Did Oregon Officials Say 'Showing Work' in Math Class Is White Supremacism?
In early 2021, Snopes became aware of online reports that alleged the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) said the practice of students documenting how they answer math problems perpetuated white supremacism. Among web pages circulating the claim was a Feb. 15 article on conservative commentator Ben Shapiro's media website, The Daily Wire. It read: Feb. 15 article A mathematics guide sent out to Oregon schools tells educators that asking students to show their work in math class is a form of white supremacy. [...] Examples of classroom actions that allegedly perpetuate white supremacy include asking students to show their work, focusing on getting the right answer, tracking student success, and grading students. A separate web page by Fox News titled, "Oregon promotes teacher program that seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics'," also made the assertion, while users of social media sites including Twitter and Reddit debated the accuracy of such reports, or circulated their allegations about the state department's instructions to educators as fact. web page Reddit   We learned the rumor's source was a Feb. 5 newsletter from ODE to math teachers across the state that included links to additional teaching resources. See the below-displayed screenshot of a portion of the public bulletin, of which Snopes confirmed the authenticity via ODE's Director of Communications Mark Siegel. Feb. 5 newsletter   In other words, a portion of the ODE-sponsored newsletter promoted a virtual learning seminar designed by an outside entity  Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction  that aimed to equip middle school math teachers with ideas to curb documented performance gaps between white and English-speaking students and all other students, according to the bulletin and our correspondence with Siegel. Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction documented The Oregon newsletter included links to the home page of the so-called "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction" project (on which we elaborate below), as well as to register for the course. Siegel said in an email to Snopes: home page "The materials contained in the [newsletter] are drawn from both internal and external sources and inclusion of external materials does not necessarily indicate Oregon Department of Education endorsement." More than 30 people from agencies across California and other states  such as San Diego State University, the Los Angeles County of Education and UnboundEd (a hub of training resources for teachers)  designed the ODE-advertised project "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," according to an online pamphlet listing collaborators. UnboundEd online pamphlet In addition to the online teaching classes featured in the ODE newsletter, the initiative's website hosts several PDFs to which middle school teachers anywhere can refer if they are interested in working toward the project's goal: dismantling racism in math classes. One such report, totaling 82 pages, stated more than halfway through: initiative's website   In other words, a resource on the website for "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," which ODE called a partner in the newsletter, indeed stated that "white supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms" when educators require students to show their work because the mandate does not necessarily help students process information. Instead, the PDF encouraged teachers to offer a variety of ways for students to demonstrate their question-answering process, including via verbal discussions or multimedia projects that don't use written words or numbers. We reached out to several of the project's collaborators for their comment on the The Daily Wire and Fox News' framing of the above-described advice for middle school math teachers, and we heard back from Joanne Rossi Becker, a math and statistics professor at San Jose State University. Becker said while she did not author the report  she served as a reviewer of its materials  the recommendation aimed to encourage educators to allow students to explain their thinking in ways other than writing, such as through conversations, graphs, or videos. "Overall, the document is well done and has cogent recommendations for teachers and other educators to ameliorate implicit bias and racism," Becker wrote in an email to Snopes.   To be clear, while the ODE newsletter promoted a course designed by the project to eliminate racial and language gaps in teaching, as well as a link to a homepage, it did not include a link to or mention the above-displayed PDF, specifically. Siegel told Snopes: ODE did not directly instruct educators in terms of specific instructional practices, rather an optional resource was shared to support teacher conversations to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The department is supportive of conversations in the larger context identifying beliefs and practices that perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics. The authors of this resource described this larger idea using the term white supremacy. The term 'showing the work' in this resource refers to a single approach identified by the teacher. Although a single answer may be expected, students could arrive at correct answers using a variety of approaches such as grouping physical objects (legos, blocks), diagrams of problems, writing it out, video explanations, and spreadsheets. Put another way, the department said it supports the project's goal to help students of color and multilingual students do better in math class, as well as its recommendation to allow classes a variety of ways to explain how they solve problems. "Neither ODE nor the course has made claims that math content itself is racist," Siegel wrote. "The system of mathematics education, including policy, graduation requirements, standards, instruction, course sequences, and assessments, must be evaluated through an equity stance to disrupt inequitable outcomes we currently experience." In sum, it's true a project designed by dozens of school administrators and scholars said expanding options for math students to explain their processes for answering questions could help close racial and language gaps in teaching, addressing existing "white supremacy culture." But it was false to frame that recommendation as a mandatory directive from ODE to teachers, or to suggest the department itself said the standard idea of "showing work" is a form of white supremacy. For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and misleading information.
Wilsonville businessman John Ludlow is in a four-way race for Clackamas County Commission Chair in next week's election. He says that he is the only candidate in the race who will refuse to join the Public Employees Retirement System.Is he the only candidate in the race to make such a promise? Perhaps just as important a question: Are elected officials even able to decline joining the retirement system?The Public Employees Retirement System is a hot-button issue with critics who claim it eats way too much money, hurting taxpayers to benefit public employees. The retirement program is open to participating employers, from the state of Oregon to school districts and cities.We turned to Paul Cleary, the retirement system's executive director. He pointed toOregon Revised Statutes 238A.100 (2): A person who is elected or appointed to an office with a fixed term ...may elect not to become a member of the pension program by giving the Public Employees Retirement Board written notice not later than 30 days after taking office. The trick here, says Cleary, is that for a person to decline membership, that person cannot have been a PERS member, ever. Ludlow is a former Wilsonville city councilor and served as Wilsonvilles mayor from 1989 to 1991, but received no retirement benefits from his time in public office.Ludlow, 63, says he has never been a member of PERS, and the Public Employees Retirement System confirms he is not a member.The other Clackamas County commission chair candidates are members of the Public Employees Retirement System. They are county Chairwoman Charlotte Lehan, county Commissioner Paul Savas, and state Rep. Dave Hunt. They cannot opt out. Savas said he never knew he could decline to join.He is the only candidate who will refuse, and who can refuse, to join PERS. We expect Ludlow to keep his promise if he wins, and we rate his statement True. In February 2020, a text meme concerning Sen. Bernie Sanders' health care plan and his proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour was circulated on social media. The meme contained several arithmetic equations that supposedly showed how the pay increase for minimum wage workers would be negated by the hike in taxes needed to pay for Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan:   Bernie Sanders said at the debate last night he wants minimum wage to be $15 an hour. 15$ x 40 hr work week = $600600$ x 52 weeks per year = $31,200 Bernie Sanders wants free healthcare for all and was asked how he would pay for it. His answer was to raise taxes 52% on anyone making over $29,000 per year. 52% of $31,200 = $16,224 in tax$31,200 - $16,224 = $14,976 is your pay$14,976  52 weeks = $288 per week$288  40 hr week = $7.20 per hour But there's no need to check the arithmetic in this meme. The general claim here  that Sanders' health care plan would raise the tax rate to 52% on everyone making over $29,000 per year  is egregiously false. In short, no. One proposal offered by Sanders would raise the tax rate to 52% on earnings over $10 million. Sanders also proposed that the first $29,000 of a person's income would be exempt from taxes, and a 4% income-based premium would be applied to earnings over $29,000. The meme asserts that Sanders made this claim "at the debate last night." As this meme started circulating in mid-February 2020, we'll assume that timing refers to the Democratic presidential debate held in Las Vegas on Feb. 17, 2020. Although Sanders did say that he wanted to raise the minimum wage to $15 during that debate, he did not say that he would pay for his health care plan by raising "taxes to 52% on anybody making over $29,000 a year." Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg did maintain that "taxes will go up on anybody making more than $29,000" under Sanders' tax plan, but Buttigieg did not claim that the tax rate would increase to 52% for these individuals. Sanders disputed Buttigieg's claim during the debate, saying the latter was "not being honest" and that any tax increase for low-wage workers would be offset by lower health care costs. Here's an excerpt of the exchange between the two men (a full transcript of the debate is available here): here BUTTIGIEG: [Sanders] was a congressman at the time. And the qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal. I never said that I agree with every part of his policy views, then or now. But I appreciate that at least he's straightforward and honest about them. He's honest about the fact that taxes will go up on anybody making more than $29,000 to fund his health care plan, although, again, a little bit vague about how the rest of that gets ... SANDERS: You're not being honest. Premiums would be eliminated. BUTTIGIEG: But you're still raising those taxes. And when you do it... SANDERS: But we're saving people money because they don't pay any premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, co-payments, or deductibles. They're going to be much better off. [applause] BUTTIGIEG: But where is  where is the other $25 trillion supposed to come from? At a certain point, you've got to do the math. SANDERS: Well, we got it all up there on the internet. It's a payroll tax  a payroll tax... [crosstalk] BUTTIGIEG: Well, no, but even after the payroll tax, you still have a hole. [crosstalk] SANDERS: Because we have a wealth tax. Elizabeth [Warren] has a good one. Ours is a little bit tougher on Mr. Bloomberg than hers. We're going to raise it in a progressive way, which deals with income and wealth inequality, and makes certain, finally, that health care in this country is a human right, not a privilege. Although Sanders did not reference it during that debate, we did find mention of a 52% tax rate on a document he released to explain various "options to finance Medicare for All." That document stated that the 52% tax rate would be applied to earnings over $10 million, not $29,000 as claimed in the meme. Here's the relevant excerpt from that document (emphasis ours): document Another option is to reform the personal income tax system by strengthening progressive income tax rates, taxing capital gains and dividends the same as work income, limiting deductions for the wealthy, taxing carried interest as ordinary income, and requiring derivatives to be marked to market. Progressive income tax rates. Under this plan the marginal income tax rate would be: Sanders mentioned the $29,000 figure in another document entitled "Financing Medicare for All." This documented listed a few additional ways to pay for Medicare for All, including a 4% income-based premium on incomes over $29,000. Here's an excerpt from that document (emphasis ours): Financing Medicare for All As the wealthiest country in the world, we have a variety of options available to support a Medicare for All, single-payer health care system that guarantees high quality, affordable health care as a right, not a privilege, to every man, woman, and child in this country. Those options include, but are not limited to: Sanders elaborated on this portion of his plan during a September 2019 appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert": September 2019  Sanders made a similar statement during a town hall in New Hampshire in November 2019. Sanders again said that the first $29,000 of an individual's earnings would be exempt from taxes and then a 4% tax rate would apply on earnings over $29,000: town hall What we will do  what we will do is have a four percent tax on income exempting the first $29,000," Sanders told his supporters. "All right, good. You  youre better at arithmetic than I am. Because what that means is if you are that average family in the middle who makes $60,000 a year, that means were going to tax you on $31,000 at four percent. We were unable to find any instance of Sanders' proposing a 52% tax rate on "anybody making over $29,000" per year, something that appears to be an erroneous conflation of Sanders' proposing a 4% tax rate on earnings over $29,000 and a 52% tax rate on earnings over $10 million. A counter-meme offered a more accurate (although still not entirely accurate) look at Sanders' actual expressed plans:  This meme, too, makes a mistake. Sanders' tax proposal uses a marginal tax rate (or a progressive tax rate), which means that a different tax rate is applied to different portions of a person's income. The percentage taxed starts relatively small, but grows as income increases. In Sanders' case, the first $29,000 of a person's income would be exempt from taxes. When a person's income crosses the $29,000 threshold, a 4% tax will be applied to earnings OVER$29,000. This tax rate continues to grow as income increases. Income over $10 million, for instance, would be taxed at 52%. But the above-displayed meme applies a 4% tax rate to ALL $31,200. Under Sanders' plan, however, the first $29,000 would be exempt and the 4% tax rate would only apply to the remaining $2,200. We reached out to Sanders' campaign for comment on the claim that the candidate was planning to raise the tax rate to 52% on everyone making over $29,000 per year. A spokesperson told us "the meme is false."  Kangadis, Nick.  "Bernie Sanders Says Tax Hike on Lower, Middle Classes Will Pay for Medicare for All Plan."
  MRCTV.  26 November 2019. Frazin, Rachel.  "Colbert Questions Sanders on Middle-Class Tax Hike After Pressing Warren on the Same Topic."
  The Hill.  27 September 2019. NBC News.  "Full Transcript: Ninth Democratic Debate in Las Vegas."
  19 February 2020. Updated [24 February 2020]: Added information to clarify the marginal tax rate structure and correct an inaccurate portion of a secondary meme. In an opinionarticlehe wrote for the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Sen.Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called for an end to corporate socialism and made a claim about wealth inequality. The wealthiest three families now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country, and they will do everything they can to block our agenda, wrote Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. The latest-available data back up his statement, and it appears the gap is widening. A note aboutwealth, before we dig in: Many Americans make a good income, have some savings and investments, and own a nice home. But they also have debt, typically from a mortgage, credit cards or other bills. The result is that even some people with relatively healthy incomes, as well as many poorer people, have a negative net worth   the more technical term for wealth. Sanders campaign told us his claim is based on a 2017 study from the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies. It used Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans and data from agold-standardfederal government source on wealth. Those are 2016 figures, from the Federal Reserve Boards Survey of Consumer Finances, which are updated every three years. The study found that the three wealthiest individuals wereBill Gatesof Microsoft with $89 billion, Jeff Bezos of Amazon with $81.5 billion andWarren Buffettof Berkshire Hathaway with $78 billion. Their total wealth of $248.5 billion was higher than the wealth of the bottom 160 million Americans, at $245 billion. Despite Sanders suggestion that the three men would block his agenda, they have expressed centrist political views over the years, and Buffett was a well-known supporter of former PresidentBarack Obama, a Democrat. Whatever their views, Sanders is correct about their wealth, which is on the rise. Forbes latest annual rankingsfor 2018show Bezos, Gates and Buffett still ranked at Nos. 1, 2 and 3, respectively, and that their total wealth was $345 billion. New federal figures for the bottom 160 million Americans arent expected to be released until sometime later in 2019. For the 160 million people at the bottom of the scale, the study used the net worth figure reported by the Fed and then subtracted automobiles and other durable goods such as electronics, furniture, and household appliances, from that figure. Subtracting durable goods from net worth offers us a more accurate depiction of household wealth as these items are not easily sellable and neither appreciate nor hold constant their value, the study said. University of Michigan sociology professorFabian Pfeffer, whose research specialties include wealth inequality, was among a number of economists and wealth inequality experts who told us the federal figures used in the study are the best for assessing wealth in the population. He told us that the wealth gap is much greater in the United States than in other Western industrialized nations. Pfeffer said the top 5% hold more than 70% of all net worth in the United States. Thats compared to 44% in Austria and Sweden, and lower figures in other comparable nations. Sanders said, The wealthiest three families now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country. The latest available figures indicate that the total wealth of Gates, Bezos and Buffett was $248.5 billion, exceeding the total wealth of $245 billion of the bottom half of Americans. We rate Sanders statement True. In the summer of 2020, readers sent Snopes multiple inquiries about widely shared social media posts claiming that PepsiCo, the company that makes Pepsi, had donated $100 million to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In May 2020, a Black man named George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, prompting a renewed wave of nationwide and international protests against racial injustice and police brutality. The BLM movement spearheaded much of that protest and debate, and in response, critics of the protests targeted BLM, often deploying false, exaggerated, or distorted allegations.  targeted During the summer of 2020, those critics sought to target several major U.S. companies, including PepsiCo, by claiming they had each donated substantial amounts to BLM. Social media posts in July read that: Social media posts BankofAmerica Gave them $1 BILLIONPepsiCo - $400 MILLIONWalmart - $100 MILLIONApple - $100 MILLIONComcast - $100 MILLION Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk alluded to an incident in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 2020, in which local residents Mark and Patricia McCloskey pointed firearms at protesters, writing on Twitter:  pointed firearms writing "In America if terrorists show up to your home, you get charged for showing that you own a weapon after they tear down your gate. And the thugs who entered on to your property get $400 million from PepsiCo. as a reward." In August 2020, social media users focused on PepsiCo, and the amount of the company's purported donation to BLM shifted from $400 million to $100 million, for reasons that are unclear, but may have resulted from a misreading of earlier posts that claimed Walmart, Apple, and Comcast had each donated $100 million to BLM.  A typical version of the post claimed that: "PEPSI JUST GAVE BLM A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS... PLEASE BOYCOTT PEPSI!" typical version post claimed   The August posts that claimed PepsiCo had given $100 million to BLM appeared to have been based on the earlier claims that the company had donated $400 million. In turn, those earlier posts stemmed from an announcement the company made in June 2020. On June 16, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta wrote: wrote "Today, I am announcing the next step in PepsiCos journey for racial equality: a more than $400 million set of initiatives over five years to lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo. These initiatives comprise a holistic effort for PepsiCo to walk the talk of a leading corporation and help address the need for systemic change." Specifically, the company pledged to spend, over the course of five years: We asked PepsiCo whether it, or any charitable entities associated with the company, had donated to groups or projects associated with BLM, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a Delaware-registered entity that is one of the leading formal embodiments of the movement. We also requested a list of any recipients of charitable disbursements from the $400 million investment announced in June. We did not receive a response in time for publication. However, since $415 million was reserved for supporting Black-owned suppliers, restaurants, and small businesses, as well as starting a fellowship program, it was therefore mathematically impossible for $100 million to have been pledged for BLM. The only component of that spending that appears to leave room for any involvement with BLM is the $6.5 million reserved for "community impact grants to address systemic issues." So even if that entire portion of funding went to BLM, it would still constitute only a small fraction of the $100 million and $400 million claimed in social media posts in the summer of 2020. None of those who promoted those claims presented any evidence that linked PepsiCo's pledged investment with specific, named organizations or projects associated with the broader BLM movement or the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. The claim that PepsiCo had donated $100 million (or $400 million) to BLM appeared to be based on a basic misunderstanding of the company's June 2020 announcement  or the false assumption that any investment associated with the Black community or rectifying racial injustice must be directly connected to BLM.  Laguarta, Ramon.  "Pepsico's Journey to Racial Equality: A Message from Our CEO."
  PepsiCo. 16 June 2020. When Susan Goodman Komen died of breast cancer at the age of 33 in 1980, her younger sister, Nancy Goodman Brinker promised she would do whatever she could to help end that disease.  Brinker fulfilled that promise by founding The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (later known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure, then just Susan G. Komen) in 1982, a group that has since become the largest and most well known breast cancer organization in the United States: breast cancer Brinker fulfilled a promise to her sister that she would do everything she could to help eradicate the disease  a disease that Brinker also was diagnosed with and successfully fought. "At that time, there was a stigma and shame around breast cancer," Brinker said. "You didn't talk about it. There were no 800-numbers, no Internet. Our government didn't spend much on breast cancer research. There were few major cancer centers with expertise about breast cancer. That's the world we faced when Suzy was diagnosed. It's a world I watched her suffer in, and it's a world she wanted us to change." In 2012, Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker became the focus of controversy when she announced Komen would be pulling the grants the organization had been providing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings, then quickly reversed that decision.  Several months later Brinker announced she would be stepping down as Komen's CEO, but the following year she was again the focus of controversy when news outlets reported that not only did she still hold her CEO position, but she had received a hefty raise to boot that brought her annual compensation up to $684,000 per year: In early 2012, Komen announced it was pulling its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, drawing an immediate backlash from Komen supporters and abortion rights advocates. Within days, Nancy Brinker, the groups founder and CEO, reversed the decision to defund the organization. Then, in August, Brinker announced that she would be stepping down. But 10 months later, Brinker still holds her position and tax documents reveal that she received a 64 percent raise and now makes $684,000 a year, according to the charitys latest available tax filing.  Komen says the raise came in November 2010, prior to last year's controversy. Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, which evaluates and rates charities, called Brinker's salary "extremely high." "This pay package is way outside the norm," he said. "It's about a quarter of a million dollars more than what we see for charities of this size. This is more than the head of the Red Cross is making, for an organization that is one-tenth the size of the Red Cross."  The American Red Cross had revenue of about $3.4 billion, while Komens was about $340 million last year.  Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern makes $500,000, according to the most recent financial documents available for the charity. Charity Navigator's last compensation figure for Nancy Brinker was $560,896 per year, which at the time put her below Komen president Elizabeth Thompson's reported annual compensation of $606,461.   In June 2013, Komen finally announced that Brinker would be stepping down as president and CEO of that organization and named Judith A. Salerno, M.D. as her successor.  In June 2015, Brinker reportedly resigned from her paid position to assume an unpaid role role as a top volunteer with Komen. Dr. Salerno's most recently reported compensation (in August 2017) was $479,858, while Nancy Brinker was still listed as a "founder" receiving a salary of $397,093. compensation announced unpaid In September 2017, Paula Schneider took over as president and CEO of Komen, with compensation of $137,155 reported as of the end of the fiscal year in March 2018. Paula Schneider The reference to Komen's applying only 20% of donated money to breast cancer research likely comes from a pie chart displayed in the "Use of Funds" section of Wikipedia's article about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which showed Komen's 2009-2010 Expenses: Use of Funds  While it may have been true that breast cancer research comprised only a 21% share of Komen's program expenses (Charity Navigator puts the figure at 28.8% as of March 2018), citing that figure as a criticism of the organization reflects a common misbelief that groups dedicated to addressing particular diseases (e.g., the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the ALS Association) exist solely or primarily to fund and direct research into curing and/or preventing those diseases.  This perception is inaccurate: Komen and other groups like it have goals that include delivering a wide array of services to the communities they support beyond the funding of research, such as funding educational awareness and outreach programs, providing screening and diagnostic procedures, and arranging medical treatment and home care for persons currently living with those diseases.  A more relevant metric for assessing a charity's overall financial effectiveness is the percentage of the organization's budget that is actually spent on all the programs and services the charity delivers, and in this area the Charity Navigator charity evaluation site gives  Komen an 80.3 rating (as well as a 96.0 rating for Accountability & Transparency).  Charity Navigator does rank many other breast cancer charities higher than Susan G. Komen for the Cure, however. Komen breast cancer Regarding the seemingly excessively high level of CEO salaries at some charities, Charity Navigator advises that: advises While there are certainly some charities that overpay their leaders, Charity Navigator's data shows that those organizations are the minority. Among the charities we've evaluated (those being mid to large-sized charities), the typical CEO's annual compensation is in the low to mid six figures. Before you make any judgments about salaries higher or lower than that range, we encourage you to keep in mind that these charities are complex organizations, with multi-million dollar budgets, hundreds of employees, and thousands of constituents. These leaders could inevitably make much more running similarly sized for-profit firms. Furthermore, when making your decision it is important to consider that it takes a certain level of professionalism to effectively run a charity and charities must offer a competitive salary if they want to attract and retain that level of leadership. In the years 2007, 2008, and 2009, Al Gore made statements about the possibility of a complete lack of summer sea ice in the Arctic by as early as 2013. While Gore attributed these predictions to scientists, they stemmed from a selective reading of aggressive estimates regarding future melting. The comments became a popular talking point for human-cause climate change deniers in 2014 and onward when the predictions, which in some cases were overstated, did not pan out:  On 10 December 2007, in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, Gore said: acceptance speech Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years. Here, Gore referred to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) announcement and two different climate studies, one of which became the source for his most aggressive statements. On 21 September 2007, NOAA did announce that sea ice had hit its lowest recorded point in history. The second, more aggressive estimate for when summer sea ice would disappear in the Arctic came from a conference talk at the 2007 American Geophysical Fall Meeting, which was undertaken by researchers associated with the Naval Postgraduate School and was presented later that week. The BBC reported that the study did make the prediction that Gore claimed: conference talk BBC Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss. The BBC article also noted that Maslowskis group, frequently cited by Gore, often made predictions that were more aggressive than their peers': "Professor Maslowski's group, which includes co-workers at NASA and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams." On 13 December 2008, Gore appeared to have made a similarly flawed statement while speaking at the opening of a German natural history museum. Although transcripts and clear audio are hard to find, one video of the event documented Gore's saying that "The entire North polar ice cap may well be completely gone in 5 years. Given the dates presented, it is likely that Gore was once again referring to Maslowskis data, and unless he preceded his statement with some qualification not captured by the video, Gore's statement either intentionally or accidentally neglected to mention that this prediction, aggressive as it was, concerned only summer sea ice. opening video On 14 December 2009, during a speech at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, Gore cited newer research from the same group, saying: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years." cited That statement put Gore in hot water when Maslowski told rhe Times of London that his data did not allow for such a prediction:   told Its unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, Dr Maslowski said. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this. Mr Gores office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a ballpark figure several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore. The claim that Gore predicted an ice-free Arctic in 2014 is a simplification of these events. However, Gore was definitely guilty in these cases of cherry-picking science or playing loose with the details of that science. Gores statements gained the most viral attention in 2014 and 2015, both because these were years in which Gores statements implied an ice-free summer in the Arctic and because those years had relatively more arctic sea ice than preceding years. relatively more From a broad perspective, however, summer sea ice in the Arctic has in fact been declining at faster rates relative to 20th century, and the year 2016 tied with the year 2007 (the year highlighted by Gore in his Nobel speech) for the second least Arctic summer sea ice on record (the lowest recorded sea ice extent occurred in 2012). declining tied While the disappearance of summer sea ice is difficult to predict, a 2013 review of different approaches (including Maslowskis) summarized the range of various predictions for the first ice-free summer in the Arctic: review We have investigated three approaches to predicting 21st century summer Arctic sea ice loss as represented by trendsetters, stochasters, and modelers [three quantitative approaches used to make predictions]. At present, it is not possible to completely choose one approach over another as all approaches have strengths and weaknesses ... Time horizons for summer sea ice loss of these three approaches turns out to be roughly 2020, 2030, and 2040 respectively for trendsetters, stochasters, and modelers ... It is reasonable to conclude that Arctic sea ice loss is very likely to occur in the rst rather than the second half of the 21st century, with a possibility of loss within a decade or two. Arctic sea ice is without question on a declining trend, but Gore definitely erred in his use of preliminary projections and misrepresentations of research. Because Gore himself did not claim to have made these predictions, however, and because his statements applied specifically to summer sea ice in the Arctic, we rate the claim that Gore "predicted the ice caps will melt by 2014" as a mixture. Gore, Al  "Al Gore - Nobel Lecture"
  Nobeprize.org.  10 December 2007 Whelan, J. et al.  "Understanding Recent Variability in the Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Volume - Synthesis of Model Results and Observations."
  AGU Fall Meeting, 2007.  December 2007. Amos, Jonathan.  "Arctic Summers Ice-Free 'by 2013.'"
  BBC News.  December 2007. Rhein-Zeitung.  "Al Gore hlt Rede zur Erffnung des Gondwana-Park."
  13 December 2008. FORA TV.  "COP15: Gore and Stre Report on Arctic's Melting Ice."
  14 December 2009. Devlin, Hannah et al.  "Inconvenient Truth for Al Gore as His North Pole Sums Don't Add Up."
  The [London] Times.  15 December 2009. Starr, Cindy et al.  Annual Arctic Sea Ice Minimum 1979-2015 with Area Graph."
  NASA Scientific Visualization Studio.  10 March 2016. National Snow and Ice Data Center.  "2016 Ties With 2007 for Second Lowest Arctic Sea Ice Minimum."
  15 September 2016. Overland, James E. and Muyin Wang.  When Will the Summer Arctic Be Nearly Sea Ice Free?"
  Geophysical Research Letters.  21 May 2013. "The Price Is Right" is not ending, nor did its host, Drew Carey, endorse keto diet pills, despite what some readers might have seen online in a fake article that was designed to mimic the Us Weekly website. The Price Is Right Drew Carey keto Us Weekly On May 9, 2022, we looked at a paid advertisement from the Blossom Words Facebook page that showed a picture of Carey with a sad expression on his face. The ad read, "What you didn't know about the 'Price Is Right' host. Will the show stay on air?" It appeared to hint that the long-running game show would be ending. However, this was nothing but misleading clickbait to try to sell a keto diet pill product named Lifestyle Keto. Facebook Carey Price Is Right  The ad appeared to vaguely hint that something was revealed about Carey that he was sad about. We previously saw this same clickbait tactic used with "Jeopardy" host Mayim Bialik. In that instance, an ad falsely claimed that there were "allegations" against Bialik. The ad led to a fake CBD gummies endorsement page that mentioned nothing of any "allegations" against the TV star, because there were none. Carey Jeopardy Mayim Bialik CBD After clicking the ad with Carey's sad facial expression, we were led to a scammy website (entertainmentnewsnow.net) that published a fake Us Weekly article. It appeared that scammers had copied the design from the official Us Weekly website and recreated it to push their scam, all seemingly without the authorization of the magazine's parent company, A360 Media, LLC. A360 Media, LLC  The article included a fake interview between Carey and Ellen DeGeneres in which he purportedly endorsed a product named Lifestyle Keto. The interview supposedly happened on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." At one point during the fake interview, DeGeneres supposedly asked, "Lifestyle Keto? You mean Lifestyle Ketosis? I think I saw something on Dr. Oz about it." We found no record of this interview or any mention of Lifestyle Keto on Dr. Mehmet Oz's show, because it was completely made up by the person or people who designed the website. Ellen DeGeneres Dr. Mehmet Oz The fake interview in the fake Us Weekly article had the following headline: "After Drew Careys Shocking Health News- Millions Of Americans Are Melting Body Fat & Getting Ripped Thanks To His Intermittent Keto Routine!" It began like this: The Price Is Right's Drew Carey has recently opened up about his recent body transformation after having battled with weight problems for most of his life. Drew was recently announced as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, and is a loving father. Carey said that for his entire comedy career, he had tried everything. He tried a lot of classes, he tried his own healthy recipes, but nothing worked like Lifestyle Keto did. Like millions of parents across North America, the TV star seems to swear by Keto Prime, but he has said it was hard to find something that worked and he trusted - it took him years to find this keto solution. In 2022, Drew Carey told US Weekly Magazine that he had tried almost every fitness style, class, and supplement out there, but was yet to figure out what works for him. The Price Is Right "I tried spinning, I tried running, I tried Pilates. I realized I don't like running ... I refuse to do it," Drew Carey told the publication. Eventually, he said he fell in love with Lifestyle Keto. This whole article was both misleading and false. Again, we found no record that Carey had ever endorsed Lifestyle Keto or any other keto diet pills. To cover all of the bases for any future claims, we also found no evidence that he endorsed any CBD gummies or oil products. We previously saw Us Weekly's website design being used in other keto diet pill scams, all seemingly without the publisher's authorization. In 2018, we debunked a claim to the effect that singer Kelly Clarkson had been fired from the reality TV series "The Voice" and that she later endorsed keto diet pills. debunked Kelly Clarkson In 2021, another fake article that mimicked the Us Weekly website design claimed that the cast of the "Shark Tank" reality TV series had endorsed a product named Keto Burn. All of this was false. claimed Shark Tank In 2010, People.com published an article about the real way that Carey said he lost 80 pounds. Keto diet pills didn't appear in the story: article So how'd he do it? No carbs, Carey says. I have cheated a couple times, but basically no carbs, not even a cracker. No bread at all. No pizza, nothing. No corn, no beans, no starches of any kind. Egg whites in the morning or like, Greek yogurt, cut some fruit. He snacks on fruit, and for dinner he ll have grilled chicken and steamed vegetables and water. I dont drink anything but water, he says. No coffee, no tea, no soda. In sum, no, "The Price Is Right" is not ending or going off the air, nor did Carey ever endorse Lifestyle Keto or any other keto diet pill products. All of this was false. The Price Is Right Source: Hammel, Sara. Drew Carey: How I Lost 80 Lbs. People.com, 29 July 2010, https://people.com/health/drew-carey-how-i-lost-80-lbs/. One of the less well knownaspects of the history of slavery is how many and how oftenpeople of color owned and traded slaves in earlyAmerica. Free Black slave holders could be found at one time or another "in each of thethirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery," historian R. Halliburton Jr. observed. That Black people bought and sold other black people raises "vexing questions" for 21st-centuryAmericanslikeAfrican American writerHenry Louis Gates Jr., who writes that it betraysclass divisions that have always existed within the Black community. For others, it's an excuseto deflect the shared blame for the institution of slavery in America away from white people. Henry Louis Gates Jr. In the latter vein, a "9 Facts About Slavery They Don't Want You to Know" meme laysouta mixture of true, false and misleading historical claims. We'll address each one in turn below:   The first legal slave owner in American history was a Black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson. Possibly true. The wording of the statement is important. Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in American history, but he was, according to historians, among the first to have his lifetime ownership of a servant legally sanctionedby a court. sanctioned A former indentured servant himself, Anthony Johnson was a so-called "free negro" who owned a 250-acre farm in Virginia during the 1650s, withfive indentured servantsunder contract tohim. One of them, a Black man named John Casor, claimed that his term of servicehad expired years earlier and Johnson was holding himillegally. In 1654, a civil court found that Johnson in fact owned Casor's services for life, an outcome historian R Halliburton Jr. calls "one of the first known legal sanctions of slavery other than as a punishment for crime." John Casor North Carolina's largest slave holder in 1860 was a Black plantation owner named William Ellison. False. William Ellison was a very wealthy Black plantation owner and cotton gin manufacturerwholivedin South Carolina (not North Carolina). According to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as "Ellerson"), he owned 63 Black slaves, making him the largest of the 171 Black slaveholders in South Carolina, but far from the largest overall slave holder in the state. William Ellison census American Indians owned thousands of Black slaves. True. Historian Tiya Miles provided this snapshot of the Native American ownership of Black slaves at the turn of the 19th century forSlatemagazine in January 2016: snapshot Miles places the number of enslaved people held by Cherokees at around 600 at the start of the 19th century and around 1,500 at the time of westward removal in 1838-9. (Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, she said, held around 3,500 slaves, across the three nations, as the 19thcentury began.) "Slavery inched its way slowly into Cherokee life," Miles told me. "When a white man moved into a Native location, usually to work as a trader or as an Indian agent, he would own [African] slaves." If such a person also had a child with a Native woman, as was not uncommon, the half-European, half-Native child would inherit the enslaved people (and their children) under white law, as well as the right to use tribal lands under tribal law. This combination put such people in a position to expand their wealth, eventually operating large farms and plantations. In 1830 there were 3,775 free Black people who owned 12,740 Black slaves. Approximately true, according to historian R. Halliburton Jr.: There were approximately 319,599 free blacks in the United States in 1830. Approximately 13.7 per cent of the total black population was free. A significant number of these free blacks were the owners of slaves. The census of 1830 lists 3,775 free Negroes who owned a total of 12,760 slaves. Many Black slaves were allowed to hold jobs, own businesses, and own real estate. Somewhattrue. There were exceptions, but generally speaking especially after 1750, by which time slave codes had beenentered into the law books in most of the American colonies  Black slaves were not legally permittedto own property or businesses. From theOxford Companion to American Law (2002): Under these early codes, slaves had virtually no legal rights IN most areas they could be executed for crimes that were not capital offenses for whites. Their testimony was restricted in legal cases and could not be used either for or against whites. Trials of slaves were usually by special courts. Slaves could not own property, move about without consent of their owners, or legally marry. Brutal Black-on-Black slavery was common in Africa for thousands of years. True, in the sense that the phenomenonof human beings enslaving other human beings goes back thousands of years, but not just among Blacks, and not just in Africa. Most slaves brought to America from Africa were purchased from Black slave owners. Sort of true. Historian Steven Mintz describes the situation more accurately in the introduction to his bookAfrican-American Voices: ADocumentary Reader, 1619-1877: Apologists for the African slave trade long argued that European traders did not enslave anyone: they simply purchased Africans who had already been enslaved and who otherwise would have been put to death. Thus, apologists claimed, the slave trade actually saved lives. Such claims represent a gross distortion of the facts. Some independent slave merchants did in fact stage raids on unprotected African villages and kidnap and enslave Africans. Most professional slave traders, however, set up bases along the west African coast where they purchased slaves from Africans in exchange for firearms and other goods. Before the end of the seventeenth century, England, France, Denmark, Holland, and Portugal had all established slave trading posts on the west African coast. Yet to simply say that Europeans purchased people who had already been enslaved seriously distorts historical reality. While there had been a slave trade within Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans, the massive European demand for slaves and the introduction of firearms radically transformed west and central African society. A growing number of Africans were enslaved for petty debts or minor criminal or religious offenses or following unprovoked raids on unprotected villages. An increasing number of religious wars broke out with the goal of capturing slaves. European weapons made it easier to capture slaves. Slavery was common for thousands of years. True, as noted above though how "common" slavery has been and what the specific nature of that slavery was has varied according to time and place. White people ended legal chattel slavery. It's rather self-serving to claim that "white people" ended legal chattel slavery in the United States (much less ended chattel slavery, period), given that the overwhelming majority of Blacks in the U.S. could not vote, could not run for political office, and, in every other way conceivable, were excluded from institutional power. Moreover, even as some white people were laboring to put an end to slavery, many other white people were fighting to preserve it. Slavery was eliminated in America via the efforts of people of various ethnicities, including white people, who took up the banner of the abolitionist movement. The names of the white leaders of that movement tend to be better known than those of the Black leaders, among whom were David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, and many others. When Congress passed (and the states ratified) the 13th Amendment in 1865, it was the culmination of many years of work by that multi-racial movement. efforts abolitionist 13th Amendment work  Davis, J.B. "Slavery in the Cherokee Nation."   Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 11, No. 4.  December 1993. Gates Jr., Henry Louis.  "Did Black People Own Slaves?"   The Root.  4 March 2013. Gates Jr., Henry Louis.  "How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.?"   The Root.  6 January 2014. Hall, Kermit L.  The Oxford Companion to American Law.   New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2002. ISBN 0-195-08878-6. Halliburton Jr., R.  "Free Black Owners of Slaves: A Reappraisal of the Woodson Thesis."   The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 76, No. 3.  July 1975. Johnson, Michael P. and Roark, James L.  Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South.   New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. ISBN 0-393-30314-4. Mintz, Steven.  African-American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619-1877.   New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.  ISBN 1-444-31077-1. Onion, Rebecca.  "America's Other Original Sin."   em>Slate.  January 2016. Rodriguez, Junius P.  The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery.   Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1997.  ISBN 0-874-36885-5. Russell, John Henderson.  The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865.   Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913.  ISBN 1-480-03049-X. Walton, Hanes and Smith, Robert C.  American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom.   London: Routledge, 2015.  