Did President Trump contribute to Kamala Harris' previous campaign funds?
In August 2020, readers asked us to examine the accuracy of claims that before he took office, U.S. President Donald Trump had made donations to a previous election campaign of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., whom presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden named as his vice-presidential running mate.  Shortly after Biden named Harris as his running mate on Aug. 11, the president's reelection campaign denounced her as "phony Kamala," claiming she was willing to "abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat party." named denounced In an email sent to supporters, the Trump campaign also labeled Harris "a corrupt former California Attorney General":   Paul Begala, a former advisor to former President Bill Clinton, alluded to a degree of irony in this allegation, claiming in a tweet that "Trump donated to Kamala Harris when she was [attorney general]." claiming In widely shared tweets, NBC News correspondent Tom Winter claimed that Trump had twice contributed to Harris' election campaign, in 2011 and 2013, donating a total of $6,000. Winter also said that Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump had herself donated $2,000 to Harris' campaign in 2014: claimed   Those claims were accurate. Records available through the campaign finance database on the website of the California secretary of state show that Trump made two contributions to Harris' 2014 campaign for reelection as California attorney general: a $5,000 donation on Sep. 26, 2011, and a $1,000 donation on Feb. 20, 2013. Harris first took office in January 2011, which means Trump contributed to her reelection when she had already been in office for eight months, and two years, respectively.  database In March 2019, The Sacramento Bee reported that a spokesperson for Harris' presidential primary campaign had said she "donated the $6,000 Trump had contributed to a non-profit that advocates for civil and human rights for Central Americans," with the newspaper adding that Harris' donation of the money took place in 2015.  reported We contacted spokespeople for both Harris and Biden, requesting further details about that claim, including the name of the charity in question, and the date on which Harris purportedly donated $6,000 to the charity. We did not receive a response in time for publication. The campaign finance database also reveals that the future president made several other campaign contributions in California, to both Republicans and Democrats. He donated $2,500 to the unsuccessful 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who was ultimately elected to that office in 2019; he gave a total of $3,500 to Democrat Jerry Brown's successful 2006 bid to become California attorney general; he donated a total of $12,000 to committees supportive of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; and gave $25,000 to the state's Republican party, in 2005.   The database also corroborates Winter's claim that in June 2014, Ivanka Trump  adviser to, and daughter of, the president  herself made a $2,000 donation to Harris' successful campaign to be reelected as the state's attorney general. She also contributed $500 to the unsuccessful 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Newsom:   Ronayne, Kathleen; Weissert, Will. "Biden Picks Kamala Harris as Running Mate, First Black Woman."
 The Associated Press. 11 August 2020. Cadei, Emily. "Big-Dollar Donors, Including Donald Trump, Fueled Kamala Harris' Political Rise in California."
 The Sacramento Bee. 4 March 2019.
As so-called undocumented immigrants in the U.S. struggled to avoid deportation and risked their health during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, government agencies created potential new challenges for them. In July, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) department announced they would be offering a six-day Citizens Academy training starting in September in Chicago, which would allow civilians and ICE officers to engage with each other. struggled risked their health announced Snopes readers shared the following letter from ICE, reportedly sent to potential participants across Chicago, and asked us if it meant the agency would be training civilians to assist in the apprehension of undocumented people. The answer is complicated. letter   We found that this was an actual letter sent by ICE. Although they said they were planning to conduct trainings in September and would show civilians how they made arrests, the notion that this would lead to civilians actually apprehending undocumented people was disputed by the agency. Immigration advocates, however, were skeptical.  In order to understand the actual nature and likely outcome of these trainings, we reached out to ICE, as well as immigration advocates, and looked at past examples of such academies.  According to an ICE press release, the interactive program would occur once a week over six weeks. Participants would learn about ICE policies and procedures from ERO officers, while officers would hear participants perspectives and debunk myths about ICE. press release The curriculum will include, but is not limited to, classroom instruction, visiting an immigration detention center, learning more about the health care ICE provides to those in its custody, and examining ICEs role in ensuring dignity, respect and due process of an immigration case from start to finish. Many in Chicago received letters from ICE inviting them to apply. The letter said, attendees will participate in scenario-based training ... including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests. received Nicole Alberico, an ICE spokesperson, responded to Snopes' request for more information about the training (emphasis ours): ...the academy is not to train members of the public to do the work of trained, federal law enforcement officers. ICE ERO Citizens Academy is modeled after other law enforcement community outreach programs  including ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), FBI and local police departments  all with the goal of directly engaging and educating the public. Chicago ERO is looking for a diverse set of influential community leaders  regardless of their stance on ICE  to apply. The spokesperson said that they also had not determined whether media would be permitted to attend the training, as they were considering health precautions because of the pandemic and privacy concerns.  In sum, according to their own descriptions, ICE plans on showing civilians how they as an agency carry out arrests but will not be training civilians to do arrests themselves.  According to one report, such a Citizens Academy has already taken place in Los Angeles for years, with participants simulating drug busts, arrests, and stakeouts. According to one graduate, the course immersed people in what the agents do. While the Chicago program was to be run by ERO, the Los Angeles Academy was being run under ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department.  