Lead Stories
Does a video shared to social media on August 23, 2023, show Russian oligarch Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin’s jet “on fire before crashing”? No, that’s not true: While the video itself is authentic, it documented an unrelated plane crash that reportedly occurred nearly two months earlier on June 24, 2023, “near the village of Kantemirovk,” about 700 miles from the village…
Do vitamin K shots typically given to infants at birth put their lives at risk with excessive and unreasonable exposure to dangerous ingredients? No, that’s not true: The claim is misleading about the properties of the additives and omits the life-saving benefits of the injections. The claim appeared in a reel published to Facebook on May 25, 2023. Its caption…
Did conservative TV personality Candace Owens call professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe an “angry toddler” while debating Rapinoe on a segment of her show, “Candace”? No, that’s not true: A representative of Rapinoe told Lead Stories this is “false information.” Also, this claim appeared in an article on a satirical website known for publishing fabricated content. The claim appeared in…
Is Lyme disease a “made-up disease” that “was and is always” HIV/AIDS? No, that’s not true: Lyme disease and HIV, the infection that causes AIDS, are distinct. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread by ticks. HIV is a virus. The two have different causes, symptoms and treatments. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, the site…
Mike & Dennis At Lead Stories we have a long history of looking at Mike Lindell’s election fraud claims. Readers will remember our fact checks about Lindell’s four conspiracy-filled election fraud “documentaries” here, here, here and here, or our coverage of his Cyber Symposium here. We also warned him about Dennis Montgomery, a man with a long history of providing…
Is an image of Donald Trump in a black pin-stripe suit the real mug shot taken after he was surrendered and was arrested in Atlanta on August 24, 2023? No, that’s not true: The image is fake and according to an AI detection website is 99 percent likely to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Trump’s real mug shot was…
Is mRNA being integrated into “every childhood vaccine” without regulatory reapproval? No, that’s not true: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls the claim “completely false.” There are rigorous regulatory processes in place to evaluate and approve any changes to vaccines, including the incorporation of new technologies like mRNA. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was the first mRNA product to achieve…
Did Anthony Fauci state in August 2023 that “all unvaccinated citizens must be locked down this winter”? No, that’s not true: Lead Stories watched the entire interview where this quote supposedly originated and found no such statement. Furthermore, no credible evidence or news reports exist that attribute the purported quote to the former director of the National Institute of Allergy…
Does the German government have study figures that show people given the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) “have overall suffered from fewer medically undesirable events as subjects who received the placebo”? No, that’s not true: As of August 4, 2023, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health said it did not have “such figures.” But not having such study figures proves nothing in…
Is this a video of the Vermont Beverly metro station in Los Angeles flooding due to the August 20, 2023, “hurriquake”? No, that’s not true: This video is of a tram tour/amusement park ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. The tour simulates what an earthquake would feel like if the person was in an underground subway car. In multiple videos of…
Was the Obamas’ personal chef writing a tell-all book before his “mysterious death”? No, that’s not true: There is no proof shown in a video making the claim that Tafari Campbell was writing a book about the former president and first lady at the time of his death near their Martha’s Vineyard home. The video purports to be from “Inside…
Does an image show a single man in China breaking up couples’ seating arrangements in a movie theater on Valentine’s Day? No, there’s no evidence of that: The image actually shows the reopening of a movie theater in Beijing amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 16, 2023. The…
Did Bloomberg publish a story saying that former President Barack Obama was a “middle man” for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at J.P. Morgan? Did Obama help the disgraced financier to foster ties with the banking institution? No, that’s not true: Bloomberg did not write anything remotely similar in August 2023. The claim on social media distorted a Bloomberg…
Did U.S. Marines arrest Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks? No, that’s not true: A Pentagon duty officer told Lead Stories that this claim “is not true.” Also, the website where this claim was made has a disclaimer that states it publishes satirical content. The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on August…
Does walking barefoot, or “grounding,” change the pH in the body? No, that’s not true: That claim is not grounded in science. A retired chemist and a dermatologist both told Lead Stories that there is no evidence that grounding has the ability to change the pH of anything around the body. The chemist said blood pH can change with exercise,…
Did Fox News report that California’s Gavin Newsom is the first governor to call for a bill to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in his state? No, that’s not true: “The Governor did not say this,” Newsom’s spokesperson told Lead Stories. And there is no evidence Fox News reported that the Democratic governor was the first to say there…
Does Amtrak have a promotion for a $1 card that allows every U.S. resident to ride their trains with no extra charges for a year? No, that’s not true: An Amtrak spokesperson told Lead Stories that the card is a scam offer. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 16, 2023. The caption of the…
Did CNN break the news that Elon Musk was unveiling an investment project, and did Musk make a guest appearance via live feed to introduce his new AI trading platform? No, that’s not true: This fake promotion is made with real but repurposed video clips that have had an AI text-to-speech voiceover added to them. The video of Musk was…
Did 14 American cities join a “World Economic Forum treaty” imposing a total ban on meat, dairy and private cars by 2030? No, that’s not true: At the time of writing, there is no such WEF treaty. The source of the claim cited an unrelated report that explored several emission reduction models and was not meant to become a law…
Does a photograph shared on X (formerly Twitter) in August 2023 authentically show “computers from J6 operation,” presumably the January 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S. Capitol? No, that’s not true: While the photograph appears to be unaltered, it was first shared to the platform on March 22, 2019, by DCI Kenya, the official account for the Directorate of Criminal…
