I'm also the only lieutenant governor to not take a security detail.
Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera rolls without a security detail, a fact he likes to bring up as he campaigns to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Its an example of penny-pinching that he uses to set himself apart from the field of five Republicans vying for Rubios seat, as well as some predecessors whodrewscrutinyover transportation spending. I've actually cut the budget of the office by more than half, reduced the staff, he said in aninterviewwith Fox 13sMoney, Power, Politicsshow in Tampa which ran on air April 30. I'm also the only lieutenant governor to not ever take a security detail. Lopez-Cantera had dropped this tidbit at a speech earlier that month with theHillsborough County GOP, explaining, Its a waste of your money, and Im protected by the Second Amendment. (He has a concealed weapons permit.) With Lopez-Cantera playing up this factoid as an accomplishment, we wanted to know if he was really the first No. 2 guy to say nah, Ive got this, to taxpayer-paid protection. How he declined his security detail According tostate law, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles shall assign one patrol officer to the Office of the Governor  it does not mention the lieutenant governor. In practice, the right to a security detail for protection and transportation has been extended to recent lieutenant governors. But after Gov. Rick Scott plucked him for the office in 2014, Lopez-Cantera verbally declined that protection. In March, the Legislature approved a budget thatadded some languageto state that the security patrol is at the discretion of the Lieutenant Governor. It seems that Lopez-Cantera had that discretion anyway, but the new language in law makes that clear. The Legislature also added language to give the right to security for the attorney general, chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner. That appears to stem from a credible threat onAttorney General Pam Bondiin 2015, which prompted law enforcement to provide around-the-clock security for her for six weeks at a cost of $216,000. Scotts press office re-emphasized that it was Lopez-Canteras choice  and not, asrumor had it, the decision of former Scott chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth to downplay the role  in response to our inquiry. Still, there appeared to be a push to reduce expenses in that position after multiple news reports cited the amount of money spent on security and travel for Jeff Kottkamp under Gov. Charlie Crist and Jennifer Carroll, Scotts first lieutenant governor. The state spent$1.1 millionover four years for security and transportation for Kottkamp. In Carroll's first year in office, the Florida Highway Patrol spent $288,000 on travel and security. But after spending restrictions were put in place, that total dropped to$89,000in 2012. Lopez-Cantera garners even less attention as lieutenant governor than Carroll, hardly ever appearing alongside Scott at public events and keeping a sparse public calendar of events, theMiami Herald/Tampa Bay TimesTallahassee bureau noted inJuly 2015. Lopez-Cantera had six days of security  at a cost of $27,000  in May 2014 following a threat against him, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcementreport. Past lieutenant governors and security The lieutenant governor role was revived in 1968 after a century without one. We tried to contact Lopez-Canteras predecessors (who are still alive today) for the low-down. The Florida Highway Patrol said that the following lieutenant governors had a security detail: Wayne Mixson (1979-87), Bobby Brantley (1987-1991), Buddy MacKay (1991-1998), Frank Brogan (1999-2003), Toni Jennings (2003-07), Kottkamp (2007-11) and Carroll (2011-13.) We attempted to reach all of those former lieutenant governors and were able to interview all but Brogan, Jennings and MacKay. Four confirmed they used the security detail. The only one who said he didnt use a security detail was Jim Williams, who was the lieutenant governor 1975-79. I didnt have security, Williams, 93, told PolitiFact Florida. Anita Oneida Darley, his aide at the time, also said he didnt have a security detail. The Florida Highway Patrol could not confirm. Mixson said that he used a security detail when he traveled within Florida, but he did not when he was in the office or when he traveled to foreign countries. The Florida Highway Patrol had traditionally supplied a security individual and they did, Mixson said. Brantley said he had a state trooper who traveled with him sometimes, including on a trip to Canada. He said the trooper served mostly as a driver. He had a desk inside my office, Brantley said. If I didnt have a need for him Id have him go and do patrol duty. He would actually go on the street and stop speeders. Brantley said that Brogan was the first one he recalled with an actual plainclothes security detailing talking in their sleeve and all that stuff. Kottkamp, now a lawyer in Tallahassee, said the security detail came with the job. On the night Gov. Crist and I were elected  they showed up at the hotel, he said. Someone was with me and the governor from that point on. It was a responsibility the FHP took very seriously. FHP leadership viewed it as a legal obligation to insure continuity of government. Carroll said troopers would pick her up to provide security when she traveled to other parts of the state. Our ruling Lopez-Cantera said, I'm also the only lieutenant governor to not take a security detail. He went without a security detail when he started in 2014  a break from most lieutenant governors in recent memory who have used state security. The only one we could find who said he did not have security detail was Jim Williams, lieutenant governor from 1975-79. The state could not confirm one way or another. That was about 40 years ago, so to us Lopez-Canteras point still holds water. We rate this claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f3425ea7-664c-4d1c-9bc5-bb771765d290
Bernie Sanders lines up fairly close to Donald Trump when it comes to the topic of trade. To some, that means Sanders has some explaining to do. In aninterviewwith theNew York Daily News, Sanders attempted to detail his position. Its about a fundamental inequity in labor standards, Sanders suggested, enabling human rights abuses at the cost of American jobs. I do believe in trade. But it has to be based on principles that are fair, Sanders said. So if you are in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is 65 an hour, or you're in Malaysia, where many of the workers are indentured servants because their passports are taken away when they come into this country and are working in slave-like conditions, no, I'm not going to have American workers competing against you under those conditions. Sanders has made trade a big topic on the campaign trail  highlighting Hillary Clintons comments and votes in favor of trade deals. (PolitiFact has documented a lengthy comparison of the two.) Here, we wanted to fact-check Sanders claim that workers in Malaysia  which would be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership  are forced into working under slave-like conditions. In a word, yes. Not only is forced labor widely documented by labor and human rights groups, its openly acknowledged by the U.S. government. From cell phones to sneakers to palm oil The Sanders campaign referred us to a 2014reportfrom Verit, an NGO that monitors labor standard compliance. Verit interviewed 501 workers in Malaysias electronics industry (the countrysleading sector), and found that 28 percent of them were coerced under both global standards and Malaysian law. This work has led us to conclude that forced labour in this industry is systemic and that every company operating in this sector in Malaysia faces a high risk of forced labour in their operations, Dan Viederman, chief executive of Verit,toldthe Guardian in 2014. The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, defines forced labor usingfour dimensions: unfree recruitment, work and life duress, impossibility of leaving an employer and penalty or menace of penalty. The Malaysian electronics industry violated all these guidelines in some capacity. Like the indentured servants who came to America in the 18th century, the vast majority of foreign workers  largely from other parts of Southeast Asia   were charged excessive job-finding fees and had to take on debt to pay them off, effectively tethering them to the job (unfree recruitment). One in five workers were also deceived about their wages or other employment conditions, and one in three lived in and often confined to crowded, unsafe housing provided by their employer or recruitment agency (work and life durres). Verit also found that 94 percent of workers had their passports withheld by the factory or agent (penalty), though the practice is prohibited by local labor laws . Fifty-seven percent said they couldnt leave their jobs out of fear of getting slapped with high fines, losing their passport, being reported to the authorities or other forms of retribution (impossibility of leaving an employer). But forced labor is by no means limited to one sector. Malaysia has thefourth-largest migrant worker populationin the world, and its 3 million to 6 million foreign workers all are vulnerable to exploitation in a variety of industries, said Abby McGill, the campaigns director for the International Labor Rights Forum. The State Departmentnotesthat passport confiscation was widespread and generally unpunished, and has placed Malaysia in its Tier 3 watch list for human trafficking  the rating reserved for the worst offenders  in2001,2007,2009and2014. In addition to electronics, the U.S. Labor Department currentlyliststhe garments and palm oil industries where labor abuses occurs (palm oil is also cited for child labor). Human Rights Watchreportedon exploited migrant domestic workers in 2011. Amnesty Internationalchronicledthe stories of trafficked, trapped and physically and sexually abused workers in a variety of industries from agriculture to construction in 2010. They buy and sell us like cattle, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi working for a palm oil producer whose customers includes U.S. agricultural giant CargilltoldtheWall Street Journalin 2015. Free trade and chained work The debate over whether free trade stymies, improves or has no bearing at all on working conditions is an ongoing one. International labor standards are actually included in many trade agreements.The United Statesmonitors worker conditions in partner countries, and has spent $275 million to support labor rights since 2001, according toa 2014 Government Accountability Office audit. But despite this, the GAO concluded that theres still a lot of room for improvement. The USTR and Labor Department lack a strategic approach to systematically assess whether partner countries conditions and practices are inconsistent with labor provisions in (free trade agreements), according to the audit. Academics have also pointed out these provisions are oftenambiguous,difficult to enforceorsimplyignored. In other words, agreements on paper dont necessarily translate to improved conditions in real life. Malaysia is actually a prime example of labor rights possibly taking a backseat to free trade. In 2015, it wasupgradedto Tier 2 for human trafficking by the State Departmentover the objections of its own human rights experts. Many perceived the move to bepolitically motivated, as the improved rating made the country eligible to join the TPP. Because of Malaysias poor labor record, it also signed abilateral agreementwith the United States, promising to implement workers rights and protect against forced labor before obtaining trade benefits.Human rightsandlaborrightsgroups, however, are skeptical this will lead to actual reform. The devil is in the details of actual implementation, and Malaysia is a very corrupt place where those with connections and money can get away with not complying with the law  as both Malaysian and migrant workers have found out frequently over the past two decades, said Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Asia at Human Rights Watch. Said McGill of the International Labor Rights Forum: Given that they get everything they want upfront whether they change anything or not (not an ideal negotiating strategy), the labor enforcement provisions are so weak there isn't a stick to force them to comply. That approach has never worked in the history of free trade agreements. No reason to think it will start now. Nonetheless,manyhavearguedyoucanhaveyourfree trade and be humane, too. A2010 study, for example, found that labor conditions have improved in Cambodia as a result of labor provisions in a trade agreement signed with the United States. But many argue that improved working conditions are actually a cascading effect of global trade, not regulation itself. The kinds of adjustments that go with free trade, while painful in the short run, lead to improved labor conditions in the long run, Stanford labor economist Robert Flanagan said in aninterviewabout his book,Globalization and Labor Conditions. Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution, acknowledged that some are certainlyworseoffas a result of global trade. He pointed out that working conditions were terrible in the United States a century ago, but improved when the economy developed and standard of living rose. Do we really think it would a good idea for the U.S. not to have been able to trade in 1916 or 1886? Burtless said. It is very hard to think of anything that has delivered a bigger improvement in the lives of poor workers than expanding their ability to sell to other countries. Period. End of story. To pretend otherwise, that youre going to protect their workers by keeping their products out of our country, flips on its head policies most conducive to improving their lives. Our ruling Sanders said, In Malaysia  many of the workers are indentured servants because their passports are taken away when they come into this country and are working in slave-like conditions. Forced migrant labor and passport withholding is widely documented across Malaysia by human rights and labor groups. The United States acknowledged the abuses in several government reports and databases. While there is a debate about whether free trade can help curtail these abuses, there is no debate to the veracity of Sanders claim. We rate it True. Many homeowners are currently receiving receipts stamped Paid in the mail for their 2018 property tax bills. Whether the bill goes up or down each year is of paramount importance to homeowners. So politicians are also eager to weigh in on the issue. Today, property taxes are lower than they were in 2010. Allowing taxpaying to keep more of their hard-earned money has been and will continue to be a top priority, state Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Jan. 11, 2019 in atweet. Property taxesare levied on most types of real estate -- including homes, businesses, and parcels of land. The amount owed depends on the fair market value of the property, as determined by the local assessor. Is Nygren right? Are property taxes lower today than they were in 2010? The evidence The year 2010, of course, is not an arbitrary starting point. It marks the year Republican Scott Walker was elected governor and when the GOP won full control of the Legislature. Democrat Tony Evers is now in the governors office, after topping Walker in the 2018 election. When asked for backup to the claim, Nygrens chief of staff Nathan Schwanz pointed to a January 2019 report from theLegislative Fiscal Bureauon median property tax payments in the state. The nonpartisan fiscal bureau is considered the gold-standard on such financial and budget issues. Here is its breakdown for the years in question: 2010 - 2011-- $2,963 2011- 2012 -- $2,953 2012 - 2013 -- $2,943 2013 - 2014 -- $2,926 2014 - 2015 -- $2,831 2015 - 2016 -- $2,849 2016 - 2017 -- $2,852 2017 - 2018 -- $2,876 2018 - 2019 -- $2,870 (preliminary estimate)  So, the 2018-19 total is, indeed, lower than the 2010-11 total. The fiscal bureau regularly does such estimates, and they are routinely cited by politicians of both stripes.But its important to note they are an illustration -- some people's property taxes went down, some went up. Even if your home value was right at the statewide average, your tax bill might have been higher due to various factors, including levies in individual communities. Past ratings Meanwhile, we have checked variations of this claim in the past: *July 15, 2015: Walker claimed that because of his actions, property taxes were lower than they were four years earlier. Walkers actions to limit the ability of local governments and school districts to raise levies played a major role. But we found the lower property taxes to that point were also due in part to declines in housing values. Our rating:Mostly True. *Jan. 13, 2017, Walker said property taxes -- as a percentage of personal income -- were the lowest that they've been since the end of World War II An analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance showed that on the measure Walker cited, they were lowest since 1946. Our rating:True. *June 7, 2017, after a lower than 2010 claim from Walker, we wrote that fiscal bureau estimates of the hypothetical property tax on a median-valued home found the tax was indeed lower. That time we found the drop in residential property taxes was due to commercial and manufacturing properties rising at a faster rate -- not due to collecting less revenue. Our rating:Mostly True. Finally, we also used the Walk-O-Meter to monitor a promise by Walker to continue to reduce the tax burden on working families and seniors every year he was in office. This, of course, applied to all taxes -- not just property taxes. We rated the pledgePromise Kept. Are there any wrinkles this time? Yes. According to the fiscal bureau, the change over the latest two years -- from 2017-18 to 2018-19 -- is a net decrease for homeowners, even though the gross tax bill is projected to increase. Whats behind the difference? Funding for the lottery and gaming property tax credit increased by about $66 million, which contributed to the decrease in the median net tax bill. Where Wisconsin ranks To be sure, Wisconsin property taxes remain among the highest in the United States. Various property tax trackers place Wisconsin in the top 10, sometimes in the top five. The personal finance websiteWalletHubanalyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The website also used rates to obtain the dollar amount paid in real estate taxes on a median-valued home in each state. It ranked Wisconsin as the fifth worst state for property taxes. With the median home value sitting at $167,000, the typical tax bill comes to $3,257, according to WalletHub. Filling out the rest of thetop fivefor 2018 were: Median Home valueTaxes New Jersey: $316,400            $7,601 Illinois:  $174,800                  $4,058 New Hampshire: $239,700     $5,241 Connecticut: $269,300            $5,443 Wisconsin: $167,000              $3,257 But Nygrens claim was not about the states rank. So that does not factor into our rating. Our rating Nygren said today, property taxes are lower than they were in 2010. Data from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau shows the statement generally rings true. But there have long been wrinkles on these claims -- from declining property values driving the drop to an increase in commercial and manufacturing property values shifting the burden from homeowners. Those sorts of factors are still in play, this time with tax credits contributing to latest decrease. And the rating is still Mostly True. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Nov. 23, 2020, U.S. General Services Administrator Emily Murphy  an appointee of President Donald Trump  wrote a letter to President-elect Joe Biden that allowed him to start a formal transition of power. The paperwork, obtained by Snopes and displayed below, was the first formal recognition by Trump's government of a Biden presidency. letter formal transition of power The document from the head of the General Services Administration (GSA), an executive branch agency that oversees presidential transitions, raised questions about whether it meant that Trump himself acknowledged defeat to Biden. Concession statements to Americans or phone calls to winning candidates represent an informal step in the country's election process that typically occurs when one candidate secures the majority of electoral votes. Biden reached that milestone  winning key battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, by comfortable margins  weeks before Murphy's letter. However, Trump broke democratic norms by refusing to concede publicly. electoral votes.   