title: Dead Rising 2

text: Dead Rising 2 is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Blue Castle Games and published by Capcom. It was released between September and October 2010 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It is a sequel to "Dead Rising", and is the second entry in the series of the same name. The game features a number of new features and improvements to its predecessor, including multiplayer options.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: The game's story see players controlling Chuck Greene, a former motocross rider, who finds himself at the center of another zombie outbreak taking place in a casino resort and shopping complex in Nevada, and becomes involved in uncovering the truth behind it. Not only must he survive against the zombies roaming the complex by scavenging weapons and supplies, along with rescuing survivors caught up in the incident and dealing with crazed psychopaths, Chuck must also ensure that his young daughter receives regular treatments of a medication that prevent her from becoming a zombie herself, after being bitten by her mother during a previous outbreak in Las Vegas. Like the previous game, players must complete major missions to advance the story, but can undertake optional tasks and explore the complex, with various endings available depending on actions taken during the main game.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: The game received two downloadable expansions - one being a prologue to the main story, the other taking place moments after achieving its canonical ending. A non-canon reimagining entitled "" was released the following year. As part of "Dead Rising"s ten year anniversary, a ported version of the game as well as its reimagining was released in September 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: The player controls protagonist Chuck Greene as he fights off hordes of zombies while accomplishing specific missions. The game includes several new objects that can be used to attack the zombies. Up to 7,000 zombies can be seen onscreen at the same time.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Dead Rising 2" allows players to manufacture their own custom weapons at various points in the game by collecting items and combining them together in maintenance rooms scattered across the game map. The player also has the ability to unlock "combo cards" that reveal weapons that can be combined together. Such combinations include the "Hail Mary", a hand grenade duct taped to a football, "Dynameat", a stick of dynamite duct taped to a piece of meat, the "Paddlesaw", two chainsaws duct taped to a kayak paddle, and "Spiked Bat" which is a baseball bat with nails hammered through the item.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Like the first game, boss fights are represented by 'psychopaths', people who have either been driven insane by the zombie outbreak or are taking advantage of it to fulfill their cruel desires.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: During the 2009 Tokyo Game Show, Capcom revealed that the multiplayer of "Dead Rising 2" takes the form of the in-game reality TV show "Terror Is Reality" in which players will act as contestants in a fictional gameshow. Four players participate in multiplayer, competing against each other for the most kills inside an arena full of undead. Players can use weapons and vehicles including human-sized hamster balls and chainsaw-equipped motorcycles. They also will be able to prevent other players from scoring by using various forms of "dirty" tactics.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Chuck Greene joins the reality pay-per-view gameshow "Terror is Reality" to get money for his daughter's Zombrex. (Zombrex being a medicine which prevents infected humans from turning into zombies as long as it is taken once daily.) Terror is Reality (TiR) is hosted by Tyrone King (TK). Players compete with players all over the world online, and earn money for their character at the same time. The show consists of three minigames, including "Zomboni" (driving a car that makes zombie juice and players have to shoot the juice to the target to get points), "Bounty Hunter" (players snipe zombies and they can earn extra points by hitting the jackpot), "Stand Up Zomedy" (players put flowers, sticks, and dresses on the zombie, earn more points by getting all three of items in one zombie), and so on. Finally, the major game in TIR is "Slicecycle", where players drive motorcycles to slice up zombies for points. The winners and participants get money for their participation points from the games.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: It was confirmed during Captivate '10 that cooperative gameplay for the story campaign will be available and according to Blue Castle Games there will be an online co-op mode. Both players will play as the main character, Chuck Greene, and will be able to earn experience and keep the items they collected throughout the game—but only the host player will be able to save the game's progress. A host can invite a friend to join the current game by sending out an invitation; if the friend accepts, a confirmation icon will be displayed and the host can allow the player to join in. Non-host players can drop in/out of a co-op game anytime they like. When the players become separated, a tiny animated Chuck Greene icon will appear at the bottom of the game screen. The icon will show what the other player is up to—attacking, being assaulted by zombies, etc. If a player is taken down by zombies, he will be able to call the other for help to revive them. The player will use food to revive the dying partner before his health runs out.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: In 2011, five years after the events of "Dead Rising", former motocross champion Chuck Greene is in the fictional casino town of Fortune City, Nevada, to take part in "Terror is Reality", a controversial sports entertainment game show where contestants kill zombies for money and fame. Chuck needs the prize money to buy Zombrex (a daily medication that suppresses the zombification process) for his daughter Katey, who was bitten by her zombified mother during a previous outbreak in Las Vegas when she was only four years old. While Chuck is backstage after the show, the show's supply of zombies is released; Chuck rescues Katey and makes his way to an emergency shelter, which is sealed after their arrival. Raymond Sullivan (the only security guard to reach the shelter alive) is initially reluctant to let the infected Katey in, but Chuck promises to keep her supplied with Zombrex until the military arrives in three days.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Chuck needs to venture into the post apocalyptic city to find a dose of Zombrex, entering and exiting the shelter via an air duct. Another survivor, Stacey Forsythe (leader of the Nevada branch of zombie rights organization "Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality", which was in town to protest the treatment of the zombies by "Terror is Reality") supplies him with a map and two-way radio; she promises to keep watch on the shelter's security monitors and direct Chuck to any other survivors or points of interest in the area.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: After returning with the first dose of Zombrex for Katey, a news report implicates Chuck as the cause of the Fortune City outbreak. Chuck tracks down the reporter, Rebecca Chang, at a nearby hotel, and offers her the story of a lifetime if she gives him a chance to prove his innocence and helps him determine who was really behind the outbreak. Following this, Chuck has three main objectives to complete: discover the origin of the Fortune City outbreak by following the "Case File" missions, rescue as many survivors as possible (either from zombies, or from the "psychopath" boss characters), and find enough doses of Zombrex to keep Katey alive until the military arrives.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Chuck and Rebecca discover that "Terror is Reality" host Tyrone "TK" King is using the outbreak as cover to rob Fortune City's four main casinos. Chuck foils the robberies and prevents the host from escaping in his helicopter. TK is locked up in the shelter, and reveals that another organization responsible for the outbreak paid him to frame Chuck for it.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Three days after the outbreak, the military arrives, but a green gas begins emanating from underground and causes zombies to mutate into a more powerful form. The convoy is unprepared to deal with the super-zombies, and is wiped out almost completely. A second military force would normally arrive 24 hours later, but media reports claim that the first convoy reached the shelter and found no survivors, so the city will be cleansed by firebombing at that time. The safe house is also sabotaged, and Chuck must quickly repair the door before too many zombies enter.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Regardless of the player's actions, TK is bitten, and needs Zombrex to survive. Rebecca reveals the cause of the gas seems to be in the underground access tunnels, and Chuck finds a hidden facility where pharmaceutical company Phenotrans, the makers of Zombrex, is harvesting the zombies. The drug is manufactured from the queens of the genetically modified wasps that create zombies; the gas released by the Phenotrans facility is intended to increase the number of queens in a zombie horde.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: After killing the scientists in charge of the harvesting, Chuck recovers a satellite phone and a laptop from the facility and takes them to Rebecca as proof that Phenotrans orchestrated the outbreak in order to harvest more queens, while driving up demand for Zombrex. Just as Rebecca attempts to contact her news station and report the discovery, Sullivan shoots her dead. Sullivan is revealed as a Phenotrans operative; he was the one who let the "Terror is Reality" zombies out while framing Chuck, and the one who sabotaged the shelter. He escapes with the phone and laptop, and Chuck follows him to a casino rooftop, where he plans to escape by skyhook after revealing that the Vegas and Fortune City outbreaks were necessary to keep a consistent supply of queens to make Zombrex, enraging Chuck as his wife was killed in the Vegas outbreak which led to Katey getting infected in the first place.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: After a fierce battle, Chuck handcuffs Sullivan's harness to the rooftop, ripping him in half when the recovery aircraft catches the skyhook. Chuck contacts Rebecca's channel and offers to give them proof of Phenotrans' involvement in the Fortune City outbreak if they send helicopters to rescue the survivors.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: As the helicopter picks them up, if TK was not given Zombrex, he zombifies and attacks the group, forcing Chuck to sacrifice himself to allow the others to escape. If TK was given Zombrex, he kidnaps Stacey and Katey and suspends them above a horde of zombies while challenging Chuck to a final duel. Chuck hurls TK to his death and then leaves with the two.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Dead Rising 2" was announced on February 9, 2009, confirming earlier rumors of the game's existence, as well as a viral video for the game. The developers Blue Castle Games worked with Keiji Inafune, the original "Dead Rising" producer and Capcom's former global head of research and development, along with other original "Dead Rising" team members.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Capcom created a variety of websites before the release of the game. These include TapeitorDie.Com, visitfortunecity.com, and deadrising-2.com.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: In August 2010, Keiji Inafune released an eight-part video series entitled "Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun". Capcom sponsored a gathering of zombies at the London House of Parliament on August 30— the best dressed won a game console. Attendees also received a limited edition, one-of-a-kind T-shirt.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Capcom also created "Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality" (CURE) as a marketing tie-in for the game, as well as its reimagining "". The group is a parody of the political party system in Britain.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Dead Rising 2" was released in several retail versions. The standard edition includes the game and a manual and is available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Dead Rising 2: Case Zero" is the prequel for "Dead Rising 2", and is set shortly after Chuck and Katey escape from the Las Vegas zombie outbreak. The player must deal with a minor outbreak in the town of Still Creek, and move on before the military arrives and kills any infected (including non-zombies like Katey). The player can reach up to level five in "Case Zero", with the level and any combo cards earned able to be transferred into the main game.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Case Zero" was released for the Xbox 360 on August 31, 2010 in North America and Europe, then in Japan at a later date because the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization was concerned about the content and the download's rating. The game is region-locked to these specific areas, and cannot be downloaded outside these regions. In the game's first week of release, 300,000 downloads were made: the fastest selling game on Xbox Live Arcade. On September 15, Capcom announced that "Case Zero" had received more than 500,000 downloads.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Reception for "Case Zero" has been generally favorable, receiving an average score of 79 on Metacritic. IGN gave the title a 6.5 out of 10 rating, criticizing the load times and the lack of things to do. GameSpot gave the title an 8 out of 10 rating, praising the fun zombie killing, in-depth weapon creation, and multiple endings that require several playthroughs. Joystiq gave the title a 4 out of 5 star rating, and recommended the game to anyone because of both the content and the price. Eurogamer gave the title a 7 out of 10 rating, criticizing many annoyances but praising the overall product.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: On September 15, 2010, Capcom announced a second downloadable episode for the Xbox 360, titled "Dead Rising 2: Case West", made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The game features Frank West, the main character from the first "Dead Rising" game, and serves as the canon Overtime Mode of "Dead Rising 2", with Frank teaming up with Chuck to further investigate the link between Phenotrans and the Fortune City zombie outbreak, and find proof that clears Chuck of any wrongdoing.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: The story follows on from Ending A of the main game, with Frank rescuing Chuck from the elevator. Frank was going to meet Rebecca Chang to investigate a Phenotrans facility west of Fortune City, but learns from Chuck that she was killed by Phenotrans mole Sullivan. Although initially suspicious of Chuck because of the media reports blaming him for the Fortune City outbreak, Frank lets the motocross star come with him to find proof that Phenotrans was behind the outbreak.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Case West" includes cooperative play for two players, with each taking control of one of the two characters. The episode features new challenges, enemies, items, and combo weapons. The photography element returns from the first "Dead Rising"; the characters use this to generate proof of Phenotrans' part in the zombie outbreaks. "Case West" was released on December 27, 2010 for the Xbox 360 in North America.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Case West" received generally positive reviews, with a score of 74 on Metacritic. IGN gave the title an 8.5 out of 10 rating, with praise for the story, combo weapons, and fun co-op mode. Eurogamer gave the title an 8 out of 10 rating, stating that the product was more a worthwhile purchase for people planning to play co-op with a friend. GameTrailers awarded the title with a 7.9 out of 10 rating, saying that the $10 asking price was worth it. GameSpot gave the title a 7 out of 10 rating, praising the new weapons, fun while rescuing survivors, wacky humor, and plenty of replay value, but criticizing the similarity it has to "Case Zero", the lack of integration with previous games, and that the photography in the game has less impact than in "Dead Rising".


title: Dead Rising 2

text: At Captivate 2011, Capcom's annual press show, the company announced that it was releasing "Dead Rising 2: Off the Record", as a reinterpretation of the game with Frank West from the original "Dead Rising" as the main character. The game was released for the same consoles on October 11 in North America, October 13 in Japan, and October 14 in Europe for a discount retail price.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Off the Record" is intended as a complete reimagining of "Dead Rising 2", with new missions, cutscenes, environments, enemies, and weapons. The photography mechanic from the first "Dead Rising" is also included. There are technical and system upgrades, such as optimization of loading times and improved network performance. "Off the Record" also features a new sandbox mode. This allows players to explore Fortune City without the obstacle of time. "Off The Record" has received mostly positive reviews, with the changes and additions both praised and panned.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: On September 13, 2016, Capcom re-released the game alongside "Dead Rising" and "" on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the game.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: GameZone gave the Xbox 360 version of the game a 6 out of 10, stating, "the lackluster presentation, uninspired story, outright broken multiplayer, and atrocious amount of glitches makes "Dead Rising 2" less of a flawed gem and more of a somewhat polished pile that incrementally smells worse the longer you let it sit in your disc drive."


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Game Informer gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, stating, "Even after playing for dozens of hours, you'll still find new things in "Dead Rising 2". I won't spoil anything, but there's a lot of variety to be found in the game beyond obvious things like the number of objects that can be used as bludgeons. This game is designed for multiple playthroughs, and I'm looking forward to each and every one of them."


title: Dead Rising 2

text: Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw listed "Dead Rising 2" in second place in his Top 5 games of 2010, praising it for correcting all of "Dead Rising"s issues, such as high difficulty, poor AI and the Combo Weapons mechanic.


title: Dead Rising 2

text: "Dead Rising 3" is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Capcom Vancouver and published by Microsoft Studios. The game was announced as an Xbox One launch title during Microsoft's E3 2013 press conference on June 10, 2013. It was released on November 22, 2013.


title: Askal

text: Aspin (portmanteau asong Pinoy), is the Tagalog language name for mongrel dogs in the Philippines. These dogs are either entirely descended from dogs that are indigenous to the Philippines, or are mixed-breed.


title: Askal

text: By the late 20th century, dogs commonly seen wandering the streets were called ""askal"", a Tagalog-derived portmanteau of "asong kalye", which literally means street dog. In 2007, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) suggested the alternative term ""aspin"", short for "asong Pinoy" (Pinoy dog) to avoid the stigma associated with the term ""askal"".


title: Askal

text: In Cebuano, dogs are called irong Bisaya, which literally means "Visayan dog" or "native dog", implying that these are not thought of as a mixed-breed dog so much as unbred mongrels with no purebred ancestors. This is only from a Visayan point of view since "irong Bisaya" does not differ in character or physical appearance from the other askals found in the Philippines. Physically, the dogs have "all shapes, configurations and sizes."


title: Askal

text: Aspins do not have clear lineages that contributed to what they look like today because they are bred from a diversity of mutts and mixed breeds that are roaming around Philippines streets. However, they have characteristics that distinctively identify them.


title: Askal

text: The coat can be short haired or rough. Coat colors ranges from Black, Brown, White ("commonly"), Red ("rare"), Brindle, Gray, and Cream. Spots are commonly found at the base of the tail and at the back in semi-circular fashion. The snout sometimes appears black if the coat color is brown. The tail is usually held high and the ears can be floppy, semi-floppy or fully pointing upwards. The bone structure of a native Askal is on the medium range, never heavy like in Rottweilers.


title: Askal

text: Askals is the Filipino word for stray mixed-breed, indigenous dogs. There are over twelve million strays in the Philippines. Many consider it a problem because these dogs can go without much food or shelter their entire lives. The term "askals" can also refer to a domesticated, indigenous mixed-breed dog. They have been raised traditionally as guard dogs. They are naturally suspicious of strangers, independent and protective of family members. They are good to young children as companions, due to their devotion to family members. They are trusted by their owners to roam markets or the neighborhood to socialize with other dogs which is why some domesticated dogs are seen by the Western people as stray dogs when in fact they may not be. They are, however, expected to be home before dusk, especially males who always look for females in heat. Female dogs usually stay home and are excellent watch dogs. Askals were allowed to compete in the First Philippine Dog Agility Championships in 2013. At the 2015 Pet Express Doggie Run in Pasay, askals were the featured dog. The dogs featured in an essay by Gilda Cordero-Fernando. Askals have been trained by the Coast Guard to identify bombs and drugs by scent.


title: Askal

text: The Philippines national football team has been named as "the Azkals", an alternate spelling of "askal".


title: Askal

text: This is also referenced in a satirical educational institution and Internet meme named the "International State College of the Philippines" as "'Blue Aspins"'


title: Plant milk

text: Plant milk is a plant beverage with a color resembling that of milk. Plant milks are non-dairy beverages made from a water-based plant extract for flavoring and aroma. Plant milks are consumed as alternatives to milk, and often provide a creamy mouthfeel. There are about 17 different types of plant milks; almond, oat, soy, and coconut are the highest-selling worldwide.


title: Plant milk

text: Production of plant-based milks, particularly soy and oat milks, can offer environmental advantages over animal milks in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use.


title: Plant milk

text: Plant-based beverages have been consumed for centuries, with the term "milk-like plant juices" used since the 13th century. Today they are frequently referred to as "plant-based milk", "alternative milk", "non-dairy milk" or "vegan milk". For commerce, plant-based beverages are typically packaged in containers similar and competitive to those used for dairy milk, but cannot be labeled as "milk" within the European Union.


title: Plant milk

text: Across various cultures, plant milk has been both a beverage and a flavourful ingredient in sweet and savory dishes, such as the use of coconut milk in curries. It is compatible with vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Plant milks are also used to make ice cream alternatives, plant cream, vegan cheese, and yogurt-analogues, such as soy yogurt. In 2021 the global plant milk market was estimated to reach 62billion by 2030.


title: Plant milk

text: Before commercial production of 'milks' from legumes, beans and nuts, plant-based mixtures resembling milk have existed for centuries. The Wabanaki and other Native American tribal nations in the northeastern United States made milk and infant formula from nuts.


title: Plant milk

text: Horchata, a beverage originally made in North Africa from soaked, ground, and sweetened tiger nuts, spread to Iberia (now Spain) before the year 1000. In English, the word "milk" has been used to refer to "milk-like plant juices" since 1200 CE.


title: Plant milk

text: Recipes from the 13th-century Levant exist describing almond milk. Soy was a plant milk used in China during the 14th century. In Medieval England, almond milk was used in dishes such as "ris alkere" (a type of rice pudding) and appears in the recipe collection, "The Forme of Cury". Coconut milk (and coconut cream) are traditional ingredients in many cuisines such as in South and Southeast Asia, and are often used in curries.


title: Plant milk

text: Plant milks may be regarded as milk substitutes in Western countries, but have traditionally been consumed in other parts of the world, especially ones where there are higher rates of lactose intolerance (see especially lactose intolerance: epidemiology section).


title: Plant milk

text: Common plant milks are almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, and soy milk. Other plant milks include hemp milk, oat milk, pea milk, and peanut milk.


title: Plant milk

text: A "blend" is a plant milk created by mixing two or more types together. Examples of blends are almond-coconut milk and almond-cashew milk.


title: Plant milk

text: Although there are variations in the manufacturing of plant milks according to the starting plant material, as an example, the general technique for soy milk involves several steps, including:


title: Plant milk

text: The actual content of the highlighted plant in commercial plant milks may be only around 2%. Other ingredients commonly added to plant milks during manufacturing include guar gum, xanthan gum, or sunflower lecithin for texture and mouthfeel, select micronutrients (such as calcium, B vitamins, and vitamin D), salt, and natural or artificial ingredients—such as flavours characteristic of the featured plant—for aroma, color, and taste. Plant milks are also used to make ice cream, plant cream, vegan cheese, and yogurt-analogues, such as soy yogurt.


title: Plant milk

text: The production of almond-based dairy substitutes has been criticized on environmental grounds as large amounts of water and pesticides are used. The emissions, land, and water footprints of plant milks vary, due to differences in crop water needs, farming practices, region of production, production processes, and transportation. Production of plant-based milks, particularly soy and oat milks, can offer environmental advantages over animal milks in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use.


title: Plant milk

text: Many plant milks aim to contain the same proteins, vitamins and lipids as those produced by lactating mammals. Generally, because plant milks are manufactured using processed extracts of the starting plant, plant milks are lower in nutrient density than dairy milk and are fortified during manufacturing to add precise levels of micronutrients, commonly calcium and Vitamins A and D. Animal milks are also commonly fortified, and many countries have laws mandating fortification of milk products with certain nutrients, commonly vitamins A and D.


title: Plant milk

text: Plant-based milks have emerged as an alternative to dairy in response to consumer dietary requests and changing attitudes about animals and the environment. Huffington Post stated that due to health and environmental reasons as well as changing consumer trends, more individuals regularly buy non-dairy alternatives to milk. Between 1974 and 2020, dairy milk consumption of people aged between 16 and 24 in the United Kingdom decreased from 94% to 73%. In Australia, there is decreased confidence within the dairy industry, with only 53% being optimistic in the future profitability and demand for dairy products as per a Dairy Australia report.


title: Plant milk

text: To improve competition, plant milks are typically packaged in containers similar to those of dairy milks. A scientific journal article argued that plant-milk companies send the message that plant milks are 'good and wholesome' and dairy milk is 'bad for the environment', and the article also reported that an increasing number of young people associate dairy with environmental damage. There has been an increased concern that dairy production has adverse effects on biodiversity, water and land use. These negative links between dairy and the environment have also been communicated through audiovisual material against dairy production, such as 'Cowspiracy' and 'What the Health'. Animal welfare concerns have also contributed to the declining popularity of dairy milk in many Western countries. Advertising for plant milks may also contrast the intensive farming effort to produce dairy milk with the relative ease of harvesting plant sources, such as oats, rice or soybeans. In 2021, an advertisement for oat milk brand Oatly aired during the Super Bowl.


title: Plant milk

text: In the United States, plant milk sales grew steadily by 61% over the period 2012 to 2018. As of 2019, the plant-based milk industry in the USA is worth $1.8 billion per year. In 2018, the value of 'dairy alternatives' around the world was said to be $8 billion. Among plant milks, almond (64% market share), soy (13% market share), and coconut (12% market share) were category leaders in the United States during 2018. Oat milk sales increased by 250% in Canada during 2019, and its growing consumption in the United States and United Kingdom led to production shortages from unprecedented consumer demand. In 2020, one major coffee retailer – Starbucks – added oat milk, coconut milk, and almond milk beverages to its menus in the United States and Canada. During 2020, oat milk sales in the United States increased to $213 million, becoming the second most consumed plant milk after almond milk ($1.5 billion in 2020 sales).


title: Plant milk

text: A key dietary reason for the increase in popularity of plant-based milks such as pea milks is lactose intolerance, for example, the most common food causing intolerance in Australia is lactose and affects 4.5% of the population. In the United States, around 40 million people are lactose intolerant.


title: Plant milk

text: Plant milks may be labeled to highlight their nutrient contents, or with terms reflecting their composition or absence of ingredients, such as "dairy-free", "gluten-free" or "GMO-free".


title: Plant milk

text: Manufacturers and distributors of animal milk have advocated that plant-based milk not be labelled as "milk". They complain that consumers may be confused between the two, and that plant-based milks are not necessarily as nutritious in terms of vitamins and minerals.


title: Plant milk

text: In December 2013, European Union regulations stated that the terms "milk", "butter", "cheese", "cream" and "yoghurt" can only be used to market and advertise products derived from animal milk, with a small number of exceptions including coconut milk, peanut butter and ice cream. In 2017, the Landgericht Trier (Trier regional court), Germany, asked the Court of Justice of the European Union, to clarify European food-labeling law (Case C-422/16), with the court stating that plant-based products cannot be marketed as milk, cream, butter, cheese or yoghurt within the European Union because these are reserved for animal products; exceptions to this do not include tofu and soy. Although plant-based dairy alternatives are not allowed to be called "milk", "cheese" and the like, they are allowed to be described as buttery or creamy. In the United Kingdom, strict standards are applied to food labeling for terms such as milk, cheese, cream, yogurt, which are protected to describe dairy products and may not be used to describe non-dairy produce. However, there are exceptions for each of the EU languages, based on established use of livestock terms for non-livestock products. The list's extent varies widely; for example there is only one exception in Polish, and 20 exceptions in English.


title: Plant milk

text: A proposal for further restrictions failed at second reading in the European Parliament, in May 2021. The proposal, called Amendment 171, would have outlawed labels including 'yogurt-style' and 'cheese alternative'.


title: Plant milk

text: In the United States, the dairy industry petitioned the FDA to ban the use of terms like "milk", "cheese", "cream" and "butter" on plant-based analogues (except for peanut butter). FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, stated on July 17, 2018 that the term "milk" is used imprecisely in the labeling of non-dairy beverages, such as soy milk, oat milk and almond milk: "An almond doesn't lactate", he said. In 2019, the US National Milk Producers Federation petitioned the FDA to restrict labeling of plant-based milks, claiming they should be described as "imitation". In response, the Plant-Based Foods Association stated the word "imitation" was disparaging, and there was no evidence that consumers were misled or confused about plant-based milks. A 2018 survey by the International Food Information Council Foundation found that consumers in the United States do not typically confuse plant-based analogues with animal milk or dairy products. As of 2021, though the USDA is investigating and various state legislatures are considering regulation, various courts have determined that reasonable consumers are not confused, and the FDA has enacted no regulations against plant-based milk labels.


title: Plant milk

text: In 2021, the FDA issued a final rule that amends yogurt's standard of identity (which remains a product of "milk-derived ingredients"), and is expecting to issue industry guidance on "Labeling of Plant-based Milk Alternatives" in 2022.


title: Plant milk

text: Proponents of plant-based milk assert that these labeling requirements are infantilizing to consumers and burdensome and unfair on dairy-alternatives. Critics of the FDA's labeling requirements also note that there is often collusion between government officials and the dairy industry in an attempt to maintain dairy dominance in the market. For example, in 2017, Senator Tammy Baldwin's (WI) introduced the "Defending Against Imitations and Replacements of Yogurt, Milk, and Cheese to Promote Regular Intake of Dairy Everyday (DAIRY PRIDE) Act" which would prevent almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk from being labeled with terms like milk, yogurt, and cheese. Proponents of plant-based dairy alternatives note that dairy sales are decreasing faster than plant sales are increasing and that therefore, attacking plant milks as being the chief reason for a decline in dairy consumption is inaccurate. A 2020 USDA study found that the "increase in sales over 2013 to 2017 of plant-based options is one-fifth the size of the decrease in Americans' purchases of cow's milk."


The United States Penitentiary, Florence High (USP Florence High) is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Colorado. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. USP Florence High is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence (FCC Florence), which is situated on of land and houses different facilities with varying degrees of security. It is named "Florence High" in order to differentiate it from the United States Penitentiary, Florence ADMAX, the federal supermax prison located in the same complex.


title: United States Penitentiary, Florence High

text: USP Florence High was built in 1993 in response to the growing need for a place to house high-security federal inmates. It was designed by DLR Group, an architectural firm specializing in correctional facilities. Before the complex was built, the city of Florence was experiencing an economic crisis with an unemployment rate of 17%. When the citizens were polled by mail about building the complex in Florence, 97% of respondents were in favor of the project. It was estimated that the Florence Federal Correctional Complex was going to provide about 1,000 temporary jobs and 900 permanent jobs. In anticipation of these jobs the community raised $160,000 to purchase the needed to build the prisons.


text: USP Florence High housed 816 male inmates as of December 2019, and is about . A perimeter fence, seven guard towers, and a patrol road ensure the security of the prison. The prison includes health services, educational program areas, visitation, laundry, a barbershop, commissary, chapel, Special Housing Unit (SHU), and an exercise area. The prison also contains a step-down unit for inmates of ADX Florence. Inmates will still spend roughly 22 hours of their day in their cells; however, they are kept in a less restrictive environment in which interaction among inmates is acceptable and encouraged. From there, they will either be transferred to the general population unit in Florence High or to a different federal prison.


text: In 2000, seven federal correctional officers whom the union called "The Cowboys" were charged with committing misconduct which occurred between January 1995 and July 1997, which included beating and choking handcuffed inmates, mixing waste into the inmates' food, and threatening other officers who objected to their actions. The case went to trial in 2003, and three of the officers, Mike Lavallee, Rod Schultz, and Robert Verbickas, were convicted of violating the civil rights of inmate Pedro Castillo by beating him while he was in restraints. Lavallee and Schultz were also convicted of engaging in a conspiracy to commit civil rights violations. All three were sentenced to prison terms.


text: On October 10, 1999, inmates William Concepcion Sablan and Rudy Cabrera Sablan were accused of the murder of fellow inmate Joey Jesus Estrella. The three inmates were seen drinking "hooch" together, and they were heard fighting throughout the night. Both William and Rudy Sablan were found with the disembowled corpse of Estrella in their cell the next morning. Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty against both William and Rudy Sablan, who are cousins; however, due to William Sablan's extensive record of mental illness and brain damage, they were both given life sentences for the murder and moved into ADX Florence. Today William Sablan is housed at USP Allenwood and Rudy Sablan is housed at USP Hazleton.


text: In 2008, inmate Gary Douglas Watland, who was serving a combined 55-year state sentence for the murder of a friend and attempting to escape the Maine State Prison, was accused of killing fellow inmate Mark Baker, a member of the Nazi Lowriders gang. Watland sneaked up on Baker while he was playing poker and stabbed him in the neck with a homemade knife. Watland stated the attack was a "kill or be killed situation", as he had recently come out of the closet in prison. Baker's gang was known to attack homosexuals in prison. Watland subsequently accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is currently serving his sentence at ADX Florence.


text: On April 20, 2008 a 30-minute riot occurred between a large number of inmates in the recreation yard, during which several inmates were stabbed with homemade knives known as "shanks." Correction officers who were posted on watch towers shot and killed two of the armed inmates. The incident began after white supremacist prisoners celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday began yelling racial epithets at black prisoners. The white supremacists were drinking hooch, a form of homemade wine, and were armed with rocks and improvised weapons. Approximately 200 prisoners were involved in the melee.


text: On December 6, 2021, inmate Jamarr Thompson, 33, was killed after he was involved in an altercation with another inmate. Thompson was serving a 63-month sentence for an attempted bank robbery. This was the third murder in a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) institution in the past one month, the other two occurring at USP Canaan and USP Tucson, respectively. This incident heightened concerns about the rising level of violence within BOP prisons. It also intensified chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin's request to the Attorney General to fire BOP chairman Michael Carvajal, citing failure to respond adequately to rising levels of violence within federal prisons and corruption among BOP staff.


title: Class of 1984

text: Class of 1984 is a 1982 crime action thriller film directed by Mark Lester and co-written by Tom Holland and John Saxton, based on a story by Holland. The film stars Perry King, Merrie Lynn Ross (who also served as co-executive producer), Timothy Van Patten, Lisa Langlois, Stefan Arngrim, Michael J. Fox (credited as Michael Fox in an early role shortly before his breakthrough on the television series "Family Ties"), and Roddy McDowall.


title: Class of 1984

text: The film used the punk look and image that was becoming popular in the early 1980s. The theme song, "I Am the Future", was performed by Alice Cooper. The film also features a performance by Canadian punk band Teenage Head.


title: Class of 1984

text: Andrew Norris is the new music teacher at a troubled inner city school. As he arrives on his first day, he meets fellow teacher Terry Corrigan, who is carrying a gun. When Andrew asks about the firearm, Terry assures him he will learn why the protection is necessary. When they enter the school, Andrew is shocked to see everyone scanned by metal detectors and frisked. He spots a student sneak a straight razor through the metal detector, but the security guards ignore it because they are so overworked.


title: Class of 1984

text: The halls of the school are covered with graffiti. Andrew learns he is expected to patrol the halls as a security guard during his off periods. In his first class, a group of five disruptive students are roughhousing and causing trouble. The leader of the gang is Peter Stegman, the only member of the group who is actually registered in that class. They all eventually walk out after Andrew demands they do so, and Andrew discovers the rest of the students actually want to learn, especially Arthur, who plays the trumpet, and Deneen, who plays the clarinet.


title: Class of 1984

text: As Andrew gets to know the school and the area, he decides that he wants to put together an orchestra with his more advanced students. Peter's gang sells drugs and cause all kinds of mayhem throughout the school and the city. They follow Andrew home and prank him and his wife one night.


title: Class of 1984

text: Andrew is confronted with more and more evidence of Peter's crimes. A drug deal done between a student and Peter's gang almost goes wrong when Andrew abruptly enters, but finds no proof that drugs were being dealt by the gang. The student who bought the drugs, while high, climbs up a flagpole and falls to his death. Andrew asks Arthur if Stegman sold the drugs to the deceased student, but Arthur refuses to give any information. The gang observe Andrew and Arthur conversing and believe the latter to have informed on them. Later, the gang harass Deneen and Arthur and chase them into an alleyway. Andrew and Terry stumble upon the situation, and are assaulted by the gang.


title: Class of 1984

text: Eventually, after Peter kills Terry's animals in his lab, Andrew and Peter wind up in a bathroom alone together. Peter throws himself into a mirror and beats himself, falsely claiming that Andrew attacked him. Andrew is charged with assault afterwards. Trying to clear things up, Andrew visits Peter's mother at home. Frustrated when Peter still plays the victim and his mother will not hear Andrew out, he hotwires Peter's car and drives it into a wall. During lunch, the gang plots an attack on Arthur. They have their friend Vinnie stab Arthur, and start a food fight in order to divert attention. Arthur is sent to a hospital afterwards. Vinnie is arrested and held in a youth detention center. Terry is driven insane after the incident with the animals in his lab, resulting in him almost shooting Peter in the head point-blank during a lecture and is later killed after crashing his car when trying to kill Peter and the others.


title: Class of 1984

text: Andrew's orchestra is about to give its first concert. As his wife, Diane, gets ready at home, Peter's gang breaks into the house and gang-rapes her. One of them takes a Polaroid of her being raped and has it delivered to Andrew on the podium, just as he is about to start the concert. Horrified by the photo, he runs off the podium in pursuit of Peter's gang. Andrew and the gang chase each other through the school. Andrew kills them off one by one, and finally confronts Peter on the roof. Their last scuffle ends with Peter falling through a skylight, hanging on to a few ropes. Peter feigns remorse and asks Andrew to help him up, who gives his hand. Peter spitefully waves his knife at Andrew, who angrily punches him off the ropes to his death. Peter falls through the skylight and is strangled to death in the ropes above the stage, in full view of the audience. Andrew is never charged because the police could not find a witness to the crime.


title: Class of 1984

text: When it was originally released, the film was banned in several countries due to its lewd content. In the United Kingdom, it received four minutes and fourteen seconds of cuts from the British Board of Film Classification, and was refused a video certificate four years later. It was finally passed fully uncut in 2005. In Finland, the theatrical version was banned in 1983 – the case went up to the Supreme Administrative Court – and an edited video release was similarly banned in 1984. In 2006, an uncut DVD release was approved with an “18” rating.


title: Class of 1984

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 71% based on 21 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.2/10. Metacritic gave the film a score of 49 based on 11 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Class of 1984

text: Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin described the movie as an "[u]npleasant, calculatedly campy melodrama. ... Still, not bad as revenge movies go." He further characterized the picture as a loose remake of "The Blackboard Jungle", with King, Van Patten, and Fox in the roles of Glenn Ford, Vic Morrow, and Sidney Poitier, respectively.


title: Class of 1984

text: In the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert wrote: ""Class of 1984" is raw, offensive, vulgar, and violent, but it contains the sparks of talent and wit, and it is acted and directed by people who cared to make it special."


title: Class of 1984

text: Shout Factory's horror division Scream Factory released the film as a Collector's Edition Blu-ray on April 14, 2015.


title: Class of 1984

text: Comedy writer and producer Tom Scharpling has noted that "Class of 1984" is one of his favorite films. Scharpling would often reference the movie on his weekly call-in radio program "The Best Show on WFMU".


title: Class of 1984

text: The film spawned two science fiction sequels. "Class of 1999" (1990) also was directed by Mark Lester. "" (1994) was released direct-to-video by Vidmark Entertainment. The three movies have plots only loosely related to each other.


title: Class of 1984

text: When the musicians Layne Staley and Tom Morello decided to join efforts to record a song for the soundtrack of the movie The Faculty (released December 25, 1998 in North America and 1999 in the rest of the world) they named this supergroup Class of '99.


title: UFC 249

text: UFC 249: Ferguson vs. Gaethje was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that took place on May 9, 2020 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It was originally planned to take place on April 18 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was eventually postponed "(see section below)". On April 21, the UFC confirmed that UFC 249 would be moved to May 9 and take place in Florida.


title: UFC 249

text: A UFC Lightweight Championship bout between the former champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and former interim champion Tony Ferguson (also welterweight winner) was slated to headline this event. The pairing had previously been scheduled and cancelled for various reasons on four occasions (, , UFC 209 and UFC 223) over the last four years. The bout was cancelled for a fifth time due to issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic "(see section below)".


title: UFC 249

text: A featherweight bout between Jeremy Stephens and Calvin Kattar was expected to take place at UFC 248. However, Stephens was removed from the card in mid-January with an injury. The pairing was rescheduled for this event.


title: UFC 249

text: A heavyweight bout between Shamil Abdurakhimov and Ciryl Gane was scheduled for the event. However, it was announced on March 5 that Gane was forced to pull out of the event after he was struck by a pneumothorax in training and the bout was eventually scrapped.


title: UFC 249

text: A welterweight bout between former Bellator Welterweight Champion Lyman Good and Belal Muhammad was scheduled for this event. The pairing was previously expected to meet at UFC 205 in November 2016, but Good was pulled from that event after being notified by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) due to a potential anti-doping violation stemming from an out-of-competition drug test. However, Good pulled out due to injury on April 4 and the bout was scrapped. It was announced on April 20 that Good actually tested positive for COVID-19, being the first fighter to publicly acknowledge the fact.


title: UFC 249

text: A women's strawweight rematch between former UFC Women's Strawweight Champions Jéssica Andrade and Rose Namajunas was expected to co-headline the event. The pairing previously met at UFC 237 in May 2019, where Andrade won via second round TKO to capture the title. However, Namajunas pulled out on April 8 due to personal reasons, with her manager citing a pair of deaths in the family related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason.


title: UFC 249

text: On March 12, New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued an order restricting mass gatherings and sporting events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four days later, UFC president Dana White announced via a letter to employees shared to the public that this event "is still scheduled as planned, but the location may change". On March 18, the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) announced that the event would not be sanctioned to take place at the event's original site, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. On March 23, White revealed that he already had a new location for this event, but would only confirm that it will be held behind closed doors. White subsequently added on March 25 that the card could feature a different lineup, depending on the logistics.


title: UFC 249

text: Khabib Nurmagomedov stated on March 30 that he was in Dagestan and his participation at the event could be jeopardized due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated on April 1 that he would probably not be competing at the event and reinforced that people should be in quarantine anyhow. He later confirmed that he would compete if a location was given and they were able to move him there, but did not see it happening.


title: UFC 249

text: The UFC announced on April 6 that Nurmagomedov would be replaced by former WSOF Lightweight Champion Justin Gaethje, with an interim title to be disputed between him and Tony Ferguson. The rest of the card also underwent changes, with the following fights being added as well:


title: UFC 249

text: The following fights were removed from the event and are expected to be rescheduled for future cards:


title: UFC 249

text: A location for the event was not revealed, but Dana White said the UFC's temporary home would host U.S.-based fighters who aren't barred from traveling domestically. On April 7, Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Halsey Beshears made a post on Twitter, offering to help sanction and host UFC events in the state. It was later revealed that the event was expected to take place at Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, California, the site of several events for the defunct World Extreme Cagefighting and Tachi Palace Fights promotions.


title: UFC 249

text: On April 9, White announced that this event would not take place as scheduled and all other UFC events would be suspended until further notice, citing interventions from high-ranking staff of the UFC's U.S. media rightsholders, ESPN Inc. and parent The Walt Disney Company. It was later revealed that the 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom, influenced the decision of cancelling the event.


title: UFC 249

text: The promotion originally planned UFC 250 to take place at Ginásio do Ibirapuera in São Paulo, Brazil on May 9. On April 7, it was announced that the venue would be used as a field hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and would not be able to host the fight card.


title: UFC 249

text: A UFC Bantamweight Championship bout between the current champion Henry Cejudo (also former UFC Flyweight Champion and 2008 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling) and former WEC and two-time UFC Featherweight Champion José Aldo was expected to serve as that event's headliner. However, Aldo withdrew on April 8 due to visa issues as the event was expected to be moved to the United States. While not officially announced by the promotion at the time, former two-time bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz (who hadn't fought since December 2016) was expected to replace him.


title: UFC 249

text: A UFC Women's Featherweight Championship bout between the current champion Amanda Nunes (also the current UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion) and former Invicta FC Featherweight Champion Felicia Spencer was expected to serve as the co-headliner. Nunes announced on April 20 that she would not compete on this date due to her desire to have a full training camp.


title: UFC 249

text: Due to the event being expected to be relocated to the United States, several changes were made due to fighters being unable to compete due to visa issues:


title: UFC 249

text: On April 21, it was announced that the UFC moved UFC 249 to the new date, marking the promotion's return after the first wave of cancellations, most likely in Florida. Florida venues are permitted to host UFC events behind closed doors as a result of Executive Order 20-91 signed April 9, 2020 by governor Ron DeSantis, specifically stating as an essential service, "employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience - including any athletes, entertainers, production team, executive team, media team and any others necessary to facilitate including services supporting such production - only if the location is closed to the general public." They confirmed the new card on April 24, with the Ferguson vs. Gaethje bout still scheduled to serve as the event headliner. The organization also announced that it would host two other events on and , both in Jacksonville. The rest of the card featured the following fights:


title: UFC 249

text: Fights that were originally expected to take place at this event on April 18, but later expected to be rescheduled for future cards included Hernandez vs. Morales, Vera vs. Borg, Worthy vs. Johnson and a women's bantamweight bout between Sijara Eubanks and Sarah Moras.


title: UFC 249

text: At the weigh-ins, Jeremy Stephens weighed in at 150.5 pounds, four and a half pounds over the featherweight non-title fight limit. He was fined 30% of his purse and his bout with Calvin Kattar proceeded at a catchweight. Additionally, a middleweight bout between former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Ronaldo Souza and Uriah Hall was cancelled after Souza and two of his cornermen tested positive for COVID-19.


title: UFC 249

text: The following is the reported payout to the fighters as reported to the Florida State Boxing Commission. It does not include sponsor money and also does not include the UFC's traditional "fight night" bonuses. The total disclosed payout for the event was $3,557,000.


title: UFC 249

text: During the broadcast, it was announced that former UFC Welterweight and Middleweight Champion Georges St-Pierre would be inducted into the Modern Wing of the UFC Hall of Fame.


title: Disjointed

text: Disjointed is an American television sitcom created by David Javerbaum and Chuck Lorre and starring Kathy Bates. Twenty episodes of the series were ordered from Warner Bros. by Netflix, with the first 10 episodes premiering on August 25, 2017. The last 10 episodes were released on January 12, 2018. On February 14, 2018, Netflix canceled the series. It is noteworthy as their first original multi-cam sitcom.


title: Disjointed

text: After decades of advocating for legalized cannabis usage, Ruth Whitefeather Feldman (Kathy Bates) employs her newly graduated son and a team of young budtenders to help run her Los Angeles cannabis dispensary. Along the way, Ruth and the team run into "highs" and lows. Delving into marijuana history, activism, 4/20, misconceptions about stoners, and the personal lives of the whole team, the show touches on serious issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and highlights the medicinal benefits of the marijuana plant.


title: Disjointed

text: On Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 43 out of 100, based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Like a G6

text: "Like a G6" is a 2010 song written and performed by Far East Movement, The Cataracs, and Dev, released as the lead single from Far East Movement's third studio album "Free Wired". Produced by The Cataracs, the track reached number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 for three non-consecutive weeks, becoming the first single by Asian-American artists to do so and the first by any artists of East Asian origin since Kyu Sakamoto's 1963 single "Sukiyaki". Outside of the United States, "Like a G6" topped the chart in New Zealand and peaked within the top 10 of the charts in Australia, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom.


title: Like a G6

text: Dev's vocals in "Like a G6" are sampled from her previous song "Booty Bounce", another song written and produced by the Cataracs. The "G6" in the song came about when the Cataracs were looking for a rhyme for the line "Sippin' sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6", a reference to the 2000 song "Sippin' on Some Syrup" by rap group Three 6 Mafia. They settled on "G6", meant to be a reference to the private airplane model Gulfstream IV, referred to as a "G4". The G4 had been name-checked in songs such as Drake's 2009 "Forever". A G6, they decided, was "flyer than a G4", according to Far East Movement member Kev Nish. The song has been incorrectly speculated to be about other things, including the Pontiac G6 and the Suunto G6 watch. When the song came out, the Gulfstream G650 model already existed, although the song's writers were not aware of this at the time. Since then, the Gulfstream G600 has also been announced.


title: Like a G6

text: The music video, which was directed by Matt Alonzo premiered on YouTube and Vevo on June 2, 2010. The line "sippin' sizzurp" and the word "slizzered" are censored on some channels. It follows a woman in a red dress (Erica Ocampo) picking up a friend from a restaurant and going to a liquor store, presumably in preparation for a party. A later scene shows the woman and her friends at the party, Colette Carr also make a cameo, Dev, The Cataracs and the members of Far East Movement can also be seen in this party scene. The final scene shows the members of Far East Movement getting on a Gulfstream IV the next morning. The music video was produced by Skee.TV (Producers: Satien Mehta, Mike Busalacchi)


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Jake Shimabukuro (born November 3, 1976) is a Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso and composer known for his fast and complex finger work. His music combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco. Shimabukuro has written numerous original compositions, including the entire soundtracks to two Japanese films, "Hula Girls" (2007) and "Saidoweizu" (2009), the Japanese remake of "Sideways".


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Well known in Hawai’i and Japan during his early solo career in the early 2000s, Shimabukuro became famous internationally in 2006, when a video of him playing a virtuosic rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was posted on YouTube without his knowledge and became one of the first viral videos on that site. His concert engagements, collaborations with well-known musicians, media appearances, and music production have snowballed since then. In 2012, an award-winning documentary was released tracking his life, career, and music, titled "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings"; it has screened in a variety of festivals, aired repeatedly on PBS, and been released on DVD.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother gave him a ukulele at age four and he quickly took an interest in the instrument, playing it many hours a day. His mother, an accomplished ukulele player and singer, was his first teacher, and he also took lessons for seven years under Tami Akiyami at Roy Sakuma Studios.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: A fifth-generation Japanese-American, Shimabukuro initially gained attention in Hawaii in 1998 as a member of Pure Heart, a trio with Lopaka Colón (percussion) and Jon Yamasato (guitar/vocals). Shimabukuro was working at a music store in Honolulu when the group released its eponymous first album, which won them four Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (the Hawaiian counterpart of the Grammy Awards) from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts: Island Contemporary Album of the Year, Most Promising Artist(s), Album of the Year, and Favorite Entertainment of the Year, the latter determined by unrestricted public vote. The album, "Pure Heart", was also named one of the Top 50 Hawaiian albums of all time by "Honolulu Magazine".


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: The following year, they released "Pure Heart 2", which earned them another Hoku award for Island Contemporary Album of the Year. Yamasato left the group, and Shimabukuro and Colón formed another group, Colón, named in honor of Colón's father, famed percussionist Augie Colón. The new guitarist/vocalist to replace Yamasato was Guy Cruz, and Andrew McLellan joined on bass. The new group Colón released one album, "The Groove Machine" (2000), and won the Hoku Award for Favorite Entertainer of the Year in 2001.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro decided to pursue a solo career as Colón disbanded in early 2002. With the help of his newly acquired manager, Japanese native Kazusa Flanagan, in June 2002 he became the first Hawaii artist to sign a recording contract with Epic Records International, a division of Sony Music Japan International. Shimabukuro toured extensively in Japan – a practice he still continues – and from the start his albums received extensive airplay on various Japanese radio stations. He has also released numerous Japan-only CDs: "Skyline" (2002), "Haruyo Koi" (2007), "Yeah" (2008), "Ichigo Ichie" (2008), "Annon" (2009), "The Music of Sideways" (2009), "Across the Universe" (2009), "Aloha To You" (2011), "Ukulele X: 10th Anniversary Collection" (2011), "Ukulele Disney" (2012). In 2008, a 120-page biographical photo-book on Shimabukuro was published in Japan.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Sony Japan, however, only releases Shimabukuro's music in Japan, and to release the music in Hawaii, he created the Hitchhike Records label. Between 2002 and 2005, Shimabukuro released four U.S. albums as a solo performer: "Sunday Morning" (2002), "Crosscurrent" (2003), "Walking Down Rainhill" (2004), and "Dragon" (2005). All of them except "Dragon" won both Na Hoku Awards and Hawaii Music Awards, and "Dragon" won the Hawaii Music Award for Best Rock Album and peaked at #5 on "Billboard"'s Top World Music Albums in 2005. As a solo artist, Shimabukuro experimented with using effect pedals to make new sounds that few would associate with an ukulele.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: In 2005, he secured a nationwide U.S. distribution deal for his Hitchhike Records label, which had previously been confined to the Hawaii market. In 2005 he also did his first nationwide mainland U.S. concert tour, and released a DVD of instructional segments, concert footage, and interviews called "Play Loud Ukulele".


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: In April 2006, Shimabukuro came to national and international attention when, unbeknownst to him, someone posted a virtuosic video of him playing George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on YouTube. The video, which had originally been filmed for a New York television show called "Midnight Ukulele Disco", quickly went viral, and has received over 15 million views. The video performance resulted in a huge increase in concert engagements, and Shimabukuro received collaboration requests from notable musicians including Jimmy Buffett, Béla Fleck, Ziggy Marley, Cyndi Lauper, Keali'i Reichel, and Yo-Yo Ma. He toured with Buffett in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and is featured on several of Buffett's albums and videos, including his 2007 CD/DVD release "Live in Anguilla". Shimabukuro also began receiving many invitations to perform on major U.S. talk shows and other well-known media ventures, and began touring worldwide eight or nine months a year.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro released his fifth U.S. album, "Gently Weeps", in September 2006. The album peaked at #2 on "Billboard"'s Top World Music Albums in 2006, and won the 2007 Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Instrumental Album of the Year. Also in 2006, he composed the music to the Japanese film "Hula Girls", which featured hula dancing and a Hawaiian spa resort as its primary theme and setting.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: In 2009, Shimabukuro released his concert CD, "Live", which captures him in performance at various venues around the world: New York, Chicago, Japan, and Hawaii. It peaked at number 5 in "Billboard"'s Top World Music Albums in 2009 and 2010, won the Hoku for Instrumental Album of the Year, garnered Shimabukuro the award for Favorite Entertainer of the Year, and won the Hawaii Music Award for Best Ukulele Album. In November 2009, he accompanied fellow Hawaii-born Bette Midler at the "Royal Variety Performance". They performed a rendition of the Beatles song "In My Life" as the first of Midler's three-song set, and afterwards they met Queen Elizabeth and shook her hand.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: "Peace Love Ukulele", Shimabukuro's 2011 CD, reached #1 in "Billboard"'s Top World Music Albums in 2011 and 2012. It won the 2012 Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Instrumental Album of the Year, and also garnered Shimabukuro the Na Hoku Hanohano award for Favorite Entertainer of the Year. Shimabukuro created an original piece "Ukulele Five-O" as part of the soundtrack for the new "Hawaii Five-0" television series. He capped off 2011 with several live performances on the New Year's Eve episode of "A Prairie Home Companion", broadcast live from Hawaii.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro's 2012 album, "Grand Ukulele", was produced by music producer/engineer Alan Parsons, at Parsons' request. It features a 29-piece orchestra and a rhythm section, with the ukulele soloing, and was recorded live with no over-dubbing. The album has reached #2 in "Billboard"'s Top World Music Albums.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: In 2012, a one-hour documentary film about Shimabukuro's life and career was released, titled "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings". The film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Ashland Independent Film Festival, the Audience Award for Best Documentary Film and the Best Editor award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, the Honorable Mention for Best Documentary Feature at the Urbanworld Film Festival, and the Best Medium Length/Essay Award at the DocuWest International Documentary Film Festival. The film aired nationally on PBS in May 2013. It was released on DVD July 2013.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: On February 14, 2020, Shimabukuro released his album "Trio" through Music Theories Recordings, which landed at No. 1 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. That same year Shimabukuro announced his latest studio project, "Jake & Friends", but its release was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 9th, 2021, he released the first two songs from the album: "Two High" with Moon Taxi, and "Stardust" with Willie Nelson. The full album was released on November 12, 2021, and also features collaborations with Bette Midler, Warren Haynes, and more.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: On June 23, 2021, Shimabukuro was nominated by president Joe Biden to be a Member of the National Council on the Arts.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro has appeared and performed in a number of media outlets, including "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (2005, 2008), "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (twice in 2011), "Last Call With Carson Daly" (2007), "The Today Show" (2013), "Musicians@Google", and several TED conferences including TED2010, TEDxSanDiego, TEDxTokyo, TEDxHongKong, and TEDxHonolulu. He has been featured on "A Prairie Home Companion", NPR’s "Morning Edition" and "World Cafe", Public Radio International’s "The World", "Whad'Ya Know?", PRX's Echoes, and "The Bob Edwards Show" on XM Satellite Radio.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro was featured on the January 15, 2012, episode of CNN's "The Next List". In March 2012 the documentary by Tadashi Nakamura on his life and career was released, "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings", and it subsequently aired repeatedly on PBS.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro plays a custom-made 4 string tenor ukulele from Kamaka Ukulele. Early in his career he experimented with the use of effect pedals, but for the last eight years has relied on the natural sounds of the ukulele and avoided sound manipulation. For his Grand Ukulele Tour, he has added the use of a couple of effects pedals to his show. One of them is used to take a sound sample that he loops and accompanies.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro was for many years the key spokesperson and then also director of the Music Is Good Medicine non-profit organization. It used community outreach programs and performance visits to schools, senior centers, and hospitals to promote healing and encourage a healthy lifestyle and a connection to music. He has also done several performances in tsunami-devastated Sendai, Japan in order to bring peace and respite to the distraught and newly homeless residents' lives.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Following the dissolution of the Music Is Good Medicine program, Shimabukuro founded his own non-profit organization, the Four Strings Foundation, in 2013. It creates music education workshops nationwide and provides ukuleles, materials, and training tools to schools and music teachers. It also hosts concerts and publishes music media, lobbies to increase music education, encourages schools to make music programs culturally relevant, conducts research in music education and children's social/emotional learning, and provides funding for music education in schools nationwide.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro stated: "The Four Strings Foundation was created as a vehicle to give people opportunities to make a difference. My primary focus is to inspire kids through music to help them discover their passion in life. The message is simple – strive to be the best, live drug-free and have fun." The mission statement of Four Strings is: "To create new opportunities for people of all ages to participate in the act of making music and to use those experiences as a vehicle to promote personal empowerment and fulfillment."


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro married OB/GYN physician Kelly Yamasato in May 2011. They have a son, Chase, born in August 2012.


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Jake's brother, Bruce Shimabukuro, is also a well known ukulele player in his own right; he teaches ukulele and has released albums of his own. Bruce accompanies his brother on guitar on a track on "My Life", and composed one of the tracks, "Ukulele Bros.," on "Peace Love Ukulele".


title: Jake Shimabukuro

text: Shimabukuro's career-long manager was Kazusa Flanagan, a native of Japan who moved to Hawaii in 1992.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: Michael O'Donoghue (January 5, 1940 – November 8, 1994) was an American writer and performer. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, was a major contributor to "National Lampoon" magazine, and was the first head writer of "Saturday Night Live". He was also the first performer to utter a line on that series.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue was born Michael Henry Donohue in Sauquoit, New York. His father, Michael, worked as an engineer, while his mother, Barbara, stayed home to raise him.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue's early career included work as a playwright and stage actor at the University of Rochester where he drifted in and out of school beginning in 1959. His first published writing appeared in the school's humor magazine "Ugh!"


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: After a brief time working as a writer in San Francisco, California, O'Donoghue returned to Rochester and participated in regional theater. During this period, he formed a group called Bread and Circuses specifically to perform his early plays which were of an experimental nature and often quite disturbing to the local audience. Among these are an absurdist work exploring themes of Sadism entitled "The Twilight Maelstrom of Cookie Lavagetto", a cycle of one-act plays called "Le Theatre de Malaise" and the 1964 dark satire "The Death of JFK".


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: His first work of greater note was the picaresque feature "The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist", published as a serial in "Evergreen Review". This was an erotic satire of the comic book genre, later released in revised and expanded form as a book by that magazine's publisher, Grove Press. Drawn by Frank Springer, the comic detailed the adventures of debutante Phoebe Zeit-Geist as she was variously kidnapped and rescued by a series of bizarre Inuit, Nazis, Chinese foot fetishists, lesbian assassins and other characters. "Doonesbury" comic-strip creator Garry Trudeau cited the strip as an early inspiration, saying, "[A] very heavy influence was a serial in the Sixties called 'Phoebe Zeitgeist'. . . . It was an absolutely brilliant, deadpan send-up of adventure comics, but with a very edgy modernist kind of approach. To this day, I hold virtually every panel in my brain. It's very hard not to steal from it."


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: In 1968, O'Donoghue worked with illustrator and fellow "Evergreen Review" veteran Phil Wende to create the illustrated book "The Incredible, Thrilling Adventures of the Rock". Biographer Dennis Perrin described it as having "no plot. The same rock sits in the same spot in the same forest for thousands of years. Nothing much happens. Then, while two boys roam the wood in search of a Christmas tree, one sees the rock and is inspired."


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: Taking the idea to the publisher Random House, the pair sold the book to the young editor Christopher Cerf. Cerf was a former member of the "Harvard Lampoon", and O'Donoghue's first acquaintance from that group. Through Cerf, O'Donoghue would meet George W. S. Trow and other former "Lampoon" writers looking to start a national comedy magazine.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: In 1969, O'Donoghue and Trow co-wrote the script for the James Ivory / Ismail Merchant film "Savages". This film tells the story of a tribe of prehistoric "Mud People" who happen upon a deserted Gatsby-esque 1930s manor house. The Mud People evolve into contemporary high-society types who enjoy a decadent weekend party at the manor before ultimately devolving back into Mud People. "Savages" was eventually released in 1972.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue was, along with Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, a founding writer and later an editor for the satiric "National Lampoon" magazine. As one of many outstanding "National Lampoon" contributors, O'Donoghue created some of the distinctive black comedy which characterized the magazine's flavor for most of its first decade. His most famous contributions include "The Vietnamese Baby Book", in which a baby's war wounds are cataloged in a keepsake; the "Ezra Taft Benson High School Yearbook", a precursor to the "Lampoon"s "High School Yearbook Parody"; the comic "Tarzan of the Cows"; and the continuing feature "Underwear for the Deaf".


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: He was also the editor and main contributor to the "Lampoon"'s "Encyclopedia of Humor." He co-wrote the album "Radio Dinner" with Tony Hendra, and because of the album's success, he was assigned to direct and act on "The National Lampoon Radio Hour". After 13 episodes, publisher Matty Simmons asked O'Donoghue to return to the magazine. A week later, O'Donoghue and Simmons argued over what was later revealed to be a simple misunderstanding, and O'Donoghue left.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: It was at the "Lampoon" that O'Donoghue met Anne Beatts, with whom he became romantically involved. The two later moved on to work at "Saturday Night Live" together.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: On the pioneering late-night sketch comedy program "Saturday Night Live" (originally called "NBC’s Saturday Night"), on which creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels assigned him the position of head writer, O'Donoghue appeared in the first show's opening sketch as an English-language teacher, instructing John Belushi to repeat phrases such as "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines," and "We are out of badgers. Would you accept a wolverine in its place?" before dropping dead of a heart attack. He later made appearances in the persona of a Vegas-style "impressionist" who would pay great praise to showbiz mainstays such as talk show host Mike Douglas and singers Tony Orlando and Dawn—and then speculate how they would react if steel needles were plunged into their eyes. The shrieking fits that followed are believed to be inspired by O'Donoghue's real-life agonies from chronic migraine headaches.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue, in his refusal to write for Jim Henson's "Land of Gorch" sketches which appeared in the early years of SNL, quipped, "I won't write for felt."


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: Later, O'Donoghue cultivated the persona of the grim "Mr. Mike", a coldly decadent figure who favored viewers with comically dark "Least-Loved Bedtime Stories" such as "The Little Engine that Died". One of his most notable "SNL" sketches is the "" spoof "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" that was a tour-de-force for Belushi.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: In 1979, he produced a television special for NBC, featuring most of the "SNL" cast, called "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video." Because of its raunchy content, the network rejected the program, which was then released as a theatrical film.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue returned to "SNL" in 1981 when new executive producer Dick Ebersol needed an old hand to help revive the faltering series. O'Donoghue's volatile personality and mood swings made this difficult: his first day on the show he screamed at all the cast members, forcing everyone to write on the walls with magic markers. This horrified Catherine O'Hara so much that she quit before ever appearing on air. The only one he liked was Eddie Murphy, reportedly because Murphy was not afraid of him. According to the book "Live from New York", O'Donoghue tried to shake things up on that first day by saying "this is what the show lacks" and spray-painting the word "DANGER" on the wall of his office.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue was released from the show after writing the never-aired sketch "The Last Days in Silverman's Bunker", which compared NBC network president Fred Silverman's problems at the network to Adolf Hitler's final days. It was planned that John Belushi would return to play Silverman, and a great deal of work had been done on creating sets for the sketch (which would have run for about twenty minutes), including the construction of a large Nazi eagle clutching an NBC corporate logo instead of a swastika. Another unaired O'Donoghue sketch from around the same period, "The Good Excuse", also involved Nazi jokes. In the sketch, a captured German officer berated by his captors for Nazi war crimes explains that he had a good excuse, which he whispers into their ears, inaudible to the viewers. His captors are quickly persuaded that the unheard excuse was, in fact, an acceptable reason for the crimes of the Third Reich.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: On October 26, 1986, O'Donoghue was further connected to "SNL" by virtue of his marriage to the show's musical director, Cheryl Hardwick, in the late 1980s. The union was fodder for a "Weekend Update" joke in which Dennis Miller noted that the couple was registered at Black and Decker.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue was one of several original writers rehired by Lorne Michaels upon his return to produce the show in 1985. O'Donoghue's intention was to write and direct short films for the show; however, none were completed and he wrote little else, apart from a monologue seemingly designed to humiliate Chevy Chase when he hosted the second show of the season. (The monologue began, "Right after I stopped doing cocaine, I turned into a giant garden slug, and, for the life of me, I don't know why.") The monologue never aired, and O'Donoghue was fired a month later after telling "The New York Times" that "SNL" had become "an embarrassment. It's like watching old men die." His final contribution to the show was a song, "Boulevard of Broken Balls", co-written with his wife Hardwick and performed by Christopher Walken on the October 24, 1992 episode.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue acted in a supporting role in the 1985 comedy "Head Office". He had small parts in the 1979 movie "Manhattan" (which poked fun at "SNL"), the 1987 movie "Wall Street", and the 1988 movie he co-wrote, "Scrooged". O'Donoghue said he loathed the theatrical release of "Scrooged", insisting until his death that he and co-writer and best friend Mitch Glazer had written a much better film. He also wrote or co-wrote a number of unproduced screenplays, of which the Chevy Chase collaboration "Saturday Matinee" (a.k.a. "Planet of the Cheap Special Effects") remains legendary in Hollywood screenwriter circles.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue also found some success as a country music songwriter, his most notable credit being Dolly Parton's "Single Women" (1982). The song, originally composed for a 1981 "SNL" skit, later inspired the 1984 ABC TV movie "Single Bars, Single Women" starring Tony Danza and Jean Smart, which was produced by O'Donoghue.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: In 1992, O'Donoghue created a sketch show pilot called "TV" for the Fox network. It featured Kelly Lynch and it was directed by Walter Williams, the creator of "Mr. Bill", but like a lot of O'Donoghue's work, it was too out there for primetime TV.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue suffered a long history of chronic migraine headaches. On November 8, 1994, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54.


title: Michael O'Donoghue

text: O'Donoghue's biography, "Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue", was published in 1998 by Avon Books. The Barnes and Noble overview read, "This is the unvarnished story of a towering figure in American popular culture, the prime artistic force behind an entire generation of humorists and satirists."


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Afro-Colombians or African-Colombians () are Colombians of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent (Blacks, Mulattoes, Pardos, and Zambos).


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Africans were enslaved in the early 16th Century in Colombia. They were from various places across the continent, including: modern day Congo, Angola, Gambia, Liberia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Mali. They were forcibly taken to Colombia to replace the Indigenous population, which was rapidly decreasing due to colonialism and genocide.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Enslved African people were forced to work in gold mines, on sugar cane plantations, cattle ranches, and large haciendas. African slaves pioneered the extraction of alluvial gold deposits and the growing of sugar cane in the areas that are known in modern times as the departments of Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in western Colombia.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: The UNODOC reported 66% of the alluvial gold is illegally mined, with 42% of these illegal activities directly affecting Afro-Colombian communities.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles in commercial mills. Emerald mines outside of Bogotá relied on African labourers. Other sectors of the Colombian economy, like tobacco, cotton, artisanship and domestic work would have been impossible without African labor. In pre-abolition Colombian society, many Afro-Colombian captives fought the Spanish, their colonial forces and their freedom as soon as they arrived in Colombia. Those who escaped from their oppressors would live in free Black African towns called "Palenques", where they would live as ""Cimarrones"," or fugitives. Some historians considered Chocó to be a very big "palenque", with a large population of "Cimarrones", especially in the areas of the Baudó River. This is where Cimarrón leaders like Benkos Biohó and Barule fought for freedom.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: African people played key roles in the struggle for independence from the Spanish Crown. Historians note that three of every five soldiers in Simón Bolívar's army were African. Afro-Colombians were able to participate at all levels of military and political life.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In 1851, after the abolition of slavery, the plight of Afro-Colombians was very difficult. They were forced to live in the jungles for self-protection. There they learned to have a harmonious relationship with the jungle environment and share the territory with Colombia's indigenous people.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Beginning in 1851, the Colombian State promoted "mestizaje" or miscegenation. In order to maintain their cultural traditions, many Africans and indigenous peoples went deep into isolated jungles. Afro-Colombians and indigenous people were often targeted by armed groups who wanted to displace them in order to take their land for sugar cane plantations, coffee and banana plantations, mining and wood exploitation. This form of discrimination still occurs today.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In 1945, the department of El Chocó was created, the first predominantly African political-administrative division in the country. El Chocó provided the possibility of building an African territorial identity and some autonomous decision-making power.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In the 1970s, there was a major influx of Afro-Colombians into urban areas in search of greater economic and social opportunities for their children. This led to an increase in the number of urban poor in the marginal areas of big cities like Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá. Most Afro-Colombians are currently living in urban areas. Only around 25%, or 1.2 million people, are based in rural areas, compared to 75%, or 3.7 million people, in urban zones. The 1991 Colombian Constitution gave them the right to collective ownership of traditional Pacific coastal lands and special cultural development protections. Critics argue that this important legal instrument is not enough to completely address their social and developmental needs.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Afro-Colombians are concentrated on the northwest Caribbean coast and the Pacific coast in such departments as Chocó, whose capital, Quibdó, is 95.3% Afro-Colombian as opposed to just 2.3% mestizo or white. Similar numbers are found in Buenaventura where over 80% of the population is Afro-Colombian. Considerable numbers are also in Cali, Cartagena and Barranquilla. Colombia is considered to have the fourth largest Black/African-descent population in the western hemisphere, following United States, Brazil, and Haiti.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: It has been estimated that only 4.4 million Afro-Colombians actively recognize their black ancestry, while many other African Colombians do not as a result of inter-racial relations with white and indigenous Colombians. Afro-Colombians often encounter a noticeable degree of racial discrimination and prejudice, possibly as a socio-cultural leftover from colonial times. They have been historically absent from high-level government positions and many of their long-established settlements around the Pacific coast remain underdeveloped.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In Colombia's ongoing internal conflict, Afro-Colombians are both victims of violence and displacement as well as members of armed factions, such as the FARC and the AUC.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: African Colombians have played a role in contributing to the development of certain aspects of Colombian culture. For example, several of Colombia's musical genres, such as "Cumbia "and "Vallenato", have African origins or influences. Some African Colombians have also been successful in sports, such as Olympic weightlifter Óscar Figueroa and footballer, Patrocinio Bonilla, also known as "Patrón" (believed to have been murdered on August 11, 2020).


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In Colombia, native songs and musical genres are characterized by an exchange of multiple energetic and progressive musical processes. Notable examples include bambuco, cumbia, and porro, which are examples of typical folkloric musical genres that can be traced to having an African origin, descent, or influence in style.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: The Bambuco has a unique indigenous origin, but is also composed of a multicultural tradition. The Bambuco is established in the central Andean and Cauca area of the country of Colombia and is played by string ensembles. The Bambuco combines elements of notations that fluctuate between a or meter, demonstrating its extreme flexibility. It can be portrayed in different instrumental variants such as the Bambuco "fiestero" (a faster more playful rhythm) or the contemporary Bambuco.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: It is believed that the Bambuco is a musical genre that inevitability was brought by the Africans when the first slaves arrived at Cauca region. There is also a relationship between Bambuco and the name of a town in French Sudan "Bambuk," and it has been theorized that this genre comes from that specific region. Another piece of evidence is the syncopation and other forms of rhythms within the same piece of music. African music utilizes syncopated rhythms just like Bambuco does. Others theorized different appearances of Bambuco in different locations of the country, but they all coincide in an African origin or inspiration for the formation of this musical genre. For instance, on the western side of what is now Mali, a century ago, a nation named "Bambouk" existed and potentially the name of bambuco was derived from this nation in Mali. In a country at the horn of Africa in Eritrea, there is a town called Bambuco. In Angola, there is a town called Bambuca and very close to that town there is another one called Cauca. Like mentioned above, the Cauca department is argued to be the place where the Bambuco genre emerged.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: A different branch of bambuco emerged in the Pacific Coast of Colombia, the "contemporary" Bambuco. The pacific coast and the northern coast of Colombia have an Afro-Colombian population that surpasses the average in comparison to any other region in the country (90% and 50%, respectively). In the region of Cauca at the coast and in between the Magdalena River, the most traditional black population is settled. Many slaves came in through the Cauca River or the Magdalena River, if they were to have come from the northern side of the country. On the other hand, the argument that the Bambuco evolved in the Pacific is supported by the biggest population of Afro-Colombians in the country residing in the department of Choco, on the Pacific coast. The Pacific coast is the only place in the country where the absolute majority is of African descent. The reason for the Pacific coast's vast majority Afro-Colombian population is not only due to its location and the rapid entrance of transportation of boats and slaves during colonization, but also due to emancipation around the year 1815. The act of emancipation led for the Pacific coast to become a refugee zone and develop into a safer place for slaves from the Choco area as well as those from the interior of the country and other urban sites throughout the country. This allowed for the Afro-Colombian population to grow in this region of the country and therefore develop within certain cultural characteristics such musical genres that have African descent but are born or popularized in Colombia. With this evidence, although the Bambuco is not originally from Colombia, it became a national identity for many due to its multicultural composition. It has since spread from west to north in the country.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: The "cumbia" is another typical Colombian musical genre that emerged from the African slaves in Colombia. In this case, "cumbia" is a mixture of rhythms from Afro-Colombians and indigenous native Colombiansto bring about a different style. Unlike the Bambuco, cumbia certainly originated in the northern part of Colombia, and its instrumentation is the key evidence of its origin, as well as its dances.This dance has become the most influential in Latin America. Particular to cumbia, a typical Spanish dress was adapted to available native resources. In the present day, it is culturally significant enough to know about cumbia, and it is a concern to preserve it. The main festival that celebrates cumbia nowadays is the Festival de la Cumbia in El Banco, Magdalena. In order to preserve this folkloric rhythm, this genre is celebrated yearly in the Colombian Caribbean region.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Throughout the years, the African heritage in music has been evolving from bambuco to porro to cumbia to champeta. Champeta is the more modern rhythm inspired by African culture and music style. The Champeta is born through a blend of African and Caribbean rhythms, including the cumbia. The name champeta is derived by a form of Bowie knife that only low income, rural workers, usually people of African descent, would use due to their low socioeconomic status. These Bowie knives are used to cut the grass, and keep yards or streets clean, and therefore this musical genre is associated with a status and also race. This genre is native to the northern coast and experimentation with many new rhythms is common. Thus a lot of commerce emerged around these varying new rhythms and much more music has become available from the African continent. This is another example of the multicultural composition of musical genres due to the diaspora throughout the country of Colombia.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: Ever since Afro-Colombians arrived in Colombia in the first decade of the 16th century, they have been considered a minority group by the Colombian government, exposing them to discrimination and inequality. Many advocacy groups, including the National Association of Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES) or Chao Racismo, as well as various Afro-Colombian activists, have come together to fight for this ethnic group's rights. However, Afro-Colombians continue to protest for their rights and demand equality between themselves and all non-Afro Colombians in certain social aspects. Social issues concerning Afro-Colombians range from socio-economic inequalities to physical violence and other forms of inequality and discrimination in Colombia.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: There is an acknowledgment of a racist undertone in Colombia. There is a lack of implementing the history of Afro-Colombian culture, language, and overall visibility within Colombian educational hubs. Even so, their history is not told correctly to the Colombian people. It is recorded that the African slaves that entered throughout the 15th to 18th century were not given their freedom by the republic but by their own accord. During religious festivals and other days, slaves were permitted to work for their profit. Then, they would save up their money to buy their freedom. This marked the beginning of Afro-Colombians and their relationship with Colombia.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: In 2007, the Colombian national government implemented a new section in the government for Afro-Colombians called "la Comisión Intersectorial para el Avance de la Población Afrocolombiana, Palenquera y Raizal." This sector was intended for the advancement of the education of Afro-Colombians. Not only this but the Colombian government had also conducted specialized studies and 18 workshops across the cities of Colombia. Due to this, about 4000 Afro-Colombian community leaders came together to write recommendations to the government by May 2009. However, after many years, none of the strategies have worked and Afro-Colombians still lack the same opportunities as their whiter Colombian counterparts. The Colombian government has tried to help the Afro-Colombian people by creating more programs to further the education of Afro-Colombians past high school. The main program is the "Admisión Especial a Mejores Bachilleres de la Población Negra, Afrocolombiana, Palenquera y Raizal" which gives admission to about 200 Afro-Colombians per semester into the National Colombian University. This program can be compared to affirmative action in the United States, once again highlighting the imbalance of opportunities for Afro-Colombians.


title: Afro-Colombians

text: The Ministry of Education has attempted to make recommendations on the subject of the background and history of Afro-Colombians when teaching Colombian history. In hopes of incorporating more Afro-Colombian history, the ministry of education plans to add Afro-Colombian history on exams of the state.