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It’s Too Soon to Attribute the California Storms to Climate Change, Experts Say

Catalina Jaramillo — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 23:21:39 +0000

The relentless storms that hit California from Dec. 27 to Jan. 16 caused extreme flooding and extensive damage in most of the state, killing at least 22 people. A series of storms hit back to back, soaking the state in the midst of California’s driest three-year period on record.

“If anybody doubts that climate is changing, then they must have been asleep for the last couple of years,” President Joe Biden said in California on Jan. 19, after witnessing the destruction left behind by the storms.

He later added: “For example, places that were ravaged by past wildfires are now at a higher risk of landslides. Extreme weather caused by climate change means stronger and more frequent storms, more intense droughts, longer wildfire seasons — all of which threaten communities across California.”

There is a good scientific basis to think that storms, including the type that struck California, are generally becoming more extreme due to climate change. But climate scientists told us it’s too soon to know whether climate change had a role in this particular event, and if so, to what degree.

“We are not entirely sure,” Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, told us in an interview. “It’s an active area of research.”

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told us all extreme weather events are the result of multiple complex and interrelated processes happening across time and space. Therefore, climate change is not “the singular cause” of the storms. But did it affect the storms’ intensity?

“Here, the answer is probably yes, climate change thus far has likely increased both the intensity and likelihood of seeing such an intense period of precipitation in California,” he wrote in an email. “But then the question becomes: to what degree?”

Here is what we know so far.

What kind of storms hit California?

California was hit by a series of nine atmospheric rivers, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes as “naturally occurring air currents” that can create extreme rainstorms and flooding. The atmospheric rivers were accompanied by a bomb cyclone, a mid-latitude storm or weather system that rapidly intensifies.

Atmospheric rivers are long and narrow corridors in the lower atmosphere that transport water vapor from the tropics to the poles — “like rivers in the sky,” as NOAA explains. When these columns of vapor move inland from oceans and over mountains, the water vapor cools and creates heavy precipitation in the form of snow or rain. Their contribution to the water supply is crucial: A few of them provide, on average, 30% to 50% of the U.S. West Coast’s annual precipitation.

Satellite image taken January 4, 2023, at 1:20 p.m. of an atmospheric river affecting California. Image: NOAA-20 satellite.

But stronger atmospheric rivers, which carry greater amounts of moisture pushed along by stronger winds, can cause damage when they hit and stall over lands that are prone to flooding — as seen in the recent storms. Intense atmospheric river sequences have the potential to create a catastrophic “megaflood,” according to research.

Atmospheric rivers were only defined in the 2010s, but they are not new, as F. Martin Ralph, a research meteorologist and director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, wrote in Scientific American.

These kinds of storm systems slam western coasts across the globe several times a year, but they can also reach as far inland as Yellowstone National Park in the U.S., which lies mostly in northwest Wyoming, he explained. Atmospheric rivers can grow up to 2,000 miles long, 500 miles wide and two miles deep, Ralph wrote, adding that they transport on average “enough vapor to equal 25 times the flow rate of the Mississippi River where it pours into the Gulf of Mexico.”

It’s not uncommon for atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones to occur together, and they feed off of one another. Around 80% of atmospheric rivers are accompanied by an extratropical cyclone, research shows. The cyclones can enhance the winds of an atmospheric river, while atmospheric rivers provide ideal conditions for a cyclone to intensify. A bomb cyclone is a mid-latitude cyclone that intensifies very quickly because of a dramatic drop in pressure in a single day, usually a result of cold and warm air colliding.

How does climate change impact atmospheric rivers?

Climate modeling studies show that, in general, in a warmer climate atmospheric rivers become more intense, leading to an increase in heavy precipitation. According to a recent study, climate change “has already doubled the likelihood of an event capable of producing catastrophic flooding” in California. But although the effects of climate change in atmospheric rivers have been studied using different approaches, uncertainty remains.

Most of the climate change impact on the intensification of atmospheric rivers is caused by what’s called the “thermodynamic effect,” Swain, the climate scientist at UCLA, told us. That is, he said, “the fact that the atmosphere can hold exponentially more water vapor” with each degree of temperature increase.

“A good rule of thumb is that a 1C increase in temperature increases the water vapor holding capacity of the atmosphere … by ~7%,” he said.

According to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is “unequivocal” that the atmosphere, ocean and land have warmed due to human influence. The group concluded, based on an evaluation of evidence quality and agreement, that there is “high confidence” a warmer climate increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, making wet seasons and events wetter. There is also “high confidence” heavy precipitation will follow the rate “of about 7% per 1°C of global warming.”

“Given that global warming is increasing the amount of water vapor, it does seem reasonable to suggest that climate change may be making these storms stronger,” Travis A. O’Brien, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington, told us in an email.

“Indeed, climate model studies of atmospheric rivers and global warming … suggest that atmospheric rivers become ‘stronger’ (more water vapor transport) in a warmer climate and are generally associated with higher precipitation amounts,” O’Brien added.

Atmospheric rivers are measured in what’s called integrated water vapor transport, Kalansky, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explained. That includes both how much water is there and the wind that transports the vapor, she said.

What climate models are showing, she said, is that in a future warmer world, atmospheric rivers will contribute more than other storms to California’s rainfall total annually, and that extreme atmospheric river events will become more extreme — and that’s mostly explained by the increase in water vapor.

Swain told us the thermodynamic contribution is likely responsible for 80% of the projected change in atmospheric river intensity and the projected extreme precipitation increases. The remainder is more uncertain, he said, but wind and pressure patterns could be important factors.

But there are still many basic things scientists don’t know about atmospheric rivers and the ways they will respond to a warming climate.

“In climate models, there is a robust increase in global mean precipitation; however, how the response of ARs contributes towards this change is still uncertain and depends on many more factors than increased moisture alone,” reads a review article on the responses of atmospheric rivers to climate change published in Nature in 2020.

A recent case study, for example, suggested that not all atmospheric rivers are affected to the same degree by climate change. The study simulated a specific atmospheric river storm that hit Northern California in two waves in 2017 under past, present and future climate scenarios. While both waves of the storm dropped more precipitation because of warming, the second wave dumped more. Precipitation amounts for the first and second waves were about 11% and 15% higher, respectively, under present-day warming, the study found. Those amounts increased to an additional 21% and 59% boost in precipitation, respectively, under late-21st century warming.

It’s not clear whether there will be more or fewer atmospheric rivers in a warmer climate. Most studies, O’Brien said, “do indicate an increase in the frequency of atmospheric rivers, but also some indicate a decrease or no change for western North America.”

Part of the issue, O’Brien found in a 2021 paper, is that researchers are not always consistent in how they define an atmospheric river.

For California specifically, Swain said that while it’s uncertain, the “preponderance of evidence is for fewer” atmospheric rivers overall in a warmer future. But, he said, “there is also strong evidence that the *strongest* atmospheric rivers in California (like those being experienced during this storm sequence) are very likely to be stronger and to produce more precipitation as the climate warms.”

“There is a quite a bit of evidence pointing in this direction at this point,” he added.

Can we say whether or how much climate change impacted this particular series of storms?

Not yet, climate experts say.

“I don’t think we have evidence to show the degree these events are connected to climate change,” Duane Waliser, chief scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told us in an email.

Waliser, who has studied atmospheric rivers and climate change’s effects on them, told us it would require more study to quantify an estimate of the effects of climate change on the storms. “[U]ntil that happens, a statement along these lines would be complete speculation,” he wrote.

O’Brien agreed. He said it is impossible to make a “formal statement” about the effect of climate change on these storms without a detection and attribution study.

Detection and attribution studies “can help determine whether a human influence on climate variables (for example, temperature) can be distinguished from natural variability,” according to a federal report on climate science. They are important, O’Brien said, because events like this can, and did, happen before climate change.

O’Brien said there have been no detection and attribution studies on this storm yet, but he expects there will be one coming out in about the next six months.

Kalansky said the storms do fit into what the climate models are showing. California weather, which is already highly variable and volatile, is and will become more extreme. Projections also show in a warming climate, because the air can hold more moisture, there is the potential that atmospheric rivers will drop more rain or snow, as we’ve explained. But to know whether or not that’s the case with these storms, more studies are needed, she said.

What was unique about this winter’s atmospheric river storms, she said, was that they came one after the other.

“The fact that they are coming back to back, to back, to back, has been really impactful,” she said in a phone interview.

Without proper attribution studies, it’s hard to say if that was part of California’s natural climate variability or not.

“It may,” she said, stressing the word may, “it may have been fueled by climate change. … But it’s too soon, at least in my opinion, to be able to say whether or not, without doing some more studies.”

Are there any estimates?

On Jan. 4, in the midst of the storms, Michael Wehner, a senior scientist in the Computational Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, tweeted what he called a “conservative attribution statement.”

“Anthropogenic climate change will cause the rain in today’s west coast … to be about 5% heavier,” he said, linking to a study he co-authored that was published in 2022.

O’Brien told us the study on which Wehner is basing his estimate “isn’t exactly” a detection and attribution study. What it did is look at historical storms and ask what would they look like in a future climate.

“His statement of the 5% number is based on the numbers that they found in that study: that storm-total precipitation increases by about 5-10% per degree C of warming,” he said. “So he’s doing a bit of inference with that statement rather than doing a careful D&A study. That said, I suspect that when a formal D&A study is done, it will produce results consistent with his statement.”

Swain, the climate scientist from UCLA, told us that estimate is “a reasonable lower bound.” His best guess, he said, would be 10%, or something in the range of 5% and 15% heavier rainfall due to climate change.

Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist in the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, told us in an email that because the air can hold more water vapor as a consequence of warming, “[t]here is a scientific basis to expect, for identical weather patterns today versus in the 19th Century, that a rainstorm would yield about 5% more precipitation today.”

But he added that prolonged rains like this one did occur in the 19th century. For example, he said, the wettest 15-day period on record reported in downtown San Francisco, with 19 inches of rain, occurred in 1862. The second, with 13.5 inches, occurred in December 1866, he said. This winter’s storm represented the third, with 12.37 inches.

While Wehner “is correct to offer an important reminder of how rain events are becoming more extreme, historical records when examined carefully provide no less important reminders that nature (without human modification) can deliver remarkable rains alone,” he added.

Correction, Feb. 1: We removed a quotation that incorrectly stated there have not been any detection and attribution studies on atmospheric rivers.

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Social Media Claims Misrepresent Election Software CEO’s Arrest

Saranac Hale Spencer — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 21:49:50 +0000

Quick Take

The CEO of a company that maintained poll worker data for Los Angeles County has been arrested as “part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information” of those poll workers, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Conspiracy theorists and election deniers have claimed that the arrest is evidence of election fraud, even though Gascón has said that the “alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.”

Full Story

Social media platforms have flooded users’ feeds with claims that undermine the integrity of U.S. elections since 2020.

Now, about a month before the midterm elections, conspiracy theorists and election-fraud peddlers are pushing claims that the arrest of an election software company CEO is proof that their many debunked claims were true.

A worker carries ballots at a Los Angeles County Registrar processing center on Nov. 5, 2020. Photo by Keith Birmingham via Getty Images.

Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, for example, claimed that the arrest was proof of “another election integrity ‘conspiracy theory’ confirmed.” His video making that claim has been viewed more than 23,000 times on Facebook.

And Peggy Hubbard, who lost her bid in June for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Illinois, posted a screenshot on Facebook about the arrest from conservative activist Jack Posobiec’s Twitter account and added this message: “Tell me again, that there isn’t any tampering in our elections. I’ll wait…” Hubbard has 349,000 followers on Facebook.

But the arrest of Eugene Yu, CEO of the Michigan-based company Konnech, doesn’t prove anything about election fraud.

He’s charged with “embezzlement of public funds” from Los Angeles County, where his company had a contract to provide software for managing poll workers. The prosecutor bringing the case — Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón — also clearly said in a press release that the charges don’t involve election tampering.

We’ll lay out the facts as we know them at this point:

Eugene Yu, 64, incorporated a company called LJ Connection in Michigan in 2001. The following year, after adopting a new image for the company, he incorporated Konnech.

According to the company’s website, Konnech provides software and support for election logistics for 32 clients in North America.

In October 2019, it entered into a one-year contract with Los Angeles County for use of its PollChief software, which manages information about poll workers and staffing needs at polling locations.

A year later, just before the presidential election, Los Angeles County extended that contract for another five years.

Now, two years after the election, that company and its work in Los Angeles are under scrutiny.

A conservative organization called True the Vote — which is best known for its contribution to the widely discredited election conspiracy theory video called “2,000 Mules” — held a conference in August during which organizers disparaged the integrity of U.S. elections and made sales pitches for various products and services that they claimed could fix the dubious problems they had identified.

A major claim that came out of the conference was that Konnech maintained servers in China that could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Gregg Phillips — who works with True the Vote director Catherine Engelbrecht — claimed in a video later that month that he had accessed those servers with his “guys” at a hotel room in Dallas in a “James Bond kind of thing” in January 2021.

“We took it directly,” he said, claiming that he’d seen “the database” containing poll worker information and that the company also did “fast count ballot counting… in China.”

Konnech has denied the claim that it has servers in China, and it filed a defamation suit in September against True the Vote.

Then, on Oct. 4, Yu was arrested, and Gascón issued a press release that said the arrest was “part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information” for Los Angeles poll workers.

The release also noted that the county’s contract with Konnech specified that only U.S. citizens and permanent residents would have access to its data and said that investigators “found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China.”

The same day, True the Vote issued a press release that began: “True the Vote is honored to have played a small role in what must have been a wide ranging and complex investigation. The organization is profoundly grateful to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office for their thorough work and rapid action in this matter.”

We asked Gascón’s office if it had worked with True the Vote and got this response: “Our Public Integrity Division (PID) routinely accepts complaints from the public. Often times, these complaints are made by political opponents of the accused. With that in mind, if a crime is alleged we have a responsibility to conduct an independent investigation. Greg Phillips’ report to PID was the first step in a thorough independent and still ongoing investigation which ultimately led to the arrest and charging of Mr. Yu. We initially indicated that Mr. Phillips played no role in the investigation. While we performed an independent investigation apart from Greg Philips, his report to us did in fact result in us initiating our investigation.”

The office also said that it doesn’t plan to make any further arrests.

According to the criminal complaint, which was filed Oct. 13, prosecutors allege that Konnech had used third-party contractors based in China to help with “creating and fixing” the company’s internal software and that those contractors had access to personal information about Los Angeles poll workers. Prosecutors argue that this contradicts Konnech’s contract with the county, which specified that only U.S. citizens and permanent residents would have access to the county’s poll worker data.

They charged him with embezzling public funds in the amount of the five-year contract, which was $2.65 million.

“This investigation is concerned solely with the personal identifying information of election workers,” the release from Gascón said. “In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.”

So, anyone suggesting that Yu’s arrest proves that the outcome of the 2020 election was fraudulent is wrong. What he is actually charged with has nothing to do with ballot tampering.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

FactCheck.org. “Viral Voting Misinformation.” Updated 21 Dec 2020.

Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County. REQUEST APPROVAL OF SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT #20-003 WITH KONNECH, INC. FOR POLLCHIEF. 13 Oct 2020.

The People of the State of California v. Eugene Yu. No. BA509784. Complaint. Superior Court of the State of California For the County of Los Angeles. 13 Oct 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Evidence Gaps in ‘2000 Mules.’” FactCheck.org. Updated 13 Jun 2022.

Right Side Broadcasting Network. “REPLAY: from ‘The Pit’ , A Vital Strategy Session presented by True The Vote 8/13/22.” Rumble. 8 Aug 2022.

Elijah Streams. “(RUMBLE ONLY) Prophets and Patriots – Episode 20 with Gregg Phillips and Steve Shultz.” Rumble. 23 Aug 2022.

Konnech v. True the Vote. No. 4:22-cv-03096. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Complaint. 12 Sep 2022.

State of Michigan v. Yu. No. 2022-2201561-EX. Michigan 55th District Court. 4 Oct 2022.

Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Press release. “October 4, 2022: Head of Election Worker Management Company Arrested in Connection with Theft of Personal Data.” 4 Oct 2022.

True the Vote. Press release. “True the Vote Issues Statement Regarding the Arrest of Konnech CEO Eugene Yu.” 4 Oct 2022.

Konnech v. True the Vote. No. 4:22-cv-03096. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Defendants’ motion to hold matter in abeyance. 12 Oct 2022.

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Posts Misrepresent Status of Paul Pelosi’s DUI Charges

Brea Jones — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 21:29:40 +0000

Quick Take

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was arrested for alleged drunken driving on May 28. Posts on social media falsely claim that the DUI charges against Pelosi have been dropped. But the Napa County District Attorney’s Office said the case is still under review and no decision has been made on the charges.

Full Story

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence on May 28 at 11:44 p.m.

The California Highway Patrol said Pelosi was driving a 2021 Porsche that was hit by a 2014 Jeep as Pelosi’s car tried to cross a state road in Napa County, ABC10 reported. No one was hurt in the accident. Pelosi was booked into jail at 4:13 a.m. the following morning and released on a $5,000 bond a few hours later.

Paul Pelosi attends Tony Bennett’s 85th Birthday Gala Benefit for Exploring the Arts at The Metropolitan Opera House on Sept. 18, 2011, in New York City. Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images.

He could face charges of driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol content level of 0.08 or higher, the Associated Press reported.

But social media posts falsely claimed that all DUI charges against Pelosi have been dropped.

Comedian Rob Schneider shared a tweet on June 8 from Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado claiming that Pelosi’s charges were dropped. A Facebook page called The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, a fan page for the Joe Rogan podcast, shared a screenshot of Schneider’s tweet.

A post on Instagram shows a screenshot of a tweet that reads, “BREAKING: All charges have reportedly been dropped against Paul Pelosi for his DUI crash. Gavin Newsom reportedly intervened at the request of Nancy Pelosi and directly ordered the California Highway Patrol to drop all charges.”

But the posts offer no evidence to support those claims.

Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley released a statement on June 9 on Facebook saying that the case is still under review.

“At the time, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) arrested Mr. Pelosi (DOB 4/15/40) for Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol and Driving with a .08% Blood Alcohol Content or Higher. He was booked into the Napa County Department of Corrections and cite released,” reads part of the statement.

“Mr. Pelosi agreed to a court date of August 3, 2022, at 8:30 am in Napa County Superior Court. If criminal charges are filed, Mr. Pelosi would be arraigned at that time,” the statement continued. “The case is currently under review to decide what, if any, charges will be filed against Mr. Pelosi. This is standard protocol for any DUI case that is referred by a law enforcement agency in Napa County.”

The statement added that “no decision has been made at this time” and “any speculation to the contrary is incorrect.”

The Napa County District Attorney’s Office said the media and public will be notified when a decision is made.

Update, Aug. 24: Paul Pelosi pleaded guilty on Aug. 23 to driving under the influence. He was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation. He had already served two days in jail and received good behavior credit for two other days; he will serve eight hours in a work program in lieu of the remaining day. Pelosi also will have to pay about $5,000 in victim restitution and $2,000 in fines.

Update, July 1: Paul Pelosi has been charged with driving under the influence causing injury and driving with a .08% blood alcohol level or higher causing injury, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office said in a June 28 press release. Both are misdemeanor charges.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Altman-Devilbiss, Alexx. “Nancy Pelosi’s husband arrested for drunk driving, online records say.” ABC News. 29 May 2022.

Associated Press. “Pelosi’s husband arrested on suspicion of DUI in California.” 29 May 2022.

Boebert, Lauren (@Laurenbobert). “Paul Pelosi’s DUI charges have been dropped. Is anyone really surprised?” Twitter. 8 Jun 2022.

Freiman, Jordan. “Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, arrested for alleged drunk driving.” CBS News. 31 May 2022.

Morales, Caroline. “Napa County DA reviewing Paul Pelosi’s DUI Charges.” ABC10. 9 Jun 2022.

“NANCY PELOSIHUSBAND ARRESTED FOR DUI IN NAPA…Involved In Car Crash.” TMZ. 29 May 2022.

Napa County District Attorney’s Office Facebook page. Statement on charges pending against Paul Pelosi. 9 Jun 2022.

Schneider, Rob (@RobSchneider). “Twitter won’t let me retweet this…Here’s a screenshot.” Twitter. 8 Jun 2022.

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California Not Poised to ‘Legalize Infanticide’

Saranac Hale Spencer — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 22:08:07 +0000

Quick Take

A California bill would do away with mandatory investigations of stillbirths. Opponents misleadingly claim it would “legalize infanticide.” The bill would prevent prosecution in cases of “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” But authorities would investigate if there were evidence of foul play leading to an infant’s death.

Full Story

A California bill that would protect parents from investigation and prosecution if they lose or choose to end a pregnancy has been spun into a falsehood that the state is set to “legalize infanticide.”

The pastor of a southern California megachurch, for example, posted a message on Facebook claiming that the bill “would legalize infanticide!”

Other opponents have been posting similar claims, including Jenna Ellis — a member of former President Donald Trump’s campaign legal team — who wrote on Facebook, “This is INSANELY evil. California Democrats are trying to legalize killing children up to the age of 28 days.”

But there is no bill in the California state legislature that would make it legal to kill a person of any age. What these posts are referring to is Assembly Bill 2223, which is part of a slate of legislation supported by the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the California Future of Abortion Council that aim to strengthen protection of abortion rights in California as some other states have reduced access.

The bill states:

Assembly Bill 2223, as amended April 6: Pregnancies can end in a range of outcomes. Nationwide, as many as one in five known pregnancies end in miscarriage. In California, as many as 2,365 pregnancies per year end in stillbirth, meaning perinatal loss after 20 weeks gestation. Many pregnancy losses have no known explanation.

People also need to end pregnancies by abortion, including self-managed abortion, which means ending one’s own pregnancy outside of the medical system.

Every Californian should have the right to feel secure that they can seek medical assistance during pregnancy without fear of civil or criminal liability.

The threat of criminal prosecution of pregnancy outcomes is partly traceable to out-of-date provisions that give coroners a duty to investigate certain abortions and pregnancy losses. Based on these provisions, health care providers and institutions report people to law enforcement for pregnancy losses, leading to harmful investigations and even unlawful prosecutions.

Civil and criminal penalties imposed on pregnant people is a critical issue for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, who experience adverse pregnancy outcomes as a result of systemic racial inequities and are more likely to be under scrutiny of state systems like child welfare or immigration.

The threat of criminal prosecutions or civil penalties on pregnant people through child welfare, immigration, housing, or other legal systems has a harmful effect on individual and public health. When a person fears state action being taken against them related to their pregnancy, they are less likely to seek medical care when they need it. If they do seek care, punishing them for actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcomes interferes with professional care and endangers the relationship between providers and patients.

So, that describes the general intent of the bill. The confusion that it might somehow “legalize infanticide” appears to have come from an early version of the bill, which was introduced in February.

In that version, a portion of the bill said (emphasis ours), “Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.”

The term “perinatal death” can include both fetal death and death that occurs within days or weeks of birth.

An analysis from the Assembly Judiciary Committee prepared for an April 5 hearing on the bill suggested clarifying that section since, the report said, that “language could lead to an unintended and undesirable conclusion.”

The report continued: “As currently in print, it may not be sufficiently clear that ‘perinatal death’ is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the ‘perinatal’ period after birth, including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications, which clearly is not the author’s intent.”

The bill’s language was then amended to say, “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, took to Twitter the same day as the committee hearing to address the claims of legalized infanticide.

“Let me be clear: #AB2223 doesn’t prevent the state from keeping children safe. This isn’t a bill about infanticide. This is about protecting Californians who suffer pregnancy loss from being unjustly investigated, prosecuted or incarcerated. Full stop,” she wrote, before going on to highlight the change to the language.

Still, the claims have persisted, as shown by the examples above.

We asked Khiara Bridges, a professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, to explain whether or not there would be any risk that the law would allow for the killing of infants or children.

“Even before adding that language — it’s absurd to think it would legalize infanticide,” Bridges said.

“No judge in the world would understand the killing of a baby that’s born and outside of the uterus as a pregnancy outcome,” which is what the bill is focused on — making sure that parents aren’t criminalized for the outcome of a pregnancy.

If there’s evidence of foul play leading to the death of an infant or child, authorities will investigate as usual, she said.

“This bill does not immunize that behavior at all. It will be investigated,” Bridges said.

So, claims that California is poised to “legalize infanticide” or “legalize killing children” are false.

Sources

California State Assembly. “AB-2223 An act to amend Section 27491 of the Government Code, and to amend Sections 103005, 123462, 123466, and 123468 of, to add Sections 123467 and 123469 to, and to repeal Section 103000 of, the Health and Safety Code, relating to reproductive health.” As amended 6 Apr 2022.

Gonzalez, Oriana. “Red states race to enact new abortion restrictions.” Axios. 19 Apr 2022.

American Academy of Pediatrics. “Standard Terminology for Fetal, Infant, and Perinatal Deaths.” Accessed 22 Apr 2022.

Assembly Committee on Judiciary. AB 2223 (Wicks) – As Amended March 17, 2022. 3 Apr 2022.

Wicks, Buffy (@BuffyWicks). Thread. Twitter. 5 Apr 2022.

Bridges, Khiara. Professor, University of California Berkeley School of Law. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 21 Apr 2022.

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Viral Posts Make Unfounded Claims After Newsom Gets COVID-19 Booster

Brea Jones — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 22:50:34 +0000

SciCheck Digest

After getting the COVID-19 booster on Oct. 27, California Gov. Gavin Newsom canceled a trip and did not participate in any official public events for 12 days. Social media posts claimed, without evidence, that Newsom was suffering serious side effects from the booster. But his staff denied that he had an “adverse reaction” to the shot and, during this time, he appeared twice on social media and reportedly attended a wedding.

More than half a billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have now been administered in the U.S. and only a few, very rare, safety concerns have emerged. The vast majority of people experience only minor, temporary side effects such as pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, or muscle pain — or no side effects at all. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, these vaccines “have undergone and will continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.”

A small number of severe allergic reactions known as anaphylaxis, which are expected with any vaccine, have occurred with the authorized and approved COVID-19 vaccines. Fortunately, these reactions are rare, typically occur within minutes of inoculation and can be treated. Approximately 5 per million people vaccinated have experienced anaphylaxis after a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.

To make sure serious allergic reactions can be identified and treated, all people receiving a vaccine should be observed for 15 minutes after getting a shot, and anyone who has experienced anaphylaxis or had any kind of immediate allergic reaction to any vaccine or injection in the past should be monitored for a half hour. People who have had a serious allergic reaction to a previous dose or one of the vaccine ingredients should not be immunized. Also, those who shouldn’t receive one type of COVID-19 vaccine should be monitored for 30 minutes after receiving a different type of vaccine.

There is evidence that the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines may rarely cause inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) or of the surrounding lining (pericarditis), particularly in male adolescents and young adults.

Based on data collected through August 2021, the reporting rates of either condition in the U.S. are highest in males 16 to 17 years old after the second dose (105.9 cases per million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine), followed by 12- to 15-year-old males (70.7 cases per million). The rate for 18- to 24-year-old males was 52.4 cases and 56.3 cases per million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, respectively.

Health officials have emphasized that vaccine-related myocarditis and pericarditis cases are rare and the benefits of vaccination still outweigh the risks. Early evidence suggests these myocarditis cases are less severe than typical ones. The CDC has also noted that most patients who were treated “responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly.”

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been linked to an increased risk of rare blood clots combined with low levels of blood platelets, especially in women ages 30 to 49. Early symptoms of the condition, which is known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS, can appear as late as three weeks after vaccination and include severe or persistent headaches or blurred vision, leg swelling, and easy bruising or tiny blood spots under the skin outside of the injection site.

According to the CDC, TTS has occurred in around 4 people per million doses administered. As of early April, the syndrome has been confirmed in 60 cases, including nine deaths, after more than 18.6 million doses of the J&J vaccine. Although TTS remains rare, because of the availability of mRNA vaccines, which are not associated with this serious side effect, the FDA on May 5 limited authorized use of the J&J vaccine to adults who either couldn’t get one of the other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines because of medical or access reasons, or only wanted a J&J vaccine for protection against the disease. Several months earlier, on Dec. 16, 2021, the CDC had recommended the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna shots over J&J’s.

The J&J vaccine has also been linked to an increased risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare disorder in which the immune system attacks nerve cells. Most people who develop GBS fully recover, although some have permanent nerve damage and the condition can be fatal.

Safety surveillance data suggest that compared with the mRNA vaccines, which have not been linked to GBS, the J&J vaccine is associated with 15.5 additional GBS cases per million doses of vaccine in the three weeks following vaccination. Most reported cases following J&J vaccination have occurred in men 50 years old and older.

Link to this

Full Story

California Gov. Gavin Newsom received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in April, and received a Moderna COVID-19 booster shot at an Oakland health clinic on Oct. 27. Newsom was expected to attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, two days later, but he canceled the trip, citing “family obligations.”

Newsom then spent 12 days without any public events, leading to unsubstantiated rumors that he had suffered from health issues due to the COVID-19 booster. Social media posts spreading the claims drew more than 25,000 interactions on Facebook, according to CrowdTangle analytics.

One Facebook post made the unfounded claim that “Gavin Newsom is in the hospital laid up with Guillain Barre syndrome as a result of an adverse reaction to his booster shot.” Other articles reported, without any evidence, that Newsom suffered from “vaccine injury” or “Bell’s palsy.”

An article on Nov. 8 in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination publication, The Defender, claimed that a source close to Newsom said he suffered symptoms that “were similar to those associated with Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), a known side effect of many vaccines.”

The NOQ Report, a website based in California, claimed on Nov. 8, “Whether it’s Bell’s Palsy or something else, it seems to be tied to the booster shot.”

We don’t know why Newsom spent nearly two weeks without participating in any official public event, but Newsom’s staff and his wife denied the claims.

On Nov. 8, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Center Square, “No, the Governor did not have any adverse reaction to his booster shot.”

A statement issued by the governor’s office, responding to the social media rumors that he had been hospitalized, appeared Nov. 9 in a New York Times article: “Last week Governor Newsom worked in the Capitol with staff on urgent issues including Covid-19 vaccines for kids, boosters, ports, the forthcoming state budget and California’s continued economic recovery. He will have public events this week related to the economy and vaccines.”

Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, also responded to the rumors surrounding her husband’s absence in a now deleted tweet on Nov. 7 reading, “It’s funny how certain folks can’t handle truth. When someone cancels something, maybe they’re just in the office working; maybe in their free time they’re at home with their family, at their kids’ sports matches, or dining out with their wife. Please stop hating and get a life.”

During his brief time out of the public eye, Newsom appeared in a video posted Nov. 4 on Twitter in which he sent his best wishes to those celebrating the holidays of Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas.

Newsom also reportedly attended the wedding of billionaire heiress Ivy Getty at San Francisco City Hall on Nov. 7.

Then, on Nov. 9, Newsom spoke at the California Economic Summit — his first public event appearance following COP26 — where he acknowledged his absence from COP26, noting he spent time with his family and attending to various official duties.

At the summit, Newsom explained that his children were upset that he and his wife would be missing Halloween to go to COP26, so he decided to cancel the trip and stay home with them. There is a photo of Newsom and his wife with their children dressed up for Halloween that was posted on Newsom’s Instagram account on Nov. 1.

He also responded to the flurry of online rumors, saying, “We’d all do well taking some time away from social media.”

Reports of Bell’s Palsy and Guillain-Barré Syndrome After Vaccines

As for claims that Newsom had suffered symptoms that “were similar to those associated with Guillain–Barré syndrome,” there is no evidence that he suffered such symptoms.

In the trials for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, as we’ve previously reported, there was a slightly higher number of cases of Bell’s palsy, a form of temporary facial paralysis, in the vaccine group. With three instances out of more than 15,000 recipients of the Moderna vaccine and one in a similarly sized placebo group, the Food and Drug Administration was unable to determine whether the condition was triggered by the vaccine or not, but the FDA suggested ongoing surveillance.

As of July, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s near real-time vaccine safety monitoring system has not observed a safety signal for Bell’s palsy for either of the vaccines. A paper published in April in JAMA Internal Medicine, which reviewed pharmacovigilance data from the World Health Organization, also concluded, “if an association between facial paralysis and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines exists, the risk is likely very low, as with other viral vaccines.”

Instances of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or GBS, have occurred after some vaccines, but they are rare. In this condition, a person’s immune system attacks nerve cells, leading to muscle weakness and, at times, paralysis. Most people who develop GBS fully recover, although some have permanent nerve damage and the condition can be fatal.

For the COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA and CDC are investigating a possible increased risk of GBS with the J&J vaccine, based on 250 preliminary cases after more than 15.7 million doses, as of early November. The FDA warned of the possible adverse event in July, noting that there has not been an observed increase in risk for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.

Editor’s note: SciCheck’s COVID-19/Vaccination Project is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation. The goal of the project is to increase exposure to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines, while decreasing the impact of misinformation.

Sources

“At Oakland Health Clinic, Governor Newsom Receives Moderna Booster, Encourages Eligible Californians to Get their COVID Booster to Keep Immunity Strong.” Press Release. 27 Oct 2021.

Blankley, Bethany. “Newsom’s office refutes criticism about extended public absence, adverse reaction to booster shot.” The Center Square. 8 Nov 2021.

Bollag, Sophia. “Update: Gavin Newsom cancels trip to Glasgow for UN climate talks citing ‘family obligations.’” Sacramento Bee. 29 Oct 2021.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guillain-Barré Syndrome and Vaccines. Accessed 11 Nov 2021.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Vaccines and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.” 28 Sep 2021.

Food and Drug Administration. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: July 13, 2021.” Press Release. 13 Jul 2021.

Food and Drug Administration. “Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting.” 17 Dec 2020.

“Governor Gavin Newsom at the 2021 California Economic Summit.” YouTube. 9 Nov 2021.

Matarneh, Ahmad S., et al. “COVID-19 vaccine causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare potential side effect.” Wiley Online Library.

McDonald, Jessica. “A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” FactCheck.org. Updated 8 Jul 2021.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “Bell’s Palsy Fact Sheet.” 2 Oct 2020.

“Newsom Gets Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” NBC Bay Area. 2 Apr 2021.

Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor). “California is proud to be home to the largest Hindu, Sikh, and Jain communities in the nation. Wishing a happy Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas to all who celebrate!” Twitter. 4 Nov 2021.

Renoud, Lucie, et al. “Association of Facial Paralysis With mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.” JAMA Internal Medicine. 27 Apr 2021.

Saavedra, Ryan (@RealSaavedra). “Gavin Newsom’s wife just deleted this tweet which comes as her husband has been out of public view for going on 2 weeks.” Twitter. 8 Nov 2021.

Ting, Eric. “Gavin Newsom’s wife, California Democrats bristle at questions about governor’s continued absence.” SFGATE. 8 Nov 2021.

Ting, Eric. “Gavin Newsom reportedly spotted at Getty heiress’ wedding amid public absence.” SFGATE. 9 Nov 2021.

The post Viral Posts Make Unfounded Claims After Newsom Gets COVID-19 Booster appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Exposing the Holes in a California Recall Election Conspiracy Theory

Joseph A. Gambardello — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 20:41:14 +0000

Quick Take

Videos on social media suggest that holes in the return envelopes being used for mail-in ballots in California were designed to allow election officials to peek inside and toss out ballots in favor of recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom. Officials say the holes serve two useful purposes, including helping the vision impaired to sign the ballot envelope in private.

Full Story

California’s 22 million registered voters have been sent mail-in ballots for the Sept. 14 recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and most should have received them by now.

Under the recall rules, Californians are being asked to vote “no” if they want Newsom to remain in office until his first term ends in 2023 or “yes” to replace by one of 46 candidates seeking his job.

More than 1.7 million Californians signed the petition to recall Newsom, surpassing the 1.49 million signatures needed. The petition period is supposed to take 160 days under the law, but a Republican-appointed judge extended the process another 120 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After receiving a mail-in ballot, a woman who supports Newsom’s recall posted a video on Instagram on Aug. 19 that questioned the ballot design, which she described as “sketchy” and “asking for fraud.”

“So, anybody that has access to this mail-in envelope can see whose voted yes, toss it, do whatever they want to it,” she said. “They can see your vote.”

In a video posted a day earlier on Instagram, another woman called the holes “super weird,” questioning “why they would be there.”

“They can literally see if you vote yes or no, and they will throw it away if you vote yes,” she said. “That is why there are holes where his name is.”

But that’s not why the holes are there.

The holes serve two purposes: to help the vision impaired to sign the ballot envelope in private and to serve as a visual double check for election officials in the state’s 58 counties “so that they know the ballot has been extracted and not left inside an envelope uncounted,” Jenna Dresner, a spokesperson for the California Secretary of State, told us in an email.

The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, in a statement provided by Dresner, said the envelope has been in use for “several election cycles” and is a design based on recommendations by the nonprofit Center for Civic Design.

Whitney Quesenbery, executive director of the Center for Civic Design, said in a telephone interview that the two-hole envelopes have been used for more than a decade without any issues in Oregon, an all vote-by-mail state.

“I don’t think there is much to this. I think it’s somebody trying to drum up some controversy,” she said. “I do not think there is any intent, or, in fact, probability this could be used to disenfranchise voters or throw out ballots.”

In fact, the videos posted on Instagram show that it isn’t easy to see a “yes” vote for Newsom’s recall.

In the Aug. 18 video, the narrator places the ballot securely in the envelope, but all that appears in one hole is part of Newsom’s name. She manually moves the ballot around in the envelope to show a small part of the circle where a “yes” vote would go.

Carol Moon Goldberg, president of the League of Women Voters of California, said in a telephone interview said this was the first time she had heard a complaint about the ballot envelopes.

“These envelopes have been used before,” she said. “They were used by millions of people in the November election. There were no complaints then.”

“From the league’s standpoint, the ballot has been carefully vetted and designed,” Goldberg said. “Whatever anomaly someone finds, there’s a remedy for it.”

She noted that each of California’s 58 counties print their own ballots so that they are not all the same.

Goldberg, Quesenbery and Dresner each said voters are not required to fold the ballot or insert it any prescribed way. If voters have any concerns, they can fold the ballot so that the vote side of the ballot is inside the fold. They can also vote in person on Sept. 14, they said.

Voters can also track their mail-in ballots through Ballot Trax, a site operated by the California Secretary of State’s office.

All voters, whether they cast a ballot for or against Newsom’s recall, can vote for one of the 46 challengers. If more than half of the voters cast ballots to recall Newsom, then the replacement candidate with the most votes for governor, even if they are considerably less than those against recalling Newsom, will complete his term.

Lawyers representing two voters have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recall provisions of the state Constitution, arguing they violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by allowing sitting officials to be replaced by candidates who received fewer votes, Politico reports.

The lawsuit asks the court to halt the recall or require that Newsom’s name be included with the list of candidates.

In the only other recall in the state’s history, Californians voted 5 million to 4 million in favor of removing then Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. The man who succeeded him, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, received 4.2 million votes.

According to the latest polls evaluated by FiveThirtyEight, voters are almost evenly split on recalling Newsom.

Among possible replacements, Republican Larry Elder, a conservative radio host is the leading candidate with about 19% support, followed by Democrat Kevin Paffrath, a financial analyst; and Republican John Cox, a businessman who has been touring the state with a live Kodiak bear, according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis.

In drawing up the petition, Newsom’s opponents listed a passel of complaints, including support for “foreign nationals in our country illegally,” high taxes, homelessness, opposition to the death penalty and seeking to ration water use.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

Sources

Ballotpedia. “Gray Davis recall (2003).” Accessed 24 Aug 2021.

California Legislative Information. California Constitution: Article II Voting, Initiative and Referndum, and Recall, Sec. 15. Accessed 23 Aug. 2021.

Dresner, Jenna, spokesperson for California Secretary of State’s Office. Emails to FactCheck.org. 19 Aug. 2021, 22 Aug 2021 and 23 Aug 2021.

FiveThirtyEight. “Latest Polls of the California Recall Election.” 18 Aug 2021

Goldberg, Carol Moon, president of the League of Women Voters of California. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 23 Aug 2021.

Hubler, Shawn. “The California Recall, Untangled.” New York Times. 18 Aug 2021

Padilla, Alex, California Secretary of State. Memorandum and copy of order by state Superior Court Judge James Arguelles extending petition period for recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. 17 Nov 2020.

Politico. Copy of R.J. Beaber and A.W. Clark v. Shirley N. Weber, as California Secretary of State. 16 Aug 2021.

Quesenbery, Whitney, executive director of the Center for Civic Design. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 23 Aug 2021.

Recall Gavin Newsom 2020. Official Recall Petition. Accessed 23 Aug 2021.

Reston, Maeve and Cohen, Ethan, “What you need to know about the California recall,” CNN. 21 Aug 2021.

Rosenhall, Laurel and Kamal, Sameea, “Who’s running in Newsom recall? Politicians, activists, Californians of all stripes,” Cal Matters. 17 Jul 2021, updated 17 Aug 2021

White, Jeremy B. and Kahn, Debra, “Federal lawsuit challenges California recall as unconstitutional,” Politico, 16 Aug 2021.

The post Exposing the Holes in a California Recall Election Conspiracy Theory appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Caitlyn Jenner Overstates California’s Share of U.S. Homeless Population

D'Angelo Gore — Fri, 28 May 2021 19:02:16 +0000

As of January 2020, California had a little more than one-quarter of all the homeless people in the United States, according to the most recent federal estimates of homelessness.

But Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate to be the state’s next governor, wrongly claimed that California’s portion of the homeless population was twice as high.

Jenner, a former Olympian and reality TV star, is one of several people running to unseat Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a special recall election expected to be held later this year.

Part of her campaign platform calls for addressing homelessness in California, which she has said caused at least one person she knows to leave the state because he didn’t want to “walk down the streets and see the homeless.”

Jenner discussed homelessness again during a May 26 Fox News interview on “America’s Newsroom,” in which she overstated the percentage of the country’s homeless residents in her state.

Caitlyn Jenner at an entertainment event in April 2019. Photo by Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images

As Bill Hemmer, one of the show’s co-hosts, said, California has the “highest homelessness in the nation” — at least in raw numbers. Jenner added that “50% of all homeless people live in California.”

But Jenner’s interjection was inaccurate, based on a report the Department of Housing and Urban Development released in March.

Part I of “The 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress” said California — which has nearly 40 million residents — had 161,548 of the 580,466 homeless people in the U.S. on a single night in January 2020. That’s significantly less than half.

