id
stringlengths 4
7
| query
stringlengths 166
33.3k
| answer
stringclasses 3
values | choices
sequencelengths 3
3
| gold
int64 0
2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
FMD1200 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Giant Sea Creature Washes Ashore Along Santa Monica Coastline Claim summaries: Has a gigantic squid washed ashore along the California coastline?
contextual information: On 9 January 2014, the Lightly Braised Turnip website published an article (complete with a photo) positing that a gigantic mutant squid, grown to a size of 160 feet due to radioactivity, had been discovered on the California coast near Santa Monica. For the second time in recent months, a giant sea creature has washed ashore in California. First, it was a rare oarfish that had grown to a freakish 100-foot length. This time, it was a giant squid measuring a whopping 160 feet from head to tentacle tip. These giants look different, but experts believe they share one important commonality: they both come from the waters near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Futaba District of Japan. Scientists believe that following the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, an unknown number of sea creatures suffered genetic mutations that triggered uncontrolled growth or "radioactive gigantism." Unfortunately, this cadre of mutant giants seems to be drifting towards the continental U.S. Local officials in Santa Monica, CA, where the creature drifted ashore, tried to calm residents. By later that day, links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article. However, that article was just a bit of fictional humor (a follow-up to an earlier fictional item about a giant oarfish supposedly discovered off the California coast) spoofing recent alarmist reports about dangerous radioactivity reaching the U.S. from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The photo was a fabrication that melded a picture depicting a dead whale found in Chile back in 2011 with a picture of a giant squid that washed up on a Spanish beach in 2013. The Santa Monica area of California is just outside our home base here at snopes.com, and a quick drive along the coastline provided no view of a gigantic squid on the beach, nor did any of the many local news outlets cover any such topic. Disappointed, we headed elsewhere for our calamari lunch. Last updated: 9 January 2014. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1201 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: MOSCOW — Russian investigators said on Thursday that they had found no evidence that an explosion occurred aboard a Russian military plane that crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 92 passengers and crew, but that they had not ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack. “It was obvious that the equipment worked abnormally,†the Russian transportation minister, Maxim Sokolov said, adding that it would be “up to experts to find out†why that happened. The plane crashed Sunday en route to Syria after a refueling stop in the Russian resort city of Sochi. In the aftermath, the Russian authorities stressed that they believed it was unlikely that an attack had brought down the jet, a Tupolev 154, but they made clear at the news conference on Thursday that they were leaving open the possibility. “We have come to conclusion that there was no explosion on board,†said Lt. Gen. Sergei D. Bainetov, the leader of the investigation. “Apart from an explosion on board, there could be some mechanical impact of any kind. A terrorist act is not necessarily connected with an explosion. †Both flight data recorders have been recovered, and General Bainetov said it would take at least a month to draw final conclusions about what caused the crash. Although General Bainetov said the data had revealed “no obvious technical failures,†he said the military’s use of the Tupolev 154 — a workhorse of the Soviet air transportation system that has been phased out by most civilian airlines but which is still used by government agencies — had been suspended until the investigation was completed. The plane was carrying performers and staff members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, a famed orchestra and choir known for renditions of classical Russian songs and folk tunes. The performers on the plane were scheduled to appear at a celebratory concert for Russian service members at the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. Nine journalists were also on board, as was Yelizaveta P. Glinka, a prominent philanthropist and aid worker. President Vladimir V. Putin sent army troops, but mostly aircraft, to Syria, contending that Russia needed to address the terrorist threat before it arrived in his country, but it is widely believed that his primary goal was to keep President Bashar a top ally, in power. On Thursday, Mr. Putin announced that the Syrian government had reached a agreement with rebels. At the news conference in Moscow, General Bainetov said that the plane began its descent into the Black Sea after reaching an altitude of 820 feet, traveling at 230 miles per hour. The plane crashed into the water just 70 seconds after takeoff, and the emergency “situation†lasted only 10 seconds. Mr. Sokolov, the transportation minister, said that the plane fell apart after hitting the water and the seabed. The search operation was mostly concluded, he said. Nineteen bodies and 230 human fragments were lifted from the sea, as were 13 big, and almost 2, 000 small, parts of the plane. One of the dead has been identified and buried at a military cemetery near Moscow. Others will be identified with the help of genetic analysis, officials said. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1202 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is Elon Musk Rebranding Twitter as 'X'? Claim summaries: At the time of writing, the bird logo was still referenced on Twitters Brand Toolkit page as its logo.
contextual information: In July 2023, we began receiving emails from readers asking if it was true that the social media platform Twitter was rebranding to "X." We also found posts repeating the claim on social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and TikTok. Twitter owner Elon Musk did rebrand Twitter to X. At the time of writing, Twitter had already begun replacing its famous bird logo with a stylized X. "And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds," Musk tweeted on July 23, 2023. Reputable news organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The Verge, NBC News, and CNN all reported on the rebrand. AP reported that Musk had founded a startup in 1999 called X.com, which later became PayPal, and that he also calls his son with singer Grimes "X" for short. At the time of writing, Twitter's bird logo was still displayed as its logo on the company's web page that discussed branding. "Our logo is our most recognizable asset," the page said. "That's why we're so protective of it." However, Twitter's sign-up page looked different. In an article about the replacement of Twitter's bird logo, The Verge wrote: The bird theming runs deep, and it's not clear that X Corp. (as Twitter has legally been known for months now) will be able to replace it entirely. We've previously written about changes to Twitter's platform, including a false claim that U.S. President Joe Biden's Twitter account had been designated as a business account. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1203 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The Tea Party movement in America was a novel political phenomenon that gained momentum. Claim summaries: Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House.
contextual information: Claim: Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House. Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2009] Mailing Tea Bags to Washington, DC What a wonderful idea, I just wish it had been mine. I have a feeling that USPS is going to have a hell of a lot of tea to contend with, after all it only costs 42 cents to send a message, hopefully heard round the world!!! So please mark your Calendars There's a storm abrewin'. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us. We don't work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO's over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes. I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budget and I don't ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No one listened. They voted for it, pork and all. O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won't make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the reckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and "stimulate" without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall. So, here's the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington, D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, "New American Tea Party", several sites will come up. If you aren't the 'protester' type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes. This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the 'New American Tea Party' and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will. Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500. Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the website for more information about the 'New American Tea Party'. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can't guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.. What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent. We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late. Of course, if you agree with the way things are being done now, just delete!!!!! Origins: On the evening of 16 December 1773, a group of American colonists who called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" furtively boarded the ship Dartmouth, which was docked in Boston harbor with a load of East India Company tea. Working through the night, the colonists dumped over 45 tons of tea into the waters of the harbor as a protest against the Tea Act passed by the British government. The event, which came to be known as "The Boston Tea Party," was one of the seminal events of the American Revolution and remains one of the most iconic moments in all of U.S. history. In 2009, the iconic status of that event was referenced in the name of the New American Tea Party, described as a "coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government" who have begun coordinating events around the U.S. with the announced goal of protesting largesse in federal spending. The item quoted above seeks to take up the "Tea Party" spirit by encouraging Americans to mail tea bags to the White House on 1 April 2009 (in order to arrive by 15 April, the day on which income tax filings are due) as a form of symbolic protest against "the way Washington is handling our taxes." (The concept is vaguely reminiscent of a 1955 campaign that had citizens mailing small bags of wheat to President Eisenhower to encourage the U.S. to provide surplus food to flood victims in China.) New American Tea Party events wheat Of course, everyone is free to choose whether or not to participate in symbolic protests, so such actions don't have much in the way of verifiable "true" or "false" aspects the only issue is how effective the chosen form of protest is likely to be. With that in mind, we offer a few caveats for those inclined to participate: An entry in the New American Tea Party blog states that they don't endorse the effort: entry We have received hundreds of questions about an email circulating that urges folks to send tea to Washington on April 1st or April 15th. This effort is not endorsed by the New American Tea Party, so we can't answer any questions about it. Given the more stringent security procedures for mail handling enacted after 9/11, there are no guarantees envelopes containing mailed teabags will get through to the White House without being discarded or significantly delayed, something also noted in the New American Tea Party blog: It is a neat idea, but things like that will likely either be held up getting scanned or end up getting thrown away due to security precautions. (A subsequent New American Tea Party blog entry suggested that just mailing the labels from tea bags might be a way of avoiding this potential pitfall.) entry Envelopes that cannot be run through USPS sorting machines are subject to an additional 20 postage surcharge. A mailed item is considered nonmachinable if: nonmachinable It is a square letter (the minimum size for a square envelope is 5 x 5 inches) It is too rigid does not bend easily It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter It contains items that cause the surface to be uneven The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5 The specific aims of the tea bag protest are not clearly articulated in the e-mail quoted above, so senders might wish to include explanatory notes with their envelopes stating the desired outcome, such as: "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that provide money to businesses without provisions for strict transparency and accountability in how that money is to be spent" or "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that include earmarks." Last updated: 12 March 2009 Idaho Statesman. "Local Group Stages 'Reckless Federal Spending' Protest." 27 February 2009. WJXT-TV [Jacksonville, FL]. "'Tea Party' Protests Wasteful Spending." MSNBC. 2 March 2009. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1204 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A Lasting Trump Stamp on Foreign Policy October 28, 2016
Many downwardly mobile Americans are confused about what happened to them, which explains the attraction of Donald Trump, who offers few coherent solutions but may have a lasting impact on U.S. relations with the world, says Michael Brenner.
By Michael Brenner
Donald Trump most likely will not be elected President. Still, his historic campaign has sent shock waves through the American body politic. All are asking what it means and what it portends. The focus is on America at home rather than abroad. Foreign policy issues have been overshadowed by anxious domestic concerns.
Moreover, Trump never formulated a coherent view of international issues. Like the average guy, he simply spat out whatever thoughts passed through his head as he had caught snippets of Fox News. Any attempt to discern logic and strategy from Trump’s disjointed exclamations proves frustrating. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Trump’s entire campaign conveyed emotions rather than considered thoughts. It played to the public’s feelings – amplifying them and channeling them into a turbid or opaque brew of primitive slogans. Energy was imparted through unbridled vehemence and the showmanship of the born despot.
So it is those emotions that we should look at to see what is simmering behind the formal façade of our democracy in action. For they will outlast the election. Therein lies their significance for possible effects on the United States relations with the rest of the world.
American Nativism
If there is an appropriate label to stick on this fermenting vat, it is “nativism.” By that we mean a rather inchoate mix of atavistic nationalism, xenophobia, aggressiveness, righteous religiosity and racism dressed up as patriotism. Deep-seated sense of grievance and pervasive feelings that the true American has been sold out provide the fuel.
Each of these elements has precedents in American history and roots in American society. They periodically have surfaced in political movements from the “Know-Nothings” who in the 1850s were empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, to the paranoia that accompanied the Red Scare in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and then reappeared with greater intensity in the form of McCarthyism. The run-down PIX Theatre sign reads “Vote Trump” on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. July 15, 2016. (Photo by Tony Webster Flickr)
Today’s manifestations have a larger economic component. The optimistic creed that has been the lifeblood of America has been sapped by the plight of salaried workers after decades of wealth redistribution upwards, the hollowing out of the country’s industrial core, the financializing of business, and the emergence of a “gig” economy that promises only more dislocation, insecurity, skimpy or no benefits, and declining living standards.
Rugged individualism dictates that individual persons should assume responsibility for their failings; stoic fatalism in the face of external forces that drain all hope is quite another matter. Blame, like discontent, is free-floating. Its locus shifts among Wall Street, government leaders, and foreigners.
The last most interests us here. Factors originating beyond the nation’s borders are prominent targets. They range from “globalization” as an abstract new reality, to Benedict Arnold companies that off-shore jobs and tax liabilities, to U.S. leaders who sign away American interests in one-sided trade deals to hostile governments who are cheaters.
Sold Out
There is more than a grain of truth in the complaints directed at all of those mentioned. The “common man,” as we quaintly used to call workers, indeed has been sold out by the “bosses” – economic and political. In truth, most of that selling out has been by elites favoring other elites here at home at the expense of the general populace. Foreigners are politically more convenient targets, though. Hillary Clinton speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, by Gage Skidmore)
The primary question is whether the disposition to blame external parties will manifest itself in antagonistic action. That has been the pattern elsewhere at other times. It is by no means obvious, though, that this logic holds in the case of the United States today. This is certainly true as regards any large-scale use of military force.
Fifteen years of relentless, failed wars in the greater Middle East have drained the country of the passion for violence with which Americans retaliated for 9/11. Whether a President Hillary Clinton would expand operations in Syria is unaffected by the American public’s anger over illegal immigration or biased “trade” agreements. A vague distaste for ungrateful, grasping foreigners does not eclipse aversion to expensive new adventures abroad or skepticism that they will work.
As to Russia, the current high-decibel condemnation of Moscow’s alleged machinations is more an elite phenomenon, led by the security establishment, than it is an expression of popular outrage. Few Americans identify with the Syrian “rebels” whom Vladimir Putin is fighting or Ukrainian paramilitaries burning people alive in Odessa.
The negative view of Russia, and Putin personally, so assiduously cultivated by politicos and the mainstream media does not translate into a broad fear or hatred among the American people. The pervasive obsession with the Red Menace that marked the Cold War remains dormant. That is even true in Europe – except for the Poles and the Baltics. Washington chooses to be rhetorically aggressive and to take the much publicized steps of building up NATO forces around Russia’s periphery. But there is little stomach for actually raising a risk of direct conflict.
In conclusion, American policy toward Russia and the Middle East will follow the tracks laid down by the Obama administration with little deviation – and no greater success.
The Dark Side
Every society has its dark and dangerous undercurrents. America’s is laced with racism and fed by a deep pool of personal insecurities. The recrudescence of coarse racism, the deep psychic anxieties of the white males of Middle America, the embrace of jingoism, the frustrations of trailer park super-patriots, and the desperation of tormented Evangelicals torn over the question of whether a prospective nuclear Iran is a sign that the End Days are approaching or a serious speed-bump on the road to Rapture – together, these elements are creating an emotional maelstrom that has found an odd idol in the buffoonish persona of Donald Trump. Afghan children await school supplies from Allied forces at Sozo School in Kabul. (French navy photo by Master Petty Officer Valverde)
The longer it lasts, the more attached Trump himself becomes to the pipedream of writing his name on the wind forever – and the more his followers see themselves affirmed and exalted.
Finally, we have to come to terms with the dismaying truth that public opinion, in individuals and in aggregate, is only exceptionally the outcome of an informed and thoughtful process of deliberation. It is the rationalist myth that we are by nature thinking creatures inclined to viewing the world around us in an emotionally detached, mature manner. Very, very few persons approximate that model.
Inherited loyalties, deep-seated prejudices and preferences, private emotions, the attraction or repulsion of personality – all of these elements come into play to considerable degree. In today’s society where attachments of all sorts are weak and evanescent, where political parties have little cohesion, where associational life has faded, where we are exposed to the barrage of media imagery and messaging, the rationalist model has become less and less valid. Most of us are shaped by influences that we only dimly perceive – whether calculated intent lies behind them or not.
Immigration Hot Button
Thus, it is immigration that has become the hot button issue involving other countries. Passions are aroused by two things: the presence of millions of illegals from Mexico and Central America; and the prospect of Islamic terrorists entering the United States masquerading as refugees. Syrian women and children refugees at Budapest railway station. (Photo from Wikipedia)
The two merge at the most primitive level of emotions. Together, they deepen worries that the world is spinning out of control in ways that call into question the country the many American people know (or imagine they know). Projections of rapidly increasing Latino populations, which threaten to overwhelm school districts and voter rolls, ruffle the feathers of many Middle Americans. Alarm that welfare and other social problems are siphoning off much needed public moneys in the age of austerity add a tangible economic element to these anxieties.
Could this lead to implementation of the sorts of draconian “ethnic cleansing” programs advocated by Donald Trump? Unlikely – despite his ability to insert them into so-called “mainstream” discourse about the problem. It is easy to exaggerate the extent and the intensity of anti-immigrant feelings.
Most Americans encounter little of it in their daily lives. Those who do in places like Texas or California pretty much take it as a given: something that should be dealt with but not a matter requiring urgent action. Arizona is different. That’s where the extreme Rightists (and the Republican politicos whom they have intimidated into obedience) make most of the noise.
Foreign observers should note that the situation in the U.S. is very different from that in Western Europe. Not only is the United States a very big country where relatively large populations can get lost but, equally important, social space is not as tightly configured.
Outside of small towns, there is little sense of traditional community to be protected. Americanism trumps all as the successful integration of waves of immigrants throughout the country’s history has demonstrated. While Latinos do present some unusual complications (unlike South or East Asian immigrants), visceral concerns about a denaturing of culture and society are relatively weak. (After all, 25 percent of baseball players in the professional leagues are Latinos – most from abroad.)
So, the politics of immigration policy reform has not changed. The policies and unresolved dispute over what to do next will remain in their present indeterminate state.
The Terrorism Scare
The immigration-terrorism link is a far more passionate matter. It taps the terrorism psychosis that has gripped the country since 9/11. The graphic outbreak of mass shootings over the past year has rekindled feverish emotions. The fact that the Orlando/San Bernadino/New York/New Jersey perpetrators had some vague connection with jihadi groups in the Middle East has given these events a transnational dimension. It doesn’t seem to matter that perps were American-born citizens or had grown up in the U.S. Islamic terrorists prepare to execute a wounded policeman after their attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015.
Logically speaking, a detached observer could infer that restrictive immigration from the Mideast or of Muslims generally would have no bearing on the level of terrorist threat. But facts in the age of Trump have lost much of their purchase on the American mind.
One fact that is incontrovertible is that politicians run scared on all matters that are related to terrorism – however oblique. The foot-dragging of President Obama on accepting any significant number of Syrian refugees is exhibit number one. Hostility toward Muslims generally is on the rise as witness the spike in abusive incidents in recent months. They now are occurring at a higher rate than they did in the wake of 9/11. By contrast, public authorities at all levels are less inclined to pursue surveillance and detention policies that skirt the law compared to that earlier period.
The net effect will be a deepening perception around the world that the United States is hostile toward Islam. That is grist for the mill of the jihadis and opportunistic politicians. While it seems unlikely that signs of Islamo-phobia in American society will affect the thinking and actions of government leaders, they very well could register in the communities from which suicide bombers and terrorists are drawn – in Europe especially and among certain unbalanced individuals in the United States itself. That cycle thereby gains velocity.
What about the economic sphere? It is there that one might reasonably expect the preoccupations of the presidential campaign to affect the policy of a new administration. Economic nationalism follows naturally from aroused popular discontents that finger the forces of globalization as a prime cause of the economic plight in which tens of millions of American find themselves. That is to say, one might anticipate that American officials will take a more searching look at the “bottom-line” impact of the accelerating integration of the world economy whose promotion has been a centerpiece of American foreign policy since the early 1990s – as actively and optimistically promoted by Hillary Clinton’s husband.
The process has tremendous momentum – institutional (via such entities as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), political and intellectual. Economic thinking, academic and governmental, has been totally dominated by the twin market fundamentalist concepts of General Market Equilibrium Theory and benign globalization.
A Bow to Inequality
While it has become trendy for all and sundry to make a ceremonial bow to the inequality phenomenon, it is hard to see the momentum of this juggernaut being blocked by disorganized displays of populism. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who served under President Bill Clinton, personifies this state of affairs. One of the architects and master builders of the financialized, unregulated transnational economy who fought ruthlessly to bail out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street after the 2008 crash, he now punctuates his innumerable public appearances with warnings that we should pay attention to the inequality dilemma.
This homily is not a prelude to any action. Rather, it is akin to the Mafia don who devoutly crosses himself every time that his limousine crosses the path of a religious procession on a Saint’s Day.
That is the outlook in the United States under Hillary Clinton. The one exception might by the TPP and TIIP trade treaties with Asia. Both were crafted by elites imbued by the optimistic globalization creed, both were kept secret except for the financial and commercial interests who were participants in their drafting, and both go far beyond traditional trade matters.
The former, in particular, represents a radical transference of power from national governments to private parties institutionalized in expert panels heavily biased toward the latter. Indeed, many of its provisions may be unconstitutional – as a fair-minded Supreme Court could rule.
That recondite aspect of TPP did not get an airing during the campaign. However, the tying of the treaty to the damaging effects of “trade” treaties forced even its supporters to equivocate. Hillary Clinton had been an enthusiastic backer until Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump began to reap political hay by condemning it. She now declares that is acceptable only if significant new conditions are met.
What will be her ultimate position? She may be spared that agonizing decision were Obama able to push a lame-duck session of the Senate to ratify it. Otherwise, it may just be the one and only piece of American foreign relations that changes as a result of the election campaign.
Continuity is likely to prevail elsewhere. Americans overall will remain the insular, parochial, moralizing and largely ignorant citizens they have been. That leaves plenty of space for a foreign-policy establishment driven by a powerful inertia to add to its long string of mishaps.
Michael Brenner is a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. [email protected] | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1205 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Bush Salutes Birdwell Claim summaries: During a hospital visit, did President George W. Bush salute an Army officer who had been badly injured during the terrorist attack on the Pentagon?
contextual information: Claim: During a hospital visit, President George W. Bush saluted an Army officer who had been badly injured during the September 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon. . Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] As you may know, the President and Mrs. Bush visited the Washington Burn Center on Friday 14 September. Among those they visited was LTC Brian Birdwell, who was badly burned in the Pentagon attack. Mrs. Bush went into Brian's room, spoke to him for about a minute, all the time as if they had been long acquaintances. She then turned to Brian's wife Mel, who at this time had been at the hospital for probably 2 1/2 days, and apparently, according to Mel herself, was dirty, grimy and had blood on her shirt. Mrs. Bush hugged Mel for what Mel said seemed like an eternity, just as if Mel were one of her closest family members. Mrs. Bush then told Brian and Mel that there was "someone" there to see him. The President then walked in, stood by Brian's bedside, asked Brian how he was doing, told him that he was very proud of them both and that they were his heroes. The President then saluted Brian. Now, at this point in time, Brian is bandaged up pretty well. His hands are burned very badly as well as the back of him from the head down. His movements were very restricted. Upon seeing the President saluting him, Brian began to slowly return the salute, taking, from the accounts so far, about 15-20 seconds to get his hand up to his head. During all of this, 15-20 seconds, President Bush never moved, never dropped his salute. The President dropped his salute only when Brian was finished with his, and then gave Mel a huge hug for what also probably seemed like an eternity. Pray for our leadership. Thank God for what we are, have, and will be. As a note to those of you who might not be familiar with military protocol, the subordinate normally initiates a salute and will hold it until the superior officer returns the salute. In the above incident, President Bush acted in the role of the subordinate to show his respect and high regard for the injured man. Origins: Glurge should always be taken with a grain of salt, and given previous fabrications such as The Evangelical Prez and Keep the Change glurge involving President Bush and military or religious matters should call for a few extra grains. We're happy to report that this item requires no seasoning at all, however. The Evangelical Prez Keep the Change Lieutenant Colonel Brian Birdwell, an Army officer a few months short of his 40th birthday, was just leaving a Pentagon restroom on the morning of September 11 when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 was slammed into the building by terrorists. Lt. Col. Birdwell was badly injured by the ensuing explosion and fire; fortunately, he collapsed under a hallway sprinkler, which helped douse the flames engulfing his prone body before rescuers pulled him from the collapsed section of the Pentagon. Birdwell ended up in the burn treatment center at Washington Hospital Center with smoke-damaged lungs and burns over nearly half his body. A couple of days later, as reported by several news outlets, Birdwell received an unexpected visit from his commander-in-chief, the President of the United States of America, who offered him the honor of a salute: Not long after Sept. 11, Birdwell had met the president. He was awake for President Bush's visit, as it turned out and aware enough to strain to return the salute the president had offered. He lifted his badly burned hand toward his injured forehead. When he could not quite reach it, he tried to bend his body toward his hand. The president's eyes filled with tears. Bush held firm until the wounded soldier let go.2 Two days later, Birdwell got a visit from his boss President Bush, commander-in-chief of the armed forces. "The president comes in and he says, 'Col. Birdwell,' and he salutes," [wife] Mel Birdwell recalled. "And Brian attempts to return the salute, and the president sees that he's returning the salute and he stands there and holds his salute with tears in his eyes."1 Birdwell's older brother, Wade, also confirmed the story via e-mail: I cannot tell you how grateful and truly proud I am that when Brian started to return that salute, despite his wounds, the president held his salute firmly and thereby permitted my brother the honor of demonstrating his and the true character of so very many others of our fighting men and women. Indeed, you should know that it was this very character that likely saved Brian's life in the first place. As Brian crawled through the fire, certain brave men and women pulled him from the carnage, carried him out to the parking lot, then into the adjoining street." After months of treatment and therapy, Lt. Col. Birdwell, who was awarded the Purple Heart, was able to leave the hospital to attend Thanksgiving Day services at his church in Springfield, Virginia, and to begin making trips home. Last updated: 22 February 2007 Sources: 1. Aiken, Johnathan. "A Pentagon Survivor's Story." CNN.com. 15 December 2001. 2. St. George, Donna. "Hope Breathes Beneath Wounds." The Washington Post. 2 December 2001 (p. A1). | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1206 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: We have a governor who's vetoed measures like increasing our minimum wage and restoring the earned income tax cut.
contextual information: As state Sen. Barbara Buono kicked off her campaign to unseat Gov. Chris Christie, state Democratic Party Chairman John Wisniewski said she had a record on which to run.That record, he said, belongs to the Republican governor.With supporters holding up Buono signs behind him, Wisniewski sounded off on Christies tenure during a Feb. 2 campaign kickoff rally at New Brunswick High School. Buono forms the perfect contrast to Christie, said Wisniewski, a state assemblyman from Middlesex County.We have a governor whos vetoed measures like increasing our minimum wage and restoring the Earned Income Tax Cut, Wisniewski said, eliciting boos from the crowd.The assemblymans charges are pretty solid. By different means, Christie has vetoed bills to raise the minimum wage and to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit after reducing that benefit in his first state budget.But Wisniewskis statement ignores the fact Christie also has offered alternatives to both.First, lets talk about the minimum wage.In late 2012, the Democrat-controlled Legislature passed a bill to increase the hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 and implement annual cost-of-living increases. But on Jan. 28, Christie conditionally vetoed the legislation and recommended certain changes, including scrapping cost-of-living increases and phasing in over three years a $1 increase.Democrats have rejected that plan and vowed to ask voters in November to amend the state Constitution with a minimum wage hike tied to annual cost-of-living increases.Now, well address the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income residents who work.As part of the fiscal year 2011 budget, the state tax credit was reduced from 25 percent to 20 percent of the federal amount. That reduction began with tax year 2010.The Legislature passed a bill in June 2011 to restore the credit to the original 25 percent figure, but Christie later vetoed the bill without proposing any changes. In June 2012, Christie vetoed a second bill to restore the credit.However, around the same time, he offered to restore the credit as part of a plan to provide an income tax cut That proposal was outlined in Christies conditional veto of a separate bill that would have raised the income tax rate on taxable income of more than $1 million.The Legislature has not acted on the governors proposal.More recently, Christie agreed to increase the tax credit as part of his conditional veto on the minimum wage bill.So, while its correct the governor vetoed two bills to restore the Earned Income Tax Credit, he also has offered at least two proposals that included increasing the tax credit.Alicia DAlessandro, a spokeswoman for Wisniewski, said in an e-mail that the governors alternative proposals are not worth acknowledging.The conditions attached to his vetoes undercut the purpose of the bills and do not even merit acknowledgement, she said. In what world would the Democratic state chairman give credit to the Republican governor for alternative measures that were clearly offered only for show?Anyone who believes that would happen at a campaign rally must think this election is happening in Fantasyland.Our rulingAt a campaign rally for Buono, Wisniewski said: We have a governor whos vetoed measures like increasing our minimum wage and restoring the earned income tax cut.Wisniewski is right about those vetoes. Christie conditionally vetoed a bill to raise the states minimum wage and issued absolute vetoes on two bills to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit.But the governor has offered alternatives to increase the minimum wage and restore the tax credit to its previous level.We rate the statement Mostly True.To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1207 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: If anyone thought the man who s been attacked by the left for most of his adult life, was going to roll over and play dead, as the Democrats and their allies in the entertainment industry come at him with a coordinated character assassination attempt, they were sadly mistaken.Breitbart The U.S. Senate campaign of Judge Roy Moore is firing back at Jimmy Kimmel and his paid trickster Rich Barbieri also known as Jake Byrd for disrupting a worship service at which Moore spoke here on Wednesday night. Jimmy Kimmel and the Hollywood elite cross the line when they invade our Churches under a disguise and attempt to make a mockery of our worship services, Drew Messer, a senior adviser to Moore, told Breitbart News on Thursday morning after the incident at the church on Wednesday night.On Wednesday evening, after the pastor of Magnolia Springs Baptist Church here in Theodore, Alabama, just outside Mobile warned attendees of a worship service at which Moore was speaking multiple times that it was against the law in Alabama to disrupt worship services, Barbieri proceeded to interrupt the worship service during Moore s speech.The pastor had earlier in the evening also warned event-goers against disrupting the worship service, so this constituted his second warning. But that did not stop Barbieri whose character on Kimmel s show is Jake Byrd from disrupting the event and being escorted out by police. Breitbart Watch:Turns out tonight's Roy Moore superfan is a comedian named Tony Barbieri, part of Jimmy Kimmel's gang. pic.twitter.com/ykeGKVDdkS Ben H. Raines (@BenHRaines) November 30, 2017Upon discovering that the man who disrupted the worship service was a paid comedian on the Jimmy Kimmel show, Roy Moore tweeted to the despicable leftist comedian/ activist to come down to Alabama and mock their Christian values face to face ..@jimmykimmel If you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man. #ALSen https://t.co/E7oQB9D83P Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017So Little @jimmykimmel sent one of his goons to Alabama to disrupt a church service where Roy Moore was speaking. I doubt Kimmel would ever disrupt a service at a mosque toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) November 30, 2017Roy Moore also responded to the leftist comedian, whose ratings are in the toilet, over his despicable comedian s stunt:Despite D.C. and Hollywood Elites' bigotry towards southerners, Jimmy, we'll save you a seat on the front pew. https://t.co/z7n6uaeyCj Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017 Was the Kimmel comedian s stunt about embarrassing Roy Moore, or was it more about jumping on the left s Hate Trump s All (or as the left falsely calls it: Love Trumps Hate ) campaign? Based on the most recent ratings of late-night shows, the only thing keeping the higher rated late-night shows on the air is their unabated criticism of President Trump, that s used as fuel to keep their hate-filled, leftist audience fed. Observer While Donald Trump has been a huge boon for late-night TV ratings, one host who isn t enjoying an upswing is Jimmy Fallon. The good-natured nice guy persona Fallon has crafted on NBC s The Tonight Show is great for producing viral videos, but not so great for navigating a politically tumultuous era. As Stephen Colbert s The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel s Jimmy Kimmel Live have continued to hone in on the Trump administration, and seen viewership rise as a result, Fallon has largely stayed out of the fray and is suffering because of it.According to the New York Times, Fallon has lost 21 percent of his audience year over year since the fall season began on September 25. Since February, Colbert leads late night in total viewers by a wide margin and Kimmel has been gaining ground over the last several months as well. NBC s top brass have combated these trends by noting that Fallon still leads the field in viewers in the advertiser-friendly 18 to 49 demographic, but the New York Times points out that even that gap is closing.Breitbart Fellow senior Moore adviser Brett Doster bashed Kimmel for enabling Hollywood s culture of preying on women as seen by the recent downfalls of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. Last night, Jimmy Kimmel sent one of his goons to disrupt an Alabama worship service as a comedy prop, Doster said in an email to Breitbart News. For years, Kimmel hosted a show that exploited women and encouraged sexual impropriety. He and the rest of the entertainment industry look down their noses at our evangelical values while using their own pulpit to encourage the very behavior purveyed by monsters like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. It remains to be seen whether Kimmel will have the guts to face Moore s team head-on in Alabama, and own up to the actions of his staff. A Kimmel publicist has not responded to Breitbart News when asked via email whether Kimmel or Barbieri would be willing to defend themselves in an interview. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1208 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: We Are Change
Often times we are blind to what is happening around us. Just because we cannot see the effects of pollution and over-stripping the Earth of her resources in our own backyards, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a very serious concern. Closing our eyes to these issues is not going to help the problems go away. The world used to be an absolutely beautiful place, but that beauty is slowly being pushed out by the trash of mankind. We are consuming more than what this Earth can handle and pretty soon the Earth will no longer be able to sustain mankind. Here are 27 pictures that will open your eyes to the serious danger that our very existence is in.
H/T Jill Stein & Unreal-Lists
Please remember to subscribe To We Are Change and stay up to date with daily Videos.
Follow WE ARE CHANGE on SOCIAL MEDIA SnapChat: LukeWeAreChange
fbook: https://facebook.com/LukeWeAreChange
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange I nstagram: http://instagram.com/lukewearechange Sign up become a patron and Show your support for alternative news for Just 1$ a month you can help Grow We are change We use Bitcoin Too ! 12HdLgeeuA87t2JU8m4tbRo247Yj5u2TVP Join and Up Vote Our STEEMIT The post 27 Photos That Prove The Earth Is in Serious Danger & It’s Time To Be Worried Now appeared first on We Are Change . | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1209 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The first shots in a political battle over funding for a range of federal activities rang out during a congressional subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, as Republicans and Democrats took opposing stances on a budget bill for financial regulators and other agencies. The legislation, which covers funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, the judiciary branch and others, passed the House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee and now goes to the full Appropriations Committee. It then must win approval from the Republican-dominated House before being reconciled with a Senate version into a single bill for President Barack Obama to sign. Democrats at Wednesday’s meeting made it clear they will press for changes at every step of the lawmaking process, saying the current bill is loaded with ideological policy “riders†that do not belong and that it could cripple important government work. Republicans, meanwhile, said the bill would reign in spending, make bodies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau more accountable and boost funding for important issues. “We cut funding for nearly two dozen agencies that can operate with a little less,†said Republican Ander Crenshaw of Florida, the subcommittee chairman, adding that the cuts helped free up more money for antidrug trafficking efforts, the Small Business Administration, and the Treasury Department’s Offfice of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. In total, the bill drops funding by 6.5 percent from current levels for all agencies, including the General Services Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, which bear “the brunt of the reduction†because “they are the largest agencies in the bill and both have a recent history of inappropriate behavior,†Crenshaw said. Republicans want to shake up the IRS after a 2013 scandal in which it allegedly targeted conservative Tea Party groups. The bill would also shave $50 million from the SEC’s budget. Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat from New York, said the lower funding in the legislation “would allow more tax cheats to go undetected†and thwart the SEC in protecting investors. “The long list of riders turns a bad bill into an example of the Republican majority’s unnecessary culture war,†she added, citing provisions to block the Federal Communications Commission’s internet neutrality rule and to limit health coverage of abortions for federal employees. Calling the riders “unnecessary, unwarranted, and unhelpful,†the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, Jose Serrano of New York, said “they are an effort to appease the right wing of the right wing.†| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1210 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s like something out of a dystopian novel: Having just abandoned America s leadership position in fighting climate change and realizing the move was deeply unpopular, Trump ordered a day of celebration for himself. The event was titled Pittsburgh, not Paris, a reference to a line he used to justify pulling out of the Paris climate deal.President Donald Trump s campaign announced a Pittsburgh, not Paris rally across from the White House on Saturday to celebrate the United States withdrawal from a global climate agreement.Here s the twist: Trump is holding it in Washington D.C. not Pittsburgh. Why? Because he s too scared to actually go to Pittsburgh and face the wrath of the people he just screwed over.Hours after invoking the Pittsburgh, not Paris line, the mayor of Pittsburgh made it abundantly clear that the city hates Trump and found it disgraceful that they used their city s name as a pretext to destroy the planet.The president may carry around a little map of the election results, but he clearly doesn t look at it very closely. Pittsburgh residents almost all voted against him. The industrial city is a steadfast Democratic stronghold. And in fact, one of the reasons it remains so Democratic is that it knows full well what happens when Republicans don t hold factories and companies to environmental standards.As Mayor Bill Peduto explained: Pittsburgh is the example. We were that city that China is like today where the smoke was so, filled the air so much, that the streetlights would stay on 24 hours. That legacy, and the willingness not to return to it, has led Pittsburgh and many other cities to announce that they will adhere to the environmental standards laid out by the Paris agreement even if the president is too dim-witted to do so for the country-at-large. Mayor Peduto made his contempt for Trump s actions abundantly clear on CNN:Trump: I was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not ParisPittsburgh Mayor: We voted for Hillary Clinton with nearly 80% of the vote pic.twitter.com/X6TRCebnj6 The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) June 1, 2017Mayor Peduto s comments and the knowledge that Pittsburgh hates Trump may have led him to schedule his Pittsburgh rally in a park next to the White House. There he can prevent people who disagree with him from coming and booing. Like everything Trump does, it was about image. People booing would have been a much more accurate depiction of where the country stands on Trump s decision everyone from policy experts to scientists to politicians to average Americans found Trump s bankrupting of America s role in fighting climate change to be disgusting and dangerous. Instead, like so many of these campaign-style rallies Trump holds, the thing will be one long exercise in vanity for the man who once claimed to be working for the people. The symbolism of holding his anti-climate rally in the swamp of Washington D.C. is a bit on the nose.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1211 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does Jared Kushner's brother own a business associated with COVID-19 testing? Claim summaries: Oscar, a digital health-insurance startup that recently set up a service for users to find COVID-19 testing centers, was co-founded by Joshua Kushner.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. Compared to the output of most other developed countries, the United States' ability to test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has been extremely limited. This reality has led to rumors that President Donald Trump's administration, or some of its members, have a financial interest in promoting specific tests over others that would be more widely available or more easily distributed. One claim that has emerged in this vein came from a report by Raw Story that asserted, "the Kushner family is trying to cash in on the pandemic that could kill millions of us." The basis for this claim concerns the health insurance startup Oscar, co-founded by Jared Kushner's brother, Joshua Kushner. Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of and special adviser to Trump. On March 13, 2020, Oscar announced that it would be launching a testing-center locator for COVID-19. Today, Oscar, a tech-driven health insurance company, launched the first testing center locator for COVID-19 in the U.S., featuring more than 100 centers. It is accessible to the general public, and more testing centers are being added every day. However, the details of Oscar's testing locator have been described incorrectly in several viral social media posts alleging profiteering from the Kushners during the coronavirus pandemic. A well-shared post by a user named "Boston Judy," for example, asserted that "we didn't have testing because the Trump family circle wanted to wait till they could make a profit." Even if this assertion had merit, the actions Oscar took merely help locate unaffiliated testing centers. As an insurance company, Oscar does not manufacture, perform, analyze, or sell any actual COVID-19 tests. Further, the test-center locator that Oscar developed is open to the general public and is not limited to people who get insurance through Oscar. Once a user has taken a short survey, the locator will provide the closest locations for testing in areas in which they operate. While the service also acts as a promotion for the company, it can serve as a testing center locator for any interested party. "Boston Judy" later clarified that Oscar was not producing tests, but that the company would get to "bill the feds for evaluating people for COVID and referring them to a testing center if they meet the criteria [for testing]." While the legislation that would allow for such reimbursement likely will include a fund for covering the cost of these tests, the legislation has not yet been finalized, and it's unclear that it would really be a windfall for Oscar, either. On March 13, 2020, U.S. House Democrats and the White House reached a deal on a package of legislation that included a requirement that insurance companies cover the full cost of COVID-19 testing with no cost sharing. As described by the Brookings Institute, this legislation, if and when it is passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would offer financial support to state governments by temporarily increasing the share of Medicaid spending financed by the federal government, require almost all forms of health insurance to cover COVID-19 testing without cost-sharing, and create mechanisms to pay for COVID-19 testing for uninsured people. In other words, while the government will likely be subsidizing insurance companies like Oscar, they are doing so to cover losses incurred by the requirement for full reimbursement to members. These laws, and the federal reimbursement they would authorize, would apply to any health insurance company in America, not only Oscar. Joshua Kushner co-founded Oscar in 2012. His venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, holds a significant ownership share. According to financial-disclosure forms released by Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, covering the year 2018, the couple owned and received profit from shares of Thrive. This document also appears to assert that the couple divested from Thrive during the 2018 financial year. Under federal law, executive branch employees are eligible to defer paying capital gains taxes on investments sold to comply with conflict of interest requirements. To take advantage of this benefit, the employees must obtain a Certificate of Divestiture from the Office of Government Ethics prior to selling the asset. Jared Kushner received a certificate of divestiture for, among other things, four Thrive-associated funds in February 2017. In a narrow legal sense, this removed the conflict of interest associated with his financial ownership in his brother's companies, according to Virginia Canter, who serves as chief ethics counsel for the nonpartisan Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which also provided us with Kushner's Certificate of Divestiture. But, she told us, his divestment does little to alter the appearance of a conflict of interest or reduce the risk of potential corruption, especially if he is using his public office to promote the private interests of his brother or giving him preferential access. The similarities between the Trump Administration's announcement of a website designed to locate COVID-19 testing centers and the website released by Oscar have been a source of speculation about undue access on Joshua Kushner's part. That being said, the assertion that the Kushners as a family are involved in the business of COVID-19 testing is not entirely accurate. The company's coronavirus response so far is limited to an online form that allows users to find a testing location if their symptoms call for it. Health insurance companies are likely to be reimbursed for covering the cost of COVID-19 testing once legislation is passed, but this would apply to all insurance providers, not just Oscar. For these reasons, we rank the truth of this claim as a "Mixture." | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1212 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was a Couple Hospitalized After a Man Got His Head Stuck in His Wife's Vagina? Claim summaries: A story about a terrible sexual experience is nothing more than a hoax.
