title: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy

text: Although the first scientific description of takotsubo cardiomyopathy was not until the 1990s, Cebelin and Hirsch wrote about human stress cardiomyopathy in 1980. The two looked at homicidal assaults that had happened in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the past 30 years, specifically those with autopsies who had no internal injury, but had died of physical assault. They found that 11 of 15 had myofibrillar degeneration similar to animal stress studies. In the end, they concluded their data supported "the theory of catecholamine mediation of these myocardial changes in man and of the lethal potential of stress through its effect on the heart".


title: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy

text: The syndrome reached international audiences through the media in 2005 when the "New England Journal of Medicine" wrote about the syndrome.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The New Avengers is a fictional team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The title has been used for four American comic book series. The first two were written by Brian Michael Bendis and depicted a version of Marvel's premiere superhero team, the Avengers. The third was written by Jonathan Hickman and depicted a group of characters called the Illuminati (formerly introduced in "New Avengers" Vol. 1 #7 [July 2005]). The fourth is written by Al Ewing and depicts the former scientific terrorist group A.I.M., reformed as "Avengers Idea Mechanics", whose field team has appropriated the name "New Avengers" for itself.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: "The New Avengers" is a spin-off of the long-running Marvel Comics series "The Avengers". The first issue, written by Brian Michael Bendis and penciled by David Finch, was dated January 2005 but appeared in November 2004. Finch penciled the first six issues and issues #11-13. Succeeding pencilers with multiple-issue runs include Steve McNiven, Leinil Francis Yu, Billy Tan, and Stuart Immonen. The roster at first comprises Luke Cage, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man and "Spider-Woman" (Veranke). Later stretches included the mutant X-Man Wolverine, the unstable and godlike Sentry, and the deaf ninja Echo, in the guise of Ronin.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The team itself was not named the "New Avengers" within the series. A splinter group of Avengers that chose not to comply with federal superhuman registration, the team considers itself the authentic Avengers. A concurrent government-sanctioned team gathered in the sister series "The Mighty Avengers". This series launched in early 2007 and was itself supplanted by a different government-sanctioned team in the series "Dark Avengers", which was launched in late 2008. At this time the team welcomed Clint Barton (recently returned from the dead) as Ronin, as well as Doctor Strange and Iron Fist.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: By the end of the first volume, the "New Avengers" team consisted of Ronin, Captain America (Bucky Barnes), Ms. Marvel, Mockingbird, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman (Drew), Wolverine, and team leader Luke Cage. Writer Brian Michael Bendis said in an interview that these characters are the authentic Avengers because Captain America said they were. This statement is repeated when the team, believing Captain America (Rogers) is alive, attempts to rescue him. Spider-Man claims that if they get Captain America back, they can call themselves Avengers again. Luke Cage contends that they are Avengers already. The series ended with "The New Avengers" #64 (April 2010), at the conclusion of the "Siege" storyline. A one-shot titled "The New Avengers: Finale" was also released.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: In March 2010, Marvel announced the series would be relaunched in June as part of the company's rebranding initiative, "Heroic Age" . In the first issue of the series, the new team consisted of Luke Cage, Victoria Hand, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Mockingbird, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, The Thing, and Wolverine. Wolverine and Spider-Man operated on the main Avengers team as well as the New Avengers, and Doctor Strange accepted an offer to join the team after their first mission while searching for the new Sorcerer Supreme after the death of Doctor Voodoo. Daredevil joined the team in issue #16 after accepting an offer from Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Jessica left the team for personal reasons and was later joined by Luke Cage, thus ending that iteration of the team.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: "New Avengers" was renumbered as a new volume in January 2013, written by Jonathan Hickman and originally drawn by Steve Epting. The new volume shifted its focus to the powerful group known as the Illuminati, which includes Black Bolt, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, and Namor, who reassembled to confront the threat of incursions. Black Panther and Reed Richards discovered that universal decay centered on Earth was causing universes to collide with one another, with Earth at the focal point. In issue #3, Black Panther, who had previously opposed the existence of the Illuminati, joined the group, and the Beast was brought in to fill the spot vacated by the death of Professor X. In the same issue, Captain America leaves. In issue #12, after having helped the Illuminati to defeat Thanos's army, Black Bolt's brother Maximus joined the team. Bruce Banner joined the team in Avengers Vol. 5 #28 after discovering the universal decay on his own.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Volume 4 of "New Avengers" launched in October 2015 as a part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch, written by Al Ewing with art by Gerardo Sandoval. The comic features a different team from the past three volumes: it focuses on A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), a former super-villain group which has been rebranded as the Avengers Idea Mechanics, and their field team which has taken the name of the New Avengers. Sunspot is the new head of A.I.M., with Songbird as the field leader; other members include Wiccan, Hulkling, Squirrel Girl, Pod, Power Man, White Tiger, and Hawkeye as an open informant for S.H.I.E.L.D. Later, there is a schism in the team: Wiccan, Hulkling and Squirrel Girl are expelled from A.I.M. and informed by Sunspot that the three of them are now what remains of the New Avengers; during the same story, Cannonball was revealed to be working for A.I.M. as well. Hawkeye, who had been fired from S.H.I.E.L.D., later rejoins the trio of remaining New Avengers to form a lineup jokingly called "Wiccan's Kooky Quartet". During the events of Civil War II, the New Avengers assist A.I.M. on one last mission, which Hawkeye sits out for reasons of plausible deniability. After Sunspot's funeral, Advanced Idea Mechanics is declared officially dead so the team breaks up, but later reform as U.S.Avengers.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Following a reign of destruction by an insane Scarlet Witch, the Avengers disband. Six months later, with the Fantastic Four and the X-Men unable to act, the supervillain Electro shuts down power at the Raft, a "maximum-maximum security" prison for super-powered criminals, allowing for a mass breakout. "Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman)", an agent for the international law-enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., is at the Raft with attorney Matt Murdock (Daredevil) and "hero for hire" Luke Cage. They are joined by Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. They are also assisted by a mentally unbalanced Sentry, who is imprisoned at the Raft. The riot is quelled, although 42 inmates escape. Captain America declares fate has brought this group together, just as it had the original Avengers. Most of the heroes agree to join the team. Daredevil refuses the offer and Sentry flies off.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The team's first mission is to capture the remaining super-powered criminals who escaped during the riot. The unexpected emergence of an unrelated team of youthful heroes, the Young Avengers, is also a matter of concern. There is also a growing sense of unease with S.H.I.E.L.D. after the disappearance of its leader, Nick Fury. The New Avengers travel to the Savage Land to capture the reptilian mutant Sauron, encountering resistance from the Savage Land Mutates (led by Brainchild) and a rogue squadron of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents led by Yelena Belova. During this conflict, Canadian mutant Wolverine joins the team (while maintaining concurrent membership in the X-Men). The group also recruits the Sentry, a powerful hero who erased all memory of his career from the world after he was manipulated by the mutant Mastermind and The General.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: With Xavier unable to repair the fractured psyche of the Scarlet Witch, the New Avengers and Cyclops' team of X-Men consider the alternatives. Fearful that the heroes are preparing to kill his sister, former Avenger Quicksilver convinces her to use her reality-altering powers to transform the planet and its history. Instantaneously, Magneto rules the planet under the banner of the "House of M", with mutants in the majority and non-powered humans as an oppressed minority. Reality is eventually restored, but the Scarlet Witch removes the superhuman abilities from over 99% of the mutants on Earth. These lost powers manifest as the Collective, the assembled energy of the depowered mutants. This energy is controlled by the intelligence known as Xorn (who once posed as Magneto) and uses the energy-wielder Michael Pointer as a host. The Avengers manage to separate the two after the Collective/Xorn attempts to re-power Magneto.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: After the reckless actions of the New Warriors result in the deaths of over 600 civilians in Stamford, Connecticut, Congress passes the Superhuman Registration Act, which requires all superhumans to register with the federal government. Many superheroes comply with this law, but others oppose the law on the grounds that it violates civil liberties. This ideological split leads to a "Civil War" within the New Avengers and the superhuman community at large, with Iron Man leading those who comply with the law, and Captain America leading those who oppose it. By the time that open hostilities between the two factions come to a close, Spider-Man's closely guarded secret identity is exposed to the world, and Bill Foster (one of Henry Pym's successors as Giant-Man) is killed. Shortly thereafter, Captain America is seemingly assassinated.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: In the aftermath of the superhero civil war, the New Avengers become an unofficial group of unregistered heroes. The team moves to Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village, recruiting the resurrected Clint Barton (now using the name and costume of Ronin). They eventually relocate to an empty apartment building owned by Danny Rand's (Iron Fist) Rand Corporation, but leased in the name of Samuel Sterns (the Leader, an adversary of the Hulk).


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Following this, the New Avengers play a major role in repelling the "Secret Invasion" of Earth by the Skrulls, a shapeshifting alien race which has sought to conquer the planet for years. In one confrontation, the team rescues several heroes who had been kidnapped and replaced by Skrull impostors at various unspecified times in the past. This includes the presumed-dead Mockingbird, wife of Clint Barton (Ronin), with whom she reunites. Additionally, it is revealed that Spider-Woman was replaced by the Skrull queen Veranke, prior to the prison break at The Raft that led to the formation of the New Avengers. Thus, Jessica Drew had never been a member of the team.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Upon the Skrulls' defeat, S.H.I.E.L.D. is dismantled and replaced by H.A.M.M.E.R., a new intelligence agency. Norman Osborn (who has been Spider-Man's archenemy as the Green Goblin) is placed in control of H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Thunderbolts, while assembling a team of Avenger imposters composed of supervillains. Meanwhile, the revamped New Avengers roster consists of Captain America (Bucky Barnes), Luke Cage, Ronin, Mockingbird, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, the real Spider-Woman and Wolverine. Captain America offers these "new Avengers" his home as a base of operations. Iron Fist announces he must leave the group to attend to personal business, but will remain on call. The team elects Ronin as leader (with Ms. Marvel as second-in-command), and persuades Spider-Man to once again reveal his secret identity to his fellow members.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: With the Registration Act having been revoked in the aftermath of the "Siege" of Asgard led by Osborn (who is incarcerated for his actions), Steve Rogers (the original Captain America, returned from his alleged death) reassembles the Avengers. Steve convinces a reluctant Luke Cage to be part of the new lineup after Tony Stark sells the reconstructed Avengers Mansion to Cage for a dollar, and Steve gives Cage carte blanche to maintain the New Avengers team, leading it as he sees fit. Given the freedom to recruit almost anyone he wants for the New Avengers team (except Iron Man or Thor), Cage selects Clint Barton (who has resumed the Hawkeye identity), Iron Fist, Jewel (Cage's wife Jessica Jones), Ms. Marvel, Mockingbird, Spider-Man, the Thing (who maintains concurrent membership in the Fantastic Four) and Wolverine. Rogers also sends him Victoria Hand on the grounds that she can provide the team with a unique insight from which Rogers feels they will benefit. Although Hawkeye leaves the team when a crisis comes up with the main Avengers team (claiming that he only joined them to spend time with his wife), the team later enlists a now-weakened Doctor Strange after he assists them in tackling a dimensional crisis. Squirrel Girl and Wong are hired as a super-powered babysitter for Cage's and Jewel's baby and mansion housekeeper respectively, although they do not serve directly on the main lineup of the New Avengers. Spider-Man appears to want to leave the team prior to the "Fear Itself" event due to his distrust of Victoria Hand and his new responsibilities in the Future Foundation, but subsequent conversations with Wolverine and Luke Cage convince him to remain an active member. After "Fear Itself", the team lineup shifts, initially with the addition of Daredevil to the team and later with Jessica Jones leaving the team out of fear for her baby Danielle's safety.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Luke Cage leaves the team after the events of "Avengers vs. X-Men" to ensure the security of his wife and baby.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The remaining New Avengers band together with Doctor Strange when the Ghost of Daniel Drumm returns. He possesses each of the New Avengers and kills various evil sorcerers. Convinced that Daniel set his brother (Brother Voodoo) up to fail in his new role, Doctor Strange defeats him by using dark magic (recognizing that Drumm had only killed dark magic specialists while trying to frame Strange). As a result, Doctor Strange subsequently regains his position of Sorcerer Supreme.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Under the "Marvel NOW!" label, a third volume of "New Avengers" was launched, written by Jonathan Hickman. With Hickman in charge of the entire Avengers line, "New Avengers" carried a parallel storyline to the main "Avengers" series. Rather than featuring a traditional team of Avengers, the book focused on the Illuminati. Black Panther joins Black Bolt, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, and Namor when faced with a universal threat. Beast joins the team as a replacement for the deceased Professor X.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Black Panther discovers a second Earth hanging above Wakanda and witnesses the Black Swan destroy the alternate Earth. Black Panther captures and imprisons the Black Swan and reforms the Illuminati. Using the Black Swan's information, Reed Richards discovers the threat of Incursions, a multiversal chain reaction causing universes to collide with one another, with Earth of every universe at the focal point, resulting in the destruction of both universes unless one Earth is destroyed, allowing the other to pass through. As the Illuminati consider darker and darker avenues to save the universe, Captain America's steadfast morals are put at odds with the other members of the Illuminati. Captain America is voted out of the group with a spell of forgetfulness cast by Dr. Strange.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Faced with the possibility of having to destroy a world, the scientists of the Illuminati set about building a number of weapons, including a number of antimatter injection bombs similar to the one used by the Black Swan, a Dyson Sphere designed to weaponize the sun, a Builder Worldkiller ship kept in Jupiter's orbit, and a rogue planet kept slightly out-of-phase with Earth. The Illuminati survived a number of incursions using these and other methods; at one near Liberty Island, Galactus ate the alternate Earth, and they used an antimatter bomb to destroy a dead Earth over Latveria. During the Infinity event, alternate-universe Builders destroyed an Earth for the Illuminati. The event ended with the defeat of Thanos's forces and the capture of Thanos and his generals Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, all three of whom were imprisoned in amber by Thanos's son Thane. They joined the Black Swan and Terrax the Enlightened as Illuminati prisoners.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The members of the Illuminati became increasingly cut off from the outside community as a result of their actions. Namor's kingdom was destroyed by Proxima Midnight during Thanos's invasion, and Black Panther was cast out of Wakanda for his alliance with Namor, with whom his sister Shuri was at war. Black Bolt and his brother Maximus faked the Inhuman king's death following the destruction of the Terrigen Bomb to allow the Inhumans to rebuild separately from the Illuminati's machinations. Doctor Strange, feeling increasingly cut off from his scientist-dominated colleagues, decided to empower himself to perhaps be able to solve the incursions, and so used the Blood Bible to travel to the Sinner's Market, where he sold his soul in exchange for godlike power. Upon discovering multiversal decay on his own after meeting an alternate version of himself, Bruce Banner confronted Tony Stark about what he'd been doing, and Stark brought him in as a member of the Illuminati.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Faced with a number of multiversal groups also trying to survive the incursion crisis - the faceless sorcerers the Black Priests, the adaptoid robots the Mapmakers, and the mysterious Ivory Kings - the Illuminati built a device to allow them to view other Earths' pasts so they could see how incursions there were handled. They learned about Mapmakers and Black Priests, but also discovered that the Black Swan had teamed up with alternate Illuminati groups in the past, and had even killed alternate versions of Iron Man and Reed Richards when they were no longer useful. Just before the team could confront Black Swan about her deception, another incursion occurred, this time pitting the Illuminati against the Great Society, a team of heroes which, like the Illuminati, had thus far fought off incursions to save its world.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Following an eight-month ellipsis during the "Time Runs Out" storyline, a new group calling themselves the New Avengers emerge. This team consists of former members of the Avengers who broke away from the main team after Captain America partnered with S.H.I.E.L.D. to hunt down the Illuminati.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: As part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event, Sunspot's branch of the Avengers become the latest incarnation of the New Avengers. Their first opponent ended up being the terrorist organization W.H.I.S.P.E.R. (short for World Headquarters for International Scientific/Philosophical Experimentation and Research) that was founded by Mister Fantastic's Earth-1610 counterpart Maker and consisting of the former members of A.I.M. that were chased off by Sunspot. The New Avengers fought W.H.I.S.P.E.R. to destroy their Life-Minus experiment which involved capturing the souls of the dead in special crystals as part of a plan to create a new lifeform. The crystals were later destroyed by Songbird's sonic scream. The Life-Minus experiment also conjured up Moridun, a dark entity from the Fifth Cosmos (the Marvel Universe having recently been reborn in its eighth iteration in the events of Secret Wars).


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The New Avengers encountered Moridun when he took over the body of M'Ryn the Magus — leader of the Knights of the Infinite, a magical order of Kree-Skrull hybrids who revealed Hulkling to be their prophesied future king. When Moridun attacked them and attempted to devour their souls, repeating the phrase "Life is horror", the New Avengers apparently defeated him — but Moridun planted a seed of his consciousness inside Billy Kaplan's mind and began to slowly infect him. Billy changed his codename from Wiccan to Demiurge, and began to act increasingly amoral. They were alerted to Moridun's survival when the Avengers of the year 20XX came back to the present day through A.I.M.'s new time machine, warning that Moridun would destroy Demiurge's soul completely and use his near-godlike power to almost completely destroy the world. Finding Billy already infected, the future Avengers tried to kill him; instead, with Hulkling's help, Billy was able to recognise Moridun's presence in his own mind and successfully defeat him on the mental plane, expelling Moridun from his body and mind.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The Maker engineered the prison break of Angela Del Toro, the former White Tiger, and presented her with the Tiger Amulet from the Ultimate Universe. She fought with Ava Ayala in Rome, causing the Tiger Gods from the two amulets to merge into one, leaving Del Toro with the powers of the White Tiger and Ava powerless.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: In the crossover, A.I.M. received a distress call from Rick Jones when he is taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. Hawkeye decided to break with S.H.I.E.L.D. for good and supported a rescue mission. Hulkling, Wiccan and Squirrel Girl, the only three dissenters, were expelled from A.I.M. and teleported to the desert – Sunspot also conferred the name of "New Avengers" on them. The remaining A.I.M. field team successfully rescued Rick from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s battlecarrier. In response, the U.S. military launched an attack on Avengers Island with the American Kaiju (a Marine corporal transmogrified into a giant lizard monster) – as A.I.M. evacuated the island, they battled the monster with the mentally-controlled giant robot Avenger Five. Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. also launched a counterattack as led by John Garrett, forcing Songbird to reveal that she had been a deep-cover S.H.I.E.L.D. mole. The American Kaiju was defeated by forcing it back into human form. Rick Jones got cold feet about throwing in with A.I.M. and fled, and as a result S.H.I.E.L.D. successfully detained Hawkeye. The remainder of A.I.M. successfully evacuated to Avenger Two, a secondary base in the Savage Land run by Sunspot's old friend Cannonball.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: Hawkeye was fired from S.H.I.E.L.D. for his betrayal. He, Wiccan, Hulkling and Squirrel Girl decided to re-form the New Avengers with Wiccan as the new team leader after fighting the Plunderer together. Meanwhile, Songbird openly became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but was in fact still loyal to Sunspot.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: "The New Avengers" has been collected in a series of editions that had both hardcover and trade paperback releases.


title: The New Avengers (comics)

text: The "Breakout" storyline seen in "New Avengers" Issues #1 to #6 was adapted into a prose novel written and adapted by comic writer Alisa Kwitney in January 2013 as part of the Marvel Prose Novel series. It is significantly altered to feature Hawkeye and Black Widow as the main featured characters due to their appearance and relationship in the "Avengers" movie, replacing Sentry and Wolverine in the story. Barton is depicted as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent like his movie counterpart whilst Natasha is depicted as a rogue agent whose ties are unclear. As the events of "" had transpired, Spider-Man's reasons for his initial involvement is also altered. Jessica Drew and Luke Cage are retained as significant characters and are introduced to a new audience as a result.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Manuel Acuña Roxas (born Manuel Roxas y Acuña; ; January 1, 1892 – April 15, 1948) was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the fifth president of the Philippines, who served from 1946 until his death due to heart attacks in 1948. He served briefly as the third and last president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from May 28, 1946, to July 4, 1946, and became the first president of the independent Third Philippine Republic after the United States ceded its sovereignty over the Philippines.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas was born on January 1, 1892, in Capiz, Capiz (present-day Roxas City) to Gerardo Roxas y Arroyo and Rosario Acuña y Villaruz. He was a posthumous child, as his father died after being mortally wounded by the Spanish Guardia Civil the year before. He and his older brother, Mamerto, were raised by their mother and her father, "Don" Eleuterio Acuña. His other siblings from his father included Leopoldo and Margarita, while he also had half siblings, Consuelo, Leopoldo, Ines and Evaristo Picazo, after his mother remarried.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas received his early education in the public schools of Capiz and attended St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong at age 12, but due to homesickness, he went back to Capiz. He eventually transferred to Manila High School, graduating with honors in 1909.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas began his law studies at a private law school established by George A. Malcolm, the first dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law. On his second year, he enrolled at University of the Philippines, where he was elected president of both his class and the student council. In 1913, Roxas obtained his law degree, graduated class valedictorian, and subsequently topped the bar examinations with a grade of 92% on the same year. He then became professor of law at the Philippine Law School and National University. He served as secretary to Judge Cayetano Arellano of the Supreme Court.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In 1917, Roxas became a member of the municipal council of Capiz, serving until 1919. He then became the youngest provincial governor of Capiz, and served in that capacity from 1919 to 1922.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives in 1922, and for twelve consecutive years was Speaker of the House. He served as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1934, secretary of finance, chairman of the National Economic Council, chairman of the National Development Company, and served in many other government corporations and agencies. He also served as a brigadier general in the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), was a recognized guerrilla leader and military leader of the Philippine Commonwealth Army. Roxas became one of the leaders of the Nacionalista Party, which was dominated by the "hacendado" class who owned the vast "hacienda" estates that made up most of the cultivated land in the Philippines. The same "hacendado" elite who dominated the Philippines under Spanish rule continued to be the dominant social element under American rule. Roxas himself was a "hacendado", who had used his wealth to further his political ambitions. The politics of the Philippines were characterized by a clientistic system under which politicians would use their offices to create patronage networks, and personal differences between politicians were far greater than any ideological differences.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: With the Great Depression, the Philippines started to be seen as a liability in the United States as demands were made to end Filipino immigration to the United States and end the tariff free importation of Filipino agriculture into the American market as many American farmers complained they could not compete with Filipino farmers. To end Filipino immigration and access to the American market, many U.S. congressional leaders favored granting immediate independence to the Philippines. At the same time that the U.S. Congress was debating granting independence to the Philippines, many Filipino leaders were worried by the increasing assertive claims being made by Japan that all of East Asia was its sphere of influence. In a role reversal, it was the Filipinos who were opposed to immediate independence, which was proposed in the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill being debated within the halls of Congress.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In early 1930, Roxas flew to the United States with Sergio Osmeña to lobby the U.S. Congress to go slow on the granting of independence in the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill. Aside from the fear of Japan, many Filipinos were deeply worried about the plans to impose heavy tariffs on Filipino agriculture after independence, which provided another reason to go slowly with independence. In Washington, Roxas lobbied U.S. government leaders such as Secretary of State Henry Stimson and Secretary of War Patrick Hurley. Roxas testified before the U.S. Congress that he favored Philippine independence, saying the Filipinos had fulfilled the "stable government" provision of the Jones Act of 1916, which mandated that independence be granted when Filipinos proved that they had a "stable government". However, Roxas went on to testify that "with the granting of tariff autonomy, serious difficulties may arise". In common with the rest of the Filipino elite, Roxas saw the plans of the U.S. Congress to impose tariffs on Filipino goods after independence as an economic disaster for the Philippines.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In May 1930, Roxas reported to Manuel L. Quezon that both Hurley and Stimson had testified before the U.S. Congress saying that the Philippines were not ready for independence nor would be for anytime in the foreseeable future, which he thought had a major impact on the U.S. Congress. Roxas advised that Quezon should now try to appease Senators Harry B. Hawes and Bronson B. Cutting by sending them a message saying he wanted immediate independence, which Roxas felt was not likely at present. On May 24, 1930, Quezon followed Roxas's advice and sent public telegrams to both Hawes and Cutting saying the Filipinos "crave their national freedom". In a compromise, the Senate Insular Committee advised on June 2, 1930, that the Philippines should be given more autonomy to prepare for independence within the next 19 years. Upon his return to the Philippines in 1930, Roxas founded a new pro-independence group called Ang Bagong Katipunan ("The New Association") that proposed disbanding all political parties under its fold and the unification of national culture in order to negotiate better with the United States. The plans for "Ang Bagong Katipunan" created widespread opposition, as the group was seen as too authoritarian and as a vehicle for Roxas to challenge Quezon for the leadership of the Nacionalista Party. Ang Bagong Katipunan was soon disbanded.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In the summer of 1931, Hurley visited the Philippines to assess its readiness for independence. In talks with Quezon, Osmeña and Roxas, it was agreed that the Philippines should become an autonomous commonwealth under American rule and would be allowed to keep exporting sugar and coconut oil to the United States at the present rate. Roxas became seen as one of the less radical independence leaders, who favored "going slow" on independence to keep access to the U.S. market. At the time, Roxas cynically stated he and the other "Nacionalistas" had to make "radical statements for immediate, complete and absolute independence to maintain hold of the people". Filipino politics tended to be based more on personal loyalties to a politician who would reward his followers via patronage rather than ideological issues, and despite criticism of the "Democratas" that the "Nacionalistas" had abandoned their platform, the "Nacionalistas" triumphed in the election of 13 July 1931. In the election, Roxas was reelected and returned to his position as speaker of Philippine House of Representatives. In September 1931, Japan seized the Manchuria region of China. After the Mukden incident, the leaders of both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy started to argue in Washington that the Philippines occupied a strategical position in Asia, as naval and air bases located in the Philippines would allow any power that controlled them to dominate the South China Sea, the key sea that linked the markets of Southeast Asia to China. The prevailing opinion within the U.S. military was that the United States needed its Philippine bases to deter Japan from trying to seize control of all of East Asia.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In 1933, Roxas and Osmeña flew to Washington to negotiate Filipino independence from the United States. The Americans agreed to grant the Filipinos independence, but only on the condition that the United States be allowed to retain military bases in the Philippines, a condition that led for the act to be rejected by the Philippine Congress. Quezon was late to state that the allowing of the United States to retain its bases in the Philippines would make Filipino independence no different from the independence of the Japanese sham state of Manchukuo.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: After amendments to the 1935 Philippine Constitution were approved in 1941, Roxas was elected to the Philippine Senate, but was unable to serve until 1945 because of the outbreak of World War II. The United States was scheduled to grant the Philippines independence in 1945 while Japan started to make claims for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from 1940 onward. In common with other members of the Filipino elite, Roxas started to cultivate ties with Japan as it was unclear whatever the Philippines would remain in the American sphere of influence after independence or fall into the Japanese sphere of influence. However, as the United States was planning on granting independence, ending more than 400 years of foreign rule, Filipino public opinion was hostile to the idea of the Philippines joining the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Having enrolled prior to World War II as an officer in the reserves, Roxas was made liaison officer between the Commonwealth government and the USAFFE headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur. On December 7, 1941, Japan went to war against the United States, bombing the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii while also bombing American bases in the Philippines. Shortly after, Japanese invasion forces landed on Luzon, the largest and most populous of the islands of the Philippine archipelago. MacArthur had claimed that the American–Filipino forces under his command would stop any Japanese invasion "on the beaches", but instead the Japanese forces marched on Manila, the capital and largest city of the Philippines. Roxas accompanied President Quezon to Corregidor where he supervised the destruction of Philippine currency to prevent its capture by the Japanese. When Quezon left Corregidor, Roxas went to Mindanao to direct the resistance there. It was prior to Quezon's departure that he was made executive secretary and designated as successor to the presidency in case Quezon or Vice President Sergio Osmeña were captured or killed. On January 3, 1942, President Quezon presented General MacArthur with a secret guaranty of $500,000. The payment was related to the Filipino concept of "utang na loob", where one offers a lavish gift in order to create a reciprocal obligation from the individual who receives the gift. Through the payment was legal, it was questionable from an ethical perspective, and MacArthur always kept the payment secret, which did not become public knowledge until 1979. Later that year, Quezon offered payment to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, which he refused, saying that as a United States Army official, his first loyalty was to the United States, which made accepting such a payment as morally wrong in his viewpoint. Roxas was one of the few people who did know about Quezon's gift to MacArthur.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas was captured in April 1942 by the Japanese invasion forces. He became chief advisor to the collaborationist government of José P. Laurel. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that through many claims have been made that Roxas was secretly a member of the Filipino resistance during the Japanese occupation, no evidence has ever emerged to support these claims. The American journalist Richard Rovere wrote that the evidence that Roxas was actually a resistance fighter was "obscure". Rovere described Roxas as typical of the Filipino "hacendado" class (the wealthy owners of the "hacienda" estates) who sought to opportunistically ingratiate themselves with whatever power ruled the Philippines. An additional reason for the "hacendados" to support the Japanese occupation was that the main resistance group, the "Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon " (People's Army against the Japanese), better known as the Huks, was a Communist movement. Besides for opposing the Japanese, the Huks promised land reform, by breaking up the "haciendas", which caused the "hacendados" as a group to support the Japanese. The Manila chapter of the fascist Falange party had a membership of about 10, 000 people, including members of the most prominent "hacendado" families such as the Ayalas, Zobels, Elizaldes and Sorianos. By 1945, the Huks had over 70, 000 guerrillas in action, making them into easily the largest resistance group in the Philippines. The American historian Russell Buhite wrote: "Roxas was the Philippine equivalent of the fabled French statesman Charles Maurice de Tallyrand who was able to blend with the wind, able to work with authority wherever he found it". The American historian Richard Bernstein stated: "If Japan had won the war...the top man in the Philippines today would probably have been Manuel Roxas".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas was captured in April 1942 by Japanese invasion forces. He became chief advisor to the collaborationist government of José P. Laurel.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: During the Japanese occupation, Roxas was in charge of the rice procurement agency for the collaborationist government from 1943 onward, which helped Japan exploit its the Philippines by gathering up the rice harvests to feed the Japanese forces in Southeast Asia. The ruthless policies of confiscating rice harvests pushed many of the Filipino peasantry to the brink of starvation and made Roxas into one of the most hated men in the Philippines. Roxas served in the Laurel government until April 1945, when he surrendered to American forces at Baguio. After his capture, MacArthur announced that Roxas was really a resistance fighter. It appears that MacArthur was blackmailed by Roxas, who threatened to reveal the guaranty he accepted in 1942. This was especially the case as MacArthur had ambitions to run as the candidate of the Republican Party for the 1944 United States presidential election. MacArthur's political ambitions were an open secret at the time, because in early 1944, letters between MacArthur and Congressman Albert Miller were leaked to the press. In his letters to Miller, MacArthur expressed his loathing for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, and dropped broad hints that he would be willing to accept the Republican nomination for the presidential election to be held after the war.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Shortly after his capture, Roxas told the Americans that he wanted the United States to keep its military bases in the Philippines after independence in 1946, and promised to use all of his influence to persuade the Filipino congress to accept independence on those terms. Buhite wrote that by pardoning Roxas, MacArthur "...undermined his ability to treat other collaborators more harshly". Beyond his presidential ambitions, MacArthur had additional reasons to treat Roxas leniently. MacArthur had a low opinion of the average Filipino and believed that the men of the "hacendado" class were only people capable of providing the Philippines with competent leadership. The general felt that whatever Roxas and the other "hacendados" had done during the Japanese occupation was irrelevant compared to the need to have the "haendados" continue as the dominant group as MacArthur believed that the Philippines would descend into anarchy without the leadership of the "haendados".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Osmeña was opposed to MacArthur's rehabilitation of Roxas, only to receive the reply that: "I have known General Roxas for over twenty years, and I know that he is no threat to our military security. Therefore we are not detaining here". MacArthur strongly disliked President Osmeña, whom he felt was an incompetent leader, and much preferred Roxas to be the country's next president. The charismatic Roxas made for more appealing social company, and he proceeded to massage MacArthur's ego through flattery. Moreover, Osmeña had often opposed MacArthur before the war was another point against him as far as MacArthur was concerned, who was quite determined that Roxas should be the first president after independence. President Osmeña traveled to Washington in early 1945 to appeal for President Roosevelt's help against MacArthur, but he made tactless remarks in his meeting at the White House that Roosevelt declared after meeting him that MacArthur should be allowed to rule the Philippines whatever way he liked. MacArthur announced in a speech that Roxas was "one of the prime factors in the guerilla movement" against the Japanese, an image which Roxas himself had embraced. Aside from Roxas, MacArthur pardoned over 5,000 Filipino collaborators, and despite the fact that over 80% of the Filipino Army officers went over to the Japanese in 1942, these men had their commissions restated.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: When the Congress of the Philippines re-convened in 1945, legislators elected in 1941 Roxas as Senate president. Of all members of the 1st Commonwealth Congress, 8 out of 14 senators and 19 out of 67 representatives had collaborated with the Japanese during the occupation. In an attempt to undermine Osmeña's chances of winning the 1946 Philippine presidential election, MacArthur forced the Osmeña administration to make unpopular decisions while he groomed Roxas to run in the 1946 election. On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died and his vice-president, Harry S Truman, succeeded him. Truman had little interest in the Philippines, as he had more pressing concerns to face in his first months of office. When MacArthur left the Philippines for Japan to sign the armistice ending the war on August 30, 1945, the Philippines has been in a chaotic state, with the economy in tatters and the political status undecided. When he took over the American occupation of Japan, MacArthur in turn lost his interest in the Philippines, only returning to Manila on July 4, 1946, to witness the declaration of Filipino independence before promptly returning to Tokyo.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Prior to the Philippine national elections of 1946, at the height of the last Commonwealth elections, Senate President Roxas and his friends left the Nacionalista Party and formed the Liberal Party. Roxas became their candidate for president and Elpidio Quirino for vice-president. The Nacionalistas, on the other hand, had Osmeña for president and Senator Eulogio Rodriguez for vice-president. Roxas had the staunch support of General MacArthur. The American military government strongly favored Roxas during the election, regarding him as the Filipino politician most likely to allow the American bases to continue in the Philippines after independence. The British historian Francis Pike wrote that Roxas "effectively brought" the 1946 election, helped by the fact that he owned the largest newspaper empire in the Philippines. The Roxas newspapers election coverage were essentially campaign ads for the Roxas campaign. Osmeña refused to campaign, saying that the Filipino people knew of his reputation. On April 23, 1946, Roxas won 54 percent of the vote, and the Liberal Party won a majority in the legislature.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On May 28, 1946, prior to his inauguration, president-elect Roxas, accompanied by United States High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, left for the United States. During his U.S. visit, Roxas came out clearly for the United States to maintain its bases after independence, saying in a speech: "We will welcome the existence of your naval, air and army bases on such of our soil as it is mutually agreeable for the common protection of the United States and the Philippines, and will co-operate in the defense and security of those bases insofar as it is within our power to do so". After the experience of the Japanese occupation, Filipino public opinion was no longer against the presence of American bases after independence in quite the same way as before 1941. However, the U.S. government was apparently not aware of the change in public opinion, and favored Roxas as the man best able to allow the United States to keep its bases after independence.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On May 10, 1946, a draft agreement was signed in Washington allowing the United States to keep its Filipino bases for 99 years after independence. Roxas was willing to sign the agreement, but demanded that the number of American bases be reduced and complained that the sweeping immunity from Filipino law enjoyed by American military personnel envisioned in the agreement would not be popular with Filipino public opinion. He also made it clear that he was more comfortable with the Americans mostly having naval and air bases in the Philippines, and wanted the number of U.S. Army bases kept to the minimum. Some aspects of the Roxas desiderata were incorporated in the final agreement as the Americans agreed to reduce the number of bases in the Philippines after independence. Roxas's argument against the U.S. Army having bases were also incorporated in the agreement, through the fact that the Pentagon saw the Philippines primarily as a place to project power into Asia led to most of the American bases being naval and air bases. Furthermore, as long the Americans dominated the waters and air spaces around the Philippines, another invasion was unlikely. However, the Americans refused to give make concessions on the immunity issue, being adamant that American military personnel enjoy immunity from Filipino law after independence.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On May 28, 1946, Roxas was inaugurated as the last president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The inaugural ceremonies were held in the ruins of the Legislative Building (now part of the National Museum of the Philippines) and were witnessed by about 200,000 people. In his address, he outlined the main policies of his administration, mainly: closer ties with the United States; adherence to the newly created United Nations; national reconstruction; relief for the masses; social justice for the working class; the maintenance of peace and order; the preservation of individual rights and liberties of the citizenry; and honesty and efficiency of government.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On June 3, 1946, Roxas appeared for the first time before a joint session of Congress to deliver his first State of the Nation Address. Among other things, he told the members of the Congress the grave problems and difficulties the Philippines face and reported on his special trip to the United States to discuss the approval for independence.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On June 21, Roxas reappeared in front of another joint session of Congress and urged the acceptance of two laws passed by the Congress of the United States on April 30, 1946—the Tydings–McDuffie Act, of Philippine Rehabilitation Act, and the Bell Trade Act or Philippine Trade Act. Both recommendations were accepted by the Congress. Under the Bell Trade Act, the goods from the Philippines were granted tariff-free access to the American market, achieving one of Roxas's key aims; in exchange, he accepted pegging the Philippine peso to the U.S. dollar and American corporations were granted parity rights when it came to exploiting the minerals and forests of the Philippines. In exchange for accepting the Bell Trade Act, the U.S. Congress voted for some $2 billion US in aid to the Philippines. Though the $2 billion was intended to assist with the reconstruction of the war-devastated nation, the vast majority of the money was stolen by Roxas and his corrupt friends. The American journalist Robert Shaplen noted after a visit to Manila: "It may well be that in no other city in the world was there so much graft and corruption and conniving after the war".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In the congressional elections, the Huks joined forces with socialists and peasant unions to form a new party, the Democratic Alliance. The party won six seats in Congress on a platform of punishing collaborators, land reform and opposing the Bell Trade Act. Among the Huk leaders elected to Congress was the party's leader Luis Taruc. In what was described as "a monstrous abrogation of democratic procedure", Roxas expelled all members of Congress from the Democratic Alliance, claiming that they been elected illegally, and replaced them with his own bets. Roxas's expulsion of the Democratic Alliance from Congress was the beginning of a nation-wide purge of those who served in the Huk resistance against the Japanese as arrests and murders followed. Those who survived fled to the jungle and formed the "Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan" (the People's Revolutionary Army).".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas served as the president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in a brief period, from May 28, 1946, to July 4, 1946, during which time Roxas helped prepare the groundwork for an independent Philippines.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas's term as the president of the Commonwealth ended on the morning of July 4, 1946, when the Third Republic of the Philippines was inaugurated and independence from the United States proclaimed. The occasion, attended by some 300,000 people, was marked by the simultaneous lowering of the U.S. flag and raising of the Philippine national flag, a 21-gun salute, and the pealing of church bells. Roxas then took the oath of office as the first president of the new republic before Supreme Court Chief Justice Manuel Moran.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The inaugural ceremonies took place at Luneta Park in the City of Manila. On the Grandstand alone were around 3,000 dignitaries and guests, consisting of President Roxas, Vice President Quirino, their respective parties, and the Cabinet; first United States Ambassador to the Philippines Paul McNutt; General Douglas MacArthur (coming from Tokyo); United States Postmaster General Robert E. Hannegan; a delegation from the U.S. Congress led by Maryland Senator Millard Tydings (author of the Tydings–McDuffie Act) and Missouri Representative C. Jasper Bell (author of the Bell Trade Act); and former Civil Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: No sooner had the fanfare of the independence festivities ended that the government and the people quickly put all hands to work in the tasks of rescuing the country from its dire economic straits. Reputed to be the most bombed and destroyed country in the world, the Philippines was in a sorry mess. Only Stalingrad and Warsaw, for instance, could compare with Manila in point of destruction. All over the country more than a million people were unaccounted for. The war casualties as such could very well reach the two million mark. Conservative estimates had it that the Philippines had lost about two thirds of her material wealth. In 1946, the Filipino gross domestic produce was down 38.7% from where it had been in 1937.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The country was facing near bankruptcy. There was no national economy, no export trade. Indeed, production for exports had not been restored. On the other hand, imports were to reach the amount of three million dollars. There was need of immediate aid from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Something along this line was obtained. Again, loans from the United States, as well as some increase in the national revenues, were to help the new Republic.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: President Roxas, with bold steps, met the situation with the same confidence he exuded in his inaugural address, when he said: "The system of free but guided enterprise is our system". Among the main remedies proposed was the establishment of the Philippine Rehabilitation Finance Corporation. This entity would be responsible for the construction of twelve thousand houses and for the grant of easy-term loans in the amount of P177,000,000. Another proposal was the creation of the Central Bank of the Philippines to help stabilize the Philippine dollar reserves and coordinate and the nations banking activities gearing them to the economic progress.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Concentrating on the sugar industry, Roxas would exert such efforts as to succeed in increasing production from 13,000 tons at the time of the Philippine liberation to an all-high of one million tons.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The war had burned cities and towns, ruined farms and factories, blasted roads and bridges, shattered industries and commerce, massacred thousands of civilians, and paralyzed the educational system, where 80% of the school buildings, their equipment, laboratories and furniture were destroyed. Numberless books, invaluable documents and works of art, irreplaceable historical relics and family heirlooms, hundreds of churches and temples were burned. The reconstruction of the damaged school buildings alone cost more than P126,000,000,000. Pike noted that the Japanese as part of their efforts of "liberation" from American imperialism by bringing the Philippines into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere "...had smashed industrial buildings, banks, government offices and hotels. Infrastructure including ports had been sabotaged or destroyed in the heavy fighting for Manila".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The new republic began to function on an annual deficit of over P200,000,000 with little prospect of a balanced budget for some years to come. Manila and other cities then were infested with criminal gangs which used techniques of American gangsters in some activities—bank holdups, kidnapping and burglaries. In rural regions, especially the provinces of Central Luzon and the Southern Tagalog regions, the brigands terrorized towns and barrios.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In 1946, shortly after his induction to presidency, Roxas proclaimed the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 effective throughout the country. However, problems of land tenure continued. In fact, these became worse in certain areas. Among the remedial measures enacted was Republic Act No. 34, likewise known as the Tenant Act, which provided for a 70–30 sharing arrangements and regulated share-tenancy contracts. It was passed to resolve the ongoing peasant unrest in Central Luzon.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: President Roxas, on January 28, 1948, granted full amnesty to all Philippine collaborators, many of whom were on trial or awaiting to be tried, particularly former President José P. Laurel (1943–1945). The Amnesty Proclamation did not apply to those collaborators, who were charged with the commission of common crimes, such as murder, rape, and arson. The presidential decision did much to heal a standing wound that somehow threatened to divide the people's sentiments. It was a much-called for measure to bring about a closer unity in the trying times when such was most needed for the progress of the nation.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: After persecuting the "Hukbóng Bayan Laban sa Hapón", Roxas opened peace talks with the Huks and invited a delegation of Huk leaders led by Juan Feleo to come to Manila in August 1946. While returning to their jungle bases, Felco and the other Huk leaders were ambushed by police forces, with Felco's head was found floating in the Pampanga River. The ambush was intended to cripple the Huks, but instead led to a civil war as the police and the army rapidly lost control of much of Luzon to the Huks. Strongly opposed to the guerrilla movement "Hukbó ng Bayan Laban sa Hapón" (Nation's Army Against the Japanese, also called "the Huks"), Roxas issued a proclamation outlawing the Huk movement on March 6, 1948. At the same time, Roxas pardoned the Filipinos who had collaborated with the Japanese. The pardon of the collaborators lent some substance to the charge by the Huks that his administration was a continuation of the wartime collaborationist puppet government.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The Central Intelligence Agency in a report noted that the Philippines was dominated by "an irresponsible ruling class which exercises economic and political power almost exclusively in its own interests". Secretary of State Dean Acheson complained that the Philippines was one of the most corrupt nations in Asia as he commented with some understatement "much of the aid to the Philippines has not been used as wisely as we wish it had". Acheson wanted to cease aid to the Philippines until reforms were mounted to crack down on corruption, but was blocked by John Melby, the head of the Filipino desk at the U.S. State Department, who warned that to cut off aid would mean handing over the Philippines to the Huks. U.S. officials throughout the late 1940s that Roxas was a corrupt leader whose policies openly favored the "hacendado" class and that unless reforms were made, it was inevitable that the Huks would win.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On August 5, 1946, Congress ratified the Treaty of General Relations that had been entered into by and between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States on July 4, 1946. Aside from withdrawing her sovereignty from the Philippines and recognizing her independence, the Treaty reserved for the United States some bases for the mutual protection of both countries; consented that the United States represent the Philippines in countries where the latter had not yet established diplomatic representation; made the Philippines assume all debts and obligations of the former government in the Philippines; and provided for the settlement of property rights of the citizens of both countries.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Although Roxas was successful in getting rehabilitation funds from the United States after independence, he was forced to concede military bases (23 of which were leased for 99 years), trade restriction for the Philippine citizens, and special privileges for U.S. property owners and investors. On March 21, 1947, the United States granted the Philippines some $17.7 million in military aid and another $25 million to assist with reconstruction. The Communist Huk rebellion led to fears in the United States that the Huks might come to power while the fact that the Kuomintang were clearly losing the Chinese civil war by this point led to the very real possibility that Chinese Communists might come to the power. In turn, there was much fear in Washington that a Communist China would grant the Soviet Union air and naval bases. The possibility of a Communist China vastly increased the geopolitical importance of the Philippines to the United States, which wanted to retain its air and naval bases in the Philippines to maintain control of the South China Sea. The Americans made it clear that they were prepared to pay "handsomely" for the right to keep their Filipino bases, which Roxas exploited.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On March 11, 1947, Philippine voters, agreeing with Roxas, ratified in a nationwide plebiscite the "parity amendment" to the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines, granting United States citizens the right to dispose of and utilize Philippine natural resources, or "parity rights".


