International

Did Dior fashion house replace Bella Hadid with Israeli model May Tager due to Hadid's support of Palestine? No, that's not true: Hadid left Dior and joined beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury in March 2023, as the company publicly announced on its social media pages. This was seven months before the 2023 Hamas-Israel war erupted. Tager is not new to Dior.…

Does a post on social media confirm that a Palestinian family grieved over a doll wrapped in white for burial, staging their loss? No, that's not true: The available body of evidence strongly suggests that the footage showed the body of an infant. The scene was shot from multiple angles by at least two different people, and both said it…

Does the listing of "Pneumonia mycoplasma" in Pfizer's guidance on adverse event reports associated with its COVID-19 vaccine prove that the shot caused a respiratory outbreak in China? No, that's not true: It's a fundamental misreading of standard vaccine documents, which direct doctors to rapidly report any problems from a long list as a precaution. The Centers for Disease Control…

Does a video of a man, described in a news report as a militant, show a staged arrest on the Gaza border because he is first seen blindfolded and in his underwear, then apparently putting his pants back on with no blindfold? No, that's not true: While social media accounts did not alter the Fox News footage compared to the…

Did the Rothschild family buy or do they own Rothschild Island in Antarctica? No, that's not true: The island, which is part of Antarctica and not owned by anyone, was sighted from a distance by the French Antarctic Expedition between 1908 and 1910. The expedition leader, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, named it after Baron Edouard de Rothschild, the then-head of the French…

Does a video posted on X show Israeli protesters surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem to demand his resignation? No, that's not true: The video shows a rally taking place in Tel Aviv to call for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. At least two English-language signs carried by protesters refer to Israelis held hostage…

Did Russian President Vladimir Putin order "the destruction of a Kyiv pharmaceutical laboratory suspected of manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines" owned by Farmak, one of Ukraine's major companies selling medical products, in November 2023? No, that's not true: The company's warehouse near Kyiv had been burned down roughly a year and a half earlier. It happened during the early stages of the…

Was Oprah Winfrey's private jet at Jeffrey Epstein's island 11 different times? No, that's not true: There is no proof that Winfrey's private plane was ever on convicted pedophile Epstein's island Little St. James in the Caribbean. The island is only 75 acres and does not have a runway for Winfrey's private plane, or any planes, to land there. Winfrey…

Was a 3-year-old Palestinian child detained in 2023 in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers as shown in a video? No, that's not true: This incident did happen in the town of Hebron in the West Bank; but it happened in 2018. As recorded in the video, the child's family succeeded in freeing the child from the soldier's grasp. The…

Did U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say that a ceasefire is when "somebody sees a fire"? No, that's not true: This is a deepfake video originating from a meme account that identified it as such with a "deepfake" hashtag. The voice track that mimics the voice of Ocasio-Cortez was added over a video clip taken from a livestream posted by the…

Did the Irish government deploy military vehicles to stop people expressing public outrage about the stabbings of children and a woman in Dublin? No, that's not true: According to the Irish Defence Forces, an image that showed military vehicles in Dublin posted on X on November 23, 2023, had "no connection" to an attempt by riot police to stop rioting…

Did VG, a Norwegian newspaper, report that the average age of Palestinians killed in Gaza was 5 years old, as claimed by an image on social media? No, that's not true: The newspaper reported that 5-year-olds represented the age group with the highest number of people killed in Gaza between October 7 and October 26, 2023. Taking the largest age…

Does a video on Instagram show a Doctors Without Borders medic scooping up a rifle from a fallen gunman and running it up the street to another gunman who is still shooting? No, that's not true: The uniform worn by the person in the video carries the logo of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a different organization. Higher-resolution video filmed…

Does a video on social media show President Joe Biden speaking very slowly and haltingly about the powerful drug fentanyl? No, that's not true: The video in a viral Instagram post has been digitally edited. In the real, extended video, Biden speaks at a natural pace on various topics at a press conference during the U.S.-China summit in November 2023.…

Does a video show Apeel coating applied to a cabbage? No, that's not true: The cabbage in the video is not real, and it's not meant to be eaten. The footage shows a way to make food samples for display, and it's from Japan, not the United States. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on October…

Does a social media video of three young women fighting off multiple men in a tunnel passageway depict an actual event involving Israeli girls -- or, depending on different versions using the same video, French paramilitary women or Turkish girls? No, that's not true: It's a staged skit, and the fight is fake. The video features trained professionals and was…

Does a video show Israeli soldiers placing their national flag atop the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza? No, that's not true: Al Shifa buildings seen in other photos didn't appear to have any UN markings on the rooftops, while the building in versions of the flag-raising scene did have clear UN markings on its roof. A representative for the United…

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 U.S. Special Forces arrest Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko on U.S. soil as of November 17, 2023? No, that's not true: A Pentagon duty officer confirmed for Lead Stories that this claim is false. The website where this claim was published carries a disclaimer saying it publishes "humor, parody and satire." The claim appeared…

Did Indian billionaire and businessman N.R. Narayana Murthy endorse a quantum computing software that uses quantum AI to trade stocks? No, that's not true: A fake voice has been used in a video on social media to make it appear Murthy made this endorsement. Lead Stories could not find any evidence to substantiate that Murthy made these statements. We also…