Politics

Did nearly a quarter of a million voting attempts fail in the November 8, 2022, election in Arizona and did that impact the vote count? No, that's not true: The communications director for the Maricopa County Elections Department called the allegation "textbook disinformation." While many ballots were scanned and rescanned multiple times, the votes were ultimately counted. Arizona Secretary of…

Do pictures from former President Donald Trump's and President Joe Biden's inaugural ceremonies represent an adequate comparison between the respective popularity of the two presidents? No, that's not true: The photos were taken under dramatically different circumstances, making such a comparison irrelevant. Unlike Trump's inauguration, which was more in line with standard protocol for presidential inaugurations, Biden's inaugural committee had…

Did Russian special forces, under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, destroy an "adrenochrome lab in Ukraine" as of January 23, 2023? No, that's not true: This claim comes from a website that regularly publishes fabricated content. Lead Stories has previously debunked content from this website that mentioned the "adrenochrome" conspiracy theory. The claim appeared in an article published…

Did the end of the use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), not the polio vaccine, cause the sharp drop in polio cases? No, that's not true: Polio is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus -- not DDT. Thanks to the vaccine, cases have dropped by 99 percent, according to health and medical experts. The claim appeared in an Instagram post on…

Did the German government claim that investigating COVID vaccines would be "dangerous for democracy"? No, that's not true: Alena Buyx, who is not in the German government, did not claim that such investigations would be a threat to democracy. She is a German medical ethicist who since 2020 has been chair of the German Ethics Council, an independent group of…

By Evgenia Prodaeva Did the Russian media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda (Young Communist League Truth) report that Ukrainians used dead Russian soldiers to assemble a battlefield image of assassinated Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in honor of Bandera's January 1 birthday? No, that's not true: The page administrator of the Ukrainian Facebook page TFN, which regularly mocks mainstream Russian media, confirmed…

Does a video circulating on social media prove that the Social Security Administration (SSA) headquarters in Maryland was abandoned and "nobody works there" as of January 2023? No, that's not true: The clip was shot in 2022, during a COVID-related temporary suspension of operations in the building. As of January 23, 2023, the building is "open and fully operational," the…

Did the Chinese military equip its soldiers with self-destruct helmets? No, that's not true: There's no evidence from the Chinese government or from official Chinese state media that members of the military are being given helmets with that feature. The claim appeared in a video on YouTube (archived here) published by Roman Balmakov, a reporter for The Epoch Times, on…

Does a background screening document prove that Hunter Biden paid his father, President Joe Biden, nearly $50,000 per month in rent to live in his father's Delaware home? No, that's not true: The amount listed on the form as "Monthly Rent" -- $49,910 -- matches what the younger Biden paid in quarterly rent for an office space in Washington, D.C.,…

Did new graffiti negatively portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appear in London? No, that's not true: Based on analysis of open-source data, Lead Stories identified the location of the purported drawing as Lindt Home of Chocolate in Zurich, Switzerland. The Lindt Home of Chocolate spokesperson confirmed to Lead Stories that the posts in question showed the front of their building,…

Is President Joe Biden actually "unelected" and is his status as president "in violation of the Constitution"? No, that's not true: In accordance with the Constitution, Biden was duly elected as president of the United States. This process is not, as a social media post claims, an overreach of the federal government. The claim appeared in a post on Instagram…

Did President Joe Biden propose a ban on gas stoves? No, that's not true: He is against the idea of a future ban on gas stoves, a White House spokesperson has said. A Consumer Product Safety commissioner said gas stoves posed a "hidden hazard," but clarified that he meant regulations would only apply to future products. The claim appeared on…

Did the chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) call for an immediate end to COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: The head of the FDA is Dr. Robert M. Califf and he is not mentioned in the article where the claim appears. The story instead refers to Dr. Paul Offit, who is a member of the FDA's vaccine…

Did President Joe Biden just form a "union" with Mexico and Canada that ended U.S. sovereignty? No, that's not true: The claim misconstrues the Declaration of North America, a trilateral partnership aimed at addressing major regional issues like security, sustainability and inclusiveness. The declaration says nothing about sovereignty and does not "give away American interests." The claim appeared in a…

Did an image of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy depicting him as a "locust" eating up budgets around the world appear in New York City's Central Park as of January 10, 2023? No, that's not true. A Lead Stories reporter found no traces of it and the NYC Parks Press Office denied seeing such a drawing. The claim appeared in a…

Was Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), hospitalized after a bad reaction to a vaccine and does that mean he will not be speaking at the World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland, in mid-January 2023? No, that's not true: The site putting out the story has a disclaimer that says it publishes…

Does this video of President Joe Biden speaking show that his face was twisted in a squinty sneer when he misspoke and accidentally referred to January 6th as "July the 6th"? No, that's not true: While Biden did misspeak and the audio track of this video does not appear to be changed, features of Biden's face -- his eyes, nose…

Does a video shot from a helicopter show an airborne machine gun assault, either just before or after the January 5, 2023, arrest of the son of "El Chapo" Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez? No, that's not true: Some of the footage circulating is more than a year and a half old -- posted on Facebook on August 21, 2021. Additional…

Did the Special Forces, a branch of the U.S. Army, raid the Biden family beach house in Delaware? No, that's not true: There is no evidence to back up the claim, and Real Raw News has a history of writing about fake Special Forces raids. This website is also well known for making up stories about public figures. The claim…

Did the BBC post a graph that showed a dramatic increase in the "Fortunes of Ukrainian politicians" between February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and December 2022, after the receipt of billions of dollars in U.S. assistance? No, that's not true: The BBC did not post this image, which has been widely distributed on social media.…