Did Debby Ryan Have a Heart Attack?
On July 6, 2019, fans of actor Cameron Boyce were shocked and saddened to learn that the 20-year-old Disney star had passed away after experiencing a seizure. As celebrities and fans mourned the loss of Boyce on social media, a rumor began to circulate that actress Debby Ryan had suffered a heart attack after hearing the news about her former co-star's death: passed away   There was no truth to this unfounded rumor, which was widely disseminated by a viral video posted to YouTube by @Dancetayley and titled "Debby Ryan Rushed to Hospital After Finding Out About Cameron Boyce." The video, which racked up nearly 2 million views within a day of its initial posting, included a number of screenshots of tweets from random people who claimed that Ryan had suffered a heart attack: YouTube   None of those tweets originated with verified sources, however, and no credible news outlets reported that Ryan experienced a heart attack. This rumor likely stemmed from the fact that Ryan's voice was absent from the conversation immediately following Boyce's death. While many other co-stars and celebrity friends posted messages to social media mourning the loss of Boyce after the news of his death broke, Ryan's social media accounts were largely silent. Fans began to wonder why she hadn't commented yet, and some of them started to claim without evidence that she had suffered a heart attack. messages There were, of course, innumerable potential reasons why Ryan didn't immediately post to social media that did not involve a heart attack. For example, she might simply have taken some time to process the news that her co-star had passed away. While Ryan didn't immediately post to social media, she did like a tweet posted by actor Charles Esten, who co-starred with Ryan and Boyce on the show Jessie: tweet   Ryan, who turned off her Instagram comments following Boyce's death (likely because a large number of fans were continuously reminding her that her friend had just died), also posted a video to her Instagram story of Boyces acceptance speech for the Pioneering Spirit award at the 2018 Thirst Gala. Instagram comments posted Instagram story Here's the full video of Boyce's acceptance speech. The portion of his speech included in Ryan's post is transcribed below:  Its crazy, we can tweet whenever we want and we can use social media and Instagram and make the world a better place, instead of a worse one, which so many people use it for... We need to use what we have and make the world a better place for other people, other people, people who need us. BBC News.  "Cameron Boyce: Disney Descendants Star Dies Age 20."
  8 July 2019. McBride, Jessica.  "Debby Ryan Shuts Off Instagram Comments After Cameron Boyces Death."
  Heavy.  8 July 2019 Sager, Jessica.  "Adam Sandler, More Co-Stars Mourn Death of Cameron Boyce."
  Fox News.  7 July 2019
Legend:  A wife returns home from shopping and spots a pair of legs sticking out from under the car in their driveway.  Thinking that her husband is working on the car again, she playfully bends down and pulls down his pants zipper before cheerfully strolling into the house.  As she walks through living room, she spots her husband sitting in a chair watching TV.  Startled, she asks her husband who is under the car; when her husband informs her that it's his mechanic, she faints. Examples:  [Collected by Brunvand, 1969] The lady came home from the grocery store, and she saw her husband working under the car.  All that was exposed were his legs, so in passing she reached down, unzipped his zipper, chuckled to herself, and went into the house.  Immediately she saw her husband sitting in the easy chair reading the newspaper.  She cried, "Who is THAT under the car?" and her husband replied, "My mechanic."  She told her husband what she'd done, and they went outside to find the mechanic lying unconscious, in a pool of blood, because when the lady unzipped his pants he was so startled he sat up and clobbered his head under the car.  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Be   careful what you wear (or don't wear) when working under your vehicle especially in public. From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, comes this story of a central west couple who drove their car to K-Mart only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car there in the lot. The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand up his shorts and tucked everything back into place. On regaining her feet, she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by. The mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his head.  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] From the Northwest Floida Daily News comes this story of a Crestview couple who drove their car to Wal-Mart, only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car in the lot. The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection, she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand up his shorts, and tucked every thing back into place. When she got back on her feet, she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by. The mechanic, however, had to be treated by the paramedics and received three stitches in his forehead. Variations:  Some versions of the legend feature a plumber working under a sink in place of the auto mechanic under the car.  When the wife unzips the plumber's pants, he sits up and hits his head on the pipes, knocking himself cold. Origins:  Some readers recall having heard this legend as far back as the late 1950s,  a variation on a common theme of a wife's playful licentiousness resulting in her great embarrassment. Unlike other versions, however, there is no suggestion of moral censure in this telling of the legend: the ubiquitous fondled minister has been replaced by an auto mechanic, and the wife suffers no painful humiliation.  In fact, the only one who comes to any harm is the innocent and unwitting mechanic who ends up with a bump on his head. fondled minister An early sighting of the legend features the "dropped stretcher" motif which appears in other urban legends, notably the Hind-Lick Maneuver (dog cold-noses naked man working under sink), Blew Moon (wife spritzs hairspray into toilet in attempt to kill bug; husband who aftewards lights cigarette while on throne blows himself up), and Frame Job (lady becomes stuck to freshly painted toilet seat).  Hind-Lick Maneuver Blew Moon Frame Job [Linkletter, 1967] A lady who had been after her husband for months to install a garbage disposal under the kitchen sink finally trapped him one Saturday afternoon, and he glumly got to work with his wrenches. Not wishing to listen to his colorful vocabulary as he banged his thumbs, she went out shopping. While downtown she ran into some girl friends and had a few cocktails, so she was feeling very friendly when she returned home. There was good old George still under the sink, working away, legs sticking out into the kitchen. So she bent down, reached under, and gave him a rudely familiar tweak. "Hi, honey," she said. There was a howl of surprise from under the sink as the man raised up and smacked his forehead against the disposal. It was the plumber! Her husband had given up on the job. The plumber crawled out, his forehead all bloody, and the wife ran to the phone for an ambulance. The husband helped the attendant load the poor plumber onto a stretcher. "How'd it happen?" asked the attendant as they were carrying the man out. When the husband told him, the attendant began laughing so hard he let go of the stretcher  and the plumber plunged to the sidewalk, breaking his arm. Imagine explaining that one to the insurance company. Last updated:  21 February 2009    Sources:  Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good To Be .  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.   ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 140-141).  Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Vanishing Hitchhiker.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.  ISBN 0-393-95169-3  (pp. 147-148).   Bryson, Bill.  The Blook of Bunders (Bizarre World).   Great Britain: Sphere Books Ltd., 1982.  Dale, Rodney.  The Tumour in the Whale.   London: Duckworth, 1978.  ISBN 0-7156-1314-6  (pp. 37-38, 129).  Linkletter, Art.  Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967  (pp. 66-67). Too Good To Be    Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Vanishing Hitchhiker.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.  ISBN 0-393-95169-3  (pp. 147-148). The Vanishing Hitchhiker    Bryson, Bill.  The Blook of Bunders (Bizarre World).   Great Britain: Sphere Books Ltd., 1982.   Dale, Rodney.  The Tumour in the Whale.   London: Duckworth, 1978.  ISBN 0-7156-1314-6  (pp. 37-38, 129). The Tumour in the Whale   Linkletter, Art.  Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967  (pp. 66-67).   Also told in:   Holt, David and Bill Mooney.  Spiders in the Hairdo.  Little Rock: August House, 1999.  ISBN 0-87483-525-9  (p. 43). Spiders in the Hairdo   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 123). The Big Book of Urban Legends This appeal to help a child with cancer is merely yet another reiteration of a long-running class of hoax (often built around like farming), one which lures the gullible into spreading such messages by promising that some entity (such as Facebook) will donate money towards the medical treatment of a child with cancer (or some other disease) every time the message is forwarded, posted, liked, or shared. Multiple charities and companies have been unfairly dragged into such hoaxes over the years by being named in messages like these, causing them to have to spend considerable time and effort disclaiming them. hoax like farming The child whose photograph was appropriated for this hoax is not displaying visible symptoms of cancer.He's identified on multiple other online sites as a boy experiencing a reaction to the MMR vaccine and/or a case of rubella. identified reaction MMR vaccine rubella  Others versions of this hoax positing that Facebook will donate money every time such an item is liked or shared have circulated using a variety of different (unrelated) pictures: this child's got a cancer. facebook is ready to pay 3 cent for every share. we don't know is it true or not, but let's everybody share. maybe it's true and then...  >SHARE< for this baby PLEASE SHARE, THANKS! By: 999,999,999 people  She's suffering form cancer! Facebook has promisedto give $1.20 Dollars on each share! Please, share and make it.  On theaccount of:  Imran Khan  He is terribly sick :(What if this was your baby?  Would you care at all?Facebook will donate $1 for every share   This child has lost his 4 limbs in a school bus accident.Facebook will pay 1$ for every share..... "      Cook, Morgan.  "Mother Works to Stop Exploitation of Child for Online Hoax."
   North County Times.  9 February 2012. One of Donald Trumps signature issues in his 2016 presidential bid has been stopping the outflow of American jobs to other countries. During avisitto Delaware, Ohio, heciteda recent example of a major American company moving some of its work out of the United States. Companies like Carrier are firing their workers and moving to Mexico, Trump said. Ford is moving all of their small-car production to Mexico. When I'm president, if a company wants to fire their workers and leave for Mexico or other countries, then we will charge them a 35 percent tax when they want to ship their products back into the United States. Is it really true that Ford is moving all of their small car production to Mexico? Well take a closer look. On Sept. 14, 2016, Ford CEO Mark Fields announced at an event with Wall Street analysts that we will have migrated all of our small-car production to Mexico and out of the United States over the next two to three years, according toReuters. Ford had already announced that it would be investing $1.6 billion in Mexico for small-car production starting in 2018. During contract talks in 2015, Ford confirmed that it would move Focus and C-Max production out of its Wayne, Mich., plant in 2018. The United Auto Workers Union said at the time that Ford planned to build the next Focus in Mexico, Reuters reported. The Focus and the C-Max are considered small cars. The company cited declining interest among U.S. consumers for smaller cars and growing sales for bigger vehicles in an era of low gasoline prices. It also cited Mexican labor costs that are about 40 percent lower than than in the United States. That's what it takes to compete in that (small car) segment, Fields toldCNN. So Trump is right that the company is moving all small-car production in North America to Mexico. However, he overlooked a salient point -- that both the company and the United Auto Workers do not expect any jobs to be lost at the Wayne plant. Instead of building small cars, the Wayne facility will transition into producing SUVs and pickup trucks that are more popular in the United States. Our U.S. workforce at that plant will be making those new vehicles, said Ford spokeswoman Christin Tinsworth Baker. In the past five years, Ford has invested $12 billion in U.S. plants and created nearly 28,000 U.S. jobs, Baker said. In all, the company has 85,000 U.S. employees. In a September interview with Fox News, Trump mischaracterized the changes at Ford, saying the company planned to fire all their employees in the United States and  move to Mexico. The company aggressively countered that allegation. In an interview withCNN, Fields was asked whether the company would cut any U.S. jobs as part of the relocation of work to Mexico. He said, Absolutely not. Zero. Not one job will be lost. Most of our investment is here in the U.S. And that's the way it will continue to be. In his speech in Ohio, however, Trump stuck closer to the facts. Our ruling Trump said that Ford is moving all of their small-car production to Mexico. Thats correct as far as it goes, but framing it that way ignores an important qualifier -- that no U.S. jobs will be lost in the transition. The company says that workers at the Ford plant in question will instead make SUVs and pickups. We rate the statement Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/0f5ed3db-289b-4d1c-a1d6-4c03ac61e82e South Floridas housing market spans the gamut of tony gated oceanfront mansions for millionaires and some downtrodden neighborhoods. Thats not unusual for a major urban area. But is it worse in South Florida than elsewhere in the nation? Habitat for Humanity painted a stark picture about the cost of housing in South Florida in a press release announcing that President Donald Trumps Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, retiredDr. Ben Carson, will visit the site of a futureaffordable housing developmentin Broward County on March 24. Studies indicate that while Broward County is the most cost-burdened housing market in the nation, South Florida ranks No. 1 in the gap between wages and housing, said the affordable home-building organization that partners with volunteers. We will focus on whether South Florida ranks No. 1 in the gap between wages and housing. The phrasecost-burdenedrefers to households that spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. People who spend more than 50 percent are considered severely cost-burdened. South Florida housing market Habitat for Humanity cited a few different reports about the lack of affordable housing in South Florida. A keyreportincluded information from the Center for Neighborhood Technology along with the Center for Housing Policy, a division of the National Housing Conference. The 2012 report outlined the struggle for moderate-income families to afford housing in the 25 largest metro areas. Researchers examined data between 2006-10 from the American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The report found that housing and transportation costs rose faster than income nationally, although the disparity was greater in some metro areas than others.And South Florida topped that list. In the Miami metro area, 40 percent of income for