title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: The film premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival before it was released through video-on-demand on February 16, 2017, by DirecTV Cinema. It was released theatrically in the United States on March 31, 2017, by A24. The film received positive reviews, with particular praise for Roberts, Shipka, and Boynton's performances.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: The plot is split into three timelines. The first two, "Rose" and "Joan", intercut between each other throughout the bulk of the film, before a third timeline, "Kat", is introduced and comprises the film's climax.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: In February, students at the prestigious Bramford Academy, a Catholic boarding school in upstate New York, are about to be picked up by their parents for a week-long break. Kat, a freshman, and Rose, a senior student, are left behind. Suspecting she may be pregnant, Rose has lied to her parents about the vacation dates to buy time. Kat has a premonitory dream of her parents dying in a car crash and is unable to reach them by phone. The girls are left alone in the academy overnight, and Rose departs with her boyfriend to inform him of the pregnancy. Meanwhile, Kat receives a call. Hours later, Rose returns and finds Kat in the boiler room, repeatedly prostrating herself before the boiler. She presses for an explanation of the strange behavior, but Kat speaks cryptically and claims her parents are dead, disturbing Rose. After Rose leaves, Kat's body starts convulsing and contorting in her bed.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: The next morning, Rose and a sickly-looking Kat join the nuns for breakfast, where Kat behaves erratically, vomits, and curses at the nuns. After receiving an alarming phone call, the nuns order Rose to shovel the driveway "down to the earth" for the abrupt return of the headmaster Gordon. Gordon arrives with a policeman; as they enter the nun's cabin, a bloodstain is seen on the wall, and the men react with shock to something offscreen.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: A young woman, Joan, arrives at a bus stop after escaping a mental institution. A friendly older man named Bill offers her a ride with him and his wife Linda to Bramford, which is near the town where she claims to be headed. They stop at a motel and Joan showers, revealing a scar on her shoulder, and a flashback shows her being shot by a policeman. Bill tells Joan that he picked her up because she reminded him of his deceased daughter, revealed to be Rose - the next day will be the ninth anniversary of Rose's death, on which her parents visit Bramford every year. Joan recognizes Rose's name and retreats to the bathroom, where she suppresses laughter. Joan is revealed to be a fake name; the real Joan was a woman she killed to steal her ID.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: During the days leading up to winter break, Kat is in contact with an entity depicted alternately as a horned shadow and a gravelly voice on the phone. This entity informs her of her parents' impending death, and instructs her to kill everyone. After breakfast, the nuns receive a phone call informing them that Kat's parents have indeed died. After Rose is dismissed to shovel the driveway, Kat murders both nuns. She pursues Rose; shortly after Rose has her period, confirming she is not pregnant, Kat stabs her to death and beheads her. Gordon and the policeman find Kat prostrating in front of the boiler again, with the severed heads of her three victims next to her. She exclaims "Hail Satan!" before the policeman shoots her in the shoulder, revealing that "Joan" is Kat. Kat is detained in a mental hospital, where a priest performs an exorcism. The exorcism is seemingly successful, but Kat begs the demon not to leave her before it vanishes.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: "Joan", the Kat of nine years later, murders Bill and Linda when they pull over in Bramford. She beheads their corpses, and brings the heads to the boiler room of the academy, seemingly in an effort to summon the demon she lost years ago. However, she finds the boiler cold and unused. Now completely alone, she leaves the academy and breaks down crying in the middle of the road.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: Although the film only received a wide release after "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House" was shown, "The Blackcoat's Daughter" was actually filmed first, making it Perkins' debut film. Perkins noted that he intended to "tell a sad story" about loss, and used the horror genre, specifically the possession subgenre, as a "Trojan Horse". Perkins also noted that he could have still made the film without this angle, but felt its omission would have resulted in the audience's engagement with the story being very different. Financing the film was particularly difficult, and Perkins attributed this to the "slumping" success of the horror genre at the time, since the film's script was completed in 2012, but filming did not begin until 2015. In addition, even though those to whom Perkins initially showed the script were enthusiastic about it, many of them believed that it would be impossible to make. However, after the casting of Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts was announced in April 2014, and the casting of Lucy Boynton, Lauren Holly, and James Remar was announced in February 2015, the film then became a reality.


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: Principal photography for the film began in February 2015 in Kemptville, Ontario, Canada, and the film's soundtrack was scored by Perkins' brother, Elvis Perkins, a singer-songwriter. Perkins had never written a film score before, and he found the medium confining, noting that the restrictions "almost killed him".


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2015. Shortly after, A24 and DirecTV Cinema acquired US distribution rights to the film. The Canadian distribution rights were then acquired by ABMO Films. The film had its US premiere at the Fantastic Fest on September 24, 2015. In November 2015, it was announced that the film had sold to various international territories at the AFM, including the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Poland, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Middle East. The film was retitled from "February" to "The Blackcoat's Daughter". The film was scheduled to be released by DirecTV Cinema on July 14, 2016. This was pushed back to August 25, 2016, before opening in a limited release on September 30. The film was then pulled from the schedule and pushed back to an undisclosed 2017 date. It was released on February 16, 2017, through DirecTV Cinema, before being released on March 31, 2017, in a limited release and through video on demand by A24. On Netflix UK, it was released under the title "February".


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 73%, based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10, and the site's consensus of the film reads: "Slow-building and atmospheric, "The Blackcoat's Daughter" resists girls-in-peril clichés in a supernatural thriller that serves as a strong calling card for debuting writer-director Oz Perkins." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 68 out of 100, based on reviews from 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Blackcoat's Daughter

text: Leslie Felperin of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "As with so many of the best mystery-horror films, the optimum way to enjoy a first viewing of this is try to remain as ignorant as possible about what happens. That said, it also brims with tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-them details that will repay repeat viewings." Joe Leydon of "Variety" magazine wrote: "In addition to everything else he does right in "The Blackcoat's Daughter," Perkins plays fair: When you replay the movie in your mind after the final fadeout, you realize that every twist was dutifully presaged, and the final reveal was hidden in plain sight all along." It was included in "The New York Times" list of "13 Scariest Horror Movies to Watch" in 2020.


title: Jamie Hince

text: James William Hince is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as the guitarist for the indie rock duo The Kills. He started his musical career in the bands Fiji, Scarfo, and Blyth Power. He co-founded The Kills with American singer Alison Mosshart in 2000. In The Kills, Hince is known as "Hotel".


title: Jamie Hince

text: In the early 2010s, Hince lost the use of one finger on his left hand following an accident of his hand being shut in a car door. He had to relearn how to play the guitar without it. In 2018, he was featured on Azealia Banks' song "Lorelei" from her second studio album, "".


title: Jamie Hince

text: Hince grew up in Woolton Hill, Hampshire, England together with an older sister, Sarah. He attended Goldsmiths where he studied playwriting.


title: Jamie Hince

text: Hince was married to model Kate Moss. In 2008, "The Sun" reported that Hince and Moss became engaged during a trip to Amsterdam. Hince proposed to her in bed with a vintage 1920s ring worth more than £10,000. They married on 1 July 2011 at St Peter's Church, Southrop in Gloucestershire, and separated in July 2015. They divorced in 2016.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: "Call Me" is a song by the American new wave band Blondie and the theme to the 1980 film "American Gigolo". Produced and composed by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder, with lyrics by Blondie singer Debbie Harry, the song appeared in the film and was released in the United States in early 1980 as a single. "Call Me" was No. 1 for six consecutive weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, where it became the band's biggest single and second No. 1. It also hit No. 1 in the UK and Canada, where it became their fourth and second chart-topper, respectively. In the year-end chart of 1980, it was "Billboard"s No. 1 single and "RPM" magazine's No. 3 in Canada.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: "Call Me" was composed by Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder as the main theme song of the 1980 film "American Gigolo". It is played in the key of D minor. Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to perform a song for the soundtrack, but she was prevented because of a recently signed contract with Modern Records. Moroder turned to Debbie Harry of Blondie, presenting Harry with an instrumental track called "Man Machine". Harry was asked to write the lyrics, a process that Harry states took a mere few hours. The lyrics were written from the perspective of the main character in the film, a male prostitute.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: Harry said the lyrics were inspired by her visual impressions from watching the film and that "When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene, driving on the coast of California." The completed song was then recorded by the band, with Moroder producing. The bridge of the original English-language version also includes Harry saying "call me" in two European languages: and .


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: In 2014, keyboardist-composer Harold Faltermeyer remembered the recording process as having three main sections: first Moroder and his music crew recorded an instrumental version of the song at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, with the tape locked to SMPTE timecode so that it would synchronize with the film. Then the project moved to New York for the Blondie recording session, at which the band surprised Moroder by insisting they would play their own parts. Faltermeyer was engineering when Harry sang and Chris Stein played electric guitar. Stein's guitar and amplifier were buzzing and noisy, so his setup was repaired to get a clean recording. The band had difficulty locking to sync, so Moroder stopped the unfinished sessions to save time, and took the project back to Los Angeles to more quickly add the final parts with his own picked musicians, including a keyboard solo by Faltermeyer. On the "American Gigolo" soundtrack album, Blondie the band is credited only for vocals, with other credits naming Moroder's crew of Keith Forsey on drums/percussion and Faltermeyer on keyboards and arrangements. Faltermeyer said the band was angry about being replaced by session players, but the song turned out to be very successful, so they took it in stride. Blondie keyboard player Jimmy Destri was obligated to play Faltermeyer's solo in concerts.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: In the US, the song was released by three record companies: the longest version (at 8:06) on the soundtrack album by Polydor, the 7" and 12" on Blondie's label Chrysalis, and a Spanish-language 12" version, with lyrics by Buddy and Mary McCluskey, on the disco label Salsoul Records. The Spanish version, titled "Llámame", was meant for release in Mexico and some South American countries. This version was also released in the US and the UK and had its CD debut on Chrysalis/EMI's rarities compilation "Blonde and Beyond" (1993). In 1988, a remixed version by Ben Liebrand taken from the Blondie remix album "Once More into the Bleach" was issued as a single in the UK. In 2001, the "original long version" appeared as a bonus track on the "Autoamerican" album re-issue.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: In 2014, Blondie re-recorded the song for their compilation album "Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux". The compilation was part of a 2-disc set called "Blondie 4(0) Ever" which included their tenth studio album "Ghosts of Download" and marked the 40th anniversary of the forming of the band.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: Harry recorded an abbreviated version of the song that was backed by the Muppet Band for her guest appearance on "The Muppet Show" in August 1980. It was first broadcast in January 1981.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: The single was released in the United States in February 1980. It spent six consecutive weeks at number one and was certified Gold (for one million copies sold) by the RIAA. It also spent four weeks at No. 2 on the US dance chart. The single was also No. 1 on "Billboard" magazine's 1980 year-end chart. The song lists at No. 57 on "Billboard's All Time Top 100". It was released in the UK two months later, where it became Blondie's fourth UK No. 1 single in little over a year. The song was also played on a British Telecom advert in the 1980s. 25 years after its original release, "Call Me" was ranked at No. 283 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1981, the "Village Voice" ranked "Call Me" as the third-best song of the year 1980 on its annual year-end critics' poll, Pazz & Jop. In 2017, "Billboard" ranked the song number three on their list of the 10 greatest Blondie songs, and in 2021, "The Guardian" ranked the song number four on their list of the 20 greatest Blondie songs. In 2022 the song was played as part of HBO's flagship show, WestWorld.


title: Call Me (Blondie song)

text: In 1981, the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.


title: Relative strength index

text: The relative strength index (RSI) is a technical indicator used in the analysis of financial markets. It is intended to chart the current and historical strength or weakness of a stock or market based on the closing prices of a recent trading period. The indicator should not be confused with relative strength.


title: Relative strength index

text: The RSI is classified as a momentum oscillator, measuring the velocity and magnitude of price movements. Momentum is the rate of the rise or fall in price. The relative strength RS is given as the ratio of higher closes to lower closes, with closes here meaning averages of absolute values of price changes. The RSI computes momentum as the ratio of higher closes to overall closes: stocks which have had more or stronger positive changes have a higher RSI than stocks which have had more or stronger negative changes.


title: Relative strength index

text: The RSI is most typically used on a 14-day timeframe, measured on a scale from 0 to 100, with high and low levels marked at 70 and 30, respectively. Short or longer timeframes are used for alternately shorter or longer outlooks. High and low levels—80 and 20, or 90 and 10—occur less frequently but indicate stronger momentum.


title: Relative strength index

text: The relative strength index was developed by J. Welles Wilder and published in a 1978 book, "New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems", and in "Commodities" magazine (now "Modern Trader" magazine) in the June 1978 issue. It has become one of the most popular oscillator indices.


title: Relative strength index

text: The RSI provides signals that tell investors to buy when the security or currency is oversold and to sell when it is overbought.


title: Relative strength index

text: RSI with recommended parameters and its day-to-day optimization was tested and compared with other strategies in Marek and Šedivá (2017). The testing was randomised in time and companies (e.g., Apple, Exxon Mobil, IBM, Microsoft) and showed that RSI can still produce good results; however, in longer time it is usually overcome by the simple buy-and-hold strategy.


title: Relative strength index

text: For each trading period an upward change "U" or downward change "D" is calculated. Up periods are characterized by the close being higher than the previous close:


title: Relative strength index

text: Conversely, a down period is characterized by the close being lower than the previous period's close (note that D is nonetheless a positive number),


title: Relative strength index

text: If the last close is the same as the previous, both "U" and "D" are zero. The average "U" and "D" are calculated using an "n"-period smoothed or modified moving average (SMMA or MMA) which is an exponentially smoothed Moving Average with "α" = 1/period. Some commercial packages, like AIQ, use a standard exponential moving average (EMA) as the average instead of Wilder's SMMA.


title: Relative strength index

text: Wilder originally formulated the calculation of the moving average as: newval = (prevval * (period - 1) + newdata) / period. This is fully equivalent to the aforementioned exponential smoothing. New data is simply divided by period which is equal to the alpha calculated value of 1/period. Previous average values are modified by (period -1)/period which in effect is period/period - 1/period and finally 1 - 1/period which is 1 - alpha.


title: Relative strength index

text: If the average of "D" values is zero, then according to the equation, the RS value will approach infinity, so that the resulting RSI, as computed below, will approach 100.


title: Relative strength index

text: The smoothed moving averages should be appropriately initialized with a simple moving average using the first "n" values in the price series.


title: Relative strength index

text: The RSI is presented on a graph above or below the price chart. The indicator has an upper line, typically at 70, a lower line at 30, and a dashed mid-line at 50. Wilder recommended a smoothing period of 14 (see exponential smoothing, i.e. "α" = 1/14 or "N" = 14).


title: Relative strength index

text: Wilder posited that when price moves up very rapidly, at some point it is considered overbought. Likewise, when price falls very rapidly, at some point it is considered oversold. In either case, Wilder deemed a reaction or reversal imminent.


title: Relative strength index

text: The level of the RSI is a measure of the stock's recent trading strength. The slope of the RSI is directly proportional to the velocity of a change in the trend. The distance traveled by the RSI is proportional to the magnitude of the move.


title: Relative strength index

text: Wilder believed that tops and bottoms are indicated when RSI goes above 70 or drops below 30. Traditionally, RSI readings greater than the 70 level are considered to be in overbought territory, and RSI readings lower than the 30 level are considered to be in oversold territory. In between the 30 and 70 level is considered neutral, with the 50 level a sign of no trend.


title: Relative strength index

text: Wilder further believed that divergence between RSI and price action is a very strong indication that a market turning point is imminent. Bearish divergence occurs when price makes a new high but the RSI makes a lower high, thus failing to confirm. Bullish divergence occurs when price makes a new low but RSI makes a higher low.


title: Relative strength index

text: Wilder thought that "failure swings" above 50 and below 50 on the RSI are strong indications of market reversals. For example, assume the RSI hits 76, pulls back to 72, then rises to 77. If it falls below 72, Wilder would consider this a "failure swing" above 70.


title: Relative strength index

text: Finally, Wilder wrote that chart formations and areas of support and resistance could sometimes be more easily seen on the RSI chart as opposed to the price chart. The center line for the relative strength index is 50, which is often seen as both the support and resistance line for the indicator.


title: Relative strength index

text: If the relative strength index is below 50, it generally means that the stock's losses are greater than the gains. When the relative strength index is above 50, it generally means that the gains are greater than the losses.


title: Relative strength index

text: In addition to Wilder's original theories of RSI interpretation, Andrew Cardwell has developed several new interpretations of RSI to help determine and confirm trend. First, Cardwell noticed that uptrends generally traded between RSI 40 and 80, while downtrends usually traded between RSI 60 and 20. Cardwell observed when securities change from uptrend to downtrend and vice versa, the RSI will undergo a "range shift."


title: Relative strength index

text: Next, Cardwell noted that bearish divergence: 1) only occurs in uptrends, and 2) mostly only leads to a brief correction instead of a reversal in trend. Therefore, bearish divergence is a sign confirming an uptrend. Similarly, bullish divergence is a sign confirming a downtrend.


title: Relative strength index

text: Finally, Cardwell discovered the existence of positive and negative reversals in the RSI. Reversals are the opposite of divergence. For example, a positive reversal occurs when an uptrend price correction results in a higher low compared to the last price correction, while RSI results in a lower low compared to the prior correction. A negative reversal happens when a downtrend rally results in a lower high compared to the last downtrend rally, but RSI makes a higher high compared to the prior rally.


title: Relative strength index

text: In other words, despite stronger momentum as seen by the higher high or lower low in the RSI, price could not make a higher high or lower low. This is evidence the main trend is about to resume. Cardwell noted that positive reversals only happen in uptrends while negative reversals only occur in downtrends, and therefore their existence confirms the trend.


title: Relative strength index

text: A variation called Cutler's RSI is based on a simple moving average of "U" and "D", instead of the exponential average above. Cutler had found that since Wilder used a smoothed moving average to calculate RSI, the value of Wilder's RSI depended upon where in the data file his calculations started. Cutler termed this Data Length Dependency. Cutler's RSI is not data length dependent, and returns consistent results regardless of the length of, or the starting point within a data file.


title: Relative strength index

text: Cutler's RSI generally comes out slightly different from the normal Wilder RSI, but the two are similar, since SMA and SMMA are also similar.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Ectoplasm (from Greek "ektos" 'outside' and "plasma" 'something formed or molded') is a term used in spiritualism to denote a substance or spiritual energy "exteriorized" by physical mediums. It was coined in 1894 by psychical researcher Charles Richet. Although the term is widespread in popular culture, there is no scientific evidence that ectoplasm exists and many purported examples were exposed as hoaxes fashioned from cheesecloth, gauze or other natural substances.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: In spiritualism, ectoplasm is said to be formed by physical mediums when in a trance state. This material is excreted as a gauze-like substance from orifices on the medium's body and spiritual entities are said to drape this substance over their nonphysical body, enabling them to interact in the physical and real universe. Some accounts claim that ectoplasm begins clear and almost invisible, but darkens and becomes visible, as the psychic energy becomes stronger. Still other accounts state that in extreme cases ectoplasm will develop a strong odor. According to some mediums, the ectoplasm cannot occur in light conditions as the ectoplasmic substance would disintegrate.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The psychical researcher Gustav Geley defined ectoplasm as being "very variable in appearance, being sometimes vaporous, sometimes a plastic paste, sometimes a bundle of fine threads, or a membrane with swellings or fringes, or a fine fabric-like tissue". Arthur Conan Doyle described ectoplasm as "a viscous, gelatinous substance which appeared to differ from every known form of matter in that it could solidify and be used for material purposes".


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The physical existence of ectoplasm has not been scientifically demonstrated, and tested samples purported to be ectoplasm have been found to be various non-paranormal substances. Other researchers have duplicated, with non-supernatural materials, the photographic effects sometimes said to prove the existence of ectoplasm.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The idea of ectoplasm was merged into the notion of an "ectenic force" by some early psychical researchers who were seeking a physical explanation for reports of psychokinesis in séances. Its existence was initially hypothesized by Count Agenor de Gasparin, to explain the phenomena of table turning and tapping during séances. Ectenic force was named by de Gasparin's colleague M. Thury, a professor of natural history at the Academy of Geneva. Between them, de Gasparin and Thury conducted a number of experiments in ectenic force, and claimed some success. Their work was not independently verified.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Other psychical researchers who studied mediumship speculated that within the human body an unidentified fluid termed the "psychode", "psychic force" or "ecteneic force" existed and was capable of being released to influence matter. This view was held by Camille Flammarion and William Crookes, however a later psychical researcher Hereward Carrington pointed out that the fluid was hypothetical and has never been discovered.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The psychical investigator W. J. Crawford (1881–1920) had claimed that a fluid substance was responsible for levitation of objects after witnessing the medium Kathleen Goligher. Crawford, after witnessing a number of her séances, claimed to have obtained flashlight photographs of the substance; he later described the substance as "plasma". He claimed the substance is not visible to the naked eye but can be felt by the body.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The physicist and psychical researcher Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe later investigated the medium Kathleen Goligher at many sittings and arrived at the opposite conclusions to Crawford; according to D'Albe, no paranormal phenomena such as levitation had occurred with Goligher and stated he had found evidence of fraud. D'Albe claimed the substance in the photographs of Crawford was ordinary muslin. During a séance D'Albe had observed white muslin between Goligher's feet.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Ectoplasm on many occasions has been proven to be fraudulent. Many mediums had used methods of swallowing and regurgitating cheesecloth, textile products smoothed with potato starch and in other cases the ectoplasm was made from paper, cloth and egg white or butter muslin.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The Society for Psychical Research investigations into mediumship exposed many fraudulent mediums which contributed to the decline of interest in physical mediumship. In 1907, Hereward Carrington exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums such as those used in slate-writing, table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading and spirit photography.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: In the early 20th century the psychical researcher Albert von Schrenck-Notzing investigated the medium Eva Carrière and claimed her ectoplasm "materializations" were not from spirits but the result of "ideoplasty" in which the medium could form images onto ectoplasm from her mind. Schrenck-Notzing published the book "Phenomena of Materialisation" (1923) which included photographs of the ectoplasm. Critics pointed out the photographs of the ectoplasm revealed marks of magazine cut-outs, pins and a piece of string. Schrenck-Notzing admitted that on several occasions Carrière deceptively smuggled pins into the séance room. The magician Carlos María de Heredia replicated the ectoplasm of Carrière using a comb, gauze and a handkerchief.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Donald West wrote that the ectoplasm of Carrière was fake and was made of cut-out paper faces from newspapers and magazines on which fold marks could sometimes be seen from the photographs. A photograph of Carrière taken from the back of the ectoplasm face revealed it to be made from a magazine cut out with the letters "Le Miro". The two-dimensional face had been clipped from the French magazine Le Miroir. Back issues of the magazine also matched some of Carrière's ectoplasm faces. Cut out faces that she used included Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, French president Raymond Poincaré and the actress Mona Delza.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: After Schrenck-Notzing discovered Carrière had taken her ectoplasm faces from the magazine he defended her by claiming she had read the magazine but her memory had recalled the images and they had materialized into the ectoplasm. Because of this Schrenck-Notzing was described as credulous. Joseph McCabe wrote "In Germany and Austria, Baron von Schrenck-Notzing is the laughing-stock of his medical colleagues."


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The Danish medium Einer Nielsen was investigated by a committee from the Kristiania University in Norway in 1922 and it was discovered in a séance that his ectoplasm was fake. Nielsen was also caught hiding his ectoplasm in his rectum. Mina Crandon was a famous medium known for producing ectoplasm during her séance sittings. She produced a small ectoplasmic hand from her stomach which waved about in the darkness. Her career ended, however, when biologists examined the hand and found it to be made of a piece of carved animal liver. Walter Franklin Prince described the Crandon case as "the most ingenious, persistent, and fantastic complex of fraud in the history of psychic research."


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The psychical researchers Eric Dingwall and Harry Price re-published an anonymous work written by a former medium entitled "Revelations of a Spirit Medium" (1922) which exposed the tricks of mediumship and the fraudulent methods of producing "spirit hands". Originally all the copies of the book were bought up by spiritualists and deliberately destroyed. On the subject of ectoplasm and fraud John Ryan Haule wrote:


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Because ectoplasm was believed susceptible to destruction by light, the possibility that ectoplasm might appear became a reason for making sure that Victorian séances took place in near darkness. Poor lighting conditions also became an opportunity for fraud, particularly as faux ectoplasm was easy to make with a mixture of soap, gelatin and egg white, or perhaps merely well-placed muslin.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Psychical researcher Harry Price exposed medium Helen Duncan's fraudulent techniques by proving, through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was cheesecloth that she had swallowed and regurgitated. Duncan had also used dolls' heads and masks as ectoplasm. Mediums would also cut pictures from magazines and stick them to the cheesecloth to pretend they were spirits of the dead. Another researcher, C. D. Broad, wrote that ectoplasm in many cases has proven to be composed of home material such as butter-muslin and that there is no solid evidence that it has anything to do with spirits.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: The photographs taken by Thomas Glendenning Hamilton of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Ann Marshall (1880–1963) depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the hoax. The mediums Rita Goold and Alec Harris dressed up in their séances as ectoplasm spirits and were exposed as frauds. The exposures of fraudulent ectoplasm in séances caused a rapid decline in physical mediumship.


title: Ectoplasm (paranormal)

text: Since its release in 1984, the film "Ghostbusters" has popularized in contemporary fiction the idea of associating ghosts with slimy, often green, ectoplasm.


title: Jon Abrahams

text: Jon Avery Abrahams (born October 29, 1977) is an American actor. His most notable film roles include Bobby in "Scary Movie" (2000), Denny Byrnes in "Meet the Parents" (2000), and Dalton Chapman in the "House of Wax" (2005).


title: Jon Abrahams

text: Abrahams' great-uncles were actor Mack Gray – long time confidant of entertainers George Raft, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra – and stuntman and fight coordinator Joe Gray. His father is the artist Martin Abrahams.


title: Jon Abrahams

text: Abrahams made his film debut in Larry Clark's "Kids". His other feature credits include "Scary Movie", "Meet the Parents", "My Boss's Daughter", "Boiler Room", and "House of Wax".


title: Jon Abrahams

text: On television, Abrahams has appeared on "Boston Public", "", "Second Generation Wayans", "The Mentalist", and "Criminal Minds". He was also "DJ Jonny" on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" for season four.


title: Jon Abrahams

text: In 2013, Abrahams was cast as the lead in the indie movie "Room 105." In 2014, Abrahams was cast in "We Are Your Friends" as a club promoter.


title: Jon Abrahams

text: In 2016, Abrahams made his directorial debut with the film "All at Once". The film was released on DVD and video-on-demand in 2018. In 2017, Abrahams was cast in the crime drama film "Clover", which he also directed. In 2022 he released his third directorial effort with the gay slasher thriller "Exploited".


title: World religions

text: World religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the five—and in some cases more—largest and most internationally widespread religious movements. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are always included in the list, being known as the "Big Five". Some scholars also include other world religions, such as Taoism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and the Baháʼí Faith, in the category. These are often juxtaposed against other categories, such as indigenous religions and new religious movements, which are also used by scholars in this field of research.


