title: Mulk (film)

text: "The Indian Express" while giving 3.5 out of 5 carried the following line, "Any film that does not demonize, that talks of peace and brotherhood, in these dark, cynical times, is to be lauded. Mulk is Anubhav Sinha’s best film, and it concerns us all." In similar views, "Firstpost" also rates the movie 3.5 out of 5 and states, "More than a film, Anubhav Sinha's Mulk is a voice. It is the voice of a section of Indian society working tirelessly to get rid of the prejudice around a certain community in the contemporary world."


title: Mulk (film)

text: On the other hand, "The Times of India" gave the film 4 out of 5 and opined, "Mulk focusses on some hard-hitting and burning issues, while also highlighting the crucial role that the media and various other channels of information play in disseminating the right news and facts to its citizens. It also brings to fore the other horrifying faces of terrorism which often gets brushed under the carpet. Mulk is a film that’s relevant, brave and is a must-watch. It has thought-provoking message which drives home the point – that being a true Indian and real patriot is about embracing people from every faith with an open heart." Additionally, "NDTV" also gave the film 4 out of 5 and commented, "Go watch Mulk for its stout-hearted espousal of sanity. It isn't often that Bollywood shows such spine." Similarly, the critics at "Filmfare" rated the movie 4 out of 5 and writes, "The film makes you see these dark truths and you can't help but nod."


title: Mulk (film)

text: Meanwhile, "News18" gave the film 3 out of 5 and the article in its closing lines read, "Finally, Mulk isn’t original cinema, it’s not even its own film, but it’s a much needed reminder and lesson that we live in a secular nation, something that we always strive for."


title: Mulk (film)

text: "Khaleej Times", a daily English language newspaper published in United Arab Emirates, rates the film 3 out of 5 and states, "'Mulk' dares to tell a story not many filmmakers might want to associate themselves with. The one who emerges as a hero is the script, strong performances, and Anubhav Sinha's conviction to tell us the story. 'Mulk' is a fearless, courageous film and deserves to be watched."


title: Cho Oyu

text: Cho Oyu (Nepali: चोयु; ; ) is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the "Khumbu" sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China TibetNepal Province No. 1 border.


title: Cho Oyu

text: Just a few kilometres west of Cho Oyu is Nangpa La (5,716m/18,753 ft), a glaciated pass that serves as the main trading route between the Tibetans and the Khumbu's Sherpas. This pass separates the Khumbu and Rolwaling Himalayas. Due to its proximity to this pass and the generally moderate slopes of the standard northwest ridge route, Cho Oyu is considered the easiest 8,000 metre peak to climb. It is a popular objective for professionally guided parties.


title: Cho Oyu

text: Cho Oyu's height was originally measured at and at the time of the first ascent it was considered the seventh highest mountain on earth, after Dhaulagiri at (Manaslu, now , was also estimated lower at ). A 1984 estimate of made it move up to sixth place. New measurements made in 1996 by the Government of Nepal Survey Department and the Finnish Meteorological Institute in preparation for the Nepal Topographic Maps put the height at 8,188 m, one remarkably similar to the used by Edmund Hillary in his 1955 book "High Adventure".


title: Cho Oyu

text: Cho Oyu was first attempted in 1952 by an expedition organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee of Great Britain as preparation for an attempt on Mount Everest the following year. The expedition was led by Eric Shipton and included Edmund Hillary, Tom Bourdillon and George Lowe. A foray by Hillary and Lowe was stopped due to technical difficulties and avalanche danger at an ice cliff above and a report of Chinese troops a short distance across the border influenced Shipton to retreat from the mountain rather than continue to attempt to summit.


title: Cho Oyu

text: The mountain was first climbed on October 19, 1954, via the north-west ridge by Herbert Tichy, Joseph Jöchler and Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama of an Austrian expedition. Cho Oyu was the fifth 8000 metre peak to be climbed, after Annapurna in June 1950, Mount Everest in May 1953, Nanga Parbat in July 1953 and K2 in July 1954. Until the ascent of Mount Everest by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler in 1978, this was the highest peak climbed without supplemental oxygen.


title: Cho Oyu

text: Cho Oyu is considered the easiest eight-thousander, with the lowest death-summit ratio (th of Annapurna's). It is the second most climbed eight-thousander after Everest (whose height makes it the most popular), and has over four times the ascents of the third most popular eight-thousander, Gasherbrum II. It is marketed as a "trekking peak", achievable for climbers with high fitness, but low mountaineering experience. It has a broadly flat summit plateau with no cairn (the traditional prayer flags on Cho Oyu's summit plateau do not mark the "technical" summit), which can be a source of confusion, and debate, amongst climbers (see Elizabeth Hawley).


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: On the issue of the sexuality of Jesus, the traditional understanding of Christian churches and theologians is that Jesus did not marry and remained celibate until his death. That has not prevented speculation about alternative and fringe theories of his sexuality. The Gospels and the New Testament reveal little on the subject.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: In first century Judaism, sexual immorality included incest, homosexuality, adultery and bestiality, according to the rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 2:24, i.e., "a man shall leave his father and his mother" forbids a man from having relations with his father's wife and his own biological mother; "cleave to his wife" forbids a man from having more than one wife, having relations with another woman, or having same-sex relations; and "they shall become one flesh" forbids a man from having relations with non-human beings (such as animals). Jesus states in the gospels that he came "not to abolish, but to fulfill" Jewish law, and at his various trials, no one could testify that Jesus broke Jewish laws (, Matthew 26:59–60).


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The non-canonical 3rd-century Gospel of Philip, using Coptic variants of the Greek (), describes Jesus' relationship with Mary Magdalene. The gospel uses cognates of and Coptic equivalents to refer both to the literal pairing of men and women in marriage and sexual intercourse, but also metaphorically, referring to a spiritual partnership, and the reunification of the Gnostic Christian with the divine realm.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Gospel of Philip mentions Mary Magdalene as one of three women named Mary "who always walked with the Lord" (Philip 59.6–11). The work also says that the Lord loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often (Philip 63.34–36). Author John Dickson argues that it was common in early Christianity to kiss a fellow believer by way of greeting (1 Peter 5:14), thus such kissing would have no romantic connotations. Kripal writes that "the historical sources are simply too contradictory and simultaneously too silent" to make absolute declarations regarding Jesus' sexuality.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: Bart Ehrman, a scholar of the Greek New Testament and early Christianity, concludes that historical evidence says nothing at all about Jesus' sexuality—"certainly nothing to indicate that Jesus and Mary had a sexual relationship of any kind". Ehrman says that the question people ask him most often is whether Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth married each other (after the claim was popularized in "The Da Vinci Code"):


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Gospel of John makes references to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23, John 19:26, John 21:7–20), a phrase which does not occur in the Synoptic Gospels. In the text, this "beloved disciple" is present at the crucifixion of Jesus, with Jesus' mother, Mary.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The "disciple whom Jesus loved" may be a self-reference by the author of the Gospel (John 21:24), traditionally regarded as John the Apostle.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: In subsequent centuries the reference was used by those who implied a homosocial or homoerotic reading of the relationship. For example, LGBT scholar Louis Crompton says Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, in his work ("Spiritual Friendship"), referred to the relationship of Jesus and John the Apostle as a "marriage" and held it out as an example sanctioning friendships between clerics.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: James I of England may have been relying on a pre-existing tradition when he defended his relationship with the young Duke of Buckingham: "I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his son John, and I have my George." Frederick the Great wrote to similar effect in his 1748–9 poem "Palladium", which includes the lines: "This good Jesus, how do you think He got John to sleep in his bed? Can't you see he was his Ganymede?"


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: Others who have given voice to this interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and John have been the philosophers Denis Diderot and Jeremy Bentham.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, discussed the possible homoerotic inclinations of Jesus in a sermon in 2005. Robinson's claim has been criticized, including by David W. Virtue, who editorialized by calling it an "appalling deconstructionism from the liberal lobby which will spin even the remotest thing to turn it into a hint that Biblical figures are gay".


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: Bob Goss, theologian, LGBT activist, and the author of "Jesus Acted Up, A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto" and "Queering Christ, Beyond Jesus Acted Up", said of the interaction between Jesus and John, it "is a pederastic relationship between an older man and a younger man. A Greek reader would understand." Theologian Ismo Dunderberg argues that the absence of accepted Greek terms for "lover" and "beloved" discounts an erotic reading.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: In contrast, the writer and theologian Robert Gagnon has argued that the Greek word translated as "loved" is (used, for example, in John 3:16: "for God so loved the world"), rather than the Greek word referring to sexual love, . On the other hand, Theodore W. Jennings Jr. notes that "eros does not occur either in the New Testament or in the Septuagint" and that these use to refer to "the love of a husband for his wife or even to the illicit loves of inordinate desire", including throughout the Song of Solomon.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Gospel of Mark describes how in the Garden of Gethsemane, "A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they [the Temple guards] seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind." (Mark 14:51–52).


