title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are used most prominently in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for machine-readable passports, as standardized by the International Civil Aviation Organization, with a number of additional codes for special passports; some of these codes are currently reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166-1.


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: The United Nations uses a combination of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes, along with codes that pre-date the creation of ISO 3166, for international vehicle registration codes, which are codes used to identify the issuing country of a vehicle registration plate; some of these codes are currently indeterminately reserved in ISO 3166-1.


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: The following is a complete list of the current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes, using a title case version of the English short names officially defined by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA):


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: User-assigned code elements are codes at the disposal of users who need to add further names of countries, territories, or other geographical entities to their in-house application of ISO 3166-1, and the ISO 3166/MA will never use these codes in the updating process of the standard. The following alpha-3 codes can be user-assigned: to , to , to , and to .


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: NATO STANAG 1059 INT is built upon ISO alpha-3 codes, but also defines alpha-2 codes incompatible with ISO 3166-1. It introduces several private use codes for fictional countries and organizational entities:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, or are required in order to enable a particular user application of the standard but do not qualify for inclusion in ISO 3166-1. To avoid transitional application problems and to aid users who require specific additional code elements for the functioning of their coding systems, the ISO 3166/MA, when justified, reserves these codes which it undertakes not to use for other than specified purposes during a limited or indeterminate period of time. The reserved alpha-3 codes can be divided into the following four categories: exceptional reservations, transitional reservations, indeterminate reservations, and codes currently agreed not to use.


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: Exceptionally reserved code elements are codes reserved at the request of national ISO member bodies, governments and international organizations, which are required in order to support a particular application, as specified by the requesting body and limited to such use; any further use of such code elements is subject to approval by the ISO 3166/MA. The following alpha-3 codes are currently exceptionally reserved:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: Transitional reserved code elements are codes reserved after their deletion from ISO 3166-1. These codes may be used only during a transitional period of at least five years while new code elements that may have replaced them are taken into use. These codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA after the expiration of the transitional period. The following alpha-3 codes are currently transitionally reserved:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: Indeterminately reserved code elements are codes used to designate road vehicles under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic but differing from those contained in ISO 3166-1. These code elements are expected eventually to be either eliminated or replaced by code elements within ISO 3166-1. In the meantime, the ISO 3166/MA has reserved such code elements for an indeterminate period. Any use beyond the application of the two Conventions is discouraged and will not be approved by the ISO 3166/MA. Moreover, these codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA at any time. The following alpha-3 codes are currently indeterminately reserved:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: The following alpha-3 code was previously indeterminately reserved, but has been reassigned to another country as its official code:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: In addition, the ISO 3166/MA will not use the following alpha-3 codes at the present stage, as they are used in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for special machine-readable passports:


title: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

text: Besides the codes currently transitionally reserved and two other codes currently exceptionally reserved ( for France, Metropolitan and for USSR), the following alpha-3 codes have also been deleted from ISO 3166-1:


title: Neapolitan language

text: Neapolitan (autonym: ; ) is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian group spoken across much of mainland Southern Italy (except for southern Calabria and southern Apulia), and spoken in a small part of Central Italy (the province of Ascoli Piceno in the Marche). It is named after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of the area, since the city of Naples was its capital. On 14 October 2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected.


title: Neapolitan language

text: The term "Neapolitan language" is used broadly in this article to refer to the group of closely-related Romance dialects found in southern continental Italy, as described above. However, as the term itself implies, in contexts ranging from colloquial speech to academic linguistics, "Neapolitan", "napulitano" or "napoletano" may refer instead to the specific Romance varieties spoken natively in Naples and the immediately surrounding Naples metropolitan area.


title: Neapolitan language

text: In the broad view adopted here, the Neapolitan dialects are distributed throughout most of continental southern Italy, historically united during the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, specifically southern Lazio (Gaeta and Sora districts), southern Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata, Campania (Naples), northern and central Apulia, and northernmost Calabria. The dialects are part of a varied dialect continuum, so the varieties in southern Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria can typically be recognizable as regional groups of dialects. In western Abruzzo and Lazio, the dialects give way to Central Italian dialects such as Romanesco. The dialects in central Calabria and southern Apulia give way to the Sicilian language.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Largely due to massive Southern Italian migration in the late 19th century and 20th century, there are also a number of Neapolitan speakers in Italian diaspora communities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. However, in the United States, traditional Neapolitan has had considerable contact with English and the Sicilian languages spoken by Sicilian and Calabrian immigrants living alongside Neapolitan-speaking immigrants and so the Neapolitan in the US is now significantly different from the contemporary Neapolitan spoken in Naples. English words are often used in place of Neapolitan words, especially among second-generation speakers. On the other hand, the effect of Standard Italian on Neapolitan in Italy has been similar because of the increasing displacement of Neapolitan by Standard Italian in daily speech.


title: Neapolitan language

text: The southernmost regions of Italy—most of Calabria, southern Apulia, and southern Salerno (Cilento region) as well as Sicily—are home to Sicilian rather than Neapolitan.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Neapolitan is a Romance language and is generally considered one of the Italo-Romance branch of the Italo-Dalmatian languages. There are notable differences among the various dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Italian and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on affective and linguistic factors. There are notable grammatical differences, such as Neapolitan having nouns in the neuter form and a unique plural formation, as well as historical phonological developments, which often obscure the cognacy of lexical items.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots in Vulgar Latin. It may reflect a pre-Latin Oscan substratum, as in the pronunciation of the "d" sound as an "r" sound (rhotacism) at the beginning of a word or between two vowels: e.g. "doje" (feminine) or "duje" (masculine), meaning "two", is pronounced, and often spelled, as "roje"/"ruje"; "vedé" ("to see") as "veré", and often spelled so; also "cadé"/"caré" ("to fall") and "Madonna"/"Maronna"). Another purported Oscan influence is the historical assimilation of the consonant cluster as , pronounced (this is generally reflected in spelling more consistently: vs Italian "world"; vs


title: Neapolitan language

text: Italian "when"), along with the development of as ~ ( vs Italian "drum"), also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscan substratum are postulated, but substratum claims are highly controversial. As in many other languages in the Italian Peninsula, Neapolitan has an adstratum greatly influenced by other Romance languages (Catalan, Spanish and Franco-Provençal above all), Germanic languages and Greek (both ancient and modern). The language had never been standardised, and the word for "tree" has three different spellings: , and .


title: Neapolitan language

text: Neapolitan has enjoyed a rich literary, musical and theatrical history (notably Giambattista Basile, Eduardo Scarpetta, his son Eduardo De Filippo, Salvatore Di Giacomo and Totò). Thanks to this heritage and the musical work of Renato Carosone in the 1950s, Neapolitan is still in use in popular music, even gaining national popularity in the songs of Pino Daniele and the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare.


title: Neapolitan language

text: The language has no official status within Italy and is not taught in schools. The University of Naples Federico II offers (from 2003) courses in Campanian Dialectology at the faculty of Sociology, whose actual aim is not to teach students to speak the language but to study its history, usage, literature and social role. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at the national level to have it recognized as an official minority language of Italy. It is a recognized ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee language with the language code of "nap".


title: Neapolitan language

text: Neapolitan orthography consists of 22 Latin letters. Much like Italian orthography, it does not contain "k," "w," "x," or "y" even though these letters might be found in some foreign words; unlike Italian, it does contain the letter "j". The following English pronunciation guidelines are based on General American pronunciation, and the values used may not apply to other dialects. (See also: International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.)


title: Neapolitan language

text: All Romance languages are closely related. Although Neapolitan shares a high degree of its vocabulary with Italian, the official language of Italy, differences in pronunciation often make the connection unrecognizable to those without knowledge of Neapolitan. The most striking phonological difference is the Neapolitan weakening of unstressed vowels into schwa ("schwa" is pronounced like the "a" in "about" or the "u" in "upon"). However, it is also possible (and quite common for some Neapolitans) to speak standard Italian with a "Neapolitan accent"; that is, by pronouncing un-stressed vowels as schwa or by pronouncing the letter s as (like the "sh" in "ship") instead of (like the "s" in "sea" or the "ss" in "pass") when the letter is in initial position followed by a consonant, but not when it is followed by a dental occlusive or (at least in the purest form of the language) but by otherwise using only entirely standard words and grammatical forms. This is not Neapolitan properly, but rather a mere difference in Italian pronunciation.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Therefore, while pronunciation presents the strongest barrier to comprehension, the grammar of Neapolitan is what sets it apart from Italian. In Neapolitan, for example, the gender and number of a word is expressed by a change in the accented vowel, whereas in Italian it is expressed by a change in the final vowel (e.g. "luongo" , "longa" ; Italian "lungo, "lunga; masc. "long", fem. "long"). These and other morpho-syntactic differences distinguish the Neapolitan language from the Italian language and the Neapolitan accent.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Neapolitan has had a significant influence on the intonation of Rioplatense Spanish, of the Buenos Aires region of Argentina, and the whole of Uruguay.


title: Neapolitan language

text: While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are eight. Stressed vowels "e" and "o" can be either "closed" or "open" and the pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent ("à", "è", "ò") is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent ("é", "í", "ó", "ú") is used to denote closed vowels, with alternative "ì" and "ù". However, accent marks are not commonly used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such as "Totò", "arrivà", or "pecché", and when they appear here in other positions, it is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words. Also, the circumflex is used to mark a long vowel where it wouldn't normally occur (e.g. "sî" "you are").


title: Neapolitan language

text: The Neapolitan classical definite articles (corresponding to the English word "the") are "la" (feminine singular), "lo" (masculine singular) and "li" (plural for both), but in reality these forms will probably only be found in older literature (along with "lu" and even "el"), of which there is much to be found. Modern Neapolitan uses, almost entirely, shortened forms of these articles:


title: Neapolitan language

text: for both masculine and feminine, singular and plural. Although both forms can be found, the "ll’" form is by far the most common.


title: Neapolitan language

text: It is well to note that in Neapolitan, the gender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of "’o", which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular (there is no neuter plural in Neapolitan), the initial consonant of the noun is doubled when it is neuter. For example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see "’o nnapulitano" we know it refers to the Neapolitan language, whereas "’o napulitano" would refer to a Neapolitan man.


title: Neapolitan language

text: Likewise, since "’e" can be either masculine or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. For example, consider "’a lista", which in Neapolitan is feminine singular for "list." In the plural, it becomes "’e lliste".


title: Neapolitan language

text: There can also be problems with nouns whose singular form ends in "e". Since plural nouns usually end in "e" whether masculine or feminine, the masculine plural is often formed by orthographically changing the spelling. As an example, consider the word "guaglione" (which means "boy" or "girl" in the feminine form):


title: Neapolitan language

text: The Neapolitan indefinite articles, corresponding to the English "a" or "an", are presented in the following table:


title: Neapolitan language

text: In Neapolitan there are four finite moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative, and three non-finite modes: infinitive, gerund and participle. Each mood has an active and a passive form. The only auxiliary verbs used in the active form is (Eng. "to have", It. "avere"), which contrasts with Italian, in which the intransitive and reflexive verbs take "èssere" for their auxiliary. For example, we have:


title: Neapolitan language

text: In Neapolitan, many times the initial consonant of a word is doubled. This is called "raddoppiamento sintattico" in Italian as it also applies to the Italian phonology.


title: Neapolitan language

text: However, when there is a pause after the "trigger" word, the phonological doubling does not occur (e.g. "tu sî (g)guaglione", [You are a boy], where "sî" is a "trigger" word causing doubling of the initial consonant in "guaglione" but in the phrase "’e do sî, guaglió?" [Where are you from, boy?] no doubling occurs). Neither does doubling occur when the initial consonant is followed by another consonant (e.g. "’o ttaliano" [the Italian language], but "’o spagnuolo" [the Spanish language], where "’o" is the neuter definite article).


title: Neapolitan language

text: This is what happens phonologically, and no orthographic change is required. The same thing happens in Italian, where multiple words trigger first-consonant doubling, e.g. "la casa" but "a (c)casa", "io e (t)te", etc.


title: Neapolitan language

text: First public document in Neapolitan Language of the XXI century according to a text of Dr.Verde; the touristic Map of the III Municipality of Naples in Neapolitan Language:


title: Body Count (band)

text: Body Count is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1990. The group is fronted by Ice-T, who first established himself as a rapper but co-founded the group with lead guitarist Ernie C out of their interest in heavy metal music. Ice-T took on the role of vocalist and writing the lyrics for most of Body Count's songs, while Ernie C has been responsible for writing the group's music.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Body Count's self-titled debut album was released on Sire Records in 1992, and garnered much attention due to a controversy around the song "Cop Killer". Their label, Sire Records, and their parent company, Warner Bros. Records, defended the song; however Ice-T chose to remove it from the album because he felt that the controversy had eclipsed the music itself. The group left Sire the following year, and they have since released six more albums.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Three out of the band's original seven members are deceased: D-Roc died from lymphoma, Beatmaster V from leukemia, and Mooseman in a drive-by shooting. Body Count's current lineup includes vocalist Ice-T, guitarists Ernie C and Juan Garcia, bassist Vincent Price, drummer Will "Ill Will" Dorsey Jr., and backing vocalists Sean E Sean and Little Ice (Ice-T's son).


title: Body Count (band)

text: The band received their second Grammy nomination and later won the award at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2021 for Best Metal Performance with their song "Bum Rush" from the album "Carnivore".


title: Body Count (band)

text: Ice-T's interest in heavy metal stemmed from sharing a room with his cousin Earl, who was a fan of rock music and only listened to the local rock stations. Ice-T particularly enjoyed heavy metal, citing Edgar Winter, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath as his favorite bands. Ice-T attended Crenshaw High School, where a few classmates shared his interest in the genre, including musicians Ernie C, D-Roc the Executioner, Beatmaster V, and Mooseman. Ice-T began a solo career as a rapper, and later decided to form Body Count with these friends.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Ice-T co-wrote the band's music and lyrics with lead guitarist Ernie C, and took on the duties of lead vocalist, even though he felt that he did not have a great singing voice. The original line-up consisted of D-Roc on rhythm guitar, Beatmaster V on drums and Mooseman on bass.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Ice-T introduced the band at Lollapalooza in 1991, devoting half of his set to his hip hop songs, and half to Body Count songs, increasing his appeal with both alternative music fans and middle-class teenagers. Some considered the Body Count performances to be the highlight of the tour. The group made its first album appearance on Ice-T's 1991 solo album "O.G. Original Gangster". The song, "Body Count", was preceded by a spoken introduction in which Ice-T responds to allegations that he had "sold out" by incorporating rock elements into his rap albums by pointing out that rock music originated with African-American artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard, in addition to stating that "as far as I'm concerned, music is music. I don't look at it as rock, R&B, or all that kind of stuff. I just look at it as music. [...] I do what I like and I happen to like rock 'n' roll, and I feel sorry for anybody who only listens to one form of music".


title: Body Count (band)

text: Body Count's self-titled debut album was released on Sire/Warner Bros. Records on March 31, 1992. On the strength of the album, Body Count toured internationally, developing a strong following. When the group performed in Milan, Italy, some of the punks in the crowd began spitting at Ernie C. Ice-T attempted to calm the situation by telling the crowd not to spit, but the spitting continued. As the band prepared to play "Cop Killer", Ice-T identified an audience member who spit in his direction; Ice-T responded by rushing into the crowd and punching the spitter. As the band began to play, some of the audience began fighting with Ice-T. Body Count escaped the crowd mid-song, and the promoter immediately shut the concert down.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Outside the venue, angry audience members trashed the band's tour bus. The band hailed a taxicab, but its driver abandoned the cab when the mob surrounded the taxi and shot at it, leading the promoter, representing Body Count, to steal the taxi in order to escape, abandoning it and their tour coats a mile away from the venue. The promoters representant was Rolf Stahlhofen, who later became the singer of the German multiplatinum selling band Söhne Mannheims. They hailed another cab, and the driver attempted to take them back to the venue until the band screamed at the driver to take them to the hotel. The incident was the subject of much controversy and coverage on Italian television. The band appeared on a Milan radio station, where the disc jockey told his audience, "Some clowns tried to ruin his concert. We should be angry at them. Ice-T is a guest in our country, we invited him to do all these sold-out shows, and we love him!" Several Italian fans apologized for the behavior of the Milan audience.


title: Body Count (band)

text: The song "Cop Killer", intended to criticize corrupt police officers, encountered controversy, as it was seen as an attack against the entire police force. According to Ice-T, "I thought I was safe. I thought within the world of rock'n'roll, you could be free to write what you want. Hell, I was listening to Talking Heads singin' 'Psycho Killer'. Fuck it, I'll make 'Cop Killer'! But, that was the cross of metal with something that was real. Now we're not just killing your family, we're killing somebody so real that everybody just went, 'oh shit'".


title: Body Count (band)

text: The Dallas Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas launched a campaign to force Warner Bros. Records to withdraw the album. Within a week, they were joined by police organizations across the United States. Some critics argued that the song could cause crime and violence. Many defended the song on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech. In "The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck", Ice-T wrote that "The people who did have a platform were way off backing me on the First Amendment. That's not where all the anger should have been directed. The anger should have been generated back at the police. [...] Because people jumped on the wrong issue they were able to drive this thing totally through Warner Brothers."


title: Body Count (band)

text: Over the next month, controversy against the band grew. Vice President Dan Quayle branded "Cop Killer" as being "obscene", and President George H.W. Bush publicly denounced any record company that would release such a product. At a Time-Warner shareholders' meeting, actor Charlton Heston stood and read lyrics from the song "KKK Bitch" to an astonished audience and demanded that the company take action. The criticism escalated to the point where death threats were sent to Time-Warner executives, and shareholders threatened to pull out of the company. Finally, Ice-T decided to remove "Cop Killer" from the album of his own volition. In an interview, Ice-T stated that "I didn't want my band to get pigeon-holed as that's the only reason that record sold. It just got outta hand and I was just tired of hearing it. I said, 'fuck it,' I mean they're saying we did it for money, and we didn't. I'd gave the record away, ya know, let's move on, let's get back to real issues, not a record but the cops that are out there killing people."


