Did an 11-Year-Old Girl Shoot and Kill 'Illegal Aliens' Burglarizing Her Home?
A story about two armed "illegal aliens" killed during an attempted home invasion by an 11-year-old shotgun-wielding girl was posted to LibertyPost.org on 25 April 2007:  Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest. Although the account was widely cited as a validation of "anti-illegal immigration" and/or pro-gun ownership positions, confirmation of the tale as a real-life incident was lacking. The only documentation for this item was numerous web sites all citing the same information, with no details of time or place (other than a reference to Montana). Searches of news databases (including Montana-based newspapers) failed to turn up any corresponding news stories containing any of the four names provided, and the name of one of the putative criminals ("Ralphel Resendez") just happened to echo an alias (Raphael Resendez-Ramirez) used by Angel Maturino Resendiz (also an undocumented immigrant), the infamous "Railroad Killer." Railroad Killer Although many versions of this item cited the home invasion incident as having taken place in Butte, Montana, that area's sheriff said no such thing had occurred in that city: When asked about the authenticity of the events described in this story, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff John Walsh told The Montana Standard that his office never investigated such an incident. "This never happened," Walsh said. The story claims the girl shot and killed the two intruders while she was home alone. The story doesn't provide a street address or attribute the information to any official sources. Walsh brushed off the story as an urban myth. "It's amazing how these things get around," he said. The only news story (of recent vintage) we could turn up about a minor using a shotgun to kill two armed intruders attempting a home invasion robbery took place in December 2006 and involved a 17-year-old boy in Texas (rather than an 11-year-old girl in Montana): news story An overnight home invasion robbery attempt in northeast Harris County ended in a hail of gunfire that left two suspects dead. Investigators said a 17-year-old was home with his cousin when four armed men kicked in the door and started shooting. The teen pulled out a shotgun of his own and fired back at the suspects, killing two of them. Going back almost twenty years to 1988, we did find a news story about an 11-year-old shooting and killing two home intruders, but again the details didn't match the example cited above: Switzer, S.C.  An 11-year-old boy who had been left alone after school shot and killed two men as they tried to steal a videocassette recorder from his family's home, police said. William Todd Knight, the son of Billy and Ann Knight, "acted very wisely," said Spartanburg County Coroner Jim Burnett. "His life was in danger, he looked for an escape and could not find one ... he was a very brave young man." Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department Capt. John Blackwood said the boy was watching cartoons in his parents' bedroom Monday afternoon when he heard noises at the front door of the family's brick, ranch-style home. Todd told officers he was scared, so he went to his room for the .22-caliber rifle his father had given him for Christmas and loaded four rounds. He then went to the front door and saw a man he described as "rough" pounding on the door. The man finally left in a white Datsun. Todd said he resumed watching cartoons and about 10 minutes later heard banging, this time at a dining room window. He saw two men climbing through the dining room window. The boy said he went into the bathroom to climb out the window, but saw the white Datsun was parked in the back yard. Todd told police he went back to the hallway, peeked around the corner into the den and was spotted by one of the intruders as they were taking the VCR. Todd then fired three rounds at the men, who dropped the VCR and fled. When police arrived, one of the dead men was found face down next to a woodpile in the back yard, approximately 50 to 75 feet from the house, while the second man was in the driver's seat of the white two-door Datsun. In October 2012, a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl shot (but did not kill) an unarmed burglar who broke into the house while she was home alone: Kendra St. Clair, 12, was at home alone in Oklahoma, when loud banging began on the door to her family's home. Soon, the glass shattered and an intruder had entered. "I was scared and I didn't know what to do next," Kendra [said]. Petrified, she called her mom Debra. "I said Kendra get the gun and go get in my closet now. And call 911." The young 6th grader followed her mom's orders to the tee. Kendra had taken shelter in a closet, clutching her mother's .40 caliber glock gun while she listened to the intruder make his way around her home. Her fear intensified to sheer terror, when she saw the knob of the closet door beginning to turn. At that point, that for the first time in her life, Kendra fired a gun. Police said the bullet traveled straight through the closet door and struck 32-year-old Stacey Jones in the shoulder, scaring him out of the house. They arrested him a few blocks away and charged Jones with first degree burglary. In January 2015, an 11-year-old Michigan girl armed with a shotgun was reported to have scared away (but not fired upon) a home intruder: An 11-year-old girl was able to scare off a suspect  later taken into custody  during a home invasion in Lapeer County's North Branch Township. The girl was home alone when a vehicle pulled into the driveway. One person knocked on all the doors and forced their way inside the home when there was no response. The girl locked herself inside a bathroom and hid in a closet with a shotgun. The suspect eventually opened the bathroom door and closet where the child was hiding with the weapon. The girl aimed the shotgun at the suspect, who then fled from the home. Police said the girl was not harmed during the encounter. "The 12-gauge shotgun is her weapon," said Lapeer County Sheriff Detective Sgt. Jason Parks. "She and her father are into hunting and avid sportsmen. She was familiar with that weapon." Parks praised the girl's responsibility, poise and composure. "She is fully capable of staying there by herself as we can clearly see based on this situation," he said. "She was able to defend herself from an intruder and be able to resolve an event even most adults would be taken aback by." In August 2015, an 11-year-old St. Louis boy left home with his 4-year-old sister reportedly staved off several home invasion attempts before finally shooting and killing a 16-year-old intruder, although accounts differ as to what actually took place: accounts Authorities said an 11-year-old child and his 4-year-old sister were at their home when two men attempted to break in. The suspects attempted to get into the home twice, but failed. They made their way inside through the front door on the third attempt around 2:30 p.m. After the suspects entered the home, police said, the 11-year-old picked up a gun and fatally shot Lamonte Streeter. According to police, Streeter's body was found inside the home and evidence collected at the scene indicate that he was shot while inside. Some neighbors are providing a different version of events. One woman, who said she saw the shooting, [said] the 11-year-old and Streeter were arguing on the home's front porch when the shots were fired. "The little boy's (person shot) jumped up and went towards there and laid down and he lands in the doorway. He was always sitting on the porch, he never went inside the house," said a neighbor. The second alleged intruder, identified by police as a 22-year-old man, was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of burglary, police said. Acosta, Roberto. "11-Year-Old Uses Shotgun to Scare Off Suspect Home Invasion."
  The Flint Journal.  1 February 2015. Emeigh, John Grant. "Fake Story Still Circulating on Internet."
