Omarosa exaggerated Chicago's weekend murder tally
During a "Daily Show" stop to promote her new book, former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed there were 600 murders in Chicago during a weekend earlier this month.
She was off by 599.
Manigault Newman said Chicago saw "600 murders over this weekend" during the Aug. 14 interview plugging "Unhinged," the tell-all book covering her time as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison for President Donald Trump, according to Snopes.com. She listed Trump's vow to reduce violence in Chicago among the president's unfulfilled campaign promises.
A 29-year-old woman was killed and more than 30 people were wounded in shootings throughout the second weekend in August, according to NBC news, Snopes said.
In a previous Twitter post, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said there were 63 murders in Chicago during the first weekend in August. The city recorded 12 people dead among the 63 shot during that weekend, according to Snopes.
Plan's savings based on cuts
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders recently touted his "Medicare for All" plan, claiming the legislation would lead to $2 trillion in national health care savings over 10 years.
The senator's July 30 Twitter post followed a study of Sanders' bill by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia, according to The Associated Press.
Sanders was pointing to the study's prediction of a decline in health care spending of more than $2 trillion from 2022 to 2031 as long as doctors and hospitals accept a 40 percent decrease in Medicare-based payments, AP said.
However, the report also said if medical professionals continued to be paid at the current rate, under Medicare for All, national health care spending would increase by $3.25 trillion over 10 years, AP said.
The study concluded "more generous health care insurance would be provided to everyone at the expense of health care providers," according to AP.
Churchill didn't say that
An image of a scowling Winston Churchill alongside the words "Churchill on the left wing: 'The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists,'" was posted on Twitter this month by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, topped with his own words, "Some insights are timeless."
But the former British prime minister was not responsible for that quote, according to the Texas Tribune.
Hours after the Aug. 7 message went out, it was removed from Abbott's Twitter account.
When asked about the post later that day, Abbott said it was "irrelevant" who made the statement. "If no one else said it, attribute the quote to me because it's what I believe in," he told the Tribune.
Abbott also posted less-than-reliable information last year on Twitter, according to the Tribune. He shared a false claim Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would remove football players from the team if they didn't stand for the national anthem.
The governor later said he wished the fake story was true, because he supported it.
Picture of protest, not stoning
A photo recently making the rounds on social media shows a woman buried in the ground up to her neck as someone gives her a spoonful of water.
The caption falsely claims the woman is about to be stoned to death in Iran, according to Snopes.com.
The image of Maria Gabriela, a 66-year-old woman who was voluntarily buried along with two men, is from a 2003 protest in Colombia, Snopes said. The trio spent days buried in order to bring attention to the government's failure to relocate displaced people in the city of Cali.
Users who shared the post expressed outrage at the image of a woman sipping water before being executed, Snopes said.
Iran has been criticized for the use of stoning as a form of capital punishment, according to Snopes.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.