title: Glossary of names for the British

text: Malayalis of Kerala use the term Sayyippu or Vellakkaran to refer to a male westerner. The feminine equivalent is Madamma or Vellakari.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Assam (which became part of British India in 1828), the British are called Boga Bongal (literally meaning 'white foreigners' or 'white intruders'). Bongal was a derogatory word for foreigners in Assam under Ahom rule and it still is used in the 21st century.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Tamil Nadu the Tamil word Vellaikaaran means 'white man' and usually refers to members of the British colonial government in the 18th to 19th century. It is used in the present day to refer anyone who is White with European origin; many rural Tamil villagers still believe that all Europeans are either British or of British descent. Vellaikaari means white woman and Vellaikaarargal or Vellaiyargal is the plural form meaning white people.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: Suddo (literally "white") and Ingrisikarayo (Literally "Englishmen") are Sri Lankan and Sinhalese names for British and other western white-skinned people.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Malaysia, one common Malay equivalent is Mat Salleh. The term may have originated from the general depiction of Royal Navy sailors who were often drunk (Mad Sailors); due to the locals' unfamiliarity with English, it became corrupted as mat salleh (Mat and Salleh are both typical Malay names). Another possible origin of the phrase is the Mat Salleh Rebellion, led by North Borneo chief Mat Salleh, against the British North Borneo Company during the late 19th century. Another alternative to "mat salleh" is orang putih (literally 'white people' in Malay) or its shortened rural form, omputih. In ancient Malaccan times, the term orang deringgi was also used.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Thai, the word anggrit (อังกฤษ) is used to describe both the English in particular, and the British in general. In everyday speech the word Farang (ฝรั่ง) is usually used to describe British people as well as other light-skinned Europeans. Some foreigners regard this word as racist. In journalism, the expression puu dee (ผู้ดี) meaning 'nobleman' is sometimes used to denote 'English'.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: Southeast Asian Hokkien and Teochew speakers also call the British ang mo (紅毛), which literally means 'red-haired'. The term was originally used to describe Dutch traders, but is now used for all white people.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: The following terms are used to mean 'Britain' or 'British' and use etymologies mostly unrelated to "Britain":


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: These terms are also used to refer to England in unofficial contexts. More formal names also exist, such as the Chinese Liánhéwángguó and Japanese Rengōōkoku literally meaning 'United Kingdom'. Separate words exist in all of these languages for each of the constituent parts of the UK, including England, although, as elsewhere, there is little awareness of correct usage. The Chinese Dàbùlièdiān (Hanzi: ) is used for historical purposes to mean 'Great Britain'. The first character means 'Great' and the other three have unrelated meanings, having been selected for the sound instead of meaning. In Chinese, yīngjílì (Simplified characters: 英吉利), a transliteration of "English", is also used to refer Britain in general.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: The Chinese "Yīngguó", the Japanese "Eikoku", and the Korean "Yeongguk" are written identically as 英国, where the first character 英 has no meaning in this context, although in Chinese, 英 is phonetically similar to "Eng", as in "England", and the second character 国 means 'country', 'nation', or 'kingdom'.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Hong Kong, "GweiLo" or "Gwailo"(pronounced [kʷɐ̌i lǒu]) is a slang to generally refer to white westerners. It has a history of racial degradation, however it can be used non-racially and more generally in modern Hong Kong. "Gwei" means Ghost and "Lo" means guy, referring to their pale skin.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In Japanese, the term Igirisu (Katakana: ) is used interchangeably with "Eikoku", but is considered slightly more foreign because it comes from the Portuguese word "Inglês" (English) – despite this origin, "Igirisu" refers to the United Kingdom as a whole, and not specifically to England, which is Ingurando (Katakana: ) and so "Igirisu" is more commonly used.


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: As with the South East Asian term "Farangi" and the Northern Australian term "Balanda" (see above), the Māori term Pākehā and general Polynesian term Palagi have been used generically for Europeans for many years; given that the predominant early European settlers in Australia, New Zealand and many Pacific islands spoke English, these terms are occasionally used specifically for English or British people. The Māori term for the English language, for instance, is "Reo Pākehā".


title: Glossary of names for the British

text: In most cases regional names are associated with those who speak with a specific regional accent, distinct to the area.


title: Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (2020)

text: As reported in "Clinical Infectious Diseases" on November 30, 2020, 7,389 blood samples collected between December 13, 2019, and January 17, 2020, by the American Red Cross from normal donors in nine states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin) included 84 (1.1 percent) that were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. According to the article, "These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States prior to January 19, 2020."


text: On December 31, 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) became aware of cases in China and began developing reports for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on January1.


text: On January 3, CDC Director Robert Redfield was notified by a counterpart in China that a "mysterious respiratory illness was spreading in Wuhan [China]"; he notified HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who shared the report with the National Security Council (NSC). According to "The Washington Post", warnings about the virus were included in the President's Daily Brief in early January, an indicator of the emphasis placed on the virus by the intelligence community.


text: On January 3, Redfield emailed and spoke to George Gao, director of the Chinese CDC, and the following day, January 4, emailed an offer of technical assistance.


text: On January 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a "pneumonia of unknown cause" in Wuhan. The WHO advised against travel or trade restrictions at the time.


text: On January 6, the CDC issued a travel notice for the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, China, and CDC Director Redfield offered in a letter to Chinese officials to send a team of CDC scientists to assist China. China did not accept the offer for several weeks, which delayed the U.S. access to the virus, important for developing diagnostic tests and a vaccine. China did release genetic data on the new coronavirus on January9.


text: During the week of January 6, officials of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) convened an intra-agency task force including Redfield (CDC), Azar (HHS), and Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.


text: On January 7, the CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.


text: On January 10, the WHO issued a comprehensive package of guidance to countries on how to test for potential cases. By this date, the WHO warned of the risk of human-to-human transmission.


text: On January 14, the WHO held a press briefing stating that their information suggested a possibility of limited, but not sustained, human-to-human transmission. The WHO recommended countries to take precautions due to the human-to-human transmission during earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks. The WHO also tweeted that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV)". The head of China's National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, confidentially provided a "grim" situation assessment to key Chinese health officials. The related memo said "human-to-human transmission is possible." An investigation by "AP News" indicated that the reporting of a case in Thailand prompted the meeting, as well as the risk of spread with heightened travel during the Chinese New Year and various political considerations. However, the Chinese public is not warned until January 20.


text: Beginning January 17, the CDC dispatched public health experts to screen incoming airport passengers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, adding monitors at Chicago and Atlanta in late January.


text: On January 18, HHS Secretary Azar discussed the coronavirus outbreak with President Donald Trump, who, Azar said, criticized him as alarmist.


text: On January 20, Chinese authorities announced the confirmation that human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus had already occurred.


text: The first recorded U.S. case of the new virus was also reported on January 20, in a 35-year-old American citizen traveling from Wuhan, China, to his home in Washington state.


text: By January 20, the CDC developed its own coronavirus test (as it typically does) and used it to evaluate the first U.S. case. The CDC test was soon found to be defective, with the third probe giving inconclusive results. The CDC directed state health department labs to send all samples to the CDC lab in Atlanta for evaluation, significantly increasing testing turn-around times.


text: On January 20, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping and State Council premier Li Keqiang issued the first public warning about the coronavirus to Chinese citizens.


text: On January 20, Fauci announces the National Institutes of Health is already working on the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.


text: On January 20, state and local health departments in the United States, in collaboration with teams deployed from the CDC, began identifying and monitoring all persons considered to have had close contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients.


text: On January 21 the CDC activated its emergency operations center to enhance support for the coronavirus response.


text: A man who had returned from Wuhan was hospitalized for the virus in Washington state on January 21, 2020. He was released after two weeks of treatment. A few days later, another case was reported in Chicago, by a woman who had also just returned from Wuhan. A third case was confirmed a day later in Orange County, California.


text: On a January 21 press telebriefing, CDC and Washington State health officials announced the first U.S. case, describing how he had returned to Seattle via an indirect flight from Wuhan two days before the January 17 start of enhanced airport entry screening. After arrival, responding to ongoing passenger education, he recognized he should seek care and was appropriately evaluated locally with overnight confirmation by CDC with the just finalized test (utilizing the genetic data released days earlier from China), with resulting isolation and contact tracing. The press was also advised that the enhanced screening then underway—initially at the 3 locations determined to be receiving the vast majority of direct and connecting flights from Wuhan—had so far processed over 1,200 passengers with negative findings, but that in conjunction with HSA and DOT the CDC was about to operationalize full coverage by a complex funneling of Wuhan passengers from all over the globe into designated airports by reissuing tickets and rerouting through connecting and direct flights. The CDC posture was stated as “being proactive at all levels,” and that they “continue to believe the risk of this novel coronavirus to the American public at large remains low at this time.”


