Is the USPS Intentionally Delaying Mail to Aid in Trump's Reelection?
As U.S. President Donald Trump accelerated unsubstantiated attacks on the legitimacy of mail-in voting during the summer of 2020, numerous Snopes readers asked us to investigate whether the leader of the U.S. Postal Service was carrying out a nefarious scheme to help Trump win another presidential term. mail-in voting In late July and early August, various rumors surfaced regarding Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman whom the Postal Service's governing board selected to run the agency in May 2020. For example, a viral tweet thread alleged: viral tweet My mailman just confirmed they have all officially been told to "SLOW THE MAIL DOWN," per trump's Postmaster General. ...He says that there is backed up mail ALL OVER THE FLOOR. He's never seen anything like it. It has ALREADY begun. But as long as we keep each other informed, we can beat their dirty tricks with INFORMATION.   The claim's underlying notions were these: DeJoy was a political ally to the Republican president, and the new postmaster general had used his new authority to order Postal Service carriers and clerks to slow deliveries to help Trump win the 2020 November election. A backlog of ballots in the weeks or days before Election Day, critics of the president worried, could lead to votes going uncounted or deemed invalid due to state laws governing mail-in election deadlines. state laws What follows is an examination of federal documents obtained by Snopes  including letters by members of Congress, campaign finance reports, and internal memos to Postal Service employees  as well as interviews with postal union representatives and a Postal Service spokesperson, to determine the legitimacy of those questions. DeJoy could not be reached for an interview for this report.  Note: Snopes not only investigated DeJoy's relationship to Trump, but his financial stake in companies that compete with the Postal Service to evaluate if, or to what extent, his past investments provided any evidence of a plan to undermine the Postal Service's longstanding mission: to provide mail service to every American, no matter their address or income. Yes. DeJoy, who lives in Greensboro, donated more than $1.2 million to the Trump campaign between August 2016 and February 2020, according to campaign finance reports compiled by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Federal Elections Commission It's unclear when or how DeJoy developed a relationship with Trump, and why he decided to support the billionaire's political pursuits. In a 2005 interview with Greensboro's local newspaper, DeJoy  then-CEO of New Breed Logistics, a distribution and warehousing company  appeared less supportive of Trump, saying his self-important attitude on the reality-TV show "The Apprentice" was destructive. 2005 interview The Apprentice "I'd be fired," DeJoy said, if he was a contestant. Nonetheless, by early 2017, DeJoy was among his state's top donors to Trump (see below for The Charlotte Observer's list that ranks DeJoy at No. 3 with a total contribution of $111,000). And by October of that year, DeJoy had become close enough to the president to host him and other donors for fundraiser at his Greensboro house. top donors Greensboro house.     Also, by that time, DeJoy's wife, Aldona Wos, had been appointed by the president to serve as vice chair of a White House commission that oversees paid fellowships in federal offices, according to the couple's foundation website. foundation website In addition to his contributions to Trump's political campaigns specifically, DeJoy has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican causes or campaigns over decades, the FEC records show. The Postal Service's governing board, a group appointed by the president with confirmation from the Senate, selected DeJoy as Postmaster General on May 6, 2020, after what it described as an extensive nationwide search for qualified candidates. At the time of that decision, Trump had appointed all six board members  Chairman Robert Duncan, John Barger, Ron Bloom, Roman Martinez IV, Donald Moak, and William Zollars  since the early days of his presidency. what it described Robert Duncan John Barger Ron Bloom Roman Martinez IV Donald Moak William Zollars  DeJoy, who was in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Charlotte when the board made its announcement, made the following donations since the start of 2020, according to filings from the FEC: National Republican Congressional Committee. National Republican Congressional Committee Facebook In sum, considering DeJoy's record of donations, as well as evidence of him hosting a Trump fundraiser at his Greensboro home in fall 2017, it is accurate to claim that the new postmaster general is a political ally to the Republican president.  home The answer to this question is less clear. In summer 2020, the viral claim about DeJoy  that he had directed carriers to delay mail to benefit Trump's reelection campaign (which we unpack below)  took on another layer: that DeJoy had also allegedly invested $70 million of his own money in delivery companies that compete with the Postal Service. another layer allegedly     That allegation, which we deemed true (see the explanation below), was particularly worrisome for critics of Trump and DeJoy, who believed the alleged holdings were more proof of the two leaders conspiring together  this time in an attempt to privatize the Postal Service. critics Here's some context before we dive into DeJoy's personal assets: Conservative Republicans have long pushed to remove government from mail services that they believe should be left to the private commercial market. Since Trump took office, he has called the Postal Service "a joke" or Amazon's "delivery boy," considering its package rates, and has floated the idea of eventually privatizing the agency. a joke delivery boy eventually privatizing the agency Meanwhile, others fear dismantling the federally-mandated mail service would disproportionately affect people who live in rural areas, where private companies such as FedEx and UPS either charge higher rates or do no shipments at all. At the same time, the Postal Service  which does not receive tax dollars for its operating expenses  faces a worsening financial situation due to a 2006 congressional mandate that required the agency to prepay health care benefits of retirees, as well as a decline in first-class mail customers. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated those long-standing problems, forcing several post offices nationwide to completely close or scale back hours. congressional mandate coronavirus pandemic scale back hours For instance, on April 9, 2020, roughly one month before DeJoy was selected to lead the Postal Service, then-Postmaster General Megan Brennan said the agency was preparing for a $13 billion revenue shortfall due directly to COVID-19 and an additional $54.3 billion in losses over 10 years. Considering those projections, she said the agency could run out of cash this fiscal year  or the end of September  without federal intervention. (Brennan announced her retirement in October 2019, after more than 30 years with the agency.) April 9, 2020 announced her retirement The former Postal Service leader made those comments shortly after federal leaders negotiated a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which, initially, included a $13 billion one-time boost for the mail service. But, purportedly at the urging of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and aides to Trump, congressional leaders removed that provision from the stimulus package, and instead included a $10 billion loan that the Trump administration could leverage in its favor. Then, on July 29, 2020, The Washington Post reported that under DeJoy's leadership, the postal agency gave Mnuchin's office's proprietary information about the Postal Service's most lucrative private-sector contracts, such as Amazon, FedEx and UPS, in exchange for the loan money. economic relief package Steven Mnuchin The Washington Post By that time, Congressional leaders and Trump were battling yet again over another emergency relief package; Democrats proposed a $25 billion boost for the Postal Service but then lowered that amount to $10 billion during talks with Republicans. On Aug. 13, 2020, during an interview on Fox Business Network, the president said frankly the tug-and-pull over Postal Service funding was part of his administration's