title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: The status of the Philippine languages as subgroup of Malayo-Polynesian is disputed. While many scholars (such as Robert Blust) support a genealogical subgroup that includes the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Reid (2018) rejects the hypothesis of a single Philippine subgroup, but instead argues that the Philippine branches represent first-order subgroups directly descended from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.


title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: Zobel (2002) proposes a "Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian" subgroup, based on putative shared innovations in the Austronesian alignment and syntax found throughout Indonesia apart from much of Borneo and the north of Sulawesi. This subgroup comprises the languages of the Greater Sunda Islands (Malayo-Chamic, Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands, Lampung, Sundanese, Javanese, Madurese, Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa) and most of Sulawesi (Celebic, South Sulawesi), Palauan, Chamorro and the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages. This hypothesis is one of the few attempts to link certain Western Malayo-Polynesian languages with the Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages in a higher intermediate subgroup, but has received little further scholarly attention.


title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a proposal by K. Alexander Adelaar (2005) which unites the Malayo-Chamic languages, the Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa languages, Madurese and Sundanese into a single subgroup based on phonological and lexical evidence.


title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: The Greater North Borneo hypothesis, which unites all languages spoken on Borneo except for the Barito languages together with the Malayo-Chamic languages, Rejang and Sundanese into a single subgroup, was first proposed by Blust (2010) and further elaborated by Smith (2017, 2017a).


title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: Because of the inclusion of Malayo-Chamic and Sundanese, the Greater North Borneo hypothesis is incompatible with Adelaar's Malayo-Sumbawan proposal. Consequently, Blust explicitly rejects Malayo-Sumbawan as a subgroup. The Greater North Borneo subgroup is based solely on lexical evidence.


title: Malayo-Polynesian languages

text: Based on a proposal initially brought forward by Blust (2010) as an extension of the Greater North Borneo hypothesis, Smith (2017) unites several Malayo-Polynesian subgroups in a "Western Indonesian" group, thus greatly reducing the number of primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian:


title: Toy

text: A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pets. Toys can provide utilitarian benefits, including physical exercise, cultural awareness, or academic education. Additionally, utilitarian objects, especially those which are no longer needed for their original purpose, can be used as toys. Examples include children building a fort with empty cereal boxes and tissue paper spools, or a toddler playing with a broken TV remote control. The term "toy" can also be used to refer to utilitarian objects purchased for enjoyment rather than need, or for expensive necessities for which a large fraction of the cost represents its ability to provide enjoyment to the owner, such as luxury cars, high-end motorcycles, gaming computers, and flagship smartphones.


title: Toy

text: Playing with toys can be an enjoyable way of training young children for life experiences. Different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are used to make toys. Newer forms of toys include interactive digital entertainment and smart toys. Some toys are produced primarily as collectors' items and are intended for display only.


title: Toy

text: The origin of toys is prehistoric; dolls representing infants, animals, and soldiers, as well as representations of tools used by adults, are readily found at archaeological sites. The origin of the word "toy" is unknown, but it is believed that it was first used in the 14th century. Toys are mainly made for children. The oldest known doll toy is thought to be 4,000 years old.


title: Toy

text: Playing with toys is an important part of aging. Younger children use toys to discover their identity, help with cognition, learn cause and effect, explore relationships, become stronger physically, and practice skills needed in adulthood. Adults on occasion use toys to form and strengthen social bonds, teach, help in therapy, and to remember and reinforce lessons from their youth.


title: Toy

text: Toys and games have been retrieved from the sites of ancient civilizations, and have been mentioned in ancient literature. Toys excavated from the Indus valley civilization (3010–1500 BCE) include small carts, whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys that could slide down a string.


title: Toy

text: The earliest toys were made from natural materials, such as rocks, sticks, and clay. Thousands of years ago, Egyptian children played with dolls that had wigs and movable limbs, which were made from stone, pottery, and wood. However, evidence of toys in ancient Egypt is exceptionally difficult to identify with certainty in the archaeological record. Small figurines and models found in tombs are usually interpreted as ritual objects; those from settlement sites are more easily labelled as toys. These include spinning tops, balls of spring, and wooden models of animals with movable parts.


title: Toy

text: In ancient Greece and ancient Rome, children played with dolls made of wax or terracotta: sticks, bows and arrows, and yo-yos. When Greek children, especially girls, came of age, it was customary for them to sacrifice the toys of their childhood to the gods. On the eve of their wedding, young girls around fourteen would offer their dolls in a temple as a rite of passage into adulthood.


title: Toy

text: The oldest known mechanical puzzle also comes from ancient Greece and appeared in the 3rd century BCE. The game consisted of a square divided into 14 parts, and the aim was to create different shapes from the pieces. In Iran, "puzzle-locks" were made as early as the 17th century (CE).


title: Toy

text: Toys became more widespread with changing Western attitudes towards children and childhood brought about by the Enlightenment. Previously, children had often been thought of as small adults, who were expected to work in order to produce the goods that the family needed to survive. As children's culture scholar Stephen Kline has argued, Medieval children were "more fully integrated into the daily flux of making and consuming, of getting along. They had no autonomy, separate statuses, privileges, special rights or forms of social comportment that were entirely their own.”


title: Toy

text: As these ideas began changing during the Enlightenment Era, blowing bubbles from leftover washing up soap became a popular pastime, as shown in the painting "The Soap Bubble" (1739) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and other popular toys included hoops, toy wagons, kites, spinning wheels and puppets. Many board games were produced by John Jefferys in the 1750s, including "A Journey Through Europe". The game was very similar to modern board games; players moved along a track with the throw of a die (a teetotum was actually used) and landing on different spaces would either help or hinder the player.


title: Toy

text: In the nineteenth century, Western values prioritized toys with an educational purpose, such as puzzles, books, cards and board games. Religion-themed toys were also popular, including a model Noah's Ark with miniature animals and objects from other Bible scenes. With growing prosperity among the middle class, children had more leisure time on their hands, which led to the application of industrial methods to the manufacture of toys.


title: Toy

text: More complex mechanical and optical-based toys were also invented during the nineteenth century. Carpenter and Westley began to mass-produce the kaleidoscope, invented by Sir David Brewster in 1817, and had sold over 200,000 items within three months in London and Paris. The company was also able to mass-produce magic lanterns for use in phantasmagoria and galanty shows, by developing a method of mass production using a copper plate printing process. Popular imagery on the lanterns included royalty, flora and fauna, and geographical/man-made structures from around the world. The modern zoetrope was invented in 1833 by British mathematician William George Horner and was popularized in the 1860s. Wood and porcelain dolls in miniature doll houses were popular with middle-class girls, while boys played with marbles and toy trains.


title: Toy

text: The golden age of toy development occurred during the Industrial Era. Real wages were rising steadily in the Western world, allowing even working-class families to afford toys for their children, and industrial techniques of precision engineering and mass production were able to provide the supply to meet this rising demand. Intellectual emphasis was also increasingly being placed on the importance of a wholesome and happy childhood for the future development of children. Franz Kolb, a German pharmacist, invented plasticine in 1880, and in 1900 commercial production of the material as a children's toy began. Frank Hornby was a visionary in toy development and manufacture and was responsible for the invention and production of three of the most popular lines of toys based on engineering principles in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys.


title: Toy

text: Meccano was a model construction system that consisted of re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces and enabled the building of working models and mechanical devices. Dinky Toys pioneered the manufacture of die-cast toys with the production of toy cars, trains and ships and model train sets became popular in the 1920s. The Britain's company revolutionized the production of toy soldiers with the invention of the process of hollow casting in lead in 1893 – the company's products remained the industry standard for many years.


title: Toy

text: Puzzles became popular as well. In 1893, the English lawyer , writing under the pseudonym of Professor Hoffman, wrote a book called "Puzzles Old and New". It contained, among other things, more than 40 descriptions of puzzles with secret opening mechanisms. This book grew into a reference work for puzzle games and was very popular at the time. The Tangram puzzle, originally from China, spread to Europe and America in the 19th century.


title: Toy

text: In 1903, a year after publishing "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", English author Beatrix Potter created the first Peter Rabbit soft toy and registered him at the Patent Office in London, making Peter the oldest licensed character. It was followed by other "spin-off" merchandise over the years, including painting books and board games. The "Smithsonian" magazine stated, "Potter was also an entrepreneur and a pioneer in licensing and merchandising literary characters. Potter built a retail empire out of her “bunny book” that is worth $500 million today. In the process, she created a system that continues to benefit all licensed characters, from Mickey Mouse to Harry Potter."


title: Toy

text: In tandem with the development of mass-produced toys, Enlightenment ideals about children's rights to education and leisure time came to fruition. During the late 18th and early 19th century, many families needed to send their children to work in factories and other sites to make ends meet—just as their predecessors had required their labor producing household goods in the medieval era. Business owners' exploitation and abuse of child laborers during this period differed from how children had been treated as workers within a family unit, though. Thanks to advocacy including photographic documentation of children's exploitation and abuse by business owners, Western nations enacted a series of child labor laws, putting an end to child labor in nations such as the U.S. (1949). This fully entrenched, through law, the Western idea that childhood is a time for "leisure", not work—and with leisure time comes more space for consumer goods such as toys.


title: Toy

text: During the Second World War, some new types of toys were created through accidental innovation. After trying to create a replacement for synthetic rubber, the American Earl L. Warrick inadvertently invented "nutty putty" during World War II. Later, Peter Hodgson recognized the potential as a childhood plaything and packaged it as Silly Putty. Similarly, Play-Doh was originally created as a wallpaper cleaner. In 1943 Richard James was experimenting with springs as part of his military research when he saw one come loose and fall to the floor. He was intrigued by the way it flopped around on the floor. He spent two years fine-tuning the design to find the best gauge of steel and coil; the result was the Slinky, which went on to sell in stores throughout the United States.


title: Toy

text: After the Second World War, as society became ever more affluent and new technology and materials (plastics) for toy manufacture became available, toys became cheap and ubiquitous in households across the Western World. At this point, name-brand toys became widespread in the U.S.–a new phenomenon that helped market mass-produce toys to audiences of children growing up with ample leisure time and during a period of relative prosperity.


title: Toy

text: Among the more well-known products of the 1950s there was the Danish company Lego's line of colourful interlocking plastic brick construction sets (based on Hilary Page's Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, described by London's V&A Museum of Childhood as among the "must-have toys" of the 1940s), Mr. Potato Head, the Barbie doll (inspired by the Bild Lilli doll from Germany), and Action Man. The Rubik's Cube became an enormous seller in the 1980s. In modern times, there are computerized dolls that can recognize and identify objects, the voice of their owner, and choose among hundreds of pre-programmed phrases with which to respond.


title: Toy

text: The act of children's play with toys embodies the values set forth by the adults of their specific community, but through the lens of the child's perspective. Within cultural societies, toys are a medium to enhance a child's cognitive, social, and linguistic learning.


title: Toy

text: In some cultures, toys are used as a way to enhance a child's skillset within the traditional boundaries of their future roles in the community. In Saharan and North African cultures, play is facilitated by children through the use of toys to enact scenes recognizable in their community such as hunting and herding. The value is placed in a realistic version of development in preparing a child for the future they are likely to grow up into. This allows the child to imagine and create a personal interpretation of how they view the adult world.


title: Toy

text: However, in other cultures, toys are used to expand the development of a child's cognition in an idealistic fashion. In these communities, adults place the value of play with toys to be on the aspirations they set forth for their child. In the Western culture, the Barbie and Action-Man represent lifelike figures but in an imaginative state out of reach from the society of these children and adults. These toys give way to a unique world in which children's play is isolated and independent of the social constraints placed on society leaving the children free to delve into the imaginary and idealized version of what their development in life could be.


title: Toy

text: In addition, children from differing communities may treat their toys in different ways based on their cultural practices. Children in more affluent communities may tend to be possessive of their toys, while children from poorer communities may be more willing to share and interact more with other children. The importance the child places on possession is dictated by the values in place within the community that the children observe on a daily basis.


title: Toy

text: Toys, like play itself, serve multiple purposes in both humans and animals. They provide entertainment while fulfilling an educational role. Toys enhance cognitive behavior and stimulate creativity. They aid in the development of physical and mental skills which are necessary in later life.


title: Toy

text: Wooden blocks, though simple, are regarded by early childhood education experts such as Sally Cartwright (1974) as an excellent toy for young children; she praised the fact that they are relatively easy to engage with, can be used in repeatable and predictable ways, and are versatile and open-ended, allowing for a wide variety of developmentally appropriate play. Andrew Witkin, director of marketing for Mega Brands, told "Investor's Business Daily" that "They help develop hand-eye coordination, math and science skills and also let kids be creative." Other toys like marbles, jackstones, and balls serve similar functions in child development, allowing children to use their minds and bodies to learn about spatial relationships, cause and effect, and a wide range of other skills.


title: Toy

text: One example of the dramatic ways that toys can influence child development involves clay sculpting toys such as Play-Doh and Silly Putty and their home-made counterparts. Mary Ucci, Educational Director of the Child Study Center of Wellesley College, has demonstrated how such toys positively impact the physical development, cognitive development, emotional development, and social development of children.


title: Toy

text: Toys for infants often make use of distinctive sounds, bright colors, and unique textures. Through repetition of play with toys, infants begin to recognize shapes and colors. Play-Doh, Silly Putty and other hands-on materials allow the child to make toys of their own.


title: Toy

text: Educational toys for school age children of often contain a puzzle, problem-solving technique, or mathematical proposition. Often toys designed for older audiences, such as teenagers or adults, demonstrate advanced concepts. Newton's cradle, a desk toy designed by Simon Prebble, demonstrates the conservation of momentum and energy.


title: Toy

text: Not all toys are appropriate for all ages of children. Even some toys which are marketed for a specific age range can even harm the development of children in that range, such as when for example toys meant for young girls contribute to the ongoing problem of girls' sexualization in Western culture.


title: Toy

text: A study suggested that supplying fewer toys in the environment allows toddlers to better focus to explore and play more creatively. The provision of four rather than sixteen toys is thus suggested to promote children's development and healthy play.


title: Toy

text: Age compression is the modern trend of children moving through play stages faster than was the case in the past. Children have a desire to progress to more complex toys at a faster pace, girls in particular. Barbie dolls, for example, were once marketed to girls around 8 years old but have been found to be more popular in recent years with girls around 3 years old, with most girls outgrowing the brand by about age 7. The packaging for the dolls labels them appropriate for ages 3 and up. Boys, in contrast, apparently enjoy toys and games over a longer timespan, gravitating towards toys that meet their interest in assembling and disassembling mechanical toys, and toys that "move fast and things that fight". An industry executive points out that girls have entered the "tween" phase by the time they are 8 years old and want non-traditional toys, whereas boys have been maintaining an interest in traditional toys until they are 12 years old, meaning the traditional toy industry holds onto their boy customers for 50% longer than their girl customers.


title: Toy

text: Girls gravitate towards "music, clothes, make-up, television talent shows and celebrities". As young children are more exposed to and drawn to music intended for older children and teens, companies are having to rethink how they develop and market their products. Girls also demonstrate a longer loyalty to characters in toys and games marketed towards them. A variety of global toy companies have marketed themselves to this aspect of girls' development, for example, the Hello Kitty brand and the Disney Princess franchise. Boys have shown an interest in computer games at an ever-younger age in recent years.


title: Toy

text: Certain toys, such as Barbie dolls and toy soldiers, are often perceived as being more acceptable for one gender than the other. The turning point for the addition of gender to toys came about in the 1960s and 1970s. Before 1975, only about two percent of toys were labeled by gender, whereas today on the Disney store's website, considered a dominating global force for toys by researcher Claire Miller, all toys are labeled by gender. The journal "Sex Roles" began publishing research on this topic in 1975, focusing on the effects of gender in youth. Too, many psychological textbooks began to address this new issue. Along with these publications, researchers also started to challenge the ideas of male and female as being opposites, even going as far as to claim toys which have characteristics of both genders are preferable.


title: Toy

text: A milestone for research on gender is the use of meta-analysis, which provides a way to assess patterns in a systematic way, especially relevant for a topic such as gender, which can be difficult to quantify. Nature and nurture have historically been analyzed when looking at gender in play, as well as reinforcement by peers and parents of typical gender roles and consequently, gender play. Toy companies have often promoted the segregation by gender in toys because it enables them to customize the same toy for each gender, which ultimately doubles their revenue. For example, Legos added more colors to certain sets of toys in the 1990s, including colors commonly attributed to girls such as lavender.


title: Toy

text: It has been noted by researchers that, "Children as young as 18 months display sex-stereotyped toy choices". When eye movement is tracked in young infants, infant girls show a visual preference for a doll over a toy truck (d > 1.0). Boys showed no preference for the truck over the doll. However, they did fixate on the truck more than the girls (d = .78). This small study suggests that even before any self-awareness of gender identity has emerged, children already prefer sex-typical toys. These differences in toy choice are well established within the child by the age of three.


title: Toy

text: Another study done by Jeffrey Trawick-Smith took 60 different children ages three to four and observed them playing with nine different toys deemed best for development. They were allowed to play with the toys in a typical environment, a preschool classroom, which allowed for the results to be more authentic compared to research done in a lab. The researchers then quantified play quality of the children with each toy based on factors such as learning, problem solving, curiosity, creativity, imagination, and peer interaction. The results revealed that boys generally received higher scores for overall play quality than girls, and the toys with the best play quality were those identified as the most gender neutral, such as building blocks and bricks along with pieces modeling people. Trawick-Smith then concluded that the study encourages a focus on toys which are beneficial to both genders in order to create a better balance.


title: Toy

text: While some parents promote gender neutral play, many parents encourage their children to participate in sex-typed activities, including doll-playing and engaging in housekeeping activities for girls and playing with trucks and engaging in sports activities for boys. Researcher Susan Witt said that parents are the primary influencer on the gender roles of their children. Parents, siblings, peers, and even teachers have been shown to react more positively to children engaging in sex-typical behavior and playing with sex-typical toys. This is often done through encouragement or discouragement, as well as suggestions and imitation. Additionally, sons are more likely to be reinforced for sex-typical play and discouraged from atypical play. However, it is generally not as looked down upon for girls to play with toys designed "for boys", an activity which has also become more common in recent years. Fathers are also more likely to reinforce typical play and discourage atypical play than mothers are. A study done by researcher Susan Witt suggests that stereotypes are oftentimes only strengthened by the environment, which perpetuates them to linger in older life.


