Are COVID vaccines toxic and did mysterious "globalists" seek to kill off the weak and enslave the rest of the world's population by triggering the pandemic? No, that's not true: Both are recycled conspiracy theories, being repeated in a sales pitch to sell anti-COVID vitamins. The claims are supported not with evidence, but with far-fetched interpretation of current events. Hundreds…

Did Fox News publish a report stating "Rogue Special Operations Team Exits Afghanistan"? No, that's not true: The claim appeared on a counterfeit newsroom account using a fake name. A Fox News representative told Lead Stories, "FOX News did not make this claim." The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published by a page calling itself foxnewsmiami.florida on…

Did the Cyber Ninjas' Arizona audit report show thousands of illegal ballots? No, that's not true: The Republican-commissioned audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County -- Arizona's most populous county -- did not prove that more than 23,000 mail-in ballots that were submitted by voters who moved before the election were illegal. The report, which was released on September…

Did a study conducted at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which was posted as a preprint on medRxiv.org, show the incidence of myocarditis after a COVID-19 vaccination was one in a thousand -- a much higher incidence than other studies had found? The answer is both yes and no. That finding was erroneously reported in the original preprint --…

Was Bill Clinton found dead in his jail cell located at Guantanamo Bay? No, that's not true: No publicly available evidence supports the claim, made on Real Raw News, a satirical website that publishes articles like this one for entertainment purposes. Clinton has been active on social media and spotted in public on the days and after the days the…

Does a video prove that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau faked the first doses of their COVID-19 vaccinations? No, that's not true: Although their vaccinations appeared to be unconventionally administered, the medical professional who administered the vaccines used an effective procedure, according to medical experts. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted…

Did ballots in Arizona show "VERIFIED AND APPROVED" stamps behind a black triangle, meaning that the image was fake or not a valid ballot? No, that's not true: The image shown during the presentation of the Maricopa County election audit was an inversed image made by the scanner, the Office of Maricopa County Records told Lead Stories. The claim appeared…

Are "duplicate ballots" in Maricopa County, Arizona, proof of voter fraud? No, that's not true: "Duplicate ballots" or ballot envelopes don't prove duplicate votes. If a voter sends back a mail-in ballot and the signature on the envelope is questioned, or there is no signature, election officials will work to cure that signature by contacting the voter. If the issue…

Does the headline on this post correctly summarize the contents? No, that's not true: This video is another example of a clickbait tactic of a spam network that deceptively captures the attention of an American audience with hot-topic headlines that bear little relation to the content of the underlying video. The video is typically a well-produced package lifted from mainstream…

Are COVID-19 vaccines hidden in salad greens? No, that's not true: There's no publicly available evidence salad greens are being spiked with any sort of vaccine and the claim was made without supporting evidence. Research being done by scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and elsewhere seeks to produce vaccine components using plants. They're looking at whether they…

Are Google search result timestamps guaranteed to be the exact publication dates of web pages? No, that's not true: Google can only approximate the date that a web page was published. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted to Bitchute on September 24, 2021. The video was titled: TN MASS SHOOTING REPORTED DAYS AGO. THEY GOT A LITTLE…

Do the photos in this tweet show the wounds created by rubber bullets fired by police in Melbourne, Australia? No, that's not true: While rubber bullets were allegedly used on protestors in September 2021 demonstrations in Melbourne, none of these three photos are from 2021 or from Australia. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on September 22, 2021.…

Did a body double for President Joe Biden blow his cover during a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson? No, that's not true: The president does not have a body double. The story was made up by a website known for their wildly farcical stories regarding political figures, which Lead Stories has debunked multiple times. A message on the…

Did the volcanic eruption on La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands on September 19, 2021, trigger a tsunami warning in the U.S.? No, that's not true: The National Tsunami Warning Center, part of the U.S. National Weather Service, confirmed that the claim is false. The claim appeared in an Instagram post on September 22, 2021. The narrator of the…

Did the New England Journal of Medicine backtrack and admit the COVID-19 vaccine may not be safe for pregnant women? No, that's not true: An update posted by the Journal did not change the number of pregnancies a study found resulted in a spontaneous abortion after receiving the COVID vaccine; the number remained the same from the study published in…

Did a funeral director from Milton Keynes, England, make a case that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, or that it is caused by the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: John O'Looney's conspiracy theories defy logic and are readily dismissed with publicly available information. His interview, dated September 16, 2021, has been mirrored on many video platforms. One example…

Did a leading German medical doctor prove that 80% of those in the official tally of COVID-19 victims died of something else? No, that's not true: The claim relies on a newspaper interview in which Dr. Bertram Haussler was speculating about July and August of 2021 data collected for Germany's health officials. The newspaper has since revised its headline, but…

Is a meme correct in implying that there is no scientific proof behind the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of vaccines? No, that's not true: The FDA provides publicly available documentation on its website for each of the three COVID-19 vaccines that have already been widely distributed, including memoranda that detail scientific proof through clinical studies to support its…

Did the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) redact a COVID-19 vaccine ingredient because it's a mysterious substance that the public shouldn't know about? No, that's not true: The redacted ingredient is water. A spokesperson for the FDA told Lead Stories that if the company considers the ingredient a trade secret or a confidential commercial item, the ingredient gets redacted on…

Does this video of an air quality monitor's danger signal prove it is unhealthy to wear one of the surgical masks recommended to slow the spread of COVID-19? No, that's not true: The screen on the gadget in the video, according to the user manual and an instructional video for the Honeywell device, indicates either a fault with the device…