plan to try to make it harder for the agency to handle the expected surge in mail-in ballots in the November election. If we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money, Trump told host Maria Bartiromo, referring to the false claim that Democrats are are proposing a universal mail-in voting system. That means they cant have universal mail-in voting; they just cant have it. told Which brings us to DeJoy's assets, and the above-mentioned claim that he had "$70 million invested in companies that compete with USPS." For the basis of this analysis, we considered private companies that provide shipping or distribution services, such as DHL, the FedEx Corporation, and United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS), business competitors with the post office. For more than 30 years, DeJoy was the CEO of New Breed Logistics, a supply chain business that contracted with a variety of public and private companies, including the Postal Service. In 2014, XPO Logistics acquired DeJoy's company, and he served on the company's executive team or board of directors until May 2018. According to internal documents, which we obtained using the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) database of company filings, XPO Logistics considered its competitors to include DHL, FedEx, UPS, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services.  XPO Logistics DHL FedEx UPS J.B. Hunt Transport Services Aside from that evidence, which proved DeJoy's former company competed for business with organizations that also competed with the Postal Service, Snopes uncovered a letter from his wife, Wos, to a White House legal advisor on January 3, 2020, that listed her family's financial assets, known as "Attachment A." According to that list, the family had stock in companies including UPS, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., and XPO Logistics, Inc. letter She wrote the letter in response to a nomination by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Canada, and she said she would divest from all holdings in the document within 90 days of her confirmation. However, as of this writing, Wos had not been sworn into the position. The letter, which was available via the Office of Government Ethics, read: nomination Office of Government Ethics   As of June 15, 2020, the day DeJoy assumed his role as postmaster general, The Washington Post reported the couple had between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in Postal Service competitors or contractors. XPO Logistics represented the vast majority of those investments, and the couple's combined stake in UPS and trucking company J.B. Hunt, for examples, was roughly $265,000. The Washington Post reported On DeJoy's first day, the Senate's top Democrat, Charles Schumer of New York, said in letter to the Postal Service's board of governors' chairman: "[DeJoy's] financial interests in companies that have business ties with the Postal Services, as well as his extensive campaign fundraising efforts, raise questions" over his ethical conflicts of interest and partisan interests. letter By that point, a spokeswoman for DeJoy told journalists he had resigned as finance chair for the Republican National Convention, and would "comply with any financial divestitures that are required" for the new leadership position. told journalists In sum, reports proved the DeJoy family at one point had millions of dollars in assets in companies that compete or contract with the Postal Service, which lend credibility to the viral assertion. But the exact amount of such investments was unclear, and as of this writing, it was unknown if or to what extent the couple had divested any of the financial holdings. Not exactly  but there is some truth to the claim. Upon our analysis, the rumor seems to have stemmed from a series of directives DeJoy gave Postal Service employees since he took over the agency. On his first day, for example, he addressed the agency in a video that alluded to impending changes under his leadership that aimed to create a "viable operating model," though he did not go into specifics. video Then, in mid-July, he issued several memos to employees, including a "New [Postmaster General's] expectations and plan." Those messages to all managers, clerks, and carriers nationwide appeared to be the source of the claim, and detailed changes to how and when the Postal Agency would deliver mail. A July 10, 2020, internal document to managers, which Snopes received from the American Postal Workers Union and refers to an "operational pivot" for the agency, said the following, for example: American Postal Workers Union The initial step in our pivot is targeted on transportation and the soaring costs we incur due to late trips and extra trips, which costs the organization somewhere around $200 million in added expenses. $200 million in added expenses The shifts are simple, but they will be challenging, as we seek to change our culture and move away from past practices previously used. But perhaps most relevant to the claim, the DeJoy-sponsored directives included instructions for employees to leave letters or packages at distribution centers if they delayed carriers from their routes  contradicting previous rules for deliveries  and said the Postal Service would no longer pay employees overtime to complete all mail deliveries. The July 10, 2020 memo said:  contradicting One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that  temporarily  we may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks [in Processing and Distribution Centers], which is not typical. We will address root causes of these delays and adjust the very next day. Any mail left behind must be properly reported, and employees should ensure this action is taken with integrity and accuracy. As we adjust to the ongoing pivot, which will have a number of phases, we know that operations will begin to run more efficiently and that delayed mail volumes will soon shrink significantly. We also considered a separate message to employees in July 2020 that said, under a new initiative, carriers in certain regions would not sort any mail during the morning and instead clock in, retrieve sorted mail from the previous day and limit time in the office as much as possible. Then, when they returned from the streets, they would sort all available mail for the next day. July 2020 The agency said the extra spending on employees' overtime or delivery trips had not improved "our performance scores," without going into detail on what that meant, and framed the changes as necessary steps to improve its financial position. A July 27, 2020, public statement from DeJoy said: said public statement Given our current situation, it is critical that the Postal Service take a fresh look at our operations and make necessary adjustments. We are highly focused on our public service mission to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient service to every person and business in this country, and to remain a part of the nations critical infrastructure. David Partenheimer, manager of media relations for the Postal Service, told Snopes that the postmaster general was not doing any media interviews regarding the initiatives, nor about the underlying claims of this report. In a roughly 760-word email to us, however, Partenheimer reemphasized what the agency viewed as the need for the adjustments, and said: "We acknowledge that temporary service impacts can occur as we redouble our efforts to conform to the current operating plans, but any such impacts will be monitored and temporary ... and corrected as appropriate." Soon after the directives, American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein told us in a phone interview that employees and customers across the country were noticing mail delays. In the Philadelphia region, for instance, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported situations where residents were going upwards of three weeks without receiving packages and letters, and postal union leaders and carriers said mail was piling up at offices, unscanned and unsorted. Mark Dimondstein employees Philadelphia Inquirer "When you ... say this is what you have to do as workers, then that's what we have to do  [the change] runs counter to everything that the Postal Service is about, which is we treat the mail as our own; we get it to the customer as quickly as we can," Dimondstein said. "They've never seen mail backed up like this  it's not being moved." That meant, while DeJoy had not told carriers to "slow the mail down" verbatim, he initiated changes to how and when carriers go about doing their job that the Postal Agency said would cause temporary mail delays. However, it would be inaccurate to assume all slow deliveries under DeJoy's leadership were a result of the July 2020 directives specifically, when they could also be linked to reduced hours for some post offices or other circumstances. Roughly three months before the 2020 presidential election, voting rights groups and outspoken critics to the president believed the new directives by DeJoy occurred at a convenient time for Trump: when a record number of Americans were preparing to vote by mail and avoid potential exposure to the COVID-19 coronavirus by casting ballots at in-person polling places. Specifically, they worried the new requirements for post office carriers and clerks would lead to backlogs of mail-in ballots and thus create challenges for elections officials who, in the majority of states, must invalidate ballots that reach them after Election Day  even if they were postmarked before that date. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, for example, led colleagues in writing a letter to DeJoy on July 20, 2020, that said: Rep. Carolyn Maloney "While these changes [to mail service] in a normal year would be drastic, in a presidential election year when many states are relying heavily on absentee mail-in ballots, increases in mail delivery timing would impair the ability of ballots to be received and counted in a timely manner  an unacceptable outcome for a free and fair election." We asked Dimondstein, APWU president, whether he believed the July directives by Postal Service leadership were somehow linked to a plan to cause mail service chaos before the November election and help Trump win reelection. He said: What we do know for truth is this administration is, in written record, proposing and planning to sell the post office to private corporations, i.e. privatizing. ...That was June 2018. We also know as a fact that ...that [there are] calls for reduced service, increased prices, and less workers' rights and benefits. So if you take those two things together, certainly if they're implemented, then they're going to cause delays in mail; they're going to cause service being undermined. ... written record This is a fact: [DeJoy is] what's considered a mega-donor of the Trump administration and the Republican party. ... Anything that undermines the Postal Service' [service to customers] ... has us concerned that it could be linked back to those who have an agenda to eliminate [the Postal Service]. But I can't sit here and tell you that that's a fact. Partenheimer said any notion that DeJoy made decisions for the Postal Service under directions from Trump (which include claims that he issued the July 2020 changes that resulted in delays to help Trump's re-election campaign) were "wholly misplaced and off-base." He said the Postal Service, typically an apolitical agency, remains committed to "fulfilling our role in the electoral process" in places where politicians allow voters to cast ballots by mail and "to delivering Election Mail in a timely manner consistent with our operational standards." He elaborated: "[Despite] any assertions to the contrary, we are not slowing down Election Mail or any other mail. Instead, we continue to employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all Election Mail consistent with our standards." Days later, he said in a statement to news media that certain deadlines concerning mail-in ballots, may be incompatible with the Postal Services delivery standards, especially if election officials dont pay more for first-class postage. To the extent that states choose to use the mail as part of their elections, they should do so in a manner that realistically reflects how the mail works, he said. news media Then, on Aug. 18, 2020, DeJoy issued a statement in which he said he would temporarily suspend initiatives "that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic," including the controversial July 2020 directives that eliminated overtime and some delivery trips. The statement read: statement To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded. I want to assure all Americans of the following: In addition, effective Oct. 1, we will engage standby resources in all areas of our operations, including transportation, to satisfy any unforeseen demand. In sum, it was accurate to state that DeJoy, a political ally to Trump, ordered Postal Service workers to leave late-arriving mail at distribution centers for delivery the following day and eliminate extra trips in July 2020  a change the Postal Service was expecting to cause temporary mail delays  although no verifiable evidence proved those directives were part of a deliberate scheme to disenfranchise voters in the November 2020 election. Additionally, there was no proof to show the changes aimed to help Trump win reelection. For those reasons, we rate this claim "Unproven." Ye Hee Lee, Michelle and Bogage, Jacob. "Postal Service Backlog Sparks Worries That Ballot Delivery Could Be Delayed In November".
 The Washington Post. 30 July 2020. Naylor, Brian. "Pending Postal Service Changes Could Delay Mail And Deliveries, Advocates War".
 NPR. 29 July 2020. Naylor, Brian. "Pending Postal Service Changes Could Delay Mail And Deliveries, Advocates War".
 NPR. 29 July 2020. USPS Contributor. "What Is The History Behind The Unofficial USPS Motto?"
 Postal Posts. 11 September 2015. USPS. "Postmaster General Statement On Operational Excellence And Financial Stability".
 27 July 2020. Office of Inspector General. "U.S. Postal Service's Processing Network Optimization And Service Impacts".
 USPS. 16 June 2020. Dawsey, Josh, et. al. "Top Republican Fundraiser And Trump Ally Named Postmaster General, Giving President New Influence Over Postal Service".
 The Washington Post. 6 May 2020. Bogage, Jacob. "Postal Service Memos Detail 'Difficult' Changes, Including Slower Mail Delivery".
 The Washington Post. 14 July 2020. Naylor, Brian. "New Postmaster General Is Top GOP Fundraiser".
 NPR. 7 May 2020. Hummel, Marta. "New Breed CEO No One's 'Apprentice' Louis DeJoy Is A Big Supporter Of George W. Bush But Says The Clinton Era Was His Most Profitable".
 News & Record. 7 January 2005. Heckman, Jory. "USPS Board Names Logistics Executive As New Postmaster General".
 Federal News Network. 6 May 2020. Gordon, Aaron. "USPS Plans To Slash Hours At Many Post Offices, Hoping To Save A Buck".
 Vice. 29 July 2020. Cohen, Rachel. "USPS Workers Concerned New Policies Will Pave The Way To Privatization".
 The Intercept. 29 July 2020. Derysh, Igor. "With Trump Donor In Charge, Postal Service May Shut Locations And Cut Service Before Election Day".
 Salon. 31 July 2020. Rushing, Ellie. "Mail Delays Are Frustrating Philly Residents, And A Short-Staffed Postal Service Is Struggling To Keep Up".
 The Philadelphia Inquirer. 2 August 2020. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney. "Maloney, King Lead Bipartisan NY Delegation Call For Immediate Help For The Postal Service".
 28 April 2020. House Committee On Oversight And Reform. "Senior Democrats Request Information On Postal Service's Operational Changes".
 20 July 2020. Bogage, Jacob. "Trump Ally Takes Over Crisis-Ridden Postal Service As Top Senate Democrat Demands Inquiry On Hiring".
 The Washington Post. 15 June 2020. Murphy, Brian. "NC Businessman, A Big-Time GOP Donor, Is Tapped To Lead US Postal Service".
 The News & Observer. 7 May 2020. Shear, Michael. "Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal Service Ahead Of Voting".
 The New York Times. 1 August 2020. Sargent, Greg. "Trump Just Told Us How Mail Delays Could Help Him Corrupt The Election".
 The Washington Post. 31 July 2020. Reichmann, Deb, and Izaguirre, Anthony. "Trump Admits He's Blocking Postal Cash To Stop Mail-In Votes."
 Associated Press. 14 August 2020. USPS. "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Statement."
 18 August 2020. This report was updated to include an interview by Trump with Fox Business Network on Aug. 13, 2020, where he acknowledged that he was intentionally blocking Postal Service funding in an attempt to make it harder for the agency to process mail-in ballots in the November presidential election. This report was updated to include a statement by DeJoy on Aug. 18, 2020, in which he announced the suspension of certain initiatives "to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail."
