Scientists in Japan Clone 98% Pure Saber-Tooth Tiger
Claim:  Japanese scientists have successfully cloned a saber-tooth tiger.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2014] Cloning of a Sabre-tooth tiger, real or not?  There are not enough credible sources for this story.   Origins:  In April 2014, the NewsHound web site published an article positing that scientists had, in a procedure similar to the one employed by characters in the fictional Jurassic Park novel and film, successfully cloned a "98% pure" saber-tooth tiger from a frozen specimen of that long-extinct species: article Japanese scientists have successfully cloned a 98 percent pure Saber-Tooth Tiger at the Japanese government-funded laboratory, Riken Center for Development Biology. The baby,  named "Ryu" is said to be in good health and is currently being monitored 24 hours a day by a team of 6 specialists. Tests are ongoing, but it has been confirmed that the baby is 98% pure Saber-Tooth. The team hope to begin work on the second cloned Saber-Tooth Tiger within the next 2 months and when the two reach maturity, they will be breed naturally. This will create a second generation with 98.4% pure Saber-Tooth DNA. The story was easily spotted as nothing more than a hoax for a variety of reasons, chief among them that the NewsHound web site is not a news site at all, and it has, in place of reporting on actual events, reproduced a number of other hoaxes and spoofs as if they were real news, such as long-debunked stories about a Chinese man suing his wife over giving birth to an ugly baby, Apple paying Microsoft [sic] a $1 billion debt all in nickels, a planetary alignment causing gravity on Earth to be negated for five minutes, and Google Earth helping to locate a woman who had been stranded on a desert island for seven years. ugly baby nickels gravity Google Earth Moreover, NewsHound's saber-tooth tiger clone article is itself just a thinly-altered retread of another fabricated story the site published a month earlier, the latter about British scientists' supposedly having cloned a dinosaur from preserved fossils. dinosaur   Last updated:  20 April 2014
Did he or didnt he? Only the ghost of Strom Thurmond knows for sure. Mystery surrounds whether, back in 1984, the former senator from South Carolina knowingly deprived Puerto Rico of bankruptcy protections that every U.S. state enjoys. Its crunch time for Puerto Rico. The island territory needs to pay bondholders $422 million on May 1. It doesnt have the cash, it cant use bankruptcy to reschedule its payments, and Congress seems unlikely to craft a solution in time to avoid a massive default. During hisApril 24, 2016,HBO showLast Week Tonight, comedian and social critic John Oliver described the devils brew of legal oddities and fiscal recklessness by Puerto Rican officials that brought the island territory of the United States to the financial brink. If you are massively in debt and you cant declare bankruptcy, you are stuck, Oliver said. And this happened because of a tiny amendment to a law in 1984, and the crazy thing is, no one can say why it was written. The tiny amendment Oliver mentioned was stuck in the most boring location one could ever imagine  in the definitions section ofHR 5174, a bill geared mainly to fixing the bankruptcy court system. Buried in a long list of changes was the meaning of state. 'State' includes the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, except for the purpose of defining who may be a debtor under chapter 9 of this title; That was it. With those two dozen words, the bankruptcy protections that applied to every state, and until 1984, to Puerto Rico, too, were wiped away. We tried to find out for ourselves why that amendment got attached, Oliver said. We knew Strom Thurmond had proposed it. So we asked an archivist at the library where his papers are kept to go through the relevant papers, and they came up with nothing. Oliver quipped about that lack of a paper trail, saying it might be the best scenario for Thurmond given his reputation for fervent racism. Oliver enlivened his diatribe over Puerto Rico's dilemma witha rapperformed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the son of Puerto Rican parents and the creator and star of the Broadway hitHamilton.Miranda mentioned Thurmond, too: Somewhere down the line Strom Thurmond's ghost busted a cap at a chance at Chapter 9. Which brings us to the focus of this fact-check: Did Thurmond propose the cunning words that ultimately caught Puerto Rico in a debtors vice? Thurmonds role Ina 2015 ruling, the judges of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals provided some very helpful background. In March 1984, the House passed its version of a bankruptcy bill. That version did not have the Puerto Rico exemption. Then on May 21, 1984, the judges wrote that Thurmond introduced the package of changes that included the text at the center of this controversy. On the day that he introduced the amendment, Senator Thurmond addressed the Senate to explain several of its numerous stipulations, yet said little about the newly added Puerto Rico exemption, the judges wrote. In fact, we went through theCongressional Recordfor that day (thank you, Internet Archive). Thurmond said less than little. He said nothing. The record shows that after Thurmonds amendment, the exemption became part of the final legislation. While this seems to point the finger at Thurmond, theres more to this story. Aside from introducing the overall amendment, Thurmond might not have had much to do with the text. It had been introduced four years before, and not in the Senate, but in the House. Congress earlier run at changing the law Experts question whether Thurmond actually understood the significance of the amendment. To see why, we have to go back to 1978. That year, Congress gave the bankruptcy law a complete overhaul. As often happens with major legislation, various gaps and ambiguities emerged and, in 1979, the Senate passed a bill to tidy up the loose ends. Among the dross, the Senate defined states to include Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and any territory or possession of the United States. That legislation moved over to the House, and here the trail becomes murky. Bankruptcy law professor Stephen Lubben at Seton Hall University traced thetwists and turns in a 2014 article. In July 1980, the House Judiciary Committee returned with an amendment to the Senate bill that struck the entire Senate text and replaced it with theJudiciary Committees desired text, including a new definition of state,  Lubben wrote. The House version, under Democratic control, had the Chapter 9 bankruptcy exclusion for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. That bill never passed, but in April 1981, Lubben found that the exclusion language resurfaced in the Senate. This exclusion was never discussed by Congress, at least publicly, and the language apparently simply materialized as a result of the House Judiciary Committees extensive revision of the 1979 Senate technical corrections bill, Lubben wrote. Lubben told us that the text in Thurmonds 1984 amendment was essentially the same language that was kicking around since 1980. Its not even clear that the parties even understood what was going on, Lubben said. The only thing we can say for certain is the change happened without a whole lot of thought behind it. Another factor makes it hard