title: Dragon King

text: Also, there was the "Five Dragons Festival/ritual" ("Goryūsai". ) was performed by "onmyōji" or yin-yang masters. The oldest mention of this in literature is from "Fusō Ryakuki", entry of Engi 2/902AD, 17th day of the 6th moon. Sometimes the performance of the rain ritual by Esoteric Buddhists ("shōugyōhō") would be followed in succession by the Five Dragons Ritual from the The Five Dragon rites performed by the "onmyōji" or yin yang masters had its heyday around the 10–11th centuries. There are "mokkan" or inscribed wooden tablets used in these rites that have been unearthed (e.g., from 8–10th century site, and a 9th century site.


title: Dragon King

text: In Japan there also developed a legend that the primordial being Banko (Pangu of Chinese myth) sired the Five Dragon Kings, who were invoked in the ritual texts or read in Shinto or Onmyōdō rites, but the five beings later began to be seen less as monsters and more as wise princes,


title: Dragon King

text: Worship of the Dragon God is celebrated throughout China with sacrifices and processions during the fifth and sixth moons, and especially on the date of his birthday the thirteenth day of the sixth moon. A folk religious movement of associations of good-doing in modern Hebei is primarily devoted to a generic Dragon God whose icon is a tablet with his name inscribed on it, utilized in a ritual known as the "movement of the Dragon Tablet". The Dragon God is traditionally venerated with dragon boat racing.


title: Dragon King

text: In coastal regions of China, Korea, Vietnam, traditional legends and worshipping of whales (whale gods) have been referred to Dragon Kings after the arrival of Buddhism.


title: Dragon King

text: Some Buddhist traditions describe a figure named Duo-luo-shi-qi or Talasikhin as a Dragon King who lives in a palace located in a pond near the legendary kingdom of Ketumati. It is said that during midnight he used to drizzle in this pond to cleanse himself of dust.


title: Fluid ounce

text: A fluid ounce (abbreviated fl oz, fl. oz. or oz. fl., old forms ℥, fl ℥, f℥, ƒ ℥) is a unit of volume (also called "capacity") typically used for measuring liquids. The British Imperial, the United States customary, and the United States food labeling fluid ounce are the only three that are still in common use, although various definitions have been used throughout history.


title: Fluid ounce

text: A US customary fluid ounce is of a US liquid pint and of a US liquid gallon or exactly 29.5735295625 mL, making it about 4.08% larger than the imperial fluid ounce.


title: Fluid ounce

text: The "fluid" ounce is distinct from the (international avoirdupois) ounce as a unit of weight or mass, although it is sometimes referred to simply as an "ounce" where context makes the meaning clear (e.g., "ounces in a bottle"). A volume of pure water measuring one imperial fluid ounce has a mass of almost exactly one ounce.


title: Fluid ounce

text: For serving sizes on nutrition labels in the US, regulation 21 CFR §101.9(b) requires the use of "common household measures", and 21 CFR §101.9(b)(5)(viii) defines a "common household" fluid ounce as exactly 30 milliliters.


title: Fluid ounce

text: The fluid ounce was originally the volume occupied by one ounce of some substance, for example wine (in England) or water (in Scotland). The ounce in question also varied depending on the system of fluid measure, such as that used for wine versus ale.


title: Fluid ounce

text: Various ounces were used over the centuries, including the Tower ounce, troy ounce, avoirdupois ounce, and ounces used in international trade, such as Paris troy, a situation further complicated by the medieval practice of "allowances", whereby a unit of measure was not necessarily equal to the sum of its parts. For example, the had a for the weight of the sack and other packaging materials.


title: Fluid ounce

text: In 1824, the British Parliament defined the imperial gallon as the volume of ten pounds of water at standard temperature. The gallon was divided into four quarts, the quart into two pints, the pint into four gills, and the gill into five ounces; thus, there were 160 imperial fluid ounces to the gallon.


title: Fluid ounce

text: This made the mass of a fluid ounce of water one avoirdupois ounce (28.35 g), a relationship which remains approximately valid today despite the imperial gallon's definition being slightly revised to be 4.54609 litres (thus making the imperial fluid ounce exactly 28.4130625 mL).


title: Fluid ounce

text: The US fluid ounce is based on the US gallon, which in turn is based on the wine gallon of 231 cubic inches that was used in the United Kingdom prior to 1824. With the adoption of the international inch, the US fluid ounce became gal × 231 in/gal × (2.54 cm/in) = 29.5735295625 mL exactly, or about 4% larger than the imperial unit.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Kay Bailey Hutchison (born Kathryn Ann Bailey; July 22, 1943) is an American attorney, television correspondent, politician, diplomat, and was the 22nd United States Permanent Representative to NATO from 2017 until 2021. A member of the Republican Party, she was a United States Senator from Texas from 1993 to 2013.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Born in Galveston, Texas, Hutchison is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to entering politics, she was an attorney and legal correspondent at KPRC-TV in Houston. She was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1972 to 1976. After a brief business career, she returned to politics in 1990, when she was elected Texas State Treasurer. In 1993, she was elected to the United States Senate in a non-partisan special election, defeating Democratic incumbent Bob Krueger and becoming the first female senator in Texas history.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: After being re-elected to the Senate in 1994, 2000, and 2006, Hutchison was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Texas in 2010, losing the Republican primary to incumbent Rick Perry. Hutchison was the most senior female Republican senator by the end of her tenure in 2013, and the fifth most senior female senator overall. In 2013, she joined the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On June 29, 2017, Hutchison was nominated by President Donald Trump to be the next United States Permanent Representative to NATO. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a voice vote on August 3, 2017.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison was born Kathryn Ann Bailey in Galveston, the daughter of Kathryn Ella (née Sharp) and Allan Abner Bailey, Jr., an insurance agent. She has two brothers, Allan and Frank. Hutchison grew up in La Marque, Texas.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1962 (age 19). She was also a member of the Pi Beta Phi Sorority. She received her J.D. degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967 (age 24). Following her graduation from law school, she was the legal and political correspondent for KPRC-TV in Houston. Hired by Ray Miller, host of the long-running "The Eyes of Texas" anthology series, Hutchison was among the first on-screen newswomen in Texas.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 1972 (age 29), Hutchison was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from a district in Houston. She served until 1976. She was vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1976 to 1978. She was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1982 for the Dallas-based 3rd District, but was defeated in the primary by Steve Bartlett. She temporarily left politics and became a bank executive and businesswoman.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison was elected Texas State Treasurer in 1990 and served until June 1993 when she ran against Senator Bob Krueger in a special election to complete the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen had resigned in January 1993 to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Krueger had been appointed by Texas Governor Ann Richards to fill the seat until a replacement was elected.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: A field of 24 candidates sought to fill Bentsen's unexpired term in the May 1993 special election. The top two vote-getters were Hutchison (593,338, or 29 percent) and Krueger (593,239, also 29 percent). Two conservative Republican congressmen, Joe Barton of Dallas (284,135 or 13.9 percent) and Jack Fields of Houston (277,560, or 13.6 percent) split anti-abortion voters, but even their combined totals, 561,693, would have placed neither in the run-off. A fifth candidate, Democrat Richard W. Fisher, son-in-law of former GOP U.S. Representative James M. Collins, polled 165,564 votes (8.1 percent); the remaining candidates had about 6 percent combined. Running far behind the pack was the Houston conservative political activist and former crusading journalist Clymer Wright, father of his city's 1991 term-limits initiative. Lou Zaeske, an engineer from Bryan, who in 1988 had spearheaded the English-only movement in Texas, polled barely 2,000 votes.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: During the campaign Krueger charged that Hutchison was a "country club Republican" and insensitive to the feelings of minorities. In January, the "Houston Chronicle" reported that both Hutchison and Fields had promised to serve a maximum of two six-year terms in the Senate as part of her support for term-limit legislation for members of Congress. In April, the "Dallas Morning News" reported that Hutchison had repeated her pledge to serve only two terms in the U.S. Senate, if elected, and had also said term limits ought to cover all senators, including Senator Phil Gramm (Republican), who had been elected in 1984 and re-elected in 1990. (He would stay in the Senate until 2002.) The term-limits legislation never passed, and Hutchison said that she would not leave the Senate in the absence of such legislation, because doing so unilaterally would hurt Texas at the expense of other states in the seniority-driven institution.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: After the initial voting, most of the Barton and Fields voters switched to Hutchison, who won the run-off, 1,188,716 (67.3 percent) to 576,538 (32.7 percent). Lower turnout in the run-off resulted in a decrease in Krueger's vote total, by 17,000. Hutchison became the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Following Hutchison's election in 1993, Texas had two sitting Republican U.S. senators for the first time since Reconstruction, something that would remain through the end of Hutchison's tenure in the Senate.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On June 10, 1993, Travis County authorities, led by Democratic District Attorney Ronnie Earle, raided Hutchison's offices at the State Treasury. The search was conducted without a warrant, as incident to service of the indictments in the case. In September 1993, Hutchison was indicted by a Texas grand jury for official misconduct and records tampering. Hutchison stated that she was the innocent victim of a politically motivated prosecutor. Earle denied that his legal actions against Hutchison were politically motivated. The case against Hutchison was heard before State District Judge John Onion in February 1994. During pre-trial proceedings, the judge did not rule on the admissibility of evidence obtained on June 10. Following the lack of a ruling, Earle declined to proceed with his case. Onion swore in a jury and directed the jury to acquit Hutchison, since Earle chose not to present evidence. The acquittal barred any future prosecution of Hutchison for the same alleged crime.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Running in 1994 for election to her first full term, Hutchison received 2,604,281 votes (60.8 percent) to 1,639,615 votes (38.3 percent) cast for Democrat Richard W. Fisher, the son-in-law of the late Republican Congressman James M. Collins, who had also run in the 1993 special election.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2000 she defeated Democrat Gene Kelly, with 4,082,091 (65 percent) to 2,030,315 (32.2 percent). She carried 237 of the 254 counties, including one of the most Democratic counties, Webb County (Laredo). This was the only time since the early 1900s that Webb County had supported a Republican candidate for any office on a partisan ballot.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Speculation began in 2004 that Hutchison would run for Governor of Texas in 2006, challenging incumbent Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary. However, on June 17, 2005, Hutchison announced that she would seek re-election to the Senate instead, reneging on an earlier promise to a two-term limit. Many political analysts speculated that she did not believe she could defeat Perry in the GOP primary because of his popularity among Christian conservatives, while her Senate seat was unlikely to face a serious threat.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison's Democratic opponent in the November 2006 general election was former Houston attorney and mediator Barbara Ann Radnofsky (born July 8, 1956), who had not previously run for public office. Radnofsky received 44 percent of the vote in the primary, and won a run-off election against Gene Kelly with 60 percent of the vote. Kelly had been the unsuccessful Democratic nominee against Hutchison in 2000. Libertarian Scott Lanier Jameson (born July 1, 1966), a real estate consultant from Plano, also ran for the seat.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Radnofsky faced an uphill battle in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, as George W. Bush's landslide re-election as governor in 1998 had helped carry Republicans into all the other statewide offices. In the August 2006 Rasmussen poll, Hutchison led her opponent by 30 percentage points — 61 to 31. The Survey USA Poll, which is not a head-to-head matchup, but only lists approval ratings of incumbents, found Hutchison with a 61 percent approval rating. The Zogby poll, in contrast, showed a closer result, but still showed Hutchison with an 18.9 percent lead. The authors stated "... Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who got 65 percent of the vote in 2000, is a safe bet to win a third term."


