title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Kaveree Bamzai of "India Today" gave the film a mixed review, saying, "If only Sriram Raghavan had not gone weak on his knees at the thought of love, "Agent Vinod" would have been a smarter, sharper, cooler film." Gaurav Malani of "The Times of India" called the film "above average" and said "The film is entertaining but not in entirety. "Agent Vinod" gets the nod though not whole-heartedly!" Blassey Chettiar of "Daily News and Analysis" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, saying, "Director Sriram Raghavan (Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddar) delivers a neat package, a suave lead hero slogging it out in picture-perfect locations, packing punches here and there, zooming off on sexy bikes, sexier cars and finally a copter, all in a day's work." Kunal Guha of "Yahoo!" rated the film 1 out of 5 stars, saying, "Let's just say foreign locales, weapons to annihilate the world, designer suits and not-so-excruciating interrogations don't cumulatively justify "Agent Vinod" as a thrilling movie-watching experience." Raja Sen of "Rediff" gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and said, "As a film, "Agent Vinod" must be termed a disappointment, a slick and well-produced throwback to the spy thriller that feels both overlong and under-conceived.".


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Anupama Chopra of "Hindustan Times" gave 2.5 out of 5 noted "The result is that "Agent Vinod" never becomes more than the sum of its parts and even though it picks up speed in the second half, it leaves you both exhausted and unsatisfied". Mrigank Dhaniwala of "Koimoi" gave the film 2 out of 5 stars as well, commenting, ""Agent Vinod" is a bold experiment gone wrong; certainly not something that entertains in its entirety ... (and) comes nowhere closer to the Bond or the Bourne series of Hollywood films." "Zee News" commented that, ""Agent Vinod" is a genuine attempt at entertaining in a sensible manner. But it somehow falls short of being declared as a brilliant piece of work. Watch it for its stylish presentation, it hasn't got anything else to offer." Khalid Mohammed of "Deccan Chronicle" rated the film 2 out of 5 stars, commenting, "Suggestion: if you do venture into this at best, average "Agent Vinod", carry a huge thermos of coffee to stay awake." Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" rating the film 2/5 feels ""Agent Vinod" with so many varied influences that it never finds its own distinct identity".


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Richard Kuipers of Variety commented that "this big-budget exercise bears all the hallmarks of a franchise-in-waiting; with an injection of the elan the real Maibaum brought to the Bond series, such an enterprise could prove successful". Independent Online from South Africa gives 3.5 out of 5 and says "the film is undeniably a cool and entertaining spy thriller".


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: On its opening day, the movie collected at the box office. The movie showed less growth during the next two days ultimately grossing around in its first weekend. "Agent Vinod" went on to earn a total of during its first week and throughout its run. The movie was declared "Flop" at box office.


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Before release, "Agent Vinod" ran into trouble when Saif Ali Khan's brawl with businessman Iqbal Meer Sharma was touted as a publicity stunt for the film. However, Khan has strongly denied the brawl to be such, and said, "I don't believe in garnering publicity in such a negative manner. Rather our posters and promos should create the right kind of buzz".


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Khan was shown black flags while promoting the film in Bhopal, which was triggered due to changes brought into administration of the Pataudi family properties in Middle-East.


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: Iranian band Barobax later sued the film's music director Pritam one week before the release, claiming that he lifted the song, "Pyaar Ki Pungi" from the former's song, "Soosan Khanoom". However, two weeks after the film's release, the band publicly apologised to Pritam and stating both the songs were different, withdrew its court-case.


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: The film was banned in Pakistan as it made references to a section of ISI's involvement in Jihadi groups and terror activities. To this, Khan responded, "This is a realistic kind of a thriller. We have shown that there are some negative elements in Pakistan towards India and their Censor have a problem showing that. We have shown a few most-wanted criminals, those that are harboured in Pakistan, which is a known fact. May be they have taken offence to that. But ultimately we want a RAW agent to win and baddies to lose. If they are uncomfortable with that then they should publicise the fact that they are banning "Agent Vinod" in Pakistan".


title: Agent Vinod (2012 film)

text: A week after its theatrical release, "Agent Vinod" again ran into trouble for plagiarism. Reports said that the film featured songs from older films, without acquiring prior permission from the producers. The songs involved were "Aasmaan Pe Hai Khuda" from Ramesh Saigal's "Phir Subah Hogi" (1958), "Meri Jaan Maine Kaha" from Ramesh Behl's "The Train" (1970) and "Rakamma" from Mani Ratnam's "Thalapathi" (1991). The owners of these songs were not credited in the film. Saif Ali Khan however paid for the rights later, and explained this to be a last-minute co-ordination problem.


title: Adam Petty

text: Adam Kyler Petty (July 10, 1980 – May 12, 2000) was an American professional stock car racing driver. He was the fourth generation from the Petty family to drive in races in the highest division of NASCAR racing, mostly in what was then known as the NASCAR Busch Series. He was believed to be the first young fourth-generation athlete in all of modern American professional sports.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty was raised in High Point, North Carolina into stock car racing "royalty." The son of Kyle Petty, he was widely expected to become the next great Petty, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather Richard, and great-grandfather Lee.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty began his career in 1998, shortly after he turned 18, in the ARCA Re/Max Series. Like his father Kyle, he won his first ARCA race, driving the #45 Pontiac at Lowe's Motor Speedway.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty moved to NASCAR Busch Series full-time in 1999, driving the No. 45 Chevrolet. Petty finished sixth in his first Busch Series race at Daytona and had a best finish of fourth place at Fontana, though he also failed to qualify for three of the Busch races. Petty finished the 1999 season 20th overall in points.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty Enterprises planned to have Petty run a second Busch season in 2000, while giving him seven starts in the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, in preparation for a full Winston Cup campaign in 2001. He struggled early in the Busch season, but managed to qualify in his first attempt at Winston Cup during the DirecTV 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on April 2. He qualified 33rd and ran in the middle of the pack most of the day before his engine expired, forcing him to finish 40th. Adam never got to race alongside his father. Kyle failed to qualify and eventually relieved an ill Elliott Sadler, but Adam was already out of the race. Lee Petty, Adam's great-grandfather, and 3-time NASCAR Champion, lived to see his Winston debut, but died just three days later.


title: Adam Petty

text: On May 12, 2000, in a practice session for the Busch 200 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which would have been his 48th career Busch Series start, Petty's throttle had stuck wide open going into the third turn of the track, causing the car to hit the outside wall virtually head on, killing Adam instantly as he developed a basilar skull fracture. He was only 19 years old.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty's death, along with 1998 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year Kenny Irwin Jr.'s in the same corner at the same track eight weeks later, led NASCAR to mandate the use of a kill switch on the steering wheel and the adoption of the Whelen Modified Tour restrictor plate for the September Cup race; which was abandoned following the race, in where Jeff Burton led all the laps to win. Both adjustments addressed the cause of the deadly accidents, with the exception of course of the basilar skull fractures suffered by both drivers. At Texas Motor Speedway, Truck Series driver Tony Roper died on October 14, 2000 of a similar skull fracture. Mandatory use of the HANS or Hutchens device (designed to prevent the rapid-deceleration head-and-neck movements associated with the injuries and skull fractures associated with the Petty, Irwin, Jr., and Roper deaths) was mandated by NASCAR in October 2001, following the later deaths of seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18, 2001 and ARCA RE/MAX Series competitor Blaise Alexander during ARCA EasyCare 100 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 4, 2001, both of which died from the same fatal skull injuries. NASCAR also adopted the SAFER barriers in 2002; drivers had requested installation of soft walls prior to the September New Hampshire Cup race.


title: Adam Petty

text: Adam's father Kyle Petty, who had driven the No. 44 Hot Wheels-sponsored Pontiac Grand Prix Winston Cup car at the time of his son's fatal crash at New Hampshire, chose to take over Adam's No. 45 car in the Busch Series for the remainder of 2000, with Steve Grissom taking the wheel of the blue no. 44 Pontiac. He then used the No. 45 in the Cup Series throughout the rest of his driving career during most of the 2000s decade. Kyle Petty later admitted he struggled with a personal depression during the 2001 Cup Series season about the loss of his son, which partly resulted in his poor finish in the 2001 Cup standings, but inspiring him to keep on driving the 45 car paying his tributes to Adam.


title: Adam Petty

text: In October 2000, five months after Petty's death, his family partnered with Paul Newman and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp to begin the Victory Junction Gang Camp in Randleman, North Carolina as a memorial to Petty. The camp has received support from many NASCAR drivers, teams, and sponsors, including Cup Series sponsor Sprint, which has placed a replica of Petty's 1998 car in the camp. The camp began operation in 2004 and is an official charity of NASCAR.


title: Adam Petty

text: Petty also appears as a special guest driver in the video games "NASCAR 2000", "NASCAR Rumble", "NASCAR 2001" and "NASCAR Arcade". Both "NASCAR 2001" and "NASCAR Heat" include tributes to both him and Irwin Jr.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban Americans ( or "cubanoamericanos") are Americans who trace their cultural heritage to Cuba regardless of phenotype or ethnic origin. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Cuban descent or to someone who has emigrated to the United States from Cuba. Cuban Americans are the third largest Hispanic American group in the United States.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Many communities throughout the United States have significant Cuban American populations. Florida (1.53 million in 2017) has the highest concentration of Cuban Americans in the United States, standing out in part because of its proximity to Cuba, followed by California (110,702), New Jersey (99,987), Texas (86,183) and New York (78,478).


title: Cuban Americans

text: South Florida is followed by New York City; Tampa, Florida; Union County and North Hudson, New Jersey areas, particularly Union City, Elizabeth, West New York, Houston, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois. With a population of 141,250, the New York metropolitan area's Cuban community is the largest outside Florida. Nearly 70% of all Cuban Americans live in Florida.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Before the Louisiana Purchase and the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, Spanish Florida and other possessions of Spain on the Gulf Coast west of the Mississippi River were provinces of the Captaincy General of Cuba. Consequently, Cuban immigration to regions that would eventually form the United States have a long history, beginning in the Spanish colonial period in 1565 when the settlement of St. Augustine was established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and hundreds of Spanish soldiers and their families moved from Cuba to St. Augustine to establish new lives.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Thousands of Cuban settlers also immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1802 and Texas during the period of Spanish rule. Since 1820, the Cuban presence was more than 1,000 people. In 1870 the number of Cuban immigrants increased to almost 12,000, of which about 4,500 resided in New York City, about 3,000 in New Orleans and 2,000 in Key West. The causes of these movements were both economic and political, which intensified after 1860, when political factors played the predominant role in emigration, as a result of deteriorating relations with the Spanish metropolis.


title: Cuban Americans

text: 1869 marked the beginning of one of the most significant periods of emigration from Cuba to the United States, again centered on Key West. The exodus of hundreds of workers and businessmen was linked to the manufacture of tobacco. The reasons are many: the introduction of more modern techniques of elaboration of snuff, the most direct access to its main market, the United States, the uncertainty about the future of the island, which had suffered years of economic, political and social unrest during the beginning of the Ten Years' War against Spanish rule. It was an exodus of skilled workers, precisely the class in the island that had succeeded in establishing a free labor sector amid a slave economy.


title: Cuban Americans

text: The manufacture of snuff by the Cuban labor force, became the most important source of income for Key West between 1869 and 1900.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Tampa was added to such efforts, with a strong migration of Cubans, which went from 720 inhabitants in 1880 to 5,532 in 1890. However, the second half of the 1890s marked the decline of the Cuban immigrant population, as an important part of it returned to the island to fight for independence. The War accentuated Cuban immigrant integration into American society, whose numbers were significant: more than 12,000 people.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In the mid- to late 19th century, several cigar manufacturers moved their operations to Key West to get away from growing laboral and political problems. Many Cuban cigar workers followed. The Cuban government had even established a grammar school in Key West to help preserve Cuban culture. There, children learned folk songs and patriotic hymns such as "La Bayamesa", the Cuban national anthem.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In 1885, Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his cigar operations from Key West to the town of Tampa, Florida to escape labor strife. Ybor City was designed as a modified company town, and it quickly attracted thousands of Cuban workers from Key West and Cuba. West Tampa, another new cigar manufacturing community, was founded nearby in 1892 and also grew quickly. Between these communities, the Tampa Bay area's Cuban population grew from almost nothing to the largest in Florida in just over a decade, and the city as a whole grew from a village of approximately 1000 residents in 1885 to over 16,000 by 1900.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Both Ybor City and West Tampa were instrumental in Cuba's eventual independence. Inspired by revolutionaries such as Jose Martí, who visited Florida several times, Tampa-area Cubans and their sympathetic neighbors donated money, equipment, and sometimes their lives to the cause of "Cuba Libre". After the Spanish–American War, some Cubans returned to their native land, but many chose to stay in the U.S. due to the physical and economic devastation caused by years of fighting on the island.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Several other small waves of Cuban emigration to the U.S. occurred in the early 20th century (1900–1959). Most settled in Florida and the northeast U.S. The majority of an estimated 100,000 Cubans arriving in that time period usually came for economic reasons (the Great Depression of 1929, volatile sugar prices and migrant farm labor contracts), but included anti-Batista refugees fleeing the military dictatorship, which had pro-U.S. diplomatic ties. During the '20s and '30s, emigration from Cuba to U.S. territory, basically comprised workers looking for jobs, mainly in New York and New Jersey. They were classified as labor migrants and workers, much like other immigrants in the area at that time. Thus migrated more than 40,149 in the first decade, encouraged by U.S. immigration facilities at the time and more than 43,400 by the end of the 30s.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Subsequently, the flow of Cubans to the United States fluctuated, due to both the domestic situation in the 40s and 50s in Cuba, and U.S. immigration policies, plus intermittent anti-immigrant sentiment. Cuban Migration in those years included, in addition to workers, a small mass of the population who could afford to leave the country and live abroad. The U.S. was considered a favored destination by the Cuban bourgeoisie and the middle classes of society, to send their children to school, take vacations and bring some of their capital to establish small and medium-sized businesses.


title: Cuban Americans

text: The Cuban population officially registered in the United States for 1958 was around 125,000 people including descendants. Of these, more than 50,000 remained in the United States after the revolution of 1959.


title: Cuban Americans

text: After the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959, a Cuban exodus began as the new government allied itself with the Soviet Union and began to introduce communism. The first Cubans to come to America after the revolution were those affiliated with former dictator Fulgencio Batista, next were Cuba's professionals. Most Cuban Americans that arrived in the United States initially came from Cuba's educated upper and middle classes centered in Cuba's capital Havana. This middle class arose in the period after the Platt Amendment when Cuba became one of the most successful countries in Latin America. Between December 1960 and October 1962 more than 14,000 Cuban children arrived alone in the U.S. Their parents were afraid that their children were going to be sent to some Soviet bloc countries to be educated and they decided to send them to the States as soon as possible.


title: Cuban Americans

text: This program was called Operation Peter Pan (Operacion Pedro Pan). When the children arrived in Miami they were met by representatives of Catholic Charities and they were sent to live with relatives if they had any or were sent to foster homes, orphanages or boarding schools until their parents could leave Cuba. From 1965 to 1973, there was another wave of immigration known as the Freedom Flights. In order to provide aid to recently arrived Cuban immigrants, the United States Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966. The Cuban Refugee Program provided more than $1.3 billion of direct financial assistance. They also were eligible for public assistance, Medicare, free English courses, scholarships and low-interest college loans.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Some banks pioneered loans for exiles who did not have collateral or credit but received help in getting a business loan. These loans enabled many Cuban Americans to secure funds and start up their own businesses. With their Cuban-owned businesses and low cost of living, Miami, Florida and Union City, New Jersey (dubbed "Havana on the Hudson)" were the preferred destinations for many immigrants and soon became the main centers for Cuban-American culture. According to author Lisandro Perez, Miami was not particularly attractive to Cubans prior to the 1960s.


title: Cuban Americans

text: It was not until the exodus of the Cuban exiles in 1959 that Miami started to become a preferred destination. Westchester within Miami-Dade County, was the area most densely populated by Cubans and Cuban Americans in the United States, followed by Hialeah in second.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Communities like Miami, Tampa and Union City, which Cuban Americans have made their home, have experienced a profound cultural impact as a result, as seen in such aspects of their local culture as cuisine, fashion, music, entertainment and cigar-making.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Another large wave (an estimated 125,000 people) of Cuban immigration occurred in the early 1980s with the Mariel boatlifts. Most of the "Marielitos" were people wanting to escape from economic stagnation.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Fidel Castro sent some 20,000 criminals directly from Cuban prisons, as well as mentally ill persons from Cuban mental institutions, with the alleged double purpose of cleaning up Cuban society and poisoning the USA. Those people were labeled "inadmissible" by the US government, and with time, through many negotiations, have been returned to Cuba.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Since the mid-1990s, after the implementation of the "Wet feet, dry feet" policy immigration patterns changed. Many Cuban immigrants departed from the southern and western coasts of Cuba and arrived at the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico; many landed on Isla Mujeres. From there Cuban immigrants traveled to the Texas-Mexico border and found asylum. Many of the Cubans who did not have family in Miami settled in Houston; this has caused Houston's Cuban-American community to increase in size. The term "dusty foot" refers to Cubans emigrating to the U.S. through Mexico. In 2005 the Department of Homeland Security had abandoned the approach of detaining every dry foot Cuban who crosses through Texas and began a policy allowing most Cubans to obtain immediate parole.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Jorge Ferragut, a Cuban immigrant who founded Casa Cuba, an agency that assists Cuban immigrants arriving in Texas, said in a 2008 article that many Cuban immigrants of the first decade of the 21st century left due to economic instead of political issues. By October 2008 Mexico and Cuba created an agreement to prevent immigration of Cubans through Mexico.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In recent years, Puerto Rico has become a major drop-off point for Cubans trying to reach the United States illegally. As a U.S. Commonwealth, Puerto Rico is seen as a stepping stone for Cubans trying to get to the continental U.S., though Puerto Rico itself is home to a number of Cubans.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Before the 1980s, all refugees from Cuba were welcomed into the United States as political refugees. This changed in the 1990s so that only Cubans who reach U.S. soil are granted refuge under the "wet foot, dry foot policy". While representing a tightening of U.S. immigration policy, the wet foot, dry foot policy still affords Cubans a privileged position relative to other immigrants to the U.S. This privileged position is the source of a certain friction between Cuban Americans and other Latino citizens and residents in the United States, adding to the tension caused by the divergent foreign policy interests pursued by conservative Cuban Americans. Cuban immigration also continues with an allotted number of Cubans (20,000 per year) provided legal U.S. visas.


title: Cuban Americans

text: According to a U.S. Census 1970 report, Cuban Americans as well as Latinos lived in all fifty states. But as later Census reports demonstrated, the majority of Cuban immigrants settled in south Florida. A new trend in the late 1990s showed that fewer immigrants arrived from Cuba than previously. While U.S.-born Cuban Americans moved out of their enclaves, other nationalities settled there.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In late 1999, U.S. news media focused on the case of Elián González, the six-year-old Cuban boy caught in a custody battle between his relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba. The boy's mother died trying to bring him to the United States. On April 22, 2000, immigration enforcement agents took Elián González into custody. González was returned to Cuba to live with his father.


title: Cuban Americans

text: On January 12, 2017, President Barack Obama announced the immediate cessation of the wet feet, dry feet policy. The Cuban government agreed to accept the return of Cuban nationals. Beginning with the United States–Cuban Thaw in 2014, anticipation of the end of the policy had led to increased numbers of Cuban immigrants.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In the census in 2000 there were 1,241,685 Cuban Americans, and in the 2010 census there were 1,785,547 (both native and foreign born), and represented 3.5% of all Latinos, and 0.58% of the US population. Of the 1,241,685 Cuban Americans, 983,147 were born abroad in Cuba and 628,331 were U.S born. Of the 1.6 million, 415,212 were not U.S citizens. In the 2013 ACS, there were 2,013,155 Cuban Americans. The 2010 US Census shows that 85% of Cuban Americans self-identified as being white. The most recent 2012 Cuban census has the island population at 64.12% white, 26.62% mulatto, 9.26% black, and 0.1% Asian. This means that, according to most estimates non-white individuals make up a lower proportion of the Cuban American population than they do of Cuba itself. Though, the larger Cuban community in Florida is more white in comparison to the more mixed-race Cuban community that historically settled the New York/New Jersey area.


title: Cuban Americans

text: The ancestry of Cuban Americans is primarily from Spaniards and Africans, as well as more distant ancestry from among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and those of Florida. During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, there were waves of Spanish immigration to Cuba (Castilians, Basques, Canarians, Catalans, Andalusians, Asturians and Galicians). Canarians immigrated to many countries along the Caribbean from Louisiana to Venezuela. But Cuba was the Latin American culture most influenced by the emigration of Canary Islanders (they developed the production of sugar in Cuba), and Cuban Spanish is closest to that of the Canary Islands. Canary Islanders were viewed by other Spanish-Cubans as superstitious but also hard-working. Some of Haiti's white population (French) migrated to Cuba after the Haitian War of Independence in the early 18th century. Also, minor but significant ethnic influx is derived from diverse peoples from Middle East places such as Lebanon and Palestine.


title: Cuban Americans

text: There was also a significant influx of Jews, especially between the World Wars, from many countries, including Sephardi Jews from Turkey and Ashkenazi Jews from Poland, Germany and Russia. Other Europeans that have contributed include Britons, Italians, Germans, Swedes and Hungarians. Many Chinese also arrived in Cuba as indentured laborers and they formerly boasted the largest Chinatown in Western Hemisphere as most Chinese Cubans left for Florida.


title: Cuban Americans

text: The largest populations of Cubans are situated in the following metropolitan areas (Source: Census 2010):


title: Cuban Americans

text: The top 25 US communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Cuban ancestry are (all of which are in Florida while the top 22 are in Miami-Dade County):


title: Cuban Americans

text: Top 20 U.S. communities with the most residents born in Cuba are (all of which are located within the Miami Florida area):


title: Cuban Americans

text: According to the 2015-2019 American Community Survey, there were 1,289,900 immigrants from Cuba in the US, the top counties of residence being:


title: Cuban Americans

text: Many Cuban Americans have assimilated themselves into the American culture, which includes Cuban influences.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban Americans live in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, which received thousands of anti-Castro refugees as well in the 1960s. Since the 1980s, Cuban Americans have moved out of "Little Havana" and "Hialeah" to the suburbs of Miami, such as Kendall, as well in the more affluent Coral Gables and Miami Lakes. Many new South and Central Americans, along with new Cuban refugees, have replaced the Cuban Americans who have relocated elsewhere in Florida (Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa Bay and West Palm Beach) and dispersed throughout the nation. Nevertheless, Cubans are still heavily concentrated in Florida, which slows assimilation; according to the 2010 Census, 68% of Cuban Americans still live in Florida.


title: Cuban Americans

text: More recently, there has been substantial growth of new Cuban American communities in places like Louisville, Kentucky, the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, Katy, Texas, and Downey, California; the latter city now has the second-highest percentage of Cubans and Cuban Americans in the Western United States at 1.96% of the population.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban Americans have been very successful in establishing businesses and developing political clout in Miami. Cuban Americans have also contributed to and participated in many areas of American life including academia, business, acting, politics, and literature.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In the last 15 years, due to the growth of interest around the world for genealogy, Cuban genealogy has become a major interest for Cuban Americans and a growing segment in the family research industry. This has complemented assimilation by preserving Cuban and colonial roots, while also adopting American culture and value.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban Americans are mostly Roman Catholic, but some Cubans practice African traditional religions (such as Santería or Ifá), which evolved from mixing the Catholic religion with the traditional African religion. Cuban Catholicism was also influenced by the Catholicism practiced by the Canarian people. However, there are many Protestant (primarily Pentecostal) with small numbers of syncretist, nonreligious or tiny communities of Jewish and Muslim Cuban Americans. The Protestant movement in Cuba started after the Spanish–American War when many Americans came to Cuba.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Similar to the 67% of other Latinos, 69% of Cubans under 18 speak a language other than English at home. For Cubans over the age of 18, the percent speaking a language other than English at home climbs to 89%, which is higher than the 80% among other Latino groups.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Only 12% of Cubans under the age of 18 speak English less than very well, which is much lower than the 20% among other Latino groups. While roughly half of all Cuban-Americans indicate that they feel more proficient in Spanish, around 60% of all Cuban-Americans do speak English proficiently. 36% of all Cuban-Americans consider themselves bilingual. The choice of many Cuban-Americans to utilize Spanish in the home connects to the desire of Cuban-Americans to retain their ethnic heritage. While many Cuban-Americans are open to some assimilation into American culture, ultimately they still consider themselves a unique group of people who bear their own traditions and perspectives.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban food is varied, though rice is a staple and commonly served at lunch and dinner. Other common dishes are "arroz con pollo" (chicken and rice), "pan con bistec" (steak sandwich), "platanos maduros" (sweet plantains), "lechon asado" (pork), "yuca" (cassava root), "flan", "batido de mamey" (mamey milkshake), papayas and guava paste.


title: Cuban Americans

text: A common lunch staple is the Cuban sandwich (sometimes called a "mixto" sandwich), which is built on Cuban bread and was created and standardized among cigar workers who traveled between Cuba and Florida (especially Ybor City) around the turn of the 20th century.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban versions of pizza contain bread, which is usually soft, and cheese, toppings, and sauce, which is made with spices such as Adobo and Goya onion. Picadillo, ground beef that has been sautéed with tomato, green peppers, green olives, and garlic is another popular Cuban dish. It can be served with black beans and rice, and a side of deep-fried, ripened plantains.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban coffee is popular in the Cuban-American community. Cubans often drink cafe cubano: a small cup of coffee called a cafecito (or a colada), which is traditional espresso coffee, sweetened with sugar, with a little foam on top called espumita. It is also popular to add milk, which is called a cortadito for a small cup or a cafe con leche for a larger cup.


title: Cuban Americans

text: A common soft drink is Materva, a Cuban soda made of yerba mate. Jupiña, Ironbeer and Cawy lemon-lime are soft drinks that originated in Cuba. Since the Castro era, they are also produced in Miami. Other famous Cuban drinks include guarapo de caña.


title: Cuban Americans

text: A popular drink of Cuban origin is the Cuba Libre, a mix of Cuban rum and cola, usually Coca-Cola and mojitos.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Until the early 2010s, Cuban Americans historically tended to be more Republican than Democratic, thanks to the anti-communist foreign policy platform of the Republican Party since the 1950s. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion left many Cubans distrustful of the Democratic Party, blaming John F. Kennedy for his handling of the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban exiles began an alliance with the Republican Party of Florida. In Florida, Cuban-American congressmen have tended to be Republican, beginning with Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Joe Garcia, a Democrat, is an exception). The presence of Cubans in the Republican Party was highlighted by the 2016 presidential race, which featured U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as prominent candidates, both of whom are of Cuban descent. But in New Jersey, another state with many Cuban Americans, Cuban-American congressmen have tended to be Democrats, for example, Representative Albio Sires and Senator Bob Menendez. Ronald Reagan is particularly popular in the Cuban-American community for standing up to Soviet communism and Fidel Castro's so-called "exportation of revolution" to Central America and Africa (there is a street in Miami named for Reagan), and George W. Bush received 75 and 78 percent (in 2000 and 2004 respectively) of the Cuban-American vote. The Cuban-American lobby has also lobbied both parties on causes important to Cuban Americans.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In recent years, the Cuban-American vote has become more contested between the parties. In the 2008 United States presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 47% of the Cuban-American vote in Florida. According to Bendixen's exit polls, 84% of Miami-Dade Cuban-American voters 65 or older backed John McCain, while 55% of those 29 or younger backed Obama. In 2012, Barack Obama received 49 percent of the Cuban-American vote in Florida, compared to 47 percent for Mitt Romney according to Edison Research exits polls. By spring 2014, this trend increased among Cuban American voters having a preference for Democratic Party candidates increased particularly for younger voters aged 18–49, increasing to some 56% for the younger voter demographic, versus Cuban-American voters over 50 years of age having a 39% preference for Democratic candidates. As in the 2012 United States presidential election, Mitt Romney got more support than Barack Obama. The 2016 United States presidential election saw Donald Trump garner about the same level support within the community, garnering 50–54 percent of the Floridian Cuban-American vote, as opposed to 41–48 percent for Hillary Clinton, as some Cuban Americans were dissatisfied with Obama's Cuba policy, which restored foreign relations with the Cuban government.


