False claims about the Charlie Kirk assassination, the Jeffrey Epstein files, and purported verbal gaffes by President Trump topped the list of most-read Lead Stories fact checks in 2025. Here are our most read fact checks of the past year, reflecting our reader's interest in finding out the truth about various viral stories. If you see something suspicious in 2026,…
Did Arizona teachers mock the murder of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk by wearing 'Problem Solved' T-shirts covered in what looked like artificial blood? No, that's not true: According to the school district's superintendent, in a since-deleted Facebook post reported on by local media outlets, the T-shirts predated the assassination of Turning Point USA Co-Founder Kirk by more than…
Did Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika, go on social media to announce that she and her husband's organization, Turning Point USA, started a new dating app and that she joined it even before the memorial service for her husband? No, none of that is true: The image used to prove the existence of such a post originated from a subreddit, not…
Did Metallica's frontman James Hetfield publicly suggest that the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was the result of "a dark plan"? No, that's not true: No credible media outlets reported that. The musician didn't write that on social media, either, because he is not on such platforms. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook, where it…
Is there a video of Charlie Kirk's father collapsing in grief at a memorial set up outside the Turning Point USA headquarters? No, that's not true: The promise of a video of Kirk's Father collapsing is a clickbait ploy. There is no video at the link provided in the Facebook post from a page operating from Vietnam. The photo included…
Was a Secret Service agent standing with Donald Trump after he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, also standing close to Charlie Kirk when he was fatally shot in Orem, Utah, on September 10, 2025? No, that's not true: The male Secret Service agent holding Trump's left arm as Trump raised his right fist in the air…
Did Barron Trump announce, as a social media post claims, that he's dating Sasha Obama and that she "will be his one and only wife"? No, that's not true: The TikTok video says the announcement put Barron's father, President Donald Trump, in the hospital, a made-up event corroborated by no credible information sources. A president disappearing from his announced-in-advance schedule…
Were the Minnesota shootings targeting state lawmakers and their family members motivated by leftist political views of the suspect, Vance Luther Boelter? While many details remain unclear as of June16, 2025, available evidence doesn't support this theory. Here is what we know about Boelter's political affiliation. A rumor about Boelter's left-leaning views appeared in a post (archived here) on X,…
Did "The Simpsons" predict that April 29, 2025 will become "the day everything stops"? No, that's not true: The internet rumor originated from an account that posts "fictional stories". The video never used a direct video citation from the series. Lead Stories analysis of the visual sequence suggested it was created with generative AI. The claim appeared in a post…
Did the Central Intelligence Agency in 1978 only request to black out mentions of Israel when journalists and historians sought to read documents about investigations into President John F. Kennedy's assassination? No, that's not true: The CIA wanted other things to be redacted, too, as seen in other files from the JFK collection. According to the agency's website, it generally…
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