title: World religions

text: The world religions paradigm was developed in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, where it was pioneered by phenomenological scholars like Ninian Smart. It was designed to broaden the study of religion away from its heavy focus on Christianity by taking into account other large religious traditions around the world. The paradigm is often used by lecturers instructing undergraduate students in the study of religion and is also the framework used by school teachers in the United Kingdom and other countries. The paradigm's emphasis on viewing these religious movements as distinct and mutually exclusive entities has also had a wider impact on the categorisation of religion—for instance in censuses—in both Western countries and elsewhere.


title: World religions

text: Since the late 20th century, the paradigm has faced critique by scholars of religion like Jonathan Z. Smith, some of whom have argued for its abandonment. Critics have argued that the world religions paradigm is inappropriate because it takes the Protestant form of Christianity as the model for what constitutes "religion"; that it is tied up with discourses of modernity, including modern power relations; that it encourages an uncritical understanding of religion; and that it makes a value judgment as to what religions should be considered "major". Others have argued that it remains useful in the classroom, so long as students are made aware that it is a socially-constructed category.


title: World religions

text: The scholars of religion Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson described the "World Religions Paradigm" as "a particular way of thinking about religions which organizes them into a set of discrete traditions with a supposedly 'global' import." It typically consists of the "Big Five" religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.


title: World religions

text: As noted by Cotter and Robertson, the "Big Five" religions are often listed in an "Abrahamocentric order" which places the largest three Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—before the non-Abrahamic religions Hinduism and Buddhism. The category is sometimes also extended to include other religious groups, namely Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and the Baháʼí Faith.


title: World religions

text: The inclusion of Judaism in the Big Five raises some issues; it is included in the list because of its influence on Christianity and Islam and because of its relevance to traditional Western understandings of Western history. On demographic grounds, it does not fit into the list, for there are far fewer Jews in the world than there are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. Similarly, it does not fit into the list if the groups are defined by a desire to spread internationally, because Judaism is typically non-proselytizing.


title: World religions

text: Many scholars have utilised the "World Religions" category alongside other "catch-all" categories such as "new religious movements" and "indigenous religions". The scholar of religion Steven J. Sutcliffe compared the relationship between the three categories to the English football league system, with the "world" religions forming a Premier League, the "new" religions forming a Championship, and "indigenous" religions a First Division. That groups that get placed in categories like "indigenous religions" get treated less seriously than the "world religions" by many scholars was noted by the scholar of religion Graham Harvey, who maintained that "indigenous religions should receive similarly respectful treatment to that considered appropriate to the larger 'World Religions'."


title: World religions

text: Cotter and Robertson noted that the history of the world religions paradigm is "intimately tied up" with the history of the study of religion as an academic discipline. It emerged from within the phenomenology of religion approach which placed an emphasis on description rather than critical analysis.


title: World religions

text: The paradigm was integrated throughout the education system through work of scholars like Ninian Smart, who formed the Shap Working Party on World Religions in Education in 1969. It was introduced with the intent of moving Western education away from its focus on Christianity. However, it took liberal Western Protestantism as its baseline and interpreted these different religious traditions through the framework of liberal Protestant norms and values. This included an emphasis on theology as being central to a given religion. It also reflects the post-Enlightenment Christian approach of treating different religious groups as distinct, mutually exclusive categories. It thus reflects the socio-political concerns of 1960s Britain, the environment in which it was devised.


title: World religions

text: The paradigm has since gone beyond this academic discipline, and "informs the perception" of many members of different religious groups. The paradigm for instance frames the teaching about religion in the British education system; at all three Key Stages, British teachers are instructed to teach about Christianity, while by the end of key Stage 3 they are also supposed to teach about the other "five principal religions": Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. Similarly, the censuses of many countries for instance reflect the influence of the world religion paradigm by only permitting respondents to describe themselves as adhering to one particular religious tradition, whereas in reality many individuals identify themselves with various different traditions at the same time. This idea of mutually exclusive religious identities is not only a Western phenomenon, but can also be found in other socio-cultural contexts; Hindu nationalists for instance often endorse the idea that Hinduism and Buddhism are mutually exclusive categories despite the fact that many people in South Asia mix Hindu and Buddhist practices.


title: World religions

text: The scholars of religion Tara Baldrick-Morrone, Michael Graziano, and Brad Stoddard stated that "the WRP is neither neutral nor natural, but its social authority derives from appearing as both."


title: World religions

text: The utility of the World Religions Paradigm has experienced a sustained and rigorous critique from many scholars of religion. The scholar of religion Graham Harvey for instance noted that many scholars "object strongly" to the paradigm. In 1978, the scholar of religion Jonathan Z. Smith for example called it a "dubious category".


title: World religions

text: One of the major criticisms of the framework is that it is based on a model of 'religion' that is highly reliant on using the Protestant version of Christianity as its base example. A second criticism is that it is rooted in the discourses of modernity, including the power relations present in modern society. Smith observed that it was constructed by Western scholars from a Western perspective. He noted that the only religions that get included in it are those which have "achieved sufficient power and numbers to enter our [i.e. Western] history, either to form it, interact with it, or to thwart it" and represent "important geo-political entities with which we must deal." The framework also includes privileging the literate elites active in particular religious movements by presenting their interpretations of particular traditions as being authoritative, eclipsing alternative interpretations presented by non-literate, marginalised, and localized practitioners. For instance, as noted by the scholar of religion Suzanne Owen, "Hinduism as a World Religion does not include Hinduism as a village religion".


title: World religions

text: A third criticism of the world religions paradigm is that it encourages an uncritical and "sui generis" model of 'religion'. It presents each of the 'world religions' in an abstracted and essentialised form, failing to take account of hybridization. For instance, in teaching about Christianity it does not refer to reincarnation, because this is not typically regarded as a Christian doctrine, and yet there are Christians who profess a belief in reincarnation.


title: World religions

text: A fourth criticism is that in choosing to focus attention on the "major" religions, it makes a value judgement as to what constitutes "major" and what does not.


title: World religions

text: Many scholars of religion have resisted efforts to challenge the paradigm, and as of 2016 was reported as still being widespread in university introductory courses to the study of religion. Many instructors feel that explaining the critique of the world religions paradigm to undergraduate students would be difficult, as the critique would be too complex for many of them to understand. Its continued use has also been defended by the claim that it is what undergraduate students expect and that it mirrors what they will have been taught at school.


title: World religions

text: Some scholars have argued for the rejection of the world religions paradigm altogether; Cotter and Robertson presented the argument that "the continued uncritical use of the WRP fosters a breeding ground for relativistic navel-gazing which has no place in the contemporary research university". Owen was of the view that "as long as it continues to employ the World Religions paradigm as a default approach (even after deconstructing it), religious studies will fail in its humanistic task" because it will simply be engaging in "knowledge transfer" and not "critically engaging" with "culture and knowledge". One alternative framework that some scholars use to teach about religion is the "lived religion" paradigm, which places emphasis not on distinct religious traditions but on individual experiences and practices. Another alternative is the "material religion" framework which focuses on examining religion through material culture and physical objects. Owen noted that, in her experience, many students display an "initial resistance to alternatives" as they are expecting the world religions paradigm. She cited the example of her introductory course at Leeds Trinity University College, which was constructed on thematic lines rather than according to the world religions paradigm, and which induced feelings of panic among many undergraduates.


title: World religions

text: Many scholars who are critical of the world religions paradigm find themselves having to teach it as part of introductory courses for undergraduate students. Some spent much of a course teaching the concept and then several sessions after this deconstructing it. Some scholars have suggested that even when students are taught using the world religions paradigm, it could be a good means of encouraging them to think critically about category formation. The scholar Steven W. Ramey for instance advocated teaching the paradigm in a manner that makes it clear that it is a "constructed discourse". Similarly, Baldrick-Morrone, Graziano, and Stoddard suggested that teaching undergraduates about the world religious paradigm helps to explain to students how "classification is a social act". They noted that students could leave such a course not only knowing more about the specific religious traditions included in the world religions category, but that they would also leave "knowing how to better interrogate the world around them". To avoid promoting the paradigm's portrayal of different religious traditions as rigid, homogenous categories, the scholar Teemu Taira suggested introducing ethnographic case studies into the class to better explain the realities of people's lives and uses of religious traditions.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The Russia–Ukraine border is the international state border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Over land, the border outlines five oblasts (regions) of Ukraine and five oblasts of the Russian Federation. The modern border issue has been ongoing ever since the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since early 2014, the border has been compromised due to the Russo-Ukrainian War. According to head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Viktor Nazarenko, the country does not control of the border with Russia. This stretch of land is now controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. Because of the change of control, Ukraine no longer has authority over the Kerch Strait, connection between the Kerch Peninsula on Crimea and the Taman Peninsula of Krasnodar Krai. At the same time the Russian Federation created checkpoints along the Ukrainian administrative border between Crimea and Kherson Oblast.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: In 2014, the Ukrainian government unveiled a plan to build a defensive walled system along the border with Russia, named "Project Wall". It would cost almost $520 million, take four years to complete, and has been under construction as of 2015.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 1 January 2018, Ukraine introduced biometric controls for Russians entering the country. On 22 March 2018, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree that required Russian citizens to notify the Ukrainian authorities in advance about their reason for traveling to Ukraine. On 7 November 2018, the Criminal Code of Ukraine was amended to make illegal crossing of the border into Ukraine "to harm the country's interest" punishable by imprisonment for up to three years.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since 30 November 2018, Ukraine has banned all Russian men between 16 and 60 from entering the country with exceptions for humanitarian purposes.<ref name="rubric-polytics/2609075rub11119">Ukraine upholds entry restrictions for Russian men aged 16-60 years , Ukrinform (December 27, 2018)</ref>


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since 1 March 2020, Ukrainians crossing the border from Ukraine to Russia need to use their "international passport". However, Ukrainians who return to Ukraine can do this using an "internal passport".