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The text of the naked youth is puzzling for some authors; moreover, the text only appears in Mark, which has led some commentators to allege that Mark was describing himself as the youth.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The separate and non-canonical Secret Gospel of Mark—fragments of which were contained in the controversial Mar Saba letter by Clement of Alexandria, which Morton Smith claimed to have discovered in 1958—states that Jesus during one night taught "the mystery of the kingdom of God" alone to a youth wearing only a linen cloth. This has been linked to the views of an ancient group called the Carpocratians. Some modern commentators interpret it as a baptism, others as some form of sexual initiation, and others as an allegory for a non-sexual initiation into a gnostic sect. However, the authorship of Secret Mark is still a matter of debate. Some scholars find it authentic, while others consider it to be Smith's forgery, while still others believe it to be apocryphon.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is reported to have referred to the behavior of eunuchs to illustrate an approach to sexuality: "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." (Matthew 19:3–12)


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The term "eunuch" normally referred to a castrated man. Several theologians and Bible commentators have interpreted this passage as indicating Jesus's support for celibacy.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The early Christian writer Origen who was purported to have interpreted Jesus' words literally, was alleged to have castrated himself as an act of devotion. The early Church Father Tertullian wrote that Jesus himself lived as a "eunuch", likewise encouraged people to adopt this practice.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Bride of Christ is a metaphor for the Ecclesia, likening the relationship between Christians and Jesus to a betrothal pointing to a future wedding, when Christians are re-united with Jesus. In the Gospel of John (John 3:22–36), John the Baptist speaks in terms of himself as a "best man" with the implication that Christ the bridegroom (see also Matthew 9:15) is coming to meet his bride, although there is nothing specific to identify the bride. Church Fathers such as Cyprian applied the image to the Church.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: Early Latter Day Saint Apostle Orson Hyde taught that Jesus was a polygamist who was married to Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Mary of Bethany, and fathered children with them. He also taught that the marriage at Cana was Jesus' own wedding. This idea is not official LDS doctrine, although it has certainly entered into Mormon folklore.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Children of God Christian group actively promotes the view that a sexual relationship with Jesus would be desirable, encouraging devotees to imagine during sexual activity that it is Jesus who is having sex with them, and equate prophecy with Jesus' ejaculation. Historic Christian figures have also been accused of similar thoughts. Teresa of Avila's description of her most famous vision has been interpreted by secular writers, such as Dan Brown, as "a metaphor for some serious sex"; the view of Teresa having a sexual relationship with Jesus, in her visions, is exemplified by the poster art for "", a 2007 film by Ray Loriga.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The Irish surrealist painter, Colin Middleton, depicted Jesus as androgynous in his "Christ Androgyne" (1943), currently in the Ulster Museum. Middleton added female characteristics to Christ's body, including one naked breast. The work can be interpreted as sexual, or as a general symbol of suffering humanity during World War II.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The 1976 fictional poem "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name" by James Kirkup speculated what it would have been like if Jesus had had several sexual encounters with other men – including with Pontius Pilate, and a graphic description of Jesus' sexual encounter with a Roman soldier; Christian opposition to the poem's suggestions resulted in the "Whitehouse v Lemon" court case, a famous blasphemous libel trial.


title: Sexuality of Jesus

text: The sadomasochistic undertones of the crucifixion have been commented upon, and occasionally portrayed explicitly in modern art; for satirical reasons, this was depicted in the controversial "Jesus with erection" poster, a concept which has also been depicted for serious reasons in sculpture by Terence Koh.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny ( , meaning 'hillside of the O'Cannons'), nicknamed 'the Cathedral Town', is the largest and most populous town in County Donegal, a county in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Letterkenny lies on the River Swilly in East Donegal in the north-west of Ulster, and has a population of 19,274. It is the 36th largest settlement in all of Ireland by population (placing it ahead of Sligo, Larne, Banbridge, Armagh and Killarney), and is the 15th largest settlement by population in the province of Ulster (most of which comprises the separate jurisdiction of modern-day Northern Ireland). Along with the nearby city of Derry, Letterkenny is considered a regional economic gateway for the north-west of Ireland. Letterkenny acts as an urban gateway to the Ulster "Gaeltacht", similar to Galway's relationship to the Connemara "Gaeltacht".


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny began as a market town at the start of the 17th century, during the Plantation of Ulster. A castle once stood near where the Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba, County Donegal's only Catholic cathedral, stands today. Letterkenny Castle, built in 1625, was located south of Mt Southwell on Castle Street. County Donegal's largest third-level institution, Atlantic Technological University (ATU) Letterkenny, is located in the town, as are St Eunan's College, Highland Radio, and a Hindu temple. Letterkenny was also the original home of Oatfield Sweet Factory, a confectionery manufacturer; the factory closed and was demolished in 2014. In 1798, Theobald Wolfe Tone was arrested at Laird's Hotel in the town. In 2015, Letterkenny was judged as the tidiest town in Ireland.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny takes its name from the Irish "Leitirceanainn", meaning "Hillside of the O'Cannons" – the O'Cannons being the last of the ancient chieftains of Tír Conaill. While no evidence of forts or castles belonging to the O'Cannon clan exists in the Letterkenny district, eight miles west of Letterkenny is located Doon Rock, believed by some to be an ancient inauguration site of the O'Cannon Kings.


title: Letterkenny

text: The O'Cannon dynasty is descended from Conn of the Hundred Battles and Niall of the Nine Hostages, two of Ireland's ancient High Kings. The O'Cannons have been described as 'Ancient Princes of Tír Connaill' and 'Valiant Chiefs'. Their 350-year dynasty in Tír Connaill ended in 1250. Their ancient territory is recorded as being in Tír Aeda (now the barony of Tirhugh) in what is now South Donegal. After the deaths of Ruairí Ó Canannain (Rory O'Cannon) and his son Niall Ó Canannain in 1250, the sept declined greatly in power. Brian Ó Néill (Brian O'Neill) died ten years later in 1260; he had supported an Ó Canannain claimant to Tír Conaill, i.e. to the Kingdom of Tír Conaill (Tirconnell). However, the O'Cannon Clan remained subservient to the O'Donnell Clan, the Kings of Tír Chonaill from the early thirteenth century onwards after Gofraid O'Donnell helped the English defeat the O'Cannons in 1250. The personal name Canannain is a diminutive of Cano meaning 'wolf cub'. Canannain was fifth in descent from Flaithbertach mac Loingsig (died 765), high-king of Ireland; they were the descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages (Irish: Niall Noigiallach), who died 405 A.D., by his son Conall Gulban, who gave his name to Tír Conaill, the 'Land of Conall', now County Donegal.


title: Letterkenny

text: By the early 17th century, the name Uí Canannain had been anglicised to O'Cannon. Further anglicisation took place during the Penal Laws in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and the name in Co. Dun na nGall became Cannon. In the early 1880s, there were just 200 families bearing the Cannon surname living in Co. Donegal, who were mainly tenant farmers. The Cannons/O'Canannains were of the ancient sept of Cenell Conaill, a branch of the northern Uí Néill and descend from Ruaidrí ua Canannain (died 30 November 950), King of Cenel Conaill, and grandson of Canannain, who flourished in the second half of the 9th century. The site of the ancient seat of the Ó Canannain was near Letterkenny (the largest town of County Donegal only since the 1950s), which is said on good to represent the countryside of the O'Cannons (English translation).


title: Letterkenny

text: The modern town of Letterkenny began as a market town at the start of the 17th century, during the Plantation of Ulster. It may have been established on the site of an earlier Gaelic settlement. It was the first crossing point of the River Swilly. In the recent past, Letterkenny was a largely agricultural town, surrounded by extensive cattle and sheep grazing on what was then untilled hillside – at a time when Conwal (3 km west of Letterkenny) was the ecclesiastical and seaport centre. The waters of the Atlantic had not yet retreated from the basin of the Swilly, whose estuary at that time extended up almost as far as New Mills – proof of this may be found in those alluvial flatlands between the Oldtown and the Port Road.


title: Letterkenny

text: Rory O'Cannon, the last chieftain of the O'Cannon Clan, was killed in 1248. Godfrey O'Donnell succeeded Rory O'Cannon as King of Tír Conaill. He engaged the Norman lord Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Lord of Offaly, in battle at Credan in the north of what is now County Sligo in 1257 in which both were badly wounded – Fitzgerald immediately fatally so. Godfrey (also dying from his wounds) retired to a crannóg in Lough Beag (Gartan Lake). O'Neill of Tír Eoghain — taking advantage of Godfrey's fatal illness — demanded submission, hostages and pledges from the Cenél Conaill since they had no strong chieftain since the wounding of Godfrey. Godfrey summoned his forces and led them himself, although he had to be carried on a litter (stretcher). O'Neill and his men were completely defeated by the Swilly in 1258. Godfrey died however after the battle near where the town of Letterkenny is today. He was buried in Conwal Cemetery. A cross-shaped coffin slab marks his grave to this day.


title: Letterkenny

text: The receding of the waters of the Atlantic eastwards enabled progress, and with the building of bridges etc., the town of Letterkenny started to take the shape it has today. In the wake of the Plantation of Ulster (which began around 1609), when a area was granted to a Scotsman Patrick Crawford, the compact community formed.


title: Letterkenny

text: The honour of formally launching the town fell to Sir George Marbury who married Patrick Crawford's widow — Crawford having died suddenly while on a return visit to his native Scotland. Initially, there were possibly fifty simple habitations sited where the Oldtown is situated today.


title: Letterkenny

text: The main streets, though now suffering traffic congestion, were simple pony tracks used by the hill farmers to come to the markets. The markets — started by Patrick Crawford with only a few animals — grew into much busier markets which are not present today.


title: Letterkenny

text: An ancient castle once stood near where the Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba stands today. Letterkenny Castle, built in 1625, was located south of Mt Southwell on Castle Street. No remains of the castle exist today.


title: Letterkenny

text: During the Irish Rebellion of 1798, on 12 October, a large French force consisting of 3,000 men, including Wolfe Tone, attempted to land in County Donegal near Lough Swilly. They were intercepted by a large British Royal Navy force, and finally surrendered after a three-hour battle without ever landing in Ireland. After Wolfe Tone was captured he was held for a short time at Laird's Hotel (opposite the Market Square) in the Main Street of Letterkenny before being transferred to the nearby Derry Gaol. He was later tried by a court-martial in Dublin and found guilty. His death through suicide occurred in prison.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 1824, when the first description of Letterkenny as a modern town was written, it was stated that: ""Within half a mile is the Port of Ballyraine, whither vessels of 100 tons bring iron, salt and colonial produce and whence they export hides and butter"". Nothing remains now except the warehouses with the example of 19th-century warehouse architecture.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny achieved town status in the early 1920s following the partition of Ireland. When the Irish punt replaced the British pound sterling in County Donegal in 1928, many Irish banks that had been previously located in Derry (in the new Northern Ireland) opened branches in Letterkenny.


title: Letterkenny

text: Climate data for Letterkenny is recorded at Malin Head in the far northern tip of the county. Malin Head's climate is classified as Temperate Oceanic (Köppen Cfb) and is significantly milder than some other locations in the world at a similar latitude; this is due to the station's position near the Atlantic Coast and exposure to the warmth of the Gulf Stream. Due to its northerly latitude, Malin Head experiences long summer days and short winter days. Summers are cool with temperatures rarely exceeding , while winters are relatively mild with daytime temperatures rarely dropping below . Extreme heat is very rare; however, the town can on occasion receive extreme cold from the Arctic where temperatures drop several degrees below . Snow is relatively uncommon and the station receives on average 20 days of recorded snowfall per year, the vast majority of this occurring between December and March. Humidity is high year-round and rainfall is spread quite evenly throughout the year, with winter months receiving the rainiest days; however, Letterkenny can have 4 seasons in one day: rain, snow, sunshine, and hail.


title: Letterkenny

text: Many of Letterkenny's more notable buildings were built in the early 1850s—or earlier. These include educational and ecclesiastical buildings. The town's tallest building is the Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba, which was completed in 1901. The Cathedral was designed by William Hague from County Cavan. It is built in a light Victorian neo-Gothic version of the French 13th-century Gothic style. Located opposite the Cathedral, at the junction of Church Street with Cathedral Square, is Conwal Parish Church, parts of which date from the 17th century.


title: Letterkenny

text: Another dominant building in the town is the historic St Eunan's College. St Eunan's is a three-storey castellated structure, built in the Edwardian variant of the neo-Hiberno-Romanesque style. It has four turreted round towers and flying buttresses which are modelled on the nearby Cathedral.


title: Letterkenny

text: Other architecturally notable buildings can be found at Mount Southwell Terrace, which is located at the top of Market Square, just off Castle Street. This Georgian-style terrace of red brick was built in 1837 by Lord Southwell. The terrace contains five of the most distinctive examples of Georgian houses in Letterkenny and also served as the holiday home of Maud Gonne who stayed here while on holiday in Donegal. St Conal's Hospital is a large Victorian neo-Georgian structure located on the Kilmacrennan Road in the town. While the oldest parts of the building date from the 1860s, the hospital's chapel was built in the neo-Norman style in the 1930s.


title: Letterkenny

text: The Donegal County Museum is housed in the old workhouse and is located on High Road. It was built in 1843 in the neo-Tudor style typical of this kind of building.


title: Letterkenny

text: In later years, Letterkenny has seen more modern architectural developments. The new Letterkenny Town Council offices, known locally as "The Grasshouse", were designed by Donegal-based MacGabhann Architects. It features a distinctive sloping grass roof situated above a broad band of aluka matt cladding and a runway-like ramp to the first-floor concourse. A 2002 article in "The Sunday Times" described it as a "building of international interest".


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is the largest town in County Donegal. Despite having a long tradition of emigration that continued until the early 1990s, Letterkenny has recently had net immigration. The recent immigrants are mostly of foreign origin, with many immigrants from Central Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is reflected in the recent growth of immigrant restaurants and shops, including Chinese and Indian restaurants, as well as specialised shops run by and providing goods for Africans, Asians, South Americans, and Central Europeans. Letterkenny is home to one of Ireland's few Hindu temples.


title: Letterkenny

text: The figures for the ethnic and cultural background of people in the State in 2006 reveal that 16% of Letterkenny's population are non-nationals. The figures also show that most of Donegal's non-national population are living in the town. Of the town's total population 2,709 are non-nationals. According to the 2006 census 4,957 people have a disability illness, 640 people have a registered disability, 537 have a chronic illness while 345 suffer from a psychological or an emotional condition. The 2006 census also revealed that there were 199 travellers living within the town's environs.


title: Letterkenny

text: Primary and secondary education in the town is organised similarly to the rest of Ireland. There are 5 primary schools in Letterkenny, including Scoil Colmcille and Woodland School, while there are 4 secondary schools.


title: Letterkenny

text: Of the four secondary schools, the most noteworthy is St Eunan's College — a day school and former boarding school located on Sentry Hill close to the Glencar district of Letterkenny, just northwest of its centre. The College, as it is known locally to distinguish it from the cathedral and GAA club, is named after Adomnán or Eunan (the Abbot of Iona who was native to Tír Chonaill, mainly modern County Donegal, and is patron saint of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raphoe).


title: Letterkenny

text: Coláiste Ailigh is a Gaelcholáiste (a secondary school with the stated purpose of providing education through the Irish language). It opened in 2000. The Loreto Convent Secondary School, adjacent to St Eunan's Cathedral, is more than 150 years old.


title: Letterkenny

text: The Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT; known locally as "The Regional" and "The IT"), which is situated east of the town centre on the Port Road, is a training centre for technicians, offering courses in engineering, information technology, materials science, design, business and nursing. The institute is one of the smaller places of third level education in the historic province of Ulster, with a lower student intake than other colleges such as Belfast Metropolitan College and the regional colleges of the North West, South, South East and South West, all of which themselves are smaller than the universities in Belfast and Belfast/Coleraine/Derry/Jordanstown.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce and Industry was founded in 1965. It is the only Donegal Chamber of Commerce affiliated to Chambers Ireland, meaning it "provides input into national and regional lobbying policies", according to its website.


title: Letterkenny

text: In February 2020, the "Donegal News" reported that the "number of vacant commercial properties in Letterkenny had risen by 8.7 per cent by the end of [the previous year], meaning that out of 720 recorded commercial premises in the town, 134 are vacant".


title: Letterkenny

text: The retail trade in Letterkenny includes modern shopping centres and family-owned local shops – often providing handmade crafts.


title: Letterkenny

text: Many High Street stores operate in Letterkenny. The town is the northwest region's major shopping centre and helps to serve outlying areas including rural County Donegal and Derry. The three main shopping malls are the Courtyard Shopping Centre, the Forte Shopping Centre and the Letterkenny Shopping Centre, the latter being the oldest. Built in 1984, it is the largest shopping centre in County Donegal, and was the first of several such complexes in Letterkenny. It is also the third largest in the Harcourt Developments retail portfolio. While originally built on the outskirts of the town, urban expansion means it now lies in the town proper. Letterkenny has been identified as one of Europe's fastest-growing towns by business owners. The centre remained largely unchanged until 2004, when the centre was expanded, and new lighting, flooring and decor were added. More retail units were constructed along with the expansion of the Tesco outlet and thus becoming "one of the Major developments in Ireland". The carpark was extended to allow for a capacity of 750. The entire project was overseen by the Burke Morrison Engineering firm. These centres feature numerous international and Irish chains such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Eason and others. There are also many other small centres such as the "Glencar Shopping Centre" and the "Market Centre".


title: Letterkenny

text: Previously, Letterkenny's Main Street served as the main shopping area in the town but trade has now shifted further afield expanding the town in the process. The Main Street is home to many older establishments including R. McCullagh Jewellers (dating from 1869), Magees Pharmacy (dating from 1928) and Speers Department Store. Newer shopping areas in the town include the Letterkenny Retail Parks on "Pearse Road" and "Canal Lane". Smaller streets such as "Church Street" and "Castle Street" have grown in recent years with businesses such as bakeries, pharmacies and fashion outlets having been opened. The "Market Square" has also attracted fresh business.


title: Letterkenny

text: In August 2012, two winning Lotto tickets using the same numbers for the same draw were bought at two different locations in the town – Mac's Mace on the High Road and The Paper Post on Main Street. The occurrence made national news. A spokesperson for Lotto HQ in Dublin said it was the first time this had happened.


title: Letterkenny

text: In April 1970, the "Donegal News" reported that local politicians acknowledged "a very real problem" in attracting industrialists to come to the town, even in spite of grants being available to do so.


title: Letterkenny

text: The town's major employers include the Letterkenny University Hospital, Pramerica, Optum Health Care and the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the latter having decentralised to the town in 1990, following a government decision to relocate 200 civil service jobs from Dublin.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is at the centre of industry in the northwest of Ireland. Eircom, Boston Scientific and UnitedHealth Group (Optum) are significant employers in the region. As the main commercial centre of north Donegal, Letterkenny also has a host of financial service institutions, legal firms and small businesses.


title: Letterkenny

text: Pramerica was established in Letterkenny in 2000. It was a business and technology operations subsidiary of U.S.-based Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE: Pru)and grew to over 2,000 employees before being taken over Tata Consultancy Services in 2020. Prudential still retains some staff on site as PGIM.


