Fireworks have never been safer, and their use continues to increase each year.
Picking a favorite holiday is almost like picking a favorite child, but PolitiFact Ohio admits to particular fondness for the Fourth of July.We enjoy the invocations of history, especially when they're factually accurate. We like the annual cookout with old friends. And we love fireworks.So we were especially interested to read a newspaper commentary by Bill Weimer, vice president of Youngstown-based Phantom Fireworks, the nations largest retailer of consumer fireworks.Fireworks have never been safer, and their use continues to increase each year, he wrote. This alone provides a strong case for the regulated and sensible use of consumer fireworks.Really? Safer than ever?In 1994, Weimer said, the United States imported 117 million pounds of fireworks, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 12,500 fireworks-related injuries. By 2010,  fireworks imports grew more than 75 percent to 205.9 million pounds, but the number of fireworks-related injuries dropped by more than 30 percent to 8,600.This is phenomenal progress in safety, Weimer wrote, calling on Ohio's General Assembly to relax state laws and legalize consumer fireworks.PolitiFact Ohio looked at the law and checked the numbers.Ohio law, which now permits the use of only novelty and trick fireworks, is among the more restrictive nationally. Three other states have similar laws, and four ban all consumer fireworks. Forty-one states and Washington, D.C., allow some or all types of consumer fireworks permitted by federal regulations, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.We found that Weimer's numbers, as reported by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Pyrotechnics Association, a trade group, are accurate.The same day Weimers column was published, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, which set standards for consumer fireworks in 1976, issued its annual fireworks report last week. It confirmed the injury number Weimer used -- 8,600 for 2010.CPSC spokeswoman Nikki Fleming said the injury rate as measured by injuries per 100,000 persons has leveled off.The Massachusetts-based National Fire Protection Association takes the position that using consumer fireworks is simply not worth the risk, division manager Guy Colonna said.We don't seem to be trending that rapidly toward zero, he said of the injury numbers. Youhaven't moved the needle so much in terms of saying it's safe for consumers to use.The NFPA -- which coordinates the national Alliance to Stop Consumer Fireworks -- said in its annual report in June that there are more fires on a typical July 4th than any other day of the year, and that fireworks account for 40 percent.Colonna acknowledged statistics showing that the rate of injury per 100,000 pounds of imported fireworks has declined, but said it is still a significant number.The American Pyrotechnics Association, a trade group, cites the latter statistic. It shows that the rate of injuries dropped from 38 per 100,000 pounds of fireworks in 1976 to 7 in 2000 and to 4 per 100,000 pounds of fireworks in 2010.The trade group considers that significant because U.S. fireworks consumption has skyrocketed. It more than doubled between 2000, when the trade group says the trend in relaxing (state) consumer fireworks laws was first initiated, and 2011, when 212 million pounds were sold.The trade group credits safety education efforts and the ever improving quality of its products. It says that injuries and fires most typically result from illegal fireworks and from improper use, especially involving children.But does that mean that fireworks themselves are safer?We asked Weimer what he had to support his statement. He immediately credited the work of the CPSC and the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory.In the 1970s, the CPSC set federal requirements for consumer fireworks that cover cautionary labeling, the burn time of fuses, explosive powder content, stability for both ground-based and aerial devices and proper performance.In 1988, the CPSC started an inspection and enforcement program for Chinese-manufactured fireworks. China -- which now supplies 98 percent of the fireworks in the United States -- began exporting fireworks to this country in 1973.Initially, 75 percent of fireworks tested  by the CPSC failed to comply with the regulations.The quality truly wasn't very good, Weimer said. The quality was inconsistent. The industry knew that if it didn't so something there would be big issues.Working with the CPSC, importers established the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to set additional, stricter requirements for consumer fireworks. The AFSL went to factories in China, conducted seminars, worked with manufacturers and started a testing program in China in 1994.The linchpin of the system is the testing, Weimer said.The testing is conducted by an independent laboratory hired from outside China by the AFSL. Each fireworks shipment is tested for compliance with 15 quality standards, Weimer said. If any standard is not met by any of the randomly selected cases, the entire case lot fails.In the program's first year, 1994, 36 percent of the random lots of tested fireworks were rejected. By 2002, that number was less than 10 percent. The compliance rate exceeded 90 percent.CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, speaking at a symposium in China last January, noted that the agency has been working for years with manufacturers and with China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.While AQSIQ and CPSC may work to improve product safety with somewhat different motivations, everyone benefits from the end result, which is improved product safety, she said, adding that we have increased the frequency, scope, and depth of our training in China.Weimer thinks that the availability of regulated consumer fireworks diminishes the use of the really lethal illegal and homemade variety.So what's the grand finale?PolitiFact Ohio is not ruling on the advisability of maintaining, relaxing or tightening Ohio laws regulating fireworks. And were not taking a position on whether consumer use of fireworks is even a good idea.Weimers statement addressed legal and proper use of fireworks by consumers -- not use of homemade or illegal products. And fireworks are -- as Weimer told us -- a product with risk associated with it.But, the statistical record shows that the rate of injury from fireworks declined nationally while their use increased dramatically, and while laws governing their consumer use loosened. There still are injuries, but the annual rate has plateaued even while consumption continues to grow.We found no stronger explanation than the concurrent regulatory and policing work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to make fireworks safer.Weimers claim is accurate. On the Truth-O-Meter it rates True.
