title: Transylvanian Saxons

text: One prominent example of a local traditional dessert of the Transylvanian Saxons is the "hanklich" (), a sweet cheese pie with powdered sugar on top (variations include plums as main ingredients, raisins, or other dry fruits). This particular pastry is still served in restaurants and bakeries in southern Transylvania, particularly in Brașov and Sibiu counties, where, historically, there had been a more significant Transylvanian Saxon ethnic presence compared to the other counties across Transylvania. In Romanian, it is also known as "lichiu săsesc" or just "lichiu".


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: Stephen Lewis (17 December 1926 – 12 August 2015), credited early in his career as Stephen Cato, was an English actor, comedian, director, screenwriter and playwright. He is best known for his roles as Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake in "On the Buses", Clem "Smiler" Hemmingway in "Last of the Summer Wine" and Harry Lambert in "Oh, Doctor Beeching!", although he also appeared in numerous stage and film roles.


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: Lewis was born at All Saints Maternity Hospital in Poplar, London, England. He worked as a bricklayer, electrician's mate and carpenter, and also joined the Merchant Navy, before turning to acting. He was persuaded to go to a performance by the Theatre Workshop, under its director Joan Littlewood. It was common, after these performances, to invite members of the audience to meet the cast. He was invited to an audition, landed the part, and left the sea to become a member of the company.


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: Lewis made his West End theatre debut with the transfer of Brendan Behan's "The Hostage" in 1958. In 1960 he wrote "Sparrers Can't Sing" with the Theatre Workshop, which was made into the film "Sparrows Can't Sing" in 1963, starring Barbara Windsor, Roy Kinnear and Lewis himself, as well as his future "On the Buses" co-star Bob Grant. He used the surname "Cato" in his early stage career, but after writing "Sparrows Can't Sing" he was urged by his agent to use his real name.


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: From 1969 Lewis starred in his best-remembered role as the gruff inspector Blakey in the British sitcom "On the Buses", which ran for 74 episodes and spawned three films: "On the Buses" (1971), "Mutiny on the Buses" (1972), and "Holiday on the Buses" (1973). He co-wrote 12 episodes with fellow star Bob Grant. Lewis was made up to look much older than his actual age with heavy make-up; he was only 42 when the programme began. A spin-off series, "Don't Drink the Water" (1974–1975), ran for two series. This featured Blakey retiring to Spain with his sister Dorothy (played by Pat Coombs). In the 1990s, Blakey appeared regularly on Jim Davidson's version of "The Generation Game" on BBC One. In addition, Lewis played a coach driver with very similar characteristics to Blakey in a 2000 edition of ITV's 1970s-set sitcom "The Grimleys". He also appeared in "Manhunt" in a rare villainous role. He and Bob Grant starred in a TV show called "Jugg Brothers" (1970), but this never got past the pilot episode.


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: The films in which Lewis acted included "A Prize of Arms" (1962), "Sparrows Can't Sing" (1963) (which he also wrote), "Negatives" (1968), "Staircase" (1969, with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison), "Some Will, Some Won't" (1969), "The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins" (1971), "The Last Remake of Beau Geste" (1977), "Personal Services", "Out of Order" (both 1987), and "The Krays" (1990). He also appeared in two British sex comedies, "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" (1975) and "Adventures of a Plumber's Mate" (1978).


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: In 1988, he took on one of his longest-running roles, playing Clem "Smiler" Hemingway in the BBC sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine". The character appeared in many episodes for 17 years, until ill health forced Lewis to leave the series in 2007. In 1996, Lewis played Harry Lambert, the signalman, in the BBC pilot of sitcom "Oh, Doctor Beeching!", which ran to two further series. He appeared as a guest in sitcoms such as "One Foot in the Grave", "2point4 Children", "Father, Dear Father" and "The Grimleys". He also played the character of Alf, a comedy writer, in the second series of "The All New Alexei Sayle Show" (1995).


title: Stephen Lewis (actor)

text: Lewis died at the age of 88 on 12 August 2015, in a nursing home in Wanstead, London, where his sister Connie also resided.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: The Olde English Bulldogge is an American dog breed, recognized by the United Kennel Club (UKC) in January 2014. The breed is listed in the UKC Guardian Dog Group. Five years prior to UKC recognition, the breed was registered by the former Canine Developmental, Health and Performance Registry (CDHPR), a privately held business located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In the early 2000s, CDHPR had been working with the UKC under a unique agreement to develop breeding plans and strategies in an effort to produce improved breeds of dogs that would be accepted as purebred and, therefore, eligible for UKC registration.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: In the early 1970s, dog breeder David Leavitt of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, wanted to "recreate a with the looks, health and athleticism of the 18th which was originally created for the English sport of bull baiting between the years 1100 to 1835". In an effort to rapidly achieve his goal for a purebred dog, Leavitt modeled his program after a livestock line breeding scheme developed by Nathan Fechimer, a professor in the Department of Dairy Science, Ohio State University. The result was an athletic breed that looks similar to the bulldogs of 1820, but with a friendly temperament, fewer health issues, and with longevity reaching into the teens. U.S. researchers have said the Olde English Bulldogge is a "viable candidate" as an outcross on which to rebuild the Bulldog; a breed that genetic studies have suggested is so inbred that it "cannot be returned to health without an infusion of new bloodlines."


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: The Olde English Bulldogge was an attempt to recreate the "Regency Period Bull Baiter" and was developed in the early 1970s by David Leavitt, of Coatesville, PA. Leavitt began his project in 1971 utilizing the cattle line breeding scheme of Dr. Fechimer from Ohio State University. The goal was to create a dog with the look, health, and athleticism of the original bull-baiting dogs, but with a much less aggressive temperament. The foundation crosses consisted of one-half Bulldog, one-sixth American Bulldog, one-sixth Bullmastiff and one-sixth of other breeds. After many planned crosses, the Olde English Bulldogge emerged and began to breed true.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: Leavitt formed the Olde English Bulldogge Association (OEBA) to maintain the breed's stud book and issue registration papers to future offspring. During the 1980s, Ben and Karen Campetti from Sandisfield, Massachusetts, worked closely with Leavitt in breeding the Olde English Bulldogge. In 1993, Leavitt stopped breeding and turned the OEBA registry as well as his personal breeding stock over to Working Dog Inc. which was owned and operated by Michael Walz of Pennsylvania.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: In 2001 the Olde English Bulldogge Kennel Club (OEBKC) was formed, and in 2005 David Leavitt was involved with merging the Olde English Bulldogge Association's registry with that of the OEBKC's. The Olde English Bulldogge was enrolled with the Canine Developmental Health and Performance Registry (CDHPR) in August 2008 in order to evaluate the breed for recognition within the UKC as a purebred breed of dog. In 2013, the UKC announced that the Olde English Bulldogge would become a fully recognized breed as of January 1, 2014. The OEBKC is currently the recognized Parent Club for the breed with the United Kennel Club (UKC).


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: In order to maintain his original breeding aims and to distinguish his line of Olde English Bulldogges from those of other breeders, in 2004 David Leavitt named his line of dogs Leavitt Bulldogs (sometimes spelled "Bulldogges"), founding the Leavitt Bulldog Association the following year. The UKC recognizes dogs registered with the Leavitt Bulldog Association as Olde English Bulldogges, along with those registered with the Olde English Bulldogge Kennel Club and the Olde Bulldogge Club Europe.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: The Olde English Bulldogge is a muscular, medium-sized dog of great strength, and possesser of fluid, agile movement. They are well-balanced and proportioned, while appearing capable of performing without any breathing restrictions in either heat or in cold. Serious Faults: Excessive wrinkle, lack of pigment around eyes, nose or mouth.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: The skull is large and well-proportioned to the dog's muscular body and prominent shoulders. There is a defined furrow between the eyes (from the stop to the occiput). Narrow skull and domed forehead are faults. The muzzle is square, wide and deep.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: Nostrils are wide, with a line running vertically between nostrils from the tip of nose down to the bottom of the upper lip. Nose is large and broad in relationship to the width of the muzzle. Nose color is black.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: Eyes are medium in size and almond shaped, dark to light brown, with black pigmented eye rims. They are set wide and low, level with the top of the muzzle. Ears are small, rose, button or tulip. Rose is preferred. They are set high, wide and to the back outer edge of the skull. The neck is medium length, wide, and slightly arched. The body is sturdy, powerful and slightly rectangular when viewed from the side. Chest is wide and deep. Hind legs are well muscled and have the appearance of being slightly longer than the forelegs. The hind legs should be straight, parallel and set apart. Accepted color patterns include brindle, and solid colors, with or without white. Males should be , and at the withers, while females should be , and at the withers.


title: Olde English Bulldogge

text: The Olde English Bulldogge may be a healthier breed of dog than many modern bulldog breeds, though they can be affected by many of the same disorders that occur in any breed. Proponents of the breed maintain that it does not suffer from the same disorders as purebred Bulldogs. A 2016 study published in the journal "Canine Genetics and Epidemiology" examined genetic diversity among 102 registered Bulldogs. The Olde English Bulldogge was mentioned as an outcross candidate to introduce new genetics in an effort to correct some of the problems associated with inbreeding. In the European Union, rules have been written specifically for farm animals which state they have the rights of "freedom from discomfort" and "freedom from pain, injury and disease." A 2013 constitutional amendment in Switzerland restates the EU rules in greater detail, and extends such rights to all animals. Many Swiss dog breeders have begun outcrossing Bulldogs with the Olde English Bulldogge, having created the Continental Bulldog in an effort to bring the Bulldog into compliance.


title: King-Emperor

text: A king-emperor (the female equivalent being queen-empress) is a sovereign ruler who is simultaneously a king of one territory and emperor of another. This title usually results from a merger of a royal and imperial crown, but recognises that the two territories are different politically or culturally and in status (emperor being a higher rank than king). It also denotes a king's imperial status through the acquisition of an empire or vice versa.


title: King-Emperor

text: The dual title signifies a sovereign's dual role, but may also be created to improve a ruler's prestige. Both cases, however, show that the merging of rule was not simply a case of annexation where one state is swallowed by another, but rather of unification and almost equal status, though in the case of the British monarchy the suggestion that an emperor is higher in rank than a king was avoided by creating the title "king-emperor" or "queen-empress" instead of "emperor-king" or "empress-queen".


title: King-Emperor

text: The British Crown had officially taken over the governing of British India from the East India Company in 1858, in the aftermath of what the British called 'the Indian Mutiny'. Henceforth, the new British Raj was ruled directly from Whitehall via the India Office. In 1876, Queen Victoria was recognized as Empress of India by the British Government, via the Royal Titles Act 1876; this title was proclaimed in India at the Delhi Durbar of 1877. She was thus the Queen-Empress, and her successors, until George VI, were known as King-Emperors. This title was the shortened form of the full title, and in widespread popular use.


title: King-Emperor

text: The reigning King-Emperors or Queen-Empress used the initials "R I" ("Rex Imperator" or "Regina Imperatrix") or the abbreviation "Ind. Imp." ("Indiae Imperator/Imperatrix") after their name (while the one reigning Queen-Empress, Victoria, used the initials "R I", the three consorts of the married King-Emperors simply used "R").


title: King-Emperor

text: British coins, and those of the British Empire and Commonwealth dominions, routinely included some variation of the titles "Rex Ind. Imp.", although in India itself the coins said "Empress", and later "King Emperor." When, in August 1947, India became independent, all dies had to be changed to remove the latter two abbreviations, in some cases taking up to a year. In the United Kingdom, coins of George VI carried the title to 1948.


title: King-Emperor

text: In 1871, the North German Confederation united with the Southern German states to form the German Empire. The Constitution stated that the King of Prussia, then William I, would be crowned German Emperor ("Deutscher Kaiser"). Wilhelm had wanted to be proclaimed Emperor of Germany ("Kaiser von Deutschland"), but this would have caused sovereignty problems with the southern German princes and also with Austria.


title: King-Emperor

text: After the devastating loss in the First World War and the German Revolution, Emperor William II attempted to abdicate the throne of Germany while retaining his throne as King of Prussia, believing the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire to be in a personal union. But after being informed that he could not abdicate one throne without the other, William was forced to abdicate both thrones and lived the rest of his live in exile in the Netherlands.


title: King-Emperor

text: Another use of this dual title was when, in 1867, the multi-national Austrian Empire, which was German-ruled and facing growing nationalism, undertook a reform that gave nominal and factual rights to Hungarian nobility. This reform revived the Austrian-annexed Kingdom of Hungary, and therefore created the dual-monarchic union state of Austria-Hungary and the dual title of "emperor-king" (in German "Kaiser und König", in Hungarian "Császár és Király").


title: King-Emperor

text: The Habsburg dynasty therefore ruled as Emperors of Austria over the western and northern half of the Empire (Cisleithania), and as Kings of Hungary over the Kingdom of Hungary and much of Transleithania. Hungary enjoyed some degree of self-government and representation in joint affairs (principally foreign relations and defence). The federation bore the full name of "The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen".


title: King-Emperor

text: Following the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1936, King Victor Emmanuel III was proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia. Thus, he became King-Emperor (in Italian "Re Imperatore"), ruling over both the Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire.


title: King-Emperor

text: The King-Emperor was represented by the Viceroy, who was also appointed as Governor-General of Italian East Africa (AOI – Africa Orientale Italiana). The capital city of the Viceroy and Governor-General was Addis Ababa.


title: Romper Room

text: Romper Room is an American children's television series that was franchised and syndicated from 1953 to 1994. The program targeted preschoolers (children five years of age or younger), and was created and produced by Bert Claster and his presenter wife, Nancy, of Claster Television. The national version was presented by Nancy Terrell. "Romper Room" was also franchised internationally at various times in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Finland, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Australia.


title: Romper Room

text: "Romper Room" was a rare case of a series being both franchised and syndicated, and it was also revealed that local affiliates—Los Angeles and New York being prime examples—would produce their own versions of the show instead of airing the national telecast. For some time, local shows all over the world used the same script but with local children; some affiliates, starting with KWEX-TV in San Antonio, translated the scripts into Spanish for local airings. Kids would be on waiting lists for years (sometimes before birth) to be on the show. It was called "an actual kindergarten". Originally filmed in Baltimore from its inception in 1953, "Romper Room" eventually moved its broadcast facilities to Chicago and then moved back to Baltimore in 1981.


title: Romper Room

text: Each program opens with a greeting from the hostess and the Pledge of Allegiance in American broadcasts. The hostess and her group of children then embark on 30 or 60 minutes of games, exercises, songs, story-telling and moral lessons, which were regularly accompanied by background music. The hostess (or sometimes the children in cadence) would ask, "Mr. Music, please!" or "We're ready, Mr. Music", to prompt the background music. The young cast, which ranged from four to five years old, was rotated every two months, with many of the hostesses having prior experience working with small children and many being former kindergarten teachers.


title: Romper Room

text: Etiquette was a focus of "Romper Room". The hostesses were always addressed as "Miss", The show also had a mascot, Mr. Do-Bee. Mr. Do-Bee was an oversized bumblebee who came to teach the children proper deportment. He was noted for always starting his sentence with "Do Bee", as in the imperative "Do be"; for example, "Do Bee good boys and girls for your parents!" There was also a "Mr. Don't Bee" to show children exactly what they should "not" do. "Do-Bee" balloons were made available for purchase to the public. Each balloon featured a painted sketch of Do-Bee. When the balloons were inflated and then released, they would fly around slowly and emit a buzzing sound.


title: Romper Room

text: The hostess would also serve milk and cookies to the children. Before eating, they would recite the "Romper Room" prayer: "God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen."


title: Romper Room

text: At the end of each broadcast, the hostess would look through a "magic mirror"—actually an open frame with a handle, the size, and shape of a hand mirror—and recite the rhyme, "Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?" She would then name the children she saw in "television land", saying, for example, "I can see Kathleen and Owen and Julie and Jimmy and Kelly and Tommy and Bobby and Jennifer and Martin" and so forth. Children were encouraged to mail in their names, which would be read on the air (first names only).


title: Romper Room

text: The show used the then-popular Mattel Jack-in-the-box (sometimes called "Happy Jack") for its opening and closing titles, with its traditional nursery rhyme "Pop Goes the Weasel" as a theme song, but, from 1981 onwards, a new original theme song was used.


title: Romper Room

text: In 1981, the format of "Romper Room" was overhauled and re-titled "Romper Room and Friends". One hundred syndicated versions were taped in Baltimore with Molly McCloskey (credited as Molly McCloskey-Barber after 1985) as host. At that point, they no longer used teachers. The biggest change to the program was the introduction of a series of new puppet characters, including a full costume character named Kimble and puppets named Granny Cat and Up-Up. Kimble and Up-Up were performed by Bruce Edward Hall and Granny Cat by McCloskey, a.k.a. "Miss Molly". The three characters were developed by The Great Jones Studios in NYC. The new characters starred in a series of vignettes, somewhat similar to the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" segments on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", and were meant to introduce or reinforce simple moral lessons. About 100 of these skits — each running three to five minutes — were produced for insertion into local "Romper Room" programs; the host would introduce each segment and comment after its conclusion.


title: Romper Room

text: In addition, a new opening and closing credits sequence, and lyrical theme – "Romper Room and Friends", containing mostly nonsensical lyrics, but also naming the characters Up-Up, Do Bee, Granny Cat, and Kimble in the lyrics as well – were introduced, replacing the "Pop Goes the Weasel" theme that had been used. New songs/music beds were also created and composed by David Spangler including a somber Magic Mirror theme. Additionally, two British made shows, "Paddington" (narrated by Michael Hordern) and "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" (narrated by Bernard Cribbins) were also featured.


title: Romper Room

text: The last host of the syndicated series was Sharon Jeffery, the only African-American to host the show. Miss Sharon hosted the show from 1987 until the series was last filmed in 1992, although new episodes were aired until 1994. Jeffery's shows were filmed at KTVU in Oakland, California.


title: Romper Room

text: Nancy Cledenin Terrell (born 1940, Richmond, Virginia) (known to audiences as "Miss Nancy") was the national hostess in the 1960s and early 1970s, when "Romper Room" was seen on ABC-owned and operated stations throughout the United States in locales that did not have their own hostesses.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The fourth season of the American television series "The Flash", which is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / Flash, premiered on The CW on October 10, 2017, and ran for 23 episodes until May 22, 2018. The season follows Barry, having returned from his self-imposed stay in the Speed Force, as he faces down the Thinker Clifford deVoe and his wife Marlize. It is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with the other television series of the universe, and is a spin-off of "Arrow". The season is produced by Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Entertainment, with Andrew Kreisberg and Todd Helbing serving as showrunners.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The season was ordered in January 2017, and filming began that July. Grant Gustin stars as Barry, with principal cast members Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Keiynan Lonsdale, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin also returning from previous seasons, and are joined by Neil Sandilands. The series was renewed for a fifth season on April 2, 2018.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The series was renewed for a fourth season on January 8, 2017, earlier than usual for the series. Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said on this, "The great thing about our dear friends at The CW and Mark Pedowitz picking the shows up as early as they did has allowed us to start building the schedules for next season." In May 2017, it was announced that Aaron Helbing would not return as an executive producer for season four, with only Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, Sarah Schechter, and Todd Helbing returning from previous seasons. Todd Helbing and Kreisberg were slated to serve as the season's showrunners. In November 2017, Kreisberg was suspended from his role as executive producer and showrunner on "The Flash" over allegations of sexual harassment. By the end of the month, he had been fired, with his name eventually being removed from the credits from all shows he worked on. In addition, Berlanti would take additional responsibilities working with Helbing to co-showrun the season.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In March 2017, Kreisberg confirmed that the main villain for the fourth season would not be a speedster, like the previous three seasons. Executive producers Aaron and Todd Helbing also mentioned that there would be less time travel in the season, with Aaron saying, "We like playing with the timelines and the different time periods and future and past. For now, I think we're going to focus on the present." In June 2017, Clifford DeVoe / Thinker was reported to be the main antagonist of the season. He was first hinted in the third season episode "Abra Kadabra" when the titular villain mentions him among the Flash's greatest enemies, and again in the season finale "Finish Line" when Savitar mentions facing DeVoe but states that the Flash has not dealt with him yet. At the series' San Diego Comic-Con panel, the speculation was confirmed, with Todd Helbing saying, "With three Speedsters in a row, this year it's the fastest man alive against the fastest mind alive." He added that the writers were "making a conscious effort this year to get the fun quotient back up".


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: Regarding the possibility of Wally West taking on the mantle of the Flash in Barry's absence, Keiynan Lonsdale said that "It's not something that's on my radar. I feel as though there is so much story to tell and Wally has so much growing to do... We need to see how these characters realistically get to where they are headed for." With the action picking up six months after season three, Kid Flash and Vibe are left to protect Central City, with Carlos Valdes saying "the team is sort of clutching at straws to keep the city together... there is a unanimous feeling amongst the remaining members that it's just not the same without Barry... So in light of that, Cisco does whatever it takes to get his friends back." Valdes also confirmed the return of Cisco's more lighthearted joking manner.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: Candice Patton explained Iris West's larger role within Team Flash as "a way of distracting herself," adding that "[Iris] is forced to deal with that anger and resentment and abandonment by kind of focusing on protecting Central City... We're seeing a very different Iris, almost a very hardened Iris." Kreisberg also hinted at some major growth for Iris this season, and noted that "the season premiere is all about Iris and Cisco, not Barry".


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In July 2017, Sterling Gates, DC Comics comic book writer, joined as a member of the fourth season's writing staff. At the Television Critics Association press tour in August 2017, Pedowitz stated that the fourth season of "The Flash" is "going to try to find the lightness... of the Barry Allen of the first two seasons," and said that the show was likely "done with Speedster villains". Later in the month, Kreisberg confirmed the return of Harry Wells from Earth-2, saying that "season 4 for Harry is really realizing what he's missing in his life and what it is he needs to become a better, more complete person, and so he's going to be going on a fairly epic emotional journey this season that is tied to the Thinker's plan," in addition to confirming the introduction of a new version of the Wells character.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In September 2017, Helbing noted "There's a lot of love in the air this season," and compared Barry and Iris' reunion to "somebody going off to war for six months and coming back. There's a lot that Iris experienced that Barry didn't when he was gone, and it's really [about] the fun and the emotional component of making up that time when they weren't together." Helbing also explained that the Speed Force "let [Barry] deal with all of the baggage [from the past three seasons]. When he comes out, he's sort of left that all behind." That month, Kreisberg also confirmed that Barry and Iris will be getting married this season, while also revealing that the pair will be going to couples therapy since "[they] keep comically clashing inadvertently because [both are] used to being in charge, and so they wind up going... to work through it." He added, "The two of them with the therapist is some of the funniest stuff we have ever done on this show, but it also leads to a deepening of their relationship."


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: Main cast members Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Keiynan Lonsdale, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin return from previous seasons as Barry Allen / The Flash, Iris West, Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost, Cisco Ramon / Vibe, Wally West / Kid Flash, Harrison Wells, and Joe West, respectively. Cavanagh primarily portrayed Harry Wells from Earth-2 in the season, in addition to several other versions of Wells in smaller roles: Herr Wells of Earth-12, Wells 2.0 of Earth-22, H. Lothario Wells of Earth-47, Wells the Grey of Earth-13, Sonny Wells of Earth-24 and H.P. Wells of Earth-25. Also returning from earlier in the series is Jessica Camacho as Gypsy. It was revealed that Tom Felton, who joined the cast as Julian Albert in the third season, would not be a series regular in the fourth season, and that there were no plans for him to appear. Julian's absence will be addressed "pretty quickly — there's a reason why he's no longer with the team," said Helbing. In the season premiere, it is revealed that Julian has returned to London. Kreisberg also confirmed that he had put on hold the planned return of Violett Beane as Jesse Quick due to the high number of speedsters on the show, but did not rule out a possible return in the future. Beane eventually appeared as Jesse on the episode "Luck Be a Lady". Britne Oldford, who previously appeared as Shawna Baez / Peek-a-Boo in the first season and the web series "The Chronicles of Cisco", reprised her role in the season premiere.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In July 2017, Neil Sandilands was announced to be cast as Clifford DeVoe, a metahuman genius who embarks on a season-long battle with the Flash in order to fix all that he deems wrong with humanity; while Kim Engelbrecht was announced as Marlize DeVoe, DeVoe's right hand and a highly intelligent engineer who designs devices for him; and Danny Trejo as Breacher, a bounty hunter from Earth-19 and the father of Gypsy. Also in June, the series was looking to cast a role that "should put the visual effects department to the test", with the role later revealed to be Ralph Dibny / Elongated Man, a metahuman with the ability to stretch his body to superhuman lengths and sizes. Hartley Sawyer was cast in the recurring role that July as the fast-talking private investigator who after discovering his abilities will help Team Flash solve one of Central City's greatest mysteries. The character was previously mentioned in the first season, as one of the fourteen people who seemingly died as a result of the particle accelerator explosion. The next month, Katee Sackhoff was announced in the recurring role of Amunet Black, who operates an underground black market of metahuman supervillains.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: Filming for the season began on July 4, 2017, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and concluded on April 21, 2018. Kevin Smith returned to direct an episode in January 2018.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In August 2017, series composer Blake Neely and Nathaniel Blume began to compose the music for the fourth season.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In May 2017, The CW president Mark Pedowitz officially announced plans for a four-show Arrowverse crossover event, crossing over episodes of the television series "Supergirl", "The Flash", "Legends of Tomorrow", and "Arrow". The crossover, "Crisis on Earth-X", began with "Supergirl" and a special airing of "Arrow" on November 27, 2017, and concluded on "The Flash" and "Legends of Tomorrow" on November 28. Prior to that, "Arrow" actress Emily Bett Rickards appears as Felicity Smoak in the fifth episode of the season. Following the crossover, Katie Cassidy (who has previously appeared on "The Flash" as both Laurel Lance and Black Siren) appears in the nineteenth episode as Siren-X, an alternate version of Laurel from Earth-X. "Arrow" actor David Ramsey appears as John Diggle in the twenty-second episode.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In July 2017, cast from the series appeared at San Diego Comic-Con International to promote the season, where exclusive footage was shown. During the panel, a trailer for the season was shown, with James Whitbrook at io9 feeling that despite the "grim" tone, there was "some fun signs of the team coming together to protect the city without [Barry]... Sprinkle in a few wacky things, like, say a goddamn Samuroid ripped straight from the comics, and ladies and gents, you've got a good season of "The Flash" lined up." Ben Pearson with /Film felt seeing Iris West deal with the absence of Barry was "a nice change of pace for that character", but anticipated that "Barry [would] be back two or three episodes in at the latest." Collider's Allison Keene also noted Iris "getting an actual storyline" with Barry gone, and similarly presumed that he "[would] be back in the fold by the end of the first episode" alike to Flashpoint in the third season. She added, "There are some new foes, lots of action, plenty of tech — it's great!"


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The season began airing on October 10, 2017, on The CW in the United States, and on CTV in Canada. The season concluded on May 22, 2018. Sky One acquired the rights to air the season in the UK & Ireland, airing it alongside the other Arrowverse shows. The season premiered October 17.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The season was made available for streaming on Netflix in late May 2018, soon after the season finale aired. It was released on Blu-ray on August 28, 2018.


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 80% approval rating with an average rating of 6.95/10 based on 19 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "After an unsteady turn in season three, "The Flash" returns to its roots with a fourth season packed with humor, spectacle, and a whole lot of heart."


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: Reviewing the first two episodes of the season, Allison Keene writing for Collider.com, felt the premiere "wipes the slate clean, fixing a lot of the issues that plagued the end of the last season, and setting up a much more toned-down storyline. Most importantly, it's brought back some fun." She added that with a "streamlined team," the core characters now have time to interact and have meaningful plot lines. On the second episode, Keene described it as "truly a delight" with the show taking "the time to focus on character relationships, and not just romantic relationships" and each character "feeling like a refreshed version of themselves, with new narrative purpose". She also highlighted the setup of the Thinker "as an Alchemy-like villain who manipulates evil metas into the Flash's path as part of some kind of masterplan", saying ""The Flash" is a series that truly works best as a procedural, with the team finding creative ways to bring down Villains of the Week."


title: The Flash (season 4)

text: In reviewing the finale, IGN's Jesse Schedeen gave the episode "We Are the Flash" a rating of 4.6/10, opining that, "As troubled as the series has been this year, it's disappointing but unsurprising to see "The Flash"s fourth season end on such a bland note." Mike Cecchini of "Den of Geek!" similarly assigned the episode a rating of 2.5/5. In his review, Cecchini felt that the finale was "the weakest season finale ["The Flash"] has ever produced," and that, "despite several high points, wasn't really enough to salvage the season." In a more positive review from "The A.V. Club", Scott Von Doviak gave the finale a B+, praising the light tone and character moments, while adding that "None of this can make up for the long stretches of mediocrity this year, but at least it doesn’t leave me with a bad taste in my mouth."


title: Ethiopians

text: Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of the Horn of Africa.


title: Ethiopians

text: "Αἰθίοψ" (Ethiopian) was in the 4th century during the reign of Aksumite king Ezana. There were three ethnolinguistic groups in the Kingdom of Aksum; Semitic, Cushitic, and Nilo-Saharan (ancestors of the modern-day Kunama and Nara). The Kingdom of Aksum remained a geopolitically influential entity until the pillage of its capital — also named Axum — in the 10th century by Queen Gudit. Nevertheless, the core Aksumite civilization was preserved and continued into the successive Zagwe dynasty. By this time, new ethnic groups emerged – the Tigrayans and Amharas. During the Solomonic period, the latter established major political and cultural influence East AFrica.


title: Ethiopians

text: In the Late Middle Ages, Muslim states were established, including the Sultanate of Ifat, and its successor the Adal Sultanate. Discontent with territory and religious dominance led to intense war between the Ethiopian Empire, the Christian state, (consisting of the Amhara, Tigrayan, Soddo Gurage, and Agaw ethnic groups) and the Muslim state Adal Sultanate (consisting of Semitic speaking Harari formally known as the Harla people and the Argobba). During the 1600's, there were large-scale migrations of the Oromo from the south into the highlands and also alongside the Somali into Adal or what was known as "Harrarghe" (land of the Hararis).


title: Ethiopians

text: A period of stability and peace continued through the Gondarine period in 16th and 17th century, but Ethiopia was divided into de facto autonomous regions in the mid-18th century. During this time, Ethiopia was nominally ruled by an Emperor who functioned as a puppet monarch of various regional lords and noblemen. This era was known as the "Zemene Mesafint" or "Era of the Princes". Emperor Tewodros II managed to unify the decentralized Ethiopian Empire in 1855 and inaugurated a process of modernization that continued into successive regimes, resurrecting the empire as a regional power.


title: Ethiopians

text: In the late 19th-century during the reign of Menelik II, against the backdrop of the Scramble for Africa, the notion of Ethiopian national integrity was strengthened by Italian efforts at colonization. The Italian invasion engendered a formidable national resistance, culminating in the Battle of Adwa in 1896 which resulted in a major Ethiopian victory against the Italians. The resulting Treaty of Addis Ababa ended the Italo-Ethiopian War, and along with the nation's contemporaneous territorial expansion, largely established the modern-day boundaries of Ethiopia.


title: Ethiopians

text: Present-day Ethiopia has a diverse population with many different languages and ethnic groups. Ethiopians speak Afro-Asiatic languages (Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic) and Nilo-Saharan languages. The Oromo, Amhara, Somali and Tigrayans make up more than three-quarters (75%) of the population, but there are more than 80 different ethnic groups within Ethiopia. Some of these have as few as 10,000 members.


title: Ethiopians

text: Archaeologist found remains of early hominins, one of the most specimen was "Australopithecus afarensis", also called "Lucy", which was discovered in the country's Awash Valley, so-called Hadar in 1974. It is estimated to be 3.5 million years old. In October 2015, scientists found a 4,500 years ago lived man called "Mota" in a cave in southern central Ethiopia. Atypical to Euroasians, which were believed reached the region after him, "Mota"'s genetic variants was not as "light-colored eye or skin", resembles the modern Aari tribes that live in the southern area of the country. Another research suggests that Euroasians arrived in the region resembles modern-day Sardinians, or likely LBK culture of antiquity. By proofing "Mota" has no European genome, archeologist theorized the Near East population migrated to Africa in 3,000 years ago. Other evidence concluded that Eurasian population made significant contribution as a result of back migration between 1,500 and 3,500 years ago. Nilo-Saharan peoples do not exhibit this genetic similarity; instead, their DNA shows evidence of more recent admixture (less than 1200 years ago) with other African peoples. It was thought that Hamitic people from Asia Minor had migrated before Semitic Arabian people in the 7th century BC. In 1933, G.W.B Huntingford proposed a theory of Azanian civilization could existed in Kenya, and northern Tanzania, between the Stone Age and Islamic period. It was supposed that these people evicted from Ethiopia and Somalia by Muslim invasion to southern region in present day Kenya and Tanzania where perished around 14th- and 15th-century.


title: Ethiopians

text: About 7000 BC, Afro-Asiatic-speaking population namely Cushitic and Omotic-speaking people grouped in the present day of Ethiopia after which diversification thrived in the area and allowed the other local groups, the Agaws, Somali, Oromo, and numerous Omotic-speaking groups to unify. Originally a hunter gatherers, those people began domesticating indigenous plants thereafter, including the grasses "teff", eleusine, enset, root crop, and domestication of cattles and other animals to fill agricultural livelihoods that still contemporary followed. By the late first millennium BC, the Agaws occupied the northern Ethiopian region, as the Sidamo occupied the central and southern parts of Ethiopia, making inaugural historical development of Ethiopia.


title: Ethiopians

text: Afro-Asiatic languages were present in Africa and the Middle East by the eighth to sixth millennium BCE. This language family includes various modern and extinct African and Asian languages such as Oromo, Somali, Egyptian, Berber, Hausa, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian. Ge'ez was developed around sixth century BCE and evident by inscriptions of contemporary kingdom of D'mt. The language dominance was eclipsed by 1000 AD, but the highland inhabitants used it as written scholar and liturgical language between 300s and 1800s.


title: Ethiopians

text: In 980 BCE, Dʿmt was established in present-day Eritrea and the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, straddling South Arabia in present-day of Yemen. This polity's capital was located at Yeha, in what is now northern Ethiopia. Most modern historians consider this civilization to be a native Ethiopian one, although in earlier times many suggested it was Sabaean-influenced because of the latter's hegemony of the Red Sea.


title: Ethiopians

text: Other scholars regard Dʿmt as the result of a union of Afroasiatic-speaking cultures of the Cushitic and Semitic branches; namely, local Agaw peoples and Sabaeans from Southern Arabia. However, Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is thought to have developed independently from the Sabaean language, one of the South Semitic languages. As early as 2000 BCE, other Semitic speakers were living in Ethiopia and Eritrea where Ge'ez developed. Sabaean influence is now thought to have been minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century. It may have been a trading or military colony in alliance with the Ethiopian civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-Axumite state. Politically integrated, the Kingdom of Aksum was emerged independently from at least 100 BC, and its civilization grew from 1st century AD. The kingdom dominated the Red Sea, the Northeast Africa in the present location between northern Ethiopia (Tigray Region), eastern Sudan, Eritrea, South Arabia. It was by far powerful empire and trading nation between Roman Empire and India. The Aksumite lingua franca was Greek evolved from Hellenistic period in 330–305 BC and officially adopted in the first century. It was soon replaced by Ge'ez in the 4th century. Politically and culturally influenced partially with Byzantine Empire, the Aksumite achieved major historical grounds, Orthodox Tewahedo Christianity introduced and has been state religion in the early 4th century, construction of stone-fitted palace and public buildings, and erection of large obelisks around the capital Axum. These all are milestones that culminate in the rise of Ethiopian identity where the Greek exonym "Ethiopians" came to use by the kingdom under king Ezana's reign in the 4th century. The first century BCE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus claimed the Ethiopian nativity as "true natives", "most pious and righteous" in his record. This assertion resonated by locality of declaring themselves a "Habesha people". His record expounded the nature of Ethiopians, including highly proselytizing to neighboring Egypt. He denoted these people locating in the place superimposed by Nubia and Meroë, connected to the Nile river, having distinct rainy season and wonderful lake.


title: Ethiopians

text: The kingdom enlarged its territory by the half of 4th century after conquering neighbor city Meroë in 330, and entered "Golden Age" for the next three centuries. Aksum's power began declining at time of Islamic Golden Age, where they frequently countered intrusions by Arab Muslims in the South Arabia protectorate (modern Yemen), making them to evicted more in the southern of Agaw population.


title: Ethiopians

text: In 10th century, the kingdom ultimately collapsed followed by pillage by Queen Gudit, after execution of Christians and ordered arson in church. While Aksum's existence extinguished, the follow-up kingdom of Zagwe likely of a continuation of its civilization and revival of Christianity, and a new multi-ethnic empire-state was formed in title of "king of kings".


title: Ethiopians

text: The successful integration of Agaw and Semitic groups in the north prolonged over millennium and eventually forms Tigrayans and Amhara people. The Zagwe kingdom capital, relocated to Lalibela, and sparked a new cultural life. The most notable churches in this period was constructed with unique rock-hewn architecture. A dominant group, Amhara, continues to expand its territory in so-called Solomonic period after the downfall of Zagwe in 1270, and by the late 13th century, they reached to southern Shewa. Since then, centralized military unit was buildup while frequently engaged war with Sidama kingdom in the west and Muslim population to the east.


title: Ethiopians

text: One of the most important era for Christian and Muslim insight, and the resultant of religious war was in the mid-16th century of Ethiopian–Adal War, involving the Amhara, Tigrayan and Agaw force allied to the Ethiopian Empire (Abyssinia) and the Muslim states composed mostly of Harari and Somali people, together forms the Adal Sultanate. The Oromo people additionally took an advantage of the war and occupied much the northern highland zone of the Amhara empire in the Oromo migrations.


title: Ethiopians

text: The Oromo remained predominantly pastoral life who dominated the Amhara empire of Abyssinia for the rest of era. A blossom life continued throughout early modern period with the founding of capital Gondar in the early 18th century, by Emperor Fasilides, commencing a "Gondarine period".


title: Ethiopians

text: Between 1769 and 1855, Ethiopia experienced a period of isolation referred to as the "Zemene Mesafint" or "Age of Princes". The Emperors became figureheads, controlled by regional lords and noblemen like "Ras" Mikael Sehul of Tigray, "Ras" Wolde Selassie of Tigray, and by the Yejju Oromo dynasty of the Wara Sheh, such as "Ras" Gugsa of Yejju. Prior to the Zemene Mesafint, Emperor Iyoas I had introduced the Oromo language ("Afaan Oromo") at court, instead of Amharic. In 1855, Emperor Tewodros II sought to establish permanent Ethiopian border by solidifying the Shewan kingdoms. Tewodros II is often credited with being the preliminary figure of modern Ethiopian history but his reign ended prematurely when he committed suicide during the British Expedition to Abyssinia.


title: Ethiopians

text: Emperor Menelik II done major reformations to the country by the late 1890s: under his reign, Menelik extensively conquered the rest of kingdoms nearby region, while annexing the Tigray Province, ultimately formed the modern border of Ethiopia. His reign brought sharp solidification of the current Ethiopian national identity. The Battle of Adwa was a 1896 colonial resistance battle between the Ethiopian Empire led by Menelik and Kingdom of Italy led by General Oreste Baratieri, involving respective 100,000 and 17,700 troops, where Ethiopian armies decisively defeated them and secured sovereignty. The battle became signature national pride among Ethiopians, and beyond for Pan-Africanism. The Treaty of Addis Ababa (1896) settled an end of Italo-Ethiopian War, and modern border of Ethiopia was created as a background of ceased foreign external pressure against the sovereignty of Ethiopia. Ethiopia, along with Liberia, became the only independent African survivors against the European colonization.


title: Ethiopians

text: An Italian occupation of Ethiopia following Second Italo-Ethiopian War brought legacy of ethnic marginalization of major ethnic groups: the Oromos, Amharas, Tigrayans, and Somalis. Ethiopia underwent series civil clashes under communist military junta Derg. Ethnic nationalism and similar policies implemented by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which brought Ethiopia to ethnic federalist state since 1995, which was aimed to reduce internal ethnic conflicts and grant freedom of choice within every ethnic groups although, Ethiopia then faced more prolong internal conflicts and ethnic clashes in the 21st-century.


title: Ethiopians

text: Until the fall of the Derg, Amharic served as the sole official language in government administration, courts, church and even in primary school instruction; although in the 17th Century during the Zemene Mesafint under the rule of the Warasek dynasty, the Oromo language did serve as the official language of the Ethiopian Empire's royal court. After 1991, Amharic has been replaced in many areas by other official government languages such as Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya. English is the most widely spoken foreign language and is taught in all secondary schools.


title: Ethiopians

text: According to the 2007 Ethiopian census and the CIA World Fact Book, the largest first languages are: Oromo 24,929,567 speakers or 33.8% of the total population; Amharic 21,631,370 or 29.3% (federal working language); Somali 4,609,274 or 6.2%; Tigrinya 4,324,476 or 5.9%; Sidamo 4,981,471 or 4%; Wolaytta 1,627,784 or 2.2%; Gurage 1,481,783 or 2%; and Afar 1,281,278 or 1.7%. Widely-spoken foreign languages include Arabic, English (major foreign language taught in schools), and Italian (spoken by an Italian minority).


title: Ethiopians

text: According to the CIA Factbook the religious demography of Ethiopia is as follows; Ethiopian Orthodox 43.8%, Muslim 31.3%, Protestant 22.8%, Catholic 0.7%, traditional 0.6%, and other 0.8%.


title: Ethiopians

text: The largest diaspora community is found in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 250,000 Ethiopian immigrants lived in the United States as of 2008. An additional 30,000 U.S.-born citizens reported Ethiopian ancestry. According to Aaron Matteo Terrazas, "if the descendants of Ethiopian-born migrants (the second generation and up) are included, the estimates range upwards of 460,000 in the United States (of which approximately 350,000 are in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area; 96,000 in Los Angeles; and 10,000 in New York)."


title: Ethiopians

text: A large Ethiopian community is also found in Israel, where Ethiopians make up almost 1.9% of the population. Almost the entire community are members of the Beta Israel community. There are also large number of Ethiopian emigrants in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Lebanon, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden and Australia..


title: Ethiopians

text: Studies conducted on Ethiopians belonging to Semitic and Cushitic ethnic groups mostly from the north of the country (Oromo, Amhara, Tigray, and Gurage), estimate approximately 40% of their autosomal ancestry to be derived from an ancient non-African back-migration from the Near East, and about 60% to be of native African origin (from a population indigenous or "autochthonous" to the Horn of Africa). Hodgson et al. (2014) found a distinct African ancestral component in Afro-Asiatic populations in the Horn (dubbed "Ethiopic"), as well as a distinct non-African component (dubbed "Ethio-Somali"). The data also revealed Nilo-Saharan ancestry in Afro-Asiatic populations and "Ethiopic" ancestry in Nilo-Saharan populations, suggesting an intricate history of contact in the region. Ethiopian Nilo-Saharan groups and the endogamous Aari blacksmith caste were found to have little to no Eurasian admixture. Aari blacksmiths may descend from "Ethiopic" hunter-gatherers who were assimilated as farmers expanded in the region or a subset of a single population recently marginalized for their occupation. According to Hollfelder et al. (2017), "Northeast African Nilotes showed some distinction from an ancient Ethiopian individual (Mota, found in the Mota Cave in the southern Ethiopian highlands), which suggests population structure between northeast and eastern Africa already 4,500 years ago. The modern-day Nilotic groups are likely direct descendants of past populations living in northeast Africa many thousands of years ago." Pickrell et al. (2014) found that West Eurasian ancestry peaks in the Amhara and Tigrayans at 49% and 50%, respectively. In Pagani, Luca et al. (2012), this non-African component, is estimated to have entered the Horn of Africa roughly ~3,000 years ago and was found to be similar to the populations in the Levant. The paper goes on to say that this coincides with the introduction of Ethio-Semitic languages into the region. Gallego Llorente, M et al. (2015) discovered extensive admixture in Eastern Africa from a population closely related to early Neolithic farmers from the Near-East/Anatolia. López, Saioa et al. (2021) found that when comparing Ethiopians to external populations only, Nilo-Saharan speakers (as well as the Chabu, Dassanech, and Karo) in the southwest shared more recent ancestry with Bantu and Nilotic speakers, while Afro-Asiatic speakers in the northeast shared more recent ancestry with Egyptians and West Eurasians. The study revealed that groups belonging to the Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic branches of Afro-Asiatic show high genetic similarity to each other on average.


title: Ethiopians

text: Tishkoff et al. (2009) identified fourteen ancestral population clusters which correlate with self-described ethnicity and shared cultural and/or linguistic properties in Africa in what was the largest autosomal study of the continent to date. The Burji, Konso and Beta Israel were sampled from Ethiopia. The Afroasiatic speaking Ethiopians sampled were cumulatively (Fig.5B) found to belong to: 71% in the "Cushitic" cluster, 6% in the "Saharan/Dogon" cluster, 5% in the "Niger Kordofanian" cluster, 3% each in the "Nilo-Saharan" and "Chadic Saharan" cluster, while the balance (12%) of their assignment was distributed among the remnant (9) Associated Ancestral Clusters (AAC's) found in Sub-Saharan Africa. The "Cushitic" cluster was also deemed "closest to the non-African AACs, consistent with an East African migration of modern humans out of Africa or a back-migration of non-Africans into Saharan and Eastern Africa."


title: Ethiopians

text: Wilson et al. (2001), an autosomal DNA study based on cluster analysis that looked at a combined sample of Amhara and Oromo examining a single enzyme variant: drug metabolizing enzyme (DME) loci, found that 62% of Ethiopians fall into the same cluster of Ashkenazi Jews, Norwegians and Armenians based on that gene. Only 24% of Ethiopians cluster with Bantus and Afro-Caribbeans, 8% with Papua New Guineans, and 6% with Chinese.


title: Ethiopians

text: reveals that, out of a total of 459 males sampled from Ethiopia, approximately 58% of Y-chromosome haplotypes were found to belong to Haplogroup E, of which 71% (41% of total) were characterized by one of its further downstream sub lineage known as E1b1b, while the remainder were mostly characterized by Haplogroup E1b1(x E1b1b,E1b1a), and to a lesser extent Haplogroup E2. With respect to E1b1b, some studies have found that it exists at its highest level among the Oromo, where it represented 62.8% of the haplotypes, while it was found at 35.4% among the Amhara, other studies however have found an almost equal representation of Haplogroup E1b1b at approximately 57% in both the Oromo and the Amhara. The haplogroup (as its predecessor E1b1) is thought to have originated in Ethiopia or elsewhere in the Horn of Africa. About one half of E1b1b found in Ethiopia is further characterized by E1b1b1a (M78), which arose later in north-eastern Africa and then back-migrated to eastern Africa.


title: Ethiopians

text: Haplogroup J has been found at a frequency of approximately 18% in Ethiopians, with a higher prevalence among the Amhara, where it has been found to exist at levels as high as 35%, of which about 94% (17% of total) is of the type J1, while 6% (1% of total) is of J2 type. On the other hand, 26% of the individuals sampled in the Arsi control portion of Moran et al. (2004) were found to belong to Haplogroup J.


title: Ethiopians

text: Another fairly prevalent lineage in Ethiopia belongs to Haplogroup A, occurring at a frequency of about 17% within Ethiopia, it is almost all characterized by its downstream sub lineage of A3b2 (M13). Restricted to Africa, and mostly found along the Rift Valley from Ethiopia to Cape Town, Haplogroup A represents the deepest branch in the Human Y- Chromosome phylogeny.


title: Ethiopians

text: Finally, Haplogroup T at approximately 4% and Haplogroup B at approximately 3%, make up the remainder of the Y-DNA Haplogroups found within Ethiopia.


title: Ethiopians

text: The maternal ancestry of Ethiopians is similarly diverse. About half (52.2%) of Ethiopians belongs to mtdna Haplogroups L0, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, or L6. These haplogroups are generally confined to the African continent. They also originated either in Ethiopia or very near. The other portion of the population belong to Haplogroup N (31%) and Haplogroup M1 (17%). There is controversy surrounding their origins as either native or a possible ancient back migration into Ethiopia from Asia.


title: Ethiopians

text: Passarino et al. (1998) suggested that: Caucasoid gene flow into the Ethiopian gene pool occurred predominantly through males. Conversely, the Niger–Congo contribution to the Ethiopian population occurred mainly through females. While there is debate among the scientific community of what exactly constitutes "Caucasoid gene flow", the same study further stated: Indeed, Ethiopians do not seem to result only from a simple combination of proto-Niger–Congo and Middle Eastern genes. Their African component cannot be completely explained by that of present-day Niger–Congo speakers, and it is quite different from that of the Khoisan. Thus, a portion of the current Ethiopian gene pool may be the product of in situ differentiation from an ancestral gene pool."


title: Ethiopians

text: Scott et al. (2005) similarly observed that the Ethiopian population is almost equally divided between individuals that carry Eurasian maternal lineages, and those that belong to African clades. They describe the presence of Eurasian clades in the country as sequences that "are thought to be found in high numbers in Ethiopia either as a result of substantial gene flow into Ethiopia from Eurasia (Chen et al., 2000; Richards et al., 2003), or as a result of having undergone several branching events in demic diffusion, acting as founder lineages for non-African populations". The researchers further found no association between regional origin of subjects or language family (Semitic/Cushitic) and their mitochondrial type: The haplogroup distribution amongst all subjects (athletes and controls) from different geographical regions of Ethiopia is displayed in Table 3. As can be seen graphically in Fig. 3, the mtDNA haplogroup distribution of each region is similar, with all regions displaying similar proportions of African 'L' haplogroups (Addis Ababa: 59%, Arsi: 50%, Shewa: 44%, Other: 57%). No association was found between regional origin of subjects and their mitochondrial type (v2=8.5, 15 df, P=0.9). Similarly, the mtDNA haplogroup distribution of subjects (athletes and controls) speaking languages from each family is shown in Table 3. Again there was no association between language family and mitochondrial type (v2=5.4, 5 df, P=0.37). As can be seen in Fig. 4, the haplogroup distributions of each language family are again very similar.


title: Ethiopians

text: In addition, Musilová et al. (2011) observed significant maternal ties between its Ethiopian and other Horn African samples with its Western Asian samples; particularly in terms of the HV1b mtDNA haplogroup. The authors noted:


title: Ethiopians

text: "Detailed phylogeography of HV1 sequences shows that more recent demographic upheavals likely contributed to their spread from West Arabia to East Africa, a finding concordant with archaeological records suggesting intensive maritime trade in the Red Sea from the sixth millennium BC onwards."


title: Ethiopians

text: According to Černý et al. (2008), many Ethiopians also share specific maternal lineages with areas in Yemen and other parts of Northeast Africa. The authors indicate that:


title: Ethiopians

text: "The most frequent haplotype in west coastal Yemen is 16126–16362, which is found not only in the Ethiopian highlands but also in Somalia, lower Egypt and at especially high frequency in the Nubians. The Tihama share some West Eurasian haplotypes with Africans, e.g. J and K with Ethiopians, Somali and Egyptians."


title: Devprayag

text: Devprayag (Deva prayāga) is a town and a nagar panchayat, near New Tehri city in Tehri Garhwal District in the state of Uttarakhand, India, and is the final one of the Panch Prayag (five confluences) of Alaknanda River where Alaknanda meets the Bhagirathi river and both rivers thereafter flow on as the Ganges river or Ganga.


title: Devprayag

text: Traditionally, it is considered to be the place where sage Dev Sharma led his ascetic life, giving birth to its present name, Devprayag. It is one of the five sacred confluences in the hills and is an important place of pilgrimage for devout Hindus.


title: Devprayag

text: "Devprayag" means "Godly Confluence" in Sanskrit. According to Hindu scriptures, Devprayag is the sacred place of merging of two visible heavenly rivers, Alakananda and Bhagirathi, to form the holy Ganga.


title: Devprayag

text: On a terrace in the upper part of the village is the temple of Raghunathji, built of huge stones, pyramidal in form, and capped by a white cupola.


title: Devprayag

text: The Alaknanda rises at the confluence and feet of the Satopanth and Bhagirath Kharak glacier in Uttarakhand near the border with Tibet. The headwaters of the Bhagirathi are formed at Gaumukh, at the foot of the Gangotri glacier and Khatling glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya. These two sacred rivers join to form the Ganges (Ganga) in Devprayag.


title: Devprayag

text: India census, Devprayag had a population of 2144. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Devprayag has an average literacy rate of 77%, higher than the national average of 74.5%; male literacy is 82% and, female literacy is 72%. In Devprayag, 13% of the population is under 6 years of age. The town is the seat of the pandas of the Badrinath Dham.


title: Devprayag

text: The nearest railway stations is at Rishikesh. However, Rishikesh is a small railway station not connected by fast trains. Haridwar railway junction, 24 km farther from Rishikesh, has train connections to most of the major cities in India and is, therefore, the railhead for Devprayag.


title: Devprayag

text: Devprayag lies on national highway NH58 that connects Delhi with Badrinath and Mana Pass in Uttarakhand near Indo-Tibet border. Therefore, all the buses and vehicles that carry pilgrims from New Delhi to Badrinath via Haridwar and Rishikesh in pilgrim season of summer months pass through Devprayag on the way to Joshimath and further north. Rishikesh is the major starting point for road journey to Devprayag and regular buses operate from Rishikesh bus station to Devprayag. The road distance from Rishikesh to Devprayag is .


title: Jon Corzine

text: Jon Stevens Corzine ( ; born January 1, 1947) is an American financial executive and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey from 2001 to 2006 and the 54th governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. Corzine ran for a second term as governor but lost to Republican Chris Christie. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously worked at Goldman Sachs; after leaving politics, he was CEO of MF Global from 2010 until its collapse in 2011.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine was born in Taylorville, Illinois, the son of Nancy June (née Hedrick) and Roy Allen Corzine, Jr. His grandfather Roy A. Corzine, Sr. served in the Illinois General Assembly. He grew up on a small family farm in Willey Station, Illinois near Taylorville. After completing high school at Taylorville High School, where he had been the football quarterback and basketball captain, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and graduated in 1969, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors. While in college, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and served from 1969 until 1975, attaining the rank of sergeant. In 1970 he enrolled in the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, from which he received a Master of Business Administration degree in 1973.


title: Jon Corzine

text: His first business experience was in the bond department of Continental Illinois National Bank, where he worked days while attending the Booth School of Business MBA program at night. He then moved to BancOhio National Bank, a regional bank in Columbus, Ohio, that was acquired in 1984 by National City Bank. Corzine worked at BancOhio until 1975 when he moved his family to New Jersey and was hired as a bond trader for Goldman Sachs.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In 1976, Corzine joined Goldman Sachs as a bond trader and then became co-manager of the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Division. He became a partner in 1980 and a member of the management committee in 1984. He served as Goldman Sachs' CFO (1991–1994) and a senior partner (1994–1999). During his leadership, Corzine oversaw the firm's expansion into Asia and was instrumental in leading the transition of the firm from a private partnership to a public company.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine also chaired a presidential commission on capital budgeting for Bill Clinton and served as Chairman of the United States Department of the Treasury's borrowing committee. As the Goldman Sachs senior partner, he helped develop a private sector plan to rescue the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management when the leveraged fund's collapse in the fall of 1998 threatened contagion across the U.S. financial system. According to "U.S. News & World Report", Corzine did not get along with co-CEO Henry Paulson, who came from the other major area of the bank, investment banking. When Corzine participated in structuring the bailout, Paulson seized control of the firm. When Goldman Sachs went public after Corzine's departure, Corzine made $400 million.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine has participated in meetings of the Bilderberg Group, a network of leaders in the fields of politics, business and banking (1995–1997, 1999, 2003 and 2004). He is a former member of the group's steering committee.


title: Jon Corzine

text: After being forced from Goldman Sachs in January 1999, Corzine campaigned for a New Jersey Senate seat after Frank Lautenberg announced his retirement. Despite initially trailing behind his opponent in the Democratic primary by 30 percentage points, Corzine won the nomination by 16 points. He later attributed his successful primary run to pollster Bob Shrum who convinced him to run not as "a seasoned investment banker and job creator" but as a "liberal progressive". In the general election, Corzine won by just a three-point margin over his Republican opponent, four-term United States Congressman Bob Franks, in the November 2000 election. He was sworn into the Senate in January 2001.


title: Jon Corzine

text: He spent more than $62 million of his own money on his campaign, the most expensive Senate campaign in U.S. historyover $33 million of this was spent on the primary election alone, where he defeated former Governor James Florio 58–42%. Franks had been a last-minute choice because New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman had been expected to run for the Senate. The record $62 million amount surpassed Michael Huffington, who spent nearly $28 million in an unsuccessful 1994 Senate race.


title: Jon Corzine

text: During the campaign, Corzine refused to release his income tax return records. He claimed an interest in doing so, but he cited a confidentiality agreement with Goldman Sachs. Skeptics argued that Corzine should have followed the example of his predecessor Robert Rubin, who converted his equity stake into debt upon leaving Goldman.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine campaigned for state government programs including universal health care, universal gun registration, mandatory public preschool, and more taxpayer funding for college education. He pushed affirmative action and same-sex marriage. David Brooks opined that Corzine was so liberal that his election, although the fact that his predecessor was also a Democrat, helped push the Senate to the left.


title: Jon Corzine

text: During Corzine's campaign for the United States Senate, he made some controversial off-color statements. When introduced to a man with an Italian name who said he was in the construction business, Corzine quipped: "Oh, you make cement shoes!" according to Emanuel Alfano, chairman of the Italian-American One Voice Committee. Alfano reported that when introduced to a lawyer named David Stein, Corzine said: "He's not Italian, is he? Oh, I guess he's your Jewish lawyer who is here to get the rest of you out of jail." Corzine denied mentioning religion, but did not deny the quip about Italians, stating that some of his own ancestors were probably Italian, or maybe French.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Also in 2000, Corzine denied having made payments to African-American ministers, although the foundation controlled by Jon and Joanne Corzine had paid one influential black church $25,000. Reginald T. Jackson, director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, had campaigned against a form of racial profiling whereby police officers stop minority drivers, and had gotten New Jersey state police superintendent Carl A. Williams fired. Corzine had donated to Jackson prior to getting what appears to be a reciprocal endorsement.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine entered Congress in a class of 10 new senators, eight of whom were Democrats. According to "U.S. News & World Report", Corzine, Hillary Clinton and Jean Carnahan were the more notable new Senators in 2000. During his five-year senatorial career, he was present at 1,503 of 1,673 votes, cosponsored 1,014 bills, sponsored 145 bills (only 11 of which made it out of committee), and had one sponsored bill enacted.


title: Jon Corzine

text: He co-authored the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. In the aftermath of Enron, he cosponsored (with Barbara Boxer) legislation, which was later propounded by Ted Kennedy, that reforms the 401(k) plan to minimize the risk of investment portfolios. The plan was opposed by President George W. Bush and faced strong opposition in Congress. Restrictions on retirement account allocations were in direct opposition to the contemporaneous movement towards self-directed individual retirement accounts for Social Security.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine was a sponsor of the Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act. He supported providing a two-year tax break to victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and help grant citizenship to victims who were legal resident aliens. He supported gun control laws, outlawing racial profiling, and subsidies for Amtrak. He was the chief sponsor, along with U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, of the Darfur Accountability Act. He was one of 23 Senators to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. Corzine was the prime sponsor, along with fellow New Jersey U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, of a federal version of John's Law, in memory of Navy Ensign John R. Elliott (a native of New Jersey), a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who was killed by a drunk driver. The legislation provides federal highway safety grant incentives to encourage states to impound the cars of DUI suspects. He was an early contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post".


title: Jon Corzine

text: In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Corzine and Peter Fitzgerald attempted to mold a more disciplined bailout of the airline industry, but even the redesigned plan was not entirely satisfactory to Corzine. Corzine opposed the reduction in low-income student eligibility for Pell Grant funding caused by changes in the "expected family contribution".


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine tried and failed to introduce legislation for chemical plant regulation six weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Subsequent efforts by then-Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman in 2002 were also squelched. Along with Hillary Clinton, he was one of the few senators who attempted to pressure the Bush administration to clamp down on regulation of the chemical and nuclear-power industries. His efforts helped make New Jersey one of the stricter states in the nation in terms of chemical plant regulation.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In 2001, Corzine coauthored (with Bob Graham) a tax-cut proposal aimed at lowering the marginal tax bracket from 15% to 10% on the first $19,000 of taxable income. In 2002, he proposed a tax cut that exempted the first $10,000 of income from the $765 of Social Security taxes for both employers and employees. Corzine also proposed making dividend payments tax deductible to companies as a form of economic stimulus.


title: Jon Corzine

text: While in the Senate, he chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2003 to 2005. In this role he was influential in convincing certain potential candidates to not run in order to avoid costly primaries in three key states during the 2004 United States Senate elections. He also played a role in the selection of Senator John Edwards as a running mate for Senator John Kerry. In 2002, Corzine called for the resignation of United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In the Senate, Corzine was a member of the Committees on Banking, Intelligence, the Budget, Foreign Relations, Environment, and Energy and Natural Resources.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine and his opponent, Republican Doug Forrester, spent $73 million on their gubernatorial campaigns by the week before election day. This included $38 million by Corzine and $19 million by Forrester for the general election. The primaries accounted for the difference. Since Corzine had spent over $62 million on his 2000 United States Senate elections, the combined expenditures for Corzine's run for the Senate and governorship exceeded $100 million. The main campaign issues were property taxes and the Bush administration. New Jersey had averaged $5,500 in 2004 property taxes, and Corzine tried to link his opponent to Bush.


title: Jon Corzine

text: The campaign for the post of Governor of New Jersey was successful with 54% of the vote. Forrester, a businessman and a former Mayor of West Windsor Township, in Mercer County, won 43%. Corzine received 1,224,493 votes to Forrester's 985,235. A total of 80,277 votes, or 3%, were scattered among other candidates. Corzine won 13 of New Jersey's 21 counties: Atlantic, Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Essex, Gloucester, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Passaic, Salem, and Union. Corzine won the three most populous counties (Bergen, Essex, and Middlesex), five of the top six, and seven of the top nine.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine ran for re-election in the 2009 New Jersey gubernatorial election. In January 2009, Rasmussen Reports indicated that recently announced Republican challenger Chris Christie led Corzine 42% to 40%. Other polls that month showed Corzine with approvals of 46% to 40%, but these were trailing his "favorables", which were just 42–44%. By June and July, a number of polls showed Corzine trailing the Republican nominee, Christie, by double digits, though the tide changed again and by October polls showed Corzine was close, and in some cases, ahead. In the end, Corzine lost the race to Christie by a margin of 48.5% to 44.9%, with 5.8% of the vote going to independent candidate Chris Daggett.


title: Jon Corzine

text: After taking office in January 2006, Corzine's approval numbers were very low. Many polls seemed to indicate that much of this negative polling was a result of the protracted budget battle ahead of the 2006 New Jersey State Government shutdown in July. An April 26, 2006, poll from Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed Corzine at a 35% approval with a 42% disapproval. A February 28, 2007, poll from Quinnipiac University showed Corzine at 50% approval with 34% disapproval. When Corzine released a controversial plan to monetize the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, his approval rating fell to 30% in January 2008.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In conjunction with this fall in approval rating, an initiative to recall the Governor was started for the first and only time ever in New Jersey history. The recall effort failed after gathering less than the required 1.2 million signatures.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine had long insisted that state employees must bear part of the cost of their health benefits after retirement. As of July 1, 2007, in agreements with the Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, active State employees in those unions (as well as certain other non-union employees) are now required to contribute 1.5% of their salary to offset health care costs. State and local employees' contributions to the two largest pension systems increased by 10%, from 5% to 5.5% of their annual salaries and increased the retirement benefit age for new public employees, from 55 to 60 years. In 2008, Corzine approved a law that increased the retirement age from 60 to 62, required that government workers and teachers earn $7,500 per year to qualify for a pension, eliminated Lincoln's Birthday as a state worker holiday, allowed the state to offer incentives not to take health insurance and required municipal employees work 20 hours per week to get health benefits.


title: Jon Corzine

text: As part of his attempt to balance the budget, Corzine decreased funding to most programs and localities including state universities and colleges. The first of these decreases came with the 2007 budget. Rutgers University and other New Jersey state universities raised tuition, cut hundreds of sections of classes, and several sports teams. With the latest decrease in funding for 2009, most state institutions have less funding than they had a decade ago. Despite the $15 million in cuts, Rutgers went ahead with previous agreed upon raises of $15 million to their executive faculty. This resulted in Rutgers making $30 million in cuts.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine has been the only New Jersey governor in recent memory to make any headway in addressing the crisis of municipal funding. While not directly touching the third rail of New Jersey governance – property taxes – Corzine's reform of the school funding formula (passed and signed in January 2008) resulted in significant relief to many New Jersey towns with outsize school costs but limited tax base. The plan survived a legal challenge and was declared constitutional by the New Jersey Supreme Court on May 28, 2009.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine championed expanding government health and education programs. He planned to require every resident to enroll in a health plan and have taxpayers help pick up the tab for all the welfare low- and middle-income residents. In June 2008, state legislators voted for the first phase of that program mandating health care coverage and Corzine signed it into law in July.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine spent some $200,000 of public funds on advertisements to promote a referendum on the 2007 New Jersey ballot to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research. The referendum faced strong opposition and was rejected despite the fact that $270 million had previously been approved to build stem cell research centers.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine, a death penalty opponent, as governor supported and presided over abolition of capital punishment in New Jersey and replacing it with life imprisonment. After the legislature passed and he signed it into law, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively eliminate capital punishment since 1965. Although the bill was not passed until late in 2007, New Jersey had not executed any criminals since 1963. Because the penalty was never used and often reversed upon appeal, it was viewed as a form of extended suffering for victims' families by some supporters of its abolition. Before the enactment of the new law, he commuted the death sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison. Corzine also has supported early New Jersey efforts at gun control.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine was one of several United States Governors – including Martin O'Malley of Maryland, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, and Eliot Spitzer of New York – who were early supporters of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He raised $1 million for her campaign. He, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Chuck Schumer, and Charlie Rangel co-hosted Clinton's October 25, 2007 60th-birthday party. He remained a committed Clinton superdelegate late into the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary season. If the Democratic National Committee had decided to recontest the Michigan and Florida primaries, Corzine and Ed Rendell were prepared to spearhead Clinton's fundraising in for those races. Towards the end of the primary season in April 2008, Corzine made it clear that although he was a Clinton supporter, his superdelegate vote would be determined by the popular vote. After her win in the April 22, 2008 Pennsylvania Democratic primary and a calculation of popular votes that excluded caucuses and included the controversial Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries, Corzine reaffirmed his support for her. Once Barack Obama became the presumptive nominee, Corzine became a prominent spokesperson for Obama's agenda.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine was among a group of big (in terms of population) state governors, such as Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who moved his state Republican and Democratic primaries to February 5, 2008, the date of Super Tuesday, 2008. He was also among a group of prominent Democratic politicians (that included Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama) who received political contributions from Norman Hsu that he ended up donating to charity.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In November 2008, in response to the ongoing economic downturn, Corzine proposed an economic recovery package consisting of additional massive spending, accelerated capital improvement spending and reforms and cuts to the corporate income tax. As of December 2008 many elements of the plan had been approved by the Democrats in the NJ Legislature. On January 2, 2009, Corzine joined the governors of four other states in urging the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country's 50 state governments to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine, in attempting to pass the 2007 fiscal year budget, clashed with a few fellow state Democrats in the New Jersey General Assembly, particularly over the proposed increase of the state's sales tax from 6% to 7%. Corzine said that he would not accept a budget that did not include the sales tax increase. After the legislature failed to pass Corzine's budget by the midnight deadline of July 1, 2006, he signed an executive order that immediately closed down all non-essential state government services, such as road construction projects. Legislators failed to resolve the situation by July 4 and casinos, among other governmentally-regulated industries, closed their doors at 8:00 am on July 5. Corzine called the shutdown "deplorable", though he refused to negotiate with legislators and accept alternate plans that did not increase the sales tax. Some surmised the casino closure was an effort to encourage reluctant South Jersey legislators to break the impasse.


title: Jon Corzine

text: After six days of state government shutdown, Corzine and Assembly Democrats agreed to raise the state sales tax to 7% with half of the 1% increase going to the state budget and the other half going to property tax relief. On July 8, 2006, the $30 billion state budget, with the sales tax agreement, passed both houses and Governor Corzine signed the budget into law ending the budget impasse.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Initially, Corzine opposed privatization of the New Jersey Turnpike. On January 8, 2008, to address ongoing structural budget issues, Governor Corzine proposed a four-part proposal including an overall reduction in spending, a constitutional amendment to require more voter approval for state borrowing, an executive order prohibiting the use of one-time revenues to balance the budget and a controversial plan to raise some $38 billion by leasing the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike, and other toll roads for at least 75 years to a new public benefit corporation that could sell bonds secured by future tolls, which it would be allowed to raise by 50% plus inflation every four years beginning in 2010. Corzine vowed to get that plan through the state legislature by March, but held off for nearly a month before releasing the details. Upon learning how the plan would work, New Jersey native residents railed against it, comparing it to using one credit card to pay off another, pointing out that it would create hardship for commuters and noting that it would actually increase the state's $32 billion debt. Corzine later wrote that only after the proposal was released did he discover "the harsh reality: the public intensely disliked the idea" and that, in retrospect, he "should have pressed harder to identify the most salient arguments against the plan and developed a strategy to get in front of and respond to those challenges".


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine, who was running for the United States Senate in the spring of 1999, met Carla Katz, the then married president of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), in the same apartment building where he resided in Hoboken; the CWA represents the largest number of state workers in New Jersey. As Katz later recalled, Corzine offered her a job on his Senate campaign, but she declined the offer. Corzine and the still married Katz were soon dating, and they began appearing in public as a couple in early 2002, shortly after Corzine's unofficial separation from his wife, Joanne. (The Corzines divorced the following year.) For more than two years Corzine was romantically involved and living with Katz. She lived with him at his apartment building in Hoboken from April 2002 until August 2004.


title: Jon Corzine

text: After Corzine's breakup with Katz, their lawyers negotiated a financial payout in November 2004. According to press accounts, the settlement for Katz exceeded $6 million, including cash (in part used to buy her $1.1 million condominium in Hoboken), a college trust fund to educate her children, a 2005 Volvo sport utility vehicle, and Corzine forgave a $470,000 loan he had made to Katz in 2002 to buy out her ex-husband's share of their home in Alexandria Township. Katz enrolled in Seton Hall University School of Law on a full scholarship in 2004. Corzine later acknowledged he had given $15,000 to Katz's brother-in-law, Rocco Riccio, a former state employee who was forced to resign after being accused of examining income tax returns for political purposes. At the time, Katz was president of the CWA Local 1034, which bargains on behalf of many state employees.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In the summer of 2005, when Corzine was running in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, news first emerged of his relationship with Katz and the money she had received. Corzine was elected governor despite the scandal. In the fall of 2006, during an impasse in contract negotiations between the Corzine administration and the state's seven major state employee unions (including the CWA), Katz contacted the governor by phone and e-mail to lobby for a renewal of the negotiations. Their relationship and the financial settlement Katz received after their breakup led to allegations of many potential conflicts of interest in labor negotiations while Corzine was governor. A state ethics panel, acting on a complaint from Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, ruled in May 2007 that Katz's contact with Corzine during negotiations did not violate the governor's code of conduct.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Separately, New Jersey Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson filed a lawsuit to release all e-mail correspondence between Corzine and Katz during the contract negotiations. On May 30, 2008, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Paul Innes ruled that at least 745 pages of e-mail records should be made public, but Corzine's lawyers immediately appealed the decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine won his case on appeal. On March 18, 2009, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled it would not hear arguments in the case, effectively ending the legal battle to make his e-mails with Katz public. Corzine spent approximately $127,000 of taxpayer funds to keep the e-mails secret. Nonetheless, on August 1, 2010, "The Star-Ledger" published 123 of the Corzine-Katz e-mails, revealing the extent of their personal contact during negotiations over a new state government workers contract in early 2007.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine continued to serve in the U.S. Senate while running for governor, which ensured that he could resign from the Senate and appoint a Democrat as his successor if he won and allowed him to retain his Senate seat if he lost. Speculation was that he would appoint a Democrat from one of the congressional districts in New Jersey, perhaps Congressmen Rob Andrews, Rush Holt, or Frank Pallone. Corzine, once he was Governor-Elect, said on November 11, 2005, that he was strongly appointing State Senator Nia Gill to fill his vacant seat in the United States Senate. Corzine said about Gill that she was "an extraordinarily capable woman". Gill for her part told the Associated Press "I have the qualifications. If I am chosen by Jon, I am more than qualified to rise to the occasion." He strongly hinted he might appoint Governor Richard Codey although on November 23, 2005, Codey announced that he was not interested in pursuing the seat. On December 9, 2005, Corzine named his friend, who lived and lives in the same apartment building, U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, to succeed him.


title: Jon Corzine

text: One of Corzine's first nominations was that of Zulima Farber as New Jersey Attorney General. She served for approximately seven months until an ethics investigation concluded that she had acted improperly by going to the location where local police in Fairview, New Jersey had stopped her boyfriend, Hamlet Gore, for driving with a suspended license and an expired vehicle registration. Corzine said he did not ask for Farber's resignation.


title: Jon Corzine

text: On February 9, 2006, after many scandals regarding financial mishandling at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Corzine nominated Robert Del Tufo, the former Attorney General of New Jersey and U.S. Attorney, as chairman of the board of trustees. Corzine also nominated Oliver Quinn, Prudential Financial's vice president and chief ethics officer, as vice chairman of the board.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine's commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection and Chief of Staff, Lisa P. Jackson was nominated as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. She was confirmed by the Senate on January 22, 2009.


title: Jon Corzine

text: On April 12, 2007, Corzine and 25-year-old aide Samantha Gordon were injured in an automobile accident on the Garden State Parkway near Galloway Township while traveling from the New Jersey Conference of Mayors in Atlantic City to Drumthwacket, his residence in Princeton, to meet with radio personality Don Imus and the Rutgers University women's basketball team.


title: Jon Corzine

text: The New Jersey State Police determined that Corzine's SUV, driven by a state trooper, was traveling in excess of with its emergency lights flashing when the collision occurred. A pickup truck drifted onto the shoulder and swerved back onto the lane, and another pickup truck swerved to avoid the truck and hit the Governor's SUV, causing the SUV to hit the guardrail. The State Police reviewed roadside camera recordings and E-ZPass records to track down the driver of the truck; he was not charged with any violation.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine and the trooper were flown by helicopter to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, a Level I trauma center. The aide was taken by ambulance to Atlantic City Medical Center. Neither the NJ State Trooper nor the aide was seriously injured, but Corzine suffered broken bones, including an open fracture of the left femur, 11 broken ribs, a broken sternum, a broken collarbone, a fractured lower vertebra, and a facial cut that required plastic surgery. The Governor was not wearing a seat belt. Friends had long said that they had rarely seen him wear one. When asked why the state trooper who was driving would not have asked Corzine to put on his seat belt, a staffer said the governor was "not always amenable to suggestion". The Superintendent of State Police has also noted that the trooper could be charged if the crash were preventable.


title: Jon Corzine

text: By April 23, 2007, Corzine's doctors had upgraded him from critical to stable condition. He was sedated and unable to speak because of a breathing tube in his throat, and as such, was unable to perform his duties as governor. In accordance with the New Jersey State Constitution, New Jersey Senate President Richard Codey assumed the position of acting governor for the short period from April 12 until May 7, 2007. In 2005, voters had approved an amendment to the state constitution to provide for a lieutenant governor who would succeed the governor in the event of a vacancy or assume gubernatorial duties in the event of incapacitation, but that position would not be filled until 2010.


title: Jon Corzine

text: Corzine left the hospital on April 30, 2007. He returned to Drumthwacket, where he recuperated and used a videoconferencing center (installed at his expense) to communicate with legislators. He issued an apology, paid a $46 ticket for not wearing a seat belt, and he appeared in a public service announcement advocating seat belts, which opened with the words "I'm New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, and I should be dead."


title: Jon Corzine

text: During the first months of his administration, Corzine experienced favorable approval ratings. According to a March 2006 Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind Poll, 47% of New Jersey voters approved of the job Corzine was doing, while 16% disapproved. Peter Woolley, director of the PublicMind, noted, "the numbers are pretty good for a New Jersey governor heading full tilt into an unprecedented budget crisis." Much of the good will that was indicated by the March poll was quickly diminished, and in April 2006, a PublicMind poll showed that Corzine's approval rating had eroded to 39% while his disapproval rating increased to 36%. By July 2006, the Governor's ratings recovered to some extent from the April decline and in September of the same year it was clear that Corzine's approvals had not suffered from the summer conflict over the budget and the sales tax hike; 51% of New Jersey voters approved of the governor's handling of his job while 31% disapproved. His PublicMind poll ratings remained relatively stable and healthy through the rest of 2006 and 2007 with his average approvals at 54% and his average disapprovals at 29%.


title: Jon Corzine

text: In January 2008, prior to the State of the State address Corzine was at 48% approving 32% disapproving, according to the PublicMind poll. But another FDU PublicMind poll taken in late January, after the State of the State address, showed that governor's ratings were slipping; 41% of voters approved of the job Corzine was doing while 39% reported that they disapproved. The decline was largely in response to the governor's plan to raise tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. February 2008 was not any kinder, as a PublicMind poll indicated that his numbers continued to slip with disapprovals catching up to approvals with 42% of voters approving and 43% of voters disapproving. Woolley remarked on the decline saying, "Considering the beating he has taken on his toll plan, it's remarkable that his numbers are not a good deal worse." The governor's approval ratings showed no recovery through September 2008 with his approvals and disapprovals averaging 42% and 43% respectively. Coincident with the presidential campaign, Corzine's approval ratings saw some improvement.