title: Saint Boniface

text: According to the "vitae" Boniface felled the Donar Oak, Latinized by Willibald as "Jupiter's oak," near the present-day town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse. According to his early biographer Willibald, Boniface started to chop the oak down, when suddenly a great wind, as if by miracle, blew the ancient oak over. When the gods did not strike him down, the people were amazed and converted to Christianity. He built a chapel dedicated to Saint Peter from its wood at the site—the chapel was the beginning of the monastery in Fritzlar. This account from the "vita" is stylized to portray Boniface as a singular character who alone acts to root out paganism. Lutz von Padberg and others point out that what the "vitae" leave out is that the action was most likely well-prepared and widely publicized in advance for maximum effect, and that Boniface had little reason to fear for his personal safety since the Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg was nearby. According to Willibald, Boniface later had a church with an attached monastery built in Fritzlar, on the site of the previously built chapel, according to tradition.


title: Saint Boniface

text: The support of the Frankish mayors of the palace (maior domos), and later the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was essential for Boniface's work. Boniface had been under the protection of Charles Martel from 723 onwards. The Christian Frankish leaders desired to defeat their rival power, the pagan Saxons, and to incorporate the Saxon lands into their own growing empire. Boniface's campaign of destruction of indigenous Germanic pagan sites may have benefited the Franks in their campaign against the Saxons.


title: Saint Boniface

text: In 732, Boniface traveled again to Rome to report, and Pope Gregory III conferred upon him the pallium as archbishop with jurisdiction over what is now Germany. Boniface again set out for the German lands and continued his mission, but also used his authority to work on the relations between the papacy and the Frankish church. Rome wanted more control over that church, which it felt was much too independent and which, in the eyes of Boniface, was subject to worldly corruption. Charles Martel, after having defeated the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate during the Battle of Tours (732), had rewarded many churches and monasteries with lands, but typically his supporters who held church offices were allowed to benefit from those possessions. Boniface would have to wait until the 740s before he could try to address this situation, in which Frankish church officials were essentially sinecures, and the church itself paid little heed to Rome. During his third visit to Rome in 737–38, he was made papal legate for Germany.


title: Saint Boniface

text: After Boniface's third trip to Rome, Charles Martel established four dioceses in Bavaria (Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau) and gave them to Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine. In 745, he was granted Mainz as metropolitan see. In 742, one of his disciples, Sturm (also known as Sturmi, or Sturmius), founded the abbey of Fulda not far from Boniface's earlier missionary outpost at Fritzlar. Although Sturm was the founding abbot of Fulda, Boniface was very involved in the foundation. The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, the son of Charles Martel, and a supporter of Boniface's reform efforts in the Frankish church. Boniface himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that without the protection of Charles Martel he could "neither administer his church, defend his clergy, nor prevent idolatry".


title: Saint Boniface

text: According to German historian Gunther Wolf, the high point of Boniface's career was the Concilium Germanicum, organized by Carloman in an unknown location in April 743. Although Boniface was not able to safeguard the church from property seizures by the local nobility, he did achieve one goal, the adoption of stricter guidelines for the Frankish clergy, who often hailed directly from the nobility. After Carloman's resignation in 747 he maintained a sometimes turbulent relationship with the king of the Franks, Pepin; the claim that he would have crowned Pepin at Soissons in 751 is now generally discredited.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Boniface balanced this support and attempted to maintain some independence, however, by attaining the support of the papacy and of the Agilolfing rulers of Bavaria. In Frankish, Hessian, and Thuringian territory, he established the dioceses of Würzburg and Erfurt. By appointing his own followers as bishops, he was able to retain some independence from the Carolingians, who most likely were content to give him leeway as long as Christianity was imposed on the Saxons and other Germanic tribes.


title: Saint Boniface

text: According to the , Boniface had never relinquished his hope of converting the Frisians, and in 754 he set out with a retinue for Frisia. He baptized a great number and summoned a general meeting for confirmation at a place not far from Dokkum, between Franeker and Groningen. Instead of his converts, however, a group of armed robbers appeared who slew the aged archbishop. The mention that Boniface persuaded his (armed) comrades to lay down their arms: "Cease fighting. Lay down your arms, for we are told in Scripture not to render evil for evil but to overcome evil by good."


title: Saint Boniface

text: Having killed Boniface and his company, the Frisian bandits ransacked their possessions but found that the company's luggage did not contain the riches they had hoped for: "they broke open the chests containing the books and found, to their dismay, that they held manuscripts instead of gold vessels, pages of sacred texts instead of silver plates." They attempted to destroy these books, the earliest already says, and this account underlies the status of the Ragyndrudis Codex, now held as a Bonifacian relic in Fulda, and supposedly one of three books found on the field by the Christians who inspected it afterward. Of those three books, the Ragyndrudis Codex shows incisions that could have been made by sword or axe; its story appears confirmed in the Utrecht hagiography, the , which reports that an eye-witness saw that the saint at the moment of death held up a gospel as spiritual protection. The story was later repeated by Otloh's ; at that time, the Ragyndrudis Codex seems to have been firmly connected to the martyrdom.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Boniface's remains were moved from the Frisian countryside to Utrecht, and then to Mainz, where sources contradict each other regarding the behavior of Lullus, Boniface's successor as archbishop of Mainz. According to Willibald's Lullus allowed the body to be moved to Fulda, while the (later) , a hagiography of Sturm by Eigil of Fulda, Lullus attempted to block the move and keep the body in Mainz.


title: Saint Boniface

text: His remains were eventually buried in the abbey church of Fulda after resting for some time in Utrecht, and they are entombed within a shrine beneath the high altar of Fulda Cathedral, previously the abbey church.


title: Saint Boniface

text: There is good reason to believe that the Gospel he held up was the 56, which shows damage to the upper margin, which has been cut back as a form of repair.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Veneration of Boniface in Fulda began immediately after his death; his grave was equipped with a decorative tomb around ten years after his burial, and the grave and relics became the center of the abbey. Fulda monks prayed for newly elected abbots at the grave site before greeting them, and every Monday the saint was remembered in prayer, the monks prostrating themselves and reciting Psalm 50. After the abbey church was rebuilt to become the Ratgar Basilica (dedicated 791), Boniface's remains were translated to a new grave: since the church had been enlarged, his grave, originally in the west, was now in the middle; his relics were moved to a new apse in 819. From then on Boniface, as patron of the abbey, was regarded as both spiritual intercessor for the monks and legal owner of the abbey and its possessions, and all donations to the abbey were done in his name. He was honored on the date of his martyrdom, 5 June (with a mass written by Alcuin), and (around the year 1000) with a mass dedicated to his appointment as bishop, on 1 December.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Willibald's describes how a visitor on horseback came to the site of the martyrdom, and a hoof of his horse got stuck in the mire. When it was pulled loose, a well sprang up. By the time of the (9th century), there was a church on the site, and the well had become a "fountain of sweet water" used to sanctify people. The , a hagiographical account of the work of Ludger, describes how Ludger himself had built the church, sharing duties with two other priests. According to James Palmer, the well was of great importance since the saint's body was hundreds of miles away; the physicality of the well allowed for an ongoing connection with the saint. In addition, Boniface signified Dokkum's and Frisia's "connect[ion] to the rest of (Frankish) Christendom".


title: Saint Boniface

text: Saint Boniface's feast day is celebrated on 5 June in the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Anglican Communion and the Eastern Orthodox Church.


title: Saint Boniface

text: A famous statue of Saint Boniface stands on the grounds of Mainz Cathedral, seat of the archbishop of Mainz. A more modern rendition stands facing St. Peter's Church of Fritzlar.


title: Saint Boniface

text: The UK National Shrine is located at the Catholic church at Crediton, Devon, which has a bas-relief of the felling of Thor's Oak, by sculptor Kenneth Carter. The sculpture was unveiled by Princess Margaret in his native Crediton, located in Newcombes Meadow Park. There is also a series of paintings there by Timothy Moore. There are quite a few churches dedicated to St. Boniface in the United Kingdom: Bunbury, Cheshire; Chandler's Ford and Southampton Hampshire; Adler Street, London; Papa Westray, Orkney; St Budeaux, Plymouth (now demolished); Bonchurch, Isle of Wight; Cullompton, Devon.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Bishop George Errington founded St Boniface's Catholic College, Plymouth in 1856. The school celebrates Saint Boniface on 5 June each year.


title: Saint Boniface

text: In 1818, Father Norbert Provencher founded a mission on the east bank of the Red River in what was then Rupert's Land, building a log church and naming it after St. Boniface. The log church was consecrated as Saint Boniface Cathedral after Provencher was himself consecrated as a bishop and the diocese was formed. The community that grew around the cathedral eventually became the city of Saint Boniface, which merged into the city of Winnipeg in 1971. In 1844, four Grey Nuns arrived by canoe in Manitoba, and in 1871, built Western Canada's first hospital: St. Boniface Hospital, where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet. Today, St. Boniface is regarded as Winnipeg's main French-speaking district and the centre of the Franco-Manitobain community, and St. Boniface Hospital is the second-largest hospital in Manitoba.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 1 June.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Some traditions credit Saint Boniface with the invention of the Christmas tree. It is mentioned on a BBC-Devon website, in an account which places Geismar in Bavaria, and in a number of educational books, including "St. Boniface and the Little Fir Tree", "The Brightest Star of All: Christmas Stories for the Family", "The American normal readers", and a short story by Henry van Dyke, "The First Christmas Tree".


title: Saint Boniface

text: The earliest "Life" of Boniface was written by a certain Willibald, an Anglo-Saxon priest who came to Mainz after Boniface's death, around 765. Willibald's biography was widely dispersed; Levison lists some forty manuscripts. According to his lemma, a group of four manuscripts including 1086 are copies directly from the original.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Listed second in Levison's edition is the entry from a late ninth-century Fulda document: Boniface's status as a martyr is attested by his inclusion in the "Fulda Martyrology" which also lists, for instance, the date (1 November) of his translation in 819, when the Fulda Cathedral had been rebuilt. A was written in Fulda in the ninth century, possibly by Candidus of Fulda, but is now lost.


title: Saint Boniface

text: The next , chronologically, is the , which originates in the Bishopric of Utrecht, and was probably revised by Radboud of Utrecht (899–917). Mainly agreeing with Willibald, it adds an eye-witness who presumably saw the martyrdom at Dokkum. The likewise originates in Utrecht. It is dated between 917 (Radboud's death) and 1075, the year Adam of Bremen wrote his , which used the .


title: Saint Boniface

text: A later , written by Otloh of St. Emmeram (1062–1066), is based on Willibald's and a number of other as well as the correspondence, and also includes information from local traditions.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Boniface engaged in regular correspondence with fellow churchmen all over Western Europe, including the three popes he worked with, and with some of his kinsmen back in England. Many of these letters contain questions about church reform and liturgical or doctrinal matters. In most cases, what remains is one half of the conversation, either the question or the answer. The correspondence as a whole gives evidence of Boniface's widespread connections; some of the letters also prove an intimate relationship especially with female correspondents.


title: Saint Boniface

text: There are 150 letters in what is generally called the Bonifatian correspondence, though not all them are by Boniface or addressed to him. They were assembled by order of archbishop Lullus, Boniface's successor in Mainz, and were initially organized into two parts, a section containing the papal correspondence and another with his private letters. They were reorganized in the eighth century, in a roughly chronological ordering. Otloh of St. Emmeram, who worked on a new of Boniface in the eleventh century, is credited with compiling the complete correspondence as we have it. Much of this correspondence comprises the first part of the Vienna Boniface Codex, also known as .


title: Saint Boniface

text: The correspondence was edited and published already in the seventeenth century, by Nicolaus Serarius. Stephan Alexander Würdtwein's 1789 edition, , was the basis for a number of (partial) translations in the nineteenth century. The first version to be published by (MGH) was the edition by Ernst Dümmler (1892); the most authoritative version until today is Michael Tangl's 1912 , published by MGH in 1916. This edition is the basis of Ephraim Emerton's selection and translation in English, "The Letters of Saint Boniface", first published in New York in 1940; it was republished most recently with a new introduction by Thomas F.X. Noble in 2000.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Included among his letters and dated to 716 is one to Abbess Edburga of Minster-in-Thanet containing the "Vision of the Monk of Wenlock". This otherworld vision describes how a violently ill monk is freed from his body and guided by angels to a place of judgment, where angels and devils fight over his soul as his sins and virtues come alive to accuse and defend him. He sees a hell of purgation full of pits vomiting flames. There is a bridge over a pitch-black boiling river. Souls either fall from it or safely reach the other side cleansed of their sins. This monk even sees some of his contemporary monks and is told to warn them to repent before they die. This vision bears signs of influence by the Apocalypse of Paul, the visions from the "Dialogues" of Gregory the Great, and the visions recorded by Bede.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Some fifteen preserved sermons are traditionally associated with Boniface, but that they were actually his is not generally accepted.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Early in his career, before he left for the continent, Boniface wrote the , a grammatical treatise presumably for his students in Nursling. Helmut Gneuss reports that one manuscript copy of the treatise originates from (the south of) England, mid-eighth century; it is now held in Marburg, in the Hessisches Staatsarchiv. He also wrote a treatise on verse, the , and a collection of twenty acrostic riddles, the , influenced greatly by Aldhelm and containing many references to works of Vergil (the "Aeneid", the "Georgics", and the "Eclogues"). The riddles fall into two sequences of ten poems. The first, ('on the virtues'), comprises: 1. /truth; 2. /the Catholic faith; 3. /hope; 4. /compassion; 5. /love; 6. /justice; 7. /patience; 8. /true, Christian peace; 9. /Christian humility; 10. /virginity. The second sequence, ('on the vices'), comprises: 1. /carelessness; 2. /hot temper; 3. /greed; 4. /pride; 5. /intemperance; 6. /drunkenness; 7. /fornication; 8. /envy; 9. /ignorance; 10. /vainglory.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Three octosyllabic poems written in clearly Aldhelmian fashion (according to Andy Orchard) are preserved in his correspondence, all composed before he left for the continent.


title: Saint Boniface

text: A letter by Boniface charging Aldebert and Clement with heresy is preserved in the records of the Roman Council of 745 that condemned the two. Boniface had an interest in the Irish canon law collection known as , and a late eighth/early ninth-century manuscript in Würzburg contains, besides a selection from the , a list of rubrics that mention the heresies of Clemens and Aldebert. The relevant folios containing these rubrics were most likely copied in Mainz, Würzburg, or Fulda—all places associated with Boniface. Michael Glatthaar suggested that the rubrics should be seen as Boniface's contribution to the agenda for a synod.


title: Saint Boniface

text: Boniface's death (and birth) has given rise to a number of noteworthy celebrations. The dates for some of these celebrations have undergone some changes: in 1805, 1855, and 1905 (and in England in 1955) anniversaries were calculated with Boniface's death dated in 755, according to the "Mainz tradition"; in Mainz, Michael Tangl's dating of the martyrdom in 754 was not accepted until after 1955. Celebrations in Germany centered on Fulda and Mainz, in the Netherlands on Dokkum and Utrecht, and in England on Crediton and Exeter.


title: Saint Boniface

text: The first German celebration on a fairly large scale was held in 1805 (the 1,050th anniversary of his death), followed by a similar celebration in a number of towns in 1855; both of these were predominantly Catholic affairs emphasizing the role of Boniface in German history. But if the celebrations were mostly Catholic, in the first part of the 19th century the respect for Boniface in general was an ecumenical affair, with both Protestants and Catholics praising Boniface as a founder of the German nation, in response to the German nationalism that arose after the Napoleonic era came to an end. The second part of the 19th century saw increased tension between Catholics and Protestants; for the latter, Martin Luther had become the model German, the founder of the modern nation, and he and Boniface were in direct competition for the honor. In 1905, when strife between Catholic and Protestant factions had eased (one Protestant church published a celebratory pamphlet, Gerhard Ficker's ), there were modest celebrations and a publication for the occasion on historical aspects of Boniface and his work, the 1905 by Gregor Richter and Carl Scherer. In all, the content of these early celebrations showed evidence of the continuing question about the meaning of Boniface for Germany, though the importance of Boniface in cities associated with him was without question.


title: Saint Boniface

text: In 1954, celebrations were widespread in England, Germany, and the Netherlands, and a number of these celebrations were international affairs. Especially in Germany, these celebrations had a distinctly political note to them and often stressed Boniface as a kind of founder of Europe, such as when Konrad Adenauer, the (Catholic) German chancellor, addressed a crowd of 60,000 in Fulda, celebrating the feast day of the saint in a European context: ("What we have in common in Europe comes from the same source").


title: Saint Boniface

text: When Pope John Paul II visited Germany in November 1980, he spent two days in Fulda (17 and 18 November). He celebrated Mass in Fulda Cathedral with 30,000 gathered on the square in front of the building, and met with the German Bishops' Conference (held in Fulda since 1867). The pope next celebrated mass outside the cathedral, in front of an estimated crowd of 100,000, and hailed the importance of Boniface for German Christianity: ("The holy Boniface, bishop and martyr, 'signifies' the beginning of the gospel and the church in your country"). A photograph of the pope praying at Boniface's grave became the centerpiece of a prayer card distributed from the cathedral.


title: Saint Boniface

text: In 2004, anniversary celebrations were held throughout Northwestern Germany and Utrecht, and Fulda and Mainz—generating a great amount of academic and popular interest. The event occasioned a number of scholarly studies, esp. biographies (for instance, by Auke Jelsma in Dutch, Lutz von Padberg in German, and Klaas Bruinsma in Frisian), and a fictional completion of the Boniface correspondence (Lutterbach, ). A German musical proved a great commercial success, and in the Netherlands an opera was staged.


title: Saint Boniface

text: There is an extensive body of literature on the saint and his work. At the time of the various anniversaries, edited collections were published containing essays by some of the best-known scholars of the time, such as the 1954 collection and the 2004 collection . In the modern era, Lutz von Padberg published a number of biographies and articles on the saint focusing on his missionary praxis and his relics. The most authoritative biography remains Theodor Schieffer's (1954).


title: Biuret test

text: In chemistry, the Biuret test (IPA: , ), also known as Piotrowski's test, is a chemical test used for detecting the presence of at least two peptide bonds in a molecule. In the presence of peptides, a copper(II) ion forms mauve-colored coordination complexes in an alkaline solution. The reaction was first observed in 1833; In Poland, the biuret test is also known as Piotrowski's test in honor of the Polish physiologist who independently rediscovered it in 1857. Several variants on the test have been developed, such as the BCA test and the Modified Lowry test.


title: Biuret test

text: The biuret reaction can be used to assess the concentration of proteins because peptide bonds occur with the same frequency per amino acid in the peptide. The intensity of the color, and hence the absorption at 540 nm, is directly proportional to the protein concentration, according to the Beer–Lambert law.


title: Biuret test

text: Despite its name, the reagent does not in fact contain biuret . The test is named so because it also gives a positive reaction to the peptide-like bonds in the biuret molecule.


title: Biuret test

text: In this assay, the copper(II) binds with nitrogen atoms present in the peptides of proteins. In a secondary reaction, the copper(II) is reduced to copper(I). Buffers, such as Tris and ammonia interfere with this assay, therefore rendering this assay inappropriate for protein samples purified from ammonium sulfate precipitation. Due to its insensitivity and little interference by free amino acids, this assay is most useful for whole tissue samples and other sources with high protein concentration.


title: Biuret test

text: An aqueous sample is treated with an equal volume of 1% strong base (sodium or potassium hydroxide) followed by a few drops of aqueous copper(II) sulfate. If the solution turns purple, it contains protein. 5–160 mg/mL can be determined. Peptides with the correct length of at least 3 amino acids are necessary for a significant, measurable colour shift with these reagents.


title: Biuret test

text: The Biuret reagent is made of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrated copper(II) sulfate, together with potassium sodium tartrate, the latter of which is added to chelate and thus stabilize the cupric ions. The reaction of the cupric ions with the nitrogen atoms involved in peptide bonds leads to the displacement of the peptide hydrogen atoms under the alkaline conditions. A tri- or tetra-dentate chelation with the peptide nitrogen produces the characteristic color. This is found with dipeptides.


title: Biuret test

text: The reagent is commonly used in the biuret protein assay, a colorimetric test used to determine protein concentration by UV/VIS spectroscopy at wavelength 540 nm.


title: Biuret test

text: Two major modifications of the biuret test are commonly applied in modern colorimetric analysis of peptides: the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay and the Lowry assay. In these tests, the Cu formed during the biuret reaction reacts further with other reagents, leading to a deeper color.


title: Biuret test

text: In the BCA test, Cu forms a deep purple complex with bicinchoninic acid (BCA), which absorbs around 562 nm, producing the signature mauve color. The water-soluble BCA/copper complex absorbs much more strongly than the peptide/copper complex, increasing the sensitivity of the biuret test by a factor of around 100: the BCA assay allows to detect proteins in the range of 0.0005 to 2 mg/mL). Additionally, the BCA protein assay gives the important benefit of compatibility with substances such as up to 5% surfactants in protein samples.


title: Biuret test

text: In the Lowry protein assay Cu is oxidized back to Cu by Mo in the Folin–Ciocalteu reagent, which forms molybdenum blue (Mo). Tyrosine residues in the protein also form molybdenum blue under these circumstances. In this way, proteins can be detected in concentrations between 0.005 and 2 mg/mL. Molybdenum blue in turn can bind certain organic dyes such as malachite green and Auramine O, resulting in further amplification of the signal.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA; ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: "Thôi-van Kwan-hè-fap"; ) is an act of the United States Congress. Since the formal recognition of the People's Republic of China, the Act has defined the officially substantial but non-diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: In 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration of the People's Republic of China claimed to be in a "united front" with the U.S., Japan, and western Europe against the Soviets and thus established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1979. The CCP also supported American Operation Cyclone actions in Communist Afghanistan, and leveled a military expedition against Vietnam, America's main antagonist in Southeast Asia. In exchange for this consideration by the CCP, the Carter administration cancelled the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty (SAMDT) with the Republic of China (ROC).


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The ROC government mobilized its ethnic lobby in the United States to lobby Congress for the swift passage of an American security guarantee for the island. Taiwan could appeal to members of Congress on many fronts: anti-communist China sentiment, a shared wartime history with the ROC, Beijing's human rights violations and its curtailment of religious freedoms.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of the United States Congress challenged the right of President Jimmy Carter to unilaterally nullify the SAMDT, which the US had signed with the ROC in December 1954 and was ratified by the U.S. Senate in February 1955. Goldwater and his co-filers of the US Supreme Court case "Goldwater v. Carter" argued that the President required Senate approval to take such an action of termination, under of the U.S. Constitution, and that, by not doing so, President Carter had acted beyond the powers of his office. The case ultimately was dismissed as non-justiciable, leaving open the constitutional question regarding a president's authority to dismiss a treaty unilaterally.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The Act was passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by President Carter in 1979 after the breaking of relations between the US and the ROC. Congress rejected the State Department's proposed draft and replaced it with language that has remained in effect since 1979. The TRA is intended to maintain commercial, cultural, and other relations through the unofficial relations in the form of a nonprofit corporation incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia – the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – without official government representation and without formal diplomatic relations. The Act entered retroactively into force, effective January 1, 1979.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The act does not recognize the terminology of "Republic of China" after 1 January 1979, but uses the terminology of "governing authorities on Taiwan". Geographically speaking and following the similar content in the earlier defense treaty from 1955, it defines the term "Taiwan" to include, as the context may require, the island of Taiwan (the main Island) and the Pescadores (Penghu). Of the other islands or archipelagos under the control of the Republic of China, Kinmen, the Matsus, etc., are left outside the definition of Taiwan.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The act authorizes "de facto" diplomatic relations with the governing authorities by giving special powers to the AIT to the level that it is the "de facto" embassy, and states that any international agreements made between the ROC and U.S. before 1979 are still valid unless otherwise terminated. One agreement that was unilaterally terminated by President Jimmy Carter upon the establishment of relations with the PRC was the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The TRA provides for Taiwan to be treated under U.S. laws the same as "foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities", thus treating Taiwan as a sub-sovereign foreign state equivalent. The act provides that for most practical purposes of the U.S. government, the absence of diplomatic relations and recognition will have no effect.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The TRA does not guarantee the U.S. will intervene militarily if the PRC attacks or invades Taiwan nor does it relinquish it, as its primary purpose is to ensure the US's Taiwan policy will not be changed unilaterally by the president and ensure any decision to defend Taiwan will be made with the consent of Congress. The act states that "the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capabilities", and "shall maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan". However, the decision about the nature and quantity of defense services that America will provide to Taiwan is to be determined by the President and Congress. America's policy has been called "strategic ambiguity", and it is designed to dissuade Taiwan from a unilateral declaration of independence, and to dissuade the PRC from unilaterally unifying Taiwan with the PRC.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The TRA further stipulates that the United States will "consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States".


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The TRA requires the United States to have a policy "to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character", and "to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan."


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: Successive U.S. administrations have sold arms to Taiwan in compliance with the TRA despite demands from the PRC that the U.S. follow the legally non-binding Three Joint Communiques and the U.S. government's proclaimed One-China policy (which differs from the PRC's interpretation of its one-China principle).


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: The PRC aligned itself with the Third World countries rather than with the United States or the Soviet Union, engaging itself in various movements such as nuclear non-proliferation that would allow it to critique the superpowers. In the August 17th communique of 1982, the United States agreed to reduce arms sales to Taiwan. However, it also declared that it would not formally recognize PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan, as part of the Reagan administration's Six Assurances offered to Taipei in 1982.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: In the late 1990s, the United States Congress passed a non-binding resolution stating that relations between Taiwan and the United States will be honored through the TRA first. This resolution, which puts greater weight on the TRA's value over that of the three communiques, was signed by President Bill Clinton. Both chambers of Congress have repeatedly reaffirmed the importance of the TRA.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: A July 2007 Congressional Research Service Report confirmed that U.S. policy has not recognized the PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan. The PRC continues to view the TRA as "an unwarranted intrusion by the United States into the internal affairs of China". The United States continued supplying Taiwan with armaments and China continued to protest.


title: Taiwan Relations Act

text: On 19 May 2016, one day before Tsai Ing-wen assumed the democratically elected presidency of the Republic of China, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and co-chair of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, introduced a concurrent resolution reaffirming the TRA and the "Six Assurances" as cornerstones of United States–Taiwan relations.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Uptown Girls is a 2003 American comedy-drama film directed by Boaz Yakin, from a screenplay by Julia Dahl, Mo Ogrodnik and Lisa Davidowitz adapted from the story by Allison Jacobs. It stars Brittany Murphy as a 22-year-old living a charmed life as the daughter of a famous rock and roll musician. Dakota Fanning, Heather Locklear, Marley Shelton, Donald Faison and Jesse Spencer also feature in the film.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Molly Gunn is a fun-loving, free-spirited young woman who lives off the ample trust fund of her late rock legend father, Tommy Gunn. Molly falls for singer Neal Fox when he plays at her birthday party thrown by her best friends, Huey and Ingrid. They share a night of passion, but he leaves in the morning, saying that he cannot stay in Molly's life. Adding to her misfortune, she discovers that her father's accountant embezzled all her money, leaving her penniless and homeless. She moves in with Ingrid, who tells her that in order to stay with her, she must find a job.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Molly begins working as a nanny for an eight-year-old hypochondriac named Lorraine "Ray" Schleine, who is the daughter of Roma Schleine, a music executive who is too busy to notice Ray. Ray's father is in a coma and is being treated at home by a private nurse which causes Ray to stifle her emotions to maintain order. Although she enjoys ballet, she refuses to freestyle and often quotes Mikhail Baryshnikov: "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun." Molly attempts to show her how to have fun, which at first causes much conflict between them, but eventually Ray opens up to let Molly in.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Molly continues to pursue Neal and holds onto his lucky jacket in hopes of seeing him again. After a baking accident, Molly causes a fire that damages Neal's jacket. She redesigns it to fix the damage, but Neal breaks up with Molly when he sees it, insisting he has to focus on his music career and does not have time for her flightiness. Soon after, he lands a record deal with Roma and has a hit music video with a song that Molly inspired him to write, all while wearing the jacket Molly made. Disgusted, Molly agrees to Ingrid's suggestions to sell off her possessions so she can prove that she is growing up. However, after a fight, Ingrid kicks Molly out, and Molly goes to live with Huey. One night, after fighting with and feeling hurt by Neal again, Molly spends the night with Ray after feeling alone at Huey's apartment and finds Neal one morning, having slept with Roma.


title: Uptown Girls

text: The budding friendship between Molly and Ray continues to develop when Molly takes Ray to Coney Island and explains that when her parents died, she ran away to Coney Island and rode the tea cups. She encourages Ray to talk to her comatose father, and promises that it will help him improve. However, Ray's father dies the next day, and Ray tells Roma to fire Molly. In Roma's office, Molly calls Roma out for never paying attention to her daughter. As she leaves, Molly runs into Neal, who begs for a reconciliation as she was his whole inspiration. Molly turns him down and admonishes him for only caring about her when it is convenient for him. Ray runs away from home and Roma begs Molly to find her. Molly finds Ray at Coney Island, riding in the tea cups. Despite being furious with Molly for raising her hopes, she collapses into Molly's arms, crying, finally coming to terms with her grief.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Molly, deciding to take charge of her own life, takes Ray's advice to auction off her late father's guitar collection to an unknown buyer; this enables her to afford her own place. At the wake for Ray's father, Molly meets other musicians who ask her to design their clothes after seeing Neal's jacket in his video. She and Ingrid also make amends and Molly finds Ray to apologize as well. She promises to stay friends with Ray and enrolls in design school after realizing her talent for fashion.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Molly arrives at Ray's recital late and is pleased to see Ray is wearing the tutu Molly designed for her earlier. She is surprised when Ray dances freestyle to Neal singing "Molly Smiles", a song written for her by her father when she was a child. He plays using Tommy Gunn's acoustic guitar, while the remaining ballerinas dance with the other guitars from her father's collection, revealing that he was the anonymous buyer. In a voice-over, Ray says that the end was a new beginning for all of them.


title: Uptown Girls

text: "Uptown Girls" was panned by critics, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 13% rating based on 112 reviews with the consensus: "With two obnoxious lead characters and an uneven screenplay, "Uptown Girls" fails to charm." A positive review came from Roger Ebert, who awarded the film three stars out of four and likened Murphy to Lucille Ball.


title: Uptown Girls

text: Following Brittany Murphy's death at the age of 32 on December 20, 2009, Dakota Fanning, at age 15, stated that she cherished the time they spent together while working on the film, and that she was "very grateful that [she] had the chance to work with [Murphy]."


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Anna Cathcart (born June 16, 2003) is a Canadian actress. She became known for starring in season two of "Odd Squad" (2016–2019) as Agent Olympia. Cathcart also gained wide recognition for portraying Kitty Covey in Netflix's "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" film series (2018–2021). She is also known for portraying Dizzy Tremaine in Disney Channel's "Descendants 2" (2017) and "Descendants 3" (2019) and Zoe Valentine in the Brat web series of the same name (2019) and "Spring Breakaway" (2019).


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Prior to starring in "Odd Squad", Cathcart acted in commercials such as Crayola and Campbell's Soup commercials. She has starred as Agent Olympia in multiple spin-offs of "Odd Squad" including the series' film spin-off "" (2016) which had a one-day theatrical release, "OddTube" (2016–2017) and "" (2018). She was nominated for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series twice for her work in "Odd Squad", the latter of which she won at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards. Additionally, Cathcart appeared in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Spin" and animated special "", and is set to appear in "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" spin-off series "XO, Kitty".


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Anna Cathcart was born on June 16, 2003, in Vancouver where she was raised. She has a sister who is five years older than she is. In 2020, Cathcart attended a public high school. Cathcart described her school experience as being "like having two full-time jobs at once". On the set of "Odd Squad", Cathcart and her castmates were tutored in two-hour blocks. She graduated high school in 2021.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Cathcart stated her sister began acting before she did and, at the age of six or seven, gained a talent agent and performed in a few commercials. At the age of eight, she appeared in a Crayola and Campbell's Soup commercial. Cathcart stated that she has "never really been to acting classes", saying that she is inspired by performances on Disney Channel and Netflix.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: At the age of 12, following a hiatus, Cathcart was scouted and asked to audition for the TVOKids and PBS Kids series, "Odd Squad". Cathcart and fellow actor Isaac Kragten were cast as Agents Olympia and Otis respectively. They filmed the series for seven months in Toronto. The first episode of season 2, "First Day", aired on June 20, 2016, on PBS Kids and June 21, 2016, on TVOKids.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: In the same year, Cathcart reprised her role for the film spin-off, "", marking her first theatrical appearance. Cathcart won a Joey Award for her work as well as being co-nominated for another Joey Award along with her castmates. In November 2016, PBS ordered 20 one to three minute episodes of an "Odd Squad" spin-off titled "OddTube". In the series, Cathcart reprised her role as Agent Olympia, the character who hosted the show.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: In 2017, Cathcart appeared in the sequel to the Disney Channel Original Movie "Descendants", "Descendants 2", in which she portrayed Dizzy Tremaine, daughter of Drizella Tremaine. The film premiered on July 21, 2017, and was viewed by 8.92 million viewers across six networks on the night of its premiere.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: In 2017, at the age of 14, Cathcart joined the cast of the film adaption of Jenny Han's bestselling book "To All the Boys I've Loved Before", in which she was to portray 11-year-old Kitty Covey, the younger sister of protagonist Lara Jean. In her audition, Cathcart sat cross-legged which the film crew felt made her "perfect for Kitty". The film was released in 2018 on Netflix and quickly became one of the most viewed Netflix original films. The film received generally favourable reviews and critics praised the actors. Molly Freeman of "Screen Rant" called Cathcart a "hilarious standout" while Charlie Salek of "Joker Mag" called the supporting performances "crucial".


title: Anna Cathcart

text: In November 2018, Cathcart was cast Brat web-based series "Zoe Valentine" in which she was to portray the eponymous character. Cathcart had not auditioned but instead was contacted about the role. The first episode, which premiered on January 17, 2019, received 4.9 million views on YouTube as of November 2020. Cathcart described filming as being "crazy", saying "[it was] such a blur but so much fun". Cathcart starred as Zoe Valentine again in Brat film "Spring Breakaway" which was released on March 15, 2019, on YouTube. "Zoe Valentine" was later renewed for a second season. Cathcart reprised her role as Dizzy Tremaine in the third instalment of the "Descendants" franchise, "Descendants 3" in 2019.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: She reprised her role as Kitty Covey in 2020 in "" which had been filmed from March to May 2019, the film being primarily filmed in Vancouver. Released in February 2020, the film received generally mixed reviews. Cathcart received praise for her performance. "The Post" said that Cathcart was one of the only members of the returning cast to bring the "same type of energy as [she] did in the first film." She was nominated for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award which allowed audiences to vote for their favourite Canadian working in film, television, or digital media. In mid-2020, because of the restrictions placed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cathcart hosted a virtual series called "Letters To" which allowed fans to connect with their favourite authors. Developed by Picturestart and released on Facebook Watch, "Glitter Magazine" wrote that the series would have "all literary fans buzzing".


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Cathcart reprised her role in the third film of the "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" film series titled "", which was filmed majorly in Vancouver, New York and Seoul from July to September 2019.


title: Anna Cathcart

text: She starred as Molly in Disney Channel Original Movie "Spin" premiered in 2021. Principal photography for "Spin" began in early October 2020 and wrapped in late November. Cathcart's performance was commended by Amy Amatangelo of "Paste", who called her the "generation's secret weapon" and stated that projects including her were certain to be of high quality. She also voiced Dizzy in animated special "", which aired after "Spin".


title: Anna Cathcart

text: In March 2021, she was announced to be reprising her role as Kitty Covey in a "To All the Boys" spin-off series, later revealed to be called "XO, Kitty".


title: Anna Cathcart

text: Cathcart supports being authentic and supports Asian representation in Hollywood: "It's so important for everyone to see someone onscreen that looks like them, no matter what they look like, who they are, or what their race is [...] No matter who you are, if you really want to follow your dreams you can, and it's not just what you look like or what your background is — anyone has the opportunity to make their dreams come true." She describes herself as an introvert. Cathcart has myopia and wears glasses. She identifies herself as "half Chinese, half Irish". Cathcart strongly supports the LGBT+ community, and admires Zendaya and Michelle Obama.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: , nicknamed "Godzilla", is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder and designated hitter who played baseball in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui played the first ten seasons of his career in Japan for NPB's Yomiuri Giants. During that span, he was a nine-time All-Star, three-time Japan Series champion, and three-time Central League Most Valuable Player (MVP). In 2003, Matsui transitioned to playing in MLB in North America, and spent his first seven seasons there with the New York Yankees. As a Yankee, he was a two-time All-Star and 2009 World Series champion, for which he was named the World Series MVP. After becoming a free agent, Matsui had one-year stints with three other MLB teams: the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Oakland Athletics, and Tampa Bay Rays. On July 28, 2013, Matsui signed a one-day minor league contract with the Yankees in order to officially retire with the team.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: During his 20-year playing career, Matsui hit 507 home runs — 332 in NPB and 175 in MLB. In 2018, Matsui was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Hideki Matsui was born in Neagari, Ishikawa, Japan (later merged into Nomi, Ishikawa). According to an interview on YES Network's "CenterStage", Matsui originally batted right-handed as a child. However, when he started playing with his older brother and his friends, Matsui was such a good hitter that his embarrassed brother insisted that he bat left-handed or stop playing with them. Matsui soon became an overpowering left-handed batter, thereafter batting left-handed.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui was recruited by Seiryo High School in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, a Western Honshu baseball powerhouse. During his high school years, Matsui participated in four National High School Baseball Tournaments at Koshien Stadium (once in the spring and three times in the summer). In 1992, he drew five consecutive intentional walks in a game at Koshien and became a nationwide topic of conversation. The intentional walks were considered excessive and unsportsmanlike but the strategy worked, as Matsui's team lost. Matsui's reaction to the intentional walks was widely commented upon by the media. "Matsui's stoic, emotionless conduct during those at-bats drew great praise from tournament officials and reporters alike", author Robert Whiting wrote. At the end of the tournament, a representative of the High School Federation declared that "All students should learn from Matsui's attitude."


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Following high school Matsui was drafted by the Yomiuri Giants in the first round. He was given the uniform number 55, which was the single-season home run record held by Sadaharu Oh.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui's first three seasons were unspectacular. His breakout season came in 1996, when he batted .314 with 38 home runs and 99 RBIs. A three-time MVP in the Japanese Central League (1996, 2000, and 2002), Matsui led his team into four Japan Series and winning three titles (1994, 2000 and 2002). He also made nine consecutive all-star games and led the league in home runs and RBIs three times (1998, 2000, and 2002). His single season mark for home runs was 50 in 2002, his final season in Japan. In the ten seasons he played in Japan, Matsui totalled 1268 games played, 4572 AB, 1390 hits, 901 runs, 332 home runs, 889 RBIs, a .304 batting average, and a .582 slugging percentage. His streak of 1,250 consecutive games played was the second longest in Japan.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: His first trip to the Japan Series became well-known. Because of the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike, Matsui became known to the American media, as media outlets were covering the Series, which was referred in "Sports Illustrated" as "the" Fall Classic.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In Japan, Matsui earned the popular nickname "Godzilla." The origin of the name is derisive in nature, in reference to Matsui's skin problems early on in his career, but has since come to represent his powerful hitting. In 2002, he made a cameo in the film "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla."


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In 2001, Matsui turned down a $64 million, six-year offer from the Yomiuri Giants, the highest in NPB history.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui signed a three-year, $21 million contract with the Yankees on December 19, 2002. A parade was held for him in Tokyo to celebrate his signing with the Yankees and many reporters and photographers followed him to the MLB from his home in Tokyo.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On March 31, 2003, Matsui made his MLB debut against Toronto Blue Jays in Canada. He became the first Japanese player who made his MLB debut in Canada. He hit an RBI single in his first MLB at-bat and, at the 2003 Yankee home opener, he became the first Yankee to hit a grand slam in his first game at Yankee Stadium. Matsui went on to hit .287 with 16 home runs and 106 RBIs. On defense, he led the AL in errors by an outfielder, with eight.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In the postseason of that year, he became the first Japanese player to hit a home run in the World Series, in Game Two of the 2003 World Series against the Florida Marlins.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In a controversial vote, Matsui narrowly lost the Rookie of the Year Award to Ángel Berroa after two writers, Jim Souhan and Bill Ballou, refused to include him on their ballots due to his age. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner responded by pointing out this had not prevented either writer from voting for Ichiro Suzuki or Kazuhiro Sasaki, both of whom had previously played in the NPB for several years and were the two oldest players to have received the award, and stated he felt Matsui had been robbed.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In his second season, Matsui finished 2004 with a .298 average with 31 home runs and 108 RBIs. He was the American League All-Star Final Vote winner in 2004.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On November 15, 2005, Matsui signed a four-year deal for $52 million, surpassing Ichiro Suzuki as the highest paid Japanese player in baseball, and securing his place with the Yankees through 2009.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In 2006, Matsui finished his fourth season with a .302 average with eight home runs and 29 RBIs after missing most of the season due to a wrist injury.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui retained the "Godzilla" nickname and the song "Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult was often played when he went up to bat.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On May 6, 2007, Matsui recorded his 2,000th hit in combined hits in NPB and MLB during a game vs. the Mariners, which earned him a place in Japan's Golden Players Club, reserved for players who have hit 2,000 hits, have 200 wins or have 250 saves professionally. It was originally ruled an error on Raúl Ibañez, who lost track of the ball due to the sun, but a scoring change gave Matsui the hit. Matsui went 2-for-4 that day; the second hit (#2001) was a clean single to right field. On August 5, 2007, Matsui became the first Japanese player in MLB history to hit 100 home runs. The home run came in the bottom of the third inning off Gil Meche of the Kansas City Royals.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In 2007, he was third in the AL with 10 sacrifice flies, and ninth in walks per strikeout (1.00). In the winter of 2007, it was widely reported in the media that the Yankees were in talks to send Matsui to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for one or two pitchers. No deal ever materialized and Matsui remained with the Yankees.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On June 12, 2008, Matsui hit a grand slam on his 34th birthday, helping the Yankees to a 4–1 victory over the A's. Later that month, Matsui went on the disabled list with knee pain. He returned on August 19 against the Toronto Blue Jays and became the team's everyday designated hitter. After the final game at Yankee Stadium, Matsui underwent surgery on his left knee. Through 2008, Matsui batted .294 against right-handed pitchers in his career and .295 against lefties.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On June 12, 2009, Matsui hit a three-run home run on his 35th birthday, giving the Yankees a 7–6 lead over the New York Mets in the sixth inning. On July 20, he hit a walk-off solo home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth against Jim Johnson of the Baltimore Orioles, giving the Yankees their fourth win in a row after the All Star break, their ninth walk-off win, and a tie for first place in the division with the Boston Red Sox. A month later, on August 21, Matsui hit two home runs and drove in a career-high seven runs in the Yankees' unusual 20–11 win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. He became the first Yankees hitter to ever drive in seven runs in a game at Fenway Park since Lou Gehrig in 1930. Two games later, Matsui would hit two home runs for his third time in just seven games. Matsui was voted by fans as the MLB Clutch Performer of the Month Presented by Pepsi for August after his performance through the month. On September 19, Matsui hit his 26th home run of the season, breaking the Yankees' record for home runs in a single season by a designated hitter which was previously held by Don Baylor.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: In the 2009 World Series, Matsui helped the Yankees defeat the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in six games by hitting .615 (8-for-13) with three home runs and 8 RBI, including tying Bobby Richardson's single-game World Series record (Game 3 of the 1960 World Series) with six RBIs in Game 6. Since the designated hitter position was not used in the three games in Philadelphia, Matsui only started the three games in New York; nevertheless, his performance earned him the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. He became the first Japanese-born player to win the award, as well as the first player to win it as a full-time designated hitter in the World Series. He joined his 1994 Japan Series teammate Dan Gladden (1987 and 1991, Minnesota) as players to have won championships in both North America and Japan. Matsui also became the third player in Major League history to bat .500 or above and hit three home runs in the same World Series, joining only Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On December 16, 2009, Matsui agreed to a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim worth $6.5 million. He told Yomiuri Shimbun that he "loved the Yankees the best" but that he no longer felt valued and when his agent called to negotiate, "The Yankees had nothing prepared [in terms of contract conditions]." He made up his mind to sign with the Angels quickly. "I really felt their high expectations of me", he said. "They also acknowledged that I want to give fielding a shot." On Opening Day 2010, Matsui went 2-for-4 with a home run in the Angels cleanup spot. While playing in 145 games for the Angels, he produced a .274 batting average, 21 home runs and 84 RBI. Matsui returned to free agent status following the close of the season, and on November 23, 2010, the Angels announced that they would not offer him salary arbitration.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On December 14, 2010, Matsui signed a one-year contract worth $4.25 million with the Oakland Athletics for the 2011 season. On April 3, 2011, Matsui collected career hit number 2,500 (between NPB and MLB) at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum versus the Seattle Mariners, and on July 20, 2011, Matsui hit career home run number 500 versus the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On April 30, 2012, Matsui signed a minor league contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. He joined the Rays' Triple-A affiliate, the Durham Bulls, on May 15, 2012. On May 28, 2012, it was reported that the Rays were going to call Matsui up for a game against the Chicago White Sox on May 29, 2012. Upon joining the Rays, due to his preferred number 55 belonging to pitcher Matt Moore, he elected to wear uniform number 35 for his former teammate Mike Mussina. On the first pitch of his second at bat against the Chicago White Sox on May 29, 2012, Matsui hit a two-run home run.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: However, Matsui's hitting was unimpressive during the next two months as he posted a .147 batting average. He was designated for assignment by the Rays on July 25, 2012, and was released on August 1. Upon playing for the Rays, Matsui succeeded in playing 10 top-tier professional seasons in both America (MLB) and Japan (NPB), the first player in history to do so.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui ended his career by signing a one-day contract with the New York Yankees in 2013. The Yankees held a ceremony honoring Matsui before their game against the Tampa Bay Rays on July 28.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On December 27, 2012, Matsui officially announced his retirement from baseball. His retirement ceremony was held on May 5, 2013, at the Tokyo Dome, during which the Japanese government awarded him, and Shigeo Nagashima with the People's Honour Award.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On July 28, 2013, Matsui signed a one-day contract with the New York Yankees, and formally retired as a member of the team, the Yankees organization granting his last wish in honor of his years as a successful player with the team.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On January 15, 2018, Matsui was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame with 91.3% of the vote. Elected at the age of 43, he became the youngest player to be inducted to the Hall, breaking a record held by Hideo Nomo.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui did not miss a game in his first three seasons with the Yankees, putting together a streak of 518 games played. Before that, he played in 1,250 consecutive games with Yomiuri, for a total professional baseball streak of 1,768. Matsui holds the record for longest streak of consecutive games played to start a Major League Baseball career.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: On May 11, 2006, in his 519th game with the Yankees, Matsui fractured his left wrist on an unsuccessful sliding catch in the top of the first inning against the Boston Red Sox. Matsui, despite the injury, threw the ball back to the infield before gripping his wounded wrist in obvious pain. The game did not count toward Matsui's streak, as a player must field for at least half an inning or take an at-bat to be credited with a game played (MLB rule 10.24). Matsui underwent surgery on May 12, 2006, the next day. He returned to the Yankees starting lineup on September 12 against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and had an RBI-single in his first at-bat back, and proceeded to go 4 for 4 with a walk and scored twice.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui donated $500,000 towards charity relief for victims of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which the country becoming the second donation to the relief efforts of national crises since SARS pandemic in 2003, although Japan did not severely affected by the outbreak.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui also donated $620,000 to relief efforts for victims of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster in the Tōhoku region of Japan. On March 21, 2015, Matsui and former teammate Derek Jeter held a baseball charity event to support children affected by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, at the Tokyo Dome. The event included a baseball clinic and a home run derby between Matsui and Jeter.


title: Hideki Matsui

text: Matsui announced to the press on March 27, 2008, that he had married in a private ceremony in New York. His bride's name was not announced, but it was reported that she was 25 years old and had been formerly working in a "reputable position at a highly respected company". They met in Japan after the 2006 off-season.


title: 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election

text: The 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election will be held on November 7, 2023 to choose the governor and lieutenant governor of Kentucky. Incumbent Democratic Governor Andy Beshear is running for re-election to a second term. Primaries will occur on May 16, 2023. The winner of the 2023 gubernatorial election is scheduled to be sworn in on December 12, 2023.


title: 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election

text: In the third quarter of 2022, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance reported that the top six Republican candidates raised the following amounts (and were left with the indicated amounts on hand):


title: Armero tragedy

text: The Armero tragedy ( ) occurred following the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, on November 13, 1985. The volcano's eruption after 69 years of dormancy caught nearby towns unaware, even though volcanological organizations had warned the government to evacuate the area after they detected volcanic activity two months earlier.


title: Armero tragedy

text: As pyroclastic flows erupted from the volcano's crater, they melted the mountain's glaciers, sending four enormous lahars (volcanically induced mudflows, landslides, and debris flows) down its slopes at . The lahars picked up speed in gullies and engulfed the town of Armero, killing more than 20,000 of its almost 29,000 inhabitants. Casualties in other towns, particularly Chinchiná, brought the overall death toll to 23,000. Footage and photographs of Omayra Sánchez, a young victim of the disaster, were published around the world. Other photographs of the lahars and the impact of the disaster captured attention worldwide and led to controversy over the degree to which the Colombian government was responsible for the disaster. A banner at a mass funeral in Ibagué read, "The volcano didn't kill 22,000 people. The government killed them."


title: Armero tragedy

text: The relief efforts were hindered by the composition of the mud, which made it nearly impossible to move through without becoming stuck. By the time relief workers reached Armero twelve hours after the eruption, many of the victims with serious injuries were dead. The relief workers were horrified by the landscape of fallen trees, disfigured human bodies, and piles of debris from entire houses. This was the second-deadliest volcanic disaster of the 20th century, surpassed only by the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée, and is the fourth-deadliest volcanic event recorded since 1500.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The event was a foreseeable catastrophe exacerbated by the populace's unawareness of the volcano's destructive history; geologists and other experts had warned authorities and media outlets about the danger in the weeks and days leading up to the eruption. Hazard maps for the vicinity were prepared but poorly distributed. On the day of the eruption, several evacuation attempts were made, but a severe storm restricted communications. Many victims stayed in their houses as they had been instructed, believing that the eruption had ended. The noise from the storm may have prevented many from hearing the sounds of the eruption until it was too late.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Nevado del Ruiz has erupted several times since 1985, and continues to threaten up to 500,000 people living along the Combeima, Chinchiná, Coello-Toche, and Guali river valleys. A lahar (or group of lahars) similar in size to the 1985 event might travel as far as from the volcano, and could be triggered by a small eruption. To counter this threat, the Colombian government established a specialized office which administer the national system for identification, prevention, preparedness and management of natural disasters, the National Unit for Management of Disasters Risk (). The United States Geological Survey also created the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program and the Volcano Crisis Assistance Team, which evacuated roughly 75,000 people from the area around Mount Pinatubo before its 1991 eruption. All Colombian counties, by law, have a territorial plan that includes identification of natural threats, treatment for building permits and preparedness for prevention and management of natural disasters through planning programs which have helped save lives in many natural disasters since Armero's tragedy.


title: Armero tragedy

text: In 1988, three years after the eruption, Stanley Williams of Louisiana State University stated that, "With the possible exception of Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington, no other volcano in the Western Hemisphere is being watched so elaborately" as Nevado del Ruiz. Communities living near the volcano have become wary of volcanic activity: when it erupted in 1989, more than 2,300 people living around it were evacuated.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Armero, located from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano and from Colombia's capital of Bogotá, was the third largest town in Tolima Department, after the towns of Ibagué and Espinal. A prominent farming town before the eruption, it was responsible for roughly one-fifth of Colombia's rice production and for a large share of the cotton, sorghum, and coffee crops. Much of this prosperity can be attributed to Nevado del Ruiz, as the fertile volcanic soil stimulates agricultural growth.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Built on top of an alluvial fan that had been host to historic lahars, the town was previously destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1595 and by mudflows in 1845. In the 1595 eruption, three distinct Plinian eruptions produced lahars that claimed the lives of 636 people. During the 1845 event, 1,000 people were killed by earthquake-generated mudflows near the Magdalena River.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Ruiz has undergone three distinct eruptive periods, the first beginning 1.8 million years ago. During the present period (beginning 11,000 years ago), it has erupted at least twelve times, producing ashfalls, pyroclastic flows, and lahars. The historically recorded eruptions have primarily involved a central vent eruption (in the caldera) followed by an explosive eruption, then the formation of lahars. Ruiz's earliest identified Holocene eruption was in about 6660 BC, and further eruptions occurred around 1245, 850, 200 BC, and in about 350, 675, in 1350, 1541 (perhaps), 1570, 1595, 1623, 1805, 1826, 1828 (perhaps), 1829, 1831, 1833 (perhaps), 1845, 1916, December 1984 through March 1985, 1987 through July 1991, and possibly in April 1994. Many of these eruptions involved a central vent eruption, a flank vent eruption, and a phreatic (steam) explosion. Ruiz is the second-most active volcano in Colombia after Galeras.


title: Armero tragedy

text: One week before the eruption, Marxist insurgents attacked and laid siege to the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, planning to hold a trial involving Colombian president Belisario Betancur. Betancur refused to participate and sent the National Army into the building. The attackers were holding several hundred prisoners, including the 24 Supreme Court justices and 20 other judges. In the ensuing battle between the two forces, more than 75 prisoners died (including 11 judges). This disaster, coupled with the Armero tragedy, spurred the Colombian government to predict and prepare for a broad range of threats.


title: Armero tragedy

text: In late 1984, geologists noticed that seismic activity had begun to increase in the area around Nevado del Ruiz. Increased fumarole activity, deposition of sulfur on the summit of the volcano, and phreatic eruptions also alerted geologists to the possibility of an eruption. Phreatic events, when rising magma encounters water, continued well into September 1985 (one major event took place on September 11, 1985), shooting steam high into the air. Activity began to decline in October, probably because the new magma had finished ascending into Ruiz's volcanic edifice.


title: Armero tragedy

text: An Italian volcanological mission analyzed gas samples from fumaroles along the Arenas crater floor and found them to be a mixture of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, indicating a direct release of magma into the surface environment. Publishing a report for government officials on October 22, 1985, the scientists determined that the risk of lahars was unusually high. To prepare for the eruption, the report gave several simple preparedness techniques to local authorities. Another team gave the local officials seismographs, but no instructions on how to operate them.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Volcanic activity increased again in November 1985 as magma neared the surface. Increasing quantities of gases rich in sulfur dioxide and elemental sulfur began to appear in the volcano. The water content of the fumaroles' gases decreased, and water springs in the vicinity of Ruiz became enriched with magnesium, calcium, and potassium, which leached from the magma.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The thermodynamic equilibration temperatures, corresponding to the chemical composition of the discharged gases, ranged from ; this is a measure of the temperature at which the gases equilibrated within the volcano. The extensive degassing of the magma caused pressure to build up inside the volcano in the space above the magma, which eventually resulted in the explosive eruption.


title: Armero tragedy

text: In September 1985, as earthquakes and phreatic eruptions rocked the area, local officials began planning for an evacuation. In October, a hazard map was finalized for the area around Ruiz. This map highlighted the danger from falling material—including ash and rock—near Murillo, Santa Isabel, and Libano, as well as the threat of lahars in Mariquita, Guayabal, Chinchiná and Armero.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The map was poorly distributed to the people at high risk from Ruiz: many survivors had never heard of it, even though several of the country's major newspapers featured versions of the map. Henry Villegas of INGEOMINAS (Colombian Institute of Mining and Geology) stated that the hazard maps clearly demonstrated that Armero would be affected by lahars, but that the map "met with strong opposition from economic interests". He added that because the map was not prepared long before the eruption, mass production and distribution of it in time was difficult.


title: Armero tragedy

text: At least one of the hazard maps, published in the prominent "El Espectador" newspaper in Bogotá, included glaring errors. Without proper graphic scaling, it was unclear how big the map's hazard zones really were. The lahars on the map did not have a distinct ending point, and the main threat seemed to be from pyroclastic flows, not from mudflows. Though the map was colored blue, green, red, and yellow, there was no key to indicate what each color represented, and Armero was located in the green zone, wrongly interpreted to indicate the "safest" area. Another map published by the "El Tiempo" newspaper featured illustrations which "gave a perception of topography to the public unfamiliar with maps, allowing them to relate hazard zones to the landscape". In spite of this presentation that was keyed to the audience, the map ended up a more artistic representation of the risk than a purely scientific one.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The day of the eruption, black ash columns erupted from Ruiz at approximately 3:00 p.m. local time. The local civil defense director was promptly alerted to the situation. He contacted INGEOMINAS, which ruled that the area should be evacuated; he was then told to contact the civil defense directors in Bogotá and Tolima. Between 5:00–7:00 p.m., the ash stopped falling, and local officials, including the town priest, instructed people to "stay calm" and go inside. Around 5:00 p.m. an emergency committee meeting was called, and when it ended at 7:00 p.m., several members contacted the regional Red Cross over the intended evacuation efforts at Armero, Mariquita, and Honda.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The Ibagué Red Cross contacted Armero's officials and ordered an evacuation, which was not carried out because of electrical problems caused by a storm. The storm's heavy rain and constant thunder may have overpowered the noise of the volcano, and with no systematic warning efforts, the residents of Armero were completely unaware of the continuing activity at Ruiz. At 9:45 p.m., after the volcano had erupted, civil defense officials from Ibagué and Murillo tried to warn Armero's officials, but could not make contact. Later they overheard conversations between individual officials of Armero and others; famously, a few heard the mayor of Armero speaking on a ham radio, saying "that he did not think there was much danger" just before he was overtaken by the lahar.


title: Armero tragedy

text: At 9:09 p.m., on November 13, 1985, Nevado del Ruiz ejected dacitic tephra more than into the atmosphere. The total mass of the erupted material (including magma) was 35 million metric tons, only three percent of the amount that erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980. The eruption reached 3 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. The mass of the ejected sulfur dioxide was about 700,000 metric tons, or about two percent of the mass of the erupted solid material, making the eruption unusually sulfur rich.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The eruption produced pyroclastic flows that melted summit glaciers and snow, generating four thick lahars that raced down river valleys on the volcano's flanks, destroying a small lake that was observed in Arenas' crater several months before the eruption. Water in such volcanic lakes tends to be extremely salty, and may contain dissolved volcanic gases. The lake's hot, acidic water significantly accelerated the melting of the ice, an effect confirmed by the large amounts of sulfates and chlorides found in the lahar flow.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The lahars, formed of water, ice, pumice, and other rocks, incorporated clay from eroding soil as they traveled down the volcano's flanks. They ran down the volcano's sides at an average speed of , dislodging rock and destroying vegetation. After descending thousands of meters down the side of the volcano, the lahars followed the six river valleys leading from the volcano, where they grew to almost four times their original volume. In the Gualí River, a lahar reached a maximum width of .


title: Armero tragedy

text: Survivors in Armero described the night as "quiet". Volcanic ash had been falling throughout the day, but residents were informed it was nothing to worry about. Later in the afternoon, ash began falling again after a long period of quiet. Local radio stations reported that residents should remain calm and ignore the material. One survivor reported going to the fire department to be informed that the ash was "nothing".


title: Armero tragedy

text: During the night, the electrical power suddenly turned off and the radios went silent. Just before 11:30 p.m., a huge stream of water swept through Armero; it was powerful enough to flip cars and pick up people. A loud roar could be heard from the mountain, but the residents were panicked over what they believed to be a flood.


title: Armero tragedy

text: At 11:30 p.m., the first lahar hit, followed shortly by the others. One of the lahars virtually erased Armero; three-quarters of the town's 28,700 inhabitants were killed. Proceeding in three major waves, this lahar was deep, moved at , and lasted ten to twenty minutes. Traveling at about , the second lahar lasted thirty minutes and was followed by smaller pulses. A third major pulse brought the lahar's duration to roughly two hours. By that point, 85 percent of Armero was enveloped in mud. Survivors described people holding on to debris from their homes in attempts to stay above the mud. Buildings collapsed, crushing people and raining down debris.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The front of the lahar contained boulders and cobbles that would have crushed anyone in their path, while the slower parts were dotted by fine, sharp stones which caused lacerations. Mud moved into open wounds and other open body parts — the eyes, ears, and mouth — and placed pressure capable of inducing traumatic asphyxia in one or two minutes upon people buried in it. Martí and Ernst state in their work "Volcanoes and the Environment" that they believe that many who survived the lahars succumbed to their injuries as they were trapped, or contracted hypothermia, though the latter is unlikely, given that survivors described the water as warm.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Another lahar, which descended through the valley of the Chinchiná River, killed about 1,800 people and destroyed 400 homes in Chinchiná. In total, more than 23,000 people were killed, approximately 5,000 were injured, and 5,000 homes throughout thirteen villages were destroyed. Some 230,000 people were affected, were disrupted, and there were nearly 20,000 survivor-refugees. The Armero tragedy, as the event came to be known, was the second-deadliest volcanic disaster of the 20th century, surpassed only by the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée, and is the fourth-deadliest volcanic eruption recorded since 1500 AD. It is also the deadliest lahar, and Colombia's worst natural disaster.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The loss of life was exacerbated by the lack of an accurate timeframe for the eruption and the unwillingness of local authorities to take costly preventative measures without clear signs of imminent danger. Because its last substantial eruption had occurred 140 years earlier, it was difficult for many to accept the danger presented by the volcano; locals even called it the "Sleeping Lion".


title: Armero tragedy

text: Hazard maps showing that Armero would be completely flooded after an eruption were distributed more than a month before the eruption, but the Colombian Congress criticized the scientific and civil defense agencies for scaremongering. The eruption occurred at the height of guerrilla warfare in Bogotá, and so the government and army were preoccupied at the time of the eruption.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The day after the eruption, relief workers in Armero were appalled at its impact. The lahars had left behind a gray mass which covered the entire town, which was dotted with broken trees and horribly disfigured bodies. Debris from huts and homes protruded from beneath the gray mud. A few bags filled with crops were discovered in the mud. Workers described an acrid smell of "rotting bodies, ... wood smoke and decaying vegetables". To the horror of these workers, who were scrambling to begin relief efforts, survivors let out moans of pain and agony. The damages were assessed at six billion dollars, an amount approximately one-fifth of Colombia's 1985 gross national product.


title: Armero tragedy

text: As news of the catastrophe spread around the world, the ongoing Colombian presidential campaign was halted, and the guerrilla fighters stopped their campaign "in view of the painful tragedy that has befallen our nation". Tickets for Colombian national championship soccer games added a surcharge of five cents to go to relief efforts.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Scientists who later analyzed the seismograph data noticed that several long-period earthquakes (which begin strongly and then slowly die out) had occurred in the final hours before the eruption. Volcanologist Bernard Chouet said that "the volcano was screaming, 'I'm about to explode'", but the scientists who were studying Ruiz at the time of the eruption were not able to read the signal.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The Nevado del Ruiz eruption occurred two months after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, limiting the amount of supplies that could be sent to each of the disasters. Efforts were organized in Ibagué and Bogotá for Armero and in Cali for Chinchiná, where medical teams gathered. Makeshift triage stations were established in Lerida, Guayabal, and Mariquita, and soon were overwhelmed with the sheer number of victims. The remaining victims were directed to Ibagué's hospitals, as local institutions had already been destroyed or were at risk from further lahars.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The US government spent over $1 million in aid (equivalent to $ million today), and U.S. Ambassador Charles A. Gillespie, Jr. donated an initial $25,000 to Colombian disaster assistance institutions ($ today). The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent one member of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), along with an USAID disaster relief expert and twelve helicopters, with support and medical personnel from Panama. The US subsequently sent additional aircraft and supplies, including 500 tents, 2,250 blankets, and several tent repair kits.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Twenty-four other nations contributed to the rescue and assistance of survivors. Ecuador supplied a mobile hospital, and Iceland's Red Cross sent $4,650 ($ today). The French government sent their own medical supplies with 1,300 tents. Japan sent $1.25 million ($ million today), along with eight doctors, nurses, and engineers, plus $50,000 ($ today) to the United Nations for relief efforts. Another $50,000 ($ today) was donated by the Lions Clubs International Foundation.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Rescue efforts were hindered by the soft mud that was up to deep in some places, making it virtually impossible for anyone to traverse it without sinking in. To make the situation worse, the highway connected to Armero and several bridges to it had been demolished by the lahars. It took twelve hours for the first survivors to be rescued, so those with serious but treatable injuries probably died before the rescuers arrived.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Because Armero's hospital was destroyed in the eruption, helicopters moved survivors to nearby hospitals. Six local towns set up makeshift emergency relief clinics, consisting of treatment areas and shelters for the homeless. To help with the treatment, physicians and rescue teams came from all over the country. Of the 1,244 patients spread over the clinics, 150 died from infection or associated complications. Had antibiotics been readily available and all of their lacerations been thoroughly cleaned, many of these people could have been saved.


title: Armero tragedy

text: One week after the disaster, rescue efforts began to cease. Nearly 4,000 relief workers and rescue team members were still searching for survivors, with little hope of finding any. By then, the official death toll was registered at 22,540 people; additional counts showed that 3,300 were missing, 20,000 homeless, and 4,000 injured. Looters raided the ruins and survivors faced concerns of typhus and yellow fever. For most of the relief workers, their job was over.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The eruption was used as an example for psychiatric recuperation after natural disasters by Robert Desjarlais and Leon Eisenberg in their work "World Mental Health: Problems and Priorities in Low-Income Countries". The authors were concerned that only initial treatment for the survivors' psychological trauma was conducted. One study showed that the victims of the eruption suffered from anxiety and depression, which can lead to alcohol abuse, marital problems and other social issues. Rafael Ruiz, a National Army major who briefly served as Armero's provisional mayor after the disaster, stated that there were survivors who, due to the trauma of the event, were "jittery", experienced "nightmares", and suffered from "emotional problems". He added that the progress made by Christmas of 1985 was considerable, but that there was "still a long way to go".


title: Armero tragedy

text: A lack of preparation for the disaster contributed to the high death toll. Armero had been built on an alluvial fan that had been overrun by historic mudflows; authorities had ignored a hazard-zone map that showed the potential damage to the town from lahars. Residents stayed inside their dwellings to avoid the falling ash, as local officials had instructed them to do, not thinking that they might be buried by the mudflows.


title: Armero tragedy

text: The disaster gained international notoriety due in part to a photograph taken by photographer Frank Fournier of a young girl named Omayra Sánchez, who was trapped beneath rubble for three days before she died. Following the eruption, relief workers gathered around the girl, speaking with her and listening to her responses. She attracted the attention of the reporters at the site because of her sense of dignity and courage, and caused controversy when people wondered why the photographer had not saved her (which was impossible without equipment). An appeal to the government for a pump to lower the water around Sánchez was left unanswered, and she succumbed to gangrene and hypothermia after sixty hours of being trapped. Her death epitomized the tragic nature of the Armero disaster – she could have been saved had the government responded promptly and addressed the concerns over the volcano's potency. The photograph earned the World Press Photo of the Year for "capturing the event of greatest journalistic importance".


title: Armero tragedy

text: Two photographers from the "Miami Herald" won a Pulitzer Prize for photographing the effects of the lahar. Stanley Williams of Louisiana State University said that following the eruption, "With the possible exception of Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington, no other volcano in the Western Hemisphere is being watched so elaborately." In response to the eruption, the USGS Volcano Crisis Assistance Team was formed in 1986, and the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Concerns over the alleged negligence of local officials to alert locals of the volcano's threat led to controversy. The mayor of Armero, Ramon Rodriguez, and other local officials had tried to bring the volcano's potential eruption to the attention of the Colombian government, but to no avail. For months, Rodriguez appealed to various officials, including congressmen and the governor of Tolima, Eduardo Alzate Garcia. Rodriguez once referred to the volcano as a "time bomb" and told reporters that he believed an eruption would disrupt the natural dam above Armero, resulting in floods.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Despite Rodriguez' persistence, only one congressman managed to inquire about the reality of the situation. Reports from the Colombian Minister of Mines, the Minister of Defense, and Minister of Public Works "all asserted that the government was aware of the risk from the volcano and was acting to protect the population". The lack of responsibility for the disaster prompted lawmakers to campaign for Garcia to resign. In the media, similar thoughts and questions were hotly debated. One of the most aggressive campaigns came from a mass funeral in Ibagué for the victims, claiming that "The volcano didn't kill 22,000 people. The government killed them."


title: Armero tragedy

text: Nevado del Ruiz continues to pose a serious threat to nearby towns and villages. Of the threats, the one with the most potential for danger is that of small-volume eruptions, which can destabilize glaciers and trigger lahars. Although much of the volcano's glacier mass has retreated, a significant volume of ice still sits atop Ruiz and other volcanoes in the Ruiz–Tolima massif. Melting just ten percent of the ice would produce lahars with a volume of up to similar to the lahar that destroyed Armero in 1985. In just hours, these lahars can travel up to along river valleys.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Estimates show that up to 500,000 people living in the Combeima, Chinchiná, Coello-Toche, and Guali valleys are at risk, with 100,000 individuals being considered to be at high risk. Lahars pose a threat to the nearby towns of Honda, Mariquita, Chinchiná, Ambalema, Herveo, Villa Hermosa, Salgar and La Dorada. Although small eruptions are more likely, the two-million-year eruptive history of the Ruiz–Tolima massif includes numerous large eruptions, indicating that the threat of a large eruption cannot be ignored. A large eruption would have more widespread effects, including the potential closure of Bogotá's airport due to ashfall.


title: Armero tragedy

text: As the Armero tragedy was exacerbated by the lack of early warnings, unwise land use, and the unpreparedness of nearby communities, the Colombian government created a special program, the "Oficina Nacional para la Atención de Desastres" (National Office for Disaster Preparedness), now known as the "Dirección de Prevención y Atención de Desastres" (Directorate for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness)to prevent such incidents in the future.


title: Armero tragedy

text: All Colombian cities were directed to promote prevention planning to mitigate the consequences of natural disasters, and evacuations due to volcanic hazards have been carried out. About 2,300 people living along five nearby rivers were evacuated when Nevado del Ruiz erupted again in 1989. When another Colombian volcano, Nevado del Huila, erupted in April 2008, thousands of people were evacuated because volcanologists worried that the eruption could be another "Nevado del Ruiz".


title: Armero tragedy

text: The lessons from the Armero tragedy have inspired a lahar warning system for Mt. Rainier in Washington State, which has a similar potential for lahars.


title: Armero tragedy

text: Armero was never rebuilt after the tragedy. Instead, the survivors were relocated to the towns of Guayabal and Lérida, rendering Armero a ghost town.


title: Armero tragedy

text: A little less than one year later, Pope John Paul II flew over Armero and then visited Lérida's refugee camps with President Betancur. He spoke about the disaster and declared the site of Armero "holy land". Although many victims of the disaster were commemorated, Omayra Sánchez in particular was immortalized by poems, novels, and music pieces. One work ("Adios, Omayra") by Eduardo Santa illustrated the girl's last days of life and her symbolism of the catastrophe. Survivors were also recognized in Germán Santa María Barragán's dramatized television special titled "No Morirás" (You Will Not Die). Much of the cast was composed of victims of the tragedy who appeared at the cast calls to be extras.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: A social worker visits the residence of an elderly woman, only to find her strangled by an electric cord. A nearby video player suddenly turns on and plays the cursed videotape. As she watches, Sadako Yamamura appears and kills the social worker.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: The video player is sold at a shop and bought by university students Yuri Kurahashi and Natsumi Ueno. When they find the cursed videotape inside, they play it. The footage has upgraded, displaying a decrepit building instead of the usual well, and the curse deadline being reduced to two days. Yuri gets distracted, leaving Natsumi to watch by herself. Afterward, they receive a disturbing phone call as Sadako manifests, startling Natsumi.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: A worker at the shop who had watched the cursed tape leaps to her death. The girls go to return the video player and learn about the deaths related to the tape. Desperate, they go to their professor, an author on urban legends, Shin'ichi Morishige. Obsessed with the idea of meeting Sadako, Morishige eagerly watches the tape. He takes the girls to an exorcist but Sadako possesses Natsumi and forces the assistants to kill themselves before the exorcist kills Morishige. With her dying breath, the exorcist tells the girls that a man with psychic powers, Keizo Tokiwa, will help them.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: When Natsumi blames Yuri for her situation, Yuri watches the tape, hoping that this will pass the curse on to her and Natsumi will be spared. Keizo arrives, accompanied by a blind psychic girl, Tamao, who tells Yuri that she has unnecessarily cursed herself. The only way to expunge the curse is to pit Sadako against another vengeful spirit so both destroy each other. Natsumi uploads the tape to the Internet and tries to commit suicide to escape her imminent death. However, Sadako kills Natsumi before she can. Keizo and Tamao target Kayako Saeki to be the rival spirit.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: Meanwhile, high school student Suzuka Takagi starts having dreams of the haunted Saeki house after moving in nearby with her family. She runs into Keizo and Tamao, who states that the house beckons to Suzuka, he warns her not to enter or she will be killed. That night, Suzuka thinks she sees a schoolboy inside the Saeki house and goes inside. She sees Toshio and her screams prompt her parents to rush in, causing them to be killed by Toshio and Kayako. Keizo saves Suzuka but she is already cursed. Yuri and Suzuka team up for Keizo's plan, where they will enter the Saeki house so that Suzuka can watch the cursed tape inside and Yuri can see Kayako, thus becoming afflicted with both curses. Keizo hopes this will make Sadako and Kayako fight over the girls and destroy each other in the process.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: As the plan unfolds, Toshio appears but Sadako drags him inside the TV as he screams. Sadako crawls out of the TV whilst Kayako crawls downstairs, starts brutally confront each other but the battle ends in a stalemate. Keizo reveals his last resort: one of the girls has to lure both ghosts into a well outside of the house so they can be sealed inside. Yuri chooses to sacrifice herself, jumping into the well as Sadako and Kayako begin to rush toward her, resulting in a massive collision that bisects Keizo and turns both ghosts into a giant mass of hair, flesh and eyes. The giant mass falls into the well, presumably crushing Yuri to death. Suzuka seals the well and imprisons the ghosts.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: This last resort does not work either, and instead backfires terribly: both Sadako and Kayako's curses combine and become a single entity: Sadakaya. Now possessing Yuri's body with the appearance of Sadako, a combined movement of both spirits and the sound of Kayako's death rattle. Suzuka screams in horror and Tamao's psychic powers are overwhelmed. Toshio reappears behind them, and the girls' fates are left unknown.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: In a post-credits scene, the modified version of the cursed videotape is shown. Sadakaya menacingly contorts her body, imitating the movements of both Sadako and Kayako. She then teleports to the screen, emitting a death rattle.


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: Despite a rumor about Takako Fuji reprising her role as Kayako in this crossover, the actress stated several times on Twitter that she was not playing this representation of the character. Masaki Saisho, who played Kayako in "" and "", does not appear in the film either. This makes Runa Endo the fifth actress to play Kayako (counting Aiko Horiuchi, who starred in "The Grudge 3" and Anna Moon in "Tales from the Grudge").


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: As for Sadako, Elly Nanami is the seventh actress to play the role, after Rie Inō ("Ring", "Ring 2"), Hinako Saeki ("Rasen"), Ayane Miura (""), Tae Kimura ("", "Rasen"), Yukie Nakama ("") and Ai Hashimoto ("Sadako 3D") (excluding Samara Morgan's and Park Eun-Suh's incarnations from "The Ring" and "The Ring Virus" respectively).


title: Sadako vs. Kayako

text: The film's theme song is by the heavy metal band Seikima-II. It was released as part of a double A-side single on June 15, 2016, which also included an English-language version of the song.