title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The start of the Kentucky Electrical Lamp Company, a light bulb manufacturing company was in 1899; it eventually was acquired by Kentucky Radio Company (Ken-Rad) in 1918 and later acquired by General Electric in 1945 and in 1987 acquired by MPD, Inc., created the light bulbs that illuminated the first night game in the history of Major League Baseball on May 24, 1935, between the Reds and Phillies at Cincinnati's Crosley Field. The Owensboro plant was a major part of General Electric's vacuum tube manufacturing operations, producing both receiving types and military/industrial ceramic types. In 1961, engineers at the General Electric plant in Owensboro introduced a family of vacuum tubes called the Compactron.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: In June 1932, John G. Barnard founded the Modern Welding Company in a small building located near the Ohio River at First and Frederica Streets where the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum sits today. Today, Modern Welding Company has nine steel tank and vessel fabrication subsidiaries located throughout the United States, and five welding supply stores located in Kentucky and Indiana. The company is the country's largest supplier of underground and above ground steel storage tanks for flammable and combustible liquids. The company celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2007.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Texas Gas Transmission Corporation was created in 1948 with the merger of Memphis Natural Gas Company and Kentucky Natural Gas Corporation and made its headquarters in Owensboro. Since that time, Texas Gas changed ownership four times. The company was bought by CSX Corp. in 1983, by Transco Energy Corp. in 1989, by Williams in 1995, and by Loews Corporation in 2003.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, Owensboro has a total area of , of which is land and , or 6.47%, is water.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Owensboro has a humid subtropical climate which is characterized by hot, humid summers and moderately cold winters. Day-to-day temperature differences can be high during the winter. Summers, in comparison, are much more stable. Severe weather, including the threat of tornadoes, is not uncommon throughout much of the year, with several notable events occurring throughout the city's history. One such event occurred on December 9, 1952, when F3 tornado tore directly through the city, injuring three people.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 58,083 people and 23,380 households within the city. The population density was 2,999.1 people per square mile (1,198.4 per km). There were 26,072 housing units at an average density of 1,394.7 per square mile (538.6/km). The racial makeup of the city was 87.5% White, 7.3% African American, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% Native American, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.55% from other races, and 2.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.2% of the population.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: There were 23,380 households, out of which 23.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.7% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.8% were non-families. 33.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.91.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 23.7% under the age of 18, 9.8% from 18 to 24, 27.4% from 25 to 44, 22.4% from 45 to 64, and 16.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.6 males.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The median income for a household in the city was $37,289, and the median income for a family was $41,333. Males had a median income of $33,429 versus $21,457 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,183. About 12.2% of families and 18.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.9% of those under age 18 and 12.4% of those age 65 or over.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: According to the 2007 census, the Owensboro Metropolitan Area includes Daviess, Hancock, and McLean counties.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: According to Owensboro's 2021 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city were:


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Owensboro was named an All-American City in 2013. Owensboro placed fourth on Area Development's Top 20 Southern Cities, with a 9th-place ranking for its "recession busting factors" among the Top 25 Small Cities.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: In 1937, Pope Pius XI established the Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, which spans approximately the western third of the state. It includes 32 counties and covers approximately . Though the area has been considered by many to be predominately Catholic, evangelical denominations such as Southern Baptists have increased dramatically over the past several decades. The Kentucky Baptist Convention has many churches in the area. Owensboro is also home to Temple Adath Israel, which is among the oldest synagogues in the United States.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The Owensboro Oilers baseball team compete in the collegiate wood-bat Ohio Valley League. The Oilers were the KIT League's 2008 playoff champions and the 2006 KIT League season champions. The team is named for the baseball minor league farm team "Owensboro Oilers" which existed in the 1940s.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Owensboro has operated under a City Manager form of government since 1954. Citizens elect a mayor and four city commissioners who form the Board of Commissioners. The Board of Commissioners is the legislative body of the city government and represents the interests of the citizens. The Board of Commissioners hires a city manager who administers the day-to-day operations of the city.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The mayor is elected for a term of four years. Each city commissioner is elected for a term of two years. The term of the city manager is indefinite and based on performance.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The Owensboro Public Schools, Daviess County Public Schools, and the Diocese of Owensboro's Catholic School System oversee K-12 education in and around Owensboro.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Owensboro is home to two private, four-year colleges, Brescia University (Catholic) and Kentucky Wesleyan College, and one public community college, Owensboro Community and Technical College. A campus of Daymar College is also located in Owensboro, and Western Kentucky University has a regional campus there.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: In 2006, plans were announced for a research center operated by the University of Louisville to be located at the Mitchell Memorial Cancer Center, a part of the Owensboro Medical Health System, to study how to make the first ever human papilloma virus vaccine, called Gardasil, from tobacco plants. U of L researcher Dr Albert Bennet Jenson and Dr Shin-je Ghim discovered the vaccine in 2006. If successful, the vaccine would be made in Owensboro.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Radio stations include WBIO, WXCM, WLME, WOMI, WVJS and WBKR broadcasting from Owensboro. One, WSTO-FM, is actually licensed to Owensboro, although its studios are now located in Evansville.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Although no television stations are based in the city, it is part of the Evansville television market, which is the 100th-largest in the United States, according to Nielsen Media Research. However, in early 2007, WFIE-TV opened a bureau in Owensboro which covers news on the Kentucky side of the market. Many of the local television stations often promote themselves as serving Evansville, Indiana, Owensboro, Kentucky, and Henderson, Kentucky.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: I-165, US 60, and US 431 serve Owensboro, with US 431 terminating at the former US 60 Bypass (now signed US 60). US 231 and US 60 form a partial beltway around Owensboro. KY 81, KY 56, KY 331, KY 298, KY 54, and KY 144 also serve the city.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport serves, along with Evansville Regional Airport, as one of the region's primary commercial airports.


title: Owensboro, Kentucky

text: The Owensboro Transit System (OTS) offers bus transit to residents, and the Green River Intra-County Transit System (GRITS) offers specialized bus services to residents with disabilities who are not able to ride fixed-route public transportation buses.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Sanctuary is a Canadian science fiction-fantasy television series, created by Damian Kindler and funded largely by the Beedie Development Group. The show aired for four seasons and a total of 59 episodes, between 2008 and 2011, and a fifth season was planned but it was never made. The series was produced by Canadian television production company My Plastic Badger.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The show is an expansion of an eight-webisode series that was released through the Internet in early 2007. Seeing the success of the web series, Syfy decided to buy the broadcast rights to the series and pay to re-stage the series in a season of thirteen episodes.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The show centres on Dr. Helen Magnus, a 157-year-old teratologist, and her team of experts who run the Sanctuary, an organization that seeks out extraordinarily powerful creatures and people, known as Abnormals, and tries to help and to learn from them while also having to contain the more dangerous ones.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The series premiered on October 3, 2008, in both Canada and the United States and on October 6 in the United Kingdom. The premiere drew in more than 3 million viewers, making it the highest rated original series premiere for Syfy since "Eureka" debuted in July 2006. The premiere two-parter, "Sanctuary for All", was a combination and rewriting of the first four webisodes and was followed by "Fata Morgana", based on Webisodes 5-8. Amanda Tapping, with all of the original cast from the web series, made the transition to the television series. A second season of 13 episodes aired in 2009–10, and "Sanctuary" was renewed for a third season of 20 episodes on December 12, 2009.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The second season premiered on Friday, October 9, 2009, in the 10 pm timeslot. In Australia, the program debuted on Pay Television's Sci Fi and on free-to-air channel ABC2, where Season 1 started on March 1, 2010, each Monday at 9:30 pm. Season 2 commenced on July 12, 2010, in the same timeslot. Season 3 premiered Friday, October 15, 2010, on Syfy in its original 10 pm timeslot. In January 2011, "Sanctuary" was renewed for a fourth season, which finished airing on December 30, 2011. On May 21, 2012, Syfy announced that "Sanctuary" will not be returning for a fifth season and that the show has been cancelled. On October 8, 2012, PPI Releasing announced that it would distribute the series in U.S. syndication, starting in fall 2013.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: As of 2021, the series is available to watch for free with ads on Vudu, FreeVee via Amazon Prime, and PlutoTV.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: "Sanctuary" follows the exploits of Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her quest to protect various cryptids, legends, and abnormal animals/people with certain extraordinary powers and abilities (which most people would consider "monsters"). She heads the Sanctuary Network, which consists of large facilities known as "Sanctuaries" scattered throughout the world serving as safe havens for these "Abnormals". She is initially aided in her quest by her reluctant protégé Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne); her intrepid, if somewhat reckless, daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup); the talkative geek and lycanthrope Henry Foss (Ryan Robbins), a computer and security expert; and her taciturn, "Homo heidelbergensis"-like assistant, played by Christopher Heyerdahl (whose character is unnamed, but listed as "Bigfoot" in the show's credits).


