title: Oromo language

text: In the Qubee alphabet, letters include the digraphs "ch, dh, ny, ph, sh." Gemination is not obligatorily marked for digraphs, though some writers indicate it by doubling the first element: 'be prepared'. In the charts below, the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for a phoneme is shown in brackets where it differs from the Oromo letter. The phonemes appear in parentheses because they are only found in recently adopted words. Note that there have been minor changes in the orthography since it was first adopted: () was originally rendered , and there has been some confusion among authors in the use of and in representing the phonemes and , with some early works using for and for and even for different phonemes depending on where it appears in a word. This article uses consistently for and for .


title: Oromo language

text: Only the penultimate or final syllable of a root can have a high tone, and if the penultimate is high, the final must also be high; this implies that Oromo has a pitch-accent system (in which the tone need be specified only on one syllable, the others being predictable) rather than a tone system (in which each syllable must have its tone specified), although the rules are complex (each morpheme can contribute its own tone pattern to the word), so that "one can call Oromo a pitch-accent system in terms of the basic lexical representation of pitch, and a tone system in terms of its surface realization." The stressed syllable is perceived as the first syllable of a word with high pitch.


title: Oromo language

text: Except in some southern dialects, there is nothing in the form of most nouns that indicates their gender. A small number of nouns pairs for people, however, end in ' (m.) and ' (f.), as do adjectives when they are used as nouns: 'brother', 'sister', 'the rich one (m.)', 'the poor one (f.)'. Grammatical gender normally agrees with natural gender for people and animals; thus nouns such as 'father', 'son', and 'ox' are masculine, while nouns such as 'mother' and 'girl, daughter' are feminine. However, most names for animals do not specify biological gender.


title: Oromo language

text: Names of astronomical bodies are feminine: 'sun', 'star'. The gender of other inanimate nouns varies somewhat among dialects.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo displays singular and plural number, but nouns that refer to multiple entities are not obligatorily plural: 'man' 'people', 'five men' 'five people'. Another way of looking at this is to treat the "singular" form as unspecified for number.


title: Oromo language

text: When it is important to make the plurality of a referent clear, the plural form of a noun is used. Noun plurals are formed through the addition of suffixes. The most common plural suffix is '; a final vowel is dropped before the suffix, and in the western dialects, the suffix becomes ' following a syllable with a long vowel: 'house', 'houses', 'friend', 'friends', 'teacher', 'teachers'. Among the other common plural suffixes are ', ', and ""; the latter two may cause a preceding consonant to be doubled: 'year', 'years', 'river', 'rivers', 'son', 'sons'.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo has no indefinite articles (corresponding to English "a", "some"), but (except in the southern dialects) it indicates definiteness (English "the") with suffixes on the noun: ' for masculine nouns (the "ch" is geminated though this is not normally indicated in writing) and ' for feminine nouns. Vowel endings of nouns are dropped before these suffixes: 'road', 'the road', 'man', / 'the man', 'lake', 'the lake'. Note that for animate nouns that can take either gender, the definite suffix may indicate the intended gender: 'priest', 'the priest (m.)', 'the priest (f.)'. The definite suffixes appear to be used less often than "the" in English, and they seem not to co-occur with the plural suffixes.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo nouns appear in seven grammatical cases, each indicated by a suffix, the lengthening of the noun's final vowel, or both. For some of the cases, there is a range of forms possible, some covering more than one case, and the differences in meaning among these alternatives may be quite subtle.


title: Oromo language

text: In most languages, there is a small number of basic distinctions of person, number, and often gender that play a role within the grammar of the language. Oromo and English are such languages. We see these distinctions within the basic set of independent personal pronouns, for example, English "I", Oromo ; English "they", Oromo " and the set of possessive adjectives and pronouns, for example, English "my", Oromo ; English "mine", Oromo . In Oromo, the same distinctions are also reflected in subject–verb agreement: Oromo verbs (with a few exceptions) agree with their subjects; that is, the person, number, and (singular third person) gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes on the verb. Because these suffixes vary greatly with the particular verb tense/aspect/mood, they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation.


title: Oromo language

text: In all of these areas of the grammar—independent pronouns, possessive adjectives, possessive pronouns, and subject–verb agreement—Oromo distinguishes seven combinations of person, number, and gender. For first and second persons, there is a two-way distinction between singular ('I', 'you sg.') and plural ('we', 'you pl.'), whereas for third person, there is a two-way distinction in the singular ('he', 'she') and a single form for the plural ('they'). Because Oromo has only two genders, there is no pronoun corresponding to English "it"; the masculine or feminine pronoun is used according to the gender of the noun referred to.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo is a subject pro-drop language. That is, neutral sentences in which the subject is not emphasized do not require independent subject pronouns: 'we came yesterday'.


title: Oromo language

text: The Oromo word that translates 'we' does not appear in this sentence, though the person and number are marked on the verb ('we came') by the suffix '. When the subject in such sentences needs to be given prominence for some reason, an independent pronoun can be used: " we" came yesterday'.


title: Oromo language

text: The table below gives forms of the personal pronouns in the different cases, as well as the possessive adjectives. For the first person plural and third person singular feminine categories, there is considerable variation across dialects; only some of the possibilities are shown.


title: Oromo language

text: The possessive adjectives, treated as separate words here, are sometimes written as noun suffixes. In most dialects there is a distinction between masculine and feminine possessive adjectives for first and second person (the form agreeing with the gender of the modified noun). However, in the western dialects, the masculine forms (those beginning with ') are used in all cases. Possessive adjectives may take the case endings for the nouns they modify: 'to my village' (': locative case).


title: Oromo language

text: As in languages such as French, Russian, and Turkish, the Oromo second person plural is also used as a polite singular form, for reference to people that the speaker wishes to show respect towards. This usage is an example of the so-called T-V distinction that is made in many languages. In addition, the third person plural may be used for polite reference to a single third person (either 'he' or 'she').


title: Oromo language

text: For possessive pronouns ('mine', 'yours', etc.), Oromo adds the possessive adjectives to 'of': 'mine', 'yours', etc.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo has two ways of expressing reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc.). One is to use the noun meaning 'self': or . This noun is inflected for case but, unless it is being emphasized, not for person, number, or gender: 'she looks at herself' (base form of ), 'she bought herself a car' (dative of ).


title: Oromo language

text: The other possibility is to use the noun meaning 'head', , with possessive suffixes: 'myself', 'yourself (s.)', etc.


title: Oromo language

text: Oromo has a reciprocal pronoun (English 'each other') that is used like . That is, it is inflected for case but not person, number, or gender: 'they like each other' (base form of ), 'they bought each other gifts' (dative of ).


title: Oromo language

text: Like English, Oromo makes a two-way distinction between proximal ('this, these') and distal ('that, those') demonstrative pronouns and adjectives. Some dialects distinguish masculine and feminine for the proximal pronouns; in the western dialects the masculine forms (beginning with "") are used for both genders. Unlike in English, singular and plural demonstratives are not distinguished, but, as for nouns and personal pronouns in the language, case is distinguished. Only the base and nominative forms are shown in the table below; the other cases are formed from the base form as for nouns, for example, 'at/on/in that' (locative case).


title: Oromo language

text: An Oromo verb consists minimally of a stem, representing the lexical meaning of the verb, and a suffix, representing tense or aspect and subject agreement. For example, in 'we came', ' is the stem ('come') and ' indicates that the tense is past and that the subject of the verb is first person plural.


title: Oromo language

text: As in many other Afroasiatic languages, Oromo makes a basic two-way distinction in its verb system between the two tensed forms, past (or "perfect") and present (or "imperfect" or "non-past"). Each of these has its own set of tense/agreement suffixes. There is a third conjugation based on the present which has three functions: it is used in place of the present in subordinate clauses, for the jussive ('let me/us/him, etc. V', together with the particle ), and for the negative of the present (together with the particle ). For example, 'we went', 'we go', 'that we go', 'let's go', 'we don't go'. There is also a separate imperative form: 'go (sg.)!'."


title: Oromo language

text: The table below shows the conjugation in the affirmative and negative of the verb ' 'know'. The first person singular present and past affirmative forms require the suffix ' to appear on the word preceding the verb or the word ' before the verb. The negative particle ', shown as a separate word in the table, is sometimes written as a prefix on the verb.


title: Oromo language

text: For verbs with stems ending in certain consonants and suffixes beginning with consonants (that is, ' or '), there are predictable changes to one or the other of the consonants. The dialects vary a lot in the details, but the following changes are common.


title: Oromo language

text: Verbs whose stems end in two consonants and whose suffix begins with a consonant must insert a vowel to break up the consonants since the language does not permit sequences of three consonants. There are two ways this can happen: either the vowel "i" is inserted between the stem and the suffix, or the final stem consonants are switched (an example of metathesis) and the vowel "a" is inserted between them. For example, 'see', 'he sees', or (from ) 'we see'; 'laugh', 'he laughed', or 'you (sg.) laughed'.


title: Oromo language

text: Verbs whose stems end in the consonant ' (which may appear as "h", "w", or "y" in some words, depending on the dialect) belong to three different conjugation classes; the class is not predictable from the verb stem. It is the forms that precede suffixes beginning with consonants ("t" and "n") that differ from the usual pattern. The third person masculine singular, second person singular, and first person plural present forms are shown for an example verb in each class.


