Has Target discontinued its 'Shop with a Cop' initiative?
In late July 2020, Snopes readers asked for verification of numerous social media posts that stated Target had canceled its annual "Shop with a Cop" program, which is officially known as "Heroes & Helpers," in an effort to "distance themselves from Police Officers." Here is an example of one such post circulating on Facebook:   Similar posts also made the rounds on Twitter, and to add to the confusion, a website called The Courier Daily only reported that people were talking about the rumor on Twitter but didn't offer any evidence for the claim. posts website We reached out to the source itself, asking Target Corporate whether it had ended the long-standing program that pairs children from low-income backgrounds with local law enforcement officers for holiday shopping trips funded by charitable donations. A spokesperson for Target told us that the program will continue, although details about how it will move forward amid the COVID-19 pandemic are still pending. In response to our question asking whether the program had been canceled, the company sent the following statement: We plan to continue to support children with Heroes & Helpers events across the country this holiday season. Like many of our holiday programs, were carefully considering how to manage these events during the COVID-19 environment in a way that ensures the health and safety of our team and guests. We will have additional details to share as we approach the holiday season. The program was launched in 2009 and takes place in stores nationwide. To date, $5 million in grants has been used to support the shopping trips, and more than 100,000 children and 60,000 police officers have participated, per Target. program The false social media rumors may have been inspired by the fact that since the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, there have been ongoing protests against and conversation about police violence and racism in America, spurring calls to reform policing practices and even some activists calling for police departments to be defunded. George Floyd However, Target, as of this writing, doesn't plan to cancel the program as a result of the racial justice protests. With the information currently available, we rate this claim  A Bullseye View.  "Target Teams Up with Donnie Wahlberg to Celebrate 10 Years of Heroes & Helpers."
  4 December 2019. Trujillo, Damian.  "Shop With a Cop Foundation Considers Name Change to Reconnect with Community."
  KNTV.  2 July 2020. Hill, Evan, et al.  "How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody."
  The New York Times.  31 May 2020.
In September and October 2023, various purported celebrity news YouTube channels published videos that claimed podcaster Joe Rogan had apparently confronted entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey and actor Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock, about supposed nefarious activities surrounding the August 2023 Maui wildfires. August 2023 Maui wildfires Their connection to Hawaii: Winfrey owns property on Maui, while Realtor.com reports that Johnson had a vacation rental on Oahu and had spent time in Hawaii when he was a child. Realtor.com According to the thumbnail images for these videos, in face-to-face interviews on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, Rogan had accused Winfrey and The Rock of attempting to profit from the wildfires. Rogan Winfrey The Rock For example, one clip from the Drama Bay YouTube channel had the title, "5 MINUTES AGO: Joe Rogan CONFRONTS Oprah for Scamming Maui people!!!?" The video (archived) was viewed more than 228,000 times on YouTube. video archived Rogan never said this to Winfrey, nor had she ever appeared on his podcast. Then, on Oct. 8, the same YouTube channel posted a similar video (archived) about The Rock. The video title read, "Joe Rogan SLAMS The Rock And Elites For Scamming Maui People!!!?" video archived Again, Rogan never said this, nor had The Rock ever been a guest on his podcast. These and several other videos on other similar-looking YouTube channels all promoted similar rumors. One of those other videos came from the Celebrity Glance YouTube channel and had more than 621,000 views. The title of the video (archived) read, "Joe Rogan & Elon Musk Expose Oprah's Plan To STEAL From The People Of Maui." video archived Here's the kicker: All of these videos featured narration, scripting, sequencing and thumbnail images that appeared to have been a product of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The Drama Bay YouTube channel's video about Rogan and Winfrey began as follows: AI-GENERATED NARRATOR VOICE: In the most recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, our candid podcast host, Joe Rogan, made some headlines by dropping a surprising bombshell. He suggested that media mogul Oprah Winfrey might be involved in shady land deals. Specifically, she's been eyeing properties owned by individuals caught up in various controversies. The Maui fires have left a community in turmoil, with many children affected by the tragedy and nowhere to be found, and the connection to the ongoing concerns surrounding Oprah Winfrey is undoubtedly cause for concern. Joe Rogan and several other commendable celebrities have tried to warn us time and time again about how these Hollywood elites would do anything to keep filling their well of riches. And once again, Oprah is suspected of being involved in this terrible incident. Could she be profiting from these disasters or even possibly be behind them? The other videos about Rogan, Winfrey, The Rock, Musk and Maui all followed a similar script. Musk Despite all of the claims made in these AI-generated videos, the truth of the matter was that neither Winfrey nor The Rock have ever been guests on Rogan's podcast. Further, no evidence was presented that would show Rogan had confronted Winfrey or The Rock for having orchestrated the wildfires or for scheming to profit from the disaster. Unfortunately, the comments under all of these videos were filled with many thousands of users who apparently believed the false rumors. In fact, most of the commenters didn't mention AI at all, perhaps because they didn't realize they were watching AI-driven videos. For more on the background of a relief fund set up by Winfrey and The Rock for Maui wildfire survivors  and misinformation that surrounded the launch of the fund  we encourage readers to visit our past detailed reporting. detailed reporting Liles, Jordan. Dolly Parton Didnt Ask for Fire Victims Donations, in Contrast with Oprah and The Rock for Maui? Snopes, 5 Sept. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dolly-parton-fire-donations/. ---. Dolly Partons Charitable Work Was Twisted on TikTok To Diss Other Celebs. Snopes, 11 Sept. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/09/11/dolly-parton-tiktok-maui/. Zap, Claudine. "Take a Look Inside Dwayne 'The Rock Johnson's Hawaiian Vacation Rental."Realtor.com, 7 Apr. 2022, https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/inside-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-hawaii-vacation-rental/. Claim:  The actor who portrayed the "Marlboro Man" in print and television cigarette advertisements died of lung cancer.