to find Thurmonds fingerprints on the text that beleaguers Puerto Rico today. The change was never offered as a stand-alone item. It was always bundled with a number of other small changes. Law professor John Pottow at the University of Michigan told us, Strom Thurmond might have introduced that, but its an overstatement to say he played a big role. A final mystery  if youve followed the trail this far, you will notice that in 1984, the House version of the bill didnt have the Puerto Rico exclusion. The logical question is, why was it dropped when the House was the first to add it in 1980? We wish we knew. Our ruling Oliver said we know that Thurmond proposed the text that stripped Puerto Rico of the right to let municipalities and public utilities declare bankruptcy. There is no question that Thurmond introduced the amendment with that change. So technically, he did propose it.But theres no evidence that he came up with the idea, and experts question that he understood the significance of the change that would follow. The statement is accurate but requires some additional information. We rate this claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/260b6aad-f921-45fc-9937-1d82d35f7874 This fact-check previously contained erroneous references about the timing of Strom Thurmond's Senate career and Lin-Manuel Miranda's birthplace. Although Canada has its share of Starbucks outlets, the local Tim Hortons is the destination of choice for the average Canadian in search of a quick pick-me-up. The coffee vended there is exceptional, but just as important, most of these shops are open 24 hours a day, making a stop at these donut emporiums a personal ritual that can fit into anyone's daily routine no matter what shift he might work. Tim Hortons is Canada's best-known coffee and fresh baked goods chain, established in 1964 and now boasting more than 3,400 stores across Canada and over 800 additional locations within the United States. The chain's reputation rests just as much upon its coffee as its baked goods, so coffee not sold within twenty minutes of its first being offered for sale is thrown out to ensure that patrons always get a fresh cup of java for their money. According to the President and C.O.O. of Tim Hortons, Paul House, the coffee's special appeal to consumers is the result of a superior blend and careful quality control: The Tim Hortons special blend of coffee has been closely guarded from the beginnings of the chain, and is subject to stringent quality assurance measures by a team of coffee experts located at the Tim Hortons head office in Oakville, Ontario. "We do extensive testing and cupping of our coffee to ensure the highest quality standards are met, and now our people can extend that quality right into the roasting process here in Rochester," said [Paul] House. "We start with the best possible arabica beans from various countries of the world to create our special blend, and can follow those beans right through the roasting and packaging processes." Because folks are willing to line up to purchase Tim Hortons coffee rather than secure their daily cup from another source, some people have begun looking for a more sinister explanation beyond the obvious one of "The coffee is really good, the donuts are fresh, and they're always open." The combination of reasonable prices, tasty product, and numerous convenient locations appears to have spawned a particular rumor that attempts to explain the popularity of Tim Hortons' coffee: according to the whispers, the beverage has been made so alluring through the addition of nicotine, MSG, or "the maximum amount of caffeine allowed by law." In one elaborate version of the rumor, a Tim Hortons patron suffers a puzzling and severe allergic reaction after drinking some of the chain's coffee; only under duress (and an insistence on absolute secrecy) does a Tim Hortons executive disclose to the treating doctor a list of the ingredients in their "special blend"  a list that reveals the presence of nicotine. Variants of the basic rumor assert it's not the coffee itself that's loaded with nicotine, but the chain's coffee filters or that nicotine has been sprayed on the inside of its disposable cups. MSG But Tim Hortons coffee does not include nicotine, MSG, an usually high level of caffeine, or any similar additives. Just as the USA has its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of commercially-sold ingestibles, so Canada has its Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Neither agency would permit the knowing inclusion of dangerous substances in a foodstuff vended to an unwary public. CFIA Nicotine is one of the most powerful poisons known. Though we normally think in terms of arsenic and strychnine when the term 'poison' comes up, the truth is that nicotine is far more deadly. The lethal dose of arsenic for a 150 pound adult is 200 mg., for strychnine 75 mg., but for nicotine only 60 mg. Nicotine can and does kill even in relatively small amounts. Those who wear nicotine patches must exercise great care about the disposal of their used patches lest children or pets come in contact with the seemingly "spent" aids and become deeply sickened or even possibly die. Not surprisingly, nicotine is not permitted as a food additive in either Canada or the U.S. As for MSG, although the FDA has designated the additive "generally recognized as safe," many people claim to experience adverse effects (such as headaches) after ingesting it, so all consumables containing the substance have to be clearly labelled to indicate its presence. The "nicotine additive" rumor does not adhere solely to Tim Hortons; it has been kited about other business concerns whose products have proved to be highly (and some would say inexplicably) popular: A friend mentioned that since 1987, McDonalds was putting nicotine into hamburgers to make them addictive. I heard that McDonald's experimented with putting nicotine in their fries to create an addictive property. I just received an email from a friend which claims that Pokemon cards are coated with nicotine, so children will become addicted. The letter claims that Philip Morris company is behind this. In another form the rumor has been known to take, evil-intentioned companies or heartless universities are said to be slipping laxatives into their food to lessen the effects of food poisoning: While at lunch with some friends yesterday, i heard what to me, sounds like a classic urban legend. Apparently there is a tale making the rounds that claims all fast food restaurants inject laxatives into their food so that people will pass the food on quickly, thereby reducing the risk of patrons getting food poisoning. Some of my students have told me something that sounds like an urban legend. They say that the dining service here (Lafayette College) is "required" to put a certain amount of laxatives in the food so that in case people get food poisoning the food will get out of people's systems. In yet another form of the basic rumor, conscienceless fast food companies have been incorporating anti-emetics into their offerings to help patrons keep their food down: In a recent debate with some friends of mine, we started talking about McDonald's and my friends kept telling me that McDonald's add an ingredient that prevents people from throwing up after eating there. A blow to the heart of the rumor in all its manifestations is that extraneous chemicals could not be