title: Bryn Mawr College

text: The Marjorie Walter Goodhart Theater houses a vaulted auditorium designed by Arthur Ingersoll Meigs of Mellor, Meigs & Howe, two smaller spaces that are ideal for intimate performances by visiting artists, practice rooms for student musicians, and the Office for the Arts. The building's towers and gables, friezes, carvings and ornamental ironwork, designed by Samuel Yellin, were done in the gothic revival style. In the fall of 2009, the college completed a $19 million renovation of Goodhart, which included expanded stage and rehearsal space, updated sound and lighting, a teaching theater, and renovated seating for audiences.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Previously named after Bryn Mawr's first Dean and second president, Old Library was used as the primary campus library until 1970, when Mariam Coffin Canaday Library opened. The Great Hall (formerly the reading room of the library) was designed by Walter Cope (of Cope and Stewardson) in 1901 and built by Stewardson and Jamieson several years later, although M. Carey Thomas played a large part in its construction. Today, it is a space for performances, readings, lectures, and public gatherings. Old Library encloses a large open courtyard called "The Cloisters", which is the site of the college's traditional Lantern Night ceremony. The cremated remains of M. Carey Thomas and Emmy Noether are located in the Cloisters. Georgiana Goddard King is also buried in the cloister. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991. The Great Hall was once the home of an Athena Lemnia statue (damaged in 1997) that is now located in a high alcove in the Rhys Carpenter Art and Archaeology Library. A plaster cast of that Athena now stands in her place at the Great Hall. Students often leave offerings to this statue in the hope that she will intervene on their behalf during testing and other trying circumstances. In 2018, the Board of Trustees formalized the use of the name "The Old Library."


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Old Library was formerly known as "Thomas Hall" after Bryn Mawr's second president, M. Carey Thomas. The building was informally known as "College Hall" for a year before being officially renamed to "Old Library" in 2018. This renaming was in response to student protests, which claimed that many of M. Carey Thomas's views did not represent the values of the college. Student protesters identified that M. Carey Thomas was a virulent eugenicist, antisemite and racist who strongly opposed the admission of students who were not elite white women. Today, the building houses a plaque explaining the controversy of the former name and affirming the college's current dedication to equity and inclusion, which was unveiled during the 2019 Community Day of Learning.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Named for Bryn Mawr's late professor of Classical Archaeology, the Rhys Carpenter Library was designed by Henry Myerberg of New York and opened in 1997. The space is connected to the rear of the M. Carey Thomas Library. The entrance is a four-story atrium. Names of art and archaeology faculty are displayed on the main wall of the atrium, along with a series of plaster casts of the metopes of the Parthenon. Most of the stacks, study areas, lecture halls and seminar rooms are located underground. The roof comprises a wide grassy area used for outdoor concerts and picnics. The building won a 2001 Award of Excellence for Library Architecture from the Library Administration and Management Association and the American Institute of Architects. Carpenter Library also houses the college's renowned collections in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, History of Art, and Classics. The building also contains a large lecture hall and several seminar rooms.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: The Bryn Mawr College Deanery was the campus residence of the first Dean and second President of Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas, who maintained a home there from 1885 to 1933. Under the direction of Thomas, the Deanery was gradually enlarged and elaborately decorated with the assistance of the American artist Lockwood de Forest and furnished with art from Thomas' world travels. From 1933 until 1968, the Deanery served as the Alumnae Center and Inn for the college. The building was demolished in the spring of 1968 to make space for the construction of Canaday Library, which stands on the site today. At the time of its demolition, many of the Deanery's furnishings were re-located to Wyndham, an 18th-century farmhouse (with several modern additions) which became the college's new Alumnae Center.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Bryn Mawr undergraduates largely govern themselves in academic and social matters via the Self-Government Association. A significant aspect of self-government is the Academic Honor System (honor code). The Honor Code is a set of principles that stress mutual respect and academic integrity. Students ratify the code each year, agree to adhere to it, and enforce its provisions.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Along with Haverford College, Bryn Mawr forms the Bi-College Community. Students in the "Bi-Co" enjoy unlimited cross-registration privileges and may choose to major or live in the dorms at the other institution. The two institutions join with Swarthmore College to form the Tri-College Consortium, opening the Swarthmore course catalog to interested Bryn Mawr students as well. Free shuttles are provided between the three campuses. There is the Blue Bus between Bryn Mawr and Haverford College, and a van, known to the students as the "Swat Van", that travels among the three colleges.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: In addition, the college is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania through a special association known as the Quaker Consortium, allowing Bryn Mawr students to take classes there. Additionally, Bryn Mawr students in the Growth and Structure of Cities department may earn a Bachelor of Arts at Bryn Mawr and a master's degree in city planning at Penn through the 3–2 Program in City and Regional Planning. Students also are allowed to take classes related to their major at the nearby Villanova University through a specific registration process.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Bryn Mawr is a small, four year, residential baccalaureate college. Although the college offers several graduate programs, the majority of enrollments are from students enrolled in the undergraduate arts and sciences program.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Students at Bryn Mawr are required to complete divisional requirements in the social sciences, natural sciences (including lab skills) and humanities. In addition, they must complete one year of a foreign language and fulfill a quantitative skills requirement and an Emily Balch Seminar requirement. The Emily Balch Seminars are similar to courses in freshman composition at other institutions, though focus on a specific topic. The seminars stress development of critical thinking skills and are discussion-based, with "intensive reading and writing."


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Admission to Bryn Mawr is classified as "more selective, lower transfer in." For the Class of 2023 (enrolling fall 2019), Bryn Mawr received 3,332 applications, admitted 1,102 (33.1%), and enrolled 374 students. For the freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% range of SAT scores was 640-740 for evidence-based reading and writing, and 650-770 for math, while the middle 50% ACT composite score range was 29–33.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: The four major traditions held at Bryn Mawr College include Parade Night, which traditionally took place on the first day of classes each academic year, but has been moved to the Friday of the first week of classes; Lantern Night, which takes place in late October or early November; Welcome the First Years Week (previously known as Hell Week), which takes place in mid-February; and May Day, which takes place on the Sunday after classes end in the spring semester. The Dar Williams song "As Cool As I Am" has recently become part of the tradition of May Day; it is played during the "May Hole" celebration, which is the feminist answer to the traditional maypoles displayed on campus. In the bi-campus newspaper shared with Haverford College, one student called it the college's unofficial anthem.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Bryn Mawr students gather quarterly for "Step Sings," or evenings spent outside Taylor Hall, singing hymns, traditional feminist songs and contemporary songs. Step Sings follow each major tradition, except WTF Week.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Two Traditions heads, elected by the student body, are in charge of organizing and running traditions.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: In addition to events, Bryn Mawr's traditions extend to superstitions around the campus, some of which date back to the opening of the college in 1885. Many of these superstitions involve not being able to graduate, and can be rectified by leaving an offering at the statue of Athena in the Great Hall.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Bryn Mawr has signed the American College and University President's Climate Commitment, and in doing so, the school agreed to make all new buildings comply with a LEED silver standard or higher; to purchase Energy Star products whenever possible; and to provide and encourage the use of public transportation. The school's dining halls strive to be environmentally sustainable by working to expand their local and organic offerings, recycling in all dining areas, and recycling used fry oil as bio-diesel fuel. The dining halls previously offered biodegradable takeout containers, but reverted to Styrofoam in the 2009/10 academic year. Additionally, all leftover food is donated to a local food bank. On the College Sustainability Report Card 2011, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Bryn Mawr received a B+. The school's highest category score was an A in Investment Priorities, since Bryn Mawr invests in renewable energy funds.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Bryn Mawr fields intercollegiate teams in badminton, basketball, cross country, fencing, field hockey, lacrosse, rowing, rugby, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. The badminton team won national intercollegiate championships in 1996 and 2008. The mascot of the college is the owl, the symbol of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: A large number of Bryn Mawr alumnae and former attendees are notable in their respective fields. The list includes Drew Gilpin Faust (class of 1968), the first woman president of Harvard University; Hanna Holborn Gray (1950), the first woman president of a major research university (University of Chicago); modernist poets Hilda "H.D." Doolittle (attended), and Marianne Moore (1909); classics scholar Edith Hamilton (M.A. 1894); author, social activist and feminist Grace Lee Boggs (Ph.D. 1940); Nobel Peace Prize winner Emily Greene Balch (1889); geneticist Nettie Stevens (Ph.D. 1903); physicist and astronomer Frances Lowater (Ph.D. 1904); mathematician Ada Isabel Maddison (Ph.D. 1896); Physician Martha Tracy (1898) a pioneer in medical education and in public health; 1891 Fellow in Mathematics Ruth Gentry; artist Anne Truitt (1943); author Ellen Kushner (attended); economist and founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office Alice Rivlin (1952); four-time Academy Award-winning actress Katharine Hepburn (1928); novelist and poet Ellis Avery (1993); novelist Andrea Portes (1993); poet Jane Hess Flanders (1962); Jo Ellen Johnson Parker (B.A., 1975), the 10th president of Sweet Briar College; Hadley Richardson (attended), first wife of Ernest Hemingway; Martha Gellhorn, (attended) journalist, and third wife of Ernest Hemingway; Julia Fahl, mayor of Lambertville, New Jersey; Agnes E. Wells, women's equal rights movement activist and dean of women at Indiana University; Carol Alonso, nuclear physicist; Mary Elizabeth Taylor, former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Forbes 30 under 30; Carolyn Goodman, mayor of Las Vegas from 2011-; Betsy Hodges, mayor of Minneapolis from 2013 to 2017; Renata Adler, novelist and journalist; Dame A.S. Byatt, novelist and Booker Prize winner; Joan Slonczewski, biologist and science fiction novelist; Caroline Stevermer, fantasy novelist; Rachel Simon, author and memoirist; Maggie Siff, actor (1996). Neuroscientist Candace Pert (1970) helped discover opioid receptors. Ana Botín is chair of the Santander Group, one of the world's largest banking groups. Indie musician Michelle Zauner (who performs as Japanese Breakfast) attended Bryn Mawr as well. The social reformer, Alice P. Gannett (1898), for whom the Goodrich-Gannett Neighborhood Center is named, attended Bryn Mawr, as did Maya Ajmera, CEO of Society for Science & the Public. Jeannette Piccard, American balloonist, scientist, teacher and priest.


title: Bryn Mawr College

text: Notable faculty include Woodrow Wilson, chemists Arthur C. Cope and Louis Fieser, Arthur Lindo Patterson of the Patterson function, Edmund Beecher Wilson, philologists Catherine Conybeare, Grace Frank and Louise Holland, archaeologist Leicester Bodine Holland, Thomas Hunt Morgan, historian Caroline Robbins, mathematicians Emmy Noether and Lillian Rosanoff Lieber, classicists Richmond Lattimore, Tenney Frank and Lily Ross Taylor, the Spanish philosopher José Ferrater Mora, Germanic philologist Agathe Lasch, Classical philologist Wilmer Cave Wright, Hispanist and medievalist Georgiana Goddard King, and the poet Karl Kirchwey.


title: MAC-10

text: The Military Armament Corporation Model 10, officially abbreviated as "M10" or "M-10", and more commonly known as the MAC-10, is a compact, blowback operated machine pistol/submachine gun that was developed by Gordon B. Ingram in 1964. It is chambered in either .45 ACP or 9mm. A two-stage suppressor by Sionics was designed for the MAC-10, which not only abates the noise created, but makes it easier to control on full automatic (although it also makes the gun far less compact and concealable).


title: MAC-10

text: Military Armament Corporation never used the "MAC-10" nomenclature in its catalogs or sales literature, but "MAC-10" is frequently used by Title II dealers, gun writers, and collectors. For a decade, the semi-automatic pistol version of the weapon was forbidden in the U.S. under the assault weapons ban enacted by Congress in 1994.


title: MAC-10

text: The MAC-10 is built predominantly from steel stampings. A notched cocking handle protrudes from the top of the receiver, and turning the handle 90°, locks the bolt, and acts as an indicator the weapon is unable to fire. The MAC-10 has a telescoping bolt, which wraps around the rear face of the barrel. This allows a more compact weapon and balances the weight of the weapon over the pistol grip, where the magazine is located. The MAC-10 fires from an open bolt, and the light weight of the bolt results in a rapid rate of fire. In addition, this design incorporates a built in feed ramp as part of the trigger guard (a new concept at the time) and, to save on cost, the magazine design was recycled from the M3 Grease Gun. The barrel is threaded to accept a suppressor, which works by reducing the discharge's sound without attempting to reduce the speed of the bullet. This works well with the .45 ACP versions, as most loads are subsonic already, as opposed to special, low-powered subsonic loads usually required for suppressed 9mm weapons. At the suggestion of the United States Army, the suppressor also acts as a foregrip to inhibit muzzle rise when fired. Ingram added a small bracket with a small strap beneath the muzzle to aid in controlling recoil during fully automatic fire. The original rate of fire for the MAC-10 in .45 ACP is approximately 1090 rounds per minute. That of the 9mm is approximately 1250, and that of the smaller MAC-11 in .380 ACP is 1500 rounds per minute.


title: MAC-10

text: Noting the weapon's poor accuracy, in the 1970s, International Association of Police Chiefs weapons researcher David Steele described the MAC series as "fit only for combat in a phone booth".


title: MAC-10

text: The primary reason for the original M10 finding recognition was its revolutionary sound suppressor designed by Mitchell WerBell III of Sionics. This suppressor has a two-stage design, with the first stage being larger than the second. This uniquely shaped suppressor gives the MAC-10 a very distinctive look. It is also very quiet, to the point that the bolt can be heard cycling, along with the suppressed report of the weapon's discharge, though only if subsonic rounds are used (standard .45 ACP rounds are subsonic). The suppressor, when used with a Nomex cover, creates a place to hold the firearm with the secondary hand, making it easier to control. During the 1970s, the United States placed restrictions on the export of suppressors, and a number of countries canceled their orders as the effectiveness of the MAC-10's suppressor was one of its main selling points. This was one factor that led to the bankruptcy of Military Armament Corporation, another being the company's failure to recognize the private market. The original Sionics suppressor is 11.44inches in length, 2.13inches in overall diameter, and weighs 1.20 pounds.


title: MAC-10

text: While the original M10 was available chambered for either .45 ACP or 9mm, the M10 is part of a series of machine pistols, the others being the MAC-11/M-11A1, which is a scaled-down version of the M10 chambered in .380 ACP (9×17mm); and the M-11/9, which is a modified version of the M-11 with a longer receiver chambered in 9×19mm, later made by SWD (Sylvia and Wayne Daniel), Leinad and Vulcan Armament. Law enforcement bureaucracies such as the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) consider MAC-11 variants such as the Leinad PM-11 to be part of the "MAC-10 class pistol".


title: MAC-10

text: In the United States, machine guns are National Firearms Act items. As the Military Armament Corporation was in bankruptcy, a large number of incomplete sheet metal frame flats were given serial numbers and then bought by a new company, RPB Industries. Some of the previously completed guns, which were already stamped with MAC, were then stamped with RPB on the reverse side, making it a "double stamp" gun.


title: MAC-10

text: RPB Industries made many open-bolt semi-automatic and sub-machine guns before the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) seized roughly 200 open-bolt semi-autos during the drug wars of 1981. The BATFE insisted that all future semi-automatic firearms were to be manufactured with a closed-bolt design as the open-bolt semi-automatics were considered too easy to illegally convert to full automatic operation.


title: MAC-10

text: Wayne Daniel, a former RPB machine operator, purchased much of their remaining inventory and formed SWD, designing a new weapon which was more balanced, available either fully or semi-automatic with his new BATFE-approved closed bolt design.


title: MAC-10

text: There are several carbine versions of the M-11/9 and Cobray and SWD manufactured a smaller version chambered in .380 ACP as a semiautomatic pistol called the M-12.


title: MAC-10

text: Today, while the civilian manufacture, sale and possession of post-1986 select-fire MAC-10 and variants is prohibited, it is still legal to sell templates, tooling and manuals to complete such conversions. These items are typically marketed as being "post-sample" materials for use by Federal Firearm Licensees for manufacturing/distributing select-fire variants of the MAC-10 to law enforcement, military and overseas customers.


title: MAC-10

text: The semi-automatic civilian pistol version of the MAC-10, which operates differently from its military counterpart, fell under the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. The ban – which expired in 2004 – enacted various requirements that defined an assault weapon. The MAC-10 was named directly in the ban, and it failed three of the requirements:


title: MAC-10

text: Additionally, the magazine capacity is 32 rounds. In response, Wayne Daniel redesigned the M-11 by eliminating the threaded barrel and creating a new magazine release that would only allow the firearm to accept a new 10-round magazine, as the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban mandated. The new firearm was called the PM11/9.


title: MAC-10

text: The BXP is 9mm submachine gun developed in the mid-1980s by the South African company Mechem (currently a division of Denel, formerly under ARMSCOR) and brought into production in 1984. Due to international arms embargoes of Apartheid South Africa, the country was forced to design and manufacture their own weapons. The weapon was intended for use by security forces. The manufacturing rights have changed hands several times, passing from Mechem to Milkor Marketing and later to Truvelo Armoury, the current manufacturer ().


title: MAC-10

text: The Cobra carbine is a semi-automatic firearm of Rhodesian origin manufactured during the Rhodesian Bush War Era as a self-defense weapon for farmers and is chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum round. The layout of this weapon is somewhat based on the Uzi submachine gun.


title: MAC-10

text: The "Pistola Ametralladora Patria" is a close copy of the MAC-10 and features a cooling jacket/barrel extension much like the South African BXP. It was developed by Major Luis Ricardo Dávila, of the Argentine Air Force, and protected by national Patent n° 220494/5/6/7 on 20/08/1980. It uses 9mm rounds for easy transportation, and can be operated in either hand. A similar earlier Argentine weapon based on the MAC-10 was also designed in 1977 by manufacturer Domingo Matheu, the "Pistola Ametralladora MPA".


title: MAC-10

text: The Enarm MSM (Mini Sub Metralhadora or Mini Submachine Gun) was a submachine gun of Brazilian origin based on the Uzi and MAC-10 weapons, made by ENARM. It was chambered in the 9×19mm Parabellum round and also came with a foregrip. Although the weapon performed well in trials, it was discontinued due to the company disbanding due to "internal disruptions".