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, 1999] I heard that the actor who was the Marlboro Man in TV commercials died of lung cancer from smoking.  Is that true?   Origins:  When a prominent study was released in the 1950s linking smoking to lung cancer, it presented Philip Morris, the manufacturer of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes, with a dilemma: many consumers were concerned enough about the health issues associated with smoking to want to switch to filtered cigarettes (which were perceived as safer), but many men viewed filtered cigarettes  and the Marlboro brand in particular, which had originally been marketed as a woman's product, advertised as being mild and ladylike and featuring a red band around one end to disguise lipstick stains  as too feminine.  Philip Morris' response to this issue was to reposition Marlboro as a men's cigarette promoted via advertisements featuring strong masculine figures; the rugged 'Marlboro Man' cowboy became one of the most prominent advertising icons of the mid-twentieth century, propelling Marlboro from a niche brand to the world's best-selling cigarette. The visibility of the Marlboro Man as an icon has diminished greatly in the U.S. since its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, however, as increasing evidence linking cigarette smoking to a variety of medical ailments has caused the prevalence of smoking to decline and prompted the passage of restrictions limiting the media in which cigarettes could be advertised. Many anti-smoking advocates  have since cited claims that "the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer" as an apt irony highlighting the dangers of smoking, a literal death foreshadowing the eventual demise of the product the Marlboro Man helped prompted to many millions of consumers. Any claim about "the" Marlboro Man is somewhat indefinite, though, as many different men have portrayed the rugged-looking cowboys featured in Marlboro cigarette advertisements since 1954. An Oklahoma native named Darrell Winfield (who passed away in January 2015) was the main Marlboro Man from the mid-1970s onwards; but dozens of other men (many of them "real" cowboys) have also modeled for television commercials, magazine and newspaper advertisements, billboards, and other advertising materials promoting Marlboro brand of cigarettes over the last sixty years. A few of those men, all long-time smokers, have died of diseases of the lungs (although most of them lived at least as long as the average life expectancy of their time):  Model David Millar, one of the original Marlboro Men who appeared in television commercials for the cigarette brand in the 1950s, died of emphysema at the age of 81 in 1987:   [Neighbor Stephen] Taylor said Millar smoked, but had quit about 20 years ago. He also quit horses after his early stints with Marlboro. "They used to boost him up by a rope and put him down on the horse because he didn't like horses," said Charles Dudley, a longtime friend. Dudley added that Millar often said he was "the only Marlboro Man who doesn't smoke, drink or like horses." Although Millar had quit [smoking] about 1965, he had smoked for "probably 40 to 45 years" before that, Dudley said. After Millar, Marlboro gravitated toward more authentic cowboys. Born in St. Louis, Millar worked as an advertising executive in magazine publishing and modeled for fashion magazines, his wife, Maria, said. In New Hampshire, where he had lived since retiring in 1961, he was an avid outdoorsman and active in civic and community affairs.  Wayne McLaren, who posed for some promotional photographs on behalf of Marlboro in 1976, succumbed to lung cancer at age 51 on 22 July 1992. McLaren was a former professional rodeo rider who appeared in small parts in various television series and movies (primarily Westerns) throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and he modeled for print advertising between acting jobs in the mid-1970s, including a Marlboro campaign in 1976. McLaren, who had a pack-and-a-half a day smoking habit, was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 49. Despite chemotherapy, the removal of one lung, and radiation treatments, the cancer eventually spread to his brain and killed him. After learning he had cancer, McLaren embarked on an anti-smoking campaign that included the production of a commercial described as follows: Wayne McLaren In the powerful TV spot, images of the handsome young Wayne McLaren in a Stetson hat are juxtaposed with shots of his withered form in a hospital bed just prior to his death. His brother, Charles, provides the voiceover and chides tobacco companies for promoting an 'independent' lifestyle and asks, 'Lying there with all those tubes in you, how independent can you really be?' In the last months of his life McLaren appeared before the Massachusetts legislature when it was considering a bill to add taxes to cigarettes to pay for health education and also spoke at the annual Philip Morris stockholders' meeting to support a resolution that the company limit its advertising. Philip Morris initially denied that McLaren had ever appeared in Marlboro advertising, but a company spokesperson later conceded that McLaren's image had been used in a retail display for Marlboro Texan Poker Cards. (The woman McLaren lived with for the last eight years of his life also produced a Marlboro magazine advertisement which she claimed pictured McLaren.) David McLean, who appeared in many Marlboro television and print advertisements starting in the early 1960s, also died of cancer at age 73 on 12 October 1995. McLean starred in the short-lived 1960 television Western Tate, and he played roles in numerous television series and feature films during the 1960s and 1970s. McLean took up smoking at age 12, began to suffer from emphysema in 1985, and had a cancerous tumor removed from his right lung in 1993. David McLean Despite the surgery, the cancer remained and spread to his brain and spine, and McLean succumbed to it in 1995. In August 1996 McLean's widow and son filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Philip Morris, Inc., claiming that McLean was unable to stop smoking because of his nicotine addiction, and that his smoking habit was the cause of his lung cancer. (The lawsuit contended, among other issues, that McLean had been obligated to smoke up to five packs per take in order to get the right look while posing for advertisements, and that he received cartons of Marlboro cigarettes as gifts from Philip Morris.) At last report (in 1999) the lawsuit was still pending, having outlasted all attempts by defendant Philip Morris to have it dismissed.  In 2014, Eric Lawson, another television actor who appeared in Marlboro advertisements between 1978 to 1981, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at the age of 72. Like Wayne McLaren, Lawson was also a habitual smoker from an early age who in later life publicized the dangers of smoking and contributed to the production of an anti-smoking commercial: Eric Lawson A smoker since age 14, Lawson later appeared in an anti-smoking commercial that parodied the Marlboro man and an "Entertainment Tonight" segment to discuss the negative effects of smoking. Susan [Lawson] said her husband was proud of the interview, even though he was smoking at the time and continued the habit until he was diagnosed with COPD. "He knew the cigarettes had a hold on him," she said. "He knew, yet he still couldn't stop." Although diseases such as lung cancer and COPD are strongly linked to cigarette smoking, it is not possible to definitively determine that any particular instance of such a disease was caused by smoking.   