Allegheny🚨Three Rivers Park is a public urban waterfront park along the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The park, under development since 2000, is currently defined by the boundaries of the West End Bridge over the Ohio River, the 31st Street Bridge over the Allegheny River, and the Hot Metal Bridge over the Monongahela River. The wishbone-shaped loop of Three Rivers Park encompasses the Pittsburgh Peninsula and Point State Park at its center, and spans over 13 miles of interconnected trails and green space with over 800 acres of public open space. Three Rivers Park is composed of several capital projects, with Riverlife, formerly known as Riverlife Task Force overseeing implementation of the park with the cooperation of public and private property owners and community groups. The park is being designed to open the three rivers to public access in a way that was impossible during Pittsburgh's Industrial Age. Three Rivers Park offers continuous trails and green space along a more than 13-mile waterfront loop. Contained within the project site boundaries are shorelines, public and private property, and several bridges. The Three Rivers Heritage Trail regional trail system runs through the park, as does the multi-state Great Allegheny Passage trail. The logo of Three Rivers Park is the outline shape of Fort Pitt, the 18th century outpost of the British Empire at the confluence of the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers. The design aims to capture the historical significance of Pittsburgh, with added graphic elements of water and leaf shapes to acknowledge the region's natural history. The logo appears on signage throughout Three Rivers Park and mile markers embedded in the trail which reference Point State Park's fountain as Mile 0. In 1999 Riverlife (then known as Riverlife Task Force) held an international request for proposals for the creation of a vision plan for the redevelopment of Pittsburgh's riverfronts. The winning firm chosen was Chan Krieger Sieniewicz of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chan Krieger and Riverlife held dozens of public meetings to garner feedback from Pittsburgh citizens about the future of the riverfronts. The vision for Three Rivers Park was first unveiled in Riverlifes 2001 "A Vision Plan for Pittsburghs Riverfronts." The vision plan was accepted by the City of Pittsburgh.

the 1954ÿ55 season🚨A shot clock is used in some sports to quicken the pace of the game. It is normally associated with basketball, but is also used in snooker, pro lacrosse, water polo, korfball, and ten-pin bowling. It is analogous with the play clock used in American and Canadian football. In basketball, the shot clock is a timer designed to increase the game's pace and scoring.[1] The offensive team must attempt to get the ball into the basket by the ball leaving the player's hand before the shot clock expires, and the shot must either touch the rim or enter the basket. If the offensive team fails to register a field goal attempt within the time limit, they are assessed a violation resulting in a turnover to their opponents; if the ball hits or enters the rim after the clock expires, it is not a violation so long as it left the player's hand before expiration. The maximum time limit of the shot clock varies by level of play and league: The National Basketball Association has had a 24-second limit since first introducing the clock in the 1950s; and college basketball for both men and women has a 30-second limit. The WNBA had a 30-second clock originally; since 2006 the limit is 24 seconds, just like in the NBA. The NBA (National Basketball Association) had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception.[2] This was due to teams running out the clock once they were leading in a game; without the shot clock, teams passed the ball nearly endlessly without penalty. If one team chose to stall, the other team (especially if behind) would often commit fouls to get the ball back following the free throw. Very low-scoring games with many fouls were common, which bored fans. The most extreme case occurred on November 22, 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers by a record-low score of 19ÿ18, including 3ÿ1 in the fourth quarter.[3] The Pistons held the ball for minutes at a time without shooting (they attempted 13 shots for the game) in order to limit the impact of the Lakers' dominant George Mikan. The Pistons' performance led the St. Paul Dispatch to write "[The Pistons] gave pro basketball a great black eye."[4] NBA President Maurice Podoloff said, "In our game, with the number of stars we have, we of necessity run up big scores."[5] A few weeks after the Pistons/Lakers game, the Rochester Royals and Indianapolis Olympians played a six-overtime game with only one shot in each overtime - in each overtime period, the team who had the ball first held the ball for the entirety of the period before attempting a last-second shot. The NBA tried several rule changes in the early 1950s to speed up the game and reduce fouls before eventually adopting the shot clock. The shot clock first came to use in 1954 in Syracuse, New York, where Syracuse Nationals (now the Philadelphia 76ers) owner Danny Biasone and general manager Leo Ferris experimented using a 24-second version during a scrimmage game.[6] According to Biasone, "I looked at the box scores from the games I enjoyed, games where they didn't screw around and stall. I noticed each team took about 60 shots. That meant 120 shots per game. So I took 2,880 seconds (48 minutes) and divided that by 120 shots. The result was 24 seconds per shot."[3][7] Biasone and Ferris then convinced the NBA to adopt it for the 1954ÿ55 season, a season in which the Nationals won the NBA Championship. Syracuse Nationals General Manager Leo Ferris has emerged in the discussion as one of those involved in the creation and development of the shot clock. Along with Danny Biasone and Emil Barboni, a scout for the Nats, Leo Ferris was a key figure in developing the 24-second clock.[8] Jack Andrews, longtime basketball writer for The Syracuse Post-Standard, often recalled how Ferris would sit at Danny Biasone's Eastwood bowling alley, scribbling potential shot clock formulas onto a napkin.[9] Ferris, who loved mathematics, ended up dividing the number of seconds in a 48-minute game (2,880) by the average number of shots taken in a game (120) to get to the 24-second time limit per possession.[10] While he and Biasone often share in the credit for the shot clock, it was Ferris who was singled out by business manager Bob Sexton at the 1954 team banquet for pushing the shot clock rule. When it was first introduced by the NBA, the 24-second shot clock made players so nervous that it hardly came into play, as players were taking fewer than 20 seconds to shoot. According to Syracuse star Dolph Schayes, "We thought we had to take quick shots ÿ a pass and a shot was it ÿ maybe 8ÿ10 seconds... But as the game went on, we saw the inherent genius in Danny's 24 seconds ÿ you could work the ball around [the offensive zone] for a good shot."[7] The shot clock, together with some rule changes concerning fouls, revolutionized NBA basketball. In the last pre-clock season (1953ÿ54), teams averaged 79 points per game; in the first year with the clock (1954ÿ55), the average was 93 points,[3] which went up to 107 points by its fourth year in use (1957ÿ58).[11] The advent of the shot clock (and the resulting increase in scoring) coincided with an increase in attendance, which increased 40% within a few years to an average of 4,800 per game.[12] The shot clock received near-universal praise for its role in improving the style of play in the NBA. Coach and referee Charley Eckman said, "Danny Biasone saved the NBA with the 24-second rule."[13] Boston Celtic all-star Bob Cousy said, "Before the new rule, the last quarter could be deadly. The team in front would hold the ball indefinitely, and the only way you could get it was by fouling somebody. In the meantime, nobody dared take a shot and the whole game slowed up. With the clock, we have constant action. I think it saved the NBA at that time. It allowed the game to breathe and progress."[14] League president Maurice Podoloff called the adoption of the shot clock "the most important event in the NBA."[3] The league itself states, "Biasone's invention rescue[d] the league."[13] Two later pro leagues that rivaled the NBA adopted a modified version of the shot clock. The American Basketball League used a 30-second shot clock for its two years in existence (1961ÿ1963). The American Basketball Association also adopted a 30-second clock when it launched in 1967ÿ68, switching to the NBA's 24-second length for its final season (1975ÿ76). In the 1969ÿ70 season, women's collegiate basketball (at the time sanctioned by the Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) used a 30-second shot clock on an experimental basis, officially adopting it for the 1970ÿ71 season.[15] Unlike the women's side, there was initial resistance to the implementation of a shot clock for men's NCAA basketball, due to fears that smaller colleges would be unable to compete with powerhouses in a running game. However, after extreme results like an 11ÿ6 Tennessee win over Temple in 1973, support for a men's shot clock began to build.[16] The NCAA introduced a 45-second shot clock for the men's game in the 1985ÿ86 season, reducing it to 35 seconds in the 1993ÿ94 season[17] and 30 seconds in the 2015ÿ16 season.[18] The NAIA also reduced the shot clock to 30 seconds for men's basketball starting in 2015ÿ16.[19] From its inception in 1975, the Philippine Basketball Association adopted a 25-second shot clock. This was because the shot clocks then installed at the league's main venues, the Araneta Coliseum and Rizal Memorial Coliseum (the latter no longer used by the league), could only be set at 5-second intervals. The league later adopted a 24-second clock starting from the 1995 season. The Metropolitan Basketball Association in the Philippines used the 23-second clock from its maiden season in 1998. In Filipino college basketball, the NCAA Basketball Championship (Philippines) and the UAAP Basketball Championship adopted a 30-second clock; they switched to 24 seconds starting with the 2001ÿ02 season, the first season to start after the FIBA rule change in 2001. In the NBA (since 1954), Women's National Basketball Association (since 2006), and FIBA play (since 2000; 30-second from 1956 to 2000), the shot clock counts down 24 seconds, thus often being called the "24-second clock." If a shot is attempted and hits or enters the rim, or if the defensive team gains possession via a rebound, steal, or out-of-bounds play, the shot clock resets. Failure by the offense to attempt a shot that hits the rim within the prescribed time results in a "shot clock violation" and a loss of possession to the other team. Three signals indicate when the shot clock expiresa shot clock signal, illuminated lights on the shot clock (NBA, FIBA, Euroleague, and many venues using an NBA-style transparent shot clock), and in the (W)NBA and FIBA play (starting in July 2018), a yellow LED light strip on the backboard. In the 2011ÿ12 NBA season and 2014ÿ15 Euroleague, the last five seconds of the shot clock were modified to include tenths of a second, allowing offensive players to see precisely how much time they have to shoot and officials to determine any last-second shots easily. The rule has been adopted by FIBA starting in 2018.[20] In the 2016-17 NBA season, a new 'official timekeeper' deal for the NBA with Swiss watch manufacturer Tissot introduced a new united official game clock/shot clock system, putting both timing systems under the same system for the first time.[21] Tissot also became official timekeeper for the WNBA in the 2017 season. Furthermore, the shot clock is not reset on a foul in the frontcourt. Rule changes in the NBA since 1998, and in FIBA after 2010 state the shot clock will be reset only if 13 seconds or fewer are on the shot clock, after which it is reset to 14 seconds. The (W)NBA and Euroleague have different rules on the shot clock reset on jump balls; while both leagues have jump balls retained by the offense are reset to 14 seconds (if 13 seconds or fewer are on the shot clock), in the (W)NBA, if the defence causes the jump ball, the shot clock is not reset if the offense keeps control of the ball unless under 5.0 seconds of time remain, where it is reset to 5.0 seconds. Also in FIBA play, if the offense retains control of a ball following a rebound, the shot clock is reset to 14 seconds. Since the 2015ÿ16 season, all American college basketball uses a 30-second shot clock, while Canadian university basketball uses a 24-second clock. The American women's game has used a 30-second clock since the 1970s, but the men's game did not adopt a shot clock until 1985. The men's limit was originally 45 seconds, and was shortened to 35 seconds in 1993 before going to 30 seconds in 2015. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), which sets rules for high school basketball in the U.S., does not mandate the use of a shot clock, instead leaving the choice to use a clock and its duration up to each individual state association. Proposals to adopt a national shot clock for high school basketball have been voted down by the NFHS as recently as 2011.[22] Currently, eight U.S. states require the use of a shot clock of 30/35 seconds in high school competition: California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington.[22] The shot clock and its enforcement is used in concert with the rule that requires an offensive team to advance the ball across half-court and into the offensive zone (or front court) within a referee's count (this rule was first introduced in 1933, predating the shot clock by over 2 decades). In men's college basketball, the offense must advance the ball to the front court within 10 seconds, the same length used by FIBA and the NBA until they adopted an 8-second limit in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Failure by the offense to advance the ball to the front court within the time limit results in a turnover to the other team. Generally, the 10-second (or 8-second) count is independent from the shot clock's operation; in fact, a referee may count the 8 or 10 seconds through a visible motion of his hand or arm. Women's college basketball introduced the 10-second limit in 2013ÿ2014, and provided that officials will not count the ten seconds but "will use the shot clock to determine if a 10-second violation has occurred." As a general reference, it refers to the shot clock reaching 15 (FIBA/[W]NBA; because the NBA shot clock registers tenths in the final five seconds, the violation occurs once the clock registers 15.9 seconds on the console, which is posted as 15 on the clock) or 20 (college) before a violation can be called.[25]

July 4, 1973🚨The Treaty of Chaguaramas established the Caribbean Community and Common Market, later known as CARICOM. It was signed on July 4, 1973 in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago.[1] It was signed by Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. It came into effect on 1 August 1973. The treaty also established the Caribbean Community including the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, replacing the Caribbean Free Trade Association which ceased to exist on 1 May 1974. In addition to economic issues, the Community instrument addressed issues of foreign policy coordination and functional cooperation. Issues of economic integration, particularly those related to trade arrangements, were addressed in the CSME Annex. A revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was signed in 2001.[2] The countries of the region that signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas made an oath to: CARICOM Day is observed on the first Monday in July in Guyana to commemorate the signing of this treaty. In Cuba, the CARICOM-Cuba Day is observed on December 8 to celebrate diplomatic ties between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba.

on 15 January 2012🚨60 minutes BBC One (2012-present) Call the Midwife is a BBC period drama series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It stars Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Hannah, Laura Main, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Cliff Parisi, Stephen McGann, Ben Caplan, Emerald Fennell, Victoria Yeates, Jack Ashton. Linda Bassett, Charlotte Ritchie, Kate Lamb, Jennifer Kirby, Annabelle Apsion and Leonie Elliott. The series is produced by Neal Street Productions, a production company founded and owned by the film director and producer Sam Mendes, Call the Midwife executive producer Pippa Harris, and Caro Newling. The first series, set in 1957, premiered in the UK on 15 January 2012. The series was created by Heidi Thomas, originally based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who worked with the Community of St. John the Divine, an Anglican religious order, at their convent in the East End in London. The order was founded as a nursing order in 1849. The show has extended beyond the memoirs to include new, historically sourced material.[1] For the most part it depicts the day-to-day lives of the midwives and those in their local neighbourhood of Poplar, with certain historical events of the era having a direct or indirect effect on the characters and storylines. Such events include: the continuing effects of the post-World War II baby boom, post-war immigration and the 1948 founding of the National Heath Service in the first series and beyond; the introduction of gas and air as a form of pain relief and unexploded ordnance in the second series; the Child Migrants Programme and the threat of nuclear warfare (including emergency response guidelines issued by local Civil Defence Corps) in the fourth series; and the effects of thalidomide as well as the introduction of the contraceptive pill in the fifth series. Call the Midwife achieved very high ratings in its first series, making it the most successful new drama series on BBC One since 2001.[2] Since then five more series of eight episodes each have aired year-on-year, along with an annual Christmas special broadcast every Christmas Day since 2012. It is also broadcast in the United States on the PBS network, with the first series starting on September 30, 2012.[3] In December 2015, the Director-General of the BBC Tony Hall announced the show had been commissioned for a 2016 Christmas special and a sixth series of another eight episodes to be broadcast in early 2017, taking the characters and plot into 1962.[4] In November 2016, Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content, announced that the drama had been commissioned for a further three series of eight episodes and three more Christmas specials ÿ taking the total number of series up to nine and the story into 1965.[5] Critical reception for the show (in both the UK and the US) has been mostly positive, and the series has won numerous awards and nominations since its original broadcast.[6] The show has also been praised for tackling a variety of topical subjects and contemporary social, cultural and economic issues, including local community, miscarriage and stillbirths, abortion and unwanted pregnancies, birth defects, poverty, illness and disease epidemics, prostitution, incest, religion and faith, racism and prejudice, alcoholism, disability, (then-illegal) homosexuality between men, lesbianism, female genital mutilation, and maternal, paternal and romantic love. The plot follows newly qualified midwife Jenny Lee, and the work of midwives and the nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent, and part of an Anglican religious order, coping with the medical problems in the deprived Poplar district of London's desperately poor East End, in the 1950s. The Sisters and midwives carry out many nursing duties across the community. However, with between 80 and 100 babies being born each month in Poplar alone, the primary work is to help bring safe childbirth to women in the area and to look after their countless newborns. Call the Midwife is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, featuring narration ÿ and an appearance in the 2014 Christmas Special ÿ by Vanessa Redgrave as an older Jenny. The ship in the opening titles is the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line liner QSMV?Dominion Monarch in dry dock at the King George V Dock and the road is Saville Road, Silvertown, east London.[12][13] Many of the exterior scenes are shot at the Chatham Historic Dockyard.[14] On 11 February 2013, Ben Stephenson, BBC Controller for Drama, announced that he had commissioned a 2013 Christmas special, and a third series of eight episodes to air in 2014.[15] The fourth series aired in the US in 2015, finishing its eight-episode run on 17 May.[16] A Christmas special aired in 2015 as well. A fifth series was commissioned for 2016, shortly after series four was done filming.[17] A sixth series was commissioned, which included a 2016 Christmas episode that took place in South Africa.[18] On 23 November 2016, the BBC announced a three-year deal with Neal Street Productions, commissioning a seventh, eighth and ninth series, all with Christmas specials. The new commission will keep the series on air until at least 2020.[19] In May 2012, BBC Worldwide and the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) announced that the first series of Call the Midwife would premiere in the United States on 30 September 2012.[20] BBC Worldwide has also sold the programme to SVT (Sweden); NRK (Norway); R~V (Iceland); Yle (Finland); AXN White (Spain; Portugal); ERT (Greece);[21][22] ABC in Australia and TVNZ in New Zealand, where its debut recorded a 35% share of the audience ÿ 20% above average. In July 2012 BBC Worldwide announced it has sold the global Video on Demand rights of the programme to Netflix. According to BBC Worldwide America executive vice-president of sales and co-productions Matt Forde, BBC expects to sign another 13 to 15 deals for Call the Midwife with other international download-to-own and VoD services by the end of 2012. The second series of Call the Midwife has been sold to PBS for transmission from 31 March 2013[23] and to SVT (Sweden) for transmission from 19 May 2013.[24] In February 2013, BBC Worldwide reported that Call the Midwife had been sold in over one hundred global territories,[25] with global sales contributing to the UK's position as the second largest TV exporter behind the United States.[26] In February 2017, it was reported that the BBC had exported Call the Midwife to 237 global territories.[27] A second series of eight episodes aired in the UK in early 2013.[28][29] The series achieved a consolidated series average of 10.47 million viewers.[30] A third eight-part series aired in the UK from January 2014,[31] with a consolidated average of 10.53 million.[30] On 28 February 2014, BBC confirmed that Call the Midwife had been commissioned for a 2014 Christmas special[32] and fourth series, to air in 2015.[33] On 3 November 2014, BBC announced that an eight-episode fifth series had been commissioned; it began airing on 17 January 2016; the fifth series takes the story into 1961.[34] The sixth series began airing in the UK on 22 January 2017, taking the drama into 1962.[35] Season seven, again consisting of eight episodes, began airing on Sunday, 21 January, 2018, with episode one viewed by 9.87 million viewers[36]. It was the No.1 rated programme on UK TV for all weeks of its transmission, ending March 11th 2018.[37] The first series was released in a Region 2, two-disc set on 12 March 2012.[38] Series 2 was scheduled for release on 1 April 2013 in the UK (region 2)[39] with a collector's edition, Call the Midwife Collection, containing series 1, 2 and the 2012 Christmas Special, released on the same date.[40] In the United States, the first series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 6 November 2012. Series 2 was scheduled for release on DVD and Blu-ray on 18 June 2013.[41] Series 3 was released on Blu-ray on 20 May 2014.[42] Series 4 was released on Blu-ray on 19 May 2015.[43] A second series of Call the Midwife was immediately commissioned after the drama's opening episode attracted an audience of nearly 10 million viewers. The second episode increased its audience to 10.47 million, while the third continued the climb to 10.66. Episode 4's rating of 10.89 million overtook 2010 ITV hit Downton Abbey as the largest first series audience for original drama on British television in recent years.[44] In the United States, the series 1 transmission on PBS drew an average household audience rating of 2.1, translating into 3.0 million viewers ÿ 50 percent above PBS' primetime average for the 2011ÿ12 series.[45] The autumn 2012 PBS broadcast of the first series of Call the Midwife in the United States received widespread critical acclaim, earning a Metacritic score of 8.0. The Wall Street Journal declared that "this immensely absorbing drama is worth any trouble it takes to catch up with its singular pleasures",[46] while The Washington Post stated that "the cast is marvelous, the gritty, post-war set pieces are meticulously recreated".[47] TV Guide called the series "a delight to watch",[48] while the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "sentimental, poignant and often heartbreaking".[49] The second series opened with a record overnight audience of 9.3 million UK viewers,[50] going on to achieve a consolidated series average of 10.47 million viewers.[30] This was almost two million above the slot average, and by some distance the most popular UK drama in every week of transmission.[51] When viewing figures from BBC's iPlayer video streaming service and a narrative repeat were included as part of the BBC Live Plus 7 metric,[52] the total number of viewers per week was found to be almost 12 million.[53] The critical reception for series two has praised the programme's sharp blend of prime-time period charm and hard-hitting social commentary. Caitlin Moran in The Times called this "an iron hand in a velvet glove",[54] while Allison Pearson in The Daily Telegraph lauded its ability to "tickle the middle of the brow while touching the most anguished parts of the human condition".[55] In particular, commentators have noted the attention given to female social issues in the drama's post-war, pre-pill setting. Alison Graham in the Radio Times dubbed Call the Midwife "a magnificently subversive drama" and "the torchbearer of feminism on television,"[56] while Caitlin Moran claimed the series encapsulated "how unbelievably terrifying, dreary and vile it was to be a working-class woman 60 years ago."[54]

eight🚨Tim Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist who often works with certain actors and crew members in multiple feature film directing projects. The actors who collaborated with Burton the most frequently are Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Lee, who all appeared in eight, seven and six films, respectively. Film composer Danny Elfman composed the music for all of Burton's feature films with the exception of Ed Wood (1994), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016). He also composed the music for The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), a stop-motion animated film Burton co-wrote and produced.[1] Other actors that Burton has worked with include Alan Arkin, Danny DeVito, Conchata Ferrell, Albert Finney, Carmen Filpi, Michael Gough, Eva Green, Pat Hingle, Jan Hooks, Rance Howard, Jeffrey Jones, O-Lan Jones, Michael Keaton, Martin Landau, Lisa Marie, Jack Nicholson, Catherine O'Hara, Michelle Pfeiffer, Missi Pyle, Paul Reubens, Alan Rickman, Deep Roy, Winona Ryder, Diane Salinger, Glenn Shadix, Martin Short, Timothy Spall, Terence Stamp, Sylvia Sidney, Christopher Walken, Frank Welker and Paul Whitehouse. Catherine O'Hara, Paul Reubens, and Glenn Shadix also starred in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Actor Jason Hervey appeared in the short film Frankenweenie (1984), before appearing in Burton's feature film directing debut Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).[2] Actor Vincent Price worked with Burton on three projects, hosting the television film Hansel and Gretel (1982), narrating the short film Vincent (1982) and appearing in the feature film Edward Scissorhands (1990).[3] Actresses Ada and Arlene Tai worked with Burton as extras in Ed Wood before going on to be cast in Big Fish (2003).[4] In addition to starring in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Frankenweenie, Winona Ryder appeared in the Burton-directed music video for The Killers' "Here with Me". Burton also often works with certain crew members in multiple directing projects. This includes screenwriters Warren Skaaren, Caroline Thompson, John August, and Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, producers Denise Di Novi, Allison Abbate, and Richard D. Zanuck, composer Danny Elfman, composer/music supervisor/music producer/music editor Mike Higham, costume designer Colleen Atwood, production designers Bo Welch, Alex McDowell, and Rick Heinrichs, cinematographers Stefan Czapsky, Philippe Rousselot, Dariusz Wolski, and Bruno Delbonnel, makeup artists Ve Neill, Stan Winston and Rick Baker, and editor/executive producer Chris Lebenzon. Burton has worked with director Henry Selick on The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996), the former of which Burton co-wrote. He has also worked with fellow producer/director Timur Bekmambetov and producer Jim Lemley on 9 (2009) and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), for which Bekmambetov also served as director. Burton has also collaborated with puppet manufacturers Mackinnon & Saunders three times: a failed attempt on Mars Attacks!, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie.

Rana K. P. Singh🚨Government (77) Opposition (40) The Punjab Legislative Assembly or the Punjab Vidhan Sabha (Punjabi: ????? ????? ???) is the unicameral legislature of the state of Punjab in northern India. At present, it consists of 117 members, directly elected from 117 single-seat constituencies. The tenure of the Legislative Assembly is five years, unless dissolved sooner. The current Speaker of the Assembly is Rana K. P. Singh, he is Pro-tem Speaker. The meeting place of the Legislative Assembly since 6 March 1961 is the Vidhan Bhavan in Chandigarh. An Executive Council was formed under The Indian Councils Act, 1861. It was only under the Government of India Act 1919 that a Legislative Council was set up in Punjab. Later, under the Government of India Act 1935, the Punjab Legislative Assembly was constituted with a membership of 175. It was summoned for the first time on 1 April 1937. In 1947, Punjab Province was partitioned into West Punjab and East Punjab and the East Punjab Legislative Assembly was formed, the forerunner of the current assembly consisting of 72 members. On 15 July 1948, eight princely states of East Punjab grouped together to form a single state, Patiala and East Punjab States Union. The Punjab State Legislature was a bicameral house in April 1952, comprising the Vidhan Sabha (lower house) and Vidhan Parishad (upper house). In 1956 the state was reorganised and renamed Punjab, the strength of the Vidhan Parishad of the new State of Punjab was enhanced from 40 seats to 46 seats and in 1957, it was increased to 51. Punjab was tri-furcated in 1966 to form Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab. The Vidhan Parishad was reduced to 40 seats and the Vidhan Sabha was grown by 50 seats to 104 seats. On 1 January 1970, the Vidhan Parishad was abolished leaving the state with a unicameral legislature. Rana KP Singh is the current Speaker of the Punjab Legislative Assembly; he is Pro-tem Speaker.

Containment🚨Containment is a geopolitical strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy. It is best known as a Cold War foreign policy of the United States and its allies to prevent the spread of communism. As a component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to increase communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. Containment represented a middle-ground position between detente and rollback. The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan during the post-World War II administration of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. As a description of U.S. foreign policy, the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to U.S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947. It was a report that was later used in a magazine article. It is a translation of the French cordon sanitaire, used to describe Western policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Although the term "containment" was first used for the strategy in the 1940s, there were major historical precedents familiar to Americans and Europeans. In the 1850s anti-slavery forces in the United States developed a containment strategy (they did not use the word) for stopping the expansion of slavery and forcing its collapse. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy: Following the 1917 communist revolution in Russia, there were calls by Western leaders to isolate the Bolshevik government, which seemed intent on promoting worldwide revolution. In March 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau called for a cordon sanitaire, or ring of non-communist states, to isolate the Soviet Union. Translating this phrase, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson called for a "quarantine." Both phrases compare communism to a contagious disease. The U.S. initially refused to recognize the Soviet Union, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt reversed the policy in 1933, hoping to expand American export markets. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was an attempt to contain Nazi expansion in Europe; it failed. The U.S. tried to contain Japanese expansion in Asia in 1937-41, and Japan reacted with its attack on Pearl Harbor.[2] After Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union found themselves allied in opposition to Germany. The policy was rollback, to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan. Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close. Averell Harriman, U.S. ambassador in Moscow, once a "confirmed optimist" regarding U.S.-Soviet relations,[3] was disillusioned by what he saw as the Soviet betrayal of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as well as by violations of the February 1945 Yalta Agreement concerning Poland.[4] Harriman would later have a significant influence in forming Truman's views on the Soviet Union.[5] In February 1946, the U.S. State Department asked George F. Kennan, then at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He responded with a wide-ranging analysis of Russian policy now called the Long Telegram:[6] According to Kennan: Kennan's cable was hailed in the State Department as "the appreciation of the situation that had long been needed."[8] Kennan himself attributed the enthusiastic reception to timing: "Six months earlier the message would probably have been received in the State Department with raised eyebrows and lips pursed in disapproval. Six months later, it would probably have sounded redundant."[8] Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced a report elaborating on the Long Telegram and proposing concrete policy recommendations based on its analysis. This report, which recommended "restraining and confining" Soviet influence, was presented to Truman on September 24, 1946.[9] In January 1947, Kennan drafted an essay entitled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct."[6] Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal gave permission for the report to be published in the journal Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym "X."[10] Biographer Douglas Brinkley has dubbed Forrestal "godfather of containment" on account of his work in distributing Kennan's writing.[11] The use of the word "containment" originates from this so-called "X Article": "In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."[12] Kennan later turned against the containment policy and noted several deficiencies in his X Article. He later said that by containment he meant not the containment of Soviet Power "by military means of a military threat, but the political containment of a political threat." [13] Second, Kennan admitted a failure in the article to specify the geographical scope of "containment", and that containment was not something he believed the United States could necessarily achieve everywhere successfully.[14] After Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1946 elections, President Truman, a Democrat, made a dramatic speech that is often used to mark the beginning of the Cold War. In March 1947, he requested that Congress appropriate $400 million in aid to the Greek and Turkish governments, then fighting Communist subversion.[15] Truman pledged to, "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[15] This pledge became known as the Truman Doctrine. Portraying the issue as a mighty clash between "totalitarian regimes" and "free peoples," the speech marks the adoption of containment as official U.S. policy. Congress appropriated the money. Truman's motives on this occasion have been the subject of considerable scholarship and several schools of interpretation. In the orthodox explanation of Herbert Feis, a series of aggressive Soviet actions in 1945ÿ47 in Poland, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere awakened the American public to this new danger to freedom and Truman responded.[16] In the revisionist view of William Appleman Williams, Truman's speech was an expression of longstanding American expansionism.[16] In the realpolitik view of Lynn Davis, Truman was a naive idealist who unnecessarily provoked the Soviets by couching disputes in terms like democracy and freedom that were alien to the Communist vision.[17] According to psychological analysis by Deborah Larson, Truman felt a need to prove his decisiveness and feared that aides would make unfavorable comparisons between him and his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt.[18] "I am here to make decisions, and whether they prove right or wrong I am going to take them," he once said.[19] The drama surrounding the announcement of the Truman Doctrine catered to president's self-image of a strong and decisive leader, but his real decision-making process was more complex and gradual. The timing of the speech was not a response to any Soviet action, but rather to the fact that the Republican Party had just gained control of Congress.[20] Truman was little involved in drafting the speech and did not himself adopt the hard-line attitude it suggested until several months later.[21] The British, with their own position weakened by economic distress, urgently called on the U.S. to take over the traditional British role in Greece.[22] Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson took the lead in Washington, warning congressional leaders in late February 1947 that if the United States did not take over from the British, the result most probably would be a "Soviet breakthrough" that "might open three continents to Soviet penetration."[23][24] Truman was explicit about the challenge of Communism taking control of Greece. He won wide support from both parties as well as experts in foreign policy inside and outside the government. It was strongly opposed by the Left, as represented by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran against Truman in the 1948 presidential campaign.[25] Truman, under the guidance of Dean Acheson, followed up his speech with a series of measures to contain Soviet influence in Europe, including the Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program, and NATO, a military alliance between the U.S. and Western European nations created in 1949. Because containment required detailed information about Communist moves, the government relied increasingly on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Established by the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA conducted espionage in foreign lands, some of it visible, more of it secret. Truman approved a classified statement of containment policy called NSC 20/4 in November 1948, the first comprehensive statement of security policy ever created by the United States. The Soviet Union's first nuclear test in 1949 prompted the National Security Council to formulate a revised security doctrine. Completed in April 1950, it became known as NSC 68.[26] It concluded that a massive military buildup was necessary to the deal with the Soviet threat. According to the report, drafted by Paul Nitze and others: There were three alternative policies to containment under discussion in the late 1940s. The first was a return to isolationism, minimizing American involvement with the rest of the world. This policy was supported by conservative Republicans, especially from the Midwest, including former President Herbert Hoover and Senator Robert A. Taft. However, many other Republicans, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, said that policy had helped cause World War II and was thus too dangerous to revive.[28] A second policy was continuation of the dtente policies that aimed at friendly relationships with the Soviet Union, especially trade, Roosevelt had been the champion of dtente, but he was dead, and most of his inner circle had left the government by 1946. The chief proponent of dtente was Henry A. Wallace, a former vice president and the Secretary of Commerce under Truman. Wallace's position was supported by far left elements of the CIO, but they were purged in 1947 and 1948. Wallace ran against Truman on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, but his campaign was increasingly dominated by Communists and helped dtente be discredited.[29] The third policy was rollback, an aggressive effort to undercut or destroy the Soviet Union itself. Military rollback against the Soviet Union was proposed by James Burnham[30] and other conservative strategists in the late 1940s. After 1954, Burnham and like-minded strategists became editors and regular contributors to William F. Buckley's magazine, the National Review. Truman himself adopted a rollback strategy in the Korean War after the success of the Inchon landings in September 1950, only to reverse himself after the Chinese counterattack two months later and revert to containment. The theater commander, General Douglas MacArthur, called on Congress to continue the rollback policy; Truman fired him for insubordination.[31] Under Dwight Eisenhower, a rollback strategy was considered against communism in Eastern Europe from 1953 to 1956. Eisenhower did agree to a propaganda campaign to psychologically rollback the influence of communism, however, he refused to intervene in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.[32] The main argument against rollback, was that a Soviet response might trigger World War III. Since 1950, the Soviets had been known to possess nuclear weapons.[33] The U.S. entered the Korean War to defend South Korea from a communist invasion; that is, following containment doctrine. However, the success of the Inchon landing inspired the U.S. and the United Nations to adopt a rollback strategy to overthrow the Communist North Korean regime, thus allowing nationwide elections under U.N. auspices.[34] General Douglas MacArthur then advanced across the 38th parallel into North Korea. The Chinese then sent in a large army and defeated the U.N. forces, pushing them below the 38th parallel. Although the Chinese had been planning to intervene for months,[35] this action was interpreted by Truman's supporters as a response to U.S. forces crossing the 38th parallel. This interpretation allowed the episode to be used to confirm the wisdom of containment doctrine as opposed to rollback. The Communists were later pushed back, to around the original border. Truman blamed MacArthur's focus on victory and adopted a "limited war" policy. His focus shifted to negotiating a settlement, which was finally reached in 1953. For his part, MacArthur denounced Truman's "no-win policy."[36] Many Republicans, including John Foster Dulles, were concerned that Truman had been too timid. In 1952, Dulles called for rollback and the eventual liberation of eastern Europe.[37] Dulles was named secretary of state by incoming President Dwight Eisenhower, but Eisenhower's decision not to intervene during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 made containment a bipartisan doctrine. President Eisenhower relied on clandestine CIA actions to undermine hostile governments and used economic and military foreign aid to strengthen governments supporting the American position in the Cold War.[38] In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the top officials in Washington debated using rollback to get rid of Soviet nuclear missiles threatening the United States. A deal was reached whereby the Soviets would publicly remove their nuclear weapons, the United States secretly removed some of its missiles, and the United States promised never to invade Cuba. The policy of containing Cuba was put into effect by John F. Kennedy, and continued until 2015.[39] Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for president in 1964, challenged containment and asked, "Why not victory?"[40] President Johnson, the Democratic nominee, answered that rollback risked nuclear war. Johnson explained containment doctrine by quoting the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but not further."[41] Goldwater lost to Johnson in the general election by a wide margin. Johnson adhered closely to containment during the Vietnam War. Rejecting proposals by General William Westmoreland that U.S. ground forces advance into Laos and cut communist supply lines, Johnson gathered a group of elder statesmen called The Wise Men. This group included Kennan, Acheson and other former Truman advisors. Rallies in support of the troops were discouraged for fear that a patriotic response would lead to demands for victory and rollback.[41] Military responsibility was divided among three generals so that no powerful theater commander could emerge to challenge Johnson as MacArthur had challenged Truman.[42] Nixon, who replaced Johnson in 1969, referred to his foreign policy as dtente, or a relaxation of tension. Although it continued to aim at restraining the Soviet Union, it was based on political realism, or thinking in terms of national interest, as opposed to crusades against communism or for democracy. Emphasis was placed on talks with the Soviet Union concerning nuclear weapons called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Nixon reduced U.S. military presence in Vietnam to the minimum required to contain communist advances, a policy called Vietnamization. As the war continued, it grew less popular. A Democratic Congress forced Nixon, a Republican, to abandon this policy in 1973 by enacting the CaseÿChurch Amendment. This law ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and led to violent communist takeovers of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter (1977ÿ81) came to office committed to a foreign policy that emphasized human rights. But in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, containment was again made a priority. The wording of the Carter Doctrine (1980) intentionally echoes that of the Truman Doctrine. Following the communist victory in Vietnam, Democrats began to view further communist advance as inevitable while Republicans returned to rollback doctrine. Ronald Reagan, a long-time advocate of rollback, was elected U.S. president in 1980. Reagan took a more aggressive approach to dealings with the USSR, believing that dtente was misguided and peaceful coexistence was tantamount to surrender. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, American policy makers worried that the Soviets were making a run for control of the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1980s, under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, the United States provided technical and economic assistance to the Afghan guerrillas fighting against the Soviet army (Mujahideen).[43] By sending military aid to anti-communist insurgents in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, he confronted existing communist governments and went beyond the limits of containment doctrine. He deployed the Pershing II missile in Europe and promoted research on a Strategic Defense Initiative, which critics called "Star Wars", to shoot down missiles fired at the United States. Reagan's aim was to defeat the Soviets through an expensive arms buildup the Soviets could not match. However, Reagan continued to follow containment doctrine in several key areas. He pursued a comprehensive nuclear disarmament initiative called START I and policy toward Europe continued to emphasize a NATO-based defensive approach. The end of the Cold War in 1991 marked the official end of U.S. containment policy, though it kept its bases in the areas around Russia, such as ones in Iceland, Germany, and Turkey. Also much of the containment policy helped influence U.S. foreign policy in later years, such as during the War on Terror and dealing with post-Cold War dictators.

