Fema

Did President Donald Trump confuse research on transgenic mice with research involving "making mice transgender," when addressing Congress, as some social media users suggested? No, that's not true: On March 5, 2025, the White House issued a press release outlining the research the President was referring to. The listed studies were about the effects of certain medical interventions on mice…

Did Gene Hackman vow to "corroborate everything in the Epstein client list" in an X.com post a year before his death? No, that's not true: The user name seen in the purported February 2024 tweet does not exist and there is no indication online the 95-year-old actor was active on the social media platform in recent years. While no "client…

Did the U.S. Justice Department just release the 1998-2004 flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727? No, that's not true: We've had then since early 2015 and have embedded copies of the flight logs in several Lead Stories fact checks. This reporter investigated allegations of Epstein's abuse of young females as a national correspondent for American Media Inc. in January…

Hollywood star Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their New Mexico home on February 26, 2025, and people are alleging that it was an "double suicide." Here is what we know: Oscar-winner Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog were all found in different locations in their home and had apparently been dead for some time.…

Was Delta Flight 4819, which crashed upon landing in Toronto, piloted by a female-only crew? No, that's not true: Delta referred to the flight captain as "he" in a statement on the company website, and the first officer as "she." In an audio recording of Air Traffic Control correspondence during the flight's landing and subsequent crash, the voices of what…

Does an authentic photo show two Black women who were the pilots of the Delta Flight 4819 that crash-landed and flipped over in Toronto on February 17, 2025? No, that's not true: The inverted image in a social media post is 16 years old. It shows the first all-African-American female crew to operate a commercial jet for Atlantic Southeast Airlines.…

Did the Federal Emergency Management Agency fraudulently send $59 million to luxury hotels in New York City to "house illegal migrants"? It's complicated: A New York City Hall spokesperson told Lead Stories that New York "never paid luxury-hotel rates" and that about a third of the $59 million -- around $19 million -- covered "direct hotel costs." A Department of…

Does a video on TikTok authentically show a patient denied health care by a black female doctor because the man is wearing a MAGA hat? No, that's not true: The video appears to be a mirrored version of a video that originally appeared on a TikTok channel along with other skits. In a second version of the video the "doctor"…

Does a photo show a young Brigitte Macron with the implication that it shows her before she transitioned from male to female? No, that's not true: The photographer who took the picture confirmed to Lead Stories that the person is not Macron. The image showing a topless person with French first lady Macron's face has been doctored. The original image…

Did the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, wear a "Make America Mexicana Again" hat? No, that's not true: A representative from the Embassy of Mexico told Lead Stories the image was "NOT real." A reply under the social media post with the image of Sheinbaum wearing such a hat revealed that a logo of Grok, X's AI tool, had been…