title: Criminal justice system of Japan

text: Instead, for confession to be valid evidence for a conviction, the Japanese court requires confession to include the revelation of verifiable factual matter that only the perpetrator of the crime could have known about, such as the location of an undiscovered body or the time and place the murder weapon was purchased, a fact about the crime scene, etc. Furthermore, to safeguard against the possibility that the interrogator has implanted such knowledge into the confession, the prosecutor must prove that such revelation of a secret was unknown to the police until the point of confession. For example, in the 1948 Sachiura murder case, the conviction was initially secured by the confession of the location of the body, which was yet to be discovered. It later transpired that the police had likely known the location of the body, and this created a possibility that the confession of this information could have been forged and implanted by the investigating police. This resulted in the higher court declaring the confession unsafe and reversing the verdict.


title: Criminal justice system of Japan

text: However, most miscarriages of justice cases in Japan are, indeed, the result of conviction solely based on the confession of the accused. In these case, (1) the record of sequence and timing of the police discoveries of evidence and the timing of confession is unclear (or even faked by the police), (2) the contents of the revelation of the secret has only weak relevance to the crime itself, or (3) the revelation of secret is so vague that it can only be loosely applied to the elements of the crime (prosecutor's fallacy). Serious miscarriage of justice cases in Japan involve police deliberately faking evidence (and insufficient supervision by the prosecutor to spot such rogue behavior) such as where the police already knew (or suspected) the location of the body or the murder weapon, but they fake the police record to make it appear that it is the suspect who revealed the location. During the 1970s, a series of reversals to death penalty cases brought attention to the fact that some accused, after intensive interrogation, had signed "as-yet-unwritten confessions", which were later actually filled in by investigating police officers. Moreover, in some cases, the police falsified the record so that it appeared that the accused confessed to the location of where the body was buried, yet the truth was that the police had written the location into the confession after the body was discovered by other means. These coerced confessions, together with other circumstantial evidence, often convinced judges to (falsely) convict.


title: Criminal justice system of Japan

text: Currently, the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations is calling for the entire interrogation phase to be recorded to prevent similar incidents from occurring. The International Bar Association, which encompasses the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, cited problems in its "Interrogation of Criminal Suspects in Japan". Former Japanese Minister of Justice, Hideo Hiraoka, has also supported videotaping interrogations. Police and prosecutors have traditionally been opposed to videotaping interrogations, stating that it would undermine their ability to get confessions. The current office of prosecutors has, however, reversed their previous opposition to this proposal. Proponents argue that without the credibility of confessions supported by electronic recordings, the lay judges may refuse to convict in a case when other offered evidence is weak. It is also argued that recording of interrogation may allow for standards to be lowered in the "revelation of secret", where the confession must contain an element of the crime that police and prosecutor did not know about. Once the recording is introduced, it would become impossible for the police to forge a confession. Then, it may become possible to bring a conviction based on a confession of elements of the crime that only the perpetrator and the police knew.


title: Pig Latin

text: The modern version of Pig Latin appears in a 1919 Columbia Records album containing what sounds like the modern variation, by a singer named Arthur Fields. The song, called "Pig Latin Love", is followed by the subtitle "I-Yay Ove-Lay oo-yay earie-day". The Three Stooges used it on multiple occasions, most notably Tassels in the Air, a 1938 short where Moe Howard attempts to teach Curley Howard how to use it, thereby conveying the rules to the audience. In an earlier episode, Three Little Pigskins, Larry Fine attempts to impress a woman with his skill in Pig Latin, but it turns out that she knows it, too. No explanation of the rules is given. A few months prior in 1934, in the Our Gang short film Washee Ironee, Spanky tries to speak to an Asian boy by using Pig Latin. Ginger Rogers sang a verse of "We're in the Money" in pig Latin in an elaborate Busby Berkeley production number in the film Gold Diggers of 1933. The film, the third highest grossing of that year, was inducted into the National Film Registry and that song included in the all-time top 100 movie songs by the American Film Institute. Merle Travis ends his song "When My Baby Double Talks To Me" with the phrase, "What a aybybay", where the last word is Pig Latin for "baby".


title: Białystok City Market

text: In the early 90s with the collapse of the Communist bloc and the People's Republic of Poland and the liberalization of trade and transformation to market economy, the city hall was searching a place to hold a retail market instead of the existing one in Bema Street which had become too small. The location that was decided was the former harvest square in Kawaleryjska street. Due to concerns from the retailers' side regarding the relative distance of the location from the city center, the authorities made a commitment that they would not establish another market in the city center. A major mark point was 1994, the year the trade in Belarus was liberalized, a step that contributed to the growth of trade and activity in the market. The years 1995 to 1998 saw high growth and thousands of cars from Lithuania and Belarus arrived to sell their stock. In 1998 there was a slump, even a collapse of the market since the Polish government limited cross-border trade by introducing visas, a decision that led to demonstrations. In 2020 the market is planned to pass through modernization program.


title: Sean Parker

text: Parker has made substantial donations to both sides of U.S. party politics; his allegedly "nonpartisan" approach favors contributions to "elected officials who have shown themselves willing to work across the aisle". He favored Democrats and progressive causes such as campaign finance reform and gun control; he has spoken out in favor of higher taxes, particularly for the "wealthy and super wealthy", and in favor of higher capital-gains taxes. Parker has also supported middle-of-the-road Republican candidates and super PACs, favoring "economically moderate" conservatives and candidates with a demonstrated interest in compromise and deal-making. In Washington, DC, he has met with Republican lawmakers about ways of encouraging economic investment in struggling areas of the country. He has also supported cannabis law reform and in 2010, following the example of donations by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz (totaling $70,000) donated $100,000 to the 2010 California Proposition 19 campaign to legalize marijuana in that state and $400,000 to the Democratic Party backed 2016 California Proposition 63 campaign to require background checks for all ammunition purchases. Parker will donate $250 million to launch a new institute aimed at developing more effective cancer treatments by fostering collaboration among leading researchers in the field. For the 2016 presidential election, Parker created a social ballot guide for voters to help each other pledge to vote.


title: Delta-matroid

text: In mathematics, a delta-matroid or Δ-matroid is a family of sets obeying an exchange axiom generalizing an axiom of matroids. A non-empty family of sets is a delta-matroid if, for every two sets E {\displaystyle E} and F {\displaystyle F} in the family, and for every element e {\displaystyle e} in their symmetric difference E △ F {\displaystyle E\triangle F} , there exists an f ∈ E △ F {\displaystyle f\in E\triangle F} such that E △ { e , f } {\displaystyle E\triangle \{e,f\}} is in the family. For the basis sets of a matroid, the corresponding exchange axiom requires in addition that e ∈ E {\displaystyle e\in E} and f ∈ F {\displaystyle f\in F} , ensuring that E {\displaystyle E} and F {\displaystyle F} have the same cardinality. For a delta-matroid, either of the two elements may belong to either of the two sets, and it is also allowed for the two elements to be equal. An alternative and equivalent definition is that a family of sets forms a delta-matroid when the convex hull of its indicator vectors (the analogue of a matroid polytope) has the property that every edge length is either one or the square root of two.


title: Staatsburgh State Historic Site

text: In 1890, Ruth Livingston Mills, the great-granddaughter of Morgan Lewis and the mother of Ogden L. Mills, Secretary of the Treasury, inherited the estate. Not long afterwards, Ruth Livingston Mills and her husband, the financier and philanthropist Ogden Mills, commissioned a remodeling and enlargement of the mansion to the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White; the principal architect was Stanford White. Work started in 1895 and when completed in the following year, he had turned the house into a Beaux-Arts mansion with 65 rooms, 14 bathrooms, and 23 fireplaces. The work is reported to have cost about $350,000. As part of the process, a coal-powered electricity plant was constructed near the Hudson River to supply the electric lights in the mansion, which was also equipped with central heating. The mansion was used as a residence and for entertaining by the family; they owned five homes in total, and stayed at Staatsburgh mainly during the fall season between mid-September and the Christmas holidays. During this time, they hosted house parties, balls, and dinners. At the remainder of the year, the family stayed in one of their other residences in New York City, Paris, Newport, Rhode Island, and California. Before her death, Ruth Livingston Mills began acquiring lands surrounding the estate. After her death in 1920, Ogden Mills continued to purchase the surrounding property, enlarging the acreage of the property to total over 1,600 acres (650 ha), the size of the mansion grounds at the time that it was given to the state of New York. In 1929, the property was passed on to their son, Ogden Livingston Mills and upon his death in 1937, on to his sister Gladys Mills Phipps.


title: King's Inch

text: A story is recorded of how Sir John came to acquire King's Inch through a man to man contest at the Kempe Knowe near the Knock, how to the Knox family, near Paisley - "The King of England, it is said, challenged Scotland to furnish a man able to fight a famous champion then in attendance on the English Court. The King of Scotland accepted the challenge, but was for some time unable to find a man equal to the task, and in his perplexity offered the Inch as a reward to any one who successfully encountered the Englishman. At last Sir John Ross of Hawkhead offered himself, and arrangements were made for the fight on the Knowe. The moat was filled with water, and a large fire kindled upon the mound. Neither party was expected to give quarter. To escape was to meet death by drowning, and to be vanquished was to perish, if not otherwise, by fire. The Englishman was of large stature; Ross was small but remarkably agile and of great strength. He dressed himself in a tight-fitting skin with the smooth side outwards, and in order to make it more slippery, rubbed it well with grease or oil. The Englishman was unable to get a grip of him, and at last held out his hands, inviting Ross to grasp them. The invitation was "palm my arm." This, it is said, is exactly what Ross wanted. He seized the Englishman by the wrists, and by a sudden jerk, wrenched his arms out of their sockets, and then made and end of him."


title: AmnesiaGames

text: In February 2013, AmnesiaGames released the game "31 Minutos" based on the Chilean TV series 31 minutos that is popular in Chile and Mexico. The game was commissioned by mobile operator Claro Chile in December 2012. The game had to be ready and published for the show of "31 minutos" at the "Festival de Viña" on 27 February 2013. That means that AmnesiaGames had only 7 weeks to design and create the game. The game was designed in 2 weeks. The game designers at AmnesiaGames decided to use the micro-games genre (made popular by Wario Party). The game would include new interviews by the characters of the TV series and include 50 micro-games. The brainstorming phase produced 120 micro-games designs. 70 were selected and prototyped on paper. 50 were finally selected for production. In 5 weeks, the team at AmnesiaGames created 50 micro-games. The game included new interviews and dialogs, and even new characters, which were developed by the team in collaboration with the creative team from Aplaplac, the creators and owners of the TV series 31 minutos. The game achieved top rankings in Chile and México and was featured by Apple in May 2013.


title: Light at the End

text: After five years of pursuing separate projects such as Spencer Albee's band As Fast As, Dave Gutter and Jon Roods' band Paranoid Social Club and Tony Mcnaboe's solo album Destination, members of the band spontaneously came into Portland's WCYY studio one day in May 2007 to announce that the band was going to reunite for the summer and play some shows at Portland club The Asylum. According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, drummer Tony Mcnaboe called each of the band members separately that spring and told each member that the others had already agreed to a reunion, thus tricking the members of the band into reuniting. A few weeks after, the band announced that they planned to release a new album, the first since 2001's ¡Viva Nueva!, of old material that had been left off previous releases and new material that the band was working on. The band recorded the album all through May and June at The Halo Studios in Westbrook, Maine. They then came back to WCYY to announce that they were to play at a WCYY Patio Show in July and premiered newly written song "Troublesome" and newly recorded fan favorite "Rock Like War". In late June, the band released a sampler of 12 songs from their new album, Light at the End, one of them being the later omitted "Last Night's Band". In early July, the final track list (minus the bonus track "Happy") was posted on Bull Moose Music's website along with the cover art and a link to pre-order the album. The band released the album on July 24, 2007, to all ten Bull Moose Music stores across the state the day of a special in-store acoustic performance.


title: Light at the End

text: Consisting mainly of songs that the band had written in various eras of their pre-breakup career, Light at the End has one of the band's broadest and most diverse collections of musical styles and influences. The album's opening song, "Rock Like War", has a mainly hard rock first half, although the song later abruptly switches into a lighter, more upbeat second section that is made possible by the band's addition of a two-part string section. The guest strings are also used heavily in the album's other hard rocker, "Oxygen". The band's third version of "Hardest Way Possible", a song that appeared in different versions on Rooms by the Hour and ¡Viva Nueva!, appears on the album in the form that the band said they always wanted to record it, beginning with a Mellotron playing the string harmony that appears later in the song. The horns are playing a new arrangement, having a sound reminiscent of 1960s Stax/Volt. In all, the album has a much more toned down, less overly produced feel to it than the band's final pre-break-up release, ¡Viva Nueva!.


title: Social graph

text: As of 2010, Facebook's social graph is the largest social network dataset in the world, and it contains the largest number of defined relationships between the largest number of people among all websites because it is the most widely used social networking service in the world. Concern has focused on the fact that Facebook's social graph is owned by the company and is not shared with other services, giving it a major advantage over other services and preventing its users from taking their graph with them to other services when they wish to do so, such as when a user is dissatisfied with Facebook. Google has attempted to offer a solution to this problem by creating the Social Graph API, released in January 2008, which allows websites to draw publicly available information about a person to form a portable identity of the individual, in order to represent a user's online identity. This did not, however, experience Google's desired uptake and was thus retired in 2012. Facebook introduced its own Graph API at the 2010 f8 conference. Both companies monetise collected data sets through direct marketing and social commerce. In December 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.


title: Waneek Horn-Miller

text: Waneek Horn-Miller was a key member of the Canadian women's water polo team that won gold at the 1999 Pan Am Games. Voted MVP, Horn-Miller became co-captain and proudly led her team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the first year the Olympics included women's water polo. The team finished fifth in Sydney. In 2000, she was awarded a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the Youth category. She went on to help Canada win a bronze medal at the 2001 FINA World Championships. Horn-Miller was known for her fierce competitive spirit and powerful shooting arm. After 9 years as a member of national program Horn-Miller was dismissed by Water Polo Canada, with the organization citing team cohesion problems. Horn-Miller was outspoken about the dismissal, accusing the organization of racism. She challenged the claim and all parties, including national team coaches, athletes, and Horn-Miller, agreed to arbitration using the alternate dispute resolution system for sport. In 2004, Horn-Miller did not return to the team and her coaches and teammates were required to undergo cultural sensitivity training and Aboriginal sensitivity training. It was revealed that the members of her team thought that she was "intimidating" and they were not comfortable around her.


title: Waneek Horn-Miller

text: After 78 days of the standoff, most of the protesters dismantled their barricades; the last occupied site was the Kanesatake treatment center, a tribal center for treating drug and alcohol addiction that had been built three years earlier. The women leaders in the center decided to end their protest. As some fifty adults and children marched out together, an altercation erupted between Mohawk warriors and soldiers. Horn-Miller, who was leading her four-year-old sister Kaniehtiio to safety, found herself face-to-face with a soldier who had, weeks earlier, refused to allow her to bring her schoolbooks into the encampment. "I pointed at him and said 'I know you…' " she recalled. "As I pointed at him I pulled my little sister behind my back and right at that point I got hit in the chest... and I fell forward and then someone kicked my feet out from underneath me and I landed on my back and my little sister fell on top of me." Horn-Miller had been stabbed in the chest with a bayonet. She and the other protesters were held in custody for 22 hours more, before she was given full medical attention. She recalled that a doctor treating her told her that had the bayonet "been a centimetre either way it would have gone right into your heart and you would have died."


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: The Duchy of Brittany emerged after Alan Barbetorte's return to the region from England in 936. Barbetorte claimed the titles of the Count of Cornouaille and Nantes and, as Alan II, reigned as the new Brittonum dux. Using a network of small, defended towns and monastic sites, Alan pushed back the Viking advances. On 1 August 939, with the aid of Judicael Berengar, Count of Rennes, and Hugh I, Count of Maine, he defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Trans-la-Forêt, completing their expulsion from Brittany. Alan's duchy was smaller than the previous Kingdom of Brittany, as, despite gaining Magues and Tiffauges in the south, the dukes no longer ruled over the regions of Cotentin, Avranchin, and Mayenne. Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France for Brittany in 942. Despite some older Celtic influences, the new duchy was in many ways similar to the other, post-Carolingian states forming across the region. Over the coming decades, a network of powerful local lords emerged across Brittany, occupying motte and bailey castles and owing a loose feudal loyalty to the duke. The east of Brittany was the first to change, but the practices spread over the next fifty years to the more remote regions of the north- and south-west.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: Under Drogo, the duchy continued to experience political instability and he was unable to sustain his line. Drogo died in 958. Two of Alan II's illegitimate sons, Hoël and Guerich, attempted to act as Counts of Nantes and preserve their claim to duchy but were eventually unsuccessful. In 990 Juhel Berengar's son Conan I, the grandson of Pascweten, became Duke and the title passed to the House of Rennes. Conan I ruled for only two years and died fighting against his brother-in-law Fulk III, Count of Anjou at the Battle of Conquereuil on 27 June 992. He was succeeded by his oldest son Geoffrey I. Blois threatened Conan's succession. Duke Geoffrey I, a member of the House of Nantes, entered into a dynastic alliance with Richard II, Duke of Normandy in a diplomatic double marriage between the two houses. The church-sanctioned marriage ceremonies were held at Mont Saint-Michel. Geoffrey I married Hawise of Normandy, Richard II's sister; and Richard II married Judith of Brittany, Geoffrey I's sister and Conan I's daughter.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: The 11th century was marked by a failed alliance with Normandy. William the Conqueror challenged the Breton dukes, and they formed an alliance with the French king. The death of Geoffrey I, in 1008, allowed Richard II to intervene directly in Brittany during the minority of his nephew, Alan III, against rebellious counts who attempted to take advantage of the youthful duke. The guardianship would be reciprocated later when Alan III was named as one of the primary guardians of William of Normandy. By designating Alan III as a guardian of William, Robert I was "involving a close family member who would not compete with his heir". In his guardianship of Duke William, Alan III was allied with Count Gilbert and Robert II, Archbishop of Rouen, William's uncles. However, when Archbishop Robert died in 1037 instability surfaced. Alan III countered the instability by reinforcing the power of the Norman ducal house providing Robert I's two youngest brothers with land and title. However, by October 1, 1040, Alan III was killed by poison while besieging a rebel castle in Vimoutiers. Tension increased in Normandy following his death, with Count Gilbert dying shortly thereafter. A rival faction in the guardianship of Normandy emerged, one that would intervene in Brittany, suppressing Alan III's heir, Conan II, from claiming his inheritance.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: At around eight years of age, Conan II succeeded his father Alan III as Duke of Brittany, with the ducal regency entrusted to Alan's brother Odo, Count of Penthièvre. However, by the time Conan II reached his majority at age sixteen, around 1048, Odo refused to relinquish power. During the dynastic conflict between uncle and nephew, Hoel of Cornouaille supported Odo in suppressing Conan's inheritance. Odo was Hoèl's brother-in-law as he was married to Hoel's sister Agnes of Cornouaille. By 1057, Conan II captured and imprisoned Odo. He came to terms with Hoèl of Cornouaille later that year. Conan II faced numerous threats posed by the pro-Norman faction in Brittany, including revolts sponsored by William, Duke of Normandy for whom Conan's father had served as Guardian. William supported challengers to Conan's authority, encouraging them to rebel against the Breton duke, his cousin. William continued courting the family of Odo, who was imprisoned. In response, Conan promoted his own legitimate claim as Duke of Normandy over William, as the Catholic Church began preferring legitimate heirs born in church-sanctioned marriage over out-of-wedlock issue. This rivalry led to war between Normandy and Brittany.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: William the Conqueror successfully invaded England in 1066 with an army that included some Bretons. William was able to attract Bretons into his expeditionary army for the upcoming campaign to claim the English crown., perhaps in part because the Breton commanders in Duke William's army were the second-sons of Breton lords, such as Alain Le Roux (son of Eudas of Penthièvre). The Bretons within the Conquest army represented at least three major groupings, two of which would become relevant to the long-term future of the duchy. One group was represented by Ralph de Gael, briefly the Earl of Suffolk. In 1075 he was among the leaders of a "Breton revolt". Ralph escaped returning to Brittany where he also revolted against the Breton Duke before eventually reconciling with the duchy. To the south and west of England, William granted lands to groups of Breton nobles who were more fractious than united, whether in Brittany or in England. This group had no one singular leader who could serve a unifying role . Their numbers included Herve of Leon, the viscount of Leon, who was briefly the Earl of Wiltshire. The third group were those nobles associated with the Richmond-Penthièvre family. Odo of Penthièvre was a principal antagonist of Conan II. Under William I, three of Odo of Penthièvre's sons (Alan, Stephen and Brien) were granted substantial lands in England, including the Honour of Richmond, lands in Suffolk, and the Earldoms of Richmond and Cornwall.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: During the war, John of Montfort was imprisoned in Paris. Hostilities abated for a short time, and he was freed under the Treaty of Malestroit in 1341. He died in 1345, leaving his son John as the Montfort claimant to the ducal title. John's widowed Duchess Consort, Joanna of Flanders, acted as regent for her son John and continued the war in his name. The House of Montfort emerged victorious with substantial help from English allies Under the terms of their surrender, Joan was allowed to keep Penthièvre and retained the title Duchess of Brittany for life. Under the Treaties of Guerande, semi-Salic succession was agreed under which, if the reigning member of the House of Montfort died without legitimate male issue, the eldest direct legitimate male descendant of Joan would inherit the Ducal crown of Brittany. John IV, Duke of Brittany ruled with difficulty after the Breton civil war, and was forced into exile in England for a second time in 1373 where he lived in the court of Edward III.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: The House of Montfort's victory strengthened the position of England in Brittany. One of the effects of the Breton War of Succession was to intensify the rivalries between England and France with Brittany as the contested prize. The Houses of Penthièvre and Montfort were united in the sense of their opposition to the attempted annexation of Brittany by Charles V of France as a consequence of this Breton civil war. The French king sent the Constable of France, Bertrand de Guesclin, into Brittany with the goal of uniting it to the French crown. When the Breton nobles rebelled against this proposed unification, John IV was able to return from England, assisted once again by a strong army including his English ally, and was able to re-establish his rule. The deposed Joan of Penthièvre joined in the efforts to return John IV to Brittany to defend the Duchy against the advances of Charles V. John IV had three wives but only his third wife, Joan of Navarre, Queen of England, bore him children. John IV died on 1 November 1399. Joan remained a widow for four years acting as a regent for her son John V. The House of Montfort's difficulties in maintaining the Ducal crown continued when John V, Duke of Brittany succeeded his father. By 1417, the Duke of Brittany were styled "rulers by the Grace of God".


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: The reign of Francis II was notable in many respects including two wars against Charles VIII of France, both of which were lost, the establishment of the Parlement of Rennes, and the death of all of his children save for his daughter Anne of Brittany. Francis II's rule as Duke was also marked by continued intrigues with the House of Penthièvre. Joan of Penthièvre's later descendants, the Brosse line of the House of Penthièvre through Jean de Brosse, were denied their claims to the Ducal Crown in the 15th century, possibly as an alteration of the rules of inheritance by the then Duke of Brittany Francis II. The wars with France eventually cost Ducal Brittany its independence, while the Parlement ensured a degree of autonomy that would continue through the reign of Louis XIV of France. That Francis II's sole heir was his daughter Anne assured an inheritance contest on his death that would pit the power of the House of Montfort against conflicting treaty obligations to the House of Penthièvre in Brittany, and the House of Valois in France, and would also be a test of the Breton tradition of semi-Salic law in which a daughter could be the principal inheritor. The position of the King of France dominated these events through two wars. After the first war, under the Treaty of Verger, the marriage of Francis II's sole surviving issue, Anne, would need to be approved by the King of France.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: However, relations between Brittany and France deteriorated and Francis II was forced into the last Franco-Breton war, which he lost. At the end of the second war between Francis II and Charles VIII of France, the so-called Mad War, Anne of Brittany's first marriage to Maximillian was declared illegal on the basis that the French King had not approved it under the terms of the Treaty of Verger. Anne was married to Charles VIII of France in a ceremony that was validated by Pope Innocent VIII. Once they were married, Charles did not allow Anne to use the title Duchess of Brittany. However, upon his death, Anne returned to Brittany and took steps to return the Duchy to independent rule under herself as Duchess. The children of Charles and Anne did not reach adulthood and this presented a new Breton succession problem as well as one for France. Both succession issues were solved upon Anne's marriage to Louis XII of France but at the cost of restoring and furthering the independence of Brittany.


title: Duchy of Brittany

text: In 1582, Henry III of France, last living male-line grandson of Claude, Duchess of Brittany, made Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercœur, his brother-in-law and a leader of Catholic League, governor of Brittany. Invoking the hereditary rights of his wife Marie de Luxembourg, he endeavoured to make himself independent in that province from 1589 onward, and organized a government at Nantes, proclaiming their young son Philippe Louis de Lorraine-Mercœur "prince and duke of Brittany". (Infanta Isabella was the eldest daughter of the eldest sister of Henry III but being female weakened her status, and her position as Infanta all but blocked inheritance to the Breton Duchy.) Through maternal ancestry he was the direct primogenitural heir of Duchess Joan, of the House of Penthièvre, wife of Charles of Blois. Mercœur organized a government at Nantes, supported by the Spaniards. He prevented Henry IV's attempts to subjugate Brittany until 20 March 1598, when Mercœur was forced to surrender. Henry IV then had one of his own illegitimate sons marry the young daughter of the Mercœurs, and thereby assured direct French control of the province. Mercœur subsequently went in exile to Hungary.


title: GeoHazards International

text: GeoHazards International also focuses on addressing structural concerns of specific building types prevalent in vulnerable countries around the world. It carried out a project, with funding from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and Thornton Tomasetti Foundation, focusing on a type of building characterized by concrete frames with unreinforced masonry infill walls that is common in earthquake-threatened urban areas of Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean due to the low construction costs. In this project, GeoHazards International developed guidance manuals and formed the Framed Infill Network, an international group of earthquake engineering researchers and professionals, to improve how concrete frames and masonry infill walls are designed and built so they are safer in earthquakes. In 2015, GeoHazards International published a guidance document from a USAID-sponsored project created to help organizations and communities to develop the best advice on protective actions to take during earthquake shaking to help the greatest number of people. Prior to this project, no clear guidance had existed on how to consider the numerous factors involved in creating an appropriate message for areas with many vulnerable buildings, or on how to interpret the limited data and numerous—often conflicting—anecdotes endorsing one protective action over another.


title: Defense of Katowice

text: German forces appeared in the vicinity of the city on 3 September and some early clashes most likely took part on that day. The German forces that took the city on 4 September only had to deal with some remaining irregular Polish self-defense militia units, who either refused to evacuate or were unaware of the orders from the Polish army command. German soldiers reported being shot at in a number of incidents, suffering about 15 total fatalities in the process of securing the city. The most notable incidents involved the defense of the Silesian Insurgent House (the headquarters of the Polish militia), as well as a group of Polish Boy and Girl Scouts shooting Germans troops from the vantage point of the Parachute Tower Katowice. In the latter incident, witness reports suggest at least ten fatalities among the defenders, and several defenders might also have been taken prisoner. The defense of the Parachute Tower became also the best remembered incidents of the defense of Katowice and has been describe as "legendary". Other militia strongholds included the city's first skyscraper, Drapacz Chmur, and the Silesian Theatre; there were also militia units in the towers of local churches, in the Silesian Museum in the city center and other locales. A small number of rearguard units or stragglers from the 73rd Polish Infantry Regiment of the Polish 23rd Infantry Division also participated in fighting Germans in Katowice on that day, with several soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The German advance on the city began on the morning of 4 September and they gained control of the town within a few hours.


title: I Love (EP)

text: Soyeon stated in the same program the album was inspired by the late actress Marilyn Monroe. She stated that she wanted to break the image of a "dumb blonde" and show how she was a smart woman. She also elaborated on her positive retrospect on Monroe and said that on the album, she wanted to show Monroe's true self rather than her persona as a sex symbol: the latter status having been earned from the blonde stereotype. To express the concept of this album visually, Soyeon explained the necessity of the (platinum blonde, red-lipped, lingerie-clad) look to convey the theme to Shuhua properly. Shuhua contemplated it for 2–3 days before accepting Jeon's proposal. The other members were touched by the makeover Shuhua went through and vowed to make this album a success. The group had multiple styles planned out in case Shuhua didn't want to dye her hair blonde, " required to have consent from all five members. So, there was another style planned, but this style always existed. And I was expecting it not to make it."


title: I Love (EP)

text: On September 30, the artwork was unveiled for the lead single to be titled "Nxde" ('x' replacing 'u' in 'nude') on the group's official SNS accounts and website. The single cover consists of all five members, presumably topless, wearing red lipstick and dyed blonde hair. That same day, a short sketch film for I Love was released. The monochromatic sketch film begins with the phrase 'How Do I Look?' as (G)I-dle's photoshoot begins and proceeds to shots of the members' bodies as they slip off their clothes. It draws attention by foretelling a new challenge for the group with an unconventional and daring direction projecting the concept of power, confidence, freedom, and body autonomy. A series of group teaser images were unveiled on October 1–3. The next day, the album's track listing with style resembling that of a fashion magazine was issued, with the tracks being listed in reverse counting down to "Nxde". On October 10, an audio snippet for each track was released except "Dark (X-File)". Alongside the announcement, "Dark (X-File)" track video was scheduled to be released on October 12, five days before their full EP came out. On October 14, an I Love interview was released. On October 15 and 16, music video teasers were released through the group's official social media.


title: I Love (EP)

text: I Love consists of six tracks from various genres of music such as dance, medium-tempo ballads, jazz, pop, rock, indie pop and more. All tracks were mainly produced and written by the members, especially Soyeon, while Minnie and Yuqi worked on "Change" and "Sculpture" as well as "Reset" and "Dark (X-File)" respectively. Soyeon also took the lead in the overall production of the album as the general producer. In addition to the members, a variety of songwriter-producers also participated: Pop Time, Kako, Big Sancho, BreadBeat, BoyToy (Blatinum), Disko (Blatinum), PLZ, Houdini, and Siixk Jun, most of who the group has worked with previous songs. It is an album that contains various kinds of love and emotions of a person who is looking for real love – ultimately loving ourselves. The tracklist of the EP is listed in reverse. Hours before the official release of I Love, the group held a media showcase named 'X-LOVE-SHOW' to discuss the making of the album. Jeon explained that the album storyline started with track six to track one, stated "the story continues in reverse order from number 6. If number 6 is the first time we started to love, then from number 5 to number 2 contains the process of love."


title: I Love (EP)

text: The opening track of the album, "Nxde", featuring an alternative pop genre that samples an aria from Georges Bizet's 1875 opéra comique Carmen, "Habanera". It features a jazzy instrumental rhythm with grand bass line consisting of shuffle rhythm and sarcastic lyrics on the provocative views on the word 'nude', accompanied by whispering vocalizations by (G)I-dle. "Dark (X-File)" has been described as having mysterious and dark vibes that talk about falling into someone deep and are reminiscent of their previous title track "Oh My God". "Sculpture" has vintage-style track with light and upbeat melody in contrasts its self-deprecating lyrics about changing yourself for someone you love: "I'll become whatever you want me to be/It's okay, I'm your sculpture." "Reset" is a ballad, with lyrics about believing that love is the only thing that cannot be achieved even with great effort. "Change" is a mellow song about the ups and downs of life and how they are unavoidable. "Love" is a soft rock song with melodic electric guitar riffs and a catchy chorus. The song talks about breaking up with an ex but ends up with the beautiful realization that the only real love is with oneself: "Thank you for helping me find real love/My love is (Guess who?)/That's me, she's my love."


title: I Love (EP)

text: Writing for Genius, Sofia E. Gomez regarded the album as "impressive" as it contains the "thoughtfulness and authenticity" found in its lyrics " giving listeners a glimpse into the harsh realities of breaking away or succumbing to outside stereotypes and judgment. Touching on themes of self-love, toxic relationships, and destructive behaviours" she thanked (G)I-dle for their "authentic and baring" for everyone to see as "they're no longer tied down to society's outdated beliefs and are ready to reveal what makes them one-of-a-kind — especially as they stand by their confident nature to be – bold, raw, and evocative with no fear." In his album review for The Korea Herald, Park Jun-hee considered I love as not the typical love talk album many would find. He lauded the group for tackling "vulnerable topics" of self-love and self-care, an issue many are shy of in K-pop. He pointed out that all six tracks in the album, "will sense that it's a story of a brokenhearted person, or a hopeless romantic, who can now find love for themselves. And at the end, they find out that to be able to give love to others, it's pivotal to hug yourself first."


title: I Love (EP)

text: The physical album was released in three versions with three concepts: Born, Act, and X-file. In Act version (G)I-dle exuded a provocative and seductive atmosphere with various heart-shaped objects. All the members are dressed in retro lingeries reminiscent of vintage silver screen divas and 1920s flappers. This version portrays the double-sidedness of love, and the Born concept shows the visuals inspired by Hollywood figure Marilyn Monroe. In the X-file version, the group shows their charms while covering their faces with a rabbit mask, creating an intimate and strange atmosphere that shows what lies underneath artists who are loved by everyone. The EP comes with a CD, photo book, lyric sheets, two selfie cards, a bookmark, a sticker, a mini poster, a postage stamp, and a poster which is only available for pre-order. The Target exclusive versions will contain an additional photo card. The album also came in jewel cases as well, and there will be five versions covering all five members of the group.


title: I Love (EP)

text: To commemorate the release of the album, the group partnered up with Ktown4u, AppleMusic, Dearmymuse, Withmuu, and Namil Music to open a one-on-one video call event page. On October 4, Cube launched the (G)I-dle's I Love exclusive emoji for using the promotional hashtags "여자아이들", "GIDLE", "I_love", and "Nxde". These emojis will be effective until November 30, 2022. A pop-up store at Ketapo, Seoul to commemorate the release of I Love opened from October 18 – 20. The store included a photo booth that reproduced a four-cut photo frame with a hand-drawn hand-painted design by the members. Other products and attractions included an undisclosed photo card and photo cards with the members' signatures. (G)I-dle held an offline event X-Love Show Private Premiere, on the release date of the EP, Friday, October 17 at CGV Cheongdam Cine City, Seoul. The set and format of the media screening took the form of a late-night talk show set that was popular in the United States at the time when Monroe was active.


title: Jewish Legion (Anders Army)

text: Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in July 1941 the Sikorski–Mayski agreement was signed between the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union. This agreement allowed for the creation of a semi-independent Polish Army in the Soviet territory. The idea for a Jewish Legion was raised by Jewish Zionist activists about a year later. They hoped that such a unit would facilitate the creation of an independent Land of Israel; another goal was to reduce some reported tensions between Poles and the Jews within the recreated Polish Army. Indeed, one of the groups supporting the creation of this unit, as noted by Israel Gutman, were plain anti-Semites who wanted to rid the Armed Forces of Jews through the medium of the "Jewish Legion". However, the Jews themselves were also divided on this idea which, while supported by the Zionists, was opposed by the more assimilated Jews, including Bundists such as Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter. Vocal opponents of the idea within the Jewish ranks included the Bundist politician Lucjan Blit, who even compared it to a "moral victory" for Nazism through the creation of a "Jewish ghetto within the Polish Armed Forces".


title: Jewish Legion (Anders Army)

text: The unit was initially proposed to be created within the Anders' Army. The idea was eventually rejected by the Polish authorities, chiefly the ambassador Stanisław Kot and general Władysław Anders. Kot concluded that it would result in disunity and unnecessary fragmentation of Polish sources, benefiting the Soviets, and would likely not be well received in the West. Likewise, Anders rejected the idea arguing that it would open doors for other ethnic minorities found within the Polish ranks to counter-productively demand their own formations and that all citizens of Poland should simply serve in the same formation. Another consideration for both Kot and Anders was related to the Soviet stance which questioned whether non-ethnic Poles should be recognized as proper citizens of Poland, and whether they should be recruited into the new Polish formations or into the Soviet Army itself. Therefore, Kot, Anders, and some Jewish activists who opposed this plan viewed the Jewish Legion idea as endangering Jews and other minorities' status as Polish citizens.


title: German torpedo boat T10

text: The Type 35 was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kriegsmarine to design a fast, ocean-going torpedo boat that did not exceed the 600-long-ton (610 t) displacement limit of the London Naval Treaty for ships that counted against the national tonnage limit. The boats had an overall length of 84.3 meters (276 ft 7 in) and were 82.2 meters (269 ft 8 in) long at the waterline. After the bow was rebuilt in 1941 to improve seaworthiness, the overall length increased to 87.1 meters (285 ft 9 in). The ships had a beam of 8.62 meters (28 ft 3 in), and a mean draft of 2.83 meters (9 ft 3 in) at deep load and displaced 859 metric tons (845 long tons) at standard load and 1,108 metric tons (1,091 long tons) at deep load. Their crew numbered 119 officers and sailors. Their pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, were designed to produce 31,000 shaft horsepower (23,000 kW) using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers which would propel the boats at 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph). They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 1,200 nautical miles (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).


title: German torpedo boat T10

text: T10 was ordered on 29 June 1936 from Schichau, laid down at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard on 24 November 1936 as yard number 1394, launched on 19 January 1939 and commissioned on 5 August 1940. The boat was working up until September when she began convoy escort duties in the Baltic Sea. By November T10 had transferred to Norway. German aerial reconnaissance had located two coastal convoys in early November that the Kriegsmarine estimated would pass Kinnaird Head, Scotland, during the early morning of 7 November. Both the 1st and 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotillas, consisting of T10 and her sisters, T1, T4, T6, T7, T8 and T9, sailed on 6 November in an attempt to pass through a gap in the British minefields and intercept the convoys around 02:00 the following morning. The British had extended their minefields further north unbeknownst to the Germans and T6 struck a mine shortly after midnight and sank. T7 and T8 rescued the survivors and the operation was abandoned. T10 began a refit in March in Kiel that lasted until July. The boat was reduced to reserve on 15 August.


title: German torpedo boat T10

text: She was recommissioned on 13 May 1942 and was working up until July when she was transferred to France, where T10 was assigned to the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla. On 20–22 July the flotilla, consisting of T10, T4, and the torpedo boats T13 and T14, laid two minefields in the English Channel. T10, T13 and T14 laid another minefield in the Channel on 1–2 August. The same three boats escorted the replenishment oiler Ermland as she made an unsuccessful attempt to breakout into the Atlantic through the Bay of Biscay on 8–11 August. The flotilla, now consisting of T10, T4, T14 and the torpedo boat T19 made an unsuccessful attempt to escort the commerce raider Komet through the Channel on 13–14 October. They were intercepted by a British force of five escort destroyers and eight MTBs that sank the raider and severely damaged T10. She was hit six times that reduced her speed to eight knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph), set her on fire, and blew up one of her depth charges. Eleven men were killed and an equal number were wounded. When the boat returned to Germany in December, she was again reduced to reserve.


title: German torpedo boat T10

text: T10 was recommissioned in May 1943 and briefly assigned to the Torpedo School as a training ship before becoming the senior officer's ship of the 25th U-boat Flotilla on 10 July. She was reassigned to the Torpedo School in September. The boat was refitted from February to April 1944 and then returned to active duty in the Baltic Sea area. T10 was assigned to the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla and participated in a failed attempt to recapture the island of Narvi on 27/28 June together with T8, the torpedo boat T30 and Finnish forces. The three torpedo boats damaged a Soviet patrol boat off Narva, Estonia on 16 July. T10 was damaged during a Soviet air raid on Libau, Latvia, on 28 November and was then damaged again by a near miss on 15 December. She sailed to Gotenhafen for repairs and was in a floating drydock when the Royal Air Force bombed the port on 18 December. The drydock was damaged so that it sank at the bows and to port which threw the torpedo boat sideways with her superstructure touching the side of the drydock. Then several bombs struck between T10's hull and the side of the drydock, blowing holes in the hull which slowly flooded both boiler rooms, the forward turbine room. The boat now had a 20° list and was down by the bows 10°. The bow was dry and the aft end was still supported by the damaged drydock when the latter broke in half. Despite a salvage ship coming alongside to pump out the water, the flooding could not be contained and T10 sank early the following morning. Lack of resources prevented her from being refloated.


title: Gene Zesch

text: Gene Zesch is an American sculptor, who gained national recognition in the 1960s when prominent figures such as Lyndon B. Johnson and John Connally started collecting his woodcarvings. Born in 1932, he grew up on a Texas ranch in Mason County and also ranched in Durango, Mexico. Mr. Zesch started working as an artist in 1954 and has made a living out of carving caricature figurines of Texas cowboys and cattlemen. The characteristic expression of the subjects of his work is an eyed rolling resignation. He still lives in Mason County on his family ranch. He hand paints bronze castings of his more notable carvings and sells signed prints of photos of his work. Mr. Zesch's work has been featured in one-man shows at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum , the Institute of Texan Cultures , the Witte Museum , and the Forsyth Gallery at his alma mater, Texas A&M University . His work has also been displayed in special exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery (United States) , the Museum of Western Art , and HemisFair '68 .


title: Mummichog

text: The body of the mummichog is elongate but thick, with a deep caudal peduncle. Usual length is 7.5 to 9 cm (3.0 to 3.5 in) but a maximum length of up to 15 cm (5.9 in) is possible. The mouth is upturned and the lower jaw protrudes when the mouth is closed. Pectoral and tail fins are round. Mummichogs have 10–13 dorsal fin rays, 9–12 anal fin rays and 16–20 pectoral fin rays. Males have larger dorsal and anal fins than females. There is no lateral line on the body, but lateral line pores are present on the head. The colour is variable (and may even change in shade within the same individual when placed near different backgrounds) but is generally olive-brown or olive-green. There can be vertical bars on the sides that are thin, wavy, and silvery. Colors are more intense in males during the reproductive season, as they become dark olive-green on the back, steel-blue on the sides with about 15 silvery bars, and yellow or orange-yellow on the underside; the dorsal fin is mottled and a small eyespot may be present near the rear edge. Females tend to be paler, without bars or the intense yellow on the belly, and their dorsal fin is uniformly coloured.


title: Kathryn Card

text: On February 8, 1954, Card made her first television appearance in an episode of I Love Lucy. The installment, entitled "Fan Magazine Interview", featured Card playing a slatternly woman named Minnie Finch. The following year, she was cast as a totally different character, Mrs. MacGillicuddy, Lucy's bird-brained mother. She joined the Ricardos and the Mertzes in Hollywood when Lucy's husband, Ricky Ricardo, was given the opportunity to star in a motion picture. Mrs MacGillicuddy would frequently annoy Ricky immeasurably by mistakenly calling him "Mickey" or mistaking him for his fellow bandleader Xavier Cugat. She portrayed that character in five episodes during the 1954-1955 season, and appeared in three more installments during the 1955-1956 season when the Ricardos and the Mertzes traveled to Europe. However, Card's character never appeared again once both couples moved to Connecticut in the following year. She reprised that role for the last time in one episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show entitled "The Ricardos Go to Japan", which also featured guest star Robert Cummings, in 1959.


title: List of Methodist churches in the United States

text: This is a list of Methodist churches in the United States. It includes notable churches either where a church means a congregation (in the New Testament definition) or where a church means a building (in the colloquial sense). It also includes campgrounds and conference centers and retreats that are significant Methodist gathering places, including a number of historic sites of camp meetings. This very limited list includes only historically or architecturally significant buildings, and omits many of the currently very largest and influential congregations which do not meet that standard. Methodism was founded with a large component being a rejection of past churches and was developed by John Wesley and others in large open-air gatherings in Great Britain. In the United States, Methodists (along with Baptists and other Protestants) were major participants in the Second Great Awakening wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray. The list also includes selected notable Methodist theological buildings.


title: Carmen Miranda

text: Producer Lee Shubert offered Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris on Broadway after seeing her perform in 1939 at Rio's Cassino da Urca. Although she was interested in performing in New York, she refused to accept the deal unless Shubert agreed to also hire her band, the Bando da Lua. He refused, saying that there were many capable musicians in New York who could back her. Miranda remained steadfast, feeling that North American musicians would not be able to authenticate the sounds of Brazil. Shubert compromised, agreeing to hire the six band members but not paying for their transport to New York. President Getúlio Vargas, recognizing the value to Brazil of Miranda's tour, announced that the Brazilian government would pay for the band's transportation on the Moore-McCormack Lines between Rio and New York. Vargas believed that Miranda would foster ties between the northern and southern hemispheres and act as a goodwill ambassador in the United States, increasing Brazil's share of the American coffee market. Miranda took the official sanction of her trip and her duty to represent Brazil to the outside world seriously. She left for New York on the SS Uruguay on 4 May 1939, a few months before World War II.


title: Carmen Miranda

text: Her films were scrutinized by Latin American audiences for characterizing Central and South America in a culturally homogeneous way. When Miranda's films reached Central and South American theaters, they were perceived as depicting Latin American cultures through the lens of American preconceptions. Some Latin Americans felt that their cultures were misrepresented, and felt that someone from their own region was misrepresenting them. Down Argentine Way was criticized, with Argentines saying that it failed to depict Argentine culture. Its lyrics were allegedly replete with non-Argentine themes, and its sets were a fusion of Mexican, Cuban, and Brazilian culture. The film was later banned in Argentina for "wrongfully portraying life in Buenos Aires". Similar sentiments were voiced in Cuba after the debut of Miranda's Weekend in Havana , with Cuban audiences offended by Miranda's portrayal of a Cuban woman. Reviewers noted that an import from Rio could not accurately portray a woman from Havana, and Miranda did not "dance anything Cuban". Her performances were arguably hybrids of Brazilian and other Latin cultures. Critics said that Miranda's other films misrepresented Latin locales, assuming that Brazilian culture was a representation of Latin America.


title: Carmen Miranda

text: After the last take, Miranda and Durante gave an impromptu performance on the set for the cast and technicians. The singer took several cast members and some friends home with her for a small party. She went upstairs to bed at about 3 a.m. Miranda undressed, placed her platform shoes in a corner, lit a cigarette, placed it in an ashtray and went into her bathroom to remove her makeup. She apparently came from the bathroom with a small, round mirror in her hand; in the small hall that led to her bedroom, she collapsed from a fatal heart attack. Miranda was 46 years old. Her body was found at about 10:30 a.m. lying in the hallway. The Jimmy Durante Show episode in which Miranda appeared was aired two months after her death, on 15 October 1955. The episode began with Durante paying tribute to the singer, while also indicating that her family had given permission for the performance to be broadcast. A clip of the episode was included in the A&E Network's Biography episode about the singer.


title: Phoenix Point

text: New Jericho is a militaristic human faction which seeks to fight the alien threat directly by building a superior force. They are led by Tobias West, a former billionaire who also is a veteran mercenary. West gained his prominence in the 2020s as the head of Vanadium Inc., a technology and security firm which provided escorts for container ships as they traveled the world's oceans when the Pandoravirus mist and mutations first began to appear. Being a league of human-focused survivalists, New Jericho seeks to wipe out every trace of the aliens on Earth. Their leaders consider warfare and military technology, including enhancement of humans through technology, as the only solution to the alien threat. However they have conflicting ideas among themselves that threaten to splinter their faction before they can realize their objectives. New Jericho havens typically are fortresses at abandoned industrial or hilltop locations, and they have an extensive manufacturing base for military technology. Allied with the Phoenix Project, they successfully place a targeting beacon at the alien control node allowing for a decapitation strike. With the aliens leaderless, the war shifts in humanity's favor leading to an eventual victory. All of humanity is thus united under one government, and the Phoenix Project is given the resources to continue with its original mission and prepare for the origin of the Pandoravirus.


title: Phoenix Point

text: Synedrion have the most advanced technology of all the human factions. They are radical ecologists who seek to build a new and better human civilization out of the detritus of the old. They value knowledge and seek to form a global nation that exists in partnership with both its citizens and the environment. Viewing aliens as part of Earth's environmental landscape, Synedrion seek to coexist with the aliens by using technology such as a wall that can repel the alien's mist. Synedrion generally place their havens on elevated hi-tech platforms. Overall, they are a decentralized organization that mostly is interconnected through shared philosophy and stable communication networks; however, havens that become disconnected from others prioritize self-sufficiency. The organizational decision-making of Synedrion is slow. Via an alliance with the Phoenix Project they are able to deliver a command virus into the alien control node, allowing them to take control of the Pandoravirus and use it to terraform the planet into one that is sustainably suited for the human race. The Phoenix Project resumes its original mandate.


title: Phoenix Point

text: In making strategic choices, players use a globe-shaped strategic user interface called a Geoscape. The Geoscape is a more complex version of the strategic user interfaces used in previous X-COM games. The Geoscape serves as the nexus for players to monitor their exploration and make choices concerning strategic operations, development, and relationships with other human factions. Players use the Geoscape to track the spread of the Pandoravirus mist, which correlates with alien activity. Players also use the Geoscape to deploy squads of soldiers on tactical combat missions to different locales spread around the world. For example, mission locations could be havens of other factions, scavenging sites at abandoned military or civilian infrastructure, alien encampments, players' bases, and other Phoenix Project facilities. Players even have missions where soldiers must venture on to the backs of city-sized alien land walkers while the mammoth monsters are moving and trying to rid themselves of the players' soldiers.


title: Phoenix Point

text: Tactical combat mission environments are procedurally generated and destructible. Soldiers can deploy on combat missions with a large variety of weapon systems including flamethrowers, chemical weapons, and ordinary explosives. With the right technology, players are able to deploy aerial and ground-mobile drones. Players also can obtain access to vehicles with customization options that their soldiers can bring into battle for heavy weapon support and tactical transportation. Players can deploy squads of four to roughly sixteen soldiers, though limits on squad size are determined mostly by players' availability of healthy soldiers and transportation capacity. While players try to defeat their alien or human enemies in combat, enemies have their own objectives. For example, enemies who attack a haven or base will seek and try to destroy its vital functional elements. Aliens also will try to kill, eat, or abduct civilians they find on the battlefield. If players assault an enemy facility, soldiers can use stealth to avoid alerting the enemy to their presence; however, once alerted, enemies will seek out and attack the soldiers.


title: Phoenix Point

text: Soldiers have a willpower attribute which determines how many "will points" that a soldier has. Soldiers expend will points to take special actions. Soldiers lose will points from injuries, a comrade dying, encountering a horrifying monster, and special enemy attacks. A soldier whose will points fall below zero may panic or lose their sanity. Willpower can be regained through rest or through some special abilities such as a leader's rallying action. Willpower and will points relate to a system in Phoenix Point where combat can inflict lasting physical and even psychological injuries on soldiers. While soldiers can be injured, disabled, and knocked unconscious in battle, they are difficult to kill. The permanent death of soldiers, also called permadeath, is not a significant concern for players. The injuries which soldiers suffer and even just the ordinary experiences of battle can lead to drug addictions, permanent physical disabilities, or even insanity that will require players to research new technologies to rehabilitate.


title: Phoenix Point

text: During combat missions, players face a wide variety of enemies, including an evolving assortment of aliens. Some of the most challenging enemies that players eventually face are bus-sized, boss aliens. For example, one alien boss is called a Crab Queen. Among its abilities, a Crab Queen is able to create a microbial mist which reveals to the aliens on the battlefield any soldiers who enter it and which can buff or revive aliens; this mist creates a literal fog of war which actively works to advantage aliens in battle and otherwise bolsters the horror themes of the game. A Crab Queen also is able to spawn new aliens during combat that will quickly mutate into threats for soldiers on the battlefield. Such abilities of aliens often are locked to their use of particular body parts that can be targeted by weapons and tactical targeting therefore is able to help players to defeat giant boss aliens. Early screenshots of a game prototype show that Phoenix Point has a targeting system which works similarly to the V.A.T.S. used in Fallout. This targeting system provides a wider selection of tactical choices that players can make in combat to take down difficult foes. For example, a soldier might target a claw of an alien boss to disable a melee attack, an arm to disable a weapon, or an organ that gives the alien boss a special ability. These tactical options allow players to combat adversaries which may be significantly tougher than those found in more traditional X-COM games.


title: Greifswald

text: In medieval times, the site of Greifswald was an unsettled woodland which marked the border between the Danish Principality of Rügen and the Pomeranian County of Gützkow, which at that time was also under Danish control. In 1199, the Rugian Prince Jaromar I allowed Danish Cistercian monks to build Hilda Abbey, now Eldena Abbey, at the mouth of the River Ryck. Among the lands granted the monks was a natural salt evaporation pond a short way up the river, a site also crossed by an important south–north via regia trade route. This site was named Gryp(he)swold(e), which is the Low German precursor of the city's modern name – which means "Griffin's Forest." Legend says the monks were shown the best site for settlement by a mighty griffin living in a tree that supposedly grew on what became Greifswald's oldest street, the Schuhagen. The town's construction followed a scheme of rectangular streets, with church and market sites reserved in central positions. It was settled primarily by Germans in the course of the Ostsiedlung, but settlers from other nations and Wends from nearby were attracted, too.


The Northern New Brunswick and Seaboard Railway can lay claim to be the railway company with the fewest miles of standard gauge track in history. The province empowered it in 1904 to lay track between Nepisiguit Junction and Grand Falls, a distance of 26 kilometers, to serve the Drummond Iron Mines, which were discovered in 1897 by William Hussey. By 1903 the Austin Brook Iron Mine was formed, and operated under the name Drummond until 1913, when it went bust. It was in receivership for some short time until the Dominion Steel and Coal Company purchased the right to operate the mine from Canadian Iron Industries, who held the lease. Between 1920 and 1926, the construction of the Grand Falls hydroelectricity dam and plant required twice-daily return trips with a steam locomotive. Thereafter, a gasoline-powered jitney, trolly or automobile with steel wheels would serve, until in the early 1950s the Brunswick Mine attracted attention once again to the area. In 1955 a highway was pushed through to the mine site, and two years later the rails were sold for scrap.


title: 1994 Progress Party national convention

text: The traditionalist (also called populist) faction was represented by party leader Carl I. Hagen, Jan Simonsen, Fridtjof Frank Gundersen, Vidar Kleppe, Øystein Hedstrøm, Lodve Solholm and Eli Hagen. The libertarians of the party were first and foremost the deputy leader Ellen Wibe and four members of Parliament (by some called the "band of four"), Ellen Christine Christiansen, Oscar D. Hillgaar, Roy N. Wetterstad and Stephen Bråthen. Buskerud county leader Geir Thoresen, Akershus county leader Per Aage Pleym Christensen and Youth of the Progress Party leader Lars Erik Grønntun were other prominent libertarians. Both during the preceding months and on the opening day, resolutions were passed which ensured full dominance for Carl I. Hagen and the policies of his faction. Wibe resigned as deputy leader, and Carl I. Hagen's men (there were no women left in the leadership) also dominated the new central committee. The personal issues totally overshadowed the regular political debate, and as early as on 17 April the convention was famously dubbed as the "national convention at Dolkesjø"—derived from dolk, the Norwegian word for dagger.


title: 1994 Progress Party national convention

text: The next two months was a quiet period, and Øystein Hedstrøm stated that Wibe had taken a more responsible role, and thus there was no need for a motion of no confidence. News commentator Aslak Bonde remarked that the compromise reached by the factions was "unclear" and that antagonism could surface at the national convention. Wibe stated that her faction still intended to submit a resolution, a "constructive" proposal regarding tactical and organizational issues. Two days before the national convention, this resolution text had not been submitted to the county delegates. On the next day, the resolution text was commented in newspapers. Aftenposten remarked that Wibe's proposal was a "thorough criticism of Carl I. Hagen", among others in that it called for "a renewal of the party". It was signed by Oscar D. Hillgaar, Ellen Chr. Christiansen, Stephen Bråthen and Roy Wetterstad together with Wibe. Verdens Gang reported that Wibe would resign if not given a clear confidence as deputy leader. Wibe refuted this in Aftenposten on the next day; the newspaper believed that no party split would occur.


title: 1994 Progress Party national convention

text: Already on the second day of the convention it was speculated that the "band of four", four libertarian-leaning members of Parliament, considered leaving the party. The four were Oscar D. Hillgaar, Roy Wetterstad, Ellen Christine Christiansen and Stephen Bråthen. The alternative to leaving the party was to mark themselves as dissenting party members. On the third day, news surfaced that the four had talked together. In the news program Dagsrevyen on 17 April, the band of four stated a desire to follow the 1993 party platform and not later resolutions. They were met by a demand from Carl I. Hagen that they continue on the "terms laid down by the national convention or find something else to do". He later added that if the band of four left the parliamentary group, they should "scram". To sum up, he said that the libertarians, which were known to be a minority, had gained too much influence, and was set back by the national convention. Øystein Hedstrøm demanded that the four leave the party. Because of the fierce personal antagonism at the convention, it was dubbed as the "national convention at Dolkesjø"—derived from dolk, the Norwegian word for dagger.


title: 1994 Progress Party national convention

text: With four of ten having resigned from the parliamentary group, the Youth of the Progress Party was the next institution to experience turmoil. In May Verdens Gang announced that a forthcoming extraordinary national convention, spearheaded by Lars Erik Grønntun, would cut its ties with the Progress Party. The county leader in Oslo, Kim M. Høistad, formally proposed such a move. A straightforward dissolution of the Youth of the Progress Party would, however, most likely be followed by an immediate resurrection of the youth wing by Hagen-loyal members. Høistad's proposal was quickly co-signed by the Akershus branch, through its leader Trine Beate Samuelsen, and the Buskerud branch through its leader Per Magne Pedersen. The county chapters in Telemark, Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder, Oppland and Rogaland also voiced support. Hordaland had considered it. National deputy Ole Tom Nomeland was reluctant to comment, but at the national convention he called Ellen Wibe "one of the finest people in Norwegian politics". He was threatened with exclusion in June, ahead of the convention.


title: 1994 Progress Party national convention

text: Already during the national convention, the Youth of the Progress Party agreed to form an informal "thinking group" for disenfranchised members. Pål Atle Skjervengen was early in declaring an interest in forming a new, libertarian party. Those who resigned from the parliamentary group initially declared a lack of motivation to form a new party, and they also rejected the possibility of joining another party. They would instead vote according to the 1993 party program. Either way, in a parliamentary context they were known as independents for the remainder of their term. They did discuss the possibility of forming a "support group" which would help the four parliamentarians with practical issues. Odd Magnar Brubæk contributed advice on an informal basis from time to time. With some time passed since the Bolkesjø convention, it was decided to hold a formal conference to form a support group in mid-June. Organizations in Akershus and Buskerud already existed, under the names of Fridemokratene Akershus and Buskerud Liberale Forum.


title: Alumni Stadium (WPI)

text: The Class of 1886 started the efforts to raise funds for both a field and gymnasium at the 1911 Alumni Council meeting. The goal of $200,000 for the building of both a field ($25,000) and a gymnasium ($100,000) was reached in June 1913. The remaining funds ($75,000) were spent on purchasing gym equipment and starting an endowment. The 1911 plan originally called for Alumni Stadium to build on a strip of land west of Bliss Field, where the Engineers had been playing their games. When the institute purchased twelve acres near Park Avenue in 1912, it became apparent that this newly acquired land was more adaptable for their new field. The Olmsted Brothers were hired to draft new plans for an athletic field and discovered the institute would be required to purchase an additional tract of land from the Worcester Art Museum to build Alumni Stadium. The construction contract was awarded to Alumnus Varnum P. Curtis in May 1913 with Professor Arthur W. French being the consulting engineer and Professor Arthur J. Knight as the resident engineer. In the summer of 1913 they broke ground.


title: Alumni Stadium (WPI)

text: The first renovations of Alumni Stadium occurred in 1926 when bleachers with a capacity of 2,800 were installed on the east and west side of the field. In May 1985, an Omniturf surface was installed marking the first time the Engineers would play its home games on a turf field. This switch from grass to turf was met with criticism from the WPI community citing both cost and safety concerns. The latter stemming from articles published by both the local newspaper, the Worcester Gazette, and Sports Illustrated. However, the WPI Athletic Department reaffirmed its decision and the Omniturf surface remained for its expected lifetime of 10–12 years. life The stadium underwent a major renovation before the 1997 season consisting of the installation of a new AstroTurf 12 playing surfacing and the resurfacing of the track. Ten years later in 2007, the stadium had another major renovation which included a new FieldTurf playing surface, new bleachers (decreasing capacity to 2,000) and press box on the west side of the field, a new scoreboard, and a new field lighting system. Additionally in 2007, the eight-lane track was resurfaced and named after longtime track and field coach, Merl M. Norcross, during a dedication ceremony during Homecoming. In the summer of 2015 the field was resurfaced again with FieldTurf.


title: 2016 Tour of Flanders

text: The race started in the Market Square in Bruges with a neutralised zone, leaving the town to the south. The racing started outside the city and took the riders southwest through Torhout to Roeselare, then east through Ardooie and Tielt, then south-east to Oudenaarde, passing across the first cobbled sector of the day, the flat Huisepontweg. After Oudenaarde, the route continued into a series of circuits through the hilly area to the south and east. After 103 kilometres (64 mi) came the first climb, the Oude Kwaremont, a 2,200-metre (2,400 yd), partially cobbled climb that would feature twice more later in the race. The route turned north and, following the climb of the non-cobbled Kortekeer, the riders entered a 20-kilometre (12 mi) section with several cobbled roads. These included the cobbled climbs of the Eikenberg and the Wolvenberg, then the flat Ruiterstraat, Kerkgate and Jagerij, the climb of the Molenberg, then finally the 2,300 metres (2,500 yd) of the flat Paddestraat. The route then turned back to the south-west, across the flat Haaghoek cobbles and then the non-cobbled climbs of the Leberg, Berendries, Valkenberg, Kaperij and Kanarieberg. This brought the route back to take on the second ascent of the Oude Kwaremont, followed immediately by the steep cobbled climb of the Paterberg, 360 metres (390 yd) long with an average gradient of 12.9% and sections at over 20%. At the summit of the Paterberg, there were 51 kilometres (32 mi) left to the finish.


title: 2016 Tour of Flanders

text: On the Molenberg, with more than 110 kilometres (68 mi) remaining, a hard effort by Tony Martin (Etixx–Quick-Step) caused a split in the main peloton, with 25 riders in the front group, but the groups came back together shortly afterwards. André Greipel (Lotto–Soudal) and Nils Politt (Katusha) then attacked on the Leberg and were allowed to go; they were followed by Dmitriy Gruzdev (Astana) and Dimitri Claeys (Wanty–Groupe Gobert). These four riders joined up with Houle, Erviti and Van Hoecke from the original break; Houle was dropped soon afterwards to form a six-man leading group, which had a two-minute lead at the foot of the second ascent of the Oude Kwaremont. On the climb, Stijn Vandenbergh (Etixx–Quick-Step) and Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale) attacked from the peloton. Another group, including Sep Vanmarcke and Ian Stannard, attacked before the Koppenberg. Stannard then went solo over the top of the climb. Meanwhile, Vandenbergh and Van Baarle caught up with the group of leaders.


title: 62nd Airlift Wing

text: After the wing was established in 1947 it conducted troop carrier operations, tactical exercises, and humanitarian missions. The wing operated from McChord Air Force Base, Washington until late 1951 when it moved to Larson Air Force Base. From Larson the wing routinely performed troop carrier, air transport, and humanitarian missions on a global scale: flying mail to Japan for U.S. troops in Korea in 1952; bringing medical supplies to the flooded areas of Pakistan in 1954; and transporting French troops and equipment from France to Indochina as part of Operation Bali-Hai from April–May 1954. The wing airlifted radar equipment and supplies to help construct the Distant Early Warning Line in northern Alaska and Canada from 1955–1956, and thereafter periodically resupplied DEW Line stations. During the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958, and subsequently through 1962 the wing supported scientific stations in the Arctic Ocean by airlanding and airdropping supplies on the drifting ice. It helped transport United Nations troops and supplies to the Congo in 1960 ("Operation New Tape"). In 1963 the wing assumed responsibility for worldwide airlift of nuclear weapons and associated equipment, continuing this mission through early 1971. It also assumed airlift of Minuteman missiles from depots to operating sites in April 1971. In 1972 it supported Presidential trips to China and the Soviet Union. From 12 February to 1 April 1973 the wing transported former prisoners of war from North Vietnam to the Philippines and the United States. That same year it transported United Nations troops from Indonesia to Israel and Egypt as part of a peacekeeping effort.


title: 62nd Airlift Wing

text: In the summer of 1975, the wing assumed control of the 36th Tactical Airlift Squadron (36 TAS) and their C-130E aircraft, which transferred from Langley AFB, Virginia following the transfer of all Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft from Tactical Air Command (TAC) to Military Airlift Command (MAC), and the disestablishment of the 316th Tactical Airlift Wing at Langley to make way for the arrival of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing (1 TFW) and their F-15A and F-15B aircraft. From October 1975 to October 1977, the 62 MAW maintained a detachment of C-130Es in the Panama Canal Zone to support USAF needs in Central and South America. The 62nd airlifted troops and supplies during invasion of Grenada and airlifted university students to safety from, October–November 1983. During 1988 62 AW aircraft were used to transport inspectors to the Soviet Union under terms of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 62 AW aircraft were also used that year to transport firefighters and supplies to Wyoming to fight major forest fires in Yellowstone National Park. It participated in the airdrop of heavy equipment and personnel during military action in Panama, 20 December 1989. During Operation Desert Shield the 62nd airlifted personnel and equipment to Southwest Asia and operated airlift control elements at Zaragoza, Spain, to direct cargo and personnel destined for Southwest Asia from, August 1990 – March 1991. Additionally, during 1991, 62 AW personnel and aircraft facilitated the evacuation of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.


title: 62nd Airlift Wing

text: In 1992, 62 AW flew relief mission to Guam following Typhoon Omar, Hawaii following Hurricane Iniki, Florida following Hurricane Andrew, as well as Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union. In 1993, the 62 AW divested itself of the then-redesignated 36th Airlift Squadron (36 AS), transferring the squadron and its C-130E aircraft to the 374th Airlift Wing (374 AW) at Yokota AB, Japan. In 1994, the 62 AW dispatched personnel and aircraft to deliver equipment and supplies in support of Operation Support Hope in Rwanda. During 1995, the 62 AW deployed personnel and aircraft to the U.S. Virgin Islands following Hurricane Marilyn and to Bosnia in support of Operation Joint Endeavor. 62 AW personnel delivered relief supplies to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam following torrential rains and flooding spawned by Typhoon Linda in 1997. In 1998, the 62 AW delivered relief supplies to Guam following Super Typhoon Paka, to Papua New Guinea following a tsunami, to Changsha, China following severe flooding, and to Nairobi, Kenya following the bombing of the U.S. Embassy there.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: On May 10, 2002, Blumenthal and Connecticut State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier helped to stop the hostile takeover of New Britain-based Stanley Works, a major Connecticut employer, by filing a lawsuit alleging that the move to reincorporate in Bermuda based on a shareholder's vote of May 9 was "rife with voting irregularities." The agreement to temporarily halt the move was signed by New Britain Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger. On June 3 Blumenthal referred the matter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for further investigation and on June 25 he testified before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means that "Longtime American corporations with operations in other countries can dodge tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes by the device of reincorporating in another country" by "simply incorporation papers in a country with friendly tax laws, open a post-office box and hold an annual meeting there" and that Stanley Works, along with "Cooper Industries, Seagate Technologies, Ingersoll-Rand and PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, to name but a few, have also become pseudo-foreign corporations for the sole purpose of saving tax dollars." Blumenthal said, "Corporations proposing to reincorporate to Bermuda, such as Stanley, often tell shareholders that there is no material difference in the law", but said that this was not the case and was misleading to their shareholders. In order to rectify this situation he championed the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act to close tax loopholes.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: Blumenthal was involved in a series of lawsuits against associates of Connecticut Governor Rowland and the various entities of the Tomasso Group over Tomasso's bribing of state officials, including Rowland, in exchange for the awarding of lucrative state contracts. Blumenthal subpoenaed Tomasso Brothers Inc.; Tomasso Brothers Construction Co.; TBI Construction Co. LLC; Tunxis Plantation Country Club; Tunxis Management Co.; Tunxis Management Co. II; and Tenergy Water LLC (all part of the Tomasso Group). Lawyers for the Tomasso Group argued that the attorney general had no special power to look into the operations of private firms under whistleblower law as no actual whistleblowers had come forward and all incriminating testimony was in related federal cases. Connecticut law requires the attorney general to both be the attorney for the state and investigate the state government's misdeeds, and the rules governing the office did not adequately address this inherent conflict of interest. The state's case against the Tomasso Group failed but federal investigations ended in prison sentences for the Group's president, for Rowland, and for a number of his associates. The Tomasso Group stopped bidding on state contracts to avoid a substantial legal challenge from Blumenthal under newly written compliance statutes.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: Blumenthal played a pivotal role in the expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference and the departures of Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech from the Big East. He led efforts by the Big East football schools (Virginia Tech, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia) in legal proceedings against the Atlantic Coast Conference, the University of Miami and Boston College, accusing them of improper disclosure of confidential information and of conspiring to dismantle the Big East. According to Blumenthal, the case was pursued because "the future of the Big East Conference was at risk—the stakes huge for both state taxpayers and the university's good name." The suits cost the schools involved $2.2 million in the first four months of litigation. The lawsuit against the ACC was initially dismissed on jurisdictional grounds but was subsequently refiled. A declaratory judgment by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts exonerated Boston College in the matter. Virginia Tech accepted an invitation from the ACC and withdrew from the suit to remove itself from the awkward position of suing its new conference. An out-of-court $5 million settlement was eventually reached, which included a $1 million exit fee that Boston College was required to pay the Big East under the league's constitution.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: In November 2006, Blumenthal tried, as Paul A. Offit described it, "to legislate a disease, Chronic Lyme, into existence". He launched an antitrust investigation into the Infectious Diseases Society of America's (IDSA's) 2006 guidelines regarding the treatment of Lyme disease. Responding to concerns from chronic Lyme disease advocacy groups, Blumenthal claimed the IDSA guidelines would "severely constrict choices and legitimate diagnosis and treatment options for patients." The medical validity of the IDSA guidelines was not challenged, and a journalist writing in Nature Medicine suggested some IDSA members may not have disclosed potential conflicts of interest, while a Forbes piece described Blumenthal's investigation as "intimidation" of scientists by an elected official with close ties to Lyme advocacy groups. The Journal of the American Medical Association described the decision as an example of the "politicization of health policy" that went against the weight of scientific evidence and may have a chilling effect on future decisions by medical associations. In 2008, Blumenthal ended the investigation after the IDSA agreed to conduct a review of the guidelines. In 2010, an eight-member independent review panel unanimously agreed that the original 2006 guideline recommendations were "medically and scientifically justified" in the light of the evidence. The committee did not change any of the earlier recommendations but did alter some of the language in an executive summary of the findings. Blumenthal said he would review the final report.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: In August 2008, Blumenthal announced that Connecticut had joined California, Illinois and Florida in suing subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial (now owned by Bank of America) for fraudulent business practices. The suit alleged that Countrywide pushed consumers into "deceptive, unaffordable loans and workouts, and charged homeowners in default unjustified and excessive legal fees." According to Blumenthal, "Countrywide conned customers into loans that were clearly unaffordable and unsustainable, turning the American Dream of homeownership into a nightmare" and when consumers defaulted, "the company bullied them into workouts doomed to fail." He also claimed that Countrywide "crammed unconscionable legal fees into renegotiated loans, digging consumers deeper into debt" and "broke promises that homeowners could refinance, condemning them to hopelessly unaffordable loans." The lawsuit demanded that Countrywide make restitution to affected borrowers, give up improper gains and rescind, reform or modify all mortgages that broke state laws. It is also sought civil fines of up to $100,000 per violation of state banking laws, and up to $5,000 per violation of state consumer protection laws.


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: Blumenthal has been a vocal advocate of the scientific consensus on climate change, that human activity is responsible for rising global temperatures and that prompt action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be taken. He has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to declare carbon dioxide a dangerous air pollutant. "I urge the new Obama EPA to declare carbon dioxide a danger to human health and welfare so we can at last begin addressing the potentially disastrous threat global warming poses to health, the environment and our economy. We must make up for lost time before it's too late to curb dangerous warming threatening to devastate the planet and human society." He has brought suit against a number of electric utilities in the Midwest, arguing that coal-burning power plants are generating excess CO2 emissions. In 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to allow Blumenthal's lawsuit to proceed. Blumenthal has said, "no reputable climate scientist disputes the reality of global warming. It is fact, plain and simple. Dithering will be disastrous."


title: Richard Blumenthal

text: In August 2019, Blumenthal was one of 19 senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration in order to help states and Congress understand the potential consequences in the event that the Texas v. United States Affordable Care Act (ACA) lawsuit prevailed in courts, claiming that an overhaul of the present health care system would form "an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets". That same month, Blumenthal, three other Senate Democrats, and Bernie Sanders signed a letter to Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless in response to Novartis falsifying data as part of an attempt to gain the FDA's approval for its new gene therapy Zolgensma, writing that it was "unconscionable that a drug company would provide manipulated data to federal regulators in order to rush its product to market, reap federal perks, and charge the highest amount in American history for its medication."


title: Hold On Hold Out

text: As a possibly logically extreme conclusion to the singer/songwriter confessional trend begun in the early 1970s, critics emphasized this song particularly in their reviews for the album. In the Sept. 4, 1980 issue of Rolling Stone, Kit Rachlis began his review of the album by drawing attention to the song: "Everything that's right and everything that's wrong about Hold Out ... can be found in its climax: the spoken confession at the end of the last cut... Eight minutes long, "Hold On Hold Out" is the LP's anthem, its farewell address and would-be summation. With Technicolor clarity, the drive of the drums, the zing of the string synthesizer and the shoulders-thrust-back momentum of the piano jump out at you — big and bright and basic. So the drama is real when the instruments drop back and Browne stops singing and starts speaking. It's a measure of both the grandiosity and simplicity of Browne's intentions that this album comes down to his saying — without the aid of melody or harmony — "I love you." And it's a measure of Hold Out's failure that these words sound flat, forced, even selfish: a meaningful private act made embarrassing by its public expression. Also, the words are a letdown, since they follow the funniest, most heartbreakingly romantic line on the record."


title: Quisisana

text: After the introduction of the first automat in Berlin in 1895 and a demonstration of the technology at the Brussels World Fair in 1897, the concept soon expanded into other European cities such as Vienna in 1898 and Saint Petersburg in 1900 (Kvisisana ), whilst its developers also purveyed their methods in the United States. Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart, owners of the first automat in the United States, were inspired by the Quisisana automat restaurant after Hardart, of Bavarian heritage himself, visited one in 1900. Hardart then supposedly convinced Horn to place an order for automat equipment from the Quisisana company itself in order to expand their existing restaurant services. However, some sources instead state that they purchased their vending machines in 1901 from a person of the name Max Sielaff, a salesman looking to sell vending machines designed by a German engineer from Automat GmbH. Sielaff had supposedly been convincing the partners to purchase automat equipment since 1898 and believed that America would be receptive to this new technology.


title: Nurhachius

text: The skull is elongated with in the holotype a preserved length of 315 millimeters (12.4 in) and an estimated total length of about 330 millimeters (13 in). The nasoantorbital fenestra, the large skull opening, is relatively long at 58% of the skull length. The lower jaws have a length of 290 millimeters (11 in). The skull is similar to that of Istiodactylus, which lived at about the same time in what is now England, especially in the teeth that are compressed side to side and the long fenestra. However, it differs from Istiodactylus in several details, including a significantly lower skull, different jugal and a slight curve to the upper margin of the lower jaw. The teeth are curved to the back, have three roots and are robust. They are limited to the anterior ends of the jaws; there are 28 teeth in the upper jaws and 26 in the lower jaws for a total of 54. Most elements of the postcranial skeleton are known, with the exception of some cervical vertebrae, the ribs, the tail and the two most extreme phalanges of the wing finger.


title: Jan Kubelík

text: Kubelík made a number of recordings; his acoustic recordings were made for The Gramophone and Typewriter Ltd.and Sister Companyes.The Gramophone Company/Victor Record, for Fonotipia/Odeon and Schallplatte Grammophon/Polydor (who also recorded Váša Příhoda, Franz von Vecsey and Jacques Thibaud). The Gramophone Company recorded him as obbligato to Dame Nellie Melba in 1904, a match which reflected the classical phrasing, tonal purity and security of his art and was an ideal complement to it. Their early version of the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria was recorded twice, in October 1904 and again in February 1905, and this was one of the great early classics of the gramophone, one of those records which 'made' the instrument a popular success, though the double celebrity single-sided title retailed at one guinea. Nine years later (when technology had improved) the partnership was reformed to re-make the record , in May 1913 with organ accompaniment and again in October 1913. It was the latter version which then survived in the inter-war catalogue in two-sided form. His 1935 Carnegie Hall concert was also recorded and has been reissued.


title: Tom Principato

text: Principato was born in Washington, D.C., and was initially inspired by the music of Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, and Danny Gatton. A life changing moment happened while he was a teenager. Principato remembered "seeing B.B. King for three shows a night, three nights in a row, in 1969 at The Cellar Door club. I was 17 years old, still in high school, and still developing my guitar and music skills." Principato led the band Powerhouse in the late 1970s, which released Night Life to some acclaim. He joined Geoff Muldaur on tour in 1980, and recorded an album, I Ain't Drunk, as part of the ensemble known as Geoff Muldaur and His Bad Feet. He followed this by operating as a session musician, playing both in the studio and in concert with musicians including Sunnyland Slim, Billy Price, Big Mama Thornton, and James Montgomery. Joining the Assassins with Jimmy Thackery, he recorded two albums, No Previous Record and Partners in Crime . The latter recording earned Principato his first Washington Area Music Awards (Wammys).