contextual information: Entertainment web site World News Daily Report has put out more than its fair share of fake news articles over the years. Although its stories touch on a variety of topics, the web site frequently focuses on genitalia-based horror, publishing dubious stories about a babysitter inserting a baby into her vagina, a woman training squirrels to attack her boyfriend's testicles, and a man who was castrated after attempting to have sex with a pit bull terrier. fake news babysitter training castrated The site added another article to this category on 14 September 2017, when it published a story reporting that a couple had been hospitalized after a man got his head stuck in his wife's vagina: published A couple was transported to the hospital in a very awkward position last night after a man somehow got his head stuck in his wifes vagina during a strange sexual game. Tom and Janis Morrison, a young couple from the small town of Greensboro in Alabama, called 911 around 10:00 pm last night to ask for an ambulance. There is, as usual, no truth to this story; as explained, WNDR is a well-known fake news site with a long history of publishing hoaxes. A disclaimer on the web site reads: fake news World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website even those based on real people are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle. The article about a man getting his head stuck in his wife's vagina was reproduced by several lesser known (but equally disreputable) web sites, such as Pagez.com, which do not carry readily available disclaimers. As a result, some readers mistook this article as a genuine news item. Pagez.com mistook | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1213 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Today, you can't rely on (the retirement fund for public employees), it's not funded.
contextual information: Gov. Rick Scott made no secret of his distaste fora judges decision to overturna 3 percent cut in state workers salaries on March 6, 2012.Lawmakers in 2011 touted the cut as necessary; they said they were diverting the money to shore up the $124 billion pension fund for state and local employees. The change saved the state $1 billion and local governments $600 million, reported theTampa Bay Timesand theMiami Herald.Circuit Judge Jackie Fulfords decision throws that plan into chaos. She ruled the pay cut an unconstitutional breach of the state's contract with employees and ordered the money returned with interest. Fulford noted in her order that the 3-percent salary reduction did not actually go toward the retirement fund; legislators used it to balance the budget and left $1.2 billion unspent. Her decision didn't sit well with Scott. This is an example of a judge wanting to write the law. We all know that this is constitutional, there's no question about it, Scotttold reporters. I want to make sure we fix the plan so individuals can actually rely on it. Because today, you can't rely on that plan, it's not funded, he said. So it's going to have a big impact on our counties, it has a big impact on our state budget. But it's clearly constitutional.Weve heard alarming things about Floridas pension fund over the years, but never that it is flatly not funded. PolitiFact Florida wanted to set the record straight on how the Florida Retirement System works.The truth is that Floridas pension fund is funded. Is it fully funded? No, but thats not typical for most state pension funds.The most recent data shows the pensions worth versus what it owes in benefits is 87.5 percent, as of June 30, 2011. So if everyone in the pension system retired at once, there would not be enough money in the retirement system to pay their full benefits.Still, 87 percent isnt bad compared to most states. The average level is 77 percent.87 (percent) is a strong funding level, particularly given the difficult financial market over recent years, said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.Scott spokesman Lane Wright said we were nit-picking the governors statement and that he obviously just misspoke. Wright pointed us to past stories on the pension fromour siteand theTampa Bay Times, where Scott correctly asserts the retirement system is underfunded.Whats more, Wright said, is that Scotts office for a few months has been occupied by a big chart comparing the pension funds liabilities, assets and payments. His graphic correctly shows the plan as funded at 87.5 percent for fiscal year 2010-11. It also shows how that liability has grown since 2007-08.Hes had that chart there since at least the beginning of January, Wright said.Not long before storing a daily reminder of the liability gap in his office, Scott attempted to address it in his 2011-12 budget proposal. He called for $300 million to go into the retirement system, including an additional $120 million to address the liability on top of fully funding the normal annual contribution.In his response to the judges ruling, though, Scotts warning was stark, saying I want to make sure we fix the plan so individuals can actually rely on it. Because today, you can't rely on that plan, it's not funded. That sounds really bad to people who are relying on state benefits. The truth is, it's one of the better funded pension plans in the country. If all public employees retired tomorrow, they still get 87.5 percent of what they were owed. We rate his statement False. PolitiFact Florida is partnering with 10 News for the 2012 election season. See the video version of this fact-checkhere. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1214 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The Milwaukee County executive can sell the public museum, the airport and the zoo -- all on his own, without County Board approval
contextual information: The two Milwaukee Democrats sparring in the race for Milwaukee County executive are both busy discussing the incumbent, Chris Abele. The millionaire philanthropist, elected in 2011 to succeed Scott Walker, is touting his accomplishments—claiming he balanced the county budget without raising taxes for five years in a row (Half True) and that 1 million route-miles have been added to the bus system without a fare increase (Mostly True). Meanwhile, the leading challenger, state Sen. Chris Larson, has cast Abele as out of touch—and too powerful. Larson, who was a member of the County Board of Supervisors before Abele took office, won election to the Senate in 2010 after defeating a Democratic incumbent. On the Nov. 22, 2015, episode of Upfront with Mike Gousha, Larson decried the power Abele has gained at the expense of the County Board, which is essentially moving to part-time status as a result of a 2014 voter referendum. With the referendum, which Abele supported, salaries for the 18 County Board supervisors will be cut in half following the April 2016 elections. In addition, the supervisors' health insurance will end, and no additional pension benefits will be accrued. Gousha asked Larson whether a full-time County Board is better than a part-time board. Larson answered by making a claim we want to check, as well as referencing rapper-producer Kanye West. "I do understand that there are a lot of people who don't like the County Board. I'd also understand that there are people who don't like Congress," Larson said. "The difference I have is that I don't think we should abolish Congress or abolish the legislative check and balance that we have in American-style democracy." Then Larson alluded to a recent change in state law that gives more power to the Milwaukee County executive, saying, "If anything, I think we've erred too far in giving all this power to one individual, including land sales. He has unilateral authority over the County Board—or the County Board has no oversight over land sales, including the museum, the airport, and the zoo. That's just scary to think what he could do with that." And to paraphrase Kanye West: "No one man should have all that power." So—though it's not likely—does the Milwaukee County executive have the power, on his own, to sell the Milwaukee Public Museum, General Mitchell International Airport, and the Milwaukee County Zoo, all without approval from the County Board? The law: In July 2015, while making final adjustments to the 2015-17 state budget, GOP lawmakers inserted a provision to eliminate the Milwaukee County Board's oversight of sales of county-owned properties that are not zoned for park use. County Board members made power-grab allegations against Abele, who, despite being a Democrat, has forged alliances with some Republicans. The budget provision helped clear the way for Abele to sell 10 acres of land that is envisioned as part of a downtown Milwaukee development coinciding with a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Now to Larson's claim. Under the change in state law, any sale of non-park land owned by Milwaukee County requires the approval of only one other person besides the county executive—either the elected county comptroller or a real estate expert who lives in the community where the land is located and who does not hold public office. That expert is appointed by the Milwaukee County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, which is made up of elected representatives from the various cities and villages in the county. In other words, the County Board doesn't have a say, although the county executive alone couldn't sell non-park land, such as the museum, the airport, or the zoo. The county's top attorney, Corporation Counsel Paul Bargren, confirmed in a memo to the County Board that county-owned land that isn't zoned for parks can be sold without the board's approval. Specifically, the executive could lease, sell, or convey any non-park county property regardless of board policy and without board approval, he wrote. Either the comptroller or the appointed real estate expert would have to determine that the sale is in the best interests of the county. Bargren noted that counties are considered an arm of the state and that the state Legislature can delegate or remove powers from county boards in all 72 counties and can, as it did in this case, treat one county differently than the others. In effect, the Legislature has inserted itself in place of the Milwaukee County Board and, as a matter of county policy, has delegated the administration of land sales and contracts and procurement to the executive, his memo states. Our rating: Larson said the Milwaukee County executive can sell the public museum, the airport, and the zoo—all on his own, without County Board approval. A recent change in state law that applies only to Milwaukee County allows the executive to sell any county-owned land not zoned as park land without the approval of the County Board. However, such sales would need the approval of at least one other person—either the elected county comptroller or a real estate expert appointed by elected municipal officials who lives in the community where the land is located. We rate Larson's statement Mostly True. More on Milwaukee County: In Milwaukee County, juveniles arrested for car theft are sent immediately home because, under the point system in juvenile court regarding holding suspects, a stolen car gets zero points. Mostly False. In Context: Which black people did Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke call uneducated, lazy, and morally bankrupt? | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1215 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Are Amazon workers eligible for government assistance in the form of food stamps? Claim summaries: Official statistics suggest that some of the online retail giant's workforce receive food stamps, but it only applies to about 12 percent of one state's employees.
contextual information: Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of the online retail giant Amazon.com, became the world's richest person in October 2017, according to Forbes magazine. In January 2018, Bezos' company opened the first "Amazon Go," a new kind of store with no checkout required, in Seattle, Washington, to considerable fanfare. Amid a wave of increased press coverage and scrutiny, a viral meme made several claims about Amazon in January 2018. A spokesperson for Amazon confirmed that the company's new grocery store, Amazon Go, does not accept SNAP benefits or food stamps as a form of payment. The source of the claim about Amazon workers receiving food stamps was a January 2018 report by the nonprofit group PolicyMatters Ohio, which estimated that roughly 700 Amazon workers in Ohio (more than 10 percent of the company's employees in the state) receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. As of last August, 1,430 Amazon employees or family members were receiving assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services. In August, the average Ohio family receiving SNAP consisted of just over two people. Based on that average, more than 700 Amazon workers received benefits that month, or more than one in every ten of those Ohioans employed by the company. PolicyMatters Ohio arrived at that estimate by finding the number of Ohio food stamp recipients who are part of a household where someone works for Amazon (1,430), then dividing that by 2.02 (the average size of a household on food stamps in Ohio at that time). The resulting estimate is about 700 workers, or 11.8 percent of Amazon's Ohio workforce. We were unable to find any research or data on Amazon workers availing themselves of food stamps in other states. PolicyMatters Ohio sent us figures to corroborate their claims, which they received from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. (That data is available for download in spreadsheet form.) Furthermore, whether or not an individual qualifies for food stamps is determined by more than just income. Having a gross monthly household income at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty limit is an important factor. However, one can also qualify for SNAP benefits with an income above the poverty limit if someone in the household is disabled or elderly, and the poverty limit is pro-rated depending on the size of the household. Another factor to consider is whether a worker is employed by Amazon on a full-time or part-time basis. Someone whose only source of income is their part-time job at an Amazon fulfillment center would earn a lower monthly income than a full-time worker in a similar position, even if they received the same hourly wage. This circumstance might well qualify someone for food stamps even if their hourly wage at Amazon were otherwise not too bad. In an email, an Amazon spokesperson told us that Amazon full-time hourly employees in Ohio earn between $14.50 and $15 an hour as a starting wage, with regular pay increases plus Amazon stock and performance-based bonuses. On February 1, 2018, Amazon's jobs website listed seven open warehouse positions in Ohio. Only one was full-time, a description which a company spokesperson told us entails 40 hours of work per week. The hourly wage for the part-time jobs ranged from $10.50 to $11.75, while a "reduced time" position came with a starting rate of between $14.50 and $17 an hour. The full-time position had a starting hourly wage of between $14.50 and $15. According to a major 2016 report by the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a group that advocates for more sustainable community development, Amazon's warehouse workers across 11 metropolitan areas in the United States earned, on average, 15 percent less than could be expected for a worker in that industry. Amazon told us this analysis was "flawed," because it compared Amazon wages with "traditional warehouse jobs and compensation," claiming that the appropriate comparison would be between Amazon wages and retail wages, as "that industry more closely resembles the environment of an Amazon fulfillment center." Additionally, the report's authors said it was difficult to ascertain exactly what proportion of warehouse workers were on permanent contracts and what proportion were temporary, but estimated (based on news reports and the industry average) that the permanent to temporary ratio was roughly 60/40. A spokesperson for the company provided contradictory figures, stating: "Throughout the year, on average, 90 percent of associates across the company’s U.S. fulfillment network are regular, full-time employees. That applies to states like Ohio." The spokesperson confirmed that "regular" means permanent. The ILSR criticized Amazon for using the label "seasonal," which has connotations of the annual retail holiday rush, to describe the temporary positions it fills year-round. Amazon has also previously come under fire for what have been described as difficult working conditions. In its 2016 report, the ILSR summarized employment at the company's fulfillment centers as "grueling work for lower pay than average." Employees describe running across warehouses that span the distance of 17 football fields; production quotas, or rates, that can be set 60 percent higher than the industry standard; and a disciplinary system that tracks workers' every action and inflicts points for any deviation from Amazon's standard. Underlying these conditions is Amazon's fundamental approach to its warehouse workers. The company’s warehouses are finely-tuned machines, and the company creates conditions such that its workers are expected to be parts of that machine. The result is a work environment that is profoundly dehumanizing. In response to these descriptions, a spokesperson for the company told us: "Like most companies, we have performance expectations for every Amazon employee, and we measure actual performance against those expectations. Associate performance is measured and evaluated over a long period of time, as we know that a variety of things could impact the ability to meet expectations in any given day or hour. We support people who are not performing to the levels expected with dedicated coaching to help them improve." While the meme states that Amazon grossed $128 billion in sales "last year," that number is not quite accurate. For one thing, Amazon's 2017 earnings had not yet been published in January 2018, when the meme was created. Instead, Grit Post, where the meme appears to have originated, said in a list of sources that they had used Amazon's 2016 numbers. Amazon actually had net (not gross) sales of $136 billion in 2016, according to the company's full-year financial results. This means gross sales (which were not reported) were even higher than that, and certainly higher than the $128 billion claimed in the meme. Amazon's sales for 2017 are likely to be astronomical. Based on the company's predictions for the final three months of the year, Amazon's full-year net sales in 2017 might reach around $178 billion. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1216 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has been steadily ripping the Republican Party apart at the seams due to the embarrassing travesty of a campaign he s been running. This is especially true since the surfacing of a tape of Trump and former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush having what is quite possibly the most lewd, offensive conversation two men could have about women. As if that weren t enough, nearly a dozen women have come forward claiming Trump did to them just what he bragged about being able to do on that tape.Trump s scandals are literally doing something that no one thought possible: Turning certain reliably red states into battleground states. According to the polling organization RealClearPolitics, Trump s lack of acceptability could actually turn TEXAS, of all places, blue. As of Sunday, Trump is within the margin of error just three points ahead of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The average of all of the available polling is a 4.8 point divide. This is likely due to the fact that there are some things that are just not partisan open misogyny, narcissism, racism, xenophobia, and all of the other characteristics that make for huge deal-breakers on the basis of basic decency, regardless of political leanings.Other red states that could be within striking distance for Hillary include Arizona, Utah and Georgia. This would be why Trump, who is simply unable to accept losing at anything, is now talking of a rigged election. It s an effort to make his already angry, disillusioned supporters become even more aggrieved. This makes for a dangerous situation, and therefore it is DEFINITELY a good thing if Hillary can not only win, but run up the score around the nation and completely annihilate Trump.Featured image via Justin Sullivan via Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1217 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Death of the ‘Two-State Solution’ November 16, 2016
Exclusive: For years, anyone calling for a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – granting equal rights to all inhabitants and thus “diluting” the “Jewish state” – was denounced as anti-Semitic. But Israel’s persistent settlement building has now left no other rational choice, notes Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
Donald Trump’s election victory raises many unanswered questions, but it also settles a few, starting with the fate of the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” In the words of Israeli Education Minister and Jewish Home Party leader Naftali Bennett, “The era of a Palestinian state is over.”
Lest anyone accuse the Israeli hardliner of wishful thinking, one need only recall candidate Trump’s insistence last spring that Israelis “really have to keep going” with settling the territories that they have occupied since 1967. Two months later, the Republican Party changed its 2012 platform to omit support for a Palestinian state and to condemn the “false notion that Israel is an occupier.” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they walk across the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 20, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Last week, a co-chair of the Trump campaign’s Israel Advisory Committee reaffirmed that the President-elect rejects Washington’s traditional view that Israel’s settlements are obstacles to peace and illegal under international law.
The so-called “two-state solution” — creation of a Palestinian national homeland comprising the West Bank and Gaza, and coexisting with Israel — has been a longstanding axiom of official U.S. policy, accepted as well by Israel and its unofficial lobbying arm, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Of late, however, the rise of extreme Jewish nationalists to power in Israel, the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and Israel’s evident disinterest in peace negotiations have all but killed hopes for such a solution. In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared , “There will be no withdrawals” from the occupied West Bank and “no concessions” to the Palestinians.
As Americans for Peace Now points out, “more than 40% of the West Bank is under the direct control of settlers or settlements and off-limits to Palestinians . . . Israel has taken hundreds of kilometers of the West Bank to build roads that serve the settlements, . . . dividing Palestinian cities and towns from each other, and imposing various barriers to Palestinian movement and access. . . Such settlements, and new settlement construction going on today, have the explicit goal of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem – which, in effect, means preventing the two-state solution.”
Many of Israel’s staunchest allies in the United States now concede this reality. Hillary Clinton, in a private email to one of her advisers, acknowledged in 2015 that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had become a phony “Potemkin” spectacle. Secretary of State John Kerry warned publicly that Israeli settlement-building was “imperiling the viability of a two-state solution.”
Roger Cohen, the New York Times columnist and an ardent liberal Zionist, reported last month following a trip to Israel that the two-state idea is all but “clinically dead.” He explained: “The incorporation of all the biblical Land of Israel has advanced too far, for too long, to be reversed now.”
Many Israeli supporters of a two-state solution now publicly admit that bitter truth. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak accuses Netanyahu of engaging in a “messianic drive” toward “a single Jewish state, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” For the current crop of right-wing leaders in Israel, the main question is whether to offer Palestinians citizenship within an expanded Israel or to remove them.
Palestinians also concede privately that their dream of a state is dead. Said noted Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, “We, Israelis and Palestinians, live in a one-state reality.” Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, declared bluntly, “there will be no alternative but one state. No alternative.”
What Path Forward?
If a Palestinian state is truly dead, Palestinians will need to give up their decades-old nationalist aspirations, a wrenching blow that many will find hard to accept. Israelis, in turn, will need to find room in a bi-national democratic state for millions of Palestinians — roughly equal in number to Jews — an even more wrenching adjustment that many will fight to the bitter end. Liberal Zionists have warned for years that refusal to accept a Palestinian state would force Israel to choose between remaining a democratic state or a Jewish state. A map showing Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
As former Prime Minister Barak put it , the “overarching ambition” of absorbing the occupied territories “is bound to culminate in either a single, binational state, which, within a generation, may have a Jewish minority and likely a Bosnia-like civil war, or else an apartheid reality if Palestinian residents are deprived of the right to vote. Both spell doom for the Zionist dream.”
An apartheid-like reality already exists for Palestinians, but many Israelis and their supporters publicly rationalize it as an unfortunate but temporary necessity during a transitional period that will end with a peace settlement. By putting off determination of the final status of the occupied territories, Israel can justify subjecting Palestinians to harsh military law , seizing their land, demolishing their homes, controlling their movements, and jailing them at will rather than granting them the rights afforded to Israeli citizens.
Israeli political scientist and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti has been saying for years that “the whole notion of a Palestinian state . . . is a sham.” Israel has maintained the pretense of peace talks only “because it is self-serving,” he said. While talking about two states as a goal, Israeli governments continue funding the expansion of settlements. Palestinian officials, meanwhile, help enforce order in return for millions of dollars in international aid.
But if Israeli hardliners succeed in ending the fiction of a peace process and annex the territories , “then the Palestinian struggle will inevitably be transformed from one demanding independence into a movement demanding equal rights,” says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “If this is to be the case, we may well see the day when the Palestinian citizens of Israel will emerge . . . as the new leadership of a unified Palestinian community fighting for justice and equality.”
Such a fight will face tremendous opposition. In recent years, polls of Israeli adults show that nearly half believe Arabs should be expelled from Israel. Nearly eight in 10 believe Jews should receive preferential treatment compared to non-Jews. The Netanyahu government and Knesset are filled with overt racists. Last year, Netanyahu appointed as deputy defense minister a rabbi who asserted , “[Palestinians] are like animals, they aren’t human.”
The Israeli peace activist and public opinion analyst Dahlia Scheindlin doesn’t minimize the hurdles, but said Palestinians may be ready to fight for their rights within Israel. “Israeli racism [is] better than Israeli occupation,” she wrote , “and they probably feel [they] can live with it as long as there are democratic foundations to demand better. Maybe for them, Israeli rule cannot possibly make their status quo worse, but at least it offers the possibility of something many of them simply lack: citizenship.”
Democratic Rights
Some hope is offered by the fact that several notable right-leaning Israeli politicians favor granting Palestinians full democratic rights within a greater Israel, rather than subordinating them forever under the thumb of military occupation or Jim Crow-type segregation. A section of the barrier — erected by Israeli officials to prevent the passage of Palestinians — with graffiti using President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote when facing the Berlin Wall, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)
As New Yorker editor David Remnick observed a couple of years ago, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin — a member of the rightist Likud party — has “emerged as the most prominent critic of racist rhetoric, jingoism, fundamentalism, and sectarian violence, the highest-ranking advocate among Jewish Israelis for the civil rights of the Palestinians both in Israel and in the occupied territories.”
Rivlin visited an Arab town that had been the scene of an Israeli massacre in 1956 to apologize and “swear, in my name and that of all our descendants, that we will never act against the principle of equal rights, and we will never try and force someone from our land.” He also condemned racist fans of a Jerusalem soccer team who protested its signing of two Muslim players.
For such sentiments, not surprisingly, Rivlin has been called a “traitor,” “rotten filth,” and even “lying little Jew” by his Israeli haters.
But Rivlin is not alone. Moshe Arens, a former Likud leader, minister of defense and foreign affairs, and ambassador to the United States, supports giving Palestinians in the West Bank the right to vote in Israeli elections. The key to preserving Israeli democracy, he wrote in 2010, will be making them feel at home in the state of Israel, “enjoying not only equality of rights but also equality of opportunities.”
It will take a minor miracle to persuade the Israeli public to risk broadening their democracy to incorporate millions of Palestinians, but the longer the unsupportable status quo prevails, the less likely it becomes that any Israelis will enjoy the democratic and civil rights they have long known. Israel’s media is under assault from the government , leading Freedom House to downgrade its assessment of the country’s press from “free” to “partly free.” Israeli peace activists and NGOs face constant harassment and persecution . Rightist demonstrators routinely chant “Death to Arabs.”
Former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, a member of the Likud Party, recently declared , “The leadership of Israel in 2016 is busy with inflaming passions and causing fear between Jews and Arabs, between right and left and between different ethnic groups in order to survive in power.”
And Ilan Baruch, Israel’s former ambassador to South Africa, said , “Netanyahu is pushing Israeli democracy to the brink. . . This is the most right-wing government in the country’s history, which has no qualms about taking tactical and strategic steps in the media, education, and culture in order to ensure Netanyahu’s permanent rule. To do that, the government sows racist divisions . . . slanders and preaches hatred for the Other — be they Arab citizens of Israel, Palestinians, African refugees, or human rights activists.”
Still, with the pretense of a two-state solution shattered by Trump’s victory and Netanyahu’s open intransigence, supporters of Israeli democracy and Palestinian rights can finally begin an unblinkered discussion of how to achieve a genuine accommodation between those two peoples in a common land.
In the words of Sandy Tolan, author of the international bestseller The Lemon Tree , “Now, at least, there is an opportunity to lay the foundations for some newer kind of solution grounded in human rights, freedom of movement, complete cessation of settlement building, and equal access to land, water, and places of worship. It will have to be based on a new reality, which Israel and the United States have had such a hand in creating. Think of it as the one-state solution.” | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1218 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Edmondo Burr in News , US // 0 Comments Adam Schwartz, a senior lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). explains how the government spies on people using a powerful phone surveillance tool built by AT&T called Hemisphere.
Every day AT&T stores billions of call records and sells the information to Sheriff’s and police departments around the country who each pay upward of $1 million a year for the communications metadata.
In his article AT&T Requires Police to Hide Hemisphere Phone Spying Schwartz says law enforcement officials kept Hemisphere “ under the radar ” for many years—hidden from courts, legislators, and the general public—until the New York Times exposed the program in 2013.
Democracy Now interviews Adam Schwartz:
New details are emerging about how AT&T has been spying on Americans for profit with a secret plan called Project Hemisphere.
The Daily Beast reports AT&T is keeping private call records and selling the information to authorities investigating everything from the war on drugs to Medicaid fraud.
AT&T reportedly has been retaining every call, text message, Skype chat or other communication that has passed through its infrastructure. Some of the records date back to 1987.
Sheriff’s and police departments each pay upward of $1 million a year for access to the call records.
No warrants are needed, and AT&T requires governmental agencies to keep secret the source of the information.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well, all of this comes as new details are emerging about how AT&T has been spying on Americans for profit. The secret plan is called Project Hemisphere. The Daily Beast reports AT&T is keeping private call records and selling the information to authorities investigating everything from the war on drugs to Medicaid fraud. AT&T reportedly has been retaining every call, text message, Skype chat or other communications that passed through its infrastructure. Some of the records date back to 1987. Sheriff and police departments across the country each pay upwards of a million dollars a year for access to the call records. No warrants are needed, and AT&T requires governmental agencies to keep secret the source of information.
AMY GOODMAN : A 2014 statement of work from AT&T to the city of Atlanta published by The Daily Beast outlines the secrecy AT&T demanded. It reads, quote, “[T]he Government agency agrees not to use the data as evidence in any judicial or administrative proceedings unless there is no other available and admissible probative evidence. The Government Agency shall make every effort to insure that information provided by the Contractor is non-attributable to AT&T if the data is provided to a third-party.”
Well, for more, we want to bring in Adam Schwartz to this conversation, senior lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His latest article , “AT&T requires police to hide Hemisphere phone spying.”
So, explain. What is this Project Hemisphere?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : [inaudible] the largest known, possibly the biggest, database of telephone metadata that the government is using to spy on us. Every day, the database grows by literally 4 billion records. As you said, it has records going back to the 1980s. And police are using powerful algorithms to scrutinize this database of everyone that we are having telephone and other digital communications with, to discover our personal relationships, whether we’re talking to a psychiatrist or a criminal defense lawyer or a union organizer on the telephone. We view this as a menace to our privacy. And one of the most disturbing features of it is how it has been kept a secret, so that the public and the courts and Congress cannot scrutinize this program and decide whether we even want it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well, and how are they able to do this? Why are they not—why are the law enforcement agencies not required to have court-ordered subpoenas to obtain these records?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : Well, that’s a great question. Under federal statutes that protect our privacy, ordinarily, the police do have to go to a judge and get some kind of approval before they get this metadata of who we’re talking to. What AT&T has required the police to do, through the provision of the contract that you just read, is what the police call “parallel construction” and what the EFF calls “evidence laundering.” And what this means is, after the police find evidence against someone in the Hemisphere database, they “wall it off,” quote-unquote from their training manual, and then they use a traditional subpoena to recreate the exact same evidence trail. And when it comes time to put the person on trial, they present the second set of cleaner evidence, and no one is the wiser that they were using this massive, disturbing digital database to spy on all Americans, including the criminal suspect.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : But wouldn’t there be a requirement for the company to at least notify their consumers that they’re participating in something like this?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : Yeah, unfortunately, there isn’t. You know, AT&T, in its public comments about Hemisphere, has suggested they are merely responding to government requests for information, the same way that all kinds of providers of consumer services have to respond. In fact, as we see through the contract that AT&T wrote, which came to light earlier this week in The Daily Beast, it is AT&T who was demanding of government that the program be kept a secret. We don’t know what AT&T’s motive is to demand the secrecy. Perhaps it’s because AT&T is literally making millions of dollars a year from government agencies in exchange for providing this unique database of telephone records to the police for their scrutiny.
AMY GOODMAN : So the police might pay up to—one police department somewhere might pay like a million dollars to get this information?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : Yeah, just to be clear, there is a task force of federal, state and local officials called the HIDTAs, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, and it is funded by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. And the HIDTAs have three regional centers across the country, where AT&T employees are posted along with DEA agents and other law enforcement. And that is the entry point for law enforcement to the AT&T Hemisphere database. And the funding is a little bit shadowy, but it is clear that at one of these three HIDTA centers, White House funds, to the tune of a million dollars a year, are going to the HIDTA, in turn, going to AT&T. So it’s not a million dollars from each agency, but it is millions of dollars in total.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And, Adam Schwartz, am I correct on this, that AT&T is not—does not only provide information on their own customers, but on other carriers who possibly may be going through the AT&T infrastructure, as well?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : That’s exactly correct. Any consumer, whether they are not—whether or not they are with AT&T, when a call goes through an AT&T switch, it goes into the Hemisphere database. So, for example, if you’re using roaming, away from your own carrier’s network, and you’re using AT&T’s network, then your call goes into the Hemisphere database—again, 4 billion records per day from American consumers and for international calls into the Hemisphere database.
AMY GOODMAN : And the significance of broadband internet providers having to ask permission if they want to sell customers’ private data to third parties, the ruling that was just adopted Thursday by the FCC?
ADAM SCHWARTZ : You know, I think that the critical principle here is that consumers should have control over their data, and corporations should not be diverting that data for their own profit reasons. We think that a program like—
AMY GOODMAN : That they could sell it to other companies, you’re saying. They could—not only to police agencies, but to corporations, they could sell your—you know, our texts to each other.
ADAM SCHWARTZ : Right. The ruling yesterday from the FCC, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation was strongly in support of and lobbied for, says that they have to get each individual consumer’s permission before they divert their private information to anything other than providing the standard broadband service. So there’s a parallel between that issue and the Hemisphere issue, which is that, you know, consumers have a right to privacy. And AT&T should not be undermining that privacy, in the case of Hemisphere, by creating the world’s biggest, if—or one of the world’s biggest databases to allow the government to scrutinize our private relationships based on who we are having digital correspondence with.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And, Craig Aaron of Free Press, your sense of how this information on the Hemisphere program—whether this is going to become now part of the overall discussions on AT&T’s increased market power if it has this merger?
CRAIG AARON : I think it has to be. You know, this is just yet another example of why we can’t trust AT&T and its promises. And, you know, I think it’s very concerning that AT&T is literally, you know, putting employees right alongside sitting law enforcement to willingly mine their data, to help them out and then sell it. So they’re taking their own customers’ private information, selling it back to the government for a hefty profit, while violating their privacy. So, this is the kind of company AT&T is. You know, EFF has exposed for years and years and years, through their legal work, everything AT&T has been up to supporting the DEA, the NSA, etc. I think this is something to be concerned about, when a company gets even bigger and when a company is about to take over a major news network. Who’s going to hold AT&T accountable when these kind of stories are out there? Are we going to even hear about them?
AMY GOODMAN : We want to thank you both for being with us, Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, and Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Of course, we’ll continue to follow this. The decision is not finally made. In fact, Craig Aaron, just what’s the timetable on this?
CRAIG AARON : I think this merger, we’re probably talking about a year, which means this is a decision that’s going to be made by the next presidential administration, by the Justice Department, which gives us time to organize, but it’s very, very important that we get started now, because this is going to be a fight that will be going well into next year.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, thanks so much to both of you. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we head to North Dakota to the standoff at Standing Rock. Well over a hundred people were once again arrested yesterday, as Native Americans and their allies faced off against a heavy—a heavily militarized police department. Stay with us. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1219 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Reality TV star and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has convinced thousands of people that he s an expert on business, finance, and commerce. There isn t much evidence of those claims, and as he consolidates his power at the head of the Republican Party, his words reveal a dangerous lack of knowledge about global economics.In an interview with CNBC (on the phone, of course) Trump proposed a radical idea. He told the interviewer that he would reduce the national debt by having the United States fail to pay back on the money it owes. I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal, he told CNBC. And if the economy was good, it was good. So, therefore, you can t lose. Trump doesn t seem to understand that the United States economy isn t one of his many, many casinos and other ventures that he sent into bankruptcy at the expense of his investors (and rarely himself). To set him straight, Gene Sperling, who was an economic adviser to Presidents Clinton and Obama, released a statement lacerating Trump s insane proposal: For Donald Trump to casually announce he would consider defaulting on our debt for the first time in our history shows a stunning lack of responsibility and understanding of the global economy, he said.Sperling also pointed out that Trump s plan would risk a global financial meltdown, drive up interest rates for Americans for decades, and seriously harm middle-class families. In case anyone might think that this is simply a case of a Democrat hitting Trump, Republicans and business experts also think his idea is bonkers:Tony Fratto, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department under former President George W. Bush and a vocal member of the Never Trump movement, called the comments dumb as a bucket of rocks. Fortune Editor Alan S. Murray called them scary. In Trump s first week as the Republican standard-bearer, he s revealing just how ill-prepared he is to govern, more than even your average modern Republican.Featured image via Flickr | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1220 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The same woman who has been privy to our nations top secret classified information through our reckless former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has a father who openly advocated for state sponsored Sharia Law and a mother who Abedin s mother founded an aid organization in the 1990s that was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the same Secretary of State whose largest contributors to the Clinton Foundation Hillary s campaign slush fund are from majority Muslim nations who police Sharia Law. Abed in is also currently serving as Vice Chair to Hillary Clinton s campaign. Is this a coincidence?In August 2016, we reported that Huma Abedin made a surprise visit to Dearborn, MI. with absolutely no press coverage by the mainstream media. As a side note, Dearborn, MI has the largest population of Muslims in America.According to the Arab American News: Huma Abedin, vice chair for the Hillary for America campaign, met with Arab and Muslim American leaders on Aug. 11, to discuss issues that matter to the community.During her speech, Abedin praised the patriotism and heroism of Muslims across the country, including the Khan family, a Muslim Gold Star family whose son, Captain Human Khan, was killed in Iraq while protecting his fellow service members.STUNNING DEVELOPMENTSyed Abedin, the father of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma, outlined his view of Sharia law and how the Western world has turned Muslims hostile during a wide-ranging video interview that shines newfound light on the reclusive thinker s world views, according to footage exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Abedin, a Muslim scholar who was tied to the Saudi Arabian government until his death in 1993, has remained somewhat of a mystery as the media turns its eye to his daughter Huma, a top Clinton campaign aide who recently announced her separation from husband Anthony Weiner following his multiple sex scandals.Syed Abedin explained his views on the Muslim world and spread of Islam during a 1971 interview titled The World of Islam, which was first broadcast on Western Michigan University television.Abedin said that Arab states must police the upholding of Sharia, or Islamic law, and explained why the majority of Muslims view Israel and the Western world in primarily hostile terms.The video provides a window into the Abedin family s ideology, which has been marred by accusations it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.Abedin, who was then a professor in the university s college of general studies, said that Western intervention in the Arab world has sparked a backlash among many faithful Muslims. The response to the West has been of two kinds, Abedin said. By and large the response has taken more of a hostile form. The first impulse of the average Muslim in the Islamic world is that this kind of borrowing [culturally] would be somehow an alien factor into our social fabric and thereby destroying the integrity of our ethos the integrity of our culture, he added.In a separate discussion on the state s role in a person s life, Abedin said it is necessary to police the application of Sharia law. The state has to take over as Muslim countries evolve, he argued. The state is stepping in in many countries where the state is now overseeing that human relationships are carried on on the basis of Islam. The state also under Islam has a right to interfere in some of these rights given to the individual by the Sharia. For entire story: WFBHuman Abedin s mother who was the Muslim World League s delegate to the UN conference wrote in a 1996 article that Clinton anentire d other speakers were advancing a very aggressive and radically feminist agenda that was un-Islamic and wrong because it focused on empowering women She seemed to rationalize domestic abuse as a result of the stress and frustrations that men encounter in their daily lives. While denouncing such violence, she didn t think it did much good to punish men for it. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1221 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The typical white male worker in this country is making in real terms what he was making in 1973 and the average worker is making what they were making in 1996.