title: MAC-10

text: Section Five Firearms Ltd of Tunbridge Wells, Kent in the UK manufactured a MAC-10 variation in 9×19 Parabellum in the 1970s. They only accept 9×19mm Uzi magazines and are equipped with a classic folding or a special fixed polymer stock.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its texture is reminiscent of rubber because of the physical-chemical properties of its polymer, plasticizer, and resin components, which contribute to its elastic-plastic, sticky, chewy characteristics.


title: Chewing gum

text: The cultural tradition of chewing gum seems to have developed through a convergent evolution process, as traces of this habit have arisen separately in many early civilizations. Each early precursor to chewing gum was derived from natural growths local to the region and was chewed purely out of the instinctual desire to masticate. Early chewers did not necessarily desire to derive nutritional benefits from their chewable substances but at times sought taste stimuli and teeth cleaning or breath-freshening capabilities.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum in many forms has existed since the Neolithic period. 5,000-year-old chewing gum made from birch bark tar, with tooth imprints, has been found in Kierikki in Finland. The tar from which the gums were made is believed to have antiseptic properties and other medicinal benefits. It is chemically similar to petroleum tar and is in this way different from most other early gum. The Mayans and Aztecs were the first to exploit the positive properties of gum; they used chicle, a natural tree gum, as a base for making a gum-like substance and to stick objects together in everyday use. Forms of chewing gum were also chewed in Ancient Greece. The Ancient Greeks chewed mastic gum, made from the resin of the mastic tree. Mastic gum, like birch bark tar, has antiseptic properties and is believed to have been used to maintain oral health. Both chicle and mastic are tree resins. Many other cultures have chewed gum-like substances made from plants, grasses, and resins.


title: Chewing gum

text: Although chewing gum can be traced back to civilizations worldwide, the modernization and commercialization of this product mainly took place in the United States. The American Indians chewed resin made from the sap of spruce trees. The New England settlers picked up this practice, and in 1848, John B. Curtis developed and sold the first commercial chewing gum called The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum. In this way, the industrializing West, having forgotten about tree gums, rediscovered chewing gum through the First Americans. Around 1850 a gum made from paraffin wax, a petroleum product, was developed and soon exceeded the spruce gum in popularity. To sweeten these early gums, the chewer would often make use of a plate of powdered sugar, which they would repeatedly dip the gum in to maintain sweetness. William Semple filed an early patent on chewing gum, patent number 98,304, on 28 December 1869.


title: Chewing gum

text: The first flavored chewing gum was created in the 1860s by John Colgan, a Louisville, Kentucky, pharmacist. Colgan mixed with powdered sugar the aromatic flavoring tolu, a powder obtained from an extract of the balsam tree ("Myroxylon"), creating small sticks of flavored chewing gum he named "Taffy Tolu". Colgan also led the way in the manufacturing and packaging of chicle-based chewing gum, derived from "Manilkara chicle", a tropical evergreen tree. He licensed a patent for automatically cutting chips of chewing gum from larger sticks: US 966,160 "Chewing Gum Chip Forming Machine" 2 August 1910 and a patent for automatically cutting wrappers for sticks of chewing gum: US 913,352 "Web-cutting attachment for wrapping-machines" 23 February 1909 from Louisville, Kentucky, inventor James Henry Brady, an employee of the Colgan Gum Company.


title: Chewing gum

text: Modern chewing gum was first developed in the 1860s when chicle was brought from Mexico by the former president, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, to New York, where he gave it to Thomas Adams for use as a rubber substitute. Chicle did not succeed as a replacement for rubber, but as a gum cut into strips and marketed as Adams New York Chewing Gum in 1871. Black Jack (1884), which is flavored with licorice, Chiclets (1899), and Wrigley's Spearmint Gum were early popular gums that quickly dominated the market and are all still around today. Chewing gum gained worldwide popularity through American GIs in WWII, who were supplied chewing gum as a ration and traded it with locals. Synthetic gums were first introduced to the U.S. after chicle no longer satisfied the needs of making good chewing gum. By the 1960s, US manufacturers had switched to butadiene-based synthetic rubber, as it was cheaper to manufacture. In the United States, chewing gum experienced a decline in popularity in the early 21st century, as it lost its association with counterculture and teenage rebelliousness. Others blamed smartphones reducing impulse purchases at the checkout.


title: Chewing gum

text: Gum base composition is considered proprietary information known by select individuals within each gum-manufacturing company. Information about the other components of chewing gum are more accessible to the public and they are listed in Table 2.


title: Chewing gum

text: Gum base is made of polymers, plasticizers, and resins. Polymers, including elastomers, are responsible for the stretchy and sticky nature of chewing gum. Plasticizers improve flexibility and reduce brittleness, contributing to the plastic and elastic nature of gum. The interactions of plasticizers within gum base are governed by solubility parameters, molecular weight, and chemical structure. Resins compose the hydrophobic portion of the gum base, responsible for its chewiness. Although the exact ingredients and proportions used in each brand's gum base are trade secrets within the gum industry, Table 3 lists all of the natural and synthetic gum base components approved for use in the United States, demonstrating some examples of key gum base components.


title: Chewing gum

text: First, gum base is previously prepared through a melting and straining or filtering process. The formulation for gum base is proprietary information known to few individuals within each gum-producing company. Next, other ingredients such as nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners and flavors are added to the gum base until the warm mixture thickens like dough. The gum base mixture is heated during this mixing process to increase the entropy of the polymers to achieve a more uniform dispersion of ingredients. Then, extrusion technology is implemented to smooth, form, and shape the gum. Next, the gum goes through a shaping process that is determined by gum type and consumer demand. For example, cut and wrap (chunk or cube) pieces are severed straight out of the extruder using a vertical cutter. Sheeting is a technique often used for stick, slab and tab gums. Next, gum is either conditioned by being sprinkled with a powdered polyol or coated via the application of subsequent layers of coating using temperature controlled coating basins before it is sent to packaging.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum can come in a variety of formats ranging from 1.4 to 6.9 grams per piece, and products can be differentiated by the consumers' intent to form bubbles or the sugar/sugarless dichotomy.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum typically comes in three formats: tablets, coated pellets, and sticks/ slabs. Bubble gum typically come in three formats as well: tablets, hollow balls, and cubes or chunks. Stick, slab, and tab gums typically come in packs of about five to 17 sticks or more, and their medium size allows for softer texture. Pellet gums, or "dragée" gums, are pillow shaped pieces that are almost always coated. Packaging of pellet gums can vary from boxes to bottles to blister packs. The coating of pellet gum allows for the opportunity for multiple flavor sensations, since coating is done in a layering process and different flavor attributes can be added to various layers. Cube or chunk gums, which are typically intended for bubble blowing, are called cut and wrap gums as they are typically severed from continuous strands of extruded gum and packaged directly.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum is rather shelf stable because of its non-reactive nature and low moisture content. The water activity of chewing gum ranges from 0.40 to 0.65. The moisture content of chewing gum ranges from three to six percent. In fact, chewing gum retains its quality for so long that, in most countries, it is not required by law to be labeled with an expiration date. If chewing gum remains in a stable environment, over time the gum may become brittle or lose some of its flavor, but it will never be unsafe to eat. If chewing gum is exposed to moisture, over time water migration may occur, making the gum soggy. In lollipops with a gum center, water migration can lead to the end of the product's shelf life, as it causes the exterior hard candy shell to soften and the interior gum center to harden.


title: Chewing gum

text: The physical and chemical properties of chewing gum impact all aspects of this product, from manufacturing to sensory perception during mastication.


title: Chewing gum

text: The polymers that make up the main component of chewing gum base are hydrophobic. This property is essential because it allows for retention of physical properties throughout the mastication process. Because the polymers of gum repel water, the water-based saliva system in a consumer's mouth will dissolve the sugars and flavorings in chewing gum, but not the gum base itself. This allows for gum to be chewed for a long time without breaking down in the mouth like conventional foods. Chewing gum can be classified as a product containing a liquid phase and a crystalline phase, providing gum with its characteristic balance of plastic and elastic properties.


title: Chewing gum

text: While hydrophobic polymers beneficially repel water and contribute to chewiness, they also detrimentally attract oil. The stickiness of gum results from this hydrophobic nature, as gum can form bonds and stick when it makes contact with oily surfaces such as sidewalks, skin, hair, or the sole of one's shoe. To make matters worse, unsticking the gum is a challenge because the long polymers of the gum base stretch, rather than break. The sticky characteristic of gum may be problematic during processing if the gum sticks to any machinery or packaging materials during processing, impeding the flow of product. Aside from ensuring that the machinery is free from lipid-based residues, this issue can be combatted by the conditioning and coating of gum toward the end of the process. By adding either a powder or a coating to the exterior of the gum product, the hydrophobic gum base binds to the added substance instead of various surfaces with which it may come in contact.


title: Chewing gum

text: Bubblegum bubbles are formed when the tension and elasticity of gum polymers acts against the constant and equally dispersed pressure of air being directed into the gum bolus. Bubble gum bubbles are circular because pressure from the focused air being directed into the bolus acts equally on all of the interior surfaces of the gum cud, uniformly pushing outward on all surfaces as the polymers extend. As the bubble expands, the polymers of the gum base stretch and the surface of the bubble begins to thin. When the force of the air being blown into the bubble exceeds the force that the polymers can withstand, the polymers overextend and the bubble pops. Due to the elastic attributes of chewing gum, the deflated bubble recoils and the wad of gum is ready to continue being chewed.


