title: Security guard

text: Security personnel are not police officers, unless they are security police. Security personnel derive their powers from state or provincial laws, which allow them a contractual arrangement with clients that give them Agent of the Owner powers. This includes a nearly unlimited power to question with the absence of probable cause requirements that frequently dog public law enforcement officers. In essence, security officers keep private property / persons safe from hazards, whereas police officers protect entire communities by enforcing laws and arresting suspected offenders. Some jurisdictions do commission or deputize security officers and give them limited additional powers, particularly when employed in protecting public property such as mass transit stations. This is a special case that is often unique to a particular jurisdiction or locale. Additionally, security officers may also be called upon to act as an agent of law enforcement if a police officer, sheriff's deputy, etc. is in immediate need of help and has no available backup.


title: Security guard

text: Some security officers do have reserve police powers and are typically employed directly by governmental agencies. Typically, these are sworn law enforcement personnel whose duties primarily involve the security of a government installation, and are also a special case. Other local and state governments occasionally enter into special contracts with security agencies to provide patrol services in public areas. These personnel are sometimes referred to as "private police officers". Sometimes, police officers work as security personnel while not on duty. This is usually done for extra income, and work is particularly done in hazardous jobs such as bodyguard work and bouncers outside nightclubs. Police are called in when a situation warrants a higher degree of authority to act upon reported observations that security does not have the authority to act upon. However, some states allow Licensed Security Officers full arrest powers equal to those of a Sheriff's Deputy.


title: Security guard

text: In 1976, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration's National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals reported:


title: Security guard

text: One massive resource, filled with significant numbers of personnel, armed with a wide array of technology, and directed by professionals who have spent their entire adult lifetimes learning how to prevent and reduce crime, has not been tapped by governments in the fight against criminality. The private security industry, with over one million workers, sophisticated alarm systems and perimeter safeguards, armored trucks, sophisticated mini-computers, and thousands of highly skilled crime prevention experts, offers a potential for coping with crime that can not be equalled by any other remedy or approach... Underutilized by police, all but ignored by prosecutors and the judiciary, and unknown to corrections officials, the private security professional may be the only person in this society who has the knowledge to effectively prevent crime.


title: Security guard

text: In New York City, the Area Police/Private Security Liaison program was organized in 1986 by the NYPD commissioner and four former police chiefs working in the private security industry to promote mutual respect, cross-training, and sharing of crime-related information between public police and private security.


title: Security guard

text: In 2006, the Australian Bureau of Statistics Report showed that private security personnel outnumbered police, with 52,768 full-time security officers in the security industry compared to 44,898 police officers. However, since the Security Industry Regulation Act of 2007 it has dropped to less than half of that.


title: Security guard

text: In Bangladesh, private companies and residential authorities may assign security guards. Some are trained to use firearms and manage emergency situations, but the majority of them are untrained and only assigned for their physical strength and presence.


title: Security guard

text: The trend in the UK is one of polarization. Manned guarding, the security industry term for the security guards most people are familiar with, is diverging toward two opposite extremes; one typified by a highly trained and well paid security officer; the other with security officers on or about minimum wage with only the minimum training required by law. Within the "in-house" sector, where security personnel are not subject to licensing under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, the same divergence can be seen, with some companies opting for in-house security to maintain control of their standards, while others use it as a route to cheaper, non-regulated, security. In a very few cases, such as the Northern Ireland Security Guard Service, security guards may be attested as Special Constables.


title: Security guard

text: Economist Robert B. Reich, in his 1991 book "The Work of Nations", stated that in the United States, the number of private security guards and officers was comparable to the number of publicly paid police officers. He used this phenomenon as an example of the general withdrawal of the affluent from existing communities where governments provide public services. Instead, the wealthy pay to provide their own premium services, through voluntary, exclusive associations. As taxpayer resistance has limited government budgets, and as the demand for secure homes in gated communities has grown, these trends have continued in the 1990s and 2000s. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the trend in the US is one of a quiet transformation of the role of security guards into first responders in case of a terrorist attack or major disaster. This has resulted in longer guard instruction hours, extra training in terrorism tactics and increased laws governing private security companies in some states.


title: Security guard

text: The "vigiles" were soldiers assigned to guard the city of Rome, often credited as the origin of both security personnel and police, although their principal duty was as a fire brigade. There have been night watchmen since at least the Middle Ages in Europe; walled cities of ancient times also had watchmen. A special chair appeared in Europe sometime in the late Middle Ages, called the watchman's chair; this unupholstered wooden chair had a forward slanting seat to prevent the watchman from dozing off during duty.


title: Security guard

text: Many security guards in Canada are unionized. The primary unions which represent security guards in Canada are the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Local 333, and the Canadian branch of the United Steelworkers (USW). In contrast to the legal restrictions in the United States, Canadian labour relations boards will certify bargaining units of security guards for a Canadian Labour Congress (CLC)-affiliated union or in the same union with other classifications of employees.


title: Security guard

text: In June 1947, the United States Congress passed the Taft–Hartley Act placing many restrictions on labor unions. Section 9 (B) (3) of the act prevents the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from certifying for collective bargaining any unit which mixes security employees with non-security employees. This restricts the ability of security employees to join any union that also represents other types of employees. They may be part of an independent, "security-only" union, not affiliated with any coalition of other types of labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). A union which also represents non-security employees may also represent and bargain on behalf of security employees with the employer's consent. Two of the largest security unions are the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) and the United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA), but the largest union of security officers is SEIU 32BJ, which as of 2018 had over 30,000 security officers.


title: Security guard

text: In 1948 with the Taft–Hartley restrictions well into effect, the Detroit, Michigan area security guards of United Auto Workers (UAW) Amalgamated Local 114 were forced to break away and start a separate "Plant Guards Organizing Committee". The NLRB ruled that as an affiliate of the CIO, the committee was indirectly affiliated with production unions and therefore ineligible for certification under the new restrictions. The committee was then forced to completely withdraw from the CIO and start the independent United Plant Guard Workers of America. By the 1990s, this union had evolved to include many other types of security officers and changed its name to the SPFPA.


title: Security guard

text: In 1992, the UGSOA was formed. It specializes in organizing federal, state, and local government security officers, but since May, 2000 has been open to representing other types of security personnel as well.


title: Security guard

text: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also sought to represent security employees, although its efforts have been complicated by the Taft-Harley Act because the SEIU also represents janitors, trash collectors, and other building service employees.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Sarah Jill "Lalla" Ward (born 28 June 1951) is an English actress, voice artist and author. She is best known for playing the role of Romana II in the BBC television series "Doctor Who" from 1979 to 1981.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward's stage name, "Lalla", originates from her attempts as a toddler to pronounce her own name. She left school at age 14 because she "loathed every single minute of it", and took her O-levels on her own. Ward studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama from 1968 to 1971. After spending a few years painting, she auditioned at London drama schools "as a sort of dare" to herself:


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward began her acting career in the Hammer horror film "Vampire Circus" (1972), and played Lottie, the teenage daughter of Louisa Trotter (Gemma Jones) in "The Duchess of Duke Street", the BBC drama series of the mid-1970s. She appeared in the films "England Made Me" (1973), "Matushka" (1973), "Rosebud" (1975), and "Crossed Swords" (or "The Prince and the Pauper") (1977). In 1974, she acted in a film called "Got It Made", directed by James Kenelm Clarke. "Club International" magazine ran a set of nude pictures, claiming they were of her but actually featuring images from the 1978 film "Sweet Virgin", and Ward successfully sued the magazine. Her television work included "The Upper Crusts" (1973) as the daughter of Margaret Leighton and Charles Gray, "Van der Valk" (1973), "The Protectors" (1973), "Quiller" (1975), "Who Pays the Ferryman?" (1977), as Jill Haydon, daughter of the underworld crime boss William Henry (Bill) Hayden in an episode of the hard-hitting British police drama "The Professionals", the episode entitled "When the Heat Cools Off" (1978) and "Hazell" (1979). In 1980, she played Ophelia to Derek Jacobi's "Hamlet" in the BBC television production.


title: Lalla Ward

text: She was the second actress to play the Time Lord Romana in "Doctor Who". After a guest appearance as Princess Astra in the "Doctor Who" story "The Armageddon Factor" in 1979, Ward was chosen to replace Mary Tamm, who had decided against continuing in the role. She appeared in all of Season 17's stories and then her character was written out in the third to last story of Season 18 in the story entitled "Warriors' Gate".


title: Lalla Ward

text: After "Doctor Who", she appeared in the TV movie "Schoolgirl Chums" (1982), and "The Jeweller's Shop" and "The Rehearsal" on stage. Ward decided to end her acting career after marrying Richard Dawkins. However, she has since reprised the character of Romana in the 1993 charity special "Dimensions in Time," the 2003 webcast version of "Shada", and in several "Doctor Who" and "Gallifrey" audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions. She also played the 'Mistress' opposite John Leeson's 'K-9' in two audio plays from BBV. In addition, she has appeared at a number of "Doctor Who" conventions and related special events. In November 2013 she appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot".


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward has recorded audio books, including Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" and "Shada" by Gareth Roberts and Douglas Adams. She co-narrated "The Selfish Gene", "The Ancestor's Tale", "The God Delusion", "The Blind Watchmaker" and "" with her then husband. In the 1980s. She also wrote two books on knitting and one on embroidery. Ward is a keen chef, and she contributed a recipe to "The Doctor Who Cookbook" which was edited by Gary Downie.


title: Lalla Ward

text: She also provided illustrations for "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Astrology for dogs (and owners)" by William Fairchild (1980).


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward is a textile artist and ceramicist. Her subjects are rare and endangered animals. She refers to her technique of creating fabric pictures as "thread drawing", considering this a more accurate term for her work than the commonly used "thread painting".


title: Lalla Ward

text: In 2009, at the suggestion of the Gerald Durrell Foundation, she prepared an exhibition of textiles and ceramics on the theme of Galapagos wildlife. The auction raised £24,000 for the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust's campaign for the Floreana mockingbird and other wildlife of Galapagos.


title: Lalla Ward

text: She has shown three exhibitions at the National Theatre, London. Her 2010 textiles exhibition, "Stranded", was inspired by the evolution of animals on islands. In 2011, "Migration" featured works which combined textiles and ceramics, the subjects seeming to move across both media. The theme of "Vanishing Act", 2013, was camouflage. As with previous shows, Ward made available detailed instructions explaining her techniques. She also used one glass case to recreate her workspace, including such sources of inspiration as music, quotes, and a photo of her dog.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward has served for almost 20 years on the committee of the Actors' Charitable Trust (TACT) and 10 years as a trustee. Alongside Richard and Sheila Attenborough, she led a successful £7.5 million redevelopment of the actors' care home Denville Hall.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward was in a relationship with her co-star Tom Baker whilst working on "Doctor Who", and they lived together in a flat in Deptford. The couple married in December 1980, but the marriage lasted only 16 months. Ward attributed the separation to work commitments, different lifestyles and conflicts of interest. Regarding her marriage to Baker, Ward is quoted as saying:


title: Lalla Ward

text: Ward said in 2004 that her long friendship with Douglas Adams, with whom she worked on "Doctor Who", meant more to her and was "more valuable and more enduring" than her marriage to Baker.


title: Lalla Ward

text: In 1992, at his 40th birthday party, Adams introduced her to his friend Richard Dawkins (biologist and author of books including "The Selfish Gene", "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The God Delusion"). Ward and Dawkins married later that year. In 2016, in a joint statement, the couple announced their amicable separation after 24 years of marriage.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Sarah Ward is the daughter of Edward Ward, 7th Viscount Bangor, and his fourth wife, Marjorie Alice Banks; as such, she is entitled to use the courtesy title "The Honourable". Her father was the BBC's war correspondent in Finland at the beginning of the Second World War, while her mother was a writer and BBC producer specialising in dramatised documentaries. Her mother, Lady Bangor, committed suicide in July 1991.


title: Lalla Ward

text: She has a brother, Edward, two years her junior; and a half-brother, William, who is The 8th Viscount Bangor, three years her senior. Through her father, she is descended from The 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, and from The 1st Earl of Peterborough, from The 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and from The 1st Viscount Bangor.


title: Lalla Ward

text: Her great-grandmother Mary Ward was an Anglo-Irish illustrator and amateur scientist, documented as the first person in the world to die in a motor vehicle accident.


title: Darfur

text: Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. "Dār" is an Arabic word meaning "home [of]" – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. Darfur was an independent sultanate for several hundred years until it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. As an administrative region, Darfur is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. Because of the War in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the indigenous population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency and genocide since 2003. The factors include religious and ethnic rivalry, and the rivalry between farmers and herders.


title: Darfur

text: The first historical mention of the word "Fur" occurs in 1664 in the account by J. M. Vansleb, a German traveler, of a visit to Egypt (Petermann (1862-3). Mittheilungen, Erganzungsband II). It is claimed that, like "sūdān", "fūr" means "blacks", and was the name given by the early light-colored Berber sultans of Darfur to the original inhabitants of the country such as the Binga, Banda, etc. As the historic dynasty's physical appearance became more "Africanized" from intermarriage with black wives and concubines, the appearance of the sultans darkened correspondingly and they became known by the appellation of their subjects, "Fūr".


title: Darfur

text: Darfur covers an area of , approximately the size of mainland Spain. It is largely a semi-desert plateau with the Marrah Mountains (Jebel Marra), a range of volcanic peaks rising up to of topographic prominence, in the center of the region. The region's main towns are Al Fashir, Geneina, and Nyala.


title: Darfur

text: There are four main features of its physical geography. The whole eastern half of Darfur is covered with plains and low hills of sandy soils, known as "goz", and sandstone hills. In many places the "goz" is waterless and can only be inhabited where there are water reservoirs or deep boreholes. While dry, "goz" may also support rich pasture and arable land. To the north the "goz" is overtaken by the desert sands of the Sahara. A second feature are the "wadis", which range from seasonal watercourses that flood only occasionally during the wet season to large "wadis" that flood for most of the rains and flow from western Darfur hundreds of kilometres west to Lake Chad. Many "wadis" have pans of alluvium with rich heavy soil that are also difficult to cultivate. Western Darfur is dominated by the third feature, basement rock, sometimes covered with a thin layer of sandy soil. Basement rock is too infertile to be farmed, but provides sporadic forest cover that can be grazed by animals. The fourth and final feature are the Marrah Mountains and Daju Hills, volcanic plugs created by a massif, that rise up to a peak at Deriba crater where there is a small area of temperate climate, high rainfall and permanent springs of water.


title: Darfur

text: Remote sensing has detected the imprint of a vast underground lake under Darfur. The potential water deposits are estimated at . The lake, during epochs when the region was more humid, would have contained about of water. It may have dried up thousands of years ago.


title: Darfur

text: Most of the region consists of a semi-arid plain and thus appears unsuitable for developing a large and complex civilization. But the Marrah Mountains offer plentiful water, and by the 12th century the Daju people, succeeding the semi-legendary Tora culture, created the first historical attestable kingdom. They were centered in the Marrah Mountains and left records of valuable rock engravings, stone architecture and a (orally preserved) list of kings. The Tunjur replaced the Daju in the fourteenth century and the Daju established new headquarters in Abyei, Denga, Darsila and Mongo in the current Chad. The Tunjur sultans intermarried with the Fur and sultan Musa Sulayman (reigned c.1667 to c.1695) is considered the founder of the Keira dynasty. Darfur became a great power of the Sahel under the Keira dynasty, expanding its borders as far east as the Atbarah River and attracting immigrants from Bornu and Bagirmi. During the mid-18th century conflict between rival factions wracked the country, and external war pitted Darfur against Sennar and Wadai. In 1875, the weakened kingdom was destroyed by the Egyptian ruler set up in Khartoum, largely through the machinations of Sebehr Rahma, a slave-trader, who was competing with the dar over access to ivory in Bahr el Ghazal to the south of Darfur.


title: Darfur

text: The Darfuris were restive under Egyptian rule, but were no more predisposed to accept the rule of the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, when in 1882 his Emir of Darfur, who came from the Southern Darfur Arab Rizeigat tribe led by Sheikh Madibbo, defeated the Ottoman forces led by Slatin Pasha (that had just invaded Egypt earlier that year) in Darfur. When Ahmad's successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, himself an Arab of Southern Darfur from the Ta’isha tribe, demanded that the pastoralist tribes provide soldiers, several tribes rose up in revolt. Following the defeat of Abdallahi at Omdurman in 1899 by an Anglo-Egyptian expeditionary force, the new Anglo-Egyptian government recognized Ali Dinar as the sultan of Darfur and largely left the Dar to its own affairs except for a nominal annual tribute. In 1916, after the British government suspected that the sultan was falling under the influence of the Ottoman government, launched an expedition from Egypt to capture and annex Darfur into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The colonial government directed financial and administrative resources to the tribes of central Sudan near Khartoum - while the outlying regions such as Darfur remained mostly forgotten and ignored.


title: Darfur

text: A pattern of skewed economic development continued after Sudan achieved political independence in 1956. The proxy wars between Sudan, Libya and Chad added an element of political instability. Darfurians, mainly those who self-identified as "Arab" and "African" people, began to respond to the ideology of Arab supremacy propagated by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (in power 1969-2011). A famine in the mid-1980s disrupted many societal structures and led to the first significant modern fighting amongst Darfuris. A low-level conflict continued for the next fifteen years, with the government co-opting and arming Arab Janjaweed militias against its enemies. The fighting reached a peak in 2003 with the beginning of the Darfur conflict, in which the resistance coalesced into a roughly cohesive rebel movement. Human-rights groups and the UN, March, 2004, came to regard the conflict as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Insurgency and counter-insurgency have led to 480,000 deaths (the Khartoum government disputes the numbers). This has been labeled as Darfur genocide. "By 2010 about 300,000 had died, according to the UN best estimate, and about 3,000,000 were forced into refugee camps." Over 2.8 million people have become displaced since 2003, many of whom were children (see Lost Boys of Sudan). Many of these refugees have gone into camps where emergency aid has created conditions that, although extremely basic, are better than in the villages, which offer no protection against the various militias that operate in the region.


title: Darfur

text: Nearly two-thirds of the population continues to struggle to survive in remote villages. Virtually no foreigners visit the region because of the fear of kidnapping, and only some non-governmental organizations continue to provide long-term grass-roots assistance. the United Nations is in discussion with the Government of Sudan over the withdrawal of UNAMID, the peacekeeping force, which is the largest in the world. Other UN agencies (such as the WFP) might exit.


title: Darfur

text: During the existence of the Calais Jungle refugee camp, Darfur was listed as a major source of the camp's inhabitants.


title: Darfur

text: The Government of Sudan and the Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minnawi signed a Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006. Only one rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement, subscribed to the agreement; the Justice and Equality Movement rejected it, resulting in a continuation of the conflict. The agreement includes provisions for wealth-sharing and power-sharing and established a Transitional Darfur Regional Authority to help administer Darfur until a referendum could take place on the future of the region. The leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement, Minni Minnawi, was appointed Senior Assistant to the President of Sudan and Chairman of the transitional authority in 2007..


title: Darfur

text: In December 2010, representatives of the Liberation and Justice Movement, an umbrella organisation of ten rebel groups, formed in February of that year, started a fresh round of talks with the Sudanese Government in Doha, Qatar. A new rebel group, the Sudanese Alliance Resistance Forces in Darfur, was formed and the Justice and Equality Movement planned further talks. The talks ended on December 19 without a new peace agreement, but participants agreed on basic principles, including a regional authority and a referendum on autonomy for Darfur. The possibility of a Darfuri Vice-President was also discussed.


title: Darfur

text: In January 2011, the leader of the Liberation and Justice Movement, Dr. Tijani Sese, stated that the movement had accepted the core proposals of the Darfur peace document proposed by the joint-mediators in Doha; the proposals included a $300,000,000 compensation package for victims of atrocities in Darfur and special courts to conduct trials of persons accused of human-rights violations. Proposals for a new Darfur Regional Authority were also included; this authority would have an executive council of 18 ministers and would remain in place for five years. The current three Darfur states and state governments would also continue to exist during this period. In February 2011 the Sudanese Government rejected the idea of a single region headed by a vice-president from the region.


title: Darfur

text: On 29 January, the leaders of the Liberation and Justice Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement issued a joint statement affirming their commitment to the Doha negotiations and agreement to attend the Doha forum on 5 February. The Sudanese government had not yet agreed to attend the forum on that date and instead favoured an internal peace process without the involvement of rebel groups. Later in February, the Sudanese Government agreed to return to the Doha peace forum with a view to complete a new peace agreement by the end of that month. On 25 February, both the Liberation and Justice Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement announced that they had rejected the peace document proposed by the mediators in Doha. The main sticking points were the issues of a Darfuri vice-president and compensation for victims. The Sudanese government had not commented on the peace document.


title: Darfur

text: At the Doha Peace Forum in June, the Joint Mediators proposed a new Darfur Peace Agreement, which would supersede the Abuja Agreement of 2005 and if signed, would halt preparations for a Darfur status referendum. The proposal included provisions for a Darfuri Vice-President and an administrative structure that includes both the three states and a strategic regional authority, the Darfur Regional Authority, to oversee Darfur as a whole. The new agreement was signed by the Government of Sudan and the Liberation and Justice Movement on 14 July. The Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement did not sign the new document at that time but had three months in which to do so if they wished.


title: Darfur

text: A comprehensive peace agreement was signed on 31 August 2020 in Juba, South Sudan, between the Sudanese authorities and rebel factions to end armed hostilities.


title: Darfur

text: Languages of Darfur include Fur, Daju, Erenga (or Sungor), Fongoro, Fulbe (or Fulfulde), Fur (thus the name of the region), Masalit, Sinyar, Tama, Midob, and Zaghawa.


title: Darfur

text: The region is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. The Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006 established a Transitional Darfur Regional Authority as an interim authority for the region. The agreement stated that a referendum on the status of Darfur should be held no later than 2011. Minni Minnawi was the first chair of this authority, holding that office from April 2007 until December 2010, when he was succeeded by Shartai Jaafar Abdel Hakam. The peace agreement that was signed in July 2011 saw the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority reconstituted as the Darfur Regional Authority with executive and legislative functions. The chairperson of the Darfur Regional Authority, Tijani Sese, assumed the post on 20 September 2011. The regional authority was dissolved in July 2016 following a referendum, on the status of the Darfur region within Sudan. As part of the Sudanese transition to democracy, a Darfur Regional Government was created in August 2021 with Minni Minawi as Regional Governor.


title: Darfur

text: In 2008, Darfur's population was 7.5 million. This in an increase by nearly six times from 1973 (1.3 million). 52% are aged 16 years or younger.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Vivienne Medrano (born October 28, 1992), also known as VivziePop, is a Salvadoran American animator, illustrator, comic creator and voice actress. She is best known as the creator of the adult animated series "Hazbin Hotel" and "Helluva Boss".


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Prior to joining YouTube, Medrano did assistant work on a thesis horror comedy film by Zach Bellissimo titled "Blanderstein", in 2011.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Medrano launched her YouTube channel under the screen name "VivziePop" in 2012, building a dedicated online audience, who enjoyed her fanwork and original creations. In 2013, she started a webcomic titled "ZooPhobia", which ultimately ran until 2016, ending so that she could find more time to develop "Hazbin Hotel". Medrano directed her first short animated film, titled "Son of 666" in 2013. Medrano released her fourth year thesis film entitled "Timber" in 2014, for which she won a Dusty Award in "Outstanding Achievement in Character Animation". Medrano named the film after the song by Pitbull and Kesha, and its score had homages to the song as well. In October 2014, she released an animated music video for the song "Die Young" by Kesha, which accumulated over 50 million views by October 2019. As a result, she became "relatively well-known" online for her animation and artwork, some of which she shared on her channel.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Medrano received a Bachelor in Fine Arts and graduated from School of Visual Arts in August 2014. She worked as a freelance animator for two years. She continued to work on her webcomic "ZooPhobia" until 2016, when she ended it in order to focus her attention on "Hazbin Hotel". "Hazbin Hotel" would be crowdfunded through Patreon, allowing her to hire a small team and collaborate with specialists so the show would have a "high production value". It also allowed her to create merchandise for the show, thus leading to more funds.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Medrano founded the animation studio SpindleHorse Toons, under which the pilot for "Hazbin Hotel", the pilot and first season for "Helluva Boss", and several animated shorts would be released. Medrano serves as the director, writer and character designer for SpindleHorse Toons. Medrano released the first trailer for "Hazbin Hotel" in April 2018.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In February 2019, her channel had amassed over 1.2 million subscribers. By April 2019, it was reported that total views on her channel had reached more than 163 million. In an interview with Cartoon Brew, she said that much of the "Hazbin Hotel" pilot was funded by money from her Patreon, rather than income from YouTube's algorithm. The company Horseless Cowboy assisted Medrano with voice casting during the first season of "Helluva Boss", with Richard Steven Horvitz serving as the voice director. Lucas Bermudez of "Screen Rant" attributed the success of "Hazbin Hotel" as the sole reason for "Helluva Boss" being greenlit.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In October 2019, the pilot episode of "Hazbin Hotel" was released on Medrano's YouTube channel. Within two days of the pilot's release, it garnered over 2 million views. In November 2019, the pilot of "Helluva Boss" was released on her YouTube channel as well. Medrano stated that, while the two shows share a setting, "Hazbin Hotel" is about "redemption and consequences of past actions", while "Helluva Boss" follows "characters and societies that already exist in Hell" with the main focus being on the relationships between characters.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In July 2020, Medrano released an animated music video for "Hazbin Hotel" called "Addict", featuring the Silva Hound song of the same name.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In August 2020, "Hazbin Hotel" was picked up for a full series by A24. At that time, Cartoon Brew reported that the pilot for the series had been viewed over 41 million times and that her channel had accumulated over 3.6 million subscribers, noting that she "developed and produced her "original pilot without any studio involvement". "Animation Magazine" said that A24 was taking a "bold step" by picking up the series.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: On September 30, 2020, Medrano released an animated short film titled "Bad Luck Jack", based on her webcomic "ZooPhobia". The short was nominated and won for a Ursa Major Award in the "Best Dramatic Short Work" category. The short was also listed as a "Recommended Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work" on the Ursa Major Award website.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In October 2020, the first episode of the first season for "Helluva Boss" began, almost one year after the original release of its pilot. Eight episodes were ordered, all of which would be released on her YouTube channel for free. "Animation Magazine" reported that the pilots of "Hazbin Hotel" and "Helluva Boss" had been, collectively, viewed over 65 million times by October 7.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In February 2021, Medrano told Insider that "Helluva Boss" remains independent of "Hazbin Hotel", saying that she intended to keep it that way as "long as the audience wants to keep seeing it", adding that they have "a plan for where the story goes and ends", noting that having an ending seems "surreal".


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In September 2021, Medrano spoke on a virtual stage at the Animation Exposé of the Ottawa International Animation Festival about creating "Hazbin Hotel" and "Helluva Boss". She was joined by Bryan Dimas, the associate producer of development at Warner Bros. Animation and co-director of a group called LatinX in Animation.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: On March 3, 2022, Medrano said that many of the artists who worked on the "Hazbin Hotel" pilot would be returning for the first season and argued that "indie spirit of the pilot lives on." Along with SpindleHorse Toons, Princess Bento Studio, a studio created by Bento Box Entertainment and Princess Pictures, will be producing the series. In late February and mid-March, redesigns of Alastor and Charlie had been released on the official Twitter account of "Hazbin Hotel". On April 29, 2022, the official Twitter account of "Hazbin Hotel" released an image of Angel Dust's new design. On May 31, 2022, the official Twitter account posted an image of Vaggie's redesign, calling her the "protector of the hotel."


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In February 2017, she shared an illustration of a Lego Joker, which "Inverse" called "grotesque yet adorable," saying it captures the "complicated love-hate relationship between the Clown Prince of Crime and the Dark Knight". From 2017 to 2019, she worked as an animator on Nico Colaleo's DreamWorksTV series, "Too Loud". She called her experience on the series "a delight." She also worked as a character designer on the series.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In 2019, Medrano was interviewed for the documentary titled "Hand-Drawn: 2D Animation Documentary". In March 2021, it was reported that she was a partner of Redefine Entertainment, a management company formed by Jairo Alvarado, Tony Gil, and Max Goldfarb.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: In May 2022, LatinX in Animation announced that Medrano would hold a "cafecito" on June 3, 2022 during Animation Day at the 21st Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.


title: Vivienne Medrano

text: Medrano was born in Frederick, Maryland and is a Salvadoran American. She became interested in animation when she watched the movie "Bambi". She began using art programs such as MS Paint in third grade. Her early art was heavily influenced by "Invader Zim." Medrano moved to New York City and began attending School of Visual Arts in September 2010 and would later graduate in 2014. Medrano is bisexual.


title: William Shockley

text: William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".


title: William Shockley

text: Partly as a result of Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s, California's Silicon Valley became a hotbed of electronics innovation.


title: William Shockley

text: In his later life, while a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University and afterward, Shockley became widely known for his racist views and advocacy of eugenics.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was born to American parents in London on February 13, 1910, and was raised in his family's hometown of Palo Alto, California, from the age of three. His father, William Hillman Shockley, was a mining engineer who speculated in mines for a living and spoke eight languages. His mother, May (née Bradford), grew up in the American West, graduated from Stanford University and became the first female U.S. Deputy mining surveyor. Shockley was homeschooled up to the age of eight, due to his parents' dislike of public schools as well as Shockley's habit of violent tantrums. Shockley learned some physics at a young age from a neighbor who was a Stanford physics professor. Shockley spent two years at Palo Alto Military Academy, then briefly enrolled in the Los Angeles Coaching School to study physics and later graduated from Hollywood High School in 1927.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech in 1932 and a PhD from MIT in 1936. The title of his doctoral thesis was "Electronic Bands in Sodium Chloride", a topic suggested by his thesis advisor, John C. Slater.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was one of the first recruits to Bell Labs by Mervin Kelly, who became director of research at the company in 1936 and focused on hiring solid-state physicists. Shockley joined a group headed by Clinton Davisson in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Executives at Bell Labs had theorized that semiconductors may offer solid-state alternatives to the vacuum tubes used throughout Bell's nationwide telephone system. Shockley conceived a number of designs based on copper-oxide semiconductor materials, and with Walter Brattain unsuccessfully attempted to create a prototype in 1939.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley published a number of fundamental papers on solid state physics in "Physical Review". In 1938, he received his first patent, "Electron Discharge Device", on electron multipliers.


title: William Shockley

text: When World War II broke out, Shockley's prior research was interrupted and he became involved in radar research in Manhattan (New York City). In May 1942, he took leave from Bell Labs to become a research director at Columbia University's Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Group. This involved devising methods for countering the tactics of submarines with improved convoying techniques, optimizing depth charge patterns, and so on. Shockley traveled frequently to the Pentagon and Washington to meet high-ranking officers and government officials.


title: William Shockley

text: In 1944, he organized a training program for B-29 bomber pilots to use new radar bomb sights. In late 1944 he took a three-month tour to bases around the world to assess the results. For this project, Secretary of War Robert Patterson awarded Shockley the Medal for Merit on October 17, 1946.


title: William Shockley

text: In July 1945, the War Department asked Shockley to prepare a report on the question of probable casualties from an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Shockley concluded:


title: William Shockley

text: This report influenced the decision of the United States to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which preceded the surrender of Japan.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was the first physicist to propose a log-normal distribution to model the creation process for scientific research papers.


title: William Shockley

text: Shortly after the war ended in 1945, Bell Labs formed a solid-state physics group, led by Shockley and chemist Stanley Morgan, which included John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, physicist Gerald Pearson, chemist Robert Gibney, electronics expert Hilbert Moore, and several technicians. Their assignment was to seek a solid-state alternative to fragile glass vacuum tube amplifiers. First attempts were based on Shockley's ideas about using an external electrical field on a semiconductor to affect its conductivity. These experiments failed every time in all sorts of configurations and materials. The group was at a standstill until Bardeen suggested a theory that invoked surface states that prevented the field from penetrating the semiconductor. The group changed its focus to study these surface states and they met almost daily to discuss the work. The rapport of the group was excellent, and ideas were freely exchanged.


title: William Shockley

text: By the winter of 1946 they had enough results that Bardeen submitted a paper on the surface states to "Physical Review". Brattain started experiments to study the surface states through observations made while shining a bright light on the semiconductor's surface. This led to several more papers (one of them co-authored with Shockley), which estimated the density of the surface states to be more than enough to account for their failed experiments. The pace of the work picked up significantly when they started to surround point contacts between the semiconductor and the conducting wires with electrolytes. Moore built a circuit that allowed them to vary the frequency of the input signal easily. Finally they began to get some evidence of power amplification when Pearson, acting on a suggestion by Shockley, put a voltage on a droplet of glycol borate placed across a P–n junction.


title: William Shockley

text: Bell Labs' attorneys soon discovered Shockley's field effect principle had been anticipated and devices based on it patented in 1930 by Julius Lilienfeld, who filed his MESFET-like patent in Canada on October 22, 1925. Although the patent appeared "breakable" (it could not work) the patent attorneys based one of its four patent applications only on the Bardeen-Brattain point contact design. Three others (submitted first) covered the electrolyte-based transistors with Bardeen, Gibney and Brattain as the inventors.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley's name was not on any of these patent applications. This angered Shockley, who thought his name should also be on the patents because the work was based on his field effect idea. He even made efforts to have the patent written only in his name, and told Bardeen and Brattain of his intentions.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley, angered by not being included on the patent applications, secretly continued his own work to build a different sort of transistor based on junctions instead of point contacts; he expected this kind of design would be more likely to be commercially viable. The point contact transistor, he believed, would prove to be fragile and difficult to manufacture. Shockley was also dissatisfied with certain parts of the explanation for how the point contact transistor worked and conceived of the possibility of minority carrier injection.


title: William Shockley

text: On February 13, 1948, another team member, John N. Shive, built a point contact transistor with bronze contacts on the front and back of thin wedge of germanium, proving that holes could diffuse through bulk germanium and not just along the surface as previously thought. Shive's invention sparked Shockley's invention of the junction transistor. A few months later he invented an entirely new, considerably more robust, type of transistor with a layer or 'sandwich' structure. This structure went on to be used for the vast majority of all transistors into the 1960s, and evolved into the bipolar junction transistor. Shockley later described the workings of the team as a "mixture of cooperation and competition". He also said that he kept some of his own work secret until his "hand was forced" by Shive's 1948 advance. Shockley worked out a rather complete description of what he called the "sandwich" transistor, and a first proof of principle was obtained on April 7, 1949.


title: William Shockley

text: Meanwhile, Shockley worked on his magnum opus, "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors" which was published as a 558-page treatise in 1950. The tome included Shockley's critical ideas of drift and diffusion and the differential equations that govern the flow of electrons in solid state crystals. Shockley's diode equation is also described. This seminal work became the reference text for other scientists working to develop and improve new variants of the transistor and other devices based on semiconductors.


title: William Shockley

text: This resulted in his invention of the bipolar "junction transistor", which was announced at a press conference on July 4, 1951.


title: William Shockley

text: In 1951, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He was forty-one years old; this was rather young for such an election. Two years later, he was chosen as the recipient of the prestigious Comstock Prize for Physics by the NAS, and was the recipient of many other awards and honors.


title: William Shockley

text: The ensuing publicity generated by the "invention of the transistor" often thrust Shockley to the fore, much to the chagrin of Bardeen and Brattain. Bell Labs management, however, consistently presented all three inventors as a team. Though Shockley would correct the record where reporters gave him sole credit for the invention, he eventually infuriated and alienated Bardeen and Brattain, and he essentially blocked the two from working on the junction transistor. Bardeen began pursuing a theory for superconductivity and left Bell Labs in 1951. Brattain refused to work with Shockley further and was assigned to another group. Neither Bardeen nor Brattain had much to do with the development of the transistor beyond the first year after its invention.


title: William Shockley

text: In 1956, Shockley started Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California, which was close to his elderly mother in Palo Alto, California. The company, a division of Beckman Instruments, Inc., was the first establishment working on silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley recruited brilliant employees to his company, but alienated them by undermining them relentlessly. "He may have been the worst manager in the history of electronics", according to his biographer Joel Shurkin. Shockley was autocratic, domineering, erratic, hard-to-please, and increasingly paranoid. In one well-known incident, he demanded lie detector tests to find the "culprit" after a company secretary suffered a minor cut. In late 1957, eight of Shockley's best researchers, who would come to be known as the "traitorous eight", resigned after Shockley decided not to continue research into silicon-based semiconductors. They went on to form Fairchild Semiconductor, a loss from which Shockley Semiconductor never recovered and which led to its purchase by another company three years later. Over the course of the next 20 years, more than 65 new enterprises would end up having employee connections back to Fairchild.


title: William Shockley

text: A group of about thirty colleagues have met on and off since 1956 to reminisce about their time with Shockley as, the group's organizer said in 2002, "the man who brought silicon to Silicon Valley".


title: William Shockley

text: After Shockley left his role as director of Shockley Semiconductor, he joined Stanford University, where he was appointed the Alexander M. Poniatoff Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in 1963, a position which he held until he retired as a professor emeritus in 1975.


title: William Shockley

text: In the last two decades of his life, Shockley, who had no degree in genetics, became widely known for his extreme views on race and human intelligence, and his advocacy of eugenics. As described by his "Los Angeles Times" obituary, "He went from being a physicist with impeccable academic credentials to amateur geneticist, becoming a lightning rod whose views sparked campus demonstrations and a cascade of calumny." He thought his work was important to the future of humanity and he also described it as the most important aspect of his career. He argued that a higher rate of reproduction among purportedly less intelligent people was having a dysgenic effect, and argued that a drop in average intelligence would lead to a decline in civilization. He also claimed that black people were genetically and intellectually inferior to white people. (Shockley's biographer Joel Shurkin notes that for much of Shockley's life in the racially segregated America of the time, he had almost no contact with black people.) In a debate with psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing M.D. and on "Firing Line" with William F. Buckley Jr., Shockley argued, "My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and, thus, not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in the environment."


