title: Jerry Sloan

text: After John Stockton retired and Karl Malone signed with the Lakers in the summer of 2003, the 2003-2004 Jazz were widely predicted to be the worst team in the NBA and some even predicted that Utah would set the all-time single season record for fewest wins in a season. Despite the very low expectations and despite second leading scorer Matt Harpring being sidelined for 51 games due to a knee injury, Sloan and his team were involved in a battle for the eighth spot in the Western Conference, which would have given Sloan his 17th straight trip to the playoffs. The Jazz were tied with the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and last spot of the playoffs with three games to go in the regular season. The Jazz lost the final two games, causing Sloan to miss the playoffs for the first time in 18 seasons as Jazz coach. After leading a young team in its first year without Stockton and Malone to an unexpected 42–40 record, he finished just behind Hubie Brown of the Memphis Grizzlies in voting for the 2004 NBA Coach of the Year Award.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: Sloan collected his 1,000th career win against the Dallas Mavericks on December 11, 2006, in a 101–79 victory, which made him only the fifth coach in NBA history to reach the milestone. After disappointing seasons in 2004–05 and 2005–06, the Jazz in the 2006–07 returned to contention. For this, Sloan was again on many sportswriters ballots for Coach of the Year, however he lost the award to Toronto Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell, who led his team to a franchise record-tying 47 victories and their first Atlantic Division title. Sloan lost the vote 394–301.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: The Jazz advanced to the Western Conference finals on May 15, 2007, with a 100–87 win over the Golden State Warriors. It was the sixth time in franchise history that Utah advanced to the conference finals, all coming under Sloan. However, they went on to lose 4–1 to the San Antonio Spurs.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: During the 2008–09 season, Sloan reached 1,000 wins as coach of the Jazz on November 7 after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 104–97 in a Friday night game. He became the first coach in NBA history with 1,000 wins for one team. Sloan returned as head coach of the Jazz for the 2009–10 season, leading the team to a 53–29 record and the playoffs.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: Mirroring his tenacity as a player, Sloan was just as fiery as a coach. He was suspended one game for pushing referee Bob Delaney in April 1993. A decade later, Sloan was served a seven-game suspension in 2003 for pushing referee Courtney Kirkland in Sacramento.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: In April 2009, Sloan was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in the same class as his former longtime point guard John Stockton. Sloan chose class of 2006 Hall of Famer Charles Barkley to introduce him during his induction ceremony.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: Sloan revealed on February 7, 2011 that he had earlier in the year signed a contract extension to coach the Jazz for the 2011–12 season, which would have been his 24th season as head coach with the Jazz. However, on February 10, 2011, Sloan and assistant Phil Johnson resigned their positions effective immediately. Sloan downplayed reports that conflicts with players prompted his departure. "I've had confrontations with players since I've been in the league", Sloan said. "There's only so much energy left and my energy has dropped." KSL-TV later asked Sloan whether reported conflicts with guard Deron Williams forced him to leave. "I forced myself out", Sloan responded. Williams acknowledged that he had a disagreement with Sloan during the previous night's game, but he added, "I would never force Coach Sloan out of Utah. He's meant more to this town, more to this organization than I have by far. I would have asked out of Utah first." Sloan's last game as head coach came in a 91–86 loss to the Bulls on February 9, and assistant coach Tyrone Corbin was then named as Sloan's replacement.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: Nearly two weeks later, Williams was involved in a trade on February 23, 2011 that sent him to the New Jersey Nets. Ian Thomsen of "Sports Illustrated" wrote, "First Jerry Sloan leaves, now Williams is sent away. For two decades we knew who the Utah Jazz were and what they stood for as a franchise. Now we, and they, can have no idea."


title: Jerry Sloan

text: A year later, Karl Malone, who played under Sloan for over 18 years, indicated that Sloan did not feel supported by Kevin O'Connor and Greg Miller. Longtime San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich would later mention him as a mentor for his overall coaching success in the NBA.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: On June 19, 2013, the Utah Jazz announced that Sloan was returning as an adviser and scouting consultant.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: On January 31, 2014, the Jazz honored Sloan by raising a banner featuring the number "1223", which represents Sloan's total number of combined regular season and playoff wins with the Jazz from 1988 to 2011.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: Sloan married his high-school sweetheart, Bobbye. After a much-publicized six-year battle against breast cancer, she died of pancreatic cancer in 2004. They had three children and were married 41 years.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: In 2006, Jerry Sloan married Tammy Jessop, in Salt Lake City. Sloan had a stepson, Rhett, as a result of this marriage.


title: Jerry Sloan

text: In April 2016, Sloan was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia. He died on May 22, 2020, at age 78, from complications of the diseases.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Legislative elections were held in Russia from 17 to 19 September 2021. At stake were 450 seats in the 8th convocation of the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. Going into the elections, United Russia was the ruling party after winning the 2016 elections with 343 of the 450 seats, and retaining a supermajority. In March 2020, it was proposed to hold a snap election in September 2020 due to proposed constitutional reforms, but this idea was abandoned. On 18 June 2021 Vladimir Putin signed a decree calling the election for 19 September the same year. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia, voting in the election lasted for three days, from 17 to 19 September. Final turnout was reported to be 51.72%.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Fifteen political parties applied for participation, 14 of which were guaranteed automatic access to the ballots, and one unsuccessfully attempted to be included in the ballot by collecting voters' signatures. Half, or 225 seats, of the State Duma were elected through legislative constituencies; the other 225 seats were elected through party lists, which cover the whole of Russia.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Like prior elections in Russia, the election was not free and fair. Multiple episodes of ballot-stuffing, forced voting, and other irregularities were recorded. Putin's administration and the ruling United Russia party used a managed democracy approach to keep an appearance of political pluralism. The election was marred by nation's most prominent opposition leaders (particularly those associated with jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny) and figures being excluded from ballot, imprisoned or exiled in months coming before the election. Authorities also designated various independent media outlets and non-governmental organisations as "foreign agents", including the independent election monitor Golos. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also said that it would not send observers for the first time since 1993 due to "major limitations" imposed by Russian authorities.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Following the election, United Russia maintained its constitutional majority despite some losses, taking 324 seats, while it received 49.82% of the vote, according to official results. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation received 57 seats and 18.93% of the vote, while A Just Russia — For Truth received 27 seats and 7.46% of the vote, with the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia receiving 21 seats and 7.55% of the vote. New People received 13 seats and 5.32% of the vote, meaning that for the first time since 2007, a fifth faction would be represented in the State Duma.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The election was marred by widespread accusations of fraud. The introduction of remote electronic voting in several regions was also criticized by the opposition, who alleged widespread vote-rigging, especially in Moscow, with the Communist Party refusing to recognize the results of electronic voting in Moscow. As a result, opposition candidates have sought to annul the electronic voting results by legal means. In response to the election results, protests were held. Statisticians have attributed the results to mass fraud.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: After the 2016 Russian legislative election, United Russia was the most popular party, with its polling rates ranging from 40% to 55%, while the ratings of the main opposition parties were much lower; the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) each had just over 10%, while A Just Russia (JR) was around the 5% threshold required to enter the State Duma.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In June 2018, after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced a reform to raise the retirement age, the rating of ruling party United Russia fell sharply and since then has fluctuated from around 35% to 25% sparking the 2018 Russian pension protests during summer. At the same time, the CPRF's rating has grown and currently ranges from 11% to 17%, while the rating of JR had also increased but still remained relatively low and varied in between 5% and 8%, and the rating of the LDPR has remained consistent at around 10% to 13%. Polling results differ on whether the CPRF or the LDPRF are ranked as the second most popular party. The ratings of all non-parliamentary parties combined ranges from around 6% to 17%, with exact numbers for each party unknown. When the share of people who answered they would not vote and who are unsure are equally distributed among the parties, voter share for United Russia fluctuates around 41%, the CPRF around 20%, the LDPR around 15%, JR around 8%, and other parties around 14%.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: During his 2020 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on 15 January, President Vladimir Putin proposed a referendum to be held on the number of amendments arguing that a national vote would be necessary to make the changes to the Constitution of Russia "legitimate". The amendments proposed to weaken the executive power and expand the powers of the Federal Assembly. In particular, it is supposed to transfer the power to form a government to the State Duma; this means that if the amendments were adopted, the next Cabinet would be formed by the State Duma. Immediately after Putin's speech, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev resigned along with the entire government. On 16 January, Mikhail Mishustin was appointed as the new Prime Minister. After that, there were suggestions about the dissolution of the State Duma and holding a snap election after the constitutional reform; the State Duma can only be dissolved if it refuses the President's appointment of a Prime Minister three times in a row or passes a no-confidence motion against the government. According to sources from the Presidential Administration of Russia, the constitution may be amended to allow self-dissolution of the State Duma. Some political scientists and MPs also have said that the dissolution of the State Duma and holding of a snap election is likely; however, this opinion is not shared by Andrey Klishas, head of the Legal Committee of the Federation Council, who is part of the working group on preparing amendments to the constitution.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: During the second reading of the draft law on amendments to the constitution on 10 March, Member of Parliament (MP) Alexander Karelin introduced an amendment on holding a snap election. The amendment gave the State Duma the opportunity to decide once to dissolve itself after the amendments were adopted. At first, the proposal was supported by a majority of deputies; however, because there was no consensus on this issue, with the CPRF in particular against it, President Putin urged not to dissolve the State Duma, and Karelin then withdrew the amendment. If the amendment had been passed, a snap election would have been held on 13 or 20 September 2020. MP Valentina Tereshkova proposed a reset on Putin's presidential terms, which would allow him to stay in office past his second term until 2036, as it was originally set to end in 2024. United Russia supported Tereshkova's proposal, and in Putin's response, "I believe and am deeply convinced that a strong presidential power is absolutely necessary for our country [and] for stability", citing examples of countries without presidential term limits and referencing former United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served four consecutive terms. The decision received backlash among the opposition and political groups, accusing Putin of trying to serve as president for life.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The 2020 constitutional referendum was held from 25 June to 1 July; 78% of Russian voters approved on the new amendments including extension of Putin's term to 2036. Despite the outcome, the referendum was criticized as being flawed with cases of electoral fraud. Unsanctioned protests over the result of the vote occurred to with 140 people being detained in Moscow. In spite of the rejection of the self-dissolution amendment, the legal possibility of holding a snap election remained in the case of a triple refusal of the State Duma to confirm the Prime Minister or Ministers, or a double vote of no confidence in the government. Immediately after the amendments to the constitution came into force, speculation about possible early elections resumed. In particular, Sergey Mironov, the leader of JR, assumed that early elections could be held, referring to the desire of the country's senior leadership. According to analysts, a snap election could have been held in December 2020 or early 2021.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the format of individual electoral events can be changed for health reasons. In 2020, a law was passed that allows early voting at polling stations two days before the official voting day. In addition, the polling stations themselves can be organized outside the premises, but this decision is not mandatory and may be made by the CEC within ten days after the election is scheduled.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: A number of opposition candidates were barred from running in the elections, including allies of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and other candidates affiliated with him following the designation of his networks, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation, as "extremist" earlier in the year, effectively banning anyone associated with Navalny or his groups from running for office. Navalny allies barred from running include Lyubov Sobol, Ilya Yashin, Oleg Stepanov, Irina Fatyanova, and Alexandra Semenova. Other allies of Navalny were exiled prior to the election and tried to coordinate opposition votes from abroad.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Pavel Grudinin, a high-profile candidate of the CPRF who run in the 2018 Russian presidential election, was excluded from the ballot by the election commission for allegedly owning foreign assets. The CPRF linked the barring of Grudinin to the waning support of the ruling United Russia party and likelihood of opposition parties securing strong results. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said he would appeal the decision.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Yabloko party candidates who were barred from the legislative elections included Yulia Galyamina, Lev Schlossberg, Viktor Rau, Natalia Rezontova, Yelena Izotova, Ruslan Zinatullin, and Anatoly Nogovitsin. Six Party of Growth candidates (Rafail Gibadullin, Magomed Magomedaliev, Elena Motova, Evgenia Orlova, Alexei Uryvaev, and Zaur Shakhbanov) were eliminated in a single court ruling over alleged foreign funding. Anton Furgal and Roman Yuneman, two independent candidates, were removed from the candidate lists using other legal pretexts.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Smart Voting, a tactical voting strategy created by Navalny and his team aimed at electing candidates with the best chance of defeating those backed by the Kremlin and the ruling United Russia party, faced a crackdown by authorities before the election. Navalny urged voters to use the Smart Voting website to vote against pro-Kremlin candidates. Smart Voting was previously used twice in regional elections, helping opposition candidates win 20 of 45 seats in the 2019 Moscow City Duma election and United Russia lose its majorities in the legislatures of the cities of Novosibirsk, Tambov, and Tomsk. Navalny ally Leonid Volkov stated that "15%-20% of candidates endorsed by Smart Voting have won seats in legislatures".


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 3 September, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google and Yandex to stop displaying the search term "smart voting" (in Russian) from its search results, after a wool company called Woolintertrade, which registered a trademark with the phrase during the summer, demanded that the phrase be removed from search results. According to a report by BBC Russian, the company, founded in Dagestan, may have ties with Russian police. Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov called the decision "illegal" and also said: "It's naive to think that some company can register a trademark in a month, and then quickly file a lawsuit in the Moscow court and immediately get interim measures".


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 6 September, access to the Smart Voting website in Russia was cut off, with Volkov stating that authorities had used a TSPU (technical tools to counter threats) system as part of the Sovereign Internet Law. Roskomnadzor said the website was blocked because it was being used to "continue the activities and holding events of an extremist organisation". The previous week, Roskomnadzor warned Apple and Google that it could face fines if the Smart Voting mobile app was not removed from their stores.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 15 September, Roskomnadzor reportedly began temporarily blocking Google Docs after the lists of Smart Voting endorsements had been released, later restoring access to the service by the next day. Roskomnadzor denied it ordered any blocking of the site. Navalny's team subsequently published the list on GitHub. On 18 September, Navalny's team shared a letter by Google ordering the deletion of the endorsements on Google Docs otherwise it may block access to them. According to the document, Google states that the content is illegal in Russia as the URLs to the documents appear on the government's registry of banned resources.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 17 September, as elections began, Google and Apple removed the app from their stores. According to Agence France-Presse, the decision was made after significant pressure from authorities which included threats of criminal charges and arrest of staff in Russia. Later that day, Telegram blocked the Smart Voting chat bot. Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said that Telegram would "limit the functioning of bots associated with election campaigns" and abide by Russia's "election silence", where campaigning during voting is banned. Durov also stated that he was following Apple and Google, which "dictate the rules of the game to developers like us", while adding that "the blocking of applications by Apple and Google creates a dangerous precedent that will affect freedom of speech in Russia and around the world." Google also complied with Russian government requests to remove YouTube videos by Navalny where users attempting to access the videos were met with a message that read: "This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government."


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 24 August, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed off one-off cash payments of 10,000 rubles ($135) for pensioners after proposing payments for pensioners and military servicemen two days earlier during a meeting with United Russia candidates. On 31 August, Putin approved one-off cash payments of 15,000 rubles ($200) for law enforcement, servicemen, firefighters and others, with the move seen by critics as bolstering support for the ruling party, while the Kremlin denied that the payments were connected to the election. Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev described the military and police payments as a means to ensure the loyalty of the security forces that the government would rely upon to disperse protests. The COVID-19 pandemic in Russia and the stagnating economy may have played a role in justification of the tactic.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: As of 2021, under Article 96 of Constitution of Russia the service term of the State Duma is limited to five years and each seat is allocated through a parallel voting: one ballot for party-lists and one ballot for a single candidate (both are counted by first-past-the-post voting method).


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: According to the law enacted since 2014 half of the seats (225) are elected by party-list proportional representation (PLPR) with a minimum of 5% electoral threshold of number of votes that enable the party to get seats. The other half elected in 225 single-member constituencies (circuits, SMC) by first-past-the-post voting (plurality voting).


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In the proportional part, candidates can be nominated only by political parties, and the lists of parties must include at least 200 and no more than 400 candidates; the list may also include candidates who are not members of the party, but their number should not exceed 50% of the number of candidates on the list. The party list of candidates should be divided into federal and regional parts, which include regional groups of candidates corresponding to the group of bordering federal subjects of Russia. The number of regional groups must be at least 35, and no more than fifteen candidates may be included in the federal part of the list of candidates. The regional parts of the party list should cover the entire territory of Russia.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In the majoritarian part, candidates can be nominated both by political parties and in the order of self-nomination. The political party must provide a list of candidates to the CEC, and the list must contain the name and number of the constituencies in which each candidate would run. Documents of candidates-self-nominees, unlike candidates from political parties, have to submit applications to District Election Commissions. For registration on the ballot list, the self-nominated candidate must collect at least 3% of the signatures of voters residing in the constituency, or at least 3,000 signatures if the constituency has less than 100,000 voters.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: One and the same candidate can be nominated both in the party list and in the single-member constituency; however, in the case of their passage to the State Duma and the party list and in the single-member constituency, they would need to give up one of the places. They usually refuse the seat received on the party list, as in this case the party does not lose this seat and simply would pass it on to another candidate.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Article 89 of the State Duma deputies election law stipulates the proportional algorithm (i.e. Hare quota) should be used to distribute 225 seats among parties who clear 5% electoral threshold in number of votes cast per given party. The rest of seats (225) are distributed according to the plurality voting, as it was stipulated by law at the time of the election.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Owing to allegedly falling ratings of the ruling party, it was assumed that the party would try to reform the electoral system in order to maintain a majority in the new State Duma. In particular, it was assumed that the share of MPs elected by party lists could be reduced from 50% (225 seats) to 25% (112 or 113), and the rest would be elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, or elections on the party lists could be canceled altogether and all 450 seats would be elected in single-member constituencies; however, such assumptions were not justified, and the electoral system remained the same. In April 2021, an amendment was made to the Federal Law on Elections to the State Duma, increasing the federal part of the party list from 10 to 15 candidates.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Putin's government restricted Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) representatives from carrying out election monitoring activity; the Russian government cited COVID-19 concerns but did not elaborate on details. The OSCE reported that Russian authorities insisted on limiting a number of OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights observers to 50, and limiting the number of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly observers to ten, even though the Russian government response to the COVID-19 pandemic had no restrictions that "would seem to prevent the deployment of a full election observation mission" at that time. It was the first time since 1993 that the OSCE would not participate in observing elections in Russia. The OSCE had earlier determined that 420 short-term and 80 long-term observers would be needed in order to reliably assess the process. Faced with major limitations on its freedom to observe, OSCE decided not to send a monitoring team at all. Only a symbolic delegation would be present.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In August 2021, the Russian government designated Golos (the country's only independent election monitor) as a "foreign agent" under the Russian foreign agent law; the move hindered the group's ability to observe the election. According to TASS, 55 unnamed countries would send up to 249 delegates to observe the election. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe announced that it would send a five-member mission to Moscow for the three days of the election.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The National Assembly of Belarus has reportedly sent a delegation to Russia to observe the voting process. The group consisted of the same parliament members who are part to the Union State.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: As of August 2021, there are 32 registered political parties in Russia. Parties represented in the State Duma, in which case seats must be obtained in the vote on the party list, parties that received more than 3% of the vote by party list in the previous elections, or parties that are represented at least in one of the regional parliaments, or also by party list, are allowed to contest in the elections without collecting signatures. Other parties need to collect 200,000 signatures if they have also held conventions and nominated candidates to participate in the elections. The official list of parties entitled to participate in the elections without collection of signatures was announced before the election. After the 2020 Russian regional elections, there are only 14 such parties.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 19 December 2018, the Party of Growth became the first party to launch a campaign when its leader Boris Titov opened the party's "Election 2021" federal headquarters in Miass, Chelyabinsk Oblast. According to Titov, the party would focus on elections in single-mandate constituencies, not party lists. He said: "Today, no slogans, no 'locomotives', we can't win ... we can't cover the whole of Russia, so it's easier for us to focus on specific constituencies. We need real candidates who will be known on the ground. And the electorate who will know first of all the person, and not even the Party of Growth." The party would nominate about 40 candidates in single-member constituencies. According to the plan, deputies elected in the course of elections to municipal and regional legislative bodies prior to 2021 should form the election headquarters of the main candidates.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 7 July 2020 a party convention was held in Moscow, at which the party program was approved, and governing bodies were elected. Boris Titov retained the post of party leader, while the posts of co-chairmen of the party were established. In addition to Titov, nine people became co-chairs: musician Sergey Shnurov, actor Nikolai Fomenko, former Minister of Labor and MP Oksana Dmitriyeva, former MP Sergey Stankevich, economist Yevgeny Kogan, journalist Alexander Lyubimov, businessman Ilya Sachkov, social entrepreneur Ksenia Bezuglova, and human rights activist Alexander Huruji.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 30 September 2020, Titov said that the party list would be headed by Sergey Shnurov if he takes up the offer and the party approves.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: United Russia launched its campaign at the party convention on 23 November 2019. The convention identified priorities and key areas of work that should allow the party to maintain its position as the leading political force in Russia and win the 2021 election. Party leader Dmitry Medvedev said that he would head a commission to prepare a new election program for the party. In addition, a project office was established to prepare for the election. According to the party's General Council Secretary Andrey Turchak, United Russia would fight to preserve its constitutional majority, and intends to win at least 301 seats. According to sources from the party leadership, United Russia has assessed the work of its deputies in the State Duma. Based on this assessment, not all of them would be able to run in the upcoming election, and is assumed that about half of the faction would be made up of new deputies.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 15 January 2020, Medvedev resigned from office of the Prime Minister of Russia. Current Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is not a member of United Russia or any other party; at the same time, Medvedev remains the party's leader. In July 2020, Turchak announced the start of preparations for the party's election program. Medvedev said the new version of the Constitution of Russia should be used as the basis for the election program. On 22 October 2020, it became known that the party leadership had identified the first group of candidates for single-member constituencies. This group includes 71 incumbent MPs, whom the party intends to nominate again in their constituencies. Among these MPs is the party's parliamentary leader Sergey Neverov.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 19 June 2021, the party's pre-election congress was held in Moscow, at which the candidates and the party's program were approved. At the congress, President Vladimir Putin proposed the following five individuals for the party's federal list for the elections, among them Sergey Shoygu (Defence Minister), Sergey Lavrov (Foreign Minister), Denis Protsenko (head doctor of Russia's main coronavirus hospital), Yelena Shmelyova (co-chair of the All-Russia People's Front), and Anna Kuznetsova (Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation). To the surprise of many analysts, Medvedev did not top the list. The party also campaigned in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, where half a million Russian passports had been received by local residents.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: From 24 to 30 May 2021, United Russia held primaries to select candidates for the election. These were the third legislative primaries held by the party since 2011 and the second open primaries in which all Russian citizens could participate. Electronic voting was used in the primaries due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. A total of 7,624 candidates participated in the primaries, of which almost half were not party members. Of the 336 incumbent deputies from the party, only 237 applied to participate in the primaries.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 14 and 15 December 2019, Yabloko held its party convention in Moscow. Elections of the party leadership, including its leader, were held during the convention. Nikolay Rybakov was elected the new leader of the party for the next four years. He said his main goal will be to transform the party for the 2021 election. Rybakov said: "We'll see Yabloko, where the candidates will be requested to prepare for the election campaign starting from Monday in practice. If you enter an election campaign late people do not have time to learn that there are candidates from Yabloko." Rybakov has stated that he expects to win approximately 10% of the electorate. When asked by a journalist if he is open to working with supporters of Alexei Navalny and in fact nominating some of his supporters as candidates, Rybakov replied: "We are open to conversation. We are discussing all this." On 3 July, Grigory Yavlinsky, the founder of the party, decided to not run for parliament, instead endorsing younger candidates. Yabloko was expected to nominate other famous opposition candidates such as Dmitry Gudkov and Andrei Pivovarov, along with many Navalny supporters.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In an early August interview with Dozhd, Grigory Yavlinsky denounced "Navalny's Politics" and his Smart Voting strategy. Yavlinsky also called on Navalny supporters to not vote for Yabloko. As a consequence, experts from Carnegie Moscow Center have stated that Yabloko has lost all chances at overcoming the 5% electoral threshold.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 20 January 2021, Sergey Mironov announced the merger of A Just Russia, Patriots of Russia, and For Truth. A congress was held on 22 February, at which the three parties officially united into one and its leadership was be elected. Mironov became the leader of the new party, while Zakhar Prilepin and Gennady Semigin (the leaders of the other two parties) were appointed co-chairmen. The new party is called the Socialist Party "A Just Russia — Patriots — For Truth", or simply A Just Russia — For Truth.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 24 September 2020, A Just Russia launched its election campaign at a meeting of the presidium of the central council of the party. According to party leader Sergey Mironov, he will carry out general management of the campaign, and the head of the election headquarters will be MP Valery Gartung.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 22 October 2020, at a meeting of the party's central committee, it was decided that party leader Zakhar Prilepin would head the party list of candidates for the election. Prilepin rejected speculation about his intention to run from a single-member constituency in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and said that he would run only as part of the federal list. Prilepin also said that Nikolai Starikov and Sergey Mikheev would also run only on the party list. Mikheev explained this decision by saying that it is more reasonable to nominate the most famous candidates on the party list, since candidates in single-member constituencies do not participate in debates.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 21 October 2020, party leader Alexey Nechaev announced that he would head the New People party list in the election. According to him, the party intends to nominate more than 200 candidates in single-member constituencies. According to Nechaev, the party expects to get 15–20% of the vote. According to the results of the 2020 regional elections, New People was named the most promising party of the so-called new parties which were registered in 2020 as well as one of the two non-parliamentary parties that has a chance to overcome the 5% barrier.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 30 November 2020, it became known that political strategist Yevgeny Minchenko had been chosen as the head of the party's election headquarters. According to political commentators, Minchenko as the head of campaign significantly increases the party's chances of being elected to the State Duma, since he previously conducted successful election campaigns in some post-Soviet countries. On 21 December 2020, it was announced that the party intends to spend about 500 million rubles on its election campaign for the party list; for comparison, only the Liberal Democratic Party spent more than 500 million rubles in the previous election.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The Communist Party of the Russian Federation launched its campaign during the plenum of the central committee of the party on 24 October 2020. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov instructed to start developing an electoral program. According to the party's representative, the program would be less populist than in the 2016 election and more detailed for specific groups of voters. During the plenum, Zyuganov also proposed creating a new coalition, the Popular Front of the Left and Patriots.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 14 December 2020, Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the party Yury Afonin said that the party intends to hold the next (non-election) convention in spring 2021. It is planned to elect the party leadership at the convention. Initially, it was planned that the convention would be held after the election in the fall of 2021. According to Afonin, it was decided to hold this convention earlier because "the campaign will be tense, and attempts will be made to beat the candidates".


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Green Alternative launched its campaign on 22 November 2020 at a party board meeting. According to party leader Ruslan Khvostov, the party would focus on social issues, health care, science, and protection of minority rights, alongside environmental issues.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The Russian Party of Pensioners for Social Justice launched its campaign on 7 December 2020 at a meeting of the party's presidium of the central council. According to some experts, the Party of Pensioners is one of two non-parliamentary parties that have a chance to overcome the 5% barrier.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia launched its campaign during the party's convention on 14 December 2020. The party leadership was elected at the convention, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky was re-elected as its leader. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the convention was held in a truncated format. Nevertheless, it became one of the few Russian political parties and the only parliamentary political party to hold a convention despite the pandemic.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: On 28 March 2021, the convention of the Communist Party of Social Justice was held, at which political strategist Konstantin Rykov was elected as the new chairman of the central committee of the party. At the same congress, it was decided to rename the party to the Russian Party of Freedom and Justice. On 31 March, it was announced that the party list would be headed by journalist Maxim Shevchenko.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The Russian Ecological Party "The Greens" launched its campaign on 15 May 2021 during the party's convention. At the convention, a decision was made to start preparing for the election. The congress also included elections to the party's governing bodies, and Andrey Nagibin was elected its new leader.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The election was marred by multiple episodes of systemic fraud. Multiple episodes of ballot-box stuffing and other forms of fraud were recorded in photographs and video recordings, many of which circulated widely on Russian social media. In some regions, episodes of carousel voting (groups of voters casting multiple ballots at different polling stations) were reported. There were also reports of clashes between poll workers and election monitors.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Ella Pamfilova, head of the CEC, said that the government's commission had invalidated some 25,830 ballots but insisted at a press conference with Putin that the complaints of fraud were "minimal as ever"; outside analysts identified fraud on a much broader scale. After the election, the independent Russian election-monitoring organization Golos said that there were violations during the voting procedure which led to "significantly distorted" results that cast doubt on the "veracity of the results" officially reported by the CEC. Golos said it had received about 5,000 reports of possible voter violations.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Physicist and independent Russian election analyst Sergei Shpilkin conducted a statistical analysis of anomalies in the voting data, concluding that massive fraud was a major factor in United Russia's victory and over 14 million votes were added artificially. Shpilkin estimated that United Russia would have likely received around 31–33% of votes, rather than nearly half of the vote as officially reported, and United Russia would have lost its majority in the State Duma without voting fraud. Electronic vote accounted for 4% of overall votes and was decisive for a number of Duma seats, especially in Moscow. Shpilikin also estimated that nationwide voter turnout was probably around 38%, rather than 52% as officially reported. Statistical analysis by the Complexity Science Hub Vienna also indicate massive fraud, with clear statistical signs for voter rigging and ballot-stuffing; voter turnout was rather around 30%. A machine learning model applied to electoral data also indicates the mediocre quality of election results registration.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: There were reports on members of election committees casting ballots for voters, and removal of observers by police during counting. With the election taking three days, there were numerous reports of members of election committees returning to polling stations at late hours, although the polling stations were supposed to be closed.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: According to Article 83 of Federal Law 20, individuals unable to come to the polling stations are allowed to vote remotely outside polling station. Such individuals are required to make a request for a remote voting, then members of election committees would come to locations specified by such individuals, typically to their home addresses, in order to collect the vote. There were multiple reports on members of election committees compiling such requests themselves. The overall number of requests for remote voting became inflated. There were reports for a single district in Saratov of 5,200 votes collected remotely for 3,700 votes collected at polling stations.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: A remote voting procedure takes from 5 to 10 minutes, because voter's ID must be verified and due to some paperwork, and some extra time is needed for reaching the next location. One mobile group of members of election committee usually collects about 20 votes in a single trip. A number of observers per polling station is limited by law. In order to get rid of observers, a few mobile groups of members of election committee would depart almost simultaneously. The last mobile groups would often depart without observers and would return in just two hours with over 100 ballots, which is a clear indication of fraud. Тhis violation took place on multiple polling stations. Golos has reported over 700 possible violations related to this type of fraud.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: For the first time, the highly-controversial remote electronic voting, or E-voting, was introduced in 2019 Moscow City Duma election. On 17 March 2021, the CEC has announced that at least six E-voting elections, both federal and municipal, would be held in regions, including Moscow. E-voting was heavily used on the election days in Moscow. Even though initially considered convenient for casting votes after the election, E-voting was met with severe public criticism that followed by accusations of rigging election results, and the opposition parties demanding to abandon it and amend the outcome.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: While non-systemic opposition was largely eliminated from the elections, those candidates (mostly of systemic opposition) who were allowed to participate were targeted by various semi-legal intimidation or confusion techniques. The one includes "doppelganger candidates", where a person of similar look and surname was put on the same ballot in order to confuse voters. More than 20 doppelgangers were reported.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Putin's administrations has engineered an approach to draw away votes from seemingly genuine systemic-opposition parties and spread them among many less-known but politically crippled spoilers in order to secure the ruling party dominance. Communists of Russia, a party created in 2009 that took part in both the 2016 and 2021 legislative elections, was described as a spoiler whose purpose is to split votes from the CPRF.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Nikolai Bondarenko, Saratov City Duma MP from the CPRF, vocal critic of the ruling party, and YouTube blogger, stated that the outcome was simply "rewritten" to the benefit of the candidate of the United Russia he ran against. He also said that his fellow allies were jailed and police has otherwise harassed them.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: In a Levada Center poll in October 2021, 23.7% respondents described the elections as "certainly not honest", and 21.4% as "likely not honest".


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: Protests against alleged large-scale electoral fraud began in September 2021. The CPRF stated that it did not recognize the results of electronic voting in Moscow after several of its candidates were suddenly beaten by pro-government candidates. Party leader Zyuganov called on supporters "to defend the election results like the Podolsk cadets defended Moscow." The Moscow mayoral office denied the party's requests to hold protests from the 20th, citing COVID-19 restrictions. Sergei Udaltsov (the coordinator of the Left Front Sergei Udaltsov) and Nikolai Zubrilin (head of the CPRF fraction in the Moscow City Duma) were detained by the police.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia condemned Russia for conducting elections in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali, which are occupied by Russia and referred to as the occupied territories of Georgia but internationally recognized as part of Georgia.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The United States Department of State has stated that the election proceedings were neither free nor fair, and does not recognize results of the election that took place in the disputed territory of Crimea.


title: 2021 Russian legislative election

text: The British foreign ministry stated that the elections "represent a serious step back for democratic freedoms in Russia" and that measures by Russian authorities "to marginalise civil society, silence independent media and exclude genuine opposition candidates from participating" undermined political plurality and Russia's international commitments.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Kamala Das was born in Punnayurkulam, Ponnani taluk, Malabar District, British India (present-day Thrissur district, Kerala, India) on 31 March 1934, to V. M. Nair, a managing editor of the widely circulated Malayalam daily "Mathrubhumi", and Nalapat Balamani Amma, a renowned Malayali poet.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: She spent her childhood between Calcutta, where her father was employed as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentley and Rolls Royce automobiles, and the Nalapat ancestral home in Punnayurkulam.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Like her mother Balamani Amma, Kamala Das also excelled in writing. Her love of poetry began at an early age through the influence of her great uncle, Nalapat Narayana Menon, a prominent writer


title: Kamala Surayya

text: At the age of 15, she married bank officer Madhav Das, who encouraged her writing interests, and she started writing and publishing both in English and in Malayalam. Calcutta in the 1960s was a tumultuous time for the arts, and Kamala Das was one of the many voices that came up and started appearing in cult anthologies along with a generation of Indian English poets. English was the language she chose for all six of her published poetry collections.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: She was noted for her several Malayalam short stories as well as poems written in English. Das was also a syndicated columnist. She once claimed that "poetry does not sell in this country [India]", but her forthright columns, which sounded off on everything from women's issues and child care to politics, were popular. Das was a confessional poet whose poems have often been considered at par with those of Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Kamala Das' first book of poetry, "Summer in Calcutta" was a breath of fresh air in Indian English poetry. She wrote chiefly of love, betrayal, and the consequent anguish. Das abandoned the certainties offered by an archaic, and somewhat sterile, aestheticism for an independence of mind and body at a time when Indian poets were still governed by "19th-century diction, sentiment and romanticised love."


