title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Mother Superior wants to get rid of Deloris, but Monsignor O’Hara tells her that the men who were planning to buy the church love the choir, and have given their money to improve and keep the church. Over the coming weeks, the choir has become incredibly successful and the money from donations has paid for the church to be remodeled and fixed ("Sunday Morning Fever"). Monsignor O’Hara has some terrific news: the choir has been asked to perform a special concert in front of the Pope. However, Jackson and his goons spot Deloris with the choir on the television. Jackson orders his boys to get into the convent and bring Deloris to him. TJ, Joey, and Pablo discuss how they will do this ("Lady in the Long Black Dress").


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The musical premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California on October 24, 2006, and closed on December 23, 2006. It broke records, grossing $1,085,929 to become the highest grossing show ever at the venue. Patina Miller, who would later go on to play Deloris when the show opened in London, was in the ensemble and understudied the role of Deloris, which was originated in the musical by Dawnn Lewis.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The musical was directed by Peter Schneider, developed by Schneider and Michael Reno, choreographed by Marguerite Derricks, with set design by David Potts, costumes by Garry Lennon, lighting by Donald Holder, and sound by Carl Casella and Dominick Sack.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Charles McNulty of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that the musical has "Broadway blockbuster written all over it," and Laurence Vittes described it as "hugely entertaining... likely to become a classic" in "The Hollywood Reporter". Jonas Schwartz of Theatremania.com was less enthusiastic, saying it "suffers from a bit of an identity crisis."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The production then moved to the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, where it ran from January 17 to February 25, 2007. The cast included Dawnn Lewis as Deloris, Elizabeth Ward Land as the Mother Superior, Harrison White as Curtis, and Beth Malone as Sister Mary Robert.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Curt Holman, writing for the Atlanta-based website CreativeLoafing.com, described it as "a whiplash-inducing experience of genuinely clever and exuberant flourishes alternating with cringe-inducing embarrassments... The weakest parts of "Sister Act" tend to be the most faithful moments to the film, which makes you wonder what Menken, Slater and the production's delightful design team could have done with original material."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: "Sister Act" opened in the West End at the London Palladium on June 2, 2009, following previews from May 7. The production was directed by Peter Schneider and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast, with set design by Klara Zieglerova, costumes by Lez Brotherston and lighting by Natasha Katz. Following a year-long search, 24-year-old actress Patina Miller was cast as Deloris, alongside Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior, Ian Lavender as Monsignor Howard, Chris Jarman as Shank, Ako Mitchell as Eddie, Katie Rowley Jones as Sister Mary Robert, Claire Greenway as Sister Mary Patrick and Julia Sutton (later replaced by Jacqueline Clarke) as Sister Mary Lazarus. It was announced on April 29, 2010, that pop singer Simon Webbe of Blue fame would join the cast as Shank on May 31, 2010, and that the production would close on January 1, 2011. It was then announced the show would close on October 30, 2010, to make way for Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical production of "The Wizard of Oz". Chris Jarman took a planned break from the show from May, during which time Webbe played the role of Shank, and Sheila Hancock left on July 31 due to other contractual commitments. All cast members (with the exception of Simon Webbe, who left on August 28) stayed in the show until it closed. Whoopi Goldberg joined the cast as the Mother Superior for a limited engagement that was supposed to last from August 10–31, 2010, but she left the cast on August 27 due to her mother suffering a stroke. Goldberg was then succeeded by Sally Dexter. However, Goldberg returned to the cast for five performances on October 22, 23 and 25. The show closed as announced on October 30, 2010.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: A newly revised adaptation of the show opened on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre on April 20, 2011, after previews beginning March 24, 2011. Jerry Zaks was the new director (Zaks had previously worked with composer Alan Menken on the 2003 Broadway production of "Little Shop of Horrors") with Douglas Carter Beane rewriting the book. Patina Miller, who originated the role of Deloris in the West End production, reprised the role on Broadway, making her Broadway debut. The original cast featured Victoria Clark (Mother Superior), Fred Applegate (Monsignor), Sarah Bolt (Sister Mary Patrick), Chester Gregory (Eddie), Kingsley Leggs (Curtis), Marla Mindelle (Sister Mary Robert) and Audrie Neenan (Sister Mary Lazarus). On October 12, 2011, Clark left the production for unknown reasons. Her understudy, Jennifer Allen played the role after her departure. Carolee Carmello took over the role of the Mother Superior on November 19, 2011. Raven-Symoné replaced Miller as Deloris on March 27, 2012. The show received multiple Tony Award nominations for the 2011 season, including for Best Musical, Best Actress in a Musical (Miller) and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Clark). The production closed on August 26, 2012, after 28 previews and 561 performances.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The first UK touring production opened on October 4, 2011, at the Manchester Opera House, with Cynthia Erivo as Deloris Van Cartier, Denise Black as Mother Superior, Julie Atherton as Sister Mary Robert, and Michael Starke as Monsignor O'Hara. The tour played its final performance on October 20, 2012.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: A new non-replica UK tour officially opened on August 11, 2016, running to September 3, 2017. Directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood, the tour starred Alexandra Burke as Deloris Van Cartier Jon Robyns as Eddie and Rosemary Ashe as Sister Mary Lazarus.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The first national North American tour debuted on October 2, 2012, at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, Canada and closed on June 29, 2014, at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, Texas. The cast included Ta'Rea Campbell as Deloris Van Cartier, Hollis Resnik as Mother Superior (later replaced by Lynne Wintersteller). A second national tour (non-equity) ran from 2014 to 2015.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: On May 9, 2017, an international tour started at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and visited Philippines, China, Japan, and South Korea, closing January 21, 2018 at the Blue Square Interpark Hall in Seoul. The cast was led by Dené Hill as Deloris Van Cartier.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: On October 23, 2019, it was announced that the musical would run from July 29, 2020, at the Hammersmith Apollo for 39 performances with Jennifer Saunders in the role of Mother Superior and Whoopi Goldberg as Deloris Van Cartier. The production was delayed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic and finally played from July 19 to August 28, 2022, with Goldberg no longer involved. Full casting was announced on March 18, 2022 where it was confirmed that Beverly Knight would play the role of Van Cartier.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: A third UK and Ireland tour was expected to start on April 21, 2020, at the Leicester Curve Theatre but was also delayed and it is now due to start on June 27, 2022 at the Manchester Palace Theatre.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: In 2010, the first international adaptation of the show premiered in Germany by Stage Entertainment, who then produced it in The Netherlands, Italy, France and Spain.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: A Brazilian tour, directed by Fernanda Chamma and produced by Stage Entertainment opened in 2015. Whoopi Goldberg chose the actress who would play Delores, , and coached her in New York City. The tour started on March 5, 2015 at Renault Theater, São Paulo, and remained until 2016.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Critical opinion of the West End production has been mixed. Ian Shuttleworth of the "Financial Times" thought although the plot is filled with "great holes," "It's not a brainless show; Glenn Slater's lyrics are often enjoyably sharp. It's just that whenever the choice arises between creative and commercial, commercial wins out every time."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Charles Spencer in "The Telegraph" wrote "Sister Act" "proves more enjoyable on stage than it did on film" and "the cheers and standing ovation at the end were both genuine and deserved." He added, "The book, by "Cheers" writers Cheri and Bill Steinkellner, is strong, funny and touching. And the disco-inspired score by Disney favourite Alan Menken, with neat lyrics by Glenn Slater, is a cracker. Frankly, what's not to like, especially when you've got a chorus line of jiving nuns singing their hearts out ecstatically?"


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: While Michael Billington of "The Guardian" thought Alan Menken's music "has a pounding effectiveness," he rated the musical only two out of five stars, calling it "noisily aggressive" and "a show that feels less like a personally driven work of art than a commercial exploitation of an existing franchise." He continued, "What was originally a fairytale fantasy . . . makes little sense in its new, vulgarised incarnation. In the movie, the music arose naturally from the story: there was even a certain wit about seeing a group of wimpled warblers turned into a cohesive unit. But here, long before the heroine has got to work on their larynxes, they are leaping about the stage like showbiz pros telling us How I Got the Calling. In order to pad out a slight story, every key member of the cast also has to be given a number. As a result, the plot grinds to a halt while we hear about the macho fantasies of a sweaty cop, or the hoodlums weary us with their own wet dreams."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: In the "Evening Standard", Fiona Mountford rated it four out of five stars and stated, "Whether or not divine intervention is involved, it's a wimple-wibbling, habit-forming triumph."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: "The Times" critic, Benedict Nightingale rated the show three out of five stars, observing that "a rather sweet, sentimental film has been hyped up, coarsened, given what — were the Palladium flown to Times Square — we'd call the big, brash Broadway treatment . . . There's less deft comedy, but much more music, most of it indebted to the 1970s, where the action is now set. That lets Alan Menken, the composer, have a lot of catchy fun with period rock and disco."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: David Benedict of "Variety" cited its "slow start" and "clunky storytelling" but thought "the cumulative effect is shamelessly and irresistibly entertaining."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Mark Kennedy of The Associated Press wrote in his review, "This is a musical that hits all the right spots, achieving something close to Broadway grace. It helps that the musical has great original tunes by songwriter Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater that skitters from Motown, to soul and funk, to disco and even a little jokey Barry White. Menken and Slater, who also teamed up for "The Little Mermaid", know perfectly how to switch up the mood and tempo.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Elysa Gardner of "USA Today" gave the show three and a half out of four stars and said, "Sister Act: A Divine Musical Comedy may be less giddily profane, and thought-provoking, than "The Book of Mormon", but it has its own distinct and surprising charms. Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater provide original tunes that nod cheekily, but with genuine affection, to that pop era while also propelling the story with a style and exuberance specific to well-crafted musical theater."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Elisabeth Vincentelli of the "New York Post" also gave the show three and a half out of four stars and wrote, "Big, glitzy numbers are the toast of Broadway musicals. The only thing better? Big, glitzy numbers . . . with nuns! "Sister Act" has plenty of both—and it's one of the season's happiest surprises.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Menken evokes the lush, funky sound of Philly soul without falling into mere pastiche: "When I Find My Baby" starts off like bedroom R&B before the lyrics take a hilarious turn. "Take Me to Heaven" and "Spread the Love Around" bloom into full-throttle disco epics, the latter building up to an ecstatic finale.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Thom Geier of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the show a "B+" and wrote, "It's been a season of ill-conceived or just plain disappointing stage musicals based on movies...Who'd have guessed that the latest iteration of Broadway's recycling trend, Sister Act...would be such a lark? It helps that the show boasts a genuine star turn by newcomer Patina Miller as aspiring singer Deloris Van Cartier. While Sister Act relies on all-new music, thankfully the score is by gifted tunesmith Alan Menken ("Little Shop of Horrors", "Beauty and the Beast") and his longtime lyricist, Glenn Slater. There are some real melodic standouts here, boosted by the decision to re-set the show in 1977 Philadelphia."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Charles Isherwood of the "New York Times" gave the show a mixed review and wrote, "I wish I could report that the singing nuns from the Church of Philly Soul are giving those perky Mormons in Africa a run for their money in the unholy hilarity department. But when the jubilant choral numbers subside, as inevitably they must, "Sister Act" slumps back into bland musical-theater grooves and mostly lacks the light of invigorating inspiration. Mr. Menken, who wrote the lustrous period-pop score for "Little Shop of Horrors" (with the lyricist Howard Ashman), is a skillful interpreter of the Philadelphia sound." He did, however, praise Miller's performance, writing she "has a radiant presence and a strong voice with a tangy timbre. As Deloris Van Cartier, a would-be disco diva in 1970s Philly who goes on the lam when the bullets start flying, she truly comes into her own when Deloris sheds her purse full of wisecracks.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Steven Suskin of "Variety" gave the show an unfavorable review: "New tuner has various assets that place it comfortably in the feel-good entertainment category, and might have launched it to the top last season or even three months ago. But timing is everything. "Sister Act" comes in on the heels of a handful of musicals, including another disco-beat film adaptation ("Priscilla Queen of the Desert"), and comparisons are not favorable. The Broadway version of 'Sister Act' is glossy, but seems like a worn set of tires repatched too often."


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: The "Sister Act Nuns Run" was first held in May 2009, just before the opening of the West End musical. When the team from "Sister Act" got together with the team from Barnardos it was decided a Nun Run would be a great way to promote the new musical as well as raise money for a great cause.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: Despite it being a brand new charity run, almost 1000 people got dressed up as nuns to run the streets of London, and altogether they raised over £30,000, and on the back of its success it was decided that this 4 mile run was to be an annual event.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: In late 2009 it was announced that the 2010 run was again to take place in May, but this time taking a different route, passing some of London's greatest landmarks such as The Tower of London, Tate Modern, and St. Paul's Cathedral.


title: Sister Act (musical)

text: To link the run with "Sister Act the Musical" (other than the fact everyone is dressed as nuns), some of the cast as well as Barnardo's Children's Choir give performances at the start line. This not only helps to fuse the link between Barnardo's and the show, but makes it a fun event, as it is designed as a charity event rather than for competitive runners.


title: Yumiri Hanamori

text: In 2015, Hanamori served as the 62nd personality of Radio Flush. In 2016, Hanamori made her anime film debut in "," where she voiced as Remo, the female protagonist. On October 22, 2015, Hanamori walked through the red carpet with producer Masashi Ishihama and Ryoichi Ishihara as a part of the "" voice cast at the Tokyo International Film Festival.


title: Yumiri Hanamori

text: Hanamori was affiliated to Pony Canyon Artists / Swallow. In 2017, Hanamori switched her affiliation to m&i. On November 1, 2019, it was announced that Hanamori would be "graduating" from "Re:Stage!" due to a knee injury.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: Carpool Karaoke is a recurring segment on "The Late Late Show with James Corden", in which host James Corden invites famous musical guests to sing along to their songs with him whilst traveling in a car driven by Corden on a planned route usually in Los Angeles, usually under the pretense of needing to get to work and preferring to use the high-occupancy carpool vehicle lane, or the pretext of needing directions from a local when in a new town, such as London (with Adele), Liverpool (with Paul McCartney), New York City (with Madonna) or Las Vegas (with Celine Dion).


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: In 2016, Apple Music and CBS Television Studios announced that they had reached a deal for an exclusive first-window licensing agreement under which Apple Music will be the global home of a . It was also initially announced that the series would have a host that would appear in every episode. On January 9, 2017, it was reported that the series would not feature a single host and instead would have a different host in every episode.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: The format was created in 2009 by Robert Llewelyn in his podcast series "Carpool". Corden argues the segment was inspired by a "Gavin & Stacey"-themed sketch he had participated in for the British charity television special "Red Nose Day 2011", in which he sang along with George Michael in a car.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: For the 2014 documentary "When Corden Met Barlow" which aired on BBC One, Corden included a 6-minute 45 second Carpool Karaoke segment in the documentary with singer-songwriter Gary Barlow of Take That. The documentary was directed by Ben Winston. Corden explained that "Ben Winston and I always thought there was something very joyful about someone very, very famous singing their songs in an ordinary situation. We just had this idea: Los Angeles, traffic, the carpool lane—maybe this is something we could pull off." No musicians were interested initially, but when Corden showed the George Michael-clip to Mariah Carey, she agreed to pioneer the show.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: In 2020, it was revealed that Corden does not always actually drive the vehicle during filming; instead it is towed. Corden explained that due to safety issues—like for a dance routine, or costume change—they have to tow, and cited five instances, roughly five percent of the series to date, where this method was employed: with Meghan Trainor, Migos, Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, and Justin Bieber (3rd time). He also added that the entire endeavor is strictly for entertainment as he is already at work and does not need to carpool, and the streets he drives do not have carpool lanes.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: The segments, which have featured artists such as Paul McCartney, Adele, Migos, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Bruno Mars, Billie Eilish, the Foo Fighters, the Jonas Brothers, Nick Jonas, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West, Britney Spears, Stevie Wonder, Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, BTS, One Direction, Shawn Mendes, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Elton John, Carrie Underwood and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, became popular videos on the "Late Late Show"s YouTube channel. A January 2016 Carpool Karaoke segment featuring Adele amassed 42 million YouTube views within five days, making it the most popular video originating from a late night program since 2013, continuing on to gather 233 million by March 12, 2021. , five other segments have amassed over 100 million views on YouTube: One Direction at 176 million, Justin Bieber's first visit at 155 million views, Sia at 140 million, Bruno Mars at 132 million and Selena Gomez at 110 million. , the most viewed segment featuring a non-musician, then US First Lady Michelle Obama (eventually joined by Missy Elliott for one song) has amassed over 80 million views.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: On March 29, 2016, CBS aired a primetime special featuring highlights of the segment, and a new edition with Jennifer Lopez. The special won a 2016 Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special. The Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared on the June 13, 2016 segment. During the filming, singer Anthony Kiedis saved the life of a baby. Kiedis later said, "A woman came out of her house, holding a child, saying, 'My baby, my baby, my baby can't breathe!' We all ran across the street, the woman thrust the baby into my arms, the baby was not breathing and I thought, 'I'm gonna try and do a little baby CPR real quick, see if I can get some air in this kid.' Tried to open the mouth, [it was] like locked shut. So I started rubbing the belly, bubbles came out of the mouth, the eyes rolled back into place, the ambulance showed up and I handed the baby over, who was now breathing and fine, and we went back to Carpool Karaoke."


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: Special broadcasts on prime time (10 pm) highlighting the Carpool Karaoke segment of "The Late Late Show". The first show broadcast on March 29, 2016, on CBS won the Primetime Emmy Awards 2016 for "Outstanding Variety Special" category.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: Spike launched a series inspired by the segment that premiered on Apple TV on January 12, 2017. Titled "Caraoke Showdown", it was hosted by Craig Robinson, and tasked passengers with competing in different karaoke-style challenges while on a car trip.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: In Sweden, Nanne Grönvall performed in the Melodifestivalen 2020 song contest with a song titled "Carpool Karaoke", whose lyrics discussed how she wanted to sing with Corden on his show.


title: Carpool Karaoke

text: In 2016, Apple Music announced that it would distribute a TV series, based on Corden's segment, called "Carpool Karaoke: The Series". The series premiered on August 8, 2017, with new episodes each Wednesday, available to Apple Music subscribers. It was renewed for a second season in February 2018 and a third season in July 2019.


title: Purchasing power

text: Purchasing power is the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if one had taken one unit of currency to a store in the 1950s, it would have been possible to buy a greater number of items than would be the case today, indicating that the currency had a greater purchasing power in the 1950s.


title: Purchasing power

text: If one's monetary income stays the same, but the price level increases, the purchasing power of that income falls. Inflation does not "always" imply falling purchasing power of one's money income since the latter may rise faster than the price level. A higher real income means a higher purchasing power since real income refers to the income adjusted for inflation.


title: Purchasing power

text: Traditionally, the purchasing power of money depended heavily upon the local value of gold and silver, but was also made subject to the availability and demand of certain goods on the market. Most modern fiat currencies, like US dollars, are traded against each other and commodity money in the secondary market for the purpose of international transfer of payment for goods and services.


title: Purchasing power

text: As Adam Smith noted, having money gives one the ability to "command" others' labor, so purchasing power to some extent is power over other people, to the extent that they are willing to trade their labor or goods for money or currency.


