Was This Ship Built Using Steel from the World Trade Center?
The name New York has been borne by at least seven different U.S. military ships, most recently the nuclear submarine USS New York City, commissioned in 1979 and retired in 1997.  Construction on another ship bearing that name, the 684-foot amphibious transport dock ship USS New York, began at a shipyard in Avondale, Louisiana. On 1 March 2008 the new vessel was christened there, and it was commissioned in November 2009: commissioned  Artist's Rendering of the USS New York  With a year to go before it even touches the water, the Navy's amphibious assault ship, USS New York, has already made history. It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center. It is the fifth in a new class of warship  designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be   delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship's bow section.  When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there.  "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there." Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up." "It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."  The ship's motto?  'Never Forget' The vessel was of interest because its bow stem was said to incorporate 7.5 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center which was melted down at a foundry in Amite, Louisiana. (A photograph of employees pouring the molten scrap steel at the Amite Foundry can be viewed here.) The name New York was reportedly revived for the warship (which was already under construction) at the request of New York governor George Pataki to commemorate the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., creating an exception to current U.S. Navy policy of using state names only for nuclear submarines. here According to the Associated Press, the USS New York would be the fifth ship of its class, at least two more of which will also be named for locations associated with the 9/11 attacks: USS New York USS New York is the fifth in a new class of warship designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. Later ships in the class will include USS Arlington, the location of the Pentagon, also struck by a hijacked jetliner on Sept. 11, and USS Somerset, named for the Pennsylvania county where United Flight 93 crashed after its passengers fought off hijackers apparently planning to attack another Washington target. The quotes from Navy personnel and shipyard workers included in the e-mailed version reproduced above were taken from an Associated Press article about the ship. article In December 2006, the following image began to circulate with this e-mail in place of the artist's rendition displayed above, although it is not a photograph of the USS New York but rather the then-recently commissioned USS San Antonio: USS San Antonio  The following set of photographs was taken at the christening of LPD 21 with the name USS New York at Northrop Grumman's Avondale, Louisiana, shipyard on 1 March 2008: christening     On 13 October 2009. the USS New York left the Louisiana shipyard for New York, where it was scheduled to be formally commissioned on 7 November 2009: A Navy assault ship built with tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center towers began its journey to New York [on October 13], sailing down the Mississippi River in a pea-soup fog as watchers along the levee strained for a glimpse. The USS New York, named to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, left the Northrop Grumman shipyard where it was built for the trip to its namesake city. The $1 billion ship will be formally commissioned in New York in early November. The New York is 684 feet long and can carry up to 800 Marines. It has a flight deck that can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Four tugboats performed an intricate set of maneuvers to pull the warship from the dock at the New Orleans-area shipyard and turn it 180 degrees toward the waters of Gulf of Mexico. An armed Coast Guard speedboat and a helicopter flying overhead guarded the vessel. The ship will sail through the Gulf and around Florida before turning north and continuing to New York. Bohrer, Becky.  "Ship Built with WTC Steel Christened."
  Associated Press.  1 March 2008. Sayre, Alan.  "Ship Built with WTC Steel Sails for Namesake City."
  Associated Press.  13 October 2009. Associated Press.  "New Navy Ship Being Built with WTC Steel."
  ABC News.  3 April 2006.
Claim:   Photograph shows a tearful World War II veteran embracing a wounded Marine.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, December 2004] Picture worth a 1000 words...and, really, no words needed! We truly take a lot for granted. Forget the football "heroes"... and pass this on, please.    Origins:  This moving photograph of a World War II veteran overcome with emotion while embracing a wounded Marine is a cropped version of a photograph which originally appeared in newspapers in November 2004:  The occasion of this photograph was a Veterans Day Commemoration at Dallas City Hall on 11 November 2004.  The veteran pictured is Houston James, a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the Marine is Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke Jr., a member of an ordnance-disposal team who lost his left eye, his left hand, the thumb and index finger of his right hand, and his right leg as a result of injuries sustained while defusing a bomb in Iraq in July 2003. The Dallas Morning News revisited the subjects of this iconic photograph in 2011, reporting that: In the photograph, an elderly, jacketed survivor of Pearl Harbor embraces a decorated Marine, overcome with emotion as the younger serviceman returns the gesture with an artificial hand. The setting is the plaza in front of Dallas City Hall at the conclusion of the 2004 Veterans Day Parade. The powerful portrait, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, found its way around the world, beloved by many a veterans organization for the collective bond of service and sacrifice it illustrates Houston James is 87 now. He uses a walker to get around. His home is an assisted-living facility in Mesquite, and his wife, Marian, has been gone a long while. "I forgot all about that photo," he said. Military memorabilia populates his apartment  patches, decals, history books. A VHS copy of the Pearl Harbor film Tora! Tora! Tora! sits on a shelf. The picture, he said, was taken at a parade downtown. He doesn't recall the year.  He taps the photograph with a finger. "I was walking by," he said. "He was up on the reviewing stand. I spotted him." And then he saw the man's prosthesis. The Marine is retired Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke of Flower Mound, who, as part of an ordnance-disposal team in Iraq, lost his hand, leg and eye while attempting to defuse a bomb in 2003. His mission was to keep roads free of explosive devices. On July 2, as he worked on a piece of unexploded material, it went off in his left hand. Graunke, who now works for JPMorgan Chase in Coppell, had opted for ordnance-disposal duty after a stint as a Marine Security Guard. He did not respond to requests for an interview. But on his LinkedIn profile, he writes: "I wanted to do something that was going to challenge me both mentally and physically. That is just what I got." "I strive for perfection in everything I do and I have no regrets for anything I have done," Graunke goes on. "Life is full of ups and downs and it is how you deal with those situations that will define you as an individual." In July 2007, a Dallas builder named a city block in Staff Sgt. Graunke's honor and donated a portion of the proceeds from home sales to charities selected by him: A Dallas builder, Brandenburg Homes, will construct 16 homes on the block, now known as the Mark Graunke Jr. Addition. The builder will donate $3,000 for each home sold, divided equally between three charities Graunke selected  the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Fisher House and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, all of which helped him recover from his injuries, he said. Last updated:  11 November 2013    Ramirez, Marc.  "Morning News Photograph United Two Servicemen Across Generations."   The Dallas Morning News.  10 November 2011.    Rogers, Rick.  "Thoughts of Iraq Ride in Parade of Veterans."   The San Diego Union-Tribune.  12 November 2004.    Unmuth, Katherine Leal.  "Homebuilder Donates Part of Proceeds to Honor Marine."   