Category: Fact Checking

On March 18, 2024, a United Nations committee known as the Famine Review Committee (FRC) endorsed the findings of a panel of experts convened to assess the food security situation in Gaza. That report’s headline finding was catastrophic: Without any change in the situation, the entire northern portion of Gaza could face the U.N.’s highest famine classification by late May or early June 2024.

That report, and a similar one from a U.S. Agency for International Development-associated organization that works with the U.N. committee known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), generated a wave of headlines and calls for Israeli leaders to increase the flow of aid into the strip. 

At least partly as a result of the findings, the International Criminal Court issued applications for arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for the “war crime of intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” 

Weeks later, however, the U.N. appeared to reverse itself. The FRC released a report on June 4 that characterized previous dire projections for northern Gaza as implausible. Supporters of Israel and those skeptical of the ICC indictment took this report as an exoneration of Israel and, in some cases, as evidence there was no famine in Gaza in the first place:

However, the U.N. report that allegedly exonerated Israel did not make any “admission” that there was “no famine after all,” nor did it clear Israeli leaders of the ICC charge of using starvation as a tool of war. 

In fact, this report explicitly stated that an absence of data — not the existence of evidence against famine — drove its conclusion. That revised projection, experts on international law regarding starvation-related war crimes say, is unlikely to affect ICC prosecutors’ case against Netanyahu and Gallant. 

Famine Declarations and Arrest Warrants

The U.N. uses a standardized scale to inform policymakers and governments about the severity of the risk of famine in certain regions. Known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), it is an accepted academic framework to classify food security risk into five phases. The IPC five-phase scale is shown below, with Phase 5 indicating a catastrophic famine: 

The U.N.’s FRC is the primary international body that oversees the analysis of food scarcity. It generally works with special expert panels it recruits, or with nongovernmental organizations and other international agencies such as FEWS NET, to make sure published analyses of food security risk accurately follow this standardized methodology. 

The FRC’s role, in a sense, is akin to that of peer-reviewers of academic papers. Ultimately, the committee makes the final call on endorsing or rejecting the findings of these experts. NGOs and panels cannot use the IPC framework without the FRC approving their work. Further, as the central body protecting the IPC framework, the FRC must, by regulation, technically examine any Phase 5 finding made by other groups or experts before publication, given the severity of the claim.  

The FRC, for example, signed off on a Phase 5 declaration in March 2024, endorsing findings of an expert panel that projected widespread Phase 5 conditions in northern Gaza by May 2024:

Famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024. … According to the most likely scenario, both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates are classified in IPC Phase 5 (Famine) with reasonable evidence, with 70% (around 210,000 people) of the population in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe). …

The southern governorates of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, and the Governorate of Rafah, are classified in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). However, in a worst-case scenario, these governorates face a risk of Famine through July 2024. The entire population in the Gaza Strip (2.23 million) is facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

A report released the same day by FEWS NET and also reviewed by the FRC came to a similar conclusion. These reports led to international condemnation and fueled the charge that Israel was intentionally withholding aid as a means of warfare — a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. 

Citing these reports, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres posted on X that, “1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger — the highest number of people ever recorded — anywhere, anytime,” calling it “an entirely manmade disaster.”

Israel disputed the reliability of the FRC projections even before they were published. The Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a branch of the Israeli Defense Forces, issued a March 15, 2024, news release disputing the findings of the pending report:

A report is set to be released by international organizations presenting an image of hunger in the Gaza Strip. It is COGAT’s assessment that the report does not represent the current situation in the Gaza Strip in regards to food security and availability. 

This is due to the fact that over the last few weeks, and during the time these reports were being compiled, a number of significant new initiatives were implemented that improved the humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza. 

As these efforts and their impact are not reflected, the report does not accurately reflect the current situation on the ground and is outdated even before publication. 

In a more-detailed rebuttal that COGAT posted days later, Israel denied intentionally starving civilians in Gaza. A central disagreement between the FRC and COGAT focused in large part on how the committee reached the conclusion there had been a significant decline in food-aid delivery following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. It was in this context that, in May 2024, the ICC issued applications for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

In a May 20, 2024, news release, the ICC prosecutor argued that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival,” citing the closure of crossings and the restrictions of aid delivery as a key part of this “common plan” to deprive Gazans of essential resources. That ICC announcement cited, among other things, Guterres’ remarks that 1.1 million people could face starvation.

Changing Conditions and Revised Projections

The report that has been used as evidence to discredit previous famine projections as well as the ICC arrest warrants was an FRC review of a FEWS NET analysis of data through the end of April 2024. In the analysis, FEWS NET argued that much of northern Gaza had entered IPC Phase 5 conditions. As with the earlier report, the FRC reviewed the findings — but this time, it did not endorse the conclusions:

The FRC does not find the FEWS NET analysis plausible given the uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis. Therefore, the FRC is unable to make a determination as to whether or not famine thresholds have been passed during April. 

As the FRC does not find the FEWS NET analysis plausible for the current period, the FRC is unable to endorse the IPC Phase 5 (Famine) classification for the projection period. 

This report, released in early June 2024, was not an FRC research product similar to its March 2024 expert panel report. Instead, this report had the narrow task of reviewing a single FEWS NET assessment and projection made using data that ended in April.

As the FRC wrote in the report, “FEWS NET did not incorporate any estimate of privately contracted and/or commercial food truck entry into the Gaza and North Gaza Governorates in March and April 2024.” FEWS NET excluded these because of the “large uncertainty regarding their distribution and caloric value.” FRC stated this exclusion was in error. As a result, the committee concluded, FEWS NET’s projections of widespread Phase 5 conditions were not plausible: 

While the FRC concurs on the high level of uncertainty over which share of these deliveries is freely accessible to the population, assuming generic exclusion of the population from accessing this source of food might be another assumption which highly impacts on the overall analysis that is not supported by evidence.