ISBN 1-317-35045-6. One online scam that never seems to come to an end is the lie that the cast of the TV show "Shark Tank" endorsed, invested in, or provided reviews for either CBD gummies or keto gummies for weight loss. For years, scammers have used the "Shark Tank" name to push the false idea that the cast of the show invested in CBD gummies and keto gummies, even though no such episode of the show ever aired. No one on the "Shark Tank" show has anything to do with CBD gummies or keto gummies. In this story, we'll spell out everything we know about these scams. We'll also provide ways to fight back. Some readers may have seen scam ads about "Shark Tank" and keto gummies online, perhaps in Google search results or on Facebook or Instagram.Such ads also appeared in email messages, like the one shown below. These ads led to scammy articles branded with the logos of major publishers. However, those articles were written by scammers and hosted on scam websites. Here's how the seemingly legitimate-looking articles were created. Scammers copied the designs of various news websites in order to fool potential victims into thinking they were reading from the publisher's official page. In the past, scammers copied and used article layouts from ABC News, Fox News, Us Weekly, "Today," People magazine, Time magazine, and others. The articles usually claim that various celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Ree Drummond, Kelly Clarkson, Tom Selleck, Kaley Cuoco, Melissa McCarthy, Wayne Gretzky, the cast of "Shark Tank," or others all endorsed either CBD gummies or keto gummies, even though they had no involvement with the products whatsoever. In reality, the image and likeness of each celebrity was being used without permission. Oprah Winfrey Ree Drummond Kelly Clarkson Tom Selleck Aside from the scammy ads, we often see numerous fake CBD and keto gummies reviews that use the "Shark Tank" name. These articles aren't really reviews, however. They're paid-for product pitches that appear as sponsored content. Outlook India, Tribune India, Mid-Day.com, and others all appeared to be accepting money in exchange for sponsored content articles that named "Shark Tank" alongside many different CBD and keto gummies product names. In recent months, our reporters received word from some users who said they received bags (not boxes) of CBD or keto gummies products at their doorstep, despite having no recollection of ordering the products. Some also said there was no charge on their credit card. It's unclear why people who hadn't ordered or been charged for the products were receiving them in the mail. Many of these users said that the return addresson the package was for a nameless "fulfillment center" with a P.O. box in Smyrna, Tennessee, Tampa, Florida, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Typing "fulfillment center" into Google (without quotes) displayed the first search suggestion as "fulfillment center smyrna tn," which perhaps showed just how many people were looking for help after being scammed. Unfortunately, more details about these "fulfillment center" addresses were not yet available at the time this article was published. It's unclear if anyone associated with these mailboxes or locations had any knowledge of or involvement with the scams. In the past, our reporters noticed that brand new CBD gummies and keto gummies product names popped up regularly, with no sign of a parent company or any other branding, as if such details had been omitted on purpose. It's possible that many of these products were the same and had simply been rebranded after previous product names received negative feedback. We also noticed that phone numbers on some product order pages for CBD and keto gummies are often missing or disconnected. Placing a call to any working number goes to a generic, nameless customer service phone line. When calling these lines, the person on the other end of the call declined to say the name of thecompany they worked for, nor would they give any information regarding the name of the apparent call center. One additional aspect of the "Shark Tank" CBD gummies and keto gummies scams, plus the scams that used the image and likeness of other celebrities, was that many users told us they believed they would be charged around $40 for their order, but were ultimately charged close to $200. From what we could tell, this information may have appeared in the fine print of the terms and conditions, but was not mentioned at all on product checkout pages. After having difficulties getting in touch with the phone line for the product they ordered, users consistently told us that they were offered a refund of 50%, something that apparently was a part of the call center's script. In 2022, "Shark Tank" cast member Mark Cuban tweeted about the seemingly never-ending keto gummies scams, where he railed against tech platforms that continue to accept money from scammers to allow ads to run that promote the scams. "Does anyone really think keto pills work?," Cuban asked. "Why would anyone take an ad for them with or without the fake endorsement? Where is the content filtering that we hear so much? If a platform can't detect fake keto or CBD gummy ads, can they really detect anything? Or do they not care that mostly seniors are getting ripped off!"  The official "Shark Tank" website on ABC.com also once published a page about scammers that use the show's name without authorization. page "The internet has become overrun with advertisements featuring products allegedly endorsed by 'Shark Tank' or the Sharks," the page read. "Many merchants are using the names and images of the show and the Sharks in an attempt to sell their products. Unfortunately, with every new episode comes the opportunity for imposters to use false information to exploit the unwary. While many products claim to have been on 'Shark Tank,' that is not always the case." On the subject of gummy scams, this story would not be complete without the inclusion of two past court cases. In 2021, famed film actor and director Clint Eastwood won $6.1 million in a lawsuit after alleging that a Lithuanian company had used his image and likeness without permission to promote CBD products. won In the following year, Eastwood won another lawsuit, also pertaining to a CBD promotion. That time, he won $2 million. Cannabis Law Report said that the lawsuit had been filed against "Los Angeles-based Norok Innovation Inc. and its CEO Eric Popowicz." won Cannabis Law Report If you believe you've been a victim of fraud, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allows users to file a report. file a report Also, if any readers find one of the scammy articles that claims "Shark Tank" or other big-name celebrities endorsed keto gummies, or find a product order page that is believed to be involved in the scam, the domain URL can be reported to its registrar. Simply visit godaddy.com/whois and type in the website address. This form will display domain registration information for the website. Look for the "Registrar Abuse Contact Email" and"Registrar Abuse Contact Phone" in order to report the website to the company that allowed it to be registered. godaddy.com/whois In recent years, we've oftenreported about these scams involving the "Shark Tank" name. We will continue to bring our readers further reporting about this subject in the future. reported about If any readers were scammed, we recommend bookmarking this page or emailing it to yourself so that you can revisit it in the future to view further updates, as we do plan on adding additional information as it becomes available. "Appeared on Shark Tank | Shark Tank." ABC, https://abc.com/shows/shark-tank/news/updates/appeared-on-shark-tank. Dillon, Nancy. "Clint Eastwood Wins $6.1 Million From 'Online Scammers' in CBD Lawsuit." Rolling Stone, 4 Oct. 2021, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/clint-eastwood-cbd-lawsuit-1236437/. "Eastwood Files Third Lawsuit against Los Angeles-Based Norok Innovation Inc. and Its CEO Eric Popowicz." Cannabis Law Report, 18 Jan. 2021, https://cannabislaw.report/eastwood-files-third-lawsuit-against-los-angeles-based-norok-innovation-inc-and-its-ceo-eric-popowicz/. Liles, Jordan. "Don't Bite on 'Shark Tank' Weight Loss Scam Promising '50lbs in 61 Days.'" Snopes, 30 June 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-weight-loss-scam/. ---. "'Shark Tank' CBD Gummies 'Reviews' on Google Are Fake." Snopes, 19 Apr. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-cbd-gummies/. "WHOIS Domain Lookup - Find out Who Owns a Website." GoDaddy.Com, https://www.godaddy.com/whois/. While his critics decry his economic policies, President Barack Obama keeps insisting that hes had economic success. In a speech in Wilmington, Del., last week, Obama offered several pieces of evidence that, in his view, suggests that the country is rebounding from the recession. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2008, he noted; the auto industry is booming, America is making more oil than it imports, and the deficit has been cut in half, he added. All told, Obama said, weve recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth. That final claim got our attention, so we took a closer look. The evidence We asked the White House for evidence to back up Obamas claim, and they pointed us to theirannual economic reportto Congress. According to the report, the United States is one of only two of the 12 countries that experienced systemic financial crises in 2007 and 2008 but have seen real (gross domestic product) per working-age person return to pre-crisis levels. The 12 countries are France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. Germany is the only other country of these 12 in that category -- that is, that has seen its GDP per person age 16 to 64 return to its pre-recession level. Heres the summary chart from the White House report:    This provides evidence for Obamas claim, because, aside from Germany, all the other countries in this category havent yet returned to their pre-recession level at all. So, case closed? Not quite. There are many ways to measure the economy beyond real GDP per working age. And while the 12 countries studied in the report all experienced bank crises during the recession, Obamas statement was broader than that -- he said almost any other advanced country on Earth. (The list of the most advanced countries on Earth also usually doesnt include Ukraine.) So we ran this measurement past some experts. In general, they agreed with the tenor of Obamas claim, but said it wasnt as simple as relying on the chart the White House provided. The general sentiment is quite right, said Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard University. But to evaluate the statement in its sweeping form, one would have to look at more countries, and one should look at other possible measures of economic performance. Additional measurements On the experts recommendations, we looked at inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, as well as unemployment rates, in a wider selection of advanced countries. We used data from the International Monetary Fund, which considers 36 economies to be advanced. For each of these 36 countries, we calculated the growth between their worst point in GDP and unemployment to 2013, the last year for which full data is available. Positive growth in GDP is good, while negative growth in unemployment is desirable. Each value that is better than the United States (the last country on the list) is highlighted in bold-italic. (The raw data ishere.) Country GDP Unemploym. Country GDP Unemploym. Australia 13.01% 1.49% Korea 15.98% -16.11% Austria 5.93% 2.45% Latvia 15.36% -36.44% Belgium 4.25% 1.82% Luxembourg 6.93% 17.72% Canada 9.96% -14.58% Malta 8.57% -6.14% Cyprus -6.66% 155.94% Netherlands 0.39% 54.15% Czech Republic 2.37% -4.48% New Zealand 9.18% -6.22% Denmark 2.55% -6.25% Norway 5.30% -2.26% Estonia 17.76% -48.36% Portugal -3.90% 50.52% Finland 3.76% -2.87% San Marino -15.98% 61.78% France 4.08% 11.14% Singapore 29.34% -37.19% Germany 8.93% -32.12% Slovak Republic 10.51% -2.20% Greece -16.92% 117.47% Slovenia -1.72% 39.40% Hong Kong 16.96% -40.30% Spain -2.79% 31.38% Iceland 7.10% -45.41% Sweden 12.39% -6.71% Ireland 1.98% -5.83% Switzerland 7.98% -14.67% Israel 19.48% -32.10% Taiwan 19.58% -28.55% Italy -2.09% 45.31% United Kingdom 4.86% -3.13% Japan 7.31% -20.30% United States 9.32% -23.64%  So the United States has clearly done better in expanding GDP and lowering unemployment than most of the economies deemed advanced by the IMF. Still, some countries have fared better, particularly in Asia. It is also worth nothing that some countries, like Estonia, have seen an improvement in GDP, yet their GDP has not yet returned to pre-recession levels. Among the countries beyond the United States that are doing well are Canada, Germany and Switzerland. Israel and some Asian countries, such as Korea and Singapore, have seen improvements as good or better than the United States' in recent years, but they were not as dramatically affected by the recession as North America and Europe. Austan Goolsbee, Obamas former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (which prepares the White Houses annual economic report), pointed to an IMF paper from April,World Economic Outlook: Recovery Strengthens, Remains Uneven. Overall, the report suggests that the United States forecast for economic growth is better than it is for many advanced European economies, with others roughly comparable. In general, the United States is expected to have the highest growth in the coming year -- a projected 2.75 percent. In fact, the report found that the United States economy accelerated faster than anticipated in 2013, while many advanced economies in Europe are still struggling with high unemployment, debt and other financial issues. Canada, too, has seen some growth, but sluggish exports and business investments have kept the growth fairly slow. The strengthening of the recovery from the Great Recession in the advanced economies is a welcome development, the report says. But growth is not evenly robust across the globe. In many advanced Asian economies, for instance, the recovery is steady due in large part to growing exports, domestic demand and strong labor markets. (Japan, which is undergoing structural reforms, is an exception.) Australia and New Zealand -- neither of which was included in the report the White House cited -- have growth classified as stable. Laurence Ball, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, said another factor to consider is thelong-term damagecaused by the recession. Ball looked at 23 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and compared how much they thought they could grow in 2007 to how much they think they can grow now, based on OECD estimates. Ball found that, on average, these countries sustained an 8.3 percent blow to their potential output for growth. While some countries, Australia and Switzerland, took a very small hit to their potential output, Greece, Hungary and Ireland absorbed blows of roughly 30 percent compared to their GDP prospects before the recession. For the United States, the figure is 5.3 percent -- lower than the rate for most advanced countries, but higher than Australia, Switzerland and Germany. This shows that even though the United States has recovered well compared to other countries, it has still lost potential output as a result of the recession, Ball said. Our ruling Obama said the United States has recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth since the end of the Great Recession. The White Houses supporting data is pretty narrow, but other measurements show that the United States has generally fared better since the recession than many -- though not all -- of its peers among the worlds advanced economies. On balance, we rate this statement Mostly True.