text: On January 22, Trump received his first public question from a reporter regarding whether he was concerned about the coronavirus. Trump responded: "No, not at all. And we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China... It's going to be just fine." Besides this response during a business-press interview while at Davos, the President told other reporters “we do have a plan and we think it is going to be handled very well. We’ve already handled it very well. The CDC is terrific. Very professional.” The NIH’s Dr. Fauci, interviewed a few days later on an AMA podcast about this case and the immediately subsequent handful of other travel-related cases, advised that “we handled it properly,” and that fortunately so far there were no secondary cases, but cautioned that the next few weeks would be critical as to whether it would become a sustained global outbreak or just "disappear the way SARS did.”


text: On the same day of the President’s remarks while at Davos, the Emergency Committee of the WHO, meeting in Geneva, could not agree if the events in China warranted a declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), but considered the situation urgent and to reconvene in a matter of days to examine the matter further. An advisory by the Committee to China included provision that exit screening be conducted at international airports and ports in the affected provinces.


text: On January 23, Chinese authorities lockdown Wuhan, a city of 11 million, which heightened the urgency for the U.S. response team. "The Washington Post" reported that Secretary Azar (HHS) instructed his team to establish a surveillance mechanism shortly thereafter, but the money and diagnostic tests "would elude U.S. officials for months". The entire Hubei province, which contains Wuhan, was locked-down January 30.


text: On January 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a statement on the coronavirus, indicating that: "Human-to-human transmission is occurring and a preliminary R0 estimate of 1.4–2.5 was presented. Amplification has occurred in one health care facility. Of confirmed cases, 25% are reported to be severe. The source is still unknown (most likely an animal reservoir) and the extent of human-to-human transmission is still not clear." At the time, the fatality rate was 4% (17 of 557). The WHO recommended that: "[A]ll countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread of 2019-nCoV infection, and to share full data with [the] WHO."


text: On January 23 the CDC sought an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA enabling states to use its newly developed coronavirus test.


text: On January 24, the U.S. Senate was briefed on the coronavirus by key health officials. U.S. Senators Richard M. Burr, Kelly Loeffler, Dianne Feinstein, and James Inhofe allegedly sold stock thereafter, prior to significant declines in the stock market. In Senator Loeffler's case, the sales began the same day as the briefing. All denied any wrongdoing, citing various reasons. Senator Burr faced calls for his resignation.


text: On January 24, President Trump praised China for its coronavirus efforts in a tweet. Four days later WHO director Tedros met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and praised the efforts of the Chinese government in fighting COVID-19". "" "


text: Two more cases were confirmed on January 26, similarly by two people who had returned from Wuhan. All cases to this point were allowed to self-isolate at home for two weeks, whereafter they were assumed to be no longer infected or contagious.


text: In a January 27 press update the CDC reported that around 2400 travelers from Wuhan/Hubei had been screened so far, and that from all sources of surveillance there was an accumulation of 110 persons under investigation (PUI) from 26 states of which so far five persons had tested positive and 32 negative.


text: On January 29, the U.S. formally announced a White House Coronavirus Task Force, including senior officials such as acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and others at HHS, CDC, and the U.S. State Department. President Trump attended the meeting on January 29, and tweeted related photos. However, the scope was limited initially to the logistics of keeping travelers out of the U.S. from China, and evacuating U.S. citizens. They did not initially focus on testing or supplies in the U.S.


text: On January 29, the U.S. government evacuated 195 State Department employees from Wuhan along with their families and other U.S. citizens to March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, California, where they were kept under quarantine for 14 days, although none had been infected.


text: "The New York Times" reported that President Trump was told "at the time" of a January 29 memo by trade adviser Peter Navarro that the coronavirus could cause as many as half a million deaths and trillions in economic damage. Further, on January 30, HHS Secretary Azar warned President Trump about the "possibility of a pandemic".


text: On January 29, WHO Health Emergencies program leader Dr. Mike Ryan said in a press briefing: "The whole world needs to be on alert now... and be ready for any cases that come from the epicenter..." At the time, 68 cases had been confirmed outside China, affecting persons in 15 countries.


text: On January 30, the first case of person-to-person transmission was confirmed in Chicago, between a married couple, after the wife returned from China.


text: On January 30, the WHO named the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, warning that "all countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread". The statement also praised the "impressive" Chinese response. The WHO also released a statement that included: "The Committee believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk." However, the federal government and individual states did not direct their populations to practice social distancing (e.g., stay at home except for essential travel) until March 19. Further, as late as April8, five states had no social distancing rules and three others had rules for only parts of the state.


text: On January 31, another case of a person who returned from Wuhan was confirmed in California, which marked the seventh known case in the U.S.


text: On January 31, the Trump Administration, through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, declared a public health emergency, and imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine for any U.S. citizens who has visited Hubei Province in China within the preceding two weeks. It also began denying entry of non-U.S. nationals who had traveled to China within the preceding two weeks. This was the first such travel restriction by the U.S. in more than 50 years.


text: On January 31, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in coordination with the CDC directed all flights to the U.S. carrying travelers recently from, or otherwise present within, the People's Republic of China to arrive at designated U.S. airports where public health resources had been focused. Three days later the airport list was expanded.


text: As of January 31, CDC had responded to clinical inquiries from state and local health departments, health care providers, and airport health screening personnel to assist in evaluating approximately 650 persons thought to be at risk for 2019-nCoV infection from travel, close contact with a 2019-nCov patient or person under investigation (PUI) for 2019-nCoV in the U.S.


text: President Trump repeatedly claimed credit for acting early with the travel ban. However, "The Washington Post" reported that 300,000 people traveled to the U.S. from China during the month prior to the ban. [The travel ban was not a ban, but a 14-day waiting period. Also, a month before January 31, not even WHO believed COVID had human-to-human transmission and there were no known cases in the United States until January 21. See January 14th above about WHO's lack of knowledge.] "The New York Times" reported that more than 40,000 persons traveled from China to the U.S. after the January 31 partial ban, and around 430,000 total between the December 31 disclosure of the outbreak by China and April4. "The Washington Post" reported that six other countries had restricted travel from China before January 30, six did so on January 31, and by the time U.S. travel restrictions became effective on February2, 38 other countries had taken action before or at the same time as the U.S. restrictions. The earliest action was Singapore on January 23. Flights from Europe were not banned until March 11, with hundreds of thousands crossing the Atlantic into the U.S., due to disputes about the impact on the U.S. economy among Trump Administration officials.


text: New cases were being reported throughout the country nearly every day. Many are people who have recently returned from China, including a college student from Boston and a woman in California who returned from Wuhan. Two more cases of person-to-person transmission are reported in California.


text: "The Washington Post" reported that HHS Secretary Azar, responding to concerns about a "startling" shortage of essential medical supplies (masks, gowns, gloves, etc.), wrote letters in late January and early February asking for additional funding. Since China also needed such supplies, replenishing them could be difficult as much of the manufacturing was in China. He also made a formal request for $4billion on February5, which "OMB officials and others at the White House greeted as an outrage". Congress later increased the figure to $8billion, and Trump signed it into law on March6 (two days after passage by Congress on March 4), but this delay meant that the U.S. would increasingly compete with other nations for such supplies.


text: On February 3, 49 members of Congress signed a letter to CDC Director Redfield highlighting the urgency of distributing a rapid diagnostic kit that could be processed locally, rather than centrally at the CDC in Atlanta, which they referred to as an "unsustainable bottleneck" as the number of suspected cases rise.


text: On February 3, "Reuters" reported that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there was no need for measures that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" to halt the coronavirus. He praised the Chinese response, and referred to the virus's spread as "minimal and slow".


text: On February 3, it was reported by "Reuters" from a briefing by Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, that the CDC had a team waiting and ready to go to China as soon as they are allowed to go in.


text: On February 4, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the CDC diagnostic to test for coronavirus.