Last updated:  15 January 2015 After an unusually cruel winter and chilly spring, we couldnt stop dreaming of hot summer days at the seashore. Then Governor Chafee proposed nearly doubling fees at state beaches. It hit us like a bucket of ice water.Under the plan, the price for a season pass would increase to $60 for Rhode Islanders from $30. Daily rates for state residents would jump to $10 from $6 during the week and to $14 from $7 on weekends and holidays. Fees for out-of-staters would also increase.While discussing the proposed fees on WJAR-TVs 10 News Conference on April 3, Richard Licht, director of the Department of Administration, asserted they werent out of line.For $30 more, you are getting a season pass to one of the greatest sets of beaches in the country. You still, at $60, are less than some of the town beaches charge  I dont think thats an inordinate burden on the people of Rhode Island, Licht said.Could the fees atstate beachesstill be lower than town beaches  even if doubled?When we inquired where Licht got his information, the governors spokesman, Michael Trainor, told us wed hear back by the next day.While we waited, we made some phone calls and found 14 coastal communities that charge admission to their beaches. Most of the beach fees have been set for the season.Like a beach ball on a breezy day, the fees are all over the place. And there are many different categories, covering residents, non-residents and seniors. (The Chafee administration ultimately referred us to the state Department of Environmental Management, which cited many of the same figures we found in our survey. )We decided to focus on the fee that the majority of state residents -- who dont live in beach communities -- would pay for a season pass or a single day at the shore. If they visit a state beach, theyd all pay the new fees. If they visit a town beach, theyd pay that communitys non-resident fee.The most expensive non-resident season pass costs $175 for Little Comptons South Shore Beach. Middletowns Sachuest Beach, also known as Second Beach, charges $140. Next comes Charlestown, at $90. Passes go for $80 at Newports Eastons Beach and South Kingstown Town Beach and $70 at Wuskenau Town Beach in Westerly.So how does the states proposed $60 season pass compare? Of the eight towns that offer passes to non-residents, the state fee would be less than all but Portsmouth, which collects $50 for a pass to Sandy Point Beach, on the Sakonnet River.So far, so good for Licht.But what about daily fees? (Remember, were comparing state fees to local non-resident fees, setting aside favorable pricing for residents. )Lets begin with weekdays.The Chafee administration wants to increase the $6 daily state fee to $10.Three towns -- Warren, Bristol and Tiverton -- charge just $5 per day. Westerly charges $6 and Portsmouth charges $7.Prices are higher at the ocean beaches: $10 in Charlestown, Narragansett, Middletown and Newport; $12 in Little Compton; and $15 a day in South Kingstown and Jamestown. (Narragansett also charges a separate fee to walk onto the beach.) Two towns -- Barrington and North Kingstown -- dont allow non-residents to park at their beaches.So the $10 state fee would be less than 5 of the 12 towns that welcome out-of-towners.On weekends and holidays, the states new fee would be $14 -- less than fees in 8 of the 12 beach towns.So when Licht says the new state fees are less than some of the town beaches, we cant  disagree. In fact, the state fees are lower in many instances.We wont kick any sand at Licht on this one. We rate his claimTrue. Call it the war over the wives. An ad suggesting that Donald Trump's wife, Melania, might not be modest enough to be first lady started a series of nasty exchanges between Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz that have been the talk of the campaign for more than a week. CNN's Anderson Cooper grilled Trump about the ad during aMarch 29interview in Wisconsin, questioning Trump about his accusation, made ina March 22 tweet, that Cruz was responsible for the picture. I did not start this, Trump told Cooper seven days after the tweet. He sent out a picture and he knew very well it was a picture ... He didn't send out a picture, Cooper interrupted. It was an anti-Trump super PAC. When Cooper asked Trump if he had any proof that Cruz was behind the ad, Trump said, No. Everybody knows he sent it out. He knew the people in the super PAC. He knew. I would be willing to bet he wrote the phrase, a reference to the words that accompanied the nude photograph of Mrs. Trump, a model, posed on a rug. Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady, the ad said. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday, a reference to the March 22 Utah primary. I didn't send the photo to everybody in the state of Utah. He did, said Trump. It was his people, who were his friends. For this fact-check, we'll look at whether Trump is correct that Cruz distributed this Facebook ad containing a nude photograph of Trump's wife. Federal law says political ads must clearly identify their source, and this one lists the source as a political action committee calledMake America Awesome. Such groups are called super PACs because they can spend limitless amounts of money advocating for or against a candidate or a point of view. Super PACs have one major restriction: They can't coordinate their efforts with a candidate's official campaign, which is restricted in its spending. If Cruz did arrange for the ad under the auspices of the super PAC, it would be a serious violation of federal law. The super PAC says . . . The Cruz campaign had nothing to do with this ad whatsoever. We didnt get the image or the idea for the ad from them, said Republican strategist Liz Mair, who is behind the super PAC. Make America Awesome, based in Virginia, was founded in December and reports $20,752 in contributions through February, with most of the money that it spent going to small purchases of air time in nine states, according to the Federal Election Commission website. I would guess that including money that has come in since our last filing, we have raised about $35,000, said Mair. There's also no evidence that the PAC is a front for the Cruz campaign. When we checked the PAC'sYouTube page, we found four commercials, only two of which are the standard length for broadcast. The Jan. 20 Buyer Beware commercial, obviously made on a shoestring budget, includes a light-hearted rundown of nine Republican presidential candidates as breakfast cereals. They include Jeb Bush (Good source of experience and wonkiness. The brand you know. ), Ben Carson (With extra nice guy doctorness. ), Chris Christie (100% RDA of telling it like it is.) and Ted Cruz (Two Scoops of Conservatism!). In the ad, the shopper buys the Trump cereal (Guaranteed success and a free 'Screw the Liberal Establishment!' voucher inside) and ends up regretting the purchase. Mormon women targeted The only ads we've run in favor of any candidate are the three Facebook ads we ran targeting Mormons in Utah and Arizona, of which the Melania one was one, and the one with the least money