surreptitiously slipped into any company's ingestible products without leaving that concern open to a stream of customer lawsuits. In the case of nicotine, the number of wrongful death suits filed would be unimaginable, given that it wouldn't take much of that particular poison to kill someone. As for MSG, caffeine, laxatives, or anti-emetics, there is no substance so innocuous that it won't provoke allergic or violent physical reactions in some people. Whatever small advantage a company might gain by adding a little extra something that would addict clients to its offerings would be quickly offset by multi-million dollar losses in civil court and a loss of consumer confidence in the even higher court of public opinion. Folks ain't going to patronize a place known for killing or sickening its customers, no matter how good the coffee. The Tim Hortons rumors reached such prominence that in February 2004 the CBC news program Disclosure conducted its own investigation, one which included having samples of coffee from Tim Hortons (and a couple of competing chains) sent to a laboratory for analysis. The results: Tim Hortons coffee contained no measurable amount of nicotine and had, on average, less caffeine than coffee from either Starbucks or Second Cup. nicotine caffeine Tim Hortons' loyal customer base was built the old-fashioned way: good product served fresh in easily-accessible locations. Additional information:     Tim Hortons web site      CBC Disclosure investigation      Tim Hortons statement In a spirited and unscripted debate with the House GOP, President Barack Obama said Republicans were wrong to portray him as running up large deficits. Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore on Jan. 29, 2010, Obama was particularly critical of a question from Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Hensarling asked Obama, You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? The fact of the matter is, Obama replied, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true. And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade. We checked Hensarling's claim in a separate item. Here, we'll look at Obama's claim that he came into office with a $1.3 trillion deficit and $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade. On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit for fiscal year 2009 was projected to be $1.2 trillion. The 10-year projection was estimated to be about $3.1 trillion. So Obama's number was very close on the 2009 deficit -- he said $1.3 trillion -- but substantially different from the 10-year projection -- he said $8 trillion. There are two reasons why he differs from the CBO. On the difference between the $1.2 trillion and the $1.3 trillion, the Obama administration credited a small portion of spending on its watch to policies of the previous administration. The reason for this is that the federal government runs on a fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, so Bush and Obama technically split responsibility for 2009 spending. The large difference on the 10-year projection has to do with Bush administration tax cuts. The CBO creates its estimates based on current law, which means the CBO assumes that the Bush tax cuts will end in 2010 and everyone will start paying higher taxes in 2011 and going forward. The Obama administration, on the other hand, assumed in its baseline that those tax cuts would be renewed. Economists we spoke with -- Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition, and Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst of the conservative Heritage Foundation -- both said they believe the White House approach is more realistic because it assumes current policy will continue. So the CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. It does highlight, however, that when it comes to budget projections, people can have differences of opinion about what to include. In any budget projection there is room for interpretation, but it seems reasonable to assume for a baseline that the Bush tax cuts will continue. Obama's numbers are fairly solid, so we rate his statement Mostly True. In April 2022, a picture was circulated on social media that supposedly showed U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., making a "white power" gesture during a Senate hearing or vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court. This example was shared on Twitter:  While the photograph is real, it was not taken during a hearing or vote on Jackson's confirmation, and there's no evidence that Blackburn was intentionally "throwing a white power sign" with her hand.   The picture appears to have been taken from video footage of an April 7, 2022, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley. Blackburn posted a video of herself questioning these officials to her own Twitter account. The hand position above can be seen around the 1:30 mark of the following video.   While what is more generally known in the U.S. as the "OK" hand symbol has truly been adopted (or co-opted) by some white supremacists, not every instance of this gesture is necessarily related to a hateful ideology. In most cases, the OK symbol simply means "OK." The same gesture has also been used as part of a game and by Kappa Alpha Psi, a Black fraternity that was formed in 1911. In other cases, someone might rest their hand in this position without any thought or meaning behind it.  "OK" hand symbol adopted (or co-opted) by some white supremacists, used as part of a game Kappa Alpha Psi, a Black fraternity that was formed in 1911 When we watched the entirety of the six-minute-long video of Blackburn's questioning, it seemed most plausible that Blackburn's hand position falls into the latter category: a random, momentary hand movement without any meaning behind it. Blackburn's questioning Washington Post reported But as the first Black woman nominated to the high court, Jackson also bears certain burdens that have become evident during her confirmation hearings. She has been subjected to questioning from some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that has been explicitly or implicitly all about race. She has been asked about critical race theory and the history of Americas slaveholding past and whether she has been too lenient in her sentencing as a trial judge  issues that are cultural flash points in todays caustic political debate but the first two of which have little to do with the actual work of the Supreme Court. During Jackson's hearing, Blackburn asked the judge to define the word "woman" and accused Jackson of being an advocate for judges to consider critical race theory when considering sentencing. Blackburn voted against Jackson's nomination along with all but three of her Republican colleagues. woman judges to consider critical race theory When this image was shared with the false claim that it showed Blackburn during Jackson's hearing, some social media users may have been primed to believe that Blackburn was acting out of some sort of racial malice. This, in turn, made it seem plausible, to some, that Blackburn was flashing a white power sign. But the image shown above was taken at an entirely different Senate hearing, one that was far less racially charged.  The claim that Blackburn made a white power gesture at Jackson's confirmation hearing (or vote) is false. While this is a real image of Blackburn, it comes from a different Senate hearing and no evidence has been provided to suggest that this was anything other than an inadvertent hand position.  Analysis | Jackson Endures Questioning with Racial Overtones from GOP Senators. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/23/jackson-endures-questioning-with-racial-overtones-gop-senators/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Democrats Dilemma: Back Bidens Pentagon Budget or Supersize It. POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/05/biden-pentagon-defense-budget-00022928. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Fact Check-Photo of Sen. Marsha Blackburn Was Not Captured at Justices Brown Confirmation. Reuters, 11 Apr. 2022. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-blackburn-miscaptioned-idUSL2N2W913W. Phillips, Steve. Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearing Reveals Republicans Racist Fears. The Guardian, 25 Mar. 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/25/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearing-reveals-republicans-racist-fears. Remarks by President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Senates Historic, Bipartisan Confirmation of Judge Jackson to Be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The White House, 8 Apr. 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/04/08/remarks-by-president-biden-vice-president-harris-and-judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-on-the-senates-historic-bipartisan-confirmation-of-judge-jackson-to-be-an-associate-justice-of-the-supreme-court/. Top Biden Defense Officials Admit Administration Was Wrong To Share Intelligence With Chinese. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, 7 Apr. 2022, https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2022/4/top-biden-defense-officials-admit-administration-was-wrong-to-share-intelligence-with-chinese. In January 2017, a screenshot of a tweet purportedly sent by President Donald Trump (pledging "mandatory drug testing" for recipients of public assistance) circulated on social media.  The text of the suspiciously undated tweet read "Drug test will be mandatory before receiving anything the government has to offer! We have to clean up these streets!":  Twitter's advanced search tool returns no results for such a tweet, and the deleted tweet archive Politwoops also has no record of President Trump's issuing such a statement via Twitter. results Politwoops Although President Donald Trump has tweeted about drug tests and drug testing in the past, none of those tweets mentioned a connection to qualifying for public assistance: drug tests drug testing The San Fran crash was totally the pilot's fault - may be too late for drug testing, RIDICULOUS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2013 July 9, 2013  Given the lack of standard Twitter formatting, and the lack of any attendant news  coverage about it (despite all the attention paid to Trump's Twitter feed by the news media), it's safe to say this tweet was fabricated and does not represent any statements made by President Trump via Twitter in January 2017. During an all-candidates Democratic forum in Rock Hill, S.C., on Nov. 6, 2015, host Rachel Maddow of MSNBC asked Bernie Sanders how he could win the support of African-American voters, a crucial Democratic voting group in the early primary state of South Carolina. Maddow noted that Sanders was polling at 8 percent in a recent poll in South Carolina and asked if he would be able to convince African-American voters that he could press for their issues. Sanders responded in part by citing his economic platform, which he said would positively impact African-Americans. I have the economic and social justice agenda now that, once we get the word out, will, in fact, resonate with the African-American community,Sanders said. We're talking about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Over half of the black workers in this country earn less. We wondered whether Sanders was right that over half of the black workers in this country earn less than $15 an hour. So we took a closer look. We turned to themost recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which, among other things, tracks the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by race. The bureaus data for the third quarter of 2015 shows that the median weekly earnings for African-American workers was $624. If you divide that by the standard 40 hours in a workweek, it works out to $15.60 per hour. That means that half of African-American workers earned less than $15.60. So Sanders was close on this but exaggerated slightly. His claim is off by a little more than 4 percent. When we asked Sanders campaign for their source, they pointed us to areportissued earlier this month from the National Employment Law Project that found that 54.1 percent of African-American workers earned less than $15.00 an hour. The group calculated that figure using data from 2012 through 2014. Thats a reasonable measurement, but while our figure covers a briefer period of time, its also more current, reflecting the continued economic growth since the end of 2014. Our ruling Sanders said that over half of the black workers in this country earn less than $15 an hour. Depending on the time frame used, the data shows that roughly half of black workers earn less than $15. The most recent data shows that half earn less than $15.60, which is a little higher than what Sanders said, but his number is not far off. We rate his claim Mostly True. On Jan. 9, 2023, a Twitter user tweeted that "Sony owns a patent that would force viewers to exclaim the brand name during commercials [in order] to end them." The tweet, which went viral, was accompanied by a "meme-worthy" patent illustration: meme-worthy  Snopes readers asked us if this was a genuine patent truly owned by Sony and if its purpose is accurately described in the viral tweet. In short, the answer to both questions is yes. More broadly, the patent  tracked down by TechRadar editor Lance Ulanoff  describes a "system for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games." The verbal commercial-ender is just one of several advertising solutions outlined in the patent. The patent is, indeed, owned by Sony. the patent The viral image comes from Figure 9 in this patent. The interpretation of the comic matches the technical notes for this figure: technical notes  In [the] first capture of the sequence, a user is watching [a] movie. Progress pointer in progress bar shows that [the] content display corresponds to a movie and that [a] break is approaching. On second capture, progress pointer shows that the movie has progressed to break for placing the IC [Interactive Commercial]. IC is interactive and instructions from the display ask the user to 'Say "McDonalds" to end [the] commercial.' On third capture, the user is saying "McDonalds!" The client device includes a microphone that captures the user's words and voice recognition on the device [that] determines that the user has responded. The system then proceeds to skip the rest of the commercial, as shown on fourth capture, where the user goes back to watch the movie. What's the point? The patent provides one example of a motivation for both advertiser and viewer: patent In one embodiment, the user gets rewarded with some points or a coupon from the sponsor [for shouting out the brand]. The rewards can be collected by the user in a variety of ways, such as receiving a coupon in the mail or via email, getting a text message in a mobile phone with the coupon, collecting points toward collecting [prizes] in a web site, etc. This, it bears highlighting, is not the only McDonald's-based interactive commercial technology described in the Sony patent. Figure 8 describes a scenario in which a viewer could "speed up" a commercial by "throwing a pickle" into a burger:  In the embodiment of FIG. 8, the instructions are "Throw the pickle to speed up commercial." The user, which is holding a one-handed controller with motion detection, swings his arm to simulate the act of throwing a pickle. As a result, the flying interactive pickle is placed in the burger, and the commercial message "Make it your way" is displayed briefly before the commercial ends and the user returns to watching the streaming media. Because this is a genuine patent owned by Sony that describes a system for skipping commercials that involves yelling brand names out loud, the claim is   Lance Ulanoff. "Sony Patent Would Have You Yell at Your TV to Skip Commercials." TechRadar, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.techradar.com/news/sony-patent-would-have-you-yell-at-your-tv-to-skip-commercials. Zalewski, Gary M. System for Converting Television Commercials into Interactive Networked Video Games. US8246454B2, 21 Aug. 2012, https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en. The protracted, often bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded into a hot war on Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel and Israel retaliated by bombarding the Gaza Strip. More than 20,000 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were reportedly killed during the first two months of the war alone. The violence is driven by mutual hostilities and territorial ambitions dating back more than a century. The internet has become an unofficial front in that war and is rife with misinformation, which Snopes is dedicated to countering with facts and context. You can help. Read the latest fact checks. Submit questionable claims. Become a Snopes Member to support our work. We welcome your participation and feedback. Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hamas deadly attack on Israel retaliated were reportedly killed mutual hostilities Read Submit Become a Snopes Member feedback Warning: Some external links in this story contain graphic imagery and language. Viewer discretion is advised. In late November 2023, numerous readers messaged Snopes asking if hamas.com was a real website operated by the militant group during the Israel-Hamas war. Many social media posts raised the same question, or claimed the site was indeed an authentic platform operated by Hamas, which is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement that has held control of Gaza since 2007. hamas.com posts same question Hamas held control of Gaza For instance, one user on X claimed, "They [Hamas] are so proud of themselves for what they did in Israel on #October7massacre so they uploaded it all onto their web page [hamas.com]," in reference to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that fueled the war. On Nov. 21, 2023, the state of Israel's official X account shared the website's URL, too, along with the caption, "To understand the scale of Hamas crimes against humanity visit Hamas.com." Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' account shared the site, as well. claimed Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel shared account  While the website was real  that is, hamas.com indeed existed, as of this writing, and was publicly accessible  it was not operated by the militant group, as the group's official domain was in fact Hamas.ps, and hamas.com's content was not in line with Hamas' official statements. Rather, evidence showed the website domain name has existed since 1999, and an unknown person, or group, used it to make the in-question site in mid-November 2023. Though Hamas did not create the site, it was unknown who, or what, did, as of this writing. A number of Jewish and pro-Israel news outlets claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda were responsible. Meanwhile, a domain-search tool showed the site's creator(s) used Wix.com, an Israeli-based website-hosting service. We will update this report if learn more. Also, according to sources such as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, The New Arab and The Palestinian Academic Society, the official website for Hamas was hamas.ps, not hamas.com. That site was active as recently as September 2023, internet archives showed, though was taken down since then under circumstances that are unknown. The New Arab The Palestinian Academic Society In an attempt to determine hamas.com's origins, we examined its contents. It included several sections, such as "WHAT DOES HAMAS STAND FOR" or "HAMAS TESTIMONIALS." On the homepage, a subhead read, "Share our Success and spread Jihad," with numbers supposedly depicting people killed. Additionally, the website hosted several videos supposedly showing Hamas' actions. Such clips were titled, "Young Jewish girl punished and taken to Gaza" and "Our Hamas warriors kidnapping an old woman," for examples. Outside of the site, social media users shared that footage  a fact made known by a "Hamas.com" overlay on the clips. The website also contained various blocks of text written in English that supposedly outlined Hamas' principles or goals. For instance, one section claimed Hamas would "discreetly spread the ideology" or "supersede all democratic systems." (emphasis ours): Islamic PrimacyIslamic law should supersede all democratic systems Takfir DoctrineThe whole world should adopt Islam, with non-Muslims being viewed as infidels and targets for assassination Coordinated LeadershipEstablishment synchronized power structures globally Stealthy PropagationEstablish Social programs to discreetly spread the ideology without attracting unwanted attention. Another block supposedly explained "Hamas's Presence and Activities in Different Countries." Similarly to the above-mentioned part, the sentences contained clues that they were not actually written by Hamas. For instance, the section claimed Hamas was using "deceptive narratives" and wanted to "overthrow secular governments" (emphasis ours): Stage 1Spread through social activities, often masking as movements and charitable entities Stage 2Dawah: Non-Muslims to embrace Islam through deceptive narratives of compassion and societal unity Stage 3Engage in local politics with the objective of influencing decision-making at the national level Stage 4Using military tactics, obtaining weapons, and using violence to achieve the movements goals and interests Stage 5Overthrow secular governments and establish a new government based on strict adherence to the Islamic law, and the execution or enslavement of non Muslims The text was authored to spread a specific narrative about Hamas. Hypothetically speaking, if it had truly been written by the militant group, it would be a blatant documentation of planned violence. In reality, text authored by Hamas does not use such phrasing. For instance, Hamas' latest charter does not mention overthrowing secular governments or using violence to achieve its goals, like the website claims. Rather, it words its objectives like this: Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. latest charter it words its objectives like this Some social media users claimed the website was created on an Israel-based platform, Wix.com. Under the pretense of that claim, the site was possibly created to align with Israel's political agenda. claimed the We have created a new website to implicate hamas, but we arent very smart so we created it on an Israeli companys platform (wix) (Hamas .com was created by Israel to make it seem like Hamas created it) pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb  Benjamin Netanyahu -   parody (@netanyahupress) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 We used ICANN  a tool that allows users to look up "current registration data for domain names and Internet number resources"  to independently verify that claim about the site being created on Wix.com, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. ICANN headquartered Our findings showed the website was, in fact, created using Wix.com. Wix.com  (ICANN screenshot) However, that evidence does not explain the website's purpose, nor prove a connection to Israel. For one, Wix operates globally, with offices in countries such as U.S, Germany, Brazil, India, and Singapore. Any user with access to Wix.com could have created the URL, regardless of the tech company's base in Israel. offices According to our findings via ICANN, the website's domain was created in 1999. We used Wayback Machine, an online Internet archive, to piece together the site's history. Those internet archives showed that, before Nov. 17, 2023, the domain hamas.com was not in its current form  that is, displaying text, videos and images related to the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. At some points since the domain's creation in 1999, it appeared to be for sale. Additionally, we found examples of the headlines reading, "Hot Israeli Woman," "Six Sigma Training," or "Iraq War Pictures Unedited" displayed on the Hamas.com website in 2006.  (Wayback Machine screenshots) (Note: Some social media users claimed the website was not safe to visit and could allegedly infect devices with malware. We checked the website's grade on Virus Total, a tool that scans URLs for viruses. The tool uses 90 security vendors to conduct analysis, and only two of them flagged hamas.com as possibly malicious. There was no further information about the alleged risk for visiting the site.) claimed tool Next, we considered the work of other journalists who investigated the site. While it was not clear who, or what, exactly, turned the website into a propaganda vessel during the Israel-Hamas conflict, journalists agreed Hamas was not involved. For instance, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist at BBC Verify, called hamas.com a "fake Hamas website." As the website "https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq" is being tweeted by many official Israeli government accounts, it's worth noting that it's a fake Hamas website. https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq The real website associated with Hamas is currently offline. pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R  Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 The first article on the topic was published by an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on Nov. 20, 2023. Pointing to the fact that Hamas' actual website was offline and underscoring that the videos on the website appeared to be similar to the footage released by the IDF, it claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda "hijacked" hamas.com to "highlight Hamas' actions" on Oct. 7. article The day after Haaretz's article published, on Nov. 21, The Jewish Press published an article with similar claims. It called hamas.com "Israeli-run," referring to the fact that the website was shared by multiple Israeli embassies and hosted on an Israeli platform. Moreover, the newspaper described it as a site pretending to be a "presentation of the terrorist organization itself, bragging about the horrors it inflicted on the Zionists." article Meanwhile, the Israeli news website Ynetnews concluded the website's "origins are unclear," though it vividly "showcases Hamas atrocities through graphic videos." The article cited a statement by Israel's Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry that suggested the website was created to confront Hamas' supporters: 'The decision to purchase the domain supposedly belonging to Hamas is a sophisticated way to confront those who sympathize with Hamas and justify its atrocities,' said David Saranga, head of the Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry, in response to Ynet. Hamas' actual website is Hamas.ps, according to sources including Haaretz. According to MISBAR, an independent Arabic fact-checking platform, Hamas confirmed via Telegram that its official website was hamas.ps: confirmed Hamas warned through a post on Telegram against dealing with websites that impersonate the movement and collects funds as part of distortion, fraud, and espionage, while announcing that their official website is hamas.ps and they have no other websites. At the time of this writing, hamas.ps was not publicly accessible. When we attempted to go to the website, we got an error message  "This site cant be reached"  indicating that it was taken down. accessible However, we were able to access hamas.ps via Wayback Machine. According to those records, here's what the website looked like in September 2023 (we translated text in the below-displayed image using Google Translate's plug-in). It's unknown when, or under what circumstances, the website was taken down after that. Also unknown was when it was created. hamas.ps  (Hamas.ps, Wayback Machine screenshot) All in all, given that Hamas did not create hamas.com  nor was the militant group operating the site during the Israel-Hamas war  we rated this claim   Hamas.Ps down? Current Problems and Status. - DownFor. Down For, https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/hamas.ps. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Ibrahim, Nur. People Claim a Majority of Palestinians in Gaza Elected Hamas  Heres Why It Isnt That Simple. Snopes, 1 Nov. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/01/majority-palestinians-gaza-elect-hamas/. ICANN Lookup. https://lookup.icann.org/en. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Israelis Hijack Hamas.Com, Turning It Into a Display of October 7 Atrocities. Haaretz. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-20/ty-article/.premium/israelis-hijack-hamas-com-turning-it-into-a-display-of-october-7-atrocities/0000018b-eca2-d8b1-a9df-ecef8b380000. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Kahan, Raphael and itamar. Whos behind pro-Israel Hamas Website. Ynetnews, 25 Nov. 2023. www.ynetnews.com, https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/bktpbd1ra. VirusTotal. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/f40ff59c4f3947f2b9e95861580b98e4d9b458626b35b40eabaea635484261d5/detection. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Wintour, Patrick, and Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor. Hamas Presents New Charter Accepting a Palestine Based on 1967 Borders. The Guardian, 1 May 2017. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders. Wix Offices Around the World | Help Center | Wix.Com. https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-offices-around-the-world. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.   | . https://misbar.com/en/editorial/2023/11/23/israel-promotes-a-fake-website-affiliated-with-hamas. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.    - . 5 Sept. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210905063708/https://hamas.ps/ar/. In June 2021, as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin faced sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, one widely-shared social media post accused Chauvin of other crimes, namely tax evasion. On June 25, @davenewworld_2 wrote on Twitter: "Derek Chauvin underreported half a million dollars in income while owing $20,000+ in taxes, and then fucking murdered George Floyd over an alleged $20 counterfeit bill..." wrote   That tweet, and the claims it contained, were further promoted in a popular Reddit post, on the following day. popular Reddit post On June 25, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of Floyd, a Black man who died after Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes, in May 2020. sentenced The claim that Chauvin "underreported half a million dollars in income" stems from an ongoing criminal case against him, and his former wife Kellie May Chauvin. However, Chauvin has not yet entered a plea in that case, and has not been tried or convicted, as of June 28, 2021. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven," for now. When the case is resolved, we will update this fact check accordingly. A brief note: Kellie May and Derek Chauvin divorced in February 2021, and during those proceedings she expressed an intention to change her last name. However, we have not been able to find any record of that name change, so this article refers to her using her last-known last name, Chauvin.  expressed an intention On July 22, 2020, the office of Washington County Attorney Pete Orput charged the Chauvins with nine counts each of felony tax evasion, claiming that they "failed to file income tax returns and pay state income taxes, underreported and underpaid taxes on income generated from various employments each year, and failed to pay proper sales tax on a vehicle purchased in Minnesota." charged The complaint against Derek Chauvin summarized the details of their alleged offenses, as follows: complaint The Chauvins did not file tax returns in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The filed tax returns for years 2014 and 2015 did not report income received from D. Chauvin's off-duty security work and K. Chauvin's photography income. Tax returns for years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 filed on June 26, 2020, did not report D. Chauvin's off-duty security work and K. Chauvin's photography income.  According to prosecutors, the Chauvins under-reported a total of $464,433 in income between 2014 and 2019, just short of the "half a million dollars" included in the widely-shared tweet from June 2021:  Source: Washington County Attorney's Office  However, the Chauvins have not yet entered pleas in this case, as of June 28, 2021. An omnibus hearing, at which the two defendants could potentially enter pleas, was scheduled for June 30, the Washington County Attorney's office told Snopes.  could potentially enter pleas Since Derek Chauvin has not yet pleaded guilty or been convicted of the charges against him, and neither might ever occur, the claim that he "under-reported half a million dollars in income" was unproven, as of June 28. When the case is resolved, we will update this fact check accordingly. On Nov. 28, 2022, the@Xx17965797N Twitter accounttweeteda video with a misleading caption that claimed the clip showed a sea of lined-up electric scooter bikes that were abandoned because of the high cost of electric vehicle (EV) battery replacement. The tweet read, "Electric green scooters that have reached end of battery life. Due to the batteries being so expensive to replace, electric scooters are abandoned because disposing of them any other way is dangerous and expensive." tweeted This was not true, despite the tens of thousands of combined retweets and likes that the tweet received.  The same video upload from @Xx17965797N was also misleadingly reshared by accounts including@PeterDClack, @JamesMelville, and @MillerForTexas. The former two tweets received thousands of engagements, despite the fact that the information pushed in the original tweet was not true. @PeterDClack @JamesMelville @MillerForTexas In cases like these where a caption is incorrect but the picture or video is real, we issue a fact-check rating of "Miscaptioned." Days before the @Xx17965797N tweet was posted, the@ElevaBrasilES account also misleadingly tweeted that the same video was shot in France. The tweet went up on Nov. 21 with an incorrect caption that read, "Green energy Cemetery of electric motorcycles in France. Now designated as a 'biohazard zone.'" (Note: This mention of France reminded us of other rumors we've debunked in the past, in particular about two photosof other car graveyards. The two pictures showed false captions that claimed the cars had been abandoned due to the high cost of battery replacement, just like the video we're looking at in this fact check.) tweeted two photos The oldest upload of the video that we could find came from TikTok user @smartsetting. The video was uploaded on Nov. 7 and by the end of the month had received nearly 5 million views.   Based on watching the video, the scooters appeared to be parked in a parking lot near a basketball court, perhaps in a university complex or public park. Several blurry Chinese characters were visible on the side of the bikes. At the end of the clip, a tall building could be seen on the right-hand side of the frame. Other than those pieces of information, we didn't have much to go on. In order to find the truth behind this video, we first used Adobe Media Encoder to export a JPEG file for each and every frame from the video. The results of this export were 440 individual images from the 14-second video. We then performed numerous reverse image searches with these picture files using Google Images and TinEye.com. These reverse image searches provided several clues as to where other users had reposted the video. However, we did not find any further details from these searches. Next, we tried several searches on Google, Twitter, and YouTube with phrases such as "electric scooter China" and "electric bike graveyard China," among other terms. This helped to find several repostsof the video. The searches alsoshowedresults for many of the sites in China that are the final resting placesfor massive stacks of bicycles dumped by bike-sharing companies with failed business models. Perhaps the most striking video we found was titled, "No Place To PlaceThe Wonders of Shared Bicycle Graveyards in China." several reposts showed results sites final resting places failed business models video At one point in our research, we stumbled upon an AFP videofrom 2021 that appeared to show the same yellow color and model of electric scooter bike. The caption for the clip said that it was captured "outside the city of Shenyang." The end of the video showed a stadium with special colors for seating zones. video model After an exhaustive search, we were able to find this same stadium by using the map tools on the Chinese website Baidu.com. Unlike Google Maps, Baidu.com has street-level views of nearby roads. However, this part of our effort wasn't very