text: On February 5, the twelfth case is discovered: another college student from Wisconsin. That day, the U.S. evacuates 345 citizens from Hubei Province and takes them to two air bases in California to be quarantined for 14 days. Another government evacuation flight takes place on February6, containing 300 passengers, most of who are taken to bases in Nebraska and Texas. By this time, more than 500 people are quarantined at three air bases.


text: On February 5, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and other top officials including Dr Anthony Fauci briefed Congressional lawmakers on the Federal Government's coronavirus response efforts.


text: On February 6, the Centers for Disease Control began sending 90 of its own viral detection tests to state-run labs which discovered the tests were inadequate and viral samples had to be shipped to the Atlanta CDC lab instead. Also on February6, the WHO Director-General said: "We have shipped 250,000 tests to more than 70 laboratories around the world, and we're training lab workers to use them." Researchers at Stanford and other laboratories had developed tests following the WHO protocol, but "relatively tight" rules at the Food and Drug Administration discouraged them from using them. These rules were not relaxed until early March.


text: On February 6, 57-year-old Patricia Dowd of San Jose, California became the first COVID-19 death in the United States (discovered by April 2020). She died at home without any known recent foreign travel, after being unusually sick from flu in late January, then recovering, working from home, and suddenly dying on February 6. A February7 autopsy was completed in April (after virus tests on tissue samples) and attributed the death to Transmural Myocardial Ischemia (Infarction) with a Minor Component of Myocarditis due to COVID-19 Infection. Her case indicates that community transmission was happening undetected in the US, most likely since December.


text: In a recorded interview later made public by journalist Bob Woodward, Trump said on February 7 that he knew the novel coronavirus was airborne and that "It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus." For the next month, however, he would publicly minimize the threat of the virus, and told Woodward in March that "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."


text: On February 9, The White House Coronavirus Task Force briefed governors from across the nation at the National Governors’ Association Meeting in Washington.


text: On February 11, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing: "[A] virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack... If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider this enemy virus and Public Enemy Number1, I don't think we will learn our lessons." Ending six weeks of uncertainty the WHO, at a press conference the same day, announced the official name for the new illness (as abbreviated) -- 'Covid-19.' Concurrently the separate international body charged with classifying and naming viruses named the actual causative coronavirus 'SARS-CoV-2' (since it was considered to be a variant of the virus that in 2002–03 caused severe acute respiratory syndrome), but which name a WHO spokesperson advised "Science" magazine that WHO would not be using in part out of concern the word 'SARS' could cause "unnecessary fear"—or, as it was put by the BBC -- "extra panic."


text: On February 11, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expanded a partnership with Janssen Research & Development, a part of Johnson & Johnson, to “expedite the development” of a coronavirus vaccine.


text: On February 14, the CDC announced it is working with the existing public health department network of community-based influenza surveillance intending to aid in early detection of coronavirus.


text: From February 12 to 15, three more cases are confirmed, all who travelled from Wuhan, and are similarly quarantined.


text: Numerous large conventions were held during this time frame and later February in NYC and Boston hotels, with thousands in attendance. One scientific-based convention in Boston seaport was documented to have spread the virus to the western suburbs and noted in the Globe. newspaper. The national SCBWI convention in NYC drew thousands, mostly teachers, who attended a standing room only sessions featuring the est selling author Jame Patterson held in an oversized auditorium. They then returned to classrooms. There followed the extreme outbreak of the virus in the mid-Atlantic area, NYC and NJ in particular. People and presenters exhibited flu-like symptoms at the SCBWI convention.


text: On February 15, the government evacuates 338 U.S. nationals stranded aboard the cruise ship "Diamond Princess", which had been held in quarantine in Yokohama, Japan. Fourteen of those repatriated people are infected with the virus. Five more nationals who were also reported as being infected are evacuated from the ship the following week, and are quarantined at an airbase in California. Six more cases are subsequently confirmed among those who were evacuated from the cruise ship.


text: On February 18, HHS announced it would engage with Sanofi Pasteur in an effort to quickly develop a vaccine and treatments against the novel coronavirus.


text: "The New York Times" reported that the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, continued hosting a series of coronavirus e-mail chains begun in January among a group of infectious disease experts from academia and government. The group referred to these chains as the "Red Dawn" e-mails, (a movie reference). On February 17, an e-mail from one participant indicated that the type of social gathering on the "Diamond Princess" cruise ship wasn't that different from a mall, school, or work environment. Another February 17 e-mail indicated that non-pharmaceutical interventions ("NPI") such as school and business closures would be difficult for local officials to direct without federal action to provide political cover. By the third week of February, the group had "effectively concluded that the United States had already lost the fight to contain the virus, and that it needed to switch to mitigation" such as NPI's. This was based on the "realization that many people in the country were likely infected and capable of spreading the disease, but not showing any symptoms". For instance, by the time of the European travel ban on March 11 (a containment strategy), the group considered such containment steps ineffective. Trump still had not directed NPI's as of March 11. As late as March 13, the CDC was still questioning the benefit of closing schools. Governors began to implement NPI's thereafter, "largely without federal leadership".


text: On February 20 and 21, two more cases of people who had returned from China are confirmed in California. The first case of community transmission, because it had no known origin, is confirmed in Solano County, California, on February 26. A second case of unknown origin is confirmed two days later, also in California, followed by others in Oregon and Washington state.


text: On February 22, a U.N. WHO team of international specialists from the U.S., Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, and South Korea arrives in Wuhan city.


text: By Mid-February, the U.S. was testing about a hundred samples per day. Researchers concluded in late February that "the virus had probably been spreading for weeks" person-to-person. The CDC test initially used three genetic sequences or "probes", but sometime after February 24, directed states to use a workaround of using two of the three probes and evaluating them locally.


text: As of February 23, fourteen COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed from six states: Arizona -1 case, California -8, Illinois -2, and Massachusetts, Washington, and Wisconsin, 1 case each). Twelve of the cases were related to travel to China, and two occurred through person-to-person transmission from close household contacts with confirmed COVID-19. An additional 39 cases were reported among repatriated U.S. citizens, residents, and their families returning from Hubei province China, and from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was docked in Yokohama, Japan. Airport screening by then totaled 46,016 travelers of which 11 had been referred to a hospital with one testing positive, isolated, and managed medically. Seventeen had been quarantined because of travel from Hubei Province with 4 remaining. (The CDC would later have to conclude after months of further experience involving more than 700,000 screenings that temperature and symptom-based entry screening was ineffective likely due to multiple factors including an overall low COVID-19 prevalence in travelers, the relatively long incubation period, illness presentation with a wide range of severity, afebrile cases, nonspecific symptoms common to other infections, asymptomatic infections, and travelers who might deny symptoms or take steps to avoid detection of illness (e.g., through use of antipyretic or cough suppressant medications).


text: On February 24, President Trump tweeted: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA... CDC and World Health [Organization] have been working hard and very smart."


text: On February 24, Speaker Pelosi, when asked if people should stay away from San Francisco's Chinatown stated: "That’s what we’re trying to do today is to say everything is fine here." Pelosi said. "Come because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation."


text: On February 25, HHS Secretary Azar testified before the U.S. Senate. "National Geographic" summarized his testimony, reporting that "the Strategic National Stockpile has just 30million surgical masks and 12million [N95] respirators in reserve." An additional 300million of each could be required to protect health workers. HHS said it intended to purchase as many as half a billion respirators and surgical face masks over the next year and a half. "National Geographic" concluded that the "U.S. has only a fraction of the medical supplies it needs to combat coronavirus."


text: On February 25, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, delivered a briefing indicating that "disruption to everyday life might be severe." "The New York Times" reported that President Trump was "furious", and HHS Secretary Azar attempted downplay her comments in a news conference later that day.


text: On February 26 at a news conference, President Trump said: "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done." The next day Dr. Redfield of the CDC testified to a House committee that "as of February 26, 2020 14 cases have been reported across 6 states, and 45 cases have been detected among people repatriated from Hubei, China and the Diamond Princess We expect to see additional imported cases and limited person- to-person spread. While community-wide transmission has not been documented yet in the United States, it is expected, and we are aggressively preparing for it.” He added: “Most cases of COVID-19 in the United States have been associated with travel from China, but some person-to-person spread among close contacts of travelers has been seen. It’s important to note that this virus is not spreading within American communities at this time.” The evolving understanding at that time by CDC/NIH experts was also expressed in a February 28 New England Journal of Medicine online editorial regarding the just published observations from Wuhan on the first several hundred cases which appeared to indicate that as an illness Covid-19 would be more akin to a severe seasonal influenza or a pandemic influenza rather than SARS or MERS, but of concern in being more efficient in transmission, as well as having comparatively increased infectivity when symptoms were minimal.


