Think Before You Donate!
When deciding which charities to donate to, many people consider an important factor to be the "efficiency" of these organizations  that is, what percentage of the monies taken in by a given charity goes to funding its mission rather than being eaten up by costs such as fundraising activities, salaries, and other administrative overhead. The e-mail reproduced above, which began circulating in 2005 and has been re-circulated every year since then around Christmastime, attempts to steer potential donors away from inefficient charities. Unfortunately, much of the information it presents was inaccurate back in 2005, and it has grown only more so in the years since then, resulting in a misleading and outdated view of various charities. We attempt to present accurate and up-to-date information about the named charities below. The following efficiency information is derived from the Charity Navigator web site, the GuideStar web site and Forbes magazine's November 2009 special report on the 200 Largest U.S. Charities. Salary information is taken from Schedule J (Compensation Information) of the various charities' IRS Form 990 filings, an annual reporting return that certain federally tax-exempt organizations must file with the IRS which provides information on the filing organization's mission, programs, and finances. (In the context of this article, the term "efficiency" refers to the percentage of total budget/expenses that each listed organization spends on providing charitable programs and services, while the term "compensation" or "pay" includes salary, one-time payments, and deferred compensation.) Charity Navigator GuideStar special report UNICEF United States Fund for UNICEF states 2010 2011 said United Way Worldwide reported World Vision World Vision Canada states: In our annual report to the Canada Revenue Agency, we publicly disclose information about executive compensation. In the interest of greater transparency to our donors, we have gone beyond our legal requirements by disclosing that our president, Michael Messenger, currently earns the top annual base salary of $215,000 plus a combination of taxable and non-taxable benefits. The presidents performance is subject to annual review by our Board of Directors, and his compensation is decided by them. World Vision Canada's (self-reported) efficiency is 81%, much higher than the 52% figure claimed above. BBB Goodwill Industries International Jim Gibbons compensation March of Dimes St. Jude parent Lions Clubs A 2011 addendum to the original message presented the following information: The American Legion National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Disabled American Veterans National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Military Order of Purple Hearts National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Vietnam Veterans Association National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Wounded Warriors National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. These organizations with no salaries have donations going to help Veterans and their families and youth. According to the most recent available Form 990 filings, all of these statements are false and/or misleading (in large part because the National Commanders are not necessarily the top business executives of these organizations): Unfortunately, the six veterans-related charitable organizations mentioned above don't receive very high marks for efficiency (as determined by Charity Navigator, the BBB, or Form 990 information): <!--Additional information:  America's Most Efficient Charities --> UNICEF USA. "CEO Salary Email." American Red Cross. "Red Cross Statement on Inaccurate Viral Email on Charity CEO Pay." 11 December 2012. United Way. "CEO Compensation FAQ." World Vision Canada. "Our Approach to Executive Compensation." Updated CEO names and salaries for several of the organizations listed.
On 23 August 2018, amid news of the plea deal of Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen and the conviction of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight counts of financial crimes, President Trump sat down with Fox and Friends Ainsley Earhardt for an interview. The topic of impeachment was broached by the President himself, who ruminated that "I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job."  His follow-up to that remark quickly became the topic of online memes: interview  Indeed, President Trump suggested that removing him from office would have catastrophic financial ramifications for the U.S. financial markets and for all Americans, because the country's economy could not survive being stripped of his "thinking":  That same day, CNBC reported the market "had little reaction so far to Trump's renewed legal troubles, adding that "traders say the market ... expects Trump to avoid impeachment unless the special counsel investigation can tie the president directly to collusion with Russia to sway the 2016 election." reported Melloy, John.  "Trump Says the Stock Market Would Crash If He Were Impeached: 'Everybody Would Be Very Poor'."
  CNBC.  23 August 2018 Scam:  Accounts of check fraud being perpetrated at Walmart stores by employees and customers. SCAM Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2007]    Origins:  The image displayed above supposedly reproduces a 26 July 2007 memo (circulated as a PDF) from an official with Louisiana's Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) warning employees about a multi-city check theft ring operating out of Walmart stores. According to the memo, Walmart employees had been using cell phones to photograph customer checks, then employing the information obtained from the images to produce fake checks that are used to buy gift cards. PDF As for the question of whether this memo actually was written by a Louisiana official, we note that the Louisiana State Police (LSP) disclaimed the memo's appropriateness without denying that it originated within the DPSC:  LSP On Thursday, July 26, 2007, an unauthorized letter was distributed to employees in the Baton Rouge field office of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Office of Motor Vehicles, concerning an alleged multi-city fraud and theft ring operating at Wal-Mart involving Wal-Mart employees. It was alleged in the letter that the employees of the store would obtain a customer's checking account information, and the information would be used to create fraudulent checks. This letter was not official or sanctioned in any way by the Department of Public Safety; unfortunately this letter was made public. The Department will be conducting an internal investigation and, at the conclusion of the investigation, will take the appropriate corrective and/or disciplinary action. Members of the public should not rely on information contained in the letter. As always, consumers are cautioned to take steps to limit disclosure of their personal information and to be aware of their surroundings. As for the content of the memo, we note that instances of check fraud have been tied to a then-new practice (used in some Walmart stores) of processing checks not by the "traditional" method of retaining them and submitting them to banks for deposit, but by using them as authorizations to initiate electronic funds transfers (EFTs) and immediately returning them to customers.   