title: Purchasing power

text: For a price index, its value in the base year is usually normalized to a value of 100. The purchasing power of a unit of currency, say a dollar, in a given year, expressed in dollars of the base year, is 100/"P", where "P" is the price index in that year. So, by definition, the purchasing power of a dollar decreases as the price level rises.


title: Purchasing power

text: Adam Smith used an hour's labour as the purchasing power unit, so value would be measured in hours of labour required to produce a given quantity (or to produce some other good worth an amount sufficient to purchase the same).


title: Earle Nelson

text: Earle Leonard Nelson ( Ferral; May 12, 1897January 13, 1928), also known in the media as the Gorilla Man, the Gorilla Killer, and the Dark Strangler, was an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile, who is considered the first known serial sex murderer of the twentieth century. Born and raised in San Francisco, California, by his devoutly Pentecostal grandmother, Nelson exhibited bizarre behavior as a child, which was compounded by head injuries he sustained in a bicycling accident at age 10. After committing various minor offenses in early adulthood, he was institutionalized in Napa for a time.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson began committing numerous rapes and murders in February 1926, primarily in the West Coast cities of San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. In late 1926 he moved east, committing multiple rapes and murders in several Midwestern and East Coast cities before moving north into Canada, raping and killing a teenage girl in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After committing his second murder in Winnipeg, he was arrested by Canadian authorities, convicted of both murders and sentenced to death. Nelson was executed by hanging in Winnipeg in 1928.


title: Earle Nelson

text: In undertaking his crimes, Nelson had a "modus operandi": Most of his victims were middle-aged landladies, many of whom he would find through "room for rent" advertisements. Posing as a mild-mannered and charming Christian drifter, Nelson used the pretext of renting a room in the landladies' boardinghouses to make contact with them before attacking. Each of his victims were killed via strangulation, and many were raped after death. His penultimate victim, a 14-year-old girl named Lola Cowan, was the only known victim to be significantly mutilated after death.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson's crime spree, which consists of 22 known murders, made him the most prolific serial killer by convictions in American history until the discovery of Juan Corona's crimes in 1971. He was a source of inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 film "Shadow of a Doubt".


title: Earle Nelson

text: Earle Nelson was born Earle Leonard Ferral on May 12, 1897, in San Francisco, California, the son of an English mother, Frances Nelson, and Spanish father, James Ferral. Both of his parents died of syphilis before he reached two years of age. Nelson was subsequently sent to live with his maternal grandmother Jennie Nelson, a devout Pentecostal who raised him alongside her two younger children, Willis and Lillian, who were ten and eight years his senior, respectively. Nelson exhibited self-loathing and other "morbid" behavior at a young age, and was expelled from the Agassiz primary school in San Francisco at age 7. Around age 10, he collided with a streetcar while riding his bicycle and remained unconscious for six days. After he awoke, Nelson's behavior became erratic, and he suffered from frequent headaches and memory loss.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Described as a "psychotic prodigy," Nelson exhibited increasingly bizarre, manic behaviors in his childhood, such as talking to invisible people, compulsively quoting Biblical passages, and watching female family members undress. His grandmother noted occasions where Nelson would embark to school in freshly-cleaned clothes and return home in rags, as though he had exchanged clothes with a homeless person. Nelson's strong religious upbringing remained a pervasive influence in his life, and he obsessively read the Book of Revelation as a teenager.


title: Earle Nelson

text: In his early teenage years, Nelson began frequenting brothels and bars in San Francisco's Barbary Coast red-light district, and contracted a venereal disease. As he progressed through puberty, Nelson grew into a stocky, physically fit young man. He would sometimes entertain his family with his physical talents, such as walking on his hands or lifting heavy objects with his teeth.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson began his criminal career at a young age, and was sentenced to two years in San Quentin State Prison in 1915 after breaking into a cabin in rural Plumas County which he believed had been abandoned. He was paroled for this offense on September 6, 1916, but was arrested again in Stockton on March 9, 1917, for petty larceny. Nelson spent another six months incarcerated before being discharged, after which he was arrested in Los Angeles for burglary charges. After spending approximately five months in Los Angeles County Jail, Nelson escaped.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Sometime in late-1917, Nelson enlisted in the U.S. military, but deserted after six weeks. He repeated this pattern on several occasions, enlisting in different military branches under different names before deserting. In 1918, Nelson was committed to the Napa State Mental Hospital after behaving oddly and erratically during one of his brief stints in the United States Navy. A Navy psychologist noted that Nelson was "living in a constitutional psychotic state."


title: Earle Nelson

text: Upon his arrival at Napa State Mental Hospital, a psychologist who observed Nelson on May 21, 1918, noted that he did not appear "violent, homicidal, or destructive." William Pritchard, a psychiatrist who conducted a preliminary interview with him, noted that Nelson spoke of hallucinations and other paranoid delusions: "He has seen faces, heard music, and at times believed people were poisoning him. Voices sometimes whisper to him to kill himself. Says that if he were kept in jail, he would get something sharp and cut the veins in his wrists." Pritchard also indicated that Nelson had experienced occipital headaches, fainted several times, and felt dizzy during their interactions.


title: Earle Nelson

text: During his institutionalization, Nelson managed to escape at least three times before staff eventually stopped trying to locate him. His frequent escapes earned him the nickname "Houdini" among the hospital's employees. Nelson was formally discharged from the Navy "in absentia" on May 17, 1919, and his file with the hospital was closed with a note indicating he had "improved."


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson subsequently acquired a job working as a janitor at St. Mary's Hospital, using the pseudonym "Evan Louis Fuller." There, he met 60-year-old Mary Martin, an administrative worker. The two began to date, and were married in August 1919. Their marriage, however, was short-lived, as Nelson "made her life a living hell" with his jealous rages, bizarre sexual demands, religious delusions, and increasingly violent behavior, leading her to separate from him after cohabiting for only six months. Martin would later recall various bizarre behaviors she witnessed while living with Nelson, which included protracted disappearances from their home and unusual bathing practices that entailed him pouring glasses of water over his toes.


title: Earle Nelson

text: On May 19, 1921, Nelson posed as a plumber to enter the residence at 1519 Pacific Avenue in San Francisco and attempted to molest 12-year-old resident Mary Summers in the basement. His attempt was thwarted when she screamed and attracted help from her elder brother. Nelson fled, but was captured hours later while riding a trolley. At a competency hearing, he was deemed dangerous and recommitted to Napa State Mental Hospital. He would escape again on two occasions before being discharged from the institution in 1925.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson began his killing spree early in 1926. His first known victim was Clara Newman, a wealthy 60-year-old San Francisco landlady. Nelson entered her boardinghouse at 2037 Pierce Street on February 20, 1926, posing as a potential tenant named "Roger Wilson." Sometime after entering the home, Nelson strangled Newman before raping her dead body and hiding her corpse in a vacant apartment in the house. His second victim, 63-year-old Laura Beale, was strangled in her home in nearby San Jose on March 2. The silken cord which had been used to strangle Beale had reportedly been wound so tightly around her neck that it had embedded in her flesh.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson strangled and raped 63-year-old Lillian St. Mary, also in San Francisco, on June 26, 1926. Exactly two weeks later, south in Santa Barbara, 53-year-old Ollie Russell was strangled with a cord in her boardinghouse. An autopsy confirmed that Russell had been sexually assaulted after death, and the similarities in the "modus operandi" between her murder and the San Francisco area slayings led police to assume they were connected. On August 16, 52-year-old Mary Nisbet, an apartment building proprietor in Oakland, was found by her husband, strangled to death and raped in the bathroom of a vacant apartment.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Initially, local law enforcement questioned Nisbet's husband in her death, but he was shortly cleared of suspicion. Witnesses later told police they had seen a "smiling stranger" lurking outside Nisbet's apartment building the day of her murder. Others who claimed to have seen Nelson at the various boardinghouses described him to police as a dark and stocky man with "long arms and large hands." Because of this, newspapers began referring to him as the "Dark Strangler," the "Gorilla Man," or "Gorilla Killer."


title: Earle Nelson

text: In the fall of 1926, Nelson relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he raped and murdered 35-year-old landlady Beata Withers on October 19, her body found by her teenage son, stuffed beneath clothing inside a steamer trunk in the attic of her home. The following day, 59-year-old Virginia Grant was murdered in a vacant property she owned on East 22nd Street, her body hidden behind the home's basement furnace. On October 21, landlady Mabel Fluke disappeared from her home in Portland; her body was discovered several days later in the attic, strangled with a scarf. Despite the subsequent similar murders of Grant and Fluke, a coroner's jury of four men and three women was appointed on October 28 to evaluate the "mysterious" death of Withers. The jury's decision was split in half, with three believing her death was a suicide and the other three believing it murder.


title: Earle Nelson

text: After committing the three murders in Portland, Nelson briefly returned to San Francisco, where he raped and murdered 56-year-old widow Anna Edmonds on November 18. Initially, police were hesitant to attribute the crime to the "Dark Strangler"; however, several days after her murder, a friend of Edmonds told police she had stopped by her home on the day of her murder and found Edmonds talking to a "strange man" in her parlor about a business deal that involved her selling her house. The woman's descriptions of the unknown man matched those of the "Dark Strangler."


title: Earle Nelson

text: The following day, November 19, in nearby Burlingame, California, a 28-year-old pregnant woman was attacked while showing her home to a man posing as a potential buyer. She survived the attack, and described the man as being around tall, well-dressed and well-spoken. The woman later told reporters that, though she hadn't felt threatened initially, she realized in retrospect that the man had peculiarly commented on the home's intricate details, particularly the ceilings: "I realize now that he was trying to get me to look up towards the ceiling, so that he could get behind me and grab my throat," she said.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Ten days later, on November 29, Nelson murdered and raped Blanche Myers in her Portland home. Police were able to recover foreign fingerprints from Myers' iron bedpost. The Portland murders ignited a public frenzy, and "The Oregonian" reported that the third floor of the Portland Police Bureau had become "a veritable madhouse," with clerks taking hundreds of phone calls and reports of "suspicious characters."