The Dallas Morning News.  27 July 2007. Topic:  A discussion of the history and various types of chain letters. Origins:  The practice of circulating letters to other parties beyond their original recipients has existed for centuries, so pinpointing the exact origin of chain letters is problematic. While all manner of written materials (letters, speeches, eye-witness accounts, polemics, recipes, cures, prayers) have in the past been circulated to ever-widening circles of recipients, the first full-fledged chain letter recorded by Daniel W. VanArsdale in his massive archive of the genre is dated 1888. If we accept that a true chain letter must contain within its text an explicit instruction to the reader to make copies of the mailing and put them into the hands of a specified number of new recipients, that 1888 date is a defensible notch on the timeline of  first archive  history to point to as the moment of origin. If, however, we're willing to settle for an implied instruction topass the item to others for their benefit, protection, or well-being, certain written communications dating to the Middle Ages could fairly be considered the first of this sort. In them, their writers set down what they believed to be useful cures, on the understanding that such missives were to be recopied by those who received them then distributed to those people's loved ones, who in turn would themselves recopy these wisdoms to hand to their nearest and dearest. These letters were also sold by peddlers and fortune tellers. The cures detailed therein were typically combinations of recipes for simple nostrums and special prayers to be recited as the concoctions were mixed or administered. Our modern world sees chain letters of a variety of descriptions circulated by surface mail, fax machine, and in e-mail. While folk cures and accompanying prayers have dropped from favor (as medical information and resources became easier to access, such intelligences became less vital), other sorts of "Send this to five of your friends!" mailings emerged to fill this gap.  Contemporary chain letters fall into five broad categories:  Money-generating (aka pyramid or Ponzi schemes) Luck-generation (or ill luck avoidance)  Altruistic Something for nothing Humor Money-generating (pyramid or Ponzi scheme) chain letters hold out the promise of untold riches to those gulled into participating in their circulation. In their most common form, recipients are instructed to send a token set dollar figure ($5, for example) to the name at the top of the group's roll call, strike that name and address from the list of those involved, add their own to the base of the register, recopy the amended letter, and mail it to five of their acquaintances. If all goes according to plan, their small investment will reap them a fortune once their names percolate to the top of the list. (Pyramid schemes exist in many forms and go by many names. Deserving of particular mention are "gifting circles" or "gifting clubs" wherein folks pay substantial chunks of cash [$5,000, for example] to be included on a chart of like-minded investors, the object being that as new people are added behind them, they will move higher on the diagram one tier at a time until ultimately they occupy the top spot, at which moment they will receive the pool of money accumulated behind them.  Such endeavors have operated under the names of "Elite Activity," "Women Empowering Women," "The Dinner Club," "Spirit of Giving" and so many more that we couldn't possibly ever list them all.) So much can go wrong with pyramid contrivances that their pitfalls hardly needs explaining. First, for pyramid investments to work, the world would need an endless supply of people, each of them with money in hand and determined to participate in the process. Because each level of the pyramid increases exponentially the throng of investors involved, the numbers soon lose meaning. For instance, suppose the money-generating come-on you received in the mail displayed five names. If everyone in the chain had followed instructions and mailed it to five of their friends, by the time it reached you it had already been through 3,905 pairs of hands, and that only provided the first person listed was the one who began the progression. Add one more level (either from having a sixth name on the roll or through one of the names having already been moved off from the top), and the number involved jumps to 19,530. Add two, and it reaches 97,655. Second, not everyone is honest, so there will always be those who will simply insert their names near the top of the roll rather than at its base. Names added honestly, therefore, will fail to move up past this ever-changing invisible ceiling (as new people enter the chain, they too will try this trick). Also, that someone receives the circular and passes it along to five acquaintances does not necessarily mean he sent his requisite sum to the name heading the roster.  However, the biggest argument against money-generating chain letters is their illegality. Missives that request money or other items of value and promise substantial returns to the participants are against the law. Sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, of the Postal Lottery Statute.  At various times the unscrupulous have tried to circumvent the aspects of money-generating chain letters that render them illegal. One common attempt is the inclusion of the additional step of having participants send recipe cards or other relatively-worthless small items along with the cash, thereby transforming the process into a legitimate enterprise wherein those particular trifles are being vended. Another is to go the opposite way, that is, label all monies involved as "gifts" (see section above about gifting clubs). Yet another is to process as much of the proposition as possible via non-postal routes. However, no matter what technology or plausible-sounding subterfuge (e.g.; sale of credit reports or mailing lists) is used, if at any point anything passes by surface mail, the entire maneuver becomes illegal. Says the USPS: USPS Recently, high-tech chain letters have begun surfacing. They may be disseminated over the Internet, or may require the copying and mailing of computer disks rather than paper. Regardless of what technology is used to advance the scheme, if the mail is used at any step along the way, it is still illegal. An example of a "money generating" chain letter: [Collected via surface mail, 1975] DO YOU NEED $8,000? ? ? ? ? ?Let Bill Nelson tell you how I have run one of these promotion letters  four times in the past year. The First time I received $7,000 in cash and around $7,800 the other three. It this letter is continued as it should be, everyone profits!  Yes, and don't worry about financing or paying money back.  After the first time, you'll see what I mean, and next time you will be more eager and glad.  Now, let me give you the complete story and details.  Please forward them and in about 30 days you will be $8,000 richer.  This letter will pay up to $8,000 because there are only four names at all times.  Three moves and you are in a position to receive one dollar from each participant.  This chain letter was initiated by William Neham from Nashville, Tennessee, for the purpose of investment capital.  But, now this has been expanded.  Your participation is one dollar to the first person or firm in the Number One position below, while omitting the name to whom you sent the dollar.  Then, move the list of names up one place and place your name at the bottom.  Mail a copy of this letter to 20 new prospects.  MAIL YOUR LETTERS within 48 HOURS AND DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN.  When your name reaches the Number One position, it will be your turn to collect the fees. They will be sent to you by 8,000 persons like yourself.  Please DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN BECAUSE IT REALLY WORKS!!  In fact, I guarantee it, provided you do not break the chain and follow the simple rules above.  Try it and see.  You are investing ONLY, ONE DOLLAR, and that is all you can lose.  Be sure to copy this letter completely. Don't leave any of it out.  Send your report to Imperial Sales Company, 3096 Ivey Avenue, Knoxville, Tennessee 37914.  Let us know when your fee was sent and how much you received within nine days.  We have at the present time almost 100% return to the people carrying out this letter promotion.  The majority received $7,800.  If four names should be listed on your promotion, the one in Number One position is omitted, after you send him your one dollar. Then, put your name and address in the Number Four position.  $8,000 is capital absolutely free!  Send letters only to people who have secretaries or whom you personally consider "Doers." Look  20 times 20 times 20 equals 8,000!!!!. While money-generating chain letters flourish in both the off- and online worlds, "Make Money Fast!" hustles have become so much a part of online culture that they have spawned any number of parodies. This next example is one such howler we particularly treasure: [Collected on the Internet, 1998] MAKE CLUBS FAST Recent evidence has come to light that suggests that pyramid style chain letters may have pre-dated Dave Rhodes by a considerable margin. Palaentologists recently deciphered the following, painted on a cave wall on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. MAKE SPIKY CLUBS FAST!!! Hello, not-tribe-member. Urk name Urk. Many moons ago, Urk in bad way. Urk kicked out of cave by Thag. Thag bigger than Urk, Thag take Urk spiky club, Urka (Urk wo-man). Urk not able kill deer, must eat leaves, berries. Urk flee from wolves. Today, Urk big chief. Urk have best cave, many wives, many spiky clubs. Urk tell how. WHAT DO: make one spiky club and take to cave places below. Add own cave place to bottom of list, take cave place off top. Put new message on walls many caves. Wait. Many clubs soon come! This not crime! Urk ask shaman, gods say okay. HERE LIST: 1) UrkFirst caveOlduvai Gorge few) Thag (not that Thag, other Thag)old dead treeby lake shaped like mammoth few) Ogbig rock with overhangnear pig game trail Many) Zogriver caveswhere river meet big water Urk hope not-tribe-member do what Urk say do. That only way it work. While Urk and his quest for spiky clubs leaves a smile on our faces, the second sort of chain letters provokes the opposite response: a worried frown. Even the most rational and level-headed can't help but feel a bit uneasy when they drop luck-generation chain letters into the nearest trash bin. This type of imploration, which promises good luck even as it threatens ill fortune to rain down on the heads of those who fail to speed it on its way, tends to follow a standard outline. (Not all chain letters of this ilk scrupulously adhere to this formula; certain elements may be omitted in some of the entreaties you encounter.)  Invocation:  The letter begins with an admonition to pray, trust the Lord, or kiss someone as an expression of love.  Origins:  A description of the person who began the letter (a priest, a saint, a sea captain, a doctor) and where (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands) is given. Often included is a claim of the letter's having been around the world a stated number of times.  Success Story:  Accounts of the happy circumstances of a few people who followed instructions to send the letter on its way are given, with their rewards (financial windfall, sudden luck in matters of romance, miraculous recovery from illness) described in glowing detail.  Punishment Story:  Accounts are given of the setbacks or tragedies (job loss, broken heart, injury or death) that befell a few people who ignored the letter or threw it away.  Instruction and Promise:  The recipient is told how many copies of the letter to distribute and is reassured that good luck will swiftly follow. An example of a contemporary "luck generation" chain letter sent by e-mail.  [Collected on the Internet, 2000] CASE 1:  Kelly Sedey had one wish, for her boyfriend of three years, David Marsden, to propose to her.  Then one day when she was out to lunch David proposed!  She accepted, but then had to leave because she had a meeting in 20 min.  When she got to her office, she noticed on her computer she had e-mail.  She checked it, the usual stuff from her friends, but then she saw one that she had never gotten before. was this letter.  She *simply deleted it without even reading it all. BIG MISTAKE!  Later that evening, she received a phone call from the police. It was about DAVID!  He had been in an accident with an 18 wheeler.  He didn't survive. CASE 2:  Take Katie Robbenson. She received this letter and being the believer that she was, she sent it to a few of her friends but didn't have enough e-mail addresses to send out the full 10 that you must. Three days later, Katie went to a masquerade ball. Later that night when she left to get to her car to go home, she was killed on the spot by a hit-and-run drunk driver. CASE 3:  Richard S. Willis sent this letter out within 45 minutes of reading it.  Not even 4 hours later walking along the street to his new job interveiw with a really big company, when he ran into Cynthia Bell, his secret love for 5 years.  Cynthia came up to him and told him of her passionate crush on him that she had had on him for 2 years.  Three days later, he proposed to her and they got married.  Cynthia and Richard are Still married with three children, happy as ever! This is the letter: You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the letter to 10 different people.  If you do this, you will receive unbeleveably good luck in love.  The person that you are most attracted to will soon return your feelings. If you do not, bad luck will rear it's ugly head at you. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!  You have read the warnings, seen the cases, and the consiquences.  You MUST send this on or face dreadfuly bad luck. *NOTE*  The more people that you send this to, the better luck you will have. P.S.  I did not make this up,someone sent it to me and I am passing it on!  You Send it by clicking forward on the side The avoidance of ill luck features in numerous chain letters, especially the "crazed killer" sort prized by prepubescent girls who delight in forwarding "a crazed killer or vengeful spirit will come for you if you don't forward this message to others" tales. These next examples were sent by text message via cell phone: [Collected via e-mail, September 2009] A picture of a girl with a graduation cap on the caption read: "Hi, my name is Alexis, I am 7 years old about 1 year ago me and my dad got into a big fight, he slit my throat and threw me down the sewer.  There was this girl named Alissia and she got the same text message you are getting now and she just erased it and didn't think about it.  Later on, around midnight, she heard laughing coming from her bathroom and she quickly sent that message to 10 people.  Later on that night, her parents heard laughing and cutting.  When they came it to check in the bathroom, Alissia's blood was everywhere.  Now that you have read this message about Alissia's death, I must kill you too unless you send this message to 10 people  no send backs.  I'll be waiting for you at midnight if you don't do this.  don't ignore this. once a little girl was so obsessed with taking pictures of herself and one day she took a picture of herself and when she looked at herself she thought something wasn't right. she heard a girl laughing and turned... this was the last picture she took before she went missing. they found her in the backyard with scratches and blood everywhere... one girl named Aliie dint belive this and deleted it. that night she heard laughing and went and forwarded this message, but it was too late. an hour later her parents found her in the bathtub covered in blood. fwd this to ten ppl or she will be waiting under your bed at 12 tonight. if you don't belive it, then save the pictures and zoom in to the right bottom corner. NO SEND BACK!!!!Piggy back 09 Altruistic chain letters are those that present themselves as seeking benefit for others rather than the financial enrichment or improvement of luck of their recipients/forwarders. Into this category fall prayers for the suffering and collections made on behalf of charitable groups or the needy themselves. While this form of the genre might indeed be the oldest (according to Daniel W. VanArsdale, the first full-fledged chain letter was of this sort; it called for the donation of dimes to "poor whites in the region of the Cumberlands"), the Internet has added new expressions of it. Many "dying child" hoaxes circulate online, each of them asserting every forward of their supplications will result in  benefactors (either named charities or corporations or unnamed millionaires) directing set sums towards the care of the stricken youngsters. While these lack the specificity of "Send this to four people" instructions (they instead direct recipients to "Forward this to everyone you know"), the languishing children are imaginary, and the forwarders add nothing of themselves to the mix (neither prayers nor donations), they are a close enough fit with the altruistic class of chain letters to be considered a legitimate variant.  first dying child Closer yet are the myriad prayer requests (e.g., the Delaney Parrish appeal) that have sprung to life on the Internet. While the "Send this to ten people" command is still absent ("Send to as many as you can" and its ilk being used instead), the people being pled for often do exist, with their travails often as described, and those moved to keep the chain going are adding something of themselves (their petitions to God) to the process.  Delaney Parrish Similarly, various appeals of the "dying child intent upon collecting specific items" nature (e.g.; the Craig Shergold appeal for business cards) are also close fits.  While not all entreaties of this sort are on the up-and-up, a fair number are  the children and their situations are real, as are their requests. Those participating in these chains not only pass along the requests to their circles of acquaintance but also themselves donate the items requested and transport them to the youngsters.  Craig Shergold Moving to the "something for nothing" category, we find online appeals aimed at augmenting the bank accounts or wardrobes of their participants, bringing them fame, or entertaining them. Of the first sort, the granddaddy of them all is the e-mail tracking hoax: Bill Gates is testing an e-mail tracking program and for taking part by forwarding his note you will receive $1,000. (Or Disney will reward you with a trip for two to Disney World. Or Nike will give you free shoes. Or Veuve-Clicquot will bless you with some gratis champagne. Or Applebees will treat you to a dinner for you and your date. Or, well, the list is endless.) These differ from "money-generating" chain letters in one important way: those involved do not themselves send any of their own money or possessions to anyone else, they merely forward the leg-pulls in the expectation that by doing so the promised goodies will come their way. e-mail tracking A less mercenary example of a "something for nothing" chain letter that plays upon the urge to seek fame rather than fortune is the Guinness World Book of Records hoax which states as its goal the establishment of a world record. For years, children have been gulled into participating in these mailings by the promise of their names being listed in that fabled book if the chain is kept alive long enough for a record to be set. More recently a snail mail version has supplemented the e-mail jape of the same design, so the hoax exists in both the offline and online worlds.  