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On election night 2006, Hutchison won re-election to another term, winning 2,661,789 votes (61.7%). Radnofsky won 1,555,202 votes (36.04%). Radnofsky only won in base Democratic areas, carrying only border counties with strong Hispanic majorities, such as El Paso and Webb (Laredo) and in Travis County (Austin). Hutchison won everything else, having won majorities in 236 of the state's 254 counties.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On August 17, 2009, Hutchison formally announced that she was a Republican candidate for Governor of Texas and positioned herself as a moderate alternative to Governor Rick Perry. Perry criticized Hutchison for her pro-abortion rights position and received endorsements from social conservatives in the state. Although Hutchison led Perry in polls taken in early 2009 and was perceived by many to be the front-runner in the race, by the fall her lead had evaporated and she consistently trailed the incumbent in the final months before the primary. Hutchison accumulated a list of high-profile endorsements that included former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Hall of Fame baseball player Nolan Ryan, and several current and former congressmen and Cabinet secretaries. However, Hutchison lost the primary to Perry, 31 to 53 percent, with the remainder of the vote going to Debra Medina, a dark horse candidate with ties to the Tea Party movement.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison served on the following Senate committees: Appropriations; Commerce, Science and Transportation; Rules and Administration; Veterans' Affairs. During her time in the Senate, Hutchison was a strong supporter of NASA.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In June 2000, Hutchison and her Senate colleagues coauthored "Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate". In 2004, her book, "American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country", was published.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: From 2001 to 2007, Hutchison served as Vice-Chairwoman of the Senate Republican Conference (caucus), making her the fifth-ranking Republican in the Senate behind Majority Leader Bill Frist, Majority Whip Mitch McConnell and conference chairman Rick Santorum, and Policy Chairman Jon Kyl. In 2007, Hutchison succeeded Jon Kyl as the Policy Chair for Senate Republicans, the fourth-ranking leadership position in the Republican caucus behind Minority Leader McConnell, Minority Whip, and conference chairman Kyl.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: The "National Journal" ranked Hutchison as follows in its 2004 rankings, which are based on various key votes relating to economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy: "Economic: 26% Liberal, 73% Conservative; Social: 38% Liberal, 60% Conservative; Foreign: 0% Liberal, 67% Conservative. In 2012, the "National Journal" gave her composite scores of 72% conservative and 28% liberal. Although a loyal conservative Republican, she was known to cross over to the other side on a few issues. She was more likely to do this than either Phil Gramm or his successor John Cornyn." A poll that was released on June 19, 2007, showed that Hutchison had an approval rating of 58%, with 34% disapproving.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Supporters of the Tea Party movement have been critical of Hutchison. In 2010, Konni Burton, a member of the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party steering committee, said "She personifies everything that the Tea Party is fighting. She is a Republican, but when you check her votes on many issues, they are not ones that conservatives are happy with."


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison broke ranks with her Republican colleagues and opposed an attempt to stall the Democrats' health-care bill in the Senate.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In a letter dated December 9, 2010, Hutchison told some Republicans that she would not support the DREAM Act. Hutchison co-sponsored legislation with Senator Jon Kyl from Arizona to introduce the ACHIEVE Act which they intended to be a compromise proposal. The ACHIEVE Act would not grant a pathway to citizenship; instead it would offer renewable visas to some undocumented immigrants who are Dreamers. Senator Hutchison voted to discontinue funding to 'sanctuary cities,' voted against comprehensive immigration reform, and voted to make English the official language of the United States; she voted against eliminating the 'Y' guest worker visas and voted 'yes' to allowing more foreign workers to work on farms. The American Immigration Lawyers Association, which supports immigration reform, gave her an 80% rating in 2008, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration and seeks to reduce legal immigration levels, gave her a 100% rating. Numbers USA, which also opposes illegal and legal immigration, gave her a 76% score.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison has a mixed voting record on abortion rights. In 2012, she said she identifies as "pro-life." She was identified as nominally pro-abortion rights for several years including 2005–2010. She served as an honorary board member of The WISH List, a pro-abortion rights Republican special interest group. She has voted to restrict abortion rights, but has said that she does not favor overturning "Roe v. Wade" and that the Republican Party should not build its platform around abortion, which she calls a "personal and religious issue." In 1993, Hutchison, then a candidate for the US Senate, identified as "pro-choice" while supporting restrictions on abortion and received campaign contributions from the WISH List. In 1994, Senator Hutchison was one of 17 Republicans who broke with their party to vote in favor of a bill, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, to protect access to abortion clinics by making it a federal crime to block or physically attack the clinics. Also, "Hutchison voted for a 2003 resolution in the Senate stating that the "Roe" decision 'was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right; and such decision should not be overturned.'" She was one of nine Republicans who joined Democrats to support "Roe". Hutchison continued to support abortion rights early in a pregnancy. She said: "I've always said that I think that women should have the ability to make that decision, even if I disagree with it." In June 2004, during the Republican state convention, she told reporters she supported a woman's right to have an abortion early in a pregnancy.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Although she supports the "Roe v. Wade" decision and legal abortion early in a pregnancy, Hutchison has a "nearly perfect" record of voting in line with the position of anti-abortion interest groups. During her time in the U.S. Senate, Hutchison received consistently high scores from the National Right to Life Committee and consistently low scores from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Hutchison's highest scores from NARAL were a 20% in both 2000 and 2004. In 2005, the Population Institute, which supports voluntary family planning, gave her a 50% score for their positions. In 2008, the pro-abortion rights National Organization for Women gave her a 19% score. Also in 2008, she received a 100% rating for voting in line with the position of Population Action International which advocates for access to family planning services.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison proposed the "District of Columbia Personal Protection Act," which drew 31 cosponsors in the United States Senate, while drawing 157 cosponsors from the House. This bill repealed the handgun bans the city had in place for thirty years. DC's law stated that one could not possess a rifle or shotgun unless it was in disassembled and inoperative form, and could not possess pistols in any form. In 2008, the law was struck down in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, "District of Columbia v. Heller".


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison is a strong supporter of single-sex education in public schools. In 2001, she worked with Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to write provisions into the No Child Left Behind Act (specifically sections 5131.a.23 and 5131c) authorizing single-sex education in public schools. Section 5131c required the Department of Education to write new regulations facilitating single-sex classrooms; this provision led to the publication of new regulations by the Department of Education in 2006 which do in fact facilitate single-sex education in public schools. She is a supporter of the U.S. Public Service Academy.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2006, Senator Hutchison broke with the majority of Republicans and voted in favor of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Hutchison had also signed a letter addressed to President Bush, co-signed by 12 other Republicans, in support of stem cell research in 2001.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2005, Hutchison voted against prohibiting oil leasing in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has supported legislation promoting drilling in the refuge in 2002 and 2003. In 2005 she also voted against including oil and gas smokestacks in the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury regulations. In 1999, she voted to remove funding for renewable and solar energy, although she has more recently stated she supports the development of alternative energy sources. The League of Conservation Voters gave Hutchison ratings ranging from 0% to 12% during her time in the U.S. Senate.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison supports the practice of earmarking as a way to bring federal government money to her constituents. Hutchison, through her assignment on the Senate's appropriations committee, has been influential in directing federal funds to projects in her state. In FY 2008 and FY 2009, Hutchison sponsored or co-sponsored 281 earmarks totaling almost $500 million. In an interview with the "Austin American-Statesman", Hutchison expressed her pride in the practice as a way to, "garner Texans' fair share of their tax dollars."


