Olive Pardon
FACT CHECK: Do Olive Garden restaurants donate money to Planned Parenthood?  Claim: Olive Garden restaurants donate money to Planned Parenthood.   Examples:  [Collected via Twitter, July 2015] @olivegarden gives $ to planned parenthood, who are accused of selling baby body parts. No more breadsticks for me. #PlannedButcherhood @olivegarden #PlannedButcherhood  hotpink (@hotpink100) July 21, 2015 July 21, 2015   @PPact #IStandWithShuttingDownPP Profiting off the most vulnerable: terrified mothers & babies. @olivegarden donates to #PlannedParenthood. @PPact #IStandWithShuttingDownPP @olivegarden #PlannedParenthood  ConservativeOutreach (@conservoutreach) July 21, 2015 July 21, 2015   Olive Garden restaurants fund Planned Parenthood: think of the skulls they crush with that money, next time u chew an olive there...  Christian Tea Party (@ChristianTParty) July 21, 2015 July 21, 2015   I will boycott all companies which support @ppact. None are essential and there are plenty of other options. @AriDavidUSA @olivegarden @ppact @AriDavidUSA @olivegarden  Joe American (@MidAmericanGuy) July 22, 2015 July 22, 2015   Origins: Beginning on 14 July 2015, a controversy involving Planned Parenthood dominated conversation topics on social media. Among the rumors that were subsequently circulated about Planned Parenthood  was the claim that Olive Garden restaurants (or their parent company, Darden) is currently donating (or had previously donated) money to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood The claim about Olive Garden donating to Planned Parenthood was not new: Does Olive Garden still support Planned Parenthood? Last info found from 2007 https://bit.ly/5738R #prolife #tcot #prolife #tcot  Ms. B. (@msbeeee) June 18, 2009 June 18, 2009   Write to Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden), stop giving to Planned Parenthood https://t.co/FHZJxl4, info: https://t.co/rv7b57I https://t.co/FHZJxl4 https://t.co/rv7b57I  LifeLetters, Julia (@lifeletterj) August 8, 2011 August 8, 2011   Since Olive Garden is a corporate sponsor of Planned Parenthood, I think they should serve unlimited breadsticks in the waiting room.  Liza (@thelizakate) October 5, 2011 October 5, 2011   Examples of the rumor concerning Olive Garden and Planned Parenthood were abundant, but tracking a definitive source documenting its claim was another matter entirely. Many people who repeated it cited a March 2012 "boycott list" published on the anti-abortion web site Life News, but that list offered zilch in the way of any proof that Olive Garden (or any of the other companies listed on it) actually supported Planned Parenthood. What's more, that years-old list didn't even describe how it came to the conclusion that any of the companies it listed currently or previously donated funds to Planned Parenthood. published Other critics cited a 2012 article published on the site XOJane urging its readers to patronize businesses that supported Planned Parenthood, in which Olive Garden was also mentioned. However, that XOJane article cited the 2011 Life News article, which made near-identical claims about companies supporting Planned Parenthood without providing any documentation for them. article The 2011 Life News article included an assertion by anti-abortion group Life Decisions International (LDI) suggesting that companies frequently hide evidence of their donations to Planned Parenthood: We learned early on that corporate leaders will turn to devious methods to continue supporting Planned Parenthood. For example, one corporation had donated $5,000 to the pro-abortion group every year since 1991. After becoming a boycott target, the corporation donated $25,000 and for four years told consumers they do not support Planned Parenthood. Therefore, do not be surprised if a corporation responds that it is no longer supporting Planned Parenthood. Such statements create an unreachable standard of proof for those wishing to verify this type of claim,  suggesting that corporate denials are insufficient evidence while offering no proof of their own assertions. And since the primary purpose of such corporate donations is to generate goodwill by funding worthy causes and organizations, it would make little sense for a business to simultaneously support a given non-profit or charity while publicly denying any such beneficence. Planned Parenthood's Annual Report for 2013 [PDF] is the most recent available and includes no specific mention of any donors. However, Olive Garden's Twitter account has replied to concerned customers about whether or not the company currently or previously supported Planned Parenthood: PDF @MidAmericanGuy We have never donated to them. We focus our giving on helping end hunger. Last yr we gave 3+ MM lbs of food to food banks. @MidAmericanGuy  Olive Garden (@olivegarden) July 22, 2015 July 22, 2015   For those who subscribe to the belief that a company might donate money and lie about it, the non-profit and non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) lists all Planned Parenthood donors as far back as 2010 (before LDI claimed in 2011 and 2012 that Olive Garden was among Planned Parenthood's supporters). In all the available  data listed on CRP's web site, neither Olive Garden nor Darden Restaurants appears among Planned Parenthood donors. Center for Responsive Politics data That list, however, provided an amusing twist concerning tweets calling for a boycott of Olive Garden due to their purported support of Planned Parenthood: While no Darden Restaurants brands appeared on the list, Twitter was slotted at #48 among Planned Parenthood donors.  So to remain ideologically pure, one would need to find an alternative social media site upon which to voice disapproval of Planned Parenthood  after all, those pro-boycott tweets are generating revenue for Twitter, a known supporter of Planned Parenthood. On 23 July 2015, Olive Garden replied to a snopes.com query as to whether the chain (or Darden Restaurants) donated to Planned Parenthood: Neither Olive Garden nor Darden Restaurants has ever donated to Planned Parenthood. Rather, our company strives to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others through programs such as Olive Garden Harvest. Through the Harvest program, every Olive Garden across the country donates fresh, wholesome food to a local food bank on a weekly basis. Last year, Olive Garden donated more than 3 million pounds of food to those in need. Last updated: 23 July 2015 Originally published:  22 July 2015
Since November 2020, an identically worded bit of text alleging that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "is a private nonprofit corporation" has been shared across multiple social media platforms. The claim has its origins on the website Armstrong Economics  which sells a variety of self-published conspiracy books by the titular Martin Armstrong  and would become a well-shared bit of copy-and-paste "copypasta," reproduced in part below: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention its origins well-shared Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation? [...] The CDC is quasi-government under the Department of Health and Human Services which strangely has sources of funding that are predicated on the fact that it also has a private 501(c)(3) public charity, like the Clinton Foundation. The CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, NGOs and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is NOT a government-funded organization. It is not exclusively a government-funded [sic]  very curious. Natural News, which boasts a massive audience of conspiracy theorists, republished it in December 2020. At the time of this writing, versions of this copypasta still creep up on various social media platforms. On May 3, 2021, a Facebook account named The Daily Callout published it along with a picture of purported CDC funding sources. Commenters to that post were evidently confused: republished published   The allegations leveled against the CDC are not all that coherent in these posts. The copypasta suggests the CDC is both a non-profit and a "quasi-government" agency. Further, those issues are tangled up in the separate issue of corporate donations to the CDC. The title of the post, however, provides Snopes with a clearly stated contention: "Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation?" You most likely did not know this, because it is, in fact, not true. The CDC is a federal agency housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The confusion stems from the fact that, in 1992, Congress mandated the creation of a non-profit foundation  the CDC Foundation  that would "not be an agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government" and whose purpose would be "to support and carry out activities for the prevention and control of diseases, disorders, injuries, and disabilities, and for promotion of public health." As part of that goal, the foundation has an endowment and accepts charitable gifts from a variety of entities, including corporations, which are forwarded to the CDC to support specific initiatives.  housed in in 1992 mandated the creation CDC Foundation "The government has unique capacities as well as limitations. The same is true for the private and philanthropic sectors," the CDC Foundation argues on its website. "We believe that people, groups and organizations have greater positive impact and can accomplish more collectively than individually." Funds raised by the CDC foundation are donated to various programs and initiatives within the CDC. its website The CDC Foundation is one of two ways corporations can legally provide funds to the CDC. Donations to the CDC foundation are an indirect route as, by law, "officers, employees, and members of the board of the Foundation shall not be officers or employees of the Federal Government." Direct gifts by corporations to the CDC are also allowed under a portion of the U.S. Code that authorizes the secretary of HHS "to accept on behalf of the United States gifts made ... for the benefit of the Service or for the carrying out of any of its functions." by law a portion For both direct gifts to the CDC and gifts made via the CDC Foundation, conditional funding is allowed so long as those requirements are not, as outlined in CDC policy documents: policy documents The acceptance of corporate donations earmarked for specific causes  both to the CDC Foundation and to the CDC itself  have caused apparent conflicts of interest. In 2015, the medical journal BMJ published an editorial outlining several examples of potential conflicts, including these examples: an editorial In 2010, the CDC, in conjunction with the CDC Foundation, formed the Viral Hepatitis Action Coalition, which supports research and promotes expanded testing and treatment of hepatitis C in the United States and globally. Industry has donated over $26m to the coalition through the CDC Foundation since 2010. Corporate members of the coalition include Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, OraSure Technologies, Quest Diagnostics, and Siemenseach of which produces products to test for or treat hepatitis C infection. [...] In 2012, [a company named] Genentech earmarked $600,000 in donations to the CDC Foundation for CDCs efforts to promote expanded testing and treatment of viral hepatitis. Genentech and its parent company, Roche, manufacture test kits and treatments for hepatitis C. The CDC argues that it has policies in place to prevent such conflicts. Its website states that "when we engage with the private sector  we maintain our scientific integrity by participating in a gift review process that is rigorous and transparent. CDCs gift acceptance policy requires a comprehensive gift review prior to accepting a gift. This includes CDC Foundation (CDCF) gifts and gifts given directly to [the] CDC, whether they are monetary or non-monetary." These processes have been refined and standardized several times since 2014. has policies since 2014 While the issue of potential corporate influence over public health policy merits scrutiny, it is also important to consider the scale of private funding compared to the overall congressionally appropriated budget of the CDC. In the 2020 fiscal year, the CDC received $13 million in conditional gifts from the CDC Foundation and $10 million in conditional and unconditional direct contributions from the private sector. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $8 billion in funding the CDC receives from Congress: 2020 fiscal year compared to   Even from a rhetorical standpoint it would be a stretch to argue the CDC proportionally is awash in corporate funding. Narrowly speaking, however, the assertion that the CDC is a non-profit, non-government organization is incorrect because that claim conflates the CDC (a federal agency) and the CDC Foundation (a 501(c)(3) charity). As such, the claim is Brendan Doherty, like a lot of candidates, says if hes elected to Congress in November hell put a stop to rampant fraud and waste in government spending.On his campaign website, the Republican candidate for the First District seat and former head of the Rhode Island State Police, says hell use his years in law enforcement  to shine a light on the unconscionable abuse of hard-earned taxpayer funds.Among examples of abuse he lists are the purported millions of dollars in pension benefits the federal government distributes each year to federal retirees who are, well, dead:Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.Weve heard stories of dead people voting before, but are they also getting hundreds of millions in pension payments? We called Dohertys campaign to find out where the candidate got his information.Spokesman Robert Coupe told us he thought the $601 million figure was pretty large when he first heard it from campaign staffers. He said it came from Wastebook 2011, the latest edition of an annual compilation of questionable government spending put out by Sen. Tom A. Coburn, R-Oklahoma.We checked Wastebook 2011, which indeed mentions over $601 million paid out to deceased federal workers in the last five years, with footnotes citing the source: a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General, titled, appropriately enough, Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased Annuitants.According to the Office of Personnel Managements report, the amount of post-death improper payments is consistently $100-$150 million annually.Some of what the federal government calls improper payments is outright fraud -- people with electronic access to the deceaseds bank accounts taking the money. And some of it is because the money was electronically transferred into what are now inactive bank accounts. The money can sit there piling up for years before anyone notices.Special efforts have been under way since at least 2005 to reduce payments going to dead retirees and their survivors, the report says. Those efforts have included matching the rolls of eligible recipients with the Social Security Administrations death records on a weekly and annual basis, doing similar checks with the IRS to see whos still filing returns, and random phone calls to retirees over 90 years old just to make sure theyre still around.Those steps have helped identify the scope of the problem, Susan L. Ruge, a spokeswoman in the Office of Personnel Managements inspector generals office, said in an e-mail. In fiscal year 2010, for instance, the office identified $116.8 million in improper payments going to dead retirees or survivors.But solving the problem is another matter.According to the Personnel Managements report: There remains a high probability that egregious loss of monies from the [civil service] fund will continue and require strategic corrective actions. It notes one case of a man illegally pocketing more than $515,000 by cashing in his dead fathers monthly retirement checks -- for 37 years.Ruge said 94 percent of annuity payments are transferred electronically into bank accounts as opposed to the older method of mailing checks. The office of inspector general, she said, has no breakdown as to payments stolen by others with access to those accounts and money lost by languishing into those unattended accounts.In overpayment cases where no theft has occurred, there is greater potential for EFT (electronic fund transfer) overpayments to continue undetected, simply because no one is monitoring the deceased annuitants bank account, said Ruge.If there is good news in any of this it is this: while $601 million going to dead people in the last five years sounds like a lot of money, it represents less than 2.5 percent of all civil service retirement disbursements, the report claims.Our RulingDohertys website says Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.The campaign accurately quoted a figure whose source is a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General.We rate his statement True.Rhode Islands former top cop is setting his bar of expectation pretty high if hes promising to curb this kind of  rampant fraud and waste. Well be watching.Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage. To counter Republican criticism that the stimulus money is not being spent fast enough, Vice President Joe Biden has been traveling the country to boast about the recovery plan's success stories.In conjunction with a July 9, 2009, trip to Ohio, Biden's office put out a news release with this talking point: Across the country, $174 billion of the Recovery Act have been committed in its first 130 days.The White House says it is getting the numbers from its own Web site, Recovery.gov. We counted 130 days after Obama signed the bill on Feb. 17, which took us to June 27. On that day, the government had committed $157.8 billion, slightly less than the $174 billion cited by Biden.Those numbers are culled from weekly reports submitted by all federal agencies. The total stimulus cost will ultimately be roughly $787 billion, with about $499 billion for new spending. (The other $288 billion is for tax relief.) So that means that about 35 percent of the spending ($174.9 billion of $499 billion) has been allocated so far.That might sound like a lot, but Republican critics complain the money is just trickling out. For example, Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, complained last week that only 6.8 percent of the stimulus package has been spent.The numbers can be confusing, making you wonder whether Kyl is right about the 6.8 percent or Biden is right about the 35 percent. So we investigated and found that, like so many things in the federal budgeting process, it all comes down to semantics.John Porcari, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, wrote how this confusion is playing out in miniature at his agency, after getting what he considered some bad press in aUSA Todaystory that maintained that only $132 million of the total $27.5 billion earmarked for road construction funding has been spent.Indeed, there's a big difference between how much money the government has already spent  that figure is about $60 billion, according to the White House  and how much the government has obligated or committed to a project.Whenever a state obligates or dedicates their Recovery dollars to a project that means it is green-lighted, Porcari wrote on Recovery.gov. States can start advertising the project and soliciting bids and once a bid is awarded contractors can buy supplies, bring workers on board and start breaking ground. It could be weeks before the reimbursement process starts so those outlays are in no way an indicator of how much money is getting to states, how much work is being done or how many people are working. The $16 billion obligated to thousands of highway projects is the true measure of how much highway money is reaching states.Using his definition, about $16 billion has been obligated to road construction projects, far more than what's actually been spent.So for practical purposes, money committed is the same as obligated and allocated. It's money that will be spent on a particular project.It's fair to use those broader terms, according to Jim Horney, a budget expert at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, because the guarantee of the money can sometimes be enough to keep an agency or a company from laying off a worker.It's not just when the check has been written that we see an impact, he said.Take Virginia, for example. Earlier in the year, lawmakers were planning to lay off teachers to save cash. But when the stimulus passed, the state knew it would be getting some financial relief, so officials changed their budget to keep those teachers employed.The money isn't in the state treasury at that moment, but it still has a ripple effect on the economy, Horney said.If [teachers] knew they would be laid off, they would have started saving money, stopped buying clothes, preparing for hard times ahead, he said. Knowing they would have a job in the coming school year, teachers were less likely to adopt austerity measures.Horney had this caveat: Impact on the economy depends on how quickly the money is actually spent or reimbursed. If it takes five years for the government to pay a state back for a project, then the state may take some cost-cutting measures in the meantime.Conservatives, though, say the true measurement of economic impact is money actually spent, said Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.The economic theory behind the stimulus suggests only actual outlays can create jobs and drive money through the economy, he said.So back to Biden. He said that $174 billion had been committed at the 130-day mark. Federal records show he was a little off. The administration's Recovery.gov site shows that $157.8 billion had been committed. So we give Biden a Mostly True. In June 2020, the Quaker Oats Company announced that it would be re-branding its Aunt Jemima line of products  syrup, pancake mix, and other breakfast foods  because the brand's origins were based on racial stereotypes. Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, told NBC News: NBC News "We recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype. While work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful, we realize those changes are not enough." This decision caused some online outrage as social media users accused Quaker Oats of erasing its history and diminishing the accomplishments of Nancy Green, the woman who portrayed Aunt Jemima in promotional materials in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of these posts claimed that Green was one of the first African American millionaires because of the amount of money she earned playing Aunt Jemima: But Green did not die a millionaire. In fact, she could not live off the earnings she made from her portrayal of Aunt Jemima, and continued to work as a housekeeper until a few years before her death in 1923.  The origins of Aunt Jemima can be traced back to 1889 when Chris Rutt and Charles Underwood created a self-rising pancake mix. The product originally carried the name "self-rising pancake flour," but Rutt was inspired to change the name of the mix after he attended a minstrel show and saw men dressed in blackface perform a song entitled "Old Aunt Jemima." The Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture writes: writes In the fall of 1889, Rutt was inspired to rename the mix after attending a minstrel show, during which a popular song titled "Old Aunt Jemima" was performed by men in blackface, one of whom was dressed as a slave mammy of the plantation South. While Rutt and Underwood developed this self-rising mix and contributed the "Aunt Jemima" name, they were unable to turn their product into a commercial success. The duo sold their milling company to R.T. Davis, who, with Green's help, would go on to create the persona of Aunt Jemima and turn the brand into a national product. Davis hired Green, who was born a slave in Kentucky in 1834, to portray Aunt Jemima at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. Green, as Aunt Jemima, served pancakes to the crowd and told romanticized "stories" of her time on the plantation. While these stories were presented as if they were the genuine memories of Aunt Jemima, Green was, of course, just playing a fictional character. In "Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory," author Kimberly Wallace-Sanders writes: Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory At one point the most reliable means of consolidating the country involved inducing a kind of national amnesia about the