title: The Vamps (British band)

text: On 7 October 2016, The Vamps announced in a livestream via Facebook that the first single of their third studio album, both with no names revealed at the time, would be released on 14 October 2016, with an exclusive release on Capital FM on the previous day. On the same day, hints of the name and lyrics of the single started being posted on the band's social medias and Spotify, following the same style as the hits for "Wake Up" single and album in September 2015. It was also announced that the album would be out in Summer 2017. On 12 October 2016, the band announced via livestream that the single would be called "All Night" and would be a collaboration with Norwegian DJ Matoma. The song peaked at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart, number six on the Irish Singles Chart, number 13 on the Norwegian Singles Chart, number 12 on the New Zealand Singles Chart, and also became their first entry on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 72. It became the most charted and certified single of the band and their most streamed song on Spotify. On 20 October 2016, The Vamps released their autobiography "The Vamps: Our Story 100% Official", which had been announced months earlier.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: "Middle of the Night", a collaboration with Danish DJ Martin Jensen, was announced as the second single of the album on 21 April 2017 and was released on 28 April 2017, the same day their Middle of the Night Tour started. During the first show of the tour, it was announced that the name of their third album is "Night & Day" and will be released in two parts. The first part, "Night Edition", was set to be released in July 2017 and the second one, "Day Edition", was set to be released in July 2018. On 3 May 2017, a video explaining more about the album was uploaded on their social media. On 19 May 2017, Swedish DJ Mike Perry released the single "Hands", a collaboration between himself, The Vamps, and American singer Sabrina Carpenter, which was included in the album. The first part of the album, "Night Edition", was released on 14 July 2017 and debuted atop the UK Albums Chart, becoming the band's first number one album.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: On 20 April 2018, the band released the singles "Too Good to Be True", "Personal", "Hair Too Long", and "Just My Type" from their album's "Day Edition". On 13 July 2018, they released the "Day Edition" album which debuted at number one on the Official Scottish Albums Chart and number two on the UK Albums Chart.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: On 27 July 2018, they released the single "We Don't Care", a collaboration with English DJ Sigala. In March 2019, "All the Lies", a collaboration with Brazilian DJ Alok and German producer Felix Jaehn, was released.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: The "Missing You" EP was released on 25 April 2019. The four-track EP consists of title track "Missing You", "Right Now" (a collaboration with Krept and Konan), "Waves" and an acoustic version of "All the Lies". The EP marked the band taking charge of their music and creative direction as they co-wrote and co-produced the entire body of work. On 30 July 2020, they announced their fifth studio album "Cherry Blossom". The lead single "Married in Vegas" was released on the same day as the album pre-order. The album was released on 16 October 2020 and debuted and number one on the UK charts.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: The group have been compared to One Direction and labelled a boy band since their first fame in late 2012, a label which continued to be applied in 2014. The band disagree with the stereotyping, pointing to the fact that they formed by themselves—they are not the product of a record producer—and they play their own instruments. They have been inspired by McFly, Blink-182, Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: The Vamps supported McFly on their in April and May 2013, and Selena Gomez at London's Hammersmith Apollo on 7 and 8 September 2013. In October, it was announced that The Vamps would support Taylor Swift on the London leg of her Red Tour in February 2014, and The Wanted on the UK and Ireland leg of their Word of Mouth World Tour from 14 March to 1 April.


title: The Vamps (British band)

text: On 12 February 2014, the band announced that they will be headlining their own UK tour in September and October 2014 to support their debut album. They also went on several tours in Asia, the UK and North America. They had their world tour in 2016 to support their second album. They had several tours to support the release of the "Night Edition" of their third album. The band announced their upcoming USA 2018 Tour and Four Corners Tour 2019 to support the release of the "Day Edition" of their third album.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: The first season of "Shameless", an American comedy-drama television series based on the British series of the same name by Paul Abbott, premiered on January 9, 2011, at Sunday 10:00 p.m. EST on the Showtime television network. Executive producers are John Wells, Paul Abbott and Andrew Stearn, with producer Michael Hissrich. The season concluded after 12 episodes on March 27, 2011. The show's season premiere was watched by 982,000 viewers, making it the network's biggest turnout for a series premiere since "Dead Like Me" in 2003. The episode airing January 30, "Casey Casden", received 1.45 million total viewers, making "Shameless" the best performing first-year drama on Showtime. The season finale scored 1.16 million viewers.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: The first season of "Shameless" depicts the dysfunctional family of Frank Gallagher, a single, alcoholic, and trashy father of six children in Chicago, Illinois. With Frank's bipolar wife, Monica, running away from Frank prior to the first season, the family has been run by Frank's eldest daughter Fiona, who raises her five other siblings: the extraordinarily intelligent Lip, goofy and strong-hearted Ian, the mature and grounded Debbie, the troublemaking and unruly child Carl, and Liam, who is mysteriously black (in the second half of the season, a paternity test reveals Frank as Liam's biological father). Often involved in the Gallagher's lives are their neighbors, Kevin and Veronica, who fake a marriage mid-season to obtain a substantial dowry.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: The season's core story revolves around Steve Wilton, an affluent man whom Fiona and Veronica meet at a dance club. Fiona begins a relationship with Steve and discovers that he is a high end car thief. Fiona's childhood friend and police officer, Tony Markovich, expresses interest in dating Fiona, though Fiona ultimately turns him down. When Steve leaves town to visit his family in Lake Forest, it is revealed that his real name is Jimmy Lishman; Jimmy, under the alias of Steve, comes from a wealthy family who presumes he is away at medical school. When Debbie discovers Steve's secret, she agrees to keep it a secret from Fiona, but does notify Steve's real mother about his double life.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: The subsidiary plot throughout the season involves Ian, who is a closeted homosexual, his sexual orientation only known to Lip and a friend, Mandy. Ian pursues a sexual relationship with his boss Kash, the adult owner of a local convenience store. Kash is unhappily married to his wife, Linda, who discovers the affair through the store's newly installed security cameras; Linda blackmails Kash into impregnating her. Mandy's thug brother, Mickey Milkovich, openly shoplifts from the store and regularly insults Kash. When Ian confronts Mickey, the two unexpectedly have sex, and they begin a casual sexual relationship. When Kash finds out, he angrily shoots Mickey in the leg when he attempts to shoplift. Mickey is arrested for attempted shoplifting and Kash is praised for his efforts. In the final episode, Ian comes out to Fiona, who is accepting of his sexuality.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: Frank's eldest son, Lip, is in an open relationship with the promiscuous Karen Jackson, though Lip wants to pursue their relationship as more than a casual fling. Karen's mother, Sheila, is a nice but kooky housewife diagnosed with severe agoraphobia. Frank becomes romantic with Sheila and moves in with her, though he's mainly there to freeload and cash on Sheila's disability checks, much to Karen's dismay. Sheila's estranged ex-husband, Eddie, attempts to reconcile with Karen by inviting her to a purity ball, a father/daughter event where girls pledge their chastity. When Karen delves into a detailed list of her sexual history at the ball, as required by the ball's program, Eddie angrily calls her a whore. Sheila furiously kicks Eddie out of her house, overcoming her agoraphobia in the process. In a cruder turn of events, Karen wants to get revenge on her father and rapes an incapacitated Frank, showcasing the incident on a video blog that she sends to Eddie and his co-workers. Beaten over the video and past events, Eddie commits suicide by jumping in a frozen lake. Consequently, a guilt-stricken Karen breaks up with Lip. Both Frank and Karen separately apologize to Lip for the video.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: In the final episodes, Lip and Ian are arrested after being caught driving one of Steve's stolen cars, straining Fiona and Steve's relationship; though Fiona, conflicted, admits that she may be falling in love with Steve. Meanwhile, Tony discovers the truth about Steve's occupation. He attacks Steve and gives him an ultimatum—to turn himself in and be arrested, or to leave Fiona and disappear without a trace. Though Steve tries to convince Fiona to accompany him in Costa Rica, Fiona declines his offer and takes up an office job from a new friend, Jasmine, to further care for her family. Under obligation, Steve is forced to run off without the girl he expected he'd be with.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: HBO began developing an American version of "Shameless" after striking a deal with John Wells in January 2009. In October 2009, the project had been moved to Showtime, and it was reported that William H. Macy would star in the lead role as Frank Gallagher. Later that year, "Dragonball Evolution" co-stars Emmy Rossum and Justin Chatwin signed on as Fiona and Steve respectively; Allison Janney was also cast for the recurring role of Sheila. John Wells Productions filmed a pilot episode for the cable network in December 2009. Paul Abbott, whose semi-autobiographical telescript became the pilot episode for the original UK version, is credited as an executive producer on the U.S. version. In April 2010, Showtime green-lit the series with a twelve-episode order. In late August, it was announced that Janney would be leaving the show, due to her series commitment on the ABC comedy Mr. Sunshine; the role of Sheila was re-cast with Joan Cusack.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: Production for the first season began mid-September, mainly being filmed in the North Lawndale community area of Chicago and Burbank, California at Warner Bros. Studios. A preview of the pilot aired on December 12, 2010, after the Season 5 finale of "Dexter". The first season officially began airing on Showtime on Sunday, January 9, 2011.


title: Shameless (season 1)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the first season a 'Certified Fresh' rating of 70% based on 37 reviews, with the critical consensus ""Shameless" is a dark, urban dramedy that overcomes its leaps of faith thanks to fantastic casting, intriguing ambiance, and shock value."


title: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series

text: The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series will be the 75th season for NASCAR professional stock car racing in the United States and the 52nd season for the modern-era Cup Series. The season will start with the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on February 5. That race will be followed by the Daytona Duel qualifying races and the 65th running of the Daytona 500 (the first points race of the season) on February 19, both at Daytona International Speedway. The season will end with the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway on November 5.


title: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series

text: There are 36 chartered teams in the Cup Series. These are the 36 teams that currently have charters. There have been no charter changes announced for 2023 so far.


title: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series

text: The 2023 schedule was released on September 14, 2022. The 2023 Daytona 500 will be held on Sunday, February 19. The season finale will be at Phoenix Raceway again in 2023 during the first weekend of November. The Busch Light Clash will return to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the second year in a row and the race will be held on February 5, which again is one week before the Super Bowl and two weeks before the Daytona 500.


title: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series

text: After NASCAR used a Chicago Street Course track in the 2021 eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, it was speculated that NASCAR would like to make it a reality and have a street race in Chicago on the Cup Series schedule in the future. On July 7, 2022, Jordan Bianchi from "The Athletic" reported that an official announcement of this being added to the Cup Series schedule would come on July 19. On June 17, Adam Stern from "Sports Business Journal" suggested that the Chicago Street Course could replace Road America on the 2023 Cup Series schedule as the street race would likely replace one of the road course races and Road America does not have a contract to have a Cup Series race in 2023. Both the addition of the Chicago street race to the schedule and the fact that it would replace the race at Road America came on July 19.


title: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series

text: On June 24, 2022, Adam Stern also reported that "Fox Sports", which has the TV rights to the All-Star Race, has been trying to convince NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports to move the NASCAR All-Star Race to a different venue each year as is the case in other sports. After the 2022 All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway, which was widely considered unpopular and controversial by fans and the industry, the track tweeted that they would be hosting the All-Star Race again in 2023. However, the tweet was deleted amidst negative reactions to the announcement, leading to speculation that plans could change. On September 7, it was revealed that the All-Star race will take place on the renovated North Wilkesboro Speedway. It would be the first NASCAR Cup race on the track since 1996, after its dates were replaced by races at Texas Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 1997.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The Kelly Family is an Irish-American music group consisting of a multi-generational family, usually nine siblings who were joined occasionally on stage in their earlier years by their parents. They play a repertoire of rock, pop, and folk music, and sing fluently in English, Spanish, German, and Basque. The group had chart and concert success around the world, predominantly in continental Europe - mainly in Germany, the Benelux countries, Scandinavia, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal - and some in Ireland. They have sold over 20 million albums since the early 1980s and were ranked as the 6th most popular music act in Germany in the 1990s. Despite their American origins, the group is virtually unknown in the United States.


title: The Kelly Family

text: For many years, the group presented a ragamuffin image and a vagabonding lifestyle, travelling around Europe in a double-decker bus and houseboat. Their image was enhanced by their eclectic and often homemade clothing, and the very long hair worn by both male and female members of the band. The Kelly Family began to break up in 2000 and afterwards they performed mostly as individuals or sub-sets of the whole group and took on a more mainstream look.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The patriarch of the family, Daniel Kelly Sr., has been described as a "grizzled, ageing druid aesthetic", but according to his daughter Kathy he was in earlier days "a clean-cut, intense conservative Catholic" who studied for the priesthood. He married his first wife, Joanne, in 1957, and the couple left their native America in 1965 with their children Daniel Jr., Caroline, Kathleen and Paul, and settled in Spain, where Daniel opened an antiques shop.


title: The Kelly Family

text: Daniel Kelly and Joanne separated, and Joanne returned to America with Daniel Jr., who had a disability. In 1970, Kelly married Barbara Ann Suokko (1946–1982), who was from Fitchburg, Massachusetts and of Finnish and Austrian heritage. Daniel and Barbara had eight children, with the eldest, John, born in 1967, and the youngest, Angelo in 1981. The children were homeschooled and given lessons in music and dance.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In 1974, the older children, Caroline, Daniel, Kathy and Paul, formed the Kelly Kids, at first busking, then performing at parties and local events. They became well-known enough that they appeared on Spanish television in 1975. The band was joined by the younger members of the family as they grew up and learned to play musical instruments. The band's popularity increased in Spain, with several performances on television and in circuses. In 1976, they went on tour as The Kelly Family, in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. Their money was stolen during the tour and, penniless, they had to busk on the streets to earn enough for the return trip home.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The family moved to Ireland, living at a campground and touring there in 1977. Then, in 1978, they toured again in their authentic double-decker bus. (They later lived on a large houseboat.) Daniel and Barbara Kelly joined their children for performances, Barbara often performing with a newborn in her arms.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In 1977, they landed a record contract in Germany. Their first major chart hit came in 1980, with the song "Who'll Come With Me (David's Song)", with John Kelly, aged 12, singing the solo. The song, with a Gaelic sounding melody by Vladimir Cosma, was the theme to a German television production "", based on "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson. The song hit #1 in the Netherlands and Belgium, and it reached the top 20 in Germany.


title: The Kelly Family

text: Barbara Kelly died of breast cancer in 1982, shortly after the birth of the youngest child, Angelo. Her last words to her family were "Keep on singing!" The band continued to record, Daniel Kelly having formed his own recording company in 1980. As the older members of the family reached adulthood, Caroline and Paul left the band, Caroline to study nursing and Paul to become a chef. In 1990, Daniel Kelly suffered a stroke, but he remained fairly active in the group through the 1990s.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The Kelly Family covered hit songs such as "We are the World" and "The Rose", but wrote most of their own music based on family and personal experience, their Catholic faith, and their worldview. Songs include "Santa Maria"; "Why, Why, Why"; "An Angel", the video of which popularized a younger family member Paddy; "Break Free", sung by Barby Kelly; the haunting "Mama", in which Barbara Kelly is remembered by her children; and "The Pee Pee Song", in which the common childhood issue of bedwetting is portrayed by the raucous, flaxen haired baby-of-the-family Angelo.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In the 1990s, the group enjoyed their biggest success. Their 1994 album "Over the Hump" sold more than 2.25 million copies in Germany alone, and 4.5 million copies throughout Europe. In 1995, to promote the album, they played a concert to a Vienna audience of 250,000. In the same year they filled the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, nine times in a row, a feat no other musician has since accomplished. In 1996 they headlined their first Stadium Tour, filling some of Europe's largest venues. They played in Beijing, China in front of 20,000 people. In 1998 they bought a castle, Schloss Gymnich, on the Erft near Cologne, Germany. About the same time, Adam Kelly, son of Papa Kelly’s younger brother Henry, started performing with his cousins in The Kelly Family. Success continued until they started to disagree on a professional basis at the beginning of the year 2000. In 2002 Papa Kelly died from yet another stroke. That same year the family competed in the German Eurovision Song Contest pre-selections with the song of Maite Kelly "I wanna be loved" and placed fourth.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In 2002, Barby's ongoing illness forced her retirement from the band and, to the disappointment of his fans, Paddy cut his long hair and joined a religious order in France. Members of the family continued to perform as soloists or together, or in combination with their partners, as both Jimmy and John married singers. Fan interest prompted a comeback with gigs in Germany in 2007.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In 2011, the 12 Kelly siblings were reported as living in Ireland, Germany, the United States, Spain, and Belgium.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The Kelly Family has faced criticism and problems. Although singing predominantly in English, the group had little success in the English-speaking world and aroused the derision of critics. Der Spiegel called them a "singing second-hand clothes collection" and Die Zeit called them a cult.


title: The Kelly Family

text: The father, Daniel Kelly, was described, allegedly by his children, as having a "tyrannical, controlling streak". The most outspoken sibling, Jimmy, has criticized his father for not giving his children a formal education and imposing on them a "Huckleberry Finn" lifestyle. Moreover, he explained that as The Kelly Family group began to dissolve, there was almost nothing left of the millions of dollars the family had earned. The oldest daughter, Kathy, who managed most of the finances of the family, said that Daniel was more "free spirit than tyrant" but that "we got too big too fast, we should have cut things down some or handed over to professional management."


title: The Kelly Family

text: Dan Kelly taught his children to "always keep independent of the structures of the modern entertainment industry." He formed his own record label and "the Kellys kept everything in the family, from copyright and bookings to promotion and money matters."


title: The Kelly Family

text: The Kellys ran into tax issues in Germany, the "Dan Kelly Foundation" was discovered not to be a registered charity, and they were criticized for their lack of transparency in accounting for money raised for an AIDS charity.


title: The Kelly Family

text: In 2021, Angelo was fined €3,000 by German authorities after his son William performed briefly with him on-stage at an evening concert, in contravention of German labour laws which prohibit children aged under 7 from performing outside the hours of 08:00 to 17:00.


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (born April 4, 1988) is an American director, producer, and writer. She is best known for creating the MTV show "Sweet/Vicious", the Netflix film "Someone Great" (2019), and co-writing Marvel Studios's "" alongside Taika Waititi. Robinson's film "Do Revenge" (2022) starring Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke, is described as "a subverted dark comedy."


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was born and raised in Miami, Florida. At 16 she moved to Los Angeles and reached the final round of auditions of "Hannah Montana" to play Miley Cyrus's best friend. After acting and working in Fashion PR between New York and Los Angeles, Robinson turned to writing.


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: She created and produced the MTV show "Sweet/Vicious", which premiered in 2016. "Sweet/Vicious" was a dark comedy about two female college students who become vigilantes and take justice into their own hands taking revenge on sexual abusers. The show delicately balanced heightened genre and superhero elements and its nuanced portrayal of survivors. The show was critically acclaimed and ran for one season before being cancelled. "Variety" named "Sweet/Vicious" one of their 20 Best New Shows of 2016. A "Sweet/Vicious" comic book written by Robinson was announced in 2018.


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: In 2016 Robinson was named as one of "Variety"‘s 10 TV Writers to Watch. She was invited to speak at the White House under the Obama administration and Vice President Biden's final "It's On Us Summit."


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: In 2018, it was announced that Robinson would make her feature directorial debut for Netflix with "Someone Great". Gina Rodriguez attached to star and produce in the romantic comedy alongside producers Paul Feig, Jessie Henderson, and Likely Story. Written by Robinson the story was "described as being about loss, growing up and, above all, the everlasting bond of female friendships." Brittany Snow, DeWanda Wise, and Lakeith Stanfield were also cast. Filming began in April 2018 in New York City. "Someone Great" premiered on Netflix on April 19, 2019.


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: In 2020, "Variety" reported the Robinson had been hired to co-write Marvel Studios's "" with director Taika Waititi. Robinson also received screenplay credit on HBO Max's "Unpregnant" released in 2020.


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: She is set to write, direct and executive produce a "Center Stage" television series. Robinson served as a Consulting Producer on the Marvel Studios and Disney+ show "Hawkeye".


title: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

text: Robinson directed and co-wrote the film "Do Revenge", starring Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke, a high school comedy version of "Strangers on a Train". The film premiered on Netflix in September 2022.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film "Hiroshima mon amour" (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on 4 April 1914, in Gia Định, Cochinchina, French Indochina (now Vietnam). Her parents, Marie (née Legrand, 1877–1956) and Henri Donnadieu (1872–1921), were teachers from France who likely had met at Gia Định High School. They both had previous marriages. Marguerite had two older brothers: Pierre, the elder, and Paul.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Duras' father fell ill and he returned to France, where he died in 1921. Between 1922 and 1924, the family lived in France while her mother was on administrative leave. They then moved back to French Indochina when she was posted to Phnom Penh followed by Vĩnh Long and Sa Đéc. The family struggled financially, and her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland in Prey Nob, a story which was fictionalized in "Un barrage contre le Pacifique" ("The Sea Wall").


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In 1931, when she was 17, Duras and her family moved to France where she successfully passed the first part of the baccalaureate with the choice of Vietnamese as a foreign language, as she spoke it fluently. Duras returned to Saigon in late 1932 where her mother found a teaching post. There, Marguerite continued her education at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat and completed the second part of the baccalaureate, specializing in philosophy.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In autumn 1933, Duras moved to Paris, graduating with a degree in public law in 1936. At the same time, she took classes in mathematics. She continued her education, earning a "diplôme d'études supérieures" (DES) in public law and, later, in political economy. After finishing her studies in 1937, she found employment with the French government at the Ministry of the Colonies. In 1939, she married the writer Robert Antelme, whom she had met during her studies.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for the Vichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated a "de facto" book-censorship system. She also became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party) and a member of the French Resistance as a part of a small group that also included François Mitterrand, who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of hers. Duras' husband, Antelme, was deported to Buchenwald in 1944 for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Duras, just 38 kg, or 84 pounds). She nursed him back to health, but they divorced once he recovered.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In 1943, when publishing her first novel, she began to use the surname Duras, after the town that her father came from, Duras, Lot-et-Garonne.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In 1950, her mother returned to France from Indochina, wealthy from property investments and from the boarding school she had run.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and works of short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work "L'Amant" (1984), translated into English as "The Lover", which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese-Vietnamese man. It won the Prix Goncourt in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in three other books: "The Sea Wall", "Eden Cinema" and "The North China Lover". A film version of "The Lover", produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, was released in 1992. Duras's novel "The Sea Wall" was first adapted into the 1958 film "This Angry Age" by René Clément, and again in 2008 by Cambodian director Rithy Panh as "The Sea Wall".


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Other major works include "Moderato Cantabile" (1958), which was the basis of the 1960 film "Seven Days... Seven Nights"; "Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein" (1964); and her play "India Song", which Duras herself later directed as a film in 1975. She was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French film "Hiroshima mon amour", which was directed by Alain Resnais. Duras's early novels were fairly conventional in form, and were criticized for their "romanticism" by fellow writer Raymond Queneau; however, with "Moderato Cantabile", she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what was not said. She was associated with the "nouveau roman" French literary movement, although she did not belong definitively to any one group. She was noted for her command of dialogue.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In 1971, Duras signed the Manifesto of the 343, thereby publicly announcing that she had had an abortion.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: According to literature and film scholars Madeleine Cottenet-Hage and Robert P. Kolker, Duras' provocative cinema between 1973 and 1983 was concerned with a single "ideal" image, at the same time both "an absolute vacant image and an absolute meaningful image," while also focused on the verbal text. They said her films purposely lacked realistic representation, such as divorcing image from sound and using space symbolically.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Many of her works, such as "Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein" and "L'Homme assis dans le couloir" (1980), deal with human sexuality.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Towards the end of her life, Duras published a short, 54-page autobiographical book as a goodbye to her readers and family. The last entry was written on 1 August 1995 and read "I think it is all over. That my life is finished. I am no longer anything. I have become an appalling sight. I am falling apart. Come quickly. I no longer have a mouth, no longer a face". Duras died at her home in Paris on 3 March 1996, aged 81.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: During the latter stages of World War II she experienced separation from her husband Robert Antelme owing to his imprisonment in Buchenwald . She wrote "La Douleur" during his captivity. While married to Antelme, Duras acted on her belief that fidelity was absurd. She created a "ménage à trois" when she started an affair with the writer Dionys Mascolo, who fathered her son Jean Mascolo.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: During the final two decades of Duras' life, she experienced various health problems. Starting in 1980 she was hospitalized for the first time, from a combination of alcohol and tranquilizers. She was also undergoing various detoxification procedures to help her recover from her alcohol addiction. After being hospitalized in October 1988 she fell into a coma that lasted until June 1989.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Paralleling her health problems in the 1980s, Duras began having a relationship with a homosexual actor named Yann Andréa. Yann Andréa helped Duras through her health difficulties. Duras would later detail these interactions and companionship in her final book "Yann Andréa Steiner".


title: Marguerite Duras

text: Samuel Beckett regarded first hearing the radio play "The Square" as a significant moment in his life.


title: Marguerite Duras

text: In 1992, after a dinner with friends where Marguerite Duras was dismissed as the most overrated author of the moment, the journalist Étienne de Montety copied "L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas", a relatively minor work of Duras from 1962, by only changing the names of the characters in the text and replacing the title with "Margot et l'important". He sent the result under the alias "Guillaume P. Jacquet" to the three main publishers of Duras: Gallimard, POL and Éditions de Minuit. Éditions de Minuit replied to Guillaume P. Jacquet that "[his] manuscript unfortunately cannot be included in [their] publications"; Gallimard that "the verdict is not favourable"; and POL that "[the] book does not correspond to what [they] are looking for for their collections". The facsimile of the refusal letters was published in the "Figaro littéraire" under the title "Marguerite Duras refusée par ses propres éditeurs" ("Marguerite Duras refused by her own publishers").


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to the south, Yunnan to the west, Sichuan to the northwest, the municipality of Chongqing to the north, and Hunan to the east. The population of Guizhou stands at 38.5 million, ranking 18th among the provinces in China.


title: Guizhou

text: The Dian Kingdom, which inhabited the present-day area of Guizhou, was annexed by the Han dynasty in 106 BC. Guizhou was formally made a province in 1413 during the Ming dynasty. After the overthrow of the Qing in 1911 and following the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party took refuge in Guizhou during the Long March between 1934 and 1935. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong promoted the relocation of heavy industry into inland provinces such as Guizhou, to better protect them from potential foreign attacks.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou is rich in natural, cultural and environmental resources. Its natural industry includes timber and forestry, and the energy and mining industries constitute an important part of its economy. Notwithstanding, Guizhou is considered a relatively undeveloped province, with the fourth-lowest GDP per capita in China as of 2020. However, it is also one of China's fastest-growing economies. The Chinese government is looking to develop Guizhou as a data hub.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou is a mountainous province, with its higher altitudes in the west and centre. It lies at the eastern end of the Yungui Plateau. Demographically, it is one of China's most diverse provinces. Minority groups account for more than 37% of the population, including sizable populations of the Miao, Bouyei, Dong, Tujia and Yi peoples, all of whom speak languages distinct from Chinese. The main language spoken in Guizhou is Southwestern Mandarin, a variety of Mandarin.


title: Guizhou

text: The area was first organized as an administrative region of a Chinese empire under the Tang, when it was named Juzhou (), pronounced "Kjú-jyuw" in the Middle Chinese of the period. During the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, the character ("ju", "carpenter's square") was changed to the more refined ("gui", "precious or expensive"). The region formally became a province in 1413, with an eponymous capital then also called "Guizhou" but now known as Guiyang.


title: Guizhou

text: Evidence of settlement by humans during the Middle Palaeolithic is indicated by stone artefacts, including Levallois pieces, found during archaeological excavations at Guanyindong Cave. These artefacts have been dated to approximately 170,000–80,000 years ago using optically stimulated luminescence methods.