title: Cuban Americans

text: In regards to the 2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Trump increased his level of support with younger Cuban Americans. In the aftermath of Trump attempting to overturn the election and the subsequent storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, a report by "Foreign Policy" alleged that Cuban Americans within Miami were among the most ardent believers of his conspiracy theories.


title: Cuban Americans

text: The median household income for U.S.-born Cuban Americans is $57,000, higher than the overall U.S. median household income of $52,000.


title: Cuban Americans

text: However, the median annual personal earnings for foreign born Cuban Americans is $25,000, which is lower than that of US population at $30,000. Around 20% of Cuban-Americans live in poverty, compared to 25% of Latinos generally and 16% of non-Hispanic Americans. The ability of the average Cuban-American to out-earn the average Latino makes it easier for Cuban-Americans to avoid poverty. Historically, Cuban-Americans have also enjoyed greater benefits due to their "refugee" status within U.S. immigration policy. These benefits, such as those provided by the Cuban American Act of 1966, have allowed Cuban-Americans to enjoy an easier time of navigating economic obstacles.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Among U.S.-born Cuban Americans, 36% have a college degree or higher, compared to 30% for the overall U.S. population. Of foreign-born Cuban Americans, 27% have a college degree. This is higher than the U.S. Latino population (14%) but lower than that of the overall U.S. population. According to the Pew Research Center, Cuban-Americans 25 or older who emigrated to the United States after 1990 have the highest graduation rate, at 26%. According to this same data, Cuban-Americans 25 or older who entered the United States before 1980 had a graduation rate of 24%, while those entering between 1980 and 1990 had a graduation rate of 13%. The decline in graduation rate from 1980 to 1990 can in part be attributed to the presence of Afro-Cubans among immigrants, who generally favor more poorly in multiple areas due to systemic inequalities in Cuba. Almost half of all Cuban-Americans have at least a high school diploma.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Ten Cuban Americans currently serve in the United States Congress. There have been eleven Cuban-American US representatives elected from Florida, two from New Jersey and New York, and one each from Texas, Ohio and West Virginia.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Cuban Americans have had much success at the state level. In Florida, where Cuban-American legislators hold more seats than anywhere else in the nation, pro-democracy, anti-Castro, and anti-Chavez legislation is often promoted and passed even though states cannot dictate foreign policy. Even in states where Cuban Americans are not concentrated in large numbers they have had successes especially in New Jersey, where albeit a tiny minority concentrated in Union City, Elizabeth, and Newark, they have had enormous political successes.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Eduardo Aguirre (R) served as Vice Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in the George W. Bush administration and later named Director of Immigration and Naturalization Services under the Department of Homeland Security. In 2006, Eduardo Aguirre was named US ambassador to Spain. Cuban Americans have also served other high-profile government jobs including White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu (R) Mauricio Claver-Carone serves as the President of the Inter-American Development Bank.


title: Cuban Americans

text: Florida-based businessman and Cuban exile Elviro Sanchez made his multimillion-dollar fortune by investing the proceeds of his family's fruit plantations. He is one of the most low-profile philanthropists in the Southern States.


title: Mao Ichimichi

text: Ichimichi worked with Horipro's idol group HOP Club with the stage name . She appeared in the variety show "Enter! 371". After the release of the idol DVD "Ike Ike Go! Go! HOP Club", she left the group. After signing with Yellow Cab Next, she became a co-host in the "Weekly Shōnen Jump" variety show "Sakiyomi Jan Bang!". She played Luka Millfy/Gokai Yellow in the Super Sentai series "Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger", following the footsteps of her former HOP Club batch mate Suzuka Morita. She released her first solo gravure idol DVD "A Distant Shore", along with a companion photo book of the same title. She promoted her second idol video "Apartment" and photo book "Afternoon Tea" in December. She released modeling calendars through Try-X.


title: Deepti Sati

text: Deepti Sati is an Indian actress and model who predominantly appears in Malayalam films. She has also appeared in Marathi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films. She made her acting debut in 2015 with "Nee-Na".


title: Deepti Sati

text: Deepti Sati was born in Mumbai. Her father, Divyesh Sati, hails from Nainital, Uttarakhand while her mother Madhuri Sati, is a native of Kochi, Kerala.


title: Deepti Sati

text: Deepti Sati did her schooling from Canossa Convent High School, Andheri (E), Mumbai and pursued her Bachelor's degree in business administration from the St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.


title: Deepti Sati

text: Deepti Sati started her modelling career with a pageant called Pantaloon Fresh Face Hunt. Deepti Sati won the Impresario Miss Kerala 2012 title. She was one among the top ten finalists of Femina Miss India 2014 and was also awarded the titles Miss. Talented 2014 & Miss. Iron Maiden 2014. She also won the title Navy Queen 2013 and was the first runner up in the pageant Indian Princess 2013. Deepti Sati is a trained dancer in the Indian classical dance form called Kathak as well as Bharatanatyam and has undergone training since she was three years old.


title: Deepti Sati

text: Deepti Sati made her acting debut alongside Vijay Babu and Ann Augustine in the 2015 Malayalam movie "Nee-Na", directed by Lal Jose, in which she played the title character as a creative director of an ad company. She impressed the audience with her powerful tomboyish character.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Jenny Cecilia Petrén, (née Berggren; born 19 May 1972), professionally known as Jenny Berggren and Jenny from Ace of Base is a Swedish mezzo-soprano singer and former lead singer in the Swedish pop band Ace of Base. Since 1995, she has also been writing songs and performing solo. In 2010, she released her debut album "My Story".


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Berggren was born in Gothenburg, the third of three children born to Göran Berggren, an X-ray technician, and Birgitta Berggren. She was raised in a Christian family in the Gothenburg suburbs.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: All three children took music lessons, and Berggren, along with her older sister Malin, practiced violin. Educated to become a teacher, Berggren studied classical music and sang for her church choir with her sister.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: During the late 1980s, the Berggren siblings, along with close friend, Ulf Ekberg, formed the techno band Tech Noir. The group eventually became Ace of Base. Berggren also attended university, with the intention of becoming a teacher. However, she still pursued a musical career, performing background vocals for symphonic rock band Masque while simultaneously preparing vocals to Ace of Base material, which had yet to be released. Berggren put her plans to become a teacher on hold when Ace of Base was signed to Danish label Mega Records, with the band's debut album eventually selling more than 30 million copies worldwide.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Berggren's original role in the band was equal with her sister, Linn Berggren, although the first singles chosen by the record company had Linn singing most of the lead vocals. In the early years, she and Linn only had a minor role in the production or writing of any of the band's songs. Berggren later composed several songs for the band's "The Bridge" album, including "Ravine", a song about an attack that occurred the night of 27 April 1994. On that evening, Berggren and her mother were attacked in their home by a woman who had followed Berggren home. Berggren's mother was stabbed in the hands, and the woman, a 21-year-old German named Manuela Behrendt, was banned from returning to Sweden. Jenny also composed "Wave Wet Sand" and "Experience Pearls". She then continued to compose songs for the band's albums, and her compositions have been included on each successive album. Later, with sister Linn's sudden withdrawal from the spotlight and beginning with the single "Life Is a Flower" in 1998, Berggren was forced into a more prominent vocal role.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: The band remained out of the spotlight throughout 2003 and 2004, although Berggren kept busy by performing solo live performances in several Christian shows with her husband, and released an album as a vocalist with the Swedish group Arose.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Berggren, Jonas, and Ulf performed a series of concerts in 2007–2009 in Europe and Asia. While touring they recorded new songs designated for a fifth studio album. The trio did not get a record contract with the songs that were produced and Berggren continued working on her own solo material. In 2009 Berggren announced via Twitter that she was working on new songs for a solo album.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: During this time, Ulf and Jonas recruited two other female vocalists, Clara Hagman and Julia Williamson. When this came to the fans' attention, Jonas and Berggren independently stated that this new group would not be called Ace of Base, but would use another name. This alternative line-up later presented a slightly changed name: "Ace.of.Base", but this was mainly a graphical adjustment used on the cover of their releases only. In an interview for Swedish TV Ulf stated: "We're still called Ace of Base. The dots are more for styling and the logo." Berggren has stated several times that she has never left the band and on the contrary declared that all four original members are still band members and own the brand Ace of Base, by agreement with her brother Jonas and by legal documents.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: This was later confirmed by Jonas in an interview stating: "She (Jenny) never officially said ""I quit"". But to the record company, she was a leaving member. And they cancelled her contract. But she never said ""oh, I don’t want to be in the band""... they wanted a new girl, a new lead vocalist." Regarding the name dispute, Ulf stated that he had "no problems using the name even though all the original members are not included." Berggren discussed this topic further in a newspaper interview on 18 October 2010. She said that she wasn't allowed by Jonas and Ulf to participate in the songwriting for the band's album. "From now on, I want paper on things. I agreed to work under certain conditions, and they just vanished... They didn't want me in". When asked, "Do you want to go back to Ace of Base again?" she responded, "Not right now. It would take some apologies."


title: Jenny Berggren

text: In 2016, Berggren stated: "We won't re-form [...] We're finished working together but we're not finished being family together. We have a lot of fun plans in the future but no musical plans."


title: Jenny Berggren

text: In late 2009, Berggren published her autobiography "Vinna hela världen". The first edition of the book sold out in Sweden (which only 4% of the books in Sweden do), and a second edition had to be pressed. An English version was to be called "To Win the World" and was planned to be available in 2011, but a release has yet to surface.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: On New Year's Day 2010, Berggren released her solo song, "Free Me", as a free download to her fans via her new website. In May 2010, she released her first solo single, "Here I Am", which is available on iTunes. The single reached number 14 on the Swedish singles charts. On 15 September 2010 she released her second single, "Gotta Go". Her debut album, "My Story", was released on 13 October 2010.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Berggren was revealed on 3 February to be a wildcard for the Danish national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with her entry "Let Your Heart Be Mine". At the national final on 26 February 2011, she performed "Let Your Heart Be Mine". After the first round of voting, she failed to place in the top four and did not advance further in the competition.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: Berggren continues to volunteer her time to various humanitarian charities and has staged several Christian concerts as well as regularly singing in churches.


title: Jenny Berggren

text: On 18 September 2004, Berggren married her long-time boyfriend Jakob Petrén, a Swedish pianist. They have two children together, a son and a daughter. Berggren and her family reside in Gothenburg.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 American documentary film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by "Fortune" reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who are credited as writers of the film alongside the director, Alex Gibney. It examines the 2001 collapse of the Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company's top executives during the ensuing Enron scandal, and contains a section about the involvement of Enron traders in the 2000-01 California electricity crisis. Archival footage is used alongside new interviews with McLean and Elkind, several former Enron executives and employees, stock analysts, reporters, and former Governor of California Gray Davis.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: The film won the awards for Best Documentary Feature at the 21st Independent Spirit Awards and Best Documentary Screenplay at the 58th Writers Guild of America Awards. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 78th Academy Awards.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: The film begins with a profile of Kenneth Lay, who founded Enron in 1985. In 1987, the company becomes embroiled in scandal after two traders begin betting on the oil markets, resulting in suspiciously consistent profits. One of the traders, Louis Borget, is also discovered to be diverting company money to offshore accounts. Auditors uncover their schemes, but Lay encourages them to "keep making us millions". However, the traders are fired when it is revealed they gambled away Enron's reserves; the company is narrowly saved from bankruptcy by the timely intervention of executive Mike Muckleroy, who managed to bluff the market long enough to recover Borget's trading losses and prevent a margin call. Lay later denies having knowledge of any wrongdoing.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Lay hires Jeffrey Skilling, a visionary who joins Enron on the condition that they use mark-to-market accounting, allowing the company to record potential profits on certain projects immediately after contracts were signed, regardless of the actual profits that the deal would generate. This gives Enron the ability to subjectively give the appearance of being a profitable company, even when it was not. With the vision of transforming Enron from an energy supplier to an energy trader, Skilling imposes his version of a Darwinian worldview on Enron by establishing a review committee that grades employees and annually fires the bottom fifteen percent, a process nicknamed within the company as "rank and yank". This creates a highly competitive and brutal working environment. Skilling hires lieutenants who enforce his directives inside Enron, known as the "guys with spikes." They include J. Clifford Baxter, an intelligent but manic-depressive executive, and Lou Pai, the CEO of Enron Energy Services, notorious for his nightly habit of visiting strip clubs. Pai abruptly resigns from EES, having already sold $250 million of stock as a result of divorce proceedings.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: With its success in the bull market brought on by the dot-com bubble, Enron seeks to beguile stock market analysts by meeting their projections. Executives push up their stock prices and then cash in their multimillion-dollar options, a process known as "pump and dump". Enron also mounts a PR campaign to portray itself as a profitable, prosperous, and innovative company, even though its worldwide operations are performing poorly. Elsewhere, Enron begins ambitious initiatives, such as attempts to use broadband technology to deliver movies on demand and to "trade weather" like a commodity; both initiatives fail, but, using mark-to-market accounting, Enron is able to record non-existent profits for these ventures. CFO Andrew Fastow creates a network of shell companies designed solely to do business with Enron, for the ostensible dual purposes of sending Enron money and hiding its increasing debt. Fastow also takes advantage of the greed of Wall Street investment banks, pressuring them into investing in these shell entities. However, Fastow has a vested financial stake in these ventures and uses them to defraud Enron of tens of millions of dollars in business deals that he effectively conducts with himself. All of this is done with the permission of Enron's accounting firm Arthur Andersen and Enron's corporate board. Most of these deals were leveraged with Enron stock, meaning that a significant decline in their stock price could cause Fastow's network of shell companies to fall apart. During this time, Enron's executives encourage employees to invest their savings and retirement funds into Enron stock while they are selling off their shares for millions.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Enron's successes continue as it becomes one of the few internet-related companies to survive the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000 relatively unscathed, and it is named the "most admired" corporation by "Fortune" magazine for the sixth year running. However, Jim Chanos, an Enron investor, and Bethany McLean, a "Fortune" reporter, question irregularities about the company's financial statements and stock value. Skilling responds by calling McLean "unethical", though he does send three Enron executives to meet with McLean and her "Fortune" editor to explain the company's finances. When McLean's critical article is published, Skilling accuses "Fortune" of just trying to counteract a recent positive piece about Enron in "BusinessWeek", "Fortune"'s competitor.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Public perception of Enron begins to change due to its role in the 2000–01 California electricity crisis. Given the company's purchase of Portland General Electric in 1997, Enron traders are able to exploit California's newly deregulated energy market by recurrently shutting down power plants and sending power out of the state to create artificial shortages that raise the cost of electricity, and then bringing the exported energy back in to California, making the company $2 billion. The film includes tape-recorded conversations between Enron traders who seem to derive enjoyment from this and then cites the Milgram experiment to explain their behavior. It also explores the strong political connections Ken Lay and Enron had, particularly to the administrations of President George H. W. Bush and his son, President (and earlier Governor of Texas), George W. Bush, and suggests that the Bush administration's lack of response during the California energy crisis could have been intended as a means of sabotaging then-Governor of California Gray Davis, who was speculated to be a strong potential challenger to the younger Bush in the 2004 Presidential election. Indeed, the crisis was a contributing factor to Davis being recalled in 2003, which ended his political career. Skilling, who succeeded Lay as Enron's CEO on February 12, 2001, blames California's energy laws for the crisis and denies that Enron is acting inappropriately, infamously stating in a 2001 episode of "Frontline" that "We are the good guys. We are on the side of angels." Eventually, the Democratic-controlled United States Senate ends the crisis by imposing price controls. Bush's connections to Ken Lay come under scrutiny in the press, which intensifies after Enron's collapse.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Meanwhile, throughout 2001, much more scrutiny is brought upon Enron's balance sheet, which agitates Skilling, who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown as the situation starts to unravel. He engages in odd and irrational behavior, such as calling an investor an "asshole" during a conference call when asked why Enron is not as transparent about its finances as its competitors, which culminates in his abrupt resignation as CEO in August 2001, after which Ken Lay retakes the position. Skilling's odd behavior serves as a red flag to investors, who begin to question how financially healthy the company really is and start selling their shares, causing Enron's stock price to decline. Soon after Skilling's departure, whistleblower Sherron Watkins discovers the fraud in Enron's books and alerts Lay, telling him the company is headed to certain collapse unless he acts immediately. Like in 1987, Lay largely ignores the warnings and assures that Skilling left for personal reasons and the company is financially solid. The board fires CFO Fastow after discovering he had embezzled more than $30 million from the company through his shell companies. With Fastow gone, Enron's accountants issue restatements that erase a majority of the company's profits from 1997 through 2000, add nearly $1 billion of debt to the company's balance sheet, and remove over $1 billion of shareholder equity as a means of writing down the losses from Fastow's shell companies. Despite Lay's continued assurances that Enron is in good shape and will pull through, the company's stock price tanks as its investors and customers lose all confidence, forcing Enron to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2001.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: As a result of Enron's bankruptcy, many of its employees lose their pensions and life savings, while investors lose over $11 billion in shareholder value. Skilling testifies at the ensuing congressional hearings, but Ken Lay and Andrew Fastow plead the fifth. Fastow eventually pleads guilty and agrees to testify against his former coworkers in exchange for a reduced sentence, while Lay and Skilling plead innocent and spend tens of millions of dollars on defense attorneys, with their trials scheduled to take place in 2006.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Upon its release, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" was met with strongly positive reviews. It has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 8.09/10; the site's consensus states: "A concise, entertaining documentary about the spectacular failure of Enron." On Metacritic, the film has a "Universal Acclaim" rating of 82%, based on 37 reviews.


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: Film critic Roger Ebert, writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times", gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, commenting that: "This is not a political documentary. It is a crime story. No matter what your politics, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" will make you mad". Ebert's co-host on the television program "Ebert & Roeper", "Chicago Tribune" critic Richard Roeper, said the film is "a brilliantly executed, brutally entertaining dissection of what one observer called the greatest corporate fraud in American history." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote that: "This sober, informative chronicle of the biggest business scandal of the decade is almost indecently entertaining." Owen Gleiberman called the film: "A nimble investigative workout that leaves you with the exhilarated sensation of understanding the defining financial scandal of the virtual era."


title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

text: The film won the award for Best Documentary Screenplay at the 58th Writers Guild of America Awards and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 78th Academy Awards, but lost to "March of the Penguins".


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: The Devil Inside is a 2012 American found footage supernatural horror film directed by William Brent Bell, and written by Bell and Matthew Peterman. It is a documentary-style film about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms during her quest to determine what happened to her mother, a woman who murdered three people as a result of being possessed by a demon. Produced by Peterman and Morris Paulson, the film stars Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, and Suzan Crowley, and was released theatrically on January 6.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Despite receiving poor reviews from critics and audiences, it was a commercial success and grossed over $101 million. The film topped the US box office on its opening weekend, yet dropped drastically in the second week, before disappearing completely from the box office top ten.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: On October 30, 1989, Maria Rossi committed a triple murder during an exorcism performed on her. The Catholic Church became involved, and she has since been in a Catholic psychiatric hospital in Rome. A news story and police investigation show the three members of the clergy whom she murdered. Her daughter, Isabella, learned of the murders from her father, who died three days after telling her.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Twenty years later, Isabella is in the process of filming a documentary with filmmaker Michael Schaefer about exorcisms and, to find out more about her mother, she visits a school in Rome. She meets two priests, Ben Rawlings and David Keane, before going to see her mother Maria in the asylum. She finds that her mother speaks in different accents and has paintings all over the walls. Maria then soils herself while screaming in an unidentified language. She has inverted crosses carved into her arms and her bottom lip and tells Isabella that killing a child is against God's will. Isabella tells the priests that she had an abortion years ago and her mother had no way of knowing that—another sign that showed possible possession. David and Ben take her with them on an unsanctioned exorcism performed on Rosalita, a young woman. They bring medical equipment to determine if it is possession or mental illness. Rosalita calls Isabella by her name, despite not knowing her, and attacks the crew after spouting out obscene remarks in different languages and accents. Eventually, they get her under control.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: As the crew discusses performing an exorcism and analysis on Maria, David worries about losing his job, since the Church does not authorize exorcisms without undeniable proof that the patient is indeed possessed. They persuade him to aid in the process. During the procedure, Maria mentions knowing what Ben did in the past and transfers demons to David and Isabella. The process is stopped by hospital workers and is unsuccessful.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: After analyzing the data from the video and audio files, they present the evidence to the Church. David shows many signs of stress, as Ben repeatedly plays the audio files. Ben finds that there are four different demons speaking in unison. David is to perform a baptism at his church, which Michael tags along to record. When he holds the baby to start the immersion baptism, he mutters some lines from the Bible and starts forcefully submerging the baby in the holy water. The crowd rushes up to save the baby as he passes out.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Soon after, Ben finds David at home with blood all over his forearms, much the way Maria was during the exorcism. The police arrive, and David acquires an officer's handgun and holds it in his mouth. Ben tells him to fight it, but he begins to weep, reciting the Lord's Prayer, and forgets the last few words. He laughs and shoots himself. Isabella begins having a seizure.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Ben and Michael take her to the hospital. The head nurse tells them she is stable and they can leave but just then Isabella slashes a nurse's throat and tries to escape. Ben hysterically comes to the realization that Isabella is possessed. Ben and Michael take her and leave in a car, heading to get help for a potential exorcism. While Michael drives, Isabella speaks of also knowing the horrible act Ben committed, scaring Ben. She tries to strangle Michael and breathes into his mouth. He instantly shows signs of possession, unbuckling his seatbelt and accelerating into oncoming traffic. The car collides, and the corpses of Michael and Ben sit in the overturned car while Isabella is not visible.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: A title card is shown informing that the case of the Rossi family is still unresolved, followed by another title card directing viewers to a website "for more information on the ongoing investigation".


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: The genesis of the film happened in 2005, as writer Matthew Peterman read about the Vatican's school of exorcism and approached director William Brent Bell on exploiting that. The duo wrote a traditional script however they eventually, according to Peterman "got frustrated with that process" so they rewrote to a mockumentary style following a suggestion from producer Morris Paulson.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Principal photography began in 2010 in several locations, including Bucharest (Romania), Rome (Italy) and Vatican City. The film is of the "found footage" genre, and so is shot in documentary style despite being fictional. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Schneider took the movie to Paramount Pictures, who ultimately produced it through their low-budget company Insurge Pictures, who acquired the film as their first release hoping it would replicate the success of "Paranormal Activity".


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: The film was not screened for critics, and was subsequently almost universally called one of the worst horror films ever made. It received an F from CinemaScore, which tracks audience reaction; , it is one of only 22 films to receive such a rating. It topped the box office its opening weekend, the first after the New Year's Day holiday, displacing "", which had held that position for three straight weeks. At the time, it was the third-best January opening weekend after "Cloverfield" and the "Star Wars" special edition. In its second weekend, the film dropped 76.2%, which was the largest second weekend drop for a film since "" (77.4%) in early 2009.


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 6% based on reviews from ninety critics, with an average rating of 3.10/10. The site's consensus is: ""The Devil Inside" is a cheap, choppy unscary mess, featuring one of the worst endings in recent memory." On Metacritic the film has a score of 18% based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Peter Howell of the "Toronto Star" wrote that the film was a candidate for the worst film of 2012. Stephen Whitty of "The Star-Ledger" wrote that "after "The Blair Witch Project" got by with sticks and stones and offscreen noises, filmmakers started thinking they didn't have to show anything. Well, no. It's better when you don't show too much – but if your story is about the supernatural, eventually you're going to have to come up with something. "The Devil Inside" can’t." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" felt that the film "joins a long, woozy-camera parade of found-footage scare pictures, among them "The Blair Witch Project", the "Paranormal Activity" films and certain wedding videos that won't go away." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that the film "proves as scary and unsettling as a slab of devil's food cake – only considerably less satisfying. "The New York Times" reviewer Manohla Dargis had a positive response to Suzan Crowley's acting and the scenes where the possessed is played by a contortionist, but considered that "The Devil Inside" was another foray into "a tediously exhausted subgenre that was already creatively tapped out when "The Blair Witch Project" spooked audiences more than a decade ago."


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: The film's ending, in particular, came under heavy criticism. "Is it the worst movie ending of all time?" David Haglund asked in "Slate", citing various negative audience reaction to that aspect of the film online. "What upset them even more than its abruptness", he suggested, "was the title immediately following it that urged audiences to visit a website to learn more. "[It's] a marketing twist that makes audiences feel taken advantage of," said Haglund. The writers defended themselves by saying that they knew the unconventional closure would draw criticism, but "felt authentic to us" as according to co-writer Matthew Peterman, "Sometimes real life doesn't follow a perfect structure. Things aren't always wrapped up and resolved when or how you'd like them to be. All of us enjoyed leaving things open ended. We thought it was visceral, we thought it was unique." Audiences then flooded the Internet with videos of furious reactions, and demanding refunds from Paramount Pictures. Some pointed out the website link being the worst addition, as they felt they paid admission to an incomplete film. Director William Brent Bell added that the title card directing to a website was added by Paramount, given they "thought it was kind of cool to continue the story on this website".


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: Besides the preponderance of negative reviews, there were a few critics who gave the film a positive review. Steve Barton of Dread Central stated, ""The Devil Inside" is home to moments that will shock, scare, disturb, and leave you gasping. It's a trip to the dark side that's well worth taking." Joe Leydon of "Variety" wrote that the film "generates a fair amount of suspense during sizable swaths of its familiar but serviceable exorcism-centric scenario."


title: The Devil Inside (film)

text: The film's commercial success despite negative critical and audience reaction made it one of several that led studios to reconsider their longtime practice of confining horror films to the dump months and Halloween season. "For years, horror movies made $19–20 million in a January release. They would take the weekend and that would be it," C. Robert Cargill of Ain't It Cool News told Hollywood.com. "But "The Devil Inside" proved that even in our worst dumping ground, you can appeal to a market that won't see movies, and in fact they'll throw money at a terrible movie if it looks like it's good. I mean, $35 million is sick money for an opening weekend for a film that cost, what, $250,000?"


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Thuja occidentalis, also known as northern white-cedar, eastern white-cedar, or arborvitae, is an evergreen coniferous tree, in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is native to eastern Canada and much of the north-central and northeastern United States. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Its additional common names include swamp cedar, American arborvitae, and eastern arborvitae. The name arborvitae is particularly used in the horticultural trade in the United States; it is Latin for 'tree of life' – due to the supposed medicinal properties of the sap, bark, and twigs. It is sometimes called white-cedar (hyphenated) or whitecedar (one word) to distinguish it from "Cedrus", a distantly related genus of trees also known as cedars.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Unlike the closely related western red cedar ("Thuja plicata"), northern white cedar is only a small or medium-sized tree, growing to a height of tall with a trunk diameter, exceptionally to tall and diameter. The tree is often stunted or prostrate in less favorable locations. The bark is red-brown, furrowed and peels in narrow, longitudinal strips.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Northern white cedar has fan-like branches and scaly leaves. The foliage forms in flat sprays with scale-like leaves long.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: The seed cones are slender, yellow-green, ripening to brown, long and broad, with six to eight overlapping scales. They contain about eight seeds each. The branches may take root if the tree falls.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Over 30 synonyms are listed in Kew's Plants of the World Online database.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Northern white cedar is native to an area in the southern part of eastern Canada and the adjacent part of the northern United States. It extends from southeastern Manitoba east throughout the Great Lakes region and into Ontario, Québec, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Isolated populations occur in west-central Manitoba, and to the south in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, and Illinois and in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In Canada, its range reaches the Arctic treeline and the southern tip of Hudson Bay. It grows mainly in places with cooler summers, with a typical temperature of in July, and a shorter growing season, from 90 to 180 days.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Northern white cedar grows naturally in wet forests, being particularly abundant in coniferous swamps, where other larger and faster-growing trees cannot compete successfully. It also occurs on other sites with reduced tree competition, such as cliffs. Although not currently listed as endangered, wild white cedar populations are threatened in many areas by high deer numbers; deer find the soft evergreen foliage a very attractive winter food and strip it rapidly. The largest known specimen is tall and diameter, on South Manitou Island within Leelanau County, Michigan.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Northern white cedars can be very long-lived trees in certain conditions, with notably old specimens growing on cliffs where they are inaccessible to deer and wildfire. As of 2008, the oldest known living specimen was 1,141 years old, but a dead specimen with 1,653 growth rings has been found. Despite their age, these very old trees are small and stunted due to the difficult growing conditions. These individuals' long lifespans have been attributed to their slow growth and their ability to survive when different sections of the tree are damaged or killed. The Witch Tree, a "T. occidentalis" growing out of a cliff face on Lake Superior in Minnesota, was described by the French explorer Sieur de la Verendrye as being a mature tree in 1731; it is still alive today.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: Specimens found growing on cliff faces in southern Ontario are the oldest trees in Eastern North America and all of Canada, having achieved ages in excess of 1,653 years.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: "Thuja occidentalis" is a tree with important uses in traditional Ojibwe culture. Honored with the name "Nookomis Giizhik" (Grandmother Cedar), the tree is the subject of sacred legends and is considered a gift to humanity for its myriad of uses, among them crafts, construction, and medicine. It is one of the four plants of the Ojibwe medicine wheel, associated with the north. The foliage is rich in vitamin C and is believed to be the annedda, which cured the scurvy of Jacques Cartier and his party in the winter of 1535–1536. Due to the presence of the neurotoxic compound thujone, internal use can be harmful if used for prolonged periods or while pregnant.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: It is commercially used for rustic fencing and posts, lumber, poles, shingles, and in the construction of log cabins. It is the preferred wood for the structural elements, such as ribs and planking, of birchbark canoes and the planking of wooden canoes.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: The essential oil within the plant has been used for cleansers, disinfectants, hair preparations, insecticides, liniment, room sprays, and soft soaps. The Ojibwa reportedly made a soup from the inner bark of the soft twigs. Others have used the twigs to make teas to relieve constipation and headache.


title: Thuja occidentalis

text: "T. occidentalis" is widely used as an ornamental tree, particularly for screens and hedges, in gardens, parks, and cemeteries. Over 300 cultivars exist, showing great variation in colour, shape, and size, with some of the more common ones being 'Degroot's Spire', 'Ellwangeriana', 'Hetz Wintergreen', 'Lutea', 'Rheingold', 'Smaragd' (or 'Emerald Green'), 'Techny', and 'Wareana'. It was introduced into Europe as early as 1540.


title: Third place

text: In sociology, the third place refers to the social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home ("first place") and the workplace ("second place"). Examples of third places include churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, bookstores and parks. In his book "The Great Good Place" (1989), Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place.


title: Third place

text: Robert Putnam addressed issues related to third place, but without using the term, in "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" (1995, 2000).


title: Third place

text: Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and the people the person lives with. The "second place" is the workplace—where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. In other words, "your third place is where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances."


title: Third place

text: One of the criteria for the third place, according to Jeffres et al. (2009), is that it "offers stress relief from the everyday demands of both home and work. It provides the feeling of inclusiveness and belonging associated with participating in a group’s social activities, without the rigidity of policy or exclusiveness of club or organization membership".


title: Third place

text: In their research many types of environments were listed as possible third places. These included community centers like YM/WCAs; senior centers; shopping centers like coffee shops, malls, and barber shops; religious places; schools; outdoor recreative activities (parks, neighborhood parties); and various media such as the World Wide Web and newspapers.


title: Third place

text: The concept of a "third place" has been picked up by various small businesses, including as a name for various locally owned coffee shops, and is commonly cited in urban planning literature on the issue of community-oriented business development and public space.


title: Third place

text: As the concept of "third place" has become more popular, several coworking office spaces have embraced this concept as the basis of their interior design.


title: Third place

text: Variant forms of the concept include the "community coffee house" and the "community living room," a term which has been adopted by several organizations to describe the model of a cooperatively-run "third space" which includes commercial or non-commercial functions with an emphasis on providing a free space for social interaction.


title: Third place

text: The general store or pub and occasionally bookstore or diner are traditional variants of the concept, provided in such cases there is an emphasis on expectation of socialization, and customers are invited to stay and "hang out" with or without making any (or additional) purchases. Institutions which traditionally provided some functions of a third place included shared leisure facilities such as a bowling alley or arcade, function halls, lodges or social clubs, when and if facilities were available for casual use.


title: Third place

text: A church community fills this role for many people, including groups that focus on common interests and hobbies. Activities, events, and cell groups can build the connections that are necessary for authentic community.


title: Third place

text: Since Oldenburg's writings, there are people in the computer and internet industry that have declared that third places are observed or shifting to the virtual world or virtual third places. This descriptive practice is easily adopted because of the similarities in descriptive characteristics found between the virtual and physical worlds.


title: Third place

text: In combination with the Industrial Revolution, and as media transitioned from the public space to more comfortable roles inside one's home, there was a large shift away from public activities because they could be enjoyed within the confines of one's home. With the advent of online technologies, these virtual third places have been observed in online communities. The characteristics observed in these communities vary from their physical application but meet the context of personalization, permeability, approachability, and comfortability.


title: Third place

text: With the increasing popularity of online multiplayer video games, individuals from across the world are becoming more connected with each other through these video games. The potential for social culture clashes is inherently high considering the large volume of interactions of users from different cultures. However, the online virtual communities constructed within these games share the same characteristics as traditional third places. One of the more prominent features of these communities is the social equalizing aspect. These games allow users to interact through their in-game character, or avatar, which serve as a medium for the player and removes the players' social identifiers. Avatars often interact via built-in text chat systems, allowing users to communicate without revealing their identity through their voice. Therefore, any type of social identification is dependent upon the avatar, not the actual player.


title: Third place

text: While these online communities provide freedom from traditional social status, that is not to say there are no social hierarchies within the games; each game community constructs their own social norms that determine in-game social status. However, each player begins the game at an equal footing and must achieve social recognition through their in-game accomplishments. The concept of "regulars" within third spaces is also prominent in online gaming communities. These regulars are often identifiable through some type of special identifier; some games include special insignia or titles for accomplished users, making these users stand out to all users. The regulars set standards for accepted in-game behavior, serving as a type of social moderator (especially for new players). For instance, many of these games offer the opportunity for PvP (player vs player) combat, in which users battle against each other. However, this creates an opportunity for users to "grief" one another, which is intentional harassment meant to disrupt gameplay for other users. This type of behavior is often kept in check by the community regulars. "Regular" status is attainable for all users, which furthers the sense of community within the game. As users play more, they are accepted into the community by fellow regulars, forming new social bonds.


title: Third place

text: As online technologies advance, these online video games become more accessible to individuals across all backgrounds. While these games are often played on traditional video game consoles or on PCs (which often requires purchasing the video game software), there are many internet browser based games (such as "RuneScape" and "Farmville") that allow anyone with internet access to play for free. This widens the variety of individuals that are entering into the community.


title: Third place

text: It has been proposed that micronations which have extended online communities (e.g. Ladonia) also resemble third places.


title: Third place

text: Many workers in the United States conduct remote work, not from home, but from a third place. Remote work can cause isolation and working in public spaces, such as at Starbucks locations, may be a happy medium between the home office and the corporate office. Availability of public Wi-Fi has been a major enabler of this trend.


title: Third place

text: A third place which provides internet access may create a hollow effect in that the patrons are physically present but do not make social contact with each other, being absorbed by their remote connections. This is similar to how patrons behave in learning commons environments like those in university libraries where the preponderance of socializing is among people who already know each other. Some businesses, like Nomad Café in Oakland, CA, are trying to ameliorate this effect by staging performance art such as live jazz and asking patrons to share information about themselves with other patrons via an online survey to encourage audience engagement.


title: Third place

text: Political geographer and urban planner Edward Soja also developed a theory of Thirdspace, in his 1996 book "Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-And-Imagined Places". His postmodern conception draws on and is influenced by Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and postcolonial thinkers Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, bell hooks, Edward Said, and Homi K. Bhabha. Soja's concept of Thirdspace "breaks the Firstspace-Secondspace dualism and comprises such related concepts as 'place, location, locality, landscape, environment, home, city, region, territory and geography' (50) that attempts to come to terms with the representational strategies of real and imagined places. He proposes a 'trialectics of spatiality' (57) which is a process, a dynamic force and 'recombinational and radically open' (50)."


title: Third place

text: Morisson (2018) argues that places in the knowledge economy are evolving. He argues for the existence of a fourth place. In the knowledge economy, the rise of new social environments is blurring the conventional separation between the first place (home), the second place (work), and the third place. New social environments in the knowledge city can combine elements of the first and second place (coliving); of the second and third place (coworking); and of the first and third place (comingling). Furthermore, the combination of elements of the first, second, and third place in new social environments implies the emergence of a new place, the fourth place.


title: Third place

text: As the fourth place only works in the normal living mode, during COVID-19 quarantine restrictions, a new hybrid place emerged from the operation of the different outdoor and indoor typologies of other places. This place sometimes works on a physical basis, and other times virtually, with some essential characteristics needed to work properly during the pandemic outbreak. The limit of this place is the attached quarantine semi-private or semi-public space, which can be called "quarantined fourth place" or "fifth place".


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל "ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el") or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both military and civilian usage. It has 15,000 employees as of 2018. IAI is completely state-owned by the government of Israel.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: IAI designs, develops, produces and maintains civil aircraft, drones, fighter aircraft, missile, avionics, and space-based systems.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: Although IAI's main focus is engineering, aviation and high-tech electronics, it also manufactures military systems for ground and naval forces. Many of these products are specially suited for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) needs, while others are also marketed to foreign militaries.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: Israel Aerospace Industries was founded in 1953 as Bedek Aviation Company under the initiative of Shimon Peres, then director general of the Ministry of Defense, in order to maintain Israel Defense Forces aircraft. The company originally had 70 employees and recruited American born aviation expert Al Schwimmer as the company's founder and first president.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In 1959 Bedek began manufacturing its first aircraft, a V-tailed twinjet trainer of French design, the Fouga CM.170 Magister, locally called "Tzukit" (Monticola). The "Tzukit" became the Israeli Air Force principal trainer for 50 years. The IAI Tzukit was also used in the 1967 Six-Day War by 147 Squadron as a close support aircraft, attacking targets on the Egyptian front during the first day of the war, when Israel's more capable combat aircraft were deployed against Arab air bases and aircraft. They were then deployed against Jordanian forces, including armour, on the West Bank. The Magister proved effective at the close-support mission albeit with heavy casualties, with six being lost.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: The first aircraft to be fully designed and built by IAI, the IAI Arava short take-off and landing transport aircraft, first flew in 1969 after three years of development.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In response to the French embargo, IAI began developing its own fighter aircraft, a derivative of the Mirage 5 called the IAI Nesher ("hawk"), in 1968. The Nesher entered service in 1971, in time for the Yom Kippur War. The Nesher was followed by the IAI Kfir ("lion cub"), which was developed as a result of Israel's need for adapting the Dassault Mirage III to the specific requirements of the Israeli Air Force. The Kfir entered service with the IAF in 1975, the first units being assigned to the 101st "First Fighter" Squadron. Over the following years, several other squadrons were also equipped with the new aircraft. The Kfir's first recorded combat action took place on 9 November 1977, during an Israeli air strike on a training camp at Tel Azia, in Lebanon. The only air victory claimed by a Kfir during its service with the IAF occurred on 27 June 1979 when a Kfir C.2 shot down a Syrian MiG-21.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: The IAI Kfir has been exported to Colombia, Ecuador, Sri Lanka and was leased to the US Navy and the US Marine Corps from 1985 to 1989, to act as adversary aircraft in dissimilar air combat training.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In 1969 IAI acquired North American Rockwell's Jet Commander series of business aircraft. This became the basis for the IAI Westwind line. Work on an improved Westwind the Astra, by stretching the fuselage and designing a new swept wing, began in the late 1970s, with the first prototype flight on 19 March 1984. The first production Astra flew on 20 March 1985, FAA certification came on 29 August 1985 and customer deliveries started in 1986.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In the 1960s, IAI developed the Gabriel anti-ship missile and the Elta Electronics Industries subsidiary developed an inexpensive aircraft radar which would become a successful export item. In the 1970s IAI developed the Dabur class patrol boat.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In the 1970s IAI also entered the Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market with the development of the IAI Scout. In 1984, IAI formed a joint venture with rival Israeli company Tadiran to market both companies' UAV's, the Tadiran Mastiff and the IAI Scout.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: By 1980s the original Bedek maintenance business was conducting extensive overhauls on dozens of different aircraft types, working on engines as well as airframes and interiors, IAI could provide more comprehensive refurbishments than even the aircraft manufacturers themselves. The unit had 4,000 employees by the mid-1980s and overhauled a huge range of aircraft, from propeller-driven trainers to airliners; including big civil aviation programs, such as conversion of Boeing 747s to freighters.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In 1980 the Government of Israel decided to use the experience IAI had accumulated to develop and manufacture a modern fighter plane to be the mainstay of the Israel Air Force. The aircraft, called the IAI Lavi, was to be a superior attack aircraft with advanced weapons systems. It had its rollout in July 1986 and successful maiden flight in December 1986.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In August 1987, after extensive government deliberations, the decision was made (by one vote) to cancel the Lavi program, due to the questioning of Israel's economic ability to support the cost of such an extensive program. This led to a serious crisis at IAI which necessitated a major reorganization of the company's structure and business strategy; the company's work force of more than 22,000 people was cut by 5,500 in 1988. However, the Lavi program was credited with developing a number of advanced technologies that IAI was able to market.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: By 1989 IAI posted a profit of $11.8 million on sales of $1.28 billion. The company had four divisions—Aircraft, Aviation, Electronics, and Technologies—and 17 factories. IAI was established as a world leader in upgrading aircraft. Planes such as the Vietnam-era McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II were modernized with advanced avionics and weaponry.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In the 1990s IAI entered the space race with the AMOS communications satellites, Ofeq observation satellites and the Shavit space launcher.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In December 1997, the IAI Galaxy, a business jet with an intercontinental range developed as a joint venture Galaxy Aerospace with the Hyatt Corporation, made its first flight and entered service in 2000. In May 2001, General Dynamics' Gulfstream Aerospace bought IAI's Galaxy Aerospace Co. L.P. unit for $330 million, although IAI continues to perform the most of the assembly and development of the jets which are marketed by Gulfstream.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In 2003, Israel Aircraft Industries attempted to enter the VLJ (very light jet) Market by launching the Avocet ProJet, a 6–8 seat high utilization air taxi with a list price almost half the cost of the least expensive business jet available at that time. In early 2006, ProJet development stalled after a major undisclosed US OEM pulled out of the program due to unspecified reasons.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: The company was working with the Aviation Technology Group on a military trainer version of the ATG Javelin, a fighter style personal jet. The version being developed would have competed against a large field of jet trainers at a much lower cost of acquisition and maintenance. ATG halted development of the Javelin in 2008 due to a lack of funds.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In March 2004 IAI signed a $1.1 billion contract with India to install three EL/W-2090 AWACS systems on Russian-made Ilyushin Il-76 transports, which are based in part on IAI's earlier EL/M-2075 Phalcon platform which was developed in the 1990s. In the late 2000s IAI developed the follow-on EL/W-2085 system which is installed on heavily modified Gulfstream G550 aircraft and which besides serving in the IAF were also sold to Singapore and Italy.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: On 6 November 2006, IAI changed its corporate name from "Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd." to "Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd."; to more accurately reflect the current scope of the firm's business activities, which includes not just aircraft, but also systems, satellites and launchers, as well as maritime and ground systems.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: On 13 April 2009, the "Moscow Times" reported that the Russian Defense Ministry had signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace to purchase $50 million in pilotless drone aircraft. The contract reportedly includes three types of UAVs manufactured by the company.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In January 2012, IAI announced a sale of $1.1 billion of defense systems to an Asian country. The deal has been signed but the company did not name the buyer. It was reported that the sale will include IAI aircraft, missiles and intelligence technologies.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: On 4 September 2012, the Gulfstream G280, a new twin-engine business jet built by IAI, received full certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: IAI is a member of the prestigious Trace International and Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) organizations and recognized in the Transparency International April 2015 report to be in the top third of worldwide defense companies for its ethics and anti-corruption programs.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In April 2018, IAI systems were observed in a film made by the Azerbaijan Army, specifically the IAI Harop loitering munition system, resulting in criticism from the Armenian government concerning the supply of Israeli arms to the Azeri army. In 2019, IAI sells drone defense systems to governments to be placed in sensitive areas such as borders, army bases, or power plans, and provides equipment to shoot down military drones as well. It also sells to clients such as airports looking to protect against consumer drones. IAI in 2019 is Israel’s major aerospace and defense manufacturer. It released its Popstar system in September 2019, which "can detect and track drones up to 4 km away in day or night". IAI advised customers in December 2019 not to fly some Boeing 737 freighters it had converted, after IAI said it detected an "apparent irregularity" in the production process. IAI's converted 737s had come into service in 2003.


title: Israel Aerospace Industries

text: In July 2021, IAI Aviation Group has agreed to establish a passenger to freighter conversion site to convert the B737-700/800 with Atitech (Italy) in Naples.


title: UGM-27 Polaris

text: The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fueled nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980.