title: Oromo language

text: The common verbs 'want' and 'do' deviate from the basic conjugation pattern in that long vowels replace the geminated consonants that would result when suffixes beginning with "t" or "n" are added: 'he wants', 'you (sg.) want', 'we want', 'you (pl.) want', 'didn't want', etc.


title: Oromo language

text: The verb 'come' has the irregular imperatives , . The verb 'go' has, alongside regular imperative forms, the irregular imperatives , .


title: Oromo language

text: An Oromo verb root can be the basis for three derived voices, passive, causative, and autobenefactive, each formed with addition of a suffix to the root, yielding the stem that the inflectional suffixes are added to.


title: Oromo language

text: The voice suffixes can be combined in various ways. Two causative suffixes are possible: '- 'go up', 'pick up', 'cause to pick up'. The causative may be followed by the passive or the autobenefactive; in this case the "s" of the causative is replaced by "f": '- 'return (intransitive)', 'return (transitive), answer', 'be returned, be answered', 'get back for oneself'.


title: Oromo language

text: Another derived verbal aspect is the frequentative or "intensive," formed by copying the first consonant and vowel of the verb root and geminating the second occurrence of the initial consonant. The resulting stem indicates the repetition or intensive performance of the action of the verb. Examples: 'spend the night', 'spend several nights', 'break', 'break to pieces, break completely'; 'push, apply pressure', 'massage'.


title: Oromo language

text: The infinitive is formed from a verb stem with the addition of the suffix "-uu". Verbs whose stems end in "-dh" (in particular all autobenefactive verbs) change this to "ch" before the suffix. Examples: 'drink', 'to drink'; '- 'reach', ' 'to reach'; 'say', 'to say'. The verb is exceptional; its infinitive is rather than the expected . The infinitive behaves like a noun; that is, it can take any of the case suffixes. Examples: ' 'to reach', ' 'in order to reach' (dative case); 'drink', 'be drunk', to be drunk', 'by being drunk' (instrumental case).


title: Thomas Keller

text: Thomas Aloysius Keller (born October 14, 1955) is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World.


title: Thomas Keller

text: In 2005, he was awarded the three-star rating in the inaugural Michelin Guide for New York City for his restaurant Per Se, and in 2006, he was awarded three stars in the inaugural Michelin Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area for The French Laundry. He is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous three-star Michelin ratings for two different restaurants. His restaurants currently hold eight Michelin stars in total: three at Per Se, three at The French Laundry, one at Bouchon, and one at The Surf Club Restaurant.


title: Thomas Keller

text: Keller's mother was a restaurateur who employed Thomas as help when her cook got sick. Four years after his parents divorced, the family moved east and settled in Palm Beach, Florida. In his teenage summers, he worked at the Palm Beach Yacht Club starting as a dishwasher and quickly moving up to cook. It was here he discovered his passion for cooking and perfection of the hollandaise sauce.


title: Thomas Keller

text: During summers, he worked as a cook in Rhode Island. One summer, he was discovered by French-born Master Chef Roland Henin and was tasked to cook staff meals at The Dunes Club. Under Henin's study, Keller learned the fundamentals of classical French cooking. After The Dunes Club, Keller worked various cooking positions in Florida and soon became the cook at a small French restaurant called La Rive in the Hudson River valley in Catskill, New York. Thomas worked alone with the couple's grandmother as prep cook. Given free rein, he built a smokehouse to cure meats, developed relationships with local livestock purveyors and learned to cook entrails and offal under his old mentor, Roland Henin, who would drop by on occasional weekends. After three years at La Rive, unable to buy it from the owners, he left and moved to New York and then Paris, apprenticing at various Michelin-starred restaurants.


title: Thomas Keller

text: After returning to America in 1984, he was hired as chef de cuisine at La Reserve in New York, before leaving to open Rakel in early 1987. Rakel's refined French cuisine catered to the expensive tastes of Wall Street executives and received a two-star review from "The New York Times". Its popularity waned as the stock market bottomed out and at the end of the 1980s, Keller left, unwilling to compromise his style of cooking to simple bistro fare.


title: Thomas Keller

text: Following the split with his partner at Rakel, Keller took various consultant and chef positions in New York and Los Angeles. In the spring of 1992 he came upon a restaurant in Yountville, California founded by Sally Schmitt, in a space formerly occupied by an old French stream laundry. She and her husband Don purchased the building in 1978 and converted it into a restaurant. Keller spent nineteen months raising $1.2 million from acquaintances and investors to purchase the restaurant, then re-opened it in 1994. Over the next few years the restaurant earned numerous awards, including from the James Beard Foundation, gourmet magazines, the Mobil Guide (five stars), and the Michelin Guide (three stars).


title: Thomas Keller

text: In April 2009, Keller became engaged to longtime girlfriend and former general manager at the French Laundry, Laura Cunningham.


title: Thomas Keller

text: After the success of The French Laundry, Thomas and his brother, Joseph Keller (currently owner/chef of Josef's in Las Vegas), opened Bouchon in 1998. Located down the street from The French Laundry, it serves moderately priced French bistro fare, with Bouchon Bakery opening next door a few years later (in 2006 Keller opened a branch of the bakery in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan). Keller has joked in the past that the motivation for Bouchon's opening was to give him somewhere to eat after work at The French Laundry. On January 26, 2004, Keller opened his restaurant Bouchon in Las Vegas. On February 16, 2004, Keller's much-anticipated Per Se restaurant opened in the Time Warner Center complex in New York under the helm of Keller's Chef de Cuisine, Jonathan Benno. Per Se, which was designed from scratch and custom-built as part of the overall construction process, was an immediate hit on the New York restaurant scene, with reservations booked months in advance and publications including "The New Yorker" and "The New York Times" giving rave reviews. The latest restaurant, "ad hoc", opened in September 2006 in Yountville with a different fixed price comfort food dinner served family style every night. Originally intended to be a temporary project while Keller planned his lifelong dream restaurant for the location, serving hamburgers and wine, he decided to make ad hoc permanent and find a new location for the hamburger restaurant due to its popularity.


title: Thomas Keller

text: Prior to the opening of The French Laundry, Thomas Keller started a small olive oil company called EVO, Inc. in 1992, with his girlfriend of the time, to distribute Provençal-style olive oil and red wine vinegar. Recently, Keller started marketing a line of signature white Limoges porcelain dinnerware by Raynaud called "Hommage Point" (in homage to French chef and restaurateur, Fernand Point) that he helped and a collection of silver hollow ware by Christofle. He has also attached his name to a set of signature knives manufactured by MAC.


title: Thomas Keller

text: Keller is the president of the Bocuse d'Or U.S. team and was responsible for recruiting and training the 2009 candidates. The former French Laundry Timothy Hollingsworth won the Bocuse d'Or USA semi-finals in 2008, and represented the U.S. in the world finals in January 2009 under Keller's supervision where he placed 6th, equaling the best performance of the U.S. in the contest to date. On describing his reasons for accepting the Bocuse d'Or Team USA presidency, Keller stated, "When Chef [Paul] Bocuse calls you on the phone and says he’d like you to be president of the American team, you say, ‘Oui, chef’. He's the role model, the icon".


title: Thomas Keller

text: In 2012 he announced he was at the point of his career when it was time to step away from the kitchen. The important thing, he said, is to make sure to give to young chefs the right things, the right mentoring because "if we're not truly working to raise the standards of our profession, then we're not really doing our job." He permanently closed his restaurant TAK Room, located in Hudson Yards, during the coronavirus pandemic. The throwback restaurant had been opened in March 2019, and had been his first New York restaurant in 15 years.


title: Thomas Keller

text: In 1999, Thomas Keller published "The French Laundry Cookbook", which he considers his definitive book on cuisine. That year it won three International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) awards for Cookbook of the Year, Julia Child "First Cookbook" Award, and Design Award. In 2004 he published "The Bouchon Cookbook," although he gives most of the credit to Bouchon chef Jeffrey Cerciello. Other cookbooks that he has written or contributed are "The Food Lover's Companion to the Napa Valley", "", "Ad Hoc at Home" (2009) and "Bouchon Bakery" (2012). He provided an introduction or foreword to "The Vineyard Kitchen: Menus Inspired by the Seasons" by Maria Helm Sinskey, "Happy in the Kitchen" by Michel Richard, "Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts" by Claire Clark (head pastry chef at The French Laundry), the new publication of "Ma Gastronomie" by Fernand Point, "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing" by Micheal Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. He is also featured in "My Last Supper" by Melanie Dunea.


title: Thomas Keller

text: Working on the film "Spanglish", Keller designed and taught star Adam Sandler to cook what is often called "the world's greatest sandwich", as a plausible example of what a talented bachelor gourmet might cook for himself. The sandwich resembles a typical BLT, with the addition of a fried egg. In an interview with "Vogue Man Arabia" he described the BLT as "the perfect sandwich". Keller served as a consultant for the 2007 Pixar animated film "Ratatouille", allowing the producer to intern in the French Laundry kitchen and designing a fancy layered version of ratatouille, "confit byaldi", for the characters to cook. In the American version he plays a cameo appearance as a restaurant patron (the part is played by one of Keller's mentors Guy Savoy in the French version, and Ferran Adrià in the Spanish one).


title: Thomas Keller

text: Keller currently has three online cooking classes at Masterclass.com, pursuing his belief in teaching.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing is a passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust using a black oxide coating. It is named after the blue-black appearance of the resulting protective finish. Bluing involves an electrochemical conversion coating resulting from an oxidizing chemical reaction with iron on the surface selectively forming magnetite (), the black oxide of iron. In comparison, rust, the red oxide of iron (), undergoes an extremely large volume change upon hydration; as a result, the oxide easily flakes off causing the typical reddish rusting away of iron. Black oxide provides minimal protection against corrosion, unless also treated with a water-displacing oil to reduce wetting and galvanic action. In colloquial use, thin coatings of black oxide are often termed 'gun bluing', while heavier coatings are termed 'black oxide'. Both refer to the same chemical process for providing true gun bluing.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: "Cold" bluing is generally a selenium dioxide based compound that colours steel black, or more often a very dark grey. It is a difficult product to apply evenly, offers minimal protection and is generally best used for small fast repair jobs and touch-ups.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: The "hot" process is an alkali salt solution using potassium nitrite or sodium nitrate and sodium hydroxide, referred to as "traditional caustic black", that is typically done at an elevated temperature, . This method was adopted by larger firearm companies for large scale, more economical bluing. It does provide good rust resistance, which is improved with oil.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: "Rust bluing" and "fume bluing" provide the best rust and corrosion resistance as the process continually converts any metal that is capable of rusting into magnetite (). Treating with an oiled coating enhances the protection offered by the bluing. This process is also the only process safely used to re-blue vintage shotguns. Many double-barreled shotguns are soft soldered (lead) or silver brazed together and many of the parts are attached by that method also. The higher temperatures of the other processes as well as their caustic nature could weaken the soldered joints and make the gun hazardous to use.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing can also be done in a furnace, for example for a sword or other item traditionally made by a blacksmith or specialist such as a weapon-smith. Blacksmith products to this day may occasionally be found made from blued steel by traditional craftsmen in cultures and segments of society who use that technology either by necessity or choice.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing may be applied by immersing steel parts in a solution of potassium nitrate, sodium hydroxide, and water heated to the boiling point, depending on the recipe. Similarly, stainless steel parts may be immersed in a mixture of nitrates and chromates, similarly heated. Either of these two methods is called 'hot bluing'. Hot bluing is the current standard in gun bluing, as both it and rust bluing provide the most permanent degree of rust-resistance and cosmetic protection of exposed gun metal, and hot bluing takes less time than rust bluing.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Rust bluing was developed between hot and cold bluing processes, and was originally used by gunsmiths in the 19th century to blue firearms prior to the development of hot bluing processes. The process was to coat the gun parts in an acid solution, let the parts rust uniformly, then immerse the parts in boiling water to convert the red oxide to black oxide , which forms a more protective, stable coating than the red oxide; the boiling water also removes any remaining residue from the applied acid solution (often nitric acid and hydrochloric acid diluted in water). The loose oxide was then carded (scrubbed) off, using a carding brush - a wire brush with soft, thin (usually about thick) wires - or wheel.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: This process was repeated until the desired depth of color was achieved or the metal simply did not color further. This is one of the reasons rust and fume bluing are generally more rust-resistant than other methods. The parts are then oiled and allowed to stand overnight. This process leaves a deep blue-black finish.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Modern home hobbyist versions of this process typically use a hydrogen peroxide and salt solution, sometimes with vinegar, for the rusting step to avoid the need for more dangerous acids.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Fume bluing is another process similar to rust bluing. Instead of applying the acid solution directly to the metal parts, the parts are placed in a sealed cabinet with a moisture source, a container of nitric acid and a container of hydrochloric acid. The cabinet is then sealed. The mixed fumes of the acids produce a uniform rust on the surface of the parts (inside and out) in about 12 hours. The parts are then boiled in distilled water, blown dry, then carded, as with rust bluing.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: These processes were later abandoned by major firearm manufacturers as it often took parts days to finish completely, and was very labor-intensive. They are still sometimes used by gunsmiths to obtain an authentic finish for a period gun of the time that rust bluing was in vogue, analogous to the use of browning on earlier representative firearm replicas. Rust bluing is also used on shotgun barrels that are soldered to the rib between the barrels, as hot bluing solutions melt the solder during the bluing process.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Large scale industrial hot bluing is often performed using a bluing furnace. This is an alternative method for creating the black oxide coating. In place of using a hot bath (although at a lower temperature) chemically induced method, it is possible through controlling the temperature to heat steel precisely such as to cause the formation of black oxide selectively over the red oxide. It, too, must be oiled to provide any significant rust resistance.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: There are also methods of cold bluing, which do not require heat. Commercial products are widely sold in small bottles for cold bluing firearms, and these products are primarily used by individual gun owners for implementing small touch-ups to a gun's finish, to prevent a small scratch from becoming a major source of rust on a gun over time. Cold bluing is not particularly resistant to holster wear, nor does it provide a large degree of rust resistance. Often it does provide an adequate cosmetic touch-up of a gun's finish when applied and additionally oiled on a regular basis. However, rust bluing small areas often match, blend, and wear better than any cold bluing process.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: At least one of the cold bluing solutions contains selenium dioxide. These work by depositing a coating of copper selenide on the surface.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: In the nitre bluing process, polished and cleaned steel parts are immersed in a bath of molten salts—typically potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate (sometimes with of manganese dioxide per pound of total nitrate). The mixture is heated to and the parts are suspended in this solution with wire. The parts must be observed constantly for colour change. The cross section and size of parts affect the outcome of the finish and time it takes to achieve. This method must not be used on critically heat-treated parts such as receivers, slides or springs. It is generally employed on smaller parts such as pins, screws, sights, etc. The colours range through straw, gold, brown, purple, blue, teal, then black. Examples of this finish are common on older pocket watches whose hands exhibit what is called 'peacock blue', a rich iridescent blue.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Color case hardening is the predecessor of all metal coloring typically employed in the firearms industry. Contemporary heat-treatable steels did not exist or were in their infancy. Soft, low-carbon steel was used, but strong materials were needed for the receivers of firearms. Initially case hardening was used but did not offer any aesthetics. Colour case hardening occurs when soft steels were packed in a reasonably airtight crucible in a mixture of charred leather, bone charcoal and wood charcoal. This crucible was heated to for up to 6 hours (the longer the heat was applied the thicker the case hardening). At the end of this heating process the crucible is removed from the oven and positioned over a bath of water with air forced through a perforated coil in the bottom of the bath. The bottom of the crucible is opened allowing the contents to drop into the rapidly bubbling water. The differential cooling causes patterns of colors to appear as well as hardening the part.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Different colors can be achieved through variations of this method including quenching in oil instead of water.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: 'Browning' is controlled red rust , and is also known as 'pluming' or 'plum brown'. One can generally use the same solution to brown as to blue. The difference is immersion in boiling water for bluing. The rust then turns to black-blue . Many older browning and bluing formulas are based on corrosive solutions (necessary to cause metal to rust), and often contain cyanide or mercury salts solutions that are especially toxic to humans.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing is most commonly used by gun manufacturers, gunsmiths, and gun owners to improve the cosmetic appearance of and provide a measure of corrosion resistance to their firearms. It is also used by machinists, to protect and beautify tools made for their own use. Bluing also helps to maintain the metal finish by resisting superficial scratching, and also helps to reduce glare to the eyes of the shooter when looking down the barrel of the gun. All blued parts still require oiling to prevent rust. Bluing, being a chemical conversion coating, is not as robust against wear and corrosion resistance as plated coatings, and is typically no thicker than 2.5 micrometres (0.0001 inches). For this reason, it is considered not to add any appreciable thickness to precisely-machined gun parts.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: New guns are typically available in blued finish options offered as the least-expensive finish, and this finish is also the least effective at providing rust resistance, relative to other finishes such as Parkerizing or hard chrome plating or nitriding processes like Tenifer.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing is also used for providing coloring for steel parts of fine clocks and other fine metalwork. This is often achieved without chemicals by simply heating the steel until a blue oxide film appears. The blue appearance of the oxide film is also used as an indication of temperature when tempering carbon steel after hardening, indicating a state of temper suitable for springs.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing is also used in seasoning cast-iron cookware, to render it relatively rust-proof and non-stick. In this case cooking oil, rather than gun oil, acts to displace water and prevent rust.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Premium fencing blades are often offered with a blued finish. This finish allows them to be stored in high-moisture conditions, like sports bags, without rusting.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing is often a hobbyist endeavor, and there are many methods of bluing, and continuing debates about the relative efficacy of each method.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Historically, razor blades were often blued steel. A non-linear resistance property of the blued steel of razor blades, foreshadowing the same property later discovered in semiconductor diode junctions, along with the ready availability of blued steel razor blades, led to the use of razor blades as a detector in crystal set AM radios that were built by servicemen (as foxhole_radios) or by prisoners of war during World War II.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Bluing only works on steel, cast iron, or stainless steel parts for protecting against corrosion because it changes iron into FeO; it does not work on non-ferrous material. Aluminium (Al) and polymer parts cannot be blued, and no corrosion protection is provided. However, the chemicals from the bluing process can accomplish uneven staining on aluminium and polymer parts. Hot bluing should never be attempted on aluminium, as it reacts it usually dissolves in the caustic salt bath.


title: Bluing (steel)

text: Friction, as from holster wear, quickly removes cold bluing, and also removes hot bluing, rust, or fume bluing over long periods of use. It is usually inadvisable to use cold bluing as a touch-up where friction is present. If cold bluing is the only practical option, the area should be kept oiled to extend the life of the coating as much as possible.


title: Higher Love

text: "Higher Love" is a 1986 song by English singer Steve Winwood. It was the first single released from his fourth solo LP, "Back in the High Life" (1986). It was written by Winwood and Will Jennings and produced by Russ Titelman and Winwood. The female vocals on the song were performed by Chaka Khan, who also appeared in the music video.


title: Higher Love

text: "Higher Love" was Winwood's first "Billboard" Hot 100 number-one song, topping the chart for one week. "Higher Love" also spent four weeks atop the US "Billboard" Album Rock Tracks chart and earned two Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It also peaked at number 13 in the United Kingdom, Winwood's highest charting solo entry there, and reached number one in Canada for a week.


title: Higher Love

text: Whitney Houston covered the song in 1990 and it was included as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of her third studio album "I'm Your Baby Tonight". James Vincent McMorrow covered the song in 2011, on his first album "Early in the Morning". In 2016, Winwood made a version with his daughter Lilly Winwood, performing a duet for a Hershey commercial. Norwegian DJ Kygo reworked Houston's cover into a tropical house track in 2019, which was released as a single worldwide and hit number one on "Billboard" magazine's Dance Club Songs chart, making it Houston's highest-charting posthumous release to date.


title: Higher Love

text: Music engineer Tom Lord-Alge had suggested moving one of John Robinson's impromptu drum fills to the beginning of "Higher Love", by assigning a timing offset to one of two tape machines such that they first played the drum fill followed by the song coming in on the beat. Titelman was happy with the result and decided to open the album with this drum fill. JR used a Latin rimshot technique across the top of his classic seamless brass Ludwig Black Beauty snare, unmuffled, with its snare wires disengaged, to emulate the sound of a timbale. He said, "it's one of the best drum intros I've ever played."


title: Higher Love

text: Producer Russ Titelman remembered the fill being played "ad lib" by JR while his friend Chaka Khan was preparing to sing her background vocals on "Higher Love", causing Khan to exclaim "What is that shit? It sounds like voodoo shit!" Tom Lord-Alge agreed that the drum fill was played as a lark after JR completed his drum overdubs for "Higher Love". Tom said, "It was one of those happy accidents, and it happened because Chris always taught me that if the tape is rolling and there's a musician in the studio, make sure the tape machine is in record!"


title: Higher Love

text: The music video for the song was Winwood's first. It uses the shorter single version and was shot in June 1986 by directors Peter Kagan and Paula Greif. Kagan and Greif shot an almost identical video for Duran Duran's "Notorious" in November of that year; coincidentally, both videos were nominated for several awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards though neither won. Chaka Khan appears in the video, as does Nile Rodgers, who plays guitar with the backing band.


title: Higher Love

text: A cover of "Higher Love" was released as a single by Norwegian DJ and record producer Kygo and late American singer Whitney Houston on 28 June 2019. The song was released to streaming and digital download formats on 28 June 2019 by the label RCA Records. The song is the lead single from Kygo's third studio album, "Golden Hour". The song marks Houston's first posthumous release in two and a half years, following the song "Memories", which was released as a duet with Malaysian singer Siti Nurhaliza in December 2016. It was also featured in a Ford Summer Sales Event commercial in 2020.


title: Higher Love

text: Houston's cover of the Winwood track was originally included on the Japanese edition of her third studio album, "I'm Your Baby Tonight" (1990). This version of the track was produced by American musician Narada Michael Walden, and therefore Walden is credited as a producer of "Higher Love" alongside Kygo. Houston performed her rendition of "Higher Love" at the 14 dates of her 1990 "Feels So Right Tour" in Japan.


title: Higher Love

text: In the UK, "Higher Love" was a commercial success, surpassing the Winwood version in terms of chart performance. It peaked at number two in the UK Singles Chart, making it Kygo's third top ten song there and first to reach the nation's top five, and Houston's eighteenth to peak within the top ten. It is also Houston's first posthumous top 10 track. She had last reached the top ten with "Million Dollar Bill" charting at number five in October 2009. Therefore, "Higher Love" became her highest-charting single in the UK since 1999 when "My Love Is Your Love" peaked at number two. In Scotland, the song peaked at number one.


title: Higher Love

text: Since its release, "Higher Love" has reached the top five in Croatia, Flanders, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Slovakia, and Slovenia, plus the top ten in the Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, and Switzerland. It also hit the top twenty charts in Australia, Austria, China, Czech Republic, and Wallonia. In the U.S., "Higher Love" debuted at number 63 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, with 6.6 million US streams in its first week; it was also its peak position. The song topped "Billboard"'s Dance Club Songs chart in the US, becoming Kygo's third number one on the chart and Houston's fourteenth.


title: Higher Love

text: In 2019, this version of the song was covered by South African choral group Ndlovu Youth Choir in the semifinals of the 14th season of "America's Got Talent", as well as on the group's debut album, "Africa".


title: Higher Love

text: In September 2020, the song was nominated at the Billboard Music Awards for Top Dance/Electronic Song. The Recording Industry Association of America would certify the single Platinum in the USA also.


title: Higher Love

text: Notably, "Higher Love" was used immediately following Joe Biden's victory speech after his election as the 46th President of the United States on 7 November 2020. Writing for "Billboard", Katie Bain described the song's use in a political setting, writing "Indeed, after Biden shared his vision of 'a nation united, a nation strengthened. A nation healed, 'Higher Love' backed up the message, particularly for those who know all the words. ... Few sentiments could so effectively summarize the weary travails of the American collective consciousness during the past four years."


title: Higher Love

text: The song also appears on the US and European vinyl edition of Houston's hits compilation album, "" released in October 2021 on RCA Records.


title: Higher Love

text: The official video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis, was made available on YouTube on 26 August 2019. It begins with a group of men in modern clothing walking through seemingly abandoned warehouses. They are impressed to see a 1980s aerobics class led by an instructor played by Canadian actress Vanessa Morgan. After initially being shooed away, the male lead walks into the room and suddenly wears a 1980s aerobics outfit. He starts dancing with the female lead and is eventually joined by his male companions.


title: Higher Love

text: The video has brief snippets of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" music video showing on a TV along with posters of her from the 1987 "Whitney" album on the wall. In the end, the instructor is accidentally kicked in the face by one of the dancers and wakes up in a present-day outdoor café, revealing that the 1980s aerobics class was just a dream and that the male lead is actually her waiter.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin or a root vegetable such as a rutabaga or turnip. Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes from the reported phenomenon of strange lights flickering over peat bogs, called "will-o'-the-wisps" or "jack-o'-lanterns". The name is also tied to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a drunkard who bargains with Satan and is doomed to roam the Earth with only a hollowed turnip to light his way.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Jack-o'-lanterns carved from pumpkins are a yearly Halloween tradition that developed in the United States when Irish immigrants brought their root vegetable carving tradition with them. It is common to see jack-o'-lanterns used as external and internal decorations prior to and on Halloween.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: To make a jack-o'-lantern, the top of a pumpkin or turnip is cut off to form a lid, the inside flesh is scooped out, and an image—usually a "scary" or "funny" face—is carved out of the rind to expose the hollow interior. A light source, traditionally a flame from a candle or tealight, is placed within before the lid is closed. Artificial jack-o'-lanterns with electric lights are also marketed.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: The term "jack-o'-lantern" was originally used to describe the visual phenomenon "ignis fatuus" (lit., "foolish fire") known as a will-o'-the-wisp in English folklore. Used especially in East England, its earliest known use dates to the 1660s.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: The carving of vegetables has been a common practice in many parts of the world. It is believed that the custom of making jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween time began in Ireland.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: By those who made them, the lanterns were said to represent either spirits or supernatural beings, or were used to ward off evil spirits. For example, sometimes they were used by Halloween participants to frighten people, and sometimes they were set on windowsills to keep harmful spirits out of one's home. It has also been suggested that the jack-o'-lanterns originally represented Christian souls in purgatory, as Halloween is the eve of All Saints' Day (1 November)/All Souls' Day (2 November).


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: On January 16 in 1836, the "Dublin Penny Journal" published a long story on the legend of "Jack-o'-the-Lantern", although this does not mention the lantern being carved from a vegetable. In 1837, the "Limerick Chronicle" refers to a local pub holding a carved gourd competition and presenting a prize to "the best crown of Jack McLantern". The term "McLantern" also appears in an 1841 publication of the same paper.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: There is also evidence that turnips were used to carve what was called a "Hoberdy's Lantern" in Worcestershire, England, at the end of the 18th century. The folklorist Jabez Allies outlines other derivations of the name, "Hobany's", which is most likely derived from "Hob and his", with other variations including "Hob-o'-Lantern", "Hobbedy's Lantern" and "Hobbady-lantern".


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Adaptations of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) often show the Headless Horseman with a pumpkin or jack-o'-lantern in place of his severed head. (In the original story, a shattered pumpkin is discovered next to Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat on the morning after Crane's supposed encounter with the Horseman.)


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: The application of the term to carved pumpkins in American English is first seen in 1834. The carved pumpkin lantern's association with Halloween is recorded in the 1 November 1866 edition of the "Daily News" (Kingston, Ontario):


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: James Fenimore Cooper wrote a nautical novel titled "The Jack O'lantern (le Feu-Follet), Or the Privateer" (1842). "The Jack O'lantern" was the name of the ship.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in Massachusetts in 1807, wrote the poem "The Pumpkin" (1850):


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: In 1879's "Funny Nursery Rhymes", a poem admonishes children to avoid being similar to untrustworthy "Master Jack o' Lantern," described as a "wicked, deceiving boy" similar to a will-o'-the-wisp who "dances, and jumps, and gambols." He is humorously illustrated as a personification of a lantern.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became a symbol of Halloween. In 1895, an article on Thanksgiving entertaining recommended a lit jack-o'-lantern as part of the festivities.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: The story of the jack-o'-lantern comes in many forms and is similar to the story of Will-o'-the-wisp retold in different forms across Western Europe, including, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. In Switzerland, children will leave bowls of milk or cream out for mythical house spirits called Jack o' the bowl.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: An old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century tells of Stingy Jack, a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: One story says that Jack tricked Satan into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there, Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that Satan couldn't get down.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Another version of the story says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen. He then met Satan, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting Satan with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told Satan to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (Satan could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin (Satan) disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack's wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: In both folktales, Jack lets Satan go only after he agrees to never take his soul. Many years later, the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, Jack's life had been too sinful for him to go to Heaven; however, Satan had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from Hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and Satan mockingly tossed him a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or jack o'lantern.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Cornish folklorist Dr. Thomas Quiller Couch (d. 1884) recorded the use of the term in a rhyme used in Polperro, Cornwall, in conjunction with Joan the Wad, the Cornish version of Will-o'-the-wisp. The people of Polperro regarded them both as pixies. The rhyme goes:


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Jack-o-lanterns were also a way of protecting one's home against the undead. Superstitious people used them specifically to ward off vampires. They thought this because it was said that the jack-o-lantern's light was a way of identifying vampires who, once their identity was known, would give up their hunt for you.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: Sections of the pumpkin or turnip are cut out to make holes, often depicting a face, which may be either cheerful, scary, or comical.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: For a long time, Keene, New Hampshire, held the world record for most jack-o'-lanterns carved and lit in one place. The Life is Good Company teamed up with Camp Sunshine, a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families, to break the record. A record was set on October 21, 2006, when 30,128 jack-o'-lanterns were simultaneously lit on Boston Common in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Highwood, Illinois, tried to set the record on October 31, 2011, with an unofficial count of 30,919 but did not follow the Guinness regulations, so the achievement did not count.


title: Jack-o'-lantern

text: On October 19, 2013, Keene broke the Boston record and reclaimed the world record for most lit jack-o'-lanterns on display (30,581). The town has now broken the record eight times since the original attempt.


title: Carina Lau

text: Carina Lau Kar-ling (, born 8 December 1966) is a Hong Kong-Canadian actress and singer. She started her acting career in TVB, before going on to achieve success in films after 2nd year at the college. She was notable in the 1980s for her girl-next-door type roles in films. She also plays Empress Wu Zetian in Tsui Hark's "Detective Dee" films, starting with "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame" in 2010. She has won Best Actress awards at Hong Kong Film Award and Mainland China's Golden Rooster Awards, and nominated at Cannes Film Festival and Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards.


title: Carina Lau

text: Her husband is Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Lau frequently appears in the Hong Kong fashion scene and is a patron of many charities.


title: Carina Lau

text: Lau was born in Suzhou, China, in 1965. She moved to Hong Kong at the age of fifteen, and joined TVB's acting class in 1983.


title: Carina Lau

text: Lau made her on-screen debut in TVB's "The Clones" (1984) where she starred opposite of her future husband Tony Leung. She gained wider recognition after a series of appearances in successful drama series such as "The Duke of Mount Deer" and "Police Cadet" and skyrocketed to fame following her role as a wealthy heiress in one of Hong Kong's most-watched ever series, "Looking Back in Anger" (1989).


title: Carina Lau

text: Lau then expanded to films. She was nominated at the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress for her role in "Her Beautiful Life Lies" (1989). She received acclaim for her role in "Days of Being Wild" (1991), one of her many collaborations with film director Wong Kar-wai. She continued to showcase her versatility with impressive performances in martial arts epic "Saviour of the Soul" (1991), biopic "Center Stage" (1991), cross-dressing comedy "He's a Woman, She's a Man" (1994) and offbeat romance "Gigolo and Whore" (1994). Following parts in the wuxia classic "Ashes of Time" (1994) and James Bond pastiche "Forbidden City Cop" (1997), Lau once again attracted the attention of various awards juries with her measured portrayals of bisexual silk factory owner Wan in "Intimates" (1997) and a prostitute in 19th Century epic "Flowers of Shanghai" (1998).


title: Carina Lau

text: Her roles as Hon Sam's wife in the two "Infernal Affairs" sequels and an android in Wong Kar-wai's "2046" (2004) further increased Lau's international recognition. Lau then stepped in the shoes of Sarah Jessica Parker for the Hong Kong version of "Sex and the City", named "Sex and the Beauties" (2004). She won rave reviews for her performances as unhappily-married Rose in the low-budget thriller "Curiosity Kills the Cat" (2006) and as Wu Zetian in the blockbuster "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame" (2010), which earned her a Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress and a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, respectively. She reprised her role as Wu Zetian in two "Detective Dee" prequels. She received a Best Actress nomination at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as a rich housewife abandoned by her husband in "Bends" (2013).


title: Carina Lau

text: In 2016, Lau was one of the celebrities that appeared on the Chinese reality show "Up Idol". Since then, she has made guest appearances in other mainland reality TV shows. In June 2017, she and her husband were invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2021, she hosted "Reflection," a short web series interviewing various female celebrities.


title: Carina Lau

text: She was executive president of Hong Kong's TVMART channel, but was replaced by the board after a loss of 40 million Taiwan Dollars. She told the media that because she had no education, the decisions made by her had some negative influences on the company.


title: Carina Lau

text: In 1990, during the filming of "Days of Being Wild", Lau was abducted for several hours, and topless photos of her were taken. At the time, local papers, through Reuters news agency, reported that Lau was kidnapped, though a police report was not filed. It was believed at the time that the man behind the kidnapping is Albert Yeung, a successful businessman with whom Lau was having a financial dispute. Tony Leung Chiu-wai has said that Lau never wanted to talk about what happened in those missing hours with anyone, including him.


title: Carina Lau

text: Lau revealed in 2008 that she was abducted by four men working for a triad boss, as "punishment" for having refused a film offer. She said that she had not been taken advantage of during her two-hour ordeal.


title: Carina Lau

text: In October 2002, "East Week" magazine published a nude photo of an "unnamed female star" clearly in distress, with the victim's face partially blurred. The public quickly connected the photo to Lau's abduction 12 years prior.


title: Carina Lau

text: Massive protests broke out in the following days, led by various Hong Kong entertainment guilds and citizen groups. Lau appeared in front of the crowd and acknowledged that she is the person in the photo. Media ethics by Hong Kong tabloids and gossip magazines were questioned. Hong Kong police became involved and "East Week" was forced to shut down a few days later; it eventually restarted in late 2003 under new ownership. In 2009, Mong Hanming, the chief editor of "East Week" at the time of the incident, received a 5-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to publishing obscene photos.


title: Carina Lau

text: Lau had a relationship with Hong Kong tycoon Julian Hui from 1986 to 1988. They were engaged and lived together, until Hui announced their split in April 1988. The media characterized their relationship as a failed attempt on Lau's part to marry into a wealthy family, but Lau has publicly stated that their breakup was amicable, and she remains friends with Hui and his family.


title: Carina Lau

text: She has been in a relationship with Tony Leung Chiu-wai since 1989 after working together on a Hong Kong production of "Run For Your Wife". They married on 21 July 2008 at the COMO Uma Paro hotel in Bhutan. The wedding itself cost more than HK$30 million and Lau's Cartier wedding ring is worth over HK$10 million. Guests included singer Faye Wong who performed for them on their special day. Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai also directed the ceremony. The wedding created a media frenzy in Hong Kong, with companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pursue the wedding party.


title: Carina Lau

text: There have long been rumours that Leung and actress Maggie Cheung were romantically involved ever since they starred together in the film "In the Mood for Love" (2000), which is a hot topic among media outlets in Greater China due to the trio's fame. The alleged Lau-Cheung feud was put to an end in 2013 when Lau uploaded a photo of them together to social media. When asked about the rumored affair, Lau said in a 2016 interview on "The Jin Xing Show" that "it's just a beautiful story" and she "knows about the affair as much as the public does".


title: Hobby Lobby

text: Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., formerly Hobby Lobby Creative Centers, is an American retail company. It owns a chain of arts and crafts stores with a volume of over $5 billion in 2018. The chain has 969 stores in 47 US states. Hobby Lobby is owned by Christians and incorporates American conservative values and Christian media.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In 1972, David Green opened the first Hobby Lobby store in northwest Oklahoma City. Green left his supervisor position with variety store TG&Y to open a second Hobby Lobby in Oklahoma City in 1975. He opened an additional store in Tulsa, Oklahoma the next year. Hobby Lobby grew to seven stores by mid-1982, and the first store outside Oklahoma opened in 1984. When Green expanded the scope of the business to include furniture and high-end cookware during the early 1980s, it led to losses as the economy slowed. He returned to an arts and crafts emphasis and by late-1992, the chain had grown to 50 locations in seven U.S. states.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: As a Christian-owned company, Hobby Lobby incorporates American conservative values and Christian media. David Green, the son of a preacher, declares on the Hobby Lobby web site, "Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles." All stores are closed on Sundays to "allow employees time for family and worship," according to signs posted on the front doors of their retail stores.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: The company's full-time hourly wage had been $15 since 2014. They announced on September 14, 2020, that it would be raised to $17 effective October 1, 2020. It continued that trend by raising the minimum full-time hourly wage to $18.50, effective Jan. 1, 2022, while increasing its part-time minimum hourly wage by 18% to $13. Hobby Lobby says it has raised its minimum wage twelve times over the thirteen years through 2021.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: Hobby Lobby typically seeks to rent big-box facilities, such as previously occupied supermarkets, hardware stores or Kmarts in mid- to high-income suburban areas. This allows the company to save 50–70 percent on an older, existing building lease as compared with constructing a new retail space, which they view as critical to their competitive advantage in the arts and crafts industry. Their stores range in size up to , and they draw customers from a radius.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: The business and its owners have been the subject of controversies and scandals including accusations of antisemitism, homophobia, LGBTQ discrimination, attempts to evangelize public schools, "efforts to deny access to contraceptives for employees," "discrimination and illegally smuggled artifacts to endangering employees during the coronavirus pandemic."<ref name="Biron_Schlitz_9/10/2020"></ref>


title: Hobby Lobby

text: David Green took a public stance against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, citing its mandating that companies provide access to contraception and the morning-after pill. In September 2012, Hobby Lobby filed a lawsuit against the United States over new regulations requiring health insurance provided by employers to cover emergency contraceptives.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: The company released the following statement: "[T]he Green family's religious beliefs forbid them from participating in, providing access to, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting abortion-causing drugs and devices". Hobby Lobby argued that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act serve to protect their religious beliefs, and accordingly bars the application of the contraceptive mandate to them.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the company's application for an injunction, prompting the firm to sue the federal government. On July 19, 2013, US District Judge Joe Heaton granted the company a temporary exemption from the contraceptive-providing mandate. On January 28, 2014, the Center for Inquiry filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court. They argued that were the court to grant Hobby Lobby an exclusion, the firm would violate the Establishment Clause, along with part of the First Amendment. Oral arguments in the case, then known as "Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby," were heard on March 25, 2014. On June 30, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled 5–4, that Hobby Lobby and other "closely held" stock corporations can choose to be exempt from the law based on religious preferences, based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act but not on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In November 2022, "The New York Times" reported on a possible leak of the "Hobby Lobby" decision about two weeks prior to its formal announcement; this story was published following the leak and decision of "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" in June 2022 which overturned "Roe v. Wade" on abortion rights. Reverend Rob Schneck wrote to both Chief Justice John Roberts and to the "Times" stating that he had been told of which way "Hobby Lobby" was to be decided though a close associate after Schenck and his wife had a dinner party with Alito and his wife. At the time, Schneck used that information to inform Hobby Lobby and other religious organizations to prepare for the formal announcement of the decision. Schneck had opted to reveal this information in 2022 to aid in the investigation of the "Dobbs" decision leak. In 2011 through their connection to the Historical Society, Hobby Lobby's owners attended a Christmas party in Supreme Court chambers shortly before litigation was initiated which became Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In September 2013, a shopper reported being told by a store employee, in Marlboro, New Jersey, that Hobby Lobby did not carry merchandise celebrating Jewish holidays, as the store did not "cater to you people." David Green issued a formal apology to the Anti-Defamation League, who accepted it in a published statement. In addition, Steve Green, the son of David Green, issued a statement that the stores had carried Jewish items in the past, and would be testing the market to do so in the future. In 2017, Snopes re-examined this issue and reported that this claim, that Hobby Lobby was still not selling Jewish holiday merchandise, was "Outdated."


title: Hobby Lobby

text: Beginning in 2009, representatives of Hobby Lobby were warned that artifacts they were purchasing were probably looted from Iraq. The purchases had been made for the Museum of the Bible, which the company was sponsoring. In 2018, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York directed Hobby Lobby to return the artifacts and pay a fine of . Hobby Lobby returned over 5500 items in May 2018. Among these, were nearly 4000 tablets supposed to be from the lost city of Irisagrig which had been delivered to Hobby Lobby marked as "tile samples."


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In April 2020, the centerpiece of the Museum of the Bible's collection, the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, were declared to be fakes. After its authenticity was questioned, the museum removed the display of a miniature bible which a NASA astronaut had purportedly carried to the moon.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In a further blow to the Museum of the Bible's credibility, board chairman Steve Green, who is also president of the Hobby Lobby stores, announced the museum would be returning over eleven thousand artifacts to Egypt and Iraq. The collection included thousands of papyrus scraps and ancient clay pieces. University of Manchester papyrologist, Roberta Mazza, stated that the Green family "poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities, and problems of the objects".


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In early July 2017, US federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint in the Eastern District of New York under the case name "United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae". On July 5, 2017, Hobby Lobby consented to a settlement requiring forfeiture of the artifacts, the payment of a fine of $3 million, and the return of over 5500 artifacts. In January 2021, the chairman of the board of the Museum of the Bible, Steve Green, released the following statement: “We transferred control of the fine art storage facility that housed the 5,000 Egyptian items to the U.S. government as part of a voluntary administrative process. We understand the U.S. government has now delivered the papyri to Egyptian officials". That was in addition to 8000 clay objects transferred to Baghdad's Iraq Museum.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: The returned items include the "Gilgamesh Dream Tablet", containing part of the "Epic of Gilgamesh", discovered in Iraq in 1853, sold by the Jordanian Antiquities Association to an antiquities dealer in 2003, and sold again by Christie's auction house to Hobby Lobby in 2014, for $1.6 million. The auction house lied about how the artifact had entered the market, claiming it had been on the market in the United States for decades. In September 2019, federal authorities seized the tablet, and in May 2020, a civil complaint was filed to forfeit it. In July 2021, the United States Department of Justice announced it had seized the Gilgamesh tablet from Hobby Lobby for repatriation to Iraq. Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, for the Eastern District of New York, stated: “This office is committed to combating the black-market sale of cultural property and the smuggling of looted artifacts”. Hobby Lobby failed to follow expert advice on antiquities collecting which has resulted in multiple seizures and fines.


title: Hobby Lobby

text: In late March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and state and local administrations were issuing stay-at-home orders, Hobby Lobby announced its stores would remain open. The company claimed to be an essential service as they sell fabric and school supplies. In a reversal, in April 2020, Hobby Lobby closed all stores and furloughed nearly all employees without pay, announcing that they were "ending emergency leave pay and suspending use of company provided paid time off benefits and vacation."


title: Hobby Lobby

text: Trans woman Meggan Sommerville won a unanimous decision in Illinois state appellate court that she has the right to use women's room at work on August 13, 2021. She had been an employee there for 22 years, transitioned in July 2010, was written up at work for using the women's room in early 2011 and started pursuing legal remedies in February 2013. The decision also allows her to pursue the in damages awarded by the Illinois Human Rights Commission.


title: Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

text: The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co." The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in "Pollock".


text: Prior to the early 20th century, most federal revenue came from tariffs rather than taxes, although Congress had often imposed excise taxes on various goods. The Revenue Act of 1861 had introduced the first federal income tax, but that tax was repealed in 1872. During the late nineteenth century, various groups, including the Populist Party, favored the establishment of a progressive income tax at the federal level. These groups believed that tariffs unfairly taxed the poor, and they favored using the income tax to shift the tax burden onto wealthier individuals. The 1894 Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act contained an income tax provision, but the tax was struck down by the Supreme Court in the case of "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co." In its ruling, the Supreme Court did not hold that all federal income taxes were unconstitutional, but rather held that income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were direct taxes and thus had to be apportioned among the states on the basis of population.


text: For several years after "Pollock", Congress did not attempt to implement another income tax, largely due to concerns that the Supreme Court would strike down any attempt to levy an income tax. In 1909, during the debate over the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment to the states. Though conservative Republican leaders had initially expected that the amendment would not be ratified, a coalition of Democrats, progressive Republicans, and other groups ensured that the necessary number of states ratified the amendment. Shortly after the amendment was ratified, Congress imposed a federal income tax with the Revenue Act of 1913. The Supreme Court upheld that income tax in the 1916 case of "Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co.", and the federal government has continued to levy an income tax since 1913.


text: This clause basically refers to a tax on property, such as a tax based on the value of land, as well as a capitation.


text: Until 1913, customs duties (tariffs) and excise taxes were the primary sources of federal revenue. During the War of 1812, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas made the first public proposal for an income tax, but it was never implemented. The Congress did introduce an income tax to fund the Civil War through the Revenue Act of 1861. It levied a flat tax of three percent on annual income above $800. This act was replaced the following year with the Revenue Act of 1862, which levied a graduated tax of three to five percent on income above $600 and specified a termination of income taxation in 1866. The Civil War income taxes, which expired in 1872, proved to be both highly lucrative and drawing mostly from the more industrialized states, with New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts generating about sixty percent of the total revenue that was collected. During the two decades following the expiration of the Civil War income tax, the Greenback movement, the Labor Reform Party, the Populist Party, the Democratic Party and many others called for a graduated income tax.


text: The Socialist Labor Party advocated a graduated income tax in 1887. The Populist Party "demand[ed] a graduated income tax" in its 1892 platform. The Democratic Party, led by William Jennings Bryan, advocated the income tax law passed in 1894, and proposed an income tax in its 1908 platform. Proponents of the income tax generally believed that high tariff rates exacerbated income inequality, and wanted to use the income tax to shift the burden of funding the government away from working class consumers and to high-earning businessmen.


text: Before "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.", all income taxes had been considered to be indirect taxes imposed without respect to geography, unlike direct taxes, that have to be apportioned among the states according to population.


text: In 1894, an amendment was attached to the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act that attempted to impose a federal tax of two percent on incomes over $4,000 (equal to $,000 in ). The federal income tax was strongly favored in the South, and it was moderately supported in the eastern North Central states, but it was strongly opposed in the Far West and the Northeastern States (with the exception of New Jersey). The tax was derided as "un-Democratic, inquisitorial, and wrong in principle".


text: In "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.", the U.S. Supreme Court declared certain taxes on incomes, such as those on property under the 1894 Act, to be unconstitutionally unapportioned direct taxes. The Court reasoned that a tax on "income from property" should be treated as a tax on "property by reason of its ownership" and so should be required to be apportioned. The reasoning was that taxes on the rents from land, the dividends from stocks, and so forth, burdened the property generating the income in the same way that a tax on "property by reason of its ownership" burdened that property.


text: After "Pollock", while income taxes on wages (as indirect taxes) were still not required to be apportioned by population, taxes on interest, dividends, and rental income were required to be apportioned by population. The "Pollock" ruling made the "source of the income" (e.g., property versus labor, etc.) relevant in determining whether the tax imposed on that income was deemed to be "direct" (and thus required to be apportioned among the states according to population) or, alternatively, "indirect" (and thus required only to be imposed with geographical uniformity).


text: Members of Congress responded to "Pollock" by expressing widespread concern that many of the wealthiest Americans had consolidated too much economic power. Nonetheless, in the years after "Pollock", Congress did not implement another federal income tax, partly because many Congressmen feared that any tax would be struck down by the Supreme Court. Few considered attempting to impose an apportioned income tax, since such a tax was widely regarded as unworkable.


text: On June 16, 1909, President William Howard Taft, in an address to the Sixty-first Congress, proposed a two percent federal income tax on corporations by way of an excise tax and a constitutional amendment to allow the previously enacted income tax.


text: An income tax amendment to the Constitution was first proposed by Senator Norris Brown of Nebraska. He submitted two proposals, Senate Resolutions Nos. 25 and 39. The amendment proposal finally accepted was Senate Joint Resolution No. 40, introduced by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, the Senate majority leader and Finance Committee Chairman. The amendment was proposed as part of the congressional debate over the 1909 Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act; by proposing the amendment, Aldrich hoped to temporarily defuse progressive calls for the imposition of new taxes in the tariff act. Aldrich and other conservative leaders in Congress largely opposed the actual ratification of the amendment, but they believed that it had little chance of being ratified, as ratification required approval by three quarters of the state legislatures.


text: On July 12, 1909, the resolution proposing the Sixteenth Amendment was passed by the Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures. Support for the income tax was strongest in the western and southern states, while opposition was strongest in the northeastern states. Supporters of the income tax believed that it would be a much better method of gathering revenue than tariffs, which were the primary source of revenue at the time. From well before 1894, Democrats, Progressives, Populists and other left-oriented parties argued that tariffs disproportionately affected the poor, interfered with prices, were unpredictable, and were an intrinsically limited source of revenue. The South and the West tended to support income taxes because their residents were generally less prosperous, more agricultural and more sensitive to fluctuations in commodity prices. A sharp rise in the cost of living between 1897 and 1913 greatly increased support for the idea of income taxes, including in the urban Northeast. A growing number of Republicans also began supporting the idea, notably Theodore Roosevelt and the "Insurgent" Republicans (who would go on to form the Progressive Party). These Republicans were driven mainly by a fear of the increasingly large and sophisticated military forces of Japan, Britain and the European powers, their own imperial ambitions, and the perceived need to defend American merchant ships. Moreover, these progressive Republicans were convinced that central governments could play a positive role in national economies. A bigger government and a bigger military, they argued, required a correspondingly larger and steadier source of revenue to support it.


text: Opposition to the Sixteenth Amendment was led by establishment Republicans because of their close ties to wealthy industrialists, although not even they were uniformly opposed to the general idea of a permanent income tax. In 1910, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, shortly before becoming a Supreme Court Justice, spoke out against the income tax amendment. Hughes supported the idea of a federal income tax, but believed the words "from whatever source derived" in the proposed amendment implied that the federal government would have the power to tax state and municipal bonds. He believed this would excessively centralize governmental power and "would make it impossible for the state to keep any property".


text: Between 1909 and 1913, several conditions favored passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. Inflation was high and many blamed federal tariffs for the rising prices. The Republican Party was divided and weakened by the loss of Roosevelt and the Insurgents who joined the Progressive Party, a problem that blunted opposition even in the Northeast. In 1912, the Democrats won the presidency and control of both houses of Congress. The country was generally in a left-leaning mood, with a member of the Socialist Party winning a seat in the U.S. House in 1910 and the party's presidential candidate polling six percent of the popular vote in 1912.


text: Three advocates for a federal income tax ran in the presidential election of 1912. On February 25, 1913, Secretary of State Philander Knox proclaimed that the amendment had been ratified by three-fourths of the states and so had become part of the Constitution. The Revenue Act of 1913, which greatly lowered tariffs and implemented a federal income tax, was enacted shortly after the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified.


text: According to the United States Government Publishing Office, the following states ratified the amendment:


text: Ratification (by the requisite 36 states) was completed on February 3, 1913, with the ratification by Delaware. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states, bringing the total number of ratifying states to forty-two of the forty-eight then existing:


text: The legislatures of the following states rejected the amendment without ever subsequently ratifying it:


text: Congress may impose taxes on income from any source without having to apportion the total dollar amount of tax collected from each state according to each state's population in relation to the total national population.


text: In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many legal observers believed that the Supreme Court had erred in designating some income taxes as direct taxes. The Supreme Court had previously rejected the argument that income taxes constituted direct taxes in "Springer v. United States" (1881). Some legal scholars continue to question whether the Supreme Court ruled correctly in "Pollock", but others contend that the original meaning of direct taxes did indeed include income taxes.


text: The federal courts' interpretations of the Sixteenth Amendment have changed considerably over time and there have been many disputes about the applicability of the amendment.


text: In "Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad", , the Supreme Court ruled that (1) the Sixteenth Amendment removes the "Pollock" requirement that certain income taxes (such as taxes on income "derived from real property" that were the subject of the "Pollock" decision), be apportioned among the states according to population; (2) the federal income tax statute does not violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the government taking property without due process of law; (3) the federal income tax statute does not violate the Article I, Section 8, Clause1 requirement that excises, also known as indirect taxes, be imposed with geographical uniformity.


text: In "Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co.", , the Supreme Court laid out what has become the modern understanding of what constitutes "gross income" to which the Sixteenth Amendment applies, declaring that income taxes could be levied on "accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion". Under this definition, "any" increase in wealth—whether through wages, benefits, bonuses, sale of stock or other property at a profit, bets won, lucky finds, awards of punitive damages in a lawsuit, qui tam actions—are all within the definition of income, unless the Congress makes a specific exemption, as it has for items such as life insurance proceeds received by reason of the death of the insured party, gifts, bequests, devises and inheritances, and certain scholarships.


text: Federal courts have ruled that the Sixteenth Amendment allows a direct tax on "wages, salaries, commissions, etc. without apportionment".


text: Although the Sixteenth Amendment is often cited as the "source" of the congressional power to tax incomes, at least one court has reiterated the point made in "Brushaber" and other cases that the Sixteenth Amendment itself did not grant the Congress the power to tax incomes, a power the Congress had since 1789, but only removed the possible requirement that any income tax be apportioned among the states according to their respective populations. In "Penn Mutual Indemnity", the United States Tax Court stated:


text: On December 22, 2006, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated its unanimous decision (of August 2006) in "Murphy v. Internal Revenue Service and United States". In an unrelated matter, the court had also granted the government's motion to dismiss Murphy's suit against the Internal Revenue Service. Under federal sovereign immunity, a taxpayer may sue the federal government, but not a government agency, officer, or employee (with some exceptions). The Court ruled:


text: An exception to federal sovereign immunity is in the United States Tax Court, in which a taxpayer may sue the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The original three-judge panel then agreed to rehear the case itself. In its original decision, the Court had ruled that was unconstitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment to the extent that the statute purported to tax, as income, a recovery for a nonphysical personal injury for mental distress and loss of reputation not received in lieu of taxable income such as lost wages or earnings.


