Turkey's Gaziantep Castle Partially Destroyed by Early 2023 Earthquake
A claim swept across the web following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syriaat4:17 a.m. local time onFeb. 6 that the natural disaster destroyed the ancient Gaziantep Castle. The castle is in the Turkish city of the same name. The quake was centered "about 20 miles from Gaziantep," NBC Newsreported via data from the U.S. Geological Survey. NBC News Around 24 hours after the earthquake struck, The Associated Press(AP) was already reporting more than 3,400 deaths, showing just how devastating the massive quake had truly been. The Associated Press In our research, we found that Gaziantep Castle had been at least partially destroyed. This story will present our findings. In the aftermath of the earthquake and its many aftershocks, Twitter user @ThomasVLinge posted a before-and-after comparison to show the damage to Gaziantep Castle.  Eight minutes later, another Twitter user posted the same two pictures with the caption, "2,200 years old Gazintap Castle destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now."  The pictures featured in both of these tweets were accurate. The second photograph of the damaged castle was available on the Getty Images website and showed a date of Feb. 6. Getty Images Similarly, CNN.com reported, "Ancient castle used by Romans and Byzantines destroyed in Turkey earthquake." Within the body of the story, it was reported that the castle had been "badly damaged." reported Videos appeared to show a glimpse at the extent of the damage.  Additionally, we located a helpful picture that showed an aerial view of the damage to the castle. This view appeared to indicate that the damage had been devastating, but also that it wasn't a complete and total loss.  The APreported that the castle had previously undergone multiple renovations, with the most recent one occurring in the early 2000s: reported In Turkey, the powerful quake destroyed a historic castle perched on top a hill in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. Parts of the Gaziantep Castle's walls and watch towers were levelled while other areas of the structure were damaged, images from the region showed. The castle was first used as a watch tower and was expanded into a castle during Roman times. It underwent renovation numerous times, the last time in the early 2000s. At press time, it was unclear what percentage of the damage was from renovations versus what was part of the original works, a subject that was being discussed online. discussed According to "Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future," the hill where the castle stood had a history that went backthousands of years. "Archaeological excavation showed that the site has been inhabited from Iron Age 650 B.C. till Chalcolite Age 5500 B.C.," authorsC.A. Brebbia and C. Clark wrote. "Traces of the castle were estimated to date [to the] Hittites. However, [the] main castle was first built in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. in the Roman era and further enlarged and strengthened in Byzantium era by Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 A.D." This story will be updated if further details come to light. Brebbia, C. A., and C. Clark.Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future. WIT Press, 2014. Google Books. https://books.google.com/. Guzel, Mehmet, et al. "Rescuers Scramble in Turkey, Syria after Quake Kills 3,400." The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc. Ihlas News Agency. "Gaziantep Kalesi Depremde Byk Hasar Grd." YouTube, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0bkC1VHafM. Khan, Aina J., and Mithil Aggarwal. "More than 3,000 Dead as Two Massive Earthquakes Rock Turkey and Syria." NBC News, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/78-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-central-turkey-rcna69251. "Live Updates | Thousands Dead after Turkey, Syria Earthquake." The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-19e7d84fefdeed4c8a355dedf23d914f. Marcus, Lilit. "Ancient Castle Used by Romans and Byzantines Destroyed in Turkey Earthquake." CNN, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gaziantep-castle-destroyed-turkey-earthquake/index.html. Parlak, Mehmet Akif and Anadolu Agency. "A View of Damaged Historical Gaziantep Castle after a 7.4 Magnitude..." Getty Images, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-damaged-historical-gaziantep-castle-after-a-7-4-news-photo/1246836963. @ThomasVLinge. "Thousands Are Feared Death after a 7,8 Earthquake Hit Southern #Turkey and Northern #Syria Last Night, Causing Many Buildings to Collapse. This Picture Shows the Historical Castle of #Gaziantep before and after the Quake." Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1622507842178633728. u/stepover7. "Gaziantep Castle Collapses after Magnitude 7.4 Quake Hit Trkiye." r/worldnews via Reddit.com, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10v07sz/gaziantep_castle_collapses_after_magnitude_74/. @xruiztru. "2,200 Years Old Gazintap Castle Destroyed by the Earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now." Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/xruiztru/status/1622509677945708548.
Claim:  Publix is giving away $100 grocery coupons to Facebook users.  Origins:  In July 2015, Facebook users began seeing posts advertising a "Get $100 in Free Groceries when you spend $120 or more" coupon offer for the Publix supermarket chain.  These posts were the latest iteration of the common "free coupon" or "free gift card" scams that frequently plague social media.  On 12 July 2015 Publix took to Facebook to warn customers that these coupon offers are not an authorized promotion and advise them not to visit sites promoting them: Facebook  There is a fraudulent Publix coupon circulating on social media that states "$100 off your purchase of $120 or more"....Posted by Publix on Sunday, July 12, 2015There is a fraudulent Publix coupon circulating on social media that states "$100 off your purchase of $120 or more". This is not supported by Publix and this coupon is not valid at any of our locations. We recommend not participating in the promotion or providing your personal information. Thank you for your patience as we investigate this situation.  This coupon is a form of survey scam that typically instructs shoppers to follow "three simple steps" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps are completed, however, users are not greeted with a coupon code. Instead, they were asked to fill out a brief survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users were also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their "free" gift cards.These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook, and if you frequently use that social network, there's a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau lists key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts:Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. There is a fraudulent Publix coupon circulating on social media that states "$100 off your purchase of $120 or more".... Posted by Publix on Sunday, July 12, 2015 Publix Sunday, July 12, 2015  There is a fraudulent Publix coupon circulating on social media that states "$100 off your purchase of $120 or more". This is not supported by Publix and this coupon is not valid at any of our locations. We recommend not participating in the promotion or providing your personal information. Thank you for your patience as we investigate this situation.   This coupon is a form of survey scam that typically instructs shoppers to follow "three simple steps" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps are completed, however, users are not greeted with a coupon code. Instead, they were asked to fill out a brief survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users were also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their "free" gift cards. These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook, and if you frequently use that social network, there's a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau lists key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender.  Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy.  When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information.  Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. On 26 July 2016, Michigan cherry farmer Marc Santucci shared a post on Facebook asserting that he was forced to destroy 14 percent of his tart cherry crop in order to protect the market for cherries imported from overseas: shared These cherries are beautiful! But, we have to dump 14% of our tart cherry crop on the ground to rot. Why? So we can allow the import of 200 million pounds of cherries from overseas! It just doesn't seem right. What do you think? Please share this on your Facebook page???. Just to let everyone know we are not allowed to donate or in any way use diverted cherries. I have people who would buy them if I could sell them. Also these are tart cherries with a very short shelf life  Santucci's post slowly circulated on the social network, attracting the attention of blogs and health-conscious social media users through September 2016. As presented, Santucci's tale sounded like an unbelievable level of bureaucratic interference with the farm industry and left readers wondering whether his report about having to destroy 40,000 pounds of edible cherries in order to "make room" for imported cherries (and was "not allowed to donate or in any way use diverted cherries") was accurate.  Online articles pinned blame for the cherry-chucking on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), citing a 29 July 2016 Detroit Free Press article about the social media controversy that referenced the federal Agricultural Agreement Act of 1937.  The Detroit Free Press article only briefly mentioned the USDA as a starting point for a very complex cherry charter, noting that cherries were originally not regulated under the Agricultural Agreement Act, but the cherry industry opted into its provisions in 1995.  pinned blame article regulated The act in question was introduced in 1937 due to tumultuous agricultural conditions that exacerbated the Great Depression and aimed to facilitate "orderly marketing conditions for agricultural commodities in interstate commerce" for the express purpose of stabilizing farmers' income. Cherry industry experts stressed that the 1995 extension of the regulation to include the tart cherry market was voluntary and had been desired by many cherry farmers: introduced At issue is a marketing order imposed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of the federal Agricultural Agreement Act of 1937. But that law only applies to the tart cherry industry because growers and processors opted into the order in 1995. "It was created at the industry's behest. It was voted in by growers and processors. It's not an imposition from outside," said Perry Hedin, executive director of the DeWitt-based Cherry Industry Administrative Board [CIAB], which oversees the marketing order not only in Michigan but in all states across the country that produce commercial crops of red tart cherries, including New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Tart cherries are one of the most volatile crops grown in the U.S., with yields that can vary dramatically year to year, Hedin said. "This whole concept of the marketing order has two goals: to inject a better stability into our markets and improve grower returns," he said. "The growers have been paid far better prices under the marketing order over the past 20 years than they were before the order was in place." A 29 July 2016 editorial published  in the Michigan Farm News also addressed what it framed as multiple misrepresentations in Santucci's viral post, starting with the reason cherry crops were thusly regulated. A horticulture specialist noted that the cherry farmers themselves (not the USDA) had sought market regulation after experiencing damaging price fluctuations: addressed In a classic example of what happens on social media when people form opinions based on emotion instead of fact, a Northwestern Michigan tart cherry grower's Facebook posting has gone viral, but with faulty information to back up the posting's claims ... The problem, however, said Kevin Robson, horticulture specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau, is that the information posted shows either shallow understanding of the federal marketing order or a deliberate attempt to change the order because of political disagreement. "It's also enforced by the growers themselves," he said. "It is for the betterment of the industry as a whole, and a great number of cherry growers have benefited, even those who voted against it." Administered by the Cherry Industry Administrative Board (CIAB), the order this year required tart cherry processors to keep 29 percent (the farmer's posting said he was ordered to dump only 14 percent) of the crop they handle off traditional markets (pies, sweetened desserts, etc.) in an attempt to stabilize both prices and supply, which in cherries has been notoriously volatile. "For example," Reposing said, "in 1988, when the entity was called the Cherry Administrative Board, growers voted to eliminate the marketing order. Prices began to follow a rollercoaster that led, within 10 years, to tart cherry prices that fell into single figures. Some growers went out of business." In response to prices that were below costs of production, tart cherry growers in seven states petitioned the USDA to put a new order and administrative board in place, and prices began to stabilize. Still, some growers, such as the one who posted the photo of a small pile of cherries, took exception to the order. Generally, the Agricultural Agreement Act ensures relatively stable income for tart cherry farmers in the face of a volatile market, with one of the drawbacks of that stability being that in boom crop years (as 2016 was), farmers may end up with a good deal of product they are precluded from selling on the open market.  However, although some outlets claim CIAB heavies visited farms to ensure every cherry lies unchomped, tart cherry farmers have options beyond leaving their surplus crop to "rot in the sun": visited farms Processors' options in times of surplus include holding the restricted cherries in surplus  frozen, dried or concentrated  for a later slow year. Farmers also can attempt to sell the surplus cherries in overseas markets or sell them domestically in a newly created market, either as a new product or by convincing a supermarket chain or other end user currently supplied by imported cherries to switch to U.S.-grown, he said. Hedin said Santucci could have worked with the [Cherry Industry Administrative] board to find a place to donate the surplus cherries, which typically aren't eaten raw like sweet cherries because of their very short shelf-life, but are instead used in products such as pie filling and jams. Likewise, the Michigan Farm News piece stated that: Another misstatement on the Facebook posting, [horticulture specialist Kevin] Robson said, is that growers are not allowed to donate or use the dumped cherries "in any way." "That's just not true," Robson said. "Farmers can use the cherries for research and development, and they could make thousands of cherry pies and donate them to charity if they want. Remember these are tart cherries. They need to be processed  and quickly  to make a viable product. They aren't sweets that you just eat by the handful." The Facebook posting wrongly puts the blame for cherry dumping on the marketing order, Robson said, when it is the processor who makes the decision to ask farmers to dump cherries. Santucci himself told Grand Rapids television station WXMI that the dumping of surplus cherries wasn't expressly mandatory, but their short shelf life makes it difficult to find alternative uses for them: told "I was just notified when we started shaking the trees that 14 percent would have to be kept off the market, so it didn't give me time to find any alternative action," he said, adding that tart cherries only have a two-day shelf life. It was true that Santucci's 2016 crop was (as with that of all other cherry growers) subject to a growers' agreement barring surplus cherries from the marketplace, and Santucci asserted he had insufficient time to properly divert his surplus cherries to other uses or markets. But the agreement under which the tart cherry market is regulated doesn't mandate surplus cherries be destroyed, nor does the protocol exist to protect foreign imports. Cherry growers in several states voluntarily opted in to a USDA marketing agreement (rather than being forcibly regulated) following a period of instability in the cherry industry, and agriculture experts widely agree the provision provides more protection than harm to cherry growers.  Jackson, Paul W.  "Social Media Post Botches Cherry Program Reality."
  Michigan Farm News.  29 July 2016. Matheny, Keith.  "Traverse City Farmer: Dumping Perfectly Good Cherries Is Rotten."
  Detroit Free Press.  29 July 2016. Pagan, Gabriella.  "Cherry Dumping Photo Goes Viral, Grower Calls for Change."
  WPBN.  27 July 2016. Shesky, Ty.  "Farmer Explains Why Cherries Were Left to Waste."
  WXMI.  29 July 2016. The hotly contested West Virginia primary for a U.S. Senate seat is now over. But it didnt take more than a few hours for the general election to start. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., appeared on West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kerchevals show, the morning after election night. In the general election, Manchin faces Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in what most observers see as a competitive race. Manchin portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative both as governor and in the Senate in hisinterviewwith Kercheval. He expressed concern about the rising federal debt, which exceeds $21 trillion in the broadest measurement. By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country, Manchin said. Is Manchin right? We found that hes at least certainly close. You may not realize this, but as a nonprofit news organization, we depend on  and answer to  you. Your support directly impacts our abilility to provide objective, factual reporting  on issues that matter.Donate now to our Spring Campaign and go on the record as saying facts matter! In 2017, the last year for which complete data is available, defense spending stood at $590 billion. Net interest on the debt stood at $263 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan budget analysis arm of Congress. So defense spending is currently more than twice as big as net interest. However, net interest is expected to grow faster than defense spending over the next decade. Thats according to CBOs most recentBudget and Economic Outlookreport, which projects a