Says his campaign has released his past tax returns.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took some heat from CNNs Jake Tapper during anApril 3 interview. The topic: The degree of public transparency Sanders has provided for his tax returns. Tapper brought up the topic: Im kind of surprised that you havent gone further on transparency. You released the summary page of your 2014 tax returns. Hillary Clinton has posted on her website the last eight years of her personal returns, all of the returns. Before the New York primary, will you match her? Will you post your full returns for the last eight years? Sanders responded, You know who does our tax returns? My wife does our tax returns. Weve been a little bit busy lately. So we will get out as much information as we can. There aint going to be very much exciting in that. I get a salary from the United States Senate, you know, theres not going to be anything new in it that people havent seen for the last many years, but we will get it out as soon as we can. Tapper wasnt satisfied. But nobody has seen them at all, I guess, is the point, and whether or not theres anything exciting in them.... At this point, Sanders interjected, No, that is not true. That is not true. Of course, we have released them in the past. Our financial situation, to the best of my knowledge, has not changed very much, but we will get out all of that information as soon as we can. How transparent has Sanders been with his tax past returns? Not very, compared with others in the 2016 presidential field. Heres a closer look. As our friends at theWashington PostFact Checkerhave noted, Tax Analysts, a publisher specializing in tax policy, has been collecting publicly available tax returns of presidential candidates and other top officials for itsTax History Project. This archive goes back as far as the 1913 tax returns of future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Heres a look at what theircurrent archiveof the 2016 candidates looks like:   In other words, among the candidates still in the race, Sanders releases are less extensive than anybodys but Donald Trump. (Trump, too, hasfaced criticismfor refusing to share his returns.) And Sanders shortcomings are actually bigger than the screenshot above would suggest. The2014 filings Sanders releasedconsist of just the first two summary pages of his Form 1040 and the equivalent summary pages from his home-state Vermont tax form. Why does this matter? Unlike most of the other candidates, Sanders has not released the succeeding pages -- the nitty gritty detail of things like charitable donations and other types of itemized deductions. For instance,Clintons release for tax year 2014is 44 pages long, or more than 10 times the length of Sanders for the same year. Its worth noting that Sanders, as a member of Congress, filesannual financial disclosures, which are accessible online back to 2012. And as a presidential candidate, he also filesfinancial disclosure documentsto the Federal Election Commission. But tax returns are much more detailed. And despite what Sanders said in the exchange with Tapper, his campaign did not provide PolitiFact with any earlier, publicly available tax forms. The campaign told thePostthat it has not released any other tax returns prior to 2014. (The campaign did tell PolitiFact that they would release his 2015 returns once they are filed.) Tax and disclosure experts we contacted agreed that Sanders current disclosures are weak by historical standards. If I filed the first two pages of my return with the IRS, it would not take long for them to ding me, said Kenneth A. Gross of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and a specialist in political disclosure and ethics. There is a lot of information on the pages following the cover pages. Joseph J. Thorndike, the Tax Analysts official who heads the Tax History Project, agreed. Sanders has not, in fact, released his most recent tax return, Thorndike said. He has released a portion of that return. The IRS would not accept a Form 1040 as a complete return and neither should voters. Also, its worth noting that Sanders has not released any portion of his older returns. If Mitt Romney had tried to release an incomplete return in 2012, the media would never have accepted it. Our ruling Sanders told Tapper that his campaign has released his past tax returns. Sanders said his 2015 return is forthcoming, and he has made other types of disclosures in the past, including congressional and presidential-candidate filings. But his releases of prior-year tax forms -- the specific documents Tapper asked about -- have been limited in several ways. Hes only released information for one year, which pales compared to most other recent presidential candidates, and even that years release only includes a summary page, not the full return. We rate his claim False. UPDATE: As he had promised, Sandersreleasedhisfull 2014 tax returnon April 15, 2016. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/ba140e0d-4c11-436d-ad29-15e562ba5a98
The M-16, a rapid-fire, 5.56 mm assault rifle carried by thousands of American soldiers during the Vietnam War, grew out of efforts to develop a replacement for the standard M-1 Carbine used during World War II. The M-16 (originally designed by Eugene Stoner of Armalite as the AR-15) was constructed using plastics and alloys and was a much smaller and lighter weapon than its predecessors, one that fit in with the developing Vietnam-era strategy of less emphasis on long-range accuracy in favor of more easily-carried weapons with rapid rates of fire. M-16, Hundreds of thousands of M-16s were supplied to U.S. troops in the mid-1960s as US Army made the M-16 their standard rifle: Example:  [Morgan and Tucker, 1987] The handgrip of the M16 rifle was made by Mattel. When the gun was first introduced in Vietnam, soldiers noticed the toy company's logo embossed on the handgrip and complained. Later shipments arrived without the imprint, but the grips were still manufactured by Mattel. However, the M-16, manufactured by the Colt Firearms Corporation (who bought the rights from Armalite in 1959), soon developed a reputation for unreliability, frequently jamming and fouling (especially when not kept clean, a next-to-impossible task in the dust and mud of Vietnam battlefields). Problems with the M-16 eventually achieved such prominence that a congressional inquiry was ordered, resulting in design changes, additional troop training, and other modifications that ameliorated many of the reliability issues U.S. troops were experiencing with the weapon: Since the mid-1960s, when at Gen. William C. Westmorelands request an earlier version of the M-16 became the primary American rifle in Vietnam, the reputation of the M-16 family has been checkered. This is in part because the rifle had a painfully flawed roll-out. Beginning intensely in 1966, soldiers and Marines complained of the weapons terrifying tendency to jam mid-fight. Whats more, the jamming was often one of the worst sorts: a phenomenon known as failure to extract, which meant that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the chamber after a bullet flew out the muzzle. The only sure way to dislodge the case was to push a metal rod down the muzzle and pop it out. The modern American assault rifle, in other words, often resembled a single-shot musket. One Army record, classified at the time but available in archives now, showed that 80 percent of 1,585 troops queried in 1967 had experienced a stoppage while firing. The Army, meanwhile, publicly insisted that the weapon was the best rifle available for fighting in Vietnam. The problems were so extensive that in 1967 a Congressional subcommittee investigated, and issued a blistering rebuke to the Army for, among other things, failing to ensure the weapon and its ammunition worked well together, for failing to train troops on the new weapon, and for neglecting to issue enough cleaning equipment  including the cleaning rod essential for clearing jammed rifles. A series of technical changes sharply reduced (but never eliminated) the incidence of problems. Intensive weapons-cleaning training helped, too. To the troops in the field, the original M-16 was new, it was small, it was light, it was made of plastic rather than wood, and it often performed poorly to boot. It was no surprise that many of them started expressing their dissatisfaction by referring to it derisively as a cheaply-made "toy," and that they associated it with the most prominent toy company of the time: Mattel, the Hawthorne, California, toy manufacturer famous for introducing the Barbie doll to the world: Mattel One of the sayings soldiers had about the M16 was, "You can tell it's Mattel" which was a toy company's slogan at the time  the gun had a lot of plastic parts, which can't stand up to the vibrations like wood can but it is cheap. The Mattel legend was undoubtedly fed by the fact that Mattel really did sell an  M-16 Marauder toy gun in the mid-1960s, a quite good reproduction of the actual weapon, complete with "realistic" sound effects:  M-16 Marauder     The sardonic joke about problem-plagued M-16s being toys morphed into a legend about their really having been produced by a toy company, with "proof" offered in the additional detail of soldier's spotting M-16 handgrips embossed with the Mattel logo. The redesign that improved the M-16's reliability was then attributed to a switch in manufacturers (to a "real" gun company) prompted by soldier complaints. Chivers, C.J. "How Reliable Is the M-16 Rifle?"