title: Earle Nelson

text: One local woman called police, claiming that a suspicious man had stayed in her boardinghouse for several days after the Thanksgiving holiday, using the name "Adrian Harris." On November 29, the day of Myers' murder, she stated the man told her and other residents that he was leaving to take a train to Vancouver, Washington, and indicated that he would not be returning. She found this suspicious given that he had paid multiple days' worth of rent in advance. Before departing, he gave her and another female boarder pieces of jewelry as a gift, which were later confirmed by police to have been owned by Florence Monks, a wealthy widow who had been murdered and raped in her Seattle home on November 23.


title: Earle Nelson

text: In hopes of preventing further murders, law enforcement in California and Oregon issued public safety announcements to citizens: in the San Francisco Bay area, elderly women were advised to take precautions while renting rooms and inviting strangers into their homes. Meanwhile, the Portland Police Bureau issued the following statement to the public: "Do not show your houses or rooms for rent while alone. If necessary, call a policeman to accompany you. Crimes such as these should be prevented and could have been prevented if women had been more careful. I do not wish to unduly alarm the people of Portland. But there is no denying the situation is grave."


title: Earle Nelson

text: After leaving Portland in late November 1926, Nelson moved eastward, hitchhiking or stowing away on trains. On December 23, the body of Almira Berard, 41, was found inside her Council Bluffs, Iowa, home; she had been garroted with a shirt. Initially, local police presumed her death a suicide, as Brerard had recently been discharged from a psychiatric institution. This was dismissed after it was discovered that she had been raped.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Two days after Christmas, 23-year-old Bonnie Pace of Kansas City, Missouri, was strangled to death and raped in her home, her body discovered in an upstairs room by her husband. On December 28, Germania Harpin, age 28, along with her eight-month-old infant son Robert, was found murdered in her Kansas City home. Both had been strangledRobert, with a diaperand Germania had been raped after death. Both she and Robert were discovered by her husband when he returned from work that evening.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson continued to move further east, murdering and raping 53-year-old landlady Mary McConnell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 27. Several articles of jewelry were also stolen from McConnell's residence. The following day, Nelson attempted to sell one of McConnell's gold watches to pawn shop owner Marie Kuhn, but she declined. One month later, on May 27, Nelson arrived in Buffalo, New York, where he rented a room from 53-year-old Jennie Randolph, using the name "Charles Harrison." Three days later, Randolph was discovered strangled to death and raped, her body stuffed under a bed in her home. Randolph's brother, Gideon Gillett, had met "Mr. Harrison" when he first arrived at the residence, and described him as "about thirty-three years old, with a stocky build, dark complexion, and black hair slicked straight back." Fred Merritt, a boarder in Randolph's house, would later positively identify Nelson as "Charles Harrison."


title: Earle Nelson

text: On June 1 in Detroit, Michigan, boardinghouse manager Fannie May, along with boarder Maureen Atorthy, were discovered murdered in the boardinghouse May oversaw. Their bodies were found by the building owner, Leonard Sink, who had arrived to collect rent funds from May. May had been garroted with an electrical cord cut from a table lamp. Police determined that the cord had been cut while the electric current was still circulating, and that the knife with which it had been done would show visible burning as well as a nicked blade. Two days later, Nelson murdered 27-year-old Mary Cecilia Sietsma in Chicago, Illinois. Sietsma was discovered by her husband on the floor of their home, strangled with an appliance cord. Several articles of men's clothing were also stolen from the home.


title: Earle Nelson

text: On June 8, 1927, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 14-year-old Lola Cowan disappeared after leaving her home to sell artificial flowers door-to-door. On June 10, another local woman, Emily Patterson, went missing. She was discovered later that evening by her husband, raped and strangled to death under her son's bed. She had also been bludgeoned with a claw hammer. Patterson's husband discovered her body while kneeling at the bedside to say evening prayers.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Upon investigation, police determined that several items were missing from the Patterson home, including a whipcord suit, Patterson's gold wedding ring, the family Bible, and C$70 in ten-dollar bills. A knife bearing burn marks and nicks was also left behind in the home. Police found the knife to be consistent with that which had cut the lamp cord used in the May and Artorthy murders the week prior.


title: Earle Nelson

text: The day after Patterson's murder, Fred England, a local jeweler in Winnipeg, unknowingly purchased Patterson's wedding ring from Nelson for C$3.50, and clothing stolen from the home was subsequently discovered for sale in a local secondhand store. Both the jeweler and clothing store owner would positively identify Nelson as the man who provided them the ring and clothing. Nicholas Tabor, a barber who owned a shop next door to the secondhand store, told police he had given a man resembling Nelson a shave, haircut, and massage on the afternoon of June 10. While cutting the man's hair, Tabor noticed dried blood on his scalp, as well as scratch marks. When he inquired about them, the man reportedly became agitated and requested that Tabor not touch them.


title: Earle Nelson

text: While performing a citywide search of boardinghouses in Winnipeg on June 12, police entered the boardinghouse of Mrs. August Hill on 133 Smith Street, where Nelson had recently lodged. Upon a search of his room, the decaying, nude corpse of Cowan was discovered under the bed. Cowan's body, unlike that of his other victims, had reportedly been mutilated in a manner "reminiscent of [the victims of] Jack the Ripper." Her clothing and belongings were missing and it was evident the bed had been slept in, leading police to determine that Nelson had spent the night sleeping with the body beneath the bed.


title: Earle Nelson

text: After the discovery of Cowan's body, Winnipeg City Council posted a C$1,500 reward for information leading to the "conviction of the criminal degenerate" responsible. This reward would subsequently become a point of dispute after several individuals came forward with information pertaining to Nelson's whereabouts. Among them included a motorist who claimed to have given Nelson a ride from Emerson to Winnipeg on the day Cowan went missing.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Assuming that Nelson had fled to the United States, Canadian police sent descriptions of him to all U.S. police stations and post offices. In the intervening days, sightings of Nelson were reported in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Boissevain, Manitoba. A man matching Nelson's description who gave his name as "Mike Mowski" was arrested on June 14 in the Manitoba/Minnesota border town of Warroad by Customs Officers, but he escaped the next day. On June 16, 1927, constables in Killarney, a Manitoba border town from the North Dakota border, arrested a man named "Virgil Wilson" who fit Nelson's description. His demeanor was reportedly so calm and cooperative that the constables assumed they had the wrong individual.


title: Earle Nelson

text: "Wilson" was incarcerated in the local jail, but managed to escape the same evening. Nelson made the mistake of trying to catch the same train that was transporting members of the Winnipeg police, and was recaptured twelve hours after his initial escape. He was officially arrested again the next morning by an officer from the Crystal City police department, on the rail line east of Wakopa.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson was taken to the Rupert Street Police Station in Winnipeg where he was photographed, fingerprinted, measured, and prepared for identification lineups. Nearly 4,000 spectators awaited his arrival outside the station, hoping to glimpse the accused man. Photographs of Nelson taken by Winnipeg police were shortly sent out to police departments throughout the U.S.; this resulted in positive identifications from witnesses in Illinois and California who claimed the man was the same unknown renter they had had encounters with. Though he maintained that his identity was that of "Virgil Wilson," fingerprints forwarded to Winnipeg from the San Francisco Police Department from his earlier arrests confirmed his identity as Earle Nelson. Nelson's fingerprints matched those left behind at several of the crime scenes, and his teeth matched marks found on victims.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Initially, Nelson admitted to his crimes, bluntly telling reporters: "I only do my lady killings on Saturday nights." However, he would subsequently retract his admission and claim he was innocent. Upon an interview with the "Manitoba Free Press" shortly after his arrest, he said: "I'm charged with two murders. But I'm not the one who done it." When asked about the various persons in the U.S. and Canada who had positively identified him as the "Strangler," he simply responded: "All of 'em are wrong." Despite attempts on part of both U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies to elicit confessions, Nelson refused to admit to any of the murders of which he was suspected or accused.


title: Earle Nelson

text: At the time of his arrest, Nelson was wanted in six U.S. cities, and was held to be tried in a Manitoba court for the murders of both Cowan and Patterson. He was also charged with two counts of attempted molestation and one count of burglary. Nelson's trial was scheduled to begin June 27, 1927, but postponed at the request of his attorney, and instead began on November 1 at the Winnipeg Courts Law Building. The case was prosecuted by R. B. Graham, and overseen by Justice Andrew Dysart.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson was defended by court-appointed attorney James H. Stitt. Nelson's ex-wife Mary Martin testified against him, claiming that he was "absolutely insane." Additionally, over sixty individuals from both Canada and the U.S. testified, many placing Nelson at the scenes of the various crimes or linking him to property stolen from victims' homes. A jail guard who oversaw Nelson throughout his trial noted that he had become particularly obsessed with a certain Biblical passage from the Book of Proverbs, which read:


title: Earle Nelson

text: Closing statements in Nelson's trial were completed on November 5, 1927. After forty minutes of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of murder and he received a mandatory death sentence. Relatives of victims McConnell and Cowan visited Nelson in prison after his conviction, and he continued to proclaim his innocence. In late December 1927, Stitt submitted a thirty-page document to Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe, petitioning for clemency on the grounds that Nelson was insane and that his personal history had been unfairly presented to the jury via the press.