history of slavery. Aunt Jemima was created to celebrate state-of-the-art technology through a pancake mix; she did not celebrate the promise of post-Emancipation progress for African Americans. Aunt Jemima's "freedom" was negated, or revoked, in this role because of the character's persona as a plantation slave, not a free black woman employed as a domestic. An African American woman, pretending to be a slave, was pivotal to the trademark's commercial achievement in 1893. Its success revolved around the fantasy of returning a black woman to a sanitized version of slavery. The Aunt Jemima character involved a regression of race relations, and her character helped usher in a prominent resurgence of the "happy slave" mythology of the antebellum South. [...] Nancy Green, a former slave from Kentucky, played the first Aunt Jemima. Green was a middle-aged woman living on the South Side of Chicago, working as a cook and housekeeper for a prominent judge. After a series of auditions, she was hired to cook and serve the new pancake recipe at the World's Fair. Part of her act was to tell stories from her own early slave life along with plantation tales written for her by a white southern sales representative. This combination of historic and mythic plantation was designed to perpetuate the "historical amnesia necessary for confidence in the American future." That this amnesia occurred at the expense of African American progress was clearly not an issue for the Pearl Milling Company, the inventor of Aunt Jemima. A pamphlet detailing the "life" of Aunt Jemima, which portrayed her as a "happy" slave with a "secret recipe" working at a plantation owned by Colonel Higbee of Louisiana, was also created for the 1893 World's Fair, and laid the foundation for future advertisements to build on the Aunt Jemima myth. One artifact from the early days of Aunt Jemima's fictional history was a set of paper dolls that supposedly showed Aunt Jemima and her family before and after they sold her secret pancake recipe. The "before" set included six paper dolls without shoes and dressed in shabby clothing, while the "after" set included a set of "fancy" clothes. set of paper dolls   But these dolls, like most of the fictional lore surrounding Aunt Jemima, did not accurately reflect reality. We have been unable to find any specific details about how much Green was paid for her portrayal of Aunt Jemima. The evidence, however, suggests that Green did not become rich from her work and was likely paid a paltry sum. In "Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America," Micki McElya writes that in 1900, Green listed her occupation as a "cook." While this may have referred to her job demonstrating pancake mix as Aunt Jemima, in 1910, she was working as a "housekeeper." Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America In that year (1900) she listed her occupation as "cook," which could have referred to her job demonstrating Aunt Jemima pancake mix or else indicated that her primary employment remained in domestic service. The latter was the case in 1910, when she reported her job as "housekeeper" in a private residence. Performing as the trademarked mammy was not her primary job by that time, if it ever had been. We reached out to McElya for more information about what monetary payments Green received for her portrayal of Aunt Jemima. McElya couldn't point to a specific dollar amount, but she did say that she "found no evidence that Nancy Green died a millionaire in 1923," and that "the available evidence suggests otherwise." M.M. Manring, the author of "Slave in A Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima," also told us that "all of the available evidence ... would suggest that [Nancy Green] was almost certainly not conspicuously wealthy." Manring also addressed the notion that Green was given a "lifetime contract" to portray Aunt Jemima. This "lifetime contract," according to Manring, was part of the lore created for the character of "Aunt Jemima" - but there's no evidence that it actually applied to Green. Manring said: I've been through the J. Walter Thompson archives at Duke, where so much of the papers related to the Aunt Jemima campaign are stored, and never found any reference to her pay. None of her obituaries mention anything regarding her wealth. If she had a $1 million fortune in, say, 1920, adjusted for inflation, that's the equivalent of about $13 million today, by my calculations. It would be surprising to me if all contemporaneous accounts of her failed to make any mention of her vast wealth. [...] All of the available evidence, such as it is, would suggest that she was almost certainly not conspicuously wealthy. She was comfortable enough to give to her church and do missionary work, but so were plenty of other people of ordinary means. As for the "lifetime contract," that was a big part of the promotion of Aunt Jemima. You see the same language in the ads  that a milling company in Chicago brought Aunt Jemima north and gave her a lifetime contract, and even paid her in gold. I have never found nor to expect to find proof of a contract, and again, I can't prove a negative. But I do think you have to put that claim in context with a long-running ad campaign that mixed myth and reality, and people real and imagined. Obituaries for Green published in The Chicago Tribune and Daily Herald also made no mention of her being one of the first African American women to become a millionaire: The Chicago Tribune https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53701027/ While no evidence exists to suggest that Green died a millionaire, she did make enough money (as both a housekeeper and for her promotional work as Aunt Jemina) to support the missionary work of the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago. It should also be noted that Green's descendants (as well as the descendants of another Black woman who portrayed Aunt Jemima) filed a lawsuit against Quaker Oats, arguing that the company exploited Green, and that her family was owed billions in royalties, USA Today reported. The lawsuit was later dismissed after a judge ruled that the plaintiffs did not provide proof that they were related to the women who portrayed Aunt Jemima: lawsuit reported dismissed Now, a lawsuit claims that Green's heirs as well as the descendants of other black women who appeared as Aunt Jemima deserve $2 billion and a share of future revenue from sales of the popular brand. The federal suit, filed in Chicago in August by two great-grandsons of Anna Short Harrington, says that she and Green were key in formulating the recipe for the nation's first self-rising pancake mix, and that Green came up with the idea of adding powdered milk for extra flavor. "Aunt Jemima has become known as one of the most exploited and abused women in American history," said D.W. Hunter, one of Harrington's great-grandsons. The rumor that Green died a millionaire is, like much of the folklore surrounding Aunt Jemima, not supported by historical evidence. This claim is unfounded, and all of the material we examined suggests that Green was not conspicuously wealthy. Therefore, we've rated this rumor false. In February 2021, Quaker Oats announced that it was retiring the "Aunt Jemima" brand name and replacing it with the "Pearl Milling Company." announced Kesslen, Ben.  "Aunt Jemima Brand to Change Name, Remove Image That Quaker Says is 'Based On a Racial Stereotype.'"   NBC News.  17 June 2020. Downs, Jere.  "Pancake Flap: 'Aunt Jemima' Heirs Seek Dough."   USA Today.  6 October 2014. Smith, Jessie Carnie. "Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture."   ABC-CLIO.  17 December 2010. McElya, Micki. "Clinging to Mammy The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America."   Harvard University Press.  2009. Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly. &bsp "Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory."   University of Michigan Press.  2008. An ambitious effort by a group of African countries to tackle the effects of climate change and desertification has been in the works since 2007. The Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative plans to have trees extend like a belt across the Sahel region which is at the base of the Sahara, in order to prevent the expansion of the desert through climate change. since 2007 According to a meme shared with us by our readers, more than 20 African countries are a part of this effort, and the wall of trees, the meme says, will spread 7,000 km across the continent from coast to coast.      This meme is largely true, though the length of the GGW varies, as the project itself is far from being completed. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the project aims to restore Africas degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in one of the worlds poorest regions, the Sahel. Once complete, the Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet  an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world stretching across the entire width of the continent. According The project aims to have the "wall" extend from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, by 2030. The official website for the GGW details the reason for all their efforts: extend official website The catalyst for the Great Green Wall is the daily impact of desertification and climate change that is undermining the futures of millions of communities across Africa's Sahel region. Since the 1970s, the Sahel has been heavily affected by recurrent periods of drought. These droughts have threatened the livelihoods and future of entire populations across the region. The lack of rain has led to the disappearance of livestock and the destruction of cereal crops. The great famines that rocked the Sub-Saharan region in the 80s each affected millions of people. In addition, the high population growth rate is increasing demand for food and pressure to gain access to other natural resources which are the basis for livelihoods and the survival of the rural population. Millions of people  particularly rural youth  are currently facing an uncertain future due to the lack of decent rural jobs and continuous loss of livelihoods due to land degradation and falling yields. But according to The Associated Press, since the projects inception in 2007, millions of the planted trees have died due to diminishing rains and rising temperatures. Only 4% of the projects original goal has been met and around $43 billion dollars is needed to complete it. Given the challenges facing them, the focus of the project has also shifted from planting just a wall of trees to a mosaic of smaller and more durable projects that emphasize community-focused solutions that support agriculture and prevent desertification. Associated Press mosaic The GGW Accelerator, announced in January 2021, detailed these changes: GGW Accelerator The Great Green Wall Initiative has evolved from its initial focus on tree planting towards a comprehensive rural development initiative aiming to transform the lives of Sahelian populations by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across 11 countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti) .  Progress has been achieved into the second decade of the initiative, with almost 18 million hectares of degraded lands restored and 350.000 jobs created across the Sahel and the Great Green Wall countries.  The Accelerator also highlighted additional challenges they encountered in the process of creating the GGW which included insufficient coordination, exchange and flow of information at the regional and national level, weak organizational structures, and a lack of consideration in national environmental priorities. Accelerator Some of the changes include planting orchards and circular gardens where large trees strategically protect smaller ones. A number of these have been thriving in Senegals portion of the GGW.  include According to GGWs official website, there have been a number of successes. Senegal planted around 12 million drought resistant trees in less than a decade, while 5 million hectares of degraded land was restored in Nigeria, and 15 million hectares in Ethiopia. A November 2021 report in the Nature Sustainability journal assessed the economic impact of the program and concluded that it was economically worthwhile: website November 2021 The Great Green Wall programme is a colossal initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded ecosystems across 11 countries in the region [...] We evaluated the economic costs and benefits of future land restoration projects under this programme. We applied different scenarios that account for both market-priced and non-market benefits from restored ecosystems and consider the heterogeneity of local decision-making contexts in terms of investment planning horizons, discount rates, and the time needed for the restored ecosystems to start yielding their benefits in full. The results show that every US dollar invested into land restoration yields on average US$1.2 under the base scenario, ranging from US$1.1 to US$4.4 across the scenarios. At most, ten years are needed for land restoration activities to break even from the social perspective, accounting for both market-priced and non-market ecosystem benefits. To fund all proposed land restoration activities, an investment of US$44 billion is needed under the base scenario (US$1870 billion across scenarios).  The report added that Violent conflicts in the Sahel are estimated to reduce the accessibility to these degraded ecosystems from 27.9 million hectares to 14.1 million hectares.  While originally only 11 countries were a part of the effort, today there are more than 20 African nations involved. You can learn more about the impact and current projects here, and in this video: 20 African nations  Given that the focus of the GGW has evolved beyond just planting trees, and it is still an effort in progress, we rate this claim as true.  Africas Great Green Wall Shifts Focus to Hold off Desert. Associated Press, 13 Nov. 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. Growing a World Wonder. Great Green Wall, https://www.greatgreenwall.org. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. Mirzabaev, A., Sacande, M., Motlagh, F. et al. "Economic efficiency and targeting of the African Great Green Wall." Nature Sustainability, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00801-8. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. The Great Green Wall Initiative | UNCCD. https://www.unccd.int/actions/great-green-wall-initiative. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. Ted Cruzs tax plan, envisioningtax returns that fit on postcards, would whack businesses twice over, Marco Rubio says. We wondered about that. In the Jan. 14, 2016, Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C., Sen. Rubio of Florida said that under the plan advocated by Sen. Cruz of Texas, businesses basically will have to pay a tax, both on the money they make, but they also have to pay taxes on the money that they pay their employees. A moment later, Rubio said Cruzs plan does not eliminate the corporate (income) tax or the payroll tax. Businesses will now have to pay 16 percent on the money they make. They will also have to pay 16 percent on the money they pay their employees. Cruz disputed that characterization, saying in part that a critical piece that Marco seems to be missing is that this 16 percent business flat tax enables us to eliminate the corporate income tax. It goes away. Cruzs plan replaces the corporate income tax, the payroll tax and others with a flat tax. Does it also make businesses pay 16 percent on profits and payroll, as Rubio said? Cruzs plan outlined After emailing Rubios campaign about how he reached his 16 percent conclusions, we turned to Cruzs tax plan asoutlined by his campaign. Under the Simple Flat Tax, Cruz says on a campaign webpage, the current seven rates of personal income tax will collapse into a single low rate of 10 percent. For a family of four, the first $36,000 will be tax-free. The Child Tax Credit will remain in place, Cruz proposes, and the plan revamps the earned-income tax credit while preserving deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments. Heres the flat-tax postcard as envisioned by Cruz:  SOURCE:Web page,The Simple Tax Plan,Ted Cruz presidential campaign (viewed Jan. 20, 