title: Weird Tales

text: Except for a couple of short-lived magazines such as "Strange Tales" and "Tales of Magic and Mystery", and a weak challenge from "Ghost Stories", all between the late 1920s and the early 1930s, "Weird Tales" had little competition for most of Wright's sixteen years as editor. In the early 1930s, a series of pulp magazines began to appear that became known as "weird menace" magazines. These lasted until the end of the decade, but despite the name there was little overlap in subject matter between them and "Weird Tales": the stories in the weird menace magazines appeared to be based on occult or supernatural events, but at the end of the tale the mystery was always revealed to have a logical explanation. In 1935 Wright began running weird detective stories to try to attract some of the readers of these magazines to "Weird Tales", and asked readers to write in with comments. Reader reaction was uniformly negative, and after a year he announced that there would be no more of them.


title: Weird Tales

text: In 1939 two more serious threats appeared, both launched to compete directly for "Weird Tales"' readers. "Strange Stories" appeared in February 1939 and lasted for just over two years; Weinberg describes it as "top-quality", though Ashley is less complimentary, describing it as largely unoriginal and imitative. The following month the first issue of "Unknown" appeared from Street & Smith. Fritz Leiber submitted several of his "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories to Wright, but Wright rejected all of them (as did McIlwraith when she took over the editorship). Leiber subsequently sold them all to John W. Campbell for "Unknown;" Campbell commented each time to Leiber that "these would be better in "Weird Tales"". The stories grew into a very popular sword and sorcery series, but none of them ever appeared in "Weird Tales". Leiber did eventually sell several stories to "Weird Tales", beginning with "The Automatic Pistol", which appeared in May 1940.


title: Weird Tales

text: "Weird Tales" included a letters column, titled "The Eyrie", for most of its existence, and during Wright's time as editor it was usually filled with long and detailed letters. When Brundage's nude covers appeared, a lengthy debate over whether they were suitable for the magazine was fought out in the Eyrie, the two sides being divided about equally. For years it was the most discussed topic in the magazine's letter column. Many of the authors Wright published wrote letters too, including Lovecraft, Howard, Kuttner, Bloch, Smith, Quinn, Wellman, Price, and Wandrei. In most cases these letters praised the magazine, but occasionally a critical comment was raised, as when Bloch repeatedly expressed his dislike for Howard's stories of Conan the Barbarian, referring to him as "Conan the Cimmerian Chipmunk". Another debate that was aired in the letter column was the question of how much science fiction the magazine should include. Until "Amazing Stories" was launched in April 1926, science fiction was popular with "Weird Tales"' readers, but after that point letters began to appear asking Wright to exclude science fiction, and only publish weird fantasy and horror. The pro-science fiction readers were in the majority, and as Wright agreed with them, he continued to include science fiction in "Weird Tales". Hugh B. Cave, who sold half-a-dozen stories to Wright in the early 1930s, commented on "The Eyrie" in a letter to a fellow writer: "No other magazine makes such a point of discussing past stories, and letting the authors know how their stuff is received".


title: Weird Tales

text: McIlwraith was an experienced magazine editor, but she knew little about weird fiction, and unlike Wright she also had to face real competition from other magazines for "Weird Tales"' core readership. Although "Unknown" folded in 1943, in its four years of existence it transformed the field of fantasy and horror, and "Weird Tales" was no longer regarded as the leader in its field. "Unknown" published many successful humorous fantasy stories, and McIlwraith responded by including some humorous material, but "Weird Tales" rates were less than "Unknown", with predictable effects on quality. In 1940 the policy of reprinting horror and weird classics ceased, and "Weird Tales" began using the slogan "All Stories New – No Reprints". Weinberg suggests that this was a mistake, as "Weird Tales" readership appreciated getting access to classic stories "often mentioned but rarely found". Without the reprints "Weird Tales" was left to survive on the rejects from "Unknown", the same authors selling to both markets. In Weinberg's words, "only the quality of the stories [separated] their work between the two pulps".


title: Weird Tales

text: Delaney's personal taste also reduced McIlwraith's latitude. In an interview with Robert A. Lowndes in early 1940, Delaney spoke about his plans for "Weird Tales". After saying that the magazine would still publish "all types of weird and fantasy fiction", Lowndes reported that Delaney did not want "stories which center about sheer repulsiveness, stories which leave an impression not to be described by any other word than 'nasty. Lowndes later added that Delaney had told him he found some of Clark Ashton Smith's stories on the "disgusting side".


title: Weird Tales

text: McIlwraith continued to publish many of "Weird Tales"' most popular authors, including Quinn, Derleth, Hamilton, Bloch, and Manly Wade Wellman. She also added new contributors, including Ray Bradbury. "Weird Tales" regularly featured Fredric Brown, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Fritz Leiber, and Theodore Sturgeon. As Wright had done, McIlwraith continued to buy Lovecraft stories submitted by August Derleth, though she abridged some of the longer pieces, such as "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Sword and sorcery stories, a genre which Howard had made much more popular with his stories of Conan, Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn in "Weird Tales" in the early 1930s, had continued to appear under Farnsworth Wright; they all but disappeared during McIlwraith's tenure. McIlwraith also focused more on short fiction, and serials and long stories were rare.


title: Weird Tales

text: In May 1951 "Weird Tales" once again began to include reprints, in an attempt to reduce costs, but by that time the earlier issues of "Weird Tales" had been extensively mined for reprints by August Derleth's publishing venture, Arkham House, and as a result McIlwraith often reprinted lesser-known stories. They were not advertised as reprints, which led in a couple of cases to letters from readers asking for more stories from H. P. Lovecraft, whom they believed to be a new author. In Weinberg's opinion, the magazine lost variety under McIlwraith's editorship, and "much of the uniqueness of the magazine was gone". In Ashley's view, the magazine became more consistent in quality, rather than worse; Ashley comments that though the issues edited by McIlwraith "seldom attain[ed] Wright's highpoints, they also omitted the lows". L. Sprague de Camp, toward the end of McIlwraith's time as editor, agreed that the 1930s were the magazine's heyday, citing Wright's death and the departure for other, better-paying, markets of several of its contributors as factors in the magazine's decline.


title: Weird Tales

text: The quality of "Weird Tales" artwork suffered when Delaney cut the rates. Bok, whose first cover had appeared in December 1939, moved to New York and joined the office art staff for a while; he eventually left because of the low pay. Boris Dolgov began contributing in the 1940s; he was a friend of Bok's and the two occasionally collaborated, signing the result "Dolbokgov". Weinberg regards Dolgov's illustration for Robert Bloch's "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" as one of his best works. "Weird Tales" paper was of very poor quality, which meant that the reproductions were poor, and along with the low pay rate for art this meant that many artists treated "Weird Tales" as a last resort for their work. Damon Knight, who sold some interior artwork to "Weird Tales" in the early 1940s, recalled later that he was paid $5 for a single-page drawing, and $10 for a double-page spread; he worked slowly and the low pay meant "Weird Tales" was not a viable market for him.


title: Weird Tales

text: The art editor, Lamont Buchanan, was able to establish five artists as regulars by the mid-1940s; they remained regular contributors until 1954, when the magazine's first incarnation ceased publication. The five were Dolgov, John Giunta, Fred Humiston, Vincent Napoli, and Lee Brown Coye. In Weinberg's review of "Weird Tales" interior art, he describes Humiston's work as ranging "from bad to terrible", but he is more positive about the others. Napoli had worked for "Weird Tales" from 1932 to the mid-1930s, when he began selling to the science fiction pulps, but his work for "Short Stories" brought him back to "Weird Tales" in the 1940s. Weinberg speaks highly of both Napoli and Coye, whom Weinberg describes as "the master of the weird and grotesque illustration". Coye did a series of full-page illustrations for "Weird Tales" called "Weirdisms", which ran intermittently from November 1948 to July 1951.


title: Weird Tales

text: The letter column, "The Eyrie", was much reduced in size during McIlwraith's tenure, but as a gesture to the readers a ""Weird Tales" Club" was started. Joining the Club simply meant writing in to receive a free membership card; the only other benefit was that the magazine listed all the members' names and addresses, so that members could contact each other. Among the names listed in the January 1943 issue was that of Hugh Hefner, later to become famous as the founder of "Playboy".


title: Weird Tales

text: Toward the end of McIlwraith's time as editor a couple of new writers appeared, including Richard Matheson and Joseph Payne Brennan. Brennan had already sold over a dozen stories to other pulps when he finally made a sale to McIlwraith, but he had always wanted to sell to "Weird Tales", and three years after the magazine folded he launched a small-press horror magazine named "Macabre", which he published for some years, in imitation of "Weird Tales".


title: Weird Tales

text: The four issues edited by Sam Moskowitz in the early 1970s included a detailed biography of William Hope Hodgson, serialized over three issues, along with some rare stories of Hodgson's that Moskowitz had unearthed. Many of the other stories were reprints, either from "Weird Tales" or from other early pulps such as "The Black Cat" or "Blue Book". In Ashley's opinion, the magazine "had the feel of a museum piece with nothing new or progressive", though Weinberg describes the magazine as having "an interesting jumble of contents". The subsequent paperback series edited by Lin Carter was criticized in similar terms: Weinberg regards it as having "too much reliance ... on the old names like Lovecraft, Howard and Smith by reprinting mediocre material ... New writers were not sufficiently encouraged", though Weinberg does add that Ramsey Campbell, Tanith Lee and Steve Rasnic Tem were among the newer writers who contributed good material. Ashley's opinion of the two Bellerophon issues is low: he describes them as lacking "any clear editorial direction or acumen".


title: Weird Tales

text: The April/May 2007 edition featured the magazine's first all-new design in almost seventy-five years. With Stephen H. Segal as editorial and creative director and Ann VanderMeer as fiction editor, during the next few years the magazine "won a number of awards and great acclaim." In 2010 VanderMeer became the magazine's editor-in chief.


title: Weird Tales

text: During this time "Weird Tales" published works by a wide range of strange-fiction authors including Michael Moorcock and Tanith Lee, as well as newer writers such as N. K. Jemisin, Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, and Rachel Swirsky. This period also saw the addition of a broader range of content, ranging from narrative essays to comics to features on weird culture. The magazine won its first Hugo Award in August 2009, in the semiprozine category, along with receiving two Hugo Award nominations in subsequent years and its first World Fantasy Award nomination, for Segal and Vandermeer, in more than seventeen years.


title: Weird Tales

text: In addition to winning or being nominated for awards, under VanderMeer's editorship "Weird Tales" saw the number of subscriptions triple as the magazine "came to symbolise what was good about the changes in the SF community.


title: Weird Tales

text: in 2011 Marvin Kaye and John Harlacher purchased "Weird Tales" from John Gregory Betancourt with Kaye taking over chief editorial duties from VanderMeer. Issue 359, the first under the new publishers, was published in late February 2012. Some months before the release of issue 359, a special World Fantasy Convention preview issue was given away for free to interested attendees.


title: Weird Tales

text: In August 2012, "Weird Tales" became involved in a media altercation after Kaye announced the magazine was going to publish an excerpt from Victoria Foyt's controversial novel "Save the Pearls", which many critics accused of featuring racist stereotyping. The decision was made despite the protests of VanderMeer, and prompted her to end her association with the magazine. Kaye wrote an essay titled "A Thoroughly NONRACIST Novel" defending his decision to publish the excerpt. Both the essay and Kaye's decision to publish the excerpt were heavily criticized, N. K. Jemisin saying "This is how you destroy something beautiful" with regards to the magazine and Jim C. Hines saying he was "highly disturbed that the editor ever thought this was in any way a good idea, that he was so supportive of this novel that he was going out of his way to defend and support it … up until the Internet landed on his head."


title: Weird Tales

text: The publisher subsequently overruled Kaye and announced that "Weird Tales" no longer had plans to run the excerpt.


title: Weird Tales

text: After the fall 2012 issue #360, Kaye only published two more issues of "Weird Tales", issue #361 in the summer of 2013 and #362 in the spring of 2014.


title: Weird Tales

text: In 2019 "Weird Tales" returned with author Jonathan Maberry as the editorial director, with issue #363 being released at the end of that year. This issue featured the story "Up from Slavery" by Victor LaValle, which later won the Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction.


title: Weird Tales

text: "Weird Tales" was one of the most important magazines in the fantasy field; in Ashley's view, it is "second only to "Unknown" in significance and influence". Weinberg goes further, calling it "the most important and influential of all fantasy magazines". Weinberg argues that much of the material "Weird Tales" published would never have appeared if the magazine had not existed. It was through "Weird Tales" that Lovecraft, Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith became widely known, and it was the first and one of the most important markets for weird and science fantasy artwork. Many of the horror stories adapted for early radio shows such as "Stay Tuned for Terror" originally appeared in "Weird Tales". The magazine's "Golden Age" was under Wright, and de Camp argues that one of Wright's accomplishments was to create a ""Weird Tales" school of writing". Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks, the editors of a recent scholarly collection of literary criticism focused on the magazine, argue that ""Weird Tales" functioned as a nexus point in the development of speculative fiction from which emerged the modern genres of fantasy and horror".


title: Weird Tales

text: The magazine was, unusually for a pulp, included by the editors of the annual Year in Fiction anthologies, and was generally regarded with more respect than most of the pulps. This remained true long after the magazine's first run ended, as it became the main source of fantasy short stories for anthologists for several decades. Weinberg argues that the fantasy pulps, of which, in his opinion, "Weird Tales" was the most influential, helped to form the modern fantasy genre, and that Wright, "if he was not a perfect editor ... was an extraordinary one, and one of the most influential figures in modern American fantasy fiction", adding that "Weird Tales" and its competitors "served as the bedrock upon which much of modern fantasy rests". Everett and Shanks agree, and regard "Weird Tales" as the venue where writers, editors and an engaged readership "elevated speculated fiction to new heights" with influence that "reverberates through modern popular culture". In Ashley's words, "somewhere in the imagination reservoir of all U.S. (and many non-U.S.) genre-fantasy and horror writers is part of the spirit of "Weird Tales"".


title: Weird Tales

text: The publisher for the first year was Rural Publishing Corporation; this changed to Popular Fiction Publishing with the November 1924 issue, and to Weird Tales, Inc. with the December 1938 issue. The four issues in the early 1970s came from Renown Publications, and the four paperbacks in the early 1980s were published by Zebra Books. The next two issues were from Bellerophon, and then from Spring 1988 to Winter 1996 the publisher was Terminus. From Summer 1998 to July/August 2003 the publisher was DNA Publications and Terminus, listed either as DNA Publications/Terminus or just as DNA Publications. The September/October 2003 issue listed the publisher as DNA Publications/Wildside Press/Terminus, and through 2004 this remained the case, one issue dropping Terminus from the masthead. Thereafter Wildside Press was the publisher, sometimes with Terminus listed as well, until the September/October 2007 issue, after which only Wildside Press were listed. The issues published from 2012 through 2014 were from Nth Dimension Media.


title: Weird Tales

text: "Weird Tales" was in pulp format for its entire first run except for the issues from May 1923 to April 1924, when it was a large pulp, and the last year, from September 1953 to September 1954, when it was a digest. The four 1970s issues were in pulp format. The two Bellerophon issues were quarto. The Terminus issues reverted to pulp format until the Winter 1992/1993 issue, which was large pulp. A single pulp issue appeared in Fall 1998, and then the format returned to large pulp until the Fall 2000 issue, which was quarto. The format varied between large pulp and quarto until January 2006, which was large pulp, as were all issues after that date until Fall 2009, except for a quarto-sized November 2008. From Summer 2010 the format was quarto.


title: Weird Tales

text: The first run of the magazine was priced at 25 cents for the first fifteen years of its life except for the oversized May/June/July 1924 issue, which was 50 cents. In September 1939 the price was reduced to 15 cents, where it stayed until the September 1947 issue, which was 20 cents. The price went up again to 25 cents in May 1949; the digest-sized issues from September 1953 to September 1954 were 35 cents. The first three paperbacks edited by Lin Carter were priced at $2.50; the fourth was $2.95. The two Bellerophon issues were $2.50 and $2.95. The Terminus "Weird Tales" began in Spring 1988 priced at $3.50; this went up to $4.00 with the Fall 1988 issue, and to $4.95 with the Summer 1990 issue. The next price increase was to $5.95, in Spring 2003, and then to $6.99 with the January 2008 issue. The first two issues from Nth Dimension Media were priced at $7.95 and $6.99; the last two were $9.99 each.


title: Weird Tales

text: Some of the early Terminus editions of "Weird Tales" were also printed in hardcover format, in limited editions of 200 copies. These were signed by the contributors, and were available at $40 as part of a subscription offer. Issues produced in this format include Summer 1988, Spring/Fall 1989, Winter 1989/1990, Spring 1991, and Winter 1991/1992.


title: Weird Tales

text: Starting in 1925, Christine Campbell Thomson edited a series of horror story anthologies, published by Selwyn and Blount, titled "Not at Night". These were considered an unofficial U.K. edition of the magazine, the stories sometimes appearing in the anthology before the magazine's U.S. version appeared. The ones which drew a substantial fraction of their contents from "Weird Tales" were:


title: Weird Tales

text: There was also a 1937 anthology titled "Not at Night Omnibus", which selected 35 stories from the "Not at Night" series, of which 20 had originally appeared in "Weird Tales". In the U.S. an anthology titled "Not at Night!", edited by Herbert Asbury, appeared from Macy-Macius in 1928; this selected 25 stories from the series, 24 of them drawn from "Weird Tales."


title: Weird Tales

text: A Canadian edition of "Weird Tales" appeared from June 1935 to July 1936; all fourteen issues are thought to be identical to the U.S. issues of those dates, though "Printed in Canada" appeared on the cover, and in at least one case another text box was placed on the cover to conceal part of a nude figure. Another Canadian series began in 1942, as a result of import restrictions placed on U.S. magazines. Canadian editions from 1942 up to January 1948 were not identical to the U.S. editions, but they match closely enough that the originals are easily identified. From the May 1942 to January 1945 issues, they correspond to the U.S. editions two issues earlier, that is, from January 1942 to September 1944. There was no Canadian issue corresponding to the November 1944 U.S. issue, so from that point the Canadian issues were only one behind the U.S. ones: the issues from March 1945 to January 1948 correspond to the U.S. issues from January 1945 to November 1947. There was no Canadian issue of the January 1948 U.S. issue, and from the next issue, March 1948, till the end of the Canadian run in November 1951, the issues were identical to the U.S. versions.


title: Weird Tales

text: There were numerous differences between the Canadian issues from May 1942 to January 1948 and the corresponding U.S. issues. All the covers were repainted by Canadian artists until the January 1945 issue; thereafter the artwork from the original issues was used. Initially the fiction content of the Canadian issues was unchanged from the U.S., but starting in September 1942 the Canadian "Weird Tales" dropped some of the original stories in each issue, replacing them with either stories from other issues of "Weird Tales", or, occasionally, material from "Short Stories".


title: Weird Tales

text: In a couple of instances a story appeared in the Canadian edition of the magazine before its appearance in the U.S. version, or simultaneously with it, so it is evident that whoever assembled the issues had access to the "Weird Tales" pending story file. Because of the reorganization of material, it often happened that one of the Canadian issues would have more than a single story by the same author. In these cases a pseudonym was invented for one of the stories.


title: Weird Tales

text: There were four separate editions of "Weird Tales" distributed in the United Kingdom. In early 1942, three issues abridged from the September 1940, November 1940, and January 1941 U.S. issues were published in the U.K. by Gerald Swan; they were undated, and had no volume numbers. The middle issue was 64 pages long; the other two were 48 pages. All were priced at 6d. A single issue was released in late 1946 by William Merrett; it also was undated and unnumbered. It was 36 pages long, and was priced at 1/6. The three stories included came from the October 1937 U.S. issue.


title: Weird Tales

text: A longer run of 23 issues appeared between November 1949 and December 1953, from Thorpe & Porter. These were all undated; the first issue had no volume or issue number but subsequent issues were numbered sequentially. Most were priced at 1/-; issues 11 to 15 were 1/6. All were 96 pages long. The first issue corresponds to the July 1949 U.S. issue; the next 20 issues correspond to the U.S. issues from November 1949 to January 1953, and the final two issues correspond to May 1953 and March 1953, in that order. Another five bimonthly issues appeared from Thorpe & Porter dated November 1953 to July 1954, with the volume numbering restarted at volume 1 number 1. These correspond to the U.S. issues from September 1953 to May 1954.


title: Weird Tales

text: "Weird Tales" is widely collected, and many issues command very high prices. In 2008, Mike Ashley estimated the first issue to be worth £3,000 in excellent condition, and added that the second issue is much rarer and commands higher prices. Issues with stories by Lovecraft or Howard are very highly sought-after, with the October 1923 issue, containing "Dagon", Lovecraft's first appearance in "Weird Tales", fetching comparable prices to the first two issues. The first few volumes are so rare that very few academic collections have more than a handful of these issues: Eastern New Mexico University, the holder of a remarkably complete early science fiction archive, has "only a few scattered issues" from the early years, and the librarian recorded in 1983 that "dealers laugh when Eastern enquires about these".


title: Weird Tales

text: Prices of the magazine drop over the succeeding decades, the McIlwraith issues being worth far less than the ones edited by Wright. Ashley quotes the digest-sized issues from the end of McIlwraith's tenure as fetching £8 to £10 each as of 2008. The revived editions are not particularly scarce, with two exceptions. The two Bellerophon issues received such poor distribution that they fetch high prices: Ashley quotes a 2008 price of £40 to £50 for the first one, and twice that for the second one. The other valuable recent issues are the hardback versions of the Terminus "Weird Tales"; Ashley gives prices of between £40 and £90, with some of the special author issues fetching a premium.


title: Griffith's experiment

text: Griffith's experiment, reported in 1928 by Frederick Griffith, was the first experiment suggesting that bacteria are capable of transferring genetic information through a process known as transformation. Griffith's findings were followed by research in the late 1930s and early 40s that isolated DNA as the material that communicated this genetic information.


title: Griffith's experiment

text: Pneumonia was a serious cause of death in the wake of the post-WWI Spanish influenza pandemic, and Griffith was studying the possibility of creating a vaccine. Griffith used two strains of pneumococcus ("Diplococcus pneumoniae") bacteria which infect mice – a type III-S (smooth) which was virulent, and a type II-R (rough) strain which was nonvirulent. The III-S strain synthesized a polysaccharide capsule that protected itself from the host's immune system, resulting in the death of the host, while the II-R strain did not have that protective capsule and was defeated by the host's immune system. A German bacteriologist, Fred Neufeld, had discovered the three pneumococcal types (Types I, II, and III) and discovered the quellung reaction to identify them "in vitro". Until Griffith's experiment, bacteriologists believed that the types were fixed and unchangeable, from one generation to another.


title: Griffith's experiment

text: In this experiment, bacteria from the III-S strain were killed by heat, and their remains were added to II-R strain bacteria. While neither alone harmed the mice, the combination was able to kill its host. Griffith was also able to isolate both live II-R and live III-S strains of pneumococcus from the blood of these dead mice. Griffith concluded that the type II-R had been "transformed" into the lethal III-S strain by a "transforming principle" that was somehow part of the dead III-S strain bacteria.


title: Griffith's experiment

text: Today, we know that the "transforming principle" Griffith observed was the DNA of the III-s strain bacteria. While the bacteria had been killed, the DNA had survived the heating process and was taken up by the II-R strain bacteria. The III-S strain DNA contains the genes that form the smooth protective polysaccharide capsule. Equipped with this gene, the former II-R strain bacteria were now protected from the host's immune system and could kill the host. The exact nature of the transforming principle (DNA) was verified in the experiments done by Avery, McLeod and McCarty and by Hershey and Chase.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The Cleveland Browns relocation controversy - colloquially called "The Move" by fans - was caused during the 1995 NFL season by the announcement from then-Browns owner Art Modell that he intended to move the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League from its long-time home of Cleveland to Baltimore.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Subsequent legal actions by the city of Cleveland and Browns season ticket holders led the NFL to broker a compromise in which Modell agreed to return the Browns franchise to the league. The agreement explicitly stipulated that the Browns franchise, including its history, records and intellectual property, were to remain in Cleveland. In exchange, the NFL agreed to grant Modell a new franchise in Baltimore (which was eventually named the Ravens) while the City of Cleveland agreed to build an NFL-caliber venue to replace the aging Cleveland Stadium. As a result, Cleveland Stadium was demolished beginning in late 1996 and a new stadium was constructed on the same site.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Since it was deemed infeasible for the Browns to play the 1996 season in Cleveland under such circumstances, the franchise was officially deactivated by the NFL in February 1996. The NFL agreed to re-activate the Browns by , provided the aforementioned new stadium was ready. In lieu of holding both a dispersal draft for the Browns and an expansion draft for the Ravens, the NFL allowed Modell to effectively transfer the Browns' existing football organization to the Ravens. As such, the Ravens are officially regarded by the NFL as an expansion team that began play in . By 1998, the NFL had ruled out moving any of the league's then-30 teams to Cleveland (and by extension committed to stocking the roster of a 31st team with an expansion draft) and sold the Browns franchise to Al Lerner, a former minority owner of the franchise under Modell, for $530 million. The re-activated Browns acquired players through this expansion draft and resumed play in 1999.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: This compromise, which was unprecedented in North American professional sports at the time, has since been cited in franchise moves and agreements in other leagues, including ones in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: In 1975, knowing that Municipal Stadium was costing the city over $300,000 annually to operate, then-Browns owner Art Modell signed a 25-year lease in which he agreed to incur these expenses in exchange for: quasi-ownership of the stadium, a portion of his annual profits, and capital improvements to the stadium at his expense. Modell's new company, Stadium Corporation, paid the city annual rents of $150,000 for the first five years and $200,000 afterwards.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Modell had originally promised never to move the Browns. He had publicly criticized the Baltimore Colts' move to Indianapolis, and had testified in favor of the NFL in court cases where the league unsuccessfully tried to stop Al Davis from moving the Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles. However, Modell refused to share suite revenue with the Cleveland Indians, who also played at Cleveland Stadium at that time, even though much of the revenues were generated during baseball games.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: In 1990, voters approved a ballot measure to build a new sports complex, the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex, which included a new baseball-only stadium and an arena. Modell, believing that his revenues were not endangered, decided not to participate in the Gateway Project that built Jacobs Field for the Indians and Gund Arena for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Modell's assumptions proved incorrect, and Stadium Corporation's suite revenues declined sharply when the Indians moved to Jacobs Field in 1994. Soaring player salaries put additional financial pressure on the Browns' owner. Modell claimed to have lost $21 million between 1993 and 1994.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Due to the massive and relatively consistent increase in the value of NFL franchises since the league's founding in 1920, the league has a long history of owners whose net worth is largely accounted for by the value of their football teams. Even today, many of the league's clubs are owned by businesspeople (or their heirs) who, while relatively well-off by the standards of the time, founded or purchased a football team which has since appreciated in value at a far higher rate than whatever other business interests they might have originally been involved in. However, even with those considerations in mind, Modell's net worth had always been relatively meager compared to most other principal owners in the NFL, despite his longstanding influence in league circles.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The Browns' capitalization problems were systemic and dated back to their founding as a charter All-America Football Conference franchise by legendary coach Paul Brown. Modell was originally recruited in large part because the NFL was desperate to avoid any perception of franchise instability within its ranks, especially in the face of competition with the then-fledgling (but well-financed) American Football League. As Cleveland had been decisive in ensuring the AAFC's relative success and eventual partial merger with the older league, the NFL was keen not to lose the market once again to yet another rival league in the way it had in 1946 when it allowed the Cleveland Rams to move to Los Angeles.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Thus, given the circumstances Modell's purchase of the team was ultimately approved by the NFL under conditions that the league might otherwise have rejected. On a relative basis, Modell's purchase of the Browns was among the most heavily leveraged in league history as he borrowed most of the funds used to purchase the team. Modell spent most of the next 34 years in financial difficulty, especially as interest rates soared and the costs of operating an NFL team escalated in tandem with the value of the league's franchises. This led Modell to take unorthodox measures to remain solvent, some of which were of questionable legality. For example, he tried to dump several bad loans onto the Browns, prompting one of his minority partners to take him to court. As early as 1983, Modell had come to believe that he would never be able to pay all of his debts before his deal with the city expired. The loss of revenue from the Indians thus hit Modell especially hard. After Modell realized how much revenue he lost from the Indians moving out of Cleveland Stadium, he requested an issue be placed on the ballot to provide $175 million in tax to refurbish the outmoded and declining Cleveland Stadium.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: On December 12, 1994, Modell told his board that he didn't believe a referendum to raise the sin tax would pass, as the proceeds would have been used to either fund a renovated Municipal Stadium or a new stadium. Modell then informed them that if the referendum failed, he would be finished in Cleveland, and would have no choice but to move the Browns.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Entering the 1995 season, the Browns, coached by Bill Belichick, were coming off a playoff season in which the team finished 11–5 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs. "Sports Illustrated" predicted that the Browns would represent the AFC in Super Bowl XXX at the end of the season, and the team started 3–1, but they then lost their next three games.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: While this was happening, Browns minority owner Al Lerner was privately prodding Modell to consider moving to Baltimore. He urged Modell to contact newly installed Maryland Stadium Authority chairman John Moag. Earlier in the year, the league had told Moag that Baltimore would get a team (either an expansion team or a relocated existing team) if a stadium were already in place.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Elected officials in Baltimore and Maryland were still smarting from the Colts moving to Indianapolis after the 1983 season, and refused to commit any money towards a new stadium unless the Stadium Authority secured a deal with a team. With this in mind, Moag made several calls to Modell that went ignored for much of 1995. Finally, in late July, Modell allowed Lerner to meet with Moag, provided that Lerner stress that Modell was not serious about moving. At that meeting, Moag laid out an offer in which the Browns would get the rights to a new, $220 million stadium if they moved to Baltimore. However, Moag told Lerner to take the offer back to Modell only if he was serious about considering a move.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Negotiations continued in secret until September, when Moag told Lerner that if the Browns were serious about moving, "you need to act and act now." A few days later, Lerner, Modell and Moag met at Lerner's Midtown Manhattan office. At that meeting, Moag presented a memorandum of understanding that was almost identical to what he'd offered the Cincinnati Bengals a few months earlier: a deal that ultimately led Cincinnati voters to pass a referendum that built what would become Paul Brown Stadium. Indeed, some paragraphs still referred to "Cincinnati" rather than "Cleveland." Modell still had some trepidation about the deal, but signed after Moag assured him that Baltimore fans would hail him as a hero.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Soon afterward, Modell told San Francisco 49ers president Carmen Policy that he was moving the Browns to Baltimore. Policy had been well aware that relations between Modell and Cleveland had become rather strained, and was secretly working with Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney to keep the Browns in Cleveland. Policy urged Modell to sit down with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue in hopes of resolving the situation, but Modell rejected it out of hand.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: On November 6, 1995, with the team at 4–5, Modell announced in a press conference at Camden Yards that he had signed a deal to move the Browns to Baltimore for the 1996 season. Modell said he felt the city of Cleveland did not have the funding nor political will to build a first-class stadium. The very next day, on November 7, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved the aforementioned tax issue to remodel Cleveland Stadium.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Despite this, Modell ruled out a reversal of his decision, maintaining publicly that his relationship with Cleveland had been irrevocably severed. "The bridge is down, burned, disappeared", he said. "There's not even a canoe there for me." In truth, Modell had been brought to tears when he signed the memorandum of understanding in September: he had even told Moag that signing it was "the hardest thing I've ever done" and meant "the end of our life in Cleveland." Years later, longtime Browns general counsel Jim Bailey told "The Athletic" that Modell was "an emotional wreck" when he signed the memorandum.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The City of Cleveland sued Modell, the Browns, Stadium Corp, the Maryland Stadium Authority, and the authority's director, John A. Moag Jr., in "City of Cleveland v. Cleveland Browns, et al.", Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CV-95-297833, for breaching the Browns' lease, which required the team to play its home games at Cleveland Stadium for several years beyond 1995, filing an injunction to keep the Browns in the city until at least 1998. Several other lawsuits were filed by fans and ticket holders. The United States Congress even held hearings on the matter.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Actor/comedian Drew Carey returned to his hometown of Cleveland on November 26, 1995, to host "Fan Jam" in protest of the proposed move. A protest was held in Pittsburgh during the Browns' game there against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but ABC, the network broadcasting the game (and also the home of Carey's new sitcom that had just premiered), declined to cover or mention the protest. That game was one of the few instances that Steelers fans and Browns fans were supportive of each other, as fans in Pittsburgh felt that Modell was robbing their team of their long-standing rivalry with the Browns. Browns fans reacted with anger to the news, wearing hats and T-shirts that read "Muck Fodell".


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: On the field, the Browns stumbled to finish 5–11 after the announcement, ahead of only the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars, to whom they lost twice, in the AFC Central, becoming the first team in the NFL's modern era to lose twice to a first-year expansion team. Virtually all of the team's sponsors pulled their support, leaving Cleveland Stadium devoid of advertising during the team's final weeks. After the announcement, the team lost all their home games except the final, in which they defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 26–10. The game itself was blacked out on television locally on WKYC, but NBC did broadcast extensive pregame coverage from Cleveland.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: After extensive talks between the NFL, the Browns, and officials of the two cities, Cleveland accepted a legal settlement that would keep the Browns legacy in Cleveland.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: While a number of parties had already expressed interest in acquiring the Browns by this point, it soon became clear that no viable owner would be ready to operate a football team on such short notice; even without that to consider, the NFL had insisted on the replacement of Cleveland Stadium, whereas the city had no other venue that met NFL requirements for even temporary use.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Thus, on February 9, 1996, the NFL announced that the Browns franchise would be 'deactivated' for three years, and that a new stadium would be built for a new Browns team, as either an expansion team or a team relocated from another city, that would begin play in 1999, while in exchange Modell would be granted a new franchise - the 31st NFL franchise - for Baltimore.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Modell was permitted to retain the current contracts of players and other football personnel (although notably, Belichick was fired and replaced by Ted Marchibroda) while the name of his holding company was changed from Cleveland Browns, Inc. to Baltimore Ravens, Inc. Modell is thus typically reckoned to have moved the "football organization", but not the "franchise itself". The settlement stipulated that the reactivated team for Cleveland would retain the Browns' name, colors, history, records, awards, and archives.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The settlement was approved by league owners after a 25–2 vote, with three abstentions. The two "no" votes were from Ralph Wilson of Buffalo and Dan Rooney of Pittsburgh. The three abstentions were from the owners whose teams at the time had most recently re-located (the Cardinals, Raiders and Rams), thus notably including Raiders' owner Al Davis who had earlier publicly clashed with Modell regarding franchise moves.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: An additional stipulation was that in any future realignment plan, the Browns would be placed in a division with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals due to long-standing rivalries with those two teams. Upon their reactivation in 1999, the Browns were placed back in the AFC Central with the Steelers and Bengals, as well as the Ravens, Titans, and Jaguars: this arrangement put teams from Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the same division for the first time in NFL history.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: When the NFL realigned into divisions of four teams for the 2002 season, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Baltimore remained together in the new AFC North, while Tennessee, Jacksonville, Indianapolis (from the AFC East), and the expansion team, Houston Texans were placed in the new AFC South.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The only other active NFL team to temporarily suspend operations without merging with any other was Cleveland's previous NFL team, the Rams, during the 1943 season at the height of World War II.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The return of the NFL to Baltimore compelled the departure of the professional football team already in Baltimore at the time, the Grey Cup champion Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Although they had drawn respectable fan support during their two seasons in Baltimore, Stallions owner Jim Speros knew his team could not compete with an NFL team and opted to re-establish the Montreal Alouettes. They subsequently assumed the name and history of the team that previously played in the city, the Alouettes, who had ceased operations just days before the start of the 1987 season.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Focus groups, a telephone survey, and a fan contest were all held to help select a new name for Modell's team. Starting with a list of over 100 possible names, the team's management reduced it to 17. From there, focus groups of a total of 200 Baltimore area residents reduced the list of names to six, and then a phone survey of 1000 people trimmed it down to three, Marauders, Americans, and Ravens. Finally, a fan contest drawing 33,288 voters picked "Ravens", a name that alludes to the famous poem, "The Raven", by Edgar Allan Poe, who spent the latter part of his life in Baltimore, and is buried there. The team also adopted purple and black as their team colors, a stark contrast to the brown and orange colors of the Browns. The former Colts Marching Band, which remained in Baltimore after the Colts moved to Indianapolis, was subsequently renamed the Baltimore's Marching Ravens. Along with the Washington Commanders, the Ravens are one of only two NFL teams with an official marching band.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Modell's move to Baltimore came amid an unprecedented flurry of similar threats — and actual moves — that fueled 12 new stadiums throughout the NFL. The Seahawks, Buccaneers, Bengals, Lions, Cardinals, and Bears used the threat of moving to coerce their respective cities to build new stadiums with public funds. Modell's team was one of four that actually moved between 1995 and 1997: Los Angeles lost both of its teams for the 1995 season, as the Raiders moved back to Oakland and the Rams moved east to St. Louis (the Rams would later move back to Los Angeles in 2016); and the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, where they became the Tennessee Titans two years later.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: As with all other relocations, NFL football continued to air on local television in Cleveland due to the league's television contracts. During the three years the Browns suspended operations, the NFL ordered its broadcast partners to air games featuring the Browns' two biggest rivals, the Bengals and Steelers, on Cleveland's local stations. Two official secondary markets the Browns share with another team--Columbus and Youngstown—both primarily aired games from the teams the Browns shared those markets with, with Columbus airing Bengals games and Youngstown airing Steelers games. Erie, Pennsylvania, which is officially a secondary market for the Buffalo Bills but airs many Browns games due to Erie's close proximity to Cleveland, aired more Bills home games as well as Steelers games whenever it didn't come in conflict with the Bills away schedule.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: After several NFL teams threatened to move to Cleveland to become the reactivated Browns (most notably the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), the NFL decided in 1998 to make the reactivated Browns an expansion team; while temporarily giving the league an odd number of teams (causing at least one team to be off in each of the 17 weeks of the NFL season from 1999–2001), this also eliminated any possibility of an existing franchise giving up its own identity for the Browns and thus prevented more lawsuits. In an ironic twist, Al Lerner—who helped Modell move to Baltimore—was granted ownership of the reactivated Browns; his son Randy took over ownership after Al's death in 2002 before selling the team to Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam in 2012.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: From its beginning, the odd number of teams and the ensuing awkward scheduling was considered a temporary arrangement pending the addition of a 32nd NFL franchise. Although Los Angeles was heavily favored, it was ultimately Houston that was awarded the league's 32nd team for the 2002 NFL season. The 2002 expansion led to a major re-alignment of the NFL into eight four-team divisions. The Jaguars and Titans joined the Texans in the new AFC South along with the Colts, Baltimore's former team, who moved from the AFC East. The Browns and Ravens' division was rebranded as the AFC North. Finally, to keep the conferences equal in size, the Seattle Seahawks (who had played their inaugural season in the National Football Conference) moved from the AFC West to the NFC West.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Following Houston's return to the NFL, Los Angeles became the favored destination for owners threatening to move their teams until the St. Louis Rams finally returned to Los Angeles for the 2016 season, followed by the San Diego Chargers (who had previously called L.A. home in the early days of the American Football League) one year later.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Two of the players from the Browns' 1995 roster returned to Cleveland in 1999. They were Antonio Langham, who spent the 1998 season with the San Francisco 49ers and was claimed by the Browns in the expansion draft, and Orlando Brown, who played for Baltimore until 1998 and signed with Cleveland as a free agent. Each player would play only the 1999 season in Cleveland. They were ultimately the only two players to play for the Browns under both the Modell and Lerner organizations.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The reactivated Browns have had only three winning seasons since returning to the NFL in 1999, with records of 9–7 in 2002, 10–6 in 2007, and 11–5 in 2020, earning wild card berths in the playoffs in 2002 and 2020. Meanwhile, the Ravens have been more successful, reaching the playoffs 13 times since 2000 and winning Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII, to the dismay of Browns fans. Longtime placekicker Matt Stover was the last remaining Ravens player that played for the Modell-owned Browns—he departed the Ravens following the 2008 season when the team chose not to re-sign him, finishing his career with the Indianapolis Colts. General manager and former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome (who was in a front-office role under Modell in Cleveland) remained with the Ravens until his retirement in 2018.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: The move would also have an effect in Pittsburgh. Steelers owner Dan Rooney was one of two owners (alongside Ralph Wilson of the Bills) to oppose Modell's move to Baltimore because of a mutual respect for the team and the fans. Because of the move, the Browns–Steelers rivalry, arguably one of the most heated rivalries in the NFL, has somewhat cooled in Pittsburgh due to the new Browns' lack of success. The Steelers–Ravens rivalry is considered the spiritual successor by fans in Pittsburgh and is one of the most heated current rivalries in the NFL. Since returning to the NFL, the Browns and Steelers rivalry has been largely one-sided in favor of Pittsburgh; although the rivalry is not as intense in Pittsburgh, Browns fans still consider it their top rivalry despite the Browns' recent struggles against the Steelers. However, the rivalry began to heat up on the Pittsburgh side when the Browns defeated the Steelers 48-37 in the 2020 Wild Card playoff round.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Modell continued to struggle financially even after the move. Like several other owners who had acquired their teams prior to the AFL-NFL merger Modell's net worth by the end of his tenure was primarily derived from the appreciation of his team's value, and he had relatively little outside wealth to help underwrite his club's expenses. Because of such continual financial hardships, the NFL directed Modell to initiate the sale of his franchise. On March 27, 2000, NFL owners approved the sale of 49 percent of the Ravens to Steve Bisciotti. In the deal, Bisciotti had an option to purchase the remaining 51 percent for $325 million in 2004 from Art Modell. On April 8, 2004, the NFL approved Steve Bisciotti's purchase of the majority stake in the club.


title: Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

text: Although Modell later retired and had relinquished control of the Ravens, he is still despised in Cleveland, not only for moving the Browns, but also for his firing of head coach Paul Brown (who eventually founded the future arch-rival Bengals in 1968) in 1963. Some consider the Browns' move and subsequent lawsuits as having cost Modell a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is in Canton, Ohio, 60 miles south of Cleveland and part of the Cleveland television market and Browns' territorial rights. Modell died in 2012, having never returned to Cleveland. The Browns were the only home team that did not acknowledge, much less commemorate, Modell's death the following Sunday. The team opted not to do so at the request of David Modell, who feared that the announcement would be met with anger by Browns fans still upset about the move.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Yasir Hussain () is a Pakistani screenwriter, actor, playwright and host from Islamabad best known for his comic roles. He hosted "The After Moon Show" on Hum TV. He is also known for playing the antagonist in the 2018 social drama "Baandi".


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Born into a Rajput family from Azad Kashmir, he's the youngest in a family of twelve siblings, including a sister who's a Dubai-based singer, Schumaila Hussain, and who has more recently gained attention for singing the OSTs of dramas "Muqabil" and "Khamoshi", while she has also done works for Lollywood and Bollywood, and a brother who's a scriptwriter.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Hussain remain associated with Kopycats Production as they produced some of the great plays for theatre which were written by Anwar Maqsood like "Half Plate", "Pawney 14 August", "Sawa 14 August" and "Saichin" and the most popular "Aangan Terha" in which Yasir Hussain played the role of Akbar which was originally played by late Saleem Nasir.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Hussain made his Lollywood debut as Moti in the film "Karachi Se Lahore" (2015) written by himself and directed by Wajahat Rauf.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: He has also acted in television serials including sitcom "Coke Kahani" "Kya Life Hai" and drama serial "Dareecha". He reprised his role as Moti in "Lahore Se Aagey" (2016) was a spin-off to "Karachi Se Lahore" and was released on 11 November 2016. He appeared in multiple telefilms and a drama serial "Shaadi Mubarak Ho" opposite to Kubra Khan directed by Wajahat Rauf and written by Yasir Hussain himself. Hussain hosted two seasons of "The After Moon Show". He is currently playing role of an antagonist in drama serial "Baandi" named as Tahawar.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Yasir Hussain made his comeback in theater after 7 years with "Naach Na Jaanay" a prequel to "Aangan Terrha". The play has been written by Anwar Maqsood. It has been unveiled that the play will be put on premier on 23 March 2019. Yasir will be leading into the main role of the theater play as the Akbar in the play. Years back this Angan tehra play broke so many records with the highlight of 101 consecutive shows in Karachi. It was also written by Anwar Maqsood. In Aangan Tehra, Yasir played the role of Saleem Nasir sahib's character from his drama Aangan Terha as to be seven years back in the serial's theatre adaptation. Dawar Mahmood will be directing it and KopyKats is standing as producing it at Arts Council Karachi. Yasir said that his role is all about the dancer who is living into the era of Zia.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Yasir Hussain has received criticism from Pathan community for mocking their language Pashto and often trying to elicit racist responses from audiences toward Pathan jokes.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Yasir Hussain was also criticized for his unwelcoming attitude towards Turkish actors and actresses when they came to act in Pakistani ads. He got trolled on every post for his fights but some celebrities agreed he was being bullied and the trolling was getting too much.


title: Yasir Hussain

text: Yasir Hussain publicly proposed to TV actress Iqra Aziz at the Lux Style Awards. They were married in Karachi on 28 December 2019.


title: Reema Kagti

text: Reema Kagti (real name: Reema Kakati) is an Indian film director and screenwriter, who works in Bollywood. She made her debut as a director in the critically acclaimed "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd." (2007), which was followed by the neo-noir, "Talaash" (2012) and the historical sports drama "Gold" (2018). Reema along with Zoya Akhtar founded Tiger Baby Films, a film and web studio, in October 2015.


title: Reema Kagti

text: In an interview, Reema Kagti said that, she is native of Borhapjan of Tinsukia district, Assam, and her father runs a farm. She also said that, she moved to Mumbai in her teenage, after schooling in Delhi.


title: Reema Kagti

text: Born as Reema Kakati in an Assamese family, she now uses Kagti as her last name. Reema has worked as an assistant director with many leading directors including Farhan Akhtar ("Dil Chahta Hai", "Lakshya"), Ashutosh Gowariker ("Lagaan"), Honey Irani ("Armaan"), and Mira Nair ("Vanity Fair").


title: Reema Kagti

text: She has been an associate with Excel Entertainment since its inception, as she has assisted both Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar in all their films and commercials to date. Together, Reema and Zoya Akhtar helm Tiger Baby Films, a film production company, founded in October 2015.


title: Reema Kagti

text: Reema made her directorial debut with "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd." in 2006. Her next film, "Talaash", was a suspense drama starring Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji and Kareena Kapoor. Her latest directorial venture "Gold", is a film about India's first Olympic gold medal after its independence.


title: Black Summer (song)

text: "Black Summer" is a song by American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers and is the first single from their twelfth studio album, "Unlimited Love". The single was released on February 4, 2022 and it was their first song in 16 years to feature guitarist John Frusciante, following his return to the band in 2019.


title: Black Summer (song)

text: "Black Summer" quickly became a number-one single for the band on Alternative Airplay, giving them their 14th number-one single, a record for any artist on that chart, and 26th top ten single, second most for any artist on the Alternative Songs chart trailing only the Foo Fighters who have 28 top ten singles; it also gave the band a number-one single in four different decades on the Alternative Songs chart, tying them with Green Day for the most ever by an artist. "Black Summer" won the 2022 MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video.


title: Black Summer (song)

text: The song received positive reviews from critics, although Kiedis' vocals drew confusion from critics, with some likening it to an Irish accent or pirate accent. Kiedis explained that the accent was a tribute to Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon, whom the band's former guitarist Josh Klinghoffer had recorded with on her fifth studio album, "Reward", and performed with in the experimental musical collective Banana. "Vulture" praised the song, saying that it has "everything you'd want with a Chilis joint — ethereal riffs noodling along, wonderfully nonsensical lyrics, and a music video that has Anthony Kiedis disrobing at the midway point".


title: Black Summer (song)

text: Frusciante's guitar work was particularly praised, and was likened to his work on the band's 2006 album "Stadium Arcadium". "Consequence" lauded Frusciante's "signature guitar sound", noting that it "links perfectly with Flea’s energetic bass work and steps out for multiple solos. And not only that, Frusciante's anthemic backup vocals have returned, amplifying the song's chorus to create a wide screen, stadium worthy effect."


title: Black Summer (song)

text: Producer Rick Rubin's return was also highlighted by "Clash", who compared the single to the band's earlier work, with its "funky melodies and heavy rock weaved throughout".


title: Black Summer (song)

text: The music video for "Black Summer" is nominated for a 2022 MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video. It marked the band's 29th nomination at the MTV Video Music Awards since 1990 and their first nomination since 2006 when they were nominated for "Dani California".


title: Black Summer (song)

text: The song made its live debut on April 1, 2022 on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and has been played at every show on the band's Global Stadium Tour.


title: Pamela Hensley

text: Pamela Gail Hensley (born October 3, 1950) is an American actress and author. Her notable acting roles include Princess Ardala on the 1979–1981 television series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" and C.J. Parsons on the 1982–1985 television series "Matt Houston". She also appeared in "Rollerball" and (both 1975) and "Double Exposure" (1982).


title: Pamela Hensley

text: Hensley was born on October 3, 1950 in Los Angeles. Her father was a veterinarian, and her mother was an actress.


title: Pamela Hensley

text: Hensley played Janet Blake during the last season of "Marcus Welby, M.D.". This was followed by a half season's work as an investigator on "".


title: Pamela Hensley

text: She appeared in the role of Princess Ardala in the film "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (originally a television pilot that was released theatrically) before reprising her role several times in the subsequent series. Hensley also portrayed C.J. Parsons during the three-year run of the detective series "Matt Houston".


title: Buddy Miles

text: George Allen "Buddy" Miles Jr. (September 5, 1947February 26, 2008) was an American composer, drummer, guitarist, vocalist and producer. He was a founding member of the Electric Flag (1967), a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys (1969–1970), founder and leader of the Buddy Miles Express and later, the Buddy Miles Band. Miles also played and recorded with Carlos Santana and others. Additionally, he sang lead vocals on the critically and commercially acclaimed California Raisins claymation TV commercials and recorded two California Raisins R&B albums.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles was born in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, on September 5, 1947. Buddy's father played upright bass for Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, and others. By age twelve, Miles had begun touring with his father's band, the Bebops. He played with his father's band for several years.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Given the nickname "Buddy" by his aunt after the drummer Buddy Rich, he was often seen as a teenager hanging out and recording at Universal Promotions Corporation recording studios, which later became Rainbow Recording Studios.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles did not finish high school. In order to become a professional musician, he dropped out of Omaha North High in 1965. Omaha North High awarded him an honorary degree in 1998.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles played with a variety of rhythm and blues and soul acts as a teenager, including Ruby & the Romantics, the Delfonics, and Wilson Pickett. In 1964, at the age of 16, Miles met Jimi Hendrix at a show in Montreal, where both were performing as sidemen for other artists.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1967, Miles joined Hendrix in a jam session at the Malibu home of Stephen Stills. They also went on to play together again in 1968 in both Los Angeles and New York. In the same year, Miles moved to Chicago where he teamed with guitarist Mike Bloomfield and vocalist Nick Gravenites to form the Electric Flag, a blues/soul/rock band. In addition to playing drums, Miles sometimes sang lead vocals for the band, which made its live debut at the Monterey Pop Festival in mid-1967.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In early 1968, the band released "A Long Time Comin'", its first album for Columbia. The Electric Flag's second album, "An American Music Band", followed late the same year. Shortly after that release, though, the group disbanded. In the same year, Hendrix used several guest artists, including Miles, during the recording of the album, "Electric Ladyland". Miles played drums on one long jam that was eventually split into two album cuts, "Rainy Day, Dream Away" and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming", with a different song, "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)", edited in between.


title: Buddy Miles

text: At age 21, after the breakup of the Electric Flag, Miles put together a new band with Jim McCarty, who later became the guitarist for Cactus. This new group performed and recorded as the Buddy Miles Express. In 1969, Hendrix wrote a short poem as a liner note for "Expressway To Your Skull", the first studio album recorded by the Buddy Miles Express. Hendrix went on to produce four of the tracks on the group's follow-up album, "Electric Church". The title of the latter LP was taken from Hendrix's poem on the first.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1970, after the Buddy Miles Express split up, Miles began a collaboration with Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox. Together, they formed Band of Gypsys, producing one self-titled live album before disbanding.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Later in 1970, while recording the album "We Got to Live Together", Buddy Miles learned of the death of Hendrix, which he mentions on the inner cover of the album. Released in 1971, "We Got to Live Together" was produced by Miles and Robin McBride. It contains five songs, including the instrumental "Easy Greasy." The other cuts on the album were "Runaway Child (Little Miss Nothin')," "Walking Down the Highway," "We Got to Live Together" and "Take It Off Him and Put It on Me." All the songs were written by Miles with Charlie Karp except for the latter.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Also in 1971, although the Electric Flag had been inactive for nearly three years, Columbia released a greatest hits album. Three years later, in 1974, Miles and the Electric Flag re-formed briefly and released another album, "The Band Kept Playing", on the Atlantic label.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles went on to produce other records as the Buddy Miles Band. One song he had written and recorded with the Band of Gypsys, "Them Changes," was again recorded by Miles with his own band and released by Mercury Records soon after Hendrix's death. Miles' former Band of Gypsys sideman, Billy Cox, performed bass guitar on this track. The band also included bassist David Hull (who would go on to work with Joe Perry of Aerosmith), as well as guitarist Charlie Karp, of the bands Farrenheit and the James Montgomery Blues Band. When the Buddy Miles Band released its live album, it again included "Them Changes," which had become Miles' signature song. The song was released a fourth time on a live record Miles recorded with Carlos Santana.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1973, Miles recorded an album with the Gun's Adrian Gurvitz called "Chapter VII", as well as drummed on a song from Gurvitz's project Three Man Army's album "Third Of A Lifetime". The "Chapter VII" album cover included photos of Miles and his family along with some shots of Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and Sly Stone. In 1974 Miles released "All The Faces Of Buddy Miles" on CBS produced by Johnny Bristol , an album aimed at the funk and soul market it included "Pull Yourself Together," which gave Miles a chart placement on the R&B charts when it was issued as a 7" single. Another track "I'm Just A Kiss Away," was a huge dance hit amongst followers of the UK "rare groove."


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles was signed by the record label, Casablanca Records. Miles' work for the label included the album released under his own name, "Bicentennial Gathering of the Tribes" (1976). The album's liner notes a quote from President John F. Kennedy concerning American Indians. In the mid 1970s, Miles recorded "Roadrunner" co-produced by long time friend Jim Paris. In 1980 Paris and Miles re-united, and together they produced "Sneak Attack" with Buddy's new band The Regiment, released by Atlantic Records in 1981.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles served a prison term for grand theft in the late 1970s and later another term for auto theft in the early 1980s.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In late 1984 and early 1985 while living in a halfway house in Oakland, California, Miles commuted almost daily to San Rafael to collaborate with a handful of musicians and songwriters at the Ice House Studios. The project soon moved to the Record Plant in Sausalito, where the group produced over 15 songs, ranging from funky, soulful grooves to R&B ballads. "Anna", the title song of the proposed album, helped Miles land his next recording job with the California Raisins. However, during the album's production, the Record Plant was seized by the government when its owner was indicted on drug trafficking charges. The musicians and employees working there began calling the studio "Club Fed"; hence the name "The Club Fed Sessions". The album was never released.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1986, Miles performed vocals for the "California Raisins" claymation ad campaign, most notably singing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and also performed lead vocals on two California Raisins albums featuring 1960s R&B covers. In 1986 and 1987, he rejoined Carlos Santana as a vocalist on Santana's album "Freedom". In 1987–1988, Miles moved to Southern California and with a new band toured the California coast, and the Chitlin' Circuit in the U.S. south before disbanding in early 1989.


title: Buddy Miles

text: While residing in Chicago in 1990, Miles, along with guitarists Kevon Smith and Joe Thomas, formed MST. They recorded "Hell and Back" in 1994, and toured the U.S. and Europe until 1997. They were also featured in the DVD, "Tribute to Jimi Hendrix – CAS" (1997), directed by Patrick Savey.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1992, Miles worked with bassist Bootsy Collins and guitarist Steve Salas under the supergroup moniker Hardware, which released one album produced by Bill Laswell called "Third Eye Open."


title: Buddy Miles

text: From 1994 to 2007, Buddy Miles formulated his new version of the Buddy Miles Express in the New York City area, with Charlie Torres on bass guitar and vocals, Rod Kohn on guitar and vocals, the then-longest-standing Buddy Miles Express member and band leader Mark "Muggie Doo" Leach on Hammond B3, background vocals, and keyboards, and Kenn Moutenot on drums and vocals and handling management. They toured nearly nonstop in the United States and overseas, with nearly one thousand concerts and festivals to their credit.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 1997, Miles relocated to Fort Worth, Texas. Soon, he began collaborating with a young guitarist from Dallas, Lance Lopez. He went on to mentor Lopez, co-producing Lopez's debut album, "First Things First", with Jay Newland. The Lopez album was released independently in 1999. Also playing with the Shadowcasters with members John Vela on guitars, Ray Salazar on bass, Sparky Montoya on keyboards and Johnny Mendoza on drums.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Miles was also seen in the Hendrix-family-owned official video release, "The Making of Electric Ladyland" on Rhino Records. The video featured interviews with the majority of players who were involved in recording the legendary Hendrix album. The video includes footage of Miles playing his drum tracks in the studio against the original multi-track recordings of Hendrix. In 1999, Miles performed on the late Bruce Cameron's album, "Midnight Daydream", which included other Hendrix alumni Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell, Jack Bruce, and others.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 2000, Miles and Leach collaborated with Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Double Trouble" rhythm section, creating the Buddy Miles "Blues Berries" album which featured Rocky Athas of Black Oak Arkansas. This lineup also contributed a spirited version of Jimi Hendrix's "Wind Cries Mary" on the "Blue Haze, Songs of Jimi Hendrix" album in 2001. In addition, Miles also composed and recorded many songs with this new version of the Buddy Miles Express that are yet to be released. It was Miles' most enduring live band. In fact, this touring lineup continued for six years with the same members.


title: Buddy Miles

text: The band continued on with Miles and Leach and a host of other players until Buddy's passing. The Miles/Leach duo, along with sax man Patrick Gage and bassist Dave Blackerby, also released the Buddy Miles Express' final album, "Road to Sturgis", a benefit CD for the Children's Craniofacial Foundation. Miles and Leach continued writing new but unreleased music until just days before Miles' passing.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 2004, Miles reunited yet again with Billy Cox of the Band of Gypsys to re-record songs from the original 1970 live album with guitarists Eric Gales, Kenny Olsen, Sheldon Reynolds, Andy Aledort and Gary Serkin. The album, titled "The Band of Gypsys Return" was released in 2006. Until his death, Miles continued to be active musically and performed many shows with proceeds going to help support victims of natural disasters and other charitable causes.


title: Buddy Miles

text: In 2005, Miles began collaborating with Florida-based guitar virtuoso Tony Smotherman, and the two toured the Southeast with a blues-rock band performing various pieces from Miles' collaborations with Jimi Hendrix. Miles and Smotherman last performed at the Austin Convention Center at the 2007 Summer NAMM Show with Vernon Reid of Living Colour.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Between late September and mid-October 1969, Miles stated that: "Jimi was not happy. He felt powerless. He couldn't do what he wanted to do". In response, in mid-October 1969, Hendrix founded a short-lived band called Band of Gypsys, which Miles would join. Alan Douglas and Stephan Bright were initially brought in to produce their recording sessions, but bassist Billy Cox immediately clashed with the pair, deeming them unworthy. Cox eventually stormed out of the sessions after a furious row with Bright and went home to Nashville for two weeks, before being coaxed back. At the end of Douglas and Bright's one-and-a-half months together, they had only produced one usable backing track, "Room Full of Mirrors". Consequently, Douglas and Bright resigned, stating pressures from the record label, Hendrix's manager Michael Jeffery, and Hendrix's own "lack of interest".


title: Buddy Miles

text: The same day Douglas resigned, Hendrix signed the contract with Bill Graham for the two dates at the Fillmore East. First, Hendrix had been talking about a Band of Gypsys "jam" LP since late 1968, after the settlement with Ed Chalpin. He also introduced the band as both 'Gypsy Sun and Rainbows' and 'Band of Gypsys' during their Woodstock concert. At that time, the two Woodstock LPs were only credited as 'Jimi Hendrix'. The recording of the Fillmore East concert was initially a single LP, but additional cuts from the concerts have been released on a double CD, "Live at the Fillmore East". During the months before the two nights' worth of recordings for the LP, the band rehearsed and recorded in New York City. Hendrix was required to give his next LP to Chalpin to be released by the Capitol Records label, but he had become entangled in litigation concerning the contract with Chalpin's PPX record company that he had signed, his agreement with Jeffery & Chandler prior to the contract, and becoming internationally recognized. This fact led to Miles and Billy Cox being hired as full-time employees for the duration of the three-month collaboration called the 'Band of Gypsys'. In the end, the band produced the LP for Chalpin and Capitol, as well as a single for Reprise.


title: Buddy Miles

text: During a one-off charity event for the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam committee a month later, Hendrix had a minor meltdown on stage. Speculations include a possibly drug-related meltdown on stage, as well as an act of sabotage on the part of a very frustrated manager, Michael Jeffery. Jeffery was not a fan of the Band of Gypsys, which was claimed as fact by Miles. Miles had this to say about the incident years later, stating: "Jeffery slipped [Jimi] two half-tabs of acid on stage as he went on... [Jimi] just freaked out. I told Jeffery he was an out-and-out complete idiot... One of the biggest reasons why Jimi is dead is because of that guy." Miles and Jeffery already had a strained relationship eventually, as Jeffery was always uncomfortable with Hendrix's and Miles' close friendship. After this one-off charity event at Madison Square Garden in January 1970, Jeffery told Miles that he was fired and the Band of Gypsys was no more. Although, Cox, and presumably Miles as well, had already been paid off as full-time salaried employees with a $1,000 bonus for their services the week before.


title: Buddy Miles

text: While with Hendrix, Miles recorded a number of jams, demos, and songs. Over the years, more material recorded at the Fillmore East on New Years 1969–1970 has been issued. In 2019, the complete performances from all of the four shows were released on the box set "". The original versions of "Stepping Stone" and "Izabella", songs which he recorded for the 1970 single with Cox and Hendrix, have been restored and included on the 2001 compilation "". Three other songs that were recorded with Cox and Hendrix were later used for early posthumous Hendrix albums, including "The Cry of Love" and "Rainbow Bridge". Additional studio recordings by the trio in various stages of development were released on "South Saturn Delta", "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" box set, "Burning Desire", "", and "People, Hell and Angels".


title: Buddy Miles

text: At the age of 60, Buddy Miles died on February 26, 2008, at his home in Austin, Texas, with his family by his side. According to his website, he died of congestive heart disease. Miles was cremated, and there was no funeral.


title: Buddy Miles

text: The day before Miles died, he heard Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton playing "Them Changes" at Madison Square Garden through his cell phone. "Them Changes" is now part of Clapton's set on tour as a tribute to Miles. The UK-based newspaper "The Independent" ran an almost full-page obituary in its Friday, February 29, 2008, edition.


title: Buddy Miles

text: Asked how he would like to be remembered by the American music magazine "Seconds" in 1995, Miles simply said: "The baddest of the bad. People say I'm the baddest drummer. If that's true, thank you world." A memorial concert took place on March 30, 2008, at Threadgill's on Riverside Drive, South Austin that included performances by Bernie Worrell, The Family Stone Project, Doug Pinnick, Cyril Neville, The Sixth Chamber and surviving members of the Buddy Miles Express.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: The legal aspects of surrogacy in any particular jurisdiction tend to hinge on a few central questions:


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Laws differ widely from one jurisdiction to another. Of the countries which allow surrogacy, many have residency or citizenship requirements for the intended parent(s) and/or the surrogate. Countries without such requirements often attract persons from abroad, being destinations for fertility tourism. In some countries, such as the United States, Canada or Australia, laws vary by state/territory.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Commercial surrogacy, that is, surrogacy where the individual is paid to carry the baby or surrender it to other person(s) is illegal in the European Union, as Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that "In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular: [..] (c) "the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain""


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: The Oviedo Convention, ratified by 29 countries, also states at Article 21 ""Prohibition of financial gain"" that: ""The human body and its parts shall not, as such, give rise to financial gain.""


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In Australia, all jurisdictions allow altruistic surrogacy; with commercial surrogacy being a criminal offense. In New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory it is an offence to enter into international commercial surrogacy arrangements with potential penalties extending to imprisonment for up to one year in Australian Capital Territory, up to two years imprisonment in New South Wales and up to three years imprisonment in Queensland.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In 2006, Australian senator Stephen Conroy and his wife Paula Benson announced that they had arranged for a child to be born through egg donation and gestational surrogacy. Unusually, Conroy was put on the birth certificate as the father of the child. Previously, couples who used to make surrogacy arrangements in Australia had to adopt the child after it was registered as born to the natural mother; rather than being recognized as birth parents, however now that surrogacy is more regular practice for childless parents; most states have switched to such arrangements to give the intended parents proper rights.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: After the announcement, Victoria passed the "Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008", effective since 1 January 2010 to make only altruistic surrogacy legal.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In 2009, Western Australia passed a law to allow only altruistic surrogacy for couples of the opposite-sex only, and to prohibit it for single people and same-sex couples. In 2010, Queensland made only altruistic surrogacy legal, as did New South Wales, and Tasmania did the same in 2013 with the "Surrogacy Act No 34" and the "Surrogacy (Consequential Amendments) Act No 31"


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In 2017, South Australia passed a bill to allow gay couples equal access to both surrogacy and IVF. The bill received royal assent on 15 March 2017 and went into effect on 21 March 2017.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Commercial Surrogacy is banned by Brazilian law, but altruistic surrogacy is allowed. Nevertheless, the practice is performed illegally throughout the country.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRC) permits only altruistic surrogacy: gestational carriers may be reimbursed for approved expenses but payment of any other consideration or fee is illegal. Quebec law, however, renders all surrogacy contracts, whether commercial or altruistic, unenforceable.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy is forbidden by "Regulation of human assisted reproductive technology law" in the People's Republic of China. The Ministry of Health has established "departmental rules" which prohibit medical professionals from performing surrogacy procedures, with violations punished by fines (but not criminal liabilities). In practice, surrogacy arrangements are common in Mainland China with an underground market for commercial surrogacy estimated to encompass between 400 and 500 agencies in 2012.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: There are no clear rules in Colombia as of today regarding surrogacy and a loophole persists. The current laws applied are those from a natural childbirth. This means the child must be registered with the surnames of the gestational carrier and her partner or spouse, if she has any. Only through a challenging paternity lawsuit before a judge may the commissioning parents be recognized as legal parents, and it may include genetic tests.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In July 2016, a right wing political party, Democratic Center, has introduced for the second time a bill in order to determine the concept of surrogacy and to forbid any types of it.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Only altruistic surrogacy is allowed after referendum over a new family law passed and is available since September 2022.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy is not legally regulated in the Czech Republic and so is generally considered legal. The only mention of the phrase "surrogate motherhood" can be found in § 804 of the law n. 89/2012, where the law designates an exception to the ban of adoption by siblings for siblings carried by a surrogate mother.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: All surrogacy arrangements (both commercial and altruistic) have been illegal since 2007. Commercial surrogacy arrangements were illegal even before 2007.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In France, since 1994, any surrogacy arrangement that is commercial or altruistic, is illegal or unlawful and is not sanctioned by the law (art 16-7 of the Code Civil).


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: The French Court of Cassation already took this point of view in 1991. It held that if any couple makes an agreement or arranges with another person that she is to bear the husband's child and surrender it on birth to the couple, and that she is choosing that she will not keep the child, the couple making such an agreement or arrangement is not allowed to adopt the child. In its judgement the court held that such an agreement is illegal on the basis of articles 6, 353 and 1128 of the Code Civil.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: All surrogacy arrangements (both commercial and altruistic) are illegal. The German Free Democratic Party wants to allow altruistic surrogacy. According to the German Civil Code, the legal mother is always the woman who gave birth to the child.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy, along with ovum and sperm donation, has been legal in the country of Mexico since 1992. A donor or gestational carrier has no parental rights over such a child.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy in Greece is fully legal and is only one of a handful of countries in the world to give legal protection to intended parents. Intended parents must meet certain qualifications, and will go before a family judge before starting their journey. As long as they meet the qualifications, the court appearance is procedural and will be granted their application. At present, intended parents must be in a heterosexual partnership or be a single female. Females must be able to prove there is a medical indication they cannot carry and be no older than 50 at the time of the contract. As in all jurisdictions, surrogates must pass medical and psychological tests so they can prove to the court that they are medically and mentally fit. What is unique about Greece is that it is the only country in Europe, and one of only countries in the world where the surrogate then has no rights over the child. The intended parents become the legal parents from conception and there is no mention of the surrogate mother anywhere on hospital or birth documents. The intended parent(s) are listed as the parents. This even applies if an egg or sperm donor is used by one of the partners.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: An added advantage for Europeans is that, due to the Schengen Treaty, they can freely travel home as soon as the baby is born and deal with citizenship issues at that time, as opposed to applying at their own embassy in Greece.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: The old regime (pursuant to art. 8 of Law 3089/2002), one of the prerequisites for granting the judicial permission for surrogacy was also the fact that the surrogate mother and the commissioning parents should be Greek citizens or permanent residents.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: However, the law has recently (in July 2014) changed and the new provisions of L. 4272/2014 foresee now that the surrogacy is allowed to applicants or surrogate mothers who have their permanent or temporary residence in Greece.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: With this new law Greece becomes the only EU country with a comprehensive framework to regulate, facilitate and enforce surrogacy, as according to the explanatory statement of the art. 17 of the L. 4272/2014: "The possibility is now extending also to applicants or surrogate mothers who have their permanent residence outside Greece".


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Commercial surrogacy is criminal under the Human Reproductive Technology Ordinance 2000. The law is phrased in a manner that no one can pay a surrogate, no surrogate can receive money, and no one can arrange a commercial surrogacy (the same applies to the supply of gametes), no matter within or outside Hong Kong. Normally only the gametes of the intended parents can be used.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In October 2010, Peter Lee, the eldest son and one of the presumed heirs of billionaire Lee Shau Kee obtained three sons through a gestational carrier, reportedly from California. Since the junior Lee is single, the news attracted criticism on both moral and legal grounds. A vicar general of the territory's Roman Catholic diocese was critical. In December the case was reportedly referred to police after questions were asked in Legco.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: As per the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, only a couple who has been married for 5 years can opt for surrogacy on medical grounds only. The law defines a couple as a married Indian “man and woman” and also prescribes an age-criteria with the woman being in the age of 23 years to 50 years and the man between 26 years to 55 years. The couple should not have a child of their own. Though the law allows single women to resort to surrogacy, she has to be a widow or a divorcee between the age of 35 and 45 years. Single men are not eligible.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: As of 4 November 2015, commercial surrogacy for foreign intended parents is not legal in India. Those commissioned before 11/4/2015 are reviewed on case by case situation; however, no new surrogacies will be started.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Before 2015, foreign commercial surrogacy was legal in India. India was a destination for surrogacy-related fertility tourism because of the relatively low cost. Including the costs of flight tickets, medical procedures, and hotels, it was roughly a third of the price compared with going through the procedure in the UK. In the case of Balaz v. Union of India the Supreme Court of India has given the verdict that the citizenship of the child born through this process will have the citizenship of its gestational carrier. Surrogacy was regulated by the Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines, 2005.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: There is no law in Ireland governing surrogacy. In 2005 a Government-appointed Commission published a very comprehensive report on Assisted Human Reproduction, which made many recommendations on the broader area of assisted human reproduction. In relation to surrogacy, it recommended that the commissioning couple would under Irish law be regarded as the parents of the child. Despite the publication there has been no legislation published and the area essentially remains unregulated. Due to mounting pressure from Irish citizens going abroad to have children through surrogacy, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence published guidelines for them on 21 February 2012. Part 6 of the General Scheme of the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2017 sets out the proposed law for this area.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In March 1996, the Israeli government legalized gestational surrogacy under the Embryo Carrying Agreements Law. This law made Israel the first country in the world to implement a form of state-controlled surrogacy in which each and every contract must be approved directly by the state. A state-appointed committee permits surrogacy arrangements to be filed only by Israeli citizens who share the same religion. The numerous restrictions on surrogacy under Israeli law have prompted some intended parents to turn to surrogates outside of the country.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In February 2020, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the restriction on same-sex couples from entering surrogacy agreements as discriminatory, thus giving the state one year to change the law. In July 2021, the Supreme Court made a second ruling stating that legislation banning same-sex couples and single men from becoming parents via surrogacy would be null and void within six months. In January 2022, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz announced that surrogacy would be allowed for same-sex couples, transgender people, and single men starting on 11 January.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: All surrogacy arrangements (both commercial and altruistic) are legal and popular. Many couples from the Middle East do surrogacy in Iran due to the legal easiness.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: According to the Law Decree no. 40 approved on February 19, 2004, by the Italian Parliament, titled "Regulations concerning medically assisted procreation", any form of selling of either gametes or embryos, as well as surrogacy, is prohibited and punished with jail time lasting between three months and two years and with a fine ranging between 600,000 and one million euros (article 12, subsection 6). This prohibition has been further underpinned by a sentence of the Italian Constitutional Court (i.e. sentence no. 272 held in 2017), that stated that "the practice of surrogacy unbearably makes for an offence to woman dignity and profoundly undermines human relations".


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Its legitimacy was confirmed by the Italian Constitutional Court in 2019. In the same year, the partner of the biological father of a surrogated child asked for the recognition of birth certificate which had been registered abroad of Italy, but the Joint session of the Civil Sections of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation rejected his legal pursuit.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In March 2008, the Science Council of Japan proposed a ban on surrogacy and said that doctors, agents and their clients should be punished for commercial surrogacy arrangements. Other than that, it remains unregulated.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy is currently prohibited by fatwa issued by National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs in 2008.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Altruistic surrogacy is legal in the Netherlands. Only commercial surrogacy is illegal in Belgium and the Netherlands. Although altruistic surrogacy is legal, there is only one hospital taking in couples and there are extremely strict rules to get in. This makes a lot of couples seek their treatment outside the Netherlands or Belgium.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy is legal in Nigeria, and surrogacy contracts are enforceable in Nigerian courts. Gestational surrogacy is currently practiced in Nigeria by a few IVF clinics. The guidelines are as approved by the practice guidelines of the Association of Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH) of Nigeria. The ART regulation that is currently being considered by the Senate permits surrogacy and allows some inducement to be paid for transport and other expenses.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Surrogacy is mostly unregulated in Poland. A 2015 news report estimated there are likely dozens of surrogate mothers in Poland. According to Family Code legal mother of child is always the woman who gave birth to them.


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: Heterosexual and lesbian couples could become parents via surrogacy in Portugal since 2016, under certain conditions. Yet, some parts of this law were considered unconstitutional in 2018 and it has since been suspended. Traditional surrogacy is illegal in Portugal except for some specific situations that give the right for a surrogate mother to be genetic (for example, if the future adoptive mother is completely barren).


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: In 2006, a law was approved that explicitly considered any surrogacy contract to be null and void (Law 32/2006, article 8).


title: Surrogacy laws by country

text: A limited gestational surrogacy law proposed by the Left Bloc was approved in Parliament on the 13 May 2016, which went through considerable modifications during the five months that it took to get it from project to law (it was discussed in a work group with representatives from all parliamentary groups). The law received the favorable votes of the Socialist Party (minus two), Left Bloc (BE), The Greens (PEV), People Animals Nature (PAN), and 24 out of 89 members of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, including the former party leader Pedro Passos Coelho). Both CDS - People's Party (CDS) and the Communist Party (PCP) voted against the proposal. The communists justified their vote as being in line with the recommendations of the National Ethics Council. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vetoed the law as soon as he received it, giving the same justification as the Communist Party. The law was once again sent to the Parliament and passed a second time after some changes, on 20 July 2016, with the favorable votes of BE, PS, PEV, PAN and 20 members of PSD. Eight members of PSD abstained, including Pedro Passos Coelho. The remaining members of PSD voted against, as did all members of CDS and PCP.