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Does a social media video show a "transhuman" baby from parents who received the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: The mother of the baby shown in the video post told Lead Stories that her daughter was born in August 2020, before the COVID vaccines were available. The Pfizer shot was first approved under emergency use authorization on December 11,…

Did the Instagram account @_The.Republican.Party_ publish the full list of Jeffrey Epstein's "clients"? No, that's not true: A social media post claiming to reveal the "full list of Elite Clientele that were present on Epstein island" is nothing more than clickbait. Though the Epstein black book of celebrities is an authentic and consequential piece of information that may be made…

Did the U.S. government file a patent to use an enzyme called luciferase to track the vaccination status of individuals? No, that's not true: While the patent is authentic it was filed on September 16, 2019, predating the COVID-19 pandemic, and was accepted in November 2020. Separately, the claim is not supported with credible public documentation that the U.S. government…

Are Australian farmers being forced to inject livestock with mRNA vaccines that are killing cows? No, that's not true: Some biotechnology firms and governments have announced plans to research and eventually roll out less expensive and more efficient mRNA vaccines made for livestock, but no such "mandate" has been announced, and thus no mass die-off of vaccine-receiving animals has been…

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mandate that students get COVID-19 shots? No, that's not true: While an independent CDC advisory committee did vote on October 20, 2022, to add the COVID vaccine to its list of recommended childhood shots, each state sets its own vaccine requirements. The CDC already recommends COVID shots to everyone 6 months…

Was the state of Texas, not Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world on October 7, 2018? No, that's not true: In 2018, Texas produced, on average, roughly 4.42 million barrels of oil a day, while Saudi Arabia produced nearly 10.6 million barrels a day on average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's website. An energy expert…

Does a video of first lady Jill Biden singing at a Philadelphia Eagles football game include genuine audio of crowds loudly booing her? No, that's not true: While Lead Stories could not verify whether Biden was booed during the game on October 16, 2022, we can verify that the audio used in this video is not authentic. The original video…

Did Kaiser Permanente, a major American non-profit healthcare provider, admit that the risk of COVID-19 infection "increases with each [vaccine] shot"? No, that's not true. Lead Stories spoke with the lead author of the study, an assessment of the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine, that this claim targeted. He said that online commentators cherry-picked the study's findings and twisted the results to…

Does a video show President Joe Biden singing the popular children's song "Baby Shark" during a news conference? No, that's not true: The video is a deepfake created for entertainment purposes and apparently first posted by a social media creator whose bio explains they regularly post video content that has been artificially created. The claim appeared in an October 17,…

Is it possible to cheat the mail-in ballot elections system in Live Oak County, Texas, and vote on behalf of a deceased person? It's possible, but it would be extremely difficult. Many safeguards are in place to prevent that from happening. In a phone interview with Lead Stories, Live Oak County Voter Registrar Deanna Atkinson said there are "a lot…

Does a photograph show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pretending to speak into a cellphone during the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol? No, that's not true: Official footage from which a widely shared screenshot was taken clearly showed an active call before Pelosi's iPhone screen went dark, likely the result of an activated internal proximity sensor. The claim…

Did special counsel John Durham unveil President Joe Biden's "Russian plot," aimed at getting Hillary Clinton elected in 2024? No, that's not true: Durham has said no such thing. A post making the claim includes various Newsmax clips as supposed support for its statement, but the clips do not corroborate the allegation. They are unrelated to it. The claim appeared…

Was former President Donald Trump awakened out of bed by investigators seeking to search his Mar-a-Lago residence, as the headline of a video claims? No, that's not true: The video itself never mentions the search of the Florida property -- it's about the U.S. Capitol insurrection -- and its headline is a ploy to entice clicks. The claim appeared in…

Does a video posted on Facebook show Sen. John Kennedy releasing classified documents in the Senate or declaring that an interlocutor had "a deal" with President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden? No, that's not true: The video shows Kennedy questioning FBI Director Christopher Wray about a former FBI agent who was involved in investigations into Hunter Biden. Sen. Tom Cotton…

Did Rep. Jim Jordan play a video downloaded from Hunter Biden's laptop that incriminated House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff? No, that's not true: The video with this claim shows Jordan criticizing Schiff over matters that have nothing to do with Hunter Biden or the contents of a computer hard drive that media reports have linked to him. The claim…

Does this video show Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting "thrown out" of Congress during a congressional hearing? No, that's not true: The footage is from a 2019 hearing and does not show her being ejected. The transcript from this hearing also does not show anyone asking Ocasio-Cortez to leave or be escorted out of the room. The headline is clickbait. The…

Can former President Donald Trump be reinstated by a Supreme Court decision in the case of Moore v. Harper? No, that's not true: Lead Stories asked legal experts about the claim and they said there's no chance that Trump could be reinstated as president because there's no constitutional mechanism for doing so. Also noted, the case has no bearing on…

Does the presence of "QR code signature mismatch" error codes reported in some Dominion voting machines in Tennessee invalidate Georgia election results? No, that's not true: Experts with whom Lead Stories spoke said there is no connection between error codes found in Tennessee voting machines and Georgia election results, and that such error codes are generic indicators election administrators use…

Does a video show Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana "exposing Biden's dirty secret" in Congress? No, that's not true: The video in a post making this claim shows unrelated clips of Kennedy questioning Labor Secretary Marty Walsh during an appropriations meeting, and speaking about inflation during a floor speech in 2021. The post has a clickbait headline, apparently to draw…

Did President Joe Biden order the replacement of the U.S. dollar with a trackable spyware version of digital money that will give the government control over the bank accounts of all Americans? No, that's not true: None of that language appears anywhere in the order, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury told Lead Stories. Biden did sign a March 2022…