Combined, about 54% of all people experiencing homelessness were in California (28%), New York (16%), Florida (5%) and Texas (5%), the report said. Those also happen to be the four most populous U.S. states.

We reached out to Jenner’s gubernatorial campaign about her claim, but have not received a response.

It’s possible she meant to refer only to California’s share of the homeless population who do not spend their nights in emergency shelters or transitional housing. The same HUD report said California accounted for 51% of “all unsheltered people in the country,” or 113,660 out of 226,080.

Unsheltered homelessness, HUD said, “refers to people whose primary nighttime location is a public or private place not designated for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for people (for example, the streets, vehicles, or parks).”

However, the majority of homeless people in the U.S. were considered to be sheltered, according to the 2020 analysis. That’s why California — where 70% of the homeless were unsheltered at that point in time — had a smaller share of the overall U.S. homeless population.

Update, June 1: On May 31, a Jenner campaign spokesman indicated that Jenner was referring only to California’s share of the homeless population who do not spend their nights in emergency shelters or transitional housing. The spokesman emailed us a link to a 2019 news article about a White House report, which in turn used statistics from HUD’s 2018 report on homelessness. The report said that, as of January 2018, 47% of all unsheltered homeless people nationwide lived in California.

The post Caitlyn Jenner Overstates California’s Share of U.S. Homeless Population appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Bogus Claims Follow Donation of Kamala Harris’ Children’s Book

Brea Jones — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 21:07:45 +0000

Quick Take

A single copy of Vice President Kamala Harris’ children’s book was one of many titles donated to a shelter for immigrant children in Long Beach, California. But a debunked New York Post article – which led to the reporter’s resignation — incorrectly claimed every child was given a copy of her book, starting a deluge of false claims in social media posts.

Full Story

In 2019, prior to becoming vice president, Kamala Harris published a 40-page children’s picture book titled, “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” which made it to the New York Times best-seller list.

A copy of the book was one of many titles donated during a toy and book drive for migrant children arriving at a shelter operated by the Department of Health and Human Services in Long Beach, California.

During the drive, a story published by the New York Post on April 23 falsely claimed all the children at the shelter were given a copy of Harris’ book in “welcome kits.”

The New York Post story was debunked within days, leading to an updated version in the paper — and the resignation of the reporter who wrote the original story, tweeting that she was “ordered to write” the article.

But the inaccurate story sparked a litany of bogus claims in conservative social media posts.

A viral Instagram post shows a screenshot of a tweet posted by the account @Breaking911 that rehashes an exchange between a reporter and White House Press Secretary Jan Psaki on April 26. It says: “REPORTER: ‘Every migrant child being brought to a shelter is being given a copy of [VP Kamala Harris’] children’s book. Do you know why that is and if she’s making any money off of that?’ PSAKI: ‘I’d have to certainly check on that. I hear it’s a good book.’”

The account that posted the exchange commented, “I’d bet $100 to a bucket of piss that our taxpayer money is paying for these books. That’s CRIMINAL.”

Conservative commentator Candace Owens tweeted on April 26: “Imagine if President Donald Trump used taxpayer money to buy his own books to give out to foreigners. That is exactly what Kamala Harris is doing. Her and Biden are crooks, but we already knew that.”

Christina Aguayo News, a Facebook account with 63,000 followers, posted a video report on April 27, which has since been deleted, also falsely claiming Harris’ book was being given to children in welcome kits, showing the chyron, “Tax Payer Dollars Used to Purchase Harris’ Book.”

None of that was true, however.

Kevin Lee, the spokesman for the City of Long Beach, told Snopes in a story published April 27 that Harris’ book “is one of now thousands of various books that have already been donated. The book was not purchased by HHS or the City. It was a single book and was not part of a mass donation of that specific title.”

Lee told CNN that the donated books would be made available in an informal library at the shelter, not in the children’s welcome package. Lee said the Harris book had been donated by a member of the local community.

The HHS, in a statement to Newsweek published April 26, said, “The referenced book was one of an assortment of hundreds of titles donated to the Long Beach Emergency Intake Site as part of a City of Long Beach new books and toys drive. No taxpayer dollars were used to purchase Vice President Harris’ book.”

In addition, Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman for Harris, told the Washington Post, “A citywide donation for books and toys was organized by the community to donate to children being housed at migrant facilities. The Office of the Vice President was not aware that her children’s book was donated.”

The reporter who wrote the New York Post story, Laura Italiano, announced her resignation from the newspaper in a tweet on April 27. She wrote: “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point.”

A follow-up story published April 26 in the New York Post includes an editor’s note at the end, stating: “The original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris’ book in a welcome kit, but has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was donated to a child.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

Sources

City of Long Beach, California. “Updated: Long Beach Launches Toy and Book Donation Drive for Arriving Migrant Children.” Press release. 23 Apr 2021.

Crisp, Elizabeth. “White House Distances Itself From Kamala Harris Book in Migrant Welcome Packs.” Newsweek. 26 Apr 2021.

Dale, Daniel. “New York Post temporarily deletes, then edits false story that claimed Harris’ book was given out in migrant ‘welcome kits’.” CNN. 28 Apr 2021.

Italiano, Laura. “Kamala isn’t at the southern border- but at least one migrant kid got Veep’s book.” New York Post. 23 Apr 2021.

Italiano, Laura (@Italiano_Laura). “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point.” Twitter. 27 Apr 2021.

Mastrangelo, Dominick. “New York Post Deletes Story Alleging Kamala Harris Book Given to Migrant Children.” The Hill. 27 April 2021.

Moore, Mark. “Psaki Has No Answers When Asked About Harris’ Book Being Given to Child Migrants.” New York Post. 26 Apr 2021.

New York Times. Best Sellers: “Children’s Picture Books.” 17 Feb 2019.

Palma, Bethania. “Did Biden Admin Give Migrant Kids Kamala Harris’ Book?” Snopes. 27 Apr 2021.

Penguin. “Superheroes Are Everywhere” webpage. Penguin.co.uk. Accessed 30 Apr 2021.

Rizzo, Salvador. “No, officials are not handing out Harris’s picture book to migrant kids.” Washington Post. 27 Apr 2021.

The post Bogus Claims Follow Donation of Kamala Harris’ Children’s Book appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Photos of Recycled Election Materials in California Prompt False Claim

Angelo Fichera — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 17:26:20 +0000

Quick Take

Officials in Sonoma County, California, said photos circulating on social media show “old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election” being recycled — not “1,000+ mail-in ballots found in a dumpster,” as social media posts falsely claim.

Full Story

An erroneous story about a trove of mail-in ballots being “found” in a California dumpster has spread online in recent days, when, in fact, the images cited actually show one California county’s routine recycling of old election materials.

The falsehood swirled on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on unreliable blogs, earning thousands of shares.

Among those spreading the false suggestion, a reporter for the conservative outlet TheBlaze TV shared a tweet — later removed by Twitter — that said “1,000+ mail-in-ballots found in a dumpster in California.” The Sept. 25 post, which deemed the supposed information “SHOCKING,” said the purported ballots were found in “the Republic Services of Sonoma County central landfill.”

“These are original photos sent to me,” the tweet concluded. “Big if true.”

But the photos included in his tweet actually show empty envelopes from the November 2018 election, according to county officials.

“Please be aware: Someone posted pictures on the web showing empty Vote-by-Mail envelopes from Sonoma County in recycling bins. The pictures are of old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election that were disposed of as allowed by law,” the county wrote on its verified Facebook page. “But some on the web are claiming its evidence of ballots for the Nov. 3 election ‘being dumped’ in California. This is not true. Those ballots haven’t even been mailed out yet.”

Deva Marie Proto, the registrar of voters in Sonoma County, told us in a phone interview that such election materials from past federal and state elections are kept for 22 months, per California’s Elections Code.

Proto said the county sent the old envelopes — along with some old, unused ballots and election guides — to the landfill to be recycled the week of Sept. 21. It appeared that someone entered the landfill after county workers and took the photos, she said.

As for the coming 2020 election, California requires that county elections officials send mail-in ballots to registered voters by Oct. 5, and Proto said her county will be sending mail-in ballots on that day.

This year, California is one of nine states “mailing ballots to all eligible voters, no request needed” for the November election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Montana also gives counties the option to do so. The District of Columbia will also mail ballots to all registered voters, according to the district’s Board of Elections.

The false claim appeared in other posts on Facebook and on blogs such as the Gateway Pundit. The latter updated its story but still cast the photos in a suspicious light — claiming that “the ballots in the trash are still sealed.”

Proto said the county uses a machine that slices the top and sides of the envelopes, then opens them so that workers can take the ballot out for counting. There aren’t “tears or rips,” she said, that one might expect if the envelopes were to be manually opened by workers.

Also, the mail-in ballot envelopes for the 2020 election will feature some differences from the old ones seen in the photos, Proto said. For example, the new envelopes will not feature the red lines seen on the old ones — and postage is included.

Many false and unsubstantiated claims about mail-in ballots have been floated in advance of the election, including by President Donald Trump.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

Sources

“Absentee and Mail Voting Policies in Effect for the 2020 Election.” National Conference of State Legislatures. Updated 24 Sep 2020.

“Assembly Bill No. 860, An act to amend Sections 3019.7, 3020, and 15101 of, and to add Sections 3000.5 and 3016.7 to, the Elections Code, relating to elections, and declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately.” California State Assembly. (as signed into law 18 Jun 2020)

County of Sonoma (@CountyofSonoma). “Please be aware: Someone posted pictures on the web showing empty Vote-by-Mail envelopes from Sonoma County in recycling bins. The pictures are of old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election that were disposed of as allowed by law. But some on the web are claiming its evidence of ballots for the Nov. 3 election “being dumped” in California. This is not true. Those ballots haven’t even been mailed out yet. Please help us spread the word. Thank you.” Facebook. 26 Sep 2020.

“ELECTIONS CODE – ELEC | DIVISION 17. RETENTION AND PRESERVATION OF ELECTION RECORDS [17000 – 17506].” California Legislative Information. Accessed 28 Sep 2020.

Proto, Deva Marie. Registrar of voters, Sonoma County. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 28 Sep 2020.

The post Photos of Recycled Election Materials in California Prompt False Claim appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Contrary to Viral Claim, Trump OK’d Aid for California Fires

Saranac Hale Spencer — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 22:37:05 +0000

Quick Take

Facebook posts claim that President Donald Trump has withheld aid from California to fight wildfires, while offering help to Russia. That’s a rehash of a controversy in 2019, when Trump threatened to withhold aid from California, while offering help to Russia. The Trump administration has provided federal assistance to California for the recent wildfires.

Full Story

Text posts on Facebook are spreading the falsehood that President Donald Trump has denied federal aid to California, while offering to help Russia fight wildfires.

But it’s a rehash of a 2019 controversy.

One version of the post that’s been shared more than 20,000 times claims: “Trump says No Aid for CA fires. But in July he offered to help Putin with fires in Russia.” That one went up on Sept. 17 and many similar posts followed.

Almost a month earlier, though, Trump had declared a major disaster in California and made federal relief funds available for areas affected by wildfires. That declaration has resulted in $7.7 million so far being allocated to those who were burned out of their homes or otherwise impacted, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA also has approved funding for firefighting equipment, supplies, and workers at more than a dozen fires so far. So, the first part of the claim is wrong.

The second part of the claim appears to be from more than a year ago. On July 31, 2019, the Kremlin announced that Trump had offered U.S. support in fighting Siberian wildfires at the time. The following day, Trump confirmed to reporters outside of the White House that he had offered assistance, saying, “we’re very good at putting out forest fires, frankly.”

We found no indication that the U.S. actually assisted Russia in fighting those fires.

Trump’s offer to help, though, showed up again in November 2019. Headlines compared it with Trump’s attitude toward California Gov. Gavin Newsom during the state’s fire season, which usually goes from late summer through the fall. The president had tweeted on Nov. 3, 2019, “Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor.”

In a related tweet, Trump criticized Newsom, blaming poor forest management for the extent of the seasonal California fires — a claim that he had made the year before and that he made again this year. We explained at the time, though, that while forest management techniques can be helpful in reducing the severity of some wildfires, they aren’t effective for all ecosystems and the 2019 fires in California were exacerbated by hot, dry conditions with extreme winds.

Trump did not declare a major emergency for the 2019 fires in California, but the state did get federal assistance. FEMA approved aid — as it’s done this year, too — through Fire Management Assistance Declarations. Those declarations are requested by the state and authorized by the regional FEMA administrator, a role delegated by the president. They cover 75% of the cost for equipment, supplies, and labor spent fighting the fires.

While Trump did extend an offer to help Russia fight it’s wildfires in 2019, there’s no evidence that he did so again this year. Neither of the phone calls between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that were reported on the Kremlin’s website this summer include references to the fires. Although NASA’s Earth Observatory described the blazes during Siberia’s 2020 fire season as “intense” and due to “abnormally warm temperatures.”

We asked the White House whether or not the president had extended the same offer in 2020, but we didn’t get a response.

Update, Oct. 16: Three weeks after this story was posted, the Trump administration rejected, but then reversed itself and approved, a new request from California for a major disaster declaration related to fires that began in September. FEMA also has provided some federal support for dealing with those fires through Fire Management Assistance Declarations.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

Sources

Trump, Donald. “President Donald J. Trump Approves California Disaster Declaration.” Whitehouse.gov. 22 Aug 2020.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. California Wildfires (DR-4558-CA). Financial Assistance. Accessed 23 Sep 2020.

Kremlin. Press release. “Telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump.” Kremlin.ru. 31 Jul 2019.

Associated Press. “Trump offers Putin help fighting Russian wildfires.” YouTube.com. 6 Aug 2019.

Hutzler, Alexandra. “Russia Says Trump Once Offered to Help Putin Fight Wildfires—Now He’s Threatening to Withdraw Aid From California.” Newsweek. 5 Nov 2019.

Trump, Donald (@realDonaldTrump). “..Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states…But our teams are working well together in…..” Twitter. 3 Nov 2019.

McDonald, Jessica. “Trump Again Misunderstands California’s Wildfires.” FactCheck.org. 8 Nov 2019.

NASA. “Another Intense Summer of Fires in Siberia.” Earth Observatory. Accessed 22 Sep 2020.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fire Management Assistance Grant Program Guide. Feb 2014.

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