a moderate-income household was spent on housing, more than any other metro area in the study. (TheMiami metropolitan statistical areawas defined by the federal government at the time as stretching from Miami-Dade County, through Broward and north up to West Palm Beach.) It was followed by the Riverside, Calif., metro area and the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area. More recent research shows that the Miami metro area continues to lag behind in affordable housing, said Janet Viveiros, acting director of research at the National Housing Conference. Low- and moderate-income households, even those who are working, still face serious challenges in accessing affordable homeownership or renting in the Miami metro area, she said. The organizations Housing Landscape report based on data from 2011-2014 found that 35.8 percent of low- and moderate-income working households in the Miami area spent more than half their income on housing. That was only exceeded -- slightly -- by the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., area, which had 36.4 percent of those households spending that much on housing. (This report covered the 50 largest metro areas.) Astudyby the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies in 2015 foundMiamihad the largest share of cost-burdened renters of any major metro in the country. AnNYU Furman Center/CapitalOnereport in 2016 reached a similar conclusion. While metro areas with higher rents also had higher incomes, Miami pops out as a troubling exceptiona high-cost city without high incomes. Anne Ray, a researcher at the University of Floridas Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, said that data continues to show that Miami housing costs are unattainable for low-income people. Rent is very high and the median income is much lower, particularly in Miami-Dade, than other expensive markets, Ray said. Our ruling Habitat for Humanity says, South Florida ranks No. 1 in the gap between wages and housing. Studies have repeatedly shown that South Florida tops the list in the gap between wages and housing. Although there are other metro areas with similarly expensive housing, wages lag behind in South Florida. We rate this claim True. President Donald Trump's controversial executive order on 28 January 2017 restricts immigration into the U.S. from seven countries with predominantly Muslim populations. However, memes and stories quickly appeared to point out that this stay does not include nations where he has business interests. The order suspends entry into the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days. But critics have argued that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were not included, even though a report from the Cato Institute showed that the three countries were the point of origin for people responsible for 94.1 percent of American deaths due to terrorist attacks in the U.S. Eighteen of the 19 people responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks also hailed from those three countries. order report Prior to his inauguration, Trump said in January 2017 said that he would not divest himself of ownership of his business holding, but instead turn over management duties to his two sons. Trump's executive branch financial disclosure form, which he submitted to the Federal Elections Commission in 2015, lists LLCs based in Dubai, the U.A.E's largest city: said disclosure form,           Dubai is also the site of a Trump-owned golf course slated for completion in 2017. However, it is not immediately clear whether the sites of Trump's business holdings have anything to do with the countries affected by his executive order. completion Trump is also currently licensing his name for use on two luxury towers in Istanbul, Turkey. The disclosure form stated an income between $1 million and $5 million from that agreement: licensing   The president mentioned the towers in a December 2015 interview with Breitbart News chair Stephen Bannon, who would go on to become Trump's chief advisor. Trump said at the time: interview I have a little conflict of interest 'cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul. It's a tremendously successful job. It's called Trump Towerstwo towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it's two.. In January 2017, the State Department issued a travel warning for Turkey, citing "increased threats from terrorist groups." Trump's FEC filing also included holdings in Azerbaijan, Egypt, and Indonesia. issued Nowrasteh, Alex. "Guide to Trumps Executive Order to Limit Migration for 'National Security' Reasons." The Cato Institute. 26 January 2017. Sullivan, Andy et al. "Trump says won't divest from his business while president." Reuters. 11 January 2017. Riehl, Dan. "Trump blasts Obama while warning of World War III." Breitbart.com. 1 December 2015. U.S. Department of State. "Turkey Travel Warning." travel.state.gov. 25 January 2017. Amid discussions of statehood for Washington, D.C., in late April 2021, a meme spread on social media positing that the Dakota territory was split into the states now known as North and South Dakota in the late 1800s for the purpose of giving the Republican Party more political power, namely more senators and electors. One example is a meme from U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.:   The meme read, "Congress split the Dakota territory in half in 1889 to admit two new states with 4 Republican senators. So spare us the fake outrage over DC statehood." The text was taken from a tweet posted by journalist Ari Berman on April 22. tweet The meme generally responds to congressional Republicans who have stated that allowing D.C., a heavily Democratic region, to become a state will shift the balance of political power in Congress. Noting the racial demographics of D.C. versus other states, some Democrats have accused Republicans of stonewalling D.C. statehood because of racism. stated racial demographics accused It also characterizes current Republican opposition to D.C. statehood as hypocritical, noting that the national Republican party has benefited historically from addition of new states with Republican populations. Writing for The Atlantic in 2019, Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote: The Atlantic The number of states in the union has been fixed at 50 for so long, few Americans realize that throughout most of our history, the addition of new states from time to time was a normal part of political life. New states were supposed to join the union when they reached a certain population, but in the late 19th century, population mattered a great deal less than partisanship. While McConnell is right to suspect that admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now would shift the balance in Congress toward the Democrats, the Republican Party has historically taken far more effective advantage of the addition of new states. In 1889 and 1890, Congress added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyomingthe largest admission of states since the original 13. This addition of 12 new senators and 18 new electors to the Electoral College was a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority. The strategy paid dividends deep into the future; indeed, the admission of so many rural states back then helps to explain GOP control of the Senate today, 130 years later. Like most things viewed through the lens of history, the reasons North and South Dakota exist as two separate states are complicated by changing context. Business interests, local efforts, and national political wrangling all played a role, but without a doubt, adding North and South Dakota to the growing union of states had the effect of benefiting the national Republican party politically, and they didn't hide that motivation. But comparing the statehood process for North and South Dakota to current advocation for Washington, D.C. statehood is comparing apples to oranges, said Michael Card, associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota.  That period in American history was drastically different to the current circumstances in many ways  namely, at that time, a large number of states were in the process of being added into the Union. One of the major factors in deciding statehood was population counts of non-indigenous American settlers. That figure was set at 60,000 in 1787. set at 60,000 Another contextual difference was that the nature of the political parties have evolved over time, meaning the Republicans and Democrats of today are not representative of the parties with those names from the late 19th century in many ways. Many of the non-indigenous settlers in the southern part of what was then Dakota territory were Union veterans of the Civil War and their families, who were Republicans. Many likely moved far away from the battlefields in the American South in an effort to get away from traumatic memories, Card noted. Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants tended to settle in the north. As USA Today pointed out, "the Republican Party was much more concerned with protecting African Americans and their voting rights from its founding through the early 20th century. In the mid-20th century, both parties' stances on racial equity began to switch." That switch came after Democratic legislators passed voting and civil rights legislation i the 1960s. pointed out Another important point of context the population counts in North and South Dakota justified statehood and that Democrats, who were at that time were in control of national government and aware of the territory's Republican leanings, had slowed the statehood process, in hopes of gaining a political toehold in the region. slowed the statehood But they couldn't stall forever. According to historian Elwyn B. Robinson in the book "History of North Dakota," there were 190,983 inhabitants in North Dakota in 1890, while there were 348,600 in South Dakota. And in the end, it was Democrats in Congress and Democratic U.S. President Grover Cleveland who relented, signing legislation granting statehood to North and South Dakota, along with Montana and Washington. In "History of North Dakota," Robinson noted that local advocacy also came into play when it came to the creation of the two states. At the local level, there was an internal push for statehood from a small group of influential men who were unhappy with the outside control that came with Dakota being a territory, and who wanted political equality of status.  History of North Dakota Statehood was a quiet revolution, accomplished by less than two hundred men. The first leaders were Yankton politicians, but all came from southern Dakota and all were Republicans. With few exceptions, they were conservative, middle-class business and professional menbankers, lawyers, ministers, railroad employees, and newspaper editors. They were of the older American stock and came from New England, New York, or the states of the Old Northwest. They were Republicans because Dakota was a one-party regiona result of the long years of territorial status when the Republican party had control of the United States government. The idea of splitting the northern region off from the southern one started with this group, but not because of political power in Washington, D.C., Robinson wrote: "From the beginning the Yankton leaders, a small oligarchy with much influence, planned for the division of the territory at the forty-sixth parallel. Division seemed natural. The railroads ran east and west, so that southern and northern Dakota had little contact with each other." When Robinson described the decision to ultimately split the territory into two when admitting it into the Union though, he noted that it was pushed hard by the Republican Indiana senator who would become the 23rd U.S. president, Benjamin Harrison: Finally, the program of division, with southern Dakota becoming a state and northern Dakota a territory, was dropped in favor of a bill to admit two states. Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana pushed it hard and the large population of Dakota (in 1890, North Dakota alone had 190,983 inhabitants and South Dakota 348,600) made further denial seem unjust and irresponsible. In the presidential campaign of 1888 the Republican platform called for admission of two states. Ordway and the Dakota Democrats finally dropped their single-state bill. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Omnibus Bill of February 22, 1889, authorizing the framing of constitutions in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. When the bill finally passed the House of Representatives, some of the members threw books and papers into the air in celebration and there was a general handshaking of congratulation. A step toward equality of status had been taken. Updated rating to "Mixture" and added additional context. In an advertisement urging lawmakers to fund public education, the Texas Association of School Boards bullets a half dozen claims about the states public schools ranging from current student enrollment to a reminder that legislators cut education aid in 2011.One claim in the ad, whichappears onlineand also filled a page in the April 24, 2013,Austin American-Statesman, was especially familiar--and flawed.Now Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states, the ad said when we looked.A few days earlier, werated as Mostly Truea similar claim by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who like the school boards group depended on preliminary spending estimates calculated by the National Education Association, the nations largest teachers union. In February 2012, the association said that Texas schools are spending $8,400 per student this year on items such as salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and energy. Its breakdown suggests Texas per-student expenditures trailed such spending in every state but two.Those calculations place Texas 48th among the states in per-student spending.And how might someone conclude, like the school boards association, that Texas ranks 49th? The compiled figures, shown on Summary Table K in the associations report, downloadablehere, reflect spending within each state plus schools in the District of Columbia, which has current estimated expenditures of more than $14,000 per student. Consequently, the Texas spending level falls 49th among the 50 states plus D.C. By phone, Catherine Clark, associate executive director of the school boards association, confirmed that the group relied on the NEA calculations in declaring Texas as 49th in education spending among the states. If spending in the D.C. schools figures into that conclusion, Clark said, then were wrong.Our rulingThe group said Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states.Texas ranks 48th among the states, according to preliminary figures, and 49th only if one also considers spending in the schools in Washington, D.C., which is not a state.This claim is close to accurate, but without the D.C. clarification, it rates as Mostly True. Rep. Dave Brat says the U.S. economy is stuck in the doldrums. The labor force participation rate - the share of the potential workforce that is actually working or looking for work - currently stands below 63%, the lowest level since the 1970s, Brat, R-7th, said in a May 24 Facebookpost. No doubt, the economy has had a choppy recovery from the Great Recession. But we wondered if its true that the percentage of potential workers who are employed or trying to find a job is at the lowest level in 40 years. Ivan Schwartz, spokesman for Brats re-election campaign, backed his statement by pointing to monthlytalliesby the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. They show that in April, the latest month for which figures were available when Brat made his comment, 62.8 percent of people who were 16 or older either were employed or actively seeking work. We should start by noting that 62.8 percent was not the lowest proportion of people in the labor force during the past several decades. The bottom came in September 2015, when the rate was 62.4 percent. Youd have to go back to October 1977 to find a time when the rate sank to that level. Still, Brat has a point in that the share of potential workers has been hovering near its lowest point in several decades. From the late 1970s up until the Great Recession, the percentage of people in the labor force for the most part was on the upswing. But in 2007, the year the recession started, the proportion of people in the labor force started to fall from 66.3 percent and continued that decline after the official end of the recession in June 2009. The drop continued until the September 2015 low point. Daniel Culbertson, an economist at the Indeed.com hiring website, told us that the economic downturn and simple demographics are the commonly cited cause of the drop in the percentage of people who are in the labor force. Those that cite a deteriorating economy believe more workers are becoming discouraged and leaving the labor force altogether due to lack of opportunity, low wages, etc., Culbertson wrote in an email. Others opine that the majority of the decline can be explained by aging baby boomers leaving the labor force as they begin to retire en masse. How much of the LFPR (labor force participation rate) decline is attributable to each is a common topic of debate among economists. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, attributes at least half of the drop to baby boomer retirements. That would have happened even if the recession never had occurred and the economy kept growing at the pace it had been in 2007, Burtless told us in an interview. Other factors are at play, Burtless said. Younger people who could enter the workforce are staying in college longer, he said. Some of the dropoff, particularly among potential workers ages 25 to 54 not in the labor force, remains a mystery, Burtless said. As we noted above, theres been a bit of an uptick in the percentage of people who are in the workforce since last September - but not much. It rose from 62.4 percent to 63 percent in March. But then it fell to 62.6 percent in May - a figure that was not available when Brat made his statement. Even so, its still up a bit from the September 2015 low point. A final note, our colleagues at PolitiFact National have examined a similarclaimthat Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas hasmadeover the years that the percentage of people working is at its lowest level since the 1970s, a statement Cruz has made to argue that Obama shares blame for the trend. PolitiFact has rated the statement Mostly True, saying the trend is real, but at least some of the drop is due to demographics beyond the presidents control. Brat, in his post, did not assign political blame for the drop. He predicted, however, that the situation will get worse if people  buy into solutions being offered by Democrats. Our ruling Brat said the labor force participation rate currently stands below 63%, the lowest level since the 1970s. His percentage is right, and the congressman is correct that the rate of potential workers in the labor force has been hovering near a four-decade low since the start of 2014. Our one minor quibble is that the actual low point occurred in September 2015, when the labor participation rate fell to 62.4 percent. Its been slightly higher this year. Still, we rate Brats statement True. A tax on feminine hygiene products (also known as a "tampon tax")was notnew by the time social media interest in the topic appeared inMay 2016, but ascreenshot published by the page "Women's Rights News" contributed the buzz: screenshot    The image originated with a 15 January 2016 interview between YouTube personality Ingrid Nilsen and President Barack Obama. The "I don't know anyone who has a period who thinks it's a luxury" comment was made by Nilsen, not the President: interview   The topic was already steadily popular.NYMag.compublished an article on 29 April 2016thatexplored social media interest in the tampon tax: article Pads and tampons have made political headlines in every single month of this year. In January, lawmakers in California, Utah, Virginia, and Michigan introduced anti-tampon-tax bills. They were mostly sponsored by women (shout out to Delegate Mark Keam in Virginia, though!). Notably, in each of those states, except California, the mostly Democratic sponsors are vastly outnumbered in their Republican-heavy legislatures. Also in January, the tampon tax made headlines when Obama learned about it while the camera was rolling, and declared he thought the tax was unfair. Then, in February, similar bills were introduced in Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York. In March, the city of Chicago dropped its tampon tax, and a class-action lawsuit brought by women in Ohio and New York state added pressure to stop taxing periods. In April, the New York Senate unanimously passed the tampon tax bill. This is an astounding amount of national legislative momentum for an issue that was long considered to be womens private, shameful burden. Its no coincidence that efforts to end the tampon tax have cropped up alongside viral art projects, new businesses, and digital campaigns to destigmatize menstruation. The tampon tax is the perfect of-the-moment issue for lawmakers who want to signal their support for women  and take a stance on inequality. Ending the tax, which promises practical benefits for low-income women, is low-hanging fruit for legislators in liberal states. A widely circulated June 2015 map created byFusion illustrated the tampon tax with color coding. Most statestaxed feminine hygiene products, excepta few that had either specific exemptions orno sales tax at all: map   Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland specifically did not tax[PDF] feminine hygiene products. Alaska, Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware do not have sales tax on any items (including tampons). The rest ofthe states maintained atax on such products.One outlier was the state of New York, which moved in April 2016 to abolish the tax: tax moved The Republican-led Senate on Monday unanimously passed a bill exempting feminine hygiene products from sales tax, two months after the debate over the so-called tampon tax reached Albany. The bill, sponsored by freshman Sen. Sue Serino, a Republican from Hyde Park, passed with 58 votes. The vote on the Senate floor took about one minute, just enough time for at least one period joke. It is a way of providing some tax relief to women everywhere, young girls in particular, Sen. Diane Savino said, thanking the bill sponsor. But on behalf of women of a certain age everywhere, I would love to offer a friendly amendment and ask for a rebate program, Senator Serino. But I know it would probably bankrupt the state.   Lawmakers in Michigan expressed interest in advancing a similar initiative, and the city of Chicago (but not the state of Illinois) axed the tax. On 12 April 2016, MarketWatch reported somemomentum both in and outside the U.S. to end the additional charges: Michigan Chicago reported The issue has made it onto the agenda in about 10 states, seven of which introduced the legislation, including New York (though Utahs never made it out of committee) and three, South Carolina, Tennessee and Illinois, that recently debated it. It has also gone international, with France cutting the sales tax in late 2015 and the European Union taking a stance on the issue this year. In May 2016, the majority of the 40 states with a tampon tax retained it (although New York was on its way to tax-free status for feminine hygiene products). By and large, social media tampon tax claims were accurate. To be clear, tampons weren't taxed at a special or higher rate than other taxable items  they simply were subject to sales tax in general.  Coughlin, Sarah.  "Chicago Removes Its Tampon Tax & The State Of New York Is On Its Way To Doing The Same."
Refinery29.  13 April 2016. Court, Emma.  "New York Is The Latest State To Scrap Tampon Tax."
MarketWatch.  12 April 2016. Friedman, Ann.  "How Ending The Tampon Tax Became Viral Legislation."
NYMag The Cut.  29 April 2016. Hillin, Taryn.  "These Are The U.S. States That Tax Women For Having Periods."
Fusion.  3 June 2015. Larimer, Sarah.  "The 'Tampon tax,' Explained."
Washington Post.  8 January 2016. Miller, Faith.  "Why Two Senators Want To Get Rid Of Michigan's 'Tampon Tax.'"
WILX.  14 April 2016. Velasquez, Josefa.  "Senate Unanimously Passes Bill Eliminating 'Tampon Tax.'"
Politico New York.  11 April 2016. In August 2014, Facebook users begin seeing posts that featured what looked to be an image from a video of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan bloody and prone, with text indicating that "Hulk Hogan died after having a deadly head shot today as revenge": Is this true? R.I.P Hulk Hogan died after having a deadly head shot today as revenge  However, no matter how often this hoax is recirculated on social media, Hulk Hogan remains alive, and no such bloody video of him exists to be seen. As of 20 November 2017, Hogan was still well enough to be commenting on that day's destruction of the Georgia Dome: Georgia Dome The first time the Georgia Dome exploded was Hollywood Hogan vs @goldberg. Now they had to implode it. They should have just called me and Bill again brother. HH pic.twitter.com/A9n3hr18Jl @goldberg pic.twitter.com/A9n3hr18Jl  Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan) November 20, 2017 November 20, 2017  (The bloodied photo of Hulk Hogan actually came from a 2009 promotional 'incident' in Australia when Hogan was 'attacked' by fellow wrestler Ric Flair.)   incident Users who did click through on such links were taken to a faux Facebook page which eventually led them down the trail of the usual survey scam, directing them to "like" or "share" links with their Facebook friends and complete online surveys, all with the goal of getting them to enrich scammers by disclosing sensitive personal information, spreading malware, buying products, and signing up for costly, difficult-to-cancel services. survey scam