contextual information: As the 2012 elections loom and President Barack Obama pushes for his jobs plan, a key issue is how middle-class families have fared over the past generation. Obama and other Democrats would like to see the Bush-era tax cuts expire for couples making more than $250,000 and also raise taxes on hedge-fund millionaires who pay relatively low capital gains tax rates. For their part, Republicans claim Obama is engaging in class warfare against job creators. In a Sept. 27, 2011 speech at St. Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, David Axelrod, one of Obama's top strategists, said there has been a hollowing out of the middle class in this country in recent decades as wages have essentially flatlined for many workers. "There was a census report just a couple of weeks ago, and what it said was that the average white male worker, the typical white male worker in this country, is making in real terms what he was making in 1973," said Axelrod, a former White House aide and now a senior adviser to Obama's political campaign. In total, the average worker is making what they were making in 1996, but we know prices haven't gone along accordingly. If true, that's quite a ride back in time. Asked for substantiation, Katie Hogan of the Obama campaign referred us to a U.S. Census report released last month, and articles in the New York Times and the New Yorker website crunching some of the numbers. The report itself didn't have the precise numbers to back up Axelrod's first claim—that the typical white male worker made the same amount—adjusted for inflation—in 1973, when Richard Nixon occupied the White House. But a related census spreadsheet shows that real wages have not only failed to grow but have actually declined slightly for white males working year-round and full-time. But first, a semantic point near and dear to the heart of economists. Even though Axelrod said "average" in his statement, it's clear by his subsequent use of the word "typical" and the reports to which we were referred that median income, not the mean, is what applies here. In 2010, according to census data, the median earnings for a full-time white male worker were $50,074. By comparison, in 1973, the median for that category, in 2010 dollars, was $50,513. So Axelrod was correct that white men were no better off, adjusted for inflation, in 2010 than they were 37 years ago; they were taking home about $8.44 less per week. And when measured by the purchasing power of those dollars, the gap is even bigger. Because wages haven't kept up with prices, as Axelrod asserted, the typical white male worker's purchasing power has eroded by almost 11.5 percent in 37 years. Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said Axelrod's statement about white male workers is unambiguously true, and that wages haven't kept up with major gains in productivity. "The growing wealth of the country actually didn't translate into higher standards of living or wages for typical workers," she said. "Where it [the wealth] went was to the top." In the second part of Axelrod's statement—that the average worker is making what they were making in 1996—it appears that the Obama strategist got some numbers mixed up. A census table shows that median earnings for all full-time workers who clocked at least 50 weeks of labor increased by about 7 percent in real terms between 1996 and 2010, to $41,919. This came as earnings by women, and their participation in the labor force, grew at a faster rate than that of men, though the female-to-male earnings ratio was still 77.4 cents to the dollar in 2010. Given the report Hogan, the Obama campaign press aide, cited, however, along with a number widely reported in the press last month, what Axelrod apparently was referring to when he spoke of average workers making what they did in 1996 were census numbers that showed total household income, adjusted for inflation, has barely increased. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, only a $333 increase, or 0.7 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars from 1996. Some important factors are at play in household income numbers. For starters, households are smaller now, meaning there are fewer wage-earners to be counted. But women's participation in the labor market has also increased. What that means, essentially, is that wage-earners in middle-class American households are working more to maintain the same level of income. "One of the ways families made up the difference was more work," Shierholz said of the stagnant wage issue. "It's largely an hours story." A paper Shierholz co-authored after the new census numbers were released also showed that median income for working-age households fell by more than 10 percent in the past decade, to $55,276. Given such factors, she said the second half of Axelrod's statement captures the flavor of what the EPI and others have labeled a lost decade in terms of income. Our ruling: Axelrod was on the money in talking about the erosion of earnings for white male workers since the early 1970s, and basically on track in comparing how things stand today for the typical American family compared to 1996. We rate his statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1222 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • In a series of Twitter posts, the ethics watchdog for the United States government revealed legal advice that would normally be confidential: that Donald J. Trump must divest his financial stake in his businesses. It was unclear whether Mr. Trump’s pledge to take steps to separate from his businesses would clear that bar. Mr. Trump plans to hold rallies in states that were crucial to his victory. _____ • Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, an outspoken critic of political Islam, has described China, North Korea, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela as conspirators. Here’s a list of those picked for cabinet positions and other possible selections — including Sarah Palin, under consideration for secretary of veterans affairs. And here’s the latest on the transition. The ’s reliance on social media has raised a question for news organizations: Is everything Mr. Trump posts on Twitter news? _____ • Iraqi security forces retaking territory from the Islamic State are uncovering mass graves on a despairingly regular basis. Most of the dead were killed recently, after the campaign for Mosul began. We met a Syrian reporter, Hadi Abdullah, 29, above, as he was traveling to Aleppo. “I don’t expect anything to stop me but death,†he said. _____ • The European Union plans to spend 5. 5 billion euros a year to help governments acquire military hardware, including helicopters and drones, and to develop military technology. The pledge comes as the U. S. appears to be taking a step back in its role in the world. _____ • It took nearly three weeks, 12 closely fought games and a day of tiebreakers to decide the World Chess Championship, but at the end of play, victory went to the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen. The victory for Mr. Carlsen, who is from Norway, also fell on his 26th birthday. _____ • The pilot of the chartered plane that crashed in Colombia, killing almost all aboard, including members of a Brazilian soccer team, had radioed controllers that he was running out of fuel. “Fuel emergency,†he said in one of his last transmissions. _____ • Lufthansa flights resume today. Its pilots’ strike has become the latest example of how the fabled competence of German conglomerates has fallen into crisis. • Maxim Oreshkin, 34, is Russia’s new economy minister. President Vladimir V. Putin will deliver his annual state of the nation speech today. • OPEC’s deal to cut production by 1. 2 million barrels a day sent oil prices soaring. • Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, is headed for a blockbuster I. P. O. next year. Spectacles, Snap’s sunglasses, are among the most compelling tech devices of recent years. • Eurozone unemployment figures, released today, are expected to fall below 10 percent for the first time since 2011. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Ukrainian missile tests due to start today near Crimea could become another flash point in tensions with Russia. [Kyiv Post] • Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, proposed the creation of a unity government with Hamas, the militant rival faction that controls the Gaza Strip. [The New York Times] • Colombia’s Congress approved a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a vote that was most likely the final hurdle in ratifying the agreement whose earlier version had been rejected in a referendum this fall. [The New York Times] • Melania Trump, the future American first lady, warned Slovenians not to use her name and likeness without her consent. [Politico] • In Gambia, voters will decide whether to reinstall President Yahya Jammeh, who is 22 years into his pledge to stay in power for a billion years. [The New York Times] • China’s 30 million “missing girls†may simply have not been registered, not aborted or killed after birth, new research suggests. [The Washington Post] • Eduardo Mendoza won this year’s Cervantes Prize, the world’s highest literary honor, for bringing a “new narrative style to Spanish fiction. †[Associated Press] • The inventor of the Big Mac, Jim Delligatti, died at 98. [The New York Times] • Unesco declared Belgian beer culture as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. Monks in the Italian town of Norcia, above, hope their beer brewing operation can help the town recover from the country’s worst earthquake since 1980. • “The world is crumbling, the machine rusting. †This is a poem by Birgitta Jonsdottir, the politician trying to form a government in Iceland, where poetry is a national pastime. • Scotland said its bank notes were free of animal products after the Bank of England dismayed vegans by saying a new note contained a substance usually made from animal fat. • Using complex optics, a camera in Berlin creates portraits directly onto photo paper. • Pirelli, in its 2017 calendar, demonstrated that there is beauty and audacity at any age. • And here’s a Times investigative reporter reminiscing about how the Austrian Alps rekindled his passion for skiing. More than 30 years ago, a cow set a record for the most milk produced in 24 hours. Ubre Blanca (White Udder) was said to yield 110. 9 liters, or 29 gallons, that day. Her master was Fidel Castro. The supercow is one of many tales Cubans will remember as they say goodbye to their longtime leader this weekend. Ubre Blanca was part of Mr. Castro’s effort to solve a milk shortage. Long before Dolly the sheep or goats engineered to produce silk, Mr. Castro used artificial insemination to combine the Asian zebu’s hardiness with a Holstein’s high yield. Ubre Blanca was born in 1972 to instant stardom. Daily reports of her progress became news, though in the end, she was more or less the only success from the breeding experiment. Mr. Castro had a love for all things dairy, which included “Cuban Camembert†and a quest to build an ice cream parlor, Coppelia, to rival the American restaurant chain Howard Johnson’s. His ice cream obsession was also the closest the United States got to a successful assassination attempt — poison was to be slipped into Mr. Castro’s milkshake, but it froze to the side of the freezer instead. As for Ubre Blanca, she died in 1985. A government official saluted her, saying, “She gave her all for the people. †_____ Remy Tumin contributed reporting. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1223 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is Ukraine planning to legalize the production of pornography in order to boost funding for the military? Claim summaries: Viral posts mischaracterized a legislative proposal to decriminalize pornography in the country.
contextual information: On Oct. 17, 2023, an account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a screenshot of what it alleged was an Aug. 19, 2023, headline about the Ukrainian government legalizing the production of pornography to help fund its military during the country's war with Russia. Snopes was unable to identify any website with this alleged headline, but it closely matched the framing of a story published that same day (Aug. 19) on the Russian state-backed media outlet RT. That story by RT referenced a real legislative proposal by a member of Ukraine's parliamentary body, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, to decriminalize pornography in the country. However, that measure is an attempt by supporters to limit the state's control over consensual sexual activity, not an effort to raise money for the country's military. Nowhere in the legislation is military funding mentioned, and it does not spell out how the proposed changes to the porn industry would drive more money for Ukraine's armed forces. Like many former Soviet Bloc countries, pornography is entirely illegal in Ukraine. In August 2023, however, Zhelezniak introduced the proposal titled (via Google Translate), "Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine on Ensuring Freedom from Interference in a Person's Private Life," to remove some restrictions on the production of porn specifically. As described by the Kyiv Independent, an English-language news outlet in Ukraine, producing and distributing pornography is currently illegal in Ukraine. Broad interpretations of the law mean that even sharing a nude photograph with a partner can land a person in jail. In 2023 alone, 699 cases have been opened over the distribution, sale, and production of pornography, not including cases of child pornography. In one case in July, a court in Poltava Oblast fined a woman almost $1,000 for sending two videos to her boyfriend. Meanwhile, in Sumy Oblast, a man was sentenced to three years in prison with one year of probation for sending intimate photos and videos via a dating website. Lawmakers and advocates say this has to change. In their view, the decades-old prohibition of pornography harms ordinary citizens by prosecuting them for consensual sexual content, wasting state resources in the process. Zhelezniak argued that current Ukrainian law prohibits the production and distribution of material that many Ukrainians already produce or engage with. He believes the law should do more to prevent people from sharing nude photos without consent by including additional legal penalties and protect individual adult content creators against abuse by law enforcement authorities by removing other legal penalties. Supporters say the current legal climate allows authorities to coerce people who produce adult content or perform on webcams. As Zhelezniak explained to the Kyiv Post in August 2023, one of the problems with the current legislation is that law enforcement officers, namely cyber police officers, correspond with users of pornographic platforms— for example, those who strip for clients on webcams. They pretend to be customers and then offer them cover for a price, Zhelezniak said. The proposal would add explicit protections against victims of revenge porn, reaffirm the illegality of child pornography and "extreme" pornography, and remove criminal penalties for the production and distribution of legal porn. The proposed legislation was in committee as of this writing. Nowhere in the draft law was military funding mentioned. An explanatory note attached to the bill, however, pointed out— in an apparent attempt to highlight the current system's alleged flaws— that the Ukrainian government spends money to prosecute models on the adult content creation platform OnlyFans using tax revenue it receives from the same site. In 2021, Ukraine implemented a so-called Google tax that levels a 20% tax on foreign corporations that provide services in Ukraine. That tax applies to London-based OnlyFans, despite the fact that, in some cases, it hosts content that is technically illegal in the country. The explanatory note mentions that surpluses in the government's annual budget generally go toward the Ukrainian military. It is plausible that such a law could provide funding to the armed forces, but that was not its intent. Additionally, the explanatory note argues that the government spends significant resources investigating and prosecuting cases against models generating revenue for OnlyFans and, by extension, Ukraine, as described in the Kyiv Independent. OnlyFans, one of the world's largest platforms for erotic content, has already generated more than Hr 34 million ($920,000) in tax revenue for Ukraine's state budget from value-added tax in the first six months of the year, Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who has been spearheading the latest effort to legalize porn, told the Kyiv Independent. It's stupid to collect taxes for that and say it's criminal at the same time, Zhelezniak said. If we decriminalize porn, it means less corruption and more taxes for the budget. The explanatory note also referenced an organization that allows Ukrainians to donate erotic photos to people who provide evidence of a donation to the armed forces of Ukraine— TerOnlyfans. That group is independent of the Ukrainian government. It was referenced only in the draft law's explanatory note, nowhere in the actual legislation. That section (via Google Translate) read: TerOnlyfans Adult pornography is widely available in Ukraine and most of its aspects do not cause public disturbance. On the contrary, such an approach usually causes positive public reaction and media coverage. For almost one and a half years of existence of the TerOnlyfans platform, volunteers collected about UAH 31.5 million in donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for erotic photo cards. Quotes from TerOnlyfans Executive Director Anastasia Kuchmenko were included in most news stories about the draft law, and that media focus seemingly contributed to the spread of false claims that the proposal to decriminalize the production of porn was connected to military funding. In reality, however, while the bill indeed proposed lighter restrictions on porn production, it did not call for the government to use revenue from that proposed change for its armed forces. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1224 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Staunch in its opposition to the Democrats but rived by fierce internal schisms, the American political party stumbled toward defeat, its members cursing their fate. “We are slain,†cried Lewis D. Campbell, a representative from Ohio. “The party is dead, dead, dead!†That was the election of 1852, when the Whig Party, then one of the country’s two major political forces, began to crumble over bitter arguments about slavery. The Whigs would dissolve within four years, to be reborn as the Republican Party — the very party now engulfed by its own civil war. As this year’s extraordinary election hurtles toward its climax, scores of Republican leaders have deserted their party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. A snowballing scandal over sexual harassment and assault allegations has caused Mr. Trump’s poll numbers to crater, and some of the party’s top donors have suggested abandoning him altogether. But a solid core of Republicans stands defiantly with Mr. Trump, flocking to increasingly raucous rallies where the candidate vents his rage toward and disdain for a party that, at least theoretically, still backs him. The turmoil raises a bracing possibility: Is an American political behemoth — a party that has produced 18 presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan — about to fall apart like its predecessor? “There is a real danger,†said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, and an early critic of Mr. Trump. “But I wouldn’t panic yet. It’s very hard to know where we stand right now. A lot depends on the election in November. †The Republican schism is in fact the culmination of simmering tensions within American conservatism. For years, the party has been an amalgam of factions: Christian evangelicals, foreign policy hawks and more. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 helped spur the rise of a strongly conservative wing known as the Tea Party, with a brand of protest politics that fed off the anger of many white voters and created an opening for Mr. Trump this year. Republican leaders have never been happy or comfortable with Mr. Trump — a celebrity tycoon who has changed his party affiliation five times — even as he vanquished 16 rivals to clinch the party nomination. But for months the leaders turned a blind eye to Mr. Trump’s verbal attacks on Muslims, Mexicans and women, hoping that even if he lost the presidential election, the party could retain its prime political asset: its majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although Republicans have lost the past two presidential elections, they have had stunning success in congressional races and now enjoy their largest majority since 1928. That has given them considerable power to block laws, constrain President Obama and threaten government shutdowns. Republicans also control of the 50 state legislatures, allowing them to shape laws on issues at the heart of America’s culture wars: guns, abortion and marijuana. But when a recording emerged of Mr. Trump boasting about groping women, it struck at the core of a party that prides itself on “values,†and Republican leaders could no longer look the other way. Some Republican politicians who expressed revulsion at Mr. Trump’s comments might have been acting out of cold political calculation. On Nov. 8, Americans will vote not only to elect a president but also to fill all 435 House seats and 34 of the Senate’s 100 seats. Analysts predict that a crushing defeat for Mr. Trump could cost Republicans their advantage in the Senate and even their control of the House — a prospect that until recently was considered a distant possibility. It is easy to forget that the Republican Party, now known as an and stalwart, originated as the progressive face of American politics. Founded in 1854 on a platform of opposition to slavery, the party was initially dominated by Northern states, which were more industrial. The first Republican president, Lincoln, held the Union together through the Civil War, during which he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which led to the abolition of slavery. The party’s nickname, the Grand Old Party, dates from that period, as does its mascot, the elephant, which first appeared in 1874 as a political cartoon in Harper’s Weekly. In the years before and during the Civil War, the Democratic Party, which dominated the agrarian South, supported slavery. But the tables turned in the 1960s, when the Democratic Party championed an end to segregation and Southern states swung to the Republicans, increasingly the party of conservatism. Mr. Trump’s campaign has ushered in a new chapter of the conservative story, building a coalition of disaffected voters motivated as much by their anger at government and establishment politics as by any policy issue. In the final weeks of the race, Mr. Trump’s campaign has exposed a yawning gulf between Republican leaders and much of the party’s base. While Washington insiders and Republican thinkers have scorned Mr. Trump, some politicians, unsure of their constituents’ opinions, are weighing whether to lend him their support. After the recording was made public this month, some leaders disavowed Mr. Trump but then, facing a backlash from constituents, reaffirmed their support — a maneuver known in the British news media as a “reverse ferret. †Some Republicans have had enough. At the party’s contentious national convention in July in Cleveland, I met Ryan Davenport, 25, a teacher from Dallas in a bow tie, who brimmed with fury at the ascension of Mr. Trump as the party’s . When I called Mr. Davenport last weekend, he said he had abandoned the party and would vote for Evan McMullin, a former C. I. A. operative who began a moonshot bid for the presidency as an independent. Mr. Davenport said he took no pleasure in seeing the party he loved in disarray. But when for Mr. Trump called his house, he told them to leave him alone. “We have a predator running for president of the United States,†Mr. Davenport told me. “He’s radioactive. †Whether Mr. Trump wins or loses in November, questions over the party’s future will remain. Mr. Kristol, the conservative commentator, said Mr. Trump’s candidacy could turn out to be “a bit of fluke†because his brand of politics enjoys limited support among elected Republicans. “If you look at your average stump speech, they do not sound like Trump,†Mr. Kristol said. Others see the party veering toward a possible split. “Our views — the Republican intellectuals and people — differ from a significant chunk of the electorate,†said Avik Roy, a conservative strategist who likened Mr. Trump’s success to the rise of nationalist parties in Europe. “And it’s the electorate that decides. †In pugnacious form, Mr. Trump has in recent days inveighed against Republican leaders. Dealing with his party, he declared, was harder than fighting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. With several polling websites putting Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the election around 10 percent, he appears to be steeling for defeat, warning his supporters that the outcome of the election will be rigged. At a rally in Florida on Thursday, he struck an apocalyptic tone. “This is a struggle for the survival of our nation,†he said. Or, at least, the survival of the Republican Party. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1225 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: I spent only $36.29 on my campaign for governor.
contextual information: Memorable and low-budget -- that's the type of election campaign Robert J. Healey Jr. likes to wage. While the other candidates campaigned for months and spent millions in the most expensive governors race in Rhode Island history, Healey didnt enter the contest until shortly after the September primary, when he replaced the Moderate Partys original candidate, who was unable to run because of illness. Healey, who has repeatedly run for lieutenant governor with the intention of abolishing the office, and who spent the 2002 election season handing out campaign condoms with the slogan Nothing never felt so good, got 21.4 percent of the vote after mail ballots were counted in the 2014 gubernatorial election. While the major party candidates, Democrat Gina Raimondo and Republican Allan Fung, saturated the airwaves with commercials, Healey made a few campaign appearances and put up a few signs. But his performance in televised debates in October won him support from a lot of people who like his unconventional style -- or didnt much like Fung or Raimondo, who won the race. The day after the election, Healey told Providence Journal columnist Edward Fitzpatrick that hespent just $36.29on his campaign. He madea similar claim on WPRO, where morning host Gene Valicenti congratulated him on his strong showing. Thank you. For 35, for 38 bucks, not bad, Healey said. I probably should have spent twice as much. I would have doubled my numbers and maybe be the governor. Valicenti joked that he didn't count gas money. I know, Healey responded. (But) I had to go there anyway. The Moderate Party candidate -- who also founded the Cool Moose Party -- has cited similar numbers in other venues. That prompted a reader to question the accuracy of Healey's statements. Someone had to spend money for those garish signs over I-195. And those signs weren't cheap, the reader said. Indeed, there were more than a few Healey signs throughout the state. We decided to check. Healey'smost recent filingwith the Rhode Island Board of Elections, for the period ending Oct. 27, 2014, shows that he raised no money and spent nothing during the previous 20 days.His previous reportshows that he gave himself $35.31 and spent it all on cell phone expenses. Healey told us the amount jumps to $36.29 when you add the price of the only two purchases he made since his last financial report -- a pair of postage stamps. Filings for the Moderate Party itself show that it spent no money on Healey's race either, at least through Oct. 27. So where did the money for the signs come from? Healey said a lot of supporters downloaded the public-domain images ofhim and his artworkfrom his website so anybody could produce anything. They printed their own. In addition, a local sign maker printed up his own signs and sold them at cost. The candidate also recycled signs from his past campaigns for lieutenant governor. We just crossed out the word 'lieutenant' and gave those away, said Healey. He also painted a campaign message on the wall of a building using old black paint. He initially had trouble opening the cans of Rust-Oleum paint because the covers had rusted shut. I found that rather ironic. They should make cans that don't rust, he said. In the end, I didn't spend any money on signs. Not at all, Healey asserted. In addition, people printed up a ton of T-shirts. I don't know what people did with them. But we're creating small business in Rhode Island. We're giving people jobs. We recycled everything -- anything I could cross out the word 'lieutenant.' We recycled buttons. We had some old bumper stickers from when I ran for governor in '98. In the attic, I found a case of Cool Moose combs, which I had in '86. Yardsticks, he said. And did he have any leftover condoms? We did, but they all expired in 2003. We didn't want to be giving out expired condoms. So when Robert Healey says he spent only about $36 on his campaign, all the evidence points to a truly shoestring operation. We rate his claim asTrue. (If you have a claim youd likePolitiFact Rhode Islandto check, email us at[email protected]. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1226 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A Texas-based chain of strip clubs would go on a buying spree. A growing technology company would move fewer jobs overseas. And a regional bank would boost its spending on cybersecurity. These are some of the uses of the tax savings that small and medium-sized U.S. companies say they would pursue if the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress slashed corporate taxes as promised. Small companies pay the highest taxes and they would be the main beneficiaries of such a Trump windfall. Reuters contacted the 100 largest companies by market value in the benchmark Russell 2000 index of U.S. small and mid-cap stocks as well as another 50 in the Russell 2000 with no analyst coverage. None of the 17 companies that responded to Reuters queries mentioned boosting their headcount. The administration has said the tax cuts would largely pay for themselves by spurring more investment and creating jobs. But companies say they look to spend on technology that will allow them to improve productivity or make acquisitions rather than hire more workers. “We want to be a company of the future, and technology is one of the key ingredients,†said Keith Cargill, chief executive at Dallas-based Texas Capital Bankshares Inc (TCBI.O), a bank with a market value of $4.2 billion. The tax cut would be a “huge plus†for earnings, Cargill said, but with little impact on the bank’s workforce. The Russell 2000 companies tend to pay the highest effective tax rates now | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1227 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Key U.S. allies in Europe are quietly expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump’s approach to Syria, warning that his pledge to work more closely with Russia, Damascus’ main backer, will do little to diminish the terrorist threat emanating from Syria. The diplomatic persuasion campaign has taken on new importance in recent days as the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, appears poised to retake all of Aleppo city in a major defeat for Western-backed rebels. Moscow and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are expected to cast Aleppo’s fall as the end of a revolt against Assad that began in March 2011, although Western analysts predict the civil war, which has killed more than 300,000 people and made more than half of Syrians homeless, will continue, perhaps for years. Western diplomats, who described discussions with Trump advisers on condition of anonymity, said their message was that a U.S. alliance with Russia, and by extension Assad, to crush groups like Islamic State will backfire. Trump has said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down. “On Syria the new administration says crushing Islamic State is its priority, but we’ve explained our view that without a political solution in Syria those efforts will be fruitless because new pockets of radicals will re-form,†a senior French diplomat told Reuters. France has been the target of coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State. Western capitals fear that a prolonged conflict will exacerbate mass refugee flows in which radicalized individuals might hide. A political solution in Syria, as envisioned by Western powers, would involve a transition in which Assad eventually left power. Assad, from the minority Alawite sect, cannot unite Syria and quash extremists after nearly six years of warfare, they argue. In a rare public speech in London on Thursday, Alex Younger, chief of Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency, said, “we cannot be safe from the threats that emanate from (Syria) unless the civil war is brought to an end. And brought to an end in a way that recognizes the interests of more than a minority of its people and their international backers.†Trump has frequently said that he wants to work with Russia to fight Islamic State, which holds territory in Iraq and Syria, and other militant groups. “When you think about it, wouldn’t it be nice if we got along with Russia?†he said during a campaign rally in July. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?†Trump added, using another name for Islamic State. U.S. defense officials have repeatedly said the vast majority of Russian strikes in Syria are not against Islamic State. How Trump will actually proceed remains unclear. He has not named a secretary of state, and some current and prospective members of the president-elect’s national security team have voiced more skeptical views of Russia. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allies’ concerns. “What we’re getting from our conversations with the Trump administration is that already they are toning down the prospect of a Russia-U.S. deal on fighting Islamic State and a full-on rapprochement with Moscow,†the senior French diplomat said. A senior Arab diplomat also was cautious about Trump’s Syria policy. “We can’t really predict it now,†the diplomat said. A diplomat from another U.S. ally, while declining to discuss the American political transition, expressed doubts about the advisability of a Western alignment with Moscow and Assad. “There is no way that allying with Assad would do anything to reduce the terrorist threat to the West. Rather, it would drastically increase it,†the diplomat said. “It’s an inconvenient truth of the conflict,†he said. “The Russians have Grozny-ified Aleppo,†the diplomat said, referring to the total destruction the Russian military inflicted on the capital of Chechnya. Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said that once Aleppo falls, the Russian-backed Syrian government will not turn its attention to Islamic State, but rather try to destroy the remainder of the secular anti-Assad rebellion. The United States has three options, said Ford, a fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank. “The first option is to switch and join the Russians and implicitly the Syrian government and the Iranians against Sunni extremists. But the problem is that the Russians and the Syrian governments ... aren’t really fighting Sunni extremists very much,†he said. The second option, Ford said, is for Washington to walk away from the conflict, which would likely mean diminished U.S. influence in the region, and continued refugee flows. The third is to work with Turkey and Saudi Arabia to get a partial ceasefire. “None of them are good, there is no easy answer, we ran out of easy answers in 2012 and 2013,†Ford said. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1228 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Pepsi Donate $100M to Black Lives Matter? Claim summaries: Not every project related to racial justice is automatically linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.
contextual information: In the summer of 2020, readers sent Snopes multiple inquiries about widely shared social media posts claiming that PepsiCo, the company that makes Pepsi, had donated $100 million to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In May 2020, a Black man named George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, prompting a renewed wave of nationwide and international protests against racial injustice and police brutality. The BLM movement spearheaded much of that protest and debate, and in response, critics of the protests targeted BLM, often deploying false, exaggerated, or distorted allegations. targeted During the summer of 2020, those critics sought to target several major U.S. companies, including PepsiCo, by claiming they had each donated substantial amounts to BLM. Social media posts in July read that: Social media posts BankofAmerica Gave them $1 BILLIONPepsiCo - $400 MILLIONWalmart - $100 MILLIONApple - $100 MILLIONComcast - $100 MILLION Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk alluded to an incident in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 2020, in which local residents Mark and Patricia McCloskey pointed firearms at protesters, writing on Twitter: pointed firearms writing "In America if terrorists show up to your home, you get charged for showing that you own a weapon after they tear down your gate. And the thugs who entered on to your property get $400 million from PepsiCo. as a reward." In August 2020, social media users focused on PepsiCo, and the amount of the company's purported donation to BLM shifted from $400 million to $100 million, for reasons that are unclear, but may have resulted from a misreading of earlier posts that claimed Walmart, Apple, and Comcast had each donated $100 million to BLM. A typical version of the post claimed that: "PEPSI JUST GAVE BLM A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS... PLEASE BOYCOTT PEPSI!" typical version post claimed The August posts that claimed PepsiCo had given $100 million to BLM appeared to have been based on the earlier claims that the company had donated $400 million. In turn, those earlier posts stemmed from an announcement the company made in June 2020. On June 16, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta wrote: wrote "Today, I am announcing the next step in PepsiCos journey for racial equality: a more than $400 million set of initiatives over five years to lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo. These initiatives comprise a holistic effort for PepsiCo to walk the talk of a leading corporation and help address the need for systemic change." Specifically, the company pledged to spend, over the course of five years: We asked PepsiCo whether it, or any charitable entities associated with the company, had donated to groups or projects associated with BLM, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a Delaware-registered entity that is one of the leading formal embodiments of the movement. We also requested a list of any recipients of charitable disbursements from the $400 million investment announced in June. We did not receive a response in time for publication. However, since $415 million was reserved for supporting Black-owned suppliers, restaurants, and small businesses, as well as starting a fellowship program, it was therefore mathematically impossible for $100 million to have been pledged for BLM. The only component of that spending that appears to leave room for any involvement with BLM is the $6.5 million reserved for "community impact grants to address systemic issues." So even if that entire portion of funding went to BLM, it would still constitute only a small fraction of the $100 million and $400 million claimed in social media posts in the summer of 2020. None of those who promoted those claims presented any evidence that linked PepsiCo's pledged investment with specific, named organizations or projects associated with the broader BLM movement or the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. The claim that PepsiCo had donated $100 million (or $400 million) to BLM appeared to be based on a basic misunderstanding of the company's June 2020 announcement or the false assumption that any investment associated with the Black community or rectifying racial injustice must be directly connected to BLM. Laguarta, Ramon. "Pepsico's Journey to Racial Equality: A Message from Our CEO."
PepsiCo. 16 June 2020. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1229 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The national economic recovery has led to higher than expected tax revenues and projected budget surpluses in nearly every state in the nation, including Wisconsin.
contextual information: Why the big surplus predicted in the state budget? Gov.Scott Walkersays wise government belt-tightening and reforms, tax cuts and business-friendly deregulation boosted hiring and the economy, promising now to help fill state coffers with extra income-tax revenue. When Walker made that claim in hisState of the State addresson Jan. 22, 2014, theDemocratic Party of Wisconsinbegged to differ. Scott Walkers surplus isnt built on prudent financial decisions -- its built on disinvestments in our future that harm the economic security of the middle class, aDemocratic news releaseissued during the speech argued. Walkers first budget cut nearly one billion dollars from public schools and our technical college system that provides critical job training programs. Then the party added this: The national economic recovery has led to higher than expected tax revenues and projected budget surpluses in nearly every state in the nation, including Wisconsin. Before Walkers speech fades into history, lets check the claim that Wisconsin is far from alone in enjoying a firmer financial footing. Wisconsin is projected to have a $1 billion surplus at the end of the two-year budget period covering July 2013 to July 2015 -- almost all of it because tax collections are rising faster than expected, the nonpartisanLegislative Fiscal Bureau saidin January. The predicted surplus -- expected revenues exceeding planned expenditures -- is a notable switch from shortfalls that forced Wisconsin and other states into emergency changes to keep budgets balanced during the Great Recession and its immediate aftermath. We asked Democratic Party spokesperson Melissa Baldauff to back up the claim of higher than expected tax revenues and projected budget surpluses in nearly every state. She cited anAssociated Press storyfrom January 2014 that said that almost all states will see fairly decent surpluses in their 2014 budgets. That story quoted theNational Association of State Budget Officers(NASBO). We followed up with Scott Pattison, executive director of the budget officers group. He confirmed the projection. The 2013 stock market surge will goose income tax collections, Pattison said, and many states budgeted conservatively for 2014, not foreseeing the markets runup. That, he said, means surpluses are in store for fiscal year 2014, which for most states ends by mid-year. And that comes on the heels of the 2013 budget year in which 37 states exceeded original (revenue) forecasts, six states were on target and seven states ended fiscal 2013 below the original revenue estimate, according to the nonpartisan budget associations December 2013 report,The Fiscal Survey of States.Baldauff also cited that report. The revenue windfalls meant surpluses were common, the report said. So the Democrats claim of higher than expected tax revenues and resulting widespread surpluses was confirmed by the group. We broadened our view, checking with theNational Conference of State Legislatures, which also regularly tracks state budgets. State fiscal conditions continued to improve in fiscal year (FY) 2013, the group said in itsState Budget Actions FY 2013 and FY 2014.General fund revenue growth was notably strong and outpaced projections in most states. Did that leave states with extra money to play with? Yes, the group said. At the same time, expenditures were generally on target, its report said. The combination of these factors enabled many states to shore up reserves and support supplemental expenditures. Overall, the fiscal situation was solid in almost every state in FY 2013. In another report, the group noted in January 2014 that in a dramatic turn from recent years, California lawmakers will consider how to allocate a potential budget surplusyes, a surplus. In itsState Legislatures Magazinein January 2014, the group added: Driven by improving revenues and on-target expenditures, states entered fiscal year 2014 in better economic shape than they have been in years. The revenue collection boost was somewhat unexpected, it said, and many states used the excess to supplement appropriations or fortify their rainy day funds. Early in fiscal 2014 pointed, state revenue collections were meeting or exceeding targets in most states,the group reported. Few are predicting, though, that revenue gains will be as strong as in 2013. Many states planned for that, said Pattison of the budget officers organization, fearing that the 2013 rise was a one-time event. Our rating The Democratic Party of Wisconsin generated this claim: The national economic recovery has led to higher than expected tax revenues and projected budget surpluses in nearly every state in the nation, including Wisconsin. State budget watchers confirm a widespread recovery in tax revenues as the nation continues to edge out of the Great Recession. This fiscal year likely will not match 2013 in tax-revenue growth, but states predicted that and most should see surpluses by mid 2014, as most did in 2013. We rate the partys claim True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1230 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Satellite service DirecTV is refunding NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions for customers offended by the weekend s national anthem protests.Normally the company does not give refunds for the specialty package after the season starts, but it apparently changed course after getting calls from hoards of customers upset over the players and coaches who knelt for the anthem during Sunday and Monday games, one former subscriber said. I want to spend my money somewhere where it s gonna be appreciated, former subscriber Paul Alvarado of Keller, Texas, told The Post. I m paying for a product that should not include that kind of anti-American sentiment. Keller contacted DirecTV Tuesday to cancel his roughly $300-per-year plan when they surprised him by telling him he would get all the money back as a statement credit. The customer service rep he talked to said he had already received five calls to cancel on Tuesday alone, Alvarado said.DirecTV did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Alvarado said the policy change happened overnight. NYP | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1231 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: By now, the only people in the world who still think Trump was the target of an assassination on Saturday are his supporters and campaign staff.That was certainly the case on Sunday morning as Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway refused to acknowledge that Austyn Crites was NOT carrying a gun during a Trump rally and was merely trying to hold up an anti-Trump sign.Tapper began by pointing out the facts and then reported that Trump supporter Dan Scavino and one of Trump s sons are retweeting misinformation about the incident in an effort to claim that there actually was a real assassination attempt. It s not an assassination attempt, Tapper repeated before asking Conway, Should they be spreading this misinformation? Of course, Conway tried to capitalize on the incident by bragging about how nimble and resilient Trump is, even though Secret Service agents were the ones who got Trump off stage and he retreated from a guy who was just holding up a sign. To Conway, the guy holding the sign was scary and she proceeded to smear him and ignore the fact that there was no assassination attempt. It s scary. All the coverage is usually about our protesters wreaking havoc and making people feel afraid. And it certainly goes both ways. I m with Mr. Trump and the Secret Service routinely. They do an amazing job. I also want to point out because some people are spreading misinformation about the protester. He had canvassed for Hillary Clinton and he had donated to her campaign. So, this is a Democratic plant or operative trying to disrupt our rally. And I think people saw a nimble resilient Donald Trump who would be nimble and resilient as president as well. Tapper responded by calling Conway out. Except it wasn t an assassination attempt. It was apparently a local voter, a Republican who says he is supporting Hillary Clinton. He has given money to Hillary Clinton. He has canvassed for Hillary Clinton. But he says he s a Republican. But most importantly, he was not trying to assassinate anyone. This was not an assassination attempt, but why is your campaign spreading that it was? That s really remarkable that that s what the storyline is here, Conway whined before trying to bargain with CNN. Conway offered to stop spreading misinformation, but only if CNN retracts all the storylines, all the headlines, all the breathless predictions of the last two weeks that turned out not to be true that Trump is losing the election.Trump, however, is losing this election and is behind in the polls. So Tapper laughed at Conway and moved on.Here s the video via YouTube.Kellyanne Conway should be ashamed of herself and she should never be allowed to work again when this election is over.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1232 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hillary Clinton has no shortage of economic advisors. Scores of world-class experts pour ideas into her campaign on the policies she should champion in her bid for the White House. But before much of the input reaches the Democratic candidate, it is filtered through a pair of staffers known inside the campaign as the “Economikes.†Working out of Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, Michael Shapiro and Michael Schmidt are helping shape what could be a lasting economic agenda if the former secretary of state overcomes Republican rival Donald Trump in November’s election. In an interview with Reuters, Shapiro and Schmidt described Clinton’s process for forming policy by broadly soliciting ideas and crafting them into the action points that she takes to voters. Before Clinton takes a position, Shapiro said, “she wants to know we have talked to and gotten input from everyone, making sure that we’re consulting with labor, making sure that we’re consulting with experts.†Clinton’s inclusive approach to developing policy positions has been faulted for being slow and unwieldy. Much of the work of sifting through the wealth of sometimes disparate ideas and data it yields falls to the Economikes. Both are recent graduates of Yale Law School. Prior to joining the campaign, Schmidt, 30, worked at the U.S. Treasury Department and the Yale Investments Office, helping manage the university’s endowment. Shapiro, 29, worked at the White House for the National Economic Council. Earlier this year, he married the daughter of New York Senator Chuck Schumer. The pair helps Clinton draw upon a deep bench of advisers, including economist Alan Krueger, Duke professor Aaron Chatterji and Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, along with scores of other academics and business people. Some communicate regularly through emails, conference calls, meetings and memos. Others are tapped once or twice for specific expertise. Frequent contributor Alan Blinder, the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said he will “usually email the Mikes†with ideas. The fruit of the process will be on display today in Ohio, where Clinton is expected to give a speech contrasting her economic vision with that of Trump, a businessman who often names himself as his main adviser and is known for his off-the-cuff style. Clinton has called raising middle class incomes the defining economic challenge of the time. So far, she has presented a mix of goals, including making child care more affordable and boosting jobs. Some business leaders have said her approach is reassuring, but progressives have criticized her policies as too moderate. Trump, in contrast, often has taken business leaders by surprise with his policy proposals. He has promised to renegotiate international trade deals to pump up U.S. manufacturing, vowed to penalize companies that move their headquarters abroad to avoid taxes, and pledged to dismantle Obama’s financial regulation reforms.    While the “Economikes†nickname began as a joke, Shapiro said the campaign’s digital team made it stick by using it in a Q&A posted on Clinton’s web site. Their bosses, senior policy advisers Jake Sullivan and Maya Harris, have been known to stick their heads out of their offices and ask for “one of the Mikes.†On email chains, CC: notes will sometimes include “plus the Economikes.†Humor aside, their work often is serious business. After the tainted water crisis hit national headlines in January, Clinton dispatched Schmidt and her political director, Amanda Renteria, to Flint, Michigan to investigate. Schmidt said the effort informed Clinton’s approach to the water crisis during the Democratic debate in Flint, including her call for the governor to resign.     In other cases, they said, Clinton will ask the pair to research issues she’s heard on the campaign trail, such as the case of an Iowa bowling alley owner who told the candidate student debt made it hard for him to get business loans. The campaign since has rolled out proposals to allow for refinancing of student debt and the use of income-based repayment programs to cut monthly payments. Shapiro and Schmidt said the policy points they bring back to Clinton typically lead her to ask more questions, a process that can go on for several rounds before the candidate finally settles on a policy proposal. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1233 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: China is facing heightened threats from foreign infiltration via religion and from the spread of extremism, a top official for religious affairs said on Tuesday, after strict new rules were passed to manage religious practice in the country. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to guard against foreign infiltration through religion and to prevent the spread of extremist ideology, while also being tolerant of traditional faiths that he sees as a salve to social ills. China s cabinet last week passed updated rules to regulate religion so as to bolster national security, fight extremism and restrict faith practiced outside state approved organizations. The new rules take effect in February. Wang Zuoan, the head of China s religious affairs bureau, said the revision was urgently needed because the foreign use of religion to infiltrate (China) intensifies by the day and religious extremist thought is spreading in some areas. Issues with religion on the internet are starting to break out ... and illegal religious gatherings in some places continue despite bans, he added, writing in the official paper of the ruling Communist Party, the People s Daily. Wang said that freedom of religious faith is protected by the new rules. At the same time, freedom of religious faith is not equal to religious activities taking place without legal restrictions, he added. Religion within China needed to be sinicized , a term officials use to describe the adjusting of religion to fit Chinese culture as interpreted by the Party. These rules will help maintain the sinicization of religion in our country ... and keep to the correct path of adapting religion to a socialist society, he said. China s five officially sanctioned religions | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1234 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did a Human-Created Sinkhole Open in Guatemala? Claim summaries: Some news items are so fascinating that they resurface time and time again.
contextual information: In early October 2019, readers searched the Snopes.com website for a story that, were it not for the internet, might otherwise have been long forgotten. "Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature," the supposed headline of interest read: read The article underlying that headline, as published by National Geographic, was true -- but the event took place in 2010, shortly before that article was written. Accompanied by a dramatic photograph of a massive chasm in an urban center, the Geographic article reported: Human activity, not nature, was the likely cause of the gaping sinkhole that opened up in the streets of Guatemala City on Sunday, a geologist says. A burst sewer pipe or storm drain probably hollowed out the underground cavity that allowed the chasm to form, according to Sam Bonis, a geologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, who is currently living in Guatemala City (map). The Guatemala City sinkhole, estimated to be 60 feet (18 meters) wide and 300 feet (100 meters) deep, appears to have been triggered by the deluge from tropical storm Agatha. But the cavity formed in the first place because the cityand its underground infrastructurewere built in a region where the first few hundred meters of ground are mostly made up of a material called pumice fill, deposited during past volcanic eruptions. The crater formed in the center of an intersection, and perhaps because aerial photographs are so visually striking, they have been shared throughout the years since the event occurred: This 30-story sinkhole appeared smack in the middle of Guatemala City. https://t.co/QlIPV4EVZi pic.twitter.com/hglMjoKJYT https://t.co/QlIPV4EVZi pic.twitter.com/hglMjoKJYT David Plotz (@davidplotz) May 26, 2017 May 26, 2017 That wasn't the first time a massive sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City. A similar, deadly event took place in 2007, resulting from a combination of geography, nature, and poor regulation according to National Geographic. took place Guatemala City is situated on volcanic material that is relatively loosely-composed. That placement, combined with swift-running water from unfixed underground leaks, contributed to formation of the craters "In Guatemala City [the pumice is] unconsolidated, it's loose," Dartmouth geologist Sam Bonis told the Geographic in 2010. "It hasn't been hardened into a rock yet, so it's easily eroded, especially by swift running water." Tropical storm Agatha, coupled with leaking sewage pipes, likely triggered the collapse in 2010. Bonis added that because the event wasn't driven by natural forces, it technically shouldn't be called a "sinkhole." There was no scientific term, he said, to describe this type of collapse. Than, Ker. "Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature."
National Geographic. 5 June 2010. Associated Press. "Third Body Pulled from Giant Sinkhole."
NBC News. 24 February 2007. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1235 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: If anyone thought the man who s been attacked by the left for most of his adult life, was going to roll over and play dead, as the Democrats and their allies in the entertainment industry come at him with a coordinated character assassination attempt, they were sadly mistaken.Breitbart The U.S. Senate campaign of Judge Roy Moore is firing back at Jimmy Kimmel and his paid trickster Rich Barbieri also known as Jake Byrd for disrupting a worship service at which Moore spoke here on Wednesday night. Jimmy Kimmel and the Hollywood elite cross the line when they invade our Churches under a disguise and attempt to make a mockery of our worship services, Drew Messer, a senior adviser to Moore, told Breitbart News on Thursday morning after the incident at the church on Wednesday night.On Wednesday evening, after the pastor of Magnolia Springs Baptist Church here in Theodore, Alabama, just outside Mobile warned attendees of a worship service at which Moore was speaking multiple times that it was against the law in Alabama to disrupt worship services, Barbieri proceeded to interrupt the worship service during Moore s speech.The pastor had earlier in the evening also warned event-goers against disrupting the worship service, so this constituted his second warning. But that did not stop Barbieri whose character on Kimmel s show is Jake Byrd from disrupting the event and being escorted out by police. Breitbart Watch:Turns out tonight's Roy Moore superfan is a comedian named Tony Barbieri, part of Jimmy Kimmel's gang. pic.twitter.com/ykeGKVDdkS Ben H. Raines (@BenHRaines) November 30, 2017Upon discovering that the man who disrupted the worship service was a paid comedian on the Jimmy Kimmel show, Roy Moore tweeted to the despicable leftist comedian/ activist to come down to Alabama and mock their Christian values face to face ..@jimmykimmel If you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man. #ALSen https://t.co/E7oQB9D83P Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017So Little @jimmykimmel sent one of his goons to Alabama to disrupt a church service where Roy Moore was speaking. I doubt Kimmel would ever disrupt a service at a mosque toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) November 30, 2017Roy Moore also responded to the leftist comedian, whose ratings are in the toilet, over his despicable comedian s stunt:Despite D.C. and Hollywood Elites' bigotry towards southerners, Jimmy, we'll save you a seat on the front pew. https://t.co/z7n6uaeyCj Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017 Was the Kimmel comedian s stunt about embarrassing Roy Moore, or was it more about jumping on the left s Hate Trump s All (or as the left falsely calls it: Love Trumps Hate ) campaign? Based on the most recent ratings of late-night shows, the only thing keeping the higher rated late-night shows on the air is their unabated criticism of President Trump, that s used as fuel to keep their hate-filled, leftist audience fed. Observer While Donald Trump has been a huge boon for late-night TV ratings, one host who isn t enjoying an upswing is Jimmy Fallon. The good-natured nice guy persona Fallon has crafted on NBC s The Tonight Show is great for producing viral videos, but not so great for navigating a politically tumultuous era. As Stephen Colbert s The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel s Jimmy Kimmel Live have continued to hone in on the Trump administration, and seen viewership rise as a result, Fallon has largely stayed out of the fray and is suffering because of it.According to the New York Times, Fallon has lost 21 percent of his audience year over year since the fall season began on September 25. Since February, Colbert leads late night in total viewers by a wide margin and Kimmel has been gaining ground over the last several months as well. NBC s top brass have combated these trends by noting that Fallon still leads the field in viewers in the advertiser-friendly 18 to 49 demographic, but the New York Times points out that even that gap is closing.Breitbart Fellow senior Moore adviser Brett Doster bashed Kimmel for enabling Hollywood s culture of preying on women as seen by the recent downfalls of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. Last night, Jimmy Kimmel sent one of his goons to disrupt an Alabama worship service as a comedy prop, Doster said in an email to Breitbart News. For years, Kimmel hosted a show that exploited women and encouraged sexual impropriety. He and the rest of the entertainment industry look down their noses at our evangelical values while using their own pulpit to encourage the very behavior purveyed by monsters like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. It remains to be seen whether Kimmel will have the guts to face Moore s team head-on in Alabama, and own up to the actions of his staff. A Kimmel publicist has not responded to Breitbart News when asked via email whether Kimmel or Barbieri would be willing to defend themselves in an interview. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1236 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Arab League on Tuesday condemned the killing of Yemeni ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh saying his death threatened to cause an explosion in the Gulf country s security situation, Egypt s MENA state news agency reported. The Arab League s general secretariat also condemned the Houthi movement which killed Saleh as a terrorist organization , demanding that the international community view it as such. All means must be used to rid the Yemeni people of this nightmare, it said, referring to the Houthis. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1237 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Now that the White House has formally accused Russia of meddling in the presidential election with cyberattacks and information warfare, devising a response might seem fairly easy: unleash the government’s cyberwarriors to give the Kremlin a dose of its own malware. Technologically, that would not be too difficult, American officials say. But as a matter of strategy and politics, formulating the right kind of counterstrike is not that straightforward. President Obama’s options range from the mild — naming and shaming the Russians, as he did on Friday — to the more severe, like invoking for the first time a series of economic sanctions that he created by executive order after North Korea’s attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Justice Department could indict the Russians behind the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the email accounts of prominent individuals, as it did with members of China’s People’s Liberation Army, who have been charged with stealing industrial secrets. Or Mr. Obama could sign a secret intelligence finding — similar to many he has issued to authorize Central Intelligence Agency efforts in Syria or drone strikes against the Islamic State — to attack and disable Russian computer servers or expose the financial dealings of President Vladimir V. Putin and his oligarch friends. While the last option is tempting, officials say, it would carry risks with the election just a month away. Attacks on online voter registration rolls could sow chaos at polling places, and the election infrastructure has never truly been tested against a power like Russia. The system that underpins American democracy is not even listed as an element of the nation’s critical infrastructure, a list that includes movie theaters and the Jefferson Memorial, among other monuments. Just as Henry Kissinger and other American strategists argued decades ago whether it was possible to wage a limited nuclear war, officials at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, as well as outside experts, have been debating whether it is possible to control the escalation of a cyberconflict. In the nuclear era, seven decades passed with no answer, despite some close calls. Online, where the damage is less lethal but cheap, and attacks are hard to trace and easy to carry out, Mr. Obama and other top officials are proceeding cautiously. cyberpowers face few limits to their ability to escalate attacks. And it is unclear how the United States can establish what the generals call “escalation dominance†— the assurance that America can ultimately control how a conflict ends. Michael J. Morell, a former deputy director of the C. I. A. and a veteran of many debates on the growing cyberweapon arsenal in the Bush and Obama administrations, said on Saturday that the American response had to strike at something that Mr. Putin held dear. But, he added, unleashing a counterattack may not be the answer. “Our response needs to be proportionate to the attack,†said Mr. Morell, who now advises Hillary Clinton on national security matters and is widely believed to be in line for a top intelligence post if she is elected president. Criminal indictments and sanctions against individuals “are only a slap on the wrist,†he said, adding that “offensive cyberactions can’t be seen and are inconsistent with the norms we want to set in the world on cyber. †Mr. Morell advocated two approaches: deep sanctions on the entire Russian economy and an “aggressive Voice of America program in Russian to tell the Russian people that Putin is only interested in his own aggrandizement†and is threatening the only hope for the country’s economy: integration with the West. But the challenges, as Mr. Morell acknowledges, are clear. Europe is unlikely to go along with sanctions if that means cutting off their access to the Russian gas that keeps them warm. And Voice of America programs, a relic of the Cold War, are slow to work, if they can work at all in the internet age. At its core, the problem that the Obama administration faces is this: What the Russians have done in hacking into American political institutions — and perhaps accessing voter registration rolls — is a digital form of hybrid warfare. In Ukraine, this took the form of Russian soldiers engaging in quiet guerrilla actions out of uniform to undermine the government. (Russia also turned off the electric grid in part of Ukraine last December, mostly to show that they could.) Leaking emails and phone conversations, and generally stirring chaos around elections, have been a Russian art form in Europe, especially in former Soviet states. Such actions walk the line between harassment and conflict. Now, they have come to American shores. That, at least, was the assessment of the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, though they did not show their evidence. “We believed, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s officials could have authorized these activities,†the statement said. In background conversations, officials strongly hinted that the evidence had come, in part, from data collected by the National Security Agency’s implants in foreign computer networks, presumably including Russia’s. The question, said James Lewis, a former government official who specializes in cybersecurity, espionage and warfare at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, is how to deter future attacks while maintaining escalation dominance. “We don’t necessarily want to start a war with Russia,†he said. Mr. Lewis said he doubted that using intelligence findings to embarrass Mr. Putin — leaking details of his financial dealings, his personal life or his relationships with the moneyed elite who help keep him in power — would be the solution. “If we couldn’t deter Moscow from going into the Ukraine, we’re not going to deter them from hacking us,†Mr. Lewis said. For a declining power like Russia, whose economy has been battered by falling oil prices and economic sanctions, cyberattacks are an easy answer. They usually happen below the radar. And for the past two years, Russian hackers operating at the behest of, or directly for, the state have had a string of successes against foreign targets, even testing the limits of the American doctrine that destructive hacking attacks could be considered acts of war. Russian hackers were identified by German intelligence officials as the culprits behind a cyberattack that damaged a blast furnace owned by ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s biggest steel maker. Forensics experts discovered malware in the plant’s system that had previously been tied to a Russian espionage group. That same group was later found to be responsible for a cyberattack on a major French television network, TV5Monde, last year that brought down the station for several days and cost tens of millions of dollars in repairs. And the Russian group, known in the cybersecurity community as APT28 or Fancy Bear, was responsible for a string of cyberattacks on the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Obama decided not to name the Russians in those attacks. “The Russians have had a string of unbroken successes against U. S. targets, and they haven’t paid much of a price,†Mr. Lewis said. That may have created an impression in the Kremlin that cyberattacks would carry no consequences. The deeper concern is that Russia, like other major powers, has a long playbook ready for potential future attacks. Security experts point to evidence that a Russian hacking group, known as Energetic Bear, has been probing the networks of power grid operators and energy and oil companies in the United States, Europe and Canada. That could be exploration — or it could be preparation of the battle space in the event of a future conflict. This summer, hackers calling themselves the Shadow Brokers released a trove of N. S. A. tools that the agency had used to break into and spy on foreign networks. Though it is not yet clear who was behind the attack, some speculated that an N. S. A. insider had leaked the trove, while others said it may have been Russian hackers putting the United States on notice. Mr. Obama seems likely to invoke some kind of financial sanctions under the new executive order, which allows the Treasury secretary to freeze the financial assets of individuals tied to hacking attacks or prevent them from conducting financial transactions. The White House considered applying the sanctions against the Chinese companies and individuals involved in the hacking of the Office of Personnel Management last year, but ultimately decided against it after China pledged that it would not conduct economic espionage against the United States and arrested several individuals. But a similar deal with Russia seems hard to imagine. “How can we choose not to use the sanctions?†Mr. Lewis said. “The question is if we name and punish these guys, will Russians take the hint? My sense is no. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1238 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Emmanuel Macron, visiting Algeria, said on Wednesday he would not be held hostage by France s colonial involvement there and urged young Algerians to build for the future and not dwell on past crimes . The relationship is scarred by the trauma of the 1954-1962 independence war in which the North Africa country broke with France. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians were killed and both sides used torture. Macron was in the capital Algiers for talks with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and senior officials, a rite of passage for all new French presidents. Many in Algeria had wondered whether Macron would offer an official apology for the past given his statement earlier this year when he described France s colonial rule as a crime against humanity . But he did not go any further than his predecessor, Francois Hollande, who sought a more conciliatory tone but stopped short of saying sorry. Instead, Macron s message to young Algerians was not to harbor grudges from the past but look to the future. I ve already said we need to recognize what we did, but Algeria s youth can t just look to its past. It needs to look forward and see how it will create jobs, Macron said, answering questions from people as he walked through downtown Algiers. I m not here to judge those in the past. There have been crimes and there were people that also did good things. Your generation must not allow this. It s not an excuse (to blame the past) for what is happening today, he said. When asked by reporters about the past, a visibly annoyed Macron, said it was time to stop asking questions from 20 years ago. These benchmarks block our bilateral relationship. They don t interest me because the ambition I have for the relationship between Algeria and France has nothing to do with what was done for decades. It s a new story that s being written, he told a news conference. Facing high unemployment, low oil prices, austerity and political uncertainty, Algeria s youth is likely to warm to Macron s call to look to the future more than the war veterans. An inter-governmental forum presided by the countries prime ministers will take place in Paris on Thursday to discuss how to develop an economic roadmap. Economic ties between the two countries have marginally progressed since 2012 and France is now behind China as the main partner. Annual trade stands at about 8 billion euros compared with 6.36 billion five years ago. More than 400,000 Algerians are given visas for France annually, almost twice as many as in 2012. While walking near the university, young Algerians came out in force, calling out: Visas, Please! Highlighting just how divided opinion remains some others called out: Go home! We don t want you here. This morning I saw too many people simply asking me for visas. That s not a life project, Macron told reporters. Franco-Algerian relations are also a sensitive subject in France. Macron past condemnation of France s colonial rule angered many at home. There must be no taboos between us. But there has to a be a project for the future and I think the Algerians must build their future from Algeria, Macron said responding to more questions in the streets. But the thorny issues are unlikely to disappear just yet. Excuse me but France will have to apologize for the martyrs we lost, said a woman who gave her name as Nadia. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1239 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PITTSBURGH — One was a wildly successful artist, the son of Slovakian immigrants, whose alabaster complexion and shock of white hair made him instantly recognizable on the streets of Manhattan. The other was a shy film school student from Beijing who toiled in anonymity, sketching $20 sidewalk portraits to make the rent on his basement apartment. And though their paths crossed at more than one downtown art opening in the 1980s, it is safe to say that Ai Weiwei, the young Chinese striver, made little impression on Andy Warhol as he flitted through the adoring throngs. “I remember going to a gallery opening and hearing people say ‘Andy is here, Andy is here,’ and suddenly I saw him through the crowd,†Mr. Ai recalled this week, walking through “Andy Weiwei†at the Warhol Museum here. “It was incredible to be in the same room, but I was a nobody. †In the 25 years since he abruptly left New York to tend to his ailing father in China, Mr. Ai has become a somebody. Wily provocateur, enemy of the state and advocate for the disenfranchised, he is a darling of the global contemporary art world, a bona fide celebrity whose burly, bearded presence invariably draws admiring crowds. Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei, it turns out, have plenty in common. Like Warhol, Mr. Ai surrounds himself with stray cats, has a fondness for floral arrangements and takes pleasure in subverting hallowed cultural touchstones. Both men have also made a mint turning everyday objects into commodities. And Mr. Ai, like Warhol, compulsively records his life and surroundings — Warhol had his tape recorder Mr. Ai always has his iPhone, which he uses almost hourly to post a deluge of images to Instagram and Twitter. But the two men are conjoined by something more significant: They are both unrepentant iconoclasts and gleeful disrupters of art world conventions. Warhol scandalized with his soup cans in 1962 three decades later, Mr. Ai defiled neolithic Chinese pottery with paint, and he once famously smashed a Han dynasty urn just for the heck of it. “The things said about Warhol are intriguingly similar to what was said about Ai Weiwei today — that he desecrated art,†said Eric Shiner, director of the museum, which is staging a dialogue show of the two men’s works that runs through August. “Yet in reality, both artists changed, and are changing, how the world understands art and how art penetrates the world. †Such commonalities are on full display at the museum. One room juxtaposes Warhol’s garishly tinted Mao Zedong with Mr. Ai’s own vaguely sardonic portraits of the Great Helmsman another places Warhol’s paintings alongside a Chinese vase that Mr. Ai scrawled with the Coke trademark logo. As he glimpsed the galleries on Thursday for the first time, Mr. Ai seemed genuinely taken aback by how Warhol had influenced his work, often unconsciously. (Mr. Ai was first exposed to the artist after arriving in New York, when he bought a copy of Warhol’s ironic quotations at The Strand.) “It’s as if we were brothers,†he said, noting the similarities of Warhol’s early bird’ ink sketches of the Manhattan skyline to his own youthful renderings of Shanghai’s rooftops. “Who could imagine that a poor Chinese kid would one day be showing his work alongside Andy’s?†The past few days have been especially emotional for Mr. Ai, who has not been here in eight years. He spent several years in internal exile after the Chinese authorities jailed him for 81 days on spurious charges of tax evasion and then refused to relinquish his passport. Last July, the police finally relented, and Mr. Ai promptly decamped to Berlin, joining his partner and their son, who live there. In addition to lecturing at Berlin’s University of the Arts — a position he was offered just before his arrest — he has spent the past year working at a feverish pace. His studio, which occupies an old brewery in what once was East Berlin, has become a frenetic hub, staffed by an international coterie of assistants — not unlike Warhol’s Factory. Mr. Ai also opened a studio on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he plans to build a memorial to the thousands of refugees who have died crossing the Mediterranean. And every month, it seems, there is a new exhibition of his work — in Australia, England, Austria, and in New York. Mr. Ai has spent much of the year immersed in the migrant crisis. He has handed out lamps to children in refugee camps, delivered a white grand piano to a traumatized Syrian pianist and photographed the freshly arrived as they scrambled off boats in Lesbos. Last month, he traveled to the West Bank and Gaza for a documentary film he is making about refugees around the world. Mr. Ai, 58, appeared exhausted by the travel, but said he wouldn’t have it any other way. “You have to work when the light bulb is bright,†he said, pointing to his head, “because over time, it will dim. †His work has not been without controversy. In February, he was widely skewered after he posed for a photograph lying on a pebble beach — an image meant to evoke the photo of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler who drowned off the coast of Turkey. A few weeks later, during a Berlin Film Festival gala, he directed celebrity guests to don the metallic thermal blankets that volunteers give to arriving immigrants. Berlin’s culture minister called the gesture “obscene. †Mr. Ai, unsurprisingly, is unfazed by the uproar. “Art is supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, to change the way they look at the world,†he said. “I’ve been receiving criticism my whole life, but if you’re going to throw a punch, it should be a real punch, not this kind of mediocre criticism. †His work may occasionally tack to the incendiary, but in person Mr. Ai is a calm, presence — seemingly little changed from his days as the hungry East Village artist who threw away his paintings each time he was forced to change apartments. Dressed in a black and cheap cloth shoes, he speaks just a notch above a whisper. As workers made tweaks to the gallery lighting, Mr. Ai was transfixed by the wall of photos he took during his New York years: images of the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square Park a snapshot of Allen Ginsberg urinating and numerous portraits of a and naked Mr. Ai posing like the Venus de Milo. “No one was interested in showing the work of a Chinese artist back then,†he said, shaking his head, and turning to a wall of photographs documenting Warhol’s 1982 trip to China. Even as Mr. Ai revels in his newfound freedom, he is mindful that the life of an exiled dissident has its drawbacks. Living in Europe, he said, has diminished his voice as a human rights advocate in China. Unlike most persecuted activists who have been given the chance to leave, Mr. Ai refuses to seek asylum. Next week, he will return to Beijing for a visit, a journey that fills him with trepidation. Mr. Ai says he wants to see family and friends, but he also wants to demonstrate to the Chinese authorities that he has not abandoned his homeland. “Things there are dreadful right now,†he said, referring to the unremitting government crackdown that has jailed activists, human rights lawyers and journalists, some of them his friends. But he seemed somewhat conflicted about his role — an exiled government critic or someone who willingly, and perhaps foolishly, steps back into the dragon’s maw. “It’s not honest for a real Chinese fighter to be outside,†he mused. “You’re just throwing stones. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1240 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Fifty interesting facts about Russia 31.10.2016 Print version Font Size 1. Russia is the largest country in the world. The country has 17,075,400 square kilometers, which makes Russia 1.8 times larger than the United States of America. The territory that Russia takes on planet Earth practically equals the surface area of planet Pluto.2. Russia is home to the world's largest active volcano - Klyuchevskaya Sopka. Its height is 4 kilometers 850 meters. The volcano shoots columns of ash up to eight kilometers high and becomes even taller with every eruption. Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano erupts for the past 7,000 years.3. The subway system (metro) of St. Petersburg is the deepest in the world. Its average depth - 100 meters.4. The number of bridges in St. Petersburg exceeds the number of bridges in Venice three times. 5. The oldest Christian church on the territory of Russia is the ancient temple of Thaba-Yerdy located in Ingushetia, Jeirakh District. It was built in VIII-IX centuries. Three oldest of existing churches are located in the village of Nizhny Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia. The temples were built in the X century.6. The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world. The Great Siberian Way, connecting Moscow with Vladivostok, is 9,298 kilometers long. The railway crosses eight time zones, passes through 87 cities and towns and crosses 16 rivers, including the Volga.7. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake in the world and the largest source of fresh water on the planet. Baikal holds 23 cubic kilometers of water. All the world's major rivers - the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, the Yenisei, the Ural, the Ob, the Ganges, the Orinoco, the Amazon, the Thames, the Seine and the Oder would have to flow for almost a year to fill the basic, equal to the volume of Lake Baikal.8. Russia is the only country whose territory is washed by 12 seas.9. Russia is only four kilometers far from America. The is the distance between the island of Ratmanova (Russia) and the Kruzenshtern Island (USA) in the Bering Strait.10. The distance from Moscow to Chicago is smaller than the distance from from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro.11. In the cultural capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, there are 2,000 libraries, 221 museums, 100 concert organizations, more than 80 theaters, 80 clubs and houses of culture, 62 cinemas and 45 art galleries.12. The Ural Mountains are the oldest mountains in the world. The Karandash Mount located in the Kusinsky area near the village of Aleksandrovka was formed 4.2 billion years ago. The historical names of the Ural Mountains are - the Big Rock, the Siberian Rock, the Earth Belt, the Belt Rock.13. In Moscow, there are seven exactly the same high-rise buildings: two hotels, two office buildings, two residential buildings and the University. In English, this ensemble is known as the Seven Sisters, whereas in Russian, the buildings are known as Stalinist skyscrapers. The style, in which the skyscrapers are built, is called the Stalinist gothic.14. The Moscow Kremlin is the world's largest medieval fortress.15. The total length of the Kremlin walls is 2,235 meters.16. In Moscow, there is a large fountain that contains drinking water. The fountain is part of the architectural group "Alexander and Natalie" with a sculptural composition of Pushkin and Goncharova in a graceful rotunda.17. St. Petersburg is the world's northernmost city with a population of over one million people.18. The area of Siberia is 9 million 734.3 thousand square kilometers, which accounts for nine percent of the world's land.19. Russia borders with 16 countries: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Japan and the United States. Russia also borders on two unrecognized states: South Ossetia and Abkhazia.20. The number of Kalashnikov assault rifles in the world is larger than the number of all other assault rifles combined. 21. Russia proclaimed equal rights for men and women before the United States. In Russia, the right to vote was granted to women in 1918, in the United States - in 1920.22. Russia had never known slavery. The period of the most distinguished form of feudal dependence, serfdom, was shorter in Russia than, for example, in England and most of Europe. Serfdom in Russia had milder forms. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, whereas the United States abolished slavery in 1865.23. On January 16, 1820, the Russian expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered Antarctica.24. The most famous computer game -Tetris - was created by Russian programmer Alexey Pazhitnov in 1985. This game became popular in the Soviet Union, and then, in 1986, in the West.25. Ivan the Terrible was not a tyrant, his rule was unprecedentedly mild for his time. During his rule, Russia's size was equal to that of Europe, but Ivan the Terrible executed 100 fewer people in comparison with European kings during the same period of time - 3-4 thousand people against 300-400 thousand.26. Ivan the Terrible did not kill his son.27. Trains of the Moscow metro run more often than in any other subway system in the world. At rush hours, intervals between trains is only 90 seconds. There are stylized trains in the Moscow metro, for example, a train called "Watercolors" that represents a traveling exhibition of paintings.28. In Peterhof, near St. Petersburg, there are 176 fountains, 40 of which are huge and five are built as cascades.29. The Russian samovar is an ancient version of the electric kettle. The samovar was powered by coal, but its function was to boil water. 30. In the Russian town Oymyakon, the lowest temperature of air was recorded. The cold record was set in 1924, when temperates dropped to -71.2 °C.31. In the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics, there is a monument to the laboratory mouse that knits the DNA.32. During the Second World War, metro stations were used as bomb shelters. As many as 150 babies were born there during air raids. 33. In Russia, there are many beautiful excursion and hiking routes. The most famous one of them is the so-called Russian Golden Ring, as well as the Silver Ring of Russia and the Great Ural Ring.34. The total length of 12 lines of the Moscow metro is 310 kilometers.35. In the 18th century, Russia was the third largest empire in the history of mankind, occupying the territory from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America. 36. The West Siberian Plain is the largest plain in the world.37. The Hermitage is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world. The Hermitage stores three million works of art from the Stone Age to the present. If a visitor pays only one minute of their attention to each exhibit, it would take them 25 years to see all the exhibits of the Hermitage. 38. A half of the city of Chelyabinsk is located in the Urals, whereas the other half - in Siberia. Strangely enough, the coat of arms of Chelyabinsk depicts a camel. It turns out, however, that Chelyabinsk used to take caravans of camels 200 years ago. 39. A while ago, Moscow had more billionaires than any other city in the world.40. The Russian Public Library is the largest library in Europe and the second largest in the world after the United States Library of Congress. The Russian Public Library is located in Moscow, it was founded in 1862.41. On the opening day of a 700-seat McDonalds restaurant on Pushkin Square in Moscow, the line of people willing to go there made up 5,000 individuals at 5 a.m. During the first day of work, the restaurant served 3,000 customers. To this day, the McDonald's on Pushkin Square remains the most visited McDonald's in the world.42. The State Hermitage Museum keeps a flock of cats against rodents. Each cat of the Hermitage has a passport with a photo.43. In Altai, there are more than 820 glaciers that occupy a total area of 600 square kilometers.44. In Russia, a new sport has recently emerged in Russia - helicopter golf. Two helicopters, equipped with 4-meter sticks, play two balls one meter in diameter. Each team consists of five people.45. Russia regularly appears on lists of least friendly countries in the world, but this is just a misconception based on cross-cultural differences. In Russia, children are taught not to smile for no reason, as this kind of behavior displays light-mindedness. In fact, the Russians are friendly and are always ready to help a foreigner.46. In 2002, the city of Yekaterinburg was put on UNESCO's list of 12 perfect cities in the world.47. The largest bell ever cast is the Russian Tsar Bell made by Ivan Motorin and his son Mikhail. The weight of the Tsar Bell is 12,327 puds and 19 pounds, or 201 tons and 924 kilograms. The Tsar Bell is 6 meters 14 centimeters tall. 48. The city of Suzdal takes only 15 square kilometers of land and has the population of a little over 10,000 people. Yet, there are 53 churches in Suzdal. 49. The Russian Federation consists of eight federal districts, which are divided into 83 regions -subjects of the Federation, including 21 national republics. According to the Constitution, each republic is assigned to a titular ethnic group. The Russian republics take 28.6% of the territory of Russia, which is home to 16.9% of the population of the country. Ethnic Russians account for approximately 83% of the Russian population. However, the Russian Constitution does not contain a word about the Russian people. This legal mishap is one of the most pressing domestic problems of the Russian Federation, and it will be settled sooner or later.50. A myth about a myth: the Russians think that Americans think that bears walk in the streets of Moscow. In fact, bears do not appear in Russian city streets, and the Americans do not have a stereotype of the wild Russia.Newsinfo | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1241 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: He was such a nice boy, from such a nice family .This is a little disturbing. Remember Amed Mohamed and the exploited islamic opportunism with 14-year-old clock boy bomb hoax from Irving Texas and how his father was running for political office in Sudan?Well, apparently 29-year-old terrorist Omar Mateen comes from a similarly engaged political family and his father, Seddique Mateen, was/is running for national office in Afghanistan and not happy with the government of Pakistan.IJR Mateen has his own television show, which broadcasts out of California.It is called the Durand Jirga Show and features Mateen discussing Middle Eastern politics. The show is posted on YouTube.According to the Washington post, the show demonstrates the Orlando shooters father s sympathetic views toward the Taliban:In one video, Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government. Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up, he said. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon. This April, Mateen was in Washington DC doing advocacy work with Congress and the State Department Seddique Mateen is an effusive poster on social media. The following posts from his Facebook describe a trip to Washington DC in April. He can be seen posing in front of State Department offices & the Democratic Foreign Services Committee offices.Mr. Mateen is photographed with numerous Washington DC Politicians and roaming the halls of Congress:The father of this radical terrorist sure was able to roam freely around the Capitol. Here he is pretending to be Barack Hussein Obama in a mock Presidential Briefing Room:In addition, Got News.Com has discovered the sister of Omar Mateen, Miriam Seddique, purchased Omar s house for $10 in April via a quit claim deed . link It would appear the jihadist Omar Mateen was making preparations for this attack for quite some time.Donald Trump was correct again when he called for additional scrutiny in December of 2015. The families of these terrorists need to be a concentrated focus for attention.Mr. Seddique Mateen even incorporated his entities as The Provisional Government of Afghanistan Corporation in official records in Florida:Via: Conservative Treehouse | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1242 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In a shocking moment of confession, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough admitted on the air that trickle down economics is a lie that only helped the rich get richer.In an effort to explain why so many conservatives are flocking to support Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Scarborough said on Tuesday that it s because Republicans have lied to their constituents for the last thirty years that wealth will trickle down to them if we help the wealthy by cutting taxes.This can be seen most clearly in the wealth gap, which has only widened over the last three decades, resulting in the top 1 percent owning more the nation s wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the population combined. The rich have gotten richer and the poor have only gotten poorer as the once mighty and prosperous American middle class is disappearing. The problem with the Republican Party over the past 30 years is they haven t and I ll say, we haven t developed a message that appeals to the working class Americans economically in a way that Donald Trump s does, Scarborough said. We talk about cutting capital gains taxes that the 10,000 people that in the crowd cheering for Donald Trump, they are never going to get a capital gains cut because it doesn t apply. We talk about getting rid of the death tax. The death tax is not going to impact the 10,000 people in the crowd for Donald Trump. We talk about how great free trade deals are. Those free trade deals never trickle down to those 10,000 people in Donald Trump s rallies. And then the former Republican lawmaker actually flat-out admitted that trickle down hasn t worked. But herein lies the problem with the Republican Party. It never trickles down! Those people in Trump s crowds, those are all the ones that lost the jobs when they get moved to Mexico and elsewhere. The Republican donor class are the ones that got rich off of it because their capital moved overseas and they made higher profits What we re finding this year is, they ll even support a guy who says Planned Parenthood is good if he comes with an economic approach that they feel could actually help them more in the future. Here s the video via YouTube:And Scarborough is absolutely right. For decades, Republicans have told the American people that their economic concerns will be all taken care of as long as we eliminate taxes on the wealthy. But all that trickle down economics has caused is Americans losing their jobs overseas and they never see a dime of the wealth the GOP promised would trickle down upon them. It s like saying apples will fall from a tree if you just wait long enough but by the time one does fall it s rotten to the core and worthless. And that s if the tree doesn t just keep all the apples for itself like the wealthy are currently keeping all the money to themselves.The fact is that trickle down economics is a failed economic policy that needs to be ditched in favor of one that actually helps the American people. It s time for the rich to start paying their fair share and it s time for the middle class to rise again and take back the wealth that has been stolen by Republicans and their wealthy puppet masters.Featured image via screenshot | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1243 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson tried to use her charms to get past the Secret Service to meet with Vice President Mike Pence. She wanted to speak with Pence about a pardon for Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Anderson has been connected to Assange romantically and reportedly visits him at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. She s also become more politically active in recent years because of her awareness of Assange s plight.Page Six reports:Spies tell Page Six that Anderson was in Manhattan filming a PSA at the JW Marriott Essex House when she learned that Pence was at the same address. The blond bombshell has said that she loves WikiLeaks founder Assange and visits him every two weeks in his cramped room at London s Ecuadorian embassy, where he s staying in order to evade extradition.According to onlookers, Anderson marched straight up to the Secret Service and asked to see Pence. A witness said: The Secret Service agent practically swooned and fainted when she walked up to him and started pressing her finger on his badge. Pam said, I d like to meet the vice president. But, the source added, The agent did get it together enough to politely refuse, saying the vice president was busy. Pamela Anderson s attempt to woo the Secret Service was unsuccessful.When we reached activist Anderson for comment, she confirmed to Page Six: I wanted to thank [Pence] for supporting protection of sources for journalists. He is heralded for co-sponsoring proposals for a federal shield law, which I deeply admire. This action would have allowed journalists to keep confidential sources secret even if the government requested them. She added, I really wanted to mention this it is a topic close to my heart. Julian Assange deserves a pardon, and I thought I might be able to help. Julian is a hero to most of the world s youth and free-minded thinking people. America needs to be on the right side of history. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1244 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Only 100 Corporations Responsible For Most of World's Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Claim summaries: This piece of misinformation, which has circulated online for years, stems from a misleading headline.
contextual information: In early September 2021, the below-displayed compilation of alleged tweetswere circulating on numerous Reddit threads. CNN supposedly offered several suggestions for how people in their day-to-day life could help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and then a media analyst respondedwith this critique: compilation of alleged tweets responded "[Reminder] that 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions and presenting the crisis as a moral failing on the part of individuals without noting this fact is journalistic malpractice." Both tweets were authentic, though originally posted in October 2018. The underlying claim stemmed from Adam Johnson, a writer and co-host of the podcast "Citations Needed." In short, his post accused CNN of erroneously framing the crisis as the result of individual choice when, allegedly, just dozens of corporations were responsible for the majority of emissions trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere. writer Citations Needed However, the tweet was misleading based on evidence we outline below. After the post went viral, Johnson acknowledged the post's shortcomings on an April 2020 episode of his podcast, saying: "The stat, albeit widely reported that way in the press, is deceiving in its media shorthand." an April 2020 episode of his podcast Before we identify the claim's flaws, let us provide some context to explain CNN's tweet. On Oct. 8, 2018, CNN tweeted several suggestions for people to help curb greenhouse gas emissions(eat less meat, take car rides or plane trips less often, and replace old thermostats) to promote an article published by the news outlet on the same day titled, "What the new report on climate change expects from you." tw eeted (eat less meat an article The tweet's reference to "that new report on climate change"alludedto a multi-chapter document that theUnited Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released the same day.In short, that report compared various strategies for slowing (or pausing) the rate at which Earth's average surface temperature was warming, as well as provided recommendations for governments to consider while establishing regulatory laws. multi-chapter document Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Based on our review of the report, the crux of the CNN tweet mostly aligned with the report's ideas though it's worth noting the social media post editorialized the IPCC's findings with a "second person" point of view (it referred to the speaker's audience) and cherry-picked concepts among numerous strategies to mitigate climate change. Now, let us address the veracity of Johnson's commendatory. Based on a cursory Google search for keywords in his tweet,we uncovered a July 10, 2017, article in The Guardian with the headline: "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says." July 10, 2017, article Via Twitter direct messaging, Johnson confirmed with us that he authored the viral social media post based on that headline. We elaborate more on his thinking below. The Guardian article summarized a July 2017 "Carbon Majors"study by an environmental non-profit called CDPand the Climate Accountability Institute, a "tiny think tank" as defined by theScientific American. study CDP Climate Accountability Institute Scientific American However, here was the problem: The study did not assessallsources of global emissions worldwide (which includes agriculture, transportation, buildings' heating and cooling systems) but rather only analyzed the output of fossil-fuel producers, specifically. Its introduction read: "This report looks at industrial carbon dioxide and methane emissions deriving from fossil fuel producers in the past, present, and future [...] [It] isaimed at investors wishing to better understand amount of carbon associated with their fossil fuel holdings." Therefore, The Guardian headline which did not note the study's strict focus on fossil fuel combustion was unequivocally misleading. (When contacted by Snopes about the editorial decision, Kerry Eustice, a managing editor, emphasized the article's subhead and several paragraphs within the story's body make clear the referenced companies are fossil-fuel producers, specifically.) The headline appeared to be centered on this finding in the report: The distribution of emissions is concentrated: 25 corporate and state producing entities account for 51% of global industrial [greenhouse gas] emissions. All 100 [fossil fuel] producers account for 71% of global industrial [greenhouse gas] emissions. In other words, almost three fourths of worldwide fossil fuel emissions were indeed linked to just 100 corporations, based on the study. Those companies included Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), Gazprom OAO, and National Iranian Oil Company. Meanwhile, together, those top-emitting fossil fuel companies produced roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Aramco Gazprom OAO National Iranian Oil Company Shaina Sadai, a Ph.D. in geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, elaborated on the researchers' work, as well as explained the consequences of its misinterpretations, in a November 2020 post on Sentient Media. In summary, she said the study focused on "one piece of the puzzle" the production of oil, gas, coal, and cement when total global emissions includes cumulative outputs from other sectors, as well. Sadai wrote: Sentient Media wrote The finding that 100 corporations were responsible for the majority of fossil fuel and cement production emissions is substantial, but it does not tell us about total emissions or about emissions from other sectors. [...] In order to get to net-zero emissions, all potential sources need to be considered. Fossil fuels are the largest source, but every sector needs to be scrutinized. Emissions from the agriculture sector have numerous sources. Changes in land use; for instance, when land that served one purpose is then used for another, such as when a rainforest is turned into pasture lead to increased emissions. These changes are not included in the Carbon Majors research, and more importantly, the emission sources they reflect are not either. Put another way, while fossil fuels are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the study's identification of the sector's 100 worst-offenders is important, other industries (such as thefood system and waste-management programs) contribute to global emissions, as well. food system See below for a 2020 sector-by-sector breakdown of emissions bythe World Resources Institute: World Resources Institute In sum, we rate this claim While the fossil fuel industry accounts for a significant amount of all greenhouse gas emissions, and research analyzing that concept identified dozens of gas or oil companies that pollute the most, no evidence supported the claim as written. "The point I was trying to make is that any media coverage that reduces the issue to personal choices is incomplete, and [structural] issues should always be central to climate reporting," Johnson told us. "Individuals' choices are not unimportant. They just shouldn't be the focus of climate coverage." Needed, Citations. "Episode 108: How Our 'GDP' Obsession Drives Climate Crisis and Inequality." Medium, 29 Apr. 2020, https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-108-how-our-gdp-obsession-drives-climate-crisis-and-inequality-f2824d48a9bc. aCCESSED 8 Sept. 2021. Mackintosh, By Eliza. "What the New Report on Climate Change Expects from You." CNN, 8 Oct. 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/08/world/ipcc-climate-change-consumer-actions-intl/index.html. Accessed 8 Sept. 2021. Global Warming of 1.5 oC . https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/. Accessed 8 Sept. 2021. "Just 100 Companies Responsible for 71% of Global Emissions, Study Says." The Guardian, 10 July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change. Accessed 8 Sept. 2021. Horgan, John. "Exposing the World's Biggest Carbon Emitters." Scientific American Blog Network, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/exposing-the-worlds-biggest-carbon-emitters/. Accessed 8 Sept. 2021. Sadai, Shaina. "No, 100 Companies Are Not Responsible for 71% of Emissions." Sentient Media, https://sentientmedia.org/no-100-companies-are-not-responsible-for-71-of-emissions/. Accessed 8 Sept. 2021. This report was updated with a response from an editor at The Guardian, which published the 2017 article titled, "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says," on which Johnson said his inaccurate tweet was based. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1245 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Even if everything is not perfect, the situation of press freedom in Russia is not as black as some people want to portray it. In general, it is rather nice for a journalist to work in Russia. Many information and public registers are accessible, which facilitates the work of investigative journalists.
Whilst Russia is often singled out in this area, take the recent example of Russian media being refused accreditation for a conference in Britain precisely on the topics of press freedom. These kinds of decisions only weaken international standards of freedom of information. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1246 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Fraudulent Promotion involving Sharpie Anniversary Giveaway Claim summaries: Sharpie isn't giving away a giant set of markers to celebrate their anniversary -- the offer is another online survey scam.
contextual information: In February2016, links began circulating on Facebookpromising a treasure trove of Sharpie brand markers to users who completed a short series of steps: The embedded links led toURLs which were generated seemingly at random and didn't link to Sharpie's web site. Users who clicked through to claim the promised prize were routed to pages which appeared plausibly Facebook-esque(but werehostedoff Facebook): As evidenced by the above-reproduced screenshots, the associatedURLs don'tmatch the official domains of Sharpie or Facebook. The fake giveaway was another version of the common survey/sweepstakes scams which urge readers to share freebie bait on Facebook, which then spreads the scam to more friends and groups. Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among brandsused as enticementsbyscammers, many aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauexplained how to identify and avoidbad actorsimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1247 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is This a Real Image of Tom Cruise's Stunt Doubles? Claim summaries: Just too many "Tom Cruises" in one picture.
contextual information: In June 2023, viral social media posts claimed to show Tom Cruise's eerily similar-looking stunt doubles posing in a photograph together. According to the posts, the menallegedly took his place to perform stunts duringthefilming of the latest "Mission Impossible" film. The image was fake. Not only did it show visual clues of being inauthentic for instance, the "Tom Cruise" double in the middle appeared to be missing fingernails we tracked down aFacebook user who took credit for makingthe image(as well as others like it) via an artificial-intelligence-powered (AI) software program. Facebook user the image Tom Cruise stunts double Tom is not even in the picture ,he took the picture pic.twitter.com/x43zVYw8KH pic.twitter.com/x43zVYw8KH Brother G.O (@OyinTGSPE) June 9, 2023 June 9, 2023 100% AI. Look at this. Tom Cruise does his own stunts like the Burj Khalifa and that motor stunt of a cliff, so he does not use stunt double. pic.twitter.com/Wu2ZhopZ0B pic.twitter.com/Wu2ZhopZ0B DarkKnight (@iamshinerk) June 7, 2023 June 7, 2023 When we looked closely at the three faces in the image, we noted that, while they looked eerilylike Cruise, they appeared to be images modeled off his face but with small differences in facial features. Their complexions also appearedinauthentically smooth, with wax-like skin.For comparison, we looked at2023pictures of Cruisetaken by Getty Images. 2023 pictures taken by Getty Images We also did a reverse-image search on Google and found no credible source saying the in-question image was a real photograph. reverse-image On June 3, 2023, a Facebook account for Midjourney, an AI-powered program that creates digital images based on prompts, shared the images of Cruise and his alleged "stunt doubles" in apostby Singapore-based user Ong Hui Woo. Woo wrote, "If you intend to copy and paste these photos on your website or your FB, please at least mentioned and give credit to the original creator (which is me) or Midjourney, the platform where all these images are created." post (Ong Hui Woo/Facebook) We reached out to Woo, who told us that he created the images on June 3, 2023, and posted them to the Midjourney Facebook page on the same day. Given that the in-question image has visual signs of being fake, that we did not find a reliable media outlet calling it real, and that we identified a Facebook user who took credit for its creation via an AI-image generator, we have rated this claim "Fake." We frequently fact-check AI-generated images and have many tips on how to identify them. AI-generated images many tips Evon, Dan. "Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches." Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/.Accessed 9 June 2023. Ibrahim, Nur. "Facebook Chat with Ong Hui Woo." 9 June 2023. Lee, David Emery, Jessica. "4 Tips for Spotting AI-Generated Pics." Snopes, 16 Apr. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/articles/464595/artificial-intelligence-media-literacy/.Accessed 9 June 2023. "LIVE! Jimmy Kimmel Live! Airs Every Weeknight at 11:35 p.m. ET And..." Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jimmy-kimmel-live-airs-every-weeknight-at-11-35-p-m-et-and-news-photo/1247561509. Accessed 9 June 2023. "Tom Cruise at the 34th Annual Producers Guild Awards Held at The..." Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tom-cruise-at-the-34th-annual-producers-guild-awards-held-news-photo/1247493313. Accessed 9 June 2023. "Tom Cruise Walks on the Grid Prior to the Running of the Formula 1..." Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tom-cruise-walks-on-the-grid-prior-to-the-running-of-the-news-photo/1253020214. Accessed 9 June 2023.
| 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1248 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: As many of us could have predicted would be the outcome, a White Lives Matter rally broke out in chaos and a brawl ensued.The rally was held in South Buffalo, New York on Saturday afternoon, organized by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. When the rally took place in Cazenovia Park, only one neo-Nazi official was among the other supporters white supremacist Karl Hand. Hand, who is also the chief of the Racial Nationalist Party of America, revealed he d had little involvement in organizing the rally: I didn t organize it. I was just invited to speak. But that didn t stop him from p*ssing people off and spewing his racist views. One video of the event even shows a woman scolding Hand and telling him that nobody is going to take your sh*t in this day and age, you are sick people the rest of the United States is going to trample you out. In protest of the event, over 300 activists came out, which outnumbered the White Lives Matter supporters tremendously. The protesters held signs that said, Not Here, Black Lives Matter and, We promote unity in Buffalo. Bridget Marren, one of the protesters in attendance and a South Buffalo native, said: We live here. We don t want that hate spread here. But what the White Lives Matter rallygoers lacked in attendance numbers, they made up in offensiveness. The Buffalo Police had dozens of officers at the rally to help control the crowd, but they still couldn t stop another racist neo-Nazi wearing a green White Pride t-shirt from getting into a fight with counter-protesters. The situation had eventually escalated so much that his shirt was ripped off when he got into a scuffle.You can watch the rally devolve into chaos in the videos below:But really, what else could we expect from a White Lives Matter rally?Featured image is a screenshot | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1249 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that vote in favor of a draft United Nations resolution calling for the United States to withdraw its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital. They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We ll save a lot. We don t care, Trump told reporters at the White House. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1250 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Bryan Cranston Say That Donald Trump Is 'Not Sane'? Claim summaries: "What I now worry about," the alleged quote reads, "is the sanity of anyone who can still support this deeply troubled man to lead our country."
contextual information: Left-leaning or anti-Trump accounts often share memes with a quote about Trump and his supporters attributed to actor Bryan Cranston. The statement conveyed a belief that former U.S. President Donald Trump was "not sane," but that he was more worried about "the sanity of anyone who can still support this deeply troubled man to lead our country." One example came from a Facebook post by the group Occupy Democrats: example The quote's authenticity is easily verified, because it comes from a Tweet Cranston published in April 2020 that is still visible today: still visible I've stopped worrying about the president's sanity. He's not sane. And the realization of his illness doesn't fill me with anger, but with profound sadness. What I now worry about is the sanity of anyone who can still support this deeply troubled man to lead our country. Bryan Cranston (@BryanCranston) April 25, 2020 April 25, 2020 The remarks came amid the controversy generated by Trump's suggestion that injecting a "disinfectant" into the body could be a treatment for COVID-19. amid Because Cranston wrote these words; the quote is correctly attributed to him. Bryan Cranston Says Hes Profoundly Sad Over His Realization Trump Is Not Sane. Yahoo Entertainment, 27 Apr. 2020, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bryan-cranston-says-profoundly-sad-132812382.html. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1251 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: 2 Million Bikers to DC Claim summaries: Was the '2 Millions Bikers to DC' group denied a 'no-stop' permit for a Washington ride-through on 11 September 2013?
contextual information: In February 2013, the American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) announced that they would be staging an event called the "Million Muslim March," which they hoped would gather one million people in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2013, the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to press the U.S. government into revealing "the truth" about those attacks. "We want to hold President Obama accountable for his empty promises of creating a transparent government," march organizer Isa Hodge said. "What exactly have we spent all our money, lost lives, and taken lives for? The entire record of the 9/11 Commission has never been released." Protesters will also denounce "FBI traps," "illegal tapping and surveilling of Muslim Americans," and "media propaganda making the word terrorist synonymous with Muslim," he said. After negative public reaction, AMPAC changed the name of their event to the "Million American March Against Fear" (MAMAF), which they describe as offering the following events: "We invite you to stand with and join us to Rally Against Fear at 12 noon on The National Mall, then the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House, to hold truth to power at the three major branches of American government. We ask all individuals and organizations working for peace to attend this collective action to tell our government leaders we want transparency and policies of peace." In the past 12 years since 9/11, the United States government has failed to protect and promote constitutional liberties and human life, here and abroad. We feel that accountability in government has been ignored, and the time has arrived to collectively speak truth to power. Speaking will be experts and individuals on the lack of transparency and questions plaguing 9/11, the steady erosion of domestic civil liberties, drone policy, and the very dire effect of these on the plight of American Muslims here at home, and Muslim communities globally in the scope of U.S. imperialism, and the modern face of resistance to unmanned aerial surveillance and warfare. In August 2013, motorcyclists began organizing a "2 Million Bikers to DC" counter-event, which they hoped would bring even larger numbers of bikers on a Washington ride-through to "pay tribute and offer respect to those that lost their lives on that day 12 years ago, and to salute our troops engaged in the War on Terror." Many Internet postings later claimed that Washington police had estimated the 2 Million Bikers event turnout at between 800,000 and 1.2 million participants, but we have found no documentation (other than repetition of rumor) confirming that local police made any such estimate, and when we queried the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) about the issue, the Director of the MPD's Office of Communications confirmed that "the Metropolitan Police Department does not provide crowd estimates." | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1252 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A new study offers important information to men who are facing difficult decisions about how to treat prostate cancer in its early stages, or whether to treat it at all. Researchers followed patients for 10 years and found no difference in death rates between men who were picked at random to have surgery or radiation, or to rely on “active monitoring†of the cancer, with treatment only if it progressed. Death rates from the cancer were low over all: only about 1 percent of patients 10 years after diagnosis. But the disease was more likely to progress and spread in the men who opted for monitoring rather than for early treatment. And about half the patients in the study who had started out being monitored wound up having surgery or radiation. The patients are still being followed, which should reveal whether the death rate will eventually increase for the men assigned to monitoring. Doctors say the findings should help reassure men that surgery and radiation are equally reasonable choices in the early stages of the disease. “I can counsel patients better now,†Dr. Freddie C. Hamdy, a leader of the study from the University of Oxford, in England, said in an interview. “I can tell them very precisely, ‘Look, your risk of dying from cancer is very, very small. If you receive treatment you will get some benefit. It will reduce the disease from growing outside your prostate, but these are exactly the side effects you might expect. ’†Active monitoring involves regular clinic visits with physical exams of the prostate, periodic biopsies and blood tests for antigen, or PSA, a substance that may indicate the disease is worsening. Between 40 and 50 percent of men with early prostate cancer in the United States now choose active monitoring. The study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, was the first to include detailed information from patients about the side effects of treatment. Men who had surgery to remove the prostate were the most likely to have lingering impotence and urinary incontinence. Those given radiation reported bowel problems after six months of treatment (usually with gradual improvement) but not urinary incontinence. Sexual function also diminished after radiation, but recovered somewhat. But there were no differences among the three groups in anxiety, depression or their feelings about how their health affected their quality of life. Dr. Peter T. Scardino, a prostate surgeon and chairman of the department of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York who was not involved in the study, said the research was important because there was little previous data comparing surgery, radiation and careful monitoring in men with early prostate cancer. Dr. Scardino said the findings helped confirm that active monitoring is a valuable approach for many men. He said that it was appropriate for a third to a half of men with early prostate cancers, and that only a third of those patients would need treatment within 10 years. But Dr. Scardino emphasized that the monitoring must be done regularly and with great care, for the rest of a patient’s life. He added that an important message from the study is that early prostate cancer is not an emergency, and men have time to decide what to do about it. Worldwide, there were 1. 1 million cases of prostate cancer and 307, 000 deaths from it in 2012, the latest year data were collected by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In the United States, about 181, 000 cases and 26, 000 deaths are expected in 2016. The average age at diagnosis is 66 in the United States, and the disease rarely occurs in men under 40. Most men who have prostate cancer do not die from it, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease often grows very slowly — but not always. Some cases are potentially deadly, but tests cannot always tell which ones. The uncertainty leaves many men in a quandary, particularly because of the bowel, bladder and sexual problems from treatment. In 2012, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts picked by the government, recommended against routine screening for prostate cancer with the PSA test. The group said screening finds many tumors that may never have harmed the patient, and leads too many men into unneeded surgery or radiation, with their troubling side effects. Dr. Hamdy’s team set out to address the quandary. They studied 1, 643 patients in Britain ages 50 to 69 who had early prostate cancers, found with routine PSA testing and then a biopsy if the PSA was abnormal. All the cancers were localized, meaning they were confined to the prostate and had not spread to nearby tissue outside the gland, or to distant organs. The patients had PSA measurements of 3 or higher, and about three quarters had a Gleason score of 6 the rest had higher Gleason scores. Gleason scores are a measure of aggressiveness and range from 6 to 10 in cancers, with higher scores being worse. The patients were then assigned at random to one of three groups: A third had surgery, a third had radiation, and a third had active monitoring. Though death rates from the cancer did not differ, more men on active monitoring had progression. The disease spread to distant parts of the body in 33 men on monitoring, 13 who had surgery and 16 who had radiation. The differences were statistically significant. Other progression, to nearby tissue outside the prostate, was also more common with monitoring: 112 cases, compared with 46 each in the surgery and radiation groups. As time went on, more and more of the monitored patients wound up having treatment. Dr. Hamdy said not all those who left monitoring actually needed treatment. “We know that 80 percent of them had not shown signs of progression,†he said, adding that anxiety on the part of the patients or their doctors, or some suspicion of progression, may have pushed them into treatment. Robert Boulton, 76, a retired maker of rubber gloves, was initially assigned to active monitoring but switched to radiation treatment after four years, when his PSA went up. In an interview, he said two doctors recommended the treatment and one opposed it, so he went with the majority advice. He said his only side effect was what he called “man boobs,†swelling in the breast area from the hormonal treatment that is given along with radiation. “I’m feeling fine now,†he added. “No problems. †Another patient, Douglas Collett, 73, was also assigned to active monitoring in 2008 and has stayed with it. When he was first told he had cancer, he wanted to get rid of it immediately, he said. But when he learned more about the disease and the side effects of treatment, waiting made more sense, and he actually felt relieved when he was picked for the monitoring arm of the study. He realizes the disease could progress, he said, and if it does he will probably have radiation to treat it. In the meantime, he said, “I’m fit as a flea. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1253 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did the 8 Largest Single-Day Stock Drops Occur Under Trump? Claim summaries: As is often the case with statistics, which ones you choose to consider makes a significant difference.
contextual information: In February 2020, as fears surrounding the outbreak of a new coronavirus and a potential pandemic triggered the worst one-day drop in U.S. stocks since 2011, a chart began circulating via social media that purported to show the "8 Largest Dow Jones Drops in American History." What was notable about the chart was that all of the listed stock market drops had supposedly occurred during the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The chart was accurate as far as it went, replicating information from the Wikipedia page "List of Largest Daily Changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average" about the greatest single-day drops in the Dow. However, this chart only displayed net (or absolute) losses in the Dow, and obviously, a drop of 1,000 points when the average stands at 25,000 is far less severe than a drop of 1,000 points when the average stands at only 5,000. As we detailed in another article, a chart of the largest single-day percentage (or relative) changes in the Dow shows that none of the top 10 single-day percentage drops in that stock index has occurred during the Trump administration. The largest single-day percentage drop in the Dow took place on Oct. 19, 1987—a day commonly known as Black Monday—when the Dow fell 508 points for a loss of 22.6% of its value. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1254 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account.
contextual information: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking in Austin, bemoaned widening income differences between the countrys very rich and the rest of us. And in his remarks at aSouth Austin union hall, the Vermont independentmulling a runfor the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination also warned about American failures to save money. Heres something not talked about, something that can make us all very, very nervous, Sanders said. Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account. And you know what that means and you know why people are so stressed out? If you have less than $10,000, he said, that means an automobile accident, a divorce, a serious illness, a crisis of one kind or another can drive you into bankruptcy and financial disaster. Is he right that half of us have less than $10K in savings? Sanders backup To our inquiry, a Sanders spokesman, Jeff Franks, said by email that Sanders relied on an April 2014USA Todaynews storyquoting a survey indicating 52 percent of U.S. workers had said they had less than $10,000 in total savings and investments, such as a 401(k) or IRA, that could be used for retirement. It did not include their homes or defined benefit plans, such as traditional pensions that could be used for retirement Specifically, the story said, 36 percent of workers said they had less than $1,000 in such savings and investments with another 16 percent of workers reporting $1,000 to $9,999 in such savings and investments. Those results came from a telephone survey of 1,000 workers and 501 retirees by the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald and Associates. Next, we spotted a chart on the institutes website drawn from the same 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey. The 52 percent of workers reporting less than $10,000 in savings and investments in 2014 is up from 39 percent in 2009, the chart shows. Of course, workers isnt all of us. We called the Washington, D.C.-based institute,which saysit was founded in 1978 to deliver unbiased information on employee benefit plans so that decisions affecting the system may be made based on verifiable facts. By phone, researcher Craig Copeland told us that overall, 51 percent of survey respondents, meaning retirees and others, had less than $10,000 in financial savings. Also by phone, Ruth Helman of Greenwald and Associates, which helped do the survey, paused at the senators wording. Strictly speaking, their savings account isnt correct. Its total savings wherever it may be, under the mattress or wherever, Helman said. Federal Reserve Bank We wondered if there were other ways of looking at savings. Several experts urged us to contact the Federal Reserve Bank, which conducts a survey focused on consumer finances every three years.Its latest survey, drawing on data collected in 2013, resulted in a chart pointed out by Copeland indicating that the median value of financial savings outside of a pension or home reported by the nearly 95 percent of families who had bank accounts or stocks, bonds and other financial assets that year was $21,200, down from $23,000 in the boards 2010 survey. SOURCE:Report,Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, September 2014 Copeland said that given that more than 5 percent of families reported no such financial assets, its reasonable to speculate that families overall had median financial savings of less than $20,000. We also asked reserve board officials to analyze the senators savings accounts statement. By phone, William Emmons and Bryan Noeth, both employed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, raised questions. For instance, why not count a familys home or pension as part of its savings? Reminder: The institute, with its focus on savings for retirement, set aside these asset categories. Emmons said: People do count on their housing equity, not only in retirement, but before that. Beyond that, the pair said, its not always meaningful to focus on money held in savings accounts, which are a single wealth indicator. A savings account isnt where everybody holds their money, Noeth said. The two said a potentially superior way to gauge how Americans are faring, savings-wise, would be to consider net worth meaning family assets compared to debts. An agency manager, Adriene Dempsey, emailed usa spreadsheetshowing that according to the boards 2013 survey, 26 percent of U.S. families had less than $10,000 in net worth--a tick worse than the 25 percent of families according to its 2010 study. In 2013, half of American families had about $81,500 in net wealth or more, according to the spreadsheet. Total assets for a family include financial assets, such as bank accounts, mutual funds and securities plus tangible assets, including real estate, vehicles and durable goods, according to aFebruary 2015 essayby the St. Louis Fed.Weve elaborated on this here. So by the net-worth metric, more families are better off than if one focused on financial savings alone. We ran this net worth angle past the institutes Coleman, who reminded by email that its survey (relied on by Sanders) took into account financial assets, not just savings accounts. Our ruling Sanders said: Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account. Some clarification went missing here: A 2014 survey indicated about half of American adults had less than $10,000 in savings and investments, such as a 401(k) or IRA, that could be used for retirement; those results encompassed more than savings accounts. 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. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1255 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: IRS Notification: Rejected Federal Tax Return/Payment or Notice of Refund Claim summaries: Is the IRS sending out e-mail notices about tax refunds or stimulus payments?
contextual information: Phishing bait: Notice from the IRS indicating the recipient's electronic tax return or payment has been rejected or that the recipient has a refund coming. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, October 2010] Subject: Your Federal Tax Payment ID 010357109 is rejected. Urgent Report. Your Federal Tax Payment ID: 01037524 has been rejected. Return Reason Code R21 - The identification number used in the Company Identification Field is not valid. Please, check the information and refer to Code R21 to get details about your company payment in transaction contacts section: EFTPS: The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System PLEASE NOTE: Your tax payment is due regardless of EFTPS online availability. In case of an emergency, you can always make your tax payment by calling the EFTPS. [Collected via e-mail, January 2008] After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a Stimulus Payment. Please submit the Stimulus Payment Online Form in order to process it. A Stimulus Payment can be delayed for a variety of reasons.For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To submit your Stimulus Payment form, please download the document attached to your email. Note: If filing or preparation fees were deducted from your 2007 Refund or you received a refund anticipation loan, you will be receiving a check instead of a direct deposit. Regards,Internal Revenue [email protected] [Collected via e-mail, August 2007] From: "Internal Revenue Service" Subject: IRS Notification - Fiscal ActivityDate: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:57:35 +0300 After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $268.32. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To access the form for your tax refund, please click here Regards,Internal Revenue Service Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved. [Collected via e-mail, February 2009] Re: US Stimulus Check Information--------------------------------------------------------------------If you're one of the millions of Americans struggling in today's economy, help is available. You've been chosen for the chance to get a US Stimulus Check based on your annual income level. (Participation required. See below for details.) Refer to the chart below to determine the amount of money you can receive: --------------------------------------------------------------------$0 - $35,000........................$709 US Stimulus Check--------------------------------------------------------------------$35,000 - $70,000.................$615 US Stimulus Check--------------------------------------------------------------------$70,000+.............................$504 US Stimulus Check-------------------------------------------------------------------- Make your selection here, then follow the instructions on our website before this offer expires. [Collected via e-mail, July 2009] Tax Refund Notification After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive tax refund of 488.50 GBP. You are require to submit the tax refund request using the tax refund reference below and allow up 6-9 working days in order to process it [link elided] Note : A refund can be delayed for different reasons, for example submitting invalid records or applying after deadline. we apologise for any inconveniences and thank you for your co-operation. Yours Sincerely HM Revenue & Customs [Collected via e-mail, June 2011] Department of Treasury Internal Revenue Source Important information about your tax return We are unable to process your tax return We recived your tax return. However, we are unable to process the return as field. Our records indicate that the person identified as the primary taxpayer or spouse on the tax return did not provided all the required documents shown on the tax form. Our records are based on information received from the Social Security Administration. Based on this information, the tax account for the individual has been locked What you need to do Print out the attached notification and list of missing documents, fill it in, add the documents and send the following information to the adress shown in the attached notification. List of required documents: 1. A copy of this letter 2. Notification letter 3. A photocopy of valid U.S. Federal or State Government issued identification. Keep this notice for your records. If you need assistance, please don'thesitate to contact us [Collected via e-mail, January 2012] IRS notice, The analysis of the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity has indicated that you are entitled to receive a tax refund of $115.25 Please submit a request of the tax refund and a processing of the request will take 7-14 days. A tax refund can be delayed by different reasons. For instance submission of invalid records or sending after the deadline. Please find the form of your tax refund attached and fill out it and send a report. Regards,Internal Revenue Service. Origins: Notices purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) make good phishing bait for a number of reasons: phishing Notices from institutions of the federal government (especially an agency with the ominous reputation of the IRS) grab people's attention. Unlike other phishing schemes that emulate mailings from various private financial institutions (e.g., Bank of America) and are therefore easily recognized as phony by many recipients (because they do no business with those companies), a forged IRS notice has the potential to take in a much larger pool of victims, as most adult U.S. residents have dealings with that agency. Many people find the federal income tax filing process complicated and confusing, so the idea that they might have unclaimed refunds or payments waiting for them to claim seems plausible. An August 2007 mass phish e-mailing (reprised in January 2012) took advantage of those points, spamming millions of Internet users with phony notices that advised recipients they were eligible to receive tax refunds (of amounts such as $109.30 or $268.32) and invited them to click on a link that took them to a form through which they could claim those refunds. Of course, the link included in the messages didn't actually send users to the genuine IRS web site; it redirected claimants to an imposter site that instructed them to enter sensitive personal information (e.g., Social Security number and debit card number) in order to "deposit" their refunds. Similarly, January 2009 versions redirected claimants to an imposter site with a form for them to fill out in order to claim stimulus payments, and an October 2010 version used the lure of claiming that the recipients' Electronic Federal Tax Payments (EFTPS) had been rejected due to invalid information and sent them to a phony imitation of the real EFTPS site to enter new information. The IRS never offers refunds through e-mail or sends out unsolicited e-mails to taxpayers. When the IRS needs to contact a taxpayer, it sends notice via U.S. Mail, and every such notice includes a telephone number that the recipient can call for confirmation. Should you need to visit the IRS web site for any reason, go there directly (by entering the www.irs.gov URL into your web browser) rather than following links in e-mail messages. The IRS says about such e-mails that: IRS The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through e-mail. In addition, the IRS does not request detailed personal information through e-mail or ask taxpayers for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts. Do not open any attachments to questionable e-mails, which may contain malicious code that will infect your computer. Please be advised that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers via e-mails. The EFTPS web site also states that: EFTPS EFTPS values your privacy and security and will never attempt to contact you via e-mail. If you ever receive an e-mail that claims to be from EFTPS or from a sender you do not recognize that mentions a payment made through EFTPS, forward the e-mail to [email protected] or call the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484. Last updated: 9 January 2012 | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1256 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A grim new Ministry of Defense ( MoD ) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that intelligence analysts of the System of Forward-looking Military Research and Development ( SFLMRD ) have now placed the United States in the “ active zone ” of nations currently undergoing a “ Colour Revolution ” as both US and EU elites have united to topple the soon to come government of President-elect Donald Trump. [ Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, SFLMRD intelligence analysts are tasked with using “ modern/sophisticated ” technologies to ensure and protect the Federation’s national security interests—and of which the MoD has previously identified “ Colour Revolutions ” as being one of the gravest threats, not only to Russia, but the entire world.
During the MoD’s 2014 meeting of the Moscow Conference on International Security , this report explains, Federation military commanders labeled “ Colour Revolutions ” as a new US and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating destabilizing revolutions in other nations as a means of serving their security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties .
The some of first of these Western “ Colour Revolutions ” to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world, this report continues, was in 2003 when the legitimately elected democratic government of Georgia was overthrown in what was called the “ Rose Revolution ”—and that turned this once peaceful nation into a Western military puppet who, in 2008, launched an unprovoked attack against the Federation , but that was quickly and decisively defeated.
Next to be attacked by a Western “ Colour Revolution ”, this report notes, was Ukraine, in 2004, who’s “ Orange Revolution ” resulted in the 2014 overthrow of that nations legitimately elected government in what the powerful American private intelligence agency Stratfor (aka The Shadow CIA ) called “ the most blatant coup in history ”—and like Georgia before it, has, likewise, been used by the West as a military puppet against the Federation .
In 2005, this report continues, the West then launched a “ Colour Revolution ” against Kyrgyzstan called the “ Tulip Revolution ”—but that ultimately failed leading that nation, in 2014, to expel the US military from its territory .
Once the subversive tactics of the West in their using their “ Colour Revolutions ” against other nations was “ deciphered/discovered ”, this report says, both Iran (2009-“ Green Revolution ”) and Russia (2011-“ White (Snow) Revolution ”) were able to be stop them from being successful and causing great loss of life.
To exactly how the West “ engineered/manipulated ” their “ Colour Revolutions ”, this report explains, was through the use of what are called non-governmental organizations ( NGO’s ) using very innocuous sounding names that the United States and European Union would secretly funnel millions-of-dollars into for the purpose of fermenting rebellion—and which, in 2015, President Putin signed a law against preventing their nefarious actions in the Federation .
Heading nearly all of these Western backed and financed “ Colour Revolution ” NGO’s, this report details, is the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros —who has not only fomented rebellions across the world costing thousands of innocent lives, he was, also, recently exposed as being Hillary Clinton’s puppetmaster controlling all of her actions during her failed bid to become the US president .
Unlike the Federation that has protected itself against a George Soros led, and US-EU funded, NGO “ Colour Revolution ”, this report grimly warns, the United States government has now become the most vulnerable nation in the world to this type of “ rebellion/warfare ” as he funds hundreds of organizations violently opposed to both America and that nations core moral values .
And immediately upon Donald Trump being elected as the 45 th President of the United States, this report states, these George Soros funded NGO’s launched their newest “ Colour Revolution ” intended not only to destroy President Trump, but the entirety of America.
Led by the George Soros funded MoveOn.org NGO , this report continues, this new “ Colour Revolution ” striking American began with tens-of-thousands of protesters striking nearly all of the United States largest cities —and that was quickly followed with thousands of these revolutionaries calling for the assassination of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence before they can take office .
To the main “ purpose/reason ” behind these protests, this report explains, is to initiate a “ brutal/violent ” response from US government forces seeking to suppress them and reestablish order—which in turn these revolutionaries will use as an example of how the American government is no longer legitimate because it’s killing innocent people, and, therefore, must be overthrown.
Not being understood by the American people about how these “ Colour Revolutions ” work, this report continues, is that they are intended to last for years—like in Ukraine that took a full 10 years before that government was overthrown.
To the most basic reason why this “ Colour Revolution ” is now targeting the United States, this report details, are the US-EU elites fear of President-elect Donald Trump whose choice of nationalism over globalism has left European leftist leaders in “ complete horror ” as the populace revolution he, Trump, is leading is soon to wash ashore in Europe as new elections for nearly all of the continent are nearing—with Holland being the first fall , and France soon to follow , and whose next leader, Marine Le Pen , just proclaimed: “ Congratulations to the new President of the US, Donald Trump, and the American people – free! ”
With the US propaganda mainstream media still in denial of what has happened to them because of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, and Google now reporting that their top search term is “ How did Donald Trump win? ” , this report further states, it bears notice that the Kremlin and its intelligence analysts were among the only entities in the world who correctly stated Donald Trump would win—and as we had detailed in numerous reports, including Russia Confirms Supercomputer Findings Showing Donald Trump Landslide Victory and Russian Report Warns: American Revolution Has Now Begun, May Last Entire Decade .
But to the most global consequential outcome of Donald Trump becoming the 45 th President of the United States, this report concludes, (and as we had previously alerted you to on 13 May in our report Putin Warns Military Commanders: “If It’s Hillary Clinton, It’s War” ) was President Putin’s advisor Sergei Glaziev stating just hours ago how close to catastrophe our world actually was: “ Americans had two choices: World War III or multilateral peace. Clinton was a symbol of war, and Trump has a chance to change this course .”
Let’s all hope President Trump can, indeed, change this course because the world, literally, now hangs in the balance if he doesn’t.
Source | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1257 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is clearly violating the free speech rights of NFL players, and his weaselly Treasury Secretary supports it.As we all know, Trump has been waging a war against the NFL since calling quarterback Colin Kaepernick a son of a bitch on Friday night and demanding that NFL team owners fire players who kneel during the national anthem. On Saturday night, and into Sunday morning, Trump lashed out at the NFL in a tirade that made it clear that Trump opposes free speech and the Constitution that protects it.If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017 our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU RE FIRED. Find something else to do! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017Roger Goodell of NFL just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country.Tell them to stand! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017 NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017That s right. Trump accused an American business of being anti-American for not firing players who kneel during the anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice. In short, Trump ordered the NFL to fire players who exercise their freedom of speech and expression. That means the government is now actively trying to force private institutions to silence and punish free speech.And Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin agreed with what Trump is doing, and even went full hypocrite by defending Trump s vile language. The owners should have a rule that players should have to stand and have respect for the national anthem, Mnuchin told ABC host Martha Raddatz. This isn t about Democrats, this isn t about Republicans, it s not about race, it s not about free speech. They can do free speech on their own time. The Constitution protects freedom of speech. This is something that Mnuchin clearly does not understand, which should automatically disqualify him from being in government.When asked about Trump s language, Mnuchin argued that the president can use whatever language he wants to use. In other words, white racists like Trump have freedom of speech, but black NFL players do not.Mnuchin then butchered the First Amendment even further by claiming that NFL players only have the right to have the First Amendment off the field. And that s complete bullshit. Clearly, Mnuchin failed basic civics in school.Here s the video via YouTube.The government, including the president, can t order a business to violate the free speech rights of their employees. Donald Trump owes an apology to the players whom he offended with his outrageously divisive remarks. No one can be forced to stand for the national anthem, just as no child can be forced to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It s unconstitutional.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1258 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The man who called Donald Trump President Evil last week at the U.N. General Assembly is actually a genteel intellectual who studies the memoirs of former U.S. presidents and has taste for fine whisky, according to ten people who know him. North Korea s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho made headlines in the Sept. 23 speech to the 193-member General Assembly, and also two days earlier when he revealed to reporters outside his hotel that North Korea s next move might be to detonate a hydrogen bomb above the Pacific Ocean, in response to U.S. President Trump s threat to totally destroy his country of 26 million people. While bellicose rhetoric often spouts from militaristic North Korea, it did seem out of character coming from what friends and colleagues described as a polite and softly-spoken career diplomat with a self-deprecating sense of humor and sharp debating skills. As a negotiation partner, Ri was a good one, whose status seemed quite secure and who had relatively greater leeway to exercise during the talks, said Wi Sung-lac, South Korea s former envoy at the now suspended six-party talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang s nuclear program. He was flexible and fundamentally rational, said Wi, who met with Ri twice in 2011 in an effort to re-start the talks hosted by China, after they collapsed in 2008. Ri has a reputation for translating North Korean propaganda into measured diplomatic language when interacting with Western diplomats, and has studied the works of former U.S. presidents in his spare time. He s not just (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un s mouthpiece, said one source who knows Ri personally. He likes to read the memoirs of former U.S. presidents like Nixon and Bush. He also reads Kissinger. He tries to understand American thinking, the source, who requested anonymity, told Reuters. If there are any debates about U.S. policy in North Korea, he s usually the one who puts forwards new ideas and new tactics, the source said. He s a strategist. The North Korean government does not provide foreign media with a contact point in Pyongyang for comment by email, fax or phone. Ri declined Reuters request for an interview while he was in New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. Born in 1956, Ri is the son of Ri Myong Je, former deputy director of the Organization and Guidance Department (OGD), a shadowy body within the ruling Workers Party that oversees the appointment of key management positions within the state, according to South Korea s unification ministry. His father was also an editor at the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state media body that publishes Pyongyang s bombastic propaganda statements. A fluent English speaker who studied at Pyongyang s prestigious University of Foreign Languages, Ri has for years held a number of high-level posts dealing with the West. From 2003 to 2007, he was North Korea s ambassador in London, where he lived with his wife and daughter while his son stayed at home in Pyongyang. He had a good command of English and always struck me as pretty polished, said James Hoare, the U.K. s former charges des affaires in Pyongyang, who met Ri frequently during his time in London and hosted him for dinner at his house. He was willing to appear publicly and could cope with questions. I last saw him in Pyongyang in 2011, when he gave a lunch for (my wife) and me, Hoare said. By then, Ri had become vice foreign minister. Although much grander, he was still the same polite and friendly person. A keen debater, Ri spent time engaging with British intellectuals during his time in London. At the private members Reform Club on London s glitzy Pall Mall street, he charmed British academics over wine and lunch. He clearly had a good sense of humor and was never belligerent or combative when it came to articulating his government s perspective, said John Nilsson-Wright, a professor at the University of Cambridge and senior fellow at the Chatham House international affairs think tank. Journalists caught a sample of that humor in Ri s most recent off-the-cuff marks, when they asked the foreign minister in New York what he thought of the nickname Rocket Man that Trump s has dubbed the North s leader. I feel sorry for his aides, Ri quipped. In his U.N. speech he described Trump as a mentally deranged person ... who is chastised even by American people as Commander in Grief , Lyin King , President Evil ... Evans Revere, a former senior diplomat who dealt with North Korea under President George W. Bush and met Ri on a few occasions, recalled that he exuded self-confidence and was at ease in any setting, likely reflecting his pedigree as the offspring of one of Pyongyang s elite families. While affable and approachable, Ri could be also tough as nails , and in meetings with Americans, he leaves no doubt that North Korea is determined to remain a nuclear-weapons state, Revere said. Behind the smile and the humor is a man who seems to believe strongly in the regime s line. But the gregarious diplomat with an impressive rolodex of contacts has also faced increasing isolation, with the international community seeking to punish North Korea for its rapidly advancing missile and nuclear weapons programs. He was spotted dining alone at a gala dinner during a gathering of foreign ministers at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) security forum in Laos in July 2016, while other ministers greeted one another and clinked wine glasses. The delegate of one participating Western country switched seats to avoid sitting next to Ri, saying he can t be seen in photos having dinner side by side with him, a South Korean diplomat said, declining to identify the nation. This year s ASEAN forum in Manila in August came after the U.N. Security Council imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea for conducting two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July. Ri was often observed silent and stone-faced, as he held meetings with only four of the 27 foreign ministers attending the forum. Not talking to Ri at the U.N. General Assembly was a missed opportunity for Washington, given his close ties to the Kim family, said Joel Wit, director of the 38 North website and a former State Department official who first met Ri more than 20 years ago. Following a rare ruling Workers Party congress in May 2016, Ri was appointed foreign minister and given a position in the party s powerful State Affairs Commission, a central decision-making body headed by Kim Jong Un. It was the first time a career diplomat had been promoted to the politburo since 1998, said Cheong Seong-chang, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute south of Seoul. In 2011, South Korea s former nuclear negotiator Wi met Ri in Beijing and took the North Korean delegation out to a Chinese dinner. Hearing that Ri had grown fond of whisky during his time in London, Wi s staff brought some Scotch for him which was then leaked to the press. So he came in and said Why do you have to tell every detail of our event to the media? , said Wi, who told Ri not to pay attention and have just one drink with him. We ended up drinking quite a lot. (This story has been refiled to correct second paragraph to make clear that Ri s reference to a hydrogen bomb test was made to reporters at not in the UN speech; edits for style.) | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1259 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Rudy Giuliani s health insurance won t cover this burn.The former New York City mayor who now forgets about 9/11 has been repeatedly peddling conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton s health on behalf of Donald Trump, insisting that she is too sick to be president and the only proof he offers is to tell people to go on the Internet and do a search on Google.During The Late Show on Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert took Giuliani to the woodshed for spreading unsubstantiated bullshit. Yes, Rudy Giuliani says just diagnose Hillary on the Internet, Colbert said. Because if it s on the internet you know it s true. For instance, I put my symptoms into WebMD and found out I have menopause. Colbert then did exactly what Giuliani told everyone to do and found hilarious results.As it turns out, the first thing Colbert found was a video of Giuliani saying that Hillary is sick. And that led to Colbert hilariously diagnosing Giuliani. So, let me get this straight, let me explain this to you. Here s what s happening: Giuliani says she s not healthy and then look it up on the Internet. And when you look it up on the Internet it says Giuliani says she s not healthy and to look it up on the Internet. It s like it s an endless loop. It s like a snake with its tail in its mouth. Or a man with his head up his own ass. Trump and his minions have been pushing the lie about Clinton s health for weeks now. Fox News host Sean Hannity started this witch hunt when he interpreted a video of Hillary being playful and joking around as her having seizures, something which a real journalist who has real seizures called him out for in Newsweek.And then Giuliani started peddling the conspiracy theory despite the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked. Even Hillary s own doctor released a detailed statement on her overall health.Colbert opined that Giuliani and Trump know so much about Hillary s health because they are experts on female anatomy, which he proved by showing a video of Giuliani dressed in drag being motorboated by the Republican nominee. You re going to want to verify that video. Just go online and put down Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani motorboat, Colbert quipped.But Colbert saved the most devastating diagnosis for last, and let s just say the truth is going to hurt Trump and Giuliani below the belt. I don t know why they keep saying things like frail or weak or low-energy. You re just tip-toeing around the medical condition that you re really upset about. One that she has that no other president in history has ever faced. Hillary Clinton has chronic no penis. Here s the video via YouTube.Republicans need to stop peddling their false claims about Hillary s health. They are not real doctors and claiming that every little twitch or cough somehow disqualifies her from being president is completely asinine. FDR suffered from polio and led the nation through the Great Depression and World War II and served longer than any other president in American history. Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke while in office and served out his second term. Dwight Eisenhower had a serious heart attack in 1955 and a mild stroke in 1957 but still was re-elected in 1956 and served his second term. Ronald Reagan underwent surgery several times to remove cancer.By Trump and Giuliani s logic, none of these men should have ever been president simply because of their various health problems, and those health issues were verifiable facts, not the garbage Republicans are claiming now about Hillary Clinton s health.Featured image via screen capture | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1260 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The American people are NOT going to like this at all.If you really believed that Donald Trump cares about working people and America, this interview will shatter your delusions.Trump has promised to make infrastructure spending a top priority in his administration and it s expected to carry at least a $1 trillion price tag.Usually, every American who pays taxes, from the rich to the poor and from corporations to small businesses, helps pay the bill.But Trump s scheme would not only enrich his corporate buddies, it would allow foreigners to fleece the American people as well for decades by reimbursing private companies through the use of tolls on roads and bridges, which would be privately owned.During an interview with Sean Hannity last week, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who also happens to be Mitch McConnell s wife, let the cat out of the bag when she admitted that working Americans would be saddled with the costs of the projects and that would also mean paying tolls to enrich foreign investors. After explaining it, Hannity attempted to bail her out by spinning it as a win win for taxpayers. If I m hearing it properly, what you re saying is, for example, if a company were to rebuild a road, they might get their investment back by having a toll on that road and that s where the taxpayers don t pay a penny, they make a profit, it s a win-win? Something like that? Hannity said. Thanks for putting it that way, Chao replied.Except that it s not a win-win. Basically, Trump s plan would allow private companies to pay for building or repairing a road or bridge and then they would force Americans to pay a toll so the company would make their money back and profit off the backs of every American who uses the road or bridge to get to work every day. Companies would literally be nickel and diming the people, and it would be the local citizens who get hit the hardest.Saying that taxpayers don t pay a penny is a complete lie.But that s not all.Chao repeatedly slipped up when she tried to explain that private investors would fund the roads. So, basically, we allow foreign inv uh, we allow different kinds of money, private sector money to come into the United States I m not saying foreign to come and fund, let s say a bridge or a road or it can be any kind of infrastructure. That s right. Chao just admitted that foreign investors would also be able to basically own American roads and make us pay them to use them. And Cenk Uygur knows why.Uygur explained on his Young Turks show that Chao is the daughter of a Taiwanese businessman who got rich investing in transportation.That means Chao and her family could personally enrich themselves under Trump s scheme.Here s the Hannity interview and Uygur s commentary via Twitter.Transportation Secretary @ElaineChao may have accidentally let her true intentions slip during a @seanhannnity interview. pic.twitter.com/2yIR25BtRy The Young Turks (@TheYoungTurks) March 12, 2017Once again, Donald Trump is scamming working Americans to make himself and his friends rich while the rest of us pay the bill for the rest of our lives. Our infrastructure would literally be owned and operated by private companies and foreigners while we pay the price. It s unfair. It s un-American. And it should piss off every American citizen.Featured image via screenshot | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1261 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does the CDC Own an Ebola Patent? Claim summaries: Does the CDC own a patent on Ebola?
