Fact Check

Did analyst Pat McAfee say he would join ESPN's College GameDay by Zoom due to security concerns? No, that's not true: The claim originated from a parody account. Lead Stories found no matching reports from established news outlets confirming the claim and no evidence that McAfee made the statement. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @No3sports…

Does a real video show philanthropist Susan Dell wearing a red dress and dancing at an outdoor patio gathering? No, that's not true: The video is AI-generated and was posted with AI disclaimers on Instagram on Oct. 16, 2026. Content detection tools also flagged the video: Hive Moderation rated it 87.5% likely AI-generated, and Sightengine's reading reached as high as…

Does a video show a C-17 Globemaster aircraft making a real-life emergency landing in a field? No, that's not true: Two online tools confirmed that it was AI-generated. The earliest known post of the video disclosed that the dramatic scene was created with AI. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @SaiyidYasir on Oct. 28, 2026.…

Did 8 million people in Brazil vote without ID after polls were scheduled to close in the Oct. 25, 2026, runoff election? No, that's not true: Brazil's Superior Electoral Court told Lead Stories the claim that 8 million people voted after polling stations closed is false. Its data shows only 34,393 votes were cast after 5 p.m., while Luiz Inácio…

Does a video of jostled passengers show the moments inside a high-speed train before a fatal crash in Urda, Spain, on Oct. 28, 2026? No, that's not true: The video was posted on Facebook on Feb. 2, 2020, more than six years before that crash. The passenger who posted the 2020 video said in the caption that the Alvia train…

Does a real WABI-TV 5 news report show Maine's Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, Troy Jackson, threatening to cut staff in half with an axe? No, that's not true: Station General Manager Kim Petry confirmed that the video is fabricated and "was not produced, aired, or authorized by WABI." Hive Moderation determined the audio was 99.1% likely to be AI-generated. Lead…

Does a viral video show a life-threatening attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu one day after the Oct. 27, 2026, election? No, that's not true: The low quality of the video obscured that it showed a different politician giving a speech in a different country in 2013. It was Ahmed Dogan attacked in Bulgaria. The claim appeared in a…

Does a viral post retell a real-life story of a human-chimpanzee love affair resulting in the birth of a 12-year-old son? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no credible evidence confirming the claim. Contemporary humans and chimpanzees have a different number of chromosomes, which makes interbreeding close to impossible. Lead Stories also found no evidence that the national park…

Do real photos show former first daughter Sasha Obama with a baby bump? No, that's not true: The photos were modified using OpenAI, and there is no evidence that they depict a real pregnancy. Lead Stories found no matching reports from established news outlets confirming the claim or indicating that she is pregnant. The claim also misspelled her name as…

Did WOIO, Cleveland's Channel 19, report that "Four former staffers have accused Sherrod Brown of sexual assault" in a one-minute segment? No, that's not true: According to Hive Moderation, the voiceover of this fabricated clip is AI-generated and a search of the WOIO website shows no matching news reports. Searches of Google News and Yahoo News did not find any…

Were four U.S. Secret Service agents placed on leave after tampering with the air defense systems at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's Florida home? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the U.S. Secret Service told Lead Stories, "there is zero truth to that post." The X account that posted the claim is from a website with a disclaimer stating it…

Does a viral video show defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro receiving an ovation upon his arrival in the United States in October 2026? No, that's not true: The footage predated the runoff election by roughly one month. The video showed Bolsonaro still campaigning in Brazil. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published…

Did dozens of Pennsylvania election workers say that then-Gov. Tom Wolf and then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar ordered them to destroy Trump ballots in the 2020 presidential election? No, that's not true: This false news story originated from a Facebook page that lists its category as "comedian" but has spread to other social media platforms without the comedy disclaimer. Lead…

Is a photo that shows Beyoncé with a shirtless Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and another photo of just the two men on an airplane real photos from the Department of Justice Epstein files? No, that's not true: Hive Moderation's AI detection tool rated one image 99.9% likely to be AI-generated and the other 99.6% likely. A search of the…

Does a real image showing blobs of material, both clear and creamy, provide information about human fertility? No, that's not true: Hive Moderation determined the image was 99.9% likely to be AI-generated, and Google's SynthID detection tool confirmed it was made with Google AI. Aside from the misspelled labels "feritle" and "non-feritle", the image does not provide additional information about…

Does a real "Maui Sunset" photo show Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Jeffrey Epstein together? No, that's not true: An online tool concluded that the image was "made or edited" using Google AI. Lead Stories found no matching reports from established news outlets and no evidence that an authentic version of the photo was publicly available. The claim appeared in…

Did President Donald Trump post to Truth Social, already declaring victory in the 2026 midterms and saying counting ballots is "wasting time"? No, that's not true: A review of Trump's Truth Social account found no record of the post. No established news outlets had reported that his account shared the message at the time of publication. The claim appeared in…

Is a punch hole in a California ballot envelope proof of election rigging in the 2026 election? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that elections in California can be rigged based on just the existence of a punch hole on a ballot envelope. The punch holes serve a dual purpose. The Ventura County Clerk-Recorder & Registrar of Voters…

Does real footage from an endoscopic camera show the junction between the esophagus and windpipe as food is swallowed? No, that's not true: The fake footage is designed to look like the view from a real medical camera in a person's throat, but it was AI-generated. Not only is the footage fake, but the anatomy is depicted incorrectly in both…

Does a viral video actually show Flávio Bolsonaro crying after his defeat in Brazil's Oct. 25, 2026, presidential election? No, that's not true: Lead Stories established that the events in the video had been recorded days before the official election results were announced and that it was posted well before the results were announced. The initial caption said that the…