In some cases, dishonest sales clerks have abused this procedure by deliberately failing to return checks to customers, then re-scanning the checks multiple times and using the ill-gotten proceeds to purchase gift cards and other merchandise. For example, TV station KTRK in Houston reported the following check-theft scam by a Walmart employee in December 2006: A former Wal-Mart employee is behind bars for her role in what authorities are calling a check fraud scheme. When you write a check at Wal-Mart, you hand it to a clerk who then runs the check through an electronic scanner and hands it back to you. Unfortunately some Wal-Mart shoppers did not get their checks handed back to them and it cost them thousands of dollars. Pam Davis never thought writing a $37 check at Wal-Mart would cost her thousands of dollars, but that's exactly what happened. She said, "I had gone to Wal Mart and written a check for $37 and did not realize I did not get that check back, which is the custom with electronic transfer. You are supposed toreceive the check back." Davis says  and authorities confirm  a clerk at Wal-Mart never returned Davis' check at the time of purchase, [so] the clerk was able to re-run the check through the electronic reader again and again.  Five times, they changed the amounts each time," Davis claimed. "It was almost $3,000." Authorities believe the clerk gave the checks to other people who then went on shopping sprees inside the store. Capt. Mark Herman with Precinct 4 said, "In some of the cases they were getting $300 Wal-Mart gift cards, clothing, just all kinds of purchases." Constables say the clerk did the same thing with checks written by other Wal-Mart customers. February 2016 also saw the sentencing of a Walmart customer who (along with his wife) defrauded other customers of hundreds of thousands of dollars through the method of peeking over their shoulders to obtain personal information which the couple used to create counterfeit checks: A man who cashed $300,000 worth of counterfeit checks using personal information stolen by peeking over the shoulders of hundreds of Wal-Mart customers was sentenced to prison. Robert MacVittie and his wife lined up behind customers trying to cash payroll checks at "dozens and dozens" of Wal-Mart stores in 20 states and recorded them providing their Social Security numbers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Melucci said at the hearing where MacVittie received a 34-month sentence. The couple would then use the victims' identities to create counterfeit checks, which they cashed at other Wal-Marts. Melucci called MacVittie, 35, and his wife Jennifer, 32, "the Bonnie and Clyde of counterfeit checks." More than 400 people had their identities used on the successfully cashed counterfeit checks, Melucci said. Although it is possible a similar type of fraud could be effected by clerks' surreptitiously using cell phones to photograph customer checks, we have not been able to verify that this specific form of theft is occurring, much less that is taking place on a multi-city level by organized rings of Walmart employees.  photograph A few tips can be helpful to shoppers to avoid falling victim to this sort of fraud:  Be aware of how the stores you patronize process checks.  If they scan checks to use them as EFT authorizations, be sure your check is returned to you before you leave the checkout counter.  Use your bank's web site to monitor your checking account transactions online and notify your bank immediately if you spot any suspect transactions.  Using credit cards (or debit cards) rather than checks generally makes it easier to challenge fraudulent transactions and limit your liability for illegitimate charges.   Last updated:  7 February 2016  Mandak, Joe.  "'Shoulder Surfing' Husband Gets Prison in Walmart Check Scam Targeting Hundreds."    WTAE [Pittsburg].  4 February 2016. In November 2013, South Korean designer Jeabyun Yeon unveiled his concept for a "Portal Oxygen Respirator" dubbed Triton, a device that would allow people to breather underwater "simply by biting it," at theSamsung Art and Design Institute (SADI)graduation exhibition: South Korean designer Jeabyun Yeon just unveiled a conceptual scuba mask that would allow divers to breathe underwater without air tanks. The mask, called the Triton, consists of two branching arms designed to serve as "gills" that extract oxygen from the water and deliver breathable air directly into their wearer's lungs. Instead of hauling around heavy scuba equipment, swimmers could simply bite down on a plastic mouth piece.  Yeon's concept proved popular, and in March 2014 the web siteInhabitat published an article about the nifty design. Whilethat article correctly described the Triton as a "conceptual scuba mask" and noted that "the design is just a concept" that may "someday be turned into a commercial product," the article'sheadline ("Triton Scuba Mask Transforms Divers into Human Fish") misled some readers into believing that the Triton was a fully developed, workable, real product. headline An IndieGogo page dedicated to raising funds for the project explains how the Triton gills supposedly work: Triton employs cutting-edge technology to produce 'artificial gills'. TheMicroporous Hollow Fiber makesbreathing underwater possible. The holes of the threads are smaller than water molecules, they keepwater out and let oxygen in. The micro compressor then extracts and stores the oxygen  allowing youto breathe naturally and revel in your underwater freedom. We are using a very powerful modified micro compressor, it compresses oxygen and stores the extracted oxygen in a storage tank.The micro compressor operates through a powerful modified lithium-ion battery.  