Does Video Show Athletes Fainting Due to COVID-19 Vaccine?
In November 2021, rumors claiming that an unusual number of athletes had fainted or collapsed in the last year were widely circulated online. These rumors were often accompanied by fear-mongering captions that warned people against receiving COVID-19 vaccines. One video, for example, was accompanied by messages such as "Not normal ... Boost at your own [peril]," "#ATHLETES IN ALL SPORTS ARE DROPPING DEAD AND THE MASTERS FORCE VACCINES ON US ALL," and "Vaccines dropping them daily. Sick world." Not normal ... Boost at your own [peril] #ATHLETES IN ALL SPORTS ARE DROPPING DEAD AND THE MASTERS FORCE VACCINES ON US ALL Vaccines dropping them daily. Sick world This video does not show vaccine injuries or people fainting due to the COVID-19 vaccine. While this video shows real incidents from 2021, none of these incidents has been connected to the COVID-19 vaccine, other plausible explanations (such as dehydration or heat exhaustion) have been offered for these incidents, and a few of the clips in this video show athletes who were not vaccinated. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine has resulted in an increase in fainting incidents. The above-displayed video features seven fainting incidents. We've been able to source six of the seven clips. None of the fainting incidents we were able to find more information on were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Here's what these clips show, starting with the first one:   The first clip shows Denmark's Christian Eriksen collapsing during the Euro 2020 in June 2021 after suffering a cardiac arrest. While this incident has been used by anti-vaxxers to stir up fear over the COVID-19 vaccine, Eriksen was not vaccinated. Inter Milan team director Giuseppe Marotta said: "He didn't have COVID and wasn't vaccinated either." Giuseppe Marotta said   The second clip shows Chinelle Henry and Chedean Nation, two West Indies cricket players who fainted during a match in July 2021. While both players were taken off the field in stretchers, neither required hospitalization.; While an exact cause for this incident was not given, labeling this a vaccine injury is pure speculation. Furthermore, both players returned to the field a few days later to compete. returned to the field Both players had collapsed on the field in separate incidents during the second T20I on Friday, but were back with the team on Sunday, the day of the third game. In separate messages posted on Twitter, both said they didn't have any hospital stay or restrictions imposed on them. "I just want to thank you guys for all your concern and well wishes, and I am doing well. No hospital stay, no restrictions. Now I'm just focused on going out there and getting the series 3-nil," Henry said.   The third clip shows Moussa Dembele, a striker for Atletico Madrid, who collapsed during training in March 2021. Diario AS reported that Dembele fainted after a "sudden drop in blood pressure" but that there were no other complications. Dembele was not hospitalized and after being examined by the team's doctors drove his own car home from the field. There's no evidence that this incident was related to a COVID-19 vaccine. It's worth noting, however, that Dembele tested positive for COVID-19 a month before this incident. Goal.com reported: Goal.com reported The former Lyon forward is the fourth player with the Liga leaders to have to self-isolate, and could miss the Champions League clash with Chelsea Atletico Madrid have received their second coronavirus blow in as many days after striker Moussa Dembele tested positive, following team-mate Joao Felix.   The fourth clip shows Jack Draper, a young British tennis player, suffering from a bout of heat exhaustion at the Miami Open in March 2021. As was the case with Dembele above, it's possible that COVID-19, not a COVID-19 vaccine, contributed to this medical episode. Draper said that he was diagnosed with coronavirus in January and that the lingering effects of the disease, in addition to the heat, may have contributed to his collapse. Draper said: Draper said "I was out for two weeks with COVID in January ... I didn't move a muscle and that was after pre-season as well, so I put in a really good pre-season and then I didn't play so it's been a rough start to the year [...] I got it, it's obviously an extremely aggressive virus and you can catch it from anywhere, but I got it and it did affect me quite badly for seven days. I had bad symptoms and then I recovered pretty quickly from there, but it definitely had an effect on me. I've put in loads of great training since then, so it's no excuse, but did it have an effect on me at the time? Probably. With a lot of these things you don't know how much it really affects you."   The fifth clip in this video is the one we know the least about. It doesn't appear to be a professional badminton event. Rather, this clip appears to come from a security camera at a recreational facility. Project Comprova, a collaboration of more than a dozen news outlets around Brazil, found that this video was likely shot somewhere in Malaysia. Little is known about this incident at the time, however, so we can't say exactly what happened here. What we can say, however, is that those claiming that this shows a "vaccine injury" are doing so without evidence. Project Comprova The sixth clip shows Charles Bulu, a Ghanaian referee, collapsing in March 2021 during the final minutes of an Africa Cup match between Cote d'Ivoire and Ethiopia. Goal.com reported that Bulu was initially appointed as the fourth official, but had to step in as the main referee after a colleague tested positive for COVID-19. Goal.com reported Bulu, who was treated at a hospital according to theGhana Football Association, told the Daily Graphic, a Ghanaian newspaper, that the incident was related to a poor diet, a lack of sleep, dehydration, and excessive heat: Ghana Football Association, I didn't eat quite well both at breakfast and lunch, hoping that I would rather take in some banana just before the game, only to arrive at the Match Officials' dressing room to realise that no such provision had been made, despite we requesting for it. [...] I could not take in as much water as my body needed and with the heat and intensity of the game, I began feeling dehydrated by the 68th minute, but unfortunately, there was no Fourth Referee to step in. I was hoping I could hold on till the next water break which was around the 75th minute, but before then I just blacked out. The final clip in this video compilation shows Bert Smith as he collapsed during a March Madness game in April 2021. Smith was taken off the floor on a stretcher but he didn't require immediate hospitalization. Hours later, as a precaution, Smith decided to visit a hospital, fearing that he may have a concussion. While smith did not have a concussion, the doctors did find that he had a blood clot. The Indy Star reported that Smith was put on blood thinners and was released a few days later. It's unclear what