Instead, the president's campaign filed a barrage of lawsuits in local jurisdictions across the country and accelerated a misinformation campaign online that denied or falsely presented the election results. While legal experts said the litigation did not contain enough evidence to reverse Biden's win, Trump's supporters viewed the effort as a commendable, tough, not-going-to-back-down approach to electoral politics. barrage of lawsuits in local jurisdictions misinformation campaign "It is not a stain on our national honor for a candidate to refuse to concede when there are open and compelling disputes about an electoral outcome," read a Nov. 23 statement by supporters of the Conservative Action Project, an initiative founded by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III. statement Despite not receiving Trump's concession, Biden filled his Cabinet for the White House, addressing the country under the "Office of the President Elect," and states certified results of the popular vote in order to begin the process of voting for president through the Electoral College. Office of the President Elect states certified results Cue Murphy's letter on Nov. 23. The document carried out the government's obligation under the 1963 Presidential Transition Act to allow presidents-elect and their appointees, aids, and other staff  otherwise known as a transition team  to access millions of federal dollars and set up White House operations before swearing-in ceremonies that would take place the January after general elections. 1963 Presidential Transition Act       Murphy submitted the paperwork after election officials in Michigan certified Biden's win there, and a conservative Republican judge in Pennsylvania shot down a Trump campaign lawsuit, The Associated Press reported. Pennsylvania Murphy's letter said: [Because] of recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results, I have determined that you may access the post-election resources and services described in Section 3 of the Act upon request. The actual winner of the presidential election will be determined by the electoral process detailed in the Constitution. So, in short, a member of the Trump administration, Murphy, filed paperwork to change Biden's official title in government systems to "apparent president-elect" and, as a result, granted him new privileges that only someone with that job title in federal government gets. But it was a wrong interpretation of that procedural step to claim Trump had therefore conceded the 2020 presidential race. Let us note here: No constitutional mandate or federal law requires losing presidential candidates to acknowledge defeat in order for the election's processes to continue. Rather, concession speeches have been an informal tradition that often symbolized a losing candidate's willingness to help with a peaceful transition between presidencies.  transition between presidencies The Associated Press reported: reported In recent days, senior Trump aides including chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone had also encouraged him to allow the transition to begin, telling the president he didnt need to concede but could no longer justify withholding support to the Biden transition. [...] Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the GSA action is probably the closest thing to a concession that President Trump could issue. Even after Murphy's letter, the Trump campaign sent supporters emails promoting false claims about the election outcome to solicit donations, including messages to sell "COUNT ALL LEGAL VOTES" T-shirts.   Additionally, on Twitter the president said: "Remember the GSA has been terrific, and Emily Murphy has done a great job, but the GSA does not determine who the next President of the United States will be."   The tweet accurately suggested that presidential elections are technically unfinished until the Electoral College casts its votes and Congress certifies that count, no matter what the administrator does or says. However, it was a misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and state statutes to regard those post-Election Day procedures  steps that officially cement Americans' pick for president  as an opportunity to defy the will of the voters without providing compelling evidence of error or fraud. Hours after that tweet, Trump called reporters to a White House briefing room. He gave one-minute remarks about the economy and exited the room without taking questions from reporters. As he walked out, journalists shouted questions about his lack of a concession, and the president did not acknowledge them, White House footage of the event showed. White House footage In short, while a government agency under Trump's administration for the first time officially acknowledged Biden the "apparent president-elect" in a letter that grants him access to federal assets before his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, 2021, it is false to claim that Trump had conceded defeat to the president-elect. Since at least 2021, internet users have been admiring an impressive, but fake image purporting to show the core of the Milky Way galaxy framed by Karnak, an ancient Egyptian temple complex, northeast of the city of Luxor.  Here is one example, posted to Twitter, with the user's name cropped out for privacy:  The image above is not a real representation of the view into the heavens from Karnak in Egypt. It was debunked in 2021 by Juan Carlos Muoz-Mateos, media officer for the European Southern Observatory, a research facility based in Germany. The moon in the image is too large and is transparent, and the core of the Milky Way isn't visible from Karnak's location, Munoz wrote in a Twitter thread explaining how he could tell the image was faked. debunked transparent   We were unable to locate the original version of the image or its creator, but the earliest instances we found of the picture online was 2017. It's been shared in various forums like a Reddit channel dedicated to "shamelessly stolen" images. shamelessly stolen In an email sent to Snopes, Munoz said that such fake but visually appealing space/science images often crop up on content-scraping social media feeds, which can be identified by features like generic but easily searchable names like "curiosity" or "black hole." The images shared are most often uncredited. "Their bios say things like 'DM for credit/removal' or 'credit goes to the respective owner,' Munoz observed. "Another common question is why this matters, whats the harm with these accounts," Munoz wrote. "Besides the obvious problem of sharing wrong information, these accounts often link to fishy websites riddled with ads, or they're follower farms that are later sold and renamed." It may take time, but it's worthwhile to report them and get them removed from social media platforms, Munoz added. If a hundred of the most talented members of the advertising industry were tasked with creating an image to illustrate the concepts of poverty and famine, quite possibly none of them would come up with anything nearly as grippingly and devastatingly effective as a 1993 picture snapped by South African freelance photographer Kevin Carter: The PHOTO in the mail is the "Pulitzer prize" winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken. Three months later he committed suicide due to depression. This was found in his diary, "Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded be our own selfish nature and interests." I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted.  