put behind it (about $300, maybe even less than that, honestly), Mair wrote in an email. The Melania ad, she wrote, was targeted only to Mormon women of (if I recall correctly) ages 45-65 living in Utah and Arizona who self-identified as moderate, conservative or very conservative. The shot we used was chosen because of the presence of handcuffs, which was particularly bothersome to the target audience, Mair said. However, there are definitely racier shots of her out there that would no doubt be considered more scandalous by a lot of voters across the entire political spectrum  too racy for us to use in Facebook ads, candidly. Although the ads urge voters to support the Texas senator, he was only one of two viable alternatives to Trump currently on the ballot in those states. Picture purchased? In a March 27 interview with ABC News, Trump claimed Cruz or his campaign bought the rights to the Melania photo and gave it to the super PAC. There's no evidence that Cruz, the campaign or Mair's group purchased rights to the photo, taken when she was Trump's girlfriend. The image was, at the time we concepted out and then created the ad, already republished all over the Internet at numerous sites, Mair told us in an email. The photographer who took the image for the 2000 photo spread inBritish GQ, Antoine Verglas, told our friends at FactCheck.org thatnobody contacted himto buy rights to the picture. The magazine reprinted that photo, along with other pictures from the shoot,onlineMarch 4 under the headline, The Future First Lady? Sexy Melania Trump's Nude Photo Shoot. As for Cruz himself, Mair said, I think I've met him at gatherings attended by many people maybe once or twice in my life (and it will have been some time ago), and I have never spoken to him privately. We contacted the Trump campaign but didn't get a response. Our ruling Trump said Cruz was responsible for the racy ad questioning whether people wanted Melania Trump to be first lady. One of the tenets of PolitiFact is that the person making the claim is responsible for substantiating it. Trump said on CNN that he has no real proof. And all the evidence we found points to the ad being the work of a political action committee whose goal has been to block Trump's nomination. Theres no proof of Cruz working with that committee, which would be illegal. We rate Trump's claim as False. Claim:  Congress supported a bailout of AIG because that company insures the Congressional pension trust.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2009] Politicians!!!! Did you ever wonder? I couldn't figure out why would the Congress let some firms go under and then bend over backwards to help others.This makes sense now!!!!!! This sounds almost too logical...... why hasn't it gotten national press coverage? Remember when this economic crisis hit, and Congress let Bear Sterns go under, pushed a bunch of forced marriages between banks, etc.? Then they bailed out AIG. At the time, I thought: "That's strange what does an insurance company have to do with this crisis?" I think I just found the answer. Among other things, AIG INSURES THE PENSION TRUST OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS!! No wonder they got bailed out right away! To hell with the people, let's protect our future, said all our Senators and Congressmen.  Nice to see where their loyalties lie! I'm from the government and I'm here to help myself ! Origins:  As the U.S. government began, in the latter part of 2008, to grapple with growing economic turmoil and the prospect that many large U.S. financial and corporate institutions were on the brink of failure, one of the vexing issues it confronted was which businesses it should attempt to rescue.  Should the government take over or provide direct financial assistance ("bailouts") to mortgage finance  companies (particularly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), or to the banking industry, or to the auto industry? One of corporate entities "bailed out" by the government was the insurance giant American International Group, commonly known as AIG.  In September 2008 the Federal Reserve (not Congress) provided AIG with an $85 billion loan in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake, and the Federal Reserve also provided another $37.8 billion loan to AIG three weeks later and subsequently gave the company access to another $20.9 billion.  (These loans were restructured in November 2008 to provide a total bailout package of over $150 billion to AIG.) Why did the government decide to assist AIG?  The item reproduced above posits that it was pure self-interest:  Supposedly Congress "bailed out" AIG because that company "insures the pension trust of the United States Congress" while supposedly allowing other financial institutions to wither and die or pushing them into "forced marriages."  (Global financial services firm Bear Stearns didn't "go under"; it was acquired by JPMorgan Chase, with assistance from the Federal Reserve, back in March 2008. In other transactions, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, and JPMorgan Chase purchased Washington Mutual.) acquired However, AIG was more than just an ordinary "insurance company."  That firm insured the debt of other financial institutions, and government officials were greatly concerned that AIG's failure could have a cascading effect that would produce catastrophic results among the entire U.S. (and global) financial industry: What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but A.I.G.'s role as an enormous provider of esoteric financial insurance contracts to investors who bought complex debt securities. They effectively required A.I.G. to cover losses suffered by the buyers in the event the securities defaulted. It meant A.I.G. was potentially on the hook for billions of dollars worth of risky securities that were once considered safe. If A.I.G. had collapsed  and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims  institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of those securities, and that in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt. Small investors, including anyone who owned money market funds with A.I.G. securities, could have been hurt, too. And some insurance policy holders were worried, even though they have some protections. "It would have been a chain reaction," said Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics at Princeton University. "The spillover effects could have been incredible." Associated Press economics writer Jeannine Aversa explained the importance of the government's decision in the wake of the AIG bailout: Q: Why is it important to keep AIG afloat? A: AIG is a global colossus, with operations in more than 130 countries. It is so interconnected with other financial firms that its problems have a jolting ripple effect both in the United States and abroad. AIG was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy in September [2008] when its credit rating was downgraded and it could not post the collateral for which it was obligated under the "credit default swap" contracts it had issued. Credit default swaps are a type of corporate debt insurance. The Fed raced to the rescue at that time to prevent AIG's failure, which could have triggered billions of dollars in losses at other banks and financial firms that bought these swaps from AIG  sending them into failure as well. As a final nail in the coffin of the "AIG insures the pension trust of the United States Congress" claim, we reproduce the following response provided to us by Charlie Armstrong, AIG's Senior Director of Advertising & Global Branding: In response to your question as to whether AIG insures the US Congressional Trust, we don't.  In fact, we've been told that no private company insures federal pensions  such a product doesn't exist.  Further, none of our financial services companies provide advisory services to Congress' pension fund.  We've explored this issue at length with our business units and have found no connection whatsoever to the fund. This rumor surfaced recently on a blog.  We're not sure who started the rumor, or why, but the rumor is baseless. The OpenSecrets web site lists Barack Obama among the many politicians from both parties who have previously received campaign contributions (not "bonus payments" or "bailout money," as is frequently reported) from AIG. campaign contributions Last updated:  18 March 2009    Aversa, Jeannine.  "Meltdown 101: Why Did the AIG Bailout Get Bigger?"   The Guardian.  12 November 2008.    Bawden, Tom.  "Citigroup Buys Debt-Hit Wachovia."   The [London] Times.  30 September 2008.    Gordon, Marcy.  "JPMorgan's WaMu Purchase Stands  Bailout or No."   The Seattle Times.  29 September 2008.    Montia, Gil.  "Bear Stearns Acquired by JPMorgan Chase for $240 Million."   Banking Times.  17 March 2008.    Ventura County Star.  "Bear Stearns Acquisition Sends Tremors Through Markets."   Banking Times.  23 March 2008. On Nov. 17, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted a Nov. 14 article from the New Republic on X (formerly Twitter) with the headline, "A City in Tennessee Banned Public Homosexuality  and We All Missed It."  posted  This claim  that a city ordinance in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, banned public homosexuality  was broadly true when an ordinance on "community decency" went into effect in June 2023. But explicit reference to homosexuality was removed from the code in November 2023. claim June 2023 In June 2023, the Murfreesboro City Council passed Ordinance 23-O-22, a law purportedly regarding community decency that The Associated Press described as being "designed to ban drag performances from taking place on public property." As described by its authors, the new law "supplement[ed] existing civil and criminal sanctions for indecent behavior [by] barring persons who engage in prohibited conduct from sponsoring events on a public space for two years and increasing to five years where the prohibited conduct occurs in the presence of minors." Ordinance 23-O-22 described described The bill included "sexual conduct" as one form of indecent behavior covered by the June 2023 enhancements to the code. This "conduct" term, however, was defined by "Section 21-71 of the Murfreesboro City Code," which had been in place since the 1970s and that defined terms used in a section of city code detailing criminal offenses related to "exposing minors to harmful materials." That code defined "sexual conduct" in a way that broadly included "acts of [...] homosexuality":  Section 21-71 "Sexual conduct" means acts of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks or, if such person be a female, breast. A literal reading of the new law therefore could have criminalized any sort of public display of homosexuality, even if such a display was not overtly sexual or sexual in nature. Then in October 2023, the city, citing the new law, denied a permit to the non-profit Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) to hold a Pride rally, which the group had held every year since 2016. That decision was made on the basis of this new city code and the allegedly indecent material present at the 2022 TEP event. As reported by The Associated Press, the ACLU took up the case on behalf of TEP: reported The legal challenge is the latest development in the ongoing political battle over LGBTQ+ rights inside Tennessee, where the states conservative leaders have sought to limit events where drag performers may appear, restrict classroom conversations about gender and sexuality, and ban gender-affirming care. [...] According to the 67-page complaint, the organization [TEP] has faced recent opposition from Murfreesboro leaders after conservative activists alleged that drag performances that took place during the 2022 Pride event resulted in the illegal sexualization of kids." TEP denied the shows were inappropriate, noting that the performers were fully clothed. However, the city quickly warned the organization it would be denying any future event permits and later approved updating its community decency standards intended to assist in the determination of conduct, materials, and events that may be judged as obscene or harmful to minors. The suit alleges the ordinance violates the First Amendment for chilling free speech rights, as well as argues that it breaks the 14th Amendment for discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community. On Oct. 26, the federal judge assigned to the case issued an order blocking the city from denying TEP's request for a permit to hold the 2023 pride event. As reported by the Daily News Journal: reported [The] ruling tells the local government, Murfreesboro City Manager Craig Tindall, Mayor Shane McFarland, the Murfreesboro Police Department and other city officials, that they "shall not enforce or take any action pursuant to the provision to Murfreesboro City Code 21-71 that includes 'homosexuality' within the definition of 'sexual conduct.'" Against this backdrop, in October 2023, the Murfreesboro council took up the issue of removing homosexuality from the list of "acts" that could constitute sexual conduct. On Nov. 2, a proposal removing the word passed, with the change set to take effect on Nov. 17  the day of Newsom's tweet. As reported by journalist Erin Reed: reported Good news. As of tomorrow, Murfreesboro will not have "homosexuality" in its code banning public homosexuality anymore. That said, the new indecency law that Murfreesboro passed still contains very vague "community standards" provisions used to target Pride and LGBTQ books. pic.twitter.com/N4rFzqhxFX pic.twitter.com/N4rFzqhxFX  Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) November 16, 2023 November 16, 2023  Reed argued that while this change made "the targeting of LGBTQ+ people less explicit," the "vague 'community standards' section will still likely be used to target Pride events and books," she said. The ACLU case is ongoing. argued "The parties agreed and the judge accepted an agreement temporarily suspending enforcement of an ordinance designed to specify certain civil penalties against indecency in public spaces and to protect children from indecent conduct," Murfreesboro spokesman Mike Browning said in a statement. "However, other existing state statutes and city ordinances and penalties regarding such conduct remain applicable. said Because public homosexuality is no longer explicitly prohibited by Murfreesboro city code, the claim made by Newsom and others is out of date. It is still possible, however, based on statements made by the local government and the broad nature of the law, that the portion of code remaining could be used to prevent future LGBTQ+ events. 