Guinness "Something for nothing" e-mail chain letters that hold out as the forwarders' reward the promise of entertainment are a form of practical joke of the "Made you look foolish" variety. Potential victims are told their sending these e-mails to the requisite number of new people (as spelled out in proposition) will cause them to receive the next installments of intriguing stories they have become caught up in reading or their computers to spontaneously begin playing either humorous animated clips (e.g. Ronald McDonald beating up the Taco Bell dog) or videos of lusted-after celebrities caught off-guard doing naughty things. But of course the promised carrots never arrive; the next chapters of novelettes fail to mail themselves and videos don't spring to life. We detail a great many such hokey come-ons in our Clip Artless article. Clip Artless We now come to the final category of chain letter: Humor. Though these offerings mimic the form taken by their money-generating cousins, those who receive them don't mistake them for anything other than jokes. These mailings are solely meant to provoke rueful smiles or outright guffaws among those they are happily flung to; they are not intended to prompt recipients to actually mail off the items or persons described in hopes of getting back a great many more of like nature. For instance, one well-known humor chain letter instructs dissatisfied wives to bundle up their good-for-nothing husbands and mail them to the woman whose name appears at the head of the list; when the senders' names arise to the top spot they are guaranteed to receive thousands of similarly-discarded spouses, some of which might prove worth keeping (the implication being that most will not). Yet don't break the chain, admonishes the letter  one woman who did got her own husband back! husbands Barbara "return to sender" Mikkelson Additional information:      Ponzi Schemes  (Securities and Exchange Commission)      Pyramid Schemes  (Securities and Exchange Commission)      Gifting Clubs  (Federal Trade Commission)  Last updated:  27 September 2009    Sources:   Degh, Linda.  Legend and Belief.   London: Souvenir Press, 1978.  0-285-63396-1  (pp. 189-193).    Waring, Philippa.  A Dictionary of Omens and Superstitions.   Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.  0-253-33929-4  (p. 52). fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In late December and early January 2021, increasing COVID-19 stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 per person became a major issue in the Georgia Senate run-off elections. The campaign pitch, made in some form by Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, and Joe Biden leading up to that Jan. 5, 2021 election, was that a blue (Democrat-controlled) U.S. Senate would ensure passage of those $2,000 checks. On Jan. 20, Biden unveiled his $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus plan. It proposed issuing $1,400 checks to each person. Some have interpreted the $1,400 as a broken promise, despite the fact that the goal, since December, had always been to achieve a total per person payment of $2,000. The $600 checks already approved by Congress began disbursement starting on Dec. 29, 2020. Here, Snopes takes a granular look at the issue. 1.9 trillion proposed On Dec. 22, 2020, President Donald Trump shocked congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle by threatening to block passage of a third COVID-19 stimulus package that had been negotiated for months and that his administration played a crucial role in shaping. The problem, Trump stated in a video Tweeted out that night, was that the $600 per person cap was not enough. "I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple," he said. shocked video In a confusing moment of limited bipartisanship, Democratic members of Congress agreed with Trump and launched a last-minute campaign to amend the relief bill to include the $2,000 checks requested by Trump. Congressional Republicans, for the most part, opposed the increase. An attempt to raise the amount, pushed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, to the level Trump had requested failed on Dec. 24. Ultimately, Trump signed the originally negotiated bill  which included the $600 per person cap  on Dec. 27.  failed signed In response, on Dec. 28, Democrats in the House passed a stand-alone bill designed to make Trump's vision of $2,000 per person a reality. The text of the bill proposed, in part, to amend the portion of the recently passed relief package "by striking '$600' each place it appears and inserting '$2,000', and by striking '$1,200' each place it appears and inserting '$4,000.' The move was described by The Associated Press at the time as "all but dar[ing] Republicans to break with Trump." text was described That "dare" came at a complicated political moment. The two run-off elections for Georgia would determine the balance of power in the Senate. Both Ossoff and Warnock capitalized on the moment, immediately pushing both their GOP rivals in Georgia to support the House bill upping the payment to $2,000. capitalized On Dec. 28, the same day that the House passed its proposed increase to COVID relief checks, Warnock tweeted that, "Georgians could have gotten $2,000 relief checks. You're only getting $600  because [opponent Kelly Loeffler] refused to fight for more." That same day, Ossoff tweeted that his opponent "David Perdue didnt even want the first round of stimulus checks." On election day, Ossoff's final pitch to voters included the statement, "We will be able to pass $2,000 stimulus checks for the people next week." tweeted tweeted https://streamable.com/tehygd President-elect Biden had made the same general point a day earlier at a rally for Ossoff and Warnock. "By electing Jon and the reverend, you can make an immediate difference in your own lives," Biden said on Jan. 4, "because their election will put an end to the block in Washington of that $2,000 stimulus check. That money that will go out the door immediately." https://streamable.com/jckvga On Jan. 20, Biden revealed his COVID relief plan in an executive order calling for additional payments of $1,400 per person. This led some to interpret Biden, Warnock, and Ossoff's pre-election discussion as a disingenuous bait-and-switch, promising a certain amount of money for votes and then refusing to deliver on that promise. "$2,000 means $2,000," Ocasio-Cortez told The Washington Post following the release of the plan, "$2,000 does not mean $1,400." Other critics accused Biden and Ossoff of "purchasing" peoples' votes and then refusing to "pay up." told Those arguing that Biden et al. broke a political promise by proposing $1,400 checks on top of the already approved $600 ones misrepresent the political debate surrounding COVID-19 relief efforts. Until the "broken promise" talking point emerged, the two political "camps" were the $600 advocates (most congressional Republicans) and the $2,000 advocates (Trump and most congressional Democrats). At no point was there ever a "$2,600 camp." Before the end of December, it appeared logistically possible to modify the amount of money mandated in the previous COVID-relief package through that House bill passed on Dec. 28. According to reporting in The New York Times, however, the Treasury Department "started making direct deposit payments" on Dec. 29, and started mailing checks the next day. reporting Ocasio-Cortez, who suggested Biden's plan did not fulfill the campaign promise of $2,000 checks, explicitly advocated the same solution on Dec. 23, proposing an amendment that would increase payments in the Trump package by $1,400 per person: same solution   Looking back at the statements made by Biden and others, references to "$2,000 checks" must be to these legislative efforts  including those advocated for and voted on by Ocasio-Cortez. Because the Senate cannot "block" legislation that has not yet been proposed, Biden's reference to "the block in Washington of that $2,000 stimulus check" clearly refers to the Senate's unwillingness to take up the House amendment upping the $600 checks to $2,000. reference The end result of the solution Ocasio-Cortez, Biden, Ossoff and Warnock proposed or advocated for in late December would have been a total of $2,000 per person. The end result of the Biden package, if passed, would be a total of $2,000 per person. Indeed, the claim that any politician was arguing for a total of $2,600 per person in late December is completely untenable, and belied by Ocasio-Cortez's support for the $2,000 solutions advocated for by herself and other Democrats at that time. The central issue is this: As the debate about the inadequacy of $600 checks versus $2,000 checks was raging in Congress, the $600 plan had already become law. Money was already being dispersed. To achieve the total of $2,000 advocated for by Trump and Democrats in late December, an additional payment of $1,400 passed through new legislation would be required. Biden's plan, the specifics of which are currently being worked through in the House at the time of this reporting, would