It starts with a headline that makes your blood boil. You’re scrolling through Facebook, and there it is: a story claiming that Pauline Hanson told Anthony Albanese to “shut your dirty mouth” during a live televised debate. Instantly, you feel the outrage, maybe even share it with a friend who’d be just as fired up. But here’s the thing: it never happened. Not on television, not anywhere. The quotes were completely fabricated, and the entire story was cooked up by a foreign-run disinformation operation. AAP FactCheck looked into the claim and found no record of any broadcast debate between the…

In the coastal district of Kannur, where politics has often been written in the language of street corner speeches and quiet sacrifices, a new chapter of old tensions unfolded on Tuesday. T I Madhusoodanan, a senior functionary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and a former MLA from Payyannur, stepped forward to answer allegations that had been circulating inside the party’s local circles. For weeks, the voice of V Kunhikrishnan, the sitting MLA who has often stood apart from the party line, had been growing louder. Now he was claiming that a speech delivered by senior CPM leader Pinarayi…