It was clear that everyone would pay a bit more when the Georgia Legislature rammed through a $900 million transportation funding bill that voters and businesses alike said the state needed. State gasoline taxes will increase by almost 35 percent. Electric vehicle drivers, who havent been paying for gas, and truckers both will see new annual fees. And if Gov, Nathan Deal signs the measure as expected, it also will add a $5-a-night fee on hotel and motel stays starting July 1. The hospitality industry opposed that last-minute provision. Michael T. Owens, President and CEO of the Tourism Leadership Council in Savannah, told GPB that the charge would have a serious effect in that tourist hotspot and statewide. We absolutely expect to see cancellations of major, major groups, he said. PolitiFact Georgia cant fact-check predictions. But there is a part of Owens comments that callsout for a ride on the Truth-O-Meter:  claims that the fee would hurt convention business by adding tens of thousands of dollars in costs for large groups. Georgia does not have a statewide hotel tax. Instead state law allows local governments to levy up to a 3 percent excise tax or up to an 8 percent sales tax. Some of the collections have no limits while others must pay for tourism promotion or specific projects or attractions. Atlanta sets its hotel rate at the maximum 8 percent. Savannah charges 6 percent. The new charge is a flat $5 fee, tacked on for every night of a hotel stay. Owens was out of town when PolitiFact called, but Tourism Leadership Council Vice President Molly Swagler said the group is concerned about an increase to the bottom line of a multi-day stay. We would typically have a 500-room convention and that adds up to another $2,500 on their bill, Swagler said. In a larger market like Atlanta, youll see 15,000 room nights, so it could be a $75,000 increase out of a $5 fee. Lawmakers did not discuss any of those figures in committee or public, since the fee was added only after a dramatically revised compromise bill. That means the fee was not part of the fiscal note, or official estimate of the effect a bill will have on tax revenues or public spending. Teresa MacCartney, the states chief financial officer, released the state Senates original fiscal note but said the updated report, with estimates from the bed tax, will not be available until later this week. Senators did request an analysis from the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of West Georgia, that will be part of that updated note. William J. Smith, the universitys economics chair who did the work on the fee, said his research involved collecting information about the average number of hotel rooms and occupancy rate in Georgia, plus the states share of tourism visits relative to the rest of the country. That gave an estimate of room nights per year that, multiplied by $5, showed the fee will generate about $160 million a year for transportation projects. In the most basic economics of supply and demand, that tab appears to back up tourism officials worry. After all, when prices go up, dont people buy less? Sometimes. But there are more complex economic realities to that $5 fee. First, even tourism officials agree that the visitors who are set on seeing the historic squares and other Spanish-moss draped sites will still come. Paying $5 more every night could eat into those visitors budgets for their stay  costing restaurants and shops business. But there is nothing that saysvisitorsmust pay the new fee. Put bluntly, the hotel could eat the cost, if it meant remaining competitive with the likes of, say, Charleston, said Bruce Seaman, an economics professor at Georgia State University who specializes in the impact of projects and attractions. Seaman used 2013 data from the Savannah Area Chamber to see if the citys hotels would be better off absorbing the cost or increasing the cost to guests. His math included sympathy to the idea that some guests would be sensitive to price changes and stay away. In his scenario, the price change could chase away about 7.5 percent of room nights  costing Savannah-areal hotels about $22.5 million a year. And if the hotels eat the $5 per night themselves? With 3.6 million room nights at a 67 percent occupancy rate, the price tag would be $18.7 million. The bottom line is, to whatever extent they pass along any of this cost to their customers, they will pay more in a year, Seaman said. Except, no one is requiring hotels to increase the price paid by customers and in this case, it looks like it would cost them less to eat it than pass it forward. In other words, the overall point from Owens is legitimate. The $5 per-night fee is an increase that will affect business. That is, there are downsides to levying any new tax or fee. But part of that risk can be mitigated by the business eating some of the cost  additional context that shows there is not always a price increase with a new fee. More money is headed to state coffers if the transportation plan becomes reality. But the state is not requiring hotels, which change their rates constantly as a reflection of demand, to raise rates. Considering that caveat, we rate Owens statement Mostly True. Since at least 2008, a troubling image of a turtle with a drastically deformed shell has been circulating online, with multiple web sites employing it to illustrate posts about the dangers of plastic pollution in the oceans. The image shows a brown-colored turtle with a shell constricted in the middle, giving her a figure-eight shape: circulating  This image captures a snapping turtle named Mae West who currently resides at the STAR Eco Station in Los Angeles, California, where she is in good health. A representative from the station, which operates a wildlife rescue and environmental science museum, told us Mae West was rescuednearly two decades ago after she was discovered with a plastic milk jug ring around her midsection, although though it was unclear exactly how long the ring had been in place: In 2000, she was discovered in Louisiana with a plastic milk jug ring around the width of her shell. In addition to having an extremely narrow midsection, she was also found to be carrying several eggs at the time. The handler in Louisiana decided that she was no longer able to care for her and arranged to haveMaeplaced at the Eco Station. Some of the blogsposting this image in early 2017 incorrectly claimed the turtle had been caught in a rubber band from an early age, causing her to grow abnormally. Mae West was brought to her current home after being cared for by an anti-pollution non-profit called The 5 Gyers Institute, also based in Los Angeles. The image shown above was used in a 2009 Earth Day report by Oprah Winfrey discussing the effects of plastic pollution on marine life: used Sadly, the type of deformity afflicting Mae West isn't unique. Another famous turtle is living with a similar human-caused deformity: Peanut, a red-eared slider turtle who was rescued and nursed to health after being discovered entrapped in a plastic six-pack ring, has often been misidentified as Mae West (and vice-versa) in photographs. Peanut Peanut was found in Missouri in 1993 and taken to a zoo, where the plastic ring was removed from his midsection. The turtle (who was for years mistakenly believed to be female) is currently under the care of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Photographs provided by the department show he does indeed resemble a peanut:   Despite his deformation, Peanut has also managed to live a long and healthy life and is now believed to be a senior terrapin at 32 or 33 years old, said Dan Zarlenga, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Had he not been found and cared for by humans, Peanut probably would not have survived for long in the wild. Eriksen, Marcus."Meet the Famous Turtle With a Serious Plastic Problem."
Planet Experts.6 July 2015. Missouri Department of Conservation."The Story of Peanut the Turtle." Monks, Kieron. "The Plastic Plague: Can Our Oceans Be Saved From Environmental Ruin?
CNN.2 September 2016. Moore, Charles."Choking the Oceans With Plastic."
The New York Times.25 August 2015. On Oct. 23, 2019, the U.K. tabloid Express published an article that left some readers believing they need not make Christmas plans this year because Earth was in danger of being hit by a large asteroid: Express   The article was entitled "Asteroid terror: NASA spot mammoth space rock to hit Earth's orbit five days before X-mas." The subheading gave earthlings an even smaller chance of survival: "AN ASTEROID the size of the World Trade Centre is on a dangerous Earth-bound orbit that could see the rock smash the planet during Christmas festivities." When the article was regurgitated by even less-reputable websites, the fear-mongering title morphed into a factually inaccurate claim. For instance, the website Digital Wise rehashed this article under the title "NASA Issues Warning Over Asteroid Predicted To Hit Earth Five Days Before Christmas!" Digital Wise NASA has made no such announcement, and Earth is not in danger of being hit by an asteroid around Christmas.  These articles are all based on a real asteroid (known as 216258 2006 WH1) and its holiday approach toward Earth. However, these articles present the information as if this asteroid is particularly dangerous. But there's nothing unusually threatening about asteroid 216258 2006 WH1. NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) currently lists 26 near-Earth objects that are scheduled to pass by our planet within the next 60 days. While asteroid 216258 2006 WH1 (which was discovered in 2006) will truly be passing by earth around Christmas, CNEOS reports that the asteroid is expected to safely pass by earth at a distance of about 15.19 LD (lunar distance), approximately 3.6 million miles. lists Dr. Paul W. Chodas, the Director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told us in an email that there is "nothing unusual or dangerous" about asteroid 216258 2006 WH1: No, there is nothing unusual or dangerous about this asteroid. It is simply making a close approach to the Earth. Astronomers have been observing this asteroids position for 13 years, we know its orbit very accurately, we can predict its close approaches accurately for the next 200 years, and we know with certainty that it cannot hit our planet. Lindley Johnson, NASAs Planetary Defense Officer and Program Executive of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), also told us that this asteroid "poses no hazard to impacting earth":  NASA and other US agencies are lead players in the international effort to develop plans to respond to a possible Near-Earth Object (NEO) impact. In 2018, the White House released the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan, which identifies key steps that US agencies need to take to better prepare the United Statesand the worldfor detecting and responding to a possible impact. NASA has been directed by Congress to catalogue and characterize all NEOs bigger than 140 meters, the ones that could be catastrophic. NASA is approximately 35% complete for NEOs 140 meters and larger, and approximately 96% complete for those 1 km and larger. Strategic investments in our space-based programs will lead to the benefit of all of humanity as we continue to catalogue any NEOs that pose a potential threat. This particular asteroids trajectory has been well tracked by NASAs Center for Near-Earth Object Studies since its discovery 13 years and poses no hazard to impacting Earth. Here's a little more information about near-earth objects from CNEOS. The organization writes on its website (emphasis ours):  writes On a daily basis, about one hundred tons of interplanetary material drifts down to the Earths surface. Most of the smallest interplanetary particles that reach the Earths surface are the tiny dust particles that are released by comets as their ices vaporize in the solar neighborhood. The vast majority of the larger interplanetary material that reaches the Earths surface originates as the collision fragments of asteroids that have run into one another some eons ago. With an average interval of about 10,000 years, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 100 meters would be expected to reach the Earths surface and cause local disasters or produce the tidal waves that can inundate low lying coastal areas. On an average of every several hundred thousand years or so, asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters. In this case, the impact debris would spread throughout the Earths atmosphere so that plant life would suffer from acid rain, partial blocking of sunlight, and from the firestorms resulting from heated impact debris raining back down upon the Earths surface. Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches. It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterize their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories ... ... No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs. Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted. At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them. NASA Near-Earth Object Observations Program is constantly monitoring the skies for approaching asteroids and meteors. So far, the program has discovered more than 19,000 NEOs. When NASA discovers an NEO, it works to determine as much information as possible about the object, such as its size, speed, and orbit, so that the agency can calculate when it will approach Earth and how close it will come when it does.  But the 19,000 NEOs in NASA's database aren't really what we have to worry about. The organization writes that thousands of NEOs have yet to be discovered: discovered Asteroid impacts are a continuously occurring natural process. Every day, 80 to 100 tons of material falls upon Earth from space in the form of dust and small meteorites (fragments of asteroids that disintegrate in Earths atmosphere). Over the past 20 years, U.S. government sensors have detected nearly 600 very small asteroids a few meters in size that have entered Earths atmosphere and created spectacular bolides (fireballs). Experts estimate that an impact of an object the size of the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013  approximately 55 feet (17 meters) in size  takes place once or twice a century. Impacts of larger objects are expected to be far less frequent (on the scale of centuries to millennia). However, given the current incompleteness of the NEO catalogue, an unpredicted impact  such as the Chelyabinsk event  could occur at any time. Still, the chances of an asteroid larger than 140 meters hitting earth in the next 100 years is minimal: hitting The current congressionally directed objective of the NEO Observations Program is to find, track, and characterize at least 90 percent of the predicted number of NEOs that are 140 meters and larger in sizelarger than a small football stadiumand to characterize a subset representative of the entire population. Objects of this size and larger pose a risk to Earth of greatest concern due to the level of devastation an impact would cause, and should continue to be the focus of global search efforts. While no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, less than half of the estimated 25,000 NEOs that are 140 meters and larger in size have been found to date. Asteroid 216258 2006 WH1 will pass by Earth a few days before Christmas. However, NASA has issued no warnings about a catastrophic impact, and CNEOS reports that this asteroid will get no closer than 3 million miles from Earth during its approach.  NASA.  "Near-Earth Object Observations Program."
  Retrieved 8 November 2019. NASA.  "Planetary Defense Frequently Asked Questions."
  Retrieved 8 November 2019. Day, Joel.  "Asteroid Terror: NASA Spot Mammoth Space Rock to Hit Earth's Orbit Five Days Before X-Mas."
  Express.  23 October 2019. Democrats criticized Rick Perry for college costs the day the Republican governor gave his valedictory speech to Texas lawmakers. Among the beefs in a Jan. 15, 2015, email blast from the Democratic National Committee: College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003, putting the dream of earning a college degree further out of reach for many Texans. That year should ring a bell; its when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislatureagreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards. Committee's source We wondered how much tuition ultimately escalated. By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012news storyin theDallas Morning Newsthat said by the papers analysis, Texas students are paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also said: State officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but the costs have ballooned since 2003, even when inflation is factored in. Updated data Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, pointed out aFebruary 2014 board documentshe described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document said, in part: From fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 SCHs at a public university has increased by 104 percent. An SCH is a semester credit-hour. According to the document, the boards calculations were rooted in tuition and fees charged students. Then again, the board said, a student's actual charges may vary based on the student's classification and level of enrollment, the college the student attends within the university, the student's specific personal circumstances, or for other reasons deemed appropriate by the institution. Charts in the board analysis indicate the tuition and fees each year from fall 2003 through fall 2013 for nearly 40 institutions, most of them in the University of Texas or Texas A&M University systems. On average in fall 2003, tuition and fees were $1,934 for 15 semester credit-hours, according to the report. The average in fall 2013 was $3,951, the board said. By phone, Polden confirmed the boards results didnt take inflation into account. So we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsinflation calculatorto estimate that tuition and fees at the states public colleges and universities escalated 61 percent, in real terms, from fall 2003 through fall 2013. But that didnt bring us to the 2014-15 school year. So we asked for comparable charges on average for a student as of fall 2014. By email, Polden said the fall 2014 statewide average for someone taking 15 SCHs was $4,091, lifting the raw average tuition increase since fall 2003 to 112 percent. Adjusted for inflation, we calculated, the increase was 64 percent. UT Austin Separately, we asked the University of Texas at Austin for its fall 2014 charge for that many credit hours. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed the amount, $4,905, which we compared with the fall 2003 charge for that university of $2,721. Adjusted for inflation, the hike over the years came out to 40 percent. Out of governor's control? Worth mention: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years too, Perrycalled for $10,000, four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuitionso an entering student would pay the same tab each year while earning a degree. Our ruling The Democratic group, zeroing in on Perry, said Texas college tuition rates increased 55 percent since 2003. That figure is outdated--the increase through fall 2014 was 64 percent--and it's also worth clarifying the governor didn't directly control tuition, though he approved of the 2003 law deregulating rates and appointed ruling public college and university governing boards. We rate the statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Claim:  In 2006, U.S. Senator Barack Obama spoke out against raising the U.S. government debt limit.   Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2011]   'The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.'    Origins:  In 2006, while serving his first term as a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made the remarks attributed to him above during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit. The full text of his remarks in the Senate on 16 March 2006 are:     The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is "trillion" with a "T." That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like    bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans  a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.    But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to thecommonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.    Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.    Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.    I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.    The shortened quote now attributed to him is a verbatim capture of the opening and closing paragraphs of his remarks of 16 March 2006. (The Senate vote held later that day on a resolution to increase the debt limitpassed by a 52-48 margin, with Senator Obama voting against it.) passed President Obama has undergone a change of position regarding raising the debt limit. In a 15 April 2011 Good Morning America interview, President Obama said this of his reasons for doing so:     Last updated:  7 October 2013    Congressional Record.  "Remarks by Sen. Barack Obama."    16 March 2006.   Farley, Robert.  "Obama Says Reagan Raised Debt Ceiling 18 Times; George W. Bush 7 Times."    St. Petersburg Times.  26 July 2011.   Stephanopoulos, George.  "President Obama One-on-One."    Good Morning America.  15 April 2011.   Werner, Erica.  "WH: Obama Regrets Vote Against Raising Debt Limit."    Associated Press.  11 April 2011. Claim:  Petition addresses environmental issues associated with the Pascua-Lama mining operation in Chile. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Dear friends who care about our earth, Judge for yourself if you want to take action. In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runsfrom 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide the second largest source of income for the area. Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip. The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold. The operation is planned by amulti-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior (what a surprise eh?). The ChileanGovernment has approved the project to start this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of specially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulfuric acid in the extraction process. Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses. The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior. Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get helpfrom international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is from here. We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following way. Please copy this text,paste it into a new email adding your signature and send it to everyone in your address book. Please willthe 100th person to receive and sign the petition send it to noapascualama@yahoo.ca to be forwarded to the Chilean government. No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of theagricultural land of the region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole population of the region. Origins:   The Pascua-Lama project is an effort being undertaken by the Barrick Gold Corporation to mine rich gold and silver fields in the mountainous region along the border between Chile and Argentina.  Environmental concerns associated with the project, particularly the potential destruction or relocation of glaciers that sit atop a portion of the gold fields, have led to a number of protests and petitions entreating the Chilean government to intervene and stop or modify the Pascua-Lama mining plan.   So, the above-quoted petition is "True" in the broad sense that it addresses a real issue, but, not surprisingly, the two sides (environmentalists and Barrick) make substantially different claims about what the environmental and social effects of the Pascua-Lama project will be. Pascua-Lama Barrick Gold Corporation The controversial plan was described thusly by The Santiago Times in March 2005:  Canadian international mining company Barrick Gold has plans to relocate three glaciers in the mountain range between Argentina and Chile to gain access to 17.6 million oz. of rich gold and silver deposits. Chilean farmers and residents of the surrounding Huasco Valley are strongly opposed to the proposal of transferring the ice masses. The glaciers' tributaries are used for irrigation by the farmers, and their removal would threaten the ecological balance and agricultural production of the fertile river valley. Barrick hopes to transfer 300,000 cubic meters of ice with a 20-hectare surface area from the glaciers that surround the deposits. To mitigate ecological impact and prevent ice from melting, Barrick hopes to transfer the three glaciers, Toro I, Toro II and Esperanza, to an area with similar surface characteristics and elevation by merging the three into a larger glacier, Guanaco, located several kilometers south with a surface area of over 200 hectares. The proposal is part of the "Pascua Lama" mining treaty, signed by Chile and Argentina in August 2004 after four years of discussion. Citizens of the Huasco Valley and Region III are taking a stand against the multibillion-dollar foreign company. Last week an environmental group, Valley Defense, organized a demonstration against the project, where close to 200 farmers, community leaders and neighbors marched in protest. "We don't want to live in an area contaminated by the fault of foreign economic interests," they said. Ral Montenegro, Argentine biologist and Alternative Nobel Prize (formally Right Livelihood Award) winner agrees with the farmers. "The issue is serious in that the project would put pressure on two important river basins which serve as the principle water supply for communities within a semi-arid environment," Montenegro said. In a letter earlier this year to President Ricardo Lagos, agricultural and community associations of the Huasco Valley voiced their concerns about the mining initiative, insisting that it threatens the ecosystem, agriculture and water quality of the valley, which not only sacrifices agricultural exports and trade agreements, but human health as well. "If almost 24 hectares of glacier have been exploited solely for the project 's experiments, imagine how much could be destroyed in the end," said Fransisco Bou, leader for the Huasco Valley agriculturists. Other environmental concerns involve potential contamination from the chemicals to be used in the mining operation: "Pascua Lama will use sodium cyanide, arsenic, and produce toxic byproducts. The rivers El Estrecho, San Flix and El Trnsito together with Santa Juana dam are liable to be polluted by Pascua Lama. These dangerous poisons will be handled at the sources of the rivers and could damage water supplies to farms," said Csar Padilla of the Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts. A December 2005 statement from Barrick downplayed the expressed concerns: statement Vincent Borg, vice president of corporate communications at Barrick in Canada, said 'glacier experts' had defined the icefields in question as 'ice reservoirs or icefields'.  "Regardless of what the experts call them, Barrick is committed to their preservation and conservation. We will move only 5 acres of ice and it is a straightforward procedure that has been proven in the past to conserve the ice. The ice in question only affects about 3-4% of the ice in the Valley so it is not an amount that some sensationalists would like to make it appear," he said.  On the issue of use of toxic chemicals such as cyanide he said, "Cyanide is used worldwide and can be safely used in many industrial applications. Mining comprises only 13% of cyanide use." Opponents contend that Barrick's planned procedures to move ice from the glaciers is not nearly as straightforward and safe as the company asserts they are: The lack of relevant technical expertise in removing glaciers implies an irreversible environmental impact. What is certain is that the three affected glaciers would suffer an environmental impact. Nevertheless, there is no certainty whatsoever of what the impact would be on glaciers or permafrost (frozen rock or soil) from the road network and the associated stabilization measures that generally involves the use of salts.  With respect to the measures and actions that will be implemented for handling glaciers there are the following concerns:  The "clearing" of ice or "pieces of glacier" will be done by bulldozer and front-end loader until the entire rock bed is uncovered. In this case, any mechanical action on the glacier will cause heat transfer, which will raise the temperature of the ice, and which in turn would be exacerbated by the high local insolation. Despite the fact that diurnal temperatures are low, the radiative balance includes more than caloric energy. There are no measurements of radiative energy but the albedo differences between ice and rock mean that the absorption of energy is greater in rock, which would expose the glacier even more.  This also the case for controlled blasting and pushing the glaciers by the afore-mentioned means until their final disposition. In the case of blasting, this could elevate the temperature to thresholds of melting and evaporation which would further encourage destruction of the glacier. Barrick has published a Pascua-Lama Fact Sheet that counters many of the statements made in the circulated e-mail message: Pascua-Lama Fact Sheet Misleading Assertions and Facts The chain letter makes some very misleading characterizations and inaccurate statements. Here are a few examples: Statement: "water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers."Fact:   The Huasco Valley has more than 50 different glaciers and ice fields. The three smaller glaciers or ice fields that are adjacent to the orebody comprise only 0.3% of the potential water resources in the Valley if they were to be destroyed, which was never to be the case.  Statement: "there is no unemployment ..."Fact: Contrary to this statement, unemployment levels in Region III are among the highest in Chile  the most recent statistics according to the Chilean Statistics Agency reveal rates in the valley in question to be approximately 18%. The mayors representing the four municipalities and most of the community leaders in the Huasco Valley have vocally expressed their support of Pascua-Lama indicating that they believe Barrick will conduct an environmentally responsible project and the generation of economic benefits are needed for the long term sustainable development of the region. As an illustration of the lack of employment opportunities, Barrick has received over 50,000 applications for jobs. Chileans in the Region III and Argentineans from San Juan are looking for meaningful employment opportunities and the ability to support their families. Human beings deserve the opportunity to make a decent livelihood.   Statement:  "Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold ... it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers"Fact:  Contrary to the fundamental premise of the email chain letter, the orebody is NOT under glaciers. This is simply not the case: 95% of the orebody is NOT under glaciers/ice fields. Protection of the remaining 5% is a key condition of the Chilean authorities approval of the project.  Statement:  "The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush, Sr."Fact: Mr. Bush served in an honorary capacity as an advisor to Barrick's International Advisory Board for two years in the mid 1990's. Mr. Bush was neither a director nor officer of the Company.  Statement: "If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers"Fact:  To underline its confidence in its operations and commitment to responsible mining practices, Barrick has committed that should the water quality change, it would immediately stop the project. In addition to the multiple barriers of protection built into the design, the Company has a comprehensive water quality monitoring and management program, which will include 30 automated points from which data will be readily available in real time for authorities and the public. This program will be subject to regular independent verification. The expanded number of monitoring points is a direct result of community consultation and dialogue with stakeholders.  Statement:   "Every last gram of gold will go abroad ... and not one will be left with the people"Fact:  There will be substantial economic benefits that include 5,500 direct jobs during construction, 1,660 jobs during the two decades of operation, and the indirect job creation and tax revenues generated that will flow back to the communities. In addition, there will be substantial investment in infrastructure, the development of hundreds of local suppliers of goods and services and the implementation of sustainable development programs.   Statement:  "The farmers ... have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior"Fact:  The Water Users Cooperative, representing 2,000 farmers of the Huasco Valley, is fully supportive of the project. Chile is a democratic country and the media play an important role in the public discussion of the community concerns and interests. There has already been an extensive and open discussion of issues including the participation of farmers. <!--Although the text of the petition states that former U.S. president George Bush is a (board) member of the Barrick Gold Corporation, this does not appear to be the case.  George H. W. Bush (who served as President of the United States of America from 1989-1993 and is the father of the current U.S. president, George W. Bush) was Honorary Chairman of Barrick's International Advisory Board from 1995 to 1999.  He is not now listed as a member of the corporation's Board of Directors. Board of Directors -->From a practical standpoint, the petition reproduced at the head of this page is not now valid in that the e-mail address supplied is no longer collecting or forwarding copies.  The Pascua Lama project remains an issue of ongoing concern, however, and interested parties can find updated information on the subject (and a list of government and business officials to contact) at the Mining Watch Canada web site. Mining Watch Canada Additional information:     Pascua-Lama Fact Sheet  (Barrick Gold Corporation)        Campaign Against Barrick Gold's Pascua Lama Project  (MiningWatch Canada)    Last updated:  3 June 2006    Sources:   Frank, Jade.   "Farmers Protest Mining Project in Chile's Region III."   The Santiago Times.  31 March 2005.    Jimena, Jaquelina.   "Vast Chilean Gold Mine Meets Opposition."   Decanter.com.  2 December 2005. A series of creepy images purportedly showing a half-human, half-lion hybrid appeared in mid-October 2017, and quickly made the usual rounds on social media:    These images were originally posted along with a piece of Indonesian text claiming that this creature was the result of a human mating with a lioness: text claiming Telah ditemukan bayi hasil hubungan manusia dan singa betina.... Dunia sudah mao kiamat....Ketik amin dan bagikan... The baby has been found to be the result of a human relationship with the lioness...The world is doomed...Type in Amen and share it...  This is not the first time that we have come across images purportedly showing a half-human, half-animal hybrid. In every case, we found that either the images or the attached claims were faked in one way or another. For instance, a "human-dog hybrid" was actually asculpture, a "gorilla-human" was a doctored image, and a "goat-person" was actually just a deformed goat. In the case of this particular image, the human-lion is a silicone doll.  sculpture image deformed Social media user Octavia Mulia told Kumparan.com that the photographs had been posted by her sister and that they were originally shared in jest. When the images went viral, Mulia found it necessary to explain that these photographs actually showed a silicone doll and not a real human-lion hybrid (text translated via Google and edited for clarity): Octavia Mulia Kumparan.com Hasilnya, foto tersebut bukanlah bayi sungguhan, tetapi hanya sebuah boneka. "Itu namanya silicon doll. Jadi kakak aku bikin ginian (unggahan di Facebook) buat bercandaan doang sama teman-teman toys lovernya," kata Octavia saat dikonfirmasi kumparan, Jumat (13/10/2017). Octavia dan kakaknya tidak menyangka unggahan ini akan viral di Facebook dan banyak orang yang percaya. Padahal awalnya hanya untuk bercanda. Kakak saya hanya bikin postnya saja buat joke satir sama teman-teman komunitasnya. Tapi ternyata terus tembus 5,5 ribu share karena orang pada percaya," kata Octavia. Menurut Octavia, kakaknya mendapatkan foto boneka itu dari rekannya sesama penggemar mainan. Keduanya bertemu dalam forum Toyslover Planet 12. The photograph is not a real baby, but just a doll. "It's a silicon doll my sister uploaded to Facebook to share with her friends who love toys," confirmed Octavia, Friday (13/10/2017). Octavia and her sister did not expect this upload to go viral on Facebook and that so many people would believe it. Initially, it was intended as a joke. "My sister made a post just to joke with her friends, but it kept going with 5.5 thousand shares because people believed it," said Octavia. According to Octavia, her sister got the doll photo from her fellow toy fans. They met in the Toyslover Planet 12 forum. These images show a silicon doll that was created by Italian artist Laira Maganuco. These images were featured on her Etsy page in a listing for a "baby Licantropo," or baby werewolf, doll. Maganuco also posted images showing the creation of this "baby Licantropo" to her Facebook page: featured Facebook   The images were originally shared with the claim that this creature was the result of a human mating with a lioness. Although scientists are experimenting with various chimeras, it is generally thought that creating human-animal hybrids is virtually impossible: impossible In general, two types of changes prevent animals from interbreeding. The first includes all those factorscalled pre-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanismsthat would make fertilization impossible. After so many generations apart, a pair of animals might look so different from one another that theyre not inclined to have sex. If the animals do try to get it on despite changed appearances, incompatible genitalia or sperm motility could pose another problem: A human spermatozoon may not be equipped to navigate the reproductive tract of a chimpanzee, for example. The second type of barrier includes post-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms, or those factors that would make it impossible for a hybrid animal fetus to grow into a reproductive adult. If a human were indeed inclined and able to impregnate a monkey, post-zygotic mechanisms might result in a miscarriage or sterile offspring. The further apart two animals are in genetic terms, the less likely they are to produce viable offspring. At this point, humans seem to have been separate from other animals for far too long to interbreed. We diverged from our closest extant relative, the chimpanzee, as many as 7 million years ago. (For comparison, our apparent tryst with the Neanderthals occurred less than 700,000 years after we split off from them.) Bosch, Torie.  "We Mated with Neanderthals. Can We Breed With Other Animals, Too?"
  Slate.  14 November 2006. Kumparan.  "Fakta Di Balik Foto Bayi Hasil Perkawinan Manusia Dengan Singa."
  13 October 2017. Although the "Addams Family"-like scenario described in the text accompanying the photographs seen below was probably just someone's humorous embellishment, we couldn't summarily dismiss the pictures themselves as a joke.  Plenty of inventive (and desperate) people have come up with a number of imaginative schemes for sneaking themselves and others across national borders (a 2003 news story dealt with Illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan being smuggled from mainland China to Hong Kong inside suitcases), and this one wasn't so far-fetched to be completely unbelievable: suitcases ALIEN SMUGGLING 135-lb. woman hidden behind the dashboard of a car A U.S. Customs Primary Inspector at a border crossing asked the driver of this Suburban for vehicle registration. Suddenly, a hand came out of the glove compartment, producing the requested document, which the driver showed the inspector. Since the driver did not appear to be a member of the Addams Family, the inspector became suspicious, thus leading to a full search. Just think, if alien smugglers can put a 135-lb. body behind the dashboard, imagine what they could do with dope. Tuesday, July 31, 2001    The "passenger" seen here might be quite cramped and uncomfortable and the automobile difficult to maneuver after the modifications, but the ruse wouldn't have to be maintained for long  the car could be loaded just out of sight of border agents, driven the short distance to the crossing, and unloaded not far across the other side. Sure enough, these photographs proved to be real, pictures taken by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) agents and included in a short "illegal aliens caught in desperate attempts to cross U.S. border" article included in the September 2001 issue of U.S. Customs Today (a publication of the United States Customs Service), which noted: U.S. Customs Today Every year, federal officers from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Customs Service discover increasing cases of "human contraband" secreted in unusual places and wrapped in innovative disguises. The woman peering out from the automobile dashboard of a vehicle (above) tried a "spaced-out" ploy  she was discovered before the car could get across the U.S.-Mexico border, cramped, but none the worse for wear. Similarly, another would-be border crosser identified in that article was caught attempting to enter the U.S. concealed inside a seat occupied by another passenger: In October 2016, the above-reproduced e-mail screenshot began circulating on social media, purportedly capturing a message from longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to Hillary Clinton in which Mills expressed a need to "hide" that requests for help made by the four U.S. personnel who died in the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi had been denied, and in which Mills referred to those dead personnel as "idiot US soldiers [who] deserved to die": circulating From: Mills, Cheryl D. <millscd@state.gov>Sent: July 26, 2012 2:11 PMTo: HSubject: Re: Benghazi We need to hide all traces of the denied requests for help. Those idiot US soldiers deserved to die and I'm glad they were tortured. But if anyone finds out we are toast. Black Power! Cdm The header of that screenshot matched some communications found in WikiLeaks' "Hillary Clinton Email Archive," published on 16 March 2016: communications  However, a search of the term "idiot US soldiers" in the entirety of WikiLeaks' releases (including the July 2016  DNC Leaks, the October 2016 Podesta e-mails, and the March 2016 Clinton archive) returns zero results. July 2016  DNC Leaks Podesta March 2016 zero results  Moreover, the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi occurred on 11 September 2012, but the clearly fabricated e-mail that referenced it was dated 26 July 2012, over two months before that attack occurred. Benghazi The "idiot soldiers" e-mail was not the first time falsified documents were passed off as authentic leaked e-mails. A Newsweek misinterpretation of WikiLeaks' releases led to claims the leaks were fabricated, faked e-mail screenshots suggested Clinton called supporters of Bernie Sanders a "bucket of losers" and swing state voters "white trash," and legitimate e-mails mocking a conspiracy theory about Clinton being involved in a plane crash were reframed as a "shocking leak." Newsweek bucket of losers white trash plane crash On March 19, 1995, an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Lisa's Wedding" took a futuristic view of Springfield's favorite family after Homer's daughter visited a fortuneteller's booth. At one point in the episode, Lisa's future husband, Hugh Parkfield, voiced by actor Mandy Patinkin, bent over and spoke into a strange-looking device on his wrist: a half flip phone, half wristwatch that most modern viewers would liken to a smartwatch. This animated gadget can be glimpsed at the 2:58 mark of this video about similar Simpsons "predictions." (You can read our coverage on "Simpsons" predictions here.) video "Simpsons" predictions here This is a genuine clip from a 1995 episode of "The Simpsons." It is also true that this episode aired more than 20 years before the "Year of the Smartwatch" in 2014, when these devices became relatively common. However, "The Simpsons" shouldn't get credit for "predicting" the smartwatch for two reasons: Year of the Smartwatch It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first smartwatch was produced, because it depends on the criteria you use to classify one. The first digital watches were produced in the 1970s. In 1983, the Seiko Data-2000 featured a built-in keyboard for data input. A few years later, Sinclair made a watch with an FM radio, and in 1994 Seiko unveiled a watch that doubled as a pager. The Timex Datalink, which was also introduced in 1994, is a good contender for the first "modern" smartwatch because it had the ability to transfer data by linking to a computer.  smartwatch produced The point is that the road to the modern smartwatch has been a long and winding one that predated this episode of "The Simpsons."  In addition to these early entries into the smartwatch market, the idea of a smartwatch can be traced back even further. Special agent James Bond, for instance, has a long history of using watch gadgets to aid his spy craft. In 1973's "Live and Let Die," Bond's watch was equipped with a circular saw and a magnet. In 1977's "The Spy Who Loved Me," Bond used his watch to print out tiny messages. In 1995's "Golden Eye," Bond's watch was equipped with a laser.  James Bond And Bond wasn't the only fictional character to use a dual-purpose watch. Fred Flintstone once communicated via a radio watch, as did members of "The Jetsons." Detective Dick Tracy also used a radio watch in a 1946 comic strip, and who could forget Penny's watch in "Inspector Gadget?" fictional character 1946 comic strip   In sum, "The Simpsons" didn't predict the smartwatch. While this episode of "The Simpsons" is real and truly predated the "Year of the Smartwatch" in 2014, this was not the first time a smartwatch appeared in a movie, comic strip, or television show. Furthermore, the evolution of the smartwatch was well underway by the time this episode aired in 1994.  You can read more about The Simpsons alleged predictions in the Snopes collection The Simpsons Didnt Predict That. The Simpsons Didnt Predict That Blakemore, Erin.  "How Dick Tracy Invented the Smartwatch."
  Smithsonian Magazine.  9 March 2015. Osborn, Jacob.  "A Complete List of All James Bond 007 Watches."
  Man of Many.  18 October 2019. Lamkin, Paul.  "Smartwatch Timeline: The Devices That Paved the Way for the Apple Watch."
  Wareable.  10 March 2015. Thompson, Joe.  "A Concise History of the Smartwatch."
  Bloomberg.  8 January 2018. Hamblen, Matt.  "Is 2014 the Year of the Smartwatch?"
  PC World.  28 December 2013. King, Rachel.  "Before They Were Stars: Smartwatches in Pop Culture."
  ZDnet.  6 March 2015.