Election

Is a photo of Donald Trump showing him with heavy facial wrinkles, pale skin and sweat authentic? No, that's not true: The image has been altered to exaggerate facial wrinkles and to add bumps to his skin. The alteration has also lightened parts of his face. The original photo published by a news outlet does not show the same skin…

Did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorse Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan, and call her "a true friend of Israel"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Netanyahu made such an endorsement or statement, and Stevens' campaign called the claim "false." No credible news outlets have reported that Netanyahu endorsed her…

Did Democrats vote against a bill that only contained a ban on members of Congress and their spouses trading individual stocks? Yes, but that is missing context: While H.R. 7008 includes a ban on stock trading, it also includes a separate provision requiring voters to provide photo identification. A vote against the bill was not necessarily a vote against the…

Did former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeal to China to meddle in the 2020 election during a TV interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC? No, that's not true: Clinton posed the hypothetical question while mocking special counsel Robert Mueller. In his report, Mueller had dismissed Donald Trump's call for Russia to help obtain Clinton's private emails in the…

Do viral screenshots of a Wikipedia article about French soccer referee François Letexier confirm that he is Jewish? No, that's not true: The edits made after the 2026 Egypt-Argentina FIFA World Cup game didn't link to credible sources stating that. Lead Stories found no publicly available information suggesting that Letexier grew up in an "Orthodox Jewish family." The claim appeared…

Is an email from the Epstein files with a joke about Mitt Romney's wife and Barack Obama real? Yes, that's true: The email appears among the Epstein files on the Justice Department website. It was sent to Jeffrey Epstein by Emirati businessman and billionaire Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem in November 2012. The claim appeared in a post and image (archived…

Have you seen the viral videos showing mass protests in the streets of British cities? Lead Stories has spotted several such videos recently and found that many were created using artificial intelligence. These videos do not show real people or situations. Instead, they seek to exploit feelings of sympathy and patriotism by triggering emotions such as indignation and anger among…

Have you come across viral videos showing how people mock influencers for wearing Christian-themed clothing? Lead Stories has identified several of these clips in recent weeks and determined that many were AI-generated. The people and scenarios depicted there were not real -- social media accounts posted this kind of content to play on religious sentiment, driving likes and shares as…

Are social media posts claiming that Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, or other celebrity women wore "probably the smallest bikini In the world" real? No, that's not true: The images used in the posts were created with artificial intelligence tools and distributed on a network of fake Facebook fan pages managed from North Macedonia. These clickbait posts link to blogs filled…

Does a video show two towers crashing into each other during the Venezuela earthquakes on June 24, 2026? No, that's not true: An AI detection tool determined that the video was 98.6% "likely to be AI-generated" and appears to be a 3D physics simulation or computer-generated imagery (CGI) effect. In addition, the exaggerated physics of the two buildings leaning into…