Supporters of Israel presented these findings as an exoneration of Israel and a validation of their earlier criticism of the FRC projections. Under the headline “The Gaza Famine That Wasn’t,” National Review columnist Phil Klein argued, for example, that the new report rendered the ICC complaint against Israel as factually wrong:

The reports of mass starvation even helped lead the ICC to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Yet, like many claims made by Israel’s enemies and routinely parroted around the media, it has turned out to be completely false. …

To the extent that there are food shortages in the Strip, the issue is not food being let in by Israel, but aid being stolen or disrupted once it is inside of Gaza. But the blame for that rests squarely with Hamas, which is using claims of mass starvation to whip up international pressure against Israel.

While the FRC noted that “this FEWS NET projection is in line with the FRC projection done in March 2024,” it cautioned that this report was out of date and that an FRC expert panel report based on data ending in May would follow.

A week later, FRC published its official update on Gaza. Like the March report, this FRC expert panel report looked back at the data from the proceeding months to asses actual famine conditions and also made projections moving forward to September 2024. “If anything, the prolonged nature of the crisis means that the risk of Famine remains at least as high as at any time during the last 9 months,” they wrote in their update. 

The FRC’s review of the FEWS NET was, at best, a validation only of specific arguments about how to count the number of food trucks entering Gaza. Broader interpretations of that review justifying assertions that there is no famine in Gaza or absolves Israel of ICC charges are false and misleading, respectively.

First, the lack of endorsement of the most extreme IPC Phase 5 classification does not mean that significant numbers of civilians are not experiencing famine. Second, the charges being pursued by the ICC do not, in any way, hinge on an IPC Phase 5 declaration.

Food Scarcity and the Gaza Strip

The central argument used by commentators and social media posters to paint the FRC’s May review of the FEWS NET analysis as exonerating Israel is that it allegedly showed there had been an adequate number of aid deliveries allowed into Gaza. Any famine, if it even exists, would not be Israel’s fault as a result, they argue.

Snopes asked professor Alex de Waal of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy — who is also executive director of the World Peace Foundation and leads research programs on African peacemaking and mass starvation — about this talking point. 

“Starvation is the phenomenon of some people not having enough food to eat,” de Waal told Snopes by email, “not the phenomenon of there not being enough food to eat.” Just because food crosses a checkpoint into Gaza does not mean it is getting into the hands of people who need it, or that the deliveries fulfill the actual nutritional needs of Gazans, he said.

Several critics of the March projections have argued that, in addition to undercounting trucks, they captured an incomplete view of the food-security situation by assessing it at its worse and before it began to improve. The latest FRC report issued a week after their critique of the FEWS NET report, does not suggest that is the case. 

That more thorough and up-to-date June report by an FRC expert panel noted the ameliorating effect of aid to northern Gaza, but it also mentioned a rapid deterioration of the situation in the region’s south, where hostilities have since intensified:

In the southern governorates, the situation deteriorated following renewed hostilities in early May. Over one million people have been displaced since the start of the Rafah offensive on 6 May following attacks by air and sea across the territory and expansion into Deir alBalah, notably in Nuseirat Refugee Camp. 

Humanitarian access to the two million people in the southern governorates has notably reduced with the closure of the Rafah border crossing and disruptions to the Karem Shalom crossing. 

In its new June assessment, the FRC found that “the probable improvement in nutrition status noted in April and May should not allow room for complacency about the risk of famine in the coming weeks and months.” The panel found it plausible that most of Gaza was in IPC Phase 4.

“The latest data show that, to be able to buy food, more than half of the households had to exchange their clothes for money and one third resorted to picking up trash to sell,” the June analysis said. “More than half also reported that, often, they do not have any food to eat in the house, and over 20 percent go entire days and nights without eating.”

FEWS NET, for its part, released a report partly in response to the FRC panel review reiterating its view that the criteria for famine, generally speaking, was still likely to have been surpassed in the north of Gaza by the end of April, as its report indicated. 

The group also highlighted that the FRC’s non-endorsement of its April analysis was predicated on the basis of a lack of data, not dispositive evidence against famine. “The FRC [was] unable to determine whether the Famine (IPC Phase 5) thresholds [had] been met or surpassed due to limited up-to-date, quantifiable evidence,” FEWS NET wrote. 

Intent — Not Severity — Key to ICC Charges

The ICC prosecution does not require an IPC Phase 5 classification to be valid. In a June 18 post on the World Peace Foundation website, Tuft’s de Waal explained that “starvation crimes hinge on deprivation, not on the severity of outcome.” 

As Tom Dannenbaum, also a professor at Tuft’s Fletcher School and the co-director of their Center for International Law & Governance, explained in a post for Just Security, there are two key elements behind the ICC’s potential charges of deprivation:

The perpetrator must have engaged in the deprivation of objects indispensable to civilian survival.

The perpetrator must have done so intending to starve civilians as a method of warfare.

From the ICC’s perspective, “there is no element that requires proving a consequence of these actions,” Dannenbaum explained. “The Prosecutor does not need to prove that civilians starved as a result of the prohibited deprivation.” As a result, the technical minutiae behind the endorsement of an IPC Phase 5 classification are irrelevant.

In terms of intent, as Dannebaum and others have pointed out, Netanyahu and Gallant explicitly stated an intent to deprive resources to Gazans as a tool of warfare:

Senior leaders were explicit from early on about the sustenance denial strategy and their roles in it. Among those listed today, Defense Minister Gallant announced on Oct. 9, 2023, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” 

Ten days later Prime Minister Netanyahu stated, “we will not allow humanitarian assistance, in the form of food and medicines, from our territory to the Gaza Strip.” Other ministers have, at various points, articulated a deliberate policy of sustenance denial or openly blocked the delivery of food. 

It is also important to note that, while the ICC notice of the application for arrest warrants makes reference to March FRC projections, the actual evidence presented by the prosecutor to the panel of experts that signed off on his case remains confidential. 

Regardless, the reality of a deprivation of resources is a much more complicated question than simply counting the number of food trucks going into the Gaza Strip. As de Waal told Snopes by email, “The overall quantity of food available tells us little about who is eating it, especially with the breakdown of law and order and the specialized therapeutic nutritional care needed for severely malnourished children.”

Dannenbaum, who argued that “key factual components of starvation crimes [by Netanyahu and Gallant] are relatively clear in the current context,” highlighted several other incidents, including attacks on humanitarian workers and facilities, and on food and water systems that could be considered deprivation under international law:

Impeding humanitarian relief (including through denials of access to Gaza as a whole and northern Gaza in particular, fostering or enabling Israeli civilians to block humanitarian convoys or destroy their cargo, arbitrary and unpredictable access criteria, and refusals to engage in necessary deconfliction);

Attacking humanitarian actors, distribution centers, and convoys;

Attacking or otherwise destroying food, water, and the systems by which they are maintained and produced (such as agricultural areas, water systems and the like); 

Rendering such systems useless (such as through impeding the delivery of fuel or power to desalination plants).

Snopes asked de Waal whether the FRC’s reassessment of the March projections complicates the ICC’s case. “If I were the ICC prosecutor,” he wrote, “I would be entirely unworried.”

The Bottom Line

Because the U.N. report cited as evidence in rumors that there’s no famine in Gaza made no such assertion, this claim is rated “False.” In June, that same U.N. body wrote that “the situation in Gaza is catastrophic … If anything, the prolonged nature of the crisis means that the risk of famine remains at least as high as at any time during the last 9 months.”

Additionally, claims that the FRC report disputing FEWS NET’s projection affects or negates the starvation charges against Netanyahu and Gallant are misguided, as such prosecutions do not rest on IPC phase classifications specifically, or the even severity of famine more generally. 

For years, debate has raged online as to whether male or female voices are best for aviation voice warning systems, so pilots can respond quickly and accurately (archived):

This post had gained 29,000 upvotes as of this writing, as well as 692 comments. But other posts argued the opposite was true (archived):

This post had received 1,100 upvotes and 144 comments, some speculating about the role of bias in our perception of gender in voice warning systems.

In the air, safety is paramount, and pilots must react to all manner of sensory stimuli to make the best decisions, so it is crucial that they hear spoken warnings. But the truth about which type of voice is best, as we’ll see, is far more complicated, and science has yet to provide a full understanding of the issue. 

The History

In the 1950s, U.S. aircraft manufacturer Convair developed its B-58 Hustler, the first bomber airplane capable of breaking the sound barrier. The engineering on board was cutting edge for the time, and it included a voice warning system. Convair had determined that a female voice would be better able to get and keep the attention of young men, and hired actress Joan Elms to record the messages:

(Whitby Archives)

The pilots immediately nicknamed the voice “Sexy Sally.” The recordings of Elms reading the warnings have been preserved.

As time went on, manufacturers began to use both female and male voices in U.S. planes and helicopters, which received the nickames “Bit***n’ Betty” in the U.S. (Kim Crow, Erica Lane, Patricia Hoyt and Leslie Shook all lent her their voices) or “Nagging Nora” in the U.K. (Sue Milne was the voice in the European Eurofighter Typhoon) and “Barking Bob.” The system would allow the pilots to choose the voice they preferred, male or female.

But the question researchers have tried to answer for decades has to do with these voices’ ability to prompt fast and accurate responses from the people who operate the aircraft. And there, the problem is twofold: Pilots need a voice they can hear over the loud noises of a cockpit (acoustics); also, they need to actually listen to it, as opposed to tune it out. The latter brings up issues of bias. 

Acoustics or Sexism?

A warning system must stand out so pilots will hear it over chatter and communications between themselves, and between them and ground control. At a time when those fields were exclusively male, a female voice stood out better than a male voice, and this is the reason many computer voices, including voice warning systems, are female by default, according to CNN. But as society evolved and women began to join the ranks of air forces across the world, a voice’s perceived gender ceased to be a factor of distinction. 

Several studies have tried to assess which voices best overcome a cockpit’s ambient noise. In 1998, a paper from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base looked at the ability of female pilots’ voices to break through in typical cockpit conditions. They described a female voice as “high in frequency, lower in power” and more likely to be covered by “military noises.” The study evaluated it in environmental noise going from 95 to 115 decibels and concluded that at 115 decibels and above, female voices were unintelligible. In such conditions, the authors of the paper recommended better noise-reduction equipment and calibration to support the communications of both male and female aviators.

Five years later, in 2003, a study at the University of Plymouth compared male and female voices in a noisy environment and assessed them for their acoustic and non-acoustic (i.e., social perceptions and biases regarding differences between men and women) properties and found the differences were “negligible,” though they gave female voices a slight edge, as they were deemed better able to convey a “greater range of urgencies because of their usually higher pitch and pitch range.” They added that the differences between the two types of voice didn’t have anything to do with social factors, only with acoustics. “Semantics,” the article argued, was also key.

This was contradicted in a 2009 study carried out by Defence Research and Development Canada. Here, the goal was to determine which type of voice and intonation in a voice warning system stood out from cockpit aviator chatter. In other words, it tried to determine what voice in a warning system could cause the pilots to respond in the best way.

Researcher Robert Arrabito tested different voice warnings systems, male and female, with varying degrees of urgency (whisper, monotone, and urgent). The participants in the study were both male and female. The first experiment tested the warning systems in a quiet environment, and there he found that the perceived sex of the voice warning system made no difference in terms of the participants’ reaction times, though intonation did (i.e., monotone and urgent resulted in faster action). The second experiment, in noisy cockpit conditions, showed that for both male and female participants, a male voice speaking in either a monotone way or an urgent way prompted the best responses. This study suggested that perceived gender did not play a role in prompting a response, but acoustics did.

The science gets even more complicated because pilots have to distinguish between several voices and noises: that of their co-pilots, as the case may be; that of ground controllers; that of voice warning systems; and that of alerts and alarms. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) said in a 2020 review of the literature on alarms, alerts and warnings that “alerts and alarms are dynamic and time sensitive, while warnings are static and usually permanent.” According to the BTS, “sensory design” is key to guarantee that pilots can react quickly and accurately to emergency situations.

At the time of this writing, however, it appeared that sexism was much less of a factor than acoustics in ensuring that they can hear warnings and instructions correctly. But the question also seemed to require much more research to understand how aviators, male and female, perceive warning systems with male or female voices in real-life cockpit conditions. 

