Google Earth Discovers Woman Trapped on Desert Island for Years?
In March 2014, the now-defunct Newshound web site published an article positing that a woman named Gemma Sheridan, who was lost in a storm in 2007 and had spent seven years on a deserted island, was finally rescued when the SOS sign she made on a beach was picked up by and spotted in images captured by Google Earth: article My hope was that perhaps a plane might fly over and see [my SOS sign], but in all my time on the island, I had not seen 1 single plane fly over. I didn't give up though. Fast forward a couple more years: I woke up 1 morning to the sound of a plane flying over me which was unusually low, I could not believe it, I thought it was a dream. I ran to the beach screaming and waving my arms like a lunatic, the plane flew over 2 or 3 more times and then dropped a small package. Inside was a radio, fresh water, food and a small medical kit. I switched on the radio and heard the first human voice for years. We talked for what seemed like an eternity, then I asked the voice on the other end "How did you find me" to which they replied "Some kid from Minnesota found your SOS sign on Google Earth" I didnt even know what Google Earth was, but I'm eternally in their debt now. The story was easily spotted as nothing more than fake news, however, for a variety of reasons: The NewsHound web site was not a news site at all, and in place of news it reproduced a number of other hoaxes and spoofs as if they were in fact real news, such as long-debunked stories about a Chinese man suing his wife over giving birth to an ugly baby, Apple paying Microsoft [sic] a $1 billion debt all in nickels, and a planetary alignment causing gravity on Earth to be negated for five minutes. ugly baby nickels gravity  The Newshound article's photograph of the SOS message supposedly created on a beach  by the stranded woman was actually a cropped and enlarged version of a picture published by Amnesty International back in 2010 to accompany an article about destructive violence in southern Kyrgyzstan and was clearly (in its original context) not snapped on a deserted island: Kyrgyzstan  article Compare the following two passages, the first from the 2013 Daily Mail article and the second from the 2014 Newshound article: It was something I was thinking about as I nibbled away at the bark of a tree with a giant clam shell for 11 days just to build a shelter. It might have been bomb-proof and waterproof in the end and it's probably still standing but if I'd had a machete, just that one tool, I would have been able to build it in a few hours.  It was two weeks before I managed to light a fire  you'll be able to tell how happy that made me when you see the show. There were eight feral goats on the island, four adults and four kids. I saw them on day one and they seemed to taunt me by coming so close I could almost touch them. I made a bow and arrow.  In films, the arrow leaves the bow at high velocity and brings down an animal in full flight but this just went twang and fell on the floor. And my spear wasn't sharp enough.  For the first 2 weeks I stayed in a mock shelter i made from debris that washed ashore. I needed to find real shelter, I found a large tree that looked perfect. I nibbled away at the bark of a tree with a giant clam shell for 11 days just to build a shelter. It might have been bomb-proof and waterproof in the end and it's probably still standing but if I'd had a machete, just that one tool, I would have been able to build it in a few hours. It was four weeks before I managed to light a fire  you have no idea how happy that made me. There were eight feral goats on the island, four adults and four kids. I saw them on day one and they seemed to taunt me by coming so close I could almost touch them. I made a bow and arrow, but this just went twang and fell on the floor. And my spear wasn't sharp enough. In August 2015 Linkbeef republished this story, simply changing a few of the details, such as switching the gender of the rescued castaway from female (Gemma Sheridan) to male (Adam Jones) and altering the length of the strandedness from seven to nine years.