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was one of the race theorists who received money from the Pioneer Fund, and at least one donation to him came from its founder, the eugenicist Wickliffe Draper. Shockley's writings and lectures were partly based on the writings of psychologist Cyril Burt. Shockley proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 should be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization. Anthropologist and far-right activist Roger Pearson defended Shockley in a self-published book co-authored with Shockley. In 1973, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee professor Edgar G. Epps argued that "William Shockley's position lends itself to racist interpretations". The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Shockley as a white nationalist who failed to produce evidence for his eugenic theories amidst "near-universal acknowledgement that his work was that of a racist crank". The science writer Angela Saini describes Shockley as having been "a notorious racist".


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley's advocacy of eugenics triggered protests. In one incident, the science society Sigma Xi, fearing violence, canceled a 1968 convocation in Brooklyn where Shockley was scheduled to speak.


title: William Shockley

text: In Atlanta in 1981, Shockley filed a libel suit against the "Atlanta Constitution" after a science writer, Roger Witherspoon, compared Shockley's advocacy of a voluntary sterilization program to Nazi human experimentation. The suit took three years to go to trial. Shockley won the suit but he only received one dollar in damages and he did not receive any punitive damages. Shockley's biographer Joel Shurkin, a science writer on the staff of Stanford University during those years, sums this statement up by saying that it was defamatory, but Shockley's reputation was not worth much by the time the trial reached a verdict. Shockley taped his telephone conversations with reporters, transcribed them, and sent the transcripts to the reporters by registered mail. At one point, he toyed with the idea of making the reporters take a simple quiz on his work before he would discuss the subject matter of it with them. His habit of saving all of his papers (including laundry lists) provides abundant documentation on his life for researchers.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1982 United States Senate election in California. He ran on a single-issue platform of opposing the "dysgenic threat" that he alleged African-Americans and other groups posed. He came in eighth place in the primary, receiving 8,308 votes and 0.37% of the vote. According to Shurkin, by this time, "His racism destroyed his credibility. Almost no one wanted to be associated with him, and many of those who were willing did him more harm than good."


title: William Shockley

text: A 2019 study in the journal "Intelligence" found him to be the second-most controversial (behind Arthur Jensen) intelligence researcher among 55 persons covered.


title: William Shockley

text: At age 23 and while still a student, Shockley married Jean Bailey in August 1933. The couple had two sons and a daughter. Shockley separated with her in 1953. He married Emily Lanning, a psychiatric nurse, in 1955; she helped him with some of his theories. Although one of his sons earned a PhD at Stanford University and his daughter graduated from Radcliffe College, Shockley believed his children "represent a very significant regression ... my first wife – their mother – had not as high an academic-achievement standing as I had."


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley was an accomplished rock climber, going often to the Shawangunks in the Hudson River Valley. His route across an overhang, known as "Shockley's Ceiling", is one of the classic climbing routes in the area. Several climbing guidebooks changed the route's name to "The Ceiling" in 2020 due to Shockley's eugenics controversies. He was popular as a speaker, lecturer, and amateur magician. He once "magically" produced a bouquet of roses at the end of his address before the American Physical Society. He was also known in his early years for elaborate practical jokes. He had a longtime hobby of raising ant colonies.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley donated sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank founded by Robert Klark Graham in hopes of spreading humanity's best genes. The bank, called by the media the "Nobel Prize sperm bank", claimed to have three Nobel Prize-winning donors, though Shockley was the only one to publicly acknowledge his involvement. However, Shockley's controversial views brought the Repository for Germinal Choice a degree of notoriety and may have discouraged other Nobel Prize winners from donating sperm.


title: William Shockley

text: According to PBS, Shockley was cruel towards his children and unhappy in his life. He reportedly tried playing Russian roulette as part of an attempted suicide.


title: William Shockley

text: Shockley died of prostate cancer in 1989 at the age of 79. At the time of his death, he was estranged from most of his friends and family, except his second wife, the former Emmy Lanning (1913–2007). His children reportedly learned of his death by reading his obituary in the newspaper. Shockley is interred at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, California.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Leslie Cockburn ( ; born Leslie Corkill Redlich on September 2, 1952) is an American investigative journalist, and filmmaker. Her investigative television segments have aired on CBS, NBC, "PBS Frontline", and "60 Minutes". She has won an Emmy Award, The Hillman Prize, Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the George Polk Award.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Cockburn was the 2018 Democratic nominee for Virginia's 5th district in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing to Republican Denver Riggleman.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Leslie Cockburn (née Leslie Corkill Redlich) was born in San Mateo, California and raised in Hillsborough, California. She is the daughter of Jeanne (Fulcher) and Christopher Rudolph Redlich, a shipping magnate. She grew up in a family of hunters and supports gun control.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Leslie attended the Santa Catalina School. She then studied at Yale University, entering in the second year that women undergraduates were admitted to the university. She went on to earn a master's degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Cockburn is a former investigative journalist for NBC, CBS, and PBS "Frontline". While living in London, she started working for NBC News. Among her early reports was an interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In 1978, Cockburn moved to CBS. During her career, she covered six wars including the U.S.-directed Contra War against Nicaragua.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: In 1987, Cockburn began producing and reporting documentaries for PBS "Frontline" in collaboration with her husband, Andrew Cockburn. They created "Guns, Drugs, and the CIA" (1987), a documentary that claimed the CIA assisted and encouraged drug trafficking. In 1990, Cockburn produced and co-wrote "From the Killing Fields" with Peter Jennings and Tom Yellin for the ABC News documentary show "Peter Jennings Reporting". The film alleged that the U.S. had covertly supported the Khmer Rouge in its return to power in Cambodia during a genocidal movement responsible for the deaths of millions in the 1970s.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: In 1991, she and her husband produced the PBS "Frontline" documentary "The War We Left Behind", which showed the effects of the Gulf War on Kurdish and Iraqi civilians. In 1997, Cockburn conceived and co-produced "The Peacemaker", starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, a thriller positing a terrorist attack on New York City with a stolen nuclear weapon. In 1998, Cockburn served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. In 2000, she produced "America's Worst Nightmare," a 60 Minutes report on political instability in Pakistan and fundamentalist groups linked to the Taliban, a piece that was recognized as "strikingly prophetic" in receiving the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 2001.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: In 1991, Cockburn and her husband, Andrew, published their first book together on the military and intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Israel after 1948. This book detailed how, over several decades, Israel had served U.S. interests both through espionage operations in the former Soviet Union as well as covert operations in Central America and other third-world regions where the U.S. was loath to intervene directly. The book also detailed Israeli nuclear activities, including U.S, assistance to its bomb-making program and Israeli cooperation with the South African apartheid regime's nuclear weapons program. The book was a national bestseller in the U.S. and Canada. "Kirkus Reviews" said it was "no thrown-together post-Gulf product, but an unflinching, fact-packed, closely reasoned exploration of our relations with our strongest ally in the Middle East." "The Chicago Tribune" said the book "should stand for a long time as the alpha and omega of the relationship between the United States and Israel...the Cockburns present the history in rich detail." Other U.S. reviewers attacked the book on grounds that it was critical of Israel, often making their case with selective quotations. In Israel, the response was more measured. "Haaretz" reviewed it favorably at length, calling it "credible".


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: In 2009, Cockburn directed and co-produced (with her husband) her first feature documentary for theatrical release, "American Casino." It follows the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, which led to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Cockburn and her husband began filming in January 2008, and documented the financial machinations and miscalculations on Wall Street that produced the disaster, and its effects on several Baltimore homeowners struggling to stay afloat. The film premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April 2009. "Variety" called it a "searing expose of the subprime mortgage crisis [matching] Wall Street's numbers and graphics to the flesh-and-blood individuals whose lives have been devastated by the deliberate machinations of bankers and traders." "The New Yorker" said it was "a terrific documentary chronicling the subprime-mortgage mess and the financial collapse." "The New York Times" said it was "a meticulously structured film."


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Cockburn has won The Hillman Prize (1984), the George Polk Award (2010), and the 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, along with Peter Jennings and Tom Yellin. Her work has received multiple Emmy nominations, and her 1998 documentary "Yuri The Great" won an Emmy Award in 1999.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Cockburn was the 2018 Democratic nominee for Virginia's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. She announced her candidacy in July 2017, and secured a large majority of delegates over several rival candidates for the nomination in May 2018 at the district Democratic convention to succeed the outgoing Republican representative, Tom Garrett.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: After winning her party's nomination, she lost to Republican nominee Denver Riggleman in the general election; Riggleman garnered 165,339 votes (53.2%) to Cockburn's 145,040 (46.7%). 547 votes (0.2%) were cast as write-ins.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Cockburn lives in Rappahannock County, Virginia, with her husband, Andrew Cockburn, a journalist and film producer. They married in San Francisco in 1977 and have co-authored several books. They have three children together: Chloe Francis Cockburn (April 3, 1979), Olivia Wilde (March 10, 1984), and Charles Philip Cockburn (January 31, 1993). She has four grandchildren.


title: Leslie Cockburn

text: Her parents-in-law were Claud and Patricia Cockburn. Cockburn had two brothers-in-law, the late Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, and the mystery writer Sarah Caudwell was her half-sister in law. Journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders are the daughters of her half-brother in law Michael Flanders.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Christos Kostas Chelios (born January 25, 1962) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman. He was one of the longest tenured players in the National Hockey League, and is a three-time Stanley Cup champion—one with the Montreal Canadiens and two with the Detroit Red Wings.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios played for the Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings and the Atlanta Thrashers. When he was called up from the AHL's Chicago Wolves to play for the Thrashers during the 2009–10 NHL season, Chelios was the oldest active player in the NHL and the second oldest of all time. He had played the most games of any active player in the NHL, was the last player from the 1981 NHL Entry Draft still active (or any draft from 1986 and earlier), and had the most career penalty minutes of any active player. He is the former record-holder for most games played in the NHL by a defenseman, is eighth overall with 1,651 games played, holds the record for most career playoff games played with 266 and is tied with Gordie Howe for most NHL seasons played with 26. On May 1, 2009, he appeared in the playoffs for an NHL record 24th time, having missed the playoffs only once (1997–98). Chelios is also the record-holder for most career postseason losses, with 117 (also the most in any professional sport in North America). However, he only lost one Game 7 in his career, a 3–2 OT loss in the 1985 Adams Division Finals against the Nordiques. In 2017, Chelios was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios is of Greek heritage. His cousin, Nikos Tselios, also played professional hockey and is a former first round draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes. Chelios was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 8, 2013.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 25, 1962, and raised by his parents, Gus and Susan Chelios. They lived in Evergreen Park, Illinois. He attended Mount Carmel High School in Chicago until his family moved to Poway, California, where he attended Mira Mesa High School.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Unable to play high school hockey in Southern California, Chelios was not recruited by any U.S. colleges. His only scholarship offer came from San Diego-based United States International University, the only NCAA Division I hockey team west of the Rockies. However, when Chelios arrived on campus as a freshman in 1979, he soon realized he was in the wrong environment, facing bigger players with considerably more junior hockey experience. He was eventually cut from the team and considered quitting hockey. Instead, Chelios tried his luck in Canada, where he was twice cut by Junior B teams and hit a low point when he had to borrow money from strangers to get home to California one year. He said, "I wasn't any bigger or any better than the other guys, so they weren't going to take a kid from the States when they could have a local guy."


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios returned home and grew three inches while adding 40 pounds of muscle. He was then drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft. Prior to that, he played for the Moose Jaw Canucks of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, where he tallied 87 points and 175 penalty minutes in just 54 games in his final season. Chelios then enjoyed two strong years playing for the Wisconsin Badgers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison after being drafted. As one of the top collegiate players in the country, he was selected for the United States team at the 1982 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship. In 1983, he was part of the Badgers' NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship team and was named to the all-tournament team and the second WCHA all-star team.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios was a member of the U.S. team for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. After that, he made his debut for the Canadiens, playing 12 games in the regular season and 15 in the playoffs. That summer he joined the U.S. team at the 1984 Canada Cup.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In 1984, Chelios made the Montreal Canadiens for good, distinguishing himself with his play. During his early days, he was known for his offensive abilities, and his teammates even called him "Soft Hands Chelios." He earned a trip to the National Hockey League All-Star Game and was named to the 1985 NHL All-Rookie Team. He scored 64 points in 74 games, a high total for a defenseman even in the high-scoring 1980s, and finished second to Mario Lemieux for the Calder Memorial Trophy. In the playoffs that year, he had 10 points in 9 games, with a +17 plus/minus. Although he only played 41 games in the 1985–86 season, he won his first Stanley Cup, playing in front of Conn Smythe Trophy-winning goaltender Patrick Roy.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Following two more good seasons in Montreal, Chelios really broke out in the 1988–89 campaign. He scored 73 points in 80 games at +35, was named to the All-Star first-team, and won his first James Norris Memorial Trophy. During that year's Wales Conference (now Eastern Conference) Finals series against the Philadelphia Flyers (which the Canadiens won in six games), Chelios became reviled by Flyer fans for a dirty hit on Brian Propp that left the Philadelphia winger with a serious concussion and forced him to miss the next game. The Flyers did not retaliate against Chelios until their fate was sealed late in Game 6; Flyers goaltender Ron Hextall memorably skated out of his net to attack Chelios, earning him a 12-game suspension.


title: Chris Chelios

text: After playing only 53 games the following season (in which he served as Canadiens' co-captain, with Guy Carbonneau, making Chelios the first non-Canadian player to captain the Canadiens), Chelios was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks on June 29, 1990, with a 2nd-round draft pick for Denis Savard. The trade occurred one day after Chelios was accused of fighting with two police officers as they tried to arrest him for urinating in public outside a bar in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, according to a criminal complaint.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In his first season with Chicago, Chelios continued to score at his usual rate, tallying 64 points, and earned a spot on the Second NHL All-Star team. He helped lead the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup Final in 1992, where they were swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was in top form for the 1992–93 season, scoring 73 points and winning his second James Norris Memorial Trophy. His Norris Trophy-winning play, which some sports reporters referred to as "Sweet", earned him the nickname ""Honey Nut"". The nickname derives from his name being spelled and pronounced similarly to the famous breakfast cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios.


title: Chris Chelios

text: For the 1995–96 season, Chelios was named captain of the Blackhawks, a role he served in until 1999. He enjoyed another fine season, scoring 72 points and winning his third James Norris Memorial Trophy. In the summer of 1996, he helped lead the United States to its biggest international hockey win since the 1980 Winter Olympics, as the Americans defeated Canada in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. Chelios was named to the All-Tournament Team.


title: Chris Chelios

text: At 37, Chelios could still help teams with his veteran leadership and his largely remaining talent. On March 23, 1999, he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings for Anders Eriksson and two first-round draft picks.


title: Chris Chelios

text: The move to Detroit, where he had fewer responsibilities and more skilled teammates, helped keep Chelios playing at close to his peak level. In 2002, his +40 plus/minus led the league, and he was again named to the first All-Star team. He also led the United States hockey team to a silver medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics, and was named to the Tournament's All-Star team. His season culminated in the Red Wings' victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Finals, giving Chelios his second Stanley Cup.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In 2004, because of the cancellation of the NHL season, Chelios, along with fellow Red Wing teammates Derian Hatcher and Kris Draper, decided to play hockey for the Motor City Mechanics, a UHL team based out of Fraser, Michigan. He was heavily criticized for this decision as the UHL has a maximum salary in place, but at the same time he was strongly against a salary cap in the NHL. In October 2004 he trained with the U.S. bobsled federation in a bid to compete for the Greek bobsled team at the 2006 Winter Olympics. While Chelios didn't compete in the bobsled, he did captain the USA hockey team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On August 4, 2005, the 43-year-old re-signed with the Red Wings for a one-year contract. On May 24, 2006, Chelios re-signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings. On July 3, 2006, Chelios became the active leader for most games played upon the retirement of teammate Steve Yzerman. On April 21, 2007, he became the oldest defenseman to score a short-handed goal in the NHL in a playoff game against the Calgary Flames.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios was the captain of the US Olympic Hockey Team that played at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. By participating in ice hockey at the 2006 Winter Olympics, Chelios set a new standard, by becoming the first player to take part in an Olympic ice hockey tournament, twenty-two years after he played in his first. The old record was set by Swiss hockey player Bibi Torriani who had played twenty years after his debut (1928 and 1948).


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios re-signed with the Detroit Red Wings for the 2007–08 season. On January 8, 2008, Chelios became the second oldest player in the history of the NHL, at 45 years, 348 days, passing Moe Roberts. Only Gordie Howe, who played until age 52, was older. On April 12, 2008, Chelios played in his 248th playoff game, breaking the NHL record set by Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy. Later that season, Chelios also became the oldest active player to win the Stanley Cup.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios signed another one-year contract with the Red Wings for the 2008–09 season. On December 5, 2008, Chelios played in his first of two games for the Grand Rapids Griffins, the American Hockey League (AHL) farm club for the Red Wings, as part of a conditioning stint. At 46 years of age, he became the oldest player in the 73-year history of the AHL. At the conclusion of the 2008–09 season, Chelios was a finalist for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy.


title: Chris Chelios

text: After the Red Wings announced that they would not be re-signing Chelios, he signed a 25-game pro tryout contract with the Chicago Wolves. After a second 25-game pro tryout contract with the Wolves, Chelios signed a two-way contract with the Atlanta Thrashers. Chelios remained with the Wolves until he was recalled to the Thrashers, hoping that he could provide a spark for the team's playoff hopes. He played in seven games for the Thrashers, but failed to record any points. On April 7, 2010, Chelios was sent back to the Wolves.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On August 31, 2010, Chelios officially retired. He was 48 years of age. The same day, Red Wings general manager Ken Holland announced that Chelios would be hired to work in the Red Wings' front office. He was named Adviser to Hockey Operations, with a role of working with Red Wings' defense prospects in Grand Rapids.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In 2013, it was announced that Chelios would become an NHL analyst on FS1, which also included covering the hockey tournament in the 2014 Winter Olympics.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In 2016, Chelios, along with former Red Wings teammate Brett Hull, was added to ESPN’s roster of analysts for their coverage of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which ESPN had picked up the U.S. broadcast rights to, after NBC pulled out due to scheduling conflicts.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In July 2018, Chelios announced that he was leaving the Detroit area, and the Red Wings front office, to return to Chicago to be close to his family. At the same time, the Chicago Blackhawks announced that Chelios was being brought on board to serve as an ambassador for the franchise.


title: Chris Chelios

text: In 2021, after ESPN regained the rights to broadcast the NHL, Chelios rejoined the network for their coverage. Chelios serves the same studio analyst role he held for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, and sits alongside Barry Melrose and Mark Messier, joining Steve Levy for games on ESPN, ABC, and ESPN+.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On June 17, 2015, USA Hockey named Chelios an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On June 23, 2015, Chelios was named to the Red Wings coaching staff, where he will continue to play a role in player development, by working on-ice with the team's defensemen during practices. His job involved evaluating in-game player performance and offering his insight and observations to Red Wings bench coaches. He would also attend all home games, and on occasion, join the club on the road.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where his father, Constantine "Gus" Chelios, owned a chain of Greek restaurants. The family name was originally "Tselios", but Gus chose to change the family's spelling. The family moved to Poway, California, in 1977, when his father left his struggling business in Chicago to open a restaurant in the San Diego area. He was a Chicago Blackhawks fan during his childhood but was more focused on football, idolizing Chicago Bears linebacker Dick Butkus. Chelios attended Mount Carmel High School (Chicago) before his family moved west, and then finished prep studies at Mira Mesa Senior High School in San Diego.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios and his wife Tracee were married in 1987. They met while students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. They have four children: Dean (born 1989), Jake (born 1991), Caley (born 1993), and Tara (born 1996). Dean Chelios, a forward, scored a pair of power play goals to help his Cranbrook-Kingswood high school team win the 2006 Division III Michigan state high school hockey championship. Dean played for the Chicago Steel of the USHL in Bensenville, Illinois, and last played in 2016 for the Wichita Thunder of the ECHL. In May 2009, Jake was drafted 49th overall by the Chicago Steel, and joined his brother at Michigan State. Jake is a defenseman, like his father, and currently plays with the Grand Rapids Griffins in the Detroit Red Wings organization. Caley graduated from Northwestern University and is currently a reporter for the Chicago Blackhawks.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios was very active in charitable causes during his playing time in Chicago, founding "Cheli's Children"."


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chris is the older brother of former minor-leaguer Steve Chelios, and cousin of former NHL player Nikos Tselios.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Through his career, Chelios has befriended many non-hockey athletes and entertainers. In 2004, he and surfer Laird Hamilton trained with the U.S. bobsled team and hoped to form the first Greek bobsled team at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Chelios and his family can be found Stand up paddle surfing with Hamilton. Chris credits the activity with helping him maintain his long career.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On "Scrubs", Dr. Perry Cox, played by Chelios' friend John C. McGinley, often wears a Red Wings jersey with Chelios' name and number. During the fourth season of the show, which was concurrent with the 2004–05 lockout, Cox was seen on at least one occasion wearing a No. 24 "Motor City Mechanics" jersey. Chelios is also close friends with actors John Cusack and D. B. Sweeney, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, and musician Kid Rock. Chelios was sitting courtside with Kid Rock during the Pacers-Pistons brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills on November 19, 2004. Chelios and Sweeney are quite close, with the two having appeared together in "The Cutting Edge" (1992) and "Two Tickets to Paradise" (2007), in addition to Chelios being the godfather to Sweeney's son, Cade.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On December 28, 2009, in Westmont, Illinois, Chelios was arrested for driving under the influence. He was the only occupant of the vehicle that was stopped at 4 a.m. The vehicle was towed and Chelios was taken to the Westmont station, where he was charged, processed, and posted bond. In March 2010, a judge reviewed the video tape of the arrest. The case was dismissed for lack of probable cause to stop, and evidence the tape provided that Chelios was not impaired. He was however fined for improper lane usage and speeding.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios maintains a home in Malibu, California, and is well known as a member of the group of celebrity home owners and friends called the Malibu Mob. Other members include tennis great John McEnroe, big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton and his beach volleyball professional wife Gabrielle Reece, musicians Tim Commerford and Kid Rock, and actors John C. McGinley, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Tony Danza, Justin Long, and Ed O'Neill.


title: Chris Chelios

text: Chelios has owned restaurant/bars in both the Chicago and Detroit areas, all under the name "Cheli's Chili Bar". The first operated on West Madison Street in Chicago (near the United Center) in the 1990s, but closed after his move to the Red Wings. A new Cheli's opened in Dearborn in 2003, followed by a second location in Detroit in 2006 and a third in Clinton Township in 2008. All three are now closed, with the Detroit location shuttering in 2018 upon Chelios returning to live in the Windy City. He has indicated a desire to open a new restaurant in the Chicago area.


title: Chris Chelios

text: On January 2, 2007, two employees of Cheli's in Detroit were fatally stabbed: Megan Soroka, 49, a manager at the restaurant, and Mark Barnard, 52, a chef. Police arrested Justin Blackshere, 17, who confessed to the crime. He was a busboy at the restaurant and was fired in November 2006. Blackshere's pregnant girlfriend had also been fired from her job as a dishwasher. Chelios took a leave of absence from the Red Wings to help the families of his murdered employees. He said, "I'll come back when I feel ready and the families feel ready. I'm just going to try to get through this day by day with everybody." On January 9, 2007, the Red Wings announced that Chelios would be playing that night. Blackshere was found guilty of murder in the first degree on August 22, 2007, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole on September 7, 2007.


title: The Noid

text: The Noid is an advertising character for Domino's Pizza created in the 1980s and revived in 2021. Clad in a red, skin-tight, rabbit-eared body suit with a black N inscribed in a white circle on his chest, the Noid was a physical manifestation of all the challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less. Though persistent, his efforts were repeatedly thwarted.


title: The Noid

text: The Noid was created in 1986 by Group 243, the advertising agency of record for Domino's Pizza. Group 243 hired Will Vinton Studios to sketch the Noid and animate the commercials. The Noid character design was chosen by Christopher Baker and Brian Baker, sons of Scott Baker, master franchisor for the European market at the time, from a collection of prototypes. Commercials that featured the character used the slogan "Avoid the Noid". The Noid's vocal effects were provided by Pons Maar. Most of the commercials featuring the Noid were narrated by Andre Stojka.


title: The Noid

text: In 1988, a Saturday morning cartoon series called "The Noids" was planned by CBS that would have featured the Noid, but the series was scrapped amid complaints that it was merely an advertising ploy and not a show for children.


title: The Noid

text: As part of the advertising campaign, a computer game was released in 1989 called "Avoid the Noid". The object of the game is to deliver a pizza within a half-hour time limit in an apartment building swarming with Noids (some of which are armed with pizza-seeking missiles or water balloons). In 1990, Capcom released a platformer game, "Yo! Noid", for the NES.


title: The Noid

text: On January 30, 1989, Kenneth Lamar Noid, a mentally ill man who believed that the "Avoid the Noid" campaign was personally directed towards him and was antagonizing him, entered a Domino's restaurant in Chamblee, Georgia. Armed with a .357 Magnum, Noid then held two employees hostage for over five hours.


title: The Noid

text: After ranting to the employees that the then-owner of Domino's, Tom Monaghan, was fraudulent and had stolen his name, he first forced them to call the Domino's headquarters to demand $100,000 and a white limousine as getaway transportation for him. After offering to exchange a hostage for a copy of American postmodern author Robert Anton Wilson's 1985 novel "The Widow's Son", Noid reneged on his offer when an officer brought him the book. Noid then became hungry and forced the captive employees to make him two pizzas; while Noid ate the pizzas with his gun in his lap, the hostages escaped. Noid surrendered to the police shortly after. Two shots were fired by Noid during the incident.


title: The Noid

text: Noid was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, extortion, and possession of a firearm during a crime. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Noid subsequently spent time in a mental institution, but died by suicide on February 23, 1995. This incident was widely believed to have caused Domino's Pizza to discontinue advertising using the Noid as their mascot, but this claim has been rejected by the company and their advertisers.


title: The Noid

text: On May 4, 2011, the Noid was brought back as a promotional figure by Domino's to be used in a campaign on their Facebook page, and made a brief appearance as a stuffed toy at the end of a May 2011 commercial promoting a one-topping pizza deal. The 25th birthday of the Noid mascot was marked with the video game "The Noid's Super Pizza Shootout", a tribute to "Avoid the Noid".


title: The Noid

text: In June 2016, Spooky Pinball LLC announced the release of their new licensed pinball machine, "Domino's Spectacular Pinball Adventure" prominently featuring the Noid character.


title: The Noid

text: During 2016, the Noid appeared and was referenced in some Domino's commercials, as part of their USA "Pizza Payback" campaign.


title: The Noid

text: The Noid was seen tattooed on the arm of a winner of shares of Domino's stock, in a commercial aired during the NFL playoffs, January 15, 2017.


title: The Noid

text: In August 2017, a fan-made sequel to "Yo! Noid" was created for the New Jam City 2017 game jam called "".


title: The Noid

text: The Noid returned to television in April 2021. The character first appeared in a series of brief video ads on social media sites, in which the Noid's face could be seen in a disruptive flash of video glitches over a shot of a meal included in a coupon promotion. Domino's officially confirmed the return of the Noid later in the month, and he was subsequently included in the mobile game "" as part of a tie-in promotion for the restaurant.