23-O-22 Community Decency Standards Ordinance . https://www.wkrn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2023/06/061523-Community-Decency.pdf. Granieri, Susanna. ACLU Sues a Tennessee City Over An Anti-Drag Ordinance. First Amendment Watch, 10 Oct. 2023, https://firstamendmentwatch.org/aclu-sues-a-tennessee-city-over-an-anti-drag-ordinance/. Municode Library. https://library.municode.com/tn/murfreesboro/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICO_CH21OFMIPR_ARTIIIEXMIHAMA_S21-71DE. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. Otten, Tori, et al. A City in Tennessee Banned Public Homosexualityand We All Missed It. The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2022. The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/post/176915/tennessee-town-ban-public-homosexuality. Reed, Erin. City Ordinance Banning Public Homosexuality Reaches Rutherford County Libraries. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/city-ordinance-banning-public-homosexuality. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. Tennessee City Walks Back Ban on Public Homosexuality  Kind Of. Yahoo News, 17 Nov. 2023, https://news.yahoo.com/tennessee-city-walks-back-ban-151306443.html. We Are Relieved: BoroPride Wins Court Order to Protect LGBTQ+ Festival from Government. The Daily News Journal, https://www.dnj.com/story/news/2023/10/23/boropride-wins-court-order-to-protect-lgbtq-festival-from-government/71288469007/. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. Claim:  Photograph taken in  west Texas shows a tornado funnel and lightning bolt alongside a drilling rig.  Example:   [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] Drilling Rig Talk about your one  in a million photo.Imagine this.... You  are working the night shift on a drilling rig in West Texas, south of the small town of Ft Stockton. It is very dark and there have been thunderstorms in the area. The only lights in the area are those onthe drilling rig and some faint red glows from a near-by radio tower. You begin to wonder where that freight train sound is coming from since there are no tracks near the rig.  A friendly bolt of lightning gives you the answer...one you may not have wanted to  know. Remember that these monsters frequently happen at night    Origins:  The photograph displayed above began circulating in mid-2008 with text claiming that it has been taken in the west Texas town of Fort Stockton.  However, although elements of the image are real, the underlying photograph was neither snapped in  2008 nor in Texas, and the image itself has been digitally manipulated to add a drilling rig which was not present in the original. The original image was forwarded around the Internet in the wake of a series of violent storms which hit Missouri in March 2006, with 44 different tornadoes touching down in the state on March 11-12, leaving 10 people dead and more than 100 injured, and destroying or damaging over 1,000 homes.  Shortly afterwards, the striking tornado funnel and lightning bolt photograph began to circulate accompanied by text claiming it had been taken in Sedalia, Missouri, during that series of storms: tornadoes This photo was taken in Sedalia Missouri on 3/12/06 when over 113 tornado's was reported, this was an excellent shot This was posted in one of my weather groups and as long as we give full credit where credit is due and credit is really due on this shot...Amazing... But it does make you wonder....Look at our logo...Mother nature imitating art....    Although this version of the image was genuine, it was not snapped in Sedalia, Missouri, and it long antedates the series of storms which hit that state in March 2006. As recorded by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Melbourne, Florida, the tornado funnel/lightning bolt  photograph was taken near Lake Okeechobee, Florida, on 15 June 1991.  It has been available for purchase (in poster form) through the Tornado Project's on-line store since at least mid-2001.  photograph purchase Last updated:  20 May 2009 In February2016, links began circulating on Facebookpromising a treasure trove of Sharpie brand markers to users who completed a short series of steps:   The embedded links led toURLs which were generated seemingly at random and didn't link to Sharpie's web site. Users who clicked through to claim the promised prize were routed to pages which appeared plausibly Facebook-esque(but werehostedoff Facebook):   As evidenced by the above-reproduced screenshots, the associatedURLs don'tmatch the official domains of Sharpie or Facebook. The fake giveaway was another version of the common survey/sweepstakes scams which urge readers to share freebie bait on Facebook, which then spreads the scam to more friends and groups. Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among brandsused as enticementsbyscammers, many aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauexplained how to identify and avoidbad actorsimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Claim:  A moratorium on Internet taxation expires in 2007. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003] This should be considered  "urgent".  As you know the "MORTORIUM" on the so called internet tax expires in 2 or 3 days. It was reported on Fox News a few minutes ago, that  the Senate is now considering this bill. The House has passed their version of the Bill by Voice vote to keep the moratorium in place. The news on fox reported that the Senate is considering a "TAX ON EVERY ITEM ON THE INTERNET TO INCLUDE  a TAX ON EACH EMAIL SENT OUT." I have voiced my opinion to the offices of Sen. Thad Cochran and Sen. Trent Lott, I have asked them to vote AGAINST ANY TAX. The Staff members said they would relay my feeling. I also told them I wanted to know how my two Senators voted on this. I would suggest that each addressee call today and ask their Senators to VOTE against any TAXES  on the internet. Origins:  In October 1998, Congress enacted the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which called for a 3-year moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access and multiple or discriminatory taxes on e-commerce.  After the provisions of ITFA expired in October 2001, they were extended for two years by passage of the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act (ITNA), then extended again for a further four years in  ITFA ITNA 2003. The Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act, a piece of legislation intended to extend the moratorium enacted by the Internet Tax Freedom Act, was introduced to Congress in 2003.   It was passed (as H.R. 49) by the House of Representatives on 17 September 2003 (under a motion to suspend the rules, agreed to by voice vote), passed by the Senate (as S. 150) on 19 November 2004, and signed by President Bush and made into law on 3 December 2004. It is set to expire on 1 November 2007. passed S. 150 The 2003 claim that the Senate was considering a "tax on every item on the Internet, to include a tax on each e-mail sent out" was incorrect. The Senate was merely considering whether or not to extend the moratorium on Internet taxes created by the earlier Internet Tax Freedom Act  and Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act; the Senate was not proposing any specific Internet-related taxes at that time.   