However, as more skeptical reports have noted, the Triton is far more concept than product, and not necessarily a concept that will ever be realizable: skeptical   I'm not sold on the Triton. My biggest issue with it is that it would just have to filter so much water to provide all the oxygen a human needs for a single breath. The average human need 500mls of air with every breath; going in, the air has a 21% oxygen concentration and a 16% concentration coming out, for a total of ~25mls of oxygen intake with every breath. Scientific literature places the concentration of oxygen at 6mg/L of ocean water so the Triton would have to go through ... about 6L of water for each breath (assuming our lungs can scrub almost all the oxygen in the air which they don't)? I dont really think it can do that. That being said, finding a way to take oxygen out of seawater is a great idea. But Yeon needs to make this thing go through a lot of sea water very fast before it's actually usable for diving   Yeonuploaded a videoon 20 February 2016 supposedly showing a working prototype of a set of Triton gills, but given the number of cuts in the video (such that the diver is never seen fully underwater for an extended period of time and could simply be holding his breath), it's not possible to determine if the product shown actually works as claimed:  After the release of the promotional video, more articles expressed some of the same doubts about the viability of such a device, and more: articles   There are several raised by experts and commentators about the device: 1) The device has to be able to extract enough oxygen from the water to allow you to actually breath.  This is possible in theory however as pointed out in an article on Deep Sea News in 2014 (when the device first came to light as a concept) it requires not only an incredibly efficient ability to extract the oxygen  which the designers say is down to a new Microporous Hollow Fiber  but also water has to be forced through the device at upward of five liters every 15 seconds which could only be achieved with a pump bigger than the whole Triton design. 2) Next is the issue of storing the gas in a chamber  this would require a compressor and battery "order of magnitude more efficient than anything on the market today".  The makers claim on the website that they have a "very powerful modified micro compressor" but again without any real proof. 3) Let's say theyve managed to crack those two issues the next one is the ability to deliver the oxygen to you in the right amount at the right pressure to be able to breathe.  This is possible as we see it in open-circuit Scuba systems and in Closed Circuit Rebreathers however, again, there is no technology on the market right now that can achieve such a feat in such a small design. 4) Finally there is the video, on face value it looks like there is a working unit, however on close inspection you can see that it is made up of several short clips where the person seems to be getting progressively more negatively buoyant (probably due to expelling air from their lungs to create the "bubbles" from the device) and no clip ever shows a person underwater for longer than one minute.  As we know from Freediving that is not even a difficult breath-hold for most people. All-in-all the possibility of a device such as Triton is not beyond the realm of possibility at some point; sadly, though, the challenges faced by the designers just do not seem to be reasonably solved with technology available today.  The designers would have had to have developed 3 or 4 incredibly efficient and compact new technologies to make this possible.   Other commentators began question whether the Indiegogo campaign to fund development of the Triton gill device might not be a scam, given the extreme scientific unlikelihood that such a device could be built with existing technology and the lack of evidence for Triton's having produced anything beyond a mere concept: scam   Right now, an Indiegogo campaign for a device that its makers claim is "the future of underwater breathing" is raking in cash  more than $600,000 at the time of this post, $100,000 of which poured in over just 24 hours. It's easy to see the appeal of the handheld device, called the "Triton." Diving equipment is heavy and complicated. Meanwhile, the Triton looks seductively simple and the campaign says it "allows you to breathe underwater." But despite the slick crowdfunding campaign, there's no real evidence that this device actually works, multiple experts told Tech Insider. One of them is Neal Pollock, a research associate at the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology at Duke University Medical Center, and the research director for the Divers Alert Network  a non-profit organization that helps divers in medical emergencies and promotes dive safety. "In concept it sounds very good and it's very exciting," Pollock tells Tech Insider, but "I would not encourage anyone pulling out a wallet." For the makers of Triton to prove they've invented a device that can actually do what they say it can, Pollock and other experts want to see more evidence; the crowdfunding campaign and Triton website simply don't provide enough to go on. Regardless, Pollock notes the technological challenges involved in creating a device like Triton are so vast that "it's not realistic, it's science fiction."   On 1 April 2016, Triton published an update announcing the release of a new video showing the product in action.  They also disclosed that the Triton requires the use of 'liquid oxygen' cylinders, and that they had decided to refund the donations of all the backers who had contributed to so far and launch a new campaign: update video   Inside of each Triton, the artificial gills utilize liquid oxygen, which combined with the other components allow users to breathe underwater, which you can see in the video above. We will release more information about the liquid oxygen cylinders and safety strap. Note that the liquid oxygen cylinders wont last forever so we plan to make it possible for backers to purchase and exchange cylinders through our website. They will come in packs of 1, 3 and 5, and well list prices as soon as they are finalized. Were also working on a solution to make them refillable. We wanted to share it at the beginning of the campaign but were hesitant because we also wanted to  protect our intellectual property. Our success and the positive comments we have received have made it clear that these details are important for our backers to understand. We launched this campaign to build a community of people who are excited to bring Triton to life, and we are committed to making sure our backers feel confident in our efforts. After careful consideration and in light of this new information, we have decided to refund all Triton backers and launch a brand new campaign. Claim: Household paper shredders can pose a danger to children and pets. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] This one comes from a well respected Borzoi person, and veterinarian, Elizabeth A Coney, DVM of Kentucky. She wrote: Now - for every one of you that has a home paper shredder with an "auto on" feature, I want you to go turn it off and unplug the paper shredder right now. Because night before last I was presented with a paper shredder containing most of the tongue, ripped out by the base, and a very pretty sweet 1 1/2 year old lab cross whose owners euthanized her. She always watched the paper go into the shredder, she thought it fascinating. The "auto on" feature means the shredder sits there waiting for something to get placed into it. Like an inquisitive tongue. I told them, "Dogs can do fine without a tongue, they have to learn to drink and eat differently", but the owners didn't want to go there. The look in her eyes said, "I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, it's all my fault". We all cried.  I cried when I read this, myself. In subsequent posts Beth says she has learned that dogs who have lost more than half their tongues *don't* do as well as she had been taught. According to the veterinary literature it is also possible for animals to be injured other places than tongues  a Basset lost an ear, a long-haired cat most of the skin on its side, a kitten a foot, etc. She didn't mention any human injuries, but I can't imagine that a toddler would be immune from either curiosity or injury. Please be vigilant!! This is not the 1st time I have heard of this happening. Origins:  While Barbara and I were away from home for a few days recently, we received a playful e-mail message from our petsitter informing us that our house was "haunted."  She'd  dropped by to tend to our cats, she said, when suddenly she heard the sound of a paper shredder running in Barbara's office.  Nobody else was in the house, and she quickly ruled out the possibility that one of our kittens had accidentally started the shredder because they were all dancing around her feet in the kitchen at the time, impatiently waiting to be fed. The incident was even more puzzling because we're pretty careful about always leaving our shredder in the "Off" setting when we're not using it, and even when the device is powered on, it doesn't activate until a piece of paper is fed into it.  We never did solve the mystery, although we're pretty sure it's not related to a haunting. In any case, the experience reminded us that we (like many other people) now have in our home a variety of machines that once were typically found only in business offices. Although some people manage to find ways to injure themselves with just about anything (even something as seemingly innocuous as a fax machine), paper shredders can pose an especial hazard  they're made to destroy documents rather than generate them, and (due in large part to concerns about identity theft) more and more of them are being purchased for home use, where their shredding blades represent a risk not just to careless adults, but to curious children and inquisitive pets as well.  In 2005, for example, the Spokesman Review reported: [T]he U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says shredders  $350 million worth were sold [in 2004] and many wound up in homes  pose a growing threat of injury to children, particularly toddlers. The agency received 31 reports involving finger amputations and other finger injuries from paper shredders from January 2000 to December 2003. It isn't difficult to find harrowing reports of children being seriously injured through sticking their fingers into shredders, such as the following account from Consumer Reports: Lisa Broadfoot's son, Talan, was helping her shred documents, when suddenly his little fingers got sucked in. "He screamed and then was begging me to get his hands out of this machine, 'Please Mommy, Please Mommy, get my hand out.' [He was] just screaming and crying and begging," Broadfoot said. Lisa rushed Talan to the hospital with the shredder still attached. "They started cutting the blades because there was no other way to get his fingers undone," she said. "It was like he could feel it. He just started screaming again and I'm holding him and trying to explain to him that it's going to be OK. It's going to be OK." Talan ended up losing three of his fingers. In March 2006, TV's Inside Edition reported a similar case of injury to a child: When you meet Hallie Mouritsen, you cant tell that there's anything wrong with this beautiful five year-old girl.  But if you look closer at Hallie's left hand, her fingers are cut off at the knuckle.  The doctor described them as being "crushed, mutilated and non-viable." How did it happen?  Hallie was feeding paper into a shredder in her home when her fingers got caught in its powerful blades. According to her father, Matt, "it grabbed her fingers and just began pulling." And Hallie's not the only one.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a safety alert after receiving 50 reports of injuries from paper shredders since 2000, most involving children younger than five.  Mr. Mouritsen is an accounting professor in Salt Lake City, Utah who often works at home. He says he had just opened the shredder for the first time and after using it, left the room briefly. Hallie, who was just two, went into the room with her older sister. "The next thing I know, while I'm making dinner, my five year-old is yelling, she's stuck, she's stuck!" he told Inside Edition's Investigative Reporter Matt Meagher. Hallie's wounds took months to heal.  Her dad still chokes up remembering Hallie's reaction the day the bandages came off.  "She went like this with her hand" (hiding his left hand). "She couldn't even look at it. She asks us to this day, when are my fingers going to grow back?" Among household pets, dogs are particularly at risk from shredders, as they have a tendency to lick things, and many breeds have long, floppy ears that can get caught in shredder openers.   