Did an image of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy depicting him as a "locust" eating up budgets around the world appear in New York City's Central Park as of January 10, 2023? No, that's not true. A Lead Stories reporter found no traces of it and the NYC Parks Press Office denied seeing such a drawing. The claim appeared in a…
Did the judge in the trial of Young Thug sentence the Atlanta rapper to 25 years in maximum-security prison, as of January 12, 2023? No, that's not true: Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, was not convicted -- much less sentenced -- as of January 12, 2023, when this fact check was written. The claim appeared on Facebook…
Does the song "Jingle Bells" make a hidden reference to slaves forced to wear bells so they could be easily tracked if they tried to escape under the cover of night? No, that's not true: The song "Jingle Bells," originally named "One Horse Open Sleigh," is a song about the fun of a winter sleigh ride. The song is not…
Does a sudden decrease in the displayed vote tally for U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker during Fox News coverage of Georgia's December 6, 2022, runoff election prove that voter fraud occurred? No, that's not true: Human error by the Associated Press (AP), the news organization that provides voting data for multiple networks, including Fox News, was responsible for the change…
Did police in Kennesaw, Georgia, investigate a toxin-laced tissue that was reportedly placed on a gas pump handle by human traffickers to incapacitate their victims? No, that's not true: Lead Stories contacted two law enforcement agencies in Cobb County, Georgia, where the incident allegedly took place, and neither had any record of that, nor of it being reported. The person…
Did graffiti showing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eating money appear in the capital of France during November 2022? No, that's not true: Neither local authorities nor the personnel of a store located near the supposed graffiti's site saw it. Journalists sent on location did not find any signs of the graffiti. The absence of other images of the scene suggests…
Did U.S. Special Forces take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into custody after the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps charged her with "multiple counts of treason and seditious conspiracy"? No, that's not true: A representative of the U.S. Special Operations Command earlier denied to Lead Stories that Special Forces had arrested any civilian, and noted that the Special Forces do…
Does a photo on social media show Georgia's U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, clad in a jumpsuit, walking in front of a line of women wearing penis pants? No, that's not true: The image is of a Nigerian celebrity attending a funeral in Nigeria for a music executive's mother in October 2022. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on…
Are these staged photos taken from the phone of an employee of the Ukrainian CIPSO (Center for Information and Psychological Operations) showing fake victims, proving the war in Ukraine is staged? No, that's not true: The photos were taken in 2016 during a first-aid training exercise for the Ukrainian organization TacCat First Aid. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, several…
Were "poll pads" in Texas caught adding "hundreds" of voters in real time as a poll was being closed? No, that's not true: The state-certified Election Systems & Software (ES&S) voting systems e-pollbooks in Dallas County, Texas, previously experienced "some delay in the downloading" of checked-in voters and then caught up, according to the Texas Secretary of State. "The updating…
Lead Stories is a U.S. based fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or
inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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