Most bad numbers are not invented. They are borrowed from the right study and dropped into the wrong sentence. Four of this week's five claims are that exact move. One of them, on measles, is only wrong about timing, which is the rarest kind of wrong we score.
HYPE OF THE WEEK
Money - Data Centers, Your Power Bill and a Number That Moved House
The claim. AI data centers are driving up your electricity bill. Twenty three billion dollars in customer price increases, and bills near data centers up as much as 267 percent. [1]
The check. The 23 billion is real and traceable. PJM Interconnection's independent market monitor concluded in its 2026 first quarter State of the Market report that expected data center demand was a primary reason for 23 billion dollars in customer price increases lasting until at least the end of 2028, across a 14-state footprint. The 267 percent is where it falls apart. PolitiFact rated that version Mostly False on June 12, 2026, because 267 percent described wholesale prices paid by utilities, and wholesale is only 30 to 50 percent of a consumer bill. The direction of causation is contested too. An Electric Power Research Institute working paper using FERC and EIA data from 2015 to 2024 found that for every doubling of data center capacity, average retail prices fell 3.5 percent, and that the average state's residential rates would have been about 6 percent higher without the data centers built between 2019 and 2024. The authors' own caveat is the crux. That only held through 2024. Virginia residential rates rose 13 percent in a single year, and PJM now projects a further 6.3 billion dollar increase over three years. [1][2][3]
The Take: There is a real and worsening regional cost story here. It does not need the 267 percent, and the 267 percent is not describing your bill.
VERDICT: 68/100 - Mostly Hype
Signal vs. Noise
Business - The Entry-Level Job Is Not Dead, but One Study Says It Is Shrinking
The claim. AI has wiped out the entry-level job. Employment for young workers in AI-exposed occupations is down 13 to 16 percent and the bottom rung is gone. [4] The check. The figure is real and comes from Stanford's Digital Economy Lab, which reported a relative decline of about 13 percent through July 2025 rising to roughly 16 percent by October 2025, and which tested and rejected interest rates as the explanation. A firm-level study points the other way. Ramp Economics Lab and Revelio Labs studied 21,559 firms from January 2021 to February 2026 and found high-intensity AI adopters grew entry-level headcount 12 percent over the 24 months after adoption, with entry-level share rising 1.15 percentage points. The two are not strictly contradictory, since one measures occupational exposure across the economy and the other measures adoption inside firms. The loud version only ever cites the first. [4][5]
The Take: Real effect, real measurement, and a second dataset that the headline never mentions.
Score: 58/100 - Half and Half
Science - Megalodon at 79 Feet, Which Is the Ceiling and Not the Animal
The claim. Rediscovered fossils prove megalodon reached 79 to 80 feet, far bigger than scientists thought. [6] The check. The fossils are real. Several vertebrae from one animal, roughly 11 million years old, from Denmark's Gram Formation, believed destroyed in a 1989 museum move and found on a shelf decades later. The largest is 23 centimetres across, the largest known for the species, with at least 64 growth bands. The 24.3 metre figure is not a typical size. It is the maximum, and it comes from a March 2025 survey of body proportions across 165 shark species which described it as the largest possible reasonable estimate that can be justified based on science. The same study's estimate from the far more complete Belgian vertebral column is 16.4 metres, about 54 feet. There is no complete megalodon skeleton, so every length is extrapolated. [6][7]
The Take: An outlier's upper bound, printed as the species average.
Score: 62/100 - Half and Half
Health - The Measles Record Is Real. The Elimination Headline Is Early.
The claim. The United States has lost its measles elimination status and 2026 is already the worst year since elimination was declared in 2000. [8] The check. The case count holds up. Johns Hopkins reported 2,295 confirmed cases as of July 21, 2026, passing the 2,289 recorded for all of 2025 and making this the highest annual count since 1991, with peak season still ahead and nearly all cases in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people. The status half is premature. That determination is made by the regional commission that does not convene until November 2026, and the test is whether domestic transmission ran uninterrupted for twelve months. Johns Hopkins describes loss of status as anticipated, not decided. The Region of the Americas did lose its regional status in 2025 after transmission was re-established in Canada, and that fact keeps getting folded into the US claim. [8][9]
The Take: Right about the outbreak, early on the verdict, and the confusion comes from borrowing Canada's news.
Score: 48/100 - Half and Half
Science - The Earth's Core Did Something Interesting Sixteen Years Ago
The claim. Earth's molten core suddenly reversed direction and scientists do not know why. [10] The check. The finding is legitimate and the uncertainty is honest rather than clickbait. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh working with the European Space Agency found that around 2010 a region of iron-rich fluid roughly 2,200 kilometres down beneath the equatorial Pacific switched from weak westward to strong eastward flow, reconstructed from satellite magnetic data spanning 1997 to 2025. Three things the viral version drops. It is not a magnetic pole reversal, and ESA states these events pose no threat to people or climate. The flow has already weakened since 2020 and the authors cannot say whether it was a blip, an oscillation or a new normal. And the paper published in May 2026, describing an event from 2010, so the word suddenly is doing a great deal of work. [10][11]
The Take: Good science, honest scientists, and a headline that aged it down by sixteen years.
Score: 66/100 - Mostly Hype
Number of the Week
0.8. Percentage points that tariffs added to core PCE inflation through February 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Board economists who produced the 3.1 figure everyone quotes. The 3.1 applies to core goods only, not to the inflation rate you hear on the news.
Source: Federal Reserve Board FEDS Note, April 8, 2026, corroborated independently by the Dallas Fed at roughly 0.80 points. [12]
Quietly Real
Subprime auto delinquency did hit a record, at 6.74 percent sixty days past due. The Philadelphia Fed's read is that this overstates distress, because the rate at which borrowers first fall behind has been stable for three years and the rising stock comes from loans staying delinquent longer as lenders lean on extensions. The genuine outlier sits elsewhere and gets almost no coverage. The flow of student loans into serious delinquency jumped to 10.86 percent from 8.04 percent. [13]
Check This
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Sources
https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/data-centers-23-billion-electricity-bills/
https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/jun/12/elizabeth-warren/data-centers-rising-electricity-costs/
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/07/10/data-centers-lowered-electric-bills-in-some-places-for-now
https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publication/canaries-in-the-coal-mine-six-facts-about-the-recent-employment-effects-of-artificial-intelligence/
https://ramp.com/data/ai-jobs-impact/paper and https://www.reveliolabs.com/news/ai-and-work/greater-ai-investment-more-hiring
https://theconversation.com/megalodons-legendary-life-revealed-by-fossil-rediscovery-286375
https://www.depaul.edu/news/megalodon-study-2025 and https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2026/06/28/how-big-could-megalodon-really-get-rediscovered-fossils-reopen-the-debate/
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/2026/2026-us-measles-cases-surpass-2025-level
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/us-exceeds-1900-measles-cases-outbreaks-expand
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Swarm/Insights_into_Earth_s_molten_outer_core_from_space
https://geosciences.ed.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/insights-into-earths-molten-outer-core-from-space
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/detecting-tariff-effects-on-consumer-prices-in-real-time-part-II-20260408.html and https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2026/0505-mau
https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/FRBP/Assets/Consumer-Finance/Reports/cfi-report-april-2026-do-recent-auto-loan-delinquency-rates-overstate-borrower-distress.pdf and https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/research/2026/20260512
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