Harvard Science Endowment
Claim:  Harvard is offering tuition-free education to African-American students majoring in the sciences.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2009] Greetings: A quick note about an exciting scholarship opportunity In case you know anyone who might be interested... Harvard University wants to get the word out the University has a massive science endowment for African American (High School Juniors/Seniors) who are interested in majoring in the sciences, Chem, Biology, Physics etc. A four year tuition free education at Harvard Univ. (regardless of parents income)! The professor to contact for more info. is:  Professor Gregory Tucci,tucci@fas.Harvard.edu617-496-4668. If you know any African American junior or senior students who excel and are passionate for the sciences please pass along this info  Origins:  This item promoting a "massive science endowment" that supposedly provides "four year tuition free educations" for African-American science students at Harvard has been circulating since at least mid-2009 and has been reprinted in a number of online bulletins and newsletters that publish information about educational opportunities.  Although Harvard does provide a number of financial aid opportunities that prospective students might qualify for, a completely tuition-free, four-year program for African-American students majoring in the sciences is not among them, according to the professor whose name, address, and phone number have been attached to this item: Thank you very much for your interest in financial support for students interested in the sciences at Harvard University.  Unfortunately the information you received regarding "four year tuition free education ... regardless of parent's income" appears to be a hoax.     Additionally, I am not involved in admissions or financial aid. Harvard has very generous financial aid support for all students who qualify on the basis of need.  On a very positive note, families with incomes below $60,000 need not contribute to the cost of sending their children to Harvard.   Further, families with incomes up to $180,000 with assets typical for the income level need not pay more than 10 percent of their incomes.  No student should be discouraged from applying to Harvard because of financial concerns.  The Financial Aid Office is always eager to work with talented students to make sure they receive the financial support that will make a Harvard education possible for them.  For more information, please visit the financial aid web site: https://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/, or call 617-495-1581. https://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/ Additional information:     Financial Aid Overview  (Harvard College)  Last updated:  27 March 2010
FACT CHECK: Is the city of Seattle forcing local businesses to comply with Sharia law?  Claim: The mayor of Seattle has "launched" a new "rule" forcing businesses to comply with Sharia law.   false WHAT'S   Seattle is exploring options to make home loans accessible to Muslims who are unable to participate in standard mortgage programs due to religious proscriptions.     WHAT'S   Seattle businesses are being forced to comply with tenets of sharia law. Examples: Seattle Mayor Planning to Force Banks to Give Sharia Compliant Homes Loans to Local Muslims https://t.co/QSKZ1XqzMB https://t.co/QSKZ1XqzMB  Warner Todd Huston (@warnerthuston) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015   Seattle's Liberal Mayor Caves To Muslims Following Sharia Law - BuzzPo https://t.co/A3m76OJz7r https://t.co/A3m76OJz7r  EMERSON E.RODRIGUES (@EMERSON_NALITA) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015   Mayor, no Sharia law applies in America!! Stop this unconstitutional junk. https://t.co/fx7VENmVQx https://t.co/fx7VENmVQx  Bunch (@bunch1243) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015   Origins:On 17 July 2015, the unreliable web site Conservative Tribune published an article titled "ALERT: Seattle Mayor Launches Rules to Force Local Businesses to Comply With SHARIAH LAW" claiming that: article In one major American city, new rules may force banks to comply with Shariah law on lending and interest. One of the major tenets of Shariah law is that Muslims cannot pay interest on loans. In countries with large Muslim populations, theres something known as Islamic banking, which manages to get around this through various machinations. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray wants to see that change, and hes apparently willing to force banks into Shariah-compliant lending if necessary. This means that, if it passes, Seattle will be the first city in America to mandate that its banks allow access to Shariah-compliant financing.  That claim was sourced to the TeaParty.org site's article "Seattle Mayor Offers Plan for Sharia-Compliant Housing Rules," which offered the following visual: article That article was a word-for-word copy of a Puget Sound Business Journal article about a potential plan by the mayor of Seattle to help Muslims obtain home loans to buy houses.  Quoting both Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Seattle-area Chapter Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari, the article explained that the city was examining housing options available to home-buying Muslims who are prohibited from participating in the traditional American housing market due to religious restrictions that prohibit them from obtaining standard home loans (despite their having desirable credit profiles): article   For some Muslims, it can be hard to buy a house, and Mayor Ed Murray plans to do something about it. Murray's housing committee released its recommendations for ways the city can increase housing in the city. Most ideas were what you'd expect, including increasing the city's housing levy and implementing new rules and regulations to foster development of market-rate and lower-income housing. One suggestion would help followers of Sharia law buy houses. That's virtually impossible now because Sharia law prohibits payment of interest on loans. The 28-member committee recommended the city convene lenders and community leaders to explore options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products. More and more lenders are offering Sharia-compliant financing. The sector has grown to more than $1.6 trillion in assets worldwide over the past three decades, and analysts see potential for continued growth as the number of Muslims in the United States and Europe grows. Based on what he called "rough anecdotal evidence," Bukhari estimated a couple hundred people aren't borrowing money for houses due to their religion. He said this includes even high-wage earners, such as the more than 1,000 Muslims who work for Microsoft and more than 500 Amazon.com  employees. They could easily qualify for home loans but opt not to apply "simply because they don't want to pay interest," Bukhari said. "We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious beliefs," Murray said. The overall topic of Seattle-area Muslims and banking products was also addressed in another Puget Sound Business Journal article about retirement plans. According to that piece, CEO Thom Poulson of Falah Capital is working to facilitate opportunities for Muslim tech workers to access products such as 401(k)s and mortgages previously inaccessible to them due to religious barriers: article   It's estimated that more than 1,000 Muslims in the Puget Sound region work for Microsoft, and for those who closely follow their faith, it can be difficult to participate in the company's retirement plan. That's because Sharia law forbids them from investing in funds with holdings in companies that peddle pornography, alcohol and other vices. It's almost impossible for retirement funds to guarantee all their investments are free from those kinds of businesses. This has become an issue for workers at other tech companies, too. "You have people who aren't getting the full benefits of their employer's offering," said Thom Polson, CEO of a new Seattle company, Falah Capital LLC, which works with Muslims to ensure they're investing while staying true to their beliefs. In partnership with Seattle-based Russell Investments and IdealRatings of San Francisco, Falah set up its first Islamic exchange traded fund (ETF) last fall. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "FIA," the Russell-IdealRatings Islamic US Large Cap Index, the ETF is the first of its kind on the exchange. Polson said a large percentage of the Muslims who work at tech firms are not using their 401(k) plans because they're not Sharia-compliant. "All of our advisory business is about addressing these needs," Polson said, adding his company is working with clients from the Muslim Association of the Puget Sound. The association has a large community center with a mosque in Redmond near Microsoft's headquarters. Next up for Fallah is a possible foray into home mortgages so clients can buy houses without taking out interest-bearing loans, which is against Sharia law. As part Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's landmark housing initiative, the city plans to work with lenders to help observant Muslims buy homes.   What these articles address are efforts to help businesses  service a significant portion of the local Seattle-area working population who are unable to utilize those business' current offerings  due to religious limitations, not to force businesses to comply with tenets of sharia law.  Mayor Murray's 13 July 2015 "Action Plan to Address Seattles Affordability Crisis" merely included a policy point of "explor[ing] the best options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products," not mandating that any local businesses offer such products: Action Plan  Support the Community in Finding Housing Tools for Sharia-Compliant Lending: For our low- and moderate-income Muslim neighbors who follow Sharia law  which prohibits the payment of interest or fees for loans of money  there are limited options for financing a home. Some Muslims are unable to use conventional mortgage products due to religious convictions. The City will convene lenders, housing nonprofits and community leaders to explore the best options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products to help these residents become homeowners in Seattle.   Last updated: 17 July 2015 Originally published:  17 July 2015 Known as a famous Hollywood actor and one of the original men to portray the iconic character James Bond, Sean Connery died on Oct. 31, 2020. According to TMZ, he died at 1:30 a.m. "at his home in the Bahamas." TMZ Sean Connery died in his sleep from pneumonia, heart failure and old age ... according to his death certificate. TMZ obtained Connery's death cert and it shows he died from respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia, old age and atrial fibrillation ... an irregular heart rate that can increase the risk of strokes, heart failure and other heart-related complications. Entertainment Tonight made contact with the family, reporting that "Connery's wife, Micheline Roquebrune, and his two sons, Jason and Stephane, told ET that he died peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by family." reporting Following his death, at least one advertiser bought ad space on the social media platform Reddit, or on a mobile app that displays Reddit content. The ad read: "sean connery's Net Worth Left His Family In Tears." Connery's name was lowercase, likely because the "Net Worth Left His Family In Tears" part is a template. It's not true. It's fabricated and completely baseless. Sean Connery's family was not left "in tears" because of his net worth. We previously reported on the "net worth left his family in tears" advertising ploy with "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek. The late Kenny Rogers also appeared to be a victim of the ploy. previously reported appeared   The advertisement in question appeared to lead to Life Exact, a viral content website. It was first documented by Reddit user JezCon. It's unclear if the advertisement is still active on the website. We were unable to locate the ad, but it likely lead to a slideshow with multiple pages, where the idea was to make more money on the advertisements displayed during the slideshow than it cost to run the original ad alongside Reddit content. This is known as advertising "arbitrage." first documented Business and technology blog Margins is managed by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk, and Roy defined "arbitrage" as "leveraging an inefficient set of systems to make a riskless profit, usually by buying and selling the same asset." He also called it "the mythical free lunch that economics tells us does not exist." Margins Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us Claim:  Thieves are using camera cell phones to capture credit card information.   Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Keep a watch out for people standing near you at retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores, etc., that have a cell phone in hand. With the new camera cell phones, they can take a picture of your credit card, which gives them your name, number, and expiration date. Identification theft is one of the fastest growing scams today, and this is just another example of the means that are being used. So... be aware of your surroundings.   Variations:  Some October 2004 versions are prefaced "CBS reported this type of identification theft is one of the fastest growing scams today."  (If CBS had run a piece on cell phone cameras used by thieves to capture credit card numbers, it has escaped our notice. More likely, this claim was added by someone looking to infuse the mailing with a greater sense of credibility.) Origins:  Camera phones, the latest in cell phone wizardry, allow users to take pictures on the go and transmit these images by e-mail or post them to the Web. With video phone in hand, unexpected sightings of celebrities can be snared with a flick of the wrist (turning the celled into the snaparazzi), as can chance encounters with pretty girls or gorgeous sunsets. Though introduced in the USA only in 2002, camera phones have already helped solve crimes and aided in the capture of criminals when quick-thinking phone owners had the wit to turn their units on their attackers. They   are fast growing in popularity. Yet they also have a dark side, one that ultimately might be their undoing. Most who purchase such instruments have only the most innocuous of pleasures in mind  they want to be able to take and transmit pictures of places they're visiting and people they're meeting. Or they want to have something handy with which to snap photos if something hilarious plays out in front of them. However, at least some who are equipping themselves with this latest in technology are doing so for nefarious purposes. Camera phones have been banned in many public areas like swimming pools and locker rooms in the U.K. and Japan after police discovered pedophiles were using the technology to add to their child porn collections. In Japan, police have apprehended people using camera phones to take photos up the skirts of unsuspecting women in crowded trains and stores. In the U.S., some state legislatures have before them bills that would serve to ban cell phone cameras in venues where folks have an expectation of privacy, such as locker rooms and restrooms. Even without this legislation, a number of American health clubs and courthouses have barred their use on their premises.  Yet the danger posed by these instruments may not end with embarrassing or lewd photos of the unsuspecting  quite possibly such phones may be used to harvest credit card data. Information in other forms has already been purloined via camera phone, with newsstand owners in Japan complaining folks armed with such gadgets have been photographing magazine articles instead of buying the issues, thereby cutting into their business. In January 2003,  a Web-based fashion magazine used video phones to beam photos from Paris fashion shows, producing almost-live coverage of the catwalks and scooping the competition. Pictures were sent directly to the Web. We first saw the warning against camera cell phone enabled identify thieves in January 2004. Although we've yet to stumble across reports of actual incidents of theft of credit card information by this method, the warning implicit to the e-mail is valid  the ill-intentioned could indeed photograph the face of your credit card with such devices. At this time, most of the units on the market don't take very good pictures, possibly not nearly high enough quality to capture what is, after all, fairly small raised print on fairly small items. Video phone pictures aren't high-resolution, and most camera phones can't autofocus, lack onboard flash, and rely on long exposures  all limitations that conspire to make them unsuitable for data mining over someone's shoulder. However, what they (at this time) lack in clarity of image, they make up for in distance their captures can be transmitted. Unlike the cameras found secreted at ATMs, which could send their images to receivers no farther than about 200 meters away, video phones can relay what they see to the other side of the world. They are, after all, telephones. ATMs Although at this time the phones' limitations might appear to rule out the risk of your VISA or Mastercard details being harvested by camera phone-wielding thieves, the danger should not be discounted. The more expensive of these instruments take better photos, meaning they could pick off minute detail that lesser phones couldn't, so every video phone should not be judged safe to flash your plastic to.  Moreover, the technology is improving, which makes it a good bet the next generation of camera phones will transmit sharper, clearer images. In February 2005, a retail fraud investigator for one of the larger chain stores told us that while he is still unable to capture a useable image of a credit card from even the newer camera phones, he has been able to grab readable images of all account and routing info from the personal checks customers have produced at the checkout. Check writers, he says, have a tendency to "lay out" their check books on the writing counter at the registers and keep them stationary enough to obtain a clear image of all the personal information printed on the check.  He has also tested this theory with camera-equipped palm tops and has found that with the adjustable resolution he has been able to get a pretty clear picture, with zoom, from a reasonable distance away (3-5 feet). So at this point in time, while your credit card might still be secure, your personal check might not be. As for camera phones themselves, whatever their limitations or potential for misuse, unless legislated out of existence, they are likely to become the next "must have" item. We do so love our toys, after all.  Barbara "surfeit USA" Mikkelson Additional information:        Preventing Credit Card Fraud   (Consumer @ction)   Last updated:  22 July 2011    Bradley, Kim.  "Camera Phones Bug Cop; Fears It'll Be Used By Perverts."    The Toronto Sun.  26 December 2003  (p. 128).    Hanluain, Daithi.  "Forget F-Stops: These Cameras Have Area Codes."    The New York Times.  3 July 2003  (p. G1).    Ihnatko, Andy.  "Camera Phones an Idea Whose Time Shouldn't Have Come."    Chicago Sun-Times.  2 December 2003  (p. 64).    The Associated Press.  "Bill Would Ban Cell Phone Cameras from Locker Rooms."    10 January 2004. In mid-March 2020, the coffee brand Starbucks announced it would open a bean roasting facility in China, which prompted a spate of memes aimed at a U.S. audience about "creating jobs for China." announced   It's true that Starbucks is investing $130 million to open a coffee bean roasting plant in China, per a company announcement dated March 12, 2020. This will be an expansion of Starbucks' already-existing presence in China, where the chain has been doing business since 1999. Starbucks already has 4,200 stores in 177 cities in mainland China, with a total of 57,000 employees. announcement already has So, while the expansion will indeed create more jobs in China, it's not as if the company is shipping American jobs overseas. Instead, the new roasting facility is geared toward making beans for coffee drinkers purchasing the beverage locally in Asia. The announcement from Starbucks reads: Starbucks Coffee Company, the global roaster and retailer of specialty coffee, announced today it will invest approximately $130 million (USD) in China to open a state-of-the-art roasting facility in 2022 as part of its new Coffee Innovation Park (CIP). As Starbucks largest manufacturing investment outside of the U.S. and its first in Asia, the CIP will incorporate a roasting plant, warehouse and distribution center, creating highly-skilled jobs and new career opportunities that will further drive smart and sustainable coffee manufacturing in China. The plant will serve as a key component of the Companys global roasting network, and the bold infrastructure investment further deepens Starbucks multi-decade commitment to strengthen the specialty coffee industry in China, where it aims to have 6,000 stores by 2022. China Daily, an English-language, government-run newspaper, reported that the Coffee Innovation Park is slated to be built in Kunshan, a city in China's eastern Jiangsu province. reported Starbucks."Starbucks Coffee Innovation Park in China Elevates Manufacturing and Extends Global Roasting Network."