title: The Noid

text: The Noid has been referred to in popular culture, including two episodes of "Family Guy" (an altercation with Mayor Adam West in the episode "Deep Throats" and vomiting into a toilet while Bill Cosby holds his ears in the episode "Peter's Sister"), in two episodes of "30 Rock", an episode of "The Simpsons" and in a segment of "Michael Jackson: Moonwalker".


title: Les Gold

text: Leslie Gold (born June 20, 1950) is an American pawnbroker, reality TV star, author, and media personality. He is known for his role on cable and satellite television truTV's reality series, "Hardcore Pawn".


title: Les Gold

text: Leslie "Les" Gold, is a third generation pawnbroker/salesman, the grandson of a Jewish pawnbroker who once owned company "Sam's Loans", a now-defunct pawnshop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Sam's Loans was where Gold made his first sale, at age 7. (The Sam's Loans building is in the process of being remodeled into a pawn shop-themed restaurant, to be called "Gold Cash Gold".)


title: Les Gold

text: Gold began his first business at age 12, buying pizzas and reselling them by the slice to fellow students at Hebrew School.


title: Les Gold

text: Gold opened his own pawn shop, American Jewelry and Loan, in 1978, at the Green Eight Shopping Center on 8 Mile Road in Oak Park. In 1993, he moved it to its present location on Greenfield Road in Detroit near 8 Mile - a 50,000 square foot building that was formerly a bowling alley. The business now has 5 locations, employs up to 200 people and serves about 1,000 customers a day.


title: Les Gold

text: In 1998, independent producer Richard Dominick saw Gold's TV ads which ran during the local commercial breaks of "The Jerry Springer Show", which Dominick was working on at the time. He saw potential in Les and his business as a reality TV show and approached the Gold family with this idea. Les's son, Seth, was initially reluctant, but Les overruled him and agreed to let the cameras in. The pilot aired in late 2009. Dominick was the series co-executive producer with Mike Gamson. Les and Seth Gold were also credited as executive producers, beginning with the third season.


title: Les Gold

text: The series premiere (August 16, 2010) attracted two million viewers, thus setting a record as truTV's most-watched premiere. As of June 2013, the viewership exceeded 3 million.


title: Les Gold

text: Gold's autobiography, "For What It's Worth: Business Wisdom from a Pawnbroker", was published on June 1, 2013 by Penguin/Portfolio. The book deals with his personal experience in establishing a successful pawn shop, and gives details on how he did it, and how anyone in any field can "think like a pawnbroker". Writing for Forbes, fellow entrepreneur Josh Linkner explains how he has learned from Gold's advice.


title: Les Gold

text: The book ranked #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list in the "Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous" category for the week of June 30, 2013, and #8 in the "Hardcover Business Books" category for the month of July 2013.


title: Les Gold

text: Gold, the book, and his "three simple steps to successful negotiation" were featured on ABC's "Good Morning America" on June 18, 2013.


title: Les Gold

text: Gold supports The Heat And Warmth Fund ("THAW Fund"), which helps local families pay their heat and electricity bills. In February 2013, a fund-raising party dubbed "Hardcore THAW" was held after-hours in his store and raised more than $40,000 for the organization.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Hong Kong Disneyland () (local nickname "HKDL"; also known as HK Disneyland) is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and it is owned and managed by Hong Kong International Theme Parks. It is the largest theme park in Hong Kong, followed by Ocean Park Hong Kong. Hong Kong Disneyland was opened to visitors on Monday, 12 September 2005 at 13:00 HKT. Disney attempted to avoid problems of cultural backlash by incorporating Chinese culture, customs and traditions when designing and building the resort, including adherence to the rules of feng shui. Notably, a bend was put in a walkway near the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort entrance so good qi energy would not flow into the South China Sea.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: The park consists of seven themed areas: Main Street, U.S.A., Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land. The theme park's cast members speak Cantonese, English and Mandarin. Guide maps are printed in traditional and simplified Chinese as well as English.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: The park has a daily capacity of 34,000 visitors — the lowest of all Disneyland parks. The park attracted 5.2 million visitors in its first year, below its target of 5.6 million. Visitor numbers fell 20% in the second year to 4 million, inciting criticisms from local legislators. However, the park attendance jumped by 8% in the third year, attracting a total of 4.5 million visitors in 2007. In 2009, the park attendance again increased by 2% to 4.8 million visitors. The attendance continued to surge and received 5.23 million guests in the 2009/2010 fiscal year. Since the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland, the theme park has hosted over 25 million guests. According to AECOM and TEA, Hong Kong Disneyland is the 13th most visited theme park in the world in 2013, with 7.4 million visitors.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Majority-owned (53%) by the Hong Kong Government but managed by Disney, the park first turned an annual net profit of HK$109 million (US$13.97 million) for the year ended 29 September 2012. However, it has operated at an increasing loss in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Hong Kong Disneyland currently occupies and hosts 6 million to 7 million visitors annually. The park capacity will increase to handle up to 10 million visitors annually over a 15-year expansion period.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Penny's Bay was filled in to provide land for the construction of Hong Kong Disneyland. The bay was previously undeveloped except for the Cheoy Lee Shipyard, which opened in the 1960s.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee Hwa was instrumental in introducing the Disneyland project to Hong Kong. When the SARS epidemic devastated the city's economy in 2003, it was hoped that the new Disneyland would help boost confidence in Hong Kong's tourism industry.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Hong Kong Disneyland had one of the shortest construction periods of any Disneyland-style theme park. On 12 January 2003, more than 400 guests celebrated the groundbreaking of Hong Kong Disneyland after the finishing of land reclamation in Penny's Bay. The audience included Tung Chee Hwa; Michael D. Eisner, former chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company; Bob Iger, president of The Walt Disney Company; and Jay Rasulo, former president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. On 23 September 2004, a special "castle topping ceremony" was held in the park to commemorate the placing of the tallest turret on Sleeping Beauty Castle. Hong Kong Disneyland was officially opened to the public on 12 September 2005 by then the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Donald Tsang, Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, President Bob Iger. Beijing offered its significant support by sending Zeng Qinghong, Vice President of the People's Republic of China. In order to help Hong Kong Disneyland grow, Beijing also deliberately slowed down the development of Shanghai Disney Resort, which was first planned for the early 2000s.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: In January 2012, Hong Kong Disneyland has been in the process of negotiating with the Government of Hong Kong to invest its HK$5 billion profit for new attractions. Further details of the expansion would be announced within a 12-month period from January 2012. A shopping complex and new hotels would be taken into consideration for the new expansion plan.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: In Hong Kong financial secretary John Tsang's 2013–14 budget speech, he announced that a new night time parade: "Disney Paint The Night Parade", as well as a themed area featuring characters from the Marvel Universe, will be built in Hong Kong Disneyland. On 8 October 2013 then Walt Disney Parks and Resorts chairman Thomas O. Staggs confirmed the development of the Iron Man Experience.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: On 17 February 2014, Hong Kong Disneyland announced its 2012–13 financial results as well as a plan for the third hotel at the resort. The third hotel would be the largest hotel at the resort, featuring 750 rooms with an adventure and exotic theme, and would cost to build. The third hotel, Disney Explorers Lodge, opened on 30 April 2017.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: Hong Kong Disneyland was also built with the space for a second park directly across from the entrance to the current park. Disney has not yet announced that the second park is in development. Land is also available for additional hotels other than the three current, but the common thought is that the second park will be built before a fourth hotel. However, it was announced in September 2020 by the Hong Kong Government that Hong Kong Disneyland's option to purchase the 60-hectare expansion site next to the existing park will not be extended after its expiry on 24 September 2020 as it is unable to commit to using the site in the near future.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: On 22 November 2016, the Walt Disney Company and the Hong Kong Government announced plans for a multi-year, expansion of Hong Kong Disneyland. The proposed expansion includes a "Frozen"-themed area (announced for 2021), a Marvel-themed area (opening in phases from 2018 to 2023), a redesigned Sleeping Beauty Castle and hub (announced for 2020), a reimagined attraction (announced for 2021), a new "Moana" stage show (announced for 2018), and live entertainment.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: On 24 May 2018, Hong Kong Disneyland opened the first project part of the multi-year expansion: Moana: a Homecoming Celebration, an atmosphere stage show performed daily at the newly built Jungle Junction venue in Adventureland. The park also gave more information on the coming projects as well as the revised dates for these projects: the shooting dark ride , replacing Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, opened in 2019 and the new expanded castle will be unveiled in 2020, in time for the park's 15th anniversary. Park officials also confirmed the rumors that the future "Frozen"-themed area will feature a copy of Epcot's Frozen Ever After and a family roller coaster named Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs, replacing the previously announced Dancing Sleighs ride, and that the area will open in 2021.


title: Hong Kong Disneyland

text: On 26 January 2020, the park closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic along with Ocean Park Hong Kong and Shanghai Disneyland Park. It remained closed for nearly five months, reopening on 18 June 2020. It was the second worldwide Disney park to reopen after Shanghai Disneyland. It reopened with similar strict rules as Shanghai Disneyland, which included limited guest attendance, social distancing, temperature checks, and mandatory wearing of face masks. Hong Kong Disneyland closed again from 15 July to 25 September 2020 due to a heavy upsurge in domestic cases. After reopening for approximately two months, it was announced the park would close for a third time on 2 December 2020 due to a rising number of coronavirus cases in the region. The park reopened on 19 February 2021. The park closed for the fourth time on 7 January 2022 due to the rising number of cases of the Omicron variant, and will reopen on 21 April 2022.