title: Letterkenny

text: There has been a significant decline in the manufacturing base, while employment has grown in the service sector. Since 2002 there has been a significant expansion in the retail sector. Allied to this growth has been the development of the cultural infrastructure. This includes the opening of An Grianán Theatre and the development of a new arts centre.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny was also home of the confectionery manufacturers Oatfield. It was based at the entrance to Ballyraine, near the town's central area. The factory was demolished in the summer of 2014. Rockhill Barracks was once a major contributor to the local economy but closed in January 2009 due to military cuts. The Rambling Man distillery was located at the Eastend until 1976, and was not named after its owner Stephen Rambling.


title: Letterkenny

text: The economy in the town is strongly dependent on cross-border trade, and economic growth is dependent somewhat on the currency exchange rate between the Euro and the British Pound.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny receives all of the national television stations on the Saorview DTT platform from the local Letterkenny transmitter. Due to its close proximity to Derry City and Strabane in Northern Ireland, the town and its surrounding areas have been able to receive overspill analogue television signals from the Derry City transmitter since December 1957 and the Strabane transmitter since February 1963. The town can also receive satellite services and broadband television services too. The national broadcaster RTÉ has a studio located in the Ballyraine district.


title: Letterkenny

text: The regional radio station is Highland Radio which broadcasts from the town to north, east and west County Donegal, West Tyrone and the City of Derry. It began broadcasting in 1990.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is home to several media companies. The main regional newspaper in the town and county is the "Donegal Democrat" (owned by the "Derry Journal"), whose offices also print two other titles every week – the "Donegal People's Press" on Tuesday and also "Donegal on Sunday". Another local paper is the "Derry People/Donegal News" (popularly known locally as the "Derry People"). It is distributed on a Friday, as well as having a Monday edition. The Milford-based "Tirconaill Tribune", printed in Letterkenny, is distributed throughout the county. The town also produces two freesheet newspapers, the "Letterkenny People" (previously the "Letterkenny Listener"), which is distributed on a Thursday, and the "Letterkenny Post", which is printed on a Thursday night for Friday circulation. The "Derry Journal", based in Derry itself, is also a major newspaper in the town and its environs.


title: Letterkenny

text: The population is predominantly conservative in outlook. In 1995, a large proportion of the townspeople voted against the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which removed the constitutional prohibition on divorce. Donegal was the only county to vote against Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which legalised abortion. The county also voted against the Twenty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2001 and the Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2008. However, the county did vote in favour of the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which legalised same-sex marriage.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny became an urban district in 1899 under the under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. This became a town council in 2002. In common with all town councils, it was abolished in 2014.


title: Letterkenny

text: In November 2012, Letterkenny Town Council passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in Phil Hogan, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government who had proposed the abolition of town councils. In November 2013, they planned to protest Hogan's visit to the town to officially open a new wastewater treatment works at Magherenan but then decided against out of respect for those involved in the project - Mayor Paschal Blake and Deputy Mayor Tom Crossan attended to pass comment against Hogan in their speech.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is a local electoral area in County Donegal, and returns five councillors to Donegal County Council. With the 3-seat LEA of Milford, it forms the municipal district of Letterkenny–Milford.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 2008, Letterkenny represented Ireland in the Entente Florale, having scooped Gold in the Large Urban Centre category of the 2007 National Tidy Town Awards. Locally there was a minor furore as all flags of competing nations were displayed in prominent areas of the town, with some difficulty encountered when locals discovered the controversial Union Jack flag hanging from a pole adjacent to the library and Paddy Delap's newsagent. The flag is still upsetting to many people angered by continuing British rule in Northern Ireland and as such led to an intensely heated debate on local radio station Highland Radio on the day the judges were in town. The flag was first mounted the previous day (7 August) and had to be taken down when some concerns were raised about its safety on a busy Thursday night. It was remounted the following day. Nevertheless, the town won gold in the competition.


title: Letterkenny

text: Until the 2016 general election, Letterkenny was part of the Donegal North-East constituency. From 2016, it became part of the county-wide five-seat Donegal constituency. At the 2020 general election, the constituency returned Thomas Pringle (Independent), Pearse Doherty (Sinn Féin), Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (also, Sinn Féin), Joe McHugh (Fine Gael) and Charlie McConalogue (Fianna Fáil) to Dáil Éireann.


title: Letterkenny

text: Crime rates vary widely across different areas of Letterkenny. Recorded crime has been rising in Letterkenny, notably violent crime and fraud, while links with Romanian criminals are also evident.


title: Letterkenny

text: A niece of Jane Austen, daughter of her brother Edward, is buried in the town alongside her husband Lord George Hill. Two other nieces, also daughters of Edward, are buried just outside the town, close to Ballyarr.


title: Letterkenny

text: Annual events of note include the Saint Patrick's Day Parade in March and Earagail Arts Festival in June/July.


title: Letterkenny

text: An Grianán Theatre, is the largest theatre in County Donegal with a seating capacity of 383, and provides live performances.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny hosted the annual Irish traditional music festival, the Fleadh Cheoil, for consecutive years (2005 and 2006). Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann organised both festivals. Letterkenny has also hosted the international Pan Celtic Festival for consecutive years (2006 and 2007). Celts from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall visited Letterkenny for the "craic agus ceoil". Along with the daily street performances on Market Square, An Grianán Theatre and The Courtyard Shopping Centre, song, fiddle, harp and dance contests also featured.


title: Letterkenny

text: The La Scala Cinema was formerly located in Letterkenny. Brendan Behan, while holidaying in County Donegal on Tuesday 22 August 1961, walked there to watch Eamonn Andrews interviewing him in the newsreel "Meet the Quare Fella". According to the "Derry People", Behan chose a balcony seat and sang along with his onscreen self, "the first duet sung by one person in Letterkenny". Behan had previously visited the town in early June 1960 and attended the Rainbow Bar, where (reported a newspaper) "he regaled those fortunate enough to be present with some typical outspoken comments on affairs of the present".


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is a favoured nightlife location for the local catchment area, and also for the rest of Ulster — particularly at weekends and especially for visitors from the nearby city of Derry. The Main Street — originally the retail centre of Letterkenny — has become a centre for nightclubs and pubs, boosted by the remnants of its old shopping district. There are several nightclubs in the area including Voodoo on the lower Main Street and The Pulse on Port Road. The Grill Music Venue was formerly a popular nightclub on Sundays. Many pubs such as The Central Bar (established 1808), The Cavern, Sister Sara's, Josie's Bar, McGinley's, The Cottage Bar and Warehouse are found nearby.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has a modern community purpose-built leisure and sports complex, comprising a swimming pool, football pitches (both natural grass and astroturf), and sports halls. Gaelic football, rugby and soccer are the most popular sports in the town, but many other minority sports are practised also, such as hurling, boxing, kickboxing, golf, swimming and gymnastics.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny Rovers are one of the most well-known soccer clubs in the town. The team play their home games at Leckview Park, at Canal Road, in the town. Bonagee United are another local team and play their home games at Dry Arch Park and Glencar Celtic F.C is another team from the town who play in the Donegal League and recent winners of the Saturday League Cup. There are a number of schoolboy soccer clubs within the town's environs and an annual league is played at Under 12, Under 14 and Under 16 age groups.


title: Letterkenny

text: The closest professional football club is League of Ireland Premier Division side Finn Harps in Ballybofey, 12 miles from Letterkenny.


title: Letterkenny

text: Former professional footballers Paul Scholes and Rory Delap have close ties to Letterkenny, as does Shane Duffy. Delap and Duffy often visit.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has two Gaelic games clubs: St Eunan's and Letterkenny Gaels, who play their home games at O'Donnell Park and at Páirc na nGael in The Glebe, respectively. St Eunan's is one of Donegal's most successful clubs and has won various County and Ulster championships at underage level, as well as successes at senior level since the turn of the 21st century. The Letterkenny Gaels club was formed in 1996. Letterkenny Gaels provide football, ladies football, hurling and Scór activities to the people of the town and surrounding areas. The club currently plays in the Donegal Junior Championship. Almost uniquely in Ireland, the Gaelic games club Letterkenny Gaels shares facilities with Letterkenny Rugby Club. The Letterkenny Gaels club was promoted to Division 2 of the All-County League in 2021.


title: Letterkenny

text: Rugby football is also popular in the town, being played at various levels, from school to senior league level. Letterkenny RFC, which was founded in 1973, is the major rugby club in the town. It has recently forged links with New Zealand rugby fraternities due to the fact that Dave Gallaher, the first captain of the All Blacks, was born in Ramelton, a village eight miles (13 km) from Letterkenny. The club's rugby ground in Letterkenny was named The Dave Gallaher Memorial Park in his honour in November 2005 by a visiting contingent of All Black players, led by captain Tana Umaga.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has two men's basketball teams, Letterkenny Heat and Letterkenny IT, as well as a junior basketball club, Letterkenny Blaze. Letterkenny Golf Club is located just outside the town centre. There are also pitch and putt and tennis facilities in the town. Letterkenny Sports Complex, a state-of-the-art leisure centre complete with a skate park, is located on the edge of the town. Letterkenny Athletic Club is also located in the town. The town also hosts the Donegal International Rally on the third weekend of June every year and the Donegal Harvest Rally every October. There is a campaign being run by a local councillor for the construction of a horse racing track and facilities on land at the Big Isle, on the outskirts of the town.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 2014, the Donegal Marathon was relaunched in the town after a 30 year absence. More than 800 participated in the 2014 race which was won by Benny Mullan.


title: Letterkenny

text: Annual events of note include the North West 10K (May), St Eunan's College 5K (May/April), Donegal International Rally (June), Gartan Triathlon (June/July) and Donegal Harvest Rally (October).


title: Letterkenny

text: The nearest airport is City of Derry Airport, which is located about to the east at Eglinton. Donegal Airport (locally known as Carrickfinn Airport) is less than an hour away, located to the west in The Rosses. The closest main international airport to Letterkenny is Belfast International Airport (also known as Aldergrove Airport), located at Aldergrove in County Antrim.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has a small privately operated airfield situated on the outskirts of the town which is operational; it has both hard and grass of 620 metres, hangars available for overnight guests, ICAO EILT. There is also a small private airfield at Finn Valley approx 8 miles away. It is run and operated by the Finn valley Flying Club. The airstrip is 700 metres of grass; it is mainly for use by ultralights and light aircraft. The airfield is home to quite a few ultralights, and the Flying Club run a big open weekend each August where many planes fly in to attend it. The airfield is only suitable for small private aircraft and ultralights, and there is no commercial traffic whatsoever there; it is occasionally used by businessmen to land their small aircraft, and it is approximately 8 miles from the town.


title: Letterkenny

text: The town was, in times past, connected with the once extensive narrow-gauge rail network of County Donegal. This provided connections to Derry (and through there to Dublin and Belfast), to Lifford and Strabane, to Gweedore and Burtonport, and to Carndonagh, north of Derry. The rail system was built in the late 19th century, with the last extensions opening in the 20th century. Some of these lines were never profitable, built using then UK government subsidies. Only a couple of decades later, the independence of the Irish Free State from the rest of the UK resulted in rail companies operating across two jurisdictions where there had previously been one. This had devastating effects on an already fragile economic situation, resulting eventually in the final closure of all parts of the rail system in the area by December 1959.


title: Letterkenny

text: Today, the closest railway station to County Donegal is Londonderry railway station in the nearby City of Derry. This station is owned and run by Northern Ireland Railways (N.I.R.) and runs via Coleraine to Belfast Lanyon Place railway station and Belfast Great Victoria Street railway station. The strategically important Belfast-Derry railway line is to be upgraded to facilitate more frequent trains and improvements to the permanent way such as track and signalling to enable faster services. N I Railways (Translink)


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny is well served by road transport. Bus Éireann operates multiple daily services from its bus depot to Ireland's larger urban areas like Dublin (number 32), Derry and Galway (both number 64). Private coach companies operate daily services to and from town. The Lough Swilly Bus Company (popularly known locally as "Lough Swilly" or "the Swilly Bus") operated a local transport service until they ceased trading in April 2014. Bus Éireann is now the main bus service provider in the town. Currently, access from Dublin is improving with motorway status roads being constructed along the route, allowing cars to complete the Dublin-Letterkenny journey in about 3 hours and 30 minutes. Galway, to the south, is 4 hours away by car, while Belfast, to the south-east, is 2 hours away by car.


title: Letterkenny

text: Private companies provide daily bus services to Belfast. Letterkenny has no cross-border service linking it directly to Belfast.


title: Letterkenny

text: Two national primary roads serve the town: the N13 from the South (Stranorlar) and the N14 from the East (Lifford). The N13 also links into the A2 road (Northern Ireland) to Derry. The N56 secondary road, beginning at the N14 in the town, travels in a loop around the county, ending in Donegal town. Regional roads include the R245, connecting Letterkenny northward to the Fanad and Rosguill peninsulas, and the R250 southwest to Glenties.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has a long history in Ireland's national Tidy Towns competition, first entering in 1959 and achieving its best result in 2015.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 2002, a National Anti-Litter League survey carried out by An Taisce compared Letterkenny's excess litter to that normally associated with The Liberties, a litter blackspot located in Dublin's impoverished inner city. It was voted "Best Kept Urban Centre" in the 2007 'Best Kept Town Awards' and took top prize in the "Large Urban Centre" category at the 2007 Tidy Towns competition. It appeared to maintain its litter-free status for the remainder of that decade, judging by the results of a study by business group Irish Business Against Litter, published on 23 August 2010.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 2011, it was named its county's tidiest town, receiving 306 points, four less than the overall winner Killarney. This included 47/50 points for its landscaping, the highest number of points scored by any town in this category. Out of the 821 entrants in the 2011 competition, Letterkenny finished in eighth place and received a gold medal for a ninth consecutive year. In the 2012 competition, it was selected as the tidiest town in the north-west of the country. In 2013, it was selected as one of Ireland's top ten towns.


title: Letterkenny

text: In 2015, Letterkenny achieved its best result in the Tidy Towns competition, being awarded top prize in the "Large Urban Centre" category and receiving the overall award as Ireland's tidiest, Ireland's best. Letterkenny received the same points total in 2016 but this was not sufficient to retain the title.


title: Letterkenny

text: In December 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited Letterkenny as having higher levels of air pollution than the Indian capital New Delhi. Professor John Wenger said: "I've been looking at figured from the EPA for the last few years and it's the highest I've seen. It is quite extraordinary". Just over two months later, the "Donegal News" reported that the latest EPA graphs showed levels were "still off the charts"; more than 200 micrograms per cubic metre of fine particulate matter at times during February 2020, "when the recommended annual mean limit set by the World Health Organisation for PM2.5 is just 10 micrograms per cubic metre", while levels of sulphur dioxide in Letterkenny surpassed 200 μg/m "even though levels are not supposed to exceed 125 μg/m in 24 hours in the interest of the 'protection of human health'".


title: Letterkenny

text: Water quality in Letterkenny is a persistent problem. "Lonely Planet" lists Donegal, in which Letterkenny is located, as one of its Irish counties in which visitors should not drink the tap water due to its featuring "toxic chemicals". In March 2020, the "Donegal News" reported on the concerns of residents in Letterkenny that their water supply was blue in colour and/or reeked of chlorine. The report also stated that these features of the water were less noticeable while running a tap but much more noticeable when filling a bath.


title: Letterkenny

text: The European Commission has stated that Ireland has, since 2003, been in breach of a directive against high levels of Trihalomethane (THM) in its water. The Commission stated that large amounts of THM cause diseases of the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, cancers of the bladder and colon, and damages to foetuses during pregnancy. The highest levels of THM were recorded in County Donegal (in which Letterkenny is located), as well as in Counties Cork, Kerry and Wicklow.


title: Letterkenny

text: Letterkenny has a "friendship agreement" with West Dunbartonshire Council, the first such agreement in Ireland with a Scottish local authority.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois. It is directly across the Mississippi River from Downtown St. Louis, Missouri and the Gateway Arch National Park. East St. Louis is in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois. Once a bustling industrial center, like many cities in the Rust Belt, East St. Louis was severely affected by the loss of jobs due to industrial restructuring during the second half of the 20th century. In 1950, East St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in Illinois when its population peaked at 82,366. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 18,469, less than one-quarter of the 1950 census and a decline of almost one third since 2010.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: A recent addition to the city's waterfront is the Gateway Geyser. On the grounds of Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, the fountain is the second-tallest in the world. Designed to complement the Gateway Arch across the river in St. Louis, it shoots water to a height of , the same height as the arch.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Native Americans had long inhabited both sides of the Mississippi River. The Mississippian culture rulers organized thousands of workers to construct complex earthwork mounds at what later became St. Louis and East St. Louis. The center of this culture was the urban complex of Cahokia, located to the north of present-day East St. Louis within Collinsville, Illinois. Before the Civil War, settlers reported up to 50 mounds in the area that became East St. Louis, but most were lost to 19th-century development and later roadbuilding.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis lies within the fertile American Bottom area of the present day Metro-East area of St. Louis, Missouri. This name was given after the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and more European Americans began to settle in the area. The village was first named "Illinoistown".


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis was founded in 1797 by Captain James Piggott, a Revolutionary War veteran. In that year Piggott began operating a ferry service across the Mississippi River, connecting Illinoistown with St. Louis, which had been founded by ethnic French families. When Piggott died in 1799, his widow sold the ferry business, moved to St. Louis County and remarried. One of the Piggotts' great-great-granddaughters became known as actress Virginia Mayo (Virginia Clara Jones).


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The municipality called East St. Louis was established on April 1, 1861. Illinoistown residents voted on a new name that day, and 183 voted to rename the town East St. Louis. Though it started as a small town, East St. Louis soon grew to a larger city, influenced by the growing economy of St. Louis, which in 1870 was the fourth-largest city in the United States.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: A period of extensive industrial growth followed the American Civil War. Industries in East St. Louis made use of the local availability of Illinois coal as fuel. Another early industry was meatpacking and stockyards, concentrated in one area to limit their nuisance to other jurisdictions.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In the expansion, many businessmen became overextended in credit, and a major economic collapse followed the Panic of 1873. This was due to railroad and other manufacturing expansion, land speculation, and general business optimism caused by large profits from inflation. The economic recession began in the East and steadily moved West, severely crippling the railroads, the main system of transportation. In response, railroad companies began dramatically lowering workers' wages, forcing employees to work without pay, and cutting jobs and paid work hours. These wage cuts and additional money-saving tactics prompted strikes and massive unrest.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: While most of the strikes in the eastern cities during 1877 were accompanied by violence, the late July 1877 St. Louis strike was marked by a bloodless and quick take-over by dissatisfied workers. By July 22, the St. Louis Commune began to take shape, as representatives from almost all the railroad lines met in East St. Louis. They soon elected an executive committee to command the strike and issued General Order No. 1, halting all railroad traffic other than passenger and mail trains. John Bowman, the mayor of East St. Louis, was appointed arbitrator of the committee. He helped the committee select special police to guard the property of the railroads from damage. The strike and the new "de facto" workers' government, while given encouragement by the largely German-American Workingmen's Party and the Knights of Labor (two key players in the organization of the Missouri general strike), were run by no organized labor group.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The strike also closed packing industry houses surrounding the National Stock Yards. At one plant, workers allowed processing of 125 cattle in return for 500 cans of beef for the workers. Though the East St. Louis strike continued in an orderly fashion, across the river in St. Louis there were isolated incidents of violence. Harry Eastman, the East St. Louis workers' representative, addressed the mass of employees:


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The strikers held the railroads and city for about a week, without the violence that took place in Chicago and other cities. The federal government intervened, and on July 28 US troops took over the Relay Depot, the Commune's command center, and the strike ended peacefully.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: On May 27, 1896, a tornado struck St. Louis and East St. Louis. It stands as the deadliest tornado to ever hit the cities. In approximately 20 minutes, this tornado resulted in destruction that killed 137 people in St. Louis and 118 in East St. Louis. The tornado's destruction spanned 10 miles, including into the railyards and commercial districts of East St. Louis. During the storm, 311 buildings were destroyed and 7,200 others were severely damaged. The cost of this loss was estimated to be between $10 million and $12 million. In 1896 this was a considerable amount of money, as a two-story brick house could be purchased at that time for $1,500.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis in 1917 had a strong industrial economy boosted by America's economic participation in demands related to World War I; although war was declared in April, the nation did not meaningfully enter the war until that fall. Industry was dominated by European immigrant workers, who had been coming to industrial cities since the late 19th century. Here and across the country, they repeatedly tried to organize in efforts to gain better wages and working conditions. In the summer of 1916, 2,500 white workers struck the nearby meat packing plants of National City. Companies recruited black workers, sometimes importing them from the South. While the white workers won a wage increase, the companies retained some black workers, firing white ones. Such economic competition raised tensions between the groups in a period when the number of blacks in East St. Louis had increased dramatically due to the first Great Migration, when African Americans left poor rural areas of the South to escape Jim Crow oppression and seek jobs in the industrial cities of the North and the Midwest. From 1910 to 1917, the black population nearly doubled in East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The United States established a draft which would bring in many workers to the military. As the war prevented immigration from Europe even before the U.S. entered the war, major companies had begun to recruit black workers from the South to fill demand. When white workers went on strike in April 1917 at the Aluminum Ore Company, the employer hired blacks as strikebreakers. The American Steel Company also recruited blacks. They were available in part during this period because the U.S. Army initially rejected many black volunteers in the years before an integrated military. This was also the period of resentment on both sides and the arrival of new workers created fears for job security at a time of union organizing and labor unrest, and raised social tensions. At a large labor meeting of white workers held in City Hall on May 28, men also traded rumors of fraternizing between black men and white women. An inflammatory speaker said, “East St. Louis must remain a white man’s town.” Three thousand ethnic white men left the meeting and headed as a mob for downtown, where they randomly attacked black men on the street. The Illinois governor called in National Guard to prevent further rioting, but rumors circulated that blacks were planning an organized retaliation and tensions remained high.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: On July 1, 1917, a black man allegedly attacked a white man. After hearing of this, whites drove by black homes near 17th and Market and fired shots into several of them. When police came to investigate a gathering of a large group of local black residents, their car was mistaken for that of the attackers, and several in the crowd at 10th and Bond fired on the police, killing two detectives. The next morning, thousands of whites mobbed the black sections of the city, indiscriminately beating, shooting and killing men, women and children. The rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot blacks as they escaped the flames. They also hanged several blacks. They destroyed buildings and physically attacked people; they "killed a 14-year-old boy and scalped his mother. Before it was over 244 buildings were destroyed.". Other sources say 300 buildings were destroyed.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The city had 35 police officers, but they were seen to be doing little to suppress the violence. The governor called in National Guard troops to try to control the situation; they arrived July 3, but several accounts reported that they joined in the rioting. Most of the violence ended that day, but reports continued afterward of isolated assaults of blacks. Afterward the city Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the Police Chief and greater oversight of police operations. Losses in property damage were high, including railroad warehouses and carloads full of goods that were burned, as well as railroad cars.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Though official reports suggested that the East St. Louis race riot resulted in the deaths of 39 blacks and 9 whites, other estimates put the figure much higher, with estimates of 100 to 250 blacks being killed.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: W. E. B. Du Bois of the NAACP came to investigate the riots personally. His organization's photographer published photos of the destruction in the November issue of "The Crisis". Congress also held an investigation.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In New York City on July 28, 10,000 black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, carrying signs and protesting the East St. Louis riots. The march was organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), W. E. B. Du Bois, and groups in Harlem. Women and children were dressed in white; the men were dressed in black.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis continued to have an economy based on industry. Through and after World War II, many workers could make decent livings. It was named an All-America City in 1959 by the National Civic League. East St. Louis celebrated its centennial in 1961. It was known as the "Pittsburgh of the West". Its population had reached a peak of 82,366 residents in the 1950 census, the fourth-largest city in Illinois at the time.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Through the 1950s and later, the city's musicians were an integral creative force in blues, rock and roll and jazz. Some left and achieved national recognition, such as Ike & Tina Turner. The jazz great Miles Davis, who became internationally known, was born in nearby Alton and grew up in East St. Louis. The 1999 PBS series "River of Song" featured these musicians in its coverage of music from cities along the Mississippi River.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The city suffered from the mid-century restructuring of heavy industry and railroads, which cost widespread loss of jobs. As a number of local factories began to close because of changes in industry, the railroad and meatpacking industries also were cutting back and moving jobs out of the region. This led to a precipitous loss of working and middle-class jobs. The city's financial conditions deteriorated. Elected in 1951, Mayor Alvin Fields tried funding measures that resulted in raising the city's bonded indebtedness and the property tax rate. More businesses closed as workers left the area to seek jobs in other regions. The more established white workers had an easier time gaining jobs in other localities, and the city population became increasingly black. "Brownfields" (areas with environmental contamination by heavy industry) have made redevelopment more difficult and expensive.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Street gangs appeared in city neighborhoods. Like other cities with endemic problems by the 1960s, violence added to residential mistrust and adversely affected the downtown retail base and the city's income.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The construction of freeways also contributed to East St. Louis' decline. They were constructed through and broke up functioning neighborhoods and community networks, adding to the social disruption of the period. The freeways made it easier for residents to commute back and forth from suburban homes, so the wealthier people moved out to newer housing. East St. Louis adopted a number of programs to try to reverse decline: the Model Cities program, the Concentrated Employment Program, and Operation Breakthrough. The programs were not enough to offset the loss of industrial jobs due to national restructuring.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 1971, James E. Williams was elected as the city's first black mayor. Faced with the overwhelming economic problems, he was unable to make much of a difference. In 1975, William E. Mason was elected mayor; his term marked a return to patronage politics and the city sank deeper into debt and reliance on federal funding. In 1979, Carl Officer was elected as mayor (the youngest in the country at that time at age 25). Despite hopes for improvement, conditions continued to decline. Middle-class citizens continued to leave the city. People who could get jobs moved to places with work and a decent quality of life. Lacking sufficient tax revenues, the city cut back on maintenance, sewers failed, and garbage pickup ceased. Police cars and radios stopped working. The East St. Louis Fire Department went on strike in the 1970s.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Structure fires destroyed such a significant number of consecutive blocks that much of the post-Armageddon film "Escape from New York" was filmed in East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 1990, the State of Illinois passed (65 ILCS 5/Art. 8 Div. 12) The Financially Distressed City Law. Under this law, Illinois Governor James R. Thompson provided $34 million in loans to East St. Louis, with the stipulation that an appointed five-member board, called the East St. Louis Financial Advisory Authority, manage the city's finances. In 1990 the state legislature approved riverboat gambling in an effort to increase state revenues. The opening of the "Casino Queen" riverboat casino generated the first new source of income for the city in nearly 30 years.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 1991, Gordon Bush was elected mayor. Several major industries operating in the area had gained separate incorporation as jurisdictions for the land where their plants are sited. These "communities" have virtually no residents, and the shell jurisdictions are outside the tax base of East St. Louis. Residents of the city, however, suffer from contaminated air and other adverse environmental effects of these sites. At the same time, the city's tax base is too poor for it to maintain its infrastructure, including the sanitary sewers, many of which have broken and overflowed in residential neighborhoods and schools.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Since 2000, the city has completed several redevelopment projects: in 2001 it opened a new library and built a new city hall. Public-private partnerships have resulted in a variety of new retail developments, and housing initiatives. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail connects the city by transit to St. Louis, which has a stronger economy, and such efforts have sparked renewal.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Because of depopulation, the city has many abandoned properties and extensive urban blight. Sections of "urban prairie" can be found where vacant buildings were demolished and whole blocks have become overgrown with vegetation. Much of the territory surrounding the city remains undeveloped, bypassed by developers who chose more affluent suburban areas. Many old, "inner city" neighborhoods abut large swaths of corn and soybean fields or otherwise vacant land. In addition to agricultural uses, a number of truck stops, strip clubs, and semi-rural businesses surround blighted areas in the city.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 2010, the East St. Louis community gardening movement began to develop plots for "urban farming", as has been done in North St. Louis. Inspired by Detroit's planned use of vacant land for green development, community associations, nonprofits and universities have collaborated to spark green development in East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In the early 1990s, archeological surveys and excavations prior to construction of Interstate 55/70 revealed evidence of important prehistoric structures in the East St. Louis area. Both sides of the river had earlier been reported as having numerous earthwork mounds when Europeans and Americans first settled in the area. Unfortunately, most of these cultural treasures in St. Louis and on the east side were lost to development.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Illinois researchers discovered the remains of several earthwork mounds. In the East St. Louis area, 50 mounds had been mapped before the Civil War, and seven remain visible today. The largest is estimated to have been originally 40 feet high and would have nearly covered a football field. Around the remains of this mound, researchers have discovered evidence of burial mounds, a large plaza, a wooden defensive palisade and several other Mississippian culture structures. These indicate that it was a ritual center. The 500-acre prehistoric site is now called the East St. Louis Mound Center. The state and University of Illinois are trying to develop coordinated projects with East St. Louis and businesses to use the mounds and artifacts as attractions for heritage tourism.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: It was built by the Mississippian culture, which extended throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It reached its peak in this region about AD 1100–1200 at the nearby major center of Cahokia, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site within the present-day boundaries of Collinsville. A complex urban center estimated to have had a population of perhaps 20,000, this site is about five miles from East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 2012, archeological work prior to construction of the Stan Musial Bridge across the Mississippi discovered artifacts and evidence of a formerly unidentified 900-year-old suburb of Cahokia in present-day East St. Louis. This site had not been mapped in the 19th century, and was unknown. The Mississippian culture site is in a present industrial wasteland. Researchers found evidence of more than 1,000 dwellings and the base of an earthen pyramidal mound. It would have been one of dozens of mounds when the community was active, based on the size of the residential population of this site. Discovery of the site led scholars to increase their estimates of the total population of the Mississippians at Cahokia and in the area, now thought to have been about 20,000. They did not have the time to excavate the entire area. It is on private land and subject to risk of destruction by development.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: According to the 2010 census, East St. Louis has a total area of , of which (or 97.36%) is land and (or 2.64%) is water.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis, like all of Southern Illinois, is classified as humid subtropical by the Köppen classification, having hot, humid summers and cool winters. On July 14, 1954, the temperature in East St. Louis allegedly reached , the highest temperature ever recorded in America east of the Mississippi River. It is not considered a formal record, however, as the city had no weather station.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: East St. Louis has five St. Louis MetroLink stations: East Riverfront, 5th & Missouri, Emerson Park, JJK Center, and Washington Park.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Interstate 55, Interstate 64, Interstate 70, and U.S. Route 40 run through East St. Louis and are linked to St. Louis by the Poplar Street Bridge and Stan Musial Bridge. Prior to its decommissioning, the fabled U.S. Route 66 also shared a concurrency with these Interstate highways. In addition, U.S. Route 50 also shared a concurrency prior to its being rerouted to run concurrently with Interstate 255.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The closest airport is the St. Louis Downtown Airport located in nearby Cahokia, Illinois, just south of East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 31,542 people, 11,178 households, and 7,668 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 12,899 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 97.74% Black or African-American, 1.23% White, 0.19% Native American, 0.08% Asian-American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.19% from other races, and 0.55% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.73% of the population.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: There were 11,178 households, out of which 33.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 21.9% were married couples living together, 40.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.4% were non-families. 27.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.80 and the average family size was 4.02.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 32.8% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 24.6% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 12.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 81.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 72.5 males.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The median income for a household in the city was $21,324, and the median income for a family was $24,567. Males had a median income of $27,864 versus $21,850 for females. The per capita income for the city was $11,169. About 31.8% of families and 35.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.6% of those under the age of 18 and 25.2% of those ages 65 and older.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Several social services organizations operate in East St. Louis, including Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House, Catholic Urban Programs, Christian Activity Center, and The Delta Childcare Center of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, East St. Louis Alumnae Chapter, and The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center, operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections, is located near East St. Louis and provides some jobs.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The city of East St. Louis is protected by 31 paid, professional city firefighters. They are organized into three divisions of operations: Administration, Firefighting/Hazard Mitigation, and Fire Prevention/Arson Investigation. The department operates from three fire stations in the city: Engine 422 at 17th St. and Lincoln Ave., Engine 425 and Ladder 419 at 17th St. and Central Ave., and Engine 426 at 72nd St. and State St. The Chief of Department is Jason Blackmon.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The East St. Louis Fire Department has struggled to provide protection and service while having to undergo repeated budget cuts due to city problems. It laid off some 22 firefighters in May 2013. According to a National Fire Report, approximately 49 percent of all emergency calls the East St. Louis Fire Department responds to are structural fires.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The city is served by the East St. Louis School District 189. As of 2017, the district operates an early childhood learning center, 5 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and one high school, East St. Louis High School. Until 1998, East St. Louis Lincoln High School also served portions of the city. Before desegregation, it was the school for black students.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: There is one Catholic K-8 school under the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School. There were previously four Catholic elementary schools: St. Joseph, St. Martin of Tours, St. Patrick, St. Philip, Holy Angels and St. Adalbert. In 1989 they consolidated at the St. Philip location as Bowman.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: Starting in 1894, St. Teresa Academy was established by the Sister of the Most Precious Blood, as a high school for young women. The school closed in 1974.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: In 1929 Central Catholic High School for Boys was established with the name being changed to Assumption High School in 1953. Women were welcomed to Assumption in 1974 after St. Teresa Academy closed. Later, Assumption closed in 1989.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: One television station is licensed to, but does not operate from, the city: Ion Television affiliate WRBU (Channel 46), which serves the entire St. Louis market. In the past, it served as St. Louis's UPN and MyNetworkTV affiliate. On FM, sports station WXOS (101.1) and non-commercial Contemporary Christian music station WCBW (89.7) are licensed to East St. Louis.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: The "Metro-East Journal", originally the "East St. Louis Journal", was published in the city from 1888 to 1979. The "East St. Louis Monitor" was established in 1963. It provides community news and event updates.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: A 2007 study in the journal "Homicide Studies" noted that "East St. Louis has consistently experienced a high violent crime rate and continues to report a substantial number of annual homicides." In 2013, the per capita homicide rate in East St. Louis was about 18 times the national average, and had the highest homicide rate of any city in the United States.


title: East St. Louis, Illinois

text: According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, in 2015 East St. Louis (with a population of 26,616), had 19 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, 42 cases of rape, 146 cases of robbery, 682 cases of aggravated assault, and 12 cases of arson. In 2016, NeighborhoodScout released rankings indicating that East St. Louis had the highest murder rate of any city in the United States.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: The Art of Self-Defense is a 2019 black comedy martial arts film written and directed by Riley Stearns and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. It had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2019, and was released in the United States on July 12, 2019, by Bleecker Street.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: Timid and awkward accountant Casey is brutally attacked on the street by a motorcycle gang. He comes across a dōjō led by a charismatic man referred to as "Sensei" and, after taking a trial class, decides to learn karate for protection instead of purchasing a firearm. Despite his physical weakness, Casey's determination impresses Sensei and he is promoted to yellow belt at their next promotion ceremony, while Anna, the sole female student and children's class teacher of the dōjō is denied promotion to black belt.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: As Casey learns the dōjō's strange customs - its unbreakable set of rules and the praising of its powerful grandmaster, who developed a technique of punching through an opponent's skull with his index finger - he himself becomes more toxically masculine: looking at pornography at work, attacking his boss, and listening to loud, angry music. Further impressed, Sensei invites him to the exclusive night classes, where he breaks a student's arm and expels him from the dōjō for showing up uninvited. Anna brutally defeats Thomas, the student promoted to black belt over her, to prove her worth, but Sensei disqualifies her for her aggression despite him usually approving of it.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: Sensei claims he has located one of the men who attacked Casey and they track him to a bar, where he pushes Casey to attack him as retribution. He later realizes the man was innocent and returns home to find his pet Dachshund dead, kicked to death by a technique he recognizes as Sensei's. He confronts Sensei and threatens to report him to the authorities, only to find that Sensei taped him attacking the man. He tries to attack Sensei, but is easily defeated. At the next night session, Sensei takes Casey and several other students to go out on motorcycles. They target a man who turns out to be an undercover cop trying to bust the group; Anna is shot in the leg, but Casey kills the cop on Sensei's orders. Sensei awards Casey a red stripe on his belt to signify his having killed a man. Anna, who also has a red stripe, confides in Casey that she got hers after killing a black belt who tried to sexually assault her. She urges him to leave the dōjō.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: Casey returns home to find an aggressive German Shepherd gifted to him by Sensei, which will attack him unless he can control it. Pushed to his limit, he breaks into the dōjō at night, finding videotapes that document every attack Sensei ordered. He watches his own attack, in which Thomas is ordered to kill him but Anna stops him. He also finds that Sensei makes money by extorting former students. The next morning, Sensei arrives at the dōjō to find the exiled student dead, hanging by his own belt, and he burns the body in a crematorium in the back office. Casey approaches him and challenges Sensei to fight to the death, only to draw a handgun when the fight starts and shoot Sensei in the head.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: As the students arrive, Casey displays Sensei's body and claims he killed him with the grandmaster's technique, making him the new Sensei. He chooses to give his position to Anna instead and, after finding his Dachshund's bite mark on Thomas' arm, has him killed by his German Shepherd, which now obeys him. Anna proclaims that the dōjō will be centered around more compassionate, defensive teachings, and Casey becomes the new teacher of the children's classes.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: Leland Orser and Josh Fadem cameo as a detective and serial killer, respectively, in a film within a film watched by Casey. Caroline Amiguet voices a French language instructor.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: In May 2016, it was announced Mary Elizabeth Winstead had joined the cast of the film, with her husband Riley Stearns directing from a screenplay he wrote. In 2017 Winstead announced her separation from Stearns.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: In September 2017, it was announced Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots and Alessandro Nivola joined the cast of the film, with Poots replacing Winstead, and Andrew Kortschak, Cody Ryder, Stephanie Whonsetler and Walter Kortschak serving as producers on the film, while Bleecker Street distributed the film.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2019. It was released in select theaters on July 12, 2019. The film was released nationwide on July 19, 2019.


