Does a viral clip confirm that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Monaco bombing suspect Anastasiia Berezovska a military award in 2022? No, that's not true: The rumor was based on a doctored clip. The real footage of the award ceremony didn't show people who looked like Berezovska. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @GarbageHuman24 on…
Are YouTube content creator Nick Shirley and Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson cousins? No, that's not true: No verifiable evidence exists that the two men are related. Some people making the claim cited a response from the AI assistant Grok saying that Shirley's and Robinson's mothers are half-sisters, but another Grok response said the opposite. Shirley also denied the…
Did an FBI document published by Judicial Watch name Butler County, Ohio, Deputy Kinlee Hoyle as the officer who exchanged emails with the shooter in the 2024 assassination attempt of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania? No, that's not true: The FBI document in question mentions interviews with "5 Deputies of the Butler County Sheriff's Office" in Pennsylvania but does not…
Are social media posts claiming that Pope Leo XIV and a long list of celebrities each filed a $50 million lawsuit against a news host for "vicious, calculated defamation" real? No, that's not true: None of the celebrities named in the posts made any such statement. The claims came from a spam operation managed from Vietnam that uses AI-generated Facebook…
Was Cole Tomas Allen, the man accused of shooting at attendees at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner, on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee and several California Democratic politicians, including Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and Adam Schiff? No, that's not true: A DNC spokesperson, a Newsom spokesperson, and a Pelosi spokesperson all told Lead Stories the…
Does a viral image of a man at the Western Wall actually show Cole Tomas Allen, the man charged with the attempted assassination of the sitting U.S. president? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no credible sources linking the image to Cole Tomas Allen. Available evidence strongly indicates that the image is a product of generative AI. The claim…
Did a viral post prove that the woman collecting wine bottles at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner was Ukraine's Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna? No, that's not true: The post did not include any evidence to support the identification. On the night of the shooting at the event, Stefanishyna looked different from the woman shown in the video. The claim appeared…
Did Jimmy Kimmel offer a "sincere apology to everyone regarding that widow joke" on Monday's episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"? No, that's not true: Kimmel did not make the apology featured in a reel posted on Facebook. The Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector determined the audio track of the reel is an AI-generated voice clone. Melania and Donald Trump demanded ABC…
Does an abstract digital image from 2021 contain a hidden image showing the famous raised fist photo from the 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa.? No, that's not true: The digital image was presented in 2026 with a transparent overlay so that both images were intermingled. It does not contain a hidden image of the 2024…
Does a viral video show high-resolution "unedited raw security footage" of the suspected shooter running through a checkpoint at the 2026 White House Correspondents' dinner? No, that's not true: The video was enhanced with AI, and, in the process, the technology altered the details. The clip showed glitches typical of AI-generated content, and the account that first published it confirmed…
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