contextual information: Claim: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) owns a patent on Ebola. : : The CDC patented a strain of Ebola in 2010. : The CDC created Ebola and obtained a patent for it to restrict or profit from the development of a vaccine. Example: [Collected via email, October 2014]Is there any truth to the rumor that The United States Government is one of 6 owners of a patent on the Ebola virus? Does this mean they have the right to demand blood samples from any victims? Can they force those on government health care to take experimental Ebola vaccines that they develop? Is the CDC purposely allowing Ebola to enter the country in order to cause a "run" on a newly developed vaccine? Origins: The 2014 Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 and is the deadliest recorded since the discovery of ebolaviruses in 1976. The severity and scope of the 2014 Ebola outbreak has caused significant global concern over the threat posed by the disease, and a number of rumors have resulted. One pervasive strain of rumors centers around "ownership" of what many understand to be the Ebola virus: more specifically, ownership of a patent granted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2010, Patent No. CA2741523A1. An abstract for that patent reads: CA2741523A1 The invention provides the isolated human Ebola (hEbola) viruses denoted as Bundibugyo (EboBun) deposited with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC"; Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America) on November 26, 2007 and accorded an accession number 200706291. As the Ebola outbreak intensified, concern over the spread of the disease steadily increased; and the seemingly-suspect CDC patent on Ebola began to circulate on social media. Many users interpreted use of words like "invention" to indicate the U.S. government or its agents had literally invented Ebola in the lab as a tool to control the population or push forward an agenda involving expensive vaccines and cures. However, the 2014 Ebola outbreak is due to a strain of the virus known as Ebola Zaire and not the EboBun strain for which the CDC patent was obtained, so any pharmaceutical dollars to be made would not be affected by a patent protecting a strain of the virus not central to the current outbreak. Speculation often centers upon the reasons any agency (government or privately held) would patent a virus such as Ebola if not to restrict the development of a cure or to capitalize on the profits from a potential cure. But at the time the Ebola patent was granted in 2010, the area of human gene patents was not as legally clear as it became following a Supreme Court decision a few years later. On 13 June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the case of Association For Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics in respect to whether isolated genetic material was patent eligible. Justice Clarence Thomas opined in the decision that "genes and the information they encode are not patent-eligible ... simply because they have been isolated from the surrounding genetic material," and he added: decision In this case, by contrast, Myriad did not create anything. To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention. On 9 October 2014, professor of biological sciences at Purdue University and Ebola researcher David Sanders addressed rumors about the CDC's patent on Ebola. Sanders explained that overall the practice of patenting "life forms" is not uncommon for the CDC, noting that patents like the one the CDC holds on the EboBun strain of Ebola can circumvent for-profit patenting as well as facilitate broader research: The CDC does hold some patents on life forms, but it generally does this for the common good, so a commercial company can't come along and patent it. The CDC lets researchers work with the strain without fees. Until the Supreme Court's 2013 decision on isolated genetic material, the ambiguity involved made such patents a potential necessity. In light of it the CDC's intent in patenting Ebola appears to be far less nefarious. Last updated: 10 October 2014 Mears, Bill. "Court: Human Genes Cannot Be Patented" CNN. 13 June 2014. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1262 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Will Muslims Be Able to Elect the U.S. President in 20 Years? Claim summaries: You can misrepresent demographic trends, but you can't fight them.
contextual information: A meme of uncertain origin alerted readers in March 2019 to the growth of the Muslim population within the U.S., warning that "in twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President": The literal interpretation of this message that by the year 2040 Muslims will comprise a large enough proportion of the U.S. population they could elect a particular person to the U.S. presidency regardless of how the rest of the country voted is woefully wrong according to current estimates and projections. The Pew Research Center estimated in January 2018 that about 3.45 million Muslims of all ages were living in the U.S. in 2017, constituting about 1.1% of the total U.S. population. Pew also projected that by 2050 well more than the 20-year period posited by the meme the U.S. Muslim population would reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nations total population. estimated While 2.1% of the total population may constitute a significant voting bloc, obviously such a bloc would not be nearly large enough to determine the results of a nation-wide election all on its own. Even under the United States' electoral college system for electing presidents, which does not directly depend on popular vote totals, a candidate would still require the support of at least 23 percent of voters to reach the White House. Even that modest figure is more than 10 times greater than the projected Muslim proportion of the U.S. population in 2050. electoral college Moreover, even the modest Muslim population is at a disadvantage when it comes to the electoral college system, as Muslims are not evenly distributed around the U.S. According to Pew, some metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C., have sizable Muslim communities, and "certain states, such as New Jersey, are home to two or three times as many Muslim adults per capita as the national average." But other states are home to far fewer Muslims. Regardless, without radical changes in immigration laws and patterns (or fecundity), it's simply not plausible that "in twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President." Even if such a huge shift in the religious make-up of the U.S. population were possible in such a relatively short timeframe, it's unclear what readers could or should do in response to the meme's exhortation for them "to make a difference." Repeal the First Amendment's religious liberty protections in order to bar Muslims from voting? Encourage non-Muslim women to engage in a "baby race" to out-populate Muslims? Pass legislation against demographics? For those truly curious about Muslim voting patterns in the U.S., we note the Pew Research Center reported in November 2018 that, "Many more U.S. Muslims identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party than the GOP (66 % vs. 13 %), but the share who are Republican has held steady over the last 10 years, including after the election of President Donald Trump ..." So Muslim voters could conceivably tip an election in favor of a particular major-party candidate in conjunction with that party's base of voters, but they will not be sufficiently numerous to elect a candidate on their own any time in the next few decades. voting patterns https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/03/new-estimates-show-u-s-muslim-population-continues-to-grow/ https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/06/republicans-account-for-a-small-but-steady-share-of-u-s-muslims/ Mohamed, Besheer. "Republicans Account for a Small But Steady Share of U.S. Muslims."
Pew Research Center. 6 November 2018. Mohamed, Besheer. "New Estimates Show U.S. Muslim Population Continues to Grow."
Pew Research Center. 3 January 2018. Kurtzleben, Danielle. "How to Win the Presidency with 23 Percent of the Popular Vote."
NPR. 2 November 2016. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1263 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: When a court on the Dutch North Sea coast issues its final verdict this week, it will signal the end of an experiment that has reverberated around the world, from the killing fields of Rwanda to the CIA s secret cells in Europe. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up by the United Nations in 1993, marked the biggest leap in the field of international criminal law since the Allies tried the Nazis in Nuremberg. Created in answer to the worst war crimes in Europe since World War Two, it set a precedent of accountability that has since put the Khmer Rouge and Liberia s Charles Taylor in the dock and paved the way for a court with global ambition. Almost 25 years later, its legacy is under threat. The International Criminal Court (ICC), opened in 2002, is undermined by renewed West-Russia rivalry, stone-walling and revolt in Africa, barrel bombs in Syria and a boycott by three of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Supporters of the Yugoslav tribunal say it will remain a beacon inspiring a growing demand for justice and creativeness in delivering it from ad hoc tribunals in Africa to the conviction in one country of a dictator from another and that of a Syrian in Sweden after a post on Facebook. The glass is either half full or half empty, said Alex Whiting, professor of practice at Harvard Law School. You can say we haven t come far enough and the new institutions, particularly the ICC, have not replicated the success of the ICTY, but you can just as easily say it s remarkable how far we ve come in just 25 years, he said. The ICTY is the North Star. The Yugoslav tribunal owes a debt to history, born as it was between the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks on the United States, when Russia was weak and the West was united in collective action. For decades before, conflicts from Vietnam to Algeria, Afghanistan to Sri Lanka escaped major judicial scrutiny. Backed by the arrest-power of Western peacekeepers and the readiness of the European Union to condition integration with Yugoslavia s successor states on their cooperation, the tribunal issued 161 indictments and secured 83 convictions. Wednesday s verdict in the trial of Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic will be its last, bar appeals. The Yugoslav court was the first to indict a sitting head of state in Serbia s Slobodan Milosevic, recognized sexual violence as a crime of war and advanced the definition of genocide. With the U.N. tribunal for Rwanda, it assembled the hybrid case law used by tribunals in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon and ultimately the ICC. Its 2.5 million pages of transcripts offer a forensic and often harrowing account of a state s dissolution that dispels the fog of wartime propaganda. More than 4,500 witnesses took the stand. I committed myself to speak on behalf of those who did not survive, said Nusreta Sivac, a former judge in Bosnia who testified to her rape by Bosnian Serb captors. The tribunal rulings will write history. Detractors say the court was slow, expensive and damaged by a number of high-profile acquittals. Milosevic died in 2006 while still on trial, while some cases were plagued by witness intimidation. The tribunal was supposed to help with reconciliation, but revisionism is rife and convicted war criminals often feted as heroes. Critics argue the indictment of Milosevic, at the height of NATO air strikes against him, only complicated the conflict and encouraged him to cling on, which he did for another 17 months. Similar arguments have been made against the ICC s pursuit of some African leaders. Established by treaty and boycotted by the United States, China and Russia, the ICC has little of the clout of the ICTY. With only one Arab member, it has found the bulk of its work in Africa. Alleging bias, Burundi quit the court last month. Kenya and South Africa have threatened to follow. The court s credibility has already been tested by the collapse in 2014 of a case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir s eight-year evasion of arrest. Most glaring is its impotence in the face of nearly half a million dead in Syria, its hands tied by Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, which can refer a case to the court in a non-member state such as Syria. The ICC denies any bias against Africa and is at various stages of investigation in Georgia, Iraq, Ukraine, Colombia and Palestine, though it can expect to make little progress in investigating conflicts involving Russia or the United States. In a watershed moment, prosecutors this month called for a formal investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, including the mistreatment of detainees by U.S. forces in the country and at CIA dark sites in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Experts say the move is symbolic of the court s ambition, but also of its limitations, given the unlikelihood of any cooperation from the Trump administration. The Yugoslav tribunal demonstrated that, with strong political and diplomatic support from the international community, justice can be achieved , its chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz told Reuters. But without that support, the obstacles can be almost insurmountable. Kevin Jon Heller, law professor at the University of Amsterdam, said of the ICC: I strongly doubt it is ever going to fulfill the aspirations of the people in the states that created it. Nevertheless, demands for accountability are multiplying, along with avenues to pursue them. Experts point to the 2016 conviction of Chad ex-dictator, Hissene Habre, in a Senegalese court, the first time universal jurisdiction was used to prosecute the former ruler of one country by a court in another for human rights crimes. The same principle saw a Syrian soldier convicted by a Swedish court last month, partly on the basis of social media posts, while authorities in Sweden and Germany are each investigating more than a dozen individuals for crimes in Syria and Iraq. With the Security Council paralyzed, the U.N. General Assembly has launched its own ad hoc mechanism to investigate war crimes in Syria. A hybrid tribunal is in the works in Central African Republic and another mooted for South Sudan. What has not ebbed in the last five to seven years, and in fact what has only increased, is the demand for justice, and an expectation that it will translate into action, said Param-Preet Singh, an associate director at Human Rights Watch. The ICTY and efforts since have changed the conversation , said Whiting. It is for that reason this project will never die, he said. It will go into dormancy, but it will never die. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1264 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Pakistan s Supreme Court on Friday rejected petitions seeking a review of its July 28 ruling that disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office, upholding a verdict likely to influence the next general election, due in mid-2018. After an investigation into the Sharif family s wealth, the Supreme Court employed a little-used constitutional provision to rule Sharif unfit to hold office because he did not declare a small source of income, which he has disputed receiving. The country s top court also disqualified three of Sharif s children, including heir-apparent Maryam and her husband, besides ordering a criminal investigation into the Sharifs and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who has stayed in his post. On Friday, a five-judge bench dismissed the petitions filed by the Sharifs and Dar, without specifying reasons. All the review petitions stand dismissed, said Asif Saeed Khosa, who headed the bench, which is expected to provide the reasons for its decision next week. It remains unclear, however, whether the Sharifs will be disqualified for a fixed time, perhaps several years, or be barred from office forever. That could have major implications for Nawaz and his daughter Maryam. She is being touted as a future leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, and is likely to run for parliament in the 2018 polls. The ruling party has portrayed the Supreme Court decision as a slap for the electorate in the nuclear-armed nation. The right to fair trial, which is the right of 210 million people of Pakistan, was not exercised in regard to Nawaz Sharif and his family, said Anusha Rahman, a government minister. But Fawad Chaudhry, a senior official of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, called the verdict a victory of good governance in Pakistan . Sharif s disqualification stems from the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 which appeared to show that his daughter and two sons owned offshore holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy properties in London. In April, the Supreme Court ruled there was insufficient evidence to remove Sharif from office | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1265 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Marawi resident Baimona Amintao hopes her turn comes quickly once authorities begin raffling off the first batch of temporary shelters for those who lost their homes to the five-month battle to retake the southern Philippine city from Islamist militants. Amintao and her five children were among the thousands of families displaced since fighting erupted in Marawi on May 23, when security forces tried to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, Islamic State s emir in Southeast Asia. The Philippines on Monday announced the end of military operations in Marawi after a fierce and unfamiliar urban war in the country s biggest security crisis in years, paving the way for rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts to begin. More than 1,000 transitional houses, with basic bathroom and cooking facilities, could be completed within two months on the outskirts of Marawi, the Philippine housing agency has said. Residents whose homes were devastated will get first priority in allotment raffles that could be held either before or after construction. I hope I can be included in the raffle and be able to stay there for my children s well-being, Amintao, 26, who formerly owned a small grocery store, told Reuters. Many people here prioritize their children since many of the kids cannot stand living inside the tents and are getting sick. The government estimates the rebuilding of Marawi could cost at least 50 billion pesos ($971 million). Authorities said 920 militants, 165 troops and police and at least 45 civilians were killed in the conflict, which displaced more than 300,000 people. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has placed the southern island of Mindanao, where Marawi is located, under martial rule to help security forces in crushing the rebel movement. The rebel occupation stunned a military inexperienced in urban combat and stoked wider concerns that Islamic State loyalists have gained influence among local Muslims and have ambitions to use the island as a base for Southeast Asia operations. Those fears are compounded by the organization of the militant alliance and its ability to recruit young fighters, lure foreign radicals, stockpile huge amounts of arms and endure 154 days of ground offensive and air strikes. The social welfare department said more than 5,000 families still live in covered gymnasiums and tent cities. I could not fathom what happened to our village and I hope this does not happen again, said Alniah Magoyag, a village official. No more terrorists in Marawi City. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1266 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A U.S. congressional proposal that would eliminate income tax exemptions for certain airlines could affect major Gulf carriers, potentially worsening an international spat between U.S. airlines and their Middle East rivals. U.S. airlines have been petitioning the federal government for years to intervene in what they see as unfair competition by the three major Gulf carriers. The proposal, tucked deep in the Senate tax-cut plan, calls for airlines headquartered in foreign countries to pay the U.S. incorporate tax rate if: 1) the carrier’s home country does not have an income tax treaty with the United States and 2) the carrier’s country of origin has fewer than two arrivals and departures, per week, operated by major U.S. airlines. Airways, Emirates [EMIRA.UL] and Etihad Airways have for years been accused by U.S. competitors of being illegally subsidized by their governments. The Gulf carriers deny the accusation. They could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday. If the proposal passes, it could leave the Gulf carriers more vulnerable because their home countries – the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – do not have income tax treaties with the United States, according to the Internal Revenue Service website. A number of nations could possibly also be affected at a time when perceived discrepancies in U.S. trade agreements are facing a critical eye from U.S. corporations and the federal government. The language in the Senate proposal sets the stage for a crackdown in tax leniency for these and other airlines. This would likely be well-received by American carriers, which have for years petitioned the U.S. government to intervene in the dispute. Under U.S. tax treaties, entities of foreign countries are either exempt or pay a reduced rate on their income, and vice versa for U.S. entities abroad. Reciprocity agreements, however, are less formal deals that fall short of an official accord, according to tax attorney Sam Brotman of Brotman Law. “Reciprocity agreements are usually with countries that are not necessarily 100 percent friendly with the U.S.†Brotman said on Thursday. “We’ll call it a handshake deal.†The bill’s wording stands to ramp up an already tense battle between U.S. airlines and Gulf carriers. The addition was introduced by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), one of the most vocal critics of Gulf carrier practices, is headquartered in Atlanta. A spokeswoman for Isakson did not mention the Gulf airlines. “This provision supports American jobs by providing a level playing field and mutual fairness in international passenger aviation,†Isakson spokeswoman Marie Gordon said in an email on Thursday. “Foreign airlines should not receive preferential tax treatment if their countries choose not to open their markets to U.S. companies.†Delta declined to comment. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1267 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: In the United States, a college loan stands out as the only type of loan that is not eligible for refinancing when interest rates decrease.
contextual information: Former President Bill Clinton raised a hot-button issue while campaigning for his wife in Los Angeles this week: America's mounting student loan debt. Student debt in the United States has reached $1.3 trillion, trailing only the amount Americans owe on their mortgages. It is often blamed for preventing young people from buying houses and cars, which fuels the country's economy. Undergraduates in the class of 2015 graduated with an average of $35,000 in student loan debt, the highest in history, according to Edvisors.com, a financial aid website. If elected president in November, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would remove a unique barrier related to college loans, the former president claimed. A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down, Bill Clinton said, speaking at a recent campaign rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. We wondered: Is refinancing really off-limits for all college loans? With student loan debt being such a significant issue this election year, we decided to check the facts.
Past efforts at change
Both Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have pledged to allow student loans to be refinanced. However, they weren't the first to call for this change. In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejected legislation by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have allowed student borrowers to refinance their federal loan debt. Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in a Washington Post news article at the time. Republicans argued that they were not convinced the legislation would have resulted in lower borrowing costs and labeled it an election stunt. The bill would have allowed people with federal and private loans issued prior to 2010 to refinance at 3.86 percent, the article stated. It added that the Obama administration estimated that the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 each over the lifetime of their loans, totaling $50 billion.
Our research
As they campaigned across the country, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders have each pledged to allow for the refinancing of college loan debt. What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are discussing is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of all student borrowing. We turned to the nonprofit college planning group American Student Assistance for some advice. They and other groups say federal student loans can be refinanced into private loans. However, doing so can remove federal protections such as fixed interest rates and the ability to pause repayments. Additionally, private student loans can be refinanced into new lower-interest private loans. But there is no provision in federal law allowing the refinancing of a federal loan into another, lower-interest federal loan. There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, regardless of how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistance advises potential borrowers.
PolitiFact Texas examined a similar claim in 2014 and rated it Mostly True. They spoke with Heather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who informed them that some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. However, she noted that this would only occur in cases where borrowers have substantial income. Jarvis added that refinancing federal loans with a private loan is risky, as the borrower gives up important protections that accompany federal loans (like flexible repayment and discharge provisions). Students repaying federally backed loans, Jarvis stated, are effectively barred from refinancing opportunities because federal law makes no provision for the government to make such offers.
Asked about the former president's statement, Bill Clinton's press secretary said in an email that it is very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federal debt. She pointed to statistics from the College Board showing that federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She mentioned that a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by converting it into a private loan.
Our ruling
Former President Bill Clinton stated at a recent campaign rally in Los Angeles: A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down. Borrowers of federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of student loans, cannot refinance those into lower-interest federal loans. Congress sets the interest rate on these loans, and there is no provision in federal law that allows for them to be refinanced. Depending on factors such as income, some borrowers can refinance their federal loans into lower-interest private loans, though they risk losing their federal loan protections. Clinton most likely was referring only to federally backed loans when he made his statement, but a clarification about private loans would have been helpful. We rated his claim Mostly True.
MOSTLY TRUE
The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1268 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Prime Minister Theresa May met with senior members of her ministerial team on Monday to discuss their response to European Union demands for more detail on how much Britain is willing to pay as part of its Brexit divorce package. The EU told May on Friday that there was more work to be done to unlock the Brexit talks, repeating its early December deadline for her to flesh out Britain s opening offer on the financial settlement thought to be worth around 20 billion euros ( 17.72 billion). May met with ministers amid expectations that she will offer the EU more than she committed to during a speech in Florence in September which failed to provide a meaningful breakthrough in the stalled negotiations. Despite growing pressure from businesses to show she can drive talks onto the subject of future trading relations with the EU, May s office gave little away as to the conclusions of Monday s meeting. It remains our position that nothing s agreed until everything s agreed in negotiations with the EU, a source from May s office said. As the Prime Minister said this morning, the UK and the EU should step forward together. Media reports said the ministers had agreed to make an offer which would increase the value of May s existing commitment but gave no specific details. The BBC reported that no specific amounts had been discussed during the meeting. May has repeatedly signalled that she will increase an initial offer that is thought to be worth about a third of what Brussels wants. But, wary of the need to keep the peace in her Conservative Party, which has a powerful faction insisting Britain should be paying the minimum possible to the EU and using the cash offer to leverage better exit terms, May has avoided publicly discussing any figure. Instead, she has said Britain will meet its financial obligations to the bloc a commitment which remains wide open to interpretation. Finance minister Philip Hammond said on Sunday that the government would submit its proposal to the EU before a Dec. 14-15 summit. He warned Britain would be prepared to negotiate hard over the bill, acknowledging differences of opinion with the EU on the value of liabilities, and whether Britain was even liable at all for some elements of the total amount mooted by Brussels. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1269 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was This 'Health Bulletin' an Accurate Coronavirus Warning? Claim summaries: A viral social media post erroneously advised the public to "keep your throat moist" in order to avoid contracting the respiratory infection.
contextual information: In January 2020 we received multiple inquiries from readers about an alert that was shared widely on Facebook and Twitter, purporting to be an "emergency notification" from an unspecified "Ministry of Health" about an ongoing outbreak of a new coronavirus. Broadly speaking, the warning appeared in two forms. The most commonly shared was a text post that typically read as follows: *Urgent: Health Bulletin to the Public * *Ministry of healths emergency notification to the public that the Coronavirus outbreak this time is very very serious & fatal. There's no cure once you are infected.**Its spreading from China to various countries* *Prevention method is to keep your throat moist, do not let your throat dry up. Thus do not hold your thirst because once your membrane in your throat is dried, the virus will invade into your body within 10 mins.**Drink 50-80cc warm water, 30-50cc for kids, according to age.* *Everytime u feel your throat is dry, do not wait, keep water in hand.* *Do not drink plenty at one time as it doesnt help, instead continue to keep throat moist.**Till end of March 2020, do not go to crowded places, wear mask as needed especially in train or public transportation* *Avoid fried or spicy food and load up vitamin C.**The symptoms/ description are**1.repeated high fever**2.prolonged coughing after fever**3.Children are prone**4.Adults usually feel uneasy,*headache and mainly respiratory related**5: highly contagious* The message was typically followed up with an exhortation to share its warnings, such as, "Please forward to help others." One version of the viral alert even concluded by pleading with readers, "Please share if you care for human life." warnings version The second principal form in which the message appeared was as a photograph of a printed email, dated Jan. 28, 2020, and purporting to have been sent by "NWLLAB." It contained many of the same key components it purported to come from an unspecified "MOH" (Ministry of Health), and its main recommendation to the public was again to "keep your throat moist" by drinking water. It read as follows: appeared photograph Pls tell ur families, relatives and friends MOH Health Bulletin to the Public: The Upper Respiratory Infection affecting China at present is quite serious. The virus causing it is very potent and is resistant to existing antibiotics. (virus is not bacterial infection hence cannot be treated by antibiotics). The prevention method now is to keep your throat moist, do not let your throat dry up. Thus do not hold your thirst because once your membrane in your throat is dried, the virus will invade into your body within 10 mins. Drink 50-80cc warm water, 30-50cc for kids, according to age. Everytime [sic] you feel your throat is dry, do not wait, keep water in hand. Do not drink plenty at one time as it does not help; instead, continue to keep throat moist. Till end of March, do not go to crowded places, wear mask as needed especially in train or public transportation. Avoid fried or spicy food and load up vitamin C. The symptoms/description are: 1. Repeated high fever.2. Prolonged coughing after fever. 3. Children are more prone. 4. Adults usually feel uneasy, headache and mainly respiratory related illness. This illness is highly contagious. Let's continue to pray and wait for further notice about the infection. Please share. Neither the printed email nor the viral Facebook message were official statements produced by any public health authority. The alert was apt to spread widely online precisely because it did not include any details about its supposed source, aside from mentioning a "Ministry of Health" in an unspecified country or region. The message also contained erroneous advice, claiming that readers could avoid contracting the virus by "keeping your throat moist," avoiding fried or spicy food, and taking vitamin-C supplements. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the so-called "novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)" outbreak is thought to have first been transmitted from animals to humans in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. Since then, it has spread from person to person. Previous coronaviruses like Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have been transmitted between humans primarily through "respiratory droplets" that is, coughs and sneezes. outbreak The CDC's general respiratory infection prevention advice applies to the 2019-nCoV outbreak, as follows: as follows No evidence exists to indicate that any public health authority is officially advising the public that a dry throat makes individuals more vulnerable to contracting the virus, and that therefore drinking water is an effective prevention method, nor that vitamin C deficiency contributes to one's vulnerability to contracting the illness, nor that fried and spicy food are a medium for transmission of 2019-nCoV. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Situation Summary."
30 January 2020. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "2019 Novel Coronavirus -- Prevention and Treatment."
30 January 2020. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1270 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: RIPTA has really some of the fullest buses for its transit agency size around the country.
contextual information: Public transportation was one of the topics when Abel Collins, program manager for the Rhode Island chapter of the Sierra Club, was a guest on the June 2 edition of 10 News Conference. Collins, an unsuccessful independent candidate for Congress in the 2nd District in 2012, said one goal of his organization is to cut pollution by getting better funding for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, which operates the states bus system. They're stuck. They have declining revenues and increasing demand. And RIPTA has really some of the fullest buses for its transit agency size around the country, he said. So it's really something that should get more attention and hopefully this is the year that the General Assembly sees fit to give RIPTA sustainable funding for the long term. There's a bill to do that and we've been pushing on it for years. We wondered whether RIPTA does, in fact, have some of the fullest buses around. We called Collins. He said he was told that factoid by Mark Therrien, the authority's assistant general manager for planning. We called Therrien. He said Collins was correct. When we asked for details, he referred us to theIntegrated National Transit Database Analysis System(INTDAS) which has national statistics over many years for transit systems throughout the United States. The database will generate a list of comparable transit systems around the country. We did that for RIPTA and decided to focus on the 30 that were closest based on a variety of measures such as size, according to the federal ranking. We also looked at six other systems -- in Eugene, Ore.; Fort Worth, Texas; Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; and Des Moines, Iowa -- that Therrien said were comparable as well. But what to look at? The database, whose most recent statistics were from 2011, doesn't include a direct measurement of how full the buses are. We discovered there were a lot of indirect ways to estimate capacity that gave different rankings. Therrien said we should look at passengers per hour. By that measure, RIPTA ranked 8th out of 37 systems. We also looked at the number of passenger trips divided by the number of vehicles in operation during peak hours. RIPTA ranked 9th by that measure. Meanwhile, we received an e-mail fromAlbert Gan, a professor with the department of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University, who developed the INTDAS system. He said the correct method would be to divide the number of passenger miles in a year by the number of miles driven when the buses were picking and dropping off passengers (known as revenue miles). By that measure, RIPTA ranked 13th out of 37. Then we heard back from Therrien's office, which advised us that it was best to look at the number of passenger trips divided by the number of revenue miles. In that instance, RIPTA ranked 10th. Some other systems were pretty crowded using that yardstick. Milwaukee had 24 percent more passengers per bus than Providence; Madison had 34 percent more; Eugene had 39 percent more; and Rochester, N.Y. had 46 percent more. To sum up, Abel Collins said, RIPTA has really some of the fullest buses for its transit agency size around the country. Some of the fullest is a little vague, but it implies that Rhode Island is going to be up there in the rankings. RIPTA, asked about the claim, suggested that we look at 11 transit systems. We ultimately analyzed data on more than three times that many, using a federal rating method that listed bus services comparable to Rhode Island's. RIPTA's rankings ranged from 8th to 13th. They varied a bit because there's no standardized way to calculate who has the fullest buses. Because there's some uncertainty but the different methods show RIPTA ranking high, we rate Collins' statementMostly True. (If you have a claim youd like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at[email protected]. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1271 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Obamacare tax penalty? I'll take it, millions say "Has not been large enough to motivate people to sign up for insurance' Published: 1 hour ago
(New York Times) The architects of the Affordable Care Act thought they had a blunt instrument to force people — even young and healthy ones — to buy insurance through the law’s online marketplaces: a tax penalty for those who remain uninsured.
It has not worked all that well, and that is at least partly to blame for soaring premiums next year on some of the health law’s insurance exchanges.
The full weight of the penalty will not be felt until April, when those who have avoided buying insurance will face penalties of around $700 a person or more. But even then that might not be enough: For the young and healthy who are badly needed to make the exchanges work, it is sometimes cheaper to pay the Internal Revenue Service than an insurance company charging large premiums, with huge deductibles. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1272 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: SEE MORE ALEPPO UPDATES & EXCLUSIVES HEREThis press conference is an excellent information tool for anyone who has serious questions about the true size and scope of the propaganda war being waged against Syria by governments and media organizations in the US, UK and EU member states. Please share with friends, family and colleagues On December 9, 2016, the permanent mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations presented a panel of speakers who explained in detail what is really happening right now in Aleppo, Syria, and how the western media has intentionally distorted events in Syria over the last 5 years. Panels members include Dr. Bahman Azad, member of the coordinating committee for the Hands Off Syria and Organization Secretary of US Peace Council, and Eva Bartlett, independent Canadian journalist, Donna Nassor, professor and lawyer also part of US Peace Council, and Sara Flounders cofounder of the International Action Center. SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1273 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: November 5, 2016 - Fort Russ Exclusive - Interview and translation by Jafe Arnold (J. Arnoldski) -
Eduard Popov, born in 1973 in Konstantinovka, Donetsk region, is a Rostov State University graduate with a PhD in history and philosophy. In 2008, he founded the Center for Ukrainian Studies of the Southern Federal University of Russia in Rostov-on-Don. From 2009-2013, he was the founding head of the Black Sea-Caspian Center of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, an analytical institute of the Presidential Administration of Russia. In June 2014, Popov headed the establishment of the Representative Office of the Donetsk People's Republic in Rostov-on-Don. He has actively participated in humanitarian aid efforts in Donbass and has been a guest contributor to various Donbass media, such as the Lugansk-based Cossack Media Group. Popov has actively contributed to Fort Russ since June, 2016.
***
Fort Russ Special Editor Jafe Arnold: Dr. Popov, for nearly half a year already, you have regularly submitted your commentary on global events to Fort Russ. You’ve covered a number of topics ranging from European politics and the war in Donbass to the possibility of a Third World War breaking out over Syria and the future of Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism. Before we begin discussing a number of related questions, what would you like to say to your readers at Fort Russ?
Dr. Eduard Popov: I consider the rare and somewhat unexpected honor to address you, dear readers of the wonderful analytical site Fort Russ, to be some kind of reward for my future contributions. I see this not as a right, but as a sacred duty of the author before his readers.
We live in different countries, speak different languages, and share different (ranging from more or less similar to diametrically opposite) worldviews and political opinions. Nevertheless, to some extent, we are all like-minded. The common denominator for all of us is the strong belief that the world is multifaceted and cannot be reduced to only one correct doctrine.
The history of mankind has seen and will probably still see more than a few attempts at organizing an ideological and political monopoly. The ideology of the American New World Order that claims universality and all-inclusiveness is nothing original and not even clever. As a historian of political ideologies, revolutionary communism in its Trotskyite and Khrushchevite variants also immediately comes to mind, which also claimed for itself the role of ending world history.
But the era of American domination over the world awaits its finale and is maybe more imminent than many of us expect. I see my own personal mission as an author at Fort Russ to help prepare this finale, which depends on the efforts of every one of us.
Restoring the violated principle of national sovereignty instead of the idea of one nation’s global domination, restoring the ‘blooming complexity’ of the world’s cultures instead of an imposed and dull liberal “post-culture”, and affirming solid moral principles instead of immoral promiscuity - this is a sample program which is shared by the majority of humanity. Most of humanity is opposed to the dominant quasi-religion of American neoliberalism or, rather, the ideology of Pax Americana is opposed to the majority of humanity.
The events in the former Ukraine and Donbass have become some of the reference points determining each of our’s moral position. People from different countries and with opposing political views, from ultra-right to ultra-left, have expressed support for the people of Donbass. And I am very grateful to Fort Russ for constantly striving to present the truth of these events. I’ve had the opportunity to personally observe the astonishing events in Donbass, and I can say that Donbass’ fate is still far from sealed. Together, we are contributing to a more just alternative not only for Donbass, but for all of humanity.
Eduard Popov (left), DPR representative in Rostov-on-Don, with Moscow DPR representatives
Arnold: In this context, how do you assess the state of the ongoing global information war? Are resources like Fort Russ helping to turn the tide against the Atlanticist narrative or “Pax Americana”? Is bringing together such “like-minded people” the main goal of this information war?
Popov: It’s difficult for me to assess the state of the whole front of the information war - I don’t possess complete information and don’t consider myself a specialist in this sphere. I’m simply a political analyst and historian specializing in some topics that are relevant in today’s world.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt as to the benefit that “new media” brings to the resistance movement. Let me explain these terms. New media means independent publications that do not legally fall under the category of media, but fulfill the same function. This applies to different websites and groups on social media. The “resistance movement” (I don’t think the origin of the term needs to be explained) is a synonym for anti-globalism or, as has become fashionable to say now, the anti-mainstream.
If De Gaulle’s movement fought against the Nazi occupation of France with weapons in hand, then today’s fighters of the resistance fight mainly with information against an occupant operating not so much with direct physical violence as with distanced coercion, i.e., informational, psychological, economic, and political force, etc.
Can it be said that the fight against this new occupation is more difficult? As a historian by education and a philosopher (my doctoral dissertation was on the political philosophy of conservatism), I believe that the world has now arrived at the complete breaking point of one historical epoch and the beginning of another. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so wrong to compare the current era with the era of the collapse of the Roman Empire, first and foremost because ahead of us is most likely a dark ages comparable to the early Middle Ages, and a new Great Migration of peoples. Of course, not everything is the same, but I won’t focus on this now. I’ll just say that there are not too many reasons for historical optimism.
Resources such as Fort Russ have taken on the extremely important mission of speaking the truth in an epoch of great lies. “Big” official publications in Europe are filled with lies. And this is not only my opinion. All the thinking, honest europeans with whom I’ve discussed the situation of the press in ‘united Europe’ also think so. Hence why, as my friends in European countries have noted, independent media has a growing circle of readership. In my opinion, this trend is a long-term one.
As for what I believe is necessary to concentrate efforts on, the first step has already been done. The minimum social anti-mainstream has been formed in Europe. This has been done primarily thanks to the efforts of the independent press. But in my opinion, the task fulfilled at this first stage has goals primarily centered around negation, i.e., proving what is wrong and dangerous in globalism.
The anti-mainstream wields an unusually rich diversity of worldviews and ideological shades ranging from Marxism to certain currents of fascism to even clerical monarchism. Why not use this methodological richness for forming a united, anti-globalist intellectual front? Then we can proceed to solve constructive tasks, such as discussing the foundations of a future, more just world order.