The Spokesman Review published an account of an incident in which a puppy suffered injuries from a paper shredder so severe that she was euthanized afterwards (and her owner lost a portion of one finger trying to rescue her): Adam Forney doesn't even own a paper shredder. And he probably never will. The 22-year-old was sitting on his couch in his south Spokane home watching television when his 7-month-old puppy licked the top of his roommate's shredder and the dog's tongue was sucked into the shredding mechanism. "I ran into the room ... she was pulling so hard and the thing was dragging ... then she just ripped away," Forney said. "I will never forget the sound it made when she pulled away." In the chaos of trying to help his injured dog, Forney's pinky finger was bitten off at the first joint, and another finger was fractured by the bite. "I grabbed her head to try and get her to calm down, and she bit me," Forney said. "She ran out of the room and I just lost it. It looked like a murder scene in my house ... there was so much blood." Forney went to the emergency room, and his mixed-breed dog, Alice Lane, went to a local pet emergency clinic, where she was euthanized. Inside Edition offered a similar tale of a young dog's catching his tongue in a shredder: A number of pets have also been injured by shredders. For one dog owner, it was a horrifying experience.  Sandra Clarke of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina told us when she was at home working on March 1st, her curious puppy, Cross, caught his tongue in a shredder.  According to Sandra, it was not a pretty sight.  "It looked like hamburger meat.  It was shredded up about an inch.  There was blood everywhere." A large part of the problem is that since shredders were originally designed as business equipment for offices (where they would presumably be   used only by adults), many models did not have the kinds of safeguards built into them to provide adequate protection in household environments, where children and animals abound.  Although consumer safety groups are working to get manufacturers and lawmakers to adopt more stringent safety standards for shredders (such as making paper slots thinner and placing blades farther away from openings), the adoption of new standards takes time, and plenty of the machines already have been purchased for home use.   Some veterinarians maintain that serious shredder accidents involving animals are rare, but the frequency of occurrence is difficult to estimate since there has not been any systematic effort to keep track of such injuries.  Regardless, the subject merits attention since the potential for accidents (involving both people and pets) will likely continue to grow as more and more shredders make their way into households, and the likelihood of injury can be mostly eliminated by following a few simple precautions:  Try to place your shredder where it is not accessible to children or pets.   Turn off (or unplug) your shredder when you are not using it.   Never allow children to operate your shredder, even with adult supervision.  Keep your hands and fingers as far from the shredder opening as possible when feeding material into it.   Be careful to secure or remove ties, necklaces, bracelets, loose-fitting clothing, and long hair before using your shredder.  Avoid putting thicker material (such as food wrappers, product packaging, and padded envelopes) through your shredder.        Paper Shredder Dangers to Kids, Pets   (KGO-TV)        Paper Shredders Can Be a Danger to Children and Pets   (Inside Edition)      Leaming, Sara.  "Paper Shredder Leads to Nightmare."   The [Spokane] Spokesman Review.  2 March 2005.    Inside Edition.  "Paper Shredders Can Be a Danger to Children and Pets."   30 March 2006.    Internet Broadcasting Systems.  "Paper Shredders Can Be Dangerous Risk Around Home."   WRAL.com.  10 April 2006. On Nov. 8, 2022, the day of much-anticipated midterm elections, The New York Times published a list of tips to help particularly stressed election watchers. A couple of those tips earned the Times a round of jeering from right-wing media and social media users. right-wing media users Yes, the tipscame from the Times. Some seem straight forward enough. Limit scrolling on your phone for updates, take a short walk, for example. A couple of them went viral for the wrong reasons, including "breathe like a baby" and face-plunge into ice water. the tips The list of tips is titled "5 ways to soothe election stress" with pointers that include, "Breathe like a baby. Focus on expanding your belly as you breathe, which can send more oxygen to the brain." Here's a screenshot of the list, as posted on the social media platform Twitter: posted  (Screenshot, @nytimes Twitter page) The phrase "breathe like a baby" may sound infantilizing, but the breathing practice described in the list above is a technique known as diaphragmatic breathing, sometimes called belly breathing, and it is known to ease anxiety and stress, whether it's from the watching election returns or anything else. known Licensed clinical psychologist Dianne Grande wrote in Psychology Today that the technique works because "it signals the brain and body to relax." That's because it stimulates the body's parasympathetic nervous system, known as the "rest and digest" aspect of the nervous system think of it as the opposite of the "fight or flight" response, per the University of California, Los Angeles' Health blog. stimulates We can't say we found much in the way of reputable medical sources to support the idea that going face first into a bowl of ice will help with anxiety, election-related or otherwise, though Psychology Today says research does support the idea that hot and cold baths can help with mood. says "Relaxation Therapies," Integrative Digestive Health & Wellness, UCLA Health. https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/gastro/wellness/wellness-approaches/relaxation-therapies#:~:text=Diaphragmatic%20breathing,rest%20and%20digest)%20nervous%20system. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022. Solan, Matthew. "Ease Anxiety and Stress: Take a (Belly) Breather." Harvard Health, 26 Apr. 2019, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ease-anxiety-and-stress-take-a-belly-breather-2019042616521. Grande, Dianne. "The Simplest Stress Management Skill." Psychology Today, 31 July 2021,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-it-together/202107/the-simplest-stress-management-skill. Linda Chavez-Thompson kicked off her campaign for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor by assailing the personal wealth of incumbent Republican David Dewhurst, whos jet-fueled three winning statewide campaigns partly from personal funds.Chavez-Thompson, whose background lies in labor unions, said Jan. 4: I know I will be an underdog against Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, who is a comfortable millionaire. But most Texans are not millionaires. See her single out the Lone Star state's wealth stereotype at the 1:08 mark of the video at right, which was posted on YouTube by the Texas Tribune.Thanks go to Chavez-Thompson for stating the obvious. We here at PolitiFact aren't millionaires and expect most Texans aren't, either.Still, Chavez-Thompson caused us to wonder: How many Texans are millionaires? And are many Texans well