title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The founders of the fellowship did not intend to create a denomination and originally had no creed or doctrinal statement. However, in response to several doctrinal issues, the most important being the Oneness teaching, the AG felt the need for agreement on central doctrines and to reassure evangelical Christians of its adherence to orthodox belief. Oneness Pentecostalism rejected Trinitarian theology, instead identifying the Jehovah of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New. Furthermore, Oneness adherents believed that Christians, regardless of a previous baptism, should be baptized in the name of Jesus, rather than in the name of the Trinity. By 1915, it was adhered to by many in the fellowship, including founders such as Goss, Opperman, Hall, and Henry G. Rodgers. Other influential leaders, such as G. T. Haywood, adopted the Oneness doctrine as well.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In 1916, the 4th General Council met in St. Louis to resolve the "new issue". In a move that caused not a little anxiety, a committee introduced the Statement of Fundamental Truths. Oneness proponents and others saw this as an attack on the authority of the Bible, yet it was adopted along with a recommendation that AG ministers use the Trinitarian baptismal formula. Old preaching credentials were recalled and new ones issued with the Fundamental Truths included. Oneness believers, including a third of the fellowship's ministers, were forced to withdraw, a loss especially felt in the South where the Oneness doctrine had the most influence. A side effect of this was a transition in leadership from former Apostolic Faith leaders, many of whom accepted the Oneness teaching, to men with Christian and Missionary Alliance backgrounds. The Oneness dissenters formed the General Assembly of the Apostolic Churches, which later merged with another group to form the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Among the Fundamental Truths was a statement regarding speaking in tongues as the initial physical evidence of Spirit baptism. Its inclusion was challenged by F.F. Bosworth, an executive presbyter, who argued that while for many speaking in tongues was an evidence of the baptism it was not the only evidence. The issue was decided at the General Council of September 1918 where Bosworth, who two months earlier had resigned so as not to damage the fellowship, was present and invited to address the council. Following debate two resolutions were passed which assured that initial evidence would remain an official teaching of the fellowship.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: While doctrinal controversy led to the withdrawal of ministers, the fellowship experienced growth in subsequent years. District councils were organized in various regions of the country and, where these did not exist, home missionary fields were designated to maximize evangelistic efforts. In 1917, W. Jethro Walthall led his Holiness Baptist Association of southwestern Arkansas into the Assemblies of God. District councils and missionary stations were established outside the U.S. also. By 1921, there were districts in Canada (see Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada), China, Japan (see Japan Assemblies of God), India (see Assemblies of God in India), and Egypt. Central Bible College was started in the basement of the Central Assembly of God church in Springfield, Missouri, in 1922. In 1929, the fellowship claimed 91,981 members in 1,612 churches.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Despite Pentecostalism's origins in a racially inclusive revival, it accommodated itself to America's culture of racial segregation rather early; the Assemblies of God was no different. As early as 1915, an executive presbyter wrote in an article for the "Pentecostal Evangel" that segregation was "ordained of God"; however, it was not until 1939 that the General Presbytery enacted a policy prohibiting the ordination of African Americans to the ministry. Districts were still allowed to license African Americans to preach but only in the district where the license was issued. Black Pentecostals seeking ordination were referred to "one of the colored organizations". This was especially true of the Church of God in Christ, which, despite the fact that it predates the Assemblies of God, was seen as a "younger sibling". It was not until 1962, under the leadership of General Superintendent Thomas F. Zimmerman, that the denomination finally began issuing ordinations without regard to race. Three years later the 1965 General Council adopted a resolution affirming the goals of the civil rights movement and condemning racism and discrimination. By the 1970s, there was renewed focus on inner-city evangelism and integrated urban efforts.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: While blacks were excluded from the AG until the 1960s, the denomination's work among Spanish-speaking people has a long history, first sanctioned explicitly in 1918. Hispanic outreach became independent of the Foreign Missions Department in 1929 when the first Latin American District was established. By the end of World War II, the AG's Latin American constituency formed the largest Protestant presence among Hispanics in the United States. The AG also focused on major European immigrant populations, but as later generations assimilated into American culture, these separate European segments were absorbed into the regular geographic districts.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: During the time when African Americans were barred from ordination, women began to receive greater opportunities for leadership. Women formed an important part of the Assemblies of God's constituency, many being Sunday School workers and evangelists, most prominent being Aimee Semple McPherson (who would later found the Foursquare Church). This made the issue of women's place in the movement important in the 1930s. It was also recognized that many congregations who could not afford male pastors relied on women preachers. Although opposition to female pastors had been regularly affirmed since 1914, the office of pastor was opened to women in 1935.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Between the World Wars, the movement kept a relative isolation from other Pentecostal and evangelical groups, but after World War II, the AG started an approximation with Pentecostal groups overseas. Like the Federation of Pentecostal Churches in Germany and the Assemblies of God in Australia, at that time many national denominations came to affiliate with the U.S. fellowship. These partnerships would later develop into the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. As well as establishing fellowships in other nations, the AG also began to communicate with other U.S. churches. The Assemblies of God was a founding member of both the National Association of Evangelicals and the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (now Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America).


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In the 1950s, the AG was challenged by the Latter Rain movement, which began among former members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, the AG's Canadian counterpart, and quickly spread to the United States. The "New Order" as it was known was highly critical of denominations, such as the AG, and taught that the gifts of the Spirit are channeled through church elders and are given to others by the laying on of hands. However, the Assemblies of God and other classical Pentecostal groups maintained that the charismata are not personally received or imparted but are manifested as the Holy Spirit wills. In 1949 with a meeting of the General Council approaching, there were fears that the fellowship might split over the Latter Rain issue, but in the end, the General Council was united against what were seen as the excesses of the movement. A General Council resolution specified six errors which included: imparting, identifying, bestowing, or confirming gifts by prophecy and the laying on of hands. It also rejected the idea that the Church is built on present-day apostles and prophets. The Latter Rain theology of no pre-tribulation rapture and the manifested sons of God teaching were condemned as heresy. The Latter Rain and the Salvation/Healing Revival of the late 1940s and 50s would be a major influence on later renewal movements.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The affiliation of the Assemblies of God with the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942 signaled the AG's alignment with evangelicalism and its opposition to mainline Protestantism and the ecumenical movement. The AG and its evangelical partners agreed on most issues and shared similar world views though the AG's Pentecostal distinctives—Spirit baptism and the operation of spiritual gifts—were not embraced by most evangelical Christians. The AG's response then to the charismatic movement that began in the 1960s was a cautious one, affirming the move of the Holy Spirit yet urging that all revival must be judged by scripture. For the first time, beliefs and practices which had largely remained confined to the classical Pentecostal denominations began to impact mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches on a large scale (see: Catholic Charismatic Renewal). The fact that this occurred in these churches (which were historically seen by Pentecostals as suspect), the multifaceted nature of the movement owing to the many different traditions its participants came from, and the perception by Pentecostals that the movement was based too much on experience and not on biblical teaching led some in the Assemblies of God to see it in relation to the ecumenical movement.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The charismatic movement forced a reevaluation of what it was to be Pentecostal. The Assemblies of God understood Spirit baptism in the context of baptistic evangelical theology and, by the 1950s, emphasized certain doctrines and practices as requisite for Spirit baptism. Charismatics challenged these views by claiming to receive Holy Spirit baptism outside of this context (such as remaining in liturgical churches, failing to reject sacramental theologies, and not adopting Pentecostal taboos on dancing, drinking, smoking, etc.). On the local level, Assemblies of God churches were influenced by the charismatic movement. Some charismatics left their original churches and joined less formal Assemblies of God congregations. In addition, the contemporary decreased emphasis on traditional Pentecostal taboos in the AG is in part attributable to the charismatic movement, which accelerated a trend already in existence.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Since their movement's emergence early in the 20th century, Pentecostals saw themselves as "peculiar people", and one of the components of this identity were particular prohibitions on behavior. Prohibitions on drug use, gambling, social dancing, consuming alcohol, smoking, attending theaters, bowling, swimming in public pools and beaches, owning television sets, and restrictions on feminine attire and fashion helped distinguish Pentecostals from the larger society. Starting in the 1950s, attitudes in the Assemblies of God on many of these activities underwent dramatic change. The most change probably occurred over views on women's attire, with the former stance against wearing make-up and jewelry giving way to the acceptance of popular fashion. Most of these "holiness standards" are no longer adhered to; however, some are still held to, such as proscriptions on smoking, alcohol and drug use.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: For much of its history, the Assemblies of God officially opposed Christian participation in war and was listed by "The Pacifist Handbook" as America's third largest peace church in 1940. The official position of the church until 1967 encouraged Christian nonviolence: "We . . . are nevertheless constrained to declare we cannot conscientiously participate in war and armed resistance which involves the actual destruction of human life, since this is contrary to our view of the clear teachings of the inspired Word of God". Most of the founders and first generation members of the denomination held to this view, and it was presented as official teaching throughout World War I and World War II. The official pacifist position remained unchanged until 1967 when the denomination affirmed "the right of each member to choose whether to declare their position as a combatant, a noncombatant, or a conscientious objector". This was the culmination of a process begun during World War I, when it was unpopular to hold antiwar views, in which AG adherents questioned their denomination's pacifist stance.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God emerged as the leading Pentecostal denomination in terms of status, wealth, influence, and global adherence. In the 1980s, the Assemblies of God saw rapid growth in the US, for several years ranking as the fastest growing American denomination. This growth was mainly the result of its Hispanic outreach (in 1988 Hispanic members made up some 15 percent of the fellowship's total constituency). The growth of an Asian immigrant constituency was also recognized in this decade when the first Korean district was created. The Assemblies of God gained national visibility in the late 1980s from the popularity and later scandals surrounding two of its ministers, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. The Assemblies of God launched an effort to increase evangelism and growth in the 1990s called the "Decade of Harvest". Such efforts failed to sustain the impressive growth of the 1980s, however. From 2003 to 2008, growth had slowed to an average annual increase of just over 1 percent.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: With increased growth came increased acceptance and acculturation. Since the 1980s, a growing number of AG ministers have been educated and risen to leadership positions at evangelical institutions, such as Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This "evangelicalization of the Assemblies of God" has led to the weakening of Pentecostal distinctives, especially the doctrine of initial evidence. Other traditional practices, such as holding prayer meetings and altar services, have faded over time as well. Despite the efforts of denominational leaders to reassert Pentecostal identity and remain more than "evangelicals plus tongues", the process of acculturation has continued. Additionally, the Assemblies of God leadership alongside other predominantly and traditionally white Christian denominations renounced racism during the 1990s, seeking to reconcile with the Church of God in Christ and others.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Even so, churches within the Assemblies of God have experienced revivals from the 1990s and early 2000s which featured worship and practices reminiscent of early Pentecostalism. The most prominent of these was the Brownsville Revival, which occurred at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, from 1995 into the early 2000s. These revivals often faced criticism from within and without the Assemblies of God for their unpredictability and the dramatic religious experiences of participants. In the case of the Brownsville Revival, the AG's national leadership gave it cautious approval and support.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The central beliefs of the Assemblies of God are summarized in its Statement of Fundamental Truths. The following is a summary of these 16 non-negotiable Truths:


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The AG considers salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, divine healing and the Second Coming of Christ to be its four core beliefs.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Statement of Fundamental Truths states, "Man's only hope of redemption is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God". The Assemblies of God holds the Arminian position on salvation. While it agrees with the Calvinist position that God is sovereign, at the same time, it believes that mankind has free will—free to accept or reject God's gift of salvation and eternal life. Therefore, the Assemblies of God disapproves of the doctrines of double predestination and the unconditional security of the believer, which holds that once saved it is impossible for a person to be lost. Instead, the Assemblies of God believes that salvation is received and kept by faith, if faith in Christ is lost, then salvation is lost.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: According to the Statement of Fundamental Truths, "All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek" the baptism in the Spirit. It also states, "This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church". It is a separate experience from and occurs after salvation. This baptism gives to the receiver an "enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry". There are four experiences listed in the Fundamental Truths that result from Spirit baptism: "overflowing fullness of the Spirit", "a deepened reverence for God", intensified consecration and dedication to God and his work, and "a more active love for Christ, for His Word and for the lost". In addition, this experience initiates the believer in the use of spiritual gifts. The "initial physical sign" of having received this baptism is "speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance".


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues is a requirement for ministerial licensing and ordination. However, Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues is "not" a requirement for membership or participation in an Assembly of God church. An increasing minority of pastors has expressed concern that there is a lack of biblical support for the claim that Spirit baptism must always be accompanied with speaking in tongues. This concern corresponds with a decrease in the number of Assembly of God adherents reporting baptism in the Holy Spirit; according to the AG's Office of Statistics as of 2003 less than 50 percent of adherents had this experience. These challenges to the AG's traditional position were noted in a 2007 report by the AG's Spiritual Life Committee:


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Despite these challenges, in 2009, the 53rd General Council passed a resolution reaffirming the doctrine of initial physical evidence.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God understands divine healing to have been provided for in the atonement. Looking to scripture, such as and , the AG believes that Christians can pray for healing. Indeed, it believes scripture gives elders of the church the responsibility to pray "the prayer of faith" over the sick. It believes God can and does heal, but believes that God is sovereign and that, whether one is healed or not, a person's trust must be in God. It sees no conflict in trusting God for healing while receiving medical care. Healing testimonies regularly appear in the official publication, the "Pentecostal Evangel", and prayer for healing and testimony commonly occur in church services.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: While adamant that divine healing is a reality, the AG is not dogmatic on the subject of how one is healed. Margaret Poloma summarized this view stating, "Physical healing is not certain, automatic, or subject to formula. At the same time, it remains a tenet and practice of the Assemblies of God". Officially, the AG rejects the view that healing is caused or influenced by "positive confession", a belief found in prosperity theology and Word of Faith teachings. Nevertheless, these teachings have influenced some congregations.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Statement of Fundamental Truths articles 13 and 14 articulate the Assemblies of God's official teaching on the return of Christ to Earth. It is a dispensationalist and premillennialist eschatology that includes the pre-Tribulation rapture of the Church—the "imminent and blessed hope". The rapture of the Church will be followed by Christ's visible return to earth and his reign of 1,000 years. This millennial reign will usher in the salvation of the nation of Israel and universal peace. The Assemblies of God is specifically opposed to the theologies and practices of universal salvation, setting dates for Christ's return, post-Tribulation rapture, and amillennialism.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God has released statements on various issues not addressed in the Statement of Fundamental Truths. These position papers are usually written by the Doctrinal Purity Commission, a standing committee of the General Council, which reviews and responds to issues referred to it by the Executive Presbytery. Position papers are not official positions of the Assemblies of God unless recommended by the Executive Presbytery and approved by the General Council. Position statements touch on biblical, theological, and social concerns.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Because of the congregational nature of the Assemblies of God, it is difficult to define a typical local church. Church identity is influenced by members' social class, ethnicity, and musical or worship style preferences. Sociologists Margaret Poloma and John Green have categorized AG congregations into four types: traditional, evangelical, renewalist, and alternative. Traditional congregations are those that strongly identify with the AG (and Pentecostalism in general), while encouraging "more intense experiences of the "charismata", or gifts of the Holy Spirit" such as Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues. Evangelical AG congregations, the most common type, identify with the AG and Pentecostalism but "are moving (in varying degrees) away from the unique experiences that were once important markers of Pentecostal identity". Renewalist or charismatic AG churches are those that encourage supernatural gifts of the Spirit but weakly identify with the AG or Pentecostalism. Alternative churches are those where both identity with the AG and occurrence of unique Pentecostal experiences are low; these include churches adopting seeker-sensitive and emerging church models.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Despite the diversity found in the AG, shared beliefs and values are reflected in local churches. The Assemblies of God is "experience-oriented", and the local church is where experience of the activity of the Holy Spirit will primarily occur. Regular services are usually held on Sunday mornings and Sunday and Wednesday evenings. There is no formal liturgy or order of service; though, many churches have a familiar routine: opening prayer, congregational and special singing, an offering, a time of intercessory prayer, a sermon, and an altar call. In the traditional and charismatic AG churches, this routine is subject to change spontaneously within a service—possibly being interrupted by an interpretation of a message in tongues, a prophecy, a word of wisdom, or a word of knowledge—and this change is believed to be directed by the Holy Spirit. In addition, evening services may incorporate a time of prayer for those who are seeking something from God either around the altar or in an adjacent prayer room.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: During praise and worship, participants may raise their hands as an act of worship. Congregational singing is usually led by a choir or worship team. Full drum sets, a piano, an organ, and various other instruments are frequently used. The type of music sung is generally popular worship choruses, such as those by Calvary Chapel and Hillsong. Worship is often characterized as intense and enthusiastic.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Prayer features prominently in services. Services may feature moments where special prayer is offered, often with laypersons leading the prayer and the rest of the congregation audibly participating. During these corporate prayers, some may pray in tongues. While not in every service, the pastor will pray for the sick. This prayer may include the pastor anointing the sick with olive oil and with the assistance of church elders along with pastoral associates laying hands on the one seeking healing.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Architecturally, smaller churches will feature bright lighting, large windows, a simple platform with a pulpit in the center, and an altar ("a bench across the front of the church below the platform"). Larger churches will have direct access from the balcony to the main sanctuary near the platform so that respondents to altar calls can easily come forward, a large open area in front of the platform to accommodate altar call gatherings, and the platform itself is usually large to accommodate a large choir and musical instruments. Because the Assemblies of God practice baptism by immersion, many churches will include a baptistry at the rear of the platform.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God is defined in its constitution as a "cooperative fellowship" of "churches and credentialed ministers". It has a representative form of government derived from presbyterian polity and organized in three levels of administration: congregations, district councils and the General Council. The AG has, however, elements of congregational polity, which are limited by the powers of the districts and General Council to license and discipline ordained ministers.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God uses several classifications of congregations based on their level of local autonomy and their relationship to the General Council. Mature, fully functioning congregations are classified as "General Council affiliated churches". These churches are "sovereign" and self-governing, but in matters of doctrine local assemblies are subordinate to districts and the General Council. A church is qualified for General Council affiliated status if it:


