Voted the ‘best specialty plate in America’

Explanation: Rhode Island lighthouse group says its fundraising license plate was voted best specialty plate in U.S.

Rhode Island, Pop Culture, States, Transportation, Friends of Plum Beach Lighthouse,

Specialty license plates are all the rage. In some states, you can choose from as many as 200 kinds. Rhode Island is no exception. You can pick from five specialty plates, with more on the way, not counting traditional ones for firefighters and the military. They’ve become so prominent that one -- promoting Plum Beach Lighthouse -- appears on a billboard on a stretch of Route 95 traveled by 100,000 motorists a day. "Voted the ‘best specialty plate in American,’ " the billboard reads. Now that’s license to brag! But is it true? We looked to our own navigational beacon, the Truth-O-Meter, to guide us. Our voyage first took us to the billboard near the Providence-Pawtucket line, best visible to southbound motorists. It shows the license plate, with its idyllic image of the Plum Beach Lighthouse surrounded by placid blue waters and two sport fishermen in a boat. "Get yours now!" reads the billboard, directing people to a Web site. "Thousands sold!" The license plate is a fundraising tool for Friends of Plum Beach Lighthouse, which acquired the 1897 lighthouse 22 years ago with the goal of preserving it. The spark-plug style lighthouse, off North Kingstown in Narragansett Bay’s West Passage, was abandoned following construction of the Jamestown Bridge in 1941. Seeking to raise funds to paint the lighthouse, the organization got General Assembly approval in late 2009 for a license plate commemorating the landmark. Since then, the group has sold nearly 4,300 plates, the most of any specialty plate in Rhode Island, president David Zapatka told us. Specialty plates cost $41.50, with $20 going toward the sponsoring group. So far, $86,000 has been raised for the lighthouse, some of which was used to paint the landmark and install solar-powered lighting, Zapatka said. Following the debut of the lighthouse tag, a local license plate lover nominated it for a competition held by the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association (ALPCA). Every year, its 3,000 members nominate license plates -- only new ones, by the way -- and then vote on the best. ALPCA announced that its members selected from 12 finalists from 2010. Half were so-called "general issue" plates, the kind that states redesign every few years and which most motorists get when they register their vehicles. The other half were specialty plates. New Mexico’s bright turquoise and gold plate took first. Plum Beach Lighthouse got second. While it was honored as the runner-up, it received no accolades for "best" anything. So we asked Zapatka to shine some light on the billboard’s claim. "I figured we might get called on that," he said immediately. "Rather than put up on the billboard, ‘We are the second best plate in America,’ we changed the wording to say we are the ‘best specialty plate in America.’ Did they officially come out and say, ‘You are the best specialty in America’? No." But, he insisted, Plum Beach Lighthouse beat out the other five specialty plates, not to mention all but one of the other plates. "Is it a stretch? Yes," he acknowledged. But, he said, "there is no other specialty plate that finished higher than us in the competition. … It’s a marketing scheme." What does ALPCA think about how the Rhode Island group is tooting its horn? Contest coordinator Gus Oliver, who didn’t vote since he was running the contest, called it a "misnomer" and said Friends of Plum Beach Lighthouse "may be stretching" the contest results in making its claim. A few years ago, there was a separate category for specialty plates, he said, but not anymore. "The most accurate statement is that, of the specialty plates, it scored the highest or the best," said Oliver, who’s from Tulsa, Okla. But Oliver didn’t take issue with the billboard. "They put a positive spin on it," he said, adding, "if there had been separate voting [for the two kinds of plates], I feel certain it would have represented the outcome." Zapatka, who works in media and is quite familiar with PolitiFact, asked, "Are you going to light our pants on fire?" Hmmm, we can see it now: a Plum Beach Lighthouse plate that reads PANTS-AFIRE. Nah. You just can’t go around tossing matches at non profit groups that are trying to raise money for causes as cherished as lighthouses. Besides, the license plate got more votes than any other specialty tag. Still, the lighthouse group knew it was making a claim that wasn’t quite accurate. That’s why we’re stamping their plate BRLY-TRU. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.)


WVa Senate forms committee dedicated to child welfare issues.

Explanation: A committee has been formed in the West Virginia Senate to focus on upcoming legislation related to child welfare.

Opioids, Foster care, General News, Legislation, Child welfare, Health, West Virginia, Child abuse, Charleston, Epidemics

The Senate Select Committee on Children and Families, whose formation was announced Wednesday, will be led by Kanawha County Republican and Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo. The committee will focus on issues related to the state’s ongoing foster care crisis and substance abuse epidemic, the Senate said in a news release. The state’s foster ranks have swelled to about 7,000 children as the state grapples with the opioid crisis. West Virginia leads the nation by far in the rate of drug overdose deaths. The statement cited a recent legislative audit that found the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Child Protective Services did not meet a required time frame for investigating child abuse and neglect allegations in 50% of cases in fiscal year 2018. In addition, Child Protective Services continues to experience high turnover, while the drug epidemic has increased CPS worker caseloads by 79% since 2015. The committee was formed because legislation on child welfare issues otherwise would have had to compete with dozens of other bills if they had been channeled through other committees. “Our children are our state’s most precious resource, and it’s clear that despite our best efforts, we are falling way short in adequately providing for the needs of the ones who need us the most,” Senate President Carmichael said. “My hope with this new Select Committee is that the members take a deep dive on these issues and work toward the kinds of solutions that will ensure no child in the state of West Virginia gets lost in a bureaucracy that does not put them on the best path to stability, comfort, and self-worth.” The GOP-controlled legislature began its regular session Wednesday. Takubo and fellow committee member Ron Stollings, D-Boone, are physicians. The nine-member committee also includes Senate education chairwoman Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, and Democrat Paul Hardesty, a former board of education chairman in Logan County. “It brings everything to the forefront,” Takubo said in an interview before the Senate convened Wednesday. “Politics will kind of divide Senate members or House members, but the one thing we’ve always been (in the) loop on is families and children. We’re trying to bring in the resources of the Senate members to look at this as a whole.” The state also faces a federal class-action lawsuit alleging the foster care system has failed to protect children. The state is seeking to dismiss the suit, brought by nonprofit advocacy groups and a law firm on behalf of a dozen children. Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch continues to make substantive changes to its system. The lawsuit describes stories of alleged neglect and harm done to foster children in DHHR’s care. Marcia Lowry, executive director of the nonprofit A Better Childhood, has said the state isn’t doing enough to deal with problems in its foster system.


Explanation: Planning is in the works to build a new Veterans Affairs clinic in Loveland that will give veterans in northern Colorado better access to health care.

Fort Collins, Access to health care, Colorado, Health, General News, Loveland, Veterans, Veterans affairs

The Cheyenne Veterans Affairs Health Care System announced that the clinic is expected to open by the winter of 2022. VA spokesman Sam House tells the Loveland Reporter-Herald that more than half of the population that is served in the Cheyenne system area comes from northern Colorado. House says the facility will more than double the space of the current Loveland and Fort Collins clinics combined and serve more than 200 veterans a day. Construction should start by next summer and take two years to complete. When the new facility opens in 2022, the VA will close its Fort Collins clinic. ___ Information from: Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, http://www.reporterherald.com/


Women absorb and retain DNA from every man they have had sex with.

Explanation: We are also unsure, for the record, what motivation would exist for scientists to hide the truth about male microchimerism in the first place.

