title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), G and C do not match. The sequence above is empty; the one to the left contains one element, G. Selecting the longest of these, "LCS"("R", "C") is (G). The arrow points to the left, since that is the longest of the two sequences.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), A is compared with A. The two elements match, so A is appended to Ø, giving (A).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), A and G do not match, so the longest of "LCS"("R", "C"), which is (G), and "LCS"("R", "C"), which is (A), is used. In this case, they each contain one element, so this LCS is given two subsequences: (A) and (G).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), A does not match C. "LCS"("R", "C") contains sequences (A) and (G); LCS("R", "C") is (G), which is already contained in "LCS"("R", "C"). The result is that "LCS"("R", "C") also contains the two subsequences, (A) and (G).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), A does not match T. Comparing the two sequences, (GA) and (G), the longest is (GA), so "LCS"("R", "C") is (GA).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), C and A do not match, so "LCS"("R", "C") gets the longest of the two sequences, (A).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), C and G do not match. Both "LCS"("R", "C") and "LCS"("R", "C") have one element. The result is that "LCS"("R", "C") contains the two subsequences, (A) and (G).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), C and C match, so C is appended to "LCS"("R", "C"), which contains the two subsequences, (A) and (G), giving (AC) and (GC).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For "LCS"("R", "C"), C and A do not match. Combining "LCS"("R", "C"), which contains (AC) and (GC), and "LCS"("R", "C"), which contains (GA), gives a total of three sequences: (AC), (GC), and (GA).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Finally, for "LCS"("R", "C"), C and T do not match. The result is that "LCS"("R", "C") also contains the three sequences, (AC), (GC), and (GA).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The final result is that the last cell contains all the longest subsequences common to (AGCAT) and (GAC); these are (AC), (GC), and (GA). The table also shows the longest common subsequences for every possible pair of prefixes. For example, for (AGC) and (GA), the longest common subsequence are (A) and (G).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Calculating the LCS of a row of the LCS table requires only the solutions to the current row and the previous row. Still, for long sequences, these sequences can get numerous and long, requiring a lot of storage space. Storage space can be saved by saving not the actual subsequences, but the length of the subsequence and the direction of the arrows, as in the table below.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The actual subsequences are deduced in a "traceback" procedure that follows the arrows backwards, starting from the last cell in the table. When the length decreases, the sequences must have had a common element. Several paths are possible when two arrows are shown in a cell. Below is the table for such an analysis, with numbers colored in cells where the length is about to decrease. The bold numbers trace out the sequence, (GA).


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: For two strings formula_24 and formula_25, the length of the shortest common supersequence is related to the length of the LCS by


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The edit distance when only insertion and deletion is allowed (no substitution), or when the cost of the substitution is the double of the cost of an insertion or deletion, is:


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The function below takes as input sequences codice_2 and codice_3, computes the LCS between codice_4 and codice_5 for all codice_6 and codice_7, and stores it in codice_8. codice_9 will contain the length of the LCS of codice_10 and codice_11.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The following function backtracks the choices taken when computing the codice_12 table. If the last characters in the prefixes are equal, they must be in an LCS. If not, check what gave the largest LCS of keeping formula_18 and formula_19, and make the same choice. Just choose one if they were equally long. Call the function with codice_13 and codice_14.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: If choosing formula_18 and formula_19 would give an equally long result, read out both resulting subsequences. This is returned as a set by this function. Notice that this function is not polynomial, as it might branch in almost every step if the strings are similar.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: This function will backtrack through the C matrix, and print the diff between the two sequences. Notice that you will get a different answer if you exchange codice_15 and codice_16, with codice_17 and codice_18 below.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Let formula_8 be “codice_19” and formula_10 be “codice_20”. The longest common subsequence between formula_8 and formula_10 is “codice_21”. The table codice_12 shown below, which is generated by the function codice_23, shows the lengths of the longest common subsequences between prefixes of formula_8 and formula_10. The formula_38th row and formula_39th column shows the length of the LCS between formula_40 and formula_41.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The highlighted numbers show the path the function codice_24 would follow from the bottom right to the top left corner, when reading out an LCS. If the current symbols in formula_8 and formula_10 are equal, they are part of the LCS, and we go both up and left (shown in bold). If not, we go up or left, depending on which cell has a higher number. This corresponds to either taking the LCS between formula_44 and formula_41, or formula_40 and formula_47.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The C matrix in the naive algorithm grows quadratically with the lengths of the sequences. For two 100-item sequences, a 10,000-item matrix would be needed, and 10,000 comparisons would need to be done. In most real-world cases, especially source code diffs and patches, the beginnings and ends of files rarely change, and almost certainly not both at the same time. If only a few items have changed in the middle of the sequence, the beginning and end can be eliminated. This reduces not only the memory requirements for the matrix, but also the number of comparisons that must be done.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: In the best-case scenario, a sequence with no changes, this optimization would eliminate the need for the C matrix. In the worst-case scenario, a change to the very first and last items in the sequence, only two additional comparisons are performed.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Most of the time taken by the naive algorithm is spent performing comparisons between items in the sequences. For textual sequences such as source code, you want to view lines as the sequence elements instead of single characters. This can mean comparisons of relatively long strings for each step in the algorithm. Two optimizations can be made that can help to reduce the time these comparisons consume.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: A hash function or checksum can be used to reduce the size of the strings in the sequences. That is, for source code where the average line is 60 or more characters long, the hash or checksum for that line might be only 8 to 40 characters long. Additionally, the randomized nature of hashes and checksums would guarantee that comparisons would short-circuit faster, as lines of source code will rarely be changed at the beginning.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: There are three primary drawbacks to this optimization. First, an amount of time needs to be spent beforehand to precompute the hashes for the two sequences. Second, additional memory needs to be allocated for the new hashed sequences. However, in comparison to the naive algorithm used here, both of these drawbacks are relatively minimal.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: The third drawback is that of collisions. Since the checksum or hash is not guaranteed to be unique, there is a small chance that two different items could be reduced to the same hash. This is unlikely in source code, but it is possible. A cryptographic hash would therefore be far better suited for this optimization, as its entropy is going to be significantly greater than that of a simple checksum. However, the benefits may not be worth the setup and computational requirements of a cryptographic hash for small sequence lengths.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: If only the length of the LCS is required, the matrix can be reduced to a formula_48 matrix with ease, or to a formula_49 vector (smarter) as the dynamic programming approach only needs the current and previous columns of the matrix. Hirschberg's algorithm allows the construction of the optimal sequence itself in the same quadratic time and linear space bounds.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Chowdhury and Ramachandran devised a quadratic-time linear-space algorithm for finding the LCS length along with an optimal sequence which runs faster than Hirschberg's algorithm in practice due to its superior cache performance. The algorithm has an asymptotically optimal cache complexity under the Ideal cache model. Interestingly, the algorithm itself is cache-oblivious meaning that it does not make any choices based on the cache parameters (e.g., cache size and cache line size) of the machine.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Several algorithms exist that run faster than the presented dynamic programming approach. One of them is Hunt–Szymanski algorithm, which typically runs in formula_50 time (for formula_51), where formula_52 is the number of matches between the two sequences. For problems with a bounded alphabet size, the Method of Four Russians can be used to reduce the running time of the dynamic programming algorithm by a logarithmic factor.


title: Longest common subsequence problem

text: Beginning with , a number of researchers have investigated the behavior of the longest common subsequence length when the two given strings are drawn randomly from the same alphabet. When the alphabet size is constant, the expected length of the LCS is proportional to the length of the two strings, and the constants of proportionality (depending on alphabet size) are known as the Chvátal–Sankoff constants. Their exact values are not known, but upper and lower bounds on their values have been proven, and it is known that they grow inversely proportionally to the square root of the alphabet size. Simplified mathematical models of the longest common subsequence problem have been shown to be controlled by the Tracy–Widom distribution.


title: Milice

text: The Milice française (French Militia), generally called la Milice (literally "the militia") (), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. The Milice's formal head was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, although its Chief of operations and "de facto" leader was Secretary General Joseph Darnand. It participated in summary executions and assassinations, helping to round up Jews and "résistants" in France for deportation. It was the successor to Darnand's "Service d'ordre légionnaire" (SOL) militia. The Milice was the Vichy regime's most extreme manifestation of fascism. Ultimately, Darnand envisaged the Milice as a fascist single party political movement for the French state.


title: Milice

text: The Milice frequently used torture to extract information or confessions from those whom they interrogated. The French Resistance considered the Milice more dangerous than the Gestapo and SS because they were native Frenchmen who understood local dialects fluently, had extensive knowledge of the towns and countryside, and knew local people and informants.


title: Milice

text: Early Milice volunteers included members of France's pre-war far-right parties (such as the Action Française) and working-class men convinced of the benefits of the Vichy government's politics. In addition to ideology, incentives for joining the Milice included employment, regular pay and rations. (The latter became particularly important as the war continued, and civilian rations dwindled to near-starvation levels.) Some joined because members of their families had been killed or injured in Allied bombing raids or had been threatened, extorted or attacked by French Resistance groups. Still others joined for more mundane reasons: petty criminals were recruited by being told their sentences would be commuted if they joined the organization, and Milice volunteers were exempt from transportation to Germany as forced labour. Official figures are difficult to obtain, but several historians (including Julian T. Jackson) estimate that the Milice's membership reached 25,000–30,000 by 1944. The majority of members were not full-time militiamen, but devoted only a few hours per week to their Milice activities. The Milice had a section for full-time members, the Franc-Garde, who were permanently mobilized and lived in barracks.