His poignant photograph of an emaciated toddler who collapsed from hunger on her way to a feeding center in famine-ravaged Sudan while a vulture ominously loomed in the background was originally published in the New York Times (which later described it as "a metaphor for Africa's despair") and earned Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in the Feature Photography category, and the image has since become widely known as a metaphor for Africa's despair. Pulitzer Prize As described in Time magazine, the scene Carter captured in his now-famous photograph was one he stumbled across during a trip he made on his own in order to cover the civil strife in war-torn Sudan: In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with [friend and fellow journalist] Joo Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the [South Africa] Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter." After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed. But Kevin Carter was also a troubled soul, struggling with issues such as financial insecurity, drug problems, failed relationships, and the horrors of having witnessed multiple scenes of death  enough of a burden for anyone to struggle with, but in Carter's case a burden made extra-heavy by the critical condemnation heaped upon him for taking the photograph that had made him world-famous: Though the photo helped draw enormous attention to the humanitarian crisis that was engulfing Sudan, it was criticized by others who felt that Carter should have helped the girl and was instead exploiting her suffering for his gain. The real vulture, they said in vitriolic hate mail, was Carter himself. Some photojournalists might have easily dismissed such criticism, but it hit Carter hard and fed his self-doubts. On 27 July 1994, barely two months after having received his Pulitzer Prize, 33-year-old Kevin Carter could shoulder that burden no more and took his own life: The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg's northern suburbs  and through Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquire T-shirt, he got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow. The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was "depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... " Although the purported diary entry (beginning "Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food") that has been tacked onto this photograph may sound like something Kevin Carter might have written, those words were not recorded in his diary, nor are they known to have been written or spoken by him.  They were added to the photograph by an unknown hand after the picture had been circulating on the Internet for several years. Kevin Carter's life (and death) was the subject of the 2004 documentary, The Life of Kevin Carter. The Life of Kevin Carter Keller, Bill.  "Kevin Carter, a Pulitzer Winner for Sudan Photo, Is Dead at 33."
  The New York Times.  29 July 1994  (p. B8).

 MacLeod, Scott.  "The Life and Death of Kevin Carter."
  Time.  12 September 1994.

 McMurtrie, John.  "A Photographer's Burden of Seeing the World's Despair."
  San Francisco Chronicle.  2 May 2005. Claim:  After a bank failure, the FDIC has 99 years to pay back insured deposits.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] I heard an "expert" on KFI AM 640 in LA say the FDIC has up to 99 years to repay you in the event of a bank failure. Sounds like a misrepresentation but when asked by the host, she said "it's in the fine print."  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have been hearing of a story of a man entering a bank week after week and making a deposit of a government check in some sort of insignificant amount (the number I heard was $0.35 per check). The teller asks why is he depositing such a small check. His response is that his bank went bust and that the checks are from the F.D.I.C. The gist of this apocryphal tale is that FDIC insurance is not a good thing and that if it does pay out it will take forever to recover your "insured" loss. This tale was repeated yesterday to my sister-in-law by a bank teller trying to dissuade her from moving an UNINSURED money market account to an F.D.I.C. insured CD with another bank. Origins:   Economic turmoil in the United States in recent years has given many Americans pause to consider just how safe their money is, especially in light of some bank failures that have reminded us that even such seemingly secure investments as ordinary savings accounts are not  completely risk-free.   And although most bank customers are aware their deposits are insured, they aren't necessarily familiar with the details of how that insurance works, a circumstance that has fostered the spread of rumors which create additional insecurity. After a wave of bank failures that came in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the prolonged economic depression that followed, the U.S. federal government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to restore public confidence in (and help stabilize) the U.S. banking system.  The FDIC provided federal government guarantees of deposits up to $100,000 per account holder per bank (and up to $250,000 per account holder for deposit retirement accounts), subject to certain conditions, at insured financial institutions.*    FDIC Bank failures in the U.S. have been a relatively uncommon phenomenon since the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, so many consumers have had little or no exposure to the process by which FDIC deposit insurance works, a circumstance that has led to the uncertainty reflected in the examples cited above.  Widely-believed rumors hold that FDIC insurance actually covers just a small fraction of the original deposit amount  (e.g., 1.5%), or that the FDIC only reimburses depositors in full over a very long period of time (e.g., 99 years), the net result being the mistaken belief that FDIC insurance isn't really much of a guarantee at all.  In fact, these rumors are so prevalent that they were both included (as numbers #3 and #4) in a list of the top ten misconceptions about the FDIC published in the Spring 2006 edition of the FDIC Consumer News newsletter, where they were addressed thusly: If a bank fails, the FDIC could take up to 99 years to pay depositors for their insured accounts. This is a completely false notion that many bank customers have told us they heard from someone attempting to sell them another kind of financial product. The truth is that federal law requires the FDIC to pay the insured deposits "as soon as possible" after an insured bank fails. Historically, the FDIC pays insured deposits within a few days after a bank closes, usually the next business day. In most cases, the FDIC will provide each depositor with a new account at another insured bank. Or, if arrangements cannot be made with another institution, the FDIC will issue a check to each depositor. The FDIC only pays failed-bank depositors a percentage of their insured funds. All too often we receive questions similar to this one: "Is it true that if my