Did California pay the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) more than $100 million mainly to fund protests as a viral social media post said? No, that's not true: California's payments to CHIRLA were overwhelmingly tied to immigration legal services and social welfare programs. There is no evidence in state budget records that any funds were used to pay or…
Did CNN report that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who "un-alived" Minnesota nurse Alex Pretti and claimed "self-defense" was found "not-guilty"? No, that's not true: A search across the network's website did not show any CNN story saying that happened. Talking to Lead Stories, CNN's spokesperson said that the claim is false. As of this writing, none of the…
Does a photo show a white American flying a Mexican flag while driving a truck through Minneapolis as a way to make ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents waste their time? No, that's not true: The photo shown in the social post making the claim that the practice is called "ICE fishing" was taken in Los Angeles by photographer Mark…
Has a video interview of Alex Pretti talking about how he kicked out the taillight of an SUV used by federal agents emerged and sent "shockwaves through the public"? No, that's not true: No such video has been found. The quotes are all made up. The website and Facebook pages spreading the claim are part of a spam network based…
You might have seen or heard rumors about ICE agents being deployed at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, to help provide security. The Lead Stories Rome office looked into what is actually happening, so you know what is going on if you see social media posts about it. Agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),…
Was Alex Pretti fired over complaints of inappropriate conduct with patients three months before federal agents fatally shot him on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The claim was started by a spam factory based in Vietnam that uses artificial tools to publish fake articles promoted by Facebook pages also managed from Vietnam. The article named the wrong hospital…
Did a projector cast onto Trump Tower a cartoon of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino spilling blood? No, that's not true: The video was created by an artist who told Lead Stories the drawing was theirs, but the montage superimposing it on Trump Tower is AI-generated. The artist previously published the same image of Bovino on their website and on…
Does a high resolution image of the scuffle between immigration officers and Alex Pretti provide a more clear picture of what happened just before Pretti was shot? No, that's not true: This AI-enhanced image was created from an extremely blurry still taken from a video. AI-hallucinated flaws appear as crisp visual details where the original image was indistinct. The resulting…
Did President Trump post on his Truth Social account a call for cellphone companies to add software kill switches to phone cameras so ICE and "my SS" could "kill" video recording and sharing? No, that's not true: The image, which also contained the signature catchphrase "Thank you for your attention to this matter," did not show a real post from…
Was Evan Kilgore the federal agent who shot and killed U.S. citizen and registered nurse Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement raid in Minneapolis? No, that's not true: Kilgore denied he worked for immigration enforcement agencies and threatened to sue those who spread the claim on social media. Lead Stories found nothing suggesting that the conservative commentator had built a…
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.
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