Is NASA Training a 17-Year-Old Girl to Be an Astronaut?
Seventeen-year-old Alyssa Carson has garnered media attention for her determination to be part of a space mission to Mars. But although her desire has been recognized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), she is not officially in training with that organization to become an astronaut or to take part the first human mission to Mars.  Carson first began generating media attention when she was 12, at which point she had already attended three different space shuttle launches and taken part in NASA space camps in three different countries. She was also the first person to complete the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's "Passport to Explore Space" program, which requires visiting each of 14 NASA visitor centers across nine different states in the U.S. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, though, is managed by a NASA contractor and is not funded by the agency itself. attention complete contractor Completing the "Passport to Explore Space" program also led to Carson's being a panelist at an event hosted by NASA and the Smithsonian, marking ten years of exploration by the Mars Exploration Rovers. As well, Carson has her own call sign," Blueberry." panelist Blueberry However, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to us that Carson is not currently training with or being "prepped" by that agency, as some reports have suggested. Also contrary to some reports, NASA's Astronaut Candidate Program has no age requirement for applications, although according to the agency "astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46, with the average age being 34."  prepped reports age requirement In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed White House Space Policy Directive 1, which his administration said would "lay the foundation" for a mission to Mars. Carson's father, Bert, told Teen Vogue magazine that private companies have "considered" sending her on missions into space  although not to Mars. signed told "If we can find a mission for her in the next two years, she will be the first kid in the world to go to space," he said. "If we can get it together before she's 20, she'll be the first teenager." One private group, Mars One, has already selected Carson to be one of their ambassadors. Carson  wrote on that group's website about her interest in visiting the Red Planet: wrote I would love to go to Mars because it is a planet that no one has been before. It's about the same size as the Earth and there are ice caps at the top and bottom of Mars. That means there is water on Mars. This could possibly be our next Earth. Just think about all the things that are in Space. For example: planets we have never explored, galaxies that we have never heard of, stars that are just babies, black holes that are as wide as the Sun to Pluto multiple times and has the mass of a billion suns, parts of the universe that we have never seen. Just think of all that stuff just floating around. It's more than you can imagine. Quinn, Katra.  "The Making of an Astronaut."
  Astronaut.com.  6 February 2014. Astronaut.com.  "First Person to Complete NASA's Passport Program Is Astronaut.Com's Friend Alyssa Carson."
  26 November 2013. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  "NASA, Smithsonian Host 10-Year Mars Rover Events."
  6 January 2014. NASA.gov. "New Space Policy Directive Calls for Human Expansion Across Solar System."
  11 December 2017. Krueger, Alyson. "17-Year-Old Alyssa Carson Wants to Be the First Person on Mars."
  Teen Vogue.  21 March 2018.
The Trump administration has cited China's trade relationship with North Korea as a key lever to deter the regime from producing a nuclear missile capable of striking the U.S. We must all do our share, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. Security Council April 28. But China, accounting for 90 percent of North Korean trade, China alone has economic leverage over Pyongyang that is unique, and its role is therefore particularly important. Tillersons remarks, which included a call for fresheconomic sanctions, came at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea. As aU.S. Navy strike groupsteamed toward the Korean Peninsula -- where28,500 American troopsstationed in South Korea are on alert following thelatest provocationsfrom Pyongyang -- President Donald Trump on April 27warnedof a possible major conflict if diplomatic efforts fail. Weve previouslylooked atTrumps claim about the degree of control Beijing wields over Pyongyang. With Tillerson citing Chinese-North Korean trade relations as a vital diplomatic pressure point, we decided to explore how much China accounts for North Koreas overall trade with the outside world. Finding accurate data for the secretive regime is a bit tricky since no North Korean equivalent of Trade.gov with troves of trade data exists, as Pyongyang treats this information as a state secret. But so-called mirror statistics, an accounting of data reconstructed from other countries reports, offer a workaround, albeit a flawed one, since the statistics dont capture some transactions. The available data tell a story of growing dependence on Chinese trade over roughly the past two decades as economic sanctions levied by the UN and individual countries, as well as other factors, have seen North Koreas trade with other partners fall drastically. In 2000, China, South Korea and Japan each accounted for about a fifth of the regime's overall trade, with the rest of the world making up the remaining roughly two-fifths. Since then, Chinas slice of the pie has more than quadrupled, according to Stephan Haggard, professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego. As sanctions have reduced South Korean and Japanese trade basically to nothing, trade has naturally become focused more on China, Haggard said. The rest of the world has not picked up the slack. Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics agreed that Chinas current position as an outsize trade partner of North Korea is largely a function of Pyongyangs strained relations with its neighbor to the south -- but he noted this could change if political winds shift. The reason that the percentage is so high is that South Korea, which was North Koreas second largest trade partner, imposed sanctions and trade between the two countries is virtually nil, Noland said. If South Korea were to resume trade relations (as it might in the next administration) Chinas share of North Korean trade would fall, but China would still be the countrys principal trade partner. Bilateral disputes led to Tokyo imposing sanctions that went even further than UN restrictions, said Haggard, who noted that the commercial risk associated with North Korea and its poor record on honoring property rights have also dissuaded potential trade partners. As South Korean and Japanese trade with Pyongyang fell, Chinas economy boomed, fueling increased trade with North Korea -- a relationship unfettered by bilateral sanctions, as Beijing has traditionally viewed the regime as an ally. China has also been accused of being less compliant with UN sanctions than other countries. As a result of these factors, the consensus among experts we spoke to is that China now accounts for roughly 90 percent of North Korean trade. Source: Stephan Haggard, professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego. UNSCR refers to United Nations Security Council Resolutions. Yes, China accounts for more than 90 percent of North Koreas recorded trade, Noland said. They are the primary supplier of oil and the marginal supplier of grain. If China wanted to, it could bring North Korea to its knees. It has the economic leverage, but has been unwilling to use it, perhaps because it fears destabilizing the regime, he added. Our ruling Tillerson said, China account(s) for 90 percent of North Korean trade. Chinas role as an outsize trade partner of North Korea is a relatively new development. Since 2000, trade with the rest of the world has dropped off, as Chinese trade has risen. While the ratio is subject to change based on political factors, China now accounts for around 90 percent of North Korean trade. We rate Tillersons statement True. In early 2017 several news outlets reported on a story that owners of Amazon's Alexa digital assistant device owners were "left out of pocket" after a 6-year-old girl named Brooke Neitzel inadvertently triggered one into placing an order for an expensive dollhouse, and a news report on the incident triggered a plague of automated, unwanted dollhouse ordering: reported [In January 2017] it was reported that an Amazon Echo in Dallas, Texas, had ordered a $170 dollhouse after six-year-old Brooke Neitzel asked: 'Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?' Although the little girl apparently meant it as a rhetorical question the device saw it as a command and ordered a KidKraft Sparkle mansion dollhouse, as well as four pounds of sugar cookies. But to make matters worse many Amazon Echoes apparently picked up on TV anchor Jim Patton's words in the report: 'I love the little girl saying "Alexa ordered me a dollhouse".' Viewers at home were then left stunned when their own Amazon Echoes picked up the voice requests in the report and ordered dolls houses too. As voice-command purchasing is enabled as a default on the Alexa devices, viewers found it had mistaken the show for their command and bought the toy. According to that report, a Texas kindergartner's request for Alexa to "play dollhouse" with her and "get [her] a dollhouse" resulted in her family's being charged for an order for a top-dollar toy. And when the family's tale was reported by a San Diego news station, "stunned" viewers also became the recipients of unwanted dollhouses simply because an anchor repeated the same phrase, which their own Amazon Echo/Alexa devices picked up on and transformed into orders.   In one interview, Neitzel's mother Megan provided the Alexa log showing that her daughter had asked the device "Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?" But the embedded video of the log suggested that instead of confirming a dollhouse order, Alexa had responded, "Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question": interview  We attempted to replicate the circumstances of the purported inadvertent order and were unable to do so. When asked "can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?" our, Alexa responded with "now shuffling songs by Bauhaus." Asking "Alexa, can you get me a dollhouse?" returned "hmm ... Im not sure what you meant by that question." "Alexa, can you play dollhouse with me? returned  ... heres a sample of 'Dollhouse Sounds' by Dollhouse Incorporated. Alexa, can you get me a dollhouse? was answered by I wasnt able to understand the question I heard." No permutation of "[c]an you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?" we tried resulted in a prompt to confirm a dollhouse order in any of our experiments conducted with two separate Alexa-enabled devices. The only potential purchase-triggering word appeared to be "order," after which it was necessary to confirm or decline the transaction (which we did at least three times and did not accidentally order any dollhouses). An Amazon spokesperson told us in response to our inquiry that ordering items through Alexa is a multi-step process that requires confirmation: You must ask Alexa to order a product and then confirm the purchase with a yes response to purchase via voice. If you asked Alexa to order something on accident, simply say no when asked to confirm. You can also manage your shopping settings in the Alexa app, such as turning off voice purchasing or requiring a confirmation code before every order. Additionally, orders you place for physical products are eligible for free returns. This conforms to our own experience: we couldn't induce Alexa into ordering anything without its first showing us the item, displaying a price, and asking us for verbal confirmation.  We also couldn't get Alexa to order two items at once, as supposedly happened with the dollhouse and cookies  Alexa always processed multiple items separately no matter how we tried to join them, displaying a price and requiring a verbal confirmation for each item. We also could find no confirmation (outside of anecdotal repetition) that a spate of unwanted dollhouse orders followed in the wake of San Diego newscaster Jim Patton's report on the story.  Perhaps the television audio of that newscast might have woken up some viewers' Alexas, but those viewers would still have had to confirm any potential dollhouse purchases by responding 'yes' to Alexa's request for purchase confirmation. We have yet to locate any of the "viewers at home left stunned" as their Alexa devices foisted undesired $165 toys upon them. CBS News.  "6-Year-Old Orders $160 Dollhouse, 4 Pounds of Cookies with Amazon's Echo Dot."
  5 January 2017. As the premiere of the horror flick Jeepers Creepers 3 approached in September 2017, many posted messages on social media to remind potential moviegoers about director Victor Salva's criminal history: messages   Salva was convicted in 1988 on charges related to the sexual molestation of 12-year-old actor Nathan Forrest Winters during the filming of his movie Clownhouse. Salva served 15 months in prison and finished his parole in 1992. The Associated Press reported at the time: served Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in "Clownhouse," a low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns. Salva, sentenced to three years in state prison, served 15 months and completed parole in 1992. Salva is a registered sex offender: registered offender   said Victor Salva, a former child-care worker who impressed Hollywood filmmakers with his early cinematic work, was sentenced to three years in state prison in 1988 for molesting a 12-year-old boy who had acted in two of his films. Salva videotaped one of the encounters. [...] The revelations came as the now 20-year-old victim, Nathan Winters of Concord, Calif., picketed a screening of "Powder" on Monday night in Westwood. Winters passed out leaflets urging the public to boycott the movie and said his family and friends would continue protesting after the film debuts Friday on more than 1,500 screens nationwide. Winters said he was "in awe" that Disney would even make a movie with Salva. "I can't believe [Salva] is allowed to work with children again," Winters said. "He should not be allowed around children ever again." At the time, Salva released a statement saying "How deeply I regret my actions." It continued:  statement I paid for my mistakes dearly. Now, nearly 10 years later, I am excited about my work as a film maker and look forward to continuing to make a positive contribution to our society. Caravan Pictures, the company that made Powder for Disney, also released a statement: "He paid for his crime, he paid his debt to society," said Roger Birnbaum, whose Caravan Pictures made "Powder" for Disney and reportedly didn't know of Salva's record until the film was midway through production. "What happened eight years ago has nothing to do with this movie." More recently, Salva's past hindered the casting of Jeepers Creepers 3 when the web site Breakdown Services removed the casting call for a 13-year-old character (to be played by an 18-year-old) upon learning of Salva's crime.  casting Winters never starred in another movie.  movie Welkos, Robert.  "Disney Movie's Director a Convicted Child Molester."
 LA Times.   25 October 1995. Guthmann, Edward.  "Concord Molest Victim Confronts `Powder' Director / Actor protests at Disney Screening."
 SF Gate.   25 October 1995. Goldstein, Patrick.  "Victor Salva's Horror Stories."
 LA Times.   11 June 2006. A new school curriculum based on The New York Times' The 1619 Project faced opposition from U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton in July 2020, after he called it racially divisive and revisionist. based As the U.S. grappled with its history of racism amidst police custody killings of Black people in 2020, The 1619 Project, an ongoing initiative named for the year that the first slave ship arrived on American shores, became the center of a debate. The educational curriculum was launched alongside The New York Times Magazine's August 2019 special issue and aims to "reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative." Partnering with the Pulitzer Center, the curriculum is freely available online and is being used by teachers across the country. It includes essays, poems, photographs, and fiction from contributors, and was praised for its examination of slavery's impact on the present day. The 1619 Project launched special issue aims curriculum praised As Cotton launched an attack on the initiative by introducing legislation that would prevent the use of federal funds to spread the optional curriculum in classrooms, Snopes readers asked us if in his criticism of the project he had actually called slavery a necessary evil. launched He did use those words. But he also claimed his meaning was misinterpreted.  In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Cotton said [emphasis ours]: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we cant understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction. Later, Cotton took to Twitter and appeared to clarify that he himself wasnt backing the idea of slavery being a "necessary evil": Twitter   Although Cotton claimed he was citing the views of the founding fathers, there did not appear to be a record of them saying this exact phrase, according to CNN. But historians argued that some of the founding fathers believed slavery to be necessary, and more believed it to be evil, while others reported there was little overlap between the two perspectives. did not appear CNN historians argued others reported But Nikole Hannah-Jones, writer and creator of The 1619 Project pushed back on his characterization of his own words and the views of the founding fathers, citing historian Joshua Rothman who categorically stated that slavery was a choice defended or accepted by white Americans for generations. Hannah-Jones argued that Cottons use of the word as denoted agreement with the statement. She also said that the curriculum was meant to be "supplementary" and was not intended to "supplant U.S. history curriculum." pushed back citing supplementary In summary, given that Cotton himself defended and clarified his use of the phrase "necessary evil," we rate this claim as Correct attribution. Foran, Clare. "GOP Sen. Tom Cotton Pitches Bill to Prohibit Use of Federal Funds to Teach 1619 Project."
 CNN. 24 July 2020. Jesuthasan, Meerabelle. "The 1619 Project Sparks Dialogue and Reflection in Schools Nationwide."
 Pulitzer Center. 20 December 2019. Lockwood, Frank E. "Bill by Sen. Tom Cotton Targets Curriculum on Slavery."
 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 26 July 2020. Porter, Tom. "GOP Sen. Tom Cotton Called Slavery a 'Necessary Evil' in an Attack on a New York Times Project Exploring America's History of Racism."
 Business Insider. 27 July 2020. Pulitzer Center.  "The 1619 Project Curriculum."
  Accessed 29 July 2020. The New York Times.  "The 1619 Project."
  14 August 2019. Zurcher, Anthony. "US Senator Tom Cotton Defends Slavery Remarks."
 BBC News. 27 July 2020. In late February 2022, a rumor went viral on TikTok and Twitter that said Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, had imposed a cash withdrawal limit that would be equivalent to $20 in the U.S. The rumor began to spread just after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. TikTok Twitter Russia Russia invasion Ukraine On Feb. 25, the person behind the @bantg Twitter account tweeted: "Sberbank, Russian largest bank, has limited cash withdrawals to $20." tweeted  The tweet cited no sources.  Another tweet posted on Feb. 26 claimed: "JUST IN: Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, has limited cash withdrawals for its customers to $20 ? #PutinWillFeelThePainSoon." The hashtag referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin. tweet Vladimir Putin  Replies under the tweet asked for a source for the information, but @nick82gh did not respond to them.  While this second tweet didn't receive many engagements, it was shared the same day to TikTok as a screenshot. Within 48 hours of being posted, that TikTok video received 80,000 likes and was viewed more than 1.4 million times. The person speaking in the video said: "The bank run has started. Russia is going bankrupt. This is the end of [the] Russian economy completely." video   Here are the facts: It's true that Sberbank is Russia's largest bank by its amount of assets, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, at the time, we found no reporting or evidence of any kind that backed up the claim that the Sberbank had limited cash withdrawals to $20. We also found no data about anything related to Sberbank causing the entire country of Russia to go bankrupt, as mentioned in the TikTok video. The Wall Street Journal By email, a spokesperson for Sberbank told us: "This information contradicts reality. Sberbank continues to fulfill all of its obligations in full, including the withdrawal of funds from accounts. All funds are available to customers at any time." On Feb. 28, ABC News and The Associated Press reported that Sberbank had been hit with "tough U.S. sanctions," leading to some limits on cash withdrawals: ABC News Associated Press Sberbank and VTB banks are Russias two largest state-run banks and own roughly half of the assets in the Russian banking system. They were targeted last week by tough U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting their businesses internationally and over the weekend barred from the international SWIFT payment system. SWIFT In both Slovenia and Croatia, Sberbank temporarily closed its branches or limited cash withdrawals following a rush by its clients last week. In Croatia, the banks clients will be allowed to withdraw a maximum of about 1,000 euros per day over the next two days. In Slovenia, the branches will be closed for the next two days and then the withdrawals will be limited to 400 euros per day. At the time that this news was published, 1000 euros was equivalent to $1,121, while 400 euros converted to $448. Neither of these figures was anywhere close to a $20 limit. We asked Sberbank for information on cash withdrawal limits for other countries but did not receive a response before this story was published. While we found no evidence regarding Sberbank branches having a $20 cash withdrawal limit, the conflict in Ukraine did lead to fears that the bank could fail, according to a report from Reuters, which cited a warning from the European Central Bank. Ukraine report Also, on a similar subject, The National Bank of Ukraine imposed cash withdrawal limits after the invasion began, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, again, those limits were reported to be nowhere near $20. Instead, the reporting said the limit was "100,000 Ukrainian hryvnia a day, equivalent to about $3,339.13." according to The Wall Street Journal This story will be updated if we receive further information. In April 2016, a meme was published by the Facebook page "The Other 98%" (among others) holding that 643,000 Americans declare bankruptcy over medical bills every year, while in a number of other first-world countries, bankruptcies over medical bills are non-existent (due to the implementation of national social health insurance/medical care systems in those other countries):   At the fine print at the bottom of the meme was a citation: "Source: NerdWallet Health Analysis." No link to the specific analysis referenced was provided, but presumably the item in question was a 19 July 2013 item published by NerdWallet pertaining to medical bankruptcies. However, in that analysis NerdWallet repeatedly stated that their findings were "estimates" or "extrapolations," and some of their data were quite old even back in 2013. The primary portion of that article held that: In 2013 over 20% of American adults are struggling to pay their medical bills, and three in five bankruptcies will be due to medical bills. While we are quick to blame debt on poor savings and bad spending habits, our study emphasizes the burden of health costs causing widespread indebtedness. Medical bills can completely overwhelm a family when illness strikes, says Christina LaMontagne, VP of Health at NerdWallet. Furthermore, 25 million people hesitate to take their medications in order to control their medical costs. Unfortunately this can lead to even worse financial outcomes as preventative treatments are not rendered and patients end up using expensive ambulance and ER care as their health worsens. Finally, many question whether President Obamas universal health insurance mandate will protect Americans from problems with medical bills. Insurance is no silver bullet, says LaMontagne. Even with insurance coverage, we expect 10 million Americans will face bills they are unable to pay. Although the "643,000" figure didn't expressly appear in that article, if we take the number of bankruptcy filings in the U.S. in 2013 (1,032,236) and apply NerdWallet's statement that "three in five (60%) bankruptcies will be due to medical bills," then we arrive at a number of medical bill-related bankruptcies (619,342) reasonably close to the 643,000 figure (although technically a bankruptcy filing can represent more than one person). bankruptcy Likewise, a 2013 CNBC item based on the 2013 NerdWallet Health Analysis included a chart showing the estimated total number of medical-related bankruptcies in the U.S. in 2013 to be 646,812, which is also quite close to the cited 643,000 figure: item  Since the number of bankruptcy filings in the U.S. is a matter of public record, the accuracy of this figure hinges on how reliable is the estimate that 60% of those filings are medical-related. In NerdWallet's "Methodology & Sources" section, the site said their medical bankruptcy estimates were based on a 2009 Harvard study, which in turn used bankruptcy data from 2007 and involved interviewing a random national sample of a bankruptcy filers: BACKGROUND: Our 2001 study in 5 states found that medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies. Since then, health costs and the numbers of un- and underinsured have increased, and bankruptcy laws have tightened. METHODS: We surveyed a random national sample of 2314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1032 of them. We designated bankruptcies as medical based on debtors stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness, and the magnitude of their medical debts. RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical. NerdWallet themselves reported that they employed a more conservative estimate than the Harvard study figure regarding the proportion of bankruptcies that are medical-related: We relied on a widely cited Harvard study published in 2009. NerdWallet Health chose to include only bankruptcy explicitly tied to medical bills, excluding indirect reasons like lost work opportunities. Thus we conservatively estimated medical bankruptcy rates to be 57.1% (versus the authors 62.1%) of US bankruptcies. We also used official bankruptcy statistics, released this month through March 2013, from US Courts. Still, quantifying the occurrence of medical bankruptcies can be problematic, as noted in aJanuary 2016 New York Times article on the subject: article Research on medical bankruptcies has been controversial because it can be hard to untangle how medical bills fit into a familys overall pattern of financial troubles. Twenty-nine percent of the people with medical bill problems said a family member had been forced to stop working or cut back on hours. (On the other side, about 41 percent of people said theyd taken on extra work to help pay bills.) Is that a job problem or a medical bill problem? said David Himmelstein, a professor of public health at the City University of New Yorks Hunter College School of Public Health who has studied medical bankruptcies. Its both of those things. However, that article also factored in a large development that occurred after NerdWallet's 2013 analysis: the activation of major provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as PPACA, ACA, or Obamacare): The [ACA] has led to a decline in the number of Americans suffering financial stress from health problems, thanks to the new options for receiving coverage, especially for the poor. But the problem is still widespread, touching roughly a quarter of Americans under 65, when the insured and uninsured are looked at together. Americans older than 65 are covered by Medicare, which more frequently protects people from major financial trouble. Unlike other polls, which have focused on the ways that insurance affects health care, the new Times-Kaiser survey explored the effects of medical bills on peoples daily lives well beyond the medical system. We found that medical bills dont just keep people from filling prescriptions and scheduling doctors visits. They can also prompt deep financial and personal sacrifices, affecting their housing, employment, credit and daily lives. The potentially ameliorating effect of the ACA on bankruptcies was also cited by a July 2015 Wall Street Journal article which (in part) described research into medical bankruptcy done by Northeastern University law professor Daniel Austin: article So what does Prof. Austin think will happen with mandatory health care in all 50 states? Could the system designed to give people access to affordable health insurance make families more financially stable and keep them out of bankruptcy? It absolutely should show a reduction in bankruptcies [filed] due to medical debt, Prof. Austin said in an interview. Plenty of studies have pinpointed medical debt as the No. 1 reason why people turn to bankruptcy for a fresh start. In rallying for health-care reform in his 2009 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that 62.1% of consumer bankruptcies are medical bankruptcies, citing a study Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) co-wrote as a Harvard law professor. Prof. Austins study found the percentage of medical bankruptcies to be far smaller. Overall, 18% to 25% of personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. were prompted by medical debt.  But even prior to the implementation of the ACA, some sources questioned the true impact of medical debt on bankruptcy rates. A 2012 piece published by The Hill compared rates of bankruptcy between the United States and Canada (the latter a country with single-payer healthcare system): compared It's difficult to conclude that bankrupt folks are awash in healthcare debt when nearly 90 percent of their obligations are unrelated to health care ... Will ObamaCare's increased regulation of the healthcare marketplace help put an end to the phenomenon? Data from countries with government-run healthcare systems suggest not. Consider Canada. Our neighbor to the north features a government-run, single-payer healthcare system where private insurance is outlawed for procedures covered under the law. So you'd think that Canada would have a lower rate of bankruptcy than the United States, what with one big potential cause of bankruptcy  the cost of health care  absorbed by the government. But according to researchers at the Fraser Institute, a nonpartisan Canadian think tank, bankruptcy rates are statistically the same on both sides of the 49th parallel. In both the United States and Canada, less than one-third of 1 percent of families file for bankruptcy each year. Further, even with a socialized healthcare system, some Canadians go bankrupt because of medical expenses. Approximately 15 percent of bankrupt Canadian seniors  those 55 and older  cited medical reasons, including uninsured expenses, as the main culprit for their insolvency. Canada wasn't the only country in which the presence of single-payer healthcare reportedly wasn't a total shield against bankruptcies (medical-related or otherwise). A 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) paper [PDF] found that: PDF Outside of the US, research on links between over-indebtedness and health has been quite limited to date, consisting largely of rankings of factors in consumer debt. For instance, within the United Kingdom, sickness or disability accounted for 5% of households in financial difficulties in 2002. A ranking of causes of over-indebtedness and private bankruptcy in Germany found that psychological problems and own sickness, if added together, would rank in fourth place of reasons for over-indebtedness and private bankruptcy. There have been a number of interesting recent studies in Germany on the subject. These have found a high risk of mental disorders among those facing the threat of over-indebtedness as well as the association of over-indebtedness with an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity apart from traditional socioeconomic factors. Additionally, there is evidence that over-indebted persons refrain from seeking medical treatment or purchasing prescriptions even under Germanys health system. One-third of participants in a study of insolvency counseling services in RhinelandPalatinate indicated that their financial difficulties were a result of accident, illness or addiction. In short, using some very specific analyses, one could make the case that (at least within the last several years) about 643,000 Americans declared bankruptcy annually due to medical bills. But the accuracy of those analyses is open to question, the playing field has changed significantly since they were undertaken (due to the implementation of the ACA), and it's far from an absolute that the other countries listed in the meme experience zero medical-related bankruptcies.  Emami, Sarah.  "Consumer Over-Indebtedness and Health Care Costs:
How to Approach the Question from a Global Perspective."
  World Health Report (2010) Background Paper, 3.  2010. Himmelstein, David U. et. al.  "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study."
  American Journal of Medicine.  12 April 2009. Lamontagne, Christina.  "NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies."
  NerdWallet.  19 June 2013. Lamontagne, Christina.  "NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies."
  NerdWallet.  26 March 2014. Luthra, Shefali.  "Consumers Still Struggling with Medical Debt."
  USA Today.  1 February 2015. Mangan, Dan.  "Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study."
  CNBC.  25 June 2013. Pipes, Sally C.  "Medical Bankruptcy: Fact or Fiction?"
  The Hill.  23 October 2012. Sanger-Katz, Margot.  "Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt, Study Finds."
  Thne New York Times.  5 January 2016. Stech, Katy.  "The Future of Personal Bankruptcy in a Post-Obamacare World."
  The Wall Street Journal.  1 July 2015. Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.  "Growing Old Gracefully, An Investigation Into the Growing Number of Bankrupt Canadians Over Age 55."
  31 March 2006. An item about a collection of U.S. tax increases which were supposedly enacted as of 1 January 2016 due to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare") was circulated widely at the beginning of 2016, but it was merely an updated version of identical claims circulated in previous years that set 2014 or 2015 as the imposition date for those tax increases:  Although the tax increases listed in this item did come to pass, they took effect at the beginning of 2013 (not 2014 or 2015 or 2016), were completely unrelated to the Affordable Care Act, applied only to very high-income earners, and have been overstated in this list.  These tax hikes were enacted through the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, a compromise bill pushed through Congress as a partial resolution to the then-looming "fiscal cliff" crisis.  Under the provisions of that bill: American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 fiscal cliff   The top marginal federal income tax rate increased from 35% to 39.6%  The top marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains increased from 15% to 20% (not 28%).  The top marginal tax rate on dividends increased from 15% to 20% (not 39.6%).  Estate taxes increased from 35% of an estate's value in excess of $5,120,000 (in 2012) to 40% of the value above $5,340,000 (in 2014). It's important to note that the increase in marginal tax rates for federal income tax, capital gains, and dividends affected only those persons with taxable incomes over a $400,000 (single)/$450,000 (married) threshold.  It's also important to note that the previous estate tax rate of 0% was a special rule that applied only to the estates of persons who died in 2010 (the estate tax has since been increased to 35% for those who died in 2011 and 40% for those who died in 2012 and thereafter), and even today an estate tax  filing is required only for estates with gross assets in excess of $5 million (indexed for inflation).   estate tax The tax rate for dividends has also not increased from 15% to 39.6%: it appears someone has confused qualified dividends with nonqualified dividends. Qualified dividend earnings are tax-free for those in the 10% and 15% brackets, taxed at a 15% rate for those in the 25% up to 35% tax brackets, and taxed at a 20% rate for higher income taxpayers whose income surpasses the 35% tax bracket.  Nonqualified dividends only are taxed as ordinary income.  (Theoretically, a taxpayer with nonqualified dividend earnings who reached the top marginal federal income tax rate would be paying 39.6% tax on those earnings, but that's a condition that only applies to persons earning over several hundred thousand dollars per year.) dividends The list's reference to an "income payroll tax" increase from 37.4% to 52.2% is something of a mystery, as this is not a standard term for any type of government income- or payroll-related tax.  The only adjustment to payroll-related taxes resulting from the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was that a two-year old cut to payroll taxes which had previously reduced the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% for 2011 and 2012 was not extended.  Additionally, this item's coda claiming that "not one Republican voted to do these taxes" is completely false.  The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 passed Congress by a margin of 89-8 in the Senate with 40 Republican votes in favor, and a margin of 257-167 in the House with 85 Republican votes in favor. (The original claim undoubtedly refers to the House or Representatives' voting in 2010 to pass the health-care reform bill without a single Republican vote in favor, but that association is moot because, as noted, the tax increases listed above had nothing to do with that bill.) 89-8 257-167 health-care reform bill Claim:  The soft drink 7Up was named for the number of its ingredients. LEGEND Origins:  The   power of the enigma lies in its ability to enthrall, to capture the imagination. As a society, we delight in the little mysteries that don't immediately yield up their   answers, which is why products whose names we can't fathom hold their appeal.  One such product is 7Up. Though the soft drink itself is not the least bit mysterious, its name is. To this day, no one can swear to know the reason for that particular choice of moniker. Here is what is known: 7Up was invented in October 1929 by Charles Leiper Grigg, a man who ten years earlier had formulated a carbonated orange-flavored drink ("Whistle")  while working for an employer with whom he later had a falling out. Said contretemps led to his packing up and leaving, and in 1920 the employerless Grigg formed his own soft drink company, the Howdy Corporation to produce "Howdy," yet another orange-flavored soda. Howdy was fairly successful as soft drinks go, but it was unable to seriously challenge Orange Crush, the leader in the field, and over time Howdy lost market shareto its predominant rival. Rather than see his company die by inches, C.L. Grigg cast about for another sort of soda to broaden his company's consumer base. Grigg discarded colas, root beers, and ginger ales in favor of a lemon-lime concoction. Although most every bottler was producing a lemon-lime drink in thosedays, none of those sodas had achieved national prominence, a state of affairs that left a golden opportunity forlornly sitting there waiting to be noticed.  And Grigg noticed. In response, he invented the soda we now call 7Up.  However, the uncola wasn't known as 7Up for the first few years of its existence. It was originally christened "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda." In his formulation, Grigg had included lithia, a naturally-occurring substance found in minute quantities in bubbling waters fed by underground springs. (Lithia is better known as lithium, a drug used to even out mood swings.) Grigg had the notion that the chemical's presumed healthful aspects would be a selling point with the soda-buying public, hence the "Lithiated" in the name. As for "Bib-Label," it was Howdy Corporation's intent to use paper labels of the sort that could be dropped over the necks of otherwise unlabeled bottles. lithium Fortunately, the unwieldy name was soon morphed to "7Up Lithiated Lemon Soda," and in 1936 the soda was officially re-dubbed "7Up." That same year, the Howdy Corporation became the Seven-Up Company. As to why "7Up," C.L. Grigg never explained how he came up with the cryptic name. Several theories exist about its origin:  7Up was the product of seven ingredients. (Which, in a way, was at least true with regard to the classes of ingredients in that original formulation: sugar, carbonated water, essences of lemon and lime oils, citric acid, sodium citrate, and lithium citrate.)  "Seven Up" has seven letters. (This explanation is rather far-fetched, as it posits that the drink was named after itself.)  The beverage was originally sold in 7-ounce bottles.   (Which it was. Then again, so was Orange Crush.)  Its inventor boasted the drink would cure mankind's "seven hangovers." (Grigg did make this statement, but it was rather tongue-in-cheek.)  Grigg saw cattle branded with a mark that resembled "7UP." Reasoning that if the brand was distinctive enough to help a rancher identify his cattle, the soft drink inventor concluded it would similarly work to help consumers remember his new lemon-lime beverage. (A former 7Up president and chairman did recount this anecdote in a 1942 speech, saying Grigg had read about the history of cow brands in a Sunday newspaper article, including one brand that consisted of a letter "u" on top and to the right of a number "7.")  Grigg won a great deal of money in a craps game thanks to all the sevens that were rolled that night.  (Though oft repeated, little supports this tale. What money Grigg needed when he started the Howdy Corporation he obtained by bringing in moneyed partners.)  Grigg won a fortune at poker, thanks to the seventh "up" card dealt him. (The same reasons for disbelieving the craps explanation apply to the poker postulation.) It's quite possible the drink's name was meant to be a enigma, given that its creator never publicly explained it. It could even have been a nonsense term meant to leave people wondering after its backstory as a way of generating interest in the beverage. (We humans do love mysteries, after all.) Questions of how it came by its name aside, 7Up has attracted another origin rumor. Many trivia lists circulated on the Internet make the following claim: The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes.  He was albino. Charles Leiper Grigg wasn't an  albino. In photographs (albeit black and white ones),  albino  he appears normally pigmented, and we've yet to encounter a biography of him that makes any mention of his displaying traits of albinism. (By the way, though it is   possible for an albino to have reddish or violet eyes, most people with that condition have blue eyes, and some have hazel or brown eyes.)  As to where the red dot in the beverage's logo came from, so far the earliest examples we've found of that design have come from the 1970s. Prior to that, the company's trademark for the longest time was a black-outlined white "7Up" on a red background that bore some white bubbles  the red dot was nowhere to be seen. In very early ads, the "7up" had wings. Barbara "7Upswept" Mikkelson Last updated:  27 April 2014 The Legend of Dr. Pepper/7Up Claim:  Atari buried millions of unsold E.T. game cartridges in a New Mexico desert landfill. LEGEND Origins:  In 1982, Warner Communications could honestly claim to own a goose that laid golden eggs. Its money-producing fowl was called Atari, a video game company it purchased for $28 million in 1976  which had since burgeoned into a $2 billion concern.  In the early 1980s Atari owned 80% of the video game market, it accounted for 70% of Warner's operating profits, and in the fourth quarter of 1982 the Wall Street "whisper number" concerning Atari's expected   earnings predicted a 50% increase over the previous year. The goose died at 3:04 P.M. EST on 7 December 1982, when Atari reported only a 10% to 15% increase in expected earnings, not the 50% figure so many people had been counting on.  By the end of the following day Warner stock had plummeted to two-thirds of  its previous value, and Warner closed out the quarter with its profits down a mind-boggling 56%.  (Even worse, a minor scandal erupted when it was revealed that Atari's president and CEO had sold 5,000 shares of Warner stock a mere 23 minutes before announcing Atari's disappointing sales figures.)  Atari racked up over half a billion dollars ($536 million) in losses in 1983, and by the end of 1984 Warner had sold the company. What accounted for the sudden death of Warner's prized goose?  A number of interrelated factors brought about its fatal illness:  Most of Atari's top programmers, disenchanted with the lack of respect, compensation, and freedom they were afforded under Warner management, left to work elsewhere.  Atari was selling its game consoles as cheaply as possible and expecting to make its profits from sales of game cartridges, but other companies such as Imagic and Activision (founded by some of the disenchanted Atari programmers mentioned above) cut into Atari's sales by creating their own cartridges for Atari consoles (and their games were far superior to what Atari itself was producing).  Atari's VCS game console was several years old by 1982, and its established customer base was being eroded by newer, better systems such as Mattel's Intellivision and Coleco's ColecoVision (especially when those systems started offering adapters that allowed customers to play VCS game cartridges without needing to own Atari consoles).  Even worse, the "next generation" system Atari finally unveiled in late 1982 ,the Atari 5200, was a huge disappointment (in part because its joysticks were poorly designed and difficult to use, and because it was incompatible with the huge existing base of VCS cartridges).  Atari's home consumer division had garnered huge profits by producing home versions of popular arcade games created by its own coin-op division (Asteroids) or licensed from other manufacturers (Taito's Space Invaders and Namco's Pac-Man), but let the licensing of that year's smash arcade hit, Donkey Kong, slip away from them.  (The license for Donkey Kong was instead snapped up by Coleco, who probably could not have successfully launched its competing ColecoVision game system without it.) The first signs of the goose's fatal illness came with Atari's Pac-Man cartridge.  Atari was so sure its home version of the world's most popular arcade game would reach new sales heights that it manufactured 12 million Pac-Man cartridges in 1982 (even though at the time only about 10 million people owned and used Atari VCS consoles), counting on the game's popularity to spur additional sales of the VCS.  With most of Atari's best in-house programmers long since having fled the company, the result was a colossal disappointment.  Pac-Man's animation was jerky, its moving images flickered annoyingly, and the Pac-Man character produced only a grating "bong" sound that was nothing like the arcade version's amusing sound effects.  Atari did eventually sell 7.7 million copies of Pac-Man, earning almost $200 million in gross profit sales for the company, but Atari was still stuck with millions of unsold Pac-Man game cartridges, and the poor quality of the game in comparison to the arcade version seriously tarnished Atari's image among consumers. As Goldberg and Vendel noted of the Pac-Man issue in their history of the company, Atari, Inc.: Business Is Fun: The result backfired on Atari by causing consumers to behave differently when purchasing games. There was already a growing mass of new low quality third party 'spam' titles on the market, and now with the experience of from rushing to buy Pac-Man for a premium and getting disappointed at its look, the tipping point for a new buyer environment was created. An environment where people would no longer blindly rush out to buy a newly released game, but would cautiously wait for reviews or feedback from others who'd bought the game. As a result, games purchases appeared to be curtailed in the second half of 1982, causing another new complication that sales and marketing would have to grasp and account for. If one game cartridge could be selected as the symbol of the sudden demise of Atari's golden goose, however, it would have to be the ill-fated E.T.: The Extraterrestrial game. Steve Ross, the head of Warner Communications, made a deal with Steven Spielberg to produce a home video game version of Spielberg's blockbuster E.T. film. Basing a video game on a movie rather than an established arcade hit or a tested game premise and expecting it to sell simply because of the popularity of the film might have been a questionable enough decision on its own (although Atari did enjoy moderate success with its video game version of Spielberg's previous   blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark), but on top of that Ross forked over a whopping $21 million to acquire the rights to the title, committing Atari to sell a whopping 4 million cartridges just to recoup their costs.  Moreover, Ross made the deal in late July 1982 and insisted the game be ready in time for the Christmas sales season, leaving only a five week timeframe (rather than a more typical six months) for the E.T. game to be conceived, programmed, debugged, and put into production.  The sheer awfulness of the finished product was unprecedented.  Atari rushed E.T. through development in a matter of weeks to get it onto the market in time for Christmas, and the result was something many consumers found to be a virtually unplayable game with a dull plot and crummy graphics in which frustrated players spent most of their time leading the E.T. character around in circles to prevent him from falling into pits.  Atari produced 5 million E.T. cartridges, and according to Atari's then-president and CEO, "nearly all of them came back."  That statement was a bit of an exaggeration, but Atari was once again stuck with millions of unsold cartridges for a game that moved far fewer units than were produced: In total, five million copies of  E.T. were produced. Initially, only 500,000 games were sold, with another million eventually joining the sales. Out of the five million E.T. carts that would ship out to distributors, a staggering three and a half million games would be returned in total, many still in the distributor boxes; the retailers hadn't even sold enough to break open additional distributor shipping boxes to require a restock. [T]here were three and a half million unsold games and in the end, the  E.T. licensing deal was a complete loss for Atari. In a bout of hubris at the end of 1981, Atari had told its distributors to place their orders for 1982 all at once.  The distributors, anticipating another strong sales year, ordered aggressively, but when 1982 sales didn't meet expectations, those distributors were stuck with a lot of unsold Atari game cartridge inventory, which they returned to Atari in droves.  When ordinary distributor returns were added to the millions of unsold Pac-Man  cartridges and more millions of useless E.T. cartridges, Atari found itself with tons of unsellable merchandise to dispose of, which led to the rumor that Atari buried millions of E.T. cartridges in a landfill in the New Mexico desert. There is no question that Atari dumped and buried a whole lot of stuff in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in September 1983, as the New York Times (and other sources) reported at the time: With the video game business gone sour, some manufacturers have been dumping their excess game cartridges on the market at depressed prices. Now Atari Inc., the leading video game manufacturer, has taken dumping one step farther. The company has dumped 14 truckloads of discarded game cartridges and other computer equipment at the city landfill in Alamogordo, N.M. Guards kept reporters and spectators away from the area as workers poured concrete over the dumped merchandise. An Atari spokesman said the equipment came from Atari's plant in El Paso, Tex., which used to make videogame cartridges but has now been converted to recycling scrap. Atari lost $310.5 million in the second quarter, largely because of a sharp drop in video game sales. Due to the all the bad publicity over Atari's recent negative experiences with its Pac-Man and E.T. games, when news of the company's New Mexico landfill disposal became public knowledge many people assumed that those truckloads of discarded material included nothing but millions and millions of unsold E.T. cartridges (with perhaps some of those millions of unsold Pac-Man carts thrown in as well), all shamefully and furtively buried by Atari in an attempt to keep those embarrassingly colossal failures out of sight.  Exactly what Atari buried in that New Mexico landfill remains a subject of dispute, and in recent years various sources have challenged the notion that what Atari dumped there was millions of unsold E.T. game cartridges (or other unsold game titles).  According Goldberg and Vendel, the New Mexico site was actually used for disposal of a relatively small amount of unused and faulty stock and parts for cartridges, consoles, and computers from the company's El Paso plant, which was being retooled and automated to focus on the of manufacture of game consoles and home computers rather than the production of game cartridges (the latter operation being shifted to Asia).  While Atari did bury some millions of units of unsold game cartridge overstock, that (unpublicized) action took place near the company's headquarters in California, not in New Mexico: Manufacturing game cartridges had been a large part of the El Paso plant, but the new retooling left no room for them in this time of overstock ... The resulting clearance of truckloads of faulty and unused stock starting on September 22nd [1983] resulted in anything but positive press for the company, though, as it seemed Atari just couldn't catch a break from the media. Under cover of the night, several semi-trailers convoyed out of the [El Paso] plant to drive about an hour and a half south west. They were bound for a city dump in Alamogordo, New Mexico, chosen because New Mexico had a state law forbidding scavenging of landfills. The landfill was run by Browning Ferris  Industries (BFI), who contracted with the city and was making $300-$500 a truckload from Atari, all to cover their dumped contents with garbage and dirt and then steamroll them. [Three days later] Atari had already dumped eight truckloads when promising BFI only three a week, and still more were on the way. But that wasn't the worst of it; the public had found out. First it was the locals, who when word got out that Atari was dumping lots of cartridges, consoles and computers in their backyard, started sneaking into the dump to pilfer what they could. The hardware may have been crushed beyond use, but many of the games were still salvageable. It was when those games started showing up around town, titles like E.T., Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, that the local media picked up on the story.  Atari had brought in a security guard to watch over the site to stop the pilfering, but it did little to stop the prying eyes of the media, and by [September 26th] the national press was all over the story. This innocent dumping, a miniscule amount when compared to the entire size of Atari's actual overstock across the country, was done as an afterthought. However, thanks to article titles like UPI's "City dump gobbles Pacman," the dumping was fast becoming a symbol of the industry's problems. [Y]ou don't pour concrete over unusable scrap, [but] that's exactly what Atari did on September 29th, which only further fueled the interest over the dumping. Around 14 truckloads had been dumped before the PR nightmare was over. Yes, this is the very happening that gave rise to the myth of the supposed dumping of almost 3.5 million E.T. cartridges in the Alamogordo dump. Most of the overstock of game cartridges languishing in warehouses around the U.S., comprised of a wide breadth of Atari's home titles, were indeed disposed of  that's where myth meets reality. But this occurred in a dump in Sunnyvale [California]. In May 2013 Alamogordo's City Commission approved a deal for a Canada-based film production company (Fuel Industries) to excavate the Atari landfill site and produce a documentary about the legend of the buried E.T. cartridges.  That excavation was scheduled to take place on 26 April 2014 and to be open to the public: excavation Become a part of gamer history. Unearth the truth behind the ultimate urban legend. We're excited to announce that the excavation of the long-rumored "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" video game burial site will occur on April 26, 2014 and will be open to the public. Spectators are invited to watch the team uncover the infamous Atari game cartridge grave.  The Atari Corporation  faced with overwhelmingly negative response to the "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" video game  allegedly disposed of millions of unsold game cartridges by burying them in the small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico in 1983. Fuel Entertainment took an interest in the legend, and in December 2013, with help from local garbage contractor Joe Lewandowski, acquired the exclusive rights to excavate the Alamogordo landfill. Fuel Entertainment brought the opportunity to Xbox Entertainment Studios, and now, as part of a documentary series, the team will excavate the legendary New Mexico landfill to reveal the true story of Atari's bizarre burial.  Director Zak Penn will be documenting the dig and the events around it. In addition to fans and media, a variety of people tied to the dig, video game, and film will be in attendance  including "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" video game designer Howard Scott Warshaw, a team of archeologists, and representatives from Xbox Entertainment Studios. We hope you'll join us as we get to the bottom of one of gaming's biggest mysteries. A lucky handful of fans could even be interviewed for the film. See you in Alamogordo! On that date, news accounts reported the recovery of "hundreds" (not millions) of E.T. game cartridges from the Alamagordo landfill: A documentary film production company has found buried in a New Mexico landfill hundreds of the Atari "E.T." game cartridges that some call the worst video game ever made. Film director Zak Penn showed one "E.T." cartridge retrieved from the site and said that hundreds more were found in the mounds of trash and dirt scooped by a backhoe. About 200 residents and game enthusiasts gathered in southeastern New Mexico to watch backhoes and bulldozers dig through the concrete-covered landfill in search of up to a million discarded copies of "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" that the game's maker wanted to hide forever. "I feel pretty relieved and psyched that they actually got to see something," said Penn as members of the production team sifted through the mounds of trash, pulling out boxes, games and other Atari products.  Whatever the answer, it seems Atari sent its goose away not with the traditional gold watch, but with a pair of cement overshoes. Additional information:       Atari's E.T.: The Extraterrestrial  (AtariAge)   Last updated:  26 April 2014    Goldberg, Marty and Curt Vendel.  Atari Inc.: Business Is Fun.   Carmel, NY: Syzygy Company Press, 2012.  ISBN 978-0-9855974-0-5.    Kent, Steven L.  The First Quarter: A 25-Year History of Video Games.   Bothell, WA: BWD Press, 2000.  ISBN 0-9704755-0-0.    Llorca, Juan Carlos.  Diggers Find Atari's E.T. Games in Landfill.   Associated Press.  26 April 2014.    The New York Times.  "Atari Parts Are Dumped."    28 September 1983  (p. D4). In 2014 and 2015, two people associated with an anti-abortion organization called the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, posed as fetal researchers for a fake company called Biomax in order to gain entry to National Abortion Federation conventions. The pair's goal was to gather evidence that Planned Parenthood, and other abortion providers, were selling tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. (Although it is unlawful to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration, it is legal for patients to donate extracted material for medical research, and for providers to receive reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue as part of the donation process.) The CMP subsequently posted videos online which they claimed documented Planned Parenthood officials offering to illegally sell fetal tissue for profit, while Planned Parenthood maintained the videos were deceptively edited and captured only discussion related to legal reimbursements for tissue donation procedures. videos sell fetal tissue A text meme circulated during the 2020 presidential campaign held that California Attorney General Kamala Harris (who by 2020 was a U.S. senator and a Democratic vice presidential candidate) had unfairly prosecuted the CMP "journalists," while taking no action against Planned Parenthood for "selling aborted baby parts":   That meme was both inaccurate and misleading. It is true that no charges were brought against Planned Parenthood in California  for the sound reason that Planned Parenthood was investigated by multiple states  but none of them found sufficient evidence to support a prosecution over claims that the organization had unlawfully sold (or offered to sell) human fetal tissue. As NPR reported, by the end of 2015, 12 different states had opened investigations into allegations that Planned Parenthood was "selling body parts," and none of them turned up evidence of wrongdoing by that organization. (Another eight states, including California, decided not to pursue similar investigations.) reported On the other hand, after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked the district attorney in Harris County to open a criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood in 2015, a grand jury there took no action against Planned Parenthood, but did find sufficient evidence to indict Daleiden and Merritt on felony charges (which were later dropped) of tampering with government records over their use of fake identification. indict In late 2019, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood in a civil lawsuit filed by that organization, rejecting arguments that Daleiden and Merritt were simply acting as investigative journalists, and ordering Daleiden, the Center for Medical Progress, and others, to pay Planned Parenthood $2.3 million in damages for violating federal and state laws by trespassing on private property and secretly recording video of others without their consent. lawsuit In March 2017, Daleiden and Merritt were charged in California with 15 counts of violating state invasion of privacy laws that prohibit the recording of conversations without consent. A Superior Court judge dismissed some of those criminal charges, but another count was subsequently added in July, and several criminal counts remain current as of September 2020. added remain current Although then-Attorney General Harris was involved with the initial investigation of Daleiden and Merritt, she had left that office to take her seat in the U.S. Senate two months before charges were first brought against the pair by her successor, Xavier Becerra. Kurtzleben, Danielle.  "Planned Parenthood Investigations Find No Fetal Tissue Sales."
  NPR.  28 January 2016. The [Davis] Vanguard.  "Criminal Case against Anti-Abortion Activists David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt to Move Forward."
  31 July 2020. Egelko, Bob.  "Case To Go Forward Against Two Antiabortion Activists Who Recorded Conversations."
  San Francisco Chronicle.  29 July 2020. Egelko, Bob.  "California Files More Charges Against Antiabortion Activists."
  SFGate.  7 July 2017. Fernandez, Manny,  "Last Charges Dropped Against Abortion Foes in Making of Planned Parenthood Video."
  The New York Times.  26 July 2016. Williams, Juliet.  "Planned Parenthood Awarded $2.3 Million for Secret Videos."
  Associated Press.  15 November 2019.