Claim:  The Red Lobster chain is about to close its doors and go out of business for good.  Example:  [Collected via Facebook, December 2013] Is Red Lobster closing?   Origins:  Red Lobster is the ubiquitous casual dining restaurant chain operated by Darden Restaurants of Orlando, Florida, which boasts over seven hundred outlets worldwide, including (in addition to the United States) operations in Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Japan. In September 2013, the  Darden Restaurants corporation (which also owns the Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Capital Grille and Seasons 52 restaurant chains) reported disappointing financial results, including a 37.6% decrease in earnings per share and a $41 million drop in net earnings.  A fair chunk of those disappointing financial results were attributed to the poor performance of the Red Lobster chain, which saw a 5.2% decline in sales relative to the same quarter of the previous year, and a 3.8% decline in same-restaurant traffic.   These results prompted Darden, under pressure from investors, to announce in mid-December 2013 that they planned to separate themselves from the Red Lobster chain by selling it or spinning it off as a separate company: Under pressure from an activist hedge fund, Darden announced that it would dispose of the chain that gave it life  Red Lobster  as one of several steps meant to bolster its stock price. The company plans to shed Red Lobster through a tax-free spinoff to shareholders, but would be interested in a sale if it could raise more money. Darden's plan follows months of questions and pressure from investors and analysts over how it planned to bring back consumers after the recession. Darden is one of the biggest companies in the casual dining industry, with a market value of $6.7 billion, but its core chains have had stagnant growth. Though Red Lobster served as the basis for the Darden empire, it has become less important to the company over time. Members of the management team said that they expected same-restaurant sales for the chain to fall 4 to 5 percent this year. Separating the low-growth brand would let its new management team focus on running the company for its significant cash flows, while letting the rest of the company focus on its other brands' needs, including different marketing and pricing strategies. This announcement about Red Lobster's future was interpreted by some casual news consumers as meaning that the Red Lobster chain would imminently be going out of business, but a Darden spokesman quickly moved to quell such rumors: The Red Lobster restaurant chain brushed aside reports that it will be closing its doors. Rich Jeffers, a spokesman for Darden Restaurants Inc., which owns the chain, said the rumor may have started after the website LA Weekly published a story that the company faced an "uncertain future." A torrent of tweets and other online media followed with reports that the chain was closing. "We are not closing any restaurants," Jeffers [said]. The confusion may also be linked to Darden's announcement that it plans to sell or spin off the Red Lobster chain into a separate company. Several months later, in May 2014, Darden Restaurants announced that they had agreed to sell the Red Lobster chain to Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 billion: Darden Restaurants announced that private equity firm Golden Gate Capital has agreed to buy seafood chain Red Lobster for $2.1 billion in cash. In December [2013] the restaurant group revealed plans to release its oldest but worst performing segment into the wild. The initial plan was to create two independent companies, but after considering a number of structures  ranging from selling to a strategic partner to giving up the real estate assets while holding onto the brand  Darden concluded the Golden Gate deal would create the most value, the company said in a statement. Nonetheless, as The Motley Fool warned back in December 2013, Darden's shedding of Red Lobster could still possibly sound a death knell for the chain: The Motley Fool It's not so much that Red Lobster is a damaged brand, but rather that its results reflect all too closely the trends seen all across the casual-dining sector. Releasing it back into the wild on its own may only cause the restaurant chain to fail. It's clear Red Lobster can't compete on its own yet, and until it can find a way to bring diners back to the restaurant, it would be foolhardy to cast it off. It's possible that economic circumstances may lead to the closure of some Red Lobster outlets in upcoming years, or even the eventual demise of the chain itself. But those possibilities are currently only speculative and uncertain; there's no definitive reason to expect that the entire chain will be closing its doors anytime soon.   Last updated:  16 May 2014    Kim, Susanna.  "Red Lobster Says It's Not Closing Its 705 Restaurants."   ABC News.  27 December 2013.    McGrath, Maggie.  "Red Lobster and Olive Garden Drag Darden Lower."   Forbes.  20 September 2013.    Sharf, Samantha.  "Red Lobster Caught by Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 Billion."   Forbes.  16 May 2014. As President Donald Trumpstrade warwages on, we decided to check in on the most affected sectors. U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Sonny Perdue said farmers, who will receive $12 billion in aid, were particularly affected by the dispute. Americas hard-working agricultural producers have been treated unfairly by Chinas illegal trading practices and have taken a disproportionate hit when it comes to illegal retaliatory tariffs, Perdue said in a USDApress releaseon July 26. Well leave aside the question of whether the retaliatory tariffs are any more illegal than the initial U.S. tariffs on imports. But we were interested in the second half of his claim: Have agricultural producers taken a disproportionate hit? The Agriculture Department pointed out that 37 percent of U.S. exports facing retaliatory tariffs are agricultural exports. Those are the tariffs as of July 31, 2018 coming from China, the European Union, India, Turkey, Mexico and Canada. Thats disproportionate to the total goods the United State exports: about 10 percent are agricultural goods, according to the USDAs 2017 data. Its hard to measure the exact numbers, though. Thats because tariffs are listed individually by the governments that issue them (in this case, not the United States), and because the United States doesnt keep close tabs on exports. USDA calculated the 37 percent figure using official import customs data from the retaliating partner through a private third party, Global Trade Atlas. Export data is notoriously bad, Laura Baughman, president of the Trade Partnership, told us in July. Its inaccurate because people dont necessarily report it very carefully, since you are not assessing tariffs on exports. However, the agricultural industry is on average much more dependent on world markets than other industries, according to David Laborde, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. Exports comprise 10 percent of total GDP in the United States, whereas they comprise about 20 percent of GDP in the American agricultural sector. That fraction iseven higherfor crops like cotton (76 percent is exported), soybeans (50 percent) and wheat (46 percent), according to USDA. About 16 to 17 percent of exports to China are agricultural goods, so any conflict with China (like the ongoing one) takes a heavy toll on agriculture, Laborde said. He calculated that 86.8 percent of agricultural exports to China are impacted by retaliatory tariffs while 36.9 percent of the non-agricultural exports are covered. Farmers face two additional aggravators: their products are easily replaceable and theyre an easy political target. One ton of U.S. soybeans is a nearly perfect substitute to one ton of Brazilian soybeans, Laborde pointed out. But high-tech medical equipment (another type of products exported to China) is difficult to substitute, so Chinese consumers are more willing to endure the tariff. And from a political economy point of view, Laborde said it made sense for China to maintain pressure on farmers in particular, as a core constituency for the Trump administration. Perdue said, Americas hard-working agricultural producers  have taken a disproportionate hit when it comes to illegal retaliatory tariffs. Its difficult to measure the impact of tariffs on the economy and particularly hard to measure the impact of retaliatory tariffs on exports. That said, the economy sets up agricultural producers to bear the brunt of tariffs. Exports are doubly important for the agricultural sectors GDP as for the countrys GDP. USDA calculated that 37 percent of exports facing tariffs are agricultural goods, whereas agricultural goods comprise 10 percent of total exports. We rate this statement Mostly True. 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 In December 2020, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, the FBI and other federal agencies began to warn of fraudsters exploiting interest in the newly released vaccine. INTERPOL, as well, issued an Orange Notice alerting law enforcement to "potential criminal activity in relation to the falsification, theft and illegal advertising of COVID-19 and flu vaccines." approved warn Orange Notice One area where these scams have reportedly proliferated is the so-called dark web. Broadly speaking, the dark web refers to unindexed content on the internet that can not be searched for and that, among other things, contains several anonymous marketplaces and forums that purport to sell a wide range of illicit material. On Feb. 8, 2021, CBS News reported that "in just the last six weeks, the number of vaccine ads on the dark web has exploded," adding that "the asking prices have doubled or even quadrupled." reportedly refers reported For a Dec. 25, 2020, segment on PlanetMoney, NPR spoke to Chad Anderson, a senior security researcher at the cyberthreat intelligence agency Domain Tools. "We're a cyberthreat intelligence data company," he explained, "so we scan the entire Internet as many times as we can every single day and give insights to customers based upon what we see." Back then, he argued the vaccine ads popping up on the dark web were clearly scams. NPR Chad Anderson "For one thing," NPR correspondent Stacey Vanek Smith explained, "the Pfizer vaccine requires a very intense cold storage chain. The vaccines have to be kept at negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit." And also, she added, "the COVID vaccine ads are mixed in with ads for all kinds of other things, and Chad says that tends to be a red flag." At the time of this reporting, the only two FDA-approved vaccines are the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. Both shots are mRNA vaccines, and as such they both require this high level of refrigeration for transport. explained Snopes reached out to Anderson to ask if ads for vaccines on dark web marketplaces still appeared to be scams, as of February 2021. "Just went and took a look at the last of the 'reputable' markets [on the dark web] and I still don't see any COVID vaccines for sale on there," he wrote to us by email, adding that he did see some ads for the largely discredited treatment hydroxychloroquine, but not much else on the COVID-19 front. One problem with the dark web, however, is that there is no requirement for "reputable behavior" and few safeguards against predatory behavior. Several media reports have cited a dark web market named Agartha as having ads for COVID-19 vaccines. Indeed it does  several hundred of them, according to a recent analysis by Snopes  but these ads are all comically obvious frauds. One ad listed under "opiates," for instance, asked for "mutual trust" in its effort to sell some "Moderona" vaccine: media reports   Other ads claim to be able to ship the Pfizer vaccine, which as a reminder requires extreme refrigeration for storage, by FedEx at no additional cost. Many ads, like the one below, don't even specify what vaccine product they purport to sell. Instead, the ad appears to be a bait-and-switch for a seller peddling other drugs ranging from marijuana to fentanyl:   According to DomainTools' Anderson, "Agartha is considered an entire scam market." He added that "I've never thrown money into my user wallet on there, but I have heard from others that the moment you do it's immediately siphoned off to another wallet that I would assume is the wallet of those running the site." CBS News, in its reporting, cited the work of cybersecurity company Check Point. That firm attempted to purchase COVID-19 vaccines from various dark web sellers, even sending a Bitcoin payment to one. "A few days after the Bitcoin transaction, Check Point received a message from the vendor saying the vaccine had been shipped, CBS reported. "Then a few days later, that vendor's account completely disappeared from the site." They never received any product in return, and the firm concluded that none of the sellers they found actually had any vaccine to sell.  reported Overt fraud aside, a possibility remains that as more easily transportable vaccines are approved and produced, a dark web black market for vaccines could develop. "As time goes by, and more people get access to legitimate doses, there's always the possibility that some of that real product could make its way onto the dark web," CBS reported. "More providers will lead to looser shipping restrictions," Anderson agreed. reported The risks from engaging in these transactions are multifaceted. Outside of a potential loss of money, there are risks of receiving unknown and dangerous drugs instead of a vaccine or having identifying information stolen. "In addition to the dangers of ordering potentially life-threatening products," a December 2020 Interpol news release stated, "an analysis by the INTERPOLs Cybercrime Unit revealed that of 3,000 websites associated with online pharmacies suspected of selling illicit medicines and medical devices, around 1,700 contained cyber threats, especially phishing and spamming malware." In other words, even if these listings were not overt scams, it's not worth the risk. stated Because at this time there are several ads for COVID-19 vaccines on various dark web markets of low repute, but that none of them appear to be legitimate, we rate the claim that the vaccines are for sale as "false." A story about two armed "illegal aliens" killed during an attempted home invasion by an 11-year-old shotgun-wielding girl was posted to LibertyPost.org on 25 April 2007:  Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest. Although the account was widely cited as a validation of "anti-illegal immigration" and/or pro-gun ownership positions, confirmation of the tale as a real-life incident was lacking. The only documentation for this item was numerous web sites all citing the same information, with no details of time or place (other than a reference to Montana). Searches of news databases (including Montana-based newspapers) failed to turn up any corresponding news stories containing any of the four names provided, and the name of one of the putative criminals ("Ralphel Resendez") just happened to echo an alias (Raphael Resendez-Ramirez) used by Angel Maturino Resendiz (also an undocumented immigrant), the infamous "Railroad Killer." Railroad Killer Although many versions of this item cited the home invasion incident as having taken place in Butte, Montana, that area's sheriff said no such thing had occurred in that city: When asked about the authenticity of the events described in this story, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff John Walsh told The Montana Standard that his office never investigated such an incident. "This never happened," Walsh said. The story claims the girl shot and killed the two intruders while she was home alone. The story doesn't provide a street address or attribute the information to any official sources. Walsh brushed off the story as an urban myth. "It's amazing how these things get around," he said. The only news story (of recent vintage) we could turn up about a minor using a shotgun to kill two armed intruders attempting a home invasion robbery took place in December 2006 and involved a 17-year-old boy in Texas (rather than an 11-year-old girl in Montana): news story An overnight home invasion robbery attempt in northeast Harris County ended in a hail of gunfire that left two suspects dead. Investigators said a 17-year-old was home with his cousin when four armed men kicked in the door and started shooting. The teen pulled out a shotgun of his own and fired back at the suspects, killing two of them. Going back almost twenty years to 1988, we did find a news story about an 11-year-old shooting and killing two home intruders, but again the details didn't match the example cited above: Switzer, S.C.  An 11-year-old boy who had been left alone after school shot and killed two men as they tried to steal a videocassette recorder from his family's home, police said. William Todd Knight, the son of Billy and Ann Knight, "acted very wisely," said Spartanburg County Coroner Jim Burnett. "His life was in danger, he looked for an escape and could not find one ... he was a very brave young man." Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department Capt. John Blackwood said the boy was watching cartoons in his parents' bedroom Monday afternoon when he heard noises at the front door of the family's brick, ranch-style home. Todd told officers he was scared, so he went to his room for the .22-caliber rifle his father had given him for Christmas and loaded four rounds. He then went to the front door and saw a man he described as "rough" pounding on the door. The man finally left in a white Datsun. Todd said he resumed watching cartoons and about 10 minutes later heard banging, this time at a dining room window. He saw two men climbing through the dining room window. The boy said he went into the bathroom to climb out the window, but saw the white Datsun was parked in the back yard. Todd told police he went back to the hallway, peeked around the corner into the den and was spotted by one of the intruders as they were taking the VCR. Todd then fired three rounds at the men, who dropped the VCR and fled. When police arrived, one of the dead men was found face down next to a woodpile in the back yard, approximately 50 to 75 feet from the house, while the second man was in the driver's seat of the white two-door Datsun. In October 2012, a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl shot (but did not kill) an unarmed burglar who broke into the house while she was home alone: Kendra St. Clair, 12, was at home alone in Oklahoma, when loud banging began on the door to her family's home. Soon, the glass shattered and an intruder had entered. "I was scared and I didn't know what to do next," Kendra [said]. Petrified, she called her mom Debra. "I said Kendra get the gun and go get in my closet now. And call 911." The young 6th grader followed her mom's orders to the tee. Kendra had taken shelter in a closet, clutching her mother's .40 caliber glock gun while she listened to the intruder make his way around her home. Her fear intensified to sheer terror, when she saw the knob of the closet door beginning to turn. At that point, that for the first time in her life, Kendra fired a gun. Police said the bullet traveled straight through the closet door and struck 32-year-old Stacey Jones in the shoulder, scaring him out of the house. They arrested him a few blocks away and charged Jones with first degree burglary. In January 2015, an 11-year-old Michigan girl armed with a shotgun was reported to have scared away (but not fired upon) a home intruder: An 11-year-old girl was able to scare off a suspect  later taken into custody  during a home invasion in Lapeer County's North Branch Township. The girl was home alone when a vehicle pulled into the driveway. One person knocked on all the doors and forced their way inside the home when there was no response. The girl locked herself inside a bathroom and hid in a closet with a shotgun. The suspect eventually opened the bathroom door and closet where the child was hiding with the weapon. The girl aimed the shotgun at the suspect, who then fled from the home. Police said the girl was not harmed during the encounter. "The 12-gauge shotgun is her weapon," said Lapeer County Sheriff Detective Sgt. Jason Parks. "She and her father are into hunting and avid sportsmen. She was familiar with that weapon." Parks praised the girl's responsibility, poise and composure. "She is fully capable of staying there by herself as we can clearly see based on this situation," he said. "She was able to defend herself from an intruder and be able to resolve an event even most adults would be taken aback by." In August 2015, an 11-year-old St. Louis boy left home with his 4-year-old sister reportedly staved off several home invasion attempts before finally shooting and killing a 16-year-old intruder, although accounts differ as to what actually took place: accounts Authorities said an 11-year-old child and his 4-year-old sister were at their home when two men attempted to break in. The suspects attempted to get into the home twice, but failed. They made their way inside through the front door on the third attempt around 2:30 p.m. After the suspects entered the home, police said, the 11-year-old picked up a gun and fatally shot Lamonte Streeter. According to police, Streeter's body was found inside the home and evidence collected at the scene indicate that he was shot while inside. Some neighbors are providing a different version of events. One woman, who said she saw the shooting, [said] the 11-year-old and Streeter were arguing on the home's front porch when the shots were fired. "The little boy's (person shot) jumped up and went towards there and laid down and he lands in the doorway. He was always sitting on the porch, he never went inside the house," said a neighbor. The second alleged intruder, identified by police as a 22-year-old man, was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of burglary, police said. Acosta, Roberto. "11-Year-Old Uses Shotgun to Scare Off Suspect Home Invasion."