In no case should the resistance movement identify as marginals - this is precisely how the “Ministry of Truth” tries to present it. If a number of new media take on the mission of creating platforms for intellectual discussions with others, then this will undoubtedly become one of the main tasks of the information war. Even the leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, spoke of a newspaper as a center not only of publications, but as a center for party work. I don’t know if the creators of new media have read Lenin, but they are acting according to his methodological precepts.
Arnold: A t the present moment, o ne of the centers of attention of the information war and what you called the “resistance” is the threat of a Third World War being unleashed by the US. Russian experts have different opinions on how realistic such a turn is. Considering that you say there is little reason to be historically optimistic, what do you think?
Popov: The topic of WW3 is really actively being discussed in Russian expert circles, yet all the while has the status of some kind of fantasy. But as I said earlier, we are now witnessing the breaking point of not only a historical period (what Immanuel Wallerstein calls the American Century century lasting since 1945), but a change in historical epochs.
This can be compared with the collapse of the Roman Empire or the collapse of the Middle Ages and the onset of the Modern Age. The Russian philosophers of the emigration in the 1920’s foresaw this shift of epochs and called it the New Middle Ages. Perhaps this was also an anticipation of fascism, which lasted a comparatively brief historical period.
In my opinion, this also anticipates the New Middle Ages, but with only one necessary correction: this will be a new early Middle Ages, not the High Middle Ages of great Romano-Germanic culture which the Russian philosopher Konstantin Leontyev considered to be the highest achievement of humanity, but the “dark ages” that preceded it - barbarism, the plague, the collapse of the great ancient cultures, and the mass migration of peoples. A very vivid impression of these centuries is offered by the German epics (the genesis of the historical basis of the Nibelungenlied dates back to the dark ages and the invasion of Attila the Hun) and Scandinavian mythology, especially the tale of the death of the gods.
This change of epochs is primarily being prepared on mental grounds. I believe that the conditions are ripe for this: the Western world has finally turned into a post-Christian and partially anti-Christian entity. It’s difficult for me to say whether Europe has enough life left in it to oppose the new onslaught of the Caliphate - I have in mind Muslim migration to the European continent and the expansion of Salafist networks. The answer is more likely no than yes.
America is also going through very difficult times, although its difficulties are of an entirely different nature. Wallerstein long ago said that the age of American domination is coming to an end and will end with a grandiose crash. This conclusion is in a certain measure shared by the ideologist of Pax Americana, Brzezinski, who called to negotiate, not to prevent, but to slow down the collapse of the American Empire.
The Americans have a very high level of strategic thought. Both times that America entered a world war on the European continent, it achieved grand strategic successes with very little blood shed (compared to the European Allies and Axis). There are many works that, substantiated by references to historical sources, show that the US stood behind the scenes of WW2 and pushed European rivals to war. The US entered the war as the most powerful economy on the planet and came out with the status of a superpower, the successor to the British Empire. The US’ GDP increased 10 times in only a few years.
We can also see outstanding, though not as tremendous achievements of American geopolitics in WW1. Europe was gushing blood, but the United States profited from and became stronger because of the war between European competitors, even the British. Now that the age of the USA is coming to an end, they are faced with the threat of having to drastically reduce their appetites, busy themselves with overhauling renovations at home, and turn from the lord of the world into a first among equals.
I am almost sure that the US will not go down the path of isolationism for psychological (the inertia of imperial power is very strong) and economic reasons. This means they will continue down the path of foreign expansion.
Russia and China are becoming all the more stronger and independent rivals of the US. Russia is increasing its military power, while China is increasing its economic power, even though it should be noted that China and the US are vitally needed by each other as economic partners at the present stage. Meanwhile, Europe does not wield geopolitical subjectivity and remains the US’ junior partner, but this is threatening its overall economic and productive capacity which is surpassing the US.
I’ll suggest an opinion and perhaps re-invent the wheel: the “Arab Spring” was sponsored by the Americans in order to organize a new great migration of peoples to Europe. In the long and even medium term, the Islamic World is not an ally of the US, but in the short term such an alliance is possible. American strategists are using the mixing of peoples and languages to greatly weaken their European competitors.
Other tools are being used against China and Russia, and this toolbox is quite large. The Americans have attempted to wage a cheap war against Russia by creating a powerful protest movement against President Putin. Perhaps we can already say that this venture failed. The Russian people and other peoples of the Russian Federation, unlike their Ukrainian neighbors, wield historical and state wisdom and are ready to endure hardships in the face of an external enemy. This makes war almost inevitable. Time is working against the US and for Russia.
By 2020 or 2025, the program of rearming the Armed Forces of Russia should be completed, and the economy is not in the best condition, but can still cope with crises. Therefore, I’ll repeat, war is an inevitable way out of the impasse.
Will this be a real Third World War? In my opinion, this is unlikely. In one of my articles , I’ve already employed the notion of a “flank war.” The Americans are largely fighting by proxies - Polish, Ukrainian, and Muslim-Salafist ones, etc. The almost inevitable (in my opinion) victory of Hillary Clinton will add psychological motives to this war. What is entailed in this scenario? Two things: (1) the Russians and Americans will fight without the use of strategic nuclear weapons and on fronts far away from US shores - otherwise, the cure for the American Empire, war, would be worse than the disease; (2) I am sure that the American hegemon will be defeated in this war. And this offers the opportunity to begin to liberate Europe, and for Russia this means the opportunity to finally throw off the burdensome shackles of American tutelage.
To be continued…
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate! | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1274 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: Trump is poised to impose new sanctions on multiple Iranian entities, seeking to ratchet up pressure on Tehran while crafting a broader strategy to counter what he sees as its destabilizing behavior, people familiar with the matter say. The White House says Trump is “extremely upset†with an agreement with Australia to accept refugees but will honor it. The White House says Israel’s building of new settlements or expansion of existing ones in occupied territories may not be helpful to achieving peace with Palestinians. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blames Russia for the recent surge of violence in eastern Ukraine and warns Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia will not be lifted until Moscow returns Crimea to Kiev. Trump’s Treasury Department adjusts sanctions on the Russian intelligence agency FSB, making limited exceptions to measures put in place by the Obama administration over accusations Moscow meddled in the U.S. presidential election. Trump vows to free churches and other tax-exempt institutions of a 1954 U.S. law banning political activity, drawing fire from critics who accuse him of rewarding his evangelical Christian supporters and turning houses of worship into political machines. Trump defends his order to temporarily bar entry to people from seven majority-Muslim nations, saying it is crucial to ensure religious freedom and tolerance in America; he discusses establishing safe zones in Syria with Jordan’s King Abdullah. A Department of Homeland Security watchdog agency says it is planning to review how Trump’s executive order to temporarily suspend travel from seven majority-Muslim nations was implemented. Nobel Peace Prize winners meeting in Colombia criticize Trump’s immigration policies and accuse him of xenophobia and discrimination. Trump reiterates his concerns about the North American Free Trade Agreement and says he would like to speed up talks to either renegotiate or replace it. A Senate committee suspends rules to approve Scott Pruitt, Trump’s controversial choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, amid a boycott by Democratic panel members. Representative Mick Mulvaney is approved as budget director. Cerberus Capital Management LP’s chief executive, Stephen Feinberg, is in talks to join Trump’s administration in a senior role. Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] CEO Travis Kalanick quit Trump’s business advisory group after coming under criticism for taking part, the company says. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1275 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The MEPs' resolution on Brexit negotiations resemble Munich 1938. The MEPs want to veto UK's exit of the EU in case the UK government signs any bilateral deal with a non-EU country before spring 2019. Brussels is becoming fascist. It is an attempt of Berlin to rule the continent through Brussels. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1276 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: $75 Bed Bath & Beyond Coupon? Claim summaries: Another Facebook coupon scam has appeared, this time using phony Bed Bath & Beyond coupons to lure users into participating.
contextual information: In April 2017, a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon offer (purportedly good for $75 off any purchase) began circulating on Facebook under the guise of a Mother's Day promotion: The "coupon" displays a domain name not part of the chain's legitimate web site, and the link takes Facebook users to a fraudulent web site posing as part of Bed Bath & Beyond, and instructs them to follow a simple set of instructions:Bed Bath & Beyond warned customers about the circulating phony discount in responses on their Facebook page: page This scam is almost exactly the same as earlier schemes targeting Home Depot, Costco, Amazon, and Kroger shoppers. Although the scams exhibited minor variations, they all feature three main identifiers. Home Depot Costco Amazon Kroger All require Facebook users to forward the phony coupon on to their Facebook friends, increasing the number of potential victims. They also instruct targets to complete out a simple survey and promise an outsized reward for a minor effort, a seemingly harmless task that often mines sensitive information such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and credit card details. Finally, the completion of the "survey" never results in the receipt of a coupon for Bed Bath & Beyond (or any other known brand appropriated by scammers). Often, the ruse results in a subscription for difficult-to-cancel Reward Offers, or simply the disclosure of personal details to social media grifters. In a best-case scenario such efforts are a simple but effective like-farming scam, which can lead to embarrassment if the "liked" page is converted into an unpalatable one with risqu or rude content. scam The Better Business Bureau gave these three tips to identify these particular scams on Facebook: Facebook Dont believe what you see. Its easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender.Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure theres a link to their privacy policy. Watch out for a reward thats too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1277 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A cable and internet provider decides to buy an entertainment conglomerate. The merger is met with skepticism by industry analysts and outrage by consumer groups, who complain that it would thwart competition, create unfair pricing and incite more media consolidation. That was 2009, when the cable giant Comcast announced it would acquire NBC Universal. When the next administration in Washington takes up the $85. 4 billion deal between ATT and Time Warner that was announced on Saturday evening, the Comcast acquisition will be used as the lens to examine the changing media landscape. In the end, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission approved the acquisition of NBCUniversal, requiring some small management concessions but few divestitures. But ATT and Time Warner will probably face a much sterner test. With a huge wireless business, too, the combination would be a new kind of media juggernaut. Donald J. Trump has already condemned the deal. Campaigning in Gettysburg, Pa. on Saturday, Mr. Trump said he would block it if he were president, “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. †Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has promised to be tough on corporate megapowers and consolidation. Regardless of who wins next month, the ATT acquisition of Time Warner will be among the biggest and most important regulatory cases to await the next administration. “By standard antitrust metrics, this deal should be O. K. in Washington,†said Paul Gallant, a technology, media and telecommunications policy analyst with Cowen Company. “But the Democratic Party is moving left, and if Clinton wins, this could become an early test for her ‘tougher on business’ rhetoric. †ATT will be viewed with particular scrutiny because of the company’s acquisition of DirecTV in July 2015. The deal made ATT the largest provider in the nation, with more subscribers than Comcast. After a string of telecommunications mergers during the Obama administration, including Charter Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable, which was approved this year, consumer interest groups have complained that there are fewer options for customers to choose from. Those deals were known as “horizontal integration†because similar businesses merged. ATT’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, however, is considered “vertical†because the two companies largely do not compete against each other but operate on the same supply chain. Still, regulators may look at other ways ATT could affect the media ecosystem if the deal is completed. ATT could make it more expensive for its competitors to gain access to Time Warner’s content or give preferential treatment to its own programming, said John Bergmayer, senior counsel at Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group. The merger would make ATT unmatched in its size and reach to consumers through smartphones, home broadband, satellite television and a broad portfolio of cable channels and movies. For that reason, it may raise more cautionary flags than Comcast’s merger with NBCUniversal, which did not involve a wireless carrier. Many experts in Washington still look unfavorably at the outcome from Comcast and NBCUniversal because the terms of their settlement were too difficult to enforce. “It was an unsuccessful merger from a regulatory point of view,†said Andrew Schwartzman of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. In the case of Comcast, some smaller competitors, particularly programmers that compete with NBC, complained that the company did not fulfill promises it made with the approval by the Justice Department and the F. C. C. The financial information company Bloomberg L. P. complained that Comcast had put its business news channel, which competes with CNBC, in the equivalent of the channel menu hinterlands. Comcast had promised not to discriminate against competing programmers by putting only its own channels in prime locations on the dial next to similar and popular programming. Bloomberg sued Comcast, saying that its channel was put on odd channels, far away from other business news, and that consumers had a hard time reaching it. Consumer advocates said Comcast’s merger with NBCUniversal had not decreased prices or created greater options for consumers. “It’s a massive deal concentrating a huge amount of media power under one corporate umbrella,†said Craig Aaron, president of the consumer advocacy group Free Press. “Consumers benefit when companies have to negotiate and fight with each other. †In their favor, ATT and Time Warner may avoid a review by the Federal Communications Commission because the deal may not involve the acquisition of television stations. Time Warner owns a station in Atlanta, but could sell the station to avoid a F. C. C. review, which is much broader than the mandatory antitrust review of large mergers by the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission. In a blog post on Saturday, Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG, noted that Time Warner recently acquired a 10 percent stake in the streaming television service Hulu, which “is one of the lightning rods that regulators have focused on as an example of Comcast’s bad behavior with NBC. †“In our view, regulators will fear that ATT will use its distribution footprint to favor Time Warner content vs. third parties,†Mr. Greenfield wrote. Still, any concerns that ATT would treat Time Warner programs like HBO’s “Game of Thrones†or cable networks like CNN favorably, or that it would withhold them from competitors, could be addressed in conditions attached to an approval. Regulators may seek commitments from ATT and Time Warner to make content from HBO available through streaming or through apps, according to Amy Ray, an antitrust partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham Taft. “I don’t think they would have inked a deal this big if there wasn’t a good possibility of it going through,†Ms. Ray said. “The real question is, will it go through without any sort of remedy or commitment? I’d put that chance very low. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1278 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth.
contextual information: Gov. Jerry Brown frequently touts California's overall job growth when telling what he has called the state's comeback story. He claimed recently on NBC's Meet the Press that California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years. We checked the numbers and rated that claim True. Later in the same interview, the show's host, Chuck Todd, asked Brown about inland California's struggles, leading to another claim that caught our attention: Chuck Todd: "But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that don't touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs don't go there." Gov. Brown: "The Inland Empire, the Central Valley, they have a harder time. But they, too, are experiencing tremendous job growth." Brown makes his jobs claim at about the 2:05 minute mark in the video above. California's job growth is normally associated with coastal hubs like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So, we wondered whether Brown had his facts right when he said these inland regions had really experienced tremendous job growth, too. We set out on a fact-check.
Inland Empire: Home to about 4.5 million people, Riverside and San Bernardino counties make up what's known as the Inland Empire, a sprawling set of communities east of Los Angeles. The economists we spoke with say Brown's case for tremendous job growth here is a strong one. The region's 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the state's large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, said John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. During that year, it added 47,500 jobs, which was more than the 35,700 created in the Santa Clara metro area, considered the heart of Silicon Valley, Husing said. "This area is a real growth engine," he added, listing construction, logistics, and transportation among the growing sectors. Over the past five years, as the region has recovered from the Great Recession, it added jobs at a rate of 22.3 percent. That trailed only the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco metro area's 22.7 percent rate among large metros. A spokesman for the Brown Administration cited the same statistics backing up the governor's claim. Colin Strange of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce said San Bernardino is seeing job growth, but mainly in blue-collar jobs that pay about $15 per hour, including forklift operators and truck drivers. Husing, who has studied the region's wages, said the Inland Empire has a lower share of high-paying administrative jobs compared with the state as a whole. He said, however, that the region is outperforming the state in its share of middle-class jobs that pay between $45,000 and $60,000.
Central Valley: The Central Valley stretches about 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding. It includes urban cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno, vast farmland, and a diverse economy, making job growth trends for the overall region more complex. A report by Stanislaus State University in the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help. That report shows the 8-county San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the central and southern portions of the Central Valley, experienced a 1.56 percent job growth rate in 2016; a 1.86 percent rate in 2015; and 1.80 percent in 2014. Those averages trailed the state's overall job growth average, which measured 3 percent in 2015 and about 2 percent last year. But it beat the 8-county region's 1.23 percent historical average job growth rate.
Within its own limits, the Valley has consistently grown. But it hasn't been a home run, Gokce Soydemir, an economics professor at Stanislaus State, said of job growth in that portion of the Central Valley. Jeffrey Michael, director of the University of Pacific's Center for Business and Policy Research in Stockton, added by email: "Central Valley areas have also done very well in recent years with the exception of Bakersfield, where recent economic fluctuations are tightly connected to the oil industry." Bakersfield's job growth rate was flat, at 0.1 percent, over the past year. Meanwhile, Sacramento, the biggest metro area in the northern portion of the Central Valley, saw 1.8 percent growth over the past year, close to the statewide average.
Our ruling: Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed California's Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth. Economists say Brown is right about the Inland Empire. That region experienced the fastest job growth rate among the state's large metro areas over the past year and added more jobs than the Santa Clara metro area, the heart of Silicon Valley, during that period. Job growth in the Central Valley, while it has outperformed its historical benchmark in much of the diverse region, hasn't kept up with the overall state average. The governor's argument here needs this key clarification. In the end, we rate his overall claim Mostly True.
MOSTLY TRUE: The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1279 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: We just had the best year for the auto industry in America in history.
contextual information: On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has pitched herself as someone who will continue many of President Barack Obamas policies. At a campaign rally inKentucky May 16, Clinton praised the 2009 auto industry bailout, whichpeople view as an Obama success. We saved the auto industry, she said. Thats important in Louisville. Its important in Bowling Green. Its important in Northern Kentucky. Its important across this commonwealth. Thats a big difference between me and my opponent in the primary. I voted to save the auto industry, he voted not to. Its important to know that it was the right vote because we just had the best year for the auto industry in America in history. Weve alreadylooked into howClintons primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, voted on the auto bailout, which totaled an estimated$85 billion. But we were also curious about Clintons claim that 2015 was the best year for the auto industry in America in history. This is true by one big measure: Americans bought more cars and trucks in 2015 than ever before. But that success might mask long-term issues with American manufacturers, especially given foreign manufacturers growing market share. In 2015, Americans bought more than 17.5 million cars. The last peak was 17.3 million in 2000, followed by a collapse to 10.4 million at the height of the recession in 2009. Additionally, the past six years have been the longest period of sustained year-over-year growth in auto sales since the 1920s, according toAuto Alliance, a vehicle manufacturer association. Vehicle sales wax and wane with the economy.Wards Auto, an analytics organization, has tracked vehicle sales since 1963. When times are tough, vehicles become a discretionary purchase that consumers are willing to put off.Analysts believecar sales have done so well in the past couple of years because of a combination of the improving economy, cheap gas prices, available credit and low interest rates for loans. Experts we asked agreed with Clintons claim, saying the sales figures are a reasonable way to measure the auto industrys health. She's right, said Bruce Belzowski, managing director of the automotive futures group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. By any objective measure, the auto industry bailout is an Obama success story. The Detroit Three big automakers Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler reported strong salesin 2015 and projections for 2016. But its worth remembering that the record-breaking total vehicle sales figure isnt just for American-made cars.It includes foreign models sold in the United States, too. Of the 2.4 million cars sold so far in 2016, 71 percent were imports, according to theWall Street Journal. David Lewis, a professor emeritus of business history at the University of Michigan, compared 2015 to the golden age of the American car industry. Think of 1955, a record sales year, and a time in which well over 90 percent of the vehicles sold in the U.S. were manufactured by American companies, Lewis said. Even taking into account the number of foreign versus American car purchases, Clintons claim is reasonable because foreign car sales count as part of the auto industry, said Clifford Winston, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Foreign cars have been a growing part of the U.S. auto market since the 1980s. But it might not be fair to take her claim as proof of the long-term health of American manufacturers, Winston said. While the bailout resurrected struggling American auto manufacturers, its possible that it just stalled the companies eventual decline as consumers choose foreign cars instead. He also noted potential future threats from ride-sharing services and self-driving cars. Let us not get too excited about one or even a few years of successes with this industry that has been extremely turbulent and repeatedly rescued by the government, Winston said. All the while, the Detroit share has gone down. So that tells you something that any given year still may mask long-term issues. This is partially reflected in employment data. Employment among car dealers has in fact returned to its pre-recession high of about 1.2 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But employment in the motor vehicle and parts manufacturing sector hasnt completely recovered. About 1.3 million people worked in this sector in the early 2000s; that figure dropped to about 620,000 at the height of the recession in 2009, and it has risen to about 920,000 in early 2016. But for the factories that made it out of the recession, all is well, Belzowski said. U.S. vehicle production in 2015 was the eighth-largest in history, at 11.9 million. Thats high and almost double production in 2009 but still not quite as high as it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some industry analystsexpect the good times to keep coming for the next few years, with 2016 breaking more records, according to theDetroit Free Press. Its a great time to be in the automobile business, and its particularly sweet for those who lived through the dark days of 2009 and 2010, said IHS Automotive analyst Tom Libby. Our ruling Clinton said, We just had the best year for the auto industry in America in history. With sales figures that exceed the pre-recession high, 2015 was a great year for the auto industry, including American manufacturers. This high point should be taken with a grain of salt because it might mask long-term issues with American manufacturers, especially given foreign manufacturers growing market share. Clintons statement is nearly accurate but requires that extra bit of context, so we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1280 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republicans repeatedly tell us our schools would be safer if we put guns in the hands of teachers so they can defend our precious little snowflakes from any and all threats. But sometimes, you have to wonder what would have happened had a gun been introduced to a situation especially if the threat in question is the educator the GOP wants to arm.Mary Hastings, a 63-year-old teacher at Ozen High School in Texas, was arrested for assault Friday after horrifying video surfaced showing her beating an African-American student. Hastings, who is white, can be seen (apparently) accusing the student of interfering with another student s graduation. She then calls the boy idiot ass as she throws the unnamed (and most importantly, noncombative) African-American student s papers off of his desk and hits him in the head repeatedly. When he asks why she did that, she mocks him because that s apparently what adults do these days.Hastings was removed from the classroom and placed on paid administrative leave. She was released on $2,500 bond and slapped with a misdemeanor assault charge. In a statement, Beaumont Independent School District s Special Assistant to the Superintendent, Nakisha Burns, explained that the teacher would be terminated and vowed that such abuse would not be tolerated:The Beaumont Independent School District can confirm that an Ozen High School teacher was arrested today for physically assaulting a student. The conduct was substantiated by video footage viewed by BISD police and administration. The District is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our students. BISD does not condone employees abusing any child and will not tolerate such conduct. The teacher was immediately removed from the classroom and placed on administrative leave pending action on her contract.If this is the sort of person the GOP wants to arm, it is certainly a chilling thought. What would have happened, for instance, if she had a gun in her desk and perceived him as a threat? Watch the attack below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCxZnMuQHA4Featured image via screengrab | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1281 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • Voting begins in a few hours in the United States. Polls show a tight race nationally and in swing states, though early voting data bodes well for Hillary Clinton. We boarded Donald J. Trump’s plane for an inside look at his last stand. He’s betting big on less educated white voters. And even if he loses, his campaign’s legacy will live on, in the form of emboldened extremists. Here’s our live coverage of the last hours of the race. We’re offering unlimited access to NYTimes. com for the election, from now through Thursday morning. _____ • Hong Kong is bracing for street protests and tough questions about the independence of its courts after China barred two city politicians from taking their seats in the legislature. The move could open an era in which Hong Kong’s elected officials can be punished if they fail to meet a vague standard of political loyalty to the central government. _____ • China’s new cybersecurity law gives the authorities far greater control over the internet as of next summer. Its requirements — including real names for messaging services and security checks in the finance and communication industries — are raising concerns about freedom of speech and barriers to foreign businesses. _____ • Australia will not legalize marriage anytime soon. A bill that would have allowed for a plebiscite on the issue was shot down in Parliament over the $140 million cost and concerns that it would become a platform for hate speech. Polls show around 70 percent of Australians want marriage equality, and many supporters of legalization want action in Parliament, not a nonbinding plebiscite. _____ • Heavy smog continues to choke New Delhi, where schools are closed and emergency measures are in place to improve air quality that is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Asked where she lived, a New Delhi resident said, “a gas chamber. †_____ • The Philippine Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether President Rodrigo Duterte may transfer the remains of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the country’s former dictator, to a heroes’ cemetery in Manila. The justices have another Duterte case on the docket: a senator who has often been critical of him has asked the court for an order to stop him from retaliating with verbal attacks, which have included speeches in which he called her a “dirty woman†and discussed her private life. • Warner Bros. a division of Time Warner, is often in the shadow of its sibling HBO. Kevin Tsujihara, above right, the film studio’s chief executive, wants to change all that. He is on pace to deliver record operating profit and may have a hit with the new J. K. Rowling film, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. †• China will release its balance of trade figures — how its exports and imports compare — for October, offering another data point for the health of the country’s economy. • The Sotheby’s auction house reported a loss of $54 million in the third quarter, citing a slowdown in the art market and the purchase of an advisory business. • U. S. markets surged on election news, and the dollar was up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, was to a third term in an election that many disaffected voters simply ignored. [The Wall Street Journal] • A German sailing couple, who were seized and held for ransom eight years ago by Somali pirates, were reported to have been abducted again in dangerous waters near the Philippines. [The New York Times] • Japanese government investigators raided the offices of a national advertising giant, Dentsu, after the death of a young woman it employed was attributed to overwork. [The Asahi Shimbun] • China’s a sleek fighter, demonstrates the country’s growing power as a military force and an arms maker. [Foreign Policy] • The scandal engulfing South Korea’s presidency was uncovered because of a card game in Macau. [The Washington Post] • Mikheil Saakashvili, a former president of Georgia, quit his post in Ukraine’s government and accused the Ukrainian president of blocking efforts to fight corruption. [The New York Times] • The British prime minister, Theresa May, offered improved visa arrangements to India in trade talks meant to bolster ties ahead of the “Brexit. †[The New York Times] • Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U. S. attorney general, died at age 78. She played a major role in some of the most divisive episodes of the presidency of Bill Clinton. • The world’s youngest chess grandmaster, Sergey Karjakin of Russia, is about to challenge the reigning world champion in New York. • A new study finds that whale songs need to be felt as well as heard. The sounds are accompanied by vibrations that course hundreds if not thousands of feet through the water, possibly enhancing communication. • A Chinese Paralympic champion was nowhere to be seen at the finish of the New York City Marathon. Turned out her wheelchair had blown a tire at Mile 13 — so three people, aided by a translation app, stepped in to help. “It really was a cool New York moment,†one said. Britons have been saying a lot of goodbyes in the past few months. They voted to leave the European Union. The prime minister resigned. The leading figures of the “Brexit†campaign departed the government. And through all this, the news media outside Britain found one expression that worked in multiple languages: “English leave. †It’s a play on “taking French leave,†which the British use to mean departing abruptly — supposedly a reference to the French manner of leaving a social function without saying goodbye. Such nationalist expressions abounded around the 19th century, when rival nations in a disunited Europe settled scores in wars, revolutions and slights. But the Germans also pick on the Poles for evaporating from parties, which the British call an “Irish goodbye. †(The German weekly “Die Zeit†even graphed the zingers and .) Of course, the slaps don’t end with departures. Germans can mention, though rarely, “English shopping†— that is, theft, as in the colonial past. And references to historic battles get drawn into the mix, too. So the French could say, depending on how Brexit works out, “c’est un vrai coup de Trafalgar,†a true Trafalgar blow, reminiscent of their decisive defeat by the English in 1805. Palko Karasz contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Accessing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1282 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. banking lobbyists said on Wednesday they disagree with presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a wholesale repeal of President Barack Obama’s financial reform law, even though they share his view that it is overly burdensome. U.S. banks do want changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank law but after spending millions of dollars to bring themselves into compliance with it, they are wary of Trump’s call for it to be essentially scrapped. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, vowed on Tuesday to dismantle most of the law. “Dodd Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function,†he told Reuters in an interview. Richard Hunt, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, a Washington trade group, said he appreciated Trump’s interest in changes to the financial regulatory system. “It certainly needs some perfecting,†he said. “To have an outright repeal of Dodd-Frank I don’t think would serve the banking industry or consumers,†Hunt said, adding that it would create a messy regulatory environment. For instance, he said repealing Dodd-Frank would end the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by the law, and it would be unclear which agency would take over its oversight of consumer products such as mortgages. The wariness within the industry about gutting Dodd-Frank came as critics of Wall Street slammed Trump’s proposal as a gift to big banks. Congress passed Dodd-Frank in response to the 2007-2009 financial crisis. In addition to creating the new consumer agency, the law restricted banks’ ability to make risky investments and gave regulators new power over Wall Street executives’ pay. In addition to seeking legislative changes to Dodd-Frank, the U.S. financial industry has spent much of the last six years wielding its clout in a quieter way by trying to push regulatory agencies to implement the law in ways they consider manageable. Banks still want tweaks to the rules, such as simpler capital requirements | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1283 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Speaker Mike Johnson Say Women Have a 'Duty To Birth at Least One Able-Bodied Worker'? Claim summaries: The alleged quote can be tied to a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee in May 2021.
contextual information: Following the Oct. 25, 2023, election of U.S. Representative Mike Johnson, R-La., to the post of Speaker of the House, a meme attributing the statement "Every American woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker" to him went viral: meme Snopes has not identified any instance of Johnson saying these words. They instead appear to stem from an inaccurate paraphrase of a statement Johnson made about Roe v. Wade. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, and others, posted the seed that spawned that meme on social media following Johnson's election: others posted During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Mike Johnson attacks Roe v. Wade, insisting that if only women were compelled to bring more "able-bodied workers" into the world, Republicans wouldnt need to slash Social Security and Medicare. pic.twitter.com/RGzg09TYEW pic.twitter.com/RGzg09TYEW House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) October 25, 2023 October 25, 2023 "During a House Judiciary Committee hearing," the post read, "Rep. Mike Johnson attack[ed] Roe v. Wade, insisting that if only women were compelled to bring more 'able-bodied workers' into the world, Republicans wouldnt need to slash Social Security and Medicare." This is a fair characterization of arguments made by Johnson during a May 11, 2022, House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing that discussed, in part, Supreme Court ethics. post hearing Johnson shared this excerpt to his official YouTube channel in the form of a video titled "Congressman Johnson on Overturning Roe v. Wade: I will not yield" on the day of the hearing. Viral versions of the video circulating in October and November 2023 omitted the middle paragraph of Johnson's remarks, which are shown below: a video Roe v. Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America. Period. Think about it. Let it settle on you. As a result, the lives of more than 63 million American children have been lost. Think about the staggering implications of that. I was born in January, 1972. I'm just a year older [...] than Roe. [...] 63 million represents somewhere between one half and one third of my entire generation. My high school class should have been almost twice as large as it was [...]. If you're under the age of 50, your class should have been twice as larger, maybe a third larger than it was. Your classmates were not allowed to be born. You think about the implications of that on the economy. We're all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn't be going upside down and toppling over like this. Listen, [...] Roe was a terrible corruption of America's constitutional jurisprudence. Viral posts on social media following the shorter Oct. 25 release of the video were quick to paraphrase the statement in ways similar to the meme form in circulation now. One representative post from Oct. 28 on X that had received over 500,000 views at the time of this reporting compared Johnson to Chinese President Xi: post Chinese President Xi: "Every ... woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker." Wait... That wasn't Xi. Or any communist. That was GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. NPR affiliate Red River Radio KDAQ, which serves East Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and parts of Mississippi, quoted a local activist who repeated the above characterization of the quote as if it were fact in an Oct. 31, 2021, story: serves quoted Local LGBTQ activist Alana Oldham tells me the mood has changed lately, into a climate of fear for some. Im 53 years old and Ive been out as a lesbian since I was 18 and Ive never once been afraid for my safety until 2023 happened. Oldham cites one remark in particular by Johnson that left the greatest impression on her: Im looking at this quote from Mike Johnson where he says every American woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker. And that is just, thats Handmaids Tale level scary stuff. remark duty to birth The KDAQ story, which repeated a second-hand characterization, is the only media source attributing the quote as it appears in memes to Mike Johnson. Because the underlying source that serves as the basis for that statement does not use these words, the claim that he said them is False. About Us. Red River Radio, https://www.redriverradio.org/about-us. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023. Chinese President Xi: Every ... Woman Has a Duty to Birth at Least One Able-Bodied Worker. X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/iche_me/status/1718251006092324882. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023. Congressman Johnson on Overturning Roe v. Wade: I Will Not Yield. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdyifVvEO-w. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023. During a House Judiciary Committee Hearing, Rep. Mike Johnson Attacks Roe v. Wade, Insisting That If Only Women Were Compelled to Bring More Able-Bodied Workers into the World, Republicans Wouldnt Need to Slash Social Security and Medicare. X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1717183190463336780. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023. Markup: H.R. 6943, the Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022" | Part 1. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Um3ZwhDKU. Accessed 6 Nov. 2023. Speaker Johnsons Shifting Sands of Public Opinion. Red River Radio, 31 Oct. 2023, https://www.redriverradio.org/2023-10-31/speaker-johnsons-shifting-sands-of-public-opinion.
| 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1284 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: As Spanish police wielded batons and fired rubber bullets at crowds attempting to vote in Catalonia s banned independence referendum on Sunday, the region s own police force gave many voters a much gentler reception. In Catalonia s pro-independence heartland, among the farming towns of Osona county north of Barcelona, the Catalan force made little attempt to remove people from polling stations despite being tasked with the same court order to shut them down. Local courts received several complaints on Sunday against the Catalan police accusing them of inactivity and failing to close polling stations, despite the court order, the region s High Court said in a statement. In Sant Pere and Osona s capital of Vic, crowds waited in orderly queues and cast their ballots in school halls, though the mood was jittery as photos of bloodied voters circulated via social media from the cities of Barcelona and Girona. More than 840 people were injured during Sunday s police crackdown, Catalan officials said. Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, however, praised the police for carrying out their duties and upholding the law. In Sant Pere, children ran along the street playing tag, young people passed around barbecued kebabs and flagons of red wine, and pensioners at a retirement home nearby sat by windows and waved Catalan flags. If we don t win today, we will never be able to do it. This is the opportunity, Ramon Jordana, a 92-year-old former taxi driver said as he dropped his vote into a ballot box that organizers had smuggled into the town in the dead of night. At the polling station in Sant Pere, a town of some 2,500 people close to the Pyrenees which symbolically declared independence from Spain in 2012, voters arrived before sunrise and Jordana cast the first vote at 9 a.m. Officers from Catalonia s regional police, the Mossos d Esquadra, had tried to enter Sant Pere and Vic s polling stations before voting began but crowds clustered around the entrances to stop them. They withdrew to applause and cheers. We won t use force to enter, but we ll stay outside all day in case at some point we can, one of the officers in Sant Pere told Reuters afterwards. He asked not to be identified. The two officers in Sant Pere chatted casually with locals outside the polling station, and one of them posed with a child for a photo. After a second attempt to enter the voting center, the crowd resisted and they retreated around a street corner. In Osona s overwhelmingly separatist-controlled municipalities, opinion polls show support for independence tops 80 percent on average, around double the overall support among Catalonia s 7.5 million population. The referendum has been declared illegal by Rajoy s central government in Madrid, which says the constitution states the country is indivisible, and it has dispatched police across Catalonia to seize ballot boxes and prevent people voting. However, national police and the Mossos have taken very different approaches, despite Spain s state prosecutor telling Mossos recently that they had been put under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid. The Mossos are held in great affection by Catalans, especially after they hunted down Islamists accused of staging coordinated attacks in Barcelona in August which killed 16 people. In contrast, the Civil Guard national police were branded Rajoy s thugs on Twitter on Sunday. National police unions said officers had carried out an impeccable intervention to preserve the constitution and called the Mossos inaction scandalous . The national police are disappointed and indignant ... The Mossos presence has been insufficient, deliberately weak and embarrassingly neutral, the unions said in a statement. In Sant Pere, before voting got underway, the town s mayor, Jordi Fabrega, asked a crowd of about 200 people to guard the booth s entrance all day and to resist peacefully any attempt by police to enter. The moment we leave it unguarded, they will come, Fabrega said. The first count of Sant Pere s vote showed 80 percent turnout with 97 percent of voters supporting independence. High turnout will be key to legitimizing a yes vote, which the Catalan government says would lead to a declaration of independence from the regional parliament within 48 hours. Locals blocked streets with vans and construction trucks as word spread that national police, who have been drafted into Catalonia in their thousands, were en route to raid the polling station. If the police really want to get the ballot boxes, they will get them, said one Sant Pere voter, 66-year-old Carles, who declined to give his surname as he was worried the Spanish government would come after him. In the end, no national police turned up. Organizers said it had been no easy task to get to this point. Joan Vaque Casas, Sant Pere s head coordinator, said he had received a text message at about 2 a.m. to meet at a secret location to pick up the ballot box and voting papers. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1285 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed legislation placing a permanent ban on states’ taxing Internet access, sending the measure to President Barack Obama for signing into law. By a vote of 75-20, the Senate gave final approval to a bill toughening enforcement of U.S. duties on foreign goods, which contains the permanent extension of the “Internet Tax Freedom Act.†The measure also would ban some taxes on digital goods and services and will put an end to a series of temporary extensions on the tax prohibitions. “Most Americans pay $0 in taxes to connect to the Internet. And thanks to a bill that passed today, you will never have to pay taxes just to get online, or pay more taxes for goods and services just because they’re bought online,†Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. The legislation, however, fails to address calls for better enforcement of state sales tax collections related to Internet purchases, something that brick-and-mortar businesses have long sought. Separate legislation on this could be considered by Congress later this year, according to Senate aides. Most U.S. states have imposed sales taxes on online purchases, but the actual collection is spotty. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1286 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Amy Roloff Is Not Dead, Despite 'Sad News' Death Hoax on Facebook and YouTube Claim summaries: An obscure Facebook page falsely claimed in a video that one of the stars of the reality TV show "Little People, Big World" had died.