12 March 2020. China Daily."Starbucks to Build Up Roasting Capacity in China."
13 March 2020. Bajpai, Prableen."How Starbucks (SBUX) Is Getting Itself Back On Track In China In Wake of COVID-19."
Nasdaq.com.25 March 2020. In January 2020, as the 2020 Democratic presidential primary progressed, we received multiple inquiries from readers about the accuracy of a widely shared claim about U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's professional background.  A social media meme contained the following text: meme "'As Elizabeth Warren closes the night with complaints about cost of college for students, just remember she was paid $400,000 to teach one class' -- Katie Pavlich."   The meme originated in a tweet published on July 30, 2019, by Katie Pavlich, a Fox News contributor and editor of the right-leaning website Townhall. She was referring to Warren's appearance at that evening's Democratic primary debate in Detroit, Michigan. debate Critics of Warren have leveled accusations of hypocrisy against her in the past, and those claims have at times touched on the level of her pay while she taught at Harvard. In 2014, for example, Snopes addressed memes that alleged the U.S. senator "lives in a $5.4 million mansion" and was paid "$350,000 to teach one class," all while purportedly "lecturing" the public on economic inequality. addressed The allegation that Warren was paid $400,000 to teach a single course at Harvard University is one that dates back to her 2012 U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts. In a Senate financial-disclosure statement filed in December 2011, Warren revealed that for "2010 + 2011 to date," Harvard had paid her $429,981 in her capacity as a law professor. disclosure Regardless of one's subjective opinion of the salary paid by Harvard to Warren, it is essential to note that college professors, especially those who work at prominent and reputable institutions like Harvard, are typically expected to do more than just teach courses in return for their salaries, and those salaries can be based on several factors including the volume, quality, and influence of their published research, the level of their expertise and reputation in a particular field, and so on. Similarly, their duties typically extend beyond teaching coursework and conducting research, and can include advising and mentoring students, peer review, organizing and taking part in conferences, moderating or participating in faculty or student groups and organizations, leading or attending departmental meetings, and on occasion representing and boosting the public reputation of their respective institutions by providing expert commentary to the news media  the latter a duty that Warren discharged particularly frequently, before she began her political career. Warren, long recognized as a leading expert in bankruptcy, debt, and consumer law, won several teaching awards, including at Harvard, and wrote or contributed to several dozen academic books, book chapters, and journal articles. One 2010 study found that Warren's academic research was among the most widely cited in the field of bankruptcy and commercial law, in the five years leading up to the 2010 spring semester. awards Harvard several dozen study So while the salary figure presented in Pavlich's tweet (and the subsequent meme) was accurate, it was misleading to claim Harvard was paying Warren more than $400,000 merely "to teach one class." Nonetheless, it is true that the future senator's teaching duties did taper off towards the end of her tenure at Harvard. During the fall 2009 semester, Warren taught contracts law, according to a Harvard course catalog, and she also taught a year-long "Empirical Analysis of Law" course over the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. course catalog In September 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Warren as a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, with responsibility for the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped to conceive and create. As a result, Warren stepped back completely from teaching duties during the fall 2010 and spring 2011 semesters, as reflected in a 2010/11 course catalog. However, she returned to Harvard in July 2011 and taught a course on contracts law during the fall 2011 semester. appointed course catalog taught In 2010, Warren also contributed a chapter entitled "Redesigning Regulation: A Case Study from the Consumer Credit Market" to an academic book entitled "Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation," which was edited by David A. Moss from Harvard Business School and Duke University's Edward J. Balleisen. contributed According to Warren's May 2012 Senate financial-disclosure statements, she took unpaid leave from Harvard during the spring and fall semesters in 2012 (that is, during her Senate campaign), and according to her May 2013 disclosure, her tenure as a Harvard professor ended when she joined the U.S. Senate in January 2013. disclosure  disclosure According to Warren's December 2011 financial-disclosure statement, she was paid more than $400,000 by Harvard in 2010 and 2011. During that period, she taught two courses: one in the spring 2010 semester, and another in the fall 2011 semester. From September 2010 to July 2011, Warren was on leave while helping to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and therefore did not teach during that time. Katie Pavlich's July 2019 tweet, and subsequent memes, accurately described Harvard as having paid Warren around $400,000 (in fact it was closer to $430,000) but failed to specify that the salary covered 2010 and 2011. The tweet also misled readers by claiming Warren had been paid her salary simply to teach classes, because academic salaries typically take into account several factors other than the number of courses taught by a professor, and this is especially so for highly reputable academics such as Warren, at prestigious institutions such as Harvard. Finally, the tweet (and memes) also misrepresented the number of classes Warren taught during the period for which she was paid more than $400,000. It was two, not one. Taking into account that set of facts, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture." Snopes.com.  "Did Elizabeth Warren Lie About Her Native American Heritage to Land a Job at Harvard?"
  30 October 2014. U.S. Senate. "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  22 December 2011. U.S. Senate.  "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  11 May 2012. Harvard Law School.  "Elizabeth Warren Wins Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching."
  3 June 2009. Leiter, Brian.  "Top 25 Law Faculties in Scholarly Impact, 2005-2009."
  Accessed 22 January 2020. The Obama White House.  "President Obama Names Elizabeth Warren Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
  17 September 2010. Johnson, Glen.  "GOP Presses Harvard to End Pay for Warren."
  The Boston Globe.  21 September 2011. U.S. Senate.  "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  14 May 2013. On 23 December 2015, the conspiracy theory web siteMysterious Universepublished a photo purportedly showing an ancient clay tablet resembling a cellphone which was dug up by archaeologists "earlier this year" in Austria: published   While Mysterious Universefailed to provide the details you'd expect from a possibly world-changing dig,such as the names of the archaeologists, secondary photos of the tablet, comments from the team, the object's dimensions, etc., the web site did manage to add some wild speculation about the object: A controversial theory proposed by author Zecharia Sitchin is that aliens known as the Anunnaki came from Nibiru (the rumored Planet X beyond Neptune) and created the Sumerian civilization. The tablet looks surprisingly like a modern phone, with the 12 keys, a display and a talk button. Could these extraterrestrials have tried to introduce the Sumerians to a phone-like communications device, only to find they werent ready for it and dialed them back to a stylus and clay tablets? While the theory that the this cellphone was created by the alien race Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru in order to introduce the Sumerian civilization to modern technology is interesting, this "alien cellphone" was actually created by a German sculptor and is only a few years old. Karin and Karl Weingrtnerof the Art Replik Studio created the clay tablet in January 2012. While the photo was originally shared with a description similar to the one published byMysterious Universe (Art Replik never mentioned aliens) there are several indications that this post was simply a joke, such as thetitle of the object ("BablyoNokia"), comments on the photogrAPH("Yes, exactly!" in response to "is that my old phone?"), and the fact that the image was watermarked art-replik.com. created shared The "alien phone" was created in jest and was likely used as a marketing tool:   The above-displayed "ancient cellphone" was not discovered by a group of archaeologists in Austria and it was not left behind by aliens. It was created by a German sculptor who specializes in making replicas of ancient art. After giving his fifth State of the Union address, President Barack Obama hit the road. One of hisfirst stopswas a GE gas engines plant in Waukesha, a city about 20 miles west of Milwaukee. In both theHouse chamberand on thefactory floor, the president insisted that over the past four years, corporate profits and stock prices soared while wages fluttered. In the State of the Union, Obama claimed that average wages have barely budged. PolitiFact National rated his statementTrue, finding the average had risen no more than 1.7 percent above inflation from 2008 to 2012. In Waukesha on Jan. 30, 2014, the president alluded to a slightly different statistic and was more bold. He said: Because the truth is -- and you know this in your own lives, and you see it in your neighborhoods among your friends and family -- even though the economy has been growing for four years, even though corporate profits have been doing very well, stock prices have soared, most folks' wages haven't gone up in over a decade. We wondered: Even taking inflation into account, is it true the majority of Americans havent seen their wages increase in more than 10 years? Obamas evidence Income inequalitywas a big topic in the weeks leading up to the State of the Union. So, one thing to make clear upfront is that in his Wisconsin remarks, the president singled out wages -- the paycheck you get from your job. Thats a narrower category than income, which can include money taken in from other sources such as investments or government benefits. When we asked for evidence to back the presidents wages claim, a White House spokesman citeda databasefrom the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows the median weekly earnings for full-time workers in the final quarter of each year from 1999 through 2013. The median wage means half of workers earned more than that amount and half earned less. From the database, we assembled the following table. The wage figures are adjusted for inflation. Year Weekly wages, 4th quarter of each year 1999 $335 2000 334 2001 340 2002 336 2003 337 2004 337 2005 332 2006 337 2007 332 2008 340 2009 344 2010 341 2011 335 2012 334 2013 334 So, the inflation-adjusted median wage during the final quarter of 2013 was $334 --  $1 lower than during the final quarter of 1999, more than a decade earlier. However, the table also shows that the median wage went up in some years and down in others during the period cited by the president. It was as high as $344 and as low as $332. Outside experts We put Obamas claim and the database to four experts: economistAparna Mathurof the conservative American Enterprise Institute; economistEugene Steuerleof the Urban Institute, who served as a deputy assistant Treasury secretary under President Ronald Reagan;Michael Tanner, senior fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute; and Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance research directorDale Knapp. They agreed that its not possible to track the wages of actual individuals over a period of more than a decade, and so it cant be known whether most of them had a higher wage in 2013 than in 2009. But the experts also agreed the median wage figure cited by The White House is the best available. As Steuerle told us: Looking at the median tells us what is happening across the economy, but not what is happening to each individual worker over time. Two other points, neither of which bears directly on the accuracy of Obamas wage claim: Mathur said the broader measure of income gives a better picture of the standard of living of low- and moderate-income people, since it includes assistance such as the earned income tax credit, food stamps and Medicaid. And Tanner said total compensation, including things such as health and retirement benefits, has risen in recent years even if wages havent. Our rating Obama said: Most folks wages havent gone up in over a decade. Its not possible to know, considering all Americans, whether most of them saw a wage increase in the period cited by the president. But he cites the best-available figure, which shows the  median weekly wage, adjusted for inflation, was $1 less at the end of 2013 than it was in 1999. We rate the presidents statement Mostly True. Follow us onTwitterandFacebook. Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion. Virtually every major U.S. air carrier  including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Emirates, United Airlines, US Airways, Continental Airlines, Alaska Airlines, WestJet Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Air Canada  has been invoked in various online "free ticket" giveaway scams in recent years: Air Canada The primary type of free ticket fraud is the "sweepstakes scam," which is intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print. The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the airlines they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies: Similar phony free ticket lures are used to spread malware. In those versions of the scam, those who attempt to reach the URL provided for the purpose of claiming the free tickets are instead victimized by a Facebook "lifejacking" attack, a malicious script that takes over a user's Facebook profile without their knowledge and propagates itself to their friends' accounts as well. lifejacking In short, those who seek "free" merchandise generally end up paying a dear cost for it. State Sen. Jason Carter -- grandson of former Georgia governor and former President Jimmy Carter -- was theguest speakerat a Marietta Rotary Club meeting last month. In Republican-dominated Cobb County, the Decatur Democrat delivered a speech that veered from the traditional GOP message. Carter told the attendees that continual shrinkage of the government -- which has been a conservative standard -- is hurting Georgia in the long run. We collect fewer state taxes per capita than any other state. We have won the small-government competition, he said. ... And although state taxes are low, Georgia is the eighth-most-dependent state on the federal government. Is Georgia collecting fewer state taxes while receiving lots of federal government funds on the back end? PolitiFact Georgia decided to look into it. Carter told us that The Marietta Daily Journal, where we first saw his Rotary Club comments, left out part of his statement. He told the crowd that his tax and dependency claims were based on information from the Tax Foundation, Carter told PolitiFact Georgia in a phone interview. He also cited an Atlanta Journal-Constitutionarticleas a second source for his dependency claim. The discussion was about the difference in the levels of government. And while weve shrunk the federal government, weve increased the burden on the state and local governments, Carter said. The key is the state government taxes. We found the Tax Foundation statistics that Carter cited in the organizations Facts and Figures report of state tax data, released in March. The report, by the nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, includes state tax and federal dependency data for fiscal year 2011. According to the charts, Georgia ranked last with $1,639 in state taxes collected per capita. (Georgias2010 populationwas about 9.7 million.) The chart is based on the census definition of state tax collections, Tax Foundation officials told us. The next closest state was South Carolina at $1,650. Alaska collected the most state taxes per capita at $7,708. A second Tax Foundation chart, also for fiscal 2011, showed that Georgia also ranked last in the amount of state revenue collected per capita, at $3,807. The revenue data include the taxes levied by the state as well as other general revenue used to operate, such as licenses, fees and transfers from the federal government. We next went to the Census Bureaus state government tax collectionssummary report, released in April, for fiscal 2012 data. Governing magazine, which covers politics, policy and management issues of state and local governments,aggregatedthe census data. We compiled Governings data into a spreadsheet and found that Georgia ranked second-to-last for the lowest total state taxes per capita, at $1,711.44. New Hampshire ranked last at $1,675.94 taxes collected per capita. So Carters tax claim was correct in fiscal 2011 but off a bit for the following fiscal year. On the second part of his claim, Carter again used Tax Foundation data, along with anAJC storypublished about a week before his Rotary Club speech. The Tax Foundation used figures from the Census Bureau to determine states dependence on the federal government. The organization divided each states intergovernmental revenue, or grants and other aid received from the federal government, into the states general revenue, which includes all tax revenue. Those calculations, also in the Facts and Figures 2013 report, showed that Georgia was the ninth-most-dependent state in the nation in fiscal 2011. Federal aid accounted for about 41 percent of general revenue. Mississippi was the most dependent, getting 49 percent of its revenue from the federal government; Alaska was the least dependent with 24 percent. The AJC story reported that about 31.6 percent, about $12 billion, of Georgias state agency spending was made up of federal funds in fiscal 2012, according to the papers review of budget records. The paper found that Georgia has been using federal money to fill budget gaps created by shrinking tax collections and higher demand for state services such as Medicaid. Georgia legislators have discussed forming a committee to study the states federal government dependence. To sum up, Carter said that the Peach State collects fewer state taxes per capita than any other state, yet is the eighth-most-dependent state on the federal government. Based on Tax Foundation and census data for fiscal 2011, Carter is correct on his tax collection claim. Advance the data forward a year and Georgia moves up a step in its collections for fiscal 2012. On federal government dependence, analysis of census data shows that Georgia was the ninth-most-dependent state in fiscal 2011. Carters overall point is that Georgia is fostering a smaller state government but at the same time relying heavily on federal funds. He seems correct on that point. But his calculations were slightly off. We rated his claim Mostly True. As U.S. President Donald Trump accelerated unsubstantiated attacks on the legitimacy of mail-in voting during the summer of 2020, numerous Snopes readers asked us to investigate whether the leader of the U.S. Postal Service was carrying out a nefarious scheme to help Trump win another presidential term. mail-in voting In late July and early August, various rumors surfaced regarding Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman whom the Postal Service's governing board selected to run the agency in May 2020. For example, a viral tweet thread alleged: viral tweet My mailman just confirmed they have all officially been told to "SLOW THE MAIL DOWN," per trump's Postmaster General. ...He says that there is backed up mail ALL OVER THE FLOOR. He's never seen anything like it. It has ALREADY begun. But as long as we keep each other informed, we can beat their dirty tricks with INFORMATION.   The claim's underlying notions were these: DeJoy was a political ally to the Republican president, and the new postmaster general had used his new authority to order Postal Service carriers and clerks to slow deliveries to help Trump win the 2020 November election. A backlog of ballots in the weeks or days before Election Day, critics of the president worried, could lead to votes going uncounted or deemed invalid due to state laws governing mail-in election deadlines. state laws What follows is an examination of federal documents obtained by Snopes  including letters by members of Congress, campaign finance reports, and internal memos to Postal Service employees  as well as interviews with postal union representatives and a Postal Service spokesperson, to determine the legitimacy of those questions. DeJoy could not be reached for an interview for this report.  Note: Snopes not only investigated DeJoy's relationship to Trump, but his financial stake in companies that compete with the Postal Service to evaluate if, or to what extent, his past investments provided any evidence of a plan to undermine the Postal Service's longstanding mission: to provide mail service to every American, no matter their address or income. Yes. DeJoy, who lives in Greensboro, donated more than $1.2 million to the Trump campaign between August 2016 and February 2020, according to campaign finance reports compiled by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Federal Elections Commission It's unclear when or how DeJoy developed a relationship with Trump, and why he decided to support the billionaire's political pursuits. In a 2005 interview with Greensboro's local newspaper, DeJoy  then-CEO of New Breed Logistics, a distribution and warehousing company  appeared less supportive of Trump, saying his self-important attitude on the reality-TV show "The Apprentice" was destructive. 2005 interview The Apprentice "I'd be fired," DeJoy said, if he was a contestant. Nonetheless, by early 2017, DeJoy was among his state's top donors to Trump (see below for The Charlotte Observer's list that ranks DeJoy at No. 3 with a total contribution of $111,000). And by October of that year, DeJoy had become close enough to the president to host him and other donors for fundraiser at his Greensboro house. top donors Greensboro house.     Also, by that time, DeJoy's wife, Aldona Wos, had been appointed by the president to serve as vice chair of a White House commission that oversees paid fellowships in federal offices, according to the couple's foundation website. foundation website In addition to his contributions to Trump's political campaigns specifically, DeJoy has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican causes or campaigns over decades, the FEC records show. The Postal Service's governing board, a group appointed by the president with confirmation from the Senate, selected DeJoy as Postmaster General on May 6, 2020, after what it described as an extensive nationwide search for qualified candidates. At the time of that decision, Trump had appointed all six board members  Chairman Robert Duncan, John Barger, Ron Bloom, Roman Martinez IV, Donald Moak, and William Zollars  since the early days of his presidency. what it described Robert Duncan John Barger Ron Bloom Roman Martinez IV Donald Moak William Zollars  DeJoy, who was in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Charlotte when the board made its announcement, made the following donations since the start of 2020, according to filings from the FEC: National Republican Congressional Committee. National Republican Congressional Committee Facebook In sum, considering DeJoy's record of donations, as well as evidence of him hosting a Trump fundraiser at his Greensboro home in fall 2017, it is accurate to claim that the new postmaster general is a political ally to the Republican president.  home The answer to this question is less clear. In summer 2020, the viral claim about DeJoy  that he had directed carriers to delay mail to benefit Trump's reelection campaign (which we unpack below)  took on another layer: that DeJoy had also allegedly invested $70 million of his own money in delivery companies that compete with the Postal Service. another layer allegedly     That allegation, which we deemed true (see the explanation below), was particularly worrisome for critics of Trump and DeJoy, who believed the alleged holdings were more proof of the two leaders conspiring together  this time in an attempt to privatize the Postal Service. critics Here's some context before we dive into DeJoy's personal assets: Conservative Republicans have long pushed to remove government from mail services that they believe should be left to the private commercial market. Since Trump took office, he has called the Postal Service "a joke" or Amazon's "delivery boy," considering its package rates, and has floated the idea of eventually privatizing the agency. a joke delivery boy eventually privatizing the agency Meanwhile, others fear dismantling the federally-mandated mail service would disproportionately affect people who live in rural areas, where private companies such as FedEx and UPS either charge higher rates or do no shipments at all. At the same time, the Postal Service  which does not receive tax dollars for its operating expenses  faces a worsening financial situation due to a 2006 congressional mandate that required the agency to prepay health care benefits of retirees, as well as a decline in first-class mail customers. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated those long-standing problems, forcing several post offices nationwide to completely close or scale back hours. congressional mandate coronavirus pandemic scale back hours For instance, on April 9, 2020, roughly one month before DeJoy was selected to lead the Postal Service, then-Postmaster General Megan Brennan said the agency was preparing for a $13 billion revenue shortfall due directly to COVID-19 and an additional $54.3 billion in losses over 10 years. Considering those projections, she said the agency could run out of cash this fiscal year  or the end of September  without federal intervention. (Brennan announced her retirement in October 2019, after more than 30 years with the agency.) April 9, 2020 announced her retirement The former Postal Service leader made those comments shortly after federal leaders negotiated a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which, initially, included a $13 billion one-time boost for the mail service. But, purportedly at the urging of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and aides to Trump, congressional leaders removed that provision from the stimulus package, and instead included a $10 billion loan that the Trump administration could leverage in its favor. Then, on July 29, 2020, The Washington Post reported that under DeJoy's leadership, the postal agency gave Mnuchin's office's proprietary information about the Postal Service's most lucrative private-sector contracts, such as Amazon, FedEx and UPS, in exchange for the loan money. economic relief package Steven Mnuchin The Washington Post By that time, Congressional leaders and Trump were battling yet again over another emergency relief package; Democrats proposed a $25 billion boost for the Postal Service but then lowered that amount to $10 billion during talks with Republicans. On Aug. 13, 2020, during an interview on Fox Business Network, the president said frankly the tug-and-pull over Postal Service funding was part of his administration's plan to try to make it harder for the agency to handle the expected surge in mail-in ballots in the November election. If we dont make a deal, that means they dont get the money, Trump told host Maria Bartiromo, referring to the false claim that Democrats are are proposing a universal mail-in voting system. That means they cant have universal mail-in voting; they just cant have it. told Which brings us to DeJoy's assets, and the above-mentioned claim that he had "$70 million invested in companies that compete with USPS." For the basis of this analysis, we considered private companies that provide shipping or distribution services, such as DHL, the FedEx Corporation, and United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS), business competitors with the post office. For more than 30 years, DeJoy was the CEO of New Breed Logistics, a supply chain business that contracted with a variety of public and private companies, including the Postal Service. In 2014, XPO Logistics acquired DeJoy's company, and he served on the company's executive team or board of directors until May 2018. According to internal documents, which we obtained using the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) database of company filings, XPO Logistics considered its competitors to include DHL, FedEx, UPS, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services.  XPO Logistics DHL FedEx UPS J.B. Hunt Transport Services Aside from that evidence, which proved DeJoy's former company competed for business with organizations that also competed with the Postal Service, Snopes uncovered a letter from his wife, Wos, to a White House legal advisor on January 3, 2020, that listed her family's financial assets, known as "Attachment A." According to that list, the family had stock in companies including UPS, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., and XPO Logistics, Inc. letter She wrote the letter in response to a nomination by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Canada, and she said she would divest from all holdings in the document within 90 days of her confirmation. However, as of this writing, Wos had not been sworn into the position. The letter, which was available via the Office of Government Ethics, read: nomination Office of Government Ethics   As of June 15, 2020, the day DeJoy assumed his role as postmaster general, The Washington Post reported the couple had between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in Postal Service competitors or contractors. XPO Logistics represented the vast majority of those investments, and the couple's combined stake in UPS and trucking company J.B. Hunt, for examples, was roughly $265,000. The Washington Post reported On DeJoy's first day, the Senate's top Democrat, Charles Schumer of New York, said in letter to the Postal Service's board of governors' chairman: "[DeJoy's] financial interests in companies that have business ties with the Postal Services, as well as his extensive campaign fundraising efforts, raise questions" over his ethical conflicts of interest and partisan interests. letter By that point, a spokeswoman for DeJoy told journalists he had resigned as finance chair for the Republican National Convention, and would "comply with any financial divestitures that are required" for the new leadership position. told journalists In sum, reports proved the DeJoy family at one point had millions of dollars in assets in companies that compete or contract with the Postal Service, which lend credibility to the viral assertion. But the exact amount of such investments was unclear, and as of this writing, it was unknown if or to what extent the couple had divested any of the financial holdings. Not exactly  but there is some truth to the claim. Upon our analysis, the rumor seems to have stemmed from a series of directives DeJoy gave Postal Service employees since he took over the agency. On his first day, for example, he addressed the agency in a video that alluded to impending changes under his leadership that aimed to create a "viable operating model," though he did not go into specifics. video Then, in mid-July, he issued several memos to employees, including a "New [Postmaster General's] expectations and plan." Those messages to all managers, clerks, and carriers nationwide appeared to be the source of the claim, and detailed changes to how and when the Postal Agency would deliver mail. A July 10, 2020, internal document to managers, which Snopes received from the American Postal Workers Union and refers to an "operational pivot" for the agency, said the following, for example: American Postal Workers Union The initial step in our pivot is targeted on transportation and the soaring costs we incur due to late trips and extra trips, which costs the organization somewhere around $200 million in added expenses. $200 million in added expenses The shifts are simple, but they will be challenging, as we seek to change our culture and move away from past practices previously used. But perhaps most relevant to the claim, the DeJoy-sponsored directives included instructions for employees to leave letters or packages at distribution centers if they delayed carriers from their routes  contradicting previous rules for deliveries  and said the Postal Service would no longer pay employees overtime to complete all mail deliveries. The July 10, 2020 memo said:  contradicting One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that  temporarily  we may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks [in Processing and Distribution Centers], which is not typical. We will address root causes of these delays and adjust the very next day. Any mail left behind must be properly reported, and employees should ensure this action is taken with integrity and accuracy. As we adjust to the ongoing pivot, which will have a number of phases, we know that operations will begin to run more efficiently and that delayed mail volumes will soon shrink significantly. We also considered a separate message to employees in July 2020 that said, under a new initiative, carriers in certain regions would not sort any mail during the morning and instead clock in, retrieve sorted mail from the previous day and limit time in the office as much as possible. Then, when they returned from the streets, they would sort all available mail for the next day. July 2020 The agency said the extra spending on employees' overtime or delivery trips had not improved "our performance scores," without going into detail on what that meant, and framed the changes as necessary steps to improve its financial position. A July 27, 2020, public statement from DeJoy said: said public statement Given our current situation, it is critical that the Postal Service take a fresh look at our operations and make necessary adjustments. We are highly focused on our public service mission to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient service to every person and business in this country, and to remain a part of the nations critical infrastructure. David Partenheimer, manager of media relations for the Postal Service, told Snopes that the postmaster general was not doing any media interviews regarding the initiatives, nor about the underlying claims of this report. In a roughly 760-word email to us, however, Partenheimer reemphasized what the agency viewed as the need for the adjustments, and said: "We acknowledge that temporary service impacts can occur as we redouble our efforts to conform to the current operating plans, but any such impacts will be monitored and temporary ... and corrected as appropriate." Soon after the directives, American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein told us in a phone interview that employees and customers across the country were noticing mail delays. In the Philadelphia region, for instance, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported situations where residents were going upwards of three weeks without receiving packages and letters, and postal union leaders and carriers said mail was piling up at offices, unscanned and unsorted. Mark Dimondstein employees Philadelphia Inquirer "When you ... say this is what you have to do as workers, then that's what we have to do  [the change] runs counter to everything that the Postal Service is about, which is we treat the mail as our own; we get it to the customer as quickly as we can," Dimondstein said. "They've never seen mail backed up like this  it's not being moved." That meant, while DeJoy had not told carriers to "slow the mail down" verbatim, he initiated changes to how and when carriers go about doing their job that the Postal Agency said would cause temporary mail delays. However, it would be inaccurate to assume all slow deliveries under DeJoy's leadership were a result of the July 2020 directives specifically, when they could also be linked to reduced hours for some post offices or other circumstances. Roughly three months before the 2020 presidential election, voting rights groups and outspoken critics to the president believed the new directives by DeJoy occurred at a convenient time for Trump: when a record number of Americans were preparing to vote by mail and avoid potential exposure to the COVID-19 coronavirus by casting ballots at in-person polling places. Specifically, they worried the new requirements for post office carriers and clerks would lead to backlogs of mail-in ballots and thus create challenges for elections officials who, in the majority of states, must invalidate ballots that reach them after Election Day  even if they were postmarked before that date. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, for example, led colleagues in writing a letter to DeJoy on July 20, 2020, that said: Rep. Carolyn Maloney "While these changes [to mail service] in a normal year would be drastic, in a presidential election year when many states are relying heavily on absentee mail-in ballots, increases in mail delivery timing would impair the ability of ballots to be received and counted in a timely manner  an unacceptable outcome for a free and fair election." We asked Dimondstein, APWU president, whether he believed the July directives by Postal Service leadership were somehow linked to a plan to cause mail service chaos before the November election and help Trump win reelection. He said: What we do know for truth is this administration is, in written record, proposing and planning to sell the post office to private corporations, i.e. privatizing. ...That was June 2018. We also know as a fact that ...that [there are] calls for reduced service, increased prices, and less workers' rights and benefits. So if you take those two things together, certainly if they're implemented, then they're going to cause delays in mail; they're going to cause service being undermined. ... written record This is a fact: [DeJoy is] what's considered a mega-donor of the Trump administration and the Republican party. ... Anything that undermines the Postal Service' [service to customers] ... has us concerned that it could be linked back to those who have an agenda to eliminate [the Postal Service]. But I can't sit here and tell you that that's a fact. Partenheimer said any notion that DeJoy made decisions for the Postal Service under directions from Trump (which include claims that he issued the July 2020 changes that resulted in delays to help Trump's re-election campaign) were "wholly misplaced and off-base." He said the Postal Service, typically an apolitical agency, remains committed to "fulfilling our role in the electoral process" in places where politicians allow voters to cast ballots by mail and "to delivering Election Mail in a timely manner consistent with our operational standards." He elaborated: "[Despite] any assertions to the contrary, we are not slowing down Election Mail or any other mail. Instead, we continue to employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all Election Mail consistent with our standards." Days later, he said in a statement to news media that certain deadlines concerning mail-in ballots, may be incompatible with the Postal Services delivery standards, especially if election officials dont pay more for first-class postage. To the extent that states choose to use the mail as part of their elections, they should do so in a manner that realistically reflects how the mail works, he said. news media Then, on Aug. 18, 2020, DeJoy issued a statement in which he said he would temporarily suspend initiatives "that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic," including the controversial July 2020 directives that eliminated overtime and some delivery trips. The statement read: statement To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded. I want to assure all Americans of the following: In addition, effective Oct. 1, we will engage standby resources in all areas of our operations, including transportation, to satisfy any unforeseen demand. In sum, it was accurate to state that DeJoy, a political ally to Trump, ordered Postal Service workers to leave late-arriving mail at distribution centers for delivery the following day and eliminate extra trips in July 2020  a change the Postal Service was expecting to cause temporary mail delays  although no verifiable evidence proved those directives were part of a deliberate scheme to disenfranchise voters in the November 2020 election. Additionally, there was no proof to show the changes aimed to help Trump win reelection. For those reasons, we rate this claim "Unproven." Ye Hee Lee, Michelle and Bogage, Jacob. "Postal Service Backlog Sparks Worries That Ballot Delivery Could Be Delayed In November".
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 News & Record. 7 January 2005. Heckman, Jory. "USPS Board Names Logistics Executive As New Postmaster General".
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 The Intercept. 29 July 2020. Derysh, Igor. "With Trump Donor In Charge, Postal Service May Shut Locations And Cut Service Before Election Day".
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 The Philadelphia Inquirer. 2 August 2020. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney. "Maloney, King Lead Bipartisan NY Delegation Call For Immediate Help For The Postal Service".
 28 April 2020. House Committee On Oversight And Reform. "Senior Democrats Request Information On Postal Service's Operational Changes".
 20 July 2020. Bogage, Jacob. "Trump Ally Takes Over Crisis-Ridden Postal Service As Top Senate Democrat Demands Inquiry On Hiring".
 The Washington Post. 15 June 2020. Murphy, Brian. "NC Businessman, A Big-Time GOP Donor, Is Tapped To Lead US Postal Service".
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 18 August 2020. This report was updated to include an interview by Trump with Fox Business Network on Aug. 13, 2020, where he acknowledged that he was intentionally blocking Postal Service funding in an attempt to make it harder for the agency to process mail-in ballots in the November presidential election. This report was updated to include a statement by DeJoy on Aug. 18, 2020, in which he announced the suspension of certain initiatives "to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail."