By the end of Governor Rick Perry's term, he will have drained Texas taxpayers ... of more than $360,000 to pay for the rental mansion he has been living in while the historic Governor's Mansion is repaired.
With the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White recently aired advice to GOP Gov. Rick Perry on how to save the state some money:Move.In fall 2007, the state rented a home for the governor and his wife, Anita, about 11 miles southwest of downtown Austin so the Governor's Mansion could be renovated. In an April 13 press release, White, who faces Perry in November, calls the monthly rent an extravagant, unwarranted use of taxpayer dollars, adding that by the end of his current term, Perry will have drained Texas taxpayers ... of more than $360,000 to pay for the rental mansion he has been living in while the historic Governor's Mansion is repaired and renovated.White then calls on Perry to set a budget-cutting example for other state employees and move out.We wondered whether White's right about how much Perry's rented pad will cost taxpayers.Katy Bacon, a spokeswoman for White, pointed us to a column in the Houston Chronicle that mentioned the monthly rent of the 4,600-square-foot home and to an earlier PolitiFact Texas item, in which we rated as Mostly True astatementby U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that Perry lives in a luxury house that costs taxpayers $10,000 a month.The lease for the house at 8113 Hickory Creek Drive, which last year was appraised by the Travis Central Appraisal District at $1.1 million, was initially for one year starting Oct. 1, 2007. The rent was set at $9,900.Less than a year after the Perrys moved into the rental home in a gated community near Barton Creek, the Governor's Mansion, just southwest of the Capitol, was heavily damaged in an arson fire for which no one has been arrested. Work has stopped on the mansion pending a decision on options for rebuilding the historical structure.In fall 2008, the lease on the rental home was renewed through October 2011 with the rent lowered to $9,000. Through this April, the state has paid $290,700 in rent. Toss in the eight months left in Perry's current term -- as White does -- and the total rental payments come to $362,700.So, does White get the tab for Perry's rented digs right? Yes -- and that's not counting other housing-related expenses.The state has not responded to requests for information on the costs of security at the governor's home-away-from-mansion.However, $197,000 has been spent on utilities and other items, such as preparing the rental residence for the governor, according to the Texas Facilities Commission and State Preservation Board. While we don't have an exact comparison of the ancillary costs of living at the Governor's Mansion, we know that in 2007 -- the last year that Perry lived there -- those bills, including for grounds work and utilities, totaled more than $330,000. (Kay Molina, assistant executive director of the Facilities Commission, said high maintenance costs that year reflected the fact that the mansion needed to be renovated. )Regardless, White nails the expected rent costs for the Perrys to reside in suburban Austin. We rate White's statement as True.
The next presidential election may still be two and a half years away, but the presumptive Democratic frontrunner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is all over the news. On May 16, 2014, in a speech at the New America Foundation, a moderate-to-liberal think tank, Clinton compared the United States and Canada on several measures of well-being. Clinton found the United States wanting. Canadian middle class incomes are now higher than in the United States, Clinton said. They are working fewer hours for more pay, enjoying a stronger safety net, living longer on average, and facing less income inequality. Well set aside the claim about the safety net, since thats tricky to measure statistically. But the other claims are ripe for a closer look. So well take them in order. (Clintons camp did not respond to our inquiry.) Canadian middle-class incomes are now higher than in the United States This is the trickiest of the measurements Clinton mentioned, for a couple reasons. First, theres no universally recognized definition of middle class in the available data. Second, theres more than one way to measure the data. Some measurements take a nations economic output as a whole and divide it by the population, whereas others sample individual people or households to find out how much they make, then find the midpoint. Clinton has support fromNew York Timesarticlethat looked at data from the Luxembourg Income Study database, which is based on surveys going back 35 years. The study surveyed people in various countries, asked them what they earned, then used a median to determine the mid-range income level. TheNew York Timesconcluded that median income in Canada pulled into a tie with median United States income in 2010 and has most likely surpassed it since then, due to studies conducted by other groups since 2010 suggest that pay in Canada has risen faster than pay in the United States. On the other hand, if you look at gross domestic product per capita --  the total amount of economic activity divided by population -- the United States tops Canada, and not by a trivial amount. In 2012, GDP per capita in theUnited Stateswas $51,689, compared to $41,559 forCanada, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (These figures, as with all other money figures in this article, have been converted to U.S. dollars, so that they can be compared.) But this method has drawbacks. Because it represents an average across the entire economy, the final results tend to over-represent the income that flows to the wealthy. So its not ideal for measuring the middle class. Munroe Eagles, director of Canadian studies at the State University of New York-Buffalo, and Ross Burkhart, co-director of the Canadian Studies Program at Boise State University, told PolitiFact that using the Luxembourg Income Study is at least as good a measurement for Clintons claim as the other figures, if not better. They are working fewer hours for more pay than Americans OECD data for the average number of hours worked annually per employed person shows that Clinton is correct. In theUnited Statesin 2012, workers spent 1,790 hours per year on the job, compared to 1,710 hours per year inCanada. One could say that Americans are working harder and producing more goods and services, but Clintons point was that Canadians have greater opportunities for leisure, and on that point, the statistics support her point. As for getting more pay, OECD statistics for 2012 show that the average annual wages for workers in Canada were $58,376, compared to $55,048 in the United States. This measures the average wages earned by a full-time, full-year employee. These statistics support Clintons claim. Canadians are living longer OECD data for life expectancy at birth shows that in 2011,Canadianscould expect to live 81 years, while in 2009, the most recent year available,Americanscould expect to live 78.7 years. So Clintons right on this one, too. Theres less income inequality in Canada The primary statistic used for gauging income inequality is the Ginicoefficient. Gini coefficients range from 0, or perfect equality, to 1, or perfect inequality. According to the OECD, the Gini coefficient for Canada in 2010 was .320, compared to .380 in the United States. That means Canada is modestly more equal than the United States is, which is what Clinton had claimed. Overall, the five comparisons Clinton made are reasonable and arent cherry-picked or subject to statistical quirks, Burkhart said. It's fair, in my understanding of the Canadian and U.S. economies, for Ms. Clinton to make the kinds of comparisons that Ms. Clinton has made, Burkhart said. Our ruling Clinton said that Canadian middle class incomes are now higher than in the United States. They are working fewer hours for more pay,  living longer on average, and facing less income inequality. Shes indisputably correct on four of these five measures, and the data is more mixed on the fifth. On balance, we rate her claim Mostly True. Claim:  Federal regulations require states to upgrade all street name signs to use mixed case lettering.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2010] A friend heard this on the radio today.  It was reported that there will be a federal mandate in 2012 that street signs must have a capital letter only at the beginning and the rest of the street sign must be in lower case.  He said the report stated that baby boomers were apparently having a difficult time reading the signs printed in all caps. I find this idea a little preposterous.  He indicated that it would cost Milwaukee, WI over a million $ to make the change.  it was also reported that there would be no federal grants available to assist in paying for the new signage.  Can this possibly be true?  Is there nothing more important for the federal government to worry about than street signs? They have mandated... without any funding... that all municipalities change traffic signs to a combination of upper and lower case letters... have we not been able to read our signs until now? Have we been eternally lost?? Government needs to get a life ...vote  I heard a gentleman telling a friend that President Obama was in New York City and didn't like the fact that the street signs were spelled in all caps.  He requested that Mayor Bloomberg change ALL the streets signs so they only began with a capital letter and he agreed, to the tune of $1mil+.  