variety of budget categories 10 years into the future. (See Fig. 2.1here.) Between 2018 and 2028, CBO projects, both defense and interest will rise, with interest overtaking defense spending in fiscal year 2023. In 2023, defense spending will be $679 billion and net interest will reach $702 billion. The gap will only grow from there. So CBO has it one year later than Manchin said. That said, things could change between now and then  and CBOs assumptions are not the only way to make these projections. CBOs projections assume that defense spending will return to tighter levels in 2020, after the current spending bill expires, said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. However, Congress has regularly raised the spending limits since they were first imposed in 2011. And if Congress acts as it has in the past, that would change the calculations. However, CBO does not specify the amounts under this alternative assumption, so that scenario is too speculative to consider. Manchin said, By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country. The closest official estimate we could find says that net interest will pass defense spending in 2023, or one year later than Manchin said. But using a different set of unofficial assumptions, it could be different. We rate his statement Mostly True. President Barack Obama is expected to take another stab at raising the minimum wage when he delivers his State of the Union speech this week. But Republicans appear ready to stymie that proposal once again. The topic came up Jan. 26, 2014, onFox News Sundayduring a discussion between host Chris Wallace and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Isn't it reasonable that somebody who's working full time, 40 hours a week, should be able to live above the poverty line? Wallace asked McConnell, referring to Obamas calls to hike the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Yeah. But of course, the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people, McConnell replied. We have a crisis in employment among young people right now. McConnell went on to say that he believes raising the minimum wage will hurt employment and we ought to be doing things that create more jobs. But what about McConnells characterization of minimum wage workers? Is it a workforce mostly made up of young folks? Well stick to the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25, since thats the topic up for debate. As it stands,21 states and the District of Columbiahave set their minimum wage higher than the federal level. A spokesman for McConnell pointed us to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, Characterizations of Minimum Wage Workers, released in February of last year. Were familiar with it, having written a couple offact-checksrecentlyon the minimum wage. According to the report, of the 75 million people making hourly wages in 2012, about 1.6 million earned the minimum wage while another 2 million earned less than $7.25 an hour. (How does one earn less than the minimum wage? Certainexceptionsare carved out for vocational education students, full-time students employed by retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education, and those impaired by a physical or mental disability.) The underlying data in the report largely backs up McConnells claim. In fact, the report even says Minimum wage workers tend to be young. How young? Only 20 percent of individuals earning hourly wages are ages 16-24, but that demographic makes up half of all individuals earning at or below the minimum wage. About a quarter of those individuals are teenagers ages 16-19 and another 25 percent are 20 to 24 years old. Broadened to include 25-29 year olds, and nearly two-thirds of all workers making at or below the minimum wage are younger than 30. The older you get, the more likely youre making more than $7.25. But McConnell also described minimum wage jobs as entry-level. Thats a characterization with which some may take an issue. Entry-level jobs typically indicate positions that, while at the bottom of the totem pole, have potential for growth. Young adults take entry-level jobs at companies hoping to climb the career ladder. And while wages are lower, there is potential to see considerable salary increases and/or career advancement. A majority of minimum-wage jobs dont really fit that description. According to the report, two-thirds are part-time, and half of all minimum wage jobs are in the leisure or hospitality industry. This includes food service jobs like waiters and cooks, hotel employees or movie theater workers, among other jobs. While many of those jobs are traditionally held by young people, they dont typically lead to careers in those industries. The same can be said for retail jobs, which make up another 16 percent of all minimum wage-or-less positions. Our ruling McConnell said the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that indeed half of all workers making a minimum wage are 16 to 24, and another 20 percent are in their late 20s or early 30s. Thats a large chunk of the minimum wage workforce, though about 30 percent of people making the minimum wage are 35 and older. McConnell also goes a bit too far in calling these jobs entry-level. For most young people, these are part-time jobs in the food or retail businesses or similar industries with little hope for career advancement. We rate McConnells statement as Mostly True. Claim:  The "Cap and Trade energy bill" requires that all existing real estate must meet new energy standards before it can be sold.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] For those of you who have real estate for sale or rent, be advised that the Cap and Trade energy bill that passed Congress has the following provisions: Before any real estate, new or old, commercial or residential, can be sold or rented, the building must meet the new energy standards set forth in the Bill. These standards are about a general 35% increase in what is now required in building codes. It requires such things as requiring solar reflective roofs, double pane windows, energy efficient appliances and lighting, increased insulation, leak test, and on and on and on. In order to sell or rent any building, you will be required to have a certificate of efficiency issued by a federal building efficiency inspector (new division of the US Dept. of Energy). No certification, no sell or rent, simple as that.  [Collected via e-mail, August 2010] A License Required for your HOUSE? Thinking about selling your house.  Take a look at H.R. 2454 (Cap and Trade bill), that has passed the House of Representatives and being considered by the Senate. Home owners take note & tell your friends and relatives who are home owners! Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act. H.R. 2454, the "Cap & Trade" bill will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced. The Congressional Budget Office (supposedly non-partisan) estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded. A year from now you won't be able to sell your house. The caveat is, that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. But, if not, then forget it. Even pre-fabricated homes ("mobile homes") are included. In effect, this bill prevents you from selling your home without the permission of the EPA administrator. To get this permission,you will have to have the energy efficiency of your home measured. Cost $200 to start. Then the government will tell you what your new energy efficiency requirement is and you will be forced to make modifications to your home under the retrofit provisions of this Act to comply with the new energy and water efficiency requirements, which easily could cost over $50,000. Then you will have to get your home measured again and get a license (called a "label" in the Act) that must be posted on your property to show what your efficiency rating is; sort of like the Energy Star efficiency rating label on your refrigerator or air conditioner. If you don't get a high enough rating, you can't sell. And, the EPA administrator is authorized to raise the standards every year, even above the automatic energy efficiency increases built into the Act. The EPA administrator, appointed by the President, will run the Cap & Trade program  (AKA the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009") and is authorized to make any future changes to the regulations and standards he/she alone determines to be in the government's best interest. Requirements are set low initially so the bill will pass Congress; then the Administrator can set much tougher new standards every year.  The Act itself contains annual required increases in energy efficiency for private and commercial residences and buildings. However, the EPA administrator can set higher standards at any time. Sect. 202 Building Retrofit Program mandates a national retrofit program to increase the energy efficiency of all existing homes across America. The label will be like a license for your car. You will be required to post the label in a conspicuous location in your home and will not be allowed to sell your home without having this label. And, just like your car license, you will probably be required to get a new label every so often - maybe every year. The government estimates the cost of measuring the energy efficiency of your home should only cost about $200 each time. Remember what they said about the auto smog inspections when they first started: that in California it would only cost $15. That was when the program started. Now the cost is about $50 for the inspection and certificate; a 333% increase. Expect the same from the home labeling program. Origins:  HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the "cap-and-trade energy bill"), is a bill intended to "create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."  The bill was passed by the Houseof Representatives in June 2009, but it has not yet been voted upon by the Senate. HR 2454 The version of the bill passed by the House sets energy efficiency standards benchmarks that must be met by new buildings, both residential and  commercial, constructed after the bill takes effect (i.e., after the bill was passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law).  Contrary to what is claimed above, however, HR 2454 contains no provisions requiring that existing homes "must meet the new energy standards" before they can be re-sold.  Likewise, the bill includes no requirements that an existing residential property undergo an energy usage-related audit or inspection and be assigned a "certificate of efficiency issued by a federal building efficiency inspector" before it can be re-sold or rented. This misinformation about mandatory energy standard retrofits and licensing requirements has been promulgated primarily through a misunderstanding of Section 202 of HR 2454, which is headed "Building Retrofit Program" and calls for the establishment of "standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy."  However, those standards are specifically indicated as being part of the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) program, a program intended to establish state programs to provide cash incentives to property owners who voluntarily choose to make their buildings more energy efficient.   REEP The House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has jurisdiction over the implementation of cap-and-trade legislation, notes in their section-by-section explanation of HR 2454 that Section 202: explanation Establishes the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance program to provide allowances to states to conduct cost-effective building retrofits. Provides that states may use local governments or other agencies or entities to carry out the work and may use flexible forms of financial assistance providing up to 50% of the costs of retrofits, with funding increasing in proportion to efficiency achievement. Provides additional assistance for the retrofitting of historic buildings. Directs the Administrator of EPA to establish standards and guidelines for the program, in consultation with the Secretary of DOE. Allows federal funds provided to disaster victims to qualify as a building owner's contribution toward matching requirements. Requires states to offer preferential access to at least 10% of dedicated program funding to public and assisted housing. Nothing would require a homeowner to audit or retrofit their home to ensure that it meets building code requirements. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) also noted of that section of HR 2454:  NAR [HR 2454] does not require that buildings be retrofitted. Rather, it provides federal funding for states to offer financial incentives, such as loans or grants, for property owners to voluntarily decide to improve energy efficiency. In order to receive the funding, there are conditions on how states can spend the money, such as verification of energy improvements performed by private contractors, but that is only to ensure that taxpayer dollars are actually spent on the purpose for which it is intended (building efficiency improvements). There is no point-of-sale guideline or any other requirement of any sort in the House passed bill. Nowhere does this bill create a federal requirement that a property owner would have to retrofit a property to any guideline at any time  let alone at point of sale. The bill does stipulate federal guidelines to ensure that states spend and verify that bill funding goes to financial incentives for property owners to voluntarily make improvements. An entirely separate bill would have to be drafted, introduced, passed by committees and both houses of Congress, and signed by the President into law in order for the Federal government to go beyond [HR 2454's] financial incentives for voluntary energy improvements. Last updated:  7 September 2010 <!