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Each local church operates according to its own bylaws and calls its own pastor. The office of pastor is equivalent to that of elder or overseer and is tasked with preaching and teaching the Word of God, in addition to conducting the day-to-day operations of the church. Laypersons are elected as a board of deacons to assist the pastor. A General Council affiliated church may withdraw from the Assemblies of God by a two-thirds vote of the church membership.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: At the request of the pastor, deacon board, or 20 percent of voting members, district officials may intervene in the internal affairs of a General Council affiliated church. If district leaders conclude that district supervision is warranted, the church will lose its status as a self-governing church and revert to the status of "district affiliated assembly" until its problems are resolved. A church may also revert to district affiliated status if it no longer meets the minimum requirements for General Council membership, such as having less than 20 voting members.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Local churches, sections, and district councils are able to establish new churches. A church plant may initially be classified as "district affiliated" until it meets requirements for General Council affiliation. District affiliated congregations are under the direct supervision of district officials but are encouraged to develop into fully self-governing churches. In 2009, the General Council created a new category called "parent affiliated churches". These are either church plants or campuses of a multi-site church under the supervision of a General Council affiliated "parent" church.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Existing Pentecostal churches considering affiliation with the General Council may request temporary status as a "cooperating assembly" for a term of four years before officially joining the denomination.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Churches are organized into sections and sections into middle judicatories called districts. The 61 districts oversee "all the ecclesial and sacerdotal activities" within their jurisdiction, which includes recommending ministers for national credentialing and mediating disputes within local congregations. There are two types of districts. Geographical districts serve areas corresponding to state boundaries, while non-geographical language or ethnic districts serve a particular language or ethnic group, such as Hispanic and Samoan churches.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Districts are governed by representative bodies called "district councils", which meet annually. District council membership includes all resident ministers and one lay delegate per AG church located within the district. When the district council is not in session, a district is led by a superintendent and a presbytery (board of directors) whose members are elected by and represent the sections. A presbyter "minister[s] to ministers" and "model[s] spiritual maturity and leadership" to the ministers and churches in his section.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: At the top of this organizational framework is the biennial General Council, the highest governing body of the Assemblies of God. All ordained and licensed ministers and one delegate per Assembly of God church are entitled to attend and participate at the General Council. The size of General Council is not static but fluctuating, changing from year to year as there is no requirement that pastors attend or that churches send delegates. In general, however, there are over 3,000 voting members.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: General Council enacts legislation, credentials ministers, oversees the national and worldwide missions programs, and directs the church's colleges and seminary. The General Council also elects the general superintendent—the chief executive officer of the national organization—and other officers, such as the assistant general superintendent, general secretary, general treasurer, and the directors of U.S. and world missions. These manage the AG's day-to-day operations and work together as the Executive Leadership Team.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In between General Council sessions, approximately 300 elected representatives from the various districts and foreign mission areas meet as the General Presbytery. When the General Council is not in session, the General Presbytery acts as the official policy-making body of the Assemblies of God.<ref name="columbiaA/G"></ref> A 20-member Executive Presbytery, led by the Executive Leadership Team, meets bimonthly and functions as the Assemblies of God's board of directors. Executive Presbyters are responsible to the General Presbytery and are ex officio members of that body.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The office of General Superintendent was originally known as the Chairman of the General Council, until it was changed in 1927. The outgoing General Superintendent of the General Council is Dr. George O. Wood. Wood's tenure began October 8, 2007. On August 9, 2017, Rev. Doug Clay was elected to replace Wood.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God recognizes three classifications of ministers: certified, licensed, and ordained. District councils examine candidates for all levels of ministry and recommend those qualified to the Executive Presbytery (which is the General Council's Credentials Committee), which has authority to issue ministerial credentials. The AG's constitution guarantees that "formal academic achievement (diploma or degree) shall not be a requirement for credentials", but the General Presbytery does mandate courses and examinations.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In preparation for receiving credentials, applicants must either complete correspondence courses through Global University (the AG's distance education program), receive training through a postsecondary institution such as a college or seminary approved by the AG, or be recommended by a district credentials committee as qualifying for credentials based on self-study and ministerial experience of "substantial duration". In addition, applicants must pass a standardized exam that tests their knowledge of the Bible, AG doctrines, and ministerial practices. After passing the exam, they are interviewed by their district's credentials committee. If judged qualified, the district will recommend the applicant to the General Council credentials committee.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God will not grant credentials to divorced and remarried persons if either partner has a former spouse living unless for specific exceptions. Exceptions include if the divorce occurred prior to an applicant's conversion or for "scriptural causes" such as a former spouse's marital unfaithfulness or the abandonment of a Christian by a non-Christian partner (see Pauline privilege). The Executive Presbytery has authority to issue ecclesiastical annulments in cases involving conditions that prevent "the creation of a valid marriage union", such as fraud. Clergy are also barred from membership in secret societies.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies also recognize a "local church credential", which can be issued by a General Council affiliated church for those engaged only in local ministry, such as prison or hospital ministry. Local church credential holders may perform the ordinances of the church with the authorization of the issuing church's senior pastor.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In 2008, there were a total of 34,178 Assemblies of God ministers (excluding local church credentials). Of these, 11,544 were senior pastors and 6,730 were female.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: A primary reason the General Council was formed in 1914 was to create cooperation in Pentecostal missionary work. Missions have remained a central focus of the denomination since that time. In 2009, there were Assemblies of God churches in 213 countries and territories around the world. Missionary work outside of the United States is overseen by Assemblies of God World Missions. As of December 2009, AG World Missions was reporting 2,719 personnel worldwide. The agency also provides medical evangelism through HealthCare Ministries, founded in 1983 as the Medical Missions Program. This ministry provides free optical, dental, and medical care as well as evangelism. It has operated in 86 countries since its founding.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Missions in the United States are overseen by Assemblies of God U.S. Missions. Its seven departments include chaplaincy, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, church planting, U.S. Mission America Placement Service (MAPS), intercultural ministries, Teen Challenge, and Youth Alive. MAPS offers volunteers the opportunity to contribute to U.S. missions in several ways. One is through church construction and evangelism, and another is through short or long term missions through summer and missionary associate programs. Youth Alive oversees missionary outreach to elementary and high schools. In 2010, U.S. Missions reported 1,059 appointed missionaries, candidates, and spouses. The same year, it reported 542 endorsed chaplains.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: In the United States, the Assemblies of God endorses 10 Bible colleges, 7 universities, and the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. Enrollment for all AG endorsed colleges and universities was 15,584 for 2013.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Assemblies of God churches operate 842 Christian schools, which may have membership with the Association of Christian Teachers and Schools (ACTS), incorporated as the Association of Assemblies of God Christian Schools in 1992. In 2008, there were 105,563 students enrolled in these schools.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God operates Gospel Publishing House, located in Springfield, Missouri, which publishes books, curriculum, and church ministry resources primarily for Pentecostals and charismatics, but also for the general evangelical market. The Assemblies of God publishes an official weekly magazine, the "Pentecostal Evangel", and "Enrichment Journal", a resource for Pentecostal ministers.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The Assemblies of God in the United States "has grown steadily during the 20th century". In 1925, there were just 50,386 members in 909 churches, but by the early 1970s membership had reached 1 million. Its most rapid growth occurred from 1971 to 1984, when the AG grew from a constituency of around 1 million to 2 million over a 13-year period. In 2019, average Sunday morning worship attendance for all AG churches in the U.S. was 1,993,370 people a drop of 1.7 percent from the previous year. In the same year, the AG's inclusive adherents (includes persons of any age that identify with the AG) was 3,295,923 people attending 12,986 churches, reflecting slight increases from the previous year.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The ethnic diversity of the American AG is increasing; however, its constituency is still largely white. From 1990 to 2000, there was a slight decline in white AG churches while ethnic churches, mainly Hispanic, were responsible for much of the denomination's numerical growth. In 2010, the AG reported 61.1 percent of its adherents as white, 20.4 percent as Hispanic, 9.1 percent as black, 4.1 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1.6 percent as Native American. The remaining 3.7 percent were listed as other/mixed.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: The AG has created various non-geographical language districts to serve immigrant communities whose primary language is not English. There are nine Spanish and two Korean language districts in addition to one each for Brazilian and German speakers. In 2009, the language districts oversaw 2,195 churches with a combined membership of 279,422.


title: Assemblies of God USA

text: Members are well distributed across the United States. California has the largest number of members, followed by Texas and Florida. However, the states with the highest membership rates are Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii. Growing AG congregations tend to be located in suburban areas, as opposed to urban and rural ones.


title: Tower block

text: A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. It is used as a residential, office building, or other functions including hotel, retail, or with multiple purposes combined. Residential high-rise buildings are also known in some varieties of English, such as British English, as tower blocks and may be referred to as MDUs, standing for multi-dwelling units. A very tall high-rise building is referred to as a skyscraper.