title: Chewing gum

text: Gum bases with higher molecular weights are typically used in gums intended to meet bubble-forming expectations. Higher molecular weight gum bases include longer polymers that are able to stretch further, and thus are able to form larger bubbles that retain their shape for a longer time.


title: Chewing gum

text: Flavor delivery is extended throughout the mastication process by timed release of different flavor components due to the physical-chemical properties of many of chewing gum's ingredients. Entropy is a key player in the process of flavor delivery. Because some gum components are more soluble in saliva than gum base and because over time flavor components desire to increase their entropy by becoming dispersed in the less ordered system of the mouth than in the more ordered system of the gum bolus, flavor delivery occurs. During the first three to four minutes of the chew, bulking agents such as sugar or sorbitol and maltitol have the highest solubility and, therefore, are chewed out first. As these components dissolve in the consumers' saliva and slide down the esophagus, they are no longer retained in the gum base or perceived by the chewer. During the next phase of the chew in the four to six-minute range, intense sweeteners and some acids are dissolved and chewed out. These components last slightly longer than the bulking agents because they have a slightly lower solubility. Next, encapsulated flavors are released during either 10–15 minutes into the chew or after 30–45 minutes. Encapsulated flavors remain incorporated in the gum base longer because the molecules that they are encapsulated in are more easily held within the gum matrix. Finally, during the last phase of the chew, softeners such as corn syrup and glycerin and other textural modifiers are dissolved, resulting in a firming up of the gum and the end of the chew.


title: Chewing gum

text: Studies have shown that gum flavor is perceived better in the presence of sweetener. Companies have started to create chemical systems in gum so that the sweetener and flavor release together in a controlled manner during chewing.


title: Chewing gum

text: A cooling sensation is achieved through the chemical phenomenon of the negative enthalpy of dissolution that occurs with bulk sweeteners, such as the sugar alcohols. The enthalpy of dissolution refers to the overall amount of heat that is absorbed or released in the dissolving process. Because the bulk sweeteners absorb heat as they dissolve and have a negative enthalpy, they yield a cooling sensation as they are dissolved in a consumer's saliva.


title: Chewing gum

text: A review about the cognitive advantages of chewing gum by Onyper et al. (2011) found strong evidence of improvement for the following cognitive domains: working memory, episodic memory and speed of perception. However the improvements were only evident when chewing took place prior to cognitive testing. The precise mechanism by which gum chewing improves cognitive functioning is however not well understood.


title: Chewing gum

text: The researchers did also note that chewing-induced arousal could be masked by the distracting nature of chewing itself, which they named "dual-process theory", which in turn could explain some of the contradictory findings by previous studies. They also noticed the similarity between mild physical exercise such as pedaling a stationary bike and chewing gum. It has been demonstrated that mild physical exercise leads to little cognitive impairment during the physical task accompanied by enhanced cognitive functioning afterwards. Furthermore, the researchers noted that no improvement could be found for verbal fluency, which is in accordance with previous studies. This finding suggests that the effect of chewing gum is domain specific. The cognitive improvements after a period of chewing gum have been demonstrated to last for 15–20 minutes and decline afterwards.


title: Chewing gum

text: Sugar-free gum sweetened with xylitol has been shown to reduce cavities and plaque. The sweetener sorbitol has the same benefit, but is only about one-third as effective as xylitol. Other sugar substitutes, such as maltitol, aspartame and acesulfame K, have also been found to not cause tooth decay. Xylitol is specific in its inhibition of "Streptococcus mutans", bacteria that are significant contributors to tooth decay. Xylitol inhibits "Streptococcus mutans" in the presence of other sugars, with the exception of fructose. Xylitol is a safe sweetener that benefits teeth and saliva production because, unlike most sugars, it is not fermented to acid. Daily doses of xylitol below 3.44 grams are ineffective and doses above 10.32 grams show no additional benefit. Other active ingredients in chewing gum include fluoride, which strengthens tooth enamel, and p-chlorbenzyl-4-methylbenzylpiperazine, which prevents travel sickness. Chewing gum also increases saliva production.


title: Chewing gum

text: Food and sucrose have a demineralizing effect upon enamel that has been reduced by adding calcium lactate to food. Calcium lactate added to toothpaste has reduced calculus formation. One study has shown that calcium lactate enhances enamel remineralization when added to xylitol-containing gum, but another study showed no additional remineralization benefit from calcium lactate or other calcium compounds in chewing-gum.


title: Chewing gum

text: Other studies indicated that the caries preventive effect of chewing sugar-free gum is related to the chewing process itself rather than being an effect of gum sweeteners or additives, such as polyols and carbamide. A study investigating the in situ effect of casein phosphopeptide–amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP–ACP) found that its incorporation into a sugar-free gum increases the remineralization / protection of eroded enamel surface significantly.


title: Chewing gum

text: Gum chewing is regarded as a helpful way to cure halitosis (bad breath). Chewing gum not only helps to add freshness to breath but can aid in removing food particles and bacteria associated with bad breath from teeth. It does this by stimulating saliva, which essentially washes out the mouth. Chewing sugar-free gum for 20 minutes after a meal helps prevent tooth decay, according to the American Dental Association, because the act of chewing the sugar-free gum produces saliva to wash away bacteria, which protects teeth. Chewing gum can also help with the lack of saliva or xerostomia since it naturally stimulates saliva production. Saliva can also promote enamel remineralization as long as it does not become too acidic.


title: Chewing gum

text: Masumoto et al. looked at the effects of chewing gum after meals following an orthodontic procedure, to see if chewing exercises caused subjects pain or discomfort, or helped maintain a large occlusal contact area. 35 adult volunteers chewed gum for 10 to 15 minutes before or after three meals each day for 4 weeks. 90% of those questioned said that the gum felt "quite hard", and half reported no discomfort.


title: Chewing gum

text: Several randomized controlled studies have investigated the use of chewing gum in reducing the duration of post-operative ileus following abdominal and specifically gastrointestinal surgery. A systematic review of these suggests gum chewing, as a form of "sham feeding", is a useful treatment therapy in open abdominal or pelvic surgery, although the benefit is less clear when laparoscopic surgical techniques are used.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum after a colon surgery helps the patient recover sooner. If the patient chews gum for fifteen minutes for at least four times per day, it will reduce their recovery time by a day and a half. The average patient took 0.66 fewer days to pass gas and 1.10 fewer days to have a bowel movement. Saliva flow and production is stimulated when gum is chewed. Gum also gets digestive juices flowing and is considered "sham feeding". Sham feeding is the role of the central nervous system in the regulation of gastric secretion.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum is used as a novel approach for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). One hypothesis is that chewing gum stimulates the production of more bicarbonate-containing saliva and increases the rate of swallowing. After the saliva is swallowed, it neutralizes acid in the esophagus. In effect, chewing gum exaggerates one of the normal processes that neutralize acid in the esophagus. However, chewing gum is sometimes considered to contribute to the development of stomach ulcers. It stimulates the stomach to secrete acid and the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes that aren't required. In some cases, when consuming large quantities of gum containing sorbitol, gas and/or diarrhea may occur.


title: Chewing gum

text: Controversy arises as to health concerns surrounding the questionable classification of gum as food, particularly in regard to some alternative uses for gum base ingredients. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), chewing gum is considered a food, as the term "food" means "a raw, cooked, or processed edible substance, ice, beverage, or ingredient used or intended for use or for sale in whole or in part for human consumption, or chewing gum". Chewing gum is defined as a food of minimal nutritional value. However, many of the ingredients in gum base have uses in inedible products, which raises concern in some consumers. Polyethylene, one of the most popular components of gum base, belongs to a common group of plastics and is used in products from plastic bags to hula hoops. Polyvinyl acetate is a sticky polymer found in white glue. Butyl rubber is typically used in caulking and the lining of car tires, in addition to its role in gum base. Paraffin wax is a byproduct of refined petroleum.


title: Chewing gum

text: Concern has arisen about the possible carcinogenicity of the vinyl acetate (acetic acid ethenyl ester) used by some manufacturers in their gum bases. Currently, the ingredient can be hidden in the catch-all term "gum base". The Canadian government at one point classified the ingredient as a "potentially high hazard substance." However, on 31 January 2010, the Government of Canada's final assessment concluded that exposure to vinyl acetate is not considered to be harmful to human health. This decision under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) was based on new information received during the public comment period, as well as more recent information from the risk assessment conducted by the European Union.


title: Chewing gum

text: Various myths hold that swallowed gum will remain in a human's stomach for up to seven years, as it is not digestible. According to several medical opinions, there seems to be little truth behind the tale. In most cases, swallowed gum will pass through the system as quickly as any other food.


title: Chewing gum

text: There have been cases where swallowing gum has resulted in complications in young children requiring medical attention. A 1998 paper describes a four-year-old boy being referred with a two-year history of constipation. The boy was found to have "always swallowed his gum after chewing five to seven pieces each day", being given the gum as a reward for good behavior, and the build-up resulted in a solid mass which could not leave the body. A 1½-year-old girl required medical attention when she swallowed her gum and four coins, which got stuck together in her esophagus. A bezoar is formed in the stomach when food or other foreign objects stick to gum and build up, causing intestinal blockage. As long as the mass of gum is small enough to pass out of the stomach, it will likely pass out of the body easily, but it is recommended that gum not be swallowed or given to young children who do not understand not to swallow it.


