2016 Internationaux de Strasbourg – Doubles
Chuang Chia-jung and Liang Chen were the defending champions, but chose not to participate together. Chuang played alongside Darija Jurak, but lost in the semifinals to María Irigoyen and Liang. Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja won the title, defeating Irigoyen and Liang in the final, 6–2, 6–0.


2016 Internationaux de Strasbourg – Singles
Samantha Stosur was the defending champion, but withdrew before her quarterfinal match due to a left wrist injury.


2016 Internationaux de Strasbourg – Singles
Caroline Garcia won the title, defeating Mirjana Lučić-Baroni in the final 6–4, 6–1.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois
The 2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois was a professional tennis tournament played on clay courts. It was the fourth edition of the tournament which was part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Blois, France between 13 and 19 June 2016.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois, Singles main draw entrants, Other Entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois – Doubles
Rémi Boutillier and Maxime Teixeira were the defending champions, but only Teixeira defended his title partnering Maxime Chazal. Teixeira lost in the first round to Alejandro González and Luis David Martínez.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois – Doubles
Alexander Satschko and Simon Stadler won the title after defeating Gong Maoxin and Yasutaka Uchiyama 6–3, 7–6(7–2) in the final.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois – Singles
Mathias Bourgue was the defending champion, but lost in the first round to Scott Griekspoor.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Blois – Singles
Carlos Berlocq won the title after defeating Steve Darcis 6–2, 6–0 in the final.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée
The 2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée was a professional tennis tournament played on hard courts. It was the fourth edition of the tournament which was part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Mouilleron-le-Captif, France between 7 and 13 November 2016.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following player entered the main draw using a special exemption:


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée – Doubles
Sander Arends and Adam Majchrowicz were the defending champions but chose not to defend their title.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée – Doubles
Jonathan Eysseric and Édouard Roger-Vasselin won the title after defeating Johan Brunström and Andreas Siljeström 6–7(1–7), 7–6(7–3), [11–9] in the final.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée – Singles
Benoît Paire was the defending champion but lost in the semifinals to Andrey Rublev.


2016 Internationaux de Tennis de Vendée – Singles
Julien Benneteau won the title after defeating Rublev 7–5, 2–6, 6–3 in the final.


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia
The 2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia was a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It was the ninth edition of the tournament and part of the 2016 ITF Women's Circuit, offering a total of $50,000 in prize money. It took place in Brescia, Italy, on 30 May–5 June 2016.


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following player received a wildcard into the singles main draw:


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia – Doubles
Laura Siegemund and Renata Voráčová were the defending champions, but both players chose not to participate.


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia – Doubles
Deborah Chiesa and Martina Colmegna won the title, defeating Cindy Burger and Stephanie Vogt in the final, 6–3, 1–6, [12–10].


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia – Singles
Stephanie Vogt was the defending champion, but lost in the first round to Karin Knapp.


2016 Internazionali Femminili di Brescia – Singles
Knapp then went on to win the title, defeating Jesika Malečková in the final, 6–1, 6–2.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte
The 2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte was a professional tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts. It was the fourth edition of the tournament which was part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Andria, Italy between November 21 and November 27, 2016.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following player received entry into the singles main draw with a special exemption:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte – Doubles
Marco Chiudinelli and Frank Moser were the defending champions but chose not to defend their title.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte – Doubles
Wesley Koolhof and Matwé Middelkoop won the title after defeating Roman Jebavý and Zdeněk Kolář 6–3, 6–3 in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte – Singles
Ivan Dodig was the defending champion but chose not to defend his title.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Castel del Monte – Singles
Luca Vanni won the title after defeating Matteo Berrettini 5–7, 6–0, 6–3 in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza
The 2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza was a professional tennis tournament played on clay courts. It was the third edition of the tournament which was part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Vicenza, Italy between 21 and 29 May May 2016.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received entry into the singles main draw as special exempt:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players entered the singles main draw with a protected ranking:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza – Doubles
Facundo Bagnis and Guido Pella were the defending champions but chose not to defend their title.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza – Doubles
Andrey Golubev and Nikola Mektić won the title after defeating Gastão Elias and Fabrício Neis 6–3, 6–3 in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza – Singles
Íñigo Cervantes was the defending champion, but chose not to defend his title.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis Città di Vicenza – Singles
Guido Andreozzi won the title when Pere Riba retired in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia
The 2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia was a professional tennis tournament played on clay courts. It was the thirteenth edition of the tournament which was part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Cordenons, Italy between 15 and 21 August 2016.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following player received entry into the singles main draw using a protected ranking:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia – Doubles
Andrej Martin and Igor Zelenay were the defending champions but only Zelenay returned, partnering Hans Podlipnik. Zelenay lost in the semifinals to Andre Begemann and Aliaksandr Bury.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia – Doubles
Begemann and Bury won the title after defeating Roman Jebavý and Zdeněk Kolář 5–7, 6–4, [11–9] in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia – Singles
Filip Krajinović was the defending champion but lost in the quarterfinals to Paolo Lorenzi.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia – Singles
Taro Daniel won the title after defeating Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6–3, 6–4 in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria
The 2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria is a professional tennis tournament played on clay courts. It is the 10th edition of the men's tournament which is part of the 2016 ATP Challenger Tour, offering a total of €42,500+H in prize money. The event will take place at the Tennis Club Todi in Todi, Italy, on 4 – 10 July 2016.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria, Singles main draw entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria – Doubles
Flavio Cipolla and Máximo González were the defending champions but chose not to defend their title.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria – Doubles
Marcelo Demoliner and Fabrício Neis won the title after defeating Salvatore Caruso and Alessandro Giannessi 6–1, 3–6, [10–5] in the final.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria – Singles
Aljaž Bedene was the two-time defending champion but chose not to participate.


2016 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria – Singles
Miljan Zekić won the title after defeating Stefano Napolitano 6–7(6–8), 6–4, 6–3 in the final.


2016 Interstate 10 tour bus crash
The 2016 Interstate 10 tour bus crash was a vehicle accident that occurred on Interstate 10 (I-10) in California on October 23, 2016, when a tour bus slammed into the back of a semi-trailer truck. The crash killed 13 and injured 30 others.


2016 Interstate 10 tour bus crash, Incident
The tour bus was heading westbound, returning to Los Angeles with 42 adult passengers from an excursion to a casino in Thermal, when it impacted the rear of the stationary truck soon after 5 a.m., at an estimated 74–79 miles per hour (119–127 km/h). The speed caused the trailer to penetrate approximately 15 feet (4.6 m) into the bus. The bus driver, Teodulo Elias Vides, who owned the tour bus company, and 12 passengers were killed. 30 other passengers were injured. The truck driver, Bruce Guilford, was unharmed, but was hospitalized for observation.


2016 Interstate 10 tour bus crash, Investigation and trial
Immediately following the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board sent a disaster crew to investigate the crash. The report established that both drivers had been seriously sleep-deprived and that Guilford had falsified his driver logs to conceal his having driven more than the maximum number of hours without rest. He had fallen asleep and his truck had remained stationary after the highway reopened following a temporary closure; Vides, an undiagnosed diabetic who had also had very little sleep in the days before the accident, had not reacted in time to avoid colliding with the truck. The bus also had two substandard tires and was not equipped with seat belts.


2016 Interstate 10 tour bus crash, Investigation and trial
Guilford was arrested in October 2017 and the following month was extradited from the state of Georgia and charged with 13 counts of felony vehicular manslaughter and other related charges. After a preliminary hearing, he was ordered held on $500,000 bail before his trial.


2016 Intrust Super Premiership Finals Series
In the 2016 season, the Intrust Super Premiership NSW – an Australia-based rugby league competition mainly comprising clubs in New South Wales – was won by Illawarra Cutters.


2016 Intrust Super Premiership NSW
The 2016 Intrust Super Premiership NSW is the ninth season of the NSW Cup, and the first since its sponsorship by Intrust Super. The winner will compete in the 2016 NRL State Championship, against the winner of the 2016 Queensland Cup.


2016 Intrust Super Premiership NSW, Teams
* : The season the team joined is in the NSW Cup/Intrust Super Premiership, not any other competition before this.


2016 Intrust Super Premiership NSW Results
The 2016 Intrust Super Premiership season consists of 25 regular season round starting on Saturday, March 5, 2016, and ending on Saturday, 24 September 2016 with the Grand Final


2016 Invercargill mayoral election
The 2016 Invercargill mayoral election finished on Saturday, 8 October 2016 and was conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system using the postal voting system. It was held as part of the 2016 New Zealand local elections.


2016 Invercargill mayoral election
The incumbent mayor Tim Shadbolt sought a record eighth term, and was re-elected to the position with a reduced majority. Shadbolt was challenged by television host Tom Conroy and sitting Invercargill City councilor Karen Arnold. Shadbolt was re-elected with a decreased majority.


2016 Invictus Games
The 2016 Invictus Games was the second edition of the Invictus Games. On 14 July 2015, Prince Harry, Patron of Invictus Games Foundation, announced the 2016 Invictus Games would take place from 8–12 May 2016 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.


2016 Invictus Games
On 28 October 2015, Prince Harry and USA's First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Jill Biden, launched Invictus Games 2016 at Fort Belvoir.


2016 Invictus Games, Organising committee
In order to bring Invictus Games to the USA, Military Adaptive Sports Inc. (MASI) was created, and worked to build on the success of the Invictus Games 2014 held in London.


