Abortion

Did GovTrack delete only Vice President Kamala Harris' 2019 report card, which rated her as the most liberal senator that year? No, that's not true: GovTrack told Lead Stories that it consolidated and deleted everyone's 2019 report card. Her 2020 report card, which covers two years, rated Harris as the second most liberal member of the Senate. Founder Joshua Tauberer…

Does the conservative "Project 2025" initiative to reshape the U.S. government call for a ban on abortion and contraceptives, increased retirement age, cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits, plus elimination of overtime pay and of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found these claims, posted on Facebook, to be false by reviewing the…

Did quarterback Colin Kaepernick, a civil rights activist, say he is boycotting the NFL as long as kicker Harrison Butker is on an NFL team and did he say of Butker, "I don't like him"? No, that's not true: This claim initially appeared in an article on a satirical website known for publishing fabricated content. There is no publicly available…

Did Donald Trump announce in a Time magazine interview that "he'd force every pregnant woman to submit to constant government monitoring" to ensure they don't have an abortion? No, that's not true: The former president outlined many other plans for the next term if he is re-elected, but this specific proposition was not one he explicitly argued for in the…

Does a video on social media show President Joe Biden "shaking hands" at a campaign stop with someone who is not there -- "a ghost," as the video puts it? No, that's not true: The video of Biden at an event in Florida does not show the large crowd he is gesturing at. But photos and videos from local and…

Were the Nazis involved with the abortion pill RU-486 as claimed by an anti-abortion activist? No, that's not true: The French company that created the pill did so in the 1980s, but the activist made the connection by claiming the company is owned by a German company that created the poisonous gas that was used in Nazi death camps during…

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 study by the University of Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center discover that women harvest and store in their brain DNA from every man they've ever made love with? No, that's not true: The headline on an article grossly misrepresents the findings from a study that did find male DNA (a phenomenon called microchimerism) in 63…

Is a "WEF agent" revealing a plan to exclude "less desirable" people from digital currency that will take over the world? No, that's not true: The man in the first clip in the video is a renowned Cornell University professor who was speaking at a World Economic Forum event but he is not an "agent" of the organization. He was…

Did Alex Soros, son of billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Soros, say in an interview that he wanted to "eradicate conservatives from the Internet" and that he is "100 times worse" than his father? No, that's not true: In a Wall Street Journal article that featured an interview with the younger Soros, Alex Soros is never quoted as mentioning conservatives…