off compared to people elsewhere?We found that the latest statistics on Texas millionaires date back a few years. In 2004, according to an Internal Revenue Service estimate posted online in 2008, Texas was home to 108,000 individuals whose net worth was $1.5 million or more. (Why the $1.5 million benchmark? We don't know, but we suspect that a meager $1 million doesn't go as far as it used to. )Karl Eschbach, the state demographer, peeked at the same analysis and offered a quick caveat: The estimate was reached before the nation entered a recession partly driven by plunging home values, fueling drops in net worth.In 2004, 1 in 208 Texans were in the $1.5-million wealth tier--about 1/2 of 1 percent of the state's nearly 22.5 million residents. Texas ranked 37th nationally in its share of individuals with net worth of $1.5 million or more. Connecticut ranked first, Florida second, the District of Columbia third.Eschbach noted that the wealthiest people in Texas were better off than their rich counterparts in most states. In 2004, Texas ranked 18th in the average net worth of individuals whose net worth was $1.5 million or more. The average net wealth of such Texans was more than $4.5 million.We also found a 2001 estimate, based on an IRS sampling of federal tax returns, suggesting Texas was home to 182,000 millionaires, amounting to less than 1 percent of its 21.3 million residents that year.California was the heady home to 572,000 millionaires, New York to 317,000 and Florida to 249,000Even Illinois had more millionaires, at 185,000, making us scratch our heads: When was the last time peacock-proud Texans had to fret about keeping up with residents of the Land of Lincoln?In her campaign kickoff speech, Chavez-Thompson didnt recap the less salutary fact that Texas families rated as poorer than families nationally. In 2007, according to the Census Bureau, half of American households had income exceeding $50,740 and half made less than that. Texas had a median household income of $47,548.Of course, Texas still had enclaves of wealth. According to the bureaus study, the Dallas suburb of Plano was a nationally prominent pocket of lucre, with a median household income of $84,492.At the other end of the scale, the state retained bastions of poverty along the Mexico border. Residents of El Paso County had median household incomes of $34,980 while residents of Hidalgo and Cameron counties had median incomes of $30,295 and $29,347, respectively, both ranking worse off than other U.S. counties.As of 2008, nearly 16 percent of Texans (3.8 million residents) lived in poverty, with 22.5 percent of children living in poverty, according to the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for government aid to low-income residents. Nationally, 13.2 percent of residents lived in poverty, including 18.2 percent of children.Eschbach said sizing up the state's wealth is no cinch.You have a lot of major corporations headquartered here. You've got a lot of wealth creation, Eschbach said. In that respect, we certainly aren't the wealthiest state or the poorest state. We do have a large representation of very disadvantaged people. At the same time, we have a robust economy.Much debate lies in the details. Yet to Eschbach and the rest of Texas, Chavez-Thompson's statement was no surprise.We rate her statement True. An Internet meme circulating during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign purported to reveal financial trickery on the part of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, who allegedly deducted $1 million from her 2015 income tax return after donating it "to herself" via contributions to the Clinton Foundation. On the assumption that this information came from the candidate's 2015 tax filing (released to the public earlier this year), that's where we went to verify the accuracy of the claims. Our findings were these: filing 1. The return was a joint filing for both Hillary and William J. Clinton. 2. Their shared charitable donations totaled $1,042,000: $42,000 to Desert Classic Charities and $1 million to the Clinton Family Foundation. Desert Classic Charities Clinton Family Foundation   3. Declaring an amount  say $1 million  as a charitable donation only reduces your taxable income; it doesn't mean your "tax bill" is reduced by that amount. 4. The Clinton Family Foundation is a separate entity from the Clinton Foundation. Inside Philanthropy describes the Clinton Family Foundation as "a traditional private foundation that serves as the vehicle for the couple's personal charitable giving." It has neither staff nor offices.  Clinton Foundation describes 5. According to Inside Philanthropy, the Clinton Family Foundation regularly disburses contributions to scores of different charities (one of which is, in fact, the Clinton Foundation): Digging into the Clinton Family Foundation's 2014 tax return reveals that they did around $3.8 million in grantmaking and held some $5.3 million in assets. Of total grantmaking in 2014, $1.8 million went to the Clinton Foundation, just under half of total giving.  2014 tax return However, in 2013, the Clintons gave $1.8 million through their personal foundation, with only around a fifth of that money going to the Clinton Foundation, around the same share as in 2012.  So where have all the other gifts gone? To lots of different places, is the short answer. In 2014, the Clintons gave money to 70 nonprofits through their foundation. The picture looked similar the year before, with many grants falling in the range of $5,000 to $25,000.  Recipients of the Clintons' largesse via the Clinton Family Foundation in 2014 ranged from the School of American Ballet to the Arkansas Childrens Hospital Foundation to Wellesley College to the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. 2014 The foundation's 2015 tax filing has not yet been made public, so we don't have an accounting of the organizations to whom the $1 million contributed by the Clintons that year was disbursed. Regarding the apparent assumption that any monies donated to the Clinton Foundation simply end up in the Clintons' own pockets, we refer readers, once again, to Inside Philanthropy, which describes the actual work the foundation does, and to the charity rating service Charity Navigator, which gives the Clinton Foundation an overall score of 94.74 points out of 100 in terms of its financials, accountability, and transparency. Inside Philanthropy Charity Navigator  Callahan, David."What the Heck Does the Clinton Foundation Actually DO?"
Inside Philanthropy.23 June 2016. Callahan, David and Adeniji, Ade."The Other Clinton Foundation: A Look at Bill and Hillary's Personal Philanthropy."