text: On February 26, Vice-President Mike Pence was appointed to lead the Coronavirus Task Force, replacing HHS Secretary Azar as the group's leader. Pence was the first official from within Trump's White House to coordinate the planning and response, two months after the government became aware of the coronavirus.


text: On February 29, the first death from coronavirus in the U.S. was reported at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, Washington, followed by two other confirmed cases in a nursing home in the same city. (Later, it would be reported that the first U.S. death had actually occurred on February6.) On February 29, Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency for the State of Washington. New cases continued to show up in California and Illinois. The Food and Drug Administration began loosening rules that had restricted labs from developing their own coronavirus tests.


text: In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announces the state's first reported case of COVID-19: a woman in her late 30s, who apparently contracted the virus while traveling in Iran and is self-isolating at home, in New York City. Oregon confirmed its second case, a household contact of its first case. The Rhode Island Department of Health announces a presumptive case in a person in their 40s who had traveled to Italy in mid-February, and a second case, a teenager who had traveled with the first person.


text: On March 2, coronavirus cases in the U.S. reach 100, including 48 from repatriated citizens from Wuhan or the "Diamond Princess". New Hampshire officials announce the state's first case, an employee with Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center who had been to Italy.


text: On March 3, when the state has no confirmed cases, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine cancels the Arnold Classic due to coronavirus concerns, a move which "The Washington Post" said seemed radical at the time. On March3, Arizona's Department of Health Services reports a new confirmed case in Maricopa County, a man in his 20s who had made contact with a case outside of Arizona. The man was isolated in his home. In New Hampshire, public health officials confirm a second case of coronavirus in an individual who made contact with the first case after the first case defied quarantine orders and attended a private event organized by Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business in White River Junction, Vermont. New York officials announce the state's second confirmed case: a man in his 50s in New Rochelle, Westchester County who had not recently traveled to any foreign countries affected by the outbreak. In North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper announces the state's first confirmed case: a person who had traveled to Washington and was "exposed at a long term care facility". They are in stable condition and in isolation at their home.


text: Nevada, Colorado, Tennessee, and Maryland announce their first cases, New Jersey announces a second presumptive case, while Washington announces 31 new cases.


text: Ten states report their first case of coronavirus: Hawaii, Utah, Nebraska, Kentucky, Indiana, Minnesota, Connecticut, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma. Many cases are associated with passengers from the "Grand Princess" cruise ship, which is being held off the California coast near San Francisco. Testing on the ship reveals 21 positives. The day also sees 6deaths reported. Four are reported from Washington, by the hospital that treated patients from the LifeCare long-term care facility. Two are reported from Florida, and represent the third state (after Washington and California) with reported deaths. This brings the total deaths to 18, 15 in Washington, 1in California, and 2in Florida.


text: The President signed an $8.3 billion bill providing $7.76 billion to federal, state, and local agencies for combating the coronavirus, and authorizing an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.


text: Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. announces its first cases. A new death is reported for March7 in Washington. This brings the total confirmed U.S. deaths due to coronavirus to 19, 16 in Washington, 1in California, and 2in Florida. In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf announces two new positive cases in Montgomery County; both cases are related to travel within the United States.


text: Iowa and Vermont report their first cases of infection with the coronavirus. Three new deaths were reported in Washington. This brought the total confirmed U.S. deaths due to coronavirus to 22: 19 in Washington, 1in California, and 2in Florida.


text: Speaking from the lectern at the White House Coronavirus Task Force press availability, President Trump says that the virus is "very much under control", was less deadly than influenza, and that the case count would soon approach zero. Explaining his approach to Woodward nine days later, he said, "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic." News organization CNN formally declares the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.


text: It is reported that the Trump administration, without explanation, postponed the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) annual "US World Wide Threat Assessment" which warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic. The office of the DNI was scheduled to deliver the "Assessment" to the House Intelligence Committee on February 12.


text: South Dakota and Michigan report their first cases. Mitigation measures are expanded in New York, Massachusetts and Washington with a transition to online classes for universities and colleges. The first semi-containment zone is announced in New York. Two new deaths are reported in Washington and one death each in California, New Jersey, and South Dakota. This brings the total number of U.S. deaths to 31 (24 WA, 3CA, 2FL, 1NJ, 1SD).


text: The President and VP Pence met with top health insurance companies and secured a commitment to waive co-pays for coronavirus testing and treatment.


text: Confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States surpass 1,100. Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming reported their first cases. More universities and colleges suspend classes or move to remote-access teaching. Washington Governor Jay Inslee orders a halt to all gatherings of greater than 250 in three counties, while Ohio Governor Mike DeWine orders all public gatherings of more than 1,000 people to be banned statewide. Five new deaths are reported in Washington and one death in California. This brings the total U.S. deaths to 37 (29 WA, 4CA, 2FL, 1NJ, 1SD).


text: President Trump said in an Oval Office address: "The vast majority of Americans, the risk is very, very low."


text: During the March 11 national address the President directed the SBA to use its existing authorities to provide capital and liquidity to businesses impacted by COVID-19, effective immediately, and called on Congress to increase this fund by $50 billion (later to be expanded to 250 billion). In the address he also directed the Treasury Department to defer tax payments for affected individuals and businesses.


text: WHO Director-General Tedros said the WHO "made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic".


text: Total U.S. cases passed 1,500. More universities and colleges transitioned to online attendance across the country. Public school closures are announced in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia and Washington state. Georgia and Kansas report their first deaths and Washington state reports 2additional deaths. This brings the total U.S. deaths to 41 (31 WA, 4CA, 2FL, 1NJ, 1SD, 1GA, 1KS).


text: Most major sports leagues, including MLS, the NHL, and the National Lacrosse League, announced the suspension of their seasons that were already in progress. The XFL terminated its inaugural season, while Major League Baseball announced the cancellation of all remaining spring training games and delayed the start of their 2020 season. In addition, the NCAA canceled all postseason tournaments in their winter and spring sports, which included the men's and women's basketball tournaments, as well as the baseball and softball tournaments. The cancellation of the basketball tournament marked the first time the tournament was not held due to unforeseen circumstances.


text: On March 12, HHS placed its first order of N95 respirators for healthcare workers of $4.8million. However, the supplier contract required delivery to begin around the end of April. Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated: "We basically wasted two months."


text: Total U.S. cases passed 2,100. Colorado reported its first death, Florida and California both reported an additional death, and Washington state reported 6additional deaths. This brought the total number of deaths in the U.S. to 50 (37 WA, 5CA, 3FL, 1NJ, 1SD, 1GA, 1KS, 1CO). The NHL (National Hockey League) asked players to self-quarantine for a week or more in an attempt to save the season.


text: Later that day, President Trump took a COVID-19 test after coming into contact with several people who had contracted the disease and found to be negative. On March 13 the House passed an aid package for workers and individuals that was supported by President Trump.


text: In a March 13, 2020 report "not for public distribution", the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) used the working assumptions for their response plan, that the COVID-19 "pandemic will last 18 months or longer and could include multiple waves of illness", and that resultant "supply chain and transportation impacts" would "likely result in significant shortages".


text: President Trump issues the Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak, declaring a national state of emergency.


text: The President's national emergency proclamation enabled FEMA to tap into billions of existing dollars and mobilize personnel more quickly to help state and local agencies respond to the pandemic. The Administration also announced public-private partnerships to open up drive-through testing collection sites, an emergency approval for automated coronavirus testing kits by FDA to Roche AG, emergency approval to Thermo Fisher for a rapid coronavirus test, funding by HHS for development of two new rapid diagnostic tests.


text: On March 13, "Reuters" reported that Germany and Italy ordered 10,000 and 5,000 ventilators, respectively. The U.S. follows with a 10,000 ventilator order in late March, with many not expected to arrive until the summer or fall, too late for the expected peak impact.


text: In mid March U.S. auto manufacturers were enlisted to make ventilators and production started in a little less than a month.


text: The total U.S. cases passed 2,700. Five additional deaths were reported by state health departments: three in Washington, one in Florida, and one in Louisiana. In addition, New York's first death was reported in the news media and the governor of New Jersey announced the state's second death on Twitter. This brought reported deaths to 7for the day.


text: On March 15, the CDC issued guidance recommending against any gathering of 50 or more people for an eight-week period.


text: President Trump issued new guidelines urging people to avoid social gatherings of more than ten people and to restrict discretionary travel. He stopped short of ordering a quarantine or a curfew, but he said restrictions may last until July or August. He acknowledged that the country may be headed for a recession. Despite the fact that the Federal Reserve Bank lowered interest rates the day prior, the stock market fell once again.


text: 5,145 people in the United States had been infected; at least 91 had died. The Peace Corps fired all 7,300 volunteers in 61 countries.


text: As of March 17, vessel manifests maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed a steady flow of the medical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus being shipped abroad. FEMA, meanwhile, said the agency "has not actively encouraged or discouraged U.S. companies from exporting overseas", and has asked USAID to send back its reserves of protective gear stored in warehouses for use in the U.S.


text: President Trump told reporters: "This is a pandemic... I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."


text: The Department of Defense announced it will make available to HHS up to five million respirator masks and 2,000 ventilators.


text: Secretary of Agriculture Perdue announced a partnership between USDA, Baylor University, McLane Global, and Pepsi Co. to provide one million meals per weak to rural children in response to widespread school closure.


text: The Treasury Department deferred $300 billion in tax payments for 90 days without penalty, up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million for business.


text: Three thousand doctors and medical workers sign a letter asking ICE to release individuals and families detained for immigration violations, noting that overcrowded conditions are ripe for the propagation of a virus.


text: President Trump tweeted about potential coronavirus treatments, specifying Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin.


text: WHO Director-General Tedros said, "Using untested medicines without the right evidence could raise false hope and do more harm than good." He also described the pandemic as "accelerating".


text: Three U.S. Army hospital units were deployed to New York and Washington State"." The Army Corps of Engineers and the National Guard have under construction four hospitals and four medical centers in New York. FEMA sent New York 2,000 ventilators.


text: Senate Republicans and Democrats strike a deal on a version of the stimulus bill which includes: providing $1,200 to most adults (phased out for persons making from $75,000 to $99,000 a year), $600 a week unemployment benefits (approximately $2,400 a month) on top of state unemployment benefits and to last potentially for four months and including freelancers and other workers in the "gig economy", and $500billion for businesses and municipalities. This last part is to be overseen by an inspector general in the Treasury Department and a Congressional Oversight panel.


text: A survey of more than forty leading economists by the University of Chicago published on March 27 indicated that prematurely ending lockdowns (e.g., business closures) would do more economic harm than good. Specifically, none of the economists surveyed disagreed with the statement that: "Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk."


text: The White House extended the President's Coronavirus Guidelines for America from the CDC: "30 Days to Slow the Spread of Coronavirus" as an extension of the previous "15 Days" guidelines which were issued on March 16.


text: As of March 31, "Our World in Data" reported there were 3,170 deaths, 164,620 confirmed cases, and 1.07million tests completed in the U.S.


text: The NYT reported on March 28 that despite significant improvement in testing capacity in the U.S., "hospitals and clinics across the country still must deny tests to those with milder symptoms, trying to save them for the most serious cases, and they often must wait a week for results." Mr. Trump asked the South Korean president for as many kits as possible from the 100,000 produced daily there. However, "having the ability to diagnose the disease three months after it was first disclosed by China does little to address why the United States was unable to do so sooner, when it might have helped reduce the toll of the pandemic." One expert indicated the delay of testing adversely impacted other aspects of the coronavirus response. "Vox" reported that during the week of March 25 to April1, the U.S. was "performing about 110,000 tests per day". Several experts estimated that between 500,000 and "millions" of tests per day are necessary. There are many challenges to ramping up capacity: "Complaints vary, but labs say they don't have enough swabs, test kits, reagents, personal protective equipment (PPE), staff, or machines to run the specific tests required." Money and regulations are also challenges.


text: President Trump alleges that the WHO mishandled the pandemic. He questioned why the WHO had recommended "keeping our borders open to China early on", advice he rejected. He mentioned the WHO was funded largely by the U.S., but was very "China-centric".


text: AP reported that: "Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that the U.S. does not yet have the critical testing and tracing procedures needed to begin reopening the nation's economy... Fauci said that a May1 target is 'a bit overly optimistic' for many areas of the country. Any easing off the strict social-distancing rules in place in much of the country would have to occur on a rolling basis, not all at once."


text: President Trump announced his decision to halt U.S. funding to the WHO, alleging the U.S. would review alleged mismanagement and cover-up efforts. WHO officials disputed his allegations the following day, saying that: a) the world was alerted January 5; b) countries globally began to respond January 6; and c) WHO provided updates throughout the period.


text: As of April 16, there were 639,664 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., with 30,985 confirmed deaths, a 4.8% mortality rate. An estimated 3.24million tests had been conducted, indicating about 20% of those tested had coronavirus.


text: As of April 30, "Our World in Data" reported that for the U.S. there were 60,966 total deaths, 1.04million confirmed cases, and 6.25million tests completed. The U.S. averaged about 145,200 tests per day between April1 and April 15 and 199,000 per day from April 16 to April 30.


text: The George Floyd protests begin in Minneapolis. Largely via social media they later spread throughout the country and around the world. Health experts and public officials have expressed concerns that these mass gatherings may cause an exacerbated spread of the virus since May 31 or earlier.


text: As of May 31, Our World in Data reported that for the U.S. there were 103,781 total deaths, 1.77 million confirmed cases, and about 14 million tests completed.


text: The Pentagon reports biggest increase in the Department of Defense since mid- April on COVID-19 cases bringing the number up to 10,462. The DoD includes military members, their dependents, contractors and civilians. The United States Navy remains as the most affected Branch as of June 5.


text: As of June 30, Our World in Data reported that for the U.S. there were 126,140 total deaths, 2.59 million confirmed cases, and about 30 million tests completed.


title: Oriflamme

text: The Oriflamme (from Latin "aurea flamma", "golden flame"), a pointed, blood-red banner flown from a gilded lance, was the battle standard of the King of France in the Middle Ages. The oriflamme originated as the sacred banner of the Abbey of St. Denis, a monastery near Paris. When the oriflamme was raised in battle by the French royalty during the Middle Ages, most notably during the Hundred Years War, no prisoners were to be taken until it was lowered. Through this tactic they hoped to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, especially the nobles, who could usually expect to be taken alive for ransom during such military encounters.


title: Oriflamme

text: In French, the term ""oriflamme"" has come to mean any banner with pointed ends, by association with the form of the original.


title: Oriflamme

text: The Oriflamme was mentioned in the eleventh-century ballad the "Chanson de Roland" (vv. 3093-5) as a royal banner, first called "Romaine" and then "Montjoie". According to legend, Charlemagne carried it to the Holy Land in response to a prophecy regarding a knight possessing a golden lance, from which flames would burn and drive out the Saracens. This suggests that the "lance" was originally the important object, with the banner simply a decoration, but this changed over time.


title: Oriflamme

text: The Oriflamme was first used by Louis VI in 1124 and was last flown in battle at Agincourt in 1415, though a version of it remained in the Abbey of St. Denis until the 18th century.


title: Oriflamme

text: Louis VI replaced the earlier banner of Saint Martin with the oriflamme of the Abbey of St. Denis, which floated about the tomb of St. Denis and was said to have been given to the abbey by King Dagobert.


title: Oriflamme

text: Until the 12th century the standard-bearer was the Comte de Vexin, who, as vowed to St. Denis, was the temporal defender of the abbey. Louis VI, having acquired Vexin, became standard-bearer; as soon as war began, Louis VI received Communion at St. Denis and took the standard from the tomb of the saint to carry it into combat.


title: Oriflamme

text: Although the azure ground (from the blue cope of St. Martin of Tours) strewn with gold fleur-de-lis remained the symbol of royalty until the 15th century, the Oriflamme became the royal battle standard of the King of France, and it was carried at the head of the king's forces when they met another army in battle. It is recorded as having been carried at the following battles/campaigns:


title: Oriflamme

text: The Oriflamme was lost at least four times during its medieval history: Mons-en-Pévèle, Crécy, Poitiers, and during the campaigns of the Seventh Crusade under King Louis IX.