contextual information: On Nov. 19, 2022, the Facebook page Video Pivot posted a video with the caption, "With a heavy heart at the tearful farewell to 'Dwarf' Amy Roloff, goodbye Amy Roloff." However, Roloff was not dead, nor was there any indication she had just experienced a stroke, as the narrator in the video claimed. This was nothing more than a death hoax. Roloff is one of the stars of the TLC reality TV series, "Little People, Big World," which has often been referred to by fans with the acronym, "LPBW." The Facebook page that posted the death hoax was managed from Indonesia. Its purpose may have been "like-farming," something that the U.S. Better Business Bureau (BBB) has warned about in the past. If the page is able to build up a large following without being removed by the platform, it's possible that it will be sold on the black market in the future. It may also be stripped of its past posts and start promoting scammy products. warned As for the misleading video about Roloff, the thumbnail was doctored to show her ex-husband, Matt, holding a picture of her next to men carrying a casket. As of Nov. 21, the video had been viewed more than 53,000 times. Note: It's unclear what the photograph originally showed, as a reverse image search for the men carrying the casket didn't find any matches for the picture. Days earlier, a video was posted to YouTube that also falsely claimed Roloff had died. The video had the title, "10 minutes ago / We announce very sad news about 'dwarf' Amy Roloff, She has been confirmed as." We found no shortage of these YouTube videos, either. Other examples of misleading YouTube videos from past months that we found were titled as"Official News/ R.I.P/ Amy Roloff Passed Away Last Night At The Hospital After A Health Battle," "Sad News Amy Roloff Is Pass Away Expected Soon Family Prepare To Say Goodbye," and "Sad News Amy Roloff Is Pass Away Expected Soon Family Prepare To Say Goodbye." One good way to check whether a celebrity has truly died is to check the person's verified presence on social media. While Roloff hasn't posted on her Facebook or Instagram pages since Nov. 18, we note again that the misleading YouTube videos we found were all published prior to that date. We found no credible reporting that said anything about Roloff recently experiencing a stroke or dying. We previously published another story that debunked a death hoax for the Roloff couple's son, Zach.We also reported about misleading online ads that claimed the cast of "Little People, Big World" had experienced a "sudden loss." story reported "Amy Roloff." Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/amyroloffofficalpage/. "---." Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/amyjroloff/. BBB Tip: Like-Farming Is a Facebook Scam Still Going Strong. 10 June 2020, https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/17149-like-farming-a-facebook-scam-still-going-strong. Grinberg, Emanuella. "Stars of 'Little People, Big World' File for Divorce."CNN.Com, 6 June 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/06/entertainment/matt-amy-roloff-little-people-big-world-split-feat/index.html. Liles, Jordan. "'Little People, Big World' Posts About a 'Loss' Are Misleading." Snopes, 5 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/little-people-big-world-loss-death/. ---. "Zach Roloff Death Hoax: False Suicide Claims Came from Obscure Website." Snopes, 5 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zach-roloff-death-hoax/. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1287 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: When Trump promised to drain the swamp, he surely wasn t talking about the vile, horrible place that is his Twitter timeline. On Thursday, The Donald took a break from attacking Vanity Fair for being mean to him by telling the truth to take aim at the president and apparently, his aim was so terrible that he ended up attacking the English language instead.Once again railing against the horribly unfair way people are focusing on the confirmed fact that not only did Russia interfere with our election with the intent of getting him elected something he asked them to do in front of millions of people while campaigning but Vladimir Putin (a man Trump once said he hoped would be his new best friend ) personally directed the operation, Trump decided to attack the White House next over the revelations. The media tries so hard to make my move to the White House, as it pertains to my business, so complex when actually it isn t! he wrote, completely neglecting to mention that he is a walking, talking conflict of interest.The media tries so hard to make my move to the White House, as it pertains to my business, so complex when actually it isn't! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2016But it was his next tweet the one he deleted that provided The Internet with the day s entertainment:Trump, of course, deleted the tweet and sent out the corrected version of his attack on the White House for its decision to not get involved in the discussion until after the election (can you imagine Trump s reaction if Obama had pointed out that Putin was doing The Donald a bunch of favors before we voted?), but the internet is an unforgiving place if one is as stupid as Donald Trump, who still refuses to concede that Russia did indeed hack the election.If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2016Naturally, people are not willing to let him live the general stupidity of the tweet down:@realDonaldTrump If the Russians helped Hillary, & you won popular vote by 3m, but she won the election you would've started a civil war. Rahul Sood (@rahulsood) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump that's the difference between you and @POTUS. He usually thinks about the consequences of his words. You should too. Rahul Sood (@rahulsood) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump Because you would have squealed like a baby and whined about unfairness if hacking had been revealed before the election. The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump The internet is forever, Sport. *wait pic.twitter.com/8SI3NGEOtN Jade Helm Commander (@Anomaly100) December 15, 2016.@realDonaldTrump It breaks my heart to see you so defensive, but sweet Donny, everyone waited until there was a comprehensive CIA report. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump get off twitter and do some real work you bizarre tangerine jizzflute TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) December 15, 2016I actually remember many people complaining when you, @realDonaldTrump, specifically asked Russia to hack Hillary's e-mails. Where were you? David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump This tweet makes way more sense since you fixed the typo! For a second, I was confused & thought you were a fucking idiot! Jon Bershad (@JonBershad) December 15, 2016.@realDonaldTrump is it such a dumb question you had to tweet it twice? They were talking about it for MONTHS. How ab condemning Putin? Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) December 15, 2016@davidjelizondo "why did the White House waite so long to act" must be his short stubby fingers Chris Jackson (@ChrisCJackson) December 15, 2016@MetalOllie @realDonaldTrump Why did he wait so long to learn to spell 'wait'? Judith Sawyer (@JudSawyer) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump waite, didn't you tweet this earlier..? Graham Love (@GLove39) December 15, 2016Just an FYI @realDonaldTrump, "If I really did it, why did it take you so long to catch me?" is what a guilty child says when caught. D. Danger Lieblein (@DouglasLieblein) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump are you admitting something here? Chad Pinkston (@ChadPinkston) December 15, 2016@realDonaldTrump Because dummy you would have been screaming that the White House was interfering with the election. MikeOatway (@MikeOatway1) December 15, 2016It s interesting that Trump chose the phrase waite to complain. It s almost as though he who, once again, very publicly asked Russia to hack his political opponents knew that Vladimir Putin was spearheading an effort to do that and more.Maybe The Donald got the wish he expressed in his 2013 tweet in which he, a hopeful little billionaire, dreamed of being new besties with Vlad Putin:Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow if so, will he become my new best friend? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2013Featured image via Getty Images(Drew Angerer)/screengrab | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1288 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: American Olympians are considering boycotting a world championship event scheduled to be held in Sochi, Russia, in February, a move that would represent the most provocative gesture yet by athletes dissatisfied with how sports officials have responded to the continuing Russian doping scandal. American athletes who compete in bobsled and skeleton have circulated memos laying out reasons to avoid participating in the world championships in Sochi, the site of the last Winter Olympics and of elaborate, cheating. The athletes have cited concerns about doping control, personal safety and information security. The correspondence, some of which was obtained by The New York Times, indicates that the athletes have the support of the United States Olympic Committee. That organization has not taken a strong public stand on Russia’s systemic doping as it seeks to curry favor with global sports leaders in a bid to hold the 2024 Summer Games in Los Angeles. “This has been passed down the line from the very highest level of sport, and now it’s fallen into the lap of athletes,†said Kyle Tress, an American skeleton racer. “There’s tremendous support to skip this event, and I think it’s the right decision. †The United States Olympic Committee initially declined to comment. On Sunday, after this article was published online, a spokesman wrote that the organization supported athletes’ rights to choose when and where to compete. “The U. S. O. C. does not, and will not, support blanket boycotts of any events,†the spokesman added. “Any decisions our athletes make will be supported independently from our bid for the 2024 Summer Games, which is independent and unrelated to these events. †In recent days, Mr. Tress and other members of his sport’s athlete advisory committee voted unanimously to recommend that if the competition was not relocated, American athletes should boycott the 2017 world championships. That event is key in determining rankings ahead of the following year’s Winter Olympics, to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In May, a longtime chief of Russia’s antidoping laboratory, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, told The New York Times of a cheating operation coordinated by the Russian government at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Top Russian athletes doped during the competition, he said, and had their urine replaced with clean urine for drug testing. An investigation commissioned by the World Agency verified the account, with its report released in July, and results of another investigation due this week are expected to address which athletes benefited from the cheating. “The fact that nothing has been done about the Sochi scandal and the fact that we’re still going to race there — it doesn’t make us feel secure, or that they’re taking the situation seriously,†said Katie Uhlaender, an American skeleton racer. At the Sochi Games, Ms. Uhlaender placed fourth, finishing 0. 04 of a second behind the bronze medal winner, Elena Nikitina of Russia. Ms. Nikitina’s urine sample was among those with which Dr. Rodchenkov said he had tampered, leaving Ms. Uhlaender wondering if she deserved a medal. This year, numerous Olympic medals have been stripped from Russian athletes for doping offenses at the Games in London in 2012 and in Beijing in 2008 — but not at Sochi. Athletes who are advocating a Sochi boycott hope that the World Agency’s publication of a final investigative report on Friday will prompt a stronger response from the International Olympic Committee and the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, the sport’s international governing body. Athletes are lobbying for the championships to be moved to a site outside Russia and for officials to revisit the standings of the 2014 Games as warranted. (The I. O. C. has appointed a disciplinary commission focused on Sochi, but it has not taken action ahead of the inquiry report expected this week.) “Perhaps after the report comes out, they’ll listen,†Mr. Tress said. “There’s politics and money and sponsors involved, but this is an opportunity to come out in favor of clean sport. And they’ve missed that opportunity. †In July, after WADA published an initial report detailing cheating in Sochi, the I. O. C. provided guidance to sports organizations planning to host events in Russia. “Because of the detailed references to the manipulation of samples during the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014,†the committee wrote in a news release, “the I. O. C. asks all International Olympic Winter Sports Federations to freeze their preparations for major events in Russia, such as world championships, World Cups or other major international competitions under their responsibility, and to actively look for alternative organizers. †Nonetheless, plans for February’s championships have moved forward. The I. O. C. has not publicly clarified its guidelines, and the matter is expected to be discussed at the Olympic committee’s executive board meetings in Switzerland this week. The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation did not respond to emails requesting comment. “Sochi is in Russia, and it’s the place where the cheating happened,†Ms. Uhlaender said. “I’m confused at how the I. O. C. said what it said, and we’re still holding our world championships there. †Such confusion has transcended nationalities. “It’s not just the U. S. athletes,†said Travis T. Tygart, chief executive of the United States Agency. “Athletes around the world are concerned about this, and it’s a last resort,†he added, referring to the consideration of boycotting competitions. Lizzy Yarnold of Britain, who won a gold medal in skeleton at the Sochi Games, said in October that she was considering skipping the event in Sochi in February. Those traveling to Russia have concerns extending beyond drug testing, too, after recent Russian cyberattacks on WADA and Usada, and the theft of athletes’ private medical information, raised issues. As groups of athletes organize, they are increasingly forcing national governing bodies to support their cause — an uncomfortable position for United States sports officials, who need the votes of global Olympic officials to win the right to host the 2024 Games. The race to hold that competition has narrowed to three bidders, with Los Angeles and Paris considered ahead of Budapest. It was unclear how drug testing at the Sochi competition would be handled. WADA has decertified Russia’s national antidoping agency, making the country ineligible to hold an Olympic competition. That ineligibility, some antidoping officials said, should carry over to other international sporting events. “So long as Russia is noncompliant, they should not have events there,†said Thorhild Widvey, a politician from Norway who sits on WADA’s executive committee. Craig Reedie, WADA’s president, who is also a longtime I. O. C. member and has been criticized for seeming to run the regulatory agency more as politician than policeman, expressed eagerness last month for Russia to return to good standing. He invoked the country’s willingness to host major international competitions — something fewer and fewer countries are vying for. Mr. Tress said, “There hasn’t been a sufficient response from people in leadership positions, and there’s a lot of frustration. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1289 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On October 25, 2017, the liberal Boston Globe ran an article that featured 3 GOP candidates who plan to challenge fake Indian Elizabeth Warren for her Senate seat in 2018. There s only one major problem with the article Many people have no clue who these 3 candidates are, but they do know who the pro-Trump, conservative candidate Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is.Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai made a name for himself long before he announced his run against the liberal, lying, darling of the left Senator Elizabeth Warren.On February 25, 2017, Dr. Ayyadurai announced his candidacy for the GOP Senate nomination in Massachusetts:Today, ShivaRatri, when Light overcame Darkness, we launched my campaign for US SENATE against @SenWarren. Defend the American Dream! Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) February 25, 2017Time to take fight right into the belly of the beast in MA, the epi-center of Fake News, Fake History & Fake Science! @nntaleb @Cernovich Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) February 25, 2017Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is a conservative, a successful businessman, an ardent supporter of President Trump, and is best known for his invention of the email when he was only 14-years-old. Recently, Elizabeth Warren came under fire, after she was caught by the Boston Herald for making up allegations of sexual misconduct by a Harvard professor, where Warren worked after lying on her application, claiming Native American heritage, to place herself in line in front of other applicants for the job.Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai made national news when mocked Warren by sending her a DNA kit for her birthday, saying it was a gift from a real Indian to a fake Indian .I'm deeply saddened @SenWarren refused my thoughtful (gift-wrapped) Birthday Gift: the 23&me DNA Test Kit. Most unfortunate! #FakeIndian pic.twitter.com/BI7F20wDW8 Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) July 2, 2017Curiously, even after all of the news Ayyadurai made with his gift to Warren, and considering his impressive accomplishments as a private citizen thus far, the same Boston Globe writer, Jim O Sullivan who wrote a hit piece on Dr. Ayyadurai in August of 2017, seems to have forgotten to include Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, in his piece written only two months later, on October 25, 2017, about 3 of Elizabeth Warren s GOP challengers in the upcoming senate race.Now look at this in "liberal" @BostonGlobe. The "darkie" candidate Shiva doesn't exist. THEY are THE White Supremacist. @DineshDSouza pic.twitter.com/clX3vGyoRb Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) October 30, 2017He s the inventor of email and polymath, holds four degrees from MIT, is a world-renowned systems scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur. Yet, somehow, the same Boston Globe writer, Jim O Sullivan, who clearly knew Ayyadurai was running against Warren way back on August 14, 2017, when he wrote a hit piece on him for daring to speak in defense of free speech rally in Boston, neglected to mention that Ayyadurai is one of the GOP candidates running against Warren.The Boston Globe got slammed on Twitter for their obvious omission of the brilliant and badass GOP Senate hopeful:Why doesn't @BostonGlobe like brown people? Maybe they only like faux Indians. Robin McWilliams (@Queen0fcups) October 30, 2017I am appalled! VA Shiva announced his candidacy long ago! The Globe is well aware of it! marie (@singsandsews) October 30, 2017Here s Dr. Ayyadurai addressing the graduates that leftist Harvard University educates, that go on to become the Swamp of Washington D.C.:Cambridge Team Shiva 4 Senate Live in Harvard Square https://t.co/MASgHbNkeq Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) October 29, 2017From Ayyadurai s website about who he is and why he s running for Senate:I am running for United States Senate from Massachusetts to be a 21st century Senator. We stand at the crossroads where we can either head into a Golden Age or into the Darkness. Incredible innovation and solutions, which have been created by everyday Americans, already exist for energy, education, health, affordable housing and much more. What stands in the way are the old guard of career politicians, political hacks, lawyer-lobbyists and academics who pervade Washington and local government with corruption and crony capitalism that chokes and suffocates these innovations and solutions from reaching us. America becomes great when innovators, entrepreneurs, working people with skills and those committed to using common sense and reason run this country. The Founders of America were blacksmiths, engineers, soldiers, architects, entrepreneurs, scientists they actually worked for a living and produced through their labor, products, and services to help other citizens.I stand before you as someone who is a personification of the American Dream. My parents and I left the caste system of India in 1970 where we were considered low caste Untouchables and Deplorables . We first settled in Paterson, NJ and I went through the public school system where I was fortunate to have come across incredibly dedicated teachers, coaches and mentors.Feel free to DONATE to Dr. Shiva Ayyardurai s campaign HERE. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1290 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Cambodia s main opposition party has given up hope of escaping a ban when the Supreme Court rules on Thursday on a suit brought by the government of authoritarian leader Hun Sen, a senior leader said. The government called for the ban after arresting Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) leader Kem Sokha on Sept. 3 and charging him with treason for an alleged plot to take over the Southeast Asian country with help from the United States. Hun Sen s opponents say the charges are politically motivated to eliminate Kem Sokha from next year s election so the strongman, who is currently the world s longest serving prime minister, can extend his more than 32 years in power. The judge who heads the Supreme Court, Dith Munty, is a member of the permanent committee of the ruling Cambodia People s Party (CPP) and a longtime Hun Sen loyalist. There is no chance whatsoever for CNRP to escape dissolution, said Mu Sochua, a deputy of Kem Sokha who fled abroad last month saying she feared arrest in a widening crackdown by the government. November 16, 2017 will mark the end of true democracy in Cambodia, she told Reuters, adding that the ruling party would face local condemnation and possible international sanctions. Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has held power since 1985 by intimidating and dividing his enemies and through legal proceedings that have occasionally led to political bans on rivals at critical moments. Next year s election was shaping as possibly the biggest challenge to Hun Sen s leadership, after his opponents unified behind the CNRP. Former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who fled to France in 2015 to escape a jail term for defamation, announced on Wednesday he was returning to the party that he quit in February over fears his membership would lead to it being banned. The veteran opponent of Hun Sen said the party would be dissolved anyway so his membership now made no difference. A government official said Sam Rainsy s return would only provide further justification for dissolving the party. He is not mature. He has no political philosophy and doctrine, but only anger and hatred, Huy Vannak, undersecretary of state at the Interior Ministry, told Reuters. He also noted that the CNRP had not defended its position in court. A party lawyer, Sam Sokong, said there had been no point because the case was politically motivated. Western countries have condemned the government s crackdown on the opposition, civil rights groups and independent media and have called for the release of Kem Sokha to allow credible elections next year. U.S. President Donald Trump s senior Asia aide expressed strong concerns to Cambodia s government about the detention of Kem Sokha and restrictions on civil society and the press on Tuesday. Hun Sen has brushed off Western criticism, though he also lauded Trump as a kindred spirit this week and urged him to rein in subordinates critical of Cambodia. Hun Sen is also increasingly close to China, Cambodia s biggest donor. The main evidence presented against Kem Sokha is a video from 2013 in which he talks about a plan to gain power with the help of Americans. He says he was talking about democratic politics. Cambodia s capital, Phnom Penh, was calm on Wednesday. But metal barriers were set up outside the gold-embellished Supreme Court and police have been told to watch for trouble. Few in the capital wanted to give any opinion on the ruling or the possible verdict. The court will decide. We cannot do anything, said Kou Menglay, a taxi driver. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1291 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Man uses Trump victory as excuse to call ex-girlfriend 10-11-16 A MAN has decided the US election result is sufficiently insane to justify calling his ex-girlfriend. Martin Bishop woke up yesterday to news of Donald Trump’s election, and thought it was a solid excuse to call his ex, Donna Sheridan, and ask her what she thought. Bishop said, “I tried to call her after Brexit but I just got her answer machine. “ Today I got through though, which has nothing to do with the fact I’ve got a new number. “ I asked her if everything was OK and if she’d seen the election result and she said she had. Then there was a bit of a silence so I asked her if she’d come across that cordless drill I couldn’t find when I moved out. “ She said she hadn’t, so then I asked her if that dipshit barman she was screwing now even knew what a Black and Decker was and then she hung up on me. “ Fucking Trump.” | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1292 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Remember back in May when Donald Trump said he d make California, New York and Maryland compatible (and that he d win them)? Well it s now mid-October and he can barely hang on to red states Utah, Georgia, Arizona and even Texas the latest poll out of the Lone Star state has him leading by three points. Romney won Texas by 19 points in 2012.There is one state in particular that is leaning towards Hillary Clinton Arizona.The Grand Canyon state, home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer, and the god-awful SB 1070, should be a dead set win for Trump, whose anti-immigration rhetoric has propelled him to where he is today. However, recent polling out of the state suggests that Clinton has the upper hand, and for good reason.According to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll released just before the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by five points, 39-34 percent. Gary Johnson took six percent while Jill Stein took one percent. Twenty percent remain undecided.However, when pressed on how those who lean one way or the other would solidly vote, as of right now, both Clinton and Trump expand their lead:When including leaners in the sample, the number of undecideds drops to 8.1 percent. Clinton s support rises to 43.3 percent while Trump s support increases to 37.8 percent. Johnson gets 6.5 percent while Stein gets 4.3 percent. The margin of error for the sample including the leaners is plus or minus 4 percentage points.In Nate Silver s FiveThirtyEight general election projection, Clinton has a 58 percent chance of winning Arizona s 11 electoral votes, compared to Trump s 42 percent chance. In the last 48 polls conducted in the state, Clinton holds the edge in 26, Trump in 19, and a tie in three.It is because of these shocking poll results that the Clinton campaign is pumping more than $2 million in advertising in the state and sending a slew of high profile surrogates including First Lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders all across the state.The last time Arizona went blue was in 1996, when voters chose Bill Clinton over Senator Bob Dole by 2 percent.Imagine if Arizona, a state most affected by illegal immigration, stuck it to Trump on election day? Arizona is proving to have a rich, culturally diverse electorate, buoyed by Latino and Hispanic voters who don t take too kindly to Trump s xenophobic, racist tones.Ana Navarro was right if Trump thought insulting Mexicans and Hispanics was the right move, he s going to have one hell of a wake up call in November.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1293 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: No, Kamala Harris Didn't Tweet, 'We Need to Focus on Defunding the Police' Claim summaries: The tweet boosted a false claim about the 2020 Democratic vice presidential nominee.
contextual information: In early October 2020, Snopes readers asked about the authenticity of an image of a tweet circulating on social media platforms that was mocked up to look like it had been written by Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris: The post doesn't appear on Harris's Twitter timeline on Sept. 9, 2020 (the date on the tweet above), nor does it appear on Politiwoops, a database of deleted tweets from politicians run by the non-profit news outlet ProPublica. timeline Politiwoops Furthermore, one would expect that if the vice presidential candidate on a major political party ticket stated she wanted to focus on "defunding the police rather than supporting them," it would be major news. We found no stories from any reputable news organization reporting it. The idea of defunding the police came from nationwide racial justice protests in the U.S. in the spring and summer of 2020, sparked by high-profile deaths of Black Americans while in police custody, including George Floyd in Minneapolis, and Breonna Taylor, in Kentucky. Activists advocated for taking money from local government budgets allocated to police departments and investing instead in programs like community services and mental health crisis response teams. programs like In a June 2020 interview with The New York Times, Harris stated that, "We do have to reimagine what public safety looks like," but added she didn't want to "get rid" of police departments: interview It is status quo thinking to believe that putting more police on the streets creates more safety. Thats wrong. Its just wrong. You know what creates more safety? Funding public schools, affordable housing, increased homeownership, job skill development, jobs, access to capital for those who want to start small businesses, or who are running small businesses in communities. But, no, were not going to get rid of the police. We all have to be practical. But lets separate out these discussions Her running mate, Joe Biden, also doesn't support defunding the police, although U.S. President Donald Trump has stated otherwise. Biden has stated, "I dont want to defund police departments. I think they need more help, they need more assistance." doesn't support Lee, Jessica."Does Joe Biden Support Defunding Police?"
Snopes.com.29 September 2020. Karma, Roge."Democrats Are Running on the Most Progressive Police Reform Agenda in Modern American History."
Vox.8 September 2020. Lerer, Lisa."Kamala Harris Is Done Explaining Racism."
The New York Times. 10 June 2020. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1294 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Barack Obama will host the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in May for a U.S.-Nordic Leaders Summit, the White House said on Friday. The leaders will discuss terrorism, violent extremism, environmental and nuclear security issues among other topics at the summit on May 13, the White House said in a statement. Obama last met with Nordic leaders during his trip to Sweden in September 2013, the statement said. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1295 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Trump Sons Sell Access to Father for Hunting Trip Fundraiser Claim summaries: An invitation for a fundraising event stated that donors could meet Donald Trump and hunt with his sons.
contextual information: In December 2016, several web sites reported that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, sons of President-elect Donald Trump, were selling access to their father via a fundraising event called "Opening Day 45" scheduled for the day after his inauguration: several reported BREAKING: Donald Trumps Kids Are Selling Access To Their Father For A $1 Million Donation This Is IMPEACHABLE! [DETAILS] The shamelessness of President-elect Donald Trump and his family is limitless and without boundaries. They do not care about the appearance of impropriety or actual impropriety. That is why Trumps sons, Eric and Donald Jr., founded a non-profit organization to funnel money through when they sell access to Trump once he is inaugurated. Indeed, Fascism has come to America in the form of an orange failed businessman with a penchant for using racial slurs. The non-profit the Trump offspring founded is named the Opening Day Foundation, and they are offering Trumps richest supporters the grand opportunity of private access. However, the access comes with a price tag of a cool one million dollars. Individuals who are rich, but not rich enough to attempt to buy a favor from the president, can also purchase time with either of the Trump boys for as little as $25,000. What does one purchase besides time with Trump? Certain packages include pictures and a private reception with the president. Others include a multi-day hunting trip, or a fishing trip with Eric or Donald Jr. Reports that the Trump sons were selling access to their father began on 16 December 2016 when the gossip web site TMZ published a draft of an invitation for the "Opening Day 45" event. The unofficial invitation featured several packages which donors could buy, such as the $1 million "Bald Eagle" package (which included a photo opportunity with the president-elect) or the $500,000 "Grizzly Bear" package (which included a hunting trip with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump): TMZ published The Washington Post reported that the Trump sons were temporarily listed as "hosts" of the event on the "Opening Day 45" web site. However, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that the initial invitation was just a draft and had not been approved by Trump's transition team. Furthermore, Hicks added, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were not involved with the event: reported Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are avid outdoorsman and supporters of conservation efforts, which align with the goals of this event, however they are not involved in any capacity, she said in a statement. Additionally, the President-elect is not aware of the event or the details pertaining to. While Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump may not be involved with the planning of this particular event, they were listed as members of the Board of Directors on paperwork filed to register the non-profit "Opening Day" foundation on 14 December 2016. Again, however, Trump's transition team asserted that Eric and Donald Jr. were included on the foundation's paperwork without their permission: paperwork But transition officials said the Trump sons were listed on the document without their permission and have asked the Texas secretary of state to remove their names. [Mark Brinkerhoff, a spokesman for the event] confirmed that they should not have been named as directors of the Opening Day Foundation. He said that the paperwork filed last week was not the official filing and that new documents would be submitted shortly. Still, he said the Trump brothers were supportive of the foundation and its goals. Eric and Donald Trump Jr.'s level of involvement with the organization is still unclear. A new version of the invitation for "Opening Day 45" published on the event web site on 20 December 2016 listed them as "honorary chairmen" but not organizers or hosts. invitation The photo opportunity with President-elect Donald Trump, as well as the hunting trip with his sons, was also absent from the newer invitation. Instead, donors who spent $1 million on the "Bald Eagle" package would get a private reception with unnamed VIPs and celebrities associated with the event: This version of the invitation is no longer available on the web site, however, which now leads to a "Coming Soon" page. We've reached out to event spokesman Mark Brinkerhoff to clarify some information regarding the event. TMZ. "Donald Trump & Family Celebrate Hunters and Fisherman at Inauguration Bash."
20 December 2016. Gold, Matea. "Offer of Access to Trump and Family at Fundraiser Is Pulled Back, But Ties Remain."
The Washington Post. 20 December 2016. The Center for Public Integrity. "Donald Trump's Sons Behind Nonprofit Selling Access to President-Elect."
19 December 2016. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1296 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Videos WikiLeaks’ Podesta Emails Highlight Strong Ties Between DOJ & Clinton Campaign ‘Fantastic lawyer. Kept me out of jail,’ wrote John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, in a 2008 email about an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice who is now overseeing the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s emails. | November 3, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gestures as she gives a speech: “Frontlines and Frontiers: Making Human Rights a Human Reality,” Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, at Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque, Pool)
MINNEAPOLIS — WikiLeaks’ archive of emails taken from the Gmail account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair continue to shed new light on the close relationships between the Democratic Party elite and the U.S. government.
The latest wave of John Podesta’s emails to be published by WikiLeaks has thrust into the spotlight Peter Kadzik, a well-connected Washington attorney who currently serves as an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs.
“DoJ Assistant Attorney Peter Kadzik outed as a mole for Hillary Clinton campaign,” WikiLeaks tweeted on Wednesday. The tweet highlighted an email Kadzik sent to Podesta on May 19, 2015, warning him of a congressional hearing and updating the team on the State Department’s progress in publishing Clinton’s emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. DoJ Assistant Attorney Peter Kadzik outed as a mole for Hillary Clinton campaign https://t.co/MNHzJ310Nl pic.twitter.com/uTQF6baWBC
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 2, 2016
In the email, Kadzik wrote:
“There is a HJC [House Judiciary Committee] oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify. Likely to get questions on State Department emails. Another filing in the FOIA case went in last night or will go in this am that indicates it will be awhile (2016) before the State Department posts the emails.”
Podesta forwarded the email to several members of the Clinton campaign team.
Ben Brody, a Bloomberg politics reporter assigned to cover the election, noted that all of the information Kadzik provided was public. On Wednesday, Brody reported:
“Kadzik was alerting Podesta to public events: The Judiciary Committee held an open hearing that day, and a new filing in the court case a day earlier set out the State Department’s proposed timetable.”
But the May 19 email and others like it are still prompting concerns over Kadzik’s close ties to the DOJ and the Clinton campaign. On Monday, Kadzik sent letters to members of Congress, assuring them that the Justice Department would closely supervise a renewed FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails in light of evidence uncovered in an unrelated investigation regarding Anthony Weiner, the New York congressman who resigned amid accusations that he’d “sexted” minors. Weiner is estranged from his wife, Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s top aides. Kadzik wrote:
“We assure you that the [Justice] Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible.” #BREAKING Senior DOJ official sends letter to lawmakers responding to request for more information about email review. #8days pic.twitter.com/PCgT2ODkQd
— Just the Facts (@JTF_News) October 31, 2016
The ties between Kadzik and Podesta go far beyond a single email, however. On Oct. 18, the conservative site The Washington Free Beacon highlighted a Sept. 8, 2008 email from Podesta to Cassandra Butts, a close advisor to President Barack Obama who died later that year. In the email, with the subject line “Peter Kadzik,” Podesta wrote:
“Willing to help. Fantastic lawyer. Kept me out of jail. I’m sure Christine knows him. Wants to help. Think he would be an excellent vet lead.”
An anonymous contributor to Zero Hedge writing under the name “Tyler Durden” has been connecting the dots in an analysis of WikiLeaks’ Podesta Emails archive published on Tuesday. “Tyler Durden” elaborated on the ways Kadzik may have helped Podesta in the past:
“Podesta was caught in a sticky situation in both the Lewinsky affair and the Rich pardon scandal. As deputy chief of staff to Clinton in 1996, Podesta asked then-United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson to hire the 23-year-old Lewinsky. In April 1996, the White House transferred Lewinsky from her job as a White House intern to the Pentagon in order to keep her and Bill Clinton separate. But the Clinton team also wanted to keep Lewinsky happy so that she would not spill the beans about her sexual relationship with Clinton.”
The anonymous blogger also noted that, “in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration, Kadzik lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office.”
While it’s unclear if Podesta and Kadzik are truly “best friends,” as “Tyler Durden” asserts, the writer is correct in arguing that voters should be concerned that “the DOJ will be in charge of a probe that could potentially sink Hillary Clinton” even as the department’s leadership maintains such close connections to Clinton, her team, and the Obama administration. Be Sociable, Share! | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1297 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Has Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene asserted that California wildfires were triggered by 'Jewish Space Lasers'? Claim summaries: The Republican representative from Georgia has endorsed QAnon conspiracy theories, among others.
contextual information: Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia has courted controversy on various issues by promoting QAnon conspiracy theories, alongside a history of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic remarks. Years-old views, including a Facebook interaction in which she agreed with a comment that the Parkland shooting was a "false flag" staged event, and a video in which she pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories, have been unearthed. Marjorie Taylor Greene courted controversy interaction 9/11 conspiracy theories One post from 2018 in particular was reported on by Media Matters for America, a watchdog group, where she speculated about a conspiracy surrounding the November 2018 wildfires in California. In the now-deleted post, Greene theorized that a space-based solar generator, used in a clean-energy experiment with the goal of replacing coal and oil, could have beamed the sun's energy back to Earth and started the fires. We have covered similar claims surrounding the wildfires before. reported now-deleted theorized similar claims She said, "there are too many coincidences to ignore" and "oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires." Greene also speculated that a range of people or groups were involved in this fire, including former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Rothschild Inc., an investment firm. She said that Roger Kimmel, who was on the board of PG&E, was also "Vice Chairman of Rothschild Inc," and "If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I'm sure they wouldn't ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don't know. I hope not! That wouldn't look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E." The Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family, have long been the targets of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that Jewish people are in control of the entire world. While Greene specifically did not use the words "Jewish space laser," she heavily implied that the Rothschilds were involved in the laser conspiracy. targets An investigation showed that the California wildfires of 2018 were ignited by PG&E power lines, and then spread with the help of warm temperatures, dry vegetation, and strong winds. showed In late January 2021, CNN reported that dozens of posts from 2018 and 2019 had been removed from Greene's Facebook page. removed Given that Greene did not directly state that "Jewish lasers" caused the fires, but did speculate that laser beams somehow connected to the Rothschild investment firm were a cause, we rate this claim as "Mixture." | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD1298 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Says Texas charter schools get 100% state $/pupil funding while district schools (95% students) get about 1/3 funding from state w/ rest coming from local prop taxes (which is why those taxes are so high). Districts getting less b/c scarce $ going to charters.
contextual information: A Democratic legislator declared that state aid fully fuels Texas charter schools while schools serving the vast bulk of students field less money. State Rep.Donna Howardof Austin said in her July 18, 2018tweet: Here's the thing. In Tx, charters get 100% state $/pupil funding while district schools (95% students) get about 1/3 funding from state w/ rest coming from local prop taxes (which is why those taxes are so high). Districts getting less b/c scarce $ going to charters. Howard was reacting to a national Associated Pressnews storyon billionaires championing charter schools. Since 2006, the story says, philanthropists and their private foundations and charities--topped by the Walton Family Foundation, run by heirs to the Walmart fortune--gave almost half a billion dollars to 52 state-level charter support organizations to sustain, defend and expand the charter schools movement. Texas charter schools--public schools with charters run most often by private nonprofit entities--have boomed since the 1995 Legislature authorized them by law. Such schools must meet state-set academic accountability standards, but theyre exempted from other laws affecting districts such as teacher certification and elementary school class-size limits. To our inquiry, Bruce Marchand of theTexas Charter Schools Associationcalled Howards jam-packed claim factually squishy solid. The squishy part, Marchand said by email, is the implication that 100% funded charters have something to do with high property taxes and that districts get less money because that money is going to charters. Districts get less, Marchand said, because state dollars follow students based on where theyre enrolled. Lets break down Howards tweet by its factual elements. Howard said charter schools get all their funding from the state: Charter schools get nearly all their funding from state aid, Marchand agreed by phone, drawing 3 percent from grants and federal sources. That heavy state reliance is logical, Marchand and others said, because unlike districts, charter schools lack the authority to levy property taxes. According to a December 2017 Texas Education Agencydocument summarizing charter school funding, state aid to charter schools escalated from nearly $417 million for 2005-06 to about $2 billion in 2015-16. Howard said school districts serve 95 percent of students: Charter schools serve a growing handful of pupils--5.5 percent of Texas public school students in 2017, according to figures we fielded by email from the TEAs DeEtta Culbertson. That year, she said, 705 charter campuses enrolled 296,323 students--a doubling since 2011, according to an August 2018agency presentationnoted by Marchand. (The state caps the number of state-issued charters, but a charter-holder may open more than one school.) An implication: Districts in 2017 served 94.5 percent of public school students. Howard said districts get one-third of their aid from the state:Earlier this year, we reviewed Legislative Budget Board figures to conclude that in the 1980s, lawmakers voted for the state to cover 70 percent of theFoundation School Program, which is the states primary way of funding schools. State aid, we found, ended up covering a little more than half of related state-local costs. State aid covered 44 percent of such costs in 2016; its expected to cover 38 percent of such costs in 2019. Thats more than a third. When we sought Howards factual backup, Jacob Cottingham in her office responded with materials including aJanuary 2018 LBB chartdelivering percentages like what we previously reported. Cottingham also emailed us a spreadsheet isolating state aid going to districts alone.According to the sheet, which Cottingham said he built based on LBB data, in 2016, more than $17.8 billion in state aid sent to districts accounted for 39 percent of state spending on public education. The sheet says that in 2019, more than $15.7 billion in state funds projected to go to districts will account for 32 percent of state school aid. Howard said the states one-third share of what schools spend is why school property taxes are so high: To the contrary, we asked Howard, isnt it changes in the value of local property tax bases that drive how much state aid a district is entitled to receive? Howard replied with a statement noting that a districts per-pupil tax wealth is key to how much state aid flows. When students leave a district for a charter (or private school or drop out), the (districts) property wealth per student increases as there are fewer students, and the state's required minimum share to the district is decreased, Howard said. The TEAs Culbertson separately responded by email: One of the primary drivers of the Texas school finance system is student attendance. If a student leaves a school district for any reason, including moving out of state, enrolling in another school district, public charter school, or private school (including home school), the original school district would no longer incur the costs of educating that student, and the original school districts total funding entitlement would be reduced. Howard said districts get less money because dollars go to charter schools: Cottingham told us Howard reached that conclusion by reviewing changes in per-student state spending on charter schools and districts. Cottingham emailed us anLBB chartshowing Foundation School Program state aid per student enrolled in districts compared with charter schools from fiscal 2010 through fiscal 2016 plus estimated and projected aid for fiscal 2017 through fiscal 2019. The chart shows charter schools consistently getting thousands of dollars more per student in average daily attendance: SOURCE: Chart,Foundation School Program State Aid and Average Daily Attendance for School Districts and Charter Schools, Fiscal Years 2010-19,Legislative Budget Board, 2018 (confirmed by email, R.J. DeSilva, communications officer, Legislative Budget Board, July 31, 2018) According to the chart, charter schools in 2016 fielded $8,956 in state aid per ADA and school districts on average drew $3,800--meaning charter schools got 136 percent of what districts drew.By our calculations, the chart shows charter schools getting 149 percent of what districts would have gotten in 2017 and 167 percent of what districts would get in 2018 and 190 percent of what districts would get in 2019. Cottingham told us the fact that state aid to districts goes up or down based on the value of local tax bases helps explain why districts are projected to get increasingly less in state aid than charter schools. Charter schools, he said, can count by law on getting each years full average adjusted state-aid allotment in contrast to districts whose allocations are affected by how much theyre expected to reap in property taxes. By phone, Amanda Brownson of the Texas Association of School Business Officials offered a similar analysis. Another facet noted by Cottingham: The state ponies up the full per-student entitlement cost of each student--costing the state more than each per-student payment sent to districts. Of late, the August 2018 TEA presentation says, charter schools draw an adjusted state allotment of $6,540--equivalent, the agency says, to what a small district receives. Meantime, the presentation says, more than 95 percent of students enrolled in districts are in districts getting less than $6,540 in state allotments. We also heard back from Greg Worthington, a University of Texas doctoral student. By email, Worthington saidlegislation revising the school finance system that passed into law in a summer 2017 special sessionwould result in numerous districts losing chunks of per-student aid as charter schools draw more. Asked how funding of charter schools results in less money for districts, Worthington offered adetailed replycentered on reductions in aid to districts caused by students transferring to charter schools. This shouldnt surprise, Worthington indicated, in that the concept of school choicepromulgatedby the late economist Milton Friedman relies on schools competing for funding tied to enrollment. Friedman said government might be responsible for funding schools, Worthington wrote, but he maintained it isnt supposed to administer education. School choice policies embraced by many ruling Republicans ultimately work to replace the public school system with a market-based education system, Worthington said. Our ruling Howard said Texas charter schools get all their per-student aid from the state while school districts, which serve 95 percent of students, get a third of their funding that way with the rest drawn from property taxes. Also, Howard said, districts get less because scarce dollars go to charter schools. Howards points about student enrollment and state funding going to charter schools and school districts hold up. Its also true that a student who leaves a district school to attend a charter school costs the district state aid while that student brings the charter school thousands of dollars more in per-pupil state aid than what the district would get. This dense tweet lacks the clarification that upticks or slides in local property values greatly affect whether a district faces ups or downs in state aid. 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. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1299 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: @TonkinTaylor/Twitter / Via Twitter: @TonkinTaylor
Environmental and engineering consultants Tonkin and Taylor tweeted aerial shots of the destruction on Wednesday, two days after the quake. The scale of the “uplift” is estimated to be between two and two and a half metres. @TonkinTaylor/Twitter / Via Twitter: @TonkinTaylor
“This is not at all surprising as Kaikoura experiences the fastest uplift as it sits on the [tectonic] plates, which are pushing up under there,” marine geologist Neville Exon told BuzzFeed News.
“The kelp positioned on top shows it is an uplift of the seabed through the sand a couple of metres,” Exon said, commenting on a picture posted by Facebook user Anna Redmond. “The kelp positioned on top shows it is an uplift of the seabed through the sand a couple of metres,” Exon said, commenting on a picture posted by Facebook user Anna Redmond.
“So much devastation,” Redmond posted. One photo shows a disgruntled crustacean adjusting to life above sea level atop a bed of seaweed and abalone.
More than 600 Kaikoura residents were evacuated by boat and helicopter following the quake, which killed two people. But Kaikoura’s sewerage system is still not working and many train tracks and roads remain in ruins.
Some of the tourist town’s population of 2,000 residents have chosen to remain at home until the roads are cleared. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.