One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks:  However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples  not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion  so widely spaced in time and so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with, or imprisoned for, non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine (a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest). settled Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue  the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. dispute By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money. He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. conviction In a literal sense Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected (and the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities). Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons  maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advisement, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who  along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley  owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes, fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader Some of [Helmsley's] luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987 a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn, a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsleys bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt  the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is a difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the monies owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances as well liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit, civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for in unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though: contended Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million, and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharptons assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased, to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions. tax evasion Buettner, Russ.  "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ.  "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid.  "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
  The New York Times.  20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips.  "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
  Forbes.com.  17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W.  "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
  Forbes.com.  17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W.  "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
  Forbes.com.  19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs.  "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
  10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie.  "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
  The Washington Post.  8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle.  "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
  USA Today.  28 February 2014. A photograph purportedly showing a group of sheep squeezing through a gate despite there being no fence is frequently shared as an example of "the trap of thinking":   A herd of sheep is leaving the stall. There is no fence, only the gate... "The Trap of thinking" However, whether or not the sheep are stopping to think about it, there actually is a fence in the above-displayed image. This image was taken by Australian photographer Scott Bridle in 2012, and shows a group of sheep passing through a gate at Brenda Station. While the encircling fence may be hard to see in this particular photograph, fence posts are clearly visible in a higher resolution version. Furthermore, fenced-in sheep can be seen in two other images Bridle took of Brenda Station in 2012: group of sheep Brenda Station version images   Finally, Carolyn Ferguson of Scott Bridle Photography confirmed to us that there was indeed a fence in this photograph: Yes, there is definitely a fence.   Update [July 6, 2022]: Headline reformatting, SEO/social updates. In mid-July 2023, the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the union representing Hollywood actors and performers, voted to go on strike against major studios after negotiations broke down. voted A tweet by @KeatonPatti went viral on July 13, 2023, purporting to show a screenshot of a tweet and video in which O.J. Simpson appeared to show his support for the strike. The screenshot shows Simpson wearing a green shirt while standing in front of flowers. An overlaid caption quotes him as saying, "As a proud SAG member, I can't wait to join you all on the picket line." tweet The screenshot also indicates that Simpson tweeted from his official Twitter account, adding the words, "Union strong. #SAGStrike." Oh no. pic.twitter.com/Cbx0lXJ8w5 pic.twitter.com/Cbx0lXJ8w5  Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) July 13, 2023 July 13, 2023  However, the screenshot is fake. There is no evidence that Simpson issued such a tweet, nor that he made a video in which he expressed support for the guild strike. The writer Keaton Patti, who has previously written stories for humor sites like The Onion, likely shared this screenshot as a joke. Indeed, the replies to the tweet are largely joking about the impact the spectacle of the controversial figure joining the strikes would have. replies We went to Simpson's Twitter account, which primarily consists of videos of him sharing his views on a range of topics, but found no tweets in which he expressed support for the strike. The screenshot was likely created by editing a real screenshot from a July 11, 2023, tweet from Simpson titled, "Sports should be equal and fair," in which he shared his views on the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. In that video, Simpson was shown sitting in front of the same flowers, with the same shirt on, with the camera at the same angle as the one in the manipulated screenshot, and the same reflection in his glasses. Twitter account July 11, 2023, (Screenshot via Twitter/TheRealOJ32)  Sports should be equal and fair. pic.twitter.com/efsqiDpd7k pic.twitter.com/efsqiDpd7k  O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) July 11, 2023 July 11, 2023  Simpson, a former professional football player, gained notoriety in the 1990s after a sensational trial in which he was acquitted of the murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. In 2008, he was found guilty in a botched robbery and sentenced to more than three decades in prison, of which he served nine years. acquitted 2008 Simpson also produced andactedprofessionally, appearing in "The Naked Gun" movie series, among others. His finances fell under scrutiny upon his 2017 release from prison. Tom Scotto, his friend, told USA Today that Simpson received money from a SAG pension, in addition to his National Football League pension and his personal investments in a retirement fund. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Simpson's SAG pension was protected from the millions of dollars he owed to the families of Brown Simpson and Goldman, after they won a wrongful death lawsuit against him in 1997. acted USA Today Hollywood Reporter won Simpson's acting and producing credits entitled him to SAG membership and he appears to have a SAG pension as well, but the extent of his active participation in union activities and current status is unknown. Regardless, the above screenshot clearly does not show Simpson supporting the actor's strike, rather it was manufactured by altering a separate video and adding a fictional caption. As such, we rate this claim as False. Barco, Mandalit del. "Hollywood Actors Go on Strike, Say It's Time for Studio Execs to 'Wake Up.'" NPR, 13 July 2023. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2023/07/13/1187310535/hollywood-actors-strike-sag-aftra.Accessed 14 July 2023. Gardner, Eriq. "O.J. Simpson's Former Attorney F. Lee Bailey Gets Bad News About His SAG-AFTRA Pensions." The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/oj-simpsons-attorney-f-lee-bailey-gets-bad-news-his-sag-aftra-pensions-1045756/.Accessed 14 July 2023. News, A. B. C. "26 Years Ago, OJ Simpson Was Acquitted: Timeline of His Life and the Sensational Trial." ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/US/key-moments-oj-simpsons-life/story?id=48724637. Accessed 14 July 2023. "O.J. Simpson | Actor, Producer." IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001740/. Accessed 14 July 2023. "O.J. Simpson Acquitted." HISTORY, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/o-j-simpson-acquitted. Accessed 14 July 2023. Peter, Josh. "O.J. Simpson's Finances Will Be Closely Watched If Paroled." USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2017/07/19/o-j-simpsons-finances-closely-watched-if-paroled/493639001/. Accessed 14 July 2023. Vercammen, Paul. "O.J. Simpson to Focus on 'friends, Family and Golf,' Live in Gated Community after Release." CNN, 29 Sept. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/29/us/o-j-simpson-parole-release-road-to-freedom/index.html.Accessed 14 July 2023. On 20 April 2019, the verified Facebook page belonging to the non-profit organization Turning Point USA posted a meme containing a statement falsely attributed to George Washington. Facebook page Turning Point USA meme The statement attributed to the first U.S. president reads, "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. Firearms are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence." Much like the cherry tree legend about him, however, the quote appears to be a fabrication.The statement, which is often referred to as the "liberty teeth" quote, is listed by Mount Vernon (Washington's historical estate) under "spurious quotations" attributed to Washington. It "does not show up in any of Washington's writings, nor does any closely related quote," per the estate. cherry tree  spurious quotations Nevertheless, the quote gets trotted out with some regularity. In 2013 the progressive media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) noted it was employed in a Playboy magazine article as far back as 1995, and was thus the subject of a subsequent retraction. The quote was also one of several erroneous ones included in the language of a Washington state bill dubbed the "firearms civil rights act" in 2016. employed erroneous ones One of the most famous myths about the first president is probably the story of the cherry tree. In the story, a young Washington takes a hatchet to a cherry tree. When confronted about it by his father, the boy says, "I cannot tell a lie" and confesses. Although the tale is meant to demonstrate the virtue of honesty, it is an invention of biographer Mason Locke Weems. The Mount Vernon estate notes that "Weems biography, The Life of Washington, was first published in 1800 and was an instant bestseller. However the cherry tree myth did not appear until the books fifth edition was published in 1806." Santos, Melissa."Fake Founding Fathers Quotes Make Their Way Into Gun Bill in Washington."
Sacramento Bee.6 February 2016. Rendall, Steve."George Washington on GunsAccording to Sean Hannity."
FAIR.9 January 2013. Mount Vernon."Spurious Quotations." Mount Vernon."Cherry Tree Myth." Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia has courted controversy on various issues by promoting QAnon conspiracy theories, alongside a history of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic remarks. Years-old views, including a Facebook interaction in which she agreed with a comment that the Parkland shooting was a "false flag" staged event, and a video in which she pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories, have been unearthed. Marjorie Taylor Greene courted controversy interaction 9/11 conspiracy theories One post from 2018 in particular was reported on by Media Matters for America, a watchdog group, where she speculated about a conspiracy surrounding the November 2018 wildfires in California. In the now-deleted post, Greene theorized that a space-based solar generator, used in a clean-energy experiment with the goal of replacing coal and oil, could have beamed the sun's energy back to Earth and started the fires. We have covered similar claims surrounding the wildfires before. reported now-deleted theorized similar claims She said, "there are too many coincidences to ignore" and "oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires."   Greene also speculated that a range of people or groups were involved in this fire, including former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Rothschild Inc., an investment firm. She said that Roger Kimmel, who was on the board of PG&E, was also "Vice Chairman of Rothschild Inc," and "If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I'm sure they wouldn't ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don't know. I hope not! That wouldn't look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E." The Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family, have long been the targets of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that Jewish people are in control of the entire world. While Greene specifically did not use the words "Jewish space laser," she heavily implied that the Rothschilds were involved in the laser conspiracy. targets An investigation showed that the California wildfires of 2018 were ignited by PG&E power lines, and then spread with the help of warm temperatures, dry vegetation, and strong winds. showed In late January 2021, CNN reported that dozens of posts from 2018 and 2019 had been removed from Greene's Facebook page. removed Given that Greene did not directly state that "Jewish lasers" caused the fires, but did speculate that laser beams somehow connected to the Rothschild investment firm were a cause, we rate this claim as "Mixture." Republican Senate candidate George Allen recently complained that corporate taxes are too high and discourage economic expansion.The tax on job-creating businesses in the United States is 35 percent, second worst in the entire world, he said during a June 14 news conference at which he unveiled his Blueprint for Americas Comeback..We wondered if the U.S. really is No.2 in the world when it comes to high corporate taxes and asked for the source of Allens information.Katie Wright, spokeswoman for Allens campaign, pointed to a March 8, 2011,reportfrom the right-leaning Tax Foundation. It indeed showed that the U.S. had the second highest total corporate tax rate among industrialized and emerging nations. Only Japan placed higher levies on business profits.But taxes are a complicated subject, and Allens claim needs elaboration.Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noted most corporate income is taxed at the top U.S. federal rate of 35 percent, which Allen cited. The tax applies to American companies doing business here and abroad as well as to profits earned in the U.S. by affiliates of foreign companies.Allen understates his argument when he says the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. Actually, it outstrips Japan and is the highest national rate among nearly three dozen industrialized democracies, according to 2011 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.But national tax rates on companies dont tell the whole story.When looking at how the U.S. corporate tax liability compares to other countries, analysts usually  examine a combination of federal and state corporate income tax rates.By that measure, the combined average corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.2 percent this year, according to the OECD. Among industrialized democracies, only Japans combined corporate rate of 39.5 percent is higher.Japan had planned to lower its corporate tax rate by 5 percent on April 1. But it delayed making the cut after a disastrous earthquake and tsunami struck in March.The OECD report only discusses statutory corporate tax rates. It does not address deductions and credits companies can claim in various countries to lower their liabilities. These loopholes produce an effective tax rate - the percentage of profits companies actually pay in levies.The World Bank published a report last November containing the effective corporate tax rates of 183 nations. The U.S. had an effective corporate tax rate of 27.6 percent, according to the study, which is still pretty high. Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand had higher effective tax rates on corporate profits.Allen, during his news conference, said he would like to lower the 35 percent national corporate tax rate to 20 percent and eliminate loopholes.Lets sum up:Allen said the U.S. corporate income tax of 35 percent is the second highest in the world.The national rate of 35 percent is actually the highest among democratic industrial nations. The U.S. combined corporate tax rate -- the average total of state and national levies on business profits -- is 39.2 and ranks second among industrialized democracies.So Allen is a smidgen off on tax rates, rankings and definitions. We rate his claim Mostly True. Ohio law contains 128 tax breaks that cost the state about $7 billion per year in lost revenue it otherwise would collect, according to the Department of Taxation.State Rep. Mike Foley, a Democrat from Cleveland, wants to close some of these loopholes so the state has more money for schools, safety forces and other local government services.Foley co-sponsored a bill in February to establish a committee that would review the states tax exemptions every two years. More recently, he tried to get approval for his plan by adding it to a broadly supported general tax bill, House Bill 508, under consideration in the House of Representatives on April 25.Foley said during a floor speechthat tax exemptions need to be reviewed because some of them are fairly silly, such as a sales tax exemption related to private jets.I dont think we need to be giving exemptions to rich people who own private jets, Foley said. Were giving tax breaks to guys that own private jets  that doesnt make any sense.Foleys statement hits on individual tax burdens, a frequently discussed political topic that resonates with many voters. So PolitiFact Ohio decided dig into Foleys claim.Foleys office provided us with a handful of documents to back up his claim, includinga tax expenditure report presented in March 2011 by the Ohio Department of Taxation.But before we examine the report and whether it supports Foleys claim, lets look into how these tax breaks work.Here is the Taxation Departments explanation:Tax expenditures represent tax dollars that are foregone through deductions, exemptions, credits, and other provisions in tax laws, the tax expenditure report says. Tax expenditures result in a loss of tax revenue to state government, thereby reducing the funds available for other government programs. In essence, a tax expenditure has the same fiscal impact as a direct government expenditure.Among the tax exemptions in the report is one for people  who buy a share of a private jet, or what is called a fractionally-owned aircraft.This particular tax break was passed in 2003 as part of the state budget.It does have some limitations. It was crafted to apply only to those who do business with qualified companies that provide fractional ownership of private jets. Qualified companies would operate at least 100 aircraft and meet other criteria.The tax break does not apply to individuals who buy their own private jet.Foley did mention fractional ownership at another point during his floor speech: If you won a fractional or some other sort of ownership of a private jet, then were giving you an exemption on your taxes.The tax loophole caps sales tax at $800 for the sum of shares of a fractionally owned jet. Fractional owners are charged a fraction of the $800 that corresponds with their ownership stake. So if somebody owns one-eighth of the jet, he would pay $100 in sales tax.There are only two companies in Ohio that fit the requirements as a qualified company for this exemption, according to the Department of Taxation. That means only people who buy their fractional ownership from one of these two companies qualify for the tax break.The department, however, would not disclose those companies because the law prohibits disclosure of almost all information on specific taxpayers, taxation department spokesman Gary Gudmundson said in an e-mail.Although the state would not say which two companies qualify for the exemption, NetJets and Flight Options are two prominent fractionally owned aircraft companies based in Ohio.When lawmakers debated the merits of the tax break in 2003, a fractional-ownership company reported that its average share cost was $1.2 million, according to a Department of Taxation analysis of this tax expenditure produced in Jan. 2011. The analysis did not name the company.The taxation department last year estimated in its tax expenditure report that the tax break for fractionally owned aircraft costs the state about $1 million a year.So what does all this mean for Foleys claim?There is no doubt that a tax loophole exists for people who buy a stake in a private jet.A listener hearing Foleys quip about tax breaks for rich people buying private jets could believe he was referring to anyone who buys a private plane. The tax break, however, only applies to fractional ownership programs. Thats additional information that provides clarity. And to his credit, Foley did mention fractional ownership at a different point in his speech on the House floor.And the average share price previously reported -- $1.2 million  suggests the tax exemption would be available wealthy people, just as Foley claimed.On the Truth-O-Meter, Foleys claim rates Mostly True. In August 2019, as many people took to the Internet to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote on paper, a piece of text started to circulate on social media that supposedly listed "9 things that women couldn't do until 1971":   The following list is of NINE things a woman couldn't do in 1971  yes the date is correct, 1971. In 1971 a woman could not: 1. Get a Credit Card in her own name  it wasn't until 1974 that a law forced credit card companies to issue cards to women without their husband's signature. 2. Be guaranteed that they wouldn't be unceremoniously fired for the offense of getting pregnant  that changed with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of *1978*! 3. Serve on a jury - It varied by state (Utah deemed women fit for jury duty way back in 1879), but the main reason women were kept out of jury pools was that they were considered the center of the home, which was their primary responsibility as caregivers. They were also thought to be too fragile to hear the grisly details of crimes and too sympathetic by nature to be able to remain objective about those accused of offenses. In 1961, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Florida law that exempted women from serving on juries. It wasn't until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states. 4. Fight on the front lines  admitted into military academies in 1976 it wasn't until 2013 that the military ban on women in combat was lifted. Prior to 1973 women were only allowed in the military as nurses or support staff. 5. Get an Ivy League education - Yale and Princeton didn't accept female students until 1969. Harvard didn't admit women until 1977 (when it merged with the all-female Radcliffe College). Brown (which merged with women's college Pembroke), Dartmouth and Columbia did not offer admission to women until 1971, 1972 and 1981, respectively. Other case-specific instances allowed some women to take certain classes at Ivy League institutions (such as Barnard women taking classes at Columbia), but, by and large, women in the '60s who harbored Ivy League dreams had to put them on hold. 6. Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. Indeed the first time a court recognized office sexual harassment as grounds for any legal action was in 1977! 7. Decide not to have sex if their husband wanted to  spousal rape wasn't criminalized in all 50 states until 1993. Read that again ... 1993. 8. Obtain health insurance at the same monetary rate as a man. Sex discrimination wasn't outlawed in health insurance until 2010 and today many, including sitting elected officials at the Federal level, feel women don't mind paying a little more. Again, that date was 2010. 