title: Earle Nelson

text: The "eloquent, even moving" document consisted of twenty affidavits from persons who had known Nelson throughout his life who swore they were "in a position to know full well the character and mentality of the said Earle Nelson that [they] verily believed without exaggeration or mental reservation [had] been for a long period of time a person of unsound mind." In one of the affidavits, Mrs. L. J. Casey, who had employed Nelson as a groundskeeper in 1926, attested to this, noting that she "hear[d] him laughing and talking to himself all the time. One day while I happened to be there, he sat right outside in the drenching rain, looking at the sky, without a coat, until he was soaked through." Despite the abundance of affidavits, the appeal was denied, and Nelson's execution was scheduled for the second Friday of January.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson was executed by hanging at 7:30 a.m. on January 13, 1928 at the Vaughan Street Jail in Winnipeg. His final words were: "I forgive those who have wronged me."


title: Earle Nelson

text: When his identity was still unknown, law enforcement surmised that Nelson was a predator who "possessed a dual personality," likening him to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. However, his "modus operandi" was clear even to investigators at the time of the crimes' occurrences.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson's victims were mostly landladies, whom he would approach on the pretext of renting a room. Many of these victims were targeted after having placed "room for rent" advertisements in local newspapers. Nelson, well-versed in Christian theology, often studied his worn Bible, using it to keep his victim at ease and off-guard. Once he had gained their trust and was able to access their homes, he would kill them (almost always by strangling) and sometimes engage in necrophilia with the corpse. Nelson would often hide the body, leaving it under the nearest bed. In several of his murders committed in Portland, he went to additional lengths to conceal the body, hiding it in the attic or in a steamer trunk within the house. Other victims were concealed in closets or behind furnaces in the house.


title: Earle Nelson

text: At the peak of his killing spree, Nelson was killing once every three weeks on average. His killings sometimes occurred in spurts. His last victim, Emily Patterson, had been his fifth victim in only ten days.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Though there are many extant documents regarding Nelson and his trial, few of them contain psychiatric information regarding his pathology. During Nelson's incarceration leading up to his trial, he was examined by Dr. Alvin T. Mathers, chief of the psychiatric ward and Winnipeg General Hospital, on five separate occasions between July 27 and October 24, 1927. Based on these sessions, Mathers testified in court: "I did not find any evidence that to me would constitute insanity."


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson was the first serial murderer in American history whose crimes were subject to widespread media attention in newspaper, national magazines, and the then-new medium of the radio. His crimes and trial received international media attention, appearing in newspapers across the United States, Canada, and Australia. Nelson's confirmed murder count, which exceeded twenty, remained a record high for nearly fifty years until the discovery of Juan Corona's crimes in 1971. According to crime historians Harold Schechter and David Everitt, Nelson was the first serial sex murderer in twentieth-century America.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Though Nelson refused to admit to any of the crimes of which he was accused, he has been linked to a total of 22 murders that occurred between 1926 and 1927; his victims consisted near-exclusively of women, along with one male infant child.


title: Earle Nelson

text: Nelson's murder spree served as a source of inspiration for the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock film "Shadow of a Doubt", which focuses on a serial killer, the "Merry Widow Murderer" (portrayed by Joseph Cotten), who targets elderly widows.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: The first series of "The Great British Bake Off" first aired on BBC Two on 17 August 2010. Ten home bakers took part in a bake-off to test their baking skills as they battled to be designated the best amateur baker. Each week the programme bakers participated in three challenges in a particular discipline, with some being eliminated at the end of each episode. The rounds of the competition took place in various locations across the UK following a theme, for example, the episode on puddings took place in Bakewell, bread baking would take place near Sandwich. This first series had a voiceover by Stephen Noonan; for the subsequent series this role was taken by the on-screen presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. The competition was won by Edd Kimber.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: For the first challenge, the bakers were instructed to bake any cake they want using their creativity within three hours. It had to be evenly baked, evenly risen, and moist. For the technical challenge, the bakers were to make a Victoria Sandwich using Mary Berry's recipe. For the final challenge, the showstopper challenge, the bakers were required to make a Chocolate Celebration Cake, with perfect execution, original ideas and their own flair.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: For the signature bake, the bakers were asked to bake their Personality Biscuits within two hours. For the technical challenge, the bakers were asked to bake scones using Paul Hollywood's recipe within an hour. For the showstopper, the bakers were asked to bake Petit Fours; Meringues, Choux Pastry, and Macarons, within four hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: For their signature bake, the bakers were asked to bake their signature bread within hours. For the technical challenge, the bakers were asked to bake a cob using Paul's recipe within hours. For the showstopper, the bakers were asked to bake 12 sweet rolls and 12 savoury rolls. They had to bake 3 flavours of savoury rolls and 3 flavors of sweet rolls. They had 6 hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: For the first challenge, the bakers were asked to bake their own classic pudding, steamed or baked. They had hours. For the technical challenge, the bakers were asked to bake 4 miniature lemon souffles using Mary's recipe within 40 minutes. The bakers started to bake at different time intervals. For the showstopper, the bakers were asked to bake 3 puddings: crumble, bread, and suet, in 5 hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: For the signature challenge, the bakers were asked to bake a savoury pie in hours. For the technical challenge, the bakers were asked to bake 4 Cornish pasties in hours. For the showstopper, the bakers were asked to bake 2 pastry platters; savory canapés and sweet tartlets, in 5 hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: In the final, a baker was eliminated after the first bake, and only two bakers competed in the final day. For the first challenge, the 3 finalists were asked to bake 24 professional tea cakes in hours. For the final challenge, the 2 finalists were asked to bake 24 miniature tarts, 24 scones, 24 choux buns, and 24 finger sandwiches in 5 hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: It took the judges nearly five hours to determine whom to eliminate, and had to look back at their performances over the series as a whole to make a decision. The idea of eliminating a contestant in the final was dropped from future series.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: After winning the competition, Edd Kimber is able to make his living from baking. He worked in the pastry kitchen at Raymond Blanc's restaurant Le Manoir. He has written three books on baking, "The Boy Who Bakes", "Say It With Cake", and "Patisserie Made Simple: From Macaron to Millefeuille and More". He has taught macaron making classes in London, run a pop-up bakery in Fortnum & Mason, and appeared as a 'resident baker' on "The Alan Titchmarsh Show".


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: Ruth Clemens has written a number of books on cake making and baking, including "Busy Girls Guide to Cake Decorating", "The Pink Whisk Guide to Cake Making", "The Pink Whisk Guide to Baking" and "Creative Éclairs".


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: Miranda Gore Browne wrote a book, "Biscuit", published on 5 April 2012. Her second book, "Bake Me a Cake as Fast as You Can", was published in August 2014.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: Jonathan Shepherd left his job in the pharmaceutical company and launched a new business, The Pudding Stop, in St Albans. It started as a portable street-food vendor and a supplier of puddings to restaurants. Shepherd has since also opened a shop, also in St Albans.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: In this one-off special edition, the three finalists from series one (Edd, Ruth and Miranda) returned. Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry set them the challenge of making and baking two spectacular Wedding Cakes each in just sixteen hours, one being "traditional" and the other "contemporary".


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 1)

text: Paul and Mary explore the history of the Great British Wedding Cake, looking at the dramatic changes through the eras; from the Tudors and the Victorians, wartime Britain and the eighties to the present day.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: Sacra Corona Unita (, ; acronym: SCU) also known as fourth mafia is a Mafia-type criminal organization and criminal society from the Apulia region in Southern Italy, and it is especially active in the areas of Brindisi, Lecce, and Taranto.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: Informer Cosimo Capodieci said the SCU used "the "Corona" because it resembles a crown, meaning the rosary typically used in Church in order to carry out the functions of Jesus Christ and the cross... "Unita" because it was necessary to be connected to one another, similar to the rings of a chain." "Sacra" (Sacred) because at the time of the affiliation the new member is "baptized".


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The Sacra Corona Unita was founded in 1981 as the Nuova Grande Camorra Pugliese by Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, who wanted to expand his operations into the Italian region of Apulia. However, with Cutolo's downfall a few years later the organization began operating separately under the leadership of Giuseppe Rogoli. According to one account of Rogoli's rise to leadership, it is said that the Apulian crime boss was inspired by (and allegedly sanctioned by) various Calabrian 'Ndrangheta leaders imprisoned in the Trani jail, on the coast north of Bari, the capital of the region, to form a new criminal organization based in Apulia with himself at its head. Legend has it that on Christmas Day, 1983, Rogoli, with several of his imprisoned followers and several Calabrian mafia leaders (one Calabrian was rumoured to be the capobastone of the powerful Bellocco clan) came together in Rogoli's cell where he was officially initiated and sanctioned as the supreme head of the newly formed SCU. However, secret documents pertaining to the history of the SCU were eventually seized by the Italian law enforcement agencies and show that the reported ceremony actually took place in May 1983, not on Christmas day. Under Rogoli's leadership the SCU mixed Apulian interests and opportunities with 'Ndrangheta and Camorra traditions.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: Originally preying on the region's substantial wine and olive oil industries, the group moved into cigarette smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, and political corruption.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: According to a survey conducted by the "Eurispes" the main sources of income of the organization are:


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The SCU is made up of three distinct groupings or levels. Members can 'graduate' from one level to the next by going through "riti battesimali" (baptismal rites). The religious symbolism is probably left over from the SCU's association with the Camorra.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 clans with approximately 2,000 members and specializes in smuggling cigarettes, drugs, arms, and people. The Sacra Corona Unita collects payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The SCU uses a hierarchical structure when running its organization, and the higher you climb the more responsibility and money you gain. Men are the predominant rulers of the group. In recent years, the SCU has been finding ways to exploit people online by scamming and hacking individuals for money. This money is then laundered into countries across Europe, such as the U.K., Spain, and Germany.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The Sacra Corona Unita has the Apulian region as their main territory, however, they are known to have a presence in other parts of Italy, especially in Modena, Mantua, and Reggio Emilia. Outside Italy, the organization has a presence in Albania, Spain, Germany, United States and the United Kingdom.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: With the decreasing importance of the Adriatic corridor as a smuggling channel as the situation in the Balkans normalises, and a series of successful police and judicial operations against it in recent years, the Sacra Corona Unita has been reduced to a fraction of its former power, which peaked around the mid-1990s.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: Giuseppe Rogoli, one of the founders of the SCU, was an affiliate of the 'Ndrangheta in Apulia, even before the creation of the Sacra Corona Unita.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The SCU, after Cutolo's downfall, can be considered an offshoot of the 'Ndrangheta in the region, due to Rogoli asked for the permission of the Capobastone Umberto Bellocco to create an "Apulian 'Ndrangheta", which becomes the today's Sacra Corona Unita.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: On 13 November 2017, the operation Lampo ended, lasting three years and started from the Sant'Anna operation, which arrested 10 alleged affiliates of the SCU and its alleged head Cataldo Caporosso operating in Massafra, Statte, Palagiano and in the Tamburi district of Taranto. The coterie had entered the fish and local cocaine market. The criminal activities of the criminal association would always have been endorsed by the 'Ndrangheta boss Umberto Bellocco who, after 21 years in prison, would have met the Sacra Corona Unita member Cataldo Caporosso and conferred on him the dowry of "padrino".


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: On 14 November 2018, the operation Galassia of the Guardia di Finanza ended, in which the presumed member of the Pesce-Bellocco 'ndrina, Antonio Zungri, some members of the Tegano 'ndrina and perhaps of the Piromalli 'ndrina together with the Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita's Capriati and Parisi clans were illegally included in the commercial network of the online betting companies "Planetwin365", "Betaland", "Enjoybet" and "Planetwin". The Apulian clans set up its own foreign bookmaker with interests and projections in Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam, Panama, Paraguay, Argentina and Russia. In this operation were seized assets worth over €1 billion, while over 80 searches have been carried out throughout Italy.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: Although the first structured criminal organization in Apulia was created by the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, preceding the SCU, the Apulian underworld frowned upon their region being dominated by an outside organization. Taking advantage of the downfall of Raffaele Cutolo, the local criminals distanced themselves of the Camorra and get more aligned to the 'Ndrangheta.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: However, according to the pentito Antonio Accurso, the Camorra's Di Lauro clan has several links to the Sacra Corona Unita in question with regards to drug trafficking.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The Apulian mafias have long been rooted in Albania, a neighbouring country where the Italian language is widespread. The Albanian mafia collaborates with the SCU to make Albania a sorting centre for large amounts of smuggled cigarettes, and drugs from Afghanistan, much of which enter Italy through the coasts of Montenegro, Croatia and Albania. On 27 July 1999 police in Durrës (Albania), with Italian assistance, arrested one of the godfathers of the Sacra Corona Unita. This Albanian link seems to confirm that the Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian mafia are "partners" in Apulia and delegate several criminal activities.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The murder of Giuseppe Laviano, lieutenant of the Sacra Corona Unita in Foggia (whose body was never found), in January 1989, mark a turning point in the mafia war and the rise of Rocco Moretti, known as "il porco" (the pig), in the context of the Foggia organized crime at the expense of Laviano himself. After the murder, Moretti became the head of the new criminal organization "Società foggiana" in Foggia. Following the arrests made by the police in the "Mantide" operation, among the many details, macabre revelations also emerged, such as the photo of Laviano's severed head, shown to the main members of the "Società Foggiana" during the summits.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The relations between the Foggia delinquency and the Camorra are probably the oldest and deepest ones. The Foggia delinquency has managed to make the qualitative leap thanks to the Camorra, particularly the Nuova Camorra Organizzata; during the NCO period many "Cutoliani" spent periods of imprisonment in the prisons of San Severo and Foggia, making contacts with and recruiting local criminals. Raffaele Cutolo's sister Rosetta Cutolo spent time in San Severo. Cutolo even organized a sort of offshoot of the NCO in northern Apulia, the "Nuova Camorra Pugliese"; the killing of Don Peppe Sciorio, Lieutenant of Cutolo for Foggia, was another clear sign that the Foggia criminals wanted to become independent.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: The most powerful clans inside the Società Foggiana are the "Trisciuoglio clan", the "Sinesi-Francavilla clan"' and the "Moretti-Pellegrino-Lanza clan".


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: In September 2019, the Italian police dismantled an international drug trafficking alliance between the powerful Gionta clan of the Camorra, the Società Foggiana, and Moroccan drug traffickers. The investigation started in 2016 against a Maghreb gang based in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. The vast network of drug traffickers, extended from Morocco, passing through Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands to finally arrive in Trentino and in Bolzano. Arriving in Italy, the drugs were sold in parks, historic centers and near schools by mainly Tunisian and Moroccan pushers. Nineteen people were arrested, with four still being wanted in Italy, Spain and in the Netherlands at the time, and seventy-three under investigation. Over one ton of hashish and 2 kg of cocaine were seized.


title: Sacra Corona Unita

text: In January 2020 two bomb attempts were made in Foggia to murder a key witness in a major trial against mobsters; nobody was injured. The anti-mafia task force was reinforced after the attacks, and 20,000 people marched through Foggia in a protest organised by the anti-mafia group Libera.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask () is a South Korean television series starring Yoo Seung-ho, Kim So-hyun, Kim Myung-soo, Yoon So-hee, Heo Joon-ho, and Park Chul-min. It aired on MBC every Wednesday and Thursday at 22:00 (KST) from May 10 to July 13, 2017 for 40 episodes.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: During the Joseon Dynasty, the long-awaited son of King Yi Yoon is born, but in exchange for its life, the king will hand over the power of the Bureau of Water Supply to the secret society "Pyunsoo Group" that controls the government. The king covers the Crown Prince's face with a mask and raises him secretly in order to protect him from the Pyunsoo Group.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: Sixteen years later, Crown Prince Yi Sun, who grew up as a respectable young man, removes his mask and left the palace secretly to go to the town to find out why he has been masked since he was born. The purpose is to meet scholar Master Woo Bo who is the only person who knows why.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: Crown Prince Lee Sun then meets high-ranking official's daughter Lady Han Ga-eun and a young man who has the same name as himself, Lee Sun, and deepens friendship with them.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: After some time, the secret society Pyunsoo Group assassinates King Yi Yoon but Crown Prince Yi Sun escaped. The Pyunsoo Group put a fake king on the throne and controls this king and the whole Imperial Court by using a suspicious drug with poisonous properties. Having witnessed the people's suffering, the Crown Prince decides to devote himself to fight the Pyunsoo Group and reclaim his throne.


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: Despite being touted as "the next "Love in the Moonlight"" which became a "youth sageuk sensation", "The Emperor: Owner of the Mask" failed to emulate the success of "Love in the Moonlight" and only averaged modest ratings of 12.4%. Additionally, even though it topped ratings in its time slot, it was overtaken by its competitor in the important 20-49 year old demographic, as well as streaming, popularity, and brand reputation charts for consecutive weeks. With the extensive promotion and hype the series received before premiere, its figures were underwhelming. Performances of the cast were praised, though audiences also stated their dissatisfaction with the story and the production as a whole. William Schwartz of "HanCinema" stated that the series is "irredeemably stupid", adding that "...the obstacles the characters run into are never clearly defined. It's one of the reasons why the resolutions in this drama are so unsatisfying. There's no tension."


title: The Emperor: Owner of the Mask

text: In the table below, the blue numbers represent the lowest ratings and the red numbers represent the highest ratings.


title: Video production

text: Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard drives, SSDs, magnetic tape or memory cards instead of film stock. There are three stages of video production: pre-production, production (also known as principal photography), and post-production. Pre-production involves all of the planning aspects of the video production process before filming begins. This includes scriptwriting, scheduling, logistics, and other administrative duties. Production is the phase of video production which captures the video content (electronic moving images) and involves filming the subject(s) of the video. Post-production is the action of selectively combining those video clips through video editing into a finished product that tells a story or communicates a message in either a live event setting (live production), or after an event has occurred (post-production).


title: Video production

text: Currently, the majority of video content is captured through electronic media like an SD card for consumer grade cameras, or on solid state storage and flash storage for professional grade cameras. Video content that is distributed digitally on the internet often appears in common formats such as the MPEG container format (.mpeg, .mpg, .mp4), QuickTime (.mov), Audio Video Interleave (.avi), Windows Media Video (.wmv), and DivX (.avi, .divx).


title: Video production

text: There are many different types of video production. The most common include film and TV production, television commercials, internet commercials, corporate videos, product videos, customer testimonial videos, marketing videos, event videos, wedding videos. The term "Video Production" is reserved only for content creation that is taken through all phases of production (Pre-production, Production, and Post-production) and created with a specific audience in mind. A person filming a concert, or their child's band recital with a smartphone or video camera for the sole purpose of capturing the memory would fall under the category of "home movies" not video production.


title: Video production

text: Production scale is determined by crew size and not the location of the production, or the type of content captured. Crew size in most cases will determine a projects quality and is not a limitation of what kind of content can be captured. There are feature films that have been captured by a crew of just 2 people, and corporate videos that leverage teams of 10 or more.


title: Video production

text: The same shooting styles used in filmmaking can also be used in video production. There is not a singular type of style that is used for every kind of video content captured. Instead, style changes depending on the type of video being created, and the desired tone and message of the video.


title: Video production

text: Two styles of producing video are "ENG" (Electronic news-gathering) and "EFP" (Electronic field production).