  The Flint Journal.  1 February 2015. Emeigh, John Grant. "Fake Story Still Circulating on Internet."
  The Montana Standard.  13 December 2007. Greenblatt, Mark. "Oklahoma Girl, 12, Shoots Intruder During Home Burglary."
  ABC News.  20 October 2012. Associated Press. "Boy, 11, Shoots, Kills 2 Intruders."
  The [Elyria, OH] Chronicle Telegram.  15 March 1988 (p. 6). KHOU-TV [Houston]. "Teen Shoots, Kills 2 Would-Be Robbers."
  28 December 2006. Bernie Sanders lines up fairly close to Donald Trump when it comes to the topic of trade. To some, that means Sanders has some explaining to do. In aninterviewwith theNew York Daily News, Sanders attempted to detail his position. Its about a fundamental inequity in labor standards, Sanders suggested, enabling human rights abuses at the cost of American jobs. I do believe in trade. But it has to be based on principles that are fair, Sanders said. So if you are in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is 65 an hour, or you're in Malaysia, where many of the workers are indentured servants because their passports are taken away when they come into this country and are working in slave-like conditions, no, I'm not going to have American workers competing against you under those conditions. Sanders has made trade a big topic on the campaign trail  highlighting Hillary Clintons comments and votes in favor of trade deals. (PolitiFact has documented a lengthy comparison of the two.) Here, we wanted to fact-check Sanders claim that workers in Malaysia  which would be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership  are forced into working under slave-like conditions. In a word, yes. Not only is forced labor widely documented by labor and human rights groups, its openly acknowledged by the U.S. government. From cell phones to sneakers to palm oil The Sanders campaign referred us to a 2014reportfrom Verit, an NGO that monitors labor standard compliance. Verit interviewed 501 workers in Malaysias electronics industry (the countrysleading sector), and found that 28 percent of them were coerced under both global standards and Malaysian law. This work has led us to conclude that forced labour in this industry is systemic and that every company operating in this sector in Malaysia faces a high risk of forced labour in their operations, Dan Viederman, chief executive of Verit,toldthe Guardian in 2014. The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, defines forced labor usingfour dimensions: unfree recruitment, work and life duress, impossibility of leaving an employer and penalty or menace of penalty. The Malaysian electronics industry violated all these guidelines in some capacity. Like the indentured servants who came to America in the 18th century, the vast majority of foreign workers  largely from other parts of Southeast Asia   were charged excessive job-finding fees and had to take on debt to pay them off, effectively tethering them to the job (unfree recruitment). One in five workers were also deceived about their wages or other employment conditions, and one in three lived in and often confined to crowded, unsafe housing provided by their employer or recruitment agency (work and life durres). Verit also found that 94 percent of workers had their passports withheld by the factory or agent (penalty), though the practice is prohibited by local labor laws . Fifty-seven percent said they couldnt leave their jobs out of fear of getting slapped with high fines, losing their passport, being reported to the authorities or other forms of retribution (impossibility of leaving an employer). But forced labor is by no means limited to one sector. Malaysia has thefourth-largest migrant worker populationin the world, and its 3 million to 6 million foreign workers all are vulnerable to exploitation in a variety of industries, said Abby McGill, the campaigns director for the International Labor Rights Forum. The State Departmentnotesthat passport confiscation was widespread and generally unpunished, and has placed Malaysia in its Tier 3 watch list for human trafficking  the rating reserved for the worst offenders  in2001,2007,2009and2014. In addition to electronics, the U.S. Labor Department currentlyliststhe garments and palm oil industries where labor abuses occurs (palm oil is also cited for child labor). Human Rights Watchreportedon exploited migrant domestic workers in 2011. Amnesty Internationalchronicledthe stories of trafficked, trapped and physically and sexually abused workers in a variety of industries from agriculture to construction in 2010. They buy and sell us like cattle, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi working for a palm oil producer whose customers includes U.S. agricultural giant CargilltoldtheWall Street Journalin 2015. Free trade and chained work The debate over whether free trade stymies, improves or has no bearing at all on working conditions is an ongoing one. International labor standards are actually included in many trade agreements.The United Statesmonitors worker conditions in partner countries, and has spent $275 million to support labor rights since 2001, according toa 2014 Government Accountability Office audit. But despite this, the GAO concluded that theres still a lot of room for improvement. The USTR and Labor Department lack a strategic approach to systematically assess whether partner countries conditions and practices are inconsistent with labor provisions in (free trade agreements), according to the audit. Academics have also pointed out these provisions are oftenambiguous,difficult to enforceorsimplyignored. In other words, agreements on paper dont necessarily translate to improved conditions in real life. Malaysia is actually a prime example of labor rights possibly taking a backseat to free trade. In 2015, it wasupgradedto Tier 2 for human trafficking by the State Departmentover the objections of its own human rights experts. Many perceived the move to bepolitically motivated, as the improved rating made the country eligible to join the TPP. Because of Malaysias poor labor record, it also signed abilateral agreementwith the United States, promising to implement workers rights and protect against forced labor before obtaining trade benefits.Human rightsandlaborrightsgroups, however, are skeptical this will lead to actual reform. The devil is in the details of actual implementation, and Malaysia is a very corrupt place where those with connections