2016) Next up: the 16 percent element. On Cruzs website, we spotted no direct indication the 16 percent would apply to payroll spending. For businesses, Cruz says there, the corporate income tax will be eliminated. It will be replaced by a simple Business Flat Tax at a single 16 percent rate. The current payroll tax system will be abolished, while maintaining full funding for Social Security and Medicare. Cruz further says the business flat tax will be based on revenues minus expenses such as equipment, computers, and other business investments. In general, Cruz says, his proposed tax overhaul will deliver a tremendous economic boost, according to the well-respected Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit thatdescribes itselfas a leading independent tax policy research organization. Independent breakdowns We fetched the foundationsOctober 2015 analysisof Cruzs plan which, the foundation said, would replace the corporate income tax and all payroll taxes with a 16 percent Business Transfer Tax, or subtraction method value-added tax. In addition, his plan would repeal a number of complex features of the current tax code. Farther along, the analysis spelled out a payroll aspect. Specifically, the foundation said, Cruzs plan: Enacts a broad-based, 16 percent Business Transfer Tax or value-added tax. This tax is levied on all business profits, less capital investment. This would include the payroll of business, government, and nonprofit institutions, as well as net imports. The tax would exempt from taxation the purchase of health insurance. A business transfer tax is also often known as a subtraction-method value-added tax. While its base is identical in economic terms to that of the credit-invoice VAT seen in many OECD countries, it is calculated from corporate accounts, not on individual transactions. The foundation also said: Under current law, some taxes on labor are explicitly levied on nominal wages, reducing take-home pay, while others are implicitly passed on to workers through lower nominal wages. The business transfer tax would also fall substantially on payrolls, but it would do so entirely through implicit reductions in nominal wages rather than explicit reductions in take-home pay. Thats a bit gobbledy-gooky for us. A foundation official, Kyle Pomerleau, told us by phone and email that what Rubio said largely holds up, though it would be wrong to conclude businesses under Cruzs plan would pay 16 percent on the same money twice. That is, Pomerleau elaborated, Cruzs plan eliminates the existing payroll tax, which is 15.3 percent of wages (half of that paid by employers, the other half by employees), but the plan counts payroll expenditures as part of net business profits, which are taxed at 16 percent. Even though his plan gets rid of the payroll tax, Pomerleau emailed, his new Business Flat Tax will end up taxing that payroll by disallowing its deduction at the business level. Another authority, Joe Rosenberg of theUrban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told us by phone that Rubio was accurate about Cruzs plan presuming he meant what most people define as profit by his phrase what you make. Rosenberg walked us through how he sees Cruzs plan working: Say a business buys something for 50 cents at wholesale and has to pay its employees 50 cents, accumulating $1 in costs. Then the business sells the something for $1.10, drawing a 10-cent profit. Under the Cruz plan, Rosenberg said, the business pays the flat tax solely on the 60-cent difference between the $1.10 in sales and the 50 cents spent on the wholesale purchase. And, Rosenberg noted, theres another way to pin what Cruzs plan subjects to the 16 percent tax -- by isolating what the business makes, the 10 cents, and then adding the 50 cents in employee payroll. Its very fair to interpret what Sen. Rubio said as correct, Rosenberg said, though its also worth mention (again) that Cruzs plan eliminates existing payroll and income taxes. Broadly, Rosenberg didnt agree that Cruzs plan whipsaws businesses, saying: Its a change in the way theyre taxed. Its not taxing something twice. We didnt hear back from Rubios camp about his claim nor did Cruz aides engage. Footnote: A Jan. 14, 2016,foundation postby economist Alan Cole says Cruz and Rubio arent proposing entirely distinct tax approaches. In fact, Cole wrote, if you put together two taxes from Rubios plan (and fiddle with the rates), you can actually synthetically construct the business flat tax from Cruzs plan! Our ruling Rubio said that under Cruzs tax plan, businesses will now have to pay 16 percent on the money they make. They will also have to pay 16 percent on the money they pay their employees. Under Cruzs plan, that rate applies both to net income and payroll expenditures though the way this description was phrased by Rubio merits clarification. That is, the 16 percent would not be applied to what a business makes and separately applied again to money paid to employees. Also unsaid: The proposed tax would replace taxes including payroll and income taxes. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. One of the many elements of the contentious U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the autumn of 2018 was the disclosure that the woman who had accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in 1982, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, had taken and passed a polygraph examination.  This facet of the confirmation brouhaha prompted debates about whether Judge Kavanaugh should similarly subject himself to polygraph examination, and about the reliability of such tests in general. (Kavanaugh responded to a question about whether he would take such a test by saying that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to do, while pointing out that polygraph examinations are inadmissible in federal court because they are "unreliable.") polygraph One of the pieces of evidence enlisted in support of one side of those debates was a claim that Judge Kavanaugh had once supposedly ruled in a case that "polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions":  The case referred to here was Sack v. Department of Defense Sack v. Department of Defense The underlying lawsuit was filed by Kathryn Sack, a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, who was appealing the Department of Defense's (DOD) denial of her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for various DOD reports about the government's use of polygraph examinations and related documents, which she wanted to use for her dissertation on polygraph bias. In order to justify their denial of Sack's requests, the DOD had to show that the records and information sought by her were "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and that their production would "disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations" and reasonably "risk circumvention of the law" -- thereby meeting the standards of FOIA Exemption 7E.   Exemption 7E The court sided with the DOD in denying Sack's FOIA requests, holding that FOIA Exemption 7E should apply.  In Kavanaugh's opinion for the court, he noted that "the reports about polygraph use were compiled for law enforcement purposes," because law enforcement agencies use them for functions such as "test[ing] the credibility of witnesses and criminal defendants" and "screen[ing] applicants for security clearances," and therefore "the reports help ensure that law enforcement officers optimally use an important law enforcement tool."  Kavanaugh also noted that the reports requested by Sack identify deficiencies in law enforcement agencies polygraph programs, and therefore releasing those reports could allow criminal suspects and others to subvert polygraph examinations.   Nothing in Judge Kavanaugh's opinion addressed whether "polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions."  He merely observed, for the purposes of a very specific legal ruling, that the federal government sometimes uses polygraph tests for the purposes of screening applicants; he offered no judgment or opinion about their reliability or how they should or could be regarded by employers.   U.S. Department of Justice.  "Exemption 7(E)."
  Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act.  Accessed 2 October 2018.  Justia.  "Sack v. DOD, No. 14-5039 (D.C. Cir. 2016)."
    20 May 2016. Hayes, Christal.  "Here's the Polygraph Test Christine Blasey Ford Took on Her Allegations Against Kavanaugh."
  USA Today.  26 September 2018.
 Kupfer, Theodore.  "A False Charge on Polygraphs."
  National Review.  28 September 2018. As a presidential candidate, one of Donald Trump's main campaign promises was to improve the treatment of United States military veterans and initiate major reforms to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). reforms However, the president faced criticism during 2018 budget talks amidst reports that he was proposing significant cuts to benefits for disabled veterans. On 17 January 2018, a meme appeared on social media that specified a facet of that criticism: meme   As is usually the case with memes and macros, this was not an entirely accurate summation of the political situation. President Trump did propose cutting a particular benefit for some disabled veterans in his March 2017 federal budget proposal; however, his administration backed away from the plan after an outcry from veterans' groups and abandoned the provisions that would have produced those cuts. The Facebook meme appeared to have originated in an analysis of President Trump's budget plan contained in journalist David Cay Johnston's book It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America. On page 225, Johnston wrote that: journalist book page 225 The biggest cut Trump proposed [in his 2018 budget] was ending a benefit for disabled veterans once they reach the minimum age for Social Security benefits. These veterans would see their income plunge from almost $35,000 annually to less than $13,000 if the Trump plan becomes law.  The benefit is called "individual unemployability" (IU) and is paid out (as part of the Department of Veterans Affairs disability compensation program) to military veterans who are unable to find work because they have a relatively high level of disability sustained during service in the armed forces,  according to the VA: VA Individual Unemployability ... allows VA to pay certain Veterans disability compensation at the 100% rate, even though VA has not rated their service-connected disabilities at the total level. In order to qualify for IU, a veteran must be assessed as being at least 60 percent disabled due to a service-connected disability or disabilities. As Johnston correctly wrote, Donald Trump's initial 2018 budget proposal ended individual unemployability for disabled veterans once they became eligible to receive Social Security benefits. However, Johnston did not mention that, under President Trump's proposal, disabled veterans who received Social Security benefits would continue to be paid disability benefits by the VA, albeit at their originally-assessed disability rate (rather than at a 100 percent rate), and anyone not eligible for Social Security would continue to receive IU. The 2018 budget proposal outlined the proposed changes: outlined Veterans eligible for Social Security retirement benefits would have their IU terminated upon reaching the minimum retirement age for Social Security purposes, or upon enactment of the proposal if the Veteran is already in receipt of Social Security retirement benefits. These Veterans would continue to receive VA disability benefits based on their original disability rating, at the scheduler evaluation level. IU benefits would not be terminated for Veterans who are ineligible for Social Security retirement benefits, thus allowing them to continue to receive IU past minimum retirement age. The Trump administration estimated that the proposed cuts would save $3.2 billion in 2018 and $40.8 billion over 10 years and had proposed using those savings to help fund a plan to expand and make permanent the Obama administration's Veterans Choice Program, which seeks to improve the availability of care for veterans in their own communities.  Veterans Choice Program Veterans organizations strongly criticized the IU proposal in early 2017, with veterans service organization AMVETS warning that it was "deeply concerned" by the cuts, which they said would affect "perhaps the most vulnerable segment of the veterans population": AMVETS warning The argument for this cut is that these senior citizens would be eligible for Social Security retirement benefits at age 65. That argument is flawed because these veterans have largely been disabled, out of the work force and not paying into Social Security for many years before reaching 65. Many have been severely disabled as a result of their military service and unable to work since the day of their discharge. AMVETS estimated that Trump's proposal would affect 225,000 military veterans aged over 65 and would decrease by a full $1,200 a month the disability benefit paid to an unmarried veteran with a 90 percent disabled rating.  The payments that veterans receive under IU depends upon their disability rating and family circumstances, as outlined by the VA. For example, a veteran with a 60 percent disability rating who lives alone would theoretically receive $1,083.52 in disability benefits each month. However, under individual unemployability, veterans are treated as if they had a disability rating of 100 percent, meaning they would receive $2,973.86 each month.  For veterans eligible to receive Social Security, Trump's plan would have pruned their monthly disability benefit back to the 60 percent rate, a highly significant cut of $1,890.34, or 63.6 percent. Over the course of a year, that would have brought their disability benefits down from $35,686.32 to $13,002.24, roughly the amounts mentioned by David Cay Johnston in his book and in the Facebook meme. VA Such veterans would be in receipt of Social Security benefits as well, but it's easy to see the significant financial effects the plan would have had on an aging veteran who was unable to work and who lived alone. By comparison, a retirement-aged veteran with a 90 percent disability rating and a dependent spouse, a child, and two parents would have seen annual disability benefits cut from $42,326.64 to $27,356.16, a decrease of 35.4 percent. In June 2017, VA Secretary David Shulkin publicly stepped back from the proposed IU cut, telling the Senate Veterans' Affair Committee that: telling As I began to listen to veterans and their concerns and VSOs [Veterans Service Organizations] in particular, it became clear that this would be hurting some veterans, and that this would be a take-away from veterans that can't afford to have those benefits taken away. And I'm really concerned about that...I am not going to support policies that hurt veterans. The following October, Shulkin wrote to veterans service organizations to confirm that the VA no longer supported ending IU for disabled veterans who are eligible to receive Social Security. wrote Johnston's analysis, and the Facebook meme posted by Stacey Sharp, are both true in a narrow sense. The amounts they mentioned were accurate but were based on only one of many possible scenarios for disabled veterans.  The latter, published in January 2018, left out that the proposal had been abandoned by then. Merica, Dan.  "Trump Signs VA Reform Bill, Making Good on a Campaign Promise."
   CNN.  23 June 2017. Johnston, David Cay.  It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.
  Simon & Schuster, 2018.  ISBN 1-501-17416-9  (p. 225).

 Hoellwarth, John.  "AMVETS Deeply Concerned by President's Proposed Cuts to Veteran Benefits."
  American Veterans. 24 May 2017. Wentling, Nikki.  "VA Secretary Promises in Writing Not to Cut Benefit Program for Disabled Vets."