FDIC-insured bank fails, I would only get $1.31 for every $100 in my checking account?" As with misconception number 3, this misinformation appears to be spread by some financial advisors and sales people. Federal law requires the FDIC to pay 100 percent of the insured deposits up to the federal limit  including principal and interest. If your bank fails and you have deposits over the limit, you may be able to recover some or, in rare cases, all of your uninsured funds. However, the overwhelming majority of depositors at failed institutions are within the insurance limit, and insured funds are always paid in full. As noted, this type of misinformation is often passed along by unscrupulous or misinformed financial advisors who are trying to steer customers towards investments or accounts that are not insured, so if you have any doubts about exactly what is or is not covered by FDIC insurance, you may want to undertake some additional verification on your own. *Note: In October 2008 the FDIC insurance limit was temporarily increased to $250,000 per account, with that increase slated to remain in effect through the end of 2009, but subsequently extended through the end of 2013. In July 2010 the FDIC insurance limit was permanently increased to $250,000 per depositor, per insured depository institution for each account ownership category. increased Last updated:  8 April 2014 On 14 March 2017, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) office posted an image on his Facebook page criticizing the lack of federally-funded family leave in the U.S. by highlighting how similar policies are implemented in three other countries: Facebook   Sanders, who ran for the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nomination, expressed support for a federal family leave program in the U.S., as stated on his campaign website: stated In my view, every worker in America should be guaranteed at least twelve weeks of paid family and medical leave. Thats why I am a proud cosponsor of the FAMILY Act, introduced by Senator [Kirsten] Gillibrand, which does just that. Under this measure, every employee would receive twelve weeks of paid family and medical leave: to take care of a baby, to help a family member who has been diagnosed with cancer or another serious medical condition, or to care for themselves if they become seriously ill. This would be funded through an insurance program, like Social Security. Workers would pay into it with every paycheck, at the price of roughly one cup of coffee per week. There is no reason not to pass this bill now. His office's claim that the U.S. and Papua New Guinea are alone "out of 188 countries" in lacking federal family leave programs is based on a 2015 study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) reporting that statistic. Sanders' post was also accompanied by an image listing individual claims about parental leave policies in Canada, Germany, and Norway.  study Canada allows parents to take 35 weeks' worth of leave while still receiving up to 55 percent of their regular salaries. The country's paid leave benefits are applied as part of its employment insurance (EI) program, which states: program For most people, the basic rate for calculating EI benefits is 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, up to a maximum amount. As of January 1, 2017, the maximum yearly insurable earnings amount is $51,300. This means that you can receive a maximum amount of $543 per week. While parents can divide the 35 weeks of leave between themselves, mothers can take an additional 15 weeks as part of the program:  EI maternity benefits can be paid for a maximum period of 15 weeks. You cannot receive EI maternity benefits beyond 17 weeks after the expected or actual week of childbirth, whichever of the two is later. EI parental benefits can be paid for a maximum period of 35 weeks. The payments must be made within 52 weeks of the week your child was born or the week your child was placed with you for adoption. Parents seeking to take the paid leave must also meet criteria regarding length of employment, and while parental benefits are open to "biological, adoptive, or legally recognized parents while they are caring for their newborn or newly adopted child," maternity benefits are only available to a child's biological mother: To be eligible for EI maternity benefits, you must have accumulated at least 600 hours of insurable employment in your qualifying period. If you are a self-employed fisher, you must have earned $3,760 from fishing during the 31-week qualifying period immediately before the start of your benefit period. To be eligible for EI parental benefits, each parent who applies for benefits must have accumulated at least 600 hours of insurable employment in his or her qualifying period. If you are a self-employed fisher, you must have earned $3,760 from fishing during the 31-week qualifying period immediately before the start of your benefit period. In Norway, as Sanders' office stated, parents may take 49 weeks of parental leave while receiving 100 percent of their pay. But the Norwegian government's web site also notes that parents have another option that provides lesser coverage for a longer period of time: notes When you apply for parental benefit, you must choose between 100 percent or 80 percent degree of coverage The total benefit period for parental benefit in the case of a birth, is 49 weeks at 100 percent coverage, and 59 weeks at 80 percent coverage. The parents must choose the same degree of coverage. Expectant mothers are also required to use three of their benefit weeks prior to their child's birth and can start using their benefits up to 12 weeks before the child's due date, though only nine of those weeks would be withdrawn from their accrued leave time.  Adoptive parents also have two options: take 46 weeks off while receiving 100 percent of their pay, or take 56 weeks off at 80 percent of their pay. In Germany, there are two ways to take parental leave, one of which is mentioned in the post by Sanders' office: parents can each take between two and 12 months off while receiving "two-thirds of [their] previous income." Benefits range from at least 300 Euros a month to a maximum of 1,800 Euros a month. (Unemployed parents are also eligible for the benefits program.) receiving Parents who are already employed are each protected from losing their jobs while utilizing their family leave. However, parents taking the time off together can extend their benefits period to 14 months. Additionally, parents who participate in the "ElterngeldPlus" program can also add four months to their leaves if they each work up to 30 hours a week during their benefit period.  Parents seeking to take part in Germany's parental leave program must submit applications to their employer (if applicable) at least seven weeks before they intend to start taking the time off. Additionally, as of 1 July 2015 parents are eligible for up to 24 months of parental leave if their children are between the ages of two and seven.   Government of Canada.  "Employment Insurance Maternity and Parental Benefits." 
