title: Dacia Sandero

text: It is also equipped with electric power steering, LED headlights, emergency brake assist, blind-spot warning, park assist (with front and rear sensors, rearview camera), hill start assist, keyless entry, heated front seats, automatic air conditioning with digital display, reverse camera, electric parking brake, automatic wipers, a remote trunk release and electric glass sunroof as standard or optional, depending on the market.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: In June 2022, the Sandero received a slight restyling incorporating the brand's new logo alongside other Dacia models. To accommodate the new logo, the grille is redesigned, and the steering wheel is slightly modified.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: A crossover-look version of the Sandero dubbed the Sandero Stepway continued for the third generation. The TCe 110 engine from the Dacia Jogger is also available exclusively on the Sandero Stepway.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: The Sandero, along with the Logan, was due to launch in Russia in 2022, but this was never completed due to the ongoing war. However, some camouflaged prototypes were photographed at the former Renault factory in Moscow, now Moskvitch.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: In 2021, the Dacia Sandero Stepway in its standard European configuration obtained 2 stars from Euro NCAP.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: The Sandero was the focus of a running joke on the British television programme "Top Gear". In Series 11 and Series 12, after Dacia sent the show a press kit, presenter James May would often exclaim "Good News!" and explain a fact about the Sandero during the show's news segment, to which Jeremy Clarkson would reply "Great!" before abruptly changing the subject.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: The joke was also featured in "The Big Book of Top Gear", with a page proclaiming "Good News! The Dacia Sandero is in this book!" In later episodes, the presenters switched sides of the joke, with Clarkson bringing up news about the car and May shrugging it off. In the first episode of Series 13, when May said he had "Good News", Clarkson immediately asked "Is it the Dacia Sandero?", to which a seemingly bewildered May replied, "No..." The car was not mentioned for the remainder of the series.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: In Series 14, during a visit to Romania, Clarkson bought May a used Sandero as a gift. After returning from a test drive, May parked the car behind an idling lorry, and exited. As May praised the car to his co-presenters, the lorry reversed into the Sandero, damaging the passenger side. The joke was continued in Series 15, except this time referring to the Dacia Duster, and in Series 18, when May brought up the new Dacia Lodgy. The joke returned in the first and third episodes of Series 19, as well as the second and fifth episodes of Series 20.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: The second generation Sandero was featured alongside the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Up! in series 21 as part of a 1.0-liter, three-cylinder cars challenge, which ended with Clarkson (Up!) and May (Sandero) having to drive into the abandoned city of Pripyat, with Hammond's Fiesta having already run out of fuel. The Sandero was the only car to make it back out and complete all the challenges. (Technically, the challenge was to run out of fuel before reaching Pripyat, so Hammond in his Fiesta was successful at this last challenge.) May pointed out the large price difference between the Fiesta and the Sandero, stating that at £17,500 Vs £7,500 he could afford to lose his car, buy another - and still be better off than Hammond.


title: Dacia Sandero

text: Despite the comical and sarcastic nature of the recurring bit, May has stated that he has a genuine affinity for the Sandero. According to some sources, its second generation was intended to become a third "Reasonably Priced Car" on "Top Gear", however its use was prevented due to its delayed release in Britain.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Sonja (born Sonja Haraldsen on 4 July 1937) is Queen of Norway since 17 January 1991 as the wife of King Harald V.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Sonja and the then Crown Prince Harald had dated for nine years prior to their marriage in 1968. They had kept their relationship a secret due to the controversy of Sonja's status as a commoner. Harald had told his father, King Olav V, that he would remain unmarried if his father did not grant consent to marry Sonja. Upon their marriage, Sonja became crown princess and later the queen of Norway upon her husband's accession to the throne in 1991. The couple have two children together: Princess Märtha Louise and Crown Prince Haakon.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: As queen, Sonja holds patronage with up to fifteen organisations. Sonja has also served as Vice President of the Norwegian Red Cross from 1987 to 1990. She is also known for her interest in music, art and culture, having founded the Queen Sonja International Music Competition and the Queen Sonja Print Award. She is also a graphic artist and ceramicist, with many of her works being featured in exhibitions across Norway and other countries.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Sonja Haraldsen was born on 4 July 1937 in Oslo, the daughter of clothing merchant Karl August Haraldsen (1875–1959) and Dagny Ulrichsen (1898–1994). She had three siblings, Haakon Haraldsen (1921–2016), Gry Henriksen (1924–1971) and Karl Herman Haraldsen (1929–1936, who died in a boating accident). She grew up at Tuengen Allé 1B in the district of Vinderen in Oslo and completed her lower secondary schooling in 1954. She received a diploma in dressmaking and tailoring at the Oslo Vocational School, and a diploma from École Professionnelle des Jeunes Filles (a finishing school) in Lausanne, Switzerland. There, she studied accounting, fashion design, and social science. She returned to Norway for further studies and received an undergraduate degree (French, English and Art History) from the University of Oslo.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In June 1959 she first met Crown Prince Harald (the future King Harald V) at a party hosted by Johan H. Stenersen. Later in August the Crown Prince invited her to his graduation ball, where they were photographed together for the first time. They dated for nine years, although their relationship had been kept secret because she was a commoner. The Crown Prince made it clear to his father, King Olav V, that he would remain unmarried for life unless he could marry her. This would in effect have put an end to the rule of his family, and likely to the monarchy in Norway, as Harald was the sole heir to the throne. Faced with having to choose one of his relatives from the Danish royal family, the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein or even the Grand Dukes of Oldenburg as his new heir in place of his son, Olav V consulted the government for advice; as a result, Sonja became engaged to Crown Prince Harald on 19 March 1968. The couple married on 29 August 1968, at Oslo Cathedral. She thus acquired the style of "Royal Highness" and the title of Crown Princess of Norway.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Following the death of King Olav V on 17 January 1991, Sonja became Norway's first queen consort in 52 years. Queen Sonja accompanied King Harald V when he swore his oath to uphold the Constitution in the Storting on 21 January 1991. During Haakon VII of Norway's reign, his wife Queen Maud died in 1938 and his son Olav V was then crown prince when his wife Princess Märtha of Sweden died in 1954 before he became king three years later. It was also the first time in 69 years that a Norwegian queen had been present in the Storting. Since his accession, Queen Sonja has accompanied the King to the formal opening of the autumn session of the Storting and the reading of the Speech from the Throne.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In accordance with their own wishes, the King and Queen were consecrated in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on 23 June 1991. Following the consecration, the King and Queen conducted a 10-day tour of Southern Norway. In 1992, the entire Royal Family conducted a 22-day tour of Norway's four northernmost counties.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: The Queen accompanies the King on official state visits abroad. She acts as the hostess when foreign heads of state officially visit Norway.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 2005, Queen Sonja became the first queen ever to visit Antarctica. The Queen was there to open the Norwegian Troll research station in the country's Antarctic dependency, Queen Maud Land. The Queen flew in on one of the Royal Norwegian Air Force's C-130H Hercules transport aircraft, landing at Troll Airfield.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 2017 Queen Sonja was awarded the Trysil-Knut Prize. She is the first woman to ever receive the award.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: The Queen was appointed a Rear Admiral in the Royal Norwegian Navy and a Brigadier in the Norwegian Army. She has undergone a basic officer training course and has participated in exercises.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 1972 she was involved in establishing Princess Märtha Louise's Fund, which provides assistance to disabled children in Norway. She has taken active part in large-scale initiatives to raise funds for international refugees and spent time in the 1970s visiting Vietnamese boat refugees in Malaysia.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: From 1987 to 1990, Crown Princess Sonja served as Vice President of the Norwegian Red Cross. She was responsible for the organisation's international activities. She took part in a Red Cross delegation to Botswana and Zimbabwe in 1989.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Queen Sonja's School Award was established in 2006 and is awarded to schools who have "demonstrated excellence in its efforts to promote inclusion and equality".


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 2021, Frank Rossavik said that now she is starting an [art] gallery, to sell works by artists that she has given her prestigious prizes to.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: Sonja established the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in 1988. It was originally for pianists, but in 1995 the competition became only for singers. The jury consists of diverse authoritative figures in opera and the winners receive a cash amount and prestigious engagements at Norwegian music institutions.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: She is a longtime avid photographer and has a keen interest in art. She is a printmaker, and held exhibitions with artists Kjell Nupen and Ørnulf Opdahl in 2011 and 2013. The Queen Sonja Nordic Art Award was established in 2011 with Tiina Kivinen from Finland being the first recipient in 2012. The prize will be awarded every other year.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 2017, The Queen Sonja Art Stable was opened, a venue which will function as a scene for arts and culture. Together with King Harald, the queen has for decades attempted to establish a palace museum in Oslo.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: The Queen is a keen hiker, and this was marked by a sculpture unveiled for her 80th birthday as a gift from the Norwegian Trekking Association.


title: Queen Sonja of Norway

text: In 1982 she was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award. In 2007, she received the Holmenkollen medal with Simon Ammann, Frode Estil, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, and her husband, King Harald V.


title: Black Mass

text: A Black Mass is a ceremony typically celebrated by various Satanic groups. It has allegedly existed for centuries in different forms and is directly based on, and is intentionally a sacrilegious and blasphemous mockery of, a Catholic Mass.


title: Black Mass

text: In the 19th century the Black Mass became popularized in French literature, in books such as "Satanism and Witchcraft", by Jules Michelet, and , by Joris-Karl Huysmans.