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The border has inherited its location from the administrative-territorial division between the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR. The first real demarcation took place in May 1918 in Kursk. After the fall of the Russian Empire, several factions sought to create an independent Ukrainian state, alternately cooperating and struggling against each other. Most of Ukraine (Ukrainian People's Republic) was overrun by the Red Guards of Soviet Russia. With the help of the Central Powers, Ukraine managed to recover all its territories of "Ukrainian governorates" and also annexed a number of neighboring counties of Kursk and Voronezh governorates where the ethnic composition of the population was predominantly Ukrainophone (Ukrainian-speaking). On 6 May 1918, a ceasefire agreement was signed in Konotop between Ukraine and Soviet Russia. Between the fighting sides a neutral territory between 10 and 40 km wide was established to prevent further aggression, but the Russian side decided to create guerrilla forces which were transformed into two "Ukrainian divisions" (see Nikolay Shchors).


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Peace talks started on 23 May 1918 in Kyiv, where the Russian delegation was headed by Christian Rakovsky and Dmitry Manuilsky, while the Ukrainian - by (Ambassador of Ukraine to Russia). On June 12, 1918, the sides signed a preliminary peace treaty. Further negotiations stalled due to a lack of consensus on the issue of the borders. The Ukrainian side was proposing an ethnic principle based on the already established political, geographical, and economic aspects, while the Russian side insisted on conducting a plebiscite in each populated place. On 22 June 1918, both sides finally agreed to go along with the Ukrainian proposition, while any contested issues would be decided by plebiscite. Yet any further negotiations led nowhere and were terminated by the Ukrainian delegation in October 1918 as it was becoming apparent that the Russian was using their time more for the pro-Soviet propaganda.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: More productive were negotiations between the Don Republic and Ukraine that started soon after the Don Republic formed its government on 16 May 1918. The Don side was presented by the Minister of trade and the Ambassador of Don to Ukraine General , while the Ukrainian side - by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Doroshenko.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 8 August 1918, the sides signed the treaty "About Basic Principles of Bilateral Relations", wherein each side agreed to renounce its territorial contests against the other, and borders were established based on the gubernatorial division of the Russian Empire. The Don-Ukraine border outlined the Oblast of Don Host to the west of the Don Republic and Yekaterinoslav, Kharkiv, Voronezh guberniyas to the east of Ukraine. To Ukraine also was ceded some territory of the right bank of the Kalmius river just east of Mariupol "to ensure the proper administration of the city and port". On September 18, 1918, between Don and Ukraine the Don-Ukrainian Commission was created for the administration of the Taganrog Industrial District, based in Kharkiv.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: After the second invasion of the Soviet troops during the Russian Civil War in 1919, the new Soviet government of Ukraine intended to retain all territorial gains of the Ukrainian national government (Ukrainian State). However, after several rounds of negotiations, the border between the "Ukrainian governorates" (Chernihiv and Kharkiv) and the "Russian governorates" (Bryansk and Kursk) was left intact. It also was agreed that Ukraine would border Crimea at the Perekop Isthmus. On March 10, 1919, a border treaty was signed between the Russian SFSR and the Ukrainian SSR.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On April 24, 1919, the Ukrainian SSR was stripped of four counties of the Chernihiv Governorate that on the unilateral decision of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the Russian SFSR were transferred to the newly created Gomel Governorate. On April 28, 1919, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine simply acknowledged it.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: After the USSR was formally created in 1922 and due to the onset of the administrative division reform, issues emerged. The Ukrainian government claimed mainly some parts of the Kursk and Voronezh gubernia, which were home to a Ukrainian-speaking population. As a result of the border dispute of the 1920s, Ukraine was granted approximately one-third of the claimed territories, while the Taganrog and Shakhty districts went back to the RSFSR. By 1927, the administrative border between the RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR was established.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: In 1954, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev transferred the peninsula of Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. This event was viewed as an insignificant "symbolic gesture", as both republics were a part of the Soviet Union and answerable to the government in Moscow. Crimean autonomy was re-established after a referendum in 1991, 11 months prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: In 1991, Ukraine as a new independent state inherited the territory and the boundaries of the former Ukrainian SSR. At the time the Russia–Ukraine border was an administrative line, which was not delimited nor demarcated. Ukraine has been trying to establish a proper border since.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994. Among other things, the Memorandum promised that its signatories (the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom) would respect Ukraine's existing borders.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The Treaty Between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the Russian-Ukrainian State Border was signed by President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation on 28 January, 2003. It defined the entire land border between the two states, except for the point where it met the Belarusian border, which was agreed in a separate treaty. It was ratified by both states, and entered into force on 23 April 2004. However, maritime border wasn't delimitated over controversy concerning the waters of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The island Tuzla Spit became a major dispute between Russia and Ukraine in 2003. The island is located in the Kerch Strait and administratively it is part of Crimea, Ukraine. During the Soviet period, the island along with Crimea was transferred to Ukraine in 1954; the fact which was also fiercely contested by several Russian politicians was the legal background of the territorial change.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The main trade routes lay completely within the deeper part of the Kerch Strait which is located between the island and Crimea and is considered a part of the territorial waters of Ukraine. On the other hand, ships are impeded to travel to the east of the island (towards the Taman peninsula) due to the fact that there are shallow waters. Between Tuzla and the Taman peninsula, there are two channels; however, none of them are deeper than . Fishing spawn also mainly takes place in the territorial waters of Ukraine, which is favorable for the fishing industry of Crimea. The intensity of the conflict increased due to the forecast of locations of oil and gas in the area and the lack of an established and ratified international border between Russia and Ukraine. On the proposition of the Russian side, it was offered for the border to stretch along the bed of the territorial waters while sharing the use of the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait waters.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, the status of the Crimea and of the city of Sevastopol is currently under dispute between Russia and Ukraine; Ukraine, and the majority of the international community, consider the Crimea to be an autonomous republic of Ukraine, and Sevastopol to be one of Ukraine's cities with special status. Russia, on the other hand, considers the Crimea to be a federal subject of Russia and Sevastopol to be one of Russia's three federal cities. Since 1991, Russia also leases Sevastopol Naval Base with the current lease extending to the 2040s with an option for another extension, but the Russian State Duma approved the denunciation of this lease agreements unanimously by 433 members of parliament on 31 March 2014.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Borders of the Russian Naval Base, in the city of Sevastopol, and its vicinity have not been clearly identified.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: In December 2018, Russia announced it completed the construction of the 60-km barrier across Perekop Isthmus between Ukraine and Crimea.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 1 January 2018, Ukraine introduced biometric controls for Russians entering the country. On 22 March 2018, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree that required Russian citizens and "individuals without citizenship, who come from migration risk countries” (more details were not given) to notify the Ukrainian authorities in advance about their reason for traveling to Ukraine.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 7 November 2018, the Criminal Code of Ukraine was amended to make an illegal crossing of the border into Ukraine "to harm the country's interest" punishable by imprisonment for up to three years. This refers to persons who are denied entry to Ukraine and members of units of the Russian armed forces or other law enforcement agencies, who try to cross the state border of Ukraine by any means beyond official checkpoints or at checkpoints without proper travel documents or documents containing inaccurate information. The same acts committed repeatedly or by a group of persons will entail imprisonment from three to five years. Imprisonment from five to eight years is foreseen for committing these acts combined with violence or the use of weapons.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since 30 November 2018, Ukraine bans all Russian men between 16 and 60 from entering the country with exceptions for humanitarian purposes. Ukraine claims this is a security measure to prevent Russia from forming units of “private” armies on Ukrainian soil.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 24 February 2022, Russian forces crossed the border in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces also entered Ukraine from Belarus and the disputed Crimean Peninsula.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 4 and 5 April 2022 units of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine retook control of their border crossing in Chernihiv Oblast. On 4 April 2022 Sumy Oblast's Governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyi stated that Russian troops no longer occupied any towns or villages in Sumy Oblast and had mostly withdrawn, while Ukrainian troops were working to push out the remaining units.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 1 July 2022 Ukraine made it compulsory for Russian citizens to apply for a visa to enter Ukraine. During the first 4.5 months of the visa regime 10 visas were issued and seven Russian citizens entered Ukraine (mostly for humanitarian reasons).