The conversation at the local scrap yard was about a mandate either Federal or Washington State requiring the change of all the street signs to ones that contain upper and lower case lettering (I guess most have all upper case lettering). This seemed so absurd I did not believe it but the scrap recyclers were excited about the huge amount of aluminum scrap that would be coming. Given the huge budget shortfalls and proposed cutbacks by most everyone, I find it offensive that someone is even payed to think about the font of the street signs. I sure hope this is just a rumor. Origins:  In October 2010, news outlets reported on new federal regulations regarding street and road signs that would be taking effect before the end of the decade, as exemplified by the following excerpt from the USA Today national newspaper: In a nod to the fading eyesight of the nation's growing number of aging Baby Boomers, the federal government is requiring communities around the USA to change street name signs from all capital letters to a combination of capital and lowercase letters. The government says that makes them easier to read. Cash-starved localities also will have to dig deep for new, more reflective traffic signs to make them easier to see at night, especially by older drivers. Under Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) regulations, communities have until 2015 to improve the nighttime visibility of roadside signs  such as stop, yield and railroad crossing signs. The issue is how well a sign redirects light from an automobile's headlights back toward the vehicle. Signs that fail to meet minimum standards must be replaced. Communities will be allowed to change the street name signs as they wear out. Unfortunately, the wording of some of these articles left readers unclear about exactly what the new federal regulations entail, leading to (mistaken) claims that officials in every state must upgrade all their street signs to used mixed case lettering by the year 2015. One of the new Federal Highway Administration regulations, as outlined in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), addresses the retroreflectivity of traffic signs: MUTCD For many years vehicle operators and the transportation industry have realized the importance of legible traffic signs and quality pavement markings for the purpose of highway safety and economical traffic flow, especially in low-light conditions. Light from a vehicle's headlights striking retroreflective traffic control devices bounces back to the driver's eyes allowing them to more easily see the road. Therefore, most traffic control devices are covered with retroreflective materials. These include transparent decals with embedded microprismatic reflectors for traffic signs and paint that has small sunken glass beads in the pavement markings.  Retroreflectivity is used to allow drivers to more easily see vital traffic control devices in nighttime and low-light conditions. The FHWA regulations require that states must upgrade post-mounted guide signs (e.g., stop signs, speed limit signs, pedestrian crossing signs) to meet minimum retroreflectivity standards by 2015.  States must also upgrade street name signs and overhead guide signs to meet minimum retroreflectivity requirements by 2018. A second  and distinctly different  FHWA regulation requires that newly-installed street name signs (or replacements for existing street name signs) must use a combination of upper and lower case letters rather than all upper case (i.e., capital) letters.  Signs executed in predominantly lower case letters are  generally easier to comprehend than signs written in all upper case letters (because the shapes of lower case letters have greater distinctiveness between them), so the new lettering requirements should make road signs easier for drivers (particularly older motorists) to read. The conflation of regulations regarding these  two new types of standards for signage  retroreflectivity and mixed case lettering  has created the  impression that all states must change every street name sign to used mixed case lettering by the year 2015 (at considerable cost to those states). This impression is false.  The only connection between these two standards is that if states have to replace some of their street name signs to meet the new retroreflectivity standards (which they are required to do by 2018), then those replacement signs must use mixed case lettering.  Otherwise, there is currently no requirement that states remove and replace street name signs which use only upper case lettering  such signs may remain in place until they reach the end of their service lives. Last updated:  14 November 2010 Among the many conspiracy theories surrounding the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada is one that involves Chad Nishimura, a Mandalay Bay Hotel valet worker who said he parked suspected shooter Stephen Paddock's car on his arrival at the hotel.  shooting According to conspiracy theorists, Nishimura told a reporter in his native Hawaii that Paddock did not appear to have many bags with him, thus contradicting the "official" narrative that Paddock acted alone, and prompting Nishimura's sinister disappearance. On 10 October 2017, the disreputable and rarely accurate web site Neon Nettle wrote:  Neon Nettle A valet worker from the Mandalay Bay hotel, who parked the suspected Las Vegas shooting gunman's car, has mysteriously vanished after giving an interview saying Stephen Paddock was a "normal guy" who "didn't have many bags." There is no evidence that Nishimura has disappeared or been reported missing, and this account contains several important factual errors and logical mistakes, typical of much of the content that Neon Nettle and other sites of its ilk publish. It is true that Nishimura spoke to KITV 4, a Honolulu ABC affiliate, for an article published on 3 October 2017 that has since been deleted: A Kamehameha graduate working as a valet at the Mandalay Bay Resort said he parked the shooter's car on Saturday. The gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, checked his car into the hotel on Saturday morning. Valet Chad Nishimura, who is from Mililani, said he spoke briefly with Paddock."Just in shock, really. It's scary to know that I was close to someone that was that dangerous. I would've never thought. He seemed like a normal guy. When he came in, nothing too weird about him. He didn't have any crazy bags with him that I can remember. We are a convention hotel so we have a bunch of people that have boxes and multiple carts worth of stuff. There's nothing weird that I can remember," Nishimura said. (An archived version of the story can be viewed here.) here The first thing to note here is that Nishimura did not say Stephen Paddock didn't have many bags. He said Paddock didn't have any "crazy bags" and brought "nothing weird" that he could could remember. Further, it requires a logical leap to propose that if Stephen Paddock didn't have much luggage with him upon arriving at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, it follows that he must have had an accomplice in the 1 October 2017 mass shooting. Nothing in Nishimura's account of meeting Paddock eliminates the possibility that Paddock made multiple trips to the hotel, therefore making that particular conspiracy theory surrounding Nishimura fall down on this logical point alone.  Neon Nettle also attributes the removal of the KITV 4 article to "higher-ups at ABC taking issue with a report that conflicts with the narrative they are pushing on the public," and falsely states that the reporter Moanike'ala Nabarro had declined to answer readers who asked why the story had been deleted.  In fact, Nabarro gave a clear answer to this question on 7 October 2017, three days before Neon Nettle published its story, saying that the decision was made in order to protect Nishimura's privacy: saying Mililani native says he spoke to shooter before checking his car into the valet at Mandalay Bay- https://t.co/GjkRE9HRVk https://t.co/GjkRE9HRVk  Moanike'ala Nabarro (@moanikitv) October 3, 2017 October 3, 2017  Finally, there is no evidence that Chad Nishimura has "vanished"  mysteriously or otherwise  and in fact, there is evidence to contradict this claim.  According to Neon Nettle, Nishimura "has completely vanished since the report was published, with all of his social media accounts being scrubbed from the internet." This is completely and provably false. Nishimura has been active on Facebook after 3 October, the publication date of the KITV 4 article which  at least according to the conspiracy theory being pushed here  prompted his "disappearance". (His Facebook account remains active, but we are not linking to it in the interest of protecting Nishimura's privacy from readers provoked by the groundless conspiracy theory peddled and promulgated by Neon Nettle and others.) and others On 5 October 2017, Nishimura wrote: I'm okay everyone, I was at the concert the night before, thankfully cut my wristband off and didnt [sic] go on Sunday. However I did park the shooters [sic] car...Thats been the rough part for me.    Furthermore, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has not listed Nishimura as a missing person. listed This conspiracy theory is illogical, not supported by any evidence, contradicted by other evidence, and is false. Neon Nettle has a history of publishing inaccurate conspiracy theories, hoaxes and other fabricated content. The Chad Nishimura case joins a laundry list of conspiracy theories and hoaxes revolving around the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.  history conspiracy theories Nabarro,Moanike'ala. "Hawaii Native Parked Shooter's Car."