title: Kamala Surayya

text: This directness of her voice led to comparisons with Marguerite Duras and Sylvia Plath. At the age of 42, she published a daring autobiography, "My Story"; it was originally written in Malayalam (titled "Ente Katha") and later she translated it into English. Later she admitted that much of the autobiography had fictional elements.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: "An Introduction" is very bold poem in which Das expresses her femininity, individuality, and true feelings about men. This autobiographical poem is written in the colloquial style. She presents her feelings and thoughts in a bold manner. She realises her identity and understands that it is the need of every woman to raise a voice in this male-dominated society. The poet longs for love that is the result of her loneliness and frustration.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: The poem "A Hot Noon in Malabar" is about climate, surrounding in a town in Malabar. The people may be annoyed by the heat, dust and noise but she likes it. She longs for the hot noon in Malabar because she associates it with the wild men, wild thoughts and wild love. It is a torture for her to be away from Malabar.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: In "My Mother at Sixty-Six," Das explores the irony in mother-daughter relationship, and includes the themes of aging, growing-up, separation and love. "Dance of Eunuchs" is another fine poem in which Das sympathises with eunuchs. It has an autobiographical tone. The eunuchs dance in the heat of the sun. Their costumes, makeup and their passion with which they dance suggest the female delicacy. Their outward appearance and joy is contrasted with their inward sadness. Actually, there is no joy in their heart, they cannot even dream of happiness. In the poem "A Request," Das realises that her life is meaningless. She is alone and her colourless life is designed of crumbling patterns.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Kamala Das is essentially known for her bold and frank expression. The prominent features of her poetry are an acute obsession with love and the use of confession. The main theme of her poetry is based upon freedom, love and protection. She wrote on a diverse range of topics, often disparate - from the story of a poor old servant, about the sexual disposition of upper-middle-class women living near a metropolitan city or in the middle of the ghetto. Some of her better-known stories include "Pakshiyude Manam", "Neypayasam", "Thanuppu", and "Chandana Marangal". She wrote a few novels, out of which "Neermathalam Pootha Kalam", which was received favourably by the general readers, as well as, the critics, stands out.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: She travelled extensively to read poetry to Germany's University of Duisburg-Essen, University of Bonn and University of Duisburg universities, Adelaide Writer's Festival, Frankfurt Book Fair, University of Kingston, Jamaica, Singapore, and South Bank Festival (London), Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), etc. Her works are available in French, Spanish, Russian, German and Japanese.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: She has also held positions as Vice-chairperson in Kerala Sahitya Akademi, chairperson in Kerala Forestry Board, President of the Kerala Children's Film Society, editor of "Poet" magazine and poetry editor of "Illustrated Weekly of India".


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Although occasionally seen as an attention-grabber in her early years, she is now seen as one of the most formative influences on Indian English poetry. In 2009, The Times called her "the mother of modern English Indian poetry".


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Her last book titled "The Kept Woman and Other Stories," featuring translation of her short stories, was published posthumously. Kamala Das is best remembered for her controversial writings where she openly talks about the restriction imposed on women. She is known for her rebellious nature against the patriarchal conventions.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Kamala married Madhav Das at the age of 15. The couple had three sons: M D Nalapat, Chinen Das and Jayasurya Das. Her husband who happened to be bisexual later on in their marriage life, predeceased her in 1992, after 43 years of marriage. Madhav Das Nalapat, her eldest son, is married to Princess Thiruvathira Thirunal Lakshmi Bayi (daughter of Princess Pooyam Thirunal Gouri Parvati Bayi and Sri Chembrol Raja Raja Varma Avargal) from the Travancore Royal House. He holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is a professor of geopolitics at the Manipal University. He had been a resident editor of "The Times of India". Kamala Surayya converted to Islam in 1999 and announced that she planned to marry her Muslim lover, but she never remarried.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune, after a long battle with pneumonia. Her body was flown to her home state of Kerala. She was interred at the Palayam Juma Masjid at Thiruvananthapuram with full state honour.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: Though never politically active before, she launched a national political party, Lok Seva Party, aiming at the promotion of so called secularism and providing asylum to orphaned mothers. In 1984 she unsuccessfully contested in the Indian Parliament elections.


title: Kamala Surayya

text: She was born in a conservative Hindu Nair (Nalapat) family, and married to Aristrocratic Menon family (Kalipurayath) which is having royal ancestry. She converted to Islam on December 11, 1999, at the age of 65 and assumed the name Kamala Surayya.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: Shaul Marie Guerrero (born October 14, 1990) is an American professional wrestler, ring announcer and burlesque performer. She is best known for her time with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), where she performed under the ring name Raquel Diaz. She is also a burlesque dancer under the stage name Miss Nyxon.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: In October 2010, Guerrero signed a developmental contract with WWE, and was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory. In November 2011, Guerrero became the Queen of FCW, a title she held for 119 days, until it was deactivated. In December 2011, Guerrero won the FCW Divas Championship for the first time, and became the longest reigning FCW Divas Champion. In July 2012, Guerrero debuted in WWE's re-branded developmental territory, NXT, before leaving the company in April 2014.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: Guerrero was born in El Paso, Texas, and is the eldest daughter of Vickie Guerrero and the late Eddie Guerrero. Guerrero has a younger sister named Sherilyn Amber Guerrero, and a half-sister named Kaylie Marie Guerrero. Prior to joining WWE, Guerrero was a singer and a model while attending New Mexico State University. She has sung the national anthem at Florida Championship Wrestling events.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: In October 26, 2010, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) signed Guerrero to a developmental contract, and she was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, based in Tampa, Florida. She made her debut in December 2010, appearing at ringside for a FCW Divas Championship match between AJ Lee and Naomi Knight. She made her in-ring debut at the February 11, 2011, television tapings under the ring name Raquel Diaz, where she and Naomi lost a tag team match to AJ and Aksana. She briefly acted as the manager for Alexander Rusev, before joining The Ascension faction, with Conor O'Brian, Kenneth Cameron, and Tito Colon, all of whom she began managing.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: On the November 17 episode of "FCW TV", Diaz defeated Aksana to become the new Queen of FCW. A month later, on the December 15 episode of "FCW TV", Diaz defeated Audrey Marie to win the FCW Divas Championship, holding both the championship and the crown simultaneously. She retained the championship against Marie and Sofia Cortez, before FCW General Manager Summer Rae deactivated the Queen of FCW crown, leaving Diaz as the last champion, with her reign ending at 119 days. Diaz again defeated Audrey Marie to retain the championship in April. After losing a triple threat match to Paige in May, Diaz defended and successfully retained the championship against Paige by disqualification. Diaz lost the FCW Divas Championship on June 29 during a live event to Caylee Turner, ending her reign at 197 days.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: WWE went on to re-brand FCW into NXT, taped at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Diaz's NXT television debut took place on the July 18, 2012, episode of "NXT" under the character of an "ultra diva" on an "exfoliating ugliness tour", and defeated Paige in a singles match. As part of her new character, she began drawing "L"s on the foreheads of other Divas after defeating them. On September 27, 2012, it was reported that Guerrero had requested and been granted a release from her developmental contract. Guerrero confirmed her departure from WWE three days later.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: In September 2013, Guerrero returned to WWE's developmental territory. At this time, it was reported that she was never officially released, but was given a leave of absence to attend school. On April 30, 2014, it was reported that WWE had released Guerrero, with her failing to appear on television during her second run with the company. In August 2014, Guerrero stated that she left WWE due to an ongoing eating disorder.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: On February 17, 2018, Guerrero made her return to professional wrestling as a commentator at the Reality of Wrestling event, "Ladies Night Out". In September, Guerrero signed a contract with Women of Wrestling to work as a ring announcer. She also appeared on Lucha Underground as the ring announcer during the season finale, Ultima Lucha Cuatro. On December 4, 2020, Guerrero made her independent wrestling in ring debut when she competed in a tournament to crown the first ever GCW Women's Champion. She defeated Renee Michelle in the first round, but lost to Queen Aminata in the second round.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: On August 3, 2020, Guerrero served as ring announcer for All Elite Wrestling's AEW Women's Tag Team Cup Tournament.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: In 2018, Guerrero started performing burlesque in the Chicago area under the stage name Miss Nyxon. That same year, she appeared in the annual Maxim Cover Girl social media contest, finishing third in the Southwest Group Twelve.


title: Shaul Guerrero

text: In December 2014, Guerrero got engaged to professional wrestler Matt Rehwoldt, who was once known by the ring name Aiden English. They were married on January 3, 2016.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: Robert Hugh Leckie (December 18, 1920 – December 24, 2001) was a United States Marine and an author of books about the military history of the United States, sports books, fiction books, autobiographies, and children's books. As a young man, he served with the 1st Marine Division during World War II; his service as a machine gunner and a scout during the war greatly influenced his work.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: Leckie's war memoir, "Helmet for My Pillow", along with Eugene B. Sledge's book "With the Old Breed", formed the basis for the HBO series "The Pacific" (2010), the follow-up series to "Band of Brothers". In the miniseries, Leckie is portrayed by James Badge Dale.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: Leckie was born on December 18, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to an Irish Catholic family of eight children. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: He began his career as a writer in high school, as a sports writer for "The Bergen Evening Record" in Hackensack, New Jersey. On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H (How) Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division (H/2/1).


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: Leckie saw combat in the Guadalcanal Campaign and the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and he was wounded by a blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. Due to his wounds, he was evacuated to an army field hospital in the Pavuvu Islands. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the "Buffalo Courier-Express", the "New York Journal American", the New York "Daily News", and "The Star-Ledger".


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: According to his wife Vera, in 1951 Leckie was inspired to write a memoir after seeing "South Pacific" on Broadway and walking out halfway through it. He said, "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical."


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: His first and best-selling book, "Helmet for My Pillow", a war memoir, was published in 1957. Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Desert Storm (1991).