title: Body Count (band)

text: "Cop Killer" was replaced by a new version of "Freedom of Speech", a song from Ice-T's 1989 solo album "The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say!". The song was re-edited and remixed to give it a more rock-oriented sound. Ice-T left Warner Bros. Records the following year because of disputes over the Ice-T solo album "Home Invasion", taking Body Count with him. Despite the controversy, the album received some praise, including A− reviews from "Entertainment Weekly" and "The Village Voice", who later ranked the album among their list of "The 40 Best Albums of 1992". "Variety" reported that the album had sold 480,000 copies by January 29, 1993.


title: Body Count (band)

text: In 1993, Body Count recorded a cover of "Hey Joe" for the Jimi Hendrix tribute album "". The band released their second album, "Born Dead" in 1994 on Virgin Records. Prior to the recording of Body Count's third album "" (1997), bassist Mooseman left the group and was replaced by Griz. Drummer Beatmaster V died of leukemia soon after the album was completed, and a new drummer named O.T. filled in the position. Bassist Griz left the band later on, and in the meanwhile, former bassist Mooseman was shot in a drive-by shooting in February 2001 after recording an album and preparing for another tour with Iggy Pop in his band the Trolls. In late 2004, rhythm guitarist D-Roc died due to complications from lymphoma, leaving only Ice-T and Ernie C from the original line-up.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Ice-T has stated that "For me, honestly, after something like that, you can either come to a dead stop or you can go on. [...] It was so emotional. We were in the middle of making a new record together and he goes and dies? It was like, 'damn!' Soon enough, though, everybody was like, 'c'mon c'mon you gotta do it.' It was make-or-break. The key essence of Body Count is it's a band made up of friends. It's not about going out and hiring the best drummer or the best guitarist. If we don't know you, you can't be in the band."


title: Body Count (band)

text: In July 2006, Body Count released their fourth album, "Murder 4 Hire" on the indie record label Escapi Music. Its album cover, featuring Uncle Sam holding a cardboard sign reading "Will Kill for Money", compares the United States military to contract killers. The then-line-up included drummer O.T., bassist Vincent Price and rhythm guitarist Bendrix. The band then took an extended hiatus for a couple of years; in regards to the future of Body Count, Ernie C stated, "We will carry on the band. I don't know if it will be Body Count, but in some form, Ice and I will always play together."


title: Body Count (band)

text: The band's presence between after 2009 was sporadic: On September 6, 2009, Body Count made an appearance at the Vans Warped Tour 15th-anniversary party at Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles. The group played a 20-minute set, covered Slayer, and closed with their controversial classic "Cop Killer". Also on the bill were NOFX, Katy Perry, Pennywise, Bad Religion and Rise Against. Mike Sullivan of ExploreMusic caught up with Ernie C at the 2010 edition of the Vans Warped Tour. While briefly chatting, Ernie C divulged that the band was recording its fifth studio album. Body Count wrote an exclusive song, "The Gears of War", for the video game "Gears of War 3", and performed it at a party promoting the game.


title: Body Count (band)

text: On December 9, 2012, Ice-T announced on Twitter that Body Count would begin production on a fifth studio album in January 2013. The following day, Ice-T revealed that Body Count has signed with Sumerian Records. Ice-T suggested that the album was going to be titled "Rise!" or "Manslaughter". On May 10, 2013, Ice-T announced that work on the fifth studio album had begun and that it would be titled "Manslaughter". The album was released on June 10, 2014. On May 13, 2014, Ice-T played the song "Talk Shit, Get Shot" as a teaser for the new album.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Their sixth album, titled "Bloodlust", was released in March 2017 via Century Media Records. On December 28, 2016, Ice-T posted a preview of the first single "No Lives Matter" to Twitter. Guest musicians confirmed to appear on the album are Max Cavalera, Randy Blythe and Dave Mustaine. Upon the release of "Bloodlust", it was confirmed that Ice T's son Tracy Marrow Jr, aka Little Ice, is now a part of the band, performing backing vocals.


title: Body Count (band)

text: In May 2018, Ice-T revealed to "Loudwire" that Body Count would enter the studio around September to start recording tracks for their seventh studio album "Carnivore". On the meaning of the album title, the rapper said, "It's basically: 'Fuck vegans.' We figure, anything carnivorous pretty much kicks ass. We're carnivorous! I'm not [really] saying 'Fuck vegans.' Everyone's so pussy right now, [so] we're carnivores". The recording sessions began in April 2019. The title track was released as the first single on December 13. The album was released on March 6, 2020.


title: Body Count (band)

text: On June 22, 2021, Body Count announced on their Facebook page that they had started work on their eighth studio album "Merciless".


title: Body Count (band)

text: Ice-T's lyrics focus on reality-based themes, including gang life, because he felt it would be scarier than the fantasy-based horror themes of most heavy metal bands. The band's third album, "", featured album cover art depicting the hand signs of these gangs. According to Ice-T, "We named the group Body Count because every Sunday night in L.A., I'd watch the news, and the newscasters would tally up the youths killed in gang homicides that week and then just segue to sports. 'Is that all I am,' I thought, 'a body count?'"


title: Body Count (band)

text: When the band's debut album was released, Ice-T defined it as being "a rock album with a rap mentality". Like Ice-T's hip hop albums, the group's material focused on various social and political issues, with songs focusing on topics ranging from police brutality to drug abuse. Ernie C has stated that "We were just a band that played the songs that we knew how to write. Everybody writes about whatever they learned growing up, and we were no exception. Like the Beach Boys sing about the beach, we sing about the way we grew up."


title: Body Count (band)

text: While a good portion of Body Count's lyrics are current issues, Ice-T notes that he also considers Body Count "grindhouse", and that some of the songs are humorous exaggerations of violence; he also expects fans to be able to tell the difference.


title: Body Count (band)

text: Body Count's musical style derives from the dark, ominous tones of traditional heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath and thrash metal bands such as Slayer, as well as hardcore punk's aggressiveness. According to Ernie C, "We wanted to be a big punk band [...] Our first record is almost a punk record." The presence of a rapper in a heavy metal band has been credited for paving the way for the rise of rap metal and nu metal, even though Ice-T does not rap in most Body Count songs and considers it to solely be a rock band. According to Ernie C, "A lot of rappers want to be in a rock band, but it has to be done sincerely. You can't just get anybody on guitar and expect it to work. [...] Ice and I, on the other hand, really loved the music we were doing, and it showed."


title: Limahl

text: Christopher Hamill (born 19 December 1958), known professionally as Limahl (an anagram of Hamill), is an English pop singer. He was the lead singer of the pop group Kajagoogoo beginning in 1981, before embarking on a brief solo career, garnering the 1984 hit "The NeverEnding Story", the theme song for the film of the same name.


title: Limahl

text: Christopher Hamill was born on 19 December 1958 at Pemberton, Wigan, Lancashire, in North West England, to Eric and Cynthia Hamill. He has one sister and two brothers. The four children were all born by the time their mother was 22. Hamill attended Mesnes High School, Wigan, Greater Manchester, Orrell, before eventually enrolling at the Westcliff-on-Sea Palace Theatre Repertory Company.


title: Limahl

text: With aspirations to be an actor, Chris Hamill toured with the company in a production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". In 1980, he was given a small role in an episode of the ITV police series "The Gentle Touch". In 1981, he also appeared as an extra in the promotional video for Adam and the Ants' number one UK single "Stand and Deliver".


title: Limahl

text: He had a keen interest in music, forming a short-lived punk band called Vox Deus. Next he joined and left a band called Crossword. Later he answered an advert in the music press to join a band to be called Brooks with Mike Nolan. Chris Hamill adopted his stage name Limahl (an anagram of his surname) at the time he was recruited by the existing members of Kajagoogoo, who were then performing under the name Art Nouveau.


title: Limahl

text: The four members of Art Nouveau, the band who were yet to become Kajagoogoo, had placed an advertisement in the music magazine "Melody Maker", asking for a 'front man who could sing and look good'. Hamill attended the audition and subsequently joined the band which was then, after some deliberation, renamed Kajagoogoo. Soon after he had joined, Limahl met Nick Rhodes, keyboardist of the group Duran Duran, while Limahl was working as a waiter at the Embassy Club in London. Rhodes agreed to co-produce the band's first single, "Too Shy".


title: Limahl

text: Limahl later said: "I met Nick Rhodes and it changed my life." Kajagoogoo signed a deal with EMI, due in part to Rhodes' involvement with the band, and the single "Too Shy" was released in January 1983. It went to number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and made the top 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100.


title: Limahl

text: The group had further hits with "Ooh to Be Ah" (UK No. 7) and "Hang on Now" (UK No. 13), with their debut album "White Feathers" reaching UK No. 5. Their first major UK tour was attended by 60,000 people, and the final show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London was recorded and released on home video/Laserdisc (the 16-track "White Feathers Tour").


title: Limahl

text: In mid-1983, soon after the end of the "White Feathers" concert tour, the four other members of the band agreed that Limahl should be fired. As recounted years later by Nick Beggs and other Kajagoogoo members on the VH-1 program Bands Reunited, the actual firing of Limahl was done by their manager, and the band learned that it had been done over the telephone. Limahl was quoted in the press as saying: "I've been betrayed!", and "I was sacked for making them a success".


title: Limahl

text: Limahl later said: "I was in utter disbelief but the overwhelming emotion was anger, mainly towards the manager at first, but later, as I mulled over the 'betrayal', I was especially angry at my four professional colleagues, who I had viewed not only as friends but almost as family." The band stated Limahl had become difficult to work with as they didn't share his vision for the band's future. Soon after Limahl's departure, bassist Nick Beggs commented: "It was a business decision and not one we took lightly. He wanted the band to go in a different direction to the rest of us. Eventually, we realised we were on a different planet to Limahl." Beggs also stated the band harboured no ill-will towards Limahl, and blamed the press for sensationalising the matter. Guitarist Steve Askew commented: "At first...we did everything possible to make Limahl feel like part of the furniture, but, you know, his lifestyle is so different from ours. We're very normal people whereas Limahl likes the bright lights."


title: Limahl

text: After leaving the band, Limahl launched a solo career, achieving hits with "Only for Love" (UK No. 16) in 1983, and with "The NeverEnding Story" (UK No. 4) in 1984. The latter was the title theme from the film of the same name, composed by Giorgio Moroder. The English version was sung with Beth Anderson. The French language version "L'Histoire Sans Fin" was performed with Ann Calvert, with translated lyrics by Pierre-André Dousset. The single reached the Top 5 in several countries and was number one in Spain, Sweden, and Norway.


title: Limahl

text: His debut album, 1984's "Don't Suppose", was a commercial failure in the UK, peaking at No. 63. It was better received in continental Europe with it topping the Norwegian album chart and reaching the Top 10 in Austria, Sweden and Switzerland.


title: Limahl

text: Following this, Limahl released two more albums: 1986's "Colour All My Days" and "Love Is Blind" in 1992, both of which failed to chart in the UK but found moderate success in Italy, Spain, and Germany.


title: Limahl

text: Limahl, with the hairstyle he sported circa 1984, was illustrator Arthur Adams' inspiration for the look of the Marvel Comics X-Men character Longshot.


title: Limahl

text: In late 2003, Limahl briefly reunited with the other members of Kajagoogoo for the VH1 special "Bands Reunited" (which aired in 2004), but this did not lead to a permanent reunion. Also in 2004, Limahl took part in the musical reality show "Comeback" on German TV channel Pro7. A year later, in 2005, he appeared in a similar UK show, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" on ITV. The episode in which Limahl appeared also featured Howard Jones, who had enlisted the services of Kajagoogoo bass player Nick Beggs to support him during his own performance.


title: Limahl

text: Limahl eventually reunited with Kajagoogoo again in 2008. Now reformed in their original five-piece line-up, the band took part in various music festivals in Europe.


title: Limahl

text: In 2011, the band released a new track, "Death-Defying Headlines", as a digital single. Limahl as a solo artist released a new single in 2012 called "1983", co-written/produced with Norwegians Tommy Olsen, Rune Maurtvedt, and Stig Antonsen. The track was released worldwide by Dig Music (Norway) on 10 January 2012.


title: Limahl

text: In November 2012, Limahl appeared on ITV's "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" and he came in as a late-entrant contestant alongside Rosemary Shrager.


title: Limahl

text: Limahl continues to perform mostly 1980s retro based shows, often performing as part of multi-act tours. In 2016, Limahl appeared as part of the Billboard Tour playing to audiences in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan. He featured as part of the successful Totally 80s Tour of Australia in July 2016, playing to audiences in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide. In July and August 2018, he played his first shows in America as part of the Retro Futura Tour.


title: Limahl

text: In July 2019, "The NeverEnding Story" song recorded a sudden 2,063% increase in on-demand streams from 88,000 in the week ending 4 July to 1.91 million in the week ending 11 July after actors Gaten Matarazzo and Gabriella Pizzolo performed an a cappella duet of the track in the final episode of season three of Netflix series Stranger Things. In November 2019, Limahl and Kajagoogoo were featured in two episodes of . On 5 June 2020, Limahl released the single 'Still in Love', which was his first single released since 2012, which was followed by 'One Wish For Christmas' in November. On 28 November 2020, he appeared as a guest on a late-night Channel 5 entertainment show called "Jane McDonald Sings the Movies".


title: Erin Murphy

text: Erin Margaret Murphy (born June 17, 1964) is an American actress, who is best known for her role as young Tabitha Stephens in the television sitcom "Bewitched", in 103 episodes from the show's third season (in 1966) to the last original episode in 1972. For the first season, she shared this role for 18 episodes with her fraternal twin sister, Diane, as they were of similar appearance and stature. As they got older and looked less alike, only Erin played the role. Both sisters are the last surviving original actors of "Bewitched".


title: Erin Murphy

text: Following "Bewitched", Murphy guest-starred on shows such as "Lassie", appeared in over 100 commercials, and modeled for Hang Ten swimwear. She was an El Toro High School cheerleader and homecoming queen during her senior year. She graduated from El Toro High School in 1981. Murphy has worked as a casting director, makeup artist, fashion stylist, acting teacher, motivational speaker, and stunt double for actress Virginia Madsen. Since 2014, Murphy has been co-owner of Slim Chillers, a company that makes low-calorie frozen vodka martini pops.


title: Erin Murphy

text: Murphy has worked as a television host and correspondent (TVLand, Fox Reality Channel, TVGasm.com, and E!) and as the on-air moderator for Allergan Medical. She has also been an infomercial host (Ab Shark for Thane, Bun Shaper for Emson, SomaTrac Inversion Table). Murphy is the host of Disney Family.com's Parentpedia.


title: Erin Murphy

text: On December 20, 2006, she appeared as one of the 12 "strangers" on the NBC game show "Identity". In 2007, she was featured on "CNN Headline News" as a "Celebrity With a Cause" discussing her work with autism-related charities.


title: Erin Murphy

text: In 2008, Murphy appeared as celebrity judge on Danny Bonaduce's "I Know My Kid's a Star" reality show contest for young actors and with Bob Saget on "1 vs. 100". She has also appeared on "Craft Lab" (DIY/HGTV), "Groomer Has It" (Animal Planet) with her giant Leonberger, and on "Over Your Head" (HGTV) building flagstone steps in her backyard.


title: Erin Murphy

text: Murphy also starred on "Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling" series for CMT, in which the celebrities trained as professional wrestlers. Erin's wrestling persona is Mistress of Mayhem (aka M.O.M.)


title: Erin Murphy

text: Murphy is a fashion, beauty, and luxury lifestyle writer, with her work appearing in numerous magazines and online publications. She is also a motivational speaker and fundraiser for charitable organizations. Murphy often speaks out on the subject of autism as one of her sons has the disorder.


title: Erin Murphy

text: Murphy was featured in a photo spread January 2012 in "OK!" magazine with two of her alpacas on her ranch in Bell Canyon, California. Murphy discussed her company Erin Murphy Knits which offers hand knit eco-friendly alpaca wear.


title: Erin Murphy

text: In 2018, "Variety" wrote that Murphy had purchased her dream home on the beach in Malibu for $2,300,000.


title: Erin Murphy

text: Murphy has been married three times and divorced twice. Her three husbands are Terry Rogers (1984–1989), Eric Eden (1993–1998), and Darren Dunckel (May 1998–). She has two children with Rogers, one child with Eden, and three children with Dunckel.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: In probability theory, a martingale is a sequence of random variables (i.e., a stochastic process) for which, at a particular time, the conditional expectation of the next value in the sequence is equal to the present value, regardless of all prior values.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: Originally, "martingale" referred to a class of betting strategies that was popular in 18th-century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins their stake if a coin comes up heads and loses it if the coin comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double their bet after every loss so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. As the gambler's wealth and available time jointly approach infinity, their probability of eventually flipping heads approaches 1, which makes the martingale betting strategy seem like a sure thing. However, the exponential growth of the bets eventually bankrupts its users due to finite bankrolls. Stopped Brownian motion, which is a martingale process, can be used to model the trajectory of such games.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: The concept of martingale in probability theory was introduced by Paul Lévy in 1934, though he did not name it. The term "martingale" was introduced later by , who also extended the definition to continuous martingales. Much of the original development of the theory was done by Joseph Leo Doob among others. Part of the motivation for that work was to show the impossibility of successful betting strategies in games of chance.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: A basic definition of a discrete-time martingale is a discrete-time stochastic process (i.e., a sequence of random variables) "X", "X", "X", ... that satisfies for any time "n",


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: That is, the conditional expected value of the next observation, given all the past observations, is equal to the most recent observation.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: More generally, a sequence "Y", "Y", "Y" ... is said to be a martingale with respect to another sequence "X", "X", "X" ... if for all "n"


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: Similarly, a continuous-time martingale with respect to the stochastic process "X" is a stochastic process "Y" such that for all "t"


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: This expresses the property that the conditional expectation of an observation at time "t", given all the observations up to time formula_7, is equal to the observation at time "s" (of course, provided that "s" ≤ "t"). Note that the second property implies that formula_8 is measurable with respect to formula_9.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: In full generality, a stochastic process formula_10 taking values in a Banach space formula_11 with norm formula_12 is a martingale with respect to a filtration formula_13 and probability measure formula_14 if