 KITV 4/Archive.is. 3 October 2017 (Archived). LaCapria, Kim. "Las Vegas Shooting Rumors, Hoaxes and Conspiracy Theories."
 Snopes.com. 5 October 2017. Fear-mongering articles reporting that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (triggered by the tsunami that followed the Thoku earthquake of 11 March 2011) had caused a 100% infant mortality among orca whales born since then have been circulated online for several years. The web site Humans Are Free renewed interest in that rumor in September 2016 when they published an article with the clickbait title "Radiation from Fukushima Now Causes 100% Infant Mortality Rate in West Coast Orcas": published  The Humans Are Free piece was sourced from an article by the disreputable Natural News web site that employed a similarly misleading title ("West Coast Orcas Experiencing 100% Infant Mortality Rate as Radiation from Fukushima Drifts Across Ocean") even though the text of that article plainly admitted that there was no proven connection between the Fukushima disaster and the mortality of infant orcas: No one has yet proven that there is a direct link between the 100 percent mortality rate seen among orca infants and the effects of the radiation contamination of the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima reactor leak in Japan, but it certainly can't be ruled out as a possibility. Natural News listed several sources about whale deaths at the bottom of their article, but none of those sources mentioned radiation from Fukushima as likely or definitive cause. listed several sources bottom article Quotes from Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington, were also misleadingly reproduced out of context by Natural News to bolster a claim that Balcomb's statement didn't support: The recent discovery of a carcass off the coast of British Columbia  that of a 19-year-old orca female, which was believed to be in the late stages of pregnancy, is just one example of the recent orca deaths that have scientists and conservationists worried. Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center For Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington, said: Her death doesn't bode well for the southern resident population and certainly not for that matriline. Her mother died young. Her aunt had two sons and she's probably post-reproductive. She hasn't had any babies in the last 12 years. So there's no future. Balcomb also remarked: We haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years. We have had stillborns and newborns die and a number of whales that appear to be pregnant but didn't ultimately produce any calves. It's like zero survival in birth rate here. While Balcom did say that "we haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years," he was talking about the local Puget Sound orca whale population only, and he didn't in any way connect a 100% infant orca mortality rate to radiation from Fukushima. His quotes originated with a story published by the Seattle Times in December 2014 about a baby orca whale that had died in the Pugent Sound, and while the exact cause of that whale's death was unclear, Balcolm suggested that the whale likely died due to a diminished food supply (and not radiation): suggested But two of the whales three biggest problems  the buildup of pollutants such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls in their blubber, and disturbance by marine traffic  appear to be worsened by a third, a reduction in available prey. These whales can eat sockeye and halibut, but overwhelmingly prefer fatty chinook from Puget Sound and Canadas Fraser River, distinguishing them from other fish by using sonar to sense differences in the animals swim bladders. And Puget Sound chinook numbers have dropped to about 10 percent of their historic high. They, too, are listed for protection under the ESA. For Balcomb, the loss of J32 suggests its time to consider drastic measures, such as a ban or steep curtailment in chinook fishing, even though fishing is likely the least of the threats chinook face. Its a wake-up call  we know what the problem is, whether its dams or fishing or habitat destruction, he said. Its just what happens when millions of people move into the watershed. (But) stopping fishing, at least for a while, is something we can do immediately. [...] The reality is, the basic problem is food, Balcomb said. Although apparently no baby orcas survived long after birth in Puget Sound in 2013 or 2014, that wasn't the case in the immediately following years, as 2015 saw nine successful orca births in Puget Sound: births In just over a year, Puget Sound has welcomed nine baby Southern-resident orcas to the fold, as the pod continues to rebound from 30-year-low numbers reported at the end of 2014. While radiation from the Fukushima disaster did have a major impact on marine life, the leak of radiactive material from the plant leak did not cause a proven "100% infant mortality" rate among orca whales. Moreover, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not list nuclear radiation (from any source) among the threats currently facing the world's whale population.  impact Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  Welch, Craig.  "Puget Sound Orca Numbers Rise Fast After 30-Year Low in 2014."
  The Seattle Times.  20 January 2016. Welch, Craig.  "Ten Years After ESA Listing, Killer Whale Numbers Falling."
  The Seattle Times.  20 December 2014. Claim:  King Digital Entertainment, maker of Candy Crush Saga, copied their game from CandySwipe and is attempting to cancel the latter's trademark. OUTDATED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, February 2014] There is an "open letter" being circulated that is supposed to have been written by an Albert Ransom from Runsome Apps, Inc, that states that he trademarked a game called CandySwipe prior to King.com creating CandyCrush and that King.com is trying to take over his trademark.  Is this true?   Synopsis:  As of 16 April 2014, the parties in the dispute discussed below have announced the withdrawal of their claims against each other, so this item is no longer current: announced I am happy to announce that I have amicably resolved my dispute with King over my CandySwipe trademark and that I am withdrawing my opposition to their mark and they are withdrawing their counterclaim against mine. I have learned that they picked the CANDY CRUSH name before I released my game and that they were never trying to take my game away. Both our games can continue to coexist without confusing players. Origins:  In February 2014, King Digital Entertainment, the company behind the massively popular Candy Crush Saga game, announced they had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock.  King said they expected to raise $500 million in capital, with some analysts predicting that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) could value the company as high as $5.5 billion based largely on the strength of Candy Crush Saga: filed The game, which involves matching brightly coloured sweets on a grid to solve various puzzles, was played over 1 billion times a day in December [2013], according to the filing. Candy Crush is free but players pay for options within the game. It has proved a lucrative combination. King's profits grew over 7,000% last year, according to the filing. In 2012 the company's revenues were $164.4 million and its net profit $7.8 million, in 2013 those figures rose to $1.88 billion and $567.6 million respectively. But the filing also reveals that King's fortunes are currently closely tied to the continued success of Candy Crush. The game accounts for 78% of King's total gross bookings, according to the filing. Its second most popular game, Pet Rescue Saga, had 15 million daily active users in December, a fraction of Candy Crush's 93 million. King noted in its filing that "a small number of games currently generate a substantial majority of our revenue." However, King has been the subject of controversy due to similarities between Candy Crush Saga and CandySwipe, the latter being an earlier iteration of a comparable game concept and visual design which its creator, independent developer Albert Ransom, maintains King copied from him.  