title: Oriflamme

text: Although the "Oriflamme" has often been depicted as present at the battle of Agincourt, modern historians have disputed this. The banner was given to Guillaume de Martel by Charles VI on September 10, 1415, and carried by Martel from Paris to Rouen. This was likely an attempt to raise French morale and rally troops, however there is no evidence that the "Oriflamme" was then taken on campaign and unfurled at Agincourt. Modern historians agree that the Oriflamme was not carried by Guillaume de Martel at Agincourt, as the king was not present at the battle in person.


title: Oriflamme

text: In the fifteenth century, the fleur-de-lis on the white flag of Joan of Arc became the new royal standard replacing both the symbol of royalty and the Oriflamme on the battle field.


title: Oriflamme

text: The banner was red or orange-red silk and flown from a gilded lance. According to legend, its colour stems from it being dipped in the blood of the recently beheaded St. Denis.


title: Oriflamme

text: The surviving descriptions of the Oriflamme are in Guillaume le Breton (thirteenth century), in the "Chronicle of Flanders" (fourteenth century), in the "Registra Delphinalia" (1456) and in the inventory of the treasury of Saint-Denis (1536). They show that the primitive Oriflamme was succeeded in the course of the centuries by newer Oriflammes which bore little resemblance to one another except for their colour.


title: Oriflamme

text: According to Maurice Keen, the Oriflamme, when displayed on the battlefield, indicated that no quarter


title: Oriflamme

text: The bearer of the standard, the "porte-oriflamme", became an office (like that of Marshal or Constable) and a great honour, as it was an important and very dangerous job to take charge of such a visible symbol in battle. If things went badly, the bearer was expected to die, rather than relinquish his charge.


title: Oriflamme

text: Froissart vividly describes "porte-oriflamme" Geoffroi de Charny's fall at the side of his king at the Battle of Poitiers in this passage:


title: Oriflamme

text: There Sir Geoffroi de Charny fought gallantly near the king (note: and his fourteen-year-old son). The whole press and cry of battle were upon him because he was carrying the king’s sovereign banner [the Oriflamme]. He also had before him his own banner, gules, three escutcheons argent. So many English and Gascons came around him from all sides that they cracked open the king’s battle formation and smashed it; there were so many English and Gascons that at least five of these men at arms attacked one [French] gentleman. Sir Geoffroi de Charny was killed with the banner of France in his hand, as other French banners fell to earth.


title: Oriflamme

text: In canto XXXI of "Paradiso", Dante describes the Virgin Mary in the Empyrean as "pacifica oriafiamma" (Musa's translation, "oriflame of peace"):


title: Oriflamme

text: The 19th-century poet Robert Southey refers to the Oriflamme and its reputation in his poem "Joan of Arc":


title: Oriflamme

text: The 20th-century Martiniquais poet and politician, Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) invokes the Oriflamme in his poem "Your Hair" ("Chevelure"). By invoking the Oriflamme, Césaire also invokes the French Colonial Empire, war, and oppression. The poem is included in "The Collected Poetry of Aimé Césaire." An excerpt reads:


title: Oriflamme

text: In the Discworld novel "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett, the flag of the theocracy of Omnia is referred to as an Oriflamme.


title: North American jaguar

text: The North American jaguar is a jaguar ("Panthera onca") population in North America, ranging from the southwestern United States to Central America. This population has declined over decades and was almost eliminated by 1960.


title: North American jaguar

text: In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock did not find evidence for morphological distinction between "P. o. hernandesii", "P. o. centralis" and "P. o. arizonensis" and considered them one subspecies. Recent tests failed to establish evidence for different subspecies of the jaguar.


title: North American jaguar

text: The modern jaguar is thought to have descended from a pantherine ancestor in Asia that crossed the Beringian land bridge into North America during the Early Pleistocene. From North America, it spread to Central and South America. The ancestral jaguar in North America is referred to as "Panthera onca augusta". During the Pleistocene epoch, jaguars were much more wide-spread through out North America with their ranges extending to places like Nebraska, Washington, and Maryland due to various fossil specimens being unearthed over the course of many decades with the highest concentrations of fossil jaguars being unearthed in Florida and eastern Tennessee. It should also be noted that the jaguar was much more common in Florida than its other felid relatives.


title: North American jaguar

text: While jaguars in South America can reach sizes of for males, jaguars in Central or North America are relatively smaller. Those in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the Mexican Pacific coast weigh just about , similar in weight to female cougars. was the average for six males in Belize, making them similar to South American females in Venezuela.


title: North American jaguar

text: In northeastern Mexico, jaguars co-occur with cougars. Both are foremost active at night and prey on white-tailed deer, collared peccary and cattle calves.


title: North American jaguar

text: Other sympatric predators in the region include the American black bear and formerly, the Mexican grizzly bear and Mexican wolf. There is evidence that a jaguar nicknamed El Jefe, which lived the southwestern United States 2011-2015, preyed on a young American black bear sow.


title: North American jaguar

text: In July 2018, in the Central American section of the Audubon Zoo in the US city of New Orleans, Louisiana, a 3-year-old male called 'Valerio' escaped from its enclosure, which had a roof in poor condition. It killed four alpacas, an emu and a fox, and injured two other alpacas and a fox, before being captured about an hour after its escape was notified. The killings were apparently the result of a territorial dispute. Its behavior was not deemed to be abnormal for its species.


title: North American jaguar

text: In North America, the jaguar currently ranges from the southern part of the United States in the north, to the southern part of Central America in the south. As recently as 2016, jaguars of Mexican origin have been spotted in Arizona. As below-mentioned, historical records distributed wider than today, reaching up to at least Colorado and California, or to the Pacific Northwest in the west and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida in the east with much less credibility, corresponding to that of known records of the Pleistocene giant jaguar.


title: North American jaguar

text: In 1799, Thomas Jefferson recorded the jaguar as an animal of the Americas. There are multiple zoological reports of jaguars in California, two as far north as Monterey in 1814 (Langsdorff) and 1826 (Beechey).


title: North American jaguar

text: The coastal Diegueño (Kumeyaay people) of San Diego and Cahuilla Indians of Palm Springs had words for jaguar and the cats persisted there until about 1860. The only recorded description of an active jaguar den with breeding adults and kittens in the United States was in the Tehachapi Mountains of California, prior to 1860. In 1843, Rufus Sage, an explorer and experienced observer recorded jaguars present on the headwaters of the North Platte River north of Longs Peak in Colorado. Cabot's 1544 map has a drawing of jaguars ranging over the Pennsylvania and Ohio valleys. Some of the northernmost records during the 19th and the 20th centuries includes sightings near the North Platte River in Colorado, and Monterey, California for the West Coast. Historically, the jaguar was also recorded in far eastern Texas, coastal Louisiana, and the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico. However, since the 1940s, the jaguar has been limited to southern areas of Arizona. Although less reliable than zoological records, Native American artefacts with possible jaguar motifs range from the Pacific Northwest to Pennsylvania and Florida.


title: North American jaguar

text: By the late 1960s, jaguars were thought to have been eliminated in the United States. A female was shot by a hunter in Arizona's White Mountains in 1963. Arizona outlawed jaguar hunting in 1969, but by then no females remained and over the next 25 years only two male jaguars were found (and killed) in Arizona. Then in 1996, Warner Glenn, a rancher and hunting guide from Douglas, Arizona, came across a jaguar in the Peloncillo Mountains and became a researcher on jaguars, placing webcams which recorded four more Arizona jaguars. No jaguars sighted in Arizona in the last 15 years had been seen since 2006. Then, in 2009, a male jaguar named Macho B died shortly after being radio-collared by Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) officials in 2009. In the Macho B incident, a former AGFD subcontractor pleaded guilty to violating the endangered species act for trapping the cat and a Game and Fish employee was fired for lying to federal investigators. In 2011, a male jaguar weighing was photographed near Cochise in southern Arizona by a hunter after being treed by his dogs (the animal left the scene unharmed). A second 2011 sighting of an Arizona jaguar was reported by a Homeland Security border pilot in June 2011, and conservation researchers sighted two jaguars within of the border between Mexico and the United States in 2010.


title: North American jaguar

text: In September 2012, a jaguar was photographed in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona, the second such sighting in this region in two years. This jaguar has been photographed numerous times over the past nine months through June 2013. On 3 February 2016, the Center for Biological Diversity released a video of this jaguar – now named "El Jefe" (Spanish for "The Boss") – roaming the Santa Rita Mountains, about south of downtown Tucson. El Jefe is the fourth jaguar sighted in the Madrean Sky Islands in southern Arizona and New Mexico, over the last 20 years.


title: North American jaguar

text: On 16 November 2016, a jaguar was spotted in the Dos Cabezas Mountains of Arizona, from the Mexican border, the farthest north one of these animals has been spotted in many decades. It is the seventh jaguar to be confirmed in the Southwest since 1996. On 1 December 2016, another male jaguar was photographed on Fort Huachuca also in Arizona. In February 2017, authorities revealed that a third jaguar had been photographed in November 2016, by the Bureau of Land Management in the Dos Cabezas Mountains, also in Arizona, some north of the border with Mexico. The only picture obtained allowed experts to determine this is a different individual, but it does not reveal its gender.


title: North American jaguar

text: Legal action by the Center for Biological Diversity led to federal listing of the cat on the endangered species list in 1997. However, on January 7, 2008, George W. Bush appointee H. Dale Hall, Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), signed a recommendation to abandon jaguar recovery as a federal goal under the Endangered Species Act. Critics, including the Center of Biological Diversity and New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, were concerned the jaguar was being sacrificed for the government's new border fence, which is to be built along many of the cat's typical crossings between the United States and Mexico.


title: North American jaguar

text: In 2010, however, the Obama Administration reversed the policy of the Bush Administration, and pledged to protect "critical habitat" and draft a recovery plan for the species. The USFWS was ultimately ordered by the court to develop a jaguar recovery plan and designate critical habitat for the cats. On 20 August 2012, the USFWS proposed setting aside 838,232 acres in Arizona and New Mexico — an area larger than Rhode Island — as critical jaguar habitat. On 4 March 2014 Federal wildlife officials set aside nearly 1,200 square miles along the U.S.-Mexico border as habitat essential for the conservation of the jaguar. The reservation includes parts of Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in Arizona and Hidalgo County in New Mexico. In September 2015, El Jefe was photographed via camera trap and analysis of his spots confirms that he has been in southeastern Arizona ( south of Tucson) since 2011. Jaguars have been present in this region every year since 1997. El Jefe and other males may have originated from a breeding population in Sonora, Mexico, to the south of Tucson.


title: North American jaguar

text: The Northern Jaguar Project is a conservation effort on behalf of the jaguar that is headed by an Arizona-based organization of the same name, in conjunction with Mexico's Naturalia. It is focused on protecting the jaguars living near the border between the United States and Mexico. The core of the project is the Northern Jaguar Reserve. The project began in 2003 with the purchase of the 10,000 acre Los Pavos Ranch in northern Mexico, just south of the border. In 2008 it was expanded to more than double its size when Rancho Zetasora was acquired. Both ranches are remote, difficult to access, and relatively untouched, making them perfect habitat, not just for jaguars, but for many other species as well. The Northern Jaguar Project is the "northernmost location where jaguars, mountain lions, bobcats, and ocelots are all found in the same vicinity", and the park also features a variety of floral habitats as well.


title: North American jaguar

text: The project is also focused on efforts to create a stable jaguar population in Northwestern Mexico. However, its long term aspirations include a return of the jaguar to the Southwestern United States. The potential for such a re-introduction is deemed high, since as much as 30% of Arizona alone is considered to be a suitable habitat for the jaguar.


title: North American jaguar

text: A 2021 article by several experts in the Wildlife Conservation Society found that there exists substantial areas in both Arizona and New Mexico for jaguars. It also argues that a reintroduction is not only possible through the cooperation of local residents, conservationists, and wildlife experts, but also could cause a trophic cascade in the local ecosystems, as well as cause a significant increase in ecotourism, similarly to what happened during wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone.


title: North American jaguar

text: San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is close to the proposed border barrier, and since the proposed project would cut through a migration corridor for the jaguar between Mexico and the USA, it may interfere with the migration of Mexican jaguars to the USA, not withstanding other animals.


title: British Sign Language

text: British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on the 2011 Scottish Census, the British Deaf Association estimates there are 151,000 BSL users in the UK, of which 87,000 are Deaf. By contrast, in the 2011 England and Wales Census 15,000 people living in England and Wales reported themselves using BSL as their main language. People who are not deaf may also use BSL, as hearing relatives of deaf people, sign language interpreters or as a result of other contact with the British Deaf community. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands, body, face, and head.


title: British Sign Language

text: BSL is a creation of the British Deaf community, who have experienced discrimination over many centuries. All sign languages have origins in gestural communication developed between deaf children and hearing adults. Unlike home sign, which does not pass between generations, sign languages are shared by a large community of signers.


title: British Sign Language

text: Records show the existence of a sign language within deaf communities in England as far back as the 15th century. The "History of the Syon Monastery at Lisbon and Brentford," published in 1450, contains descriptions of signs - some of which are still in use. The earliest documented use of sign language is the registry records of a marriage ceremony between Thomas Tilsye and Ursula Russel in 1576.


title: British Sign Language

text: Richard Carew's "Survey of Cornwall" (1602) includes a vivid description of Edward Bone, a deaf servant, meeting his deaf friend Kempe. Bone had some knowledge of Cornish and was able to lipread, but appeared to prefer signing. Carew described the situation thus:"Somewhat neerre the place of his [Bone's] birth, there dwelt another, so affected, or rather defected, whose name was Kempe: which two, when they chaunced to meete, would use such kinde embracements, such stranfe, often, and earnest tokenings, and such heartie laughtes, and other passionate gestures, that their want of a tongue, seemed rather an hinderance to other conveiving [understanding] them, then to their conceiving one another."John Bulwer, who had an adopted deaf daughter Chirothea Johnson, authored four late-Renaissance texts related to deafness, sign language and the human body: "Chirologia" (1644), "Philocopus" (1648), "Pathomyotamia" (1649) and "Anthropometamorphosis" (1650). In particular, "Chirologia" focuses on the meanings of gestures, expressions and body language, and describes signs and gestures in use at the time, some of which resemble signs still in use, while "Philocopus" explores the use of lipreading by deaf people and the possibility of deaf education, and is dedicated to Bulwer's two deaf brothers.


title: British Sign Language

text: Another writer of the same time, George Dalgarno, recognised that sign language was unrelated to English. In 1661 he wrote that ""The deaf man has no teacher at all and through necessity may put him upon... using signs, yet those have no affinity to the language by which they that are about him do converse among themselves.""


title: British Sign Language

text: Finally, the diarist Samuel Pepys described a conversation between George Downing and a deaf boy in November 1666:"But, above all, there comes in the dumb boy that I knew in Oliver's time, who is mightily acquainted here, and with Downing; and he made strange signs of the fire, and how the King was abroad, and many things they understood, but I could not..."British Sign Language has evolved, as all languages do, from these origins by modification, invention and importation.


title: British Sign Language

text: Thomas Braidwood, a teacher from Edinburgh, founded 'Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb' in 1760, which is believed to be the first school for deaf children in Britain. The school primarily taught oral communication methods, as described by Francis Green - whose son attended the Braidwood school - in the anonymous treatise "Vox oculis subjecta." In this account, Green describes how his son Charles would surely develop ""a perfect acquaintance with language both oral and written"," and how deaf pupils were given ""a tolerable general understanding of their own language [English] so as to read, write, and speak it, with ease"." Green also describes Braidwood's views of spoken language:"Mr Braidwood hath frequently intimated to me, as an opinion founded upon his experience in this art, that articulate or spoken language hath so great and essential a tendency to confirm and enlarge ideas, above the power of written language, that it is almost impossible for deaf persons, without the use of speech, to be perfect in their ideas."Joseph Watson was trained as a teacher of the deaf under Thomas Braidwood. He eventually left in 1792 to become the headmaster of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Bermondsey. He described his teaching methods in detail in his book, "On the Education of the Deaf and Dumb" (1809), where he opposed the use of signed versions of spoken language such as the Signed French used in the Paris school. The book contains lists of vocabulary and plates designed to encourage a child to acquire an understanding of written and spoken language.


