North Carolina

Did the A&W chain selling American food and root beer admit that its mascot, Rooty the Great Root Beer Bear, was "polarizing" for his pantlessness? Did the company decide to portray him wearing jeans from now on? No, that's not true: A&W said it was a joke. The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published by a radio station…

Does GPS data from voters' cellphones help election fraudsters identify those who were registered but did not vote so the fraudsters can cast illegal ballots in the name of those people? Should voters avoid bringing cellphones to polling places on Election Day for this reason? No, that's not true: Election workers most commonly rely on voters' signatures to verify absentee…

Is a serial killer slaying Black women and girls in Charlotte, North Carolina, with police unable to stop the culprit? No, that's not true: The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) told Lead Stories that none of the cases reported online "have anything related - other than the race and gender of the victims and there is nothing to suggest a serial…

Did a student called Fluffy Janow win a "lawsuit to have cat litter installed in high school bathrooms" in Rhea County, Tennesee? No, that's not true. A satire account on Facebook published the claim following a meeting of Tennessee legislators that addressed cat litter boxes in school bathrooms. The post was not intended to be taken seriously. The Tennessee court…

Can former President Donald Trump be reinstated by a Supreme Court decision in the case of Moore v. Harper? No, that's not true: Lead Stories asked legal experts about the claim and they said there's no chance that Trump could be reinstated as president because there's no constitutional mechanism for doing so. Also noted, the case has no bearing on…

Was a young man who was not carrying any identification hit by a car locally, and is the public's help now needed to identify him? No, that's not true: The teen in the photo was involved in a serious crash with a car on June 8, 2022, while he was riding his bicycle in the port town of Grimsby, in…

Is North Carolina House Bill 158 expected to legalize the murder of a pregnant woman if the person who kills the woman is defending the life of the baby? Not really: Although state representatives did propose HB158 -- which would allow a person to defend, using deadly force if necessary, what the bill considers a human life beginning at the…

Was the plane from United Airlines Flight 93 not at the reported crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania? No, that's not true: The hijacked plane crashed into the ground on September 11, 2001, almost upside down at a speed of up to 580 miles per hour, exploding, according to the National Park Service website for the Flight 93 National Memorial. Wreckage…

Does purple paint on a post, tree or fence in Texas and "10 other states" mean no hunting, no trespassing, no solicitation or, simply, go away? Yes, that's true: According to a U.S. government database, Texas and at least 11 other states have laws in which a specific shade of purple paint is equivalent to a written no-trespass or no-hunting…

Does breast milk "leakage" contain "all the impurity that's in the mother's body"? No, that's not true: "This claim is false and is not grounded in science," Dr. Christopher M. Zahn, chief of clinical practice and interim chief of health equity and quality for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Lead Stories. Nursing mothers do not secrete "leakage"…