Facts Matter: Biden didn't apologize to Trump
President Donald Trump recently referred to a letter of apology he said he received from former Vice President Joe Biden, but Biden's campaign said no such letter exists, according to FactCheck.org.
"Biden has now written a letter of apology because I did the right thing," Trump said during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial last week.
The president previously said Biden had apologized for criticizing Trump's travel restrictions against China, implemented in early February.
"And he actually apologized with a letter on a Friday night saying, 'He made the right move,'" Trump said at the town hall. "It wasn't well played by the press, but he said I made the right move."
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates told FactCheck the letter "never happened."
Biden in fact supported Trump's decision to restrict travel to and from China.
On April 3, Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, told CNN, "Joe Biden supports travel bans that are guided by medical experts, advocated by public health officials and backed by a full strategy."
However, on the day Trump announced travel restrictions, Biden said the president had a "record of hysteria and xenophobia," FactCheck said. Trump has since claimed those comments referred to the travel restrictions.
There is no evidence of a letter of apology, according to FactCheck, and Biden's campaign said the "xenophobia" comment was not related to the China travel restrictions.
Fauci didn't have cure in 2005
A false story claiming Dr. Anthony Fauci knew of a cure for the coronavirus 15 years ago is making the rounds on social media, according to PolitiFact.com.
An article published last month by a website named One News Now said Fauci knew in 2005 that the drug hydroxychloroquine was effective against coronaviruses, PolitiFact said.
"How did he know this?" the article reads. "Because of research done by the National Institutes of Health, of which he is the director."
The article cited a 2005 study of the drug chloroquine and its effects on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, PolitiFact said. Chloroquine is similar to hydroxychloroquine, but they're different drugs and can be risky for people with heart disease.
The article also said the study suggests hydroxychloroquine as "both a cure and a vaccine" for coronavirus. This isn't accurate because there is no cure or vaccine for SARS or the novel coronavirus, PolitiFact said.
Funeral video of Kim Jung Un's father
A video being shared on social media claiming to show the body of Kim Jong Un in a glass coffin as proof the North Korean leader is dead is fake, <URL destination="https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8838090039">according to The Associated Press.
</URL>The footage is actually from a 2011 memorial when Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, was lying in state.
Internet users and news outlets have been speculating about the health or death of Kim Jung Un recently because he hadn't been seen for weeks, the AP said. But North Korean media reported an appearance by Kim on May 1.
The video, from December 2011, shows the body of Kim Jong Il displayed in a glass coffin at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang as North Korean officials bow to the dead leader.
Coronavirus crop circle fake
A photo circulating on social media supposedly shows a crop circle in the United Kingdom that contains a Microsoft Windows logo encircled by a crown shape, resembling the coronavirus.
But the image is fake and the photo digitally altered, according to Snopes.com.
The original photo, from 2004, shows an ornate crop circle in a wheat field in Wiltshire, England, Snopes said. The photo was manipulated to remove that crop circle and replace it with the coronavirus/Microsoft crop circle.
Some conspiracy theorists shared the fake image to allege a connection between the coronavirus and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, Snopes said.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.