Sources

In April 2024, a video went viral on TikTok, claiming that if you’re extra sleepy when you’re around your partner, it means you’re “chemically bonded.” The video’s captions read, “just found out that if ur extra sleepy when you’re around your partner it means you’re chemically bonded. Your body releases hormones like serotonin or dopamine when you’re together, which makes you more sleepy? that’s the sweetest shi i’ve ever heard.”

(TikTok user @viraj.bagga)

As of this writing, the video had accumulated more than 3.5 million views, 421,000 likes and 104,000 shares. The same claim was spread via numerous viral TikTok videos and X posts.

In brief, our research found that while the presence of serotonin and dopamine in the brain can influence one’s sleep-wake cycle, many other factors may also play a role when one “feels sleepy.” Moreover, no scientific studies conclude that feeling sleepy around one’s partner is caused by the release of serotonin and dopamine, or that the release of those hormones is caused by that proximity, or that feeling sleepy is a sign of a “chemical bond” between two people. Based on these factors, we have rated the claim as a “Mixture” of true and unconfirmed information. 

Serotonin and Dopamine

Dopamine and serotonin are neurotransmitters, chemicals in the brain that transmit signals between nerve cells (neurons). Both hormones play a unique role in regulating various physiological processes, such as the sleep-wake cycle.

“Serotonin is one of the natural body chemicals that controls your mood. It works with melatonin to help control when you sleep and wake up, as well as how you feel pain, wellbeing and sexual desire,” the national health advice service in Australia explains. Serotonin influences sleep in that it’s necessary for the synthesis of melatonin, another important hormone in the brain. Adequate serotonin levels are required for the proper production of melatonin, which then regulates the sleep-wake cycle and timing of sleep onset.

Dopamine, on the other hand, produced by the hypothalamus, is “released when we do things that feel good to us,” such as being in a relationship. 

In this case, these things include spending time with loved ones and having sex. High levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia – which means you actually can be so “in love” that you can’t eat and can’t sleep.

We have not found any scientific studies proving that being sleepy around one’s partner is a sign of a “chemical bond” or caused by the release of hormones such as serotonin and dopamine. We have reached out to biochemistry experts for comment and will update this article if we receive a response. 

Oxytocin

Several articles on the subject suggest that another hormone, oxytocin, affects one’s sleep-wake cycle. Oxytocin, often referred to as the “love hormone,” is a neuropeptide produced in the hypothalamus and released by the pituitary gland. “People in romantic relationships tend to have higher levels of oxytocin, a hormone associated with pair bonding,” Madeline Sprajcer, a psychology lecturer at Australia’s Central Queensland University, told Newsweek, adding that “It also appears that oxytocin can have a positive impact on our sleep.”

Oxytocin has been shown to make people fall asleep more quickly and rest more efficiently, with an increase in restorative REM [rapid eye movement] sleep episodes. This so-called love hormone is often released during sexual activity, particularly during orgasm. Oxytocin can be released by simply being in the presence of a romantic partner to whom you are strongly attached, Sprajcer said.

However, Newsweek’s article highlighted that “feeling sleepy around your partner is not a foolproof indicator of a happy relationship.” Emre Selçuk, an associate professor of psychology at Turkey’s Sabanci University, told Newsweek that “the calm and quiescent state that partners instill almost borders boredom,” underscoring that “the feeling that there is nothing else to do or to share with your partner can make you sleepy in their company.”

In an article titled “Why do I get sleepy around my partner? A therapist’s take,” NOCD therapist April Kilduff explained that “Studies have found that people in relationships tend to have higher levels of the hormone oxytocin than those who are single”:

This hormone, which is sometimes referred to as the “bonding” or “love” hormone, is important for building connections between human beings. Our brains naturally release more oxytocin after being touched, or through positive interactions with others. So it’s no surprise that people in good relationships tend to have higher levels. Oxytocin is also thought to alleviate stress and promote calmness. As a result, this may translate to feeling more relaxed and even sleepy when you’re with Your Person versus when you are alone. 

There’s even research showing that sleep in general is better with a partner, which might play a factor. For example, a study at the University of Arizona found that adults who shared their bed with a partner or spouse reported better quality sleep than those who slept alone. 

It could even be something in your partner’s scent that lulls you to bed. Yes, really! There’s evidence that being exposed to your partner’s scent might help you sleep better than nights spent without the scent. 

Feeling Safe and Other Factors

Tasha Bailey, an accredited psychotherapist and author, told Glamour UK that “when we feel secure and comfortable with a partner, it can activate our body to feel so safe that we might fall asleep”:

The feeling of safety activates the parasympathetic part of our nervous system (which is the part that is in charge when we feel relaxed). Our pupils dilate, our breath gets deeper and our heart rate drops as our body slowly unwinds. This means that our body is preparing itself for rest, which is why we might find ourselves falling asleep easily with our partner.”

Bailey also explained that “if we don’t feel safe with a partner, our fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system can be activated. This can leave us feeling on edge, anxious and too hyper-vigilant to be able to relax,” adding that feeling sleepy around a partner could mean someone feels safe and protected:

Feeling sleepy around your partner can be a great sign that you trust this person enough to fall asleep in their presence. If we think back to pre-historic times, our ancestors could only fall asleep in places and with people where they were safe and out of danger. So saying that we can fall asleep in the presence of a partner, means that we feel safe and protected.

Similarly, Kilduff said that “if you’re a little bit tired or it’s the end of the day, there’s a certain element of safety that could make it easy to feel sleepy around your partner,” adding, “It could even be as simple as the fact that you mostly tend to spend time with your partner at the end of a long workday, which would naturally coincide with your circadian rhythms — the internal body clock that dictates your sleep cycle.”

In closing, it’s worth remembering that tiredness is a natural response to a lack of adequate sleep and isn’t necessarily related to the dynamics of a relationship. Therefore, sleepiness around one’s partner can also be attributed to factors such as sleep deprivation, stress, irregular sleep patterns and overall lifestyle choices. Moreover, certain sleep disorders or medications can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, regardless of the situation or company.

Sources

In July 2024, a photograph spread on social media, allegedly showing a Taiwan-based teacher who shared his math lessons on Pornhub, earning over $250,000 annually. “Every place is a classroom: Teacher uses ‘P*rnHüb to give math lessons’, earns over $250,000 annually. The 34-year-old teacher has uploaded more than 200 videos,” read the text of a meme showing a man standing in front of a chalkboard.

The meme was also shared on platforms such as Instagram, Imgur, 9GAG, and Know Your Meme. 

In short, the teacher, whose name is Chang-Hsu, exists and his accounts on Pornhub are @changhsumath and @changhsumath666. A 2021 article in Mel Magazine reported, based on an interview with the teacher, that his online course “pulls in 7,500,000 New Taiwan dollars (over $250,000 U.S.) per year, which he uses to pay his bills and provide a decent salary to his employees, who help him teach on his various platforms.” Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography video-sharing website.

In other words, Chang’s income comes primarily from multiple platforms, where he sells courses, rather than from ad revenue generated by posting videos on Pornhub. But we were unable to independently verify the teacher’s annual income as of June 2024. Because of all of this, we have rated this claim as a mixture of truth and falsehoods.

We have reached out to Chang for a comment and we will update this article if/when we receive a response. 

@changhsumath‘s account on Pornhub, as of June 2024, had 3,300,000 views and 16,400 subscribers. 

(www.pornhub.com)

Below you can see what @changhsumath’s videos on Pornhub look like:

(@changhsumath Pornhub user)

Chang’s second account on Pornhub, @changhsumath666, as of June 2024, had 1,800,000 views and 8,300 subscribers. 

(www.pornhub.com)

Some of the videos shared on @changhsumath666 account featured female models who cleared the chalkboard, possibly as a tactic to capture viewers’ attention.

(Pornhub user @changhsumath666)

Chang could make money on Pornhub by leveraging its Model Program, which allows users to upload content and earn revenue based on views and ad clicks.

In May 2023, South China Morning Post shared a post on Facebook reading, “A mathematics teacher has come up with a novel way to attract new students to his online classes” and showing behind-the-scenes captures of his videos.

A Focus Taiwan article from February 2021 reported that Chang began the Pornhub project in May 2020 after a financial crisis at his private school and quoted him as saying, “The online-teaching market is highly competitive, and I can now attract 1,000 students each year, compared with an average of a few hundred for a calculus tutor.” Moreover, the article underscored Chang’s income came from multiple platforms on which he sells his courses:

Although Chang admitted that he felt a majority of his viewers visited his account, dubbed “Play hard, study hard,” for a laugh rather than to study math, he said such a marketing strategy has brought him many new students.

Chang said the students, many of whom were from other countries, watched the free lessons on Pornhub and decided to enroll in his paid classes through various platforms, which altogether earned him NT$7.5 million (US$268,000) per year.

The article also reported that Chang, who had 15 years of teaching experience and a master’s degree in mathematics, found it difficult to succeed on YouTube, and therefore decided to start sharing his videos on Pornhub.

Holding a master’s degree in mathematics with 15 years of teaching experience, Chang said he had tried lecturing on YouTube but found it difficult to stand out from his competitors.

“I asked myself where to find my target students, say college boys, and the answer popped out: adult video platforms,” he said.

Not all such websites appreciated Chang’s idea, however, as others including XVideos and NXNN rejected non-adult clips, he said.

Now that many fellow tutors have started to follow suit, Chang said he is planning a revision for his channel next month.

“This is a top business secret, and what I can only tell you is it will no longer be just me in the videos,” he said, implying, perhaps, a new hashtag of “multiple people.”

According to Mel Magazine, Chang even tried to publish his videos on other adult websites, but “those platforms know which kinds of videos are adult and which aren’t, and they forbid them.”

Last year, Changhsu saw an opportunity to spread his numeric gospel on Pornhub. “Since very few people teach math on adult video platforms, and since there are so many people who watch videos on them, I thought that if I uploaded my videos there, a lot of people would see them,” he tells me (Changhsu asked us to edit his English for clarity, because it’s not his first language). It’s true that non-pornographic videos like “I Deliver You a Pizza and Don’t Put My […] in It” or “Minecraft Tips and Tricks 3: Fast and Free House” aren’t uncommon on Pornhub, but Changhsu appears to be the only math teacher on the website (unless “[…] off to CALCULUS” counts). 

In fact, Changhsu even tried to extend his reign to other adult websites like XVideos and XNXX, but he says “those platforms know which kinds of videos are adult and which aren’t, and they forbid them.” 

“People may not be interested in my videos, but they’ll all know there’s a teacher who teaches calculus on an adult video platform,” he explained to Mel Magazine, which reported Chang “suspects that 60 percent or more of his viewers come to his Pornhub channel for a laugh, rather than to learn calculus.”

“Many students who need a teacher who can teach math know me through Pornhub, and some of them buy my course,” he said. “I didn’t want to teach math on Pornhub,” he stated, adding that, “I wanted to let the world know that I’m a teacher from Taiwan who can teach calculus well.” 

“I just finished filming a new series of lessons with the help of Lena Paul, Lena Anderson and other helpful models that may assist in your calculus skills,” Chang said in a 2022 Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit:

Below you can see the photograph linked in the post:

(Reddit u/WeAreMEL)

“Do you shoot nude content with the girls who erase your blackboards?” one user under the post asked, to which Chang responded, “No, we don’t~🤣.”

Apart from publishing on Pornhub, Chang Hsu also shares his videos via a YouTube channel, @changhsumath. His newest video available on YouTube as of this writing was published in March 2024, with the title “[Zhang Xu Freshman Calculus] EP376｜Vector [13] Divergence Theorem｜Explanation of Concepts” (we translated it from Chinese using Google Translate).

Chang’s Pornhub account also linked to Instagram and X accounts, but as of late June 2024, both profiles were empty and solely redirected to the changhsumath.com website, where his his courses were available for purchase. 

(www.changhsumath.com)

It’s not the first time we have fact-checked a Pornhub-related claim. For instance, in February 2024, we investigated whether Pornhub “sanctioned” Russia after its attack on Ukraine by blocking Russian users from accessing the site.

On June 22, 2024, X user @stats_feed posted, “Kobe Bryant is the only person to have won both an Olympic medal and an Oscar.” At the time of this writing, the post had received around 88 reposts and 840 likes. 

Kobe Bryant is the only person to have won both an Olympic medal and an Oscar

— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) June 22, 2024

Also on June 22, 2024, Reddit user u/TonahVilla made the same claim on the r/todayilearned subreddit, in a post that had received around 21,000 upvotes and 728 comments at the time of this writing. The Reddit post linked to an article titled “The Only Person to have Won an Olympic Medal and an Oscar,” which was published on June 8, 2023, by Far Out magazine, a culture-focused publication based in the UK. 

The claim is true. Bryant, who died in 2020, won his two Olympic gold medals in Beijing, in 2008, and in London, in 2012, both times as a member of the US men’s Olympic basketball team. He won his Oscar in the short film (animated) category for “Dear Basketball,” which he wrote and narrated, in 2018 at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony.

To confirm that no other Olympic athletes have ever won an Oscar, we consulted Olympedia, a website run by a self-described “group of dedicated Olympic historians and statisticians” that maintains a database of information about every athlete who has competed in the Olympics since the first modern games were held in Athens in 1896. 

According to Olympedia, Bryant does hold the honor of being the only Olympic medallist — and, in fact, the only Olympic athlete, regardless of placement — ever to have won an Oscar. 

The website lists one other “Olympian” to have won an Oscar: actress Michelle Yeoh, who has never competed in the Olympic Games as an athlete but became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 2023. Yeoh won an Oscar, also in 2023, for her leading role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” 

An article published on Aug. 24, 2022, in A.frame, the official digital magazine of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that awards Oscars, offers further confirmation that the claim is correct, at least for now. The article also points out two other historic “firsts” established by Bryant’s 2018 Oscars win: he was the first former professional athlete in any sport to become an Oscar winner, as well as the first Black man to win an Oscar for best animated short film.

Bryant is no longer the only former professional athlete to have won an Oscar. Fellow former NBA stars Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal jointly won Academy Awards as executive producers of the documentary “The Queen of Basketball,” which took the award for best short subject documentary in 2022. 

Bryant, however, remains the only Olympic medallist to have won an Oscar. As such, we rate this claim as “True.”

Sources

On June 24, 2024, X user @JamesTate121 posted a quote claiming author Stephen King once said, “Fox news did to our parents what our parents were afraid video games would do to us.” The body of the post repeated the alleged attribution, reading, “Stephen King pens it best.”

King did post the saying on X on Nov. 14, 2023. However, he included a disclaimer clarifying that he was not the original author of the quote, which he credited to “Tweet (no attribution).”

Because the attribution of the quote to King stems from an obvious misunderstanding of King’s original post, we have rated this quote as “Misattributed.” 

Based on reverse-image searches conducted using Google Images and TinEye, the exact quote meme in the post, which incorrectly identifies King as the quote’s originator, appears to have first circulated in the weeks after King’s X post went viral, appearing on Imgur and Instagram in late November 2023.

At the time of this writing, @JamesTate121’s X post had received around 47,000 likes and 8,100 reposts, many of which expressed skepticism that King was the real source of the quote. As one reposter pointed out, “Stephen King is 76 years old. What video game were his parents afraid of? Pong didn’t come out until he was 25!”

Another clue that the quote was misattributed is the fact that Fox News was launched in 1996, years after King’s mother, Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King, died in 1973 and his father, Donald Edwin King, died in 1980 — meaning neither of King’s parents could ever have watched Fox News, let alone be influenced by it.

Who Said It First?

A community note appended to @JamesTate121’s post on June 25, 2024, which has since been deleted but can be seen in archived versions of the post as well as in the below screenshot, claimed that the quote originated with a post made on Aug. 3, 2019, by X user @ryan_scott. That post read, “Fox News did to our parents what they thought video games would do to us.”

However, Snopes was able to find multiple earlier posts sharing versions of the same quote, which went viral at least twice before @ryan_scott posted his version in 2019. In other words, claims that the quote originated with X user @ryan_scott are also incorrect.

On June 10, 2019, nearly two months before @ryan_scott’s post, X user @AllenCMarshall posted, “FOX has done to our parents what our parents thought video games would do to us.” That post had received around 64,000 reposts and 264,000 likes as of this writing.

More than a year before @AllenCMarshall’s post, on Jan. 31, 2018, another X user, @Blk_Dolphin, posted a slightly broader variation of the same quote, reading, “CNN & Fox News has done to our parents what they thought violent video games & Marilyn Manson would do to us.” This post, which had received around 25,000 reposts and 74,000 likes as of this writing, appears to be the first securely datable time any variation on the quote went viral.

However, the existence of an even earlier X post, dated April 7, 2017, shows that at least one form of the quote was in circulation even earlier, even if this particular quote did not go viral. In it, user @awylam responded to a now-deleted post with, “Who was it that said @FoxNews has done to baby boomers what our parents said video games would do to us?”

Although Snopes has been unable to find any earlier, securely datable appearances of any version of the quote online, the wording of @awylam’s April 2017 X post strongly suggests that the quote had already been circulating in some form, whether online or through word of mouth, by the time it was posted. 

Ultimately, none of the early examples Snopes was able to track down can be accurately described as the origin of the quote, which may be best understood as a saying or proverb, not an attributable quote. 

We’ve fact-checked other alleged King quotes, including whether the author said, “Hard to believe there was ever a world leader as dumb as Donald Trump. Can’t spell, can’t read, has never managed anything approaching an original thought.”

For decades, people have wondered about the true color of acting legend Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes: Were they blue velvet, dark denim, deep purple or vivid violet? 

Such is the legend surrounding the Hollywood icon’s dazzling eyes that she even named a fragrance after them — Elizabeth Taylor Violet Eyes.

Indeed, the debate about Taylor’s striking peepers has continued on social media years after her death in 2011, with posts on Reddit, TikTok and Instagram rehashing the long-held assertion that the screen legend was born with violet-colored eyes. 

For example, in 2023, a post on the subreddit r/WhatisMyEyeColour referred to Taylor as “the stunning actor with violet eyes,” before asking, “Were they really violet? They look more like a super intense blue to me.”

(Temporary_Trick5345/Reddit)

The Eyes Never Lie — But the Camera Can

While some people have claimed that Taylor did have violet eyes, others say her eyes were a striking shade of blue that she enhanced through clever makeup tricks, wardrobe choices and expert lighting. 

Classic Hollywood Central, for example, said Taylor’s eyes “were probably a very deep blue that could look like violet in the right light. She also accentuated this effect by using a lot of blue and violet eye shadow shades throughout her career.”

To confirm Taylor’s eye color once and for all, Snopes contacted the Elizabeth Taylor estate. A spokesperson for House of Taylor, a company managing the luxury brands and archive established by the estate, confirmed that Taylor never wore contacts or colored contacts, but did not explicitly state her true eye color. 

With the “Cleopatra” actress’ career beginning in the 1940s, black-and-white photographs added to the mystique surrounding her eye color. As Hollywood began to use color film more, they often oversaturated images to enhance features such as eye and lip hue. Publicity photos often altered the “violet” color of Taylor’s eyes to make them pop and appear brighter.

Taylor often wore clothing, accessories and eye makeup in jewel tones such as blue, green or purple to enhance her eye color. In one close-up scene in the 1974 drama “The Driver’s Seat,” Taylor’s character swiftly applies blue eye shadow with a small cosmetic applicator wand. In 2016, celebrity makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (who counts Kim Kardashian among his famous clients) posted the scene to Instagram, writing, “Love this. #elizabethtaylor. She did that eye in seconds with that tiny brush – shadow, crease and liner. Boom 👏.”

Eye Color is Determined by Melanin in Irises

Paler-colored eyes often reflect shades of blue, green and aqua, depending on the person’s clothing and lighting conditions, whether natural or enhanced. Like many people with blue or green eyes, Taylor’s appeared to change tone depending on what she was wearing and her cosmetics.

Blue eyes can, under certain lighting conditions, create the optical illusion of appearing purple or violet. Eye color can seem to change based on the eyes’ light absorption, whether from the sun or the reflection of clothing and enhanced lighting.

Even among ophthalmologists, Taylor’s “true” eye color is open to interpretation. Live Science spoke with ophthalmic laser and microsurgeon Dr. Norman Saffra, who told the outlet, “There are various shades of blues and grays, with many in-between. Violet may have been her typical pigmentation,” adding, “It’s possible to have that eye color; it all depends on the amount of melanin.”

Violet is a color closely related to purple that sits next to blue in the red, yellow, blue color wheel. While exceedingly rare, violet or purple eyes can occur due to a lack of melanin, or natural pigment, in the irises, usually due to albinism or a genetic mutation.

Melanin is a natural pigment responsible for the color of skin, hair and eyes. Eye color is related to the amount of melanin in the front layers of the iris. People with dark-brown eyes have a large amount of melanin in the iris, while people with paler shades like light blue or green have much less of this pigment in their irises.

Taylor’s eye color likely appeared at some times violet and at other times blue, due to the amount of melanin present in the stroma (the thickest layer of the cornea) of her iris, and the way in which light was reflected and dispersed from her eye. 

The American Academy of Ophthalmology does not mention violet or purple eyes when discussing the rarest eye color, noting that green eyes occur least naturally in the world population:

Green eyes are the rarest, with only about 2% of the world’s population having them. Green eyes are not due only to the amount of melanin in the eye, but also with how the light scatters off the eye. The optical effect of light scattering off the melanin in these eyes makes them green.

Violet Eyes Are So Rare, They’re Likely a Genetic Mutation

Meanwhile, the Optical Academy notes that “true violet-colored eyes are exceedingly rare and usually a result of albinism. While some individuals, like Elizabeth Taylor, may have deep blue eyes that can seem purple, authentic purple eyes are found in less than 1% of the global population.”

Ocular albinism is a genetic condition specifically affecting the eyes, characterized by a significant reduction or complete absence of pigment in the retina. This lack of pigment causes several vision-related issues, including light sensitivity, and often results in very light-blue eyes that can appear purple or even pink in certain lighting. Ocular albinism affects 1 in 50,000 people.

According to The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation: “A common myth is that people with albinism have red eyes. In fact there are different types of albinism and the amount of pigment in the eyes varies. Although some individuals with albinism have reddish or violet eyes, most have blue eyes. Some have hazel or brown eyes. However, all forms of albinism are associated with vision problems.”

Taylor was not known to have any optical mutation or vision problems that might have impacted her eye color, but she did have the rare genetic mutation distichiasis, which caused an extra row of naturally occurring lashes to grow on her top and bottom lash lines. This genetic mutation likely enhanced the appearance but not the color of Taylor’s eyes.

As noted above, it’s incredibly rare to have violet eyes if one does not have ocular albinism. In all probability, Taylor’s eyes were indeed a rare shade of blue that appeared violet under certain lighting conditions and when she wore particular wardrobe and makeup choices. It’s highly unlikely they were actually violet, seeing as this color is mostly found among the small population of people who have ocular albinism. While she did have a genetic mutation, it resulted in thick eyelashes, not in her distinctive blue/violet eye color. For these reasons, we rate the claim that Taylor’s eye color was naturally violet as “Unproven.”

In a previous fact check, Snopes investigated the claim that Alexandria’s Genesis is a mutation that turns people into “perfect human beings” who exhibit purple eyes six months after birth.

Sources

On June 24, 2024, an X thread supposedly listing “the most iconic celebrity mugshots” included an image of Amy Winehouse. As of this writing, the post allegedly showing the mugshot of the late pop singer had reached more than 474,000 views and 4,100 likes. 

(X user @pop_archives)

The photograph was also shared on Pinterest, and was featured in posters sold via online marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy and eBay. 

Because the image was not an authentic mugshot of Amy Winehouse, and the singer’s photograph was edited to resemble a mugshot, we have rated this claim as “Fake.”

TinEye reverse image search results showed that the fake mugshot was likely created using a genuine photograph of Winehouse.

(TinEye)

A comparison of the mugshot and an authentic photo of Winehouse revealed that the latter, shown on the right, had been manipulated to create the fake mugshot, seen on the left.

