Does a real photo of Zohran Mamdani as a child with his mother Nora Nair and Jeffrey Epstein prove the new mayor of New York City is Epstein's illegitimate child? No, that's not true: The image, which includes Ghislaine Maxwell, former President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, was made with an artificial intelligence tool. It originated on a parody account…
Is there credible evidence that crowds chanted "mass murderer" at Bill Gates when he attended the 2026 annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland? No, that's not true: The article that first made the claim didn't contain any proof of that, just an unfounded headline. No credible media organizations reported on such a protest, though it would have been…
Is Rob Reiner's name on the "Epstein List"? No, that's not true: An image that lists 165 celebrities and politicians, including Reiner, who purportedly visited "Epstein Island" is fake. The actual Epstein flight logs obtained by Lead Stories and the archive of Jeffrey Epstein emails and text messages released by a congressional committee contain no references to Reiner. There is…
Has a New Jersey supermarket shuttered its windows ever since Nov. 1, 2025 when SNAP payments were cut off? No, that's not true: The store had not, at the time this was written, closed because of a delay in the dispersal of SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. The store manager told Lead Stories they have been open during their…
Does a video clip show new footage of the Comet 3I/ATLAS? No, that's not true: This video did not originate from any research astronomy agency monitoring the interstellar comet. It is uncredited footage showing a microscopic single-celled organism, a paramecium. The mislabeled video appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @BGatesIsaPyscho on Oct. 27, 2025. The post…
Did U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "rebrand" itself to be publicly known as Homeland Security Investigators, not ICE? No, that's not true: ICE still exists under the same old name. "Homeland Security Investigators" discussed in social media posts is not a brand-new entity -- it has operated since 2010 as one of the major divisions within ICE, but the correct…
Did Bill Gates use his turn speaking at a White House dinner to apologize for things such as: Windows, viruses, vaccines, sterilizing people, and trying to block out the sun -- finishing by asking for a pardon over "all the Epstein shit"? No, that's not true: This video was published by a parody account and bears their watermark in the…
Do Canadian researchers propose to mass-vaccinate people with crop duster-style spraying of the populace, as a social media post implies? No, that's not true: The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have paid researchers to develop a needle-free inhaler to inoculate people one at a time against the virus that causes COVID-19. The post that pushes the crop duster idea…
Did a Georgia man named Julian Brown invent the process for turning waste plastic into useful fuel? No, that's not true: Brown's Naturejab system harnesses solar-powered microwaves to heat a pyrolysis reactor. That is a well-understood chemical process in which heated plastics generate usable gas and oil that has been studied and refined worldwide for decades. The claim appeared in…
Does a viral video of flood scenes include real clips of the 2025 Independence Day Weekend flooding in Kerr County, Texas? No, that's not true: The opening scene is an obvious product of generative AI. None of the clips in the montage can be traced to authentic filming of the Texas flood. The clips include news coverage of floods that…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.
