title: Faith (George Michael album)

text: The 2011 re-release received universal acclaim from music critics according to Metacritic. A remastered edition of "Faith" was released on 31 January 2011 in the UK and on 1 February 2011 in the US. It is available in several formats: "Limited Edition Collectors Box Set", "Two-CD and DVD Special Edition", "Two-CD Edition" and "iTunes LP". The box set release features: the remastered album on CD, an additional CD of remastered 12" versions and B-sides; a DVD featuring a TV special from 1987, a hardbound book that includes an exclusive interview with George Michael, sleeve notes, rare photos and memorabilia; a vinyl album replica of the original LP; and a memorabilia envelope that includes five art prints, reproduction poster, tickets and tour pass from the "Faith" tour sourced from Michael's personal archive. All this is housed in a 12 x 12 numbered, black and gold-foiled slipcase with original artwork overlay. The first 2,000 copies were also provided with a hand-numbered lithograph attached (taped) outside the box set.


title: Faith (George Michael album)

text: All tracks are written and produced by George Michael; "Look at Your Hands" co-written by David Austin.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Keiko (earlier Siggi and Kago; 24 September 1976 – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979. He portrayed Willy in the 1993 film "Free Willy". In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of preparing Keiko for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Keiko was captured near Reyðarfjörður, Iceland in 1979 at the approximate age of two and sold to the Icelandic Aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. At the time, he was named Siggi, with the name Kago given at a later date.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: In 1982, he was sold to Marineland in Ontario, Canada. At this new facility, he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health and was also bullied by older orcas.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: At Reino Aventura, he was given the name "Keiko", a feminine Japanese name that means "lucky one". At the time, he was only 10 feet long and was housed in a tank intended for bottlenose dolphins.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Keiko became the star of the film "Free Willy" in 1993. The publicity from his role led to an effort by Warner Bros. to find him a better home. The pool for the now 21-foot-long orca was only 22 feet deep, 65 feet wide and 114 feet long. He was housed with bottlenose dolphins, but no others of his own species.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Keiko was underweight for his size, and the water temperature was often too warm, which contributed to various skin problems. Due to a papillomavirus infection, Keiko experienced skin outbreaks, first observed while he was housed in Ontario, Canada prior to his transfer to Mexico City, which complicated both his candidacy for relocation and for eventual release into the wild.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Outcry for Keiko's liberation arose from the film's credits containing a phone number for whale preservation that received hundreds of thousands of call-ins. Warner Brothers and Craig McCaw approached the International Marine Mammal Project for help, which established the "Free Willy-Keiko Foundation" in February 1995. With donations from the foundation and millions of school children, the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon was given over $7 million to construct facilities to return him to health with the hope of eventually returning him to the wild. Reino Aventura donated Keiko to the Foundation. Before he left the amusement park in Mexico City, Keiko performed for the public for the last time, and was seen off by thousands of children, with more onlookers watching his overnight journey to the Mexico City International Airport. At the time he weighed about 7,700 pounds (3493 kg). A C-130 cargo plane donated by United Parcel Service (UPS) hauled Keiko to Newport, Oregon on January 8, 1996.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: On arrival in Oregon, Keiko was housed in a new () concrete enclosure containing seawater. His weight had increased significantly by June 1997, to 9,620 pounds (4364 kg).


title: Keiko (orca)

text: The plan to return him to the wild was a topic of much controversy. Some felt his years of captivity made such a return impossible. Researchers in a scientific study later said attempts to return him to the wild were unsuccessful, but that monitoring him with radio and satellite tags was part of "a contingency plan for return to human care," which secured "the long-term well-being of the animal." Others considered his release misguided. The Norwegian pro-whaling politician Steinar Bastesen made international news for his statement that Keiko should instead be killed and the meat sent to Africa as foreign aid.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Nevertheless, the process of preparing Keiko for the wild began on 9 September 1998, when he was flown to Klettsvík, a bay on the island of Heimaey in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. UPS again participated in transport, this time by providing ground transportation to the nearby Newport Municipal Airport. Keiko was transported in a specialized 30-foot-long container filled with enough saltwater to cover him and cooled with ice cubes. He was then transported by air in a C-17 Globemaster airplane loaned by the U.S. Air Force. Upon landing at Vestmannaeyjar Airport, the C-17 Globemaster aircraft suffered a landing gear failure causing over $1 million in damage, though Keiko was unharmed.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: His day-to-day care became the responsibility of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation with management assistance from the Ocean Futures Society. He was initially housed in a pen in the Klettsvik Bay where he underwent training designed to prepare him for his eventual release, including supervised swims in the open ocean.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Ocean Futures left the Keiko project in late 2001. The Free Willy-Keiko Foundation and The Humane Society of the United States re-established management of the project at that time until Keiko's death in 2003. Keiko was fully free by the summer of 2002 and departed Icelandic waters in early August following some orcas but not integrated with the pod. His journey was tracked via the signal from a VHF tag attached to the dorsal fin. About a month later, he arrived in Norway's Skålvik Fjord, apparently seeking contact with human beings and allowing children to ride on his back. His caretakers relocated to Norway and continued to conduct boat-follows with Keiko for the next 15 months. On the basis of girth measurements and blood tests, it was assumed that Keiko had fed during his 900-mile (1500 km) journey from Iceland to Norway. Keiko occasionally approached groups of wild orcas, but remained on the periphery, at distances of 100–300 meters (109 to 328 yards), with his head pointing toward the closest orca.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Keiko died in Taknes Bay, Skålvikfjord, Norway, while swimming in the fjords on 12 December 2003, at the age of 27. Pneumonia was determined as his probable cause of death.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Most sources conclude that the project to free Keiko was a failure because the orca failed to adapt to life in the wild. In Norway, Keiko had little contact with other orcas and was not fishing; for months before his death, the whale was being fed daily. A report in "The Guardian" describes the freed orca's life in Taknes Bay as follows: "... until his death Keiko was, rather than frolicking freely in his fjord, being taken for 'walks' by caretakers in a small boat at least three times a week. ... It took more than 60 failed attempts to reunite Keiko with free orcas before he followed a group where, spotting a fishing vessel off the Norwegian coast, he followed it into the fjords that would prove his final resting place."


title: Keiko (orca)

text: According to an article in New Scientist, "He was seen diving among the wild orcas only once, on 30 July 2002. And after physical contact at the surface, Keiko swam away, seeking out human company on the tracking boat". A scientific study published in the journal "Marine Mammal Science" (July 2009) confirms that he was seen on the periphery of some wild groups but was never seen to be socially integrated with such whales. In summary, "He never integrated into a wild pod ... and could not break his need for human contact." His return to humans for food and for company confirms the failure of the project according to the same scientific study.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: Reasons cited for Keiko's failure to adapt include his early age at capture, the long history of captivity, prolonged lack of contact with conspecifics and strong bonds with humans.


title: Keiko (orca)

text: In spite of those comments, David Phillips, executive director of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, praised the release project: "We took the hardest candidate and took him from near death in Mexico to swimming with wild whales in Norway". "Keiko had five years with the sights and sounds of natural seawater. I think it was a great success in terms of Keiko, his well-being, and the whole world that wanted to do the right thing." Others also claim that the release was a success, and "The Huffington Post" called it a "phenomenal success ... giving him years of health and freedom".


title: Keiko (orca)

text: The total cost of freeing Keiko was about US$20 million. The lead author of the study published by "Marine Mammal Science" said: "You can't just let these animals out into the wild. You have to take the responsibility, and that might cost a lot of money. The fortune spent on Keiko might have been better invested in conservation programs to protect whales and their habitat ... But that's not as appealing as the adventures of a single whale".


title: Keiko (orca)

text: An alternative to freeing orcas after long-term captivity, is the use of a "sanctuary" or "oceanic enclosure" (sea pen), according to Lori Marino of the Whale Sanctuary Project. "They can’t be released, but their quality of life can be improved by orders of magnitude", Marino said in a 2016 interview where she agreed that the cost would be high ($15 to $20 million). "It’s a solemn responsibility, and it’s the best we can do for animals that are in captivity."


title: Keiko (orca)

text: In 2010 the film "" was released. In 2013 a "New York Times" video, "The Whale Who Would Not Be Freed", included interviews about Keiko's return to the ocean.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Beverley Bevan (born 25 November 1944) is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). After the end of ELO in 1986, he founded ELO Part II.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan also was drummer for Black Sabbath during the Born Again Tour, and later played percussion on "The Eternal Idol" album in 1987. Bevan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 as a member of Electric Light Orchestra.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan was born in South Yardley, Birmingham, England. After attending Moseley Grammar School, where he gained two O level passes, he worked as a trainee buyer in a city centre department store called The Beehive with school friend Jasper Carrott (Robert Davis).


title: Bev Bevan

text: His professional music career started with a stint with Denny Laine in his group Denny Laine and the Diplomats, then with Carl Wayne & the Vikings, followed by The Move in 1966. The Electric Light Orchestra released their first album in 1971, by which time The Move existed only as a recording outfit. They released their final single, "California Man" in 1972.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan has a deep singing voice. With The Move he sang lead on a remake of "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" and the country and western spoof, "Ben Crawley Steel Co". He composed one Move song: "Don't Mess Me Up", an Elvis Presley spoof from the album "Message from the Country" that was also the B-side of The Move's single "Tonight". He is also, incorrectly, credited with writing the rock-blues "Turkish Tram Conductor Blues" on "Looking On"; Roy Wood actually composed the song.


title: Bev Bevan

text: On ELO records his voice can be heard most prominently on "Fire On High" and "Strange Magic", both from 1975's "Face the Music".


title: Bev Bevan

text: He recorded a solo single in 1976, a cover of the Sandy Nelson instrumental, "Let There Be Drums". Bevan played on all Electric Light Orchestra and ELO Part II albums up to 1999. In 1980 he published a historical memoir of the Electric Light Orchestra.


title: Bev Bevan

text: In 1983, he replaced Bill Ward in Black Sabbath for the Born Again Tour. Bevan was known for his heavy powerhouse drumming during this tour. He also appeared in Sabbath's videos "Trashed" and "Zero the Hero". A headlining appearance at the 1983 Reading Festival – extracts of which appear on a reissue of "Born Again" – was only Bevan's second gig with the band. "It was just all over the shop," recalled guitarist Tony Iommi. "Bev didn't know [the songs] at all. He did try. As we went on the tour, he did get a lot better… We went to America and he done good. That particular stage, doing the Reading Festival, was a definite wrong for us." Bevan rejoined Black Sabbath briefly in 1987, recording percussion overdubs for album The Eternal Idol, but was replaced by Terry Chimes after refusing to play shows in South Africa, at the time under apartheid rule.


title: Bev Bevan

text: After the death of Carl Wayne in 2004, the drummer formed Bev Bevan's Move with Phil Tree and former ELO Part II colleagues Phil Bates and Neil Lockwood, to play a set comprising mostly The Move classics on tour. Bates left in July 2007 to re-join ELO Part II, by then renamed to The Orchestra. Bevan was then joined by former Move guitarist Trevor Burton.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan appeared on Paul Weller's 2010 album "Wake Up The Nation" and played drums on two songs: "Moonshine" and "Wake Up The Nation". Weller told him that he was his second choice; his first choice would have been Keith Moon.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan currently presents a radio show on BBC Radio West Midlands on Sunday afternoons. He also reviews records for the Midlands' "Sunday Mercury" and has a blog on their website. It was announced at the Best of Broad Street Awards on 17 January 2011 that Bevan would be honoured with a star on the Birmingham Walk of Stars.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan is also a patron of The Dorridge Music School (Knowle). In 2012, Bevan narrated the audiobook version of Tony Iommi's biography "Iron Man – My Journey Through Heaven and Hell". Bevan's 2014 calendar contained no fewer than 102 gigs in 11 months, some of which formed the final gigs for The Move, before Bevan and Burton went their separate ways again.


title: Bev Bevan

text: As of 2022, The Bev Bevan Band has played gigs with Bev's former school mate Jasper Carrott under the name Stand up and Rock since 2017.


title: Bev Bevan

text: Bevan's first marriage was to Valerie Taylor. Their son, Adrian, was born in 1981. On 1st September 2022, Bev married Joy Brain (nee Strachan), his bandmate in Quill.


title: Code

text: In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication channel or storage in a storage medium. An early example is an invention of language, which enabled a person, through speech, to communicate what they thought, saw, heard, or felt to others. But speech limits the range of communication to the distance a voice can carry and limits the audience to those present when the speech is uttered. The invention of writing, which converted spoken language into visual symbols, extended the range of communication across space and time.


title: Code

text: The process of encoding converts information from a source into symbols for communication or storage. Decoding is the reverse process, converting code symbols back into a form that the recipient understands, such as English or/and Spanish.


title: Code

text: One reason for coding is to enable communication in places where ordinary plain language, spoken or written, is difficult or impossible. For example, semaphore, where the configuration of flags held by a signaler or the arms of a semaphore tower encodes parts of the message, typically individual letters, and numbers. Another person standing a great distance away can interpret the flags and reproduce the words sent.


title: Code

text: In information theory and computer science, a code is usually considered as an algorithm that uniquely represents symbols from some source alphabet, by "encoded" strings, which may be in some other target alphabet. An extension of the code for representing sequences of symbols over the source alphabet is obtained by concatenating the encoded strings.


title: Code

text: is a code, whose source alphabet is the set formula_2 and whose target alphabet is the set formula_3. Using the extension of the code, the encoded string 0011001 can be grouped into codewords as 0 011 0 01, and these in turn can be decoded to the sequence of source symbols "acab".


title: Code

text: Using terms from formal language theory, the precise mathematical definition of this concept is as follows: let S and T be two finite sets, called the source and target alphabets, respectively. A code formula_4 is a total function mapping each symbol from S to a sequence of symbols over T. The extension formula_5 of formula_6, is a homomorphism of formula_7 into formula_8, which naturally maps each sequence of source symbols to a sequence of target symbols.


title: Code

text: In this section, we consider codes that encode each source (clear text) character by a code word from some dictionary, and concatenation of such code words give us an encoded string. Variable-length codes are especially useful when clear text characters have different probabilities; see also entropy encoding.


title: Code

text: A "prefix code" is a code with the "prefix property": there is no valid code word in the system that is a prefix (start) of any other valid code word in the set. Huffman coding is the most known algorithm for deriving prefix codes. Prefix codes are widely referred to as "Huffman codes" even when the code was not produced by a Huffman algorithm. Other examples of prefix codes are country calling codes, the country and publisher parts of ISBNs, and the Secondary Synchronization Codes used in the UMTS WCDMA 3G Wireless Standard.


title: Code

text: Kraft's inequality characterizes the sets of codeword lengths that are possible in a prefix code. Virtually any uniquely decodable one-to-many code, not necessarily a prefix one, must satisfy Kraft's inequality.


title: Code

text: Codes may also be used to represent data in a way more resistant to errors in transmission or storage. This so-called error-correcting code works by including carefully crafted redundancy with the stored (or transmitted) data. Examples include Hamming codes, Reed–Solomon, Reed–Muller, Walsh–Hadamard, Bose–Chaudhuri–Hochquenghem, Turbo, Golay, Goppa, low-density parity-check codes, and space–time codes.


title: Code

text: A cable code replaces words (e.g. "ship" or "invoice") with shorter words, allowing the same information to be sent with fewer characters, more quickly, and less expensively.


title: Code

text: Codes can be used for brevity. When telegraph messages were the state of the art in rapid long-distance communication, elaborate systems of commercial codes that encoded complete phrases into single mouths (commonly five-minute groups) were developed, so that telegraphers became conversant with such "words" as "BYOXO" ("Are you trying to weasel out of our deal?"), "LIOUY" ("Why do you not answer my question?"), "BMULD" ("You're a skunk!"), or "AYYLU" ("Not clearly coded, repeat more clearly."). Code words were chosen for various reasons: length, pronounceability, etc. Meanings were chosen to fit perceived needs: commercial negotiations, military terms for military codes, diplomatic terms for diplomatic codes, any and all of the preceding for espionage codes. Codebooks and codebook publishers proliferated, including one run as a front for the American Black Chamber run by Herbert Yardley between the First and Second World Wars. The purpose of most of these codes was to save on cable costs. The use of data coding for data compression predates the computer era; an early example is the telegraph Morse code where more-frequently used characters have shorter representations. Techniques such as Huffman coding are now used by computer-based algorithms to compress large data files into a more compact form for storage or transmission.


title: Code

text: Character encodings are representations of textual data. A given character encoding may be associated with a specific character set (the collection of characters which it can represent), though some character sets have multiple character encodings and vice versa. Character encodings may be broadly grouped according to the number of bytes required to represent a single character: there are single-byte encodings, multibyte (also called wide) encodings, and variable-width (also called variable-length) encodings. The earliest character encodings were single-byte, the best-known example of which is ASCII. ASCII remains in use today, for example in HTTP headers. However, single-byte encodings cannot model character sets with more than 256 characters. Scripts that require large character sets such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean must be represented with multibyte encodings. Early multibyte encodings were fixed-length, meaning that although each character was represented by more than one byte, all characters used the same number of bytes ("word length"), making them suitable for decoding with a lookup table. The final group, variable-width encodings, is a subset of multibyte encodings. These use more complex encoding and decoding logic to efficiently represent large character sets while keeping the representations of more commonly used characters shorter or maintaining backward compatibility properties. This group includes UTF-8, an encoding of the Unicode character set; UTF-8 is the most common encoding of text media on the Internet.


title: Code

text: Biological organisms contain genetic material that is used to control their function and development. This is DNA, which contains units named genes from which messenger RNA is derived. This in turn produces proteins through a genetic code in which a series of triplets (codons) of four possible nucleotides can be translated into one of twenty possible amino acids. A sequence of codons results in a corresponding sequence of amino acids that form a protein molecule; a type of codon called a stop codon signals the end of the sequence.


title: Code

text: In mathematics, a Gödel code was the basis for the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Here, the idea was to map mathematical notation to a natural number (using a Gödel numbering).


title: Code

text: There are codes using colors, like traffic lights, the color code employed to mark the nominal value of the electrical resistors or that of the trashcans devoted to specific types of garbage (paper, glass, organic, etc.).


title: Code

text: In marketing, coupon codes can be used for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product from a (usual internet) retailer.


title: Code

text: In military environments, specific sounds with the cornet are used for different uses: to mark some moments of the day, to command the infantry on the battlefield, etc.


title: Code

text: Communication systems for sensory impairments, such as sign language for deaf people and braille for blind people, are based on movement or tactile codes.


title: Code

text: In the history of cryptography, codes were once common for ensuring the confidentiality of communications, although ciphers are now used instead.


title: Code

text: Secret codes intended to obscure the real messages, ranging from serious (mainly espionage in military, diplomacy, business, etc.) to trivial (romance, games) can be any kind of imaginative encoding: flowers, game cards, clothes, fans, hats, melodies, birds, etc., in which the sole requirement is the pre-agreement on the meaning by both the sender and the receiver.


title: Code

text: Acronyms and abbreviations can be considered codes, and in a sense, all languages and writing systems are codes for human thought.


title: Code

text: International Air Transport Association airport codes are three-letter codes used to designate airports and used for bag tags. Station codes are similarly used on railways but are usually national, so the same code can be used for different stations if they are in different countries.


title: Code

text: Occasionally, a code word achieves an independent existence (and meaning) while the original equivalent phrase is forgotten or at least no longer has the precise meaning attributed to the code word. For example, '30' was widely used in journalism to mean "end of story", and has been used in other contexts to signify "the end".


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel is an island and city in Lee County, Florida, United States. The population was 6,382 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The island, also known as Sanibel Island, constitutes the entire city. It is a barrier island—a collection of sand on the leeward side of the more solid coral-rock of Pine Island.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Most of the city proper is at the east end of the island. After the Sanibel causeway was built to replace the ferry in May 1963, the city was incorporated in 1974 and the residents asserted control over development by establishing the Sanibel Comprehensive Land Use Plan, helping to maintain a balance between development and preservation of the island's ecology. As of September 28, 2022, the causeway was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ian.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Due to easy causeway access, Sanibel is a popular tourist destination known for its shell beaches and wildlife refuges. More than half of the island is made up of wildlife refuges, the largest being J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. The Island hosts the Sanibel Historical Village and a variety of other museums including the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel and Captiva formed as one island about 6,000 years ago. The first known humans in the area were the Calusa, who arrived about 2,500 years ago. The Calusa were a powerful Indian nation who came to dominate most of Southwest Florida through trade via their elaborate system of canals and waterways. Sanibel remained an important Calusa settlement until the collapse of their empire, soon after the arrival of the Europeans.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: In 1765, the first known appearance of a harbor on Sanibel is shown on a map as "Puerto de S. Nibel" (the "v" and "b" being interchangeable); thus, the name may have evolved from "San Nibel". Alternatively, the name may derive, as many believe, from "(Santa) Ybel", which survives in the old placename "Point Ybel", where the Sanibel Island Light is located. How it would have gotten this name, however, is a matter of conjecture. One story says it was named by Juan Ponce de León for Queen Isabella I of Castile; the island may indeed be named for this queen or the saint whose name she shares, either by Ponce de León or someone later. Another attributes the name to Roderigo Lopez, the first mate of José Gaspar (Gasparilla), after his beautiful lover Sanibel whom he had left behind in Spain. Like most of the lore surrounding Gasparilla, however, this story is apocryphal, as the above references to recognizable variants of the name predate the buccaneer's supposed reign.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel is not the only island in the area to figure prominently in the legends of Gaspar; Captiva, Useppa, and Gasparilla are also connected. Sanibel also appears in another tale, this one involving Gaspar's ally-turned-rival Black Caesar, said to have been a former Haitian slave who escaped during the Haitian Revolution to become a pirate. According to folklore, Black Caesar came to the Gulf of Mexico during the War of 1812 to avoid interference from the British. In the Gulf he befriended Gasparilla, who allowed him to establish himself on Sanibel Island. Eventually the old Spaniard discovered Caesar had been stealing from him and chased him off, but not before his loot had been buried.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Legendary pirates' dens aside, the first modern settlement on Sanibel (then spelled "Sanybel") was established by the Florida Peninsular Land Company in 1832. The colony never took off, and was abandoned by 1849. It was this first group that initially petitioned for a lighthouse on the island. The island was re-populated after the implementation of the Homestead Act in 1862, and again a lighthouse was petitioned. Construction on the Sanibel Island Lighthouse was completed in 1884, but the community remained small.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: In May 1963 a causeway linking Sanibel and Captiva to the mainland was opened, resulting in an explosion of growth. The City of Sanibel passed new restrictions on development after it was incorporated; these were challenged by developers, to no avail. Currently the only buildings on the island taller than two stories date before 1974, and there are no fast food or chain restaurants allowed on the island except a Dairy Queen and a Subway, which were on the island before the laws were enacted. A new causeway was completed in 2007; it replaced the worn out 1963 spans, which were not designed to carry heavy loads or large numbers of vehicles. The new bridge features a "flyover" span tall enough for sailboats to pass under, replacing the old bridge's bascule drawbridge span. The original bridge was demolished and its remains were sunk into the water to create artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The main town is located on the eastern end of the island. The city was formed in 1974, as a direct result of the main causeway being built in 1963 to replace the ferry, and the rampant construction and development that occurred afterward. Developers sued over the new restrictions, but the city and citizens prevailed in their quest to protect the island. The only buildings above two to three stories now on the barrier island were built during that period.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: A short bridge over Blind Pass links Sanibel to Captiva Island. More than half of the two islands are preserved in its natural state as wildlife refuges. Visitors can drive, walk, bike, or kayak through the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge The island's most famous landmark, the Sanibel Lighthouse, is located at the eastern end of the island, adjacent to the fishing pier. The main thoroughfare, Periwinkle Way, is where the majority of stores and restaurants are located, while the Gulf Drives (East, Middle and West) play host to most of the accommodations.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, has also been a key player in helping to curb uncontrolled commercial growth and development on the island. Since 1967, SCCF has been dedicated to the preservation of natural resources on and around Sanibel and Captiva and has led efforts to acquire and preserve environmentally sensitive land on the islands including critical wildlife habitats, rare and unique subtropical plant communities, tidal wetlands, and freshwater wetlands along the Sanibel River.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The Wall Street Journal selected Sanibel and Captiva Islands as one of the 10 Best Places for Second Homes in 2010.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel is located at (26.439608, –82.080456). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (48.13%) is water.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: As of the census of 2020, there were 6,828 people, 3,359 households, and 2,273 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 7,821 dwelling units at an average density of .The racial makeup of the city was 98.0% White, 0.6% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.00%(1) Pacific Islander, 0.3% from other races, and 0.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.3% of the population.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: There were 3,359 households, out of which 8.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.8% were married couples living together, 2.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.3% were non-families. 27.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.92 and the average family size was 2.28.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Among the population; 8.5% under the age of 19, 1.1% from 20 to 24, 7.5% from 25 to 44, 32.7% from 45 to 64, and those aged 65 or older represented 50.1%. The median age was 65 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.5 males age 18 and over.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The median income for a household in the city was $97,788, and the median income for a family was $138,194. Males had a median income of $80,152 versus $45,458 for females. The per capita income for the city was $79,742. About 3.6% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the poverty line, with 21.3% of those under age 18 and 3.4% of those age 65 or over.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The island's curved shrimp-like shape forms Tarpon Bay on the north side of the island. It is linked to the mainland by the Sanibel Causeway, which runs across two small manmade islets and the Intracoastal Waterway. A short bridge links Sanibel Island to Captiva Island over Blind Pass.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel is the only museum in the world dedicated entirely to the study of shells. The Gulf-side beaches are excellent on both Sanibel and Captiva, and are world-renowned for their variety of seashells, which include coquinas, scallops, whelks, sand dollars, and many other species of both shallow-water and deeper-water mollusks, primarily bivalves and gastropods.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel Island is home to a significant variety of birds, including the roseate spoonbill and several nesting pairs of bald eagles. Birds can be seen on the beaches, the causeway islands, and the reserves, including J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Common sights include pelicans, herons, egrets, and anhingas, as well as the more common birds like terns, sandpipers, and seagulls.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: There is a population of American alligators on Sanibel Island. A lone rare American crocodile had been seen at the Wildlife Refuge for over 30 years, but she died in 2010 of unseasonably cold winters or old age. A memorial was set up at J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge honoring "Wilma", as she was known by the residents. A new crocodile was introduced in May 2010 when she was found on a private property and relocated to J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Plants on the island include the native sea grape, sea oats, mangroves, and several types of palm trees. The Australian pine is an introduced species that has spread throughout the island, to some extent overpowering native vegetation and trees. Once mature, the pine blocks sunlight and drops a thick bed of pine needles that affect the soil's pH and prevents new native growth. The ground is very soft under these pines.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The local form of the marsh rice rat has been recognized in some classifications as a separate subspecies, "Oryzomys palustris sanibeli".


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Preserving the island's natural ecology has always been important to its citizens and visitors alike. A driving force in the preservation of the island is the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation which was founded in 1967 with a mission to "preserve natural resources and wildlife habitat on and around the islands of Sanibel and Captiva." of land on Sanibel are under the supervision of the Foundation; included in this land there is a "Marine Laboratory which actively conducts research in areas including seagrasses, mangroves, harmful algal blooms, fish populations and shellfish restoration." Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation also has a project called RECON (River, Estuary and Coastal Observing Network) which includes a "network of eight in-water sensors that provide real-time, hourly readings of key water quality parameters." The foundation also serves to protect the wildlife on the island and has a variety of education programs designed to instruct people about the island's unique ecology.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The biggest wildlife refuge on the island is the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Covering more than of land, the refuge strives to ensure that these lands are "preserved, restored and maintained as a haven for indigenous and migratory wildlife as part of a nation-wide network of Refuges administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service" The lands also serve to provide a home for many endangered and threatened species. Currently the refuge provides a home for over 220 species of birds native to the island. Visitors to the refuge can walk, bike, drive, or kayak though the wildlife drive which takes you through of mangrove tree forests and tidal flats, this drive is perfect for watching the island's wildlife and looking at the island's native vegetation. To show that preserving the wildlife really is important, the drive is closed one day every week, Friday, so that the wildlife can have a day to themselves where they can scavenge for food closer to the drive and not have to be bothered by or fearful of humans. There is also an education center which features "interactive exhibits on refuge ecosystems, the life and work of "Ding" Darling, migratory flyways, and the National Wildlife Refuge System."


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel beaches attract visitors from all around the world, partly because of the large quantities of seashells that frequently wash up there. Many sand dollars can be found as well. One of the reasons for these large accumulations of shells is the fact that Sanibel is a barrier island which is "part of a large plateau that extends out into the Gulf of Mexico for miles. It is this plateau that acts like a shelf for seashells to gather." Sanibel also has an "east-west orientation when most islands are north-south. Hence, the island is gifted with great sandy beaches and an abundance of shells."


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: People who are lucky enough to find the elegant brown-spotted shell of a Junonia on a Sanibel beach often get their picture in the local newspapers. Junonia volutes are reasonably common living in deep water, but they only rarely wash up; a beach find of a whole shell is greatly prized. Junonia shells can be purchased at local shell shops, or can be seen on display in the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum, in some of the glass display tables at the Sanibel Cafe, or at the Sanibel Shell Fair in early March.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Throughout the year, many people come to the beaches of Sanibel to gather shells. People are often seen bending down as they look for seashells, and this posture is known as the "Sanibel Stoop." There are beaches almost all around the island. There are even beaches along the Sanibel causeway, and these are great for fishing and windsurfing. However, beach parking on Sanibel itself is very limited, and in high season finding a convenient parking space can be a challenge.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Lighthouse Beach is named after the famous Sanibel Lighthouse, which includes a popular fishing pier and nature trails. The most secluded beach on the island is Bowman's Beach; there are no hotels in sight and the beach has a "pristine and quiet" atmosphere.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel Island, located in southern Florida, has a climate that is "tropical and humid" with daily high temperatures ranging from in midwinter to around in the summer. The months of January through April (peak tourist season on the island) have the coolest temperatures, ranging from during the day to a cool at night, and there is very little rainfall on the island during those months. The summer heat and humidity on the island, which has been recorded as high as , is cooled by the ocean seabreezes from the Gulf of Mexico, and by almost daily afternoon and evening rain showers, which are responsible for much of the island's rainfall. June is when the Island gets most of its rain. The area is prone to being hit by tropical cyclones and hurricanes; the hurricane season starts in June, but most of the activity occurs in September and October. However, local communities have "adapted to cope with these occasional storm threats."


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Southwest Florida rarely suffers direct strikes by hurricanes, but every 20 or so years it takes a significant hit, and about every 40 years a major one. Most of these have affected Sanibel. On August 13, 2004, Sanibel Island was hit hard by Hurricane Charley, a category four hurricane with winds. It was the strongest to hit Southwest Florida since Hurricane Donna in September 1960. While much of the native vegetation survived, the non-indigenous Australian Pines suffered serious damage, blocking nearly every road. Wildlife officials also reported that the nests of birds and sea turtles were destroyed. The Sanibel Lighthouse survived with little damage, the Sanibel Causeway suffered relatively minor damage except for a toll booth being tilted partly over, and a small seawall was eroded. Blind Pass was again cut through, but refilled less than one month later. Residents who left before the August 13 storm were not allowed back by the city government until August 18, due to hundreds of downed trees and electric power lines, and the lack of potable water and sanitary sewerage. A temporary city hall for Sanibel was set up on the mainland in a Fort Myers hotel, until utilities and transport could be restored to the island.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: On September 28, 2022, the island suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Ian, which made landfall just to the north of the island as a strong category 4 storm. The Sanibel Causeway partially collapsed during the storm, leaving no road access to the island or nearby Captiva, Florida.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: A new three-section causeway bridge to Sanibel was completed during the summer of 2007, with a high-span section replacing the original drawbridge. Multiple sections of the causeway were destroyed in September 2022 by Hurricane Ian, rendering it unusable.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel Public Library was built in 1994, and was expanded in 2004. The library houses more than 60,000 titles.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: The city's best-known resident is former CIA Director Porter Goss, who spearheaded the island's incorporation, became its first mayor, and represented the area in Congress from 1989 until his appointment as CIA Director in 2004.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Sanibel Island is the main setting for crime novels written by local author Randy Wayne White. Popular locales are referenced throughout his novels. White's main fictional character is named Doc Ford and due to his popularity, White opened a restaurant in his character's name, Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar & Grill.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: Parts of George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead" were shot on Sanibel Island. Romero had a second home on Sanibel, from which he rewrote "Day of the Dead" in 1984.


title: Sanibel, Florida

text: "Night Moves" was filmed on the Island in 1975, directed by Arthur Penn. It stars Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Susan Clark and features early career appearances by James Woods and Melanie Griffith.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: General elections were held in Sweden on 9 September 2018 to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag. Regional and municipal elections were also held on the same day. The incumbent minority government, consisting of the Social Democrats and the Greens and supported by the Left Party, won 144 seats, one seat more than the four-party Alliance coalition, with the Sweden Democrats winning the remaining 62 seats. The Social Democrats' vote share fell to 28.3 percent, its lowest level of support since 1911.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The main opposition, the Moderates, lost even more support. The Sweden Democrats made gains, though less than anticipated. Regardless, the party became the largest in two constituencies in southern region Scania and topped the polls in 21 out of 33 Scanian municipalities and in 31 out of 290 municipalities overall. The voter turnout of 87.18% was the highest in 33 years and 1.38 percentage points higher than the 2014 elections. A record 26 out of 29 constituencies returned a hung parliament. 46% of seats were won by women (161 out of 349). The number has since increased to 47.2% (165 out of 349).


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Following the elections, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven lost a vote of no-confidence on 25 September, forcing a parliamentary vote on a new government. In the meantime, his government remained in power as a caretaker government. Speaker Andreas Norlén nominated Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson to form a government on 9 November. However, Kristersson lost a vote to confirm him in office by a margin of 154–195. He was supported by his own Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Sweden Democrats, despite having ruled out this scenario before the election, but the Liberals and the Centre Party, the other parties in the centre-right Alliance, were not willing to form a government reliant on the Sweden Democrats. On 15 November, Norlén invited Centre Party leader Annie Lööf to try to form a government, but she was unable to do so. Norlén then nominated Löfven, but following unsuccessful negotiations with the Centre Party and the Liberals he lost a confirmation vote 116–200 on 14 December.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Hours after the failed vote to confirm Löfven, Norlén announced that he would be meeting with representatives of the Election Authority regarding a potential extraordinary election. The Speaker also stated that he would be engaging in talks with the parties during the weekend and that he would present the next phase of the government formation process by the following week. Löfven was finally re-elected with a 115–153 result as Prime Minister on 18 January 2019 after the Social Democrats struck an agreement with the Greens, the Liberals, and the Centre Party; and after the Left Party reluctantly agreed to abstain from voting against Löfven. Due to Sweden's principle of negative parliamentarism this result was enough, as less than the majority of the parliament voted against him, while the supporting parties abstained. The result saw a breakup of the Alliance with the remaining right-wing parties aligning closer with the Sweden Democrats in parliament.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: With the government being down to 116 seats (59 short of a majority), this rendered it the government with the lowest electoral support to begin a term during universal suffrage in Sweden and forced to approve several liberal policy platforms the government had campaigned against. With the right-wing opposition having 154 seats, to the coalition and confidence and supply agreements' 167 and the Left Party's 28, it still rendered a hung parliament even after the government formation, which exposed the government to high-profile losses in parliament. With the Liberals leaving the confidence and supply after a no-confidence vote in 2021, the "de facto" parliamentary blocs ended being 175 to 174 with the "de facto" majority for the red-greens being 0.1%. The metropolitan versus small town divide got stronger. With the 2021 constellations, the election saw Södermanland and Västmanland retroactively flip to the right for the first time during universal suffrage dating back a century, while also Blekinge went blue for the first time in the unicameral era. Meanwhile, the six largest municipalities had leftist majorities.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Just two months after having formed a minority government, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced on the afternoon of 3 December 2014 that he intended to make the formal arrangements for calling an extraordinary election on 29 December 2014 – the earliest date permitted by the constitution.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The election seemed to be necessary after Löfven's Social Democrat-led government lost a vote on the budget by 182 to 153, owing to the Sweden Democrats voting with the opposition, leading to a cabinet crisis. It would have been the first early election since 1958.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: However, an agreement between the Social Democrats, the Greens, the Moderates, the Centre Party, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats was signed on 26 December 2014, outlining a series of conditions in order to ensure political stability until at least 2022. The agreement included two main provisions:


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: After negotiations between the Government and the Alliance for Sweden concluded, the snap election was called off on 27 December 2014. On 9 October 2015, following the Christian Democrats' departure from the agreement, the December 2014 agreement was dissolved. However, the Moderates, the Centre Party and the Liberals allowed the Social Democrats minority government to continue to govern.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: In May 2018, the issues that the Swedish voters considered most important were immigration, healthcare and integration. In the days leading up to the election, the most important issue was the environment, followed by immigration and health care. With the polls showing that the Sweden Democrats could be kingmakers there was speculation over possible government coalitions.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Concerns about foreign influence in the election were raised by the Swedish Security Service and others, leading to various countermeasures.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The summer of 2018 saw several violent incidents occur, including the arson of over 100 cars on 15 August, which may have caused 10% of Swedes to state that "law and order" is the key issue in the upcoming election. While Sweden has faced sporadic gang violence in recent years at the end of summer break for students, violence in Gothenburg, Falkenberg and Trollhättan was said to be on a larger scale. Prime Minister Löfven referred to the August violence as if it was organized "almost like a military operation". In the following days, Twitter accounts connected to Russia tweeted about the fires, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy intending to influence English-language readers. According to the Oxford Internet Institute, eight of the top 10 "junk news" sources during the election campaign were Swedish, and "Russian sources comprised less than 1% of the total number of URLs shared in the data sample." It has been claimed by domestic media that Non-Swedish media frequently emphasize the events in order to advance a narrative of a society in decay, along with some negative but restricted reporting around immigration, to describe great gains by the Sweden Democrats. This has been criticized as a "false narrative" and "misreporting" by domestic media.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Social Democratic Party (S; "Socialdemokraterna") was the largest political party in the Swedish Riksdag, with 113 of the 349 seats. It was the major component of the incumbent Löfven Cabinet, in which it worked with the Green Party. Its leader Stefan Löfven had been Prime Minister of Sweden since 3 October 2014, and sought a mandate to continue his Löfven Cabinet.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Moderate Party (M; "Moderaterna") was the second-largest party in the Riksdag with 84 seats. It was the largest governing party under Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt from 2006 to 2014. The party was involved alongside three other parties in the Alliance; all four sought to return to power together. Reinfeldt resigned as party leader after eight years as Prime Minister, and was succeeded as leader by Anna Kinberg Batra on 10 January 2015. Kinberg Batra's decision as the "de facto" leader to enter the budgetary procedure agreement with the left-of-centre cabinet saw sharp disgruntlement from some party districts. The Alliance had more MPs than the government parties, but still found itself in opposition. Owing to her low opinion polling numbers, Kinberg Batra faced internal pressure from multiple party districts and the Moderate Youth League to resign. She announced her resignation in a morning press conference on 25 August 2017. Former prime minister and Moderate Party leader Carl Bildt was suggested as a replacement after Kinberg Batra resigned; however, despite some party districts supporting his candidacy, he declined the offer. Ultimately, Ulf Kristersson was elected to succeed Kinberg Batra as party leader, during an extra Moderate party conference on 1 October 2017.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Sweden Democrats (SD; "Sverigedemokraterna") was the third-largest party in the Riksdag with 49 seats. In the 2014 general election the party increased its number of seats by 29, becoming the third-largest party. Its leader was Jimmie Åkesson, who was the longest-serving party leader. The other Riksdag parties had repeatedly stated that they would not cooperate with the Sweden Democrats in a future government. An extra general election was called after the Sweden Democrats gave its support to the oppositional Alliance budget (see section '2014 budget crisis'). After the proposed extra election was cancelled, the party advertised itself as the 'only opposition party' and in the following months it saw a sharp rise in support (see section 'Opinion polls').


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Green Party (MP; "Miljöpartiet") was the fourth-largest party in the Riksdag with 25 seats. The Green Party was the minor component of the Löfven Cabinet, alongside the Social Democrats. It was the only Swedish party to have two spokespersons, Gustav Fridolin (since 2011), who served as Minister for Education, and Isabella Lövin (since 2016), who served as Minister for International Development Cooperation. This was the first time in Swedish history that the Green Party had its governmental record tested at an election.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Centre Party (C; "Centerpartiet") was the fifth-largest party in the Riksdag with 22 seats. It was a part of the Reinfeldt Cabinet from 2006 to 2014, and was involved in the Alliance. The Centre Party had been led by Annie Lööf since 2011. It was subject to public attempts by Löfven to become a cooperation party, but the party traditionally leans towards the Moderate policy positions and stayed within the Alliance after the 2014 election.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Left Party (V; "Vänsterpartiet") was the sixth-largest party in the Riksdag with 21 seats. Its leader was Jonas Sjöstedt. He had said that the party sought to participate in a future Red-Green coalition government. The Left Party did not support the Löfven Cabinet because it was not asked to participate in that cabinet following the 2014 general election, but supported its budget that was voted down on 3 December 2014. Following the budgetary agreement, the Left Party was what tips the left-of-centre minority into a larger minority than the Alliance.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Liberals (L; "Liberalerna") was the seventh-largest party in the Riksdag with 19 seats. It was a part of the Reinfeldt Cabinet from 2006 to 2014, and was involved in the Alliance. The Liberals had been led by Jan Björklund since 2007; his leadership was being increasingly criticized within the party. Opinion polls in the year after the 2014 election suggested that the party was falling significantly behind and struggling to recapture its previous level of support. Having been in charge of the school system and integration of migrants, it came under a lot of criticism owing to falling school results and increased segregation in immigrant-dominated suburbs.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Christian Democrats (KD; "Kristdemokraterna") had been led by Ebba Busch Thor since 2015. It was involved in the Alliance. Despite polling below the 4% electoral threshold for most of the time between the elections, the party saw a boost in support in the time period immediately prior to the election, guaranteeing its presence in the Riksdag (which was seen as essential in order for the Alliance to be able to form a government.). The party held on by a few tens of thousands of votes last time.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Feminist Initiative (FI; "Feministiskt Initiativ"), led by former Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman, was the country's ninth-largest party, and was represented in the European Parliament following the 2014 European election. The party received 0.4% of the vote in the election, compared to 3% in the previous election 2014.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Pirate Party (PP; "Piratpartiet") won representation in the 2009–14 European Parliament, but its subsequent runs for office had been less successful. It has been mentioned in some polls as the tenth-largest party, but appeared to be far from having a chance to break the threshold at a domestic level.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Alternative for Sweden ("Alternativ för Sverige)" was a party with no representation in the Riksdag. It was formed from members expelled from the Sweden Democrats in 2015, and was led by Gustav Kasselstrand. The party received 0.3% of the vote, and thus failed to enter the Riksdag in this election.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The Swedish Riksdag is made up of 349 MPs, and all are elected through open list proportional representation on multi-member party lists that are either regional (most major parties) or national (Sweden Democrats). Each of the 29 constituencies has a set number of parliamentarians that is divided through constituency results to ensure regional representation. The other MPs are then elected through a proportional balancing, to ensure that the numbers of elected MPs for the various parties accurately represent the votes of the electorate. The Swedish constitution ("Regeringsformen") 1 Ch. 4 § says that the Riksdag is responsible for taxation and making laws, and 1 Ch. 6 § says that the government is held responsible to the Riksdag. This means that Sweden has parliamentarism in a constitutional monarchy—ensuring that the government is responsible to the people's representatives. A minimum of 4% of the national vote is required for a party to enter the Riksdag, alternatively 12% or more within a constituency.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Election officials are responsible for party-specific ballot papers being present in the voting places for parties that have obtained more than one percent of the votes in the previous parliamentary election. If there is no access to the wanted party-specific ballot paper, a voter may cast a vote by writing in the party name of choice on a blank ballot paper. The voter generally chooses a party-specific ballot in the open and only then marks the ballot they chose in the voting booth.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights sent an election expert team of two members to the 2018 general election to examine and assess this system, including in relation to questions of the secrecy of the ballot. The observers are to issue a report eight weeks after the election was held.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The neo-Nazi organisation Nordic Resistance Movement was reported shouting slogans and filming voters in several election rooms.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: There were reports of missing party-specific ballots in some voting districts during the early voting phase. On the election day, the Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television reported that the ballots of the Sweden Democrats were missing for 2 hours in one Gothenburg district.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The following is the number of constituency seats for each party with each asterix (*) indicating one of the seats won was a levelling seat


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Voter demographics of the Swedish general election 2018, according to the Swedish Television's exit polls.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Numerous media sources noted the gains made by the Sweden Democrats, tying those gains to the simultaneous rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe. However, it was noted that the party did not grow as much as some polls had predicted. While the Social Democrats performed better than expected, the party still saw its worst result since 1908. According to "The Guardian", the growth of the SD "upended perhaps western Europe's most stable political order", and other commentators made similar statements. According to Emily Schultheis of "Foreign Policy", the SD won an ideological victory, as it "effectively set the terms for debate" and forced its rivals to adopt immigration policies similar to its own, and other reporters made similar observations.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The election did not result in a clear victory for any political faction. The Sweden Democrats performed particularly well in Skåne County, having the highest number of voters in 21 out of the county's 33 municipalities. SVT reported that at least 22 seats in 17 city councils would be empty as the Sweden Democrats won more seats than the number of candidates it had. The party received its first mayor, in Hörby Municipality. Despite the Social Democrats' worst result nationwide in decades, they overtook the Moderates in the latter's traditional stronghold of Stockholm city. Additionally, the Social Democrats and the Left Party saw an increase in the number of votes cast in that constituency while the Moderates lost votes; consequently, the Red-Green bloc also overtook the Alliance in the constituency.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the red-green and centre-right coalitions each holding about 40% of the seats, and the Sweden Democrats holding the remainder.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Prime Minister Stefan Löfven lost the motion of no confidence against him and his cabinet on 25 September 2018, with 142 members of parliament voting to retain Löfven's cabinet and 204 voting against. This triggered a constitutional procedure wherein the Riksdag is given four chances to vote on a new Prime Minister. If the Riksdag failed all four attempts to elect a new Prime Minister, a snap election would be mandatory.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Party negotiations for forming a new government commenced on 27 September, but the deadlock remained as neither Löfven nor Kristersson could construct a stable coalition. On 14 November, Kristersson was formally nominated as PM, but lost the confidence vote when the Center and Liberal parties refused to back him, as they were unwilling to work in a government that relied on the Sweden Democrats. The vote was historical, as it was the first time a candidate for Prime Minister was rejected by the Riksdag since the abolition of the bicameral legislature in 1971.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: After continued, unfruitful negotiations, Speaker Norlén nominated Löfven to be re-appointed Prime Minister on 12 December. Though the Center and Liberal parties were initially willing to work with him in securing a coalition, talks broke down days before the vote due to disagreements with the budget, and thus Löfven too lost his confidence vote two days later. On the same day that Löfven was nominated, the Riksdag rejected the caretaker government's provisional budget, and instead passed a competing budget designed by the Moderates and Christian Democrats.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: Norlén stated after the vote that he would restart negotiations between the parties, while at the same time preparing for the possibility of a snap election. Norlén then created a finalized timeline for forming a government, and urged Kristersson and Löfven to find a compromise. Without nominating a new candidate, he set the next vote for a Prime Minister initially for 16 January (but later postponed to 18 January owing to differences between the Social Democrats and the Left Party), and a final vote on 23 January if the first vote would fail. If neither vote had succeeded, a snap election would have been called immediately, scheduled to take place on 21 April.


title: 2018 Swedish general election

text: On 11 January 2019, a deal was struck between the Social Democrats, the Greens, the Centre Party, and the Liberals to allow Löfven to continue governing. However, over the next few days, senior officials of the Left Party expressed concern and were leaning towards voting against the proposed government and instead called on Löfven to continue negotiations with them. On 16 January, Sjöstedt agreed to abstain from voting against Löfven. On 18 January, Löfven was formally reelected with 192 "yes" votes and abstentions.


title: The World at War

text: The World at War is a 26-episode British documentary television series that chronicles the events of the Second World War. It was produced in 1973, at a cost of £900,000 (), the most expensive factual series ever produced. It was produced by Jeremy Isaacs, narrated by Laurence Olivier and included music composed by Carl Davis. The book, "The World at War", published the same year, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster to accompany the TV series.


title: The World at War

text: "The World at War" attracted widespread acclaim and now it is regarded as a landmark in British television history. The series focused on a portrayal of the experience of the conflict: of how life and death throughout the war years affected soldiers, sailors and airmen, civilians, concentration camp inmates and other victims of the war.


title: The World at War

text: Jeremy Isaacs had been inspired to look at the production of a long-form documentary series about the Second World War following the BBC's broadcast of its series "The Great War" in 1964. However, the BBC series, which had been produced in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, featured a mix of contemporary film footage from the period, and film recreations, which soured relations between the BBC and the Museum. As a consequence, Isaacs was determined to have his programme be as authentic as possible.


title: The World at War

text: "The World at War" was commissioned by Thames Television in 1969. The government had halved its levy on television advertising revenue, with the proviso that the money which the independent television companies saved must be reinvested in programmes. Isaacs persuaded Thames to use the money to pay for the production of his Second World War documentary. The series took four years to produce, at a cost of £900,000 (), a record for a British television series. It was first shown in 1973 on ITV.


title: The World at War

text: The series featured interviews with major members of the Allied and Axis campaigns, including witness accounts from civilians, enlisted men, officers and politicians. The interviewees included Sir Max Aitken, Joseph Lawton Collins, Mark Clark, Jock Colville, Karl Dönitz, James "Jimmy" Doolittle, Lawrence Durrell, Lord Eden of Avon, Mitsuo Fuchida, Adolf Galland, Minoru Genda, W. Averell Harriman, Sir Arthur Harris, Alger Hiss, Brian Horrocks, Traudl Junge, Toshikazu Kase, Curtis LeMay, Vera Lynn, Hasso von Manteuffel, Bill Mauldin, John J. McCloy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, Sir Richard O'Connor, J. B. Priestley, Saburo Sakai, Albert Speer, James Stewart, Charles Sweeney, Paul Tibbets, Walter Warlimont, Takeo Yoshikawa and the historian Stephen Ambrose.


title: The World at War

text: In the programme "The Making of "The World at War"", included in the DVD set, Jeremy Isaacs explains that priority was given to interviews with surviving aides and assistants rather than recognised figures. The most difficult person to locate and persuade to be interviewed was Heinrich Himmler's adjutant Karl Wolff. During the interview, he admitted to witnessing a mass execution in Himmler's presence. Isaacs later expressed satisfaction with the content of the series, noting that if it had not been secret, he would have added references to British codebreaking at Bletchley Park. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes which was compiled by the British Film Institute during 2000, voted for by industry professionals, "The World at War" ranked 19th, the highest-placed documentary on the list.


title: The World at War

text: The series has twenty-six episodes. Isaacs asked Noble Frankland, director of the Imperial War Museum, to list fifteen main campaigns of the war and devoted one episode to each. The remaining eleven episodes are devoted to other matters, such as the rise of Nazi Germany, home life in Britain and Germany, the experience of occupation of the Netherlands, and the Holocaust. Episode one begins with a cold open describing the massacre at the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane by the "Waffen SS". The same event is referenced again at the end of Episode twenty-six, accompanied by the "Dona nobis pacem" (Latin for "Grant us peace") from the Missa Sancti Nicolai, composed by Joseph Haydn. The series ends with Laurence Olivier saying "Remember".


title: The World at War

text: The series was originally transmitted on the ITV network in Britain between 31 October 1973 and 8 May 1974, and has been shown around the world. It was first shown in the US in syndication on various stations in 1974. WOR in New York aired the series in the mid-1970s, although episodes were edited both for graphic content and to include sufficient commercial breaks. PBS station WNET in New York broadcast the series unedited and in its entirety in 1982 as did WGBH in the late 1980s. The Danish channel DR1 first broadcast the series from August 1976 to February 1977 and it was repeated on DR2 in December 2006 and January 2007. The History Channel in Japan began screening the series in its entirety in April 2007. It repeated the entire series again in August 2011. The Military History Channel in the UK broadcast the series over the weekend of 14 and 15 November 2009. The Military Channel (now American Heroes Channel) in the United States aired the series in January 2010, and has shown it regularly since. BBC Two in the UK transmitted a repeat run of the series starting on 5 September 1994 at teatime. In 2011, the British channel Yesterday started a showing of the series and it has been shown continuously since. The series was shown in full on SABC in South Africa in 1976, one of the first documentary series broadcast after the launch of the first television service in South Africa in January 1976.


title: The World at War

text: The series was shown in Australia in 1979 and has been shown on various TV stations at various times since then. It has also been shown on Australia's Pay TV Provider Foxtel in the early 2000s and a number of times since.


title: The World at War

text: Each episode was 52 minutes excluding commercials; as was customary for ITV documentary series at the time, it was originally screened with only one central break. The episode "Genocide (1941–1945)" was screened uninterrupted.


title: The World at War

text: Some footage and interviews that were not used in the original series were later made into hour and half-hour documentaries, narrated by Eric Porter. These were released as a bonus to the VHS version and are included in the DVD set of the series, which was first released in 2001.


title: The World at War

text: The series was released in various territories on VHS video as well as on 13 Laservision long-play videodiscs by Video Garant Amsterdam.


title: The World at War

text: In 2001–2005, DVD box sets were released in the UK and US. In 2010, the series was digitally restored and re-released on DVD and Blu-ray. In the latter case the image is cropped from its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio down to 1.78:1, to better fit modern widescreen televisions. The restored series was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2016.


title: The World at War

text: From 2004 to 2005, A&E Home Entertainment, under licence from Thames, talkbackTHAMES and FremantleMedia International released all 26 episodes of the series on Region 1 DVD, uncut, uncensored and remastered.


title: The World at War

text: The original book "The World at War", which accompanied the series, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster in 1973. In October 2007, Ebury Press published "The World at War", a new book by Richard Holmes, an oral history of the Second World War drawn from the interviews conducted for the TV series. The programme's producers shot hundreds of hours of interviews, but only a fraction of that recorded material was used for the final version of the series. A selection of the rest of this material was published in this book, which included interviews with Albert Speer, Karl Wolff (Himmler's adjutant), Traudl Junge (Hitler's secretary), James Stewart (USAAF bomber pilot and Hollywood star), Anthony Eden, John Colville (Private Secretary to Winston Churchill), Averell Harriman (US Ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Arthur ""Bomber"" Harris (Head of RAF Bomber Command).


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux (; born 1 September 1940) is a French writer, professor of literature and Nobel laureate. Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology. Ernaux was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory".


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux was born in Lillebonne in Normandy and grew up in nearby Yvetot, where her parents, Blanche (Dumenil) and Alphonse Duchesne, ran a café and grocery in a working-class part of town. In 1960 she travelled to London where she worked as an au pair, an experience she would later relate in 2016's "Mémoire de fille" ("A Girl's Story"). Upon returning to France, she studied at the universities of Rouen and then Bordeaux, qualified as a schoolteacher, and earned a higher degree in modern literature in 1971. She worked for a time on a thesis project, unfinished, on Pierre de Marivaux.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: In the early 1970s, Ernaux taught at a "lycée" in Bonneville, Haute-Savoie, at the college of Évire in Annecy-le-Vieux, then in Pontoise, before joining the National Centre for Distance Education, where she was employed for 23 years.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux started her literary career in 1974 with "Les Armoires vides" ("Cleaned Out"), an autobiographical novel. In 1984, she won the Renaudot Prize for another of her works "La Place" ("A Man's Place"), an autobiographical narrative focusing on her relationship with her father and her experiences growing up in a small town in France, and her subsequent process of moving into adulthood and away from her parents' place of origin.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Early in her career, Ernaux turned from fiction to focus on autobiography. Her work combines historic and individual experiences. She charts her parents' social progression ("La place", "La honte"), her teenage years ("Ce qu'ils disent ou rien"), her marriage ("La femme gelée"), her passionate affair with an Eastern European man ("Passion simple"), her abortion ("L'événement"), Alzheimer's disease ("Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit"), the death of her mother ("Une femme"), and breast cancer ("L'usage de la photo"). Ernaux also wrote "L'écriture comme un couteau" ("Writing as Sharp as a Knife") with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: "A Woman's Story," "A Man's Place," and "Simple Passion" were recognised as "The New York Times" Notable Books, and "A Woman's Story" was a finalist for the "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize. "Shame" was named a "Publishers Weekly" Best Book of 1998, "I Remain in Darkness" a Top Memoir of 1999 by "The Washington Post", and "The Possession" was listed as a Top Ten Book of 2008 by "More" magazine.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux's 2008 historical memoir "Les Années" ("The Years"), well-received by French critics, is considered by many to be her magnum opus. In this book, Ernaux writes about herself in the third person ('elle', or 'she' in English) for the first time, providing a vivid look at French society just after the Second World War until the early 2000s. It is the story of a woman and of the evolving society she lived in. "The Years" won the 2008 , the 2008 Marguerite Duras Prize, the 2008 Prix de la langue française, the 2009 "Télégramme" Readers Prize, and the 2016 Strega European Prize. Translated by Alison L. Strayer, "The Years" was a finalist for the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize, was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2019, and won the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Her popularity in anglophone countries increased sharply after "The Years" was shortlisted for the International Booker.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: On 6 October 2022, it was announced that Ernaux would be awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". Ernaux is the 16th French writer, and the first Frenchwoman, to receive the literature prize. In congratulating her, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, said that she was the voice "of the freedom of women and of the forgotten".


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Many of Ernaux's works have been translated into English and published by Seven Stories Press. Ernaux is one of the seven founding authors from whom the Press takes its name.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the 2012 French presidential election. In 2018, Ernaux expressed her support for the yellow vests protests.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux has repeatedly indicated her support for the BDS movement, a Palestinian-led campaign promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. In 2018, the author signed a letter alongside about 80 other artists that opposed the holding of the Israel–France cross-cultural season by the Israeli and French governments. In 2019, Ernaux signed a letter calling on a French state-owned broadcasting network not to air the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Israel that year. In 2021, after the Operation Guardian of the Walls, she signed another letter that called Israel an apartheid state, claiming that "To frame this as a war between two equal sides is false and misleading. Israel is the colonizing power. Palestine is colonized."


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux signed a letter that supported the release of Georges Abdallah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for the assassination of an American military attaché, Lt. Col. Charles R. Ray, and an Israeli diplomat, Yacov Barsimantov. According to the letter, the victims were "active Mossad and CIA agents, while Abdallah fought for the Palestinian people and against colonization".


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Following the announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize, Ernaux showed solidarity with people's uprising in Iran against their government. The protests that followed the death of a young woman in the custody of Guidance Patrol (Morality Police) initially started against compulsory hijab law in Iran but soon took a broader focus on liberty. Ernaux said in an interview she was "absolutely in favour of women revolting against this absolute constraint".


title: Annie Ernaux

text: Ernaux was previously married to Philippe Ernaux, with whom she has two sons. The couple divorced in the early 1980s.


title: Annie Ernaux

text: In addition to numerous theatrical and radio adaptations, Ernaux's novels have been adapted for the cinema on three occasions:


title: MicroStrategy

text: MicroStrategy Incorporated is an American company that provides business intelligence (BI), mobile software, and cloud-based services. Founded in 1989 by Michael J. Saylor, Sanju Bansal, and Thomas Spahr, the firm develops software to analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps. It is a public company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, in the Washington metropolitan area. Its primary business analytics competitors include SAP AG Business Objects, IBM Cognos, and Oracle Corporation's BI Platform. Saylor is the Executive Chairman and, from 1989 to 2022, was the CEO.


title: MicroStrategy

text: Saylor started MicroStrategy in 1989 with a consulting contract from DuPont, which provided Saylor with $250,000 in start-up capital and office space in Wilmington, Delaware. Saylor was soon joined by company co-founder Sanju Bansal, whom he had met while the two were students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The company produced software for data mining and business intelligence using nonlinear mathematics, an idea inspired by a course on systems-dynamics theory that they took at MIT.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In 1992, MicroStrategy gained its first major client when it signed a $10 million contract with McDonald's. It increased revenues by 100% each year between 1990 and 1996. In 1994, the company's offices and its 50 employees moved from Delaware to Tysons Corner, Virginia.


title: MicroStrategy

text: On March 20, 2000, after a review of its accounting practices, the company announced that it would restate its financial results for the preceding two years. Its stock price, which had risen from $7 per share to as high as $333 per share in a year, fell $120 per share, or 62%, in a day in what is regarded as the bursting of the dot-com bubble.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In December 2000, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against the company and its executives. A lawsuit was subsequently filed against MicroStrategy and certain of its officials over fraud. In December 2000, Saylor, Bansal, and the company's former CFO settled with the SEC without admitting wrongdoing, each paying $350,000 in fines. The officers also paid a combined total of $10 million in disgorgement. The company settled with the SEC, hiring an independent director to ensure regulatory compliance.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In February 2009, MicroStrategy sold Alarm.com to venture capital firm ABS Capital Partners for $27.7 million. The company introduced OLAP Services with a shared data set cache, to accelerate reports and ad hoc queries. In 2010, the company began developing and deploying business intelligence software for mobile platforms, such as the iPhone and iPad.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In January 2014, the company announced a new feature of the platform called PRIME (Parallel Relational In-Memory Engine), co-developed with Facebook.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In October 2014, the company announced plans to lay off 770 employees, a month after reducing Saylor's salary from $875,000 to $1 at his request.


title: MicroStrategy

text: In February 2020, the company announced its latest release, MicroStrategy 2020, including a new design for its HyperIntelligence analytics tool.


title: MicroStrategy

text: Saylor resigned as CEO effective August 8, 2022. Phong Le, who had been president, succeeded him. Saylor remains the Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy. In a press release announcing the transition, Saylor said that he would focus on the company's bitcoin acquisition strategy and that Phong would manage overall corporate operations.


title: MicroStrategy

text: On August 31, 2022, the Attorney General for the District of Columbia sued Saylor for tax fraud, accusing him of illegally avoiding more than $25 million in D.C. taxes by pretending to be a resident of other jurisdictions. MicroStrategy was accused of collaborating with Saylor to facilitate his tax evasion by misreporting his residential address to local and federal tax authorities and failing to withhold D.C. taxes. MicroStrategy said the case is "a personal tax matter involving Mr. Saylor" and called the claims against the company "false" and it would "defend aggressively against this overreach."


title: MicroStrategy

text: In August 2020, MicroStrategy invested $250 million in bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, citing declining returns from cash, a weakening dollar and other global macroeconomic factors. The company went on to make several additional large purchases of bitcoin; as of September 19, 2022, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries held approximately 130,000 Bitcoins, acquired at an aggregate purchase price of $3.98 billion, at an average purchase price of $30,639 per bitcoin. As of September 19, 2022, bitcoin was trading around $19,200. Saylor is the main driver behind this strategy.


title: MicroStrategy

text: On the company's quarterly earnings call on May 3, 2022, MicroStrategy CFO Phong Le stated that the company would face a margin call if bitcoin’s price fell to about $21,000. A margin call would obligate the company to sell some of its bitcoin holdings. Le stated that the company could add more collateral to its loan to avoid such a situation. After bitcoin's price fell to about $20,800 in June 2022, the company said that it had not received a margin call and that it has enough capital to withstand further volatility.


title: MicroStrategy

text: MicroStrategy 2020, the company's latest platform release of its business intelligence software, includes improvements to the vendor's HyperIntelligence capabilities, an embedded analytics system using augmented intelligence and machine learning technology.


title: MicroStrategy

text: MicroStrategy 2019, the prior platform release, focused on three areas: federated analytics, allowing extended connectivity to data sources and applications; transformational mobility, for easier mobile application development; and HyperIntelligence, integrating Bluetooth identity detection and voice. The earlier suite of software, MicroStrategy 10, consisted of MicroStrategy Analytics, MicroStrategy Mobile, and Usher. MicroStrategy 10.10, released in December 2017, added MicroStrategy Workstation. It uses business intelligence and predictive analytics to search through and perform analytics on big data from a variety of sources, including data warehouses, Excel files, and Apache Hadoop distributions.


title: MicroStrategy

text: MicroStrategy Mobile, introduced in 2010, is a software platform integrating Analytics capabilities into apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry. It allows easier access without needing to reformat the data for different platforms.


title: MicroStrategy

text: Usher is a digital credential and identity intelligence product that provides a secure way for organizations to control digital and physical access. It replaces physical badges and passwords with secure digital badges, and generates information on user behavior and resource usage. Usher uses three-factor authentication, out-of-band channels, time-limited codes, and bidirectional public key infrastructure encryption.


The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in North Carolina were held on November 8, 2022, to elect U.S. representatives from the state of North Carolina, concurrent with nationwide elections to the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate (including in North Carolina), alongside legislative elections to the state house and senate. Primaries were held on May 17, 2022.


title: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in North Carolina

text: As a result of population growth over the preceding decade, the state's Congressional delegation increased from thirteen seats to fourteen in 2022. Republican-drawn districts adopted by the state legislature were struck down by the North Carolina Supreme Court as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, and court-drawn maps issued in their place. Democrats flipped the redrawn 13th district from Republican control, and won the newly created 14th district, yielding an even 7—7 House delegation.


text: The 1st district includes Vance, Warren, Franklin, Halifax, Northampton, Nash, Wilson, Edgecombe, Greene, Martin, Bertie, Hertford, Gates, Chowan, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Washington, and Tyrell counties. It also includes the majority of Pitt County.


text: The 2nd district includes most of Wake County, including the state capital of Raleigh and surrounding towns such as Apex and Cary.


text: The 3rd district includes Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Pamlico, Sampson counties, as well as portions of Pitt and Wayne counties.


text: The incumbent is Democrat David Price, who was re-elected with 67.3% of the vote in 2020. On October 18, 2021, he announced his retirement.


text: The 4th district includes Durham, Orange, Alamance, Granville, and Person counties, as well as a small section of Caswell County.


text: The 5th district includes Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Davie, Mitchell, Stokes, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes, and Yadkin counties. It also includes portions of Caldwell and Forsyth counties.


text: The 7th district includes Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, Pender, and Robeson counties, as well as a portion of Cumberland County.


text: Due to redistricting, the incumbent is Republican Dan Bishop, who was re-elected with 55.6% of the vote in 2020.


text: Due to redistricting after the 2020 census, Republican Representatives Richard Hudson and Ted Budd were moved to the same district. Budd has declared his Candidacy for U.S. Senate.


text: The 11th district includes Cherokee, Graham, Clay, Macon, Swain, Jackson, Haywood, Transylvania, Henderson, Buncombe, Madison, Yancey, Polk, and McDowell counties, as well as the western half of Rutherford County.


text: The 13th district includes all of Johnston County, the southern half of Wake County, the western half of Wayne County, and the eastern half of Harnett County.


title: Elantris

text: Elantris is a fantasy novel written by American fantasy and science fiction writer Brandon Sanderson. The book was published on April 21, 2005, by Tor Books and was Sanderson's first published book. The book gained generally positive reviews, and has been translated into multiple languages. Two related works, "Hope of Elantris" and "The Emperor's Soul", have been released, and two additional novels in the series have been announced.


title: Elantris

text: The story follows three main characters: Prince Raoden of Arelon, Princess Sarene of Teod, and the priest Hrathen of Fjorden. At the beginning of the story, Raoden is cursed by an ancient transformation known as the Shaod and secretly exiled to the city of Elantris just days before his betrothed, princess Sarene of Teod, arrives for their wedding. As Raoden tries to avoid gangs, keep his sanity, and unite the people of Elantris, Sarene must cope with the loss of her husband-to-be and try to save Arelon from Hrathen, a priest tasked with converting all of Arelon to the religion of Fjorden or dooming it to destruction.


title: Elantris

text: Elantris was once a place of magic, and the immortal Elantrians were gods in the eyes of people, with the divine ability to create and heal with a mere wave of a hand. Anyone in Arelon had the potential to become an Elantrian through a magical transformation known as the Shaod. But ten years ago, a cataclysm known as the Reod somehow destroyed the magic of Elantris, the inhabitants of the city became "cursed," and the city was sealed off from society. Anyone affected by the Shaod is now thrown into Elantris to stay there forever, still immortal, but cursed with unquenchable hunger and unhealable pain.


title: Elantris

text: The book focuses on three principal characters whose stories intertwine. Much of the book occurs in groupings of three chapters, one for each of the three main characters. The majority of the story takes places within the country of Arelon.


title: Elantris

text: Aons are central to the book's plot and are the means by which the Elantrians perform magic. Many characters' names are variations on the Aons, as is customary in this fantasy world. The images of the many Aons can be found in the back of the book. Raoden rediscovers many of the Aons while in Elantris, preserved in scrolls that have not been consumed by the decay of the city. He learns to invoke the Aons, but finds they have lost their power, which is the ultimate cause of Elantris' collapse. Near the end of the book, Sarene helps Raoden discover that the shapes of the Aons coincide with physical landmarks and natural features located around the country. A massive fissure in the earth that now cuts through the country 'altered' these landmarks, which in turn caused the Aons to lose their power. By 'reconstructing' the Aons to now incorporate the fissure in their design, Raoden restores the Aons' power. After realizing that Elantris and its surrounding cities are just one big Aon, he draws a giant line to represent the fissure, which restores Elantris and the Elantrians to their former glory.


title: Elantris

text: Like many of Sanderson's other novels and collections, including "Mistborn", "The Stormlight Archive", "Warbreaker", and "", "Elantris" takes place within a universe known as the Cosmere. Although the different novels, novellas, and series within the Cosmere are largely separate narratives, they are related, and "Easter egg" references to other Cosmere works are common. A mysterious figure named Hoid appears at some point in each of Sanderson's full novels and series, including in the last chapter of Elantris. His origins and motives remain unclear.


title: Elantris

text: "Elantris" was published by Tor Books in hardcover on April 21, 2005, and it was Sanderson's first published book. Coinciding with the general release, the Science Fiction Book Club released a hardcover edition in May 2005. The Tor mass market paperback was released on May 30, 2006, and the ebook followed in April 2007. In October 2015, a "tenth anniversary author's definitive edition" was released in trade paperback and hardcover, containing "10,000 words of additional content". In December 2015, the "Elantris Tenth Anniversary Dragonsteel Leather Edition" was released, which included full-color pages of "Elantris"-related art, new maps, and two-tonal typeset.


title: Elantris

text: It has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, French, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.


title: Elantris

text: GraphicAudio released "Elantris" as a dramatized audio production on April 1, 2009. It was adapted and produced with a full cast, narrator, sound effects and music. Recorded Books released a digital audio book of "Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition" on October 7, 2015, narrated by Jack Garrett.


title: Elantris

text: "Elantris" gained generally positive reviews. Orson Scott Card, American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist, and columnist, states on his website that ""Elantris" is the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years. Brandon Sanderson has created a truly original world of magic and intrigue, and with the rigor of the best science fiction writers he has made it real at every level."


title: Elantris

text: Kirkus Reviews praised the book because it was not the first book in a series: "An epic fantasy novel that is (startlingly) not Volume One of a Neverending Sequence... [with] an unusually well-conceived system of magic... the story has some grip and it's a tremendous relief to have fruition in a single volume... A cut above the same-old." "Publishers Weekly" praised Sanderson's fantasy debut as being outstanding and free of the usual genre clichés, noting that it offers something for everyone, including mystery, magic, romance, politics, religious conflict and robust characters.


title: Elantris

text: Sanderson has discussed an official sequel to "Elantris", though he is not sure when it might be written. He has stated that it would take place ten years after the current book's events, and center around some of its very minor characters. He later announced plans for two books following "Elantris", with Kiin's children being the main characters in Elantris Two.


title: Elantris

text: An e-book short story was released in 2007 entitled "The Hope of Elantris". It was initially for sale on Amazon, but Sanderson released it on his own site when the contract with Amazon ran out. Sanderson describes on his website that the events that take place in the e-book happen concurrently with events in "Elantris", hence he suggests reading "Elantris" first for risk of spoiling certain aspects of the story. The inspiration for the story comes from a story told to him by his wife Emily when they were dating in 2006.


title: Elantris

text: In 2013, Sanderson wrote the novella titled "The Emperor's Soul" that takes place in the world of "Elantris", but in a very different region. Shai is a thief and practitioner of magical forgery who has been arrested and sentenced to death. She is given 100 days to forge a new soul for the Emperor, who is in a coma following an assassination attempt.