  Stars and Stripes.  13 October 2017. In mid-July 2023, the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the union representing Hollywood actors and performers, voted to go on strike against major studios after negotiations broke down. voted A tweet by @KeatonPatti went viral on July 13, 2023, purporting to show a screenshot of a tweet and video in which O.J. Simpson appeared to show his support for the strike. The screenshot shows Simpson wearing a green shirt while standing in front of flowers. An overlaid caption quotes him as saying, "As a proud SAG member, I can't wait to join you all on the picket line." tweet The screenshot also indicates that Simpson tweeted from his official Twitter account, adding the words, "Union strong. #SAGStrike." Oh no. pic.twitter.com/Cbx0lXJ8w5 pic.twitter.com/Cbx0lXJ8w5  Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) July 13, 2023 July 13, 2023  However, the screenshot is fake. There is no evidence that Simpson issued such a tweet, nor that he made a video in which he expressed support for the guild strike. The writer Keaton Patti, who has previously written stories for humor sites like The Onion, likely shared this screenshot as a joke. Indeed, the replies to the tweet are largely joking about the impact the spectacle of the controversial figure joining the strikes would have. replies We went to Simpson's Twitter account, which primarily consists of videos of him sharing his views on a range of topics, but found no tweets in which he expressed support for the strike. The screenshot was likely created by editing a real screenshot from a July 11, 2023, tweet from Simpson titled, "Sports should be equal and fair," in which he shared his views on the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. In that video, Simpson was shown sitting in front of the same flowers, with the same shirt on, with the camera at the same angle as the one in the manipulated screenshot, and the same reflection in his glasses. Twitter account July 11, 2023, (Screenshot via Twitter/TheRealOJ32)  Sports should be equal and fair. pic.twitter.com/efsqiDpd7k pic.twitter.com/efsqiDpd7k  O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) July 11, 2023 July 11, 2023  Simpson, a former professional football player, gained notoriety in the 1990s after a sensational trial in which he was acquitted of the murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. In 2008, he was found guilty in a botched robbery and sentenced to more than three decades in prison, of which he served nine years. acquitted 2008 Simpson also produced andactedprofessionally, appearing in "The Naked Gun" movie series, among others. His finances fell under scrutiny upon his 2017 release from prison. Tom Scotto, his friend, told USA Today that Simpson received money from a SAG pension, in addition to his National Football League pension and his personal investments in a retirement fund. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Simpson's SAG pension was protected from the millions of dollars he owed to the families of Brown Simpson and Goldman, after they won a wrongful death lawsuit against him in 1997. acted USA Today Hollywood Reporter won Simpson's acting and producing credits entitled him to SAG membership and he appears to have a SAG pension as well, but the extent of his active participation in union activities and current status is unknown. Regardless, the above screenshot clearly does not show Simpson supporting the actor's strike, rather it was manufactured by altering a separate video and adding a fictional caption. As such, we rate this claim as False. Barco, Mandalit del. "Hollywood Actors Go on Strike, Say It's Time for Studio Execs to 'Wake Up.'" NPR, 13 July 2023. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2023/07/13/1187310535/hollywood-actors-strike-sag-aftra.Accessed 14 July 2023. Gardner, Eriq. "O.J. Simpson's Former Attorney F. Lee Bailey Gets Bad News About His SAG-AFTRA Pensions." The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2017, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/oj-simpsons-attorney-f-lee-bailey-gets-bad-news-his-sag-aftra-pensions-1045756/.Accessed 14 July 2023. News, A. B. C. "26 Years Ago, OJ Simpson Was Acquitted: Timeline of His Life and the Sensational Trial." ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/US/key-moments-oj-simpsons-life/story?id=48724637. Accessed 14 July 2023. "O.J. Simpson | Actor, Producer." IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001740/. Accessed 14 July 2023. "O.J. Simpson Acquitted." HISTORY, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/o-j-simpson-acquitted. Accessed 14 July 2023. Peter, Josh. "O.J. Simpson's Finances Will Be Closely Watched If Paroled." USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2017/07/19/o-j-simpsons-finances-closely-watched-if-paroled/493639001/. Accessed 14 July 2023. Vercammen, Paul. "O.J. Simpson to Focus on 'friends, Family and Golf,' Live in Gated Community after Release." CNN, 29 Sept. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/29/us/o-j-simpson-parole-release-road-to-freedom/index.html.Accessed 14 July 2023. Typhoid Mary was a cook. Working at that job made her single-handedly responsible for multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever, in and around New York City, about a century ago.PolitiFact Ohio couldn't help recalling that bit of history recently after reading advice for the flu season from the Centers for Disease Control, which urged sick people to stay home from work and school to avoid the spread of illness.The history was freshened by last week's news that a college cafeteria worker in Indiana had been diagnosed with typhoid fever, and it came to mind when we saw a release from Sen. Sherrod Brown saying that he is co-sponsoring the Healthy Families Act, which is being reintroduced in Congress.Also called the earned sick time initiative, the legislation would allow workers at businesses with 15 or more employees to earn paid sick days. Workers could earn up to one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a total of seven days.For far too many Americans, a day home from work means a day without pay, Brown said. Some 40 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. dont have any paid sick days at all. Its worse for low-income workers  three in four dont have any paid sick days available.We wondered about the numbers. Brown's staff said the source was last year's National Compensation Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.Its chart for paid leave benefits shows that 61 percent of all workers in the private sector have paid sick days -- meaning about 40 percent don't have them.Among the lowest-paid 25 percent of workers, the chart shows that 29 percent have paid sick days, meaning more than 70 percent don't have them.Among the lowest-paid 10 percent of workers, 18 percent have sick days, so 82 percent do not. (Three in four, the figure used by Brown, is 75 percent. )We found other figures as well:. More than three in four food service and hotel workers (78 percent) dont have any paid sick days, according to an analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Workers without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. And a 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick leave helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the outbreak of 2009.Critics of the sick leave initiative, including the National Association of Independent Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, say paid sick days add costs to low-margin businesses, are burdensome to business and result in lost jobs.In a recent survey of businesses by the Employment Policies Institute, Roughly 70 percent of respondents said that Connecticuts sick leave law was not good for business, the group said.PolitiFact Ohio is not rating the legislation, however -- only Browns statement on the numbers of workers who dont have access to paid sick days. We rate it True.