title: Guizhou

text: From around 1046 BCE to the emergence of the State of Qin, northwest Guizhou was part of the State of Shu. During the Warring States period, the Chinese state of Chu conquered the area, and control later passed to the Dian Kingdom. During the Chinese Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), to which the Dian was tributary, Guizhou was home to the Yelang collection of tribes, which largely governed themselves before the Han consolidated control in the southwest and established the Lingnan province. During the Three Kingdoms period, parts of Guizhou were governed by the Shu Han state based in Sichuan, followed by Cao Wei (220–266) and the Jin dynasty (266–420).


title: Guizhou

text: During the 8th and 9th centuries in the Tang dynasty, Chinese soldiers moved into Guizhou (Kweichow) and married native women. Their descendants are known as "Lǎohànrén" (), in contrast to new Chinese who populated Guizhou at later times. They still speak an archaic dialect. Many immigrants to Guizhou were descended from these soldiers in garrisons who married these pre-Chinese women.


title: Guizhou

text: Kublai Khan and Möngke Khan conquered the Chinese southwest in the process of defeating the Song during the Mongol invasion of China, and the newly established Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) saw the importation of Chinese Muslim administrators and settlers from Bukhara in Central Asia.


title: Guizhou

text: It was during the following Ming dynasty, which was once again led by Han Chinese, that Guizhou was formally made a province in 1413. The Ming established many garrisons in Guizhou from which to pacify the Yao and Miao minorities during the Miao Rebellions. Chinese-style agriculture flourished with the expertise of farmers from Sichuan, Hunan and its surrounding provinces into Guizhou. Wu Sangui was responsible for the ousting the Ming in Guizhou and Yunnan during the Manchu conquest of China. During the governorship-general of the Qing dynasty's nobleman Ortai, the "tusi" system of indirect governance of the southwest was abolished, prompting rebellions from disenfranchised chieftains and the further centralization of government. After the Second Opium War, criminal triads set up shop in Guangxi and Guizhou to sell British opium. For a time, Taiping Rebels took control of Guizhou, but they were ultimately suppressed by the Qing. Concurrently, Han Chinese soldiers moved into the Taijiang region of Guizhou, married Miao women, and their children were brought up as Miao.


title: Guizhou

text: More unsuccessful Miao rebellions occurred during the Qing, in 1735, from 1795–1806 and from 1854–1873. After the overthrow of the Qing in 1911 and following Chinese Civil War, the Communists took refuge in Guizhou during the Long March (1934–1935). While the province was formally ruled by the warlord Wang Jialie, the Zunyi Conference in Guizhou established Mao Zedong as the leader of the Communist Party. As the Second Sino-Japanese War pushed China's Nationalist Government to its southwest base of Chongqing, transportation infrastructure improved as Guizhou was linked with the Burma Road. After the end of the War, a 1949 Revolution swept Mao into power, who promoted the relocation of heavy industry into inland provinces such as Guizhou, to better protect them from Soviet and American attacks. The 1957 influenza pandemic started in Guizhou and killed a million people around the world. After the Chinese economic reform began in 1978, geographical factors led Guizhou to become the poorest province in China, with a GDP growth average of 9 percent from 1978 to 1993.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou is a mountainous province, although its higher altitudes are in the west and centre. It lies at the eastern end of the Yungui Plateau. At above sea level, Jiucaiping is Guizhou's highest point.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou has a humid subtropical climate. There are few seasonal changes. Its annual average temperature is roughly 10 to 20 °C, with January temperatures ranging from 1 to 10 °C and July temperatures ranging from 17 to 28 °C.


title: Guizhou

text: Like in China's other southwest provinces, rural areas of Guizhou suffered severe drought during spring 2010. One of China's poorest provinces, Guizhou is experiencing serious environmental problems, such as desertification and persistent water shortages. From 3–5 April 2010, China's Premier Wen Jiabao went on a three-day inspection tour in the southwest drought-affected province of Guizhou, where he met villagers and called on agricultural scientists to develop drought-resistant technologies for the area.


title: Guizhou

text: The border mountains of Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hunan have been identified as one of the eight plant diversity hotspots in China. The main ecosystem types include evergreen broad-leaved forest, coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest, and montane elfin forest. Plant species endemic to this region include "Abies ziyuanensis", "Cathaya argyrophylla", and "Keteleeria pubescens". In broad terms, the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau is one of the vertebrate diversity hotspots of China. At the level of counties, Xingyi is one of nine Chinese vertebrate (excluding birds) diversity hotspots. Animals only known from Guizhou include Leishan moustache toad, Kuankuoshui salamander, Shuicheng salamander, Guizhou salamander, and Zhijin warty newt.


title: Guizhou

text: Caohai Lake with its surroundings is a wetland that is an important overwintering site for many birds. It is a National Nature Reserve and an Important Bird Area identified by BirdLife International.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou is divided into nine prefecture-level divisions: six prefecture-level cities and three autonomous prefectures:


title: Guizhou

text: These nine prefecture-level divisions are in turn subdivided into 88 county-level divisions (14 districts, 7 county-level cities, 55 counties, and 11 autonomous counties and one special district).


title: Guizhou

text: Its natural industry includes timber and forestry. Guizhou is also the third largest producer of tobacco in China, and home to the well-known brand Guizhou Tobacco. Other important industries in the province include energy (electricity generation) - a large portion of which is exported to Guangdong and other provinces - and mining, especially in coal, limestone, arsenic, gypsum, and oil shale. Guizhou's total output of coal was 118 million tons in 2008, a 7% growth from the previous year. Guizhou's export of power to Guangdong equaled 12% of Guangdong's total power consumption. Over the next 5 years Guizhou hopes to increase this by as much as 50%.


title: Guizhou

text: In 2017, Sun Zhigang, the governor of Guizhou, announced plans to build of highways, of inland waterways, of high-speed rail lines, and 17 airports in three years, in an effort to boost tourism in the province.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou's rail network consists primarily of a cross formed by the Sichuan–Guizhou, Guangxi–Guizhou and Shanghai–Kunming railways, which intersect at the provincial capital, Guiyang, near the center of the province. The Liupanshui–Baiguo, Pan County West and Weishe–Hongguo railways form a rail corridor along Guizhou's western border with Yunnan. This corridor connects the Neijiang–Kunming railway, which dips into northwestern Guizhou at Weining, with the Nanning–Kunming railway, which skirts the southwestern corner of Guizhou at Xingyi.


title: Guizhou

text: As of 2018, Shanghai–Kunming and Guiyang–Guangzhou high-speed railways are operational. Chengdu–Guiyang high-speed railway is under construction.


title: Guizhou

text: Guizhou is demographically one of China's most diverse provinces. Minority groups account for more than 37% of the population and they include Miao (including Gha-Mu and A-Hmao), Yao, Yi, Qiang, Dong, Zhuang, Bouyei, Bai, Tujia, Gelao and Sui. 55.5% of the province area is designated as autonomous regions for ethnic minorities. Guizhou is the province with the highest fertility rate in China, standing at 2.19 (urban: 1.31; rural: 2.42).


title: Guizhou

text: The predominant religions in Guizhou are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 31.18% of the population believes and is involved in ancestor veneration, while 0.99% of the population identifies as Christian, decreasing from 1.13% in 2004.


title: Guizhou

text: The reports did not give figures for other types of religion; 67.83% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, folk religious sects, and small minorities of Muslims. There are significant ethnic minority populations (the Miao and the Buyei) who traditionally follow their autochthonous religions.


title: Guizhou

text: The province has many covered bridges, called "Wind and Rain Bridges". These were built by the Dong people.


title: Guizhou

text: The southeastern corner of the province is known for its unique Dong minority culture. Towns such as Rongjiang, Liping, Diping and Zhaoxing are scattered amongst the hills along the border with Guangxi.


title: Guizhou

text: The World Bank's "Strategic Environmental Assessment Study: Tourism Development in the Province of Guizhou, China" (May 25, 2007) points to three different forms of tourism that should be fostered and developed in Guizhou: Nature-based, heritage-based and rural. Heritage-based tourism provides ethnic minority groups with an opportunity to preserve their unique heritage while still making a living.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Rakeem Haleek Christmas (born December 1, 1991) is an American professional basketball player for the Cangrejeros de Santurce of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN). He played college basketball for the Syracuse Orange for four seasons before being drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the 36th overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: After being drafted by the Timberwolves, he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who then traded him to the Indiana Pacers. He spent two seasons with the Pacers while also playing for their NBA G League team, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. He was then waived in the 2017 offseason and went overseas to play for Galatasaray in Turkey, the New Zealand Breakers of the National Basketball League (NBL), the Magnolia Hotshots of the Philippine Basketball Association, and Ormanspor in Turkey.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Christmas attended Northeast Catholic High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between 2007 and 2009, before his junior year he transferred to Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. As a junior, he averaged 13.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks per game. During his senior season, he averaged 11.0 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 3.9 blocks per game.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: He was rated as the #21 player in the class of 2011 by Scout.com. He was rated as the #27 player by Rivals.com. He was named to the Class A first team as a junior.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Christmas committed to Syracuse basketball on August 6, 2010, after his junior season in high school. He started playing for Syracuse in the 2011–12 season and contributed all four seasons that he was with the team.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: On June 25, 2015, Christmas was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the 36th overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft. His rights were then traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers along with those of Cedi Osman and a future second-round pick in exchange for the rights of Tyus Jones. He later joined the Cavaliers for the 2015 NBA Summer League, where he averaged 8.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in four games. On July 23, 2015, his rights were traded again, this time to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for a 2019 second-round pick. Four days later, he signed with the Pacers. Christmas spent the majority of the 2015–16 season on assignment in the NBA Development League with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. On January 29, 2016, he was named in the East All-Star team for the 2016 NBA D-League All-Star Game. In the Pacers' 2015–16 regular season finale, Christmas made his NBA debut, scoring four points and making both his field-goal tries off the bench in a 97–92 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. He spent more time with the Pacers in 2016–17, appearing in 29 games, but still received multiple assignments to Fort Wayne.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: On August 17, 2017, Christmas signed with Turkish club Galatasaray for the 2017–18 season. On November 11, 2017, he parted ways with Galatasaray.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: On January 8, 2018, Christmas signed with the New Zealand Breakers for the rest of the 2017–18 NBL season. In 12 games, he averaged 7.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Christmas and his mother Landra Hamid moved to St. Croix when he was 2 years old. While he lived in the Virgin Islands, his mother died due to kidney failure at the age of 28. After his mother died, he remained in St. Croix and was raised there by his grandmother, Evelyn Hamid. When he was 13 years old he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to live with his aunt, Amira Hamid, who became his legal guardian.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Christmas was initiated as an honorary member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity during his sophomore year at Syracuse University. Christmas is thought to be the first player in Syracuse men's basketball history to finish his undergraduate degree in 3 years.


