Politics

Will 10 states be issuing a fourth round of IRS stimulus checks on November 30, 2023? No, that's not true: There is no 2023 federal tax benefit stimulus program from the IRS nor are all the states listed in a social media post issuing their own stimulus checks. Virginia will be issuing rebate checks to eligible taxpayers before November 30,…

Does an image taken from footage on January 6, 2021, reveal a federal agent holding a badge as part of a staged federal insurrection or "Fedsurrection"? No, that's not true: The image shows Kevin Lyons, a Chicago man sentenced to 51 months in prison on six federal charges. Multiple news stories identify him and show Lyons at the U.S. Capitol…

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 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…

Does a viral video show proof that the U.S. national debt was paid off in 2017? No, that's not true: The U.S. Treasury website shows the current U.S. national debt, which is about $33.7 trillion, a number accepted by U.S. financial markets, independent economists and the Federal Reserve Bank. The video relies on paperwork that has nothing to do with…

Is the U.S. government planning to order young women to enlist in the military? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, November 17, 2023, there is no plan afoot to draft women, a Defense Department spokesperson told Lead Stories. There is currently no draft -- there hasn't been since 1973 -- and the law requires that only men…

Did House Speaker Mike Johnson say that "homosexual relationships" were "more satisfying than hetero relationships"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Johnson ever publicly made that statement. The fake quote may have been inspired by an opinion column Johnson wrote in 2004 that supported a same-sex marriage ban in Louisiana, his home state. The claim appeared in…

Did the Ministry of Health in Gaza announce that all the ICU patients at the Al Shifa hospital had died in mid-November 2023 because of Israeli bombardments and cutting off electricity as well as blocking supplies? No, that's not true: Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila misstated at a November 11, 2023, news briefing that all 39 babies at the hospital…

Does a compilation of gun camera clips show Israeli Apache helicopters firing on civilians who were running from the Supernova music festival during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023? No, that's not true: Independent investigators with GeoConfirmed identified locations in the footage near one of the Gaza border fence breaches several miles away from the location of the music…

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…

Did House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson say that "Every woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker"? No, that's not true: Johnson's director of media affairs told Lead Stories that he "never said anything of the kind." Johnson made reference to "able-bodied workers" during a congressional hearing in 2022, but did not say the words attributed…

Did a "Prague newspaper" publish an article referring to Canada as a "confederacy of fools" and describing its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as "the prince of fools" in 2023? No, that's not true: The purported quote is a years-old repurposed fragment of text whose authorship has never been verified. In the past, the same quote was used to criticize other…

Did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's psychiatrist commit suicide in 2023? No, that's not true: This claim was published in 2010 by a blog that labeled its content "News, Commentary and Satire," and it was recirculated online in 2023. There is no evidence that Netanyahu's psychiatrist, if he has one, committed suicide in 2023. The claim appeared in an article…

Did Russia bomb "a cloning lab" in Ukraine's Donetsk, occupied by Russia in November 2023? No, that's not true: The website that published the claim relied on a fictitious single source, and that site carries a disclaimer saying it publishes "humor, parody and satire." No credible media organization reported the purported "news." The claim originated in a article (archived here)…

Does a video show a large billboard ad of an ABC News "Stand With Ukraine" message being replaced with a "Stand With Israel" message in New York City's Times Square district? No, that's not true: This video of the intersection of 50th Street and 7th Avenue has been edited to show a fake advertisement. The real illuminated billboard display at…

Does a video show a Gaza man giving "an Oscar-worthy performance for the camera" with fake injuries? No, that's not true: According to translated audio, the footage shows a group of people saying that the man's wounds are not as serious as they could be, in an apparent effort to reassure a relative or friend. Viral posts spreading the claim…

Does a video show British police officers expressing support for a pro-Palestinian rally in London during the 2023 Hamas-Israel war? No, that's not true: London's Metropolitan Police told Lead Stories that the men in the footage were not their officers. The video captured people wearing bright yellow jackets with the insignia of Peace Officers UK, a group of COVID-19 deniers…

Does an image shared on social media document a 2023 attack on a French Jewish woman in her home during this year's escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the Middle East? No, that's not true: The photo predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel war. It was taken in 2017 in Michigan. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known…