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The history of Dr. Magnus is gradually revealed. In her youth she was trained by her father, a gifted Victorian-era scientist, to study the world and protect the unusual. Helen was a member of a group of experimental scientists known as "The Five", which also included Nikola Tesla (Jonathon Young), Nigel Griffin, Dr. James Watson (Peter Wingfield), and Magnus' lover John Druitt (Heyerdahl again), who wanted to push the boundaries of their understanding of the physical world through unconventional means. At some point during their partnership, Magnus acquired a vial of untainted vampire blood and used it in a serum that "The Five" injected into themselves. After the injection, they each developed Abnormal traits: Magnus experienced drastically slowed aging, and longevity with no clear limit; Nigel Griffin acquired the power to become invisible at will; Dr. James Watson's intellect was tremendously heightened; Nikola Tesla underwent transformation into a vampire, with the additional power of electrical manipulation; John Druitt developed longevity and the ability to teleport through time and space, but, already unstable and soon possessed by a malevolent energy creature (explained Season 2 Episode 11), he was driven to give in to his dark impulses, and becomes Jack the Ripper.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Episode 3 introduces "the Cabal", a powerful shadow organization that captures, studies, and experiments on Abnormals, in the belief that the Abnormal population is a threat to the human species. During the first-season finale, "Revelations", they test a small amount of a biological weapon named Lazarus that causes all types of Abnormals to become extremely violent, attacking anyone nearby and then dying painfully. This is part of The Cabal's overall plan to incite humanity against the Abnormals so that they can wipe out the entire Abnormal population and gain greater influence over humanity. They brainwash Ashley, and in season two, convert her into a vampiric supersoldier, using her as a template for a small army which attacks the Sanctuary network. Against all odds, Magnus and her teams stop them at the Old City Sanctuary, and Ashley, in a moment of clarity, apparently sacrifices herself. Her father, Druitt, hunts down and kills the heads of the Cabal, which seems to disband.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: As season two progresses, Magnus grapples with denial, then grief, and finally accepts the loss of Ashley. Meanwhile, the team adjusts to newcomer Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi), a former freelance Cabal operative. They also deal with their relationships (Magnus's in particular) to the remaining members of the Five, and increased international coordination in the wake of the Cabal's attacks on the Global Sanctuary Network that Magnus had established. It emerges that an enormous marine Abnormal, Big Bertha, had been preserved rather than euthanized by Magnus, and that Bertha is, somehow, a sapient being named Kali existing on a psychic or spirit plane, intricately tied to nature and Abnormals around the world. At the end of the second season and beginning of the third, a man named Edward Forsythe (Callum Blue) tries to take control of Bertha, and NY Sanctuary House Head Terrence Wexford (Paul McGillion) goes rogue trying to destroy her, even attempting to depose and kill Magnus.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Ultimately, Bertha/Kali is saved and Wexford is ousted, but more questions are raised than answered. Will visits the spirit plane via induced cardiac arrest, and while there he sees two other powerful beings in addition to Kali; encounters Helen's father, who gives Will a message for her; and then spontaneously returns to life with no brain damage after an unprecedented length of time. The Sanctuary team speculate that the beings are avatars of Abnormals as powerful as Big Bertha, one of which may have been the source of the earthquake that stopped a destructive tidal wave started by Kali's wrath. Meanwhile, Gregory Magnus's message leads the Sanctuary team to old birthday gifts that he had given to Helen years before, which in conjunction produce a tangible holographic map or miniature representing an unknown steampunk-style city. This is eventually revealed to be Praxis, an advanced underground civilization of humans and Abnormals. After an initial period of mistrust (exacerbated by the antics of Adam Worth (Ian Tracey), an old enemy of Helen's who inspired Jekyll and Hyde), Helen and her team save the world and reach an entente, with Gregory acting as ambassador. However, the peace does not last long. Worth, who escaped, manipulated unhappy Abnormals in Praxis while experimenting with a dangerously unstable energy source to power a time machine. The end results of his machinations were the destruction of Praxis, several armies of displaced Abnormals marching on the upper world, and his escape to the past to attempt to save his daughter, with Magnus hot on his heels.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Magnus is able to thwart Worth and prevent any major changes to the timeline, then returns to the present by living through the intervening years again. She and her team manage to end the Abnormal assault on humanity without too much bloodshed, but still must contend with increasing persecution from the Special Counter-Insurgency Unit (SCIU), an anti-Abnormal agency. Magnus is forced to cut the Sanctuary network's ties to the UN, reputable banking institutions, etc. in order to maintain independence, a move made possible by her extensive preparations during her second trip through the twentieth century. Additionally, a number of Hollow Earth Abnormals refuse to remain quietly underground and engage in terrorist activities against humans. Matters come to a head when a contingent of these Abnormals, led by Caleb, agree to cease their violent activities in exchange for Magnus' help in establishing a homeland in Old City. She agrees, but SCIU is highly suspicious due to the group's former attacks. This skepticism proves justified, since Caleb plans to release a substance that would bring out latent Abnormal traits in normal humans, effectively eradicating the species. Magnus is also prepared for this betrayal, taking Caleb out with a massive explosion that destroys the Sanctuary. Now presumed dead, she is free to begin anew in an Edenic underground city based on the work of Buckminster Fuller and Albert Einstein, one last secret from her repeated century.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: The series is produced by Stage 3 Media based in Vancouver, British Columbia, founded in 2006. The webisodes were filmed from January 3 to January 31, 2007, at Bridge Studios. "Sanctuary" is filmed almost entirely using the green screen technique. Unlike many other shows, no elaborate sets are built for the scenes to be filmed; instead, they are created using CGI technology. Production on the television version of "Sanctuary" began in early 2008, with a reshooting of the pilot episode, "Sanctuary for All". The first season cost an estimated , and filmed in Burnaby, British Columbia. In December 2008, the series was confirmed to have been picked up for a second season of thirteen episodes. The second season began production in the end of March/beginning of April, 2009. Guest stars for the second season include Agam Darshi, who will play con-artist Kate Freelander, former "Stargate SG-1" actor Michael Shanks as Jimmy for the ninth episode, entitled "Penance", and former "Stargate Atlantis" actor Paul McGillion, who will play Wexford, a character he played in the webseries, in the final two episodes.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: "Sanctuary" is the first television series in North America to use the RED camera exclusively. The RED camera system does away with tape and film and records straight to a hard drive allowing the Anthem Visual Effects and the series' post production team immediate access to the day’s footage, and is capable of recording at resolutions up to 4096 horizontal by 2304 vertical pixels, four times the resolution of current day HD. Along with being a primary cast member, Amanda Tapping is also an executive producer on the show, but according to Tapping herself in an interview with "The Today Show", she does not get paid extra as an executive producer, mainly because what salary the executive producers would get would go towards paying for the sets, because the series is not backed up by a studio. Although heavily reliant on virtual sets, a few episodes in the first season, including "Kush" and "Requiem", were filmed on practical sets, including the fuselage of an aircraft. The series also took a different filming style for the "Cloverfield"-esque "Instinct".


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Unlike traditional TV series, the primary distribution channel for "Sanctuary" was originally the Internet. Episodes were sold directly to viewers on the official website. The web episodes or "webisodes", are about 15–20 minutes in duration and were released bi-weekly. The success of the webisodes led the Syfy Channel to commission a 13-episode season for 2008. The first four webisodes were rewritten and reshot as a two-hour premiere episode, "Sanctuary for All". After the deal with the SciFi channel, the webisodes were moved to the Sci Fi network on Hulu.com.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: In its first season on Syfy, the original series, "Sanctuary" has averaged a 1.9 Household rating; 1,044,000 Adults (ages 18–49); 1,371,000 Adults (ages 25–54) and 2,366,000 total viewers. The pilot episode, "Sanctuary for All" received a Nielsen household rating of 2.2, the highest rated original series premiere from Syfy since the series premiere of "Eureka" in July 2006. The 2.2 rating represented more than 2.7 million viewers; 1.08 million among the adult 18–49 demographic and 1.4 million among the adult 25–54 demographic. This placed "Sanctuary" the number one cable program among adults 25–54, and number four among adults 18–49. The ratings success also boosted the web series to 1.2 million views. In the United Kingdom, both parts placed the series first place on the top ten viewing programmes for ITV4 during the two weeks they aired. The first part was viewed by 565,000, while the second part received a higher viewing figure of 608,000.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: In Australia (Region 4 and Region B), Via Vision Entertainment acquired the rights to the series and will release "The Complete Collection" on both DVD and Blu-Ray on November 18, 2020.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: "Sanctuary" has a score of 56 on Metacritic, signifying "mixed or average reviews" based on 7 television reviewers. Tori Ireland Mell of "IGN" called the series an intriguing story, and a mind-blowing concept, and believes the series from a production standpoint was executed well. Some reviewers have made comparisons between "Sanctuary" and British science fiction series "Torchwood" and "Primeval", as well as drawing comparisons between Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) and Daniel Jackson from "Stargate SG-1". "USA Today" reviewer Bill Keveney said that Amanda Tapping had reached her "comfort zone," and continued with further positive reaction to the TV series. Rick Bentley from "McClatchy Newspapers" commented Tapping's role as Dr. Helen Magnus was a way for the actress to make a name for herself outside of "Stargate SG-1" as character Samantha Carter.


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: Maureen Ryan of the "Chicago Tribune" described the show as "competent if not particularly innovative sci-fi," and said that the series might be of interest to fans of Tapping's earlier works. Mike Hale of "The New York Times" believed that the series does not have "the narrative force of "Battlestar Galactica" or the wit and creativity of "Eureka"," further stating "it's not an embarrassment for the channel, but it doesn't raise the stakes either."


title: Sanctuary (TV series)

text: "Sanctuary" has been nominated for six Constellation Awards. The series has also been nominated for ten Leo Awards and won four of these in 2009.


title: Iran Air

text: The National Airline of Iran (), branded as Iran Air, is the flag carrier of Iran, which is headquartered at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. As of 2018, it operates scheduled services to 71 destinations in Asia and Europe. Iran Air's main bases are Tehran International Airport and Mehrabad Airport, both situated in Tehran, the capital of Iran.


title: Iran Air

text: Domestically, Iran Air is commonly known as Homa or Huma, which is the name of a mythical Persian phoenix or griffin, and also the acronym of "Iran National Airlines" in the Persian language. The airline's cargo division, Iran Air Cargo, operates scheduled services internationally using one cargo aircraft.


title: Iran Air

text: Iranian Airways was founded in May 1944 by Reza Afshar and Gholam Ebtehaj. Post-war, its first passenger flight was from Tehran to Mashhad, followed by a Tehran-Esfahan-Shiraz-Bushehr-Abadan-Ahwaz service. In 1946 the airline established service to Cairo, Baghdad, and Tel Aviv, and in April 1947, to Paris. Between 1945 and 1962, the airline became a major domestic carrier, also operating some international flights to Europe each week. The fleet consisted of Douglas DC-3s initially, supplemented by Douglas DC-4 and Vickers Viscount aircraft later on.


title: Iran Air

text: In 1954, the privately-owned airline Persian Air Services (PAS) was established. PAS initially operated only freight services, followed by passenger operations between Tehran and other major cities in Iran. In 1960, PAS initiated passenger service to several European destinations, including Geneva, Paris, Brussels and London, using Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-7 aircraft leased from Sabena.


title: Iran Air

text: Iranian Airways was nationalized in 1961. On 24 February 1961, Iranian Airways and PAS merged to form the Iran National Airlines Corporation (HOMA), known as Iran Air, using the Homa bird as a symbol. HOMA was a public sector venture that combined the two predecessor air carriers. Among the aircraft used were Avro Yorks, Douglas DC-3s, Douglas DC-6s, and Vickers Viscounts. The carrier became a full member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 1964. Iran Air and South African Airways were the launch customers for the Boeing 747SP.


title: Iran Air

text: In 1965, Iran Air took delivery of its first jet aircraft, the Boeing 707 and the Boeing 727-100, followed by the Boeing 737-200 in 1971, the stretched Boeing 727-200 in 1974, and three variants of Boeing 747 (747-100, −200 and SP), starting in 1978–1979. By the mid-1970s, Iran Air was serving cities in Europe with non-stop and one-stop flights, including over 30 flights a week to London alone.


title: Iran Air

text: On 29 May 1971, the Tehran to New York City route was inaugurated, using Boeing 707s making a stop-over at London Heathrow Airport. Shortly thereafter, the route was upgraded to a non-stop flight using Boeing 747SPs, making Iran Air the second Middle Eastern carrier (after El Al), to offer non-stop service to New York. With this flight, Iran Air set a new world record in time and distance for a non-stop, scheduled long-haul flight (12 hours and 15 minutes, 9,867 km – 6,131 mi – 5,328 nm). In 1978, the airline acquired six Airbus A300 aircraft for use on its domestic trunk and busy regional routes. By the end of that year, Iran Air was serving 31 international destinations stretching from New York City to Peking and Tokyo. Plans were made to offer direct services to Los Angeles and to Sydney, for which the airline's long range Boeing 747SP aircraft were ideal. This would have allowed Iran Air to use Tehran as a midway point between East and West, because of its favorable geographical location. Such plans were never realized but bears considerable resemblance to the hub-and-spoke strategies adopted by the ME3 carriers and Turkish Airlines.


title: Iran Air

text: By the late 1970s, Iran Air was the fastest growing airline in the world and one of the most profitable. By 1976, Iran Air was ranked second only to Qantas, as the world's safest airline, having been accident free for at least ten consecutive years. Although both airlines were accident free, Iran Air came second only because of fewer operational hours flown compared to Qantas. Prior to this ranking, a fatal accident had occurred on 25 December 1952, in which 27 of the 29 passengers on board perished when their Douglas DC-3 crashed on landing.


title: Iran Air

text: As a result of economic sanctions against Iran, Iran Air was unable to expand or replace its fleet. The last time Iran Air was delivered brand-new Western aircraft prior to the 2016 lifting of nuclear-related sanctions was in 1994 when it received two Airbus A300-B4s in compensation for the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by an American cruiser in 1988.


title: Iran Air

text: In 2001, Iran Air purchased six second-hand Airbus A300s from Turkey, but only after two years, all six of them ended up grounded at airports in Tehran, Mashhad and Moscow. This caused significant controversy in Iran where officials cited GE engine design flaw and subsequent overheating as the reason for grounding the planes. One of these six planes was later confirmed to have returned to service by 2010.


title: Iran Air

text: Prior to the separation of Iran Air Tours from Iran Air in 2011, Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154s formed the backbone of the former's fleet. However, several successive disasters involving this plane ultimately led to a 2011 blanket ban on its operations within Iranian airlines, including Iran Air Tours. The Tu-154 fleet was gradually replaced with MD-83s over the course of a few months.


title: Iran Air

text: According to Iran's Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Iran currently has more than 100 planes, some of them owned by Iran Air, grounded due to the lack of access to new parts and technical expertise during the sanctions era.


title: Iran Air

text: The prolonged period of time that Iran Air was under international sanctions and barred from purchasing spare parts and new planes led to a dramatic rise in its average fleet age and plunging safety record, to the extent where it became widely known as one of the worst airlines in the world in terms of air safety record. As of March 2017, Iran Air's average fleet age stands at 24.1 years, though this figure is set to improve through addition of new deliveries.


title: Iran Air

text: Iran Air's extremely subpar on-time performance, amongst those of most other Iranian airlines, has led to public anger and frustration, often inciting protests in the form of violent confrontations with the airline employees or airplane sit-ins for many hours after a severely-delayed flight has finally landed. Officials routinely attribute the delays to the economic sanctions, although at least one pro-revolutionary ideologue has cited "inefficiency and mismanagement" as the chief cause of this issue.


title: Iran Air

text: On 5 July 2010, an aviation official of Iran accused the UK, Germany and the United Arab Emirates of refusing to refuel Iranian passenger jets. This move followed unilateral sanctions imposed by the US over the nuclear weapons dispute. Iran Air and Mahan Air both claimed to have been denied refuelling. A spokeswoman for Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) said that a contract was in place to refuel Iranian passenger flights and ADAC would continue to do so. A spokesperson for the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority said that it was the sole decision of independent suppliers if aircraft were to be refuelled or not. Germany's Transport Ministry said the refuelling of Iranian aircraft was not banned under EU or UN sanctions but did not say whether any independent refuellers were denying refuelling. Later in the day, Dubai Airport revealed that it continued to refuel Iranian passengers flights in and out of Dubai. The next day, a spokesperson for Iran said that no such limitation had been imposed.


title: Iran Air

text: On 6 July 2010, it was announced that the European Commission would ban all of Iran Air's Airbus A320, Boeing 727 and Boeing 747 fleet from the EU over safety concerns. This move came as a major blow to Iran Air, limiting flights to Europe with its own aircraft.


title: Iran Air

text: In 2012, the EU re-allowed the refuelling of Iran Air aircraft at secondary European airports such as Ljubljana and Budapest, in an effort to retain the refuelling contracts within the EU, rather than letting them go to Serbia or later Belarus and Ukraine.


title: Iran Air

text: In January 2012, Iran Air's flights to and from London Heathrow operated with a fuel stop at Manston Airport in Kent. However, the airport announced in December 2011 that this arrangement was to end and it would no longer refuel the company's aircraft. This announcement swiftly followed the closure of Iran's embassy in London as the consequence of the ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran. The airport stressed that it had not breached any trade agreements, as it had no connections with the USA.


title: Iran Air

text: In anticipation of a deal being reached for the lifting of sanctions, the chairman of Iran Air, Farhad Parvaresh, stated that the airline would then seek to obtain at least 100 wide-body and short-haul jets.


title: Iran Air

text: On Friday 15 January 2016 US president Barack Obama authorized his secretary of state, John Kerry, to lift the sanctions on Iran civil aviation. Following Iran's implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on 16 January 2016, all sanctions on Iran civil aviation were lifted. As a result, Iranian airlines, including Iran Air, were granted permission to purchase new civil aircraft from any manufacturer as well as to refuel at all European airports, except for two Swedish destinations, Stockholm and Gothenburg, due to the fuel supplier BP still refusing to provide fuel to the Iranian carriers.


title: Iran Air

text: On 24 January 2016 Tehran hosted the CAPA Iran Aviation Summit organised by CAPA - Centre for Aviation in order to bring both Iranian and international aviation authorities together for considering development plans for Iran's aviation industry. CAPA put the size of Iran's economy somewhere between those of Turkey and Australia, whose commercial airline fleets are in the order of 500-600 aircraft. Bombardier presented its regional models during the CAPA summit in Tehran.


title: Iran Air

text: On 8 May 2018, following US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and as part of the reinstatement of the United States sanctions against Iran lifted in 2015, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the decision to revoke all Iran sales licenses already granted to plane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus after a 90-day period.


title: Iran Air

text: It was announced that Iran Air had to cancel the order for Boeing aircraft due to President Trump's decision to reimpose sanctions against Iran, despite this it has been announced that Iran Air will still be receiving ATR aircraft. It has not yet been announced if Airbus aircraft will still be delivered. Any aircraft being delivered to Iran Air must be delivered within a 90 to 180 day period before the sanctions begin.


title: Iran Air

text: While members of the Trump administration have advised European companies to stop doing business with Iran now, Federica Mogherini said the European aim was "maintaining and deepening economic relations with Iran. "The technical experts plan to propose ways to avert disruptions in air, sea and land transport from and to Iran and keep channels open for "effective banking transactions."


title: Iran Air

text: Iran Air is one of the few airlines in the world that, pursuant to Islamic law, does not serve alcoholic beverages on any of its flights. Moreover, there is no choice of non-Halal food selections, such as those containing pork, on Iran Air's menu. This is a policy similar to many other airlines based in predominantly Muslim countries.


title: Iran Air

text: Until 2016, Hajj charter operations formed a major part of Iran Air's annual activities. Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims flew from major cities in Iran to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's air gateway to Mecca, to take part in pilgrimage ceremonies. In 2016, due to escalating tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, all Hajj flights from Iran were suspended indefinitely. These flights resumed from 2017.


title: Iran Air

text: As of June 2021, the Iran Air fleet consists of the following aircraft, several of which might be stored or taken into service on short notice:


title: Iran Air

text: In January 2016 Iran Air signed an agreement for 118 Airbus aircraft, consisting of several types of the manufacturer's twin-engine aircraft and 12 A380s. On 22 December 2016, Airbus announced a firm deal for 100 aircraft comprising 46 Airbus A320 family, A320neo family aircraft; 16 A350s, and 38 A330s /A330neos. In January 2017, Airbus began the delivery process starting with an A321 followed by 2 A330-200s, all initially ordered by and built for Avianca but never delivered.


title: Iran Air

text: In January 2018, the sales chief of Airbus signalled that the delivery of the orders placed by Iran Air could deviate from the original schedule due to financing and pre-payment obstacles.


title: Iran Air

text: On 1 February 2016, Iran Air signed an agreement with aircraft manufacturer ATR, covering an order of twenty ATR 72-600 turboprop aircraft plus options for twenty more. Iran Air intends to use the ATR 72s as part of its strategy to expand its domestic market reach and to provide service to the smaller airports that are located in less populated cities of Iran. Deliveries were planned to begin in early 2017 but were delayed due to a stall in talks with the Canadian manufacturer of ATR power plants, Pratt & Whitney Canada, over after-sales support and maintenance for the engines. In the event, the first four aircraft were delivered in a single convoy on 16 May 2017. In April 2019, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a two-year licence to ATR to allow it to supply spare parts and other essentials to keep the fleet of 13 ATR 72-600s in operation. However, the remaining 7 ATR 72-600s from the 2016 order remain sanctioned and in storage.


title: Iran Air

text: In June 2016, Iran Air officially announced that it was in talks with Boeing for a possible order "close in size to the 118 Airbus aircraft agreement". On 21 June 2016 Boeing announced it has signed a tentative agreement to sell jetliners to Iran, in what would be one of the Islamic Republic's biggest deals with a U.S. manufacturer since trade sanctions on Tehran were eased. On 11 December 2016, Boeing announced a provisional order by Iran Air for eighty aircraft, subject to "contingencies [being] cleared"; the order comprises 50 737 MAX 8s, 15 777-300ERs and 15 777-9s.


title: Iran Air

text: In June 2018, Boeing announced it will not be able to deliver any planes to Iranian airlines because of the sanctions.


title: Iran Air

text: On 8 October 1972, Iran Air placed an order with British Aircraft Corporation for two Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic jets plus an option for one, rendering it the last airline to place Concorde orders for commercial use. However, Iran Air - having had briefly chartered one Concorde jet on flights between Tehran and Paris - cancelled these orders in April 1980.


title: Iran Air

text: Iran Air Tours was founded in 1973 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran Air, focusing on charter flights and tourism. In 2011, the company was purchased by Hesayar Cooperative Company, itself a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. However, Hesayar failed to meet its financial commitments and the airline promptly returned to private hands in 2016. The airline will increase the number of flights from Isfahan and Shiraz airports to Kuwait International Airport as of April 17, 2022.


title: Iran Air

text: Homa Hotel Group was founded in 1979 by the Government of Iran after it completed a nationalization of the hotel industry. As of 2016, it was owned by Iran's Social Security Organization.


title: Iran Air

text: Before the two companies merged in 1962 to form Iran Air, Iranian Airways and Persian Air Services had several aircraft hull losses. Iranian Airways lost six Douglas DC-3s in crashes and a fire between 1949 and 1959; and one of its Douglas DC-4s was shot down in 1961; while Persian Air Services lost three Avro Yorks in crashes and a maintenance accident between 1955 and 1959. Since 1962, Iran Air has had more than a dozen aircraft hull losses in crashes and the shooting-down of Iran Air Flight 655; the airline has also experienced twenty hijacking incidents on its aircraft.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Gerard Crosbie (born 1 October 1984), professionally known as Gerry Cinnamon, is a Scottish singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist. He sings in his local accent with "brutally honest" lyrics.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Crosbie was raised in 'The Valley', a residential area of the Castlemilk district of Glasgow. He has stated that as a child he listened to his mother's music cassettes including albums by The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel and The Beatles. He has also stated that he was a fan of Oasis, as well as The La's. He also has a particular admiration for the work of Bob Dylan.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Having experienced problems in the local area and in school as a young teenager, he spent some time living in London with the father of a friend; finding himself with little to do "apart from watch cricket or play guitar", he became proficient in the instrument (as well as the harmonica). On returning to Scotland he began writing songs, with his growing interest in creating and performing music proving a distraction in his attempts to hold down jobs in various industries over several years.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: While performing a solo gig at a college he met aspiring producer Chris Marshall, a neighbour from Castlemilk. They began collaborating on a casual basis with Marshall arranging the songs and Crosbie the lyricist, and eventually formed a lo-fi band, "The Cinnamons", along with Lori Duncan, Dave Bass and Gav Hunter; with Gerry as frontman, they released a five-song EP in 2010. Crosbie subsequently adopted the Cinnamon name as a solo performer and his later catalogue contains some compositions from the era, such as "Sometimes".


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: An Open mic night in a bar on Sauchiehall Street in central Glasgow gave him an opportunity to perform his songs, and the event became increasingly popular.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In 2014, having sold-out gigs at small venues purely through word of mouth and social media, he was invited to write and perform a song at a rally event in George Square ahead of the referendum on Scottish independence. The song, "Hope Over Fear", which was released as a single, introduced him to a wider audience – however he has stated that he had no desire to become a figurehead for the Yes campaign.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In summer 2015, Cinnamon supported John Power on tour, released another single, "Kampfire Vampire", and performed to a large crowd on the T-Break Stage at T in the Park, fulfilling a long-held ambition to play at the festival.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In July 2016 he again performed at T in the Park, this time at the 'King Tut's Wah Wah Tent' stage as he had hoped to do a year earlier. Despite having one of the traditionally least popular time slots across the weekend (2pm on Friday), his performance was again well-attended. In October he was announced as 'Best Live Act' at the 2016 Scottish Alternative Music Awards.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In November, without being signed to a record label, he headlined a sold-out show at Glasgow's O2 ABC Glasgow, the promotion of which had consisted of a single message on his Facebook profile; he later admitted he was so disorganised that he had not even prepared a set list for the performance. In December, he supported Ocean Colour Scene in their show at the SSE Hydro.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In July 2017, Cinnamon appeared on the King Tut's stage at the TRNSMT festival (a non-camping replacement for T in the Park) on Glasgow Green, again playing to a sizeable and enthusiastic crowd. In September, he released his first album "Erratic Cinematic", funded via the PledgeMusic platform and produced by Chris Marshall, which quickly rose to the number 1 spot in the UK iTunes chart for singer-songwriters (briefly outselling the likes of Ed Sheeran), and 6th overall.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On the back of the album release, he announced a show at the Barrowland Ballroom to take place in December, with all tickets sold within hours of being released, followed a few days later by a second date which sold out even more swiftly. This achievement – a first for an unsigned artist – later earned him a place in the 'Barrowland Hall of Fame' alongside the likes of Glasgow son Frankie Miller, Noel Gallagher, David Bowie and Ocean Colour Scene.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In October he was presented with a 'Great Scot Award' for entertainment, following previous winners of the category such as Paolo Nutini and Kevin Bridges. In December it was confirmed he would be returning to TRNSMT in 2018, this time on the main stage.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: A few days before playing his Barrowland gigs, Cinnamon spoke out against operators of ticket scalping websites, after discovering they had purchased gig tickets at face value and then offered them for sale on their sites to desperate fans at hugely inflated prices.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Following his main stage performance at TRNSMT 2018, his debut album entered the Scottish Albums Chart, peaking at no. 7 in July 2018.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: The early months of 2018 were dominated by a sold-out Scottish tour, followed by several dates across the rest of Britain and Ireland, with the vast majority of the tickets once more sold out well in advance and some gigs moved to higher capacity venues due to the demand. During one performance in Inverness, he briefly stopped playing to confront a member of the audience who had thrown a drink onto the stage.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On 28 June 2018, two days before the event, the organisers of TRNSMT announced that Cinnamon's performance at the festival had been moved to a later, higher profile time slot (benefitting from J Hus's cancellation). He was also booked to play at the RiZE Festival (the replacement of the long-running V Festival) and the Tartan Heart Festival (Belladrum) during August 2018.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: A further four gigs were announced for the coming December in Glasgow, including on Christmas Eve; those also sold out almost instantly, leaving unlucky fans frustrated. Some complained to Cinnamon via social media about the prices of tickets available on resale sites, leading him to respond publicly "If you think I want some corporate goon reselling my ticks for 10x the asking price you've lost it. If you think I'm somehow involved or can stop it when the biggest bands in the world can't do anything about it then you're misinformed at best". Further December 2018 shows in Dundee, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock were later announced which again sold out in seconds.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Following a run of arena shows supporting The Courteeners, Gerry announced his own England and Ireland tour. Tickets for the tour again sold out within seconds leading to the addition of extra dates and upgraded venues.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Cinnamon headlined a stage at Edinburgh's Hogmanay 2018/19 street party. In January 2019 he played two gigs in Amsterdam. In February, he was announced as one of the Friday main stage performers at the forthcoming TRNSMT event in July, and was also added to the bill for several other festivals in the summer season including Benicàssim, Isle of Wight, Kendal Calling, Y Not and Glastonbury Festival.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On 7 May 2019, it was announced that Cinnamon would support Liam Gallagher at his gig at Irish Independent Park in Cork on 23 June 2019.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On 12 July, it was announced that he would be performing at the new P&J Live venue in Aberdeen on Saturday 23 November, which subsequently broke the record for highest attendance at a Scottish indoor event at 15,000 attendees, and two shows at the SSE Hydro in his hometown of Glasgow on Friday 20 December. The arena tour was further extended throughout venues in England and Ireland with all 125,000 tickets selling out in advance.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: In November 2019 Cinnamon announced via a Twitter post that his second album named "The Bonny" would be released on 17 April 2020 on his own label Little Runaway. Alongside the album announcement, Cinnamon revealed that he will play the biggest show of his career at the 50,000+ capacity Hampden Park, becoming the first Scottish act to headline the national stadium. Tickets went on sale on 15 November 2019 and were sold out within hours.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On 11 February 2020, it was announced that Gerry Cinnamon would perform the penultimate slot at Reading and Leeds festival in August 2020; the festivals were later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Gerry Cinnamon's second studio album, "The Bonny", released on 17 April 2020 debuted at number one on the UK and Irish Albums Charts. The album was also the fastest-selling vinyl of the year and the third biggest-selling UK album released in 2020.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: Cinnamon was scheduled to tour the United States for the first time as special guest of the Dropkick Murphys and Rancid in May 2020, pending the status of the COVID-19 outbreak there.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: On 21 May 2020, Cinnamon announced that due to the coronavirus pandemic, he had moved the dates for his UK and Ireland tour to May and June 2021.


title: Gerry Cinnamon

text: He has encouraged aspiring artists to believe in themselves despite a lack of expensive backing, and expressed a scathing distaste for the nature of music industry marketing and excessive hyping of inferior quality artists, stating in 2016:""


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: The insurgency in Cabo Delgado is an ongoing Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, mainly fought between militant Islamists and jihadists attempting to establish an Islamic state in the region, and Mozambican security forces. Civilians have been the main targets of terrorist attacks by Islamist militants. The main insurgent faction is Ansar al-Sunna, a native extremist faction with tenuous international connections. From mid-2018, the Islamic State's Central Africa Province has allegedly become active in northern Mozambique as well, and claimed its first attack against Mozambican security forces in June 2019. In addition, bandits have exploited the rebellion to carry out raids. As of 2020, the insurgency intensified, as in the first half of 2020 there were nearly as many attacks carried out as in the whole of 2019.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Ansar al-Sunna (English: "Supporters of the Tradition") is similar to the name of an Iraqi Sunni insurgent group that fought against U.S. troops between 2003 and 2007. They are known locally as al-Shabaab but they are not formally related to the better known Somali al-Shabaab. although both pledge their allegiance to the militant group, Islamic State (ISIL). Some of the militants are known to speak Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique, however others speak Kimwane, the local language, and Swahili, the lingua franca language spoken north of that area in the Great Lakes region. Reports also state that members are allegedly mostly Mozambicans from Mocimboa da Praia, Palma, and Macomia districts, but also include foreign nationals from Tanzania and Somalia.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Ansar al-Sunna, also known by its original name "Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamo" (translated: "adepts of the prophetic tradition"), was initially an Islamic religious movement in the northern districts of Cabo Delgado which first appeared around 2015. It was formed by followers of the radical Kenyan cleric Aboud Rogo, who was killed in 2012. Thereafter, some members of his movement settled down in Kibiti, Tanzania, before moving into Mozambique.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Ansar al-Sunna claims that Islam as practised in Mozambique has been corrupted and no longer follows the teachings of Muhammad. The movement's members consequently entered traditional mosques with weapons in order to threaten others to follow their own radical beliefs. The movement is also anti-Christian, anti-Animist, and anti-Western, and has tried to prevent people from attending hospitals or schools which it considers secular and anti-Islamic. This behavior alienated much of the local population instead of converting them to Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamo, so that the movement's members broke away and formed their own places of worship. Over time, the group became increasingly violent: It called an extreme form of "Sharia" to be implemented in the country, no longer recognized the Mozambican government, and started to form hidden camps in Macomia District, Mocímboa da Praia District, and Montepuez District. There, Ansar al-Sunna militants were trained by ex-policemen, and ex-frontier guards who had been fired and held grudges against the government. The movement also contacted other Islamist militants in East Africa, and reportedly hired trainers from Somalia, Tanzania, and Kenya. Some of the Ansar al-Sunna militants have also journeyed abroad to receive direct training by other militant groups.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: The militants are not unified, but split into different cells which do not appear to coordinate their actions. By August 2018, the Mozambican police had identified six men as leaders of the militants in Cabo Delgado: Abdul Faizal, Abdul Raim, Abdul Remane, Ibn Omar, "Salimo", and Nuno Remane. Ansar al-Sunna funds itself through drug trafficking (primarily heroin), contraband, and ivory trade.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: While religion does play a fundamental role in the conflict, analysts believe the most important factors in the insurgency are widespread social, economic, and political problems in Mozambique. Unemployment and especially youth unemployment are considered the main causes for locals to join the Islamist rebels. Increasing inequalities have led many young people to be easily attracted by such a radical movement, as Ansar al-Sunna promises that its form of Islam will act as "antidote" to the existing "corrupt, elitist rule". Most rebels belong to the Mwani and Makwa ethnic groups that are native to Cabo Delgado; civilians belonging to these peoples have expressed sympathy for the insurgents. In general, the province lacks infrastructure and the state is underrepresented, easing the spread of the insurgency.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: In 2011, Northern Mozambique gained much international attention when large offshore gas fields containing up to 425 billion cubic meters of gas, were discovered. With the goal of becoming a major international player in the energy sector, Mozambique's government has prioritized the region's economic attractiveness and has sent its army to ensure the safety of planned investments. Foreign activities include a $30 billion investment of US-based company Exxon Mobil and expected $20 billion of Total Energies. While Total Energies has stated that they will pause their investment to reassess the security situation in Northern Mozambique, the EU's planned reduction in Russian gas imports has made the project more likely.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Terrorist activity is viewed as a risk to international LNG investment, with concerns raised about the kidnapping of foreign workers. However, indigenous coastal communities and maritime facilities are also targets of violent activity: in 2021, the port town of Palma was attacked, killing dozens of civilians. Maritime infrastructure has also been targeted, with the key port of Mocimboa da Praia being seized.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Attacks on maritime infrastructure can be attributed to rising social inequality. The exploitation of the region's natural resources, including the offshore gas fields, puts the native population at risk, as they face displacement and very little profit returns to the region due to high levels of corruption. Finding its root in the precarious economic situation and the political marginalization of the native population, local conflicts have been used to radicalize young men.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: Given the increase in extreme violent activities and simultaneously in military personnel, tensions are likely to rise as the region's economic exploitation continues. This also endangers the region's maritime environment. Conflicts on the land spill over to the sea, creating an unsafe environment for offshore investments. Because Northern Mozambique is a major transnational drug trafficking hub, contested governance on land and sea facilitates maritime heroin smuggling.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: The deteriorating security situation has led to various international efforts in order to support Mozambique’s maritime capabilities and ensure safety along the coast. Russia has deployed the Wagner Group, a private security organization heavily linked to the Russian government  in Northern Mozambique but failed its mission to support counter-insurgency activities and withdrew in 2020. Wagner Group was allegedly aided by the Russian fleet, though this has not been officially proven. Mozambique has formed an arrangement with Italy to train its navy, while Portugal, the former colonial power, has donated speedboats to the country. Furthermore, Mozambique and India are cooperating on marine security issues, with India assisting in the development of the country's naval infrastructure and the training of personnel. In addition, South Africa has dispatched naval patrol vessels, and Rwanda has increased its presence along the coast. Currently, the UNODC is assisting Mozambique's naval capabilities by training the country's Navy, Maritime Authority, and maritime law enforcement officers, thereby improving domain awareness and port security. However, mere capability training for law enforcement authorities is controversial, as corruption, power abuse and involvement in illicit economies is high in Mozambique’s state authorities.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: There is a lack of access to reliable information in the region due to journalists being intimidated by government and military personnel. On 5 January 2019, Mozambican authorities unlawfully detained journalist Amade Abubacar, who had reported on the insurgency. He was subsequently subjected to torture, and only released on bail after 107 days in detention.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: The rebels have committed extensive war crimes, targeting and murdering civilians on many occasions during the insurgency.


title: Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

text: In addition, Mozambican security forces were reportedly filmed as they tortured and murdered captured rebel fighters. Amnesty International said that the videos were genuine, while Mozambique's defense ministry spokesperson Omar Saranga argued that they were probably produced by the rebels themselves, using captured uniforms to produce propaganda against the government.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: Kylie Sonique Love (born May 2, 1983), formerly known as Sonique, is an American Entertainer, singer, dancer, model and reality television personality. She rose to prominence as a contestant on the second season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" in 2010, and achieved further popularity by winning the sixth season of "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars" in 2021. Kylie was also the first person to ever come out as transgender on any reality TV show and eventually became the first trans woman to win "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 6" returning in 2021 after 11 years from competing in 2010.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: Additionally, in 2020, she co-hosted "Translation Season 1", the first talk show on a major network hosted by an all-trans cast. Her first single, "Santa, Please Come Home", was released in 2018.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: Kylie Sonique Love was born on May 2, 1983 in Albany, Georgia. She came out as transgender to her mother at 15 and later was sent to military school Fort Stewart to become "more masculine". She received a GED at the Albany Technical College. Her "drag mother" is retired Atlanta performer The Goddess Raven, a national pageant titleholder.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: Love was announced to be one of twelve contestants for the second season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" on February 1, 2010. She was placed in the bottom two in episode four and was eliminated after losing a lip sync to "Two of Hearts" by Stacey Q against Morgan McMichaels. She later revealed that she is a transgender woman during the reunion episode of that season. In 2015, Love was one of the 30 performers that appeared as a backup dancer for Miley Cyruss Video Music Awards performance.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: In June 2018, Love was a backup dancer with McMichaels and Farrah Moan for Christina Aguilera at Los Angeles Pride. She subsequently appeared in the "RuPaul's Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular" with seven other "Drag Race" alumni on December 7, 2018. She also appeared as a guest for the first challenge in the premiere episode of season eleven of "Drag Race". Love appeared in a music video for Lizzo's song "Juice", which was released on April 17, 2019.


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: In 2020, Love co-hosted "Translation" on Out TV, the first talk show on a major network to be hosted by an all-trans cast. Love was announced as one of thirteen contestants competing on the sixth season of "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars" on May 26, 2021, where she competed under the name Kylie Sonique Love, after previously competing under the mononym Sonique. On September 2, she was announced as the winner, becoming the first transgender winner in a


title: Kylie Sonique Love

text: Kylie contributed to Tammie Brown's 2018 EP "A Little Bit of Tammie". She released her first single, "Santa, Please Come Home", the same day as the premiere of the "Holi-slay Spectacular". She released her second single, "Hey Hater", on April 24, 2019.


title: History of New York City

text: The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608.


title: History of New York City

text: The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.


title: History of New York City

text: The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–90 under the United States Constitution. Under the new government the city hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first Supreme Court of the United States. The opening of the Erie Canal gave excellent steamboat connections with upstate New York and the Great Lakes, along with coastal traffic to lower New England, making the city the preeminent port on the Atlantic Ocean. The arrival of rail connections to the north and west in the 1840s and 1850s strengthened its central role.


title: History of New York City

text: Beginning in the mid-19th century, waves of new immigrants arrived from Europe dramatically changing the composition of the city and serving as workers in the expanding industries. Modern New York traces its development to the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and an economic and building boom following the Great Depression and World War II. Throughout its history, New York has served as a main port of entry for many immigrants, and its cultural and economic influence has made it one of the most important urban areas in the United States and the world. The economy in the 1700s was based on farming, local production, fur trading, and Atlantic jobs like ship building. In the 1700s New York was sometimes referred to as a breadbasket colony, because one of its major crops was wheat. New York Colony also exported other goods included iron ore as a raw material and as manufactured goods such as tools, plows, nails and kitchen items such as kettles, pans and pots.


title: History of New York City

text: The area that eventually encompassed modern day New York was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically related Native Americans traditionally spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as "Unami". Early European settlers called bands of Lenape by the Unami place name for where they lived, such as "Raritan" in Staten Island and New Jersey, "Canarsee" in Brooklyn, and "Hackensack" in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan. Some modern place names such as Raritan Bay and Canarsie are derived from Lenape names. Eastern Long Island neighbors were culturally and linguistically more closely related to the Mohegan-Pequot peoples of New England who spoke the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language.


title: History of New York City

text: These peoples made use of the abundant waterways in the New York region for fishing, hunting trips, trade, and occasionally war. Many paths created by the indigenous peoples are now main thoroughfares, such as Broadway in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. The Lenape developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources. By the time of the arrival of Europeans, they were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique, which extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bay. Historians estimate that at the time of European settlement, approximately 5,000 Lenape lived in 80 settlements around the region.


title: History of New York City

text: The first European visitor to the area was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian in command of the French ship "La Dauphine" in 1524. It is believed he sailed into Upper New York Bay, where he encountered native Lenape, returned through the Narrows, where he anchored the night of April 17, and left to continue his voyage. He named the area () in honor of Francis I, King of France of the royal house of Valois-Angoulême and who had been Count of Angoulême from 1496 until his coronation in 1515. The name refers to the town of Angoulême, in the Charente département of France. For the next century, the area was occasionally visited by fur traders or explorers, such as by Esteban Gomez in 1525.


title: History of New York City

text: European exploration continued on September 2, 1609, when the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed the "Half Moon" through the Narrows into Upper New York Bay. Like Christopher Columbus, Hudson was looking for a westerly passage to Asia. He never found one, but he did take note of the abundant beaver population. Beaver pelts were in fashion in Europe, fueling a lucrative business. Hudson's report on the regional beaver population served as the impetus for the founding of Dutch trading colonies in the New World. The beaver's importance in New York's history is reflected by its use on the city's official seal.


title: History of New York City

text: The first Dutch fur trading posts and settlements were in 1614 near present-day Albany, New York, the same year that New Netherland first appeared on maps. Only in May 1624, the Dutch West India Company landed a number of families at "Noten Eylant" (today's Governors Island) off the southern tip of Manhattan at the mouth of the North River (today's Hudson River). Soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Later, the Dutch West Indies Company imported African slaves to serve as laborers; they helped to build the wall that defended the town against English and Indian attacks. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit. Willem Kieft became director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. The Pavonia Massacre, across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City, resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch. Holland sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, 1645.


title: History of New York City

text: On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival and ruled as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. The first mayors ("burgemeesters") of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier, were appointed in that year. By the early 1660s, the population consisted of approximately 1500 Europeans, only about half of whom were Dutch, and 375 Africans, 300 of whom were slaves.


title: History of New York City

text: A few of the original Dutch place names have been retained, most notably Flushing (after the Dutch town of Vlissingen), Harlem (after Haarlem), and Brooklyn (after Breukelen). Few buildings, however, remain from the 17th century. The oldest recorded house still in existence in New York, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, dates from 1652.


title: History of New York City

text: On August 27, 1664, four English frigates under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, as part of an effort by king Charles' brother James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral to provoke the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Two weeks later, Stuyvesant officially capitulated by signing Articles of Surrender and in June 1665, the town was reincorporated under English law and renamed "New York" after the Duke, and Fort Orange was renamed "Fort Albany". The war ended in a Dutch victory in 1667, but the colony remained under English rule as stipulated in the Treaty of Breda. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch briefly recaptured the city in 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", before permanently ceding the colony of New Netherland to the English for what is now Suriname in November 1674 at the Treaty of Westminster.


title: History of New York City

text: The colony benefited from increased immigration from Europe and its population grew faster. The Bolting Act of 1678, whereby no mill outside the city was permitted to grind wheat or corn, boosted growth until its repeal in 1694, increasing the number of houses over the period from 384 to 983.


title: History of New York City

text: In the context of the Glorious Revolution in England, Jacob Leisler led Leisler's Rebellion and effectively controlled the city and surrounding areas from 1689 to 1691, before being arrested and executed.


title: History of New York City

text: In New York at first, legal practitioners were full-time businessmen and merchants, with no legal training, who had watched a few court proceedings, and mostly used their own common sense together with snippets they had picked up about English law. Court proceedings were quite informal, for the judges had no more training than the attorneys.


title: History of New York City

text: By the 1760s, the situation had dramatically changed. Lawyers were essential to the rapidly growing international trade, dealing with questions of partnerships, contracts, and insurance. The sums of money involved were large, and hiring an incompetent lawyer was a very expensive proposition. Lawyers were now professionally trained, and conversant in an extremely complex language that combined highly specific legal terms and motions with a dose of Latin. Court proceedings became a baffling mystery to the ordinary layman. Lawyers became more specialized and built their reputation, and their fee schedule, on the basis of their reputation for success. But as their status, wealth and power rose, animosity grew even faster. By the 1750s and 1760s, there was a widespread attack ridiculing and demeaning the lawyers as pettifoggers (lawyers lacking sound legal skills). Their image and influence declined. The lawyers organized a bar association, but it fell apart in 1768 during the bitter political dispute between the factions based in the Delancey and Livingston families. A large fraction of the prominent lawyers were Loyalists; their clientele was often to royal authority or British merchants and financiers. They were not allowed to practice law unless they took a loyalty oath to the new United States of America. Many went to Britain or Canada (primarily to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) after losing the war.


title: History of New York City

text: For the next century, various attempts were made, and failed, to build an effective organization of lawyers. Finally a Bar Association emerged in 1869 that proved successful and continues to operate.


title: History of New York City

text: By 1700, the Lenape population of New York had diminished to 200. The Dutch West Indies Company transported African slaves to the post as trading laborers used to build the fort and stockade, and some gained freedom under the Dutch. After the seizure of the colony in 1664, the slave trade continued to be legal. In 1703, 42% of the New York households had slaves; they served as domestic servants and laborers but also became involved in skilled trades, shipping and other fields. Yet following reform in ethics according to American Enlightenment thought, by the 1770s slaves made up less than 25% of the population.


title: History of New York City

text: After a series of fires in 1741, the city became panicked that blacks planned to burn the city in conspiracy with some poor whites. Historians believe their alarm was mostly fabrication and fear, but officials rounded up 31 blacks and 4 whites, who over a period of months were convicted of arson. Of these, the city executed 13 blacks by burning them alive and hanged 4 whites and 18 blacks.


title: History of New York City

text: In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in Lower Manhattan.


title: History of New York City

text: The Stamp Act and other British measures fomented dissent, particularly among Sons of Liberty who maintained a long-running skirmish with locally stationed British troops over Liberty Poles from 1766 to 1776. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in 1765 in the first organized resistance to British authority across the colonies. After the major defeat of the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island in late 1776, General George Washington withdrew to Manhattan Island, but with the subsequent defeat at the Battle of Fort Washington the island was effectively left to the British. The city became a haven for loyalist refugees, becoming a British stronghold for the entire war. Consequently, the area also became the focal point for Washington's espionage and intelligence-gathering throughout the war.


title: History of New York City

text: New York was greatly damaged twice by fires of suspicious origin, with the Loyalists and Patriots accusing each other of starting the conflagration. The city became the political and military center of operations for the British in North America for the remainder of the war. Continental Army officer Nathan Hale was hanged in Manhattan for espionage. In addition, the British began to hold the majority of captured American prisoners of war aboard prison ships in Wallabout Bay, across the East River in Brooklyn. More Americans lost their lives aboard these ships than died in all the battles of the war. The British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783. George Washington triumphantly returned to the city that day, as the last British forces left the city.


title: History of New York City

text: Starting in 1785 the Congress met in the city of New York under the Articles of Confederation. In 1789, New York became the first national capital under the new Constitution. The Constitution also created the current Congress of the United States, and its first sitting was at Federal Hall on Wall Street. The first Supreme Court sat there. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted and ratified there. George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall. New York remained the national capital until 1790, when the role was transferred to Philadelphia.


title: History of New York City

text: During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration, a visionary development proposal called the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. By 1835, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury.


title: History of New York City

text: The Great Irish Famine (1845–1850) brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1850 the Irish comprised one quarter of the city's population. Government institutions, including the New York City Police Department and the public schools, were established in the 1840s and 1850s to respond to growing demands of residents.


title: History of New York City

text: This period started with the 1855 inauguration of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall. It was the political machine based among Irish Americans that controlled the local Democratic Party. It usually dominated local politics throughout this period and into the 1930s. Public-minded members of the merchant community pressed for a Central Park, which was opened to a design competition in 1857; it became the first landscape park in an American city.


title: History of New York City

text: During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the city was affected by its history of strong commercial ties to the South; before the war, half of its exports were related to cotton, including textiles from upstate mills. Together with its growing immigrant population, which was angry about conscription, sympathies among residents were divided for both the Union and Confederacy at the outbreak of war. Tensions related to the war culminated in the Draft Riots of 1863 led by Irish Catholics, who attacked black neighborhood and abolitionist homes. Many blacks left the city and moved to Brooklyn. After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.


title: History of New York City

text: From 1890 to 1930, the largest cities, led by New York, were the focus of international attention. The skyscrapers and tourist attractions were widely publicized. Suburbs were emerging as bedroom communities for commuters to the central city. San Francisco dominated the West, Atlanta dominated the South, Boston dominated New England; Chicago dominated the Midwest United States. New York City dominated the entire nation in terms of communications, trade, finance, popular culture, and high culture. More than a fourth of the 300 largest corporations in 1920 were headquartered here.


title: History of New York City

text: In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan, and outlying areas. Manhattan and the Bronx were established as two separate boroughs and joined with three other boroughs created from parts of adjacent counties to form the new municipal government originally called "Greater New York". The Borough of Brooklyn incorporated the independent City of Brooklyn, recently joined to Manhattan by the Brooklyn Bridge; the Borough of Queens was created from western Queens County (with the remnant established as Nassau County in 1899); and the Borough of Richmond contained all of Richmond County. Municipal governments contained within the boroughs were abolished, and the county governmental functions were absorbed by the city or each borough. In 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, making five counties coterminous with the five boroughs.


title: History of New York City

text: The Bronx had a steady boom period during 1898–1929, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression created a surge of unemployment, especially among the working class, and a slow-down of growth.


title: History of New York City

text: On June 15, 1904, over 1,000 people, mostly German immigrant women and children, were killed when the excursion steamship "General Slocum" caught fire and sank. It is the city's worst maritime disaster. On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers. In response, the city made great advancements in the fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.


title: History of New York City

text: Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication, marking its rising influence with such events as the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909. Interborough Rapid Transit (the first New York City Subway company) began operating in 1904, and the railroads operating out of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station thrived.


title: History of New York City

text: The city was a destination for internal migrants as well as immigrants. Through 1940, New York was a major destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the rural American South. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the 1920s and the era of Prohibition. New York's ever accelerating changes and rising crime and poverty rates were reduced after World War I disrupted trade routes, the Immigration Restriction Acts limited additional immigration after the war, and the Great Depression reduced the need for new labor. The combination ended the rule of the Gilded Age barons. As the city's demographics temporarily stabilized, labor unionization helped the working class gain new protections and middle-class affluence, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under Fiorello La Guardia, and his controversial parks commissioner, Robert Moses, ended the blight of many tenement areas, expanded new parks, remade streets, and restricted and reorganized zoning controls.


title: History of New York City

text: For a while, New York ranked as the most populous city in the world, overtaking London in 1925, which had reigned for a century. During the difficult years of the Great Depression, the reformer Fiorello La Guardia was elected as mayor, and Tammany Hall fell after eighty years of political dominance.


title: History of New York City

text: Despite the effects of the Great Depression, some of the world's tallest skyscrapers were built during the 1930s. Art Deco architecture—such as the iconic Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza— came to define the city's skyline. The construction of the Rockefeller Center occurred in the 1930s and was the largest-ever private development project at the time. Both before and especially after World War II, vast areas of the city were also reshaped by the construction of bridges, parks and parkways coordinated by Robert Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism in America.


title: History of New York City

text: Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom. Demands for new housing were aided by the G.I. Bill for veterans, stimulating the development of huge suburban tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County. The city was extensively photographed during the post–war years by photographer Todd Webb.


title: History of New York City

text: New York emerged from the war as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading the United States ascendancy. In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan. During the late 1960s, the views of real estate developer and city leader Robert Moses began to fall out of favor as the anti-urban renewal views of Jane Jacobs gained popularity. Citizen rebellion stopped a plan to construct an expressway through Lower Manhattan.


title: History of New York City

text: After a short war boom, the Bronx declined from 1950 to 1985, going from predominantly moderate-income to mostly lower-income, with high rates of violent crime and poverty. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s that continues into today.


title: History of New York City

text: The transition away from the industrial base toward a service economy picked up speed, while the jobs in the large shipbuilding and garment industries declined sharply. The ports converted to container ships, costing many traditional jobs among longshoremen. Many large corporations moved their headquarters to the suburbs or to distant cities. At the same time, there was enormous growth in services, especially finance, education, medicine, tourism, communications and law. New York remained the largest city and largest metropolitan area in the United States, and continued as its largest financial, commercial, information, and cultural center.


title: History of New York City

text: Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots, gang wars and some population decline in the late 1960s. Street activists and minority groups such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords organized rent strikes and garbage offensives, demanding improved city services for poor areas. They also set up free health clinics and other programs, as a guide for organizing and gaining "Power to the People." By the 1970s the city had gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government avoided bankruptcy only through a federal loan and debt restructuring by the Municipal Assistance Corporation, headed by Felix Rohatyn. The city was also forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by an agency of New York State. In 1977, the city was struck by the New York City blackout of 1977 and serial slayings by the Son of Sam.


title: History of New York City

text: The 1980s began a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide financial industry. Unemployment and crime remained high, the latter reaching peak levels in some categories around the close of the decade and the beginning of the 1990s. Neighborhood restoration projects funded by the city and state had very good effects for New York, especially Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, and The Bronx. The city later resumed its social and economic recovery, bolstered by the influx of Asians, Latin Americans, and U.S. citizens, and by new crime-fighting techniques on the part of the New York Police Department. In 1989, New York City elected its first African American Mayor, David Dinkins. He came out of the Harlem Clubhouse.


title: History of New York City

text: In the late 1990s, the city benefited from the nationwide fall of violent crime rates, the resurgence of the finance industry, and the growth of the "Silicon Alley", during the dot com boom, one of the factors in a decade of booming real estate values. New York was also able to attract more business and convert abandoned industrialized neighborhoods into arts or attractive residential neighborhoods; examples include the Meatpacking District and Chelsea (in Manhattan) and Williamsburg (in Brooklyn).


title: History of New York City

text: New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census; according to census estimates since 2000, the city has continued to grow, including rapid growth in the most urbanized borough, Manhattan. During this period, New York City was a site of the September 11 attacks of 2001; 2,606 people who were in the towers and in the surrounding area were killed by a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, an event considered highly traumatic for the city but which did not stop the city's rapid regrowth. On November 3, 2014, One World Trade Center opened on the site of the attack. Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York in the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan. It flooded low-lying areas of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Electrical power was lost in many parts of the city and its suburbs.


title: History of New York City

text: The city went into lockdown in March 2020 amidst the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. , New York City has experienced the most deaths of any locality in the coronavirus pandemic in New York state, which itself has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases of any state in the United States. During the first wave, one-third of total known U.S. cases were in New York City.


title: Antrum (film)

text: Antrum (also known as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made) is a 2018 Canadian horror film written and directed by David Amito and Michael Laicini. The film is divided into two parts: an opening and closing frame narrative in the form of a mockumentary and a feature film. The documentary purports to tell the story of "Antrum," a movie released in the late 70s that supposedly has deleterious effects on those who watch it; the bulk of the movie is allegedly the only known print of the film, which has itself been altered by an unknown third party.


title: Antrum (film)

text: "Antrum" was developed by Amito and Laicini, during the development on a separate project, in which they were brainstorming possible scenarios that they could include in the film. The central idea, that would later become the basis for "Antrum", came from the concept of what it would be like to watch a purported "cursed" film, which the filmmakers felt would make for a great horror film. For the film's occult aspects, Amito and Laicini studied various historical and cultural depictions of demons and the devil, while further inspiration came from a short film by David B. Earle titled "Dining Room or There is Nothing", which Laicini claimed to have seen while in film school. American actress Nicole Tompkins was cast in the lead role of Oralee, while child actor Rowan Smyth was cast in the role of her younger brother Nathan. Principal photography took place in Southern California, over a period of one month.


title: Antrum (film)

text: "Antrum" made its world premiere at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on 14 October 2018, and was screened at other film festivals, where it was nominated for several awards. Uncork’d Entertainment later acquired North American distribution rights to the film, later releasing it via Video-on-Demand and streaming services in Fall 2019. It received positive reviews from critics who praised its atmosphere, acting, and creativity, while some criticized its pacing, runtime, and plot.


title: Antrum (film)

text: In 1979, a film named "Antrum"—shot in English but of apparently Bulgarian origin—is submitted for inclusion in a variety of film festivals; none accept it. After each rejection, the various festival directors die under suspicious circumstances. Several years go by during which the film remains unseen until it mysteriously appears at a theater in Budapest in 1988. During the screening, a fire—initially believed to be the result of a faulty projector—burns the theater to the ground. Investigators later determine that audience members set the fire themselves. The film again goes unseen for many years until it is screened in a theater in California in 1993. Prior to the film, a concession stand worker doses popcorn with LSD; the combination of the drug and the film results in a riot during which a pregnant woman is killed. Following this screening, all copies of the film apparently vanish, and it earns a reputation as being cursed.


title: Antrum (film)

text: In 2018, a copy of "Antrum" surfaces, prompting a documentary crew to make a short film on its history and impact. Although the origins of the movie remain unknown, scientists and film experts who examine the 35 mm reel determine that, among other unique properties, the film utilizes disorienting sounds and subliminal imagery. The documentary crew further determines that unrelated, black-and-white snippets of an apparent snuff film have been spliced into the original movie by a third party. The documentary pauses so that "Antrum" may be presented in its entirety for the first time in twenty-five years.


title: Antrum (film)

text: "Antrum" concerns siblings Oralee and Nathan, whose pet dog, Maxine, was recently euthanized. After Nathan asks if Maxine went to Heaven, their mother teases him with saying that because she was a bad dog, Maxine has gone to Hell. In a flashback, it is revealed that Maxine attacked Nathan, for no apparent reason, which resulted in her being euthanized. Traumatized, Nathan begins experiencing disturbing dreams and visions of demons. In an effort to ease his mind, Oralee claims to have obtained a grimoire from an imaginary classmate named Ike whom she claims is versed in the occult. Using the book—in fact, a sketchbook Oralee has filled herself with arcane drawings and "spells"—she takes Nathan to a nearby forest locally renowned as a place for suicides, telling him that it is the place where Satan fell to Earth when he was cast out of Heaven and that if they can find the place where he landed, the pair can dig a hole to Hell and rescue Maxine. Oralee guides Nathan through a series of rituals and "rites," intending all along to arrange for Nathan to discover Maxine's collar in the woods as a "sign" they have saved her soul. As the day progresses, Oralee is disturbed to find that her "spells" are having an apparent effect on the real world, conjuring actual infernal figures. Additionally, the pair accidentally interrupt a man attempting seppuku, and obliviously pass by the rotting corpse of a suicide near their campsite.


title: Antrum (film)

text: Their first night in the woods, Nathan slips out of the tent and sees a boat being rowed in a nearby stream by a figure resembling Charon, who ferries a nude woman. He likewise hears a rattling chain that he attributes to Cerberus. The next day, Nathan and Oralee stumble upon a pair of cannibals in the woods, who capture and cook people alive inside a giant, iron statue of Baphomet, including the man whose suicide attempt they earlier interrupted. When the cannibals become aware of their presence, Oralee attempts to take herself and Nathan to safety by abandoning their camp and rowing downriver in the boat Nathan saw the night before; the pair both end up falling into the water. Oralee and Nathan make it to shore, only to realize they have moved in a circle and are back at their camp. As they hide for the night, Oralee confesses the ruse to Nathan, but he claims to have met Ike. Nathan further tells Oralee that Ike told him not to trust her.


title: Antrum (film)

text: The next morning, the cannibals capture them and attempt to cook Nathan, but Oralee escapes her cage and frees him. As Nathan flees, Oralee obtains a gun and shoots the cannibals to death. In the woods, Nathan stumbles across a dog with its paw caught in a bear trap. Nathan frees the animal, taking it as a sign he has freed Maxine from Hell. A "The End" title card appears onscreen; the film abruptly resumes, following Oralee as she runs through the woods, pursued by demons, and experiencing violent hallucinations. She hides in the pair's tent, aiming her gun at the entrance. As Nathan approaches, a panicked Oralee prepares to fire and the film ends.


title: Antrum (film)

text: The documentary resumes shortly after this, with scholars observing a rune seen throughout the film belonging to a demon named Astaroth; examples of the rune appearing subliminally throughout the film are shown as historians recount tragedies attributed to the demon throughout history.