--    Ellen, Daryn.  "Guide to Tipping."   O, The Oprah Magazine.  December 2002. On 13 February 2019, NASA announced that the mission of a robotic rover named Opportunity had come to an end after the device had spent 15 years exploring the surface of Mars: announced One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA's Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA's return to the Red Planet. The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity, to no avail. The solar-powered rover's final communication was received June 10. As the online world mourned the loss of the famous Martian explorer, many social media users started sharing a quote that supposedly constituted Oppy's final transmission to NASA: "My battery is low and its getting dark."  This quote quickly made its way around the Internet, shared by celebrities, reporters, and social media influencers. Some people also created tributes to Opportunity that featured the rover's alleged final transmission: influencers   Although many individuals and news outlets cited these words as if they constituted a verbatim reproduction of Opportunity's final transmission, the phrase was not a literal reproduction of the robotic rover's last statement. news outlets The quote originated with a Twitter thread about Oppy's demise by posted by KPCC science reporter Jacob Margolis. At one point, Margolis said the rover's final transmission "basically" translated as "my battery is low and it's getting dark": thread basically   This quote quickly escaped the context of Margolis' Twitter thread, however, and started to circulate as if he were relaying a verbatim message from the Mars rover. On 16 February 2019, Margolis published an article on The LAist website explaining how his words came to be taken out of context: The LAist My tweet is an interpretation of what two scientists from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission told me. Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Fraeman spoke about what it was like when they realized the June [2018] dust storm was going to be particularly bad, and that Oppy's life was in danger. They told it to conserve energy. "It's hard, because you know [the storm's] coming ... but there's nothing you can do to stop it," Fraeman said. "By Thursday, we knew that it was bad. And then by Friday, we knew it was really bad, but there was nothing we could do but watch. And then it was Sunday, we actually got a communication from the rover and we were shocked," she said. "It basically said we had no power left, and that was the last time we heard from it." John Callas, the project manager, offered another poignant detail about the final communication with Oppy: "It also told us the skies were incredibly dark, to the point where no sunlight gets through. It's night time during the day." "We were hopeful that the rover could ride it out. That the rover would hunker down, and then when the storm cleared, the rover would charge back up," he said. "That didn't happen. At least it didn't tell us that it happened. So, we don't know." When NASA announced the completion of Opportunity's mission in February 2019, the Mars rover hadn't communicated with the space agency since the previous June. The solar-powered Opportunity was low on power when one of the largest dust storms observed on Mars engulfed the planet and, essentially, turned "day into night," as the Planetary Society wrote:  communicated Planetary Society On June 20th, NASA announced the storm had gone global. To be more accurate, it evolved into a planetary-encircling dust event (PEDE), lofting enough dust into the atmosphere to completely blanket the planet and block out the Sun. In other words, the Red Planet and most all its features were hidden from most orbiting instruments beneath an opaque, beige dust cloud. The atmospheric scientists taking measurements with instruments on the orbiters were soon blocked out. Oppy sent its final message from the surface of Mars on 10 June 2018: final message Opportunity downlinked what would turn out to be her final message from Mars on June 10, 2018. The bare bones contents of that missive informed her crew that a monster dust storm was lifting dust all around Endeavour Crater and was turning day into night there. Minutes later, the solar-powered robot field geologist presumably shut down and went into a kind of hibernation mode to wait out the storm. NASA attempted to communicate with Opportunity many times after the storm passed, but the rover never responded:  Margolis, Jacob.  "How a Tweet About The Mars Rover Dying Blew Up on the Internet and Made People Cry."
  The LAist.  16 February 2019. Rayl, A.J.S.  "The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Sleeps as Storm Chasers Study Planet-Encircling Dust Cloud."
  Planetary Society.  4 July 2018. Rayl, A.J.S.  "The Mars Exploration Rovers Update Special Report: NASA Declares Opportunity and MER Mission Complete."
  Planetary Society.  14 February 2019. NASA.  "NASA's Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End."
  13 February 2019. In January and February 2021, Snopes readers asked us to examine reports that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had invested as much as $1 million in the electric vehicle company Tesla, prompting concerns over a potential conflict of interest on her part. On Jan. 25, Business Insider published an article with the headline "Nancy Pelosi Has Plowed Up to $1 Million Into Bullish Bets on Tesla Stock." The article reported that: Business Insider "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has placed up to $1 million worth of bullish bets on Tesla stock, she revealed in a financial disclosure form last week. Pelosi bought 25 call options on Tesla stock with a strike price of $500 and an expiration date of March 18, 2022." Similar articles were published by the San Francisco Chronicle, Jalopnik, Benzinga, and Refinery29. Chronicle Jalopnik Benzinga Refinery29 On Facebook, users promoted a meme that claimed Pelosi had invested in Tesla on Jan. 24, 2021, just one day before President Joe Biden announced his intention to replace the federal government's fleet with electric vehicles  suggesting she had advance knowledge of Biden's plan and acted with that in mind. promoted meme announced   Pelosi did not personally invest in Tesla, so reports and social media posts to that effect were inaccurate in that respect. However, her husband Paul did, leaving open ethical considerations similar to those that would have arisen if the stock options had been purchased in her name. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture" as to the claim that the House Speaker invested up to $1 million in Tesla. The Facebook meme highlighted above was doubly inaccurate, because it falsely stated not only that Pelosi herself had conducted the Tesla transaction, but that it took place just one day before Biden made his electric vehicle announcement, and that the amount in question was $1.25 million. In fact, Paul Pelosi bought the Tesla options on Dec. 22, 2020  more than a month before Biden's announcement  and the amount in question was between $500,000 and $1 million. The details of Paul Pelosi's investments were contained in Speaker Pelosi's periodic transaction report, filed on Jan. 21, 2021. Under federal law and the Code of Federal Regulations, public officials (including members of Congress) are required to submit a report every time they, their spouse, or their dependent children conduct any "purchase, sale, or exchange of stocks, bonds, commodity futures, and other forms of securities," where the amount of the transaction is greater than $1,000. The official is required to file the report within 30 days of becoming aware of it. periodic transaction report federal law Code of Federal Regulations Officials are not required to report the exact amount of the investment or purchase, but rather they must specify a "valuation category," divided into various bands including $15,000 to $50,000; $250,000 to $500,000; $500,000 to $1 million; $5 million to $25 million, among others. Paul Pelosi's investment in Tesla amounted to somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, and was described as "25 call options with a strike price of $500 and an expiration date of 3/18/22." The "SP" under the "Owner" column makes it clear that the transaction was conducted not by the congresswoman herself, but by her spouse: described   The federal Office of Government Ethics describes a "call option" as follows: describes A call option is a contract that provides the buyer the right to purchase a security... The buyer has the right, but not the obligation, to exercise the option at a specified price (i.e., the strike price) until the contracts expiration date. Some put and call options may be purchased on the open market. As an alternative to exercising put and call options, investors can resell these options on the open market before their expiration. put The Jan. 21 transaction report states that Paul Pelosi also bought call options in Disney and Apple, and purchased shares in AllianceBernstein, an investment management firm. Concerns around Paul Pelosi's investment in Tesla are based on the fact that Speaker Pelosi is likely to play a prominent role in congressional negotiations over clean energy policy, in general, over the course of the Biden administration, and that, in particular, her family could stand to gain financially if Biden's plan to move the entire federal fleet to electric vehicles sees the value of Tesla stock appreciate significantly. Snopes asked a spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi for her response to such concerns over the potential appearance of a conflict of interest on her part. We also asked whether she or her husband were aware of Biden's intention to transition the federal fleet to electric vehicles at the time the investment was made, and whether Paul Pelosi now intended to sell his Tesla options, in light of the president's electric vehicle announcement, in order to minimize any appearance of a conflict of interest. We did not receive a response to those questions in time for publication, but we will update this story if we hear back. Typhoid Mary was a cook. Working at that job made her single-handedly responsible for multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever, in and around New York City, about a century ago.PolitiFact Ohio couldn't help recalling that bit of history recently after reading advice for the flu season from the Centers for Disease Control, which urged sick people to stay home from work and school to avoid the spread of illness.The history was freshened by last week's news that a college cafeteria worker in Indiana had been diagnosed with typhoid fever, and it came to mind when we saw a release from Sen. Sherrod Brown saying that he is co-sponsoring the Healthy Families Act, which is being reintroduced in Congress.Also called the earned sick time initiative, the legislation would allow workers at businesses with 15 or more employees to earn paid sick days. Workers could earn up to one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a total of seven days.For far too many Americans, a day home from work means a day without pay, Brown said. Some 40 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. dont have any paid sick days at all. Its worse for low-income workers  three in four dont have any paid sick days available.We wondered about the numbers. Brown's staff said the source was last year's National Compensation Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.Its chart for paid leave benefits shows that 61 percent of all workers in the private sector have paid sick days -- meaning about 40 percent don't have them.Among the lowest-paid 25 percent of workers, the chart shows that 29 percent have paid sick days, meaning more than 70 percent don't have them.Among the lowest-paid 10 percent of workers, 18 percent have sick days, so 82 percent do not. (Three in four, the figure used by Brown, is 75 percent. )We found other figures as well:. More than three in four food service and hotel workers (78 percent) dont have any paid sick days, according to an analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Workers without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. And a 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick leave helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the outbreak of 2009.Critics of the sick leave initiative, including the National Association of Independent Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, say paid sick days add costs to low-margin businesses, are burdensome to business and result in lost jobs.In a recent survey of businesses by the Employment Policies Institute, Roughly 70 percent of respondents said that Connecticuts sick leave law was not good for business, the group said.PolitiFact Ohio is not rating the legislation, however -- only Browns statement on the numbers of workers who dont have access to paid sick days. We rate it True. An Internet meme circulating during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign purported to reveal financial trickery on the part of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, who allegedly deducted $1 million from her 2015 income tax return after donating it "to herself" via contributions to the Clinton Foundation. On the assumption that this information came from the candidate's 2015 tax filing (released to the public earlier this year), that's where we went to verify the accuracy of the claims. Our findings were these: filing 1. The return was a joint filing for both Hillary and William J. Clinton. 