 times and the story was reported by a Charlotte-based TV network and a local radio station.
But the post is fake, according to PolitiFact. And the “North Carolina Legislature” account is not associated with the North Carolina state legislature.
North Carolina currently has a law against texting or e-mailing while driving. There is also a bill in the state General Assembly, called the “Hands Free NC Act,” which would allow drivers to be on the phone while driving, as long as they aren’t holding it in their hands.
“The ‘Hands-Free NC Act’ was never enacted by the General Assembly and is not in effect,” Demi Dowdy, a spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall, told PolitiFact.
Crows not picking up garbage
A social media post, by a user named “Sustainable Human,” claimed Swedish crows are picking up garbage left by people.
“In the Swedish town of Södertälje, wild crows are showing humans how smart they really are — in a very literal way,” the Facebook post read. “A local startup set up a pilot program where crows can collect discarded cigarette butts and drop them into a special receptacle. Each butt earns the bird a small food reward.”
Similar posts on other platforms carried the same message, each using a different photo of a crow with a cigarette butt in its mouth.
Sounds great. But the post is false, according to Snopes.
The source of the information appears to be an article in The Guardian newspaper, which said the company Corvid Cleaning was training crows to clean up the streets of the Swedish city.
In 2022, the head of Corvid Cleaning, in fact, did propose this idea to the city of Södertälje.
The company’s chief had “presented his pilot project during Science Week in Södertälje in 2022,” a city spokesperson told Snopes, but the municipality had not proceeded “with any collaboration or project beyond that.”
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.