text: On July 3, 2007, the Court (through the original three-judge panel) ruled (1) that the taxpayer's compensation was received on account of a nonphysical injury or sickness; (2) that gross income under section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code does include compensatory damages for nonphysical injuries, even if the award is not an "accession to wealth", (3) that the income tax imposed on an award for nonphysical injuries is an indirect tax, regardless of whether the recovery is restoration of "human capital", and therefore the tax does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, that capitations or other direct taxes must be laid among the states only in proportion to the population; (4) that the income tax imposed on an award for nonphysical injuries does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, that all duties, imposts and excises be uniform throughout the United States; (5) that under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the Internal Revenue Service may not be sued in its own name.


text: The Court stated that "[a]lthough the 'Congress cannot make a thing income which is not so in fact'... it can "label" a thing income and tax it, so long as it acts within its constitutional authority, which includes not only the Sixteenth Amendment but also Article I, Sections 8 and9." The court ruled that Ms. Murphy was not entitled to the tax refund she claimed, and that the personal injury award she received was "within the reach of the Congressional power to tax under Article I, Section8 of the Constitution" even if the award was "not income within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment". See also the "Penn Mutual" case cited above.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Keisha Lance Bottoms (born January 18, 1970) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 60th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, from 2018 to 2022. She was elected mayor in 2017. Before becoming mayor, she was a member of the Atlanta City Council, representing part of Southwest Atlanta. Bottoms did not run for a second term as mayor. President Joe Biden nominated Bottoms as vice chair of civic engagement and voter protection at the DNC for the 2021–2025 term. In June 2022, Bottoms joined the Biden administration as senior advisor and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 18, 1970, to Sylvia Robinson and R&B singer-songwriter Major Lance. She was raised in Atlanta and is a graduate of Frederick Douglass High School.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: She earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Florida A&M University, concentrating in broadcast journalism. She earned a J.D. degree from Georgia State University College of Law in 1994. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was a prosecutor and also represented children in juvenile court. In 2002, she became a magistrate judge in Atlanta. In 2008, she ran unsuccessfully for a judgeship on the Fulton Superior Court.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 2009 and 2013, representing District 11 in southwest Atlanta. She served until 2017. She was concurrently the executive director of Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority starting in 2015.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was elected mayor of Atlanta in 2017, after receiving a plurality of votes (26%) in a crowded field of candidates on election day, then defeating fellow city council member Mary Norwood in the runoff election. She is the sixth African American and the second African American woman to serve as mayor of Atlanta.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was investigated during the mayoral election for several lump payments to campaign staff totaling more than $180,000 that were not reported properly. In October 2017, she voluntarily returned $25,700 in campaign contributions she had received from PRAD Group, an engineering contractor whose office had been raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation the previous month. On November 4, 2017, she called on the attorney general of Georgia to investigate fake robocalls made in her name, which her campaign said were laden with racist overtones and made primarily in areas of Atlanta largely populated by white citizens.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms declared that Atlanta was a "welcoming city" and "will remain open and welcoming to all" following then-president Donald Trump's actions regarding refugees in the United States. In 2018, she signed an executive order forbidding the city jail to hold ICE detainees. In July 2019, Bottoms said, "Our city does not support ICE. We don't have a relationship with the U.S. Marshal[s] Service. We closed our detention center to ICE detainees, and we would not pick up people on an immigration violation."


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In February 2020, Bottoms released Atlanta's first LGBTQ Affairs report that focused on how various policies, initiatives, and programs can improve the lives of LGBTQ Atlantans. In 2018, she had created the city's first LGBTQ advisory board, which included entertainer Miss Lawrence and activist Feroza Syed. In December 2020, Bottoms appointed the city's first director of LGBTQ Affairs, Malik Brown, and announced the continued LGBTQ advisory board leadership.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms strongly rebuked Georgia Governor Brian Kemp after he announced the reopening of Georgia businesses in April 2020, saying that it was too early in the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: When Atlanta experienced riots in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Bottoms condemned those involved, but later expressed optimism while speaking to demonstrators at a protest, saying, "There is something better on the other side of this." She also repeatedly condemned Trump for "making it worse" and stoking racial tensions, and encouraged people to vote, saying, "If you want change in America, go and register to vote. That is the change we need in this country." In June 2020, many Atlanta Police Department officers went on strike to protest the charges brought against the officers involved in the killing of Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms said that APD morale "is down tenfold".


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In early July 2020, as COVID-19 cases escalated in Atlanta, Bottoms issued an executive order rolling back some of its reopening measures from Phase 2 to Phase 1 and requiring everyone within the city limits to wear a facial covering, but no citations enforcing it were issued. On July 15, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp issued an order suspending all local mask mandates, and on July 16 he filed suit against Bottoms in Superior Court, seeking to invalidate her order and prevent her from talking about it. He did not file similar suits against other Georgia cities with mask mandates, such as Savannah and Athens. A hearing scheduled for July 21 was postponed when the judge recused herself.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In May 2021, Bottoms announced she would not run for reelection in the 2021 Atlanta mayoral election.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In June 2019, Bottoms endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After Biden promised during a March 2020 CNN debate to choose a woman as his running mate, "Politico" reported her as a possible pick. In June, CNN reported that Bottoms was among his top four choices, along with Representative Val Demings and Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Harris was officially announced as Biden's running mate on August 11, 2020.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was named a permanent co-chair of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, at which she was featured as a speaker.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: After Biden's election, Bottoms was mentioned as a possible candidate for United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In January 2021, Biden and Harris nominated Bottoms for a four-year term as the vice chair of civic engagement and voter participation at the Democratic National Committee, a role focused on protecting voting rights and expanding voter participation.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In June 2022, it was announced that President Joe Biden had picked Bottoms to replace Cedric Richmond as the director of the Office of Public Liaison.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms's family history can be traced back five generations to Shepherd Peek, a freedman from a plantation near Crawfordville, who may have served in the Georgia state legislature during Reconstruction.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: In October 1994, she married Derek W. Bottoms at Ben Hill United Methodist Church in Atlanta. They met three years earlier during their first year as students at Georgia State University College of Law. After unsuccessful attempts to conceive biologically, they adopted their four children.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Her husband is the vice president of employment practices and associate relations for The Home Depot. He joined the company in 2000, after spending more than five years at the law firm of Powell Goldstein. He has served as a board member for several foundations.


title: Keisha Lance Bottoms

text: Bottoms was invited to become a member of The Links, a social and service organization of prominent Black women that was founded in 1946 and is based in Washington, D.C.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: The France national under-21 football team (), known in France as Les Espoirs (, "The Hopes"), is the national under-21 football team of France and is controlled by the French Football Federation. The team competes in the UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship, held every two years.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: Following the realignment of UEFA's youth competitions in 1976, under-21 football teams in Europe were formed. The team is exclusively for football players that are age 21 or under at the start of the two-year campaign of the UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship meaning a player can represent the national team until the age of 23.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: France has won the UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship once in 1988. Notable players on the team that went on to play for the senior national team include Laurent Blanc, Eric Cantona, Franck Sauzée, and Jocelyn Angloma, among others. Blanc was named the tournament's Golden Player. The team's best finish since was in 2002 when the team finished runner-up to the Czech Republic in Switzerland.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: The France under-21 team does not have a permanent home. The team plays in stadiums located all around France, particularly grounds of Ligue 2 clubs. Because of the smaller demand compared to the senior national team, smaller facilities are used. Recently, the under-21 team has established the Stade Auguste-Delaune II, home of Stade Reims, as a home residence having played numerous matches there over the past two seasons.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: Though, under-21 teams weren't formed until 1976, "Les Espoirs", a youth national team in France, had existed since 1950 playing its first match on 22 May 1952 defeating England 7–1 at the Stade Jules Deschaseaux in Le Havre. The team's next match was two years later suffering a 3–1 defeat to Italy in Vicenza. For the rest of the decade, the youth team played seven more matches, which included a 1–1 draw with Hungary in Budapest and a 2–0 loss to England in Sunderland in 1959. In the 1960s, "Espoirs" continued to play matches against fellow national youth sides. However, on 18 December 1968, the team contested a match against Algeria senior team in Algiers recording an impressive 5–2 victory. Four days later, the team draw 1–1 with the under-23 team of Algeria in Oran. On 12 February 1969, the "Espoirs" played the Hungary senior team at the Stade Gerland in Lyon. The match ended in a 2–2 draw.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: For the 2021–22 and 2022–23 seasons, including the 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, players born on or after 1 January 2000 are eligible.


title: France national under-21 football team

text: The following 23 players were called up for friendly matches against Norway on 19 November 2022, respectively.


title: Rick Yune

text: Rick Yune (born August 22, 1971) is an American actor of Korean descent. His most notable roles have been in the movies "Snow Falling on Cedars", the first "Fast and Furious" film "The Fast and the Furious", the James Bond movie "Die Another Day", and "Olympus Has Fallen". He was part of the main cast of the Netflix original series "Marco Polo".


title: Rick Yune

text: Yune was born in Washington D.C. to mother Park Wonhui and father Yun Taeho, who were both Korean. His younger brother is actor Karl Yune.