Fact Check

Did evangelist Franklin Graham and Pope Leo XIV have a live discussion on television? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of such a TV show. The claim is an example of so-called "Viet Spam" campaigns consisting of nearly identical, fabricated clickbait stories, each featuring a different famous person and created to drive traffic to overseas web pages, often…

Was Oprah Winfrey's private jet on Jeffrey Epstein's island 11 times? No, that's not true: There is no proof that Winfrey's private plane was ever on the Caribbean island of convicted sex offender Epstein. Little St. James is only 75 acres and does not have a runway for Winfrey's private plane, or any planes, to land there. The claim appeared…

Was the name of the U.S. actually misspelled in Donald Trump's "super intelligence" executive order as "Unites States"? Yes, that's true: The image confirming that was shared not only by social media users but by Trump himself. The error received media coverage. The statement appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by the @FurkanGozukara account on Sept. 29,…

Does a real video shot from the passenger window of a plane show the eye of Hurricane Polo? No, that's not true: This video was originally posted on Oct. 26, 2025, by an Instagram account that is labeled as an AI-generated profile. The video is also labeled as AI content on TikTok and the Hive Moderation tool determined it was…

Did Donald Trump admit in a speech, "I've done a shitty job as president"? No, that's not true: The president did say those words, but he was joking, and the quote was taken out of context. While announcing a new AI-powered government information hub, Trump was joking by saying "If it is the biggest thing I've ever done, I've done…

Does a real video show an airplane spinning wildly on a runway and hitting several other vehicles? No, that's not true: The video appeared on TikTok labeled as AI-generated content. Hive Moderation also determined the video was 73.1% likely to have been created with AI, and a visual analysis found workers appearing to be run over by the spinning plane…

Does a real video show 9-year-old Lily Trejo being beaten by Jake Lynch and another boy on Feb. 1 in Florida, with Lynch getting a "stern warning"? No, that's not true: The video combines cellphone footage of a real 2023 attack on a school bus in Homestead, Florida, with photos of an alleged victim and attacker from unrelated cases, while…

Have you seen posts on X that look like screenshots of New York Post headlines, which have a caption asking the xAI chatbot Grok to determine if the story is real or not? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such posts recently from an account @RabbiJeffx. The account bio is labelled 'parody & satire' and says they are a…

Will Kamala Harris be held personally responsible for her campaign's $39 million debt, according to a federal bankruptcy court? No, that's not true: The story originated from a network of self-described satire websites that place multiple disclaimers on their content saying that nothing they publish is real. Lead Stories did not find any matching reports from established media outlets. The…

Did a post mentioning Lebensraum for Israel appear on the Times of Israel blog platform? Yes, that's true: The screenshot that resurfaced on social media in 2026 showed a blog entry that was indeed published there almost two years earlier, but then was deleted. The Times of Israel, however, states that it does not assume responsibility for the content of…

Does a photo show that Scott Kretzschmar, accused in the Cornell University "gang rape" case, is now a police officer? No, that's not true: The image used to support the claim does not show Kretzschmar. Instead, it shows his brother, Max Kretzschmar, who the City of Sterling Heights confirmed has served as a Sterling Heights Police Department officer for over…

Did Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wear a Palestinian flag as a cape while at the U.N.? No, that's not true: The AI detector ZeroGPT determined the video of Meloni's alleged protest was created with AI. A visual analysis also revealed that the flag shown in the video does not match the real Palestinian flag, and the U.N. emblem shown…

Did Japan issue a blanket ban on all Israeli tourists, as of September 2026? No, that's not true: No government pages or media reports confirmed the online rumor. While there were some isolated instances of hotels employees invoking "war crimes" and attempting to deny accommodation to Israeli citizens, Lead Stories found no evidence that it affected large groups of Israeli…

Does a real photo show President Donald Trump, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and others toasting at a black-tie event? No, that's not true: The image is AI-generated, according to analysis from online detection tools. Searches of the image did not generate credible results. The claim appeared in a…

Was Charli XCX sitting with a stone face and barely clapping while Taylor Swift was on stage at the 2026 MTV VMAs? No, that's not true: Video from the VMA X account shows Charli XCX with no expression and tapping her knee during a Nirvana award. The video posted on X by a self-described satire account was edited combining two…

Does a viral image prove that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena Zelenska hold Israeli citizenship? No, that's not true: The composite image shared on social media was likely created by AI, online tools showed. Lead Stories found multiple inconsistencies also pointing to that conclusion. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook where it was…

Is Ivgeni Zarubinski an Israeli Foreign Ministry official who posted about activating explosive pagers in Ireland following Israel's 3-0 soccer loss to Ireland in late September 2026, as some posts on social media claimed? No, that's not true: Zarubinski, a comedian, satirist, and social media personality, has no affiliation with the ministry. There is also no evidence that any Israeli…

Does a video show President Trump getting into a big fight with Secret Service agents? No, that's not true: The video shows the president talking with the PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in September 2026. The man in the video is not a Secret Service agent. The claim appeared in a post (archived here)…

Does a video show Iran attacked a nuclear site on the Israeli side of the sea? No, that's not true: The content detection tool at Hive Moderation determined the video is 98.4% likely to be AI-generated. The fake video has been circulating on social media since at least March 8, 2026. The video appeared in a post (archived here) by…

Is this an actual, sharp photograph of suspects arrested near RAF Fairford air base in the United Kingdom on Sept. 27, 2026? No, that's not true: According to an AI detection tool, the image contained a SynthID watermark indicating it had been manipulated with tools from OpenAI. It was likely generated from a blurry picture circulating on social media that…