(X user @pop_archives, Mischa Richter, www.rollingstone.com)

The original photograph was taken by Mischa Richter during a photoshoot for Winehouse’s “Back to Black” album cover.

This isn’t the first time we have investigated a viral mugshot of a celebrity. For instance, in April 2024, we looked at viral photos allegedly showing Marilyn Monroe mugshots.

Sources

A purported quote about love from the acclaimed author, theorist and professor bell hooks has been going viral since 2023. Most recently, it spread on X in June 2024, claiming she once said, “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

hooks — who insisted on using lower-case letters in her name — indeed wrote this in her 2000 book, “All About Love: New Visions.” The book is a collection of essays that critiques society’s view of love as primarily romantic and addresses love in numerous shapes and forms. We thus rate this claim as “Correct Attribution.”

The quote can be found in Chapter 8, titled “Community: Loving Communion.” The section begins with an analysis of communities and how they are essential to sustain life, more so than nuclear families, romantic partnerships or individualists. hooks wrote (emphasis ours):

We all long for loving community. It enhances life’s joy. But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape. 

She then referenced theologian Henri Nouwen who “emphasized the value of solitude.” She described his writings that discouraged readers from seeing solitude “as being about the need for privacy” but “the place where we can truly look at ourselves and shed the false self.” 

She later quoted Nouwen’s writings: “Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.”

hooks died in December 2021, reportedly due to renal failure. She is widely credited for highlighting in the 1980s how the feminist movement had ignored the voices of Black and working-class women. Her interests were wide and varied and she wrote around 30 books that encompassed children’s literature, literary criticism, memoir, self-help and poetry. 

On Feb. 23, 2024, or National Tootsie Roll Day, the official X account for Joint Base Myers-Henderson Hall posted a video in which several members of the armed services told an incredible story about the Marines’ connection to Tootsie Rolls: 

The claim has been shared online countless times, including posts on Facebook, X and Reddit. All of these posts claim that Tootsie Rolls were mistakenly parachuted into the battlefield during the Korean War and helped Marines survive the harsh cold. 

According to the United States Marine Corps Community Services website, during a 1950 conflict called the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Marines in the 1st Division were sent Tootsie Rolls through the sky. The article states: 

During the Korean War, the First Marine Division met the enemy at Chosin mountain reservoir in subfreezing temperatures. Out of ammunition, Marines called in for 60mm mortar ammo; code name “Tootsie Rolls.” The radio operator did not have the code sheets that would tell him what a “Tootsie Roll”  was, but knew the request was urgent; so he called in the order. Soon, pallets of Tootsie Roll candies parachuted from the sky to the First Marine Division!  While they were not ammunition, this candy from the sky provided well needed nourishment for the troops. They also learned they could use warmed Tootsie Rolls to plug bullet holes, sealing them as they refroze.

Tootsie Roll Industries has honored the “Chosin Few,” survivors of the battle, by sending them boxes of its candy. In 2023, WATE, a news channel in Knoxville, Tennessee, featured one of these boxes in an article about Korean War veteran Cary Stewart. 

The box read, “Tootsie Roll salutes The Chosin Few. We are proud to have been with you.” Stewart related the same details from the Marine Corps Community Services article, noting that although he didn’t arrive at Chosin Reservoir until two years after the candy was dropped in, other service members who were there when it happened told him the story. 

An Iowa PBS documentary, “The Forgotten War: Iowans in Korea,” features commentary from Korean War veteran Dennis Dorman, who also recounted that a young lieutenant stationed in Japan didn’t understand the code language for 60 mm mortar shells and parachuted two pallets of the candy into the battle. 

We kept hollering for Tootsie Rolls, and some young lieutenant over in Japan thought we wanted Tootsie Rolls. So, he loaded up two of those great big pallets of Tootsie Rolls. 

…

And so we broke those Tootsie Rolls out and we stuffed them in our pockets, because it was cold, you know, and they were frozen. So we’d take… unwrap a Tootsie Roll and we’d lay it on the ground and we’d take a bayonet and lay it down there and hit it with a butt of a rifle, and break a piece off and stick it in our mouth. Then we’d take Tootsie Rolls and stick them inside of our clothing, you know. Warm ’em up, so that we could bite them and chew them.

A video from The Hutchinson News, published on YouTube in 2017, features the story of Raymond Miller, another Korean War veteran and member of the 1st Marine Division, who recounted the same details about the mistaken candy drop: 

In an email, the National Museum of the Marine Corps told Snopes that the “myth” of the Tootsie Rolls being parachuted in by mistake did happen. We have asked them for any evidence related to the incident and will update this story if they respond.

However, an article on the website of nonprofit group Veteran’s Breakfast Club casts doubt on the validity of the story. Historian and group founder Todd DePastino explains that the airdrop of Tootsie Rolls into the Chosin Reservoir probably didn’t happen. He writes: 

Before their encirclement by the Chinese, Marines in the Post Exchange Section had trucked in tons of merchandise to sell at the PX when the shooting in the area stopped. Those shipments included a lot of candy, especially Tootsie Rolls.

But the shooting didn’t stop, and the Marines at Hagaru had to plot their evacuation. The plan was to load everything of value aboard trucks for the return trip to the coast. There would be no room on the vehicles for the Tootsie Rolls and other retail stock designated for the never-to-be-realized PX at Hagaru.

So, General O.P. Smith gave the order to distribute the supply (worth $13,547.80, according to official Marine Corps history first published in 1957) free-of-charge to the Marines at Chosin.

That accounts for the Tootsie Roll dump Chosin survivors all remember so vividly. And, sure enough, some used the candy to plug leaky radiators.

But while there were indeed airdrops of badly needed 60mm mortars and other supplies, mostly ammunition, Tootsie Rolls weren’t delivered by air.

A letter on the Tootsie Roll website also has no mention of an airdrop, with its author, veteran Clifford W. Meyer, saying the boxes of candy were discovered as Marines evacuated.

Although the story of mistakenly airdropped Tootsie Rolls is a heartwarming tale of battlefield survival passed down through the generations, there are conflicting accounts of how the Marines got the candy and the exact details remain murky. If we find any new evidence to verify the tale, we will update this story to reflect that.