text: USCIS's mission statement was changed on February 9, 2022. USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou announced the new mission statement. In 2021, USCIS leadership empowered employees to submit words that they felt best illustrated the agency's work. The new mission statement reflects this feedback from the workforce, the priorities of the Biden administration, and Jaddou's vision for an inclusive and accessible agency.


title: Twins in mythology

text: Twins appear in the mythologies of many cultures around the world. In some cultures they are seen as ominous, and in others they are seen as auspicious. Twins in mythology are often cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing a bond deeper than that of ordinary siblings, or seen as fierce rivals. They can be seen as representations of a dualistic worldview. They can represent another aspect of the self, a doppelgänger, or a shadow. However, twins can also reflect a complete opposition of the other, such as the "civilized" Gilgamesh, and the "wild" Enkidu; or in the commonly known instance of good and evil twin identities.


title: Twins in mythology

text: Twins are often depicted with special powers. This applies to both mortal and immortal sets of twins, and often is related to power over the weather. Twins in mythology also often share deep bonds. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux share a bond so strong that when mortal Castor dies, Pollux gives up half of his immortality to be with his brother. Castor and Pollux are the Dioscuri twin brothers. Their mother is Leda, a being who was seduced by Zeus who had taken the form of a swan. Even though the brothers are twins, they have two different fathers. This phenomenon is a very common interpretation of twin births across different mythological cultures. Castor's father is Tyndareus, the king of Sparta (hence the mortal form). Pollux is the son of Zeus (demigod). This brothers were said to be born from an egg along with either sister Helen and Clytemnestra. This etiologically explains why their constellation, the Dioskouroi or Gemini, is only seen during one half of the year, as the twins split their time between the underworld and Mount Olympus. In an aboriginal tale, the same constellation represents the twin lizards who created the plants and animals and saved women from evil spirits. Another example of this strong bond shared between twins is the Ibeji twins from African mythology. Ibeji twins are viewed as one soul shared between two bodies. If one of the twins dies, the parents then create a doll that portrays the body of the deceased child, so the soul of the deceased can remain intact for the living twin. Without the creation of the doll, the living twin is almost destined for death because it is believed to be missing half of its soul. Twins in mythology are often associated with healing. They are also often gifted with the ability of divination or insight into the future.


title: Twins in mythology

text: Divine twins in twin mythology are identical to either one or both place of a god. The Feri gods are not separated entities but are unified into one center. These divine twins can function alone in one body, either functioning as a male or as male and female as they desire. Divine twins represent a polarity in the world. This polarity may be great or small and at times can be opposition. Twins are often seen to be rivals or adversaries.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homosexuality" implies a more permanent state of identity or sexual orientation. It is a much older concept than the 19th-century idea of homosexuality, and is depicted or manifested throughout the history of the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements (e.g., the Wandervogel and Gemeinschaft der Eigenen). According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", it is "pertaining to or characterized by a tendency for erotic emotions to be centered on a person of the same sex; or pertaining to a homo-erotic person."


title: Homoeroticism

text: This is a relatively recent dichotomy that has been studied in the earliest times of ancient poetry to modern drama by modern scholars. Thus, scholars have analyzed the historical context in many homoerotic representations such as classical mythology, Renaissance literature, paintings and vase-paintings of ancient Greece and Ancient Roman pottery.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Though homoeroticism can differ from the interpersonal homoerotic — as a set of artistic and performative traditions, in which such feelings can be embodied in culture and thus expressed into the wider society — some authors have cited the influence of personal experiences in ancient authors such as Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius in their homoerotic poetry.


title: Homoeroticism

text: The term "homoerotic" carries with it the weight of modern classifications of love and desire that may not have existed in previous eras. Homosexuality as known today was not fully codified until the mid-20th century, though this process began much earlier:


title: Homoeroticism

text: Following in the tradition of Michel Foucault, scholars such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and David Halperin have argued that various Victorian public discourses, notably the psychiatric and the legal, fostered a designation or invention of the "homosexual" as a distinct category of individuals, a category solidified by the publications of sexologists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) and Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), sexologists who provided an almost-pathological interpretation of the phenomenon in rather Essentialist terms, an interpretation that led, before 1910, to hundreds of articles on the subject in The Netherlands, Germany, and elsewhere. One result of this burgeoning discourse was that the "homosexual" was often portrayed as a corrupter of the innocent, with a predisposition towards both depravity and paederasty—a necessary portrayal if Late-Victorian and Edwardian sexologists were to account for the continuing existence of the "paederast" in a world that had suddenly become bountiful in "homosexuals." (Kaylor, "Secreted Desires", p. 33)


title: Homoeroticism

text: Despite an ever-changing and evolving set of modern classifications, members of the same sex often formed intimate associations (many of which were erotic as well as emotional) on their own terms, most notably in the "romantic friendships" documented in the letters and papers of 18th- and 19th-century men and women (see Rictor Norton, ed., "My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries", Gay Sunshine Press, 1998). These romantic friendships, which may or may not have included genital sex, were characterized by passionate emotional attachments and what modern thinkers would consider homoerotic overtones.


title: Homoeroticism

text: For Sigmund Freud, "rather than being a matter only for a minority of men who identify as homosexual or gay, homoeroticism is a part of the very formation of all men as human subjects and social actors." Freud's point of view is embedded in his psychoanalytic studies on Narcissism and Oedipus complex.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Thomas Mann published an essay, "Über die Ehe" (On Marriage), written in 1925, where he states that homoeroticism is aesthetic, while heterosexuality is .


title: Homoeroticism

text: Male-male examples, in the visual fine arts, range through history: Ancient Greek vase art; Ancient Roman wine goblets ("The Warren Cup"). Several Italian Renaissance artists are thought to have been homosexual, and homoerotic appreciation of the male body has been identified by critics in works by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. More explicit sexual imagery occurring in the Mannerist and Tenebrist styles of the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in artists such as Agnolo Bronzino, Michel Sweerts, Carlo Saraceni and Caravaggio, whose works were sometimes severely criticized by the Catholic Church.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Many 19th century history paintings of classical characters such as Hyacinth, Ganymede and Narcissus can also be interpreted as homoerotic; the work of 19th-century artists (such as Frédéric Bazille, Hippolyte Flandrin, Théodore Géricault, Thomas Eakins, Eugène Jansson, Henry Scott Tuke, Aubrey Beardsley and Magnus Enckell); through to the modern work of fine artists such as Paul Cadmus and Gilbert & George. Fine art photographers such as Karl Hammer, Wilhelm von Gloeden, David Hockney, Will McBride, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pierre et Gilles, Bernard Faucon, Anthony Goicolea have also made a strong contribution, Mapplethorpe and McBride being notably in breaking down barriers of gallery censorship and braving legal challenges. James Bidgood and Arthur Tress were also important pioneers in the 1960s, radically moving homoerotic photography away from simple documentary and into areas that were more akin to fine art surrealism.


title: Homoeroticism

text: In Asia, male eroticism also has its roots in traditional Japanese "shunga" (erotic art), this tradition influenced contemporary Japanese artists, such as Tamotsu Yatō (photography artist), Sadao Hasegawa (painter) and Gengoroh Tagame (manga artist).


title: Homoeroticism

text: Female-female examples are most historically noticeable in the narrative arts: the lyrics of Sappho; "The Songs of Bilitis"; novels such as those of Christa Winsloe, Colette, Radclyffe Hall, and Jane Rule, and films such as "Mädchen in Uniform". More recently, lesbian homoeroticism has flowered in photography and the writing of authors such as Patrick Califia and Jeanette Winterson.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Female homoerotic art by lesbian artists has often been less culturally prominent than the presentation of lesbian eroticism by non-lesbians and for a primarily non-lesbian audience. In the West, this can be seen as long ago as the 1872 novel "Carmilla", and is also seen in cinema in such popular films as "Emmanuelle", "The Hunger", "Showgirls", and most of all in pornography. In the East, especially Japan, lesbianism is the subject of the manga subgenre yuri.


title: Homoeroticism

text: In many texts in the English-speaking world, lesbians have been presented as intensely sexual but also predatory and dangerous (the characters are often vampires) and the primacy of heterosexuality is usually re-asserted at the story's end. This shows the difference between homoeroticism as a product of the wider culture and homosexual art produced by gay men and women.


title: Homoeroticism

text: The most prominent example in the Western canon is that of the sonnets by William Shakespeare. Though some critics have made assertions, some in efforts to preserve Shakespeare's literary credibility, to its being non-erotic in nature, no critic has disputed that the majority of Shakespeare's sonnets concern explicitly male-male love poetry. The only other Renaissance artist writing in English to do this was the poet Richard Barnfield, who in "The Affectionate Shepherd" and "Cynthia" wrote fairly explicitly homoerotic poetry. Barnfield's poems, furthermore, are now widely accepted as a major influence upon Shakespeare's.


title: Homoeroticism

text: The male-male erotic tradition contains poems by major poets such as Abu Nuwas, Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, Paul Verlaine, W. H. Auden, Fernando Pessoa and Allen Ginsberg.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Elisar von Kupffer's "Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltlitteratur" (1900) and Edward Carpenter's "Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship" (1902) were the first known notable attempts at homoerotic anthologies since "The Greek Anthology". Since then, many anthologies have been published.


title: Homoeroticism

text: In the female-female tradition, there are poets such as Sappho, "Michael Field", and Maureen Duffy. Emily Dickinson addressed a number of poems and letters with homoerotic overtones to her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Letters can also be potent conveyors of homoerotic feelings; the letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, two well-known members of the Bloomsbury Group, are full of homoerotic overtones characterized by this excerpt from Vita's letter to Virginia: "I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia [...] It is incredible to me how essential you have become [...] I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this --But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that." (January 21, 1926)


title: Homoeroticism

text: Although the idea is spread by some Christian circles that non-heteronormative orientation is a "sin," some theologians, sexologists and historians have concluded that the very founder of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, had a non-heteronormative behavioral pattern. Some theological historians claim that Jesus had a homoerotic behavior, including some apostles such as John the Apostle, Simon Peter, etc.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Some speculate that cousin that Jesus, John the Baptist's had a homosocial or homoerotic behavior. In the Gospel of John (3: 22–36), John the Baptist speaks of himself as the “friend of the bridegroom,” implying that the bridegroom of Christ (Matthew 9:15) is coming to meet his bride, though nothing specific to identify the bride. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher, and all the rabbis at that time were married; there is no reference to a possible marriage.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Some theologians and scholars claim that the biblical character Lazarus also had non-heterosexual behavior and other figures such as Jacob, David and Jonathan and other canonized saints such as Francis of Assisi, Saint Sebastian, etc.


title: Homoeroticism

text: Most notable are positive portrayals of homoerotic feelings in relationships, made at feature length and for theatrical exhibition, and made by those who are same-sex oriented. Successful examples would be: "Mädchen in Uniform", Germany (1931); "The Leather Boys", UK (1964); "Scorpio Rising", U.S. (1964); "Death in Venice", Italy (1971); "The Naked Civil Servant", UK (1975); "Sebastiane", UK (1976); "Outrageous!", Canada (1977); "My Beautiful Laundrette", UK (1985); "Maurice", UK (1987); the Talented Mr. Ripley, US (1999); "Summer Vacation 1999", Japan, (1988); "Mulholland Drive", U.S. (2001); "Brokeback Mountain", U.S. (2005); "Black Swan", U.S. (2010); "Carol", UK/U.S. (2015) and most recently "Moonlight" U.S. (2016), and "Call Me by Your Name", U.S./Italy (2017). Also of note is the 1999 feature-length BBC adaptation of "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit".


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is a bacterial disease spread by ticks. It typically begins with a fever and headache, which is followed a few days later with the development of a rash. The rash is generally made up of small spots of bleeding and starts on the wrists and ankles. Other symptoms may include muscle pains and vomiting. Long-term complications following recovery may include hearing loss or loss of part of an arm or leg.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The disease is caused by "Rickettsia rickettsii", a type of bacterium that is primarily spread to humans by American dog ticks, Rocky Mountain wood ticks, and brown dog ticks. Rarely the disease is spread by blood transfusions. Diagnosis in the early stages is difficult. A number of laboratory tests can confirm the diagnosis but treatment should be begun based on symptoms. It is within a group known as spotted fever rickettsiosis, together with "Rickettsia parkeri" rickettsiosis, Pacific Coast tick fever, and rickettsialpox.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Treatment of RMSF is with the antibiotic doxycycline. It works best when started early and is recommended in all age groups, as well as during pregnancy. Antibiotics are not recommended for prevention. Approximately 0.5% of people who are infected die as a result. Before the discovery of tetracycline in the 1940s, more than 10% of those with RMSF died.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Fewer than 5,000 cases are reported a year in the United States, most often in June and July. It has been diagnosed throughout the contiguous United States, Western Canada, and parts of Central and South America. Rocky Mountain spotted fever was first identified in the 1800s in the Rocky Mountains.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Spotted fever can be very difficult to diagnose in its early stages, due to the similarity of symptoms with many different diseases.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: People infected with "R. rickettsii" usually notice symptoms following an incubation period of one to two weeks after a tick bite. The early clinical presentation of Rocky Mountain spotted fever is nonspecific and may resemble a variety of other infectious and noninfectious diseases.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The classic triad of findings for this disease are fever, rash, and history of tick bite. However, this combination is often not identified when patients initially present for care. The rash has a centripetal, or "inward" pattern of spread, meaning it begins at the extremities and courses towards the trunk.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The rash first appears two to five days after the onset of fever, and it is often quite subtle. Younger patients usually develop the rash earlier than older patients. Most often the rash begins as small, flat, pink, nonitchy spots (macules) on the wrists, forearms, and ankles. These spots turn pale when pressure is applied and eventually become raised on the skin. The characteristic red, spotted (petechial) rash of Rocky Mountain spotted fever is usually not seen until the sixth day or later after onset of symptoms, but this type of rash occurs in only 35 to 60% of patients with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The rash involves the palms or soles in as many as 80% of people. However, this distribution may not occur until later on in the course of the disease. As many as 15% of patients may never develop a rash.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: People can develop permanent disabilities including "cognitive deficits, ataxia, hemiparesis, blindness, deafness, or amputation following gangrene".


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Ticks are the natural hosts of the disease, serving as both reservoirs and vectors of "R. rickettsii". Ticks transmit the bacteria primarily by their bites. Less commonly, infections may occur following exposure to crushed tick tissues, fluids, or tick feces.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: A female tick can transmit "R. rickettsii" to her eggs in a process called transovarial transmission. Ticks can also become infected with "R. rickettsii" while feeding on blood from the host in either the larval or nymphal stage. After the tick develops into the next stage, the "R. rickettsii" may be transmitted to the second host during the feeding process. Furthermore, male ticks may transfer "R. rickettsii" to female ticks through body fluids or spermatozoa during the mating process. These types of transmission represent how generations or life stages of infected ticks are maintained. Once infected, the tick can carry the pathogen for life.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Rickettsiae are transmitted through saliva injected while a tick is feeding. Unlike Lyme disease and other tick-borne pathogens that require a prolonged attachment period to establish infection, a person can become infected with "R. rickettsii" in a feeding time as short as 2 hours. In general, about 1-3% of the tick population carries "R. rickettsii", even in areas where the majority of human cases are reported. Therefore, the risk of exposure to a tick carrying "R. rickettsii" is low.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The disease is spread by the American dog tick ("Dermacentor variabilis"), Rocky Mountain wood tick ("D. andersoni)", brown dog tick ("Rhipicephalus sanguineus"), and "Amblyomma sculptum". Not all of these are of equal importance, and most are restricted to certain geographic areas.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The two major vectors of "R. rickettsii" in the United States are the American dog tick and the Rocky Mountain wood tick. American dog ticks are widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains and they also occur in limited areas along the Pacific Coast. Dogs and medium-sized mammals are the preferred hosts of an adult American dog tick, although it feeds readily on other large mammals, including human beings. This tick is the most commonly identified species responsible for transmitting "R. rickettsii" to humans. Rocky Mountain wood ticks ("D. andersoni") are found in the Rocky Mountain states and in southwestern Canada. The lifecycle of this tick may require up to three years for its completion. The adult ticks feed primarily on large mammals. The larvae and nymphs feed on small rodents.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Other tick species have been shown to be naturally infected with "R. rickettsii" or serve as experimental vectors in the laboratory. These species are likely to play only a minor role in the ecology of "R. rickettsii".


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: "Rickettsia rickettsii" can be transmitted to human hosts through the bite of an infected tick. As with other bacterium transmitted via ticks, the process generally requires a period of attachment of 4 to 6 hours. However, in some cases a "Rickettsia rickettsii" infection has been contracted by contact with tick tissues or fluids. Then, the bacteria induce their internalization into host cells via a receptor-mediated invasion mechanism.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Researchers believe that this mechanism is similar to that of "Rickettsia conorii". This species of "Rickettsia" uses an abundant cell surface protein called OmpB to attach to a host cell membrane protein called Ku70. It has previously been reported that Ku70 migrates to the host cell surface in the presence of "Rickettsia". Then, Ku70 is ubiquitinated by c-Cbl, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. This triggers a cascade of signal transduction events resulting in the recruitment of Arp2/3 complex. CDC42, protein tyrosine kinase, phosphoinositide 3-kinase, and Src-family kinases then activate Arp2/3. This causes the alteration of local host cytoskeletal actin at the entry site as part of a zipper mechanism. Then, the bacteria is phagocytosized by the host cell and enveloped by a phagosome.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Studies have suggested that rOmpB is involved in this process of adhesion and invasion. Both rOmpA and rOmpB are members of a family of surface cell antigens (Sca) which are autotransporter proteins; they act as ligands for the Omp proteins and are found throughout the "rickettsiae".


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: The cytosol of the host cell contains nutrients, adenosine triphosphate, amino acids, and nucleotides which are used by the bacteria for growth. For this reason, as well as to avoid phagolysosomal fusion and death, rickettsiae must escape from the phagosome. To escape from the phagosome, the bacteria secrete phospholipase D and hemolysin C. This causes disruption of the phagosomal membrane and allows the bacteria to escape. Following generation time in the cytoplasm of the host cells, the bacteria utilizes actin based motility to move through the cytosol.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: RickA, expressed on the rickettsial surface, activates Arp2/3 and causes actin polymerization. The rickettsiae use the actin to propel themselves throughout the cytosol to the surface of the host cell. This causes the host cell membrane to protrude outward and invaginate the membrane of an adjacent cell. The bacteria are then taken up by the neighboring cell in a double membrane vacuole that the bacteria can subsequently lyse, enabling spread from cell to cell without exposure to the extracellular environment.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: "Rickettsia rickettsii" initially infect blood vessel endothelial cells, but eventually migrate to vital organs such as the brain, skin, and the heart via the blood stream. Bacterial replication in host cells causes endothelial cell proliferation and inflammation, resulting in mononuclear cell infiltration into blood vessels and subsequent red blood cell leakage into surrounding tissues. The characteristic rash observed in Rocky Mountain spotted fever is the direct result of this localized replication of rickettsia in blood vessel endothelial cells.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: This disease can be diagnosed by a doctor with and without the use of lab testing. Lab tests are not always relied upon because treatment may be necessary before the results are returned.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Abnormal laboratory findings seen in patients with Rocky Mountain spotted fever may include a low platelet count, low blood sodium concentration, or elevated liver enzyme levels. Serology testing and skin biopsy are considered to be the best methods of diagnosis. Although immunofluorescent antibody assays are considered some of the best serology tests available, most antibodies that fight against "R. rickettsii" are undetectable on serology tests during the first seven days after infection.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Appropriate antibiotic treatment should be started immediately when there is a suspicion of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Treatment should not be delayed for laboratory confirmation of disease as early initiation of treatment of Rocky Mountain spotted fever is associated with lower mortality. Failure to respond to a tetracycline argues against a diagnosis of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Severely ill people may require longer periods before their fever resolves, especially if they have experienced damage to multiple organ systems. Preventive therapy in healthy people who have had recent tick bites is not recommended and may only delay the onset of disease.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Doxycycline (a tetracycline) is the drug of choice for patients with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. According to the CDC, "Doctors often avoid prescribing doxycycline to young children because of a warning that tooth staining may occur when used in children less than 8 years old. ..Misperceptions about the use of doxycycline for children prevent kids from getting lifesaving treatment" of rickettsial diseases. "Delay in treatment of rickettsial diseases may lead to severe illness or death. Children are five times more likely than adults to die from RMSF." A 2013 study shows that "short courses of…doxycycline can be used in children without causing tooth staining or weakening of tooth enamel." The CDC observed that "clearer language on the drug label may help avoid hesitation in prescribing life-saving doxycycline to children."


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Treatment typically consists of 100 milligrams every 12 hours, or for children under at 4 mg/kg of body weight per day in two divided doses. Treatment should be continued for at least three days after the fever subsides, and until there is unequivocal evidence of clinical improvement. This will be generally for a minimum time of five to ten days. Severe or complicated outbreaks may require longer treatment courses. Chloramphenicol is an alternative drug that can be used to treat Rocky Mountain spotted fever, specifically in pregnancy. However, this drug may be associated with a wide range of side effects, and careful monitoring of blood levels is required.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be a very severe illness and patients often require hospitalization. Because "R. rickettsii" infects the cells lining blood vessels throughout the body, severe manifestations of this disease may involve the respiratory system, central nervous system, gastrointestinal system, or kidneys. Long-term health problems following acute Rocky Mountain spotted fever infection include partial paralysis of the lower extremities, gangrene requiring amputation of fingers, toes, or arms or legs, hearing loss, loss of bowel or bladder control, movement disorders, and language disorders. These complications are most frequent in persons recovering from severe, life-threatening disease, often following lengthy hospitalizations.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: There are between 500 and 2500 cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever reported in the United States per year, and in only about 20% can the tick be found.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Host factors associated with severe or fatal Rocky Mountain spotted fever include advanced age, male sex, African or Caribbean background, long-term excessive alcohol use and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. Deficiency of G6PD is a genetic condition affecting about 12 percent of the Afro-American male population. Deficiency in this enzyme is associated with a high proportion of severe cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. This is a rare clinical complication that is often fatal within five days of the onset of the disease.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: In the early 1940s, outbreaks were described in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Durango, and Coahuila driven by dogs and "Rhipicephalus sanguineus" sensu lato, the brown dog tick. Over the ensuing 100 years case fatality rates were 30%–80%. In 2015, there was an abrupt rise in Sonora cases with 80 fatal cases. From 2003 to 2016, cases increased to 1394 with 247 deaths.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Rocky Mountain spotted fever (or "black measles" because of its characteristic rash) was recognized in the early 1800s, and in the last 10 years of the 1800s (1890–1900) it became very common, especially in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. The disease was originally noted to be concentrated on the west-side of the Bitterroot river. Though it would be decades before scientists discovered the tick as the carrier of the disease, in as early as 1866, Doctor John B. Buker (establishing a practice in Missoula, MT) noticed a tick embedded in the skin of one of his patients. His notes were later studied as part of later research.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: In 1901, Dr. A. F. Longeway was appointed to solve "the black measles problem" in Montana. He in turn enlisted his friend, Dr. Earl Strain to help him. Strain suspected that the illness was from ticks. In 1906, Howard T. Ricketts, a pathologist recruited from the University of Chicago, was the first to establish the identity of the infectious organism (the organism smaller than a bacterium and larger than a virus) that causes this disease. He and others characterized the basic epidemiological features of the disease, including the role of tick vectors. Their studies found that Rocky Mountain spotted fever is caused by "Rickettsia rickettsii", named in Ricketts's honor. Ricketts died of typhus (another rickettsial disease) in Mexico in 1910, shortly after completing his studies on Rocky Mountain spotted fever.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Prior to 1922, Doctors McCray and McClintic both died while doing research on Rocky Mountain spotted fever, as did an aide of Noguchi Hideyo at the Rockefeller Institute.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Research began in 1922 in western Montana, in the Bitterroot Valley around Hamilton, Montana, after the Governor's daughter and his son-in-law died of the fever. However, prior to that, in 1917, Dr. Lumford Fricks introduced herds of sheep into the Bitterroot Valley. His hypothesis was that the sheep would eat the tall grasses where ticks lived and bred. Past Assistant Surgeon R.R. Spencer of the Hygienic Laboratory of the U.S. Public Health Service was ordered to the region, and he led a research team at an abandoned schoolhouse through about 1924. Spencer was assisted by R. R. Parker, Bill Gettinger, Henry Cowan, Henry Greenup, Elmer Greenup, Gene Hughes, Salsbury, Kerlee, and others, of whom Gettinger, Cowan and Kerlee died of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Through a series of discoveries, the team found that a previous blood meal was necessary to make the tick deadly to its hosts, as well as other facets of the disease. On May 19, 1924, Spencer put a large dose of mashed wood ticks, from lot 2351B, and some weak carbolic acid into his arm by injection. This vaccine worked, and for some years after it was used by people in that region to convert the illness from one with high fatality rate (albeit low incidence) to one that could be either prevented entirely (for many of them) or modified to a non-deadly form (for the rest). Today there is no commercially available vaccine for RMSF because, unlike in the 1920s when Spencer and colleagues developed one, antibiotics are now available to treat the disease, so prevention by vaccination is no longer the sole defense against likely death.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Much of the early research was conducted at Rocky Mountain Laboratories a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The schoolhouse laboratory of 1922–1924, filled with ticks in various phases of the life cycle, is identifiable in retrospect as a biohazard, although the team did not fully appreciate it at first. The deaths of Gettinger and Cowan, and the near death of the janitor's son, were the results of inadequate biocontainment, but in the 1920s, the elaborate biocontainment systems of today had not been invented.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Research into this disease in Montana is a sub-plot of the 1937 film "Green Light", starring Errol Flynn. Some of the researchers who perished are mentioned by name and their photographs are shown.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a big part of the 1947 Republic Pictures movie "Driftwood", starring Walter Brennan, James Bell, Dean Jagger, Natalie Wood, and Hobart Cavanaugh.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: In December 2013, hockey player Shane Doan was diagnosed with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and returned to play in January 2014.


title: Rocky Mountain spotted fever

text: Some synonyms for Rocky Mountain spotted fever in other countries include "tick typhus," "Tobia fever" (Colombia), "São Paulo fever" or ""febre maculosa"" (Brazil), and ""fiebre manchada"" (Mexico).


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Down-low is an African-American slang term specifically used within the African-American community that typically refers to a sexual subculture of Black men who usually identify as heterosexual but actively seek sexual encounters and relations with other men, practice gay cruising, and frequently adopt a specific hip-hop attire during these activities. They generally avoid disclosing their same-sex sexual activities, even if they have female sexual partner(s), they are married to a woman, or they are single. The term is also used to refer to a related sexual identity. "Down-low" has been viewed as "a type of impression management that some of the informants use to present themselves in a manner that is consistent with perceived norms about masculine attribute, attitudes, and behavior".


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The term originated within the African-American community, and was originally used to describe "any kind of slick, secretive behavior, including infidelity in heterosexual relationships".


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: According to a study published in the "Journal of Bisexuality", "[t]he Down Low is a lifestyle predominately practiced by young, urban Black men who have sex with other men and women, yet do not identify as gay or bisexual".


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In this context, "being on the "down-low"" is more than just men having sex with men in secret, or a variant of closeted homosexuality or bisexuality—it is a sexual identity that is, at least partly, defined by its "cult of masculinity" and its rejection of what is perceived as White American culture (including what is perceived as White American LGBT culture) and terms. A 2003 cover story in "The New York Times Magazine" on the "down-low" phenomenon explains that the American Black community sees "homosexuality as a white man's perversion." It then goes on to describe the "down-low" subculture as follows:


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In his book "", Keith Boykin states that secret homosexual relations are not unique to African-American men, and in fact occur in many societies and among all races.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In "Power Plays, Power Works" John Fiske suggests that closeted homosexuality may be more common in American communities suffering from widespread poverty, in which members reportedly depend heavily on traditional family networks (and often religious institutions) for financial and emotional support.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The term quickly became conflated with an eroticization of homosexual activities among Black and Latino men. Throughout the gay pornographic industry and internet networks, "down-low" quickly became a marketing term used to publicize pornographic movies, models, sex-clubs, and social gatherings that included Black and Latino men.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The first known person to use the term "down-low" in a homosexual context was George Hanna, who used the term in the 1930 song "Boy in the Boat" about lesbian women. The term was popularized in the late 1990s and after by a series of mainstream media reports emphasizing the danger of Black men transmitting HIV/AIDS to their unsuspecting female partners.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The first mainstream media account of the "down-low" as a subculture of closeted homosexuality or bisexuality was reported in the "Los Angeles Times" on February 7, 2001. By the end of the year, numerous major media outlets had reported on the down-low. They included "The New York Times" (11 February), "USA Today" (March 15), "Columbus Dispatch" (March 19), "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" (April 1), "The New York Times" (April 3), "Chicago Sun-Times" (April 22), "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" (June 3), "San Francisco Chronicle" (June 4), "Village Voice" (June 6), "VIBE" magazine (July), "Jet" magazine (September 8), "Essence" magazine (October), "San Diego Union-Tribune" (December 2), and "Los Angeles Times" (December 7). Nearly all these stories connected the "down-low" phenomenon to the HIV/AIDS epidemic within the African-American community.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In the summer of 2003, "Village Voice" contributing writer and NYU professor Jason King published ""Remixing the Closet: The Down Low Way of Knowledge"", in the newspaper's June 2003 "Queer Issue," a controversial op-ed piece that questioned the relationship between HIV/AIDS and men "on the down low". The article was the first mainstream piece to openly criticize negative mainstream media depictions of "down-low" Black men and evaluated the "down-low" phenomenon from a different perspective.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: King argued that the use of the term "down-low" was a way for many African-American men to admit to having sex with other men without necessarily identifying as "gay" in the traditional sense. On the heels of that article, "San Francisco Chronicle" contributing writer Frank Leon Roberts published ""Stereotypes and Sexual Orientation: The 'down-low' – Coming out your own way in [B]lack clubs"" in the newspaper's July 23, 2003 issue.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Then in August 2003 "The New York Times Magazine" ran a cover story called ""Double Lives on the Down Low"", written by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Several episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" were also dedicated to the subject including an episode aired 16 April 2004 and titled "A Secret Sex World: Living on the <nowiki>'Down Low'</nowiki> "; the show featured J. L. King discussing his book "". The "down-low" subculture was also part of story lines on episodes of the television shows "", "Homicide Hunter", "The Starter Wife", "ER", and "Oz".


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In 2003 Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr. wrote a full-length play entitled "Dancin the Down Low" that he directed and produced at Northwestern University in April 2004. In addition, McCune has dedicated a dissertation on this topic. His study examines discourses on the "down-low" subculture closely, while also exploring how "down-low" Black men face the issues of masculinity and sexuality.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In 2008, writer Terrance Dean published his memoir, "", where he discusses his own experience being down-low in the industry as well as others in the industry who are also down-low. He distinguishes the difference between being down-low and being down-low-gay. Someone who is down-low is on the receiving end of homosexual sexual pleasure and for that reason does not view themselves as gay, while down-low-gay is someone who is a closeted gay man.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Using a content analysis of more than 170 articles written between 2001 and 2006, sociologist Richard N. Pitt, Jr. concluded that the media pathologized Black bisexual men's behavior while either ignoring or sympathizing with White bisexual men's similar actions. He argued that the "down-low" Black bisexual is often described negatively as a "duplicitous heterosexual" man whose behaviors threaten the Black community. Alternatively, the "Brokeback" White bisexual (when seen as bisexual at all) is often described in pitying language as a "victimized homosexual" man who is forced into the closet by the heterosexist society around him.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Men who have sex with both men and women are a "significant bridge for HIV to women", a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study suggested. The CDC's Young Men's Survey shows that about one in 10 men reporting sex with men also have sex with women. And more than one in four of these bisexual men have unsafe sex with both kinds of partners. "Men who also have sex with women have similar levels of HIV and STDs [as exclusively homosexual men] and higher levels of many risky behaviors."


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: "This issue continues to be stigmatized and connected to HIV/AIDS research, particularly how it connects to risky sexual practices influencing its transmission to partners, controversies regarding social awareness and acceptance of Black male sexuality, as well as disclosure or nondisclosure of those practices and behaviors."


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The CDC report that analyzes the above-mentioned survey states that "many men who have sex with men (MSM), especially young and minority MSM, do not disclose their sexual orientation" in order to avoid "social isolation, discrimination, or verbal or physical abuse." The report connects non-disclosure to an increased risk of HIV by stating: "Young MSM who do not disclose their sexual orientation (nondisclosers) are thought to be at particularly high risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection because of low self-esteem, depression, or lack of peer support and prevention services that are available to MSM who are more open about their sexuality (disclosers)."<ref name="HIV/STD Risks"></ref>


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: "The findings in this report are consistent with previous research suggesting that among MSM, nondisclosure of sexual orientation is associated with being a member of a racial/ethnic minority group, identifying as bisexual or heterosexual, having greater perceived community and internalized homophobia, and being less integrated socially within homosexual communities (1—3,6). Although this study did not find that nondisclosing MSM were at higher risk for HIV infection than MSM who are more open about their sexuality (1—3), the data suggests that a substantial proportion of nondisclosers are infected with HIV and other STDs and are at high risk for transmitting these infections to their male and female sex partners.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The finding that more than one in three nondisclosers reported having recent female sex partners suggests that nondisclosing MSM might have an important role in HIV/STD transmission to women. This might be particularly true for Black nondisclosing MSM, of whom approximately one in five was infected with HBV and one in seven was infected with HIV."


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The CDC cited three findings that relate to African-American men who operate on the down-low (engage in MSM activity but don't disclose to others):


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In "Beyond the Down Low", Keith Boykin denied this connection, attributing the media claim to sexism, racism, homophobia and classism. Boykin stated that despite the numerous media accounts linking the down-low to the occurrence of AIDS in the African-American community, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has never cited men on the down-low as a factor. Boykin claimed that no extensive research has ever been published about men on the down-low, in part because of the difficulty of identifying the targeted population. In his book, "Beyond The Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America", he wrote that men on the 'down-low' are not the cause of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Black America. Boykin argued that the down-low debate demonizes Black men, stigmatizes Black women, and encourages an unhealthy "battle of the sexes" that distracts the community's attention from the issues of HIV prevention, personal responsibility and condom use.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The authors of a study of the down-low on Craigslist.org also argue that the discourse about the down-low is about pathologizing Black sexualities. These authors found that white men also claim to be on the down-low as much as Black men; however, society and the media still only attributes the down-low to Black people and their sexual behaviors. The authors maintain that by only focusing on Black people's sexual behaviors, larger structural issues such as poverty and drug use are ignored in the discussion about rising HIV rates in certain Black communities.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: A cross-study analysis that reviewed 24 articles (and published in the Journal of the National Medical Association) found that "Black MSM are more likely than MSM of other racial or ethnic groups to be bisexually active or identified; and, compared with white MSM, are less likely to disclose their bisexual or homosexual activities to others." The authors concluded that:


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: "The high prevalence of HIV in the Black community and the greater likelihood of bisexuality among Black men place heterosexual Black women at risk for HIV infection. However, the contribution of high-risk heterosexual Black men to the rising HIV caseload among Black women has been largely ignored. Future research must evaluate the relative contributions of bisexual men and exclusively heterosexual Black men to HIV cases among Black women."


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Additionally, a qualitative study, published in the Medical Anthropological Quarterly, concluded that:


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: In "Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low" (2014), scholar C. Riley Snorton contends that Black sexuality operates within the glass closet, a space "marked by hypervisibility and confinement, spectacle, and speculation." Down-low men have been subjected to demonization and criminalization by the media, health officials, as well as the general public, especially during the early to mid-2000s. This type of hypervisibility reinforces the confining space of the glass closet, and continues to position Black men as subjects of regulation and surveillance. Therefore Black masculinity is perceived as "dangerous, prone to trickery, promiscuous, and contaminated while also framing white masculinity and sexuality as less susceptible to such problems." The glass closet represents the immobility of Black people and sexuality. Down-low men are racialized, sexualized, gendered, and classed.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: The (meta)physics of the glass closet are like the physical properties of glass, sometimes liquid and sometimes solid, located in the slippages of categorization. If we understand the closet as a racialized metaphor, then we must fully consider what it means when Black bodies enter the illuminating space of the closet. It resembles the phenomenon of peering into a lit window at night—the contents inside captured by the glass frame.


title: Down-low (sexual slang)

text: Despite the hypervisibility of the glass closet, there is still potential for the performative tactic which Snorton calls "ignorance". This ignorance "relies on the subversion of knowledge and a deft manipulation of spectacle." Thus, the glass closet can also function as a space of willful invisibility for down-low Black men.


title: Windward Islands

text: The Windward Islands are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles. Part of the West Indies, they lie south of the Leeward Islands, approximately between latitudes 10° and 16° N and longitudes 60° and 62° W.


title: Windward Islands

text: The name was also used to refer to a British colony which existed between 1833 and 1960 and originally consisted of the islands of Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent. Today these islands constitute three sovereign states, with the latter now known as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.


title: Windward Islands

text: The island of Dominica was traditionally considered a part of the Leeward Islands until 1940 when it was transferred from the British Leeward Islands colony to the British Windward Islands. It now composes the fourth sovereign state in the group.


title: Windward Islands

text: Barbados (until 1885) and Tobago (until 1889) were also part of the British Windward Islands colony, but are not today regarded as being part of the Windward Islands grouping.


title: Windward Islands

text: The prevailing trade winds in the West Indies blow east to west. The combination of trans-Atlantic currents and winds that provided the fastest route across the ocean brought sailing ships heading to the New World to the rough dividing line between two groups of islands. Those that fell to windward became the Windward Islands, to leeward the Leeward Islands.


title: Windward Islands

text: Sailing vessels departing from Africa would first encounter the southeasternmost "Windward" islands of the Lesser Antilles in their west-northwesterly heading to the final destinations in the Caribbean, Central America, and Northern America. The chain of Windward Islands forms a part of the easternmost boundary of the Caribbean Sea.


title: Windward Islands

text: However, even in modern usage in languages other than English, notably, Dutch, French, and Spanish, all of the Lesser Antilles from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago are known as the 'Windward Islands' ("Bovenwindse Eilanden" in Dutch, "Îles du Vent" in French, and "Islas de Barlovento" in Spanish). The ABC Islands and the other islands along the Venezuelan coast, known in English as the Leeward Antilles, are known in languages other than English as the 'Leeward Islands'.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The Raven is a 2012 American crime thriller film directed by James McTeigue, produced by Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy and Aaron Ryder and written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare. It stars John Cusack, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Luke Evans. The title derives from Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem "The Raven", in the similar manner of the earlier unrelated 1935 and 1963 films.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: Set in 1849, it is a fictionalized account of the last days of Poe's life, in which the poet and author pursues a serial killer whose murders mirror those in Poe's stories. While the plot of the film is fictional, the writers based it on some accounts of real situations surrounding Edgar Allan Poe's mysterious death. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The film was released in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2012 and in the United States on April 27. The film garnered mixed reviews from critics, with the visual effects and score by Lucas Vidal being praised, but the performances and plot twists criticized.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: In 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland, several policemen discover a murdered woman sprawled on the floor of her apartment, which was locked from the inside. While police search for the killer's means of escape, they discover a second corpse in the chimney, later identified as the 12-year-old daughter of the first victim. A celebrated detective, Emmett Fields, is called to assist in the investigation and discovers that the crime resembles a fictional murder in a short story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", that he once read.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The writer Edgar Allan Poe is brought to Fields for questioning. After finding the body of Griswold, a rival of Poe, cut in half by a pendulum (as in Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum"), the pair deduce that someone is staging murders based on Poe's stories. Edgar's love, Emily Hamilton, is kidnapped at her father's masquerade ball, like the one described in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death". The killer taunts Poe in a note, demanding that Edgar write and publish a new story. Poe's lodgings are burned down by people who believe he is exploiting the murders for his own journalistic ends, and he is forced to move in with Fields.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: A clue from the killer referring to "The Cask of Amontillado" leads Poe and Fields to search the tunnels under the city with several policemen, discovering the walled-up corpse of a man dressed as Emily. They determine that the man is a sailor, and the clues on his body bring the pursuers to Holy Cross Church, where an empty grave with Emily's name on it has been prepared. As the police attempt to break down the church doors, the killer attacks and kills one of the policemen, then shoots and wounds Fields. Poe gives chase on horseback, but the killer escapes.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: Poe writes one last newspaper column, offering his life for Emily's, suggesting that he could take poison. In the morning, the maid gives Poe a letter from the killer, accepting his terms, but the note was delivered long before the paper was distributed. Realizing that the killer must work at the paper, Poe races to confront his editor, Henry, but Henry is already dead, another note lying next to him.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The real killer is the paper's typesetter, Ivan Reynolds, who congratulates Poe and offers him a drink. Ivan attempts to converse with Edgar, but Poe demands Emily's location. Ivan pours a vial of poison, promising to end the story as Poe had written it. Poe agrees and drinks the liquid. Ivan quotes "The Tell-Tale Heart", cluing Edgar that Emily is concealed beneath the printing floor. As the killer leaves, Poe uses the last of his strength to tear up a false section of floor and open a trapdoor leading to Emily's prison.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: Poe rescues Emily, and they share a poignant moment before she is taken away by ambulance. Delirious from the poison, Edgar wanders off to a park bench to die. A man walking in the park recognizes him as the famous writer, and asks if he is all right. Poe can summon only enough strength to say, "Tell Fields his last name is Reynolds." Later, when Fields comes to view Poe's corpse at the hospital, the attending physician is unable to tell him the exact cause of death, but mentions that the writer was incoherent, insisting that "his last name is Reynolds." Fields ponders the meaning of the phrase, slowly connecting the dots. The Hamiltons attend Poe's burial.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: Ivan disembarks from a train in Paris. As a porter carries his luggage, Ivan climbs into a carriage and is confronted by Fields. He lunges for the detective, and Fields shoots him at point blank range.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: Jeremy Renner was originally going to star in the film (playing the role later taken by Luke Evans), but he dropped out so that he could star in "". Ewan McGregor was also in talks for a role, but he also dropped out. Joaquin Phoenix was also approached to star at one point. On August 28, 2010, it was confirmed that John Cusack would play Edgar Allan Poe in the film.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The filming began on November 9, 2010 in Belgrade and Budapest. The first images from the set were revealed on November 15, 2010. A trailer for the film was released online October 7, 2011. This date is significant because it also marks the anniversary of Poe's death at age 40 in 1849. In 2011 Relativity acquired U.S. rights for only $4 million.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 22% based on 141 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Thinly scripted, unevenly acted, and overall preposterous, "The Raven" disgraces the legacy of Edgar Allen Poe with a rote murder mystery that's more silly than scary." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: James Berardinelli gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing: ""The Raven" looks great and is well-paced, but a lack of a compelling resolution makes it an anemic effort." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote, "The story has its moments, and yet there is something about this tale ... that doesn't completely satisfy."


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: "The Raven" grossed $16 million in the United States and Canada, and $13.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $29.7 million.


title: The Raven (2012 film)

text: The film was projected to gross $8–10 million in its opening weekend, with comparisons to the similarly-themed Jack the Ripper film "From Hell", which opened to $11 million in October 2001. It ended up debuting to $7.3 million, finishing seventh at the box office. The audience skewed male (52%) and older (59% over 25 years old). It fell 64% to $2.6 million in its second weekend.


title: El Hijo de Rey Misterio

text: Miguel Aarón López Hernández (born November 9, 1988) is an American luchador enmascarado, or masked professional wrestler, best known under the name El Hijo de Rey Misterio. His ring name is Spanish for "The Son of the Mystery King". He is the first-born son of the luchador Rey Misterio Sr. He is also the cousin of Rey Mysterio. He mainly works on the independent circuit in the United States, especially in California and in Mexico, especially in Tijuana, Baja California.


title: El Hijo de Rey Misterio

text: El Hijo de Rey Misterio grew up in a wrestling family with both his father, Miguel Ángel López Díaz who wrestles as Rey Misterio Sr., and his cousin, Óscar Gutiérrez, better known as Rey Mysterio, being very well known "luchadors". At the age of 13 he began training with his father at his wrestling school in Tijuana. He made his professional wrestling debut in 2006, initially working under the ring name Diablo. By the end of 2006 his father gave him permission to use the "Rey Misterio" name and he became "El Hijo de Rey Misterio". The name has led to some confusion, especially when wrestling in the United States where a lot of fans have mistaken him for the son of Rey Mysterio, but Mysterio is actually his cousin. Some promoters have actively sought to exploit this confusion by neglecting to bill him as "El Hijo de" and just billed him as Rey Misterio. In one controversial case a Bolivian promoter used World Wrestling Entertainment footage of Rey Mysterio to promote a tour by El Hijo de Rey Misterio, when Hijo de Rey Misterio found out he cancelled his tour. When El Hijo de Rey Misterio cancelled his tour the Bolivian promoter had someone else wrestle under the mask, pretending to be El Hijo de Rey Misterio.


title: El Hijo de Rey Misterio

text: Since adopting the "Hijo de Rey Misterio" name he has been working mainly for Pro Wrestling Revolution (PWR) in Northern California, shows in Tijuana and made various independent wrestling promotion appearances in America. His stint in PWR saw him team with his father on several occasions, the two won a tournament to become the first PWR Tag Team Champions when they defeated the Border Patrol (Oliver John and Nathan Rulez) on May 31, 2008. The duo defended the title a couple of times during 2008 but were forced to vacate the title in June, 2009 as Rey Misterio, Sr. suffered a serious injury. He has stated that while he likes working in the United States he really wants to focus on a wrestling career in Mexico, hoping to work for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA), Mexico's two largest professional wrestling promotions. In October 2009 it was reported that El Hijo de Rey Misterio had been working at CMLL's wrestling school in Mexico City, Mexico to train for his future CMLL debut. He would, however, never make an appearance for CMLL, before suddenly announcing his retirement from professional wrestling in early 2011. On May 27, 2011, a new El Hijo de Rey Misterio was introduced by Rey Misterio, Sr. and Konnan, making his debut in Tijuana. He now goes by Rey Horus. The original El Hijo de Rey Misterio returned to professional wrestling in November 2011. On December 25, 2011, he defeated Mortiz and Mr. Tempest in a ladder match to win the Baja California Championship, joining "Los Perros del Mal" in the process.


title: El Hijo de Rey Misterio

text: El Hijo de Rey Misterio is part of an extended family of wrestlers, his father Miguel Ángel López Díaz is best known under the ring name Rey Misterio (Sr.), his cousin Oscar Gutiérrez, works for World Wrestling Entertainment as Rey Mysterio. His other cousin is a wrestler known as Metalika and his uncle, Juan Zezatti Ramírez, is better known as Super Astro.


title: El Hijo de Rey Misterio

text: In May 2012 López and his younger brother were arrested in Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, with a kilogram of the drug "ice" in their possession. Both were turned over to the federal authorities for prosecution. It was never reported if López was ever convicted of any crime.


title: 1st Special Forces Group (United States)

text: The 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) (1st SFG) (A) is a unit of the U.S. Army Special Forces operating under the United States Pacific Command. It is designed to deploy and execute nine doctrinal missions throughout the Indo-Pacific Command area of operations: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, direct action, counter-insurgency, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, information operations, counterproliferation of weapon of mass destruction, and security force assistance.


text: It was among the first groups of the Special Forces. The group is responsible for operations in the Pacific. Currently, the First Battalion is stationed at Okinawa while the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and Group Support Battalions are stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.


text: 1st Special Forces Group's history began at Fort Bragg, NC, in 1955. Four Special Forces Operational Detachments - the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 16th - were selected from the 77th Special Forces Group and transferred to the Pacific theater over the next year. 1st Special Forces Group was officially activated at Fort Buckner, Okinawa, on 24 June 1957, with LTC A. Scott Madding as commander and MSG Robert L. Voss as the sergeant major. The 1st Special Forces Group holds the distinction of having the first and last Special Forces soldiers killed in Vietnam: Captain Harry Cramer killed 21 October 1957, and Captain Richard M. Rees killed 15 December 1973. Decades later, another 1st Special Forces Group soldier became the first American to die by hostile fire in Afghanistan: Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman killed 2 January 2002.


text: The 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa was one of two Special Action Forces/Security Assistance Forces (SAF) built around Special Forces Groups. The other was built around the 8th Special Forces Group in Panama. SAF Asia was flexible and 1st Group could task organize a detachment for any time of mission in the Pacific rim. During the Vietnam War, it sent teams to Vietnam for six-month temporary duty. It also ran Camp Hardy Combat Training Center in the Northern Training Area of Okinawa to train SF, Navy SEALs, and US Marines deploying to Vietnam. It also earned the Meritorious Unit Commendation for its work during the year 1973.


text: Following the war in South Vietnam, and the withdrawal of American military forces from Southeast Asia, the emphasis on military actions shifted away from the Asia-Pacific region and focused more on Europe and NATO. Special Forces, which had grown to a total of seven groups in 1963, faced severe cuts in the peacetime army; as a result, 1st Group was inactivated 28 June 1974 at Ft. Bragg, NC. After a 10-year hiatus, the need for an Asian unconventional warfare force was recognized, and Alpha Company, 1st Battalion was reactivated at Fort Bragg on 15 March 1984. This company and the remainder of the 1st Battalion were assembled and deployed to Torii Station, Okinawa during the spring and summer of 1984. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions, along with Headquarters and Service Company were officially reactivated 4 September 1984 at Fort Lewis, Washington.


text: Brought back to life as part of overall growth in the support to U.S. strategic efforts in Asia, the unit focused on the Pacific Command area of operations but were routinely deployed out of Asia to support unified commanders throughout the world. Unit members supported theater security engagement within the PACOM area of operations, contingency operations in Haiti, Central Asia, and Bosnia. Operational Detachments "Alpha" deployed to Haiti to conduct Coalition Support Team missions in 1993–94 in support of U.S. Joint Task Force 190 and Multi-National Force operations supporting Operation Uphold Democracy. Additional ODAs conducted Humanitarian Demining Operations in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam earning Humanitarian Service Medals for their efforts in both Laos and Thailand. Elements from the 1st SFG (A) conducted training with military units from newly created states from the former Soviet Union that supported the development of the Central Asian Battalion (CENTRASBAT), a regional peace-keeping force in the mid-1990s. By the end of the millennium, 1st SFG (A) soldiers had deployed for the Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina.


text: Following the 11 September attacks, members of the 1st SFG (A) deployed to support Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and sustained back-to-back battalion rotations to the Philippines. Starting in February 2002, elements of the 1st SFG (A) deployed to conduct unconventional warfare in the Southern Philippines by and with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in order to assist the Government of the Philippines (GOP).


text: Over the next three years, 1st SFG (A) members built an admirable record in the Philippines training six light infantry battalions, three light reaction companies from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), treating over 31,000 Filipinos in MEDCAP events, helping to professionalize the AFP, and providing operations and intelligence fusion teams to actively assist the AFP in targeting terrorist cells. Throughout 2003–2004, the 1st SFG (A) deployed many soldiers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. By November 2004 the unit deployed an entire battalion to Afghanistan as part of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force- Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A).


text: Today, 1st SFG (A) continues to support the Global War on Terrorism with operations in the Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as maintaining US security relationships with partner nations throughout the Pacific.


text: Constituted 5 July 1942 in the Army of the United States as the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, First Regiment, First Special Service Force, a combined Canadian-American organization


text: Reconstituted 15 April 1960 in the Regular army. concurrently consolidated with Company B, 1st Ranger Infantry Battalion (activated 19 June 1942), and consolidated unit re-designated as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces


text: Consolidated 30 September 1960 with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Forces Group (constituted 14 June 1957 in the Regular Army and activated 24 June 1957 in Japan), and consolidated unit designated as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces (organic units concurrently constituted and activated 4 October 1960)


text: World War II: Aleutian Islands*, Naples-Foggia*, Anzio*, Rome-Arno*, Southern France (with arrowhead)*, Rhineland*


title: Bloodywood

text: Bloodywood is an Indian heavy metal band from New Delhi, formed in 2016. They began as a parody band that uploaded metal covers of pop songs on YouTube, but later went on to write their own original material. The band has cited Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Alter Bridge, and Limp Bizkit as their musical influences.


title: Bloodywood

text: Prior to forming the band, Karan Katiyar would regularly upload parody metal covers of popular Bollywood songs on YouTube, but he had trouble finding a suitable vocalist. At a local gig, Katiyar met Jayant Bhadula, who worked as a talent manager at an entertainment company, and was impressed by his vocal range and versatility.


title: Bloodywood

text: In 2016, Katiyar quit his job as a corporate lawyer and together with Bhadula formed a two-piece band with the intention of "destroying pop songs".


title: Bloodywood

text: In 2017, Bloodywood re-recorded Linkin Park's song "Heavy" in Linkin Park's early nu metal style, catching the attention of many music websites such as "Loudwire" and "Metal Hammer", the latter of which declared it "what Linkin Park's Heavy should have sounded like." The band made more covers in 2017 and released the compilation cover album "Anti-Pop Vol. 1" on their Bandcamp page. This was followed by a metal cover version of the popular Bhangra/Indi-pop song "Tunak Tunak Tun" by Daler Mehndi, featuring guest vocals from Bonde do Metaleiro.


title: Bloodywood

text: In 2018, Bloodywood released "Ari Ari", a cover of the Bhangra song "Ari Ari" by the duo Bombay Rockers, which itself was a version of the Indian folk song "Baari Barsi". The track featured rapper Raoul Kerr, whom Katiyar had invited to take part after working on a lyric video for him. The song's initial exposure was provided by Bollywood actress Ileana D'Cruz, who shared the video of "Ari Ari" on her social media. The positive reception from fans encouraged the band to write original material and draw more inspiration from Indian folk music.


title: Bloodywood

text: In July of the same year, Bloodywood partnered with online counselling site HopeTherapy and released the song "Jee Veerey", dedicated to fighting depression and mental illness. On 15 January 2019, the band released "Endurant", a song dealing with the topic of bullying.


title: Bloodywood

text: On 21 April 2019, it was announced that Bloodywood would be performing at Wacken Open Air. Two days later, the band released the song "Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot)", initially intended for the upcoming Ubisoft game "Beyond Good and Evil 2", as well as announcing that Kerr is becoming a permanent member of the band and that Bloodywood is embarking on their "Raj Against the Machine Tour".


title: Bloodywood

text: In 2021, Bloodywood was named one of the "12 new metal bands to watch in 2022" by the heavy metal and rock music magazine "Metal Hammer". They were also nominated for the Breakthrough Asian Band title at the 2021 Global Metal Apocalypse awards, finishing second.


title: Bloodywood

text: Bloodywood's debut studio album of original material is titled "Rakshak" and was released on 18 February 2022.


title: Bloodywood

text: Along with the messages included in their songs, the band aims to support various social/charity causes. With the release of the video for their song "Jee Veerey", they gave away pre-paid online counselling sessions.


title: Bloodywood

text: Upon returning to India from their 2019 European tour, Bloodywood donated the earnings to Posh Foundation, a local NGO that cares for homeless animals, for the purchase of a new ambulance.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, released as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Turtles in Time in Europe, is a beat 'em up arcade video game produced by Konami and released in 1991. A sequel to the original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" arcade game, it is a scrolling beat 'em up type game based mainly on the 1987 "TMNT" animated series. Originally an arcade game, "Turtles in Time" was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992 under the title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, continuing the numbering from the earlier "Turtles" games released on the original NES. That same year, a game that borrowed many elements, "", was released for the Sega Genesis.


title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time

text: In 2005, the arcade version of "Turtles in Time" was revisited on newer consoles. A slightly altered version of the arcade game was included as an unlockable bonus in the 2005 game "". On August 5, 2009, Ubisoft released a 3D remake of the game, "", available as a download for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. A downloadable PlayStation 3 version was later released via PlayStation Network on September 10, 2009.


text: Like its predecessor, "Turtles in Time" was available for the arcades in two- and four-player versions. In the two-player versions, each player gets to choose which of the four turtles they wish to control, whereas in the four-player versions the characters are assigned to the control panel from left to right in the following order: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. Each playable character has his own strengths and weaknesses. New features in this game include the ability to execute a power attack by hitting an enemy several times in a row, and the ability to slam Foot Soldiers into surrounding enemies.


text: The game features the same control scheme of the previous arcade release. It uses a joystick for movement, an attack button and a jump button. Certain joystick/button combinations can make a Turtle run, perform a slide or dash attack, jump higher, perform a stationary or directed air attack, or perform a special attack.


text: Players guide the turtles through a series of levels. The first takes place in the streets of New York City. Later levels transport the turtles to representations of various historical eras. In each level, players face enemies from both the 1987 cartoon and the feature film "", including Foot Soldier and Stone Warriors. Bosses featured are Baxter Stockman, Metalhead, a group of Pizza Monsters, the Rat King, Tokka and Rahzar, Shredder in a massive mech suit, Cement Man, Slash, Bebop and Rocksteady, Leatherhead, Krang in his android suit, Krang in a huge UFO, Shredder, and Super Shredder.


text: The introductory cut scene of the game details the game's plot. It begins with the Turtles watching a TV newscast on a Sunday evening, with April O'Neil reporting from Liberty Island. Suddenly, Krang flies in using a giant exosuit (seen occasionally in the animated series) and steals the Statue of Liberty, moments before Shredder hijacks the airwaves to laugh at the Turtles.


text: The Turtles jump into action in downtown New York and pursue the Foot to the streets and the city sewers (then to the Technodrome in the SNES version), where Shredder sends them through a time warp. The Turtles must fight Shredder's army in both the past and the future in order to get home. They defeat Shredder and the Statue of Liberty is returned to its place.


text: The original music of the game's soundtrack was composed by Mutsuhiko Izumi, a "TMNT" veteran who also composed the music for the previous arcade game in the series. It was arranged for the SNES version by Kazuhiko Uehara and Harumi Ueko, both of whom went on to produce several Konami games, including the following "TMNT" game, "".


text: During development, the game's working title was "something like "TMNT Time Travelers"" according to Konami USA's Steve Kaufman in early 1991.


text: In addition to an original musical score, the attract mode of the arcade game is noted for featuring the song "Pizza Power", which was taken from the "TMNT" live concert, known as the "Coming Out of Their Shells Tour". The game's music was released as part of the compilation album "Konami All-Stars 1993 ~ Music Station of Dreams", published by King Records in 1992.


text: The 2005 version of the game included in "Mutant Nightmare" features new music and voices updated to match the 2003 "TMNT" series. This was also the case for "Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled".


text: Like the original "Turtles" arcade game, "Turtles in Time" was released for the arcades as a dedicated 4-player cabinet, as well as a 2-player conversion kit. Unlike the first game, "Turtles in Time" was never officially distributed for the arcades in Japan.


text: The SNES version was retitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time in North America and Australia and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles IV: Turtles in Time in Europe in order to continue the numbering from the first three "Turtles" games on the NES (despite the fact that "" was never released in the PAL region). However, the Super Famicom version in Japan retained the original unnumbered title.


text: Much like "" for the NES (a conversion of the first arcade game), the SNES version of "Turtles in Time" has some notable differences in presentation. While the SNES version is missing some animations and graphics effects from the arcade version, it made extensive use of the SNES's Mode 7 forward scrolling effect in the "Neon Night-Riders" level, changing it to an over-the-shoulder perspective. Contrary to popular belief, mode 7 isn't used for throwing the enemy foot soldiers, as it can't scale sprites nor is any scaling actually shown.


text: Sounds also differ between the arcade and SNES versions. The SNES version is missing certain voice samples for both the turtles and boss characters. In addition, the arcade version's title theme song, "Pizza Power", was replaced with an instrumental version of the cartoon theme song.


text: Various alterations were made to the SNES version's gameplay. "Sewer Surfin'" and "Neon Night-Riders" were changed to bonus levels of a sort and a new Technodrome stage was added, which features a boss battle with Shredder sitting in a battle tank in the foreground which requires the player to hit the tank with Foot Soldiers thrown at the screen. Several enemies were changed in the SNES version. Four other new bosses were added: the Rat King was added at the end of the "Sewer Surfin'" level, Slash replaced Cement Man in the prehistoric level, and on the pirate ship level, the duo of Bebop and Rocksteady replaced Tokka and Rahzar, who were moved to the new Technodrome level. The game also changes the final battle with Shredder to Super Shredder from "". The SNES version also adds two regular enemies: Roadkill Rodneys (which replaced the boxing robots) and Mousers.


text: The SNES version also features a time-trial mode and a two-player versus fight mode. Like the arcade version, each turtle was given unique attributes in areas such as speed and strength. In addition, the move to throw enemies off-screen can now be performed intentionally (instead of just randomly), a technique specifically required at the end of the Technodrome level.


text: An emulated conversion of the original arcade game can be unlocked after completing the first batch of missions in "". The game is emulated from the four-player version. Differences include the lack of a score counter, an entirely new soundtrack (likely due to rights issues with the original soundtrack), altered voices, and a slightly choppy frame rate compared to the arcade. Much like the version it was based on, the characters are assigned by controller. This means that Donatello and Raphael are not playable in the PlayStation 2 version without a multitap, as the base console only has two controller slots. The new soundtrack is a re-arranged version from the Nintendo DS version of "Mutant Nightmare".


text: Following its release, "Turtles in Time" became Konami's best-selling arcade title. In the United States, the home console conversion was the top-selling Super NES game in September 1992.


text: The arcade game received positive reviews. Although critics found that the second game was largely similar to the previous arcade game, they felt that it was a net improvement over its predecessor on all points, including graphics, music and gameplay. Overall, the game was hailed for staying true to its source material.


text: The SNES version was praised for its additional stages and gameplay modes. The four reviewers of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" gave it unanimous scores of 9 out of 10 each, applauding the fun gameplay, the new moves, the accurate recreation of the arcade version's graphics, and the two-player versus mode, though they criticized that the game is too easy. The SNES game was lauded in "Allgame" for its visuals, which replicate the cartoon's art style. The game's music and sound effects have also been praised. However, the game was criticized by "The Armchair Empire" for its repetitive gameplay and short length. Nintendojo called "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time" the best Ninja Turtles game of all time.


text: "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that "The Turtles may have peaked on the big screen, but in video-game land they're just reaching their potential."


text: "Game Zero" magazine's four reviewers gave the game a combined review score of 84.5 out of 100, they praised the graphics and the option to switch between the animation and comic book style graphics and gave praise to the game's music, improved moveset and voice acting. The only criticism given was the game being too easy even when played on hard mode. Super Gamer gave an overall review score of 90% calling the game “Highly impressive cartoon platform beat-em-up.”


text: Nintendo Power ranked the game 7th in their "Top 10 in 1992" praising the characters being well animated concluding: "the popularity of Konami's TMNT series with players and the new theme of time travel put this one into our year end top 10." IGN ranked the game 39th in their “Top 100 SNES Games of All Time” praising the bright graphics that captures the look and personality of the classic cartoon and praising the utilization of mode 7 when throwing enemies into the screen. GamesRadar ranked the game #24 in their "Best SNES Games of All Time", they praised the game music and commenting that Turtles in Time improved everything the original Turtles game did and made it better and felt the game was "one of the best action games on the SNES" In 2013, Arcade Sushi ranked Turtles in Time 10th on their "10 Best Retro Beat 'Em Ups." They praised the game's aesthetics staying true to the franchise's cartoon series. In 2018, Complex listed the game 9th in its "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time."


text: The 2009 remake, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled", features new graphics and sounds. The graphics were remade completely in 3D, with players moving in and out of a true 3D camera. The opening and closing cinematics were remade with a stylized 2D look. The vocal quips of the arcade version return, re-recorded by the cast of the 2003 cartoon. The music was also re-done.


text: "Re-Shelled" was based on the original arcade machine, rather than on the SNES version. As a result, the extra stages and enemy characters from the earlier home version were excluded. The gameplay remained similar, except that players can attack in eight directions. The game can also be played online with up to four players. This version also features a Survival mode, Quickplay mode, multiple difficulties and Achievements/Trophy support.


Sexually transmitted infections in the pornography industry; deals with the occupational safety and health hazard of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by workers in the sex industry.


title: Sexually transmitted infections in the pornography industry

text: Since the 1980s, many cases of pornographic performers contracting HIV/AIDS have been reported. However, since miid 2000s strict adherence to STI testing, and limiting sexual contact with only fellow tested performers has halted the spread of HIV and other STIs in the industry.


text: Because pornographic film making involves unsimulated sex, often without condoms, pornographic actors are particularly vulnerable to various sexually transmitted infections; especially HPV, Zika fever, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS.


text: Experts suggest there are a total number of Thirty-five infections and diseases that can be transmitted sexually.


text: According to former pornographic actress Shelley Lubben, a 1980s outbreak of HIV led to the death of 27 porn stars between 1985 and 1992, including Wade Nichols (who died in 1985), John Holmes (1988), Marc Stevens (1989), and Al Parker (1992). When Nichols died in 1985, his fellow porn star Ron Jeremy denied that Nichols' death was AIDS-related. Stevens died of AIDS in 1989, aged 46. Parker died in 1992 from complications of AIDS, aged 40.


text: In February 1986, Holmes was diagnosed as HIV-positive. Six months previously, he had tested negative. During the summer of 1986, Holmes, knowing his HIV status, agreed to perform in two pornographic films to be filmed in Italy, without informing the producers of his HIV status. Performers in one film, "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress", were Ilona "Cicciolina" Staller, who later became a member of the Italian parliament, Tracey Adams, Christoph Clark, and Amber Lynn. Performers in the other film, "The Devil In Mr. Holmes", were Adams, Lynn, Karin Schubert, and Marina Hedman. Subsequently, it was revealed that Holmes had consciously chosen not to reveal his HIV status to his producers or co-stars before engaging in unprotected sex for the filming. As his health failed, Holmes disingenuously attributed his condition to colon cancer and first confided that he had AIDS in January 1987. He died from AIDS-related complications on March 13, 1988, aged 43.


text: Marc Wallice, a known IV drug user, tested positive for HIV in 1998. On April 30, 1998, he was diagnosed by Adult Industry Medical (AIM) as HIV positive. It was alleged that he had hidden his HIV positive status for two years, with rumors that he accomplished this by using fake blood work through several HIV testing cycles to continue working. This speculation has been disputed and investigated using Wallice's tests, but it has not been doubted that during this period Wallice infected seven women on the set: Brooke Ashley, Tricia Devereaux, Caroline, Nena Cherry, Jordan McKnight, Barbara Doll, and Kimberly Jade.


text: After three years of no reported HIV-issues within the industry, in April 2004, AIM diagnosed Darren James as being HIV-positive. It was concluded that James had been infected while engaging in unprotected anal sex with Brazilian actress Bianca Biaggi during a scene for the video "Split That Booty 2" in Rio de Janeiro. AIM initiated an urgent search for other potentially infected performers. It was discovered that three actresses who had worked with James shortly after his return to the United States had also become infected. These were Canadians Lara Roxx and Miss Arroyo, and Czech-born Jessica Dee.


text: The heterosexual segment of the porn industry voluntarily shut down for 30 days (a 60-day moratorium was originally announced but it was lifted early) while it tried to deal with the situation. Darren James, Jessica Dee, and Lara Roxx were barred from further production of sexually explicit content. About 60 actors who had had contact with James or Roxx were barred from working until HIV tests were completed and they were declared HIV negative. A further estimated 130 actors who had had contact with James were tested and received an HIV-negative result. A total of five actors were diagnosed with the virus by the end of the moratorium: one male and four females, including one transgender woman named Jennifer.


text: In June 2009, AIM reported that a female adult entertainer had tested positive, though it was believed that transmission occurred in her private life. LA County Public Health claimed that there had been 16 "unreported" HIV cases in the adult film industry. The AIM Healthcare Foundation claimed those cases did not involve actors in production companies that followed their testing protocols and included members of the general public who used AIM Healthcare testing services or individuals attempting to work in the porn industry who never were able to obtain employment in adult films because of their failure to provide proof of negative status for HIV or other STDs.


text: On October 12, 2010, AIM reported that an actor or actress had been infected with HIV. The name and gender of the person was not released to the public. Vivid Entertainment and Wicked Pictures were the first companies to announce a production shutdown. Although Wicked Pictures allow some performers to wear condoms, the company shut down to wait for the quarantine list. Several other porn studios shut down as a preventive measure. At the time, no other performers tested HIV positive.


text: In December, the HIV positive performer was identified as Derrick Burts. Burts had worked in both heterosexual and gay pornography. Despite contracting gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis, Burts continued taking part in unprotected sex in films before quitting once he was diagnosed as being HIV positive. He was informed by the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation that he had contracted the disease, which according to Burts, he received on a set outside the AIM system, while having oral sex scene with another "HIV positive male actor". Burts died on January 28, 2021.


text: In August 2011, the industry was temporarily shut down because of news of a performer was testing positive for the virus. Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, confirmed the situation. Production later resumed when a performer was retested and it came back negative.


text: In June 2013, a gay male performer tested positive for HIV in a routine FSC-conducted blood test. The anonymous performer had previously worked exclusively on condom-only movies. FSC determined that the infection did not take place on-set.


text: In August 2013, an adult female performer, Cameron Bay, tested HIV positive. In response, FSC organized an industry wide moratorium from August 21 to August 27. On September 4, Rod Daily, Cameron Bay's ex-boyfriend, announced he had also tested HIV positive. Two days later, a third anonymous female performer tested positive prompting FSC to organize a second moratorium from September 6 to September 20. All three infections were found to have taken place off-set.


text: In December 2013, a male porn actor tested HIV positive, leading FSC to halt production for one week. This infection was also determined to have taken place off-set.


text: The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM Healthcare or AIM) was founded in 1998, and helped to set up a monitoring system for the pornographic film industry in the United States, and pornographic film actors were required to be tested for HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea every 30 days, and twice a year for hepatitis, syphilis and HSV. However AIM closed all its operations in May 2011, forcing the industry to look for other mechanisms for supporting and enforcing regular testing. The gap was filled by the Free Speech Coalition, which set up the Adult Production Health and Safety Services (APHSS) system, now known as Performer Availability Screening Services (PASS). Since 2011, STI testing for straight pornographic performers is being monitored by them.


text: Apart from taking necessary precautions like PrEP, performers are tested every fourteen days for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis B and C and trichomoniasis. According to PASS, there has not be an on-set transmission of HIV on a regulated set since 2004. The industry considers the testing method to be a viable practice for safer sex. Canadian doctor and HIV/AIDS specialist Dr. Allan Ronald, who did groundbreaking studies on the transmission of STIs, said there's no doubt about the efficiency of the testing method, but he felt little uncomfortable, "because it’s giving the wrong message — that you can have multiple sex partners without condoms — but I can’t say it doesn’t work.


text: Pornographic actress Nina Hartley, stated that the time required for shooting a scene can be very long, and usage of condoms will be uncomfortable, as it causes friction burn, and opens up lesions in the genital mucosa. Advocating the testing method for performers, Hartley said, "Testing works for us, and condoms work for outsiders." Other female performers have also opposed the use of condoms at work. Citing the fact that chances for performers in the industry to contract HIV are much lower compared to sexually active persons outside the industry, they have vehemently opposed Measure B regulations which made the use of condoms mandatory in pornographic films. Their usage has been called an occupational hazard because of the breakage issues, causation of micro-tears, swelling, and yeast infections; which together all made them more susceptible for STIs.


text: As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends screening for Herpes only in symptomatic cases, most STI tests do not include screening for either HSV-1 or HSV-2 strain unless specifically ordered by the physician. Meanwhile, asymptomatic persons positive for the virus can transmit it sexually.


text: Porn actors are not tested for HPV either. A test for HPV isn’t normally included in a standard STI screening for people under 30, as many of the HPV strains clear on their own. It's however recommend once for every five years in people above 30.


text: Due to this limited outbreak, the California State government considered regulating the industry. Some proposed to mandate the wearing of condoms during sexually explicit scenes. Industry insiders say this would ruin sales of their wares since the unprotected content is one of the selling points of some of their films. They say the wearing of condoms ruins the sexual fantasies of many viewers. Insiders say that such regulation would force the industry underground, out of California or overseas where it would be more prone to health risks for performers. The non-profit Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM Healthcare) worked with the government, to develop policies that both the industry and the government would find acceptable.


text: In the 2012 election, voters in Los Angeles were presented with Measure B ("Safer Sex In the Adult Film Industry Act") with the following text:


text: Proponents of the measure claimed pornography performers were significantly more likely to acquire HIV than the general population and that they are generally not given health insurance by their employers and so the tax payer would foot the bill for HIV treatment. Opponents claimed it to be a waste of tax dollars because of existing stringent HIV testing protocols and because nobody has contracted HIV on set in the past eight years in the United States.


text: The AIDS Healthcare Foundation tried several times to have California's Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health's Appeals Board force companies in the pornography industry to treat actors and actresses as employees subject to occupational safety and health regulation; in a 2014 case brought against Treasure Island Media an administrative judge found that the company did have to comply with regulations.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: P. F. Chang's China Bistro is an American-based, casual dining restaurant chain founded in 1993 by Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang that serves Asian fusion cuisine. Centerbridge Partners owned and operated Chang's until acquired by the private equity firm TriArtisan Capital Advisors on March 2, 2019. P. F. Chang's is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: The chain specializes in American Chinese cuisine, plus other Asian dishes. P.F. Chang’s operates 300 locations in 22 countries and U.S. airports, including P.F. Chang’s To Go takeout locations.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: The name "P. F. Chang's" is derived from those of Paul Fleming (P. F.) and Philip Chiang (whose surname was simplified to "Chang").


title: P. F. Chang's

text: The chain was founded in 1993 by Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang - son of Cecilia Chiang. The first restaurant was opened at the Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona. In 1993, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc. was formed from the acquisition of the original four bistro restaurants.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: In 2010, "P.F. Chang's Home Menu" was introduced in supermarkets. The brand represents a group of frozen appetizers and meals that were sold under license by Unilever.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: In 2012 Chang's accepted an offer from private investment firm, Centerbridge Partners in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: In December 2017, Chang's announced that they would open a location in Shanghai during the first part of 2018, Chang's first location in China.


title: P. F. Chang's

text: In January 2019, Chang's announced it was in talks to be sold to TriArtisan Capital Partners and Paulson & Co. for approximately $700 million from its previous owner, Centerbridge Partners.