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…

Did former President Barack Obama "expose" himself by referring to his wife Michelle as "Michael"? No, that's not true: While he did say the words, he was not talking about himself -- he was citing another person's experience. The claim appeared in a Facebook post on September 24, 2022. It contained a video with a TikTok logo. The caption is:…

Did Fox News revisit a "theory" about a "huge Trump and military white hat sting operation" in 12 states about the 2020 U.S. presidential election? Did this include a statement that the Biden family, elected officials, bureaucrats, social media managers and media members "are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud" and will face "military tribunals" off the coast of…

Did President Joe Biden tell Americans to get COVID vaccinations as Hurricane Ian was bearing down on Florida in late September 2022? No, that's not true: A post suggesting he did uses a video recorded in August 2021, not on the eve of Ian's landfall. Biden made no mention of vaccines when he spoke about Hurricane Ian at the White…

Did a crowd in central London chant "F*** Joe Biden" when the U.S. president's motorcade got stuck in traffic on the way to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II? No, that's not true: The original video from September 19, 2022, the day of the funeral, was overdubbed with audio from another place and time. The claim appeared in a TikTok…

Did Joe Biden's granddaughter, Naomi Biden, say he "died 4 years ago"? No, that's not true: The woman speaking in a video that makes this claim is not Naomi Biden, but a social-media user with a TikTok account labeled "satire." Joe Biden is alive and well, as of September 15, 2022. One version of the claim appeared in an Instagram…

Does a video show Sen. John Kennedy "exposing" Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, in Congress? No, that's not true: The video in a post making the claim shows an unrelated clip of Kennedy questioning voting rights activist Stacey Abrams of Georgia in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The post has a clickbait headline apparently to draw attention to…

Does a "leaked video" show Hillary Clinton leading a space cult in an "annual Earth ritual"? No, that's not true: This video shows a space-themed birthday party that took place over Labor Day weekend 2022. The video and an article published by nextnewsnetwork.com play on conspiratorial beliefs about Satan-worshiping elites but eventually reveal that the "annual ritual" was just a…