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: It is important to note that the property of being a martingale involves both the filtration "and" the probability measure (with respect to which the expectations are taken). It is possible that "Y" could be a martingale with respect to one measure but not another one; the Girsanov theorem offers a way to find a measure with respect to which an Itō process is a martingale.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: There are two popular generalizations of a martingale that also include cases when the current observation "X" is not necessarily equal to the future conditional expectation "E"["X" | "X"...,"X"] but instead an upper or lower bound on the conditional expectation. These definitions reflect a relationship between martingale theory and potential theory, which is the study of harmonic functions. Just as a continuous-time martingale satisfies E["X" | {"X" : "τ" ≤ "s"}] − "X" = 0 ∀"s" ≤ "t", a harmonic function "f" satisfies the partial differential equation Δ"f" = 0 where Δ is the Laplacian operator. Given a Brownian motion process "W" and a harmonic function "f", the resulting process "f"("W") is also a martingale.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: A stopping time with respect to a sequence of random variables "X", "X", "X", ... is a random variable τ with the property that for each "t", the occurrence or non-occurrence of the event "τ" = "t" depends only on the values of "X", "X", "X", ..., "X". The intuition behind the definition is that at any particular time "t", you can look at the sequence so far and tell if it is time to stop. An example in real life might be the time at which a gambler leaves the gambling table, which might be a function of their previous winnings (for example, he might leave only when he goes broke), but he can't choose to go or stay based on the outcome of games that haven't been played yet.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: In some contexts the concept of "stopping time" is defined by requiring only that the occurrence or non-occurrence of the event "τ" = "t" is probabilistically independent of "X", "X", ... but not that it is completely determined by the history of the process up to time "t". That is a weaker condition than the one appearing in the paragraph above, but is strong enough to serve in some of the proofs in which stopping times are used.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: One of the basic properties of martingales is that, if formula_29 is a (sub-/super-) martingale and formula_30 is a stopping time, then the corresponding stopped process formula_31 defined by formula_32 is also a (sub-/super-) martingale.


title: Martingale (probability theory)

text: The concept of a stopped martingale leads to a series of important theorems, including, for example, the optional stopping theorem which states that, under certain conditions, the expected value of a martingale at a stopping time is equal to its initial value.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs Inc., a US-based technology company. Released in 2012, Ripple is built upon a distributed open source protocol, and supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities, or other units of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. Ripple purports to enable "secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks". The ledger employs the native cryptocurrency known as XRP.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: In December 2020, Ripple Labs and two of its executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for selling XRP tokens, which the SEC classified as unregistered securities.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: Ripple was conceived by Jed McCaleb and built by Arthur Britto and David Schwartz who then approached Ryan Fugger who had debuted in 2005 as a financial service to provide secure payment options to members of an online community via a global network. Fugger had developed a system called OpenCoin which would transform into Ripple. The company also created its own form of digital currency referred to as XRP to allow financial institutions to transfer money with negligible fees and wait-time. In 2013, the company reported interest from banks for using its payment system.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: By 2018, over 100 banks had signed up, but most of them were only using Ripple's XCurrent messaging technology, while avoiding the XRP cryptocurrency due to its volatility problems. Representatives of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), whose market dominance is being challenged by Ripple, have argued that the scalability issues of Ripple and other blockchain solutions remain unsolved, confining them to bilateral and intra-bank applications. A Ripple executive acknowledged in 2018 that "We started out with your classic blockchain, which we love. But the feedback from the banks is you can’t put the whole world on a blockchain."


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: Ripple relies on a common shared ledger, which is a distributed database storing information about all Ripple accounts. Chris Larsen told the Stanford Graduate School of Business that the network was managed by a network of independent servers which compare their transaction records, and that servers could in theory belong to anyone, including banks or market makers. Ripple validates accounts and balances instantly for payment transmission and delivers payment notification within a few seconds. Payments are irreversible, and there are no chargebacks.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: Ripple Labs continued as the primary contributors of code to the consensus verification system behind Ripple. In 2014, the protocol gained access to the US banking system amid concerns over security and a lack of regulation.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: A class action was filed against Ripple in May 2018 "alleging that it led a scheme to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through unregistered sales of its XRP tokens". According to the complaint, "the company created billions of coins 'out of thin air' and then profited by selling them to the public in 'what is essentially a never-ending initial coin offering.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated legal proceedings against Ripple Labs, CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen on December 21, 2020, for allegedly selling unregistered securities. In the lawsuit, the SEC claimed that XRP was a security instead of a commodity, because it was generated and distributed by Ripple Labs in a centralized fashion and was not being adopted by financial institutions for its advertised use cases. The SEC stated that Ripple executives sold 14.6 billion units of XRP for more than $1.38 billion to fund the company's operations and enrich themselves.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: In response, Garlinghouse criticized the SEC and indicated that Ripple Labs would defend itself in court. Coinbase delisted XRP on December 28; an investor filed a class action on December 30 alleging that Coinbase sold XRP tokens with the understanding that they were unregistered securities.


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: On April 13, SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce published the Token Safe Harbor Proposal 2.0, which is ″intended to provide Initial Development Teams with a three-year time period within which they can facilitate participation in, and the continued development of, a functional or decentralized network, exempt from the registration provisions of the federal securities laws so long as certain conditions are met.″


title: Ripple (payment protocol)

text: For its creation and development of the Ripple protocol (RTXP) and the Ripple payment/exchange network Ripple Labs was named as one of 2014's 50 Smartest Companies in the February 2014 edition of "MIT Technology Review". A scientific study made by two researchers from Stanford and Stockholm University that studied the money production from an energy consumption point of view and a macroeconomic level stated that running a server on Ripple was comparable to the energy needs of running an email server.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: In virology, influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (A/H1N1) is a subtype of influenza A virus. Major outbreaks of H1N1 strains in humans include the Spanish flu, the 1977 Russian flu pandemic and the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It is an orthomyxovirus that contains the glycoproteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. For this reason, they are described as H1N1, H1N2 etc., depending on the type of H or N antigens they express with metabolic synergy. Hemagglutinin causes red blood cells to clump together and binds the virus to the infected cell. Neuraminidase is a type of glycoside hydrolase enzyme which helps to move the virus particles through the infected cell and assist in budding from the host cells.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Some strains of H1N1 are endemic in humans and cause a small fraction of all influenza-like illness and a small fraction of all seasonal influenza, for instance in 2004–2005. Other strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs (swine influenza) and in birds (avian influenza). Its size is in diameter.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Genetic analysis of virus from tissue preserved medically or in permafrost suggests that seasonal H1N1 strains of today descend from the 1918 flu pandemic virus, but the result is not conclusive.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Swine influenza (also known as swine flu or pig flu) is a respiratory disease that occurs in pigs that is caused by the Influenza A virus. Influenza viruses that are normally found in swine are known as swine influenza viruses (SIVs).


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The known SIV strains include influenza C and the subtypes of influenza A known as H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2 and H2N3. Pigs can also become infected with the H4N6 and H9N2 subtypes.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Swine influenza virus is common throughout pig populations worldwide. Transmission of the virus from pigs to humans is not common and does not always lead to human influenza, often resulting only in the production of antibodies in the blood. If transmission does cause human influenza, it is called zoonotic swine flu or a variant virus. People with regular exposure to pigs are at increased risk of swine flu infection. Properly cooking the meat of an infected animal removes the risk of infection.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Pigs experimentally infected with the strain of swine flu that caused the human pandemic of 2009–10 showed clinical signs of flu within four days, and the virus spread to other uninfected pigs housed with the infected ones.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The 1918 flu was an unusually severe and deadly strain of H1N1 avian influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed from 17 to 50 or more million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1920. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The 1918 flu caused an abnormally high number of deaths, possibly due to it provoking a cytokine storm in the body. (The current H5N1 bird flu, also an Influenza A virus, has a similar effect.) After the 1918 flu infected lung cells, it frequently led to overstimulation of the immune system via release of cytokines (a protein that invokes the immune response) into the lung tissue. This leads to extensive leukocyte migration towards the lungs, resulting in the destruction of lung cells and secretion of blood and mucus into the alveoli and airways. This makes it difficult for the patient to breathe and can result in suffocation. In contrast to other pandemics, which mostly kill the old and the very young, the 1918 pandemic killed unusual numbers of young adults, which may have been due to their healthy immune systems mounting a too-strong and damaging response to the infection.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The term "Spanish" flu was coined because Spain was at the time the only European country where the press were printing reports of the outbreak, which had killed thousands in the armies fighting World War I (1914–1918). Other countries suppressed the news in order to protect morale.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: In 1976, a novel swine influenza A (H1N1) caused severe respiratory illness in 13 soldiers, with one death at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The virus was detected only from 19 January to 9 February and did not spread beyond Fort Dix. Retrospective serologic testing subsequently demonstrated that up to 230 soldiers had been infected with the novel virus, which was an H1N1 strain. The cause of the outbreak is still unknown and no exposure to pigs was identified.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The 1977 Russian flu pandemic was caused by strain "Influenza A/USSR/90/77 (H1N1)". It infected mostly children and young adults under 23; because a similar strain was prevalent in 1947–57, most adults had substantial immunity. Later analysis found that the re-emergent strain had been circulating for approximately one year before it was detected in China and Russia. The virus was included in the 1978–79 influenza vaccine.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: In the 2009 flu pandemic, the virus isolated from patients in the United States was found to be made up of genetic elements from four different flu viruses – North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe – "an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences." This new strain appears to be a result of reassortment of human influenza and swine influenza viruses, in all four different strains of subtype H1N1.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Preliminary genetic characterization found that the hemagglutinin (HA) gene was similar to that of swine flu viruses present in U.S. pigs since 1999, but the neuraminidase (NA) and matrix protein (M) genes resembled versions present in European swine flu isolates. The six genes from American swine flu are themselves mixtures of swine flu, bird flu, and human flu viruses. While viruses with this genetic makeup had not previously been found to be circulating in humans or pigs, there is no formal national surveillance system to determine what viruses are circulating in pigs in the U.S.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: In April 2009, an outbreak of influenza-like illness (ILI) occurred in Mexico and then in the United States; the CDC reported seven cases of novel A/H1N1 influenza and promptly shared the genetic sequences on the GISAID database. With similar timely sharing of data for Mexican isolates, by 24 April it became clear that the outbreak of ILI in Mexico and the confirmed cases of novel influenza A in the southwest US were related and WHO issued a health advisory on the outbreak of "influenza-like illness in the United States and Mexico".


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The disease then spread very rapidly, with the number of confirmed cases rising to 2,099 by 7 May, despite aggressive measures taken by the Mexican government to curb the spread of the disease. The outbreak had been predicted a year earlier by noticing the increasing number of replikins, a type of peptide, found in the virus.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: On 11 June 2009, the WHO declared an H1N1 pandemic, moving the alert level to phase 6, marking the first global pandemic since the 1968 Hong Kong flu. On 25 October 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama officially declared H1N1 a national emergency. The President's declaration caused many U.S. employers to take actions to help stem the spread of the swine flu and to accommodate employees and / or workflow which may have been impacted by an outbreak.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: A study conducted in coordination with the University of Michigan Health Service – scheduled for publication in the December 2009 "American Journal of Roentgenology" – warned that H1N1 flu can cause pulmonary embolism, surmised as a leading cause of death in this pandemic. The study authors suggest physician evaluation via contrast enhanced CT scans for the presence of pulmonary emboli when caring for patients diagnosed with respiratory complications from a "severe" case of the H1N1 flu. H1N1 may induce other embolic events, such as myocardial infarction, bilateral massive DVT, arterial thrombus of infrarenal aorta, thrombosis of right external iliac vein and common femoral vein or cerebral gas embolism. The type of embolic events caused by H1N1 infection are summarized in a 2010 review by Dimitroulis Ioannis et al.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The 21 March 2010 worldwide update, by the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO), states that "213 countries and overseas territories/communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 16,931 deaths." , worldwide update by World Health Organization (WHO) more than 214 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including over 18,138 deaths. The research team of Andrew Miller showed pregnant patients are at increased risk. It has been suggested that pregnant women and certain populations such as native North Americans have a greater likelihood of developing a T helper type 2 response to H1N1 influenza which may be responsible for the systemic inflammatory response syndrome that causes pulmonary edema and death.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: On 26 April 2011, an H1N1 pandemic preparedness alert was issued by the World Health Organization for the Americas. In August 2011, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and the CDC, northern sea otters off the coast of Washington state were infected with the same version of the H1N1 flu virus that caused the 2009 pandemic and "may be a newly identified animal host of influenza viruses". In May 2013, seventeen people died during an H1N1 outbreak in Venezuela, and a further 250 were infected. As of early January 2014, Texas health officials have confirmed at least thirty-three H1N1 deaths and widespread outbreak during the 2013/2014 flu season, while twenty-one more deaths have been reported across the US. Nine people have been reported dead from an outbreak in several Canadian cities, and Mexico reports outbreaks resulting in at least one death. Spanish health authorities have confirmed 35 H1N1 cases in the Aragon region, 18 of whom are in intensive care. On 17 March 2014, three cases were confirmed with a possible fourth awaiting results occurring at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: With more than 300 infections and over 20 deaths, India's health ministry declared an outbreak "well under control" with "no reason to panic" in April 2012.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: According to the Indian Health Ministry, 31,974 cases of swine flu had been reported and 1,895 people had died from an outbreak by mid-March.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Maldives reported swine flu in early 2017; 501 people were tested for the disease and 185 (37%) of those tested were positive for the disease. Four of those who tested positive from these 185 died due to this disease.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The total number of people who have died due to the disease is unknown. Patient Zero was never identified.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Schools were closed for a week due to the disease, but were ordered by the Ministry of Education to open after the holidays even though the disease was not fully under control.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Myanmar reported H1N1 in late July 2017. As of 27 July, there were 30 confirmed cases and six people had died. The Ministry of Health and Sports of Myanmar sent an official request to WHO to provide help to control the virus; and also mentioned that the government would be seeking international assistance, including from the UN, China and the United States.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Pakistan reported H1N1 cases mostly arising from the city of Multan, with deaths resulting from the epidemic reaching 42. There have also been confirmed cases in cities of Gujranwala and Lahore.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: An outbreak of swine flu in the European Union member state was reported in mid-January 2019, with the island's main state hospital overcrowded within a week, with more than 30 cases being treated.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: In November 2019 an outbreak of H1N1 was recorded in Iran, with 56 fatalities and 4,000 people hospitalized.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The G4 virus, also known as the "G4 swine flu virus" (G4) and "G4 EA H1N1", is a swine influenza virus strain discovered in China. The virus is a variant genotype 4 (G4) Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus that mainly affects pigs, but there is some evidence of it infecting people. A 2020 peer-reviewed paper from the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" ("PNAS") stated that "G4 EA H1N1 viruses possess all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans ... Controlling the prevailing G4 EA H1N1 viruses in pigs and close monitoring of swine working populations should be promptly implemented."


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, stated in July 2020 that this strain of influenza virus was not new and had been under surveillance since 2011. The Chinese CDC said it had implemented an influenza surveillance program in 2010, analyzing more than 400,000 tests annually, to facilitate early identification of influenza. Of those, 13 A(H1N1) cases were detected, of which three were of the G4 variant.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The study stated that almost 30,000 swine had been monitored via nasal swabs between 2011 and 2018. While other variants of the virus have appeared and diminished, the study claimed the G4 variant had sharply increased since 2016 to become the predominant strain. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs rebutted the study, saying that the number of pigs sampled was too small to demonstrate G4 had become the dominant strain and that the media had interpreted the study "in an exaggerated and nonfactual way". They also said the infected workers "did not show flu symptoms and the test sample is not representative of the pig population in China".


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the study suggested that human infection by the G4 virus is more common than it was thought to be. Both the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the US CDC stated that, like all flu viruses with pandemic potential, the variant is a concern that will be monitored. The ECDC stated that "the most important intervention in preparing for the pandemic potential of influenza viruses is the development and use of human vaccines ...". Health officials (including Anthony Fauci) have said that the virus should be monitored, particularly among those in close contact with pigs, but it is not an immediate threat. While there have been no reported cases or evidence of the virus outside China as of July 2020, "Smithsonian Magazine" reported in July 2020 that scientists agree that the virus should be closely monitored, but because it "so far cannot jump from person to person", it should not be a cause for alarm yet.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Pregnant women who contract the H1N1 infection are at a greater risk of developing complications because of hormonal changes, physical changes and changes to their immune system to accommodate the growing fetus. For this reason the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that those who are pregnant are vaccinated to prevent the influenza virus. The vaccination should not be taken by people who have had a severe allergic reaction to the influenza vaccination. Additionally those who are moderately to severely ill, with or without a fever should wait until they recover before taking the vaccination.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Pregnant women who become infected with the influenza are advised to contact their doctor immediately. Influenza can be treated using antiviral medication, which are available by prescription. Oseltamivir (trade name Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) are two neuraminidase inhibitors (antiviral medications) currently recommended. It has been shown that they are most effective when taken within two days of becoming sick.


title: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1

text: Since 1 October 2008, the CDC has tested 1,146 seasonal influenza A (H1N1) viruses for resistance against oseltamivir and zanamivir. It was found that 99.6% of the samples were resistant to oseltamivir while none were resistant to zanamivir. After 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) virus samples were tested, only 4% (of 853 samples) showed resistance to oseltamivir (again, no samples showed resistance to zanamivir). A study conducted in Japan during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic concluded that infants exposed to either oseltamivir or zanamivir had no short term adverse effects. Both amantadine and rimantadine have been found to be teratogenic and embryotoxic (malformations and toxic effects on the embryo) when given at high doses in animal studies.


title: Los Pepes

text: Los Pepes, a name derived from the Spanish phrase "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar" ("Persecuted by Pablo Escobar"), was a vigilante group composed of enemies of Pablo Escobar. They waged a small-scale war against the Medellín Cartel in 1993, which ended the same year following the death of Escobar. The group was financed by the Cali Cartel and was led by the Castaño brothers. An example of their acts could be seen on the streets of Medellín, such as hangings of Pablo's sicarios.


title: Los Pepes

text: There are reports that Los Pepes had ties to some members of the Colombian National Police, especially the Search Bloc (Bloque de Búsqueda), with whom they exchanged information in order to execute their activities against Escobar. According to documents released to the public by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2008, "Colombian National Police director general Miguel Antonio Gómez Padilla said 'that he had directed a senior CNP intelligence officer to maintain contact with Fidel Castaño, paramilitary leader of Los Pepes, for the purposes of intelligence collection'."


title: Los Pepes

text: Given that the main objective of Los Pepes was to assassinate Escobar, they acted in the same way that the Medellín Cartel acted against their enemies: killing anyone who had any allegiance with Escobar, such as their guards, accountants or lawyers, in addition to directly threatening friends and family of Pablo Escobar. They were involved in the destruction of two haciendas that belonged to Hermilda Gaviria (Escobar's mother). They were characterized by the frequent use of explosives in their attacks.


title: Los Pepes

text: After Escobar was shot and killed when fighting against the Search Bloc in 1993, several of their leaders eventually went on to become leaders of a national paramilitary alliance in Colombia, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary death squad that was formed not only for the purpose of fighting the Cartel but also the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla group. The Castaño Brothers (Carlos 1965–2004, Vicente and Fidel, who went missing in 1994) were founders of several paramilitary groups and the driving force behind the AUC's creation.


title: Los Pepes

text: Another member of Los Pepes, Diego Murillo Bejarano aka "Don Berna", eventually became Inspector General of the AUC as well as an important drug trafficker with The Office of Envigado.


title: Los Pepes

text: The Institute for Policy Studies is searching for details of what connections the CIA and DEA had to Los Pepes. They have launched a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the CIA. That suit has resulted in the declassification of thousands of documents from the CIA as well as other U.S. agencies including the Department of State, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S Coast Guard. These documents have been made public at the website Pepes Project.


title: Los Pepes

text: Mark Bowden's book "Killing Pablo" highlights some of the operations of Los Pepes and describes some of the forms of cooperation and support that the group allegedly received from members of the Colombian National Police.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Catherine Marie Cortez Masto (born March 29, 1964) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Nevada, a seat she has held since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Cortez Masto served as the 32nd attorney general of Nevada from 2007 to 2015.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto graduated from University of Nevada, Reno and Gonzaga University School of Law. She worked four years as a civil attorney in Las Vegas and two years as a criminal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. before being elected Nevada attorney general in 2006, replacing George Chanos. Reelected in 2010, she was not eligible to run for a third term in 2014 because of lifetime term limits established by the Constitution of Nevada.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto narrowly defeated Republican Joe Heck in the 2016 United States Senate election in Nevada to replace outgoing Democratic senator Harry Reid, becoming the first woman elected to represent Nevada in the Senate and the first Latina elected to serve in the upper chamber. She took office on January 3, 2017, and became Nevada's senior senator in January 2019, when Dean Heller left the Senate following his defeat. She was narrowly reelected in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Adam Laxalt.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, the daughter of Joanna (née Musso) and Manny Cortez. Her father, an attorney, was the longtime head of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and served as a member of the Clark County Commission. Now deceased, Manny Cortez had a long-standing friendship with Harry Reid. Her father was of Mexican descent, and her mother is of Italian ancestry. Her paternal grandfather, Eduardo Cortez, immigrated to Nevada from Chihuahua, Mexico.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto attended Ed W. Clark High School, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1986 and a Juris Doctor from Gonzaga University School of Law in 1990.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto was admitted to the State Bar of Nevada in 1990, the U.S. District Court, District of Nevada in 1991, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1994. Her career includes four years as a civil attorney in Las Vegas and two as a criminal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. She also served as former Nevada Governor Bob Miller's chief of staff.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In November 2003, Cortez Masto was named executive vice chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education. There was some controversy, because she was hired directly by the chancellor, not the university system's board of regents; the chancellor said the regents had recommended that he hire an assistant, and in December the board voted unanimously to approve her annual salary of $215,000.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto was the Democratic nominee for state attorney general in 2006 and defeated Republican nominee Don Chairez 59% to 36%, with 5% for "None of these". She was reelected in 2010, defeating Republican Travis Barrick 52% to 36%, with 8% for Independent American candidate Joel F. Hansen and 4% for "None of these".


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In 2009, Cortez Masto's office launched an investigation into Brian Krolicki, then Nevada's Republican lieutenant governor. Krolicki faced felony charges related to allegations that he mishandled the Nevada College Savings Trust Fund when he was state treasurer. During the investigation, the "Las Vegas Review-Journal" discovered that Cortez Masto's husband, Paul, planned to host a fundraising party for Robert S. Randazzo, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, four days before the attorney general's office was scheduled to prosecute Krolicki. Cortez Masto said she was unaware of the fundraising party. The charges against Krolicki were ultimately dismissed in Clark County District Court. The dismissal of charges against Krolicki was regarded as a political setback for Cortez Masto, who, according to the "Las Vegas Sun", "opened herself to charges of politicizing her office and prosecutorial misconduct".


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In 2010, Cortez Masto's office began investigating Bank of America, accusing the company of raising interest rates on troubled borrowers. Her office sought to end Nevada's participation in a loan modification settlement in order to sue the bank over deceptive marketing and lending practices. Bank of America denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit was settled in 2012 for $750 million for lien reductions and short sales.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto defended the state of Nevada in the lawsuit "Sevcik v. Sandoval". The suit challenged Nevada's denial of same-sex marriage, as prohibited by the state's constitution and statutory law. After initially defending the same-sex marriage ban, Cortez Masto and the state abandoned their defense in light of a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto declined to run for governor of Nevada in the 2014 election. When U.S. Senator Harry Reid decided not to run for reelection in the 2016 election, he endorsed her as his successor. Cortez Masto's campaign relied heavily on the political infrastructure Reid had assembled. Her Republican opponent was U.S. Representative Joe Heck.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto, who supports increased investments in renewable energy technology, was supported by the League of Conservation Voters. She was also financially supported by pro-choice groups, such as EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood, and by End Citizens United, a political action committee seeking to overturn "Citizens United v. FEC".


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto won 47% of the vote (520,658 votes) to Heck's 45% (494,427 votes). While Heck carried 16 of Nevada's counties and its equivalents, Cortez Masto won Clark County, home to over 70% of the state's population, by over 82,000 votes, over three times her statewide margin of 27,000 votes. She took office on January 3, 2017, becoming the first Latina in the U.S. Senate.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: On February 24, 2021, Cortez Masto announced that she would run for reelection in 2022. Among her challengers was her successor as attorney general and 2018 nominee for governor Adam Laxalt. Cortez Masto trailed in many polls and was widely seen as the most vulnerable incumbent Democratic U.S. senator. But she defeated Laxalt, securing a second term.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. She was on the Senate floor, preparing to speak, when the Capitol was breached. Cortez Masto could hear the attackers just outside the chamber, which was secured by Capitol Police. As the attackers neared the chamber, she and her fellow senators were moved to an undisclosed secure location. Cortez Masto tweeted while sheltering in place, calling the attack "un-American and unacceptable".


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: As of October 2022, Cortez Masto has voted in line with Joe Biden's stated position 92.9% of the time.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto cosponsored the bipartisan STATES Act proposed in the 115th U.S. Congress by senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Gardner that would exempt individuals or corporations in compliance with state cannabis laws from federal enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto recognizes the existence of human-caused climate change and believes that the federal government should limit power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. She supports the growth of green jobs and increasing Nevada's reliance on solar power and other forms of clean energy. She opposes the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto supports reforming the filibuster of the United States Senate into a talking filibuster.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In October 2017, Cortez Masto condemned the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and called for a stronger response to the crisis.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In April 2019, Cortez Masto was one of 34 senators to sign a letter criticizing Donald Trump for cutting off foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: The National Rifle Association (NRA) has given Cortez Masto an F grade because of her support for gun control. During the 2016 election, the organization spent $1 million on an attack ad against her. Cortez Masto opposes allowing people on the terrorist watchlist to buy guns, saying that "makes no sense".


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, she co-sponsored a bill with Dianne Feinstein to ban bump stocks. She said that it can be a start toward decreasing gun violence and mass shootings.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto does not support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). She does support improving upon the act, which she has called "imperfect". She has co-sponsored the Marketplace Certainty Act to bring more stability to the health insurance marketplace.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In April 2019, Cortez Masto was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to the housing subcommittee asking for increased funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In April 2018, Cortez Masto was one of five senators to send a letter to acting director of ICE Thomas Homan about the standards the agency uses to determine how to detain pregnant women.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In June 2019, following the Housing and Urban Development Department's confirmation that DACA recipients did not meet eligibility for federal backed loans, Cortez Masto and 11 other senators introduced the Home Ownership Dreamers Act, legislation that mandated that the federal government was not authorized to deny mortgage loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the Agriculture Department solely due to applicants' immigration status.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: In July 2019, Cortez Masto and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which mandated that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor ahead of engaging in enforcement actions at sensitive locations, except in special circumstances, and that agents receive annual training in addition to being required to report annually on enforcement actions in those locations.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto supports legalized abortion. In the 2016 election, she was endorsed by Planned Parenthood and funded by their action fund.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: She does not believe that companies should be allowed to withhold coverage for birth control based on religious beliefs.


title: Catherine Cortez Masto

text: Cortez Masto lives in Las Vegas with her husband, Paul Masto, a retired United States Secret Service special agent. She is Roman Catholic.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is an action-adventure game developed in a collaboration between Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games. The tenth instalment in the "Grand Theft Auto" series, the game was initially released as a PlayStation Portable exclusive in October 2006. A PlayStation 2 port was released in March 2007. Set within the fictional Vice City (based on Miami) in 1984, the game is a prequel to 2002's "" (set in 1986) and follows the exploits of ex-soldier Victor "Vic" Vance, a minor character originally featured in said game. The story centres around Vic's attempts to build up a criminal empire alongside his brother Lance, coming into conflict with rival gangs, drug lords and other enemies.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: In addition to the traditional gameplay elements and side missions of the series, the game features a unique empire building system, in which players must expand their criminal syndicate from the ground-up by taking over businesses from rival organizations, and completing missions specific for each of them to increase their income and unlock additional rewards. Like its predecessor, "", the PSP version of the game includes a multiplayer mode through a wireless ad hoc network, which allows up to six players to engage in several different game modes.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: "Vice City Stories" received generally positive reviews from critics, and has sold over 4.5 million copies as of March 2008. It was followed by "Grand Theft Auto IV" in April 2008.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories" is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective, structured similarly to other releases from the "Grand Theft Auto" series. The core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large environment in which to move around. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking, running, swimming, jumping, as well as using weapons and basic hand-to-hand combat. The player can drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, boats, planes, helicopters, jet-skis and motorcycles.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: The open, non-linear environment allows the player to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game and unlock certain areas and content, they are not required, as the player can complete them at their own leisure. When not taking on a storyline mission, the player can freely roam the game's world. The player can also partake in a variety of optional side missions. The traditional side missions of the past games are included, but have been moderately upgraded and enhanced compared to previous titles. A new addition to the game is "Beach Patrol", in which Victor (the player's character) must deal with bikers on the beach by beach buggy (by ramming or shooting to knock them off their bikes) or throwing life preservers to drowning swimmers by boat or by taking a paramedic around to injured people on the beach.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: The combat system was overhauled in "Vice City Stories". The targeting mechanism has been tweaked to "intelligently target"; enemies posing a threat or attacking the player will be targeted over pedestrians. The biggest changes concern the hand-to-hand combat system, as the player can now perform grappling moves and throws, and stand on top of enemies lying on the ground. The player is able to bribe policemen or hospital staff when "Wasted" (killed) or "Busted" (arrested) to lower their wanted level, and keep weapons that ordinarily would have been lost.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: One of the key gameplay elements in "Vice City Stories" is "empire-building". New to the "Grand Theft Auto" series, it borrows a few ideas from ""s "properties" and "" "gang wars" systems. To make money, the player must open and operate various businesses on property taken over from enemy gangs – these can range from protection rackets to brothels or smuggling compounds. Once a player removes a gang from a specific business, it becomes available for purchase. There are several different types of business, and each comes in different sizes, which can later be changed to adapt to the player's needs. Each business comes with unique missions which, upon completion, reward the player with various bonuses, as well as an increased income for said business. The player will occasionally have to defend their owned businesses from attacks by gangs looking to take them back, until all businesses in the city have been acquired, at which point the attacks will cease.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: The standard hidden package system from previous "Grand Theft Auto" games returns in the form of 99 red balloons scattered around the city. This is a reference to Nena's 1984 hit "99 Luftballons", which was featured in "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". Improvements to the graphics since the release of "" include new animations, faster load times, a longer draw distance, reductions in clumping of pedestrians and vehicles, more complex explosions, and increases in the density of objects, vehicles, and NPCs.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: Like its predecessor, the PSP version of "Vice City Stories" features a multiplayer mode, for up to 6 players through WiFi ad-hoc mode (local area). The game features 10 different modes of wireless multiplayer gaming, which incorporate the use of automobiles, aircraft, and water-based vehicles. Various pedestrian and character models from the single-player mode are available as player avatars. These multiplayer modes are not included in the PS2 version.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: "Vice City Stories" takes place in 1984 within Vice City, and forms part of the "3D Universe" canon of the "Grand Theft Auto" series. Set two years before the events of "", the game's setting features several areas that are different from the 1986 version of Vice City, including locations being constructed or whose plot used to house something different. An example of this is the site of a car showroom completed in 1986 still being under construction in 1984, while the business is located in a smaller building down the road.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: In 1984, Corporal Victor "Vic" Vance (Dorian Missick) is stationed in Vice City's army base, Fort Baxter. To raise money for his sick brother Pete's medication, Vic agrees to help his corrupt supervisor, Sergeant Jerry Martinez (Felix Solis), finding himself involved in the city's drug trade. After a deal goes awry, Martinez frames Vic for hiding drugs under his bed and bringing a prostitute to the base, resulting in Vic being charged with high treason and dishonorably discharged from the army. Forced onto the streets, Vic assists eccentric gunrunner and self-proclaimed army veteran Phil Cassidy (Gary Busey), whom he met during his work for Martinez, in exchange for a place to stay to rebuild his life. Martinez later hires Vic and Phil to do more jobs for him, only to betray and try to have them killed, leading to the pair cutting ties with him after escaping the trap. Meanwhile, Vic also works for Phil's brother-in-law Marty Jay Williams (Jim Burke), leader of a street gang called the Trailer Park Mafia, who frequently abuses his wife Louise (Chelsey Rives). Angered over Vic's growing relationship with his wife, Marty eventually attempts to kidnap her, forcing Vic to kill him and save Louise.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: With Marty dead, Vic takes over his gang and renames it the Vance Crime Family. Aided by his recently arrived brother Lance (Philip Michael Thomas), he slowly begins to take over rackets from rival gangs to increase his power. In the process, he earns the respect of the Los Cabrones, a Cuban street gang led by Umberto Robina (Danny Trejo), for taking out their rivals, and deals with a corrupt DEA agent (Daniel Oreskes) who was posing as a drug dealer to steal the Vance brothers' money. Upon stealing a major drug shipment, Vic and Lance find themselves kidnapped by the Mendez brothers, Armando (Yul Vasquez) and Diego (Ruben Trujillo), Vice City's biggest drug kingpins and the shipment's owners. Lance lies to them that Martinez, who regularly deals with the Mendezes, is an undercover DEA agent and stole the drugs as evidence. After being released, Vic and Lance begin working with the Mendez brothers, who introduces the former to transsexual film director Reni Wassulmaier (Barbara Rosenblat). While assisting Reni and their friend Barry Mickelthwaite (Timothy Spall), the talent manager of Phil Collins (himself), Vic finds himself tasked with protecting Phil from Mafia hitmen, to whom Barry is indebted, before and during his concert in Vice City.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: Reni later introduces Vic to Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzmán), a drug baron who seeks to take over the Mendez brothers' operations and employs Vic and Lance for several jobs. However, Armando and Diego grow distrustful of them, and eventually make an attempt on their lives after Martinez exposes their lie. After escaping the Mendezes' trap, Vic works with Diaz to bankrupt them as revenge. The Mendezes retaliate by kidnapping Louise and Lance, leading to Vic assaulting their mansion and killing Armando, though he fails to rescue Louise, who dies from injuries she received. Swearing revenge against both Diego and Martinez, Vic works alongside Diaz and Phil one final time to track them down and steal an army chopper from Fort Baxter. Using the chopper, Vic assaults Martinez and Diego's hideout and kills both men. After Lance arrives too late to assist, he tries to persuade Vic into taking part in another drug deal that he plans to set up. Vic firmly stands his ground and states that he has no interest in drugs anymore. Lance accepts Vic's choice and the two brothers leave Vice City to give Pete money for his medication.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: Take-Two Interactive originally announced the title was to be released in North America on 17 October 2006 and in Europe on 20 October 2006, but an announcement in early September stated that the game's North American release had been delayed until 31 October. It was also announced that the game would be released on 10 November 2006 in Australia. Moreover, in Europe (Excluding the United Kingdom & Ireland) the game suffered another delay, from 3 November 2006, to 10 November 2006, the same as Australia.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: On 7 February 2007 Rockstar Games announced plans for a PlayStation 2 port, released on 6 March. It was confirmed by Rockstar Games that the PlayStation 2 version of the game would be an almost straight port. The port has improvements such as enhanced graphics (including the addition of bloom effects, enabled via a "trails" option), draw distance, and performance as expected, but also includes a few new side activities that were not in the PSP release such as five new odd jobs, six additional unique jumps, five more rampages, and a new Easter egg.


title: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

text: While other "Grand Theft Auto" ports have had extra features added (such as replays or custom soundtracks), this is the first port of any "Grand Theft Auto" game to include extra in-game content.