achieve that same end result. currently There is a plausible argument, however, that Biden and Ossoff over-promised regarding the rapidity with which a Biden administration and a blue Senate could bring about rapid disbursement of these funds. As the House has yet to approve the legislative package proposed by Biden, the money did not "go out the door immediately," as Biden promised on Jan 4. Nor would that legislative package be passed, as Ossoff claimed it would, "the next week" after his election. The first $600 payments already approved have yet to reach many Americans. many In late December 2020, Democrats united with Trump to push Congressional Republicans to increase COVID-19 stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 per person. The universal call by those on the Left, at the time, was for a total of $2,000 per person. Ultimately, the $600 plan passed while the viability of $2,000 payments was still gaining traction. References to "$2,000 checks" made in January by Biden and by Georgia's Democratic Senate candidates were to increase existing payments up to $2,000  not to issue a new check for $2,000 in addition to the amount already approved. Because Biden and Ossoff's statements are consistent with the package Democrats ultimately proposed, but because their timeline for getting those payments out the door was too optimistic, we rank the claim that Biden's proposed $1,400 checks are a broken promise as "false." In March 2020, the prospect of the U.S. government's sending out $1,200 stimulus checks to individual taxpayers as part of a $2 trillion emergency economic package for dealing with the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic created a prime opportunity for grifters who engage in scams that involve luring victims by mailing checks to them. In particular, one several-year-old, check-scam warning was widely recirculated via social media:  Such warnings served a useful purpose in alerting many viewers to be wary of receiving checks in the mail from unexpected sources. However, they also poorly served audiences in misstating how the underlying scams connected with those checks work. It is not the case, as claimed in the warning reproduced above and in the following news clip, that the scammers who mail out these checks "do this in hopes of getting your account information when you deposit the check," and then using that information to clean out your bank account:  A little common sense would be relevant here: If your simply depositing a check provided the sender of that check with the means to obtain your personal banking information and drain your bank account, it would be unsafe for any bank customer to ever deposit any check  and clearly that is not the case, as millions of people maintain checking accounts without regularly falling victim to scammers. All such check scams have two essential components: 1) Scammers mail out counterfeit checks (often made out in the names of real organizations) to lure their victims into believing they are receiving money. 2) Scammers instruct their victims to send back some of the funds they supposedly received from depositing the fake checks (usually via wire transfer, Western Union, PayPal, or gift cards). The scammers count on the fact that funds from deposited checks are often made available to bank customers before the banks can confirm that the checks are authentic and have cleared. The victims of these scams, mistakenly believing they have received "free money" once they have deposited their fake checks, are then usually receptive to sending some of that money back to the scammers for some legitimate-sounding purpose. But by the time the victims' banks discover the deposited checks were bad, the scammers already have the money their victims forwarded to them, and the victims are stuck paying all of those funds back to their banks: deposited checks The person running the scam convinces a victim to cash a check and then send, via wire transfer, a portion of the money to another location. The portion kept by the victim can be called payment for a job, part of a commission, or a prize. However, the check turns out to be a very convincing fake. Banks in the United States are required to make funds available within a few days, but it can take weeks for a fraudulent check to be discovered. This means the wire transfers will happen long before the bank, or the victim, discovers that the initial check was fake. This scheme is effective because many consumers aren't fully aware of how the check-clearance process works: check-clearance Unfortunately, the term clear sometimes gets used prematurely. An item has cleared only after your bank receives funds from the check writers bank. Bank employees might tell you that a check has cleared, and your banks computer systems might show that you have those funds available for withdrawal, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can spend the money risk-free. In many cases, when a bank employee tells you an item cleared, they are saying you can spend that money with your debit card, withdraw cash from an ATM, or set up a payment online. Most of the time, this informal terminology is fine because funds typically arrive as expected. Most of the confusion around checks comes from bank policies and federal laws that allow you to spend money before a check really clears. Banks are required to make a portion of your deposit available quickly -- usually the first $200 or, on certain official checks, $5,000 -- and they might need to release the remaining funds after several business days. But that policy might prematurely provide access to the money. It does not mean the funds successfully arrived from the check writers bank. If a check bounces, the bank reverses the deposit to your account -- even if you already spent some or all of the money from that deposit. If you don't have enough money in your account to cover the reversal, you end up with a negative account balance, and you could start bouncing other payments and racking up fees. Ultimately, you are responsible for deposits you make to your account, and youre the one at risk. The lures that scammers use to dupe their victims into sending them the illusory proceeds from the depositing of counterfeit checks are many and varied: o Mystery Shopping Scam: Scammers engage victims to act as "mystery shoppers" by making purchases from various vendors in order to rate their service. The scammers then send out counterfeit checks to their victims, instructing them to keep a portion of the funds to cover the costs of purchasing and returning the goods and to compensate them for their time, then wire back the rest of the money. o Reshipping Scam: Scammers engage job-seekers to act as work-at-home re-shippers, receiving (possibly stolen) goods and sending them on to other locations. Then the counterfeit checks those re-shippers are sent to compensate them for their efforts and to reimburse them the shipping charges they incurred bounce, and they're left holding the bag. o Payment-Processing Scam: Scammers hire job-seekers to work as payment processors. The victims are instructed to open business accounts in their own name, deposit (counterfeit) checks sent to them into those accounts, then disburse the deposited funds as directed by the scammers. When the business account overdraws because the deposited checks are fake and bounce, the victim is on the hook for making restitution to the bank. o Windfall Scam: Scammers send out counterfeit checks that they declare are the proceeds from an inheritance, lottery win, or some other type of prize giveaway. Recipients are instructed to deposit the checks and return a share of the money to cover processing fees, shipping and handling charges, legal fees, taxes, or other charges. o Online Sales Overpayment Scam: Scammers agree to purchase items that have been advertised for sale or auction online, then send out counterfeit checks for greater than the sale price and ask the victims to refund the overpayments. o Rental Scams: Scammers respond to ads seeking roommates or tenants, send a check to cover the rent plus a little extra, then ask that the overpayment be forwarded to another party to cover moving expenses. As the U.S. Federal Trade Commission succinctly describes such scams: describes Fake checks drive many types of scams  like those involving phony prize wins, fake jobs, mystery shoppers, online classified ad sales, and others. In a fake check scam, a person you dont know asks you to deposit a check  sometimes for several thousand dollars and usually for more than what you are owed  and wire some of the money back to that person. The scammers always have a good story to explain the overpayment  theyre stuck out of the country, they need you to cover taxes or fees, you need to buy supplies, or something else. But by the time your bank discovers youve deposited a bad check, the scammer already has the money you sent, and youre stuck paying the rest of the check back to the bank.  The best way to avoid falling victim to such scams is not to cash or deposit checks for people you do not know, not to wire money to people you do not know, and not to spend funds from large checks you have deposited until you have verified with your bank that those checks have fully cleared. Brunelli, Laureen Miles.  "How to Recognize a Fake Check Scam."
  The Balance.  11 November 2019. Pritchard, Justin.  "Did That Check Really Clear?"
  The Balance.  24 February 2019. Tressler, Colleen.  "Anatomy of a Fake Check Scam."
  Federal Trade Commission.  5 September 2018. Loftsgordon, Amy.  "Fake Check Scams Target Job Seekers."
  Lawyers.com.  Accessed 2 April 2020. Claim:  Campbell's Soup will donate a can of soup to the hungry for every click received on a special web page.   . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2000] Here is an easy way to make a difference this holiday season.  Campbell's is donating a can of soup to the needy for every person that goes to their site and votes for their favorite NFL team. Go to the site and it is right there, very easy to do. It will only take a few seconds of your time to fill some empty tummies with warm soup this winter. Please forward this message to everyone in your address book too. Thanks.  https://chunky.nfl.com/click_for_cans.html https://chunky.nfl.com/click_for_cans.html  Origins:  The above program to attract visitors to the Campbell's Soup web site through the promise of donating cans of soup to the hungry began in 2000. Akin to the Hunger Site's "click to donate" program, Campbell's Soup ties its beneficence to clicks made on a special page on chunky.com, its Campbell's Chunky web site (which is separate from its main site at campbellsoup.com).  Hunger Site chunky.com campbellsoup.com The   2000 promotion  target of 5 million cans was reached in mid-December 2000.  This on-again, off-again program was restarted in the fall of 2001 with a target of another 5 million cans of soup; it was wrapped up after Campbell's announced that the goal of 5 million cans had been met, then was relaunched with the goal of donating an additional 500,000 cans.  During the 2002 campaign Campbell's was just shy of the halfway mark on 23 October 2002 and had reached their target of 5 million cans by 7 November 2002.  Fall 2003 saw yet another interation of the program with the usual 5 million-can goal. As to what the promotion is about, chunky.com's page provides this information regarding the charity: Our Tackling Hunger campaign will result in donations of up to a total of 5 million cans of a variety of Campbell's soups on behalf of all 32 NFL teams. Click for Cans donations are made over the course of the year to a variety of hunger relief charities across the country, in NFL cities and in many other communities. However, Campbell's has been oddly reluctant to release information about the mechanics of their "Tackling Hunger" program. When we asked them back in 2000 for some details  such as whom the food went to  they refused to answer, claiming such information was "proprietary." Even when we reframed our question to remove any suggestion that we were seeking actual names of organizations or individuals (e.g., "Does it go to group homes, or hospitals, or directly to the homes of needy people?"), they stonewalled us again with a claim that such information was "proprietary."  We made additional inquiries to Campbell's Soups concerning these matters because we believe those who participate in donation programs should know whom they're donating to. Campbell's never answered them, not during the 2000 promotion nor during the year to follow.  The promotion ended with our having no better idea whose hunger was being relieved by this program than what we started out with. And that's disturbing. Perhaps what Campbell's is reluctant to disclose is that the promotion doesn't involve their shipping hundreds of thousands of cans of soup directly from their plant(s) to food pantries and homeless shelters in the represented NFL cities, nor does it allow those cities to determine who gets the soup: Campbell's handles the 'Tackling Hunger' payoff by collecting store returns of dented and otherwise unsaleable cans of soup and sending them to redistribution centers of their choosing.  The (store-returned) cans of soup do eventually reach the needy, but any food pantry or other charity group that doesn't work directly with a redistribution outlet can't claim them, and the NFL teams and cities have no say in where the cans end up.  An article in the newsletter for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, chronicled the disappointment one team's fans experienced with the program's administration in 2001. Green Bay Barbara "this tomato is not too chicken to use her noodle" Mikkelson Last updated:  1 October 2007 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 April 2021, a video went viral of a gymnast celebrating after a successful vault landing. While gymnastic celebrations don't often make viral content, this video proved share-worthy as this athlete, Evan Manivong from the University of Illinois, removed a card from beneath his uniform and started waving it around to the crowd:  He later revealed he was showing off his vaccination card and encouraged everyone to "go get vaccinated": encouraged go get vaccinated   Vaccination distribution plans vary by state in the U.S. NBC News reports that more than 80 counties in Illinois have "expanded COVID vaccine eligibility to all state residents 16 years and older." Residents of Illinois can check the Illinois Department of Public Health website for more information on how to get their COVID-19 vaccines. For residents outside of Illinois, the CDC recommends using VaccineFinder.org to find a nearby location that is administering vaccines.  NBC News Illinois Department of Public Health CDC VaccineFinder.org Manivong, who earned the B1G Sportsmanship award, helped the Fighting Illini take fourth place at the 2021 Big Ten Men's Gymnastic Championship with a score of 14.45 in the vault. His teammate Michael Fletcher was crowned the B1G Vault champion with a score of 14.6.  Head Coach Justin Spring said: said "We really struggled on parallel bars, but we never gave up and finished strong. We finished the last two rotations hitting 10/10 routines, and had our best pommel horse of the season, so I'm really proud of how we finished despite having multiple gymnasts out." After rejecting Medicaid expansion in 2013, the Florida Legislature is taking a serious look at it this session. The program pays for health insurance for the very poor. On March 10, astate Senate panelapproved aproposalthat would allow Florida to accept $50 billion in federal dollars to expand coverage to about 800,000 low-income residents. The plan would establish a state-run private insurance exchange for residents who earn less than $16,000 a year or $33,000 for a family of four. Though the bill won unanimous support of the GOP-dominated Senate Health Policy Committee, it faces an uphill battle in the more conservative House. Also, it would require the federal government to grant Florida a waiver. The feds might object to parts of the Senate proposal that require beneficiaries to pay a monthly premium based on their salary, ranging from $3 to $25. During the Senate hearing, the Florida Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Mark Wilson said he had met with legislators to discuss the chambers ideas for a Medicaid proposal. We recommended a 32 percent cap on state expenditures, we are coming close to 30 percent right now, he said. It's the biggest expenditure at the state and wed like to protect taxpayers with a 32 percent cap. Does Medicaid come close to eating up nearly one-third of the state budget and is it the states biggest expenditure? Medicaid and the state budget Medicaid is a joint state and federal program aimed at providing health insurance to the very poor. The 2010 Affordable Care Act encourages states to expand eligibility and agreed to pay 100 percent of the expansion for the first three years, declining to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.Twenty nine statesadopted the expansion -- six including Florida are considering it, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Republican Gov. Rick Scott initially opposed Medicaid expansion butswitched his positionin 2013 when he came out in support of it. But Scott didnt lobby the GOP-led Legislature, which ultimately rejected the expansion. In 2014, Democratic challenger Charlie Crist attacked Scott for not pushing for it and argued it would have led toincreased jobsin Florida. Edie Ousley, a spokeswoman for the chamber, sent PolitiFact Florida state budget documents, as well as information from groups such as Florida TaxWatch, to show how much of the budget is devoted to Medicaid. We also examined documents we received from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research. The original 2014-15 Medicaid appropriation was$23.6 billionfrom all state and federal funds. The total budget for all funds was about $77.08 billion, which means that Medicaid accounts for about 30.6 percent of the budget. On March 4, the state released its latest revision for how much is needed for Medicaid this year and concluded it was $23.52 billion -- about 55 percent is federal dollars and 45 percent is state money. For all funds, Medicaid is the largest program, Amy Baker, the states chief economist, told PolitiFact Florida. But education programs -- including K-12 and higher education -- have received on average slightly more than 52 percent of all state general revenue appropriations since 1997-98. The