Inside Philanthropy.29 July 2016. FACT CHECK: Does avideo show a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner?  Claim:  Avideo shows a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner.   Origins:  On 23 June 2015, a video purportedly showing a drone airpline clipping the wing of a passenger plane and shearing off the wingtip was uploaded to the web siteLiveleak:  Some idiot's drone crossed our take-off path.I'm still alive! The plane wing shown in the above-displayed video has the same colors as Southwest Airlines, but a closer look reveals that the company's namehas been replaced with the URL for visual effects artist Bruce Branit's website, Branit.com: Branit.com Shortly after the above-displayed video went viral, Branit publisheda blog post explaining that it was fake: blog post Lately, I've beenlooking for little videos to make with no budget, an iPhone and some CGI. After shooting this footage of NYC as we were climbing out of Laguardia (thanks FAA for finally letting us keep our phones in airplane mode during take-off), I thought it might be a challenge to make something go by or even strike the wing. This is the same air corridor that Captain "Skully" ditched his Airbus A320in the Hudson after a double bird strike, saving all on-board. But I chose to make a drone zip past instead of a birdand tear off a section of the winglet. Branit also published another video showing how he created the "drone hits plane" viral video:  Last updated: 24 June 2015 In December 2020, a viral meme was shared on social media that claimed a story about U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was "front page news" in Australia. The article's headline read: "Biden 'Child Porn' Shock."  (Twitter screenshot) However, the meme's claim was false. The story appeared in a tabloid newspaper. Further, it did not appear on the front page of that publication, and the front page did not appear to tease or even mention the story in any way:   Also, any scandal surrounding Hunter Biden wasn't new news in December 2020. The story appeared in the Oct. 22, 2020, edition of the conservative Australian tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph. It claimed that Hunter Biden became "the hunted amid claims of underage pics on his laptop": appeared THE ongoing story of alleged corruption and foreign influence trading by the Biden family took a more sinister turn on Wednesday (AEDT). Speaking to the conservative American news outlet Newsmax, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he had turned the hard drive reportedly left abandoned by Hunter Biden, son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, at a Delaware repair shop over to state police due to contents which he said included inappropriate text messages and pictures of underage girls. Mr. Giuliani said there were "numerous" pictures which he described as being of underage girls. He also said there were text messages from Hunter to Joe saying that he had been accused of speaking naked to a 14-year-old girl on FaceTime. [...] The laptop has rocked the presidential race as it appears to provide direct evidence of cash-for-influence schemes involving Hunter and countries such as Ukraine and China. We previously reported on rumors surrounding Biden's son, which surfaced prior to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as have The Associated Press, NBC News, and Fox News, among other news media outlets. We also debunked a false claim that said a photograph of Malia Obama's credit card was found on Hunter Biden's laptop, complete with lines of cocaine. reported on The Associated Press NBC News Fox News debunked Update [June 1, 2023]: Changed rating from False to Miscaptioned in accordance with current rating standards. One of the more whimsical messaging options offered by Snapchat  a social media app for mobile devices introduced in 2011  is the ability to personalize selfies in real time and share them instantly with other users, a feature that has at once contributed to the app's immense popularity (Snapchat boasts an estimated 166 million users daily) and raised privacy concerns among some of its customers.  Snapchat's rotating toolbox of image filters, called Lenses, enables users to manipulate photos and videos to humorous effect, as seen in these examples shared publicly on Instagram by celebrity Snapchatter Chrissy Teigen:   Cute and innocent though it may appear, the feature has become the target of conspiracy theorists claiming that Snapchat's corporate owner, Snap Inc., uses it to collect facial recognition data which it allegedly stores and shares with law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA. We've found examples of such rumors dating back to Fall 2015 (soon after the Lenses feature was officially rolled out): you guys are all swooning over the snapchat filters... And The FBI is getting the most extensive facial recognition library ever  TEENWOLF (@TEENWOLFREMIX) October 3, 2015 October 3, 2015  It wasn't until April of the following year that the rumors reached takeoff speed, however, thanks largely to a tweet composed by hip hop artist, songwriter, and unabashed flat-earth theorist B.o.B to his roughly two million followers: tweet flat-earth when you realize all the snap chat filters are really building a facial recognition database ?  B.o.B (@bobatl) April 16, 2016 April 16, 2016 In May 2016, with civil cases already pending against Facebook and Google alleging unauthorized use of facial recognition technology, a class action lawsuit was filed by two Snapchat users in Illinois complaining that the app violated their rights under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by failing to obtain adequate permission before gathering and storing their "biometric identifiers and biometric information". lawsuit BIPA The company flatly denied it: denied Contrary to the claims of this frivolous lawsuit, we are very careful not to collect, store, or obtain any biometric information or identifiers about our community. The class action suit was eventually dismissed in favor of arbitration in September 2016, but as of this writing the case remains unresolved. Crucial to Snapchat's defense is their position, as stated in the Privacy Center of the company's web site, that the app relies on object recognition, not facial recognition, to make Lenses work: arbitration stated Have you ever wondered how Lenses make your eyes well up with tears or rainbows come out your mouth? Some of the magic behind Lenses is object recognition. Object recognition is an algorithm designed to understand the general nature of things that appear in an image. It lets us know that a nose is a nose or an eye is an eye. But object recognition isnt the same as facial recognition. While Lenses can recognize faces in general, they can't recognize a specific face. If it's true that Lenses can't recognize (i.e., identify) specific faces, then the claim that the app produces anything qualifying as a "biometric identifier" under Illinois law is seriously in doubt. (The district judge in Illinois overseeing the Google facial recognition case previously defined "biometric identifier" as "a set of biology-based measurements ... used to identify a person.) case As to the wider claim that Snapchat