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since the start of the war in Donbas in April 2014 Ukraine lost (according to head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Viktor Nazarenko) control of of the state border in southeastern Ukraine. This stretch of land is now controlled by organizations better known as Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: According to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine the number of Russian citizens who crossed the border with Ukraine (more than 2.5 million Russians in 2014) dropped by almost 50% in 2015. They also refused entry into Ukraine to 16,500 citizens of Russia in 2014 and to 10,800 Russians in 2015. According to the State Border Guard there were 1.5 million trips by Russians to Ukraine in 2017.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: The border has a length of of which is land border and is sea border. It extends from a point in the Black Sea south of the Kerch Strait, where the first contact the territorial waters of both states, is to the north of this strait, passing it is on the Sea of Azov to the point on the coast which goes to the land border and so on to the tripoint with Belarus to the north. The Russia–Ukraine border has the biggest number of border checkpoints in Ukraine.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: A treaty on the demarcation of the common border between the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia was signed on 17 May 2010 and came into force on 29 July of the same year. At that time, Ukraine intended to start work on the demarcation of the border upon ratification of the agreement by the respective governments, but ratification was not completed. However 16 June 2014 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine ordered the government to carry out a one-side demarcation of the border "in terms of existing threats to national security"; amidst the worst fighting of the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since May 2015, Ukraine is building a fortified border barrier on the Russia–Ukraine border, popularly known as the "Yatseniuk's Wall". The project aims to prevent Russian military and hybrid warfare intervention in Ukraine.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: As of May 2015, a walled defense system was under construction along the Russian border in Kharkiv Oblast. The project was planned to be finished in 2018. In June 2020 the State Border Guard of Ukraine expected that the project would be finished by 2025. However, the construction was stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Since 16 March 2015, the Russia-Ukraine local border traffic agreement was unilaterally terminated by Ukraine citing national security.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: On 24 March 2015, the Ukrainian side informed that Russia temporarily froze the local border traffic within the territory of Kharkiv, Sumy and Luhansk regions of Ukraine adjacent to Belgorod and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation. Local BCPs “Zhuravlivka” and “Oleksandrivka” (Kharkiv region) were the exceptions.


title: Russia–Ukraine border

text: Simplified local border crossing was allowed for the 2015 Easter holidays in Stanichno-Lugansk, Melovskoy, Troitsky, Novopskovsky and Belovodsky districts of the Luhansk Oblast.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: The Glass Castle is a 2017 American biographical drama film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Cretton, Andrew Lanham, and Marti Noxon. It is based on Jeannette Walls' 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name. Depicting Walls' childhood, where her family lived in poverty and sometimes as squatters, the film stars Brie Larson as Walls, with Naomi Watts, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, and Sarah Snook in supporting roles.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: "The Glass Castle" was released on August 11, 2017, by Lionsgate and received mixed reviews from critics. They praised the performances of its cast, particularly Larson, but criticized the emotional tones and adaptation. The film grossed $22 million in North America.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: As a child, Jeannette Walls lives a nomadic life with her painter mother Rose, her intelligent but irresponsible father Rex, older sister Lori, and younger brother Brian. While cooking unsupervised, Jeannette is severely burned. At the hospital, a doctor and social worker question her home life, but Rex distracts the staff and escapes with Jeannette. The family leaves town, and Jeannette is enchanted by Rex’s plans for the family’s dream house, a glass castle.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: The family soon includes Jeannette’s infant sister Maureen, and remains on the move for years, eventually relocating to a dilapidated house in Utah. Jeannette nearly drowns when a drunk Rex aggressively teaches her to swim. He assaults the lifeguard, forcing the family – now pursued by the law and with no money – to go to Welch, West Virginia, where the children meet their grandparents and uncle Stanley. Rex moves his family into a ramshackle house in the wilderness, living without running water, gas, or electricity. When the family has not eaten in days, Rex takes their remaining money to buy food, but returns home drunk after a fight. Sewing up his wound, Jeannette asks him to stop drinking, and Rex ties himself to his bed, successfully enduring withdrawal. He lands a job as a construction worker and the family enjoys a comfortable Christmas.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: The parents attend the funeral of Rose’s mother in Texas, leaving the children with their grandparents in Welch. The sisters discover Erma sexually assaulting Brian and attack her, but are pulled away by Stanley. When their parents return, Rex refuses to listen to his children about the incident. The family returns home and he resumes drinking, leading to a violent altercation with Rose. Jeannette is unable to convince her mother to leave Rex, and the siblings promise to care for each other and escape their poverty.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: As a teenager, Jeannette is drawn to journalism. The siblings have now saved enough money for Lori to leave for New York City, infuriating Rex; Jeannette prepares to do the same. Erma dies, and after the funeral, Jeannette is pulled into her father’s scheme to hustle his acquaintance Robbie at pool. He loses to Rex and unwittingly reveals Jeannette’s plan to move to New York City. She accompanies Robbie upstairs and he attempts to rape her, but she shows her scars from her childhood burns and leaves. At home, she discovers her father has stolen her savings, but escapes from home anyway. Attending college in New York City, Jeannette faces financial difficulties and prepares to drop out, but Rex arrives with a pile of gambling winnings, telling her to follow her dreams.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: By 1989, Jeannette is a gossip columnist for "New York" magazine and engaged to marry David, a financial analyst. At dinner with a client of David’s, Jeannette lies about her parents. On the way home, she sees her now-homeless parents dumpster diving. She later meets with her mother, who is dismissive of her engagement. Jeannette and David visit her family at the abandoned building where her parents are squatting. Brian, now a police officer, and Lori live comfortably, but Maureen has moved in with their parents. Rex and David drunkenly arm wrestle and David wins, but Rex punches him in the nose anyway. Returning home, David tells Jeannette that he wants nothing more to do with her parents.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: Maureen calls Jeannette to explain that she is moving to California. At her engagement party, Jeannette discovers that her parents have owned valuable land – now worth almost $1 million – since she was a child, but chose never to sell. Furious at Rex’s refusal to admit to the pain he caused his family, Jeannette bans him from her life. Some time later, Jeannette is unhappily married to David. Rose reaches out to tell her Rex is dying, but Jeannette refuses to see him. At dinner with another of David’s clients, Jeannette finds the courage to reveal the truth about her parents. She races to her father, and they reconcile before he dies. The following Thanksgiving, Jeannette – now a freelance writer living alone – celebrates with her family, reminiscing about Rex’s unconventional life.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: In April 2012, Lionsgate was reported to have acquired the rights to the book and Jennifer Lawrence was in talks to star in the film. In October 2013, it was noted that director Destin Daniel Cretton was in talks to direct the film and re-write the screenplay with Andrew Lanham from a previous draft by Marti Noxon. In October 2015, Brie Larson joined the cast of the film, replacing Lawrence; she had exited the film after a prolonged search for a male lead. In November 2015, Woody Harrelson joined the cast of the film as the father. In March 2016, Naomi Watts joined the cast as the mother. In April 2016, Max Greenfield and Sarah Snook joined the cast. In May 2016, Ella Anderson joined the cast.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: In North America, "The Glass Castle" was released alongside "" and "", and was projected to gross around $5 million from 1,461 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.7 million on its first day and $4.7 million over the weekend, finishing 9th at the box office. The film made $2.6 million in its second weekend (a drop of 45.5%), finishing 12th.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% based on 164 reviews, and an average rating of 6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Glass Castle" has an affecting real-life story and an outstanding performance by Brie Larson, but these aren't enough to outweigh a fundamentally misguided approach to the material." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Glass Castle (2017 film)

text: Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers said the film "peddles easy uplift instead of cold, hard truths" and gave it two stars out of four, saying, "Hollywood has a knack for sanitizing books that deserve better. In the case of "The Glass Castle", it's a damn shame." Richard Roeper of "Chicago Sun-Times" also gave the film two out of four stars and was equally critical for its presentation, writing: "...a film that presents overwhelming evidence of Rex and Rose Mary as appalling human beings for 90 percent of the journey, and then asks us to give them a break? No sale."


title: Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago)

text: The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named for Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 100-story structure, which reaches a height of including its spire, its roof topping out at . It is next to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. The building received publicity when the winner of the first season of "The Apprentice" reality television show, Bill Rancic, chose to manage the construction of the tower over managing a Rancho Palos Verdes based "Trump National Golf Course & Resort" in the Los Angeles metro area.


text: Trump announced in 2001 that the skyscraper would become the tallest building in the world, but after the September 11 attacks that same year, the architects scaled back the building's plans, and its design underwent several revisions. When topped out in 2009, it became the seventh-tallest building in the U.S. It surpassed the city's John Hancock Center as the building with the highest residence (apartment or condo) in the world, and briefly held this title until the completion of the Burj Khalifa.


text: The design of the building includes, from the ground up, retail space, a parking garage, a hotel and condominiums. The 339-room hotel opened for business with limited accommodations and services on January 30, 2009, then full accommodation and services on April 28. The building topped out in late 2008 and construction was completed in 2009. Sixteen was one of five restaurants in Chicago with at least a Michelin Guide two-star rating in 2016 and one of three five-star Forbes-rated restaurants in the city until it closed in 2018. The spa is one of six with at least a four-star Forbes rating in the Chicago area in 2015.


text: The tower sits at 401 North Wabash Avenue in the River North Gallery District, part of the Near North Side community area of Chicago. The building occupies the site vacated by the "Chicago Sun-Times", one of the city's two major newspapers, and its location within the River North Gallery District places it in a neighborhood that has had a high concentration of art galleries since the 1980s. The site, at the foot of Rush Street, is on the north side of the Chicago River just west of the Wrigley Building and the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and just east of Marina City and 330 North Wabash. The building is close to numerous Chicago landmarks; it borders the Michigan-Wacker District, which is a Registered Historic District. Parts of the building are visible throughout the city, and the entire length of the building is visible from boats on the river, as well as from locations to the east along the river, such as the mouth of Lake Michigan, the Lake Shore Drive Overpass, and the Columbus Drive Bridge.


text: The building is across the Chicago River from the Chicago Loop, the city's business district. It is a block away from the southern end of the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue. The restaurant, Terrace 16, has a clear view of the Chicago River's entrance to Lake Michigan and of the four buildings completed in the 1920s that flank the Michigan Avenue Bridge (Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower, 333 North Michigan, and 360 North Michigan).


text: The design of the building incorporates three setback features designed to provide visual continuity with the surrounding skyline, each reflecting the height of a nearby building. The first setback, on the east side of the building, aligns with the cornice line of the Wrigley Building to the east; the second, on the west side, aligns with River Plaza to the north and with the Marina City Towers to the west. The third setback, on the east side, relates to 330 North Wabash building (formerly known as IBM Plaza). However, some views distort the alignment of the second setback. The setbacks and rounded edges of the building combat vortex formation. The body of the building is raised above the main Wabash entrance and above the Chicago River. The building's Permasteelisa curtain wall uses clear low-emissivity coated glass and a curved wing-shaped polished stainless-steel mullion system that projects from the glass line. It incorporates brushed stainless steel spandrel panels and clear anodized aluminum. The structural design was performed in three stages as alternative architectural features were still being developed. All three structural design stages included a dynamic analysis to account for time-varying loads especially due to wind effects, and the irregular mass and stiffness of the tower along its height.


text: The building has of floor space, rises to 98 stories, and houses 486 luxury residential condominiums. These include studio apartments, a mixture of suites with one to four bedrooms, and five-bedroom penthouses. The tower also features a luxury hotel condominium with 339 guest rooms. The building includes, from the ground up, retail space, a parking garage, a hotel, and condominiums. The 3rd through 12th floors house lobbies, retail space, and the parking garage; the 14th floor and its mezzanine hosts a health club and spa. The 17th floor through the 27th-floor mezzanine contain hotel condominiums and executive lounges. The 28th through 85th floors have residential condominiums, and the 86th through 89th floors have penthouses. A riverfront park and riverwalk, along a space in the area adjacent to the building to the east, was opened in the first half of 2010. The park facilitates public assembly and entertainment activity while linking the building effectively with river commuters.


text: In 2011, the riverfront park landscaping surrounding the building, which is referred to as Trump Plaza and Riverwalk or sometimes just Trump Plaza, became the subject of controversy. In 2010, the Plaza had earned special recognition at the Mayor Richard M. Daley's Landscape Awards. The press release noted the landscaping "for their magnificent new civic landscape that is a poetic interpretation of native Illinois that seems at once sophisticated and familiar." However, in 2011, the award-winning plantings of small sumac trees, ferns and native grasses with yellow, orange and red hues were removed and replaced with evergreens like junipers and boxwoods, pieces of gray stone, and purple perennials (catmint and salvia), which may require less watering. To add to the controversy, the planting was accompanied by a plan to light the trees to attract nighttime park visitors, in conflict with the "dark skies" movement to reduce light pollution to facilitate better stargazing.


text: The building broke the record for the world's highest residence above ground level, held since 1969 by the nearby John Hancock Center. Because the Trump Tower has both hotel condominiums and residential condominiums, it does not contest the record held by the 88-story 432 Park Avenue in New York City, which, at , is the tallest residential building in the world.


text: The Trump International Hotel and Tower rises from the building's main entrance on Wabash Avenue to the tip of the architectural spire. Upon its completion in 2009, the building became the seventh-tallest building in the world, behind the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. On November 17, 2009, however, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which composes rankings of the tallest skyscrapers in the world based on various criteria, changed its standard for measuring a building's height. Prior to this change, a building's architectural height was calculated from the main entrance to the tip of the spire; new standards measured from the lowest open-air pedestrian level of a building. As the Trump International Hotel and Tower has a riverwalk entrance and pedestrian level below the building's Wabash Avenue entrance, the skyscraper's official height was recalculated as without a physical addition to the structure. According to the CTBUH, the recalculated height also made the tower the sixth-tallest building in the world, surpassing the Jin Mao Tower by . In January 2010, the building moved back to its position as seventh-tallest with the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.


text: According to Trump, he received approval for a sign from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration in 2009, but renegotiated with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration. In October 2013, Trump received approval to erect stainless steel letters back-lit with white LED lighting spelling out TRUMP on the 16th floor of the building. He made his impending plans for the sign public in February 2014. According to a city planning department spokesperson, standard protocol for such a sign is to require approval from the local alderman (Brendan Reilly, 42nd ward) and the full Chicago City Council. The five letters span a width of approximately , making the final approved version approximately , according to some sourcesrather than the originally proposed size. The sign is about above ground level.


text: Crews began hanging the sign in May 2014. When "Chicago Tribune" architecture critic Kamin warned Trump that his review of the sign would be unfavorable, Trump responded "As time passes, it'll be like the Hollywood Sign"; architect Smith distanced himself from the sign saying "Just for the record, I had nothing to do with this sign!" The controversy surrounding the sign drew attention in the national press and international press as it neared completion and the Associated Press ran a story about Mayor Emanuel's disapproval in mid-June. According to the Mayor's spokeswoman Kelley Quinn, "Mayor Emanuel believes this is an architecturally tasteful building scarred by an architecturally tasteless sign". Kamin has noted that part of the problem is the architectural traditions of the city: "If this sign was in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, nobody would care—but it is in Chicago, and in a part of Chicago full of great buildings from the 1920s to the 1960s and onward". Trump and Reilly both pointed out how unbecoming the prior "Chicago Sun-Times" building signage was. As a result of the fiasco, Emanuel initiated a study on how to alter the rules to avert similar signage controversies in the future. A Chicago-based design firm planned to create and float four giant pig balloons in front of the sign as a protest, but were unsuccessful getting US Coast Guard and Chicago Department of Transportation approvals.


text: In the wake of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol that left one dead, city alderman Gilbert Villegas proposed a new ordinance that would prevent any renewal of sign permits to persons convicted of "treason, sedition or subversive activities", specifically targeting the sign.


text: According to the "2010 City Guide: Chicago" edition of the "Forbes Travel Guide", the building hosts one of the seven four-star restaurants in the city and one of the three four-star spas. The hotel is one of two four star hotels. In 2010, Chicago had two five-star hotels and two five-star restaurants. By the time of the "Forbes Travel Guide": 2013 City Guide, the hotel and restaurant were each among only three five-star ratings in the city. It retained this ranking in the 2015 Forbes Guide (along with hotels The Peninsula and Four Seasons and with restaurants Alinea and Grace). The spa was among 6 four- or five-star Forbes-rated spas in the Chicago area in 2015.


text: The restaurant was promoted to two-star rating by the Michelin Guide for 2014 and retained that rating in 2015. It was one of 5 Chicago restaurants to achieve at least a two-star Michelin rating in both years. In 2016, it again retained its two-star rating as one of five restaurants in the city with such a rating.


text: The original plan was to have a partial opening of three of the hotel's floors on December 3, 2007, with a grand opening to follow. The interim ceremony, however, was delayed until January 30, 2008, while the City of Chicago granted occupancy approval for the staff of the hotel in the first 27 floors. Four floors of guest rooms were opened, comprising 125 of the planned 339 rooms. By January 30, construction on the exterior of the building had passed the 53rd floor. The grand opening of the hotel, including amenities, originally scheduled for March 17, 2008, took place on April 28, 2008. Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Chicago Tribune" architecture critic Blair Kamin faults the zebrawood paneling in the hotel lobby, but another "Tribune" reporter praises the hotel for its "understated, contemporary look, distinguished by stunning views".


text: On the 16th floor, a restaurant named Sixteen opened in early February 2008, and an outdoor patio terrace, named The Terrace at Trump, opened on June 25, 2009 following the completion of construction. The restaurant opened to favorable reviews for its cuisine, decor, location, architecture, and view. Sixteen, which was designed by Joe Valerio, is described architecturally as a sequence of spaces that do not reveal themselves at once, but rather in "procession". The restaurant's foyer is T-shaped, and a passageway to the hotel is lined with floor-to-ceiling architectural bronze wine racks in opposing red and white wine rooms. The passageway leads to views—praised by Kamin—that showcase the Wrigley Building clock tower and the Tribune Tower's flying buttresses. Kamin notes that these views are "more intimate" than the panoramic ones of the Signature Room, a restaurant near the top of the Hancock Center. The views are described as equally impressive by day and by night. The main part of the procession is the Tower Room, a dining room with a dome-shaped ceiling made of West African wood. The dome is furnished with Swarovski chandeliers and incorporates mirrors so that all diners can experience the view.


text: The Terrace, which opened on June 25, 2009, has views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan as well as Navy Pier's seasonal Wednesday and Saturday evening fireworks, and was designed for outdoor or "al fresco" dining.


text: On June 5, 2018, it was announced that Terrace 16 Restaurant & Bar would replace Sixteen. The newly themed dining space was expected to debut during the summer of 2018.


