Lead Stories

14 hours ago | leadstories.com | Dean Miller

Is there evidence that music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs divulged, in testimony, that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries attended "Communist Party Freak Off" parties, as a social media post claimed? No, that's not true: The post appeared while Combs was on trial in federal court in Manhattan on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. But Combs had not testified at that time, nor had he publicly made any statements about Hakeem Jeffries.

1 day ago | leadstories.com | Dean Miller

Does a viral video show a crowd of passengers streaming off a ferry that has landed in Germany? No, that's not true: It's just a re-post of an old video, with a label mis-identifying the location. Nothing in the post provides verification of the claim that it shows Germany, while an earlier post of the exact same video identifies it as the ferry from Likoni to Mombasa in Kenya. Other photos of the Likoni-Mombasa ferry show the same vessel and loading ramp.

1 day ago | leadstories.com | Dean Miller

Does a viral post show an Australian man being arrested for trying to take AU$5,000 from his bank account at a Commonwealth Bank branch in a suburb of Sydney? No, that's not true: Police records show the man was arrested for behaving offensively in public, not for any financial crime. He was also charged with hindering officers who tried to remove him from the bank, where he was alleged to have damaged a desk and a window.

2 days ago | leadstories.com | Dean Miller

Does a video posted to social media show Pope Leo XIV turning away from a Pride flag as he moves through a receiving line? No, that's not true: It's not a Pride flag. It's a flag commonly flown at Italian peace marches that says "PACE," which is Italian for "peace". Furthermore, it's not clear the Pope turned specifically away from the flag, as the video shows him alternating from side to side of a double receiving line, greeting and sometimes shaking hands with participants.

2 days ago | leadstories.com | Dean Miller

Objective: To examine the relative impact of the initial series of the messenger RNA (mRNA) BNT162b2 (Pfizer) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna) on all-cause and non-COVID-19 mortality among Florida residents. It is a so-called "preprint" paper, not yet reviewed by experts in the field, but shared in order to generate discussion and review. The server that hosted the paper, MedRxiv, allows writers to post draft papers but warns readers (archived here) not to use any preprint for making clinical decisions:...