title: New Model Army

text: Parliament authorised an Army of 22,000 soldiers, most of whom came from three existing Parliamentarian armies; that commanded by the Earl of Essex, Waller's Southern Association and the Eastern Association under the Earl of Manchester. It comprised 6,600 cavalry, divided into eleven units of 600 men, 14,400 foot, comprising twelve regiments of 1,200 men, and 1,000 dragoons. Originally each regiment of cavalry had a company of dragoons attached, but at the urging of Fairfax on 1 March they were formed into a separate unit commanded by Colonel John Okey. Although the cavalry regiments were already up to strength, the infantry was severely understrength and in May 1645 was still 4,000 men below the approved level.


title: New Model Army

text: By creating fewer but larger regiments, the re-organisation greatly reduced the requirement for officers and senior NCOs. Fairfax had more than double the number of officers available for his 200 vacancies and those deemed surplus to requirements were either discharged or persuaded to re-enlist at a lower rank. Essex and Manchester raised objections to around 30% of those on the list, for reasons that are still debated, but ultimately only five changes were approved. In addition, several Scots officers refused to take up their appointments, including John Middleton, originally colonel of the Second Regiment of Horse.


title: New Model Army

text: The standard daily pay was 8 pence for infantry and 2 shillings for cavalry, who also had to supply their own horses, while the administration of the Army was more centralised, with improved provision of adequate food, clothing and other supplies. At the same time, recruits were also supposed to be motivated by religious fervour, as demonstrated in the "Soldier's catechism", written by Robert Ram. On 9 June 1645, Sir Samuel Luke, one of the officers discharged, wrote the Army was "the bravest for bodies of men, horse and arms so far as the common soldiers as ever I saw in my life". However, he later complained many soldiers were drunk and their officers were often indistinguishable from enlisted men.


title: New Model Army

text: The extent to which the Army can be seen as a hotbed of religious and political radicalism is disputed, particularly since many of those now viewed as radicals, like Thomas Horton or Thomas Pride, were not considered such at the time. It is generally agreed that Fairfax, himself a moderate Presbyterian, sought to achieve a balance, while Essex and Manchester tried to remove those they viewed as unsuitable. What is debated is whether they did so for military reasons, favouring the retention of established officer cadres, or to eliminate personal enemies and those considered too radical. Ultimately they failed and Fairfax successfully achieved his objective.


title: New Model Army

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" dated the earliest use of the phrase "New Model Army" to the works of the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle in 1845, and the exact term does not appear in 17th- or 18th-century documents. Records from February 1646 refer to the "New Modelled Army"—the idiom of the time being to refer to an army that was "new-modelled" rather than appending the word "army" to "new model".


title: New Model Army

text: The New Model Army's elite troops were its Regiments of Horse. They were armed and equipped in the style known at the time as harquebusiers, rather than as heavily armoured cuirassiers. They wore a back-and-front breastplate over a buff leather coat, which itself gave some protection against sword cuts, and normally a lobster-tailed pot helmet with a movable three-barred visor, and a bridle gauntlet on the left hand. The sleeves of the buff coats were often decorated with strips of braid, which may have been arranged in a regimental pattern. Leather "bucket-topped" riding boots gave some protection to the legs.


title: New Model Army

text: Regiments were organised into six troops, of one hundred troopers plus officers, non-commissioned officers and specialists (drummers, farriers etc.). Each troop had its own standard, square. On the battlefield, a regiment was normally formed as two "divisions" of three troops, one commanded by the regiment's colonel (or the major, if the colonel was not present), the other by the lieutenant colonel.


title: New Model Army

text: Their discipline was markedly superior to that of their Royalist counterparts. Cromwell specifically forbade his men to gallop after a fleeing enemy, but demanded they hold the battlefield. This meant that the New Model cavalry could charge, break an enemy force, regroup and charge again at another objective. On the other hand, when required to pursue, they did so relentlessly, not breaking ranks to loot abandoned enemy baggage as Royalist horse often did.


title: New Model Army

text: The New Model Army contained one regiment of dragoons, of twelve companies each of one hundred men, under Colonel John Okey. Dragoons were mounted infantry, and wore much the same uniform as musketeers although they probably wore stout cloth gaiters to protect the legs while riding. They were armed with flintlock "snaphaunces" rather than the matchlock muskets carried by the infantry.


title: New Model Army

text: On the battlefield, their major function was to clear enemy musketeers from in front of their main position. At the Battle of Naseby, they were used to outflank enemy cavalry.


title: New Model Army

text: They were also useful in patrolling and scouting. In sieges, they were often used to assault breaches carrying flintlock carbines and grenades. The storming party were sometimes offered cash payments, as this was a very risky job. Once the forlorn hope established a foothold in the enemy position, the infantry followed them with their more cumbersome pikes and matchlock muskets.


title: New Model Army

text: In 1650, Okey's dragoons were converted into a regiment of horse. It appears that after that date, unregimented companies of dragoons raised from the Militia and other sources were attached to the regiments of horse and foot as required. This was the case at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650.


title: New Model Army

text: The Regiments of Foot consisted of ten companies, in which musketeers and pikemen were mixed, at least on the march. Seven companies consisted of one hundred soldiers, plus officers, specialists and so on, and were commanded by captains. The other three companies were nominally commanded by the regiment's colonel, lieutenant colonel and major, and were stronger (200, 160 and 140 ordinary soldiers respectively).


title: New Model Army

text: The regiments of foot were provided with red coats. Red was chosen because uniforms were purchased competitively from the lowest bidder, and Venetian red was the least expensive dye. Those used by the various regiments were distinguished by differently coloured linings, which showed at the collar and ends of the sleeves, and generally matched the colours of the regimental and company standards. In time, they became the official "Facing colour". On some occasions, regiments were referred to, for example, as the "blue" regiment or the "white" regiment from these colours, though in formal correspondence they were referred to by the name of their colonel. Each company had its own standard, square. The colonel's company's standard was plain, the lieutenant colonel's had a cross of Saint George in the upper corner nearest the staff, the major's had a "flame" issuing from the cross, and the captains' standards had increasing numbers of heraldic decorations, such as roundels or crosses to indicate their seniority.


title: New Model Army

text: The New Model Army always had two musketeers for each pikeman, though depictions of battles show them present in equal numbers. On the battlefield, the musketeers lacked protection against enemy cavalry, and the two types of foot soldier supported each other. For most siege work, or for any action in wooded or rough country, the musketeer was generally more useful and versatile. Musketeers were often detached from their regiments, or "commanded", for particular tasks.


title: New Model Army

text: Pikemen, when fully equipped, wore a pot helmet, back- and breastplates over a buff coat, and often also armoured tassets to protect the upper legs. They carried a sixteen-foot pike, and a sword. The heavily burdened pikeman usually dictated the speed of the Army's movement. They were frequently ordered to discard the tassets, and individual soldiers were disciplined for sawing a foot or two from the butts of their pikes, although senior officers were recommended to make the men accustomed to marching with heavy loads by regular route marches. In irregular fighting in Ireland, the New Model temporarily gave up the pike. In battle, the pikemen were supposed to project a solid front of spearheads, to protect the musketeers from cavalry while they reloaded. They also led the infantry advance against enemy foot units, when things came to push of pike.


title: New Model Army

text: The musketeers wore no armour, at least by the end of the Civil War, although it is not certain that none had iron helmets at the beginning. They wore a bandolier from which were suspended twelve wooden containers, each with a ball and measured charge of powder for their matchlock muskets. These containers are sometimes referred to as the "Twelve Apostles". According to one source, they carried 1 lb of fine powder, for priming, to 2 lbs of lead and 2 lbs of ordinary powder, the actual charging powder, for 3 lbs of lead. They were normally deployed six ranks deep, and were supposed to keep up a constant fire by means of the "countermarch"—either by introduction whereby the rear rank filed to the front to fire a volley, or by "retroduction" where the front rank fired a volley then filed to the rear. By the time that they reached the front rank again, they should have reloaded and been prepared to fire. At close quarters, there was often no time for musketeers to reload, and they used their musket butts as clubs. They carried swords, but these were often of inferior quality, and ruined by use for cutting firewood. Bayonets were not introduced into European armies until the 1660s and so were not part of a musketeer's equipment.


title: New Model Army

text: The establishment of the New Model Army's artillery varied over time, and the artillery was administered separately from the Horse and Foot. At the Army's formation, Thomas Hammond (brother of Colonel Robert Hammond who commanded a Regiment of Foot) was appointed Lieutenant General of the Ordnance. Much of the artillery was captured from the Royalists in the aftermath of the Battle of Naseby and the storming of Bristol.


title: New Model Army

text: The establishment of the New Model also included at least two companies of "firelocks" or fusiliers, who wore "tawny coats" instead of red, commanded initially by Major John Desborough. They were used to guard the guns and ammunition wagons, as it was obviously undesirable to have matchlock-armed soldiers with lighted matches near the gunpowder barrels.


title: New Model Army

text: The artillery was used to most effect in sieges, where its role was to blast breaches in fortifications for the infantry to assault. Cromwell and the other commanders of the Army were not trained in siege warfare and generally tried to take fortified towns by storm rather than go through the complex and time-consuming process of building earthworks and trenches around it so that batteries of cannon could be brought close to the walls to pound it into surrender. The Army generally performed well when storming fortifications, for example at the siege of Drogheda, but paid a heavy price at Clonmel when Cromwell ordered them to attack a well-defended breach.


title: New Model Army

text: The New Model did not use tents, instead being quartered in whatever buildings (houses, barns etc.) were available, until they began to serve in the less populated areas of the countries of Ireland and Scotland. In 1650, their tents were each for six men, a file, who carried the tents in parts. In campaigns in Scotland, the troops carried with them seven days' rations, consisting exclusively of biscuit and cheese.


title: New Model Army

text: The Army took the field in late April or May, 1645. After an attempt to raise the siege of Taunton was abandoned, the Army began a siege of Oxford, sending a detachment of one regiment of cavalry and four of infantry to reinforce the defenders of Taunton. After the Royalists captured Leicester, Fairfax was ordered to leave Oxford and march north to confront the King's army. On 14 June, the New Model destroyed King Charles' smaller but veteran army at the Battle of Naseby. Leaving the Scots and locally raised forces to contain the King, Fairfax marched into the West Country, where they destroyed the remaining Royalist field army at Langport on 10 July. Thereafter, they reduced the Royalist fortresses in the west and south of England. The last fortress in the west surrendered in early 1646, shortly before Charles surrendered himself to a Scottish army and hostilities ended.


title: New Model Army

text: Having won the First Civil War, the soldiers became discontented with the Long Parliament, for several reasons. Firstly, they had not been paid regularly – pay was weeks in arrears – and on the end of hostilities, the conservative MPs in Parliament wanted to either disband the Army or send them to fight in Ireland without addressing the issue of back pay. Secondly, the Long Parliament refused to grant the soldiers amnesty from prosecution for any criminal acts they had been ordered to commit in the Civil War. The soldiers demanded indemnity as several soldiers were hanged after the war for crimes such as stealing horses for use by the cavalry regiments. Thirdly, seeing that most Parliamentarians wanted to restore the King without major democratic reforms or religious freedom, many soldiers asked why they had risked their lives in the first place, a sentiment that was strongly expressed by their elected representatives.


title: New Model Army

text: Two representatives, called Agitators, were elected from each regiment. The Agitators, with two officers from each regiment and the Generals, formed a new body called the Army Council. At a meeting ("rendezvous") held near Newmarket, Suffolk on 4 June 1647 this council issued "A Solemne Engagement of the Army, under the Command of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax" to Parliament on 8 June making their concerns known, and also detailing the constitution of the Army Council so that Parliament would understand that the discontent was Army wide and had the support of both officers and other ranks. This Engagement was read out to the Army at a general Army rendezvous on 5 June.


title: New Model Army

text: Having come into contact with ideas from the radical movement called the Levellers, the troops of the Army proposed a revolutionary new constitution named the Agreement of the People, which called for almost universal male suffrage, electoral boundary reform, power to rest with a Parliament elected by the people every two years, religious freedom, and an end to imprisonment for debt.


title: New Model Army

text: Increasingly concerned at the failure to pay their wages and by political manoeuvrings by King Charles I and by some in Parliament, the army marched slowly towards London over the next few months. In late October and early November at the Putney Debates, the Army debated two different proposals. The first was the "Agreement of the People"; the other was the "Heads of Proposals", put forward by Henry Ireton for the Army Council. This constitutional manifesto included the preservation of property rights and would maintain the privileges of the gentry. At the Putney Debates, it was agreed to hold three further rendezvous.


title: New Model Army

text: The army remained under control and intact, so it was able to take the field when the Second English Civil War broke out in July 1648. The New Model Army routed English royalist insurrections in Surrey and Kent, and in Wales, before crushing a Scottish invasion force at the Battle of Preston in August.


title: New Model Army

text: Many of the Army's radicals now called for the execution of the King, whom they called "Charles Stuart, that man of blood". The majority of the Grandees realised that they could neither negotiate a settlement with Charles I, nor trust him to refrain from raising another army to attack them, so they came reluctantly to the same conclusion as the radicals: they would have to execute him. After the Long Parliament rejected the Army's "Remonstrance" by 125 to 58, the Grandees decided to reconstitute Parliament so that it would agree with the Army's position. On 6 December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride instituted Pride's Purge and forcibly removed from the House of Commons all those who were not supporters of the religious independents and the Grandees in the Army. The much-reduced Rump Parliament passed the necessary legislation to try Charles I. He was found guilty of high treason by the 59 Commissioners and beheaded on 30 January 1649.


title: New Model Army

text: Now that the twin pressures of Royalism and those in the Long Parliament who were hostile to the Army had been defeated, the divisions in the Army present in the Putney Debates resurfaced. Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax and the other Grandees were not prepared to countenance the Agitators' proposals for a revolutionary constitutional settlement. This eventually brought the Grandees into conflict with those elements in the New Model Army who did.


title: New Model Army

text: During 1649, there were three mutinies over pay and political demands. The first involved 300 infantrymen of Colonel John Hewson's regiment, who declared that they would not serve in Ireland until the Levellers' programme had been realised. They were cashiered without arrears of pay, which was the threat that had been used to quell the mutiny at the Corkbush Field rendezvous.


title: New Model Army

text: In the Bishopsgate mutiny, soldiers of the regiment of Colonel Edward Whalley stationed in Bishopsgate, in London, made demands similar to those of Hewson's regiment. They were ordered out of London.


title: New Model Army

text: Less than two weeks later, there was a larger mutiny involving several regiments over pay and political demands. After the resolution of the pay issue, the Banbury mutineers, consisting of 400 soldiers with Leveller sympathies under the command of Captain William Thompson, continued to negotiate for their political demands. They set out for Salisbury in the hope of rallying support from the regiments billeted there. Cromwell launched a night attack on 13 May, in which several mutineers perished, but Captain Thompson escaped, only to be killed in another skirmish near the Diggers community at Wellingborough. The rest were imprisoned in Burford Church until three were shot in the Churchyard on 17 May. With the failure of this mutiny, the Levellers' power base in the New Model Army was destroyed.


title: New Model Army

text: Later that year, on 15 August 1649, the New Model Army landed in Ireland to start the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The soldiers in this expeditionary force were not the first New Model soldiers to fight in Ireland (many hundreds had fought in the major battles of the previous years) but the scale of the 1649 deployment far exceeded all earlier efforts. Many soldiers were reluctant to serve in this campaign, as Ireland had a bad reputation amongst English soldiers, and regiments had to draw lots to decide who would go on the expedition.


title: New Model Army

text: The politically and religiously disunited Royalist and Catholic coalition they met in Ireland were at a major disadvantage against the New Model Army. After the shock defeats at Rathmines and Drogheda, many of the Royalist soldiers opposing the Parliamentarian forces became demoralised, melting away at the first opportunity. The Scottish Royalist army in Ulster was badly weakened by desertion before the battle of Lisnagarvey for example.


title: New Model Army

text: However, resistance by some of the native Irish Catholic forces, who were faced with land confiscations and suppression of their religion in the event of a Parliamentarian conquest, proved stubborn and protracted. Some units, notably the veteran Ulster Confederate Catholic forces, proved resilient enemies. As a result, the New Model soldiers suffered considerably in the campaign. After victories with few Parliamentary casualties at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649, the fighting became more protracted and casualties began to mount.


title: New Model Army

text: At Kilkenny, in March 1650, the town's defenders skilfully beat back numerous Parliamentarian assaults before being forced to surrender. Shortly afterwards, about 2,000 soldiers of the New Model died in abortive assaults against a breach defended by veteran Ulstermen in the siege of Clonmel. These bloody scenes were repeated during the siege of Charlemont Fort later that year. Thousands more died of disease, particularly in the long sieges of Limerick, Waterford and Galway.


title: New Model Army

text: The Army was also constantly at risk of attack by Irish guerrillas called "tóraithe" ("tories" in English), literally meaning "pursuer", who attacked vulnerable garrisons and supply columns. The New Model Army responded to this threat with forced evictions of the civilian population from certain areas and by destroying food supplies. These tactics caused a widespread famine throughout the country from 1650 onwards.


title: New Model Army

text: Overall, around 43,000 English soldiers fought in the Parliamentarian army in Ireland between 1649 and 1653, in addition to some 9,000 Irish Protestants. By the end of the campaign in 1653, much of the Army's wages were still in arrears. About 12,000 veterans were awarded land confiscated from Irish Catholics in lieu of pay. Many soldiers sold these land grants to other Protestant settlers, but about 7,500 of them settled in Ireland. They were required to keep their weapons to act as a reserve in case of any future rebellions in the country.


title: New Model Army

text: The Army generally performed well when storming fortifications, for example at the siege of Drogheda, but paid a heavy price at Clonmel when Cromwell ordered them to attack a well-defended breach.


title: New Model Army

text: In 1650, while the campaign in Ireland was still continuing, part of the New Model Army was transferred to Scotland to fight Scottish Covenanters at the start of the Third English Civil War. The Covenanters, who had been allied to the Parliament in the First English Civil War, had now crowned Charles II as King. Despite being outnumbered, Cromwell led the Army to crushing victories over the Scots at the battles of Dunbar and Inverkeithing. Following the Scottish invasion of England led by Charles II, the New Model Army and local militia forces soundly defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Worcester, the last pitched battle of the English Civil Wars.


title: New Model Army

text: Part of the New Model Army under George Monck occupied Scotland during the Interregnum. They were kept busy throughout the 1650s by minor Royalist uprisings in the Scottish Highlands and by endemic lawlessness by bandits known as moss-troopers.


title: New Model Army

text: In England, the New Model Army was involved in numerous skirmishes with a range of opponents, but these were little more than policing actions. The largest rebellion of the Protectorate took place when the Sealed Knot instigated an insurrection in 1655. This revolt consisted of a series of coordinated uprisings, but only the Penruddock uprising ended in armed conflict, and that was put down by one company of cavalry.