As described by The New York Times, the bill hung up in 2003 in a Senate debate over whether a permanent moratorium on Internet taxes might eventually become too broad a ban and deprive states of much-needed revenue streams: The argument over the bill has been as heated as a chat-room brawl. Opponents contend that state coffers will be emptied as more areas of commerce  like telephone service  become Internet-based and fall within the ban. "Every time we, in our wisdom, tell a state or a city that it cannot use this tax, all we are doing is increasing the chance that Minnesota or Tennessee will increase some other tax, or fire some teachers or lay off some employees or close some parks," Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said Tuesday on the Senate floor. Supporters argue that the states want to tax every e-mail message, even every electron. The bill, they say, will not have the dire effects that opponents predict.  The only thing that both sides agree on, it seems, is that the bill has nothing to do with banning sales taxes on online purchases. The moratorium bans taxes on Internet access, including high-speed access through telephone digital subscriber lines; "discriminatory" taxes, which include taxes by multiple states on the sales of a single item; and taxes that would treat Internet purchases differently from sales at brick-and-mortar stores.    Sources:   Dalrymple, Mary.  "Permanent Ban on Internet Service Taxes Bogs Down as Temporary Ban Runs Out."   Associated Press.  31 October 2003.     McCullagh, Declan.  "Ban on Internet Access Tax Stalls in Senate."   CNET News.com.  7 November 2003.     Schwartz, John.  "Senate Debate Due on Hotly Contested Internet Tax Bill."   The New York Times.  6 November 2003  (p. C1).     Shiver Jr., Jube  "Internet Tax Ban Stalls in Senate."   Los Angeles Times.  26 November 2003  (p. C3).     Bloomberg News.  "Senate Postpones Vote on Internet Tax Ban."   The New York Times.  8 November 2003  (p. C1). Intermittently, rumors have circulated on social media holding that the United States government was found guilty in 1999 of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. Furthermore, according to these rumors, the reason this relatively new information (King was murdered on 4 April 1968) comes as a surprise to many is the "mainstream media" intentionally suppressed it after the government's role in King's death was exposed:  It's common for exaggerated claims to contain a few elements of truth, and that factor comes into play in this conspiracy theory rumor for a few reasons. One is rudimentary research would confirm the claim's basics (i.e., the verdict in a wrongful death civil action did allow that "government agencies" participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King), leading readers to believe the entirety of the rumor was factual. Another is the shaky foundation on which the conspiracy theory rests is a matter of some nuance. As well, the gravity of the trial's supposed conclusion, when contrasted with the relatively little public discussion of that addendum to King's life, has lent credence to the belief the trial in question and its outcome were deliberately omitted from the news. Historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. tend to be the subject of complicated conspiracy theories, particularly when they are vectors for widespread societal change. The man who was charged with King's murder, James Earl Ray, confessed to the crime and pled guilty; he then recanted his confession, hinted at a conspiracy, and sought to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial. However, any claim made by Ray about his guilt or innocence should be weighed against his strong incentive to be freed from prison (where he died in 1998). Also at issue is the difference between Ray's guilty plea in 1969, which avoided his undergoing a criminal trial, and the case cited by the rumors, which was a civil trial heard in 1999. The latter (King vs. Jowers) was a civil suit brought by agents of King's estate (including his widow, Coretta Scott King) against a man named Loyd Jowers, who claimed to have taken part in a conspiracy to assassinate King. In a criminal trial the guilt of the defendant must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil suit the plaintiff need only support his claim with a preponderance of evidence to prevail. Loyd Jowers was a Memphis restaurant owner who inserted himself into the narrative about King's death in the course of a 1993 television interview during which he claimed to have been party to a larger conspiracy to assassinate King. However, Jowers had long asserted he had no involvement in the event before suddenly and bizarrely claiming, twenty-five years after the fact, he had been paid to hire a hit man to kill Martin Luther King. He then repudiated his claims when required to testify to them under oath: claiming At the time of the assassination, Loyd Jowers owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern below the rooming house where James Earl Ray rented a room on April 4, 1968. Until 1993, Jowers maintained in several public statements that he was merely serving customers in his tavern when Dr. King was shot. He did not claim any involvement in the assassination or significant knowledge about it. In December 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC's Prime Time Live and radically changed his story, claiming he participated in a plot to assassinate Dr. King. According to Jowers, a Memphis produce dealer, who was involved with the Mafia, gave him $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him that the police would not be at the scene of the shooting. Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from someone with a name sounding like Raoul. Jowers further maintained that Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that he did not believe Ray knowingly participated in the conspiracy. Since his television appearance, Jowers and his attorney have given additional statements about the assassination to the media, the King family, Ray's defenders, law enforcement personnel, relatives, friends, and courts. Jowers, however, has never made his conspiracy claims under oath. In fact, he did not testify in King v. Jowers, despite the fact that he was the party being sued. The one time Jowers did testify under oath about his allegations in an earlier civil suit, Ray v. Jowers, he repudiated them. Further, he has also renounced his confessions in certain private conversations without his attorney. For example, in an impromptu, recorded conversation with a state investigator, Jowers characterized a central feature of his story  that someone besides Ray shot Dr. King with a rifle other than the one recovered at the crime scene  as "bullshit." Consequently, Jowers has only confessed in circumstances where candor has not been required by law or where he has not been required to reconcile his prior inconsistencies. The U.S. Department of Justice found Jowers' claims were without merit and explained that he'd never been able to provide any support for later assertions about his involvement in King's death: When Jowers has confessed, he has contradicted himself on virtually every key point about the alleged conspiracy. For example, he not only identified two different people as the assassin, but also most recently claimed that he saw the assassin and did not recognize him. Jowers also abandoned his initial allegation that he received $100,000 with which he hired a hit man to kill Dr. King, claiming instead that he merely held the money for the conspirators. Additionally, Jowers has been inconsistent about other aspects of the alleged conspiracy, including his role in it, Raoul's responsibilities, whether and how Memphis police officers were involved, and the disposal of the alleged murder weapon. Furthermore, the Justice Department's investigation determined no physical evidence whatsoever supported Jowers' multiple and conflicting accounts of his involvement in King's assassination, and Jowers stood to profit from his assertions: investigation It was not until 1993, during a meeting with the producer of a televised mock trial of James Earl Ray, that Jowers first publicly disclosed the details of the alleged plot, including the names of the purported assassin and other co-conspirators. He also initially sought compensation for his story, and his friends and relatives acknowledge that he hoped to make money from his account. In summary, we have determined that Jowers' claims about an alleged conspiracy are materially contradictory and unsubstantiated. Moreover, Jowers' repudiations, even under oath, his failure to testify during King v. Jowers, his refusal to cooperate with our investigation, his reported motive to make money from his claims, and his efforts along with his friends to promote his story all suggest a lack of credibility. We do not believe that Jowers, or those he accuses, participated in the assassination of Dr. King. Unfortunately, the jury who heard the case of King vs. Jowers (in which the King family was represented by James Earl Ray's former lawyer, William Pepper) returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, holding that Loyd Jowers had participated in a conspiracy to kill King, and that "governmental agencies" were party to the conspiracy: verdict THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict? THE JURY: Yes (In unison). However, the verdict was of no real significance given that virtually nothing was at stake (this was not a criminal trial, and the defendant was only being sued for a mere $100 and thus had little motivation for vigorously defending himself), allowing the King family to present a mostly unopposed version of events and guide the jury to return the verdict they desired. As noted in the New York Times' report of the verdict, the one-sided presentation of the case allowed for no other result: report John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Memphis, who was not part of the civil proceedings but was part of the criminal case against Mr. Ray, said, "I'm not surprised by the verdict. This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept Mr. Pepper's version?" And Gerald Posner, whose recent book, "Killing the Dream" made the case that Mr. Ray was the killer, said, "It distresses me greatly that the legal system was used in such a callous and farcical manner in Memphis. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it." The Justice Department also found the evidence presented in the civil trial to be lacking in credibility: The evidence introduced in King v. Jowers to support various conspiracy allegations consisted of either inaccurate and incomplete information or unsubstantiated conjecture, supplied most often by sources, many unnamed, who did not testify. Important information from the historical record and our investigation contradicts and undermines it. When considered in light of all other available relevant facts, the trial's evidence fails to establish the existence of any conspiracy to kill Dr. King. The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard. All of this is therefore a very slender thread on which to hang the claim that the "U.S. government was proved responsible for King's assassination." (In the event, the verdict referred only to "governmental agencies" rather than the U.S. government specifically, a term that could include anything from local police to the CIA.) And contrary to the rumor's assertion, the 1999 civil case involving Jowers was widely reported by major news outlets at the time (including, as referenced above, the New York Times). More to the point, however, Jowers (who didn't even testify) was the only named party in the civil suit brought by the King family, and the judgment awarded in that case was a paltry $100, widely described as a token award to mark the trial's outcome. No other parties (including any branches or agents of the United States Government) were named as defendants in King v. Jowers, and no identification was provided by Jowers of the purported other parties with whom he colluded to assassinate King. By all accounts, the two main parties involved, the King family and Jowers, had disparate goals served by the civil suit's outcome; and no substantive evidence was presented to establish any of the claims made by Jowers had any merit. In a statement about the 1999 civil suit, Coretta Scott King cited several unrelated and unspecified agents in her description of the parties she believed were responsible for her husband's murder: statement There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. The one thing the conspiracy rumor correctly states is a 1999 civil trial reached a verdict that cited the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. What it neglects to mention is the relative worth of such a judgment: The verdict in question was civil rather than criminal, the sole named defendant was someone who stood to gain both publicity and money from repeating his claims, and the King family's motivation in bringing the suit was to validate their long-held suspicions a larger conspiracy was at play in the death of the civil rights leader. Given the minor sum of money awarded, a jury would have little incentive to not find in favor of an account supported by both sides of a flawed case. The U.S. Justice Department concluded in June 2000 the "allegations originating with Loyd Jowers ... are not credible": After reviewing all available materials from prior official investigations and other sources, including the evidence from King v. Jowers, and after conducting a year and a half of original investigation, we have concluded that the allegations originating with Loyd Jowers and Donald Wilson are not credible. We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers' allegations that he conspired with others to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill. In fact, credible evidence contradicting his allegations, as well as material inconsistencies among his accounts and his own repudiations of them, demonstrate that Jowers has not been truthful. Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King. Questions and speculation may always surround the assassination of Dr. King and other national tragedies. Our investigation of these most recent allegations, as well as several exhaustive previous official investigations, found no reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray. Nor have any of the conspiracy theories advanced in the last 30 years, including the Jowers and the Wilson allegations, survived critical examination. Yellin, Emily.  "Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King's Killing"
  The New York Times.  9 December 1999.