title: Milice

text: The chosen emblem for the Milice carried the Greek letter γ (gamma), the symbol of the Aries astrological sign in the Zodiac, ostensibly representing rejuvenation, and replenishment of energy. The color scheme chosen was silver in blue background within a red circle for ordinary "miliciens", white in black background for the arm-carrying militants, and white in red background for the active combatants.


title: Milice

text: Milice troops (known as "miliciens") wore a blue uniform jacket and trousers, a brown shirt and a wide blue beret. (During active paramilitary-style operations, an Adrian helmet was used, which commonly featured the emblem, either painted on or as a badge) Its newspaper was "Combats" (not to be confused with the underground Resistance newspaper, "Combat"). The Milice's armed forces were officially known as the "Franc-Garde". Contemporary photographs show the Milice armed with a variety of weapons captured from Allied forces.


title: Milice

text: The Resistance targeted individual for assassination, often in public areas such as cafés and streets. On 24 April 1943 they shot and killed Paul de Gassovski, a in Marseilles. By late November, "Combat" reported that 25 had been killed and 27 wounded in Resistance attacks.


title: Milice

text: The most prominent person killed by the Resistance was Philippe Henriot, the Vichy regime's Minister of Information and Propaganda, who was known as "the French Goebbels". He was killed in his apartment in the Ministry of Information on the rue Solferino in the predawn hours of 28 June 1944 by "résistants" dressed as "miliciens." His wife, who was in the same room, was spared. The Milice retaliated for this by killing several well-known anti-Nazi politicians and intellectuals (such as Victor Basch) and prewar conservative leader Georges Mandel.


title: Milice

text: The Milice initially operated in the former "Zone libre" of France under the control of the Vichy regime. In January 1944, the radicalized Milice moved into what had been the "zone occupée" of France (including Paris). They established their headquarters in the old Communist Party headquarters at 44 rue Le Peletier and at 61 rue Monceau. (The house was formerly owned by the Menier family, makers of France's best-known chocolates.) The Lycée Louis-Le-Grand was occupied as a barracks, and an officer candidate school was established in the Auteuil synagogue.


title: Milice

text: Perhaps the largest and best-known operation undertaken by the Milice was the Battle of Glières, its attempt in March 1944 to suppress the Resistance in the "département" of Haute-Savoie (in southeastern France, near the Swiss border). The Milice could not overcome the Resistance, and called in German troops to complete the operation. On Bastille Day, 14 July 1944, the Franc-Garde suppressed a revolt started by prisoners at Paris prison La Santé, killing 34 prisoners.


title: Milice

text: The legal standing of the Milice was never clarified by the Vichy government; it operated parallel to (but separate from) the Groupe mobile de réserve and other Vichy French police forces. The Milice operated outside civilian law, and its actions were not subject to judicial review or control.


title: Milice

text: In August 1944, as the tide of war was shifting and fearing he would be held accountable for the operations of the Milice, Marshal Philippe Pétain sought to distance himself from the organization by writing a harsh letter rebuking Darnand for the organization's "excesses." Darnand's response suggested that Pétain ought to have voiced his objections sooner.


title: Milice

text: After the Allied Liberation of France, French collaborators began fleeing the Allied advance in the west. During a period of unofficial reprisals immediately following on the German retreat, large numbers of "miliciens" were executed, either individually or in groups. Milice offices throughout France were ransacked with agents often being brutally beaten and then thrown from office windows, or into rivers before being taken to prison. At Le Grand-Bornand French Forces of the Interior executed 76 captured members of the Milice on 24 August 1944.


title: Milice

text: Frenchmen from the German Navy, the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), the Organisation Todt and the Milice security police became part of a new unit known as the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne ("Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS Charlemagne"). The unit also included some remaining personnel from the disband Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (LVF) and the SS-Volunteer "Sturmbrigade" France (SS-Freiwilligen Sturmbrigade "Frankreich"). Later in February 1945, the unit was renamed the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen-SS. At this time it had a strength of 7,340 men; 1,200 men from the LVF, 1,000 from the "Sturmbrigade", 2,500 from the Milice, 2,000 from the NSKK and 640 were former "Kriegsmarine" and naval police.


title: Milice

text: An unknown number of "miliciens" managed to escape prison or execution, either by going underground or fleeing abroad. A few were later prosecuted. The most notable of these was Paul Touvier, the former commander of the Milice in Lyon. In 1994, he was convicted of ordering the retaliatory execution of seven Jews at Rillieux-la-Pape. He died in prison two years later.


title: Autonomous okrugs of Russia

text: Autonomous okrugs (, "avtonomnyy okrug"; more correctly referred to as "autonomous districts" or "autonomous areas") are a type of federal subject of the Russian Federation and simultaneously an administrative division type of some federal subjects. As of 2014, Russia has four autonomous okrugs of its 85 federal subjects. The Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is the only okrug which is not subordinate to an oblast. The other three are Arkhangelsk Oblast's Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Tyumen Oblast's Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.


title: Autonomous okrugs of Russia

text: According to the constitution of the USSR, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a referendum, to independently resolve the issue of staying in the USSR or in the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status.


title: Autonomous okrugs of Russia

text: Originally called national okrug, this type of administrative unit was created in the 1920s and widely implemented in 1930s to provide autonomy to indigenous peoples of the North, like the Karelian National Okrug for the Tver Karelians. In 1977, the 1977 Soviet Constitution changed the term "national okrugs" to "autonomous okrugs" in order to emphasize that they were indeed autonomies and not simply another type of administrative and territorial division. While the 1977 Constitution stipulated that the autonomous okrugs are subordinated to the oblasts and krais, this clause was revised on December 15, 1990, when it was specified that autonomous okrugs are subordinated directly to the Russian SFSR, although they still may stay in jurisdiction of a krai or an oblast to which they were subordinated before.


title: Autonomous okrugs of Russia

text: In 1990, ten autonomous okrugs existed within the RSFSR. Between 2005 and 2008, the three autonomous okrugs in which the titular nationality constituted more than 30% of the population were abolished. Since then, three more have been abolished, leaving four. On 13 May 2020, the governors of Arkhangelsk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug announced their plan to merge following the collapse of oil prices stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The process was subsequently scrapped on July 2 following public outcry to the merger.


title: Lothlórien

text: In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Lothlórien or Lórien is the fairest realm of the Elves remaining in Middle-earth during the Third Age. It is ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn from their city of tree-houses at Caras Galadhon. The wood-elves of the realm are known as Galadhrim.


title: Lothlórien

text: The realm, a broad woodland between the Misty Mountains and the River Anduin, is the Elven centre of resistance against the Dark Lord Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings". Galadriel had one of the Three Elf-Rings, and used it to keep Sauron from seeing into Lothlórien. The Fellowship of the Ring spent some time in Lothlórien after passing through Moria. Galadriel prepared them for their quest with individual gifts.


title: Lothlórien

text: Scholars have noted that Lothlórien represents variously an Earthly Paradise; an Elfland where time is different, reflecting the traditions of European folklore; and a land of light striving biblically with the darkness of evil.


title: Lothlórien

text: Tolkien gave the forest many different names, reflecting its fictional history and the way it is perceived by the different peoples of Middle-earth.


title: Lothlórien

text: Early in the First Age some of the Eldar left the Great March to Valinor and settled in the lands east of the Misty Mountains. These elves became known as the Nandor and later the Silvan Elves. Galadriel made contact with an existing Nandorin realm, Lindórinand, in what became Lothlórien, and planted there the golden "mallorn" trees which Gil-galad had received as a gift from Tar-Aldarion.


title: Lothlórien

text: The culture and knowledge of the Silvan elves was enriched by the arrival of Sindarin Elves from west of the Misty Mountains, and the Silvan language was gradually replaced by Sindarin. Amongst these arrivals was Amdír, who became their first lord, as well as Galadriel and Celeborn, who fled the destruction of Eregion during the War of the Elves and Sauron. In the Third Age, Amroth, the former Lord of Lothlórien, went to the south of Middle-earth with his beloved Nimrodel, but drowned in the Bay of Belfalas after she went missing in the "Ered Nimrais" and never returned. Control of Lothlórien passed to Galadriel and Celeborn. Galadriel's Ring of Power preserved the land from death and decay, and warded off Sauron's gaze.


title: Lothlórien

text: As the War of the Ring loomed, the Fellowship of the Ring, emerging from the dark tunnels of Moria and seeing their leader Gandalf perish, was brought through Lothlórien to Caras Galadhon, and there met the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim. The Fellowship spent roughly a month in Lothlórien, though it seemed to them only a few days. Before they left, Galadriel allowed each of them to look in the Mirror of Galadriel, giving them a glimpse of events in the future or at other times; she also tested their loyalty, and gave each of them a gift for their quest.


title: Lothlórien

text: After the fall of Sauron, Galadriel and Celeborn rid Dol Guldur of Sauron's influence. Galadriel left for Valinor at the beginning of the Fourth Age, and Celeborn later followed her. The city slowly became depopulated and Lothlórien faded. By the time of the death of Queen Arwen, Celeborn and Galadriel's granddaughter, Lothlórien itself was deserted.


title: Lothlórien

text: Lothlórien lay in the west of Wilderland. To its west stood the Misty Mountains, with the Dwarf-realm of Moria, and on its east ran the great river Anduin. Across the Anduin lay the forest of Mirkwood and the fortress of Dol Guldur, which could be glimpsed from high points in Lothlórien. The river Silverlode or Celebrant flowed through Lothlórien and joined the Anduin; it had a tributary from the west, the river Nimrodel. The realm lay primarily to the north of the Silverlode, with a small strip of forested land to the south. The main part of the realm was the triangular region between the converging rivers called the Naith (Sindarin for "spearhead") by the Elves or the Gore or Angle in the Common Speech. The tip of the Naith was called the Egladil (Sindarin for "elven-point").


title: Lothlórien

text: Caras Galadhon (from "galadh" ("tree") was the city of Lothlórien and the main settlement of the Galadhrim in Middle-earth. Founded by Amroth in the Third Age, deep in the forest, the city's dwellings were atop tall "mallorn" trees; the mallorn had been brought to that land by Galadriel. The city was "some ten miles" from the point where the rivers Silverlode (Sindarin: "Celebrant") and Anduin met, close to the eastern border of the realm. In the trees there were many tree-platforms, which could be elaborate dwellings or simple guard-posts. Stairways of ladders were built around the main trees, and at night the city was lit by "many lamps" - "green and gold and silver". The city's entrance was on the southern side.


title: Lothlórien

text: The Tolkien scholar Paul H. Kocher writes that Galadriel perceives Sauron with Lothlórien's light, "but cannot be pierced by it in return". The good intelligence has the "imaginative sympathy" to penetrate the evil intelligence, but not "vice versa". The Christian author Elizabeth Danna writes that the Elf Haldir's explanation of this [from a "flet" or tree-platform high above Cerin Amroth], "In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed to one another, and ever they strive now in thought; but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not yet been discovered" echoes a biblical description: "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." The scholar of humanities Susan Robbins notes that Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, associated light as the Bible does with "holiness, goodness, knowledge, wisdom, grace, hope, and God’s revelation", and that Galadriel was one of the bearers of that light.


title: Lothlórien

text: Lothlórien is a "locus amoenus", an idyllic land that Tolkien describes as having "no stain". The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey notes that to get there, the Fellowship first wash off the stains of ordinary life by wading the River Nimrodel. He compares this perfect place to the Earthly Paradise that the dreamer speaks of in the Middle English poem "Pearl".


title: Lothlórien

text: But then, Shippey writes, the Fellowship have to cross a rope-bridge over a second river, the Silverlode, which they must not drink from, and which the evil Gollum cannot cross. What place can they have come to then, he wonders: could they be "as if dead"? He notes however that it might be old England, the "'mountains green' of 'ancient time'" in William Blake's "Jerusalem". As evidence, Shippey explains that when they come to the deepest part of Lothlórien, the Elf Haldir welcomes them, calling the area the "Naith" or "Gore", both unfamiliar words for the land between two converging rivers, the Hoarwell or "Mitheithel", and the Loudwater or "Bruinen", and then giving a third word with a special resonance: the "Angle". Shippey states that the name "England" comes from the Angle (Anglia) between the Flensburg Fjord and the River Schlei, in the north of Germany next to Denmark, the origin of the Angles among the Anglo-Saxons who founded England. He suggests that Frodo's feeling that he has "stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more" may be exactly correct.


title: Lothlórien

text: Shippey writes that in Lothlórien, Tolkien reconciles otherwise conflicting ideas regarding time-distortion in Elfland from European folklore, such as is exemplified in the medieval "Thomas the Rhymer", who was carried off by the Queen of Elfland, and the Danish ballad "Elvehøj" ("Elf Hill").


title: Lothlórien

text: The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that the Fellowship debated how much time had passed while they were there, Sam Gamgee recalling that the moon was waning just before they arrived, and was new when they left, though they all felt they had only been there for a few days. She notes that Sam actually exclaims "Anyone would think that time did not count in there!", while Frodo sees Galadriel as "present and yet remote, a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time" and Legolas, an Elf who ought to know how things work in Elven lands, says that time does not stop there, "but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by. Slow, because they do not count the running years".


title: Lothlórien

text: Shippey considers Legolas's explanation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the mortal and Elvish points of view about Elvish time. Flieger however writes that there is a definite contradiction between Frodo's position, that there is an actual difference in time between Lothlórien and everywhere else, and Legolas's, that it is a matter of perception. She considers Aragorn's view to reconcile these two positions, agreeing that time has passed as Legolas said, but that the Fellowship felt time as the Elves did while they were in Lothlórien. That is not, writes Flieger, the end of the matter, as she feels that Aragorn reintroduces the dilemma when he says that the moon carried on changing "in the world outside": this suggests once again that Lothlórien had its own laws of nature, as in a fairy tale.


title: Lothlórien

text: Flieger writes that while time is treated both naturally and supernaturally throughout "The Lord of the Rings", his "most mystical and philosophical deployment of time" concerns Elves. It is therefore "no accident", she writes, that Frodo's has multiple experiences of altered time in Lothlórien, from feeling he has crossed "a bridge of Time" on entering that land, to seeing Aragorn on Cerin Amroth as he was as a young man, dressed in white. Flieger notes that in "The Monsters and the Critics" Tolkien writes "The human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness". In her view, this explains the exploration of time in his mythology, death and deathlessness being the "concomitants" of time and timelessness.


title: Lothlórien

text: The author John Garth writes of a possible Warwickshire connection for Lothlórien. The young Tolkien and his fiancee Edith Bratt visited Warwick; in 1915 he wrote a celebration of Warwickshire, "Kortirion Among the Trees". Garth suggests that the central green hill of Cerin Amroth in Lothlórien recalls the grassy Motte of Warwick Castle, known as Ethelfleda's Mound and the happy time he spent there in his youth.


title: Lothlórien

text: Lothlórien's appearance in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy was based on the artwork of the conceptual designer Alan Lee. Some of the Lothlórien scenes were shot on locations in Paradise Valley near Glenorchy, New Zealand.


title: Lothlórien

text: In "", Lorien was a region introduced to the game in March 2009, which allows players to visit Caras Galadhon and other places, and complete quests from the elves.


title: Lothlórien

text: Enya's song "Lothlórien" on her album "Shepherd Moons" is an instrumental composition named for the Elvish realm.


title: Lothlórien

text: The Dutch composer Johan de Meij wrote music inspired by the Lothlórien woods, as the second movement of his Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings".


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Late termination of pregnancy, also referred to as late-term abortion, describes the termination of pregnancy by induced abortion during a late stage of gestation. In this context, "late" is not precisely defined, and different medical publications use varying gestational age thresholds. In 2015, about 1.3% of abortions in the United States took place after the 21st week, and less than 1% occur after 24 weeks.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Reasons for late terminations of pregnancy include circumstances where a pregnant woman's health is at risk or when birth defects, such as lethal fetal abnormalities, have been detected. Later abortion is not associated with any negative physical or mental health outcomes, and the risk of death following a surgical abortion after 20 weeks is less than that of typical full-term childbirth in the United States.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Late termination of pregnancy is more controversial than abortion in general. Most countries in Europe only permit abortion in later stages of pregnancy if specific circumstances are present, generally when the pregnancy represents a serious danger to the life, or to the physical or mental health of the woman, or when a serious malformation or anomaly of the fetus is diagnosed.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: A late termination of pregnancy often refers to an induced ending of pregnancy after the 20th week of gestation, i.e. after a fetal age (time since conception) of about 18 weeks. The exact point when an abortion is considered late-term, however, is not clearly defined. In three articles published in 1998 in the same issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" (JAMA), two chose the 20th week of gestation and one chose the 28th week of gestation as the point where an abortion procedure would be considered late-term. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines a late term pregnancy as 41 weeks 0 days through 41 weeks 6 days, which differs from how the term is used in the abortion context.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: In the United States, the point at which an abortion becomes late-term is often related to fetal viability (ability to survive outside the uterus) of the fetus. Sometimes, late-term abortions are referred to as post-viability abortions, though this is not a medical term. Anti-abortion activists use "late-term abortion" to refer to abortions performed after about 21 weeks of pregnancy, which is not the same usage by the medical definition obstetricians use for "late-term", which refers to about 41 or 42 weeks.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: There is no sharp limit of development, age, or weight at which a fetus becomes viable. A 2015 study found that even with active treatment, no infants born at less than 22 weeks survived, but an infant born at 21 weeks and one day in April of 2021 did survive his premature birth. At 23 weeks survival without severe impairment is less than 2%, and at 25 weeks, up to 30% might survive without severe impairment. According to studies between 2003 and 2005, 20 to 35 percent of babies born at 24 weeks of gestation survived, while 50 to 70 percent of babies born at 25 weeks, and more than 90 percent born at 26 to 27 weeks, survived. Because the chance of survival is variable based on interventions available and the weight and sex of the fetus, there is no consensus on viability. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reports that 23% of abortion providers offer abortions at 20 weeks of gestation and later, most often using a method called dilation and evacuation (D&E).


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Reasons for late terminations of pregnancy include when a pregnant woman's health is at risk or when lethal fetal abnormalities have been detected.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: A study from 2013 found after excluding abortion "on grounds of fetal anomaly or life endangerment", that women seeking late abortions "fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous". They concluded that "bans on abortion after 20 weeks will disproportionately affect young women and women with limited financial resources".


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: The NHS records the reasons given for abortions at all stages of development. In 2015, 2,877 abortions were performed at 20 weeks or above, and only 230 of these at or beyond 24 weeks gestation. Of all abortions at 20 weeks or above, 23 (0.8%) were performed to save the life of the pregnant woman, 1,801 (63%) were performed for mental or physical health reasons, and 1046 (36%) were performed because of foetal abnormalities.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: As of 1998, among the 152 most populous countries, 54 either banned abortion entirely or permitted it only to save the life of the pregnant woman.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: On the other hand, as of 1998, 49 of the 152 most populous countries allowed abortion without restriction as to reason, but 44 of these required specific justification after a particular gestational age:


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Dutch Criminal Code defines the "viability" of a fetus to 24 weeks, but doctors "de facto" limit on-request abortions to 22 weeks as a margin of error.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: As of 2011 among those countries that allowed abortion without restriction as to reason, the gestational limits for such abortions on request were: 37 countries set a gestational limit of 12 weeks, 7 countries of 14 weeks, 4 did not set limits, 3 at viability, 3 at 10 weeks, one at 90 days, one at 8 weeks, one at 18 weeks, and one at 24 weeks. In addition, Abortion in Australia, and, to a certain extent, Abortion in the United States, is regulated at state/territory level, and laws vary by region.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: In these countries, abortions after the general gestational age limit are allowed only under restricted circumstances, which include, depending on country, risk to the woman's life, physical or mental health, fetal malformation, cases where the pregnancy was the result of rape, or poor socio-economic conditions. For instance, in Italy, abortion is allowed on request up until 90 days, after which it is allowed only if the pregnancy or childbirth pose a threat to the woman's life, a risk to physical health of the woman, a risk to mental health of the woman; if there is a risk of fetal malformation; or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or other sexual crime. Denmark provides a wider range of reasons, including social and economic ones, which can be invoked by a woman who seeks an abortion after 12 weeks.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Abortions at such stages must in general be approved by a doctor or a special committee, unlike early abortions which are performed on demand. The ease with which the doctor or the committee allows a late term abortion varies significantly by country, and is often influenced by the social and religious views prevalent in that region.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Some countries, like Canada, China (Mainland only) and Vietnam have no legal limit on when an abortion can be performed.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: The United States Supreme Court decisions on abortion, including "Roe v. Wade", allow states to impose more restrictions on post-viability abortions than during the earlier stages of pregnancy.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: As of December 2014, forty-two states had bans on late-term abortions that were not facially unconstitutional under "Roe v. Wade" or enjoined by court order. In addition, the Supreme Court in the case of "Gonzales v. Carhart" ruled that Congress may ban certain late-term abortion techniques, "both previability and postviability", as it had done in banning intact dilation and extraction with the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: The Supreme Court has held that bans must include exceptions for threats to the woman's life, physical health, and mental health, but four states allow late-term abortions only when the woman's life is at risk; four allow them when the woman's life or physical health is at risk, but use a definition of health that abortion-rights organizations believe is impermissibly narrow. Note that just because a portion of a state's law is found to be unconstitutional does not mean that the entire law will be deemed unconstitutional: "[I]nvalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief," meaning the court could declare that only those parts of the law that are violative of the Constitution are invalid (declaratory relief), or that the court can prohibit the state from enforcing those portions of the law (injunctive relief).


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Eighteen states prohibit abortion after a certain number of weeks' gestation (usually 22 weeks from the last menstrual period). The U.S. Supreme Court held in "Webster v. Reproductive Health Services" that a statute may create "a presumption of viability" after a certain number of weeks, in which case the physician must be given an opportunity to rebut the presumption by performing tests. Because this provision is not explicitly written into these state laws, as it was in the Missouri law examined in "Webster", abortion-rights organizations believe that such a state law is unconstitutional, but only "to the extent that it prohibits pre-viability abortions".


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Ten states (although Florida's enforcement of such laws are under permanent injunction) require a second physician's approval before a late-term abortion can be performed. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a requirement of "confirmation by two other physicians" (rather than one other physician) because "acquiescence by co-practitioners has no rational connection with a patient's needs and unduly infringes on the physician's right to practice". Abortion-rights organizations, such as the Guttmacher Institute, posit that some of these state laws are unconstitutional, based on these and other Supreme Court rulings, at least to the extent that these state laws require approval of a second or third physician.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Thirteen states have laws that require a second physician to be present during late-term abortion procedures in order to treat a fetus if born alive. The Court has held that a doctor's right to practice is not infringed by requiring a second physician to be present at abortions performed after viability in order to assist in the case of a living fetus. It is not common for live infants to be born after an abortion at any stage in pregnancy.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: In 2019, a US Senate Bill entitled the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act" raised the issue of live birth after abortion. The bill would mandate that medical providers resuscitate neonates delivered showing signs of life during an abortion process. During the debate around this issue, US Republicans alleged that medical providers "execute" live-born babies. Existing US laws would punish execution as homicide. Furthermore, US abortion experts refute the claim that a "born-alive" fetus is a common event and reject laws that would mandate resuscitation against the wishes of the parents.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: Only 1.3% of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy in the US. Although it is very uncommon, women undergoing surgical abortion after this gestational age sometimes give birth to a fetus that may survive briefly. The periviable period is considered to be between 20 and 25 weeks gestation. Long-term survival is possible after 22 weeks. However, odds of long-term survival between 22 and 23 weeks are 2–3 percent and odds of survival between 23 and 24 weeks are 20 percent. "Intact survival", which means survival of a neonate without subsequent damage to organs such as the brain or bowel is 1% at 22 weeks and 13% at 23 weeks. Survival odds increase with increasing gestational age.


title: Late termination of pregnancy

text: If medical staff observe signs of life, they may be required to provide care: emergency medical care if the child has a good chance of survival and palliative care if not. Induced fetal demise before termination of pregnancy after 20–21 weeks gestation is recommended by some sources to avoid this and to comply with the US Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Induced fetal demise does not improve the safety of an abortion procedure and may incur risks to the health of the woman having the abortion.


title: Erica Jong

text: Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel "Fear of Flying". The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. According to "The Washington Post", it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.


title: Erica Jong

text: Jong was born on March 26, 1942. She is one of three daughters of Seymour Mann (died 2004), and Eda Mirsky (1911–2012). Her father was a businessman of Polish Jewish ancestry who owned a gifts and home accessories company known for its mass production of porcelain dolls. Her mother was born in England of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, and was a painter and textile designer who also designed dolls for her husband's company. Jong has an elder sister, Suzanna, who married Lebanese businessman Arthur Daou, and a younger sister, Claudia, a social worker who married Gideon S. Oberweger (the chief executive officer of Seymour Mann Inc. until his death in 2006). Among her nephews is Peter Daou, who is a Democratic Party strategist. Jong attended New York's The High School of Music & Art in the 1950s, where she developed her passion for art and writing. As a student at Barnard College, Jong edited the "Barnard Literary Magazine" and created poetry programs for the Columbia University campus radio station, WKCR.


title: Erica Jong

text: A 1963 graduate of Barnard College with additionally an MA (1965) in 18th century English Literature from Columbia University, Jong is best known for her first novel, "Fear of Flying" (1973), which created a sensation with its frank treatment of a woman's sexual desires. Although it contains many sexual elements, the book is mainly the account of Isadora Wing, a woman in her late twenties, trying to find who she is and where she is going. It contains many psychological and humorous descriptive elements, as well as rich cultural and literary references. The book tries to answer the many conflicts arising for women in late 1960s and early 1970s America, of womanhood, femininity, love, one's quest for freedom and purpose. The saga of thwarted fulfillment of Isadora Wing continues in two further novels, "How to Save Your Own Life" (1977) and "Parachutes and Kisses" (1984).


title: Erica Jong

text: Jong has been married four times. After a brief marriage to Michael Werthman while at Barnard, and another in 1966 to Allan Jong, a Chinese American psychiatrist, in 1977 she married Jonathan Fast, a novelist, social work educator, and son of novelist Howard Fast. This marriage was described in "How to Save Your Own Life" and "Parachutes and Kisses". She has a daughter from her third marriage, Molly Jong-Fast. Jong is now married to Kenneth David Burrows, a New York litigator.


title: Erica Jong

text: Jong lived on an army base in Heidelberg, Germany, for three years (1966–69) with her second husband. She was a frequent visitor to Venice, and wrote about that city in her novel "Shylock's Daughter".


title: Erica Jong

text: Jong is mentioned in the Bob Dylan song "Highlands" on his album "Time Out of Mind" (1997), and satirized on the MC Paul Barman track "N.O.W.", in which the rapper fantasizes about a young leftist carrying a fictitious Jong book titled "America's Wrong".


title: Erica Jong

text: Jong supports LGBT rights and legalization of same-sex marriage. She says, "Gay marriage is a blessing not a curse. It certainly promotes stability and family. And it's certainly good for kids."


title: Jessye Norman

text: Jessye Mae Norman (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Cassandre and Didon by Berlioz and Bartók's Judith. "The New York Times" music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls."


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman trained at Howard University, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Michigan. Her career began in Europe, where she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1968, which led to a contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Her operatic début came as Elisabeth in Wagner's "Tannhäuser", after which she sang as Verdi's Aida at La Scala in Milan. She made her first operatic appearance in the U.S. in 1982 with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, when cast as Jocasta in Stravinsky's "Oedipus rex", and as Dido in Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas". She went on to sing leading roles with many other companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Paris Opera, and the Royal Opera, London. She sang at the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan, at Queen Elizabeth II's 60th birthday celebration in 1986, and performed the "La Marseillaise" to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution on July 14, 1989. She sang at the 1996 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Atlanta and for the second inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1997.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman sang and recorded recitals of music by Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Ernest Chausson and Francis Poulenc, among others. In 1984, she won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, the first of five Grammy Awards that she would collect during her career. Apart from several honorary doctorates and other awards, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Légion d'honneur, and was named a member of the British Royal Academy of Music. In 1990, UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar named her Honorary Ambassador to the United Nations.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia, to Silas Norman, an insurance salesman, and Janie King-Norman, a schoolteacher. She was one of five children in a family of amateur musicians; her mother and grandmother were both pianists, and her father sang in a local choir. All siblings learned to play the piano early. Norman attended Charles T. Walker Elementary School, and proved to be a talented singer as a young child, singing gospel songs at Mount Calvary Baptist Church at the age of four. There she was greatly influenced by the singing of two women, Mrs. Golden and Sister Childs. At the age of seven she entered her first vocal competition, placing third only because of a memory slip in the second stanza of the hymn "God Will Take Care of You". She later said in interviews, "I guess He has taken care of me. That was my last memory slip in public."


title: Jessye Norman

text: When Norman was nine she was given a radio for her birthday and soon discovered the world of opera through the weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, which she listened to every Saturday. She started listening to recordings of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, both of whom Norman credited as inspiring figures in her career. She received her first formal vocal coaching from Rosa Harris Sanders Creque who was her music teacher at A. R. Johnson Junior High School. She continued to take voice lessons privately with Ms. Sanders Creque while attending Lucy C. Laney Senior High School in downtown Augusta.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman studied at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan in the opera performance program. At the age of 16, she entered the Marian Anderson Vocal Competition in Philadelphia which, although she did not win, led to an offer of a full scholarship at Howard University, in Washington, D.C. While at Howard, studying voice with Carolyn Grant, she sang in the university chorus and as a soloist at the Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ. In 1964, she became a member of Gamma Sigma Sigma.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In 1965, along with 33 other female students and four female faculty, Norman became a founding member of the Delta Nu chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity. In 1966, she won the National Society of Arts and Letters singing competition. After graduating in 1967 with a degree in music, she began graduate studies at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and later at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from which she earned a master's degree in 1968. During this time, Norman studied voice with Elizabeth Mannion and Pierre Bernac.


title: Jessye Norman

text: After graduating, Norman, like many American young musicians at the time, moved to Europe to establish herself. In 1968, she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. The following year, she began a three-year contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she first appeared as Elisabeth in Wagner's "Tannhäuser".


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman performed as a guest with German and Italian opera companies, often portraying noble characters convincingly, both by appearance and by unique voice which was both flexible and powerful. Her voice range was wide, from contralto registers to dramatic soprano. In 1970, she appeared in Florence in the title role in Handel's "Deborah". In 1971, she sang at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in the role of Sélika in Meyerbeer's "L'Africaine". The same year, she portrayed Countess Almaviva in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro", alongside Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the count at the Berlin Festival, and recorded the role with the BBC Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. The recording was a finalist for the Montreux International Record Award competition and exposed her to music listeners in Europe and the United States.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In 1972, Norman made her first appearance at La Scala, where she sang the title role in Verdi's "Aida" and at The Royal Opera at Covent Garden, London, where she appeared as Cassandra in "Les Troyens" by Berlioz. Norman was Aida again in a concert version that same year in her first well-publicized American performance at the Hollywood Bowl for the venue's 50th anniversary celebration. This was followed by an all-Wagner concert at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, and a recital tour of the country, after which she returned to Europe for several engagements. Norman briefly returned to the United States to give her first New York City recital as part of the "Great Performers" series in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1973.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In 1975, Norman moved to London and had no staged opera appearances for the next five years. She remained internationally active as a recitalist and soloist in works such as Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and Franck's "Les Béatitudes". Norman returned to North America again in 1976 and 1977 to make an extensive concert tour. Norman toured Europe throughout the 1970s, giving recitals of works by Schubert, Mahler, Wagner, Brahms, Satie, Messiaen, and several contemporary American composers, to great critical acclaim.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In October 1980, Norman returned to the operatic stage in the title role of "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Richard Strauss at the Hamburg State Opera in Germany. Her first operatic appearance in the United States came in 1982 at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, where she appeared as Jocasta in Stravinsky's "Oedipus rex", and as Purcell's Dido. On July 18 she sang Didon in a concert performance of the second part of Berlioz's "Les Troyens" (as "Les Troyens à Carthage"), conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and an audio recording exists.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Her stage debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was on September 26, 1983, the opening night of the company's 100th-anniversary season, when she portrayed Cassandre in Berlioz's "Les Troyens" with Plácido Domingo as Aeneas, Tatiana Troyanos as Didon, and James Levine conducting. According to Donal Henahan, the music critic of "The New York Times", "she sang grippingly and projected well, even when placed well back in the cavernous sets." The fourth performance, with the same cast, was telecast as part of the "Live from the Met" series. A video recording has been issued on DVD and is available for streaming at the Met Opera on Demand website. On October 12 and 17, the fifth and sixth performances in the run of nine, she sang Didon with William Lewis as Aeneas and Gwynn Cornell as Cassandre. Reviewing the October 12 performance, Edward Rothstein of "The New York Times" reported that "she created a Carthaginian Queen who was both regal and vulnerable. It was a subtle and affecting dramatic portrait... Her farewell aria was fluid and seductive, suggesting in its timbre both sensuous pleasures and death." On February 8, the seventh performance of the series, she returned to the role of Cassandre, with Edward Sooter as Aeneas and Troyanos as Didon, but replaced Troyanos as Didon for act 5. On February 13, the eighth performance, she again sang Didon, with Sooter as Aeneas and Cornell as Cassandre, and on February 18, the ninth and final performance of the series, she sang both Cassandre and Didon, with Sooter as Aeneas. Regarding the last performance, "The New York Times" reported that "the audience gave Miss Norman a 15-minute standing ovation that brought her back to the stage more than a half dozen times." The performance was broadcast on the Metropolitan Opera Radio, and an audio recording is available.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman programmed recitals innovatively, including contemporary music. She commissioned the song cycle "woman.life.song" by composer Judith Weir, a work premiered at Carnegie Hall, with texts by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Clarissa Pinkola Estés. In a review of a recital at Alice Tully Hall, Bernard Holland wrote in "The New York Times" that she "carefully gauged her seemingly limitless resources to fit the changing textures of her material". After a recital at Carnegie Hall, Allen Hughes wrote in the same paper that Norman "has one of the most opulent voices before the public today, and, as discriminating listeners are aware, her performances are backed by extraordinary preparation, both musical and otherwise."


title: Jessye Norman

text: According to "Encyclopædia Britannica": "By the mid-1980s she was one of the most popular and highly regarded dramatic soprano singers in the world." She told John Gruen in an interview: "As for my voice, it cannot be categorizedand I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range. I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range." She was invited to sing at the second inauguration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan on January 21, 1985; she performed "Simple Gifts" from Aaron Copland's "Old American Songs" at the ceremony. In 1986, Norman sang "God Save the Queen" for Queen Elizabeth II's 60th-birthday celebration. That same year she appeared as a soloist in Strauss's "Four Last Songs" with the Berlin Philharmonic during its tour of the United States.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Over the years Norman expanded her talent into less familiar areas. In 1988, she sang a concert performance of Poulenc's one-act opera "La voix humaine" ("The Human Voice"), based on Jean Cocteau's 1930 play of the same name. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Norman produced numerous award-winning recordings, and many of her performances were televised. In addition to opera, many of Norman's recordings and performances during this time focused on art songs, lieder, oratorios, and orchestral works. Her interpretation of the "Four Last Songs" is especially acclaimed, as "the tonal qualities of her voice were ideal for these final works of the great Romantic German lieder tradition".


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman also performed Arnold Schoenberg's "Gurre-Lieder" and his one-woman opera "Erwartung". In 1989, she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of "Erwartung" that marked the company's first single-character production. It was presented in a double bill with Bartók's "Bluebeard's Castle", with Norman playing Judith. Both operas were broadcast nationally. That same year, she was the featured soloist with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic in the opening concert of its 148th season, which PBS telecast live. She performed at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre opening and gave a recital at the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Also in 1989, Norman was invited to sing the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution on July 14. Her rendition was delivered at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, in a costume designed by Azzedine Alaïa as part of an elaborate pageant orchestrated by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Goude. This event was the inspiration that led the South African poet Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu to write a poem titled "I Shall Be Heard" dedicated to Norman. The poem appears in Ndlovu's book of poems "In Quiet Realm", the foreword to which is penned by Norman.


title: Jessye Norman

text: From the early 1990s, Norman lived in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, in a secluded estate known as "The White Gates", which was previously owned by television personality Allen Funt. She performed at Tchaikovsky's 150th Birthday Gala in Leningrad and appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Gluck's "Alceste" in 1990. She sang American spirituals with soprano Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall that year. The following year, she performed in a concert recorded live with Lawrence Foster and the Lyon Opera Orchestra at Notre-Dame de Paris. Norman sang Jocasta in Stravinsky's "Oedipus rex" at the opening operatic production at the new Saito Kinen Festival in the Japanese Alps near Matsumoto in 1992. The following year, she sang the title role in the Metropolitan Opera's production of "Ariadne auf Naxos". In 1994, Norman sang at the funeral of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was again the featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic, then conducted by Kurt Masur, in a gala concert telecast for the opening of the orchestra's 153rd season in 1995. She gave a highly lauded performance as the title character of Janáček's "The Makropulos Affair" when it was first performed in 1996.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman performed at the 1996 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Atlanta, singing "Faster, Higher, Stronger". In January 1997, she performed at the second inauguration of U.S. President Bill Clinton, singing, "Oh freedom!". In 1998, she performed a recital at Carnegie Hall incorporating sacred music by Duke Ellington, scored for jazz combo, string quartet and piano. She sang Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde", with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. A Christmas television program was filmed in her home town. A spring recital tour in 1999 included performances in Tel Aviv. In the following season, she appeared at the Salzburg Festival.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In 1999, Norman collaborated with choreographer-dancer Bill T. Jones in a project for New York City's Lincoln Center, called "How! Do! We! Do!" In 2000, she released an album, "I Was Born in Love with You", featuring the songs of Michel Legrand. The recording, reviewed as a jazz crossover project, featured Legrand on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Grady Tate on drums. In February and March 2001, Norman was featured at Carnegie Hall in a three-part concert series. With James Levine as her pianist, the concerts were a significant arts event, replete with an 80-page program booklet featuring a newly commissioned watercolor portrait of Norman by David Hockney. In 2002, Norman performed at the opening of Singapore's Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.


title: Jessye Norman

text: On June 28, 2001, Norman and Kathleen Battle performed "Mythodea" by Vangelis at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, Greece. On March 11, 2002, Norman performed "America the Beautiful" at a service unveiling two monumental columns of light at the site of the former World Trade Center, as a memorial for the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City. In 2002, she returned to Augusta to announce that she would fund a pilot school of the arts for children in Richmond County. Classes commenced at St. John United Methodist Church in the fall of 2003. In November 2004, a documentary about Norman's life and work was directed by André Heller and as director of photography, documenting her music as well as political and social issues. In 2006, Norman collaborated with the modern dance choreographer Trey McIntyre for a special performance during the summer at the Vail Dance Festival.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In March 2009, Norman curated "Honor!", a celebration of the African-American cultural legacy. The festival honored African-American trailblazers and artists with concerts, recitals, lectures, panel discussions, and exhibitions hosted by Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and other sites around New York City.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman served on the boards of directors for Carnegie Hall, City-Meals-on-Wheels in New York City, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the New York Botanical Garden, the New York Public Library, National Music Foundation, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She was a member of the board and spokesperson for the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation, and also spokesperson for Partnership for the Homeless. She served on the board of trustees of the Augusta Opera Association and of Paine College.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In March 2013, the Apollo Theater and Manhattan School of Music featured Norman in "Ask Your Mama", a 90-minute multimedia show by Laura Karpman based on Langston Hughes's "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz".


title: Jessye Norman

text: In March 2014, Norman was featured at The Green Music Center Weill Hall on the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California (Sonoma County), in a recital of American standards in tributes to the likes of George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. In 2015, she and pianist Mark Markham presented a program of mainly Gershwin, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart at Carnegie Hall with a few art songs by Satie and Poulenc.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In April 2018, Norman was honored as the 12th recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize for her contribution to opera and the arts.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman suffered a spinal-cord injury in 2015. She died at Mount Sinai Morningside in Manhattan on September 30, 2019, aged 74. The cause of death was given as "septic shock and multi-organ failure secondary to complications of" the spinal cord injury. In September 2021 it was reported that Norman's brother had pursued legal action for alleged medical negligence against the doctors and hospital involved in an operation on her in 2015.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman's public funeral was held in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Actor Laurence Fishburne, sociologist Michael Eric Dyson, Carnegie Hall's Clive Gillinson, civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, and Mayor Hardie Davis spoke. Opera's J'Nai Bridges, jazz's Wycliffe Gordon, and students from Morehouse College and Spelman College, as well as Jessye Norman School of the Arts, performed.


title: Jessye Norman

text: Norman was memorialized with a gala tribute at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, on November 24, 2019. Among the speakers and performers at the public remembrance were Anna Deavere Smith; Gloria Steinem; the former Minister of Culture of France, Jack Lang; Eric Owens; The Dance Theatre of Harlem; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Peter Gelb; and Renée Fleming.


title: Jessye Norman

text: In 2003, the Rachel Longstreet Foundation and Norman partnered to open the Jessye Norman School of the Arts, a tuition-free performing arts after-school program for economically disadvantaged students in Augusta, Georgia. Norman was actively involved in the program, including fundraisers for its benefit.


title: Series and parallel springs

text: In mechanics, two or more springs are said to be in series when they are connected end-to-end or point to point, and it is said to be in parallel when they are connected side-by-side; in both cases, so as to act as a single spring:


title: Series and parallel springs

text: More generally, two or more springs are "in series" when any external stress applied to the ensemble gets applied to each spring without change of magnitude, and the amount strain (deformation) of the ensemble is the sum of the strains of the individual springs. Conversely, they are said to be "in parallel" if the strain of the ensemble is their common strain, and the stress of the ensemble is the sum of their stresses.


title: Series and parallel springs

text: Any combination of Hookean (linear-response) springs in series or parallel behaves like a single Hookean spring. The formulas for combining their physical attributes are analogous to those that apply to capacitors connected in series or parallel in an electrical circuit.


title: Series and parallel springs

text: The following table gives formula for the spring that is equivalent to a system of two springs, in series or in parallel, whose spring constants are formula_1 and formula_2. (The compliance formula_3 of a spring is the reciprocal formula_4 of its spring constant.)


title: Rezz

text: Isabelle Rezazadeh, (born March 28, 1995) known by her stage name Rezz (stylized as REZZ), is a Canadian DJ and record producer from Niagara Falls, Ontario. She released her debut EP, "Insurrection" in 2015 through OWSLA's sub-label Nest HQ. In 2016, she signed with record label mau5trap, and released follow-ups "The Silence is Deafening" and "Something Wrong Here". On August 4, 2017, Rezazadeh released her debut studio album, "Mass Manipulation", with its follow up, "Certain Kind of Magic", released in 2018.


title: Rezz

text: Rezazadeh was born in Ukraine to a Ukrainian mother and an Iranian father, before moving to Canada at a young age. While attending high school, she worked at a Hard Rock Cafe at Niagara Falls.


title: Rezz

text: Rezazadeh began DJing at the age of 16, playing music by other artists until she became inspired by a Deadmau5 concert to create her own. She was noticed on a blog by Skrillex, who then followed and sent her a message on Twitter.


title: Rezz

text: In 2013(?), Rezazadeh started producing music on her laptop in her home in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and uploaded them to SoundCloud. She released "Insurrection" on Owsla subsidiary, NEST on July 20, 2015. Later that year, she released music on Deadmau5's record label, Mau5trap and her track "Serenity" was featured on the 2015 compilation album "We Are Friends, Vol. 4".


title: Rezz

text: In 2016, Rezazadeh announced her first EP on the music label Mau5trap, "The Silence is Deafening", which released on January 22, 2016. This was followed by a second EP release on Mau5trap later that year, "Something Wrong Here", on October 7, 2016. The EP charted in the United States, peaking at #19 on the Billboard Dance Charts.


title: Rezz

text: In 2017, Mau5trap announced Rezazadeh's debut full length studio album, "Mass Manipulation". On July 7, 2017, A music video for "Relax" was released on Mau5trap's YouTube channel to promote the album's release. A month later, "Mass Manipulation" was released on digital download stores on August 4, 2017, and on vinyl on October 6, 2017.


title: Rezz

text: On June 1, 2018, Rezazadeh announced her second studio album, "Certain Kind of Magic". The album was released on August 3, 2018, through Mau5trap. Its lead single, "Witching Hour", was released on June 4, 2018. The album's second single, "Hex", was made in collaboration with 1788-L and released on June 29, 2018.


title: Rezz

text: On May 14, 2019, Rezz announced on Twitter that her EP "Beyond the Senses" was set for release on July 24. She released the single "Dark Age" the following day. On June 12, she released a collaboration with the American band Underoath titled "Falling". It was accompanied by a music video released the same day, as well as an online VR listening party through WaveVR, with VR Arcades across North America and also Otherworld in London taking part in physical events supporting the listening party.


title: Rezz

text: She is profiled in the 2020 documentary film "Underplayed", and will perform a DJ set following the film's Canadian premiere at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (stylized as Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD and Nick Fury: Agent of Shield) is a 1998 American television superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury. It was first broadcast on May 26, 1998 on Fox, intended to be a backdoor pilot for a possible new TV series. Written by David Goyer, and directed by Rod Hardy, the film had a $6 million production budget. It stars David Hasselhoff as Fury, a retired super spy who is approached to return to duty to take down the terrorist organization HYDRA, who threaten to attack Manhattan with a pathogen they have reconstituted known as the Death's Head virus. Lisa Rinna plays Contessa Valentina "Val" Allegra de Fontaine, and Sandra Hess plays Andrea von Strucker / Viper. It was released on DVD on September 30, 2008. The film was met with a largely negative reception.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Agents of the terrorist organization HYDRA invade a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, killing Clay Quartermain and reviving a cryogenically preserved Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker. Nick Fury, retired, and living in an abandoned mine shaft in the Yukon, is approached by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Alexander Goodwin Pierce and Contessa Valentina Allegra De Fontaine to return to duty to take down Hydra, now led by the children of Von Strucker, an old enemy of his. Fury refuses to return until he learns of Quartermain's death. He then accompanies Pierce and De Fontaine to a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, where he reunites with old friends Dum Dum Dugan and Gabriel Jones, is introduced to telepath Kate Neville, clashes with new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director General Jack Pincer, and is shown advanced technologies that S.H.I.E.L.D. is developing, including a Life Model Decoy of Fury.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Shown a recording of Quartermain's death, with the killer taunting Fury by name, and informed that the killer was Von Strucker's daughter, codenamed Viper, Fury deduces that Von Strucker's body was taken to harvest a pathogen known as the Death's Head Virus, developed by Arnim Zola to be Hitler's doomsday weapon. Viper calls a meeting of the remaining four Hydra lieutenants from Cairo, Osaka, Prague and London. She executes the London lieutenant for questioning her authority. Fury learns that Zola is still alive and being kept in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse in Berlin, Fury and De Fontaine travel there. They rendezvous with local Interpol agent Gail Runciter, and proceed to the safehouse, where an elderly Zola, in a wheelchair and requiring an oxygen mask, seemingly overpowers Kate Neville's telepathy with his evil visions of destruction. Runciter lures Fury away from the group and shocks him with a device before revealing herself to be Viper in disguise. She then kisses Fury with poisoned lipstick, leaving him unconscious, enabling Hydra to retake Zola. Fury learns he has 48 hours to live unless he can recover a sample of Viper's DNA from which to develop an antidote.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Hydra threatens to attack Manhattan with the virus, barring payment of US $1 billion, and as proof of their threat, the real Gail Runciter is found, dying from the virus. After Fury and his team brief the President of the United States, Pierce determines from a chip from a laptop sold in the Aleutian Islands that the Hydra base might be there. Fury has his people split into two teams, one led by de Fontaine heading to Manhattan to find the refrigerated truck they believe will be needed to deploy the virus, and the other with Fury leading Pierce and Neville to the Aleutian Islands. Upon arriving in the Aleutian Islands, and confirming that a Hydra transmission has come from there, Fury's plane is shot down by heat-seeking missiles. In Manhattan, de Fontaine's team figures out that the refrigerator truck is disguised as a garbage truck, while Fury and his team, having bailed out of the airplane in time, infiltrate the Hydra base.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Fury realizes that it was too easy to get in, just before his team is captured and stripped of their weapons. Viper reveals to him that she will release the virus even if they are paid, and locks Fury and his team in a freezer. Fury reveals that in place of his missing left eye, he keeps an explosive with which they are able to escape. Reaching Viper's control room, Fury and Viper fight until she gets hold of a gun and shoots him. However, it turns out to be Fury's Life Model Decoy. Fury incapacitates Zola and captures Viper, and Neville uses her telepathy to draw the code to abort the detonation from Viper's mind. The Helicarrier arrives, and captures the rest of Hydra's forces, but Viper escapes with the body of her father. Fury decides to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the new threat of Hydra, while Viper is shown to have restored her father, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, to life.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Plans to create a Nick Fury live action production were circulated as early as September 1986, but it was not until mid-May 1995 that Fox Broadcasting announced the acquisition from New World Entertainment of a Nick Fury series pilot, to be broadcast in 1996. The teleplay was written by David S. Goyer several years before the film was made, and Goyer was not otherwise involved as he was working on the television series "Sleepwalkers". Despite some misgivings within the studio, the producers cast David Hasselhoff in the lead role "to give SHIELD some recognizable star power". The production also markedly "respected and utilized the comic roots of the project", incorporating "a who's who of the Marvel spy scene" and retaining details such as Fury's eyepatch.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Goyer was not enthusiastic about the casting of David Hasselhoff, but in hindsight said "Hasselhoff turned out to be the best thing in it. He got the joke. The script was meant to be very tongue in cheek and Hasselhoff understood that". Goyer described the film overall as "pretty mediocre". Hasselhoff was reportedly signed for five additional Nick Fury television films, which did not materialize.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: Reception to the film was largely negative, with praises for its performances such as that of David Hasselhoff, but criticism for lack of execution and dialogue. In 2016 Neil Calloway called it a "schlocky throwaway TV movie" with "some fantastically tongue in cheek quoteable lines...but in all honesty the film has dated like only a bad TV movie shot in Vancouver in the late 1990s could". "ScreenRant" later described the film as having "mostly disappeared without a trace with mediocre reviews", and "Looper" included it on its list of the ten worst Marvel movies. "The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television" found that "the production was hampered by weak, two-dimensional performances that bordered on hysteria and camp", and that Hasselhoff "just did not have the gravitas to pull off the role". "Den of Geek" described it as "a time filler that doesn't stray too far from Marvel's established SHIELD characters but didn't do anything terribly compelling with them either", concluding that it was "a one night wonder that wasn't very wondrous".


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: The initial television broadcast of the episode came in fourth in the Nielsen ratings for that time slot, behind reruns on various other networks.


title: Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (film)

text: "Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." was released on DVD on September 30, 2008 exclusively at Best Buy stores.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Nicos Anastasiades ( ; born 27 September 1946) is a Cypriot politician who is the current president of Cyprus since 2013. He was re-elected in 2018. Previously, he was the leader of Democratic Rally between 1997 and 2013 and served as Member of Parliament from Limassol between 1981 and 2013.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Anastasiades is a lawyer by profession, and the founder of law firm "Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners". He graduated in law from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and completed postgraduate studies in shipping law at University College London. During his university studies, he was a member of the Centre Coalition based in Athens formed by Georgios Papandreou.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Anastasiades was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1981 and was leader of his party from 1997 until 2013.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: In March 2012, Nicos Anastasiades was nominated as a candidate for the 2013 presidential election, against his rival MEP Eleni Theocharous in a vote among the 1,008 strong executive of the Democratic Rally. Nicos Anastasiades received 673 votes (86.73%) and Theocharous received 103 (13.27%). In the first round of the presidential election on 17 February 2013, Anastasiades won 45% of votes, while Stavros Malas and George Lillikas earned 26.9% and 24.9%, respectively. He won in the second round against Malas with 57.48% of the vote and was sworn in as president on 28 February 2013.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: He pledged to implement the Structural Reforms demanded by the European Commission in order to obtain economic aid and cut social benefits, pensions and wages in the public and private sectors, while increasing VAT and fuel taxes. He also decided to reduce the number of civil servants.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Anastasiades had to break campaign promises by agreeing to let the banks confiscate 47.5 percent of bank accounts over 100,000 euros in 2013, in order to acquire a 10-billion euro bailout from international lenders.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Speaking before a committee of inquiry into the island's economic collapse, Anastasiades conceded he reneged on his pledges not to accept a "haircut" on deposits, stressing that the alternative would have been catastrophic for Cyprus.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: He later came to comment that Cyprus was treated as a guinea pig with extreme measures never applied before, but despite his counter-proposals they were all blatantly rejected during the Eurogroup meeting. However, such claims were heavily criticized on the press for being misleading, citing references from Eurogroup's members who stated that the bailout plan was actually Anastasiades's proposal. Additional criticism was due to claims that the president himself warned his associates and friends to move money abroad before financial crisis hit.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Despite the heavy criticism, the government's effective management of capital controls, however, revived the country's banking system, and Cyprus was able to exit the bailout in 2016.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: During his electoral campaign for the post of Cyprus President in 2013, he announced his commitment to reduce military conscription in Cyprus to 14 months during the first hundred days of his term. During the early months of the Anastasiades administration there was important planning for the reduction of military conscription to 14 months in order to increase the incentive for 18 year olds to serve their conscription and to reduce the financial burden to the Cypriot state. Minister of Defence Fotis Fotiou announced that there would be a final decision on the reduction of military conscription towards late 2013. There was increasing pressure for ending military conscription due to the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: In early August 2013, Minister of Defence Fotis Fotiou announced the reduction of military service, which was in the electoral manifesto of Anastasiades. He supported that national service will be reduced to 18 months in the first phase and decrease further to 14 months before the end of 2014. On 25 February 2016, it was decided by the cabinet to reduce the military service to 18 months for all conscripts who joined in the summer of 2015, and to reduce the service to 14 months for all those who joined thereafter.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: Anastasiades supported the Annan Plan, even though a majority (61%) of his party voted it down. Some of his intra-party opposition even called for Anastasiades to step down. Many party cadres were up in arms over Anastasiades' letter to the European Parliament alleging that the government trampled on free speech and human rights during the referendum's "Yes" campaign. The government cited the National Television Council's data that showed that the six parties supporting the "No" vote got as much air time as the two that supported the UN plan. The start of peace negotiations between Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart began in October 2013, attracting the interest of international media and world leaders including Barack Obama.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: On 3 November 2019, newspapers reported that under Nicos Anastasiades' government, the Malaysian conman and fugitive, Jho Low, had been granted Cypriot citizenship. It was reported that Jho Low obtained the passport under the Cypriot citizenship investment scheme just two days after investing in some property in Cyprus. At the time, there was no warrant against Jho Low for the 1MDB scandal; however, he was already under investigation and investigators were closing in on him for his alleged money-laundering activities. He was granted a passport despite the fact that a background check on him raised several red flags because of his status as a politically exposed person as well as his alleged fraud and regulatory breaches. It was also revealed that while the golden passport scheme normally requires applicants to live in the country for at least seven years, as well as buy property, the decision to override this requirement was taken by the country's cabinet. The revelation concerning Jho Low's Cypriot citizenship came after the Cypriot citizenship investment scheme came under scrutiny, after it was revealed that the Cyprus government, under the presidency of Nicos Anastasiades, had granted citizenship to Cambodian elites.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: In August 2019, an OCCRP report linked President Anastasiades' Law firm, which he co-owned and from which he stepped away just as he was ascending to the presidency in 2013, with "business deals linked to a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the infamous Magnitsky scandal, and a network of companies used in various financial crimes." Both of President Anastasiades' daughters are still partners in the firm, and he still has a private office in the building. The report revealed that Anastasiades' Law firm "executed complex deals that moved Russian money to and from shell companies created by and associated with the firm", two of which appear to be deeply entwined with the Troika Laundromat.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: There is a clear link between Nikos Anastasiades and the golden passports scheme since he chaired the Cabinet which offered these passports.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: As part of the professionalisation of the National Guard, President Anastasiades introduced the contracted soldiers "Συμβασιούχοι Οπλίτες (ΣΥΟΠ)" who's role is to mainly cover the operational needs of the National Guard now that the military service was reduced to up to 14 months, an initiative which has been considered to be successful.


title: Nicos Anastasiades

text: He married Andri Moustakoudi in 1971 and they have two daughters. He has a twin brother and a sister. Anastasiades' family has been twice linked with visa schemes. In 2001, his twin brother, Pambos Anastasiades, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a work permit scandal, which was about forging "pink visas", i.e. work permits for foreign women employed in illegal brothels. In 2019, Anastasiades' family was linked to a "golden visa" programme. Anastasiades' family was accused of benefiting from Russian businessmen granted Cypriot citizenship by the cabinet.


The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Washington were held on November 8, 2022, to elect the 10 U.S. representatives from the state of Washington, one from each of the state's 10 congressional districts. The elections coincided with other elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the United States Senate and various state and local elections. Going into this election, the Democratic Party represented seven seats, while the Republican Party represented three seats.


title: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Washington

text: These were the first elections to the House of Representatives held in Washington state after the 2020 redistricting cycle. The Democratic Party gained a seat, flipping the 3rd district from Republican to Democratic control, and reducing the Republicans' share of the delegation to just two districts.


text: Washington state has used a bipartisan redistricting commission to draw its districts since the passage of a ballot initiative in 1983. The Democratic and Republican parties each appoint two people to the commission, and the four appointees select a fifth member to serve as the nonvoting chair of the commission. For the 2020 redistricting cycle, the Democrats appointed April Sims, secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, and Brady Piñero Walkinshaw, CEO of Grist and a former member of the Washington House of Representatives. The Republicans chose Paul Graves, a lawyer and former member of the Washington House of Representatives, and Joe Fain, president and CEO of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce and a former member of the Washington Senate. They selected Sarah Augustine, executive director of the Dispute Resolution Center for Yakima and Kittitas counties, as chair.


text: The commission was required to approve a final set of district maps by 11:59 PM on November 15, 2021. However, for the first time since the process was enacted in 1983, the deadline was not met. Although the commission approved a set of maps with seconds to go before midnight, they did not vote to transmit those maps until after the deadline had passed. The members of the commission faced widespread criticism for missing the deadline and for making negotiations behind closed doors rather than in front of the public. Some speculated that the actions of the commission may have violated Washington's Open Public Meetings Act, which generally prohibits public commissions from making decisions in private, and the Washington Supreme Court demanded that the redistricting commission produce a detailed timeline of what occurred in the hours before the deadline. Because the commission failed to meet the deadline, the Washington Supreme Court took over responsibility for the state's maps.


text: Several Washington politicians expressed disappointment that the commission failed and that the supreme court would be drawing the state's maps. Republican former state senator Ann Rivers claimed that it was "fair to wonder" if some members of the commission wanted to miss the deadline so that the majority-liberal supreme court could take over redistricting. The League of Women Voters called for the entire process to be reformed, believing it should be more transparent and that the commissioners should be given more time and training. And Washington Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig said his caucus would introduce legislation to require that the final version of the commission's map be released to the public before the final vote to prevent future commissions from missing the deadline.


text: Some speculated that maps drawn by the supreme court may have been more favorable to the Democratic Party compared to those drawn by the bipartisan commission, as five out of the court's nine justices were originally appointed by Democratic governors (three by Jay Inslee and two by Christine Gregoire). The members of the commission urged the supreme court to adopt the maps that it drew but did not approve in time. However, commissioner Walkinshaw acknowledged that there may be questions about whether the maps' handling of the Yakima River Valley may have violated the Voting Rights Act due to its distribution of Latinos. The UCLA Voting Rights Project claimed that the maps demonstrated "racially polarized voting patterns" in the region and urged the supreme court to address these issues. The supreme court granted the commission's request and adopted its maps, but it emphasized that its decision to use the commission's maps "does not render any opinion on the plan’s compliance with any statutory and constitutional requirements," meaning that the maps could still be challenged in court.


text: Washington's new congressional map leaves the districts largely the same, though it makes the 1st and 10th districts somewhat more liberal. The most notable change was to the 1st district, which previously reached up to the Canada–US border. Under the new map, it is more compact, with Medina and Bellevue in the south and Arlington in the north. Much of the areas cut out from the 1st district were added to the 2nd district. Previously a primarily coastal district, the 2nd now reaches further inland, taking in Skagit and Whatcom counties. The 8th district was also extended. It now reaches into Snohomish County, taking in the city of Sultan, and northern King County, taking in the city of Skykomish. Although both Snohomish and King are liberal counties, giving 58.5% and 75.0% of their vote respectively to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, the 8th district is expected to remain highly competitive.


text: Before redistricting, the 1st congressional district spanned the northeastern Seattle suburbs, including Redmond and Kirkland, along the Cascades to the Canada–United States border. The incumbent is Democrat Suzan DelBene, who was re-elected with 58.6% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 2nd congressional district encompassed the northern Puget Sound area, including Everett and Bellingham. The incumbent is Democrat Rick Larsen, who was re-elected with 63.1% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 3rd district encompassed the southernmost portion of western and central Washington. It included the counties of Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clark, Skamania, and Klickitat, as well as a small sliver of southern Thurston county. The incumbent was Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was re-elected with 56.4% of the vote in 2020, but was eliminated in the primary. Despite every major election predictor predicting this race to be "Lean R" or better for Republicans, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won the seat by a small margin. The race has been called a microcosm of many of those across the U.S.


text: On December 2, Kent's campaign announced that it was requesting a machine recount from the Secretary of State.


text: Before redistricting, the 4th congressional district encompassed rural central Washington, including Yakima and Tri-Cities area. The incumbent is Republican Dan Newhouse, who was re-elected with 66.2% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 5th district encompassed eastern Washington, and included the city of Spokane. The incumbent is Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who was re-elected with 61.3% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 6th district was based on the Olympic Peninsula, and included western Tacoma. The incumbent is Democrat Derek Kilmer, who was re-elected with 59.3% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 7th congressional district encompassed most of Seattle, as well as Edmonds, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Vashon Island, and Burien. The incumbent is Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who was re-elected with 83.0% of the vote in 2020.


text: Before redistricting, the 8th district encompassed the eastern suburbs of Seattle including Sammamish, Maple Valley, Covington, Hobart, Issaquah, and Auburn and stretched into rural central Washington, including Chelan County and Kittitas County, as well as taking in eastern Pierce County. The incumbent is Democrat Kim Schrier, who was re-elected with 51.7% of the vote in 2020.