title: New Model Army

text: The major foreign entanglement of this period was the Anglo-Spanish War. In 1654, the English Commonwealth declared war on Spain, and regiments of the New Model Army were sent to conquer the Spanish colony of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. They failed in the conflict and sustained heavy casualties from tropical disease. They took over the lightly defended island of Jamaica. The English troops performed better in the European theatre of the war in Flanders. During the Battle of the Dunes (1658), as part of Turenne's army, the red-coats of the New Model Army under the leadership of Sir William Lockhart, Cromwell's ambassador at Paris, astonished both their French allies and Spanish enemies by the stubborn fierceness with which they advanced against a strongly defended sandhill high.


title: New Model Army

text: After Cromwell died, the Protectorate died a slow death, as did the New Model Army. For a time, in 1659, it appeared that factions of the New Model army forces loyal to different generals might wage war on each other. Regiments garrisoned in Scotland under the command of General Monck were marched to London to ensure the security of the capital prior to the Restoration, without significant opposition from the regiments under other generals, particularly those led by Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert. Following the riots led by Thomas Venner in 1661, which were quelled with the aid of soldiers from Monck's Regiment of Foot and the Regiment of Cuirassiers, the New Model Army was ordered disbanded. However, for their service, both these regiments were, upon the end of the New Model Army, incorporated into the army of Charles II as regiments of Foot Guards and Horse Guards.


title: New Model Army

text: Some of the demobilized soldiers and officers of the New Model Army were sent to Portugal, to support the Portuguese Restoration War and help Portugal regain its independence after many decades of Spanish rule. The British brigade, which numbered 3,000, arrived in Portugal in August 1662 and proved a decisive factor in winning back Portugal's independence, defeating the Spanish in a major engagement at Ameixial on 8 June 1663, and this forced John of Austria to abandon Évora and retreat across the border with heavy losses. For King Charles II, this was a neat way of both rendering much needed help to the Portuguese House of Braganza, his new in-laws, and at the same time getting rid of demobilized soldiers of the New Model Army and removing them from English territory.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: A PDA has an electronic visual display. Most models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a portable media player, and also enabling many of them to be used as telephones. Nearly all modern PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless WANs, letting them include a web browser. Sometimes, instead of buttons, PDAs employ touchscreen technology.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: The first PDA, the Organiser, was released in 1984 by Psion, followed by Psion's Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard. The term "PDA" was first used on January 7, 1992 by Apple Inc. CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1994, IBM introduced the first PDA with analog cellular phone functionality, the IBM Simon, which can also be considered the first smartphone. Then in 1996, Nokia introduced a PDA with digital cellphone functionality, the 9000 Communicator. Another early entrant in this market was Palm, with a line of PDA products which began in March 1996. Palm would eventually be the dominant vendor of PDAs until the rising popularity of Pocket PC devices in the early 2000s. By the mid-2000s most PDAs had morphed into smartphones as classic PDAs without cellular radios were increasingly becoming uncommon.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: A typical PDA has a touchscreen for navigation, a memory card slot for data storage, and IrDA, Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. However, some PDAs may not have a touchscreen, using softkeys, a directional pad, and a numeric keypad or a thumb keyboard for input. To have the functions expected of a PDA, a device's software typically includes an appointment calendar, a to-do list, an address book for contacts, a calculator, and some sort of memo (or "note") program. PDAs with wireless data connections also typically include an email client and a Web browser, and may or may not include telephony functionality.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Many of the original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and Palm Pilot, featured a touchscreen for user interaction, having only a few buttons—usually reserved for shortcuts to often-used programs. Some touchscreen PDAs, including Windows Mobile devices, had a detachable stylus to facilitate making selections. The user interacts with the device by tapping the screen to select buttons or issue commands, or by dragging a finger (or the stylus) on the screen to make selections or scroll.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Despite research and development projects, end-users experience mixed results with handwriting recognition systems. Some find it frustrating and inaccurate, while others are satisfied with the quality of the recognition.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Touchscreen PDAs intended for business use, such as the BlackBerry and Palm Treo, usually also offer full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumbwheels to facilitate data entry and navigation. Many touchscreen PDAs support some form of external keyboard as well. Specialized folding keyboards, which offer a full-sized keyboard but collapse into a compact size for transport, are available for many models. External keyboards may attach to the PDA directly, using a cable, or may use wireless technology such as infrared or Bluetooth to connect to the PDA. Newer PDAs, such as the HTC HD2, Apple iPhone, Apple iPod Touch, and Palm Pre, Palm Pre Plus, Palm Pixi, Palm Pixi Plus, Google Android (operating system) include more advanced forms of touchscreen that can register multiple touches simultaneously. These "multi-touch" displays allow for more sophisticated interfaces using various gestures entered with one or more fingers.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Although many early PDAs did not have memory card slots, now most have either some form of Secure Digital (SD) slot, a CompactFlash slot or a combination of the two. Although designed for memory, Secure Digital Input/Output (SDIO) and CompactFlash cards are available that provide accessories like Wi-Fi or digital cameras, if the device can support them. Some PDAs also have a USB port, mainly for USB flash drives. Some PDAs use microSD cards, which are electronically compatible with SD cards, but have a much smaller physical size.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: While early PDAs connected to a user's personal computer via serial ports or another proprietary connection, many today connect via a USB cable. Older PDAs were unable to connect to each other via USB, as their implementations of USB didn't support acting as the "host". Some early PDAs were able to connect to the Internet indirectly by means of an external modem connected via the PDA's serial port or "sync" connector, or directly by using an expansion card that provided an Ethernet port.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Most modern PDAs have Bluetooth, a popular wireless protocol for mobile devices. Bluetooth can be used to connect keyboards, headsets, GPS receivers, and other nearby accessories. It's also possible to transfer files between PDAs that have Bluetooth. Many modern PDAs have Wi-Fi wireless network connectivity and can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots. All smartphones, and some other modern PDAs, can connect to Wireless Wide Area Networks, such as those provided by cellular telecommunications companies. Older PDAs from the 1990s to 2006 typically had an IrDA (infrared) port allowing short-range, line-of-sight wireless communication. Few current models use this technology, as it has been supplanted by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. IrDA allows communication between two PDAs, or between a PDA and any device with an IrDA port or adapter. Some printers have IrDA receivers, allowing IrDA-equipped PDAs to print to them, if the PDA's operating system supports it. Universal PDA keyboards designed for these older PDAs use infrared technology. Infrared technology is low-cost and has the advantage of being allowed aboard.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Most PDAs can synchronize their data with applications on a user's computer. This allows the user to update contact, schedule, or other information on their computer, using software such as Microsoft Outlook or ACT!, and have that same data transferred to PDA—or transfer updated information from the PDA back to the computer. This eliminates the need for the user to update their data in two places. Synchronization also prevents the loss of information stored on the device if it is lost, stolen, or destroyed. When the PDA is repaired or replaced, it can be "re-synced" with the computer, restoring the user's data. Some users find that data input is quicker on their computer than on their PDA, since text input via a touchscreen or small-scale keyboard is slower than a full-size keyboard. Transferring data to a PDA via the computer is therefore a lot quicker than having to manually input all data on the handheld device.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Most PDAs come with the ability to synchronize to a computer. This is done through "synchronization software" provided with the handheld, or sometime with the computer's operating system. Examples of synchronization software include:


title: Personal digital assistant

text: These programs allow the PDA to be synchronized with a personal information manager, which may be part of the computer's operating system, provided with the PDA, or sold separately by a third party. For example, the RIM BlackBerry comes with RIM's "Desktop Manager" program, which can synchronize to both Microsoft Outlook and ACT!. Other PDAs come only with their own proprietary software. For example, some early Palm OS PDAs came only with Palm Desktop, while later Palm PDAs—such as the Treo 650—have the ability to sync to Palm Desktop or Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft's ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center only synchronize with Microsoft Outlook or a Microsoft Exchange server. Third-party synchronization software is also available for some PDAs from companies like CommonTime and CompanionLink. Third-party software can be used to synchronize PDAs to other personal information managers that are not supported by the PDA manufacturers (for example, GoldMine and IBM Lotus Notes).


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Some PDAs can synchronize some or all of their data using their wireless networking capabilities, rather than having to be directly connected to a personal computer via a cable. Devices running Palm's webOS or Google's Android operating system primarily sync with the cloud. For example, if Gmail is used, information in contacts, email, and calendar can be synchronized between the PDA and Google's servers. RIM sells BlackBerry Enterprise Server to corporations so that corporate BlackBerry users can wirelessly synchronize their PDAs with the company's Microsoft Exchange Server, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise servers. Email, calendar entries, contacts, tasks, and memos kept on the company's server are automatically synchronized with the BlackBerry.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Some PDAs include Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers; this is particularly true of smartphones. Other PDAs are compatible with external GPS-receiver add-ons that use the PDA's processor and screen to display location information. PDAs with GPS functionality can be used for automotive navigation. PDAs are increasingly being fitted as standard on new cars. PDA-based GPS can also display traffic conditions, perform dynamic routing, and show known locations of roadside mobile radar guns. TomTom, Garmin, and iGO offer GPS navigation software for PDAs.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: Some businesses and government organizations rely upon rugged PDAs, sometimes known as enterprise digital assistants (EDAs) or mobile computers, for mobile data applications. These PDAs have features that make them more robust and able to handle inclement weather, jolts and moisture. EDAs often have extra features for data capture, such as barcode readers, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers, magnetic stripe card readers, or smart card readers. These features are designed to facilitate the use of these devices to scan in product or item codes.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: PDAs and handheld devices are allowed in many classrooms for digital note-taking. Students can spell-check, modify, and amend their class notes on a PDA. Some educators distribute course material through the Internet or infrared file-sharing functions of the PDA. Textbook publishers have begun to release e-books, which can be uploaded directly to a PDA, reducing the number of textbooks students must carry. Brighton and SUSSEX Medical School in the UK was the first medical school to provide wide scale use of PDAs to its undergraduate students. The learning opportunities provided by having PDAs complete with a suite of key medical texts was studied with results showing that learning occurred in context with timely access to key facts and through consolidation of knowledge via repetition. The PDA was an important addition to the learning ecology rather than a replacement. Software companies have developed PDA programs to meet the instructional needs of educational institutions, such as dictionaries, thesauri, word processing software, encyclopedias, webinar and digital lesson planners.


title: Personal digital assistant

text: PDAs may be used by music enthusiasts to play a variety of music file formats. Many PDAs include the functionality of an MP3 player. Road rally enthusiasts can use PDAs to calculate distance, speed, and time. This information may be used for navigation, or the PDA's GPS functions can be used for navigation. Underwater divers can use PDAs to plan breathing gas mixtures and decompression schedules using software such as "V-Planner".


title: Lukoil

text: The PJSC Lukoil Oil Company ( stylized as LUKOIL or ЛУКОЙЛ in Cyrillic script) is a Russian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Moscow, specializing in the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of petroleum, natural gas, petroleum products, and electricity. It was formed in 1991 when three state-run, western Siberian companies named after the respective town in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug that each was based in, Langepasneftegaz, Urayneftegaz, and Kogalymneftegaz, merged. Its name is the combination of the acronym LUK (initials of the oil-producing cities of Langepas, Uray, Kogalym) and the English word "oil".


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil is the second largest company in Russia after Gazprom, and the country's largest non-state enterprise in terms of revenue, with ₽4,744 billion in 2018. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Lukoil was ranked as the 99th-largest public company in the world. Internationally, it is one of the largest global producers of crude oil. In 2019, the company produced 87.488 million metric tons of oil (1.639 million barrels per day) and 35.046 billion cubic meters of natural gas. , the company had operations and subsidiaries in more than 30 countries around the world.


title: Lukoil

text: "Langepas, Uray, and Kogalym" oil (Lukoil) was established by the USSR Council of Ministers Decree No. 18 on November 25, 1991, as a state-owned enterprise. In the new company, three oil production companies, Langepasneftegaz, Uraineftegaz, and Kogalymneftegaz, processing company Permnefteorgsintez, and the Volgograd and Novosibirsk refineries, were merged (the latter soon came under the control of the authorities of Bashkortostan).


title: Lukoil

text: The central figure in the company's founding was the Soviet deputy minister of oil production Vagit Alekperov. He came to believe the only way Russians could compete against western companies was to copy their business model. That meant vertically integrating the three branches of the industry—exploration, refining, and distribution—that were strictly separate under the old Soviet system.


title: Lukoil

text: On April 5, 1993, Lukoil transformed itself from a state-owned enterprise to a private open joint-stock company based on Presidential Decree No. 1403 of November 17, 1992.


title: Lukoil

text: In 1994, Lukoil became the first company to begin offering shares of stock on the new Russian Trading System.


title: Lukoil

text: In 1995, Lukoil controlled the stakes of nine oil-producing, marketing and service enterprises in Western Siberia, the Urals, and Volgograd Oblast in order to abide by Government Decree No. 861 of September 1, 1995. In the same year, a 5% stake of Lukoil was sold by the state with a minimum excess of the starting price in an auction. In November 1995, Lukoil filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to issue American depositary receipts on Western stock markets. This allowed United States investors for the first time, to be able to buy shares in a Russian company.


title: Lukoil

text: In 1997, Lukoil signed a contract with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil for the development and production of the second stage of the West Qurna-2 oil field. After Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown, the project was suspended and later terminated.


title: Lukoil

text: In 1999, Lukoil acquired numerous enterprises such as the Odessa Oil Refinery in Ukraine, the Burgas Oil Refinery in Bulgaria, and KomiTEK.


title: Lukoil

text: In 2000, Lukoil acquired the distribution and marketing operations of American oil company Getty Oil. This resulted in the control of a network of gas stations in the United States as well as the first time Lukoil enters the American oil market.


title: Lukoil

text: In September 2004, ConocoPhillips purchased a 7.6% stake in Lukoil for about $2 billion. According to some commentators, the sale of this deal was planned before in a personal meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and ConocoPhillips' president and CEO, James Mulva. After the auction, Lukoil and ConocoPhillips announced the creation of a strategic alliance. Later, the American company increased its stake to 20% in Lukoil and sold to the Russian company part of its network of gas stations in the United States and Western Europe. The two oil companies also agreed to jointly develop an oil and gas field in the northern Timan-Pechora area of Russia (Komi Republic) and intended to secure the rights to develop the West Qurna Field in Iraq, one of the country's largest.


title: Lukoil

text: Uzbekistan's deputy prime minister Ergash Shaismatov announced on 30 August 2006 that the Uzbek government and an international consortium consisting of state-run Uzbekneftegaz, Lukoil Overseas, Petronas, Korea National Oil Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation signed a production sharing agreement to explore and develop oil and gas fields in the Aral Sea, stating "The Aral Sea is largely unknown, but it holds a lot of promise in terms of finding oil and gas. There is risk of course but we believe in the success of this unique project". In December 2006, Lukoil announced the acquisition of 376 filling stations in six European countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, from ConocoPhillips.


title: Lukoil

text: In 2007, Lukoil established a joint-venture with Gazprom and in 2008, established a joint-venture as well with Italian oil company ERG S.p.A. In 2009, Lukoil and Norwegian oil company Statoil won a tender offer for the development of the West Qurna Field in Iraq. However, in early 2012, Statoil withdrew from the project, resulting in Lukoil consolidating 75% of development of the oil field.


title: Lukoil

text: From 2010 to February 2011, ConocoPhillips sold its whole 20% stake in Lukoil due to its difficult financial situation.


title: Lukoil

text: In September 2012, Lukoil created a shared service centre in the Czech Republic to provide accounting services to its subsidiaries in Belgium, Poland, and Bulgaria. In December 2012, Lukoil bought the Imilor field for ₽50.8 billion in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug to explore and develop the hydrocarbon deposits located there.


title: Lukoil

text: In February 2013, Lukoil sold the Odessa Oil Refinery to the Ukrainian "East European Fuel and Energy Company" (VETEK). For Lukoil, the oil refinery was unprofitable when production was stopped as early as October 2010 and the refinery finally closed in the summer of 2013. In April 2013, Lukoil agreed to buy Hess Corporation's Russian unit for $2.05 billion.


title: Lukoil

text: In 2014, the company faced a sharp decline in retail sales in Ukraine by 42%, caused by Russian intervention in Ukraine. As a result, the management of Lukoil agreed to sell 100% of its subsidiary Lukoil Ukraine to the Austrian company AMIC Energy Management, which was announced at the end of July 2014.


title: Lukoil

text: In 2015, it sold its service stations in Estonia and Ukraine, and in 2016, it sold its service stations in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Cyprus.


title: Lukoil

text: In March 2022, Lukoil's market stock price dropped 95 percent, as a result of international sanctions during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Lukoil

text: On 21 April 2022, Lukoil issued a statement saying that president Vagit Alekperov had stepped down and resigned from the board of directors after 29 years.


title: Lukoil

text: The Norway state-owned oil company Equinor exited the last of their joint ventures in Russia by withdrawing the joint venture with Lukoil and exiting the Kharyaga project on 2 September 2022.


title: Lukoil

text: The company's proved hydrocarbon reserves as of January 1, 2011 amounted to 17.255 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 13.319 billion barrels of petroleum and 0.67 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. In terms of proved oil reserves, Lukoil, according to its own information, was the sixth-largest private oil company in the world at the time.


title: Lukoil

text: In addition, probable hydrocarbon reserves as of January 1, 2011 were 8.46 billion barrels of oil equivalent (including oil 6.47 billion barrels of petroleum and 0.34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas). Possible reserves were 3.17 billion barrels of oil equivalent (including 2.78 billion barrels of petroleum and 65.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas).


title: Lukoil

text: Since 2016, Lukoil has been trying to get a development license for Nadezhda field in Baltic field, situated in Kaliningrad region aside of Continental shelf, which is booked for state companies only. In October 2021, due to ecology risks, the Russian government withdrew the decision to provide the license for geological exploration at Nadezhda field.


title: Lukoil

text: In December 2011, Lukoil established a joint venture with Bashneft to develop the Trebs and Titov oil fields. Total recoverable reserves and oil resources from these fields are 89.73 million tons in C1 category, 50.33 million tons in C2 category and 59.29 million tons in category C3.


title: Lukoil

text: The operator of Lukoil's foreign projects in the exploration and production sector is its subsidiary, Lukoil Overseas.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil is involved in the implementation of 16 projects for the exploration and development of structures and deposits in the following countries:


title: Lukoil

text: The extraction of hydrocarbons from all the above projects is carried out only in Kazakhstan (5.5 million tons of oil and 1.9 billion cubic meters in 2006) and Egypt (0.2 million tons).


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil owns seven oil-processing companies in Eastern Europe with total capacity of 82.1 million tons per year. In Russia it owns large refineries in Volgograd, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, and Ukhta refineries and mini-refineries in Uray and Kogalym. It also owns refineries in Bulgaria, Romania, and Italy, and has a 45%-stake in an oil refining complex in the Netherlands. In 2020, the company was also in talks to reconstruct a refinery plant in Cameroon, which belongs to Cameroon's national refining company, Sonara.


title: Lukoil

text: Speaking at a press conference in New York on October 18, 2006, the company's CEO Vagit Alekperov said Lukoil is refusing to build a new refinery in Russia. According to him, "at this stage it is inexpedient and economically inefficient." At the same time, Lukoil planned to build a large complex in Kalmykia for the processing of natural gas from the North Caspian fields worth over $3 billion. The work was supposed to start in the spring of 2008. Also in March 2007, Lukoil announced it would expand the capacity in the Lukoil Neftochim Burgas refinery in Burgas, Bulgaria from 7.5 million tons to 10 million tons of oil per year.


title: Lukoil

text: The subsidiary company Lukoil-Neftekhim specializes in petrochemistry, and operates the Stavrolen (Budyonnovsk), Saratovorgsintez, and the Karpatneftekhim (Kalush, Ukraine) petrochemical plants. Petrochemical facilities are also part of the Neftochim Burgas Combine in Bulgaria. "Lukoil" is the largest producer of alkene and acrylonitrile in Eastern Europe. Together with Sibur, Lukoil-Neftekhim owns a controlling stake in the Polief plant.


title: Lukoil

text: Transportation of oil produced by Lukoil in Russia is carried out for the most part by the pipelines of Transneft, as well as by rail and water transport. Oil produced at the company's fields in Kazakhstan is transported through pipelines such as the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil sells petrol in 59 regions of Russia and in 17 other countries, both CIS and Western: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium (through its subsidiary Jet until late 2008, since rebranded to Lukoil), Bulgaria, Croatia (operated by Lukoil Croatia, but under the brand name "Europa-Mil"), Finland (Teboil), Georgia, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and the United States. , it had 166 tank farms and 5,867 filling stations.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil has the aggregate power generation capacity of 5,800 MW, of which 73% is for commercial use. Lukoil generates about 99% of electrical power of the Astrakhan Oblast and 62% of the Krasnodar Krai. Its main power generation subsidiaries are Lukoil-Volgogradenergo, Lukoil-Rostovenergo, Luikoil-Kubanenergo, Lukoil-Astrakhanenergo, and Lukoil-Stavropolenergo.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil operates two solar power plants at its own refineries in Romania and Bulgaria with respective capacity of 9 MW and 1.3 MW. A 10-MW solar plant is under construction at the Volgograd Refinery. It also owns an 84-MW wind farm in Topolog, Romania.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil has been titular sponsor of FC Spartak Moscow since 2000. In August 2022, the company acquired ownership of the club (100% of the shares) along with the Otkritie Arena stadium.


title: Lukoil

text: In particular, the company sponsors the Volgograd water polo club Lukoil-Spartak. Lukoil also sponsors the Russian Olympic Committee and is one of the founders of the Russian Olympians Support Fund. In February 2014, Lukoil signed an agreement with the government of Arkhangelsk Oblast about supporting Vodnik.


title: Lukoil

text: In July 2010, the top managers of the company owned the largest stake (more than 30%) of the company's shares: CEO Vagit Alekperov owning 20.6% and vice-president Leonid Fedun owning 9.8%. The American oil company ConocoPhillips owned 19.21% but due to financial difficulties, completely withdrew from the shareholders of Lukoil, selling its shares, and in part to Lukoil itself by February 2011. The remaining shares were freely traded on the London Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Russian Trading System, and the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange. Market capitalization of the company was $60.4 billion as of June 2018.


title: Lukoil

text: In March 2022, Toby Gati, Roger Munnings and Wolfgang Schüssel left the board of directors due to International sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Lukoil

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ravil Maganov criticised the Russian attack on Ukraine. September 1, 2022 he was found dead outside his hospital window the day that President Putin visited the hospital. Nearby video cameras had been turned off. The company has acknowledged the death in a statement saying that Ravil Maganov: "passed away following a severe illness".


title: Lukoil

text: According to Lukoil, their numbers in 2007 recorded a drop of 7.8% in the volume of pollutant effects and a drop of 3.8% in the area of contaminated lands compared to 2006. These numbers came after an appeal from EMERCON, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Natural Disaster Recovery, which proposed that Lukoil participate in the development of monitoring, prevention, and emergency recovery systems.


title: Lukoil

text: In an effort to increase productivity, Lukoil organized a contract to begin an oil pumping block in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. It arranged an Environmental Impact Assessment of the drill site in order to organize a second exploration drill. This block, D-222, was the largest prospective structure in the north-east section of the Caspian Sea as of 2008. The key issue was to assess how much damage the oil block would inflict on local fish populations. Taking into account the depth of the operation, around 700 meters, the amount of harm was projected to be minimal, with the majority of the damaged marine life being plankton and benthos. A rescue and salvage ship would be stationed there to mitigate the environmental effects on the area. Lukoil would develop contingency plans for oil spills and implement an environmental monitoring system.


title: Lukoil

text: At the same time, Lukoil faces criticism from various environmental organizations. In particular, the company's oil production in the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad Oblast was criticized as it is 22 kilometers away from the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Lukoil

text: According to a number of critics, Lukoil inherited the worst standards of the Soviet oil industry with respect to the environment, not taking enough responsibility to minimize pollution in its oil fields and refineries.


title: Lukoil

text: Lukoil has been ranked as among the 14th best of 92 oil, gas, and mining companies on indigenous rights and resource extraction in the Arctic.


title: Lukoil

text: In the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) Lukoil is ranked no. 37 out of 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle.


title: Lukoil

text: On one of the storage ponds of JSC "Lukoil-Volgograd-neftepererabotka" during the period from July 25 to August 8, 1996, the oil sludge was ignited due to the unacceptable conduct of welding operations. The surface layer of oil products was formed during the last two decades, and a similar ignition in this area was already noted in 1972. As a result of the 1996 fire, about 50,000 tons of oil products were burned, since even the soil was saturated with volatile fractions at this site. Where the fire was first lit, the concentration of carbon monoxide exceeded the permissible standards by almost 28 times, nitrogen dioxide tripled, hydrogen sulfide and phenol more than 1.5 times. In the residential areas of the Krasnoarmeysky district of Volgograd, located 7 km from the fire, as well as in the nearby settlements - B. and M. Chapurnik, Dubov Gully, Chervlen, Tingut - the content of combustion products in the air also exceeded the maximum permissible concentration. In the liquidation of this major technogenic emergency situation with severe environmental consequences, the divisions of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia took part.


title: Lukoil

text: In the fall of 2003, the Russian Emergencies Ministry revealed the oil spill as a result of the depressurization of the interfacial oil pipeline belonging to the TPP Lukoil-Usinskneftegaz on the territory of the Komi Republic near the city of Usinsk. The area of oil pollution in one case was about 1.8 thousand m, in the second - 377 m.


title: Lukoil

text: On January 25, 2011 at about 10:00 (local time), as a result of oil leakage in the engine room LGPZ (CCI "Langepasneftegaz"), there was a fire. Fire extinguished more than 50 fighter. The plant suspended its work.


title: Lukoil

text: On April 20, 2012, at the Trebs field, developed jointly by Lukoil and Bashneft, there was an accident that caused significant damage to the natural environment: over a day, continued flowing of oil from the re-opened well, which led to large-scale contamination of the territory. According to the press service of the administration of the Nenets Autonomous District, the contamination area exceeded 5 thousand square meters, the volume of spilled oil, according to Bashneft, was 600 tonnes (in independent sources numbers were up to 2.2 thousand tonnes).


title: Lukoil

text: On May 11, 2021, a leakage was identified in a pipeline connected to Lukoil's Oshkoye field. The spill was estimated at 100 tons of oil, yet environmentalists argued that 100 tons is an underestimate. The spill had infiltrated the Kolva river and traveled upstream, affecting the river habitats. Russia's Northwest Komi Republic declared emergency. The damage was estimated at $4.1 billion.


title: Lukoil

text: In January 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine announced an investigation into whether Lukoil had financed separatists in Donbass.


title: Lukoil

text: In November 2009, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) imposed a record fine of ₽6.54 billion on the company for violating antitrust legislation. The fine was imposed for the abuse of the company's dominant position in the wholesale market of petroleum products in the first half of 2009, expressed in "the seizure of goods from circulation" and the creation of "discriminatory conditions for the sale of petroleum products to individual counterparties". As FAS has calculated, these actions led to an increase in prices in the wholesale markets of motor gasoline, diesel fuel, and aviation kerosene in the first half of 2009.


title: Lukoil

text: In March 2018, the data firm Cambridge Analytica, tied to the 2016 Trump Campaign, was accused of discussing "political targeting" of American voters with representatives of Lukoil. “Cambridge Analytica sought to identify mental and emotional characteristics in certain subsets of the American population and worked to exploit them by designing them to activate some of the worst vulnerabilities in people, such as neuroticism, paranoia and racial biases,” whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018. With Lukoil, the consulting firm shared election disruption strategies, which included videos and posters intended to demoralise and alarm voters. Lukoil is on the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications list, has been linked to Russian influence in the past, and CEO Vagit Alekperov, a former oil minister, had made statements suggesting that he considers helping Russia to be a strong political ambition.


title: Lukoil

text: On February 25, 2011, Lukoil's vice president crashed his Mercedes S500 into a Citroën C3 car with doctor Olga Alexandrina and famous obstetrician Vera M. Sidelnikova inside; both women died in the collision. The General Administration for Traffic Safety blamed the driver of the Citroën but it was suggested the administration was covering up that the real culprit of the accident was the driver of the Mercedes, who, according to eyewitnesses, was driving around a traffic jam and went into the oncoming lane. There is also some speculation that the driver of the Mercedes was the vice-president of Lukoil himself. A few days after the accident, the Head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of Moscow issued a notice of misconduct to the commander of the Traffic Police battalion who registered the accident on Leninsky Avenue because he had prematurely called the driver of the Citroën, Olga Alexandrin, the culprit of the accident. The incident caused a public reaction, in particular, a boycott of this company's gas stations was organized. Blogger Andrei Bocharov announced a mock advertisement of Lukoil based on this accident, and rapper Noize MC wrote the song "Mercedes S666 (Make Way for the Chariot)".


title: Lukoil

text: In July 2011, Lukoil had a conflict with Bulgarian authorities. According to the latter, the company's Bourgas refinery did not have timely installed meters for the manufactured fuel (used to determine the amount of excises paid), which, according to officials, Lukoil allegedly underpaid about €250 million to the country's budget. As a result, the company lost its license and was stopped, but in early August 2011 the plant was re-launched.


title: Lukoil

text: On 11 September 2014, US President Obama said that the United States would join the EU in imposing tougher sanctions on Russia's financial, energy and defence sectors, following the escalation of Russo-Ukrainian War. The U.S. added Lukoil to the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications list on September 12, 2014.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Antony Matheus dos Santos (born 24 February 2000), simply known as Antony, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Manchester United and the Brazil national team.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Antony is a graduate of the São Paulo academy and made his senior debut for the club in 2018. He moved abroad to Ajax in the summer of 2020, where he won two Eredivisie titles and one KNVB Cup during his two seasons. Antony's performances in the Netherlands led to a transfer worth €95 million (£82 million) to Manchester United, the highest sum paid for an Eredivisie player.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Antony won a gold medal with the Brazil under-23 team at the 2020 Summer Olympics. He then made his senior international debut and scored against Venezuela in October 2021, going on to represent Brazil at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Antony was born in Osasco, São Paulo, Brazil and grew up in Inferninho, a favela far from the city centre. Growing up, he would play football wherever he could on the streets or in his house, combining his love of futsal with street football and regularly attending São Paulo matches with his aunt. He is of Portuguese descent.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: He began playing football at an early age and he was soon spotted by São Paulo who offered him a contract in 2010, aged 10, where he was inducted into their youth academy. During his youth years, Antony struggled for game time and was close to being dismissed from the club's youth ranks, but the staff convinced his manager to keep him. While in the youth academy, Antony met Helinho and Igor Gomes, becoming good friends in the process. In September 2018, Antony helped his team win the J-League Challenge tournament in Japan, being named the tournament's best player.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Later that month, on 26 September, Antony alongside Helinho and Igor Gomes, were promoted to the senior team, and he signed a contract until September 2023. On 15 November, he made his first-team debut, coming on as a substitute for Helinho in a 1–1 draw against Grêmio. He was immediately demoted to the club's under-20 team, in order to take part in the Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior, which his team won, scoring in the final against Vasco da Gama, while also being named the tournament's best player, for his 4 goals and 6 assists in 9 games he played in the competition.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Following his impressive displays in the tournament, Antony returned to the first-team and with São Paulo struggling in the Campeonato Paulista, he began receiving more first-team minutes. He scored his first goal on 21 March, in a 1–1 draw against São Caetano, with the "Tricolor" conceding a goal in stoppage time. He immediately stood out as one of the revelations of the competition, scoring two goals, including one in the final against Corinthians a month later, where his side lost 2–1 on aggregate. On 18 July, he agreed to an extension until 2024.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 5 March 2020, Antony made his debut in the Copa Libertadores, starting in São Paulo's 2–1 loss to Peruvian side Binacional. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was halted for various months, and as such Antony made his last appearance for the club on 14 March, featuring in the 2–1 victory over rivals Santos in the "San-São" derby.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 23 February 2020, Ajax signed Antony on a five-year deal, effective from 1 July 2020, for an initial £13 million, which could rise to £18.2 million. He made his debut for the club on 13 September 2020, scoring the only goal of an away win over Sparta Rotterdam. He made his debut in the UEFA Champions League on 27 October, in a 2–2 draw against Atalanta, leaving the field in the 90th minute, following a collision with Ruslan Malinovskyi, before scoring his first goal in the competition on 3 November 2020, in a 2–1 away win over Midtjylland.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: During the 2020–21 season, Antony competed with David Neres for a spot in the starting line-up, eventually winning his place, contributing to 46 appearances, and finishing the season with 11 goals and 10 assists, including a goal in the 3–1 defeat of Vitesse in the domestic cup final, helping Ajax win the domestic double of the Eredivisie and the KNVB Cup.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: The following season, despite the signings of Mohamed Daramy and Steven Berghuis, Antony kept his place in the starting line-up, and with his two goals and five assists against Sporting CP and Borussia Dortmund, Ajax became the first Dutch club to win all six Champions League group games in the competition's history. His three goals and one assist earned him the league's Player of the Month and Talent of the Month award for December. On 20 March, Antony scored a dramatic late winner in a 3–2 victory against De Klassieker rivals Feyenoord in Eredivisie, being five minutes into the added time, before being sent off, after receiving a second yellow card seconds later for time wasting.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Nine days later, while on international duty for Brazil national team, during a World Cup qualification match, Antony suffered an ankle injury, which ruled him out for the remainder of the season. He ended the campaign with 12 goals and 10 assists, as Ajax retained their Eredivisie title.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Following his return from injury against Fortuna Sittard on 6 August, the 2022–23 season was preceded by a dispute over the desire for Antony to leave Ajax. After Ajax rejected the interest expressed by Manchester United for Antony's service, including an €85 million transfer bid, he failed to turn up to training, being left out of the matchdays squads against Sparta Rotterdam and Utrecht. In an interview, Antony revealed that he had wanted to leave in February, but he waited to the end of the summer window for the transfer to procede, rejecting a contract renewal from Ajax in order to "follow his dreams".


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 30 August 2022, Ajax confirmed they had reached an agreement with Manchester United for Antony's transfer. Two days later, Antony signed a five-year contract for a transfer fee of €95 million (£82 million), with a further €5 million (£4.27 million) in add-ons, the third highest transfer fee ever paid by the club after Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku and this was Ajax's and the Eredivisie's biggest transfer ever. Upon his arrival at the club he was handed the number 21 shirt previously worn by Edinson Cavani, who had recently departed the club.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 4 September, he scored on his debut for the club in a 3–1 home league victory over rivals Arsenal. He scored again in United's next league match, a 6-3 defeat to local rivals Manchester City on 2 October. The next week, he scored for a third successive league game to equalise the score at Everton, as United won 2–1, becoming the first United player to score in their first three consecutive Premier League games.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 15 May 2019, he was named in the Brazil under-23 squad for the 2019 Toulon Tournament, helping his team win the competition, scoring two goals, including one in the final against Japan.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: On 17 June 2021, Antony was named in the Brazil under-23 squad for the 2020 Summer Olympics. He started in all of Brazil's six games at the tournament. In the final against Spain, he assisted Malcom's winning goal in extra-time as Brazil won the title. He scored six goals in 22 games for the under-23 team.


title: Antony (footballer, born 2000)

text: Antony made his debut for the Brazil national football team on 7 October 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against Venezuela. He came on as a substitute in 77th minute and scored a goal in added time to establish the final score of 3–1 for Brazil. On 7 November 2022, he was named in the squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Kansai region

text: The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolitan region of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto (Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated in Japan after the Greater Tokyo Area.


title: Kansai region

text: The terms , , and have their roots during the Asuka period. When the old provinces of Japan were established, several provinces in the area around the then-capital Kyoto were collectively named Kinai and Kinki, both roughly meaning "the neighbourhood of the capital".


title: Kansai region

text: Kansai (literally "west of the tollgate") in its original usage refers to the land west of the Osaka Tollgate (), the border between Yamashiro Province and Ōmi Province (present-day Kyoto and Shiga prefectures). During the Kamakura period, this border was redefined to include Ōmi and Iga Provinces. It is not until the Edo period that Kansai came to acquire its current form. ("see Kamigata")


title: Kansai region

text: While the use of the terms "Kansai" and "Kinki" have changed over history, in most modern contexts the use of the two terms is interchangeable. The term "Kinai", once synonymous with Kinki, now refers to the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe (Keihanshin) area at the center of the Kansai region. Like all regions of Japan, the Kansai region is not an administrative unit, but rather a cultural and historical one, which emerged much later during the Heian period after the expansion of Japan saw the development of the Kantō region to the east and the need to differentiate what was previously the center of Japan in Kansai emerged.


title: Kansai region

text: The name "Kinki" is pronounced similarly to the English word "kinky", which means "twisted" or "perverted". This has become a problem due to internationalization, and some organizations have changed their name as a result.


title: Kansai region

text: In April 2016, changed its English name to Kindai University. uses "Kansai" in English notation, and also uses "Kansai" in English notation since 2015. In addition, the changed its name to "Kansai Chamber of Commerce and Industry Association" on July 22, 2015. In the fall of 2014, asked the government to unify the name of the local agency to "Kansai". On June 28, 2003, the English name of the major private railway company Kintetsu Railway was changed from "Kinki Nippon Railway Co., Ltd." to the official abbreviation Kintetsu Corporation. It was subsequently changed again to "Kintetsu Railway Co., Ltd." on April 1, 2015.


title: Kansai region

text: The Kansai region is a cultural center and the historical heart of Japan, with 11% of the nation's land area and 22,757,897 residents as of 2010. The Osaka Plain with the cities of Osaka and Kyoto forms the core of the region. From there the Kansai area stretches west along the Seto Inland Sea towards Kobe and Himeji, and east encompassing Lake Biwa, Japan's largest freshwater lake. In the north, the region is bordered by the Sea of Japan, to the south by the Kii Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean, and to the east by the Ibuki Mountains and Ise Bay. Four of Japan's national parks lie within its borders, in whole or in part. The area also contains six of the seven top prefectures in terms of national treasures. Other geographical features include Amanohashidate in Kyoto Prefecture and Awaji Island in Hyōgo.


title: Kansai region

text: The Kansai region is often compared with the Kantō region, which lies to its east and consists primarily of Tokyo and the surrounding area. Whereas the Kantō region is symbolic of standardization throughout Japan, the Kansai region displays many more idiosyncrasies – the culture in Kyoto, the mercantilism of Osaka, the history of Nara, or the cosmopolitanism of Kobe – and represents the focus of counterculture in Japan. This East-West rivalry has deep historical roots, particularly from the Edo period. With a samurai population of less than 1% the culture of the merchant city of Osaka stood in sharp contrast to that of Edo, the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate.


title: Kansai region

text: Many characteristic traits of Kansai people descend from Osaka merchant culture. Catherine Maxwell, an editor for the newsletter "Omusubi", writes: "Kansai residents are seen as being pragmatic, entrepreneurial, down-to-earth and possessing a strong sense of humor. Kantō people, on the other hand, are perceived as more sophisticated, reserved and formal, in keeping with Tokyo’s history and modern status as the nation’s capital and largest metropolis."


title: Kansai region

text: Kansai is known for its food, especially Osaka, as supported by the saying . Popular Osakan dishes include takoyaki, okonomiyaki, kitsune udon and kushikatsu. Kyoto is considered a mecca of traditional Japanese cuisine like kaiseki. Kansai has many wagyu brands such as Kobe beef and Tajima cattle from Hyōgo, Matsusaka beef from Mie and Ōmi beef from Shiga. Sake is another specialty of the region, the areas of Nada-Gogō and Fushimi produce 45% of all sake in Japan. As opposed to food from Eastern Japan, food in the Kansai area tends to be sweeter, and foods such as nattō tend to be less popular.


title: Kansai region

text: The dialects of the people from the Kansai region, commonly called "Kansai-ben", have their own variations of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Kansai-ben is the group of dialects spoken in the Kansai area, but is often treated as a dialect in its own right.


title: Kansai region

text: Kansai is one of the most prosperous areas for baseball in Japan. Two Nippon Professional Baseball teams, Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes, are based in Kansai. Koshien Stadium, the home stadium of the Hanshin Tigers, is also famous for the nationwide high school baseball tournaments. In association football, the Kansai Soccer League was founded in 1966 and currently has 16 teams in two divisions. Cerezo Osaka, Gamba Osaka, and Vissel Kobe belong to J. League Division 1 and Kyoto Sanga F.C. belongs to J. League Division 2, the top professional leagues in Japan.


title: Kansai region

text: As a part of the Ritsuryō reforms of the seventh and eighth centuries, the provinces of Yamato, Yamashiro, Kawachi, Settsu, and Izumi, were established by the Gokishichidō. These provinces were collectively referred to as Kinai or Kinki.


title: Kansai region

text: The Kansai region lays claim to the earliest beginnings of Japanese civilization. It was Nara, the most eastern point on the Silk Road, that became the site of Japan's first permanent capital. This period (AD 710–784) saw the spread of Buddhism to Japan and the construction of Tōdai-ji in 745. The Kansai region also boasts the Shinto religion's holiest shrine at Ise Shrine (built in 690 AD) in Mie prefecture.


title: Kansai region

text: The Heian period saw the capital moved to Heian-kyō (, present-day Kyoto), where it would remain for over a thousand years until the Meiji Restoration. During this golden age, the Kansai region would give birth to traditional Japanese culture. In 788, Saicho, the founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism established his monastery at Mount Hiei in Shiga prefecture. Japan's most famous tale, and some say the world's first novel, "The Tale of Genji" was penned by Murasaki Shikibu while performing as a lady-in-waiting in Heian-kyo. Noh and Kabuki, Japan's traditional dramatic forms both saw their birth and evolution in Kyoto, while Bunraku, Japanese puppet theater, is native to Osaka.


title: Kansai region

text: Kansai's unique position in Japanese history, plus the lack of damage from wars or natural disasters, has resulted in Kansai region having more UNESCO World Heritage Listings than any other region of Japan. The five World Heritage Listings include: Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area, Himeji Castle, Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities), Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara, and Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.


title: Kansai region

text: The economy of Kansai region is largely based on that of Keihanshin (Greater Osaka) metropolitan area. Keihanshin metropolitan area contains the Hanshin Industrial Region and is centered mainly around chemical, metal, and other heavy industries. Keihanshin region also contains strong medical and electronics industries within its economy.


title: Kansai region

text: Per Japanese census data, and, Kansai region much like Keihanshin has experienced a small population increase beginning around 2010.


title: Kansai region

text: International schools have served expatriates in the Kansai region since 1909. Outside of Tokyo and Yokohama, Kansai has the largest number of international schools.


title: Kansai region

text: In 1909, Deutsche Schule Kobe was founded to serve German, Austrian and German-speaking Swiss expatriates, traders and missionaries living in the Kobe area. After a long history of teaching a German curriculum, the school changed to The Primary Years Programme (PYP) in 2002. Today, Deutsche Schule Kobe/European School provides curriculum in three languages: German, English, and Japanese.


title: Kansai region

text: In 1913, Canadian Methodist Academy opened its doors to sixteen children. The school, renamed Canadian Academy in 1917, served children of missionary parents from grade one through high school and offered boarding facilities for students from throughout Asia. Today, the day and boarding school offers a PreK to Grade 12 education on the campus on Rokkō Island, a man-made island. The school, which is no longer affiliated with Canada or the church, is the largest school for expatriates in Kansai. The school is approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the Council of International Schools. The school awards both the International Baccalaureate (IB) and U.S. high school diplomas.


title: Kansai region

text: In 1946, St. Michael's International School was established by Anglican Bishop Michael Yashiro and Miss Leonora Lee, a British missionary. Today, the school offers a distinctive British-style primary education based on the National Curriculum of England and Wales. The school has joint accreditation from the Council of International Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.


title: Kansai region

text: Brother Charles Fojoucyk and Brother Stephen Weber founded Marist Brothers International School in 1951 after communist authorities pressured them to leave Tientsin, China. Today, the international Montessori - Grade 12 school enrolls approximately 300 students. The school is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.


title: Kansai region

text: In 1957, a missionary homeschooled her son, his best friend and another student in their home. The next year, the home turned into Kyoto Christian Day School and a full-time teacher was hired. The school was renamed Kyoto International School in 1966. Today, the school serves students from two to fourteen years old. The school has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) since 1992 and authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) since 2006.


title: Kansai region

text: Kansai is also served by Osaka International School, Lycée français international de Kyoto as well as Chinese and Korean schools.


title: Penélope Cruz filmography

text: Penélope Cruz (born 28 April 1974) is a Spanish actress. She made her acting debut at the age of 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in "Jamón Jamón" (1992). Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included "Open Your Eyes" (1997), "The Hi-Lo Country" (1999), "The Girl of Your Dreams" (2000) and "Woman on Top" (2000). Cruz achieved greater international recognition for her lead roles in the 2001 films "Vanilla Sky", "All the Pretty Horses", "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and "Blow".


title: Penélope Cruz filmography

text: She has since appeared in a wide variety of film genres, including the comedy "Waking Up in Reno" (2002), the thriller "Gothika" (2003), the Christmas film "Noel" (2004), and the action adventure "Sahara" (2005). She was acclaimed for her roles in "Volver" (2006) and "Nine" (2009), for which she received Academy Award nominations, the former being her first in the Best Actress category, as well as for her role in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008), for which she subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the first and only Spanish actress to both win and be nominated for an Academy Award in an acting category.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Lafayette (, ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the most populous city and parish seat of Lafayette Parish, located along the Vermilion River. It is Louisiana's fourth largest incorporated municipality by population and the 234th-most populous in the United States, with a 2020 census population of 121,374; the consolidated city-parish's population was 241,753 in 2020. The Lafayette metropolitan area was Louisiana's third largest metropolitan statistical area with a population of 478,384 at the 2020 census. The Acadiana region containing Lafayette is the largest population and economic corridor between Houston, Texas and New Orleans.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Originally established as Vermilionville in the 1820s and incorporated in 1836, Lafayette developed as an agricultural community until the introduction of retail and entertainment centers, and the discovery of oil in the area in the 1940s. Since the discovery of oil, the city and parish have had the highest number of workers in the oil and natural gas industry in Louisiana as of 2018. With the issuance of a bond ordinance for a series of roads connecting nearby settlements; the establishment of the University of Louisiana System's Lafayette campus; and the continued diversification of its economy, Lafayette and its metropolitan area have experienced population growth since the 1840 census and was promptly nicknamed "The Hub City." The city and parish of Lafayette are also known as the "Heart of Acadiana." As a result of its growth, the city and region have become major centers for the technology industry; Lafayette also became a major center for health care and social services, aerospace, banking and retail. Notable corporations with headquarters or a large presence in the Lafayette area have included Amazon, Brookshire Grocery Company, CGI, JP Morgan Chase, Ochsner Health System, Petroleum Helicopters International, and Rouses Markets.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Lafayette is home to a diverse population from Louisiana Creole and Cajun backgrounds. In 2014, Lafayette was named the "Happiest City in America.” The city and region's cultural icons include Alexandre Mouton House, Brandt House, Charles H. Mouton House, the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Daigle House, First United Methodist Church, Holy Rosary Institute, Hope Lodge No. 145, and Old Lafayette City Hall. Its educational institutions include the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, South Louisiana Community College, and Remington College.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Lafayette is named after Marquis de Lafayette. Little is known about early settlements or if the area had a different name prior to European colonization. The city was originally founded in 1821 as Vermilionville.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: The Attakapa Native Americans inhabited this area at the time of the first European encounter. French colonists founded the first European settlement, "Petit Manchac", a trading post along the Vermilion River. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, numerous Acadian refugees settled in this area, after being expelled from Canada after Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War. They intermarried with other settlers, forming what became known as Cajun culture, which maintained use of the French language and adherence to the Roman Catholic Church.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Jean Mouton, an Acadian settler, donated land to the Roman Church for construction of a small Catholic chapel at this site. In 1824, this area was selected for the Lafayette Parish seat and was named Vermilionville, for its location on the river; in 1836, the Louisiana State Legislature approved its incorporation.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: The area was initially developed by Europeans for agriculture, primarily sugar plantations, which depended on the labor of numerous enslaved Africans and African Americans. They made up a large percentage of the antebellum population. According to U.S. census data in 1830, some 41 percent of the population of Lafayette Parish was enslaved. By 1860, the enslaved population had increased to 49.6 percent. Some free people of color lived in Lafayette Parish, as well; they made up 3 percent to a low of 2.4 percent between 1830 and 1860.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In 1884, Vermilionville was renamed for General Lafayette, a French aristocrat who had fought with and significantly aided the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The city and parish economy continued to be based on agriculture into the early 20th century. After the American Civil War, most of the labor was done by freedmen, who worked as sharecroppers. From the 1930s, mechanization of agriculture began to reduce the need for farm workers.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: By 1898, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was established in the city as the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute. It opened in 1901, and changed its name to the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1960. The university's current name was chosen in 1999.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In the 1940s, after oil was discovered in the parish, the petroleum and natural gas industries expanded to dominate the economy. By 2018, Lafayette had the highest number of oil and natural gas industry workers in the state.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Since the latter half of the 20th century, Lafayette has hosted the Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, and was candidate as site for the New Orleans Pelicans NBA G League team in 2017.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In 1996, the city and parish consolidated; the governments of the city and parish were merged, though five other incorporated municipalities continued to operate with their own municipal governments and departments. Since the beginning of the 21st century, a committee proposed the deconsolidation of the city and parish.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In 2015, the city of Lafayette gained international attention for a mass shooting and murder-suicide at Grand 16 Theater; this mass shooting spurred further discussion and debate on gun control in the United States. During 2015, the Lafayette metropolitan area also overtook the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area by population, becoming Louisiana's third largest metropolitan region.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: The city of Lafayette is located at (30.2139, −92.0294), in southern Louisiana's Acadiana region on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It was part of the seabed during the earlier Quaternary period. During this time, the Mississippi River cut a valley between what is now Lafayette and Baton Rouge. This valley was filled and is now the Atchafalaya Basin. The city is located on the western rim of this valley.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: The Lafayette area is part of the southwestern Louisiana Prairie Terrace; it is higher and not made of wetlands like much of the surrounding areas to the south and west of Lafayette. Lafayette does not suffer significant flooding problems, outside of local flash flooding. Lafayette has developed on both sides of the Vermilion River. Other significant waterways in the city are Isaac Verot Coulee, Coulee Mine, Coulee des Poches, and Coulee Ile des Cannes, which are natural drainage canals that lead to the Vermilion River.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Lafayette lies approximately from New Orleans, from the state capital of Baton Rouge, from Lake Charles, and from Alexandria. The city has an elevation ranging from to above sea level. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.19 percent) is covered by water.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: The city of Lafayette's architecture is diverse, with a collection of more than eight downtown structures listed within the National Register of Historic Places. Downtown Lafayette landmarks include Old Lafayette City Hall and the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. Near these structures, Chase and Doubletree have been the area's tallest buildings at 15 and 16 stories.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: With the announcement of the latest addition to the city in over 40 years, two high-rise towers were planned and would stand 4 stories higher. In October 2021, it was announced only one high-rise tower would be constructed citing lack of interest in condominiums within the area; the project was halted in January 2022 citing further difficulties. The attempted construction of new high-rises within the heart of the city followed efforts to redevelop the downtown area in the 2010s and attract further residents. Alongside high-rise construction projects throughout the downtown area, a 70-unit apartment development began in early 2022 spurring continued interest in urban development.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Lafayette's climate is described as humid subtropical using Köppen climate classification. It has year-round precipitation, especially during summertime. Lafayette's highest temperature was ; it has hot, moist summers and warm, damp winters.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Attakapa Native Americans were the primary residents of the Lafayette area before French colonization, concentrated along the Vermilion River. After the Louisiana Purchase, American settlers began moving into the area and intermarrying among the French, enslaved Africans, and free people of color. Since 1860, Lafayette has grown from 498 to 121,374 residents at the 2020 U.S. census. Following the American Community Survey's 5 year estimates program, the city has continued population growth with an additional 2020 estimate at 126,674 residents.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: With the migration and population growth of European, African, and multiracial Americans since early settlement, the racial and ethnic makeup of the city has been predominantly non-Hispanic or Latino white, Black or African American, multiracial, and Asian. French, German, English, American, Irish, and Italian were the largest European ancestry groups among the non-Hispanic or Latino white population. Asian settlers arrived during the establishment of Filipino communities along the coast of Louisiana, primarily in the Greater New Orleans area; and the city and area's Hispanic and Latino American population have existed since Spanish colonization of Louisiana.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: According to 2021 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, its non-Hispanic or Latino white population have been prevalent throughout the city proper's geographic foothold with exception to its northern neighborhoods. More than 34% of its Hispanic and Latino American population lived in the central-west portion of the city, and Black and African Americans primarily dominated the northern half of Lafayette city proper. Its Asian American community was dispersed throughout the whole city alongside multiracial Americans, and people of other races and ethnicities primarily lived near downtown or the city's border with Carencro.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Having historic growth from the 20th and 21st centuries attributed primarily to the oil and gas industry, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Acadiana tourism, an estimated 3.8 percent of the city's population was foreign-born from 2014 to 2019; of the foreign-born population, 33.6 percent were naturalized U.S. citizens. Altogether English, French, and Spanish were the most spoken languages at home among the native and foreign-born populations.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Poverty remaining an issue in the city with an estimated 18.6 percent at or below the national poverty threshold in 2019, the median income for a family was $54,139 in 2020 and Lafayettiens had a mean household income of $79,216; among non-family households, the median income stood at $34,588. The city had an employment rate of 60.4 percent, up from the state's 55.4 percent from 2014 to 2019.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: While in the predominantly conservative southern U.S., Lafayette has maintained a substantial lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community since at least 1969, when some members of the Mystic Krewe of Apollo, a gay cultural, social, and service organization in New Orleans, arrived in the city. The area's LGBT population have described Acadiana as "welcoming," though some members of the community in the 1970s declined to be photographed at public and private LGBT events. While regarded as welcoming, Lafayette's government was once under the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's focus regarding non-discrimination in city employment; a local government spokesperson responded with reports of no complaints from the local LGBT community.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In common with Louisiana's religious demographic, Lafayette and its metropolitan area are predominantly religious, dominated by Christianity. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2020, the Catholic Church was the single largest Christian denomination with a reported 212,013 adherents, and Protestants were the largest collective Christian group. Among Protestant Christians, the largest were non-denominational Christians with 26,860 adherents; Southern Baptists with 22,324; Progressive National Baptists with 19,324; United Methodists with 8,401; and Assemblies of God USA with 6,704 adherents.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Owing in part to Spanish and French colonialism and missionary work, Christians have historically affiliated with the Latin Church's Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana was founded in 1918 and its see is the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. Within the local Protestant traditions, Baptists have been the primary historic Protestant body affiliated toward; the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and Progressive National Baptist Convention have been the city and region's historically Black or African American Baptist denominations, though the Church of God in Christ has also been a historically prominent African American Protestant body.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: Mormons, Lutherans, and Presbyterians have also maintained minority presences within the Lafayette municipal and metropolitan communities. Christians of other traditions including the Jehovah's Witnesses and united and uniting churches have been present in the city's metropolitan area since the 20th century. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the oldest nontrinitarian Christian denomination in Lafayette, and has one church in the city limits; the closest LDS churches outside of Lafayette are in New Iberia and Opelousas. There has been one Antiochian Orthodox jurisdiction operating since 2004; there is also a Coptic Orthodox mission under the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. Altogether, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and non-mainstream Protestantism have constituted a significant minority in contrast to Catholic and Baptist missionary work.


title: Lafayette, Louisiana

text: In a separate religious study by Sperling's BestPlaces in 2020, Judaism and Islam were tied as the second largest non-Christian religions within Lafayette and its metropolitan area. Jews began immigrating to the area in the 1800s, and one of Louisiana's oldest continuously-operated synagogues (Temple Shalom) has been present in the city since 1869. The historic synagogue of Temple Shalom originally functioned as an Orthodox Jewish congregation before joining the Reform Judaism movement. Lafayette's Jewish community has assisted in economic and cultural development of the area since their arrival.