Are the US made Duracells any better as far as leaking?
IMHO the alkaline cells from major brands with high power claims and a lot of marketing behind them are more prone to leaking. This is because there is a trade-off: if you change the formulation to get more power, you also increase the risk of leaking because the contents of the battery become more unstable and more volatile.
The lowest risk of leaking comes with minor brands that don't make extravagant claims, such as you might get from a dollar store. I have been buying and using Sunbeam brand cells from Dollar Tree (4/1$), and so far I have not seen one leak. They also have plenty of power for things like multimeters or clocks. Other low leak brands seem to be Japanese names like Panasonic, Sony, Fuji.
Also, ironically, the current design of super cheap zinc chloride super heavy duty cells seem very unlikely to leak. Ironically because these were the leaky ones decades ago.