The New York Times. 2 November 2009. Morgan, Hal and Tucker, Kerry. More Rumor!
New York: Penguin Books, 1987. ISBN 0-14-009720-1 (pp. 175-176). On 18 January 2017, web site GotNews posted an article reporting that U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who is perhaps most famous for participating in the Civil Rights Movement at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr., didn't pay property taxes on a $1 million townhouse located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C.: article Trump-hating Democratic Georgia congressman John Lewis didnt pay property taxes on his nearly $1 million fancy Washington, D.C. townhouse on Capitol Hill, despite being in Congress for decades, where the salary for a Representative starts at $174,000 per year. Lewis was in the news recently for saying he doesnt see President-elect Donald J. Trump as a legitimate president because of the #RussianHackers Democratic conspiracy theory. The article displayed a table showing annual property tax payments for the home in question and a legal notice from 2010 alerting Lewis of a court action against him (the case was later dismissed). It's unclear how this table supposedly documents that Lewis "didnt pay property taxes on his nearly $1 million fancy Washington, D.C. townhouse," given that it lists tax payments due on the property for each of the last several years and shows nothing owing other than the most recent payment (for the last half of 2016):  Moreover, a different view from the same D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue web site shows that the taxes on Lewis' property have indeed been collected, as due, for each of the last several years:  We contacted Lewis's spokeswoman, Brenda Jones, who told us that he bought the home years before property values soared, that he still owns it, and that he is not behind on his taxes: He pays property taxes annually, just as all homeowners in DC do, and his taxes are paid and up to date. Any report that he avoids paying taxes grasps at straws and is a desperate and unnecessary attempt to tarnish his credibility, instead of debating the substance of issues he has raised. Neither the home in question, nor any properties under Lewis' name, appearedon a database search of properties seized and placed on sale for failure to pay property taxes. database A second item of alleged proof offered by GotNews.com was a 2010 "notice of pendency of action," a legal notice ofcourt actions relating to real property. The document appears to be a notice of a foreclosure hearing. That case, however, was dismissed on 11 February 2011: notice  According to current public records available as of 19 January 2017, Lewis still owns the property, confirming that the case was dropped. It was purchased in 1988 (for an unknown price) and is currently valued at $865,790. An explanation offered by Lewis's office states that in 2010 he nearly lost his home to foreclosure but was able to stop the process: explanation Rep. Lewiss Washington, DC property was purchased decades ago for a fraction of its current value today. As most Washingtonians and any real property expert know, property values in the city have risen exponentially in the last 10 to15 years. Rep. Lewis is delighted that he made a wise investment years ago, and that his propertys value has skyrocketed. He also realizes he likely could not afford to purchase his own home were he seeking to buy it today. In 2010, he was subjected to attempts to foreclose upon his home, like many Americans during that period. He is fortunate that he was able to stop that process, though many Americans, including many hundreds of his constituents, were not as successful. His property taxes are paid and currently up to date. GotNews.  "Trump-Hating Democratic @RepJohnLewis DIDNT PAY TAXES On His Nearly $1 Million Fancy DC Townhouse."
18 January 2017. Seipel, Brooke."Rep. John Lewis: Trump Isn't a 'Legitimate President.'"
The Hill.13 January 2017. Wootson, Cleve R. "In Feud With John Lewis, Donald Trump Attacked 'One of the Most Respected People in America.'"