title: Toy

text: This stereotypical attribution of sex-typical toys for girls and boys is gradually changing, with toys companies creating more gender neutral toys, as the benefits associated with allowing children to play with toys that appeal to them far outweighs controlling their individual preferences. For example, many stores are beginning to change their gender labels on children's play items. Target removed all identification related to gender from their toy aisles and Disney did the same for their costumes. The Disney store is an especially prevalent example of gender in play because they are a global identity in the toy world. A study done regarding their website found that though they have removed gender labels from their costumes, the toys online reflect more stereotypical gender identities. For example, toys depicting males were associated with physicality and females were associated with beauty, housing, and caring. Though Disney promotes their toys as being for both genders, there is no gender neutral section on their website. Those which are generally deemed for both genders more closely resemble what many would label "boy toys," as they relate closer to the stereotype of masculinity within play.


title: Toy

text: Traditions within various cultures promote the passing down of certain toys to their children based on the child's gender. In Indigenous South American communities, boys receive a toy bow and arrow from their father while young girls receive a toy basket from their mother. In North African and Saharan cultural communities, gender plays a role in the creation of self-made dolls. While female dolls are used to represent brides, mothers, and wives, male dolls are used to represent horsemen and warriors. This contrast stems from the various roles of men and women within the Saharan and North African communities. There are differences in the toys that are intended for girls and boys within various cultures, which is reflective of the differing roles of men and women within a specific cultural community.


title: Toy

text: Research on the repercussions of gender in toys suggests that desegregation of the genders can be achieved by encouraging more gender-neutral play. Researchers Carol Auster and Claire Mansbach have argued that allowing children to play with toys which more closely fit their talents would help them to better develop their skills. In terms of parental influence, a study found that parents who demonstrated some androgynous behavior have higher scores in support, warmth, and self-worth in regards to the treatment of their children. Even as this debate is evolving and children are becoming more inclined to cross barriers in terms of gender with their toys, girls are typically more encouraged to do so than boys because of the societal value of masculinity.


title: Toy

text: With toys comprising such a large and important part of human existence, the toy industry has a substantial economic impact. Sales of toys often increase around holidays where gift-giving is a tradition. Some of these holidays include Christmas, Easter, Saint Nicholas Day, and Three Kings Day.


title: Toy

text: In 2005, toy sales in the United States totaled about $22.9 billion. Money spent on children between the ages of 8 and twelve alone totals approximately $221 million annually in the U.S. It was estimated that in 2011, 88% of toy sales was in the age group 0–11 years.


title: Toy

text: Toy companies change and adapt their toys to meet the changing demands of children thereby gaining a larger share of the substantial market. In recent years many toys have become more complicated with flashing lights and sounds in an effort to appeal to children raised around television and the internet. According to Mattel's president, Neil Friedman, "Innovation is key in the toy industry and to succeed one must create a 'wow' moment for kids by designing toys that have fun, innovative features and include new technologies and engaging content."


title: Toy

text: In an effort to reduce costs, many mass-producers of toys locate their factories in areas where wages are lower. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world's toys and is home to more than 8,000 toy firms, most of which are located in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province. 75% of all toys sold in the U.S., for example, are manufactured in China. Issues and events such as power outages, supply of raw materials, supply of labor, and raising wages that impact areas where factories are located often have an enormous impact on the toy industry in importing countries.


title: Toy

text: Many traditional toy makers have been losing sales to video game makers for years. Because of this, some traditional toy makers have entered the field of electronic games and have even been turning audio games into toys, and are enhancing the brands that they have by introducing interactive extensions or internet connectivity to their current toys.


title: Toy

text: In addition, the rise of distributed manufacturing enables consumers to make their own toys from open source designs with a 3-D printer. As of 2017 consumers were already offsetting millions of dollars per year by 3D printing their own toys from MyMiniFactory, a single repository.


title: Toy

text: The Greek philosopher Plato wrote that the future architect should play at building houses as a child. A construction set is a collection of separate pieces that can be joined to create models. Popular models include cars, spaceships, and houses. The things that are built are sometimes used as toys once completed, but generally speaking, the object is to build things of one's own design, and old models often are broken up with the pieces reused in new models.


title: Toy

text: The oldest and perhaps most common construction toy is a set of simple wooden blocks, which are often painted in bright colors and given to babies and toddlers. Construction sets such as Lego bricks and Lincoln Logs are designed for slightly older children and have been quite popular in the last century.


title: Toy

text: Construction sets appeal to children (and adults) who like to work with their hands, puzzle solvers, and imaginative sorts.


title: Toy

text: Some other examples include Bayko, Konstruk-Tubes, K'Nex, Erector Sets, Tinkertoys, and Meccano, and generic construction toys such as Neodymium magnet toys.


title: Toy

text: A doll is a model of a human (often a baby), a humanoid (like Bert and Ernie), or an animal. Modern dolls are often made of cloth or plastic. Other materials that are, or have been, used in the manufacture of dolls include cornhusks, bone, stone, wood, porcelain (sometimes called china), bisque, celluloid, wax, and even apples. Often, people will make dolls out of whatever materials are available to them.


title: Toy

text: Sometimes intended as decorations, keepsakes, or collectibles for older children and adults, most dolls are intended as toys for children, usually girls, to play with. Dolls have been found in Egyptian tombs that date to as early as 2000 BCE.


title: Toy

text: Dolls are usually miniatures, but baby dolls may be of true size and weight. A doll or stuffed animal of soft material is sometimes called a plush toy or plushie. A popular toy of this type is the Teddy Bear.


title: Toy

text: A distinction is often made between dolls and action figures, which are generally of plastic or semi-metallic construction and poseable to some extent, and often are merchandising from television shows or films which feature the characters. Modern action figures, such as Action Man, are often marketed towards boys, whereas dolls are often marketed towards girls.


title: Toy

text: Toy soldiers, perhaps a precursor to modern action figures, have been a popular toy for centuries. They allow children to act out battles, often with toy military equipment and a castle or fort. Miniature animal figures are also widespread, with children perhaps acting out farm activities with animals and equipment centered on a toy farm.


title: Toy

text: Children have played with miniature versions of vehicles since ancient times, with toy two-wheeled carts being depicted on ancient Greek vases. Wind-up toys have also played a part in the advancement of toy vehicles. Modern equivalents include toy cars such as those produced by Matchbox or Hot Wheels, miniature aircraft, toy boats, military vehicles, and trains. Examples of the latter range from wooden sets for younger children such as BRIO to more complicated realistic train models like those produced by Lionel, Doepke and Hornby. Larger die-cast vehicles, 1:18 scale, have become popular toys; these vehicles are produced with a great attention to detail.


title: Toy

text: A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity. Solutions to puzzles may require recognizing patterns and creating a particular order. People with a high inductive reasoning aptitude may be better at solving these puzzles than others. Puzzles based on the process of inquiry and discovery to complete may be solved faster by those with good deduction skills. A popular puzzle toy is the Rubik's Cube, invented by Hungarian Ernő Rubik in 1974. Popularized in the 1980s, solving the cube requires planning and problem-solving skills and involves algorithms.


title: Toy

text: There are many different types of puzzles; for example, a maze is a type of tour puzzle. Other categories include: construction puzzles, stick puzzles, tiling puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, sliding puzzles, logic puzzles, picture puzzles, lock puzzles, and mechanical puzzles.


title: Toy

text: Some toys, such as Beanie Babies, attract large numbers of enthusiasts, eventually becoming collectibles. Other toys, such as Boyds Bears are marketed to adults as collectibles. Some people spend large sums of money in an effort to acquire larger and more complete collections. The record for a single Pez dispenser at an auction, for example, is US$1100.


title: Toy

text: Many successful films, television programs, books and sport teams have official merchandise, which often includes related toys. Some notable examples are "Star Wars" (a space fantasy franchise) and Arsenal, an English football club.


title: Toy

text: Likewise, many successful children's films, television series, books or franchises extend their marketing campaign to fast food chains by including small toys of fictional characters or the series' associated symbols in a sealed plastic bag within their kids' meals. One famous example is the Happy Meal from McDonald's.


title: Toy

text: Promotional toys can fall into any of the other toy categories; for example, they can be dolls or action figures based on the characters of movies or professional athletes, or they can be balls, yo-yos, or lunch boxes with logos on them. Sometimes they are given away for free as a form of advertising. Model aircraft are often toys that are used by airlines to promote their brand, just as toy cars and trucks and model trains are used by trucking, railroad and other companies as well. Many food manufacturers run promotions where a toy is included with the main product as a prize. Toys are also used as premiums, where consumers redeem proofs of purchase from a product and pay shipping and handling fees to get the toy. Some people go to great lengths to collect these sorts of promotional toys.


title: Toy

text: Digital toys are toys that incorporate some form of interactive digital technology. Examples of digital toys include virtual pets and handheld electronic games. Among the earliest digital toys are Mattel Auto Race and the Little Professor, both released in 1976. The concept of using technology in a way that bridges the digital with the physical world, providing unique interactive experiences for the user, has also been referred to as "phygital".


title: Toy

text: A large amount of toys are part of active play. These include traditional toys such as hoops, tops, jump ropes, and balls, as well as more modern toys like Frisbees, foot bags, fidget toys, astrojax, and Myachi.


title: Toy

text: Playing with these sorts of toys allows children to exercise, building strong bones and muscles and aiding in physical fitness. Throwing and catching balls and Frisbees can improve hand–eye coordination. Jumping rope, (also known as skipping) and playing with foot bags can improve balance.


title: Toy

text: Many countries have passed safety standards limiting the types of toys that can be sold. Most of these seek to limit potential hazards, such as choking or fire hazards that could cause injury. Children, especially very small ones, often put toys into their mouths, so the materials used to make a toy are regulated to prevent poisoning. Materials are also regulated to prevent fire hazards. Young children cannot judge what is safe and what is dangerous, and parents do not always think of all possible situations, so such warnings and regulations are important on toys.


title: Toy

text: Every country has its own regulations on toy safety, but since the globalization and opening of markets, most of them try to harmonize their regulations. The most common danger for younger children is to put toys in their mouths. This is why chemicals contained in paint and other components of children's products are carefully regulated. Countries or trade zones such as the European Union regularly publish lists to regulate the quantities or ban chemicals from toys and juvenile products. The globalization of toys has had negative effects on locally-produced toys in various countries, pushing out traditional ways of play and presenting new risks to children in areas where parental literacy levels make it hard for parents to understand the risks and age-appropriateness of various imported toys.


title: Toy

text: There have also been issues of toy safety regarding lead paint. Some toy factories, when projects become too large for them to handle, outsource production to other less known factories, often in other countries. Recently, there were some in China that America had to send back. The subcontractors may not be watched as closely and sometimes use improper manufacturing methods. The U.S. government, along with mass market stores, is now moving towards requiring companies to submit their products to testing before they end up on shelves.


title: Toy

text: When toys have been outgrown or are no longer wanted, they may be donated to charity, sold at garage sales, auctioned, or even donated to museums. However, when toys are broken, worn out or otherwise unfit for use, care should be taken when disposing of them. Donated or resold toys should be gently used, clean and have all parts. Before disposal of any battery-operated toy, batteries are removed and recycled; some communities demand this be done. Some manufacturers, such as Little Tikes, will take back and recycle their products.


title: Toy

text: In 2007, massive recalls of toys produced in China led many U.S.-based charities to cut back on, or even discontinue, their acceptance of used toys. Goodwill stopped accepting donations of any toys except for stuffed animals, and other charities checked all toys against government-issued checklists.


title: Toy

text: The WEEE directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which aims at increasing re-using, reducing, and recycling electronic waste, applies to toys in the United Kingdom as of 2 January 2007.


title: Toy

text: It is not unusual for some animals to play with toys. An example of this is a dolphin being trained to nudge a ball through a hoop. Young chimpanzees use sticks as dolls–the social aspect is seen by the fact that young females more often use a stick this way than young male chimpanzees. They carry their chosen stick and put it in their nest. Such behaviour is also seen in some adult female chimpanzees, but never after they have become mothers.


title: Alice Munro

text: Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario. Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style. Munro's writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction", or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov." Munro has received many literary accolades, including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work. She is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction, and received the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award and the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for "Runaway".<ref name="writerstrust.com/EngelFindley"></ref>


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro was born Alice Ann Laidlaw in Wingham, Ontario. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlaw, was a fox and mink farmer, and later turned to turkey farming. Her mother, Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney), was a schoolteacher. She is of Irish and Scottish descent; her father is a descendant of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro began writing as a teenager, publishing her first story, "The Dimensions of a Shadow", in 1950 while studying English and journalism at the University of Western Ontario on a two-year scholarship. During this period she worked as a waitress, a tobacco picker, and a library clerk. In 1951, she left the university, where she had been majoring in English since 1949, to marry fellow student James Munro. They moved to Dundarave, West Vancouver, for James's job in a department store. In 1963, the couple moved to Victoria, where they opened Munro's Books, which still operates.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro's highly acclaimed first collection of stories, "Dance of the Happy Shades" (1968), won the Governor General's Award, then Canada's highest literary prize. That success was followed by "Lives of Girls and Women" (1971), a collection of interlinked stories. In 1978, Munro's collection of interlinked stories "Who Do You Think You Are?" was published (titled "The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose" in the United States). This book earned Munro a second Governor General's Literary Award. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia for public appearances and readings. In 1980 Munro held the position of writer in residence at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland.


title: Alice Munro

text: From the 1980s to 2012, Munro published a short-story collection at least once every four years. First versions of Munro's stories have appeared in journals such as "The Atlantic Monthly", "Grand Street", "Harper's Magazine", "Mademoiselle", "The New Yorker", "Narrative Magazine", and "The Paris Review". Her collections have been translated into 13 languages. On 10 October 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, cited as a "master of the contemporary short story". She is the first Canadian and the 13th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro is noted for her longtime association with editor and publisher Douglas Gibson. When Gibson left Macmillan of Canada in 1986 to launch the Douglas Gibson Books imprint at McClelland and Stewart, Munro returned the advance Macmillan had already paid her for "The Progress of Love" so that she could follow Gibson to the new company. Munro and Gibson have retained their professional association ever since; when Gibson published his memoirs in 2011, Munro wrote the introduction, and to this day Gibson often makes public appearances on Munro's behalf when her health prevents her from appearing personally.


title: Alice Munro

text: Almost 20 of Munro's works have been made available for free on the web, in most cases only the first versions. From the period before 2003, 16 stories have been included in Munro's own compilations more than twice, with two of her works scoring four republications: "Carried Away" and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage".


title: Alice Munro

text: Film adaptations of Munro's short stories have included "Martha, Ruth and Edie" (1988), "Edge of Madness" (2002), "Away from Her" (2006), "Hateship, Loveship" (2013) and "Julieta" (2016).


title: Alice Munro

text: Many of Munro's stories are set in Huron County, Ontario. Her strong regional focus is one of her fiction's features. Another is an omniscient narrator who serves to make sense of the world. Many compare Munro's small-town settings to writers from the rural American South. As in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, Munro's characters often confront deep-rooted customs and traditions, but her characters' reactions are generally less intense than their Southern counterparts'. Her male characters tend to capture the essence of the everyman, while her female characters are more complex. Much of Munro's work exemplifies the Southern Ontario Gothic literary genre.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro's work is often compared with the great short-story writers. In her stories, as in Chekhov's, plot is secondary and "little happens". As in Chekhov, Garan Holcombe says, "All is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail." Munro's work deals with "love and work, and the failings of both. She shares Chekhov's obsession with time and our much-lamented inability to delay or prevent its relentless movement forward."


title: Alice Munro

text: A frequent theme of her work, particularly in her early stories, has been the dilemmas of a girl coming of age and coming to terms with her family and her small hometown. In recent work such as "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (2001) and "Runaway" (2004) she has shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, women alone, and the elderly. Her characters often experience a revelation that sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: "ironic and serious at the same time," "mottoes of godliness and honor and flaming bigotry," "special, useless knowledge," "tones of shrill and happy outrage," "the bad taste, the heartlessness, the joy of it." Her style juxtaposes the fantastic and the ordinary, with each undercutting the other in ways that simply and effortlessly evoke life. Robert Thacker wrote:


title: Alice Munro

text: Many critics have written that Munro's stories often have the emotional and literary depth of novels. Some have asked whether Munro actually writes short stories or novels. Alex Keegan, writing in "Eclectica," gave a simple answer: "Who cares? In most Munro stories there is as much as in many novels."


title: Alice Munro

text: Research on Munro's work has been undertaken since the early 1970s, with the first PhD thesis published in 1972. The first book-length volume collecting the papers presented at the University of Waterloo first conference on her work was published in 1984, "The Art of Alice Munro: Saying the Unsayable". In 2003/2004, the journal "Open Letter. Canadian quarterly review of writing and sources" published 14 contributions on Munro's work. In autumn 2010, the "Journal of the Short Story in English (JSSE)/Les cahiers de la nouvelle" dedicated a special issue to Munro, and in May 2012 an issue of the journal "Narrative" focussed on a single story by Munro, "Passion" (2004), with an introduction, summary of the story, and five analytical essays.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro publishes variant versions of her stories, sometimes within a short span of time. Her stories "Save the Reaper" and "Passion" came out in two different versions in the same year, in 1998 and 2004 respectively. Two other stories were republished in a variant versions about 30 years apart, "Home" (1974/2006/2014) and "Wood" (1980/2009).


title: Alice Munro

text: In 2006 Ann Close and Lisa Dickler Awano reported that Munro had not wanted to reread the galleys of "Runaway" (2004): "No, because I'll rewrite the stories." In their symposium contribution "An Appreciation of Alice Munro" they say that of her story "Powers", for example, Munro did eight versions in all.


title: Alice Munro

text: Awano writes that "Wood" is a good example of how Munro, "a tireless self-editor", rewrites and revises a story, in this case returning to it for a second publication nearly 30 years later, revising characterizations, themes and perspectives, as well as rhythmic syllables, a conjunction or a punctuation mark. The characters change, too. Inferring from the perspective they take on things, they are middle-age in 1980, and in 2009 they are older. Awano perceives a heightened lyricism brought about not least by the poetic precision of the revision Munro undertakes. The 2009 version comprises eight sections to the 1980 version's three, and has a new ending. Awano writes that Munro literally "refinishes" the first take on the story with an ambiguity characteristic of Munro's endings, and that Munro reimagines her stories throughout her work a variety of ways.


title: Alice Munro

text: Several stories were republished with considerable variation as to which content goes into which section. This can be seen, for example, in "Home", "The Progress of Love", "What Do You Want to Know For?", "The Children Stay", "Save the Reaper", "The Bear Came Over the Mountain", "Passion", "The View From Castle Rock", "Wenlock Edge", and "Deep-Holes".


title: Alice Munro

text: She married James Munro in 1951. Their daughters Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny were born in 1953, 1955, and 1957, respectively; Catherine died the day of her birth due to the lack of functioning kidneys.


title: Alice Munro

text: In 1963, the Munros moved to Victoria, where they opened Munro's Books, a popular bookstore still in business. In 1966, their daughter Andrea was born. Alice and James Munro divorced in 1972.


title: Alice Munro

text: Munro returned to Ontario to become writer in residence at the University of Western Ontario, and in 1976 received an honorary LLD from the institution. In 1976, she married Gerald Fremlin, a cartographer and geographer she met in her university days. The couple moved to a farm outside Clinton, Ontario, and later to a house in Clinton, where Fremlin died on 17 April 2013, aged 88. Munro and Fremlin also owned a home in Comox, British Columbia.


title: Alice Munro

text: At a Toronto appearance in October 2009, Munro indicated that she had received treatment for cancer and for a heart condition requiring coronary-artery bypass surgery.


title: Alice Munro

text: In 2002, Sheila Munro published a childhood memoir, "Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro".


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Ignacio Jordà González (born 30 December 1973), better known as Nacho Vidal, is a Spanish pornographic performer, director, producer, writer, and camera operator.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Ignacio Jordà González was born in Mataró (Barcelona) in Catalonia, Spain. His nickname, Nacho, is the common nickname for Ignacio.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: When he was young, Jordà moved with his family to Valencia, where part of his family originated. His family was wealthy, but ended up losing their money in the 1987 stock market crash. At 14, Vidal quit school to work to help his family.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: As a teenager, he was in a punk band. He also was a boxer and enlisted in the Spanish Legion in Melilla.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: In 1994, Vidal started his porn career doing live sex shows with his girlfriend, Sara Bernat (born 1976), at the in Barcelona. There, he met the director of the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival, José María Ponce, who introduced him to porn films. Vidal became a "protégé" of Rocco Siffredi, who brought him to Hollywood in 1998.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Vidal has starred in over 1,500 movies; he has also produced and/or directed many others (since 2000, including gay titles for the Evil Angel video company). Although self-stated as heterosexual, he has directed gay porn films.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Vidal has starred in Spanish mainstream movies and TV shows, including the Spanish TV series "Los Simuladores" and the Spanish movies "Va a ser que nadie es perfecto," "El Alquimista Impaciente" and "Impávido".


title: Nacho Vidal

text: On 16 October 2012, Vidal and his sister María José Jordá González were arrested in Barcelona, suspected of involvement in money laundering and tax evasion on behalf of Chinese organized crime.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: When Spanish police raided over 100 businesses in Madrid and Barcelona suspected of running money-laundering and tax evasion rackets in connection with the Chinese mob, Vidal and his sister were among the approximately 80 detained. Hundreds of police were involved in serving "warrants to search 120 properties belonging to those suspected of laundering money from prostitution and extortion."


title: Nacho Vidal

text: While prosecutors sought to hold Vidal in jail during the investigation and subsequent trial, on 19 October 2012, National Court Judge Fernando Andreu accepted the defense's contention that, "Vidal is not a flight risk because he signed a contract to participate in a reality show for the next three months." Upon his no-bail release, Vidal announced, "Thanks to everyone for their support. I've gone without any charge."


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Vidal's movie studio Nacho Vidal Productions was implicated in the Spanish National Court-led sting, and charged with counts of flight of capital and tax evasion. The newspaper "El País" described Vidal as "one of the high[est]-profile suspects arrested" and explained that he was accused along with his sister of helping the ring "by issuing false invoices from his movie production company."


title: Nacho Vidal

text: On 4 June 2020, Vidal was arrested on manslaughter charges in relation to the death of a fashion photographer, José Luis Abad, in July 2019. Abad died as a result of inhaling vapors from the venom of a Colorado River toad in Vidal's home in Enguera, in a traditional Amazonian ritual in which Vidal is alleged to have acted as shaman. Vidal was arrested together with two other unnamed individuals, a member of his family and an employee. A different news story says the death was from heart attack; the crime was not promptly calling in medical assistance.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: In March 2021, Spanish authorities officially charged Vidal with reckless homicide in the death of Abad following an 11-month investigation. According to court statements, Vidal acted as "the director" of the ritual and had previous experience in taking the toxin. Vidal allegedly supplied the toxin and failed to properly control the amount the victim inhaled during the ceremony.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: Vidal has stated that he is open-minded, but is heterosexual in his personal life. He had his first daughter with Venezuelan Rosa Castro Camacho.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: On 31 May 2005, Vidal announced his retirement from pornography and married Colombian model Franceska Jaimes. They moved to a mansion previously owned by his family, located in the small town of Enguera, in Valencia, recovering it after his family's financial losses. He and his wife decided to start a family there. However, the couple separated six weeks later, and Vidal returned to porn only a few months after announcing his retirement. They have two children, and divorced in 2015.


title: Nacho Vidal

text: In February 2019, a Spanish newspaper stated that Nacho Vidal is HIV-positive. Later that year, in a 12-minute YouTube video, he clarified that his test was a false positive. What he does have, he found after visits to a series of doctors, is reactive arthritis, a highly painful, sometimes chronic or lifelong condition. This inflammatory syndrome is often triggered by a prior, treatable infection which may itself resolve (be healed). In Vidal's case, he explains, it was repeated infections by the STDs chlamydia and gonorrhea contracted during his sex work, each instance having been quickly treated and cured. Because of the disease he cannot work and is seeking disability benefits.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of people who are unified by a common religious and ethnic background.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Furthermore, the term ethno-religious group, along with ethno-regional and ethno-linguistic groups, is a sub-category of ethnicity and is used as evidence of belief in a common culture and ancestry.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: In a narrower sense, they refer to groups whose religious and ethnic traditions are historically linked.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: The elements that are defined as characteristics of an ethnoreligious group are "social character, historical experience, and theological beliefs".


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: A closing of the community takes place through a strict endogamy, which is specifically for the community and that distinguishes an ethno-religious community, that is, as distinct from any other group.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: In general, ethnoreligious communities define their ethnic identity not only by ancestral heritage nor simply by religious affiliation but normally through a combination of both. An ethnoreligious group has a shared history and a cultural tradition – which can be defined as religious – of its own. In many cases ethnoreligious groups are ethno-cultural groups with a traditional ethnic religion; in other cases ethnoreligious groups begin as communities united by a common faith which through endogamy developed cultural and ancestral ties.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Some ethnoreligious groups' identities are reinforced by the experience of living within a larger community as a distinct minority. Ethnoreligious groups can be tied to ethnic nationalism if the ethnoreligious group possesses a historical base in a specific region. In many ethnoreligious groups emphasis is placed upon religious endogamy, and the concurrent discouragement of interfaith marriages or intercourse, as a means of preserving the stability and historical longevity of the community and culture.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Prior to the Babylonian exile, the Israelites had already emerged as an ethnoreligious group, probably before the time of Hosea.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Since the 19th century, Reform Judaism has differed from Orthodox Judaism on matters of theology and practice; however, toward the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, the Reform movement has reoriented itself back toward certain traditions and practices it had previously relinquished (for example, wearing the tallit and/or the kippah; the use of Hebrew in the liturgy). In the United States, the increasing rate of mixed marriages has led to attempts to facilitate conversion of the spouse, although conversion to facilitate marriage is strongly discouraged by traditional Jewish law. If the spouse does not convert, the Reform movement will recognize patrilineal descent. Traditional interpretations of Jewish law only recognize descent along the maternal line. Many children of mixed marriages do not identify as Jews and the Reform movement only recognizes children of mixed marriages as Jewish if they "established through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people." In actual practice, most Reform Jews affirm patrilineal descent as a valid means of Jewish identification, particularly if the individual was "raised Jewish".


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Since the mid 1960s, Israeli national identity has become linked with Jewish identity as a result of Zionism. In Israel, Jewish religious courts have authority over personal status matters, which has led to friction with secular Jews who sometimes find they must leave the country in order to marry or divorce, particularly in relation to the inherited status of mamzer, the marriage of males from the priestly line, persons not recognized as Jewish by the rabbinate, and in cases of agunot. The Israeli rabbinate only recognizes certain approved Orthodox rabbis as legitimate, which has led to friction with Diaspora Jews who for centuries never had an overarching authority.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: Other classical examples for ethnoreligious groups are traditional Anabaptist groups like the Old Order Amish, the Hutterites, the Old Order Mennonites and traditional groups of Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites, like the Old Colony Mennonites. All these groups have a shared cultural background, a shared dialect as their everyday language (Pennsylvania German, Hutterisch, Plautdietsch), a shared version of their Anabaptist faith, a shared history of several hundred years and they have accepted very few outsiders into their communities in the last 250 years. They may also share common foods, dress, and other customs. Modern proselytizing Mennonite groups, such as the Evangelical Mennonite Conference whose members have lost their shared ancestry, their common ethnic language Plautdietsch, their traditional dress and other typical ethnic traditions, are no longer seen as an ethnoreligious group, although members within these groups may still identify with the term Mennonite as an ethnic identifier.


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: In Australian law, the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 of New South Wales defines "race" to include "ethnic, ethno-religious or national origin". The reference to "ethno-religious" was added by the Anti-Discrimination (Amendment) Act 1994 (NSW). John Hannaford, the NSW Attorney-General at the time, explained, "The effect of the latter amendment is to clarify that ethno-religious groups, such as Jews, Muslims and Sikhs, have access to the racial vilification and discrimination provisions of the Act... extensions of the Anti-Discrimination Act to ethno-religious groups will not extend to discrimination on the ground of religion".


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: The definition of "race" in Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (Tas) likewise includes "ethnic, ethno-religious or national origin". However, unlike the NSW Act, it also prohibits discrimination on the grounds of "religious belief or affiliation" or "religious activity".


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: In the United Kingdom the landmark legal case "Mandla v Dowell-Lee" placed a legal definition on ethnic groups with religious ties, which, in turn, has paved the way for the definition of an ethnoreligious group. Both Jews and Sikhs were determined to be considered ethnoreligious groups under the Anti-Discrimination (Amendment) Act 1994 (see above).


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: The Anti-Discrimination (Amendment) Act 1994 made reference to "Mandla v Dowell-Lee", which defined ethnic groups as:


title: Ethnoreligious group

text: The significance of the case was that groups like Sikhs and Jews could now be protected under the Race Relations Act 1976.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: The Last Shadow Puppets are an English supergroup consisting of Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys), Miles Kane (The Rascals, solo artist), James Ford (Simian, Simian Mobile Disco, music producer), and Zach Dawes (Mini Mansions). The band released their debut album "The Age of the Understatement" in 2008. Following a lengthy hiatus, they returned, releasing second album "Everything You've Come to Expect" in 2016.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: In August 2007 "NME" magazine reported that Arctic Monkeys lead singer Alex Turner and lead singer of then newly formed the Rascals, Miles Kane would be recording an album with Simian Mobile Disco member and former Simian drummer James Ford producing and playing drums. Turner and Kane had become friends when Kane's previous band the Little Flames played support for Arctic Monkeys on their 2005 UK tour. The Little Flames also supported Arctic Monkeys on their April 2007 UK tour, when Turner and Kane wrote songs together for a collaborative project. Their collaboration extended into Arctic Monkeys material, with Kane playing guitar on "505", the closing track of second Arctic Monkeys album "Favourite Worst Nightmare" and on "Fluorescent Adolescent" B-sides "The Bakery" and "Plastic Tramp." Kane also guested on "505" and "Plastic Tramp" at several Arctic Monkeys gigs in 2007, including the summer mini-festivals at Lancashire County Cricket Club and Arctic Monkeys' 2007 & 2013 appearances at Glastonbury.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: The initial recording of the songs that would eventually form their debut album took place in France in late August 2007 with additional material added between August and December of that year. In December Owen Pallett was appointed to arrange the strings, brass and percussion for the album with the 22-piece London Metropolitan Orchestra. During the recording of the album Turner and Kane hired a documentary film-making team, Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull, to capture the story of the project.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 20 February 2008, Miles Kane and Alex Turner revealed they would be known as the Last Shadow Puppets and that their album would be titled "The Age of the Understatement" and would be released on 21 April 2008. The band played their first ever show in Brooklyn, New York, at Sound Fix Records on 4 March 2008, playing a second gig at the Lower East Side's Cake Shop the following night. Their first show in the United Kingdom was a short two song set on 5 April at the Lock Tavern in Camden, London. They played "Meeting Place" and "Standing Next to Me" in support of Remi Nicole, who organised the party both to celebrate her birthday and to raise money for MS sufferers.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: The album went straight to number one in the UK Albums Chart. The first single, "The Age of the Understatement", was released the week before on 14 April, with new song "Two Hearts in Two Weeks" and covers of Billy Fury's "Wondrous Place" and David Bowie's "In the Heat of the Morning" —a song previously mentioned by Turner as a favourite— as b-sides.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: After the album release the band played a secret set at Glastonbury on 28 June 2008 with Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders playing drums on "The Age of the Understatement" and Jack White playing a guitar solo on "Wondrous Place." Two days later, they announced their debut world tour, which would start on 19 August of that year. On 4 July 2008, they performed "Standing Next to Me" as part of a birthday present for Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 1. They also performed a cover of Rihanna's "SOS".


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: Their second single, "Standing Next to Me", was released on 7 July 2008. That same month, the album was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize but lost out to Elbow's "The Seldom Seen Kid".


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On August, the band and a 16-piece orchestra, played their first tour shows at Portsmouth Guildhall and New Theatre Oxford, before attending Reading and Leeds Festivals 2008. Kane said the two festival stops would be "our [the band] first proper gigs". Their Leeds set was described by "The Guardian" as "a classy offering from the Puppets. But, maybe, that isn't what's needed at a festival on a Friday night". The first leg of the tour ended with a show at The Olympia in Paris on 26 August.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: The tour restarted in October at Cirkus in Stockholm, and continued in continental Europe, throughout the rest of the month. On October 20, the album's third single, "My Mistakes Were Made for You", was released. Four days later they played a show at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool as part of the Electric Proms. Their London and Sheffield shows were generally well received by both fans and critics. Turner and Kane played their last show, before going back to their respective careers, at the Mayan Theater of Los Angeles on 3 November 2008.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: Now on a hiatus, and working with their bands, Turner and Kane reunited briefly at the Shockwaves NME Awards on 25 February 2009, where they won Best Music Video for "My Mistakes Were Made For You" directed by Richard Ayoade.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: In a March 2010 interview with Absolute Radio, Alex Turner said that there were no plans for new material, however, Kane said in October 2010 they would get back together after he was done with his solo project.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: That summer, the band played an acoustic set at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, for Brian O'Connor's benefit concert. This marked the first live performance of the band since 2008. A year later, Turner confirmed his interests in recording a second album. In January 2012, Kane added that he would reunite with Turner to record again as the Last Shadow Puppets "when the time is right."


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 3 February 2012, Miles Kane supported Arctic Monkeys at their Paris Olympia show. At the conclusion of the support slot, Turner joined Kane and his band to perform "Standing Next to Me". This was repeated again a year later, at Kane's Glastonbury set, near the end of his performance. On October that same year, Kane now joining the Arctic Monkeys on their headline set in Mexico, performed their last song "505" together. At Finsbury Park 2014, both reunited once more for an acoustic performance of "Standing Next to Me".


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: In 2015 both Turner and Kane were involved in the writing of Kane's third solo album. During those sessions, a song, that would later be known as Aviation was the seed for the new Puppets record, as it sparked their desire to get the band together. During the summer of 2015 Turner, Kane, Ford and new member Zach Dawes started recording their second album at Shangri La Studios in Malibu, California.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 19 October 2015 Owen Pallett, who contributed the string arrangements on "The Age of the Understatement", confirmed work on the second album on Twitter. In an interview with the Chilean site Rock & Pop on 17 November 2015, producer James Ford confirmed that work on the second album had been completed and that the record would be released sometime in spring 2016. When asked of his recent work, Ford said, "This year, I've just done a Last Shadow Puppets record, which is the guy from Arctic Monkeys and Miles. So we did the follow-up album to that. That's the last thing I did."


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 3 December 2015, the band's official Facebook and YouTube pages released a teaser trailer for the album, also confirming for the album to be released sometime in spring 2016. People such as Turner's ex-girlfriend, Taylor Bagley, and Zach Dawes of Mini Mansions made small cameos in the video. A second teaser trailer for the album was released on 28 December 2015. The video featured Kane impersonating wrestler Ric Flair along with videos from the studio and various cinematic shots.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 10 January 2016, the band released their first single since 2008. The song, "Bad Habits", was accompanied with a music video filmed in the same style as the first two teaser trailers. On 21 January 2016, the band announced that their second album would be entitled "Everything You've Come to Expect", and would feature the return of all three previous band members, as well as the addition of bass player Zach Dawes. It was set to be released on 1 April 2016. A few days later, they announced their 2016 tour dates in support of the album. Set to start in March with a show at Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Two shows were later added during March in Cambridge and Middlesbrough.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On 10 March 2016, the band released the title track from "Everything You've Come to Expect", as the album's second single. An accompanying music video was also released, of which there is 9 varieties, depicting Turner and Kane buried up to their necks on a beach while a woman dances around them. A week later


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: the track "Aviation", was released as the 3rd single. A video similar in style to Everything You've Come to Expect was released, showing Turner and Kane, digging a sand pit on the same beach they were buried on in the previous video. On 29 March 2016, the band released a 4th song, "Miracle Aligner", alongside a video that closed the trilogy started by the second single, before the release of the entire album.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: While on tour, the band promoted the album with appearances on television programmes such as "Le Grand Journal", "Late Night with Seth Meyers", "The Late Late Show with James Corden", and "Later...with Jools Holland". And headlining sets in festivals such as Coachella, Radio 1's Big Weekend, Primavera Sound, Rockwave, T in the Park, and Lollapalooza in Chicago. In June 2016, the band performed on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury. During the set, they performed a cover of "Moonage Daydream" in memory of David Bowie. On July, the band played two nights at Alexandra Palace in London, on the second date, they were joined by Johnny Marr for a cover of The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me." They ended their 2016 tour on 26 August by playing at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, France.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: On December 2, the band released "The Dream Synopsis," an EP containing re-recordings of two songs, "Aviation" and "The Dream Synopsis," as well as four cover versions of The Fall's "Totally Wired," Jacques Dutronc's "Les Cactus," Glaxo Babies's "This Is Your Life," and Leonard Cohen's "Is This What You Wanted." Each cover had an accompanying music video except for "Totally Wired".


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: Two years after their last official release, Turner joined Miles Kane during a show at La Cigale in Paris, for a performance of the band's staple song, "Standing Next To Me." In September 2021, During an interview with "Clash Magazine", Kane said a new a project could "probably be in about four years," adding, "I think there’s a bit of a myth about it and I quite like that," in regards to the eight year wait between "The Age of the Understatement" and "Everything You've Come to Expect".


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: Turner and Kane have cited Scott Walker and David Bowie as main influences alongside, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, David Axelrod, Lee Hazlewood, Jaques Brel, Isaac Hayes and bands such as, The Style Council, The Electric Prunes, Sparks, Depeche Mode and The Fall.


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: When asked about the way the band presents itself on stage Kane commented: "...We’re just sort of having fun in those characters but we’re very much serious, its not like we’re taking the piss, its just like why not be a bit flamboyant if you’ve got it in you, you know? The bands are so boring now days, you know, if someone wants to be a bit extravagant then I don’t see why not. The bands I love were more extravagant and extreme than we are. If everyone wants to stay square then they can stay square."


title: The Last Shadow Puppets

text: Kane and Turner's friendship is often an object of discussion, and has been described by the media as a "bromance", due to its closeness. They have referred to each other as "best mates", having bonded over their similar music taste, sense of humor, and upbringing: "we discovered that our mums have got the same kettle and toaster. Seriously. And they have the same aura. They're very similar women. We're both only children, too." In an interview with "The Times", Turner claimed their first record was the consequence of friendship, not ambition, adding, "Me and Miles, if we had grown up in the same area and gone to the same school, maybe we'd be in a band together anyway." Hamish McBain of "ShortList" shared the sentiment, saying, "It's a friendship and a band born out of a desire to hang around together, egging each other on into more flamboyant outfits, [...] most of all better music".


title: Trying (TV series)

text: Trying is a British comedy television series created by Andy Wolton. The first season premiered on 1 May 2020 on Apple TV+. The second season premiered on 21 May 2021, and the third season premiered on 22 July 2022. In August 2022, Apple announced the show was to be renewed for a fourth season.


title: Trying (TV series)

text: The series follows Nikki and Jason, a couple who really want to become parents but who struggle with conceiving a child. In order to have the baby they want they decide to adopt, only to face a whole list of new challenges and surprises that come with the adoption process.


title: Trying (TV series)

text: On 12 July 2019, it was reported that Apple Inc. and the BBC were working together for a new comedy series with the working title "Alabama". Production on the series was already underway with the series set to be released sometime in 2020. "Trying" is the second co-production between Apple and the BBC after a reboot "Prehistoric Planet" was announced two months prior. On 19 January 2020, Apple Inc. formally announced the series in a press release with the official title "Trying".


title: Trying (TV series)

text: On 1 May 2020, Esther Smith confirmed in an interview with Metro that a second season had been commissioned by Apple.


title: Trying (TV series)

text: With the announcement of a 14 May 2021 second season release date, Apple also renewed the show for a third season.


title: Trying (TV series)

text: Alongside the initial report of the series in July 2019, it was announced that Imelda Staunton would star in the series. In the press release of January 2020, Apple announced that Rafe Spall and Esther Smith would star in the series.


title: Trying (TV series)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season 86% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10. For the second season, 100% of 13 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Trying (TV series)

text: The song "Neck of the Woods" by Maisie Peters and Joe Rubel was nominated for Best Original Song in a TV Show/Limited Series by the Hollywood Music in Media Awards in 2021.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Freightliner Trucks is a US semi truck manufacturer. Founded in 1929 as the truck-manufacturing division of Consolidated Freightways (from which it derives its name), the company was established in 1942 as Freightliner Corporation. Owned by Daimler AG from 1981 to 2021, Freightliner is now a part of Daimler Truck subsidiary Daimler Truck North America (along with Western Star, Detroit Diesel, and Thomas Built Buses).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Freightliner produces a range of vans, medium-duty trucks, and heavy-duty trucks; under its Freightliner Custom Chassis subsidiary, the company produces bare chassis and cutaway chassis for multiple types of vehicles. The company popularized the use of cabover (COE) semitractors, with the Freightliner Argosy later becoming the final example of the type sold in North America.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon (the city of its founding); vehicles are currently manufactured in Cleveland and Mount Holly, North Carolina and Santiago Tianguistenco and Saltillo, Mexico.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: As of December 2020, Freightliner is under a court order to improve safety, and was fined $30 million by the NHTSA after an investigation found that Freightliner had failed to recall dozens of known safety defects in its vehicles. In 2019 alone Freightliner was forced to issue safety recalls 24 separate times by the NHTSA, and there have been over 100 recalls total on its flagship truck, the Cascadia. The Judge found that Freightliner had no system in place to track faults, and ordered $5 million of the fine be applied to upgrading outdated paper-based systems and converting to recall software used by other automakers for decades.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: As of May 2021 Freightliner has at least three open investigations against it for electrical issues, including several fires.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Several weeks after the fine was issued by the NHTSA, Freightliner CEO Roger Nielsen was replaced by John O’Leary, a senior executive from Mercedes Benz trucks, and former CFO of their parent company Daimler Trucks.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Freightliner traces its roots to 1929; following the founding of Consolidated Freightways (CF) in Portland, Oregon, company founder Leland James set up a company division to produce semitractors for company use. Developed in a CF maintenance facility, Freightways Manufacturing used Fageol vehicles as a starting point for the design, placing the cab above the front axle. Shorter in length, the new Freightways truck allowed for CF to use a longer trailer and remain in compliance of the stringent length laws of the time.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In line with the company name, during the 1930s, Freightways Manufacturing began to brand its truck production under the "Freightliner" name. In addition to their shorter length, the trucks underwent weight reduction to maximize use of engine power (needed to climb mountain grades in the western United States).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1942, Leland James renamed Freightways Manufacturing as Freightliner Corporation; as part of the launch, the company debuts the first truck with an all-aluminum cab. Shifting to military production during World War II, Freightliner resumed truck production in 1947. In 1949, Freightliner sold its first vehicle outside of CF (to Portland-based forklift manufacturer Hyster); the vehicle is preserved in the Smithsonian collection in Washington, D.C.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: As it largely existed as a subsidiary of a trucking company, Freightliner sought to establish a distribution network for its product line, allowing for higher production volumes and reduced costs. In 1951, Freightliner entered into an agreement with White Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio. One of the largest truck manufacturers in the United States at the time, White sold Freightliner COEs under the "White Freightliner" co-branding (all vehicles produced for CF were Freightliners).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1953, Freightliner introduced a cab with an overhead-mounted sleeper (further shortening the cab). The first-generation "shovelnose" cab was retired for 1954 in favor of the taller, flatter "WFT" design; as an option, a "Mountaineer" 4x4 system was offered.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: To reduce import tariffs imposed by Canada (later removed by Auto Pact), Freightliner opened its first Canadian manufacturing facility in 1961, in Burnaby, British Columbia. To increase production in the United States, assembly plants were opened in Chino, California and Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1969, a second facility was opened in Portland for parts production.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: White Motor Company became troubled in the 1970s. Expansion into appliances and agricultural equipment consumed capital without producing a return, and the relationship with Consolidated Freightways became frayed. In 1974, the distribution agreement was terminated, and Freightliner Corp. began life as a freestanding manufacturer and distributor. Many of the first dealers were from the White Motor Co. network, but some entrepreneurs also signed up to represent the trucks without the White Motor Co. franchise as a complement.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: At the same time, the company introduced its first conventional model, an adaptation of the high COE mainstay product. High COEs accounted for well over 50% of the US market in those days, owing to overall length regulations that limited the bumper-to-taillight dimension of a semitrailer unit to 55 ft on interstate highways. Conventionals were popular on western roads due to more convenient ingress/egress, better ride, and easier access to the engine for servicing.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1979, a new plant in Mount Holly, North Carolina, and a parts manufacturing plant in Gastonia, North Carolina, were constructed, both in the Charlotte metropolitan area. Volumes continued to increase.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: The year 1979 marked a consequential event in the evolution of Freightliner, and of the whole trucking and truck manufacturing industries. President Carter signed bills into law deregulating transport both on the ground and in the skies. Deregulation changed the economics of trucking and removed the system of regulated carriage that protected carriers, instead allowing more competition.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Three years later, the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 relaxed weight and length standards and imposed a new excise tax on heavy trucks and the tires they use. No longer was the overall length of semitrailer combinations restricted; rather, only the trailer was specified, to be not greater than 53 ft in length. Individual states retained more restrictive overall length laws, but fundamentally, the rules had changed forever.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Consolidated Freightways, a traditional, unionized carrier that flourished in the era before deregulation, realized it was in a fight for its life. In May 1981, it sold its truck manufacturing business and the Freightliner brand to Daimler-Benz, allowing it to concentrate its management attention and financial resources on its traditional trucking business. Around this time, the Chino and Indianapolis plants were closed permanently. Consolidated Freightways continued carrier business until 2002, when it ceased operation on Labor Day weekend.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1985 Freightliner introduced a new Medium Conventional series (FLC112), using the passenger portion of the cabin from the then recently introduced Mercedes-Benz LK. Mercedes cabins gradually became used for a number of Freightliner trucks. In 1989, Freightliner acquired a standing plant in Cleveland, North Carolina, near Statesville, that had been producing transit buses for German manufacturer MAN.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1991, parent company Daimler-Benz withdrew from the medium-duty truck segment, shifting its presence to Freightliner. Serving as the replacement for the aging Mercedes-Benz L1117, the Business Class made its debut. Also called the FL series, the Business Class was a downsized version of the FLC112, sharing its cab with the Mercedes-Benz LKN cabover. Along with a lighter GVWR, the FL was given a shorter hood with two headlights. The first all-new entry in the medium-duty market in over a decade, the model line met with success.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Another pronounced downturn in the industry's fortunes necessitated drastic measures to restore Freightliner to financial health, and Dr Dieter Zetsche, now the chairman of Daimler-Benz's Board of Management, was dispatched to lead the project as CEO. The Burnaby assembly plant was closed, replaced by a new facility in St. Thomas, Ontario. Cost reduction programs across the company restored profitability when the market rebounded. Significantly, production also commenced in Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico, about outside Mexico City, in a plant owned by Daimler-Benz. At that time, the plant was also producing buses, Brazilian-designed medium-duty trucks, and compact Mercedes-Benz passenger cars.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Following the introduction of the medium-duty Business Class, Freightliner saw further evolution to its model range. For 1996, the company introduced the Freightliner Century Class, its first completely new Class 8 conventional in over 20 years. A year later, the company began production of cowled bus chassis, with the FS-65 derived from the medium-duty Business Class. For 1999 production, the Freightliner Argosy debuted; directly replacing the FLB, the Argosy consolidated four previous Freightliner COEs into a single model range. The first clean-sheet COE design from Freightliner since the Daimler acquisition, the Argosy largely eliminated the engine intrusion into the cab, sharing many body components and electronics with the Century Class conventional. In 1997, Freightliner acquired the truck-producing division of the Ford Motor Company and rebranded it as Sterling.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 1999, Freightliner built its one-millionth vehicle. The Century Class conventional model family was expanded, adding the Columbia conventional. While sharing the same cab structure, the Columbia is developed primarily for fleet applications (though both model lines become popular with owner-operators).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: The 1990s were a busy era for truck manufacturers in general, and for Freightliner in particular, under the leadership of flamboyant James L. Hebe, a former Kenworth sales executive who joined the company in 1989. During the decade, Freightliner made numerous acquisitions to further diversify itself:


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: 1995 – Oshkosh Custom Chassis in Gaffney, South Carolina became Freightliner Custom Chassis, producing the underpinnings for walk-in vans used by companies such as UPS to deliver parcels and Cintas for uniform laundry services; diesel recreational vehicles; conventional school buses; and shuttle buses. The Oshkosh and Freightliner partnership has dissolved, and Oshkosh is no longer affiliated with Freightliner.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: 1996 – American LaFrance was purchased; a 130-year-old manufacturer of fire apparatus, it was Mr. Hebe's first employer. American LaFrance had fallen on hard times and was moribund at the time of the acquisition. At the end of the year, Freightliner acquired the rights of the heavy-truck product lines of Ford Motor Company.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: 1997 – As a result of the Ford heavy-truck acquisition, Freightliner created Sterling Trucks (using a long-dormant nameplate once owned by White Motor Company). Intended primarily as vocational trucks, the Sterling product line consisted of rebranded versions of the Ford Louisville/AeroMax and Ford Cargo.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: 1998 – Freightliner acquires bus manufacturer Thomas Built Buses, based in High Point, North Carolina. Sterling-brand trucks entered production in St. Thomas, Ontario (sold concurrently with the final Ford heavy trucks).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: At the beginning of the 21st century, Freightliner was part of DaimlerChrysler, following the 1998 merger of its parent company with Chrysler; several changes in 2000 were made by the merged company that affected Freightliner. Canadian-based Western Star Trucks, a premium truck manufacturer was acquired in its entirety, giving Freightliner a third truck brand (along with assembly plants in Kelowna, British Columbia, and Ladson, South Carolina). Originally an entity of General Motors, DaimlerChrysler acquired Detroit Diesel, integrating its operations within Freightliner.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Coinciding with the fragile economy, Freightliner was awash in used trucks it could not sell; following the rapid expansion of the previous decade, Freightliner was left with multiple poor-performing operations outside of its core truck brand which was in decline in a poor economy. Seeking new leadership, DaimlerChrysler installed former company CFO to begin a turnaround for Freightliner. By 2002, the Kelowna Western Star plant was closed (shifting to Portland), along with a Thomas facility in Woodstock, Ontario (consolidating entirely to High Point).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: For 2002, the Freightliner product line underwent multiple updates. For the medium-duty segment, Freightliner introduced a second generation of the Business Class, the Business Class M2, ranging from Class 5 to Class 8 severe-service conventionals. In place of the cab derived from Mercedes-Benz, the M2 was designed entirely by Freightliner. The Century Class model family was expanded further, debuting the Freightliner Coronado premium conventional. Styled similar to the FLD132 Classic XL, the Coronado shared its cab structure and technology with the Century Class and Columbia, marketed towards owner-operators. In a further expansion of the vocational model line, the Freightliner Condor was introduced as the first low-entry COE; competing with the Autocar Xpeditor, the Condor was developed nearly entirely for refuse applications.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In the early 2000s, the operations of Freightliner subsidiaries would undergo multiple changes. Following the acquisition of Western Star Trucks, Freightliner consolidated production of American LaFrance in the previous Western Star plant in Ladson, South Carolina; the attempt to integrate production of specialized emergency vehicles into a company noted for high volume production capabilities proved unworkable. While remaining the fifth-largest manufacturer in the emergency vehicle segment, American LaFrance was sold in 2005 to private equity fund, with DaimlerChrysler retaining ownership of the Ladson factory.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: For 2006, the Sprinter van underwent a redesign (for the first time); final assembly shifts to the former American LaFrance facility in Ladson, South Carolina. While sold nearly exclusively as a cargo van, the Freightliner Sprinter is also offered as a passenger vehicle (alongside Dodge and Mercedes-Benz Sprinters).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: After 2006 production, Freightliner ended sales of the Argosy cabover in North America. The first company to produce a fully tilting cab, Freightliner was the final truck manufacturer in North America to offer a Class 8 cabover. The Argosy remains in production in North America, sold exclusively for export.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In the summer of 2007, DaimlerChrysler was split, with the Freightliner parent company reorganizing itself as Daimler AG. Freightliner begins production of trucks in Saltillo, Mexico. On January 7, 2008, Freightliner LLC was renamed Daimler Trucks North America, LLC (DTNA), operating as the parent company of the Freightliner Trucks brand, alongside Sterling, Western Star, Detroit Diesel, and Thomas Built Buses.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: For 2008, the company introduced Freightliner Cascadia, a new-generation Class 8 conventional. Intended as the successor to the Century Class and Columbia, the Cascadia consolidated the two model lines; while styled as a scaled-up M2, the Cascadia was optimized for fuel economy, safety, and reliability. Within the vocational model line, the Condor low-entry COE was discontinued.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 2009, Freightliner began production of natural gas versions of the Business Class M2 in its Mount Holly facility. In March 2009, DTNA discontinued Sterling Trucks, citing substantial model overlap with Freightliner and decreasing market share (in spite of multiple product launches). The closure of Sterling also brought a closure of the St. Thomas plant.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: Following the closure of Sterling, the Freightliner model line underwent a transition. While the M2 remained unchanged, the FLD 120/132 Classic/Classic XL were discontinued for 2010; after the model year, the Columbia and Century Class were also discontinued (in North America). In line with the Argosy, production of the Century Class shifted entirely to export. The Coronado long-hood conventional was joined by the Coronado SD (developed primarily for vocational applications).


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: For 2011, the company debuted the SD model family. Alongside the Coronado SD introduced the previous year, two new models were added, the 108SD and 114SD, derived from the M2 model family.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 2012, Freightliner celebrated its 70th anniversary, unveiling the Revolution concept vehicle. Constructed of carbon fiber and plastic, the cab featured a redesigned layout. Intended for use by a single driver, the passenger seat was replaced by a jumpseat (converting into a sleeper bed); to optimize trailer hookups, the design included a rear access door. As a result of increased demand for the Cascadia, parent company DTNA announced plans in 2012 to expand its workforce at its Cleveland, NC facility. Alongside the Cascadia, nearly 20% of trucks produced by the plant (including the Argosy and Century Class) were exported to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: In 2013, Freightliner expanded its alternative-fuel lineup, adding a natural-gas version of the Cascadia. Introduced as a premium option for the Cascadia, the Cascadia Evolution further enhanced aerodynamics and fuel economy (distinguished by its full rear wheel covers) and improved interior features. The Coronado was added to SD model family, renamed the 122SD.


title: Freightliner Trucks

text: On August 22, 2014, the Cleveland plant built the 3 millionth vehicle of Daimler Truck North America, a 2015 Cascadia Evolution. At the time, Freightliner employed 2600 workers at the facility and 8000 employees in North Carolina.