Politics

Was the price of gasoline $5 a gallon when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021? No, that's not true: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website says a gallon of regular unleaded gas was only going for close to $2.33, on average, at that time. For September 2022, the most recent month government statistics were available at…

Will the proposed Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022 ban all non-Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved supplements and ban all herbs? No that's not true: Senate Bill 4090 doesn't give the FDA more power. The bill would make ingredient lists available and require any supplements sold across state lines to be registered with the FDA. The claim appeared in an…

Did Democratic election officials in Pennsylvania mail out 255,000 ballots to unverified voters? No, that's not true: As required by state law, county election offices mailed applications for mail-in or absentee ballots to any registered voter who requested an application. An application for a mail-in or absentee ballot is not the same as an actual ballot. In an email to…

Does a 2022 ballot initiative in Connecticut "remove the requirement of a certified seal from certain ballots" and does it mean that "certain ballots don't have to have security seals to be processed" anymore? No, that's not true: Connecticut voters paying close attention to the full text of the initiative will see it does not mention anything about seals on…

Does a New Zealand funeral director's statement that 95 percent of the corpses he sees had been vaccinated against COVID-19 prove that vaccines are causing mass death? No, that's not true. This claim was drawn from anecdotal observations that did not account for consequential variables, nor were these observations independently confirmed or corroborated by published or official data. With more…

Are there no pictures of President Joe Biden in the Oval Office in 2022, and does this prove he is not really president? No, that's not true: Numerous pictures and videos of Biden in the Oval Office during 2022, shot by professional photographers, exist online. For instance, on October 26, 2022, the date of this fact check, the news agency…

Did Titanic, a German satirical monthly magazine, release a cover in October 2022 that features an illustration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sucking money and resources into his mouth? No, that's not true: The October 2022 issue of Titanic does not feature Zelenskyy and the illustration has not appeared on any of the other issues' covers. The claim appeared in…

Does a video circulating on social media show evidence that war footage of Russian attacks on Ukraine was staged? No, that's not true: It took out of context the footage of actual film sets -- one clip dating from 2013 -- recycling the falsehoods that fact-checkers had debunked during the first days of the war. The claim appeared in an…

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…

Is it true that Google translates the Ukrainian president's last name to English as "evil rules the world"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories replicated what social media users suggested others do to get this result but found no confirmation. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on October 7, 2022. It said: 🇺🇦 This is creepy .... Take…

Did a gay porn actor named Brandon Cummings get arrested after fighting off 35 neo-Nazis? No, that's not true: This story originated on a satirical website. A screenshot of the headline and what looks like a mug shot was making the rounds on social media in October 2022 with no clear label that this was not a real story. Daily…

Was a U.S. submarine near the Nord Stream pipeline explosion? No, there's no evidence for such a claim. This claim was made on the Real Raw News website, which is known for publishing fabricated content. There are no serious media sources that make this claim. The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on October 18, 2022,…

Does the Republican "Commitment to America" say they will take Social Security away from disabled veterans, and raise the age for Medicare to 75 and take it away at 90? No, that's not true: The image of the plan proposed by Republicans led by Kevin McCarthy in the House of Representatives is not the real plan. The minority leader's website…

Did Sen. Josh Hawley say the phrase "I will not use your pronoun" while questioning a "liberal general" at a U.S. Senate hearing? No, that's not true: Neither a video published on Facebook under this attention-grabbing headline nor the full recording contained this sentence. Participants in the hearing referred to each other by title or rank combined with their last…

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…

Did Shannon Corless, assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis for the Department of the Treasury, voluntarily surrender to "Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) investigators" for committing a crime? No, that's not true: A Pentagon duty officer told Lead Stories that this claim is false. Real Raw News, the website from which this claim originated, is known for publishing fabricated content.…

Are Pope Francis, the late Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Joe Biden members of the same family? No, that's not true: There is no evidence supporting this online rumor, which recycles a 24-year-old conspiracy theory. The claim appeared in a post on Instagram on October 14, 2022. The caption says: I KNOW SOME WEIRD SHIT WHEN I SEE SOME…

Does a Boston University (BU) study of a COVID-19 strain with an "80% lethality" have implications for humans? No, that's not true: The kill rate refers to mice used in the lab tests, and BU's manipulated virus was less lethal than existing wild viruses, which showed a kill rate of 100 percent. The experiment conducted at BU manipulated the SARS-CoV-2…

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…