title: Black Mass

text: Modern revivals began with H. T. F. Rhodes' book "The Satanic Mass" published in London in 1954, and there is now a range of modern versions of the Black Mass performed by various groups.


title: Black Mass

text: The Catholic Church regards the Mass as its most important ritual, going back to apostolic times. In general, its various liturgies followed the outline of Liturgy of the Word, Offertory, Liturgy of the Eucharist, and Benediction, which developed into what is known as the Mass. However, as early Christianity became more established and its influence began to spread, the early Church Fathers began to describe a few heretical groups practicing their own versions of Masses. Some of these rituals were of a sexual nature. The fourth-century AD heresiologist Epiphanius of Salamis, for instance, claims that a libertine Gnostic sect known as the Borborites engaged in a version of the Eucharist in which they would smear their hands with menstrual blood and semen and consume them as the blood and body of Christ respectively. He also alleges that, whenever one of the women in their church was experiencing her period, they would take her menstrual blood and everyone in the church would eat it as part of a sacred ritual.


title: Black Mass

text: Within the Church, the rite of the Mass was not completely fixed, and there were places at the end of the Offertory for the "Secret" prayers, when the priest could insert private prayers for various personal needs. These practices became especially prevalent in France (see Pre-Tridentine Mass). As these types of personal prayers within the Mass spread, the institution of the Low Mass became quite common, where priests would hire their services out to perform various Masses for the needs of their clients (Votive Masses) — such as blessing crops or cattle, achieving success in some enterprise, obtaining love, or even cursing enemies (one way this latter was done was by inserting the enemy's name in a Mass for the dead, accompanied by burying an image of the enemy). Although these practices were condemned by Church authorities as superstitious and sacrilegious abuses, they still occurred secretively. In the 12th and 13th centuries there was a great surplus of clerics and monks who might be inclined to perform these Masses, as younger sons were often sent off to religious universities, and after their studies, needed to find a livelihood. Also within the Church, the ritual of the Mass was sometimes reworked to create light-hearted parodies of it for certain festivities. Some of these became quasi-tolerated practices at times— though never accepted by official Church authorities— such as a festive parody of the Mass called "The Feast of Asses", in which Balaam's ass (from the Old Testament) would begin talking and saying parts of the Mass. A similar parody was the Feast of Fools. Though often condemned, practitioners of such activities, called "Goliards", continued despite the Church's disapproval.


title: Black Mass

text: Another result of the surplus of (sometimes disillusioned) clerical students was the appearance of the Latin writings of the Goliards and wandering clerics (clerici vagantes). There began to appear more cynical and heretical parodies of the Mass, also written in ecclesiastical Latin, known as "drinkers' masses" and "gamblers' Masses," which lamented the situation of drunk, gambling monks, and instead of calling to "Deus" (God), called to "Bacchus" (the Roman god of wine) and "Decius" (the god of dice, which were used in gambling). Some of the earliest of these Latin parody works are found in the medieval Latin collection of poetry, "Carmina Burana", written around 1230. At the time these wandering clerics were spreading their Latin writings and parodies of the Mass, the Cathars, who also spread their teachings through wandering clerics, were also active. Due to the proximity in time and location of the Goliards, the Cathars, and the witches, all of whom were seen as threatening the authority of the Catholic Church and its head, the Papacy in Rome, some historians have postulated that these wandering clerics may have at times offered their services for performing heretical, or "black" Masses on various occasions.


title: Black Mass

text: A further source of late Medieval and Early Modern involvement with parodies and alterations of the Mass, were the writings of the European witch-hunt, which saw witches as being agents of the Devil, who were described as inverting the Christian Mass and employing the stolen Host for diabolical ends. Witch-hunter's manuals such as the "Malleus Maleficarum" (1487) and the "Compendium Maleficarum" (1608) allude to these supposed practices. The first complete depiction of a blasphemy of the Mass in connection with the witches' sabbath, was given in Florimond de Raemond's 1597 French work, "The Antichrist" (written as a Catholic response to the Protestant claim that the Pope was the Antichrist). He uses the following description of a witches' meeting as a sign that Satanic practices are prevalent in the world, and a sign that the Antichrist's power is on the rise:


title: Black Mass

text: The most sophisticated and detailed descriptions of the Black Mass to have been produced in early modern Europe are found in the Basque witch-hunts of 1609-14. It has recently been argued by academics including Emma Wilby that the emphasis on the Black Mass in these trials evolved out of a particularly creative interaction between interrogators keen to find evidence of the rite and a Basque peasantry who were deeply committed to a wide range of unorthodox religious practices such as "cursing" Masses, liturgical misrule and the widespread misuse of Catholic ritual elements in forbidden magical conjurations. An impressive account of the rite was given by suspects from the Spanish-Basque village of Zugarramurdi, who claimed that:


title: Black Mass

text: Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, many examples of interest in the Black Mass come from France.


title: Black Mass

text: Scholarly studies on the Black Mass relied almost completely on French and Latin sources (which also came from France):


title: Black Mass

text: In spite of the huge amount of French literature discussing the Black Mass (Messe Noire) at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, no set of written instructions for performing one, from any purported group of Satanists, turned up in writing until the 1960s, and appeared not in France, but in the United States. As can be seen from these first "Black Masses" and "Satanic Masses" appearing in the U.S., the creators drew heavily from occult novelists such as Dennis Wheatley and Joris-Karl Huysmans, and from non-fiction occult writers popular in the 1960s, such as Grillot de Givry, author of the popular illustrated book "Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy", and H. T. F. Rhodes, who provided a title for the satanic ritual in his 1954 book "The Satanic Mass". Herbert Sloane, the founder of an early Satanist group, the Ophite Cultus Satanas, speaks of Satanists performing the ritual of the "Satanic Mass" in a letter he wrote in 1968 (see the article on his group), and in 1968 and 1969 also appeared the first two recordings of Satanic rituals, both entitled the "Satanic Mass":


title: Black Mass

text: Soon after Coven created their Satanic Mass recording, the Church of Satan began creating their own Black Masses, two of which are available to the public. The first, created for the Church of Satan by Wayne West in 1970, was entitled "Missa Solemnis" (named after the Missa Solemnis version of the Latin Mass; originally published only in pamphlet form, later published in Michael Aquino's history of "The Church of Satan"), and the second, created by an unknown author, was entitled "Le Messe Noir" (published in Anton LaVey's 1972 book "The Satanic Rituals").


title: Black Mass

text: All three of these newly created Black Masses (the one by Coven and the two by the Church of Satan) contain the Latin phrase "In nomine Dei nostri Satanas Luciferi Excelsi" (In the name of our God, Satan Lucifer of the Most High), as well as the phrases "Rege Satanas" and "Ave Satanas" (which, incidentally, are also the only three Latin phrases which appeared in the Church of Satan's 1968 recording, "The Satanic Mass"). Additionally, all three modify other Latin parts of the Roman Catholic Missal to make them into Satanic versions. The Church of Satan's two Black Masses also use the French text of the Black Mass in Huysmans' "Là-Bas" to a great extent. (West only uses the English translation, LaVey publishes also the original French). Thus, the Black Mass found in "The Satanic Rituals" is a combination of English, French, and Latin. Further, in keeping with the traditional description of the Black Mass, all three also require a consecrated Host taken from a Catholic church, as a central part of the ceremony.


title: Black Mass

text: A writer using the pseudonym "Aubrey Melech" published, in 1986, a Black Mass entirely in Latin, entitled "Missa Niger". (This Black Mass is available on the Internet). Aubrey Melech's Black Mass contains almost exactly the same original Latin phrases as the Black Mass published by LaVey in "The Satanic Rituals". The difference is that the amount of Latin has now more than doubled, so that the entire Black Mass is in Latin. Unlike Coven and Wayne West, LaVey and Melech don't give the source for the Latin material in their Black Mass, merely implying that they received it from someone else, without saying who.


title: Black Mass

text: The French sections that LaVey published were quotations from Huysmans's "Là-bas". The Latin of Melech and LaVey is based on the Roman Catholic Latin Missal, reworded so as to give it a Satanic meaning (e.g. the Roman Mass starts ""In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, introibo ad altare Dei"", while LaVey's version, printed in the "Satanic Rituals", starts ""In nomine magni dei nostri Satanas, introibo ad altare Domini Inferi""). There are a small amount of copyist and grammatical errors. For example, ""dignum"" from the Mass, is once incorrectly spelled ""clignum"", in the printed "Satanic Rituals". Another example, also appearing once, is ""laefificat"" instead of ""laetificat"". One of the more obvious grammatical errors is ""ego vos benedictio"", "I bless you", which should have been ""ego vos benedico"". Another grammatical peculiarity is that, throughout his version of the Mass, LaVey does not decline the name Satanas, as is typically done in Latin if the endings are used, but uses only the one form of the word regardless of the case. Melech uses "Satanus". "Satanas" as a name for Satan appears in some examples of Latin texts popularly associated with satanism and witchcraft, such as the middle age pact with the Devil supposedly written by Urbain Grandier. Both Black Masses end with the Latin expression "Ave, Satanas!" — Meaning either "Welcome, Satan!", or "Hail Satan!" (expressing the opposite sentiments of the similar statement made by Jesus to Satan in the Latin Vulgate Bible (Latin Vulgate, Matthew 4:10), "Vade, Satanas!" - "Go away, Satan!").


title: Priam

text: In Greek mythology, Priam (; , ) was the legendary and last king of Troy during the Trojan War. He was the son of Laomedon. His many children included notable characters such as Hector, Paris, and Cassandra.


title: Priam

text: Most scholars take the etymology of the name from the Luwian 𒉺𒊑𒀀𒈬𒀀 (Pa-ri-a-mu-a-, or “exceptionally courageous”), attested as the name of a man from Zazlippa, in Kizzuwatna. A similar form is attested transcribed in Greek as "Paramoas" near Kaisareia in Cappadocia.


title: Priam

text: Some have identified Priam with the historical figure of Piyama-Radu, a warlord active in the vicinity of Wilusa. However, this identification is disputed, and is highly unlikely, given that he was known in Hittite records as being an ally of the Ahhiyawa against Wilusa.


title: Priam

text: A popular folk etymology derives the name from the Greek verb , meaning 'to buy'. This in turn gives rise to a story of Priam's sister Hesione ransoming his freedom, with a golden veil that Aphrodite herself once owned, from Heracles, thereby 'buying' him. This story is attested in the "Bibliotheca" and in other influential mythographical works dated to the first and second centuries AD. These sources are, however, dated much later than the first attestations of the name Priamos or Pariya-muwas, and thus are more problematic.


title: Priam

text: Priam was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the "Chronography" as " tall for the age, big, good, ruddy-colored, light-eyed, long-nosed, eyebrows meeting, keen-eyed, gray, restrained". Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, he was illustrated as ". . .had a handsome face and a pleasant voice. He was large and swarthy".


title: Priam

text: Priam is said to have fathered fifty sons and many daughters, with his chief wife Hecuba, daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas and many other wives and concubines. These children include famous mythological figures such as Hector, Paris, Helenus, Cassandra, Deiphobus, Troilus, Laodice, Polyxena, Creusa, and Polydorus. Priam was killed when he was around 80 years old by Achilles' son Neoptolemus.


title: Priam

text: In Book 3 of Homer's "Iliad", Priam tells Helen of Troy that he once helped King Mygdon of Phrygia in a battle against the Amazons.


title: Priam

text: When Hector is killed by Achilles, the Greek warrior treats the body with disrespect and refuses to give it back. According to Homer in book XXIV of the "Iliad", Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort King Priam, Hector's father and the ruler of Troy, into the Greek camp. Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father bereft of his son and return Hector's body. He invokes the memory of Achilles' own father, Peleus. Priam begs Achilles to pity him, saying "I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before – I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son." Deeply moved, Achilles relents and returns Hector's corpse to the Trojans. Both sides agree to a temporary truce, and Achilles gives Priam leave to hold a proper funeral for Hector, complete with funeral games. He promises that no Greek will engage in combat for at least nine days, but on the twelfth day of peace, the Greeks would all stand once more and the mighty war would continue.


title: Priam

text: Priam is killed during the Sack of Troy by Achilles' son Neoptolemus (also known as Pyrrhus). His death is graphically related in Book II of Virgil's "Aeneid". In Virgil's description, Neoptolemus first kills Priam's son Polites in front of his father as he seeks sanctuary on the altar of Zeus. Priam rebukes Neoptolemus, throwing a spear at him, harmlessly hitting his shield. Neoptolemus then drags Priam to the altar and there kills him too. Priam's death is alternatively depicted in some Greek vases. In this version, Neoptolemus clubs Priam to death with the corpse of the latter's baby grandson, Astyanax.


title: Priam

text: It has been suggested by Hittite sources, specifically the Manapa-Tarhunta letter, that there is historical basis for the archetype of King Priam. The letter describes one Piyama-Radu as a troublesome rebel who overthrew a Hittite client king and thereafter established his own rule over the city of Troy (mentioned as Wilusa in Hittite). There is also mention of an Alaksandu, suggested to be Alexander (King Priam's son from the "Iliad"), a later ruler of the city of Wilusa who established peace between Wilusa and Hatti (see the Alaksandu treaty).


title: Coleus

text: Coleus is a genus of annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, sometimes succulent, sometimes with a fleshy or tuberous rootstock, found in the Old World tropics and subtropics. The relationship among the genera "Coleus", "Solenostemon" and "Plectranthus" has been confused. "Coleus" and "Solenostemon" were sunk into "Plectranthus", but recent phylogenetic analysis found "Plectranthus" to be paraphyletic with respect to other related genera in the subtribe Plectranthinae. The most recent taxonomic treatment of the genus resurrected "Coleus", and 212 names were changed from combinations in "Plectranthus", "Pycnostachys" and "Anisochilus". "Equilabium" was segregated from "Plectranthus", after phylogenetic studies supported its recognition as a phylogenetically distinct genus.


title: Coleus

text: "Coleus" are cultivated as ornamental plants, particularly "Coleus scutellarioides" (syns. "Coleus blumei", "Plectranthus scutellarioides"), which is popular as a garden plant for its brightly colored foliage.


title: Coleus

text: Other species that produce root tubers are cultivated for food, including "Coleus esculentus", "Coleus rotundifolius" and "Coleus maculosus" subsp. "edulis".


title: Coleus

text: The genus "Coleus" was first described by João de Loureiro in 1790. Using morphological characters as a guide, it was distinguished from "Plectranthus" (first described by Charles L'Héritier in 1788) by having its four stamens fused together rather than free to the base. In 1962, J.K. Morton noted that fused stamens were more widespread than previously thought, and accordingly merged "Coleus" into "Plectranthus", while maintaining "Solenostemon" and some other genera as distinct. Most sources followed Morton in submerging "Coleus"; some kept "Solenostemon" distinct, although others submerged it into "Plectranthus" along with "Coleus".


title: Coleus

text: A preliminary study of the tribe Ocimeae in 2004 showed that the subtribe Plectranthinae was monophyletic, with two main clades: one containing the type species of "Coleus" and including "Solenostemon", the other containing the type species of "Plectranthus" along with some other genera, so that "Plectranthus" when broadly defined was not monophyletic. A more detailed study in 2018 reached similar conclusions, and suggested that "Coleus" (including "Solenostemon") should be recognized again, "Plectranthus" more narrowly defined, and a new genus, "Equilabium" erected for a clade of former "Plectranthus" species mainly from tropical Africa. The many new binomial combinations needed to implement this approach were provided in 2019.


title: Coleus

text: Paton et al. in 2019 published a summary cladogram for the subtribe Plectranthinae, based on a study in 2018.


title: Coleus

text: In the version below, the three genera accepted by Paton et al. that formed part of "Plectranthus" s.l. are highlighted.


title: Coleus

text: Paton et al. (2019) listed 294 species of "Coleus", many transferred from "Plectranthus". , "Plants of the World Online" listed 301. Species include:


title: Herbert Lom

text: Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru (11 September 1917 – 27 September 2012), known professionally as Herbert Lom (), was a Czech-British actor who moved to the United Kingdom in 1939. In a career lasting more than 60 years, he generally appeared in character roles, often portraying criminals or suave villains in his younger years, and professional men as he aged. Highly versatile, he proved a skilled comic actor in "The Pink Panther" franchise, as inspector Dreyfus.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom was noted for his precise, elegant enunciation of English. He is best known for his roles in "The Ladykillers", "The Pink Panther" film series, "War and Peace" and the television series "The Human Jungle".


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom was born in Prague to Karl Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru and Olga Gottlieb. His mother was of Jewish ancestry. His ancestor, Christian Schluderpacher, a burgher of Bozen, was ennobled in 1601. Lom's family were comfortable, but not grandly aristocratic. His grandfather owned property in Prague and Šumava, with his income deriving mainly from two restaurants and a guest house. Lom's father, as a younger son, inherited little, supporting his family by variously running a printing business, a car repair shop, and trying to establish himself as an art agent. The family lived at Žižkov before moving to Vysočany, subsequently lived at Vinohrady, then Nové Město, where Lom attended a famous German grammar school. He studied philosophy for some time at the German University in Prague, but ceased his studies to become an actor.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom's film debut was in the Czech film "Žena pod křížem" ("A Woman Under Cross", 1937) followed by the "Boží mlýny" ("Mills of God", 1938). His early film appearances were mainly supporting roles, with the occasional top billing. At this time he also changed his surname to Lom ("breakage" or "quarry" in Czech) because it was the shortest he found in a local telephone directory.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Due to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Poland and Hungary in 1938–39, Lom emigrated to Britain in January 1939. He made numerous appearances in British films throughout the 1940s, usually in villainous roles, although he later appeared in comedies as well. Despite his mother's Jewish ancestry, Lom's parents survived to join him in England.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Despite Lom's accent, he managed to escape being typecast as a European heavy by securing a diverse range of casting, including as Napoleon Bonaparte in "The Young Mr. Pitt" (1942), and again in the King Vidor version of "War and Peace" (1956). He secured a seven-picture Hollywood contract after World War II, but was unable to obtain an American visa for "political reasons". In a rare starring role, Lom played twin trapeze artists in "Dual Alibi" (1946).


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom starred as the King of Siam in the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "The King and I." Opening at the Drury Lane Theatre on 8October 1953, it ran for 926 performances. He can be heard on the cast recording.


title: Herbert Lom

text: A few years later, he appeared opposite Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers in "The Ladykillers" (1955); and with Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon and Rita Hayworth in "Fire Down Below" (1957). He went on to more film success in the 1960s with a wide range of parts, including "Spartacus" (1960); "El Cid" (1961); "Mysterious Island" (also 1961), as Captain Nemo; and Hammer Films' remake of "The Phantom of the Opera" (1962), in whichk Lom had the leading role, wearing a full-face Phantom mask. "It was wonderful to play such a part," he said, "but I was disappointed with the picture... This version of the famous Gaston Leroux story dragged. The Phantom wasn't given enough to do, but at least I wasn't the villain, for a change. Michael Gough was the villain."


title: Herbert Lom

text: During this period, Lom starred in his only regular TV series, the British drama "The Human Jungle" (1963–64), playing a Harley Street psychiatrist for two series. He starred in another low-budget horror film, the witch-hunting story "Mark of the Devil" ("Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält", 1970), with unusually graphic torture scenes. Cinemas reportedly handed out sick bags at screenings. Lom appeared in other horror films made in both the US and UK, including "Asylum", "And Now the Screaming Starts!", "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Dead Zone".


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom was perhaps best known for his portrayal of Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, Inspector Clouseau's long-suffering superior, in most of Blake Edwards' "Pink Panther" films, beginning with the second in the series, "A Shot in the Dark" (1964). He also appeared in two screen versions of the Agatha Christie novel "And Then There Were None"—as Dr. Armstrong in the 1975 version, and as General Romensky in the 1989 version.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom wrote two historical novels: one on the playwright Christopher Marlowe ("Enter a Spy: The Double Life of Christopher Marlowe", 1978), and the other on the French Revolution ("Dr Guillotine: The Eccentric Exploits of an Early Scientist", 1992). The film rights to the latter have been purchased, but no film has yet been produced.


title: Herbert Lom

text: Lom married Dina Schea in 1948. They had two children before they divorced after separating between 1961 and 1976. He had a child from a relationship with Brigitta Appleby. He later married Eve Lacik; they divorced in 1990.


title: Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange

text: Mary, Princess Royal (Mary Henrietta Stuart; 4 November 1631 – 24 December 1660), was an English princess, a member of the House of Stuart, and by marriage Princess of Orange and Countess of Nassau. She acted as regent for her minor son from 1651 to 1660. She was the first holder of the title Princess Royal.


text: The eldest daughter of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria, Mary was married to the future stadtholder of the Netherlands, William II of Orange, at 9 years old in 1641. Initially, she remained in England with her parents because of the heated political situation in England until early 1642, when she and her mother left for the Netherlands. Five years later in 1647, Mary's husband inherited the titles of Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel and Groningen in the United Provinces of the Netherlands.


text: Eight days after her husband's death in 1650, Mary gave birth to a son, William III of Orange, who later became King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Mary, who became the only guardian of her son, was not popular in the Netherlands because of her support of her brothers and her difficult relationship with her mother-in-law Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, who considered the princess young and inexperienced. After the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, Mary departed for celebrations in London, where she fell ill with smallpox and died.


text: Princess Mary Henrietta was born on 4 November 1631 at St. James's Palace, London, the third (but second surviving) child and eldest daughter of Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Henrietta Maria of France. She was baptized on the same day of her birth, as there were fears that the newborn princess was not in good health and might die; the ceremony was presided over by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. The girl received her first name in honour of her maternal grandmother, Marie de' Medici, Queen of France. Mary's first public appearance took place in 1640 at the baptism of her brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester; she became the only godmother of the little prince.


text: Mary spent the first years of her life with her brothers and sisters at St James's Palace, as well as at Richmond Palace and Hampton Court. The education of the princesses was entrusted to the Countess of Roxburghe. Mary was known for her grace, beauty, and manners; in addition, she excelled in dancing, but her knowledge of the sciences left much to be desired. The girl's mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, wanted to convert her daughter to Catholicism, for which she introduced a young lady who secretly professed Catholicism to Mary's circle of friends, but King Charles I quickly stopped his wife's actions.


text: In January 1640, 8-year-old Mary received her first marriage proposal from the 13-year-old William, the eldest son and heir of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. The mother of the potential groom, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, was once a lady-in-waiting and close friend of Mary's aunt Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, which later played an important role in Mary's life. The offer of the House of Orange was at first rejected by King Charles I, who wanted to give his daughter in marriage to Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias, only son and heir of King Philip IV of Spain and also Mary's maternal first cousin. A prerequisite for such a union was Mary's conversion to Catholicism, but the princess, who at the request of her mother studied the basics of the Catholic religion, did not want to change her faith. In addition, her mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, was anti-Spanish and was against an alliance with Spain. Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, Mary's paternal first-cousin, was also a suitor for her hand, but in the end, this proposal also fell through.


text: By the end of the 1630s, relations between the various factions in English society had become very tense; controversies over religion, social relations, morality, and political power became more and more heated. At the same time, Mary's mother, who openly professed Catholicism, became more and more unpopular in the country. In late 1640–early 1641, King Charles I decided to renew negotiations with Prince Frederick Henry of Orange.


text: The negotiations progressed quickly. On 10 February 1641, Charles announced to Parliament that the betrothal of his daughter was actually concluded and that it only remained to consider this union from a political point of view. Charles himself hoped that in case of emergency, the Prince of Orange would help him to maintain royal power in England. A modest wedding ceremony took place on 2 May 1641 at the Chapel Royal in Whitehall Palace, London. Queen Henrietta Maria was unable to attend the religious ceremony as it was a Protestant one; instead, she watched her daughter's wedding from a small gallery. The marriage of the King's eldest daughter was practically not celebrated in England, as the country was on the verge of a war that broke out in less than a year. The king gave her a crystal and gold casting bottle garnished with rubies and diamonds and a gold chain with the cipher "AR" which had belonged to Anne of Denmark.


text: Mary and William were congratulated by courtiers, and received several gifts; in addition, in honour of the newlyweds, a volley of 120 guns was fired. After the ceremony, William returned to the Netherlands. According to the marriage contract, Mary could remain in England until she was 12 years old, and her husband would provide her with 1,500 livres per year for personal expenses. In addition, in the event of the untimely death of William, Mary would receive a maintenance of 10,000 livres per year and two residences for her personal use. The marriage contract also provided that Mary and her English attendants could still worship in the manner of the Church of England, rather than join the Dutch Reformed Church.


text: In early 1642, the situation in the country heated up. Mary and her parents were forced to take refuge in Hampton Court, but the situation steadily turned into open war. In February, Queen Henrietta Maria departed with her daughter to The Hague in the Netherlands; they travelled on a Dutch fleet of fifteen ships. Mary was accompanied to the Netherlands by her governess, Lady Stanhope, who later became her confidant and companion. From a political point of view, the marriage of Mary partially paid off in 1643, when Henrietta Maria persuaded the Dutch government to provide a ship and arms for Charles, and sent them to England.


text: Shortly before leaving for the Netherlands, Mary was designated by her father "Princess Royal", thus establishing the tradition that the eldest daughter of the British sovereign might bear this title. The title was created because Queen Henrietta Maria, the daughter of King Henry IV of France, wanted her daughter to have a title comparable to ""Madame Royale"", the style of the eldest daughter of the King of France. Until that time, the eldest daughters of English and Scottish kings were variously titled "lady" or "princess". The younger daughters of British sovereigns were not consistently titled princesses of Great Britain and styled "Royal Highness" until the accession of George I in 1714.


text: In November 1643, the second marriage ceremony between the 12-year-old Mary and 17-year-old William took place in The Hague. The marriage was not consummated until 1644. In February 1644, Mary completely merged into the life of the Dutch court. She gave audiences, met with foreign ambassadors, and performed all the functions assigned to her with an importance and dignity considered astonishing for her age. In March, she participated in court celebrations of the recent alliance between France and the Netherlands, and led the entertainment that her husband arranged for the French ambassador.


text: Mary, who was constantly receiving news from England, sympathized with her father Charles' cause. In December 1646, she sent him a letter (via a Dutch merchant ship) urging him to flee to the Netherlands, but Charles declined. In The Hague, Mary developed a very warm relationship with her aunt, Elizabeth, the exiled former Queen of Bohemia. However, Mary didn't develop a good relationship with her mother-in-law Amalia, so she tried to minimize contact with her.


text: Prince Frederick Henry of Orange died on 14 March 1647. On the day of his death, Parliament was convened, which proclaimed William II to be his father's heir as stadtholder and head of the army; one by one, the remaining titles of her late father-in-law were recognized for Mary's husband, and he became the new Prince of Orange. In 1648, Mary was visited by her brothers, Charles, Prince of Wales, and James, Duke of York. In 1649, Mary's father King Charles was executed; subsequently, Mary helped many English Royalist exiles. Among those who were under her patronage was the family of Anne Hyde – the future wife of the Duke of York and mother of two English Queens, Mary II and Anne.


text: In the autumn of 1647 Mary suffered a miscarriage, after which she could not conceive for several years. In early 1650, she was pregnant again. In late October-early November, when the princess's pregnancy was coming to an end, her husband fell ill with smallpox and died on 6 November, just after his attempt to capture Amsterdam from his political opponents; eight days after his death, on the day of her nineteenth birthday, Mary gave birth to a son, William. The newborn prince's cradle was draped with black cloth as a sign of mourning for his father. Since the titles of the stadtholder of the Netherlands and the Prince of Orange were not inheritable, the child did not receive them immediately after birth.


text: Soon after the birth of her son, Mary had several conflicts with her mother-in-law. She planned to name her son Charles in honour of her executed father, but Amalia insisted that the boy be named William, which was a better choice: the first ruler of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was William I of Orange and in addition, the boy's late father also wanted to name his son William. Having won the battle for the name of her grandson, Amalia now wanted to become his legal guardian, referring to the fact that Mary was too young. On 13 August 1651, the "Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland" (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between Mary, her mother-in-law, and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (whose wife, Louise Henriette was William II's eldest sister); the Elector was chosen because he could act as a neutral party mediating between the two women, but also because as a possible heir he was interested in protecting the Orange family fortune, which Amalia feared Mary would squander.


text: In general, Mary was not popular in the Netherlands, which was more sympathetic to Oliver Cromwell; the princess herself, because of such preferences of the Dutch, refused to hire them to serve her son. In January 1650, Mary, along with her brother James and aunt Elizabeth, planned to modestly commemorate the first anniversary of her father's death, but the Dutch government considered even modest events offensive to the English government. A little later, when envoys from the English parliament were received by the States General, Mary retired to her widow's seat in Breda, but the influence of her party prevented the English from concluding an alliance with the Netherlands. After Mary secretly received her brother Charles II in 1651 (who considered himself the legitimate King of England), the Dutch government forbade her to accept any of her relatives. The household of Mary and her aunt was called a "nest of vipers", weaving conspiracies against the Netherlands, England, and Cromwell in particular.


text: In 1652, the mood in the Netherlands changed due to the outbreak of war with England. Mary's son was officially elected as stadtholder of Zealand and several northern provinces, but Witte de With, the republican leader, prevented William from being elected in Holland. In addition, when concluding a peace treaty, Cromwell insisted on the adoption of the Act of Seclusion, which prohibited Holland from electing a member of the Orange dynasty as stadtholder. Another requirement of Cromwell was the expulsion of all enemies of the Commonwealth from Holland. Mary made an official protest, but it was not taken into account, despite the fact that the country was threatened by civil war; the peace treaty was signed on 27 May 1654.


text: Mary's worries about the position of her son affected her health. To cut her own expenses in the interests of her brothers, she announced her intention to abandon two of the four palaces at her disposal. In July 1654, she went to a water resort, where she spent a few weeks, and then went to visit her brother Charles in Cologne, where his court was located. She returned to the Netherlands in October, but in July 1655 she again went to Charles in Cologne, visited the fair in Frankfurt incognito, and returned home on 15 November. In January 1656, Mary went to Paris, where her mother and younger sister Henrietta lived, and was received with all honours at the French court.


text: In the Netherlands, the early widowed Mary was visited by numerous admirers and suitors, among whom was George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. According to contemporaries, Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Ernest's brother George William also offered their hands to Mary in Paris. In addition, Cardinal Mazarin showed particular favour to the princess, and also circulated rumours that she was having an affair with (or had been secretly married to) Henry Jermyn, a member of her brother James of York' household. The rumours were probably untrue, but Charles II took them seriously and tried to prevent any further contact between Jermyn and the princess. Mary left Paris on 21 November and after a two-month stay at her brother's court in Bruges returned to The Hague. Soon after her return, Mary learned that her mother-in-law Amalia had offered Charles II the hand of her daughter Henriette Catherine, which deeply angered the princess. In 1658, Amalia tried to obtain the post of sole regent for her grandson, to whom Mary was also appointed by the Supreme Court, but the princess, with the support of her French relatives, thwarted the intrigues of her mother-in-law.


text: In November 1659, Mary sent her son to study at Leiden University. On 14 May 1660, the Dutch parliament informed Mary, who was in Breda, about the restoration of the monarchy in England and the accession to the throne of her brother Charles (henceforth King Charles II). A few days later she took part in the celebrations at The Hague on this occasion. Mary henceforth occupied the third place in the line of succession to the English throne after her brothers, James and Henry (although Henry would die later that same year). Her renewed status as an English princess, therefore, helped the attitude towards her in the Netherlands grow more tolerant: in all the cities where Mary and her son passed through or attended solemn events, they were greeted with royal honours. After the Stuart Restoration, it was proclaimed that the Act of Seclusion was void since the English Commonwealth no longer existed. In 1660, Mary, united with her mother-in-law, tried to get the states of several provinces to acknowledge William as future Stadtholder, but many refused at first.


text: On 30 September 1660, Mary sailed to England, where (her concern for her exiled compatriots and brothers being known) she was warmly received. Upon arrival in London, Mary discovered to her surprise and dismay that her brother the King not only recognized the marriage of James, Duke of York, with Anne Hyde, Mary's former lady-in-waiting, but also declared that their offspring would be princes and princesses of England with full succession rights. This fact upset Mary so much that she decided to significantly shorten her visit to her homeland. She attended the official service at Whitehall Chapel, where everyone who wanted to see her flocked, and also gave a private reception at Whitehall for Elias Ashmole to see some anatomical curiosities. She accepted a monetary gift from Parliament, received in a letter dated 7 November, and asked for a long-promised dowry; to resolve this issue, the King appointed a commission. In November 1660, Mary met with the Embassy of the United Provinces, who came to renew an alliance with England.


text: On 20 December the English court was stirred up by the news that Mary was seriously ill with smallpox. Having received this news, Queen Henrietta Maria arrived at the bedside of her dying daughter and made a last attempt to convert her to Catholicism, but Mary refused. The Queen managed to insist that her French doctor take over the treatment of the princess, which, as many contemporaries believed, was fatal for Mary, since the doctor was an ardent supporter of bloodletting. On 24 December, Mary signed her will and died on the same day. At her own request, she was buried in Westminster Abbey next to her brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who also died of smallpox in September 1660.


text: In her will, Mary asked the King to take care of the interests of her 10-year-old son, whose sole guardian was now his grandmother Amalia. In 1672, after several years of confrontation with republican leaders in the Netherlands, 21-year-old William was nevertheless elected stadtholder of five provinces, starting with Holland on 4 July, and named commander-in-chief. Five years later, he married his cousin Mary, the daughter of James II and Anne Hyde. In 1688, with the support of English Protestants, William deposed Mary's father and with his wife was proclaimed co-ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Metrojet Flight 9268 was an international chartered passenger flight, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia (branded as Metrojet). On 31 October 2015, at 06:13 local time EST (04:13 UTC), an Airbus A321-231 operating the flight exploded above the northern Sinai Peninsula following its departure from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, Egypt en route to Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg, Russia. All 224 passengers and crew on board were killed. The cause of the crash was most likely an onboard explosive device as concluded by Russian investigators.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Most of the people aboard the flight were tourists. There were 212 Russians, four Ukrainians, and one Belarusian passenger. There were also 7 crew members on board. Investigators believe that a bomb was put on the aircraft at Sharm El Sheikh, with the goal of causing airlines to suspend flights to that airport.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Shortly after the crash, the Islamic State's Sinai Branch, previously known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for the incident, which occurred in the vicinity of the Sinai insurgency. ISIL claimed responsibility on Twitter, on video, and in a statement by Abu Osama al-Masri, the leader of the group's Sinai branch. ISIL posted pictures of what it said was the bomb in "Dabiq", its online magazine.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: By 4 November 2015, British and American authorities suspected that a bomb was responsible for the crash. On 8 November 2015, an anonymous member of the Egyptian investigation team said the investigators were "90 percent sure" that the jet was brought down by a bomb. Lead investigator Ayman al-Muqaddam said that other possible causes of the crash included a fuel explosion, metal fatigue, and lithium batteries overheating. The Russian Federal Security Service announced on 17 November 2015 that they were sure that it was a terrorist attack, caused by an improvised bomb containing the equivalent of up to of TNT that detonated during the flight. The Russians said they had found explosive residue as evidence. On 24 February 2016, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi acknowledged that terrorism caused the crash.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: In March 2020, an Egyptian appeals court ruled the crash was not an act of terrorism, and it dismissed lawsuits against government officials, Metrojet and Ingosstrakh. The appeals court ruled that the identities of the 224 victims had not been officially established and it was impossible to issue compensation to them as a result.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The aircraft was an 18-year-old Airbus A321-231, serial number 663. It first flew on 9 May 1997 and was delivered new to Middle East Airlines on 27 May 1997 with registration F-OHMP. In 2003, it was leased by Onur Air and, beginning in 2007, it was subleased to Saudi Arabian Airlines and other carriers and was registered as TC-OAE. In April 2012, Kolavia acquired the aircraft with a new registration of EI-ETJ and transferred it to Kogalymavia in May.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 16 November 2001, while operating Middle East Airlines Flight 304, the aircraft suffered a tailstrike while landing in Cairo, Egypt. Neither the crew nor the passengers were injured, but the damage was severe. Within three months, the aircraft was repaired and returned to service.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: At the time of the crash, the aircraft was owned by Dublin-based AerCap and leased to Kolavia. The aircraft had accumulated 56,000 flight hours on nearly 21,000 flights.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Flight 9268 was carrying 217 passengers, of which 25 were children, plus seven crew members. The captain of the flight was 47-year-old Valery Yurievich Nemov and the first officer was Sergei Stanislavovich Trukhachev. According to the airline, captain Nemov had amassed more than 12,000 hours of flight time, including 3,800 hours on this aircraft type. First officer Trukhachev had 5,641 hours of flight time, including more than 1,300 hours on the aircraft type.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The Russian embassy confirmed that most of the passengers were Russian. There were also one Belarusian and four Ukrainian passengers on board. Most of the passengers were tourists returning from Red Sea resorts. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia released the passenger manifest of all those thought to have been on the flight. The majority of the passengers were from northwest Russia, including Saint Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov oblasts. A great number of children were orphaned by the crash as many parents on the flight had left their children behind in Russia.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Flight 9268 left Sharm El Sheikh airport at 05:50 EST (03:50 UTC) for Pulkovo Airport in Saint Petersburg, Russia, with 217 passengers and seven crew members on board. The aircraft failed to make contact with Cyprus Air Traffic Control 23 minutes later.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The Islamic State's Sinai branch said that it brought down the airliner. Wassim Nasr, France 24's expert on jihadi movements, said that the IS group has never claimed an attack they did not commit. Russian media outlets said that the pilot reported technical problems and had requested a landing at the nearest airport before the A321 went missing. This claim was disputed by other sources, including the Egyptian authorities, and subsequent analysis of the flight recorder data confirmed that no distress or diversion request was given. The Egyptian Civilian Aviation Ministry issued a statement that indicated the flight was at an altitude of when it disappeared from radar screens after a steep descent of in one minute. Flightradar24 shows the aircraft climbing to at before suddenly descending to at approximately north east of Nekhel, after which its position was no longer tracked. A bomb exploded in the aircraft, causing uncontrolled decompression, and the aircraft disintegrated in mid-air. All 224 passengers and crew died.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Reuters quoted an unnamed security officer as saying that the aircraft had been completely destroyed. Wreckage was scattered over , with the forward section about from the tail, indicating that the aircraft had broken up during flight. Aerial images of the wreckage broadcast on RT indicated that the wings were intact until impact. The debris pattern, combined with an initial interpretation of the aircraft's abrupt changes in altitude and airspeed, reinforced the presumption that the aircraft's tail separated during flight and fell separately.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Unnamed Egyptian authorities indicated that the first parts of the wreckage had been located. Fifty ambulances were sent to the crash site near Housna, from Sharm El Sheikh. Unnamed Egyptian officials reported that the aircraft "split in two" and most bodies were found strapped to their seats. Initial reports indicated that voices of trapped passengers could be heard in a section of the crashed aircraft. At least 100 bodies were initially found, including at least five children.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the central air traffic accident authority in Egypt, was appointed to investigate the cause of the crash. In a statement on 31 October, he indicated that the pilot had made contact with the civil aviation authorities and asked to land at the nearest airport. He suggested the aircraft may have been attempting an emergency landing at El Arish International Airport in northern Sinai. On the same day, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamel said that air traffic control recordings did not show any distress calls, nor change of route requests by the pilots. The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said that a probe of the crash would take months. Furthermore, on 31 October the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters was activated, providing for the humanitarian retasking of satellite assets.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations sent three of its aircraft to the crash site. The Investigative Committee of Russia also started a legal case against Kogalymavia under legislation regulating "violation of rules of flights and preparations." Kogalymavia's employees were also questioned, along with those of the Brisco tour agency that had chartered the flight. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry promised to work closely with Russian officials and investigators to find the cause of the accident. The aircraft had passed technical checks before taking off. Investigators would also view the security camera footage. Soon after the crash, Russia's regional transport prosecutors determined that the quality of fuel on the aircraft met required standards.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The aviation accident investigation agencies BEA (France), BFU (Germany), and AAIU (Ireland) participated in the investigation as representatives for the state of the aircraft's design, manufacture, and registration respectively. The BEA sent two investigators, accompanied by six representatives from Airbus, to Egypt on 1 November. According to the BEA, they joined two investigators from the BFU and four investigators from the Interstate Aviation Committee, their Russian counterpart, representing the state of the aircraft's operator.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were recovered from the crash site on 1 November. Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov and a team of specialist investigators arrived in Cairo to assist the Egyptian investigators in determining the cause of the crash. The flight data recorders were reported to be in good condition. On 4 November, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry Investigators reported that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was partially damaged and much work was required to extract data from it. The CVR indicated that everything was normal until a sudden disastrous event. An explosion or other sudden loud noise was heard very shortly before the recorder stopped recording.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The Egyptian search and rescue team had found 163 bodies by 1 November. As the search area widened, the Egyptian team found the body of a child about from the wreckage, indicating that the aircraft had broken up in mid-air, confirmed by Russian investigator Viktor Sorochenko.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: An unnamed official quoted by Reuters said that Flight 9268's tail section separated from the main body of the fuselage and was burning, which could indicate an explosion. According to a senior US defence official speaking on 2 November, a US infrared satellite detected a heat flash at the time and place of the disaster, and the US intelligence community believed that it could have been an explosion on the aircraft, by either a fuel tank or a bomb and the satellite imagery also ruled out a missile attack. US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that there was not yet any "direct evidence of terrorist involvement". Some UK news outlets reported that an ISIL bomb was the most likely explanation for the crash.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Within a week of the crash, serious considerations were given to the notion that the plane had been intentionally brought down. The UK government said that in the light of further British intelligence, the crash "may well have been caused by an explosive device". British aviation experts travelled to Egypt to assess airport security; the UK government Cobra emergency committee, chaired by the Prime Minister, considered their findings. The BBC reported that the British government thinks the incident was probably caused by terrorism based on intercepted transmissions between militants based in Sinai. These transmissions suggest that a bomb was put in the hold prior to takeoff. Although the British have not ruled out a technical fault, the BBC reports that is "increasingly unlikely". Paul Adams, BBC world affairs correspondent, said that Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesperson left little doubt that the British government believed the aircraft was brought down by a bomb. Adams said that suspending flights both to and from a foreign country and insisting on your own technical experts assessing security demonstrated a lack of confidence in that country's own security measures. Security experts and investigators have said the aircraft is unlikely to have been struck from the outside and Sinai militants are not believed to have any missiles capable of striking an airliner at .


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: At the same time, flights began to be stopped from and to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, causing around 20,000 British tourists to be stranded.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: European investigators had found that the cockpit voice recorder data is consistent with an explosion and the flight data recorder cuts off abruptly. On 8 November, Reuters quoted an unnamed Egyptian investigation team member, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the investigation, who said he was "90% sure" the airliner was brought down by a bomb, based on an initial analysis of the last second of the cockpit voice recording. Lead investigator Ayman al-Muqaddam said that other causes, such as lithium batteries overheating, a fuel explosion, or metal fatigue in the structure, still needed to be definitively ruled out.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 17 November 2015, the Russian security service chief Alexander Bortnikov announced that their investigation had concluded that a "terror act" brought down Metrojet Flight 9268 after traces of explosives were found in the wreckage. Spectral analysis was used among other methods to examine the substance found. According to Russian officials, an improvised explosive device with power equivalent to up to 1 kilogram of TNT brought down the flight. Russia offered a US$50 million reward for further information. Reuters reported that, according to security sources, two employees of Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh airport had been detained for questioning over the crash on suspicion of putting a bomb on board the flight. Egyptian authorities denied this.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 18 November 2015, ISIL published pictures of what it claimed was the type of bomb in its "Dabiq" online magazine, claiming to show the three IED components including a Schweppes soda can containing the explosive charge, a military-grade detonator and switch. In the same month Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu announced that the Sinai branch of ISIL was responsible for downing of the flight.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 14 December 2015 the Egyptian committee investigating the crash issued a preliminary report. The leader of the committee said that it had so far found "no evidence that there is an act of terror or illegal intervention". In response to the statement by the investigating committee, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov re-iterated that "our experts concluded this was a terrorist attack".


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 29 January 2016 Reuters reported, from an unnamed source, that a mechanic had been detained and was suspected of planting a bomb, which he had been given by his cousin, who was a member of ISIS. Two policemen and a baggage-handler were suspected of helping the mechanic.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 24 February 2016, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi acknowledged that terrorism caused the crash, saying, "Has terrorism ended? No... Whoever downed that plane, what did he want? Just to hit tourism? No. To hit relations. To hit relations with Russia."


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Airline officials have announced that they have ruled out mechanical failure, but investigators have still not made such a determination. Natalya Trukhacheva, the ex-wife of co-pilot Sergei Trukhachev, said in an interview with NTV that her ex-husband had complained to their daughter about the aircraft's technical state.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The aircraft involved in the crash had suffered a tailstrike while landing in Cairo 14 years earlier. Some have drawn comparisons to Japan Airlines Flight 123, which crashed into a mountain in 1985, 7 years after the aircraft had suffered a tailstrike while landing. Flight 123 suffered catastrophic damage in mid-air while climbing to its cruising altitude. The crash of Flight 123 was caused by an incorrect repair of the aircraft's tail section following the tailstrike, which left the rear pressure bulkhead of the airliner vulnerable to metal fatigue and ultimately resulted in explosive decompression. Reports on the wreckage of Flight 9268 have suggested that a "clear break" occurred near the plane's rear pressure bulkhead, possibly indicating failure of the bulkhead.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 2 November, Metrojet spokesman Alexander Smirnov insisted that the aircraft was 100% airworthy and that its crew was "very experienced", showing certificates the airline had received in 2014, later adding that the tailstrike incident in Cairo had been fully repaired and the engines had been inspected on 26 October, five days before the crash.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: In a report by UK newspaper "The Guardian", a missile attack was "deemed unlikely" but the report stated that several airlines would avoid flying over Sinai while the crash was under investigation. On 2 November, Metrojet spokesman Alexander Smirnov ruled out technical fault and pilot error as the cause of the crash and blamed an "external force". ISIL's Wilayah Sinai claimed the incident was in revenge for Russian air strikes against militants in Syria, where IS controls territories, along with contiguous Iraqi territories. Wilayah Sinai was said not to have access to surface-to-air missiles capable of hitting an aircraft at high altitude since man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS) can rarely reach even half the cruising altitude of an airliner, but analysts could not exclude the possibility of a bomb on board the flight.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Egyptian Army spokesman Mohamed Samir rebutted the claims and pointed out that the investigation was ongoing. Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov dismissed the claims as "fabrications" due to a lack of evidence from Egyptian civil aviation, from security officials and from air traffic data. James Clapper, United States Director of National Intelligence, said on 2 November that there was no evidence yet of terrorist involvement but that he would not rule it out. On the same day, a source on the committee analysing the flight recorders said he believed that the aircraft was not struck from the outside and that the pilot did not make a distress signal before it disappeared from radar. He based his comments on the preliminary investigation of both flight recorders.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: All flights due to leave Sharm El Sheikh for Britain were delayed as a "precautionary measure" to allow experts to assess security. Emirates, Lufthansa and Air France–KLM announced they would avoid overflying the Sinai peninsula until the cause of the accident has been determined. The United States' Federal Aviation Administration had previously told carriers under its jurisdiction to operate above FL260 (26,000 feet [7,900 m]) while flying over Sinai. Germany's Luftfahrt-Bundesamt had told its airlines the same thing. Air Arabia, Flydubai and British Airways also stopped their flights over the Sinai Peninsula in response to the crash. The latter stated that they planned to continue flights over Sinai, although the intended alternative route was not announced. EasyJet initially stated that they would not halt their flights to and from Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada, but would actively review them; passengers who opted not to fly the route would be re-booked on another flight or given a flight voucher.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 4 November, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) changed their travel advice to advise against all but essential travel by air to Sharm El Sheikh. As a result, all British flights to and from the resort were cancelled from 4 November. On the same day, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) issued an order to all Irish airline operators not to operate to or from Sharm el‐Sheikh or fly over the Sinai Peninsula until further notice.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The decisions on 4 November by the British and Irish authorities to ground flights to and from Sharm El Sheikh came within minutes of each other. Patrick McLoughlin – UK Secretary of State for Transport – told Parliament that Ireland had investigators from the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) on the ground in Egypt reporting back to the Irish government, and the British and Irish governments have close security co-operation.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On the morning of 5 November Air France-KLM announced that it would not allow hold baggage on its flight out from Cairo that day; over half of the booked passengers refused to fly. There were an estimated 20,000 British citizens in Sharm El Sheikh on 5 November, almost half of whom were on holiday and stranded by the cancellation of flights. Flights to the UK were allowed again from 6 November, to enable people to travel home, but with restrictions and increased security measures. Passengers were permitted to travel home with only hand luggage, with hold luggage to be returned following a more stringent screening process. British officials at the airport provided extra security and approved aircraft as safe to travel.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on 6 November that all Russian flights to and from Egypt were cancelled. Most British airlines serving the resort sent repatriation flights out to the resort to bring stranded British tourists back to the United Kingdom. On the afternoon of 6 November, Egyptian authorities placed restrictions on the number of flights due to overcrowding in the terminals; as a result, only eight of the planned 29 repatriation flights were able to leave on the day with various flights forced to divert or return to the UK whilst in the air.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: By 8 November about 11,000 Russian tourists and about 5,300 British tourists had been flown back from the resort.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 9 November, British airlines announced that all flights to the resort had been cancelled until at least 25 November. The British government and head of Emirates Airlines stated that airport security throughout the Middle East could be significantly overhauled as a result of the bombing. By 15 November, 16,000 British tourists had been flown back from the resort since the suspension of flights.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: In March 2016, Metrojet filed for bankruptcy as a result of the bombing of Flight 9268 and the security situation in Egypt, both of which resulted in a subsequent fall in passenger numbers.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 12 April 2018, flights between Russia and Egypt finally resumed. The flights, which are operated by both Aeroflot and EgyptAir, currently operate only between Moscow and Cairo.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Airports around the world tightened the security vetting for staff. About 70 employees lost their clearance to work in secure zones of Paris's Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports due to suspected extremist links.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 1 November 2015, the Government of Russia grounded all the A321 aircraft flown by Kogalymavia. The Russian news agency Interfax reported that the Russian transport regulator, Rostransnadzor, had requested Kogalymavia to stop flying its A321 aircraft until the cause(s) of the crash had been identified.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, stated that the Russian Embassy was following the events. President Putin declared 1 November to be a national day of mourning in Russia.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Dmitry Kiselyov, a Soviet and Russian journalist, blamed the crash on an alleged secret pact between America and ISIL.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Initially representatives of the Russian government claimed that "there is not the slightest evidence" for a terrorist attack and especially denied any links between the crash and Russian intervention in Syria. On 17 November Russia's security chief said the cause of the attack was an act of terror, and the Russian Government offered a US$50 million reward for any information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Hours after the crash, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail was on his way to the crash site along with other ministers on a private jet, according to the Tourism Ministry.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: The Republic of Ireland, as the state of aircraft registry, made an offer of assistance which was accepted by the Egyptian accident investigation authorities for the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to send a team consisting of an Operations/Pilot Inspector, an Engineering Inspector and a Regulatory/Operations Adviser from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) to assist in the investigation. The team flew out on an Irish military aircraft on 2 November.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Israel, which borders the Sinai peninsula, offered to assist Russia and Egypt with surveillance if needed.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: In April 2018, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin visited Cairo to discuss the bombing, and its effects. Since the travel ban had been lifted earlier the same year, Ukraine International Airlines launched direct flights between Kyiv and Cairo on 9 April, though there are claims that the airline only resumed flights.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 4 November British intelligence agencies became involved in the investigation. The UK government sent extra consular staff and half a dozen military planners to Egypt. Egyptian President al-Sisi met then British Prime Minister Cameron in London. At a joint press conference with Cameron, President Sisi said Egypt would co-operate on improved security measures at Sharm El Sheikh airport. Cameron and Russian President Putin also discussed the investigation into the crash. On 5 November, the government sent diplomatic staff including British embassy staff and FCO Rapid Deployment Teams to Sharm El Sheikh airport to help British nationals home.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Less than a week after the crash, the UK banned flights into Sharm El-Sheikh airport; the restriction lasted until October of 2019. As of 5 November 2017, the UK government was also advising against "all but essential" travel to the South Sinai "with the exception of the area within the Sharm el Sheikh perimeter barrier, which includes the airport and the areas of Sharm el Maya, Hadaba, Naama Bay, Sharks Bay and Nabq". Since flights from other countries were continuing, the UK government reminded its citizens of its ongoing recommendation against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm el Sheikh.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: US President Barack Obama stated, on 5 November, that the US government was taking the incident "very seriously", knowing there was a possibility that there had been a bomb on board the flight.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: Airbus announced they would issue more information when it became available. They also released a statement on their website confirming the aircraft's MSN and engine configuration.


title: Metrojet Flight 9268

text: On 6 November, the French satirical weekly magazine "Charlie Hebdo" published cartoons referring to the tragedy, one with pieces of an aircraft falling on an ISIL fighter with the caption: "Russia's air force intensifies its bombing." The cartoon was considered offensive in Russia and a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin called the artwork "sacrilege", and members of the State Duma called for the magazine to be banned as extremist literature and demanded an apology from the French government.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers. The AFL–CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL–CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL–CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL–CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated, and many locals of Change to Win are either part of or work with their local central labor councils. The largest unions currently in the AFL–CIO are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with approximately 1.7 million members, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members, and United Food and Commercial Workers with 1.2 million members.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO is a federation of international labor unions. As a voluntary federation, the AFL–CIO has little authority over the affairs of its member unions except in extremely limited cases (such as the ability to expel a member union for corruption and enforce resolution of disagreements over jurisdiction or organizing). As of September 2020, the AFL–CIO had 56 member unions representing 12.1 million members.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO was a major component of the New Deal Coalition that dominated politics into the mid-1960s. Although it has lost membership, finances, and political clout since 1970, it remains a major player on the liberal side of national politics, with a great deal of activity in lobbying, grassroots organizing, coordinating with other liberal organizations, fund-raising, and recruiting and supporting candidates around the country.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In recent years the AFL–CIO has concentrated its political efforts on lobbying in Washington and the state capitals, and on "GOTV" (get-out-the-vote) campaigns in major elections. For example, in the 2010 midterm elections, it sent 28.6 million pieces of mail. Members received a "slate card" with a list of union endorsements matched to the member's congressional district, along with a "personalized" letter from President Obama emphasizing the importance of voting. In addition, 100,000 volunteers went door-to-door to promote endorsed candidates to 13 million union voters in 32 states.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO is governed by its members, who meet in a quadrennial convention. Each member union elects delegates, based on proportional representation. The AFL–CIO's state federations, central and local labor councils, constitutional departments, and constituent groups are also entitled to delegates. The delegates elect officers and vice presidents, debate and approve policy, and set dues.


title: AFL–CIO

text: From 1951 to 1996, the Executive Council held its winter meeting in the resort town of Bal Harbour, Florida. The meeting at the Bal Harbour Sheraton has been the object of frequent criticism, including over a labor dispute at the hotel itself.


title: AFL–CIO

text: Citing image concerns, the council changed the meeting site to Los Angeles. However, the meeting was moved back to Bal Harbour several years later. The 2012 meeting was held in Orlando, Florida.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO constitution permits international unions to pay state federation and CLC dues directly, rather than have each local or state federation pay them. This relieves each union's state and local affiliates of the administrative duty of assessing, collecting and paying the dues. International unions assess the AFL–CIO dues themselves, and collect them on top of their own dues-generating mechanisms or simply pay them out of the dues the international collects. But not all international unions pay their required state federation and CLC dues.


title: AFL–CIO

text: One of the most well-known departments was the Industrial Union Department (IUD). It had been constitutionally mandated by the new AFL–CIO constitution created by the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955, as CIO unions felt that the AFL's commitment to industrial unionism was not strong enough to permit the department to survive without a constitutional mandate. For many years, the IUD was a "de facto" organizing department in the AFL–CIO. For example, it provided money to the near-destitute American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as it attempted to organize the United Federation of Teachers in 1961. The organizing money enabled the AFT to win the election and establish its first large collective bargaining affiliate. For many years, the IUD remained rather militant on a number of issues.


title: AFL–CIO

text: Constituency groups are nonprofit organizations chartered and funded by the AFL–CIO as voter registration and mobilization bodies. These groups conduct research, host training and educational conferences, issue research reports and publications, lobby for legislation and build coalitions with local groups. Each constituency group has the right to sit in on AFL–CIO executive council meetings, and to exercise representational and voting rights at AFL–CIO conventions.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO's seven constituency groups include the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL–CIO Union Veterans Council, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Pride at Work.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The Working for America Institute started out as a department of the AFL–CIO. Established in 1958, it was previously known as the Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI). John Sweeney renamed the department and spun it off as an independent organization in 1998 to act as a lobbying group to promote economic development, develop new economic policies, and lobby Congress on economic policy. The American Center for International Labor Solidarity started out as the Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC), which internationally promoted free labor-unions.


title: AFL–CIO

text: Programs are organizations established and controlled by the AFL–CIO to serve certain organizational goals. Programs of the AFL–CIO include the AFL–CIO Building Investment Trust, the AFL–CIO Employees Federal Credit Union, the AFL–CIO Housing Investment Trust, the National Labor College and Union Privilege.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO is affiliated to the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation, formed November 1, 2006. The new body incorporated the member organizations of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, of which the AFL–CIO had long been part. The AFL–CIO had had a very active foreign policy in building and strengthening free trade unions. During the Cold War, it vigorously opposed Communist unions in Latin America and Europe. In opposing Communism, it helped split the CGT in France and helped create the anti-Communist Force Ouvrière.


title: AFL–CIO

text: According to the cybersecurity firm Area 1, hackers working for the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force compromised the networks of the AFL–CIO in order to gain information on negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.


title: AFL–CIO

text: The AFL–CIO has a long relationship with civil rights struggles. One of the major points of contention between the AFL and the CIO, particularly in the era immediately after the CIO split off, was the CIO's willingness to include black workers (excluded by the AFL in its focus on craft unionism.) Later, blacks would also criticize the CIO for abandoning their interests, particularly after the merger with the AFL.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech titled "If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins" to the organization's convention in Bal Harbour, Florida. King hoped for a coalition between civil rights and labor that would improve the situation for the entire working class by ending racial discrimination. However, King also criticized the AFL–CIO for its tolerance of unions that excluded black workers. "I would be lacking in honesty," he told the delegates of the 1965 Illinois AFL–CIO Convention during his keynote address, "if I did not point out that the labor movement of thirty years ago did more in that period for civil rights than labor is doing today...Our combined strength is potentially enormous, but we have not used a fraction of it for our own good or the needs of society as a whole." King and the AFL–CIO diverged further in 1967, when King announced his opposition to the Vietnam War, which the AFL–CIO strongly supported. The AFL–CIO endorsed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In the 21st Century, the AFL–CIO has been criticized by campaigners against police violence for its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). On May 31, 2020, the AFL–CIO offices in Washington, DC, were set on fire during the George Floyd protests taking place in the city. In response, AFL–CIO president Richard Trumka condemned both the murder of George Floyd and the destruction of the offices, but did not address demands to end the organization's affiliation with the IUPA.


title: AFL–CIO

text: After the smashing reelection victory of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the heavily Democratic Congress passed a raft of liberal legislation. Labor union leaders claimed credit for the widest range of liberal laws since the New Deal era, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the War on Poverty; aid to cities and education; increased Social Security benefits; and Medicare for the elderly. The 1966 elections were an unexpected disaster, with defeats for many of the more liberal Democrats. According to Alan Draper, the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Action (COPE) was the main electioneering unit of the labor movement. It ignored the white backlash against civil rights, which had become a main Republican attack point. The COPE assumed falsely that union members were interested in issues of greatest salience to union leadership, but polls showed this was not true. The members were much more conservative. The younger ones were deeply concerned about taxes and crime, and the older ones had not overcome racial biases. Furthermore a new issue--the War in Vietnam-- was bitterly splitting the New Deal coalition into hawks (led by Johnson and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey) and doves (led by Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy).


title: AFL–CIO

text: In 2003, the AFL–CIO began an intense internal debate over the future of the labor movement in the United States with the creation of the New Unity Partnership (NUP), a loose coalition of some of the AFL–CIO's largest unions. This debate intensified in 2004, after the defeat of labor-backed candidate John Kerry in the November 2004 US presidential election. The NUP's program for reform of the federation included reduction of the central bureaucracy, more money spent on organizing new members rather than on electoral politics, and a restructuring of unions and locals, eliminating some smaller locals and focusing more along the lines of industrial unionism.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In 2005, the NUP dissolved and the Change to Win Federation (CtW) formed, threatening to secede from the AFL–CIO if its demands for major reorganization were not met. As the AFL–CIO prepared for its 50th anniversary convention in late July, three of the federations' four largest unions announced their withdrawal from the federation: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ("The Teamsters"), and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). UNITE HERE disaffiliated in mid-September 2005, the United Farm Workers left in January 2006, and the Laborers' International Union of North America disaffiliated on June 1, 2006.


title: AFL–CIO

text: Two unions later left CtW and rejoined the AFL–CIO. After a bitter internal leadership dispute that involved allegations of embezzlement and accusations that SEIU was attempting to raid the union, a substantial number of UNITE HERE members formed their own union (Workers United) while the remainder of UNITE HERE reaffiliated with the AFL–CIO on September 17, 2009. The Laborers' International Union of North America said on August 13, 2010, that it would also leave Change to Win and rejoin the AFL–CIO in October 2010.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In August 2013, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) disaffiliated from the AFL–CIO. The ILWU said that members of other AFL–CIO unions were crossing its picket lines, and the AFL–CIO had done nothing to stop it. The ILWU also cited the AFL–CIO's willingness to compromise on key policies such as labor law reform, immigration reform, and health care reform. The longshoremen's union said it would become an independent union.


title: AFL–CIO

text: In 2013, the AFL-CIO named the University of Maryland Libraries as their official repository, succeeding the closed National Labor College.  The archival and library holdings were transferred in 2013, dating from the establishment of the AFL (1881), and offer almost complete records from the founding of the AFL-CIO (1955).  Among the estimated 40 million documents are AFL-CIO Department records, trade department records, international union records, union programs, union organizations with allied or affiliate relationships with the AFL-CIO, and personal papers of union leaders. Extensive photo documentation of labor union activities from the 1940s to the present are in the photographic negative and digital collections.  Additionally, collections of graphic images, over 10,000 audio tapes, several hundred films and videotapes, and over 2,000 artifacts are available for public research and study.


title: Taenia solium

text: Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm, belongs to the cyclophyllid cestode family Taeniidae. It is found throughout the world and is most common in countries where pork is eaten. It is a tapeworm that uses humans as its definitive host and pigs as the intermediate or secondary hosts. It is transmitted to pigs through human feces that contain the parasite eggs and contaminate their fodder. Pigs ingest the eggs, which develop into larvae, then into oncospheres, and ultimately into infective tapeworm cysts, called cysticercus. Humans acquire the cysts through consumption of uncooked or under-cooked pork and the cysts grow into an adult worms in the small intestine.


title: Taenia solium

text: There are two forms of human infection. One is "primary hosting", called taeniasis, and is due to eating under-cooked pork that contains the cysts and results in adult worms in the intestines. This form generally is without symptoms; the infected person does not know they have tapeworms. This form is easily treated with anthelmintic medications which eliminate the tapeworm. The other form, "secondary hosting", called cysticercosis, is due to eating food, or drinking water, contaminated with faeces from someone infected by the adult worms, thus ingesting the tapeworm eggs, instead of the cysts. The eggs go on to develop cysts primarily in the muscles, and usually with no symptoms. However some people have obvious symptoms, the most harmful and chronic form of which is when the cysts form in the brain. Treatment of this form is more difficult but possible.


title: Taenia solium

text: The adult worm has a flat, ribbon-like body which is white and measures 2 to 3 metres long, or more. Its tiny attachment, the scolex, contains suckers and a rostellum as organs of attachment that attach to the wall of the small intestine. The main body, consists of a chain of segments known as proglottids. Each proglottid is a little more than a self-sustainable, very lightly ingestive, self-contained reproductive unit since tapeworms are hermaphrodites.


title: Taenia solium

text: Human primary hosting is best diagnosed by microscopy of eggs in faeces, often triggered by spotting shed segments. In secondary hosting, imaging techniques such as computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance are often employed. Blood samples can also be tested using antibody reaction of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.