Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine begins UK rollout with 90-year-old grandma
The United Kingdom began nationwide distribution of Pfizer/BioNTech’s highly anticipated COVID-19 vaccine with this woman.
The claim: The first vaccine recipients in the UK are crisis actors
This week, Margaret Keenan — a grandmother who turns 91 next week — became the first recipient of the coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom.
She received the shot, produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, on Dec. 8 at University Hospital Coventry and said it was “the best early birthday present,” per USA TODAY.
But some skeptics have taken to the internet with allegations that Keenan is not who she claims — and is actually a crisis actor.
An analysis by USA TODAY showed that in just 24 hours, over 475,000 Twitter users were potentially exposed to a single tweet that levied the allegation.
The proof they cite ranges from photos of similar-looking women to the variant dates on news articles that feature photos of vaccine recipients like Keenan.
Joe Ward, for example, posted a photo of Keenan receiving the vaccine, a photo of another woman falling to the ground, and a screenshot of a profile on the casting website StarNow.
“Liz Scott AKA Margaret Keenan. Crisis Actor. Whoops…,” he wrote on Facebook.
Mindy Robinson, meanwhile, posted screenshots of two news articles featuring photos of Keenan. The first — a story about Keenan from BBC — was dated Dec. 8. The second was a story about the coronavirus death tally, dated Oct. 22.
“Excuse me, but how is the exact same person who’s the ‘first to get vaccinated’ today…also in a CNN photo wearing the exact same clothes, in the exact same chair, and getting a shot back in October?” she wrote on Twitter.
Erin Marie Olszewski also posted screenshots of articles with different dates. Rather than Keenan, the articles include photos of William Shakespeare, 81, the second recipient of the shot.
The first — a story about Shakespeare, from BBC — was dated Dec. 8. The second was the same story on CNN about the coronavirus death tally, dated Oct. 22.
“Crisis actors,” she wrote on Facebook. She also posted a meme that compared photos of Shakespeare and Keenan as they received the shot, administered by the same nurse.
“Busy nurse today working in Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon at the same time,” the meme reads, along with a sarcastic emoji.
Ward and Robinson have not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment.
Olszewski told USA TODAY that her post “didn’t claim that it was for sure.”
Rather, she posted it as an example of what she sees to be a pattern of media that “fakes the news” on COVID-19.
“Even if this particular one isn’t true, it has happened in the past, and that cannot be disputed,” Olszewski said.
No credible evidence that vaccine recipients were crisis actors
There is no credible evidence to suggest that Keenan is a crisis actor.
In reality, the now-retired grandmother is a former jewelry shop assistant, per a press release from the National Health Service.
She is clearly depicted in photos and videos from Reuters and the NHS England — and looks different from both of the women in the other photos posted by Ward.
Take the photo of a woman falling to the ground.
The image — snapped by Justin Tallis, a staff photographer for the AFP — came from an anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination demonstration in London on Sept. 26.
The woman in the photo hardly resembles Keenan, apart from her red hair. She appears to be much younger and less frail.
The same is true of Liz Scott, the woman in the profile on the casting website Star Now.
On her profile, Scott lists her hair and eye color as brown. In contrast, Keenan has red hair and blue eyes. Scott also lists no acting experience, including crisis acting.
Asked about the crisis-actors conspiracy theory, a journalist at The Sun told Lead Stories that Keenan is “100 percent a real person.”
“She and her family have spoken to various media outlets and there are loads of pics of her out there if you Google,” he wrote in an email. “Journalists have also been to her home. The whole theory is … crazy.”
What about the articles that feature photos of Keenan and Shakespeare, but are dated prior to Dec. 8?
The story in question, published on CNN.com on Oct. 22, covered a report on the coronavirus death tally. The article doesn’t actually include any images of Keenan or Shakespeare.
But directly below the headline, the webpage displays a video reel with a recent handful of videos, including a video on the recent vaccinations that shows footage of Keenan and Shakespeare.
Mindy Robinson herself later noted this, and tweeted: “So, benefit of the doubt they just use new stories in their banners on old articles?”
The meme about the nurse who administered the shots is also wrong.
It claims that the nurse who administered the shots was working in “Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon at the same time.” She wasn’t — but she didn’t have to be.
Shakespeare received the shot at University Hospital Coventry, just like Keenan. Both received the vaccine from nurse May Parsons, per the New York Times.
(It was a different William Shakespeare, the 16th-century playwright, who hailed from the town of Stratford-upon-Avon.)
Fact checkers from Reuters and Politifact have also debunked claims that Keenan is a crisis actor.
A few other claims about Keenan have appeared online, too.
Some have claimed that Keenan is actually dead based on an obituary from 2008. But the subject of the online memorial is “clearly a completely different person,” according to Vice News.
Others have baselessly asserted that a gesture she made links her to the Freemasons or the Illuminati. There’s no proof of a connection to either.
Our rating: False
Based on our research, the claim that the first vaccine recipients in the U.K. are crisis actors is FALSE. There is no evidence that Margaret Keenan, a grandmother who will turn 91 next week, is a crisis actor. Photos used as proof depict different-looking women. A story on CNN in October does not actually show Keenan or William Shakespeare, who also received the vaccine; it just includes a video of them in a reel above the story. And they both received their shots in Coventry.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