  Accessed 16 March 2017. Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.  "Parental Benefit." 
  19 July 2013. [Danish] Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.  "Parental Allowance and Parental Leave."
   Accessed 16 March 2017. International Labour Organization.  "Social Protection for Maternity: Key Policy Trends and Statistics." 
  2015.  Sanders, Bernie.  "Real Family Values." 
  berniesanders.com. Claim:  American Muslims for Jerusalem have called for a boycott of Estee Lauder products. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] Estee Lauder Corporation (which is also is the parent company of  Prescriptives, Mac, Bobbie Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone, Origins, Aramis, Aveda and Bumble and Bumble) is being boycotted by a loud and ambitious campaign of the world's Arab and Muslim community due to Ron Lauder's (Estee Lauder's President) support for Israel.  Mr. Lauder has been extremely courageous and public in his support for the Jewish State and has taken real personal and financial risks to inform the world of the war that the Palestinian Authority has declared on Israel and Jews worldwide.  To combat this boycott I suggest that we all go out and buy as much Estee Lauder and Clinique products as possible.  Make the Estee Lauder and Clinique counters your gift of choice.  Switch brands at least for a while.  It is said that beauty has many discomforts. So does supporting those who speak for us.  Am Yisrael Chai!   PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! LET'S SHOW THE ARABS THAT PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD WILL STAND TOGETHER.  Ronnie Lauder is married to Jo Carol Knopf Lauder born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. Her parents were humble Holocaust survivors!  He also works undauntingly for the re-establishment of the Hungarian Jewish community. A good man! PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE! Origins:  In February 2001, the American Muslims for Jerusalem, a political group in Washington, called for a worldwide Arab boycott of Estee Lauder products. The group was acting in protest against Ronald Lauder, chairman of Estee Lauder International and Clinique Laboratories, because of his "activities in support of Israeli right-wing extremists." A spokesman for the group said Muslims and Arabs had long been offended by Mr. Lauder's pro-Israeli views, but had not decided to call for a boycott until Mr. Lauder appeared at the "One Jerusalem" rally of religious and nationalist Israelis in January of that  year. The call for an Arab and Muslim boycott of Estee Lauder almost immediately inspired an appeal to Jews and those of pro-Israeli sentiment to support the company by buying its products. This call to arms was circulated in many forms, including via the Internet. (No mention of the Arab/Muslim boycott, the anti-boycott, or Ron Lauder's actions appears on either the Estee Lauder or the American Muslims for Jerusalem web sites, though.) Ron Lauder has been a vocal supporter of Israel and Israeli causes for many years. In 1999 he attempted to broker a peace pact between Israel and Syria by acting as a go-between for Syrian President Hafez Assad and then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The deal failed because the two parties could not reach agreement on the disposition of the Golan Heights. Whether any boycott or a show of support would have an appreciable impact on Estee Lauder's bottom line is debatable  when a multinational coporation with sales in the billions of dollars is involved, only the sustained, concerted actions of millions of consumers can make the needle so much as twitch. For the fiscal year ended 30 June 2001, Estee Lauder had net sales of $4.62 billion, which was an 8% increase on the preceding year's $4.37 billion. For the first three quarters of the fiscal year that will end on 30 June 2002, net sales are $3.57 billion, which is the nearly the same sales figure as the equivalent period last year. More simply, if there's a boycott or counter-boycott going on, the income statement isn't demonstrating any impact from it. Barbara "estee of execution" Mikkelson Additional Information:   Estee Lauder Corporation  Last updated:  1 October 2007    Sources:   Barron, James.  "Boldface Names."   The New York Times.  28 February 2001  (p. B2).     Dan, Uri and Niles Lathem.  "Lauder Was a Go-Between for Israel, Syria."   The New York Post .  6 October 1999  (p. 18).     DeNitto, Emily.  "New York, New York."   Crain's New York Business.  13 August 2001  (p. 6).     The New York Post.  "Unkindest Cut for CNN Legend."   5 March 2001  (p. 8). Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Dec. 15, 2020  the day after the U.S. Electoral College confirmed Joe Biden as America's 46th President  the tweet displayed below alleged Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Biden's victory over President Donald Trump before U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did. U.S. Electoral College Joe Biden tweet Donald Trump  The claim was accurate, and we unpack why below. It followed weeks of both leaders' remaining quiet on the election's outcome amid court battles and an aggressive misinformation campaign by Trump to try to overturn his loss. misinformation campaign Let us lay out the timeline. At 10:20 a.m. Moscow standard time, which is 2:20 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) in the U.S., on Dec. 15, the Kremlin released a statement in which Putin congratulated Biden on winning the presidential race and wished him "every success." The statement read: released a statement In his message, Vladimir Putin wished the President-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which bear special responsibility for global security and stability, can, despite their differences, effectively contribute to solving many problems and meeting challenges that the world is facing today. The President of Russia noted that with this in mind, Russian-American cooperation, based on the principles of equality and mutual respect, would meet the interests of both nations and the entire international community. 