caused the blood clot, but Smith did test positive for COVID-19 a few months earlier. reported Smith was admitted into Methodist and put on blood thinners. Two days later, clot gone, he was discharged. Where did it come from? Nobody can say. Smith tested positive for the coronavirus in August, but doctors can't say whether there's a correlation between COVID-19 and his blood clot. An athlete fainting is not a particularly rare occurrence. According to The Athletic, a player faints on the football pitch every four days. But is the problem getting worse due to COVID-19? player faints on the football pitch every four days While the above-displayed video does not show athletes who fainted or collapsed from the COVID-19 vaccine, it does show various athletes fainting in 2021. There's not enough evidence to say whether or not fainting incidents are becoming more common due to the pandemic, but here are a few things to consider. First, people infected by COVID-19 mayexperience "long Covid," or lingering symptoms from the disease after the initial infection subsides. These symptoms may include shortness of breath, fatigue, and heart palpitations. Second, one of the rare side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine is Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the British regulator for drugs and vaccines, told Reuters that this is a rare side effect and its symptoms are often mild. symptoms may include shortness "Myocarditis or pericarditis remains a very rare potential risk with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a short time with standard treatment and rest. The current evidence does not suggest that sporting exercise is a contributing risk for these very rare events." Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, told the Telegraph that athletes diagnosed with COVID-19 are at a greater risk of having a heart condition than those who get the COVID-19 vaccine: Telegraph "Whilst vaccine induced myocarditis has been reported in children and young adults following the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it's actually quite rare ... The risk of myocarditis, myocarditis-type injury to the heart, or other cardiovascular complications is much greater if you get Covid-19. That's why it's important to avoid Covid-19, and the best way to do that is to stay up-to-date with your vaccine doses. At the moment, there's not enough evidence to suggest any connection between COVID-19, or COVID-19 vaccines, and an increase in fainting incidents. When Reuters asked FIFA about this rumor, the soccer organization said that it was not "aware of a rise in episodes of cardiac arrests" and that there had not been any cases "flagged in relation to individuals receiving a COVID vaccine." Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Association, Ghana Football. Public Announcement: Referee Charles Bulu Is Doing Well. https://www.ghanafa.org/public-announcement-referee-charles-bulu-is-doing-well. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "British Teenager Jack Draper Collapses with Apparent Heat Exhaustion at Miami Open." Sky Sports, https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/12110/12256229/british-teenager-jack-draper-collapses-with-apparent-heat-exhaustion-at-miami-open. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. Charles Bulu: Referee in Stable Condition after Collapsing during Cote d'Ivoire versus Ethiopia Match | Goal.Com. https://www.goal.com/en/news/charles-bulu-fifa-referee-in-stable-condition-after/140om1o7bbfd41r6tnuue97tra. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. ---. https://www.goal.com/en/news/charles-bulu-fifa-referee-in-stable-condition-after/140om1o7bbfd41r6tnuue97tra. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "Chinelle Henry, Chedean Nation Taken to Hospital after Collapsing during West Indies-Pakistan Women's T20I." ESPNcricinfo, https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/wi-vs-pak-2nd-women-s-t20-chinelle-henry-chedean-nation-taken-to-hospital-after-collapsing-during-match-1268505. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "Dembl sufre un desmayo durante el entrenamiento." AS.com, 23 Mar. 2021, https://as.com/futbol/2021/03/23/primera/1616520284_574257.html. "Fact Check-No Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Are Linked to Athletes Collapsing or Dying from Myocarditis." Reuters, 29 Nov. 2021. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-sport-idUSL1N2SK160. "---." Reuters, 29 Nov. 2021. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-sport-idUSL1N2SK160. "I'm Fully Fit and Back on Duty  Referee Bulu." Graphic Online, https://www.graphic.com.gh/sports/sports-news/i-m-fully-fit-and-back-on-duty-referee-bulu.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "Inter Director Says Eriksen Did Not Have COVID and Was Not Vaccinated." Reuters, 13 June 2021, https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/eriksens-former-cardiologist-says-he-had-no-history-heart-concerns-2021-06-13/. Millar, Colin. "Moussa Dembele Returns to Atletico Madrid Training Days after Collapsing." Football Espana, 26 Mar. 2021, https://www.football-espana.net/2021/03/26/moussa-dembele-returns-to-atletico-madrid-training-days-after-collapsing. Morgan, Tom. "Covid a More Likely Cause of Surge in Footballers Collapsing with Heart Problems than Vaccines, Scientists Believe." The Telegraph, 26 Nov. 2021. www.telegraph.co.uk, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/26/scientists-rebuff-irresponsible-claims-pundits-say-covid-likely/. "Moussa Dembele: Atletico Madrid Striker Collapses in Training and Requires Medical Attention." Sky Sports, https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11838/12254909/moussa-dembele-atletico-madrid-striker-collapses-in-training-and-requires-medical-attention. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "No h relao entre casos de mal sbito em atletas e vacinas contra covid." Projeto Comprova, https://projetocomprova.com.br/publicaes/nao-ha-relacao-entre-casos-de-mal-subito-em-atletas-e-vacinas-contra-covid/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "---." Estado Verifica, https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/estadao-verifica/atletas-mal-subito-vacina/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "NCAA Tournament Referee Who Collapsed during Elite Eight Game Says Medical Incident Saved His Life." CBSSports.Com, https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-referee-who-collapsed-during-elite-eight-game-says-medical-incident-saved-his-life/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. "Referee Bert Smith's Fall in Men's NCAA Tournament Game Didn't Kill Him. It Saved His Life." Indianapolis Star, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2021/04/09/ncaa-tournament-referee-bert-smith-collapse-game-saved-life/7148461002/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. Taylor, Daniel. "A Man Collapses on a Football Pitch Once Every Four Days. Is the Threat of Cardiac Arrest Getting Worse?" The Athletic, https://theathletic.com/2963733/2021/11/19/someone-collapses-football-pitch-every-four-days/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021.