title: Chewing gum

text: Adults have choked to death on chewing gum in rare cases. A 2012 report describes a 42-year-old woman who fell on the stairs while chewing gum. Due to the impact, the gum fell into the pharynx and was inhaled into the larynx, causing complete blockage and resulting in the woman's death by asphyxiation.


title: Chewing gum

text: Chewing gum is not water-soluble and unlike other confectionery is not fully consumed. There has been much effort at public education and investment aimed at encouraging responsible disposal. Despite this it is commonly found stuck underneath benches, tables, handrails and escalators. It is extremely difficult and expensive to remove once "walked in" and dried. Gum bonds strongly to asphalt and rubber shoe soles because they are all made from polymeric hydrocarbons. It also bonds strongly with concrete paving. Removal is generally achieved by steam jet and scraper but the process is slow and labour-intensive.


title: Chewing gum

text: Most external urban areas with high pedestrian traffic show high incidence of casual chewing gum discard. In 2000 a study on Oxford Street, one of London's busiest shopping streets, showed that a quarter of a million black or white blobs of chewing gum were stuck to its pavement. Gum removal from city streets, or even famous landmarks, can be a costly effort; in Rome, 15,000 pieces of chewed gum are discarded on a daily basis and the removal of each piece costs the city one euro. However, likely as a consequence of Singapore's ban, Singapore's pavements are, perhaps uniquely amongst modern cities, free of gum.


title: Chewing gum

text: Various teams of researchers have developed gum that is less adhesive and degrades within days or weeks. One example, Rev7 Gum, was briefly for sale from 2010 to 2012.


title: Chewing gum

text: Many schools do not allow chewing gum because students often dispose of it inappropriately (leaving it under desks and chairs, behind vending machines, etc.). The chewing may also pose a distraction to class, and the gum might carry diseases or bacteria from other students.


title: Chewing gum

text: The Singapore government outlawed chewing gum in 1992 citing the danger of discarded gum being wedged in the sliding doors of underground trains and general cleanliness. However, in 2004 the government allowed sugarless gum to be sold in pharmacies if a doctor or dentist prescribed it due to the Singapore–United States Free Trade Agreement.


title: Chewing gum

text: In 2018, the BBC published a news article on British designer Anna Bullus, who created a method of collecting and recycling chewing gum into plastic, noting that litter from chewing gum is the second most common form of litter, second only to cigarette litter. She uses a Worcester recycling plant to make old chewing gum into plastic. She then uses that plastic at a plastic moulding specialist, Amber Valley, in Leicester to make plastic objects. Known objects made are collection containers for more chewing gum, shoe soles, rubber boots, and plastic cups. Her company advertises itself as the "first company in the world to recycle and process chewing gum into a range of new compounds that can be used in the rubber and plastics industry". The company is called Gum-tec, and the collection containers are dubbed "gumdrops". Advertised products on the website are pencils, coffee mugs, guitar picks, a "bicycle spoke", rulers, sports cones, frisbees, boomerangs, door stops, "meal mates", lunch-boxes, and combs.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The Sutherland Springs church shooting occurred on November 5, 2017, when Devin Patrick Kelley, of New Braunfels, Texas, perpetrated a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Kelley killed 26 people, wounded 22 others, and killed himself. The attack is the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history, and the fifth-deadliest in the United States. It was the deadliest shooting in an American place of worship, surpassing the Charleston church shooting of 2015 and the Waddell Buddhist temple shooting of 1991.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley was prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms and ammunition due to a domestic violence conviction in a court-martial while in the United States Air Force. The Air Force failed to record the conviction in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Crime Information Center database, which is used by the National Instant Check System to flag prohibited purchases. The error prompted the Air Force to begin a review.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: A few minutes after 11:00 a.m., Kelley arrived in a white SUV at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. Around 11:20a.m., Kelley stepped out of the SUV, wearing black tactical gear, a ballistic vest, and a black face-mask featuring a white skull, and wielding a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle. He approached the church from the right, opening fire on and killing two people outside the church and continuing to fire on the building itself. He then entered through a right side door, where worshipers were attending regular Sunday service.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Inside, Kelley yelled, "Everybody dies, motherfuckers", as he proceeded up and down the center aisle and shot at people in the pews. Police found 15 empty magazines capable of holding 30 rounds each. Authorities stated Kelley fired approximately 700 rounds during the estimated 11-minute long shooting.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: According to investigators, the shooting was captured on a camera set up at the back of the church to record regular services for uploading online. The footage shows Kelley methodically shooting the victims, pausing only to reload his rifle.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley was then confronted by and traded fire with Stephen Willeford, a local resident and former firearms instructor who was armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Willeford had taken cover behind a truck across the street from the church and shot Kelley twice, once in the leg and once in the upper left torso under his tactical gear. Kelley, who had dropped his rifle during the initial firefight with Willeford, fired back with a handgun before fleeing in his Ford Explorer. Willeford fired one more round as Kelley sped north on FM 539. Willeford then noticed a pickup truck pulled up to the intersection of 4th St. and FM 539, driven by Johnnie Langendorff.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Willeford approached and entered Langendorff's truck on the passenger side. They then pursued Kelley at high speed for about five to seven minutes. According to Langendorff, they drove at speeds up to . While chasing Kelley, the men called police dispatch to report the route and direction of the chase assuming the police were headed toward the church.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: During the chase, Kelley called his wife and spoke to her and his parents, informing them "I just shot up the Sutherland Springs church", and telling his father that he was injured and thought that he would not survive. Kelley reportedly repeatedly emphasized how sorry he was. Bleeding from his injuries, Kelley soon lost control of his vehicle, hitting a road sign before crossing a bar ditch at the Hartfield/Sandy Elm Road intersection and finally stopping about 30 feet into the field on the opposite side.<ref name="Danner/NYmag"></ref>


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Willeford and Langendorff observed that he was motionless, and police took over the scene when they arrived. Police found Kelley dead in his car with three gunshot wounds, including a self-inflicted head wound. Two handguns were found in the vehicle: a Glock 19 9mm and a Ruger SR22 .22-caliber, both of which Kelley had purchased.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The attack occurred during the church's Sunday service. Twenty-six people were killed and 22 others were injured. The dead comprised ten women, seven men, seven girls, one boy, and an unborn child. Twenty-three died inside the church, two outside, and one in a hospital. The oldest victim was 77 years old. One victim was the 14-year-old daughter of church pastor Frank Pomeroy, who was elsewhere the day of the attack. Visiting pastor Bryan Holcombe died with eight family members, including an unborn grandchild.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The injured victims were taken to Connally Memorial Medical Center in Floresville, University Hospital in San Antonio, and Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The Texas Rangers led the investigation, with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) assisting. Investigators said the shooting was not motivated by racism or prejudice against religion on the first day of the investigation, but by a dispute with Kelley's mother-in-law. There was no indication that anyone other than Kelley was involved in the shooting.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Devin Patrick Kelley (February 12, 1991 – November 5, 2017) was raised in New Braunfels, Texas, about from Sutherland Springs, and attended New Braunfels High School.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: At New Braunfels High, Kelley had a lengthy disciplinary record, which included seven suspensions for "falsifying records, insubordination, profanity and a drug-related offense". One former high school classmate described him as "an outcast but not a loner" who was "popular among other outcasts". However, a martial arts instructor who taught Kelley during that time said Kelley signed up for his class because he was being bullied and that he did not fit in. Kelley graduated in 2009 with a 2.32 grade-point average and a ranking of 260 out of 393 students in his class. A close friend from middle school through high school recalled "he wasn't always a 'psychopath' though" and that "over the years we all saw him change into something that he wasn't".


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: After graduating, Kelley enlisted in the United States Air Force (USAF). He served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2009 until 2014. He married in April 2011. In October 2012, he was charged with assaulting his wife and fracturing his toddler stepson's skull. In response, Kelley made death threats against the superior officers who charged him, and he was caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base. Around that same time, he made threats of self-harm to a coworker. He was then admitted to Peak Behavioral Health Services, a mental health facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: In June 2012, Kelley escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Services but was soon apprehended ten miles away at a bus terminal in El Paso, Texas. The facility's director of military affairs later recalled that Kelley had stayed at the facility for several weeks, until he was brought to court-martial. While there, he had expressed a desire for "some kind of retribution to his chain of command" and was discovered to have used computers to order "weapons and tactical gear to a P.O. box in San Antonio".


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley and his wife divorced in October 2012. In an interview with "Inside Edition", his ex-wife said she lived in constant fear of him, as their marriage was filled with abuse. He once threatened her at gunpoint over a speeding ticket, and later threatened to kill her and her entire family.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley was brought before a general court-martial on four charges: assault on his wife, aggravated assault on his stepson, two charges of pointing a loaded gun at his wife, and two counts of threatening his wife with an unloaded gun. In November 2012, Kelley pleaded guilty to two counts of Article 128 UCMJ, for the assault of his wife and stepson. In return, the weapons charges were dropped. He was sentenced to 12 months of confinement and a reduction in rank to Airman Basic. He appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, but was unsuccessful. In 2014, he was dismissed from the Air Force with a bad conduct discharge.<ref name="KSAT-2 11/5/17"></ref>


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: After his release, Kelley returned to New Braunfels, where he lived in a converted barn at his parents' home. Shortly thereafter, he was investigated for sexual assault and rape, and for a physical assault of his then-girlfriend. A 2013 statement from the woman who accused Kelley of sexual assault detailed an alleged attack on her. A separate statement from Kelley's first wife (who divorced him in October 2012) said that Kelley had physically abused her during the marriage; the woman wrote, "For a whole year, he slapped me, choked me, kicked me, water-boarded me and held a gun to my head." However, the Comal County, Texas, Sheriff's Office did not bring charges against Kelley, and "the case became inactive because the victim did not respond to four follow-up calls and messages from a sheriff's office detective."


