title: Royal Rumble (2016)

text: On the episode of "Raw" of the following night, The Authority decided that Triple H would defend the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 32 against the winner of a Triple Threat Match between Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Brock Lesnar, to be held at Fastlane. Roman Reigns won the match (and the title opportunity at WrestleMania) by pinning Dean Ambrose. However, Ambrose also received a title match in the run-up to WrestleMania, at WWE Roadblock, where Triple H defeated him to retain the championship. Prior to his Triple Threat match with Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar at Fastlane, Dean Ambrose lost the Intercontinental Championship on the February 15 episode of Raw in a "Fatal 5-Way" Match also involving Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler, Stardust, and Tyler Breeze when Owens pinned Breeze to retain the title.


title: Royal Rumble (2016)

text: The Usos had another confrontation with the New Day, after the latter team interrupted the Usos' cousin, The Rock, who appeared on the January 25 episode of "Raw". The Usos forced the trio into the ring, where The Rock attacked each member with his signature moves. On the February 8 episode of "Raw", The Usos and The Dudley Boyz defeated The New Day and Mark Henry in an 8-Man Tag Team Match. After the match, The Dudley Boyz attacked The Usos, turning heels in the process.


title: Royal Rumble (2016)

text: Also, on the January 25 episode of "Raw", AJ Styles made his debut on "Raw", defeating Chris Jericho. The two shook hands after the match but Jericho refused to release Styles' hand while giving him a staredown before leaving. After Styles defeated The Miz on the February 4 episode of "SmackDown", Jericho challenged Styles to a rematch. Jericho defeated Styles on the episode of "SmackDown" of the following week, giving Styles his first loss since the Rumble.


title: Royal Rumble (2016)

text: Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch additionally faced each other on the January 25 episode of "Raw" in a match which ended in disqualification after Charlotte attacked them. After Banks confirmed her intentions of going after the Divas Championship and split from Team B.A.D. on the February 1 "Raw", she faced Lynch that night in a rematch which ended with Banks winning by disqualification after Team B.A.D members Naomi and Tamina attacked her, turning her face in the process. Lynch helped Banks fend off Naomi and Tamina leading to a temporary and uneasy alliance between the two. Also, on the same night Charlotte lost a non-title match to Brie Bella by roll-up. This led to a title match between the two for the Divas Championship scheduled for Fastlane, in which Charlotte won it.


title: Royal Rumble (2016)

text: The 2016 Royal Rumble was the last Royal Rumble event to occur before the reintroduction of the brand extension in July, which again split the roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands, where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform. As such, another world championship was introduced. After the WWE World Heavyweight Championship became exclusive to SmackDown and renamed to WWE Championship, the WWE Universal Championship was introduced for Raw.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: "The Greatest Show on Turf" was a nickname for the record-breaking offense of the St. Louis Rams during the 1999, 2000, and 2001 National Football League seasons. The offense was designed by attack-oriented offensive coordinator (during the 1999 season) and head coach (during the 2000 and 2001 seasons) Mike Martz, who mixed an aerial attack and a run offense in an Air Coryell-style offense. The Rams' offense during these three seasons produced record scoring and yardage, three NFL MVP honors, and two Super Bowl appearances (1999 and 2001 seasons) and one championship (1999 season). In 2000, the team set an NFL record with 7,335 total offensive yards (broken in 2011 by the New Orleans Saints with 7,474). Of those, 5,492 were passing yards, also an NFL team record.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The offense aimed to put all five receivers into patterns that stretched the field, setting up defensive backs with route technique, allowing the quarterback to deliver to a spot on time where the receiver could make the catch and turn upfield. The system saw frequent pre-snap motion and shifting, often including shifts to or from empty backfield formations or bunch formations. Pass protection was critical. At least two of the five receivers would run a deep in, skinny post, comeback, speed out, or shallow cross pattern, and running backs would often run quick rail routes out of the backfield. Screens, draws, and play action passes were often used to slow the opponent's pass rush. Mike Martz said the offensive system was invented by Sid Gillman and refined at San Diego State by Don Coryell, who later transmitted his system to the NFL. Martz learned the Coryell 3-digit system from offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese when they coached for the Rams under Chuck Knox in 1994–96.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The first nickname for the Rams offense of the 2000 season was "The Warner Brothers", a play on the movie studio and a reference to new quarterback Kurt Warner, who'd assumed leadership from center after slated starter Trent Green was injured against San Diego in the preseason, and his receivers.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Several weeks into the 2000 season, ESPN's Chris Berman, preparing to cover highlights of a 57–31 win over the San Diego Chargers that year, told viewers, "Forget Ringling Brothers; the Rams are the Greatest Show on Earth" — a reference to the circus' longtime marketing slogan. Over the following weeks, "Earth" was replaced with "Turf", alluding to the artificial playing surface of the Trans World Dome and its suitability for the Rams' speedy offense. The term was also retroactively applied to the 1999 team, as the offensive philosophy and key players were the same.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: That year, Berman and his highlight show NFL Primetime frequently alluded to the circus when covering the Rams. For the Chargers-Rams highlights that introduced the term "The Greatest Show on Turf," the William Tell Overture was played over the highlights rather than a standard NFL Primetime theme. The music was then muted when the Chargers were shown scoring a touchdown on the highlights package, and muted again when a flashback to Trent Green's injury was shown (Because the Rams were leading by so much in this game, Green came into the game in the second half making this his first regular season game since the injury, hence the flashback. The music resumed with Green leading the Rams to yet another touchdown). When the Rams finally lost in Week 8 to the Chiefs, a special introductory screen for the Rams as "The Greatest Show on Turf" was shown as a parody of "The Greatest Show on Earth" logo before the highlights of the upset were shown. Near the end of the 2000 Week 15 episode of NFL Primetime, Berman was briefly revealing the last two games that would be shown before cutting to a commercial break, as was standard for the show. The last game shown that week was the Vikings-Rams matchup. Since the Vikings also had a high-flying offensive attack (and, like the Rams, a poor defense), Berman announced, "The Greatest Show on Turf meet the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey!" Berman's nickname for the Vikings didn't stick.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The Greatest Show on Turf was anchored by running back Marshall Faulk, NFL Offensive Player of the Year for three consecutive years from 1999 through 2001, quarterback Kurt Warner, 2-time NFL MVP, the receiving duo of Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, as well as Az-Zahir Hakim and veteran Ricky Proehl. Together they formed the nucleus of the first team in NFL history to score 500+ points in three consecutive seasons. Quarterback Kurt Warner and running back Marshall Faulk finished first and second in MVP voting each of the three years, also an achievement unmatched by any offense in NFL history.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The Rams went 13–3, 10–6, and 14–2 in those three seasons, respectively, and reached the playoffs every year. In 1999, the team reached Super Bowl XXXIV and defeated the Tennessee Titans to claim the first franchise championship in almost half a century. The Rams lost in the first round of the 2000 playoffs to the New Orleans Saints, but returned the next year to reach Super Bowl XXXVI, where they ultimately fell to the New England Patriots.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Though much less heralded, the St. Louis defense during those years modeled a praiseworthy unit and often outperformed opposing offenses that was essential to overall team performance. In 2000, when the Rams barely managed to reach the playoffs, the defense was ranked among the NFL's worst, giving up a league-worst 471 points that year. In 1999 and 2001, when the Rams reached the Super Bowl, their defense statistically ranked among the NFL's best – and fittingly, it was a last-second defensive stop known as "The Tackle" by Rams linebacker Mike Jones that sealed the Rams' memorable championship in Super Bowl XXXIV.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Quarterback Kurt Warner was cut in training camp by the Green Bay Packers in 1994, then three seasons later had a workout with the Chicago Bears fall through due to a scorpion sting he got on his honeymoon. After being cut by the Packers, Warner stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee supermarket in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He was a starter with the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League and then continued to the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe before ultimately signing with the Rams as a backup to Tony Banks.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: After Trent Green was injured in the 1999 pre-season and would miss the regular season, many speculated that St. Louis would miss the playoffs. However, the Rams — and Warner in particular — lit up defenses throughout the league. Warner threw 41 touchdown passes, setting a new franchise mark, and his 109.2 quarterback rating was the third highest (for a minimum of 200 attempts) in a season next to Joe Montana (112.4) and Steve Young (112.8). (The record now is owned solely by Aaron Rodgers after his record-breaking 2011 season.)


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The Rams finished 13–3, a franchise best record for the 16 game schedule, which the 2001 Rams would break when they finished 14–2. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz's innovative variation on the Coryell offensive system suited Warner well; he threw only 13 interceptions during the regular season. For his innovation, Martz would be regarded as one of the most ingenious coordinators of his time. The Rams first demolished the Minnesota Vikings in in a shoot-out, where Warner burned the Minnesota secondary for 391 yards and five touchdowns en route to victory. In , the Rams faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coached by Tony Dungy. Facing one of the league's best defenses, Warner had one of the worst postseason performances of his career, throwing three interceptions to the heavily loaded Buccaneers secondary which featured John Lynch, Donnie Abraham, and Ronde Barber. However, the Rams proved they were more than just a good offensive team, as they prevented Tampa Bay from scoring any touchdowns, allowed only two field goals, and intercepted Shaun King twice. Trailing 6–5 late in the 4th quarter, Warner engineered the game-winning drive culminating in the go-ahead touchdown pass to Ricky Proehl to send the Rams to the Super Bowl with an 11–6 victory.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Warner went on to throw for a then Super Bowl record 414 yards, with two touchdown passes, including a dramatic 73-yard game winner to Isaac Bruce, against the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, winning Super Bowl MVP honors. He continued to play for the Rams through 2003. After leaving the Rams, Warner played for the New York Giants in 2004 before signing with the Arizona Cardinals in 2005, playing with them until his retirement after the 2009 season. While with Arizona, he led the team to their first ever Super Bowl berth in Super Bowl XLIII, losing 27–23 in the final seconds to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Warner was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2017.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: The second overall pick in the 1994 draft, Marshall Faulk was traded from the Indianapolis Colts to St. Louis in 1999. Faulk had been an elite player in Indianapolis, but in St. Louis he put up some of the best all-purpose numbers in the history of the NFL. Indianapolis finished 13–3 but were knocked off in the first round, while the Rams went on to win Super Bowl XXXIV.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: It was a storybook season. Faulk's patience and diligence in learning the Rams offense paid off when he totaled 2,429 yards from scrimmage, eclipsing Barry Sanders’ 2,358 yards set in 1997. With 1,381 yards rushing (a superb 5.5 yards-per-carry average) and 1,048 receiving yards, Faulk joined Roger Craig as the only men to total 1,000+ yards in each category in a season (they were joined in 2019 by Christian McCaffrey). For all this effort and success, he was named Offensive Player of the Year and starter for the NFC squad in the 2000 Pro Bowl.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Faulk was the MVP in 2000, and again the Offensive Player of the Year. In just 14 games (he missed two), he had 1,359 yards rushing and scored 26 TDs, the latter a record (that would soon be broken by Priest Holmes, then by Shaun Alexander, and later LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006). Faulk had 18 scores on the ground, setting a new franchise record, and eight through the air. He also averaged more than five yards per carry again, this time with 5.4.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: From 1999 to 2001, Marshall Faulk may have had the best consecutive seasons in league history. In that span, he scored 59 TDs, rang up 6,765 yards of offense (4,122 rushing and 2,643 receiving), and won the Most Valuable Player award and three Offensive Player of the Year awards. He was also named All-NFC, ALL-NFL, and selected for the Pro Bowl in each of those years. In 2011, Faulk was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Bruce was selected in the 2nd round (33rd overall pick) of the NFL Draft in 1994, by the Los Angeles Rams.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: One of the Rams most enduring players, Isaac Bruce was originally drafted as a Los Angeles Ram and played with the franchise from their years of futility in the middle 1990s through the years of the “Greatest Show on Turf”.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Over his Rams career, he had 14,209 yards receiving, 942 receptions, 8 1,000+ Seasons, 40 100+ yardage games and 84 receiving touchdowns, all of which remain team records. He is arguably one of the best pure route runners to play wide receiver in the NFL.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Bruce's most notable catch came in Super Bowl XXXIV. With under 2:00 minutes left in the game, he caught a 73-yard pass from QB Kurt Warner, which ultimately would clinch the Rams' first Super Bowl win.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: In 1995, he had 1,781 receiving yards, second only to Jerry Rice (1,848) and was 5th ever for receptions (119). During the 1996 season, he led the league in yards (1,338). In 1999, Bruce totaled 1,165 yards receiving on only 77 receptions (15.2 yards per reception) and led the Rams with 12 touchdowns.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: A rookie during the Rams' 1999 Super Bowl championship season, Torry Holt became one of the premier wide receivers in the league. In 9 years, he had 7 Pro Bowl invitations. Holt also averaged the most receiving yards per season, and he had two 1,600 yard seasons, giving him a feat matched only by Calvin Johnson and Marvin Harrison. He reached 10,000 (116 games) and 11,000 (130 games) career receiving yards faster than any other player in NFL history. He holds the record for most receptions in a single decade (868, 2000–2009) and also most receiving yards in a single decade (12,594, 2000–2009), and therefore made the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team. Holt led the league in receptions in 2003 and yards in 2000 and 2003, that year the Rams went 12–4 (missing out on homefield advantage due to an upset loss to the Detroit Lions), and lost in double overtime against the eventual NFC Champion Carolina Panthers.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Wide receiver, St. Louis Rams (1998 to 2001), Detroit Lions (2002 to 2004), New Orleans Saints (2005), Detroit Lions (2006), San Diego Chargers (2006)


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Hakim was another player instrumental to the success of “The Greatest Show on Turf”. He was with the Rams for four seasons (1998 to 2001) before being signed as a free agent to the Detroit Lions. During the 1999 season, he caught 36 passes for 677 yards, which would bring in 8 touchdowns for the Rams. For his four-season run with the Rams, he accumulated a total of 2,032 yards with 16 touchdown receptions. Additionally, Hakim served as the team's punt returner and was among the league leaders in 1999 and 2000.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Wide receiver, Arizona Cardinals (1990 to 1994), Seattle Seahawks (1995 and 1996), Chicago Bears (1997), St. Louis Rams (1998 to 2002), Carolina Panthers (2003 to 2005), Indianapolis Colts (2006)


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Proehl (WR) played in the NFL for 17 seasons and spent five of these with the St. Louis Rams between 1998 and 2002. During this period he was able to accumulate a total of 207 receptions and 2,590 receiving yards. At the 2000 NFC Championship, he caught the winning touchdown that allowed the Rams to beat Tampa Bay 11–6. Again, he caught a touchdown pass late in the game during Super Bowl XXXVI which at the time tied the game at 17–17, but the Patriots kicked a last-second field goal to win 20–17. He would go on to be a valuable cog in the Carolina Panthers’ offense during their Super Bowl year, and he also had a stint with the Colts.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Pace was selected by the Rams with the number one overall draft selection in the 1997 NFL Draft after the Rams traded their number six overall pick, as well as third, fourth, and seventh round selections to the New York Jets. As a star at Ohio State University, a two-time Lombardi Award winner and an Outland Trophy winner, Pace was projected to be the top pick after Peyton Manning chose to defer the 1997 Draft. Pace became the first offensive lineman to be drafted first overall since 1968. In his NFL career, Pace became a seven-time Pro-Bowler and was the anchor of the offensive line for the Rams during this period of offensive dominance and is considered one of the best left tackles of the 21st century. Pace was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2016.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Drafted in the 4th round of the 1998 NFL draft, Roland Williams was the Rams' rookie of the year. As the starting tight end in 1999, he blocked for many of Faulk's runs, caught Kurt Warner’s first touchdown pass as starting quarterback, and caught five more during the regular season and Super Bowl.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Many Rams fans consider 1999, 2000, and 2001 as the "Greatest Show on Turf" years, though the nickname was used for several subsequent seasons. In 2002, the team went 7-9 and failed to make the playoffs for the first time in three seasons; many referred to this as a "Super Bowl Hangover" for the Rams because they lost a Super Bowl they were favored so heavily to win. In 2003, the Rams had a winning season, but failed to meet expectations. In 2004, the Rams went 8-8 and made the playoffs. They did not do so again until 2017, when they were back in their old home in Los Angeles. The Rams lost 2018's Super Bowl LIII to the New England Patriots and beat the Bengals in 2021's Super Bowl LVI.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Kurt Warner struggled with the team after Super Bowl XXXVI, and with the emergence of Marc Bulger, was made expendable and released following the 2003 season; he would later return to form and lead the Arizona Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Warner retired after the 2009 season. Bruce, the team's all-time leading receiver and the team's last remaining player that was with the team in Los Angeles, was released by the Rams after the 2007 season after 14 years with the team and spent the next two years with the archrival San Francisco 49ers before returning to retire as a Ram in 2010. Marshall Faulk retired in 2007 after missing the 2006 season with injuries, while Ricky Proehl retired the same offseason after stints in Carolina and Indianapolis. Az-Zahir Hakim retired as a free agent. Torry Holt was released in 2009 and signed as a free agent with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Soon after, he was released by the Jaguars. On April 20, 2010, he signed a one-year deal with the New England Patriots, but was placed on injured reserve in August and released shortly after that, and has retired. The last active player from the 1999 team, London Fletcher, retired after the 2013 season.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: On July 23, 2016, many of the star players from this era of the St. Louis Rams reunited for the "Legends of the Dome" game, a charity flag football game organized by Isaac Bruce. It gave fans the chance to see the Rams in St. Louis one last time, as the franchise had announced its return to Los Angeles a few months earlier.


title: The Greatest Show on Turf

text: Four players and one coach that were a part of "The Greatest Show on Turf" have been selected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame:


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Sean Paul Lockhart (born October 31, 1986) is an American film actor and director, known for "Milk" (2008), "Judas Kiss" (2011), and "Triple Crossed" (2013).


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart started his career as a gay pornographic film actor mostly using the stage name Brent Corrigan, except in "The Velvet Mafia" parts 1 and 2 (2006) and "Best of Roman Heart" (2008), in which he used the stage name Fox Ryder. In 2010, he left pornography to focus almost exclusively on gay-themed movies and independent films, such as "Judas Kiss", "Sister Mary", "", "Welcome to New York", and others. In 2011, he starred in the horror comedy anthology film "Chillerama", directed by Tim Sullivan, as Ricky in the musical segment "I Was A Teenage Werebear". In 2011, he received the Rising Star Award at the Philadelphia QFest Festival.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In 2012, he announced his involvement in the production of an independent film titled "Truth", directed by Rob Moretti and co-starring Lockhart and Moretti. In 2013, he directed the mystery-thriller "Triple Crossed". He returned to gay pornography in 2016 with Falcon Studios' "Deep Release".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Sean Paul Lockhart was born October 31, 1986, in Lewiston, Idaho. He is one of four siblings; he has an older brother and a younger brother and sister. He and his siblings were raised in the suburb of Mill Creek, near Seattle, Washington, with their stepfather. His mother and stepfather divorced when he was aged 8 to 9 years, after which the household broke down.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: His first boyfriend introduced him to a "fast, furious, out-of-control side to the gay scene", with which he was not comfortable. This boyfriend introduced Lockhart, then 17, to the gay pornographic industry and arranged for Lockhart to audition for a pornographic film from Lockhart's own bedroom via webcam. The boyfriend controlled the camera while the owner of Cobra Video, Bryan Kocis, observed.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart agreed to perform in filmed sex scenes with Kocis in six "action video scenes" and one "non-action" video scene in consideration for a used Volkswagen Jetta. A sexual relationship developed between Lockhart and Kocis. Lockhart was under 18 when their relationship began, and it ended before his 18th birthday.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart started his career in pornography in 2004, aged 17, using the stage names Brent Corrigan and Fox Ryder in "Every Poolboy's Dream". He played roles in gay porn films, notably with Cobra Video and Pink Bird Media. He has also made films with Active Duty and Jet Set Men.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In September 2005, Lockhart publicly stated he was 17 when he made his first films, thus was under the legal age of consent in 11 states, including California. His first four films were pulled voluntarily from circulation by Cobra Video through their distributor, Pacific Sun Entertainment.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: He launched his own production company.He was still working for many other gay pornographic studios at the time, and his own first film using condoms was Summit (2008). In previous films, he was known for not using them. The film won the GayVN Awards Best Pro/Am Film 2009.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart's former boyfriend, Bryan Kocis, was the owner of Cobra Video and was found dead at his home on January 24, 2007. Two Virginia Beach male escorts, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes, were arrested and charged with Kocis's murder.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In 2008, Kerekes pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Cuadra pled not guilty and went to trial on February 24, 2009. On March 16, 2009, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Lockhart testified for the prosecution.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Prosecutors said the motives for the murder were to destroy the competition and to make a "million-dollar" film starring Lockhart, who had been involved in litigation with Cobra over the rights to his stage name "Brent Corrigan"; the matter was settled before Kocis's death. As part of that settlement, the proceeds of profits were to be split 50/50. Cobra and Lockhart had agreed to the use of condoms in filming. On April 7, 2009, Cuadra appealed his life sentence. Lockhart had earlier cooperated with authorities and helped them find the suspects. He testified in the Cuadra trial. The murder was dramatized in the 2016 film "King Cobra".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In a 2008 interview with Chicago Pride, Lockhart said he had consented to doing bareback as he was falsely informed he was being "protected" by the producer by the method used of pairing models. He went on to say, then age 21, "Fortunately, I got out of that alive and HIV negative! I am still negative today." In the interview, he also warned other young gay men against unprotected sex. He stated, "there are no guarantees, even with testing" and reiterated that barebacking was risky and stated "the message it sends is not one I want to be a part of anymore". During the interview he stated, "I would like to stand up for young men who are/were put in similar, compromising positions as I was at Cobra Video. I want to take a stand for HIV awareness." He has been a vocal advocate of safer sex and has remained critical of the pornographic industry for its continued release of bareback pornography, which he says sends out the wrong message to young gay men.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: During a 2013 interview with Chicago Pride, on being asked if he has kept in contact with any of the other Cobra actors, he replied "No. There were few I was close withbut mostly the civil suit, and the pressure Bryan Kocis put on the other models, not to have anything to do with me and then Bryan's death pretty much put an end of the friendships I'd garnered there. From what I've heard some have moved on nicely enough. Some aren't even alive anymore. I randomly saw one in a San Francisco gym during Pride a few years ago but thought better of stopping him to say hello. It's a chapter of my life I don't like to revel in." He stated in the interview that the trend in the pornographic industry is toward unprotected, unsafe sex. He has warned about the social impact on gay and bisexual men's decision-making, especially when in the heat of lust and passion while influenced by alcohol or drugs. He appeared in a short interview for his film "Big Easy" in 2012.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In 2008, Lockhart received Best Twink PerformerBottom at the Golden Dickie Awards was winner of GayVN Awards for "Fuck Me Raw" (2006); 2009 Best Bottom, 2009 Best Pro/Am Film for" Summit" (2008); 2009 Best Twink Film for "Just the Sex 1 & 2" (2008); 2010 Best Bottom, 2010 Web Performer of the Year, and 2010 Best Amateur / Pro-Am Release for the "Big Easy" (2010).


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart owned his own gay pornographic adult website, TheNewBrentCorrigan, which went offline in September 2016.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: He had a small role as Skippy in the short film "Tell Me", a co-starring role (as Sean Lockhart) in the rock musical short "Didn't This Used to Be Fun?", and a starring role as Press in a short film directed by Jody Wheeler entitled "In the Closet". He appeared in the television series "Red Hot Star" in 2006 in which AOL searched the country for talented teens who think they have what it takes to create and star in their own show. He also appeared in a TV talk show, "Brent Corrigan at Iris".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Also in 2009, he appeared in a gay short film compilation "Boys on Film 3: American Boy", released by Peccadillo Pictures, the company that made it possible for Lockhart to record an album with songs by the Swedish songwriter and accordionist Roland Cedermark.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart played Stan the Merman in 2008 "". He appeared as one of the people on the telephone tree in Gus Van Sant's "Milk", based on the life of Harvey Milk. He had a guest appearance in Casper Andreas' film "The Big Gay Musical" as Hustler and played Chad in the 2011 feature "Sister Mary", directed and written by Scott Grenke. He also starred as Chris Wachowsky in the gay coming-of-age fantasy "Judas Kiss".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: He starred as Ricky in the musical "Chillerama" segment "I Was A Teenage Werebear", about a "closeted kid who meets these other closeted kids, who when aroused turn into leather daddy werebears". It was directed by Tim Sullivan. In conjunction with this, he appeared in "Full Moon Fever: Behind the Scenes of I Was a Teenage Werebear", a documentary short, and "Chillerama Presents: Anton Troy, the Man Behind the Beast", both in 2011.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Lockhart received the 2011 Rising Star Award and was also interviewed in 2012 by Brian Westerley, the show's host at the Interbelt Nite Club (short) and appeared on the Brent Everett TV series "Brent Corrigan and Brent Everett: Splash's New Year's", also in 2012. After appearing in the comedy short "Welcome to New York", Lockhart co-starred as Caleb, with Rob Moretti, in the latter's 2013 psychological thriller film "Truth".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: The film was released internationally on January 10, 2014, after appearing in a number of film festivals. In 2013, he was also credited "with thanks" in the film "Luna Park". In the same year, he appeared in a documentary about the internet porn industry titled "I'm a Porn Star", directed by Charlie David; "Outspoken", a TV miniseries documentary; and "Hometown Pornstar".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: After the filming of "Truth", he told "Palm Springs Life" in an interview in September 2014 that he was "falling apart" due to memories of his own life experiences that were helpful to the character but that he found damaging to his health.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: In May 2014, he appeared in "Stranger Than Fiction: The Making of Truth", a 14-minute video short. He appeared as Jake Bishop in Jody Wheeler's mystery-thriller film "The Dark Place" and as Jonathan in James Townsend's horror-thriller "Kissing Darkness".


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: While working for Pink Media between 2008 and 2010, he directed five gay pornographic films: "Summit" (2008), "Just the Sex" (2008), "Brent Corrigan's Big Easy" (2009), "Brent Corrigan's Working Hard" (2010), and "Brent Corrigan's Heat" (2010).


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: He directed his own general release mystery-thriller film, written by Linda Andersson, titled "Triple Crossed" (2013), an America Unrated film, in which he also played the role of Andrew Warner. He also appears in the "Triple Crossed Behind the Scenes" documentary short.


title: Sean Paul Lockhart

text: Reviews for "Triple Crossed" were mixed. The CinemaQueer commented, ""Triple Crossed" is a low budget, yet somewhat nifty, sexual thriller." Gay Celluloid said, "Filled with some passionate scenes of man-on-man lip-service and more, backed by the vibrant music of Chad Siwik and filmed, in part, in the lush location of Topanga Canyon, California, this feature frankly ticks many of the requisite boxes on the 'festival favourites' checklist and goes on to say what makes this work of particular note, is that the film cinematically marks the directorial debut of Sean Paul Lockhart; perhaps better known to the gay world as Brent Corrigan." Big Gay Picture Show said: ""Triple Crossed" may have its flaws, but it's an entertaining thriller with a cute gay romance at its core."


title: Michael Sorvino

text: Michael Ernest Sorvino (born November 21, 1977) is an American actor and producer. He is best known as the voice of Tommy Angelo, the protagonist in "Mafia". His other acting roles include parts in "Summer of Sam", "The Trouble with Cali", and "Once Upon a Time in Queens". He is the son of actor Paul Sorvino (1939–2022) and Lorraine Ruth Davis and the brother of actress Mira Sorvino.


title: Michael Sorvino

text: Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey to actor Paul Sorvino and graduated from Tenafly High School in 1996. He went on to graduate from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick, New Jersey with a Bachelor's Degree in Theater in May 2001. Sorvino first started acting in 1993 with a part in the film "Amongst Friends". He had a recurring role in 2005 on the television series "Human Trafficking". He also voiced the lead character Tommy Angelo in the game "Mafia."


title: Michael Sorvino

text: Sorvino also produced the 2016 comedy-drama film "Almost Paris", which was directed by Domenica Cameron-Scorsese.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air America was an American passenger and cargo airline established in 1946 and covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, including providing support for drug smuggling in Laos.


title: Air America (airline)

text: CAT was created by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer in 1946 as Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) Air Transport to airlift supplies and food into war-ravaged China. It was soon pressed into service to support Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang forces in the civil war between them and the communists under Mao Zedong. Many of its first pilots were veterans of Chennault's World War II combat groups, popularly known as Flying Tigers. By 1950, following the defeat of Chiang's forces and their retreat to Taiwan, the airline faced financial difficulties. In August 1950, the CIA bought out Chennault and Willauer, continuing to operate as CAT, until 1959, when it changed its name to Air America.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air America's slogan was "Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, Professionally". Air America aircraft, including the Curtiss C-46 Commando, Pilatus PC-6 Porter, de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou, Lockheed C-130 Hercules, and Fairchild C-123 Provider, along with UH-34D, Bell 204B, Bell 205, and Boeing CH-47C Chinook helicopters, flew many types of cargo to countries such as the Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, and Cambodia. It operated from bases in those countries and also from bases in Thailand and as far afield as Taiwan and Japan. It also on occasion flew top-secret missions into Burma and the People's Republic of China.


title: Air America (airline)

text: From 1959 to 1962 the airline provided direct and indirect support to US Special Forces "Ambidextrous", "Hotfoot", and "White Star", which trained the regular Royal Laotian armed forces. After 1962 a similar operation known as "Project 404" fielded numerous US Army attachés (ARMA) and air attachés (AIRA) to the US embassy in Vientiane.


title: Air America (airline)

text: From 1962 to 1975, Air America inserted and extracted US personnel, provided logistical support to the Royal Lao Army, the Hmong Army under command of Royal Lao Army Major General Vang Pao and combatant Thai volunteer forces, transported refugees, and flew photo reconnaissance missions that provided intelligence on Viet Cong activities. Its civilian-marked craft were frequently used, under the control of the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force, to launch search and rescue missions for US pilots downed throughout Southeast Asia. Air America pilots were the only known private US corporate employees to operate non-Federal Aviation Administration-certified military aircraft in a combat role.


title: Air America (airline)

text: By mid-1970, the airline had two dozen twin-engine transport aircraft as well as Boeing 727 and Boeing 747 jets plus two dozen fixed wing short-take off-and-landing aircraft in addition to 30 helicopters dedicated to operations in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. There were more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and airfreight specialists based in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. During 1970, Air America delivered 46 million pounds (21,000 metric tons) of food in Laos. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4,000 hours a month in the same year.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air America flew civilians, diplomats, spies, refugees, commandos, sabotage teams, doctors, war casualties, drug enforcement officers, and even visiting VIPs like Richard Nixon all over Southeast Asia. Part of the CIA's support operations in Laos involved logistical support for Hmong militia fighting the North Vietnamese forces and their Pathet Lao allies. Thousands of tons of food was also flown in, including live chickens, pigs, water buffalo, and cattle. On top of the food drops (known as "rice drops") came the logistical demands for the war itself, and Air America pilots flew thousands of flights transporting and air-dropping ammunition and weapons (referred to as "hard rice") to friendly forces.


title: Air America (airline)

text: When the North Vietnamese Army overran South Vietnam in 1975, Air America helicopters participated in Operation Frequent Wind evacuating both US civilians and South Vietnamese people associated with the Saigon regime. The famous photograph depicting the final evacuation, by Dutch photographer Hubert van Es, was an Air America helicopter taking people from an apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street used by USAID and CIA employees.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air America planes sometimes transported drugs during the Laotian Civil War, though there is debate about whether Air America and the CIA were actively involved or merely allowed others to transport drugs. During the war, the CIA recruited people from Meo (Hmong) population to fight the Pathet Lao rebels and their North Vietnamese allies. Because of the conflict, many Hmong depended upon poppy cultivation for money. According to Alfred W. McCoy, because the Plain of Jars had been captured by the Pathet Lao in 1964, the Laotian Air Force was no longer able to land C-47 transport aircraft on the Plain of Jars, which McCoy says transported opium. According to McCoy, as the Laotian Air Force had few light planes that could land on the dirt runways near the mountaintop poppy fields, Air America used as it was the only airline available in northern Laos. McCoy writes that "Air America began flying opium from mountain villages north and east of the Plain of Jars to Gen Vang Pao's headquarters at Long Tieng."


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air America were alleged to have profited from transporting opium and heroin on behalf of Hmong leader Vang Pao, or of "turning a blind eye" to the Laotian military doing it. This allegation has been supported by former Laos CIA paramilitary Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe), former Air America pilots, and other people involved in the war. It is portrayed in the movie "Air America". However, University of Georgia aviation historian William M. Leary writes that Air America was not involved in the drug trade, citing Joseph Westermeyer, a physician and public health worker resident in Laos from 1965 to 1975, that "American-owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport." Aviation historian Curtis Peebles also denies that Air America employees were involved in opium transportation.


title: Air America (airline)

text: After it pulled out of South Vietnam in 1975, there was an attempt to keep a company presence in Thailand. After this fell through, Air America was dissolved on June 30, 1976. Air Asia, the company that held all of the Air America assets, was later purchased by Evergreen International Airlines. All proceeds, a sum between 20 and 25 million dollars, were returned to the US Treasury. The employees were released unceremoniously with no accolades and no benefits even for those who suffered long-term disabilities, nor death benefits for families of employees killed in action.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Such benefits as were afforded came from worker's compensation insurance required by contracts with the US Air Force that few knew about. The benefits were not awarded easily. Many disabled pilots were ultimately compensated under the federal Longshoremen's Act after lengthy battles with CIA bureaucrats who denied their connection to the airline for years. Many died of their injuries before they could be compensated adequately. Accident reports were said to have been falsified, redacted, and stonewalled by CIA officials who continued to deny any relationship to the events described in them.


title: Air America (airline)

text: During its existence Air America operated a diverse fleet of aircraft, the majority of which were STOL capable. There was "fluidity" of aircraft between some companies such as Air America, Boun Oum Airways, Continental Air Services, Inc, and the United States Air Force. It was not uncommon for USAF and United States Army Aviation units to lend aircraft to Air America for specific missions. Air America tended to register its aircraft in Taiwan. They operated in Laos without the B- nationality prefix. US military aircraft were often used with the "last three" digits of the military serial as a civil marking. The first two transports of Air America arrived in Vientiane, Laos, on August 23, 1959. The Air America operations at Udorn, Thailand, were closed down on June 30, 1974. Air America's operating authority was cancelled by the CAB on January 31, 1974.


title: Air America (airline)

text: Air Asia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Air America which provided technical, management, and equipment services for Civil Air Transport of Formosa. Air Asia was headquartered in Taipei and its main facilities were in Tainan, Taiwan. It is now located in the Tainan Airport. It is the only surviving member of the Pacific Corporation, but currently it is owned by Taiwan Aerospace Corporation and is no longer related to the Central Intelligence Agency.


title: Air America (airline)

text: In the 1980s, Los Angeles–based Total Air revived the Air America name. The revived Air America operated Lockheed L-1011 TriStar wide body jetliners with flights serving Baltimore (BWI), Detroit (DTW), Honolulu (HNL), London (LGW) and Los Angeles (LAX).


title: Environmental health

text: Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in order to create a healthy environment must be determined. Environmental health focuses on the natural and built environments for the benefit of human health. The major sub-disciplines of environmental health are environmental science, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental and occupational medicine.


title: Environmental health

text: Those aspects of human health and disease that are determined by factors in the environment. It is also referred to as the theory and practice of accessing and controlling factors in the environment that can potentially affect health.


title: Environmental health

text: A 1990 WHO document states that environmental health, as used by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, "includes both the direct pathological effects of chemicals, radiation and some biological agents, and the effects (often indirect) on health and well being of the broad physical, psychological, social and cultural environment, which includes housing, urban development, land use and transport."


title: Environmental health

text: , the WHO website on environmental health states that "Environmental health addresses all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related factors impacting behaviours. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments. This definition excludes behaviour not related to environment, as well as behaviour related to the social and cultural environment, as well as genetics."


title: Environmental health

text: The WHO has also defined environmental health services as "those services which implement environmental health policies through monitoring and control activities. They also carry out that role by promoting the improvement of environmental parameters and by encouraging the use of environmentally friendly and healthy technologies and behaviors. They also have a leading role in developing and suggesting new policy areas."


title: Environmental health

text: The term environmental medicine may be seen as a medical specialty, or branch of the broader field of environmental health. Terminology is not fully established, and in many European countries they are used interchangeably.


title: Environmental health

text: Children's environmental health is the academic discipline that studies how environmental exposures in early life—chemical, nutritional, and social—influence health and development in childhood and across the entire human life span.


title: Environmental health

text: Other terms referring to or concerning environmental health include environmental public health and health protection.


title: Environmental health

text: Five basic disciplines generally contribute to the field of environmental health: environmental epidemiology, toxicology, exposure science, environmental engineering, and environmental law. Each of these five disciplines contributes different information to describe problems and solutions in environmental health. However, there is some overlap among them.


title: Environmental health

text: Information from epidemiology, toxicology, and exposure science can be combined to conduct a risk assessment for specific chemicals, mixtures of chemicals or other risk factors to determine whether an exposure poses significant risk to human health (exposure would likely result in the development of pollution-related diseases). This can in turn be used to develop and implement environmental health policy that, for example, regulates chemical emissions, or imposes standards for proper sanitation. Actions of engineering and law can be combined to provide risk management to minimize, monitor, and otherwise manage the impact of exposure to protect human health to achieve the objectives of environmental health policy.


title: Environmental health

text: Environmental health addresses all human-health-related aspects of the natural environment and the built environment. Environmental health concerns include:


title: Environmental health

text: According to recent estimates, about 5 to 10% of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost are due to environmental causes in Europe. By far the most important factor is fine particulate matter pollution in urban air. Similarly, environmental exposures have been estimated to contribute to 4.9 million (8.7%) deaths and 86 million (5.7%) DALYs globally. In the United States, Superfund sites created by various companies have been found to be hazardous to human and environmental health in nearby communities. It was this perceived threat, raising the specter of miscarriages, mutations, birth defects, and cancers that most frightened the public.


title: Environmental health

text: The Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP) is a comprehensive toxicology and environmental health web site, that includes open access to resources produced by US government agencies and organizations, and is maintained under the umbrella of the Specialized Information Service at the United States National Library of Medicine. TEHIP includes links to technical databases, bibliographies, tutorials, and consumer-oriented resources. TEHIP is responsible for the Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET), an integrated system of toxicology and environmental health databases including the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, that are open access, i.e. available free of charge. TOXNET was retired in 2019.


title: Environmental health

text: There are many environmental health mapping tools. TOXMAP is a geographic information system (GIS) from the Division of Specialized Information Services of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory and Superfund Basic Research Programs. TOXMAP is a resource funded by the US federal government. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from the NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET) and PubMed, and from other authoritative sources.


title: Environmental health

text: Environmental health professionals may be known as environmental health officers, public health inspectors, environmental health specialists or environmental health practitioners. Researchers and policy-makers also play important roles in how environmental health is practiced in the field. In many European countries, physicians and veterinarians are involved in environmental health. In the United Kingdom, practitioners must have a graduate degree in environmental health and be certified and registered with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health or the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland. In Canada, practitioners in environmental health are required to obtain an approved bachelor's degree in environmental health along with the national professional certificate, the Certificate in Public Health Inspection (Canada), CPHI(C). Many states in the United States also require that individuals have a bachelor's degree and professional licenses in order to practice environmental health. California state law defines the scope of practice of environmental health as follows:


title: Environmental health

text: The environmental health profession had its modern-day roots in the sanitary and public health movement of the United Kingdom. This was epitomized by Sir Edwin Chadwick, who was instrumental in the repeal of the poor laws, and in 1884 was the founding president of the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors, now called the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Andry Nirina Rajoelina (Malagasy: ; born 30 May 1974) is a Malagasy politician and businessman who has been the president of Madagascar since 2019. He was previously president of a provisional government from 2009 to 2014 following a political crisis and military-backed coup, having held the office of Mayor of Antananarivo for one year prior.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Before entering the political arena, Rajoelina was involved in the private sector, including a printing and advertising company called Injet in 1999 and the "Viva" radio and television networks in 2007.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: He formed political party Young Malagasies Determined and was elected Mayor of Antananarivo in 2007. While in this position, he led an opposition movement against then-President Marc Ravalomanana that culminated in a 2009 political crisis. Rajoelina was appointed as President of the High Transitional Authority of Madagascar (HTA) by a military council, in a move characterised as a coup d'état by the international community. Rajoelina dissolved the Senate and National Assembly, and transferred their powers to a variety of new governance structures responsible for overseeing the transition toward a new constitutional authority. This conflicted with an internationally mediated process to establish a transitional government. Voters approved a new constitution in a controversial national referendum in November 2010, ushering in the Fourth Republic.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: He held the Presidency of the HTA until general elections were held in 2013, and stepped down in 2014. He won the 2018 presidential election and was inaugurated President of Madagascar on 19 January 2019. His tenure has included directing the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Madagascar, during which he promoted misinformation and unproven treatments for the disease, as well as a 2021 food insecurity crisis and Cyclone Batsirai.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Andry Rajoelina was born on 30 May 1974 to a relatively wealthy family in Antsirabe. His father, now-retired Colonel Roger Yves Rajoelina, held dual nationality and fought for the French army in the Algerian War. Although his family could afford a college education for their son, Andry Rajoelina opted to discontinue his studies after completing his baccalauréat to launch a career as an entrepreneur.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In 1994, Rajoelina met his future spouse Mialy Razakandisa, who was then completing her senior year at a high school in Antananarivo. The couple courted long-distance for six years while Mialy completed her undergraduate and masters studies in finance and accounting in Paris; they were reunited in Madagascar in 2000 and wed the same year. Their marriage produced two boys, Arena (born 2002) and Ilonstoa (born 2003), and a daughter born in 2005 whom the couple named Ilona.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In 1993, at the age of 19, Rajoelina established his first enterprise: a small event production company called "Show Business." In the following year, he organized an annual concert called "Live" that brought together foreign and Malagasy musical artists. The event gathered 50,000 participants on its tenth anniversary.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In 1999, he launched Injet, the first digital printing technology company available on the island, which gained quick traction with its expansion of billboard advertising throughout the capital. Following his marriage in 2000, Andry and Mialy Rajoelina acquired Domapub, a competing Antananarivo-based billboard advertising business owned by Andry's in-laws. The couple worked together to manage the family businesses, with Andry responsible for Injet and his wife handling the affairs of Domapub.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In May 2007, Andry Rajoelina purchased the "Ravinala" television and radio stations, and renamed them "Viva TV" and "Viva FM".


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In 2007, Rajoelina created and led the political association "Tanora malaGasy Vonona" (TGV), meaning "determined Malagasy youth", and shortly afterward announced his candidacy to run for Mayor of Antananarivo. His very young age became a lever to gain a quick popularity throughout the nation ("" of politics). Rajoelina was elected on 12 December 2007 with 63.3% of the vote on a 55% voter turnout, beating TIM party incumbent Hery Rafalimanana.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: The first conflicts between Andry Rajoelina and president Ravalomanana date back to 2003, when the government required the removal of Antananarivo's first Trivision advertising panels, which Rajoelina had installed at a major roundabout in the capital.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In November and December 2008, the government became embroiled in two scandals. A July 2008 deal with Daewoo Logistics to lease half the island's arable land for South Korean cultivation of corn and palm oil, and the November 2008 purchase of a second presidential jet, a Boeing 737, at a cost of US$60 million, which led the World Bank and the IMF to suspend $35 million worth of financial support to the Island. Rajoelina used this to garner support against Ravalomanana's government.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Upon taking office, the city's treasury had a debt of 8.2 billion Malagasy Ariary (approximately US$4.6 million). On 4 January 2008, due to unpaid debts to the Jirama, the city of Antananarivo was hit by a general water cutoff, and brownouts of the city's street lights. After an audit, it was found that the Jirama owed about the same amount of money to the City Hall, and the sanction on the city's population was retrieved.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 13 December 2008, the government closed Andry Rajoelina's Viva TV, stating that a Viva interview with exiled former head of state Didier Ratsiraka was "likely to disturb peace and security". Within a week Rajoelina met with twenty of Madagascar's most prominent opposition leaders, referred to in the press as the "Club of 20", to develop a joint statement demanding that the Ravalomanana administration improve its adherence to democratic principles. Rajoelina also promised to dedicate a politically open public space in the capital which he would call "Place de la Démocratie" ("Democracy Plaza").


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Beginning in January 2009, Andry Rajoelina led a series of political rallies in downtown Antananarivo. On 13 January, he launched an ultimatum to the government to restore "Viva TV". A week later, the transmission failure message of "Viva TV" was changed to a still picture of Andry Rajoelina, which led the authorities to seize the channel's transmitter by force. On 17 January, Andry Rajoelina gathered 30,000 supporters at a public park which he renamed "Place de la Démocratie" to defy the public executive power of Ravalomanana. At a rally on 31 January 2009, Rajoelina announced that he was in charge of the country's affairs, declaring: "Since the president and the government have not assumed their responsibilities, I therefore proclaim that I will run all national affairs as of today." He added that a request for President Ravalomanana to formally resign would shortly be filed with the Parliament of Madagascar. This self-declaration of power discredited Rajoelina's democratic aims, and the number of attendees at subsequent rallies declined, averaging around 3,000 to 5,000 participants.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 3 February, the Ministry of Domestic Affairs dismissed Rajoelina as mayor of Antananarivo and appointed a special delegation headed by Guy Randrianarisoa to manage the affairs of the capital. Andry Rajoelina contested the decision.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 7 February, Andry Rajoelina organized a new rally during which the leaders of the orange movement declared the constitution of a High Transitional Authority and Andry Rajoelina as its president. The crowd then marched towards the Presidential palace to state its claim to power. The presidential guards opened fire, killing 31 protesters, and wounding more than 200. This massacre dramatically diminished the Presidency's popularity in the crisis, and led to losing its support from the Army which blamed the President for ordering the shooting.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 6 March, after the Malagasy authorities attempted to arrest him, Andry Rajoelina took refuge in the French embassy. On 10 March, the Army released a 72-hour ultimatum, urging the political leaders to find a solution to the crisis. On 15 March, Ravalomanana went on air to declare a referendum to solve the crisis, an offer refused by Rajoelina who instead called for the President's arrest. The following day, Ravalomanana dissolved the government, resigned, and transferred the Presidential seal to a senior committee of the Army. On 18 March, the Army transferred power directly to Rajoelina, making him president of the High Transitional Authority (HAT). Madagascar's constitutional court deemed the double-transfer of power (Ravalomanana-Army-Rajoelina) to be legal.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Rajoelina was sworn in as President on 21 March at Mahamasina stadium before a crowd of 40,000 supporters. He was 35 years of age when sworn in, making him the youngest president in the country's history and the youngest head of government in the world at that time.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 19 March 2009, SADC announced it did not recognize the new government. The African Union described the events as a coup d'état and suspended Madagascar and threatened sanctions if the constitutional government had not been restored within six months. The United States, Madagascar's largest bilateral donor and provider of humanitarian aid, also refused to acknowledge the Rajoelina administration, and ordered all nonessential embassy employees to leave the Island. Madagascar was removed from the list of beneficiaries of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In May 2009, the IMF also froze its aid to Madagascar. The UN responded to the power transfer by freezing 600 million euros in planned aid. The international community maintained that Rajoelina's legitimacy was conditional to free and fair elections.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In August 2009, the historic Presidents of Madagascar (Rajoelina, Ravalomanana, Ratsiraka & Zafy) signed the Maputo Accords, which provided guidelines for a period of consensual political transition. In 11 October 2009, Andry Rajoelina appointed Eugene Malganza as Prime Minister. Further guidelines were defined during the Addis Ababa reunion to split the presidential power with 2 co-presidents. The Malagasy former presidents were authorized to return to the Island, and Rajoelina named a new Prime Minister.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In November 2010, a constitutional referendum resulted in the adoption of the state's fourth constitution with 73% in favor and a voter turnout of 52.6%. One change made by the new constitution was to lower the minimum age for presidential candidates from 40 to 35, making Rajoelina eligible to eventually stand in presidential elections. The new constitution mandated the leader of the High Transitional Authority – the position held by Rajoelina – be kept as interim president until an election could take place, and required presidential candidates to have lived in Madagascar for at least six months prior to the elections, effectively barring Ravalomanana and other opposition leaders living in exile from running in the next election.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In June 2010, the EU announced the extension of its $600-million financial aid to Madagascar. In November 2011, his talk at the UN 66th Session of the United Nations General Assembly marked the first major form of international recognition of the Transition government. On 13 May 2011, Andry Rajoelina met with Alain Juppé, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and on 7 December 2011 he was officially received by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In May 2013, when Ravalomanana's wife announced her candidacy for the 2013 elections, Rajoelina saw it as a breach of contract and reintroduced his own candidacy for the elections. This situation led to the elections to be postponed many times. A special electoral court ruled in August 2013 that the candidatures of Rajoelina, Ravalomanana and Ratsiraka were invalid and not be permitted to run in the 2013 election. Andry Rajoelina then announced his endorsement of presidential candidate Hery Rajaonarimampianina, who won the presidential election race. Andry Rajoelina officially stepped down on 25 January 2014.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Rajaonarimampianina set up the MAPAR committee to organize the selection of his cabinet, a process that extended over several months. During this time, Rajoelina sought to be nominated for the position of Prime Minister of Madagascar but Rajaonarimampianina picked Roger Kolo, with the support of the majority in the parliament. On 18 April, a cabinet was announced that comprised 31 members with varied political affiliations.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Upon taking office, Rajoelina dissolved the Senate and Parliament to transfer their powers to his cabinet, the officials of the HAT, and the newly established Council for social and economic strengthening, through which his policies were issued as decrees. Legislative authority rested in practice with Rajoelina and his cabinet, composed of his closest advisers. A military committee established in April increased HAT control over security and defense policy. The following month, after the suspension of the country's 22 regional governors, the Transitional government strengthened its influence over local government by naming replacements. The National Inquiry Commission (CNME) was established shortly thereafter to strengthen HAT effectiveness in addressing judicial and legal matters.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: One of Andry Rajoelina's first measures as President was to cancel Ravalomanana's unpopular deal with Daewoo Logistics. On 2 June 2009, Ravalomanana was fined 70 million US dollars (42 million British pounds) and sentenced to four years in prison for alleged abuse of office which, according to HAT Justice Minister Christine Razanamahasoa, included the December 2008 purchase of a second presidential jet ("Air Force II") worth $60 million. Rajoelina also pursued legal action against Ravalomanana's company Tiko to reclaim 35 million US dollars in back taxes. Additionally, on 28 August 2010, the HAT sentenced Ravalomanana "in absentia" to hard labor for life and issued an arrest warrant for his role in the protests and ensuing deaths. He also rejected Ravalomanana's medium term development strategy, termed the Madagascar Action Plan, and abandoned education reforms initiated by his predecessor that adopted Malagasy and English as languages of instruction, instead returning to the traditional use of French. Later in 2012, he sold the controversial Boeing 747 bought by his predecessor with public funds.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Sanctions and suspension of donor aid amounted to 50% of the national budget and 70% of public investments, which obstructed the government's management of state affairs. Rajoelina occasionally organized events to distribute basic items to the population, including medicines, clothing, house maintenance materials and school supplies. His administration spent billions of ariary to subsidize basic needs like electricity, petrol, and food staples. In 2010, two years after Rajoelina launched the project as mayor of Antananarivo, the HAT completed the reconstruction of the "Hotel de Ville" (town hall) of Antananarivo which had been destroyed by arson during the "rotaka" political protests of 1972. During this ceremony, Andry Rajoelina announced that 11 December was a new holiday in the Malagasy calendar, and the fourth Constitution of the country was enacted.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Through the "trano mora" ("affordable house") initiative, the HAT built several subsidized housing developments intended for young middle class couples. Numerous other construction projects were planned or completed, including the restoration of historic staircases in Antananarivo built in the 19th century during the reign of Queen Ranavalona I; the repaving of the heavily traveled road between Toamasina and Foulpointe; the construction of a 15,000-capacity municipal stadium and new town hall in Toamasina; and the construction of a hospital built to international standards in Toamasina.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In early August 2018, Andry Rajoelina was the first to register his candidacy for the 2018 presidential elections. He had previously introduced the Initiative for the Emergence of Madagascar (IEM) that define the lines of his campaign program. One campaign promise is to close the Senate to save money and build universities instead. He also aims to increase access to electricity, to work towards agricultural self-sufficiency, and to increase security.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: The campaign started in October 2018, with Andry Rajoelina facing his historical opponents Ravalomanana and Rajaonarimampianina, the favorites in a campaign of 46 candidates. In the first round of the elections on 7 November, he took the lead with 39.19% (1,949,851) of the votes (Ravalomana 35.29% or 1,755,855 votes). A televised debate between the two final candidates was aired live on 10 December.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In April and May 2020, President Rajoelina gained media attention when he launched an untested COVID-19 "cure" dubbed "Covid-Organics". The herbal tea was developed by the Madagascar Institute of Applied Research (MIAR) using artemisia and other locally-sourced herbs. The military distributed batches of "Covid-Organics" to the public. Drinking the herbal tea was made obligatory in school. Several African countries including Tanzania, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau have purchased the herbal tea. Matshidiso Moeti of the Africa regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no available proof for the effectiveness of this cure. It had not undergone proper clinical trials and no peer-reviewed data existed. The National Academy of Medicine of Madagascar (ANAMEM) was also skeptical. A WHO advert on Google said: "Africans deserve to use medicines tested to the same standards as people in the rest of the world". The African Union has sought to test the technical efficiency of the herbal tea.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 4 April, Arphine Helisoa (the pseudonym of Arphine Rahelisoa), a publishing director and journalist at the "Ny Valosoa" newspaper, was placed in custody awaiting trial charged with spreading fake news after she was accused of criticizing the president's handling of the pandemic and of "incitement of hatred" towards President Rajoelina. She was released after a month.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Rajoelina has blamed climate change for the food insecurity in parts of his country and has called on powerful nations to fight it.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: During the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Rajoelina, linked the risks of deforestation and biodiversity in Madagascar, and vowed to protect the forests of Madagascar, while also announcing the use of bioethanol and gas-based stoves in the country to fight the effects of climate change. Rajoelina also pledged more financial aid to protect the aforementioned biodiversity in Madagascar; which represents the world's 5%.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: In June 2021, a severe drought caused hundreds of thousands of people, with some estimations claiming more than one million people, to suffer from food insecurity in the south of the country. Rajoelina jointly announced a plan to combat hunger along with US ambassador to the country Michael Pelletier. Among other measures, Rajoelina ordered the distribution of butane gas stoves to replace charcoal as an alternative for people in the poorest areas of the country. The measure reached a total of 15,000 households.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: Rajoelina has promised to empower women during the famine while stating that the current food crisis in Madagascar is a consequence of a climate crisis which Malagasy people are suffering and in which "they did not participate". Rajoelina asked for a "radical and lasting change" during an International Development Association summit in Ivory Coast.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: On 22 July 2021, police announced they had arrested six people, including foreign nationals, after months of investigation into a plot to kill Rajoelina. The attorney general filed charges against them on different charges. The next day, the attorney general announced that at least one French citizen was among those arrested, and said that he was a former member of the French Armed Forces. France responded by saying that they were working with consular aid in Madagascar.


title: Andry Rajoelina

text: As president, he suffered two related disasters in December 2021; a large shipwreck and a helicopter crash in which his police minister Serge Gellé was one of the people on board.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bret Arnold Bielema (; born January 13, 1970) is currently the head American football coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bielema served as the head football coach at of the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2006 to 2012, achieving a 68–24 record and taking them to three straight Rose Bowl Games, although they lost each time. He was the head football coach at University of Arkansas from 2013 to 2017, tallying a mark of 29–34. Bielema was an assistant coach in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons, in 2018 and 2019 with the New England Patriots and 2020 with the New York Giants.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema attended Prophetstown High School in Prophetstown, Illinois. He played tight end and linebacker in high school. Bielema walked on as a defensive lineman at the University of Iowa under coach Hayden Fry, playing from 1989 to 1992. Bielema lettered four years, earned a scholarship and served as team captain his senior season. Bielema was part of the 1990 Iowa team that won a share of the Big Ten title with Illinois.


title: Bret Bielema

text: In his senior season, after Iowa beat Iowa State 21-7, Bielema approached Iowa State head coach Jim Walden for a post-game handshake and said "You’re a big prick. It’s been a pleasure kicking your ass the last five years" (Iowa State had never beaten Iowa during Bielema's tenure with the team). The moment caused considerable stir, with University of Iowa officials reprimanding Bielema and sending an official letter of apology to Walden. Bielema graduated from Iowa with a bachelor's degree in marketing.


title: Bret Bielema

text: After going undrafted in the 1993 NFL Draft, Bielema signed as a free agent with the Seattle Seahawks, but was cut during the summer. In 1994 he played for the Milwaukee Mustangs, a team in the Arena Football League.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema returned to Iowa in 1994 to begin his coaching career under Fry as a graduate assistant. In 1996, he was promoted to linebackers coach, a role he would hold until 2001. In 1998, Fry retired and was replaced by former Iowa offensive line coach Kirk Ferentz, who had briefly coached Bielema in offensive line sets during preparation for the 1988 Peach Bowl. Bielema, one of the leading recruiters on Fry's staff, continued on the road recruiting during the coaching search. Ferentz retained only Bielema and quarterbacks coach Chuck Long from Fry's staff. During his three years with Ferentz at Iowa, Bielema recruited several players, most from Florida, that would form part of the core of the 2002 Iowa team, including Heisman runner-up quarterback Brad Banks, wide receivers C. J. Jones and Maurice Brown, nose tackle Colin Cole, cornerback Antwan Allen, and linebackers Fred Barr and Abdul Hodge.


title: Bret Bielema

text: After the 2001 season, Bielema became co-defensive coordinator for the Kansas State Wildcats, coached by Bill Snyder, who had coached at Iowa with Fry for a decade. Bielema and Bob Elliott replaced Phil Bennett, who had left to become the head coach of the SMU Mustangs. Bielema coached the K-State defense for two seasons, helping the Wildcats win the 2003 Big XII Championship.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema left Kansas State after the 2003 season to become the Wisconsin defensive coordinator under head coach Barry Alvarez, who had also coached at Iowa under Fry. Bielema served as defensive coordinator for two seasons. In July 2005, Alvarez announced he would retire after the 2005 season and become the Badger athletic director. Alvarez also announced he had chosen Bielema as his successor, and would take over in 2006.


title: Bret Bielema

text: In his first season as head coach of the Badgers in 2006, Bielema's team ended the regular season 11–1 (7–1 in Big Ten Conference play). With a 14–0 victory over San Diego State on September 16, 2006, Bielema became the third Wisconsin head coach to win the first three games of his career. Later, with a 24–3 win over Purdue on October 21, Bielema tied the record for most wins by a first-year coach at UW with seven. The other two coaches to complete this feat were Philip King in 1896 and William Juneau in 1912. A 30–24 victory over the Fighting Illini on October 28, Bielema became the first coach in Wisconsin history to win eight games in his first season. He then extended the record with his ninth victory on November 4, defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions, 13–3. With a 24–21 victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes on November 11, Bielema became the first head coach in Big Ten history to win ten games in his first season. With the 35–3 defeat of the University at Buffalo on November 18, 2006, Bielema became the first coach in UW history to win 11 games in the regular season. After a 17–14 victory over the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Capital One Bowl on January 1, 2007, he became the third coach in NCAA history to win 12 games in his rookie season, finishing 12–1.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema coached Wisconsin to victories in 17 of his first 18 games. That represents the third-best start to a head coaching career in Big Ten history. Michigan's Fielding H. Yost, who went 55–0–1 from 1901 to 1905, and Ohio State's Urban Meyer, who won 24 straight games to begin his Big Ten career had better starts. Unlike Bielema, Yost and Meyer both had established head coaching resumes prior to their Big Ten tenures.


title: Bret Bielema

text: On October 16, 2010, Bielema's Badgers defeated #1-ranked Ohio State, 31–18, in Madison. It was Wisconsin's first victory over a #1-ranked team since 1981 when the Badgers upset Michigan. The victory against the Buckeyes would be his only one as he was 1-5 against Ohio State.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema was named a finalist for the 2010 Bear Bryant Award which is given to college football's Coach of the Year. The other finalists were Chris Ault of Nevada, Gene Chizik of Auburn, Mark Dantonio of Michigan State, Jim Harbaugh of Stanford, Chip Kelly of Oregon, Gary Patterson of TCU, Bobby Petrino of Arkansas, and Mike Sherman of Texas A&M. The award was given to Chizik.


title: Bret Bielema

text: On December 4, 2012, it was announced that Bielema was leaving Wisconsin to become the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. He left partly to coach in the Southeastern Conference and partly because he felt that his assistant coaches were not being paid enough. Bielema replaced John L. Smith, who had coached Arkansas to a 4-8 record during the 2012 season after Bobby Petrino had been fired eight months earlier.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema's first season at Arkansas resulted in an overall record of 3-9, including 0-8 in the Southeastern Conference. Bielema inherited a roster depleted of talent and lacking in development under Coach Smith. Bielema's starting quarterback also suffered a throwing shoulder injury, which limited his ability the entire season. It was the Razorbacks' worst SEC record since entering the conference in 1992 and their first winless in-conference season since 1942, when they were a member of the Southwest Conference.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema's second season saw significant improvement, as Arkansas finished 7–6. Bielema won his first two SEC games in dominating fashion in November, beating #17 LSU by a score of 17–0 and #8 Ole Miss by a score of 30–0 to achieve bowl eligibility. Though Arkansas lost its remaining conference game against Missouri, the Razorbacks were still the first unranked team in college football history to shut out two consecutive ranked opponents. Bielema led Arkansas to a Texas Bowl victory in the postseason, defeating Texas handily, 31–7.


title: Bret Bielema

text: In Bielema's third season, the team suffered the loss of returning 1,190-yard starting running back Jonathan Williams before the season. Breaking in a new offensive coordinator and adjusting to losing three NFL drafted defensive players up front, the Razorbacks got off to a slow start, losing to Toledo and Texas Tech in the non-conference and started 2–4. Bielema then caught fire in the second half of the season, going 5–1 over the final six games, losing the one game to Mississippi State on a missed field goal. Bielema ended the year by defeating one of his former mentors, Bill Snyder, in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, as Arkansas dispatched Kansas State, 45–23, to finish the season with a record of 8–5.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema's fourth season was a topsy-turvy campaign that ended with two embarrassing defeats at the hands of Missouri in the regular season finale and Virginia Tech in the 2016 Belk Bowl. The former saw his team blow a 17-point halftime lead and the latter was a 24-point blown halftime lead, which was the largest for Arkansas since at least 1952. Beating Missouri would have resulted in Bret Bielema improving his regular season record every year at Arkansas. The losses led to the replacement of Defensive Coordinator Robb Smith with former Iowa State head coach Paul Rhoads, and other staff changes pointing to a change to a 3-4 defensive scheme.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema’s fifth season saw the program continue to regress, finishing 4-8 overall and going just 1-7 in the SEC. On November 24, 2017, Bielema was fired after five seasons as Arkansas's head coach following a 48–45 loss at home to the Missouri Tigers. The Razorbacks twice led by 14, but lost both leads. After the game, Bielema told reporters that he had been told he was being fired while he was coming off the field. According to Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman, school officials decided to announce the firing after the game so he could have a chance to address the team one last time before they headed home for Thanksgiving. The alternative would have been learning of the firing via social media or a group text message.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Prior to the 2018 NFL season, Bielema was hired by the New England Patriots as a defensive consultant to head coach Bill Belichick. Bielema was promoted ahead of the season to defensive line coach.


title: Bret Bielema

text: On January 21, 2020, the Giants hired Bielema as their outside linebackers coach and senior assistant under Joe Judge.


title: Bret Bielema

text: On December 19, 2020, Bielema was announced as the next head coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, succeeding Lovie Smith. The school said Bielema would receive a six-year contract that paid $4.2 million the first year, with annual raises, based on performance and fulfilling media and other promotional obligations for the program throughout the contract. The salary makes him the ninth-highest paid head coach among the fourteen members of the Big Ten Conference.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema won his first game with the Illini against the Nebraska Cornhuskers then went on a 4 game losing streak to UTSA, Virginia, Maryland and Purdue. The streak ended with a win against Charlotte, but he lost the next week to Wisconsin, his former team. Following an off week, Bielema and the Fighting Illini upset 24.5-point favorite Penn State in Happy Valley, then ranked #7 in the AP Poll. The most notable part of this outcome was its 9 overtime periods, which broke the FBS record for the most overtime periods in a game. The Illini lost their next game to Rutgers before upsetting Minnesota, then ranked #20 in the College Football Playoff poll. Bielema did not travel with the team to Iowa having contracting COVID-19, and the Illini lost to the Hawkeyes with wide receivers coach George McDonald serving as acting head coach. After Bielema returned, he won his final game of the season at home against Northwestern. This marked the Illini's first win against the rival Wildcats since 2014. Bielema finished his first season at Illinois with an overall record of 5-7, and a Big Ten record of 4-5, which placed the Illini fifth in the Big Ten West Division.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema grew up on an 80-acre hog farm near Prophetstown, Illinois with brothers Bart and Barry. Each of the brothers competed in football, track, and wrestling.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Bielema married Jen Hielsberg on March 10, 2012 in Madison. Their first daughter, Briella, was born in 2017. Their second daughter, Brexli, was born in 2019.


title: Bret Bielema

text: Arkansas sports radio personality Bo Mattingly debuted a series featuring Bielema entitled 'Being Bret Bielema' on February 25, 2016.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Arturo Guzmán Decena (13 January 1976 – 21 November 2002), also known by his code name Z-1, was a Mexican Army Special Forces officer and high-ranking member of Los Zetas, a criminal group based in Tamaulipas. He defected from the military in 1997 and formed Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel's former paramilitary wing, under the leadership of the kingpin Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Guzmán Decena was born in a poor family in Puebla and joined the military as a teenager to escape from poverty. While in the military, he was a talented and bright soldier, earning a position in the Special Forces of the Mexican military by the mid-1990s. During his military career, Guzmán Decena received counter-insurgency training, acquired skills in explosives, and learned how to track down and apprehend his enemies from an elite combat group trained by the U.S. Special Forces and the Israel Defense Forces.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: He began to take bribes from the Gulf Cartel while still serving in the military, but eventually defected to work full-time for the criminal organization in 1997. For years he recruited other members of the Mexican Armed Forces to form Los Zetas.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: He served as the right-hand man of Cárdenas Guillén until 21 November 2002, when he was gunned down and killed by the Mexican Army Special Forces in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Guzmán Decena was born in a poor village in Puebla, Mexico on 13 January 1976, and finished middle school and high school before joining the Mexican military to escape poverty. His talents and aggressive behavior earned him a position with an elite Mexican military group called Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE), originally trained in counter-insurgency tactics for the Zapatista uprising in 1994 and for locating and apprehending members of Mexico's drug trafficking organizations. Guzmán Decena reportedly received military training from the Israeli special forces. His training came into practice after more than 3,000 Zapatista rebels seized several towns across the southern state of Chiapas in 1994. The rebellion was a symbolic rising against poverty and the single-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and many rebels took arms; the Mexican government, however, sent in the GAFE to put down the Zapatistas. Within hours, 34 rebels were killed and three others were captured by Guzmán Decena's counter-insurgency group. Their bodies were then disposed on a riverbank – with their ears and noses sliced off.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Now one of the brightest, highly trained, and bloodiest members in the GAFE, Guzmán Decena was sent to the northern state of Tamaulipas. While operating as the security chief in the city of Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, he was recruited by Cárdenas Guillén's cartel. Investigators say that Guzmán Decena first worked with the Gulf Cartel by taking bribes from Osiel Cárdenas Guillén and turning a blind eye on the drug shipments of the cartel. Such payments were typical among military commanders, but while soldiers had often accepted bribes from the drug lords, it was not common for them to defect from the army and join their ranks. Bribes were seen by soldiers as "benefits" to their job, and officers stood firm to the idea that they were protectors of the Mexican people. Guzmán Decena, however, shattered that model and left the military in 1997 to work full-time with a drug trafficking organization. According to the British journalist, Ioan Grillo, it is still unclear why Guzmán Decena defected from the army to become a "narco-mercenary." A common explanation is that Guzmán Decena left the military in search of a higher payment, seeing that many cartel members lived ostentatiously and earned more in a year than a GAFE member earned in a lifetime. Nonetheless, he would have also lived comfortably as a successful GAFE member in the army. And by joining the Gulf cartel, he was becoming a fugitive and increasing his chances of being arrested or killed. Hence, a crucial factor in his defection may have been the seismic change of Mexico's transition to democracy and the tearing rule of the PRI. The "new Mexico" and the democracy that came with it was feared by many soldiers who had made abuses during the old regime. Mounting pressures arose from the families of the "disappeared" who made marches in Mexico City, and many military officers were found guilty in courts-martial for human right abuses and corruption. For years, some military generals took bribes from the cartels; amid the turmoil, Guzmán Decena acknowledged that he was better off outside the system and as a leader of Los Zetas.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Cárdenas Guillén then asked Guzmán Decena to help him recruit and set up the most ferocious hit squad possible for his cartel. Mexican federal agents later released the conversation between the two after an informant passed on the information of the new unit:


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Following the orders, Guzmán Decena recruited dozens of soldiers from the Mexican military. Some media outlets report that the formation of Los Zetas was the result of a "mass defection" of a single army unit. But military records show that this claim is false and inaccurate. Soldiers left their ranks and joined Los Zetas over some months and were from a number of different military units, but a number of GAFE soldiers made up a large part of the deserters. The members were given a codename with the letter Z, starting with Guzmán Decena with Z-1. Within some months, Guzmán Decena commanded a mercenary army of 38 defected soldiers enticed by salaries substantially higher than those paid by the Mexican government. The GAFE soldiers that went to work with the Gulf cartel took with them a number of the Mexican Army's most sophisticated machine guns, assault rifles, pistols, bazookas, grenades, and telecommunications and surveillance equipment. The role of Los Zetas was soon expanded by "collecting debts, securing cocaine supply and trafficking routes known as 'plazas,' and executing its foes – often with grotesque savagery."


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Once Juan García Ábrego, the founder of the Gulf cartel, was imprisoned in 1996, Ángel Salvador Gómez Herrera (a.k.a. "El Chava") sought to take over the assets of the criminal organization along with Cárdenas Guillén. At first, both of them functioned well together: they bought off police officers, bribed politicians and soldiers, and managed to take control of major drug shipments coming in from Guatemala. Although supposedly Cárdenas Guillén's equal, Gómez Herrera's manipulative personality annoyed Guillén, especially after Herrera's constant requests for money loans. Such behavior offended Cárdenas Guillén, who assembled his own faction within the Gulf Cartel. But in mid-1999, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, after his daughter's baptism ceremony, ordered Guzmán Decena to execute Gómez Herrera, the godfather of Cárdenas Guillén's baby. Gómez Herrera was cordially invited to ride in Cárdenas Guillén's Dodge Durango after the ceremony. They exchanged laughs and talked for a few minutes. Guzmán Decena, who was riding in the back seat of the truck, fired a bullet into Gómez Herrera's head. Investigators later found Herrera's decaying dead body at the outskirts of the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. For killing Gómez Herrera, Cárdenas Guillén earned his nickname, the "Mata Amigos" ("Friend Killer"), and Guzmán Decena, the trust of his boss.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: Guzmán Decena was shot dead by Mexican soldiers inside a restaurant on 22 November 2002 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas after being spotted by the Mexican military. Another account written by Jesús Blancornelas indicates that Guzmán Decena went to a restaurant, had a few strong drinks, snorted a line of cocaine, and then decided to visit his mistress Ana Bertha González Lagunes, who lived a few blocks away. In order to not be interrupted, Guzmán Decena reportedly ordered his henchmen to block the street and direct traffic. Nonetheless, one of the neighbors called an anti-organized crime agency which called on the Mexican Army. When the soldiers arrived, Guzmán Decena was unable to defend himself and was shot to death.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: After his death, flowers in his honor were placed on the sidewalk outside the restaurant and at his gravesite. According to the photos published by the local newspapers in Matamoros, a note accompanied the flowers and read the following:


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: In an apparent revenge for Guzmán Decena's assassination, four members of the Office of the General Prosecutor were abducted and murdered near Reynosa, Tamaulipas in early 2003, allegedly by Cárdenas Guillén's men. Less than four months after Guzmán Decena's death, the Mexican military captured the Gulf cartel's kingpin, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, on 14 March 2003. The second-in-command in Los Zetas, Rogelio González Pizaña (a.k.a.: "Z2"), was captured in October 2004 and so Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano (a.k.a.: "Z3") ascended to the leadership of the paramilitary gang, and who will become the infamous ruthless leader of the, now independent, Zetas Drug Cartel.


title: Arturo Guzmán Decena

text: The death of Guzmán Decena marked the first significant success of the Mexican government against Los Zetas, but unconfirmed reports from within the organization claim that Guzmán Decena was killed by "his own men" on orders by Cárdenas Guillén, who feared Guzmán Decena's hegemony.


title: Sledgehammer

text: A sledgehammer is a tool with a large, flat, often metal head, attached to a long handle. The long handle combined with a heavy head allows the sledgehammer to gather momentum during a swing and apply a large force compared to hammers designed to drive nails. Along with the mallet, it shares the ability to distribute force over a wide area. This is in contrast to other types of hammers, which concentrate force in a relatively small area.


title: Sledgehammer

text: The word sledgehammer is derived from the Anglo Saxon ""slægan"", which, in its first sense, means "to strike violently". The English words "slag", "slay", and "slog" are cognates.


title: Sledgehammer

text: The handle can range from to a full long, depending on the mass of the head. The head mass is usually . Modern heavy duty sledgehammers come with heads. Sledgehammers usually require two hands and a swinging motion involving the entire torso, in contrast to smaller hammers used for driving in nails. The combination of a long swinging range, and heavy head, increases the force of the resulting impact.


title: Sledgehammer

text: Sledgehammers are often used in demolition work, for breaking through drywall or masonry walls. Sledgehammers were formerly widely used in mining operations, particularly hand steel, but are rarely used in modern mining. Sledgehammers are also used when substantial force is necessary to dislodge a trapped object (often in farm or oil field work), or for fracturing concrete. Another common use is for driving fence posts into the ground. Sledgehammers are used by police forces in raids on property to gain entry by force, commonly through doors. They were and still are commonly used by blacksmiths to shape heavy sections of iron. The British SAS counter terrorist team used sledgehammers to gain access to rooms during the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege. However, today they use a tool called a "dynamic hammer".


title: Sledgehammer

text: Another use of sledgehammers is for driving railroad spikes into wooden sleepers during rail construction. When the two ends of the Union Pacific railroad were joined at Promontory, Utah, Leland Stanford hammered a golden spike into a sleeper with a silver hammer. Sledges used to drive spikes for rails had curved heads that came down to a "beak" that was only about one inch across. The shape meant that drivers needed to be accurate, and spot where the spike hit was often not much larger than a small coin, as anything larger would hit the plate or the sleeper. The curved head kept the handle away from the rail, as the spikes were driven with the rail between the spike and the driver. These are often called spike mauls.


title: Sledgehammer

text: A drilling hammer, club hammer, , crack hammer, mini-sledge or thor hammer is a small sledgehammer whose relatively light weight and short handle allow one-handed use. It is useful for light demolition work, driving masonry nails, and for use with a steel chisel when cutting stone or metal. In this last application, its weight drives the chisel more deeply into the material being cut than lighter hammers. Club hammers are common on the British inland waterways for driving mooring pins into the towpath or canal bank.


title: Sledgehammer

text: Scouts BSA has adopted the shorter sledgehammer, commonly referred to as an engineer's hammer, as an unofficial tool referred to as the scout hammer, as a complement to the pocket knife and hand axe. The handle is long with a head weighing . The hammer is used for a variety of purposes such as driving tent stakes, establishing temporary fencing using wood or metal rebar, splitting wood in conjunction with a wedge, or straightening all that is bent.