title: Northern Wei

text: During the reign of Emperor Daowu (386–409), the total number of deported people from the regions east of Taihangshan (the former Later Yan territory) to Datong was estimated to be around 460,000. Deportations typically took place once a new piece of territory had been conquered.


title: Northern Wei

text: As the Northern Wei state grew, the emperors' desire for Han Chinese institutions and advisors grew. Cui Hao (381–450), an advisor at the courts in Datong played a great part in this process. He introduced Han Chinese administrative methods and penal codes in the Northern Wei state, as well as creating a Taoist theocracy that lasted until 450. The attraction of Han Chinese products, the royal court's taste for luxury, the prestige of Chinese culture at the time, and Taoism were all factors in the growing Chinese influence in the Northern Wei state. Chinese influence accelerated during the capital's move to Luoyang in 494 and Emperor Xiaowen continued this by establishing a policy of systematic sinicization that was continued by his successors. Xianbei traditions were largely abandoned. The royal family took the sinicization a step further by changing their family name to Yuan. Marriages to Chinese families were encouraged. With this, Buddhist temples started appearing everywhere, displacing Taoism as the state religion. The temples were often created to appear extremely lavish and extravagant on the outside of the temples. Also from 460 onwards the emperors started erecting huge statues of the Buddha carved near their capital Pingcheng which declared the emperors as the representatives of the Buddha and the legitimate rulers of China.


title: Northern Wei

text: The Northern Wei started to arrange for Han Chinese elites to marry daughters of the Xianbei Tuoba royal family in the 480s. More than fifty percent of Tuoba Xianbei princesses of the Northern Wei were married to southern Han Chinese men from the imperial families and aristocrats from southern China of the Southern dynasties who defected and moved north to join the Northern Wei. Some Han Chinese exiled royalty fled from southern China and defected to the Xianbei. Several daughters of the Xianbei Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei were married to Han Chinese elites, the Liu Song royal Liu Hui 劉輝), married Princess Lanling (蘭陵公主) of the Northern Wei, Princess Huayang (華陽公主) to Sima Fei (司馬朏), a descendant of Jin dynasty (266–420) royalty, Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei's sisters, the Shouyang Princess, was wedded to the Liang dynasty ruler Emperor Wu of Liang's son Xiao Zong 蕭綜. One of Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei's sisters was married to Zhang Huan, a Han Chinese, according to the Book of Zhou (Zhoushu). His name is given as Zhang Xin in the Book of Northern Qi (Bei Qishu) and History of the Northern Dynasties (Beishi) which mention his marriage to a Xianbei princess of Wei. His personal name was changed due to a naming taboo on the emperor's name. He was the son of Zhang Qiong.


title: Northern Wei

text: When the Eastern Jin dynasty ended Northern Wei received the Han Chinese Jin prince Sima Chuzhi (司馬楚之) as a refugee. A Northern Wei Princess married Sima Chuzhi, giving birth to Sima Jinlong (司馬金龍). Northern Liang Xiongnu King Juqu Mujian's daughter married Sima Jinlong.


title: Northern Wei

text: The Northern Wei's Eight Noble Xianbei surnames (八大贵族) were the Buliugu (步六孤), Helai (賀賴), Dugu (獨孤), Helou (賀樓), Huniu (忽忸), Qiumu (丘穆), Gexi (紇奚), and Yuchi (尉遲). They adopted Chinese last names.


title: Northern Wei

text: Kongzi was honoured in sacrifices as was Earth and Heaven by the northern dynasties of non-Han origin. Kongzi was honored by the Murong Wei Former Yan Xianbei leader. Kongzi was honored by the Di ruler Fu Jian (337–385). Kongzi was honored in sacrifices by the Northern Wei Xianbei dynasty. Kongzi was honored by Yuoba Si, the Mingyuan emperor. Han dynasty Emperors, Shang dynasty ruler Bigan, Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun were honored by Yuoba Si, the Mingyuan Emperor. Kongzi was honored extensively by Tuoba Hong, the Xiaowen Emperor.


title: Northern Wei

text: A fief of 100 households and the rank of (崇聖侯) "Marquis who worships the sage" was bestowed upon a Confucius descendant, Yan Hui's lineage had 2 of its scions and Confucius's lineage had 4 of its scions who had ranks bestowed on them in Shandong in 495 and a fief of ten households and rank of (崇聖大夫) "Grandee who venerates the sage" was bestowed on Kong Sheng (孔乘) who was Confucius's scion in the 28th generation in 472 by Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei.


title: Northern Wei

text: An anti Buddhist plan was concocted by the Celestial Masters under Kou Qianzhi along with Cui Hao under the Taiwu Emperor. The Celestial Masters of the north urged the persecution of Buddhists under the Taiwu Emperor in the Northern Wei, attacking Buddhism and the Buddha as wicked and as anti-stability and anti-family. Anti Buddhism was the position of Kou Qianzhi. There was no ban on the Celestial Masters despite the nonfullfilment of Cui Hao and Kou Qianzhi's agenda in their anti-Buddhist campaign.


title: Northern Wei

text: To resist the threats poised by the Rourans, Northern Wei emperors started to embark on building its own Great Wall, the first since the Han dynasty. In 423, a defence line over 2,000 "li" () long was built ; its path roughly followed the old Zhao wall from Chicheng County in Hebei Province to Wuyuan County, Inner Mongolia. In 446, 100,000 men were put to work building an inner wall from Yanqing, passing south of the Wei capital Pingcheng, and ending up near Pingguan on the eastern bank of the Yellow River. The two walls of Northern Wei formed the basis of the double-layered Xuanfu–Datong wall system that protected Beijing a thousand years later during the Ming dynasty.


title: Northern Wei

text: The fall of Northern Wei began with rebellions staged by Six Garrison populations. This rebellion was rooted in the internal struggle within the Six Garrisons between upper-class military elites and lower-class soldiers and ethnic settlers. Six Garrisons were established to protect the Northern Wei regime from the invasion of Rouran and consisted of numerous ethnic groups, such as Xianbei, Gaoche, and Xiongnu as well as Han Chinese. Tribes were the basic social units, although grouped into militarized garrisons. The upper-class military elites who occupied governing offices mainly included the middle-to-low aristocrats of the Xianbei, other tribe chiefs, and Han strongpersons. The internal conflict between upper-class military elites and lower-class soldiers and ethnic settlers was on the basis of the vulnerable economic base (heavily relied on livestock production and the support from the central government) and harsh environmental conditions in Six Garrison areas. The struggle for survival drove military officers of Six Garrisons to implement unfair policies biased to their own ethnic groups at the cost of others.


title: Northern Wei

text: Rebellions broke out on six major garrison-towns on the northern border and spread like wildfire throughout the north. These rebellions lasted for a decade.


title: Northern Wei

text: In 523, nomadic Rouran tribes suffered a major famine due to successive years of drought. In April, the Rouran Khan sent troops to raid the Wei territory. People of the town rose up and killed the town's commander. Rebellion soon broke out against across the region. In Woye, Poliuhan Baling (破六韓拔陵) became a rebel leader. His army quickly took Woye and laid siege to Wuchuan and Huaishuo.


title: Northern Wei

text: Elsewhere in Qinzhou (Gansu), Qiang ethnic leaders such as Mozhe Dati (莫折大提) also rose up against the government. In Gaoping (present-day Guyuan), Hu Chen (胡琛) and the Xiongnu rebelled and titled himself the King of Gaoping. In Hebei, Ge Rong rebelled, proclaiming himself the Emperor of Qi.


title: Northern Wei

text: The Poliuhan Baling rebellion was defeated in 525. Similar rebellions had spread to other regions such as Hebei and Guanzhong and were pacified by 530.


title: Northern Wei

text: Exacerbating the situation, Empress Dowager Hu poisoned her own son Emperor Xiaoming in 528 after Emperor Xiaoming showed disapproval of her handling of the affairs as he started coming of age and got ready to reclaim the power that had been held by the empress in his name when he inherited the throne as an infant, giving the Empress Dowager rule of the country for more than a decade. Upon hearing the news of the 18-year-old emperor's death, the general Erzhu Rong, who had already mobilised on secret orders of the emperor to support him in his struggle with the Empress Dowager Hu, turned toward Luoyang. Announcing that he was installing a new emperor chosen by an ancient Xianbei method of casting bronze figures, Erzhu Rong summoned the officials of the city to meet their new emperor. However, on their arrival, he told them they were to be punished for their misgovernment and butchered them, throwing the Empress Hu and her candidate (another puppet child emperor Yuan Zhao) into the Yellow River. Reports estimate 2,000 courtiers were killed in this Heyin massacre on the 13th day of the second month of 528. Erzhu Rong claimed Yuan Ziyou grandson of Emperor Xianwen the new emperor as Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei.


title: Northern Wei

text: In 529, Liang general Chen Qingzhi sacked Luoyang, forced Emperor Xiaozhuang to flee and claimed Yuan Hao another grandson of Emperor Xianwen emperor, before his final defeat by Erzhu Rong.


title: Northern Wei

text: The Erzhu clan dominated the imperial court thereafter, the emperor held power in name only and most decisions actually went through the Erzhus. The emperor did stop most of the rebellions, largely reunifying the Northern Wei state. However, Emperor Xiaozhuang, not wishing to remain a puppet emperor and highly wary of the Erzhu clan's widespread power and questionable loyalty and intentions towards the throne (after all, this man had ordered a massacre of the court and put to death a previous emperor and empress before), killed Erzhu Rong in 530 in an ambush at the palace, which led to a resumption of civil war, initially between Erzhu's clan and Emperor Xiaozhuang, and then, after their victory over Emperor Xiaozhuang in 531, between the Erzhu clan and those who resisted their rule. In the aftermath of these wars, two generals set in motion the actions that would result in the splitting of the Northern Wei into the Eastern and Western Wei.