2. Their shared charitable donations totaled $1,042,000: $42,000 to Desert Classic Charities and $1 million to the Clinton Family Foundation. Desert Classic Charities Clinton Family Foundation   3. Declaring an amount  say $1 million  as a charitable donation only reduces your taxable income; it doesn't mean your "tax bill" is reduced by that amount. 4. The Clinton Family Foundation is a separate entity from the Clinton Foundation. Inside Philanthropy describes the Clinton Family Foundation as "a traditional private foundation that serves as the vehicle for the couple's personal charitable giving." It has neither staff nor offices.  Clinton Foundation describes 5. According to Inside Philanthropy, the Clinton Family Foundation regularly disburses contributions to scores of different charities (one of which is, in fact, the Clinton Foundation): Digging into the Clinton Family Foundation's 2014 tax return reveals that they did around $3.8 million in grantmaking and held some $5.3 million in assets. Of total grantmaking in 2014, $1.8 million went to the Clinton Foundation, just under half of total giving.  2014 tax return However, in 2013, the Clintons gave $1.8 million through their personal foundation, with only around a fifth of that money going to the Clinton Foundation, around the same share as in 2012.  So where have all the other gifts gone? To lots of different places, is the short answer. In 2014, the Clintons gave money to 70 nonprofits through their foundation. The picture looked similar the year before, with many grants falling in the range of $5,000 to $25,000.  Recipients of the Clintons' largesse via the Clinton Family Foundation in 2014 ranged from the School of American Ballet to the Arkansas Childrens Hospital Foundation to Wellesley College to the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. 2014 The foundation's 2015 tax filing has not yet been made public, so we don't have an accounting of the organizations to whom the $1 million contributed by the Clintons that year was disbursed. Regarding the apparent assumption that any monies donated to the Clinton Foundation simply end up in the Clintons' own pockets, we refer readers, once again, to Inside Philanthropy, which describes the actual work the foundation does, and to the charity rating service Charity Navigator, which gives the Clinton Foundation an overall score of 94.74 points out of 100 in terms of its financials, accountability, and transparency. Inside Philanthropy Charity Navigator  Callahan, David."What the Heck Does the Clinton Foundation Actually DO?"
Inside Philanthropy.23 June 2016. Callahan, David and Adeniji, Ade."The Other Clinton Foundation: A Look at Bill and Hillary's Personal Philanthropy."
Inside Philanthropy.29 July 2016. What goes up must come down, the old saying goes. But, according to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., thats not the case for oil prices. As part of a round of appearances to tout a new Democratic economic-policy agenda, Schumertook a momenton ABCsThis Weekto promote his partys plan to curb mergers that arent in the interest of consumers. We're going to change the way companies can merge,Schumer said. We have these huge companies buying up other big companies. It hurts workers and it hurts prices. The old Adam Smith idea of competition, it's gone. So people hate it when their cable bills go up, their airline fees. They know that gas prices are sticky. You know  when the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. However, this broad statement clashes with the long-term data for gasoline and crude oil prices. There are long stretches over the past four decades wheninflation-adjusted gasoline priceshave gone down. Heres a chart from the Energy Information Administration, a federal office that tracks energy statistics. And heres theinflation-adjusted data for imported crude oil. The pattern is similar. Clearly, gasoline and crude oil prices arent simply on an eternal escalator to infinity, as one might think hearing Schumer. So whats going on? When we checked with Schumers office, they said he was referring to the rise like a rocket, fall like a feather theory of gas prices. Under this theory, gasoline prices tend to go up quickly if theres a market shock, then fall more slowly after supply and demand resolve themselves. Schumer sees that pattern as one example of how big companies can sometimes have too much power to control prices, regardless of market forces. But when we ran Schumers statement by Severin Borenstein, a University of California-Berkeley economist who wrote a seminalpaperon the rocket-feather theory in 1997, he said the senators formulation is off-base. He said that while it is true that retail gasoline prices decline more slowly than they rise, the time frame for these changes is fairly short -- two weeks to go up, and six weeks or more to go down. Schumers statement suggests an iron rule, not a pattern for short-term changes following a market shock. You don't have to be an economist or analyst of oil markets to know that the statement isn't correct, Borenstein told PolitiFact. Obviously, gasoline prices do go down when oil prices decline. The change in gasoline prices since the 2014 collapse in oil prices made that very clear. Meanwhile, Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, a private firm, said that Schumers targets -- monopoly-minded companies -- arent necessarily to blame. He pointed to a study of 420 gas stations in San Diego in 2000 and 2001 that looked at the psychology and behavior of consumers. If a consumer sees a relatively low price, the study found, they wont bother searching aggressively for a price thats lower still, even though such bargains may exist around the corner. When such behavior is multiplied across many drivers, gas stations feel less pressure to reduce prices further than they already have, slowing the fall of gas prices. And economist Philip K. Verleger, who runs the firm PKVerleger LLC, said Schumer may also have an outdated view of how the oil markets work. Theres a more competitive market today -- the futures market runs everything now, he said. The futures can predict your local gas prices, and the response is more symmetric (before and after a market shock) than it was. Schumer said, When the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. This comment takes a well-known phenomenon and exaggerates it beyond recognition. While experts agree that prices tend to go up quickly after a market shock but usually come down more slowly once the shock is resolved, this phenomenon only occurs on a short-term basis -- a couple of weeks in most cases. Long-term data show long stretches since the mid 1970s when the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline and crude oil have fallen. We rate the statement False.