2016 Invictus Games, Organising committee
Ken Fisher served as Chairman and CEO for Invictus Games Orlando 2016.


2016 Invictus Games, Invited countries
All 14 countries from the 2014 Games were invited back, while Jordan was the only new invitee.


2016 Iowa Barnstormers season
The 2016 Iowa Barnstormers season was the team's sixteenth season as a professional indoor football franchise and second in the Indoor Football League (IFL). One of ten teams that compete in the IFL for the 2016 season, the Barnstormers are members of the United Conference.


2016 Iowa Barnstormers season
Led by head coach Joe Brannen, the Barnstormers play their home games at the Wells Fargo Arena in the Des Moines, Iowa.


2016 Iowa Corn 300
The 2016 Iowa Corn 300 was the 10th Round of the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series season and the 10th consecutive year the Verizon IndyCar Series visited the Newton, Iowa short oval. The race was broadcast on NBCSN with Brian Till as the Lap-By-Lap Announcer. Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport entered as the defending winner of the race.


2016 Iowa Corn 300, Race Summary
The race was moved to a Sunday afternoon due to the Saturday Night slot on NBCSN taken up by the Quaker State 400 of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Qualifying saw Simon Pagenaud take his fifth pole of the season while also giving Team Penske its 500th pole position across all series. Ryan Hunter-Reay started 20th, and would have to climb through the field to repeat his victory. The race started on schedule with Josef Newgarden taking the lead from Pagenaud and leading the first 50 laps.


2016 Iowa Corn 300, Race Summary
As pit stops began to cycle through, the lead would shuffle to Pagenaud, then to Max Chilton, and then Alexander Rossi, before Newgarden returned to the lead. The race saw its first yellow flag when defending winner Ryan Hunter-Reay suffered an engine failure on lap 108 and came to a halt on track. The caution flag ended Newgarden's chance to lap the field, as many previously lapped cars were waved around to the tail end of the lead lap. The race restarted on lap 128, where Newgarden once again began to pull away from the field.


2016 Iowa Corn 300, Race Summary
Caution flew once more on lap 179, when Juan Pablo Montoya suffered an engine failure and, like Hunter-Reay, came to a stop on course. The race returned to green flag racing on lap 188. The third and final caution came for a spin by Max Chilton in turn 2 on lap 246, which bunched the field up for a 40 lap sprint to the end. Newgarden, however, was still untouchable and cruised away to win by over four seconds over Will Power, despite suffering a broken wrist the previous weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Only five cars remained on the lead lap by the time the checkered flag fell.


2016 Iowa Corn 300, Race Summary
Newgarden's 282 laps led set a record for most laps led in a Verizon IndyCar Series race. His victory also moved him up to second place in the championship, making him a serious contender to take victory. Chevrolet was dominant again, as they had been for much of the season, with the top four positions all going to Chevrolet powered cars. Mikhail Aleshin's fifth place finish made him the highest placed Honda driver. Alexander Rossi was the highest placed rookie in the field, coming in sixth. It was his best finish since his Indianapolis 500 victory. Only three drivers retired during the race; Juan Pablo Montoya, Conor Daly, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, all with engine related issues.


2016 Iowa Corn 300, Results, Race Results
Points include 1 point for leading at least 1 lap during a race, an additional 2 points for leading the most race laps, and 1 point for Pole Position.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses
The 2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses took place on February 1 in Iowa, as usual marking the Democratic Party's first nominating contest in their series of presidential primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses
The Republican Party held its own Iowa caucuses on the same day.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses
Despite a late challenge, Hillary Clinton was able to defeat Bernie Sanders in the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucus by the closest margin in the history of the contest: 49.8% to 49.6% (Clinton collected 700.47 state delegate equivalents to Sanders' 696.92, a difference of one quarter of a percentage point). The victory, which was projected to award her 23 pledged national convention delegates (two more than Sanders), made Clinton the first woman to win the Caucus and marked a clear difference from 2008, where she finished in third place behind Obama and John Edwards. Martin O'Malley suspended his campaign after a disappointing third-place finish with only 0.5% of the state delegate equivalents awarded, leaving Clinton and Sanders the only two major candidates in the race. 171,517 people participated in the 2016 Iowa Democratic caucuses.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Procedure
There was no ballot; instead, a unique form of debate and groupings chose delegates to county conventions supporting Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders. The Iowa Democratic Party did not release vote counts or the numbers of these delegates. Instead, they released the estimated amount of state delegates supporting each candidate. The county conventions selected delegates to district and state conventions, which in turn selected the delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The delegates at the county, district and state conventions were not pledged and were allowed to change their preference, meaning that the final result of the state delegates could have been different from what was estimated at the Iowa precinct caucuses.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Procedure
Delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention were selected at district and state conventions. The First and Second congressional districts received 8 district delegates, the Third received 7 and the Fourth received 6. These district delegates were elected at the District Conventions based on the result in each Congressional District.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Procedure
At the State Convention, the 15 statewide pledged delegates were elected based on the statewide results. 9 of these delegates were At-Large and 6 were Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEO) who were pledged based on the proportion of At-Large delegates supporting candidates. The Iowa delegation also included 8 superdelegates who were not pledged based on the result of the caucus process, which included 1 U.S. Representative and 7 Democratic National Committee members.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Debates and forums, November 2015 debate in Des Moines
On November 14, 2015, the Democratic Party held a second presidential debate at the Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Hosted by CBS News Political Director John Dickerson, it aired on CBS News and was also broadcast by KCCI and The Des Moines Register. With the remaining candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley participating, it was the first debate to be broadcast over nationwide network television, the previous debate having gone over cable.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Debates and forums, November 2015 debate in Des Moines
As the day before the debate, November 13, was the day of the November 2015 Paris attacks, CBS announced that the debate would focus on foreign policy and terrorism. In addition, a moment of silence was held at the beginning of the debate in memory of the victims.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Debates and forums, January 2016 forum in Des Moines
On January 11, 2016 the "Black and Brown" forum was held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Focusing on minority issues, it aired on Fusion.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Results
Following a poor result in the caucuses, Martin O'Malley announced he was suspending his campaign.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy
"[O]rganizational issues around the caucus", including difficulty identifying volunteers to "oversee individual precinct caucuses," contributed to a "disorganized process that lent itself to chaos and conspiracy theories" according to The Guardian.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy
Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy
After initially refusing to review caucus results, Iowa Democratic Party officials did end up "making updates where discrepancies have been found." With "doubts about which Democratic candidate actually won the Iowa caucuses," there have been "fresh calls for the party to mirror the simple, secret-ballot method" the Republicans use. Stated Norm Sterzenbach, former Iowa Democratic Party executive director who oversaw five election cycles: "It's worth discussing again, but it's not as simple as it sounds." It is said that Clinton won by the thinnest margin in the history of Iowa caucuses.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Instances
Iowa Democrats reported "discrepancies in caucus results" and confusion over the math of the delegate-awarding system. In Grinnell Ward 1, 19 delegates were awarded to Sanders and seven to Clinton on caucus night. The Iowa Democratic party later shifted one delegate from Sanders to Clinton, but did not notify the precinct secretary, who "only discovered that this happened the next day, when checking the precinct results in other parts of the county."


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Instances
In Des Moines No. 42, "after everyone had formed initial groups for their preferred candidate," a Clinton supporter addressed O'Malley supporters and undecideds, telling them "they could stay and realign or leave." Some mistakenly believed that meant voting was finished and left early without being counted. In the same precinct, votes were still missing the morning after the caucus. Democrats "from that neighborhood scrambled to find party officials" to report that Sanders won by a margin of two delegates over Clinton. This narrowed Clinton's "excruciatingly close lead" even further—bringing the tally for "delegate equivalents" at that point to Clinton 699.57, Sanders 697.77.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Coin tosses
The Des Moines Register reported "an unknown number" of county delegates awarded "after the flip of a coin." Sam Lau, a spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party, said seven coin flips were reported through "the party's smartphone app"—but officials who reported county delegate totals via the app "weren't required to signify if the win was the result of a coin toss." Lau said Bernie Sanders won six of these. The paper identified "six coin flips through social media and one in an interview with a caucus participant"—with Clinton the apparent winner of six of these seven. Any overlap, or its impact on results, between the coin flips identified by the Register and those the party confirmed was not known.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Coin tosses
An Iowa Democratic Party official told NPR there were "at least a dozen tiebreakers" decided by a coin toss— and that "Sen. Sanders won at least a handful."


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Coin tosses
Gone unmentioned so far is that even if Clinton won that Miracle Six — and there were no other coin tosses — it would make little difference in the outcome. That is, in part, because of the complicated way Iowa Democrats allocate their delegates — and what was being reported on election night and what wasn't.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Review
Sanders' campaign "launched" a review of the results of the caucuses, citing as "complicating factors" the "razor-thin margin", the "arcane" caucusing rules, the reporting delays from some precincts, and the reporting technology used. The campaign is rechecking results precinct-by-precinct, reviewing "math sheets or other paperwork" precinct chairs used and were supposed to return to party officials—then comparing these with results entered into the party's Microsoft app. Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokeswoman, challenged: "Let's compare notes. Let's see if they match."


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Review
In an editorial, The Des Moines Register called for an audit of the results, declaring "What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period." First noting that only two-tenths of a percent separated Sanders and Clinton and "much larger margins trigger automatic recounts in other states," they stated:


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Review
Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems. Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night's chaos.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Review
In lieu of "official paper records" the party had "declined to provide the campaign"—which would show individual precinct vote tallies before they were entered into the party's app the night of the caucuses—the Sanders' campaign was contacting each of its own precinct captains to reconstruct caucus results. Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said: "I think everybody has an interest in making it as accurate as possible", though "[a]s an empirical matter, we're not likely to ever know what the actual result was".