9. The birth control pill: Issues like reproductive freedom and a woman's right to decide when and whether to have children were only just beginning to be openly discussed in the 1960s. In 1957, the FDA approved of the birth control pill but only for "severe menstrual distress." In 1960, the pill was approved for use as a contraceptive. Even so, the pill was illegal in some states and could be prescribed only to married women for purposes of family planning, and not all pharmacies stocked it. Some of those opposed said oral contraceptives were "immoral, promoted prostitution and were tantamount to abortion." It wasn't until several years later that birth control was approved for use by all women, regardless of marital status. In short, birth control meant a woman could complete her education, enter the work force and plan her own life. Oh, and one more thing, prior to 1880 which is just a few years before the photo of this very proud lady was taken, the age of consent for sex was set at 10 or 12 in more states, with the exception of our neighbor Delaware  where it was 7 YEARS OLD! Feminism is NOT just for other women. KNOW your HERstory. A similar post on Facebook with tens of thousands of shares reported much the same in 2016 from user Lisa Bialac-Jehle. post on Facebook In general, the list above accurately reports nine things that women couldn't do in 1971. We'll take a closer look at each item below: Get a credit card in her own name As this post explains, banks were able to discriminate against women applying for credit cards until the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in October 1974. Women could get credit cards prior to this legislation, but as The Smithsonian notes, they were likely to be asked a barrage of personal questions and were often required to be accompanied by a man to co-sign for a credit card. Even then, women often received cards with lower limits or higher rates: Equal Credit Opportunity Act Smithsonian Forty years ago, any woman applying for a credit card could be asked a barrage of questions: Was she married? Did she plan to have children? Many banks required single, divorced or widowed women to bring a man along with them to cosign for a credit card, and some discounted the wages of women by as much as 50 percent when calculating their credit card limits. As women and minorities pushed for equal civil rights in various arenas, credit cards became the focus of a series of hearings in which women documented the discrimination they faced. And, finally, in 1974  forty years ago this year  the Senate passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their gender, race, religion and national origin. Be guaranteed that they wouldn't be unceremoniously fired for getting pregnant Women faced a number of work-related consequences for getting pregnant prior to the passage of thePregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. On the 40th anniversary of this law, the ACLU posted a statement explaining how pregnancy often resulted in pink slips for working women: Pregnancy Discrimination Act statement Forty years ago, working women in the United States won the legal protection to become working mothers. On Oct. 31, 1978, Congress enacted the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, making it illegal for employers to deny a woman a job  or promotion, or higher pay, or any other opportunity  because she is pregnant. The statute had an immediate, dramatic impact on women's ability to fully participate in the workforce. Although on-the-job sex discrimination had been outlawed more than a decade earlier, pregnancy wasn't legally recognized as a type of sex discrimination. As a result, a pregnancy often resulted in a pink slip. Some employers even imposed formal policies prohibiting pregnancy outright because their female employees were expected to project a certain image  for example, flight attendants, who were expected by airlines to convey sexual availability to their businessman customers, and teachers, who were expected by school districts to project chasteness to their young pupils. Serve on a jury Women's road to the jury box was a long one. While the state of Utah deemed women qualified for jury duty back in 1898, it took the other 49 states several decades to reach the same conclusion. The ACLU noted that women were excluded from jury duties for a number of reasons: noted Aside from the "defect of sex," women were excluded from juries for a variety of reasons: their primary obligation was to their families and children; they should be shielded from hearing the details of criminal cases, particularly those involving sex offenses; they would be too sympathetic to persons accused of crimes; and keeping male and female jurors together during long trials could be injurious to women. While this viral posts states that it wasn't until "1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states," we found that this battle was still being fought for at least another two years. In 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision that it was constitutionally unacceptable for states to bar women from juries. From a 1975 article in The New York Times: The New York Times The Supreme Court ruled today that shifting economic and social patterns of the last dozen years have made it constitutionally unacceptable for states to deny women equal opportunity to serve on juries. The 8to1 decision will have little practical effect on the makeup of juries. All states, including Louisiana where the case originated, now have laws that do not exempt women from jury service, although women are treated differently from men in some instances involving such service. But the majority broke important philosophical ground by acknowledging for the first time that the role of women is society was changing and that the courts must recognize their growing economic independence in assessing their legal rights. "If it was ever the case that women were unqualified to sit on juries or were so situated that none of them should be required to perform jury service," Associate Justice Byron R. White wrote for the majority, "that time has long since passed." Fight on the front lines Women in the United States have been aiding military operations as nurses, cooks, and in other non-combat positions since the Revolutionary War in 1775. However, it wasn't until 1976 that the United States Military Academy at West Point accepted women to the Corps of Cadets. Still, it would be several more years until women would find their way to the front lines. In 1994, the Pentagon restricted women from serving in "artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles." This ban wasn't lifted until 2013: several more years restricted 2013 The US military officially lifted a ban on female soldiers serving in combat roles on Thursday and said that anyone qualified should get a chance to fight on the front lines of war regardless of their sex. At a press conference in the Pentagon Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that women had already proved themselves in action on America's battlefields and the move was simply a way of catching up with reality. "Everyone is entitled to a chance," said Panetta, who is retiring form his post this year. At the moment women make up about 14% of the military's 1.4 million active members and more than 280,000 of them have done tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan or overseas bases where they helped support the US war effort in those countries. Indeed, some 152 women have been killed in the conflicts. Get an Ivy League education The Ivy League is comprised of eight universities in the northeastern part of the United States. While women were able to attend Cornell University as early as the 1870s, it wasn't until 1983 that the final Ivy League school, Columbia College, started to admit women: 1983 The last all-male school in the Ivy League became a coeducational one yesterday when Columbia College enrolled women for the first time in its 229-year history. It was a day of celebration at Columbia, with few alumni or students criticizing the change, and with college administrators saying the decision to admit women had resulted in the most talented freshman class ever. Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. According to Time, the term "sexual harassment" was coined by a group of students at Cornell University in 1975. The term was popularized in a New York Times article published that same year, and in 1977, three court cases confirmed that a woman could take legal action against her employer for sexual harassment: Time New York Times The phrase "sexual harassment" was coined in 1975, by a group of women at Cornell University. A former employee of the university, Carmita Wood, filed a claim for unemployment benefits after she resigned from her job due to unwanted touching from her supervisor. Cornell had refused Wood's request for a transfer, and denied her the benefits on the grounds that she quit for "personal reasons." Wood together with activists at the university's Human Affairs Office, formed a group called Working Women United. At a Speak Out event hosted by the group, secretaries, mailroom clerks, filmmakers, factory workers and waitresses shared their stories, revealing that the problem extended beyond the university setting. The women spoke of masturbatory displays, threats and pressure to trade sexual favors for promotions ... ... By 1977, three court cases confirmed that a woman could sue her employer for harassment under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, using the EEOC as the vehicle for redress. The Supreme Court upheld these early cases in 1986 with Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, which was based on the complaints of Mechelle Vinson, a bank employee whose boss intimidated her into having sex with him in vaults and basements up to fifty times. Vinson was African American, as were many of the litigants in pioneering sexual harassment cases; some historians suggest that the success of racial discrimination cases during these same years encouraged women of color to vigorously pursue their rights at work. Decide not to have sex if her husband wanted to This item is referring to spousal rape. The first person to be convicted of spousal rape in the U.S. was a Massachusetts bartender who broke into the home of his estranged wife in 1979 and raped her: convicted English common law, the source of much traditional law in the U.S., had long held that it wasn't legally possible for a man to rape his wife. It was in 1736 that Sir Matthew Hale  the same jurist who said that it was hard to prove a rape accusation from a woman whose personal life wasn't entirely "innocent," setting the standard that a woman's past sexual experiences could be used by the defense in a rape case explained that marriage constituted permanent consent that could not be retracted. That idea stood for centuries. Then, in 1979, a pair of cases highlighted changing legal attitudes about the concept. Until then, most state criminal codes had rape definitions that explicitly excluded spouses. (In fact, as TIME later pointed out, it wasn't just the case that saying "no" to one's husband didn't make the act that followed rape; in addition, saying "no" to one's husband was usually grounds for him to get a divorce.) As the year opened, a man in Salem, Ore., was found not guilty of raping his wife, though they both stated that they had fought before having sex. But, even as the verdict was returned, a National Organization for Women spokesperson told TIME that "the very fact that there has been such a case" meant that change was in the air  and she was quickly proved right. The case believed to be the first-ever American conviction for spousal rape came that fall, when a Salem, Mass., bartender drunkenly burst into the home he used to share with his estranged wife and raped her. It's not hard to see how this case was the one that made the possibility of rape between a married couple clear to the public: they were in the middle of a divorce, and the crime involved house invasion and violence. As TIME noted, several other states had also adopted laws making it possible to pursue such a case, though they had not yet been put to the test. Even though the first conviction for spousal rape occurred during the 1970s, it wasn't until 1993 that spousal rape was officially illegal in all 50 states. While marital rape has been technically illegal in all 50 states since 1993, advocates argue that there are still legal loopholes in some states that allow for marital rape to be treated differently than rape. legal loopholes Obtain health insurance at the same monetary rate as men This item refers to the practice of "gender rating" by health