Ransom posted an open letter to King on the CandySwipe web site, criticizing the company for attempting to wrest theCandySwipe trademark away from him: CandySwipe open letter Dear King, Congratulations! You win! I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games. In fact, if you beat the full version of the android game, you will still get the message saying "... the game was made in memory of my mother, Layla ..." I created this game for warmhearted people like her and to help support my family, wife and two boys 10 and 4. Two years after I released CandySwipe, you released Candy Crush Saga on mobile; the app icon, candy pieces, and even the rewarding, "Sweet!" are nearly identical. So much so, that I have hundreds of instances of actual confusion from users who think CandySwipe is Candy Crush Saga, or that CandySwipe is a Candy Crush Saga knockoff. So when you attempted to register your trademark in 2012, I opposed it for "likelihood of confusion" (which is within my legal right) given I filed for my registered trademark back in 2010 (two years before Candy Crush Saga existed). Now, after quietly battling this trademark opposition for a year, I have learned that you now want to cancel my CandySwipe trademark so that I don't have the right to use my own game's name. You are able to do this because only within the last month you purchased the rights to a game named Candy Crusher (which is nothing like CandySwipe or even Candy Crush Saga). Good for you, you win. I hope you're happy taking the food out of my family's mouth when CandySwipe clearly existed well before Candy Crush Saga. I have spent over three years working on this game as an independent app developer. I learned how to code on my own after my mother passed and CandySwipe was my first and most successful game; it's my livelihood, and you are now attempting to take that away from me. You have taken away the possibility of CandySwipe blossoming into what it has the potential of becoming. I have been quiet, not to exploit the situation, hoping that both sides could agree on a peaceful resolution. However, your move to buy a trademark for the sole purpose of getting away with infringing on the CandySwipe trademark and goodwill just sickens me. This also contradicts your recent quote by Riccardo in "An open letter on intellectual property" posted on your website which states, "We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers  both small and large  have every right to protect the hard work they do and the games they create." I myself was only trying to protect my hard work. I wanted to take this moment to write you this letter so that you know who I am. Because I now know exactly what you are. Congratulations on your success! Ransom's statement was penned in response to King's own open letter on the trademark issue, in which the company maintained that they were simply acquiring "Candy"-related trademarks in order to ensure that their "hard work is not simply copied elsewhere" and to defend their product against "games with similar sounding titles and similar looking graphics" (without commenting on the claim that the similar CandySwipe game antedated Candy Crush Saga by about two years and therefore could not have been copied from the latter): open letter There has been a vigorous debate both inside and outside King about how we protect our intellectual property. I want to set the record straight about where we stand on these issues, and clarify our philosophy on intellectual property. At its simplest, our policy is to protect our IP and to also respect the IP of others. We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers  both small and large  have every right to protect the hard work they  do and the games they create. Like any responsible company, we take appropriate steps to protect our IP, including our look-and-feel and trademarks. Our goals are simple: to ensure that our employees' hard work is not simply copied elsewhere, that we avoid player confusion and that the integrity of our brands remains. Lets talk about trademarks, and the use of the words "Candy" and "Saga" in casual gaming. Let's start with the fact that Candy Crush Saga has become one of the most successful casual games in history. Millions of people play the game every day. Not surprisingly, some developers have seen an opportunity to take advantage of the game's popularity, and have published games with similar sounding titles and similar looking graphics. We believe it is right and reasonable to defend ourselves from such copycats. To protect our IP, last year we acquired the trademark in the EU for "Candy" from a company that was in bankruptcy  and we have filed for a similar trademark in the U.S. We've been the subject of no little scorn for our actions on this front, but the truth is that there is nothing very unusual about trademarking a common word for specific uses. Think of "Time", "Money" "Fortune", "Apple", and "Sun", to name a few. We are not trying to control the world's use of the word "Candy"; having a trade mark doesn't allow us to do that anyway. We're just trying to prevent others from creating games that unfairly capitalise on our success. As Metro chimed in, however, even though King may appear to be the villain in this story, neither side may be correct in claiming the high ground since both CandySwipe and Candy Crush Saga are notably similar to other games dating from the mid-1990s, and what is being disputed is merely the name that each side is using for their version of the game rather than a claim to the original idea itself (i.e., this is a tussle over trademarks, not copyright): Part legal drama, part time travel story, this one has it all. Candy Crush developer King have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, as they continue their attempts to trademark the words 'candy' and 'saga'  which led to them threatening to sue Viking game 'The Banner Saga.' For an encore it later transpired that King had purposefully cloned somebody else's game when a publishing deal fell through. Which was sadly ironic considering how paranoid they are about other people copying them. And now they're responding with legal action of their own, against the makers of CandySwipe, by claiming that it's a clone. Despite the fact that Candy Swipe came out two years before Candy Crush. In fact it's worse than that, as Kings attempts to have CandySwipe's trademark cancelled revolves around them buying the rights to an even earlier game called Candy Crusher. This, they hope, will allow them to claim that they are the original trademark holders of everything video game and candy-related. Although it's hard not to side with Ransom in all this, the idea of all these developers suing each other over who cloned who seems slightly absurd considering they're all just copies of Bejeweled anyway. Indeed, the modern match-three style puzzler has barely changed at all since the days of Nintendo's Panel De Pon/Tetris Attack in 1995. Although the true originator of the concept is little known PC title Shariki, from a year earlier. Shariki  Metro also reported an attempt by developers to challenge King's trademark maneuvering by creating "as many games with the word candy in them as possible": Indie developers have fought back against developer King's increasingly bizarre legal actions with a game jam called 'Candy Jam'. To the uninitiated it may look like just another Bejeweled clone, but Candy Crush Saga is currently one of the most popular video games in the world. This means British developer King suddenly has a lot of power and influence, which naturally it's already started to abuse. It's the slightly unhinged nature of the abuse which is unexpected though, with the company currently trying to trademark the word 'candy' so that nobody else can use it. But King's plans don't stop there, as they're also suing Kickstarter game 'The Banner Saga' because it has the word 'saga' in its name. Ignoring the fact that most people omit the word Saga when saying Candy Crush's name, 'The Banner Saga' is an adult-themed tactical role-playing game with a notably morose atmosphere. Although it does contain lots of angry vikings, at no point in the game are you invited to match together three-similarly coloured sweets. Even so Kings legal filing insists that: "The use and registration by Applicant of the mark The Banner Saga for Applicant's goods is likely to cause confusion or to cause mistake or deception in the trade, and among purchasers and potential purchasers, with Opposer's Saga Marks, again resulting in damage to Opposer." We're trying to keep upbeat but frankly the whole business is deeply depressing in its unbridled corporate greed.  The only positive element to the story is that indie developers have organised an event called Candy Jam to protest King's actions and to make as many games with the word candy in them as possible. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has also weighed in on the issue, describing King's trademark efforts as "overreaching" and "predatory": weighed As an advocacy organization for game developers, the IGDA diligently monitors issues that may restrict a developer's ability to create and distribute his or her work. After reviewing the Trademark filing and subsequent conduct by King Inc. in relation to its popular game, 'Candy Crush Saga,' we feel we should comment. While we understand and respect the appropriate exercise of Trademark rights, King's overreaching filing in its application for the Trademark for its game "Candy Crush Saga," and its predatory efforts to apply that mark to each separate word contained in that name, are in opposition to the values of openness and cooperation we support industry wide, and directly contradict the statement King's CEO, Riccardo Zacconi, made on 27 January. Our Business and Legal Special Interest Group will be providing a more comprehensive analysis of this issue from its perspective soon. Last updated:  17 April 2014    Rushe, Dominic and Stuart Dredge.  "Candy Crush Game Maker Aims to Raise $500M in IPO."   The Guardian.  18 February 2014.    Agence France-Presse.  "Candy Crush Developer Defends Trademarking 'Candy' After Backlash."   28 January 2014.    Metro.  "Candy Crush Makers Sue The Banner Saga, Trademark the Word 'Candy'."   22 January 2014.    Metro.  "Candy Crush Saga Makers to Sue Game They Copied."   13 February 2014.    Reuters.  "Candy Crush Saga Developer King Trademarks the Word "Candy.'"   