title: Video production

text: Television broadcast productions include television commercials, infomercials, newscasts, variety shows, game shows, live television documentaries, news magazines, sitcoms, and reality shows, among others.


title: Video production

text: Shows can be distributed by broadcast syndication. SP video production was the broadcast television standard from the early 1980s up until the beginning of the 21st century, when many television stations began using digital media to shoot, transmit, and store High-definition (HD) footage.


title: Video production

text: Video production for distance education is the process of capturing, editing, and presenting educational material specifically for use in on-line education. Teachers integrate best practice teaching techniques to create scripts, organize content, capture video footage, edit footage using computer based video editing software to deliver final educational material over the Internet. It differs from other types of video production in at least three ways:


title: Video production

text: The primary purpose of using video in distance education is to improve understanding and comprehension in a synchronous or asynchronous manner.


title: Video production

text: Webcasting is also being used in education for distance learning projects; one innovative use was the "DiveLive" programs.


title: Video production

text: For example, Nautilus Productions details an exploration of a notable shipwreck: "In the fall of 2000 Rick Allen's Nautilus Productions co-produced with Bill Lovin of Marine Grafics a groundbreaking, week long live internet broadcast known as "QAR DiveLive" from the Blackbeard wreck site. For the first time ever, live video and audio was broadcast from an underwater archaeological site to the World Wide Web. Students were able to watch the underwater archaeology in real time and ask questions of the scientists exploring the shipwreck. The twice-daily live distance learning programs reached an estimated 1600 students from as far away as Canada during the five days of broadcasting. In October of 2001 Allen and Lovin again co-produced "QAR DiveLive 2001". This time the interactive webcasts from the seafloor and conservation laboratories of the "Queen Anne's Revenge" Shipwreck Project reached over 3600 students and another 2700 remote viewers from fifteen states and 2 countries during the five days of broadcasts."


title: Video production

text: Increasing internet speeds, the transition to digital from physical formats such as tape to file-based media and the availability of cloud-based video services has increased use of the internet to provision services previously delivered on-premise in the context of commercial content creation for example video editing. In some cases the lower costs of equivalent services in the cloud has driven adoption and in others the greater scope for collaboration and time savings.


title: Video production

text: Many web sites include videos. Although not necessarily produced online, many video production tools allow the production of videos without actually using a physical camera. An example of this is using the YouTube video editor to create a video using pre-existing video content that is held on the platform under Creative Commons license.


title: Video production

text: Video content is being used in an ever-growing range of contexts, including testimonial videos, web presenter videos, help section videos, interviews, parodies, product demonstrations, training videos, and thank you videos.


title: Video production

text: Marketing videos are made on the basis of the campaign target. Explainer videos are used for explaining a product, commercial videos for introducing a company, sales videos for selling a product, and social media videos for brand awareness.


title: Video production

text: Individual Internet marketing videos are primarily produced in-house and by small media agencies, while a large volume of videos are produced by big media companies, crowdsourced production marketplaces, or in scalable video production platforms.


title: Video production

text: Most Internet marketing videos serve the purpose of interacting with the audience. The two main types of internet marketing videos are transactional videos, which aim to sell a product to a customer, and reference videos, which are designed to keep the customer on the site.


title: Video production

text: Videos are produced for different areas. The luminous experience of electricity was very successful at the Vivid Festival in 2013, the same year the German group Kraftwerk performed there. A few years later, they themselves projected a light show in combination with their hits on Museum_Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. Light art appears in music videos too, such as the one by artist Marc Engelhard.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle (; ; ; ) is an island in Shetland, in northern Scotland. It lies about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. It is known for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting. The island has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1954.


title: Fair Isle

text: the most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom. It is administratively part of the parish of Dunrossness, Shetland, and is roughly equidistant from Sumburgh Head, some to the northeast on the Mainland of Shetland and North Ronaldsay, Orkney, some to the southwest. Fair Isle is long and wide. It has an area of , making it the tenth-largest of the Shetland Islands. It gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas.


title: Fair Isle

text: Most of the islanders live in the crofts on the southern half of the island, the northern half consisting of rocky moorland. The western coast consists of cliffs of up to in height, Ward Hill at being the highest point of the island and its only Marilyn. On the eastern coast the almost detached headland of Sheep Rock rises to .


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle has been occupied since Neolithic times, which is remarkable given the lack of raw materials on the island, although it is surrounded by rich fishing waters. There are two known Iron Age sites: a promontory fort at Landberg and the foundations of a house underlying an early Christian settlement at Kirkigeo.


title: Fair Isle

text: Most of the place names date from after the 9th-century Norse settlement of the Northern Isles. By that time the croft lands had clearly been in use for centuries.


title: Fair Isle

text: Between the 9th and 15th centuries, Fair Isle was a Norwegian possession. In 1469, Shetland, along with Orkney, was part of the dowry of the King of Denmark's daughter, Margaret, on her marriage to James III of Scotland.


title: Fair Isle

text: On 20 August 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, "El Gran Grifón", was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Hellier, forcing its 300 sailors to spend six weeks living with the islanders. The wreck was discovered in 1970. The large Canadian sailing ship "Black Watch" was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1877.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle was bought by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954 from George Waterston, the founder of the bird observatory. In that decade, electricity was not yet available to residents and only some homes had running water; the population was declining at a level that created concern.


title: Fair Isle

text: The population decreased steadily from about 400 in 1900. There were around 55 permanent residents on the island in 2015, the majority of whom were crofters. In April 2021, the population was 48 and the island became the first place in the UK all of whose adult inhabitants had been vaccinated against COVID-19. The island has 14 scheduled monuments, ranging from the earliest signs of human activity to the remains of a Second World War radar station. The two automated lighthouses are protected as listed buildings.


title: Fair Isle

text: The island houses a series of high-technology relay stations carrying vital TV, radio, telephone and military communication links between Shetland, Orkney and the Scottish mainland. In this respect it continues its historic role as a signal station, linking the mainland and the more remote island groups. In 1976, when television relay equipment was updated to permit colour broadcasts to Shetland, the new equipment was housed in former Second World War radar station buildings on Fair Isle. Many television signals are relayed from Orkney to Shetland (rather than from the Scottish mainland) via Orkney's Keelylang Hill transmitter station.


title: Fair Isle

text: During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force built a radar station on top of Ward Hill [] during the Battle of the Atlantic. The ruined buildings and Nissen huts are still present. A cable-operated narrow gauge railway lies disused, though it was once used to send supplies up to the summit of Ward Hill.


title: Fair Isle

text: On 17 January 1941, a German Heinkel He 111 bomber, modified as a meteorological aircraft, crashed on the island; wreckage remains on the crash-site to the present day. The aircraft had been flying on a routine weather reconnaissance flight from its base at Oldenburg in Germany. It was intercepted by RAF Hawker Hurricane fighters from 3 Squadron, based at RAF Sumburgh; both of the aircraft's engines were damaged and several of the five crew were wounded. The pilot managed to make a crash-landing on Fair Isle to avoid ditching his crippled aircraft in the sea. Two crew died and three survived. The dead crew were buried in the island's churchyard; the survivors were detained by the islanders and remained for several days until weather conditions allowed them to be taken off the island by means of the Lerwick Lifeboat. Before the Lerwick boat reached the island, two separate boats from Orkney ran aground whilst making their way to collect the prisoners of war.


title: Fair Isle

text: The South Light was a target. During raids, the wife of an assistant keeper was killed in 1941 and their daughter was injured; in 1942, the wife of another keeper and their daughter also died in a raid.


title: Fair Isle

text: On 22 July 1941, Spitfire X5401 piloted by Flying Officer M. D. S. Hood crash-landed on Fair Isle returning from a reconnaissance mission over Ålesund, Norway. The pilot recalled the crash site to be adjacent to the track which crossed the airstrip. The cause of the crash proved to be a leak of coolant, which resulted in the engine overheating. The aircraft was recovered and flew again, and the pilot survived the war.


title: Fair Isle

text: Over the centuries the island has changed hands many times. Trading links with Northern Europe are reflected in Fair Isle Haa, a traditional Hanseatic trading booth located not far from the South Harbour, traditionally used by residents of the southern part of the island. Rent was usually paid to absentee landlords (who rarely visited) in butter, cloth and fish oil.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fishing has always been an important industry for the island. In 1702, the Dutch, who were interested in Shetland's herring fisheries, fought a naval battle against French warships just off the island.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle is noted for its woollen jumpers, with knitting forming an important source of income for the women of the islands. The principal activity for the male islanders is crofting.


title: Fair Isle

text: Many rare species of bird have been found on the island, with at least 27 species found on the island that were the first British records, and is probably the best place in western Europe to see skulking Siberian passerines such as Pechora pipit, lanceolated warbler and Pallas's grasshopper warbler. For example, in 2015, rare birds discovered on the island included pallid harrier, arctic warbler, Moltoni's warbler, booted warbler, paddyfield warbler, siberian thrush, and thrush nightingale.


title: Fair Isle

text: The island is also home to an endemic subspecies of Eurasian wren, the Fair Isle wren "Troglodytes troglodytes fridariensis".


title: Fair Isle

text: In 1948, George Waterston founded a permanent bird observatory on the island. Because of its importance as a bird migration watchpoint, it provided most of the accommodation on the island. The first director of the observatory was Kenneth Williamson. It was unusual amongst bird observatories in providing catered, rather than hostel-style, accommodation.


title: Fair Isle

text: In 2010, a new observatory was built: a wooden lodge of two storeys, which cost £4 million and accommodated around 30 guests. The 2010 observatory building was destroyed by fire on 10 March 2019; the observatory's records had been digitised and were not affected. The cost of rebuilding was estimated at £7.4m.


title: Fair Isle

text: Other than the restaurant of the bird observatory, and its small evening-only bar, there are no pubs or restaurants on the island. There is one shop, one school and a community hall used for meetings and social events. There is no police station on the island; the main station is Lerwick and a section station is located in the village of Brae.


title: Fair Isle

text: Passenger service to the island is provided by SIC Ferries on the vessel "Good Shepherd IV" or by a nine-seat passenger aeroplane from Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, operated by regional carrier Directflight.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle is not connected to the National Grid; electricity is provided by the Fair Isle Electricity Company. From the 1980s, power was generated by two diesel generators and two wind turbines. Diesel generators were automatically switched off if wind turbines provided sufficient power. Excess capacity was distributed through a separate network for home heating, with remote frequency-sensitive programmable relays controlling water heaters and storage heaters in the buildings of the community. Following the installation of three wind turbines, combined with solar panels and batteries, in a £3.5 million scheme completed in October 2018, the island has had a 24-hour electricity supply.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle is home to two GSM 900 MHz base stations operated by Vodafone and O2. On 16 April 2019, an EE 4G antenna was turned on by Openreach.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle has a fire station equipped with a single fire appliance, and staffed by a retained fire crew of local volunteers. It was originally part of the Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service, which was absorbed into the national Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on 1 April 2013. A locally organised volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1996 by island residents. This was later absorbed into the statutory fire service, with professional training provided, and the local service designated a retained fire crew. The first purpose-built fire engine was stationed to the island in 2002.


title: Fair Isle

text: In October 2011, a contract for the construction of a £140,000 purpose-built fire station was awarded to Shetland company Ness Engineering, who completed the construction and equipping of the fire station, including its connection to the island power and water supplies, and the installation of a rainwater harvesting system within the building. The new fire station was officially opened on 14 March 2013.


title: Fair Isle

text: There is a small Coastguard cliff-rescue team on the island. Like the fire service, the Coastguard is a retained (volunteer) emergency service. The Fair Isle Coastguard cliff rescue team were the first British Coastguard unit to be equipped with a quad ATV. The quad is painted in HM Coastguard livery, with reflective Battenburg markings and has an optional equipment trailer.


title: Fair Isle

text: There are no emergency medical services on Fair Isle. Routine medical care is provided by a community nurse. In the event of accident and emergency the community nurse provides first aid until casualties can be removed to Shetland Mainland, usually by helicopter air ambulance. In severe weather conditions or life-threatening emergencies, the Coastguard helicopter can undertake the patient evacuation.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle Airport serves the island with flights to Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, and weekly to Sumburgh Airport, both on Shetland Mainland. Flights to Kirkwall on Orkney were scheduled to begin in September 2017, provided by Loganair. Private aircraft use the facility and scheduled flights arrive twice daily, three days a week. There is a small terminal building providing limited services. Fire cover is provided by the island fire service.


title: Fair Isle

text: There are two helipads on the island; one at the South Fair Isle lighthouse and used by Northern Lighthouse Board and HM Coastguard helicopters, and the other at the North Fair Isle lighthouse.


title: Fair Isle

text: There are two main harbours, north harbour and south harbour; both formed naturally, being sheltered by the headland of Bu Ness. They are separated by a narrow isthmus of gravel. The north harbour is the main route for goods, provisions, and Royal Mail postal services arriving at and departing from the island. The ferry "Good Shepherd IV" plies between Fair Isle north harbour and Grutness on Shetland Mainland. In summer only, the ferry also runs from Lerwick once every two weeks.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle has one primary school, with two classrooms. There is a full-time head teacher, and a part-time assistant teacher. The number of pupils varies over time, but has generally been between five and ten, with three pupils as of 2021. Islanders of secondary school age are generally educated off-island, on Shetland Mainland, where they board in halls of residence, returning to Fair Isle during holiday periods.


title: Fair Isle

text: Christianity is the only formally organised religion on Fair Isle. There are two churches, one Methodist, and one Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). The Methodist Church has a resident non-stipendiary minister, who reports to a full-time minister on Shetland Mainland. The Methodist Church was constructed in 1886.


title: Fair Isle

text: The Church of Scotland church was built in 1892. The Church of Scotland parish which contains Fair Isle is Dunrossness, which is linked with Sandwick, Cunningsburgh and Quarff parish. The congregation's minister is Reverend Charles H. Greig.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen "Cfb"), bordering on a subpolar oceanic climate ("Cfc"), with cool summers and mild winters. This is especially pronounced because of its location far from any sizeable landmass; Fair Isle has the smallest overall temperature range (least continental) of any weather station in the British Isles: an absolute maximum of and an absolute minimum of since 1951. This 60+ year temperature span is actually smaller than many places in inland southern England will record within a given three-month period. To further illustrate how extreme the maritime moderation at Fair Isle is, a rural location near the coastline in Northern Stockholm County on a similar latitude in Sweden broke Fair Isle's all-time records in both directions within a 48-hour period between 26 and 28 April 2014. On 19 July 2022, a maximum temperature of was registered in Fair Isle.


title: Fair Isle

text: The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was in February 2010. Rainfall, at under , is lower than one might expect for somewhere often in the main path of Atlantic depressions. This is explained by a lack of heavy convective rainfall during spring and summer months due to the absence of warm surface conditions.


title: Fair Isle

text: Fair Isle's ocean moderation is so strong that areas on the same latitudes in the Scandinavian inland less than to the east have average summer highs higher than Fair Isle's all-time record temperature, for example the Norwegian capital of Oslo and the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The all-time low is uniquely mild for European locations on the 59th parallel north. The winter daily means are comparable to many areas as far south in the British Isles as south-central England, because of the extreme maritime moderation.


title: Fair Isle

text: Most of the island is designated by NatureScot as both a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SCA). The island and its surrounding seas are also designated by NatureScot as a Special Protection Area (SPA) due to the important bird species present.


title: Fair Isle

text: In 2016 the seas around Fair Isle were designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). As of 2019 it is the only MPA in Scotland to be designated specifically as a "Demonstration and Research" MPA. The aims of this MPA designation are defined as being:


title: Military call sign

text: Military call signs are call signs assigned as unique identifiers to military communications. In wartime, monitoring an adversary's communications can be a valuable form of intelligence. Consistent call signs can aid in this monitoring, so in wartime, military units often employ tactical call signs and sometimes change them at regular intervals. In peacetime, some military stations will use fixed call signs in the international series.


title: Military call sign

text: The United States Army uses fixed station call signs which begin with "W", such as WAR, used by U.S. Army Headquarters. Tactical call signs are often assigned to a company sized unit or higher. For example, the collective "Checkmate" might be assigned to an entire company and thus "Checkmate Red 6" would be the first platoon leader (platoons are red for first, white for second, blue for third, black for headquarters, and often additional colors for other portions under the command), "Checkmate white 6" to the second platoon leader, etc. "Checkmate 6" is the Company Commander and "Checkmate 6 Romeo" is the commander's radio-telephone operator (Romeo the NATO phonetic of the letter R). Under some conventions, 6 is designated the commander or leader, 5 the second-in-command or executive officer, 7 the chief NCO. Also, companies often have the letter they are designated by ('A', 'B', 'C' or 'D') be the first letter of their call sign. This means a 'C' Company could potentially have 'Checkmate' as its call sign. One specific call sign used Army wide is DUSTOFF, dating back to the first dedicated Air Ambulance unit in Vietnam.


title: Military call sign

text: Fixed call signs for the United States Air Force stations begin with "A", such as AIR, used by USAF Headquarters.


title: Military call sign

text: The USAF also uses semi-fixed identifiers consisting of a name followed by a two or three digit number. The name is assigned to a unit on a semi-permanent basis; they change only when the U.S. Department of Defense goes to DEFCON 3. For example, JAMBO 51 would be assigned to a particular B-52 aircrew of the 5th Bomb Wing, while NODAK 1 would be an F-16 fighter with the North Dakota Air National Guard. Individual military pilots or other flight officers usually adopt a personal aviator call sign.


title: Military call sign

text: The most recognizable call sign of this type is "Air Force One", used when any Air Force aircraft is transporting the U.S. President. Similarly, when the President is flown in a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter, the call sign is Marine One. When then-president George W. Bush, a former Air National Guard fighter pilot, was flown to the aircraft carrier USS "Abraham Lincoln" in a Navy S-3B Viking, it was the first use of the "Navy One" call sign.


title: Military call sign

text: The United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, and United States Coast Guard use a mixture of tactical call signs and international call signs, with ships beginning with the letter "N". For example, the carrier USS "John F. Kennedy" had the call sign NJFK for unclassified and navigation communications with other vessels, but uses tactical call signs that vary with its mission.


title: Military call sign

text: Navy and Marine Corps aircraft will typically use a stateside naming convention based on the aircraft tail code, identifying the squadron or air wing assigned, and a three digit number painted on the aircraft's nose known as the MODEX. Examples might be "November Lima Two-Zero-One" or "Navy November Lima Two-Zero-One." Another option would be to use a unit callsign from the publication known as JANAP 119, such as "Old Nick Two-Zero-One." A Marine Corps aircraft might use a call sign like "Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two" or "Shamrock One-Zero-Two." Other tactical call signs may be employed as mission necessities dictate.


title: Military call sign

text: Coast Guard aircraft callsigns are almost always the word "Coast Guard" and the 4-digit aircraft number, e.g., "Coast Guard Six-Five-Seven-Niner," although other call signs may be used for special operations such as counter-narcotics interdiction.


title: Military call sign

text: In tactical situations, the Marine Corps utilizes call signs naming conventions similar to the Army's.


title: Military call sign

text: In May 2019, United States Navy announced new procedures for assigning call signs to pilots in training to avoid potentially racist names.