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: On April 4, 2014, Kelley married his then-girlfriend. The couple moved into a mobile home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was charged in August 2014 for misdemeanor cruelty to animals after beating his malnourished husky. He was given a deferred sentence of probation and was ordered to pay restitution and other fees; the charge was dismissed in March 2016, after he completed the sentence. In January 2015, a resident of El Paso County, Colorado, was granted a protection order against him.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley attended the First Baptist Church in Kingsville, Texas, from May to June 2014 and volunteered as a helper for one day of Vacation Bible School. Later on, he stopped volunteering at the summer Bible class and became vocally anti-religious, posting about atheism online. In social media posts, Kelley often tried to preach his atheism, described people who believe in God as "stupid" (his posts causing numerous former classmates to delete him as a friend on Facebook) and expressed an interest in church shootings.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: At the time of the shooting, Kelley was again living at his parents' property in New Braunfels. He reportedly lied about his background to pass a background check and obtain a license from the Texas Department of Public Safety as a security guard, and was a security worker at the Summit Vacation and RV Resort in New Braunfels. He had previously worked as an unarmed security guard at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Resort in New Braunfels, but was fired after less than six weeks on the job. While he was working at The Summit Vacation and RV Resort, a family who encountered him commented on how "creepy" Kelley had seemed; one member described, "He seemed angry. He seemed annoyed by us, and he seemed like he wanted to exert some authority."


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: On the night of October 31, less than a week before the shooting, Kelley attended a festival at the First Baptist Church wearing all black. According to two parishioners who were at the festival, he acted so strangely that people had to keep an eye on him. One also examined him to make sure he was not carrying a firearm. According to a former Air Force colleague who temporarily got reacquainted with him online, Kelley claimed he would buy dogs and other animals and use them for "target practice". He also expressed his obsession with mass murders, including the Charleston church shooting, and joked about committing one himself. These comments prompted her to block him on Facebook.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley's estranged second wife sometimes attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs with her family. Prior to the shooting, he sent threatening text messages to her mother. His wife and her mother were not at the church when the attack occurred, but he killed his wife's grandmother at the church.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: In 2012, Kelley purchased two guns (a European American Armory Windicator .38-caliber revolver and a 9mm SIG Sauer P250 pistol) from the HAFB Base Exchange.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley later purchased four guns, including a 9mm Glock 19 pistol, a .22-caliber Ruger SR22 pistol, a Ruger GP100 .357 Magnum revolver and a Ruger AR-556 rifle, at stores in Colorado and Texas between 2014 and 2017. On October 29, a week before the shooting, he posted a photo of what appeared to be a Ruger model AR-556 rifle on his Facebook profile. A Ruger AR-556 rifle was used in the attack, and two handguns were found in Kelley's vehicle.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley purchased the semi-automatic rifle used in the shooting from an Academy Sports + Outdoors store in San Antonio on April 7, 2016. He filled out the required ATF Form 4473 and falsely indicated that he did not have a disqualifying criminal history. In Texas, an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check is required at the time of purchase for all firearms except for purchasers with a valid license to carry a handgun.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The State of Texas denied his application for a license to carry a handgun. No license of any kind is required to purchase firearms under Texas state law.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Kelley's general court-martial guilty plea should have made it illegal for him to own, buy, or possess a firearm or ammunition. The conviction should have been flagged by NICS and prevented the purchase. Federal law prohibits those convicted of domestic violence–even if it is only a misdemeanor–from possessing firearms.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: However, the Air Force failed to relay the court-martial convictions to the FBI. In a statement admitting the oversight, the Air Force said, "Initial information indicates that Kelley's domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database by the Holloman Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations." One day after the shooting, the Air Force said it had "launched a review of how the service handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P. Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction". Three days after the shooting, Vice President Mike Pence visited the crime scene, and said, "We will find why this information was not properly recorded in 2012, and we will work with leaders in Congress to ensure that this never happens again."


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: In 2018, the family of a couple that was murdered in the shooting sued the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense, alleging they were negligent in reporting Kelley's criminal history, which would have prevented him from purchasing firearms. In 2021, a federal judge ruled that the federal government's negligence was mostly responsible for the shooting and that it was "jointly and severally liable for the damages that may be awarded." Damages were assessed by a federal judge at more than USD $230,000,000 "to survivors and victims’ families".


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: The shooting brought attention to gaps in reporting to the federal background-check system intended to ban convicted domestic abusers, such as Kelley, from purchasing guns. Since 1996, the Lautenberg Amendment has prohibited the sale of firearms to those convicted of domestic abuse offenses, even misdemeanors, but gaps in reporting continue to exist.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: On November 15, 2017, the day nine victims of the shooting were buried, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the Fix NICS Act of 2017 (S.2135), to address deficiencies in the reporting process, and impose severe penalties for the failure of agencies to report convictions. The next day, Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX), whose district, Texas 28th, includes Sutherland Springs, introduced a version in the House of Representatives (H. R. 4434). Cuellar's bill was superseded by H. R. 4477, introduced by Congressman John Culberson (R-TX), representing Texas' 7th District, including western Houston and Harris County. The final version of the Fix NICS ACT was passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, signed as Pub.L.115-141 by President Donald Trump on March 23, 2018. A week later, Cornyn met with survivors and victims' families at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs to discuss details of the legislation. Between November 5, 2017, and March 30, 2018, the U. S. Air Force turned over at least 4,000 outstanding records to the FBI.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Donald Trump, who was the 45th president of the United States at the time of the shooting, said at a press conference in Tokyo, Japan that "I think that mental health is a problem here. Based on preliminary reports, this was a very deranged individual with a lot of problems over a very long period of time. We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn't a guns situation ... we could go into it but it's a little bit soon to go into it. Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse". Trump was asked about gun policy while visiting Seoul, South Korea. In response to a proposal for extreme vetting of gun ownership, Trump said that this would have made "no difference". He said that stricter gun control measures might have prevented Stephen Willeford from shooting Kelley, and commented, "Instead of having 26 dead, he would've had hundreds more dead." After the shooting, Trump issued a presidential proclamation honoring the victims and ordered the United States flag at half-staff at the White House and all public and military sites until the sunset of November 9. Willeford was called a hero for what he did.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the shooting "will be a long, suffering mourning for those in pain". Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton proposed that churches employ professional armed security guards, or at least arm more parishioners, to counter church shootings, which he said have happened "forever" and will again. Paxton was criticized by Manny Garcia, the Texas Democratic Party's deputy executive director, who said that "Texans deserve more from their chief law enforcement official."


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: On November 9, the pastor of the church, Frank Pomeroy, announced that the building would be demolished and be replaced with a prayer garden, stating that it would be too painful to the victims to keep the building as is. Later in the month he told the "New York Times" that reports of the church being demolished were inaccurate, and that a decision on the future of the church had not yet been made.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Fake news websites and far-right agitators promoted misleading and deceptive stories along with conspiracy theories about the incident. They associated the shooter with a range of people and groups the far-right opposes such as identifying him as a Democrat, Hillary Clinton supporter, Bernie Sanders supporter, alt-left supporter, or radical Muslim; or claiming that he carried an antifa flag and told churchgoers, "This is a communist revolution!" Some reports falsely claimed that he targeted the church because they were "white conservatives". Democratic U.S. Representative Vicente González twice incorrectly named the shooter as "Sam Hyde", a comedian who is often jokingly referred to as the perpetrator on social media. González said that he had been given that name by officials.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: Conspiracy theories circulated at the hospital where victims were being treated. According to "The Washington Post", a group of women who said they knew the victims were overheard discussing the shooting as a false flag operation designed to manipulate the public towards some nefarious end. The "Post" reporter sought to inquire further, but the women pushed her away, saying, "She [the reporter] is part of it [the conspiracy]," after which the reporter was removed from the hospital by police. The misinformation mirrored similar events in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting a few weeks earlier, in which perpetrator Stephen Paddock was falsely linked to leftist and Islamist groups.


title: Sutherland Springs church shooting

text: In 2018, two conspiracy theorists, Jodi Mann and Robert Ussery, were arrested after accosting the church's pastor, whose daughter was killed in the shooting. Both were charged with trespassing and resisting arrest, and Ussery was also charged with making a terroristic threat and possession of marijuana. Mann and Ussery deny that the massacre occurred and instead promote "false flag" conspiracy notions on the Internet, asserting that the Sutherland Springs attack and other attacks were orchestrated for political purposes.


title: The Trump Organization

text: The Trump Organization is a group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner. Around 250 of these entities use the Trump name. The organization was founded in 1927 by Donald Trump's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Christ Trump, and his father, Fred Trump, as E. Trump & Son. Donald Trump began leading it in 1971, renamed it around 1973, and handed off its leadership to his children in 2016 when he won the 2016 United States presidential election.