the Ghost of Christmas Past🚨A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843; the first edition was illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol at a time when the British were examining and exploring Christmas traditions from the past, such as carols, as well as new customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by experiences from his own past, and from the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired to write the story following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged school, one of several establishments for London's half-starved, illiterate street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a self-interested man redeeming himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory. Published on 19 December, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve; by the end of 1844 thirteen editions had been released. Most critics reviewed the novella positively. The story was illicitly copied in January 1844; Dickens took action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, further reducing Dickens's small profits from the publication. He went on to write four other Christmas stories in subsequent years. In 1849 he began public readings of the story which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media. With A Christmas Carol, Dickens captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. He has been acknowledged as an influence on the modern Western observance of Christmas and inspired several aspects of Christmas, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit. Dickens divided the book into five chapters, which he labelled "staves". The story begins on a cold and bleak Christmas Eve in London, seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge, an old miser, hates Christmas and refuses an invitation to Christmas dinner from his nephew Fred. He turns away two men who seek a donation from him in order to provide food and heating for the poor, and only grudgingly allows his overworked, underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, Christmas Day off with pay to conform to the social custom. At home that night, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost, who wanders the Earth, entwined by heavy chains and money boxes, forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness. Marley tells Scrooge that he has one chance to avoid the same fate: he will be visited by three spirits and he must listen to them or be cursed to carry chains of his own, much longer than Marley's chains. The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of Scrooge's boyhood and youth, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. The boyhood scenes portray Scrooge's lonely childhood, his relationship with his beloved sister Fan, and a Christmas party hosted by his first employer, Mr. Fezziwig, who treated Scrooge like a son. They also portray Scrooge's neglected fiance Belle, who ends their relationship after she realises that Scrooge will never love her as much as he loves money. Finally, they visit a now-married Belle with her large, happy family on a recent Christmas Eve. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner and celebrations of Christmas in a miner's cottage and in a lighthouse. Scrooge and the ghost also visit Fred's Christmas party. A major part of this stave is taken up with Bob Cratchit's family feast and introduces his youngest son, Tiny Tim, a happy boy who is seriously ill. The spirit informs Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die soon unless the course of events changes. Before disappearing, the spirit shows Scrooge two hideous, emaciated children named Ignorance and Want. He tells Scrooge to beware the former above all and mocks Scrooge's concern for their welfare. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future. The ghost shows him scenes involving the death of a disliked man. The man's funeral will only be attended by local businessmen if lunch is provided. His charwoman Mrs. Dilber, his laundress, and the local undertaker steal some of his possessions and sell them to a fence named Old Joe. When Scrooge asks the ghost to show anyone who feels any emotion over the man's death, the ghost can only show him the pleasure of a poor couple in debt to the man, rejoicing that his death gives them more time to put their finances in order. After Scrooge asks to see some tenderness connected with any death, the ghost shows him Bob Cratchit and his family mourning the passing of Tiny Tim. The ghost then shows Scrooge the man's neglected grave, whose tombstone bears Scrooge's name. Sobbing, Scrooge pledges to the ghost that he will change his ways to avoid this outcome. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He spends the day with Fred's family and anonymously sends a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner. The following day, he gives Cratchit an increase in pay and becomes like another father to Tiny Tim. From then on Scrooge begins to treat everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion, embodying the spirit of Christmas. The writer Charles Dickens was born to a respectable family which got into financial difficulties as a result of the spendthrift nature of John, Dickens's father. In 1824 John was committed to Marshalsea, a debtors' prison in Southwark, London. Dickens, aged 12, was forced to pawn his collection of books, leave school and go to work at a shoe-blacking factory, a dirty and rat-infested place. The change in Dickens's circumstances gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, described as a "deep personal and social outrage", which heavily influenced his works.[1] At the end of December 1842 Dickens began publishing his novel Martin Chuzzlewit as a monthly serial;[n 1] although the novel was his favourite work, sales had been disappointing and he faced financial difficulties.[2] By this time he was a well-established author, having written six major works,[n 2] as well as several short stories, novellas and other works.[3] Celebrating the Christmas season had been growing in popularity through the Victorian era.[4] Although the Christmas tree had been introduced in Britain during the 18th century, its use was popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and their practice was copied in many homes across the country.[5] In the early 19th century there had been a revival of interest in Christmas carols, following a decline in popularity over the previous hundred years. The publication of Davies Gilbert's 1823 work Some Ancient Christmas Carols, With the Tunes to Which They Were Formerly Sung in the West of England and William Sandys's 1833 collection Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern led to a growth in the form's popularity in Britain.[6] Dickens had an interest in Christmas, and his first story on the subject was "Christmas Festivities", published in Bell's Weekly Messenger in 1835; the story was then published as "A Christmas Dinner" in Sketches by Boz (1836).[7] "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton", another Christmas story, appeared in the 1836 novel The Pickwick Papers,[n 3] followed by a passage about Christmas in Dickens's editorial Master Humphrey's Clock.[9] Dickens was not the first author to celebrate the Christmas season in literature.[10] Among earlier authors who influenced Dickens was Washington Irving, whose 1819ÿ20 work The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. included four essays on old English Christmas traditions that he experienced while staying at Aston Hall near Birmingham.[11] The tales and essays attracted Dickens, and the two authors shared the belief that the staging of a nostalgic English Christmas might help restore the social harmony that had been lost in the modern world.[12] Several works may have had an influence on the writing of A Christmas Carol, including two Douglas Jerrold essays: one from an 1841 issue of Punch, "How Mr. Chokepear Keeps a Merry Christmas" and one from 1843, "The Beauties of the Police".[13] More broadly, Dickens was influenced by fairy tales and nursery stories, which he closely associated with Christmas, because he saw them as stories of conversion and transformation.[14] Dickens was touched by the lot of poor children in the middle decades of the 19th century.[15] In early 1843 he toured the Cornish tin mines, where he was angered after seeing children working in appalling conditions.[16] The suffering he witnessed there was reinforced by a visit to the Field Lane Ragged school, one of several London schools set up for the education of the capital's half-starved, illiterate street children.[17] In February 1843 the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission was published. It was a parliamentary report exposing the effects of the Industrial Revolution upon working class children. Horrified by what he read, Dickens planned to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child, but changed his mind, deferring the pamphlet's production until the end of the year.[18] In March he wrote to Dr. Southwood Smith, one of the four commissioners responsible for the Second Report, about his change in plans: "you will certainly feel that a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the forcetwenty thousand times the forceI could exert by following out my first idea".[19] In a fundraising speech on 5 October 1843 at the Manchester Athenaeum, Dickens urged workers and employers to join together to combat ignorance with educational reform,[20] and realised in the days following that the most effective way to reach the broadest segment of the population with his social concerns about poverty and injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas narrative rather than polemical pamphlets and essays.[21] By mid-1843 Dickens began to suffer from financial problems. Sales of Martin Chuzzlewit were slowing, and his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with the couple's fifth child. Matters worsened when Chapman & Hall, Martin Chuzzlewit's publishers, began to talk about reducing his monthly income by S50 if sales dropped further.[22] He began to write A Christmas Carol in October 1843.[23] Michael Slater, Dickens's biographer, describes the book as being "written at white heat"; it was completed in six weeks, with the final pages written in early December.[24] He built much of the work in his head while taking night-time walks of 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32?km) around London.[25] Slater says that A Christmas Carol was intended to open its readers' hearts towards those struggling to survive on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and to encourage practical benevolence, but also to warn of the terrible danger to society created by the toleration of widespread ignorance and actual want among the poor.[15] George Cruikshank, the illustrator who had previously worked with Dickens on Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838), introduced him to the caricaturist John Leech. By 24 October Dickens invited Leech to work on A Christmas Carol, and four hand-coloured etchings and four black-and-white wood engravings by the artist accompanied the text.[26] The central character of A Christmas Carol is Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London-based moneylender,[27] described in the story as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!"[28] Kelly writes that Scrooge may have been influenced by Dickens's conflicting feelings for his father, whom he both loved and demonised. This psychological conflict may be responsible for the two radically different Scrooges in the taleone a cold, stingy and greedy semi-recluse, the other a benevolent, sociable man.[29] Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, the professor of English literature, considers that in the opening part of the book covering young Scrooge's lonely and unhappy childhood, and his aspiration for money to avoid poverty "is something of a self-parody of Dickens's fears about himself"; the post-transformation parts of the book are how Dickens optimistically sees himself.[30] Scrooge could also be based on two misers: the eccentric John Elwes, MP,[31] or Jemmy Wood, the owner of the Gloucester Old Bank who was also known as "The Gloucester Miser".[32] According to the sociologist Frank W. Elwell, Scrooge's views on the poor are a reflection of those of the demographer and political economist Thomas Malthus,[33] while the miser's questions "Are there no prisons??... And the Union workhouses??... The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" are a reflection of a sarcastic question raised by the Chartist philosopher Thomas Carlyle, "Are there not treadmills, gibbets; even hospitals, poor-rates, New Poor-Law?"[34][n 4] There are literary precursors for Scrooge in Dickens's own works. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's biographer, sees similarities between Scrooge and the elder Martin Chuzzlewit character, although the miser is "a more fantastic image" than the Chuzzlewit patriarch; Ackroyd observes that Chuzzlewit's transformation to a charitable figure is a parallel to that of the miser.[36] Douglas-Fairhurst sees that the minor character Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers was also an influence when creating Scrooge.[37][n 5] Scrooge's name came from a tombstone Dickens had seen on a visit to Edinburgh. The grave was for Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, whose job was given as a meal mana corn merchant; Dickens misread the inscription as "mean man".[39][n 6] When Dickens was young he lived near a tradesman's premises with the sign "Goodge and Marney", which may have provided the name for Scrooge's former business partner.[41] For the chained Marley, Dickens had remembered a visit he had made to the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in March 1842, where he sawand was affected by seeingfettered prisoners.[34] For the character Tiny Tim, Dickens used his nephew Henry, a disabled boy who was five at the time A Christmas Carol was written.[42][n 7] The two figures of Want and Ignorance, sheltering in the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present were inspired by the children Dickens had seen on his visit to a ragged School in the East End of London.[17] The transformation of Scrooge is central to the story.[44] Kelly writes that the transformation is reflected in the description of Scrooge, who begins as a two-dimensional character, but who then grows into one who "possess[es] an emotional depth [and] a regret for lost opportunities".[45] Some writers, including Grace Moore, the Dickens scholar, consider that there is a Christian theme running through A Christmas Carol, and that the novella should be seen as an allegory of the Christian concept of redemption.[46][n 8] Dickens's biographer, Claire Tomalin sees the conversion of Scrooge as carrying the Christian message that "even the worst of sinners may repent and become a good man".[48] Dickens's attitudes towards organised religion were complex,[n 9] although he based his beliefs and principles within the New Testament.[51] Dickens's statement that Marley "had no bowels" is a reference to the "bowels of compassion" mentioned in I John, the reason for his eternal damnation.[52][n 10] Other writers, including Kelly, consider that Dickens put forward a "secular vision of this sacred holiday".[10] The Dickens scholar John O. Jordan argues that A Christmas Carol shows what Dickens referred to in a letter to Foster as his "Carol philosophy, cheerful views, sharp anatomisation of humbug, jolly good temper?... and a vein of glowing, hearty, generous, mirthful, beaming reference in everything to Home and Fireside".[53] From a secular viewpoint, the cultural historian Penne Restad suggests that Scrooge's redemption underscores "the conservative, individualistic and patriarchal aspects" of Dickens's "Carol philosophy" of charity and altruism.[54] Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol because of how British social policy treated children at the time, and wished to use the novella as a means to put forward his arguments against it.[55] The story shows Scrooge as a paradigm for self-interest, and the possible repercussions of ignoring the poor, especially children in povertypersonified by the allegorical figures of Want and Ignorance.[56] The two figures were created to arouse sympathy with readersas was Tiny Tim.[57] Douglas-Fairhurst observes that the use of such figures allowed Dickens to present his message of the need for charity, without alienating his largely middle-class readership.[58] As the result of the disagreements with Chapman and Hall over the commercial failures of Martin Chuzzlewit,[59] Dickens arranged to pay for the publishing himself, in exchange for a percentage of the profits.[30] Production of A Christmas Carol was not without problems. The first printing contained drab olive endpapers that Dickens felt were unacceptable, and the publisher Chapman and Hall quickly replaced them with yellow endpapers, but, once replaced, those clashed with the title page, which was then redone.[60] The final product was bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, completed only two days before the publication date of 19 December 1843.[61] Following publication, Dickens arranged for the manuscript to be bound in red Morocco leather and presented as a gift to his solicitor, Thomas Mitton.[62][n 11] Priced at five shillings (equal to S23 in 2018 pounds[63]), the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve. Chapman and Hall issued second and third editions before the new year, and the book continued to sell well into 1844.[65] By the end of 1844 eleven more editions had been released.[66] Since its initial publication the book has been issued in numerous hardback and paperback editions, translated into several languages and has never been out of print.[67] It was Dickens's most popular book in the United States, and sold over two million copies in the hundred years following its first publication there.[68] The high production costs upon which Dickens insisted led to reduced profits, and the first edition brought him only S230 (equal to S21,000 in 2018 pounds[63]) rather than the S1,000 (equal to S90,000 in 2018 pounds[63]) he expected.[69] A year later, the profits were only S744, and Dickens was deeply disappointed.[59][n 12] Douglas-Fairhurst writes that the reviews of A Christmas Carol "were almost uniformly kind".[71] The reviewer from The Illustrated London News described how the story's "impressive eloquence?... its unfeigned lightness of heartits playful and sparkling humour?... its gentle spirit of humanity" all put the reader "in good humour with ourselves, with each other, with the season and with the author".[72] The critic from The Athenaeum, the literary magazine, considered it a "tale to make the reader laugh and cry?ÿ to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable?... a dainty dish to set before a King."[73] William Makepeace Thackeray, writing in Fraser's Magazine, described the book as "a national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, 'God bless him!'"[70] The poet Thomas Hood, in his own journal, wrote that "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease."[74] The reviewer for Tait's Edinburgh MagazineTheodore Martin, who was usually critical of Dickens's work[71]spoke well of A Christmas Carol, noting it was "a noble book, finely felt and calculated to work much social good".[75] After Dickens' death, Margaret Oliphant deplored the turkey and plum pudding aspects of the book but admitted that in the days of its first publication it was regarded as "a new gospel" and noted that the book was unique in that it actually made people behave better.[71] The religious press generally ignored the tale but, in January 1884, Christian Remembrancer thought the tale's old and hackneyed subject was treated in an original way and praised the author's sense of humour and pathos.[76] There were critics of the book. The New Monthly Magazine's reviewer, while praising the story, thought the book's physical excessesthe gilt edges and expensive bindingkept the price high, which made it unavailable to the poor. The reviewer recommended the tale be printed on cheap paper and priced accordingly.[77] The unnamed reviewer from The Westminster Review mocked Dickens's grasp of economics, asking "Who went without turkey and punch in order that Bob Cratchit might get themfor, unless there were turkeys and punch in surplus, someone must go without".[78] Following criticism of the US in American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, American readers were less enthusiastic at first, but by the end of the American Civil War, copies of the book were in wide circulation.[79] In 1863 The New York Times published an enthusiastic review, noting that the author brought the "old Christmas?... of bygone centuries and remote manor houses, into the living rooms of the poor of today".[80] In January 1844 Parley's Illuminated Library published an unauthorised version of the story in a condensed form which they sold for twopence.[n 13] Dickens wrote to his solicitor I have not the least doubt that if these Vagabonds can be stopped they must.?... Let us be the sledge-hammer in this, or I shall be beset by hundreds of the same crew when I come out with a long story.[82] Two days after the release of the Parley version, Dickens sued on the cases of copyright infringement and won. The publishers declared themselves bankrupt and Dickens was left to pay S700 in costs.[83] The small profits Dickens earned from A Christmas Carol further strained his relationship with his publishers, and he broke with them in favour of Bradbury and Evans, who had been printing his works to that point.[15] Dickens returned to the tale several times during his life to amend the phrasing and punctuation. He capitalised on the success of the book by publishing other Christmas stories The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846) and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848); these were secular conversion tales which reflected the societal changes of the previous year, and which social problems still needed to be dealt with. While the public eagerly bought the later books, the reviewers were highly critical of the stories.[84] By 1849 Dickens was engaged with David Copperfield and had neither the time nor the inclination to produce another Christmas book.[85] He decided the best way to reach his audience with his "Carol philosophy" was by public readings.[86] During Christmas 1852 Dickens gave a reading in Birmingham Town Hall to the Industrial and Literary Institute; the performance was a great success.[87] Thereafter, he read the tale in an abbreviated version 127 times, until 1870 (the year of his death), when it provided the material for his farewell performance.[88] In the years following the book's publication, responses to the tale were published by W. M. Swepstone (Christmas Shadows, 1850), Horatio Alger (Job Warner's Christmas, 1863), Louisa May Alcott (A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True, 1882), and others who followed Scrooge's life as a reformed man?ÿ or some who thought Dickens had got it wrong and needed to be corrected.[89] The novella was adapted for the stage almost immediately. Three productions opened on 5 February 1844, with one by Edward Stirling sanctioned by Dickens and running for more than 40 nights.[90] By the close of February 1844 eight rival A Christmas Carol theatrical productions were playing in London.[71] The story has been adapted for film and television more than any of Dickens's other works.[91] In 1901 it was produced as Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost, a silent black-and-white British film; it was one of the first known adaptations of a Dickens work on film, although is now largely lost.[92] The story was adapted in 1923 for BBC radio.[93] The story has been adapted to other media, including opera, ballet, a Broadway musical, animation, and a BBC mime production starring Marcel Marceau.[94] Although the phrase "Merry Christmas" had been around for many years ÿ the earliest known written use was in a letter in 1534 ÿ Dickens's use of the term in A Christmas Carol popularised the term among the Victorian public.[95] The exclamation "Bah! Humbug!" entered popular use in the English language as a retort to anything sentimental or over festive;[96] the name "Scrooge" became used as a designation for a miser, and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as such in 1982.[97] The modern observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday. The Oxford Movement of the 1830s and 1840s had produced a resurgence of the traditional rituals and religious observances associated with Christmastide and, with A Christmas Carol, Dickens captured the zeitgeist of the age, while he reflected and reinforced his vision of Christmas.[98] He advocated a humanitarian focus of the holiday,[99] which influenced several aspects of Christmas that are still celebrated in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.[100][n 14] The historian Ronald Hutton writes that Dickens "linked worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation".[101] Ruth Glancy, a professor of English literature, states that the largest impact of A Christmas Carol was the influence felt by individual readers.[102] In the spring of 1844 The Gentleman's Magazine attributed a rise of charitable giving in Britain to Dickens's novella;[103] in 1874, Robert Louis Stevenson, after reading Dickens's Christmas books, vowed to give generously to those in need;[104] and Thomas Carlyle expressed a generous hospitality by hosting two Christmas dinners after reading the book.[105] In 1867 one American businessman was so moved after attending a reading, that he closed his factory on Christmas Day and sent every employee a turkey,[71] while in the early years of the 20th century the Queen of Norway sent gifts to London's crippled children signed "With Tiny Tim's Love".[106] On the novella, the author G. K. Chesterton wrote "The beauty and blessing of the story?... lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him.?... Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us."[107]

Gidget🚨Gidget (February 7, 1994 ÿ July 21, 2009), nicknamed the "Taco Bell Chihuahua", was an advertising figure and mascot for the Taco Bell restaurant chain from May 16, 1993 to October 23, 2004. It was voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, and developed by TBWA. The Chihuahua is a breed commonly associated with Mexico. At least two dogs were used as models in the commercials. The original dog cast for the lead role was named Dinky, but was replaced at the last minute by the director with the Chihuahua that was originally cast as the "girlfriend" named Gidget. Taco was another Chihuahua and was a stand-in for Gidget. In September 1993, Taco Bell used the dog in one advertisement in the Northeastern United States. The advertising campaign began during a peak in the "Burger Wars," in which several fast food chains were engaged in large advertising campaigns against each other. The dog (sometimes depicted as a Mexican revolutionary wearing a beret or as a bandido wearing a sombrero) was made to speak through special effects. Her advertising catchphrase was "?Yo quiero Taco Bell!" ("I want Taco Bell!"). Her voiceover was provided by Carlos Alazraqui while Perry Herman played the national announcer. The figure grew popular, so much so that toy figures of the dog were produced, and "Yo quiero (X)" became a recognized piece of popular culture. The dog also started two additional catchphrases: "Drop the chalupa!" (which briefly became an oft-quoted phrase on SportsCenter) and "Viva Gorditas!," meaning "Long live Gorditas!" In a noted crossover with the 1998 Godzilla film, the dog famously tried to trap the monster in a box, goading the beast with the phrase, "Here, lizard, lizard, lizard!", only to see Godzilla's size and respond, "Uh-oh. I think I need a bigger box!" (a reference to Jaws),[1] and another Godzilla crossover involving him making an order through a drive-thru speaker on Godzilla's tail, making an order too large for the workers. In October 23 2004, Taco Bell ended the chihuahua advertisements,[2] ended its relationship with their creator TBWA, and replaced the company's president, after same-store sales fell by 6% in the second quarter of 2004, the largest such decline in Taco Bell history.[3] It was incorrectly rumored that Taco Bell ended the commercials because the dog died.[4] Some Latin Americans accused the dog of being a cultural stereotype,[5] and Tom Kenny, who is a friend of Carlos Alazraqui (who was the voice of the Taco Bell chihuahua), said that Hispanic advocacy groups lobbying for the end of the campaign led to the cancellation of the Taco Bell dog.[6] Other reports say the use of the dog was discontinued because it failed to increase Taco Bell's revenue stream in spite of the dog's popularity.[7] In 2003, Taco Bell lost a lawsuit by two Michigan men, who had pitched the concept of the Chihuahua to Taco Bell six years earlier at a Licensing Show in NYC. Taco Bell worked with Thomas Rinks and Joseph Shields for over a year developing the Chihuahua campaign and commercials, but Taco Bell failed to pay the men according to court documents. The men sued and, in 2003, a jury awarded them $30.1 million in compensation[8] plus nearly $12 million in additional interest three months later.[9] Taco Bell in turn sued TBWA saying it should have been aware of the conflicts. In 2009, a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled against Taco Bell.[10][11][12] In later years, Gidget appeared in a 2002 commercial for insurance company GEICO[13] and as "Bruiser's Mom" in the 2003 movie Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde.[citation needed] Gidget died on July 21, 2009 at age 15 after suffering a stroke in the home of her trainer, Sue Chipperton[14], in Santa Clarita, California. She was cremated and her ashes were retained by her trainer. Taco Bell Corp. said in a statement that Gidget would be missed by many fans and said. "Our deepest sympathies go out to her owners and fans."[15]

November 8, 1965🚨Days of Our Lives (also stylized as Days of our Lives; often abbreviated to DOOL or Days) is an American daytime soap opera broadcast on the NBC television network. It is one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world, airing nearly every weekday since November 8, 1965.[4] It has since been syndicated to many countries around the world.[5][6][7] Until the network's closure in 2013, Soapnet rebroadcast episodes of Days on a same-day basis each weeknight at 8:00 and 10:00? (Eastern and Pacific Time). The series was created by husband-and-wife team Ted Corday and Betty Corday.[1] Irna Phillips was a story editor for Days of Our Lives and many of the show's earliest storylines were written by William J. Bell. Due to the series' success, it was expanded from 30 minutes to 60 minutes on April 21, 1975. The series focuses on its core families, the Hortons and the Bradys.[8] Several other families have been added to the cast, and many of them still appear on the show. Frances Reid, the matriarch of the series' Horton family remained with the show from its inception to her death on February 3, 2010.[9] Suzanne Rogers celebrated 40 years on Days of Our Lives in 2013, appearing on the show more or less since her first appearance in 1973.[10] Susan Seaforth Hayes is the only cast member to appear on Days of Our Lives in all five decades it has been on air.[11] Days of Our Lives aired its 10,000th episode on February 21, 2005,[12][13] and its 12,000th episode aired on January 11, 2013. The soap was given the title of most daring drama in the seventies due to covering topics other soaps would not dare to do.[14] The show's executive producer is Ken Corday,[15] and co-executive producers are Greg Meng and Albert Alarr. In 2018, NBC renewed the serial through fall 2019. Days of Our Lives is the most widely distributed soap opera in the United States.[16] The show has been parodied by SCTV (as "The Days of the Week") and the television sitcom Friends, with some cast members making crossover appearances on the show, including Kristian Alfonso,[17] Roark Critchlow,[18] Matthew Ashford, Kyle Lowder, and Alison Sweeney.[19] The show has had high-profile fans such as actress Julia Roberts,[20] and the Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.[21] The Cordays and Bell combined the "hospital soap" idea with the tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital.[22] Storylines in the show follow the lives of middle- and upper-class professionals in Salem, a middle-America town, with the usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical story lines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems.[23] Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut."[24] Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia (in contrast to shows such as As the World Turns) and its portrayal of "real American contemporary families."[25] By the 1970s, critics deemed Days of Our Lives to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as artificial insemination and interracial romance.[14] The January 12, 1976 cover of Time magazine featured Days of Our Lives' Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the only daytime actors ever to appear on its cover.[26][27][28] The Hayeses themselves were a couple whose on-screen and real-life romance (they met on the series in 1970 and married in 1974) was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press.[29] In the 1990s, the show branched out into supernatural story lines, which critics immediately panned, as it was seen as a departure from more realistic storylines for which the show had originally become known. However, these storylines did have the desired effect, making Days of Our Lives the most-watched daytime soap among young and middle-aged women, also becoming one of NBC's five most profitable shows in any time slot.[30][31] In 2006, when asked about his character, Jack Deveraux, "coming back from the dead"for the third timeactor Matthew Ashford responded, "It is hard to play that because at a certain point it becomes too unreal...actors look at that and think, 'What is this the Cartoon Network'?"[32] In addition to receiving critical acclaim in print journalism, the series has won a number of awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Best Drama in 1978 and 2013 [33] and a Writers Guild of America, East Award for Best Drama in 2000 and 2013.[34] Days of Our lives actors have also won awards: Macdonald Carey (Dr. Tom Horton) won Best Actor in 1974[35] and 1975.[36] Susan Flannery (Laura Horton) and Eileen Davidson (Kristen DiMera) won Best Actress in 1975[36] and 2014,[37] respectively. Suzanne Rogers (Maggie Horton), Leann Hunley (Anna DiMera), and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won Best Supporting Actress for, respectively, 1979,[38] 1986, and 2009[39] and Billy Warlock (Frankie Brady) won Best Younger Actor for 1988.[40] In 2009, Darin Brooks (Max Brady) took home the Emmy for Best Younger Actor",[41] and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won for Best Supporting Actress,[42] the show's first acting victories in over 21 and 23 years, respectively[43] As with all other network programming, Days of Our Lives' ratings have declined somewhat since the 1990s. In January 2007 it was suggested by NBC that the show "is unlikely to continue [on NBC] past 2009."[44] In November 2008, in an eleventh-hour decision, it was announced the show had been renewed through September 2010. The 18-month renewal was down from its previous renewal, which was for five years. The show made somewhat of a comeback in 2009, with ratings increasing as the year progressed. In March 2010, the show was renewed once again through September 2011;[45][46] then again on November 8, 2010, its 45th anniversary, the show was renewed for two more years through September 2013, with an option for an additional year which would keep the soap on through 2014, its 49th year on the air.[47][48] The series received a two-year renewal in January 2014 that is set to last until September 2016.[49] Beginning on November 8, 2010, which marked Days of Our Lives' 45th anniversary, the show began airing in high definition.[50] The show was officially "rebooted" on September 26, 2011, in an effort to gain back its lapsed audience, appeal to long-term loyal fans, begin new stories, and boost ratings.[51] Former fan favorite characters were reintroduced as part of the reboot. These included Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford), Carrie Brady (Christie Clark), and Austin Reed (Patrick Muldoon). All three, including actress Sarah Brown, were fired from the show in an effort to lower production costs.[52] The reboot was met with mixed reviews from critics.[53] Head writers hired to handle the reboot, Marlene McPherson, and Darrell Ray Thomas Junior were subsequently fired due to declining ratings. Chris Whitesell, and former Days executive producer Gary Tomlin were rehired after being fired as part of the show's revamp.[54] Daytime Emmy award winner Lorraine Broderick was hired as a member of the breakdown writing team in April 2012.[55] Days of Our Lives is noted as the fourth longest running soap opera in the United States.[56] On November 30, 2014, NBC launched a new logo for Days of Our Lives at the 2014 Hollywood Christmas Parade, in celebration of the series' fiftieth anniversary [57] On February 11, 2016, NBC renewed Days of Our Lives for one-year, with the option of an additional year.[58] In January 2017, while discussion the potential of a renewal for the soap, NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt stated: "We dont make a decision for another couple months. [...] But I dont think its over yet."[59] In February 2017, NBC officially renewed Days of Our Lives for an additional year. Jennifer Salke, President of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement: "We feel so privileged to be able to continue the remarkable legacy of Days of our Lives. [...] We thank [exec producer] Ken Corday and his team for their incredible accomplishments and look forward to all the stories from Salem that will continue to unfold."[60] In March 2018, NBC announced their decision to renewal Days of Our Lives through fall 2019.[61] When Days of Our Lives premiered in 1965, the show revolved around the tragedies and triumphs of the suburban Horton family. Over time, additional families were brought to the show to interact with the Hortons and serve as springboards for more dramatic storylines. Originally led by patriarch Dr. Tom Horton and his wife, homemaker Alice, the Hortons remain a prominent fixture in current continuity. One of the longest-running story lines involved the rape of Mickey Horton's wife Laura by Mickey's brother Bill. Laura confides in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agree that her husband Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael Horton (a product of the rape) and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. This plotline was made even more complex with the presence of Linda Patterson (originally Margaret Mason for many years, later Elaine Princi) who claimed that her daughter Melissa had been fathered by Mickey. When Mickey married the lovely Maggie Simmons (Suzanne Rogers), Linda became even more involved in the story line as the show's main villainess, marrying the wealthy Bob Anderson (Mark Tapscott) and taking over the running of Anderson Manufacturing when he became ill. The story line involving Mickey, Laura and Bill was the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen daytime ratings.[62] Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie, proved to be very popular around the same time. The storyline culminated in the death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.[63] In the early 1980s, the Brady and DiMera families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as core families in Salem beside the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, action/adventure story lines and supercouples such as Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch and Kayla reinvigorated the show, previously focused primarily on the domestic troubles of the Hortons. Since the 1990s, with the introduction of writer James E. Reilly, Days of Our Lives has moved from traditional plots to some supernatural and science-fiction-themed stories, in conjunction with the rivalry of good vs. evil, in a Hatfield/McCoy feud style the Bradys versus the DiMeras. Under the tenure of Reilly, ratings rose to number two, and stayed there until he left in 1999 to start his own creation of Passions. Despite the introduction of new head writer Hogan Sheffer in 2006, ratings failed to revive, which led the show's producers to hire a few past fan favorites to stop the ratings hemorrhage.[64] In addition to the love triangles of Bill/Laura/Mickey and Addie/Doug/Julie, other memorable storylines include the 1968 story of amnesiac Tom Horton, Jr., who returns from Korea believing he is someone else and then proceeds to romance his younger sister Marie;[62] the 20-year tragic love triangle when John Black has an affair with Marlena Brady, who is married to Roman;[62] the 1982 "Salem Strangler" (Jake Kositchek, who was nicknamed "Jake the Ripper") who stalks and murders women;[62] the 1984 Gone with the Wind story line in which Hope Williams Brady and Bo Brady hide out on a Southern plantation and dress up as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (devised to keep viewers tuned in while rival network ABC's soaps were preempted due to the 1984 Summer Olympics);[62][65] and "The Cruise of Deception" in 1990, when madman Ernesto Toscano invites all his enemies aboard a ship, the S.S. Loretta, and holds them captive.[62] In 1992, the show received a reboot with additions such as refurbished sets, the debut of the Brady Pub, the addition of new characters such as Vivian Alamain, Lisanne Gardner, Billie Reed, and Kate Roberts. Later that same year, Days of Our Lives introduced its highly popular teen scene with new characters such as a SORASed Sami Brady, played by Alison Sweeney, Carrie Brady, played by Tracy Middendorf, and then back to Christie Clark again, Austin Reed portrayed by Patrick Muldoon, Lucas Roberts played by Bryan Dattilo, Abe Carver's younger brother Jonah Carver, played by Thyme Lewis, Jamie Caldwell, played by Miriam Parish, and Wendy Reardon played by Tammy Townsend to appeal to younger viewers. However, by 1997, the characters of Jonah, Jamie, and Wendy had been written out or faded into the background, proving to be unsuccessful and the Carrie/Austin/Sami/Mike love triangle and the Will Horton paternity issue/custody battle storyline had now been taking most of the series' air time. The shocking and ratings-grabbing 1993 plot when Vivian Alamain buried Dr. Carly Manning alive (the first controversial storyline from head writer Reilly);[66] and the 1994ÿ1995 story line in which the town's Christmas tree burns down and Marlena becomes possessed in Exorcist fashion.[30][62] Also from 1993 to 1998, the soap saw a lot of actress Eileen Davidson. Her character, Kristen DiMera suffers a miscarriage in secret, and in a panic to keep John Black away from Marlena, pretends to still be pregnant with John's child. Stefano hires a doppelganger, Susan Banks to conceive and bear a child for her (which resulted in the birth of EJ DiMera). Eileen Davidson portrayed the entire Banks family clan, four in total (including one male), as well as her main character.[67][68][69] 2000 saw the departures of front-and-center cast members, Louise Sorel as Vivian Alamain and Jensen Ackles as Eric Brady. Ackles and the character of Eric had been one of the main focus of the series for the past three years prior, in which the void would be hard to fill. Ken Corday and NBC announced plans to re-introduced a SORAS Brady Black, immediately following the conclusion of Eric's storyline. That spring, Kyle Lowder was cast as the new Brady Black, whom would now be aged to his early 20's, first appearing on August 21, 2000, a month following Eric's exit. Lowder's Brady did prove to win over the majority of viewers, as his pairing with Chloe Lane proved highly popular. The pair married and left town in 2005 when Lowder's contract was not renewed. 2003ÿ2004's "Melaswen", saw several characters purportedly die at the hands of a masked psychopath; they are later revealed to have been kidnapped to the secret island of Melaswen (New Salem spelled backwards).[70] 2007's "Bradys and DiMeras: The Reveal", told the story regarding how the Brady/DiMera feud started. Past characters returned in June 2010 to honor the passing of matriarch Alice Horton, whose character died on June 23, 2010.[71] On June 23, 2011, Days of Our Lives introduced Sonny Kiriakis, the show's first contract gay character onto the canvas to be featured in the show's first gay story line.[72] Freddie Smith (Sonny) said in an interview, "Hes very confident and mature, hes traveled the world and is very open-minded. Im very excited to portray him."[72] Subsequent to Sonny's arrival, Will Horton investigates his own sexuality, and reveals himself to be gay.[73] He later starts a romantic relationship with Sonny.[74] They eventually marry. On January 26, 2012, episode 11765 was a tribute to soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and previous wars with a PTSD therapy group for Jack Deveraux to talk over his time held captive there. This was also when the inline ''Next On'' promos were discontinued in favor of an external weekly promo. When Days of Our Lives debuted the cast consisted of seven main characters (Tom Horton, Alice Horton, Mickey Horton, Marie Horton, Julie Olson, Tony Merritt, and Craig Merritt).[75] When the show expanded to one hour in April 1975, the cast increased to 27 actors. By the 25th anniversary in 1990, 40 actors appeared on the show in contract or recurring roles,[75] which is the approximate number of actors the show has used since then. Original cast member Frances Reid, who played Alice Horton, remained on contract with Days of Our Lives until her death on February 3, 2010, though she last appeared on the show in December 2007.[1] Original cast member John Clarke, who played Mickey Horton, left the series in 2004. Suzanne Rogers, who plays Maggie Horton has been on the show since 1973, and Susan Seaforth Hayes has played Julie Olson Williams since 1968 with a few breaks in between, and also her husband Bill Hayes, who has played Doug Williams since 1970, though neither Seaforth Hayes nor Hayes is employed with the serial on contract. In recent years, Days of Our Lives has hired back many former cast members. Twenty of the current contract cast members have been with the show, off-and-on, since at least 1999. Since 2005, cast members from the 1980s and 1990s, such as Christie Clark (Carrie Brady), Stephen Nichols (Steve Johnson), Austin Peck (Austin Reed), Mary Beth Evans (Kayla Brady), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera), and Thaao Penghlis (Tony DiMera) have been brought back to Days of Our Lives.[64] More additions to the show include the returns of Crystal Chappell (Dr. Carly Manning), and Louise Sorel (Vivian Alamain). In June 2010, characters such as Jennifer Horton, Bill Horton, Shane Donovan, and Kimberly Brady returned for a short time and were featured heavily in a tribute to Alice Horton. Guest cast members have included Elizabeth Alley. In late 2012, the show reintroduced actress Eileen Davidson in the role of Kristen Blake DiMera after a fourteen-year absence. In mid 2013, the show debuted new characters such as JJ Deveraux and Theresa Donovan to appeal to younger viewers.[76][77] In celebration of the soap's fiftieth anniversary in 2015, several cast members returned to the soap, including Peter Reckell, Stephen Nichols and Penghlis.[78] The co-creator and original executive producer, Ted Corday, was only at the helm for eight months before dying of cancer in 1966. His widow, Betty, was named executive producer upon his death. She continued in that role, with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin as supervising producers, before she semi-retired in 1985. When Mrs. Corday semi-retired in 1985, and later died in 1987, her son, Ken, became executive producer and took over the full-time, day-to-day running of the show,[15] a title he still holds today. The series' current co-executive producers are Greg Meng and Lisa de Cazotte. In March 2015, it was reported that de Cazotte would no longer serve as a co-executive producer for the series. Albert Alarr was announced as de Cazotte's replacement as a co-executive producer.[79] The first long-term head writer, William J. Bell, started writing for Days of Our Lives in 1966 and continued until 1975, a few years after he had created his own successful soap, The Young and the Restless. He stayed with the show as a story line consultant until 1978. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many writing changes occurred. In the early 1980s, Margaret DePriest helped stabilize the show with her serial killer story line. Later head writers, such as Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, built on that stability and crafted story lines of their own, temporarily bringing up ratings. Many writing changes occurred after Laiman left the series in 1989 and would not become stable again until James E. Reilly started with the show in 1993. His tenure, which lasted for four-and-a-half years, was credited with bringing ratings up to the second place spot in the Nielsens. Other writers who succeeded him, such as Sally Sussman Morina and Tom Langan, failed to keep the ratings success, and another writer turnover continued until Reilly returned to the series in 2003. Five-time Daytime Emmy winner Hogan Sheffer was named head writer with great fanfare in October 2006, but lasted less than 16 months with the show, with his last episode airing in January 2008. Former head writer Dena Higley's first episode aired on April 23, 2008.[80] Her co-head writer was Christopher Whitesell until February 2011. On May 18, 2011, Dena Higley was fired. The new head writers were Marlene McPherson and Darrell Ray Thomas Jr. In April 2012, it was confirmed that McPherson and Thomas Jr. were fired from their positions as co-head writers. Gary Tomlin and Christopher Whitesell were hired for the position.[81] It was later confirmed that former All My Children headwriter Lorraine Broderick would join Tomlin and Whitesell as a breakdown writer on the series.[82] In February 2015, Soap Opera Digest confirmed that both Tomlin and Whitesell had been ousted in their roles as head-writers; they further confirmed that former head writer Higley would return, alongside former The Young and the Restless head writer Josh Griffith. The change took effect on February 16, 2015.[83] In August 2015, reports stated that Higley would be taking a leave of absence from the show. In her place, Sony would be sending a writer from The Young and the Restless to help Griffith with the transition. The writer was later revealed to be former head writer Beth Milstein.[84] In February 2016, several days after the show was renewed for another year, Soap Opera Digest exclusively reported that Griffith has departed the show as head writer with Higley remaining; they further revealed that script writer Ryan Quan has been promoted to replace Griffith.[85] On January 23, 2017, Soap Opera Digest broke news that both Higley and Quan had been let go from their positions as co-head writers. According to the report, Quan was given a new title of Creative Consultant, while Higley was let go all-together. Former One Life to Live and General Hospital head writer Ron Carlivati was named as Higley's replacement, "effective immediately". In addition to Carlivati's appointment, it was also announced that Anderson would return to the soap, sharing the role of Creative Consultant with Quan.[86][87] Carlivati will receive his first episodic credit as head writer on July 19, 2017.[88] Days of Our Lives won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Writing Team in June, 2012 and April, 2018. It also won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in June, 2013 and April, 2018.[89][90] According to Variety, Days of Our Lives is the most widely distributed soap opera in the United States, with episodes not just broadcast via NBC, but also via cable (SOAPnet), and as of June 2007, episodes are offered via iTunes.[16] For the first three years on the air, Days of Our Lives was near the bottom of the Nielsen ratings, and close to cancellation. However, its ascent to the top was rapid; as the 1969 TV season ended, it became an effective tool of NBC, which attempted to dethrone daytime leader CBS. By 1973 the show, pitted against CBS' popular Guiding Light and ABC's The Newlywed Game at 2 p.m. (ET)/1 p.m. (CT),[3] had matched the first-place ratings of As the World Turns and sister NBC soap Another World. Due to the success of the program, it expanded from a half-hour to one hour on April 21, 1975. This expansion had followed the lead of Another World, which became TV's first-ever hour-long soap on January 6, three-and-a-half months earlier. Further, Days of Our Lives' new starting time of 1:30 p.m./12:30[3] finally solved a scheduling problem that began in 1968 when NBC lost the game Let's Make a Deal to ABC, and in its wake, eight different shows were placed into the slot (Hidden Faces, You're Putting Me On, Life with Linkletter, Words & Music, Memory Game, Three on a Match, Jeopardy!, and How to Survive a Marriage). However, this first golden period for NBC daytime proved to be short-lived, as Days of Our Lives' ratings began to decline in 1977. Much of the decline was due to ABC's expansion of its increasingly popular soap All My Children to a full hour, the last half of which overlapped with the first half of Days of Our Lives By January 1979, the network, in a mode of desperation more than anything else, decided to jump headlong against AMC and moved the show ahead to the same 1:00?p.m./12 Noon time slot.[3] In exchange to its affiliates for taking away the old half-hour access slot at 1:00/Noon, NBC gave them the 4 p.m./3 slot, which many (if not most) stations had been preempting for years anyway.[91] By 1986, ABC and CBS followed suit, under the intense pressure of lucrative (and cheap) syndicated programming offered to affiliates. By 1980, Days of Our Lives had displaced Another World as NBC's highest-rated soap. However, the entire NBC soap lineup was in ratings trouble. In fact, by 1982, all of its shows were rated above only one ABC soap (The Edge of Night) and below all four CBS soaps. The "supercouple" era of the 1980s, however, helped bring about a ratings revival, and the 1983ÿ1984 season saw Days of Our Lives experience a surge in ratings. It held onto its strong numbers for most of the 1980s, only to decline again by 1990, eventually falling back into eighth place. In the mid-1990s, however, the show experienced a resurgence in popularity and the show reached number two in the ratings, where it remained for several years before experiencing another ratings decline beginning in 1999, the year that Days of Our Lives became NBC's longest-running daytime program (upon the cancellation of Another World). Throughout the 2000s (decade), Days of Our Lives and all the other remaining network daytime serials have witnessed a steady erosion of viewers, mainly due to vastly altered viewing habits induced by cable networks and alternative genres such as reality and talk shows on minor network affiliates. On January 17, 2007, NBC Universal Television president Jeff Zucker remarked that Days of Our Lives would most likely not "continue past 2009."[44] This contributed to an immediate ratings decline for Days of Our Lives. The show was averaging a 2.4 rating prior to the announcement, dropped to a 2.2 average household rating in the months after. In an April 2007 interview with Soap Opera Digest, executive producer Ken Corday commented on the ratings decline of the previous months, "If I don't pay attention to the ratings and what the viewers are saying, I'm an ostrich. I have not seen a decline in the ratings on the show this precipitous ever. I've never seen this much of a percentage decline."[92] Days of Our Lives had finished the 2008-2009 television season with a substantial increase in viewers (3.0 million vs. 2.8 million) and had risen to the #3 spot behind The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, respectively. It was the #2 daytime program behind The Young and the Restless in the much coveted 18-49 demographic. During the first few months of the 2009-2010 season, Days of Our Lives increased its average household rating to 2.4, and averaged consistently over 3,000,000 viewers. It was only one point behind the #2 daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful, and has beat that soap on several days during the season. In 2010, Days of Our Lives continued to increase viewership, reaching as high as 3.6 million viewers on several days. A substantial increase in viewership such as Days of Our Lives has had lately also bucks the viewership trend in daytime dramas, which had declined since the 1990s for all other daytime drama series. Days of Our Lives was the only daytime drama series to increase in viewers between 2008 and 2010 and had reduced its operating budget, making it a profitable asset to NBC's broadcast line-up.[93] However starting in 2011, Days of Our Lives started to lose ground significantly to the point that it sometimes occupied the last position among all soaps for both total viewership and the 18-49 women demographic. The cancellation of All My Children on ABC combined with the return of several cast members allowed a brief resurgence of Days of Our Lives in October 2011, but ratings soon declined again. In December 2011 before the cancellation of One Life to Live, Days of Our Lives recorded three consecutive weeks of new lows in the 18-49 women key demo category,[94][95][96][97] and again another consecutive three weeks of low ratings in the same demographic during MarchÿApril 2012.[98][99][100] As of 2012, Days of Our Lives generally ranks #3 among the four daytime soap operas on the air when it comes to the total number of viewers (surpassing only General Hospital).[101][102] However, Days of Our Lives is last among all soap operas for the numbers of viewers in the targeted demographic of women aged between 18 and 49 years old.[101][102] Since January 1993 after the cancellation of Santa Barbara, WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh airs Days weekdays during its 3:00?p.m. time slot while some stations such as WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania air the program during the 2:00?p.m. timeslot, but most stations continue to air Days at its 1 p.m. time slot. Some Central Time Zone affiliates carry it at noon with the main Eastern feed, such as Green Bay, Wisconsin's WGBA-TV, which uses it as an alternative to programming what would likely be a low-rated local newscast against long-established local competition. However, the program received schedule and station shifts with the start of the 2013-14 television season. One NBC station, KSNV-DT in Las Vegas, stopped carrying the show on August 19, 2013 due to a long-term move to an all-news schedule outside of network news and primetime programming; the program moved to the market's CW affiliate KVCW, where it aired at its traditional 1:00?p.m. time slot until an ownership change saw the show return to KSNV in late December 2014 as part of a change in the all-news plans. With the cancellation of Passions, Days is now NBC's last remaining daytime soap opera, as well as the network's last remaining daytime program.[103] Salt Lake City's KSL-TV moved the show to the late night 1:05?a.m. slot three weeks later on September 9 for unknown reasons, though a romantic plot line between two gay characters was theorized as a reason for the move; the station is owned by the broadcasting arm of the LDS Church.[104] End of season number of metered viewers (listed as a Nielsen share in millions) and ranking (against other soap operas) from the first broadcast to the reporting week of August 24 to August 28, 2015. Throughout Canada, Days of Our Lives currently airs either at 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM depending on location on Global Television Network.[107] Episodes are aired in sync with the NBC broadcast to take advantage of simultaneous substitution regulations. In Barbados the show was very popular, though it ran several years behind the U.S. (the series began in Barbados in 1980 from the very first episode), and was aired on the island's lone television broadcaster, CBC TV 8. In 2014, the channel dropped the series.[108] Belize's Tropical Vision Limited features Days of Our Lives as an afternoon staple. Currently it airs at 3:00 pm UTC-6 Central Time, though it previously aired as early as 1:00 pm or as late as 5:30 pm as a lead-in to the news. In Australia, Days of Our Lives was initially broadcast on the Nine Network from March 25, 1968, until April 26, 2013, when the network axed the show based on a commercial decision.[5][109] During its run on the Nine Network in the early 2000s, episodes ended up being nearly five years behind the United States, due to the network's coverage of cricket each summer.[5] In an attempt to get viewers up to date with the US, Nine aired a one-hour special on September 13, 2004, titled, Days of Our Lives: A New Day, which summarized four years of storylines and caused mixed feelings among regular viewers.[5] This special was followed by episodes airing at the same pace as the US.[5] However, the show ended up being behind the US again, and by April 2013, episodes were airing at a delay of 16 months. On June 17, 2013, Days of Our Lives resumed to Australian viewers free and on-demand through Sony's Crackle service, as well as across Crackle's web apps on mobile devices, connected TVs and game consoles.[110] Crackle picked up where the Nine Network left off with 10 new episodes in its first week and seven new episodes every Monday thereafter.[110] From January 20, 2014, Crackle began releasing five episodes each week.[111] Days of Our Lives is currently six years behind the US. Days of Our Lives returned to Australian television on Foxtel's channel Arena in April 2014.[112] It airs weekdays before The Young and the Restless at 12:00 pm AEST. In order to bring TV viewers up to date, Arena screened ten catch up episodes, each presented by Days of Our Lives cast members, from April 1 to April 14, 2014, featuring key story lines missed during the 11-month Australian television hiatus.[112][113] Then on April 15, 2014, Arena began airing episodes at the same pace as the US.[112] Arena also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday around 7:00 am AEST.[113] New Zealand has aired Days of Our Lives along with The Young and the Restless since 1975, debuting on Television New Zealand (TVNZ). Originally airing weekdays on TV2 was shifted to TV One in 2003, where it was put in a 2pm time slot. The soap was approximately five seasons behind the NBC season due to being preempted by holiday and sporting programming. During October 2009, TVNZ announced that they were ending their exclusive contract with Sony Pictures. Despite a national petition from fans Days of Our Lives ended on May 19, 2010. On February 27, 2013, nearly three years the series' final broadcast on TVNZ, ChoiceTV announced their decision to pick up the series; the series began broadcasting on March 11, 2013, weekdays at 1:30pm. Broadcasting began with the series' 46th season (2011ÿ12), meaning the show would be only 18 months behind the current NBC season in the US. ChoiceTV also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday, beginning at 9 AM NZST, when due to government broadcasting restrictions[114] are shown without advertisements. By December 20, 2013, ChoiceTV had removed the show from their schedule for summer hiatus. However, the series resumed airing on February 10, 2014[115] from episode 11,880.[116] As of April 25, 2014, New Zealand viewers are up to episode 11,933, as ChoiceTV decides on if they will renew the show. Channel 5 aired episodes of Days of our Lives in the United Kingdom from March 2000 to April 2001, eventually pulling it off the air; network executives deemed its audience of 200,000 viewers as too low a figure.[7] Days had previously aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the Sky Soap channel between 1994 and 1999; episodes were three years behind U.S. telecasts. Days of Our Lives became available to viewers again in the United Kingdom in 2007-2010; CBS Drama ended the run after relegating the show from daytime to 1.00am. In South Africa, the soap aired on SABC 1 for ten years, from 1996 until March 2006, weekdays at 17:10 to 18:00 local standard time. As of April 2005, the soap airs on SABC 3, each weekday from 17:00 to 17:50.[citation needed] Beginning September 4, 2017, the show moves to ETV at 17:30pm according to promos posted online. Almost unmodified since the show's debut in 1965, the title sequence of Days of Our Lives features an hourglass, with sand slowly trickling to the bottom against the backdrop of a partly cloudy sky,[117] as well as the trademark voiceover, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." From the show's debut in 1965 until March 1966, announcer Ed Prentiss spoke the phrase, adding "Days of Our Lives, a new dramatic serial starring Macdonald Carey."[117] Since April 1966, the voice has been that of Macdonald Carey, who played Dr. Thomas Horton from the show's premiere until the actor's 1994 death from lung cancer.[118] From 1966 to 1994, he would add "This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives." After Carey's death in 1994, this second part was removed out of respect for Carey and his family. At intermission (between 1975 and 2011), his voice would also say "We will return for the second half of Days of Our Lives in just a moment".[117] The only major visual change to the title sequence was in 1993 when the show began using a CGI animated hourglass and backdrop.[117] The theme that regularly accompanies each sequence was composed by Charles Albertine, Tommy Boyce, and Bobby Hart.[119] The theme has only been modified a few times since Days of Our Lives premiered: in 1972; in 1993, when the opening titles were changed to computerized visuals (designed by Wayne Fitzgerald and Judy Loren); in 2004, with an orchestral arrangement that was only used in eight episodes, after which time the theme was reverted to the 1993 arrangement; and in 2009, when the theme was edited for time and shortened. Beginning with the November 8, 2010 episode, there were slight changes to the coloring of the sky background in the sequence now being displayed in 16:9 widescreen. However, there was very little change in the sequence's appearance from the 1993 version. The show has had many high-profile fans. In 1976, TIME magazine reported that then-Justice of the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall would call a recess around the 1 p.m. hour to watch Days of Our Lives.[124] Actress Julia Roberts admitted at the 2002 People's Choice Awards that she was a fan of Days of Our Lives, asked to be seated near the cast, and upon winning her award stated, "I'm very nervous because the cast of Days of Our Lives is here." In 2004, during the show's Melaswen storyline, Roberts' interest was considered notable enough that Entertainment Weekly quoted her saying that "the show has gotten a little wacko."[20] A 1998 TIME article mentioned that Monica Lewinsky was a passionate fan of Days of Our Lives, so much so that she wrote a poem about the series in her high school yearbook. The article compared her whirlwind experiences in the White House to a story on Days of Our Lives.[125] Best-selling novelist Brian Keene has stated in interviews that he has watched the show since 1983, and pauses from writing each day during the hour it is on.[125]

Vancouver, British Columbia🚨 Once Upon a Time is an American fantasy drama television series on ABC which debuted on October 23, 2011, and concluded on May 18, 2018. The first six seasons are largely set in the fictitious seaside town of Storybrooke, Maine, with the characters of Emma Swan and Regina Mills serving as the leads, while the seventh and final season takes place in a Seattle, Washington neighborhood called Hyperion Heights, with a new main narrative led by Swan and Mills son, Henry Mills. The show borrows elements and characters from the Disney franchise and popular Western literature, folklore, and fairy tales. Once Upon a Time was created by Lost and Tron: Legacy writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. A spin-off series, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, consisting of 13 episodes which followed the titular character from Alice in Wonderland, premiered on October 10, 2013 and concluded on April 3, 2014.[2] For the first six seasons, the series originally took place in the fictional seaside town of Storybrooke, Maine, in which the residents are actually characters from various fairy tales and other stories that were transported to the real world town and robbed of their original memories by the Evil Queen Regina (Lana Parrilla) who used a powerful curse obtained from Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle). The residents of Storybrooke, where Regina is mayor, have lived an unchanging existence for 28 years, unaware of their own lack of aging. The town's only hope lies with a bail-bonds person named Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), the daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), who was transported from the Enchanted Forest to the real world via a magic tree as an infant before she could be cursed. As such, she is the only person who can break the curse and restore the characters' lost memories. She is aided by her son, Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), with whom she was recently reunited after giving him up for adoption upon his birth, and his Once Upon a Time book of fairy tales that holds the key to breaking the curse. Henry is also the adopted son of Regina, providing a source of both conflict and common interest between the two women. In the seventh season reboot, an adult Henry Mills (Andrew J. West), along with Regina, Captain Hook (Colin O'Donoghue) and Rumplestiltskin, are found years later in the Seattle neighborhood of Hyperion Heights, where characters from a different realm were brought under a new curse. Hoping to restore her family's memories, Lucy (Alison Fernandez) must convince her parents, Henry and Cinderella (Dania Ramirez), of the true nature of Hyperion Heights, in the midst of emerging dangers involving Lady Tremaine (Gabrielle Anwar), Mother Gothel (Emma Booth) and Dr. Facilier (Daniel Francis). Episodes usually have one segment that details the characters' past lives that, when serialized, adds a piece to the puzzle about the characters and their connection to the events that preceded the curse and its consequences. The other, set in the present day, follows a similar pattern with a different outcome but also offers similar insights. The first season premiered on October 23, 2011. The Evil Queen interrupts the wedding of Snow White and Prince Charming to announce that she will cast a curse on everyone that will leave her with the only happy ending. As a result, the majority of the characters are transported to the town of Storybrooke, Maine, where they have been stripped of their original memories and identities as fairy tale characters. On her 28th birthday, Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, is brought to Storybrooke by her biological son Henry Mills in the hopes of breaking the curse cast by his adoptive mother, the Evil Queen Regina. The second season premiered on September 30, 2012.[3] Despite Emma having broken the curse, the characters are not returned to the fairy tale world, and must deal with their own dual identities. With the introduction of magic into Storybrooke by Mr. Gold, the fates of the two worlds become intertwined, and new threats emerge in the form of Captain Hook (Colin O'Donoghue), Regina's mother Cora (Barbara Hershey), also known as the Queen of Hearts, and sinister operatives from the real world with an agenda to destroy magic. The third season premiered on September 29, 2013. It was split into two volumes, with the first eleven episodes running from September to December 2013, and the later half from March to May 2014. In the first volume, the main characters travel to Neverland to rescue Henry, who has been kidnapped by Peter Pan (Robbie Kay) as part of a plan to obtain the "Heart of the Truest Believer" from him. Their increasing power struggle with Pan continues in Storybrooke, which ultimately results in the complete reversal of the original curse. All the characters are returned to their original worlds, leaving Emma and Henry to escape to New York City. In the second volume, the characters are mysteriously brought back to a recreated Storybrooke with their memories of the previous year removed, and the envious Wicked Witch of the West (Rebecca Mader) from the Land of Oz appears with a plan to change the past. Once again, Emma is needed to save her family. The fourth season premiered on September 28, 2014. It was also split into two volumes, with the first eleven episodes running from September to December 2014, and the later half from March to May 2015. A new storyline incorporating elements from Frozen was revealed when the time travel events of the previous season lead to the accidental arrival of Elsa (Georgina Haig) from the Enchanted Forest of the past to present-day Storybrooke. As she searches for her sister Anna (Elizabeth Lail) with the aid of the main characters, they encounter the Snow Queen (Elizabeth Mitchell).[4] Meanwhile, Regina seeks the Author of Henry's Once Upon a Time book so that she can finally have her happy ending. However, Mr. Gold, with the help of Cruella De Vil (Victoria Smurfit), Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten), and Ursula (Merrin Dungey), has his own plan to rewrite the rules governing the fates of all heroes and villains. Henry and Emma race to restore reality and the truth before the twisted inversion becomes permanent. However, the price leads to the ultimate sacrifice. The fifth season was announced on May 7, 2015,[5] and premiered on September 27, 2015. It was once again split into two volumes with the first volume ran from September to December 2015, and the second volume from March to May 2016. The characters embark on a quest to Camelot to find the Sorcerer Merlin (Elliot Knight) in order to free Emma from the powers of an ancient darkness that threatens to destroy everything. To complicate matters, King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) is determined to forever alter the balance between light and darkness using the legendary Excalibur. As history and destiny collide, unsuspected consequences lead the characters to the Underworld where they encounter souls of those with unfinished business and must face Hades (Greg Germann). In an attempt to restore order to the chaos that has culminated, the characters' dangerous manipulations of magic lead to an exacerbation of the war between light and darkness, with the separation of Regina and her Evil Queen persona, as well as the arrival of Dr. Jekyll (Hank Harris) and Mr. Hyde (Sam Witwer). The sixth season was announced on March 3, 2016, and premiered on September 25, 2016. The characters must defend Storybrooke from the combined threat of Mr. Hyde and an unleashed Evil Queen and the mysterious fate of saviors leads to Emma learning about Aladdin (Deniz Akdeniz).[6] The ongoing war between light and darkness ultimately leads to the arrival of the Black Fairy (Jaime Murray) as well as the final battle that was prophesied before the casting of the original curse. In May 2017, the series was renewed for a final seventh season consisting of 22 episodes,[7] which marked a soft reboot.[8][9][10][11] Years later, Lucy (Alison Fernandez) arrives in the fictional neighborhood of Hyperion Heights in Seattle, Washington with her Once Upon a Time book to find her father Henry Mills (Andrew J. West) who is needed by his family.[12][13][14] Characters from the New Enchanted Forest[15] were brought to Hyperion Heights under a new curse and are caught in a rising conflict involving Cinderella (Dania Ramirez) and Lady Tremaine (Gabrielle Anwar) whose dangerous history with Mother Gothel (Emma Booth) is revealed as well as the agendas of Dr. Facilier (Daniel Francis). Two worlds collide when the arrival of Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin and Wish Henry Mills as they plot and culminates on every characters' happy endings by separating them in a separate realms into their own separate storybooks, leading to someone making the ultimate sacrifice. Once Upon a Time's first season received "generally favorable" reviews from critics. Metacritic gave it a score of 66 out of 100 based on 26 reviews. The pilot episode was watched by 12.93?million viewers and achieved an adult 18ÿ49 rating/share of 4.0/10. The second season premiered on September 30, 2012, to an audience of 11.36?million viewers, while the third season began on September 29, 2013, opening to 8.52?million viewers. In May 2014, ABC renewed the show for its fourth season, premiering in September 2014 to an audience of 9.47?million viewers. The series was renewed for a fifth season in May 2015 and for a sixth season in March 2016.[27][28] On May 11, 2017, ABC renewed the series for a 22-episode seventh season.[7] In February 2018, it was announced the seventh season would serve as the final season of the series.[11] Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis conceived the show in 2004 before joining the writing staff of Lost, but wanted to wait until that series was over to focus on this project.[40] Executive producer Adam Horowitz[41] Eight years before the Once Upon a Time pilot (the two had just completed their work on Felicity, in 2002), Kitsis and Horowitz became inspired to write fairy tales out of a love of "mystery and excitement of exploring lots of different worlds."[42] They presented the premise to networks, but were refused because of its fantastic nature.[43] From their time on Lost, the writers learned to look at the story in a different way,[43] namely that "character has to trump mythology."[41] They explained, "As people, you've got to see what the void in their heart or in their lives is to care about them ... For us, this was as much about the character journeys and seeing what was ripped from them in coming to Storybrooke?ÿ going at it that way as opposed to making it the 'break-the-curse show.'"[44] Despite the comparisons and similarities to Lost, the writers intend them to be very different shows.[43] To them, Lost concerned itself with redemption, while Once Upon a Time is about "hope".[45] Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof aids in the development of the series as a consultant, but has no official credit on the show. Kitsis and Horowitz have called him a "godfather" to the series.[46][47] To differentiate the storytelling from what the audience already knew, the writing staff decided to begin the pilot with the end of the typical Snow White fairytale.[44] Themes concerning family and motherhood were emphasized, in contrast to the focus on fatherhood in Lost. Kitsis and Horowitz sought to write strong female characters, rather than the classic damsel in distress. Horowitz stated their desire to approach each character the same way, asking themselves, "How do we make these icons real, make them relatable?"[43] The pilot is meant to be the "template of the series".[42] Kitsis confirmed that every week will contain flashbacks between both worlds,[41] as they "love the idea of going back and forth and informing what the character is missing in their life."[48] The writers' desire to present a "mash up" of many small characters can be seen in a scene of the pilot, in which there is a war council featuring Geppetto, Pinocchio, and Grumpy. Horowitz elaborated, "One of the fun things for us coming up with these stories is thinking of ways these different characters can interact in ways they never have before."[43] Since then, the creators have added more elements, and given its ties to Disney, have managed to expand the universe to include more recent material, by throwing out hints that they might look ahead at incorporating characters from Brave and Frozen in future episodes, if they get the green light from Disney.[49] The Season 3 finale introduced Elsa in the final minutes of the episode.[50] The general premise, importing the Snow White core characters into the "real world", was previously seen on ABC television in the short-lived 1980s comedy The Charmings. The show also has a similar premise to Bill Willingham's ten-year-old comic series Fables, to which ABC bought the rights in 2008 but never made it past planning stages. After Fables fans raised controversy over possible appropriation, the show writers initially denied a link, but later said they may have "read a couple issues" of the comic book but while the two concepts are "in the same playground", they are "telling a different story."[48] Bill Willingham responded to the controversy in an interview, where he stated he did not feel the show was plagiarism and said: "Maybe they did remember reading Fables back then, but didn't want to mention it because we've become a very litigious people."[48][51] Secondary character casting director, Samuel Forsyth, started the casting process in 2010. Horowitz stated that everyone they initially wanted for roles in the series accepted their roles after being sent a script.[42][43] Ginnifer Goodwin was cast as Snow White / Mary Margaret Blanchard,[52] who appreciated that she would be playing a strong character that was fleshed out for the audience. Goodwin had stated in interviews that she would love to play Snow White, and called her acceptance of the role "a no-brainer."[53] Both Kitsis and Horowitz are self-described big fans of Goodwin's previous series, Big Love, and wrote the part of Snow White with her in mind.[43] Josh Dallas, who portrays Prince Charming / David Nolan, was pleased the writers took "some dramatic license" with his character, believing the prince had become more real. He explained, "Prince Charming just happens to be a name. He's still a man with the same emotions as any other man. He's a Prince, but he's a Prince of the people. He gets his hands dirty. He's got a kingdom to run. He has a family to protect. He has an epic, epic love for Snow White. He's like everybody else. He's human."[53] Jennifer Morrison was hired for the part of Emma Swan.[54] The actress explained her character as someone who "help[s] her son Henry whom she abandoned when he was a baby and who seems like he's a little bit emotionally dysfunctional", but noted that Emma does not start out believing in the fairytale universe.[53] Ten-year-old Jared Gilmore, known for his work on Mad Men, took the role of her son, Henry.[54] The role of The Evil Queen/ Regina was given to Lana Parrilla.[55] Lana Parrilla[53] The role of Rumplestiltskin / Mr. Gold was given to Robert Carlyle,[56] after having been written with him in mind, though the writers initially thought he would not accept the part.[41] Horowitz recalled Carlyle's prison sequence, which was the actor's first day on the set as "mind-blowing ... You could see Ginny actually jump, the first time he did that character. It was fantastic!"[42] Jamie Dornan portrayed the Huntsman / Sheriff Graham[57] as a series regular before being killed off in the seventh episode,[58] while Eion Bailey was cast as Pinocchio / August Wayne Booth[57] in a recurring role,[59] starting in the show's ninth episode, "True North", where he was credited as "Stranger", he was promoted to series regular status for the fifteenth episode, "Red-Handed".[60] Raphael Sbarge portrayed Jiminy Cricket / Dr. Archie Hopper.[57] For the second season, Meghan Ory and Emilie de Ravin were promoted to series regulars as Red Riding Hood / Ruby[61] and Belle / Lacey[62] respectively, while Bailey made guest appearances in two episodes after departing the series[63][64] and Sbarge joined the recurring cast.[65] Colin O'Donoghue was cast as Captain Killian "Hook" Jones,[66] and was upped to series regular for the fourteenth episode of the season.[67] For the third season, Michael Raymond-James was promoted to a series regular as Neal Cassidy,[68] while Ory did not return as a series regular due to commitments to the TV series, Intelligence.[69] For the fourth season, Michael Socha was brought onto the show as Will Scarlet / Knave of Hearts from the show's spin-off, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,[70][71] while Raymond-James was dropped from the regular cast[72] when the writers decided to kill off his character.[72] Bailey returned in a recurring arc towards the end of the season after being absent from the show since the second season.[73] For the fifth season, Rebecca Mader[38] and Sean Maguire[38] were announced to have been promoted to series regulars as Zelena / Wicked Witch of the West and Robin Hood respectively, while Socha was confirmed to not be returning as a series regular.[74] Ory also returned to the series in a recurring capacity after being absent since the third-season finale.[37] Before the series was renewed for a seventh season, Jennifer Morrison announced that, if the series were to be renewed, she would not be returning as a series regular for that season but agreed to return for one episode to wrap up Emma Swan's storyline.[75] Later that week, actress Rebecca Mader announced that she would also be leaving the series after the sixth season wrapped. It was later announced that Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, Jared S. Gilmore and Emilie de Ravin would also be leaving the show after the sixth season's finale aired. Along with departures, Andrew J. West and Alison Fernandez were announced to be joining the seventh season of the show as series regulars after guest starring in the previous season's finale. They will portray an older Henry Mills and his daughter Lucy respectively. In July 2017, actresses Dania Ramirez and Gabrielle Anwar were announced to be joining the cast of the seventh season as series regulars, playing new iterations of Cinderella and Lady Tremaine, respectively. In September 2017, Mekia Cox, who portrays Tiana, was promoted to a series regular.[76] Principal photography for the series takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia.[77][78] Steveston Village in the adjacent city of Richmond doubles as Storybrooke for the series, with props and exterior sets disguising the existing businesses and buildings. During filming, all brightly colored objects (flowers, etc.) are hidden to reinforce the story village's spell-subdued character. Certain sets are additionally filmed in separate studios, including the interior of Mr. Gold's pawn shop and the clock tower, which are not found in Steveston.[79] During the first six seasons, the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke, Maine are the main settings of the series. The Enchanted Forest is a realm within Fairy Tale Land, but the actual spread and scope of the realm is not known. However, they are later united during the Ogre Wars, which played a part in the formation of the War Council that is formed by Prince Charming and served as the catalysts in the backstories involving Rumpelstiltskin and the Evil Queen. Several independent kingdoms are implied by an array of different rulers. Most of the stories detailed their earlier lives before ascension to power and being influenced by their mentors through their upbringings. Meanwhile, Storybrooke serves as an isolated town separated from the rest of the Land Without Magic, where the cursed inhabitants are trapped by various forces. During the seventh season, the New Enchanted Forest[15] is shown as the main setting, alongside with Hyperion Heights, Seattle. As a realm in New Fairy Tale Land, the New Enchanted Forest is divided into several independent kingdoms with different rulers. The inhabitants are in-conflict with each other, most notably between Lady Tremaine, Cinderella, Drizella, a resistance led by Tiana, and the Coven of the Eight led by Mother Gothel. Most flashbacks shown are involving events happened before the original curse and before the latest curse that brought everyone to Hyperion Heights, where unlike Storybrooke, its cursed inhabitants are living among ordinary people. The show, including its spin-off, have explored beyond the main settings to numerous realms, each based on fairy tales, literature, and folklore. Known realms are Fairy Tale Land,[80] the Land Without Magic,[80] Wonderland,[80] the Dreamscape,[81] Land Without Color,[80] the Netherworld,[82] Neverland,[80] Victorian England,[83] the Land of Oz,[80] Kansas,[84] Asgard,[85] 1920s England,[86] the World Within the Book,[87] the Underworld,[88] the Worst Place,[89] Mount Olympus,[90] the Land of Untold Stories,[80] 19th Century France,[91] the World Behind the Mirror,[92] the Dark Realm,[93] the Wish Realm,[93] New Fairy Tale Land,[15] the World Beyond the Bridge,[94] the Mansion Realm,[94] the Edge of Realms,[94] New Wonderland,[95] and the Prison Realm.[96] All the realms are then merged via a variation of the Dark Curse, known as the United Realms.[97] As a nod to the ties between the production teams of Once Upon a Time and Lost, the former show contains allusions to Lost, and is expected to continue alluding to Lost throughout its run.[48] For example, many items found in the Lost universe, such as Apollo candy bars, Oceanic Airlines, Ajira Airways, the TV series Expos and MacCutcheon Whiskey, can be seen in Once Upon a Time.[98] Mark Isham composed the series' theme and music. On February 14, 2012, an extended play album featuring four cues from the score was released by ABC Studios.[99] On May 1, 2012, a full-length 25-track official soundtrack album was released by Intrada Records to accompany season one.[100] On August 13, 2013, another full-length 25-track official soundtrack album was released by Intrada to accompany season two.[101] Since December 2015, Mark Isham had begun to release music that was previously not released from the third, fourth and fifth seasons on his Soundcloud account. The series has been licensed to over 190 countries.[102] In Australia, Once Upon a Time first aired on Seven Network, starting on May 15, 2012. In Canada it airs on CTV from October 23, 2011. It premiered on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2012.[103] On December 17, 2013, it was confirmed that Channel 5 would not be picking the series up for the third season airing in the UK.[103] On March 14, 2015, Netflix picked up the show in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, subsequently showing all seasons and premiering each new episode on Wednesdays after their initial showing on Sundays on ABC. Critical response to the first season was generally positive. On Metacritic, it was given a score of 66 out of 100 with "generally favorable reviews".[104] E!'s Kristin dos Santos cited the show as one of the five new shows of the 2011ÿ2012 season to watch.[105] Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe gave the show a "C+" grade commenting "From a pair of Lost producers, this is a love-or-hate proposition. The ambition is impressive, as it asks us to imagine Goodwin's Snow White and Parrilla's Evil Queen as moderns. But Morrison is a wooden lead, and the back stories?ÿ a random collection of fairy tales -- don't promise to surprise."[106] In a review from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, TV critic Gail Pennington hailed it as one of the "Most Promising Shows of The Fall" and, unlike Gilbert, had high marks for Morrison.[107] USA Today's Robert Blanco placed the series on its top ten list, declaring that "There's nothing else on the air quite like it."[108] Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times preferred the series to another fairy-tale themed drama, Grimm, citing that the premise takes its time building up the charm and that the producer "has that part nailed". She also gave excellent reviews for Morrison's character: "Her Emma is predictably cynical and prickly?ÿ fairy-tale princess, my Aunt Fanny?ÿ but she's sharp and lively enough to keep audiences begging for 'just a few more pages' before they go to bed."[109] Several feminist outlets were pleased with the show for its feminist twist on fairy tales. Avital Norman Nathman of Bitch stated that she liked the show for "infusing a feminist sensibility" into the stories.[110] Genie Leslie at Feministing commented that Emma was a "badass", that she liked how Emma was "very adamant that women be able to make their own decisions about their lives and their children", and how Emma was a "well-rounded" character who was "feminine, but not 'girly'".[111] Natalie Wilson from Ms. praised the show for a strong, "kick-butt" female lead, for including multiple strong women who take turns doing the saving with the men, for subverting the fetishization of true love, and for dealing with the idea of what makes a mother in a more nuanced fashion. Wilson went on to state of the lead: "Her pursuit of a 'happy ending' is not about finding a man or going to a ball all gussied up, but about detective work, about building a relationship with her son Henry, and about seeking the 'truth' as to why time stands still in the corrupt Storybrooke world."[112] The first season premiered as the top-rated drama series. The pilot episode was watched by 13?million viewers and received a 4.0 rating/share among 18- to 49-year-olds.[113] It was the season's highest-rated drama debut among the age range and ABC's biggest debut in five years.[114][115] With DVR viewers, the premiere climbed to 15.5?million viewers and a 5.2 rating/share in adults 18ÿ49.[116] The show's next three episodes had consistent ratings every week with over 11?million viewers.[117][118][119] The series became the number one non-sports program in the U.S. with viewers and young adults on Sunday nights.[120] Once Upon a Time was nominated for a 2012 People's Choice Award for "Favorite New TV Drama", but lost to Person of Interest.[145] The show was nominated at the 39th People's Choice Awards in four categories: Favorite Network TV Drama, Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show, Favorite TV Fan Following, and Favorite TV Drama Actress (Ginnifer Goodwin); it lost to another ABC show Grey's Anatomy in the first category, Supernatural in the second two, and Ellen Pompeo (from Grey's Anatomy) in the last category. the show was nominated at 40th People's Choice Awards, but lost to Beauty and the Beast and The Vampire Diaries, respectively. The show was also nominated for "Best Genre Series" at the 2011 Satellite Awards, but lost to American Horror Story.[146] The show was nominated in this category again at the 2012 Satellite Awards, but lost to The Walking Dead.[147] The program also received three nominations at the 2012 Visual Effects Society Awards, but all lost to Boardwalk Empire, Gears of War 3, and Terra Nova.[148] At the 38th Saturn Awards, the series received a nomination for Best Network Television Series and Parrilla was nominated for Best Supporting Actress on Television, but lost to Fringe and Michelle Forbes, respectively.[149] The program was nominated for the former award again at the 39th Saturn Awards, but lost to new series Revolution.[150] Jared S. Gilmore was nominated for Best Performance by an Younger Actor on Television at 40th Saturn Awards, but lost to Chandler Riggs for The Walking Dead The show received trophies for "Favorite New TV Drama" and "Favorite Villain" for Lana Parrilla by the TV Guide.[151] The show was nominated at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards, but lost to The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars and Awkward and the show was also nominated at 2013 Teen Choice Awards, but lost to The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars. The show was nominated again 2014 Teen Choice Awards, but lost to The Vampire Diaries and Dylan O'Brien, respectively. It was also nominated at the 64th Creative Arts Primetime Emmy Awards, but lost to Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead and the show was nominated again at 65th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, but lost to The Borgias and Game of Thrones. In 2013, Disney-owned Hyperion Books published Reawakened by Odette Beane, a novelization of storylines from the first season, expanded to include new perspectives. The narrative is from the points-of-view of Emma Swan in Storybrooke and Snow White in the Enchanted Forest. The novel was published on April 28, 2013, as an ebook and May 7, 2013, in paperback form.[152] In 2015, production company Kingswell Teen published Red's Untold Tale, by Wendy Toliver, a novel telling a story of Red's past that was not seen in the show. The novel was published on September 22, 2015 and consisted of 416 pages.[153] In 2017, Kingswell Teen published a second novel, Regina Rising, also written by Wendy Toliver, which depicts the life of a sixteen year old Regina. The novel was published on April 25, 2017.[154] In 2018, Kingswell Teen published a third novel, Henry and Violet, written by Michelle Zink, which follows Henry and Violet on an adventure to New York City. The novel was published on May 8, 2018.[155] A comic book, titled Once Upon a Time: Shadow of the Queen, was released on September 4, 2013, in both digital and hardcover forms. The story was written by Dan Thomsen and Corinna Bechko, with art by Nimit Malavia, Vasilis Lolos, Mike Del Mundo, Stephanie Hans and Mike Henderson. Shadow of the Queen details what happens after the Evil Queen takes the Huntsman's heart. She forces the Huntsman to commit evil, and try to capture Snow White yet again. The Huntsman faces his past, and also meets Red Riding Hood, who is trying to cope with her beastly alter ego. Together, they team up and try to save Snow White before all is too late.[156] On April 14, 2014, a sequel to the first comic book called Once Upon a Time: Out of the Past was released.[157] In February 2013, Kitsis & Horowitz, along with producers Zack Estrin and Jane Espenson, developed a spin-off focusing on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland.[158] The series was called Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. A "teaser presentation" began shooting in April 2013, and the pilot was shot in late July or August.[159] On May 10, 2013, ABC announced that it had approved the spin-off and on May 14, 2013, announced that the spin-off would air in the Thursday night 8:00pm time slot instead of making it a fill-in for the parent series.[160] The series premiered on October 10, 2013, but was cancelled[161] after a single-season thirteen-episode run, and ended on April 3, 2014.[162]

Rian Johnson🚨

Atlantic Ocean🚨

between 1609 and 1616🚨The Sultan Ahmed Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii) is a historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. A popular tourist site, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues to function as a mosque today; men still kneel in prayer on the mosque's lush red carpet after the call to prayer. The Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Its Klliye contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosques interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosques five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes.[2] It sits next to the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site. After the Peace of Zsitvatorok and the crushing loss in the 1603ÿ18 war with Persia, Sultan Ahmet I, decided to build a large mosque in Istanbul to reassert Ottoman power. It would be the first imperial mosque for more than forty years. While his predecessors had paid for their mosques with the spoils of war, Ahmet I procured funds from the Treasury, because he had not gained remarkable victories. It caused the anger of the ulama, the Muslim jurists. The mosque was built on the site of the palace of the Byzantine emperors, in front of the basilica Hagia Sophia (at that time, the primary imperial mosque in Istanbul) and the hippodrome, a site of significant symbolic meaning as it dominated the city skyline from the south. Big parts of the south shore of the mosque rest on the foundations, the vaults of the old Grand Palace.[3] The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has five main domes, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. The design is the culmination of two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect, Sedefkar Mehmed A?a, synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour. It has a forecout and special area for abulation. In the middle it has a big fountain. On the upper side it has a big chain. The upper area is made up of 20000 ceramic tiles each having 60 tulip designs. In the lower area it has 200 stained glass. [4] At its lower levels and at every pier, the interior of the mosque is lined with more than 20,000 handmade ?znik style ceramic tiles, made at ?znik (the ancient Nicaea) in more than fifty different tulip designs. The tiles at lower levels are traditional in design, while at gallery level their design becomes flamboyant with representations of flowers, fruit and cypresses. The tiles were made under the supervision of the Iznik master. The price to be paid for each tile was fixed by the sultan's decree, while tile prices in general increased over time. As a result, the quality of the tiles used in the building decreased gradually.[5] The upper levels of the interior are dominated by blue paint. More than 200 stained glass windows with intricate designs admit natural light, today assisted by chandeliers. On the chandeliers, ostrich eggs are found that were meant to avoid cobwebs inside the mosque by repelling spiders.[6] The decorations include verses from the Qur'an, many of them made by Seyyid Kasim Gubari, regarded as the greatest calligrapher of his time. The floors are covered with carpets, which are donated by the faithful and are regularly replaced as they wear out. The many spacious windows confer a spacious impression. The casements at floor level are decorated with opus sectile. Each exedra has five windows, some of which are blind. Each semi-dome has 14 windows and the central dome 28 (four of which are blind). The coloured glass for the windows was a gift of the Signoria of Venice to the sultan. Most of these coloured windows have by now been replaced by modern versions with little or no artistic merit. The most important element in the interior of the mosque is the mihrab, which is made of finely carved and sculptured marble, with a stalactite niche and a double inscriptive panel above it. It is surrounded by many windows. The adjacent walls are sheathed in ceramic tiles. To the right of the mihrab is the richly decorated minber, or pulpit, where the imam stands when he is delivering his sermon at the time of noon prayer on Fridays or on holy days. The mosque has been designed so that even when it is at its most crowded, everyone in the mosque can see and hear the imam.[5] The royal kiosk is situated at the south-east corner. It comprises a platform, a loggia and two small retiring rooms. It gives access to the royal loge in the south-east upper gallery of the mosque. These retiring rooms became the headquarters of the Grand Vizier during the suppression of the rebellious Janissary Corps in 1826. The royal loge (hnkar mahfil) is supported by ten marble columns. It has its own mihrab, which used to be decorated with a jade rose and gilt[7] and with one hundred Qurans on an inlaid and gilded lecterns.[8] The many lamps inside the mosque were once covered with gold and gems.[9] Among the glass bowls one could find ostrich eggs and crystal balls.[10] All these decorations have been removed or pillaged for museums. The great tablets on the walls are inscribed with the names of the caliphs and verses from the Quran. They were originally by the great 17th-century calligrapher Seyyid Kasim Gubari of Diyarbak?r but have been repeatedly restored.[5] The fa?ade of the spacious forecourt was built in the same manner as the fa?ade of the Sleymaniye Mosque, except for the addition of the turrets on the corner domes. The court is about as large as the mosque itself and is surrounded by a continuous vaulted arcade (revak). It has ablution facilities on both sides. The central hexagonal fountain is small relative to the courtyard. The monumental but narrow gateway to the courtyard stands out architecturally from the arcade. Its semi-dome has a fine stalactite structure, crowned by a small ribbed dome on a tall tholobate. Its historical elementary school (S?byan Mektebi) is used as "Mosque Information Center" which is adjacent to its outer wall on the side of Hagia Sophia. This is where they provide visitors with a free orientational presentation on the Blue Mosque and Islam in general.[11] A heavy iron chain hangs in the upper part of the court entrance on the western side. Only the sultan was allowed to enter the court of the mosque on horseback. The chain was put there, so that the sultan had to lower his head every single time he entered the court to avoid being hit. This was a symbolic gesture, to ensure the humility of the ruler in the face of the divine.[11] The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the three mosques in Turkey that has six minarets (the other two being the modern Sabanc? Mosque in Adana and the Hz. Mikdat Mosque in Mersin). According to folklore, an architect misheard the Sultan's request for "alt?n minareler" (gold minarets) as "alt? minare" (six minarets), at the time a unique feature of the mosque of the Ka'aba in Mecca. When criticized for his presumption, the Sultan then ordered a seventh minaret to be built at the Mecca mosque.[12] Four minarets stand at the corners of the Blue Mosque. Each of these fluted, pencil-shaped minarets has three balconies (Called ?erefe) with stalactite corbels, while the two others at the end of the forecourt only have two balconies. Before the muezzin or prayer caller had to climb a narrow spiral staircase five times a day to announce the call to prayer.[12] Pope Benedict XVI visited the Sultan Ahmed Mosque on 30 November 2006 during his visit to Turkey. It marks as only the second papal visit in history to a Muslim place of worship. Having removed his shoes, the Pope paused for a full two minutes, eyes closed in silent meditation,[13] standing side by side with Mustafa ?a?r?c?, the Mufti of Istanbul, and Emrullah Hatipo?lu, the Imam of the Blue Mosque.[14] The pope thanked divine Providence for this and said, May all believers identify themselves with the one God and bear witness to true brotherhood. The pontiff noted that Turkey will be a bridge of friendship and collaboration between East and West, and he thanked the Turkish people for the cordiality and sympathy they showed him throughout his stay, saying, he felt loved and understood.[15] A short movie showing details of the Blue Mosque The Blue Mosque at sunset Seen from Sultanahmet Square, close to the Hagia Sophia Arcaded forecourt with one of the entrance gates Prayers inside Blue tiles Gateway to the courtyard View of the inner courtyard Prayer area Main dome and its blue tiles Arcades in the inner courtyard The blue mosque The Blue Mosque One of the minarets of the Blue Mosque Prayer

Paella🚨Paella[a] (Catalan:?[pa?e?a, p?-]; Spanish:?[pa?e?a]) is a Valencian rice dish that has ancient roots but its modern form originated in the mid-19th century in the area around Albufera lagoon on the east coast of Spain adjacent to the city of Valencia.[4] Many non-Spaniards view paella as Spain's national dish, but most Spaniards consider it to be a regional Valencian dish. Valencians, in turn, regard paella as one of their identifying symbols. Types of paella include, Valencian paella, vegetable paella (Spanish: paella de verduras), seafood paella (Spanish: paella de mariscos), and mixed paella (Spanish: paella mixta), among many others. Valencian paella is believed to be the original recipe[5] and consists of white rice, green beans (bajoqueta and tavella), meat (chicken, duck and rabbit), white beans (garrof܇n), snails, and seasoning such as saffron and rosemary. Another very common but seasonal ingredient is artichokes. Seafood paella replaces meat with seafood and omits beans and green vegetables. Mixed paella is a free-style combination of meat from land animals, seafood, vegetables, and sometimes beans. Most paella chefs use bomba[6] rice due to it being less likely to overcook, but Valencians tend to use a slightly stickier (and thus more susceptible to overcooking) variety known as Senia. All types of paellas use olive oil. Paella is a Valencian word[7][8][9] which derives from the Old French word paelle for pan, which in turn comes from the Latin word patella for pan. The word paella is also related to paila used in many Latin American countries. Paila in the Spanish language of Latin America refers to a variety of cookware resembling metal and clay pans, which are also used for both cooking and serving. The Latin root patella from which paella derives is also akin to the modern French pole,[10] the Italian padella[11] and the Old Spanish padilla.[12] Valencians use the word paella for all pans in the Valencian language, including the specialized shallow pan used for cooking paellas. However, in most other parts of Spain and throughout Hispanic America where the Spanish language is spoken (as opposed to the Valencian language), the term paellera ("paella pan") is more commonly used for the specialised pan while paella is reserved for the rice dish prepared in it, although both terms are deemed correct for the pan, as stated by the Royal Spanish Academy, the body responsible for regulating the Spanish language in Spain.[13][14] Paelleras are traditionally round, shallow, and made of polished steel with two handles.[15] Some claim that the origin of the word "paella" comes from the Arabic ???????, pronounced baqiyyah, meaning "leftovers". This claim is based on the 8th century custom where Moorish kings' servants would take home the rice, chicken, and vegetables their employers left at the end of the meal.[16][17][18][19] However, this etymology is impossible because paella didn't appear until six centuries after Moorish Valencia was conquered by Jaume I.[20] Moors in Muslim Spain began rice cultivation around the 10th century.[21] Consequently, Valencians often made casseroles of rice, fish, and spices for family gatherings and religious feasts, thus establishing the custom of eating rice in Spain. This led to rice becoming a staple by the 15th century. Afterwards, it became customary for cooks to combine rice with vegetables, beans, and dry cod, providing an acceptable meal for Lent. Along Spain's eastern coast, rice was predominantly eaten with fish.[22][23] Spanish food historian Lourdes March notes that the dish "symbolizes the union and heritage of two important cultures, the Roman, which gives us the utensil and the Arab which brought us the basic food of humanity for centuries."[24] On special occasions, 18th century Valencians used calderos to cook rice in the open air of their orchards near lake Albufera. Water vole meat was one of the main ingredients of early paellas,[25] along with eel and butter beans. Novelist Vicente Blasco Ib?ez described the Valencian custom of eating water voles in Ca?as y Barro (1902), a realistic novel about life among the fishermen and peasants near lake Albufera.[26] Living standards rose with the sociological changes of the late 19th century in Spain, giving rise to gatherings and outings in the countryside. This led to a change in paella's ingredients, as well, using instead rabbit, chicken, duck and sometimes snails. This dish became so popular that in 1840, a local Spanish newspaper first used the word paella to refer to the recipe rather than the pan.[22] The most widely used, complete ingredient list of this era was: short-grain white rice, chicken, rabbit, snails (optional), duck (optional), butter beans, great northern beans, runner beans, artichoke (a substitute for runner beans in the winter), tomatoes, fresh rosemary, sweet paprika, saffron, garlic (optional), salt, olive oil, and water.[22] Poorer Valencians, however, sometimes used nothing more than snails for meat. Valencians insist that only these ingredients should go into making modern Valencian paella. On the Mediterranean coast, Valencians used seafood instead of meat and beans to make paella. Valencians regard this recipe as authentic, as well. In this recipe, the seafood is served in the shell. A variant on this is paella del senyoret which uses seafood without shells. Later, however, Spaniards living outside of Valencia combined seafood with meat from land animals and mixed paella was born.[27] This paella is sometimes called preparaci܇n barroca (baroque preparation) due to the variety of ingredients and its final presentation.[28] During the 20th century, paella's popularity spread past Spain's borders. As other cultures set out to make paella, the dish invariably acquired regional influences. Consequently, paella recipes went from being relatively simple to including a wide variety of seafood, meat, sausage (including chorizo),[29][30] vegetables and many different seasonings.[31] However, the most globally popular recipe is seafood paella. Throughout non-Valencian Spain, mixed paella is less rare. Some restaurants both in Spain and abroad that serve this mixed version refer to it as Valencian paella. However, Valencians insist that only the original two Valencian recipes are authentic, and generally view all others as inferior, not genuine, or even grotesque.[27] According to tradition in Valencia, paella is cooked over an open fire, fueled by orange and pine branches along with pine cones. This produces an aromatic smoke which infuses the paella. Also, dinner guests traditionally eat directly out of the paellera.[4][22][27][32] Some recipes call for paella to be covered and left to settle for five to ten minutes after cooking. This recipe is standardized[32][33][34][35] because Valencians consider it traditional and very much part of their culture. Rice in Valencian paella is never braised in oil, as pilaf, though the paella made further southwest of Valencia often is. Recipes for this dish vary somewhat, even in Valencia. The recipe below is based on the two cited here.[36][37] There are countless mixed paella recipes. The following method is common to most of these. Seasoning depends greatly on individual preferences and regional influences. However, salt, saffron and garlic are almost always included.[38][39][40] After cooking paella, there is usually a layer of toasted rice at the bottom of the pan, called socarrat in Spain. This is considered a delicacy among Spaniards and is essential to a good paella. The toasted rice develops on its own if the paella is cooked over a burner or open fire. If cooked in an oven, however, it will not. To correct this, place the paellera over a high flame while listening to the rice toast at the bottom of the pan. Once the aroma of toasted rice wafts upwards, it is removed from the heat. The paella must then sit for about five minutes (most recipes recommend the paella be covered with a tea-towel at this point) to absorb the remaining broth. It has become a custom at mass gatherings in the Valencian Community (festivals, political campaigns, protests, etc.) to prepare enormous paellas, sometimes to win a place in the Guinness World Records book. Chefs use gargantuan paelleras for these events. Valencian restaurateur Juan Galbis claims to have made the world's largest paella with help from a team of workers on 2 October 2001. This paella fed about 110,000 people according to Galbis' former website.[41] Galbis says this paella was even larger than his earlier world-record paella made on 8 March 1992 which fed about 100,000 people. Galbis's record-breaking 1992 paella is listed in Guinness World Records.[42] Many chefs around the world have taken the traditional dish and added ingredients, such as chorizo, that are considered not to belong in the dish by Valencians. Spaniards, especially people from Valencia, have complained about this many times and it is a recurrent topic online. The alternative name proposed for these dishes, although pejorative, is "Arroz con cosas" (rice with things). Famous cases are Jamie Oliver's paella recipe[43][44] and Gordon Ramsay's.[45] The author Josep Pla once noted: The abuses committed in the name of Paella Valenciana, are excessive - an absolute scandal. Traditional Valencian cuisine offers recipes similar to paella valenciana and paella de marisco such as arrs negre, arrs al forn, arrs a banda and arrs amb fesols i naps. Fideu is a noodle dish variation of the paella cooked in a similar fashion, though it may be served with allioli sauce. The following is a list of other similar rice dishes: In 2015, an emoji for paella was proposed to Unicode.[47] The emoji was approved for Unicode 9.0 as U+1F958 "SHALLOW PAN OF FOOD" in June 2016. Although it is generally rendered as paella, Samsung has rendered the symbol as a Korean hot pot.[48]

101,643🚨Las Cruces, also known as "The City of the Crosses", is the seat of Do?a Ana County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 97,618,[2] and in 2015 the estimated population was 101,643,[4] making it the second largest city in the state, after Albuquerque. Las Cruces is the largest city in both Do?a Ana County and southern New Mexico.[5] The Las Cruces metropolitan area had an estimated population of 213,676 in 2014.[6] It is the principal city of a metropolitan statistical area which encompasses all of Do?a Ana County and is part of the larger El PasoÿLas Cruces combined statistical area. Las Cruces is the economic and geographic center of the Mesilla Valley, the agricultural region on the floodplain of the Rio Grande which extends from Hatch to the west side of El Paso, Texas. Las Cruces is the home of New Mexico State University (NMSU), New Mexico's only land-grant university. The city's major employer is the federal government on nearby White Sands Test Facility and White Sands Missile Range. The Organ Mountains, 10 miles (16?km) to the east, are dominant in the city's landscape, along with the Do?a Ana Mountains, Robledo Mountains, and Picacho Peak. Las Cruces lies 225 miles (362?km) south of Albuquerque, 48 miles (77?km) northwest of El Paso, Texas and 46 miles (74?km) north of the Mexican border at Santa Teresa. Spaceport America, which lies 55 miles (89?km) to the north and with corporate offices in Las Cruces, has seen the completion of several successful manned, suborbital flights. The city is also the headquarters for Virgin Galactic, the world's first company to offer sub-orbital spaceflights.[7] The area where Las Cruces rose was previously inhabited by the Manso people, with the Mescalero Apache living nearby.[1]:19 The area was later colonized by the Spanish beginning in 1598, when Juan de O?ate claimed all territory north of the Rio Grande for New Spain and later became the first governor of the Spanish territory of New Mexico.[1]:20ÿ21 The area remained under New Spain's control until September 28, 1821, when the first Mexican Empire claimed ownership. The area was also claimed by the Republic of Texas during this time until the end of the MexicanÿAmerican War in 1846ÿ48. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 established the United States as owner of this territory, and Las Cruces was founded in 1849 when the US Army laid out the town plans.[1]:36,40 Mesilla became the leading settlement of the area, with more than 2,000 residents in 1860, more than twice what Las Cruces had.[1]:48 When the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway reached the area, the landowners of Mesilla refused to sell it the rights-of-way, and instead residents of Las Cruces donated the rights-of-way and land for a depot in Las Cruces.[1]:58 The first train reached Las Cruces in 1881.[1]:62 Las Cruces was not affected as strongly by the train as some other villages, as it was not a terminus or a crossroads, but the population did grow to 2,300 in the 1880s. Las Cruces was incorporated as a town in 1907.[1]:135[1]:63 Pat Garrett is best known for his involvement in the Lincoln County War, but he also worked in Las Cruces on a famous case, the disappearance of Albert Jennings Fountain in 1896.[1]:68 Growth of Las Cruces has been attributed to the university, government jobs and recent retirees. New Mexico State University was founded in 1888, and it has grown as Las Cruces has grown. The establishment of White Sands Missile Range in 1944 and White Sands Test Facility in 1963 has been integral to population growth. Las Cruces is the nearest city to each, and they provide Las Cruces' work force many high-paying, stable, government jobs. In recent years, the influx of retirees from out of state has also increased Las Cruces' population. In the 1960s Las Cruces undertook a large urban renewal project, intended to convert the old downtown into a modern city center.[1]:115 As part of this, St. Genevieve's Catholic Church, built in 1859, was razed to make way for a downtown pedestrian mall.[1]:44,75,115 The original covered walkways are now being removed in favor of a more traditional main street thoroughfare. The exact origin of the city's name is unknown. It is told that it was named after three crosses on a hillside marking the graves of bandits, echoing an old tale of the valley of "Los Hermanos". In Spanish Las Cruces means "the crosses." (Some have claimed an alternative meaning of "the crossroads", but this is grammatically implausible, as cruce, the singular form of "crossroad", is masculine and the phrase would be Los Cruces.) The Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre occurred in Las Cruces. The approximate elevation of Las Cruces is 3,908 feet (1,191?m) above sea level. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 76.6 square miles (198.5?km2), of which 76.5 square miles (198.1?km2) is land and 0.2 square miles (0.4?km2), or 0.18%, is water.[2] Las Cruces is the center of the Organ Caldera; the Do?a Ana Mountains to the north and the Organ Mountains to the east are its margins.[8] Its major eruption was 32?Ma.[9] Do?a Ana County lies within the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion, and the vegetation surrounding the built portions of the city are typical of this setting; it includes creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), soaptree (Yucca elata), tarbush (Flourensia cernua), broom dalea (Psorothamnus scoparius), and various desert grasses such as tobosa (Hilaria mutica or Pleuraphis mutica) and black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda). The Rio Grande bisects the Mesilla Valley and passes west of Las Cruces proper, supplying irrigation water for the intensive agriculture surrounding the city.[10] However, the Rio Grande fills its banks only when water is released from upstream dams, which is seldom, due to continuing drought.[11] Prior to farming and ranching, desert shrub vegetation extended into the valley from the adjacent deserts, including extensive stands of tornillo (Prosopis pubescens) and catclaw acacia (Acacia greggii). Desert grasslands extend in large part between the edges of Las Cruces and the lower slopes of the nearby Organ and Robledo Mountains, where grasses and assorted shrubs and cacti dominate large areas of this mostly rangeland as well as the occasional large-lot subdivision housing. The desert and desert grassland uplands surrounding both sides of the Mesilla Valley are often dissected with arroyos, dry streams that often carry water following heavy thunderstorms. These arroyos often contain scattered small trees, and they serve as wildlife corridors between Las Cruces' urban areas and adjacent deserts or mountains. Unlike many cities its size, Las Cruces lacks a true central business district. This is because in the 1960s an urban-renewal project tore down a large part of the original downtown. Most Las Crucens would agree that the modern "heart" of the city, where most stores and restaurants are located, is the rapidly developing east side. Las Cruces' shopping mall and a variety of retail stores and restaurants are located in this area. However, the historic downtown of the city is the area around Main Street, a six-block stretch of which was closed off in 1973 to form a pedestrianized shopping area. The downtown mall has an extensive farmers market each Wednesday and Saturday morning, where a variety of foods and cultural items can be purchased from numerous small stands that are set up by local farmers, artists and craftspeople.[12] It also contains museums, businesses, restaurants, churches, art galleries and theaters, which add a great deal to the changing character of Las Cruces' historic downtown. In August 2005, a master plan was adopted, the centerpiece of which was the restoration of narrow lanes of two-way traffic on this model portion of Main Street shown to the right. Main Street was reopened to vehicular traffic in 2012. In February 2013, Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima announced during his "State of the City" address that a 700-acre (280?ha) park in the area behind the Las Cruces Dam was under construction, in cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers. The area features trails through restored wetlands and serves as a major refuge for migratory birds and a key recreational area for the city.[13] Las Cruces has an arid climate (K?ppen BWk). Winters alternate between colder and windier weather following trough and frontal passages, and warmer, sunnier periods; light frosts occur many nights. Spring months can be windy, particularly in the afternoons, sometimes causing periods of blowing dust and short-lived dust storms. Summers begin with the hottest weather of the year, with some extended periods of over 100?F or 37.8?C weather not uncommon, while the latter half of the summer seeing increased humidity and frequent afternoon thunderstorms, with slightly lower daytime temperatures. Autumns feature decreasing temperatures and precipitation. Precipitation is very light from October to June, with only occasional winter storm systems bringing steady precipitation to the Las Cruces area. Most winter moisture is in the form of rain, though some light snow falls most winters, usually enough to accumulate and stay on the ground for a few hours, at most. Warm season precipitation is often from heavy showers, especially from the late summer monsoon weather pattern. Since records began in 1892, the lowest temperature recorded at State University has been ?10?F or ?23.3?C on January 11, 1962 ÿ though only ten nights have ever fallen to or below 0?F or ?17.8?C ÿ and the highest 110?F or 43.3?C on June 28, 1994. The lowest maximum on record is 16?F or ?8.9?C on January 28, 1948 and the highest minimum 80?F or 26.7?C on July 5, 1920. The wettest calendar year has been 1941 with 19.60 inches or 497.8 millimetres, although 1905 with 17.09 inches or 434.1 millimetres is the only other year to exceed 15 inches (380?mm). The only months to exceed 6 inches (150?mm) have been September 1941 with 7.53 inches or 191.3 millimetres and August 1935 with 7.41 inches or 188.2 millimetres. The wettest single day has been August 30, 1935 with 6.49 inches or 164.8 millimetres and the driest calendar year 1970 with 3.44 inches or 87.4 millimetres. As of the 2010 census Las Cruces had a population of 97,618.[2] The ethnic and racial makeup of the population was:[15] As of the census of 2000, there were 74,267 people, 29,184 households, and 18,123 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,425.7 people per square mile (550.5/km2). There were 31,682 housing units at an average density of 608.2 per square mile (234.8/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 69.01% White, 2.34% African American, 1.74% Native American, 1.16% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 21.59% from other races, and 4.10% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 51.73% of the population. There were 29,184 households out of which 30.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.3% were married couples living together, 15.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.9% were non-families. 27.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 3.05. In the city, the population was spread out with 25.1% under the age of 18, 16.0% from 18 to 24, 26.9% from 25 to 44, 19.0% from 45 to 64, and 13.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 94.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.0 males. The median income for a household in the city was $30,375, and the median income for a family was $37,670. Males had a median income of $30,923 versus $21,759 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,704. About 17.2% of families and 23.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.7% of those under age 18 and 9.7% of those age 65 or over. Major employers in Las Cruces are New Mexico State University, Las Cruces Public Schools, the City of Las Cruces, Memorial Medical Center, Walmart, MountainView Regional Medical Center, Do?a Ana County, Do?a Ana Community College, Addus HealthCare, and NASA. Movies and TV series shot in Las Cruces include: Most of Las Cruces's cultural events are held late in the calendar year.[18][19] The Border Book Festival occurs the last weekend in April. It features a trade show, readings, film festival, workshops led by local artists and writers, and discussion panels.[20][21] The festival was founded in 1994 by authors Denise Chvez and Susan Tweit; Chvez is the Executive Director of the festival.[22] The city hosts two wine festivals annually. The Harvest Wine Festival is held over Labor Day weekend, and features wines from New Mexico wineries, a grape stomping contest, several concerts throughout the weekend, food from several local vendors, and related shopping.[23] The Southern New Mexico Wine Festival is held over Memorial Day weekend and also exclusively features New Mexico wines, local foods, and live music. Additionally, the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival features the University of Wine, short educational sessions which teach patrons about proper food and wine pairings.[24] Both festivals are held at the fairgrounds just west of the city. The Whole Enchilada Fiesta was held the last weekend in September. It attracted roughly 50,000 attendees each year. The centerpiece was the making of a large flat enchilada. The fiesta started in 1980 with a 6-foot-diameter (1.8?m) enchilada, and it had grown over the years. In 2000, the fiesta's 10?1?2-foot-diameter (3.2?m) enchilada was certified by Guinness World Records as the world's largest. After the enchilada was assembled, it was cut into many pieces and distributed free of charge to the fiesta attendees. The enchilada was the brainchild of local restaurant owner Roberto V. Estrada, who directed its preparation each year. The celebration also featured a parade, the Whole Enchilada Fiesta Queen competition, a huachas[25] tournament, activities for kids, live music, an enchilada eating contest, a 5 kilometer road race, a one-mile race, and a car and motorcycle show.[26][27][28] After 34 years, The Whole Enchilada Fiesta's final event occurred in 2014 after Estrada had retired.[29] The Southern New Mexico State Fair, usually held the first week in October at the fairgrounds west of Las Cruces, promotes traditional agriculture. Boasting one of the largest junior livestock shows in the state, the fair invites youth from six counties in New Mexico and Texas to participate.[30] The local Day of the Dead (Da de los Muertos) originated in Mexico, and is a celebration of the lives of those now dead. It is held November 1ÿ2 by the Calavera Coalition,[31] a nonprofit organization. The event is held at the plaza in Mesilla, and at the Branigan Cultural Center[32] in downtown Las Cruces. Every year in October, Las Cruces holds a pumpkin harvest festival in Mesilla for the whole month of October. On Halloween, the Mesilla Valley Mall holds a "day of the walking dead", where zombies walk around the mall.[33] The Renaissance ArtsFaire, founded in 1971, includes a juried art show and is put on by the Do?a Ana Arts Council each year in November. It is held at Young Park.[34][35][36] Cowboy Days is an event held in Las Cruces at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. It is one of the largest events at the museum, and it is held over two days in early March. Some of the fun includes "children's activities, cowboy food and music, cowboy mounted shooting, horseback and stagecoach rides, living history, gunfight re-enactments, arts and crafts vendors, roping, horseshoeing and many other demonstrations."[37] A Cinco de Mayo celebration is held May 3ÿ4. Cinco de Mayo ("Fifth of May") is the celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. The event is held in Mesilla and provides arts and crafts, food vendors, and Mexican music.[37] Another major event is the annual 4th of July Electric Light Parade, celebration and fireworks display held July 3 and 4th. The celebration begins with a parade and ends with a firework display held at the Field of Dreams Football Stadium.[38] The Las Cruces Game Convention, now known as CrucesCon, is an annual event where gamers compete in high-level tournaments and play free games. The LCGC is a non-profit event with 100% of the proceeds going towards the community, equipment, and future events.[39] One last major event held annually in the Las Cruces area is the lighting of the Mesilla Plaza. Every Christmas Eve, the historic plaza of Mesilla is lined with thousands of luminarias, which are brown bags containing candles and weighted sand. The evening consistently attracts locals and tourists.[40] The New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum is state-operated and shows the history of farming and ranching in New Mexico. It is located just east of New Mexico State University.[41] The New Mexico State University Arthropod Museum and Collection contains approximately 500,000 arthropod specimens.[42] The University Museum (Kent Hall) at New Mexico State University focuses on archeological and ethnographic collections and also has some history and natural science collections.[43] The Zuhl Museum (located in the Alumni and Visitors' Center) at New Mexico State University focuses on geologic collections, including the finest collection of petrified wood on display and a large fossil and mineral collection.[44] There are four city-owned museums. The Branigan Cultural Center examines local history through photographs, sculpture, paintings, and poetry. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Las Cruces Museum of Art offers art exhibits and classes. The Las Cruces Museum of Natural History makes science and natural history more accessible to the general public and has an emphasis on local animals and plants. The Las Cruces Railroad Museum is in the historic Santa Fe Railroad station. It exhibits the impact of the railroads on the local area.[45] The New Mexico Veterans Museum, a new state-owned museum, was announced in August 2008 and is planned to be constructed in Las Cruces.[46][47] The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra is an 80-member orchestra, conducted by Dr. Lonnie Klein.[48] The orchestra consists of 47% students, 17% NMSU faculty, 20% other local musicians, and 16% professionals from outside Las Cruces.[49] The venue of the orchestra is the NMSU Music Center Recital Hall.[49] The orchestra received attention with the world premiere of Bill McGlaughlin's Remembering Icarus, a tribute to local radio pioneer Ralph Willis Goddard, performed by the LCSO on October 1, 2005.[50] The performance was taped and broadcast nationally on NPR's Performance Today on December 9, 2005[51] and on July 4, 2007 on Performance Today and on Sirius Satellite Radio.[52] Several water tanks in Las Cruces have been painted with murals by Tony Pennock, including one at the intersection of Triviz Drive and Griggs Avenue.[53][54] Multimedia artist group Keep Adding have a large mural titled Wave Nest on Picacho Avenue at the Lion's Park. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces. The following points of interest are within a few miles of Las Cruces: The town of Mesilla, located 3 miles (5?km) to the southwest, is a suburb of Las Cruces. It avoided the urban renewal that Las Cruces went through in the 1960s[1]:115 and still has its historic downtown plaza. The Basilica of San Albino and many shops and restaurants are on the town plaza. The Gadsden Museum is dedicated to the family of Albert Jennings Fountain and includes artifacts from the time of the Gadsden Purchase, which made Mesilla a US possession. There is a visitor center inside the Town Hall.[55] The Shalem Colony and Oahspe Museum commemorates the utopian Shalem Colony that existed near Las Cruces from 1884 to 1907 and the Oahspe bible that they used.[56][57] The Space Murals Museum in Organ has scale models of the Space Shuttle and Space Station Freedom and some relics of the Space Age.[58][59] Fort Selden State Monument is a former United States Army post, active from 1865 to 1891. Buffalo Soldiers were stationed here. Douglas MacArthur lived here as a boy (his father was post commander). The fort is located in Radium Springs, 13 miles (21?km) north of Las Cruces on Interstate 25. There is a visitor center.[60] White Sands Missile Range, 25 miles (40?km) east of Las Cruces on U.S. Highway 70, offers tourists a museum and a missile park. There is a refurbished V-2 rocket on exhibit.[61] Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument is a hiking area in the Organ Mountains. The entrance is on U.S. Highway 70 on the east side of the mountains, 17 miles (27?km) east of Las Cruces. Dripping Springs Natural Area is another hiking area, located farther south and on the west side of the mountains. Both areas are owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Prehistoric Trackways National Monument is the nation's newest national monument and is currently being developed just northwest of Las Cruces in the Robledo Mountains. This national monument protects 280-million-year-old fossil footprints and trackways discovered by Jerry P. MacDonald. These trackways include tracks from numerous extinct animals such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. At the university level, the New Mexico State Aggies compete in the Western Athletic Conference for men's and women's basketball, and in the Sun Belt Conference for football. Aggies men's basketball has had a rich history of success. In recent years the Aggies have made the NCAA tournament four out of five years. The 2014-15 NMSU women's basketball team reached the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1988, when it won both the WAC regular season and tournament championships. The Las Cruces Kings have been a long running semi-professional football team in the city. Beginning in the 2010 season, the Las Cruces Vaqueros[62] were the first ever professional sports team in Las Cruces. In the 2011 season the Vaqueros joined the Pecos League of Professional Baseball Clubs[63] against the White Sands Pupfish, Roswell Invaders, Ruidoso Osos, Alpine Cowboys and Carlsbad Bats.[64] The Vaqueros played in the Pecos League of Professional Baseball Clubs for the 2011ÿ2013 seasons. The team returned for the 2015 season, but structural damage to their home ballpark in January 2016 forced them to sit out the 2016 season. They plan to return for the 2017 season.[65] Las Cruces operates 87 city parks, 18 tennis courts, and four golf courses.[66]:41 A list of parks, with facilities and maps, is available.[66]:8 [67] Las Cruces holds a Ciclova, a citywide event featuring exercise and physical activities, on the last Sunday of each month at Meerscheidt Recreation Center.[68] Las Cruces is a charter city[69] (also called a home rule city) and has a council-manager form of government.[70] The city council consists of six councillors and the mayor, who chairs the meetings.[69]:Article II The mayor is elected at-large, and each of the city councilors represents one neighborhood district within the city.[69]:Article II Each resident of Las Cruces is thus represented by the mayor and by one city councilor. The mayor and city council members serve staggered four-year terms. As of the 2015ÿ2017 term, the mayor is Ken Miyagishima. Councilors are Kasandra Gandara, Dist. 1; Greg Smith, Mayor Pro-Tem, Dist. 2; Olga Pedroza, Dist. 3; Jack Eakman, Dist. 4; Gill M. Sorg, Dist. 5; Cecilia "Ceil" Levatino, Dist. 6. Live and archived video of city council meetings are available anytime at CLCTV.com.[71] Other city officials are City Manager, Stuart C. Ed; Assistant City Manager, David Dollahon; Assistant City Manager, William Studer; Director of Communications, Udell Vigil; City Attorney, Jennifer Vega-Brown; Police Chief, Jaime Montoya; Fire Chief, Eric Enriquez.[citation needed] Public schools are in the Las Cruces Public School District, which covers the city of Las Cruces as well as White Sands Missile Range, the settlement of Do?a Ana, and the town of Mesilla. The system has 26 elementary schools, nine middle schools, and six high schools. Of the high schools, Rio Grande Preparatory is an alternative high school.[72] There are four charter schools within the Las Cruces Public Schools. Alma d'arte is a high school with a focus on an integrated arts curriculum. Las Monta?as is a charter high school that opened in fall 2007 and caters to at-risk students. New America High School offers schooling for young and older adults who want to go back to school for their diploma or GED. Academia Dolores Huerta Middle School is the only recognized dual language program in the state.[73][74] There are four private Christian schools.[81] College Heights Kindergarten is a private Christian kindergarten, founded in 1954.[82] Desert Springs Christian Academy, Las Cruces Catholic School[83] and Mesilla Valley Christian School are the other three Christian schools in the area. Also, a small independent Baptist Christian school called the Cornerstone Christian Academy located at the Cornerstone Baptist Church was established in 2005. A secular non-profit private school, Las Cruces Academy, aimed at gifted and academically advanced students, is offering grades K-5 with plans to eventually enroll grades Kÿ12.[81][84][85] New Mexico State University, or NMSU, is a land-grant university that has its main campus in Las Cruces.[86] The school was founded in 1888 as Las Cruces College, an agricultural college, and in 1889 the school became New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. It received its present name, New Mexico State University, in 1960. The NMSU Las Cruces campus had approximately 18,500 students enrolled as of fall 2012, and had a faculty-to-student ratio of about 1 to 19. NMSU offers a wide range of programs and awards associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through its main campus and four community colleges. For 10 consecutive years, NMSU has been rated as one of America's 100 Best College Buys for offering "the very highest quality education at the lowest cost" by Institutional Research & Evaluation Inc., an independent research and consulting organization for higher education. NMSU is one of only two land-grant institutions classified as Hispanic-serving by the federal government. The university is home to New Mexico's NASA Space Grant Program and is one of 52 institutions in the United States to be designated a Space Grant College. During its most recent review by NASA, NMSU was one of only 12 space grant programs in the country to receive an excellent rating. The Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine (BCOM), a private osteopathic medical school, opened on the campus of NMSU in 2013. The first class began instruction in August 2016. Do?a Ana Community College is a branch of New Mexico State University. When it first opened in 1973 it had 500 students in six programs.[87] In 2008, there were 4,607 full-time equivalent credit enrollments and 7,401 non-credit students served by 133 full-time faculty, 360 part-time instructors, and 155 part-time non-credit teachers, together with 227 full-time staff and 131 part-time staff.[88] DACC operates centers in Anthony, Sunland Park, Chaparral, and White Sands Missile Range.[89] In Las Cruces, its central campus is at 3400 S. Espina Street, and its East Mesa campus is at 2800 Sonoma Ranch Boulevard. Community Education is available at all centers and campuses and also in Las Cruces at the Mesquite Neighborhood Learning Center at 804 N. Tornillo, and Workforce Center at 2345 E. Nevada Street.[90] Thomas Branigan Memorial Library is the city's public library. It was constructed in 1979[91]:93 and has a collection of about 185,000 items.[92] The previous library building, also called Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, opened in 1935.[91]:68ÿ69 That building is now the Branigan Cultural Center.[91]:8 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The two university libraries at the New Mexico State University campus, Branson Library and Zuhl Library, are open to the public. Any New Mexico resident can check out items from these libraries.[93] The metro area has TV broadcasting stations that serve the El Paso ÿ Las Cruces Designated Market Area (DMA) as defined by Nielsen Media Research. The City of Las Cruces operates CLC-TV cable channel 20, an Emmy award-winning 24-hour Government-access television (GATV) and Educational-access television channel on Comcast cable TV in Las Cruces. CLC-TV televises live and recorded Las Cruces city council meetings, Do?a Ana County commission meetings and Las Cruces School board meetings. The channel also televises City Beat, a monthly news magazine, hosted by Jennifer Martinez, with information directly related to the City of Las Cruces. Also available for viewing is health news and other government/education related programming, as well as current weather reports and road and traffic information. CLC-TV is not a Public-access television cable TV channel. In addition to a 2009 Emmy Award by the Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, CLC-TV received a 1st and 3rd place award by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) and five national Telly Awards, four platinum and one gold. All CLC-TV programming is available for viewing online at clctv.com.clctv Las Cruces Sun-News is a daily newspaper published in Las Cruces by MediaNews Group. Las Cruces Bulletin is a weekly community newspaper published in Las Cruces by FIG Publications, LLC. It is tabloid size and covers local news, business, arts, sports, and homes. The Round Up is the student newspaper at New Mexico State University. It is tabloid size and published twice weekly. The Ink is a monthly tabloid published in Las Cruces, covering the arts and community events in southern New Mexico and west Texas. Las Cruces has one television station, the PBS outlet KRWG-TV, operated by New Mexico State University. The Telemundo outlet KTDO-TV is licensed in Las Cruces but serves El Paso. The city also receives several Albuquerque, El Paso, and Ciudad Jurez stations. Las Cruces is in Nielsen Media Research's El Paso/Las Cruces television media market. Las Cruces has one local commercial independent cable television station called "The Las Cruces Channel" (LCC98). It can be seen on Comcast cable channel 98. LCC-98 is not a Public-access television channel. The channel airs programs that are produced locally in their studio facility and by outside producers. There are approximately ten commercial radio stations in the Las Cruces area, running a variety of formats. Four of these stations are owned by Adams Radio Group and four are owned by Bravo Mic Communications, LLC, a Las Cruces company. The local NPR outlet is KRWG-FM, operated by New Mexico State University. NMSU also operates a college radio station, KRUX. KRUC is a Spanish-language station in Las Cruces. Many El Paso stations are received in Las Cruces. See list of radio stations in New Mexico for a complete list of stations. Las Cruces is in Arbitron's Las Cruces media market. Las Cruces is served by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, via a branch line that extends from Belen, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas. Passenger service on this line was discontinued in 1968, due to low ridership numbers on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway's (predecessor to the BNSF) El Pasoan train. The city operates a small transit authority known as RoadRUNNER Transit. RoadRUNNER Transit operates a total of nine routes running Mondays through Saturdays. There is no Sunday service. An adult fare is $1.00. The active fleet consists of three Nova Bus RTS (2000 model year) and 11 Gillig Advantage (2004 and 2008 model years) transit buses, all of which are 35 feet (11?m) long and wheelchair-accessible. NMDOT Park and Ride's Gold Route connects Las Cruces to El Paso, Texas Monday through Friday during commute hours. The Silver Route connects Las Cruces to White Sands Missile Range. The fare for this service is $3.00. Ztrans connects Las Cruces with Alamogordo.[94] Greyhound's Las Cruces stop is located in the nearby unincorporated community of Do?a Ana. Buses departing Las Cruces serve El Paso, Amarillo, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego.[95] The city of Las Cruces provides water, sewer, natural gas, and solid waste services, including recycling centers.[96] El Paso Electric is the electricity provider,[97] CenturyLink is the telephone land line provider, and Comcast is the cable TV provider. Memorial Medical Center is a for-profit general hospital operated by LifePoint Hospitals Inc. The physical plant is owned by the City of Las Cruces and the County of Do?a Ana, who signed a 40-year, $150 million lease in 2004 with Province HealthCare, since absorbed into LifePoint.[98][99] Prior to 2004 it was leased to and operated by the nonprofit Memorial Medical Center Inc.[100][101] The hospital is a licensed 286-bed acute care facility and is accredited by JCAHO. It offers a wide range of patient services.[102] The University of New Mexico Cancer Center-South opened in 2006 on the MMC campus. It is 5,300 square feet (490?m2) and has 9 exam rooms.[103] The original facility was called Memorial General Hospital and was opened in April 1950 at South Alameda Boulevard and Lohman Avenue after the city obtained a $250,000 federal grant. In 1971 the city and county joined to build a new hospital on South Telshor Boulevard. In 1990 it was renamed Memorial Medical Center.[104] MountainView Regional Medical Center is a for-profit general hospital operated by Community Health Systems (formerly Triad Hospitals). It opened for business in August 2002. It is a 168-bed facility with a wide range of patient services.[105] Mesilla Valley Hospital is a 125-bed private psychiatric hospital operated by Universal Health Services. It is an acute inpatient and residential facility offering a variety of treatments for behavioral health issues.[106] Rehabilitation Hospital of Southern New Mexico is a 40-bed rehabilitative care hospital, operated by Ernest Health Inc.. It opened January 2005. It treats patients after they have been cared for at general hospitals for injuries or strokes.[107] Advanced Care Hospital of Southern New Mexico is a 20-bed long-term acute care facility operated by Ernest Health Inc.. It opened in July 2007.[108] Rio Grande Medical Group[109] Ben Archer Health Centers[110] La Clinica de Familia[111] Pinnacle Family Health Care[112] Covenant Clinics[113] Las Cruces Urgent Care[114] Las Cruces has two sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International: Las Cruces Sister Cities Foundation[117] is responsible for overseeing sister cities activities on behalf of the citizens of Las Cruces. Template:Linkrt

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Caribbean Sea🚨The Isthmus of Panama (Spanish: Istmo de Panam), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (Istmo de Darin), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal. Like many isthmuses, it is a location of great strategic value. The isthmus formed around 2.8 million years ago.[1] This major geological event separated the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and caused the creation of the Gulf Stream. This was first suggested in 1910 by North American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn. He based the proposal on the fossil record of mammals in Central America.[2] This conclusion provided a foundation for Alfred Wegener when he proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912.[3] Vasco N~?ez de Balboa heard of the South Sea from natives while sailing along the Caribbean coast. On 25 September 1513 he saw the Pacific. In 1519 the town of Panam was founded near a small indigenous settlement on the Pacific coast. After the discovery of Peru, it developed into an important port of trade and became an administrative centre. In 1671 the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan crossed the Isthmus of Panam from the Caribbean side and destroyed the city. The town was relocated some kilometers to the west at a small peninsula. The ruins of the old town, Panam Viejo, are preserved and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Silver and gold from the viceroyalty of Peru were transported overland across the isthmus by Spanish Silver Train to Porto Bello, where Spanish treasure fleets shipped them to Seville and Cdiz from 1707. Lionel Wafer spent four years between 1680 and 1684 among the Cuna Indians.[4] Scotland tried to establish a settlement in 1698 through the Darien scheme. The California Gold Rush, starting in 1849, brought a large increase in the transportation of people from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Steamships brought gold diggers from eastern US ports, who trekked across the isthmus by foot, horse, and later rail. On the Pacific side, they boarded Pacific Mail Steamship Company vessels headed for San Francisco. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal, started a Panama Canal Company in 1880 that went bankrupt in 1889 in the Panama scandals. In 1902ÿ4, the United States forced Colombia to grant independence to the Department of the Isthmus, bought the remaining assets of the Panama Canal Company, and finished the canal in 1914. A significant body of water (referred to as the Central American Seaway) once separated the continents of North and South America, allowing the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mix freely. Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earth's crust were slowly colliding, forcing the Cocos Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate. The pressure and heat caused by this collision led to the formation of underwater volcanoes, some of which grew large enough to form islands as early as 15 million years ago. Meanwhile, movement of the two tectonic plates was also pushing up the sea floor, eventually forcing some areas above sea level. Over time, massive amounts of sediment (sand, soil, and mud) from North and South America filled the gaps between the newly forming islands. Over millions of years, the sediment deposits added to the islands until the gaps were completely filled. By no later than 4.5 million years ago, an isthmus had formed between North and South America. However, an article in Science Magazine stated that zircon crystals in middle Miocene bedrock from northern Colombia indicated that by 10 million years ago, it is likely that instead of islands, a full isthmus between the North and South American continents had already likely formed where the Central American Seaway had been previously.[5] Evidence also suggests that the creation of this land mass and the subsequent warm, wet weather over northern Europe resulted in the formation of a large Arctic ice cap and contributed to the current ice age. That warm currents can lead to glacier formation may seem counterintuitive, but heated air flowing over the warm Gulf Stream can hold more moisture. The result is increased precipitation that contributes to snow pack.[6] The formation of the Isthmus of Panama also played a major role in biodiversity on the planet. The bridge made it easier for animals and plants to migrate between the two continents. This event is known in paleontology as the Great American Interchange. For instance, in North America today, the opossum, armadillo, and porcupine all trace back to ancestors that came across the land bridge from South America. Likewise, bears, cats, dogs, horses, llamas, and raccoons all made the trek south across the isthmus. As the connecting bridge between two vast land masses, the Panamanian biosphere is filled with overlapping fauna and flora from both North and South America. There are, for example, over 978 species of birds in the isthmus area.[7] The tropical climate also encourages a myriad of large and brightly colored species, insects, amphibians, birds, fish, and reptiles. Divided along its length by a mountain range, the isthmus's weather is generally wet on the Atlantic (Caribbean) side but has a clearer division into wet and dry seasons on the Pacific side. Coordinates: 840N 800W? / ?8.667N 80.000W? / 8.667; -80.000

regarding the admissibility of expert witnesses' testimony during United States federal legal proceedings🚨The Daubert standard provides a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witnesses' testimony during United States federal legal proceedings. Pursuant to this standard, a party may raise a Daubert motion, which is a special case of motion in limine raised before or during trial to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy refers to the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard: Important appellate-level opinions that clarify the standard include Judge Kozinski's opinion in Daubert on remand (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1995)), and Judge Becker's opinion in In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litig., 35 F.3d 717 (3d Cir. 1994). In Daubert, seven members of the Court agreed on the following guidelines for admitting scientific expert testimony: In 2000, Rule 702 was amended in an attempt to codify and structure elements embodied in the "Daubert trilogy." The rule then read as follows: (As amended Apr. 17, 2000, eff. Dec. 1, 2000.) In 2011, Rule 702 was again amended to make the language clearer. The rule now reads: (As amended Apr. 17, 2000, eff. Dec. 1, 2000; Apr. 26, 2011, eff. Dec. 1, 2011) While some federal courts still rely on pre-2000 opinions in determining the scope of Daubert, as a technical legal matter any earlier judicial rulings that conflict with the language of amended Rule 702 are no longer good precedent. Although the Daubert standard is now the law in federal court and over half of the states, the Frye standard remains the law in some jurisdictions including California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington.[5] Florida passed a bill to adopt the Daubert standard as the law governing expert witness testimony, which took effect on July 1, 2013.[6] However, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the Legislature's "Daubert Amendment" to the extent it is procedural in nature.[7] Although trial judges have always had the authority to exclude inappropriate testimony, prior to Daubert, trial courts often preferred to let juries hear evidence proffered by both sides.[8] Once certain evidence has been excluded by a Daubert motion because it fails to meet the relevancy and reliability standard, it will likely be challenged when introduced again in another trial. Even though a Daubert motion is not binding to other courts of law, if something was found untrustworthy by one court, other judges may choose to follow that precedent. Of course, a decision by an appellate court that a piece of evidence is inadmissible under Daubert would be binding on district courts within that court's jurisdiction. To attack expert testimony as inadmissible, counsel may bring pretrial motions, including motions in limine.[9] The motion in limine may be brought prior to trial, although counsel may bring the motion during trial as well.[10] A motion attacking expert testimony should be brought within a reasonable time after the close of discovery if the grounds for the objection can be reasonably anticipated.[11] The hearing should be made well in advance of the first time a case appears on a trial calendar. In one case where a Daubert hearing was conducted on the day of the trial, in which the district court excluded all plaintiff's expert testimony, resulting in the dismissal of all claims, the appellate court remanded the case because of multiple irregularities and a defective record of lower court proceedings.[12] The appellate court noted that in cases that rely heavily on expert testimony, a district court should set a discovery[13] and trial schedule that realistically provides both sides with an adequate opportunity to introduce necessary evidence. The application of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 to proposed expert testimony can often be an uncertain process, and is best conducted in such a manner that litigants have a reasonable opportunity to locate experts who meet the rule's requirements. In another case in which the defendant was apparently at fault for filing a motion to exclude expert testimony one week before the trial date, the district court denied the motion on that ground, but it advised the defendant that it might conduct its own voir dire of the expert in question before he testified. The district court preliminarily found that defendant's motion was predicated on a ruling made almost three months earlier by a district court in another state, and that defendant had shown no good cause for waiting to file the motion. The defendant ultimately lost that case, following the admission of the disputed expert testimony, and ultimately failed in its appeal.[14] An evidentiary hearing on the motion may not be necessary if the court finds that it would not assist the court in ruling on any of the matters in the motion. Prior to Daubert, relevancy in combination with the Frye test were the dominant standards for determining the admissibility of scientific evidence in Federal courts. Frye is based on a 1923 Federal Court of appeals ruling involving the admissibility of polygraph evidence.[15] Under Frye, the Court-based the admissibility of testimony regarding novel scientific evidence on whether it has "gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs." The trial court's gatekeeper role in this respect is typically described as conservative, thus helping to keep pseudoscience out of the courtroom by deferring to those in the field. In Daubert, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1923 Frye test was superseded by the 1975 Federal Rules of Evidence, specifically Rule 702 governing expert testimony. Rule 702 originally stated (in its entirety), If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. In Daubert, the Court ruled that nothing in the Federal Rules of Evidence governing expert evidence "gives any indication that 'general acceptance' is a necessary precondition to the admissibility of scientific evidence. Moreover, such a rigid standard would be at odds with the Rules' liberal thrust and their general approach of relaxing the traditional barriers to 'opinion' testimony." By requiring experts to provide relevant opinions grounded in reliable methodology, proponents of Daubert were satisfied that these standards would result in a fair and rational resolution of the scientific and technological issues which lie at the heart of product liability adjudication.[16] Ironically, Daubert has not appeared to further the Federal Rules philosophy of admitting generally all relevant testimony, and specifically of relaxing the traditional barriers to 'opinion' testimony." The Daubert decision has instead been heralded by some political commentators as one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in imposing higher barriers for toxic tort and product liability cases, by allegedly reducing the volume of so-called junk science in the court room. According to a 2002 RAND study, post Daubert, the percentage of expert testimony by scientists that was excluded from the courtroom significantly rose. This rise likely contributed to a doubling in successful motions for summary judgment in which 90% were against plaintiffs.[17] Beyond this study, there is little empirical evidence of the impact of Daubert. However, some critics argue that Daubert has disrupted the balance between plaintiffs and defendants, The exclusion of expert testimony affects plaintiffs far more than defendants because plaintiffs may then not be able to meet their required burden of proof. Furthermore, there is little point in plaintiffs going to the expense of Daubert motions to exclude defendants experts until they know if their case will proceed. So if more experts are now being excluded, then Daubert has undoubtedly shifted the balance between plaintiffs and defendants and made it more difficult for plaintiffs to litigate successfully.[8] Similarly, Daubert hearings can be subject to various abuses by attorneys attempting to bolster a weak case. These tactics can range from simply attempting to delay the case to driving up the costs of the litigation forcing settlement.[18] A different pattern has emerged in criminal cases. In criminal cases, the prosecution has the burden of proof and uses a host of forensic science methods as evidence to prove their case. But, Daubert motions are rarely made by criminal defendants and when they do, they lose a majority of the challenges.[19][20] Some critics of the use of unreliable science in court argue that Daubert has had beneficial effects in civil litigation, but fails to address the underlying pathologies of the forensic science system that leads to dubious verdicts in criminal cases.[21] Some commentators believe that Daubert caused judges to becomein the phrase used in former Chief Justice William Rehnquists dissent in Daubertamateur scientists, many lacking the scientific literacy to effectively fulfill their role as gatekeeper of scientific evidence.[22] Although "science for judges" forums have emerged in the wake of Daubert in order to educate judges in a variety of scientific fields, many are still skeptical about the usefulness of the Daubert standard in discerning valid science.[23][24][25] The responsibility to assess scientific relevance has shifted from highly trained expert witnesses to judges deficient in science education. The "Daubert" ruling furthermore admits the possible introduction of non-peer reviewed data and conclusions. This increasingly shifts the burden of scientific judgement onto judges who have not had an education which would enable them to properly evaluate such data.[26] Pursuant to Rule 104(a), in Daubert the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that the following factors be considered:[27] The Supreme Court explicitly cautioned that the Daubert list should not be regarded by judges as "a definitive checklist or test..." Yet in practice, judges have judged the admissibility of scientific evidence using the "Daubert factors" as a checklist; for example, the trial court judge in Kumho admitted to erroneously treating the factors as mandatory.[8] The Canadian Supreme Court has expressly adopted the Daubert standard in two cases. R. v. Mohan,;[28] R. v. J.L.-J., [2000].[29] In J.L.-J., the Court took a look at the development of U.S. law in this regard, noted the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of the Frye standard and its replacement with the Daubert Standard. While the Court did note that: " Daubert must be read in light of the specific text of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which differs from our own procedures," the Court also stated in the same sentence that "the U.S. Supreme Court did list a number of factors that could be helpful in evaluating the soundness of novel science."[30] The Court then applied the Daubert standard to a decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal. The Quebec Court had held that greater liberality should be applied by the Court in receiving pro-defense scientific evidence in a criminal case.[31] The Court rejected this decision and reinstated the defendant's conviction. Additionally, in 2005, the United Kingdom House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recommended the creation of a Forensic Science Advisory Council to regulate forensic evidence in the UK and observed that: The absence of an agreed protocol for the validation of scientific techniques prior to their being admitted in court is entirely unsatisfactory. Judges are not well-placed to determine scientific validity without input from scientists. We recommend that one of the first tasks of the Forensic Science Advisory Council be to develop a "gate-keeping" test for expert evidence. This should be done in partnership with judges, scientists and other key players in the criminal justice system, and should build on the US Daubert test.[32] The Law Commission for England and Wales has proposed a consultation paper (No.190) to adopt a criterion like the Daubert Standard to help reform the law of evidence in regards to the admissibility of scientific evidence.[33]

November 1903🚨Mary Anderson (February 19, 1866 ÿ June 27, 1953)[1] was an American real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist and inventor of the windshield wiper blade. In November 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent[2] for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled inside the car, called the windshield wiper.[3] Mary Anderson was born in Greene County, Alabama, at the start of Reconstruction in 1866. In 1889 she moved with her widowed mother and sister to the booming town of Birmingham, Alabama. She built the Fairmont Apartments on Highland Avenue soon after settling in. By 1893, Mary Anderson had moved west to Fresno, California where until 1898 she operated a cattle ranch and vineyard. In a visit to New York City in the winter of 1902, in a trolley car on a frosty day, she observed that the motorman drove with both panes of the double front window open because of difficulty keeping the windshield clear of falling sleet.[4] When she returned to Alabama she hired a designer for a hand-operated device to keep a windshield clear and had a local company produce a working model. She applied for, and in 1903 was granted, a 17-year patent for a windshield wiper.[1] Her device consisted of a lever inside the vehicle that controlled a rubber blade on the outside of the windshield. The lever could be operated to cause the spring-loaded arm to move back and forth across the windshield. A counterweight was used to ensure contact between the wiper and the window.[5][6] Similar devices had been made earlier, but Anderson's was the first to be effective.[6] In 1905 Anderson tried to sell the rights to her invention through a noted Canadian firm, but they rejected her application saying "we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale." After the patent expired in 1920 and the automobile manufacturing business grew exponentially, windshield wipers using Anderson's basic design became standard equipment.[citation needed] In 1922, Cadillac became the first car manufacturer to adopt them as standard equipment.[5] Anderson resided in Birmingham, where she continued to manage the Fairmont Apartments until her death at the age of 87. At the time of her death she was the oldest member of South Highland Presbyterian Church. She died at her summer home in Monteagle, Tennessee. Her funeral was conducted by Dr. Frank A Mathes at South Highland and she was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.[1] Anderson's invention of the windshield wiper is mentioned in Season 17, Episode 19: "Girls Just Want to Have Sums," of the cartoon The Simpsons, during a debate between Marge Simpson and her husband and son, Homer and Bart, about gender equality: Anderson's windshield wiper invention is also briefly mentioned on the British panel/quiz show; QI (Quite Interesting); Season 10, Episode 16 - "Just the Job". "When was the windshield wiper invented?" was the Weather Channel "Question of the Day" for July 6, 2016. NPR's Morning Edition produced a profile, including an interview with her great-great-niece into her legacy and societal context on July 25, 2017. [8] In 2011 she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.[9]