and money can get away with not complying with the law  as both Malaysian and migrant workers have found out frequently over the past two decades, said Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Asia at Human Rights Watch. Said McGill of the International Labor Rights Forum: Given that they get everything they want upfront whether they change anything or not (not an ideal negotiating strategy), the labor enforcement provisions are so weak there isn't a stick to force them to comply. That approach has never worked in the history of free trade agreements. No reason to think it will start now. Nonetheless,manyhavearguedyoucanhaveyourfree trade and be humane, too. A2010 study, for example, found that labor conditions have improved in Cambodia as a result of labor provisions in a trade agreement signed with the United States. But many argue that improved working conditions are actually a cascading effect of global trade, not regulation itself. The kinds of adjustments that go with free trade, while painful in the short run, lead to improved labor conditions in the long run, Stanford labor economist Robert Flanagan said in aninterviewabout his book,Globalization and Labor Conditions. Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution, acknowledged that some are certainlyworseoffas a result of global trade. He pointed out that working conditions were terrible in the United States a century ago, but improved when the economy developed and standard of living rose. Do we really think it would a good idea for the U.S. not to have been able to trade in 1916 or 1886? Burtless said. It is very hard to think of anything that has delivered a bigger improvement in the lives of poor workers than expanding their ability to sell to other countries. Period. End of story. To pretend otherwise, that youre going to protect their workers by keeping their products out of our country, flips on its head policies most conducive to improving their lives. Our ruling Sanders said, In Malaysia  many of the workers are indentured servants because their passports are taken away when they come into this country and are working in slave-like conditions. Forced migrant labor and passport withholding is widely documented across Malaysia by human rights and labor groups. The United States acknowledged the abuses in several government reports and databases. While there is a debate about whether free trade can help curtail these abuses, there is no debate to the veracity of Sanders claim. We rate it True. Claim:  Amazon is giving out free $200 gift cards to Facebook users.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Amazon, it appears, is offering a $200 gift card if you "like" their page and comment about your appreciation.  Is this for real?  How exactly would they pay up??  If you like it, it posts to your facebook stream and other people see it and automatically trust you and click on like and share as well. Origins:  In October 2014, a fraudulent offer for a free $200 Amazon gift card started circulating on Facebook.  The message contained a link which redirected bargain hunters to a website adorned with Amazon's logo. That website, however, had no affiliation with the retail giant. It was also marked as "High Risk" by Scam Adviser. Scam Adviser  The $200 Amazon gift card scam is very similar to recent schemes which targeted Costco and Kroger shoppers. While each scam has slight variations, they all feature three main components. First, they require people to like or share the message on Facebook in an attempt to spread the scam around the Internet. Second, they direct people to complete a fraudulent survey which extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and credit card numbers. Lastly, these scams never end with a free monetary gift card.  Costco Kroger The Better Business Bureau gave these three tips to identify scams on Facebook: Facebook Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender.  Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy.  Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. This isn't the first time that a Facebook scam has targeted Amazon shoppers. A similar scheme circulated around the social networking site in 2011 and again in 2012.  2011 2012   Last updated:  23 October 2014 As Memorial Day approached in May 2021, a rumor started circulating on social media alleging that U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters had introduced a bill to rename the federal holiday to "George Floyd Day": George Floyd   Waters did not introduce any bills to rename Memorial Day. This piece of text, which read: "Maxine Waters just introduced a bill to re-name Memorial Day George Floyd Day. Are you FRICK'N kidding me?" was repeated verbatim across a wide range of colorful backgrounds. No matter how many times this message was repeated, and no matter how vibrant of a background was used, this rumor remained utterly false. A list of bills that have been introduced in Congress can be seen at Congress.gov. This government website also allows users to sort these bills by politicians. When we go to the page for Waters, we can see that the California politician has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of bills in 2021  such as legislation that would "provide better care and outcomes for Americans living with Alzheimer's disease" and "to allow Americans to earn paid sick time"  but Waters has not introduced legislation that would result in the renaming of Memorial Day. Congress.gov page for Waters provide better care and outcomes for Americans living with Alzheimer's disease to allow Americans to earn paid sick time Waters did co-sponsor the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, but that bill had nothing to do with the annual federal holiday. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, which would address "a wide range of policies and issues regarding policing practices and law enforcement accountability," was passed by the House in March 2021, but has not yet received a vote in the U.S. Senate. George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 A Once in a Lifetime Photo of a forest fire in Bitterroot Forest/Montana This awsome picture was taken in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000 by a fire behavior analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska by the name of John McColgan with a Digital camera. Since he was working while he took the picture, he cannot sell or profit from it so he should at least be recognized as the photographer of this once in a lifetime shot.  The year 2000 brought one of the worst fire seasons in half a century to the United States. By the month of August, more than 4 million acres (an area greater in size than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined) had been burned by wildfires, and dozens of blazes raged out of control in eleven western states, with nearly half of the conflagrations occurring in Idaho and Montana. On 6 August 2000, as several fires converged in the Bitterroot National Forest near the town of Sula in western Montana, John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst in the employ of the USDA Forest Service, snapped the spectacular photograph shown above with a digital camera and described the experience to a writer for the western Montana newspaper The Missoulian: Bitterroot Forest Service "That's a once-in-a-lifetime look there. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I've been doing this for 20 years and it ranks in the top three days of fire behavior I've seen." The day was Aug. 6, the Sunday when several forest fires converged near Sula into a firestorm that overran 100,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes. Temperatures in the flame front were estimated at more than 800 degrees. Nevertheless, McColgan said, the wildlife appeared to be taking the crisis in stride, gathering near the East Fork of the Bitterroot River where it crosses under U.S. Highway 93. "They know where to go, where their safe zones are," McColgan said. "A lot of wildlife did get driven down there to the river. There were some bighorn sheep there. A small deer was standing right underneath me, under the bridge." McColgan snapped the photo with a Kodak DC280 digital camera. Since he was working as a Forest Service firefighter, the shot is public property and cannot be sold or used for commercial purposes. After McColgan downloaded his amazing image to an office computer, a friend found it, e-mailed a copy to another friend, and by mid-September 2000 the picture was blazing its way across the Internet. Because many forwarded copies of the image lacked any attribution or explanation, e-mail recipients began to circulate rumors about its origins and authenticity  some claimed that the photo was snapped by a tourist, that it was taken during the extensive Yellowstone National Park fire of 1988, or that it was yet another digital fake. fire As John McColgan said afterwards, "I couldn't have profited from [the photograph], so I guess I'm glad so many people are enjoying it." We're happy to help him at least receive proper credit for his work. This picture has also been circulated with text identifying it as a photograph of August 2003 forest fires in British Columbia, of October 2007 California wildfires, of the June 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the November 2016 forest fires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Chaney, Rob.  "Mystery Solved: Forest Service Firefighter Captured Tragedy with Digital Camera."
  The Missoulian.  15 September 2000. CNN.com.  "Montana Homes Threatened by Wildfires."
  7 August 2000. In late March 2021, a video was shared that showed Bill Belichick shaking his head moments after NFL prospect Mac Jones overthrew a football. The New England Patriots coach was on hand to attend the University of Alabama football team's pro days. In the video, he was standing next to San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan: video  The video appeared in articles that were shown to Google Discover users. For example, one story said: "Bill Belichick isn't impressed with Mac Jones throw at Alabama pro day." Another read: "Cameras catch Bill Belichick's reaction to Mac Jones' overthrow at Alabama Pro Day."  Several articles appeared to perhaps read minds.    We found no indication that Belichick was shaking his head or showing disapproval at a single overthrow by Jones. In the video, it appeared that Shanahan and Belichick were having a conversation. The likely explanation of Belichick's head shake was that he was reacting to something Shanahan said. Four NFL coaches were on hand to watch Jones and other Alabama football prospects. Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints, Matt Nagy of the Chicago Bears, Shanahan, and Belichick were all in attendance. The Associated Press also reported that Belichick was among a group of five general managers on hand. reported In January 2021, Jones led the Alabama football team to the College Football Playoff national championship. He was also a Heisman Trophy finalist, placing third in the vote count. The team's head coach is Nick Saban. placing third The same Twitter account that hosted the video of Belichick shaking his head also tweeted this video. It showed Jones throwing a deep ball with precision: this video  ESPN also shared more videos of the Alabama pro days that showed Jones executing a number of solid plays. more videos The Associated Press published a brief comment from Jones. He appeared to feel confident in his showing in front of Belichick and the other NFL coaches and general managers: published "At Alabama, they told me to sit in the picket and rip it, so that's what I did," Jones said. "That's what you're supposed to do when you're at Alabama." "But when the NFL comes, I'll do whatever they tell me to do. I showed today that I can do everything that they want me to do." Without further evidence that Belichick was showing disapproval at a single throw of the football by a Heisman Trophy finalist who led his team to a national title, we have rated this claim as "Unproven." disapproval An image purportedly reproducing a CNN graphic comparing Presidents Trump and Obama "by the numbers" -- with the former seemingly recording a significantly higher job approval rating than his predecessor -- received a viral push on 8 August 2018, when Donald Trump, Jr. shared it with his 1.2 million followers on Instagram:   However, the image was a doctored version of a graphic that was originally used during a CNN fact-checking segment regarding a tweet posted by President Trump about his approval numbers: Presidential Approval numbers are very good - strong economy, military and just about everything else. Better numbers than Obama at this point, by far. We are winning on just about every front and for that reason there will not be a Blue Wave, but there might be a Red Wave!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018 August 5, 2018  CNN's John King fact checked this tweet by comparing Presidents Obama and Trump "by the numbers" from around the same point of times in their presidencies. The image posted by Trump Jr. showed his father with a 50% job approval rating, but the genuine graphic aired by CNN showed President Trump's approval rating at only 40%. Here's the original segment from CNN:  A side-by-side comparison clearly shows how a "50%" was digitally edited (quite poorly) in place of the "40%" number in the original graphic:   The job approval statistics used by CNN for this graphic were taken from Gallup. According to that polling company, which samples presidential approval ratings every week, President Trump had never held a 50% approval writing up to the point of the CNN segment. Gallup. Donald Trump, Jr. later removed the doctored image from his Instagram page. An expanded version of the chart began making the rounds in September 2018 in the form of a meme shared by Turning Point USA, a conservative group whose stated mission is "to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government." shared stated Apart from repeating the inaccurate "50 percent" approval rating for Trump and substituting year-to-date federal deficit figures with first-year-in-office totals for both Trump and Obama, the Turning Point USA chart faithfully copies the information provided in the August CNN segment.   As CNN correspondent John King pointed out in that segment, the numbers reflect favorably on Trump. In terms of comparing Trump to Obama, however, the meme omits important contextual information. First, the figures cited were snapshots of a particular point in each president's administration. They didn't reflect longer-term fluctuations and trends. Second, unlike Trump, Obama entered office in the midst of a devastating economic collapse. Trump inherited an economy that was already strong and growing. It's meaningless to compare the two without taking these factors into account. Unemployment rate: As stated in the meme, the unemployment rate in July 2018 was 3.9 percent, as compared to 9.4 percent at the same point in Obama's first term in office (July 2010). But that number fell during 2011 as the economy began to recover, and, apart from minor fluctuations, fell steadily every year thereafter. By December 2016 (Obama's last full month in office) the unemployment rate was down to 4.7 percent and still falling, as illustrated in this U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics graph: rate   Jobs added: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total non-farm employment in the U.S. grew from 145.7 million in January 2017 to almost 149 million in June 2018 -- an increase of approximately 3.2 million jobs. The same source reported that by the exact same point in Obama's first term, the economy had lost some 3.5 million jobs since January 2009 (.6 million more than was claimed by CNN and the Turning Point USA meme). But, again, the recession was underway, and the economy had already shed nearly 3.6 million jobs during the 12 months before Obama took office. The employment rate began to improve in 2011 and did so steadily throughout the rest of Obama's two terms: employment   First year deficit: The Congressional Budget Office reported in March 2018 that the federal deficit stood at $665 billion (equivalent to 3.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product) at the end of 2017, Trump's first year in office. At the end of Obama's first year, 2009, the deficit was $1.4 trillion (9.9 percent of GDP, the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945). It was mostly attributable to spending on the stimulus package meant to rescue the U.S. economy from the recession. Deficit spending didn't remain that high throughout Obama's tenure, however. In fact, the deficit during each of the last three years of his term of office ($485 billion in 2014, $438 billion in 2015, and $585 in 2016) was lower than the 2017 deficit, as well as the projected $833 billion deficit for 2018. reported $1.4 trillion deficit GDP growth: The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product reflects the health of the economy in terms of the value of all goods and services produced in a given time period. As of the end of the second quarter of 2018, the rate of GDP growth was 4.2 percent (revised upward from 4.1 percent), as compared to a rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010, Obama's second year in office. The quarterly GDP growth rate can be volatile, however. It reached or surpassed the 4 percent mark on four separate occasions during the Obama administration, including hitting a high point of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014: 1.6 percent source: tradingeconomics.com tradingeconomics.com Changes in economic indicators are a valid way of evaluating the effectiveness of presidents and their policies, but, as in the examples above, when they are taken out of context and oversimplified they can be more misleading than enlightening. Amadeo, Kimberly.  "U.S. GDP by Year Compared to Recessions and Events: The Strange Ups and Downs of the U.S. Economy Since 1929."
 The Balance.  2 August 2018. Gstalter, Morgan.  "Trump Jr. Falsely Claims That GDP Growth Never Passed 2 Percent Under Obama."
 27 July 2018. Nance-Nash, Sheryl.  "Revision of Second Quarter GDP Shows Slowing Economy."
 ABC News.  27 August 2010. Selk, Avi.  "Trumps Approval Hits 50 Percent  In a Doctored Poll Graphic Shared by His Son."
  The Washington Post.  10 August 2018. Congressional Budget Office.  "The Federal Budget in 2017: An Infographic."
 5 March 2018. Congressional Budget Office.  "Federal Budget Deficit Totals $1.4 Trillion in Fiscal Year 2009."
 6 November 2009. CNN.  "MAGIC WALL: Trump vs. Obama, By the Numbers."
  6 August 2018. NPR.  "GDP Is Up 4.1 Percent: What That Means."
 27 July 2018. Trading Economics.  "United States GDP Growth Rate - 1947-2018."
 Accessed 17 September 2018. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  "Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey."
 Accessed 17 September 2018. U.S. Department of Treasury.  "Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government."
 12 July 2018. Update [17 September 2018]: Added analysis of expanded Facebook meme circulating on September 2018.