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Art of Self-Defense" grapples compellingly with modern American masculinity and serves as an outstanding calling card for writer-director Riley Stearns." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

text: Peter Debruge of "Variety" wrote, "This singular black comedy balances off-kilter humor with an unexpectedly thriller-esque undercurrent, to the extent that audiences will find it tough to anticipate either the jokes or the dark, "Fight Club"-like turn things eventually take — all to strikingly original effect."


title: Urine therapy

text: Urine therapy or urotherapy, (also urinotherapy, Shivambu, uropathy, or auto-urine therapy) in alternative medicine is the application of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including drinking of one's own urine and massaging one's skin, or gums, with one's own urine. No scientific evidence exists to support any beneficial health claims of urine therapy.


title: Urine therapy

text: Though urine has been believed useful for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in several traditional systems, and mentioned in some medical texts, auto-urine therapy as a system of alternative medicine was popularized by British naturopath John W. Armstrong in the early 20th century. Armstrong was inspired by his family's practice of using urine to treat minor stings and toothaches, by a metaphorical reading of the Biblical Proverb 5:15 "Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well", and his own experience with ill-health that he treated with a 45-day fast "on nothing but urine and tap water". Starting in 1918, Armstrong prescribed urine-therapy regimens that he devised to many thousands of patients, and in 1944 he published "The Water of Life: A treatise on urine therapy", which became a founding document of the field.


title: Urine therapy

text: Armstrong's book sold widely, and in India inspired the writing of (Gujarati: Urine therapy; 1959) by Gandhian social reformer Raojibhai Manibhai Patel, and many later works. These works often reference "Shivambu Kalpa", a treatise on the pharmaceutical value of urine, as a source of the practice in the East. They also cite passing references to properties and uses of urine in Yogic-texts such as "Vayavaharasutra" by Bhadrabahu and "Hatha Yoga Pradapika" by Svatmarama; and Ayurvedic texts such as "Sushruta Samhita", "Bhava Prakasha" and "Harit". However, according to medical anthropologist Joseph Atler, the practices of (drinking one's own urine) and recommended by modern Indian practitioners of urine therapy are closer to the ones propounded by Armstrong than traditional ayurveda or yoga, or even the practices described in "Shivambu Kalpa".


title: Urine therapy

text: Urine-therapy has also been combined with other forms of alternative medicine. It was used by ancient Roman dentists to whiten teeth.


title: Urine therapy

text: An exhaustive description of the composition of human urine was prepared for NASA in 1971. Urine is an aqueous solution of greater than 95% water. The remaining constituents are, in order of decreasing concentration: urea 9.3 g/L, chloride 1.87 g/L, sodium 1.17 g/L, potassium 0.750 g/L, creatinine 0.670 g/L and other dissolved ions, inorganic and organic compounds.


title: Urine therapy

text: According to a BBC report, a Thai doctor promoting urine therapy said that Thai people had been practicing urophagia for a long time, but according to the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine, there was no record of the practice.


title: Urine therapy

text: Urinating on jellyfish, wasp or bee stings, sunburns, cuts, and blood vessel bursts is a common "folk remedy", however "Scientific American" reports that it may be counterproductive, as it can activate nematocysts remaining at the site of the sting, making the pain worse.


title: Urine therapy

text: Urine and urea have been claimed by some practitioners to have an anti-cancer effect, and urotherapy has been offered along with other forms of alternative therapy in some cancer clinics in Mexico.


title: Urine therapy

text: In the Arabian Peninsula, bottled camel urine is sold by vendors, as prophetic medicine with its claimed urine therapy, health benefits. Saudi police arrested a man, "because the urine in the bottles was his own".


title: Urine therapy

text: In January 2022, Christopher Key, a spreader of COVID-19 misinformation, claimed that urine therapy is the antidote to the COVID-19 pandemic. Key also falsely claims that a 9-month research trial on urine therapy has been conducted. There is no scientific evidence supporting urine therapy as a cure to the COVID-19 disease.


title: Urine therapy

text: According to the American Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that urine or urea given in any form is helpful for cancer patients".


title: Urine therapy

text: In 2016 the Chinese "Urine therapy Association" was included on a list of illegal organizations by the "Ministry of Civil Affairs". However, the "Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs" in Wuhan, said they had no jurisdiction over the association.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: The Indian giant squirrel or Malabar giant squirrel (Ratufa indica) is a large multi-coloured tree squirrel species endemic to forests and woodlands in India. It is a diurnal, arboreal, and mainly herbivorous squirrel.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: This species is endemic to India, with main sections of its distribution in the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats and Satpura Range as far north as Madhya Pradesh (approximately 22° N). It is found at altitudes of in tropical deciduous, semi-deciduous (where often utilizing denser riparian growth), and moist evergreen forests and woodlands. In general, its distribution is fragmented because it is intolerant of habitat degradation. The Indian giant squirrel generally nests in taller trees with a mean height of (± SD) in order to avoid predators.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: The Indian giant squirrel is one of the largest squirrels, with a head–and–body length of , a tail that is about the same or somewhat longer, and a weight of , although rarely up to . Average for both sexes is about in head–and–body length, in tail length and in weight.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: It has a conspicuous one-, two-, or three-toned colour scheme. The colours involved can be whitish, creamy-beige, buff, tan, rust, reddish-maroon, brown, dark seal brown, or black. The underparts and the front legs are usually cream coloured, and the head can be brown or beige, and there is a distinctive white spot between the ears. Otherwise the colours depend on the subspecies.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: The Indian giant squirrel is an upper-canopy dwelling species, which rarely leaves the trees, and requires "tall profusely branched trees for the construction of nests." It travels from tree to tree with jumps of up to . When in danger, the "Ratufa indica" often freezes or flattens itself against the tree trunk, instead of fleeing. Its main predators are the birds of prey like owls and the leopard. The Giant Squirrel is mostly active in the early hours of the morning and in the evening, resting in the midday. They are typically solitary animals that only come together for breeding. The species is believed to play a substantial role in shaping the ecosystem of its habitat by engaging in seed dispersal. Diet includes fruit, flowers, nuts and tree bark. Some subspecies are omnivorous, also eating insects and bird eggs.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: The Indian giant squirrel lives alone or in pairs. They build large globular nests of twigs and leaves, placing them on thinner branches where large predators can't get to them. These nests become conspicuous in deciduous forests during the dry season. An individual may build several nests in a small area of forest which are used as sleeping quarters, with one being used as a nursery.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: Captive breeding of the Malayan giant squirrel, a close relative has indicated births in March, April, September and December. The young weigh 74.5g at birth and have a length of 27.3 cm. In Canara, the Indian Giant Squirrel has been spotted with young in March.


title: Indian giant squirrel

text: The Indian giant squirrel ("shekaru" in Marathi) is the state animal of the state of Maharashtra in western India.


title: Telephone numbers in South Korea

text: South Korea uses an open dialing plan with a total length (including 0) of 9 to 11 digits and, within city, subscriber numbers 7 to 8 digits long. Dialing from mobile phones to any type of phone except 010 numbers, the area code must be included.


title: Telephone numbers in South Korea

text: In 1998, telephone numbers in Seoul starting with 2 and 6 added more digit (02-2XX-YYYY to 02-22XX-YYYY, 02-6XX-YYYY to 02-26XX-YYYY). Before area codes were shortened from 4 digit to 2~3 digit in June 2000, there were 1 digit exchange number (usually "2") with some 2 digit exchange numbers so some phone numbers like 0347-61-XXXX, 0443-2-XXXX or 0525-40-XXXX existed. (now 031-761-XXXX, 043-652-XXXX and 055-340-XXXX)


title: Telephone numbers in South Korea

text: These prefixes are needed only when you want to choose a different carrier other than your default long-distance carrier (usually the same company that provides your phoneline).


title: Ravi Tandon

text: Ravi Tandon (17 February 1935 – 11 February 2022) was an Indian film director and producer. He also worked as an assistant director and story writer. He is the father of actress Raveena Tandon.


title: Ravi Tandon

text: Ravi Tandon directed a number of hit movies, the most popular among these are "Khel Khel Mein", "Anhonee", "Nazrana", "Majboor", "Khud-daar", "Zindagi". Ravi Tandon was born in a Punjabi family in Agra. Tandon and his wife Veena had a son Rajeev, a producer and director who made the television series "Heena", and a daughter, film actress Raveena Tandon. His directorial venture "Nazrana" with Rajesh Khanna in the lead was the 5th highest grosser of the year in 1987. He died of respiratory failure at his residence in Mumbai on 11 February 2022, at the age of 86, just six days before his 87th birthday. He had pulmonary fibrosis in the last few years of his life.