is building a "facial recognition database," the distinction between object and facial recognition, at minimum, places a burden of proof on those trumpeting the claim to show that the app is capable of identifying specific faces in the first place. If this explanation (provided by the web site Vox) of how the software works is accurate, Snapchat doesn't need to be able to identify specific faces to accomplish the task. It has to recognize a face as a face, and identify the parts of a face as the nose, eyes, ears, chin, etc., but it doesn't have to recognize who the face belongs to: this Moreover, Snapchat's Privacy Policy states that the company neither collects nor permanently stores user-created content (meaning photos and videos) let alone preserves such items in a database: states Snapchat lets you capture what its like to live in the moment. On our end, that means that we automatically delete the content of your Snaps (the photo and video messages that you send your friends) from our servers after we detect that a Snap has been opened by all recipients or has expired. And although the policy further acknowledges that Snap Inc. may share users' personal information "to comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation" (and transparency reports show that the company has indeed complied with such requests in the past), they can't grant the FBI (or any other agency) access to a "facial recognition database" that doesn't exist. reports Some rumors die hard, however. An updated variant that cropped up in early 2017 brought two new claims to the mix: one, that the FBI literally created Snapchat's image filtering software (and alleged facial recognition database); and two, that there is a smoking gun to prove it  namely U.S. patent #9396354:   granted According to an analysis by Sophos' Naked Security blogger Alison Booth, the patent proposes using facial recognition software to identify individual subjects in photos, whereupon the latter would be modified and/or their distribution restricted in accordance with the subjects' pre-established privacy settings. analysis There is a catch. Implementation of the process would, of course, require amassing a facial recognition database. "For facial recognition to work," writes Booth, "Snapchat would need to store images of all users that sign up to the feature  as a reference image to compare photos against." So, there it is  a "facial recognition database" of the sort conspiracy theorists have been going on about since 2015, except that Snapchat has not, to date, implemented such a feature (a fact we were able to confirm with the company), nor is there evidence that the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency) was involved in creating it, nor does the patent itself mention sharing facial recognition data with government entities. Despite finding no legitimate basis for the claim that Snapchat is currently engaged in collecting, storing, or sharing facial recognition data on its users, we do not wish to downplay the increasing prevalence of facial recognition technology in both commercial and government applications, nor the privacy issues this raises. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) articulated some of these issues in a statement announcing the release of a 2015 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the privacy implications of the technology: report The newly released report raises serious concerns about how companies are collecting, using, and storing our most sensitive personal information. I believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, which is why it's important that, at the very least, the tech industry adopts strong, industry-wide standards for facial recognition technology. But what we really need are federal standards that address facial recognition privacy by enhancing our consumer privacy framework. The tech industry has yet to address these concerns to the satisfaction of consumer privacy watchdogs, however, nor has Congress made progress toward establishing the federal standards Franken called for. Thus far, issue has been dealt with primarily in the court system via cases such as the aforementioned BIPA class action lawsuits against Facebook and Google. watchdogs lawsuits One of the ironies of the false alarms about Snapchat's alleged sharing of facial recognition data with the FBI is that the agency already maintains a biometric data network comprising the facial images of more than 117 million Americans (about half the U.S. adult population, and growing), mostly drawn from state DMV databases and other non-criminal sources. A 2016 report by the Georgetown Law Center for Privacy and Technology warned that the technology is both error-prone, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color, and almost totally unregulated. already report disproportionate In testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by Sen. Franken in 2012, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Jennifer Lynch urged Congress to act sooner rather than later to protect the biometric privacy of all Americans: testimony Face recognition and its accompanying privacy concerns are not going away. Given this, it is imperative that government act now to limit unnecessary biometrics collection; instill proper protections on data collection, transfer, and search; ensure accountability; mandate independent oversight; require appropriate legal process before government collection; and define clear rules for data sharing at all levels. This is important to preserve the democratic and constitutional values that are bedrock to American society. Booth, Alison.  "Snapchat Turns Facial Recognition Technology on Its Head."
 Naked Security.  20 July 2016. Danley-Greiner, Kristin.  "Snapchat Defends Procedures After Facial Recognition Class Action."
 Legal Newsline.  2 September 2016. Garvie, Clare et al.  "The Perpetual Line-up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America."
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 Chicago Tribune.  13 January 2017. Korte, Amy.  "Federal Court in Illinois Rules Biometric Privacy Lawsuit Against Google Can Proceed."
 Illinois Policy.  8 March 2017. Maass, Dave.  "Memo to the DOJ: Facial Recognition's Threat to Privacy Is Worse than Anyone Thought."
 Electronic Frontier Foundation.  18 October 2016. Mathies, Daven.  "The Incredible Underlying Technology of Snapchat's Selfie Lenses."
 Digital Trends.  1 July 2016. Nelson, Steven.  "Half of U.S. Adults Are in Police Facial Recognition Networks."
 US News & World Report.  18 October 2016. Roberts, Jeff John.  "Tech Industry's Facial Recognition Plan Bashed by Privacy Groups."
 Fortune.  16 June 2016. Thielman, Sam.  "FBI Using Vast Public Photo Data and Iffy Facial Recognition Tech to Find Criminals."
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  19 July 2016. Government Accounting Office.  "Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues, and Applicable Federal Law."
 20 June 2015. U.S. Senate.  "Sen. Franken: New Report on Facial Recognition Technology Highlights Lack of Privacy Standards."
 30 July 2015. U.S. Senate.  "Sen. Franken Releases Extensive Report Detailing Concerns with FBI Facial Recognition Program."
 15 June 2016.