More or Less

As part of the fast-moving argument over US military support to Ukraine, the US demanded $500bn worth of access to what was variously reported as Ukraine’s rare earths or rare metals or rare minerals. But is there that amount of minerals in the ground?

Presenter: Tim Harford

Has the US really sent Ukraine $350 billion for its war effort? Is a $500billion cut of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals a good deal? How will the UK fund the governments ambitions to raise defence spending to 3%? But most important of all - how many muscles are in an elephant’s trunk?

Presenter: Tim Harford

As negotiations to end the Ukraine war rumble on, Donald Trump seems equally interested in talking about the past, repeatedly claiming that the US has given much more aid to Ukraine than Europe has, and that Europe’s aid took the form of a loan that they’ll be getting back.

Emmanuel Macron has publicly contradicted the US President - so who’s correct?

Nathan Gower speaks to Taro Nishikawa, project lead at the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker to get the true picture.

Presenter / Producer: Nathan Gower

Last week Elon Musk revealed that he had been through the Social Security Agencies database and found millions of people aged over 100.

The vast majority of these people are dead, but their accounts and social security numbers remain live.

Elon claimed that he had uncovered ‘the biggest fraud ever’ prompting some news outlets to speculate that billions of dollars might be being paid to these dead people every month.

But is it true? We look at whether this is new information and what the data actually tells us.

Produced and presented by: Lizzy McNeill

On the 25th January, the US Press Secretary announced that in their bid to stop ‘fraud’ and waste DOGE had cancelled $50 million worth of condoms being sent to Gaza by the United States Agency for International Development (aka USAID).

President Trump later repeated this claim, adding on that Hamas were using said condoms to make bombs to fire at Israel.

On the 7th of February the USAID website was taken down.

We fact check this claim and find out how much of the US budget was spent on USAID programmes.

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald

Babies born in the US to Black Hispanic or African American mothers are more likely to die than any other ethnic group in America.

That is a fact.

But the reason why this happens is unclear. In 2020 a study came out that claimed that black babies attended by white doctors after birth were twice as likely to die than white babies attended by white doctors.

People jumped to the conclusion that the race of the doctor was leading to the different outcomes. But when you delve into the numbers, a very different picture starts to emerge.

Presenter: Lizzy McNeill

Google claim their latest quantum computer chip is able to process something in five minutes it would take a normal computer 10 septillion years to figure out.

As this is a massive amount longer than the entire history of the known universe, that seems to suggest the chip is extremely powerful.

But when you understand what’s going on, the claim doesn’t seem quite so impressive. Dr Peter Leek, a quantum computer scientist from Oxford University, explains the key context.

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald

Just before being inaugurated as US president for the second time, Donald Trump launched something called a “meme-coin”.

Newspaper headlines claimed that the Trump meme-coin had made the president billions of dollars wealthier. But it is far from clear that this is the case.

What has the colour of your hair got to do with your capacity to withstand pain?

We investigate the claim, which regularly circulates on social media, that natural redheads are 25% tougher than their brunette peers.

Pain expert Jeff Mogil explains how it all comes down to something called MC1R.

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald

The claim that 79% of asylum seekers in Sweden go on holiday in their home country has been repeated regularly on social media.

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald