title: Gwendolyn Brooks

text: Brooks said her first teaching experience was at the University of Chicago when she was invited by author Frank London Brown to teach a course in American literature. It was the beginning of her lifelong commitment to sharing poetry and teaching writing. Brooks taught extensively around the country and held posts at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, and the City College of New York.


title: Gwendolyn Brooks

text: The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois acquired Brooks's archives from her daughter Nora Blakely. In addition, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has a collection of her personal papers, especially from 1950 to 1989.


title: Gwendolyn Brooks

text: In 1939, Brooks married Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr., whom she met after joining Chicago's NAACP Youth Council. They had two children: Henry Lowington Blakely III, and Nora Brooks Blakely. Brooks' husband died in 1996.


title: Gwendolyn Brooks

text: From mid-1961 to late 1964, Henry III served in the U.S. Marine Corps, first at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and then at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay. During this time, Brooks mentored her son's fiancée, Kathleen Hardiman, in writing poetry. Upon his return, Blakely and Hardiman married in 1965. Brooks had so enjoyed the mentoring relationship that she began to engage more frequently in that role with the new generation of young black poets.


title: Gwendolyn Brooks

text: Gwendolyn Brooks died at her Chicago home on December 3, 2000, aged 83. She is buried in Lincoln Cemetery.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The recorded history of the Arabs begins in the mid-ninth century BC, which is the earliest known attestation of the Old Arabic language. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Babylonian Empire; they went from the Arabian Peninsula to Mauritania. Tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Syrian Desert is the home of the first attested "Arab" groups, as well other Arab groups that spread in the land and existed for millennia.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic or settled Arabic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, Syrian Desert, North and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a variety of large numbers of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to the spread of Arabs and the Arabic language throughout the region during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun (632–661), Umayyad (661–750) and the Abbasid (750–1258) caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. In the early 20th century, the First World War signalled the end of the Ottoman Empire; which had ruled much of the Arab world since conquering the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517. This resulted in the defeat and dissolution of the empire and the partition of its territories, forming the modern Arab states. Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Proto-Arabs are presumed to have originated from what is now northern Arabia, Jordan and southern Syria. From their urheimat, ancient Arabs established themselves as far as Babylon, Sinai and further into Arabia, over time replacing some of the old languages there such as Dadanitic and Taymanitic.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Arabs are first mentioned in Biblical and Assyrian texts of the ninth to fifth centuries BC where they appear as inhabiting parts of present-day Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. During the Battle of Qarqar, Gindibu the Arab king of Adummatu was part of the coalition of the 12 kings who fought the Assyrian invasion of Syria.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Arabs were also present in the regions of Tadmor, Homs and Lajat during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, and Tiglath-Pileser III himself appointed the Sinai peninsula jurisdiction to a certain Arab, Idibi'ilu. It is also during this period that the "Nabatu" are first mentioned, likely the predecessors of the Nabataeans. Arab presence in Mesopotamia is also evident during the Neo-Assyrian period from records bearing the names of several tribes and towns within Babylon's sphere of influence bearing Arabic onomastics and toponyms. Further west, during Alexander the Great's Siege of Tyre (332 BC), he fought the Itureans, described as 'Arab peasants', living in the hills above the city who blocked his army's access to wood supply.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Ancient North Arabian texts give a clearer picture of Arabic's developmental history and emergence. Ancient North Arabian is a collection of texts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria which not only recorded ancient forms of Arabic, such as Safaitic and Hismaic, but also of pre-Arabic languages previously spoken in the Arabian peninsula, such as Dadanitic, Hasaitic and Taymanitic.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The texts are either written in variants or closely related sister scripts of epigraphic south Arabian "musnad".


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Nabataeans were nomads who moved into territory vacated by the Edomites – Semitic-speakers who settled the region centuries before them. Their early inscriptions were in Aramaic but gradually switched to their spoken Nabataean Arabic, thus producing some of the earliest clear Arabic texts. The Nabataean alphabet was adopted by Arabs to the south, and evolved into modern Arabic script around the 4th century. This is attested by Safaitic inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century BC) and the many Arabic personal names in Nabataean inscriptions. From about the 2nd century BC, a few inscriptions from Qaryat al-Faw reveal a dialect no longer considered "proto-Arabic", but "pre-classical Arabic". Five Syriac inscriptions mentioning Arabs have been found at Sumatar Harabesi, one of which dates to the 2nd century AD.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Arabs are first recorded in Palmyra in the late first millennium BC. The soldiers of the sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia (217 BC), were described as Arabs; Zabdibel and his men were not actually identified as Palmyrenes in the texts, but the name "Zabdibel" is a Palmyrene name leading to the conclusion that the sheikh hailed from Palmyra. After the Battle of Edessa in 260 CE, the Roman emperor Valerian was taken prisoner. Assuming the side of Rome, the Palmyrenes united under Odaenathus and defeated the Sassanian armies in several battles, even reaching the capital city, Ctesiphon, twice. His son Vaballathus succeeded him in 270 under the regency of his mother Zenobia, who declared the Palmyrene Empire. Zenobia quickly captured most of the Near East, including Egypt and most of Asia Minor in 271, even reaching Ancyra. In 273, Aurelian was able to recover the territories lost to the Palmyrenes, whereby the city capitulated. Aurelian himself was helped by the Arab enemies of Zenobia, the Tanukhids. The Tanukhids initially appear in 196 CE as a federation of Arab tribes roaming the western banks of the Euphrates who later made way into central and northern Syria, where they became part of the foederati of the Romans. They rebelled against Roman authority in 378 CE under their queen, Mavia, who lead her forces into Palestine, Arabia and even the edges of Egypt, and also served as auxiliaries in the Roman army.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Osroeni Arabs were in possession of the city of Edessa which they had occupied and ruled since the 2nd century BC, and which they had continued to rule until the 3rd century CE. The Kingdom of Hatra was similarly ruled by an Arab dynasty since the 2nd century CE, whose rulers assumed the title "malka" often in form of "King of the Arabs". The Osroeni and Hatrans were part of several Arab groups or communities in upper Mesopotamia, who also included the Praetavi of Singara (present-day Sinjar, Iraq) reported by Pliny the Elder, and the Arabs of Adiabene. This elaborate Arab presence in upper Mesopotamia was acknowledged by the Sasanians, who called the region Arbayistan, meaning "land of the Arabs".


title: History of the Arabs

text: In the Levant, various Arab groups flourished during the period of Seleucid and Roman rule. To the south of the Taurus range and in the region of Antioch in Coele-Syria, there was an Arab group ruled by a certain Aziz, who played an important role in the affairs of the last Seleucid king Antiochus XIII Asiaticus. To the east of Antioch, there was another Arab group that ruled in Chalcidice represented by the Rhambaei, Gambarus and Themella, who were ruled by way of various Arab princes, including Alchaedamnus who fought with and against the Romans in their wars against Tigranes and against Caesar. Southward in the Orontes river valley, the Emesene Arabs dominated Emesa and Aresutha until the 2nd century, and were involved in the affairs of late Seleucid monarchs under their chief Sempsigeramus. The Itureans were another possibly Arab group known since Alexander the Great's conquests, they inhabited the Bekaa valley, Southern Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and from there they expanded their Kingdom of Chalcis to the Phoenician coast, Aurinitis, Trachonitis and Batanaea; they also maintained two capitals, a religious one in Heliopolis and a secular one in Chalcis sub Libanum (possibly in present-day Majdal Anjar, Lebanon). In southern Palestine, the Idumaeans inhabited to the west of the Dead Sea, and after the fall of the Hasmoneans became politically dominant in Palestine and southern Syria with Rome's support for more than a century under Herod the Great.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Arabs were also living in Egypt even in pre-Christian times, in the Ptolemaic nome called Arabia, in Arsinoites across the Nile, and in Thebaid.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Several Arab entities flourished during middle and late Antiquity, these included kingdoms and confederations of tribes that dominated large swaths of land in the Arabian Peninsula, Levant and Mesopotamia.


title: History of the Arabs

text: In central Arabia and Iraq, the Lakhmids assumed leadership from the Tanukhids and established themselves as clients for the Sasanians by 300 CE, ruling from their capital city of Al-Hirah and acting as a buffer between them and the Romans & unruly nomadic Arab tribes further south. Their Ghassanid counterparts served the same purpose for the Byzantines after their settlement in Syria likely between 250 and 300 CE. The Ghassanids were part of an influx from Yemen due to conflict between the South Arabian kingdoms of Qataban, Himyar and Sabaa in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE; it's not clear whether or not Ghassanids originally spoke Arabic or a South Semitic language like the ones spoken in Yemen at the time. Upon their settlement in the Levant around 300 CE, the Ghassanids also became part of the "foederati", along with several other Arab tribes in the region including Banu Amilah and Banu Judham.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Romans called Yemen "Arabia Felix". The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman Empire "Arabia Petraea", after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Kingdom of Kinda was yet another Arab entity in central Arabia, established in 450 CE as a confederation of the Ma'ad tribes ruled by the Kindites. The Kindites originally migrated from Yemen along with the Ghassanids, where they had served as nomad auxiliaries for the armies of the Sabaean and Himyarite kings, but were turned back in Eastern Arabia by the Abdul Qais Rabi'a tribe. They returned to Yemen and allied themselves with the Himyarites who installed them as a vassal kingdom that ruled Central Arabia from "Qaryah Dhat Kahl" (the present-day called Qaryat al-Faw).


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Lakhmids contested control of the Central Arabian tribes with the Kindites with the Lakhmids eventually destroying Kinda in 540 after the fall of their main ally Himyar. The Persian Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid dynasty in 602, being under puppet kings, then under their direct control.


title: History of the Arabs

text: They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian peninsula, until they were destroyed by the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir, and his son 'Amr.


title: History of the Arabs

text: United by their new faith after the death of Muhammad in 632, the Rashidun armies launched campaigns of conquest of the surrounding territories controlled by the Sassanians and Romans, effectually establishing what is known in Islamic chronology as the Rashidun Caliphate. The state was centered at the Hejaz, in particular in Medina from 632 until 656 CE, when Ali moved the capital to Kufa.


title: History of the Arabs

text: In 661, the Rashidun Caliphate shifted into the hands of the Umayyads, who established their capital in Damascus. The Umayyads derived most of their military from Arabs of Syria, and heavily sponsored poetry. They established garrison towns at Ramla, Raqqa, Basra, Kufa, Mosul and Samarra, all of which developed into major cities.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Caliph Abd al-Malik established Arabic as the Caliphate's official language in 686. This reform greatly influenced the conquered non-Arab peoples and fueled the Arabization of the region. However, the Arabs' higher status among non-Arab Muslim converts and the latter's obligation to pay heavy taxes caused resentment. Caliph Umar II strove to resolve the conflict when he came to power in 717. He rectified the disparity, demanding that all Muslims be treated as equals, but his intended reforms did not take effect, as he died after only three years of rule. By now, discontent with the Umayyads swept the region and an uprising occurred in which the Abbasids came to power and moved the capital to Baghdad.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Umayyads expanded their Empire westwards capturing North Africa from the Byzantines. Before the Arab conquest, North Africa was conquered or settled by various people including Berbers, Punics, Vandals and Romans. After the Abbasid Revolution, the Umayyads lost most of their territories with the exception of Iberia. Their last holding became known as the Emirate of Córdoba. It wasn't until the rule of the grandson of the founder of this new emirate that the state entered a new phase as the Caliphate of Córdoba. This new state was characterized by an expansion of trade, culture and knowledge, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture and the library of Al-Ḥakam II which housed over 400,000 volumes. With the collapse of the Umayyad state in 1031 AD, Islamic Spain was divided into small kingdoms.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Abbasids were the descendants of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad and of the same Banu Hashim clan. The Abbasids led a revolt against the Umayyads and defeated them in the Battle of the Zab effectively ending their rule in all parts of the Empire with the exception of al-Andalus. In 762, the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad and declared it the capital of the Caliphate. Unlike the Umayyads, the Abbasids had the support of non-Arab subjects.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Islamic Golden Age was inaugurated by the middle of the 8th century by the ascension of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to the newly founded city of Baghdad. The Abbasids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge. During this period the Muslim world became an intellectual centre for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the "House of Wisdom" () in Baghdad. Rival dynasties such as the Fatimids of Egypt and the Umayyads of al-Andalus were also major intellectual centres with cities such as Cairo and Córdoba rivaling Baghdad.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Abbasids ruled for 200 years before they lost their central control when Wilayas began to fracture in the 10th century; afterwards, in the 1190s, there was a revival of their power, which was ended by the Mongols, who conquered Baghdad in 1258 and killed the Caliph Al-Musta'sim. Members of the Abbasid royal family escaped the massacre and resorted to Cairo, which had broken from the Abbasid rule two years earlier; the Mamluk generals taking the political side of the kingdom while Abbasid Caliphs were engaged in civil activities and continued patronizing science, arts and literature.


title: History of the Arabs

text: The Fatimid caliphate was founded by al-Mahdi Billah, a descendant of Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, in the early 10th century. Egypt was the political, cultural, and religious centre of the Fatimid empire. The Fatimid state took shape among the Kutama Berbers, in the West of the North African littoral, in Algeria, in 909 conquering Raqqada, the Aghlabid capital. In 921 the Fatimids established the Tunisian city of Mahdia as their new capital. In 948 they shifted their capital to Al-Mansuriya, near Kairouan in Tunisia, and in 969 they conquered Egypt and established Cairo as the capital of their caliphate.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Intellectual life in Egypt during the Fatimid period achieved great progress and activity, due to many scholars who lived in or came to Egypt, as well as the number of books available. Fatimid Caliphs gave prominent positions to scholars in their courts, encouraged students, and established libraries in their palaces, so that scholars might expand their knowledge and reap benefits from the work of their predecessors. The Fatimids were also known for their exquisite arts. Many traces of Fatimid architecture exist in Cairo today; the most defining examples include the Al-Hakim Mosque and the Al-Azhar University.


title: History of the Arabs

text: It was not until the 11th century that the Maghreb saw a large influx of ethnic Arabs. Starting with the 11th century, the Arab bedouin Banu Hilal tribes migrated to the West. Having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Berber Zirids for abandoning Shias, they travelled westwards. The Banu Hilal quickly defeated the Zirids and deeply weakened the neighboring Hammadids. According to some modern historians. their influx was a major factor in the arabization of the Maghreb. Although Berbers ruled the region until the 16th century (under such powerful dynasties as the Almoravids, the Almohads, Hafsids, etc.).


title: History of the Arabs

text: From 1517 to 1918, much of the Arab world was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans defeated the Mamluk Sultanate in Cairo, and ended the Abbasid Caliphate. Arabs did not feel the change of administration because the Ottomans modeled their rule after the previous Arab administration systems.


title: History of the Arabs

text: In 1911, Arab intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), a small Arab nationalist club, in Paris. Its stated aim was "raising the level of the Arab nation to the level of modern nations." In the first few years of its existence, al-Fatat called for greater autonomy within a unified Ottoman state rather than Arab independence from the empire. Al-Fatat hosted the Arab Congress of 1913 in Paris, the purpose of which was to discuss desired reforms with other dissenting individuals from the Arab world. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.


title: History of the Arabs

text: After World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was overthrown by the British Empire, former Ottoman colonies were divided up between the British and French as League of Nations mandates.


title: History of the Arabs

text: Arabs in modern times live in the Arab world, which comprises 22 countries in Middle East, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa. They are all modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.


"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is an American pop music song, written by John Phillips, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey International Pop Music Festival held in June of that year.


title: San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)

text: John Phillips played guitar on the recording and session musician Gary L. Coleman played orchestra bells and chimes. Bass guitar was supplied by session musician Joe Osborn. Hal Blaine played drums. The song reached the fourth position on the US charts and the number one spot on the UK charts. In Ireland, it was number one for one week, in New Zealand the song spent five weeks at number one, and in Germany it was six weeks at number one.


text: McKenzie's version has been called "the unofficial anthem of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, including the Hippie, Anti-Vietnam War and Flower power movements." The song has also been widely regarded as a defining song of the Summer of Love along with the Beatles, "All You Need Is Love".


text: According to Paul Ingles of NPR, "...local authorities in Monterey were starting to get cold feet over the prospect of their town being overrun by hippies. To smooth things over, Phillips wrote a song, "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)." Phillips reported writing the song in about 20 minutes. It is one of the first major hits in popular music industry to use vi–IV–I–V chord progression, a variant of I–V–vi–IV progression, which has seen enormous popularity in recent years, in pop music, as well as in orchestral music.


text: The song, which tells the listeners, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", is credited with bringing thousands of young people to San Francisco, California, during the late 1960s.


text: Different issues of the recording use slightly different titles, including: "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"; "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)"; and "San Francisco 'Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair'".


text: Released on May 13, 1967, the song was an instant hit. By the week ending July 1, 1967, it reached the number four spot on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the US, where it remained for four consecutive weeks. Meanwhile, the song rose to number one in the UK Singles Chart, and most of Europe. In July 1967, McKenzie's previous record label, Capitol, claimed that the "follow-up" to this was their re-release of his earlier single, "Look in Your Eyes." The single is said to have sold over seven million copies worldwide. In Central Europe, young people adopted "San Francisco" as an anthem, leading the song to be widely played during Czechoslovakia's 1968 Prague Spring uprising.


text: The song has been featured in several films, including "Frantic", "The Rock", and "Forrest Gump". It was also played occasionally by Led Zeppelin as part of the improvised section in the middle of "Dazed and Confused". U2's Bono also led the audience in a sing-along during their PopMart performances in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 18 and 19, 1997. New Order covered it on July 11, 2014, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. A cover by Michael Marshall appears in the 2019 film "The Last Black Man in San Francisco".


text: French singer Johnny Hallyday recorded the song in French, with the title "San Francisco". His version reached number five in Wallonia (French Belgium) in 1967.


text: British band Psykick Holiday did a cover of San Francisco in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of peace & Love & the song . It was a double 'A' single with Lets go to San Francisco' being the other track. The band also did a summer of love EP featuring French & Spanish version of the two songs.


text: In 2020 & 2022 the English tracks came out under main vocalist with the above band Vanessa White Smith on the Compilations 'Femme Fatales of music Vol.1 & 2. All releases were on Future Legend Records and out on Itunes etc.


Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned is the first of two episodic expansion packs of the 2008 video game "Grand Theft Auto IV", developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. The game was released individually for the Xbox 360 on 17 February 2009, and as part of the disc-based package "" for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows on 13 April 2010. The package also includes the second "Grand Theft Auto IV" expansion, "", and does not require the base game to be played. Microsoft added "Episodes from Liberty City" to its backwards compatibility list for Xbox One platforms in February 2017.


title: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

text: Set concurrently with the events of "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony", "The Lost and Damned" follows the exploits of Johnny Klebitz, vice-president of the Liberty City chapter of The Lost MC, a motorcycle club which, along with himself, feature in a number of missions in both games. The main storyline of the episode focuses on Johnny's efforts to keep the chapter running, while dealing with internal conflicts, gang warfare, drug running, and various enemies. It also shows Johnny's perspective in the diamond storyline depicted in both "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony".


text: The game received highly positive reviews upon release, and is retrospectively considered to be among the best downloadable content packs on record.


text: "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned" is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. It features similar gameplay to that of "Grand Theft Auto IV", and takes place in the same setting of Liberty City, the game only features around a third of the number of missions from that game, as was stated in an interview between IGN and the president of Rockstar North, which thus places the amount of time to complete it at approximately 10–15 hours, depending on how focused the player is on the storyline. The game also features new additions, some in regard to Johnny's connection to the Lost MC, and some minor changes.


text: The most prominent of these additions is the availability of mid-mission checkpoints, which can spare the player repeated trips to a given location in order to trigger and replay a failed mission again — an often criticised aspect of the "Grand Theft Auto" series. Checkpoints are only available by retrying the mission after it has been previously failed — going to the mission start point begins the mission from scratch. Alongside the checkpoint system, "The Lost and Damned" features the inclusion of new weapons and vehicles, including Johnny's custom-made motorcycle (Johnny himself is more proficient with any bike than with any other vehicle), the ability to call on aid from members of the Lost MC, a new but small collection of random characters, additional side activities, and unique side jobs including Gang Wars and Bike Races. In addition, the game has a few changes to that of "Grand Theft Auto IV", in that Johnny can access the whole of Liberty City from the start of a new game, but cannot change his clothing or enter clothing stores. The city's comedy club, Split Sides, also features a brand new comedian doing routines there, while gun stores do not stock any of the new weapons featured in "The Lost and Damned"; they can only be bought through the club's gun vendor.


text: Two of the new side jobs featured in "The Lost and Damned" – Gang Wars and Bike Races – require Johnny to be on a bike to trigger them. In Gang Wars, Johnny battles against rival gangs in a few variations – taking them out at a hangout, or while cruising the streets, or destroying a vehicle they are escorting – earning money from each war completed and unlocking a weapon at the Lost clubhouse (and a safehouse acquired later in the story) with every 10 subsequent wars completed. Each gang war becomes tougher, the more Johnny continues engaging in them. Meanwhile, Bike Races play out like the Street Races of "Grand Theft Auto IV", except both Johnny and his opponents carry a baseball bat to attack their rival racers while making their way to each checkpoint of the race, with each capable of dislodging a racer from their bike depending on the strength of their swing. Other side jobs see Johnny either stealing bikes or working for a congressman met during the game's story. Meanwhile, the new additions to the activities from "Grand Theft Auto IV", include Arm Wrestling (which differs in difficulties and wagers between various spots), games of Hi-Lo cards, and Air Hockey (found at the city's Bowling Alleys). The new weapons featured in the game includes the sawn-off shotgun, assault shotgun, pool cues, grenade launchers and pipe bombs.


text: Because of Johnny's position in the Lost MC, some missions and Gang Wars can see him accompanied by a team of bikers who, if they survive through either, can improve and gain experience and thus become more battle-hardened in later missions/Gang Wars. If, at any time, a biker is killed in a mission or gang war, they will be replaced by another in the next. Johnny can receive further support from two members of the Lost – Terry and Clay; both can be taken out for friend activities, but have their special abilities active from the beginning of a new game. If Terry is called, he will drive to a location near to Johnny and sell him weapons and armour, while Clay can deliver a bike of the player's choice to him directly. At a later stage in the game, Johnny can call one or the other, while on a mission, to gain back-up from them, with both capable of gaining experience that increases their health, combat abilities, and grant them better weapons.


text: While the single player has new additions, multiplayer is also given new modes, connected to the Lost MC, some of which improve on those featured in "Grand Theft Auto IV":


text: "The Lost and Damned" takes place within the same setting used for "Grand Theft Auto IV": the fictional U.S. metropolis of Liberty City (based on New York City) and the neighbouring state of Alderney (New Jersey). Unlike the base game, the entire map becomes available to explore after completing the expansion's first mission. "The Lost and Damned"'s storyline occurs simultaneously with that of "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony", and features returning characters and events; most notably, a side-story revolving around a shipment of stolen diamonds, which is depicted across all three games, from different perspectives.


text: In 2008, Billy Grey (Lou Sumrall), president of the Lost motorcycle club's Alderney chapter, is welcomed back by his fellow gang members after his release from a court-ordered rehab. Although vice-president Johnny Klebitz (Scott Hill) is eager to resume business, Billy annoys him by breaking a truce Johnny had arranged with the Lost's rivals, the Angels of Death, during his absence. After a fellow gang member, Jason Michaels (Bill Burr), is killed in Broker, Billy blames his death on the Angels, despite the lack of concrete evidence, and orders the Lost to burn down their clubhouse in retaliation. When Johnny spots Billy and the Lost's secretary Brian Jeremy (Adrian Martinez) stealing a stash of heroin from the clubhouse after the attack, he questions the nature of Billy's orders.


text: Billy later arranges for Johnny to oversee a deal with a potential buyer for the stolen heroin alongside Niko Bellic (Michael Hollick) and Playboy X (Postell Pringle), two associates of drug dealer Elizabeta Torres (Charlie Parker), who helped to set up the exchange. The deal is quickly revealed to be a police bust, but Johnny manages to escape with the drugs. During this time, Johnny also provides assistance to corrupt politician Thomas Stubbs III (John Lantz), who needs help with his re-election campaign and vows to return the favour in the future. Eventually, the Lost's treasurer and Johnny's best friend Jim Fitzgerald (Chris McKinney) arrives with news that the stolen heroin belonged to the triads and advises the gang to return it to them. Billy agrees, but secretly arranges for the Triads to kill Johnny and Jim. When the Triads attack the pair during the exchange, they are forced to abandon the drugs and escape, while Billy is arrested by the police during the chaos.


text: Johnny takes over as club president but faces new problems from Brian, who is still faithful to Billy and holds Johnny responsible for his arrest. While contending with a civil war started by Brian, Johnny struggles to raise money for the club. He takes on several jobs from Elizabeta alongside Malc (Walter Mudu) and DeSean (Craig "muMs" Grant), two members of the Uptown Riders gang, whom he quickly befriends. Johnny also helps his junkie ex-girlfriend Ashley Butler (Traci Godfrey) pay off her debts to Russian mobster Dimitri Rascalov by kidnapping Niko's cousin Roman (Jason Zumwalt).


text: Eventually, Johnny kills Brian to end the war after learning where he is hiding from Pegorino Crime Family caporegime Ray Boccino (Joe Barbara), who often does deals with the Lost. In return for his help, Boccino asks the gang to steal a shipment of diamonds about to be purchased by nightclub owner "Gay" Tony Prince (David Kenner), and pass them onto Boccino's men to later retrieve. Although the theft is successful, the subsequent exchange with the Jewish mob, overseen by Johnny and Niko, is ambushed by Tony's bodyguard Luis Lopez (Mario D'Leon). During the chaos, Johnny escapes with Boccino's money, leading him to have both Johnny and Jim captured for their betrayal. The pair escape, but after Johnny deals with hitmen sent by Boccino, he learns from Ashley that Jim was killed shortly after they parted ways.


text: With the gang virtually weakened, Johnny receives a surprise visit from Stubbs with important news. Although Boccino is under observations by federal law enforcement and no longer poses a threat, Billy plans to exact his revenge on Johnny by turning state's evidence against the Lost, which will allow him to enter the Witness Protection Program. In response, Johnny leads the remaining Lost members in an attack on the Alderney State Correctional Facility to find and kill Billy. After executing Billy, Johnny and the survivors return to their clubhouse, only to find it vandalised by Boccino's men. The group decides to burn down the clubhouse's remains and find new pastures until they can start a new chapter of the Lost elsewhere. In the epilogue, Johnny firmly cuts his ties with Stubbs and Ashley, deciding to temporarily leave the gang to focus on financially supporting Jim's widow and child.


text: Apart from the original "Grand Theft Auto IV" soundtrack, several new tracks were added to the radio stations in the expansion. LCHC - Liberty City Hardcore and Liberty Rock Radio saw the biggest addition of new tracks, to fit with the expansion's biker theme. LCHC also got the addition of a new radio show dedicated to extreme metal, hosted by Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura, Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy).


text: Additional tracks were added to the rotation of The Beat 102.7 (with DJ Statik Selektah & Funkmaster Flex) and Radio Broker as well as a new radio show on the talk station WKTT; The Martin Serious Show (a parody of Shock jock style radio programs, in particular The Howard Stern Show).


text: The content was first announced during Microsoft's 2006 E3 press conference on 9 May 2006. Peter Moore, then head of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division, described downloadable content as "epic episode packs", and not just an extra car or character. A press release during the conference said that the expansion packs, both "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" would add "hours of entirely new gameplay" to the game, with Jeronimo Barrera, Vice-President of Product Development for Rockstar Games, explaining that the episodes were experiments because they were not sure that there were enough users with access to online content on the Xbox 360. Take-Two Interactive's chief financial officer, Lainie Goldstein, revealed that Microsoft was paying a total of $50 million for the first two episodes.


text: On 20 February 2008, it was initially announced that the extra content would be introduced starting August 2008. Dan Houser, vice-president of creative development at Rockstar Games, claimed that through this episode, it would show "a different side of Liberty City". As part of its second quarter financial reports Take-Two announced that the downloadable content had been delayed and would be released during the first quarter of its 2009 financial year (November 2008–January 2009). On 13 November 2008, Take-Two executive chairman Strauss Zelnick warned that while they were aiming to release the first episode pack by January 2009, the date may have had to change to the second financial quarter of 2009 (February–April) depending on the completion date. 17 February's release date was eventually announced one week after Zelnick's warning.


text: "Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned" received "universal acclaim" for the Xbox 360 and "generally favorable" reviews for PlayStation 3 from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


text: Critics cited its improved motorcycle mechanics in comparison to the previous games, dramatic storyline, quality voice acting, addictive multiplayer component and other new content which added many hours of game time. Complaints with the game have included auto-aiming issues and weak gang AI, which were a noticeable problem in the original game.


text: In the opening cutscene for the mission 'Politics', Tom Stubbs exposes his genitals in a full-frontal shot facing towards the camera after getting off a massage table and discussing his plans with Johnny. Parental advisory group Common Sense Media issued a public warning about the expansion pack due to a full-frontal male nudity scene during the cutscene. They claimed the game was "even more controversial than its predecessors" because it featured "full frontal male nudity".


title: Problem of Hell

text: The problem of Hell is an ethical problem in the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, in which the existence of Hell (aka Jahannam or Sheol) for the punishment of souls in the Afterlife is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnibenevolent, omniscient supreme being. Also regarded as inconsistent with such a just being is the combination of human free will (on which the justification for eternal damnation for sinners is predicated), and the divine qualities of omniscience (being all knowing) and omnipotence (being all powerful), as this would mean God (not humans) would determine everything that has happened and will happen in the universe — including sinful human behavior.


title: Problem of Hell

text: C P Ragland of Saint Loius University writes on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that the problem of hell is "a version of" the Problem of evil. He defines the Problem of hell: "if there is an omniperfect God - one that necessarily has the perfection of Goodness - then no one will be damned."


title: Problem of Hell

text: The problem of hell derives from four key propositions: Hell exists; it is for the punishment of people whose lives on Earth are judged to have been sinful; some people go there; and there is no escape.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Traditionally Hell is defined in Christianity and Islam as one of two abodes of Afterlife for human beings (the other being Heaven or Jannah), and the one where sinners suffer torment eternally. There are several words in the original languages of the Bible that are translated into the word 'Hell' in English. There are also a number of names in the holy book of Islam that translate as hell, perhaps the most common one being "Jahannam". In at least some versions of Christianity there is a question of whether or not Hell is actually populated forever. If it is not, one must suppose that those populating Hell may eventually die, or that God will ultimately restore all immortal souls in the World to Come, i.e. Heaven, which would at least lessen the issue of divine injustice and deal with one of the key propositions of there being "no escape". This is known as the universal reconciliation doctrine. In Islam it is commonly thought that Muslim sinners will not spend eternity in Hell but spend time there to be purified of their sins before being allowed into Heaven.


title: Problem of Hell

text: The question of compatibility of free will on the one hand, and God's omnipotence and omniscience on the other, can be framed as:


title: Problem of Hell

text: An early Islamic school of thought known as Muʿtazila, could not accept the orthodoxy of determinism since it meant that a person "could be punished for acts which God himself had commanded him to perform". Muʿtazila were then accused of the heresy of "dualism" because they gave human beings 'power' over their actions (free will), which made them the 'creator' of their works, and "thus encroached on the almighty power of God, for there would be two creators of actions".


title: Problem of Hell

text: In some respects, the problem of Hell is similar to the problem of evil, with the suffering in Hell equivalent to the suffering of victims of evil in the temporal world. Framed this way, the suffering of Hell is caused by free will and something God could have prevented; or worse still is caused by the lack of free will, as God's omnipotence—His knowing/determining all that will ever happen in His creation, including human acts of good and evil—makes free will impossible and souls predestined, but God still decrees punishment in hell. The problem of Hell could be viewed as the worst and most intractable instance of the problem of evil.


title: Problem of Hell

text: If one believes in the idea of eternal Hell, unending suffering, or the idea that some souls will perish (whether destroyed by God or otherwise), author Thomas Talbott says that one has to either let go of the idea that God wishes to save all beings (suggesting that God is not omnibenevolent), or accept the idea that God wants to save all, but will not "successfully accomplish his will and satisfy his own desire in this matter" (suggesting that He is not omnipotent and omniscient).


title: Problem of Hell

text: Judaism teaches that the soul continues to exist after death, and that it is subject to both reward and punishment after death. However, this punishment is held to be temporary, normally only lasting up to 12 months after death. After this period, the soul is able to enjoy the light of God in the afterlife. Because the punishment is temporary, the problem of Hell in the Christian sense is less applicable to Judaism.


title: Problem of Hell

text: In Christianity, Hell has traditionally been regarded as a place of punishment for wrongdoing or sin in the mortal life, as a manifestation of divine justice. Nonetheless, the extreme severity and/or infinite duration of the punishment might be seen as incompatible with justice. However, Hell is not seen as strictly a matter of retributive justice even by the more traditionalist churches. For example, the Eastern Orthodox see it as a condition brought about by, and the natural consequence of, free rejection of God's love.


title: Problem of Hell

text: The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Hell is a place of punishment brought about by a person's self-exclusion from communion with God. The Catholic Church believes that hell is the free and continual rejection of God's forgiveness of sins. Doctrine states that this rejection takes the form of the committing of a sin without repentance. Notably, however, those who die only in original sin are not predestined to hell since God is not bound by baptism. Catholic teaching explains Hell's eternality by claiming that the sinner, once in hell, will inevitably refuse to turn away from his mortal sin to God's forgiveness. Accordingly, Hell must endure as chief punishment for this continuing lack of repentance.


title: Problem of Hell

text: In some ancient Eastern Christian traditions, (such as 7th century Syriac Christianity), Hell and Heaven are distinguished not spatially, but by the relation of a deceased person to God's love.


title: Problem of Hell

text: In terms of the Bible itself, issues of salvation and access to heaven or to hell are mentioned frequently. Examples include


title: Problem of Hell

text: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." which tends to show the wicked perish and the saints have everlasting life or (NIV), "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them", and (NIV), "Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."


title: Problem of Hell

text: The minority Christian doctrine that sinners perish and are destroyed rather than punished eternally such as is found in "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.", is referred to as Christian mortalism; annihilation for those not awarded immortal life, conditional immortality for those who are. This Christian view is found in very early Christianity, resurfaced in the Reformation, and since 1800 has found increasing support among Protestant theologians.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Some opponents of the traditional doctrine of Hell claim that the punishment is disproportionate to any crimes that could be committed. Because human beings have a finite lifespan, they can commit only a finite number of sins, yet Hell is an infinite punishment. In this vein, Jorge Luis Borges suggests in his essay "La duración del Infierno" that no transgression can warrant an infinite punishment on the grounds that there is no such thing as an "infinite transgression". Philosopher Immanuel Kant argued in 1793 in "Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason" that since morality lies ultimately in a person's disposition, and as disposition is concerned with the adoption of universal principles, or as he called them: "maxims", every human being is guilty of, in one sense, an infinite amount of violations of the law, and so consequently an infinite punishment is not unjustified.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Another issue is the problem of harmonizing the existence of Hell with God's infinite mercy or omnibenevolence which is found in scripture.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Some modern critics of the doctrine of Hell (such as Marilyn McCord Adams) claim that, even if Hell is seen as a choice rather than as punishment, it would be unreasonable for God to give such flawed and ignorant creatures as ourselves the responsibility of our eternal destinies. Jonathan Kvanvig, in "The Problem of Hell" (1993), agrees that God would not allow one to be eternally damned by a decision made under the wrong circumstances. One should not always honor the choices of human beings, even when they are full adults, if, for instance, the choice is made while depressed or careless. On Kvanvig's view, God will abandon no person until they have made a settled, final decision, under favorable circumstances, to reject God, but God will respect a choice made under the right circumstances. Once a person finally and competently chooses to reject God, out of respect for the person's autonomy, God allows them to be annihilated.


title: Problem of Hell

text: In Islam, Jahannam (hell) is the final destiny and place of punishment in Afterlife for those guilty of disbelief and (according to some interpretations) evil doing in their lives on earth.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Hell is regarded as necessary for Allah's (God's) divine justice and justified by God's absolute sovereignty, and an "integral part of Islamic theology". In addition to the question of whether divine mercy (one of Names of God in Islam is "The Merciful" "ar-Raḥīm") is compatible with consigning sinners to hell, is whether "predestination" of souls to hell by God is just. One of six articles of faith in Sunni Islam is God's control over everything that has happened and will happen in the universe—including sinful human behavior and who will go to Jahannam. This introduces the question, (or at least the paradox), where sinners are said to be punished in Jahannam for their decision to sin of their own free will, but everything that happens in the world is determined by an all powerful and all knowing God.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Muslims and Islamic scholars disagree over who will be consigned to Jahannam. A common concern is the fate of non-Muslims and if they will be punished for not belonging to the "right" religion. An often-recited quranic verse implies that righteous non-Muslims will be saved on Judgement Day:


title: Problem of Hell

text: However some scholars hold this verse may be set aside as only applying before the arrival of Muhammad,


title: Problem of Hell

text: as there "exists a strong exegetical tradition" that claims that verse and others suggesting non-Muslims may be saved, were abrogated by a later verse indicating a much less pleasant hereafter:


title: Problem of Hell

text: Some non-pluralist scholars like Ibn Arabi state that every human will receive a proper message and will not be doomed for ignorance, while others claim non-Muslims are judged by their own moral standards, because of God's all-embracing mercy.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Another criterion to determine the justice of Hell's punishment derives from its duration, on which Islamic scholars disagree. The orthodox view holds that Hell is eternal, others hold that Hell exists to purify rather than inflict pain, and may even cease to exist after a while.


title: Problem of Hell

text: With the increasing urgency of pluralism, modern writers such as Edip Yüksel and Mouhanad Khorchide hold Hell to be finite rather than eternal: Yüksel argues that evildoers will be punished in Hell for an appropriate period then cease to exist, so that their suffering (which is described in the Quran and is balanced with descriptions of heaven) will be only a just amount.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Approximately 85% of Muslims are Sunni, and one of six articles of faith in Sunni Islam is belief in the existence of God's predestination due to God's omniscience, whether it involves good or bad. Based on Sunni traditions, God wrote everything that will happen (in all of his creation) on a "tablet" before creating the world. Thus it is asked: how can humans be punished for what God has determined they do. In this tradition, in Ashari thought, God created good and evil deeds, which humans decide upon—humans have their own possibility to choose, but God retains sovereignty of all possibilities. This still leaves the question of why God set out those people's lives (or the negative choice of deeds) which result in Hell, and why God made it possible to become evil. In Islamic thought, evil is considered to be movement away from good, and God created this possibility so that humans are able to recognize good. (In contrast, angels are unable to move away from good, therefore angels generally rank lower than humans as they have reached heaven because they lack the ability to perceive the world as humans do.)


title: Problem of Hell

text: As with other Jewish writings of the Second Temple period, the New Testament text distinguishes two words, both translated "Hell" in older English Bibles: "Hades", "the grave", and "Gehenna" where God "can destroy both body and soul". A minority of Christians read this to mean that neither Hades nor Gehenna are eternal but refer to the ultimate destruction of the wicked in the Lake of Fire in a consuming fire, but which because of the Greek words used in translating from the Hebrew text has become confused with Greek myths and ideas. From the sixth century BC onward, the Greeks developed pagan ideas for the dead, and of reincarnation and even transmigration of souls. Christians picked up these pagan beliefs inferred by the Greek of immortality of the soul, or spirit being of a mortal individual, which survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, which is at odds and in contrast to the scriptural teaching that the dead go to the grave and know nothing and then at the end, an eternal oblivion of the wicked and an eternal life for the saints. Scripture makes clear that the dead are awaiting resurrection at the last judgment, when Christ comes and also when each person will receive his reward or are part of those lost with the wicked.


title: Problem of Hell

text: The Greek words used for those Bibles written in Greek, came loaded with ideas not in line with the original Hebrew, but since at the time, Greek was used as basically English is used today to communicate between people across the world, it was translated into these Greek words, and giving an incorrect understanding of the penalty of sin. In the Hebrew text when people died they went to Sheol, the grave and the wicked ultimately went to Gehenna which is the consuming by fire. So when the grave or the eternal oblivion of the wicked was translated into Greek, the word Hades was sometimes used, which is a Greek term for the realm of the dead. Nevertheless, the meaning depending on context was the grave, death, or the end of the wicked in which they are ultimately destroyed or perish. So we see where the grave or death or eventual destruction of the wicked, was translated using Greek words that since they had no exact ones to use, became a mix of mistranslation, pagan influence, and Greek myth associated with the word, but its original meaning was simple death or the destruction of the wicked at the end.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Christian mortalism is the doctrine that all men and women, including Christians, must die, and do not continue and are not conscious after death. Therefore, annihilationism includes the doctrine that "the wicked" are also destroyed rather than tormented forever in traditional "Hell" or the lake of fire. Christian mortalism and annihilationism are directly related to the doctrine of conditional immortality, the idea that a human soul is not immortal unless it is given eternal life at the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. Such a belief is based on the many texts which state that the wicked perish:


title: Problem of Hell

text: Annihilationism asserts that God will eventually destroy or annihilate the wicked when they are consumed in the Lake of Fire at the end, leaving only the righteous to live on in immortality.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Conditional immortality asserts that souls are naturally mortal, and those who reject Christ are separated from the sustaining power of God, thus dying off on their own.


title: Problem of Hell

text: This is seen in the texts making clear the alternatives at the end are to perish or to have eternal, everlasting life:


title: Problem of Hell

text: And that the consequence for sin at the day of judgment when God will judge both the living and the dead when He appears is death, not burning forever. God's gift is eternal life, very different from the penalty of sin:


title: Problem of Hell

text: The mortality of the soul has been held throughout the history of both Judaism and Christianity, with many biblical scholars looking at the issue through the Hebrew text, have denied the teaching of innate immortality. Rejection of the immortality of the soul, and advocacy of Christian mortalism, was a feature of Protestantism since the early days of the Reformation with Martin Luther himself rejecting the traditional idea, though his view did not carry into orthodox Lutheranism. One of the most notable English opponents of the immortality of the soul was Thomas Hobbes who describes the idea as a Greek "contagion" in Christian doctrine. Modern proponents of conditional immortality include as denominations the Seventh-day Adventists, Bible Students, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, and some other Protestant Christians.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Some apologists argue that Hell exists because of free will, and that Hell is a choice rather than an imposed punishment. Jonathan L. Kvanvig writes:


title: Problem of Hell

text: An example from popular culture can be found in the graphic novel series "The Sandman". In it, souls go to Hell because they "believe" that they deserve to, rather than being condemned to it by God or Satan.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Universal reconciliation is the doctrine or belief of some Christians that all will eventually receive salvation because of the love and mercy of God. Universal reconciliation does not commit one to the position that one can be saved apart from Christ. It only commits one to the position that all will eventually be saved through Christ. Neither does universal reconciliation commit one to the position that there is no Hell or damnation—Hell can well be the consuming fire through which Christ refines those who turn from him (Matthew 3:11). Universal reconciliation only claims that one day Death and Hades themselves will be destroyed and all immortal souls will be reconciled to Him.


title: Problem of Hell

text: It was traditionally claimed by some western scholars such as the Universalist historian George T. Knight (1911) and Pierre Batiffol (English translation 1914) that a form of universal salvation could be found among some theologians in early Christianity. Origen interpreted the New Testament's reference (Acts 3:21) to a "restoration of all things", (Greek: apocatastasis of all things), as meaning that sinners "might" be restored to God and released from Hell, returning the universe to a state identical to its pure beginnings. This theory of apocatastasis could be easily interpreted to imply that even devils would be saved, as was the case during the later Origenist controversies. Some Greek Orthodox scholars do not count Gregory of Nyssa (AD 331–395) as a believer in Universal Salvation, although many do, given that multiple passages in his writings appear to explicitly affirm apocatastasis.


title: Problem of Hell

text: In the 17th century, a belief in Christian universalism appeared in England and traveled over to what has become the present-day US Christian Universalists such as Hosea Ballou argued that Jesus taught Universalist principles including universal reconciliation and the divine origin and destiny of all souls. Ballou also argued that some Universalist principles were taught or foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Critics of universalism maintain that the Bible does not teach universal salvation, while proponents insist that it does.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Recent examples of advocates for the position are Kallistos Ware, a Greek Orthodox bishop and retired University of Oxford theologian who states that many of the 'Fathers of Church' postulated the idea of salvation for all, and Saint Silouan of Mount Athos, who argued that the compassion and love of those in heaven and on earth will extend to eliminating suffering even in hell. In terms of Biblical citations, Father David A. Fisher, Pastor of St. Anthony of Padua


title: Problem of Hell

text: Maronite Church and professor of philosophy at Ohio Central State University, has argued that total reconciliation seems to arise from the First Epistle to the Corinthians such as , "As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ", and , "God will be all in all." Verses that seem to contradict the tradition of complete damnation and come up in arguments also include (NIV), "For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love, For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.", (NIV), "We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.", and , "And all people will see God’s salvation."


title: Problem of Hell

text: With regards to the problem of hell, as one that can be traced to the more fundamental theological dilemma of God and the existence of good and evil, theodicy offers its own answers. The main issue holds that if God is all good, powerful, and perfect, then how can he allow evil and, by extension, hell to exist? For some thinkers, the existence of evil and hell could mean that God is not perfectly good and powerful or that there is no God at all. Theodicy tries to address this dilemma by reconciling an all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnibenevolent God with the existence of evil and suffering, outlining the possibility that God and evil can coexist. There are several thoughts or theodicies such as biblical theodicy, the theodicy attributed to Gottfried Leibniz, Plotinian, Irenean, and Augustinian, among others. These differ in their respective arguments but, overall, these theodicies—as opposed to a defense that demonstrates the existence of God and evil or hell—seek to demonstrate a framework where God's existence is plausible. It is, therefore, a logical instead of evidential answer to the problem. A theodicy explains God's reason for allowing evil, that there is a greater good that justifies such permission.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Some Catholic theologians such as Karl Rahner, Gisbert Greshake, and Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar have at length discussed the possibility that any man may be led by a final grace to freely willed repentance if necessary at least at some point in the process of dying. This possible process is described thus by the late Munich dogmatic Prof. Michael Schmaus:


title: Problem of Hell

text: If in terms of theology death is a meeting of a man with God in so far as God calls man and he answers obedience, readiness and love, it would be surprising if in the moment of dying the chances of taking position never were given, even contrary to the outward look. ... One cannot apply to experience as counter-argument, because ... what happens then in the interior and behind the physiological processes is only known by someone who experiences dying itself, and this unto its very end. We may assume that in the dissolving process of the earthly union of body and soul and with the progressing breakaway from earthly entanglements, a special awakeness accrues to man ... in which he can say yea or nay to God.


title: Problem of Hell

text: Balthasar was careful to describe his opinion that Hell might be empty as merely a hope, but even this claim was rejected by most conservative Catholics, including Cardinal Avery Dulles. The Syllabus says in no. 17 that we may not (even) hope for the salvation of all non-Catholics; this seems to mean conversely that there is at least one non-Catholic in all history who will not be saved. seems to say that "many" will be reproved, which may imply hell (not some lesser purgatory). On the other hand, error no. 17 in question only speaks of those "in the true Church of Christ", which need not imply the visible Church. Roman Catholicism not only allows for the possibility that non-Catholics can be saved, and even rejected the view known as Feeneyism, which held that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: The Cheeky Girls are a Romanian singing duo consisting of identical twin sisters Gabriela and Monica Irimia (both born 31 October 1982). After appearing as auditionees on "", they achieved success in the UK charts with four top 10 hits between 2002 and 2004. They are best known for their debut single, "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)", which has sold more than 1.2 million units internationally. The Cheeky Girls released their debut studio album, "PartyTime", in 2003 which reached number 14 in the UK Albums Chart.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: Gabriela and Monica were born on 31 October 1982 to Doru and Margit Irimia. Gabriela is older by 10 minutes. Their early life in Romania consisted of studying gymnastics and ballet and touring with the Hungarian National Opera. Moving to the United Kingdom with their mother in 2002, the girls shot to fame as the Cheeky Girls after auditioning on two British TV shows, Channel 4's "Model Behaviour" and more importantly "Popstars: The Rivals". Following two appearances on the show with their audition, which had judges Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh not knowing what to say – Waterman was later quoted as saying they were the worst act ever – various record companies approached the Granada Press Office. The Press Office contacted Paul Holland at Granada Ventures, who was able to secure them a deal with the Multiply label, part of Telstar Records. "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)" was swiftly recorded and released in the first week in December. Entering the chart at number two, the single remained in the top five for five consecutive weeks, four of them at number two.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: This was quickly followed up with two more top three hits, "Take Your Shoes Off" and "(Hooray, Hooray!) It's a Cheeky Holiday!". Their style of music is primarily disco-pop, aimed at the pre-teen market. Most of their songs are written by their mother, who also acts as their manager.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: On 4 August 2006, the "Evening Standard" reported that the Cheeky Girls were "at rock bottom" and facing bankruptcy action in court owing to not having been paid by their now-defunct record company, Telstar Records. The article said that the women owed £4,500 in unpaid taxes, along with other bills, and that Telstar owed them £2.2 million. Later, it was reported that they owed £130,000 in total.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: In September 2009, the act released their Cheeky Girls make-up range, aimed at the young teen market.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: On 7 March 2013, the women appeared on the "This Week" BBC TV programme discussing the subject of Romanian immigration to the UK with host Andrew Neil. This followed a short video report by Monica talking about British fears of an invasion of benefit-seekers from their homeland. They previously appeared on the show on 10 July 2008.


title: The Cheeky Girls

text: In December 2006, it was revealed by the tabloids that former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik had broken up with long-time fiancée, ITV weather presenter Siân Lloyd, and was now romantically involved with Gabriela. Öpik "passed documentation on to the singers' constituency MP and spoke to a Home Office minister," when the Irimias were facing deportation to Romania. The couple announced their engagement in April 2008 after Öpik proposed in Rome, but the engagement was short lived and a breakup was announced three months later.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Hypoxemia is an abnormally low level of oxygen in the blood. More specifically, it is oxygen deficiency in arterial blood. Hypoxemia has many causes, and often causes hypoxia as the blood is not supplying enough oxygen to the tissues of the body.


title: Hypoxemia

text: "Hypoxemia" refers to the low level of oxygen in blood, and the more general term "hypoxia" is an abnormally low oxygen content in any tissue or organ, or the body as a whole. Hypoxemia can cause hypoxia (hypoxemic hypoxia), but hypoxia can also occur via other mechanisms, such as anemia.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Hypoxemia is usually defined in terms of reduced partial pressure of oxygen (mm Hg) in arterial blood, but also in terms of reduced content of oxygen (ml oxygen per dl blood) or percentage saturation of hemoglobin (the oxygen-binding protein within red blood cells) with oxygen, which is either found singly or in combination.


title: Hypoxemia

text: While there is general agreement that an arterial blood gas measurement which shows that the partial pressure of oxygen is lower than normal constitutes hypoxemia, there is less agreement concerning whether the oxygen content of blood is relevant in determining hypoxemia. This definition would include oxygen carried by hemoglobin. The oxygen content of blood is thus sometimes viewed as a measure of tissue delivery rather than hypoxemia.


title: Hypoxemia

text: In an acute context, hypoxemia can cause symptoms such as those in respiratory distress. These include breathlessness, an increased rate of breathing, use of the chest and abdominal muscles to breathe, and lip pursing.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Chronic hypoxemia may be compensated or uncompensated. The compensation may cause symptoms to be overlooked initially, however, further disease or a stress such as any increase in oxygen demand may finally unmask the existing hypoxemia. In a compensated state, blood vessels supplying less-ventilated areas of the lung may selectively contract, to redirect the blood to areas of the lungs which are better ventilated. However, in a chronic context, and if the lungs are not well ventilated generally, this mechanism can result in pulmonary hypertension, overloading the right ventricle of the heart and causing cor pulmonale and right sided heart failure. Polycythemia can also occur. In children, chronic hypoxemia may manifest as delayed growth, neurological development and motor development and decreased sleep quality with frequent sleep arousals.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Other symptoms of hypoxemia may include cyanosis, digital clubbing, and symptoms that may relate to the cause of the hypoxemia, including cough and hemoptysis.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Serious hypoxemia typically occurs when the partial pressure of oxygen in blood is less than , the beginning of the steep portion of the oxygen–hemoglobin dissociation curve, where a small decrease in the partial pressure of oxygen results in a large decrease in the oxygen content of the blood. Severe hypoxia can lead to respiratory failure


title: Hypoxemia

text: Hypoxemia refers to insufficient oxygen in the blood. Thus any cause that influences the rate or volume of air entering the lungs (ventilation) or any cause that influences the transfer of air from the lungs to the blood may cause hypoxemia. As well as these respiratory causes, cardiovascular causes such as shunts may also result in hypoxemia.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Hypoxemia is caused by five categories of etiologies: hypoventilation, ventilation/perfusion mismatch, right-to-left shunt, diffusion impairment, and low PO. Low PO and hypoventilation are associated with a normal alveolar–arterial gradient (A-a gradient) whereas the other categories are associated with an increased A-a gradient.


title: Hypoxemia

text: If the alveolar ventilation is low, there will not be enough oxygen delivered to the alveoli for the body's use. This can cause hypoxemia even if the lungs are normal, as the cause is in the brainstem's control of ventilation or in the body's inability to breathe effectively.


title: Hypoxemia

text: Respiration is controlled by centers in the medulla, which influence the rate of breathing and the depth of each breath. This is influenced by the blood level of carbon dioxide, as determined by central and peripheral chemoreceptors located in the central nervous system and carotid and aortic bodies, respectively. Hypoxia occurs when the breathing center doesn't function correctly or when the signal is not appropriate:


title: Hypoxemia

text: In conditions where the proportion of oxygen in the air is low, or when the partial pressure of oxygen has decreased, less oxygen is present in the alveoli of the lungs. The alveolar oxygen is transferred to hemoglobin, a carrier protein inside red blood cells, with an efficiency that decreases with the partial pressure of oxygen in the air.


title: Hypoxemia

text: This refers to a disruption in the ventilation/perfusion equilibrium. Oxygen entering the lungs typically diffuses across the alveolar-capillary membrane into blood. However this equilibration does not occur when the alveolus is insufficiently ventilated, and as a consequence the blood exiting that alveolus is relatively hypoxemic. When such blood is added to blood from well ventilated alveoli, the mix has a lower oxygen partial pressure than the alveolar air, and so the A-a difference develops. Examples of states that can cause a ventilation-perfusion mismatch include:


title: Hypoxemia

text: Shunting refers to blood that bypasses the pulmonary circulation, meaning that the blood does not receive oxygen from the alveoli. In general, a shunt may be within the heart or lungs, and cannot be corrected by administering oxygen alone. Shunting may occur in normal states:


title: Hypoxemia

text: Exercise-induced arterial hypoxemia occurs during exercise when a trained individual exhibits an arterial oxygen saturation below 93%. It occurs in fit, healthy individuals of varying ages and genders. Adaptations due to training include an increased cardiac output from cardiac hypertrophy, improved venous return, and metabolic vasodilation of muscles, and an increased VO max. There must be a corresponding increase in VCO thus a necessity to clear the carbon dioxide to prevent a metabolic acidosis. Hypoxemia occurs in these individuals due to increased pulmonary blood flow causing:


title: Hypoxemia

text: Key to understanding whether the lung is involved in a particular case of hypoxemia is the difference between the alveolar and the arterial oxygen levels; this A-a difference is often called the A-a "gradient" and is normally small. The arterial oxygen partial pressure is obtained directly from an arterial blood gas determination. The oxygen contained in the alveolar air can be calculated because it will be directly proportional to its fractional composition in air. Since the airways humidify (and so dilute) the inhaled air, the barometric pressure of the atmosphere is reduced by the vapor pressure of water.


title: Hypoxemia

text: The term hypoxemia was originally used to describe low blood oxygen occurring at high altitudes and was defined generally as defective oxygenation of the blood.


title: Hypoxemia

text: In modern times there are a lot of tools to detects hypoxemia including smartwatches. In 2022 a research has shown smartwatches can detect short-time hypoxemia as well as standard medical devices.


title: Eric Vale

text: Eric Vale (born Christopher Eric Johnson) is an American voice actor who provided voices for a number of English versions of Japanese anime series. He is known for voicing Koichiro Iketani in the "Initial D" series, Trunks in the "Dragon Ball" series, Sanji in "One Piece", Kogoro Akechi in "Trickster", Keisuke Umehara in "Big Windup!", Huey Laforet in "Baccano!", Tobari Durandal Kumohira in "Nabari no Ou", Jean Croce in "Gunslinger Girl" series, Kisumi Shigino in "Free!" series, Kakeru Ryuen in "Classroom of the Elite", Solf J. Kimblee in "Fullmetal Alchemist", Kazuma in "Noragami" series, Tsunenaga Tamaki in "Deadman Wonderland", Qisha Tianling in "Chaos Dragon", Akechi in "", Casshern in "Casshern Sins", Hayato Kujo in "Aquarion Logos", and in the "" series, Ferid Bathory in the "Seraph of the End" series, Yuki Sohma in "Fruits Basket" series, Tenko "Tomura Shigaraki" Shimura in "My Hero Academia", Loke in "Fairy Tail" and Phoenix Wright from "Ace Attorney".


title: Ray Comfort

text: Ray Comfort (born 5 December 1949) is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry "The Way of the Master", in Bellflower, California, and has written several books.


title: Ray Comfort

text: According to Comfort's autobiography, his parents put "Methodist" on his birth certificate but he was given no religious instruction as a child. Comfort identifies himself as both Christian and Jewish.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In 1989, Comfort accepted an invitation to join the pastoral staff at the non-denominational Calvary Chapel in Southern California.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In the mid-1990s Comfort persuaded Kirk Cameron, star of the cancelled hit sitcom "Growing Pains", to become an evangelist. In 2002, the pair formed an organization called "The Way of the Master", with the intention of teaching the church to more effectively preach the message of evangelical Christianity.


title: Ray Comfort

text: Comfort says that evangelism is the main reason the Christian Church exists and that many of the evangelistic methods used over the last century have produced false conversions to Christianity. Comfort often uses the Ten Commandments to speak about sin before presenting the gospel of Jesus. In the mid-1980s he formulated two sermons entitled "Hell's Best Kept Secret" and "True and False Conversions."


title: Ray Comfort

text: Comfort speaks professionally at churches and evangelism seminars, and preaches in Huntington Beach, California. As well as co-hosting the former "The Way of the Master Radio" with Kirk Cameron, he is co-host of "The Way of the Master Television Show".


title: Ray Comfort

text: In 2006, Comfort recorded a segment for "The Way of the Master"'s television show in which he argued that the banana was "the atheist's nightmare", arguing that it displayed many user-friendly features that were evidence of intelligent design. Comfort retracted the video and claims upon learning that the banana is a result of artificial selection by humans, and that the wild banana is small and unpalatable.


title: Ray Comfort

text: On 13 April 2001, Comfort appeared at the 27th National Convention of American Atheists in Orlando, Florida, where he debated Ron Barrier, the National Spokesperson for American Atheists. Comfort later stated that "they laughed at my humor, and although there was unified mockery at some of the things that I said, I was able to go through the Ten Commandments, the fact of Judgment Day, the reality of Hell, the Cross, and the necessity of repentance, and no one stopped me."


title: Ray Comfort

text: On 5 May 2007, Comfort and Cameron participated in a televised debate with Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Connor of the Rational Response Squad, at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan. The debate, which was moderated by "Nightline" correspondent Martin Bashir, focused on the existence of God, which Comfort claimed he could prove scientifically without relying on the Bible. During the debate, Cameron and Comfort repeatedly referenced the Ten Commandments and denied the theory of evolution.


title: Ray Comfort

text: According to Comfort, he has designed dozens of gospel tracts since the 1970s, and sells millions of Living Waters tracts each year. Some of his tracts are designed to resemble paper money, including fake $100, $1,000 and $1 million bills. Others employ novelties intended to amuse, such as a "ticket to heaven" that invites the reader to tear it if they do not need it; the ticket is printed on a type of plastic, making it difficult to rip. The tracts typically attempt to persuade the reader that on judgment day, they will certainly be found guilty of breaking one or more of the Ten Commandments, and therefore will be sent to hell, unless they say a prayer to acknowledge Christ's substitutionary atonement.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In June 2006, agents of the US Secret Service confiscated thousands of Ray Comfort's "Million Dollar Bill" gospel tracts from Darrel Rundus, president of Great News Network. A federal district court judge ruled that the tracts, which were marked as "not legal tender", did not violate federal law and ordered their return.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In October 2010, "The New Zealand Herald" reported that elderly people received "appointment cards" by Comfort's California-based publishing company, Living Waters, asking them to fill out information regarding the date and time of their deaths, and advising them to contact evangelists in order to avoid hell. Recipients of these cards expressed anger and horror over receiving them, and contacted police over the matter, with one of them commenting, "It's disgusting. It was quite spooky. I just couldn't comprehend why anyone would ask you to predict the date of your death." "The New Zealand Herald" summarized a statement from Living Waters spokesperson Lisa Law as saying that "the cards were a way of raising awareness of human mortality in order to spark discussion about Jesus", and that Law "did not know who sent [the tracts]".


title: Ray Comfort

text: Ray Comfort has authored more than 80 books and tracts. His 2009 book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think", ranked #1 in Amazon.com's atheism and apologetics categories when it debuted in February 2009.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In November 2009, Comfort released an edited and abridged version of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", with a 50-page foreword containing creationist arguments against the theory of evolution. The book was given away for free at selected schools around the United States. Stan Guffey, a biologist at the University of Tennessee, alleged that most of Comfort's foreword was plagiarised from Darwin himself.


title: Ray Comfort

text: According to Comfort's website, "nothing has been removed from Darwin's original work", but Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), noted that Comfort deleted four chapters by Darwin that described the evidence for evolution, adding that two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcased biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution. She wrote that Comfort's foreword is "a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments, teeming with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking".


title: Ray Comfort

text: On his website, Comfort said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent chapters available for download, and that the missing chapters were included in the second edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms. The NCSE arranged a campaign at colleges across the US to distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction, a one-page flier, and "the NCSE Safety Bookmark" in the shape of a banana, a reference to Comfort's flawed presentation of the banana as an argument for the existence of God.


title: Ray Comfort

text: In 2011, Comfort wrote and produced a 33-minute documentary film called "180: Changing the Heart of a Nation". The film was criticized by "The Huffington Post" for its comparison of legalized abortion to the Holocaust.


title: Ray Comfort

text: Comfort's 2016 film "The Atheist Delusion" premiered at the Ark Encounter, a Christian theme park operated by the young Earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis on 22 October 2016.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport () , formerly "Novo Alexeyevka International Airport", is the busiest international airport in Georgia, located southeast of capital Tbilisi. The airport handled 3.7 million passengers in 2019. Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the airspace of Georgia was closed for most of 2020 causing the number of travelers through Tbilisi airport to drop by 84% to less than 600,000.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Tbilisi Airport is home to Georgian flag carrier Georgian Airways and MyWay Airlines, which was founded in 2017. The airport is served by approximately 30 airlines, mainly from Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia serving roughly 30 destinations out of Tbilisi. Due to the increasing popularity of Georgia and the city of Tbilisi as a tourist destination, the number of travelers grew since 2010 from 1 million to almost 4 million until the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The airspace of Georgia was closed for most of 2020 with the exception of government-mandated expatriation flights, but regular international air traffic resumed as of February 2021.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Following a political row in June 2019, Russia banned flights to and from Georgia starting July 8, 2019. Georgian Airways from Tbilisi to Moscow-Vnukovo have since been operated by Aircompany Armenia through Yerevan. The ban was still in effect at the end of 2021. The Kremlin has also banned all Russian airlines from flying to Georgia. A similar ban was in effect during 2006–2008.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: The George W. Bush Avenue (Kakheti Highway) leads from the airport to the center of Tbilisi. A train service is available as well opposite the exit of the airport building. The train leaves twice a day from the modernist station that opened in 2007.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: The first airport terminal building was constructed in 1952. Designed by the architect V. Beridze in the style of Stalinist architecture the building featured a floor plan with symmetric axes and a monumental risalit in the form of a portico. The two wings featured blind arcades in giant order. A new terminal building was completed in 1990, designed in the International style.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: In 1981 Tbilisi airport was the 12th largest airport in the Soviet Union, with 1,478,000 passengers on so-called central lines, which were flights connecting Tbilisi with cities in other Soviet republics. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the civil war and the economic crisis in the newly independent Georgia, passenger numbers had dropped to 230,000 by 1998.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Tbilisi International Airport is operated by TAV Urban Georgia since October 2005 which concession has been extended until at least 2037. In Georgia, the company also operates Batumi Airport for a 20-year term since May 2007. TAV Airports Holding, which owns 76% shares in Tbilisi airport operator TAV Urban Georgia, agreed with the Georgian state-owned United Airports of Georgia to reconstruct and extend the unused runway, one of the two runways at the Tbilisi airport, in line with ICAO standards to accept all type of aircraft, including the Boeing 747-8, Airbus A380-800, Antonov An-225 and Antonov An-124. A new F Code taxiway was also planned.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: February 2007 saw the completion of a US$90.5 million reconstruction project, with the construction of a new international terminal, a car park, improvements to the apron, taxiway and runway and the acquisition of ground handling equipment and an annual passenger capacity of 2.8 million. A rail link to the city centre was constructed, with an infrequent rail service of two trains per day each way. The airport got a contemporary and functional design, to provide an optimized flow of both passengers and luggage from the parking lot to the planes, with a total usable area, while future expansions can be implemented without interrupting terminal operations. Various food and beverage operations have been incorporated in the new terminal, including four duty-free stores. The implementing party for the project was TAV Urban Georgia, a concessionaire and special purpose vehicle for the construction and operation of the airport, and the project was financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: In 2016, the main runway of the airport was renovated and equipped with new navigation lighting. Runway guard lights, LED stop bar signals and guidance signs at all the holding positions on the airport's main runway were also added The instrument landing system was also upgraded to CAT II, which enables aircraft to land during poor weather conditions. The airfield lighting control and monitoring system was upgraded, including installation of new lighting signals on all four taxiways. In 2017, a new arrival terminal with an area of , integrated with the existing terminal building, was completed to meet the increasing numbers of travelers. The terminal's capacity was increased to 3.5 million passengers per year. In addition to the expansion of the terminal building, this $33 million project implemented, among other things, a new boarding bridge with two exits, five new aircraft parking spaces, three 150-meter luggage racks and a new parking lot for 250 cars.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: A new Tbilisi metro overground line linking airport with the city was announced in October 2018. Proposed extension would connect the airport with Samgori metro station as transfer point with the existing metro line. Construction was set to begin in late 2019, but the project was effectively abandoned in spring 2021 when a feasibility study did not produce the desired outcome.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Tbilisi airport mainly serves destinations in Europe and the Middle East. The Georgian government negotiates with several airlines to increase the number of destinations.


title: Tbilisi International Airport

text: Flights to Russia have been suspended since July 8, 2019 due to sanctions imposed from Moscow. Georgian Airways flights from Tbilisi to Moscow-Vnukovo have since been operated by Aircompany Armenia via Yerevan. The Kremlin has also barred all Russian airlines from flying to Georgia.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarot games are card games played with tarot decks, that is, decks with numbered permanent trumps parallel to the suit cards. The games and decks which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot are called Tarocchi in the original Italian, Tarock in German and various similar words in other languages. The basic rules first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425. The games are known in many variations, mostly cultural and regional.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarot games originated in Italy, and spread to most parts of Europe, notable exceptions being the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, and the Balkans. They are played with decks having four ordinary suits, and one additional, longer suit of tarots, which are always trumps. They are characterised by the rule that a player who cannot follow to a trick with a card of the suit led "must" play a trump to the trick if possible. Tarot games have introduced the concept of trumps to card games. More recent tarot games borrowed features from other games like bidding from Ombre and winning the last trick with the lowest trump from Trappola.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarot decks did not precede decks having four suits of the same length, and they were invented not for occult purposes but purely for gaming. In 1781, Court de Gébelin published an essay associating the cards with ancient wisdom, the earliest record of this idea, subsequently debunked by Dummett. As a result of the unsupported theories of de Gébelin and other occultists, tarot cards have since been used for cartomancy and divination as well as gaming, although nowadays fortune-tellers tend to use specially-developed tarot decks rather than those used for games.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarot games are increasingly popular in Europe, especially in France where French Tarot is the second most popular card game after Belote. In Austria, Tarock games, especially Königrufen, have become widespread and there are several major national and international tournaments each year. Italy, the home of Tarot, remains a stronghold, and games of the Tarot family are also played in Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark, south Germany and south Poland. Tarot games, however, have yet to be common in the British Isles or the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Tarot card games

text: The cards of the special suit in these games are variously called tarocks, tarocs, taroks, tarocchi or tarots.


title: Tarot card games

text: "Tarocchi" (Italian, singular "Tarocco"), and similar names in other languages, is a specific form of playing card deck used for different trick-taking games. An earlier name of the game "Trionfi" is first recorded in the diary of Giusto Giusti in September 1440 (in other early documents also ludus triumphorum or similar). The name "Tarochi" was first used in Ferrara June 1505, the name "Taraux" appeared in Avignon in December of the same year. The names Tarocco, Tarocchi and Tarot developed in later times beside different writing forms. The poet Francesco Berni still mocked on this word in his "Capitolo del Gioco della Primiera" written in 1526. The name Trionfi developed later as a general term for trick-taking games (Triomphe in French, Trumpfen in German and Trump in English) and persisted as the name for the trumps in Tarot packs even when they had been renamed "Tarocchi". Other different games claimed the name without any use of Tarocchi cards. The first basic rules for the game of "Tarocco" appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, the next are known from the year 1637.


title: Tarot card games

text: Excluding Piedmontese tarocchi, which is more closely related to French tarot, Italian tarocchi are all of Type I, i.e. they have trumps other than the I and XXI that are worth more than one card point. Winning the final trick ("ultimo") awards a set number of points. Sicilian tarocchi is played in only four towns with 63 cards from the Tarocco Siciliano deck. Tarocchini is confined to Bologna and uses the 62 card Tarocco Bolognese deck. These games have four face cards in each suit but dropped some of their pip cards early in their history. Both decks include 21 trumps and The Fool, a suitless card that excuses the player from following suit.


title: Tarot card games

text: The French adopted tarot games after their occupation of Milan in the late 15th century. French Tarot, known locally as "Jeu de Tarot", is one which uses the full 78-card Tarot deck. Originally played with the Italian-suited Tarot de Marseille, the game is now played with the French-suited Tarot Nouveau. The Tarot Nouveau, of Frankfurt origin, has trumps which depict scenes of traditional social activities; this differs from the Renaissance allegorical motifs found in Italian-suited Tarot decks such as the Tarot de Marseille, Tarocco Piemontese and the Tarocco Bolognese. "Jeu de Tarot" is now the most popular card game in France after Belote and many tournaments are held by the Fédération Française de Tarot.


title: Tarot card games

text: A Tarot Nouveau deck consists of 56 cards of four suits and 22 emblematic cards called "atouts" (trumps). Each suit consists of fourteen cards: ten pip cards, and four face cards: the "Roi" (King), "Dame" (Queen), "Cavalier" (Knight), and "Valet" (Jack). Of the "atouts", 21 are numbered from 1 to 21, and a non-numbered card called ""Fou"" ("Fool", also called ""Mat"" or ""L'Excuse"" in play) which "excuses" the player from following suit. Of the "atouts", only the Fool and trumps 1 and 21 are considered to be "counting" cards because they are worth more than 1 point. Winning the last trick awards bonuses only if it is won with the lowest trump.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarot games from Piedmont, the Italian region bordering France, are more similar to French tarot than other Italian games. These games use the 78-card Tarocco Piemontese deck which was derived from the Tarot de Marseille. The most common Piedmontese tarot games are Scarto, Mitigati, Chiamare il Re, and Partita which can be found in Pinerolo and Turin. Troccas, a Swiss tarot game, is also related and is played with the 78-card Swiss 1JJ Tarot, another derivative of the Tarot de Marseille. Danish Grosstarok, which focuses on winning the final trick, also uses the Tarot Nouveau.


title: Tarot card games

text: Tarock games, Dummett's Type III, differ from other forms in the function of the Fool which is now simply the highest trump. Games of this category include Cego, Zwanzigerrufen and Königrufen. These games use the 54 card French suited Cego or "Industrie und Glück" decks that strip certain pip cards. The games are widely played in the Upper Rhine valley and its surrounding hills such as the Black forest or the Vosges, and the countries within the boundaries of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, for which even the name 'Tarockania' ("Tarockanien") has been coined: the Austrian variation of the game (and the variations thereof) is thus still widely popular among all classes and generations in Slovenia and Croatia, while in Hungary different rules are applied. The Swiss game of Troggu is believed to be an intermediary form linking the older tarot games to the Central European ones.


title: Tarot card games

text: The individual tarock game variants differ too widely from one another to give a general description of play. However, they can be grouped by sub-type:


title: Tarot card games

text: One family of games emerged as result of the attempt to play Grosstarock with a normal 36-card German-suited pack. Instead of the dedicated trump suit, Hearts is chosen as the trump suit or at least as a preference suit. This family includes German Tarok, Württemberg Tarock or Tapp, Bavarian Tarock, Bauerntarock, Frog and Dobbm. They are Ace-Ten games that incorporate features of Tapp Tarock, but are not true tarock games.