Now that were living in a federal government shutdown, whats the hit to the economy? U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz wagged her calculator at the GOP and cited a whopping figure on Twitter. $10 billion in costs to the economy per week and this is what the R's had to say?tweetedWasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who also serves as the chair of the Democratic National Committee. We wanted to check her number: How much will the shutdown cost the economy? Predictions about economic shutdown Wasserman Schultzs numbers are the same as those from theWhite House. A White House spokesman said the $10 billion figure came from an August report from the investment groupGoldman Sachs. We also found similar estimates fromMoodysandIHS. These financial firms agree that the impact depends on how long the shutdown goes on. The impact gets worse the longer a closure lasts. A brief shutdown would delay, not cancel, most spending, said the Goldman Sachs report. In a brief shutdown, it is likely that only federal employee compensation would be lost  most of the other activity would just be delayed and made up later. A longer shutdown  the longest shutdown on record in late 1995 and early 1996 lasted about three weeks  would affect a greater share of federal activities. The report includes three scenarios based on a two-day, one-week and three-week shutdown. It predicts a $2.6 billion economic loss for a two-day shutdown, $10.4 billion for a week and $36.8 billion for three weeks. Moodys found that a shutdown lasting three to four weeks would cost $55 billion, with costs accelerating as time goes on. Moodys takes into account the losses from federal workers not getting paid, the delay of housing and small business loans, the hit to tourism spending and the interruptions for contractors. To be clear, these are rough estimates of what we think impacts will be, Moodys analyst Brian Kessler told PolitiFact. There is just a ridiculously large number of moving parts. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys,testifiedbefore the Joint Economic Committee about the shutdown in September. A shutdown that lasts only three or four days would have modest economic consequences, costing the economy approximately 0.2 percentage point of annualized real GDP growth in the fourth quarter. ... However, shutting the government down for three or four weeks would do significant economic damage, reducing real GDP by 1.4 percentage points in the fourth quarter. And this likely understates the economic fallout, as it does not fully account for the impact of such a lengthy shutdown on consumer, business and investor psychology. IHScalculated a loss of $1.6 billion for one week as a result of furloughs, with the impact increasing for a longer shutdown. The spending habits of government employees probably would not change if the shutdown was short-lived, particularly if they believed that they would receive back wages, as in 1995, states the September IHS report. Any uncertainty about compensation, however, could increase the impact on consumer spending. Meanwhile, incomes would be maintained for Social Security beneficiaries. Medicare payments would also continue, so spending on health care services would not be harmed and hospitals and doctors would receive payments. Other experts weighing in on the estimates We also readstudiesaboutprevious shutdowns andmediareportsanalyzingthe potential hit to the economy. We interviewed Tad DeHaven, budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute; Jason Peuquet, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Dean Baker, an economist with the liberal Center for Economic Policy Research. Our experts generally agreed on one key point: The economic hit will depend on how long the shutdown lasts. Jason Peuquet of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told us that it extremely difficult to quantify the impact on the economy of a shutdown. Sure, analysts can calculate the direct costs of furloughing federal employees, Peuquet told PolitiFact in an email. But once you factor in the impacts on thousands of federal contractors, the time and resources lost preparing for and implementing the shutdown, the added economic uncertainty of how lawmakers will resolve this, how the Federal Reserve may respond if the shutdown continues for an extended period, and then the ensuing economic reverberations of these changes, it is a very imprecise exercise. DeHaven of Cato emphasized that these analyses from economists are just estimates and that the actual impact on the economy could be different. If you go back and look at previous shutdowns, there was no long-term effect..., DeHaven said. For Wasserman Schultz or the White House to tweet out this going to cost X amount of money to me is nonsense. You could talk about the cost associated due to government creating uncertainty in the economy for a lot of things Washington is doing. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that the cost of shutdowns in fiscal year 1996 was$1.4 billion-- most of that was for back pay to furloughed workers, according to University of Maryland political science professorRoy Meyers. In 1995, the government first closed from Nov. 14-19 and then again from Dec. 16-Jan.6. But Peuquet and Meyers told us that there are some factors that could make the shutdown economic hit different today, which means we cant simply add an inflation factor to the mid 1990s shutdowns. Back then, several appropriations bills had already been enacted -- allowing spending in several areas of the federal government. This time, those bills havent been enacted. The federal government also relies more heavily on contractors than it did in the 1990s, and they are unlikely to get back pay. We are still learning a lot of this as we go, Peuquet said. Another factor to consider: The economy is much worse now than it was in the mid 1990s. This one is going to be bigger in terms of daily costs..., Meyers told PolitiFact. The economy is weaker. It cant handle as much of a shock as it could handle in 95-96. Our ruling Wasserman Schultz said the shutdown is projected to result in $10 billion in costs to the economy per week. That number comes from an investment report from Goldman Sachs. We found other estimates from financial firms that were slightly larger and slightly smaller than the $10 billion figure, but they were in the same ballpark. A key point here, though, is that these are estimates. Experts agree that caution and caveats are needed: There is much uncertainty about the economic impact, including the timing and length of the shutdown. For instance, if the shutdown is short and workers get paid back wages, the impact could ultimately be modest. If the shutdown continues for several weeks, the price tag could escalate exponentially. Overall, we rate this statement Mostly True. Claim:  The IRS is sending out unsolicited e-mail providing taxpayers with a web form to use to check on the status of their federal income tax returns and refunds. Status:  False. Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2005]  You filed your tax return and you're expecting a refund. You have just one question and you want the answer now - Where's My Refund? Access this secure Web site to find out if the IRS received your return and whether your refund was processed and sent to you. New program enhancements allow you to begin a refund trace online if you have not received your check within 28 days from the original IRS mailing date. Some of you will also be able to correct or change your mailing address within this application if your check was returned to us as undelivered by the U.S. Postal Service. "Where's My Refund?" will prompt you when these features are available for your situation. To get to your refund status, you'll need to provide the following information as shown on your return:  Your first and last name Your Social Security Number (or IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)   Your Credit Card Information  Okay now, Where's My Refund? Where's My Refund? Under the Privacy Act of 1974, we must tell you that our legal right to ask for information is Internal Revenue Code Sections 6001, 6011, 6012(a) and their regulations. They say that you must furnish us with records or statements for any tax for which you are liable, including the withholding of taxes by your employer.We ask for information to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the United States, and you are required to give us this information. We may give the information to the Department of Justice for civil and criminal litigation, other federal agencies, states, cities, and the District of Columbia for use in administering their tax laws.If you don't provide this information, or provide fraudulent information, the law provides that you may be charged penalties and, in certain cases, you may be subject to criminal prosecution. We may also have to disallow the exemptions, exclusions, credits, deductions, or adjustments shown on the tax return. This could make your tax higher or delay any refund. Interest may also be charged. Origins:   In  December 2005 we began seeing copies of the above-reproduced phishing scam, an e-mail purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (sent with a return address of <irs_notice@irs.gov>) and offering consumers a link to a handy web form they can use to check the status of their federal income tax returns and refunds.   Of course, the web form the recipient is directed to after clicking on the provided link is not from the real IRS web site,  but an imitation hosted on a server in a foreign country (Mexico in the example we received) that harvests information scammers can use for identity and financial theft by prompting the user to input all sorts of personal data (name, Social Security number, address) as well as other financial information (credit card number, ATM PIN). phishing The IRS does not ask for personal identifying or financial information via unsolicited e-mail, and in no case would the IRS need information such as credit card numbers or ATM PINs in order to respond to inquiries about the status of tax returns or refunds.  Taxpayers can contact the IRS via telephone at  1-800-829-1040 for questions regarding their taxes, or they can visit the genuine Where's My Refund? page on the IRS web site. Where's My Refund? Last updated:  20 December 2005    Sources:   Tri-Town News [Howell, NJ].  "IRS Warns of E-Mail Scam."   8 December 2005. As Texas struggled with statewide rolling blackouts and much of the United States experienced a potent arctic storm with frigid temperatures and unprecedented ice and snow in February 2021, social media users speculated that frozen wind turbines in Texas played a major role in power outages there (false). And across the world, others argued that Germany's renewable energy sources, wind and solar, failed that country, requiring greater output from nuclear and coal production to make up the difference. experienced unprecedented ice and snow false The allegation stemmed from an article published by Stop These Things (STT), an anti-wind website that the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch said promotes anecdotes and pseudoscience intended to cast doubt on the effectiveness of wind energy. The STT report cited a pseudoscientific blog post published by NoTricksZone on Jan. 28, 2021, by Pierre Goselin titled, Berlin on the Brink! Winter Blackouts Loom As Coal Plants Run At 100% Capacity, Struggle to Keep Lights On. Similar claims were shared on Reddit and other publications, including World News Era. STT said blog post Jan. 28, 2021 Berlin on the Brink! Winter Blackouts Loom As Coal Plants Run At 100% Capacity, Struggle to Keep Lights On Reddit World News Era While it is true that solar panels and wind turbines can suffer during periods of extreme cold and high snow pilings, it is not accurate to say that Germany experienced a total collapse of power. It is also inaccurate to say that coal and nuclear power were required to step up to make up the difference. In particular, NoTricksZone cited a video produced by German national broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) that had reportedly been taken down by the channel but was reuploaded to YouTube by wind energy protest group Vernunftkraft.du. NoTricksZone said that in the video, Daniel Bartig, a mechanic at the LEAG Lausitz power plant, said that he was skeptical that green energy can do the job and that the greatest share of power is currently coming from coal. Harald Schwarz, professor of power distribution at the University of Cottbus, said that he is very skeptical of wind and solar energy doing the job: YouTube With this supply of wind and photovoltaic energy, its between 0 and 2 or 3 percent  that is de facto zero. You can see it in many diagrams that we have days, weeks, in the year where we have neither wind nor PV. Especially this time for example  there is no wind and PV, and there are often times when the wind is very miniscule. These are things, I must say, that have been physically established and known for centuries, and weve simply totally neglected this during the green energies discussion. While our emails to RBB, Schwarz and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy went unanswered, an investigation into Germanys power grid in early 2021 revealed that such claims were largely unfounded. Germany is heralded as a leader in wind and solar power. In 2013, leaders launched Energiewende, a movement to shift the power grid to a more efficient and carbon-neutral system, eliminate electricity generated from nuclear by 2022, and fully phase out coal by 2038. And movements in early 2021 continued a shift from nuclear, as well as coal and oil, to a more diversified system. As of December 2019, about 12% of Germanys electricity came from nuclear energy produced at seven reactors, while over 40% of electricity came from coal, according to the World Nuclear Association, an international organization that promotes nuclear power. By and large, coal was the largest source of power generation in 2019, according to a 2020 report published by the International Energy Agency. World Nuclear Association International Energy Agency Those numbers shifted slightly in 2020, according to preliminary data published by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), which found that 44.6% of energy sourced in Germany in 2020 was from renewables  nearly a quarter of which was produced by onshore and offshore wind, and 8.9% of which was solar, reported Clean Energy Wire. Clean Energy Wire   But other energy sources still hold a share in that total. Natural gas made up 16.2%, while nuclear clocked in around 11.4%, and hard coal 7.5%, so its not out of the ordinary for Germany to be getting its energy from coal and nuclear sources, particularly in the winter. The largest issue with Germanys power grid, according to the IEA, is that most of the wind capacity is located in the northern region whereas most of the demand is in urban regions to the south  and transporting wind power can be a difficult and arduous task. According to STT report, Germanys millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice and were thus rendered useless: So much for the transition to an all wind and sun powered future  aka the Energiewende. Despite being the object of consternation and much vilification over the last 20 years, Germanys coal-fired plants are now being appreciated for what they are: truly meaningful power generation sources, available on demand, whatever the weather. With a Nationwide blackout a heartbeat away, the German obsession with unreliable wind and solar is like a time bomb set to explode. It is true that solar panels require sunlight to produce energy and that being covered in snow can hamper their efficiency, but that doesnt mean that they are rendered useless. Most solar panels are tilted at an angle, so snow will slide off on its own. And if it doesnt, caretakers will simply remove the snow without damaging the panels, according to the solar industry company Energy Sage. Cold, sunny weather is actually good for panels. Winter months are actually good for solar energy production, as long as your panels arent covered by snow. Like most electronics, solar panels function more efficiently in cold conditions than in hot, wrote the solar industry experts. This means that your panels will produce more power for each precious hour of sunshine during the short days of winter. wrote And according to the U.S. Department of Energy, a little snow has little impact on solar panels. While heavy snow can limit the amount of energy produced, light is still able to move through the snow  even when panels are completely covered by snow, they can still generate energy. U.S. Department of Energy The biggest threat to solar panels from heavy snowfall is weight, which can put stress on the delicate system and photovoltaic panels, which are responsible for generating electricity via sunlight. The TSS report also claimed that freezing weather has halted 30,000 wind turbines, which could in part be true. Turbines use wind to make electricity when it rotates the blades around a rotor, which spins a generator to create electricity. But when there is an accumulation of ice on these blades, an increased load can reduce power and damage the blades. spins Cold weather can also shut down equipment, and in places that are ill-equipped for chilly temperatures, this can slow down energy production. But NoTricksZone reported that 30,000 wind turbines in Germany were largely out of operation, and in a world 100% reliant on green energies, this would mean near 100% darkness at home. Snopes did not find evidence to confirm that tens of thousands of turbines were out of operation; neither is it true that Germany is fully dependent on green energies  yet. What goes up must come down, the old saying goes. But, according to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., thats not the case for oil prices. As part of a round of appearances to tout a new Democratic economic-policy agenda, Schumertook a momenton ABCsThis Weekto promote his partys plan to curb mergers that arent in the interest of consumers. We're going to change the way companies can merge,Schumer said. We have these huge companies buying up other big companies. It hurts workers and it hurts prices. The old Adam Smith idea of competition, it's gone. So people hate it when their cable bills go up, their airline fees. They know that gas prices are sticky. You know  when the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. However, this broad statement clashes with the long-term data for gasoline and crude oil prices. There are long stretches over the past four decades wheninflation-adjusted gasoline priceshave gone down. Heres a chart from the Energy Information Administration, a federal office that tracks energy statistics. And heres theinflation-adjusted data for imported crude oil. The pattern is similar. Clearly, gasoline and crude oil prices arent simply on an eternal escalator to infinity, as one might think hearing Schumer. So whats going on? When we checked with Schumers office, they said he was referring to the rise like a rocket, fall like a feather theory of gas prices. Under this theory, gasoline prices tend to go up quickly if theres a market shock, then fall more slowly after supply and demand resolve themselves. Schumer sees that pattern as one example of how big companies can sometimes have too much power to control prices, regardless of market forces. But when we ran Schumers statement by Severin Borenstein, a University of California-Berkeley economist who wrote a seminalpaperon the rocket-feather theory in 1997, he said the senators formulation is off-base. He said that while it is true that retail gasoline prices decline more slowly than they rise, the time frame for these changes is fairly short -- two weeks to go up, and six weeks or more to go down. Schumers statement suggests an iron rule, not a pattern for short-term changes following a market shock. You don't have to be an economist or analyst of oil markets to know that the statement isn't correct, Borenstein told PolitiFact. Obviously, gasoline prices do go down when oil prices decline. The change in gasoline prices since the 2014 collapse in oil prices made that very clear. Meanwhile, Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, a private firm, said that Schumers targets -- monopoly-minded companies -- arent necessarily to blame. He pointed to a study of 420 gas stations in San Diego in 2000 and 2001 that looked at the psychology and behavior of consumers. If a consumer sees a relatively low price, the study found, they wont bother searching aggressively for a price thats lower still, even though such bargains may exist around the corner. When such behavior is multiplied across many drivers, gas stations feel less pressure to reduce prices further than they already have, slowing the fall of gas prices. And economist Philip K. Verleger, who runs the firm PKVerleger LLC, said Schumer may also have an outdated view of how the oil markets work. Theres a more competitive market today -- the futures market runs everything now, he said. The futures can predict your local gas prices, and the response is more symmetric (before and after a market shock) than it was. Schumer said, When the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. This comment takes a well-known phenomenon and exaggerates it beyond recognition. While experts agree that prices tend to go up quickly after a market shock but usually come down more slowly once the shock is resolved, this phenomenon only occurs on a short-term basis -- a couple of weeks in most cases. Long-term data show long stretches since the mid 1970s when the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline and crude oil have fallen. We rate the statement False. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., raised concern about the United States' dependence on foreign countries for mineral needs in an opinion-editorial this fall. Manchin wrote anop-edwith Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that was published in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel on Oct. 14, 2018. The op-ed touts several bipartisan efforts by Manchin and Murkowski on national energy policy. In a section detailing a joint amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that the senators submitted this year, Manchin and Murkowski wrote that we import 50 percent of at least 50 mineral commodities each year, including 100 percent of 21 of them. Is that correct? We were able to trace Manchins claim back to areportpublished by the U.S. Geological Survey published in January 2018. The report includes figures showing how much the United States relies on imports for individual commodities and where these imports come from. This report, published annually, notes that in 2017, imports made up more than one-half of the U.S. apparent consumption for 50 nonfuel mineral commodities, and the United States was 100 percent import-reliant for 21 of those. Heres a chart from the report summarizing the critical minerals, the percentage of imports, and the countries of origin. The chart confirms that for 50 minerals, at least half are imported, and for 21, the U.S. supply is entirely imported. Some of the commodities that the U.S. most heavily imports include arsenic, asbestos, and gemstones. China and Canada were the heaviest suppliers of mineral commodities to the United States in 2017, the report said. We found only one thing to quibble about the statement. Manchin and Murkowski would have been more accurate if they had put the phrase at least in a different place, by writing that the United States imports at least 50 percent of 50 mineral commodities each year, including 100 percent of 21 of them. In his joint op-ed with Murkowski, Manchin wrote that the United States imports 50 percent of at least 50 mineral commodities each year, including 100 percent of 21 of them. The point is well-taken, though the language is a bit garbled. Its actually at least 50 percent of 50 mineral commodities. We rate the statement Mostly True. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and ended 50 years of constitutionally protected abortion rights. While many people took to the streets to protest the ruling, others used social media to share fantasy scenarios of protesting by other means. On TikTok, for example, some people fantasized about someone mailing their uterus to the Supreme Court as an act of protest: overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision   While the above-displayed video described a potential future action ("I need to mail" vs. "I mailed"), other TikTok users shared videos claiming that someone had indeed followed through with this action.   While a number of TikTok users claimed that someone literally sent their uterus to the Supreme Court, there's no actual evidence that this happened.  Protests against the Supreme Court in the wake of the Roe v. Wade ruling garnered plenty of coverage by mainstream media outlets. If someone truly had one if their organs removed, put it in a box, sent their innards to the Supreme Court, and there were actual evidence of this, there would certainly be news coverage of the incident. However, no credible news outlets have filed any such reports.  Roe v. Wade While there are plenty of videos on TikTok of people making this claim, none of them contain images of the alleged package or the identity of the alleged sender. In fact, most of the TikTok videos that we viewed involve imagining what it would be like for an employee of the Supreme Court to open such a package.     The claim that someone mailed their uterus to the Supreme Court is part of a larger trend on TikTok involving users claiming that some extreme action was taken by someone to protest the abortion ruling. For example, another string of videos claimed (without evidence) that the several Supreme Court justices had had their credit card numbers leaked. Social media users also claimed (without evidence) that the IP addresses of the justices had been leaked.  another string of videos claimed also claimed (without evidence) that the IP addresses Sources: Fact Check: Posted IP Addresses NOT Linked To 5 Supreme Court Judges -- They Belong To Unrelated Entities | Lead Stories. https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/06/fact-check-ip-addresses-not-linked-to-five-supreme-court-justices.html. Accessed 30 June 2022. Sullivan, Becky. With Roe Overturned, State Constitutions Are Now at the Center of the Abortion Fight. NPR, 29 June 2022. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108251712/roe-v-wade-abortion-ruling-state-constitutions. Candidate for California governorDelaine Eastinsays she wants to create an economy that works for everyone. But with the states affordable housing crisis and deep poverty, Eastin believes thats not happening now, especially for young people. People become cynical, she wrote in an Oct. 11, 2017op-edin theSan Francisco Chroniclebecause the path to a brighter future is becoming more remote. Eastin continued: Ninety percent of people born in the 1940s ended up doing better financially than their parents. But those born in the 1980s, the much-maligned Millennials, have only a 50-50 chance of doing better (financially) than their parents, despite being the best-educated generation in our history. Millennialsare typically considered the children of the Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers. They were born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. We wanted to know whether Eastin was right about this dramatic decline in children doing better than their parents. We set out on a fact check. Eastins background Eastin is one of several Democrats vying to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. She served in the State Assembly from 1986 to 1994 and then