The United States has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP.
As congressional Democrats and Republicans sit down for high-stakes budget talks,the rhetoric has flown furiously to familiar territory.Republicans want cuts and reforms to entitlement programs, while Democrats insist that revenue must be on the table, too. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., made the case for the latter inan interview on MSNBCon Nov. 12, 2013. This country has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP, she said. It doesn't feel that way when you hear about austerity and we have to cut this and we have to cut that. It's because the income inequality is greater than it has ever been. We wondered if she was correct. The numbers dont lie Schakowskys office sent us figures from theEconomic Research Serviceof the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to those numbers, the GDP per capita, when adjusted for inflation, hit $45,633 this year, which surpassed the previous high of $45,360, which was set in 2007 prior to the most recent recession. It was barely higher, but higher all the same. (The government defines the GDP  gross domestic product  as the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property within the country.) We were curious how the data was calculated, so we contacted Mathew Shane, an economist with the USDA who put the figures together. He told us that the 2013 number was partially based on a projection, since the year is not yet completed. But if that projection is borne out, he said,then GDP per capita will be at its highest level ever. Its close, Shane said. We hit a peak in 2007 when the crisis hit. Theres been no income growth in real terms since 2007. The difference between (2007 and 2013) is a very modest difference. We, essentially, finally regained what we were in 2007. I guess we could say were projected to be slightly better than we were in 2007. If I guess doesnt sound definitive enough, we also sought out another source:the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the government agency that calculates the nations GDP. The bureaus analysis also backs up Shanes findings. By the second quarter of this year, GDP per capita had surpassed 2007 levels. The third quarter of 2013 is the highest on record, said Thomas Dail, spokesman for the bureau. Finally, GDP per capita, even when adjusted for inflation, hasgone up and upfor more than a century. In other words, Schakowsky could have said what she said at virtually any given point during the last 150 years and had a pretty good chance of being right. Our ruling Schakowsky said, This country has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP. We found that GDP has trended upward throughout much of America's history and the current level is only slightly higher than pre-recession levels. But the numbers show Schakowsky is right. We rate her comments True.
It's not every day that readers see a paid online advertisement that describes the cumulative weight of someone's bowel movements. One such ad for the FloraSpring weight loss supplement reads as follows: "65 y/o Man Poops Out 42 Lbs." A somewhat similar YouTube video ad also promised a "pooping habit" for customers who take FloraSpring. First, this is the Google-hosted ad that claimed a 65-year-old man had 42 pounds of bowel movements:   However, the photo in the misleading ad did not show a man who "pooped out 42 pounds" (nor was he actually 65 years old). It was originally posted by photographer Pavel Ladziak in 2017. posted   In 2017, Bodybuilding.com reported that Ladziak was nowhere near 65 years of age: reported "Pawel Ladziak, a 35-year-old Polish fitness pro and personal trainer, is causing a sensation on Instagram by intentionally aging himself. His goal: to look as muscular and as old as he possibly can." There was no indication that Ladziak had any involvement with or knowledge of the "Man Poops" ad. We reached out to him, and will update this story should we hear back. The misleading ad led to a full-screen seminar-style video on a website for FloraSpring. It was described as "a weight loss supplement that assists in the weight loss process by increasing ones metabolism." described At first, a red line at the bottom of the screen looked to be a progress bar for the video player. However, the line appeared to be part of the video itself. It moved at a fairly quick speed at the beginning of the video, giving the effect that its running time would be short (as promised in the ad). However, the line later slowed to a crawl for the remainder of the presentation. Around 80 seconds into the video, the video's voice-over announced: "In the next 6 minutes and 27 seconds, you're going to get to go behind the scenes at Dr. (Steven) Masley's private clinic." However, the video lasted well over 45 minutes. Viewers who attempted to leave the video page were shown a notice. It said: "WAIT! BEFORE YOU GO... READ THE FREE REPORT FROM DR. MASLEY INSTEAD OF WATCHING THIS VIDEO NOW... CLICK HERE NOW." It led to a fairly lengthy page with an introduction from Dr. Steven Masley, MD. page The page purported to feature success stories for FloraSpring. The pictures next to the stories were from unrelated websites. For example, one of the pictures was from a YouTube video that featured dancing. Another looked to have come from the satirical website ClickHole. pictures YouTube video ClickHole We contacted Revival Point LLC, the company that sells FloraSpring. We asked about the ad that claimed a 65-year-old man released 42 pounds of fecal matter. The company's name was "Revival Point Labs" in the ad. A company spokesperson claimed that an affiliate was to blame. They also said the ad was a violation of the company's terms of service: This advertisement is not run by Dr. Masley or Revival Point LLC. The man in the photo does not represent a Revival Point LLC customer and the ad copy does not represent any of the studies supporting the ingredients in the product. The spokesperson later said they "submitted the link to Google Adwords to get the ad account removed that's running the ads." They also told us that they "terminated the link from these ads and permanently removed the affiliate." We asked about the unrelated photographs in the success stories. They told us that the three stories were representative of Masley's patients, but that real names and photos were changed for privacy reasons: unrelated photographs As for the photos on the longer page, these people represent three of Dr. Masley's patients, but their names and photos have been changed to keep their identity private. Due to Doctor/Patient confidentiality, we cannot provide any further information on these patients or their medical history with Dr. Masley. The photos on the page have been replaced with licensed stock imagery. Following our email to Revival Point LLC, the original pictures were changed to stock photographs. original pictures stock photographs We also stumbled upon a YouTube video that purported to show a FloraSpring video advertisement about a "pooping habit." Masley appeared in the video, which looked to have been screen-recorded and posted by a YouTube user. The ad mentioned "poop" and "pooping" many times. The small, corner photograph of Masley matched the profile picture on a YouTube channel for Revival Point Labs. YouTube video YouTube channel  The ad's voice-over script promised a "pooping habit" with FloraSpring: The good news is this pooping habit is something that anyone can start at any time at any age. It will help burn off pounds of fat, restore energy, shut down cravings, and yes, help you have amazing poops. Poop more often. Poop better. Make your poops more solid, and yet come out much easier, all while flushing out pounds of fat, flushing those excess calories and fat right out your butt into your toilet, and right down the drain, gone for good. We asked Revival Point LLC about the FloraSpring "pooping habit" ad. In response, they said: "This does not appear to be from us or affiliated with us." In sum, a picture in an online advertisement did not show a 65-year-old man. He also did not "poop out 42 pounds" after taking FloraSpring. The man in the ad is Ladzia, a Polish photographer. He's in his late 30s, and ages himself to look older as a hobby. Revival Point LLC claimed that the Google ad and the "pooping habit" YouTube video ad were not created by their company. On Sept. 3, 2023, the celebrity gossip YouTube channel named Just In(@JustInCeleb) published an 11-minute video with the title, "The Rock MISTAKENLY Admits SHADY Role In Maui Fires With Oprah." The video was viewed more than 100,000 times in just two days. In the thumbnail image for the video, it claimed that Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock, had purportedly admitted to a "shady role" in the August 2023 Maui wildfiresand then publicly pleaded, "Please, forgive me." The image also showed entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey owns property on Maui, while Realtor.com reports that Johnson has a vacation rental on Oahu and had spent time in Hawaii when he was a child. Dwayne Johnson Maui wildfires Oprah Winfrey Realtor.com  The video (archived) was narrated by a voice that had been generated by artificial-intelligence (AI) tools. It began as follows: archived TIKTOK USER #1: Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson, you know the guy who plays the same character in every f*cking movie, decided to take it upon themselves to ask you for your money. OPRAH WINFREY: We have created the People's Fund of Maui. So, if you send a donation, just click where you see below, and send a donation. TIKTOK USER #2: Please don't tell me I just saw a billionaire standing next to a multi-millionaire begging the average, everyday citizens for donations that can barely get by. AI-VOICED NARRATOR: It seems like our beloved actor, The Rock, might have found himself in some hot water after taking an unexpected dip in the drama pool with none other than the queen of talk show herself, Oprah Winfrey. Get ready for the tea, because this story is sizzling. The Rock, known for his legendary muscles and action-packed movies, has unintentionally found himself in the middle of a scandal that's hotter than a Maui volcano. Apparently, he and Oprah are now entangled in some eyebrow-raising alleged shady dealings concerning a mysterious fire in the beautiful paradise of Maui. Who would have thought, right? However, the rumor in the video's title that Johnson had "mistakenly [admitted]" to a "shady role" in theMaui fires, implying that he was involved in the starting of the blaze, was made up. Further, he never begged for forgiveness, as claimed by the thumbnail image. In the latter half of the video, the AI-voiced narrator claimed thatJohnson was a fan of "Hollywood elites" and had "[promoted] their evil agendas," later implying several times that he had also been involved in pedophilia. As readers might guess, such conspiracy theories are completely unfounded. A disclaimer was displayed on screen during the video. A longer version of the disclaimer was also included in the description, which read, "Disclaimer: Content might be gossip, rumors, exaggerated or indirectly besides the truth. Viewer advised to do own research before forming their opinion. Content might be opinionated." The whole video appeared to have been created simply to earn YouTube advertising revenue based on tapping into the politics and emotions of viewers who might place blind trust in its claims. Such viewers might choose to head directly to the comments to post negative remarks about Johnson and Winfrey instead of exercising critical thinking and research to figure out if they had been misled by the video's title, thumbnail image, and content. Part of the video concentrated on the fact that Johnson and Winfrey had recorded a video announcing their creation of the People's Fund of Maui. The fund was designed to provide money to residents who were unable to return to their homes following the fires, which were thedeadliestU.S. wildfires in more than a century. deadliest    The Associated Press reported that the People's Fund of Maui was initially set up to provide payments of $1,200 per month to affected residents.Johnson and Winfrey each gave $5 million of their own money to start the fund. They also provided information about how people can donate. The Associated Press Johnson and Winfrey said they were inspired by a similar plan previously created by country star and multi-millionaire Dolly Parton following fires that swept through east Tennessee in November 2016. Those funds were also raised through donations, according to KnoxNews.comand DollyParton.com. KnoxNews.com DollyParton.com We previously reported about a rumor similar to the one in the video above that claimed Winfrey had revealed Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks also had a "shady role" in the Maui wildfires. That, too, was false. reported Ahillen, Steve. "Dolly Parton's 'My People' Money Paid off for Those Who Lost Homes in Fires, Study Shows." Knoxville News Sentinel, 16 Nov. 2017, https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/gatlinburg/2017/11/16/dolly-partons-my-people-gatlinburg-fire-recovery/871908001/. Beaty, Thalia. "Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson Launch Fund with $10 Million for Displaced Maui Residents." The Associated Press, 31 Aug. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/maui-wildfires-oprah-dwayne-johnson-donations-0e59c2e1dc06b8519c9b453c978ed1b9. "Dolly's My People Fund Finishes 'Smokies Strong.'" DollyParton.com, 5 May 2017, https://dollyparton.com/life-and-career/dollys-my-people-fund-finishes-smokies-strong/14053. Liles, Jordan. "Tom Hanks 'Panics' as Oprah Winfrey Reveals His 'Shady Role' in Maui Fires?" Snopes, 1 Sept. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hanks-oprah-maui-fires/. McAvoy, Audrey. "Hawaii Officials Urge Families of People Missing after Deadly Fires to Give DNA Samples." The Associated Press, 22 Aug. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/maui-fire-missing-list-lahaina-e6909a2be7860fc7f9062c886a15f979. Zap, Claudine. "Take a Look Inside Dwayne 'The Rock Johnson's Hawaiian Vacation Rental." Realtor.com, 7 Apr. 2022, https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/inside-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-hawaii-vacation-rental/. Claim:  The Obama administration is selling blueprints for the B-2 Stealth Bomber to China in exchange for debt relief.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2009] Is this true ? 6/5/2009: Security News Brief: Obama To Sell B-2 Stealth Bomber Blueprints To China The Defense Department is reportedly furious with Obama's proposal to sell blueprints of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber to the People's Republic.  Gates has flatly rejected Obama's plan, but has since been asked to step down if he will not facilitate the process. According to the deal, the United States would sell the plans for the B-2, along with radar-absorbing paints and metals in exchange for $50 billion in debt relief.  The B-2 cost the US government $23 billion to develop the bomber in the 1980s. According to the Administration, this proposal will help the United States resolve its debt issues.  They point out their belief that the B-2 bomber is "strategically obsolete", according to a source in the White House Press Office.  In addition, the source claims that the Chinese would be unable to create their own functioning stealth bomberfleet for "at least eight years." [Rest of article here.] article Origins:  Although a weak economy and a growing foreign debt (held by nations not necessarily overly friendly to the U.S.) might be issues of pressing concern, the concept of raising funds by openly selling vital military secrets to a Communist country isn't quite a reality yet. The notion that the Obama administration would sell plans for the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber (a "low-observable, strategic, long-range, heavy bomber capable of penetrating sophisticated and dense air-defence shields") in exchange for a mere $50 billion in debt relief is simply another bit of  humorous fiction, a satirical piece published by the Jumping in Pools blog on 1 June 2009 (where it was tagged as such). B-2 Jumping in Pools such Other satirical articles from the Jumping in Pools blog include "Biden, Obama to Have Gaffe-Off," "US in Chaos as Teleprompter Assassinated," and "Palin to Join Obama Cabinet." Biden, Obama to Have Gaffe-Off US in Chaos as Teleprompter Assassinated Palin to Join Obama Cabinet Last updated:  28 July 2009 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. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, presidential candidate Donald Trump singled out the evangelical and religious community for their assistance in getting him nominated. They have much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits, he said. An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. Their voice has been taken away, Trump said. I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and to protect free speech for all Americans. We were curious about the issue and whether an amendment  constitutional or otherwise  prevents the practice for religious institutions. For this fact-check, we're relying largely scholarly articles in theDenver University Law Review, theCase Western Reserve Law Review,Boston College Law Review. The restriction is actually a law, not an amendment, and it isn't exclusive to religious institutions. Lyndon Johnson is best known as America's 36th president, the Texan who assumed the office when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Texas politics can be rough, and Johnson knew how to play that game. Therein lies the origin of the Johnson amendment. The restriction was championed by LBJ in 1954 when Johnson was a U.S. senator running for re-election. A conservative nonprofit group that wanted to limit the treaty-making ability of the president produced material that called for electing his primary opponent, millionaire rancher-oilman Dudley Dougherty, and defeating Johnson. There was no church involved. Johnson, then Democratic minority leader, responded by introducing an amendment to Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code dealing with tax-exempt charitable organizations,includinggroups organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literacy and educational purposes, or to prevent cruelty to children or animals. It said, in effect, that if you want to be absolved from paying taxes, you couldn't be involved in partisan politics. There was no record of any debate around the amendment. The logical argument favoring such an amendment is that those corporations qualifying for the section 501(c)(3) tax subsidy should not be permitted to directly or indirectly use that subsidy to support candidates for office, said Michael Hone in the Case Western article. However it was likely, he said, that Johnson was motivated by a desire to exact revenge on the foundation he believed supported his opponent and to prevent it and other nonprofit corporations from acting similarly in the future. Nonetheless, Subsequently it proved to have a profound effect on how thousands of tax-exempt organizations  including churches  dealt with issues relating to political campaigns, according to Patrick O'Daniel of the University of Texas School of Law in the Boston College article. Thelaw saysall such organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. That includes contributions to political campaigns and any form of public statement for or against a candidate or group of candidates. Violating the restriction could result in the revocation of the organization's tax exempt status and the imposition of taxes. Nonpartisan, unbiased voter education or similar activities such as church-organized voter registration drives are allowed. Historically, that hasn't stopped some religious organizations from issuing endorsements anyway. O'Daniel has a list of examples. To cite two from 2000: Rev. Jerry Falwelltold worshippersat the Genoa Baptist Church in Ohio to vote for the Bush of your choice and We simply have to beat (Al) Gore. That same year, a pastor at a Bronx church who supported Hillary Clinton's run for the U.S. Senate at the time, substituted her opponent's name for Satan during a hymn. In the face of lackluster opposition by the Internal Revenue Service, the Democrats and Republicans . . . continue to use the literal bully pulpits of the churches to preach to the party faithful, O'Daniel wrote. Nonetheless, the threat of losing tax-exempt status persists as long as the law is in place, and politically-minded religious groups, particularly evangelicals, have regarded it as a suppression of free speech and an entanglement of the IRS in the operation of their religion. In 2008, for example, pastors in 20 states organized to give politically-oriented sermons to protest the law,according to the Pew Research Center. The GOP platform has picked up that cudgel,calling for the repealof that portion of the tax law. The Johnson amendment survived court challenges in 1983, 1990 and 2000,according to Pew. Our ruling Trump said, An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. Trump is correct that the law was pushed by Johnson and that religious groups that advocate for candidates risk losing their tax exempt status. It's important to note that the prohibition is not just restricted to religious institutions. It's nonprofit charitable organizations in general. But overall, we rate the statement as True. As if from a scene in a doomsday movie, real life Earth-bound space experts will take to their workstations in November 2021 to launch a small, golf-cart-sized spacecraft into space with the hopes that it will knock a looming asteroid off of its orbit. Except in this case, the asteroid in question poses no imminent harm. The target is the near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos, neither of which pose a direct threat to Earth. And its all part of a test mission to be conducted by NASA to test the capabilities for redirecting potentially hazardous asteroids in the future. NASA announced the upcoming Double Asteroid Reduction Test (DART) mission on Oct. 1 and news outlets like CBS dubbed it an Armageddon-like mission. But rest easy, there is no "Dottie" in sight. DART Armageddon-like mission  At the time of this writing, there are more than 26,000 near-Earth asteroids, nearly 10,000 of which are known to be larger than 450 feet and another 891 that measure a half-mile long. In the last month, NASA says that 14 known asteroids passed closer to Earth than the moon  a number that reaches 127 when counting back 365 days. Thats where NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office comes in. This branch is responsible for finding, tracking, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and objects, and this marks its first attempt at what is called the kinetic impactor technique, which sends a spacecraft like DART to the path of an asteroid to change its motion. NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office DART is our first full-scale attempt to demonstrate that we can change the motion of an asteroid in space, potentially as a way of defending Earth against the hazard of asteroid impacts, said Tom Statler, a DART scientist, in a podcast interview. podcast interview Asteroids orbit the sun like our home planet does, and when they are in their solar orbit, they do not come near Earths orbit or pose a threat. Asteroids that are potentially hazardous are those whose orbits intersect with Earths. To find those potential threats, telescopes around the world consistently scan the skies and collect data ultimately compiled by the International Astronomical Unions (IAU) Minor Planet Center. IAU then determines whether a detected moving object is an asteroid, calibrates its orbit, and figures whether it has the potential to make contact with Earth.    The key is to be able to find the asteroids on those Earth-intersecting trajectories, find them well in advance of any collision, and to take steps years ahead of time, not to destroy the asteroid -- don't need to do that; in many cases, we wouldn't be able to -- but just to prevent that collision from happening. And that's what we're going to do with DART. We're going to demonstrate one technology to cause that deflection that, someday, if we need to, we might use this technology to prevent an asteroid from hitting the Earth, explained Statler. The half-ton spacecraft will spend the better part of a year transiting to the binary asteroid system, Didymos, which is made up of two asteroids that orbit around each other. Just as the sun holds Earth in its orbit, the half-mile wide asteroid Didymos holds its football stadium-sized moon Dimorphos in orbit. DART is expected to run into the side of this small moon at a high velocity of 4 miles per second to change the motion of the binary asteroid, eventually slowing down and tightening up its orbit around the larger asteroid. Orbits are like donkeys, you pull them one way and they go the other way. So that's an aspect of this. You hit the thing to slow it down and it ends up going around faster, explained Statler.  Four sequential radar images of Didymos and its moonlet taken in November 2003. NASA  NASA   Currently, no known asteroid has a chance of impacting Earth in a century, according to Statler, but there could be some we havent yet discovered, and science is finding new ones all the time. And because scientists have been observing Didymos for decades, this natural laboratory will help researchers to determine whether systems like DART can move an asteroid and if so, by how much.  Two views of the DART spacecraft. NASA  NASA   The images DRACO returns of the target asteroid Dimorphos, including the last-second glimpse of its own impact site on the asteroid, will be crucial toward analyzing the results of the DART test and understanding how the asteroid was affected, wrote NASA in a news statement. news statement DART is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket and ill be live-streamed from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The spacecraft will intercept Didymos moonlet in late September 2022 when Didymos is within 6.8 million miles of Earth. And yes, it will be visible to ground-based telescopes. live-streamed  Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based telescopes would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlets orbit about the parent body. NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab  NASA   Sources DART. https://dart.jhuapl.edu/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021. Margetta, Robert. NASA Invites Media to Launch of Double Asteroid Redirection Test. NASA, 4 Oct. 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-media-to-launch-of-double-asteroid-redirection-test. Moran, Norah. Ep 215: Redirecting Asteroids. NASA, 30 Sept. 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/johnson/HWHAP/redirecting-asteroids. NASA to Launch Armageddon-Style Mission to Deliberately Crash into an Asteroids Moon and Test Planetary Defense. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-dart-mission-crash-asteroid-moon-planetary-defense/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021. Talbert, Tricia. DART Gets Its Wings with Innovative Solar Array Technology and Camera. NASA, 11 Aug. 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-gets-its-wings-spacecraft-integrated-with-innovative-solar-array-technology-and-camera. Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission. NASA, 30 June 2017, https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart. Planetary Defense. NASA, 21 Dec. 2015, https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense. A photograph of Barack Obama carrying (and presumably reading) the best-selling book, The Post-American World, is a real one, snapped by Doug Mills of the New York Times in Bozeman, Montana, in May 2008: What does Obama read?Hussein Obama with a book in his hands. He's reading "The Post-American World"  it's a Muslim's view of a defeated America!  However, the characterization of the pictured book as "a Muslim's view of a defeated America" is erroneous: The book does not posit a "defeated America," nor does it express a Muslim point of view: The The Post-American World was written by Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-born political journalist (commonly described as a "political moderate") who specializes in world affairs and has written for (and edited) U.S. national news publications, hosted U.S. television news programs, and authored several books on international issues. A Village Voice profile described Zakaria (a naturalized citizen of the United States) thusly: Fareed Zakaria written hosted authored Although he was a rising star in the serious foreign-policy world of the '90s (The Nation once described him as a "junior Kissinger"), it was his post-9/11 Newsweek cover story "Why They Hate Us" that put him on the mainstream map as someone who could make sense of the now threatening outside world. And he has continued to win himself a substantial following with his thoughtful critiques of the Bush administration's activities in Iraq. He is America's go-to man for global chaos, providing some urgently needed outside perspective on our never ending war on terror.His own upbringing was open-minded and secular; he sang Christian hymns at school and celebrated Hindu as well as his own Muslim holidays. "I do know a lot about the world of Islam in an instinctive way that you can't get through book learning," he says thoughtfully, but admits he finds the role of token Muslim explainer in the American media slightly uncomfortable. "I occasionally find myself reluctant to be pulled into a world that's not mine, in the sense that I'm not a religious guy." The following review (from Publishers Weekly) summarizes the thesis of The Post-American World  When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China andIndonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum. As for what the chief executive reads in his spare time, according to deputy press secretary Bill Burton, President Obama brought the following books with him to his August 2009 vacation at Martha's Vineyard: In 2015, President Obama's summer reading list, as announced by the White House, included the following books: arner, Dwight.  "What Obama Is Reading."
  The New York Times.  21 May 2008. Joffe, Josef.  "The New New World."
  The New York Times.  11 May 2008. Press, Joy.  "The Interpreter."
  Village Voice.  9 August 2005. Wolf, Richard.  "President's Reading List a Hefty One."
  USA Today.  24 August 2009. On 22 April 2019, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city's "Green New Deal," an "audacious plan to attack global warming on all fronts." While this package of investments and new legislation covered several approaches to reduce emissions by nearly 30 percent by the year 2030, a number of outlets focused their headlines on one specific fast-food item: hot dogs.  announced An article published on iHeartRadio's platform, for instance, was misleadingly entitled "NYC To Ban Hot Dogs and Processed Meats To Improve Climate." As this article and others like it circulated on social media, many viewers apparently stopped reading after the headline and came away with the belief that hot dogs had been banned city-wide: published circulated social media stopped   One Twitter user wrote: "NYC Mayor - you just made enemies of a lot of NYC vendors who sell great hot dogs, the citizens & visitors who love them! Repeat: You will make NYC a ghost town by 2030 if you continue this ridiculous green deal! New Yorkers, speak up!" wrote Hot dogs are not being banned in New York City. Headlines such as "NYC To Ban Hot Dogs and Processed Meats To Improve Climate" are misleading for two reasons. First, hot dogs are not being banned throughout the city. The city government plans to reduce the purchase of processed meats consumed at city-run facilities, such as hospitals, public schools, and correctional facilities, but this policy will have no effect on vendors, restaurants, grocery stores, or any other privately owned businesses that sell hot dogs, or on their customers who eat them.  Second, the city's plan to reduce the consumption of hot dogs is only partly based on an effort to "improve climate." NYC's "Green New Deal" policies are part of the city's "OneNYC 2050: Building a Strong and Fair City" strategy. While these policies address climate-change issues, they also deal with community well-being and the general health of the city's population. The section of OneNYC 2050 dealing with processed meats can actually be found in the "Healthy Living" portion of this strategy. More specifically, the section dealing with processed meats explains that reducing the consumption of hot dogs will lower the risk of heart disease and cancer. OneNYC 2050 Here's the relevant section of OneNYC 2050 (emphasis ours): section ADOPT MORE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION PRACTICES IN CITY GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS The City will shift away from goods that have an outsized impact on the environment and identify opportunities to reduce waste and cut GHG emissions throughout City government. Through updates to our Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) and executive action, we are ending the purchasing of unnecessary single-use plastic foodware, reducing the purchasing of beef, and phasing out the purchasing of processed meat. Single-use plastic foodware  including straws, cutlery, cups, plates, bowls, and trays  are designed to be used once and then thrown away. These petroleum-based products are a threat to our neighborhoods, waterways, and climate. The City is ending the purchasing of unnecessary single-use plastic foodware, switching to compostable, reusable, or recyclable alternatives while maintaining a sufficient supply of single-use plastic foodware for those who need it. And we will work with City Council to expand these requirements to private businesses. Building on the success of implementing Meatless Mondays at all New York City public schools, the City will reduce the purchasing of beef by 50 percent. Beef has a relatively high environmental footprint compared to poultry, pork, and plant-based foods. Beef cattle, managing manure, and manufacturing fertilizer produces nitrous oxide and methane, two climate-warming pollutants 298 and 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, respectively. Processed meat consumption is linked with increased risk of cancer and is often high in saturated fat and sodium which is linked with heart disease. This policy would offer health benefits to the most vulnerable New Yorkers. So New York City plans to reduce the consumption of processed meats at city-run facilities such as hospitals, public schools, and correctional facilities. But this plan will not "ban" hot dogs in the city. Restaurants, hot dog stands, grocery stores, and other privately owned businesses will still be able to sell hot dogs in the city.  Moore, Deanna.  "NYC To Ban Hot Dogs and Processed Meats To Improve Climate."
  v1017.iheart.com.  23 April 2019. NYC.Gov.  "Action on Global Warming: NYC's Green New Deal."
  22 April 2019. FACT CHECK:  Does a photograph depict a pressure canner accident?   Claim:  A photograph depicts a pressure canner accident.   PROBABLY  Example:  [Collected via Reddit, August 2015] Why I'm not allowed to cook dinner anymore Origins: On 24 August 2015, a user (who has since deleted the post from their history) published a thread  titled "Why I'm not allowed to cook dinner anymore" with the photograph shown above to Reddit's r/funny subreddit. r/funny The image garnered thousands of comments and "upvotes" for the submitter, but that user was very likely not the source of the image. One day earlier, Imgur user NineteenSeventyFour had published the same image in a separate post on that site with the title "Whoopsie." In both cases no backstory for what was depicted in the photograph was provided. Whoopsie As is not uncommon for popular image posts of this sort, the photograph filtered over to Facebook. The account UNILAD published the same picture to their timeline (crediting the Reddit user who posted it as the source), and the the page Adinas Acres page also posted it along with the following text: UNILAD posted Canning season is upon us. If you use a pressure canner be sure the weights/release is working correctly. Despite clear interest in the events of the photograph (and multiple reposts of the picture), the actual scenario depicted by the photograph remains unknown. We were unable to find any online versions of it before it was shared to Imgur in August 2015 with no description, and the user who posed it there has a site tagline that reads "It's not a Repost, it's Nostalgia!", suggesting that they curate and share interesting images not personally taken by them. Imgur While it's possible the photograph indeed depicts a pressure canning or cooking scenario gone awry, no actual information was ever included alongside its iterations to definitively describe the image. We don't know when the photo was taken, by whom, or even in which country the purported kitchen catastrophe occurred. Moreover, canning enthusiasts commenting on the image noted that while debris from equipment was scattered throughout the scene in the photograph, the splattered food one would expect to see if a pressure cooker malfunctioned was curiously absent. It's unlikely that either the person who originally posted the photograph on Imgur or the Reddit reposter snapped the picture themselves. As such, any information gleaned from such online postings are speculative, and the humorous one-line descriptions that have accompanied it were likely invented to encourage sharing of an amusing picture.       Last updated: 28 August 2015 Originally published:  28 August 2015 On March 23, 2021, The Associated Press reported on an Oakland, California, initiative named Oakland Resilient Families "that will give low-income families of color $500 per month with no rules on how they can spend it." This "demonstration project," as Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf described it, is a test of what is known as a "guaranteed income." reported Projects like this one are part of a larger effort by a coalition of mayors to convince Congress to pass a national guaranteed income program. The Oakland program is not tax-payer funded, however. All of the funding comes from charitable donations, most of it from a philanthropic non-profit group named Blue Meridian Partners," according to San Francisco-based NPR station KQED. coalition funding according Half of the program's 600 participants will be families earning below 50% of the city's median income, and the other half will come from families earning below 138% of the federal poverty level. These cut-offs were selected based on data provided by Oakland's Equality Index, which is an effort "to develop a baseline quantitative framework that can be used by City staff and community members alike to better understand the impacts of race, measure inequities, and track changes in the disparities for different groups over time." will be Oakland's Equality Index In their coverage, The Associated Press described the project as "the first program to limit participation strictly to Black, Indigenous and people of color communities." At the time of the reporting, this was a fair representation of Oakland Resilient Families goals, as the program's website  as well as the mayor  explicitly stated the program was intended for "Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families." website the mayor That reporting led to tabloid headlines and angry tweets: tabloid headlines angry tweets Following this latter coverage, Oakland Resilient Families changed its website's answer to the "Who is this for?" question to "families with the greatest wealth disparities per the Oakland Equity Index, with low-incomes and at least 1 child under 18, regardless of documentation status."  changed Explaining the change to KQED, Rae Oglesby, the vice president of membership and communications at the Family Independence Initiative  a partner with the Oakland Resilient Families program  said the program is targeting racial groups experiencing the largest disparities," but that "it is open to all residents." said Justin Berton, the communications director for Mayor Schaaf, told KQED that, We have not changed the program. We have had to clarify that while no family is prohibited from applying, this pilot is intentionally designed to serve and support BIPOC families, who evidence shows suffer the greatest and most disproportionate impacts of poverty." told According to Oakland's Equality Index, the median income for white households in Oakland was almost three times the median income of African American households: three times The median income for White households was highest ($110,000) and the median income for African American households was lowest ($37,500). The median income for Asian households ($76,000) was similar to the citywide median income ($73,200), while Latino households fell below the citywide median with a median income of $65,000. The program is still in its earliest phases. At the moment, sign-ups for the program are not yet available. "The goal," Oakland Resilient Families' website states, "is to begin payments to families this spring after incorporating more community feedback and to have the entire program up and running this summer."  states Because the program is "targeted" toward BIPOC families, but because  at least after some clarification on the part of Oakland Resilient Families  any family meeting the financial requirements can apply, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth.