The lawyer who brought the case against NationsBank said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems.
In their third and final gubernatorial debate on Oct. 25, 2010, Rick Scott and Alex Sink traded accusations that each has been party to fraud.Sink again hammered Scott for his time running Columbia/HCA and the hospital company's convictions and $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. But this time Scott countered with allegations that Sink was the president of NationsBank operations in Florida when that company was accused of fraud and forced to pay government fines and settle a class-action lawsuit.Unlike Scott, Sink said she had what amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card.That case, the lawyer that brought that case -- it was a class-action case against another company -- he even has said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems, Sink told CNN's John King and theSt. Petersburg Times'Adam C. Smith, the debate's moderators. What more can I say?In a separate item, we dealt with Scott's accusations. You can read that item,here. In this fact check, we'll explore Sink's rebuttal.Some quick background about the case. In 1994, while Sink was president of NationsBank's Florida operations, a stock broker with bank subsidiary NationsSecurities came forward with what he described as an orchestrated nationwide scheme to get bank customers to move investments from safe, federally insured accounts to more risky brokerage and mutual funds.NationsSecurities broker David Cray, who worked in Florida, said the bank intentionally blurred the lines between its traditional banking business and its securities business and misled customers into thinking those securities investments were protected by the bank or the federal government. The scheme permeated the entire bank, Cray, and later others, said. Brokers were given sales scripts to try to convince bank customers to move their money into more risky securities.NationsSecurities branch managers encouraged employees to use fear to sell securities. In one orientation sales meeting, a manager suggested that a broker could ask customers: Is this your risky money or safe money? If this is risky, I know a guy at Merrill or Dean Witter.And NationsBank helped NationsSecurities by providing brokers with lists of customers who had Certificates of Deposit about to mature.The bank and stock brokers pushed the mutual funds because they received more lucrative fees, Cray said.The allegations led to a class-action lawsuit from investors who lost money by unknowingly making the risky investments, which in the end lost money. The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission also began investigations. Eventually, NationsBank and NationsSecurities settled the investigations, agreeing to pay $8.1 million to investors in 2002, paying civil fines to the federal government of $6.75 million in 2000 and $6.4 million in 2002 and $4 million to the SEC in 1998. No criminal charges were ever filed.Sink says the lawyer who started the case, Jonathan Alpert of Tampa, has said Sink had nothing to do with the scheme.Here's what Alpert told theSt. Petersburg TimesandMiami Heraldin October when previously asked about Sink's role in selling the risky investments.Alex Sink could've done nothing about it. It was run out of Charlotte, said Alpert, referring to NationsBank's headquarters. I know she knew what was going on - that investments were being sold in the bank -- but that's it. And she was powerless to stop it, anyway. I had e-mails where the state presidents were being told what to do, that they had to help the securities people. They would dig into customers bank accounts to identify people who had enough money to buy securities. Charlotte said: 'This is what's going to happen in your bank lobbies and this is the way it's going to be.' They didn't say you're going to do A, B, C and D, they would say the bank cooperates fully with NationsSecurities, Alpert said. If Alex Sink were involved in it, it would be a wonderful story for the gubernatorial election. But she didn't know anything about it.Alpert, who said he voted for Sink, said she no doubt knew that riskier investments were being sold in the bank, but that she was likely not aware of the way brokers were manipulating customers to close the sales. And Sink has previously told theTimesshe had no authority or control over the securities sales. There were very, very strict firewalls between any kind of securities and brokerage operations and operations of commercial banking, she said. Those firewalls, Sink said, were the result of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking. (The act was repealed in 1999.) But that didn't prevent Sink from finding out what was going on in her bank, noted Yale University finance expert Jonathan Macey. She's the state bank president, he said. She has the authority and perhaps the responsibility to know what's going on in her lobby. The original whistle-blower in the case, former NationsSecurity broker Cray, said, I would tend not to point the finger at Alex Sink for this. Which brings us back to her statement. At the CNN/St. Petersburg Timesdebate Sink said that the lawyer who brought the case against NationsBank said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems. We think Sink is mostly quoting the lawyer in the NationsBank case, Jonathan Alpert, accurately. Alpert said Sink wasn't involved in the deceptive selling of more risky involvements through NationsSecurities and didn't know anything about the deceptive practices being employed. The companies NationsBank and NationsSecurities were managed separately. But Sink did know securities were being sold in her banks, and was in a position to voice questions or concerns about the practice if she sensed anything was being handled inappropriately. That's enough of a connection in our minds to knock this claim down one notch, and rate it Mostly True.
Shortly after outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan fired House Chaplain Patrick Conroy in a closed-door meeting at the end of April 2018, a rumor that the House Speaker had nominated televangelist Joel Osteen as his replacement started to spread online: fired spread   Paul Ryan did not nominate Joel Osteen to be the new House Chaplain. This rumor originated with a satirical post on the message board Democratic Underground: post In a surprise move during the weekend, Speaker Ryan proposed that Prosperity Gospel champion, Joel Osteen, become the new chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives. In a brief comment, the Speaker said, "America needs to become more prosperous. It needs a new approach to individual wealth. Pastor Osteen carries that message and shows us the way. Working Americans should be grateful to pay more taxes to the Federal Government. As Jesus, himself, said, 'It will be returned an hundred-fold.' Joel, my good friend, suggests that the road to a more prosperious America will come through even higher taxes on low-income citizens, who will benefit in the end, of course. I agree with the good Pastor, and will be introducing new legislation to that effect soon."    The author of this post, a user identified as "MineralMan," wrote in the comments that the "evil grin" emoticon included at the bottom of the post indicated that the text was satirical. Forum users also compared the text to articles on the Borowitz Report, a well-known satirical blog published in the New Yorker: Borowitz Report   Zanona, Melanie.  "Ryan Explains Decision to Dismiss House Chaplain."
  The Hill.  27 April 2018. In August 2021, rumors swirled around the future of Lionel Messi, one of the greatest soccer players of all time, who broke down in tears at a press conference to announce he would be leaving FC Barcelona of Spain, for whom he had played for two decades, leading the club to extraordinary success and establishing himself as a global superstar of the sport, rivaled only by Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.  broke down in tears According to statements issued by both the club and Messi himself, both sides had agreed a new contract for the Argentine attacking midfielder, now aged 34, the terms of which would have seen his previous salary  reported to have be $667,000 per week  cut in half.  statements reported However, strict Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules put in place by Spain soccer authorities, combined with Barcelona's dire financial straits  the club has debts of more than 1 billion ($1.2 billion)  ultimately made the new contract impossible. debts of more than 1 billion Messi's previous contract expired earlier in the summer of 2021, meaning he was now a free agent, and could be signed by any other club without the need for a transfer fee to be paid. However, Messi's profile in the sport, and his likely wage demands, meant only a very small number of clubs were in a realistic position to sign him.  Over the weekend Aug. 6 to Aug. 8 of 2021, rumors emerged online that French giants Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were aggressively pursuing the signing of Messi, who scored a staggering 672 goals in 778 first-team appearances at Barcelona, and won a record six Ballons d'Or  an annual award generally considered to recognize the world's best player each year  between 2009 and 2019.  scored PSG was taken over in 2012 by the Qatari government-run Qatar Investment Authority, providing an extraordinary injection of cash and sponsorship deals that have helped drastically improve the club's fortunes in the intervening decade. taken over in 2012 The club's controversial Qatari backers also funded a series of marquee signings, including the two most expensive transfers in soccer history: that of Brazilian star Neymar from Barcelona, in August 2017 for 222 million ($264 million or $293 million in 2021 terms); and that of French star Kylian Mbappe from AS Monaco, in February 2018 for 180 million ($223 million or $247 million in 2021 terms). controversial Qatari backers 222 million 180 million On Aug. 10, PSG further fueled speculation that its signing of Messi was imminent  scheduling a press conference for the next morning, and posting short videos featuring the Argentinian flag and snippets of an Argentinian soccer jersey.  press conference short videos When Messi himself was greeted by PSG fans at Paris-Le Bourget airport, on the outskirts of the French capital, and at the Royal Monceau hotel, the rumors were all but officially confirmed.  greeted by PSG fans Royal Monceau However, the club removed any remaining doubts when, on the evening of Aug. 10, they officially confirmed Messi's move to the club on a two-year contract, with the option of a third year.   In a news release posted to the club's official website, PSG wrote: news release [PSG] is very happy to announce the signing of Leo Messi on a two-year contract, with the option of a further year. The six-time Ballon d'Or winner is considered a legend of the sport, and a true source of inspiration for all generations, on and off the field. The signing of Leo reinforces the ambitions of PSG and offers our loyal supporters an exceptional team, which promises to bring incredible footballing moments in the years to come.  Messi himself further confirmed the bombshell move, providing the following statement as part of PSG's news release: I can't wait to start a new chapter of my career in Paris. The club and its vision match perfectly my own ambitions. I know just how talented the players and staff are here. By their sides, I'm determined to create something great for this club and for the fans. I cannot wait to step on to the grass at [PSG home ground] Parc des Princes. Claim:  Caroline Kennedy said that she can't stand President Obama's voice and that he's a liar. UNDETERMINED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2012] Just saw on Facebook a photo of Caroline Kennedy quoting that she just can't stand to listen to President Obama's voice and that he is a liar. True?    Origins:  The quote attributed to Caroline Kennedy (daughter of President John F. Kennedy) referenced above originated with Edward Klein's 2012 book The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.  It appeared in the following passage, which talked about Caroline Kennedy  who had been a strong supporter of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign  becoming disenchanted with the Obamas for making "catty" remarks about her family and for not being more liberal in political policy-making:  "Through these [spies that the Kennedy family has in the Obama administration] and other people, Caroline heard back that there was a lot of nasty shit being said about the Kennedys by the president and Michelle," [a] family member [said]. "There were catty remarks about how badly the Kennedy women dressed, and how their houses were shabby and threadbare. Caroline got the impression that most of this negativity was coming from Michelle, who didn't want the Kennedys to be part of the administration for fear that they would have too much influence over the president." "Gradually, Caroline began to change her tune and side with Bobby and Kathleen [Kennedy Townsend] against the Obamas. Unlike Jackie, who was completely apolitical, Caroline is a liberal with a capital L. When Obama didn't raise taxes to balance the  budget, Caroline marked him down. In her eyes, he's a mess because he doesn't follow the liberal bible on politics. More important, Caroline discovered that the Obamas didn't give a damn about her support.  For instance, she was not invited to the state dinners at the White House hosted by the Obamas, or to the president's forty-ninth birth celebration in Chicago. "It really annoyed Caroline when comparisons were made by the media between Michelle [Obama] and Jackie [Kennedy]. Caroline had a word for such comparisons; she called them 'odious.' She really got annoyed. And when she began to fall out of love with the Obamas, love was replaced by outright scorn. Now she says things about Obama like, 'I can't stand to hear his voice any more. He's a liar and worse.'" However verifying exactly what Caroline Kennedy might have said is difficult because the quote offered in this passage is second-hand rather than direct (i.e., it's someone else talking about what she said, not a direct statement from Caroline Kennedy herself) and because the source of the statement is anonymous (beyond the description of his or her being a "member of the Kennedy clan"). Caroline Kennedy herself has neither confirmed nor denied that she made the remarks attributed to her, but even after their publication she has continued to publicly express support for the Obamas, such as issuing a message to wish President Obama a Happy Father's Day, campaigning in New Hampshire for the President's re-election, and making plans to attend the Democratic National Convention. message campaigning attend Last updated:  19 August 2012 Carly Fiorina is fighting back against critics, including a cyber-squatter, who accuse the Republican presidential candidate of slash-and-burn tactics in her time as CEO of computer company Hewlett-Packard. The cyber-squatter purchased the website carlyfiorina.org to highlight nearly30,000 layoffsthat occured while Fiorina led the computer giant from 1999-2005. Fiorina later was fired by HPs board. OnMeet the PressSunday, host Chuck Todd asked Fiorina why she was fired. Fiorina used the question to list her accomplishments at HP. What people fail to comment on is the fact we doubled the size of the company, took the growth rate from 2 percent to 9 percent, she said. We tripled the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day and went from lagging behind to leading in every product category. We grew jobs here in the U.S. and all over the world. You can't just leave those facts out -- they are as vital to the record as the fact that yes, indeed, I had to make tough calls during tough times. Tough times that many technology companies didn't survive at all. Given Fiorinas dismissal and other issues at HP, we were interested in that first claim -- that under her leadership, the company doubled in size. Fiorina's claim is not referring to the number of employees (you can read a good primer on that from our archiveshere). In this case, staff at Carly for America (Fiorinas political action committee) said she was referring to the revenues created by the company. By this specific measure, HP did double. In 1999, when Fiorina became CEO, HPs annual revenue was $42.4 billion, according to annualSecurities and Exchange Commission filings. With the exception of a slight dip in 2001 (at the end of the dot-com bubble), revenue increased each year -- to $86.7 billion in 2005, the year she left. Thats a little bit more than double. But that doesnt tell the entire tale. There are a few critical caveats. Where the growth came from Why such growth? Well, Fiorina spearheaded amajor $25 billion acquisitionof HPs rival, Compaq, to increase the companys share of the personal computer market. The merger was publicly controversial, in part because it tipped HPs focus toward computers (a tough market) and away from its most successful product, printers. The merger went through, and the company grew. In 2001, the year before the merger, revenue was $45.7 billion, and the Compaq revenue was about $40 billion. In 2003, after the two companies merged, revenue was $73 billion. Stephen Morrissette, a business professor at the University of Chicago, noted that the fact that so much of the revenue growth was a result of the merger casts some shade on Fiorinas claim. Most executives would likely not use the phrasing doubled the size of the company to describe their performance if the increase was all or mostly due to an acquisition, Morrissette said. Doubled revenues, but not necessarily stronger Despite the increased revenue, the HP-Compaq merger led to sluggish stock prices and missed profitability targets. The merger also led to the thousands of firings often cited by Fiorinas critics. The merger was widely seen as abustat the time, and it contributed to the HP boards decision to fire Fiorina. (HP stock valueplunged by nearly halfduring her tenure androse againafter she was fired.) HP had $42.4 billion in revenues and $3.1 billion in net earningsin 1999. When Fiorina was ousted in 2005, yes, the company reported $86.7 billion in sales. But that year HP had only$2.4 billion in earnings. Lastly, the employee head count gets a bit complicated. According to SEC filings, HP had 84,400 employees worldwide in 2001, the year before the merger. In 2001, Compaq had 63,700 full-time employees. That comes to a total of 148,100 workers. In 2005, just after her departure, HP's worldwide workforce reached 150,000. That includes acquiring some other companies, theLos Angeles Timesreported. Someanalystshave seen the merger more favorably in recent years, noting that it accomplished Fiorinas goal of increasing HPs share of the personal computer market even though Fiorinas execution failed. Fiorina is taking credit for something she launched and got started, Charles House, co-author ofThe HP Phenomenon,told theSan Jose Mercury Newsin2011. But I think you obviously have to give a hell of a lot of credit to (her successor) for making it successful. I'd be loath to say it would be the same with her there. Our ruling Fiorina said that while she was CEO of HP, the size of the company doubled. That's correct when discussing one specific aspect, revenues, but you could argue that's a bit of a red herring. The revenue growth was largely thanks to a controversial merger with Compaq and not organic. Moreover, the new revenue did not come with proportional increases to either profits or the number of HP jobs. Fiorinas figures are accurate, but standing alone, they dont tell the whole picture. We rate her claim Mostly True. A common item of interest on social media is a rather gruesome anecdote attributed to Soviet leader Josef Stalin, which describes him purportedly plucking a live chicken in order to demonstrate "how easy it is to govern stupid people":  We found no sources for this anecdote that were contemporaneous with Stalin's life (he died in 1953), nor from the next few decades afterwards. The earliest recountings of it seem to date from the early 1990s or late 1980s, which is consistent with the following excerpt from a 1988 New Yorker article that attributes it to the mid-1980s writings of anti-Stalinist Soviet/Kyrgyz author Chingiz Aitmatov: With the new Party line established, editors around the country unleashed an extraordinary torrent of articles damning Stalin. A novelist named Chingiz Aitmatov wrote one of the most powerful. Aitmatov has a distinguished history as an anti-Stalinist. In the early nineteen-eighties, when discipline of all kinds was lax, he managed to get past the censors a novel called "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years," which in elliptical, allegorical ways, attacked the Stalinist legacy, and sold five million copies. Now Aitmatov was free to use language as blunt as he liked. He began with an anecdote: Stalin called together his closest comrades-in-arms. "I understand you're wondering how I govern the people so that every last one of them ... thinks of me as a living god. Now I'll teach you the right attitude toward the people." And he ordered a chicken brought in. He plucked it live, in front of them all, down to the last feather, down to the red flesh, until only the comb was left on its head. "And now watch," he said, and let the chicken go. It could have gone off where it wished, but it went nowhere. It was too hot in the sun and too cold in the shade. The poor bird could only press itself against Stalin's boots. And then he tossed it a crumb of grain, and the bird followed him wherever he went. Otherwise, it would have fallen over from hunger. "That," he told his pupils, "is how you govern our people." Aitmatov appears to be the source of this tale, but as noted in the above New Yorker article and a 2008 Reuters obituary for Aitmatov, he wrote in "elliptical, allegorical ways," and his works "often interwove popular myths and folktales to create allegorical themes populated with down-to-earth characters." Aitmatov acknowledged that of himself as well, writing in the introduction to his novel "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years": obituary As in previous works, here I also draw on legends and myths handed down to us from former generations; together with these, for the first time in my writing career I also use fantasy to form part of the story. But, for me, neither is an end in itself, simply a method of expressing thoughts, a means of identifying and interpreting realities. Given that Aitmatov is the apparent source for this anecdote, that it did not first appear until some 30 years after Stalin's death, and that Aitmatov was known for his use of allegory, most likely the tale is not a literal account of something Stalin did, but rather an illustrative sketch that Aitmatov either invented himself or heard elsewhere and subsequently attributed to Stalin. We therefore rate this claim "Legend." Cullen, Robert.  "Letter from Moscow."
  The New Yorker.  17 October 1988  (p. 100). Aitmatov, Chingiz.  The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years.
  Indiana University Press, 1988.  ISBN 0-253-20482-8. Reuters.  "Kyrgyz Writer, Perestroika Ally Aitmatov Dies."
  10 June 2008. Claim:  In 2006, U.S. Senator Barack Obama spoke out against raising the U.S. government debt limit.   Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2011]   'The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.'    Origins:  In 2006, while serving his first term as a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made the remarks attributed to him above during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit. The full text of his remarks in the Senate on 16 March 2006 are:     The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is "trillion" with a "T." That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like    bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans  a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.    But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to thecommonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.    Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.    Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.    I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.    The shortened quote now attributed to him is a verbatim capture of the opening and closing paragraphs of his remarks of 16 March 2006. (The Senate vote held later that day on a resolution to increase the debt limitpassed by a 52-48 margin, with Senator Obama voting against it.) passed President Obama has undergone a change of position regarding raising the debt limit. In a 15 April 2011 Good Morning America interview, President Obama said this of his reasons for doing so:     Last updated:  7 October 2013    Congressional Record.  "Remarks by Sen. Barack Obama."    16 March 2006.   Farley, Robert.  "Obama Says Reagan Raised Debt Ceiling 18 Times; George W. Bush 7 Times."    St. Petersburg Times.  26 July 2011.   Stephanopoulos, George.  "President Obama One-on-One."    Good Morning America.  15 April 2011.   Werner, Erica.  "WH: Obama Regrets Vote Against Raising Debt Limit."    Associated Press.  11 April 2011. Here at Snopes, celebrity doppelganger rumors are very common. In 2023, a rumor targeting actors from different eras had the internet abuzz: TikTok videos and Reddit posts compared the remarkably similar appearances of actors Jeremy Allen White and Gene Wilder, who died in 2016. The posts alleged a familial connection between the two. doppelganger TikTok Reddit 2016 Online ads spread the rumor with photos of the two actors and clickbait headlines such as, "[Photos] These Grandchildren Look Exactly Like Their Celebrity Grandparents," or the claim that Wilder was White's father.   (Screenshot via People.com)  There was no publicly available evidence to confirm, a consanguineous connection between Wilder and White. We reached out to Wilder's nephew, filmmaker Jordan Walker-Pearlman, through his production company (Harlem, Hollywood), as well as representatives for White via his talent agency, to pose the question. Walker-Pearlman, through a spokesperson for his production company confirmed that Wilder and White were not related. As such we have updated our rating to False. The spokesperson told us, "Jordan can confirm with you that as much as he admires the talent of Jeremy Allen White and believes Gene would have as well, and clearly sees the family resemblances, they are in fact not related." Wilder whose real name was Jerome Silberman  was known for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in the 1971 movie, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," as well as roles in "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles." While he adopted a stepdaughter during his second marriage in 1967, he died without any biological children, according to The Guardian and his IMDb profile. He was reportedly estranged from his stepdaughter later in life, according to The Guardian. name known adopted without The Guardian profile reportedly In a 2002 interview with Larry King, he discussed her: "I had a daughter and lost her a long while ago. That's too sad a story to go into." He added that he "lost" her when she was 22 or 23 years old. discussed However, Wilder has at least one nephew, Walker-Pearlman. When Wilder died in 2016, Walker-Pearlman announced the news in a statement for the public. In an interview with NPR around that time, Walker-Pearlman mentioned other relatives, a cousin and aunt of his, who were also in the company of Wilder when he died. nephew announced mentioned It is unknown, at present, whether Pearlman has biological children of his own, though there's no indication of a link between him and White. White, a Brooklyn native, is known for his roles on television shows "Shameless" and "The Bear." He was born in 1991, and his mother, Eloise Zeigler, is of Ukrainian descent, according to his IMDb page. native known 1991 Eloise Zeigler IMDb Meanwhile, according to the New York Times and IMDb, Wilder's father was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, and his mother was reportedly of Russian descent. immigrant Russian In other words, not only is there no evidence of a familial connection between the two actors, Wilder and White seemingly do not share the same ancestry. White is aware of the comparisons, though. In an August 2022 video interview with InStyle magazine, he mentioned the rumor  saying he agrees, "I look a lot like Gene Wilder"  though he did not outright deny or confirm its legitimacy. He said: interview Yeah I've been made aware of some of the stuff out there. There's one in particular. Everyone's decided I look a lot like Gene Wilder, which I agree. But I guess someone called me 'Ketamine Gene Wilder.' Or called Carmy 'Ketamine Gene Wilder,' which I thought was weird and funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxG_AoRTlo&t=150s There is no proof of a familial connection between the two actors  regardless of whether that hypothetical link was through marriage or blood. Wilder also had no biological children, and White, when publicly referencing the rumor, did not confirm or deny its legitimacy. Given that Wilder's nephew has also refuted the rumor, we rate this as  "Alum Call Board: January 2021." VCUarts, 13 Jan. 2021, https://arts.vcu.edu/community/news/alum-call-board-january-2021/.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. Evon, Dan. "Is Morgan Freeman Really Jimi Hendrix?" Snopes, 26 Sept. 2019, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/morgan-freeman-jimi-hendrix/.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Family: Wilder Passed to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.'" USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/08/29/gene-wilder-death-statement/89556566/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Gene Wilder | Actor, Writer, Director." IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000698/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Gene Wilder Death: Star of Willy Wonka Dies Aged 83." BBC News, 1 Sept. 2016. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37248049.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Gene Wilder's Nephew Remembers Late Actor Who Starred In 'Willy Wonka.'" NPR, 29 Aug. 2016. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2016/08/29/491856240/gene-wilders-nephew-remembers-late-actor-who-starred-in-willy-wonka.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Interview With Gene Wilder." CNN.Com, May 2, 2002. https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/lkl/date/2002-05-02/segment/00. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Jeremy Allen White | Actor, Writer, Producer." IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2087739/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. Lewis, Daniel. "Gene Wilder Dies at 83; Star of 'Willy Wonka' and 'Young Frankenstein.'" The New York Times, 29 Aug. 2016. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/movies/gene-wilder-dead.html.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. Sidahmed, Mazin. "Gene Wilder, Star of Willy Wonka and Mel Brooks Comedies, Dies Aged 83." The Guardian, 30 Aug. 2016. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/29/gene-wilder-death-willy-wonka-mel-brooks-comedy.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "'The Bear's' Jeremy Allen White Has a Crush on Carmy, Too." GQ, 11 July 2022, https://www.gq.com/story/jeremy-allen-white-the-bear-profile.Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. Nov. 30, 2023: The story rating was updated to "False" along with a statement from Wilder's family member denying the claim. Claim:  Video shows a suspect in a police shooting committing suicide in an interview room.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2004] Is this video real? GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING: Video shows a suicide by gunshot.  Origins:   Movies and television have planted sensationalized images of certain phenomena into the public consciousness, to the extent that when most of us see the real thing, we're disappointed that it seems so mundane.  In films and television programs, automobile crashes are always slam-bang affairs that inevitably end with one or more cars bursting into flame and exploding; thunder is always a very loud, sharp, and short report which occurs simultaneously with a bolt of lightning (rather  than a slow, distant, gradually increasing rumbling which arrives well after the lightning flash); and gunshots are usually depicted as producing ear-splitting volumes of sound and, when aimed at another human being, resulting in plenty of gore and splatter. It's no wonder, then, that when the above-displayed video of a detainee shooting himself while in police custody began to circulate, many viewers were skeptical of its authenticity  by Hollywood standards, it's so tame as to be almost surreal.   As depicted in the video, an uncuffed suspect enters an interrogation room and sits down in a chair, followed by an officer who dumps some keys and sunglasses on a table, checks his cell phone, and leaves the room momentarily.  The officer returns several seconds later with a bottle of water and a cup of coffee, then hands the water bottle to the suspect, checks his cell phone again, picks up the coffee, and exits the room a second time  leaving the suspect alone and unrestrained, and the door open.  The suspect takes a couple of swigs of water, then calmly reaches into his pants with his other hand, pulls out a large-caliber handgun, and shoots himself in the left temple. But what we see in the video is nothing like what most of us might expect.  The soon-to-be suicide victim is neither visibly nervous nor distraught as he freely pulls out a gun and places it against his head.  (He even replaces the cap on the water bottle before pulling the trigger.)  The weapon does not produce an ear-shattering concussive   sound in the small room, blood and brain matter don't splatter all over the walls, and the victim's body isn't hurtled out of the chair and onto the floor.  The gun makes a sharp popping sound as the suspect shoots himself, blood streams from the victim's head and mouth, his hands drop the gun and water bottle to the floor, and his body slumps but slightly in the chair. Even more unusual to many viewers is the officer's reaction to this event.  He doesn't respond with any of the emotions most of us might feel, such as fear, panic, terror, or disgust.  Nor does he rush to the victim's aid, check him for signs of life, summon help, or otherwise raise an alarm.  "Oh, fuck," he exclaims as he re-enters the room, puts his coffee down on the table, and surveys the scene for a second or two, then adds "Holy fuck."  When a second (unseen) officer inquires  "What did he do?" he responds with, "Nobody shook him" (i.e., nobody searched the suspect for weapons), then calmly retrieves the keys and sunglasses and leaves the room.  Throughout the short video, the officer's actions seem almost nonchalant: he doesn't act the least bit shocked or horrified that a human being has just died a violent death right in front of him. Instead, the foremost thought on his mind seems to be concern that someone's going to get into big trouble for the oversight of allowing a detainee to retain a weapon. (We realize, of course, that all of this would be viewed quite differently from a police perspective.  Officers undergo thorough instruction in the handling and use of firearms, they generally see far more blood and violence on the job than most of us will experience in our lifetimes, and they're trained to respond to emergency situations by following proper procedure rather than reacting with fear or panic.  We're simply presenting the average person's reaction to this video, as reflected in the e-mail we've received from readers who have viewed it.) The circumstances behind this video took place on 19 December 2003, when 47-year-old Ricardo Alfonso Cerna was stopped for a traffic violation at about 9:30 A.M. in Muscoy (a residential suburb of San Bernardino County, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles).  Cerna fled the scene (in his car and then on foot) before shooting the pursuing officer, sheriff's deputy Michael Parham, twice in the abdomen.  (Deputy Parham survived the shooting.)   Cerna was soon arrested by San Bernardino police and taken to sheriff's headquarters on Third Street, where he was placed in an interview room just before 11 A.M. in preparation for questioning by Bobby Dean, head of the San Bernardino County sheriff's homicide unit.   When Dean stepped out of the room briefly to speak with a detective in the hallway, Cerna pulled the .45-caliber handgun out of his pants and shot himself in the head.  Evidently a chain of mistakes led to Cerna, a shooting suspect, being taken into custody without either the arresting officers or the booking officers discovering he had a large, heavy handgun concealed on his person: [Sheriff Gary] Penrod said deputies failed to adequately search Cerna before he was put in a car, and again when he was transferred to the homicide division office. Each receiving deputy may have wrongly assumed the previous officer adequately searched the man, he said.  Penrod said confusion among the three agencies involved  the Highway Patrol, San Bernardino police and the Sheriff's Department  may have contributed to the oversight. "Obviously there was a mistake made," Penrod said by phone. "It was hectic and it was a guy who was cuffed by somebody other than the transporting officer. (This apparently egregious oversight led to conspiracy-theory speculation in some quarters that Cerna had been "executed" by the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, or that the sheriff returned the gun to Cerna and urged him to commit suicide with it  the completely implausible scenario of officers' deliberately handing a loaded gun to a suspect who had already shot one policeman notwithstanding.) executed returned As to how the video of Cerna's suicide made it onto the Internet, sheriff's spokesman Chip Patterson said:  [A] ranking official at the department was authorized to show the video during a presentation on officer safety at the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Va., several months ago. Following the presentation, dozens of copies of the video were made at the request of law-enforcement agencies across the country. Officials of those agencies wanted the copies for training purposes. Sheriff's officials do not know who might have leaked the video to the public.  Some of the officers involved in Cerna's arrest and handling were subjected to disciplinary action, but sheriff's officials wouldn't comment on the specifics of that action or identify the officers involved.  Last updated:  19 January 2014    Nelson, Joe.  "Sheriff's Detainee's Suicide Put on Web."   San Bernardino County Sun.  21 December 2004.    Associated Press.  "Arrestee Pulls Hidden Gun, Kills Self."    CNN.com.  20 December 2003. Claim:  A store in Colorado accepts food stamps towards the purchase of food items containing marijuana.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Is there a pot shop in Colorado that is taking food stamps for food items containing marijuana?   Origins:  On 3 January 2014, the National Report published an article positing that in Colorado (where marijuana use had just been legalized) a store had begun accepting food stamps towards the purchase of food items made with marijuana: article As of January 1st, 2014, Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow adults aged 21 or older to purchase and use marijuana for recreational use. The decision has led to excessively large lines at pot shops across the state and store owners reportedly surpassed $1 million in sales statewide on just the first day according to Denver's 9News. In all, 136 licenses have been approved by the state of Colorado for retail operations for the purposes of selling marijuana.  A majority of those licenses were issued tobusinesses in Denver with just eighteen city stores completing the process in time for opening day. One of those shops, Rite Greens, located on E. Colfax Ave in Denver, has taken the steps needed to accept food stamps (now called EBT cards) for the purposes of purchasing marijuana, effectively leading to taxpayer funded marijuana for welfare recipients.  Electronic Benefit Transfer cards  part of the Department of Agricultures Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  are typically of two general categories:  food and cash benefits.  [Store owner] JC Franco was able to take advantage of a loophole in the SNAP program as his shop sells a wide array of "edible" marijuana ranging from cookies and brownies to barbeque sauce and homemade butter. By the end of the day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered it mistaking it for a genuine news item.  However, the article was just a bit of political humor from the National Report spoofing the controversy over legalized recreational marijuana use and stereotypes about recipients of government assistance.   The National Report is a satirical web site that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." The National Report's  (since removed) disclaimer page states that: disclaimer National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways.  All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. (NOTE: A good deal of misunderstanding about the use of EBT funds to purchase marijuana has led many readers to maintain that the article referenced above, though satirical in nature, is true in concept.  We address those misconceptions in a separate article.) misconceptions Last updated:  13 September 2014 In February 2020, a text meme concerning Sen. Bernie Sanders' health care plan and his proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour was circulated on social media. The meme contained several arithmetic equations that supposedly showed how the pay increase for minimum wage workers would be negated by the hike in taxes needed to pay for Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan:   Bernie Sanders said at the debate last night he wants minimum wage to be $15 an hour. 15$ x 40 hr work week = $600600$ x 52 weeks per year = $31,200 Bernie Sanders wants free healthcare for all and was asked how he would pay for it. His answer was to raise taxes 52% on anyone making over $29,000 per year. 52% of $31,200 = $16,224 in tax$31,200 - $16,224 = $14,976 is your pay$14,976  52 weeks = $288 per week$288  40 hr week = $7.20 per hour But there's no need to check the arithmetic in this meme. The general claim here  that Sanders' health care plan would raise the tax rate to 52% on everyone making over $29,000 per year  is egregiously false. In short, no. One proposal offered by Sanders would raise the tax rate to 52% on earnings over $10 million. Sanders also proposed that the first $29,000 of a person's income would be exempt from taxes, and a 4% income-based premium would be applied to earnings over $29,000. The meme asserts that Sanders made this claim "at the debate last night." As this meme started circulating in mid-February 2020, we'll assume that timing refers to the Democratic presidential debate held in Las Vegas on Feb. 17, 2020. Although Sanders did say that he wanted to raise the minimum wage to $15 during that debate, he did not say that he would pay for his health care plan by raising "taxes to 52% on anybody making over $29,000 a year." Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg did maintain that "taxes will go up on anybody making more than $29,000" under Sanders' tax plan, but Buttigieg did not claim that the tax rate would increase to 52% for these individuals. Sanders disputed Buttigieg's claim during the debate, saying the latter was "not being honest" and that any tax increase for low-wage workers would be offset by lower health care costs. Here's an excerpt of the exchange between the two men (a full transcript of the debate is available here): here BUTTIGIEG: [Sanders] was a congressman at the time. And the qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal. I never said that I agree with every part of his policy views, then or now. But I appreciate that at least he's straightforward and honest about them. He's honest about the fact that taxes will go up on anybody making more than $29,000 to fund his health care plan, although, again, a little bit vague about how the rest of that gets ... SANDERS: You're not being honest. Premiums would be eliminated. BUTTIGIEG: But you're still raising those taxes. And when you do it... SANDERS: But we're saving people money because they don't pay any premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, co-payments, or deductibles. They're going to be much better off. [applause] BUTTIGIEG: But where is  where is the other $25 trillion supposed to come from? At a certain point, you've got to do the math. SANDERS: Well, we got it all up there on the internet. It's a payroll tax  a payroll tax... [crosstalk] BUTTIGIEG: Well, no, but even after the payroll tax, you still have a hole. [crosstalk] SANDERS: Because we have a wealth tax. Elizabeth [Warren] has a good one. Ours is a little bit tougher on Mr. Bloomberg than hers. We're going to raise it in a progressive way, which deals with income and wealth inequality, and makes certain, finally, that health care in this country is a human right, not a privilege. Although Sanders did not reference it during that debate, we did find mention of a 52% tax rate on a document he released to explain various "options to finance Medicare for All." That document stated that the 52% tax rate would be applied to earnings over $10 million, not $29,000 as claimed in the meme. Here's the relevant excerpt from that document (emphasis ours): document Another option is to reform the personal income tax system by strengthening progressive income tax rates, taxing capital gains and dividends the same as work income, limiting deductions for the wealthy, taxing carried interest as ordinary income, and requiring derivatives to be marked to market. Progressive income tax rates. Under this plan the marginal income tax rate would be: Sanders mentioned the $29,000 figure in another document entitled "Financing Medicare for All." This documented listed a few additional ways to pay for Medicare for All, including a 4% income-based premium on incomes over $29,000. Here's an excerpt from that document (emphasis ours): Financing Medicare for All As the wealthiest country in the world, we have a variety of options available to support a Medicare for All, single-payer health care system that guarantees high quality, affordable health care as a right, not a privilege, to every man, woman, and child in this country. Those options include, but are not limited to: Sanders elaborated on this portion of his plan during a September 2019 appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert": September 2019  Sanders made a similar statement during a town hall in New Hampshire in November 2019. Sanders again said that the first $29,000 of an individual's earnings would be exempt from taxes and then a 4% tax rate would apply on earnings over $29,000: town hall What we will do  what we will do is have a four percent tax on income exempting the first $29,000," Sanders told his supporters. "All right, good. You  youre better at arithmetic than I am. Because what that means is if you are that average family in the middle who makes $60,000 a year, that means were going to tax you on $31,000 at four percent. We were unable to find any instance of Sanders' proposing a 52% tax rate on "anybody making over $29,000" per year, something that appears to be an erroneous conflation of Sanders' proposing a 4% tax rate on earnings over $29,000 and a 52% tax rate on earnings over $10 million. A counter-meme offered a more accurate (although still not entirely accurate) look at Sanders' actual expressed plans:  This meme, too, makes a mistake. Sanders' tax proposal uses a marginal tax rate (or a progressive tax rate), which means that a different tax rate is applied to different portions of a person's income. The percentage taxed starts relatively small, but grows as income increases. In Sanders' case, the first $29,000 of a person's income would be exempt from taxes. When a person's income crosses the $29,000 threshold, a 4% tax will be applied to earnings OVER$29,000. This tax rate continues to grow as income increases. Income over $10 million, for instance, would be taxed at 52%. But the above-displayed meme applies a 4% tax rate to ALL $31,200. Under Sanders' plan, however, the first $29,000 would be exempt and the 4% tax rate would only apply to the remaining $2,200. We reached out to Sanders' campaign for comment on the claim that the candidate was planning to raise the tax rate to 52% on everyone making over $29,000 per year. A spokesperson told us "the meme is false."  Kangadis, Nick.  "Bernie Sanders Says Tax Hike on Lower, Middle Classes Will Pay for Medicare for All Plan."
  MRCTV.  26 November 2019. Frazin, Rachel.  "Colbert Questions Sanders on Middle-Class Tax Hike After Pressing Warren on the Same Topic."
  The Hill.  27 September 2019. NBC News.  "Full Transcript: Ninth Democratic Debate in Las Vegas."
  19 February 2020. Updated [24 February 2020]: Added information to clarify the marginal tax rate structure and correct an inaccurate portion of a secondary meme.