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Controversy, Review
Let's not blow this out of proportion. This is not the biggest deal in the world. We think, by the way, based on talking to our precinct captains, we may have at least two more delegates."


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Analysis
Despite a late challenge from insurgent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose populist economic message resonated with Iowa's progressive Democratic electorate, Clinton eked out a 0.2-percentage-point victory in the first-in-the-nation caucus, edging out Sanders by only four state delegate equivalents. As The New York Times described, Sanders' near-tie with Clinton combined with Ted Cruz's Republican victory in the caucus demonstrated how the "2016 campaign has turned to easing the palpable frustrations of a large portion of white working-class Americans who believe that the country no longer works for them."


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Analysis
According to entrance polls, Clinton won the white vote by a 49–46 margin against Sanders, with white voters comprising 91% of the Iowa electorate. She won non-white voters more resoundingly, 58–34. Sanders won among men, 50–44, but Clinton won women, 53-42. Sanders proved his immense strength with millennials by winning 17–29-year-olds 84-14, with Clinton winning senior citizens, 69–26. Clinton won among voters who had a high school diploma or less, and among those who had a postgraduate degree, while Sanders won voters with only a college degree. Sanders won 53-44 among voters who made an income of less than $50k per year, Clinton won more affluent voters 52-42. In terms of political party affiliation, Clinton won Democrats 56-39 but lost Independents to Bernie Sanders, 69–29.


2016 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, Analysis
Upon learning she had been awarded the state of Iowa after 1 P.M. the following day, Clinton told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "My luck was not that good last time around, and it was wonderful to win the caucus, to have that experience."


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team
The 2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team represented the University of Iowa in the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Hawkeyes, led by 18th-year head coach Kirk Ferentz, were members of the West Division of the Big Ten Conference and played their home games at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Schedule
Iowa announced its 2016 football schedule on July 11, 2013. The 2016 schedule consisted of 7 home and 5 away games in the regular season. The Hawkeyes hosted Big Ten foes Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin, and traveled to Illinois, Minnesota, Penn State, Purdue, and Rutgers.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Schedule
The team hosted all three of their non–conference games which were against the Iowa State Cyclones from the Big 12 Conference, Miami RedHawks from the Mid-American Conference (MAC), and the North Dakota State Bison from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Miami (OH)
Fresh off a season that saw Iowa go to the Big Ten Championship as well as the Rose Bowl, the Hawkeyes got off to a fast start against MAC foe Miami-Ohio. The Hawkeyes scored three touchdowns – all on the ground – in the first 10 minutes of the game, and continued to run all over the RedHawks defense for a 28–7 halftime lead. From there, quarterback C. J. Beathard and the offense continued to roll as the Hawkeyes cruised to an easy 45–21 win in the 2016 season opener. LeShun Daniels and Akrum Wadley combined to run for over 200 yards on 22 carries, scoring two rushing touchdowns apiece. Redshirt freshman DE Anthony Nelson recorded 2.5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles to earn Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Iowa State
The Hawkeyes scored early and often as they dominated Iowa State in the annual Cy-Hawk game. The Hawkeyes scored two touchdowns in the first, with the first one going to tight end George Kittle and the other one coming on a long pass to running back Akrum Wadley. The Hawkeyes continued to pour it on as Beathard threw his third TD pass of the first half to Matt VandeBerg, and would run in another score to give Iowa a commanding 28–3 lead at halftime. Iowa would score twice more in the third quarter and the defense hounded the Iowa State offense all game long, and the result was a dismantling of the Hawkeyes' in-state rival from Ames. The 39-point margin of victory was the largest in the series since Iowa's 63–20 win in 1997.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, North Dakota State
Fresh off an easy win over Iowa State, the Hawkeyes welcomed in FCS powerhouse North Dakota State into Kinnick Stadium. The Bison struck first as C. J. Beathard threw a pick-6 to M. J. Stumpf late in the first quarter, however Iowa tied the game at 7–7 when Beathard found Riley McCarron for a 30-yard touchdown on a 4th down play. On the next drive, Beathard would connect with Matt VandeBerg for a 14-yard score and Iowa went into halftime leading 14–7.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, North Dakota State
The teams traded touchdowns in the third, with King Frazier tying up the game for the Bison, and Matt VandeBerg putting Iowa ahead 21–14 with his 2nd touchdown reception of the game in traffic. But the Bison grinded out a long drive that took over 8 minutes of clock in the 4th quarter and ended with a touchdown. However, NDSU went for two and was unsuccessful, and the Hawkeyes clung to a 21–20 lead.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, North Dakota State
After forcing a three-and-out, Easton Stick led North Dakota State right down the field and kicker Cam Pedersen nailed a 37-yard field goal as time expired to give the Bison a 23–21 victory. For North Dakota State, it was their sixth consecutive victory over an FBS opponent. It was the first time Iowa lost a game to an FCS opponent, and was the first regular season loss in Iowa quarterback C. J. Beathard's career.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Rutgers
Coming off a disappointing home loss to North Dakota State, Iowa hit the road for the first time in the 2016 season to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. The first half was a major defensive struggle as neither team scored until George Kittle hauled in a 36-yard touchdown pass from C. J. Beathard, capping a 99-yard touchdown drive and putting Iowa up 7–0 at the break. The defense finally cracked early in the 4th when Chris Laviano found Andre Patton for a 14-yard touchdown to tie the game at 7–7.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Rutgers
However, the Hawkeyes answered right back with a 26-yard Akrum Wadley touchdown run that put Iowa up 14–7 with 8:35 left. The defense stopped Rutgers once more and Iowa was able to get a couple first downs, something they were not able to do the week before, and held on for a 14–7 victory in its Big Ten opener. The Iowa defense had 4 sacks, and 8 tackles for loss in the win. Punter Ron Coluzzi earned Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week honors.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Northwestern
Iowa returned home to take on Northwestern in its fifth game of the year. Northwestern had been off to a slow start on the season, especially offensively, but the team seemed to wake up for the Iowa game. Clayton Thorson got the scoring started with a 4-yard touchdown run to put the Wildcats up 7–0. Akrum Wadley would answer that with a touchdown run of his own.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Northwestern
The first half featured a lot of offense as Northwestern took a 17–7 lead, only to see it disappear quickly as Wadley scored again, and the Hawkeyes capitalized on a fumble by Justin Jackson as C. J. Beathard found Riley McCarron in the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown and Iowa went into halftime up 21–17. However, the Iowa defense could not stop the Wildcat offense, and they scored on three consecutive series.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Northwestern
Austin Carr hauled in a 16-yard touchdown catch with a terrific catch in the corner of the end zone to tie the game at 24–24, and then on the next drive Justin Jackson broke free and scored from 58 yards out to give Northwestern the lead back. Carr then hauled in his third touchdown of the game and Northwestern went up 38–24. LeShun Daniels cut the lead to 38–31 with a 1-yard touchdown run, but a last ditch effort by the Hawkeyes to come back was thwarted when Beathard was intercepted with 58 seconds left. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for Northwestern at Kinnick Stadium, while the loss dropped Iowa to 3–2, 1–1 in Big Ten play.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Minnesota
Iowa went back to the road as they looked to defeat their rival Minnesota Golden Gophers for the second consecutive season. Iowa had a good drive early, but were unable to get points as long distance kicker Miguel Recinos missed a 50-yard field goal badly. However, Iowa would get on the board first as Keith Duncan hit a short field goal for a 3–0 halftime lead. Iowa once again moved the ball, but have a drive stall and it settled for another short field goal by Duncan for a 6–0 lead.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Minnesota
However, Minnesota answered with its best drive of the game, and the Gophers took the lead on a 9-yard touchdown run by Shannon Brooks. This was a game of missed opportunities as Iowa repeatedly moved the ball, but could not come up with points. Riley McCarron lost a fumble inside the Minnesota 35 yard-line after a long reception and C. J. Beathard threw an ill-advised interception with Iowa at the Minnesota 27. Iowa was finally able to break through as Akrum Wadley broke free for a 54-yard touchdown run, and an ensuing two-point conversion gave the Hawkeyes a 14–7 lead. The Iowa defense was able to stop an attempt by Minnesota to tie the game late, and the Hawkeyes held on for a 14–7 win and kept possession of the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Purdue
Iowa defeated the Boilermakers in a high scoring affair, 49–35. Iowa opened up the scoring with a 1-yard run by LeShun Daniels. Iowa increased their lead with a 3rd down scramble for a 15-yard touchdown run by C. J. Beathard. After a quick 3-and-out by Purdue, Iowa scored again on a 42-yard Beathard pass to Riley McCarron, closing out the first quarter scoring. After several exchanges of punts, Iowa scored again on a 4-yard run by Daniels. Purdue scored their first points of the game with a 25-yard pass from David Blough to Brycen Hopkins.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Purdue
After the kickoff after the Hopkins touchdown, Iowa scored on its first play with a 75-yard Akrum Wadley touchdown run to bring the halftime score to 35–7 in favor of Iowa. Purdue opened up the second half scoring with a 53-yard Blough pass to Cole Herdman. Iowa responded with a 5-yard Noah Fant touchdown reception from Beathard. Purdue scored again on a 7-yard pass from Blough to Bilal Marshall. After a 3-and-out by Iowa, who had put in their reserves, Purdue scored again on a 54-yard Blough pass to DeAngelo Yancey. After yet another 3-and-out, Iowa put in their starting defensive unit. Blough was intercepted by Desmond King, who returned the interception 41-yards for an Iowa score, increasing their lead to 21 again. Purdue scored once more with another Hopkins touchdown reception from Blough for 37-yards.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Wisconsin
Iowa came into its matchup with #10 Wisconsin fresh off back-to-back road wins while the Badgers were coming off back-to-back tough losses at Michigan and at home to Ohio State in overtime. Early on, the Badgers were able to move up and down the field, but were unable to capitalize. Their first drive stalled when kicker Andrew Endicott missed a 32-yard field goal. Wisconsin did not get on the board until Bart Houston hit tight end Troy Fumagalli for a 17-yard touchdown with 10:06 left in the second. Iowa would answer that with a 41-yard field goal from Keith Duncan.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Wisconsin
Wisconsin continued to miss its opportunities as Corey Clement fumbled inside the Iowa 1 right before the half, and Iowa turned that into a field goal and despite getting significantly outgained, Iowa only went into halftime trailing 7–6. Wisconsin continued to move the ball in the second half, as Corey Clement was able to score this time from the 1 and the Badgers extended their lead to 14–6.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Wisconsin
With about 5 minutes left in the 4th, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz decided to kick a field goal on 4th & 5 on the Wisconsin 20, instead of going for it and Keith Duncan missed a 38-yard field goal. From there, Wisconsin was able to make a field goal of their own to essentially put the game on ice. Iowa was able to get a field goal late in the game but Wisconsin recovered the ensuing onside kick and was able to hang on for the 17–9 win. For Iowa, it was their third consecutive loss at Kinnick Stadium and dropped them to 5–3, 3–2 heading into their bye week. The win snapped a two-game losing streak for Wisconsin and was also the team's fourth consecutive win in Kinnick.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Penn State
Iowa traveled to Happy Valley for a night game against Penn State. Throughout much of the game, Iowa was completely dominated by Penn State. On the very first drive, Penn State marched right down the field for a touchdown drive that ended with Trace McSorley finding Saeed Blacknall for a score. Saquon Barkley continued to run all over the Hawkeyes as he broke free for a 57-yard touchdown run to extend the lead to 14–0. Soon after, McSorley scored from 1 yard out and the Nittany Lions were rolling, up 21–0.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Penn State
Iowa got a much needed touchdown late in the half when Beathard found Akrum Wadley for a 12-yard touchdown to get Iowa on the board. However, Penn State answered right back with a field goal to head into halftime up 24–7. The second half was much of the same as Saquon Barkley caught a long pass from McSorley for another touchdown. Backup quarterback Tommy Stevens even got in on the fun and added a rushing touchdown of his own as Penn State crushed the Hawkeyes, winning 41–14.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Penn State
Barkley and McSorley combined for nearly 450 yards and Penn State racked up 599 yards of offense on the Hawkeyes. It was the second consecutive loss for Iowa, who dropped to 5–4, 3–3 in the Big Ten and a matchup with the undefeated Michigan Wolverines upcoming. Penn State continued to play great football, getting its fifth straight win and the second straight blowout for the Lions after they defeated #2 and previously undefeated Ohio State two weeks earlier.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Michigan
A week after being humbled on the road, in the midst of a 3-game home losing streak, Iowa returned home to face the undefeated and third-ranked Michigan Wolverines. Iowa fell behind 10–0 in the second quarter, thanks to a Ty Isaac 7-yard touchdown run. Defensive tackle Jaleel Johnson gave Iowa some momentum when he tackled De'Veon Smith in the end zone for a safety. Later, C. J. Beathard converted a 4th and goal by completing a screen pass to Akrum Wadley for a 3-yard touchdown. The two-point conversion was unsuccessful and Iowa trailed 10–8 at halftime.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Michigan
However, Iowa continued to control the game and Wadley was a force for Iowa, and Iowa took an 11–10 lead into the 4th quarter. Michigan kicker Kenny Allen put them back in front with a 50-yard field goal midway through the 4th quarter, but Iowa would not go away. With Iowa driving for the game-winning score, quarterback C. J. Beathard was intercepted by Michigan cornerback Channing Stribling with 1:54 left. However, Iowa forced a Michigan punt, and the Wolverines committed a costly penalty on a punt return by Desmond King to set up Iowa with terrific field position. From there, Iowa got two first downs and freshman kicker Keith Duncan drilled a 33-yard field goal as time expired to deliver Iowa a shocking 14–13 upset of Michigan.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Michigan
Akrum Wadley was the offensive standout for the Hawkeyes with 115 yards rushing, and another 52 yards receiving that included the touchdown late in the first half. The Hawkeye defense did their part as well, allowing only 201 total yards to a Wolverine offense that was averaging over 400 per game going into the contest. Senior DT Jaleel Johnson was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week, Duncan was named Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week, and Manny Rugamba was named Big Ten co-Freshman of the Week.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Michigan
With Clemson and Washington both losing, this marked only the second time #2, #3, and #4 fell during the same day in the regular-season. The other time was October 19, 1985, and one of the games that day was #1 Iowa's 12–10 win over #2 Michigan.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Illinois
Coming off an emotional win against Michigan, Iowa was slow out of the gates against the Illinois Fighting Illini. With Iowa heading in for a score, Akrum Wadley fumbled inside the Illini 5 to keep the game scoreless in the second quarter. However, Iowa would respond with a Riley McCarron 55-yard punt return touchdown for the only score of the first half and Iowa led 7–0 at the break. In the second half, Iowa dominated Illinois on the ground, as LeShun Daniels capped off a 12-play, 6 minute drive with a 1-yard touchdown run.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, at Illinois
Daniels would add a 50-yard touchdown run midway through the 4th and Iowa cruised to an easy 28–0 victory. The Iowa defense was phenomenal all game, allowing just 198 yards of total offense for the Illini, forcing two turnovers, and getting the team's first shutout since a 45–0 win over Ball State in 2010. Daniels rushed for a season-high 159 yards and two touchdowns. With the win, Iowa moved to 7–4, 5–3 Big Ten. Daniels was named Big Ten co-Offensive Player of the Week and McCarron co-Special Teams Player of the Week.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Nebraska
Iowa looked to end their season on a positive note with a win in the season finale against 16th ranked Nebraska. The Hawkeyes got explosive plays early as Akrum Wadley got the scoring started with a 75-yard touchdown run to put Iowa up 6–0. On the next offensive play for Iowa, C. J. Beathard found Riley McCarron for a 77-yard catch and run and Iowa was flying high, up 13–0 early.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Nebraska
After a Drew Brown field goal, Iowa again got a big play as LeShun Daniels had a 56-yard run which set up a 4-yard touchdown by Daniels and Iowa led 20–3. In the second half, it was more of the same as Beathard found George Kittle for a 1-yard touchdown on the first drive of the second half and Iowa went up 26–3. Nebraska momentarily got back into the game when Stanley Morgan Jr. caught a 13-yard touchdown pass on 4th down from Tommy Armstrong Jr. to cut the Iowa lead to 26–10.


2016 Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Game summaries, Nebraska
But the running game for Iowa was too much for the Cornhuskers as the combination of Daniels and Wadley continued to wear down Nebraska. Beathard found Kittle for another score, and late in the game, Daniels added a 1-yard touchdown to put the finishing touches on a 40–10 dismantling of the rival Cornhuskers. The defense held Armstrong Jr. to 125 yards passing and gave up 217 total yards. Iowa ran for 264 yards and Beathard threw for 3 touchdowns as Iowa won its third consecutive game to end the season, including knocking off two straight ranked opponents at Kinnick Stadium. Iowa finished the 2016 regular season at 8–4, 6–3 in the Big Ten.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses
The 2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses took place on February 1 in the U.S. state of Iowa, traditionally marking the Republican Party's first nominating contest in their series of presidential primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses
The Democratic Party held its own Iowa caucuses on the same day.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses
Ted Cruz was able to defeat Donald Trump in the Iowa Caucus by winning over evangelical and libertarian caucus-goers; Cruz won 51,666 caucus votes or 27.6%, giving him a net gain of one delegate over Trump. Mike Huckabee, the 2008 Iowa Caucus winner, dropped out following a poor performance in the caucus.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses
While Cruz had the endorsement of Congressman Steve King of the 4th Congressional District in rural northwest Iowa, and was able to consolidate devout Evangelical support in the Sioux City area, he was snubbed by Terry Branstad, the popular Republican Governor at the time. Trump tried to make a run among the majority-Catholic mill towns of Mississippi River valley, but Cruz's religious support was stronger than most polls anticipated.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Procedure
According to the Republican Party of Iowa's bylaws, if more than one candidate is nominated at the Republican National Convention, all of Iowa's delegates are bound to vote "proportionally in accordance with the outcome of the Iowa Caucuses" on the first ballot, even if the candidate has withdrawn from the race. The ballot is a blank piece of paper, and the candidates that voters may vote for in the non-binding preference poll included the following:


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Forums and debates
November 20, 2015 – Des Moines, IowaThe Presidential Family Forum was held in the Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum attended the forum hosted by evangelical Christian advocacy group The Family Leader. It was hosted by politician and political activist Bob Vander Plaats and moderated by political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz. Protesters interrupted the beginning of the event and were removed by police.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Forums and debates
January 28, 2016 – Des Moines, IowaThe seventh debate  was the second debate to air on Fox News. As in Fox's first debate, the moderators were Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace. This was the last debate before actual voting began with the Iowa caucuses on February 1, 2016. Due to personality conflicts with Fox News, Donald Trump opted out of the debate.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Results
Following poor performances in the caucuses, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum suspended their campaigns.


2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Controversy
Ben Carson accused Ted Cruz's campaign of winning the caucuses using dishonest tactics, such as falsely telling caucus-goers that Carson had dropped out in order to get them to switch their votes to Cruz. Donald Trump also accused Cruz of "stealing" the Iowa caucuses through fraud.


2016 Iowa Senate election
The 2016 Iowa Senate election was held on November 8, 2016. The Senate seats for the twenty-five even-numbered districts were up for election. Senate terms are staggered such that half the membership is elected every two years, with each Senators serving a four-year term. Prior to the election, the Democrats were in the majority.


2016 Iowa Senate election, Results
The election took place on November 8, 2016. Candidate list and results  from the Iowa Secretary of State.


2016 Iowa State Cyclones football team
The 2016 Iowa State Cyclones football team represented Iowa State University in the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Playing as a member of the Big 12 Conference (Big 12), the team played its home games at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa. They were led by first-year head coach Matt Campbell. They finished the season 3–9, 2–7 in Big 12 play to finish in ninth place.


2016 Iowa State Cyclones football team, Previous season
The 2015 Iowa State Cyclones football team finished the regular season 3–9.


2016 Iowa State Cyclones football team, Schedule
Iowa State announced their 2016 football schedule on November 19, 2015. The 2016 schedule comprised 7 home and 5 away games in the regular season. The Cyclones hosted Big 12 foes Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and West Virginia and traveled to TCU, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Kansas. For non-conference games, the Cyclones hosted San Jose State and in–state rival UNI and traveled to face in-state rival Iowa.


2016 Iowa elections
The Iowa general elections, 2016 were held in the U.S. state of Iowa on November 8, 2016. One of Iowa's U.S. Senate seats and all four seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election, as well as half of the Iowa Senate seats and all of the Iowa House of Representatives seats. Primary elections were held on June 7, 2016.


2016 Iowa elections
The Iowa Republican Party made large gains in the election, increasing its majority in the State House and taking control of the State Senate, giving the state a Republican trifecta for the first time since 1996.


2016 Iowa elections, U.S. Senate
Incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley sought re-election to a seventh term. Grassley defeated Democratic nominee Patty Judge and several third-party candidates in the general election, winning 60.09% of the vote.


2016 Iowa elections, U.S. House of Representatives
All of Iowa's four seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election in November. Party control remained unchanged after the general election.


2016 Iowa elections, Iowa Senate
The 25 even-numbered Iowa Senate seats were up for election.


2016 Iowa elections, Iowa House of Representatives
All 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives were up for election.


2016 Ipswich Borough Council election
Elections to Ipswich Borough Council took place on 5 May 2016. This was on the same day as other local elections.


2016 Iran Futsal's 2nd Division
The 2016 Iranian Futsal 2nd Division will be divided into a few phases.


2016 Iran Futsal's 2nd Division
The league will also be composed of 29 teams divided into four divisions. All divisions of 7 teams, whose teams will be divided carefully. Teams will play only other teams in their own division, once at home and once away for a total of 7 matches each.


2016 Iran Futsal's 2nd Division, Teams, Group 4
Note: Mes Kerman and Shahin Kuhdasht Withdrew from the league before the start of competition.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election
The fifth Iranian Assembly of Experts election were held in Iran on 26 February 2016 to elect the members of the Assembly of Experts. All 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, who are known as mujtahids, are directly elected. The elections had been planned for 2014, but were delayed in order for the election to be held alongside the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election
The winning candidates of the elections, sitting until 2024, may have to choose the next Supreme Leader of Iran, or at least plan for it. Reports in The Atlantic have claimed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is in ill health.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Registration and qualification process
For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 801 aspirants registered to run in the elections. The number was a 62.47% increase compared to the previous election held in 2006. Among the candidates there were 16 women, another unprecedented event. There have been no female members in the assembly since its establishment.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Registration and qualification process
On December 31, 2015 the Guardian Council announced that the four-hour Ijtihad test would be held January 5, 2016 in Qom in order to indicate candidates with proper knowledge, specifying that no alternative test date would be offered. The Council invited 527 candidates to take the test, excluding the 152 who reportedly withdrew and 111 who were denied permission (for a total of 790). Of the 16 women who registered, 10 received invitations.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Registration and qualification process
Nearly 80% of candidates who applied for the Assembly were disqualified by the Guardian Council, including every woman and Hassan Khomeini.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Registration and qualification process
Disqualifications left nine constituencies with only one candidate per seat; in other terms 20% of seats would be won in an uncontested election (i.e. numbers of candidates is as same as numbers of seats). Later the Ministry of the Interior declared that with the Guardian Council's approval, some qualified candidates changed their electoral district to make the election competitive in the destination constituency.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Background
In the previous election, The Two Societies endorsed 81 candidates in a joint statement and were able to win 69 seats out of 86. The reformists did not reach a coalition and lost the election.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Background
Along with the Parliamentary elections, it was the first election since the implementation of a landmark nuclear agreement between 5+1 and Iran that saw it curb sensitive nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions against Iran. The deal was opposed by many hardliners but backed by moderates and reformists. Over 30 million Iranians voted in the elections, according to BBC.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Background
According to dw, several polling stations were left open until midnight, in order to enable millions of voters that came late to take part in the elections.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
In this election, contrary to the previous ones, The Two Societies did not reach a coalition and issued different lists. The main dispute between the two, was whether they should support Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani candidacy or not. Combatant Clergy Association supported Rafsanjani; the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom did not. There were three major electoral lists in the election:


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
A British radio is giving instructions to people of Tehran to ‘vote for that given person, [and] do not vote for that given person!’... [ People] should know what the enemy wants; when you know what the enemy wants, you act contrarily; this is obvious”.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
In a 17 February public speech, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei warns of the subtle influence of foreign agents on the elections, stating that they are implementing new ploys in various ways to falsely polarize the election. He also condemned BBC Persian's programs on the elections and said that people will act differently from what they want.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Hardliners attacked Rafsanjani's list by calling it “The British list” (Persian: فهرست انگلیسی), implying that it is supported by the United Kingdom.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Ahmad Khatami, the interim Friday prayer imam of Tehran spoke out in the Friday prayer: “British and foreign media outlets are asking our people not to vote for Jannati, Yazdi, Mesbah, Alamolhoda and I. This is none of your business; you nosy people should know that these five are the top choices of our people”.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani dismissed the charges and said "Such interpretations regarding British list (of candidates) is an insult to Iranian people's wisdom", in a meeting with the reformist and moderate candidates. He also deplored that 500 knowledgeable theologians and seminarians as well as university instructors were disqualified for the elections. “They [the hard-liners] presently have no excuse to rage against us and insult us. Thus, they [the hard-liners] attribute phrases like ‘inside man’ and ‘British’ to the old revolutionaries... These figures have been defeated by the people and are now seeking to exact [their] revenge on the administration and President Rouhani”, he added.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Despite the restrictions, reformists became well-organised to seek gains. The reformists who were barred from public presence as a result of 2009 protests, tried to keep the flame alive online. The instant messaging service Telegram played an important role in the campaigning period. More than 20 million Iranians are reported to be on the messaging app.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Mohammad Khatami, who is facing restrictions on activities and Iranian media (including State Television and Radio) are banned from mentioning his name or publishing the images him, released a video message online urging people to vote for “The List of Hope”, creating a huge momentum —The coalition of reformists and moderates, endorsed Rafsanjani's “People's Experts”. Khatami's message was viewed more than 3 million times on Telegram in one day. Another poster shared on the app was viewed by a million people in 12 hours.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Dear people of Iran, the country needs your vote, Let's decide on a hopeful future for Iran on Friday.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Campaigns and voting, Campaigning
Two days before the election, President Hassan Rouhani took to text message almost every cell phone to drum up support in Friday's elections, tacitly endorsing the moderate list of hope.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
According to the Associated Press, moderate clerics defeated hardliners and dominated the assembly with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rouhani, alongside 50 of their allies, securing 59% of the seats. The moderates previously held around 20 seats in the assembly.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
In Tehran Province, Rafsnajani's People's Experts list received a landslide victory, winning 15 of 16 seats, and were successful in establishing its "tactical/disapproval voting strategy", causing Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi and Mohammad Yazdi to lose their seats. Considering the latter was Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the voters also changed the officeholder. However, Ahmad Jannati placed 16th and got reelected.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
Compared to the previous term, 38% of the assembly has changed. Among the outgoing members, nine were deceased (among them Ali Meshkini and Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani), 13 did not compete in the election (four incumbents were disqualified, like Ali Mohammad Dastgheib Shirazi and 9 did not seek reelection, most notably Abbas Vaez Tabasi) and 10 were not elected.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
According to a report published by the Iranian Students' News Agency, 27 seats went to Principlists while Reformists won 20 seats. 35 candidates were endorsed by both. Independent clerics who were not listed managed to win 6 seats.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
A statistical work on electoral lists by Khabaronline shows that The Two Societies have gained plurality. 27 seats were endorsed by all People's Experts, List of Hope, Combatant Clergy Association and Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom lists. Combatant Clergy Association and Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom won five and three exclusive seats respectively, while their joint lists won 24 seats. People's Experts won 19 exclusive seats.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Summary
Another piece published by Khabaronline, indicates that Combatant Clergy Association leads the race winning 66 seats and Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom and People's Experts have won 64 and 55 seats respectively. People's Experts has 16 exclusive winning candidates, the number is 3 for Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom while Combatant Clergy Association has no exclusive seat. The Two Societies have 25 shared seats and 35 candidates are endorsed by all three lists. At last, only four members of the assembly would be independent.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Results, Turnout
Turnout was officially declared 62%. The official results was disputed by BBC Persian columnist.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Aftermath, Electing new chairman
On 24 May 2016, the Assembly held its new session to elect the chairman. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani did not put his name and allegedly asked Ebrahim Amini to step forward for the office. The results of the voting were as follows:


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election, Aftermath, Electing new chairman
The appointment of Ahmad Jannati signaled that despite recent gains by moderates, hard-liners remain the dominant force within the assembly.


2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election in Tehran Province
This is an overview of the 2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election in Tehran Province.


2016 Iranian Super Cup
The 2016 Iranian Super Cup was held on 19 July 2016 between the 2015–16 Persian Gulf Pro League champions Esteghlal Khuzestan and the 2015–16 Hazfi Cup winners Zob Ahan Esfahan.


2016 Iranian legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Iran on 26 February 2016 to elect members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly for all seats in the 10th parliament in the Islamic Republic era and the 34th since the Persian Constitutional Revolution. A second round was held on 29 April 2016 for some constituencies where candidates failed to obtain the required minimum 25 percent of votes cast. The elected MPs served from 28 May 2016 to 27 May 2020.


2016 Iranian legislative election
The election was held as part of a general election which also elected members of the Assembly of Experts. This election was the first time that both bodies were elected simultaneously.


2016 Iranian legislative election
There were 54,915,024 registered voters (in Iran, the voting age is 18). More than 12,000 people filed to run for office. 5,200 candidates, mostly Reformists, were rejected by the Guardian Council and 612 individuals withdrew.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system
The 290-seat Islamic Consultative Assembly has 285 directly elected members and five seats reserved for the Zoroastrians, Jews, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians and Armenians (one for Armenians in the north of Iran and one for Armenians in the south).


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system
The 285 directly elected seats are elected from 196 constituencies, which are a mix of single and multi-member. In single-member constituencies the leading candidates must receive at least one-fourth of the votes in the first round. If no candidate passes this threshold, a second round is held with the two highest-vote candidates.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system
In multi-member constituencies, voters cast as many votes as there are seats available; candidates must receive votes from at least one-fourth of the voters to be elected; if not all the seats are filled in the first round of voting, a second round is held with twice the number of candidates as there are seats to be filled (or all the original candidates if there are fewer than double the number of seats).


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system
Voters must be Iranian citizens aged 18 or over, and shall not have been declared insane.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system, Qualifications
According to Iranian law, in order to qualify as a candidate one must:


2016 Iranian legislative election, Electoral system, Qualifications
A candidate will be disqualified if he/she is found to be mentally impaired, actively supporting the Shah or supporting political parties and organizations deemed illegal or been charged with anti-government activity, converted to another faith or has otherwise renounced the Islamic faith, have been found guilty of corruption, treason, fraud, bribery, is an addict or trafficker or have been found guilty of violating Sharia law. Also, candidates must be literate; candidates cannot have played a role in the pre-1979 government, be large landowners, drug addicts or have convictions relating to actions against the state or apostasy. Government ministers, members of the Guardian Council and High Judicial Council are banned from running for office, as is the Head of the Administrative Court of Justice, the Head of General Inspection, some civil servants and religious leaders and any member of the armed forces.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
The conservative camp also known as principlists, consisting of various groups, held the majority of the parliament. The camp spent months bringing together their various wings and formed the “Principlists Grand Coalition”, headed by former speaker of the parliament Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel. The coalition included traditional conservative organizations most notably the Combatant Clergy Association, conservatives close to ex-president Ahmadinejad- some  of whom worked under the name of YEKTA Front– and hardline conservatives largely opposed to the government's policies, like the Stability Front. Campaigning on the "government's failure to deliver on promises of economic benefits from the nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the lifting of sanctions"; they emphasised their economic backgrounds. On foreign policy, they were against "allowing American influence to permeate Iranian society and economy".


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
The incumbent speaker Ali Larijani, declined to join the bloc because "they have not provided the necessary mechanisms for the creation of unity" and said he will run independently.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
The reformists and moderates, centrist allies of President Rouhani, made the “Alliance of Reformists and Government Supporters” or as the reformists named it, the “Pervasive Coalition of Reformists: The Second Step”, a name suggesting a sequel to the first step, 2013 presidential election victory. The coalition was headed by Mohammad Reza Aref and included pro-government moderate conservatives who were on the Followers of Wilayat fraction of Ali Larijani's companions, and aimed to prevent the hardliners from entering the parliament. Larijani himself was also backed by the list.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
Mohammad Khatami, who renamed the coalition to the “List of Hope” and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani endorsed the list, alongside Hassan Rouhani who tacitly supported them by sending text message to every cell phone encouraging citizens to “to build the future of the country with plenty of hope”. The moderates faced considerable challenges in the Guardian Council’s vetting process and many of their lead figures were disqualified.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
Ali Motahari, who was on the List of Hope, decided to issue another list called “People's Voice” which was mostly made up of moderate conservatives.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
Among opposition parties, the National Front, Nation Party and Pan-Iranist Party boycotted the elections. The Freedom Movement of Iran called on voters to cast their ballots and backed reformists.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Campaigns and voting
Ali Khamenei, Supreme leader of Iran, voted on the beginning of election day. He had no comment on the result of the election but asked people for high turnout in the coming election.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Opinion polls
Which political group is best able to solve the problems of Iran? (iPOS results)


2016 Iranian legislative election, Opinion polls
Which political group is more aligned with your views? (iPOS results)


2016 Iranian legislative election, Opinion polls
According to a poll conducted on 18 February 2016 with a ±4% margin of sampling error voters favor supporters of Hassan Rouhani among other politicians:


2016 Iranian legislative election, Opinion polls
Only 30% of the voters are satisfied with their incumbent representative in the Parliament, with 28% satisfied with the overall performance of the 9th term of Majlis (2012–2016) while 43% are unsatisfied. With the rise of Hassan Rouhani's presidential approval ratings from 54% in August/September 2015 to 67% in December 2015/January 2016, more than 40% undecided voters and some 25% approval of Reformists and Moderates –that are allied under the name of Pervasive Coalition of Reformists– there is a chance of swing towards them.


2016 Iranian legislative election, Results
The results indicate that the results would make a hung parliament with reformists having a plurality. Out of 54,915,024 eligible voters, 33,847,117 voted, for a turnout of 61.64


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final
The 2016 Iraq FA Cup Final was the 26th final of the Iraq FA Cup. The match was contested between the Baghdad rivals, Al-Zawraa and Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad. It was played on 29 May 2016 to be the final match of the competition. Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya made their 7th appearance in the Iraq FA Cup final while Al-Zawraa extended their record to 16 final appearances. Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya won the match 2–0 with goals from Bashar Rasan and Humam Tariq, for the club's 4th title.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final
The winners of the cup, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, qualified for the 2017 AFC Cup. Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya were also set to face the winners of the league, Al-Zawraa, in the 2016 Iraqi Super Cup, but it was eventually cancelled.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Background
Al-Zawraa played in a record 16th Iraq FA Cup final. They had previously won a record 14 finals, most recently in the 2000 Iraq FA Cup final against the same team that they will be facing this final, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, with a 4–3 penalty shoot-out win after a 0–0 draw. Their only prior loss in the final was in 1988, losing 4–3 by a penalty shoot-out, after a 1–1 draw, against Al-Rasheed.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Background
Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya made their 7th appearance in the Iraq FA Cup final, of which they had won three, most recently in 1997 with an 8–7 penalty shoot-out win, after a 1–1 draw, against Al Shorta. Their most recent loss in the final was against Al-Zawraa in 2000.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Background
The two teams faced each other in the fourth round of the final stage of the 2015–16 Iraqi Premier League at Al-Shaab Stadium and in front of more than 30,000 spectators, where Al-Zawraa achieved an important 1–0 win with Alaa Ali Mhawi's 60th-minute goal, leaving Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya with little hopes of winning the league title and moving Al-Zawraa to 2nd place.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Background
Before the game, the Iraq Football Association decided that if the final was to finish as a draw after 90 minutes, the match would go straight to a penalty shootout, with no extra-time played.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Route to the Final
Note: In all results below, the score of the finalist is given first (H: home; A: away).


