After the deluge, the lies: Misinformation and hoaxes about Helene cloud the recovery

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After the deluge, the lies: Misinformation and hoaxes about Helene cloud the recovery

2024-10-05 21:36 Last Updated At：21:40

WASHINGTON (AP) — The facts emerging from Hurricane Helene's destruction are heartrending: Businesses and homes destroyed, whole communities nearly wiped out, hundreds of lives lost, hundreds of people missing.

Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government's response.

According to former President Donald Trump, the federal government is intentionally withholding aid to Republican disaster victims. Far-right extremist groups warn on social media that officials plan to bulldoze affected communities and seize the land from residents. A tale straight from science fiction asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

The claims, according to experts and local officials dealing with disaster response, say less about the reality of the widespread damage from Helene than they do about America's fractured politics and the fear and distrust shadowing an election year marked by assassination attempts and escalating global tension.

As rescue work continues and authorities try to separate fact from fiction, the conspiracy theories are not helping. Elected leaders from both parties have had to set the record straight and urge people not to give into fear and rumor.

"If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great,” posted Glenn Jacobs, the retired professional wrestler known as Kane, who is now the Republican mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. Jacobs' post was intended to rebut rumors that workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were seizing relief supplies from private citizens.

Many of the conspiracy theories focus on hard-hit North Carolina, a state key to winning the White House. Rumors circulated that FEMA was raiding storm donations and withholding body bags, forcing local hospitals to stack the bodies of victims. One claim suggested federal authorities would condemn the entire town of Chimney Rock and prohibit resettlement in order to commandeer a valuable lithium mine nearby.

Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, X and SpaceX, posted that private relief flights to North Carolina were being blocked by the Federal Aviation Administration, a claim dismissed as false by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Despite the tradition of Democrats and Republicans putting aside politics for disaster response, many conspiracy theories suggest Democrats such as President Joe Biden or North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are intentionally withholding aid from Republicans. Trump has pushed the claim, as has North Carolina's lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, the embattled GOP nominee for governor.

“They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas,” Trump told Fox News, ignoring reports and photo and video evidence of recovery efforts underway throughout the region. “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones endorsed Trump's fact-free allegation. Jones, the founder of InfoWars, popularized the idea that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut that killed 20 children in 2012 was faked. “Exclusive: Victims of Hurricane Helene Confirm The Federal Government is Purposely Blocking Rescuers and Stealing Aid In an Attempt to Keep Deep Red Areas From Voting," Jones posted Thursday on X.

State-run media and disinformation campaigns run by China and Russia have amplified false and misleading claims about the response to the storm. Both countries have used social media and state news stories to criticize responses to past U.S. natural disasters, part of a larger effort to stoke division and distrust among Americans.

State and local officials from both parties have condemned the conspiracy theories as rumors, saying the focus should be on recovery, not political division and hearsay. Responding to the hoaxes is taking up time that should go toward assisting victims, said North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin, a Republican who urged his constituents not to give into hoaxes.

“Friends can I ask a small favor?" Corbin posted Thursday on Facebook. “Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet... Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you.”

After Robinson, the GOP candidate for North Carolina governor, posted that state officials had not prepared for the storm, a spokesman for the governor accused Robinson of mounting “an online disinformation campaign.” North Carolina officials say the response to Helene is the largest in state history, including thousands of members of the National Guard and other recovery workers, millions of meals, dozens of aircraft and more than 1,000 chainsaws.

Trump has tried to tie the hurricane’s aftermath to immigration, a leading issue of his campaign. He falsely claimed that FEMA had run out of money because all of it had gone to programs for undocumented immigrants.

The agency's funding for disaster aid is stretched, but that is because of the many parts of the country dealing with the effects of hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities. Disaster aid is funded separately from other Department of Homeland Security programs that support immigration-related spending.

Bizarre stories proposing that the government used weather control technology to aim the hurricane at Republican voters quickly racked up millions of views on X and other platforms.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., endorsed the idea, posting Wednesday on X: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

Far-out tales of space lasers, fake snow and weather control technology -- sometimes tinged with antisemitism — have spread after recent natural disasters, including a snowstorm in Texas and last year’s wildfire in Maui.

Experts who study conspiracy theories say big events like disasters — or the Sept. 11 attacks or the COVID-19 pandemic — create perfect conditions for conspiracy theories to spread because large numbers of anxious people are eager to find explanations for shocking events.

Responding to the volume of false claims about Helene, the Red Cross urged people to consult trustworthy sources of information and to think twice before reposting conspiracy theories.

“Sharing rumors online without first vetting the source and verifying facts ultimately hurts people — people who have just lost their homes, neighborhoods, and, in some cases, loved ones," the organization wrote in a public plea.

One year in, war casts a shadow over every aspect of life in Israel

2024-10-05 21:29 Last Updated At：21:30

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — At a busy Tel Aviv entertainment district, diners spill into outdoor seating and clink glasses as music fills the air. There’s laughter, there’s life. But all around the patrons, staring down from lampposts and shop windows, are pictures of hostages held in Gaza, stark reminders that Israel is at war and forever scarred by the deadliest attack in its history.

As Israel's war with Hamas reaches its one-year mark, it can seem on the surface that much of life in the country has returned to normal. But with many still reeling from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, hostages remaining in captivity and a new front of warwith Hezbollah in the north, many Israelis feel depressed, despondent and angry as the war stretches into its second year.