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: A longtime resident of Byram Township, New Jersey, Leckie died on December 24, 2001, six days after his 81st birthday, after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was survived by his wife of 55 years, his three children, two sisters, and six grandchildren. His remains were entombed at St. Joseph's Mausoleum in Newton, New Jersey.


title: Robert Leckie (author)

text: According to World Catalogue, Robert Leckie, writing as "Roger Barlow", also wrote six juvenile boy adventure books called "The Sandy Steele" series; all six are available at Gutenberg.org.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Earl Christian Campbell (born March 29, 1955), nicknamed "the Tyler Rose", is an American former professional football player who played as a running back in the National Football League (NFL) for the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints. Known for his aggressive, punishing running style and ability to break tackles, Campbell gained recognition as one of the best power running backs in NFL history.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell played college football for the Texas Longhorns, where he won the Heisman Trophy and earned unanimous All-America honors in his senior season, as well as numerous other accolades. He was drafted first overall by the Oilers in 1978 and had an immediate impact in the league, earning NFL Rookie of the Year honors. Earl Campbell was named the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year in each of his first three seasons, during which he averaged nearly 1,700 rushing yards per season. He won the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award in 1979 after leading the league in rushing yards and touchdowns.


title: Earl Campbell

text: With head coach Bum Phillips, Campbell's emergence in Houston coincided with the Luv Ya Blue era, a period of sustained success in which the Oilers made three straight playoff appearances. Campbell became the centerpiece of Houston's offense during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was traded to the Saints six games into the 1984 season, where he spent his final season and a half before retiring. Campbell was inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame (1990) and Pro Football Hall of Fame (1991). In 2019, he was named to the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. His jersey number is retired by the University of Texas and the Tennessee Titans.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Earl Christian Campbell was born to Ann and Bert "B.C." Campbell, on March 29, 1955, in Tyler, Texas, leading to the nickname, "the Tyler Rose" later in his career. He was the sixth of 11 siblings. Bert Campbell died when Earl was 11 years old. He began playing football in fifth grade as a kicker, but moved to linebacker in sixth grade after watching Dick Butkus, whom he modeled his playing style after. Ann Campbell attempted to persuade Earl not to play football in high school. "I dis-encouraged Earl," she said. "But he always loved football." In 1973, he led the Corky Nelson–coached John Tyler High School to the Texas 4A State Championship (4A then was the largest classification in the state). That season, he was named Mr. Football USA as he was adjudged the national high school player of the year.


title: Earl Campbell

text: While heavily recruited, Campbell narrowed his choices to Houston, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Baylor. After in-home visits from Barry Switzer from Oklahoma and Darrell Royal from Texas, Campbell ultimately chose Texas. Switzer, who unsuccessfully recruited Campbell, said in his 1989 book that Campbell was the only player he ever saw who could have gone straight from high school to the NFL and immediately become a star.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he played college football for the Texas Longhorns from 1974 to 1977. As a freshman in 1974, he played in all 11 games and rushed for 928 yards and six touchdowns on 162 attempts. In 1975, he was a first-team All-America selection at fullback by the American Football Coaches Association, after he led the Southwest Conference with 1,118 rushing yards, 13 rushing touchdowns, and 78 points scored. Leg injuries kept him out of four games during his junior season, and he rushed for 653 yards and three touchdowns in seven games as Texas finished with a 5–5–1 record.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell led the nation in rushing as a senior in 1977, with 1,744 yards and 19 touchdowns. In the third game of the season, against the Rice Owls, Campbell scored four touchdowns during a 72–15 blowout in which Texas kicker Russell Erxleben set an NCAA record with a 67-yard field goal. In his final regular-season game, Campbell rushed for a career-high 222 yards in a 57–28 victory over rival Texas A&M, and the Longhorns finished the regular season undefeated. After clinching the Southwest Conference championship, the top-ranked Longhorns then faced No. 5 Notre Dame, led by quarterback Joe Montana, in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Campbell carried 29 times for 116 yards in the game, but Notre Dame was victorious, 38–10, and claimed the national championship. Texas was ranked fourth in the final AP Poll.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell was awarded the Heisman Memorial Trophy as the most outstanding college player after the season, becoming the University of Texas' first winner of the award. He also became the first recipient of the Davey O'Brien Memorial Trophy which was awarded to the outstanding player in the Southwest Conference. The "Sporting News" and United Press International each named Campbell the college football player of the year. He was a unanimous All-American, being named to the first team by every major selector. He finished his college career with 4,443 rushing yards and 40 rushing touchdowns in 40 games through four seasons.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell was the first overall draft pick in the 1978 NFL Draft, selected by the Houston Oilers, who signed him to a six-year, $1.4 million contract. The Oilers obtained the pick from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by trading tight end Jimmie Giles, their first and second round picks in the 1978 Draft, and their third and fifth round picks in the 1979 Draft. "This is a commitment to excellence," said Oilers head coach Bum Phillips. "It takes a great running back to have a winning football team and this kid is a great running back." After rushing for a league-leading and rookie record 1,450 yards, Campbell was named the Offensive Rookie of the Year by the "Sporting News" and Associated Press (AP). He was also named the AFC Offensive Player of the Year by United Press International (UPI), NFL Offensive Player of the Year by the AP, and the NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP) by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) and Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). Campbell's emergence contributed to the start of the Luv Ya Blue era in Houston.


title: Earl Campbell

text: With quarterback Dan Pastorini nursing a mid-season shoulder injury, Campbell carried the Oilers to a five-game winning streak in 1979, which concluded with a 30–24 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, in which he rushed for 195 yards and two touchdowns. He finished the season with 1,697 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns, leading the league in both categories. He also set NFL records with eleven 100-yard rushing games, seven consecutive 100-yard games, and 368 carries. He was named NFL MVP by the AP, NEA, and PFWA. He also repeated as the AP Offensive Player of the Year, and won the Bert Bell Award as the league's most outstanding player.


title: Earl Campbell

text: With his aggressive running style which favored running over players instead of around them, questions began to arise over how long Campbell could stay healthy. "He runs with a lot of reckless abandon," said Ron Johnson, a former running back whose own career was cut short. "You can run like that in college. But you can't do that for 10 years and hope to survive." Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris said "Knocking over people can look very good but you can't do it forever. Sometimes it's going to be somebody else who knocks you over ... so the most important thing I think isn't to get a few extra yards every time but to make sure you're healthy enough to play." Bum Phillips, though, favored Campbell's running style. "I've been looking for a back like Earl," he said. "I'm not going to change his style. Why would I? You don't want a guy who gets hit and then flops on the ground. Earl does the same thing other backs do, only better."


title: Earl Campbell

text: After an 11–5 regular-season record in 1979, the Oilers defeated the Denver Broncos in the wild-card round for their first home playoff win since 1960. Houston then won the divisional round game against the San Diego Chargers despite both Pastorini and Campbell missing the game due to injuries. With both back in the lineup, however, the Oilers lost the conference championship game the following week against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Campbell was held to just 15 yards on 17 carries against Pittsburgh's "Steel Curtain" defense.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell had his most productive rushing yardage season in 1980, with 1,934 yards in 15 games—an average of 128.9 yards per game. He finished 70 yards short of breaking O. J. Simpson's single-season rushing yards record set in 1973. He again led the league in rushing yards and touchdowns, and broke his own record for carries, with 373. Over 60 percent of his yards came in the fourth quarter. "That's when the tough get going," said Campbell. He had four games of over 200 rushing yards, a single-season record that still stands as of the end of the 2016 season. He also threw a 57-yard touchdown pass to receiver Billy "White Shoes" Johnson against the Steelers for his only career completion out of three attempts. The Oilers again finished with an 11–5 regular-season record, but lost the wild-card playoff game to the Oakland Raiders. For the third straight year, Campbell was awarded the Jim Thorpe Trophy by the Newspaper Enterprise Association as the league's MVP, and named the Offensive Player of the Year by the AP.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Bum Phillips was fired three days after Houston's loss in the wild-card game, and defensive coordinator Ed Biles was given the head coaching job. In 1981, the Oilers finished 7–9 and failed to make the playoffs for the first time with Campbell on the roster. Also for the first time, Campbell did not claim the rushing yards title, as he finished fifth in yards with 1,376 and seventh in touchdowns with 10. The highlight of the season was back-to-back rushing performances of over 180 yards, against the Bengals in Week 5 and the Seahawks in Week 6. His 39 carries against the Seahawks set an Oilers single-game record. Campbell was invited to his fourth Pro Bowl, but failed to make an All-Pro roster. A players' strike in 1982 shortened the season to nine games and the Oilers finished with a 1–8 record. Campbell had just two touchdowns and 538 rushing yards, an average of 59.8 yards per game—far below his average of 104.1 per game over the previous four seasons.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell's production improved greatly in 1983 as he had 1,301 yards and 12 touchdowns, and was invited to his fifth Pro Bowl. However, the Oilers finished the season tied for the worst record in the league at 2–14. Unhappy after he was pulled in the second half against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 10, Campbell demanded to be traded. He completed the season with the team but remained adamant with his demand in the off-season. "I'm tired of hearing every week how I'm too dumb, washed up, too dumb to read holes, can't block, can't catch the football," he said. The team's back-to-back dismal seasons also added to his frustration. In 1984, under new head coach Hugh Campbell, Houston started the season with six straight losses. After rushing for 278 yards total in the first six games of 1984, Campbell was traded to the New Orleans Saints, reuniting him with Bum Phillips.