22 January 2014. In August 2021, rumors swirled around the future of Lionel Messi, one of the greatest soccer players of all time, who broke down in tears at a press conference to announce he would be leaving FC Barcelona of Spain, for whom he had played for two decades, leading the club to extraordinary success and establishing himself as a global superstar of the sport, rivaled only by Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.  broke down in tears According to statements issued by both the club and Messi himself, both sides had agreed a new contract for the Argentine attacking midfielder, now aged 34, the terms of which would have seen his previous salary  reported to have be $667,000 per week  cut in half.  statements reported However, strict Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules put in place by Spain soccer authorities, combined with Barcelona's dire financial straits  the club has debts of more than 1 billion ($1.2 billion)  ultimately made the new contract impossible. debts of more than 1 billion Messi's previous contract expired earlier in the summer of 2021, meaning he was now a free agent, and could be signed by any other club without the need for a transfer fee to be paid. However, Messi's profile in the sport, and his likely wage demands, meant only a very small number of clubs were in a realistic position to sign him.  Over the weekend Aug. 6 to Aug. 8 of 2021, rumors emerged online that French giants Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were aggressively pursuing the signing of Messi, who scored a staggering 672 goals in 778 first-team appearances at Barcelona, and won a record six Ballons d'Or  an annual award generally considered to recognize the world's best player each year  between 2009 and 2019.  scored PSG was taken over in 2012 by the Qatari government-run Qatar Investment Authority, providing an extraordinary injection of cash and sponsorship deals that have helped drastically improve the club's fortunes in the intervening decade. taken over in 2012 The club's controversial Qatari backers also funded a series of marquee signings, including the two most expensive transfers in soccer history: that of Brazilian star Neymar from Barcelona, in August 2017 for 222 million ($264 million or $293 million in 2021 terms); and that of French star Kylian Mbappe from AS Monaco, in February 2018 for 180 million ($223 million or $247 million in 2021 terms). controversial Qatari backers 222 million 180 million On Aug. 10, PSG further fueled speculation that its signing of Messi was imminent  scheduling a press conference for the next morning, and posting short videos featuring the Argentinian flag and snippets of an Argentinian soccer jersey.  press conference short videos When Messi himself was greeted by PSG fans at Paris-Le Bourget airport, on the outskirts of the French capital, and at the Royal Monceau hotel, the rumors were all but officially confirmed.  greeted by PSG fans Royal Monceau However, the club removed any remaining doubts when, on the evening of Aug. 10, they officially confirmed Messi's move to the club on a two-year contract, with the option of a third year.   In a news release posted to the club's official website, PSG wrote: news release [PSG] is very happy to announce the signing of Leo Messi on a two-year contract, with the option of a further year. The six-time Ballon d'Or winner is considered a legend of the sport, and a true source of inspiration for all generations, on and off the field. The signing of Leo reinforces the ambitions of PSG and offers our loyal supporters an exceptional team, which promises to bring incredible footballing moments in the years to come.  Messi himself further confirmed the bombshell move, providing the following statement as part of PSG's news release: I can't wait to start a new chapter of my career in Paris. The club and its vision match perfectly my own ambitions. I know just how talented the players and staff are here. By their sides, I'm determined to create something great for this club and for the fans. I cannot wait to step on to the grass at [PSG home ground] Parc des Princes. Claim:   Airlines will not pair Christian pilots and co-pilots out of fear that the Rapture will snatch away both crew members capable of landing the flight.  Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003] I just heard for the third time in as many years that some airlines will not put a whole flight crew of "Christian believers" in the same plane, just in case the "rapture theory" is true. I guess the thought is that the plane would be left unmanned and crash into whatever and kill thousands (like 9/11) if the rapture theory turns out to be correct Bible doctrine.  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] I was raised a Southern Baptist and twice now a preacher has made reference to airlines pairing their pilots with one Christian (or saved)and one non-Christian (or un-saved). This is done on the pre-text that if and when the 2nd coming of Christ happens and the one Christian pilot is taken into the clouds with Christ, leaving the non-Christian pilot to supposedly land the plane safely alone.  One preacher specifically mentioned American Airlines as having this policy. Origins:   While many of those of the Christian faith may be unfamiliar with the concept of the faithful suddenly disappearing from the face of the Earth, this belief permeates a number of fundamentalist branches of Christianity. Known as "The Rapture," it refers to a time when Jesus will return to claim the faithful, drawing Christians (both the still living and the already dead) up into the clouds to meet Him. It is said this event will be followed by seven years of famine, plagues, pestilence, and three world wars before the Savior returns, an interval often referred to as "The Tribulation." The basis for belief in the Rapture lies in the Bible, specifically in this passage from 1 Thessalonians: this passage For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Those who believe in the Rapture hold as a tenet of faith the sudden celestial appearance of Christ at some future unknowable date, immediatelyfollowed by the irresistible summoning heavenward of all who follow His teachings.  The   faithful will be pulled towards the Christ the way iron filings are pulled towards a magnet, rendering the Earth depopulated of the godly and leaving the godless (or at least the Christ-rejecting) to battle their way through the horrors of this world's final seven years.  The Rapture interpretation of 1 Thessalonians is not shared by the majority of Christians and appears to date to 1909, when the Scofield Reference Bible (King James Version) was published. Prior to that time, this parsing of 1 Thessalonians' "caught up in the air" passage was unknown, although in the 19th century theologian J.N. Darby popularized the idea that there would be a "secret rapture" seven years before the Christ really returned, and the non-Christians who didn't disappear into the air would be left to face the anti-Christ.  Rapture believers envision a time when the faithful will be abruptly swept into the safety and calm of Heaven, even as their less stalwart human brethren live on to battle great evil and suffering that will culminate in the end of the world. Part of that envisioning process is imagining not just the nightmare of the post-Rapture earthly existence their faith will spare them from knowing, but also the immediate effect their departure will have on those fated to remain behind. From this visualization springs the belief about airline or FAA regulations restricting Christian flight crews from serving together lest the Rapture snatch away everyone who can keep a plane in the air.  Because those who accept the Rapture as an article of faith plan their lives with this event in mind, they project others must be doing so as well. The presumption is further fueled by Rev. Tim LaHaye's and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind series of novels, in the first of which Pan-Continental Airlines' Capt. Rayford Steele weathers the disappearance of many of his passengers during an overnight flight to England.  Left Behind How far the "Christian pilots and co-pilots barred from serving together" supposition dates back is anyone's guess, but we have recorded sightings of it from 1993, so it certainly has been part of the canon of widely-held beliefs for some time. The rumor has come to us variously as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or "the airlines" restricting flight crew composition on religious basis out of concern that the Rapture will  FAA otherwise bring planes crashing to the ground. (Actually, if the FAA or "the airlines" were concerned about guarding against the Rapture's snatching away key personnel, they should also fret over air traffic controllers, because in their hands lies the safety of all who are in the air at any given time. A Raptured flight crew would result in the downing of one plane; Raptured air traffic control centers would endanger multiple planes attempting to take off or land.) We asked the FAA about the possibility of its having a policy that barred the Raptureable from serving with each other, only to be told by one of its representatives: "The FAA does not have any regulations referencing religious beliefs." Likewise, our query in this vein to American Airlines was met with the assurance that AA does not now have such a policy, nor has it ever had one. Ergo, since neither airline nor FAA policy covers this event, if you're unsure of your state of salvation, pray for an atheist on the flight deck. The Rapture stars in another bit of well-traveled lore involving a supposed freakish fatality. In "Leap of Faith," a woman who believes she sees the Rapture taking place jumps out of her car in traffic. Leap of Faith Barbara "jump for joy" Mikkelson Additional information:    Definition of The Rapture  (BibleBell Chronicles)      Preparing for The Rapture  (Free Gospel Bible Institute)   Last updated:  12 May 2005    Wineke, William.  "Giving Wings to Rapture."    Wisconsin State Journal.  10 February 2001  (p. C1). Driven by a thriving retail industry, a cultural penchant for obligatory gift-giving, and a fascination with the West, the Japanese adopted (and adapted) several traditional Western holiday celebrations after World War II.  Stripped of their meaning and bent to the whims of retailers, however, these holidays have taken some rather unusual forms in Japan over the years. The Mary Chocolate Co. is credited with bringing Valentine's Day to Japan in 1958, with the twist that it should be a day for girls to give gifts to guys.  Naturally, this led to the retail industry's creation of "White Day" on March 14, an occasion for the boys to reciprocate all those chocolates they'd been given a month earlier by buying white presents (such as white candy, handkerchiefs, or panties) for their gals.  Likewise, the Seibu department store recast St. Patrick's Day as "Green Day," a retail promotion featuring things green and Irish.  (It didn't work.)  The Japan Biscuit Association touted Halloween as an occasion that Americans celebrate by eating biscuits.  (When that failed to go over well, the custom melded into one of friends giving each other orange candy and cakes.) White Day Green Day However, the Western holiday that carries the most influence in Japan is, not surprisingly, the holiday that carries the most influence in the West as well: Christmas.  Although St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, the celebration of Christmas was mostly limited to churches and missionary schools until the 20th century.  (Indeed, Christianity was outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639 and henceforth practiced only clandestinely until 1854.) The exchanging of gifts at Christmastime by Japanese families began in a small way early this century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. Starting with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Christianity enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, and Christmas took off in a big (and commercialized) way. As you'd expect in a country where less than 2% of the population is Christian, Christmas is a primarily a secular occasion in Japan, with shops and businesses remaining open for the day. The Japanese have adopted many of the traditional trappings of 'Kurisumasu,' such as stores with elaborate displays of Christmas decorations and piped-in Christmas music, and homes made festive with Christmas lights, Christmas trees, and poinsettias.  The elimination of the religious aspects of Christmas and its hyper-commercialization have led to some unique (and, to us, bizarre) ways of celebrating it, however.  The exchanging of kurisumasu cakes is not exactly a Western tradition, but it doesn't sound too unusual to us. What we do find unusual is reports of Japanese Christmas customs such as young couples exchanging presents of expensive jewelry, heading out to high-priced hotels, and being directed by scantily-clad female elves to rooms complete with Christmas trees, where the lovebirds spend their Christmas Eve in romantic bliss.  The co-optation of familiar Christmas figures, (both secular and religious) in the service of mass merchandising has also produced some rather curious blendings (real and imagined): Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa suit (as KFC tried strenuously to promote fried chicken as the "traditional" Christmas meal), nuns singing advertising jingles to the tune of Christmas carols, Christmas cards featuring a ghoulish Santa in a graveyard accompanied by the Virgin Mary on broomstick, elves plastered on sake, and a Christmas revue featuring "stripping nuns and three lecherous Wise Men." And sometimes they just don't get it at all, such as when a Japanese TV station reportedly ran the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,  a disturbing film about English soldiers in a Japanese POW camp, as its festive holiday offering. By far the most well known of these Japanese/Western holiday blendings is the notorious story of a department store somewhere in Japan that one year supposedly erected a prominent Christmas display featuring as its centerpiece the smiling figure Santa Claus nailed to a cross.  It's a perfect expression of the clash between the holy and the profane, the secular and the religious, the East and the West.  It speaks to xenophobic fears (these foreigners can't be trusted with our religion and our traditions!), and it's a darn funny story. Examples:  A few Decembers ago a Japanese department store, desperate to appear westernised and with-it, mounted an extravagant Christmas display, featuring a life-sized Santa Claus, crucified upon a cross.1  The granddaddy of cultural faux pas [in Japan] occurred just after World War II, when a Ginza department store rolled out its elaborate Christmas promotion: a smiling Santa nailed to a crucifix.2  A Japanese department store reputedly once put up a big Christmas cartoon which had a Santa Claus prominently displayed on a crucifix. Whether or not this story, which has been doing the rounds in Tokyo for some years, is true or just another urban legend, is unclear.3  [An American Motorola executive] recounted a famous story of 1945, the first year of the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, when shopkeepers in Tokyo's Ginza district knew there was a big Western holiday coming and they wanted to capitalize on it.  "They knew there was this guy in a white beard and a red suit, and they knew there was a religious angle," [he] said. "And the result was little Santa Clauses on crucifixes."4  A few years ago, in Kyoto, one department store filled its center window with an enormous effigy of a crucified Santa Claus.5 However, despite all the people who assert that the tale of the crucified Santa is true and that they know someone who actually saw it, the literal truthfulness of this legend is suspect.  No one to our knowledge has produced evidence documenting that such a Christmas display was ever used commercially in Japan (other than as a knowing joke), such as a photograph of the scene or a contemporaneous news account that recorded its date and location.    As well, in true urban legend fashion the details of where, when, and how the crucified Santa Claus was displayed are vague and vary from telling to telling:  Santa appeared on a cross in Kyoto, Tokyo, the Ginza district, or a specific department store (such as Mitsukoshi); he was represented with a gigantic figure, a life-sized display, several small characters, a billboard, or a cartoon drawing; and Santa was nailed to a cross in Japan in 1945 or 1962 or 1990 or anywhere between "just after World War II" to  "a few years ago." As well, the mixing of Christian crucifixion iconography and Santa Claus is an unlikely pairing, even to non-Christians.  Nativity scenes, not crucifixes, are the religious displays featured at Christmastime, and anyone with the least bit of thoughtfulness would have to wonder why a smiling, happy, jolly figure would be depicted hanging from boards with nails driven through his hands and feet.  Santa Claus in a creche might be a plausible mistake (there are claims that figures such as the Seven Dwarfs have been spotted standing in for the Three Wise Men in various parts of the world), but a crucified Santa challenges credulity.  As parody it's believable; as an honest mistake we find it implausible. Perhaps the key to this legend is the timing.  Despite claims of crucified Santas in Japan that span the entire post-war era, the earliest reports of this legend we've found so far all stem from the early 1990s. Not coincidentally, up until that time Japan had been riding the economic high of their "bubble economy," and Americans watched in dismay as the Japanese business model was widely touted as superior to the American, dire predictions were made about the dominance of the American (and world economy) by Japan, and asset-rich Japanese began snapping up foreign (especially American) real estate such as New York's Rockefeller Center.  Should we be surprised that a xenophobic legend involving a clash between Japan and one of the most hallowed aspects of Western culture might arise from such circumstances? Alternatively, we can ignore all the foreign trappings and simply interpret this legend as a commentary on the commercialization of Christmas, a holiday in which Jesus Christ has now been replaced (symbolically and literally) by Santa Claus.  This was the point artist Robert Cenedella was trying to make when he drew the ire of religious groups over his painting of a crucified Santa Claus, which was displayed in the window of New York's Art Students League in December 1997:  Anderson, Walter Truett.  The Truth About the Truth.
