Did Arizona drag out midterm election ballot-counting for a week so that the tally would award the governor's race to Katie Hobbs -- the Democrat in charge of all state elections -- despite voters going "red in every other category"? No, that's not true: election results showed several other races in Arizona -- known for split-ticket ballots -- went blue…

Did Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs' office contact Twitter to have posts removed to censor political opponents? No, that's not true: Hobbs' office asked the Center for Internet Security in 2021 to alert Twitter about an account that was making false claims about the state's voter information database. The tweets that were flagged had nothing to do with the…

Did Switzerland ban electric vehicles "due to their excessive energy use" on December 7, 2022? No, that's not true: The country only discussed a draft of legislation that suggested that electric car use might be limited to essential activities such as driving to work or visiting doctors -- but only in the hypothetical case of the most serious energy supply…

Did actress Shannen Doherty die on December 6, 2022? No, that's not true: The claim was made without credible, publicly available corroborating evidence. "She is fine," her agent told Lead Stories. Donerty is best known for roles she played in a "Little House On the Prairie" television series and Beverly Hills, 90210. The claim appeared in an article published by…

Was a man from the Ukrainian city of Odesa sent to prison for 15 years for hanging up the Russian flag? No, that's not true: The unnamed person in question was found guilty of treason, collaboration with Russian forces and kidnapping. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) posted on December 1, 2022. It said: An Odessa man was…

Was Wuhan, China the first city to be "covered" with 5G technology and did this wireless communications network facilitate the origination and spread of COVID-19? No, that's not true: A telecommunications expert told Lead Stories that credible evidence for this claim does not exist. The timing of Wuhan's 5G technology rollout and the coronavirus pandemic is coincidental and no direct…

Has Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie passed away as of December 7, 2022? No, that's not true: No credible news organizations have reported her death as of December 7, 2022, and TIME magazine published on December 7, 2022, a recent video interview she conducted. The claim appeared on the website mz24news.com on December 6, 2022. The headline read:…

Did Simon Cowell die suddenly at the hospital? No, that's not true: His representative told Lead Stories "It's rubbish" and there is no credible reporting on entertainment or news sites about Cowell, an internationally known celebrity, dying as of December 7, 2022. His official social media accounts also do not mention his death. The claim appeared in an article (archived…

Does British government data prove COVID-19 vaccination is causing "significant numbers of deaths" in British children? In addition, does the same dataset also show children are up to 137 times more likely to die following COVID vaccination than their unvaccinated counterparts? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that the numbers draw a causal relationship between COVID vaccination and the…

Do these photos of a woman in a hospital bed accurately depict an unidentified, hit-and-run victim in a hospital in Flint, Michigan? No, that's not true: Lead Stories traced the images, widely circulated on social media, to a stock photo website. Law enforcement departments elsewhere in the United States have debunked the same claim. An example of the claim appeared…

Is it impossible that Nazi Germany used a gaseous form of hydrogen cyanide, also known as Zyklon B, to commit mass murder in World War II concentration camps because the compound is "air soluble" and conditions in gas chambers "would not allow for sufficient concentrations of gas to form"? No, that's not true: A chemistry professor told Lead Stories that…

Did graffiti showing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eating money appear in the capital of France during November 2022? No, that's not true: Neither local authorities nor the personnel of a store located near the supposed graffiti's site saw it. Journalists sent on location did not find any signs of the graffiti. The absence of other images of the scene suggests…

Did American singer-songwriter Alan Jackson pass away on December 3, 2022? No, that's not true: A representative at Jackson's office denied this claim. Neither credible news organization nor his official social media accounts have confirmed his death. Jackson has confirmed that he's been diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a form of muscular dystrophy, but this not life-threatening. The claim appeared on…

If Arizonans voted primarily for Republican candidates in the November 8, 2022, election, but a Democrat still won the race for governor, was the election rigged? No, that's not true: Election data from past years show ticket-splitting is common in Arizona. An Arizona pollster with two decades experience tracking election data told Lead Stories it is not unusual for the…

Has the Canadian singer Celine Dion passed away as of December 6, 2022? No, that's not true: While she is currently suffering from a health issue, it has been reported to be non-life-threatening. No credible news organizations have reported her death as of December 6, 2022. The claim appeared on a website page (archived here) on December 5, 2022. The…

Did Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of the Pfizer pharmaceutical company, "maintain" that mRNA vaccine technology was unsafe when he gave researchers the go-ahead to use it in Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: In the full 2022 Washington Post interview from which this claim is derived, Bourla did not say that mRNA was unsafe. He said that…

Has actor Bruce Willis passed away as of December 6, 2022? No, that's not true: Although the action star has stepped away from his career because of health concerns, there have been no credible news organizations reporting his death as of December 6, 2022. The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published on the F N E W S…

Did a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) insider, a whistleblower, provide exclusive information to Real Raw News about a conversation on a cockpit voice recorder just before the pilot of Envoy Air flight 3556 became unresponsive? Does this recording point to a COVID-19 booster shot as the likely cause of the pilot's death and is this evidence of a government coverup…

Does the repeated use of the figure 6 million in pre-World War II American newspaper reports about the world's Jewish communities prove there was no Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews are estimated to have died? No, that's not true: The research design behind the claim is deeply flawed: The video creators reached their conclusion by searching for a single…

Did the U.S. military arrest "several Deep Staters" who attended President Joe Biden's state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron on December 1, 2022? No, that's not true: The U.S. military is not allowed to arrest civilians. This claim comes from Real Raw News, a website that regularly produces fabricated headlines and articles. The claim appeared in an article published…