title: Squatting position

text: A partial squatting position (or "hovering") while urinating is often done to avoid sitting on a potentially contaminated toilet seat, but it may leave urine behind in the bladder and it is not good for the pelvic floor.


title: Squatting position

text: There is increased incidence of knee osteoarthritis among squatters who squat for hours a day for many years. There is evidence that sustained squatting may cause bilateral peroneal nerve palsy. A common name for this affliction is squatter's palsy although there may be reasons other than squatting for this to occur. For richer societies who rarely squat, squatting as a different posture may bring health benefits.


title: Squatting position

text: Toddlers and older children with the congenital heart disease tetralogy of Fallot will often instinctively squat during a "tet spell" (an episode involving a sudden development of blue skin, caused by a drop of oxygen in the blood), allowing more blood to flow to the lungs. Squatting increases systemic vascular resistance and allows for a temporary reversal of the shunt. It increases pressure on the left side of the heart, decreasing the right to left shunt thus decreasing the amount of deoxygenated blood entering the systemic circulation.


title: Squatting position

text: "Upaveśāsana" (literally "sitting down pose"), also known as "Mālāsana" meaning "garland pose," or simply the "yoga squat", is an asana.


title: Squatting position

text: The āsana is a squat with heels flat on the floor and hip-width apart (or slightly wider if necessary), toes pointing out on a diagonal. The torso is brought forward between the thighs, elbows are braced against the inside of the knees, and the hands press together in front of the chest in Añjali Mudrā.


title: Squatting position

text: The existence of squatting facets on the distal tibia and talar articular surfaces of skeletons, which result from contact between the two bones during hyperdorsiflexion, have been used as markers to indicate if that person habitually squatted.


title: Wendee Lee

text: Lee studied dance and theater and later became a full-time dancer in her teens. According to her interview on the "Magic Knight Rayearth" DVDs, she started doing voices at school and got in trouble for it. Her first anime voice role was in Harmony Gold production "Robotech" in the 1980s, where she voiced Vanessa Leeds, one of the operators aboard the SDF-1 Macross. She also worked with Streamline on several anime productions including "Dragon Ball". She would continue dance and work part-time as a make-up artist, choreography and dance instruction.


title: Wendee Lee

text: Lee's major voice roles in anime include Kei in the Pioneer dub of "Akira", Faye Valentine on "Cowboy Bebop", Myōjin Yahiko in "Rurouni Kenshin", Takeru "T.K." Takaishi on "Digimon Adventure", Haruhi Suzumiya on "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" and Konata Izumi on "Lucky Star". She has also worked as an ADR director on "Bleach", "Love Hina" and "Outlaw Star" and a casting director on "The Night B4 Christmas". In 2014-2015, she voiced Queen Serenity in the Viz Media re-dub of the classic "Sailor Moon" series and the new "Sailor Moon Crystal" series.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Soul Food is a 1997 American comedy-drama film produced by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Tracey Edmonds and Robert Teitel and released by Fox 2000 Pictures. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film stars Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox, Nia Long, Michael Beach, Mekhi Phifer, Jeffrey D. Sams, Irma P. Hall, Gina Ravera and Brandon Hammond. Written and directed by George Tillman Jr. in his major studio debut, the film centers on the trials of an extended African-American family, held together by longstanding family traditions which begin to fade as serious problems take center stage.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Tillman based the family in the film on his own and "Soul Food" was widely acclaimed for presenting a more positive image of African-Americans than is typically seen in Hollywood films. In 2000, Showtime premiered a one-hour television series based upon the film. In 2015, it was announced that 20th Century Fox is planning a sequel for film called "More Soul Food", written by Tillman.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: "Soul Food," told through the eyes of 11-year-old Ahmad (Hammond), follows the trials of the Joseph family, a close-knit Chicago family that gets together to have Sunday dinner every week, with plenty of soul food to go around. Mother (Big Mama) Joe (Hall) has three daughters, who each have had varying success in life: oldest daughter Teri (Williams) has become a successful lawyer, but has a strained relationship with younger sister Maxine (Fox), Ahmad's mother, who stole and eventually married Teri's former boyfriend, Kenny (Sams). Teri is currently married to Miles (Beach), a lawyer who quits his job to pursue his dream of being an R&B musician, which Teri doesn't support. Youngest daughter Robin (Long)—nicknamed "Bird"—has just opened a barbershop/beauty parlor, and married Lem (Phifer), an ex-convict.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Life becomes complicated when Mother Joe, the diabetic but wise and caring matriarch of the family and the glue that holds it together, suffers a debilitating stroke during an operation to amputate her leg and slips into a coma, dying shortly after sharing a last word of advice with Ahmad when she awakens five weeks later. Without her guidance, the family begins to fall apart in the interim. Teri takes in her troubled cousin Faith (Ravera), who bonds with Miles over a love of the arts. The two have an affair and are caught having sex by Teri, which later leads to a near-violent confrontation at Kenny and Maxine's anniversary party when she furiously comes after the two with a knife. Meanwhile, Lem cannot find a job due to his criminal record, so Bird makes an uneasy deal with her former boyfriend Simuel St. James (Mel Jackson) to get Lem a job. This creates tension between Lem and Bird when he finds out, and in one of their arguments, Teri overhears and mistakenly believes Lem was physically threatening her sister. Teri hires her cousin Blimp to teach Lem a lesson, but when the two men fight, which ends with Lem pulling a gun, the police become involved and Lem is arrested on assault and illegal gun possession charges.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Realizing her mistake, Teri calls in a few favors to have Lem released and later apologizes to him. Kenny and Maxine refuse to live within their means and constantly borrow money from Teri without paying it back, which causes even more tension between the sisters; the fighting between Teri and Maxine soon causes the Sunday dinners to stop and the Joseph family tradition to be broken after forty years due to the ongoing tensions. Everything comes to a head when, after Teri decides to sell the Joseph family home rather than get stuck with most of her mother's hospital bills, Maxine and Bird file an injunction to stop the sale, setting the stage for a major legal battle within the family. Throughout all this, Ahmad becomes worried about the state of his extended family and, following Big Mama's passing, conspires to find a way to bring them all back together.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Ahmad tells his relatives about a stash of money that Big Mama had hidden away some time ago but everyone dismisses him, believing it to be a myth. However, Ahmad manages to get everyone together for another Sunday dinner by promising them the whereabouts of the money. The dinner is uneasy as everyone starts confronting their issues, and eventually they come to realize there is no money. Maxine chastises her son for lying, but Ahmad says tearfully that it was the only way to get everyone back together again, citing it as Big Mama's dying wish. As Maxine comforts her son, the kitchen accidentally catches on fire, and they all work together to try and to put it out. Just as they finish putting the fire out, Uncle Pete, Big Mama's brother, comes down with his television and drops it to reveal the money that Big Mama had hidden away.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Things start to go well for the family. Miles still comes by for Sunday dinner even though he and Teri are divorcing; Lem and Bird are expecting their first child, Teri and Maxine have made peace and the former opts to not sell the family house. Faith is finally becoming part of the family again and Uncle Pete, who never came out of his room, starts to join the family.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Halle Berry and Whitney Houston were both considered for the role of Teri. Regina King, Kenya Moore and Jada Pinkett Smith were all considered for the role of Bird. Vivica A. Fox auditioned for the role of Teri, but landed the role of Maxine instead. The character Miles (Michael Beach) plays keyboards in an R&B group called "Milestone"; the vocalists of the group are portrayed by two sibling teams of professional R&B performers: brothers K-Ci and Jo-Jo Hailey (of Jodeci and K-Ci & JoJo); and Babyface and his brothers Kevon Edmonds and Melvin Edmonds (both of After 7).


title: Soul Food (film)

text: "Soul Food" was shot primarily on location in the Chicago area. A later Tillman-produced film, "Barbershop," would also take place in and be shot on location in Chicago.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: A soundtrack containing R&B and hip-hop was released on August 19, 1997 by LaFace Records. It peaked at #3 on the "Billboard" 200 and was eventually certified 2x Multi-Platinum for over 2 million copies sold.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: "Soul Food" received generally positive reviews from critics. It holds an 82% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 44 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "Much like its titular cuisine, "Soul Food" blends a series of savory ingredients to offer warm, generous helpings of nourishment and comfort". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 68 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Godfrey Cheshire of "Variety magazine" wrote: "Soul Food serves up family melodrama-cum-comedy that's tasty and satisfying, if not particularly profound or original."


title: Soul Food (film)

text: The film earned $43,700,855 during its original theatrical run. The film opened at #3 in its opening weekend at $11,197,897 behind "The Peacemaker's" opening weekend and "In & Out's" second.


title: Soul Food (film)

text: Williams and Fox were nominated for an Image Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture"; Williams won, while Hammond won for "Outstanding Youth Actor/Actress" and Hall won for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture." Phifer and Hall both appeared in HBO's 1999 adaptation of "A Lesson Before Dying," the 1993 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. Hammond, Beach and Sams all appeared in the 1995 film "Waiting to Exhale," where Beach played the father of Hammond. "Soul Food" spawned a follow-up cable television show on the Showtime network. "Soul Food: The Series" aired from 2000-2004 on Showtime and currently airs in reruns on TV One.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Jared Raymond Lorenzen (February 14, 1981 – July 3, 2019) was an American football quarterback and administrator who played in the National Football League (NFL) for four seasons with the New York Giants. He played college football at Kentucky, where he set the school records for passing yards and passing touchdowns, and was signed by the Giants as an undrafted free agent in 2004. At 285 lb (129 kg), Lorenzen was the heaviest quarterback to play in the NFL. He was nicknamed Hefty Lefty because of his weight and being left-handed.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Seeing little playing time in NFL, Lorenzen spent his entire career as a backup, although he was part of the Giants' Super Bowl-winning team in Super Bowl XLII. Following a preseason stint with the Indianapolis Colts, Lorenzen played indoor football for the AF2, Ultimate Indoor Football League (UIFL), and Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL) from 2009 to 2014. He also served as the commissioner of the UIFL in 2012.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen struggled with his weight throughout most of his life, which was exacerbated following a leg injury that ended his playing career. Amid various health complications deriving from his weight, he died in 2019 at the age of 38.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen attended Highlands High School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and was a letterman in football, basketball, and baseball. In basketball, he was a three-year letterman and helped lead his team to Kentucky Sweet 16 appearances. As a junior, he passed for a Northern Kentucky-record 2,759 yards and 37 touchdowns in 13 games. As a senior in 1998, he completed 62 percent of his passes for 3,393 yards, 45 touchdowns and six interceptions. He also rushed for 904 yards (8.4 average per carry) and 15 TDs in leading Highlands to a 15–0 season and No.19 national ranking as a senior, earning him the Mr. Football Award. Five games into his senior season, Lorenzen committed to the University of Kentucky.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: When Lorenzen arrived at the University of Kentucky, he redshirted as a true freshman. As a redshirt freshman, he was named the team's starting quarterback by Wildcats head coach Hal Mumme ahead of returning starter Dusty Bonner. The move caused Bonner to transfer. Lorenzen's career at Kentucky was marked by two head coaching changes; Mumme departed as an investigation into NCAA rules violations brought down his staff and resulted in the program being placed on probation with scholarship limitations. After Lorenzen helped lead the team to a 7–5 record in 2002, head coach Guy Morriss left to become the head coach at Baylor University and was replaced by Rich Brooks, who designed plays in which Lorenzen lined up as a receiver while Shane Boyd played quarterback. Despite all the turmoil, Lorenzen set school records in total offense, passing yards, and passing touchdowns, eclipsing many marks set by 1999 NFL No. 1 overall draft pick Tim Couch.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen was not selected in the 2004 NFL Draft and signed as undrafted free agent with the New York Giants. He declined an offer by coach Tom Coughlin to play in NFL Europe in 2005. Lorenzen was the third string quarterback for 2004 and 2005 for the Giants, behind starter Eli Manning and backup Tim Hasselbeck.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: In the 2006 preseason, Lorenzen led his team to victory by engineering a game-winning drive against the Baltimore Ravens. Following that performance and an impressive training camp he was officially named the Giants' backup quarterback three weeks later.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen made his first appearance on the field in a Giants uniform on December 30, 2006. During this game, he was used for one play, a quarterback sneak to make a first down on a third-and-one.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen made his second appearance on Sunday, January 7, 2007, in the Giants' wild card loss against the Philadelphia Eagles. On the Giants' opening drive, he lined up at quarterback on a third-and-one and got the first down, "shifting the pile" in the process, on the way to a Giants touchdown.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen's first significant regular season appearance occurred on September 9, 2007, when he took over for the injured Manning in the fourth quarter of the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Lorenzen made both his first regular season pass and rush, but failed to earn a first down. He played again the following week, against the Green Bay Packers, completing three passes in five attempts for 21 yards. This proved to be his final appearance in the NFL, as Manning's injury did not cost him any further playing time and Lorenzen did not see further action in the 2007 season. He continued to serve as Manning's backup for the remainder of the season, which concluded with the Giants winning Super Bowl XLII against the then-undefeated New England Patriots and Lorenzen earning a championship ring.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: On July 24, 2008, Lorenzen was signed by the Indianapolis Colts. He played during the preseason, but was waived during the final cuts for the 53-man roster.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: On February 10, 2009, Lorenzen was assigned to the Kentucky Horsemen of the AF2 league. The team went bankrupt and was dissolved in October 2009.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: After the Horsemen folded, Lorenzen retired as a player. On March 23, 2010, he was hired as the quarterbacks coach at his alma mater, Highlands High School, in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: In 2011, Lorenzen returned to professional football, this time working as the general manager of the Northern Kentucky River Monsters of the Ultimate Indoor Football League. Still wanting to compete on the field, Lorenzen resigned as GM to become the team's starting quarterback. Lorenzen had a highly successful season, throwing for 81 touchdowns and winning the league's MVP award.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: After gaining some positive press for his return to football, Lorenzen was named commissioner of the league after the 2011 season.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Still wanting to play, Lorenzen quit the UIFL's top job and signed with the Owensboro Rage of the Continental Indoor Football League partway through the 2013 season. The Rage folded two weeks prior to the end of the season due to lack of funds.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen returned to the River Monsters, by this point a member of the Continental Indoor Football League, on December 17, 2013. In Lorenzen's first game of the season, Lorenzen showed that he still had plenty of skill, side-stepping defenders. Lorenzen's play was filmed and the videos ended up all over the internet, overshadowing the River Monsters' 36–20 victory over the Bluegrass Warhorses. The following week, however, Lorenzen broke his tibia in a 42–30 loss to the Erie Explosion, ending his pro playing career.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen was a guest host of the Lexington-based radio show Kentucky Sports Radio, mainly during UK football season. In 2015, he started a T-shirt company, ThrowboyTees.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: On July 28, 2017, Lorenzen launched "The Jared Lorenzen Project", where he chronicled online his attempts at fighting his obesity, weighing over . By April 2018, Lorenzen had lost over . His story was documented by ESPN in July 2018.


title: Jared Lorenzen

text: Lorenzen died on July 3, 2019, at age 38. from an acute infection, complicated by heart and kidney problems.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred on Saturday, 27 July 2002, when a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 piloted by Volodymyr Toponar (of the Ukrainian Falcons) and co-piloted by Yuriy Yegorov crashed during an aerobatics presentation at Sknyliv airfield near Lviv, Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543, 100 of whom were hospitalized. It is the deadliest air show accident in history.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: More than 10,000 spectators attended the air show, staged to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Ukrainian Air Force's 14th Air Corps. The Su-27 aircraft was flown by two experienced pilots; it entered a rolling maneuver at 12:52 p.m. with a downward trajectory at low altitude. It rolled upright once more and was still descending rapidly when the left wing dropped shortly before it hit the ground, at which point the crew initiated ejection. The aircraft flattened out initially, skidding over the ground towards stationary aircraft and striking a glancing blow against the nose of an Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft, before beginning to explode and cartwheel into the crowd of spectators.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: Both pilots survived with minor injuries, while 77 spectators were killed, including 28 children. Another 100 were hospitalized for head injuries, burns, and bone fractures. Other injuries were less severe and did not require hospitalization. A total of 543 people were injured in the accident.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: Following the disaster, the pilots stated that the flight map which they had received differed from the actual layout. On the cockpit voice recorder, one pilot asks, "And where are our spectators?". Others have suggested that the pilots were slow to react to automated warnings issued by the flight computer.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma publicly blamed the military for the disaster and dismissed the head of the air force, General Viktor Strelnykov. Minister of Defense Volodymyr Shkidchenko offered his resignation, but Kuchma rejected it.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: On 24 June 2005, a military court sentenced pilot Volodymyr Toponar and co-pilot Yuriy Yegorov to fourteen and eight years in prison, respectively. The court found the two pilots and three other military officials guilty of failing to follow orders, negligence, and violating flight rules. Two of the three officials were sentenced to up to six years in prison; the third received up to four years. Toponar was ordered to pay ₴7.2 million (US$1.42 million; €1.18 million) in compensation to the families, and Yegorov ₴2.5 million. The crew's main flight trainer was acquitted for lack of evidence.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: After the verdict was announced, Toponar said that he planned to appeal, insisting that the crash was due to technical problems and a faulty flight plan. Yegorov was released in 2008 after President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree reducing his sentence to three and a half years.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: The pilots were assigned the majority of the blame, which included accusations of attempting maneuvers with which they were not experienced. Toponar had requested an additional training flight at the airfield where the display was to be performed, but the request was denied.


title: Sknyliv air show disaster

text: Near the end of his prison term, Toponar reasserted his innocence in a phone interview. "From the mission briefing it is obvious that the flight area parameters we were given significantly exceeded the safe margin of separation from spectators. What happened is the fault of organizers. Planes must not fly over spectators. During the show, I had to make several advanced maneuvers in a few minutes. During the half-barrel, I noticed decreased thrust of both engines and the airspeed fell. But the cause remains unknown! Ground control ordered us to continue the flight. During the last maneuver—an oblique loop with a turn—the plane became uncontrollable. During the trial they said it was caused by pilot error due to inexperience. I have 27 years in the cockpit with 2000 hours flying time. I was a member of the Ukrainian Falcons… To the last I struggled to lift the plane, [but] copilot Yuriy Yegorov hit the catapult [triggering ejection] and we two ejected with our seats."


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Rogue is a 2020 American action thriller film directed by M. J. Bassett, who wrote the screenplay with her daughter Isabella, and starring Megan Fox and Philip Winchester. It tells the story of a mercenary whose team gets trapped in Africa and must fight to survive against both the local insurgents and a bloodthirsty lioness. The film was released on August 28, 2020.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Within the grasslands of East Africa, a mercenary named Samantha "Sam" O'Hara is leading an operation with a team of multinational mercenaries which includes the loyal Elijah, the outgoing Joey and Bo, the confrontational Mike Barasa, and the Masaai and former jihadist Pata. They are dispatched on a rescue mission to retrieve Asilia Wilson, the teenage daughter of a governor who was abducted for ransom purposes alongside her two schoolmates Chloe and Tessa by Zalaam, the leader of a terrorist cell affiliated with al-Shabaab.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Going against the original plan, Sam decides to free the other two girls as well. Nonetheless, the mission is successful, although the extraction helicopter gets shot down by an RPG. While pursued across the plains by Zalaam's militia, a violent gunfight ensues atop the cliffs in which several mercenaries are killed, forcing the survivors to escape by leaping into the river below, losing most of their equipment and their satphone. After regrouping on the shoreline, Chloe is killed by a crocodile and Sam urges the group to press on in order to reach a way to call their employers to arrange a new extraction.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: While traveling, the team comes across an abandoned game farm that belonged to poachers who specialized in trafficking wild animals for the exotic pet trade and their body parts for traditional medicine. At nightfall, the group find themselves stalked through the ranch by a lone lioness who had slaughtered the previous occupants after escaping from her cage. Elijah is the first to be killed, while Bo is seriously injured. Sam and Joey manage to find and power the farm's generator and call for the extraction, but Barasa is also mauled to death by the lioness while helping them avoid her. The group is told to wait until dawn for a new helicopter. Pata warns them that Zalaam is not going to let Asilia escape that easily because of the power that she represents over her father. Pata also admits his jihadist past, much to Tessa's shock, and recounts how the terrorists murdered his family and children in retaliation after he left the militant group.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Joey is attacked by the lioness, but the arrival of the terrorists scares her away. During the ensuing battle, Sam and Pata manage to kill most of the fighters. Asilia finds the courage to fight back and kills one of them, while Pata confronts Zalaam's second-in-command Masakh, the man who executed his family. With Sam's help, he manages to get his vengeance. Pata is too wounded to keep going and is finished off by the terrorists. Both too injured to fight, Joey and Bo witness the lioness coming back and assaulting Zalaam's men. Bo then dies from his injuries with Joey by his side.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Zalaam captures Tessa, but Sam convinces him to trade her life for Asilia, luring him into the barn where the lioness is waiting. Meanwhile, Joey finds a couple of lion cubs in another building. The lioness mauls Zalaam to death and then turns to face Sam. She spares Sam after hearing the cubs meowing outside. As the dawn breaks, Sam, Joey and the two girls walk towards the helicopter that's coming to extract them as the lions leave.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: A post-script stating that this film is fictional addresses the illegal lion farms and how they must be stopped.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: M. J. Bassett originally wrote the screenplay with her daughter with the intention of it being a small pet project. After the producers read the script, they thought it was more of a star vehicle, and sent the script to Fox's agent, who accepted the next day.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: With physical production being helmed by South African Production Company, Mannequin Pictures, filming took place in December 2019 on a game farm about 40 miles from Johannesburg, South Africa.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: "Rogue" was released in the United States digitally August 28, 2020, and then on Blu-ray and DVD September 1.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: Through its first two weeks of release in the U.S., the film had totaled $878,284 in DVD and Blu-ray sales.


title: Rogue (2020 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of .


title: Birth

text: Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the fetus at a developmental stage when it is ready to feed and breathe.


title: Birth

text: In some species the offspring is precocial and can move around almost immediately after birth but in others it is altricial and completely dependent on parenting.


title: Birth

text: In marsupials, the fetus is born at a very immature stage after a short gestation and develops further in its mother's womb pouch.


title: Birth

text: It is not only mammals that give birth. Some reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates carry their developing young inside them. Some of these are ovoviviparous, with the eggs being hatched inside the mother's body, and others are viviparous, with the embryo developing inside her body, as in the case of mammals.


title: Birth

text: Large mammals, such as primates, cattle, horses, some antelopes, giraffes, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, elephants, seals, whales, dolphins, and porpoises, generally are pregnant with one offspring at a time, although they may have twin or multiple births on occasion.


title: Birth

text: In these large animals, the birth process is similar to that of a human, though in most the offspring is precocial. This means that it is born in a more advanced state than a human baby and is able to stand, walk and run (or swim in the case of an aquatic mammal) shortly after birth.


title: Birth

text: In the case of whales, dolphins and porpoises, the single calf is normally born tail first which minimizes the risk of drowning. The mother encourages the newborn calf to rise to the surface of the water to breathe.


title: Birth

text: Most smaller mammals have multiple births, producing litters of young which may number twelve or more. In these animals, each fetus is surrounded by its own amniotic sac and has a separate placenta. This separates from the wall of the uterus during labor and the fetus works its way towards the birth canal.


title: Birth

text: Large mammals which give birth to twins is much more rare, but it does occur occasionally even for mammals as large as elephants. In April 2018, approximately 8-month old elephant twins were sighted joining their mother's herd in the Tarangire National Park of Tanzania, estimated to have been born in August 2017.


title: Birth

text: Humans usually produce a single offspring at a time. The mother's body is prepared for birth by hormones produced by the pituitary gland, the ovary and the placenta. The total gestation period from fertilization to birth is normally about 38 weeks (birth usually occurring 40 weeks after the last menstrual period). The normal process of childbirth takes several hours and has three stages. The first stage starts with a series of involuntary contractions of the muscular walls of the uterus and gradual dilation of the cervix. The active phase of the first stage starts when the cervix is dilated more than about 4 cm in diameter and is when the contractions become stronger and regular. The head (or the buttocks in a breech birth) of the baby is pushed against the cervix, which gradually dilates until is fully dilated at 10 cm diameter. At some time, the amniotic sac bursts and the amniotic fluid escapes (also known as rupture of membranes or breaking the water). In stage two, starting when the cervix is fully dilated, strong contractions of the uterus and active pushing by the mother expels the baby out through the vagina, which during this stage of labour is called a birth canal as this passage contains a baby, and the baby is born with umbilical cord attached. In stage three, which begins after the birth of the baby, further contractions expel the placenta, amniotic sac, and the remaining portion of the umbilical cord usually within a few minutes.


title: Birth

text: Enormous changes take place in the newborn's circulation to enable breathing in air. In the uterus, the fetus is dependent on circulation of blood through the placenta for sustenance including gaseous exchange and the unborn baby's blood bypasses the lungs by flowing through the foramen ovale, which is a hole in the septum dividing the right atrium and left atrium. After birth the umbilical cord is clamped and cut, the baby starts to breathe air, and blood from the right ventricle starts to flow to the lungs for gaseous exchange and oxygenated blood returns to the left atrium, which is pumped into the left ventricle, and then pumped into the main arterial system. As a result of these changes, the blood pressure in the left atrium exceeds the pressure in the right atrium, and this pressure difference forces the foramen ovale to close separating the left and right sides of the heart. The umbilical vein, umbilical arteries, ductus venosus and ductus arteriosus are not needed for life in air and in time these vessels become ligaments (embryonic remnants).


title: Birth

text: Birthing in cattle is typical of a larger mammal. A cow goes through three stages of labor during normal delivery of a calf. During stage one, the animal seeks a quiet place away from the rest of the herd. Hormone changes cause soft tissues of the birth canal to relax as the mother's body prepares for birth. The contractions of the uterus are not obvious externally, but the cow may be restless. She may appear agitated, alternating between standing and lying down, with her tail slightly raised and her back arched. The fetus is pushed toward the birth canal by each contraction and the cow's cervix gradually begins to dilate. Stage one may last several hours, and ends when the cervix is fully dilated. Stage two can be seen to be underway when there is external protrusion of the amniotic sac through the vulva, closely followed by the appearance of the calf's front hooves and head in a front presentation (or occasionally the calf's tail and rear end in a posterior presentation). During the second stage, the cow will usually lie down on her side to push and the calf progresses through the birth canal. The complete delivery of the calf (or calves in a multiple birth) signifies the end of stage two. The cow scrambles to her feet (if lying down at this stage), turns round and starts vigorously licking the calf. The calf takes its first few breaths and within minutes is struggling to rise to its feet. The third and final stage of labor is the delivery of the placenta, which is usually expelled within a few hours and is often eaten by the normally herbivorous cow.


title: Birth

text: Birth is termed whelping in dogs. Among dogs, as whelping approaches, contractions become more frequent. Labour in the bitch can be divided into 3 stages. The first stage is when the cervix dilates, causing discomfort and restlessness in the bitch. Common signs of this stage are panting, fasting, and/or vomiting. This may last up to 12 hours. Stage two is the passage of the offspring. The amniotic sac looking like a glistening grey balloon, with a puppy inside, is propelled through the vulva. After further contractions, the sac is expelled and the bitch breaks the membranes, releasing clear fluid and exposing the puppy. The mother chews at the umbilical cord and licks the puppy vigorously, which stimulates it to breathe. If the puppy has not taken its first breath within about six minutes, it is likely to die. Further puppies follow in a similar way one by one usually with less straining than the first usually at 15-60-minute intervals. If a pup has not been passed in 2 hours a veterinarian should be contacted. Stage three is the passing of the placentas. This often occurs in conjunction with stage two with the passing of each offspring. The mother will then usually eat the afterbirth. This is an adaption to keep the den clean and prevent its detection by predators.


title: Birth

text: An infant marsupial is born in a very immature state. The gestation period is usually shorter than the intervals between oestrus periods. The first sign that a birth is imminent is the mother cleaning out her pouch. When it is born, the infant is pink, blind, furless and a few centimetres long. It has nostrils in order to breathe and forelegs to cling onto its mother's hairs but its hind legs are undeveloped. It crawls through its mother's fur and makes its way into the pouch. Here it fixes onto a teat which swells inside its mouth. It stays attached to the teat for several months until it is sufficiently developed to emerge. Joeys are born with "oral shields"; in species without pouches or with rudimentary pouches these are more developed than in forms with well-developed pouches, implying a role in maintaining the young attached to the mother's nipple.


title: Birth

text: Many reptiles and the vast majority of invertebrates, most fish, amphibians and all birds are oviparous, that is, they lay eggs with little or no embryonic development taking place within the mother. In aquatic organisms, fertilization is nearly always external with sperm and eggs being liberated into the water (an exception is sharks and rays, which have internal fertilization). Millions of eggs may be produced with no further parental involvement, in the expectation that a small number may survive to become mature individuals. Terrestrial invertebrates may also produce large numbers of eggs, a few of which may avoid predation and carry on the species. Some fish, reptiles, and amphibians have adopted a different strategy and invest their effort in producing a small number of young at a more advanced stage which are more likely to survive to adulthood. Birds care for their young in the nest and provide for their needs after hatching and it is perhaps unsurprising that internal development does not occur in birds, given their need to fly.


title: Birth

text: Ovoviviparity is a mode of reproduction in which embryos develop inside eggs that remain in the mother's body until they are ready to hatch. Ovoviviparous animals are similar to viviparous species in that there is internal fertilization and the young are born in an advanced state, but differ in that there is no placental connection and the unborn young are nourished by egg yolk. The mother's body provides gas exchange (respiration), but that is largely necessary for oviparous animals as well. In many sharks the eggs hatch in the oviduct within the mother's body and the embryos are nourished by the egg's yolk and fluids secreted by glands in the walls of the oviduct. The Lamniforme sharks practice "oophagy", where the first embryos to hatch consume the remaining eggs and sand tiger shark pups cannibalistically consume neighbouring embryos. The requiem sharks maintain a "placental" link to the developing young, this practice is known as viviparity. This is more analogous to mammalian gestation than to that of other fishes. In all these cases, the young are born alive and fully functional. The majority of caecilians are ovoviviparous and give birth to already developed offspring. When the young have finished their yolk sacs they feed on nutrients secreted by cells lining the oviduct and even the cells themselves which they eat with specialist scraping teeth. The Alpine salamander ("Salamandra atra") and several species of Tanzanian toad in the genus "Nectophrynoides" are ovoviviparous, developing through the larval stage inside the mother's oviduct and eventually emerging as fully formed juveniles.


title: Birth

text: A more developed form of viviparity called placental viviparity is adopted by some species of scorpions and cockroaches, certain genera of sharks, snakes and velvet worms. In these, the developing embryo is nourished by some form of placental structure. The earliest known placenta was found recently in a group of extinct fishes called placoderms. A fossil from Australia's Gogo Formation, laid down in the Devonian period, 380 million years ago, was found with an embryo inside it connected by an umbilical cord to a yolk sac. The find confirmed the hypothesis that a sub-group of placoderms, called ptyctodontids, fertilized their eggs internally. Some fishes that fertilize their eggs internally also give birth to live young, as seen here. This discovery moved our knowledge of live birth back 200 million years. The fossil of another genus was found with three embryos in the same position. Placoderms are a sister group of the ancestor of all living jawed fishes (Gnathostomata), including both chondrichthyians, the sharks & rays, and Osteichthyes, the bony fishes.


title: Birth

text: Among lizards, the viviparous lizard "Zootoca vivipara", slow worms and many species of skink are viviparous, giving birth to live young. Some are ovoviviparous but others such as members of the genera "Tiliqua" and "Corucia", give birth to live young that develop internally, deriving their nourishment from a mammal-like placenta attached to the inside of the mother's uterus. In a recently described example, an African species, "Trachylepis ivensi", has developed a purely reptilian placenta directly comparable in structure and function to a mammalian placenta. Vivipary is rare in snakes, but boas and vipers are viviparous, giving birth to live young.


title: Birth

text: The majority of insects lay eggs but a very few give birth to offspring that are miniature versions of the adult. The aphid has a complex life cycle and during the summer months is able to multiply with great rapidity. Its reproduction is typically parthenogenetic and viviparous and females produce unfertilized eggs which they retain within their bodies. The embryos develop within their mothers' ovarioles and the offspring are clones of their mothers. Female nymphs are born which grow rapidly and soon produce more female offspring themselves. In some instances, the newborn nymphs already have developing embryos inside them.


title: American Pekin

text: The Pekin or White Pekin is an American breed of domestic duck, raised primarily for meat. It derives from birds brought to the United States from China in the nineteenth century, and is now bred in many parts of the world. It is often known as the American Pekin to distinguish it from the German Pekin, a distinct and separate breed which derives from the same Chinese stock but has different breeding. Many of these ducks were reared on Long Island, New York, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from which the breed derived its name Long Island Duck.


title: American Pekin

text: The mallard was domesticated in China some 3000 years ago, and possibly much earlier. Force-feeding of ducks is documented from the tenth century, under the Five Dynasties. The Chinese were sophisticated breeders of ducks; among several breeds they created was one named "shi-chin-ya-tze", which roughly translates to "ten-pound duck", from which the American Pekin derives.


title: American Pekin

text: In 1872, James E. Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut, loaded fifteen white ducks of this type for shipment to a businessman named McGrath in the United States. The birds were loaded at Shanghai but had been hatched in Peking (now called Beijing). Nine of them – six hens and three drakes – survived the voyage, which took 124 days and reached New York City on 13 March 1873. Five of the surviving birds were dispatched to McGrath but were eaten before they reached him. Palmer's four birds became the foundation stock of the American Pekin; by July 1873, his three hens had laid more than three hundred eggs.


title: American Pekin

text: In 1874, the Pekin was included in the first edition of the "Standard of Perfection" published by the new American Poultry Association. It was soon in widespread production for slaughter. Until that time, a popular breed raised for meat had been the Cayuga, which had the disadvantage of dark feathering, so that any fluff remaining on the carcass was easily seen; the white-feathered Pekin was preferable.


title: American Pekin

text: Other birds of the same type were imported to the United Kingdom in 1872 and from there soon reached Germany, where they gave rise to the German Pekin, a distinct and separate breed. In Germany, the Chinese ducks were cross-bred with upright white ducks brought from Japan by Dutch ships, resulting in birds with a steep body angle; those taken to the United States were crossed with birds of the British Aylesbury breed, which led to birds with a more horizontal stance. The Pekin in the United Kingdom derives from birds imported from Germany from about 1970.


title: American Pekin

text: The American Pekin is large and solidly built. The body is rectangular as seen from the side and is held at about 40º to the horizontal; the tail projects above the line of the back. The breast is smooth and broad and does not show a pronounced keel. The head is large and rounded, and the neck is thick. The plumage is creamy white, the legs and feet are a yellowish orange. The beak is yellow, fairly short, and almost straight.


title: American Pekin

text: The American Pekin is raised almost exclusively for meat. In the United States, more than half of all ducks raised for slaughter are of this breed. Numbers in the United States alone are in the tens of millions. The birds are large-framed, hardy and fast-growing – they may reach a body-weight of more than in seven weeks. They have a high feed conversion ratio, are calm-tempered and fertile, and their eggs have a high rate of hatchability. The white feathers make the carcass easy to clean after being plucked.


title: American Pekin

text: A number of commercial strains have been developed, including types kept solely as layers. From the time the birds reached the United States, selective breeding of meat birds was mainly directed towards size, strength and rate of growth. More recently, attempts have been made to reduce the proportion of fat in the carcass, even if growth rate and feed conversion ratio are also reduced.


title: American Pekin

text: Pekin ducks may lay over 150 white eggs per year. They are not good sitters, and eggs may need to be artificially incubated.


title: American Pekin

text: The American Pekin is sometimes kept for fancy and showing. Show birds are often larger than commercial production stock.


title: Supper

text: Supper was originally a secondary lighter evening meal. The main meal of the day, called dinner, used to be served closer to what is known as lunchtime, around the middle of the day, but crept later over the centuries, mostly over the course of the 19th century. When dinner was still at the early time, eating a lighter supper in the evening was very common; it was not always the last meal of the day, as there might be a tea later. Reflecting the typical custom of 17th century elites, Louis XIV dined at noon, with a supper at 10p.m. Even when dinner was in the early evening, supper was served at a ball, or after returning from it, and might be after other evening excursions. At an English ball in 1791, supper was served to 140 guests at 1:00 a.m. They would all have had dinner at home many hours earlier, before coming out. Other, grander, balls served supper even later, up to 3:30 a.m., at a London ball given in 1811 by the Duchess of Bedford.


title: Supper

text: The modern usage of "supper" varies considerably; sometimes supper is still used to describe a light snack or meal in the evening, either after or instead of dinner, but often it replaces dinner as the term for the main evening meal.


title: Supper

text: The term is derived from the French "souper", which is used for this meal in Canadian French, Swiss French, and in Belgian French. It is related to soup. It is also related to the Scandinavian words for soup, "soppa" or "suppe" and the German word for soup, "Suppe". The "Oxford English Dictionary", however, suggests that the root, sup, remains obscure in origin.


title: Supper

text: In modern usage, "supper" may refer to, on largely class-based distinctions, either a late-evening snack (working- and middle-class usage) or else to make a distinction between "supper" as an informal family meal (which would be eaten in the kitchen or family dining room) as opposed to "dinner", especially as a "dinner party", a generally grander affair with guests from outside the household, which would be eaten in the best dining room.


title: Supper

text: The distinction between dinner and supper was common in North American farming communities into the twentieth century, especially in the Mid-West and the American South, though today, most Americans consider the two synonyms and strongly prefer the term dinner for the evening meal. During World War II, rations in the U.S. military were still divided into breakfast, dinner, and supper, using the traditional designations for meals. In most parts of the United States and Canada today, "supper" and "dinner" are considered synonyms (although supper is a more antiquated term). In Saskatchewan, and much of Atlantic Canada, "supper" means the main meal of the day, usually served in the late afternoon, while "dinner" is served around noon. "Dinner" is used in some areas, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, to describe the noon meal as well as special meals, such as "Thanksgiving dinner", "Flipper dinner" or "Christmas dinner", the evening meal being "supper". The word "supper" is also regionally reserved for harvest meals put on by churches and other community organizations: "fowl suppers" or "fall suppers" (featuring turkey) are common in Canada; "pancake suppers" given by church groups were once a tradition in the United States; and "bean suppers" (featuring baked beans) were traditional in New England and especially the state of Maine.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Hellraiser: Hellworld (also known as Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld) is a 2005 supernatural horror film directed by Rick Bota. It is the eighth installment in "Hellraiser" series. The "Hellworld" script is based on a short story called "Dark Can't Breathe" by Joel Soisson and was originally not planned as a "Hellraiser" film - it was reworked into that format. "Hellraiser: Hellworld" was released straight to DVD in the United States on September 6, 2005, after a handful of minor film festival and private screenings.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: The film stars Lance Henriksen in the role of the Host. Henriksen had originally been approached to play the role of Frank Cotton in the first film in the series, "Hellraiser". Henriksen turned the offer down in favor of a starring role in the vampire thriller "Near Dark" (1987). His role as the Host in "Hellworld" remains his only appearance in the series to date.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: A group of young people are addicted to playing an online computer game called "Hellworld" which is based on the "Hellraiser" series. Adam was so obsessed with the game that he ultimately committed suicide after becoming too immersed in it. At the funeral, the remaining five friends blame themselves for not having prevented Adam's suicide.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Two years later, they attend a private Hellworld Party at an old mansion after receiving invites through the game. Mike, Derrick and Allison are enthusiastic about the party, while Chelsea reluctantly accompanies them. Jake, who is still very much distressed by Adam's death, only agrees to show up after a female Hellworld player with whom he has struck up an online friendship asks him to attend so they can meet. The quintet are cordially welcomed by the middle-aged party host, who offers them drinks, shows them around the mansion (allegedly a former convent and asylum also built by Philip Lemarchand), and provides them with cell phones to communicate with other guests.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: As the party progresses, Allison, Derrick and Mike find themselves trapped in separate parts of the house, and are gruesomely killed by the Host, Pinhead, and the Cenobite minions Chatterer and Bound. Jake and Chelsea become mysteriously invisible to other party guests, and are stalked by the Host and the Cenobites.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Holing herself up in the attic, Chelsea finds items belonging to Adam, and discovers that the host is his father, who blames his son's friends for not helping break his addiction. Chelsea and Jake try to flee, only to discover that they have been buried alive and are receiving messages from the host via cell phones in their respective caskets. The Host informs them that they are just coming out of a hallucination induced by a powerful psychedelic to which he exposed them upon their arrival, and that the events they have been experiencing have been the result of hypnotic suggestion and their own guilty consciences. Before leaving, he lets Chelsea know that Allison, Derrick, and Mike have all perished in their respective caskets, and that only she and Jake remain alive. As Chelsea begins to slip into another hallucination, she is abruptly pulled above ground by police and paramedics, and reunites with Jake as he is being taken into an ambulance. The police and paramedics say they were tipped off by a phone call from Chelsea's telephone. Chelsea does not know who could have called them, but as she looks towards the house, she sees Adam standing in the window.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Later, the Host sits in a bedroom, going through a suitcase containing Adam's possessions. He finds and opens the actual Lament Configuration, which summons the real cenobites. Pinhead praises Adam's ingenuity and mocks the Host's disbelief before the Chatterer and Bound cenobites tear him to pieces.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Jake and Chelsea are shown driving into the sunrise, when they receive a mysterious phone call from the Host, who suddenly appears in the back seat. The two almost crash the car but are able to stop it, and the Host disappears. The last scene shows the police entering the bedroom in which the Host opened the box, the walls blood-smeared and the box lying on the floor.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: The film originated due to the necessity of filming an eighth "Hellraiser" film alongside "" as a contractual stipulation for filming in Romania. The screenplay was based on the short story "Dark Can't Breathe" by Joel Soisson, which Carl V. Dupre would adapt into a screenplay set within the "Hellraiser" series, originally entitled "Hellraiser: Deadworld". Many of the cast members, including Khary Payton and Lance Henriksen, were hired by chance after they had completed filming projects in Romania such as "" for Payton and "" for Henriksen.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: The film was released on DVD on September 6, 2005. The film debuted on the Blu-ray format for the first time on July 19, 2011 by Echo Bridge Entertainment.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: The film received a negative response from critics. Based on 6 reviews, it received a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 4.10 out of 10.


title: Hellraiser: Hellworld

text: Tim O'Neill for "PopMatters" found the film acceptable as a horror film, but a poor sequel, saying "while "Hellworld" is a pretty good generic horror movie, it is an abysmal "Hellraiser" film". "JoBlo.com" gave the film a positive review giving it a 7/10 and saying: "Overall, this flick was a F*cking-A good time!"


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: Robert Anthony Salvatore (born January 20, 1959) is an American author best known for "The Legend of Drizzt", a series of fantasy novels set in the Forgotten Realms and starring the popular character Drizzt Do'Urden. He has also written "The DemonWars Saga", a series of high fantasy novels; several other Forgotten Realms novels; and "Vector Prime", the first novel in the "Star Wars: The New Jedi Order" series. He has sold more than 15 million copies of his books in the United States alone and twenty-two of his titles have been "New York Times" best-sellers.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: Salvatore was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, the youngest of a family of seven. A graduate of Leominster High School, Salvatore has credited his high school English teacher with being instrumental in his development as a writer. During his time at Fitchburg State College, he became interested in fantasy after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", given to him as a Christmas gift. He developed an interest in fantasy and other literature, promptly changing his major from computer science to journalism. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications/Media from Fitchburg. He earned this degree in 1981 and later a Bachelor of Arts in English. Before taking up writing full-time, he worked as a bouncer. He attributes his fierce and vividly described battle scenes to his experience as a bouncer.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In the fall of 1997, his letters, manuscripts, and other professional papers were donated to the R. A. Salvatore collection at his alma mater, Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In 1982, he started writing more seriously, developing a manuscript he titled "Echoes of the Fourth Magic" about a submarine sucked into a post-apocalyptic future that resembled a fantasy world. He created the setting of Ynis Aielle for the novel, writing it in longhand by candlelight. Salvatore sent the work to several publishers from 1983 to 1987, including TSR, Inc.. Mary Kirchoff, then working for TSR's book department in reviewing the slush pile of unsolicited submissions, didn't like the story that much, but did like Salvatore's writing. TSR was then looking for an author to write the second book in the "Forgotten Realms" line and asked Salvatore to audition. In July 1987, Salvatore won the spot to write the book. Much of the "Realms" setting was then undeveloped and waiting to be fleshed out, giving Salvatore a relatively free hand. He wrote his first published novel "The Crystal Shard" in just two months, and it was published by TSR in 1988. Salvatore's "Icewind Dale" trilogy ("The Crystal Shard", "Streams of Silver", and "The Halfling's Gem") was a huge hit, with over 1.5 million copies sold of the first two novels, and the third book hitting "The New York Times" list of paperback bestsellers. Salvatore's first novel published in hardcover was another Drizzt book, "The Legacy" (1992). "The Legacy" placed in the number 9 slot of "The New York Times" list of bestsellers in September 1992. In 1994, Salvatore branched out beyond working for TSR, and signed a three-book deal with Warner Books for what would become The Crimson Shadow series. Salvatore and TSR engaged in a dispute afterward. TSR's managing editor of the fiction department, Brian Thomsen, wanted Salvatore to write six additional novels when renewing the contract, rather than the three novels that Salvatore offered. Salvatore, who had just agreed to write 3 novels for Warner and had written 14 novels in the prior 6 years, was unwilling to overcommit himself to write so many novels in such a short span of time at the rate TSR offered; he would have to write three novels a year to honor all his obligations to TSR and Warner had he taken TSR's contract as written. Thomsen suggested that Salvatore find a ghostwriter, a suggestion that Salvatore found distasteful. Negotiations ultimately fell through; TSR was unwilling to budge on their demands, and was unwilling to put the Drizzt brand on hold while Salvatore finished books for other publishers. They also possibly believed that the "brand" was more valuable than any one specific author, as Thomsen said he would find another author to write Drizzt (as TSR owned the rights to the Forgotten Realms and all its characters). Salvatore, for his part, felt bullied by the company whom he had contributed such a valuable property, and signed a three-novel deal with Del Rey instead for what would become "The DemonWars Saga". Salvatore's last Drizzt novel for some time was "Passage to Dawn" in 1996, finishing up his previous contract. Salvatore publicly stated that if TSR assigned another author to write Drizzt, he'd never write Drizzt again, and would assume that Drizzt died. The management at TSR followed through their threat and chose a new author to write stories about Drizzt; Mark Anthony completed the Drizzt novel "The Shores of Dusk". However, Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR in 1997, and one of their first actions was to fire Thomsen and attempt to mend broken bonds with TSR's authors. Wizards decided to shelve Anthony's novel and not publish it, and to lure Salvatore back. The result was Salvatore returning to the Drizzt series with "The Silent Blade" (1998). "The Silent Blade" won the Origins Award that year. Salvatore went on to publish several more series of books in the "Forgotten Realms" campaign world.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In 1999, Salvatore was tasked with writing "Vector Prime", the first novel in the "Star Wars: The New Jedi Order" series. "Vector Prime" was controversial among "Star Wars" fans because its plot included the death of Chewbacca the Wookiee, who became the first major character from the original trilogy to be permanently killed off in the "Star Wars" expanded universe novels. Many fans thought that Salvatore himself had made this decision; however, the decision to kill Chewbecca did not come from Salvatore. Lucasfilm and the editors at Del Rey had decided they needed to kill a character to sell the new threat of the Yuuzhan Vong; the editors wanted to kill Luke Skywalker, but were refused permission by Lucasfilm. Randy Stradley, then an editor at Dark Horse Comics, suggested killing Chewbacca, and the decision came down that he would die in the novel. Much later, after Disney bought the rights to "Star Wars" in 2012, Disney declared in 2014 that all Expanded Universe works released before 2014 were non-canon. The killing off of Chewbacca in "Vector Prime" was cited as a major reason why they revoked the canonical status of so many works.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In February 2008, Devil's Due Publishing published "Spooks", a comic book about a U.S. government anti-paranormal investigator/task force created by Larry Hama and Salvatore. Hama created the military characters and plots, and Salvatore covered the monster characters.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In addition to his novels, Salvatore has written for video games. He wrote the story for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC video game "" (2004), working with the design team at Stormfront Studios. The game was published by Atari and was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and BAFTA. CDS books commissioned him to edit a four book series based on the interactive online "EverQuest" game. He also wrote the bot chat lines for the "Quake III" bots.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: Salvatore was hired as creative director for the newly created game developer 38 Studios, owned by former baseball player Curt Schilling. He wrote the dialogue and created a backstory spanning ten thousand years for the fantasy game "", which was released in February 2012, and sold over one million units. However, three months later 38 Studios declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. The company laid off its entire staff, including Salvatore, with the $2 million fee for his services having never been paid. Salvatore claimed he harbored no ill will toward Schilling in a 2014 interview with "The Escapist". "Why would I sue Curt [for the $2 million]? Maybe he made a couple of bad business decisions ... [but] he didn't do anything nefarious, and he got wiped out. He's lying in the gutter and you want me to kick him in the head? Why would anyone do that?"


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: In 2010, Wizards of the Coast announced a new deal with Salvatore to write six more books featuring Drizzt the dark elf; the books were released between 2011 and 2016.


title: R. A. Salvatore

text: Salvatore's most famous and popular character is Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow, or dark elf, portrayed against the stereotypes of his race, who defies a nation of evil enemies with his swordsmanship and courage. He abandons the Underdark, a barren land of unmarked and limitless tunnels where deadly creatures continually lurk. His journey for freedom leads him to the surface where he faces discrimination at every turn because of his dark heritage. Drizzt stumbles along in a harsh world until he finally comes upon friends who understand the kindness of his heart. Together, they fight for justice against sinister enemies who dare to disrupt the peace of Drizzt's newfound homeland.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) was an East Asian proto-state in China, proclaimed on 7 November 1931 by Chinese communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De in the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. The discontiguous territories of the CSR included 18 provinces and 4 counties under the communists' control. The CSR's government was located in its largest component territory, the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet (alternatively romanised as the Kiangsi–Fukien Soviet). Due to the importance of the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet in the CSR's early history, the names Jiangxi Soviet and Kiangsi Soviet are sometimes used to refer to the CSR as a whole. Other component territories of the CSR included the Northeastern Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi, Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi, Hunan-Western Hubei, Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou, Shaanxi-Gansu, Szechuan-Shensi, Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Haifeng-Lufeng Soviets.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: Mao Zedong was both CSR state chairman and prime minister; he led the state and its government. Mao's tenure as head of a "small state within a state" gave him experience in mobile warfare and peasant organization; this experience helped him accomplish the Communist reunification of China during the late 1940s.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The CSR was eventually destroyed by the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in a series of 1934 encirclement campaigns. Following the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, the Communists and Kuomintang formed an uneasy "United Front" to resist Japanese pressure, which led to the Communists recognizing at least for the moment Chiang Kai-shek as China's leader and the official dissolution of the Soviet Republic on 22 September 1937 with remnants existing as Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region formed by the leadership of the CSR.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: On 7 November 1931 (the anniversary of the 1917 Russian October Revolution) a National Soviet People's Delegates Conference was held in Ruijin (), Jiangxi province. Ruijin was the national capital, and the Republic had received assistance from the Soviet Union to host the gathering. The Chinese Soviet Republic () was born, although most of China was still controlled by the National Government of the Republic of China; an opening ceremony was held for the new country, and Mao Zedong and other communists attended the military parade. Because the CSR had its own national bank, printed its own money and collected its own taxes, this is considered the beginning of the Two Chinas.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: With Mao Zedong as both head of state (), "Chairman of the Central Executive Committee") and head of government (, "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars"), the CSR gradually expanded. At its peak it covered over —a large part of two provinces (with Tingzhou in Fujian)—and had a population of three million. Its economy was more stable than most of the areas controlled by Chinese warlords. In addition to the militia and guerilla soldiers, the well-armed Chinese Red Army had reached more than 140,000 soldiers by the early 1930s. The Chinese Red Army had modern communications technology (telephones, telegraph and radio, which the warlords' armies lacked), and transmitted wireless coded messages while breaking nationalist codes. At the time, only Chiang Kai-shek's army could match the communist forces.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, felt threatened by the CSR. It induced the Chinese warlords to have the National Revolutionary Army besiege the CSR, launching what Chiang and his fellow nationalists called encirclement campaigns. The communists responded with what they called counter-encirclement campaigns. Chiang Kai-shek's first, second and third encirclement campaigns were defeated by the Chinese Red Army, led by Mao. However, after the third counter-encirclement campaign Mao was replaced by Wang Ming, a Chinese communist returning from the Soviet Union. The Chinese Red Army was commanded by a three-man committee, which included Wang Ming's associates Otto Braun (the Comintern military advisor), Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai. The CSR then began a rapid decline, due to its extreme left-wing governance and incompetent military command. The new leadership could not rid itself of Mao's influence (which continued during the fourth encirclement campaign), which temporarily protected the communists. However, due to the dominance of the new communist leadership after the fourth counter-encirclement campaign, the Red Army was nearly halved. Most of its equipment was lost during Chiang's fifth encirclement campaign; this began in 1933 and was orchestrated by Chiang's German advisers, who advocated encircling the CSR with fortified blockhouses. This was effective; in an effort to break the blockade the Red Army besieged the forts many times, suffering heavy casualties and only limited success. As a result, the CSR shrank significantly due to the Chinese Red Army's manpower and material losses.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The communists appeared doomed when attacked by the nationalists. However, Zhou Enlai had planted more than a dozen moles in Chiang Kai-shek's inner circle, including his general headquarters at Nanchang. One of Zhou's most important agents, Mo Xiong (), was not a communist; however, his contributions saved the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Red Army.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: With recommendations from Chiang Kai-shek's secretary-general Yang Yongtai () (who was unaware of Mo's communist activities), Mo rose in Chiang Kai-shek's regime and became an important member in his general headquarters during the early 1930s. In January 1934, Chiang Kai-shek appointed him administrator and commander-in-chief of the Fourth Special District in northern Jiangxi. Mo used his position to plant more than a dozen communist agents in Chiang's general headquarters, including Liu Yafo () (who introduced the Chinese Communist Party), Xiang Yunian () (his communist handler, whom he hired as his secretary) and Lu Zhiying () (acting head of the spy ring, under the command of Zhou Enlai).


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: After successfully besieging the Ruijin area (the CSR capital) and occupying most of the CSR itself, Chiang was confident that he could defeat the communists in a final decisive strike. In late September 1934 he distributed his top-secret "Iron Bucket Plan" to general headquarters at Lushan (the summer substitute for Nanchang), which detailed the final push to annihilate the communist forces. Chiang planned 30 blockade lines supported by 30 barbed wire fences (most electrified) in a radius around Ruijin to starve the communists. In addition, more than 1,000 trucks were to be mobilized in a rapid-reaction force to prevent a communist breakout. Realizing the certainty of communist annihilation, Mo Xiong () handed the several-kilogram document to Xiang Yunian () the same night—risking his life and those of his family.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: With help from Liu Yafo () and Lu Zhiying (), communist agents copied the intelligence into four dictionaries and Xiang Yunian () was tasked with bringing it to the CSR. The trip was hazardous, since the nationalist forces arrested and executed anyone attempting to cross the blockade. Xiang Yunian () hid in the mountains, knocking out four of his teeth with a rock and causing his face to swell. Disguised as a beggar, he tore off the covers of the four dictionaries and covered them with spoiled food at the bottom of his bag. Crossing several blockade lines, he reached Ruijin on 7 October 1934. The intelligence provided by Mo Xiong () convinced the communists in the CSR to abandon their base and retreat before Chiang could reinforce his blockade lines with barbed-wire fences. They mobilized trucks and troops, saving themselves from annihilation.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: On 1 February 1932, the Chinese Soviet Republic National Bank was established, with Mao Zemin as president. The CSR Central Mint issued three types of currency: a paper bill, a copper coin and a silver dollar.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The Central Mint briefly issued both paper bills and copper coins. Neither circulated for long, primarily because the currency could not be used in the rest of China. The paper bill had "Chinese Soviet Republic National Bank" () printed on the bill in traditional Chinese characters and a picture of Vladimir Lenin.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: Like the paper bill, copper coins issued by the Central Mint also had "Chinese Soviet Republic" () engraved in traditional Chinese. Since coins last longer than paper bills, these coins were issued (and circulated) in a much greater quantity. However, these coins are rarer than the paper bill; copper was needed for ammunition, and these copper coins were recalled and replaced by silver dollars.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The predominant currency produced by the Central Mint was the silver dollar. Unlike the bills and copper coins, the silver dollars had no communist symbols; they were a copy of silver dollars produced by other mints in China (including the popular coin with the head of Yuan Shikai and the eagle silver dollar of the Mexican peso). This, and the fact that the coin was made of silver, enabled them to be circulated in the rest of China; thus, it was the currency of choice.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: When the Chinese Red Army's First Front began its Long March in October 1934, the communist bank was part of the retreating force; fourteen bank employees, over a hundred coolies and a company of soldiers escorted them with the money and mint machinery. An important duty of the bank was, when the Chinese Red Army stayed in a location for longer than a day, to have the local populace exchange communist paper bills and copper coins for currency used in the nationalist-controlled regions to avoid prosecution by the nationalists after the communists left. After the Zunyi Conference it was decided that carrying the entire bank on the march was impractical, and on 29 January 1935, at Tucheng () the bank employees burned all communist paper bills and destroyed the mint machinery. By the end of the Long March in October 1935, only eight of the original fourteen employees were left; the other six had died along the way.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: In November 1931, the National Tax Bureau was founded. In 2002, the original building was renovated for the public.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The Directorate General of Chinese Soviet Posts was founded in Ruijin on 1 May 1932. The first stamps were designed by Huang Yaguang and printed lithographically by the Printing House of the Ministry of Finance in Ruijin. White paper or newspaper was used. They were imperforate, and denominated in the Chinese Soviet silver-dollar currency. They are fairly rare, and sought after by collectors. There are also many forgeries and bogus issues imitating early stamps from the communist areas.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: On 10 October 1934 the three-man communist leadership issued an order to retreat; on 16 October the Chinese Red Army begun what was later known as the Long March, leaving the CSR. Seventeen days after the main communist force left its base, the nationalists realized they had escaped when they reached the abandoned city of Ruijin on 5 November. The original destination was He Long's communist base in Hubei; the final destination (Yan'an) was not chosen until later, after the rise of Mao Zedong. To avoid panic, the goal was kept secret from most people (including Mao Zedong); the public was told that a portion of the Chinese Red Army would be engaged in mobile warfare with the nationalist forces, and this part of the army was renamed the “Field Army”.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: By fall 1934, the communists faced annihilation, and the situation had convinced Mao Zedong and his supporters that the communists should abandon their bases in the CSR. However, the leadership refused to accept the prospect of failure and still hoped to defeat the nationalist forces. The three-man committee devised a diversionary plan and a regrouping after a temporary retreat. After the regrouping a counterattack would be launched with the earlier diversion forces, driving the nationalists out of the CSR.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The first movement of the retreating diversion were led by Fang Zhimin. Fang (and his deputy, Xun Weizhou) were the first to break through Kuomintang lines in June, followed by Xiao Ke in August. These movements surprised the Kuomintang, who were numerically superior to the communists and did not expect an attack on their fortified perimeter. However, Fang Zhimin's force was crushed after its initial success and Xun Weizhou was killed in action. Nearly every commander was wounded and captured alive (including Fang Zhimin), and all were executed by the nationalists. The only exception was Su Yu, who escaped. Xiao Ke fared no better, although his forces initially broke through and reached He Long's communist base in Hubei. Even with their combined forces they could not challenge the nationalist forces, and did not return until the establishment of the People's Republic of China 15 years later.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The failure of the diversionary force resulted in their loss of contact with the CSR. The communist leadership failed to coordinate its next move, still believing that a temporary retreat near (or within) the CSR would allow them to recover and counterattack.


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The portion of the First Front Red Army engaged in mobile warfare was actually the bulk of the communist force making a general retreat, and was much diminished from its peak of more than 140,000 men. With most of its equipment lost, many Chinese Red Army soldiers were forced to arm themselves with ancient weaponry. According to the "Statistical Chart of Field Army Personnel, Weaponry, Ammunition, and Supply' completed by the Chinese Red Army on 8 October 1934 (two days before the Long March began), the Long March forces consisted of:


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The "Statistical Chart of Field Army Personnel, Weaponry, Ammunition, and Supply" (in the "People's Liberation Army Archives") provided weapons and provisions for the Long March. The weapons included:


title: Chinese Soviet Republic

text: The Chinese Soviet Republic continued to exist formally, since the communists still controlled some areas such as the Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Soviet. Bao'an was, for a time, the capital until the communist government was moved to Yan'an. The Chinese Soviet Republic was dissolved on 22 September 1937 when the Chinese Communist Party issued, in the Second United Front, its manifesto on unity with the Kuomintang; the Second Sino-Japanese War was only a few weeks old. The Chinese Communist Party remained in "de facto" control of Yan'an, which was its stronghold for the remainder of the war with Japan.


title: Québécois people

text: Quebecers or Quebeckers (Québécois in French, and sometimes also in English) are people associated with Quebec. The term is most often used in reference to descendants of the French settlers in Quebec but it can also be used to describe people of any ethnicity who live in the province.


title: Québécois people

text: Self-identification as Québécois became dominant starting in the 1960s; prior to this, the francophone people of Quebec mostly identified themselves as French Canadians and as "Canadiens" before anglophones started identifying as Canadians as well. A majority in the House of Commons of Canada in 2006 approved a motion tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which stated that the Québécois are a nation within a united Canada. Harper later elaborated that the motion's definition of Québécois relies on personal decisions to self-identify as Québécois, and therefore is a personal choice. However, Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party which then held the majority of federal seats in Quebec, disputed this view, stating that the Bloc considered the term "Québécois" to include all inhabitants of Quebec and accusing the Conservatives of wishing to ascribe an ethnic meaning to it.


title: Québécois people

text: Québécois (pronounced ); feminine: Québécoise (pronounced ), ' (fem.: '), or (fem.: ) is a word used primarily to refer to a French-speaking inhabitant of the Canadian province of Quebec. Sometimes, it is used more generally to refer to any inhabitant of Quebec. It can refer to French spoken in Quebec. It may also be used, with an upper- or lower-case initial, as an adjective relating to Quebec, or to the French-Canadian culture of Quebec. A resident or native of Quebec is often referred to in English as a Quebecer or Quebecker. In French, Québécois or Québécoise usually refers to any native or resident of Quebec. Its use became more prominent in the 1960s as French Canadians from Quebec increasingly self-identified as Québécois.


title: Québécois people

text: English expressions employing the term may imply specific reference to francophones; such as "Québécois music", "a Québécois rocker" or "Québécois literature".


title: Québécois people

text: The dictionary "Le Petit Robert", published in France, states that the adjective "québécois", in addition to its territorial meaning, may refer specifically to francophone or French Canadian culture in Quebec. The dictionary gives as examples "cinéma québécois" and "littérature québécoise".


title: Québécois people

text: However, an ethnic or linguistic sense is absent from "Le Petit Larousse, also published in France, as well as from French dictionaries published in Canada such as "Le Dictionnaire québécois d'aujourd'hui" and "Le Dictionnaire du français Plus", which indicate instead "Québécois francophone" "francophone Quebecer" in the linguistic sense.


title: Québécois people

text: The online dictionary "Grand dictionnaire terminologique" of the Office québécois de la langue française mentions only a territorial meaning for "Québécois".


title: Québécois people

text: Newspaper editor Lysiane Gagnon has referred to an ethnic sense of the word "Québécois" in both English and French.


title: Québécois people

text: The name "Quebec" comes from a Mi'kmaq word "k'webeq" meaning "where the waters get narrow" and originally referred to the area around Quebec City, where the Saint Lawrence River narrows to a cliff-lined gap. French explorer Samuel de Champlain chose this name in 1608 for the colonial outpost he would use as the administrative seat for the French colony of Canada and New France. The Province of Quebec was first founded as a British colony in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the Treaty of Paris formally transferred the French colony of New France to Britain after the Seven Years' War. Quebec City remained the capital. In 1774, Guy Carleton obtained from the British Government the Quebec Act, which gave Canadiens most of the territory they held before 1763; the right of religion; and their right of language and culture. The British Government did this to in order to keep their loyalty, in the face of a growing menace of independence from the 13 original British colonies.


title: Québécois people

text: As shown by the 2016 Statistics Canada census, 58.3% of residents of Quebec identify their ethnicity as Canadian, 23.5% as French and 0.4% as Acadian. Roughly 2.3% of residents, or 184,005 people, describe their ethnicity as "Québécois".


title: Québécois people

text: The term became more common in English as "Québécois" largely replacing "French Canadian" as an expression of cultural and national identity among French Canadians living in Quebec during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. The predominant French Canadian nationalism and identity of previous generations was based on the protection of the French language, the Roman Catholic Church, and Church-run institutions across Canada and in parts of the United States. In contrast, the modern Québécois identity is secular and based on a social democratic ideal of an active Quebec government promoting the French language and French-speaking culture in the arts, education, and business within the Province of Quebec. Politically, this resulted in a push towards more autonomy for Quebec and an internal debate on Quebec independence and identity that continues to this day. The emphasis on the French language and Quebec autonomy means that French-speakers across Canada now self-identify more specifically with provincial or regional identity-tags, such as "acadienne", or "franco-canadienne", "franco-manitobaine", "franco-ontarienne" or "fransaskoise". Terms such as Franco-Ontarian and Franco-Manitoban are still predominant. Francophones and anglophones use many terms when discussing issues of francophone linguistic and cultural identity in English.


title: Québécois people

text: The political shift towards a new Quebec nationalism in the 1960s led to Québécois increasingly referring to provincial institutions as being national. This was reflected in the change of the provincial "Legislative Assembly" to "National Assembly" in 1968. Nationalism reached an apex the 1970s and 1990s, with contentious constitutional debates resulting in close to half of all of French-speaking Québécois seeking recognition of nation status through tight referendums on Quebec sovereignty in 1980 and 1995. Having lost both referendums, the sovereigntist Parti Québécois government renewed the push for recognition as a nation through symbolic motions that gained the support of all parties in the National Assembly. They affirmed the right to determine the independent status of Quebec. They also renamed the area around Quebec City the "Capitale-Nationale" (national capital) region and renamed provincial parks "Parcs Nationaux" (national parks). In opposition in October 2003, the Parti Québécois tabled a motion that was unanimously adopted in the National Assembly affirming that the Quebec people formed a nation. Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe scheduled a similar motion in the House of Commons for November 23, 2006, that would have recognized "Quebecers as a nation". Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper tabled the "Québécois nation motion" the day before the Bloc Québécois resolution came to a vote. The English version changed the word "Quebecer" to "Québécois" and added "within a united Canada" at the end of the Bloc motion.


title: Québécois people

text: The "Québécois nation" was recognized by the House of Commons of Canada on November 27, 2006. The Prime Minister specified that the motion used the ""cultural"" and ""sociological"" as opposed to the ""legal"" sense of the word ""nation"". According to Harper, the motion was of a symbolic political nature, representing no constitutional change, no recognition of Quebec sovereignty, and no legal change in its political relations within the federation. The Prime Minister has further elaborated, stating that the motion's definition of Québécois relies on personal decisions to self-identify as Québécois, and therefore is a personal choice.


title: Québécois people

text: Despite near-universal support in the House of Commons, several important dissenters criticized the motion. Intergovernmental Affairs minister Michael Chong resigned from his position and abstained from voting, arguing that this motion was too ambiguous and had the potential of recognizing a destructive ethnic nationalism in Canada. Liberals were the most divided on the issue and represented 15 of the 16 votes against the motion. Liberal MP Ken Dryden summarized the view of many of these dissenters, maintaining that it was a game of semantics that cheapened issues of national identity. A survey by Leger Marketing in November 2006 showed that Canadians were deeply divided on this issue. When asked if Québécois are a nation, only 53 per cent of Canadians agreed, 47 per cent disagreed, with 33 per cent strongly disagreeing; 78 per cent of French-speaking Canadians agreed that Québécois are a nation, compared with 38 per cent of English-speaking Canadians. As well, 78 per cent of 1,000 Québécois polled thought that Québécois should be recognized as a nation.


title: Québécois people

text: The Québécois self-identify as an ethnic group in both the English and French versions of the Canadian census and in demographic studies of ethnicity in Canada.


title: Québécois people

text: In the 2016 census, 74,575 chose Québécois as one of multiple responses with 119,985 choosing it as a single response (194,555 as a combined response).


title: Québécois people

text: In the 2001 Census of Canada, 98,670 Canadians, or just over 1% of the population of Quebec identified "Québécois" as their ethnicity, ranking "Québécois" as the 37th most common response. These results were based on a question on residents in each household in Canada: ""To which ethnic or cultural group(s) did this person's ancestors belong?"", along with a list of sample choices ("Québécois" did not appear among the various sample choices). The ethnicity ""Canadien"" or Canadian, did appear as an example on the questionnaire, and was selected by 4.9 million people or 68.2% of the Quebec population.


title: Québécois people

text: other identities. The survey, based on interviews, asked the following questions: ""1) I would now like to ask you about your ethnic ancestry, heritage or background. What were the ethnic or cultural origins of your ancestors? 2) In addition to "Canadian", what were the other ethnic or cultural origins of your ancestors on first coming to North America?"" This survey did not list possible choices of ancestry and permitted multiple answers.


title: Québécois people

text: In census ethnic surveys, French-speaking Canadians identify their ethnicity most often as French, "Canadien", "Québécois", or French Canadian, with the latter three referred to by Jantzen (2005) as "French New World" ancestries because they originate in Canada. Jantzen (2005) distinguishes the English "Canadian", meaning "someone whose family has been in Canada for multiple generations", and the French "Canadien", used to refer to descendants of the original settlers of New France in the 17th and 18th centuries.


title: Québécois people

text: Those reporting "French New World" ancestries overwhelmingly had ancestors that went back at least 4 generations in Canada: specifically, 90% of "Québécois" traced their ancestry back this far. Fourth generation Canadiens and Québécois showed considerable attachment to their ethno-cultural group, with 70% and 61% respectively reporting a strong sense of belonging.


title: Québécois people

text: The generational profile and strength of identity of French New World ancestries contrast with those of British or Canadian ancestries, which represent the largest ethnic identities in Canada. Although deeply rooted Canadians express a deep attachment to their ethnic identity, most English-speaking Canadians of British ancestry generally cannot trace their ancestry as far back in Canada as French-speakers. As a result, their identification with their ethnicity is weaker tending to have a more broad based cultural identification: for example, only 50% of third generation "Canadians" strongly identify as such, bringing down the overall average. The survey report notes that 80% of Canadians whose families had been in Canada for three or more generations reported "Canadian and provincial or regional ethnic identities". These identities include "Québécois" (37% of Quebec population), "Acadian" (6% of Atlantic provinces) and "Newfoundlander" (38% of Newfoundland and Labrador).


title: Merbromin

text: Merbromin (marketed as Mercurochrome, Merbromine, Mercurocol, Sodium mercurescein, Asceptichrome, Supercrome, Brocasept and Cinfacromin) is an organomercuric disodium salt compound used as a topical antiseptic for minor cuts and scrapes and as a biological dye. Readily available in most countries, it is no longer sold in Switzerland, Brazil, France, Iran, Germany, or the United States due to its mercury content.


title: Merbromin

text: Merbromin's best-known use is as a topical antiseptic to treat minor wounds, burns, and scratches. It is also used in the antisepsis of the umbilical cord and the antisepsis of wounds with inhibited scar formation, such as neuropathic ulcers and diabetic foot sores. When applied on a wound, it stains the skin a distinctive carmine red, which can persist through repeated washings. Due to its persistence and to its lethality to bacteria as an antiseptic, Merbromin is useful on infections of the fingernail or toenail.


title: Merbromin

text: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1998 reclassified merbromin from "generally recognized as safe" to "untested," due to a lack of recent studies and updated supporting information. In the United States, its use has thus been superseded by other agents (e.g., povidone iodine, benzalkonium chloride, chloroxylenol).


title: Merbromin

text: Merbromin is synthesized by combining dibromofluorescein with mercuric acetate and sodium hydroxide or alternatively, through action of the mercuric acetate upon (or combining with) sodium dibromofluorescein.  Because of its anionic character, it is chemically incompatible with acids, the majority of alkaloid salts and most local anesthetics.


title: Merbromin

text: Merbromin is sold under the trade name Mercurochrome (where the suffix "- chrome" denotes "color"). The name is also commonly used for over-the-counter antiseptic solutions consisting of merbromin (typically at 2% concentration) dissolved in either ethyl alcohol (tincture) or water (aqueous).


title: Merbromin

text: Its antiseptic qualities were discovered in 1918 by Hugh H. Young, a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The chemical soon became popular among parents and physicians for everyday antiseptic uses, in part because the dye component made it possible to see where the antiseptic had been applied.


title: Merbromin

text: On 19 October 1998, citing potential for mercury poisoning, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reclassified merbromin from "generally recognized as safe" to "untested," effectively halting its distribution within the United States. Sales were subsequently halted in Brazil (2001), Germany (2003), and France (2006). It remains readily available in most other countries.


title: Merbromin

text: Within the United States, products such as Humco Mercuroclear ("Aqueous solution of benzalkonium chloride and lidocaine hydrochloride") play on the brand recognition history of Mercurochrome but substitute other ingredients with similar properties. In Canada, Jean Coutu Group markets a chlorhexidine solution under the name Mercurochrome.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: Looks That Kill is a 2020 American dark romantic comedy written and directed by Kellen Moore. The film stars Brandon Flynn, Julia Goldani Telles, Peter Scolari (In his final film role before his death in 2021) and Ki Hong Lee.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: The story is of sixteen-year-old Max, who has a strange condition: a face so angelic it can be lethal. He is constantly alone until he meets Alex, a girl with her own bizarre ailment who aids him on his quest of self-destruction, without accidentally killing anyone by showing his face.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: Alex suffers from a rare heart disease that causes her heart to grow if she feels any emotion (happiness-anger-sorrow-jealousy), because it can't process them.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: The two meet after he accidentally kills his latest therapist with his face. Max wants to jump off a bridge to kill himself, but Alex talks him out of it by saying, "You jump, I'll jump." He pursues her, and goes back to the bus stop they had used previously.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: They have an adventure of young love, with Alex even taking him to a place she has never showed anyone else; the retirement home she volunteers at. One friend of hers who resides at the home, Esther, is writing a novel of her descent into Alzheimer's.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: Their romance begins to weaken after they crash his best friends school dance, where Alex begins to have some issues. While she’s in the bathroom some bullies tear Max's mask off and kill his best friend's latest girlfriend.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: He gets arrested but is bailed out, and goes to see Alex in the hospital. There he learns there was never actually a chance of her becoming better and the medicine was heartburn medicine. She then asks him to kill her by letting her see his face. He freaks out and leaves, only going back once she is close to dying. He finally lets her see his face, which doesn’t actually kill her. He realizes that unconditional love means his face isn’t lethal, she instead dies of natural causes.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: In March 2018, Brandon Flynn, Julia Goldani Telles and Ki Hong Lee were cast in leads roles in the film, with a directorial debut from Kellen Moore, who also penned the screenplay.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: In April 2020, it was announced Gravitas Ventures had acquired distribution rights to the film, setting a June 19 digital release for the film amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was made available through video on demand platforms, including Amazon and iTunes.


title: Looks That Kill (film)

text: Liz Braun of "AWFJ.org" wrote ""Looks That Kill" begins as a dark comedy, evolves into a romantic teen fable, and suddenly veers off into euthanasia territory. Kind of a tone whiplash situation, but a YA audience will probably find lots to like regardless." Lisa Payne of "RedCarpetCrash.com" said the film had "an interesting premise that didn't really go anywhere". Gwen Ihnat of "The A.V. Club" called it "a quirky take on the teen ailment drama".


title: Phytochemical

text: Phytochemicals are chemical compounds produced by plants, generally to help them resist fungi, bacteria and plant virus infections, and also consumption by insects and other animals. The name comes . Some phytochemicals have been used as poisons and others as traditional medicine.