as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1995 to 2003. She was the first, and remains, the only woman to hold that position. In addition to her desire to create a more equitable economy, Eastin has advocated for greater investment in education, the adoption of universal health care and continued work on climate change during her run for governor. Our research We asked Eastins campaign for evidence supporting her claim about millennials and their financial prospects. Jon Murchinson, her campaign spokesman, told us the statement is based on conclusions in aDecember 2016 studyby the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. The study is called The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940. Its findings, indeed, show that the fraction of children earning more than their parents has plummeted -- from 90 percent for children born in the 1940s to 50 percent for those born in the 1980s. The study accounted for inflation, taxes and other changes between the generations. Its basically a coin flip as to whether youll do better than your parents, Stanford economistRaj Chetty, one of the studys authors, said in anews releaseannouncing the studys publication in December 2016. SOURCE:The Equality of Opportunity Project Reached by email this week, Chetty told us Eastins characterization of this trend appears accurate. David Grusky, the studys co-author and director of Stanfords Center on Poverty and Inequality, added that Eastins statement is a fair summary of our headline conclusion. The Stanford study doesnt examine whether millennials are the best-educated generation in our history. That part of Eastins statement, however, was substantiated in a recentsurveyby the Pew Research Center. It found 27 percent of millennial women and 21 percent of millennial men had completed at least a bachelors degree by age 33. That was slightly higher than the percentages for men and women at the same age from Baby Boomer to Generation X populations. Inside the study While Eastin appears to have correctly represented the reports findings, we wanted to know how the Stanford researchers came to their conclusions and whether other researchers agreed with them. Grusky told us the report used millions of Internal Revenue Service records and Census data to compare income between parents and children. The report specifically looked at people born between 1940 and 1984 and measured household income for parents and children when both were 30 years old. Even after accounting for changes between the generations, such as millennials entering the workforce at an older age than their parents, Grusky said the findings on upward mobility did not change significantly. Only slightly more than 50 percent of children at age 40 had higher income compared with their parents income when their parents were 30 years old. Unequal growth The Stanford study also accounted for the rapid economic growth experienced during the Baby Boomer generation, when the nations post-World War II economy created a surge of new jobs and industries. Assuming both generations had experienced the same economic growth rates, Grusky said only 62 percent of millennials would do better than their parents. The key factor holding back broader financial success of this younger generation, the report concluded, was todays inequality of growth. Financial success, Grusky said, has become concentrated among a smaller share of families compared with the recent past. Ensuring that financial success is distributed more widely would make a lot of headway toward millennials doing better than their parents in future years, the researcher added. The report found declines in upward mobility for millennials across all 50 states. The biggest drops took place in Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, Grusky said. Millennials in states such as California, New York and Massachusetts saw, on average, less substantial declines. SOURCE:The Equality of Opportunity Project For this study, Grusky said, researchers were not able to factor in student debt or address how people of different races and ethnicities are affected by the mobility trends. Behind the starting line Tom Allison, deputy policy and research director atYoung Invincibles, said the Stanford research is right in line with theconclusions reachedby his Washington D.C.-based group. Young Invincibles advocates for expanding economic opportunities for young adults and encouraging them to get involved in the political process. Allison said the Stanford study is both transparent and relies on credible public data. Factors from the Great Recession to student debt to globalization have all put millennials behind the starting line compared with their parents, he said. That is a cornerstone of the American Dream, Allison continued, that if you work hard and play by the rules, then you can exceed the living standards of your parents. And weve seen a precipitous decline in that. Our ruling Delaine Eastin recently claimed millennials have only a 50-50 chance of doing better financially than their parents, while those born in the 1940s had a 90 percent chance of doing better than their parents. Her claim is supported by a 2016 Stanford study, The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940. Stanford researchers found stronger economic growth combined with a broader distribution of that growth during the Baby Boomer generation drove greater upward mobility for people born in the 1940s. They said financial success has become more concentrated in recent decades, leaving millennials with much lower odds of doing better than their parents. Even after accounting for changes, such as inflation and millennials starting work at older ages, they found todays younger generation faces comparatively smaller odds of earning more than their parents. Other research, notably by the advocacy group Young Invincibles, agreed with the Stanford findings. We rate her claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. On March 11, 2021, a news outlet representing the city of Rye, in Westchester County, New York, reported that Kanye West was supposedly considering a move to the coastal town to start a new chapter after his divorce from Kim Kardashian.  Kim Kardashian As part of that alleged change, The Rye Record claimed the famous rapper filed a formal request with officials to drop the "R" from the city's name so it's strictly "Ye"  West's nickname and the title of his roughly 24-minute album released in 2018. 24-minute album "Rye officials may be 'highly motivated' by Wests offer to dedicate 10 percent of his wealth (estimated at $1,000,000,000 by Forbes) to erase both the City and School bond debt in full," the article alleged. "And in return, all West is asking is for the town to drop the R from its name." 1,000,000,000 In other words, the article claimed West was eyeing real estate in the town and willing to give millions of dollars to the municipal government if leaders agreed to change the name to "Ye." But no evidence substantiated the article's allegations, discrediting any assumptions that they authentically outlined West's plans. Namely, West's representatives did not respond to Snopes' questions to determine the validity of the name-change rumor, and nothing on his official social media channels or websites indicated that he was considering, or planning for, a move to Rye.   