title: The Trump Organization

text: The Trump Organization, through its various constituent companies and partnerships, has or has had interests in real estate development, investing, brokerage, sales and marketing, and property management. Trump Organization entities own, operate, invest in, and develop residential real estate, hotels, resorts, residential towers, and golf courses in various countries. They also operate or have operated in construction, hospitality, casinos, entertainment, book and magazine publishing, broadcast media, model management, retail, financial services, food and beverages, business education, online travel, commercial and private aviation, and beauty pageants. Trump Organization entities also own the New York television production company that produced the reality television franchise "The Apprentice". Retail operations include or have included fashion apparel, jewelry and accessories, books, home furnishings, lighting products, bath textiles and accessories, bedding, home fragrance products, small leather goods, vodka, wine, barware, steaks, chocolate bars, and bottled spring water.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Since the financial statements of the Trump Organization's holdings and Donald Trump's personal tax returns are both private, its true value is not publicly known, though a wide range of estimates have been made. Trump has publicly released little definitive financial documentation to confirm his valuation claims. On several occasions, Trump has been accused of deliberately inflating the valuation of Trump Organization properties through aggressive lobbying of the media (in particular the authors of the annual Forbes 400 list) to bolster his perceived net worth.


title: The Trump Organization

text: By 2019, the Trump Organization was being scrutinized by New York investigators for possible financial fraud. In July 2021, New York prosecutors charged the organization with 10 counts in an alleged 15-year tax avoidance scheme. In November, "The Washington Post" reported that between 2011 and 2015 the organization presented several properties as being worth far more to potential lenders than to tax officials.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In August 2022, the organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty to committing more than a dozen felonies, including criminal tax fraud and grand larceny. In September 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a civil lawsuit against the organization. A separate criminal trial brought by the Manhattan district attorney began in October;


title: The Trump Organization

text: The company's background starts with Frederick Trump and Elizabeth Christ Trump, a German immigrant couple who moved to the borough of Queens in 1906. Frederick began developing real estate there. On May 30, 1918, he died of Spanish flu in the 1918 influenza pandemic, leaving an estate valued at $31,359 (or about $535,381 in 2020).


title: The Trump Organization

text: Elizabeth carried on in the real estate business after her husband's death. She had contractors build houses on the empty lots Frederick had owned, sold the houses, and earned income off the mortgages she provided to buyers. Her middle child, Fred Trump, entered the carpentry trade after graduating high school in 1923. Fred would later say he completed his first single-family home in 1924, but other sources date his start as a builder to 1927. In that year, Fred reached the age of majority, and "E. Trump & Son," a name Elizabeth had used in ads since 1921, was formally incorporated.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In 1929, with Fred at the helm, the company began developing pricier houses in nearby Jamaica Estates. In the deepening depression, the company went out of business. In 1933 Fred opened a supermarket, called "Trump Market," then quickly sold it and returned to the real estate business. Around this same time, Fred Trump and a partner acquired the mortgage-servicing subsidiary of Brooklyn's J. Lehrenkrauss & Co., which had gone bankrupt and subsequently been broken up amid charges of fraud. This gave Trump access to the titles of many properties nearing foreclosure, which he bought at low cost and sold for a profit. He quickly became known as one of New York City's most successful young businessmen. In 1935, the company moved to Brooklyn, where, in addition to Queens, Trump was a prolific builder of single-family homes.


title: The Trump Organization

text: During World War II, Trump constructed apartments and temporary housing for military personnel in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1944, he shifted his focus back to Brooklyn and began planning to develop large apartment buildings. He opened the 1,344-unit Shore Haven complex in 1949, followed by Beach Haven in 1950 and Trump Village in 1964.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Donald Trump worked for his father's business while attending the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1968 officially joined the company. In the early 1970s, Fred became chairman of the board while Donald was made president of the company. Around 1973, he began referring to the business as the Trump Organization. The business had previously been referred to on occasion as the Fred C. Trump Organization, the Fred Trump Organization, or the Trump Organization, but had not had a single formal name.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division filed a civil rights suit against the Trump Organization charging them for violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to black people. The National Urban League had sent black and white testers to apply for apartments in Trump-owned complexes; the white testers got the apartments, whereas the black testers did not. According to court records, four superintendents or rental agents reported that applications sent to the central office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race. A 1979 "Village Voice" article quoted a rental agent who said Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to black people and to encourage existing black tenants to leave. In 1975, a consent decree described by the head of DOJ's housing division as "one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated" required Trump to advertise vacancies in minority papers and list vacancies with the Urban League. The Justice Department subsequently stated that continuing "racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurred with such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity."


title: The Trump Organization

text: Donald Trump focused his efforts on major development projects in Manhattan, including the renovation of the Commodore Hotel, in partnership with Hyatt, as the Grand Hyatt New York (opened in 1980); the construction of Trump Tower in partnership with The Equitable (1983); and the development of Trump Plaza (1984). He also opened three casino hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey: Trump Plaza (1984), Trump Castle (1985), and Trump Taj Mahal (1990).


title: The Trump Organization

text: In 1989, New York State officials ordered the Grand Hyatt New York, a hotel owned at the time by the Trump Organization and the Hyatt Corporation, to pay New York City $2.9 million in rent that had been withheld by the hotel in 1986 due to "unusual" accounting changes approved by Donald Trump. An investigation by New York City auditors noted that the hotel was missing basic financial records and found the hotel was using procedures that violated generally accepted accounting principles.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Amid a real estate slump in 1990, the Trump Organization approached a financial crisis and was believed to be on the brink of collapse, with Donald Trump and his companies owing 72 banks a total of $4 billion, of which Trump personally guaranteed $800 million. Trump hired Stephen Bollenbach as the company's first chief financial officer, while Allen Weisselberg continued to serve under him as controller. Trump spent the following years renegotiating his debts, and gave up some properties, including the Trump Shuttle airline and a stake in the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Bollenbach left the company in 1992. In 1995, Trump took another major step towards financial stability, launching a publicly traded company for the Trump casinos, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. By 1996, Trump was widely considered to be making a comeback. The casino company did not fare as well, however, and Trump eventually lost his stake in the company to bankruptcy.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In 1997, Fred Trump transferred ownership of the bulk of his portfolio of apartment buildings to his four surviving children (Donald, Robert, Maryanne, and Elizabeth), submitting tax returns claiming the properties were worth $41.4 million. Fred died in 1999. In 2004, the four siblings sold the apartments for $737.9 million to a group led by Rubie Schron, marking the family's exit from ownership of their father's business.


title: The Trump Organization

text: During the property boom of the 1980s, Trump acquired numerous properties and by 1990 owed $4 billion to 72 banks. When the market entered a slump in 1990 that placed the organization at risk of collapse, Trump and his lenders acted to restructure his debts, although they disagree on who identified the problem and initiated negotiations. The resulting restructuring required his banks to forgive some of Trump's debt. Trump's casinos later entered bankruptcies in which his bondholders took deep losses. After these incidents, Trump had difficulty borrowing new money from most mainstream financial institutions. Deutsche Bank, which did not have a significant presence on Wall Street during the 1980s, expanded rapidly in the U.S. during the 1990s. Trump obtained a loan of approximately $425 million from them in 1998. In the process of its rapid expansion, the bank engaged in numerous questionable practices, including manipulating currencies and interest rates, laundering billions of dollars for Russian oligarchs and misleading international bank regulators. The bank was fined $630 million in 2017 for facilitating a $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme. The bank provided Trump with a variety of services including financial instruments designed to shield him from risks and outside scrutiny, and helped connect Trump to wealthy clients (including some from Russia) who were interested in Western real estate. During the 2000s and 2010s, Trump borrowed $2 billion from the bank, owing it about $360 million in 2016.


title: The Trump Organization

text: From 2000 on, the Trump Organization held 50% of TD Trump Deutschland AG, a corporate venture with a German company, planning to build a skyscraper named "Trump Tower Europe" in Frankfurt, Berlin or Stuttgart, but allegedly never paid the full amount of their €2 million share. At least three lawsuits followed and the company was disestablished in 2005.


title: The Trump Organization

text: By mid-2016, it was alleged that the organization, specifically under the leadership of Donald Trump, has a history of not paying for services rendered. Several hundred contractors or workers for the organization have filed lawsuits or liens saying they were not paid for their work, and others say they had to settle for cents on the dollar.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., was quoted as saying at a 2008 New York real estate conference, "In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets ... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." James Dodson, a golf magazine writer, said that during a 2014 golf game, he asked Trump's son Eric how the organization was funding its golf resort acquisitions, to which Trump responded, "Well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." Eric Trump later denied making the statement, although some of the company's financing apparently involves Russian money. The organization has many projects in foreign nations, leading some to point to a conflict of interest with foreign nations should Donald Trump become the president of the United States.


title: The Trump Organization

text: The financial statements of the Trump Organization's holdings are private, as are Donald Trump's personal tax returns, and there exist a wide range of estimates of the Trump Organization's true value. Donald Trump has been accused on several occasions of deliberately inflating the valuation of Trump Organization properties through the aggressive lobbying of the media, in particular the authors of the annual Forbes 400 list, in order to bolster his perceived net worth among the public over several decades. He has released little definitive financial documentation to the public confirm his valuation claims.


title: The Trump Organization

text: It is difficult to determine a net value for the Trump Organization's real estate holdings independently since each individual property may be encumbered by debt.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In October 2015, "Forbes" published an article detailing its decades-long struggle to estimate the true net worth of Trump and the Trump Organization. In 2018, a former "Forbes" journalist who had worked on the "Forbes" list claimed in an op-ed to "The Washington Post" that Trump had lied about his wealth to "Forbes" to get on the list repeatedly and suggested that "Forbes"s previous low-end estimates of Trump's net worth were still well above his true net worth.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In November 2021, "The Washington Post" reported that between 2011 and 2015, the Trump Organization presented several properties as being worth millions of dollars—in one case over $500 million—more to potential lenders than to tax officials. This was being scrutinized by New York prosecutors in their investigation of the organization's possible fraud and tax evasion. The next month, "The New York Times" reported that prosecutors were examining whether the organization provided its outside accountants, Mazars, with cherry-picked information with which to prepare favorable financial statements to present to prospective lenders. In February 2022, Mazars cited the New York investigation in announcing that it would no longer stand by its financial statements created for the Trump Organization from mid-2010 to mid-2020, and that it would no longer work with the organization.


title: The Trump Organization

text: On January 11, 2017, before starting his tenure as president of the United States, Trump announced that he and his daughter Ivanka would fully resign and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric would take executive charge of the various businesses, along with Chief Finance Officer Allen Weisselberg. Trump transferred his companies into a revocable trust, allowing him to tell the trustees how to run the company and fire them at any time.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Trump retained his financial stake in the business, despite having offered during the campaign to put all his assets in a blind trust should he win the presidency. His attorney at the time, Sheri Dillon, said Trump's assets would be overseen by an ethics officer, and that the Trump Organization would not pursue any new foreign business deals. Under the pre-inaugural management agreement, "Forbes" magazine reported in March 2017:The Trump Organization has curtailed some of its international work, pulling out of deals in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Brazil, while pledging to do no new foreign deals (though it has apparently resurrected an old deal in the Dominican Republic). Trump's international hotel licensing and management business makes up only $220 million of his estimated $3.5 billion fortune, but it's the most dynamic part of the Trump portfolio—and it throws off chunks of cash with virtually no risk. As the Trumps have wound down some international deals, they continue to push forward with new domestic agreements.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Eric Trump, in the "Forbes" article, discussed the "clear separation of church and state that we maintain" between the business and his father and said that with his father's presidency and related changes "[y]ou could look at it either way" in terms of business prospects. He also said that "he will continue to update his father on the business while he is in the presidency ... 'probably quarterly ... profitability reports and stuff like that'." The article quoted Larry Noble, general counsel of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and a former chief ethics officer at the Federal Election Commission, and President George W. Bush's former chief ethics lawyer, Richard Painter, as looking negatively at such multiple planned updates of President Trump per year. Noble said in part "if he is now going to get reports from his son about the businesses, then he really isn't separate in any real way." Painter said in part "at the end of the day, he owns the business. He has the conflicts that come with it."


title: The Trump Organization

text: Also in March 2017, "Forbes" did a listing of all "36 mini-Trumps", as it termed the domestic and international partners—often described as "billionaires"—with whom the Trump Organization has worked over the years. Introducing the listing, the magazine reported that at least 14 of the partners attended the president's inauguration and some of them paid for $18,000-a-night accommodations at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for the event.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Eric Trump stated that the Trump Organization had requested rental relief from the landlord for its Trump International Hotel, which is the General Services Administration of the federal government.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In September 2020, it was revealed that Trump's properties had charged the government over $1.1 million since the beginning of his presidency. At the Bedminster club, for example, the Secret Service rented a three-bedroom cottage for $17,000 per month. The "Washington Post" arrived at this total amount after it filed a public-records lawsuit and pieced together receipts and invoices from Trump's businesses.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Political contributions were also spent at Trump properties. The total amount paid by the Trump campaign to Trump properties during his presidency is estimated at $10–17 million.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In August 2018, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) was reported to be considering criminal charges against the organization and two of its senior executives for their accounting of then-Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen's hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In October 2018, "The New York Times" published a lengthy exposé concerning Donald Trump's inheritance from his parents, Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. It includes detailed analyses of Trump family financial records. The article describes an alleged tax fraud scheme conducted by Trump and his siblings related to their joint inheritance of their parents's real estate holdings, effectively evading over $500 million in gift and estate taxes. The alleged schemes involved siphoning money from the companies to the children throughout their lives and understating the value of transferred properties. In mid-2021, Mary L. Trump (a primary source for the exposé) elaborated on how the organization used a shell corporation to siphon money, devaluing Fred Trump's "core business" to $30 million at the time of his death.


title: The Trump Organization

text: Michael Cohen testified to Congress in February 2019 that Trump "inflated [the organization's] total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes." Following Cohen's testimony, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a subpoena to Aon, the organization's longtime insurance broker. By September 2019, the organization was under federal investigation by the Southern District of New York regarding inflated insurance claims allegations.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In January 2020, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine sued the organization and Trump's inaugural committee on the basis that it had funneled nonprofit funding intended for the inauguration to the Trumps via event accommodations and a private party costing several hundred thousand dollars at the Trump Hotel. Ivanka Trump testified in December 2020 that she had little to no involvement in the event, which "Mother Jones" reported in June 2021 was false. Donald Jr. similarly made key statements in his February 2021 testimony which "Mother Jones" reported in April 2021 were false. In November 2021, a D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed a portion of the lawsuit and dropped the organization as a defendant. Later that month, Racine filed a motion requesting for the organization to be reinstated as a defendant. In February 2022, this request was granted. In May, it was reported that the organization and inaugural committee, which both denied wrongdoing, would pay a $750,000 settlement which will benefit two D.C.-based nonprofits.


title: The Trump Organization

text: In August 2020, New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James disclosed in a court filing that her office was conducting a civil investigation of the organization for the asset inflation allegation, asking a court to compel the organization to provide information it had been withholding. The Manhattan DA, which had been seeking Donald Trump's tax returns, suggested in an August 2020 federal court filing that the organization was under investigation for bank and insurance fraud. Eric Trump was deposed on October 5. He reportedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times.


title: The Trump Organization

text: On May 18, 2021, the New York AG's office announced that it was joining the Manhattan DA's office in probing the organization "in a criminal capacity." The Manhattan DA convened a special grand jury to consider indicting Trump, his company and/or executives. By June 2021, longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and chief operating officer Michael Calamari were under scrutiny of the Manhattan DA investigation.


title: The Trump Organization

text: On July 1, 2021, the Manhattan district attorney criminally charged the Trump Organization with a "15 year 'scheme to defraud' the government", conspiracy, and falsifying business records. Prosecutors filed 10 charges against the organization and its Trump Payroll Corporation entity, and 15 felony counts against Weisselberg, including grand larceny and offering a false instrument for filing. Prosecutors allege that Weisselberg received about $1.76 million in undeclared indirect compensation in the form of free rent and utilities, car leases for himself and his wife, and school tuition for his grandchildren. Both the organization and Weisselberg pleaded not guilty. On July 8, the Trump Organization removed Weisselberg as director of the company running Trump International Golf Links, Scotland; on July 9, the company removed him as director of 40 subsidiaries registered in Florida. It was later reported that Weisselberg had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times.


title: The Trump Organization

text: The Manhattan DA convened a second grand jury the last week of October 2021; it began to hear evidence on November 4, reportedly to consider charges related to the company's valuation of assets.


title: The Trump Organization

text: By November 22, prosecutors were scrutinizing several of the organization's properties for which, between 2011 and 2015, far higher values were presented to potential lenders than were reported to tax officials. In the most extreme case, in 2012, the 40 Wall Street building was cited as being worth $527 million to the former, but only $16.7 million to the latter. Michael Cohen subsequently stated that prosecutors could "indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted, and be successful". On December 1, the New York AG subpoenaed Trump in the civil case, with plans to depose him on January 7, 2022. Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. were issued subpoenas in the matter on the same day.


title: The Trump Organization

text: By mid-December 2021, an accountant for Trump had testified before the grand jury. Prosecutors were reportedly examining whether the organization provided its outside accountants, Mazars USA, with cherry-picked information with which to prepare favorable financial statements to present to prospective lenders. Mazars provided disclaimers with its financial statements for the organization, indicating that the firm had not audited, reviewed, or given any assurances about them, and noting that "Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America."


title: The Trump Organization

text: The Republican National Committee (RNC) agreed to pay up to $1.6 million of Trump's legal expenses for his defense in both the civil and criminal cases, which an RNC spokesperson referred to as "politically motivated legal proceedings".


title: The Trump Organization

text: In December 2021, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba filed a lawsuit against New York AG Letitia James, alleging that the investigation of the former president was "guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent" and that his civil rights were being violated. A federal judge dismissed the suit in May 2022.


title: The Trump Organization

text: On January 3, 2022, James and a lawyer for the organization filed a court document noting that Donald Trump and his two eldest children had moved to block their subpoenas on the premise that the AG was attempting to sidestep due process to gather evidence against them in the related criminal case. James argued that the Trumps were using a continued pattern of "delay tactics" to keep her from interviewing them under oath. On January 10, Habba filed a motion seeking a stay of proceedings to allow an injunction against James.