The Washington Post.15 January 2017. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew cheers from supporters in San Antonio as he vowed to keep the Texas economy rocking and laid a claim to history. The Republican governor, kicking off hisre-election campaign, said in July 2017: And since I took office, in just the last two and a half years, in Texas, weve added more than 450,000 new jobs. More Texans have jobs today than ever before in the history of our state. That jobs-gained number sounded a little low. According toBureau of Labor Statistics figureswe drew from a bureau economist, Cheryl Abbot, when Abbott took office in January 2015, the state was home to nearly 11.8 million non-farm jobs. As of June 2017, that count was up by about 507,500, exceeding 12.3 million. We decided to check whether more Texas residents have jobs than ever before. Abbotts campaign didnt answer requests for the basis of the claim. Meantime, economists concurred that according tobureau figures drawing on U.S. Census Bureau surveys, more than 12.8 million Texas residents had jobs from April 2017 through June 2017--with the April 2017 count of 12,872,506 employed people setting a record, though the tally subsequently slid marginally, reaching 12,848,980 in June 2017. A bureau-provided chart shows the dip in employment after that count had mostly steadily increased since January 2015: SOURCE:Chartshowing Texas Local Area Unemployment Statistics, BLS (received by email from Cheryl Abbot, regional economist, BLS, July 21, 2017) The economists we queried noted that because Texas continues to grow in population, it makes sense, barring economic disaster, that youd see more people having jobs year after year. Status quo in Texas,Mark J. Perry,an economist at the University of Michigan-Flint, told us by email, its always had steady job growth. Perry passed along a chart showing the nearly uniform annual upticks in employed Texas since 1939: SOURCE:Chart based ondata posted by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis(provided by email from Mark J. Perry, Ph.D., scholar atThe American Enterprise Institute, professor of Finance and Business Economics, School of Management, University of Michigan-Flint, July 28, 2017) So, Abbott was mostly right about the record count of Texans with jobs at the time he spoke. Jobless rate, employment-population ratio Other indicators provide context, however. For instance, the month before Abbott kicked off his re-election effort, the states unemployment rate of 4.6 percent--as in the share of able workers unsuccessfully seeking employment--was not a record low. We counted 59 months since 1976 when the Texas jobless rate was lower, per an Abbot-providedchart. Also, a ratio that compares the number of people with jobs to the population as a whole was higher for Texas and other states in the 1990s, a facetexploredby PolitiFact in Washington in July 2016. That story also noted that nationally since the end of the Great Recession, the U.S. employment-to-population ratio had climbed, slowly but fairly steadily. When we asked, Abbot shared bureau figures rooted inCensus Bureau survey findingsto represent changes in the Texas employment-population ratio. Similarly, economistTara Sinclair, an associate professor at George Washington University, drew onbureau figuresshowing that the states employment-population ratio exceeded 65 percent from 1995 through 2000 but fell to 61.5 percent in 2014 and to to 60.9 percent and 60.7 percent, respectively, in 2015 and 2016. In the latter year, the bureau says, that ratio reflected 12,671,801 Texans with jobs out of 20,861,611 residents. By email, Sinclair wrote that similar to thenational pattern for the employment-population ratio,Texasis still low relative to its historical peak (although doing a bit better than the national ratio). SOURCE: Chart drawing on BLS annual data for Texas (received by email fromTara Sinclair, associate professor of Economics and International Affairs, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, July 21, 2017) Our ruling Abbott said: More Texans have jobs today than ever before in the history of our state. By raw numbers, the more than 12.87 million employed Texans in April 2017 set a record though that count had dipped to 12.85 million by the time Abbott spoke. Also, the states June 2017 jobless rate, 4.6 percent, exceeded the rate in more than 50 months since 1976 while Texas in 2016 (like the nation) had an employment-population ratio trailing what it used to be. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Possible presidential aspirant Scott Walker opens his newbookwith a dismal depiction of conditions in the nations capital. If you are like me, the view from Washington, D.C., these days is pretty grim, the Republican governor writes in Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge, which is due out Nov. 19, 2013. Barack Obama has been elected to a second term. Obamacare will not be repealed anytime soon. Congress has approved massive tax increases. Then Walker makes this claim: The national debt is on track to double during Obamas presidency. Lets see how much the debt has grown and to what extent Obama is responsible. What is the debt? We hear plenty about the federal debt and annual federal budget deficits. So, lets make sure were on the same page before we dig in. Total federal debt, also known as gross debt, is the amount of debt issued by the U.S. Treasury and other federal agencies. It has two components: Debt held by the government is money the government owes itself. Mainly, the government borrows from trust funds such as Social Security and Medicare -- payments owed to beneficiaries in the future -- to fund current government operations. Debt held by the public is owed to investors outside the federal government, including individual and corporate investors in the United States and overseas, foreign governments, the Federal Reserve and other entities. It's money the government borrows when it runs annual budget deficits -- in other words, the money the government needs to bridge the gap between what it spends and what it takes in. How much is the debt? Jacquelynn Burke, a publicist for Sentinel, Walkers publisher, responded to our request to Walker for information to back his claim. She told us Walker was referring to total debt and to the portion held by the public and cited two documents from Obamas own administration, a2013 reportfrom the Council of Economic Advisers and Obamas2014 budget. Its helpful here to note that debt is tallied at the end of the fiscal year and that the federal fiscal year runs from October through September. So, fiscal 2008 started in October 2007 and ended in September 2008. The documents Walker relies on show total debt on pace to double -- from $9.99 trillion in fiscal 2008 to an estimated $20 trillion in fiscal 2016; and debt held by the public to more than double, from $5.8 trillion to $14.7 trillion. (FactCheck.org also reports that debt held by the public ison pace to doubleduring Obamas presidency.) Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, cited the same documents Walker did when we asked him about Walkers claim. Edwards said that, even though fiscal 2008 ended more than three months before Obama was first inaugurated, it is a good starting point because most of the debt accumulated in fiscal 2009 was from Obamas stimulus plan. Joshua Gordon, policy director at the centristConcord Coalition, which advocates for fiscal responsibility, argued that a better starting point is the end of fiscal 2009 -- a year later than what Walker uses -- since Obama would have been in office for nearly nine months at that point. He also argued against examining total debt, saying that since it includes borrowing from Social Security, it doesn't really have any economic significance. Gordon cited figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for debt held by the public. They show that that portion of the total debt was $7.54 trillion at the end of fiscal 2009, but isnt projected to double until fiscal 2019, after Obama leaves office. Gordon and Marc Goldwein, senior policy director of the nonprofitCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan organization focused on debt reduction, also made another point on comparing debt levels over time. They told us measuring debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is better for comparison purposes than simply using raw dollars. According to Congressional Budget Office figures, debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic product wont double during Obamas presidency. They show debt held by the public at the end of 2009 was equal to 52.3% of gross domestic product. Thats expected to reach 76.2% at the end of fiscal 2014, but then drop during the rest of Obamas presidency. At the same time, the federal debt is commonly reported in raw dollars, not as a percentage of GDP. So, at least in terms of raw dollars, there is evidence that debt is projected to double during Obamas time in office. Who's to blame Walker implied that Obama plays a role in how much the debt has grown, but he didnt say the president caused the increase. That squares with how weve evaluated similar claims in the past. For one thing, each president inherits the previous presidents budget, as well as the interest payments needed to pay off debts accumulated under previous presidents. Moreover, about two-thirds of the annual deficit during Obamas presidency term has been from entitlements and interest. Entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, are less susceptible to a presidents policy preferences than discretionary spending that Congress must approve on an annual basis. Entitlements are also more heavily driven by demographic factors, such as the aging of the population, which is also out of any presidents control. For its part, The White House didn't challenge Walker's claim, but cited documents indicating that annual deficits are becoming smaller. A couple of other points on responsibility for the debt before we close. Ananalysisby the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities acknowledged that deficits and debt have been sharply higher under Obama. But the analysis says the Great Recession, tax cuts adopted under President George W. Bush, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain most of the deficits that have occurred on Obamas watch. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, meanwhile, traces the the debt problem back even further, to around 1970, when the government decided to significantly increase spending without a corresponding increase in revenue. The problem cant be fixed, according to thatanalysis, without creating a mechanism to prevent the government from running persistent deficits in the future. Our rating Walker said: The national debt is on track to double during Obamas presidency. Documents from Obamas own administration indicate the debt is on pace to double in raw dollars, the way the debt is commonly reported, though not as a percentage of gross domestic product. Walker aptly indicated that Obama bears part of the blame. We rate Walkers statement Mostly True. To comment on this item, please go toJSOnline.com. When we saw the Oct. 18 edition ofTimemagazine  its higher education issue  we found TennesseeGov. Bill Haslamlisted as one of eight people the magazine consulted for 8 Ideas to Improve Higher Education. Haslams article: Tie Funding to Graduation Rates.The governor described the big changes in the focus and funding of Tennessees public higher education system brought about by theComplete College Tennessee Act,which was approved by the Tennessee legislature in 2010 at the behest of then-governor Phil Bredesen.CCTA did several things, all with a goal of improving the rate at which Tennesseans attain college degrees or post-high school certificates to help prepare them for the modern workforce. Toward that end, the law revised how the state allocates taxpayer funding among its public universities, community colleges and technical institutes, away from the old model based mostly on enrollment and to an outcomes-based formula to reward institutions that perform well in helping students advance through their programs and graduate.Haslamwrote:States have traditionally funded their public institutions of higher education based on enrollments. This means the more students attending an institution, the more money that institution receives from the state. While this may incentivize colleges to expand access, it does nothing to incentivize efficiency and productivity. Institutions are rewarded for admitting more students and keeping them enrolled as long as possible, not for ensuring that every student is making progress toward a degree and ultimately leaving with a credential that has value in the labor market.Instead of funding  based on enrollments, states should use a formula that pays institutions for success in key areas like progress toward and completion of degrees and credentials. Tennessee remains the only state to have a 100 percent outcomes-based model  (and) we are already seeing this model changing the way our postsecondary institutions do business.We decided to look at Haslams claims.Its a given that the 2010 legislation changed the funding formula to a performance and outcomes based model. ATennessee Higher Education Commission summarysays, The outcomes-based funding formula bases the entire institutional allocation of state appropriations on the basis of outcomes including degree production, research funding and graduation rates at universities, and student remediation, job placements, student transfer and associates degrees at community colleges.Higher education officials agree that 100 percent of the variable funding component of the formula is based on outcomes. That variable funding is about 80 to 85 percent of the total state appropriation for public higher education. There is also funding allocated for fixed costs like routine building operating expenses and utility costs that are based on square footage and type of space. But the bulk of the funding is allocated totally on performance.Dr. Richard Rhoda, executive director of theTennessee Higher Education Commissionsays its also true that Tennessee is the only state in which the funding formula for higher education is totally outcomes-based.Perhaps the most important part of the discussion for students is whether and how the institutions they attend are, in the governors words, changing how they do business.On that point, officials agree: a lot, particularly by committing more resources to help students succeed. Most universities, including theUniversity of Tennesseeand theUniversity of Memphis, have establishedstudent success programsand centers and academic support centers where students can get individual and group tutoring, advising centers where advisers review students majors and recommend what courses they need to take, and career centers that help students figure out what they want to do and what majors they need to get there. Those centers and advisers constantly remind students and their parents during orientation and enrollment that the advising services are available. UT has consolidated itsstudent success centerin new offices in Greve Hall, and has established a one-stop shop for success counseling and tutoring in the newly renovatedCommonsat the main library. It has also createdUT LEAD, a program to promote undergraduate success, academic excellence and persistence to graduation for selected students awarded the Tennessee Pledge or Tennessee Promise scholarships.This has indeed changed the way we do business. It is fair to say that each of our institutions is looking at how they allocate financial resources and assessing how those allocations will contribute to outcomes, saidChancellor John Morganof theTennessee Board of Regents, which governs U of M,Southwest TennesseeandPellissippi Statecommunity colleges, and all other institutions outside the University of Tennessee System. Since the outcomes under the formula are heavily weighted toward student progression and program completion, there is an intense focus on spending money in a way that will promote student success.Rhoda at THEC agreed: The changes we are seeing are in the forms of more intentional and direct assistance to students in selecting courses and majors; getting students to focus on completing programs and earning credentials; new programs that lead to credentials and skills that employers are seeking; and targeting adults with some college experience but no degree.On that last group, adults with no degree, Rhoda says THEC is advocating Prior Learning Assessment on all state campuses  which helps adults earn college credit for skills they have acquired in the workplace. Rhoda said the University of Memphis appears further along in that than other institutions, offering experiential learning credit.Our rulingSo, funding is outcomes based and the institutions are changing the way they operate, by focusing more resources on students. We rate this claim True. On Nov. 15, 2023, a user on X with the handle @PatMaguire10 published a post (archived) that said Fox News had reported former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida had received a foreclosure notice from Deutsche Bank. We received reader mail that asked if this was true. post archived The post read, "BREAKING FOX NEWS: Deutsche Bank has filed a notice to foreclose on Mar A Lago. The Trump property is part of a larger estate lien that is 190m$ delinquent. Court documents show a 3.4b$ loan that's in default. Trump hasn't respond to repeated attempts for comment. Developing story."  However, a quick check of @PatMaguire10's X bio showed that the account posts "parody" content. In other words, Fox News didn't report on any such foreclosure notice, nor was there any public record of a foreclosure of Mar-a-Lago taking place or scheduled to happen in the future. For a little more background on the subject that was referenced, on the same day that the post was created, Trump's legal team reportedly asked for a mistrial to be declared in the civil fraud trial brought against him in New York. mistrial Weeks earlier, the same trial featured testimony from retired Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh. Haigh provided information to the court about the bank's decision to loan Trump roughly $125 million for the purchase of the Trump National Doral property in Miami in 2011, according to ABC News. ABC News As for Mar-a-Lago, Miami Herald reported in August 2022 that Trump had received a loan from Chase Manhattan Bank  not Deutsche Bank  for his 1985 purchase of the property: Miami Herald Mar-a-Lago itself cost Trump $8 million, which he financed with an $8.5 million loan from Chase Manhattan Bank. The other parcel - oceanfront land next to the manor - cost $2 million. Trump was able to use $500,000 from the estate loan and a $1.5 million mortgage from the seller, Jack C. Massey, to cover the bill. For further reading, we previously published a report titled, "Media Literacy: How Can You Tell if a Post Is Satire/Parody?" report Bromwich, Jonah E. Trump Lawyers Call for Mistrial in Civil Fraud Case, Attacking Judge. The New York Times, 15 Nov. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/nyregion/trump-mistrial-fraud-case.html. Charalambous, Peter, et al. Bank Relied on Trumps Financial Statement to Secure Loan. ABC News, 11 Oct. 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/bank-relied-on-trumps-financial-statement-to-secure-loan-103895871?id=103642561. ---. Deutsche Bank Executive Set to Take Stand. ABC News, 11 Oct. 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/deutsche-bank-executive-set-to-take-stand-103889913?id=103642561. Ibrahim, Nur. Media Literacy: How Can You Tell If a Post Is Satire/Parody? Snopes, 25 Feb. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/articles/464404/media-literacy-satire-parody/. Kleinman, Jeff. How Donald Trump Changed a Palm Beach Mansion. The Story behind His Mar-a-Lago Takeover. Miami Herald, 9 Aug. 2022, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article264318476.html. Spencer, Terry. Is Mar-a-Lago Worth $1 Billion? Trumps Winter Home Valuations Are at the Core of His Fraud Trial. The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-maralago-lawsuit-palm-beach-51fea4e520b1901c1c045590b2a7bdc0. In early 2022, folk-rock legend Neil Young found himself the target of a laughable conspiracy theory after he spoke out against COVID-19-related misinformation. On Jan. 24, Young wrote that he wanted his music removed from the streaming platform Spotify, unless the company ended its agreement to host Joe Rogan's podcast, which has on several occasions provided a forum for potentially harmful misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. In response, Spotify removed Young's back catalog from its library, rather than cutting ties with Rogan.  wrote misinformation removed In the midst of that controversy, vaccine skeptics and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists shared a ludicrous conspiracy theory claiming that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer  which produces a widely-used COVID-19 vaccine  either owned the rights to Young's music catalog or, through a chain of connections, held sway over the rock star and influenced, or even ordered, his pro-vaccination stance.  For example, some social media users posted a meme with the text, "When you realize Neil Young's music catalogue is owned by Pfizer": posted meme   Others did not explicitly claim that Pfizer itself owned some or all of Young's catalog, but did suggest that the company held sway over him, by way of a series of connections, and that therefore Young's opposition to Rogan and his criticism of vaccine misinformation should be dismissed as the result of corruption and self-compromise, rather than a principled stance.  did suggest series connections On social media, a conspiracy theorist who uses the moniker An0maly outlined the theory in helpful detail, starting with the observation that in January 2021, Young reportedly sold half of his catalog to a U.K.-based investment fund called Hipgnosis, for around $150 million. An0maly continued: outlined the theory So, 50% to UK investment fund Hipgnosis. In October of 2021, Blackstone and Hipgnosis Song Management launched [a] "$1 billion partnership to invest in songs, recorded music, music IP and royalties." Interesting. Blackstone is "an American alternative investment management company" who, interestingly enough, in 2020 announced the appointment of "Jeffrey B. Kindler, former chairman and CEO of Pfizer, as [a] senior adviser." Now I don't know the answer to this, but did Neil Young independently make the decision to try and blackball Joe Rogan for questioning big pharma and the government narrative? Or was it a team decision with a multi-billion-dollar investment firm who also owns a big chunk of his music? The first point to note here is that, even among those promulgating the Young-Pfizer theory, it is not seriously suggested that Pfizer itself  which is, after all, a pharmaceutical company  owns the rights to any of Young's music. That claim can be dismissed.  Before assessing the logic behind the theory, and its coherence, it's worth briefly evaluating the accuracy of each of its components. First, it appears to be true that, in January 2021, Young sold half of his songs to Hipgnosis. In a news release, Hipgnosis wrote: "...The Company has acquired 50% of Neil Youngs worldwide copyright and income interests in his entire song catalogue comprising 1,180 songs." news release Secondly, it is also true that in October 2021, Blackstone bought an ownership stake in Hipgnosis, as demonstrated in news releases published by both companies. Finally, it is also true that in August 2020, Blackstone hired Jeff Kindler as a senior advisor, and that Kindler used to be the chairman and CEO of Pfizer.  both companies hired Jeff Kindler used to be However, rather than having uncovered a web of corruption, those pushing the Young-Pfizer story were engaging in the classic conspiracy theorist's fallacy of finding whatever possible connection they can between two separate entities (in this case, Young and Pfizer) without first testing the logical or chronological basis of that putative link. In other words, "connecting the dots" by whatever means available, rather than uncovering an actual, organic conspiracy.  Let's look at the sequence of events. Kindler left Pfizer in 2010  a full decade before he joined Blackstone, and before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Pfizer to develop a vaccine along with its German partner BioNTech. left Pfizer in 2010 Blackstone is a publicly traded company, meaning it has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, and Kindler, in turn, has a professional obligation to provide sound business and strategic advice to Blackstone. Aside from presenting no concrete evidence whatsoever, those pushing the Young-Pfizer conspiracy theory appear to be asking readers to believe, despite these circumstances, one of two explanations: publicly traded company As outlandish as these scenarios are, they are premised on even shakier assumptions: for example, that Kindler was even consulted on the Blackstone-Hipgnosis deal; or that if he was, he was in favor of it; and that Young has any remaining financial or commercial obligations to Hipgnosis and/or Blackstone after the sale of half his music  after all, if that deal is already done, what is the supposed basis of Hipgnosis or Blackstone's putative leverage over Young? It's not necessary to list, in excruciating detail, each of the known factual and logical flaws associated with the Young-Pfizer conspiracy theory. The claim that the pharmaceutical company "owned Young's music catalog" was patently false, and the theory of a fantastical web of corruption, with Kindler at its centre, was presented without any concrete evidence and, perhaps more importantly, made no sense whatsoever. In September 2022, some social media users shared a quote erroneously attributed to actress Marilyn Monroe: "If you cant handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell dont deserve me at my best."  The quote has also been attributed to the "Some Like It Hot" star in a longer form: "I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I'm out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." longer form  As of this writing, we have been unable to locate the original source of the quote  but we found no evidence that it was said by Monroe. One source claimed in 2013 it was a line of dialogue from the 1953 noir film "Niagara," though we searched the screenplay at Scripts.com but didn't find any such dialogue there. We also viewed the portion of the movie Monroe is in, but Monroe's character Rose Loomis never makes the remark. screenplay According to Dictionary.com, the quote has been online for many years, since the 2000s, and hasn't always been attributed to Monroe. It has often been used in "before" and "after" or "best" and "worst" memes. Here's one example without attribution, posted by pop superstar Mariah Carey in 2018: Dictionary.com posted by  Falsely attributing pieces of faux internet wisdom to famous people is a common occurrence. Recently, we reported actor Morgan Freeman never made a remark widely credited to him. Another popular quote widely misattributed to Monroe read, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." never misattributed Although fascination with Monroe has remained fairly constant since her lifetime, there may be renewed interest in September 2022 because of the release of a controversial Netflix movie titled, "Blonde." The movie is based on a 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. controversial novel 4 Marilyn Monroe Quotes Youre Taking The Wrong Way. Thought Catalog, 3 Mar. 2013, https://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-shock/2013/03/4-marilyn-monroe-quotes-youre-taking-the-wrong-way/. If You Cant Handle Me at My Worst Meme | Meaning & History. Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/if-you-cant-handle-me-at-my-worst/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022. Lemire, Christy. Blonde Movie Review & Film Summary (2022) | Roger Ebert. Https://Www.Rogerebert.Com/, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blonde-movie-review-2022. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022. Niagara Movie Script. https://www.scripts.com/script.php?id=niagara_14741&p=14. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022. Showalter, Elaine. Joyce Carol Oatess Blonde Is the Definitive Study of American Celebrity. The New Yorker, 13 Apr. 2020. www.newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/joyce-carol-oatess-blonde-is-the-definitive-study-of-american-celebrity. On Feb. 19, 2024, X user Matt Wallace, who previously has trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories, suggested in a new post (archived) that hinted the sinking of the Titanic was an inside job. The post read, "Rumors are circulating that they sunk the Titanic to kill the powerful men on board who opposed a central bank." trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories post archived Similarly, a previous post from a Telegram user that was posted in 2022 also promoted the same conspiracy theory, and read, "These men opposed globalist's world banks (Federal Reserve). Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus, [and John] Jacob Astor [all] opposed the new Federal Reserve bank. Today, these men would be worth $11 billion. All three of these men were aboard the Titanic when it sank. All three died that night."  According to the TinEye reverse image search website, this meme had been shared since at least 2014. However, the rumor itself had started spreading several years before. It's true that American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's co-owner Isidor Straus and fur magnate and real estate developer John Jacob Astor all perished in the sinking of the Titanic. However, the overall claim intimated by the posts was nothing more than a baseless conspiracy theory. Titanic The misleading meme appeared to have been born out of previous ones that mentioned American financier J.P. Morgan. Morgan owned the companies that managed the Titanic and was not a passenger on its maiden voyage. owned Past memes suggested that Morgan had somehow miraculously orchestrated the voyage to end in tragedy in order to kill Guggenheim, Straus and Astor. According to the memes, Morgan's supposed reason for planning the demise of the three prominent men was because they all opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. (The centralized banking system was established in 1913, the year after the sinking of the Titanic.) established J.P. Morgan striking photographer with cane. (Courtesy: Library of Congress) The meme in question also said, "Today, these men would be worth $11 billion." However, it's unclear how much each of the men's descendants would be worth today had they survived. In March 2021, Reuters published a thorough report that debunked the rumor behind all of the memes on this subject. The article included an interview with a Titanic expert named George Behe, whose research into the history of Titanic goes all the way back to the 1970s. According to Behe, there is no known evidence that showed Guggenheim, Straus, or Astor opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. In fact, in 1911, The New York Times reported that Astor was very much in favor of the idea. published reported It's widely agreed upon by experts that the