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Route to the Final, Al-Zawraa
Al-Zawraa entered the competition in the Round of 32 as an Iraqi Premier League team. In their first match, they were drawn against an Iraq Division One team, Al-Difaa Al-Madani home. At their temporary home stadium, Al-Sinaa Stadium, Al-Zawraa won 2–0 with goals from Luay Salah and Oday Jafal. In the Round of 16, they drew another Division One team, Diyala at Al-Sina'a Stadium, winning 4–0 with a hat-trick from Salah and a goal by Hatem Zaidan.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Route to the Final, Al-Zawraa
In the quarterfinals they were drawn against another Division One team, Al-Hussein, where they lost 2–1 away, at the Five Thousand Stadium, in the first leg, with a goal from Alaa Abdul-Zahra. They pulled it back by winning 3–1 home, at Al-Sinaa Stadium, in the second leg, winning 4–3 on aggregate. The goals were from Jafal, Salah and Zaidan. In the semifinals, Al-Zawraa drew Naft Al-Janoob, where they won 2–0 away, at the Naft Al-Junoob Stadium, in the first leg, with goals from Salah and Hussein Ali. They also won, in the second leg, 2–1 at Al-Sinaa Stadium, with two goals from Abdul-Zahra to reach the Iraq FA Cup final.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Route to the Final, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya
Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya entered the competition in the Round of 32 as an Iraqi Premier League team but due to the withdrawal of Naft Maysan, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya gained automatic qualification to the Round of 16. They were drawn against an Iraq Division One team, Al-Jaish away. At Al-Jaish Stadium, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya won 3–1 with two goals from Emad Muhsin and a goal by Hamid Mido. In the quarterfinals, they drew against Al-Karkh, where they drew in the first leg 1–1 at Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya Stadium with a goal from Mohammed Abdulwahid.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Route to the Final, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya
In the second leg, they won 1–0 with a goal from Muhsin at Al-Karkh Stadium. In the semifinals, they drew Duhok, where they lost 4–1 in the first leg, at the Duhok Stadium, with a goal from Abdulwahid. In the second leg, at Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya Stadium, they pulled it back, winning 3–0 with goals from Muhsin, Hammadi Ahmad and Hussein Ali Wahid to reach to the Iraq FA Cup final on the away goals rule.


2016 Iraq FA Cup Final, Pre-match
Before the match, a retirement ceremony was held for Al-Zawraa legend Husham Mohammed.


2016 Iraqi Super Cup
The 2016 Iraqi Super Cup was meant to be the 8th Iraqi Super Cup and the first edition after it was discontinued in 2002. The Super Cup is an annual Iraqi football match played between the winners of the previous season's Iraqi Premier League and Iraq FA Cup. The match was meant to be contested by 2015–16 Iraq FA Cup winners Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, and Al-Zawraa, champions of the 2015–16 Iraqi Premier League.


2016 Iraqi Super Cup
It was originally meant to be held at Al-Shaab Stadium on 22 August 2016, almost a month before the start of the league season kicked off. However, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya's matches in the 2016 AFC Cup and Iraq's matches in FIFA World Cup qualifying clashed with this date so the game was postponed to 10 September. Finally, on 9 December 2016, Iraq Football Association member Yahya Karim announced that the match was cancelled altogether.


2016 Iraqi Super Cup, Background
Al-Zawraa qualified as champions of the 2015–16 Iraqi Premier League. They secured their record 13th title with a 1–1 draw against Al-Naft at Al-Shaab Stadium on 22 May 2016. It would have been their 6th Iraqi Super Cup appearance, having won a record of three titles.


2016 Iraqi Super Cup, Background
Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya qualified as winners of the 2015–16 Iraq FA Cup. They defeated Al-Zawraa, the league champions, in their last match together 2–0 on 29 May 2016 to win their fourth title. Bashar Rasan scored the first goal in the 58th and the second was scored by Humam Tariq in stoppage time. It would have been their 5th Iraqi Super Cup appearance, having won two titles. Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya's coach, Basim Qasim would have faced the club he led to achieve last season's league.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa
In June 2016, Ireland played a three test series against South Africa as part of the 2016 mid-year rugby union tests. It was the first time that Ireland had played a test series against South Africa in South Africa since 2004. They played the Springboks across the three weeks that the June International window is allocated to; 11 June–25 June. The series was part of the fourth year of the global rugby calendar established by the International Rugby Board, which ran through to 2019.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads
Note: Ages, caps and clubs are as per 11 June, the first test match of the tour.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads, Ireland
On 25 May 2016, Joe Schmidt announced his 32-man squad for Ireland's June test series against South Africa.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads, Ireland
On 2 June, Luke Fitzgerald, Dave Kearney, Rob Kearney and Jonathan Sexton were all ruled out of the tour after sustaining injuries in and after the Pro12 Grand Final. Craig Gilroy, Matt Healy, Ian Madigan and Tiernan O'Halloran were called up as their replacements.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads, South Africa
On 28 May 2016, Allister Coetzee named his first squad since being appointed head coach. He included the following players in a 31-man squad for a three-test match series against the touring Ireland:


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads, South Africa
Pieter-Steph du Toit was initially named in the squad, but withdrew through injury and was replaced by Franco Mostert on 31 May 2016. However, on 6 June, Du Toit was given the all-clear by the medical staff and returned to training with the squad. Centre Jan Serfontein was ruled out for the entire series, but no replacement was named.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Squads, South Africa
Pat Lambie was ruled out of the second test match after suffering a concussion in the first test and being given a mandatory rest period in line with World Rugby's Return to Play protocol. On 13 June 2016, Morné Steyn was called up to the squad as injury cover for Lambie.


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Matches, First Test
Touch judges:Angus Gardner (Australia)Matthew Carley (England)Television match official:Jim Yuille (Scotland)


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Matches, Second Test
Touch judges:Glen Jackson (New Zealand)Ben Whitehouse (Wales)Television match official:Jim Yuille (Scotland)


2016 Ireland rugby union tour of South Africa, Matches, Third Test
Touch judges:Angus Gardner (Australia)Ben Whitehouse (Wales)Television match official:Rowan Kitt (England)


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby
The 2016 Boylesports Irish Greyhound Derby started on 11 August and culminated with the final held on 17 September at Shelbourne Park.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby
The prize money on offer was €240,000 of which €125,000 went to the winner Rural Hawaii. The competition was sponsored by Boylesports.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby
Produce Stakes & Champion Stakes winner Clares Rocket headed the ante-post lists at a very short 5-1. Other leading contenders included the defending champion Ballymac Matt, Kirby Memorial Stakes & Dundalk International champion Droopys Roddick and the 2016 English Greyhound Derby winner Jaytee Jet.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
The first round consisted of 21 heats and the fastest heat winner was the 2015 Irish Oaks champion Ballydoyle Honey who recorded 29.49. Before the second round there was a major shock with the withdrawals of ante-post favourite Clares Rocket  and the English Derby champion Jaytee Jet; both had picked up minor injuries in the first round.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
During the second round Laughil Duke set the fastest time of 29.43 but leading contenders Droopys Roddick, Ballydoyle Honey, Peregrine Falcon and track record holder Tyrur Van Gaal all failed to progress.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
The elimination of favourites continued in round three as Laughil Duke and Farloe Joey both went out. Defending champion Ballymac Matt finished second in his heat to make the quarter final stage and Sonic provided the fastest heat win in 29.36. Only Lenson Rocky and Rural Hawaii remained unbeaten.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
Sonic beat Ballymac Matt and Rural Hawaii in a very strong quarter-final and Sidarian Pearl recorded 29.71 to register the fastest winning heat. Roxholme Barkley and Gyp Rosetti completed the heat wins but Lenson Rocky failed to make the semi-finals.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
In the semi-finals Sonic justified short odds after defeating Escapism in 29.40 with defending champion Ballymac Matt taking third place to qualify for the final and set up an attempt to secure a second successive title. The second semi-final went the way of Rural Hawaii who won from Holycross Leah and Sidarian Pearl which resulted in three Graham Holland trained runners in the final.


2016 Irish Greyhound Derby, Competition Race Report
Rural Hawaii became the 2016 champion after leading from the traps. Holycross Leah ran on for second with favourite Sonic taking third place.


2016 Irish budget
The 2016 Irish budget was the Irish Government budget for the 2016 fiscal year, which was presented to Dáil Éireann on 13 October 2015.


2016 Irish budget
The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan outlined the taxation measures with Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin detailing the spending.


2016 Irish budget
Families were the big winners in the Budget, with a €5 increase in the monthly child benefit, free GP care for the under 12s and extra free pre-school childcare announced.


2016 Irish general election
The 2016 Irish general election took place on Friday 26 February to elect 157 Teachtaí Dála (TDs) across 40 constituencies to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's parliament. The 31st Dáil was dissolved by President Michael D. Higgins on 3 February, at the request of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.


2016 Irish general election
Following the election, Kenny's Fine Gael with 50 of the 158 seats available remained the largest party in the Dáil despite having lost 26 seats. The main opposition party Fianna Fáil, which had suffered its worst-ever election result of 20 seats in 2011, increased its seats to 44. Sinn Féin was expected to make gains, encouraged by opinion polls placing it ahead of Fianna Fáil, and it became the third-most numerous party with 23 deputies. The Labour Party, which had been the junior party in coalition government with Fine Gael and which had returned its best-ever showing of 37 seats in 2011, fell to just seven deputies, its lowest-ever share of Dáil seats. Smaller parties and independent politicians made up the remaining 34 seats.


2016 Irish general election
The members of the 32nd Dáil met on 10 March to elect a new Ceann Comhairle, the first to be elected by secret ballot, and Seán Ó Fearghaíl of Fianna Fáil was elected to succeed Seán Barrett of Fine Gael. Kenny formally resigned as Taoiseach that same day, but remained in office as a caretaker until a new government was formed. Kenny sought an agreement with Fianna Fáil to form a government, and negotiations continued through most of April. An agreement was finally reached for a Fine Gael-led minority government on 29 April, 63 days after the election, and the Dáil formally re-elected Kenny as Taoiseach on 6 May. Kenny is the first Taoiseach from Fine Gael to win re-election.


2016 Irish general election
Following the introduction of gender quotas, a record 35 seats were filled by women, bringing the proportion of women in the Dáil to 22 percent, up from 15 percent after the previous general election.