Additionally, we deemed the rumors "false" because no reputable news outlet corroborated them, when, hypothetically speaking, they would be eminently newsworthy if they were indeed true. Let us unpack that decision fully. As the basis to its reporting, The Rye Record article titled, "Amid Divorce, Kanye West Files With Rye City Council To Drop 'R' From Name. Asks Town To Rename To 'Ye,'" cited one unnamed source who supposedly runs in the celebrity's circle. Amid Divorce, Kanye West Files With Rye City Council To Drop 'R' From Name. Asks Town To Rename To 'Ye,' "Kanye wants to move somewhere low-key where people will be receptive to the impact he can make," the person supposedly told the news outlet. "He has big, big plans for Ye and is highly motivated to make this happen." While it is a common practice for journalists to grant anonymity to people who fear personal or professional repercussions for speaking publicly, it was unclear why  or under what circumstances  the Rye Record writers decided to conceal the alleged source's identity. But aside from concerns over the credibility of the story's sourcing, the article does not explain the nature of West's alleged request to rebrand the city. It simply says that at an unidentified time after Kardashian filed for a divorce on Feb. 19, he "filed paperwork" for the proposed name change. The story's text did not elaborate on the nature of the purported documentation, nor identify a Rye agency West supposedly contacted. (As we noted above, the story's headline claimed he filed the alleged documentation with the Rye City Council, specifically.) Rye City Council Snopes contacted the Rye City Court, where an administrator told us West had not filed any type of documentation there, and we reached out to the City Council about the rumor. We did not receive a response from the legislative body. Next, no business owner substantiated the claims about West's alleged property-hunting in the town of roughly 16,000 people. According to the article, people saw the rapper looking at properties in Rye to potentially develop into his home, a "music/studio/creative think-tank," and a church. The existing buildings supposedly include a space that's currently being leased by the local YMCA. But Business Insider contacted multiple business owners in the area to talk about the rumor, and two of them appeared to be learning about West's purported venture for the first time. "We haven't heard anything about it," Rye YMCA's Executive Director Gregg Howells told the news outlet. But Business Insider Lastly, the labeling of Rye Record's article appeared inconsistent on its website. In at least one place on the website, creators categorized the story about Kanye as a "column" (a category of editorial content where, generally speaking, writers express their opinions), though the same article also appeared in news sections and the outlet's social media channels. As of this writing, the story about Kanye was among the site's top articles framed as "news" and purportedly based on factual reporting.   Snopes reached out to multiple people listed as contacts on The Rye Record website to ask if, or to what extent, it fabricated the reporting, and, if not, how writers corroborated the anonymous source's assertions. We have not yet received a response. At least one other website -- a New York-based news outlet called Talk of the Sound -- recirculated the rumor, sourcing only The Rye Record article. "We will keep tracking this story until April 1st, which is, we would note, 3 weeks from today," that website said. other website Talk of the Sound Robert Cox, the publisher and managing editor of Talk of the Sound, reached out to Snopes after the initial publication of this report in mid-March. He dubbed The Rye Record article satire and said he attempted to make clear with his reporting that readers should not take the story seriously. "The Rye Record had opposed the recent bond referendum and their story was an inside joke," Cox wrote. In sum, while The Rye Record did not respond to our inquiry that would prove or disprove Cox's reading of the original article, we rate this claim "false" because no verified evidence corroborated its claims.   This article was updated with a "false" rating given the information from Robert Cox, the publisher of a local news outlet. 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. Public education advocates gave a collective sigh of relief on April 28. Gov. Nathan Deal signed the 2015 state budget that day, and that action gave them hope that school systems might be able to ease up on the worst of the belt-tightening measures. Unpaid furlough days. Larger class sizes. Shorter school years. State austerity cuts to public education started in 2003 --- well before the Great Recession -- and they are not ending. But this year, they total $746.6 million, and that to educators, who can do the math, looked better than the $1 billion-plus-a-year cuts in each of the five prior years. We have been through tough times since the Great Recession started, Deal said during a candidate forum that was part of the annual meeting of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators foundation on September 15th. But just how tough? The governor told the crowd that it has taken until this year for overall state revenues to return to the levels they were in 2007. (The National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the countrys longest recession since World War II lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, although surveys show many people believe it has lasted much longer.) Given all the debate about state budget cuts through the years -- especially in education  -- we decided to run Deals statement through the Truth-O-Meter. We reached out to the Deal campaign as we always do for supporting evidence. Campaign spokeswoman Jen Talaber said Deal was relying on information from the Governors Office of Planning and Budget. OPB reports shows that 2007 was a fiscal high water mark for the state. Taxes on everything from personal and corporate income to gasoline and alcohol hit $17.8 billion that year, up $1.3 billion from 2006. Those same documents show that as the national and Georgia economies sank, so did state revenues. At the low point --- which was the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 -- total tax collection were about $14.5 billion -- or $3.3 billion off the peak. It wasnt until Fiscal 2014, which ended June 30 of this year, that total state tax collections were back to -- and slightly above -- 2007 levels, budget documents show. Tax collections for 2014 were $17.9 billion -- or about $100 million over 2007 levels. The governor is right on the money on this one. We rate Deals statement as True.