sinking of the Titanic was an accident, the reporting from Reuters said. The ship struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Within hours, more than 1,500 people had died. died We contacted Behe in an effort to find out if there had been any updates since Reuters published its story in 2021. "To the best of my knowledge, the conspiracy theory is just as false today as it was when it was first created, and no important new revelations have turned up within the last couple of years," Behe told us in an email dated Jan. 8, 2023. "Sadly, once these nonsensical conspiracy theories have been foisted upon the general public via the internet, the theories are destined to plague humanity forevermore and will continue to fool innocent people who are unfamiliar with the facts." For further details, Behe pointed us in the direction of historian J. Kent Layton, who is credited as an author for books including, "Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania," "On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic" and "Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History." "We've been tackling this nonsense with historical data since at least the late-90s to early-00s," Layton told us by email in June 2023. "However, social media is a fantastic breeding ground for conspiracies of all sorts.Titanicseems to be a favorite of many." Layton remarked to us in detail regarding why the conspiracy theory made no sense to him: I would point out that if the sinking had actually been a conspiracy to kill those three individuals, there would have been no way that they could ensure their actual demise unless they had locked them somewhere inside the ship to die as it sank. Instead, the evidence indicates that all three were seen during the sinking. Guggenheim famously case aside his heavy coat and lifebelt after his steward had helped him into them, saying that he and his manservant were 'dressed in their best and prepared to go down as gentlemen'. Straus nearly made it into a lifeboat, and fellow passengers even recommended that he board a lifeboat with his wife, but he deferred, preferring to let women and children board while he waited behind with other men. Astor was seen very late in the disaster, helping his wife into a lifeboat; when he asked an officer loading the boat, apparently Second Officer Lightoller, if he could board, Lightoller said no. However, Lightoller had maintained a rather rigid policy of allowing no men into the lifeboats that he filled, and there had been plenty of other opportunities for Astor to board a boat. In fact, we recently discovered an account that indicated that Astor and his wife had approached an early boat on the other side of the ship, when the situation seemed less serious, but that they had stepped back from the lifeboat of their own accord at the last moment and stayed for a while longer on the ship. If a conspiracy to kill these three men had been so deep and involved so as to actually sink an ocean liner and kill hundreds of innocent people, one would think that the individuals responsible would not have left the survival of these three men to chance. This story will be updated in the future should we uncover any further helpful information. Beattie, Andrew, et al. "How the Federal Reserve Was Formed." Investopedia, 24 June 2007, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/federal-reserve.asp. Bird, Mike. "There's a Wild Conspiracy Theory That the Rothschilds Sank the Titanic to Set up the Federal Reserve." Business Insider, 12 Oct. 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/conspiracy-theory-that-the-rothschilds-and-federal-reserve-proponents-sank-the-titanic-2015-10. "CORRECTED-Fact Check-J.P. Morgan Did Not Sink the Titanic to Push Forward Plans for the U.S. Federal Reserve." Reuters, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-titanic-conspiracy-idUSL1N2LF18G. "Federal Reserve Board - Structure of the Federal Reserve System." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-system.htm. "ISIDOR STRAUS URGES NEW BANKING PLAN; Replies to J.J. Hill's Attack on the National Reserve Association Scheme." The New York Times, 16 Oct. 1911, https://www.nytimes.com/1911/10/16/archives/isidor-straus-urges-new-banking-plan-replies-to-jj-hills-attack-on.html. "John Jacob Astor | American Businessman [1864-1912]." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Jacob-Astor-American-businessman-1864-1912. Kennedy, Dana. "Divers Find Champagne, Dishes In Shipwreck, But No Gold Yet." AP News, 16 July 1987, https://apnews.com/article/a9b6a7e5cd8104edf4501f876eebf44b. Segal, Troy, et al. "Central Bank." Investopedia, 18 Nov. 2003, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/centralbank.asp. "The White Star Line and The International Mercantile Marine Company." Titanic Historical Society, 28 Mar. 2018, https://titanichistoricalsociety.org/international-mercantile-marine-company/. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. "Titanic | History, Sinking, Rescue, Survivors, Movies, & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic. In the aftermath of two back-to-back mass shootings in the United States in early August 2019, much debate turned to the demographic dimensions of such massacres, with some commentary pointing the finger at white men, in particular.  In response to such observations, others pointed out the role of non-white assailants in gun violence in the U.S. One graphic in particular caught the attention of internet users.  The meme was first posted on Aug. 5 to the /pol/ ("Politically Incorrect") section of the website 4chan, which is notorious as a forum for far-right and white nationalist imagery, tropes and discussion threads. It was entitled "Mass Shooters 2019" and bore the sub-heading "Every person charged with or arrested for shooting 4+ people in a single incident." Underneath that was a collage of 98 portrait photographs, many of them prison mugshots. posted A large portion of the individuals shown in the collage appeared to be non-white, prompting its further promulgation on other online forums, including the website of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. The meme prompted much racist and white supremacist commentary.  Duke commentary   A note under the collage read: "146 Mas [sic] shootings so far this year are unsolved. Of these, 16 suspects have been identified as black or Latino and 0 white. The remaining cases have no suspect description issued. Also, of the 146 unsolved [mass] shootings so far, 21 are in Chicago, 8 are in Baltimore, 7 are in Washington DC, and 6 are in Philadelphia. All of this is according to my personal research which consisted of googling every single incident on the wikipedia page for mass shootings and reading local news articles about them. If I'm wrong about something give me the up-to-date information." This meme failed to take into account an essential piece of context in any discussion of mass shootings and those who perpetrate them: how you define a mass shooting.  