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison's earmarks and appropriations have been criticized as pork barrel projects or pet projects by the non-partisan government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. CAGW recognized Hutchison's efforts by naming her "Porker of the Month" in October 2009, based on her extensive legislative history, in addition to her request for 149 such pork projects worth $1.6 billion in FY 2010.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison voted for Senate Republican amendments to the financial reform bill before eventually voting against HR 4173, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, on May 20, 2010.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which authorized the creation of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison voted against the passage of Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act. However, Hutchison broke ranks with her Republican colleagues and opposed an attempt to stall the Democrats' health-care bill in the Senate. She was one of three Republican Senators to oppose the filibuster attempt. Hutchison was joined by Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Hutchison was also one of 16 Republican Senators who voted with Democrats to pass the Children Health Insurance Program.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison's campaign said she was opposed to same-sex marriage. In 1996, Hutchison voted for the Defense of Marriage Act banning federal benefits for same-sex marriages. She voted in favor of the Hate Crimes Enhancement Act, which includes sexual orientation, and she co-sponsored the Ryan Act to fund HIV/AIDS services; however, she voted against domestic partnerships in the District of Columbia. In 2004 and 2006, she voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment which was a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She voted against later legislation expanding hate crime definitions to include sexual orientation, but did vote against banning affirmative action for federal contractors. In 2009, Hutchison voted for a Defense spending bill that included penalties for people who harm others based on sexual orientation as well as for the 2012 Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act which stated that all organizations receiving funds cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The Human Rights Campaign, an organization supportive of LGBT rights, gave Hutchison a score of 50%, her highest, from 1993–1994 while she received as low as zero percent in later scores. Hutchison received a 40% from both 1997–1998 and in 2001. In 2010, Hutchison voted against repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: As Senator, Hutchison generally favored tax cuts. In 1999, Hutchison supported the "council-led tax cuts" in Washington D.C. Later, in 2001, Hutchison successfully offered a measure to return "$69 billion to the tax cut for marriage penalty relief."


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison announced her intention to resign her Senate post in the autumn of 2009 in order to challenge Texas Governor Perry for the Republican Party nomination. State Republican Chairman Cathie Adams later called upon Hutchison to clarify when she would vacate the Senate so that other Republican candidates could make preparations for their races.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On November 13, 2009, Hutchison announced that she would "not" resign from the Senate seat until after the March 2, 2010, primary. On March 31, 2010, she announced her intention to serve out her third term.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On January 13, 2011, after some discussion about whether she would change her mind, Hutchison announced she would not seek re-election in 2012.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2008, she was mentioned in an article in "The New York Times" about the women most likely to become the first female President of the United States. On June 22, 2011, Hutchison told Chris Matthews on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" that she had pondered running for president, but said she could not run in the 2012 election because of the needs of her two 10-year-old children.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2012, when she was not seeking re-election, Hutchison endorsed the young Hispanic lawyer Jason Villalba, whom she described at the time as "the future", for the District 114 seat in the Texas House of Representatives vacated by Republican Will Ford Hartnett. Villalba defeated former Representative Bill Keffer, brother of Representative Jim Keffer, in the Republican run-off election. A lawyer for Haynes and Boone in Dallas and a member of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, Villalba thereafter won the general election and took his seat in January 2013.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: In 2013, during the 113th United States Congress, the House of Representatives passed a bill to rename IRC section 219(c) as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA. Getting married women working from home the ability to contribute to IRAs was one of her accomplishments in Congress that she was the most proud of. On July 25, 2013, the bill became Public Law 113-22.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On June 29, 2017, Hutchison was nominated by President Donald Trump to be the United States Permanent Representative to NATO. The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote on August 3. Hutchison was sworn in on August 15 and started the position on August 28.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: On October 2, 2018, Hutchison suggested NATO would consider destroying Russian medium-range nuclear systems if Russia continued development on those systems, which would be an act of war under international law.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: She married her first husband, John Pierce Parks, a medical student, on April 8, 1967; they divorced in 1969. She married her second husband, Ray Hutchison, in Dallas on March 16, 1978. They had two children: Kathryn Bailey and Houston Taylor, both adopted in 2001. She also has two stepdaughters, Brenda and Julie, from her husband's previous marriage. Ray Hutchison was an attorney who served as a Republican in the Texas House of Representatives from 1973 to 1977 and as the chairman of the Texas Republican Party from 1976 to 1977. He died on March 30, 2014, at the age of 81.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison and her family have their primary residence in Dallas. She had a second house in Virginia, where she lived when the U.S. Senate was in session. In August 2009, she put her Virginia house up for sale, and her campaign stated, "She's no longer going to be in the United States Senate. She's coming home to Texas. That's why it's for sale." She has also purchased a house in Nacogdoches, Texas. She is a supporter of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation where she is an honorary board member.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: Hutchison is an Episcopalian. She is a member of the Church of the Incarnation, a congregation of The Episcopal Church.


title: Kay Bailey Hutchison

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Lloyd Bentsen resigned his seat to become Secretary of the Treasury; Hutchison won the run-off special election in 1993 to fill out the remainder of his term.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The 12-inch MacBook (marketed as the new MacBook, known colloquially as the 12-inch Macbook or Retina MacBook) is a Macintosh notebook computer developed and sold by Apple Inc. In Apple's product line it was considered a more premium device compared to the second-generation MacBook Air (at the time consisting of 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch models that were larger and heavier, while lacking the high-resolution "Retina" screen and having thicker bezels), and sat below the performance range MacBook Pro.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: It was introduced in March 2015. It was more compact than any other notebook in the MacBook family at the time and included a Retina display, fanless design, a shallower "Butterfly" keyboard, and a single USB-C port for both power and data. It was discontinued in July 2019, being largely supplanted by the third-generation MacBook Air with Retina display.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The MacBook was announced at an Apple special event on March 9, 2015, and was released a month later on April 10. It employed Intel's Broadwell Core M processors at a TDP of around 4.5 Watt to allow for a fanless design and a logic board that is much smaller than in previous MacBooks. It had a similar appearance to the MacBook Air, but was thinner and lighter, offered (at the time of introduction) more storage and memory and a higher-resolution 2304×1440 Retina display, but lower processor and graphics performance. The MacBook has at times been available in space gray, silver, and gold finishes.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The MacBook has only two ports, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a single, multi-purpose USB-C port; it was the first Mac with USB-C. The port supports transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, and can be used for data, and audio/video output, and charging; it was the first MacBook without MagSafe charging. Apple markets an adapter that can provide a full-size USB connector, and a "Digital AV Multiport Adapter" with a charging pass-through, full-size USB port, and HDMI output. Although Thunderbolt 3 technology uses USB-C connectors, the MacBook's USB-C port does not support Thunderbolt. It was one of only two Macs, along with the 2012 Mac Pro, to not support Thunderbolt since it was introduced to Macs in 2011. Thunderbolt devices, such as storage media and the Apple Thunderbolt Display, are not compatible. Shortly after the MacBook's introduction, various companies began announcing cables and adapters for the USB-C port.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: Despite its small size, it features a full-sized keyboard and a large trackpad. The MacBook introduced a new Butterfly keyboard, with traditional scissor mechanism keys replaced with a new, Apple-designed butterfly mechanism, making the keyboard thinner and, as Apple claims, individual keys more stable. The keyboard's backlight no longer consisted of a row of LEDs and a light guide panel, but instead used a single LED for each key. It also introduced the Force Touch trackpad, a solid-state trackpad that measures pressure sensitivity, and replicates a click with haptic feedback. The trackpad was later brought to the Magic Trackpad 2 and the 2015 MacBook Pro. A similar technology (3D Touch) is also used in the Apple Watch and introduced with the iPhone 6S.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The aluminum enclosure was 13.1 mm at its thickest point at the hinge end. The battery was custom-designed to fill the available space in the small enclosure. It uses a new 39.7 watt-hour lithium-polymer terraced battery cell which was advertised to provide "all day" battery life. Apple claimed nine hours of Internet browsing or ten hours of iTunes movie playback. The battery was improved in the 2016 refresh, with Apple claiming ten hours for Internet browsing, and eleven hours of iTunes movie playback. The MacBook did not include any beryllium, BFRs, or PVCs in its construction. The display was made of arsenic-free glass. It was made of recyclable materials such as aluminum and glass, meets Energy Star 6.1 standards, and was rated EPEAT Gold.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: On April 19, 2016, Apple updated the MacBook with Skylake Core M processors, Intel HD 515 graphics, faster memory, longer battery life, faster storage and a new rose gold finish.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: On June 5, 2017, Apple updated the MacBook with Intel Kaby Lake m3, i5, and i7 processors (previously known as m3, m5, and m7). It featured the second-generation butterfly keyboard, which introduced new symbols for the control and option keys. It also features faster storage and memory.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: On October 30, 2018, Apple quietly eliminated two color options (rose gold and the original gold) and added a new color option (new gold) to match the MacBook Air's 2018 color scheme.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: On June 30, 2021, Apple added the Early 2015 model MacBook to its "vintage products" list, making it eligible for only limited product support.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: On June 6, 2022, Apple released macOS Ventura which dropped support for the Early 2016 model MacBook. As of June 2022, only the last 2017 model MacBook is capable of running the latest macOS version.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: Externally, the MacBook follows the design of the MacBook Air with a tapered aluminum enclosure. It has a flush screen with black bezels similar to the MacBook Pro. The Apple logo on the rear of the display is glossy and opaque, rather than backlit and white as seen on every Apple notebook since the 1999 PowerBook G3 and 2001 iBook. It is the thinnest and lightest notebook Apple has produced to date, 0.52 inches (1.32 cm) at its thickest point, and 2.03 pounds (0.92 kg).


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The letters on the MacBook's keyboard and the model name at the bottom of the screen bezel are in the San Francisco typeface, whereas previous notebooks made by Apple used VAG Rounded.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: Apple's introduction of a gold MacBook finish had been cited as an example of positioning itself as a luxury-style brand. The choice follows the introduction of the gold iPhone 5S after Apple found that gold was seen as a popular sign of a luxury among Chinese customers.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: Reception for the MacBook was mixed. Critics praised the design and overall quality of the product, with some regarding it as a potential successor to the MacBook Air, as the Air had an aging design and low resolution screen. However, Apple continued to offer the MacBook Air while selling the MacBook at considerably higher price. Several described the MacBook as a limited first-generation proof-of-concept design for early adopters, and recommended against buying the MacBook until it reached greater maturity, and its price dropped sufficiently for mainstream adoption. The slow performance of the Intel Core M processor was regarded as the new MacBook's main deficiency, relative to the cheaper and faster MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Among the other criticisms of the new MacBook are the lack of various popular ports, particularly USB Type-A ports, and that it only contains a single port which limits data transfer and overall convenience without the use of an adapter.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: The keyboard received considerable criticism as being poor for long-term use: developer Marco Arment described the notebook's build and small size as "absolutely amazing, revolutionary, and mind-blowing... until you need to use the keyboard for something." He also criticised the trackpad as worse than on previous MacBooks, and said that he would be returning the model he had bought.


title: MacBook (2015–2019)

text: A report by AppleInsider had claimed that the updated butterfly keyboard fails twice as often as previous models, often due to particles stuck beneath the keys. Repairs for stuck keys have been estimated to cost more than $700. In May 2018, two class action lawsuits were filed against Apple regarding the keyboard issue with one alleging a "constant threat of nonresponsive keys and accompanying keyboard failure" and accusing Apple of not alerting consumers to the issue. In June 2018, Apple announced a Service Program to "service eligible MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards, free of charge".


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: Evolve (stylized as ƎVOLVE) is the third studio album by American pop rock band Imagine Dragons, released on June 23, 2017, by Kidinakorner and Interscope Records. After the release of their previous album "Smoke + Mirrors" (2015) and its respective world tour, a self-imposed hiatus for 2016 and cryptic messages from the band through their social media gained anticipation for their third album; it was finally announced on May 9, 2017, along with the initiation of its pre-order. In comparison to "Smoke + Mirrors" and their 2012 debut "Night Visions", frontman Dan Reynolds called the album an "evolution" for the band.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: "Evolve" peaked at number 2 on the US "Billboard" 200, and received mixed reviews from critics; some acknowledged the band's claim of evolution, while others described it as lifeless and commercially oriented. It was promoted with the singles "Believer", "Thunder", "Whatever It Takes", and "Next to Me", as well as a world tour produced by Live Nation and supported with Grouplove and K.Flay that started in September 2017. The album was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: In February 2016, after the success of their second album "Smoke + Mirrors" and a ten month long world tour, the members of Imagine Dragons vowed to take time off from the band. In an interview with "Billboard", lead singer Dan Reynolds stated that the group would be on hiatus for the remainder of the year, explaining "We [Imagine Dragons] haven't stopped in, like, six years, so we've forced ourselves to at least take a year off." Throughout 2016, the band contributed songs to the soundtracks for "Me Before You", "Suicide Squad" and "Passengers", as well as playing at several shows.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: The band first began preparing their third album on September 13, 2016, with a picture of guitarist Wayne Sermon in the band's recording studio and continued releasing cryptic messages over the next four months. On January 24, 2017, the band tweeted "goodnight +", effectively ending the "Smoke + Mirrors" album cycle.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: Reynolds had noted that the album, compared to "Night Visions" and "Smoke + Mirrors", is "an evolution for Imagine Dragons". The album's sound has been described as pop rock, electronic, pop and EDM while containing elements of R&B and hip hop.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: In the months leading up to the album's release, Imagine Dragons used the caption "ƎE" in multiple social media posts. The group announced the title of their third album on May 8, and started the album pre-order along with the release of "Whatever It Takes" at 9 PM PT.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: Starting on January 28, 2017, the band tweeted a series of four videos to tease the album's first single. The time-lapse videos featured lead singer Dan Reynolds drawing surreal images on a drawing pad. Morse code was hidden in the videos and translated to "objects of same color". On February 1, 2017, "Believer" was released as the lead single. To promote the single, it was used in a Super Bowl LI commercial for the Nintendo Switch. It was also used in the trailer for the 2017 film "Murder on the Orient Express". The song peaked at number four on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Its music video starring Reynolds and actor Dolph Lundgren was released on March 7, 2017.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On April 27, 2017, "Thunder" was released as the second single. It peaked at number four on the Hot 100. The music video was filmed in Dubai and directed by Joseph Kahn, and was released on May 2, 2017.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On May 9, 2017, "Whatever It Takes" was released as the third single alongside the announcement of the album title. It peaked at number 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It was initially released as the album's first promotional single.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On February 21, 2018, "Next to Me" was released as the fourth single, alongside the announcement of extended summer tour dates.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On June 15, 2017, "Walking the Wire" was made available for download with any purchase from the band's online shop.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On May 9, 2017, the band announced on Twitter the Evolve World Tour, which started on September 26, 2017, in Phoenix, Arizona. The tour was produced by Live Nation, with Grouplove and K.Flay as special guests.


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: On March 8, 2018, "Billboard" reported that the band had become the first act in history to "monopolize the top four spots on Billboard's Alternative Digital Song Sales chart, ranking at Nos. 1-4 on the March 10-dated tally." On March 13, "Billboard" reported that the album had become the "first album to generate at least three No. 1s on "Billboard"s Alternative Songs airplay chart this decade." Also that day, the band released a cinematic film for their song, "Next to Me".


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: "Evolve" received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics upon release. On Metacritic, the album received a weighted average score of 47/100 based on seven reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". The album received a few positive-leaning reviews. Glenn Gamboa from "Newsday" gave the album a score of B+, stating that the group, "seem ready to transcend genre labels — they just want to make good music that interests them." In a three-out-of-five-star review from "NME", Alex Flood wrote, "This latest effort might represent a small progression, but it's far from an evolution." AllMusic also gave a three-out-of-five review on the album, with Stephen Thomas Erlewine saying, "its bold, colorful textures elbow aside any notions of introspection or reflection." Rob Harvilla from "The Ringer" gave the album a mixed review, concluding: "All of which is to say that Evolve isn’t great by any means, but it’s awfully shrewd, and you might end up rooting for it if only because there’s nobody else to root for. It’s probably the band’s best album: It is definitely their slickest, their deftest, their shortest."


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: The album also garnered some negative reviews. In a more negative review, Classic Rock Magazine gave the album one and a half stars out of five, commenting that the band aims for more rock noise, although, "it ["Evolve"] just comes off like Michael Bolton dad dancing to Justin Timberlake at a family wedding." Hannah J. Davies of "The Guardian" gave the album two stars out of five, calling the album, "lifeless electronic-tinged arena rock." "The Independent" gave "Evolve" two-out-of-five stars, describing it as, "mostly devolving back into the hoariest of tired rock cliches (including what sounds like roto-toms), and plodding grimly towards the summer’s festivals."


title: Evolve (Imagine Dragons album)

text: "Evolve" debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 with 147,000 album-equivalent units, of which 109,000 were pure album sales. It is Imagine Dragons' third top five album. As of August 31, 2021, the album has been certified 3× Platinum by the RIAA.


title: Alex Lowe

text: Stewart Alexander Lowe (24 December 1958 – 5 October 1999) was an American mountaineer. He has been described as inspiring "...a whole generation of climbers and explorers with his uncontainable enthusiasm, legendary training routines, and significant ascents of rock climbs, ice climbs, and mountains all over the world...". He died in an avalanche in Tibet. The Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation honors his legacy.


title: Alex Lowe

text: Lowe was widely admired by his peers for excelling in every aspect of mountaineering, from rock- and ice-climbing to ski descents. Dave Hahn once remarked, "There's Alex Lowe up here, and then there's the rest of us down here. The guy's just really that much better than everybody else." Conrad Anker said, "We're all at this one level, and then there's Alex." Lowe himself said "The best climber in the world is the one having the most fun!"


title: Alex Lowe

text: Lowe improved his upper body strength as a result of a daily exercise regimen that included 400 chin-ups and hundreds of dips. In an article for "Active Lifestyle", Gordon Wiltsie, a photographer who climbed with Lowe in Antarctica and Canada's Baffin Island, said, "he'd hog the pull-up bar to knock out 400 pull-ups in sets of 40 and 45. He disliked downtime and knew where to do pull-ups in many airports. Even on expeditions, when rest is hard to come by and much appreciated, Lowe was an oddball. He'd cop pull-ups on a ship's rigging en route to Antarctica, or do dips in a snow pit he dug at base camp." In that article, Wiltsie said, "At Baffin Island, after hauling supplies to a high point on a climb, we went back to camp beat and tired, but Alex proceeded to do pull-up after pull-up. He even brought an exercise device on climbs." He was known jokingly as "Lungs With Legs" and "The Mutant" for his incredible strength and stamina.


title: Alex Lowe

text: In June 1995, Lowe helped the National Park Service rescue several Spanish climbers on Denali in Alaska. On 9 June, the group had been trapped for four days at . Before a rescue team could assemble, one of the climbers fell to his death from the mountain's Upper West Rib. The surviving climbers were all suffering from hypothermia. Lowe, Mark Twight and Scott Backes were lifted by military helicopter to a plateau above the Spaniards, scaled down a 400-vertical foot, 50-degree slope of ice and rock, to reach them and determined that one needed immediate evacuation. Amid snowy conditions, he at first dragged, then carried him on his back up the steep slope at high altitude.


title: Alex Lowe

text: In September 1999, Lowe, Conrad Anker and David Bridges (a two-time US national paragliding champion) traveled to the Himalayan giant Shishapangma, the fourteenth highest peak in the world, as part of the 1999 American Shishapangma Ski Expedition.


title: Alex Lowe

text: Plans called for Lowe and Anker to be part of the team that would ski down, to become the first Americans to ski down from the summit of an 8,000-meter peak; while Bridges was part of a three-man film team that was to shoot an NBC documentary of the expedition for The North Face. Lowe commented:


title: Alex Lowe

text: It's been a passionate goal of mine to ski off an 8,000 meter peak. I guess there's a lot of people sort of looking to do this and try to ski off Everest. But for me, it's got to be an aesthetic and quality run. And Shishapangma has the best ski line of any of the 8,000 meter peaks. It's just an absolutely straight shot right down the Southwest Face. That's going to be a good one.


title: Alex Lowe

text: On 5 October, they split into two teams as they searched for a route up the mountain. Lowe's group (Lowe, Anker and Bridges) were crossing a flat glacier when a large serac broke loose above and tumbled downhill. The -wide avalanche swept over the three men. Anker was thrown by the windblast, and suffered a lacerated head, two broken ribs, and dislocated shoulder, but emerged from the snow, and led a 20-hour rescue attempt in the large debris field measuring up to deep. Neither body was found at the time, but almost seventeen years later on 27 April 2016, climbers Ueli Steck and David Göttler, came across the remains of the two climbers emerging from the glacier.


title: Alex Lowe

text: Lowe was survived by his wife Jennifer and three sons, Max, Sam, and Isaac. The Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation was established in his honor to provide direction and financial support to humanitarian programs in mountain regions around the world. Their work includes the Khumbu Climbing Center for indigenous people of Nepal.


title: Alex Lowe

text: Jennifer Lowe-Anker published a memoir, "Forget Me Not" in 2008, that recounts her life shared with Lowe, his death and the life she continued with Anker. "Forget Me Not" won the National Outdoor Book award for literature in 2008.


title: Alex Lowe

text: In 1995, Lowe received the American Alpine Club's Underhill Award for outstanding mountaineering achievement, the highest honor in U.S. mountaineering. He climbed for nearly 10 years with The North Face professional climbing team, which included in the later years mountaineer Jon Krakauer, author of the bestseller "Into Thin Air". After Lowe's death, "Outside Magazine" posthumously declared him "the world's best climber," adding, "No matter how jaw-dropping his routes, Lowe's real genius grew out of the way he combined physical accomplishments with an indomitable spirit."


title: Alex Lowe

text: Formerly known by its elevation as Peak 10,031, Alex Lowe Peak, south of Bozeman, Montana in the Gallatin National Forest was officially named after him in September 2005. In spring of 1997, Lowe had climbed the northern couloir with friend Hans Saari; and the two had made the first ski-descent from the summit, down what they named "Hellmouth Couloir."


title: Brian Bell

text: Brian Lane Bell (born December 9, 1968) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and occasional lead vocalist of the rock band Weezer, with whom he has recorded fifteen studio albums. Bell also fronted the rock band The Relationship and was the lead vocalist and guitarist of the indie rock band Space Twins.


title: Brian Bell

text: Moving to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen, Bell played bass guitar in the band Carnival Art, releasing three studio albums with the band before departing in 1993. Bell subsequently joined Weezer as its rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist, at the request of band member Matt Sharp. Replacing founding member Jason Cropper, Bell joined the band during the recording of its debut album, "Weezer" (1994). Backed by the singles "Buddy Holly", "Undone – The Sweater Song" and "Say It Ain't So", the album was a critical and commercial success.


title: Brian Bell

text: Bell was born in Iowa City, Iowa to parents Tom Bell, a geography professor at University of Tennessee, and Linda Menasco, an elementary school assistant principal, and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. He first took an interest in music at age four, when his parents took him to an Elvis Presley concert at the Stokely Athletic Centre in Knoxville . Soon after, Bell became obsessed with his father's record collection, and played it constantly. Bell was forced by his mother to take piano lessons, and refused to let him take guitar lessons until high school, because she "wouldn't believe that he would practice." Eventually, during his freshman year in high school, Bell's parents allowed him to take guitar lessons from Knoxville musician Ben Bolt.


title: Brian Bell

text: During his first year in high school, Bell had to switch schools; "I was zoned to go to county school and my mom taught in the city, which meant I could go to a more privileged school. In doing that, I was surrounded by snobs'. 'I was kind of finding myself at the time, so I decided to go to the school I was zoned for." During this time, Bell had a job delivering pizzas in the Knoxville area at Stefano's Pizza. He worked with Blair and Todd Mitchell (who he introduced to Queensryche's music). He worked and started playing in a band with school friends, Trey Counce, and Tim and Glenn Maloof, named Blooshroom, which Bell described as "Pink Floyd-meets-The Stooges."


title: Brian Bell

text: After completing high school at Bearden High School in 1987, Bell decided against college, feeling it would be a "waste of money." At the age of 18, Bell moved to Los Angeles, California, and enrolled at G.I.T. In 1991, he became a member of a band named Carnival Art, which released 3 official albums and an EP, with Bell playing bass guitar. The band had low record sales, and were dropped by their record label, Beggars Banquet.


title: Brian Bell

text: As Carnival Art was disintegrating, Bell became acquainted with the members of Weezer. He said: "They started playing on the scene, and I instantly saw something unique in them. I didn't necessarily want to be in their band. They were for some reason, in with the wrong crowd and playing at the wrong venues. I wanted to help them out any way I could and I wanted to play a show with them." In mid-1993, Bell quit Carnival Art. At home, he found on his answering machine a message from Weezer bassist Matt Sharp. Sharp called again the next day, and Rivers Cuomo took the phone and asked him to join the band.


title: Brian Bell

text: Despite being credited for guitar and vocals in the liner notes, Bell's last-minute arrival at the "Blue Album" sessions meant that he only had time to re-record Cropper's backing vocals, while Cuomo re-did all of Cropper's guitar parts. Besides doing back-up vocals and playing rhythm guitar, during Weezer's live performances, Bell takes on many of the multi-instrumental duties, including keyboards or harmonica.


title: Brian Bell

text: Although all songwriting credits on Weezer's 2005 album "Make Believe" are credited to Rivers Cuomo, Bell wrote the intro to "We Are All on Drugs" and the dueling guitars in the solo of "This is Such a Pity." Bell also contributed the song "Thought I Knew" to the band's 2008 self-titled album as well as "It's Easy," an iTunes exclusive demo that serves as a bonus track to that album. This marks the first time Weezer has officially released a song written and sung by Bell, although the band demoed and played his song "Yellow Camaro" live in 2002. The song eventually made it onto the Space Twins debut LP "The End of Imagining".


title: Brian Bell

text: In 2005, during live appearances, Bell sang lead vocals on "Why Bother?", "Smile", "Getchoo" and "Keep Fishin'". In 2008 during the band's Hootenanny Tour he began taking lead vocals on "El Scorcho". He continued singing "El Scorcho" and sang "Suzanne" as well on the band's Troublemaker Tour in 2008.


title: Brian Bell

text: Throughout the years Bell fronted his own band, Space Twins, who have had various incarnations since 1993. They have released three EPs and an LP, "The End of Imagining", in 2003. Yet in 2006, Bell stated that he was "not presently pursuing" projects with The Space Twins.


title: Brian Bell

text: In 2007 Bell recorded for a side project called The Relationship. The recording took place at Henson Recording Studios and Padre Terrace in Los Angeles and is produced by Weezer engineer Eric J. Sean Lennon mentioned in an interview that he will appear with Bell on The Relationship's debut record. Rivers Cuomo and Bell co-wrote a song together for the project titled "Hand to Hold," but Bell does not think it will be on their debut album. In May 2007 he uploaded "Hand to Hold" on the band's Myspace page. It is a reworking of the Weezer song "Private Message," which was originally in the running for inclusion on "Make Believe". In March 2017, Bell announced that the band's newest album, "Clara Obscura" (meaning "Clear" and "Obscure")"," would be released on April 18.


title: Brian Bell

text: Bell and Weezer drummer Patrick Wilson, collaborated on a cover of the Velvet Underground song "Heroin", for the 2006 film "Factory Girl".


title: Brian Bell

text: In November 2006, Lyon Guitars (by Washburn) introduced a limited edition guitar series called "Limited Edition 2006," each of which had been hand-signed by Bell, and were in the same "strat" body style that he prefers to play.


title: Brian Bell

text: Bell has also expressed an interest in the works of William Shakespeare. During the band's downtime in 2003 and 2004, Bell and his ex-girlfriend Peggy Nunez studied Shakespeare and poetry theory at collegiate level. They also appeared in a production of "Twelfth Night", in which Bell wrote four songs, all using Shakespeare's words.


title: Brian Bell

text: Bell has appeared in one-off performances on guitar with other bands. Playing on March 17, 2006 at The Troubador in LA with Weezer tour-mates Ringside, and performing "Our Lips Are Sealed", with the Go-Go's member, Jane Wiedlin, on June 1, 2006 at the Viper Room. He sat in on guitars and back up vocals for Ringside's winter '06 tour in Russia.


title: Brian Bell

text: As of 2014, Bell solely uses Gibson Guitars, his current main instrument being a 2001 Gibson Explorer in limited edition diamond sparkle finish, which he found in Rivers Cuomo's basement, with a chrome mirror pickguard. His main amplifier is a Matchless Independence, a three channel, hand-wired tube amplifier, providing the thick distortion that Weezer is known for.


title: Brian Bell

text: In 2006, Bell made his on-screen debut, playing Lou Reed in the Edie Sedgwick biographical film, "Factory Girl." Bandmate Patrick Wilson also appeared as John Cale, another member of the Velvet Underground.


title: Brian Bell

text: Bell voiced a band member on a 'booze-cruise" and was animated as himself in the "Simpsons" episode "The Hateful Eight-Year-Olds", along with the rest of Weezer.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: Im Soo-jung (born July 11, 1979) is a South Korean actress. After modeling for teen magazines, Im made her acting breakthrough in Kim Jee-woon's horror film "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003), followed by the popular television drama "I'm Sorry, I Love You" (2004). She has since appeared in numerous films, notably Park Chan-wook's "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" (2006), Hur Jin-ho's "Happiness" (2007), Lee Yoon-ki's "Come Rain, Come Shine" (2011), and Min Kyu-dong's "All About My Wife", for which she won Best Actress at the 33rd Blue Dragon Film Awards.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: Im Soo-jung made her debut in 1998 as a cover model for teen magazines. She then moved onto acting and debuted in the teen drama "School 4", but it was Kim Jee-woon's 2003 stylish horror "A Tale of Two Sisters" that first drew her critical notice and newcomer awards. A year later, the hit KBS2 drama series "I'm Sorry, I Love You" catapulted her into stardom. With Im looking much younger than her age, those projects solidified her image as an eternal ingenue, as did touching character study "...ing", horse jockey film "Lump Sugar", and Park Chan-wook's surrealist "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK".


title: Im Soo-jung

text: In recent years she began shedding that image by taking on more adult roles, notable among them Hur Jin-ho's romantic melodrama "Happiness", Choi Dong-hoon's blockbuster fantasy "", romantic comedy "Finding Mr. Destiny", and Lee Yoon-ki's minimalist breakup indie "Come Rain, Come Shine". For her performance in "All About My Wife", she won Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and the Women in Film Korea Awards.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: Im and Lee Jung-jae played two artists in a post-apocalyptic environment in the short film "El Fin del Mundo" ("The End of the World"), which screened at the prestigious contemporary art exhibition dOCUMENTA. She also acted opposite veteran Thai actor Sorapong Chatree in Aditya Assarat's short film "Phuket", which was commissioned jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Association of Tourism and Hotel Operators of Phuket.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: Im was previously part of the SidusHQ agency, but moved to being managed by KeyEast. KeyEast launched her official website in June 2012. According to the actress, the online space will be a place where she can converse with her fans directly.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: In 2015, Im starred in "Perfect Proposal", a remake of British crime thriller "Woman of Straw" that was partly shot in Macau. She next starred in "Time Renegades", a time-hopping romantic thriller where she played dual roles.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: In October 2015, her contract with KeyEast expired and she decided to sign with new management agency YNK Entertainment.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: Im then starred in the female-centric indie film "The Table" directed by Kim Jong-kwan, which premiered at the 21st Busan International Film Festival.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: In February 2017, Im was cast in the drama "Chicago Typewriter" alongside Yoo Ah-in. This marks Im's small screen come back after thirteen years since 2004. The same year, she was named the cultural ambassador for the UK-Korea Creative Futures mutual exchange.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: She then returned to the big screen with "Mothers" based on the book "Your Request - My Other Mother" by Lee Dong-eun, who also directs the film.


title: Im Soo-jung

text: In 2022, Im contract with King Kong by Starship expires in August, and decided not to renew the contract.


title: Regolith

text: Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestrial planets and moons.


title: Regolith

text: The term "regolith" combines two Greek words: (), 'blanket', and (), 'rock'. The American geologist George P. Merrill first defined the term in 1897, writing:


title: Regolith

text: Regolith can vary from being essentially absent to hundreds of metres in thickness. Its age can vary from instantaneous (for an ash fall or alluvium just deposited) to hundreds of millions of years old (regolith of Precambrian age occurs in parts of Australia, though this may have been buried and subsequently exhumed.)


title: Regolith

text: Regolith on Earth originates from weathering and biological processes. The uppermost part of the regolith, which typically contains significant organic matter, is more conventionally referred to as soil. The presence of regolith is one of the important factors for most life, since few plants can grow on or within solid rock and animals would be unable to burrow or build shelter without loose material.


title: Regolith

text: Regolith is also important to engineers constructing buildings, roads and other civil works. The mechanical properties of regolith vary considerably and need to be documented if the construction is to withstand the rigors of use.


title: Regolith

text: Regolith may host mineral deposits, such as mineral sands, calcrete uranium, and lateritic nickel deposits. Understanding regolith properties, especially geochemical composition, is critical to geochemical and geophysical exploration for mineral deposits beneath it. The regolith is also an important source of construction material, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, lime, and gypsum.


title: Regolith

text: The regolith is the zone through which aquifers are recharged and through which aquifer discharge occurs. Many aquifers, such as alluvial aquifers, occur entirely within regolith. The composition of the regolith can also strongly influence water composition through the presence of salts and acid-generating materials.


title: Regolith

text: Regolith covers almost the entire lunar surface, bedrock protruding only on very steep-sided crater walls and the occasional lava channel. This regolith has formed over the last 4.6 billion years from the impact of large and small meteoroids, from the steady bombardment of micrometeoroids and from solar and galactic charged particles breaking down surface rocks. Regolith production by rock erosion can lead to fillet buildup around lunar rocks.


title: Regolith

text: The impact of micrometeoroids, sometimes travelling faster than , generates enough heat to melt or partially vaporize dust particles. This melting and refreezing welds particles together into glassy, jagged-edged "agglutinates", reminiscent of tektites found on Earth.


title: Regolith

text: The regolith is generally from 4 to 5 m thick in mare areas and from 10 to 15 m in the older highland regions. Below this true regolith is a region of blocky and fractured bedrock created by larger impacts, which is often referred to as the "megaregolith".


title: Regolith

text: The density of regolith at the Apollo 15 landing site () averages approximately 1.35 g/cm for the top 30 cm, and it is approximately 1.85g/cm at a depth of 60 cm.


title: Regolith

text: The term lunar soil is often used interchangeably with "lunar regolith" but typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith, that which is composed of grains one centimetre in diameter or less. Some have argued that the term "soil" is not correct in reference to the Moon because soil is defined as having organic content, whereas the Moon has none. However, standard usage among lunar scientists is to ignore that distinction. "Lunar dust" generally connotes even finer materials than lunar soil, the fraction which is less than 30 micrometers in diameter. The average chemical composition of regolith might be estimated from the relative concentration of elements in lunar soil.


title: Regolith

text: The physical and optical properties of lunar regolith are altered through a process known as space weathering, which darkens the regolith over time, causing crater rays to fade and disappear.


title: Regolith

text: During the early phases of the Apollo Moon landing program, Thomas Gold of Cornell University and part of President's Science Advisory Committee raised a concern that the thick dust layer at the top of the regolith would not support the weight of the lunar module and that the module might sink beneath the surface. However, Joseph Veverka (also of Cornell) pointed out that Gold had miscalculated the depth of the overlying dust, which was only a couple of centimeters thick. Indeed, the regolith was found to be quite firm by the robotic Surveyor spacecraft that preceded Apollo, and during the Apollo landings the astronauts often found it necessary to use a hammer to drive a core sampling tool into it.


title: Regolith

text: Mars is covered with vast expanses of sand and dust, and its surface is littered with rocks and boulders. The dust is occasionally picked up in vast planet-wide dust storms. Mars dust is very fine and enough remains suspended in the atmosphere to give the sky a reddish hue.


title: Regolith

text: The sand is believed to move only slowly in the Martian winds due to the very low density of the atmosphere in the present epoch. In the past, liquid water flowing in gullies and river valleys may have shaped the Martian regolith. Mars researchers are studying whether groundwater sapping is shaping the Martian regolith in the present epoch and whether carbon dioxide hydrates exist on Mars and play a role. It is believed that large quantities of water and carbon dioxide ices remain frozen within the regolith in the equatorial parts of Mars and on its surface at higher latitudes.


title: Regolith

text: Asteroids have regoliths developed by meteoroid impact. The final images taken by the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft of the surface of Eros are the best images of the regolith of an asteroid. The recent Japanese Hayabusa mission also returned clear images of regolith on an asteroid so small it was thought that gravity was too low to develop and maintain a regolith. The asteroid 21 Lutetia has a layer of regolith near its north pole, which flows in landslides associated with variations in albedo.


title: Regolith

text: Saturn's largest moon Titan is known to have extensive fields of dunes, though the origin of the material forming the dunes is not known - it could be small fragments of water ice eroded by flowing methane, or possibly particulate organic matter that formed in Titan's atmosphere and rained down on the surface. Scientists are beginning to call this loose icy material "regolith" because of the mechanical similarity with regolith on other bodies, although traditionally (and etymologically) the term had been applied only when the loose layer was composed of mineral grains like quartz or plagioclase or rock fragments that were in turn composed of such minerals. Loose blankets of ice grains were not considered to be regolith because when they appear on Earth in the form of snow they behave differently from regolith, the grains melting and fusing with only small changes in pressure or temperature. However, Titan is so cold that ice behaves like rock. Thus there is an ice-regolith complete with erosion and aeolian and/or sedimentary processes.


title: Regolith

text: The "Huygens" probe used a penetrometer on landing to characterize the mechanical properties of the local regolith. The surface itself was reported to be a clay-like "material which might have a thin crust followed by a region of relative uniform consistency." Subsequent analysis of the data suggests that surface consistency readings were likely caused by "Huygens" displacing a large pebble as it landed, and that the surface is better described as a 'sand' made of ice grains. The images taken after the probe's landing show a flat plain covered in pebbles. The pebbles, which may be made of water ice, are somewhat rounded, which may indicate the action of fluids on them.


title: Workaholic

text: A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health.


title: Workaholic

text: There is no generally accepted medical definition of this condition, although some forms of stress, impulse control disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder can be work-related; ergomania is defined as "excessive devotion to work especially as a symptom of mental illness".


title: Workaholic

text: The phenomenon of hustle culture, while disregarding healthy work–life balance, may exacerbate workaholism.


title: Workaholic

text: The word itself is a portmanteau word composed of "work" and "alcoholic". Its first known appearance, according to the "Oxford English Dictionary", came in Canada in the "Toronto Daily Star" of April 5, 1947, page 6, with a punning allusion to Alcoholics Anonymous:


title: Workaholic

text: The term "workaholic" refers to various types of behavioral patterns, with each having its own valuation. For instance, workaholism is sometimes used by people wishing to express their devotion to one's career in positive terms. The "work" in question is usually associated with a paying job, but it may also refer to independent pursuits such as sports, music, art, and science. However, the term is more often used to refer to a negative behavioral pattern that is popularly characterized by spending an excessive amount of time on working, an inner compulsion to work hard and a neglect of family and other social relations.


title: Workaholic

text: Researchers have found that in many cases, incessant work-related activity continues even after impacting the subject's relationships and physical health. Causes of it are thought to be anxiety, low self-esteem, and intimacy problems. Furthermore, workaholics tend to have an inability to delegate work tasks to others and tend to obtain high scores on personality traits such as neuroticism, perfectionism, and conscientiousness.


title: Workaholic

text: Clinical psychologist Bryan E. Robinson identifies two axes for workaholics: work initiation and work completion. He associates the behavior of procrastination with both "Savoring Workaholics" (those with low work initiation/low work completion) and "Attention-Deficit Workaholics" (those with high work initiation and low work completion), in contrast to "Bulimic" and "Relentless" workaholics – both of whom have high work completion.


title: Workaholic

text: Workaholism in Japan is considered a serious social problem leading to early death, often on the job, a phenomenon dubbed "karōshi". Overwork was popularly blamed for the fatal stroke of Prime Minister of Japan Keizō Obuchi, in the year 2000. Death from overwork is not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon; in 2013, a Bank of America intern in London died after working for 72 hours straight.


title: Workaholic

text: Workaholics tend to be less effective than other workers because they have difficulty working as part of a team, trouble delegating or entrusting co-workers or organizational problems due to taking on too much work at once. Moreover, workaholics often suffer sleep deprivation, which results in impaired brain and cognitive function.


title: Workaholic

text: The business risk that workaholism presents is an underestimated risk in companies and human resources management, which can develop into an existential threat to a business.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: The Bluetick Coonhound is a breed of coonhound originating in the United States. The Bluetick Coonhound is known for its friendly personality, cold nose, and deep bawl mouth. It is most commonly used as a raccoon hunting dog, but may also be kept as a pet.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: The overall build of the Bluetick Coonhound is muscular and speedy. The head is carried up and the tail carried over the back, without signs of fear or nervousness. The Bluetick coat should be moderately coarse and glossy. The Bluetick Coonhound gets its "blue" coloring from black ticking on a white background, which gives the impression of a navy blue color. This ticking covers the body and can be interspersed with variously-shaped black spots on the back, ears and sides. Preference runs to more blue than black on the body. Black should predominate on the head and ears. Bluetick Coonhounds can come either with or without markings. With markings means they will have brown markings above the eyes, along both sides of the muzzle, on the chest, and down all of the legs. Without markings means their color consists of only black and white fur. There is generally a ticked blaze running up the face. Bluetick Coonhounds should be 21 inches to 27 inches tall at the shoulder and males weigh approximately 55 to 80 pounds (25 to 36 kg). Females are considerably smaller at an average weight of 45 to 65 pounds. Feet should be cat-like, rounded with well-arched toes. Their paws are larger than those of nearly all other breeds of dogs. Rear legs should have a moderate bend at the hocks. All legs should be straight from the dog's body to the ground when viewed from the front or rear.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: Gascon blues are larger than standard Blueticks, with males a minimum of 27 inches and a maximum of 30 inches, per the American Blue Gascon Hound Association's breed standard.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: Bluetick Coonhounds are bred to be hunting dogs. They are athletic, hardy, and need a full-time job or activity such as hunting, obedience, or agility to stay happy. They can be challenging to train and they should be monitored around cats or other small animals. They are, like their hound counterparts, a very intelligent breed that has the uncanny talent for problem-solving.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: Once trained, the members of the breed are very mindful of their owner. Something first time pet owners should be aware of is the daunting task of "voice-training" these dogs. Being bred to bay while hunting, they are highly vocal. If properly socialized from a young age, they can be family pets.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: In normal conditions, the Bluetick Coonhound gets along well with children. They are mindful and friendly dogs. However, their noses will keep them in trouble, so food and garbage should never be left out unattended. The breed is often mistaken for being aggressive as the breed will "greet" strangers with its signature howl and will sniff the subject until satisfied. Usually, this is just the way the breed gets to know its subjects. Since Blueticks are driven by their strong sense of smell, they make excellent hunting/tracking dogs. If allowed, they will tree almost any animal smaller than them. Blueticks are generally easier to handle in the field than some other coonhounds.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: The Bluetick Coonhound, which originated in Louisiana, was developed from the Grand Bleu de Gascogne hound of southwestern France, as well as the English Foxhound, the cur dog, the American Foxhound, and the Black and Tan Virginia Foxhound. Originally, Bluetick Coonhounds were registered in the United Kennel Club under the English Foxhound and Coonhound, but were recognized by the club as a separate breed in 1946. Bluetick Coonhounds are also recognized by the Australian National Kennel Council and the New Zealand Kennel Club. In April 2009, the breed was accepted by the American Kennel Club and in December 2009 they became eligible to compete in AKC coonhound events.


title: Bluetick Coonhound

text: The American Blue Gascon Hound is the name for a subgroup of Bluetick Coonhounds that is larger, heavier and more "houndy" looking than the standard Bluetick. American Blue Gascon Hounds are often referred to as "old-fashioned" Blueticks. This is due to their appearance and "colder" nose, or slower style of tracking, compared to other modern coonhound breeds.


title: Neum

text: Neum (, ) is a town and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the only town to be situated along the Bosnia and Herzegovina's coastline, making it the country's only access to the Adriatic Sea. As of 2013, Neum municipality has a population of 4,653 inhabitants, while the town of Neum has a population of 3,013 inhabitants.


title: Neum

text: Neum is the only town to be situated along the Bosnia and Herzegovina's around or of coastline, making it the country's only access to the Adriatic Sea.


title: Neum

text: Neum is from Dubrovnik ( from Dubrovnik Airport), from Mostar and Medjugorje and from Ploče and Metković, both of which have railway stations.


title: Neum

text: The Bosnia and Herzegovina coastal strip of Neum cuts off the southernmost Croatian exclave from the rest of Croatia. This is a result of the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699. Since 1991 and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the borders between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Neum region have been international borders.


title: Neum

text: Babin Do, Borut, Brestica, Broćanac, Brštanica, Cerovica, Cerovo, Crnoglav, Dobri Do, Dobrovo, Donji Drijen, Donji Zelenikovac, Dubravica, Duži, Glumina, Gornje Hrasno, Gradac, Hotanj Hutovski, Hutovo, Kiševo, Moševići, Prapratnica, Previš, Rabrani, Vinine and Žukovica.


title: Neum

text: Neum has two border crossing checkpoints with Croatia on the European route E65 or Adriatic Highway which connects the two parts of Croatia's Dalmatian coast. Neum 1 is located to the northwest of the city, with the Klek border checkpoint on the Croatian side. Neum 2 is located to the southeast, with the Croatian border checkpoint at Zaton Doli.


title: Neum

text: The Neum corridor dates back to the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699, whereby the Republic of Ragusa was separated from the Dalmatian possessions of its rival Venice by two buffer zones ceded by Ragusa to the Ottoman Empire to prevent the possibility of Venice invading via land: north of its territory is Neum and the bay of Klek, and south of its territory is Sutorina with the port of Herceg Novi on the Bay of Kotor, now part of Montenegro since 1947 (later the topic of the now-resolved Sutorina dispute).


title: Neum

text: The Karlowitz borders were reaffirmed in 1718 by the Treaty of Passarowitz, but then the Ottomans, tired of negotiating in vain with Venice for a widening of their maritime access, simply usurped the territory of Gornji Klek and most of Klek from Ragusa, which it had bought from King Dabiša of Bosnia at the end of the 14th century. After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Austrian Empire, which had annexed both the Dalmatian possessions of Venice and the territory of Ragusa, tried to buy back the Neum and Sutorina enclaves from the Ottomans, but in vain. Instead, it stationed a warship to block access to the port of Neum until the Treaty of Berlin, which gave the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in 1878. Neum had been under Ottoman control for 179 years.


title: Neum

text: Consideration was given to a plan to build a new advanced naval base at Neum-Klek by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf considered fortifying Neum with coastal batteries and torpedo craft to supplement seafront defenses (in order to prevent Italian raids, or worse a large scale Italian landing). The project never got past the planning stage prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.


title: Neum

text: In 1918, as a consequence of Austro-Hungarian defeat, Neum joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which would start being called "Yugoslavia" in 1929. Under the Karađorđević dynasty, the Yugoslav Government ignored the borders inherited from history twice: in 1929, when the Neum area was included in the Littoral Banovina, and in 1939 when, following the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, it was included in the Banovina of Croatia. Josip Broz Tito's federal Yugoslavia was founded on the principle, declared at the 1943 AVNOJ session in Jajce and comparatively well-respected by the "Đilas commission" in 1945, of establishing the federative republics in their borders of 1878, which is why the Neum enclave is now part of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, including most of Klek (Ponta Kleka, Rep Kleka), the two islets Veliki and Mali Školj and the rock of Lopata in the Bay of Klek.


title: Neum

text: Since the 1990s, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been in negotiations on how to handle traffic across the Neum region, including signing a Neum Agreement. When Croatia was admitted to the European Union in 2013, the border crossings in the Neum region became governed as external borders of the EU. The construction of the Pelješac Bridge, which bypasses Neum entirely, has significance for Croatia's integrity and also for its future Schengen Area membership and the EU as a whole. It significantly improves traffic flow and the traffic connection of Dubrovnik to the rest of mainland Croatia, avoiding negotiating long, costly queues at Neum, and strict customs checks twice within the space of .


title: Neum

text: Encouraged by the recent developments in Croatia–Slovenia border disputes (June 2017), the ruling Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and other Bosniak political parties decided to obstruct the construction.


title: Neum

text: The construction cost was €420 million, to which the EU contributed by allocating €357 million from Cohesion Policy funds. The bridge is among the largest infrastructures in Croatia currently and one of the most substantial EU infrastructural investment ever. The work was completed in mid 2022. The EU is also funding supporting infrastructure, such as the construction of access roads, including tunnels, bridges and viaducts, the building of an 8 km-long bypass near the town of Ston and upgrading works on the existing road D414.


title: Neum

text: There are Bosniak plans to convert Neum to a freight port, contrary to the wishes of the local population and international laws and agreements concerning the ecologically significant and protected Bay of Mali Ston, of which Bay of Neum is a part. There are plans to build a seaport, rail and a motorway and thus the Croatian bridge must have a high clearance according to the view of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bosniak political parties. Due to the above, the Republic of Croatia has significantly increased the height of the bridge by adapting it to ships whose dimensions cannot enter the Bay of Neum at all. Today the main freight port for Bosnia and Herzegovina is Ploče (in Croatia) further north, which has a railway to Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Neum

text: The climate of the area is Mediterranean, characterized by mild winters and dry summers, with three times more rain in the rainier than in the drier months, during which the mean precipitation does not exceed . The mean yearly precipitation observed is of . The dominant winds come from the north, north-east and north-west. The average sea temperature (as observed in Neum) ranges from in January to in July and August.


title: Neum

text: Vegetation is the evergreen Mediterranean type, and subtropical flora (palm trees, agaves, cacti) grow in Neum and its surroundings.


title: Neum

text: The linđo is traditionally danced in the Neum region. Neum celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Good Health as its municipal day. As part of the celebrations, Neum hosts the Music Festival Etnofest Neum. The town also hosts the Neum Animated Film Festival.


title: Neum

text: Popular activities include swimming and sun bathing, beach-going, boating, and various other water-sports. Neum has a water polo club VK Jadran Neum, which is a member of the Croatian Water Polo Federation.


title: Neum

text: Neum area has steep hills, stone-sandy beaches, and several large tourist hotels. Neum has about 5,000 beds for tourists, 1,810 in hotels with the remaining capacity in motels, villas, and private accommodation. Tourism in Neum is active only in the coastal region. Prices tend to be lower than in neighbouring Croatia, making it popular with shoppers. Tourism, and the commerce it brings, is the leading contributor to the economy of the area.


title: Neum

text: The inland area behind Neum has a rich archeological history and wilderness with centuries-old olive groves.


title: History of books

text: The history of books became an acknowledged academic discipline in the 1980s. Contributors to the discipline include specialists from the fields of textual scholarship, codicology, bibliography, philology, palaeography, art history, social history and cultural history. Its key purpose is to demonstrate that the book as an object, not just the text contained within it, is a conduit of interaction between readers and words.


title: History of books

text: Prior to the evolution of the printing press, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible, each text was a unique handcrafted valuable article, personalized through the design features incorporated by the scribe, owner, bookbinder, and illustrator. Analysis of each component part of the book reveals its purpose, where and how it was kept, who read it, ideological and religious beliefs of the period and whether readers interacted with the text within. Even a lack of evidence of this nature leaves valuable clues about the nature of that particular book.


title: History of books

text: The history of the book became an acknowledged academic discipline in the latter half of the 20th century. It was fostered by William Ivins Jr.'s "Prints and Visual Communication" (1953) and Henri-Jean Martin and Lucien Febvre's "L'apparition du livre" ("The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450–1800") in 1958 as well as Marshall McLuhan's "Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man" (1962). Another notable pioneer in the History of the Book is Robert Darnton.


title: History of books

text: The history of the book starts with the development of writing, and various other inventions such as paper and printing, and continues through to the modern-day business of book printing. The earliest knowledge society has on the history of books actually predates what would conventionally be called "books" today and begins with tablets, scrolls, and sheets of papyrus. (The current format that we consider to be books, with separate sheets fastened together rather than a scroll, is called a codex (plural codices)). Then hand-bound, expensive, and elaborate manuscripts appeared in codex form. These gave way to press-printed volumes and eventually led to the mass-printed volumes prevalent today. Contemporary books may even have no physical presence with the advent of the e-book. The book also became more accessible to the disabled with the advent of Braille and audiobook.


title: History of books

text: Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia in the . The calamus, an instrument with a triangular point, was used to inscribe characters in moist clay. Fire was used to dry the tablets out. At Nineveh, over 20,000 tablets have been found, dating from the ; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization of books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc. Such tablets continued to be used until the 19th century in various parts of the world, including Germany, Chile, Philippines, and the Sahara Desert.


title: History of books

text: Writing originated as a form of record-keeping in Sumer during the with the advent of cuneiform. Many clay tablets have been found that show cuneiform writing used to record legal contracts, create lists of assets, and eventually record Sumerian literature and myths. Archaeologists have found scribal schools from as early as the , where students were taught the art of writing. Developed in what is now Iraq, "cuneiform" script was later named after the Latin word cuneus, meaning wedge-shaped. Scribes often wrote cuneiform on clay, but sometimes they used precious materials such as gold. Cuneiform was written in different languages, such as Sumerian, Akkadian, and Greek, for more than three thousand years, ending only when the Sassanian Empire conquered Babylon and forced the scribes to stop writing. Some of the surviving cuneiform tablets were written by student scribes.


title: History of books

text: After extracting the marrow from the stems of Papyrus reed, a series of steps (humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting) produced media of variable quality, the best being used for sacred writing. In Ancient Egypt, papyrus was used as a medium for writing surfaces, maybe as early as the First Dynasty, but first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BCE). A calamus, the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers were used for writing. The script of Egyptian scribes was called hieratic, or sacerdotal writing; it is not hieroglyphic, but a simplified form more adapted to manuscript writing (hieroglyphs usually being engraved or painted). Egyptians exported papyrus to other Mediterranean civilizations including Greece and Rome where it was used until parchment was developed.


title: History of books

text: Papyrus books were in the form of a scroll of several sheets pasted together, for a total length of 10 meters or more. Some books, such as the history of the reign of Ramses III, were over 40 meters long. Books rolled out horizontally; the text occupied one side and was divided into columns. The title was indicated by a label attached to the cylinder containing the book. Many papyrus texts come from tombs, where prayers and sacred texts were deposited (such as the Book of the Dead, from the early 2nd millennium BCE).


title: History of books

text: Papyrus was a common substrate to be used as notarial documents, tax registries, legal contracts, etc. Scrolls were typically held vertically to be read and text was written in long columns. Literary texts, on the other hand, were traditionally transcribed into the codex form. After the latter half of the , leftover papyrus in Egypt was often used by bookbinders for making book covers since paper had replaced papyrus as the dominant substrate for books.


title: History of books

text: Before the introduction of books, writing on bone, shells, wood and silk was prevalent in China long before the 2nd century BCE, until paper was invented in China around the 1st century CE. China's first recognizable books called "jiance" or "jiandu", were made of rolls of thin split and dried bamboo bound together with hemp, silk, or leather. The discovery of the process using the bark of the mulberry to create paper is attributed to Cai Lun, but it may be older. Texts were reproduced by woodblock printing; the diffusion of Buddhist texts was a main impetus to large-scale production. The format of the book evolved with intermediate stages of scrolls folded concertina-style, scrolls bound at one edge ("butterfly books"), and so on.


title: History of books

text: Although there is no exact date known, between 618 and 907 CE —the period of the Tang Dynasty— the first printing of books started in China. The oldest extant printed book is a work of the "Diamond Sutra" and dates back to 868 CE, during the Tang Dynasty. The "Diamond Sutra" was printed by method of woodblock printing, a strenuous method in which the text to be printed would be carved into a woodblock's surface, essentially to be used to stamp the words onto the writing surface medium. Woodblock printing was a common process for the reproduction of already handwritten texts during the earliest stages of book printing. This process was incredibly time-consuming.


title: History of books

text: Because of the meticulous and time-consuming process that woodblock printing was, Bi Sheng, a key contributor to the history of printing, invented the process of Movable type printing (1041–1048 CE). Bi Sheng developed a printing process in which written text could be copied with the use of formed character types, the earliest types being made of ceramic or clay material. The method of movable type printing would later be independently invented and improved by Johannes Gutenberg.


title: History of books

text: A lot of extremely detailed text was produced in early 17th century Japan. For instance, Hitomi Hitsudai spent sixty years taking field notes on 499 types of edible flowers and animals for his book "Honchō shokkan" (The Culinary Mirror of the Realm). This detailed style of writing was common in the early years when the majority of literate people were of higher classes. Soon afterwards, literacy increased, as hundreds (some say thousands) of schools taught children the vocabulary of geography, history, and individual crafts and callings. The highly detailed style still persisted as it was consistent in many gazetteers, emerging as a social lexicon. In some instances, family almanacs and encyclopedias were put together regionally.


title: History of books

text: While the highly detailed writing form persisted, a simpler reading style also developed around the 1670s that was written for a popular readership. It used a simpler vernacular language, and was written almost directly for first-time book buyers. These original tales of fiction were popular among common samurai as well as common townspeople. Works went beyond fiction and also depicted certain crafts and manuals specialized for that topic. These more popularized books were written in a newly emerging form of script. Authors had to deal with the idea of the "reading public" for the first time. These authors took into account the different social strata of their audience and had to learn "the common forms of reference that made the words and images of a text intelligible" to the layman.