insurance companies, which typically resulted in higher premiums for women seeking individual health insurance. In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) sought to do away with the practice. Obamacare NPR reported: reported Any woman who has bought health insurance on her own probably didn't find herself humming the old show tune, "I Enjoy Being a Girl." That's because more than 90 percent of individual plans charge women higher premiums than men for the same coverage, a practice known as gender rating. Women spend $1 billion more annually on their health insurance premiums than they would if they were men because of gender rating, according to a recent report by the National Women's Law Center. Under the health care overhaul, the practice is banned starting in 2014. The birth control pill This post correctly states that the FDA first approved an oral contraceptive (a birth-control pill called Enovid) in 1957. However, at the time, the pill was only approved for use as a "treatment of severe menstrual disorders," and the FDA required that it be labeled with a warning that Enovid will prevent ovulation. A few years later in 1960, the FDA approved Enovid as a contraceptive. Still, the pill was only available to married couples. It wasn't until 1972 that birth-control pills were available to all women, regardless of marital status: 1972 Then came the landmark date, marking the biggest change to America's contraceptive potential in history. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved Enovid, an oral contraceptive pill released by G.D. Searle and Company. By 1965, almost 6.5 million American women were on "The Pill," the oral contraceptive's enduring vague nickname, which is thought to have stemmed from women requesting it from their doctors as discreetly as possible. That same year, the Supreme Court struck down state laws that prohibited contraception use, though only for married couples. (Unmarried people were out of luck until 1972, when birth control was deemed legal for all.) Ortiz, Erik.  "'It's Disgusting': Loopholes Remain in North Carolina's Sexual Assault Laws. Advocates Ask Why."   NBC News.  11 May 2019. Eveleth, Rose.  "Forty Years Ago, Women Had a Hard Time Getting Credit Cards."   Smithsonian.  8 January 2014. Thomas, Gillian.  "Employees Who Have Babies Are Still Getting the Axe."   ACLU.  31 October 2018. McDonald, Laughlin.  "A Jury of One's Peers."   ACLU.  18 March 2011. Harris, Paul.  "Women in Combat: US Military Officially Lifts Ban on Female Soldiers."   The Guardian.  25 January 2013. Rothman, Lily.  "When Spousal Rape First Became a Crime in the U.S."   Time.  28 July 2015. Weaver, Warren.  "High Court Backs Women's Jury Rights."   The New York Times.  22 January 1975. Bumiller, Elisabeth and Thom Shanker.  "Pentagon Is Set to Lift Combat Ban for Women."   The New York Times.  23 January 2013. Belkin, Lisa.  "First Coed Class Enters Columbia College."   The New York Times.  30 August 1983. Cohen, Sascha.  "A Brief History of Sexual Harassment in America Before Anita Hill."   Time.  11 April 2016. Nemy, End.  "Women Begin to Speak Out Against Sexual Harassment at Work."   The New York Times.  19 August 1975. NPR.  "Health Insurance Prices For Women Set To Drop."   17 July 2012. Gibson, Megan.  "The Long, Strange History of Birth Control."   Time.  2 February 2015. In June 2021, messages started to circulate on social media claiming that the country of Jamaica had banned K-Pop music.  circulate on social media Jamaica has not banned K-pop. This claim originates with a satirical article that was published in 2018 on the website 8satire.com.   In addition to having "satire" in the website name, 8satire.com (which previously published content as "8shit") also carries a disclaimer labeling its content as fiction: 8Shit is a satire news and humor website. All its content is fiction (except those posts under the serious category) and shouldnt be taken as real. All references, names and marks or institutions in this website are used as contextual elements, like in any novel or science-fiction story. It should also be noted that while Jamaica is most famous for Reggae music, Jamaicans enjoy a variety of different musical genres. The Jamaican Observer reported in 2019 that a K-Pop party hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Jamaica was well-attended by young Jamaicans: Jamaican Observer reported Despite South Korea being approximately 13,473 km away from Jamaica, the K-pop wave has breached Jamaican shores. Last September the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Jamaica hosted its annual K-Lovers' Party and Talent Competition and its inaugural Korean Language Speech Competition. The events were well-attended by young Jamaicans who openly expressed their love for Korean culture by singing along to popular K-pop tracks in the Korean language, dancing to the music, and participating in the two competitions. It was surprising to see the display of talent, particularly because there are not many places to learn Hangul, the Korean language, in Jamaica. The events represented the growing interest in Korean culture among the Jamaican youth. In January 2021, a photograph supposedly showing Dr. Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and her family was circulated on social media accompanied by hateful and transphobic comments:   This is not a genuine photograph of Levine and her family.  The above-displayed image is a photoshopped creation that originated with an image of Samantha, Phillip, and Emma Chawner, a family in the United Kingdom who have become known for their struggles with weight loss. The Chawner family first shot to attention in 2007 after Emma performed on the X-Factor. Emma was rejected from that show, but the Chawners soon found themselves on another reality show called "Lorraine Kelly's Big Fat Challenge."  shot to attention While the above-displayed meme is frequently shared as if it shows Levine's family photo, it was also circulated during the holiday season with holly around the edges and the caption "secular greetings."  Here's a comparison of the "secular greetings" version of this image (left) and the genuine photograph of the Chawners (right):