text: The spa, named The Spa at Trump, opened in late March 2008. The spa offers gemstone-infused (diamond, ruby, or sapphire) oil massages, hydrating masques, exfoliating salts and the "Deluge shower". The spa features a health club with an indoor pool, eleven treatment rooms, a private couples treatment suite, Swiss shower, and saunas. The Citysearch editorial review described this as the "Bentley of hotel spas". A "Chicago Tribune" critic spoke of the spa in positive terms for both the treatment and the physical spa itself. The Spa at Trump can be accessed from a large circular staircase inside the hotel, enabling its customers to access the facility from specially designed spa guest rooms without using the elevator.


text: In July 2001, when Donald Trump announced plans for the site of the former seven-story Sun-Times Building, the tower was expected to reach a height of , which would have made it the world's tallest building. It was expected to contain between of floor space and cost about $77 million just for the property rights. Three architectural firms were considered: Lohan Associates, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; Trump selected Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in August 2001. Adrian Smith, who had previously designed the Jin Mao Tower, headed the SOM team, giving Chicago a third skyscraper from the same firm which had previously designed the Willis Tower and the Hancock Center.


text: After the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, Trump reduced the planned height to 78 stories and , to reduce the risk of similar attacks. "Time" magazine reported that a meeting between Smith and Trump about erecting the tallest building in Chicago was taking place at the actual time of the attacks. Some international news sources later claimed that the planned tower height was reduced to after the original plans called for a 150-story building that would reach . These claims are supported by computer renderings from 1999 of the proposed skyscraper, shown in the "Chicago Tribune" in 2005.


text: The building's design was first released in December 2001. However, the first design did not meet with approval from other architects, or from the residents of Chicago. A subsequent revision in July 2002 resulted in an 86-floor design for use as an office and residential structure, similar to the 2006 design which is, however, for a different combination of uses. Smith's 2002 plans put broadcast antennas (multiple communications dishes) at the top of the building. A revised 90-story, plan was unveiled in September 2003 for a building including condominiums, office space, a "condominium hotel", retail stores, and restaurants. In January 2004, another revision changed floors 17 through 26 from offices into condominiums and hotel rooms. In his May 2004 plan, Smith decided to top the building with an ornamental spire instead of communications dishes. These dishes, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, would not have counted toward the building's height. The spire, however, will count, raising the tower's height to . At one point in 2005, Trump aspired to build a slightly taller building that would surpass the Sears Tower as the nation's tallest building, but Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was against the plan. Eventually, Smith settled on a design with a height of , which was the height of 2 World Trade Center, the shorter of the former twin World Trade Center towers. This height makes the Tower the third tallest in the United States after One World Trade Center and the Willis Tower.


text: On October 16, 2004, Donald Trump and Hollinger International, the parent company of the "Chicago Sun-Times", completed the $73 million sale of the former home of the newspaper a week after it relocated. On October 28, 2004, Trump held a ceremony to begin the demolition of the former Sun-Times Building. The demolition and construction were financed by a $650 million loan from Deutsche Bank and a trio of hedge funds, one of which George Soros backed.


text: In March 2005, the construction process began with the sinking of the first caisson for the tower into the bedrock. In April, construction began on the foundation below the Chicago River. In July 2005, water from the river began seeping into the building site, through crevices in a corner where the foundation wall meets the Wabash Avenue Bridge. Divers discovered that the leak could not be sealed from the water side. After several other failed attempts to correct the problem, they drove a steel plate next to the gap and filled the space between with concrete after digging it out.


text: Within a single 24-hour period in October 2005, a fleet of 30 concrete trucks made 600 trips to pour of concrete, and thus create a 200-by-66-by-10-foot (61.0 m × 20.1 m × 3.0 m) concrete "mat". The mat serves as the base of the building, from which its spine rises. Those involved with the construction referred to the day as the "Big Pour". James McHugh Construction Co. was contracted for the concrete work on this job. They obtained the concrete from the Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street distribution site of Prairie Material Sales Inc of Bridgeview, Illinois, the former largest privately owned ready-mix concrete company in the United States. Prairie used a formula of concrete that had never been used in the construction business to meet a specification, which exceeded the standard for conventional concrete.


text: In October 2006, controversy erupted over a street kiosk at the foot of the Magnificent Mile in front of the Wrigley Building at 410 North Michigan Avenue that advertised Trump Tower a full block away. Extensive debate and publicity occurred on the issue of whether such advertising should have been allowed. Two distinct pieces of legislation in 2002 and 2003 by the Chicago City Council had authorized the kiosk, but sidewalk billboards were not common in Chicago at the time, and their desirability was questioned. Although there were demands from citizens' organizations and the local Alderman Burton Natarus (who had voted in favor of the legislation) to remove the kiosk, Trump agreed only to remove pricing information from the signage, after a request to remove all advertising from it. Originally, one side displayed the geographical information and the other side functioned as a billboard.


text: In a separate legal development, Donald Trump was sued by former "Chicago Sun-Times" publisher F. David Radler and his daughters in February 2008 for rescinding all "friends and family" condominium purchases, including Radler's. As president of the "Sun-Times" holding company, Radler had negotiated the sale of the paper's headquarters building to Trump's consortium. The price of Radler's condo had been discounted by 10%, and only a 5% deposit was required instead of the standard 15%. Radler and family were part of a group of 40 insiders who were able to purchase property at about . When the market value of the property eventually rose to over , Trump nullified the "friends and family" sales. The insiders were involved in the planning and designing of the building. In January 2007, Trump cited both a clause about "matters beyond [the] seller's reasonable control" and the desire to "have more income to handle potentially higher construction costs". Despite Trump's concerns about higher construction costs, earlier in the same month, Ivanka Trump, his daughter, an executive of the company, had stated that the construction was $50 million under budget. In addition to the Radler suit over the validity of the "friends and family" discount contracts, a group of four owners sued over revisions to the closing terms, which placed limits on the owner occupancy of condo hotel units and excluded the meeting rooms and ballrooms from the common elements of which the owners have an interest.


text: In an additional legal issue, on February 8, 2005, Trump had closed on a construction loan of $640 million from Deutsche Bank for the project. He also obtained a $130–135 million junior mezzanine loan from another syndicate headed by Fortress Investment Group. As part of these contracts, Trump had included a $40 million personal guarantee. The contracts also mandated partial repayments for each closed unit sale, and minimum sale prices. In September 2008, due to slow unit sales, Trump sought to extend both loans until mid-2009 because he felt that it was necessary in the business environment and expected from the outset of the contract. On November 10, Deutsche Bank demanded the outstanding loan payment and the $40 million guarantee. Trump filed suit later that month against Deutsche Bank in New York State Supreme Court in an effort to excuse a repayment of more than $330 million that had been due November 7, and to extend the construction loan for an unspecified period of time because of extenuating circumstances arising from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. Trump cited a "force majeure" clause that allowed the borrower to delay completion of the project under a catch-all section covering "any other event or circumstance not within the reasonable control of the borrower". Trump not only sought an extension, but sought damages of $3 billion from the bank for its use of predatory lending practices to undermine the project and damage his reputation, which he claimed "is associated worldwide with on-time, under-budget, first-class construction projects and first-class luxury hotel operations." At the end of November, Deutsche Bank countersued Trump to force him to uphold his personal payment guarantee from February 2005, after he failed to repay the amount due November 7—a date that already had been extended. The suits did not interfere with Trump's ability to continue drawing on the credit line provided by Deutsche Bank, because without the project's continued financing, Deutsche Bank may have had to assume the role of developer. In March 2009, both parties agreed to suspend litigation and resolve the disagreement amicably in an effort to help the project to succeed. In September 2010, an amended loan agreement stopped the litigation and extended the term on an approximately $600 million construction loan for five years.


text: Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"'s season-one winner in 2004, was originally hired to manage the project for a $250,000 salary. Rancic's title was President of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, but the title was somewhat misleading, because he was in fact learning on the job as an "Apprentice." Rancic's contract was renewed after his first year, but in September 2005, it appeared that his employment with Trump would finish at the end of his second year in April 2006. During 2005, Donald Trump, Jr., who had been involved in the building since its earliest stages in 1999, was overseeing the construction with weekly visits, while Rancic worked on sales and marketing. In December 2005, Rancic made it clear that he wanted to continue working for Trump, and in April 2006, his contract was renewed for a third year. In that year Donald Trump's children began to assume prominent public roles as in the Trump Organization; by January 2007, all three adult Trump children (Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump) were executives in the acquisitions and development division of the organization. By the time the Chicago Trump Tower's hotel opened in the building in January 2008, Donald Trump and his three adult children were in the spotlight, overseeing the construction.


text: Bovis Lend Lease, noted for work on Disneyland Paris, Petronas Towers, and the Time Warner Center, was the construction company. James McHugh Construction Co, the concrete subcontractor, implemented a comprehensive formwork for the construction of the building. At the completion of construction the building was the tallest formwork structure in the world, and follows in the footsteps of its neighbor, Marina City, as well as Chicago's Two Prudential Plaza, as past recordholders. Concrete moulding was used, because using a traditional ironwork structure would have required a building footprint that would have been too big for the property size, proportional to the height of the designed building. A steel frame would have had to be wider to have supported a building of this proportion. Concrete will counteract the force of wind with the force of gravity of the building. A new chemical process that leveraged more fluid liquid concrete facilitated pumping concrete up several hundred feet to the elevating construction site. Although previous technology limited formwork to , this technology permitted the pumping of concrete high.