'For my part, I am ready for interaction and contacts with you,' Russias Head of State stressed. Hours later, McConnell, a Republican, acknowledged the victory for Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for the first time in a prepared speech on the Senate floor. Kamala Harris According to a video of the remarks on the Majority Leader's YouTube channel  footage that was uploaded to the video platform around 11 a.m. EST and also appeared on his official website as a Kentucky senator  McConnell said: official website as a Kentucky senator The Electoral College has spoken. So today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. The President-elect is no stranger to the Senate. He has devoted himself to public service for many years. I also congratulate the Vice President-elect, our colleague from California, Senator Harris. Beyond our differences, all Americans can take pride that our nation has a female Vice President-elect for the first time. News outlets, including MSNBC, first reported on McConnell's remarks around 10:20 a.m. (ET). A tweet from McConnell's press team with a link to the YouTube video posted less than 30 minutes later, at 10:47 a.m. tweet   Some onlookers on social media speculated McConnell purposefully waited for Putin's statement on the election before making his own. "It has always been Putin pulling their strings, not Trump," one Twitter user alleged, referring to Republican leadership. Twitter user But there was no evidence to explicitly explain why or under what rationale the senator made his comments on the Senate floor, congratulating Biden more than a month after he was announced the next head of the White House. Also unknown was if or to what extent he at all considered Putin's statement hours prior signifying a new chapter in U.S.-Russia relations.  All of that said, the Kentucky Republican recognized a Biden presidency roughly eight hours after the Russian leader. For that reason, we rate this claim When we human folk exchange information about each other, age is one of the most important pieces of data we pass along.  Knowing someone's age immediately allows us to infer a great deal of information about that person with a reasonable degree of certainty: Age not only tells us whether someone is a child, an adult, or an elderly person, but it allows us to place people into much finer gradations of categories  infant, toddler, child, adolescent, young adult, adult, middle-aged, elderly  from which we can deduce a good deal about their physical, psychological, and social statuses.   We know a 4-year-old child should be walking, but a 6-month-old baby is unlikely to be capable of the feat.  We understand a couple of 16-year-olds might well have a baby together, but an 8-year-old boy is generally too young to father one and a 58-year-old woman is usually too old to conceive one.  We're aware most 9-year-olds haven't yet reached puberty, but a 39-year-old might well have started experiencing many of the infirmities of advanced age (e.g., lessened eyesight, loss of hearing, weight gain, persistent aches and pains).  We grasp that a 29-year-old is in what we would term "the prime of life," while an 89-year-old has well exceeded the average human lifespan.  We can make pretty good guesses from a person's age about whether he's old enough to have finished his schooling, live away from his parents, be married, or hold an important professional position, or whether he's too old to still be working or raising children of his own.  And even those of us who still have most of our lives ahead of us know all this. When it comes to our pets, however, many of us are mystified how to relate their ages to ours.  Sure, knowledgeable owners and breeders may be quite familiar with all the developmental stages of their chosen animals, but many of us casual pet owners can't do much more than distinguish between "puppy," "dog," and "old dog."  At what age are kittens weaned from their mothers?  What's the average lifespan of a dog?  When is a cat old enough to reproduce, and when is a dog too old to bear a litter?   Is an 8-year-old dog in the prime of life, or is he closer to middle age? Lacking a good deal of observational experience, many of us simply don't know. Since knowledge and experience take time and effort to acquire, we've developed simple shortcuts to help us answer these questions, such as the well-known formula for "dog years": multiply your dog's age by seven, and you'll have his equivalent age in human terms.  Although this formula might work roughly well for the middle years of a dog's life, it's too simplistic to accurately reflect a dog's developmental status closer to either end of its lifespan.  Using this calculation, for example, an 18-month-old dog would be at a developmental stage similar to a 10-year-old child's, but while many 18-month-old dogs are fully grown and capable of reproducing, few 10-year-old children are.  The "dog years" measurement tells us a 15-year-old dog is supposed to be the equivalent of a 105-year-old person, but (factoring out accidents and other unnatural causes of death) a much larger proportion of dogs live to the age of 15 than humans live to the age of 105.  As well, age is more than just a chronological measurement of years lived; it's also an expression of how our bodies have been affected by the passage of time.  Different types of animals age at different rates, so we can't employ a simple, direct, proportional relationship to correlate the ages of species as disparate as dogs and humans, especially since variable factors such as genetics, nutrition, and environment play an important role in the aging process. The bottom line is just as we wouldn't raise a litter of puppies or kittens the same way we'd raise a baby, neither should we care for our pets based on how old we think they'd be if they were people.  For those who would like a rough idea of how the ages of our canine and feline friends compare to ours (strictly for entertainment purposes), we present the following charts courtesy of ANTECH:   ANTECH Dog Human1 year 15 years2 years 24 years4 years 32 years7 years 45 years10 years 56 years15 years 76 years20 years 98 years     Cat Human1 year 15 years2 years 24 years5 years 36 years7 years 45 years12 years 64 years15 years 76 years18 years 88 years21 years 100 years However, smaller dog breeds tend to live longer on average than larger breeds, so no single chart can adequately represent all dogs with much accuracy.  Therefore a better charting of equivalent ages is one based on the weight of the animal: