Water

Did Waffle House announce plans to put floating restaurants on lakes across the southeastern United States to serve boaters, anglers, and waterfront homes? No, that's not true: A Waffle House official told Lead Stories there were no such plans. An image of a floating Waffle House in the middle of a lake, surrounded by boats, was generated by an artificial…

Does a viral image document Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney dining with Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite convicted of sex trafficking girls for Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true: The image displayed a watermark pointing to a generative AI tool. Several details in the picture, such as missing temples of a person's glasses or an earring incorrectly attached to an…

Are these real photos of OnlyFans model and social media influencer Maria Julissa and Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader killed by the Mexican Army? No, that's not true: On her Instagram account, Maria Julissa said, "The information circulating is false and unfounded." Also, an AI detection tool said the images were edited or generated…

Does a video of passengers on a plane screaming while an "unknown creature is loose" show a real incident? No, that's not true: The video clip of the passengers screaming and jumping up on their seats to avoid an unknown critter running around the plane was a skit with actors. The TikTok page where it was originally posted features dozens…

Does a real video show a firefighter rescuing a mother dog and pups from a burning building by cutting the bars from a window with a grinder? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated. Lead Stories identified at least four more nearly identical AI-generated videos spawned by the same prompt. The videos have the same plotline with small variations,…

Does a real photo from 2006 show Jeffrey Epstein posing by a pool with Bill and Hillary Clinton, Diddy, Bill Gates, Jay-Z, and Stephen Hawking? No, that's not true: The image was created with Google AI. It contains an invisible SynthID watermark which can be detected with the Google Gemini app. The fake image was posted (archived here) on Facebook…

Does a real photo show Donald Trump Jr. at a shooting bench with the scope of his rifle mounted backwards? No, that's not true: This image has been digitally edited. An earlier copy of the image appears in a 2024 article with the scope mounted properly. The altered image appears in a post (archived here) published on Bluesky by @mrsbettybowers…

Did Kristi Noem say "If Jesus wanted America to speak Spanish and have the Super Bowl half time show in a foreign language, he would not have written the Bible in English."? No, that's not true: Noem did not say this. This fake quote came from a meme shared by a satire page that included a small watermark with the…

Was a bearded Jeffrey Epstein photographed walking in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2026? No, that's not true: Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. The image is AI-generated. Some versions of the image circulating on social media have been cropped, but the full-size image shows the Gemini AI Sparkle watermark in the lower right corner. Two cropped versions of the fake image…

Is a viral image showing Bad Bunny burning a flag while preparing for the Super Bowl halftime show real? No, that's not true: The image, featuring the singer wearing a white, blue and pink striped dress and lighting an American flag on fire using a lighter, first appeared on a Facebook account that says it publishes satire. It also contained…