title: Earl Campbell

text: The Saints received Campbell in exchange for their first-round draft pick in 1985, with which Houston selected cornerback Richard Johnson. The trade came as a surprise in New Orleans; the team already had the young George Rogers, the 1981 No. 1 overall draft pick and that year's Rookie of the Year and rushing champion. With Campbell and Rogers, the Saints now had two Heisman Trophy winners in the backfield. In his first game with New Orleans, Campbell carried five times for 19 yards, and continued to have a diminished role in the offense throughout the rest of the season. He rushed for a total of 468 yards and four touchdowns in 1984, and failed to record a 100-yard game during the season.


title: Earl Campbell

text: His final 100-yard game was his only one in 1985: a 160-yard outburst against the Minnesota Vikings in which he scored his only touchdown of the season. He finished the year with 643 rushing yards on 158 carries. After considering a return for one more season to reach 10,000 career rushing yards, Campbell retired during the preseason of 1986, feeling that the beating he had taken during his career had taken too much of a toll. "I'm a man; I'm not a little boy," he said. "I believe this is the best thing—not only for myself, but for the Saints." He finished his career having carried 2,187 times for 9,407 yards and 74 touchdowns in the regular season.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell is widely acknowledged as one of the best power running backs in NFL history, and was highly regarded by his peers. "Every time you hit him you lower your own IQ," said Redskins linebacker Pete Wysocki. Cornerback Lester Hayes of the Raiders said "Earl Campbell was put on this earth to play football." Cliff Harris, safety for the Cowboys, recalled Campbell as "the hardest-hitting running back I ever played against. He didn't have the elusiveness of an O. J. Simpson. But when you finished a game against Earl, you had to sit in a tub with Epsom salts." Bum Phillips, when asked if Campbell was in a class by himself, quipped, "I dunno. But if he ain't, it don't take long to call the roll."


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell is considered one of the greatest running backs in Texas Longhorns and college football history. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990, along with fellow Heisman winner Jim Plunkett of Stanford. Campbell became the first Texas Longhorns football player to have his jersey retired by the university, his number 20 being retired in 1979. In 2000, an internet poll of Longhorns fans voted Campbell to Texas' All-Century team. He received the most votes, beating out recently graduated Ricky Williams.


title: Earl Campbell

text: On July 27, 1991, Campbell was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Others inducted in the 1991 class were John Hannah, Stan Jones, Tex Schramm, and Jan Stenerud. He was introduced at the ceremony by Bum Phillips. Campbell's jersey number 34 was retired by the Oilers in 1987. He was inducted as one of six charter members into the Titans Hall of Fame in 1999, although he declined an invitation to the induction ceremony, stating, "I was a Houston Oiler, not a Tennessee Titan."


title: Earl Campbell

text: In 1999, Campbell was ranked number 33 on "The Sporting News"' list of the 100 greatest football players, the highest-ranked player for the Houston Oilers franchise. In 2010, NFL Network ranked Campbell the 55th greatest player of all time in "", and he was ranked by the sportswriter Max Bertellotti of the Turner Sports Network as the number 3 "power back" of all time, behind Jim Brown and John Riggins.


title: Earl Campbell

text: He was honored at halftime against Ohio State on September 9, 2006, including the unveiling of a bronze statue of Campbell in the southwest corner of Royal-Memorial Stadium. The same year, Campbell was featured on the cover of "Dave Campbell's Texas Football", an honor that eluded him during his playing days.


title: Earl Campbell

text: In 2019, Campbell was one of twelve running backs selected to the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.


title: Earl Campbell

text: On January 13, 2020, Campbell was honored during the College Football Playoff National Championship for the 150th anniversary of college football. ESPN named him the 7th best college football player of all time.


title: Earl Campbell

text: He was declared an official State Hero in 1981 by the Texas legislature, an honor previously bestowed upon only Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston and Davy Crockett.


title: Earl Campbell

text: A section of roadway in Tyler, Texas extending from Loop 323 to SH155 was named the Earl Campbell Parkway at its opening in 2012. In 2013, the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award, an award given to the best offensive player in NCAA Division I with Texas ties, was named in Campbell's honor.


title: Earl Campbell

text: While at the University of Texas, Campbell was a member of the honorary men's service organization, the Texas Cowboys. As of 2016, he still actively participates in University of Texas athletics, where he serves as special assistant to the football team. In 1990, he founded Earl Campbell Meat Products, Inc. which manufactures and sells Earl Campbell's Smoked Sausage and other food products and barbecue sauce. Campbell and his associates also opened a restaurant in 1999 on Sixth Street in Austin called Earl Campbell's Lone Star BBQ, which closed in 2001.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell has two sons: Christian and Tyler. Christian played high school football with Drew Brees, nephew of his father's former Longhorns teammate Marty Akins, at Westlake High and ran track for the University of Houston. Tyler was a running back for Pasadena City College and San Diego State but was forced to give up the sport due to multiple sclerosis (MS). He returned to Texas after graduation and divides his time between the family business and raising awareness of MS with his father.


title: Earl Campbell

text: Campbell has experienced various physical ailments in his later life. By 2001, at age 46, he could barely close his fist due to arthritis in his hands. He developed foot drop due to nerve damage in his legs, and has difficulty bending his back and knees. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2009. Because of his difficulty walking he uses a cane or a walker, and for longer distances a wheelchair. Campbell at first maintained the ailments were genetic, but said in 2012, "I think some of it came from playing football, playing the way I did."


title: Earl Campbell

text: In 2009, Campbell became addicted to painkillers prescribed for his spinal stenosis, taking as many as ten OxyContin pills a day with Budweiser. He went through rehabilitation and broke his addiction the same year, and since publicizing the incident in 2013 has spoken out about the dangers of substance abuse.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: The Fantastic Four is an unreleased 1994 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The film features the team’s origin, and their first battle with Doctor Doom. Executive-produced by low-budget specialists Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger, it was made in order for Eichinger to keep the Fantastic Four film rights. It was not released officially, although pirated copies have circulated since May 31, 1994.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom are college friends who use the opportunity of a passing comet to try an experiment. It goes wrong, leaving Victor believed dead. Susan and Johnny Storm are two children living with their mother, who has a boarding house where Reed lives. Ben Grimm is a family friend and a college buddy of Reed's.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Ten years later, Reed, Susan, Johnny and Ben participate in a mission in an experimental spacecraft of Reed's as the same comet passes Earth. Unbeknownst to them, a crucial diamond component designed to protect them from the comet's cosmic rays, has been replaced with an imitation by a criminal named The Jeweler, leaving them exposed to the radiation.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: After crash-landing on Earth they discover that the cosmic rays have given them special powers: Reed's bodily structure has become elastic, Susan can become invisible, Johnny can generate fire on demand and Ben has transformed into a creature with stone-like skin.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: They are later captured by men posing as Marines and are taken to Victor who has become the villainous monarch Dr. Doom. They escape and meet at the Baxter Building, trying to decide how to move forward with their superpowers. An angry Ben leaves them to go out on his own, feeling he has become a freak. He is found by homeless men and joins them in the lair of the Jeweler.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: The Jeweler has his henchmen kidnap blind artist Alicia Masters whom he plans to force into being his bride, intending to use the stolen diamond as his wedding gift to her. Doom, who has his own plans for the diamond, sends his henchmen to The Jeweler to make a deal for it but to no avail. Doom seizes the diamond himself, and a gun battle breaks out between his men and The Jeweler's. When Ben enters the fray, Doom takes Alicia hostage. When Ben threatens to 'clobber' Doom, Alicia begs him not to risk it and confesses her love for him. Her confession changes Ben back to human form and he flees into the city streets. Frustrated at his helplessness he reverts to the Thing.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: When Ben returns to his friends, Reed has learned that Doom is actually Victor. Doom contacts them and threatens to use the diamond to power a laser cannon that will destroy New York City unless they surrender to him. Realizing they are the only ones who can stop him, they don costumes and travel to Doom's castle where they confront waves of his military forces. As Reed battles him, Doom manages to fire his laser but is knocked off a balcony wall. As he clings to the wall Reed tries to rescue him but Doom's gauntlet comes loose and he falls into the fog below. His gauntlet (still on the balcony) starts to move on its own. Meanwhile, Johnny has become the Human Torch and flies off to intercept the laser's shot, deflecting away from the city and into outer space. Ben frees Alicia and finally introduces himself to her. She feels the rocky surface of his face but is not fazed by his altered appearance. The Four dedicate themselves to fighting evil and Reed and Susan marry.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: In 1983, German producer Bernd Eichinger met with Marvel Comics' Stan Lee at Lee's Los Angeles home to explore obtaining an option for a movie based on the Fantastic Four. The option was not available until three years later, when Eichinger's production company Constantin Film obtained it for a price the producer called "not enormous" and which has been estimated to be $250,000. Despite some interest from Warner Bros. Pictures and Columbia Pictures, budget concerns precluded any production, and with the option scheduled to expire on December 31, 1992, Constantin asked Marvel for an extension. With none forthcoming, Eichinger planned to retain his option by producing a low-budget "Fantastic Four" film. In September 1992, he teamed with B-movie specialist Roger Corman, who agreed to produce the film on a $1 million budget, to be released by his distribution company New Horizons Pictures.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Production began on December 28, 1992, under direction of music video director Oley Sassone, lasting for 21 days or 25 days.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Storyboards were drawn by artist Pete Von Sholly. The movie was shot on the Concorde Pictures sound stage in Venice, California, as well as in Agoura, California for a spacecraft-crash scene, the Loyola Marymount University campus for a lab-explosion scene, and the former Pacific Stock Exchange building in downtown Los Angeles for team-meeting scenes.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Costume designer Réve Richards recalled in 1993 going to Golden Apple Comics on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles to buy "Fantastic Four" comic books for research. Upon explaining his task, "these people in the store just swarmed me and said, 'You are going to be faithful to it?' And I told them, 'This is why I am buying these books.'" Paul Ahern was hired as weapons consultant, and Scott Billups for computer visual effects. The special-effects makeup was by John Vulich and Everett Burrell of Optic Nerve. Stuntman Carl Ciarfalio, who wore a rubber suit to portray the monstrous superhero Thing, worked with actor Michael Bailey Smith, who played the Thing's human self, Ben Grimm, so that their mannerisms would match. During the months of post-production, music composers David and Eric Wurst personally contributed $6,000 to finance a 48-piece orchestra for the soundtrack.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: A 1993 magazine article gave a tentative release date of Labor Day weekend 1993. During that summer, trailers ran in theaters and on the video release of Corman's "Carnosaur" and "Little Miss Millions". The cast members hired a publicist, at their own expense, to help promote the film at a clips-screening at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and at the San Diego Comic-Con International, and the film appeared as a cover story on an issue of "Film Threat" magazine. By this time, the world premiere was announced to take place at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, on January 19, 1994, with proceeds from the event earmarked for the charities Ronald McDonald House and Children's Miracle Network.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Suddenly, the premiere was halted, the actors received a cease and desist order on all promotion from the producers, and the studio confiscated the negatives. Eichinger then informed Sassone that the film would not be released. Speculation arose that the film had never been intended for release, but had gone into production solely as a way for Eichinger to retain rights to the characters; Stan Lee said in 2005 that this was indeed the case, insisting, "That movie was never supposed to be shown to anybody," and adding that the cast and crew had been left unaware. Corman and Eichinger dismissed Lee's claims, with the former stating, "We had a contract to release it, and I had to be bought out of that contract" by Eichinger. Eichinger called Lee's version of events "definitely not true. It was not our [original] intention to make a B movie, that's for sure, but when the movie was there, we wanted to release it." He said future Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad, at this point, in 1993, a Marvel executive,


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Arad recalled in 2002 that while on a trip to Puerto Rico in 1993, a fan noticing Arad's Fantastic Four shirt expressed excitement over the film's upcoming premiere, of which Arad said he was unaware. Concerned how the low-budget film might cheapen the brand, he said he purchased the film "for a couple of million dollars in cash" and, not having seen it, ordered all prints destroyed, in order to prevent its release.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Eichinger continued negotiations to produce a big-budget adaptation, speaking with directors including Chris Columbus, Peyton Reed, and Peter Segal. After pre-production briefly went underway in 1996, Eichinger and his company began production in 2004 of "Fantastic Four" (2005), released by 20th Century Fox, with an estimated $90 million budget. Following that film's 2005 release, Eichinger and Constantin produced a $130 million sequel, "" (2007). A critically panned reboot for the film series was released in 2015. In 2019, The Walt Disney Company obtained the film rights to the Fantastic Four after acquiring 21st Century Fox. Marvel Studios, now owned by Disney, announced plans to release a "Fantastic Four" film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and is scheduled to be released in 2025.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: Although never officially released to the general public, but exhibited once on May 31, 1994, "The Fantastic Four" has been subject to bootleg recordings. The film is available to be watched on YouTube and Dailymotion.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 30%, based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 4.67/10. Clint Morris of "Film Threat" magazine said of a copy of the film he obtained, "[Y]es it's terribly low-budget and yes it's derisorily campy and feebly performed, but at the same time there's also something inquiringly irresistible about this B comic tale that makes you wonder why it didn't get a release somewhere along the line. Even if it does resemble "Toxic Avenger" [more so] than say, "Spider-Man" ... The script isn't actually all that bad and some of the actors—notably Michael Bailey Smith—are actually quite good here, and with an extra polish I think they might have been able to release this thing." Neil Calloway of Flickering Myth said "the production values are of a 1990s daytime soap, with some rather clunky dialogue."


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: A documentary about the film, "", with Corman and the rest of the cast and crew explaining what transpired with the film and its production, was released on July 10, 2015.


title: The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)

text: In 2013 a main story arc in fourth season of the television series "Arrested Development" concerned the character Tobias Fünke's attempt to stage a musical based on The Fantastic Four. The setup for the story concerned his romantic relationship with DeBrie Bardeaux (Maria Bamford), an actress who had played Susan Storm in an unreleased "Fantastic Four" movie. This backstory parodies the development of the 1994 Corman movie and the storyline is an extended satire on various comic book rights battles.


title: Hazard ratio

text: In survival analysis, the hazard ratio (HR) is the ratio of the hazard rates corresponding to the conditions characterised by two distinct levels of a treatment variable of interest. For example, in a clinical study of a drug, the treated population may die at twice the rate per unit time of the control population. The hazard ratio would be 2, indicating higher hazard of death from the treatment.


title: Hazard ratio

text: A scientific paper might utilise a Hazard Ratio (HR) to state something as follows. "Adequate COVID-19 vaccination status was associated with significantly decreased risk for the composite of severe COVID-19 or mortality with a HR of 0.20 (95% CI, 0.17-0.22)." In layman's English, this means: People in the study who were vaccinated were 20% as likely to get severe Covid-19 or to die, compared to people who weren't vaccinated in the same study. So, for a hazardous outcome (e.g. death), a Hazard Ratio below 1 indicates that the treatment (e.g. vaccination) might be favorable (less hazardous), and the lower it is, the better. The parenthesized part means that the authors have 95% confidence that the true value of this hazard ratio is between 0.17 and 0.22 (or 17% to 22%), but most likely it is 20%. However, in generalized cases, the outcome may not necessarily be hazardous. If the outcome is actually benign (e.g. accepting job offer to end a spell of unemployment), then a hazard ratio greater than 1 is favorable for the treatment of job seeking efforts.


title: Hazard ratio

text: Hazard ratios differ from relative risks (RRs) and odds ratios (ORs) in that RRs and ORs are cumulative over an entire study, using a defined endpoint, while HRs represent instantaneous risk over the study time period, or some subset thereof. Hazard ratios suffer somewhat less from selection bias with respect to the endpoints chosen and can indicate risks that happen before the endpoint.


title: Hazard ratio

text: The instantaneous hazard rate is the limit of the number of events per unit time divided by the number at risk, as the time interval approaches 0.


title: Hazard ratio

text: where "N"("t") is the number at risk at the beginning of an interval. A hazard is the probability that a patient fails between formula_2 and formula_3, given that they have survived up to time formula_2, divided by formula_5, as formula_5 approaches zero.


title: Hazard ratio

text: The hazard ratio is the effect on this hazard rate of a difference, such as group membership (for example, treatment or control, male or female), as estimated by regression models that treat the log of the HR as a function of a baseline hazard formula_7 and a linear combination of explanatory variables:


title: Hazard ratio

text: Such models are generally classed proportional hazards regression models; the best known being the Cox proportional hazards model, and the exponential, Gompertz and Weibull parametric models.


title: Hazard ratio

text: For two groups that differ only in treatment condition, the ratio of the hazard functions is given by formula_9, where formula_10 is the estimate of treatment effect derived from the regression model. This hazard ratio, that is, the ratio between the predicted hazard for a member of one group and that for a member of the other group, is given by holding everything else constant, i.e. assuming proportionality of the hazard functions.


title: Hazard ratio

text: For a continuous explanatory variable, the same interpretation applies to a unit difference. Other HR models have different formulations and the interpretation of the parameter estimates differs accordingly.


title: Hazard ratio

text: In its simplest form, the hazard ratio can be interpreted as the chance of an event occurring in the treatment arm divided by the chance of the event occurring in the control arm, or vice versa, of a study. The resolution of these endpoints are usually depicted using Kaplan–Meier survival curves. These curves relate the proportion of each group where the endpoint has not been reached. The endpoint could be any dependent variable associated with the covariate (independent variable), e.g. death, remission of disease or contraction of disease. The curve represents the odds of an endpoint having occurred at each point in time (the hazard). The hazard ratio is simply the relationship between the instantaneous hazards in the two groups and represents, in a single number, the magnitude of distance between the Kaplan–Meier plots.