title: Amiens

text: Amiens is distinguished by the youthfulness of its population. In 2017, more than 25% of the population of the city was less than 20 years old. The rate of people of an age over 60 years (19.3%) is also lower than the national rate (25.5%) and the departmental rate (25.4%). Like national and departmental allocations, the female population of the municipality is greater in number to the male population, with a rate of 52.5%, whereas the national rate is 51.6%.


title: Amiens

text: Educational institutions of the city fall under the supervision of the which develops curriculum according to the Inspection académique la Somme.


title: Amiens

text: On 1 September 2010, 10,658 children were enrolled in the Amiens public schools: 4,341 in nursery school and 6,317 in .


title: Amiens

text: In 2011, the Amiens agglomeration included 46 nursery schools, six elementary schools and 54 primary schools including eleven private. It had nine public colleges and six private colleges. Amiens has 24 schools:


title: Amiens

text: The Amiens metropole welcomes one of the largest student populations in France. In 2013, the city had 26,000 students (3,300 in short-term) and 800 researchers who are divided into some 40 institutions of higher education, 32 laboratories, and 10 units associated with the National Scientific Research Centre or the French Institute of Health and Medical Research.


title: Amiens

text: The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) or, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire of Amiens Picardie, is organized around four sites:


title: Amiens

text: Since 2014, the four sites have been gradually gathered on the current site of the South Hospital, with the exception of the long stay units for the elderly remaining in the Saint-Victor Centre. This merger will be completed in 2016 and allow the CHU of Amiens to increase its national and inter-regional dimension. This group represents the largest hospital construction of France and one of the most important in Europe with more than €630 million for work and equipment. At the end of the work, the total space of the CHU of Amiens will be . It will total three blocks of hospitals with 400 beds each. The CHU of Amiens is the largest employer in the Picardy region. At the end of the merger, there will be 6,700 employees, 1,300 students of the health professions, and 1,250 consultants who will go there each day.


title: Amiens

text: In order to maintain the availability of health units to the north of the city, a health center will open its doors in the first quarter of 2016, at the crossroads of the "Avenue de l'Europe" and the "Rue Maurice-Ravel". This health space of will host general practitioners and specialists of the CHU such as: cardiologist, a service of gynaecology-obstetrics, psychologists, dentist, and masseurs-physiotherapists. There is a promise of a , 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.


title: Amiens

text: Alongside the CHU, there are three private clinics, resulting from the consolidation of old clinics in the city. These care and hospitalisation institutions for medical, surgical, and obstetrics came together to create a private hospital center in the Vallée des Vignes quarter, south of the city.


title: Amiens

text: The CHU of Amiens figured in 11th place in the "2013 awards of the hospitals and clinics" of the magazine "Le Point". In this ranking, the CHU stands out for ankle surgery (3rd), hip prosthesis (5th), foot surgery (7th) and paediatrics (14th). In this same classification, the Victor Palmer Health Group, equipped with a solid "mother-to-child hub", gained a 5th place in the table for the gynaecological clinics and an 8th place for breast cancers.


title: Amiens

text: In 2005, the CHU of Amiens became of international renown thanks to Professor Bernard Devauchelle, a native of the city, where his team performed the first partial face transplant in the world.


title: Amiens

text: Thanks to a large proportion of youth in its population and the dynamism and the success of its sports clubs, Amiens has been awarded the title of by the "L'Équipe" newspaper in 1999. The city had already won the title in 1969. In 2013, Amiens Métropole had nearly 300 sports associations and Sports Recreation: approximately 150 associations are grouped within the Office of Amiens Metropole Sports and 150 others are referenced without being adherents. According to this same Office for Sports, Amiens has 25,000 members of sports clubs, excluding school and university members.


title: Veto

text: A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto powers are also found at other levels of government, such as in state, provincial or local government, and in international bodies.


title: Veto

text: Some vetoes can be overcome, often by a supermajority vote: in the United States, a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate can override a presidential veto. Some vetoes, however, are absolute and cannot be overridden. For example, in the United Nations Security Council, the permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have an absolute veto over any Security Council resolution.


title: Veto

text: In many cases, the veto power can only be used to prevent changes to the status quo. But some veto powers also include the ability to make or propose changes. For example, the Indian president can use an amendatory veto to propose amendments to vetoed bills.


title: Veto

text: The executive power to veto legislation one of the main tools that the executive has in the legislative process, along with the proposal power. It is most commonly found in presidential and semi-presidential systems. In parliamentary systems, the head of state often has either a weak veto power or none at all. But while some political systems do not contain a formal veto power, all political systems contain veto players, people or groups who can use social and political power to prevent policy change.


title: Veto

text: The word "veto" comes from the Latin for "I forbid". The concept of a veto originated with the Roman offices of consul and tribune of the plebs. There were two consuls every year; either consul could block military or civil action by the other. The tribunes had the power to unilaterally block any action by a Roman magistrate or the decrees passed by the Roman Senate.


title: Veto

text: The institution of the veto, known to the Romans as the "intercessio", was adopted by the Roman Republic in the 6th century BC to enable the tribunes to protect the mandamus interests of the plebeians (common citizenry) from the encroachments of the patricians, who dominated the Senate. A tribune's veto did not prevent the senate from passing a bill but meant that it was denied the force of law. The tribunes could also use the veto to prevent a bill from being brought before the plebeian assembly. The consuls also had the power of veto, as decision-making generally required the assent of both consuls. If they disagreed, either could invoke the "intercessio" to block the action of the other. The veto was an essential component of the Roman conception of power being wielded not only to manage state affairs but to moderate and restrict the power of the state's high officials and institutions.


title: Veto

text: A notable use of the Roman veto occurred in the Gracchan land reform, which was initially spearheaded by the tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. When Gracchus' fellow tribune Marcus Octavius vetoed the reform, the Assembly voted to remove him on the theory that a tribune must represent the interests of the plebeians. Later, senators outraged by the reform murdered Gracchus and several supporters, setting off a period of internal political violence in Rome.


title: Veto

text: In the constitution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th centuries, all bills had to pass the "Sejm" or "Seimas" (parliament) by unanimous consent, and if any legislator invoked the "liberum veto", this not only vetoed that bill but also all previous legislation passed during the session, and dissolved the legislative session itself. The concept originated in the idea of "Polish democracy" as any Pole of noble extraction was considered as good as any other, no matter how low or high his material condition might be. The more and more frequent use of this veto power paralyzed the power of the legislature and, combined with a string of weak figurehead kings, led ultimately to the partitioning and the dissolution of the Polish state in the late 18th century.


title: Veto

text: The modern executive veto derives from the European institution of royal assent, in which the monarch's consent was required for bills to become law. This in turn had evolved from earlier royal systems in which laws were simply issued by the monarch, as was the case for example in England until the reign of Edward III in the 14th century. In England itself, the power of the monarch to deny royal assent was not used after 1708, but it was used extensively in the British colonies. The heavy use of this power was mentioned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776.


title: Veto

text: Following the French Revolution in 1789, the royal veto was hotly debated, and hundreds of proposals were put forward for different versions of the royal veto, as either absolute, suspensive, or nonexistent. With the adoption of the French Constitution of 1791, King Louis XVI lost his absolute veto and acquired the power to issue a suspensive veto that could be overridden by a majority vote in two successive sessions of the Legislative Assembly, which would take four to six years. With the abolition of the monarchy in 1792, the question of the French royal veto became moot.


title: Veto

text: The presidential veto was conceived in by republicans in the 18th and 19th centuries as a counter-majoritarian tool, limiting the power of a legislative majority. Some republican thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, however, argued for eliminating the veto power entirely as a relic of monarchy. To avoid giving the president too much power, most early presidential vetoes, such as the veto power in the United States, were qualified vetoes that the legislature could override. But this was not always the case: the Chilean constitution of 1833, for example, gave that country's president an absolute veto.


title: Veto

text: Most modern vetoes are intended as a check on the power of the government, or a branch of government, most commonly the legislative branch. Thus, in governments with a separation of powers, vetoes may be classified by the branch of government that enacts them: an executive veto, legislative veto, or judicial veto.


title: Veto

text: Other types of veto power, however, have safeguarded other interests. The denial of royal assent by governors in the British colonies, which continued well after the practice had ended in Britain itself, served as a check by one level of government against another. Vetoes may also be used to safeguard the interests of particular groups within a country. The veto power of the ancient Roman tribunes protected the interests of one social class (the plebeians) against another (the patricians). In the transition from apartheid, a "white veto" to protect the interests of white South Africans was proposed but not adopted. More recently, Indigenous vetoes over industrial projects on Indigenous land have been proposed following the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which requires the "free, prior and informed consent" of Indigenous communities to development or resource extraction projects on their land. However, many governments have been reluctant to allow such a veto.


title: Veto

text: Vetoes may be classified by whether the vetoed body can override them, and if so, how. An absolute veto cannot be overridden at all. A qualified veto can be overridden by a supermajority, such as two-thirds or three-fifths. A suspensory veto, also called a suspensive veto, can be overridden by a simple majority, and thus serves only to delay the law from coming into force.


title: Veto

text: A package veto, also called a "block veto" or "full veto", vetoes a legislative act as a whole. A partial veto, also called a line item veto, allows the executive to object only to some specific part of the law while allowing the rest to stand. An executive with a partial veto has a stronger negotiating position than an executive with only a package veto power.


title: Veto

text: An amendatory veto or amendatory observation returns legislation to the legislature with proposed amendments, which the legislature may either adopt or override. The effect of legislative inaction may vary: in some systems, if the legislature does nothing, the vetoed bill fails, while in others, the vetoed bill becomes law. Because the amendatory veto gives the executive a stronger role in the legislative process, it is often seen as a marker of a particularly strong veto power.


title: Veto

text: Some veto powers are limited to budgetary matters (as with line-item vetoes in some US states, or the financial veto in New Zealand). Other veto powers (such as in Finland) apply only to non-budgetary matters; some (such as in South Africa) apply only to constitutional matters. A veto power that is not limited in this way is known as a "policy veto".


title: Veto

text: One type of budgetary veto, the reduction veto, which is found in several US states, gives the executive the authority to reduce budgetary appropriations that the legislature has made. When an executive is given multiple different veto powers, the procedures for overriding them may differ. For example, in the US state of Illinois, if the legislature takes no action on a reduction veto, the reduction simply becomes law, while if the legislature takes no action on an amendatory veto, the bill dies.


title: Veto

text: A pocket veto is a veto that takes effect simply by the executive or head of state taking no action. In the United States, the pocket veto can only be exercised near the end of a legislative session; if the deadline for presidential action passes "during" the legislative session, the bill will simply become law. The legislature cannot override a pocket veto.


title: Veto

text: Some veto powers are limited in their subject matter. A constitutional veto only allows the executive to veto bills that are unconstitutional; in contrast, a "policy veto" can be used wherever the executive disagrees with the bill on policy grounds. Presidents with constitutional vetoes include those of Benin and South Africa.


title: Veto

text: A legislative veto is a veto power exercised by a legislative body. It may be a veto exercised by the legislature against an action of the executive branch, as in the case of the legislative veto in the United States, which is found in 28 US states. It may also be a veto power exercised by one chamber of a bicameral legislature against another, such as was formerly held by members of the Senate of Fiji appointed by the Great Council of Chiefs.


title: Veto

text: In certain political systems, a particular body is able to exercise a veto over candidates for an elected office. This type of veto may also be referred to by the broader term "vetting".


title: Veto

text: Historically, certain European Catholic monarchs were able to veto candidates for the papacy, a power known as the "jus exclusivae". This power was used for the last time in 1903 by Franz Joseph I of Austria.


title: Veto

text: In Iran, the Guardian Council has the power to approve or disapprove candidates, in addition to its veto power over legislation.


title: Veto

text: In China, following a pro-democracy landslide in the 2019 Hong Kong local elections, in 2021 the National People's Congress approved a law that gave the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, appointed by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the power to veto candidates for the Hong Kong Legislative Council.


title: Veto

text: In presidential and semi-presidential systems, the veto is a legislative power of the presidency, because it involves the president in the process of making law. In contrast to proactive powers such as the ability to introduce legislation, the veto is a reactive power, because the president cannot veto a bill until the legislature has passed it.


title: Veto

text: Executive veto powers are often ranked as comparatively "strong" or "weak". A veto power may be considered stronger or weaker depending on its scope, the time limits for exercising it and requirements for the vetoed body to override it. In general, the greater the majority required for an override, the stronger the veto.


title: Veto

text: Partial vetoes are less vulnerable to override than package vetoes, and political scientists who have studied the matter have generally considered partial vetoes to give the executive greater power than package vetoes. However, empirical studies of the line-item veto in US state government have not found any consistent effect on the executive's ability to advance its agenda. Amendatory vetoes give greater power to the executive than deletional vetoes, because they give the executive the power to move policy closer to its own preferred state than would otherwise be possible. But even a suspensory package veto that can be overridden by a simple majority can be effective in stopping or modifying legislation. For example, in Estonia in 1993, president Lennart Meri was able to successfully obtain amendments to the proposed Law on Aliens after issuing a suspensory veto of the bill and proposing amendments based on expert opinions on European law.


title: Veto

text: Globally, the executive veto over legislation is characteristic of presidential and semi-presidential systems, with stronger veto powers generally being associated with stronger presidential powers overall. In parliamentary systems, the veto power of the head of state is typically weak or nonexistent. In particular, in Westminster systems and most constitutional monarchies, the power to veto legislation by withholding royal assent is a rarely used reserve power of the monarch. In practice, the Crown follows the convention of exercising its prerogative on the advice of parliament.


title: Veto

text: European countries in which the executive or head of state does not have a veto power include Slovenia and Luxembourg, where the power to withhold royal assent was abolished in 2008. Countries that have some form of veto power include the following:


title: Veto

text: In political science, the broader power of people and groups to prevent change is sometimes analyzed through the frameworks of veto points and veto players. Veto players are actors who can potentially exercise some sort of veto over a change in government policy. Veto points are the institutional opportunities that give these actors the ability to veto. The theory of veto points was first developed by Ellen M. Immergut in 1990, in a comparative case study of healthcare reform in different political systems. Breaking with earlier scholarship, Immergut argued that "we have veto "points" within political systems and not veto "groups" within societies."


title: Veto

text: Veto player analysis draws on game theory. George Tsebelis first developed it in 1995 and set it forth in detail in 2002 "". A veto player is a political actor who has the ability to stop a change from the status quo. There are institutional veto players, whose consent is required by constitution or statute; for example, in US federal legislation, the veto players are the House, Senate and presidency. There are also partisan veto players, which are groups that can block policy change from inside an institutional veto player. In a coalition government the partisan veto players are typically the members of the governing coalition.


title: Veto

text: According to Tsebelis' veto player theorem, policy change becomes harder the more veto players there are, the greater the ideological distance between them, and the greater their internal coherence. For example, Italy and the United States have stable policies because they have many veto players, while Greece and the United Kingdom have unstable policies because they have few veto players.


title: Veto

text: While the veto player and veto point approaches complement one another, the veto players framework has become dominant in the study of policy change. Scholarship on rational choice theory has favored the veto player approach because the veto point framework does not address "why" political actors decide to use a veto point. In addition, because veto player analysis can apply to any political system, it provides a way of comparing very different political systems, such as presidential and parliamentary systems. Veto player analyses can also incorporate people and groups that have "de facto" power to prevent policy change, even if they do not have the legal power to do so.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Forward Operating Base Chapman was a United States Armed Forces Forward Operating Base located in Khost province, Afghanistan. As a prominent U.S. base, it was a repeated target of terror attacks. There have been at least seven attacks; the first five involved fatalities and were described as "big."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: On December 30, 2009, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi launched a suicide attack against the Central Intelligence Agency facility inside Forward Operating Base Chapman. One of the main tasks of the CIA personnel stationed at the base was to provide intelligence supporting drone attacks in Pakistan. Seven American CIA officers and contractors, an officer of Jordan's intelligence service, and an Afghan working for the CIA were killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and jihadist website writer who was detained and interrogated over three days by the Jordanian intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID). The GID and the CIA thought they had turned al-Balawi to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide intelligence for high-level targets. Instead, al-Balawi used this trust to gain access to the CIA base in Afghanistan unsearched and perpetrate the attack. Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility, saying they helped al-Balawi with the attack.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: On December 30, 2009, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was picked up by Arghawan, an Afghan who was the chief of external security at Camp Chapman, at the border between Miranshah, Pakistan, and Khost, Afghanistan. Arghawan drove al-Balawi to Camp Chapman, arriving around 4:30p.m.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The car was waved through three security checkpoints without stopping before arriving at its destination well within the base. Sixteen people were waiting for the car near a building set up to debrief al-Balawi. Al-Balawi got out of the vehicle and detonated the explosives hidden in his suicide vest.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi and nine other people were killed by the blast. Seven were CIA personnel: five officers, including the chief of the base, and two contractors. One was a Jordanian intelligence officer and another was the Afghan driver. Six other CIA personnel were seriously wounded in the attack, including the deputy chief of Kabul station. Some of those killed had already approached the bomber to search him, whereas others killed were standing some distance away. At least 13 intelligence officers were within of al-Balawi when the bomb went off.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: After the attack, the base was secured and 150 mostly Afghan workers were detained and held incommunicado for three days. The attack was a major setback for the intelligence agency's operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was the second largest single-day loss in the CIA's history, after the 1983 United States Embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight CIA officers. The incident suggested that al-Qaeda might not be as weakened as previously thought.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi, 32, was a Jordanian doctor who worked at a clinic for Palestinian refugee women and children in the Marka refugee camp near Amman, Jordan. He was an al-Qaeda sympathizer from the town of Zarqa, the home town of Jordanian militant Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was married and had two daughters. Islamist websites, as well as some newspapers, characterized the attacker as a triple agent, someone who is believed to be a double agent by the intelligence organization he infiltrates.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi had a history of supporting violent Islamist causes online under the pseudonym Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. Al-Balawi became an administrator and a well-known contributor for al-Hesbah, an online jihadist forum. He had tried to rehabilitate the image of al-Zarqawi in Jordan after the 2005 Amman bombings. Jarrett Brachman, the former director of research at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, said "since at least 2007, [Abu Dujana had] become one of the most prominent al-Qaida jihadist pundits."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence in January 2009 and held for three days. During al-Balawi's questioning, Jordanian intelligence officials threatened to have him jailed and end his medical career, and they hinted they could cause problems for his family. Al-Balawi was told that if he cooperated, his slate would be wiped clean and his family left alone. After this episode, the GID and CIA believed they had turned al-Balawi into a double agent. A plan was developed for al-Bawali to infiltrate al-Qaeda in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, along the Afghan border. In March 2009, al-Balawi left Jordan and arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, and made his way into the tribal areas. The CIA took over the management of al-Balawi from the Jordanians sometime in the second half of 2009, dictating how and when the informant would meet his handlers, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officers.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi had been invited to Camp Chapman after claiming to have information related to senior al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Balawi was not searched as a sign of respect because of his perceived value as someone who could infiltrate the ranks of senior al-Qaeda leaders. A former U.S. counter-terrorism officer, as well as Jordanian government officials, said that he had already provided useful and actionable intelligence to the CIA over several weeks of undercover work in the region. A former intelligence official stated that al-Balawi was "feeding us low-level operatives and we were whacking them." He was seen by the CIA and the U.S. administration as the best hope of tracking down the al-Qaeda leadership. The CIA had come to trust al-Balawi and the Jordanian spy agency vouched for him, according to officials.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The deputy chief of Kabul station was present for the meeting, more evidence that al-Balawi was highly valued. The CIA was "expecting the meeting to be of such substance that following the meeting their next directive was to call President Obama," a security official in Kabul said.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi's wife, Defne Bayrak, a journalist who lives in Istanbul, Turkey, has translated several Arabic books into Turkish, including "Osama bin Laden: Che Guevara of the East". She said the radicalization of al-Balawi started in 2003 because of the Iraq War. She doubted that al-Balawi worked as a double agent for the CIA and Jordan's intelligence agency or that he was an al-Qaeda member. Bayrak said that al-Balawi would have acted of his own volition because he regarded the United States as an adversary. She also said that she was proud of her husband. In her view, al-Balawi had carried out a "very important mission in such a war." Turkish police questioned and released Bayrak on January 7, 2010.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi's family is of Palestinian origin, from a tribe in the Beersheba region. His brother said al-Balawi had been "changed" by the 2008–09 Israeli offensive in Gaza, and that he had been arrested by Jordanian authorities after volunteering with medical organizations to treat wounded Palestinians in Gaza. Other family members said that al-Balawi had been pressured to become an informant after Jordanian authorities arrested him in January 2009.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Balawi's father said he was called by an Afghan after the attack who told him his son died as a hero in an operation to kill CIA agents. He also said his son "sacrificed his body and soul for the oppressed." He blamed the intelligence agencies for turning his son "from a human, a doctor, to a person with a heart full of negative and hostile emotions towards others."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Jordanian authorities cautioned the relatives of al-Balawi against speaking with anyone about the incident. Members of the family said that Jordan security forces had sealed off the area in which they live, blocking journalists from entering and preventing any family gathering after they heard the news of al-Balawi's death.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Not including the attacker, nine people were killed and six others were seriously wounded in the attack. Seven of the dead were Americans working for the CIA. One was al-Balawi's Jordanian case officer and another was the Afghan in charge of external security for the base who had driven al-Balawi to the base from the Pakistan border. The CIA initially did not release the names of those killed in the attack. All officers on the base worked undercover.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Jennifer Lynne Matthews, the station chief, 45, was tracking al-Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. She joined the CIA in 1989 and was involved with the agency's Bin Laden Issue Station. A U.S. official said Matthews was "one of the US government's top experts on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups." Matthews had been chief of the base since September 2009.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Wise and Paresi were security contractors working for Xe Services (formerly Blackwater and known as Academi since 2011), a private security company.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The bodies of the CIA operatives were transferred to the U.S., and a private ceremony was held at Dover Air Force Base, which was attended by CIA director Leon Panetta.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: CIA officers who had traveled from Kabul to the base for the meeting, including the Deputy Chief of Kabul Station, were among those injured. The deputy chief was in grave condition and was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital in Germany.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid, 34, a Jordanian military intelligence officer, was killed in the attack. He was the Jordanian handler of al-Balawi and the liaison between him and the CIA. Bin Zeid was a cousin to King Abdullah II of Jordan. Bin Zeid's wake was held in the Royal Palace. King Abdullah II and Queen Rania attended his funeral. Official Jordanian news reports said that he died while performing humanitarian service in Afghanistan. His death shed light on the U.S.-Jordanian intelligence partnership, which is rarely acknowledged publicly, yet seen by U.S. officials as highly important for their counter-terrorism strategy.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Arghawan, 30, the base's Afghan external security chief, had picked up al-Balawi at the Pakistan border and drove him to Camp Chapman. He was also killed in the attack.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, stated that the attack was intended to avenge the deaths of three al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders who were killed in U.S. drone attacks. "He avenged our prime martyrs, and as he wrote in his final testament, may God have mercy on him: Taking revenge for the leader the Amir Beitullah Mehsud and the leaders Abu Saleh al-Somali and Abdallah Said al-Libi and their brothers, may God have mercy on them," al-Yazid wrote. Baitullah Mehsud was the former head of the Pakistani Taliban, Saleh al-Somali was in charge of al-Qaeda operations outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Said al-Libi was a senior Libyan member of the group, and the leader of al-Qaeda's military organization in the region, the Lashkar al-Zil.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan also claimed responsibility for the attack and said that they used a turncoat CIA informant to carry it out. Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for the attack, and stated that the attack would avenge the killings of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike in August 2009 and of "al Qaeda's Abdullah." He stated, "the suicide bomber was a Jordanian national. This will be admitted by the CIA and the Jordanian government."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: On January 9, 2010, the Pakistani television network AAJ TV showed a video that had been released by the Tehrik-i-Taliban. The video showed al-Balawi, sitting beside Hakimullah Mehsud, vowing to avenge the death of the Pakistan Taliban leadership: "We will never forget the blood of our emir, Baitullah Mehsud. We will always demand revenge for him inside America and outside." Hakimullah Mehsud replaced his cousin Baitullah Mehsud as the chief of the Tehrik-i-Taliban after Baitullah was killed by a U.S. drone attack. Al-Balawi's father confirmed that the video showed his son.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Analysts said that, in return for organizational support, al-Balawi probably agreed to appear in the video, and to connect the attack he was planning to the death of Baitullah Mehsud, thus raising the profile of the Tehrik-i-Taliban. Most analysts believe, however, that al Qaeda chose the CIA as the target and ran the operation.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that the attack was carried out by a Taliban sympathizer in the Afghan National Army. Mujahid said that the "well dressed" official would have been of sufficiently high rank to walk past security at the base. However, this claim was proven false.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The attack took place as the CIA expanded its role in the Afghanistan War, increasing paramilitary operations, including drone attacks in Pakistan. To accomplish this, the CIA had built a number of bases in the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The drone attacks carried out by the CIA in Pakistan rely on local informants, who can cross the border into Pakistan in a way CIA officers cannot. CIA officers at the base were involved in the coordination, targeting and surveillance of drone strikes aimed at the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda. At the time of the attack, they were conducting an aggressive campaign against the Haqqani network, a radical group run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The attack came at a time when disputes over civilian casualties between the U.S. and Pakistan, and over counter-terrorism strategies between the U.S. and Pakistan, were increasing. Pakistan's security officials had warned against an escalation of the U.S. drone attacks in the country. A senior Pakistani security official urged the United States to coordinate its response to the suicide attack with the Pakistani government, in order to avoid "unnecessary and further friction" to the alliance of both countries, while a U.S. State Department official said that the U.S. counter-terrorism efforts "are coordinated with foreign governments, including with Pakistan, as needed."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Forward Operating Base Chapman is located at the site of a former Afghan army installation with an airstrip. The base is named for Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman, the first U.S. soldier killed by enemy fire during the Afghanistan war. Chapman was killed while fighting alongside the CIA in 2002. FOB Chapman is located near Forward Operating Base Salerno, a military base used by U.S. special operations forces.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The CIA's base at Camp Chapman was set up at the beginning of the U.S.-led offensive against al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban in 2001. It began as an improvised center for operations. A military base at the beginning, it was later transformed into a CIA base. Camp Chapman was also used as a base for the Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team, a military-led development group. In recent years, the base evolved into a major counter-terrorism hub of the CIA's paramilitary Special Activities Division, used for joint operation with U.S. special operations forces and Afghan allies. It also had a housing compound for U.S. intelligence officers.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The United States responded to the attack by increasing its drone attacks against militants in Pakistan. Nearly every day after the CIA facility was attacked, the U.S. military conducted drone strikes aimed at leaders of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. In the week after the attack, the U.S. military conducted five drone strikes, an unusually high number. However, U.S. counter-terrorism officials cautioned against linking these attacks to the bombing. After reports of drone strikes, Pakistan said it would not support the attacks in its territory, as they were counterproductive.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: In March 2010, the death of Hussein al-Yemeni in a drone strike was announced. Al-Yemeni was called a planner involved in the suicide bomb attack.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: U.S. officials said that the CIA conducted a review of intelligence supplied by al-Balawi, examining whether he supplied false information about U.S. successes amid valid data used to establish his credibility. The investigation included a review of a list of senior al Qaeda and Taliban operatives reported killed in U.S. drone strikes since January 2009. The National Counterterrorism Center conducted its own review of the intelligence al-Balawi provided, two officials said.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Following the attack, the U.S. issued new security guidance to its bases in Afghanistan, according to U.S. military officials. One U.S. military official said the guidance would adjust procedures as quickly as possible on a large scale.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: U.S. President Barack Obama praised the CIA officers who died in the bombing, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack. All seven of the operatives killed in the attack were memorialized with a star on the agency's Memorial Wall at its headquarters.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to CIA employees: "In recent years, the CIA has been tested as never before. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, you have served on the frontlines in directly confronting the dangers of the 21st century. Because of your service, plots have been disrupted, American lives have been saved, and our Allies and partners have been more secure. Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Flags at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, flew at half-staff. In a message to CIA employees, CIA Director Leon Panetta said: "Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism. We owe them our deepest gratitude." In an article published by the "Washington Post", Panetta strongly defended the CIA officers against criticism, and disputed that lax security measures or blind trust in the informant enabled the attacker to succeed.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The attack was praised by Islamist militants after it became known that al-Balawi was the author, under the pen name Abu Dujana, of some of the anti-Western commentaries that they admired. One militant wrote, referring to al-Balawi's pseudonym: "Our James Bond, who is he? / He is Abu Dujana! / His motto: Let me die or live free! / Our James Bond, what did he seek? / Not power or money, / But justice for the weak."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Jordanian intelligence officials were embarrassed by the incident due to the fact that they had vouched for al-Balawi. Jordan's government was embarrassed as well, as it did not want the extent of its cooperation with the CIA to be known. Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID), known as the Mukhabarat, works very closely with the CIA. At the same time, the U.S., and the CIA in particular, are viewed very negatively by the people in Jordan, about half of which have Palestinian origins, as al-Balawi did.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Jordan's Prime Minister Samir Rifai defended the country's overseas deployment in support of the United States' war on terror, but the Islamist-led opposition called on the government to stop working with the CIA. King Abdullah II, Queen Rania, and Crown Prince Hussein attended GID Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid's funeral, as he was a cousin of the King. Official media only reported that bin Zeid was killed on a "humanitarian mission" in Afghanistan, with no mention of the CIA cooperation.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Several media analysts were called by Jordanian officials and told not to make inflammatory statements. At least one local journalist working with the foreign media was detained and questioned.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Several former intelligence officials described the attack as emotionally distressing for the spy agency. Former CIA deputy director John E. McLaughlin said: "It is the nightmare we've been anticipating since we went into Afghanistan and Iraq." Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, characterized the assault as a serious reversal in NATO's war efforts. Former CIA Counterterrorism Chief Robert Grenier described the attack as the Taliban equivalent of a precision guided weapon. "This attack is something that will never be forgotten in Langley, Virginia," said Jack Rice, who formerly worked as a CIA officer in Afghanistan.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Henry A. Crumpton, a former Coordinator for Counterterrorism who directed the CIA operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, said that the CIA employees were "experienced frontline officers and their knowledge and expertise will be sorely missed." A NATO official in Afghanistan underscored the significance of the attack, and noted that it had shut down a key station of the CIA in Afghanistan. "These were not people who wrote things down in the computer or in notebooks. It was all in their heads," he said, adding that much of the knowledge would not be recoverable. Several current and former intelligence officials, however, said that the CIA had numerous operatives with experience in Afghanistan, as the country was considered strategic during the Cold War, and because the U.S. has been involved in active warfare there for the last eight years.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: A U.S. intelligence official said the danger of using informants was inherent but unavoidable. Intelligence agencies have to rely on unsavory individuals to penetrate terrorist groups because no one else has the access. Those hazards would be neither denied nor ignored by the CIA officers. Former intelligence officials said they were deeply troubled about al-Balawi's ability to get close to so many CIA officers. A former agency case officer expressed surprise that "a potential hostile" was able to be in immediate proximity to a large number of CIA operatives. "Why the officers would show a source all their faces, that alone was a terrible decision," said one former senior CIA paramilitary operative who served in Afghanistan. Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer and counter-terrorism agent, said that a source supposedly as significant as al-Balawi should never have been brought inside the base, because it risked exposing him.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, said that the agency would be outsourcing intelligence and would have to go to the Jordanians "because we simply cannot, as blond haired blue eyed Americans, cannot get into these camps." He said the attack would make the CIA more reluctant to engage with informants. He added that the attack would have been a huge setback for the CIA's intelligence collection in Afghanistan. "You're talking about an institutional nightmare," said Tim Weiner, author of the book "". Former 9/11 Commission chairman Lee H. Hamilton predicted that the attack would forever change how the CIA handles informants. "They will never forget this lesson," he said.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: Media reports said the attack struck at the heart of American covert operations in the region, with some characterizing it as the CIA's Pearl Harbor. It raised doubts about the reliability of the Afghan forces that are being trained by the United States and its allies, and on the practicality of Western exit strategies that involve training the Afghan army and policy with the aim of enabling them to fight the Taliban on their own.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: David Ignatius, a columnist for the "Washington Post" and the author of the book "Body of Lies", opined that the CIA had become careless out of desperation. According to Ignatius, it would be obvious that the CIA would have been so eager to acquire knowledge about the location of Osama bin Laden that it would take every available opportunity to get information. Shoshana Bryen, a U.S. security expert, said that the bombing would make Israel and the U.S. wary in their future dealings with Jordan.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: William Saletan noted the mischaracterization of the attack as "an act of terrorism" in many media reports. As terrorism targets civilians, and the CIA employees were conducting a war, he states that the bombing was clearly "an act of war. It was also espionage. But it wasn't terrorism."


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The first Camp Chapman attack was dramatized in the 2012 film "Zero Dark Thirty". The "Jessica" character, modeled on Jennifer Lynne Matthews, is killed in the attack. Several people who knew Matthews complained that the portrayal was not very accurate.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack on July 12, 2015.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: There was a "deadly assault" in 2017. The Taliban denied responsibility, but subsequently claimed to have launched an internal investigation into the attack.


title: Camp Chapman attack

text: A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, delivered by a humvee, exploded in the Camp Chapman employee parking lot. Fatalities reportedly included four Khost Protection Force members, three Afghan National Security Forces and at least six civilians. About 20 Afghan troops were also wounded. Foreign Policy magazine called it "a seemingly blatant violation of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano. Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times including the 1924 original scoring, the 1926 pit orchestra scoring, and the 1942 symphonic scoring.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The rhapsody is one of Gershwin's most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin's piece inaugurated a new era in America's musical history, established Gershwin's reputation as an eminent composer, and eventually became one of the most popular of all concert works. The "American Heritage" magazine posits that the famous opening clarinet glissando has become as instantly recognizable to concert audiences as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Following the success of an experimental classical-jazz concert held with Canadian singer Éva Gauthier in New York City on November 1, 1923, bandleader Paul Whiteman decided to attempt a more ambitious feat. He asked composer George Gershwin to write a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert in honor of Lincoln's Birthday to be given at Aeolian Hall. Whiteman became fixated upon performing such an extended composition by Gershwin after he collaborated with him in "The Scandals of 1922". He had been especially impressed by Gershwin's one-act "jazz opera" "Blue Monday". Gershwin initially declined Whiteman's request on the grounds that—as there would likely be a need for revisions to the score—he would have insufficient time to compose the work.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Soon after, on the evening of January 3, George Gershwin and lyricist Buddy DeSylva were playing billiards at the Ambassador Billiard Parlor at Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan. Their game was interrupted by Ira Gershwin, George's brother, who had been reading the January 4 edition of the "New-York Tribune". An unsigned article entitled "What Is American Music?" about an upcoming Whiteman concert had caught Ira's attention. The article falsely declared that George Gershwin was already "at work on a jazz concerto" for Whiteman's concert.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Gershwin was puzzled by the news announcement as he had politely declined to compose any such work for Whiteman. In a telephone conversation with Whiteman the next morning, Gershwin was informed that Whiteman's arch rival Vincent Lopez was planning to steal the idea of his experimental concert and there was no time to lose. Gershwin was thus finally persuaded by Whiteman to compose the piece.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: With only five weeks remaining until the premiere, Gershwin hurriedly set about composing the work. He later claimed that, while on a train journey to Boston, the thematic seeds for "Rhapsody in Blue" began to germinate in his mind. He told biographer Isaac Goldberg in 1931:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Gershwin began composing on January 7 as dated on the original manuscript for two pianos. He tentatively entitled the piece as "American Rhapsody" during its composition. The revised title "Rhapsody in Blue" was suggested by Ira Gershwin after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James McNeill Whistler paintings, which had titles such as "" and "Arrangement in Grey and Black". After a few weeks, Gershwin finished his composition and passed the score, titled "A Rhapsody in Blue", to Ferde Grofé, Whiteman's arranger. Grofé finished orchestrating the piece on February 4—a mere eight days before the premiere.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered during a snowy afternoon on Tuesday, February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall, Manhattan. Entitled "An Experiment in Modern Music," the much-anticipated concert held by Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra drew a "packed audience." The excited audience consisted of "vaudevillians, concert managers come to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy." Many influential figures of the era were present, including Carl Van Vechten, Marguerite d'Alvarez, Victor Herbert, Walter Damrosch, Igor Stravinsky, Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Stokowski, John Philip Sousa, and Willie "the Lion" Smith.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: In a pre-concert lecture, Whiteman's manager Hugh C. Ernst proclaimed the purpose of the concert was "to be purely educational". The selected music was intended to exemplify the "melodies, harmony and rhythms which agitate the throbbing emotional resources of this young restless age." The concert's program was lengthy with 26 separate musical movements, divided into 2 parts and 11 sections, bearing titles such as "True Form Of Jazz" and "Contrast—Legitimate Scoring vs. Jazzing." In the program's schedule, Gershwin's rhapsody was merely the piece and preceded Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1".


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Many of the early numbers in the program reportedly underwhelmed the audience, and the ventilation system in the concert hall malfunctioned. Some audience members were departing for the exits by the time Gershwin made his inconspicuous entrance for the rhapsody. The audience purportedly were irritable, impatient, and restless until the haunting clarinet glissando that opened "Rhapsody in Blue" was heard. The distinctive glissando had been created quite by happenstance during rehearsals:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The rhapsody was then performed by Whiteman's orchestra consisting of "twenty-three musicians in the ensemble" with George Gershwin on piano. In characteristic style, Gershwin chose to partially improvise his piano solo. The orchestra anxiously waited for Gershwin's nod which signaled the end of his piano solo and the cue for the ensemble to resume playing. As Gershwin improvised some of what he was playing, the solo piano section was not technically written until after the performance, and it remains unknown exactly how the original rhapsody sounded at the premiere.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Upon the conclusion of the rhapsody, there was "tumultuous applause for Gershwin's composition," and, quite unexpectedly, "the concert, in every respect but the financial, was a 'knockout'." The concert quickly became historically significant due to the premiere of the rhapsody, and its program would "become not only a historic document, finding its way into foreign monographs on jazz, but a rarity as well."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Following the success of rhapsody's premiere, future performances followed. The first British performance of "Rhapsody in Blue" took place at the Savoy Hotel in London on June 15, 1925. It was broadcast in a live relay by the BBC. Debroy Somers conducted the Savoy Orpheans with Gershwin himself at the piano. The piece was heard again in the United Kingdom during the second European tour of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, most notably on April 11, 1926, at the Royal Albert Hall, with Gershwin in the audience. The Royal Albert Hall concert was recorded—though not issued—by the Gramophone Company/HMV.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: By the end of 1927, Whiteman's band had performed "Rhapsody in Blue" approximately 84 times, and its recording sold a million copies. For the entire piece to fit onto two sides of a 12-inch record, the rhapsody had to be played at a faster speed than usual in a concert, which gave it a hurried feel and some rubato was lost. Whiteman later adopted the piece as his band's theme song and opened his radio programs with the slogan "Everything new but the "Rhapsody in Blue"."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: In contrast to the warm reception by concert audiences, professional music critics in the press gave the rhapsody decidedly mixed reviews. Pitts Sanborn declared that the rhapsody "begins with a promising theme well stated" yet "soon runs off into empty passage-work and meaningless repetition." A number of reviews were particularly negative. One opinionated music critic, Lawrence Gilman—a Richard Wagner enthusiast who would later write a devastating review of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"—harshly criticized the rhapsody as "derivative," "stale," and "inexpressive" in "New-York Tribune" review on February 13, 1924.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Other reviewers were more positive. Samuel Chotzinoff, music critic of the "New York World", conceded that Gershwin's composition had "made an honest woman out of jazz," while Henrietta Strauss of "The Nation" opined that Gershwin had "added a new chapter to our musical history." Olin Downes, reviewing the concert in "The New York Times", wrote:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Overall, a recurrent criticism leveled by professional music critics was that Gershwin's piece was essentially formless and that he had haphazardly glued melodic segments together.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Years after its premiere, "Rhapsody in Blue" continued to divide music critics principally due to its perceived melodic incoherence. Constant Lambert, a British composer whose work was also influenced by jazz, was openly dismissive towards the work:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: In an article in "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1955, Leonard Bernstein, who nevertheless admitted that he adored the piece, stated:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: As Gershwin did not have sufficient knowledge of orchestration in 1924, Ferde Grofé—Whiteman's pianist and chief arranger—was a key figure in enabling the rhapsody's meteoric success, and critics have contended that Grofé's arrangements of the "Rhapsody" secured its place in American culture. Gershwin's biographer, Isaac Goldberg, noted in 1931 that Grofé played a crucial role in the premiere's triumph:


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Grofé's familiarity with the Whiteman band's strengths was a key factor in his 1924 scoring. This orchestration was developed for solo piano and Whiteman's twenty-three musicians. For the reeds section, Ross Gorman (Reed I) played an oboe, a heckelphone, a clarinet in B, sopranino saxophones in E & B, an alto saxophone, one E soprano clarinet, and alto and bass clarinets; Donald Clark (Reed II) played a soprano saxophone in B, alto and baritone saxophones, and Hale Byers (Reed III) played soprano saxophone in B, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, and a flute.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: For the brass section, two trumpets in B were played by Henry Busse and Frank Siegrist; two French horns in F were played by Arturo Cerino and Al Corrado; two trombones were played by Roy Maxon and James Casseday, and a tuba and a double bass played by Guss Helleburg and Albert Armer respectively.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The percussion section included a drum set, timpani, and a glockenspiel played by George Marsh; one piano typically played by either Ferde Grofé or Henry Lange; one tenor banjo played by Michael Pingatore, and a complement of violins.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: This original arrangement—with its unique instrumental requirements—was largely ignored until its revival in reconstructions beginning in the mid-1980s, owing to the popularity and serviceability of the later scorings. After the 1924 premiere, Grofé revised the score and made new orchestrations in 1926 and 1942, each time for larger orchestras. His arrangement for a theater orchestra was published in 1926. This adaptation was orchestrated for a more standard "pit orchestra," which included one flute, one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, three saxophones; two French horns, two trumpets, and two trombones; as well as the same percussion and strings complement as the later 1942 version.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The later 1942 arrangement by Grofé was for a full symphony orchestra. It is scored for solo piano and an orchestra consisting of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B and A, one bass clarinet, two bassoons, two alto saxophones in E, one tenor saxophone in B; three French horns in F, three trumpets in B, three trombones, one tuba; a percussion section that includes timpani, one suspended cymbal, one snare drum, one bass drum, one tam-tam, one triangle, one glockenspiel, and cymbals; one tenor banjo; and strings. Since the mid-20th century, this 1942 version was the arrangement usually performed by classical orchestras and became a staple of the concert repertoire until 1976 when Michael Tilson Thomas recorded the original jazz band version for the first time, employing Gershwin's actual 1925 piano roll with a full jazz orchestra.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Grofé's other arrangements of Gershwin's piece include those done for Whiteman's 1930 film, "King of Jazz", and the concert band setting (playable without piano) completed by 1938 and published 1942. The prominence of the saxophones in the later orchestrations is somewhat reduced, and the banjo part can be dispensed with, as its mainly rhythmic contribution is provided by the inner strings.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Gershwin himself made versions of the piece for solo piano as well as two pianos. The solo version is notable for omitting several sections of the piece. Gershwin's intent to eventually do an orchestration of his own is documented in 1936–37 correspondence from the publisher Harms.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: After the warm reception of "Rhapsody in Blue" by the audience at Aeolian Hall, Gershwin recorded several abridged versions of his composition in different formats. On June 10, 1924, Gershwin and Whiteman's orchestra created an acoustic recording running 8 minutes and 59 seconds and produced by the Victor Talking Machine Company. A year later, Gershwin recorded his performance on a 1925 piano roll for a two-piano version. Later, on April 21, 1927, he made an electrical recording with Whiteman's orchestra running 9 minutes and 1 second and again produced by Victor. Nathaniel Shilkret purportedly conducted the electrical recording after a dispute between Gershwin and Whiteman. Whiteman's orchestra later performed a truncated version of the piece in the 1930 film "The King of Jazz" with Roy Bargy on piano.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Due to the length limitations of early recording formats, it was not until the Great Depression that the first complete and unabridged recording of Gershwin's composition could be undertaken. In July 1935, after several years of performing the rhapsody for sold-out audiences in Massachusetts, conductor Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra recorded the first unabridged version—nearly fourteen minutes in length—with Puerto Rican pianist Jesús María Sanromá for RCA Victor. For this first unabridged recording, Fiedler discarded Ferde Grofé's original 1924 arrangement and adapted the piece for a conventional symphony. At the time, contemporary critics praised Fiedler for jettisoning the so-called "jazzy sentimentality" of Grofé's earlier arrangement and adding a "more symphonic richness and authority."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: During the final months of World War II, amid the box-office success of the Gershwin biographical film "Rhapsody in Blue" (1945), pianist Oscar Levant recorded the now iconic composition with Eugene Ormandy's Philadelphia Orchestra on August 21, 1945. Levant had been an intimate friend of the deceased composer, and he sought to replicate Gershwin's idiomatic playing style in his performance. Levant's homage—labelled Columbia Masterworks 251—received rapturous reviews and became one of the best-selling record albums of the year. As a result of Levant's recording and the 1945 biographical film about Gershwin's life, a "Gershwin revival" ensued.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: By the 1960s and 1970s, Gershwin's rhapsody had become a predictable staple of both concert performances and orchestra recordings; consequently, more diverse and irreverent interpretations appeared over time. In Summer 1973, Brazilian jazz-rock artist Eumir Deodato reinterpreted Gershwin's rhapsody in an abridged version that featured uptempo neo‐samba rhythms. Although music critics derided Deodato's interpretation as "mangled" and barely recognizable, his single reached No. 45 on the "Hot 100" and No. 10 on "Easy Listening" on the "Billboard" charts, and No. 48 and No. 13 respectively in Canada. In the wake of Deodato's earlier reinterpretation, French pianist Richard Clayderman recorded a similarly abridged disco arrangement in 1978 which became one of his signature pieces.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Concurrent with the emergence of these more diverse interpretations, scholarly interest revived in the original 1924 arrangement by Ferde Grofé which had not been performed since the end of the Jazz Age. On February 14, 1973, conductor Kenneth Kiesler and pianist Paul Verrette performed Grofé's original arrangement on the University of New Hampshire campus. Soon after, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the Columbia Jazz Band recorded Grofé's arrangement in 1976, as did conductor Maurice Peress with pianist Ivan Davis in 1984 as part of a 60th-anniversary reconstruction of the entire 1924 concert.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Nearly a hundred years after the debut of Gershwin's rhapsody in 1924, tens of thousands of orchestras as well as solo pianists have recorded the enduring composition, both abridged and unabridged, to the delight of audiences. A number of these recordings have garnered critical recognition such as pianist Michel Camilo's 2006 rendition which won a Latin Grammy Award.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: As a jazz concerto, "Rhapsody in Blue" is written for solo piano with orchestra. A rhapsody differs from a concerto in that it features one extended movement instead of separate movements. Rhapsodies often incorporate passages of an improvisatory nature—although written out in a score—and are irregular in form, with heightened contrasts and emotional exuberance. The music ranges from intensely rhythmic piano solos to slow, broad, and richly orchestrated sections. Consequently, the "Rhapsody" "may be looked upon as a fantasia, with no strict fidelity to form."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The opening of "Rhapsody in Blue" is written as a clarinet trill followed by a legato, 17 notes in a diatonic scale. During a rehearsal, Whiteman's virtuoso clarinetist, Ross Gorman, rendered the upper portion of the scale as a captivating and trombone-like glissando. Gershwin heard it and insisted that it be repeated in the performance. The effect is produced using the tongue and throat muscles to change the resonance of the oral cavity, thus controlling the continuously rising pitch. Many clarinet players gradually open the left-hand tone holes on their instrument during the passage from the last concert F to the top concert B as well. This effect has now become standard performance practice for the work.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: "Rhapsody in Blue" features both rhythmic invention and melodic inspiration, and demonstrates Gershwin's ability to write a piece with large-scale harmonic and melodic structure. The piece is characterized by strong motivic inter-relatedness. Much of the motivic material is introduced in the first 14 measures. Musicologist David Schiff has identified five major themes plus a sixth "tag". Two themes appear in the first 14 measures, and the tag shows up in measure 19. Two of the remaining three themes are rhythmically related to the very first theme in measure 2, which is sometimes called the "Glissando theme"—after the opening glissando in the clarinet solo—or the "Ritornello theme". The remaining theme is the "Train theme", which is the first to appear at rehearsal 9 after the opening material. All of these themes rely on the blues scale, which includes lowered sevenths and a mixture of major and minor thirds. Each theme appears both in orchestrated form and as a piano solo. There are considerable differences in the style of presentation of each theme.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The harmonic structure of the rhapsody is more difficult to analyze. The piece begins and ends in B major, but it modulates towards the sub-dominant direction very early on, returning to B major at the end, rather abruptly. The opening modulates "downward", as it were, through the keys B, E, A, D, G, B, E, and finally to A major. Modulation through the circle of fifths in the reverse direction inverts classical tonal relationships, but does not abandon them. The entire middle section resides primarily in C major, with forays into G major (the dominant relation). Such modulations occur freely, although not always with harmonic direction. Gershwin frequently uses a recursive harmonic progression of minor thirds to give the illusion of motion when in fact a passage does not change key from beginning to end. Modulation by thirds is a common feature of Tin Pan Alley music.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: The influences of jazz and other contemporary styles are present in "Rhapsody in Blue". Ragtime rhythms are abundant, as is the Cuban "clave" rhythm, which doubles as a dance rhythm in the Charleston jazz dance. Gershwin's own intentions were to correct the belief that jazz had to be played strictly in time so that one could dance to it. The rhapsody's tempos vary widely, and there is an almost extreme use of rubato in many places throughout. The clearest influence of jazz is the use of blue notes, and the exploration of their half-step relationship plays a key role in the rhapsody. The use of so-called "vernacular" instruments, such as accordion, banjo, and saxophones in the orchestra, contribute to its jazz or popular style, and the latter two of these instruments have remained part of Grofé's "standard" orchestra scoring.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Gershwin incorporated several different piano styles into his work. He used the techniques of stride piano, novelty piano, comic piano, and the song-plugger piano style. Stride piano's rhythmic and improvisational style is evident in the "agitato e misterioso" section, which begins four bars after rehearsal 33, as well as in other sections, many of which include the orchestra. Novelty piano can be heard at rehearsal 9 with the revelation of the Train theme. The hesitations and light-hearted style of comic piano, a vaudeville approach to piano made well known by Chico Marx and Jimmy Durante, are evident at rehearsal 22.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: According to critic Orrin Howard of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gershwin's rhapsody "made an indelible mark on the history of American music, on the fraternity of serious composers and performers—many of whom were present at the premiere—and on Gershwin himself, for its enthusiastic reception encouraged him to other and more serious projects."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Howard posits that the work's legacy is best understood as embodying the cultural zeitgeist of the Jazz Age: Although Gershwin's rhapsody "was by no means a definitive example of jazz in the Jazz Age," music historians such as James Ciment and Floyd Levin have similarly concurred that it is the key composition that encapsulates the spirit of the era.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: As early as 1927, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald opined that "Rhapsody in Blue" idealized the youthful zeitgeist of the Jazz Age. In subsequent decades, both the latter era and Fitzgerald's related literary works have been often culturally linked by critics and scholars with Gershwin's composition. In 1941, social historian Peter Quennell opined that Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" embodied "the sadness and the remote jauntiness of a Gershwin tune." Accordingly, "Rhapsody in Blue" was used as a dramatic leitmotif for the character of Jay Gatsby in the 2013 film "The Great Gatsby", a cinematic adaptation of Fitzgerald's 1925 novel.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Various writers, such as the American playwright and journalist Terry Teachout, have likened Gershwin himself to the character of Gatsby due to his attempt to transcend his lower-class background, his abrupt meteoric success, and his early death while in his thirties.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: "Rhapsody in Blue" has been interpreted as a musical portrait of early-20th-century New York City. Culture scribe Darryn King wrote in "The Wall Street Journal" that "Gershwin's fusion of jazz and classical traditions captures the thriving melting pot of Jazz Age New York."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Likewise, music historian Vince Giordano has opined that "the syncopation, the blue notes, the ragtime and jazz rhythms that Gershwin wrote in 1924 was really a feeling of New York City in that amazing era. The rhythm of the city seems to be in there." Pianist Lang Lang echoes this sentiment: "When I hear "Rhapsody in Blue", I see the Empire State Building somehow. I see the New York Skyline in midtown Manhattan, and I already see the coffee shops [in] Times Square."


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Accordingly, the opening montage of Woody Allen's 1979 film "Manhattan" features a rendition by Zubin Mehta in which quintessential New York scenes are set to the music of Gershwin's famed jazz concerto. Twenty years later, Walt Disney Pictures used the composition for the New York segment of the 1999 animated film "Fantasia 2000", in which the piece lyrically frames an animated segment drawn in the style of illustrator Al Hirschfeld.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: Gershwin's rhapsody has influenced a number of composers. In 1955, "Rhapsody in Blue" served as the inspiration for a composition by accordionist and composer John Serry Sr. which was subsequently published in 1957 as "American Rhapsody". Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, stated on several occasions that "Rhapsody in Blue" is one of his favorite pieces. He first heard the piece when he was two years old and recalled that he adored it. According to biographer Peter Ames Carlin, it was an influence on his "Smile" album. "Rhapsody in Blue" also inspired a collaboration between blind savant British pianist Derek Paravicini and composer Matthew King on a new concerto, called "Blue" premiered at the South Bank Centre in London in 2011.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: "Rhapsody in Blue" was played simultaneously by 84 pianists at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Pianists Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang performed "Rhapsody in Blue" at the 50th Grammy Awards on February 10, 2008. Since 1980, the piece has been used by United Airlines in their advertisements, in pre-flight safety videos, and in the Terminal 1 underground walkway at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: On September 22, 2013, it was announced that a musicological critical edition of the full orchestral score will be eventually released. The Gershwin family, working in conjunction with the Library of Congress and the University of Michigan, are working to make these scores available to the public. Though the entire Gershwin project may take 40 years to complete, the "Rhapsody in Blue" edition will be an early volume.


title: Rhapsody in Blue

text: "Rhapsody in Blue" entered the public domain on January 1, 2020, although individual recordings of it may remain under copyright.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: Groupe Artémis S.A. is a holding company with a portfolio of investments in fashion, wine, luxury, art, tourism, publishing, sports, food, and technology. Headquartered in Paris, France, Groupe Artémis was founded by François Pinault in 1992 as a family investment vehicle.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: In 1992, the French entrepreneur François Pinault transferred his majority stake in Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR, renamed Kering in 2013) to his new company, Groupe Artémis, created as a family investment vehicle. Throughout the 1990s, he engaged in a series of prestigious acquisitions.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: The 1993 Château Latour acquisition was the first of a series under the Artémis Domaines label. Artémis acquired the winery René Engel (Vosne-Romanée, renamed Domaine d'Eugénie) in 2006, the Château Grillet (Condrieu AOC) in 2011, 1/10 of an acre of the Grand Cru Le Montrachet vineyard from Château de Puligny-Montrachet in 2012, the Napa Valley Araujo Estate Wines (Calistoga, renamed Eisele Vineyard) in 2013, and the Clos du Tart in 2017.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: Groupe Artemis controls the auction house Christie's since 1998. Artémis bought the news magazine "Le Point" in 1997, the Stade Rennais F.C. in 1998, the History-focused publisher Tallandier in 1999, the luxury cruise operator Ponant in 2015 and the Brittany-Japan fusion Breizh Café. The group launched the tech-focused investment fund Red River West in 2017. Groupe Artémis is an important shareholder in the couture houses Giambattista Valli since 2017 and Courrèges since 2018, and in the magazine "Point de Vue" (royal family news) since 2018.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: Groupe Artémis acquired the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2005, which reopened in 2006 as the first exhibition site of the Pinault Collection, and the Punta della Dogana, also in Venice, in 2009. Both buildings were renovated and remodeled by the Japanese architect Ando Tadao. In August 2016, the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and Groupe Artémis jointly announced the relaunch of Bourse de Commerce, located in Paris, into a Pinault Collection-branded contemporary art museum. The new museum contains 32,000 square feet of exhibition floor remodeled by Tadao Ando. Its opening is planned for Fall 2021.


title: Groupe Artémis

text: Groupe Artémis invests in fashion, wine, luxury, art, tourism, publishing, sports, food, and technology. Groupe Artémis invests in the following companies:


title: Pragya Jaiswal

text: Pragya Jaiswal is an Indian actress and model who predominantly works in Telugu films. She made her acting debut in 2014 with the Tamil–Telugu bilingual "Virattu / Dega" in 2014. Jaiswal had her breakthrough with the Telugu period drama "Kanche" (2015), for which she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South.


title: Pragya Jaiswal

text: Jaiswal made her Hindi film debut with "Titoo MBA". She has also appeared in films including "Nakshatram" (2017) and "Achari America Yatra" (2018). In 2021, she played the role of an IAS Officer in the successful film "Akhanda".


title: Pragya Jaiswal

text: During her initial days at the Symbiosis University, she participated in various beauty pageants and became a successful model. In 2014, she received the Symbiosis Sanskritik Puraskar for her achievement in the field of art and culture.


title: Pragya Jaiswal

text: Jaiswal made her acting debut in the Indian Tamil and Telugu bilingual film named Virattu / Dega, released in 2014. In 2015, she starred in the Telugu film "Mirchi Lanti Kurradu" and later in the period drama "Kanche" directed by Krish. Jaiswal had previously auditioned for a role in Krish's "Gabbar Is Back". She did not land that role but Krish later offered her the role in "Kanche". She played a cameo in Jaya Janaki Nayaka starring Bellamkonda Sreenivas, Rakul Preet Singh and Jagapathi Babu.


title: Pragya Jaiswal

text: She made a cameo appearance for the song "Anandam" in the devotional Biographical film of Hathiram Bhavaji, directed by K. Raghavendra Rao for Nagarjuna's "Om Namo Venkatesaya" in 2017. Akhanda was her recent movie as a main female lead opposite to Nandamuri Balakrishna which has collected around 133 Crores gross Worldwide.


title: Great Western Railway (train operating company)

text: Great Western Railway (GWR) is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the Greater Western passenger railway franchise. It manages 197 stations and its trains call at over 270. GWR operates long-distance inter-city services along the Great Western Main Line to and from the West of England and South Wales, inter-city services from London to the West Country via the Reading–Taunton line, and the "Night Riviera" sleeper service between London and Penzance. It also provides commuter and outer-suburban services from its London terminus at Paddington to West London, the Thames Valley region including parts of Berkshire, parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire; and regional services throughout the West of England and South Wales to the South coast of England. Great Western Railway also provides and maintains the Electrostar Class 387 fleet for Heathrow Express.


text: The company began operating in February 1996 as Great Western Trains, as part of the privatisation of British Rail. In December 1998 it became First Great Western after FirstGroup bought out its partners' shares in Great Western Holdings. In April 2006, First Great Western, First Great Western Link and Wessex Trains were combined into the new Greater Western franchise and brought under the First Great Western brand. The company adopted its current name and a new livery in September 2015 to coincide with the start of an extended franchise that is due to run until 31 March 2023.


text: As part of the privatisation of British Rail, the Great Western InterCity franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising to Great Western Holdings in December 1995, and it began operations on 4 February 1996. Great Western Holdings was owned by some former British Rail managers (51%), FirstBus (24.5%) and 3i (24.5%).


text: In March 1998, FirstGroup bought out its partners' stakes to give it 100% ownership. In December 1998, the franchise was rebranded First Great Western.


text: On 1 April 2004, First Great Western Link began operating the Thames Trains franchise. It ran local services from Paddington to , , , Didcot, , , , Worcester, , and Stratford upon Avon. It also operated services from Reading to (via Guildford and ), and from Reading to .


text: On 1 April 2006, the Great Western, Great Western Link and Wessex Trains franchises were combined into a new Greater Western franchise. FirstGroup, National Express and Stagecoach were shortlisted to bid for it. On 13 December 2005, it was announced that FirstGroup had won the franchise. Originally, First planned to subdivide its services into three categories based on routes. Following feedback from staff and stakeholders, the decision was taken to re-brand and re-livery all services as 'First Great Western'.


text: In May 2011, FirstGroup announced that it had decided not to take up the option to extend its franchise beyond the end of March 2013. It stated that, in the light of the £1billion plan to electrify the Great Western route from London via Bristol to Cardiff, it wished to try to negotiate a longer-term deal. CEO Tim O'Toole said: "We believe we are best placed to manage these projects and capture the benefits through a longer-term franchise."


text: By not taking up the option to extend its original franchise contract for a further three years, FirstGroup avoided having to pay £826.6million to the government; it received extra subsidies totalling £133million from the government in 2010.


text: In March 2012, Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Stagecoach were shortlisted to bid for the new franchise. The winner was expected to be announced in December 2012, with the new franchisee taking over in April 2013. But it was announced in July 2012 that the franchise would be extended, due to the late issue of the invitation to tender (ITT). The ITT ran from the end of July until October 2012. The winner would have been announced in March 2013, and taken on the franchise from 21 July 2013 until the end of July 2028. The new franchise would include the introduction of new Intercity Express Trains, capacity enhancements and smart ticketing. The award of the franchise was again delayed in October 2012, while the Department for Transport (DfT) reviewed the way rail franchises were awarded.


text: In January 2013, the government announced that the current competition for the franchise had been aborted, and that FirstGroup's contract had been extended until October 2013. A two-year franchise extension until September 2015 was agreed in October 2013, and subsequently extended until March 2019. A further extension to April 2019 was granted in March 2015.


text: The refurbishment of first-class carriages in 2014 included interiors that featured a new GWR logo, with no First branding. The whole company was rebranded Great Western Railway (GWR) on 20 September 2015, with the introduction of a green livery in recognition of the former Great Western Railway which existed between 1835 and 1947. The new livery was introduced when HST interiors were refurbished, and on sleeper carriages and Class 57/6 locomotives.


text: In May 2018, TfL Rail took over services from Paddington to Hayes and Harlington, and in December 2019 it took over some stopping services to Reading.


text: In March 2020, a further extension to 31 March 2023 was awarded by the DfT with an option to extend for a further year.


text: GWR was one of several train operators impacted by the 2022 United Kingdom railway strike, which was the first national rail strike in the UK for three decades. Its workers were amongst those who participated in industrial action due to a dispute over pay and working conditions.


text: Great Western Railway is the primary train operator in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Bristol, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Oxfordshire.


text: The following is a simplified list of off-peak weekday service from the May to December 2022 timetables.


text: Great Western Railway is now the only major UK rail operator with restaurant cars. These operate on certain West Country and Wales trains to or from London Paddington. They are available to first-class and standard-class passengers, though only first-class passengers may make advance reservations, and they have priority over seats in the restaurant. Meals in the restaurant car are not included in the price of rail tickets.


text: GWR has first class on all its long-distance high-speed services. First class on the IETs includes fabric reclining seating with tables at every seat, as well as an at-seat service provided by a customer host on most journeys. Unlike the previous HSTs, the IETs do not have leather first-class seating due to fire regulations. Like the HSTs, there are power sockets and USB charging points at every seat. There is Wi-Fi throughout the first class-carriages, which GWR describes as 'upgraded'.


text: Standard class is provided on all services. Many services on long-distance and regional routes have specific seat reservations.


text: An at-seat trolley service is scheduled to operate on most IET services, with a trolley in each portion of a ten-coach train. This is different from the HSTs, which had buffet counters branded as 'Express Cafes'.


text: In 2004–2005, 79.6% of trains arrived on time (defined as within 10 minutes of their scheduled arrival time). On 22 December 2006, the First Great Western InterCity service was declared the worst in Britain for delays, according to figures from the Office of Rail Regulation, with more than one in four trains running late.


text: First Great Western admitted to misreporting the number of cancellations in the period from August to December 2007, revised figures showing the company to have breached the cancellation threshold in the franchise contract. Specifically the company was alleged to have deliberately cancelled trains on the day prior to service without the prior approval of the DfT, and without recording these cancellations on their performance figures. The company was also accused of falsifying records in order to claim dispensation for large numbers of cancellations. First Great Western was named in a Passenger Focus survey as the worst train operating company for 2007.


text: On 6 September 2007, FirstGroup announced changes to its management structure, apparently designed to strengthen the First Great Western commuter services. Anthony Smith, head of the rail users council "Passenger Focus" commented, "A fresh management approach is welcome. Clearly, looking at the passenger satisfaction scores for First Great Western, the train company and Network Rail have a lot to do. However, passengers will believe it when they see improvements."


text: Some delays are attributable to Network Rail rather than the operator, as the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) found in September 2007, when it remarked that the First Great Western service continued "to suffer from very high levels of delays attributed to Network Rail" and described Network Rail's performance as "exceptionally disappointing".


text: By 2009, passenger satisfaction with First Great Western was described by Passenger Focus as having "significantly improved".


text: The company is no longer the worst-performing UK rail operator, a title which it held for a long period. However, the "Which?" survey of rail passengers published in February 2013 showed the company scoring lowest of the larger operators with less than 40% satisfaction (Virgin, which topped the poll, managed 67%).


text: The latest punctuality statistics to be released by Network Rail for period 7 of 20132014 were 89.3% PPM (Public Performance Measure) and a MAA (Moving Annual Average) of 88.8% for the 12 months up to 12 October 2013.


text: In February 2008 the Secretary of State for Transport stated that FGW had "fallen persistently short of customers' expectations and been unacceptable to both passengers and government", issuing them with a Breach Notice for misreporting cancellations and a Remedial Plan Notice as a result of exceptionally high levels of cancellations and low passenger satisfaction. As part of the Remedial Plan Notice, First Great Western was required to achieve improvement milestones, to lease five more Class 150 units to allow three-car trains to be used on Portsmouth-Cardiff services, to undertake a much more extensive refurbishment of the Thames Turbo fleet, to offer 50% higher compensation for the duration of the franchise, to offer 500,000 more cheap tickets on off-peak services, and to improve station customer information systems. Failure to do this would result in FGW losing its franchise. FirstGroup's railway operating profit, meanwhile, was reported to have risen 10% in the six months to September 2007.


text: By June 2009, FGW had transformed its performance to become one of the UK rail network's more punctual operators, recording 94.6% of trains arriving on time. In February 2010 FGW was named Train Operator of the Year at the national Rail Business awards. Presenting the award, judges said, "First Great Western provides an extensive network of commuter, regional, local and intercity trains. The systems they have put into place over the last two years have made a significant improvement to the service they now provide."


text: However, in February 2015 First Great Western came 17th (out of 21) in "Which?" magazine's "Best and worst UK train companies" survey. Customers gave First Great Western a score of 47% (compared to the worst-performing operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, with a score of 43%, and the best-performing operator, Grand Central, with a score of 76%). First Great Western also scored three out of five stars across five of six specific categories, apart from "Value for money" in which First Great Western scored two out of five stars.


text: First Great Western has been criticised for overcrowded trains, and in January 2007 commuters on the Bath-Bristol service staged a protest against overcrowding. Participants were issued with imitation tickets printed with "Ticket type: standing only", "Class: cattle truck", "Route: hell and back", "Price: up 12%". The company threatened protestors with criminal prosecution and fines of £5,000, but staff failed to enforce ticket requirements. Alison Forster, First Great Western's Managing Director at that time, apologised to customers.


text: In January 2008, another fare strike was held as a passenger group said that not enough improvements had been made, despite First Great Western announcing that 2008 season tickets and car-parking charges would be frozen until the end of the year.


text: In August 2010, First Great Western was shown to have operated all the top ten most overcrowded trains in England and Wales, mostly between and . By December 2011, this had reduced to two.


text: In 2011, First Great Western was revealed to be the train company with the highest levels of overcrowding: an average of 16.6% of passengers were shown to be standing during the morning and evening peak times. In 2012, it held the record for the most overcrowded train, carrying nearly twice its capacity, the 07:44 Henley-on-Thames to London Paddington. Paddington, the London terminus for many FGW services, was identified as the most overcrowded station. The company was also listed as the operator with the most passengers in excess of capacity in the south east region in 2012.


text: In July 2018, a disabled woman was threatened by Great Western Railway staff with police action and removal from the train she was travelling in, for using a disabled space for her mobility scooter. Canadian-born comedian Tanyalee Davis, who has a form of dwarfism, said she was humiliated when a Great Western Railway conductor made an announcement that she was "causing problems" which had delayed the train. The incident occurred after a woman travelling with a young child demanded that Davis make way for her pram. GWR said the incident should not have happened and "No one travelling with us should be left feeling like this".


text: In 2015, the imminent arrival of the new saw a series of strikes by the RMT union over who has the right to control the doors. First Great Western wanted to replace conductors with driver-only operation (DOO); however, following several discussions it was agreed to keep conductors on all IET services.


text: Another strike took place in early December 2016, amidst a background of ongoing rail strikes on a national level, the RMT ballotted Servest UK workers who were employed on an outsourcing contract to GWR as cleaners; the ballot passed in favour of strike action by 98%. A disruptive transfer period in the outsourcing contract, from Mitie to Servest UK, had resulted in what the RMT referred to as the creation of a "two-tier workforce" amongst cleaners at GWR, with an inequality in pay and working conditions between cleaners employed directly by GWR and those outsourced to Servest UK. Two 24-hour strikes were held from 06:00 on 16 December and 23 December, followed by a 48-hour strike from 06:00 on 19 January 2017. Further industrial action was suspended by the RMT following the January strike as a result of an improvement in ongoing negotiations between the RMT, GWR and Servest UK. The dispute was formally resolved in July 2017, as RMT members voted in favour of accepting a new pay deal.


text: In April 2021, cracks were discovered in the yaw damper brackets (part of the suspension system) of and InterCity Express Trains (IETs). Eight trains were withdrawn from service and an investigation started into the cause. On 8 May, all these trains and similar ones operated by other companies were taken out of service. Cracks had now been found in the lifting pads (a component fixed near the bogie) and it was feared that if these were to fall off they may cause injury or derailment.


text: The only IETs that were permitted to operate were those which had been carefully inspected and found to have no significant cracks. This meant that most of GWR's 93 IETs were unavailable which led to significant disruption to long-distance services. s operated additional services from London Paddington to which were later extended to and after approval was given for them to operate in service on this route. Three additional 387s were loaned from c2c and were modified to work with GWR's fleet, mostly on services to . CrossCountry operated a service on behalf of GWR from Swindon to and the few available 800s and 802s were concentrated on services west of Swindon and to . Plans were agreed on 13 May to increase inspections of the lifting pads and yaw dampers so that more trains could be returned to service. A further six Class 387s were loaned from Govia Thameslink Railway in July 2021 and used in a common pool with GWR's existing 387/1 fleet, being surplus to requirements while the "Gatwick Express" service was suspended.


text: Great Western Railway inherited a fleet of InterCity 125 sets (Class 43 power cars and Mark 3 Coaches) and locomotives and Mark 3 sleeper coaches from BR. In 2006, it inherited a fleet of and units from First Great Western Link, and a fleet of , and units from Wessex Trains.


text: Most Great Western Railway intercity services are operated by a fleet of 57 Class 800 trains from the Hitachi A-train family. GWR operates most of its long-distance services between London and destinations such as , , , , , , , , , , and , using these trains, which gradually replaced the older InterCity 125 sets between autumn 2017 and spring 2019. On 28 April 2021, six Class 800s were withdrawn from service due to cracks being found during maintenance and were sent to Hitachi for inspection.


text: GWR operates most long-distance services between London and destinations in the west of the network (such as , , Plymouth and ) using its fleet of 36 Class 802 trains, the first of which was introduced on 20 August 2018.


text: Also in the Hitachi AT300 family, these trains are almost identical to Great Western Railway's fleet of Class 800 trains, the only key difference being that the Class 802 trains have a higher engine operating power— per engine as opposed to —and are fitted with larger fuel tanks to cope with the gradients and extended running in diesel mode on the long unelectrified stretches in Devon and Cornwall. Hitachi has announced that testing of a tri-mode Class 802 will begin in 2022. This tri-mode version will have batteries fitted in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions entering and leaving stations.


text: Four Class 57/6 locomotives haul "Night Riviera" Sleeper services, and failed HST sets. When these are unavailable, GWR hires Direct Rail Services Class 57/3 locomotives to operate the "Night Riviera".


text: The "Networker Turbo" is a two- or three-coach DMU used on shorter-distance services in the Thames Valley area, with the majority based at Reading Traction Maintenance Depot. They are mainly used on branches such as the Greenford branch line, Slough–Windsor & Eton line, Marlow branch line and Regatta Line. They are also used on services between Reading and Basingstoke, Didcot Parkway and Oxford or Banbury and sometimes services between London and Oxford. Some (eventually all) are based at St Philip's Marsh depot in Bristol, where they work on the most of the lines in the area including the Severn Beach line, Heart of Wessex Line, Golden Valley line and Bristol to Exeter line. From summer 2018, they are due to run on Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour services too.