title: Code-division multiple access

text: An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to talk to each other simultaneously. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different languages (code division). CDMA is analogous to the last example where people speaking the same language can understand each other, but other languages are perceived as noise and rejected. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can communicate.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: In general, CDMA belongs to two basic categories: synchronous (orthogonal codes) and asynchronous (pseudorandom codes).


title: Code-division multiple access

text: The digital modulation method is analogous to those used in simple radio transceivers. In the analog case, a low-frequency data signal is time-multiplied with a high-frequency pure sine-wave carrier and transmitted. This is effectively a frequency convolution (Wiener–Khinchin theorem) of the two signals, resulting in a carrier with narrow sidebands. In the digital case, the sinusoidal carrier is replaced by Walsh functions. These are binary square waves that form a complete orthonormal set. The data signal is also binary and the time multiplication is achieved with a simple XOR function. This is usually a Gilbert cell mixer in the circuitry.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Synchronous CDMA exploits mathematical properties of orthogonality between vectors representing the data strings. For example, the binary string "1011" is represented by the vector (1, 0, 1, 1). Vectors can be multiplied by taking their dot product, by summing the products of their respective components (for example, if u = ("a", "b") and v = ("c", "d"), then their dot product u·v = "ac" + "bd"). If the dot product is zero, the two vectors are said to be "orthogonal" to each other. Some properties of the dot product aid understanding of how W-CDMA works. If vectors a and b are orthogonal, then formula_10 and:


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Each user in synchronous CDMA uses a code orthogonal to the others' codes to modulate their signal. An example of 4 mutually orthogonal digital signals is shown in the figure below. Orthogonal codes have a cross-correlation equal to zero; in other words, they do not interfere with each other. In the case of IS-95, 64-bit Walsh codes are used to encode the signal to separate different users. Since each of the 64 Walsh codes is orthogonal to all other, the signals are channelized into 64 orthogonal signals. The following example demonstrates how each user's signal can be encoded and decoded.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Start with a set of vectors that are mutually orthogonal. (Although mutual orthogonality is the only condition, these vectors are usually constructed for ease of decoding, for example columns or rows from Walsh matrices.) An example of orthogonal functions is shown in the adjacent picture. These vectors will be assigned to individual users and are called the "code", "chip code", or "chipping code". In the interest of brevity, the rest of this example uses codes v with only two bits.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Each user is associated with a different code, say v. A 1 bit is represented by transmitting a positive code v, and a 0 bit is represented by a negative code −v. For example, if v = ("v", "v") = (1, −1) and the data that the user wishes to transmit is (1, 0, 1, 1), then the transmitted symbols would be


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Each sender has a different, unique vector v chosen from that set, but the construction method of the transmitted vector is identical.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Now, due to physical properties of interference, if two signals at a point are in phase, they add to give twice the amplitude of each signal, but if they are out of phase, they subtract and give a signal that is the difference of the amplitudes. Digitally, this behaviour can be modelled by the addition of the transmission vectors, component by component.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: If sender0 has code (1, −1) and data (1, 0, 1, 1), and sender1 has code (1, 1) and data (0, 0, 1, 1), and both senders transmit simultaneously, then this table describes the coding steps:


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Because signal0 and signal1 are transmitted at the same time into the air, they add to produce the raw signal


title: Code-division multiple access

text: This raw signal is called an interference pattern. The receiver then extracts an intelligible signal for any known sender by combining the sender's code with the interference pattern. The following table explains how this works and shows that the signals do not interfere with one another:


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Further, after decoding, all values greater than 0 are interpreted as 1, while all values less than zero are interpreted as 0. For example, after decoding, data0 is (2, −2, 2, 2), but the receiver interprets this as (1, 0, 1, 1). Values of exactly 0 mean that the sender did not transmit any data, as in the following example:


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Assume signal0 = (1, −1, −1, 1, 1, −1, 1, −1) is transmitted alone. The following table shows the decode at the receiver:


title: Code-division multiple access

text: When the receiver attempts to decode the signal using sender1's code, the data is all zeros; therefore the cross-correlation is equal to zero and it is clear that sender1 did not transmit any data.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: When mobile-to-base links cannot be precisely coordinated, particularly due to the mobility of the handsets, a different approach is required. Since it is not mathematically possible to create signature sequences that are both orthogonal for arbitrarily random starting points and which make full use of the code space, unique "pseudo-random" or "pseudo-noise" sequences called spreading sequences are used in "asynchronous" CDMA systems. A spreading sequence is a binary sequence that appears random but can be reproduced in a deterministic manner by intended receivers. These spreading sequences are used to encode and decode a user's signal in asynchronous CDMA in the same manner as the orthogonal codes in synchronous CDMA (shown in the example above). These spreading sequences are statistically uncorrelated, and the sum of a large number of spreading sequences results in "multiple access interference" (MAI) that is approximated by a Gaussian noise process (following the central limit theorem in statistics). Gold codes are an example of a spreading sequence suitable for this purpose, as there is low correlation between the codes. If all of the users are received with the same power level, then the variance (e.g., the noise power) of the MAI increases in direct proportion to the number of users. In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to number of users.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: All forms of CDMA use the spread-spectrum spreading factor to allow receivers to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals encoded with the specified spreading sequences are received, while signals with different sequences (or the same sequences but different timing offsets) appear as wideband noise reduced by the spreading factor.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Since each user generates MAI, controlling the signal strength is an important issue with CDMA transmitters. A CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, or FDMA receiver can in theory completely reject arbitrarily strong signals using different codes, time slots or frequency channels due to the orthogonality of these systems. This is not true for asynchronous CDMA; rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This leads to a general requirement in any asynchronous CDMA system to approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power-control scheme to tightly control each mobile's transmit power.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: In 2019, schemes to precisely estimate the required length of the codes in dependence of Doppler and delay characteristics have been developed. Soon after, machine learning based techniques that generate sequences of a desired length and spreading properties have been published as well. These are highly competitive with the classic Gold and Welch sequences. These are not generated by linear-feedback-shift-registers, but have to be stored in lookup tables.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: In theory CDMA, TDMA and FDMA have exactly the same spectral efficiency, but, in practice, each has its own challenges – power control in the case of CDMA, timing in the case of TDMA, and frequency generation/filtering in the case of FDMA.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: TDMA systems must carefully synchronize the transmission times of all the users to ensure that they are received in the correct time slot and do not cause interference. Since this cannot be perfectly controlled in a mobile environment, each time slot must have a guard time, which reduces the probability that users will interfere, but decreases the spectral efficiency.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Similarly, FDMA systems must use a guard band between adjacent channels, due to the unpredictable Doppler shift of the signal spectrum because of user mobility. The guard bands will reduce the probability that adjacent channels will interfere, but decrease the utilization of the spectrum.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Asynchronous CDMA offers a key advantage in the flexible allocation of resources i.e. allocation of spreading sequences to active users. In the case of CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, and FDMA the number of simultaneous orthogonal codes, time slots, and frequency slots respectively are fixed, hence the capacity in terms of the number of simultaneous users is limited. There are a fixed number of orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency bands that can be allocated for CDM, TDMA, and FDMA systems, which remain underutilized due to the bursty nature of telephony and packetized data transmissions. There is no strict limit to the number of users that can be supported in an asynchronous CDMA system, only a practical limit governed by the desired bit error probability since the SIR (signal-to-interference ratio) varies inversely with the number of users. In a bursty traffic environment like mobile telephony, the advantage afforded by asynchronous CDMA is that the performance (bit error rate) is allowed to fluctuate randomly, with an average value determined by the number of users times the percentage of utilization. Suppose there are 2"N" users that only talk half of the time, then 2"N" users can be accommodated with the same "average" bit error probability as "N" users that talk all of the time. The key difference here is that the bit error probability for "N" users talking all of the time is constant, whereas it is a "random" quantity (with the same mean) for 2"N" users talking half of the time.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: In other words, asynchronous CDMA is ideally suited to a mobile network where large numbers of transmitters each generate a relatively small amount of traffic at irregular intervals. CDM (synchronous CDMA), TDMA, and FDMA systems cannot recover the underutilized resources inherent to bursty traffic due to the fixed number of orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency channels that can be assigned to individual transmitters. For instance, if there are "N" time slots in a TDMA system and 2"N" users that talk half of the time, then half of the time there will be more than "N" users needing to use more than "N" time slots. Furthermore, it would require significant overhead to continually allocate and deallocate the orthogonal-code, time-slot or frequency-channel resources. By comparison, asynchronous CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something to say and go off the air when they do not, keeping the same signature sequence as long as they are connected to the system.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Most modulation schemes try to minimize the bandwidth of this signal since bandwidth is a limited resource. However, spread-spectrum techniques use a transmission bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude greater than the minimum required signal bandwidth. One of the initial reasons for doing this was military applications including guidance and communication systems. These systems were designed using spread spectrum because of its security and resistance to jamming. Asynchronous CDMA has some level of privacy built in because the signal is spread using a pseudo-random code; this code makes the spread-spectrum signals appear random or have noise-like properties. A receiver cannot demodulate this transmission without knowledge of the pseudo-random sequence used to encode the data. CDMA is also resistant to jamming. A jamming signal only has a finite amount of power available to jam the signal. The jammer can either spread its energy over the entire bandwidth of the signal or jam only part of the entire signal.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: CDMA can also effectively reject narrow-band interference. Since narrow-band interference affects only a small portion of the spread-spectrum signal, it can easily be removed through notch filtering without much loss of information. Convolution encoding and interleaving can be used to assist in recovering this lost data. CDMA signals are also resistant to multipath fading. Since the spread-spectrum signal occupies a large bandwidth, only a small portion of this will undergo fading due to multipath at any given time. Like the narrow-band interference, this will result in only a small loss of data and can be overcome.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Another reason CDMA is resistant to multipath interference is because the delayed versions of the transmitted pseudo-random codes will have poor correlation with the original pseudo-random code, and will thus appear as another user, which is ignored at the receiver. In other words, as long as the multipath channel induces at least one chip of delay, the multipath signals will arrive at the receiver such that they are shifted in time by at least one chip from the intended signal. The correlation properties of the pseudo-random codes are such that this slight delay causes the multipath to appear uncorrelated with the intended signal, and it is thus ignored.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Some CDMA devices use a rake receiver, which exploits multipath delay components to improve the performance of the system. A rake receiver combines the information from several correlators, each one tuned to a different path delay, producing a stronger version of the signal than a simple receiver with a single correlation tuned to the path delay of the strongest signal.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Frequency reuse is the ability to reuse the same radio channel frequency at other cell sites within a cellular system. In the FDMA and TDMA systems, frequency planning is an important consideration. The frequencies used in different cells must be planned carefully to ensure signals from different cells do not interfere with each other. In a CDMA system, the same frequency can be used in every cell, because channelization is done using the pseudo-random codes. Reusing the same frequency in every cell eliminates the need for frequency planning in a CDMA system; however, planning of the different pseudo-random sequences must be done to ensure that the received signal from one cell does not correlate with the signal from a nearby cell.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: Since adjacent cells use the same frequencies, CDMA systems have the ability to perform soft hand-offs. Soft hand-offs allow the mobile telephone to communicate simultaneously with two or more cells. The best signal quality is selected until the hand-off is complete. This is different from hard hand-offs utilized in other cellular systems. In a hard-hand-off situation, as the mobile telephone approaches a hand-off, signal strength may vary abruptly. In contrast, CDMA systems use the soft hand-off, which is undetectable and provides a more reliable and higher-quality signal.


title: Code-division multiple access

text: A novel collaborative multi-user transmission and detection scheme called collaborative CDMA has been investigated for the uplink that exploits the differences between users' fading channel signatures to increase the user capacity well beyond the spreading length in the MAI-limited environment. The authors show that it is possible to achieve this increase at a low complexity and high bit error rate performance in flat fading channels, which is a major research challenge for overloaded CDMA systems. In this approach, instead of using one sequence per user as in conventional CDMA, the authors group a small number of users to share the same spreading sequence and enable group spreading and despreading operations. The new collaborative multi-user receiver consists of two stages: group multi-user detection (MUD) stage to suppress the MAI between the groups and a low-complexity maximum-likelihood detection stage to recover jointly the co-spread users' data using minimal Euclidean-distance measure and users' channel-gain coefficients. An enhanced CDMA version known as interleave-division multiple access (IDMA) uses the orthogonal interleaving as the only means of user separation in place of signature sequence used in CDMA system.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird is a Muppet character designed by Jim Henson and created by Kermit Love for the long-running children's television show "Sesame Street". An eight-foot two-inch (249 cm) tall bright yellow anthropomorphic bird, he can roller skate, ice skate, dance, swim, sing, write poetry, draw, and ride a unicycle. Despite this wide array of talents, he is prone to frequent misunderstandings, on one occasion even singing the alphabet as one long word (from the song called "ABC-DEF-GHI," pronounced ), pondering what it could mean. He would refer to grocer Mr. Hooper as "Mr. Looper", among other mispronunciations. He lives in a large nest behind the 123 Sesame Street brownstone and right next to Oscar the Grouch's trash can. He also has a teddy bear named Radar. In Season 46, Big Bird's large nest is now sitting within a small, furnished maple tree, and is no longer hidden by used construction doors.


title: Big Bird

text: Caroll Spinney originally performed Big Bird from 1969 to 2018. Matt Vogel began as an understudy in 1996 before becoming the character's full-time performer in 2018.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird was originally performed by Caroll Spinney starting in 1969. In the later years of Spinney's career, the show gradually started training new performers to play Big Bird. The apprentices included both Rick Lyon in the opening theme song of the show's 33rd season, and later Matt Vogel in the show's "Journey to Ernie" segment. Vogel became Big Bird's primary performer after Spinney's retirement.


title: Big Bird

text: Spinney was sick during the taping of a few first-season episodes, so Daniel Seagren performed Big Bird in those episodes. He also performed Big Bird when he appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1969 and on "Hollywood Squares" in the 1970s. According to "The Story of Jim Henson" by Stephanie St. Pierre, the costume was built for Jim Henson to perform, but when Henson tried it on, Kermit Love, who had built the costume, did not think that Henson was walking like a bird is supposed to walk, and so Henson decided not to perform Big Bird. Frank Oz was offered the part, but since he disliked performing full-body characters, he turned down the job.


title: Big Bird

text: Director Jon Stone, in the 1994 documentary "The World of Jim Henson", revealed that the Big Bird costume actually did not have any openings that would allow the actor to see; a small television was strapped to the actor's chest to allow him to navigate. The camera was set up for Spinney by technician Walt Rauffer, on the suggestion of director Bob Myhrum. Rauffer rigged the camera to a harness strapped to Spinney's chest; Spinney reported that they called the camera "the electronic bra". When Big Bird's performer is performing on location and cannot get a video feed, a small hole is made in the costume to allow him to see. In such cases, Big Bird wears a necktie to cover the hole. This can also be seen in the "Sesame Street Live" shows.


title: Big Bird

text: In scenes where Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (both characters performed by Spinney) interact in a scene together, the situation has varied depending on the number of lines one or the other is given. When Spinney performed Big Bird, a second puppeteer operated Oscar to Spinney's vocals. Beginning in 1997, Vogel would operate Big Bird and Oscar was performed by Spinney as usual until 2015.


title: Big Bird

text: In 2015, due to being diagnosed with dystonia, Spinney no longer puppeteered the Big Bird suit full-time. Matt Vogel took over puppetry duties, manipulating the puppet to Spinney's vocals (either pre-recorded, dubbed in post-production, or provided live on set). Spinney continued to provide Big Bird's voice on the series for seasons 46 and 47, as well as select commercials, online videos, and the special "Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas". Afterwards, Spinney entered semi-retirement, and Matt Vogel fully assumed the role. Despite this, Spinney continued to receive onscreen credit for playing the characters through Season 50.


title: Big Bird

text: On October 17, 2018, Spinney announced his official retirement from both his characters. The following day, he recorded his final performances as Big Bird and Oscar as part of Episode 5022 for the series' landmark 50th anniversary, though, when the episode aired, none of his vocals were kept in. Spinney's final vocal performance as Big Bird to air was in the cold open for Episode 4920.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird was originally designed by a drawing from Jim Henson and built by Kermit Love in 1969. The design was based on a previous Henson creation, a seven-foot-tall dragon that the puppeteer created for a La Choy advertising campaign. The Big Bird performer is completely enclosed within the costume, and extends his right hand over his head to operate the head and neck of the puppet. The Muppeteer's left hand serves as the Bird's left wing, while the right wing is stuffed and hangs loosely from a fishing line that runs through a loop under the neck and attaches to the wrist of the left hand. The right hand thus does the opposite of the left hand: as the left hand goes down, the right hand is pulled up by the fishing line. A secondary muppeteer would be used in scenes where Big Bird uses both his wings or holds something in the right wing.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird's body suit weighs ten pounds, and his head weighs four pounds. According to writer Louise Gikow, the heat inside the suit is "unbearable, and it's extraordinarily difficult to hold Big Bird's head."


title: Big Bird

text: Different versions of Big Bird are portrayed in some international versions of "Sesame Street". For example, the Dutch version has a blue bird named Pino. In the Latin American version (Plaza Sésamo), Big Bird's parrot cousin, Abelardo Montoya, is featured. He appears similar to Big Bird, but he is green.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird's appearance has changed over the years, as has his personality. He originally had very few feathers on top of his head; his body feathers were also more shaggy and unkempt, and his body was not as rounded and full as it is now. His personality was more dopey and "bird-brained" than it later became. He gradually got more feathers on top, giving his head a more rounded appearance, and developed a blaze-like crest of lighter yellow feathers above his eyes. His body got fluffier, rounder and more well groomed as well. His personality developed over time from being a dim, slow-witted character into the childlike innocence he is known for today. Although all the "Sesame Street" Muppet characters are technically ageless, Big Bird is psychologically written to represent a six-year-old.


title: Big Bird

text: The costume is partially assembled by company American & Fancy Feather, using the tail feathers from turkeys; as the feathers are rarely clean, company owner Anthony Trento calls the Big Bird costume his "toughest customer". Sesame Workshop is said to reject roughly 90 percent of all the feathers selected for use on the costume.


title: Big Bird

text: The book "“G” is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street" cites a producer of "Sesame Street" who refers to Big Bird as a canary. In episode, “Mister Rogers Talks about Competition” of the show, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", Big Bird was asked by King Friday XIII if he was related to the cassowary; he replied, "I'm actually a Golden Condor." On the January 23, 1976 episode of "Hollywood Squares", Big Bird was asked what kind of bird he is and said he was a lark, causing host Peter Marshall to crack up. In the film "Don't Eat the Pictures", Osiris calls Big Bird an ibis. Big Bird appeared in a series 11 episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", in which he declares he is a "golden condor". Zoologist Mike Dickison suggested in his popular Pechakucha talk that Big Bird represents a unique species that evolved from the whooping crane. For decades, Oscar the Grouch has been calling Big Bird a turkey, more as an insult rather than a reference to his species. Big Bird is always described as being flightless.


title: Big Bird

text: During the first presidential debate on October 3, 2012, Mitt Romney used Big Bird as an example of spending cuts he would make to reduce the federal budget deficit. Romney told the moderator, Jim Lehrer, "I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to – I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one."


title: Big Bird

text: Barack Obama’s campaign later released a satirical advertisement in which Romney described Big Bird as an "evil genius" and "a menace to our economy", and depicted Romney as more concerned with cracking down on Big Bird than on white collar criminals such as Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay.


title: Big Bird

text: Sesame Workshop subsequently asked that both campaigns remove "Sesame Street" characters from campaign materials, stating on their website: "Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns."


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird did, however, appear on the October 7, 2012 episode of "Saturday Night Live" during the show's "Weekend Update" sketch. During his appearance, he made light of the situation with the segment's host, Seth Meyers, including bird-related jokes such as, when asked how he found out that his name had been mentioned in the debate, Big Bird replied, "I got a million Tweets". When asked if he had any political statement he would like to make, Big Bird replied, "No. I don't want to 'ruffle any feathers'".


title: Big Bird

text: On November 6, 2021, the character's official Twitter account posted that Big Bird had received a COVID-19 vaccine, in an effort to promote vaccination of children. After President Joe Biden responded in support, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz criticized Sesame Street for the statement. In response, a parody Twitter account, Big Bird for Senate, (not affiliated with or endorsed by Sesame Workshop) was created portraying Big Bird as a candidate for Cruz's senate seat. The account gained over 100,000 followers in its first week, and numerous other accounts were made casting Sesame Street characters as campaign officials. The original account has since been deleted.


title: Big Bird

text: In 1985, Big Bird was the star of his own film, "", alongside the cast of "Sesame Street". The plot focused on him being moved away to live with a family of dodos by a meddling social-worker named Miss Finch (voiced by Sally Kellerman). He is not happy with his new home and he runs away and embarks on a cross-country adventure. Along the way, he finds help from a friendly truck driver (Waylon Jennings) and two farmer kids (Alyson Court and Benjamin Barrett). But on the bad side, there are two unscrupulous carnival-owning brothers (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty) who want to kidnap and make him perform in their carnival for their own profit. In the meantime, his friends Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Count von Count, Telly and Oscar the Grouch are in pursuit of him to find him and bring him back home safely. Also joining them are their human friends, Gordon, Maria, Olivia and Linda with Bob aiding them from Sesame Street.


title: Big Bird

text: In the mid-late 1970s, Big Bird made several appearances on "The Hollywood Squares". As with Mr. Hooper, Big Bird frequently mispronounced host Peter Marshall's name, calling him "Mr. Marshmallow" or "Mr. Masher". In another episode, when asked by Marshall what kind of bird he was, Big Bird replied "I'm a lark", which broke Marshall up.


title: Big Bird

text: He appeared in a series 11 episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segment, in which he enters the "Draw the Neighborhood" contest.


title: Big Bird

text: He made an appearance as a guest star on the third season of "The Muppet Show". A portrait of Big Bird also appeared in the pilot "".


title: Big Bird

text: He appeared in "A Muppet Family Christmas" holiday special, in which he dissuades the Swedish Chef from cooking him for Christmas dinner by offering him a gift of homemade chocolate covered birdseed. They then sing a duet of "The Christmas Song".


title: Big Bird

text: On May 21, 1990, Big Bird appeared at Jim Henson's memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, singing Kermit the Frog's signature song, "Bein' Green". Performer Caroll Spinney nearly broke down several times during the deeply touching performance, which was later described by "Life" as "an epic and almost unbearably moving event".


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird made a non-speaking appearance in "The West Wing" Season 5 episode "Eppur Si Muove". During a visit by The Muppets to the White House, Big Bird sat down on a bench next to C. J. Cregg, who had complained during the episode of past comparisons to Big Bird due to her height.


title: Big Bird

text: He appeared briefly at Qualcomm's CES Keynote on January 7, 2013 to show off Sesame Workshop's newest app, 'Big Bird's Words', due in Summer 2013.


title: Big Bird

text: He appeared in the final episode of "The Colbert Report" along with Cookie Monster and dozens of other celebrities singing "We'll Meet Again".


title: Big Bird

text: On February 16, 2015, Big Bird appeared alongside Michelle Obama on "Billy on the Street", a comedy game show hosted by Billy Eichner. Before the quiz, Michelle Obama talked about "eat brighter", a campaign to promote healthy food in kids which she and a number of "Sesame Street" characters, including Big Bird, participated in. The short was nominated for an Emmy Award later that year.


title: Big Bird

text: Big Bird appeared with Caroll Spinney in a spoof of the Academy Award-winning film "Birdman." Published on YouTube on February 19, 2015, the video shows Spinney sitting in a dressing room with a poster of Big Bird behind him. Spinney hears the voice of his alter ego, just as Michael Keaton's character Riggan hears his alter ego Birdman in the movie. He uses telekinesis to throw a box of tissues at the Big Bird poster. The spoof uses similar music to the "Birdman" film. The Big Birdman spoof appears as if it were shot in one long take, mimicking the long scenes of the movie. It follows Spinney out of the dressing room, down hallways, through doors, and out onto the sidewalk, where he is joined by Big Bird.


title: Big Bird

text: In an advertisement for AT&T/DirecTV, Big Bird and other film/television personalities such as David Hasselhoff (as his "Knight Rider" persona Michael Knight) and the Oklahoma Sooners football team appear interspersed with the daily workings of a major city as someone walks around using the service's TV Everywhere initiative.


title: Big Bird

text: At the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors, which was filmed on the day Spinney died, Vogel made an appearance as Big Bird for the event to celebrate "Sesame Street" being honored by the Kennedy Center.


title: Hellebore

text: Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus Helleborus consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. Despite names such as "winter rose", "Christmas rose" and "Lenten rose", hellebores are not closely related to the rose family (Rosaceae). Many hellebore species are poisonous.


title: Hellebore

text: The flowers have five petal-like sepals surrounding a ring of small, cup-like nectaries which are actually petals modified to hold nectar. The sepals do not fall as petals would, but remain on the plant, sometimes for many months. Recent research in Spain suggests that the persistence of the sepals contributes to the development of the seeds.


title: Hellebore

text: The scientific name "Helleborus" could derive from the Ancient Greek word (), the common name for "H. orientalis", constructed from (, "to injure") and (), "food.". It is also possibly from Greek, ἄλκη “fawn”, βιβρώσκω (bibrṓskō, “to eat”).


title: Hellebore

text: The table below shows the species of the genus "Helleborus", give its common name, the area of distribution, an image if available and the meaning of the scientific name. The cladogram shows the relationship between the different species determined with microbiological methods by Meiners et al. (2011).


title: Hellebore

text: These four species have leaves on their flowering stems (in "H. vesicarius" the stems die back each year; it also has basal leaves).


title: Hellebore

text: These species have basal leaves. They have no true leaves on their flower stalks (although there are leafy bracts where the flower stalks branch).


title: Hellebore

text: Other species names (now considered invalid) may be encountered in older literature, including "H. hyemalis", "H. polychromus", "H. ranunculinus", "H. trifolius".


title: Hellebore

text: Hybridising (deliberate and accidental) between "H. orientalis" and several other closely related species and subspecies has vastly improved the colour-range of the flowers, which now extends from slate grey, near-black, deep purple and plum, through rich red and pinks to yellow, white and green. The outer surface of the sepals is often green-tinged, and as the flower ages it usually becomes greener inside and out; individual flowers often remain on the plant for a month or more. The inner surface of each sepal may be marked with veins, or dotted or blotched with pink, red or purple. "Picotee" flowers, whose pale-coloured sepals have narrow margins of a darker colour, are much sought-after, as are those with dark nectaries which contrast with the outer sepals.


title: Hellebore

text: Recent breeding programmes have also created double-flowered and anemone-centred plants. Ironically, doing this is actually reversing the evolutionary process in which hellebores' true petals had been modified into nectaries; it is usually these nectaries which become the extra petals in double, semi-double and anemone-centred flowers. Double-flowered hellebores provide a very interesting variation to the standard hellebore. They are generally easy to maintain and share the same planting conditions as the standard hellebore.


title: Hellebore

text: Semi-double flowers have one or two extra rows of petals; doubles have more. Their inner petals are generally very like the outer ones in colour and patterning. They are often of a similar length and shape, though they may be slightly shorter and narrower, and some are attractively waved or ruffled. By contrast, anemone-centred flowers have, cupped within the five normal outer petals, a ring of much shorter, more curved extra petals (sometimes trumpet-shaped, intermediate in appearance between petals and nectaries), which may be a different colour from the outer petals. These short, extra petals (sometimes known as "petaloids") drop off after the flower has been pollinated, leaving an apparently single flower, whereas doubles and semi-doubles tend to retain their extra petals after pollination.


title: Hellebore

text: Gardeners and nurserymen have also created hybrids between less closely related species. The earliest was probably "H." × "nigercors", a cross between "H.  niger" and "H. argutifolius" (formerly "H. lividus" subsp. "corsicus" or "H. corsicus", hence the name) first made in 1931. "H." × "sternii", a cross between "H. argutifolius" and "H. lividus", first exhibited in 1947, is named after the celebrated British plantsman Sir Frederick Stern. "H." × "ballardiae" ("H. niger" crossed with "H. lividus") and "H." × "ericsmithii" ("H. niger" crossed with "H." × "sternii") similarly commemorate the noted British nursery owners Helen Ballard and Eric Smith. In recent years, Ashwood Nurseries (of Kingswinford in the English Midlands), already well known for its Ashwood Garden Hybrids ("H." × "hybridus" singles, semi-doubles, doubles and anemone-centres), has created hybrids between "H. niger" and "H. thibetanus" (called "H." 'Pink Ice'), and between "H. niger" and "H. vesicarius" (called "H." 'Briar Rose'). The gardenworthiness of these hybrids has still to be proven.


title: Hellebore

text: The following hellebore species and cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:


title: Hellebore

text: Various species of this genus originated in Europe and Asia. The greatest concentration of species occurs in the Balkans. One atypical species ("H. thibetanus") comes from western China; another atypical species ("H. vesicarius") inhabits a small area on the border between Turkey and Syria.


title: Hellebore

text: More commonly known as the Hellebore leaf miner, "Phytomyza hellebori" is a small fly that infests only the "H. foetidus" plants in the Hellebore family. The leaf miner fly digs tunnels into the leaves of the "H. foetidus." The tunnels create brownish-black blotches on the plant. These later turn into a nesting ground where the flies lay their eggs. With time, the leaves turn a brownish-white along where the tunnels were dug. The larvae start to eat the inside of the leaves in August, and damage develops from the late summer to the early spring, with heavy attacks leaving the foliage disfigured by spring.


title: Hellebore

text: To control heavy infestations, the leaves can be removed and destroyed during the winter months before the adult flies emerge. Insecticides can be used with limited effectiveness in controlling larvae and fly populations in the plant. Insecticides may harm non-leaf miner flies if applied during the hellebore's flowering period.


title: Hellebore

text: "Macrosiphum hellebori", commonly known as 'Hellebore aphid' or 'greenfly', is a sap-feeding aphid that infests the flowers and foliage of hellebore plants. The whitish-green aphids are about long and form dense colonies on hellebores, coating them with a honeydew that can lead to the growth of sooty mold on the leaves and flowers of the hellebore. This species of aphid only affects hellebores and is most active in March and April when the hellebores are flowering and when few aphid predators are around, though they may infest during any time of the year.


title: Hellebore

text: Aphids start their feeding from the outside the flowers, beginning at the leaves and then moving towards the flower petals of the hellebore. As the hellebore beings to open, the aphids try to move into the flower. The aphids then feed on the inner parts of the plant as well as the young stems and shoots. As the population grows, the aphids eventually eat the remaining parts of the plant, such as older leaves, for food.


title: Hellebore

text: Aphid infestations can be controlled through persistent squashing of the aphids manually or by using insecticides. It is not recommended to spray flowering hellebores as it may harm the non-aphid pollinating insects.


title: Hellebore

text: "Botrytis cinerea" or grey mold is a fungal disease that infects most ornamental plants. The fungus causes a decay of plant tissues and grows fuzzy gray-brown mold over the decaying areas, such as the buds, leaves, and flowers. Parts of the plant may shrivel and die after exposure to the mold, particularly the flowers. Typically the fungus infects plants only through an open wound or when the plant is under stress, but it has also been known to infect plants in humid conditions. If the humidity is low, the mold may be contained to discrete spots on the plant, but the mold has been known to spread rapidly in highly humid conditions. Grey mold is not seasonally dependent and can infect a plant at any time of the year. The fungus forms black seed-like structures in the dead plant tissue to create its spores to help it survive when new host plants are scarce. The spores are spread through the air to new plants.


title: Hellebore

text: To treat the infected plant, the first step is to remove infected and dying leaves, buds, and flowers immediately along with any other dead plant materials around the hellebore. The next step is to reduce the humidity around the plant by improving the ventilation and ensuring the plants are not overcrowded.


title: Hellebore

text: "Coniothyrium hellebori" is a fungus that causes the most common fungal disease for helleborus species known as Hellebore black spot or leaf spot. The disease is most common not only in botanical and ornamental gardens but also in hellebore nurseries as well. Visible symptoms include blackish-brown spots that often appear as rings on the leaf blade or at the margins of the leaf. The spots continue to grow larger as the disease progresses, retaining an elliptical or circular shape and turning a dark brown or black color. The spots grow until they infect the whole leaf. Petioles and flowers can also be infected, but the disease is primarily seen in the leaves. The symptoms become visible in the spring and worsen with time.


title: Hellebore

text: The small black fruiting bodies which carry the spores, pycnidia, are formed in the dead cells of the leaf spots. The spores are mainly spread by water, wind, and wind-blown rain. The fungus has an ideal habitat to spread and grow at the final growth site for hellebore plants, and if left untreated, the spores remain for many years. The most effective method against "C. hellebori" is to remove and destroy the infected leaves immediately to avoid reinfection the following spring.


title: Hellebore

text: Helleborus net necrosis virus (HeNNV), also known as Hellebore black death, is an RNA virus that can cause serious disease in Hellebore plants by stunting or deforming the plant as it grows. The disease marks the leaves of the hellebores with black streaks, often following the veins of the leaf, and creating ring patterns. It can also mark the sepals and flowers with black spots or streaks but does not always do so. When symptoms are severe, new leaves have limited growth before dying off. The most seriously affected in the UK is "H. orientalis", but all hellebores are susceptible to the disease. The most effective method of treatment against black death is to dig up and destroy all infected plants immediately. Many viruses are not transmitted through seeds, so it is possible to raise new disease resistant plants this way.


title: Hellebore

text: "Pseudomonas viridiflava" is a bacterium that has been claimed to cause disease in hellebores in New Zealand, among other plants. The bacterial disease manifested on hellebore plants in the form of black leaf spots, necrosis petal, and stem lesions. The most popular ornamental and commercial crop grown in New Zealand is "H. orientalis" and its hybrids, of which 90 percent of the "H. orientalis" in the Tauranga nursery contracted the disease after several days of moderate rainfall. The disease caused discoloration in the form of black leaf spots that were circular and about 1.5–2 mm in diameter, black stem lesions, and dry, grey to brown lesions with distinct margins on the flower petals. The symptoms were different from other leaf-spotting hellebore diseases, such as those caused by the fungus "Coniothyrium" and the bacteria "Xanthomonas" The case in New Zealand is the only reported case of "P. viridiflava" infecting hellebores so far, but in other plants "P. viridiflava" has been reported to also induce symptoms such as leaf rot, leaf blotch, stem necrosis and blossom blight.


title: Hellebore

text: Hellebores are widely grown in United States Department of Agriculture hardiness zones 5a to 8b gardens for decorative purposes. They are particularly valued by gardeners for their winter and early spring flowering period; the plants are surprisingly frost-resistant and many are evergreen. Also of value is their shade tolerance. Many species of hellebore have green or greenish-purple flowers and are of limited garden value, although Corsican hellebore ("H. argutifolius"), a robust plant with pale green, cup-shaped flowers and attractive leathery foliage, is widely grown. So is the 'stinking hellebore' or setterwort ("H. foetidus"), which has drooping clusters of small, pale green, bell-shaped flowers, often edged with maroon, which contrasts with its dark evergreen foliage. "H. foetidus" 'Wester Flisk', with red-flushed flowers and flower stalks, is becoming popular, as are more recent selections with golden-yellow foliage.


title: Hellebore

text: The so-called Christmas rose ("H. niger"), a traditional cottage garden favourite, bears its pure white flowers (which often age to pink) in the depths of winter; large-flowered cultivars are available, as are pink-flowered and double-flowered selections.


title: Hellebore

text: The most popular hellebores for garden use are "H. orientalis" and its colourful hybrids, "H." × "hybridus" (Lenten rose).. In the northern hemisphere, they flower in early spring, around the period of Lent, and are often known as Lenten hellebores, oriental hellebores, or Lenten roses. They are excellent for bringing early colour to shady herbaceous borders and areas between deciduous shrubs and under trees.


title: Hellebore

text: The cultivar ='Walhero' (sometimes listed under "H." × "hybridus") has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Hellebore

text: All helleborus plants are toxic, and all parts of the helleborus plant are toxic. Hellebore poisoning is rare, but it does occur.


title: Hellebore

text: Hellebore plants are usually left alone by animals such as deer and rabbits due to the fact that the leaves of the plant produce poisonous alkaloids, making them distasteful to animals. The poisonous alkaloids have been known to sometimes bother gardeners with sensitive skin. It was used in the First Sacred War at the start of the sixth century BC to poison the water supply of the city of Kirrha.


title: Hellebore

text: Poisonings occur through ingestion or handling. Hellebore plants should not be ingested as poisoning cases are most severe when the plants are eaten. This is especially true when hellebores are eaten in large quantities. Symptoms of ingestion include: burning of the mouth and throat, salivation, vomiting, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, nervous symptoms, and possibly depression. Consuming large quantities of hellebore plants can be fatal. Toxic cardiac glycosides occur in the roots. High levels of ranunculin and protoanemonin, especially in the leaves and sap, also contribute to symptoms after ingestion.


title: Hellebore

text: Dermatitis may also occur from handling the hellebore plants without protection. This is typically caused by the ranunculin and protoanemonin found on the outside of the plant, including the leaves, stem, flower, and sap. The poison on the outside of the plant causes irritation and burning sensations on the skin. When collecting seeds from hellebore plants, it is recommended to wait for the pods to dry and shake them out into a container or onto the ground to collect. Attempts to remove the seeds by hand exposes skin to the potent toxins in the sap of the hellebore, which can increase the damage done to the skin. Small or minimal exposure to the toxins should only cause a mild irritation to the skin, and the affliction should only last for a few minutes. If the burning persists or intensifies, it is recommended to wash the affected areas thoroughly to remove the toxins and see a doctor.


title: Hellebore

text: The species historically known as "Black hellebore" cause tinnitus, vertigo, stupor, thirst, anaphylaxis, emesis (vomiting), catharsis, bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate), and finally, collapse and death from cardiac arrest. Although "Helleborus niger" (black hellebore) contains protoanemonin or ranunculin, which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth, and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis, and hematemesis, research in the 1970s showed that the roots of "H. niger" do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein that are responsible for the lethal reputation of "black hellebore". It seems that earlier studies may have used a commercial preparation containing a mixture of material from other species such as "Helleborus viridis", green hellebore.


title: Hellebore

text: In the early days of medicine, two kinds of hellebore were recognized: black hellebore, which included various species of "Helleborus", and white hellebore, now known as "Veratrum album", which belongs to a different plant family, the Melanthiaceae. Although the latter plant is highly toxic, containing veratrine and the teratogens cyclopamine (which can cause the fatal birth defect of cyclopia) and jervine, it is believed to be the "hellebore" used by Hippocrates as a purgative.


title: Hellebore

text: Despite its toxicity, "black hellebore" was used by the Greek and Romans to treat paralysis, gout and other diseases, more particularly insanity.


title: Hellebore

text: "H. niger" is commonly called the Christmas rose, due to an old legend that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give the Christ Child in Bethlehem.


title: Hellebore

text: In Greek mythology, Melampus of Pylos used hellebore to save the daughters of the king of Argos from a madness, induced by Dionysus, that caused them to run naked through the city, crying, weeping, and screaming.


title: Hellebore

text: During the Siege of Kirrha in 585 BC, hellebore was reportedly used by the Greek besiegers to poison the city's water supply. The defenders were subsequently so weakened by diarrhea that they were unable to defend the city from assault.


title: Hellebore

text: In a fit of madness induced by Hera, Heracles killed his children by Megara. His madness was cured using hellebore.


title: Labradorite

text: Labradorite ((Ca, Na)(Al, Si)O) is a calcium-enriched feldspar mineral first identified in Labrador, Canada, which can display an iridescent effect (schiller).


title: Labradorite

text: Labradorite is an intermediate to calcic member of the plagioclase series. It has an anorthite percentage (%An) of between 50 and 70. The specific gravity ranges from 2.68 to 2.72. The streak is white, like most silicates. The refractive index ranges from 1.559 to 1.573 and twinning is common. As with all plagioclase members, the crystal system is triclinic, and three directions of cleavage are present, two of which are nearly at right angles and are more obvious, being of good to perfect quality (while the third direction is poor). It occurs as clear, white to gray, blocky to lath shaped grains in common mafic igneous rocks such as basalt and gabbro, as well as in anorthosites.


title: Labradorite

text: The geological type area for labradorite is Paul's Island near the town of Nain in Labrador, Canada. It has also been reported in Poland, Norway, Finland and various other locations worldwide, with notable distribution in Madagascar, China, Australia, Slovakia and the United States.


title: Labradorite

text: Labradorite occurs in mafic igneous rocks and is the feldspar variety most common in basalt and gabbro. The uncommon anorthosite bodies are composed almost entirely of labradorite. It also is found in metamorphic amphibolites and as a detrital component of some sediments. Common mineral associates in igneous rocks include olivine, pyroxenes, amphiboles and magnetite.


title: Labradorite

text: Labradorite can display an iridescent optical effect (or "schiller") known as labradorescence. The term "labradorescence" was coined by Ove Balthasar Bøggild, who defined it (labradorization) as follows:


title: Labradorite

text: Contributions to the understanding of the origin and cause of the effect were made by Robert Strutt, 4th Baron Rayleigh (1923), and by Bøggild (1924).


title: Labradorite

text: The cause of this optical phenomenon is phase exsolution lamellar structure, occurring in the Bøggild miscibility gap. The effect is visible when the lamellar separation is between ; the lamellae are not necessarily parallel; and the lamellar structure is found to lack long range order.


title: Labradorite

text: The lamellar separation only occurs in plagioclases of a certain composition; those of calcic labradorite (50-70% anorthite) and bytownite (formula: , "i.e.", with an anorthite content of ~70 to 90%) particularly exemplify this. Another requirement for the lamellar separation is a very slow cooling of the rock containing the plagioclase. Slow cooling is required to allow the Ca, Na, Si, and Al ions to diffuse through the plagioclase and produce the lamellar separation. Therefore, not all labradorites exhibit labradorescence (they might not have the correct composition and/or they cooled too quickly), and not all plagioclases that exhibit labradorescence are labradorites (they may be bytownite).


title: Labradorite

text: Some gemstone varieties of labradorite exhibiting a high degree of labradorescence are called spectrolite.


title: Richard Burr

text: Richard Mauze Burr (born November 30, 1955) is an American businessman and politician who is the senior United States senator from North Carolina, serving since 2005. A member of the Republican Party, Burr was previously a member of the United States House of Representatives.


title: Richard Burr

text: Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Burr is a graduate of Wake Forest University. Before seeking elected office, he was a sales manager for a lawn equipment company. In 1994, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina's 5th congressional district as part of the Republican Revolution.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was first elected to the United States Senate in 2004. From 2015 to 2020, he chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee. In 2016, he announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022. Burr temporarily stepped down as chair of the Intelligence Committee on May 15, 2020, amid an FBI investigation into allegations of insider trading during the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 19, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that the investigation had been closed, with no charges against Burr.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was born on November 30, 1955, in Charlottesville, Virginia, the son of Martha (Gillum) and Rev. David Horace White Burr. He graduated from Richard J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1974 and earned a B.A. in communications from Wake Forest University in 1978. In college, Burr played defensive back for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons football team. He is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.


title: Richard Burr

text: Before running for Congress, Burr worked for 17 years as a sales manager for Carswell Distributing Company, a distributor of lawn equipment. He is a member of the board of Brenner Children's Hospital and the West Point Board of Visitors.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 1992, Burr ran against incumbent Representative Stephen L. Neal for the seat in the Winston-Salem-based 5th District and lost. He ran again in 1994 after Neal chose not to seek reelection, and was elected in a landslide year for Republicans.


title: Richard Burr

text: In the House, Burr authored the FDA Modernization Act of 1997. He also helped create the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he successfully sponsored amendments to improve defenses against bioterrorism.


title: Richard Burr

text: As a representative, Burr co-sponsored, with Senator Kit Bond, an amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 2003 relaxing restrictions on the export of specific types of enriched uranium that were first enacted in the Schumer Amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 1992. The original Schumer amendment placed increased controls on U.S. civilian exports of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) to encourage foreign users to switch to reactor-grade low-enriched uranium (LEU) for isotope production. HEU is attractive to terrorists because it can be used to create a simple nuclear weapon, while LEU cannot be used directly to make nuclear weapons. Burr's amendment allowed exports of HEU to five countries for creating medical isotopes.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was reelected four times with no substantial opposition. He never received less than 62% of the vote, and ran unopposed in 2002.


title: Richard Burr

text: In July 2004, Burr won the Republican primary to seek the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by John Edwards, who had retired from the Senate to run for vice president with presidential nominee John Kerry in the 2004 election, which they lost to incumbent president George W. Bush. He faced Democratic Party nominee Erskine Bowles and Libertarian Tom Bailey. Burr won the election by five percentage points.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr defeated the Democratic nominee, North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, with 55% of the vote. He is the first Republican since Jesse Helms to be reelected to the United States Senate from North Carolina. He also broke the "curse" that his seat held, being the first senator reelected to the seat since 1968 (when Sam Ervin won his final term).


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr defeated Democratic nominee Deborah K. Ross, 51%–45%. Burr was an advisor for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.


title: Richard Burr

text: On July 20, 2016, during his reelection campaign, Burr announced that, should he win that year's election (which he did), he would not seek reelection to a fourth term in 2022.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2007, Burr ran for chair of the Senate Republican Conference, but lost to Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee by a vote of 31 to 16. In 2009, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate Republican Whip, appointed Burr Chief Deputy Whip in the 111th Congress. In 2007, Burr was named a deputy whip. In 2011, he announced his intention to seek the post of minority whip, the number two Republican position in the Senate, but he dropped out of that race in 2012.


title: Richard Burr

text: As of March 2020, Burr had voted with Trump about 92.2% of the time. He rarely votes against the majority of his party (in about 1.5% of votes). The American Conservative Union's Center for Legislative Accountability gives Burr a lifetime rating of 86.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr opposes the DISCLOSE Act, which would require political ads include information about who funded the ad. He supports the U.S. Supreme Court decision "Citizens United", which allowed political action committees to spend an unlimited amount of money during elections so long as they were not in direct coordination with candidates.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr has been critical of financial regulations; he strongly opposed, and voted against, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2018, he voted for legislation that partly repealed the Dodd–Frank reforms.


title: Richard Burr

text: In fall 2008, during the global financial crisis, Burr said he was going to an ATM every day and taking out cash because he thought the financial system would soon collapse. In 2009, in response to press about his experience, Burr said that he would do the same thing again next time.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr is a signatory of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a pledge vowing to oppose to tax increases for any reason. He opposes raising taxes on businesses or high-income people to fund public services.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2013, Burr criticized Senator Ted Cruz and other Republican colleagues for filibustering the passage of the fiscal year 2014 federal budget (thereby precipitating a federal government shutdown) in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act. Burr called the approach of Cruz and allies "the height of hypocrisy" and the "dumbest idea I've ever heard."


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr opposed ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and supported the adoption of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.


title: Richard Burr

text: In March 2015, Burr voted for an amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow employees to earn paid sick time. He opposes raising the federal minimum wage.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was one of 20 senators to vote against the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a public land management and conservation bill. He supported renewal of the 1965 Land and Water Conservation Fund.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change; he acknowledges that climate change is occurring, but has expressed doubt that it is caused by human activity. He opposes regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and opposed federal grants or subsidies to encourage the productions of renewable energy. In 2015, he voted against a measure to declare that climate change is real, human-caused, creating problems, and that the U.S. must shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. In 2013, Burr voted for a measure expressing opposition to a federal tax or fee on carbon emissions. He voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2017, Burr voted to repeal the Stream Protection Rule as well as rules requiring energy companies to reduce waste, reduce emissions, and disclose payments from foreign governments. In 2019, he voted to repeal an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule regarding emissions. He has supported the lowering of federal taxes on alternative fuels and the initiation of a hydropower project on the Yadkin River in Wilkes County, North Carolina. In 2011, Burr voted to abolish the EPA and merge it with the U.S. Department of Energy.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2019, Burr was one of nine Republican lawmakers to found the Roosevelt Conservation Caucus, a conservation-focused group of Republican members of Congress.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2017, Burr voted to confirm Betsy DeVos as U.S. education secretary; she was confirmed by 51–50, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote after the Senate deadlocked. DeVos's family donated $43,200 to Burr's reelection campaign against Democrat Deborah Ross. Burr typically votes against any increased funding for federal education projects, and in 2016 said he opposed increasing Pell Grants, other forms of student financial aid, and any new subsidies that would help students refinance their loans. He supports the goals of charter schools and has voted to allow school prayer. He voted for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr's foreign policy views have been described as hawkish at times. In 2002, he voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, which authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Burr supported President Bush's troop surge in Iraq in January 2007, saying that the effort to counter the insurgency would increase "security and stability" in Iraq. In February 2019, he voted for a measure disapproving of the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and Syria. In February 2020, Burr voted against a measure restricting Trump from initiating military action against Iran without Congressional approval.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2017, Burr co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2018 and 2019, Burr opposed legislation to prohibit U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and to end U.S. military assistance to the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr has a perfect score from the National Rifle Association for NRA-supported legislation, and the NRA has extensively supported Burr's campaigns. In the 2016 election, the NRA spent nearly $7 million to support Burr against his Democratic rival Deborah K. Ross; over his career, Burr received more help from the NRA than all but one other member of Congress. Burr used the same media consultant as the NRA for ads.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2013, Burr voted against gun control measures, including extended background checks to internet and gun show weapons purchases and an assault weapons ban. He sponsored legislation to stop the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from adding the names of veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) if the department has assigned a financial fiduciary to take care of their finances due to mental incompetence, unless a judge or magistrate deems them to be a danger. People added to the NICS system are barred from purchasing or owning a firearm. Burr voted against Senator Dianne Feinstein's "no fly no buy" bill, but supported a Republican alternative measure by Senator John Cornyn that "proposed a 72-hour delay on gun sales to people whose names have been on a federal terror watch list within the past five years."


title: Richard Burr

text: Speaking privately on the topic of guns to a group of Republican volunteers in Mooresville, North Carolina, Burr joked that a magazine cover of Hillary Clinton ought to have had a bullseye on it. He quickly apologized for the comment.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2022, Burr later became one of ten Republican Senators to support a bipartisan agreement on gun control, which involved a red flag provision, a support for state crisis intervention orders, funding for school safety resources, stronger background checks for buyers under the age of 21, and penalties for straw purchases.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in December 2009, and against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. In 2014, Burr and Senator Orrin Hatch sponsored the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment Act, a bill that would repeal and replace the ACA. In 2017, Burr voted for the Republican legislation to replace major parts of the ACA; the legislation failed in the Senate on a 50–49 vote.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2012, Burr co-sponsored a plan to overhaul Medicare; his bill would have raised the eligibility age from 65 to 67 over time and shifted more seniors to private insurance. The proposal would have begun "a transition to a system dominated by private insurance plans."


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr opposed legislation to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the tobacco industry, which is economically important in North Carolina, and unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. In 2010, he introduced the National Uniformity for Food Act, unsuccessful legislation that would have banned states from forcing manufacturers to include labels other than those required by the FDA on consumables and health and beauty products.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2018, Burr voted in favor of legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He supports parental notification laws and efforts to restrict federal funding of Planned Parenthood. He voted to define a pregnancy as carrying an "unborn child" from the moment of conception. He voted to prevent minors who have crossed state lines from getting an abortion, as well as to ensure parents are notified if their child does get an abortion. He voted to extend the federal prohibition on tax dollars being used for abortions by preventing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from giving grants to any organization that performs abortions at any of its locations.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr opposes the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational use. He stated that there should be greater enforcement of current anti-cannabis federal laws in all states, even when cannabis is legal as a matter of state law.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr voted for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, the only Southern Republican senator to do so. The bill repealed the Defense Department's don't ask, don't tell policy of employment discrimination against openly gay individuals. Burr and John Ensign were the only senators who voted against cloture but for passage; Burr said he opposed taking up the issue of DADT repeal amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but voted in favor of the bill anyway, becoming one of eight Republicans who backed the final repeal bill.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but in 2013 said that he believed the law on same-sex marriage should be left to the states. In 2013, he voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill to extend federal employment discrimination protections to LGBT persons. In 2015, Burr was one of 11 Senate Republicans to vote in favor of allowing same-sex spouses to have access to federal Social Security and veterans' benefits.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr thinks that bathroom access should be regulated by sex listed on birth certificates, but has also sought to distance himself from H.B. 2, North Carolina's controversial "bathroom legislation."


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr voted against earmarking money to reduce teen pregnancy (via a requirement that health insurers have equitable birth control coverage, increased funding for family planning services, and funding for education programs that teaches vulnerable teens about contraceptives). He has stated he supports giving employers the right to restrict access to birth control coverage of employees if it is for moral reasons.


title: Richard Burr

text: In December 2018, Burr was one of 12 Republican senators to vote against the cloture motion on the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure altering federal sentencing laws, but ultimately voted for the law.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2016, Burr and other Republican Senators opposed holding hearings on President Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States, and refused to have a customary meeting with Garland. He said that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, he would try to block her from ever filling the vacancy, saying that if Clinton won, "I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court." Burr voted to confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, issuing a statement in favor of Kavanaugh's nomination two days before the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school, and indicating he would support Kavanaugh's confirmation regardless of the hearing.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2016, Burr blocked consideration of Patricia Timmons-Goodson's nomination to fill a vacancy on U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina; Obama nominated Timmons-Goodson to fill the seat, which had been vacant for more than 11 years. He has expressed pride at creating the longest federal court bench vacancy in U.S. history by blocking the appointment of a judge Obama nominated.


title: Richard Burr

text: Some provisions of the Patriot Act, including those enabling the bulk collection of metadata for private telephone records by the National Security Agency, were scheduled to expire at the end of May 2015. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr proposed extending the provisions for two years, but his amendments were defeated. After the provisions expired, the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act, which instead allowed the NSA to subpoena the data from telephone companies.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2016, following the FBI–Apple encryption dispute, Burr and Senator Dianne Feinstein circulated a draft bill (subsequently leaked) that would create a "backdoor" mandate, requiring technology companies to design encryption so as to provide law enforcement with user data in an "intelligible format" when required to do so by court order.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign. He stated that Trump "aligns perfectly" with the Republican Party. When asked on the campaign trail about Trump's offensive remarks about women, Burr said Trump should be forgiven a few mistakes and given time to change.


title: Richard Burr

text: In 2017, Burr said of Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, "I have found Director Comey to be a public servant of the highest order."


title: Richard Burr

text: As chair of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Burr led that chamber's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In March 2017, Comey briefed congressional leaders and Intelligence Committee heads on the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election. That briefing included "an identification of the principal U.S. subjects of the investigation." The Mueller report found that Burr had then corresponded with the Trump White House a week later about the Russia probes, with the White House Counsel's office, led by Don McGahn, apparently receiving "information about the status of the FBI investigation."


title: Richard Burr

text: In December 2019, amid an impeachment inquiry into Trump over the Trump-Ukraine scandal (Trump's request that Ukraine announce an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden), Burr pushed the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. Burr said, "There's no difference in the way Russia put their feet, early on, on the scale—being for one candidate and everybody called it meddling—and how the Ukrainian officials did it." During Trump's first impeachment trial, Burr said he would oppose removing Trump from office even if a "quid pro quo" was confirmed. He opposed calling Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton as a witness at the Senate trial; Bolton had written that Trump had tied U.S. security aid to Ukraine to the country's taking action against Biden. Burr voted to acquit Trump on the two charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.


title: Richard Burr

text: On February 9, 2021, Burr voted against the constitutionality of the trial. Despite this, on February 13, 2021, Burr was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict in Trump's second impeachment trial. On February 16, the North Carolina Republican Party censured him for the vote.


title: Richard Burr

text: In early February 2020, just before the COVID-19 market crash, Burr sold more than $1.6 million of stock in 33 transactions during a period when, as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was being briefed daily regarding potential health threats from COVID-19. He sold 95% of the holdings in his Individual Retirement Account (IRA). According to the FBI, Burr's sales six days before "a dramatic and substantial" downturn in the stock market allowed him to profit more than $164,000 and avoid $87,000 in losses. The stocks sold included several considered vulnerable to economic downturns, such as hotel chains. Burr's brother-in-law Gerald Fauth also subsequently sold stocks; according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Burr had a 50-second phone conversation with Fauth in February 2020, immediately after which Fauth sold shares.


title: Richard Burr

text: On March 19, before Burr's stock trades were publicly known, NPR reported Burr had warned a private organization in North Carolina on February 27 about the dangers of the virus, likely containment steps, and their extreme economic impacts on stocks and businesses, just two weeks after the stock sale. The advice contradicted his comments in a Fox News op-ed with Lamar Alexander on February 7. The organization he spoke to was Tar Heel Circle, a nonpartisan club of businesses and organizations that costs between $500 and $10,000 to join and assures members "enjoy interaction with top leaders and staff from Congress, the administration, and the private sector."


title: Richard Burr

text: Later on March 19, the nonprofit investigative organization ProPublica broke news of Burr’s stock transactions. When asked for comment, a spokesperson first "express[ed] displeasure with NPR's earlier characterizations” of the February 27 Tar Heel Circle event, and later added, "As the situation continues to evolve daily, he has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy." The "Raleigh News & Observer" editorial board criticized Burr's conduct: "Burr had a clear grasp of the danger ahead. Why did he only share it with a group whose member companies… contributed more than $100,000… to Burr’s last re-election campaign? Why didn’t Burr provide his assessment to all the constituents he is supposed to serve, as well as the national media?" Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson called for Burr's resignation in the face of the allegations.


title: Richard Burr

text: The Department of Justice, in coordination with the Securities and Exchange Commission, launched a formal probe into the stock sales made during the early days of the coronavirus epidemic by several legislators, including Burr. Burr was also sued by a shareholder for alleged STOCK Act violations.


title: Richard Burr

text: On May 13, the FBI served a search warrant on Burr at his Washington residence and seized his cellphone. He temporarily stepped down as chair of the Intelligence Committee the next day, taking effect on May 15.


title: Richard Burr

text: On January 19, 2021, the Justice Department informed Burr that it would not pursue charges against him.


title: Richard Burr

text: The FBI's search warrant affidavit was partially unsealed in September 2022, after litigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr was one of only three senators to oppose the STOCK Act of 2012, which prohibits members of Congress and congressional staff from using nonpublic information in securities trading.


title: Richard Burr

text: On May 28, 2021, Burr abstained from voting on the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr's car, a 1973 Volkswagen Thing, is "something of a local celebrity" on Capitol Hill. Burr has a known aversion to reporters, once even climbing out of his office window while carrying his dry cleaning to avoid them. Burr is a member of the United Methodist Church.


title: Richard Burr

text: Burr has been married to Brooke Fauth Burr, a real estate agent, since 1984, and they have two sons, Tyler and William. Both work for tobacco companies. He is a distant relative of 19th century vice-president Aaron Burr, as a descendant of one of Aaron Burr’s brothers.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Jamón ibérico (; ), "Iberian ham" is a variety of "jamón" or "presunto", a type of cured leg of pork produced in Spain and, to a lesser extent, Portugal.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: According to Spain's "denominación de origen" rules and current regulations on "jamón", the dry-cured "jamón ibérico" must be made from either pure breed Black Iberian pigs or cross-bred pigs at least 50% Black Iberian mixed only with Duroc pigs, the same restriction as required to keep official "ibérico" denomination on any Spanish pork meat product.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: "Jamón ibérico", especially the one labeled "de bellota", has a smooth texture, rich, savory taste, and regular marbling. The fat content is relatively high compared to "jamón serrano."


title: Jamón ibérico

text: The black Iberian pig lives primarily in the central and southwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula, which includes both Portugal and Spain. In Spain, the black Iberian pig is typically found in the provinces of Huelva, Córdoba, Cáceres, Badajoz, Salamanca, Ciudad Real, and Seville. In Portugal, the central and southern regions have an abundance of this breed, with a predilection for the Alentejo region. In Portugal, the black Iberian pig is commonly referred to as "porco preto ibérico" or "porco alentejano". The black Iberian pig is ingrained in the local Portuguese culture and tradition, with annual festivals in their honor, such as the Feira do Porco Preto, an annual festival in the region of Ourique.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Immediately after weaning, the piglets are fattened on barley and maize for several weeks. The pigs are then allowed to roam in pasture and oak groves to feed naturally on grass, herbs, acorns, chestnuts, and roots, until the slaughtering time approaches. At that point, the diet may be strictly limited to chestnuts or acorns for the best-quality "jamón ibérico", or maybe a mix of acorns and commercial feed for lesser qualities.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: The hams from the slaughtered pigs are salted and left to begin drying for two weeks, after which they are rinsed and left to dry for another four to six weeks. The curing process then takes at least twelve months, although some producers cure their "jamones ibéricos" for up to 48 months. During the curing process the meat is dried in salt, which helps to prevent the build-up of harmful organisms, and then is hung to be exposed to the elements, producing an exterior layer of mold which helps to protect the meat inside.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Normally, jamón is sold either sliced and vacuum-packed or as a whole leg. Vacuum-packed jamón may last up to 100 days at room temperature because the packaging seals out oxygen and slows the aging process. A whole leg does not last as long. If the jamón is regularly cut and covered with clingfilm or cheesecloth, an opened leg may last for three months.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: The hams are labeled according to the pigs' diet and the percentage of the pigs' Iberian ancestry, with an acorn diet and pure-bred Iberians being most desirable. The current labeling system, based on a series of color-coded labels, was phased in starting in January 2014.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Meaning literally "black foot or paw", pata negra is a commercial label for "jamón ibérico". In colloquial Spanish and popular culture, it is used as a superlative or synonym of "the best".


title: Jamón ibérico

text: It referred to the color of the pigs' hoof, which are white or fair-colored in most traditional and commercial pork breeds in Spain, but always black in the Black Iberian breed.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: The term used to be liberally applied in both Spanish and Portuguese, leading to quality and markets disputes, since the term was used interchangeably both as "great quality "jamón"" (of any breed) and "ibérico jamón" (of any quality). Alongside reputable "pata negra" producers, there were plenty of doubtful producers using the term in their labeling.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: "Jamón" has also been sold unlabeled in small towns and unpretentious establishments all around rural Spain. While as a general rule, a black hoof should indicate an "ibérico" ham, the ancestry could be exceedingly cross-bred or untraceable, and also there were cases of ham sourced from rare breeds with dark hoofs, and even manually darkened hoofs.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Modern regulations only allow the use of the wording "pata negra" for black label "jamón" sourced from acorn-fed pure-bred Black Iberian pork.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Notable producers of "Ibérico" are recognized by both the regulatory bodies of Spain, and the European Union. Their designations are legally protected. Some of them include:


title: Jamón ibérico

text: "Ibérico" encompasses some of the most expensive ham produced in the world, and its fatty marbled texture has made it very popular as a delicacy, with a hard to fulfill global demand comparable to that of Kobe beef.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Around 13,000 metric tons of "jamón ibérico" and associated by-products were consumed in Spain in 2017, leading to an estimated 4 billion euros in retail sales. The demand keeps growing while the availability is stagnated, as the production is maxing out to ensure quality. This is leading to a rise in the price of "jamón ibérico", which is expected to double between 2017 and 2021.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Since "jamón ibérico" production and export is limited, buyer should beware and not fall victim of retail or wholesale bait-and-switch or fraud similar to that in olive oil export fraud, since it has been estimated that a sizable portion of both local market and exports are not actually "ibérico".


title: Jamón ibérico

text: Prior to 2005, only pork raised and slaughtered outside Spain was allowed to be processed in Spain for export to the United States of America, due to fear of swine fever. In 2005, the first slaughterhouse in Spain was approved by the US Department of Agriculture to produce "ibérico" by-products for export to the United States.


title: Jamón ibérico

text: The first "jamones ibéricos" were released for sale in the United States in December 2007, with the "bellota" ones following in July 2008.


title: Business casual

text: Business casual is an ambiguously defined Western dress code that is generally considered casual wear but with smart (in the sense of "well dressed") components of a proper lounge suit from traditional informal wear, adopted for white-collar workplaces. This interpretation typically including dress shirt and trousers, but worn with an odd-coloured blazer or a sports coat instead. Neck ties are optional in this category.


title: Business casual

text: Acceptance of business casual in the United States was preceded by Casual Fridays which originated in California in the 1990s, in turn inspired by the Hawaiian 1960s casual custom of Aloha Friday. The designation of particular clothing pieces as "business casual" may be contentious.


title: Business casual

text: There is no generally agreed definition of "business casual". One definition of business casual states that it includes khaki pants, slacks, and skirts, as well as short-sleeved polo shirts and long-sleeved shirts, but excludes tight or short skirts, T-shirts, and sweatshirts. Another source, an American university careers service, states that business casual consists of neutral colors more towards the dark shades of black, gray, navy, but can include white and off white, and reminds that the clothing should be pressed and have clean, crisp seams. The "Dress for Success" advice from the University of Toronto sums up business casual as "a classic, clean cut, and put together look where a full suit is not required," which means slacks, khakis, or skirts; blouses, polo shirts, or shirts with collar but no necktie; some sweaters; and closed-toe shoes. The Canadian university ends with the warning that "it is not clothing you would wear to a club or for athletic purposes... Don’t let the word casual mislead you. You still need to look professional."


title: Business casual

text: Another author wrote in the "Financial Times" that "Ordinarily business casual for guys seems fairly clear. It is a pair of chinos, a blazer and a good shirt, no tie."


title: Business casual

text: A writer wrote in a workwear Blog that "Business casual attire for also men consists of dress pants, dockers-type pants, khakis and a shirt. They also wear a golf-type shirt instead of a traditional shirt, and they wear sweaters or vests on top of the shirt. Women’s choose to wear pants or skirts with a top or blouses paired with a sweater."


title: Business casual

text: A BBC article suggested that a "safe global standard" consists of "a button down shirt," "jackets or blazers, khaki or gray slacks, and leather shoes." It warned, however, that great variation exists between countries and regions within countries. A U.S. menswear retailer advises men to wear a collared shirt, chinos, navy blazer, and brown shoes, while making sure to look "clean and well-groomed."


title: Business casual

text: A contributor to "Forbes" asked her Facebook friends to define business casual, and found a slightly more casual apparent consensus not forcibly including a jacket: "For men: trousers/khakis and a shirt with a collar. For women: trousers/knee-length skirt and a blouse or shirt with a collar. No jeans. No athletic wear." A response to that was "I disagree. No khakis." She states that "there’s a lack of consensus in what actually defines a business casual wardrobe. All most people know is they don’t want to see too much of a colleague’s body, including feet."


title: Microstate

text: A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area, usually both. However, the meanings of "state" and "very small" are not well-defined in international law. Some recent attempts to define microstates have focused on identifying qualitative features that are linked to their size and population, such as partial delegation of their sovereignty to larger states, such as for international defense.


title: Microstate

text: Commonly accepted examples of microstates include Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, San Marino and Tuvalu. The smallest political entity recognized as a sovereign state is Vatican City, with fewer than 1,000 residents and an area of only . Some microstates – such as Monaco and Vatican City – are city-states consisting of a single municipality.


title: Microstate

text: Most scholars identify microstates by using a quantitative threshold and applying it to either one variable (such as the size of its territory or population) or a composite of different variables. While it is agreed that microstates are the smallest of all states, there is no consensus on what variable (or variables) or what cut-off point should be used to determine which political units should be labelled as "microstates" (as opposed to small "normal" states). According to some scholars the quantitative approach to defining microstates suffers from such problems as "inconsistency, arbitrariness, vagueness and inability to meaningfully isolate qualitatively distinct political units".


title: Microstate

text: Some academics have suggested defining microstates according to the unique features that are linked to their geographic or demographic smallness. Newer approaches have proposed looking at the behaviour or capacity to operate in the international arena in order to determine which states should deserve the microstate label. Yet, it has been argued that such approaches could lead to either confusing microstates with weak states (or failed states) or relying too much on subjective perceptions.


title: Microstate

text: An alternative approach is to define microstates as "modern protected states". According to the definition proposed by Dumienski (2014): "microstates are modern protected states, i.e. sovereign states that have been able to unilaterally depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger powers in exchange for benign protection of their political and economic viability against their geographic or demographic constraints." Adopting this approach permits limiting the number of microstates and separating them from both small states and autonomies or dependencies. Examples of microstates understood as modern protected states include such states as Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Niue, Andorra, the Cook Islands or Palau.


title: Microstate

text: The smallest political unit recognized as a sovereign state is the Vatican City, though its precise status is sometimes disputed, e.g., Professor Maurice Mendelson, QC, argues that it does not meet the "traditional criteria of statehood".


title: Microstate

text: Statistical research has shown that microstates are more likely to be democracies than larger states. In 2012, Freedom House classified 86% of the countries with less than 500,000 inhabitants as "free". This shows that countries with small populations often had a high degree of political freedom and civil liberties, which is one of the hallmarks of democracies. Some scholars have taken the statistical correlation between small size and democracy as a sign that smallness is beneficial to the development of a democratic political system, mentioning social cohesiveness, opportunities for direct communication and homogeneity of interests as possible explanations for why this is the case.


title: Microstate

text: Case study research, however, has led researches to believe that the statistical evidence belies the anti-democratic elements of microstate politics. Due to small populations, family and personal relations are often decisive in microstate politics. In some cases, this impedes neutral and formal decision-making and instead leads to undemocratic political activity, such as clientelism, corruption, particularism and executive dominance. While microstates often have formal institutions that are associated with democracy, the inner workings of politics in microstates are in reality often undemocratic.


title: Microstate

text: The high number of democracies amongst microstates could be explained by their colonial history. Most microstates adopted the same political system as their colonial ruler. Because of the high number of microstates that were British colonies in the past, microstates often have a majoritarian and parliamentary political system similar to the Westminster system. Some microstates with a history as British colony have implemented some aspects of a consensus political system, to adapt to their geographic features or societal make-up. While the colonial history often determines what political systems microstates have, they do implement changes to better accommodate their specific characteristics.


title: Microstate

text: Microstates often rely on other countries in order to survive, as they have a small military capacity and a lack of resources. This had led some researchers to believe that microstates are forced to subordinate themselves to larger states which reduces their sovereignty. Research, however, has shown that microstates strategically engage in patron-client relationships with other countries. This allows them to trade some privileges to countries that can advance their interests the most. Examples of this are microstates that establish a tax haven or sell their support in international committees in exchange for military and economic support.


title: Microstate

text: A small number of tiny sovereign political units have been founded on historical anomalies or eccentric interpretations of law. These types of states, often labelled as "microstates," are usually located on small (usually disputed) territorial enclaves, generate limited economic activity founded on tourism and philatelic and numismatic sales, and are tolerated or ignored by the nations from which they claim to have seceded.


title: Microstate

text: The Republic of Indian Stream – now the town of Pittsburg, New Hampshire – was a geographic anomaly left unresolved by the Treaty of Paris that ended the U.S. Revolutionary War, and claimed by both the U.S. and Canada. Between 1832 and 1835, the area's residents refused to acknowledge either claimant.


title: Microstate

text: The Cospaia Republic became independent through a treaty error and survived from 1440 to 1826. Its independence made it important in the introduction of tobacco cultivation to Italy.


title: Microstate

text: Couto Misto was disputed by Spain and Portugal, and operated as a sovereign state until the 1864 Treaty of Lisbon partitioned the territory, with the larger part becoming part of Spain.


title: Microstate

text: Jaxa was a small state that existed during the 17th century at the border between Tsardom of Russia and Qing China. Despite its location in East Asia, the state's primary language was Polish.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Abhinandan Varthaman VrC (born 21 June 1983) is an Indian Air Force fighter pilot who, during the 2019 India–Pakistan standoff, was involved in entering Pakistani airspace and his MIG 21 was shot down by Pakistani PAF F-16 on 27 February 2019, after India carried out airstrikes in Balakot, Pakistan the previous day. His plane was shot down inside Pakistan and he was held captive there for 60 hours and was treated as a guest in Pakistan after an aerial dogfight. He liked the hospitalilty of Pakistan and quoted "The tea is Fantastic" given by the Pakistan's Air force. He was awarded with Vir Chakra by the Indian government.


title: Abhinandan Varthaman

text: Pakistan released videos and images showing Varthaman being rescued from a violent mob of villagers by its soldiers, receiving first aid, and being questioned while blindfolded. Pakistan on humanitarian bases decided on 28 February 2019 to release him (a war prisoner). He returned to India at Wagah on 1 March 2019.