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Was an American soldier holding a "China flag" when President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California unusual or a breach of protocol as implied by a tweet from Graham Allen? No, that's not true: A State Department spokesperson told Lead Stories that anytime a foreign leader is hosted in the United States, a member of the…

Did 17,327 dead people vote in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election? No, that's not true: The Michigan Office of the Auditor General released an audit in March 2022 that found 1,616 votes cast by electors who died prior to election day in the 2020 general election were tallied. No voter fraud was determined to have occurred by the audit,…

Does a video show California's governor, Gavin Newsom, falling down the steps while deplaning? No, that's not true: According to the person who first posted it, the footage, filmed in 2014, shows Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who at that time was the coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats. The California's Governor's office confirms that the video does not show Newsom. The old…

Did Barack Obama's stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, run death squads for the Indonesian army in the mid-1960s? No, that's not true: The identities of those who organized the death squads are well known and Soetoro was not one of them, a professor who has studied the mass violence of 1965-66 in Indonesia told Lead Stories. While Soetoro, a geography student, was…

Did a video genuinely show President Joe Biden falling down Air Force One stairs while visiting Warsaw, Poland? No, that's not true: The video showed an unidentified person falling down the airplane stairs, but Lead Stories reviewed independent media footage and confirmed that this person was not the president. The clip, reshared on social media in November 2023, originally circulated…

Does a topless photo show New York Attorney General Letitia James? No, that's not true: This photo does not show James, but Stacey Plaskett, the U.S. delegate to Congress from the Virgin Islands, who was a victim of cybercrime. Two disgruntled ex-staffers pleaded guilty to federal cyber-related charges and were sentenced in 2018 for hacking her phone and disclosing private…

Did NBC News say that former President Barack Obama, who left the White House in January 2017, was serving a "third term" in 2023 as a shadow president? No, that's not true: NBC did not report that. Its news article only referred to claims about Obama "somehow secretly still in power" as an example of election-related misinformation, emphasizing that such…

Did U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggest that Elon Musk go to the sun to study climate change? No, that's not true: The audio and the visual backdrop of this video clip have been digitally altered. In the real interview that this footage was taken from, on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Ocasio-Cortez did not speak about sending Musk to…

Did climate activist Greta Thunberg advocate for "biodegradable missiles" in an interview with the BBC? No, that's not true: A clip that circulated on social media in October 2023 featured altered audio from an BBC interview in 2022 in which Thunberg discussed climate change. Nowhere in the original interview did Thunberg mention "biodegradable missiles" or other claims that were included…

Is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "required to take the COVID vaccines off the market" as of October 21, 2023? No, that's not true: COVID-19 vaccines are not being taken off the market by the FDA as of this writing. All vaccines that were available in October 2023 had a reassuring safety profile, and health experts point to statistics…

Did President Joe Biden announce the reintroduction of the draft? No, that's not true: A video showing such a purported announcement was created using artificial intelligence. An online outlet created this video using AI, describing the clip as "AI imagines what would happen if Biden declares and activates the Selective Service Act ..." If such an announcement had actually been…

Does a photo on social media show President Joe Biden sunbathing on a beach during the Hamas-Israel conflict and House speaker crisis in October 2023? No, that's not true: The picture shows the president and first lady Jill Biden at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on August 2, 2023. While the first couple did spend the weekend of October 20, 2023 in…

Did New York state Attorney General Letitia James lose 80 percent of the civil fraud case against Donald Trump, as a social media post claimed? No, that's not true: The judge in the case did not dismiss any portion of the charges filed by James in New York against the former president, a legal expert told Lead Stories. Trump's legal…

Does U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have a net worth of $13 million as a social media post claims? No, that's not true: The district communication manager for Ocasio-Cortez told Lead Stories, "The claim is false." The post on X cited no sources nor did it indicate what the $13 million figure is based on. Ocasio-Cortez's latest official financial disclosure report…

Did Katie Hobbs "mysteriously" step down as governor of Arizona? No, that's not true: Hobbs left the state for one night to attend a meeting in Washington, D.C., her office said. State Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced on social media that she was the acting governor while Hobbs was out of state from September 27, 2023, to September 28, 2023. The…

Did the Arizona Senate bring indictments against Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Runbeck Election Services, banks and local police for election fraud and other crimes? No, that's not true: The Arizona Senate is not authorized to issue indictments, the state Senate GOP spokesperson told Lead Stories. The video shown in the social-media post that made the claim…

Did President Joe Biden misspeak while addressing a picket line of striking United Auto Workers (UAW) in Michigan on September 26, 2023, saying that while he had marched in other UAW picket lines it was the "first time I've ever done it in person"? No, that's not true: Biden was misquoted in a social media post. He was speaking into…

Did Reuters publish 2024 presidential election polling numbers that heavily favored former president and current candidate Donald Trump? No, that's not true: Reuters has debunked the fake numbers and a map associated with the numbers. The map was created on a website that allows users to design their own "election forecast." The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published…

Does a social media post prove that a U.S. F-35 fighter jet landed safely "at the Chinese base in Cuba"? No, that's not true: The debris of an F-35 that vanished in September 2023 was found after a daylong search; its pilot had safely ejected before its crash. No official statements contradicted this version of events, and a national security…

Did President Joe Biden's family say he died and was replaced by an actor in 2019? No, that's not true: This article and accompanying video from The People's Voice is baseless. There is no member of the Biden family who has claimed that Joe Biden died in 2019 and was replaced with a body double. That claim arose from an…