one report simulating The goal of such training appeared to be to get more people to understand ICEs perspective, see how they operate, and eventually construct a positive image of the agency in various communities. There is no available evidence that such trainings led to civilians participating in actual arrests.  Testimony from activists, human rights organizations, and reporting show ample proof of ICEs history of violating detainees rights, inhumane arrests of undocumented immigrants, separating children from their parents, and the lack of accountability surrounding their operations. ICE has also used civilian informants before. violating detainees rights arrests lack of accountability civilian informants The Citizens Academy announcement faced swift backlash from activists and government officials, including Chicago's alderman, Rossana Rodriguez, who labeled it a vigilante academy. In July, Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley put forward an amendment to the Homeland Security spending bill, barring agencies like ICE from using government funds to run Citizens Academy courses. vigilante academy forward Immigration activists said these classes were at best propaganda and at worst would train civilians to "snitch" on undocumented immigrants. Lam Nguyen Ho, executive director of Beyond Legal Aid, an organization that provides legal services to immigrants in Chicago, spoke to Snopes about the dangers of such academies:  said propaganda ... the best case scenario for this training is ICE doing a marketing campaign to justify continuing to deport undocumented immigrants indiscriminately and separating families inhumanely ... We have immigrants afraid of opening their doors and applying for immigration rights to which they are actually eligible due to the fears and violence they see ... I cant imagine the misinformation and fears that will be created when an agency of our government is basically sanctioning and coordinating neighbors surveilling, profiling, or worse against each other. (Update: The Chicago Citizen's Academy was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, and a new date had not been announced. According to a statement from an ICE official, it will be tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2021.) In sum, ICE confirmed that the Citizens Academy course will take place, but denied they will train civilians to carry out arrests. Based on ICEs history of abuses against immigrant populations, the fears surrounding this particular training aren't unreasonable, but the exact nature and outcome of the training remains to be seen. Based on all of the above factors, we rate this claim a Mixture. Da Silva, Chantal.  "DHS Spending Bill Amended to Ban Funding for ICE's Citizen's Academy."
 Newsweek. 15 July 2020. Da Silva, Chantal.  "ICE Offering 'Citizens Academy' Course with Training on Arresting Immigrants."
 Newsweek. 9 July 2020. Gonzalez, Christina."ICE Citizen Academy Causing Uproar in Chicago, Has Been Going on in Los Angeles - for Years."
 Fox11 Los Angeles. 11 July 2020. Human Rights Watch.  "US: Stop Using Untrained, Abusive Agencies at Protests."
 5 June 2020. Kaplan, Emily.  "What Isolation Does to Undocumented Immigrants."
  The Atlantic. 27 May 2020. Katz, Ryan. "Play to Stay."
 The Intercept. 24 September 2018. McFarling, Usha Lee. "Fearing Deportation, Many Immigrants at Higher Risk of Covid-19 Are Afraid to Seek Testing or Care."
  StatNews. 15 April 2020. Mejia, Brittny. "At Citizen Academies, Devoted Participants Get Their Law Enforcement Fix."
 Los Angeles Times. 3 December 2018. Tashman, Brian. "Congress Needs To Hold ICE Accountable for Abuses."
 ACLU. 2 February 2018. Torres, Adry. "ICE Is Offering a Six-week Course on How to Arrest Immigrants - Including 'Firearms and Defensive Training' - as Critics Warns They Are Using Private Citizens As Their Eyes and Ears."
 The Daily Mail.8 July 2020. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "ICE Offers First Citizens Academy for Public to Learn More About Agencys Mission in Chicago."
 13 July 2020. Zamudio, Maria Ines. "ICE Citizens Trainings May Be a 'Vigilante Academy,' Chicago Alderman Warns."
 NPR. 10 July 2020. Seventeen-year-old Alyssa Carson has garnered media attention for her determination to be part of a space mission to Mars. But although her desire has been recognized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), she is not officially in training with that organization to become an astronaut or to take part the first human mission to Mars.  Carson first began generating media attention when she was 12, at which point she had already attended three different space shuttle launches and taken part in NASA space camps in three different countries. She was also the first person to complete the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's "Passport to Explore Space" program, which requires visiting each of 14 NASA visitor centers across nine different states in the U.S. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, though, is managed by a NASA contractor and is not funded by the agency itself. attention complete contractor Completing the "Passport to Explore Space" program also led to Carson's being a panelist at an event hosted by NASA and the Smithsonian, marking ten years of exploration by the Mars Exploration Rovers. As well, Carson has her own call sign," Blueberry." panelist Blueberry However, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to us that Carson is not currently training with or being "prepped" by that agency, as some reports have suggested. Also contrary to some reports, NASA's Astronaut Candidate Program has no age requirement for applications, although according to the agency "astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46, with the average age being 34."  prepped reports age requirement In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed White House Space Policy Directive 1, which his administration said would "lay the foundation" for a mission to Mars. Carson's father, Bert, told Teen Vogue magazine that private companies have "considered" sending her on missions into space  although not to Mars. signed told "If we can find a mission for her in the next two years, she will be the first kid in the world to go to space," he said. "If we can get it together before she's 20, she'll be the first teenager." One private group, Mars One, has already selected Carson to be one of their ambassadors. Carson  wrote on that group's website about her interest in visiting the Red Planet: wrote I would love to go to Mars because it is a planet that no one has been before. It's about the same size as the Earth and there are ice caps at the top and bottom of Mars. That means there is water on Mars. This could possibly be our next Earth. Just think about all the things that are in Space. For example: planets we have never explored, galaxies that we have never heard of, stars that are just babies, black holes that are as wide as the Sun to Pluto multiple times and has the mass of a billion suns, parts of the universe that we have never seen. Just think of all that stuff just floating around. It's more than you can imagine. Quinn, Katra.  "The Making of an Astronaut."