2016 Irish general election, Background
The outgoing government was a Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition led by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Joan Burton. Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Anti- Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit, Renua Ireland, Social Democrats, Workers and Unemployed Action, and independent non-party TDs formed the opposition in the Dáil. The government was formed on 9 March 2011, the first day of the 31st Dáil elected on 25 February 2011.


2016 Irish general election, Background
Whereas the Constitution gives the Taoiseach authority to dissolve the Dáil, under electoral law the precise date of polling is specified by the Minister for the Environment, who was Alan Kelly of Labour. Electoral law required the 31st Dáil to be dissolved by 9 March 2016. Kenny rejected predictions in October 2015 that he would call an election in November to capitalise on rising Fine Gael support. In January 2016, media reported that Fine Gael and Labour respectively favoured Thursday 25 and Friday 26 February 2016 as the election date; Friday would facilitate voting by students registered to vote at their family home.


2016 Irish general election, Background
After a cabinet meeting on 2 February, Kenny announced that he would be seeking a dissolution the following day. At 09:30 on 3 February he formally told the Dáil this, and that the new Dáil would meet on 10 March; the Dáil was adjourned without statements from the opposition. At 09:58 while Kenny was en route to Áras an Uachtaráin to meet the President, the election date of 26 February was confirmed from his Twitter account. At 10:35 the President issued the proclamation dissolving the Dáil. Later that day, Minister Kelly signed the order setting the polling day. The writs of election are issued by the clerk of the Dáil.


2016 Irish general election, Background, New parties and alliances
A number of parties and political alliances were formed during the lifespan of the 31st Dáil in order to contest the election:


2016 Irish general election, Background, Gender quotas
Part 6 of the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 provides that parties will lose half of their state funding unless at least 30% of their candidates at the election are female and at least 30% are male. All parties except Direct Democracy Ireland fulfilled this condition. This contributed in part to the highest percentage of women elected to the Dáil; at 35 TDs, this was 22% of the 158 TDs, an increase from 15% at the previous general election.


2016 Irish general election, Electoral system
Ireland uses proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR–STV). The general election took place throughout the state to elect 158 members of Dáil Éireann, a reduction of 8 from the previous 166 members. This follows the passage of the Electoral (Amendment) (Dáil Constituencies) Act 2013. The Ceann Comhairle (speaker of the lower house of parliament) is automatically re-elected unless he opts to retire from the Dáil. The election was held in 40 parliamentary constituencies. Each multi-member constituency elects three, four or five Teachtaí Dála (Dáil deputies, lit. Assembly Deputies).


2016 Irish general election, Electoral system
The closing date for nominations was 11 February 2016. A total of 551 candidates contested the election, slightly down from the 566 that took part in the 2011 general election, a record figure. The number of candidates for each party was: Fine Gael (88), Fianna Fáil (71), Sinn Féin (50), Green Party (40), Labour Party (36), Anti- Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit (31, of which 18 People Before Profit Alliance and 13 Anti-


2016 Irish general election, Electoral system
Austerity Alliance), Renua Ireland (26), Direct Democracy Ireland (19), Social Democrats (14), Independents 4 Change (5), Workers' Party (5), Catholic Democrats (3), Fís Nua (2), Irish Democratic Party (1), Communist Party of Ireland (1). Among the 159 independent candidates and others running without a party platform were 21 independents affiliated to the Independent Alliance, 19 independents affiliated to Right2Change, and the outgoing TD Séamus Healy, who was nominated as a non-party candidate for this election. Voting took place between 07:00 and 22:00 (WET).


2016 Irish general election, Electoral system
Islands off the coast of Donegal, Mayo, and Galway voted one day earlier. All resident Irish and British citizens were eligible to be on the Dáil electoral register. The 2016–17 register was published on 1 February by the local authorities, who were responsible for maintaining it. Applications for the supplementary register for the general election closed on 9 February, with 30,185 names added.


2016 Irish general election, Retiring incumbents
The following members of the 31st Dáil announced in advance of the poll that they would not be seeking re-election:


2016 Irish general election, Campaign
The campaign officially began after the dissolution of Dáil Éireann on 3 February 2016 and lasted until polling day on 26 February 2016. During the campaign, official election posters are permitted in locations which would otherwise constitute litter; some candidates were reported to have illegally erected posters too soon. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's moratorium on election coverage lasted from 14:00 on 25 February 2016 until polls had closed.


2016 Irish general election, Campaign, Television debates
RTÉ set a minimum of three TDs for a party to be invited to its 15 February debate. The Green Party, which had no TDs (having lost them all in 2011), took an unsuccessful High Court case against the exclusion of its leader Eamon Ryan. An Irish language debate, moderated by Eimear Ní Chonaola was to be broadcast on TG4 on 17 February, but was cancelled due to the weak proficiency in that language of Adams and Burton.


2016 Irish general election, Campaign, Television debates
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) and Pearse Doherty (Sinn Féin) were suggested as fluent replacements, but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael insisted that a leaders' debate should be confined to party leaders only. TG4 instead broadcast successive one-to-one interviews with each party's representative. There was also a "live audience discussion" on RTÉ Two on 21 February featuring Timmy Dooley (FF), Mary Lou McDonald (SF), Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour), Averil Power (non-party), Eamon Ryan (Greens), Leo Varadkar (FG), and Adrienne Wallace (AAA-PBP). The discussion was hosted by Keelin Shanley at Facebook's Dublin office and featured questions submitted via Facebook and Twitter. There was some controversy surrounding this debate as a representative of special needs parents said she was to appear to ask a question on waiting lists only to be told by RTÉ later that the topic would not be covered.


2016 Irish general election, Results
Counting of votes began at 09:00 UTC on Saturday 27 February 2016 and continued over the course of the weekend and into the following week, with the final two seats, in Longford–Westmeath, announced after multiple recounts at 05:30 UTC on Thursday 3 March.


2016 Irish general election, Results
It was Fine Gael's lowest number of seats since the 2002 general election, the election that led to Kenny becoming leader (the outgoing finance minister in 2016, Michael Noonan, had been Fine Gael's leader in 2002.) They performed especially poorly outside Dublin, dropping from 59 seats to 36; in Dublin the party fared better, going from 17 to 14 for a net loss of only three. Indeed, Fine Gael became the largest party in the capital for the first time since November 1982, and won seats in every constituency in Dublin for the first time since 1987.


2016 Irish general election, Results
Fianna Fáil more than doubled the number of seats that they had coming into the election. Having been without representation in Dublin since the death of Brian Lenihan in 2011, Fianna Fáil managed to win six seats in the capital this time. Sinn Féin recorded their strongest showing under Adams to become the third party, making gains in Leinster and in urban areas of Munster, mostly at the expense of the Labour Party. Labour won their lowest vote share since 1987, and their lowest share of seats ever.


2016 Irish general election, Results
Despite speculation that she would lose her seat, Joan Burton became the first sitting Tánaiste to avoid defeat at a general election since Mary Harney in 2002. Labour's vote collapse meant that not until the Longford–Westmeath result did they reach the seven-seat threshold to qualify as a parliamentary group with full speaking rights under current Dáil rules.


2016 Irish general election, Results
The combined vote of 49.8 per cent for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil was a record low for the two largest parties in the Dáil, eclipsing the previous record of 53.6 per cent set by Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil in June 1927. It was the first time the vote for Ireland's two traditionally dominant parties had fallen below 50 per cent in a general election. Fine Gael became the largest party in the Dáil with just 25.5 per cent of the vote, the lowest percentage ever for a first party.


2016 Irish general election, Results
First preference vote share of different parties in the election.


2016 Irish general election, Government formation
Enda Kenny immediately conceded that the outgoing coalition government of Fine Gael and Labour would be unable to continue. Fine Gael was 29 seats short of a majority, leading to speculation of a possibility of a grand coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, of a minority government, or of another general election later in 2016. Talks to form a government got underway in March.


2016 Irish general election, Government formation
On 29 April, after 63 days of negotiation and three failed votes for Taoiseach, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil reached an agreement about a Fine Gael minority government. In the days following, Fine Gael negotiated a deal with Independent TDs on the formation of a minority coalition. Enda Kenny was re-elected Taoiseach on 6 May 2016.


2016 Irish government formation
The events surrounding the formation of Ireland's government in 2016 took place during March, April and May of that year, following the general election held on 26 February, which failed to produce an overall majority for any of the country's outgoing political alliances and resulted in a hung parliament.


2016 Irish government formation
The outgoing administration was a coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Both parties lost many seats, meaning they no longer commanded an overall majority in Dáil Éireann. The largest opposition party, Fianna Fáil, more than doubled its number of seats, becoming the second-largest party in the Dáil. The parties comprising the left-wing Right2Change alliance, as well as other unaligned parties such as the Green Party or the Social Democrats, also failed to win a majority of seats. Consequently, senior figures from both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil embarked on talks with each other and also with independent politicians and representatives of several smaller parties, aiming at forming a viable administration.


2016 Irish government formation
This eventually resulted in Ireland's first minority government since 1989: a coalition led by Fine Gael with the support of nine independent politicians, and with a formal agreement that Fianna Fáil would abstain on matters of confidence and supply.


2016 Irish government formation, Background
After the 2011 general election, Fine Gael and the Labour Party formed a coalition government, taking over from the previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition government shortly after the latter had agreed to embark on the Economic Adjustment Programme for Ireland. Fine Gael and the Labour Party continued with these measures.