title: Northern Wei

text: General Gao Huan was originally from the northern frontier, one of many soldiers who had surrendered to Erzhu, who eventually became one of the Erzhu clan's top lieutenants. But later, Gao Huan gathered his own men from both Han and non-Han troops, to turn against the Erzhu clan, entering and taking the capital Luoyang in 532. Confident in his success, he deposed Emperor Jiemin of Northern Wei, the emperor supported by the Erzhu clan, as well as Yuan Lang the emperor previously supported by Gao himself, and set up a new emperor Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei on the Luoyang throne and continued his campaigns abroad. The emperor, however, together with the military head of Luoyang, Husi Chun, began to plot against Gao Huan. Gao Huan succeeded, however, in keeping control of Luoyang, and the emperor and a handful of followers fled west, to the region ruled by the powerful warlord Yuwen Tai. Gao Huan then announced his decision to move the Luoyang court to his capital city of Ye. "Within three days of the decree, 400,000 families—perhaps 2,000,000 people—had to leave their homes in and around the capital to move to Yeh as autumn turned to winter." There now existed two rival claimants to the Northern Wei throne, leading to the state's division in 534–535 into the Eastern Wei and Western Wei. The Eastern Wei were initially significantly stronger and looked likely to end Western Wei quickly, but were defeated at the Battle of Shayuan in 537, confirming the split of the Northern Wei


title: Northern Wei

text: Neither Eastern Wei nor Western Wei was long-lived. In 550, Gao Huan's son Gao Yang forced Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei to yield the throne to him, ending Eastern Wei and establishing the Northern Qi. Similarly, in 557, Yuwen Tai's nephew Yuwen Hu forced Emperor Gong of Western Wei to yield the throne to Yuwen Tai's son Yuwen Jue, ending the Western Wei and establishing the Northern Zhou. In 581, the Northern Zhou official Yang Jian had the emperor to yield the throne to him, establishing the Sui Dynasty.


title: Northern Wei

text: The Northern Wei dynasty was the most long-lived and most powerful of the northern dynasties prior to the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty. Its most important legacy was the sweeping reforms introduced under Empress Dowager Feng and continued under her successors. While the dynasty officially ended in 557, these reforms, especially the equal-field landholding system, lasted until the mid-eight century CE. The reforms completely reshaped China's political development as they reverted the trends associated with feudalism in earlier times () such as the devolution of power to local strongmen and political fragmentation. Historians generally credit the Northern Wei dynasty for laying the foundation for China's eventual reunification under the Sui Dynasty. Ray Huang, for example, pointed out that these reforms brought about the "infrastructure of a regenerated empire" and new rulers after Northern Wei, such as Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty, would inherit "the bulk of the agricultural resources and the peasant manpower" made available via the reforms to reunify the whole of China.


title: Northern Wei

text: Many of the most important heritages of China, such as the Yungang Grottoes, the Longmen Caves, the Shaolin Monastery, the Songyue Pagoda, were built by the Northern Wei. Important books such as Qimin Yaoshu and Commentary on the Water Classic, a monumental work on China's geography, was written during the era.


title: Northern Wei

text: The legend of Hua Mulan is originated from the Northern Wei era, in which Mulan, disguised as a man, takes her aged father's place in the Wei army to defend China from Rouran invaders.


title: Northern Wei

text: Northern Wei art came under influence of Indian and Central Asian traditions through the mean of trade routes. A Central Asian (胡) named An Ton (安同), a descendant of the Parthian missionary An Shigao, was political counsellor to the first Northern Wei emperor Tuoba Gui (370-409). Most importantly for Chinese art history, the Wei rulers converted to Buddhism and became great patrons of Buddhist arts. Numerous have been found in Northern Wei tombs, such as the tomb of Feng Hetu. It is believed that the main influx of Western objects among the Northern Wei followed the defeat of the Ruanruan circa 450 CE, which allowed for the visit of diplomatic and, mainly, merchant caravans from Khotan, Kashmir and Sasanian Persia.


title: Northern Wei

text: Also, when the Northern Wei defeated the Northern Liang in 439 CE, they captured a great number of Sogdian merchants from their capital Wuwei, and resettled them in their own capital at Datong, thereby fostering trade.


title: Gayle Rankin

text: She also played the role of Queen Victoria in "The Greatest Showman" and Emily Dodson in HBO's "Perry Mason".


title: Gayle Rankin

text: In 2012, Rankin made her acting debut in "". In 2017, Rankin began appearing on "Glow", as Sheila the She-Wolf. It premiered on 23 June 2017, on Netflix. The show was renewed for a third season which premiered on 9 August 2019.


title: Gayle Rankin

text: In 2017, Rankin appeared in "The Meyerowitz Stories", directed by Noah Baumbach. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and was released by Netflix on 13 October 2017. That same year, she appeared in "The Greatest Showman" opposite Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams.


title: Gayle Rankin

text: In 2018, Rankin appeared in "Irreplaceable You", directed by Stephanie Laing, opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Michiel Huisman. It was released by Netflix on 16 February 2018. That same year, she appeared in "In a Relationship" directed by Sam Boyd, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 20 April 2018, and in "Her Smell", directed by Alex Ross Perry, opposite Elisabeth Moss and Agyness Deyn.


title: Gayle Rankin

text: In 2020, she was cast as Emily Dodson, the mother of Charlie Dodson, a 1-year-old child who is mysteriously kidnapped in "Perry Mason".


title: 2021–22 Aston Villa F.C. season

text: The 2021–22 season was Aston Villa's 27th season in the Premier League, third consecutive, and their 108th season at the top flight of English football. It is also their 147th year in history. Along with the league, the club also competed in the FA Cup and the EFL Cup. The season covers the period from the 1st July 2021 to the 30th June 2022.


title: 2021–22 Aston Villa F.C. season

text: On 2 July 2021, Aston Villa announced their planned pre-season friendlies for the upcoming season. A fifth friendly against Bristol City was later added on July 9. A behind-closed-doors friendly against Crewe Alexandra was organised for 31 July, as a replacement for the cancelled Nottingham Forest match. On 6 August, a friendly against Serie A side Salernitana was organised to replace the cancelled Sevilla match.


title: 2021–22 Aston Villa F.C. season

text: Aston Villa entered the FA Cup in the third round. The draw for the third round took place on 6 December 2021 at Old Trafford and ended as a 1–0 loss to Manchester United.


title: 2021–22 Aston Villa F.C. season

text: Villa entered the EFL Cup in the second round stage and were drawn away to Barrow. The third round draw took place on 25 August 2021, and Villa were drawn away to Chelsea later losing 4-3 on penalties.


title: 2021–22 Aston Villa F.C. season

text: ! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Players transferred or loaned out during the season


title: Grass carp

text: The grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) is a species of large herbivorous freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae, native to the Pacific Far East, with a native range stretching from northern Vietnam to the Amur River on the Sino-Russian border. This Asian carp is the only species of the genus Ctenopharyngodon.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp are resident fish of large turbid rivers and associated floodplain lakes/wetlands with a wide range of temperature tolerance, and spawn at temperatures of . It is cultivated as a food fish in China for centuries, but was introduced in Europe and the United States for aquatic weed control, becoming the fish species with the largest reported farmed production globally, over five million tonnes per year.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp have elongated, chubby, torpedo-shaped body forms. The terminal mouth is slightly oblique with non-fleshy, firm lips, and no barbels. The complete lateral line contains 40 to 42 scales. Broad, ridged pharyngeal teeth are arranged in a "2, 4-4, 2" formula. The dorsal fin has eight to 10 soft rays, and the anal fin is set closer to the tail than most cyprinids. Body color is dark olive, shading to brownish-yellow on the sides, with a white belly and large, slightly outlined scales.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp grow very rapidly. Young fish stocked in the spring at will reach over by fall. The typical length is about . The maximum length is and they grow to .


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp inhabit lakes, ponds, pools and backwaters of large rivers, preferring large, slow-flowing or standing water bodies with abundant vegetation. In the wild, grass carp spawn in fast-moving rivers, and their eggs, which are slightly heavier than water, develop while drifting downstream, kept in suspension by turbulence. Grass carp require long rivers for the survival of the eggs and very young fish, and the eggs are thought to die if they sink to the bottom.


title: Grass carp

text: Adults grass carp feed primarily on aquatic plants, both higher aquatic plants and submerged terrestrial vegetation, but may also eat detritus, insects and other invertebrates. They eat up to three times their own body weight daily, and thrive in small lakes and backwaters that provide an abundant supply of vegetation.


title: Grass carp

text: According to one study, grass carp live 5-9 years, with the oldest surviving 11 years. In Silver Lake, Washington, a thriving population of grass carp is passing the 15-year mark.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp have been introduced to many countries around the world. In the Northern Hemisphere, countries and territories of introduction include Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, the United States, Mexico, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. In the Southern Hemisphere, they have been introduced to Argentina, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa. Grass carp are known to have spawned and established self-reproducing populations in only six of the many larger Northern Hemisphere rivers into which they have been stocked. Their failure to establish populations in other rivers suggests they have quite specific reproductive requirements.


title: Grass carp

text: In the United States, the species was first imported in 1963 from Taiwan and Malaysia to aquaculture facilities in Alabama and Arkansas. The first release is believed to have been an accidental escape in 1966 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Fish Farming Experimental Station in Stuttgart, Arkansas, followed by planned introductions beginning in 1969. Subsequently, authorized, illegal and accidental introductions have been widespread; by the 1970s, the species had been introduced to 40 states, and it has since been reported in 45 of the country's 50 states. In 2013, it was determined to be reproducing in the Great Lakes Basin. It is still stocked in many states as an effective biocontrol for undesirable aquatic vegetation, many species of which are themselves introduced.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp were introduced into New Zealand in 1966 to control the growth of aquatic plants. Unlike the other introduced fish brought to New Zealand, the potential value and impact of grass carp was investigated in secure facilities prior to their use in field trials. They are now approved by the New Zealand government for aquatic weed control, although each instance requires specific authorization. In the Netherlands, the species was also introduced in 1973 to control over-abundant aquatic weeds. The release was controlled and regulated by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality. In both of these countries, control is made easier because grass carp are very unlikely to naturally reproduce because of their very specific breeding requirements, but elsewhere, control is obtained by the use of sterile, triploid fish.


title: Grass carp

text: Grass carp grow large and are strong fighters when hooked on a line, but because of their vegetarian habits and their wariness, they can be difficult to catch via angling. The IGFA World record for a grass carp caught on line and hook is , caught in Bulgaria in 2009. The fish are also popular sport fish in areas where bowfishing is legal.


title: Grass carp

text: Where grass carp populations are maintained through stocking as a biocontrol for noxious weeds, fishermen are typically asked to return any caught to the water alive and unharmed.


title: Stan Shaw

text: Born in Chicago, Illinois, he is the son of Bertha Shaw and saxophonist Eddie Shaw, and cousin of the late soul singers Sam Cooke and Tyrone Davis. His brother is Vaan Shaw, a guitarist. He is married to Dr. Zoe Shaw, who is an author and psychotherapist.


title: Stan Shaw

text: Shaw started his acting career in the Chicago production of the musical "Hair" as well as the Broadway production of "The Me Nobody Knows". His last Broadway show, "Via Galactica" was directed by Peter Hall.


title: Stan Shaw

text: Before becoming an actor, Shaw was a karate, judo, and jujutsu instructor in Chicago. He holds first "dan" black belt in judo and jujutsu and a second dan in karate. Shaw appears in "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings" in 1976 as Esquire Joe Calloway. Shaw appears also in "Rocky" (1976) as Dipper, a rival boxer who taunts Rocky after being given his locker. He also played a professional fighter in "Tough Enough" (1983), "Harlem Nights" (1989), and "Snake Eyes" (1998).


title: Stan Shaw

text: One of his most notable roles was his appearance as Alex Haley's maternal grandfather Will Palmer in the 1979 miniseries "". Another notable role was Private Washington in "The Boys in Company C" (1978). Shaw also plays Toomer Smalls in "The Great Santini" (1979). After a part in the 1991 film "Fried Green Tomatoes", he had a role in the 1995 comedy "Houseguest", alongside Sinbad, and appeared as a pirate in "Cutthroat Island" (1995) with Geena Davis. He appeared as George Tyrell in the 1996 disaster film "Daylight" and as Archie Mullen in the film "Freedom Song" (2000).


title: Stan Shaw

text: Shaw's television credits include episodes of "Starsky & Hutch", "The Moneychangers", "Matlock", "The Young Riders", "Hill Street Blues", "Murder, She Wrote", "The X-Files", and a 2009 episode of "". He had a regular role in the 1983 TV series "The Mississippi". He also appeared as Isaac in the miniseries "North and South".


title: Stan Shaw

text: Shaw is working on a film project, "Gargoyle Bob", with Vincent Ho and Ted Boonthanakit. They plan to also create a graphic novel of the story.


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha () is a 2016 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy thriller film written and directed by Hanu Raghavapudi. Produced by Ram Achanta, Gopichand Achanta and Anil Sunkara under 14 Reels Entertainment, the film features Nani and Mehreen Pirzada in the lead roles while Harish Uthaman, Sampath Raj, Murali Sharma, and Brahmaji play supporting roles. The film released on 12 February 2016. The film is considered one of the "25 Greatest Telugu Films Of The Decade" by "Film Companion".


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: Krishna is a soft-natured person who is in love with Mahalakshmi. The world does not know that they are secretly talking to each other. Mahalakshmi is the sister of Ramaraju, a strong follower of Rajanna, a factionist in the Rayalaseema region. Rajanna's brother is encounter specialist ACP Srikanth, who kills criminals without arresting them. Simultaneously, internationally most wanted mafia don David returns to Hyderabad to fulfill his mother’s final wish, while his brother Sunny arranges for his safety. However, things turn around when Rajanna's house gets attacked by hired hitmen, during which Rajanna and Ramaraju get shot. In order to save Srikanth's kids, Ramaraju entrusts them to Krishna to return them to Srikanth's house in Hyderabad. He tells him that if he returns the kids safely, he will marry his sister to Krishna. After a series of incidents, Krishna returns the kids safely. Finally, David gets arrested, and Krishna and Mahalakshmi marry and live happily ever after.


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: The film's first look was released on 7 January 2016. The film's release date was announced as 17 February 2016 .


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: The soundtrack was composed by Vishal Chandrasekhar, with lyrics written by Krishna Kanth. The audio rights were acquired by Lahari Music. The full album was released on 25 January 2016.


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of "The Hindu" wrote that the film is "An unlikely love story packs in a fair amount of humour in the rugged Rayalaseema terrain." She added that "Vishal Chandrasekhar’s music and Yuvaraj’s cinematography are apt for the film’s milieu. The film has its share of fine performances. Nani is a treat to watch."


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: "Deccan Chronicle"'s Suresh Kaviryani wrote that "Nani once again proves that he is a good actor. He does comedy scenes with ease and one can say that he is now a bankable star. Mehreen, too, has done an excellent job as the female lead and doesn’t look like a debutante at all."


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: On Raghavpudi's direction, a reviewer "Sify" opined that "As writer and director, Hanu Raghavapudi has shown his mark once again in telling a story differently with rich visuals. He has acquired his distinct style and that is visible in this movie too."


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: "Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha" grossed ₹3 crores on opening day at AP/Telangana box office becoming Nani's biggest opener in India, beating the records of his last film Bhale Bhale Magadivoy. The film grossed ₹10.86 crores in its opening weekend.


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: "Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha" collected US$41,000 from the premier shows at the United States and US$103,000 on the first day, taking its total to US$144,583.The film witnessed growth on the second day by grossing US$171,447 by collecting $316,029 (₹2.15 crore). The first weekend figures at the United States box office stood at US$464,239. It has collected $550,713 (₹3.77 crores) from 130 screens at the US box office in five days


title: Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha

text: The film collected $580,892 at the US box office in the first week. According to trade analyst Taran Adarsh, the film has collected $702,288 (₹ 4.82 crores) at the US box office in 10 days. Its 31-day US total collection has reached $772,482 (₹ 5.2 crore). The film has failed to surpass the $1-million in its lifetime.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A credit rating agency (CRA, also called a ratings service) is a company that assigns credit ratings, which rate a debtor's ability to pay back debt by making timely principal and interest payments and the likelihood of default. An agency may rate the creditworthiness of issuers of debt obligations, of debt instruments, and in some cases, of the servicers of the underlying debt, but not of individual consumers.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Other forms of a rating agency include environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) rating agencies and the Chinese Social Credit System.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The debt instruments rated by CRAs include government bonds, corporate bonds, CDs, municipal bonds, preferred stock, and collateralized securities, such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The issuers of the obligations or securities may be companies, special purpose entities, state or local governments, non-profit organizations, or sovereign nations. A credit rating facilitates the trading of securities on a secondary market. It affects the interest rate that a security pays out, with higher ratings leading to lower interest rates. Individual consumers are rated for creditworthiness not by credit rating agencies but by credit bureaus (also called consumer reporting agencies or credit reference agencies), which issue credit scores.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The value of credit ratings for securities has been widely questioned. Hundreds of billions of securities that were given the agencies' highest ratings were downgraded to junk during the financial crisis of 2007–08. Rating downgrades during the European sovereign debt crisis of 2010–12 were blamed by EU officials for accelerating the crisis.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating is a highly concentrated industry, with the "Big Three" credit rating agencies controlling approximately 95% of the ratings business. Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's (S&P) together control 80% of the global market, and Fitch Ratings controls a further 15%.


title: Credit rating agency

text: When the United States began to expand to the west and other parts of the country, so did the distance of businesses to their customers. When businesses were close to those who purchased goods or services from them, it was easy for the merchants to extend credit to them, due to their proximity and the fact that merchants knew their customers personally and knew whether or not they would be able to pay them back. As trading distances increased, merchants no longer personally knew their customers and became wary of extending credit to people who they did not know in fear of them not being able to pay them back. Business owners' hesitation to extend credit to new customers led to the birth of the credit reporting industry.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Mercantile credit agencies—the precursors of today's rating agencies—were established in the wake of the financial crisis of 1837. These agencies rated the ability of merchants to pay their debts and consolidated these ratings in published guides. The first such agency was established in 1841 by Lewis Tappan in New York City. It was subsequently acquired by Robert Dun, who published its first ratings guide in 1859. Another early agency, John Bradstreet, formed in 1849 and published a ratings guide in 1857.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies originated in the United States in the early 1900s, when ratings began to be applied to securities, specifically those related to the railroad bond market. In the United States, the construction of extensive railroad systems had led to the development of corporate bond issues to finance them, and therefore a bond market several times larger than in other countries. The bond markets in the Netherlands and Britain had been established longer but tended to be small, and revolved around sovereign governments that were trusted to honor their debts. Companies were founded to provide investors with financial information on the growing railroad industry, including Henry Varnum Poor's publishing company, which produced a publication compiling financial data about the railroad and canal industries. Following the 1907 financial crisis, demand rose for such independent market information, in particular for independent analyses of bond creditworthiness. In 1909, financial analyst John Moody issued a publication focused solely on railroad bonds. His ratings became the first to be published widely in an accessible format, and his company was the first to charge subscription fees to investors.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In 1913, the ratings publication by Moody's underwent two significant changes: it expanded its focus to include industrial firms and utilities, and it began to use a letter-rating system. For the first time, public securities were rated using a system borrowed from the mercantile credit rating agencies, using letters to indicate their creditworthiness. In the next few years, antecedents of the "Big Three" credit rating agencies were established. Poor's Publishing Company began issuing ratings in 1916, Standard Statistics Company in 1922, and the Fitch Publishing Company in 1924.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In the United States, the rating industry grew and consolidated rapidly following the passage of the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 and the separation of the securities business from banking. As the market grew beyond that of traditional investment banking institutions, new investors again called for increased transparency, leading to the passage of new, mandatory disclosure laws for issuers, and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1936, regulation was introduced to prohibit banks from investing in bonds determined by "recognized rating manuals" (the forerunners of credit rating agencies) to be "speculative investment securities" ("junk bonds", in modern terminology). US banks were permitted to hold only "investment grade" bonds, and it was the ratings of Fitch, Moody's, Poor's, and Standard that legally determined which bonds were which. State insurance regulators approved similar requirements in the following decades.


title: Credit rating agency

text: From 1930 to 1980, the bonds and ratings of them were primarily relegated to American municipalities and American blue chip industrial firms. International "sovereign bond" rating shrivelled during the Great Depression to a handful of the most creditworthy countries, after a number of defaults of bonds issued by governments such as Germany's.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In the late 1960s and 1970s, ratings were extended to commercial paper and bank deposits. Also during that time, major agencies changed their business model by beginning to charge bond issuers as well as investors. The reasons for this change included a growing free rider problem related to the increasing availability of inexpensive photocopy machines and the increased complexity of the financial markets.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The rating agencies added levels of gradation to their rating systems. In 1973, Fitch added plus and minus symbols to its existing letter-rating system. The following year, Standard and Poor's did the same, and Moody's began using numbers for the same purpose in 1982.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 led to the liberalization of financial regulations and the global expansion of capital markets in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1975, SEC rules began explicitly referencing credit ratings. For example, the commission changed its minimum capital requirements for broker-dealers, allowing smaller reserves for higher-rated bonds; the rating would be done by "nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations" (NRSROs). This referred to the "Big Three", but in time ten agencies (later six, due to consolidation) were identified by the SEC as NRSROs.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Rating agencies also grew in size and profitability as the number of issuers accessing the debt markets grew exponentially, both in the United States and abroad. By 2009 the worldwide bond market (total debt outstanding) reached an estimated $82.2 trillion, in 2009 dollars.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Two economic trends of the 1980s and 90s that brought significant expansion for the global capital market were


title: Credit rating agency

text: More debt securities meant more business for the Big Three agencies, which many investors depended on to judge the securities of the capital market. US government regulators also depended on the rating agencies; they allowed pension funds and money market funds to purchase only securities rated above certain levels.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A market for low-rated, high-yield "junk" bonds blossomed in the late 1970s, expanding securities financing to firms other than a few large, established blue chip corporations. Rating agencies also began to apply their ratings beyond bonds to counterparty risks, the performance risk of mortgage servicers, and the price volatility of mutual funds and mortgage-backed securities. Ratings were increasingly used in most developed countries' financial markets and in the "emerging markets" of the developing world. Moody's and S&P opened offices Europe, Japan, and particularly emerging markets. Non-American agencies also developed outside of the United States. Along with the largest US raters, one British, two Canadian and three Japanese firms were listed among the world's "most influential" rating agencies in the early 1990s by the "Financial Times" publication "Credit Ratings International".


title: Credit rating agency

text: Structured finance was another growth area of growth. The "financial engineering" of the new "private-label" asset-backed securities—such as subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO), "CDO-Squared", and "synthetic CDOs"—made them "harder to understand and to price" and became a profit center for rating agencies. By 2006, Moody's earned $881 million in revenue from structured finance. By December 2008, there were over $11 trillion structured finance debt securities outstanding in the US bond market.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The Big Three issued 97%–98% of all credit ratings in the United States and roughly 95% worldwide, giving them considerable pricing power. This and credit market expansion brought them profit margins of around 50% from 2004 through 2009.


title: Credit rating agency

text: As the influence and profitability of CRAs expanded, so did scrutiny and concern about their performance and alleged illegal practices. In 1996 the US Department of Justice launched an investigation into possible improper pressuring of issuers by Moody's in order to win business. Agencies were subjected to dozens of lawsuits by investors complaining of inaccurate ratings following the collapse of Enron, and especially after the US subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent financial crisis of 2007–2008. During that debacle, 73%—over $800 billion worth—of all mortgage-backed securities that one credit rating agency (Moody's) had rated triple-A in 2006 were downgraded to junk status two years later. In July 2008, SIFMA formed a global task force with members drawn from a cross-section of the financial services industry, including asset managers, underwriters, and issuers, and provided industry input to lawmakers and regulators in Europe and Asia, and was designated by the U.S. President’s Working Group on Financial Markets as the private-sector group to provide the PWG with industry recommendations on credit rating matters. It published the "Recommendations of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association Credit Rating Agency Task Force", which included a dozen recommendations to change the credit rating agency process.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Downgrades of European and US sovereign debt were also criticized. In August 2011, S&P downgraded the long-held triple-A rating of US securities. Since the spring of 2010, one or more of the Big Three relegated Greece, Portugal, and Ireland to "junk" status—a move that many EU officials say has accelerated a burgeoning European sovereign-debt crisis. In January 2012, amid continued eurozone instability, S&P downgraded nine eurozone countries, stripping France and Austria of their triple-A ratings.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies assess the relative credit risk of specific debt securities or structured finance instruments and borrowing entities (issuers of debt), and in some cases the creditworthiness of governments and their securities. By serving as information intermediaries, CRAs theoretically reduce information costs, increase the pool of potential borrowers, and promote liquid markets. These functions may increase the supply of available risk capital in the market and promote economic growth.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies provide assessments about the creditworthiness of bonds issued by corporations, governments, and packagers of asset-backed securities. In market practice, a significant bond issuance generally has a rating from one or two of the Big Three agencies.


title: Credit rating agency

text: CRAs theoretically provide investors with an independent evaluation and assessment of debt securities' creditworthiness. However, in recent decades the paying customers of CRAs have primarily not been buyers of securities but their issuers, raising the issue of conflict of interest (see below).


title: Credit rating agency

text: In addition, rating agencies have been liable—at least in US courts—for any losses incurred by the inaccuracy of their ratings only if it is proven that they knew the ratings were false or exhibited "reckless disregard for the truth". Otherwise, ratings are simply an expression of the agencies' informed opinions, protected as "free speech" under the First Amendment. As one rating agency disclaimer read:


title: Credit rating agency

text: The ratings ... are and must be construed solely as, statements of opinion and not statements of fact or recommendations to purchase, sell, or hold any securities. Under an amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, this protection has been removed, but how the law will be implemented remains to be determined by rules made by the SEC and decisions by courts.


title: Credit rating agency

text: To determine a bond's rating, a credit rating agency analyzes the accounts of the issuer and the legal agreements attached to the bond to produce what is effectively a forecast of the bond's chance of default, expected loss, or a similar metric. The metrics vary somewhat between the agencies. S&P's ratings reflect default probability, while ratings by Moody's reflect expected investor losses in the case of default. For corporate obligations, Fitch's ratings incorporate a measure of investor loss in the event of default, but its ratings on structured, project, and public finance obligations narrowly measure default risk. The process and criteria for rating a convertible bond are similar, although different enough that bonds and convertible bonds issued by the same entity may still receive different ratings. Some bank loans may receive ratings to assist in wider syndication and attract institutional investors.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The relative risks—the rating grades—are usually expressed through some variation of an alphabetical combination of lower- and uppercase letters, with either plus or minus signs or numbers added to further fine-tune the rating.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Fitch and S&P use (from the most creditworthy to the least) AAA, AA, A, and BBB for investment-grade long-term credit risk and BB, CCC, CC, C, and D for "speculative" long-term credit risk. Moody's long-term designators are Aaa, Aa, A, and Baa for investment grade and Ba, B, Caa, Ca, and C for speculative grade. Fitch and S&P use pluses and minuses (e.g., AA+ and AA-), and Moody's uses numbers (e.g., Aa1 and Aa3) to add further gradations.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Agencies do not attach a hard number of probability of default to each grade, preferring descriptive definitions, such as "the obligor's capacity to meet its financial commitment on the obligation is extremely strong", (from a Standard and Poor's definition of a AAA-rated bond) or "less vulnerable to non-payment than other speculative issues" (for a BB-rated bond). However, some studies have estimated the average risk and reward of bonds by rating. One study by Moody's claimed that over a "5-year time horizon", bonds that were given its highest rating (Aaa) had a "cumulative default rate" of just 0.18%, the next highest (Aa2) 0.28%, the next (Baa2) 2.11%, 8.82% for the next (Ba2), and 31.24% for the lowest it studied (B2). (See "Default rate" in "Estimated spreads and default rates by rating grade" table to right.) Over a longer time horizon, it stated, "the order is by and large, but not exactly, preserved".