  Astronaut.com.  6 February 2014. Astronaut.com.  "First Person to Complete NASA's Passport Program Is Astronaut.Com's Friend Alyssa Carson."
  26 November 2013. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  "NASA, Smithsonian Host 10-Year Mars Rover Events."
  6 January 2014. NASA.gov. "New Space Policy Directive Calls for Human Expansion Across Solar System."
  11 December 2017. Krueger, Alyson. "17-Year-Old Alyssa Carson Wants to Be the First Person on Mars."
  Teen Vogue.  21 March 2018. With record numbers of foreclosures looming, consumer advocates have been hoping Congress would make it easier for people in bankruptcy to have their home mortgages modified. When you declare bankruptcy, you go into federal court and formally admit that you can no longer pay your debts. A judge then takes over to broker agreements between you and the people or businesses you owe. Federal or state laws can govern the bankruptcy process, and rules differ by state. But under federal rules, judges can't change the terms of a home mortgage. They can, however, modify the terms of any mortgage that is not a primary residence, such as vacation homes. Critics of the rule say it is unfair to people of more modest means, and that the rules should allow judges to lower the principal, cut interest rates or extend the terms of repayment. Measures allowing these things are known as cramdown legislation, because they typically force the lender to reduce the debt. The financial industry has opposed the measure because they say it will cost the banks money, and they will be required to raise interest rates on new mortgage customers. The Senate voted against cramdown legislation on April 30, 2009, killing an amendment on a 45-51 vote. President Barack Obama supported the legislation. The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org has created advertisements targeting seven Democratic senators who voted against the legislation, which it calls commonsense bankruptcy reform. The ads are virtually identical. Here's the script for the ad about Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. (Specter recently switched parties and was a Democrat at the time of the vote.) Last week, Sen. Specter had a choice. Wall Street was trying to kill the president's proposal to help families facing foreclosure. Sen. Specter could side with the banks, or with Pennsylvania families. Sen. Specter has taken close to $6 million from the financial industry. So what did he do? Exactly what the banks wanted. And now millions of people will lose their homes because of it. Tell Sen. Specter to stand up for us  not the banks. We wanted to check MoveOn's math about what the senators had collected from the financial industry. We turned to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign contributions. Here's the list of senators that MoveOn targeted, what MoveOn said they raised from the financial industry, and what the Center for Responsive Politics showed:  Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.  close to $6 million  career total: $5,753,310  Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. close to $3 million  career total: $3,020,966  Sen. Ben Nelson, D.-Neb. close to $3 million  career total: $2,667,406  Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. close to $2 million  career total: $2,160,628  Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. close to $2 million  career total: $1,671,292  Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. close to $2 million  career total: $2,399,134  Sen. Mark Pryor, D. Ark. close to $1 million  career total: $1,321,948 The category is for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, and that includes the following types of businesses: commercial banks, savings and loans, credit unions, finance/credit companies, securities and investment, venture capital, hedge funds, private equity and investment firms, insurance, real estate, mortgage bankers and brokers, and accountants. We should note here that five other Democrats voted against the measure but were not targeted by MoveOn. A representative for MoveOn told us that those senators had either accepted less money from the financial industry or had a better overall voting record on MoveOn's core issues. Those senators included: Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. ; Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.; Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. Getting back to the ads, MoveOn says the senators voted with Wall Street and the banks after accepting campaign contributions from them. We can't say if there is a cause and effect, but MoveOn is right about how the senators voted. MoveOn approximates numbers for the campaign contributions  and clearly labels them approximations  and those numbers closely track the actual data from the Center for Responsive Politics. We rule MoveOn's collective statement that senators accepted millions in campaign contributions and voted against cramdown legislation as True. Claim:  President Obama said women should not choose to be stay-at-home-moms.  Example:  [Collected via email, November 2014] Obama wants stay at home moms back in workforce  Obama does not like stay at home moms.  Many sites are reporting that Obama doesn't want women to be stay-at-home moms based on this speech.  Obama's speech on Stay at Home Moms Aren't worth a Hill of Beans....also, it's a choice we don't want Americans to make.  Video with comment by President Obama on Stay-at-Home Moms: 'That's Not a Choice We Want Americans to Make.' I'm just seeing this posted on Facebook and wondering if it's true or taken out of context. Origins:  On 31 October 2014, President Obama delivered a speech titled "Remarks by the President on Women and the Economy" at Rhode Island College in Providence. Plucked from the context of a broader speech about paid leave for parents and general household costs such as daycare, one snippet of the President's words grabbed the attention of political blogs and social media users. A short portion of the President's remarks became a story unto themselves following the speech, with a common claim attached to those words holding that President Obama had "slammed stay-at-home moms" in the cited portion of his speech. One widely-circulated extract from his remarks read that way to some who hadn't caught the entire speech: Sometimes, someone ... usually mom ... leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. That's not a choice we want Americans to make. So let's make this happen. By the end of this decade, let's enroll 6 million children in high quality preschool ...  Taken out of context, it appeared to some President Obama  was advocating all stay-at-home moms should return to the workforce without question and place their children in government-run preschools (presumably ones of questionable quality, or, at the very least, schools chosen by the government and not by the families themselves). What President Obama actually said, however, did not pertain to the worth of stay-at-home moms versus that of working parents. Explaining his recent experiences in discussing the challenges that mothers in the workforce face, President Obama said: I kept on hearing about my mom struggling to put herself through school, or my grandmother hitting that glass ceiling. And I thought about Michelle, and I told some stories about when Michelle and I were younger and getting starting, and we were struggling to balance two careers while raising a family.  And my job forced me to travel a lot, which made it harder on Michelle, and we would feel some of the guilt that so many people feel  we're working, we're thinking about the kids, we're wondering whether we're bad parents, we're wondering whether we were doing what we need to do on the job.  And as the catch-22 of working parents, we wanted to spend time with our kids, but we also wanted to make sure that we gave them the opportunities that our hard work was providing.  And then, of course, I think about my daughters.  And the idea that my daughters wouldn't have the same opportunities as somebody's sons  well, that's unacceptable.  That's not acceptable. President Obama then addressed the advances women have made in education and in graduating college and continued by explaining females are disproportionately affected by a lack of protective policy pertaining to sick leave and paid family leave: But here's the challenge  that's all good news  the challenge is, our economy and some of the laws and rules governing our workplaces haven't caught up with that reality.  A lot of workplaces haven't caught up with that reality.  So while many women are working hard to support themselves and their families, they're still facing unfair choices, outdated workplace policies.  That holds them back, but it also holds all of us back.  We have to do better, because women deserve better.  And, by the way, when women do well, everybody does well. So women deserve a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship.  And Rhode Island has got the right idea.  You're one of just three states where paid family leave is the law of the land.  (Applause.)  More states should choose to follow your lead. The quoted bit came soon thereafter. President Obama made a case for paid leave and for the economic gains to be had if daycare and preschool were affordable to all mothers. He said: THE PRESIDENT: Without paid leave, when a baby arrives or an aging parent needs help, workers have to make painful decisions about whether they can afford to be there when their families need them most.  Many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth to their child.  I mean, there are a lot of companies that still don't provide maternity leave.  Of course, dads should be there, too.  So let's make this happen for women and for men, and make our economy stronger.  (Applause.)  We've got to broaden our laws for family leave. Moms and dads deserve a great place to drop their kids off every day that doesn't cost them an arm and a leg.  We need better childcare, daycare, early childhood education policies.  (Applause.)  In many states, sending your child to daycare costs more than sending them to a public university.  AUDIENCE MEMBER:  True! THE PRESIDENT:  True.  (Laughter.)  And too often, parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development.  And sometimes there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away.  And sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result.  And that's not a choice we want Americans to make. It's clear from the context of President Obama's full remarks on 31 October 2014 his view wasn't one that "slammed" stay-at-home moms and stated "we" don't want anyone to choose to be a stay-at-home mom; rather, the choice to which he referred was for women to fairly have the option of deciding whether to remain in the workforce or to stay at home with their children, without (in the latter case) having to lose their place on the employment ladder and thus be relegated to earning lower wages for the rest of their working lives.  In short, President Obama did not "slam" stay-at-home moms; he instead argued current policies affecting mothers are unfair and should be changed to allow, among other things, expanded maternity leave and affordable daycare and preschool options to ensure women have more choice in deciding how to balance their economic and family lives. remarks Last updated:  3 November 2014 On 20 August 2016, the UK newspaper The Guardian (among others) published an article about a September 2016 study suggesting that the maternal mortality rate in Texas had doubled in recent years (outstripping that of countries with overall poorer health outcomes): article The rate of Texas women who died from complications related to pregnancy doubled from 2010 to 2014, a new study has found, for an estimated maternal mortality rate that is unmatched in any other state and the rest of the developed world. The finding comes from a report, appearing in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, that the maternal mortality rate in the United States increased between 2000 and 2014, even while the rest of the world succeeded in reducing its rate. Excluding California, where maternal mortality declined, and Texas, where it surged, the estimated number of maternal deaths per 100,000 births rose to 23.8 in 2014 from 18.8 in 2000  or about 27%. But the report singled out Texas for special concern, saying the doubling of mortality rates in a two-year period was hard to explain in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval. From 2000 to the end of 2010, Texass estimated maternal mortality rate hovered between 17.7 and 18.6 per 100,000 births. But after 2010, that rate had leaped to 33 deaths per 100,000, and in 2014 it was 35.8. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 600 women died for reasons related to their pregnancies. No other state saw a comparable increase. The article noted that reproductive health advocates placed the blame squarely on Texas' unique targeting of reproductive health centers and practices, citing budget cuts, atypically strict reproductive health laws and efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, along with the vast size of the state (which made it difficult for many women to cross state lines to obtain gynecological care unavailable in Texas): strict defund In the wake of the report, reproductive health advocates are blaming the increase on Republican-led budget cuts that decimated the ranks of Texass reproductive healthcare clinics. In 2011, just as the spike began, the Texas state legislature cut $73.6m from the states family planning budget of $111.5m. The two-thirds cut forced more than 80 family planning clinics to shut down across the state. The remaining clinics managed to provide services  such as low-cost or free birth control, cancer screenings and well-woman exams  to only half as many women as before. Not everyone was convinced the ostensible cause and effect was so clear cut, as noted in a Townhall piece holding that conclusions about Texas' legislative efforts were politically motivated and contradicted by data: piece Apparently, the researchers did some adjusting of their own. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), maternal mortality rates have been alarmingly increasing for years. That modest increase, lead researcher Marian MacDorman imagines, was a huge increase. In 2000, the MMR was 10.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (equating to 30 tragic deaths). By 2009, this rate had nearly tripled to 28.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (resulting in 116 deaths). Thats a modest increase? In 2010, the MMR actually decreased to 24.6. Then, MacDorman et al claimed: Texas had a sudden increase in 2011-2012. If by sudden they mean over ten years of significant increases ... sure. They completely ignored the fact that from 2010 to 2011, the MMR rose from 24.6 to 30.7 (an increase of about 25 percent). From 2011 to 2012, the increase was only 3%, rising to a rate of 31.6 ... not doubling! That didn't stop Slate.com and a host of media outlets from declaring: After Texas Slashed Its Family Planning Budget, Maternal Deaths Almost Doubled. In 2013 it rose another 25 percent to 39.5 (claiming the lives of 153 women). Heres the clincher, though. Texas MMR dropped in 2014 in rate and total maternal deaths. Neither the peer-reviewed study nor any of the leftists in the news media mention this. Both items cited the study, titled "Recent Increases in the U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate"  published [PDF] in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Both the study's title and its objective described a nationwide focus on maternal mortality: PDF To develop methods for trend analysis of vital statistics maternal mortality data, taking into account changes in pregnancy question formats over time and between states, and to provide an overview of U.S. maternal mortality trends from 2000 to 2014. Similarly, its conclusion singled out no state by name and made no specific reference to Texas: Despite the United Nations Millennium Development Goal for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality by 2015, the estimated maternal mortality rate for 48 states and Washington, DC, increased from 2000 to 2014; the international trend was in the opposite direction. There is a need to redouble efforts to prevent maternal deaths and improve maternity care for the 4 million U.S. women giving birth each year. Texas' second namecheck in the study was benign, noting that the overall rate of maternal mortality was so low that only California and Texas served as sources of by-state data  due not to their specific outcomes, but to the size of their populations: It would be preferable to analyze data individually for each state; however, maternal death is a rare event, and the number of cases (396 U.S. deaths in 2000 and 856 in 2014) was not sufficient to support individual state analysis for all but the most populous states (California and Texas). But the "Results" portion of the introductory page noted that California's and Texas' statistics trended differently and provided a primary finding that colored media coverage of the findings: The estimated maternal mortality rate (per 100,000 live births) for 48 states and Washington, DC (excluding California and Texas, analyzed separately) increased by 26.6%, from 18.8 in 2000 to 23.8 in 2014. California showed a declining trend, whereas Texas had a sudden increase in 20112012. Analysis of the measurement change suggests that U.S. rates in the early 2000s were higher than previously reported. Much of the research hinged on pinpointing and adjusting for what was described as "the pregnancy question" (which was "added to the 2003 revision of the U.S. standard death certificate"), defined by the World Health Organization as death certificate language recording "The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes." The WHO also provided for late maternal deaths via a separate but similar checkbox: "The death of a woman from direct or indirect obstetric causes more than 42 days but less than 1 year after termination of pregnancy." Although the phrasing "termination of pregnancy" typically is understood to mean "an abortion" in layman's speech, the researchers and WHO used it to mean the end of a pregnancy via live birth, stillbirth, miscarriage, or abortion. Researchers noted that state-by-state adoption of the pregnancy question vis a vis death records led to findings that required some adjustment to reach conclusions. While some states immediately adopted the guideline in 2003, others waited years. By January 2014, 44 states and the District of Columbia included the question on their death certificates; that incongruous state-by-state data pool led to efforts on the researchers' parts to calibrate the data and parse it. The study noted that Texas (which adopted the question in 2006) demonstrated results that led to "uncertainty" in the final report: California is the only state that revised their death certificate with a pregnancy question inconsistent with the U.S. standard. The California question only asks about pregnancies within the past year. In addition, there were changes over time in specific data provided by California to the National Center for Health Statistics for deaths at less than 42 days, making use of this measure impracticable. Thus, maternal and late maternal deaths were combined for the California trend analysis. Finally, we estimated maternal mortality rates for 48 states and the District of Columbia from 2000 to 2014. California and Texas were excluded from this estimation: California because it does not provide comparable data and Texas as a result of uncertainty regarding recent trends (see Results). In that section, researchers described Texas' atypical spike in maternal mortality and noted that the laws in question were not likely sufficient to account for the spike (referencing a "future study" to obtain more information on Texas): Texas had an unrevised question about pregnancies in the past 12 months and revised to the U.S. standard question in 2006. Adjusted maternal mortality rates for Texas show only a modest increase from 2000 to 2010, from a rate of 17.7 in 2000 to 18.6 in 2010. The slope of this regression line was 0.12 (95% CI 20.22 to 0.46) (564 maternal deaths and 4,246,835 live F4 births) (Fig. 4). However, after 2010, the reported maternal mortality rate for Texas doubled within a 2-year period to levels not seen in other U.S. states. Joinpoint trend analysis was done separately for the 20002010 and the 20112014 periods because the trends for these two periods differed widely.  The Texas data are puzzling in that they show a modest increase in maternal mortality from 2000 to 2010 (slope 0.12) followed by a doubling within a 2- year period in the reported maternal mortality rate. In 2006, Texas revised its death certificate, including the addition of the U.S. standard pregnancy question, and also implemented an electronic death certificate. However, the 2006 changes did not appreciably affect the maternal mortality trend after adjustment, and the doubling in the rate occurred in 20112012. Texas cause-of-death data, like with data for most states, are coded at the National Center for Health Statistics, and this doubling in the rate was not found for other states. Communications with vital statistics personnel in Texas and at the National Center for Health Statistics did not identify any data processing or coding changes that would account for this rapid increase. There were some changes in the provision of womens health services in Texas from 2011 to 2015, including the closing of several womens health clinics. Still, in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval, the doubling of a mortality rate within a 2-year period in a state with almost 400,000 annual births seems unlikely. A future study will examine Texas data by raceethnicity and detailed causes of death to better understand this unusual finding. The study's introduction cited "[e]arlier studies [which] identified significant underreporting of maternal deaths in the National Vital Statistics System," reiterating in its "Discussion" section that variations by state impeded the research: For example, had the National Center for Health Statistics and the Texas vital statistics office both been publishing annual maternal mortality rates, the unusual findings from Texas for 20112014 would certainly have been investigated much sooner and in greater detail. The study noted that Texas demonstrated what appeared to be a spike in maternal mortality between 2011 and 2014, but researchers weren't yet confident that slashed funding for women's healthcare was primarily responsible for the change. Moreover, researchers mentioned widespread underreporting of maternal mortality across all states, positing it was "an international embarrassment that the United States, since 2007, has not been able to provide a national maternal mortality rate to international data repositories such as those run by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development." Study author Christine Morton told a reporter that the Texas-specific findings remained an unsolved puzzle: told I think everybody is at a loss to understand why Texas saw such an increase in maternal mortality rate. We posited that the documented changes in provisions in women's health services happened in this same time period, but it's hard to knowin the absence of in-depth case review of maternal mortality data in Texashow that lined up with those changes. As the Townhall columnist pointed out, Texas did demonstrate upticks in maternal mortality antedating 2011 clinic funding provisions. State data from 1970 to 2014 evidenced the 2011 to 2014 spike in maternal mortality but exhibited a maternal death rate (a number unaffected by the raw number of deaths or births in any given year) that didn't appear to correlate directly with changes in state laws. In 1970, the maternal death rate hovered at 0.3 per 1,000 live births, dropping to 0.1 in 1977 and remaining virtually static until it rose to 0.2 in 2003. That figure remained fairly constant until 2009, when it reached 0.3 at 116 deaths; 2011 saw identical numbers. In 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively that rate was 0.3 (121 deaths), 0.4 (153 deaths), and 0.3 (139 deaths): data  So the September 2016 study on the United States' maternal mortality rate published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology identified a steady increase in maternal deaths in Texas and cited state laws and funding as a potential (not proven) factor in that post-2011 uptick. But study authors bemoaned a lack of comprehensive record-keeping nationwide that impeded research, and the first year maternal deaths began increasing in Texas was 2003 (before clinics were affected by legislative efforts to reduce abortion).   Bomberger, Ryan.  "The Truth About Texas Maternal Mortality Rates and the Epic Defunding of Planned Parenthood."
  Townhall.  26 August 2016. Goodwyn, Wade.  "Texans Try to Repair Damage Wreaked Upon Family Planning Clinics."
  NPR.  28 January 2016. MacDorman, Marian F. et.al.  "Recent Increases in the U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate."
  Obstetrics and Gynecology.  September 2016. Peters, Adele.  "Texas Has the Worst Maternal Mortality Rate in the Developed World."
  Fast Company.  26 August 2016. Redden, Molly.  "Texas Has Highest Maternal Mortality Rate in Developed World, Study Finds."
  The Guardian.  20 August 2016. Collected via email, 2013: A Country Founded by Geniuses but Run by Idiots Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy: If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you have to get your parents permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If, in the nations largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is "cute," but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class ingrade school is perfectly acceptable  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If the governments plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldnt be found  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more "safe" according to the government  you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. What a country! How about we give God a reason to continue blessing America! The above-referenced list of entries detailing "A Country Founded by Geniuses But Run by Idiots" was widely circulated via the internet in early 2013 with an "Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy" tag at its head, leading many to believe it was actually the work of that nationally famous comedian. Jeff Foxworthy However, othen than its basic "If you ... you might be ..." pattern that mimics Jeff Foxworthy's popular "You might be a redneck" routines, this item bears little resemblance to anything produced by Foxworthy: his comedic material is typically affectionate and self-deprecating and involves poking fun at his own milieu; his brand of humor is much more apolitical and non-partisan than the list reproduced above. (Nonetheless, Jeff's name has been falsely attached to other similar political pieces that have little in common with the tenor and substance of his comedy material.) attached Jeff's brother, Jay, confirmed for us that this material was not written by his sibling. The original compiler of this list appears to be Fritz Edmunds, who posted it to his "Politically True" blog back on Feb. 3, 2013 (albeit with a disclaimer noting that "some of the ideas were from an email that did not contain any copyright"). Politically True As usual, the list has seen numerous alterations in the process of being passed around the Internet, and several of the entries appearing in earlier versions have since dropped off: If the only school curriculum allowed to explain how we got here is evolution, but your government stops a $15 million construction project to keep a rare spider from evolving to extinction  you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If your government believes that using steroids or other drugs will ruin your life, but throwing you in prison for years will not  you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them with spankings while children of addicts are left in filth and drug infested homes  you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If your government believes that the way to make a school of unarmed children safe is to pass another law, this time with the illusion that three 10-round magazines in a rifle is safer than a 30-round magazine  you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. The phrase "founded by geniuses and run by idiots" appears to be a variant of a similar statement that appeared in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel "The Caine Mutiny": "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots." In the 1954 film of the same name, the line was rendered, "The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots." <!-- Sources:    Metz, Ken.  "It's Never Wise to Insult the Police Officer."   The Bath County News-Outlook.  30 August 2007.--> Update [Aug. 2, 2022]: Updated SEO and title. On 9 January 2014,  the Lightly Braised Turnip web site published an article (complete with photo) positing that a gigantic mutant squid grown to the size of 160 feet due to radioactivity had been discovered on the California coast near Santa Monica: article For the second time in recent months, a giant sea creature has washed ashore in California.  First it was a rare oarfish that had grown to a freakish 100-foot length.  This time it was a giant squid measuring a whopping 160 feet from head to tentacle tip.  These giants look different but experts believe they share one important commonality: they both come from the waters near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Futaba District of Japan. Scientists believe that following the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant an unknown number of sea creatures suffered genetic mutations that triggered uncontrolled growth  or "radioactive gigantism." Unfortunately, this cadre of mutant giants seems to be drifting towards the continental U.S.  Local officials in Santa Monica, CA  where the creature drifted ashore  tried to calm residents. By later that day, links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.  However, that article was just a bit of fictional humor (a follow-up to an earlier fictional item about a giant oarfish supposedly discovered off the California coast) spoofing recent alarmist reports about dangerous radioactivity reaching the U.S. from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The photo was a fabrication that melded a picture depicting a dead whale found in Chile back in 2011 with a picture of a giant squid that washed up on a Spanish beach in 2013: item Fukushima dead whale giant squid   The Santa Monica area of California is just outside our home base here at snopes.com, and a quick drive along the coastline provided no view of a gigantic squid on the beach, nor did any of the many local news outlets cover any such topic.  Disappointed, we headed elsewhere for our calamari lunch.   Last updated:  9 January 2014 President Donald Trump often speaks of how other countries treat American products unfairly. At a private fundraising event in Missouri, Trump singled out a particular practice in Japan. It's called the bowling ball test. Do you know what that is? Trump said, according to a recording obtained by theWashington Post.That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air, and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify. It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible. TheWashington Postnoted, It was unclear what he was talking about. So we wanted to look into it. We asked the White House press office what Trump had in mind and got no comment. In her regular press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was just joking. However, we found something that loosely fits what he described. There are no bowling balls, and no 20-foot drop. But Japans National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victim Aid does whats called apedestrian head protection performance test. Its designed to measure the force someones head would absorb if a car hit them. This involves firing a carefully calibrated hemisphere-shaped device (so, more like half of a bowling ball) at the hood and windshield. The device records the force. Heres a graphic from the agencys website:  Note that the largest head impactor is 4.5 kilograms, or about 10 pounds. So, the details about a bowling ball, the weight and the height of the drop are all wrong. But those details aside, Trump also got the purpose and nature of the test totally wrong. When he said, If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify, that would be a test of the strength of the hood. In contrast, the test is all about a persons head and the force it has to absorb in an accident. Its the complete opposite, said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategy, a private firm that studies vehicle and consumer product safety. In fact, the more a hood dents or flexes, the better it is for the head of the unlucky pedestrian. Its akin to any other type of crash, Kane said. You look at cars today, and the impact damage to cars is much greater. Theres a lot of crush, but thats to absorb the energy and keep it away from people. Abiomedical engineering dissertationfrom Wayne State University made the same point: To lower head injury criterion, two main principles are necessary: provision of sufficient deformation space and provision of a low stiffness of the impacted vehicle body parts. However, Trump got one element correct. American cars sold in Japan, at least all models made this decade, have to meet the Japanese safety standard. So Trump was correct that this is a hurdle for American car makers. Its worth noting that Europe has a similar standard. Inthe early 2000s, the problem of cars hitting pedestrians was worse in Europe and Japan than in the United States. In Japan, for example, 27 percent of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians hit by cars. In the United States, it was 13 percent. The head impact test is a standardized test and has been there for many years, said Pankaj Mallick, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Our car companies are very much aware of this, but at this time, there are no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements to do this test for qualification of a car hood. Kane noted that the United States stands out for having lower safety standards than Europe and Japan. If U.S. car makers wanted to make safer cars, they could sell them in both markets, he said. If they dont, thats a business decision. Trump said that in Japan, they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. American cars must meet a Japanese standard. But Trump mangled the highly controlled process, which does not involve a bowling ball dropped from 20 feet. Where Trump really goes astray is on the purpose of the test; he has it backward. Its not about seeing if the hood is strong. The more a hood gives way, the better it is for the head of a pedestrian. Trumps understanding of the test is so far off the mark, we rate this claim False. Before announcing that he was going to announce his presidential candidacy, former Gov. Jeb Bush told a crowd at an Orlando event that he was dedicated to conservative principles like reducing the size of government. We reduced the government workforce by 13,000, 11 percent, during my eight years, he said on June 2, 2015, at Gov. Rick Scotts Economic Growth Summit at Walt Disney World. He also touted high job-creation numbers during his term. Bush is expected to officially announce his candidacy on June 15. Meanwhile, we wondered whether his claim about shrinking the state government workforce passed muster. Working through the cuts Bush served two terms between 1999 and the start of 2007, and proposed cutting25 percent of state employeesearly in his term. He didnt cut that many, but he did oversee a reduction in state workers. His Right to Rise PAC sent us state payroll numbers from Bushs tenure that backed the claim. A Bush spokesman said the data came from the Legislatures General Appropriations Act (i.e., the approved state budget) each year, minus workers for the State University System andtemporary employeesfor which the governors office isnt responsible. These are legitimate numbers, but can be hard to parse. To find them in the annual budget, which usually clocks in at more than 400 pages, youd have to add them up from the positions listed for each state agency. You can sift through each budget if youd like, but we decided to look at it a slightly different way to make it a little simpler for you to gauge, using the states Department of Management ServicesAnnual Workforce Report. Thats a general snapshot of state personnel, how much they make and what jobs they do. Part of that count is theState Personnel System, which includes about two-thirds of state employees in more than 30 different agencies and departments. It also excludes university and temporary jobs, and a few others. The numbers arent exactly the same as what Bushs PAC provided, but the State Personnel System shows who is employed by state agencies at any given time. Year General Appropriations Act State Personnel System employees 1998-99 127,363 124,838 1999-2000 126,723 124,160 2000-01 125,007 123,505 2001-02 120,091 120,581 2002-03 117,869 117,561 2003-04 116,797 115,504 2004-05 116,317 113,030 2005-06 116,463 108,706 2006-07 113,633 108,866 Total change -13,730 -15,972 Percent change -10.8 percent -12.8 percent Either way you slice it, Bush can claim the state workforce he had a say over did shrink during his tenure, generally in the terms he noted. The Annual Workforce Report has the added bonus of keeping track of how many employees an agency gains or loses each year. That shows that departments like Children and Families, Health, and Corrections all lost plenty of positions under Bush, who focused on privatizing state services. That privatization of government work has been controversial. For example, contractors working for the Department of Children and Familieshave been criticized for cost overrunsand running an ineffective, or even dangerous, privatized foster care program. Similar problems have been debated for contracts withpayroll servicesandprivately run prisons, among others. Florida International University public administration professors Howard Frank and David Guo said that instead of focusing on how many state jobs were eliminated, its better to consider whether the moves really saved the state money. The Department of Management Services doesnt dissect the differences betweenjobs that were cut and the contractsthat replaced them. That makes it difficult to untangle exactly how much the state may have saved by privatizing, automating or consolidating government positions. The state now has the lowest number of government workers per capita in the United States. But Bushs workforce cuts between 1999 and 2007 came as the states population ballooned by about 3.5 million and the budget jumped from$48.6 billion to $73.9 billion. Our ruling Bush said, We reduced the government workforce by 13,000, 11 percent, during my eight years. He was referring to a specific count of workers in state agencies cut between 1999 and 2007, and in context we can consider his numbers pretty accurate. Experts told us its important to keep in mind that privatizing state jobs or cutting positions doesnt mean its necessarily cheaper or better for taxpayers. The statement, however, is accurate, and we rate it True. On 9 September 2018, the web site Your Daily News published an article headlined "Danny Trejo The Famous Native American Actor Dies at age 74":  Curiously, however, the article text provided no details about the time or manner of Trejo's alleged passing, nor even mentioned Trejo's death -- it simply provided a summary of the actor's life and career: Danny Trejo was born Dan Trejo in Echo Park, Los Angeles, to Alice (Rivera) and Dan Trejo, a construction worker with his intimidating, tattooed, muscle-bound appearance, character actor Danny Trejo has formed a successful career as the all-purpose hard case over his curious and enduring cinematic career. Beating the odds of repeat offender syndrome after being released from prison, Trejo has risen through the ranks to find himself in high demand as an actor, and has even expanded his talents to include a producer credit to his resum. That lack of information is not surprising, because the article was a hoax -- Danny Trejo is not dead and is still actively posting on social media: Rest in peace Burt Reynolds. You were an icon and one of my heroes. -DT pic.twitter.com/0fKZhaKpuH pic.twitter.com/0fKZhaKpuH  Danny Trejo (@officialDannyT) September 6, 2018 September 6, 2018  The only source reporting Trejo's death in September 2018 was Your Daily News, a site which had only been active a very short time and as of this writing was no longer reachable. Your Daily News Moreover, Trejo himself has previously been the subject of celebrity death hoax rumors (which he has personally disclaimed): Trejo DANNY TREJO IS NOT DEAD  Danny Trejo (@officialDannyT) November 8, 2016 November 8, 2016