  New York: J P Tarcher, 1995.  ISBN 0-874-77801-8. The Truth About the Truth Conry, Kieron.  "A Time Not to Forget the Suffering Figure on the Cross."
  The [London] Independent.  27 December 1994  (p. 15). Gaskell, John and Adam Hock.  "Our Memories of Christmas Past Lost to Japanese."
  The Sunday Telegraph.  6 January 1991  (p. 7). Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill.  "Urban Myths #67: Santa Sleighed."
  The Guardian.  23 December 1993  (p. 43). McCarthy, Terry.  "Christmastime for Everyone."
  The [London] Independent.  19 December 1993  (p. 77). McKibben, Bill.  "Christmas Unplugged."
  Christianity Today.  9 December 1996  (p. 18). McQueen, Anjetta.  "Artist's Crucified Santa Draws Fire."
  Associated Press.  22 December 1997. Shweder, Richard.  "Why Do Men Barbeque?"
  Daedalus.  Winter 1993. Sullivan, Kevin.  "Dashing Through the Dough."
  The Washington Post.  22 December 1995  (p. A21). Watanabe, Teresa.  "Japanese Parade for St. Patrick, Whoever He Was."
  Los Angeles Times.  16 March 1993  (p. 6). Yates, Ronald E.  "Japanese Merrily Leave the Christ out of 'Kurisumasu.'"
  Chicago Tribune.  22 December 1985  (p. 16). The Buffalo News.  "Buffalo's Favorite Santa Stories."
  24 December 1995  (p. M8). The Economist.  "Santa Christ."
  25 December 1993  (p. 77). Financial Times.  "A Cultural Clash of Symbols."
  27 December 1984  (p. 8). Fortean Times.  "Strange Days."
  December 1994  (p. 5). The Hartford Courant.  "Santa on a Cross."
   23 December 1997  (p. F2). The protracted, often bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded into a hot war on Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel and Israel retaliated by bombarding the Gaza Strip. More than 20,000 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were reportedly killed during the first two months of the war alone. The violence is driven by mutual hostilities and territorial ambitions dating back more than a century. The internet has become an unofficial front in that war and is rife with misinformation, which Snopes is dedicated to countering with facts and context. You can help. Read the latest fact checks. Submit questionable claims. Become a Snopes Member to support our work. We welcome your participation and feedback. Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hamas deadly attack on Israel retaliated were reportedly killed mutual hostilities Read Submit Become a Snopes Member feedback Warning: Some external links in this story contain graphic imagery and language. Viewer discretion is advised. In late November 2023, numerous readers messaged Snopes asking if hamas.com was a real website operated by the militant group during the Israel-Hamas war. Many social media posts raised the same question, or claimed the site was indeed an authentic platform operated by Hamas, which is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement that has held control of Gaza since 2007. hamas.com posts same question Hamas held control of Gaza For instance, one user on X claimed, "They [Hamas] are so proud of themselves for what they did in Israel on #October7massacre so they uploaded it all onto their web page [hamas.com]," in reference to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that fueled the war. On Nov. 21, 2023, the state of Israel's official X account shared the website's URL, too, along with the caption, "To understand the scale of Hamas crimes against humanity visit Hamas.com." Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' account shared the site, as well. claimed Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel shared account  While the website was real  that is, hamas.com indeed existed, as of this writing, and was publicly accessible  it was not operated by the militant group, as the group's official domain was in fact Hamas.ps, and hamas.com's content was not in line with Hamas' official statements. Rather, evidence showed the website domain name has existed since 1999, and an unknown person, or group, used it to make the in-question site in mid-November 2023. Though Hamas did not create the site, it was unknown who, or what, did, as of this writing. A number of Jewish and pro-Israel news outlets claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda were responsible. Meanwhile, a domain-search tool showed the site's creator(s) used Wix.com, an Israeli-based website-hosting service. We will update this report if learn more. Also, according to sources such as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, The New Arab and The Palestinian Academic Society, the official website for Hamas was hamas.ps, not hamas.com. That site was active as recently as September 2023, internet archives showed, though was taken down since then under circumstances that are unknown. The New Arab The Palestinian Academic Society In an attempt to determine hamas.com's origins, we examined its contents. It included several sections, such as "WHAT DOES HAMAS STAND FOR" or "HAMAS TESTIMONIALS." On the homepage, a subhead read, "Share our Success and spread Jihad," with numbers supposedly depicting people killed. Additionally, the website hosted several videos supposedly showing Hamas' actions. Such clips were titled, "Young Jewish girl punished and taken to Gaza" and "Our Hamas warriors kidnapping an old woman," for examples. Outside of the site, social media users shared that footage  a fact made known by a "Hamas.com" overlay on the clips. The website also contained various blocks of text written in English that supposedly outlined Hamas' principles or goals. For instance, one section claimed Hamas would "discreetly spread the ideology" or "supersede all democratic systems." (emphasis ours): Islamic PrimacyIslamic law should supersede all democratic systems Takfir DoctrineThe whole world should adopt Islam, with non-Muslims being viewed as infidels and targets for assassination Coordinated LeadershipEstablishment synchronized power structures globally Stealthy PropagationEstablish Social programs to discreetly spread the ideology without attracting unwanted attention. Another block supposedly explained "Hamas's Presence and Activities in Different Countries." Similarly to the above-mentioned part, the sentences contained clues that they were not actually written by Hamas. For instance, the section claimed Hamas was using "deceptive narratives" and wanted to "overthrow secular governments" (emphasis ours): Stage 1Spread through social activities, often masking as movements and charitable entities Stage 2Dawah: Non-Muslims to embrace Islam through deceptive narratives of compassion and societal unity Stage 3Engage in local politics with the objective of influencing decision-making at the national level Stage 4Using military tactics, obtaining weapons, and using violence to achieve the movements goals and interests Stage 5Overthrow secular governments and establish a new government based on strict adherence to the Islamic law, and the execution or enslavement of non Muslims The text was authored to spread a specific narrative about Hamas. Hypothetically speaking, if it had truly been written by the militant group, it would be a blatant documentation of planned violence. In reality, text authored by Hamas does not use such phrasing. For instance, Hamas' latest charter does not mention overthrowing secular governments or using violence to achieve its goals, like the website claims. Rather, it words its objectives like this: Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. latest charter it words its objectives like this Some social media users claimed the website was created on an Israel-based platform, Wix.com. Under the pretense of that claim, the site was possibly created to align with Israel's political agenda. claimed the We have created a new website to implicate hamas, but we arent very smart so we created it on an Israeli companys platform (wix) (Hamas .com was created by Israel to make it seem like Hamas created it) pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb  Benjamin Netanyahu -   parody (@netanyahupress) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 We used ICANN  a tool that allows users to look up "current registration data for domain names and Internet number resources"  to independently verify that claim about the site being created on Wix.com, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. ICANN headquartered Our findings showed the website was, in fact, created using Wix.com. Wix.com  (ICANN screenshot) However, that evidence does not explain the website's purpose, nor prove a connection to Israel. For one, Wix operates globally, with offices in countries such as U.S, Germany, Brazil, India, and Singapore. Any user with access to Wix.com could have created the URL, regardless of the tech company's base in Israel. offices According to our findings via ICANN, the website's domain was created in 1999. We used Wayback Machine, an online Internet archive, to piece together the site's history. Those internet archives showed that, before Nov. 17, 2023, the domain hamas.com was not in its current form  that is, displaying text, videos and images related to the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. At some points since the domain's creation in 1999, it appeared to be for sale. Additionally, we found examples of the headlines reading, "Hot Israeli Woman," "Six Sigma Training," or "Iraq War Pictures Unedited" displayed on the Hamas.com website in 2006.  (Wayback Machine screenshots) (Note: Some social media users claimed the website was not safe to visit and could allegedly infect devices with malware. We checked the website's grade on Virus Total, a tool that scans URLs for viruses. The tool uses 90 security vendors to conduct analysis, and only two of them flagged hamas.com as possibly malicious. There was no further information about the alleged risk for visiting the site.) claimed tool Next, we considered the work of other journalists who investigated the site. While it was not clear who, or what, exactly, turned the website into a propaganda vessel during the Israel-Hamas conflict, journalists agreed Hamas was not involved. For instance, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist at BBC Verify, called hamas.com a "fake Hamas website." As the website "https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq" is being tweeted by many official Israeli government accounts, it's worth noting that it's a fake Hamas website. https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq The real website associated with Hamas is currently offline. pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R  Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 The first article on the topic was published by an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on Nov. 20, 2023. Pointing to the fact that Hamas' actual website was offline and underscoring that the videos on the website appeared to be similar to the footage released by the IDF, it claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda "hijacked" hamas.com to "highlight Hamas' actions" on Oct. 7. article The day after Haaretz's article published, on Nov. 21, The Jewish Press published an article with similar claims. It called hamas.com "Israeli-run," referring to the fact that the website was shared by multiple Israeli embassies and hosted on an Israeli platform. Moreover, the newspaper described it as a site pretending to be a "presentation of the terrorist organization itself, bragging about the horrors it inflicted on the Zionists." article Meanwhile, the Israeli news website Ynetnews concluded the website's "origins are unclear," though it vividly "showcases Hamas atrocities through graphic videos." The article cited a statement by Israel's Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry that suggested the website was created to confront Hamas' supporters: 'The decision to purchase the domain supposedly belonging to Hamas is a sophisticated way to confront those who sympathize with Hamas and justify its atrocities,' said David Saranga, head of the Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry, in response to Ynet. Hamas' actual website is Hamas.ps, according to sources including Haaretz. According to MISBAR, an independent Arabic fact-checking platform, Hamas confirmed via Telegram that its official website was hamas.ps: confirmed Hamas warned through a post on Telegram against dealing with websites that impersonate the movement and collects funds as part of distortion, fraud, and espionage, while announcing that their official website is hamas.ps and they have no other websites. At the time of this writing, hamas.ps was not publicly accessible. When we attempted to go to the website, we got an error message  "This site cant be reached"  indicating that it was taken down. accessible However, we were able to access hamas.ps via Wayback Machine. According to those records, here's what the website looked like in September 2023 (we translated text in the below-displayed image using Google Translate's plug-in). It's unknown when, or under what circumstances, the website was taken down after that. Also unknown was when it was created. hamas.ps  (Hamas.ps, Wayback Machine screenshot) All in all, given that Hamas did not create hamas.com  nor was the militant group operating the site during the Israel-Hamas war  we rated this claim   Hamas.Ps down? Current Problems and Status. - DownFor. Down For, https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/hamas.ps. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Ibrahim, Nur. People Claim a Majority of Palestinians in Gaza Elected Hamas  Heres Why It Isnt That Simple. Snopes, 1 Nov. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/01/majority-palestinians-gaza-elect-hamas/. ICANN Lookup. https://lookup.icann.org/en. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Israelis Hijack Hamas.Com, Turning It Into a Display of October 7 Atrocities. Haaretz. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-20/ty-article/.premium/israelis-hijack-hamas-com-turning-it-into-a-display-of-october-7-atrocities/0000018b-eca2-d8b1-a9df-ecef8b380000. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Kahan, Raphael and itamar. Whos behind pro-Israel Hamas Website. Ynetnews, 25 Nov. 2023. www.ynetnews.com, https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/bktpbd1ra. VirusTotal. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/f40ff59c4f3947f2b9e95861580b98e4d9b458626b35b40eabaea635484261d5/detection. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Wintour, Patrick, and Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor. Hamas Presents New Charter Accepting a Palestine Based on 1967 Borders. The Guardian, 1 May 2017. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders. Wix Offices Around the World | Help Center | Wix.Com. https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-offices-around-the-world. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.   | . https://misbar.com/en/editorial/2023/11/23/israel-promotes-a-fake-website-affiliated-with-hamas. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.    - . 5 Sept. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210905063708/https://hamas.ps/ar/. Claim:  Japanese scientists have successfully cloned a saber-tooth tiger.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2014] Cloning of a Sabre-tooth tiger, real or not?  There are not enough credible sources for this story.   Origins:  In April 2014, the NewsHound web site published an article positing that scientists had, in a procedure similar to the one employed by characters in the fictional Jurassic Park novel and film, successfully cloned a "98% pure" saber-tooth tiger from a frozen specimen of that long-extinct species: article Japanese scientists have successfully cloned a 98 percent pure Saber-Tooth Tiger at the Japanese government-funded laboratory, Riken Center for Development Biology. The baby,  named "Ryu" is said to be in good health and is currently being monitored 24 hours a day by a team of 6 specialists. Tests are ongoing, but it has been confirmed that the baby is 98% pure Saber-Tooth. The team hope to begin work on the second cloned Saber-Tooth Tiger within the next 2 months and when the two reach maturity, they will be breed naturally. This will create a second generation with 98.4% pure Saber-Tooth DNA. The story was easily spotted as nothing more than a hoax for a variety of reasons, chief among them that the NewsHound web site is not a news site at all, and it has, in place of reporting on actual events, reproduced a number of other hoaxes and spoofs as if they were real news, such as long-debunked stories about a Chinese man suing his wife over giving birth to an ugly baby, Apple paying Microsoft [sic] a $1 billion debt all in nickels, a planetary alignment causing gravity on Earth to be negated for five minutes, and Google Earth helping to locate a woman who had been stranded on a desert island for seven years. ugly baby nickels gravity Google Earth Moreover, NewsHound's saber-tooth tiger clone article is itself just a thinly-altered retread of another fabricated story the site published a month earlier, the latter about British scientists' supposedly having cloned a dinosaur from preserved fossils. dinosaur   Last updated:  20 April 2014