title: Rakeem Christmas

text: Christmas is married to Jasmine Jordan, the daughter of Michael Jordan. Their son, Rakeem Michael Christmas, was born in May 2019.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978) was an American photojournalist. He has been described as "perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay." His major photo essays include World War II photographs, the visual stories of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, the clinic of Albert Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan. His 1948 series, "Country Doctor", photographed for "Life", is now recognized as "the first extended editorial photo story".


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: William Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas, on December 30, 1918, to William H. Smith and his wife Nettie (née Lee). Growing up, Smith had become fascinated by flying and aviation. When Smith was 13, he asked his mother for money to buy photographs of airplanes. His mother instead lent him her camera and encouraged him to visit a local airfield to take his own photos. When he returned with his exposed film, she developed the pictures for him in her own improvised darkroom.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: By the time he was a teenager, photography had become his passion; he photographed sports activities at Cathedral High School and at the age of 15 his sports photos were published by Vigil Cay, sports editor at the "Wichita Press". On July 25, 1934, "The New York Times" published a photo by Smith of the Arkansas River dried up into a plate of mud, evidence of the extreme weather events that were devastating the Midwest. These weather conditions had a disastrous effect on agriculture. Smith's father, who was a grain dealer, saw his business head towards bankruptcy and he committed suicide.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Smith graduated from the Wichita North High School in 1936. His mother used her Catholic church connections to enable Smith to obtain a photography scholarship which helped to fund his tuition at the University of Notre Dame, but at the age of 18 he abruptly quit university and moved to New York City. By 1938 he had begun to work for "Newsweek" where he became known for his perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was eventually fired from "Newsweek"; he later explained "Newsweek" wanted him to work with larger format negatives but he refused to abandon the 35 mm Contax camera he preferred to work with. Smith began to work for "Life" magazine in 1939, quickly building a strong relationship with then picture editor Wilson Hicks.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In September 1943, Smith became a war correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and also supplied photos to "Life" magazine. Smith took photos on the front lines in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was with the American forces during their island-hopping offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war at Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Smith's awareness of the brutality of the conflict sharpened the focus of his ambition. He wrote "You can't raise a nation to kill and murder without injury to the mind... It is the reason I am covering the war for I want my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars and the breaking of many bodies." Ben Maddow wrote: "Smith's photographs of 1943 through 1945 show his swift development from talent to genius." In 1945, Smith was seriously injured by mortar fire while photographing the Battle of Okinawa.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In 1946, he took his first photograph since being injured: a picture of his two children walking in the garden of his home in Croton on Hudson, New York which he titled "The Walk to Paradise Garden." The photograph became famous when Edward Steichen used it as one of the key images in the exhibition "The Family of Man," which Steichen curated in 1955. After spending two years undergoing surgery, Smith continued to work at "Life" until 1955.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Between 1948 and 1954 Smith photographed for "Life" magazine a series of photo essays with a humanist perspective which laid the basis of modern photojournalism, and which were, in the estimate of Encyclopædia Britannica, "characterized by a strong sense of empathy and social conscience."


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In August 1948 Smith photographed Dr. Ernest Ceriani in the town of Kremmling, Colorado, for several weeks, covering the doctor's arduous work in a thinly populated western environment, grappling with life and death situations. (One of the most vivid images shows Ceriani looking exhausted in a kitchen, having performed a Caesarean section during which both mother and baby died.) The essay "Country Doctor" was published by Life on September 20, 1948. It has been described by Sean O'Hagan as "the first extended editorial photo story".


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In late 1949, Smith was sent to the UK to cover the General Election, when the Labour Party, under Clement Attlee, was re-elected with a tiny majority. Smith also travelled to Wales where he photographed a series of studies of miners in South Wales Valleys. Critics have compared Smith's work to similar studies made by Bill Brandt. In a documentary made by BBC Wales, Dai Smith located a miner who described how he and two colleagues had met Smith on their way home from work at the pit and had been instructed on how to pose for one of the photographs published in "Life."


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: From Wales, Smith travelled to Spain where he spent a month in 1950, photographing the village of Deleitosa, Extremadura, focusing on themes of rural poverty. Smith attracted the suspicion of the local Guardia Civil, until he finally made an abrupt exit across the border to France. "A Spanish Village" was published in Life on April 9, 1951, to great acclaim. Ansel Adams wrote Smith a letter of praise, which Smith carried in his pocket for three years, unable to write a reply.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In 1951, Smith persuaded "Life" editor Edward Thompson to let him do a photo-journalistic profile of Maude E. Callen, a black nurse midwife working in rural South Carolina. For weeks Smith accompanied Callen on her exhausting schedule, rising before dawn and working into the evening. The essay "Nurse Midwife" was published in "Life" on December 3, 1951. It was well received and resulted in thousands of dollars in donations to create the Maude Callen Clinic, which opened in Pineville, South Carolina in May 1953, with Smith present at the ceremony.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In 1954, Smith photographed an extensive photo-essay about the work of Albert Schweitzer at his clinic at Lambaréné in Gabon, West Africa. It was later revealed that one of his most famous images had been extensively manipulated. Smith made many layouts of his Schweitzer pictures which he submitted to "Life," but the final layout of the story published on November 15, 1954, entitled "A Man of Mercy," angered Smith because editor Edward Thompson used fewer pictures than Smith wanted, and Smith thought the layout crude. He sent a formal 60-day notice of resignation letter to "Life" in November 1954.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: After leaving "Life" magazine, Smith joined the Magnum Photos agency in 1955. There he was commissioned by Stefan Lorant to produce a photographic profile of the city of Pittsburgh. The project was supposed to take him a month and to produce 100 images. It ended up occupying more than two years and producing 13,000 photographic negatives. The intended book was never delivered to Lorant, and Smith's obsessive work was bailed out by money from Magnum, causing strain between Smith and the photo-journalist collective.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In 1957, Smith left his wife Carmen and their four children in Croton-on-Hudson and moved into a loft space at 821 Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan which he shared with David X. Young, Dick Cary, and Hall Overton. Smith laid down an intricate network of microphones and obsessively took photographs and recorded jazz musicians playing in the loft space, including Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. From 1957 to 1965, Smith made approximately 4,000 hours of recordings on 1,740 reel to reel tapes and nearly 40,000 photographs in the loft building in Manhattan's wholesale flower district. The tapes also contain recorded street noise in the flower district, late-night radio talk shows, telephone calls, television and radio news programs, and random loft dialogues among musicians, artists, and other Smith friends and associates. The Jazz Loft Project, devoted to preserving and cataloging the works of Smith, is directed by Sam Stephenson at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, in co-operation with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona and the Smith estate.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In August 1970, at the age of 51, Smith met Aileen Sprague, who would later become his wife. She served as a translator for Smith when he was interviewed in a Fujifilm commercial. Aileen was the daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father, raised in Tokyo before they moved to the United States when she was 11. At the time of meeting Smith she was 20 years old and went to Stanford University. Only a week after meeting, Smith asked her to become his assistant and live with him in New York. Aileen agreed, dropped out of university and began living with Smith.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In the fall of 1970, Kazuhiko Motomura, a friend of Smith, moved to the United States. He proposed to Smith and Aileen to visit Japan and cover the Minamata disease. They accepted the invitation and arrived in Japan on August 16, 1971, where they married 12 days later.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Between September 1971 and October 1974 they rented a house in Minamata, both a fishing village and a "one company" industrial city in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. There they created a long-term photo-essay on Minamata disease, the effects of mercury poisoning caused by a Chisso factory discharging heavy metals into water sources around Minamata.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In January 1972, Smith accompanied activists who were meeting representatives of the Chisso trade unionists at Chiba, to ask why union workers were used by the company as bodyguards. The group was attacked by Chisso Company employees and members of the union local who beat Smith up, badly damaging his eyesight. Smith and Aileen continued to work together to complete the Minamata project, despite the fact that Aileen informed Smith she was divorcing him as soon as the book was finished. They were supported by the publisher Lawrence Schiller and finished the book in Los Angeles.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: The book was published in 1975 as "Minamata", Words and Photographs by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith. Its centerpiece photograph and one of his most famous works, "Tomoko and Mother in the Bath," taken in December 1971, drew worldwide attention to the effects of Minamata disease. The photograph shows a mother cradling her severely deformed daughter in a traditional Japanese bath house. The photograph was the centerpiece of a Minamata disease exhibition held in Tokyo, in 1974. In 1997, Aileen M. Smith withdrew the photo from circulation in accordance with Tomoko's parents' wishes.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: In 2020, the film "Minamata" dramatized the story of Smith's documentation of the pollution and the ensuing protests and campaign in Japan. Johnny Depp played W. Eugene Smith and Minami played Aileen.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Smith returned from his stay in Minamata, Japan, in November 1974, and, after completing the "Minamata" book, he moved to a studio in New York City with a new partner, Sherry Suris. Smith's friends were alarmed by his deteriorating health and arranged for him to join the teaching faculty of the Art Department and Department of Journalism at the University of Arizona. Smith and Suris moved to Tucson, Arizona in November 1977. On December 23, 1977, Smith suffered a massive stroke, but made a partial recovery and continued to teach and organize his archive. Smith suffered a second stroke and died on October 15, 1978. He was cremated and his ashes interred in Crum Elbow Rural Cemetery, Hyde Park, New York.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Summarizing Smith's achievements, Ben Maddow wrote:"His vocation, he once said, was to do nothing less than record, by word and photograph, the human condition. No one could really succeed at such a job: yet Smith almost did. During his relatively brief and often painful life, he created at least fifty images so powerful that they have altered the perception of our history."


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: Writing in "The Guardian" in 2017, Sean O'Hagan described Smith as "perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay."


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: According to the International Center of Photography, "Smith is credited with the developing the photo essay to its ultimate form. He was an exacting printer, and the combination of innovation, integrity, and technical mastery in his photography made his work the standard by which photojournalism was measured for many years."


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: "The Big Book" is a conceptual photobook that Smith worked on from the early 1960s, intending to serve as retrospective sum of his work as well as a reflection of his life philosophies. Considered "unviable and non-commercial" at the time, due to having 380 pages and 450 images, it was unpublished in his lifetime but was finally published in a facsimile reproduction in 2013 by the University of Texas Press. The work includes two of Smith's original volumes which present his imagery not according to story, as they would have been published at the time of their creation, but rather according to Smith's own creative process. The University of Texas publication comes with a third book included in the slip-case, offering contemporary essays and notes.


title: W. Eugene Smith

text: The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund promotes "humanistic photography". Since 1980, the fund has awarded photographers for exceptional accomplishments in the field.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Ariel Helwani (born July 8, 1982) is a Canadian-American sports journalist, known for his coverage of mixed martial arts (MMA). He is best known for his work at "MMA Fighting", but has also worked for Fox and ESPN. Helwani is widely considered one of the greatest journalists in MMA, and has won MMA Journalist of the Year at the World MMA Awards every year since 2010.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Ariel Helwani (given name Hebrew for "Lion of God"; surname Arabic for "Sweet") was born to Mizrahi Jewish parents in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as the youngest of four siblings. His father is of Syrian lineage but was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, and his mother is from Beirut, Lebanon. His father moved to Lebanon in his late teens, before he and his family moved to Montreal in 1967, while his mother and her family moved to the same Canadian city in 1973 because "it was starting to get increasingly dangerous for Jews in Lebanon". Helwani is the maternal nephew of David Saad, a judoka who competed in the men's lightweight event at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and Gad Saad, an evolutionary psychologist. Helwani is fluent in English, French, and Hebrew, and understands Spanish and Arabic.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani grew up in Mount Royal and Westmount, Quebec, and attended the Akiva School and Herzliah High School. In 2004, Helwani graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse, New York. While there, he hosted a sports radio show on the student-run WERW and received a summer internship with NBC covering the 2004 Summer Olympics, but had to withdraw due to an ankle injury. Although he had encountered mixed martial arts (MMA) as a preteen, it was when he came across it again while attending university that he decided to pursue a career in it, knowing that his fellow classmates and future rivals in sports journalism would not be interested in the then-fringe sport. Helwani has stated that he wanted to be the "Howard Cosell of MMA". He credits his mother, "who [his] friends would always call for advice", for his interview skills, and his father, "who never gave an excuse or took a sick day", for his work ethic.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Having had an internship with HBO in early 2003, Helwani became a sports production assistant at the company in 2004. After a month-long stint at Spike TV, Helwani quit and founded his own website on October 19, 2007, JarryPark.com. He stated that he starting building his network by messaging every fighter he could find on Myspace. Helwani also worked for the websites "MMA Rated", Versus.com (later NBCSports.com), and AOL's FanHouse. He started working at "MMA Fighting", after it was bought by AOL in 2009. There, Helwani launched the weekly show "The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani" in June 2009, which he produced and hosted. The dual audio and visual nature of the show was influenced by his love of "The Howard Stern Show". Helwani also hosted the website's "The MMA Beat" show on YouTube, and co-hosted the Sirius XM radio show "Fight Club".


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani served as an "MMA Insider" for Fox Sports 1's weekly "UFC Tonight" show and other pre- and post-event programming from 2011. He was fired from Fox in March 2016. Helwani then revealed that his position on "UFC Tonight" came under the condition that his paycheck had to come from the UFC's parent company, Zuffa. Calling it the biggest regret of his life, Helwani said he accepted the arrangement by viewing the money as coming from Fox and "filtered through" Zuffa. According to Helwani, "they didn't like certain things I was talking about on my show, and for going to a Bellator media event. But they never told me not to go, or not talk about certain things. The people I was really mad at were the people at FOX, who just let the UFC dictate what they were doing and not standing up for me."


title: Ariel Helwani

text: On June 4, 2016, Helwani and two of his "MMA Fighting" colleagues were escorted out of UFC 199 before the main event started. Their press credentials were taken and they were banned for life from all UFC events. UFC president Dana White announced that the ban would last "As long as I'm here." and reputedly later added "[Helwani] can cover all the events he wants, he just can't have a credential". Earlier in the day, Helwani had reported that Brock Lesnar would be returning at UFC 200, hours before the UFC announced it on the 199 broadcast. UFC spokesman Dave Sholler said "professional standards dictate that journalists are to contact the UFC for comment before reporting a story", but that the scoop on Lesnar's return was not the sole reason for Helwani's removal. UFC commentator Joe Rogan stated that he was told the UFC had asked Helwani to not report the news as they suspected he had a mole leaking information to him and, without knowing who it was, would fire all possible suspects if he did. Through Twitter, Helwani called Rogan's story "100% inaccurate". On an episode of "The MMA Hour", Helwani detailed the incident in an emotional broadcast. He said he was brought to see Dana White, who told him he was banned for being "too negative". He later learned this decision was made by then-UFC CEO and Zuffa founder Lorenzo Fertitta. Helwani stood by his decision to report the news in a timely manner.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: The UFC's actions were widely criticized by journalists, and several high profile UFC fighters sympathized with Helwani, including Jon Jones and Chris Weidman, the latter of which said, "This sport needs the GOAT of MMA reporting".


title: Ariel Helwani

text: In August 2017, Helwani claimed that he was removed from the Showtime broadcast team for the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor press tour, hours before the first press conference in Los Angeles at the UFC's request. "Not working for @SHOsports anymore on the May/Mac tour," wrote Helwani on Twitter, "UFC specifically asked to have me removed. Incredibly disappointed."


title: Ariel Helwani

text: With his contract with "MMA Fighting" set to expire in June 2018, Helwani received an offer from ESPN that February. He notified "MMA Fighting", but they never offered him a new contract. Helwani joined ESPN in June 2018, shortly after the company announced their 5-year, $1.5 billion rights package with the UFC. He hosted "Ariel Helwani's MMA Show" on Twitter and YouTube, "Ariel & the Bad Guy" with Chael Sonnen on ESPN+, and the "DC & Helwani" podcast with Daniel Cormier. He also contributed to occasional ESPN broadcasts of the NBA. In June 2021, Helwani announced his departure from ESPN after failing to reach terms on a new contract. Andrew Marchand of the "New York Post" reported that Helwani made just short of $500,000 a year at ESPN, but their new offers to him included a 5% pay reduction as part of company wide cost-cutting.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani subsequently announced his return to "MMA Fighting" and as host and producer of "The MMA Hour", with a new twice weekly schedule. He also began working for BT Sport and Spotify/The Ringer, where he also covers boxing and professional wrestling, while creating non-MMA content for his own YouTube channel. He also launched a Substack account for his written thoughts. Helwani explained that he does not want to just be viewed as "the MMA guy" or "the combat guy. I want to be viewed, quite honestly if I can be so brash, as the best interviewer in sports. And if I want to do that, I need to do many different things." In September 2021, he became a brand ambassador for BetMGM. After interning on the show in 2003, Helwani returned to "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" in July 2022, this time as an on-air correspondent.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani married Jaclyn Stein, CEO and designer at Anzie Jewelry, on October 25, 2008. They have three children, two daughters and one son, and both became American citizens on March 8, 2022. Helwani was kosher from seventh grade until his mid-20s, when he found it too difficult to stick to while traveling for work, but said he still uses tefillin every day. He is a fan of the New York Knicks, Buffalo Bills, Toronto Blue Jays, Montreal Canadiens, and Everton FC.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani has a long-standing feud with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White. Elie Bleier of "Tablet" reported that while the two initially had a friendly relationship, it began to sour in the mid-2010s while Helwani worked at Fox Sports, who was the UFC's American TV broadcaster at the time. Bleier wrote that the UFC paid Fox, and "in return expected favorable coverage". When Helwani was fired by Fox in 2016, it was rumored that White had requested the dismissal after Helwani spoke publicly about UFC fighters wanting higher pay. While working at ESPN, the UFC's current American broadcast partner, from 2018 to 2021, Helwani alleges that White would try to suppress his position in the company. "Dana White tried to get me not even to make it to my first day. I mean, he raised hell to try to stop me — my first day was June 15 — tried to stop me [from getting to] the first day. Now, to the credit of a lot of the executives there, they all said no. They all had my back. They gave me shows. They gave me opportunities. But, for the next three years, it was one roadblock after the next." For example, Helwani was frequently escorted out of spaces White was set to appear in; "Per his request, I couldn't be in his vicinity or line of sight". In 2018, Helwani stated "if someone asked [Dana White] what the issue is with Ariel, he'll say that I'm a weasel or something like that, but he doesn't have a real reason, nothing happened!" and that he was open to meeting White and burying the hatchet at any time.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: On December 6, 2022, UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett who had previously been a guest on Helwani's show "The MMA Hour", hosted Dana White on his own podcast "Chattin Pony with Paddy The Baddy". During the podcast, the two made disparaging comments about Helwani, with Pimblett


title: Ariel Helwani

text: asking him to pay fighters for the 'thousands, and thousands, and thousands of pounds [you make] from them on YouTube' and a suggestion that Helwani tells interview subjects '[You're] doing it for exposure'. He also claimed that Helwani asked Pimblett to drop paid opportunities in order to do an interview with him. Dana White also alleged that ESPN had 'let [Helwani] go'. The following day on the broadcast of The MMA Hour, Helwani spoke at length about the remarks made by both White and Pimblett, providing evidence that contradicted their claims. This included presenting a statement from ESPN that said Helwani had left their organisation of his own accord rather than being fired, and explaining that he does not make any money from YouTube due to his contract with Vox Media providing him a fixed salary. Helwani futher claimed that he had 'never once in his life asked someone to come on the show for exposure'. He also played a voice note from Pimblett revealing that it was in fact Pimblett who reached out to Helwani for an interview.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani also has a standing feud with mixed martial arts manager Ali Abdelaziz, president of Dominance MMA Management. In June 2020, Josh Gross


title: Ariel Helwani

text: of "The Athletic" reported that Abdelaziz holds a grudge against Helwani for disseminating negative rumors about him. An allegation that Helwani denied, while confirming that he had not had access to interview Abdelaziz's fighters for over a year. Zane Simon of Bloody Elbow wrote that after "trading barbs" in interviews and on social media for the previous couple of years, things between the two came to a head in July 2020. On an episode of "DC & Helwani" following UFC 251, Helwani disagreed with the suggestion that Gilbert Burns should be next to receive a title match against then-champion Kamaru Usman, favoring instead a match between Burns and Leon Edwards to determine a number one contender. Abdelaziz, manager of both Usman and Burns, then Tweeted at ESPN stating that he was "banning" the company from talking to Dominance fighters for having "a reporter who's targeting my champions. You need an immediate investigation for corruption today." Helwani has claimed that Abdelaziz called Helwani's boss while he worked for ESPN and tried to have the journalist fired. "Despite all of that, I would shake his hand if he walked in here right now and bury the hatchet." As of August 2022, most of Abdelaziz's clients still declined to be interviewed by Helwani, with some exceptions. Helwani has expressed confusion at why those fighters allow someone who works for them, tell them what to do.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani has won MMA Journalist of the Year at the World MMA Awards every year since 2010. In 2011, "Fight!" Magazine named him as one of their "Power 20", a list of the "most significant power players, movers, shakers, ambassadors, and game-changers in MMA". Helwani won 2014 Journalist of the Year at the Awakening WMMA Awards.


title: Ariel Helwani

text: Helwani has hosted two separate Helwani Nose Awards events in Chicago and Las Vegas, where current and former MMA fighters participate in a UFC trivia show for the Nose World Order belt.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Dolby Vision is a set of technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories for high dynamic range (HDR) video. It covers content creation, distribution, and playback. It includes dynamic metadata that are used to adjust and optimize each frame of the HDR video to the consumer display's capabilities in a way specified by the content creator.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Dolby Vision was introduced in 2014, making it the first available consumer-oriented HDR format. HDR10+ is a competitor HDR format that also uses dynamic metadata.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Dolby Vision IQ is an update designed to optimize Dolby Vision content according to the ambient light.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Dolby Cinema uses Dolby Vision too; it uses 108 nits, compared to SDR cinemas' use of 48 nits and 2.6 gamma.


title: Dolby Vision

text: HDR videos can sometimes contain brightness and color values that cannot be rendered by the consumer's display. Dolby Vision's dynamic metadata defines how each frame of the original HDR video should be adjusted to match the display's capabilities (i.e. black level, peak brightness and color gamut). The dynamic metadata allow the image adjustments to be defined by the content creator. This allows the artistic intents to be preserved on all Dolby Vision compatible displays, even if the display is not capable of rendering the original video. Dolby Vision uses Dolby's proprietary dynamic metadata defined in SMPTE ST 2094-10, while HDR10+ uses Samsung's dynamic metadata defined in SMPTE ST 2094-40.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Technically, Dolby Vision allows for a maximum resolution of 8K up to 12-bit color depth, maximum peak brightness of 10,000 nits and a color gamut up to Rec. 2020. However, Dolby Vision content or profiles can have a lower resolution (FHD or 4K), 10-bit color depth and a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. Current displays cannot reproduce the full Dolby Vision brightness and gamut capability. In 2018, Dolby Vision required content to be graded for at least 4,000 nits. Today, Dolby requires at least 1,000 nits. There are no brightness and color gamut capability requirements for consumer displays. When the consumer display has lower color volume than the mastering display, the content is adjusted to the consumer display capability based on the dynamic metadata. Dolby Vision is considered to be future-proof.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Some Dolby Vision profiles are dual layer (for example: the profile 7 used for Ultra HD Blu-ray). The base layer (BL) and the enhancement layer (EL) are combined to produce a 12-bit video signal.


title: Dolby Vision

text: In 2021, compatible color grading systems can create Dolby Vision automatic metadata with no additional cost for content creators. A $2,500 annual license is required to activate the trims allowing content creators to manually adjust the video. OEM and manufacturer of a grading, mastering, editorial, or other professional application or device need to apply for a license.


title: Dolby Vision

text: Dolby SVP of Business Giles Baker has stated that the royalty cost for Dolby Vision is less than $3 per TV.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He worked as a biochemist at Cambridge University from 1967 to 1973, then as principal plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in India until 1978.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake's morphic resonance posits that "memory is inherent in nature" and that "natural systems ... inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind." Sheldrake proposes that it is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms." His advocacy of the idea offers idiosyncratic explanations of standard subjects in biology such as development, inheritance, and memory.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Morphic resonance is not accepted by the scientific community and Sheldrake's proposals relating to it have been widely criticised. Critics cite a lack of evidence for morphic resonance and inconsistencies between its tenets and data from genetics, embryology, neuroscience, and biochemistry. They also express concern that popular attention paid to Sheldrake's books and public appearances undermines the public's understanding of science.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Other work by Sheldrake encompasses paranormal subjects such as precognition, empirical research into telepathy, and the psychic staring effect.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake was born on 28 June 1942, in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, to Reginald Alfred Sheldrake and Doris (née Tebbutt). His father was a University of Nottingham-educated pharmacist who ran a chemist's shop on the same road as his parents' wallpaper shop. Sheldrake credits his father (an amateur naturalist and microscopist) with supporting his interests in zoology and botany.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Although his parents were Methodists, they sent him to Worksop College, an Anglican boarding school. Sheldrake says,


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14 ... I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism. I was the only boy at my high Anglican boarding school who refused to get confirmed.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In the nine-month period prior to starting college, Sheldrake worked at the Parke-Davis pharmacology research lab in London, an experience he described as formative due to the required destruction of lab animals which he found deeply unsettling. At Clare College, Cambridge, Sheldrake studied biology and biochemistry. In 1964, he was awarded a fellowship to study philosophy and history of science at Harvard University. After a year a Harvard, he returned to Cambridge where he earned a PhD in biochemistry for his work in plant development and plant hormones.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: After obtaining his PhD, Sheldrake became a fellow of Clare College, working in biochemistry and cell biology with funding from the Royal Society Rosenheim Research Fellowship. He investigated auxins, a class of plant hormone that plays a role in plant vascular cell differentiation. Sheldrake and Philip Rubery developed the chemiosmotic model of polar auxin transport.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Having an interest in Indian philosophy, Hinduism and transcendental meditation, Sheldrake resigned his position at Clare and went to work on the physiology of tropical crops in Hyderabad, India, as principal plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from 1974 to 1978. There he published on crop physiology and co-authored a book on the anatomy of the pigeonpea.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake left ICRISAT to focus on writing "A New Science of Life", during which time he spent a year and a half in the Saccidananda Ashram of Bede Griffiths, a Benedictine monk active in interfaith dialogue with Hinduism. Published in 1981, the book outlines his concept of morphic resonance, about which he remarks,


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: After writing "A New Science of Life", he continued at ICRISAT as a part-time consultant physiologist until 1985.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake published his second book, "The Presence of the Past," in 1988. In the 1990s and 2000s, he continued to publish books, which included several joint discussions with Ralph Abraham, a mathematician, and Terence McKenna, an ethnobotanist and mystic. Sheldrake also collaborated with Matthew Fox, a priest and theologian, on two books in 1996.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Since 2004, Sheldrake has been a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute in Bethany, Connecticut, where he was also academic director of the Holistic Learning and Thinking Program until 2012. From September 2005 until 2010, Sheldrake was director of the Perrott–Warrick Project for psychical research for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded from Trinity College, Cambridge. As of 2014, he was a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California and a fellow of Schumacher College in Devon, England.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 2017, Sheldrake published a dialog with science writer and skeptic Michael Shermer titled "Arguing Science: A Dialogue on the Future of Science and Spirit". In the 2010s, Sheldrake outlined his spiritual practices in two books: "Science and Spiritual Practices" (2017) and "Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work" (2019).


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Reviews of Sheldrake's books have at times been extremely negative over their scientific content, but some have been positive. In 2009, Adam Rutherford, geneticist and deputy editor of "Nature", criticised Sheldrake's books for containing research that was not subjected to the peer-review process expected for science, and suggested that his books were best "ignored."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake's "A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance" (1981) proposed that through morphic resonance, various perceived phenomena, particularly biological ones, become more probable the more often they occur, and that biological growth and behaviour thus become guided into patterns laid down by previous similar events. As a result, he suggested, newly acquired behaviours can be passed down to future generations − a biological proposition akin to the Lamarckian inheritance theory. He generalised this approach to assert that it explains many aspects of science, from evolution to the laws of nature which, in Sheldrake's formulation, are merely mutable habits that have been evolving and changing since the Big Bang.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: John Davy wrote in "The Observer" that the implications of "A New Science of Life" were "fascinating and far-reaching, and would turn upside down a lot of orthodox science," and that they would "merit attention if some of its predictions are supported by experiment."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: The morphic resonance hypothesis is rejected by numerous critics on many grounds, and has been labelled pseudoscience and magical thinking. These grounds include the lack of evidence for it and its inconsistency with established scientific theories. The idea of morphic resonance is also seen as lacking scientific credibility because it is overly vague and unfalsifiable. Sheldrake's experimental methods have been criticised for being poorly designed and subject to experimenter bias. His analyses of results have also drawn criticism.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In "The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature" (1988), Sheldrake expanded on his morphic resonance hypothesis and marshalled experimental evidence which he said supported the hypothesis. The book was reviewed favourably in "New Scientist" by historian Theodore Roszak, who called it "engaging, provocative" and "a tour de force." When the book was re-issued in 2011 with those quotes on the front cover, "New Scientist" remarked, "Back then, Roszak gave Sheldrake the benefit of the doubt. Today, attitudes have hardened and Sheldrake is seen as standing firmly on the wilder shores of science," adding that if "New Scientist" were to review the re-issue, the book's publisher "wouldn't be mining it for promotional purposes."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In a 1988 review of the book in "The Times", David E. H. Jones criticised the hypothesis as magical thinking and pseudoscience, saying that morphic resonance "is so vast and formless that it could easily be made to explain anything, or to dodge round any opposing argument ... Sheldrake has sadly aligned himself with those fantasists who, from the depths of their armchairs, dream up whole new grandiose theories of space and time to revolutionize all science, drape their woolly generalizations over every phenomenon they can think of, and then start looking round for whatever scraps of evidence that seem to them to be in their favour." Jones argued that without confirmatory experimental evidence, "the whole unwieldy and redundant structure of [Sheldrake's] theory falls to Occam's Razor."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Published in 1991, Sheldrake's "The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God" addressed the subject of New Age consciousness and related topics. A column in "The Guardian" said that the book "seeks to restore the pre-Enlightenment notion that nature is 'alive'," quoting Sheldrake as saying that "indeterminism, spontaneity and creativity have re-emerged throughout the natural world" and that "mystic, animistic and religious ways of thinking can no longer be kept at bay." The book was reviewed by James Lovelock in "Nature", who argued that "the theory of formative causation makes testable predictions," noting that "nothing has yet been reported which would divert the mainstream of science. ... Even if it is nonsense ... recognizing the need for fruitful errors, I do not regard the book as dangerous."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: In 1994, Sheldrake proposed a list of "Seven Experiments That Could Change the World", subtitled "A do-it-yourself guide to revolutionary science." He encouraged lay people to conduct research and argued that experiments similar to his own could be conducted with limited expense.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Music critic of "The Sunday Times" Mark Edwards reviewed the book positively, arguing that Sheldrake "challenges the complacent certainty of scientists," and that his ideas "sounded ridiculous ... as long as your thinking is constrained by the current scientific orthodoxy."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: David Sharp, writing in "The Lancet", said that the experiments testing paranormal phenomena carried the "risk of positive publication bias," and that the scientific community "would have to think again if some of these suggestions were convincingly confirmed." Sharp encouraged readers (medical professionals) to "at least read Sheldrake, even try one of his experiments – but pay very close attention to your methods section." Sharp doubted whether "a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs [was] going to persuade sceptics," and noted that "orthodox science will need a lot of convincing."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Science journalist Nigel Hawkes, writing in "The Times", said that Sheldrake was "trying to bridge the gap between phenomenalism and science," and suggested that dogs could appear to have psychic abilities when they were actually relying on more conventional senses. He concluded by saying, "whether scientists will be willing to take [Sheldrake] seriously is ... [a question] that need not concern most readers. While I do not think this book will change the world, it will cause plenty of harmless fun."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home", published in 1999, covered his research into proposed telepathy between humans and animals, particularly dogs. Sheldrake suggests that such interspecies telepathy is a real phenomenon and that morphic fields are responsible for it.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: The book is in three sections, on telepathy, on sense of direction, including animal migration and the homing of pigeons, and on animal precognition, including premonitions of earthquakes and tsunamis. Sheldrake examined more than 1,000 case histories of dogs and cats that seemed to anticipate their owners' return by waiting at a door or window, sometimes for half an hour or more ahead of their return. He did a long series of experiments with a dog called Jaytee, in which the dog was filmed continuously during its owner's absence. In 100 filmed tests, on average the dog spent far more time at the window when its owner was on her way home than when she was not. During the main period of her absence, before she started her return journey, the dog was at the window for an average of 24 seconds per 10-minute period (4% of the time), whereas when she was on her way home, during the first ten minutes of her homeward journey, from more than five miles away, the dog was at the window for an average of five minutes 30 seconds (55% of the time). Sheldrake interpreted the result as highly significant statistically. Sheldrake performed 12 further tests, in which the dog's owner travelled home in a taxi or other unfamiliar vehicle at randomly selected times communicated to her by telephone, to rule out the possibility that the dog was reacting to familiar car sounds or routines. Sheldrake also carried out similar experiments with another dog, Kane, describing the results as similarly positive and significant.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Before the publication of "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home", Sheldrake invited Richard Wiseman, Matthew Smith, and Julie Milton to conduct an independent experimental study with the dog Jaytee. They concluded that their evidence did not support telepathy as an explanation for the dog's behaviour, and proposed possible alternative explanations for Sheldrake's conclusions, involving artefacts, bias resulting from experimental design, and post hoc analysis of unpublished data. The group observed that Sheldrake's observed patterns could easily arise if a dog were simply to do very little for a while, before visiting a window with increasing frequency the longer that its owner was absent, and that such behaviour would make sense for a dog awaiting its owner's return. Under this behaviour, the final measurement period, ending with the owner's return, would always contain the most time spent at the window. Sheldrake argued that the actual data in his own and in Wiseman's tests did not bear this out, and that the dog went to wait at the window sooner when his owner was returning from a short absence, and later after a long absence, with no tendency for Jaytee to go to the window early in the way that he did for shorter absences.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Reviewing the book, Susan Blackmore criticised Sheldrake for comparing the 12 tests of random duration – which were all less than an hour in duration – to the initial tests where the dog may have been responding to patterns in the owner's journeys. Blackmore interpreted the results of the randomised tests as starting with a period where the dog "settles down and does not bother to go to the window," and then showing that the longer the owner was away, the more the dog went to look.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Sheldrake's "The Sense of Being Stared At" explores telepathy, precognition, and the "psychic staring effect." It reported on an experiment Sheldrake conducted where blindfolded subjects guessed whether persons were staring at them or at another target. Sheldrake reported subjects exhibiting a weak sense of being stared at, but no sense of not being stared at, and attributed the results to morphic resonance. Sheldrake reported a hit rate of 53.1%, describing two subjects as "nearly always right, scoring way above chance levels."


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: Several independent experimenters were unable to find evidence beyond statistical randomness that people could tell they were being stared at, with some saying that there were design flaws in Sheldrake's experiments, such as using test sequences with "relatively few long runs and many alternations" instead of truly randomised patterns. In 2005, Michael Shermer expressed concern over confirmation bias and experimenter bias in the tests, and concluded that Sheldrake's claim was unfalsifiable.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: David Jay Brown, who conducted some of the experiments for Sheldrake, states that one of the subjects who was reported as having the highest hit rates was under the influence of the drug MDMA (Ecstasy) during the trials.


title: Rupert Sheldrake

text: "The Science Delusion", published in the US as "Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery", summarises much of Sheldrake's previous work and encapsulates it into a broader critique of philosophical materialism, with the title apparently mimicking that of "The God Delusion" by one of his critics, Richard Dawkins.