On 23 June 2017, frequent purveyor of misinformation YourNewsWire.com posted an article (“Women Absorb and Retain DNA from Every Man They Have Sex With”) that made the claim that “a new study” demonstrates that cells transferred from a man to a woman during intercourse become integrated into that woman’s body after sex. Every single time. In actuality, however, that study (which was published in PLOS ONE in 2012, despite being billed as “new” in 2017) demonstrated for the first time the presence of genetically distinct male cells in the brains of women (who had been examined in autopsy). The existence of male cells in the bodies of females, in general, is not news. As discussed in a PLOS ONE blog post describing that 2012 study, their presence is typically ascribed to cells from a male fetus from a prior pregnancy: The idea of two genetically distinct populations of cells, or their DNA, residing in one individual isn’t new. It’s called microchimerism. […] Medical chimerism arises after a transfusion or transplant, and it may follow pregnancy. Our microbiomes, the bacteria within us, are more like guests than body parts. [The research groups responsible for the 2012 study] found Y chromosome DNA sequences in several brain regions in autopsy slides from 37 out of 59 women. Such DNA liberated from fetal cells can come from several sources: children, fetuses that never made it to be born, older siblings, or twins. Both son and daughter DNA partake in this “feto-maternal trafficking,” but female DNA, at the chromosomal level, is harder to detect amid the maternal two X’s. The significance, in the case of that specific research paper, was that it demonstrated that these male cells — wherever they came from — were able to cross what is known as the blood-brain barrier — a semi-permeable membrane that prevents most chemicals in the blood from entering the brain. The linked study, in fact, does not once mention sexual intercourse as a proposed mechanism. This is as close as you will get from the PLOS ONE paper: The most likely source of male [microchimerism, Mc] in female brain is acquisition of fetal Mc from pregnancy with a male fetus. In women without sons, male DNA can also be acquired from an abortion or a miscarriage. The pregnancy history was unknown for all but a few subjects in the current studies, thus male Mc in female brain could not be evaluated according to specific prior pregnancy history. In addition to prior pregnancies, male Mc could be acquired by a female from a recognized or vanished male twin, an older male sibling, or through non-irradiated blood transfusion. At least that’s what they want you to think, according to YourNewsWire: Through the study the researchers assumed that the most likely answer was that all male DNA found living in the female brain came from a male pregnancy. That was the safe, politically correct assumption. But these researchers were living in denial. Because when they autopsied the brains of women who had never even been pregnant, let alone with a male child, they STILL found male DNA cells prevalent in the female brain. At this point the scientists didn’t know what the hell was going on. Confused, they did their best to hide the evidence until they could understand and explain it. They buried it in numerous sub studies and articles, but if you sift through them all you will find the damning statement, the one line that gives the game away and explains exactly where these male DNA cells come from. In an odd chronologic twist that necessitates abandoning the notion that time progresses linearly in one direction, YourNewsWire then used text from a paper published in 2005 to support the argument that scientists buried this salacious truth, discovered in 2012, in other “sub studies”. That 2005 paper, which does indeed show the presence of male cells in women who had never given birth to males (or, in some cases, at all), makes only passing reference to the possibility that sexual intercourse alone could contribute male microchirality to women, noting that the issue has yet to be studied: Another possibility that has not been investigated is whether male DNA can be detected in a woman’s circulation from sexual intercourse without pregnancy. That explanation is the authors’ speculative fourth suggestion (out of four) after three more plausible, and actually researched, theories: One potential explanation for male microchimerism could be a nonrecognized (male) miscarriage. […] A second potential source is from a “vanished (male) twin.” A vanished twin is thought to be a relatively common phenomena resulting from spontaneous resorption of one sac or embryo in a twin pregnancy. […] A third possibility is from an older male sibling transferred by the maternal circulation to the fetus of a later pregnancy. [i.e. you are born with male DNA your older brother left behind in your mother’s body]. A paper published, fittingly, in the journal Chimerism in 2015 investigated this topic further, concluding that — potentially — all of those potential mechanisms may contribute. That paper, which was fairly limited in its dataset, makes it clear that the sexual intercourse transfer of male chimerism remains entirely speculative: A total of 154 girls were studied of which 21 (13.6%) tested positive for male microchimerism. There was a tendency that girls were more likely to test positive for male microchimerism if their mothers previously had received transfusion, had given birth to a son or had had a spontaneous abortion. Furthermore, the oldest girls were more likely to test positive for male microchimerism. However, less than half of microchimerism positivity was attributable to these factors. In conclusion, data suggest that male microchimerism in young girls may originate from an older brother either full born or from a discontinued pregnancy or from transfusion during pregnancy. We speculate that sexual intercourse may be important but other sources of male cells likely exist in young girls. Far from demonstrating that 100 percent of a woman’s male sexual partners have male cells that de facto become part of their body, the studies cobbled together by YourNewsWire show that even if sexual intercourse transferred cells from a male that later became incorporated into the female partner’s body (which science has only speculated about at this point), it clearly wouldn’t happen in all cases.


Canada has legalized euthanasia, enabling parents to "kill disabled children.

Explanation: On 22 November 2017, YourNewsWire.com reported that “Doctors in Canada have been given the green-light to euthanise disabled, sick or dying children under a controversial new law.” The “controversial new law” passed in June 2016, not November 2017. Further, that law specifically prohibits even “mature minors” (much less parents) the ability to choose medically assisted death, and it is not by even the most creative interpretation a free pass to euthanize children.

On 22 November 2017, the web sites Neon Nettle and YourNewsWire.com (among others) published reports about euthanasia and pediatric patients in Canada, claiming that “a controversial new law” now allows parents to end the lives of children with disabilities: The legislation extends existing ‘assisted suicide’ laws that have been legal in Canada over a year now, in which adults can legally volunteer to end their own life. The new legislation passes the responsibility of consensual death for minors over to the parents. Liftsitenews.com reports: American anti-euthanasia activist Wesley Smith said the results of the survey prove the morally slippery slope that a nation slides down when it agrees that “killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering.” “Once euthanasia consciousness is unleashed, it never stops expanding,” he wrote in the National Review. “I guess Robert Latimer–a Canadian farmer who murdered his daughter because she had cerebral palsy–was a visionary,” he added. Neither site referenced any news reports to support the claims, linking instead to a 26 October 2017 National Review Online speculative editorial: “Canada Child Euthanasia: A Matter of Time?” That opinion piece speculated that legal euthanasia in Canada could eventually be available to minors: Once euthanasia consciousness is unleashed, it never stops expanding. The law is still brand new, and yet there is already talk about allowing dementia patients to be killed and a mentally ill patient was euthanized with the permission of a court. And now, children are in the target range. From the CBC story: The Canadian Paediatric Society says its members are “increasingly” being asked by parents about the option of seeking medically assisted death for children, while a survey of doctors found nearly half of the respondents supported assisted death for kids with “progressive terminal illness or intractable pain.” The linked article examines the provisions of euthanasia-related legislation passed in June 2016 (Bill C-14). Among them is a years-long review of youth access to medically assisted dying: “Medical assistance in dying is something that has been legislated [for adults] and stated [as] needing to be accessible … but there isn’t the same ‘oomph’ for saying that all Canadians need good access to palliative care,” said Dr. Dawn Davies, chair of the society’s bioethics committee and a pediatric palliative care physician in Edmonton, in an interview with CBC News. “Where the issue of medical assistance in dying is ever raised by a child, you know, we would advocate that that should automatically be a referral for pediatric palliative care.” When Bill C-14, the law governing medically assisted dying for adults, was passed in June 2016, it included a requirement that the ministers of justice and health initiate an independent review on whether “mature minors” — youth under age 18 but deemed capable of giving consent — should be eligible for medically assisted death. That review is expected to be presented to Parliament by December 2018. According to the report, ongoing research includes feedback from pediatricians about discussions with the parents of “critically ill” minors: In addition to the “mature minors” question, the surveys also found that parents are asking pediatricians about assisted death on behalf of their critically ill children. Out of the 1,050 pediatricians who responded, 118 said they had exploratory discussions about assisted death with the parents of sick children, involving 419 kids in all. Forty-five respondents said they had received explicit requests for assisted death from parents, involving a total of 91 children. More than half of the requests involved a child under a year old. There needs to be “a recognition that parents are making this request not as a self-serving thing,” Davies told The Canadian Press. “[Those] children have illnesses where there is really profound suffering.” Canada’s Department of Justice’s “Questions and Answers” page (archived) about the June 2016 law addresses “mature minors,” but not parents: At this time, not enough is known about the risks and benefits of medical assistance in dying for minors. The trial judge in [a related ruling] found that, to the degree that there was a societal consensus on eligibility for medical assistance in dying, it was limited to mentally competent or capable adults…. However, the Government would also initiate an independent review of the special considerations related to requests for medical assistance in dying by mature minors within 180 days of the legislation receiving Royal Assent.