title: Credit rating agency

text: Another study in the "Journal of Finance" calculated the additional interest rate or "spread" that corporate bonds pay over that of "riskless" US Treasury bonds, according to the bonds rating. (See "Basis point spread" in the table to right.) Looking at rated bonds from 1973 through 1989, the authors found a AAA-rated bond paid only 43 "basis points" (or 43/100ths of a percentage point) more than a Treasury bond (so that it would yield 3.43% if the Treasury bond yielded 3.00%). A CCC-rated "junk" (or speculative) bond, on the other hand, paid over 4% more than a Treasury bond on average (7.04% if the Treasury bond yielded 3.00%) over that period.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The market also follows the benefits from ratings that result from government regulations (see below), which often prohibit financial institutions from purchasing securities rated below a certain level. For example, in the United States, in accordance with two 1989 regulations, pension funds are prohibited from investing in asset-backed securities rated below A, and savings and loan associations from investing in securities rated below BBB.


title: Credit rating agency

text: CRAs provide "surveillance" (ongoing review of securities after their initial rating) and may change a security's rating if they feel its creditworthiness has changed. CRAs typically signal in advance their intention to consider rating changes. Fitch, Moody's, and S&P all use negative "outlook" notifications to indicate the potential for a downgrade within the next two years (one year in the case of speculative-grade credits). Negative "watch" notifications are used to indicate that a downgrade is likely within the next 90 days.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Critics maintain that this rating, outlooking, and watching of securities has not worked nearly as smoothly as agencies suggest. They point to near-defaults, defaults, and financial disasters not detected by the rating agencies' post-issuance surveillance, or ratings of troubled debt securities not downgraded until just before (or even after) bankruptcy. These include the 1970 Penn Central bankruptcy, the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, the 1994 Orange County default, the Asian and Russian financial crises, the 1998 collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund, the 2001 Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies, and especially the 2007–8 subprime mortgage crisis.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In the 2001 Enron accounting scandal, the company's ratings remained at investment grade until four days before bankruptcy—though Enron's stock had been in sharp decline for several months—when "the outlines of its fraudulent practices" were first revealed. Critics complained that "not a single analyst at either Moody's of S&P lost his job as a result of missing the Enron fraud" and "management stayed the same". During the subprime crisis, when hundreds of billion of dollars' worth of triple-A-rated mortgage-backed securities were abruptly downgraded from triple-A to "junk" status within two years of issue, the CRAs' ratings were characterized by critics as "catastrophically misleading" and "provided little or no value". Ratings of preferred stocks also fared poorly. Despite over a year of rising mortgage deliquencies, Moody's continued to rate Freddie Mac's preferred stock triple-A until mid-2008, when it was downgraded to one tick above the junk bond level. Some empirical studies have also found that rather than a downgrade lowering the market price and raising the interest rates of corporate bonds, the cause and effect are reversed. Expanding yield spreads (i.e., declining value and quality) of corporate bonds precedes downgrades by agencies, suggesting it is the market that alerts the CRAs of trouble and not vice versa.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In February 2018, an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found a serious lack of detail and rigour in many of the ratings issued by agencies. ASIC examined six agencies, including the Australian arms of Fitch, Moody's and S&P Global Ratings (the other agencies were Best Asia-Pacific, Australia Ratings and Equifax Australia). It said agencies had often paid lip service to compliance. In one case, an agency had issued an annual compliance report only a single page in length, with scant discussion of methodology. In another case, a chief executive officer of a company had signed off on a report as though a board member. Also, overseas staff of ratings agencies had assigned credit ratings despite lacking the necessary accreditation.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Defenders of credit rating agencies complain of the market's lack of appreciation. Argues Robert Clow, "When a company or sovereign nation pays its debt on time, the market barely takes momentary notice ... but let a country or corporation unexpectedly miss a payment or threaten default, and bondholders, lawyers and even regulators are quick to rush the field to protest the credit analyst's lapse." Others say that bonds assigned a low credit rating by rating agencies have been shown to default more frequently than bonds that receive a high credit rating, suggesting that ratings still serve as a useful indicator of credit risk.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A number of explanations of the rating agencies' inaccurate ratings and forecasts have been offered, especially in the wake of the subprime crisis:


title: Credit rating agency

text: Conversely, the complaint has been made that agencies have too much power over issuers and that downgrades can even force troubled companies into bankruptcy. The lowering of a credit score by a CRA can create a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy: not only do interest rates on securities rise, but other contracts with financial institutions may also be affected adversely, causing an increase in financing costs and an ensuing decrease in creditworthiness. Large loans to companies often contain a clause that makes the loan due in full if the company's credit rating is lowered beyond a certain point (usually from investment grade to "speculative"). The purpose of these "ratings triggers" is to ensure that the loan-making bank is able to lay claim to a weak company's assets before the company declares bankruptcy and a receiver is appointed to divide up the claims against the company. The effect of such ratings triggers, however, can be devastating: under a worst-case scenario, once the company's debt is downgraded by a CRA, the company's loans become due in full; if the company is incapable of paying all of these loans in full at once, it is forced into bankruptcy (a so-called death spiral). These ratings triggers were instrumental in the collapse of Enron. Since that time, major agencies have put extra effort into detecting them and discouraging their use, and the US SEC requires that public companies in the United States disclose their existence.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act mandated improvements to the regulation of credit rating agencies and addressed several issues relating to the accuracy of credit ratings specifically. Under Dodd-Frank rules, agencies must publicly disclose how their ratings have performed over time and must provide additional information in their analyses so investors can make better decisions. An amendment to the act also specifies that ratings are not protected by the First Amendment as free speech but are "fundamentally commercial in character and should be subject to the same standards of liability and oversight as apply to auditors, securities analysts and investment bankers." Implementation of this amendment has proven difficult due to conflict between the SEC and the rating agencies. The "Economist" magazine credits the free speech defence at least in part for the fact that "41 legal actions targeting S&P have been dropped or dismissed" since the crisis.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In the European Union, there is no specific legislation governing contracts between issuers and credit rating agencies. General rules of contract law apply in full, although it is difficult to hold agencies liable for breach of contract. In 2012, an Australian federal court held Standard & Poor's liable for inaccurate ratings.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies play a key role in structured financial transactions such as asset-backed securities (ABS), residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), "synthetic CDOs", or derivatives.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit ratings for structured finance instruments may be distinguished from ratings for other debt securities in several important ways.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Aside from investors mentioned above—who are subject to ratings-based constraints in buying securities—some investors simply prefer that a structured finance product be rated by a credit rating agency. And not all structured finance products receive a credit rating agency rating. Ratings for complicated or risky CDOs are unusual and some issuers create structured products relying solely on internal analytics to assess credit risk.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has described the Big Three rating agencies as "key players in the process" of mortgage securitization, providing reassurance of the soundness of the securities to money manager investors with "no history in the mortgage business".


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies began issuing ratings for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the mid-1970s. In subsequent years, the ratings were applied to securities backed by other types of assets. During the first years of the twenty-first century, demand for highly rated fixed income securities was high. Growth was particularly strong and profitable in the structured finance industry during the 2001-2006 subprime mortgage boom, and business with finance industry accounted for almost all of the revenue growth at at least one of the CRAs (Moody's).


title: Credit rating agency

text: From 2000 to 2007, Moody's rated nearly 45,000 mortgage-related securities as triple-A. In contrast only six (private sector) companies in the United States were given that top rating.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Rating agencies were even more important in rating collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). These securities mortgage/asset backed security tranches lower in the "waterfall" of repayment that could not be rated triple-A, but for whom buyers had to found or the rest of the pool of mortgages and other assets could not be securitized. Rating agencies solved the problem by rating 70% to 80%


title: Credit rating agency

text: of the CDO tranches triple-A. Still another innovative structured product most of whose tranches were also given high ratings was the "synthetic CDO". Cheaper and easier to create than ordinary "cash" CDOs, they paid insurance premium-like payments from credit default swap "insurance", instead of interest and principal payments from house mortgages. If the insured or "referenced" CDOs defaulted, investors lost their investment, which was paid out much like an insurance claim.


title: Credit rating agency

text: However when it was discovered that the mortgages had been sold to buyers who could not pay them, massive numbers of securities were downgraded, the securitization "seized up" and the Great Recession ensued.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Critics blamed this underestimation of the risk of the securities on the conflict between two interests the CRAs have—rating securities accurately, and serving their customers, the security issuers who need high ratings to sell to investors subject to ratings-based constraints, such as pension funds and life insurance companies.


title: Credit rating agency

text: While this conflict had existed for years, the combination of CRA focus on market share and earnings growth, the importance of structured finance to CRA profits, and pressure from issuers who began to `shop around` for the best ratings brought the conflict to a head between 2000 and 2007.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A small number of arrangers of structured finance products—primarily investment banks—drive a large amount of business to the ratings agencies, and thus have a much greater potential to exert undue influence on a rating agency than a single corporate debt issuer.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A 2013 Swiss Finance Institute study of structured debt ratings from S&P, Moody's, and Fitch found that agencies provide better ratings for the structured products of issuers that provide them with more overall bilateral rating business. This effect was found to be particularly pronounced in the run-up to the subprime mortgage crisis. Alternative accounts of the agencies' inaccurate ratings before the crisis downplay the conflict of interest factor and focus instead on the agencies' overconfidence in rating securities, which stemmed from faith in their methodologies and past successes with subprime securitizations.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In the wake of the global financial crisis, various legal requirements were introduced to increase the transparency of structured finance ratings. The European Union now requires credit rating agencies to use an additional symbol with ratings for structured finance instruments in order to distinguish them from other rating categories.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies also issue credit ratings for sovereign borrowers, including national governments, states, municipalities, and sovereign-supported international entities. Sovereign borrowers are the largest debt borrowers in many financial markets. Governments from both advanced economies and emerging markets borrow money by issuing government bonds and selling them to private investors, either overseas or domestically. Governments from emerging and developing markets may also choose to borrow from other government and international organizations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Sovereign credit ratings represent an assessment by a rating agency of a sovereign's ability and willingness to repay its debt. The rating methodologies used to assess sovereign credit ratings are broadly similar to those used for corporate credit ratings, although the borrower's "willingness" to repay receives extra emphasis since national governments may be eligible for debt immunity under international law, thus complicating repayment obligations. In addition, credit assessments reflect not only the long-term perceived default risk, but also short- or immediate-term political and economic developments. Differences in sovereign ratings between agencies may reflect varying qualitative evaluations of the investment environment.


title: Credit rating agency

text: National governments may solicit credit ratings to generate investor interest and improve access to the international capital markets. Developing countries often depend on strong sovereign credit ratings to access funding in international bond markets. Once ratings for a sovereign have been initiated, the rating agency will continue to monitor for relevant developments and adjust its credit opinion accordingly.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A 2010 International Monetary Fund study concluded that ratings were a reasonably good indicator of sovereign default risk. However, credit rating agencies were criticized for failing to predict the 1997 Asian financial crisis and for downgrading countries in the midst of that turmoil. Similar criticisms emerged after recent credit downgrades to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, although credit ratings agencies had begun to downgrade peripheral Eurozone countries well before the Eurozone crisis began.


title: Credit rating agency

text: As part of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Congress ordered the U.S. SEC to develop a report, titled "Report on the Role and Function of Credit Rating Agencies in the Operation of the Securities Markets" detailing how credit ratings are used in U.S. regulation and the policy issues this use raises. Partly as a result of this report, in June 2003, the SEC published a "concept release" called "Rating Agencies and the Use of Credit Ratings under the Federal Securities Laws" that sought public comment on many of the issues raised in its report. Public comments on this concept release have also been published on the SEC's website.


title: Credit rating agency

text: In December 2004, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a Code of Conduct for CRAs that, among other things, is designed to address the types of conflicts of interest that CRAs face. All of the major CRAs have agreed to sign on to this Code of Conduct and it has been praised by regulators ranging from the European Commission to the US SEC.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Regulatory authorities and legislative bodies in the United States and other jurisdictions rely on credit rating agencies' assessments of a broad range of debt issuers, and thereby attach a regulatory function to their ratings. This regulatory role is a derivative function in that the agencies do not publish ratings for that purpose. Governing bodies at both the national and international level have woven credit ratings into


title: Credit rating agency

text: minimum capital requirements for banks, allowable investment alternatives for many institutional investors, and similar restrictive regulations for insurance companies and other financial market participants.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The use of credit ratings by regulatory agencies is not a new phenomenon. In the 1930s, regulators in the United States used credit rating agency ratings to prohibit banks from investing in bonds that were deemed to be below investment grade. In the following decades, state regulators outlined a similar role for agency ratings in restricting insurance company investments. From 1975 to 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognized the largest and most credible agencies as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, and relied on such agencies exclusively for distinguishing between grades of creditworthiness in various regulations under federal securities laws. The Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 created a voluntary registration system for CRAs that met a certain minimum criteria, and provided the SEC with broader oversight authority.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The practice of using credit rating agency ratings for regulatory purposes has since expanded globally. Today, financial market regulations in many countries contain extensive references to ratings. The Basel III accord, a global bank capital standardization effort, relies on credit ratings to calculate minimum capital standards and minimum liquidity ratios.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The extensive use of credit ratings for regulatory purposes can have a number of unintended effects. Because regulated market participants must follow minimum investment grade provisions, ratings changes across the investment/non-investment grade boundary may lead to strong market price fluctuations and potentially cause systemic reactions. The regulatory function granted to credit rating agencies may also adversely affect their original market information function of providing credit opinions.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Against this background and in the wake of criticism of credit rating agencies following the subprime mortgage crisis, legislators in the United States and other jurisdictions have commenced to reduce rating reliance in laws and regulations. The 2010 Dodd–Frank Act removes statutory references to credit rating agencies, and calls for federal regulators to review and modify existing regulations to avoid relying on credit ratings as the sole assessment of creditworthiness.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating is a highly concentrated industry, with the "Big Three" credit rating agencies controlling approximately 95% of the ratings business. Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's (S&P) together control 80% of the global market, and Fitch Ratings controls a further 15%.


title: Credit rating agency

text: As of December 2012, S&P is the largest of the three, with 1.2 million outstanding ratings and 1,416 analysts and supervisors; Moody's has 1 million outstanding ratings and 1,252 analysts and supervisors; and Fitch is the smallest, with approximately 350,000 outstanding ratings, and is sometimes used as an alternative to S&P and Moody’s.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The three largest agencies are not the only sources of credit information. Many smaller rating agencies also exist, mostly serving non-US markets. All of the large securities firms have internal fixed income analysts who offer information about the risk and volatility of securities to their clients. And specialized risk consultants working in a variety of fields offer credit models and default estimates.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Market share concentration is not a new development in the credit rating industry. Since the establishment of the first agency in 1909, there have never been more than four credit rating agencies with significant market share. Even the Financial crisis of 2007–08—where the performance of the three rating agencies was dubbed "horrendous" by "The Economist" magazine—led to a drop in the share of the three by just one percent—from 98 to 97%.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The reason for the concentrated market structure is disputed. One widely cited opinion is that the Big Three's historical reputation within the financial industry creates a high barrier of entry for new entrants. Following the enactment of the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 in the US, seven additional rating agencies attained recognition from the SEC as nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSROs). While these other agencies remain niche players, some have gained market share following the Financial crisis of 2007–08, and in October 2012 several announced plans to join together and create a new organization called the Universal Credit Rating Group. The European Union has considered setting up a state-supported EU-based agency. In November 2013, credit ratings organizations from five countries (CPR of Portugal, CARE Rating of India, GCR of South Africa, MARC of Malaysia, and SR Rating of Brazil) joint ventured to launch ARC Ratings, a new global agency touted as an alternative to the "Big Three".


title: Credit rating agency

text: In addition to "the Big Three" of Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings, other agencies and rating companies include:


title: Credit rating agency

text: Infomerics Credit Rating Nepal Limited (Nepal), Acuité Ratings & Research Limited (India), A. M. Best (U.S.), Agusto & Co. (Nigeria), ARC Ratings (UK) & (EU), DataPro Limited (Nigeria), Capital Intelligence Ratings Limited (CIR) (Cyprus), China Lianhe Credit Rating Co., Ltd. (China), China Chengxin Credit Rating Group (China), Credit Rating Agency Ltd (Zambia), Credit Rating Information and Services Limited (Bangladesh), CTRISKS (Hong Kong), Dagong Europe Credit Rating (Italy), DBRS (Canada), Dun & Bradstreet (U.S.), Egan-Jones Rating Company (U.S.), Global Credit Ratings Co. (South Africa), HR Ratings de México, S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency Limited (PACRA) (Pakistan), ICRA Limited (India),


title: Credit rating agency

text: Japan Credit Rating Agency (Japan), JCR VIS Credit Rating Company Ltd (Pakistan), Kroll Bond Rating Agency (U.S.), Levin and Goldstein (Zambia), Lianhe Ratings Global (Hong Kong), modeFinance (Italy), Morningstar, Inc. (U.S.), Muros Ratings (Russia, alternative rating company), Public Sector Credit Solutions (U.S., not-for profit rating provider), Rapid Ratings International (U.S.), RusRating (Russia), SMERA Gradings & Ratings Private Limited (India), Universal Credit Rating Group (Hong Kong), Veda (Australia, previously known as Baycorp Advantage), Wikirating (Switzerland, alternative rating organization), Feller Rate Clasificadora de Riesgo (Chile), Humphreys Ltd (Chile, previously known as Moody's partner in Chile), Credit Research Initiative (Singapore, non-profit rating provider), Spread Research (independent credit research and rating agency, France), INC Rating (Poland).


title: Credit rating agency

text: Credit rating agencies generate revenue from a variety of activities related to the production and distribution of credit ratings. The sources of the revenue are generally the issuer of the securities or the investor. Most agencies operate under one or a combination of business models: the subscription model and the issuer-pays model. However, agencies may offer additional services using a combination of business models.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Under the subscription model, the credit rating agency does not make its ratings freely available to the market, so investors pay a subscription fee for access to ratings. This revenue provides the main source of agency income, although agencies may also provide other types of services. Under the issuer-pays model, agencies charge issuers a fee for providing credit rating assessments. This revenue stream allows issuer-pays credit rating agencies to make their ratings freely available to the broader market, especially via the Internet.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The subscription approach was the prevailing business model until the early 1970s, when Moody's, Fitch, and finally Standard & Poor's adopted the issuer-pays model. Several factors contributed to this transition, including increased investor demand for credit ratings, and widespread use of information sharing technology—such as fax machines and photocopiers—which allowed investors to freely share agencies’ reports and undermined demand for subscriptions. Today, eight of the nine nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSRO) use the issuer-pays model, only Egan-Jones maintains an investor subscription service. Smaller, regional credit rating agencies may use either model. For example, China's oldest rating agency, Chengxin Credit Management Co., uses the issuer-pays model. The Universal Credit Ratings Group, formed by Beijing-based Dagong Global Credit Rating, Egan-Jones of the U.S. and Russia’s RusRatings, uses the investor-pays model, while Dagong Europe Credit Rating, the other joint-venture of Dagong Global Credit Rating, uses the issuer-pays model.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Critics argue that the issuer-pays model creates a potential conflict of interest because the agencies are paid by the organizations whose debt they rate. However, the subscription model is also seen to have disadvantages, as it restricts the ratings' availability to paying investors. Issuer-pays CRAs have argued that subscription-models can also be subject to conflicts of interest due to pressures from investors with strong preferences on product ratings. In 2010 Lace Financials, a subscriber-pays agency later acquired by Kroll Ratings, was fined by the SEC for violating securities rules to the benefit of its largest subscriber.


title: Credit rating agency

text: A 2009 World Bank report proposed a "hybrid" approach in which issuers who pay for ratings are required to seek additional scores from subscriber-based third parties. Other proposed alternatives include a "public-sector" model in which national governments fund the rating costs, and an "exchange-pays" model, in which stock and bond exchanges pay for the ratings. Crowd-sourced, collaborative models such as Wikirating have been suggested as an alternative to both the subscription and issuer-pays models, although it is a recent development as of the 2010, and not yet widely used.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Agencies are sometimes accused of being oligopolists, because barriers to market entry are high and rating agency business is itself reputation-based (and the finance industry pays little attention to a rating that is not widely recognized). In 2003, the US SEC submitted a report to Congress detailing plans to launch an investigation into the anti-competitive practices of credit rating agencies and issues including conflicts of interest.


title: Credit rating agency

text: Think tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) have argued that the Basel II/III "capital adequacy" norms favored at first essentially by the central banks of France, Germany and Switzerland (while the US and the UK were rather lukewarm) have unduly encouraged the use of ready-made opinions produced by oligopolistic rating agencies


title: Credit rating agency

text: Of the large agencies, only Moody's is a separate, publicly held corporation that discloses its financial results without dilution by non-ratings businesses, and its high profit margins (which at times have been greater than 50 percent of gross margin) can be construed as consistent with the type of returns one might expect in an industry which has high barriers to entry. Celebrated investor Warren Buffett described the company as "a natural duopoly", with "incredible" pricing power, when asked by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission about his ownership of 15% of the company.


title: Credit rating agency

text: According to professor Frank Partnoy, the regulation of CRAs by the SEC and Federal Reserve Bank has eliminated competition between CRAs and practically forced market participants to use the services of the three big agencies, Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch.


title: Credit rating agency

text: SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey has said that these CRAs have acted much like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other companies that dominate the market because of government actions. When the CRAs gave ratings that were "catastrophically misleading, the large rating agencies enjoyed their most profitable years ever during the past decade."


title: Credit rating agency

text: To solve this problem, Ms. Casey (and others such as NYU professor Lawrence White) have proposed removing the NRSRO rules completely. Professor Frank Partnoy suggests that the regulators use the results of the credit risk swap markets rather than the ratings of NRSROs.


title: Credit rating agency

text: The CRAs have made competing suggestions that would, instead, add further regulations that would make market entrance even more expensive than it is now.


title: Katy Brand

text: Katherine Frances Brand (born 1979), known as Katy Brand, is an English actress, comedian and writer, known for her ITV2 series "Katy Brand's Big Ass Show" and for Comedy Lab "Slap" on Channel 4.


title: Katy Brand

text: Brand was born in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1979, and enjoyed making people laugh with her impressions as a young child.


title: Katy Brand

text: Brand attended St Clement Danes School in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire. Following a summer holiday at 13 with friends who were evangelical Christians she embraced their faith and attended church five times a week.


title: Katy Brand

text: Motivated to read theology at Keble College, Oxford, she then lost her religious beliefs while a student. Interviewed for the "Evening Standard" in 2007, she commented: "After about a year, I realised it was mostly rubbish and that things are never as simple as they seem when you are 13".


title: Katy Brand

text: While at Oxford, she started to write and perform comedy, musicals and serious plays, joining the Oxford Revue and the university's dramatic society.


title: Katy Brand

text: After graduation, Brand did not work as a performer, gaining employment in television production for five years instead, but her social encounters with university contemporaries ultimately convinced her to try working as a comedian. In 2004 she wrote a comedy monologue, performing it around a few pubs in London before joining Ealing Live, a weekly live spot.


title: Katy Brand

text: In 2008, she collaborated with Katherine Parkinson, one of her friends from university, on a BBC Radio 4 series called "Mouth Trap".


title: Katy Brand

text: Brand performed in "Katy Brand's Big Ass Tour 2010". She also competed on "Let's Dance for Sport Relief" in 2010, in which she danced to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". Also in 2010, she made a guest appearance on the song "Stop Giving Me Verses" by The Hoosiers, which was an attempt to break the world record for the longest single ever released.


title: Katy Brand

text: In 2011, Brand took part in the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", where she played the role of Titania from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and delivered a performance of the speech "Out of this wood do not desire to go".


title: Katy Brand

text: In 2011 she guest-hosted a "Children in Need" special episode of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", and has participated in several other episodes of the show. In December 2012 she participated in the 2012 Christmas Special of the dance show, "Strictly Come Dancing". Her partner was Anton du Beke; they came second to last.


title: Katy Brand

text: Brand presented the Penguin Podcast for Penguin Books until February 2021, which included interviews with authors such as Michael Morpurgo ("War Horse"), Markus Zusak ("The Book Thief") and Gabourey Sidibe.


title: Katy Brand

text: She published her debut novel "Brenda Monk is Funny" in 2014, a story about a woman trying to establish a career as a comedian. Her debut play "3Women" starring Anita Dobson opened at Trafalgar Studios 2 in May 2018 and is published by Samuel French. Her latest book "I Carried a Watermelon" was published by HarperCollins Publishers in October 2019.


title: Katy Brand

text: In March 2020, she took the role of Miss Hedge in the West End musical "Everybody's Talking About Jamie".


title: Katy Brand

text: , the comedy feature film "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande", scripted by Brand, starring Emma Thompson and directed by Sophie Hyde, is in the pre-production stage. It has since been completed and aired on Hulu.


title: Katy Brand

text: In 2008 she won "Best Female Newcomer" in the 2008 British Comedy Awards. and was also nominated for a Royal Television Society Award the same year.


title: Emma Slater

text: Emma Slater (born December 25, 1988) is an English-American professional dancer and choreographer. She is best known for her appearances on "Dancing with the Stars".


title: Emma Slater

text: Emma Slater was raised in Tamworth, Staffordshire, England, where she joined local stage schools by taking part in numerous productions at an early age. She has a twin sister, Kelly, a costume designer and stylist on "Dancing with the Stars". At the age of 10, Slater started her training in ballroom and Latin American dance. In the early years of competing, she won a number competitions in England.


title: Emma Slater

text: At 15, she appeared in a George Michael music video "Round Here" produced by Bikini Films on location in London. Later that year, Slater took part in the fitness video "Latinasize" again filmed at the Pinewood Studios in London England. She dated fellow "Dancing with the Stars" member Sasha Farber from 2011 to 2014. In December 2015, Farber made a post on his Instagram account confirming that he and Slater were back together. On 4 October 2016, Farber proposed to Slater during a broadcast of "Dancing with the Stars". Slater married Farber on 25 March 2018, with fellow "Dancing with the Stars" pros Lindsay Arnold, Witney Carson, and Jenna Johnson serving as bridesmaids, and Derek Hough serving as one of Farber's groomsmen. She became an American citizen in December 2020.


title: Emma Slater

text: Slater has numerous titles to her name. In 2005, at the age of 16, she won the British Under 21 Latin American Championships at the Blackpool Closed 2005. She won the 2006 United Kingdom Under 21 Latin American Championships at the Bournemouth Pavilions, England. Ranked in the world's top 10, Slater went on to represent the UK in competitions around the world.


title: Emma Slater

text: At 16, Slater joined the hit theatre show ‘Simply Ballroom’ touring UK, including Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London's West End, United Arab Emirates and South Africa. While in South Africa Slater appeared on Dancing with the South African Stars with her celebrity partner TV Host Dalen Lance. Following Simply Ballroom, Slater had an extended run in London's West End with theatre shows; Dirty Dancing at the Aldwych Theatre where she was the Principal Latin Dancer/Ballroom Supervisor, but also understudied and played the principal role of Lisa Houseman, ‘Cheek to Cheek’ at The Coliseum and ‘Latin Fever’ at the Peacock Theatre.


title: Emma Slater

text: In 2009 Slater joined the stage show Burn the Floor for the China tour initially but later joined the cast for an extended run at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway New York City and a world tour covering: Belgium, Holland, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, West End London, a nine-month USA multi-city tour. She also danced and advised on UK's ITV Popstar to Opera Star on a number of occasions.


title: Emma Slater

text: In 2008, Slater was featured in the Universal Pictures movie "Mamma Mia!" starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, directed by Phyllida Lloyd – this included singing on the Grammy nominated soundtrack for the movie with the cast, produced by ABBA. The movie was shot in part on the Greek island of Skopelos but primarily inside Pinewood Studios London.


title: Emma Slater

text: In March 2012, Slater joined the fourteenth season on the American edition of "Dancing with the Stars" as a troupe dancer, where she danced and choreographed all of the opening dance numbers including the finale.


title: Emma Slater

text: Later that year, she choreographed Usher at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas including partner work with co-choreographer and also troupe member, Sasha Farber.


title: Emma Slater

text: After three seasons of being a troupe member, she was announced as one of the new female professional dancers for the seventeenth season of the show in September 2013. Her celebrity partner was award-winning comedian, singer and actor, Bill Engvall. Despite receiving low scores from the judges for most of the season, they were able to reach the finals but were eliminated at the end of the first night, landing them in 4th place. For season 18, she returned as a professional dancer partnered with movie actor Billy Dee Williams. Due to a back injury on Billy Dee, they withdrew from the competition on Week 3. For season 19, she was paired with race-car driver Michael Waltrip and they finished in 7th place. For season 20, she paired with LMFAO singer Redfoo but on week 2, they were the first couple eliminated. For season 21 she paired with Vine star Hayes Grier. They were eliminated on Week 7 and finished in 8th place. Slater did not participate in Season 22 of the reality show.


title: Emma Slater

text: Slater returned for season 23 and was paired with former Texas governor and two time presidential candidate Rick Perry. They were eliminated on week 3 of competition and finished in 12th place. She returned for season 24 and was paired with NFL running back Rashad Jennings; Jennings and Slater won the competition on 23 May 2017, marking Slater's first win.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 25, Slater was partnered with realtor, and "Property Brothers" co-host, Drew Scott. They made the finals of the competition but were eliminated on night one, finishing in 4th place.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 26, Slater was paired with former MLB outfielder Johnny Damon. They were eliminated on the first week of competition, tying in 9th place with Jamie Anderson and Artem Chigvintsev.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 27, she was partnered with actor & country music singer John Schneider. The couple was eliminated on week 7 of competition and finished in joint 7th place with DeMarcus Ware and Lindsay Arnold.


title: Emma Slater

text: She also did a junior version (Dancing With The Stars Jrs.) The show hosted by Jordan Fisher and Frankie Muniz and judges Adam Rippon, Mandy Moore and Valentin Chmerkovskiy. She mentored Raven's Home actor Jason Maybaum and pro Elliana Walmsley. They got out at week 5.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 28, Slater was paired with actor James Van Der Beek. Despite earning high scores from the judges throughout the season and being considered frontrunners to win, the couple was eliminated during the semi-finals of the competition where they finished in 5th place.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 29, Slater was paired with former NBA player Charles Oakley. They were the first couple to be eliminated and finished in 15th place.


title: Emma Slater

text: For season 31, Slater was paired with actor and model Trevor Donovan. They reached the semi-finals and finished in 6th place.


title: Emma Slater

text: The American public scored the dance in place of Goodman with the averaged score being counted alongside the three other judges.


title: Emma Slater

text: This week only, for "Partner Switch-Up" week, Waltrip performed with Witney Carson instead of Slater. Slater performed with Tommy Chong.


title: Emma Slater

text: This season was Slater's first ever win in the competition. This also makes her the first British person (both celebrity or professional dance partner) to win the show.


title: Amber Lee Connors

text: Amber Lee Connors (born April 9, 1991) is an American voice actress who has provided voices for English dubbed Japanese anime and video games. She is known for her roles as Nozomi Kaminashi from "Keijo!!!!!!!!", Miki Kawai from "A Silent Voice", Takami Karibuchi from "Brave Witches", Juri Yukawa from "", Esther Rosenthal from "A Certain Scientific Accelerator", Yuri Shiraki from "", Mai Kawakami from "Myriad Colors Phantom World", Akagi from "Azur Lane", Ooi from "Kancolle", Ayano Hanasaki from "Hanebado!", Pieck from "Attack on Titan", Megakaryocyte from "Cells at Work!" and Mei Aihara from "Citrus". Connors is also the founder of post-production company Sound Cadence Studios.


title: Amber Lee Connors

text: Founded in 2013, Connors founded Sound Cadence Studios LLC, an American dubbing and post-production studio that specializes in anime dubs for Discotek Media and Crunchyroll (formerly Funimation). The studio is headquartered in Addison, Texas and on June 19, 2022, Sound Cadence opened a new studio based in Los Angeles.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: The Italian invasion of France (10–25 June 1940), also called the Battle of the Alps, was the first major Italian engagement of World War II and the last major engagement of the Battle of France.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: The Italian entry into the war widened its scope considerably in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. The goal of the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was the elimination of Anglo-French domination in the Mediterranean, the reclamation of historically Italian territory ("Italia irredenta") and the expansion of Italian influence over the Balkans and in Africa. France and Britain tried during the 1930s to draw Mussolini away from an alliance with Germany but the rapid German successes from 1938 to 1940 made Italian intervention on the German side inevitable by May 1940.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: Italy declared war on France and Britain on the evening of 10 June, to take effect just after midnight. The two sides exchanged air raids on the first day of the war, but little transpired on the Alpine front since France and Italy had defensive strategies. There was some skirmishing between patrols and the French forts of the "Ligne Alpine" exchanged fire with their Italian counterparts of the "Vallo Alpino". On 17 June, France announced that it would seek an armistice with Germany. On 21 June, with a Franco-German armistice about to be signed, the Italians launched a general offensive along the Alpine front, the main attack coming in the northern sector and a secondary advance along the coast. The Italian offensive penetrated a few kilometres into French territory against strong resistance but stalled before its primary objectives could be attained, the coastal town of Menton, situated directly on the Italian border, being the most significant conquest.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: On the evening of 24 June, an armistice was signed at Rome. It came into effect just after midnight on 25 June, at the same time as the armistice with Germany (signed 22 June). Italy was allowed to occupy the territory it had captured in the brief fighting, a demilitarised zone was created on the French side of the border, Italian economic control was extended into south-east France up to the Rhône and Italy obtained certain rights and concessions in certain French colonies. An armistice control commission, the (CIAF), was set up in Turin to oversee French compliance.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: Between August 1944 and May 1945, French forces again faced Italian troops along the Alpine frontier. The French managed to reoccupy all the lost territory in the Second Battle of the Alps (April–May 1945).


title: Italian invasion of France

text: During the late 1920s, the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini spoke with increasing urgency about imperial expansion, arguing that Italy needed an outlet for its "surplus population" and that it would therefore be in the best interests of other countries to aid in this expansion. The immediate aspiration of the regime was political "hegemony in the Mediterranean–Danubian–Balkan region", more grandiosely Mussolini imagined the conquest "of an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz". Balkan and Mediterranean hegemony was predicated by ancient Roman dominance in the same regions. There were designs for a protectorate over Albania and for the annexation of Dalmatia, as well as economic and military control of Yugoslavia and Greece. The regime also sought to establish protective patron–client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which all lay on the outside edges of its European sphere of influence. Although it was not among his publicly proclaimed aims, Mussolini wished to challenge the supremacy of Britain and France in the Mediterranean Sea, which was considered strategically vital, since the Mediterranean was Italy's only conduit to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: In 1935, Italy initiated the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, "a nineteenth-century colonial campaign waged out of due time". The campaign gave rise to optimistic talk on raising a native Ethiopian army "to help conquer" Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The war also marked a shift towards a more aggressive Italian foreign policy and also "exposed [the] vulnerabilities" of the British and French. This in turn created the opportunity Mussolini needed to begin to realize his imperial goals. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. From the beginning, Italy played an important role in the conflict. Their military contribution was so vast, that it played a decisive role in the victory of the Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco. Mussolini had engaged in "a full-scale external war" due to the insinuation of future Spanish subservience to the Italian Empire, and as a way of placing the country on a war footing and creating "a warrior culture". The aftermath of the war in Ethiopia saw a reconciliation of German-Italian relations following years of a previously strained relationship, resulting in the signing of a treaty of mutual interest in October 1936. Mussolini referred to this treaty as the creation of a Berlin-Rome Axis, which Europe would revolve around. The treaty was the result of increasing dependence on German coal following League of Nations sanctions, similar policies between the two countries over the conflict in Spain, and German sympathy towards Italy following European backlash to the Ethiopian War. The aftermath of the treaty saw the increasing ties between Italy and Germany, and Mussolini falling under Adolf Hitler's influence from which "he never escaped".


title: Italian invasion of France

text: In October 1938, in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Italy demanded concessions from France. These included a free port at Djibouti, control of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti railway, Italian participation in the management of Suez Canal Company, some form of French-Italian condominium over French Tunisia, and the preservation of Italian culture on Corsica with no French assimilation of the people. The French refused the demands, believing the true Italian intention was the territorial acquisition of Nice, Corsica, Tunisia, and Djibouti. On 30 November 1938, Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano addressed the Chamber of Deputies on the "natural aspirations of the Italian people" and was met with shouts of "Nice! Corsica! Savoy! Tunisia! Djibouti! Malta!" Later that day, Mussolini addressed the Fascist Grand Council "on the subject of what he called the immediate goals of 'Fascist dynamism'." These were Albania; Tunisia; Corsica, an integral part of France; the Ticino, a canton of Switzerland; and all "French territory east of the River Var", including Nice, but not Savoy.


title: Italian invasion of France

text: Beginning in 1939 Mussolini often voiced his contention that Italy required uncontested access to the world's oceans and shipping lanes to ensure its national sovereignty. On 4 February 1939, Mussolini addressed the Grand Council in a closed session. He delivered a long speech on international affairs and the goals of his foreign policy, "which bears comparison with Hitler's notorious disposition, minuted by Colonel Hossbach". He began by claiming that the freedom of a country is proportional to the strength of its navy. This was followed by "the familiar lament that Italy was a prisoner in the Mediterranean". He called Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, and Cyprus "the bars of this prison", and described Gibraltar and Suez as the prison guards. To break British control, her bases on Cyprus, Gibraltar, Malta, and in Egypt (controlling the Suez Canal) would have to be neutralized. On 31 March, Mussolini stated that "Italy will not truly be an independent nation so long as she has Corsica, Bizerta, Malta as the bars of her Mediterranean prison and Gibraltar and Suez as the walls." Fascist foreign policy took for granted that the democracies—Britain and France—would someday need to be faced down. Through armed conquest Italian North Africa and Italian East Africa—separated by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan—would be linked, and the Mediterranean prison destroyed. Then, Italy would be able to march "either to the Indian Ocean through the Sudan and Abyssinia, or to the Atlantic by way of French North Africa".