  The Montana Standard.  13 December 2007. Greenblatt, Mark. "Oklahoma Girl, 12, Shoots Intruder During Home Burglary."
  ABC News.  20 October 2012. Associated Press. "Boy, 11, Shoots, Kills 2 Intruders."
  The [Elyria, OH] Chronicle Telegram.  15 March 1988 (p. 6). KHOU-TV [Houston]. "Teen Shoots, Kills 2 Would-Be Robbers."
  28 December 2006.
In late April 2021, social media posts, like the one displayed below, Google users allegedly asked the search engine "how to a hit a woman so now one knows" more often during the first phase of lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 than during the same time frame the previous year. COVID-19   The claim originated from media sources including Blavity (a Los Angeles-based platform serving Black millennials), UNILAD (a British media outlet), and MSNBC (an American cable network owned by NBC Universal). Blavity UNILAD We obtained an archived version of an April 26 opinion column by the latter outlet, a piece of commentary that cited peer-reviewed research analyzing Google searches from the beginning of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020 to the end of August that year. The MSNBC article said: archived version [Millions] of men appear to be doing some very specific research about how to assault the women around them. Published in The Journal of General Psychology, the study was led by Katerina Standish, the deputy director and senior lecturer at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. 'How to hit a woman so no one knows' was typed into Google 163 million times, a 31 percent increase compared to 2019. In other words, Google users purportedly searched "how to hit a woman so no one knows" 163 million times between March and August 2020, and that number was 31 percent higher than the amount of same searches during those months the previous year. However, that was not true. One day after the MSNBC column published, onlookers identified flaws in the research's methodology, and its author confirmed the findings were inaccurate. As a result, the news outlet removed the above-transcribed section from its article citing the research. (That updated version of the story remained live online as of this writing.) updated version We looked at Google search data ourselves. By searching the phrase "how to hit a woman so no one knows," the platform produces billions of returns  or websites or posts that contain those keywords. That is not the same as the number of times users searched the question (we explain how to find that quantity below), and it appeared to grow significantly after the MSNBC article and other media coverage. appeared   By using the separate Google Trends search engine -- a tool that compiles data for Google search queries worldwide -- we learned that relatively no one used the website to look for information on "how to hit a woman so no one knows," including during the time window referenced in the study (March to August 2020).   Next, to fully explore the issue, we reached out to Standish (the author of the study called, "COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase") to learn about her research process and its shortcomings. COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase She responded to us via email, saying she indeed mistook the amount of search returns for the number of times Google users entered the phrase looking for answers. After the revelation, she said she alerted The Journal of General Psychology of the error and requested an assessment of the entire study. "The results are meaningless ... all I have done is demonstrate a rise in web pages over the year. Not at all what I thought I was doing," Standish said. "[The] goal of the study was to look for people who were hurting to elevate what they are going through and to help." Additionally, Standish apologized for the research's flaws on Twitter:    "The first time I googled these terms my heart skipped...I was shocked," she continued in a tweet thread. "I sincerely apologise and will make amends." In sum, we rate this claim "false"  millions of people, presumably men, did not turn to Google for help to seemingly conceal physical abuse against their female partners during the early months of the pandemic. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse from an intimate partner, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or text LOVEIS to 22522 for anonymous, confidential help. Natio nal  Domestic Violence Hotline This report was updated with comments from the researcher to Snopes. The only thing the internet loves more than a good prediction is pretending that a good prediction exists. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we've seen some far-reaching attempts to claim that this contagious and deadly disease had been predicted by episodes of "The Simpsons," George Orwell's book "1984," the alleged soothsayer known as Nostradamus, alleged psychic Sylvia Browne, South Korean television shows, the video game Resident Evil, and a novel by Dean Koontz.  far-reaching attempts episodes of "The Simpsons,"  George Orwell's book "1984," alleged soothsayer known as Nostradamus alleged psychic Sylvia Browne, South Korean television shows Resident Evil novel by Dean Koontz In November 2021, as a new variant of COVID-19 emerged that health officials called "omicron," social media users started looking for old pieces of media containing the word so that they could claim that this variant had been "predicted." What they found was a movie from the 1960s:    There really was a movie made in 1963 called "Omicron." And that's where this movie's connection to the current COVID-19 pandemic ends.  The word "omicron" isn't new, and it's use in a 1960s movie isn't all that surprising. "Omicron" is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet and has been in use for thousands of years. In academic fields, it is often used to represent the 15th item in a list. The World Health Organization announced in May that it would be naming new COVID-19 variants as they emerge by using the the Greek alphabet. While the "delta" variant made headlines, there have been several other variants, such as epsilon, Iota and lambda, that didn't warrant too much concern. When the latest variant emerged, WHO skipped two letters, nu and xi, as they are common surnames, and named the new variant omicron.  World Health Organization announced in May skipped two letters WHO has assigned simple, easy to say and remember labels for key variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, using letters of the Greek alphabet. These labels were chosen after wide consultation and a review of many potential naming systems. WHO convened an expert group of partners from around the world to do so, including experts who are part of existing naming systems, nomenclature and virus taxonomic experts, researchers and national authorities. The word "omicron" is also frequently used by astronomers to name stars. Omicron Persei, Omicron Andromedae, and Omicron Ceti are all real stars in the galaxy. It's not far-fetched to see how a fiction writer could name a fictional planet or a fictional alien "Omicron." Omicron Persei Omicron Andromedae Omicron Ceti In fact, when some social media users encountered the name of this new COVID-19 variant, a number of people noted how "omicron" would make a great name for a sci-fi movie. Some even created and posted fake movie posters. Here's one fake "Omicron" movie poster (left) next to the original movie poster (right) it was created from: original movie poster   While a few fake "Omicron" movie posters were circulated on social media in November 2021, there really have been a few movies with this title. In 1963, Italian writer and director Ugo Gregoretti made a movie called "Omicron" about an alien that took over a human body in order to learn more about earth. Here's one scene from the satirical film:  This is a real movie, but it has practically nothing to do with the current pandemic. Furthermore, using "omicron" in a work of fiction isn't all that uncommon. In 2013, "The Visitor from Planet Omicron" explored how an alien invasion could be thwarted by really good cooking. The plot of "The Visitor from Planet Omicron" would probably make better conspiratorial fodder as it involves a botanical virus and a corrupt government, but this low-budget comedy in no way "predicted" COVID-19.     The animated show "Futurama" also features an alien character named Lrrr who is the ruler of the Planet Omicron Persei 8. While one could build a conspiracy theory around Lrrr and the other Omicronians starting the COVID-19 pandemic, Lrrr would probably rather eat humans (or force them to make more sitcoms) than kill them with a plague.  ruler of the Planet Omicron Persei 8  Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is not a work of fiction. It wasn't predicted by old sci-fi movies and it wasn't planned by nefarious forces. The latest variant was named "omicron" because that was the next usable letter in the Greek alphabet. The next variant will likely be called "Pi," the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, which will undoubtedly lead people to claim that the pandemic was predicted by movies like "Life of Pi" or by Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse who was the first to calculate an accurate approximation of pi.  Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse     How Futurama Is Related to the New Omicron COVID Variant. MARCA, 28 Nov. 2021, https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/tv-shows/2021/11/28/61a327fe268e3e001c8b4576.html. This Is How the Number 3.14 Got the Name Pi. Time, https://time.com/4699479/pi-day-history-origins/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021. WHO Announces Simple, Easy-to-Say Labels for SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Interest and Concern. https://www.who.int/news/item/31-05-2021-who-announces-simple-easy-to-say-labels-for-sars-cov-2-variants-of-interest-and-concern. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021. On 2 October 2018, journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared during a visit to Saudi Arabia's consulate in Instanbul, Turkey. Although foul play was suspected, the Saudi government at first denied that any harm had been done to the journalist. Then they began releasing conflicting accounts, beginning with the claim that Khashoggi died accidentally in a "fistfight." Ultimately, the Saudis acknowledged that evidence provided by Turkish investigators pointed to his being slain in a "premeditated" attack, which they said was undertaken in a "rogue operation" not authorized by the Saudi royal family. Two senior government officials were dismissed, and 18 Saudi nationals allegedly involved in the murder were arrested. President Trump was criticized in the immediate aftermath of Khashoggi's disappearance for his apparent reluctance to hold the Saudis responsible for the incident. "We want to find out what happened," he said. But he also maintained that the United States' relations with the kingdom were "excellent" and he would not consider stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite calls from members of Congress to do so. Various commentators, including Washington Post contributor Brian Klaas, suggested that Trump's official dealings with Saudi Arabia are "compromised by deep financial conflicts of interest": suggested His business interests -- past, present, and future -- make it impossible for him to contemplate the kind of consequences that the Saudis deserve. In 1991, when Trump was $900 million in debt, he was bailed out by a member of the Saudi royal family, who purchased his 281-foot yacht, Trump Princess. Trumps other princess, Ivanka, is married to Jared Kushner, who has deep ties to the crown prince. In 2015, when asked about his relationship with the Saudis, Trump said: I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much. As recently as December 2016, Trump owned companies in Saudi Arabia, as he sought to build a hotel there. Three days after Trumps inauguration, lobbyists working for the Saudi government funneled $270,000 directly to the Trump Organization by booking rooms at his Washington hotel. More recently, Trumps flagging Manhattan hotel got bailed out thanks to a lucrative visit from none other than the Saudi crown prince. It raises the disturbing possibility that Saudi Arabia will get away with abduction or murder because the president is beholden to Saudi money. Trump responded by tweeting that he has no financial interests in Saudi Arabia: tweeting For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018 October 16, 2018  That same day, Fox News Research (a Fox News Twitter account that regularly posts newsworthy data) tweeted a list highlighting some of Trump's business relationships with the Saudis: tweeted Trump & Saudi Business:1991: Sold yacht to Saudi Prince2001: Sold 45th floor of Trump World Tower to SaudisJun 2015: I love the Saudis...many in Trump TowerAug 2015: "They buy apartments from me...Spend $40M-$50M"2017: Saudi lobbyists spent $270K at Trump DC hotel  Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) October 16, 2018 October 16, 2018  Shortly afterward, Trump's tweet and the Fox News tweet were combined into a meme and unleashed on Facebook:   The meme presented the Fox News tweet as a refutation of Trump's, but although each of the former's statements can be confirmed via reliable sources, they don't necessarily disprove President Trump's claim that he has no financial interests in Saudi Arabia. The sticking point (and the reason we're rating the claim a mixture of true and false) is that the term "financial interests" usually denotes the ownership of property or investments in a given place, company, or industry. We have found no evidence that either Trump or Trump Organization (the umbrella company operated by Trump's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric), currently owns property or investments in Saudi Arabia. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, the Trump Organization was pursuing plans to open businesses in Saudi Arabia as recently as 2016, but the Associated Press reported in October 2018 that the companies had been shut down by the time Trump took office: reported Shortly after he announced his run for president, Trump began laying the groundwork for possible new business in the kingdom. He registered eight companies with names tied to the country, such as "THC Jeddah Hotel Advisor LLC" and "DT Jeddah Technical Services," according to a 2016 financial disclosure report to the federal government. Jeddah is a major city in the country. "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million," Trump told a crowd at an Alabama rally on Aug. 21, 2015, the same day he created four of the entities. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much." The president's company, the Trump Organization, said shortly after his 2016 election that it had shut down those Saudi companies. The president later pledged to pursue no new foreign deals while in office. In a statement this week, the company said it has explored business opportunities in many countries but that it does "not have any plans for expansion into Saudi Arabia." There is no question that Trump has profited from business dealings with the Saudis, however. Let's take the items in the Fox News Research list one by one: Fortune reported in 2017 that Trump, facing financial difficulties in 1991, sold a yacht he purchased from the Sultan of Brunei in the 1980s to Saudi Arabia's Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. reported The Associated Press reported that the Kingdom of Saudi purchased the entire 45th floor of Trump World Tower in New York City in 2001, "the biggest purchase in that building to that point." reported During a 16 June 2015 speech at Trump Tower announcing his presidential candidacy, Trump said: "Saudi Arabia, they make $1 billion a day. $1 billion a day. I love the Saudis. Many are in this building." At a campaign rally one month later, he said: "I like the Saudis; they are very nice. I make a lot of money with them. They buy all sorts of my stuff -- all kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions." speech said At a campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama in August 2015, Trump said: "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much." said The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2017 that Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., received payments amounting to roughly $270,000 for services provided to lobbyists working for the Saudi government. Although Trump had announced earlier in the year that any Trump Organization profits from foreign governments would be donated to the U.S. Treasury, the company did not respond to the Journal's questions about what would be done with the Saudi payments, which were made through a third party. reported Despite his not owning businesses, properties, or investments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Trump has clearly, and by his own admission, profited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from business dealings with the Saudis, and over a long period of time. We reached out to the Trump Organization for comment but received no reply. Beavers, Olivia.  "Saudis Spent $270K at Trump Hotel Amid Lobbying Efforts: Report."
  The Hill.  5 August 2017. Condon, Bernard et al.  "'I Love the Saudis': Trump Business Ties to Kingdom Run Deep."
  Associated Press.  16 October 2018. Fahrenthold, David A. and Jonathan O'Connell.  "'I Like Them Very Much:' Trump Has Longstanding Business Ties with Saudis, Who Have Boosted His Hotels Since He Took Office."
 The Washington Post.  11 October 2018. Kirkpatrick, David D.  "Trump's Business Ties in the Gulf Raise Questions About His Allegiances."
  The New York Times.  17 June 2017. Klaas, Brian.  "Jamal Khashoggi's Fate Casts a Harsh Light on Trump's Friendship with Saudi Arabia."
 The Washington Post.  10 October 2018. Mangan, Dan.  "Trump Claims He Has 'No Financial Interests in Saudi Arabia' --- But He Makes Lots of Money from It."
  CNBC.  16 October 2018. Myre, Greg.  "The Big Overlap Between Trump's Global Holdings and U.S. Foreign Policy."
  NPR.  22 November 2016. Orden, Erica.  "Saudi Disappearance Puts Spotlight on Trump's Business Ties."
  CNN.  12 October 2018. Smith, Geoffrey.  "This Is the 420-Foot Yacht Donald Trump Wanted -- Before He Filed for Bankruptcy."
  Fortune.  13 February 2017. Tau, Byron and Rebecca Ballhaus.  "Trump Hotel Received $270,000 from Lobbying Campaign Tied to Saudis."
  The Wall Street Journal.  6 June 2017. Watson, Kathryn.  "What's at Stake in the Trump Administration's Ties to the Saudis."
  CBS News.  12 October 2018. Wong, Edward et al.  "Trump Calls Relations with Saudi Arabia 'Excellent,' While Congress Is Incensed."
  The New York Times.  11 October 2018. Associated Press.  "A Timeline of Events in the Khashoggi Case."
  25 October 2018. CBS News.  "Transcript: Donald Trump Announces His Presidential Candidacy."
  16 June 2015. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In July 2020, social media posts and news reports claimed that a Missouri school district asked parents to sign COVID-19 death waivers in advance of the academic school year. news reports The waiver went viral after a Twitter user shared it. shared   The focus on the word death came from an article published by online tabloid Raw Story that extrapolated language from the waiver meant to release Hazelwood School District (HSD) in Missouri from legal liabilities in the event a child dies in any way related to COVID-19. Raw Story While it is true that HSD issued a waiver related to COVID-19, Anthony Kiekow, HSD director of communication and public relations, told Snopes that parents would only be required to sign if their child planned on participating in summer athletic programs. The waiver asked that a parent confirm their acknowledgment of the public health crisis related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and confirmed that they would not allow a child to participate in programs if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19 or had been exposed to anyone diagnosed with the disease or awaiting test results. It further notes: Anthony Kiekow waiver The undersigned agrees to release, discharge, hold harmless and indemnify the Hazelwood School District, its agents, employees, officers, Board of Education members, insurers and others acting on the Districts behalf (the Releasees), of and from any and all claims, demands, causes of action and/or legal liabilities for injuries to or death of my child occurring during, or resulting from, or participation in the above-mentioned program or activity and related in any way to COVID-19, even if the cause, damages or injuries are alleged to be the fault of or alleged to be caused by the negligence or carelessness of the Releasees. Such verbiage is not uncommon in school athletic waivers and headlines referring to the document as a COVID-19 death waiver were sensationalizing and largely misleading, added Kiekow. The waiver was created by the Missouri United School Insurance Council (MUSIC), a non-profit program that provides insurance coverage for Missouri public schools and community colleges. Snopes spoke with MUSIC Executive Director Mark Stockwell who said that the organization supplied all member school districts with two waiver templates recommended for summer athletic programs and not necessarily for those that take place during the academic school year. Kiekow confirmed that the waiver was sent in late June 2020 and was intended for parents whose students typically participate in summer athletics. He noted that required athletic waivers and documents from the previous school year were very different from this waiver, but that language related to COVID-19 is likely to be the new norm for sports. MUSIC Mark Stockwell two waiver templates For the 2020-21 school year, the district announced that it would be offering families the option of selecting 100% virtual school or a blended option that includes both virtual and in-person learning. A statement issued by HSD further reads that: statement Parents who want their child to participate in athletics are asked to sign a waiver. This years waiver includes language about COVID-19 to ensure that parents can make an informed decision Our district has implemented unprecedented safety precautions in all of our buildings; however, it is important for parents to understand that school districts can only mitigate the risk of COVID-19. No district, organization, or business can offer 100% protection against exposure to a global pandemic. Visit the Centers for Disease Control website for more information about COVID-19. Parents of HSD students who choose to allow their children to attend in-person class would not be required to sign a COVID-19 waiver. When asked why HSD adopted this policy, Keikow replied via text message that athletics are optional and that a waiver for in-person instruction is just not something that were requiring. EdCounsel, a Missouri-based law firm that represents over 200 public school districts, wrote in a blog post that state law is not clear on whether school districts can require that families sign a COVID-19 waiver for students attending in-person instruction, but liability waivers for extracurricular activities are largely exempt. EdCounsel blog post While liability waivers for normal classes may be suspect, extracurricular activities are a different matter, wrote EdCounsel attorney Tom Smith. (Snopes attempted to contact Smith for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.) Extracurricular activities are a privilege, not a right; and districts have the legal authority to place certain restrictions on participation in these activities so long as the restrictions are uniformly applied and do not target a protected class. Tom Smith Under Missouri law, eligible students have a legal right to free public education and requiring that a parent or guardian sign a waiver as a condition of attendance would arguably interfere with that right. Even so, some schools and facilities around the United States have adopted similar waivers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly as many states have seen a spike in cases during the 2020 summer. Turlock Unified School District in California issued a similar waiver asking all persons participating in its activities during this pandemic sign an assumption of risk and waiver of liability. The YMCA of Minnesotas Greater Twin Cities also issued a waiver for adults and children who use its services and programs. spike in cases similar waiver waiver The HSD waiver was just one of many documents that come in a summer athletic packet and the school district said that it would continue to follow guidance from state and public health officials for the upcoming 2020-21 academic year. In mid-July 2020, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released guidelines for reopening schools across the state but did not issue statewide mandates. released guidelines I want to thank all of the medical experts across the state who contributed to this guidance. We are confident that if schools implement this guidance, they CAN safely reopen this fall, wrote Gov. Mike Parson in a Facebook post. Facebook post Ultimately, individual school districts and jurisdictions have the authority to implement their own preventative measures. Edwards, David.  "Missouri School District Asks Parents to Sign COVID-19 Death Waiver for Children."
  Raw Story.  14 July 2020. Missouri Department of Health & Senior Service, Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education. "Missouri School Reopening Guidance Frequently Asked Health-Related COVID-19 Questions."
  9 July 2020. Smith, Tom.  "Liability Waivers in the Wake of COVID-19."
  EdCounsel School Attorneys.  6 July 2020. The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., known for his eloquence and ability to mobilize the masses throughout the Civil Rights era, is often incorrectly credited for quotes that he never said. One of the most famous lines attributed to King is typically quoted as "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In January 2024, this quote was even posted on the official X (formerly Twitter) page of the State of Israel. "???????? ?????? ????? ??? ????????, ???? ????? ??? ?? ????. ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????, ???? ???? ??? ?? ????." - ?????? ?????? ???? ??. Today we mark Martin Luther King pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r  Israel  ?? (@Israel) January 15, 2024 January 15, 2024 These words were indeed written by King. However, for more than a decade now, there has been confusion as to the precise wording of the quote. In 2011, following the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, a version of the quote went viral on the internet. It stated: "I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Given that if followed the controversial killing of bin Laden, the quote spread across the internet at an impressive reach, especially for the time. Penn Jillette, a famous magician and outspoken libertarian, tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers, and it only continued to go viral from there. tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers Questions about whether the quote was presented accurately were picked up by The Atlantic, NPR, and other news outlets. They found the wording was correct except for the very first sentence, which was not found in King's speeches or writings: "I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." The Atlantic NPR As it turns out, however, Jillette was only a perpetuator  not the originator  of the erroneous version of the quote. Before Jillette shared it, Facebook user Jessica Dovey quoted the King passage correctly on her status, but prefaced it with a sentence expressing her own personal thoughts: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." She distinguished her own thoughts from King's via an opening quotation mark, which was dropped somewhere along the line as it picked up internet traction. on her status  (Image via The Atlantic) The complete quote by King, which can be found in his 1963 book "Strength to Love," read as follows: "Strength to Love," Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says Love your enemies, he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemiesor else? The chain reaction of evilhate begetting hate, wars producing more warsmust be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Commenters on Israel's X post quoting King were quick to point to a clarification provided by Bernice King, MLK's youngest daughter, on Oct. 31, 2023, in regard to her father's stance on Israel. ? Amy: Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israels bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released https://t.co/haahcqcuAf https://t.co/haahcqcuAf  Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 1, 2023 November 1, 2023 We've previously written on other rumors related to King, including whether the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself and whether King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth. rumors related to King the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth.  Grant, Drew. Penn Jillette Explains the Fake Martin Luther King Jr.: I Made a Mistake.Salon, 3 May 2011, https://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/fake_mlj_quote_osama_death/. Https://Twitter.Com/BerniceKing/Status/1719524029600612666.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1719524029600612666. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Https://Twitter.Com/Israel/Status/1746912379667890196.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1746912379667890196. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Jr, Martin Luther King.Strength to Love. Beacon Press, 2019. Loving Your Enemies, Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. McArdle, Megan. Anatomy of a Fake Quotation.The Atlantic, 3 May 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/. Peralta, Eyder. As The Bin Laden Story Raced Online, A Tale Of Two Misattributed Quotes.NPR, 3 May 2011.NPR, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/04/135965263/as-the-bin-laden-story-raced-online-a-tale-of-two-misattributed-quotes. 5 Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes People Think He Said but Actually Didnt.Yahoo News, 17 Jan. 2016, http://news.yahoo.com/5-martin-luther-king-jr-121303266.html. Despite the large number of women in the American workforce, society still treats them as an anomaly, first daughter Ivanka Trump wrote in the introduction to her new book,Women Who Work. Forty-seven percent of the U.S. workforce is made up of women; 70 percent of all mothers support ourselves or contribute financially to our familys bottom line; and 40 percent of American households have female primary breadwinners, Trump wrote. Yet we still say working woman as if she were an anomaly. We never say working man. There are a few statistics in that passage, but we wanted to hone in on one of them: that women are the primary earners in 40 percent of American households. In the notes section of her book, Trump referenced a widely cited2013 Pew Research Center reportthat looked at households with children under the age of 18. The report found that in 2011, women earned most or all of the familys income in 40 percent of these households, adding up to about 13.7 million breadwinner moms. Thats quadruple what it was in 1960  11 percent. The Pew figure is a little more specific than what Trump wrote because it only looked at households that had kids, not those that don't have kids. But in context, it's clear Trump was referring to the Pew report  especially because she referred to the same statistic later in the book when talking about being a working mom herself. As much as motherhood is a joy to so many of us, it is also the greatest predictor of wage inequality between men and women in our country, she wrote. Forty-seven percent of the U.S. labor force is female; 40 percent of women are their family's primary breadwinner. The fact is correct, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan and former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. We couldn't find any comprehensive data that spoke to how many households total, including those without kids, had women as the primary earners. Of the families where the woman is the primary breadwinner, Pew found that 37 percent are married women who earn more than their husbands, while 63 percent are single mothers. And the households with a married primary breadwinner, with a median family income of $80,000, are wealthier than the single mother households, which have a median family income of $23,000. The Pew report is the most recent independent report we could find speaking to this issue. But we also came across a2016 report by the liberal Center for American Progressthat had similar findings. According to the Center for American Progress, 42 percent of mothers were the sole or primary breadwinners in their households in 2015. And 22.4 percent were co-breadwinners, earning one-quarter to one-half of their total household income. Even though womens share of the labor forcegrew dramaticallythroughout the latter half of the 20th century, it has stagnated in recent years, at least in part because of alack of family-friendly labor policies, said Casey Schoeneberger, communications director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Our ruling Ivanka Trump said, 40 percent of American households have female primary breadwinners. A widely cited Pew report found that in 2011, 40 percent of American households with children under 18 had women providing most or all of the familys income. A report by a liberal think tank found similar results looking at 2015 data. The context of Trump's statement shows that she had working moms in mind. We rate her statement Mostly True. Claim:  A hotel restaurant in Nigeria was found to be selling human meat.    : A hotel restaurant in Nigeria was found to be serving human meat.  : Human heads were found in a Nigerian hotel room, which the hotel's owner maintains were planted there as a set up over a business dispute. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, May 2005] Is it true that a Nigerian restaurant was serving human flesh andthe police went there and they discovered Human Heads and flesh in therestaurant kitchen?   Origins:  On 5 September 2013, the Nigerian tabloid Osun Defender published a grisly account (sourced from the Naija Loaded forum) about a local hotel that had been shut down after reports surfaced that its restaurant was selling dishes made of human meat, with police reportedly recovering two fresh cellophane-wrapped human heads at the scene: account forum On Thursday Onitsha police arrested 11 people after they discovered 2 fresh human heads in a hotel (name withheld) very close to the popular Ose-Okwodu market in Anambra state. Two AK47 rifles & other weapons were also discovered in the hotel. The arrest followed tip-offs from area residents on Thursday morning. The hotel owner, 6 women and 4 men were arrested. After police got access to the hotel, they made a startling discovery of two human heads wrapped in a cellophane bag, two AK47 rifles, two army caps, 40 rounds of live ammunition and so many cell phones. "Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday," said a vegetable seller in the area A Pastor who was among the people who tipped off the police on Thursday said: "I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised. So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price." This account was widely picked up by many western news outlets in February 2014, including the New York Daily News, the International Business Times, the Independent, Metro, and Gawker, all of whom unquestioningly reported it as straight news. Daily News International Business Times Independent Metro Gawker This two-year-old story inexplicably got a boost when it was repeated on the Swahili-language section of the BBC's web site on 13 May 2015 and was picked up again from there by western press outlets (such as the Daily Mail) a few days later. BBC Daily Mail But was it true?  The original report included several typical signs of fake news:   The article was completely lacking in verifiable details: The name of the hotel where the gruesome discovery was allegedly made was withheld, the persons quoted in the article were referenced only by vague descriptions and not by name (e.g., "a vegetable seller," "a pastor,"), none of the eleven persons purportedly arrested was identified, and not a single law enforcement officer or other official was quoted, named, or referenced in the story.  The claim stemmed from a single source: No other news outlet was cited by the western media, who merely repeated what Osun Defender had published without further verification. Nor were any follow-up articles published about the incident to reveal such information as whose bodies were being dished out.  The article appeared flippant in tone (e.g., a pastor's reaction to being informed that he had consumed human flesh was to note how expensive the meat was): "Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday," said a vegetable seller in the area A Pastor who was among the people who tipped off the police on Thursday said: "I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised. So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price." Multiple comments left on the Defender's site by local residents (and others) denounced the newspaper for regularly printing false news stories like this one.   All in all, what we had was the western press repeating a single-source story which a Nigerian tabloid had picked up from an online forum.However, overlooked in all that initial U.S. and UK reporting was that other news sources, such as the Nigerian Tribune, had also contemporaneously reported the same event, with additional verifiable details that suggested there might be something to the story: reported According a police source, who pleaded anonymity, he reviewed that during the operation that lasted for hours, the police team, led by a senior police officer attached to the IGP Monitoring Unit, cordoned off the hotel after several intelligence reports that human meat were being served to guests in the said hotel. Though the Onitsha Area Commander, Mr Benjamin Wordu, declined further comments on the matter on the grounds that the police was still investigating the case to make further discovery, it was gathered that during the operation, an Infiniti SUV, belonging to the owner of the hotel, with registration number DA203FST was also recovered. Meanwhile, the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Emeka Chukwuemeka, confirmed the incident and said the police had intensified manhunt to arrest all members of the cartel. Here we have various law enforcement officials cited and referenced by name, which lends a degree of versimilitude to the story.  But all that such reports confirmed was that a raid on the hotel took place, not necessarily that the shocking claims about human meat being served up to unsuspecting restaurant patrons were true. A 29 December 2013 article from the Nigerian publication Vanguard quoted the hotel's owner, Bonaventure Mokwe, as asserting that he had been set up over a motor park dispute between him and some Onitsha natives.  According to Mr. Mokwe, his business rivals planted two rotten skulls (as well as rifles and magazines) in one of his hotel's rooms, and the rumors of human being served to guests were a fabricated excuse that police used to raid the hotel, arrest Mr. Mokwe, put him on trial for murder, and ultimately demolish his hotel: article Prior to the  day I was arrested and my hotel demolished on the directive of  Anambra  State governor, I was involved in a motor park dispute with some Onitsha natives. Within the period , I wrote the Obi of Onitsha  three times asking him to  intervene and call the natives to order but he remained understandably silent. When that failed, I wrote a petition to  the Anambra State Commissioner of Police which  he minuted  to the  Onitsha Area Commander who in turn assigned an Inspector to investigate. But  these efforts ended as soon as they started. When that  failed again, I went to court and obtained an order which was served on the palace of Obi of Onitsha, the police and leaders of the Onitsha natives antagonising  me. Soon after some bus drivers started loading in my park and all hell broke loose, as threats  of all dimension started coming from the Onitsha natives which culminated in the planting of the exhibits in my hotel.   The human skulls and magazines  were  parked in a sac and planted in the wardrobe at my hotel lodging room number 102. I drove into my office around 7 am that fateful day  because I had a land transaction. Before I could settle down, my hotel was surrounded by the police numbering over 100. As I made my way towards my office entrance, some of them were already in the passage. I was taken into my office and shown a search warrant. In the process, one police officer betrayed the whole adventure when he shouted at one of my staff  to be shown room 102. It did not make sense to me then. The first thing I saw when the door of the room was  opened was an unsealed traveling bag on the floor. Some polythene bags were inside the bag and two  on the bed. Nothing was found in the toilet and under the bed. The police then opened the wardrobe of the room and brought out one single Bagco sac, in which  were two rotten skulls, two A.K-47 rifles  that looked unserviceable and two loaded magazines. The mock search exercise started and ended after five minutes or thereabouts at the door of room 102. Incidentally the lodger locked the room and left with the key around 6.30 am, following which the police showed up. I was immediately handcuffed and taken outside the corridor of the hotel, where I was  told to sit next to the exhibits while they took pictures. Soon after that, I, alongside my staff, was taken to the police Area Command Onitsha and paraded before the public and journalists.   According to Mr. Mokwe, the police showed no interest in investigating or arresting the lodger who had occupied the room in question immediately before they had coincidentally arrived to search it: The identity of the person that lodged in my hotel room number 102 on the very day the police came searching was unmasked. Though he gave his name as John Obi, his true identity was that of a native of  Umudie village.  His picture was smuggled and shown to the receptionist who  identified him as the person he gave the receipt of room 102 that fateful day. It was him who planted  the exhibits in the hotel room wardrobe.  The police have some questions to answer: why did they not make attempt to arrest the person that lodged in the room, despite the fact that guest's [registration] was sent to them? If it was real, the person who stayed in the hotel room should have been apprehended. It would then be for  him to reveal who gave him the things [he left in the room], because there is no way he could have slept in that room with all those things without knowing. When the identity of the people that orchestrated my hotel set-up became known even by the general public, a petition was written by my lawyer to the Inspector-General of Police, listing their names. But  the police  sat on it because arresting them would have meant releasing me and  that would have meant a state financial liability and embarrassment for the state government.   Mr. Mokwe also maintained that he was set up on criminal charges, and his hotel was demolished, at the behest of a corrupt local government and police force: A week after I arrived [at prison], it became increasingly clear that the incident was a set-up. Matters were  not helped by what occurred when the police first took me to the grave of one Mr Nwonye Akas, a native of Nkwuele Ezinaka Itite village, who died in 1972 when I was still [a toddler], to say I killed and buried the man at the place.  With the police under pressure from the media, most especially by NIPPRON, I, along with three of my staff, was arraigned in court on the 17th of October 2013 and a murder charge along with possession of human skulls and fire arms were heaped on us and we were subsequently remanded in prison. I spent a total of two months and seventeen days at SARS Awkuzu. My hotel demolition had nothing to do with fighting crime, as it was sold to the general public.  When I was bailed, a legal officer with Anambra State government  begged my cousin to tell me to lie low until after the elections. I obeyed. So you can see that its not all about justice, it's about what they can gain from it. They told me to lie low that after electioneering campaign, something would be done to address the issue, but till date nothing has been done.  The state government should sit with my lawyer or appoint someone to sit with my lawyer and agree on how to pay for the damages.  You don't beat somebody and tell him not to cry. Secondly, this matter is impossible to wish away.  No amount of prayer will wish it away. I must be paid everything. Everything I had was destroyed, including my Green Card, in that hotel building. Those  fabricated  charges should be cancelled because they are mere damage control charges intended to fill in the blanks, they have no bearing on me because they were manufactured. You don't charge one for possession when you didnt see anything on him. Also, you don't charge someone for murder when investigation has not been done.      Last updated:  17 May 2015    Oruya, Suzy.  "Police Arrest 11 with 2 Fresh Human Heads in Onitsha."   Nigerian Tribune.  2 August 2013.    Osun Defender.  "Hotel Selling Cooked Human Meat Found in Onitsha."   5 September 2013. Claim:  Photographs show a desert memorial constructed to honor the victims of UTA Flight 772.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November   2013] A friend told me to go to a certain latitude and longitude on Google Maps. When I noticed it seemed to be in the middle of an African desert, I thought he was just sending nonsense. But when I zoomed in, my mind was blown. I noticed a tiny icon that looked like an airplane. So I did some more research and discovered theres an incredibly tragic and beautiful story behind it. Here it is, from start to finish.   UTA Flight 772 was a scheduled flight operating from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo to Paris CDG airport in France.  On Tuesday, September 19th, 1989 the aircraft exploded over Niger in the Tenere region of the Sahara Desert. French investigators determined a suitcase bomb planted by Libyan terrorists to be the cause. All 170 people on board died.   Eighteen years later, families of the victims gathered at the crash site to build a memorial.   Due to the remoteness of the location, pieces of the wreckage could still be found at the site.     The memorial was created by Les Familles de lAttentat du DC-10 dUTA, an association of the victims families along with the help of local inhabitants.     The memorial was built mostly by hand and uses dark stones to create a 200-foot diameter circle.   The Tenere region is one of the most inaccessible places on the planet. The stones were trucked to the site from over 70 kilometers away.      The memorial was built over the course of two months in May and June of 2007.    170 broken mirrors, representing each victim, were placed around the circumference of the memorial.   The memorial is anchored by the starboard wing of the aircraft which was trucked to the site from 10 miles away. Workers had to dig up the wing and empty it of sand.   A plaque commemorating each victim is affixed to the wing.          The memorial was partly funded by the $170 million compensation package provided by the Libyan government.     The memorial can be seen from Google Earth.     Origins:  On 19 September 1989 a DC-10 operated by the French airline UTA (Union des Transports Ariens) as Flight 772 between Brazzaville, Congo and Paris, France with a stop in N'Djamena, Chad, exploded 46 minutes after taking off from N'Djamena International Airport.  The explosion blew apart the plane over the Sahara Desert, killing all 170 persons aboard (155 passengers and 15 crew members). An investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) determined the deadly explosion had been caused by a bomb placed in a suitcase which was stored in the forward cargo hold.  Six Libyans were eventually tried and convicted at the Paris Assize Court in absentia (because Libya declined to allow their extradition to France)  for their participation in the bombing.  The motives behind the bombing were somewhat murky, but they have generally been ascribed to a desire for punishing France due to that country's opposition to Libyan intervention in Chad's civil war. The Paris Assize Court awarded the families of the UTA bombing victims amounts ranging from about $4,000 to $40,000 each, and an association representing the victims' families, Les Familles de l'Attentat du DC10 d'UTA, negotiated a separate settlement with the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations in 2004 for $170 million ($1 million for each of the 170 victims).  As well, in 2008 Libya paid $1.5 billion into a fund to compensate the relatives of persons killed in several terrorism-related events, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (also known as the Lockerbie bombing), the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque, and the 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing. Les Familles de l'Attentat du DC10 d'UTA In 2007 Les Familles de l'Attentat du DC10 d'UTA, using compensation funds paid by the Libyan government, financed the construction of a memorial to the victims shown above, made of dark rocks which form the shape of a DC-10 inside a compass: It was constructed by 100 people working largely by hand under the desert sun. The life-size silhouette of the aircraft lies inside a circle more than 200ft in diameter, created using dark stones set into the sand. Surrounding this circle are 170 broken mirrors, representing those who died, and arrows marking the points of the compass. At the northern point, part of the right wing of the DC-10 has been erected as a monument, with a plaque commemorating the victims. This memorial has garnered additional visibility in recent years because it can be clearly seen in satellite imagery viewable through Google Earth and has been chronicled in web sites such as Google SightSeeing. Google Earth Google SightSeeing  Last updated:  4 September 2015 Various social media posts circulating in late December 2021 claimed that thanks to coronavirus stimulus legislation known as the American Rescue Plan, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and Democratic legislators would begin "spying" or "snooping" on users of cash apps like PayPal and Venmo. Here is an example of one such post: example   The truth is, unsurprisingly, more nuanced, but the bottom line is that, contrary to what the above Twitter posts state, the effect of the legislation in question isn't that the Biden administration or Democrats will be "tapping into" or "spying on" bank or cash app accounts. This is a misleading characterization. What the legislation does is significantly lower the threshold for reporting taxable transactions made using cash apps like Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle for goods and services to the IRS. And when you reach that threshold, the app companies will then be required to send a tax form called a 1099-K to both you and the IRS. A 1099-K is, according to PayPal, an "informational tax form that is used to report goods and services payments received by a business or individual in the calendar year." PayPal As of this writing, the current threshold for such reporting is $20,000 and 200 payments in goods and services. Come Jan. 1, 2022, that reporting threshold will drop down to $600. threshold This could have a significant impact on platform users' tax returns. Here's how Bloomberg Tax described how users might experience the change: Bloomberg Tax For example, a model train collector may have paid $5,000 for model train pieces over several years that they now sell for $8,000, and the marketplace that introduced the seller to the buyer and through which the sale took place may charge the seller a total fee of $800. It may cost the model train seller $200 in postage to send the pieces to its buyers. The Form 1099-K that the seller will receive from the TPSO will report $8,000 in gross proceeds paid. However, the sellers taxable gain from that sale would only be $2,000. As a result, collectors and other online sellers will need to keep extensive records of their expenses going forward to avoid over-reporting of income and overpayment of tax. Also, consider the alternativea teenager who walks dogs to earn extra money. If their income in 2022 exceeds $600, their expenses may be limited to the fees charged by the website that connects them to pet owners, but they will owe income taxand possibly self-employment taxon the income they earn. According to PayPal, which owns Venmo, the change doesn't affect people who use the apps for personal transactions, like paying a friend back for your share of dinner, gifts, or chipping in for trips. PayPal also states that its app allows users to categorize their own transactions as personal versus rendering payment for "goods and services." PayPal Business Users on Cash Apps Will Begin Receiving Tax Forms. Heres What You Need to Know. WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather, 14 Oct. 2021, https://www.wjhl.com/news/business-users-on-cash-apps-to-begin-receiving-tax-forms-what-you-need-to-know/. Pflieger, Deborah. "New Form 1099 Reporting Coming in 2022," Bloomberg Tax, 15 Dec. 2021, https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/new-form-1099-reporting-coming-in-2022. New U.S. Tax Reporting Requirements: Your Questions Answered. PayPal Newsroom, 4 Nov. 2021, https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-11-04-New-US-Tax-Reporting-Requirements-Your-Questions-Answered. "PayPal and Venmo Taxes: What You Need to Know About P2P Platforms." TurboTax, 27 Nov. 2021, https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/paypal-and-venmo-taxes-what-you-need-to-know-about-p2p-platforms/L5DNjOUM1. CORRECTION, 2:50 p.m., Sept. 15, 2016:After this fact check posted, readers pointed out we'd presented Texas and California GDP figures in billions of dollars when relevant figures actually reflected productivity in the trillions of dollars. We made appropriate changes. Our rating of the claim didn't change. In a tweet adorned with images of a rocket, a wind turbine, a steer, a factory and a microscope, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared: If Texas were a country, it would have the 10th highest GDP in the world. If so, thats gained ground.When we looked into a 2012 claimcomparing productivity in Texas versus the nations of the world, Texas ranked 14th internationally. So, we decided to put Abbotts statement to the Texas Truth-O-Meter. The fine print in Abbotts tweet states that it's based on information from Glenn Hegar, the Texas state comptroller, and from the International Monetary Fund and Bureau of Economic Analysis. When we asked, Lauren Willis of the comptrollers office emailed usits chartindicating that in 2015, Texas had a gross domestic product of $1.59 trillion -- placing it 10th among countries behind the U.S. ($17.95 trillion) and eight countries including Brazil ($1.77 trillion). The chart shows Texas ahead of No. 11 Canada ($1.55 trillion) as well as Korea, Russia, Australia, Spain, Mexico and four other countries. GDP, the most-used measure of national economic output, isdefinedas the market value of goods and services produced by labor and property in country. SOURCE:Email, Lauren Willis, director of communications, Office of Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Sept. 6, 2016 For our part, we found 2015GDP figures posted in April 2016by the International Monetary Fund matching the GDP figures in the comptrollers chart. Willis also pointed out aWorld Bank breakoutof GDPs by nation for 2015; the presented figures didnt perfectly align with the comptrollers chart, we found, though the ranking of the top 10 countries did. Willis also sent a web link to the bureaus U.S. and state-by-state GDP figures for 2015 and previous years. From the BEA, we downloaded figures indicating that in 2015, Texas had the GDP of $1.59 trillion that Abbott relied on. Then again, more populous California had a GDP of $2.46 trillion, which would have placed the Golden State No. 6 in the world if it were a nation, nudging Texas to No. 11.We recently found toothat California in 2015 had greater per-capita productivity than Texas. SOURCE:Website,Regional Economic Accounts, Gross Domestic Product, Interactive TablesBureau of Economic Analysis, last updated June 14, 2016 (GDP figures downloaded Sept. 6, 2016) Our ruling Abbott said that if Texas were a country, its economy would rank 10th in the world. Thats so, figures show, if you leave out a bigger state, California. Considering California, in fairness, Texas would rank 11th in the world. We rate this claim 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. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/cdc4ac03-aab9-4c82-b255-b39c9f4656db