Maui

Is the unusually fast publication speed for the book "Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and Its Implications for Climate Change" a sign that something is suspicious -- that the author either was tipped off the disaster was going to happen, was in on it, or supernaturally predicted it? No, that's not true: The 44-page book…

Does a video show fire crawling on cement in Maui during the wildfires of August 2023? No, that's not true: The video appeared online more than a year before the Maui fires. It shows a fire in Cleveland, Ohio, in June 2022 that was reported on local news, footage that was posted on YouTube at the time. The claim appeared…

Does a video show a laser beam from the sky, or a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW), cause an explosion in a city, or spark the wildfires in Maui, Hawaii? No, that's not true: This viral video predates the August 8, 2023, Maui wildfires. It shows an electrical transformer exploding in the Santiago commune of Macul, Chile, which was first posted…

Was the 2023 Hawaii Digital Government Summit scheduled with the purpose of turning Maui into "the first smart island," "governed by AI" and was the August 2023 wildfire started to create a crisis to be solved by AI? No, that's not true: As of this writing, the event's website did not show any Maui-specific sections or outline any plans to…

Does this video of a gas station attacked with a red laser beam show an example of a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW)? No, that's not true: This video has been edited. The original eyewitness video does not feature a laser beam. Filmed in the Russian city of Makhachkala on August 8, 2014, it shows a situation developing at a Exson…

Was the deadly wildfire that began the evening of August 8, 2023, on the Hawaiian island of Maui caused by a "direct energy weapon assault"? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to support that assertion. Instead, natural factors, not a direct energy weapon, are the likely cause of the wildfires. The claim appeared in a post and video on…

Does a widely shared video of still-standing trees prove that the Maui wildfires were false flag operations? No, that's not true: Social media users who reposted the clip pointed out that some plants survived fires, but that does not support the assertion in question -- plants growing in fire-prone ecosystems naturally evolve with features that allow them to withstand fires.…

Does this video show Russian tanks abandoned in the Kharkiv Region during the September 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive that overran Russian positions in northeastern Ukraine? No, that's not true: Lead Stories has corroborated open-source investigators' use of Google Maps satellite images to identify the long industrial building as being on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, more than 300 miles distant from Ukraine's…

Is the ESPN tweet about "a noose found in Bubba Wallace's stall at Talladega Superspeedway" correct? Yes, but it is missing context that makes it clear the noose's message was not likely intended for Wallace. The tweet is a 2:54 video trailer for an ESPN TV special documentary titled, "E60: Fistful of Steel: The Rise of Bubba Wallace," that includes…

Is "medical error" the third leading cause of death in the United States? No, that's not proven: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not include "medical error" in the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States. For one thing, given the lack of a precise medical or legal definition for "medical error," it's difficult to…