second-largest policy area is human services. Over this same period, the human services portion of the budget has grown from 25 percent to nearly 30 percent, primarily because of the states Medicaid program growth, Baker said. Nationwide, Medicaid accounts for about 20 percent of state general fund appropriations while K-12 accounts for about one-third, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Medicaid eats up such a large chunk of the budget due to rising health care costs and growing caseloads -- and it continues to grow at a faster rate than education spending, said Arturo Perez, fiscal affairs director for the NCSL. TheNational Association of State Budget Officersfound that if they combined state and federal spending, on average about 26 percent of states budgets were for Medicaid in 2014. When combining those federal and state dollars, there is no question it is the biggest chunk of the budget in total -- no question, said Kurt Wenner, of Florida TaxWatch. George Washington University health policy professor Leighton Ku said that as far as state-based fiscal burdens, a better measure is to focus on how much of the state general fund goes to Medicaid. That level is about 20 percent of state general fund expenditures, he said. The general fund corresponds better to what state taxpayers contribute and takes out stuff like federal revenue. Still a lot, but much lower than 31 percent. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that Medicaid is a large component of state budgets, so there is reason for legislators to be concerned about the costs. But the majority of Medicaid costs that are paid by the federal government are not a burden to state taxpayers, but essentially an influx of federal funds to the state that promotes economic growth in the state, Ku said. Thus, the actual burden to state taxpayers is far less than 30 percent of their state tax dollars, he said. In terms of state/local expenditures, education costs are always much higher. Our ruling Medicaid is close to 30 percent of the state budget and the biggest expenditure at the state, Wilson said. There are two ways to look at Medicaid spending. The 30 percent figure is correct if Wilson counts both the state and federal dollars that go toward Medicaid, and it is the biggest expendituree. However, if we only count state dollars, then education eats up a bigger piece of the budget. It's important to understand that the federal government contributes to Medicaid, so the statement is accurate but needs additional information. We rate this claim Mostly True. In remarks from the Senate floor, newly elevated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that his partys takeover of Senate control appears to coincide with recent good economic news. After so many years of sluggish growth, were finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope, McConnell said. The uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administrations long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress. McConnell stopped short of saying the Republican Senate takeover actuallycausedan economic improvement, though manymediaobserversassumedthat was what he was trying to imply. In the liberalNew Republic, Brian Beutlerjoked,It absolutelydoescoincide with the expectation of a new Republican Congress. Relatedly, things that coincide are called coincidences. But is McConnell even right that the economic data and the political expectations coincided? We focused on two questions. First, when did the expectation of a new Republican Congress actually solidify? And second, was there an uptick in economic data that actually coincided with that time frame? Well also briefly address the question of causation, even though McConnell didnt explicitly claim that. The data we found suggest McConnell is engaging in some wishful thinking. When did the expectation of a new Republican Congress actually emerge? To answer this question, we checked with political analysts who handicapped the 2014 battle for the Senate and also looked at poll-based forecasting models. McConnell said expectation, a stronger word than possibility and one that requires a reasonable degree of consensus. Going into the 2014 Senate elections, most observers expected the GOP to gain seats, due primarily to a favorable map for the GOP (far more Democrats were up for re-election, especially in conservative states) combined with the longstanding history of six-year-itch midterm elections bedeviling second-term presidents, in this case Democrat Barack Obama. But whether the GOP would actually manage to win enough seats to seize control of the chamber -- six -- was less certain. Going into the election, the Democrats held a 55-45 edge (counting two Democratic-caucusing Independents as Democrats). With many individual races rated as highly competitive right through Election Day, winning a net six seats was no slam dunk. Jennifer Duffy, who handicaps Senate races for the Cook Political Report, said different political experts settled on a Republican takeover at different times but added that she felt pretty comfortable with a gain of six seats around Labor Day, which was on Sept. 1 last year. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, agreed that Labor Day was a turning point, though he added that there were slivers of doubt right up until the end. We formally called the Senate for the Republicans the week before the election, but we also suggested that a GOP Senate was likely in the months prior to the election. The forecasters atfivethirtyeight.comsuggested the toss-up lasted past Labor Day. They calculated the likelihood of a GOP takeover at just over 50 percent as late as mid September, before rising again, ultimately to 76 percent on the eve of the election. TheNew York Times in-house forecast saw much the same pattern, narrowing to essentially a coin flip in mid September before climbing to a 75 percent chance of a GOP takeover by Election Day. All told, this suggests that an expectation of a GOP takeover didnt emerge until the beginning of September at the earliest, and possibly as late as the second half of September. This leads to our next question. Has there been an economic uptick that appears to coincide with this timeline? McConnells office pointed us to the announcement that the economy grew at an annualized 5 percent rate in the third quarter of 2014, the biggestexpansionin more than a decade. So well start there. Thefigurewas indeed impressive. But there are two problems with citing this as evidence for McConnells point. First, the third quarter covers July, August and September. So the bulk of this growth occurred before the expectation of a GOP Senate began to jell. Second, GDP growth for thesecondquarter -- covering April, May and June of 2014 -- was almost as impressive, 4.6 percent. And that was well before the expectation of a GOP takeover seemed to take hold. (In fact, for much of that quarter, theNew York Timesmodel showed the Democrats likelier to win control than the Republicans.) Indeed, the longer-term trend for GDP growth shows that three of the past five quarters -- that is, since mid 2013 -- have exceeded 4 percent growth, and another quarter came close to that. Only one quarter, the first quarter of 2014, was a dud. So its not as if the impressive third-quarter growth of 2014 came totally out of the blue. Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis We also looked at another major yardstick for the economy -- the monthly change in employment. During 2014,total monthly employment gainsaveraged 241,000. In October -- the month after the expectation of a GOP takeover would have taken hold -- the gain was almost exactly that, 243,000. The November total was 321,000 -- the highest of the year, but not far out of line when compared with the general trend for job creation since early 2011 (see chart below). Its too soon to tell whether Novembers figure kicks off a new, higher threshold or whether the number settles back again into the 240,000 range. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics The strongest evidence for McConnells point is consumer confidence. TheUniversity of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentimentdid experience an uptick between November and December, but even with this measurement, confidence had been rising consistently since July. And other evidence actually points in the opposite direction. Data fornew orders of capital goods-- a good statistic for gauging how much confidence there is in future economic conditions -- actually fell every month between August and November. The question of causation Even if the statistical timeline fit perfectly, its worth remembering that correlation does not equal causation. I don't think that either party has that much power to affect short-run economic movements, except by royally screwing up, and I haven't seen any evidence that theexpectationof a regime change of this sort would affect economic outcomes, said Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist. Its even possible to draw up a theory that runs the opposite direction as McConnells linkage. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, said one reason GDP and employment have increased a bit faster in recent months is that government investment, government consumption, and public employee payrolls have recently been rising instead of falling. Given this, McConnells comments linking the GOP and accelerated economic growth are ironic, Burtless said, since Republicans have been at the forefront of cutting government spending and payrolls. Our ruling McConnell said a recent economic uptick appears to coincide with the expectation of a new Republican Congress. Even leaving aside the question of causation, key statistics show that the economic recovery was under way well before September, which is our best estimate for when the expectation of a GOP Senate solidified. We rate the statement False. Help fund PolitiFact's Kickstarter to live fact-check the 2015 State of the Union and GOP response. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman questioned Democrats who want to raise the federal minimum wage and offered a flurry of statistics to help make his point. Speaking Sunday on ABC'sThis Week, Portman suggested that raising the $7.25 an hour minimum wage could force employers to cut jobs. If you want to deal with income inequality, the No. 1 way to do it is to get people to work. That's what all the statistics show. About 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. Of that group, by the way, less than .3 of 1 percent of Americans are both under poverty -- under the line of poverty and on minimum wage. So it's a lot of young people. About 50 percent of them are between 16 and 24 years old. For a lot of them, it's a part-time job. So what you don't want to do is raise the minimum wage to the point that you're actually losing jobs. That exchange includes a bunch of different statistics, but here well be checking this one: About 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. We wont get into the question of what this means for minimum-wage policy here; for now, well just look at the numbers. To do so, we turned to a study published by Bureau of Labor Statistics -- the federal governments official chronicler of employment and wage data -- titled, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2012. It was released on Feb. 26, 2013. The study found that a little under 3.6 million workers were paid either at or below the federal minimum wage. (The study did not look at whether workers were paid higher minimum wage rates set by their state, as many states have done.) To determine the percentage,we looked at the number of Americans employed. That number ranged between about 133 million and 134 million during 2012. If you divide the two numbers, it turns out that, by the official statistics, roughly 2.6 percent of all American workers were earning the minimum wage in 2012. Thats slightly higher than Portman indicated, but his estimate was definitely in the ballpark. That said, we do see a few caveats, none of which strike us as particularly troublesome for the accuracy of his comment. Portman said 2 percent of Americans, but to be entirely accurate, he really should have said 2 percent ofworkers. To figure out the percentage of Americans earning the minimum wage, we turned to the U.S. Census Bureau, whichestimatedthat the U.S. population in 2012 was 313,914,040. That would mean that minimum-wage workers accounted for just over 1 percent of Americans. That said, dividing by the number of Americans would not be a very useful number -- it includes a lot of people who arent old enough to work or who have retired. Portman referred to people who get paid the minimum wage. Actually, the numbers he cited refer to Americans who either get paid the minimum wage or get paidless thanthe minimum wage. How can you get paid less than the minimum wage? The minimum-wage law actuallyexempts whole classes of workersfrom the $7.25 standard -- vocational education students, full-time students employed by retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education, and those impaired by a physical or mental disability. This is not a trivial population -- for 2012 at least, the number earning less than the minimum wage (about 2 million) actually exceeded the number who earned the minimum wage exactly (about 1.6 million). In addition, its worth noting that workers in tipped professions, such as wait staff, get a legal minimum wage thatswell below $7.25. By factoring in tips earned, the employer only has to pay workers a minimum of $2.13 an hour. One other note: The BLS offers some words of caution about its data. It counted only minimum-wage workers who are actually paid by the hour. Salaried and other non-hourly workers are excluded from the BLS analysis. BLS says the number of salaried workers earning at or below the minimum wage is probably modest, but the data is sufficiently opaque that the agency warns that the actual number of workers with earnings at or below the prevailing federal minimum is undoubtedly understated. BLS also warns that this study is based on a sample, and samples are imperfect. Our ruling Portman said that about 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. He didnt word the statement with complete accuracy; he would have been better off saying that, according to official statistics, about 2 percent of American workers get paid at or below the federal minimum wage. Still, his number is close to accurate, and his general point -- that workers who are paid the federal minimum-wage represent a small percentage of the entire working population -- is backed up by official data. We rate his claim Mostly True. As wildfires raged across Australia at the start of 2020, an interesting claim about wombats, a short-legged marsupial, started to circulate on social media. According to this rumor, wombats were braving the fires to find lost animals and then leading them back to their burrows for safety: rumor   Reports from Australia that countless small animals have escaped death because wombats, unusually, opted to share their massive, complex burrows. Even reports that they have been observed exhibiting "sheperding behavior." While this social media post claims that it is based on "reports from Australia," we have seen no documentation of these supposed hero wombats. In fact, a number of Australian experts have said that they were skeptical of the claims. Jackie French, author and director of The Wombat Foundation, told IFLScience: IFLScience "Wombats are extremely short-sighted. They focus mostly on food and dirt. It would be hard for them to see well enough to shepherd, nor have I seen one do so." Scott Carver, a senior lecturer in wildlife ecology at the University of Tasmania, told the Associated Press no evidence exists that wombats were "sharing or encouraging other animals" to take refuge in their burrows. Associated Press While wombats may not actively be seeking out animals in need, it is quite possible that distressed creatures have found their way into wombat burrows on their own. Wombats are efficient diggers and can create burrows stretching up to 650 feet. Associate Professor Steve Johnston from the University of Queensland also noted that wombats may abandon these underground tunnels in order to dig a new one. This leaves some opportunities for other animals to seek shelter. 650 feet Johnston told the Brisbane Times: Brisbane Times "A lot of those wombat burrows could be empty, so animals could easily make their way into those burrows to escape the fire ... Wombats will often make a burrow system and then move on, so those empty burrows become open [to other animals]." Wombats are typically very territorial and will even charge and chase out animals that invade their space. However, students at the University of Melbourne set up cameras near one wombat burrow in 2019 and found other animals, including koalas and bunnies, venturing inside these underground tunnels. Kath Handasyde, an expert in native mammal ecology and physiology, said that the wombat was likely sleeping or in another chamber when these other animals explored the burrow. Here's a video where she explains the situation. video In short, wombats are not actively shepherding animals into their burrows for safety. However, it is certainly possible that animals fleeing the fires have taken refuge in the wombats' underground tunnels. In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity shared a video taken during the Australian fires in 2020 showing how one animal, the common brown butterfly, was using wombat holes to survive the flames:   Greenpeace Australia, the social media account that posted the viral message recounted in this story's introduction, later updated its Instagram post to remove the "shepherding" part of the claim: Instagram   Dupuy, Beatrice.  "Wombats Not Herding Animals Into Their Burrows During Australia Fires."
  Associated Press.  14 January 2020. Bradford, Alina.  "Facts About Wombats."
  Live Science.  30 October 2015. Layt, Stuart.  "Experts Question Reports of Wombats' Heroic Bushfire Efforts."   Brisbane Times.  13 January 2020. Nimmo, Dale.  "Viral Stories of Wombats Sheltering Other Wildlife From the Bushfires Aren't Entirely True."
  ABC News Australia.  15 January 2020. Hooper, Claudia.  "A Wombat, a Koala and a Rabbit in a Burrow."
  University of Melbourne.  15 April 2019. IFL Science.  "Viral Posts Claim Wombats Share Their Burrows During Australian Fires."   Retrieved 16 January 2020.