Different definitions, different lists No fixed, uniformly accepted definition exists of a mass shooting, as we have explained in the past: explained Historically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defined what they call active shooter incidents as those that result in four or more people (not including the attacker) being shot dead in public through actions not related to terrorism, gang activity, or the commission of other crimes (such as robbery). Since 2013, the FBI has dropped that numerical threshold to incidents involving the deaths of three or more people. defined three Everytown for Gun Control, a pro-gun-control non-profit that collects data on shootings, also defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are killed (not including the shooter) but includes shootings taking place in private homes, a circumstance the FBI omits from their methodology. defines Mother Jones magazine, in their mass shootings database, defines such shootings as indiscriminate rampages in public places resulting in four or more victims killed by the attacker. database Stanford Universitys now-defunct Mass Shootings in America project defined a mass shooting as one in which three or more people were shot (but not necessarily killed), excluding the attacker. Stanfords definition excluded gang-, drug-, or organized crime-related shootings. defined The Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced project, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot, including the attacker. defines Of the major sources of data about mass shootings, the Gun Violence Archive has a relatively inclusive definition: If four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident, not [including] the shooter, that incident is categorized as a mass shooting based purely on that numerical threshold. This includes shootings in private places, incidents involving gang activity and armed robbery, shootouts, and non-fatal shootings. definition The August 2019 meme stated that its inclusion criteria were incidents in which four or more people were shot in a single incident. It did not specify any other criteria, such as whether the total number shot could include the perpetrator, whether it included incidents that took place in private dwellings, whether it included terrorism or gang-related shootings, and so on.  However, the meme also said it had derived its list of incidents from those included in the Wikipedia entry for "List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019." It's clear that that list did include some gang-related shootings, some which took place in a private dwelling, and several incidents in which multiple people were shot but nobody died.  entry Our relatively brief overview of the alleged shooters included in the August 2019 meme indicates that it was broadly fairly accurate. It contained a few errors, but was faithful overall to its own criteria.  The primary problem with the chart was that it was based on a relatively broad definition of "mass shooting" which, while valid in and of itself, should not be confused with the much more narrow definition implicitly at work in many conversations about "mass shootings"  that is, incidents in which an attacker with no links to terrorism, criminal gangs, or organized crime goes out into a public area and fatally shoots multiple people. From a law enforcement and criminological point of view, defining a "mass shooting" in this relatively narrow way helps to establish clear parameters in terms of the nature and causes of such attacks, as well as the motivations of the attackers and any patterns in the identities of their victims. By contrast, gang-related shootings, for example, even if they cross a numerical threshold for victims, have relatively well-studied and straightforward causes and motivations, as well as a much more familiar victimology. Hence, agencies such as the FBI deliberately exclude them from their study of, and operations against, "active shooter incidents." However, to some observers, especially those primarily focused on the role of guns in violent deaths in the U.S., it is of secondary importance whether a mass shooting was related to a drug feud or a white supremacist act of terrorism. What matters most to these observers is the role of a firearm in causing the deaths of multiple people in one incident. Another example of this is the Mass Shooting Tracker's (relatively rare) insistence on including the death of a perpetrator among the total number of deaths in a mass shooting. The website's reasoning is simple but powerful: "We include the shooter's death because suicide matters ..." insistence Therefore, how you define a "mass shooting" can often depend on which underlying phenomenon or aspect of a mass shooting is of primary interest to you, and that definition can have a significant effect on the list of incidents on which your analysis focuses.  How you define a mass shooting also indirectly has a bearing on the demographic make-up of victims and perpetrators. For example, we know that criminal gangs in the United States are disproportionately made up of Latino and African American members. Including gang-related shootings in your definition of mass shootings will, therefore, increase the proportion of such perpetrators and victims in your count. That should not be surprising or controversial.  made up In fact, the full list of mass shootings (according to the broad definition used in the August 2019 meme), is likely to skew even more towards non-white perpetrators than the meme itself shows. This is because, as we explained in our examination of 2018 statistics for mass shootings, unsolved shootings often remain unsolved due to the dynamics inherent in gang conflict.  2018 statistics If an analysis of gun violence and mass shootings is being done in good faith, that demographic breakdown will be an inadvertent byproduct of the decision to include gang violence in one's definition. However, readers should also be on the lookout for those with a racist or white supremacist agenda deliberately tailoring the definition of a mass shooting so as to yield a list of perpetrators with a higher quotient of non-white individuals.  So what are the demographics of perpetrators of mass shootings, if we examine only the more narrow definitions of that term  the elusive phenomenon whereby an assailant without any ties to gangs, terrorism or organized crime, picks up a firearm and shoots multiple people in a public setting? The most extensive and robust database of gun violence in the U.S. is arguably the Gun Violence Archive. We have used entries from that database and applied the FBI's definition of "active shooter incident" in order to check the demographic make-up of the perpetrators of these much more narrowly defined attacks. The FBI defines an "active shooter incident" (akin to a mass shooting) as an incident in which a perpetrator shoots dead three or more people (not including the perpetrator) in a single incident in a public place, which is unrelated to terrorism, gangs, and doesn't take place in the course of some other criminal activity (like a robbery or fight).  defines By this definition, the Gun Violence Archive showed there were six such alleged incidents between Jan. 1 and Aug. 5, 2019: Aug. 4 Betts Aug. 3 shot dead Crusius July 28 described claimed May 31 shot dead DeWayne Craddock Feb. 15 shot dead Jan. 23 shot dead Xaver All six suspects were men, three were white, two were African-American, and the precise racial and ethnic identity of the sixth suspect was not clear.  Mac Guill, Dan. "Were None of 154 Mass Shootings in 2018 Committed by a Black Man, Illegal Alien, or Woman?"
 Snopes.com. 15 July 2018. National Gang Center. "National Youth Gang Survey Analysis -- Demographics."
 Accessed 6 August 2019. Seewer, John; Sewell, Dan; Minchillo, John. "Vigil Honors Victims as Authorities Eye Ohio Shooter's Life."
 The Associated Press. 5 August 2019. Galvan, Astrid; Lee, Morgan; Weber, Paul J. "El Paso Deaths Climb to 22 as Mayor Prepares for Trump's Visit."
 The Associated Press. 5 August 2019. Vives, Ruben et al. "What We Know About the Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting Suspect."
 The Los Angeles Times. 29 July 2019. Finley, Ben. "12 People Killed in Virginia Beach Shooting; Suspect Dead."
 The Associated Press. 1 June 2019. Coutu, Peter and Alissa Skelton. "Virginia Beach Killer Matched the Cliche: Quite, Polite, Unassuming."
 The Virginian-Pilot. 5 June 2019. Holcombe, Madeline. "Aurora Gunman Opened Fire on His Coworkers as Soon as he Lost His Job."
 CNN. 18 February 2019. Hauser, Christine. "Death Penalty Sought for Man Charged With Killing 5 in a Florida Bank Shooting."
 The New York Times. 8 February 2019. Updated [8 August 2019]: Added clarification that Santino William Legan's manner of death was suicide.