title: Tower block

text: High-rise buildings became possible to construct with the invention of the elevator (lift) and with less expensive, more abundant building materials. The materials used for the structural system of high-rise buildings are reinforced concrete and steel. Most North American-style skyscrapers have a steel frame, while residential blocks are usually constructed of concrete. There is no clear difference between a tower block and a skyscraper, although a building with forty or more stories and taller than is generally considered a skyscraper.


title: Tower block

text: High-rise structures pose particular design challenges for structural and geotechnical engineers, particularly if situated in a seismically active region or if the underlying soils have geotechnical risk factors such as high compressibility or bay mud. They also pose serious challenges to firefighters during emergencies in high-rise structures. New and old building design, building systems like the building standpipe system, HVAC systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), fire sprinkler system and other things like stairwell and elevator evacuations pose significant problems. Studies are often required to ensure that pedestrian wind comfort and wind danger concerns are addressed. In order to allow less wind exposure, to transmit more daylight to the ground and to appear more slender, many high-rises have a design with setbacks.


title: Tower block

text: Apartment buildings have technical and economic advantages in areas of high population density, and have become a distinctive feature of housing accommodation in virtually all densely populated urban areas around the world. In contrast with low-rise and single-family houses, apartment blocks accommodate more inhabitants per unit of area of land and decrease the cost of municipal infrastructure.


title: Tower block

text: High-rise apartment buildings had already appeared in antiquity: the "insulae" in Ancient Rome and several other cities in the Roman Empire, some of which might have reached up to ten or more stories, one reportedly having 200 stairs. Because of the destruction caused by poorly built high-rise "insulae" collapsing, several Roman emperors, beginning with Augustus (r. 30 BC – 14 AD), set limits of for multi-story buildings, but met with limited success, as these limits were often ignored despite the likelihood of taller "insulae" collapsing. The lower floors were typically occupied by either shops or wealthy families, while the upper stories were rented out to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-story buildings even existed in provincial towns, such as in third century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt.


title: Tower block

text: In Arab Egypt, the initial capital city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. Al-Muqaddasi, in the 10th century, described them as resembling minarets, while Nasir Khusraw, in the early 11th century, described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top story complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them. By the 16th century, Cairo also had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.


title: Tower block

text: The skyline of many important medieval cities was dominated by large numbers of high-rising urban towers, which fulfilled defensive but also representative purposes. The residential Towers of Bologna numbered between 80 and 100 at a time, the largest of which still rise to 97.2 m. In Florence, a law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings should be reduced to a height of less than 26 m, the regulation immediately put into effect. Even medium-sized towns such as San Gimignano are known to have featured 72 towers up to 51 m in height.


title: Tower block

text: The Hakka people in southern China have adopted communal living structures designed to be easily defensible in the forms of Weilongwu (围龙屋) and Tulou (土楼), the latter are large, enclosed and fortified earth building, between three and five stories high and housing up to 80 families. The oldest still standing tulou dates back from the 14th century.


title: Tower block

text: High rises were built in the Yemeni city of Shibam in the 16th century. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks, but about five hundred of them are tower houses, which rise five to sixteen stories high, with each floor having one or two apartments. This technique of building was implemented to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has existed for around two thousand years, most of the city's houses date from the 16th century. The city has the tallest mud buildings in the world, some more than 30 meters (100 feet) high. Shibam has been called "one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction" or "Manhattan of the desert".


title: Tower block

text: The engineer's definition of high-rise buildings comes from the development of fire trucks in the late 19th century. Magirus had shown the first cogwheel sliding ladder in 1864. The first turntable ladder drawn by horses was developed in 1892 which had a length of 25 meters. The extension ladder was motorized by Magirus in 1904. The definition of a maximum of 22 meters for the highest floor was common in the building regulations at the time and it is still so today in Germany. The common height for turntable ladders did later go to 32 meters (100 feet), so that 30 meter is a common limit in some building regulations today, for example in Switzerland. Any building that exceeds the height of the usual turntable ladders in a city must install additional fire safety equipment, so that these high-rise buildings have a different section in the building regulations in the world.


title: Tower block

text: Currently, the tallest high-rise apartment building in the world is the Central Park Tower on Billionaires' Row in Midtown Manhattan, towering at .


title: Tower block

text: The residential tower block with its typical concrete construction are a familiar feature of Modernist architecture. Influential examples include Le Corbusier's "housing unit" his "Unité d'Habitation", repeated in various European cities starting with his "Cité radieuse" in Marseille (1947–52), constructed of "béton brut", rough-cast concrete, as steel for framework was unavailable in post-war France. Residential tower blocks became standard in housing urban populations displaced by slum clearances and "urban renewal".


title: Tower block

text: High-rise projects after World War II typically rejected the classical designs of the early skyscrapers, instead embracing the uniform international style; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even got demolished - such as New York's Singer Building, once the world's tallest skyscraper. However, with the movements of Postmodernism, New Urbanism, and New Classical Architecture, that established since the 1980s, a more classical approach came back to global skyscraper design, that is popular today.


title: Tower block

text: Other contemporary styles and movements in highrise design include organic, sustainable, neo-futurist, structuralist, high-tech, deconstructivist, blob, digital, streamline, novelty, critical regionalist, vernacular, Neo Art Deco, and neohistorist, also known as revivalist.


title: Tower block

text: Residential tower complexes are common in Asian countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Pakistan, Iran and South Korea, as urban densities are very high. In Singapore and urban Hong Kong, land prices are so high that a large portion of the population lives in high-rise apartments. In fact, over 60% of Hong Kong residents live in apartments, many of them condominiums. Of them in 2020, 2,112,138 were identified residents of public housing, which is 28% of the total population.


title: Tower block

text: Sarah Williams Goldhagen (2012) celebrated the work of innovative architecture firms such as WOHA (based in Singapore), Mass Studies (based in Seoul), Amateur Architecture Studio (based in Hangzhou, China), and the New York City-based Steven Holl in the transformation of residential towers into "vertical communities" or "vertical cities in the sky" providing aesthetic, unusually designed silhouettes on the skyline, comfortable private spaces and attractive public spaces. None of these "functional, handsome, and humane high-rise residential buildings" are affordable housing.


title: Tower block

text: The 2012 Pritzker Prize was awarded to Chinese architect Wang Shu. Among his winning designs is the Vertical Courtyard Apartments, six 26-story towers by his architectural firm Amateur Architecture Studio built in Hangzhou. "These towers were designed to house two-story apartments, in which every inhabitant would enjoy “the illusion of living on the second floor”, accomplished by folding concrete floor planes (like “bamboo mats,” claims the firm), so that every third story opens into a private courtyard. In the larger towers, the two-story units are stacked slightly askew, adding to the visual interest of the variegated façades (Goldhagen 2012)."


title: Tower block

text: Housing in Japan includes various traits coming from different eras. The word "danchi" now either means an employer-provided housing or has a meaning similar to "projects". For modern hi-rises, there are two borrowed words to make a distinction:


title: Tower block

text: In South Korea, the tower blocks are called Apartment Complex (). The first residential towers began to be built after the Korean War. The South Korean government needed to build many apartment complexes in the cities to be able to accommodate the citizens. In the 60 years since, as the population increased considerably, tower blocks have become more common. This time, however, the new tower blocks integrated shopping malls, parking systems, and other convenient facilities.


title: Tower block

text: In Seoul, approximately 80 percent of its residents live in apartment complexes which comprise 98 percent of recent residential construction. Seoul proper is noted for its population density, eight times greater than Rome, though less than Manhattan and Paris. Its metropolitan area is the densest in the OECD.


title: Tower block

text: Although some Central and Eastern European countries during the interwar period, such as the Second Polish Republic, already started building housing estates that were considered to be of a very high standard for their time, many of these structures perished during the Second World War.


title: Tower block

text: In the Eastern Bloc, tower blocks were constructed in great numbers to produce plenty of cheap accommodation for the growing postwar populations of the USSR and its satellite states. This took place mostly in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s of the 20th century, though in the People's Republic of Poland this process started even earlier due to the severe damages that Polish cities sustained during World War II. Throughout the former Eastern Bloc countries, tower blocks built during the Soviet years make up much of the current housing estates and most of them were built in the specific socialist realist style of architecture that was dominant in the territories east of the Iron Curtain: blocky buildings of that era are colloquially known as Khrushchyovka. In Romania, the mass construction of standardized housing blocks began in the 1950s and 1960s with the outskirts of the cities, some of which were made up of slums. Construction continued in the 1970s and 1980s, under the systematization programme of Nicolae Ceaușescu, which consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, in order to build blocks of flats ("blocuri"), as a result of increasing urbanization following an accelerated industrialization process. In Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), panelák building under communism resulted from two main factors: the postwar housing shortage and the ideology of communist Czechoslovak leaders.


title: Tower block

text: In Eastern European countries, opinions about these buildings vary greatly, with some deeming them as eyesores on their city's landscape while others glorify them as relics of a bygone age. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many of the former Eastern Bloc countries have begun construction of new, more expensive and modern housing. The Śródmieście borough of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, has seen the development of an array of skyscrapers. Russia is also currently undergoing a dramatic buildout, growing a commercially shaped skyline. Moreover, the ongoing changes made to postwar housing estates since the 2000s in former communist countries vary - ranging from simply applying a new coat of paint to the previously grey exterior to thorough modernization of entire buildings.


title: Tower block

text: In the European Union, among former communist states, a majority of the population lives in flats in Latvia (65.1%), Estonia (63.8%), Lithuania (58.4%), Czech Republic (52.8%), and Slovakia (50.3%) (, data from Eurostat). However, not all flat dwellers in Eastern Europe live in communist era blocks of flats; many live in buildings constructed after the fall of communism, and some in buildings surviving from the era before communism.


title: Tower block

text: In Western Europe, there are fewer high-rise buildings because of the historic city centres. In the 1960s, developers began demolishing older buildings to replace them with modern high-rise buildings.


title: Tower block

text: In Brussels there are numerous modern high-rise buildings in the Northern Quarter business district. The government of Belgium wants to recreate Washington, D.C. on a small scale.


title: Tower block

text: Tower blocks were first built in the United Kingdom after the Second World War, and were seen as a cheap way to replace 19th-century urban slums and war-damaged buildings. They were originally seen as desirable, but quickly fell out of favour as tower blocks attracted rising crime and social disorder, particularly after the collapse of Ronan Point in 1968.


title: Tower block

text: Although Tower blocks are controversial and numerous examples have been demolished, many still remain in large cities. Due to lack of proper regulation, some tower blocks present a significant fire risk and even though there have been efforts to make them more safe, modern safety precautions can be prohibitively expensive to retrofit. The Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 was partly caused by council ignorance, as a local action group complained to the council about the fire hazards of the tower several years before the incident, yet remedial work had not been carried out. This fire further made tower blocks less desirable to British residents.


title: Tower block

text: There are old high-rise buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s in areas of London such as Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, and virtually any area in London with council housing. Some new high-rises are being built in areas such as Central London, Southwark, and Nine Elms. In East London, some old high-rises are being gentrified and new high-rises that previously didn't exist are also being built in areas like Stratford, London and Canary Wharf.


title: Tower block

text: The majority of residential high rise buildings in the Republic of Ireland were concentrated in the suburb of Ballymun, Dublin. The Ballymun Flats were built between 1966 and 1969: seven 15-story towers, nineteen 8-story blocks and ten 4-story blocks. These were the "seven towers" referred to in the U2 song "Running to Stand Still". They have since been demolished. Inner Dublin flat complexes, typically of 4-5 storeys include Sheriff Street (demolished), Fatima Mansions (demolished and redeveloped), St Joseph's Gardens (demolished; replaced by Killarney Court flat complex), St Teresa's Gardens, Dolphin House, Liberty House, St Michael's Estate (8 storeys) and O'Devaney Gardens and a lot more mainly throughout the north and south inner city of Dublin. Suburban flat complexes were built exclusively on the northside of the city in Ballymun, Coolock and Kilbarrack. These flats were badly affected by a heroin epidemic that hit working-class areas of Dublin in the 1980s and early 90s.


title: Tower block

text: Tower blocks in Northern Ireland were never built to the frequency as in cities on the island of Great Britain, but taller high rises are generally more common than in the Republic of Ireland. Most tower blocks and flat complexes are found in Belfast although many of these have been demolished since the 1990s and replaced with traditional public housing units. The mid-rise Divis flats complex in west Belfast was built in between 1968 and 1972. It was demolished in the early 1990s as the residents demanded new houses due to mounting problems with the flats. Divis Tower, built separately in 1966, still stands, however; and in 2007 work began to convert the former British Army base at the top two floors into new dwellings. Divis Tower was for several decades Ireland's tallest residential building, having since being surpassed by the privately owned Obel Tower in the city centre. In the north of the city, the iconic seven-tower complex in the New Lodge remains, although so too the problems that residents face, such as poor piping and limited sanitation. Farther north, the four tower blocks in Rathcoole dominate the local skyline, while in south Belfast, the tower blocks in Seymour Hill, Belvoir & Finaghy remain standing.


title: Tower block

text: In Canada, large multi-family buildings are usually known as "apartment buildings" or "apartment blocks" if they are rented from one common landowner, or "condominiums" or "condo towers" if each dwelling unit is individually owned; they may be called "low-rise" (or "walk-up"), "mid-rise", "high-rise", or "skyscraper" depending on their height. Tall residential towers are a staple building type in all large cities. Their relative prominence in Canadian cities varies substantially, however. In general, more populated cities have more high-rises than smaller cities, due to a relative scarcity of land and a greater demand for housing.


title: Tower block

text: However, some cities such as Quebec City and Halifax have fewer high-rise buildings due to several factors: a focus on historic preservation, height restrictions, and lower growth rates. In middle-sized cities with a relatively low population density, such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, or Hamilton, there are more apartment towers but they are greatly outnumbered by single-family houses. Most of the largest residential towers in Canada are found in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver—the country's most densely populated cities.


title: Tower block

text: Toronto contains the second largest concentration of high-rise apartment buildings in North America (after New York). In Canada, like in other New World countries, but unlike Western Europe, most high-rise towers are located in the city centre (or "downtown"), where smaller, older buildings were demolished to make way in redevelopment schemes.


title: Tower block

text: In the United States, tower blocks are commonly referred to as "midrise" or "highrise apartment buildings", depending on their height, while buildings that house fewer flats (apartments), or are not as tall as the tower blocks, are called "lowrise apartment buildings". Specifically, "midrise" buildings are as tall as the streets are wide, allowing 5 hours of sunlight on the street.


title: Tower block

text: Some of the first residential towers were the Castle Village towers in Manhattan, New York City, completed in 1939. Their cross-shaped design was copied in towers in Parkchester and Stuyvesant Town residential developments.


title: Tower block

text: The government's experiments in the 1960s and 70s to use high-rise apartments as a means of providing the housing solution for the poor broadly resulted in failure. Made in the tower in the park style, all but a few high-rise housing projects in the nation's largest cities, such as Cabrini–Green and Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, Penn South in Manhattan, and the Desire Projects in New Orleans, fell victim to the "ghettofication" and are now being torn down, renovated, or replaced. Another example is the former Pruitt–Igoe complex in St. Louis, torn down in the 1970s.


title: Tower block

text: In contrast to their public housing cousins, commercially developed high-rise apartment buildings continue to flourish in cities around the country largely due to high land prices and the housing boom of the 2000s. The Upper East Side in New York City, featuring high-rise apartments, is the wealthiest urban neighborhood in the United States.


title: Tower block

text: Currently, the tallest residential building in the world is Central Park Tower located in Midtown Manhattan, having a height of with the highest occupied floor at .


title: Tower block

text: High-rise living in Australia was limited to the Sydney CBD until the 1960s, when a short-lived fashion saw public housing tenants located in new high-rise developments, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. The buildings pictured along with four other 16-story blocks were constructed on behalf of the Royal Australian Navy and were available to sailors and their families for accommodation. Due to social problems within these blocks the Navy left and the Department of Housing took charge and flats were let to low income and immigrant families. During the 1980s many people escaping communism in Eastern bloc countries were housed in these buildings. Developers have enthusiastically adopted the term "apartment" for these new high-rise blocks, perhaps to avoid the stigma still attached to housing commission flats.


title: Tower block

text: Streets in the sky is a style of architecture that emerged in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Generally built to replace run-down terraced housing, the new designs included not only modern improvements such as inside toilets, but also shops and other community facilities within high-rise blocks. Examples of the buildings and developments are Trellick Tower, Balfron Tower, Robin Hood Gardens and Keeling House in London, Hunslet Grange in Leeds and Park Hill, Sheffield, and Castlefields and Southgate Estate, Runcorn. These were an attempt to develop a new architecture, differentiated from earlier large housing estates, such as Quarry Hill flats in Leeds. Alison and Peter Smithson were the architects of Robin Hood Gardens. Another large example, the Aylesbury Estate in South London, built in 1970, is about to be demolished. The Hulme Crescents in Manchester were the largest social housing scheme in Europe when built in 1972 but lasted just 22 years. The Crescents had one of the worst reputations of any British social housing schemes and were marred by numerous design and practical problems.


title: Tower block

text: The ideal of Streets in the Sky often did not work in practice. Unlike an actual city street, these walkways were not thoroughfares and often came to a dead end multiple storeys above the ground. They lacked a regular flow of passers-by that could act as a deterrent to crime and disorder. This was the concept of "eyes on the street" described by Jane Jacobs in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Furthermore, the walkways and especially the stairwells could not be seen by anyone elsewhere. The Unité d'Habitation in Marseille provides a more successful example of the concept, with the fifth floor walkway including a shop and café.


title: Tower block

text: Deck access is a type of flat that is accessed from a walkway that is open to the elements, as opposed to flats that are accessed from fully enclosed internal corridors. Deck access blocks of flats are usually fairly low-rise structures. The decks can vary from simple walkways, which may be covered or uncovered, to decks wide enough for small vehicles. The best known example of deck-access flats in the UK is Park Hill, Sheffield, where the decks are wide enough to allow electric vehicles; however, the design is inspired by French Modernist architect Le Corbusier, particularly his Unite D'Habitation in Marseilles.


title: Tower block

text: Green tower blocks have some scheme of living plants or green roofs or solar panels on their roofs or incorporate other environmentally friendly design features.


title: Laabam

text: Laabam () is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by S. P. Jananathan. It stars Vijay Sethupathi and Shruti Haasan with Jagapathi Babu, Sai Dhanshika, and Kalaiyarasan in pivotal roles. Ramji was hired as cinematographer, while D. Imman is the music composer. Principal photography for "Laabam" commenced on 22 April 2019. The film was released theatrically on 9 September 2021. It received mixed to negative reviews from critics and audiences and became a box-office bomb. This would be Jananathan's final film as a director and a posthumous release.


title: Laabam

text: Pakkiri returns to his native place after an exile and straight away takes on the village head Vanagamudi. With the support of the locals, he becomes the president of the village and decides to give agriculture a new touch with his techniques. The rest of the story is about how Pakkiri manages the local goons with the help of Clara and comes out victorious.


title: Laabam

text: The film is directed by S. P. Jananathan, who made a brief comeback into direction since working for "Purampokku Engira Podhuvudamai", which released in 2015. Principal photography for "Laabam" commenced on 22 April 2019. Vijay Sethupathi was cast as in a male lead role to play a social activist.


title: Laabam

text: Jananathan died on 14 March 2021 during the post-production stage, thus making "Laabam" his final film as a director.


title: Laabam

text: The music was composed by D. Imman, collaborating with Vijay Sethupathi for the fourth time (after "Rummy", "Rekka" and "Karuppan") and Jananathan for the first and only time. The audio rights were acquired by Lahari Music and T-Series.


title: Laabam

text: "The Times of India" wrote, "The film's narrative is quite fractured. Rather than moving from one incident to the other, here, it moves from one issue to the other at a rapid pace giving us a false sense of momentum." "The Hindu" called it "more a visual representation of a protagonist in a television programme [..] than a film".


title: Visa requirements for Dominica citizens

text: Visa requirements for Dominica citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Dominica. As of October 2022, Dominica citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 145 countries and territories, ranking the Dominica passport 34th in terms of travel freedom according to the Henley Passport Index.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: Yin Yang Yo! is a flash-animated television series created by Bob Boyle for Jetix. Produced by Jetix Animation Concepts as the third Jetix original series, it first aired on August 26, 2006, as a sneak peek and premiered on September 4, 2006, in the United States. The show debuted on Jetix in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2007, after a sneak peek preview on January 27, 2007, while making its Canadian television premiere on Family Channel on March 25, 2007. The series is supplied with writers and animators' staff associated with "The Fairly OddParents", "6teen", "Clone High", "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!" and "Danny Phantom". Head writer Steve Marmel, an anime fan, took an inspiration from various anime like "FLCL" and anime-influenced shows such as "Teen Titans". The series centers on two anthropomorphic twin rabbits named Yin and Yang, and their sensei-like panda figure named Yo, a master of fictional mystical martial arts called Woo Foo.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: During 2007, this show was nominated for British Academy Children's Award by the BAFTA in the "International" category, but lost to Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants". From its launch on June 1, 2011, to late 2012, Disney XD Canada aired reruns of the series.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: The show is about two 11-year-old rabbits named Yin and Yang who train under Master Yo, a grumpy old panda. They learn the sacred art of Woo Foo, a special type of martial arts that involves both might and magic. They must work together to defeat evil villains and forces movitivated on destroying, corrupt or dominate society.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: During the first season, the primary goal was to defeat the Night Master, a powerful enemy. During the second season, there are three primary storylines. The first one sees Yin and Yang trying to prevent other villains from being crowned the new Night Master. The second is Yang's own quest to find powerful mystic artifacts by some later-revealed-to-be villains: four evil heads who he thinks are the masters of Woo Foo. The third sees Yin and Yang against the original and reborn Night Master Eradicus — ultimately trying to build a Woo Foo army to fight against his army.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: The setting is in a town where its buildings have an Asian style. The residents are monsters, humanoids, robots and animals with human-like qualities and behaviors. The residents keep unusual pets like puppygriffs (creatures that are half puppy and half eagle) and two-ni-corns (a race of two-horned unicorns), as well as real animals like dogs, cats, opossums or armadillos. Magic and martial arts still exist since ancient times when the Night Masters were around. It is revealed in "Yin Yang You!", that the series takes place in another dimension.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: "Yin Yang Yo!" premiered on Jetix on September 4, 2006, and the first season has been completed with 26 episodes, including the three parts to "Woofoogeddon". In January 2007, Jetix ordered a second season of "Yin Yang Yo!" with 26 episodes planned. The second season premiered on New Year's Day 2008, with 13 additional episodes.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: The series was created by Bob Boyle II, an animator and storyboard artist previously working on Nickelodeon projects such as "The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom". Influenced by his frequent trips to Little Tokyo, Bob developed the pilot for the series when his then-previous series "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!" was in production. Once the series got the green-light, Bob initially worked simultaneously on development for the first season of both shows. Steve Marmel, a stand-up comedian and also writer for "The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom", who known Boyle for years, was offered a long-term contract from Disney/Jetix to participate on the project upon request by Boyle, whom needed assistance on producing the show due to scheduling conflicts. Marmel, who would later create "Sonny with a Chance" and "So Random!", drew influence from anime shows such as Gainax-produced "FLCL", putting American anime-influenced animated shows like "Teen Titans" and "Samurai Jack" in the mix, using it as driving force to deliver comedy. Although a show directed at general audiences, especially children over 6 years old, with its mildly risqué innuendos it also targets adults as well.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: John Fountain (whom participated on "Fairly OddParents", "My Life as a Teenage Robot") was brought on aboard as a series director for the initial first season when his work for My Life as a Teenage Robot was concluding. Fountain worked closely with Marmel and Boyle on developing the lore of the show, and occasionally assisted in storyboarding the first episode, writing and co-voice directing with Marmel. Eric Trueheart ("Invader Zim") also assisted in writing scripts and co-voice directing with Marmel during the second season.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: For cost efficiency due to the small budget and crew the series had, the majority of pre-production for the series such as animation, voice recording and storyboards were done in Toronto. The majority of the character design direction was done by Mark Thornton and Todd Kaufman (co-creators of "Grojband" and "Looped", and character designers for "Total Drama"). The animation for the show was provided by Elliott Animation, a Canadian animation studio previously working on the Teletoon original series "6teen", as well as Wubbzy. An extra group of animators, whom work on revisions and interstitials, come from the Disney campus of Burbank in California, United States and Frederator Studios, producer of many Nickelodeon titles. As it's an American co-production by Disney, many actors that worked in Disney productions such as Kyle Massey, Jason Earles and Mitchel Musso guest starred as voice actors in the series.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: The music for the show was provided by Michael Tavera, who also created music for "Time Squad" and "¡Mucha Lucha!", while the theme song was written by Bob Boyle and Guy Moon (composer for "Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom"), produced by Moon and performed by Kyle Massey. Many episodes of "Yin Yang Yo!" were directed by Fountain, Mark Ackland (a director of "Clone High"), Ted Collyer (also director of "Clone High") and Chad Hicks (also director of "Total Drama", and storyboard artist for "Courage the Cowardly Dog"), while the main established writing force was Steve Marmel (also executive producer) with the help of Trueheart, Aydrea ten Bosch ("ChalkZone"), Sib Ventress ("Danny Phantom"). Chris Romano and Eric Falconer, responsible for Spike's "Blue Mountain State", and production of "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Sarah Silverman Program", also participated on the writing of various episodes. Staff writers Evan Gore & Heather Lombard who penned "Futurama"s episode "Fear of a Bot Planet" (1ACV05) and "The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius"s episodes "Krunch Time" and "Brobot", lately dedicated their work for "", participated in the creative process of "Yin Yang Yo!" as well. As the series went on, Bart Jennett ("Recess") became a producer and writer on the series, with many other freelance writers joining like Danielle Koenig ("Invader Zim"), Rob Hummel (also "Invader Zim"), Dave Newman and Joe Liss ("Drawn Together" and "SpongeBob SquarePants"), Amy Wolfram ("Teen Titans" and "Xiaolin Showdown"), Scott Sonneborn ("Beavis and Butt-Head" and "Undergrads"), and even former creators like Phil Walsh ("Teamo Supremo") and Van Partible ("Johnny Bravo").


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: The debut of the pilot episode on Toon Disney's Jetix block was its "most-watched original animated series premiere ever". The series continued to garner high ratings on the block afterwards, tying for first place on average.


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: In Europe, "Yin Yang Yo!" was the third-most popular Jetix original series for third-party sales as of fiscal year 2007, when the first season was delivered. "Yin Yang Yo!" and the major Jetix Europe originals ranked "as one of the top two shows in their timeslots in all of the markets in which they aired."


title: Yin Yang Yo!

text: Common Sense Media had a mixed opinion of the show, giving it a score of 3/5. The pilot was poorly received by "The New York Times".


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Power Windows is the eleventh studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on October 29, 1985 by Anthem Records. After touring in support of their previous album, "Grace Under Pressure" (1984), the band took a break and reconvened in early 1985 to begin work on a follow-up. The material continued to display the band's exploration of synthesizer-oriented music, this time with the addition of sampling, electronic drums, a string section, and choir, with power being a running lyrical theme. "Power Windows" was recorded in Montserrat and England with Peter Collins as co-producer and Andy Richards on additional keyboards.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: The album reached No. 2 in Canada, No. 9 in the United Kingdom, and No. 10 in the United States. In January 1986, the album reached platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for one million copies sold in the United States. Rush released two singles from the album, "The Big Money" and "Mystic Rhythms". The band supported the album with their 1985–1986 tour.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: In November 1984, the band ended their concert tour in support of their previous album, "Grace Under Pressure" (1984). After a short respite, the group started work for a follow-up album in early 1985. Guitarist Alex Lifeson looked back at this period, and noted their conscious effort in taking the strongest elements of their previous two records, "Signals" (1982) and "Grace Under Pressure" and capitalising on them for "Power Windows". To Lifeson, this resulted in a more cohesive and satisfying album.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: In February 1985, Rush had relocated to Elora Sound Studios in Elora, Ontario to write and rehearse new songs. Drummer Neil Peart would write a set of lyrics from the studio's farmhouse while Lifeson and frontman Geddy Lee worked on music to fit Peart's words in the adjacent barn which housed a 24-track recording studio. Peart worked on a small desk in his room, "about the right size for a five-year-old". During this time, Peart researched the Manhattan Project to write lyrics for the same-titled song. He also had a head start, having written outline lyrics for "The Big Money", "Mystic Rhythms", and "Marathon" before these sessions had begun. Lee and Lifeson sorted through jams recorded at soundchecks on tour and Lifeson's own tapes of ideas to assemble music for the three tracks, with each song taking up to a week. They then began on "Middletown Dreams", "Marathon" once again, and then "Grand Designs". Having worked out some material, Rush underwent a five-day warm-up tour in Florida in March 1985 to sharpen their performance and to test the new songs on stage prior to recording. Peart continued to work on lyrics in his hotel room in Miami.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Following their warm-up gigs, the band returned to Elora and continued working on their new songs, their break away being a positive impact on their work upon returning. Peart had initially struggled to finish "Territories" and "Manhattan Project", "but now they just fell together". On their first day back at Elora, Peart began work on lyrics for "Emotion Detector" as the group had discussed the possibility of recording a ballad for their new album. Upon presenting his words to Lee and Lifeson, his lyrics fit to the piece of music that his bandmates were working on at the time. This was followed by Rush arranging the music for "Emotion Detector" and "Territories", after which they had assembled a demo tape of seven new songs ready to present to Collins for recording.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Later in 1985, Peart told an interviewer that Rush's sound "is changing from having been progressive to not being progressive". He noted that though the album might "seem simpler", it was just as difficult to compose and perform. Lifeson expressed some resistance to the emphasis on keyboards during this period of their history. He noted the trend began on "Signals" which pushed his guitar parts too far into the background as a result. However, he thought Rush achieved a much greater balance of the two instruments on "Power Windows", which he thought "Moving Pictures" (1981) successfully had done.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Rush recorded "Power Windows" from April to August 1985 in five different recording studios. The group recorded "Power Windows" with a new producer, Peter Collins. During their warm-up gigs in Florida, the band first met Australian engineer James "Jimbo" Barton who Collins had recommended. They accepted, and Peart later praised Barton's contributions and suggestions to the band, considering his small recommendations to improve a song, which he referred to as "events", was "just what we were looking for". Lifeson compared the experience of recording "Power Windows" as more pleasant and fun than "Grace Under Pressure", which presented various problems for the band. He added that the album contained elements that Rush had not incorporated before and broke several boundaries that had existed with previous albums. Lee supported this view and said the group decided "not to hold anything back" and make the album first and focus later on the music's onstage presentation.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Recording began at The Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, England, where the basic rhythm, keyboards, and bass tracks were recorded more quickly than usual, in the span of five weeks, to capture more spontaneous performances ready for overdubs. Here, the music was recorded using two Studer A800 24-track tape machines with an SSL console. It was during sessions at The Manor where Rush brought in musician Andy Richards to play additional synthesizers and assist in their programming. His rig consisted of a PPG Wave 2.3 synthesizer connected to a Roland Super Jupiter module through a MIDI system, a Yamaha QX-1 digital sequencer, and a Roland Jupiter-8 and Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. In one instance, Peart's drum technician Larry Allen drove with him to London to collect a set of African and Indian drums to use on "Mystic Rhythms", and bongos for "Territories".


title: Power Windows (album)

text: In May 1985, the band had relocated to AIR Studios in the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. They had discussed recording at the studio for several years and booked the facility for three weeks for Lifeson to record guitar overdubs. The tracks were put down using two Studer tape recorders with a Neve console. Collins recalled this period of recording as painstaking work due to the various combination of microphone and amplifier set-ups that were experimented. This was followed by a return to England in June to record in London, firstly at SARM East Studios. The band chose to live together in a single apartment rather than separate hotel rooms. At SARM East, the guitar solos and Lee's vocals were put down.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Mixing began in July after the band took a one-week break from the material, which coincided with decisions on the final running order, artwork, credits, and photos. In August, the string section was recorded which featured a 30-piece orchestra in studio 1 at Abbey Road Studios. Rush wanted musician and arranger Anne Dudley to complete the string arrangements, which she agreed to do, and the group was conducted by Andrew Pryce Jackman. A 25-piece choir was recorded at Angel Recording Studios for the ending of "Marathon". The album completed, Lee oversaw the mastering in New York City in September, and proofs were approved for the album cover.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Power Windows" lyrics are focused primarily on various manifestations of power. For example, "Territories" comments on nationalism around the world. Like "Subdivisions" from "Signals", "Middletown Dreams" explores suburban monotony and the average person's attempts to temporarily escape it. "Grand Designs" was partly written to criticise mainstream music which the group believed was too superficial. The song also echoes individualistic themes such as non-conformism.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "The Big Money" features the sampling of Peart's voice using an AMS sampler and triggered through his Simmons drum kit.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Manhattan Project" explores the development and explosion of the first nuclear weapon at the Manhattan Project. The track was difficult for the band to put together, partly due to Peart's difficulty in writing lyrics from an objective point of view, rather than as an observer of the event. Lifeson recalled that Peart had "thoroughly" researched on the topic beforehand.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Territories" was another difficult track for Rush to complete. After Peart had written some lyrical ideas he went through them with Lee, who noticed it was telling a story and found them difficult to sing once he and Lifeson had developed music for them. Peart then rewrote them in a more direct way which suited Lee better.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Middletown Dreams" involved several rewrites before the band reached a working arrangement. After the album was completed, Lifeson expressed some dissatisfaction with the guitar parts, but it grew to become a "very satisfying" track for him.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Marathon" was anticipated by Lifeson to be difficult to arrange and record, but it turned out to be one of the easiest songs on the album to complete. It contains various samples, the fewest recorded overdubs, and incorporates the string section and choir recorded in London. Collins had the idea of using a choir and the band, upon witnessing the recording, saw the humour in having "pregnant women and old men sing our song". Lifeson considered the song to be close to Peart as he had taken up cycling during days off on the "Grace Under Pressure" tour, riding 100 miles each time.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Mystic Rhythms", as described by Lee, is "the most synthetic track on the record" with each instrument being fed through "a synthesized something". It features Lifeson playing an acoustic Ovation guitar which generated a synthesizer-like sound once fed through amplification.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Territories" features the lyric "Better beer", which is an inside joke. Peart played his drum kit without a snare drum, and the middle section features a sample of Lee's voice saying the phrase "Round and round".


title: Power Windows (album)

text: The pictures on the front and back covers were painted by Hugh Syme, from reference photos taken by photographer Dimo Safari, and the model is Neill Cunningham from Toronto.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Power Windows" has been met with mostly positive reviews from music critics. AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia retrospectively described the album as Rush's coldest album, citing the sparse, horn-like guitar playing of Lifeson, the prominent synthesizer of Lee and Peart's crisp, clinical percussion and stark lyrical themes. However, he also described the album as one that rewards patience and repeated listens. "Rolling Stone" magazine, in a positive review of the album, highlighted a number of bands that seemingly influenced "Power Windows", such as The Police, U2, Genesis, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The review concludes that "Power Windows" may be the missing link between Yes and the Sex Pistols. In 2005, the album was ranked number 382 in "Rock Hard" magazine's book "The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time". It was also in the top ten of a 2014 "Rolling Stone" website reader poll of best Rush albums.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Power Windows" introduced more synthesizers into the band's sound. During the period when the album was produced, the band were expanding into new directions from their progressive rock base, having "tightened up their sidelong suites and rhythmic abstractions into balled-up song fists, art-pop blasts of angular, slashing guitar, spatial keyboards and hyperpercussion, all resolved with forthright melodic sense".


title: Power Windows (album)

text: Although the original recording had a SPARS code of DDD and was considered to be of good quality, a remastered edition was issued in 1997. The remastered edition follows the industry's more recent trend of the loudness war, as it is considerably louder.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Power Windows" was remastered again in 2011 by Andy VanDette for the "Sector" box sets, which re-released all of Rush's Mercury-era albums. "Power Windows" is included in the "Sector 3" set.


title: Power Windows (album)

text: "Power Windows" was remastered for vinyl in 2015 as a part of the official "12 Months of Rush" promotion.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) is a sympathomimetic agent which is used as a decongestant and appetite suppressant. It was commonly used in prescription and over-the-counter cough and cold preparations. In veterinary medicine, it is used to control urinary incontinence in dogs.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: PPA is also known as β-hydroxyamphetamine, and is a member of the phenethylamine and amphetamine chemical classes. It is closely related to the cathinones (β-ketoamphetamines). The compound exists as four stereoisomers, which include "d"- and "l"-norephedrine and "d"- and "l"-norpseudoephedrine. "d"-Norpseudoephedrine is also known as cathine, and is found naturally in "Catha edulis" (khat). Pharmaceutical drug preparations of PPA have varied in their stereoisomer composition in different countries, which may explain differences in misuse and side effect profiles. Analogues of PPA include ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and cathinone.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: PPA, structurally, is in the substituted phenethylamine class, consisting of a cyclic benzene or phenyl group, a two carbon ethyl moiety, and a terminal nitrogen, hence the name "phen-ethyl-amine". The methyl group on the alpha carbon (the first carbon before the nitrogen group) also makes this compound a member of the substituted amphetamine class. Ephedrine is the "N"-methyl analogue of PPA.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Exogenous compounds in this family are degraded too rapidly by monoamine oxidase to be active at all but the highest doses. However, the addition of the α-methyl group allows the compound to avoid metabolism and confer an effect. In general, "N"-methylation of primary amines increases their potency; whereas β-hydroxylation decreases CNS activity, but conveys more selectivity for adrenergic receptors.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Phenylpropanolamine was patented in 1938. In the United States, PPA is no longer sold due to an increased risk of haemorrhagic stroke. In a few countries in Europe, however, it is still available either by prescription or sometimes over-the-counter. In Canada, it was withdrawn from the market on 31 May 2001. It was voluntarily withdrawn from the Australian market by July 2001. In India, human use of PPA and its formulations was banned on 10 February 2011, but the ban was overturned by the judiciary in September 2011.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Although originally thought to act as a direct agonist of adrenergic receptors, PPA was subsequently found to show only weak or negligible affinity for these receptors, and has been instead characterized as an indirect sympathomimetic which acts by inducing norepinephrine release and thereby activating adrenergic receptors.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: PPA acts primarily as a selective norepinephrine releasing agent. It also acts as a dopamine releasing agent with around 10-fold lower potency. The stereoisomers of the drug have only weak or negligible affinity for α- and β-adrenergic receptors.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Many sympathetic hormones and neurotransmitters are based on the phenethylamine skeleton, and function generally in "fight or flight" type responses, such as increasing heart rate, blood pressure, dilating the pupils, increased energy, drying of mucous membranes, increased sweating, and a significant number of additional effects.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Certain drugs increase the chances of "déjà vu" occurring in the user, resulting in a strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past. Some pharmaceutical drugs, when taken together, have also been implicated in the cause of "déjà vu". Taiminen and Jääskeläinen (2001) reported the case of an otherwise healthy male who started experiencing intense and recurrent sensations of "déjà vu" upon taking the drugs amantadine and phenylpropanolamine together to relieve flu symptoms. He found the experience so interesting that he completed the full course of his treatment and reported it to the psychologists to write up as a case study. Because of the dopaminergic action of the drugs and previous findings from electrode stimulation of the brain (e.g. Bancaud, Brunet-Bourgin, Chauvel, & Halgren, 1994), Taiminen and Jääskeläinen speculate that "déjà vu" occurs as a result of hyperdopaminergic action in the mesial temporal areas of the brain.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: In Sweden, PPA is still available in prescription decongestants, PPA is also still available in Germany. It is used in some polypill medications like Wick DayMed capsules.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: In the United Kingdom, PPA was available in many 'all in one' cough and cold medications which usually also feature paracetamol or another analgesic and caffeine and could also be purchased on its own; however, it is no longer approved for human use. A European Category 1 Licence is required to purchase PPA for academic use.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public health advisory against the use of the drug in November 2000. In this advisory, the FDA requested but did not require that all drug companies discontinue marketing products containing PPA. The agency estimates that PPA caused between 200 and 500 strokes per year among 18-to-49-year-old users. In 2005, the FDA removed PPA from over-the-counter sale but it’s still possible for it to be sold as a prescription only product. Because of its potential use in amphetamine manufacture, it is controlled by the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. It is still available for veterinary use in dogs, however, as a treatment for urinary incontinence.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Internationally, an item on the agenda of the 2000 Commission on Narcotic Drugs session called for including the stereoisomer norephedrine in Table I of United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.


title: Phenylpropanolamine

text: Drugs containing PPA were banned in India on 27 January 2011. On 13 September 2011, Madras High Court revoked a ban on manufacture and sale of pediatric drugs PPA and nimesulide.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Janice Kay Brewer ("née" Drinkwine, formerly Warren; born September 26, 1944) is an American politician and author who was the 22nd governor of Arizona from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Brewer is the fourth woman (and was the third consecutive woman) to be Governor of Arizona. Brewer assumed the governorship as part of the line of succession, as determined by the Arizona Constitution, when Governor Janet Napolitano resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. Brewer had been Secretary of State of Arizona from January 2003 to January 2009.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Born in California, Brewer attended Glendale Community College, from where she received a radiological technologist certificate. She has never earned a college degree. She was a state representative and state senator for Arizona from 1983 to 1996. She was chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors before running for Arizona secretary of state in 2002.


title: Jan Brewer

text: As governor, Brewer signed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. The act makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an immigrant to be in Arizona without carrying registration documents required by federal law, authorizes state and local law enforcement of federal immigration laws and cracks down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal immigrants. Brewer sought and was elected to a full term as governor of Arizona in 2010.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Brewer was born Janice Kay Drinkwine on September 26, 1944, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, the daughter of Edna C. (née Bakken) and Perry Wilford Drinkwine, then a civilian supervisor at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada. Brewer is of English and Norwegian descent. Her maternal grandfather, Emil Theodore Bakken, was from Norway; her maternal grandmother, Carrie Nelson, was from Minnesota, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. Her paternal grandmother, Sarah Rosina Ford ("née" Wilford), was an Englishwoman from Buckinghamshire.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Brewer and her older brother, Paul, lived in Hawthorne until she was ten years old, when the family moved to California, seeking "dry desert air and clean ocean breezes". Her father died of lung disease when she was eleven years old, having been ravaged by the constant exposure to chemicals while at the depot. She graduated from Verdugo Hills High School in 1962. Brewer attended Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona, where she received a radiological technologist certificate.


title: Jan Brewer

text: She married John Leon Brewer in Nevada and worked briefly in Glendale, California, before moving to her husband's hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1970. The couple later moved to Glendale, Arizona, where he became a successful chiropractor, in addition to finding some real estate success. They settled in the Deer Valley section of Phoenix.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Brewer and her husband have three sons, one of whom died of cancer in 2007. Another son, Ronald Brewer, was declared not guilty by reason of insanity for the rape of a Phoenix woman in 1989; he was a psychiatric patient for many years in the Arizona State Hospital. His case file was sealed by a Phoenix judge shortly before Brewer became governor. Ronald Brewer died in November 2018.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Initially interested in running for school board, Brewer soon saw an opening in her local legislative district, and decided to run for State Representative. Brewer went on to sit in the Arizona House of Representatives for three years, from 1983 to 1987, before deciding to run for the Arizona Senate, where she sat from 1987 to 1996. As state senator, she sought legislation with the intention of creating an office of lieutenant governor in the state, arguing that holding the office of secretary of state does not make a candidate qualified for governor, and that the office should be filled by a member of the same party, should a vacancy arise. During her last three years as a state senator, she held the senior leadership position of majority whip.


title: Jan Brewer

text: In 1996, Brewer ran for chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, defeating the incumbent, Ed King, and was on the board for six years. She inherited a debt of $165 million.


title: Jan Brewer

text: In early 2002, Brewer created a campaign committee to run for the office of Secretary of State of Arizona, to replace outgoing secretary of state Betsey Bayless. Brewer ran against the Phoenix councilman Sal DiCiccio in the primary race and won by a narrow margin of just 23,000 votes.


title: Jan Brewer

text: As secretary of state, Brewer instituted a vote-by-fax program for overseas military troops, which was later adopted by other municipalities, including San Francisco. Brewer also helped to marshal changes brought about by Arizona Proposition 200, which required citizens in the state to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote or applying for public benefits.


title: Jan Brewer

text: Governor Janet Napolitano was selected by President Barack Obama to be the Secretary of Homeland Security in the United States Cabinet. Since Arizona has no lieutenant governor, the Secretary of State stands first in the line of succession if he or she holds that post as a result of an election. Despite her earlier quarrels with the line of succession while serving in the State Senate, Brewer was sworn in as governor after Napolitano resigned from her position on January 21, 2009. She became Arizona's fourth female governor and its third consecutive female governor.