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On September 19, 1946, the Republic of the Philippines notified the United Kingdom that it wished to take over the administration of the Turtle Islands and the Mangsee Islands. Pursuant to a supplemental international agreement, the transfer of administration became effective on October 16, 1947.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: His administration was marred by graft and corruption; moreover, the abuses of the provincial military police contributed to the rise of the left-wing (Huk) movement in the countryside. His heavy-handed attempts to crush the Huks led to widespread peasant disaffection.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The good record of the Roxas administration was marred by notable failures: the failure to curb graft and corruption in the government (as evidenced by the surplus war property scandal), the Chinese immigration scandal, the school supplies scandal and the failure to check and stop the communist Hukbalahap movement.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: The night before the plebiscite, Roxas narrowly escaped assassination by Julio Guillen, a disgruntled barber from Tondo, Manila, who hurled a grenade at the platform on Plaza Miranda immediately after Roxas had addressed a rally.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On April 15, 1948, President Roxas delivered a speech before the United States Thirteenth Air Force at the Kelly Theater in Clark Air Base, Pampanga. After the speech, he suffered dizziness and fatigue and was brought to the residence of Major General Eugene L. Eubank. That night, he suffered multiple heart attacks and died at 9:23 PM at the age of 56. Roxas' term as president is the shortest, lasting one year, ten months, and 18 days.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: His body was brought to Manila the following day on a special train, reaching Malacañang at about 9:20 AM. Sessions of Congress were suspended until after the burial which was set on Sunday, April 25, 1948. Vice President Elpidio Quirino, who was on board a southern cruise at the time of Roxas's death, arrived in Manila on April 17. That morning, he immediately went to Malacañang and took the oath of office as president in the Council of State Room. The new president then appointed a committee to take charge of the funeral arrangements for the late president and issued a proclamation declaring a period of national mourning from April 17 to May 17.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: Roxas was to Trinidad de Leon in 1921. The couple had two children, Ruby and Gerardo (Gerry). Roxas also fathered three children with Juanita Muriedas McIlvain - Rosario "Charo" Roxas (mother of Margie Moran), Consuelo Roxas and Manuel "Manny" Roxas, Jr.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: On July 3, 1956, Roxas was posthumously awarded the Quezon Service Cross. The award was presented to his widow, Trinidad L. Roxas, by then Vice-president Carlos P. Garcia on behalf of President Magsaysay.


title: Manuel Roxas

text: In his honor, various cities and municipalities in the Philippines have been renamed after him, including Roxas, Oriental Mindoro in (1948), the first town to be named as such; Roxas, Isabela (1948); President Roxas, Capiz (1949); Roxas City, Capiz (1951); Roxas, Palawan (1951); President Roxas, Cotabato (1967); and President Manuel A. Roxas, Zamboanga del Norte (1967). Dewey Boulevard in Metro Manila was renamed in his memory, and he is currently depicted on the 100 Philippine peso bill.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939) is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress, and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band The Staple Singers (she is the last surviving member of that band). During her time in the group, she recorded the hit singles "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again". In 1969, Staples released her self-titled debut solo album.


title: Mavis Staples

text: She continued to release solo albums throughout the following decades; and collaborated with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Prince, Arcade Fire, Nona Hendryx, Ry Cooder, and David Byrne. Her eighth studio album "You Are Not Alone" (2010), earned critical acclaim, and became her first album as a soloist to reach number one on a "Billboard" chart, peaking atop the Top Gospel Albums chart. It also earned Staples her first Grammy Award win. Following this, she released the albums: "One True Vine" (2013), "Livin' on a High Note" (2016), "If All I Was Was Black" (2017), and "We Get By" (2019); and was featured on the single "Nina Cried Power" by Hozier.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples is the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has won three Grammy Awards, including one for Album of the Year as a featured artist on "We Are" by Jon Batiste. Named one of the '100 Greatest Singers of all Time' by "Rolling Stone" in 2008; Staples was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2018, as a member of The Staple Singers. Additionally, she was made a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2016. The following year, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame as a soloist. In 2019, she received the inaugural Rock Hall Honors Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a soloist.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 10, 1939. She began her career with her family group in 1950. Initially singing locally at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show, the Staples scored a hit in 1956 with "Uncloudy Day" for the Vee-Jay label. When Mavis graduated from what is now Paul Robeson High School in 1957, The Staple Singers took their music on the road. Led by family patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples on guitar and including the voices of Mavis and her siblings Cleotha, Yvonne, and Pervis, the Staples were called "God's Greatest Hitmakers".


title: Mavis Staples

text: With Mavis' voice and Pops' songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from enormously popular gospel singers (with recordings on United and Riverside as well as Vee-Jay) to become the most spectacular and influential spirituality-based group in America. By the mid-1960s The Staple Singers, inspired by Pops' close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., became the spiritual and musical voices of the civil rights movement. They covered contemporary pop hits with positive messages, including Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and a version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth".


title: Mavis Staples

text: During a December 20, 2008, appearance on National Public Radio's news show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!", when Staples was asked about her past personal relationship with Dylan, she admitted that they "were good friends, yes indeed" and that he had asked her father for her hand in marriage.


title: Mavis Staples

text: The Staples sang "message" songs like "Long Walk to D.C." and "When Will We Be Paid?," bringing their moving and articulate music to a huge number of young people. The group signed to Stax Records in 1968, joining their gospel harmonies and deep faith with musical accompaniment from members of Booker T. and the MGs. The Staple Singers hit the Top 40 eight times between 1971 and 1975, including two No. 1 singles, "I'll Take You There", produced by Al Bell and recorded and mixed by Terry Manning, "Let's Do It Again," and a No. 2 single "Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas?"


title: Mavis Staples

text: Mavis made her first solo foray while at Epic Records with The Staple Singers, releasing a lone single "Crying in the Chapel" to little fanfare in the late 1960s. The single was finally re-released on the 1994 Sony Music collection "Lost Soul". Her first solo album would not come until a 1969 self-titled release for the Stax label. After another Stax release, "Only for the Lonely", in 1970, she released a soundtrack album, "A Piece of the Action", on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label. A 1984 album (also self-titled) preceded two albums under the direction of rock star Prince; 1989's "Time Waits for No One," followed by 1993's "The Voice", which "People" magazine named one of the Top Ten Albums of 1993. Her 1996 release, "Spirituals & Gospels: A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson", was recorded with keyboardist Lucky Peterson. The recording honours Mahalia Jackson, a close family friend and a significant influence on Mavis Staples's life.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples made a major national return with the release of the album "Have a Little Faith" on Chicago's Alligator Records, produced by Jim Tullio, in 2004. The album featured spiritual music, some of it semi-acoustic.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In 2004, Staples contributed to a Verve release by legendary jazz-rock guitarist, John Scofield. The album, entitled "That's What I Say", was a tribute to the great Ray Charles and led to a live tour featuring Staples, John Scofield, pianist Gary Versace, drummer Steve Hass, and bassist Rueben Rodriguez. A new album for Anti- Records entitled "We'll Never Turn Back" was released on April 24, 2007. The Ry Cooder-produced concept album focuses on gospel songs of the civil rights movement and also included two new original songs by Cooder.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Her voice has been sampled by some of the biggest selling artists, including Salt 'N' Pepa, Ice Cube, Ludacris, and Hozier. Staples has recorded with a wide variety of musicians, from her friend, Bob Dylan (with whom she was nominated for a 2003 Grammy Award in the "Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals" category for their duet on "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking", from the album "") to The Band, Ray Charles, Prince, Nona Hendryx, George Jones, Natalie Merchant, Ann Peebles, and Delbert McClinton. She has provided vocals on current albums by Los Lobos and Dr. John, and she appears on tribute albums to such artists as Johnny Paycheck, Stephen Foster and Bob Dylan.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In 2003, Staples performed in Memphis at the Orpheum Theater alongside a cadre of her fellow former Stax Records stars during "Soul Comes Home," a concert held in conjunction with the grand opening of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music at the original site of Stax Records, and appears on the CD and DVD that were recorded and filmed during the event. In 2004, she returned as guest artist for the Stax Music Academy's SNAP! Summer Music Camp and performed again at the Orpheum with 225 of the academy's students. In June 2007, she again returned to the venue to perform at the Stax 50th Anniversary Concert to Benefit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, produced by Concord Records, who now owns and has revived the Stax Records label.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples was a judge for the 3rd and 7th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In 2009, Staples, along with Patty Griffin and The Tri-City Singers, released a version of the song "Waiting For My Child To Come Home" on the compilation album "".


title: Mavis Staples

text: On October 30, 2010, Staples performed at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear alongside singer Jeff Tweedy. In 2011 she was joined on-stage at the Outside Lands Music And Arts Festival by Arcade Fire singer Win Butler. The two performed a version of "The Weight" by The Band.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples also performed at the 33rd Kennedy Center Honors, singing in a tribute to honoree Paul McCartney.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On June 27, 2015, Staples performed on the Park Stage of Glastonbury Somerset UK. On October 31, 2015, Staples performed with Joan Osborne in Washington, D.C. at The George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium as part of their Solid Soul Tour.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In February 2016, Staples's album "Livin' on a High Note" was released. Produced by M. Ward, the album features songs written specifically for Staples by Nick Cave, Justin Vernon, tUnE-yArds, Neko Case, Aloe Blacc, and others. Discussing the album Staples said:


title: Mavis Staples

text: I've been singing my freedom songs and I wanted to stretch out and sing some songs that were new. I told the writers I was looking for some joyful songs. I want to leave something to lift people up; I'm so busy making people cry, not from sadness, but I'm always telling a part of history that brought us down and I'm trying to bring us back up. These songwriters gave me a challenge. They gave me that feeling of, 'Hey, I can hang! I can still do this!' There's a variety, and it makes me feel refreshed and brand new. Just like Benjamin Booker wrote on the opening track, 'I got friends and I got love around me, I got people, the people who love me.' I'm living on a high note, I'm above the clouds. I'm just so grateful. I must be the happiest old girl in the world. Yes, indeed.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In January 2017, Staples was featured as a guest vocalist on "I Give You Power", a single from Arcade Fire benefiting the American Civil Liberties Union. In February 2017, Staples appeared on NPR's "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" in the "Not My Job" segment, answering questions about the rock band The Shaggs. In April 2017, "Let Me Out", a single from the fifth studio album by Gorillaz, "Humanz", was released, featuring Staples and rapper Pusha T.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples's sixteenth album "If All I Was Was Black" was released on November 17, 2017. The record was again produced by Jeff Tweedy and contains all original songs cowritten by Mavis and Tweedy. Following the release, Staples toured with Bob Dylan. She also appeared on the 2017/18 Hootenanny. In 2018, she sang on Hozier's single "Nina Cried Power".


title: Mavis Staples

text: In May 2019, Staples celebrated her 80th birthday with a concert at the Apollo Theater, 63 years after first appearing at the theater as a teenager with her family band, the Staple Singers, in 1956. The show, which featured special guest artists, including David Byrne and Norah Jones, is one of a series of collaborative concerts she staged in May to commemorate her 80th birthday. She also performed at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival.


title: Mavis Staples

text: In June 2020, Staples collaborated with Run The Jewels on the track "Pulling the Pin" from their studio album "RTJ4".


title: Mavis Staples

text: In 2022, Staples released "Carry Me Home", a collaboration with Levon Helm, recorded at Helm's Midnight Ramble in 2011.


title: Mavis Staples

text: During her career, Staples has appeared in many films and television shows, including "The Last Waltz", "Graffiti Bridge", "Wattstax", "New York Undercover", "Songs of Praise", "Soul Train", "Soul to Soul", "The Psychiatrist", and "The Cosby Show".


title: Mavis Staples

text: "Mavis!", the first feature documentary about Staples and the Staple Singers, directed by Jessica Edwards, had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2015. "Mavis!" screened in theaters and was broadcast on HBO in February 2016.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On September 8, 2015, Staples was a featured performer on the premiere episode of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", during which Stephen Colbert thanked her personally for appearing.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On June 15, 2019, Staples appeared as the featured musical guest on the "CBS This Morning" "Saturday Sessions" segment, where she played songs from her newest release, "We Get By".


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples's performances with the Staple Singers and with Mahalia Jackson at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival are a highlight of the 2021 music documentary, "Summer of Soul".


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples was briefly married to Spencer Leak in 1964; they divorced when Staples would not end her music career to stay home. She has no children. In the 2015 documentary "Mavis!" she reveals that Bob Dylan once proposed to her, and she turned him down.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Mavis Staples is a recipient of a 2006 National Heritage Fellowship, awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples was named No. 56 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's 2008 list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On February 13, 2011, Staples won her first Grammy award in the category for Best Americana Album for "You Are Not Alone". In her acceptance speech, a shocked and crying Staples said, "This has been a long time coming".


title: Mavis Staples

text: On May 7, 2011, Staples was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On May 6, 2012, Staples was awarded an honorary doctorate, and performed "I'll Take You There" with current and graduating students at Columbia College Chicago's 2012 Commencement Exercise in Chicago, Illinois, at the historic Chicago Theatre.


title: Mavis Staples

text: Staples was recognized as a 2016 Kennedy Center Honoree at the 39th annual gala event held in Washington, D.C.


title: Mavis Staples

text: On November 6, 2021, Staples was inducted as a Laureate at the 57th Laureate Convocation of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois, and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Jonathan Murray Chu (born November 2, 1979) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known as the director of 2018's "Crazy Rich Asians", the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority cast of Asian descent in a modern setting since "The Joy Luck Club" in 1993"."


title: Jon M. Chu

text: The films that he has directed often include musical elements, including the dance films "" (2008) and "Step Up 3D" (2010), musicals "Jem and the Holograms" (2015) and "In the Heights" (2021), and the live concert films "" (2011) and "Justin Bieber's Believe" (2013). Chu is an alumnus of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu was born in Palo Alto, California and grew up in nearby Los Altos. He attended Pinewood School from kindergarten through 12th grade.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu is the youngest of five children. He began making movies in fifth grade, when his mother gifted him a video camera to document their family vacations. Chu instead began making home movies starring his siblings.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: His mother, Ruth Chu, was born in Taiwan; his father, Lawrence Chu, was born in Sichuan. His family owns the restaurant called Chef Chu's.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu obtained a BFA in Film & Television Production from University of Southern California in 2003. He won the Princess Grace Award, the Kodak Student Filmmaker Award, the Dore Schary Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jack Nicholson directing award, and was recognized as an honoree for the IFP/West program Project: Involve.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: After making his student short, "When the Kids Are Away", Chu was signed to William Morris Agency and attached to several high-profile projects. Chu was hired by Sony Pictures to direct their feature "Bye Bye Birdie", but Sony never green lit the film due to budget concerns. Sony re-hired Chu to direct their updated version of "The Great Gatsby", which did not pan out as the project was purchased by Warner Bros. Pictures for their 2013 film.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: He is in a dance crew called AC/DC or Adam/Chu Dance crew. In an interview, Chu addressed a question he is often asked, "Why do all of your films have dance?" He responded, "I don't know why. It seems so obvious. But there's something about the dancers that motivate me the most. I don't know if it's just dance, but I do think that the dancers are amazing artists, and every time I meet a new dancer, that triggers something in my brain, and I'm more creative than I could ever be. When I feel that creativity burst, I go with it."


title: Jon M. Chu

text: In 2013, Chu was awarded the Visionary Award by East West Players (EWP), the longest-running theater of color in the United States, for his contributions to the Asian Pacific American (APA) community. In an online Q&A, Chu revealed that he had attended EWP's productions as a child and was excited "to push boundaries with them in the future."


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu directed "Crazy Rich Asians", which was the highest-grossing film over the August 17, 2018 weekend, earned over $35M at the US box office during its first five days, and garnered a 93% certified fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Within a week of the film's release, "Variety" reported that a sequel was already in development by Warner Bros. with Chu scheduled to direct. Director Chu is part of Rachel Chu's family in the book, as a distant cousin.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu directed "In the Heights", based on the Broadway musical of the same name for Warner Bros. Pictures. It was previously set for a June 26, 2020 release, though it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released on June 10, 2021.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: In October 2020, it was announced that Chu would be directing the pilot for the Disney+ series "Willow," based on the film of the same name, with Warwick Davis returning as the title character. The following month, Chu entered talks to direct a live-adaptation of Disney's "Lilo & Stitch".


title: Jon M. Chu

text: In January 2021, Chu left directorial duties on "Willow" due to production delays and personal reasons with the birth of his next child. The following month, it was announced that Chu would direct the two-part film adaptation of "Wicked" for Universal Pictures, with both parts set for December 2024 and 2025 releases.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu will direct an adaptation of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go!", produced by the Warner Animation Group alongside Dr. Seuss Enterprises and Bad Robot Productions, set for a release date of 2027.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: In March 2022, it was announced that Chu would be producing (and possibly directing) an animated film based on the children’s modeling compound Play-Doh. It will be produced by Entertainment One and Hasbro.


title: Jon M. Chu

text: Chu is married to Kristin Hodge. Their daughter, Willow Chu, was born in 2017; she is named after the 1988 fantasy film "Willow". Their son, Jonathan Heights Chu, was born in 2019. His middle name comes from the film, "In the Heights", which Chu was in the middle of directing at the time.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Lee Zii Jia (, born 29 March 1998) is a Malaysian badminton player. He was the men's singles gold medalist at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games and won his first BWF Super 1000 title at the 2021 All England Open. Lee is the reigning men's singles Asian champion, winning the title at the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Lee Zii Jia was born in Alor Setar, Kedah to Chinese Malaysians Lee Chee Hin and Leow Siet Peng, teachers and former basketball internationals. He was first introduced to badminton by his parents at the age of 6. In his earlier years, he studied at Keat Hwa H Primary School in Alor Setar, Kedah. Due to his results in the under 12 competition, he was soon drafted into the Bukit Jalil Sports School.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In 2015, he became the junior champion in the Perak and Selangor Badminton Open. These standout performances and wins in the international circuit earned him a place in the Badminton Association of Malaysia.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In November 2016, Lee won a bronze medal in the World Junior Championships after losing to Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo in the semifinals. In the same month, he advanced to the final of India International Series but was defeated by Lakshya Sen.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In February 2017, Lee reached the semifinals of the Thailand Masters, where he lost to Kantaphon Wangcharoen. In September 2017, he won his first senior title at the Polish International, against Soong Joo Ven in the final. In November 2017, Lee reached the semifinals of the Bitburger Open.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In October 2018, Lee reached the final of the Chinese Taipei Open by defeating the World No. 4 men's singles player, Chou Tien-chen in the semifinals. He defeated Riichi Takeshita in the final to win his first BWF World Tour title and second international title overall. In doing so, he became the second Malaysian other than Lee Chong Wei to win a BWF top flight men's singles title since 2013. Lee then reached the final of the Korea Masters but lost to Son Wan-ho.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Lee started the 2019 season by competing in the Thailand Masters. He lost in the quarter finals to Brice Leverdez of France in straight games. In the next tournaments, he also finished in the quarter finals in Malaysia Masters, Indonesia Masters, and German Open. He later lost in the early stage of Swiss, Malaysia, and Singapore Open's. He admitted that he had struggled to cope with financial difficulties, lack of progress and unfairness that affected his performance.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In August, Lee finally managed to make it into the semi-finals in the Thailand Open, where he lost to Chou Tien-chen of Taiwan. This was nonetheless an improvement to his being a quarter finalist in New Zealand and Indonesia Open's. He qualified to compete in World Championships in Basel, Switzerland, but lost to the World No. 1 men's singles player, and the eventual World Champion, Kento Momota of Japan in the quarter finals. In November, he was forced to retire in the second round of the China Open, and decided to withdraw as well from the next tournament in Hong Kong, due suffering from food poisoning and fever. Lee reached world No. 11 in the BWF World ranking on 12 November. In December, he won the men's singles gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games, and also helped the national men's team win the silver medal.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Lee opened the season by participating in Southeast Asian tours in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand Masters, with his best result being a semi-finalist in Malaysia, wherein he lost to the world number 1 Kento Momota in straight games. In February, he alongside Malaysia men's team, won the silver medal at the Asia Team Championships, during which time he was the national team captain He won 4 out of 5 matches in the Asia Team Championships, losing in the final match against Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Later in March, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, the German Open was cancelled. Lee's next tournament was the All England Open, which was also be his debut at the tournament because his ranking was previously too low to qualify. He won against Jonatan Christie, who had won in four previous matches. He continued this win streak against Lu Guangzu and the then-Olympic champion Chen Long. In the semi-finals, he lost to Viktor Axelsen. The match lasted for 73 minutes. Further, Lee's performance at the All England Open raised his world ranking to no. 10 on 17 March 2020.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In March, Lee won his first Super 1000 tournament at the All England Open, defeating the defending champion Viktor Axelsen by a score of 30–29, 20–22, 21–9. In July 2021, in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Lee took part in the men's singles and won against Artem Pochtarov with a score of 21–5 and 21–11. In the subsequent match against Brice Leverdez, he won with a score of 21–17 and 21–5. Lee was eliminated in the round of 16, where he was defeated by Chen Long with a score of 21–8, 19–21, and 5–21. On 7 November 2021, Lee reached the final of Hylo Open, however Lee had to retire due to the injuries he sustained while playing against Singapore's Loh Kean Yew with a score of 21–19, 13–21, 12–17.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In January 2022, there were speculation that Lee had indicated his intention to leave the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), citing unhappiness with the association, though reasons were never disclosed. He eventually officially resigned on 19 January. In response, Lee was banned for two years from participating in any international tournaments that required BAM's approval as well as any Badminton World Federation (BWF)–sanctioned tournaments. With the public and international players responding negatively on the ban, Lee appealed against the ban on 24 January 2022. The ban was lifted after Lee and BAM met on 25 January 2022, with the terms yet to be revealed.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In May, Lee won his first title of the year, the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships, defeating Indonesia's Jonatan Christie 21–17, 23–21 in straight sets. Lee became the sixth Malaysian men's singles player to win the Asian Championships title. On 22 May 2022, Lee won his first BWF World Tour Super 500 title at the 2022 Thailand Open, defeating China's Li Shifeng with a rubber set score of 17–21, 21–11, 23–21 in 70 minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In June, Lee participated in 3 events: the Indonesia Masters, the Indonesia Open and the Malaysia Open, his home event.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: At the Indonesia Masters, Lee, the 5th seed, lost to the 4th seeded Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in the quarter-finals in 3 games, 21–18, 15–21, 16–21.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: A week later, Lee lost to Viktor Axelsen, the World No 1 at the Indonesia Open semi-finals, with a score of 21–19, 11–21, 21–23 in 70 minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: In late June, Lee took part in the Malaysia Open as the 5th seed. He surprisingly lost to Indonesia's Shesar Hiren Rhustavito in the Round of 16 in 3 games, 19–21, 21–19, 16–21 in an hour and six minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Claiming injury, he decided to skip the Commonwealth Games and focus on the upcoming World Championships which would be held in August. As the fifth seed in World Championships, he lost to China's shuttler Zhao Junpeng in the third round in three games, with a match score of 19–21, 21–11, 19–21. The match lasted for an hour and five minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: A week later, Lee lost to Kidambi Srikanth, the Former World No 1 at the Round of 32 of Japan Open, with a score of 20–22, 21-23 in 38 minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: On October 22 2022, Lee defeated former World Champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore, with a score of 21-18, 21-15 in 40 minutes and reached the Denmark Open final before losing to Shi Yuqi from China, with a score of 18-21, 21-16, 12-21 in 64 minutes.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: A few days later, Lee as 3rd seed in French Open, was surprised with another defeat at the Round of 32, with a score of 18-21, 19-21 to the same opponent, Shesar Hiren Rhustavito from Indonesia that defeated him back in Malaysia open earlier in June.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Australia Open was Lee's last hope of securing a final spot in the World Tour Finals. However, things did not go his way as one of his hands suffered a minor injury during the third game and suffered a loss of 22-20, 15-21, 16-21 to Lu Guang Zu from China in 70 minutes. His loss ended the last hope when his opponent went on to secure the final spot in the World Tour Finals.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: 2022 was a year of ups and down for Lee, as inconsistency was the main issue that led to his poor performance results in the second half of the year. On the bright side of it, Lee's achievement after leaving BAM has also shown his capability and determination to be a more consistent player in years to come.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: The BWF World Tour, which was announced on 19 March 2017 and implemented in 2018, is a series of elite badminton tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). The BWF World Tour is divided into levels of World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, Super 300, and the BWF Tour Super 100.


title: Lee Zii Jia

text: Record against Year-end Finals finalists, World Championships semi finalists, and Olympic quarter finalists. Accurate as of 28 October 2022.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The Mercedes-Benz B-Class is a subcompact executive car manufactured and marketed by Mercedes-Benz since 2005. Based on the A-Class with larger dimensions, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) classifies it as a small MPV.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The first generation B-Class was introduced in Europe in spring 2005, and introduced in Canada in autumn 2005. The B-Class uses front-wheel drive with sandwich floor construction, parabolic rear suspension, and a two-box design — one for the drivetrain and another the shared passenger/luggage compartment. The B-Class maximizes its interior volume via its height. Having derived from the smaller A-Class, it retained that car's sandwich floor concept.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: All models included passive automobile safety systems including ESP, ABS, traction control, cornering lights, active lighting system, and headlamp assist. In the event of a frontal impact the engine and transmission slide beneath the passenger compartment.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: In 2008 it was updated with a start-stop system and a BlueEFFICIENCY option. A new NGT variant was added, which could burn either gasoline or natural gas.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: In 2011 Mercedes-Benz did a world tour with three of its Mercedes-Benz F-Cell vehicles, one of which was the B-Class. The hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle was driven more than 30,000 kilometres in a circumnavigation of the globe, starting and ending in Stuttgart.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The B160 and B180 conform to Euro V emission standards. The rest of the engines conform to Euro IV emission standards. A diesel particulate filter is available as an option for the diesel units (this reduces about 99% of the particle emissions, without the need for additives).


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The second generation B-Class was introduced at the 2011 International Motor Show Germany. European models went on sale in November 2011. Japan models went on sale in April 2012. They are assembled at Rastatt, Germany, and from 2011 at Kecskemét, Hungary. By summer 2013, over 230,000 second generation B-Class cars had been delivered.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: It included new gasoline and diesel engines, mated to either a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Drag coefficient was lowered, despite growing in overall dimensions to the benefit of interior space. A new four-cylinder engine was introduced with the model, the M270.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: Safety systems included adaptive cruise control, blind spot assist and, a collision prevention adaptive brake system.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: BlueEFFICIENCY is a term used by Mercedes-Benz for a series of measures which reduce fuel consumption and emissions. These include:


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: Production version includes a choice of manual and 7G-DCT dual clutch transmission, and was available from early 2013. European model was set to go on sale in February 2014.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: Initial concept versions of the B-Class Electric Drive were developed under the Mercedes-Benz BlueZERO project using batteries from Li-tec and a drivetrain from Tesla, but Mercedes switched to using a drivetrain developed by Mercedes itself soon after. The Electric Drive was previewed at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, the 2013 New York International Auto Show, and the 2013 IAA International Motor Show 2013. Production for retail customers began in April 2014 at Mercedes-Benz Rastatt factory. In May 2014, Mercedes announced the B-Class Electric Drive will be available in Germany and the UK in the first quarter of 2015. In November, Mercedes-Benz announced pricing for Germany and started accepting orders.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The concept has an electric motor rated and , 36 kWh lithium-ion battery from Tesla Motors. The vehicle has a driving range of with a top speed of . The battery can be charged at any standard domestic 230 V power outlet or 400 V rapid charging terminal.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: Pricing in the U.S. starts at before any applicable tax credits and other government incentives. In 2015, over 1900 electric B-class were sold in the US. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under its five-cycle testing, rated the 2014 B-Class Electric Drive with an all-electric range of . The energy consumption was rated at 40 kWh/100 miles for combined city/highway driving, corresponding to a fuel economy of 84 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent – MPGe (2.8 L/100 km; 101 mpg ). The rating for city driving is 85 mpg-e (2.8 L/100 km; 102 mpg ), and 83 mpg-e (2.8 L/100 km; 100 mpg ) for highway.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The third generation B-Class was launched at the Paris Motor Show on 2 October 2018. At launch, the vehicle was claimed to feature the Intelligent Drive semi-automated driving system borrowed from the S-Class.


title: Mercedes-Benz B-Class

text: The design was improved with a much shorter front overhang. The controversial sculpting on the side part of the vehicle was not carried over to the W247 B-Class. Three infotainment system options is available, with entry-level models getting dual seven-inch displays. A seven-inch display with the larger 10.25-inch display is available, with top-tier models getting a pair of the large displays. It is powered by a full MBUX infotainment system, giving B-Class buyers access to its functions through a standard touchscreen. Features such as intelligent voice control, augmented reality, and a head-up display are optional. The all-electric configuration was removed, but a plug-in hybrid option was introduced. The plug-in hybrid comes with a 10.9 kWh battery which optionally supports DC charging and provides a WLTP combined cycle range of 66 km.


title: Loving (2016 film)

text: Loving is a 2016 American biographical romantic drama film which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court (the Warren Court) decision "Loving v. Virginia", which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The film was produced by Big Beach and Raindog Films, and distributed by Focus Features. The film takes inspiration from "The Loving Story" (2011) by Nancy Buirski, a documentary which follows the Lovings and their landmark case.