Uncertainty over the future has cast a pall over virtually every part of daily life, even as people try to maintain a sense of normalcy.

“The conversation about the situation is always there," said activist Zeev Engelmayer, whose daily postcard project featuring illustrations of hostages or Israel's new reality has become a fixture at anti-war protests. "Even those who are sitting in coffee shops, they’re talking about it, in every single situation I see it. It’s impossible to get away from it. It has entered into every vibration of our life.”

Hamas' attack in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped shattered Israelis’ sense of security and stability in their homeland.

Many have been rattled by the war's evolution. Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza, with less than 70 believed to be alive. Israelis have experienced attacks — missiles from Iran and Hezbollah, explosive drones from Yemen, fatal shootings and stabbings — as the region braces for further escalation.

They've watched as Israel is accused of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza and becomes increasingly isolated internationally.

“I’m almost 80 — we grew up in this country with a feeling that we have short wars, and we win them quickly,” said Israeli historian Tom Segev, who described new feelings of utter hopelessness. “We’re not used to a long war.”

Israelis have long harbored a sense that their country, born of the Holocaust's ashes and surviving a panoply of regional threats, is a success story, Segev said. They've strived, he added, for a normality akin to that of European and North American people, though their reality for decades has been anything but.

“I think that history is going backward,” he said of the past year. “Everything we have achieved on our way to becoming a normal state isn’t happening.”

Reminders are everywhere. At a Hebrew University graduation in Jerusalem, a large yellow ribbon was placed in front of the stage. A graduate who didn't attend because his brother was killed in Gaza the previous day was honored.

Israel's longstanding internal divisions briefly eased in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack, but have only intensified since. Weekly protests calling for a cease-fire deal that would free hostages are attended mostly by secular Jewish Israelis who oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

According to a September poll by Jerusalem-based think tank Israel Democracy Institute, 61 percent of right-wing Jewish Israelis — Netanyahu's base — support the war continuing.

Occupied with their own trauma, most Israelis paid scant attention to the ongoing destruction in Gaza, even as the Health Ministry there put the Palestinian death toll at more than 41,000. Israeli media have reported little on the devastation. Israelis calling for a cease-fire are driven overwhelmingly by the hostages' plight.

Many Israelis are furious at leaders and the military for not preventing Hamas’ attack. Tens of thousands of people are expected at an alternative ceremony marking one year since then, as a statement against the government's official commemoration. The state ceremony is being prerecorded without a live audience, in part because of fears of heckling and disruptions.

“The thing we lost on Oct. 7 — and we haven’t gotten it back — is our feeling of security,” Muli Segev, executive producer of "Eretz Nehederet," a popular sketch comedy show. “Despite everything, we have been able to create a life here that’s pretty open and Western.

"Especially in Tel Aviv, we go about our lives, and we don’t think about the fact that our lives are really just pauses between wars and between explosions of violence."

In the war's early months, the show's sketches were gentler, focusing on what united Israeli society, such as the massive civilian volunteer response. Over time, they featured more pointed satire, including a reimagining of negotiations if the hostages were Israeli politicians' children — released in less than two hours.

Parts of life have rebounded — beaches full of people, bustling cafes, concerts and sports back on schedules. But residents also check for the nearest bomb shelter, deal with school cancellations when violence flares up, and avoid domestic travel hubs that are now off-limits. Heartbreaking news arrives regularly, including the deaths of six hostages in August.

“It’s a nightmare; we’re just getting used to it,” said Maya Brandwine, a 33-year-old graphic designer who witnessed the Jaffa shooting that killed seven on Tuesday. “I have so little hope. I’m sure the situation will only get worse.”

Dror Rotches, a 47-year-old graphic designer, said from a Tel Aviv coffee shop: “We try to go out when we can, meet friends and try to forget for a few hours. Then we go home and keep slogging through the mud.”

Others simply can't return home. More than 60,000 from Israel's northern border with Lebanon are displaced. Thousands from the southern towns ransacked Oct. 7 are in temporary housing. Tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are serving their second or third tour of duty, straining their families and jobs.

“As the war goes on and on and we can’t see the end, there’s also a type of very large worry over the future, and, for some, if there is even a future here,” Muli Segev said.

Cafe Otef seems like any of Tel Aviv's ubiquitous coffee shops: Patrons laugh and sip specialty coffee beside a playground; light rock music plays. But next to the sandwiches and cakes are chocolates made from the recipes of Dvir Karp, who was killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and cheeses from Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 died and 30 were taken hostage. Totes and T-shirts for sale declare “We shall thrive again.”

The cafe, named for the region next to the Gaza border, is run by residents of Re'im, one of the kibbutzes struck. It's the second shop in the new chain, each aiming to support people of a southern Israeli town where lives were upended.

“The war still continues for almost a year, and I feel that if we won’t live, we will die,” said Reut Karp, cafe owner and Dvir's ex-wife. She lives with most of her kibbutz in temporary housing nearby.

The cafe gives her purpose as her community deals with trauma and the uncertainty of returning home. While it's strange to see people flowing through the doors, going about life as normal, she and the staff have found comfort in the routine.

“We must take ourselves out of bed and continue to live and to work and to have the hope," Karp said. "Because without this hope, we don’t have anything.”