helpful. It remained unclear if this was the same location where the viral clip was shot. Baidu.com In the end, it was going back to TikTok that helped us find the origins of the video. A search on TikTok for "electric share bike China" brought us to this video from @evstevepan. The video showed the same kind of yellow electric scooter bike with a similar logo. A scan of the logo using a mobile phone camera and Google Translate revealed the company name Meituan, which is known as an "all-encompassing platform for local services." this video We then searched the internet for Meituan and electric scooters, which produced plenty of pictures on Shutterstock.com. For a moment, the two large characters on the side of the scooter didn't seem to match those from the viral video. We then horizontally flipped a still-frame from the viral video, which led us to discover that it had been mirrored, meaning that all words and numbers were backward. plenty of pictures All of these developments in our research led us to news articles that helped to show our findings were lining up. In April 2018, news broke that Meituan had purchased the company Mobike for $2.7 billion. According to the story, Mobike is "a Chinese startup that helped pioneer bike-sharing services worldwide." broke But by November of that same year, TechCrunch reported that Meituan would be "[walking] away from bike-sharing and ride-hailing," as there wasn't enough demand from customers for the supply of its bike-sharing venture: reported In April, Meituan entered the bike-sharing fray after it scooped up top player Mobike for $2.7 billion to face off Alibaba-backed Ofo. Over the past few years, Mobike and Ofo were burning through large sums of investor money in a bid to win users from subsidized rides, but both have shown signs of softening their stance recently. Mobike is downsizing its fleets to "avoid an oversupply" as the bike-sharing market falters, Meituan's chief financial officer Chen Shaohui said during the earnings call. Ofo has also scaled back by closing down many of its international operations. ... During its third quarter that ended September 30, Meituan posted a 97.2 percent jump on revenues to 19.1 billion yuan, or $2.75 billion, on the back of strong growth in food delivery transactions. The firm's investments in new initiatives  including ride-hailing and bike-sharing  took a toll as operating losses nearly tripled to 3.45 billion yuan compared to a year ago. Meituan shares plunged as much as 14 percent on Friday, the most since its spectacular listing. Just as so many electric bicycles from bike-sharing companies had piled up across China, so had electric scooters like the ones seen in the viral video. In sum, social media users falsely claimed that a video showed tons of lined-up electric scooter bikes that were abandoned in a "graveyard" due to the high cost of EV battery replacement. All evidence pointed to a simple answer: supply and demand. The number of electric scooter bikes and bicycles far outnumbered the number of people who requested to use them (or else they went missing or were stolen), which resulted in downsizing by some companies, and the closure of others.The clip appears to have been shot in China, although its precise location is unclear. far outnumbered went missing or were stolen We reached out to Meituan for comment on Nov. 29 but did not receive a response in time for publication. 25  2022 . ELDORADO, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gbI2Bo2xKCc. A Veces Hay Cosas Que Duelen y Desesperan. Lamenta, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmV5lBEYEMU. @Atomicfact. Twitter, 14 Aug. 2018, https://twitter.com/atomicfact/status/1029352130086424576. Baidu. https://map.baidu.com/. @BBC. "The Problem of China's Huge Bike Graveyards." Twitter, 20 May 2018, https://twitter.com/bbc/status/998231947359997952. @ElevaBrasilES. Twitter, 21 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/elevabrasiles/status/1594826198831570947. @evstevepan. "Share Electric Scooter in China #electricscooter #china #vlog." TikTok, 25 Sept. 2022, https://www.tiktok.com/@evstevepan/video/7147290373868506411. Freer. "Meituan Electric Shared Bikes on the Street." Shutterstock, 19 May 2020, https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/zhongshan-guangdong-chinamay-19-2020meituan-electric-1736816009. Google Images. https://images.google.com/. Google Translate. https://translate.google.com/. "Graveyard of the Bikes: Aerial Photos of China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme Show Mountains of Damaged Bikes." The Straits Times via AFP, 21 Apr. 2021, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/graveyard-of-the-bikes-chinas-failed-share-cycle-scheme-from-above. "Graveyard of the Bikes: China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme from Above." Techxplore.com via AFP, 21 Apr. 2021, https://techxplore.com/news/2021-04-graveyard-bikes-china-share-cycle-scheme.html. @JamesMelville. Twitter, 29 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/jamesmelville/status/1597532727338639360. Liao, Rita. "Meituan, China's 'everything App,' Walks Away from Bike Sharing and Ride Hailing." TechCrunch, 23 Nov. 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/23/meituan-scale-back-ride-hailing-and-bike-sharing/. @mbrennanchina. Twitter, 4 Dec. 2018, https://twitter.com/mbrennanchina/status/1069940186786775042. @MillerForTexas. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/millerfortexas/status/1597346555111280640. No Place To PlaceThe Wonders of Shared Bicycle Graveyards in China. Guoyong Wu, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDfLWFv3ixk. @PeterDClack. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/peterdclack/status/1597371847397761024. Russell, Jon. "Chinese Bike-Sharing Pioneer Mobike Sold to Ambitious Meituan Dianping for $2.7B." TechCrunch, 3 Apr. 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/03/chinese-bike-sharing-pioneer-mobike-sold-to-ambitious-meituan-dianping-for-2-7b/. Shared Electric Bikes Roll into Changsha in Central China. CGTN, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkSUN-FSuNI. Siqi, Ji. "Taxpayers Foot the Clean-up Bill for China's Bike-Sharing Bust." South China Morning Post, 2 Oct. 2020, https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3103908/what-happens-discarded-bikes-chinas-sharing-boom-taxpayers. Sprawling Bike Graveyard from China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme. AFP News Agency, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1Qxs_KOYo. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. u/silvertomars. "A Graveyard for Electric Scooters the Batteries Have Reached the End of Their Life-Time, but Are Too Expensive to Replace and Safely Disposing or Recycling the Batteries Is Also Too Expensive." r/Wallstreetsilver via Reddit.com, 28 Nov. 2022, https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/z7i7ng/a_graveyard_for_electric_scooters_the_batteries/. @vegastarr. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/vegastarr/status/1597338236472659968. @Xx17965797N.Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/xx17965797n/status/1597310309139873792. Yan, Alice. "Chinese Bike-Share Firm Closes after 90 per Cent of Cycles Stolen." South China Morning Post, 21 June 2017, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2099293/chinese-bike-share-firm-closes-after-90-cent-cycles-stolen.