Children in intensive care recover faster with little to no nutrition

Explanation: This brief news release, issued by a university hospital system in Belgium, is loosely based on published results of a multinational, randomized clinical study designed to test the value of adding early intravenous macronutrient feedings to the nutritional care of critically ill children in intensive care units who are unable to eat or be fed normally. Such so-called “total” parenteral nutrition, delivered via the bloodstream, is commonplace in pediatric ICUs, researchers say, because of concerns that “macronutrient deficits” will lead to increased infections, weakness, and longer stays on ventilators and in ICUs overall. The problem, however, has been the dearth of rigorous scientific evidence for this assumption in children, and — significantly — growing evidence in studies of adults that the practice actually delays healing and increases infections. The study on which the release is based does indeed add strong clinical evidence that the same is true for children, and that delaying for a week or so the use of full parenteral feedings is clearly associated with lower rates of infections and earlier discharge from the ICUs. But this release could leave some readers with the misconception that starving critically ill children will hasten their recovery from a critical illness. Here’s why: contrary to the language in the release, the study did not “prove” the idea that “receiving little or no nutrition” in the first week of an ICU stay “makes children recover faster.” Nor were these children “fasting,” in the conventional sense. In fact, all of the children received micronutrients (such as vitamins and minerals), blood sugar controls, and “enteral” nutrition in which some nutrients are delivered through a tube from the nose to the stomach. The release further misleadingly implies that “nutritional deficiency” somehow directly leads to faster and better recoveries for seriously ill children; in fact, the authors of the published study report that the reason for the benefit of delaying total parenteral nutrition remains “speculative,” but possibly due to complex effects of digestion and metabolism that have an impact on the immune system. Although numbers are hard to come by (and the release makes no effort to find any) an estimated quarter million infants and children a year are admitted to intensive care units with critical illnesses and injuries. Scientists know that  the nutritional needs of children’s rapidly growing brains and bodies make their care trickier in some respects than adult care, and the use of intravenous feedings of a complete package of calories and specific nutrients are commonly started within 24 hours of an ICU stay. But few studies have been done to test the value of such feedings, usually given as supplements or sometimes in place of enteral feedings of some nutrients through a nasogastric tube. And studies in adults have strongly suggested that parenteral feedings are associated with higher rates of infection and longer ICU stays. This study matters because treatment of children in the ICU is not uncommon and the outcomes of interest (time in the ICU, complication rates, death) are important to everyone.

Academic medical center news release,University news release

We rated this Not Applicable since giving parenteral (IV) nutrition seems to be done routinely and this study reviewed withholding it (which should save money). The biggest cost saver might be fewer days in the ICU. Some discussion of the cost-benefit analysis of changing the protocol might have been helpful to readers. The release quotes the lead coordinating investigator saying “the current practice of feeding children in an early stage does not contribute to their recovery,” but it offers not a single data point. There is no information provided other than the number of total participants, and no mention of the makeup of the randomized groups, the specific findings, or the comparative rates of new infections and lengths of ICU stay (the two endpoints of the study overall). The release does note more correctly at one point that the study was designed to “challenge the validity” of early parenteral feeding, but it never explains the details or context of those feedings. The absolute difference in the outcomes between groups is left unanswered. The study report goes into substantial background detail about potential harms of malnutrition and overfeeding, and the release — although without specific data — more or less describes the concerns. The release could have been strengthened even more if it had informed readers about the rigorous informed consent obtained from parents, and the efforts to maintain basic nutrient levels in all the children. The release did not include enough details about the design for most readers to make sense of the study. There’s almost no information about the makeup of the protocol feedings, the use of insulin, micronutrients, saline and glucose solutions, or the limitations of the study duly noted by the researchers in their report. Importantly, it’s not made clear that these children were being provided nutrition through a feeding tube in their stomachs. The release doesn’t give us any sense of how many children may be assigned to the ICU, or how many might benefit from a change in nutrition protocol. So while it doesn’t disease-monger, we’re hesitant to give the release credit here. We’ll call it Not Applicable. There’s no information in the release about funding or potential conflicts of interest. This release is about a comparative study between early and late parenteral feeding upon admittance to an ICU. Parenteral feedings are a part of standard care and that is understood. The release states that a new nutrition protocol has disproven a theory about standard care. That’s novel. But while the release points out that assumptions about parenteral feeding in children needed — and got — a good challenge, it fails to note that children most vulnerable to malnutrition sustained the most benefit from delayed parenteral feeding. That’s another novel finding that could have been included. The release makes some unattributed and over-the-top statements including “The results are remarkable”  and “These findings…can thus be expected to change pediatric intensive care worldwide.”


A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing because one passenger's vagina had an offensive odor.

Explanation: Prior fabrications from that cluster of fake TMZ sites include claims a cop shot a black baby after mistaking a pacifier for a gun, a penile implant could alert women to cheating husbands and boyfriends, a college student was left in a coma after participating in a social media semen-drinking challenge, KKK members committed suicide en masse following the release of the Harriet Tubman $20 bill, a non-existent study showed 80 percent of black men in Atlanta were gay, and police found a satanic dungeon under a Chuck E. Cheese.

Junk News, airplane, emergency landing, fake news

In early October 2016, the web site TMZBreaking published an offensive article reporting that a United Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing due to one passenger’s egregiously poor vaginal hygiene: United Airlines Flight 193 to D.C. had to make a an emergency landing after people were getting sick from passenger Larissa Jones smelly [vagina]. Several passengers began to get sick from the smell and notified the captain and he decided to make an emergency landing in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hazmat crews came on the plane to spray it down with disinfectant. The plane landed in Charlotte and Larissa was taken to the local hospital to make sure she was still alive because she smelled like a dead corpse. The poor grammatical style and the absence of credible reporting of the same story in legitimate news outlets didn’t dissuade a number of readers who (by design on the part of the site’s creators) confused TMZBreaking with the well-known TMZ gossip site. TMZBreaking, TMZWorldNews, TMZUncut and a number of similar fake news outlets dupe readers into believing the content they’ve opened comes from the sometimes salacious but usually accurate TMZ site. All of these impostor sites have appropriated TMZ’s name for that purpose, and none of them includes a disclaimer warning readers their content is fabricated. The image that accompanied this fictional story appears to be a stock photograph of an airplane interior from at least 2008, and the purported picture of “Larissa Jones” is an unrelated mugshot taken in 2013 or earlier.


Drone technology now allows an individual to be recorded in their homes by drones as small as birds and immediately uploaded to the internet.

Crime, Privacy Issues, Wisconsin, Chris Taylor,

On April 1, 2014 state Rep. Chris Taylor warned the citizenry about eyes in the sky and attacks on privacy. "Drone technology now allows an individual to be recorded in their homes by drones as small as birds and immediately uploaded to the internet," the Madison Democrat wrote in a news release. Was Taylor pulling the public’s leg on April Fools’ Day? No, she was dead serious. Taylor spoke the day the state Senate approved and sent to Gov. Scott Walker a bipartisan bill -- cosponsored by Taylor -- to put limits on drone use. The Wisconsin bill, similar to others around the country, attempts to prohibit both law enforcement agencies and private individuals from recording people in locations where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Example: inside their homes. Under the legislation, it would be unlawful in a criminal investigation for police -- without first getting a search warrant -- to use drones equipped with video or audio recording equipment to collect evidence in such locations. Emergency exceptions to this prohibition include locating an escaped prisoner, aiding in a search and rescue mission, executing an arrest warrant or preventing imminent harm to a person or the imminent destruction of evidence. The bill allows hobbyists, entrepreneurs or aerial photographers to use drones as long as that use does not intentionally violate an individual’s privacy interests. Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law on April 8, 2014. Taylor, in her statement, focuses on the state of the technology, not on who is doing the recording. Let’s see if she’s correct. Some basics first. Drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are small aircraft that can fly by remote control without an onboard human operator. They can be part of a system that includes a digital network and personnel on the ground, and can be equipped with high-powered cameras, with infrared devices that sense objects through walls, and with laser radar that can see through trees and foliage, the Congressional Research Service said in a 2013 report. Their use by law enforcement and the military in the U.S. "raises far-reaching issues concerning the extent of government surveillance authority, the value of privacy in the digital age, and the role of Congress in reconciling these issues," the report noted. To address Taylor’s specific statement, we turned to government studies, technology and privacy experts, law enforcement officials and drone manufacturers. The bottom line: A wide range of experts said Taylor’s scenario reflects the capability of current technology. Size Drones can be as small as insects and as large as regular aircraft. Models used by law enforcement have included the Draganflyer X4-ES, which is just 24 inches wide, and the AeroVironment Wasp, described as "bird-size" in a Washington Post story about Texas police conducting discreet video surveillance before a SWAT team stormed a property that officials believed had a cache of weapons. A tiny drone developed for the U.S. military weighs less than a AA battery and resembles a live hummingbird that can hover, climb, fly through an open doorway and relay real-time video back to its operator, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. That drone, AeroVironment’s Nano Hummingbird, could someday provide new reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities in urban environments, the AeroVironment website says. Someday, because it’s not in production yet. Army-technology.com said in 2012 that UAVs "are getting smaller and more agile to enable combatants to gather intelligence from hard to reach areas, such as in buildings and through tunnels." Internet A Draganflyer official told us it’s easy to upload the live video images that a remote operator is viewing. It just takes some additional equipment. "That’s a minor thing as far as I’m concerned," said Kevin Lauscher, a former police officer who is now sales manager and flight trainer at Draganfly Innovations. "The realistic expectation of privacy is pretty weak in these days of technology" and people recording conversations and posting photos with their phones, he said. Recording people in their homes Taylor aide Craig Trost told us the representative meant recording through a window, not with see-through-walls camera technology that is still under development. Taking pictures of people inside their home is possible with a drone, various law enforcement officials told us. Image quality would be a major challenge though. Daniel Schwarzbach, a pilot for the Houston Police and executive director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said police could film people through their windows after getting a search warrant but he doesn’t recall that happening or police being interested in it. So, Taylor’s description of drone capabilities is not imaginary. How likely it is to happen? That’s an important question, and we got an earful on it, though we don’t think the answer bears directly on the accuracy of her warning about what is possible with current technology. "Doing what she is afraid of would be difficult at best, it would be illegal under peeping Tom laws, and it’s not on the agenda of law enforcement," said Gregory McNeal,  a national security and criminal law expert at Pepperdine University law school. McNeal added: "If she is worried about invasions of privacy, she should update Wisconsin’s invasion of privacy laws for all forms of observation, not just drones because what she’s alleging can be done by a drone can be done with an iPhone, any camera, or binoculars." The privacy issue is not about unmanned aircraft, it is about image capture and retention, in the view of  Alan Frazier, a University of North Dakota aviation professor and former Grand Forks County sheriff’s deputy. "Agencies need to have  a robust policy in place regarding appropriate uses of all types of image capture devices," he said. Taylor, a lawyer, says it’s not at all clear that current law criminalizes peeping remotely using a drone. Law enforcement officials using drones told us a rogue user might try to do that, but not them. "We cannot look into homes, our systems are twice the size of a goose and we don't operate in areas where we have internet,  nor do we have, or need, the desire to upload anything to the internet …" said Ben Miller, director of the Mesa County, Colorado, unmanned aircraft systems program. "We mostly take aerial pictures of crime scenes and conduct aerial search and rescue flights." Taylor, for the record, says she wasn’t suggesting that law enforcement was illegally peeking into windows, just the possible uses of the technology. Allie Bohm, advocacy and policy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union, said a hobbyist could buy a drone size of a large bird and put a camera on it and get video and put it on the Internet. But Bohm called that a "side issue" because there’s no evidence drones are being widely employed in that fashion, in part due to Federal Aviation Administration rules, Bohm said. Public entities seeking to fly drones must get FAA approval. More than 1,800 have done so since 2007, including law enforcement, firefighting, border patrol, disaster relief, search and rescue, military training, and other government operational missions, the FAA says. (The Milwaukee Police Department does not own or use drones, spokesman Mark Stanmeyer told us.) Under current FAA rules, a drone must be flown within the line of sight of the operator, less than 400 feet above the ground, during daylight conditions, inside uncontrolled airspace and more than five miles from any airport or other location with aviation activities. "Flying model aircraft solely for hobby or recreational reasons does not require FAA approval, but hobbyists must operate according to the agency's model aircraft guidance," FAA spokesman Les Dorr said in a statement. Commercial operations are only authorized on a case-by-case basis and to date, only one has met these criteria, using Insitu's ScanEagle. A commercial flight requires a certified aircraft, a licensed pilot and operating approval. That authorization was limited to the Arctic. Our rating Taylor said that "drone technology now allows an individual to be recorded in their homes by drones as small as birds and immediately uploaded to the internet." There are legal and operational obstacles to making this scenario a reality, we learned. But Taylor’s carefully worded statement was about the state of the technology, and her scenario is technically possible right now. We rate her statement .


A photograph shows people lining up outside a Houston, Texas shelter to turn in unwanted animals to be euthanized.

Explanation: What's true: It's statistically likely that around three quarters of those photographed with animals were turning in stray or unwanted animals. What's false: The vast majority of animals turned in to this particular shelter are not put down. Statistically, only around 14% of animals in the photograph were likely to end up being euthanized.

Viral Phenomena, animal shelters, animals, cats

On 27 June 2017, the Facebook page of the “Special Needs Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation” organization (also called SNARR) posted a photo of people with animals lining up outside a Houston, Texas animal shelter, purportedly to surrender the pets and have them put down:  This is the line at the Houston, Texas city shelter today to surrender animals. These dogs and cats are about to be DUMPED to face a death sentence. SNARR’s Facebook post was subsequently picked up by One Green Planet web site, whose article about the topic was headlined: “[What the Hell]!? People are Literally Lining Up to Dump Their Pets Before July 4th Weekend.” The Pet Rescue Report got in on the action as well, writing: “Heartbreaking Reality: Owners Line Up at Shelter to Surrender Their Pets Before July 4th Parties.” The Facebook post was removed on 1 July 2017, but had been widely shared, and some commenters began to question the sourcing and veracity of the claim that the owners shown in the photo were all in line to surrender their dogs. Many suggested that the demeanor of some of those in line was not indicative of giving up their dogs, and speculated that it was more likely to be a line for wellness checkups. Beforing removing it, SNARR had edited its original post, specifying that the two men shown in the immediate foreground of the photo left the line in order to have a wellness check-up for their pet, but still suggesting that all the others (around a dozen in the photo) were there to surrender theirs. We tracked down one of those men, Juan Martinez of Houston, Texas, whose identity we were able to verify. Martinez told us that he and his brother-in-law (also pictured), had visited the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC) animal shelter on Carr Street in Houston on the afternoon of 27 June 2017. We were able to find documents showing that Martinez was there to have his mother’s newly-fostered kitten spayed and given deworming treatment. Contrary to what the group claimed on Facebook, Martinez said everyone waited in the same line, regardless of the purpose of their visit. Although he did not speak to anyone else in line, apart from his brother-in-law, he told us there was a positive atmosphere in the line, and that it was his impression that “nobody was there to drop [their pets] off.” A SNARR spokesperson told us that the organization’s treasurer took the photo at around noon on 27 June 2017. The group’s treasurer was there to help a friend look for a lost dog. The viral Facebook post was written by SNARR’s president, Lauren Connolly. Soon after the picture in question was taken, the shelter staff came out to ask people the reasoning for their visits (in order to bring in the wellness clinic visitors). The only people who stepped out were the two gentlemen with the cardboard carrier at the back of the line and the member of Snarr’s board, which [sic] were then brought to a different entrance. The rest were surrenders – whether it was owner surrenders or stray surrenders (stray being once someone’s pet – either that had been lost or that has been abandoned), we do not know. We asked SNARR how its treasurer found out that all the remaining visitors to the shelter were there to surrender pets. The group’s spokesperson said: Our treasurer did not affirm with each person if they were there to surrender. Conversations overheard in line and with the shelter staff that [sic] led the wellness clinic visitors out of the line and to a different entrance implied that. After publication of this article, SNARR’s treasurer contacted us to make clear that they had not taken the photo with the intention of it being published or used in the way it was. As of 1 July 2017, the treasurer had left SNARR, in response to the episode. A spokesperson for the Houston shelter explained the queuing system in place at the center. Their explanation contradicts some of the claims made by SNARR. According to BARC, everyone visiting the shelter stays in one line until they come through the front door. At that point they are asked the purpose of their visit, and triaged into three or four separate lines (one for the wellness clinic, one for the foster clinic, one or two to turn in stray or unwanted dogs.) This means that, in theory at least, any given group of people waiting outside the shelter would be there for a variety of reasons. The spokesperson told us that on 27 June 2017, the center offered the following services: adoptions, intake (stray and unwanted animals), a pet wellness clinic, foster clinic, and spay/neuter clinic. On that day, the shelter saw: 23 adoptions, 33 transfer/rescues (animals given to local rescue partners, who later adopt them out to the public), three lost dogs returned to their owners, seven dogs fostered out. 102 animals were turned in as strays, 52 dogs were surrendered by their owners, and 57 people visited the foster or wellness clinic with pets. Of the 211 cases where people brought animals to the shelter that day, 27% were visiting the foster or wellness clinic, and 73% were turning in dogs — either strangers presenting lost or stray dogs, or owners surrendering their pets. So it is statistically likely that about three-quarters of any given group waiting in line with animals outside the shelter that day, were turning in stray or unwanted dogs. So does this mean that all, or even most, of these dogs will be euthanized? No. SNARR’s Facebook post describes, in very emotive, even disturbing terms, the fate that supposedly awaits the animals seen in the photo: They’ll be dragged from the person they love, the person that swore to love and care for them for the duration of their lives. They’ll be confused, sad, but most of all terrified. The smell of death is overpowering here. After a day or two of sleeping on cold, dirty floors with the cacophony always all around, shivering and scared, they’ll be walked down a long hall to a room. A needle will slide into their veins and they’ll slip away, wondering where their beloved human is and why they never came back. All the while, their human is probably kicking back at the beach for the 4th of July weekend. Only 52 out of 211 animals (25 percent) brought to the shelter that day were brought by their owners, to be surrendered. Almost twice as many (102) were strays or lost dogs being brought to the shelter. And finally, more than 80 percent of dogs turned in to the BARC shelter — for whatever reason — are not put down. The shelter’s spokesperson provided us statistics showing that in 2016, 80.4 percent of animals turned in (either as strays, lost dogs, or by their owners), were successfully adopted out, returned to their owners or otherwise kept alive. (There is a sliver of irony in this episode. Juan Martinez, who was in the photo that accompanied Snarr’s inflammatory Facebook post, was bringing a fostered kitten to BARC for medical care. That kitten was once a stray, and could well have been turned in to the shelter by someone who once waited in line outside, just like those in the photo.) The percentage of dogs euthanized was 19.6 percent. Since the total number of dogs turned in on 27 June 2017 was 154, we can estimate that about 30 (19.6 percent) of these will end up being euthanized. And since the total number of animals brought to the center (including the medical and foster clinic) was 211 — this means only around 14 percent will end up being put down. In other words, the statistical likelihood is this: Of the animals waiting outside the BARC clinic at any given moment on 27 June 2017 — the day this viral photo was taken — the vast majority (around 86 percent) were likely not to end up being euthanized.


Hillary Clinton supported and helped free two Black Panthers accused of torturing and murdering Alex Rackley.

Explanation: Did Hillary Clinton support and help free two Black Panthers accused of murder?

Uncategorized, black panthers, hillary clinton

It’s difficult for those who weren’t around to experience the 1960s first-hand to fully understand the controversy that swirled around radical parties such as the Black Panthers. Certainly many Americans viewed them as representing the very worst of that era’s political movements: a group of hate-filled militant thugs who felt their disaffection with the existing social and political systems justified anything required to achieve their aim of “revolution by any means necessary” (such as smuggling guns into a Marin County courtroom in an attempt to free Panther George Jackson, resulting in a shoot-out that killed a judge, two inmates, and Jackson’s brother). Others at the time, however, believed the Panthers were the only political group that truly represented a downtrodden and marginalized group of people who had been enslaved, discriminated against, and denied civil rights protections for hundreds of years; that sought to improve the condition of the poor by operating schools, opening medical clinics, and providing free breakfasts for ghetto children; and that had the courage to stand up to the brutality visited upon them by law enforcement acting in the service of a government and a society that sought to “keep them in their place.” In May of 1969, Black Panther founder and national chairman Bobby Seale (who had already been indicted for his alleged participation in demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968) made a trip from Oakland to New Haven, Connecticut, to speak at Yale University. The Black Panthers were by then nationally known, a focus of media attention, and under the active surveillance of the FBI. (J. Edgar Hoover had publicly declared several months earlier that he considered the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”) Rumors of police informants and government spies having infiltrated the party were rampant, and a man named Alex Rackley, a member of the Panthers’ New York chapter, fell under suspicion. Rackley was taken to the home of Warren Kimbro (described as a “community organizer and aspiring Panther”) where he was held captive for 24 hours, beaten, and scalded with boiling water in an effort to force him to confess. Rackley was then taken to a marsh in Middlefield by Kimbro, George Sams (a Panther field marshal and, according to some, himself a police informant), and Lonnie McLucas (a Panther member from Bridgeport), where Sams ordered Kimbro and McLucas to kill the suspected informant. (Who did the actual killing has always been disputed: McLucas reportedly fired the first shot, but Kimbro admitted to delivering the bullet to the head that killed Rackley.) Rackley’s body was discovered the next day by fishermen, and fourteen Black Panthers were arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy, and nine of them were indicted. The subsequent murder trials of Black Panthers that took place in New Haven beginning in 1970 was a cause célèbre, the latest “trial of the century” that pitted the “establishment” against the “radicals”: the former supposedly valiantly defending the values of mainstream American society, while the latter were supposedly being framed and railroaded by government powers determined to destroy them at any cost. Upwards of 12,000 Black Panther supporters made their way to New Haven, and many of them were housed and fed in and around the campus of Yale University. Classes at Yale were made optional for the last few months of the term as Panther supporters swarmed the campus in protest and the president of Yale University, Kingman Brewster Jr., announced: “I personally want to say that I’m appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass that I am skeptical of the ability of Black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the U.S.” From that maelstrom came the 1999 political piece reproduced above, which claims that two 1990’s political figures, Hillary Clinton (then First Lady) and Bill Lann Lee (former acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division whose appointment by President Bill Clinton was controversial because of Lee’s support for affirmative action programs),  defended the Black Panthers, helped “shut down” Yale University, and aided the accused Panthers in going free or serving lenient sentences. But all of that is gross exaggeration: neither Clinton nor Lee did any of those things, and any involvement they had with the New Haven Black Panther trials was extremely minor and tangential. We’ll begin with the last part, the claim that “These two people actually went so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers during their trial.”  This statement is ridiculously far-fetched: Yale University went to a “voluntarily optional” class schedule (it did not “shut down”) for a few months at the end of the term in mid-1970 because thousands of Black Panther protesters had flooded the campus and its environs, not because of anything Hillary Clinton or Bill Lee did. And while the Panthers made have found many sympathetic supporters among the student body at Yale, neither Hillary Clinton or Bill Lee led or participated in  student demonstrations in support of the Black Panthers, or spoke up in their defense. The above-quoted article also asks “How in the world do you think that these killers got off so easy? Well, maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who came to the defense of the Panthers.”  But neither Bill Lee nor Hillary Clinton “defended” the Panthers, either in a public or a legal sense. Bill Lee wasn’t a lawyer, or even a law student; he was simply another Yale undergraduate who had no involvement in the Black Panthers’ trial. Hillary Rodham (as she was known then) wasn’t a lawyer then, either: She was a Yale law student, and like many of her politically-minded fellow law students who saw the latest “trial of the century” taking place just outside the main gate of their school, she took advantage of an opportunity to be involved in the case in a minor, peripheral way by organizing other students to help the American Civil Liberties Union monitor the trials for civil rights violations. Her tangential participation in the trial in no way helped “free” Black Panthers tried for the murder of Alex Rackley In fact, the killers of Alex Rackley didn’t “go free”: Lonnie McLucas was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in prison,  and Warren Kimbro and George Sams turned state’s evidence and pleaded guilty to second degree murder, serving four years in prison. Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins (who were accused not of killing Rackley, but of being present during his captivity and boiling water to torture him with) went free not due to any efforts on the part of Hillary Clinton or Bill Lee, but because the state failed to sufficiently prove its case against them: the jury deadlocked in favor of acquittal for both defendants, and the trial judge dismissed the charges against both of them. And, of course, neither Hillary Clinton nor Bill Lee had anything to do with the post-trial lives of Seale and Huggins.


A painting depicting J. Marion Sims' experiments on enslaved Black women is on display at the Alabama state Capitol.

Explanation: Is There a Painting of J. Marion Sims’ Experiments on Black Women at the Alabama State Capitol?

Amid the removal and re-evaluation of statues commemorating historical figures in June 2020, a Facebook post that spread widely in June 2020 conflated a statue of a gynecologist who experimented on enslaved Black women with a painting depicting him alongside one of those women.The post by comedian Earthquake (a.k.a. Nathaniel Stroman) features a cropped photograph of the painting, which depicts Sims and two other men observing a woman identified as Lucy. Stroman’s post, which has been shared more than 70,000 times on Facebook, states:This painting hanging in the state capital of #Alabama take a long look at it. #JamesMarianSims – who perfected his surgical techniques by operating Without anesthesia on enslaved #blackwoman because he believed black women Didn’t Feel Pain. he described the experimental surgeries on his enslaved subjects as “So painful, that none but a woman could have borne them. After perfecting the techniques on black enslaved woman with out anesthesia in America, Sims went on to offer the procedure in Europe to wealthy white women who were sedated. This man is arguably the most famous American surgeon of the 19th century. I see him no different than Josef Megele both pure monsters.I hope everyone who goes to the gynecologist will close their eyes for a moment and honor these enslaved black women. I cannot, Cannot fathom the pain these black women endured under this man’s hands. And that painting…. who should be honored? The irony is also in their clothes. Some people, society look at people’s status, respect even on how one is dressed. The one who should be honered and respected is the one who owns no shoes.There is no record of the painting being on display at the Alabama State Capitol building. The full version of the painting shows Sims standing in front of Lucy, while two other women identified as Anarcha Westcott and Betsy watch from behind a makeshift curtain:Robert A. Thom’s painting is part of the series “Great Moments in Medicine,” which he did on commission by the pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis & Co. between 1948 and 1964. In 2007 Pfizer (which had acquired the collection of 45 paintings after buying out another company, Warner-Lambert) gave it to the University of Michigan Museum of Art, where they have been archived.The accompanying text for the painting, composed by Parke-Davis pharmacist George A. Bender, reads:Little did James Marion Sims, M.D., (1813-1883) dream, that summer day in 1845, as he prepared to examine the slave girl, Lucy, that he was launching on an international career as a gynecologic surgeon; or that he was to raise gynecology from virtually an unknown to respected medical specialty. Nor did he realize that his crude back-yard hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, would be the forerunner of the nation’s first Woman’s Hospital, which Sims helped to establish in New York in 1855. Dr. Sims, who became a leader in gynecology in Europe as well as in the United States, served as president of The American Medical Association, 1875-1876; and was honored by many nations.However, the museum’s description of the piece adds more context:By way of blinded valorization, Bender’s text sterilizes Sims’ years-long experimentation on the bodies of “Anarcha, Betsy, Lucy and about nine other unidentified enslaved women and girls” from 1844 to 1849. Eclipsed by Bender’s mythical-heroic account of Sims was the agonizing pain suffered by the patients experimented on before the wide use of anesthetics. At the same time, the enslaved labor responsible for the very construction of Sim’s “crude back-yard hospital” is rendered invisible. As Bender drew heavily upon Sims’ memoir to craft his captions, he, much like Sims, also failed to acknowledge the fact that the enslaved female patients were expected to continue their servitude even as patients. These women not only cooked, cleaned, and cared for the Sims family, but effectively kept the Alabama hospital running, serving as Sim’s surgical nurses throughout the five-year period of their “treatment.”Like Bender’s caption, Thom’s illustration also lionizes Sims, who stands with his arms folded at the head of the hospital scene. The illustration reproduces a racist, medical gaze, as it prompts the observer to join the ranks of other visiting surgeons who ogle Lucy as a medical object of curiosity. Through proper contextualization and careful visual study, we might challenge this supposed “great moment in medicine” and consider the contradictions of “scientific achievement” and the entanglements of violence, slavery, and medicine.While there is no record of the painting of Sims and Lucy being displayed at the Capitol, a separate painting showing Sims standing near Westcott and calling him one of the “medical giants of Alabama,” was on display at the University of Alabama-Birmingham before being removed in 2006. In 2017, Dr. Vanessa Gamble — a physician and historian at George Washington University — reaffirmed in a radio interview that Sims performed thirty surgeries on Westcott alone in the course of his experimentation, which was conducted without anesthesia:There was a belief at the time that black people did not feel pain in the same way. They were not vulnerable to pain, especially black women. So that they had suffered pain in other parts of their lives and their pain was ignored.Sims is credited with discovering a surgical technique that could repair the condition known as vesicovaginal fistula, as well as the first successful gallbladder surgery, and the first artificial insemination procedure that resulted in a pregnancy, although it resulted in a miscarriage and was described by The Atlantic as “an ethical nightmare.”While there is no painting of Sims at the Alabama State Capitol, a statue of him first erected there in 1939 still stands, despite calls for its removal. A separate statue honoring Sims in New York City was taken down in April 2018. A separate monument to Sims is still on display outside the State House in his native South Carolina.Comments


World closes borders, restricts travel to contain coronavirus spread.

Explanation: Countries around the world on Saturday continued to close borders, impose strict entry and quarantine requirements and restrict large gatherings in efforts to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said it will close all its retail stores worldwide, outside Greater China, until March 27. Apple reopened all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday as the spread of the virus on mainland China slowed dramatically. Countries have shuttered museums, tourist attractions and sporting events to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission, with more than 138,000 people worldwide infected and more than 5,000 dead. Colombia said it will close its borders with Venezuela and stop visitors who have been in Europe or Asia, while a U.S. ban on entry for most people from continental Europe was due to start midnight Friday. The World Health Organization (WHO) says Europe has become the pandemic’s current epicenter after reporting more cases and deaths than the rest of world combined, apart from China where the coronavirus originated last December. Saudi Arabia will suspend all international flights for two weeks, starting Sunday, state news agency SPA said, Taiwan will require travelers from mainland Europe, Britain and Ireland to self-isolate for 14 days, while New Zealand implemented a similar measure for all those entering the country. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also called on cruise ships, a major source of infections in some countries, not to come to New Zealand until June 30. “Alongside Israel, and a small number of Pacific Islands who have effectively closed their border, this decision will mean New Zealand will have the widest ranging and toughest border restrictions of any country in the world,” she said. The country has just six confirmed cases and has had no deaths, but Ardern said that number inevitably would rise. “That is why ultimately, we must go hard and we must go early,” she told reporters. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced a ban on public events with more than 500 people on Friday, joining countries such as Australia where the ban will come into force on Monday. Britain will introduce emergency laws next week to ban mass gatherings, said a government source, an escalation of its crisis plan which critics had said was too relaxed. The Philippines capital Manila, home to 12 million people, announced nighttime curfews on Saturday and urged shopping malls to close for one month. “To limit the spread of the virus, we need to limit the movement of people. We are slowing down the movement of people in Metro Manila,” said Jose Arturo Garcia, general manager of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. While infections continue to climb around the world, in mainland China the number of new cases is falling. The number of new coronavirus cases imported into mainland China from overseas surpassed the number of locally transmitted new infections for the first time on Friday, data released by the National Health Commission showed on Saturday. Mainland China had 11 new confirmed cases on Friday, up from eight cases a day earlier, but only four of those - all in the virus epicenter of Hubei province - were locally transmitted. Hubei has now seen new infections fall for nine straight days. All four of the new cases on Friday, down from five a day earlier, were in provincial capital Wuhan. The flu-like virus has infected 80,824 people in mainland China, the commission said. In a bid to limit the economic damage from a pandemic that has infected the U.S. House of Representatives passed an aid package that would provide free testing and paid sick leave. The U.S. military said it will halt most domestic travel, extending earlier restrictions on international travel for its more than a million active-duty troops around the world. Travel bans have hammered airlines and travel companies worldwide, while financial markets have been hit by panic selling this week. The impact of the coronavirus on everyday life is also deepening. The Czech government will shut most shops and restaurants from early Saturday, with exceptions including food stores, pharmacies and gas stations. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre museum and the Moulin Rouge cabaret closed their doors. The Smithsonian museums in Washington were preparing to do so on Saturday and Broadway theaters in New York went dark. The kissing of the Blarney Stone, one of Ireland’s oldest tourist traditions, was suspended. The global sporting calendar has also been left in tatters with major tournaments canceled, postponed or forced to continue without spectators. But sport’s biggest showpiece, the Olympics, will still proceed as planned, according to Tokyo organizers.


“The national coin shortage was done intentionally, the Mint is no longer releasing coins into circulation aka this is the beginning of the end of paper money.”

Explanation: Reduced retail activity and a temporary reduction in coin production, both due to COVID-19, caused a shortage.

Economy, Facebook Fact-checks, Facebook posts,

Maybe you’ve seen signs in retail stores about a coin shortage, which led to a widely shared conspiracy theory on Facebook. "National Coin Shortage Just Beginning. The national coin shortage was done intentionally, the mint is no longer releasing coins into circulation aka this is the beginning of the end of paper money," the July 2 post says in part, arguing it’s part of a decades-old plan toward enabling a "soon coming one world government" to track every private transaction. "First it will be coins, then one dollar bills and in a not so distant future cash will not be accepted at any store." The post includes what appears to be a photograph of a sign inside of a grocery store that says: "Our country is experiencing a national coin shortage" and asking customers to use exact change or non-cash forms of payment. Some commenters posted images of what appear to be retail store signs with similar messages. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat  news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We found there was a coronavirus-induced shortage of coins, but no evidence of a plan to eradicate pocket change. Many news outlets reported in June that across the country, coins were hard to find. "Coins have become scarce as virus lockdowns keep people from emptying their coin jars in exchange for paper bills," the New York Times reported. "The Latest Pandemic Shortage: Coins Are The New Toilet Paper," said NPR, describing how banks were running low on nickels, dimes and quarters, in turn leading to shortages at retail outlets. "With the partial closure of the economy, the flow of coins through the economy has gotten all…it’s kind of stopped," Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a House subcommittee. The Fed announced June 11 a "strategic allocation of coin inventories," saying: "The COVID‐19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coin. In the past few months, coin deposits from depository institutions to the Federal Reserve have declined significantly and the U.S. Mint’s production of coin also decreased due to measures put in place to protect its employees." The Fed also said it would work to "maximize coin production capacity." U.S. Mint spokesman Todd Martin told PolitiFact that in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, the Mint reduced the number of employees per shift in order to enhance social distancing, leading to a reduction in production of 10% in April and 20% in May. At the same time, reduced sales activity meant retailers were ordering more coins from the Mint because they were receiving fewer of them as people stayed home, he said. Coin production began to ramp up in May with mandatory Saturday overtime, the Mint returned to full production by mid-June, and nearly 1.6 billion coins were produced in June, Martin said. In short, the coin shortage was caused by reduced retail activity and a temporary reduction in production, both due to COVID-19. It was not, as this post suggests, done "intentionally" as part of a plan to eliminate paper money. The statement contains only an element of truth.


Jordan, Egypt faulted for deaths of US-trained sniffer dogs.

Explanation: Bomb-detection dogs sent by the United States to Jordan and Egypt got sick and in some cases died because of improper care, according to a State Department report released Friday.

Health, General News, Politics, Jordan, Terrorism, Dogs, United States

The State Department Office of Inspector General recommended that two U.S. agencies stop sending the specially trained dogs to the two countries until they have plans in place to make sure they are taken care of and monitored to ensure their well-being. The two agencies, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Counter-terrorism, agreed to the recommendation and said earlier this month they had taken actions to protect the dogs, according to the OIG. The agencies had resisted halting the program when an initial report on the subject was released in September. The State Department has sent more than 200 dogs to various countries overseas to help prevent terrorism over the past 20 years. The September OIG report raised concerns about Jordan and found “ongoing health and welfare concerns among dogs deployed to Jordan,” which is the largest recipient of the dogs in the explosive-detection program. The report released Friday was an update issued after investigators learned of continuing problems and additional deaths. It found several dogs died or had to be euthanized over the past 18 months, including at least two from heat stroke, one from a preventable parasite and a fourth from a pesticide sprayed in or near its kennel. The report said Jordan has agreed to stop using that pesticide around the kennels. A veterinarian consulted by the OIG said the heat stroke deaths were a result of “negligence and improper care,” and not accidents. In Egypt, the report said at least three dogs died, including one from heat stroke, and that officials there refused to allow State Department personnel to visit the kennels or the airport where the dogs work. The Bureau of Counter-terrorism and Bureau of Diplomatic Security told the State Department’s internal watchdog that they are providing additional equipment and training to host country handlers and veterinarians. Neither country had any immediate comment on the report. ___ This story has been corrected to say that 200 dogs have been sent to various countries over the past 20 years, not two years.


State regulators strip ex-USC dean of medical license.

Explanation: California’s medical board has revoked the license of the former dean of the University of Southern California’s medical school who was accused of using drugs and partying with prostitutes.

U.S. News, California, University of Southern California, Medical schools

The decision , which was handed down Friday, strips Dr. Carmen Puliafito of his medical license and takes effect Aug. 17. Medical board documents show Puliafito admitted to using methamphetamine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana. Authorities alleged Puliafito had provided drugs to a prostitute and was misled authorities when she overdosed in a hotel room. Puliafito blamed his behavior on bipolar disorder. His attorney didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Friday. He gave up his dean post in 2016 and was fired from the USC faculty the next year after the Los Angeles Times reported on his behavior.


UK’s Johnson pushes his Brexit message as election nears.

Explanation: With two days until Britain’s election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s final push to drive home his key message about Brexit was overshadowed Tuesday by criticism of his ham-fisted response to the image of a sick child sleeping on a hospital floor and allegations that he exploited a terrorist knife attack for political gain.

Brexit, AP Top News, Health, General News, Elections, International News, Business, London, Boris Johnson, Terrorism, Europe, London Bridge attack

Dave Merritt, whose son was killed in last month’s London Bridge attack, said the way the tragedy had been exploited for political ends was “crass and insensitive.” Merritt’s 25-year-old son Jack was one of two people killed when a former convict attacked people at a prisoner rehabilitation event that Merritt was helping to run on Nov. 29. Attacker Usman Khan had served eight years in prison for terrorism offenses, and the attack sparked a political spat about security, the early release of prisoners and funding for the prison and justice systems. Dave Merritt told Sky News that “instead of seeing a tragedy, Boris Johnson saw an opportunity.” “And it was just such an ill-considered intervention and almost like a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “I think he saw an opportunity to score some points in the election. They immediately said, ‘Oh, this is Labour’s fault - they allowed this to happen. They had this early release policy,’ and so on.” He said the way the tragedy had been exploited for political ends was “crass and insensitive.” He said the family had not been contacted by Johnson or his office since the attack, although Johnson’s office said “the PM has expressed his deepest condolences to Mr. Merritt for his tragic loss - an experience no family should have to go through.” Johnson, meanwhile, tried to focus voters on the prospect of an uncertain result and a divided Parliament, which would endanger his plan to lead Britain out of the European Union on Jan 31. All 650 seats  in the House of Commons seats are up for grabs in the election, which is being held more than two years early in a bid to break the political impasse over Brexit. Opinion polls give the Conservatives a lead over Labour, but all parties are nervous about the verdict of a volatile electorate that is weary after years of wrangling over Brexit. “Polls can be wrong,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We need to be fighting for every vote.” He accuses Labour of offering more “dither and delay” on Brexit. The opposition party says it will negotiate a new divorce deal with the EU and then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. “Forty-eight hours from now, our country can choose between going forward, punching through the current deadlock ... or we can remain stuck in neutral,” Johnson said during a visit to a construction equipment factory in central England, where he drove a bulldozer through a plastic foam wall with “Gridlock” written on it. Merritt’s interview was another late hurdle in a campaign that had gone smoothly for Johnson, until a newspaper ran a photo of 4-year-old Jack Williment-Barr  sleeping on the floor of the Leeds General Infirmary as he awaited treatment because no bed was free. The opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn painted the boy’s plight as a symptom of Britain’s ailing health system, which has suffered under years of Conservative government austerity measures. A video of the prime minister briefly declining to look at a cellphone photo of Jack on a journalist’s phone — and then placing the phone in his pocket — has been viewed more than 1 million times. The incident quickly became caught up in a storm of social media claims, counterclaims and conspiracies. Several prominent journalists, including the political editors of the BBC and ITV, tweeted a claim by anonymous Conservative officials that a party worker had been punched by a protester while Britain’s health secretary visited the hospital. When footage emerged showing that no assault had taken place, they apologized — but a media storm was already raging. Some social media users circulated claims that the photo of Jack, first published by the Yorkshire Evening Post, was staged. Editor James Mitchinson tweeted his reply to one such reader, explaining how the newspaper had verified the story. “I would be happy to meet you over a coffee to offer you an explanation as to how sophisticated and corrosive the proliferation of fake news is, and what to do to guard against being conned by it,” he wrote. Young Jack later was diagnosed with tonsillitis and flu, and eventually sent home. The controversy about the photo comes amid a campaign marred by misleading social media images and attack ads. Britain’s electoral laws, like those of most countries, were largely written before the dawn of the internet, meaning social media campaigns are mostly unregulated and open to exploitation. With no constraints, such as the strict rules that govern broadcasters, Britain’s political parties have pushed the boundaries of truth, transparency and reality. Labour found itself embarrassed, meanwhile, by the leak of a phone recording to the right-wing political website Guido Fawkes in which the party’s health spokesman suggested that the party would lose Thursday’s election because voters “can’t stand Corbyn.” Jonathan Ashworth said his unguarded remarks were merely banter with a Conservative friend and claimed he had been trying to “psych him out like football managers do.” “Obviously with the benefit of hindsight I’ve been too clever by half and I look like an idiot as a result of doing it,″ Ashworth told the BBC later. “But I thought I was having a private conversation with someone who I’ve always had conversations with over the years. ” ___ Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and British politics at https://www.apnews.com/Brexit


Things are getting tense among members of the General Assembly as Illinois continues its historic budget impasse. Democrats and Republicans are hurling attacks at opposition party leaders, hoping to assign blame for the state’s lack of a budget for 22 months. Republicans continue to target Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, while Democrats, like state Sen. Jacqueline Collins of Chicago, often slam Gov. Bruce Rauner. In a Feb. 24 newsletter from state Sen. Collins, she zeroes in on several of Rauner’s claims as she attempts to debunk them. One of her counterclaims said: "Fact: Governor Rauner has called every year for eliminating funding for afterschool programs for at-risk youth, homeless prevention services and programs that help autistic children." We wondered: Did Rauner actually call for the elimination of these programs each year he’s been in office? Budget proposals and vetoed bills We contacted Kenneth Lowe, a media and outreach specialist for the Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus, to see where the state senator found her sources. Lowe provided us with five instances from 2015 to 2017 in which the governor announced he intended to  freeze or cut homeless prevention, autism or after-school programs for at-risk youth. We looked into each instance to verify that it actually happened and to see whether it accurately depicts Collins’ claim. • Collins’ claim: On Feb. 18, 2015 Rauner announced his Fiscal Year 2016 budget in which he proposed freezing grant funding for autism and homeless prevention programs at DHS. He also called for the elimination of the After School Matters program at the Illinois State Board of Education. • Our finding: Rauner’s FY16 budget proposal shows the governor did look to freeze funding for homeless and autism programs, as well as cut After School Matters. • Collins’ claim: In April 2015, Rauner announced his plan to freeze funding for autism and homeless prevention. • Our findings: On April 3, 2015, Rauner did, in fact, call for a $26 million suspension in social services and public health grants. The Chicago Tribune reported, "The Republican’s office released a list of targeted programs…that included funding to pay for…smoking cessation, teen programs, autism, and HIV and AIDS programs, among other things." The Tribune story showed the governor called for a $1 million cut for autism programs, a $300,000 cut for Assistance for the Homeless and a $3.1 million cut to Teen REACH, an after-school program run by the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) for high-risk youth. The cuts were dubbed by Democrats as the "Good Friday Massacre" and funding to the programs was restored a few weeks later when the administration reported higher-than-expected tax revenue. • Collins’ claim: In June 2015, Rauner vetoed a bill that would fund autism programs and homeless prevention programs. • Our finding: On June 25, 2015, Rauner vetoed HB4165. The bill would have provided $4.3 million to the Autism Diagnosis Education Program and $4.5 million to Homeless Youth Services. It is worth noting, however, that the bill was in a batch of 19 budget bills Rauner vetoed simultaneously under a single veto message that faulted Democrats for passing a budget that was $4 billion in the red. "We must be partners in enacting a balanced budget that meets critical public needs within the resources available. The surest way to do that is by enacting structural reforms inside government and economic reforms that stimulate our economy and bring new jobs to Illinois," Rauner wrote in his veto message. As he has said repeatedly since then, Rauner, at the time, had said he would look to new revenue sources if the General Assembly enacted parts of his "Turnaround Agenda." This became the opening salvo in a budget impasse that endures to this day. • Collins’ claim: Governor Rauner’s FY17 budget proposal called for the same types of freezes and cuts from his FY16 budget proposal. • Our finding: Rauner’s budget did call for these freezes and cuts. The Project for Autism, DHS’ Homelessness Prevention program and After School Matter wouldn’t have received funding. • Collins’ claim: Rauner, again, introduced a budget without funding the above-mentioned programs. • Our finding: Rauner’s proposed FY18 budget shows this claim is correct. By looking at Rauner’s budget proposals, vetoed bills and past news stories we found Rauner has called for the elimination and freezing of funding for autism, homelessness and after school programs each year he has been in office. However, Rauner has not been successful in his attempts to eliminate or freeze this funding, a point Collins’ email does not make. 'It’s not pretty’ Chris Mooney, director of the Institute of Government & Public Affairs at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, said claims like the ones in Collins’ email are common these days. Illinois has been without a budget for almost two years, and Mooney said it’s starting to grate on people. "People inside and outside the legislative process are having their nerves frayed," Mooney said. "There’s a lot of tension, especially in the statehouse because they can’t get their jobs done. That’s frustrating for anybody." Mooney said this feeling is probably amplified after the 12-bill budget package known as the "Grand Bargain" stalled. "It was the one real attempt the (state) Senate had and it was shot down," Mooney said. "It offered hope and those hopes were dashed. It’s like we’re starting back at square one." Our ruling In an email newsletter, state Sen. Jacqueline Collins accused Gov. Bruce Rauner of calling for the elimination of "funding for afterschool programs for at-risk youth, homeless prevention services and programs that help autistic children" each year he's been in office. A Democratic staffer pointed to five instances where Rauner proposed cuts or freezes to these three programs. We verified these instances by looking at Rauner’s current and former budget proposals, a vetoed bill and news stories. Rauner has proposed budgets that would eliminate funding in the areas Collins cites. But his 2015 veto of a bill that contained autism funding was in the context of rejecting 19 budget bills on the grounds that the entire package was unbalanced. His veto message did not specifically mention eliminating autism funding. Rather, he said he was vetoing several bills because he wanted structural reforms as part of a balanced budget which majority Democrats did not send him. Collins’ statement is accurate, but needs clarification and additional information. We rate Collins’ claim .


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has admitted that 98 million Americans were given cancer through polio shots contaminated with SV40, a cancer-causing virus found in monkeys.

Explanation: 98 Million Americans Were Given Cancer Through Polio Shots

Claims that 98 million Americans were given cancer through polio shots contaminated with SV40 from 1955 to 1963 are false. Questions about links between SV40 and cancer, and theories that millions of Americans were potentially exposed to SV40 through contaminated polio shots, have been circulating for years. Those rumors came to a head in a 2013 video posted at a YouTube channel operated by an Illinois-based team of paranormal investigators dubbed “Extremum Spiritum Paranormal.” The claim resurfaced in March 2017 with various posts on blog sites that espouse conspiracy theories about health news, world events, vaccines, and geology, just to name a few topics. First and foremost, the claim that 98 million Americans were given cancer through polio shots contaminated with SV40 from 1955 to 1963 are proven false by the very CDC information that these reports cite. The CDC reports that a total of 98 million people were given vaccines during that period — and that approximately 10-30 million Americans could have received a vaccine tainted with simian virus 40 (SV40). So, the number of people potentially impacted is far fewer than the 98 million total widely reported. Second, links between cancer and SV40 don’t appear to be supported by scientific research, the CDC reports: Some of the polio vaccine administered from 1955 to 1963 was contaminated with a virus called simian virus 40 (SV40). The virus came from the monkey kidney cells used to produce the vaccines. Once the contamination was discovered in the Salk inactivated polio vaccine in use at that time, the U.S. government established requirements for vaccine testing to verify that all new batches of the polio vaccine were free of SV40. Because of research done with SV40 in animal models, there was some concern that the virus could cause cancer. However, evidence suggests that SV40 has not caused cancer in humans. Despite initial fears that SV40 causes cancer in humans, a 2002 study cast doubt on those fears without disproving them completely. The New York Times reported in 2002 that SV40 had been found in the tumor cells taken from people who had four types of cancers that were found to develop in rodents — but it was not clear whether the virus caused those tumors: SV40 can cause cancer in rodents and in cultured human cells. It has been found in some tumors taken from cancer patients. But finding the virus in a tumor does not prove that it caused the tumor. Most large population studies have not found a higher cancer risk in people exposed to the vaccine. There is no blood test that can tell whether a person is infected with SV40, and there are no special steps to take to prevent the rare cancers being studied, researchers said. The report released yesterday was prepared by a 14-member committee on vaccine safety convened by the Institute of Medicine, which advises the government on public health. The report is the fifth in a series of eight that the government commissioned on vaccination. Fear of vaccine side effects has led some parents to shun vaccination, and outbreaks of diseases like whooping cough and measles have resulted, the report said. After analyzing more than 100 studies, the committee said that most evidence argued against a connection between the polio vaccine and cancers, but that those weaknesses in the studies made it impossible to dismiss the potential link. A review of links between SV40 and cancers in humans that was published in 2007 offered a more definitive analysis: “In summary, the most recent evidence does not support the notion that SV40 contributed to the development of human cancers.” In the end, claims that 98 million Americans were given cancer through polio shots are false, and scientific evidence doesn’t appear to support links between human cancer and SV40 that contaminated vaccines from 1955 to 1963. For those reasons, we’re calling this rumor “fiction.” Comments