Did Wisconsin run out of ballots in Republican-leaning "red areas" on the day of the State Supreme Court election on April 1, 2025? No, that's not true: The shortage affected only the City of Milwaukee, election officials told Lead Stories. In the last three federal elections, the city supported Democratic candidates. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published…

Does a viral video show singer R. Kelly walking out of prison after being pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2025? No, that's not true: The scene predated the singer's conviction in the 2022 criminal trial. As of this writing, R. Kelly is still on the list of currently incarcerated people on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. The…

Did a series of Facebook posts in late March and early April 2025 offer genuine concern over Katie Cunningham, a police officer supposedly missing from various locations in the United States? No, that's not true: Such posts were examples of a known "bait-and-switch" scam, which garnered well-meaning shares of the original post before flipping its content to boost dubious real…

Did investor Warren Buffett pay $1 trillion in cash to acquire Elon Musk's Tesla Motors company? No, that's not true: The story originated as an April Fools joke and went viral online. No actual news websites reported on any such investment or acquisition. The story appeared as an article (archived here) on GoBankingRates on April 1, 2025 titled "Warren Buffett…

April 2 is International Fact-Checking Day, a global celebration of truth and accuracy. Like every year we want to take the opportunity to say that "Facts Matter". Usually at Lead Stories we are quite content to let the facts speak for themselves, but this year we have a much more eloquent guest speaker, world-famous actor Stephen Fry: Some of our…

Does a viral clip show authentic archival footage of U.S. President Ronald Reagan telling a story about his conversation with a child who wanted to solve homelessness? No, that's not true: Two AI detectors found that the clip utilized AI generated sound. The video recycled the recording of Reagan's last presidential address from the Oval Office, but in reality, he…

Did President Donald Trump cancel 20 truckloads of food en route to Ohio food banks and throw it away rather than give it to needy people? No, that's not true: While the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March of 2025 cut federal funding for local food purchased for food banks and schools, there is no evidence this required fresh food…

Did President Trump post a message to Truth Social about denaturalizing and deporting dual citizens as "traitors" under the espionage act? No, that's not true: A viral image purporting to be a screenshot of such a post was fabricated. The post did not appear on Trump's account. An example of the image appeared in a post on X (archived here)…

Did a March 2025 video demonstrate that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had issued an arrest warrant for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton? No, that's not true: the video included two clips of Bondi mentioning the Clinton email controversy, but nothing to support a title which declared "Pam Bondi ISSUES ARREST WARRANT for Hillary Clinton." The Justice Department made…

It's that day of the year again! April Fools' Day is upon us. We're keeping a running list of the online jokes we spot this year. Seen one we missed? Email [email protected] and let us know! Flightradar24 Airplane tracking website Flightradar24 revived the supersonic Concorde aircraft and made one fly from London to New York, currently being tracked by over…