title: British Sign Language

text: Although the Braidwood school focused on speech, it also used an early form of sign language, "the combined system", which was the first codification of British Sign Language. The Braidwood school later moved to London and was visited by Abbé Sicard and Laurent Clerc in 1815, at the same time that an American Protestant minister, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, travelled to Europe to research teaching of deaf people.


title: British Sign Language

text: André-Daniel Laffon de Ladebat, one of the French visitors to the Braidwood school, provided a vivid description of Laurent Clerc's meeting with the deaf children in the bilingual English/French book, "A collection of the Most Remarkable Definitions and Answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb." Laurent Clerc, who was deaf, was overjoyed to find fellow sign language users:"As soon as Clerc beheld this sight [of the children at dinner] his face became animated; he was as agitated as a traveller of sensibility would be on meeting all of a sudden in distant regions, a colony of his own countrymen... Clerc approached them. He made signs and they answered him by signs. The unexpected communication cause a most delicious sensation in them and for us was a scene of expression and sensibility that gave us the most heart-felt satisfaction."The Braidwood schools refused to teach Gallaudet their methods. Gallaudet then travelled to Paris and learned the educational methods of the French Royal Institution for the Deaf, a combination of Old French Sign Language and the signs developed by Abbé de l'Épée. As a consequence American Sign Language today has a 60% similarity to modern French Sign Language and is almost unintelligible to users of British Sign Language. Gallaudet went on to establish the American School for the Deaf in 1817, which focused on manual communication and ASL, in contrast to the oral methods used in the UK.


title: British Sign Language

text: Until the 1940s, sign language skills were passed between deaf people without a unified sign language system; many said people were living in residential institutions. Signing was actively discouraged in schools by punishment, and deaf education emphasised teaching deaf children to learn to lip read and finger spell. From the 1970s there has been an increasing tolerance and instruction in BSL in schools. The language continues to evolve as older signs such as "alms" and "pawnbroker" have fallen out of use and new signs such as "internet" and "laser" have been coined. The evolution of the language and its changing level of acceptance means that older users tend to rely on finger spelling while younger ones make use of a wider range of signs.


title: British Sign Language

text: Paddy Ladd initiated deaf programming on British television in the 1980s and is credited with getting sign language on television and enabling deaf children to be educated in sign.


title: British Sign Language

text: BSL users campaigned to have BSL recognised on an official level. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 mandates the provision of interpreters. On 18 March 2003 the UK government formally recognised that BSL is a language in its own right. In 2021, Rosie Cooper introduced the British Sign Language Bill to recognise BSL as an official language, which was backed by the government. After being dormant from June 2021, the bill began moving through Parliament on 28 January 2022, but during a meeting with stakeholders on 7 February, the language of the bill was revealed to have been pared down substantially, disappointing said stakeholders. The British Deaf Association stated that it was 'unhappy' with this removal of language from the bill.


title: British Sign Language

text: Linguistics is the study of language, including those like BSL that are not carried by sound. In all sign languages the great majority of 'words' (hand gestures) cannot be understood in other sign languages. How one language signs a certain number would be different than how another language signs it. The way sentences are constructed (syntax) differs from sign language to sign language, just as with different spoken languages. British Sign Language is described as a 'spatial language' as it "moves signs in space."


title: British Sign Language

text: Like many other sign languages, BSL phonology is defined by elements such as handshape, orientation, location, movement, and non-manual features. There are phonological components to sign language that have no meaning alone but work together to create a meaning of a signed word: hand shape, movement, location, orientation and facial expression. The meanings of words differ if one of these components is changed. Signs can be identical in certain components but different in others, giving each a different meaning. Facial expression falls under the nonmanual feature component of phonology. These include "eyebrow height, eye gaze, mouthing, head movement, and torso rotation."


title: British Sign Language

text: In common with other languages, whether spoken or signed, BSL has its own grammar which govern how phrases are signed. BSL has a particular syntax. One important component of BSL is its use of proforms. A proform is "...any form that stands in the place of, or does the job of, some other form." Sentences are composed of two parts, in order: the subject and the predicate. The subject is the topic of the sentence, while the predicate is the commentary about the subject.


title: British Sign Language

text: BSL uses a topic–comment structure. Topic-comment means that the topic of the signed conversation is first established, followed by an elaboration of the topic, being the 'comment' component. The canonical word order outside of the topic–comment structure is object–subject–verb (OSV), and noun phrases are head-initial.


title: British Sign Language

text: Although the United Kingdom and the United States share English as the predominant oral language, British Sign Language is quite distinct from American Sign Language (ASL) - having only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate. BSL is also distinct from Irish Sign Language (ISL) (ISG in the ISO system) which is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) and ASL.


title: British Sign Language

text: It is also distinct from Signed English, a manually coded method expressed to represent the English language.


title: British Sign Language

text: The sign languages used in Australia and New Zealand, Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language respectively, evolved largely from 19th century BSL, and all retain the same manual alphabet and grammar and possess similar lexicons. These three languages may technically be considered dialects of a single language (BANZSL) due to their use of the same grammar and manual alphabet and the high degree of lexical sharing (overlap of signs). The term BANZSL was coined by Trevor Johnston and Adam Schembri.


title: British Sign Language

text: In Australia deaf schools were established by educated deaf people from London, Edinburgh and Dublin. This introduced the London and Edinburgh dialects of BSL to Melbourne and Sydney respectively and Irish Sign Language to Sydney in Roman Catholic schools for the deaf. The language contact post secondary education between Australian ISL users and 'Australian BSL' users accounts for some of the dialectal differences we see between modern BSL and Auslan. Tertiary education in the US for some deaf Australian adults also accounts for some ASL borrowings found in modern Auslan.


title: British Sign Language

text: Auslan, BSL and NZSL have 82% of signs identical (using concepts from a Swadesh list). When considering similar or related signs as well as identical, they are 98% cognate. Further information will be available after completion of the BSL corpus, allows for comparison with the Auslan corpus, and the New Zealand Sign Language project. There continues to be language contact between BSL, Auslan and NZSL through migration (deaf people and interpreters), the media (television programmes such as See Hear, Switch, Rush and SignPost are often recorded and shared informally in all three countries) and conferences (the World Federation of the Deaf Conference – WFD – in Brisbane 1999 saw many deaf British people travelling to Australia).


title: British Sign Language

text: Makaton, a communication system for people with cognitive impairments or other communication difficulties, was originally developed with signs borrowed from British Sign Language. The sign language used in Sri Lanka is also closely related to BSL despite the oral language not being English, demonstrating variation in distance between sign languages and spoken ones.


title: British Sign Language

text: BSL has many regional dialects. Certain signs used in Scotland, for example, may not be understood immediately, or not understood at all, by those in Southern England, or vice versa. Some signs are even more local, occurring only in certain towns or cities (such as the Manchester system of number signs). Likewise, some may go in or out of fashion, or evolve over time, just as terms in oral languages do. Families may have signs unique to them to accommodate for certain situations or to describe an object that may otherwise require fingerspelling.


title: British Sign Language

text: Many British television channels broadcast programmes with in-vision signing, using BSL, as well as specially made programmes aimed mainly at deaf people such as the BBC's "See Hear" and Channel 4's "VEE-TV".


title: British Sign Language

text: BBC News broadcasts in-vision signing at 07:00-07:45, 08:00-08:20 and 13:00-13:45 GMT/BST each weekday. BBC Two also broadcasts in-vision signed repeats of the channel's primetime programmes between 00:00 and 02:00 each weekday. All BBC channels (excluding BBC One, BBC Alba and BBC Parliament) provide in-vision signing for some of their programmes. In 2020, 5.5% of Channel 4's programming was signed, including popular shows such as Hollyoaks and Gogglebox.


title: British Sign Language

text: BSL is used in some educational establishments, but is not always the policy for deaf children in some local authority areas. The Let's Sign BSL and fingerspelling graphics are being developed for use in education by deaf educators and tutors and include many of the regional signs referred to above.


title: British Sign Language

text: In Northern Ireland, there are about 4,500 users of BSL and 1,500 users of Irish Sign Language, an unrelated sign language. A hybrid version, dubbed "Northern Ireland Sign Language" is also used.


title: British Sign Language

text: In 2019, over 100 signs for scientific terms, including 'deoxyribonucleotide' and 'deoxyribonucleoside', were added to BSL, after being conceived by Liam Mcmulkin, a deaf graduate of the University of Dundee, who had found finger-spelling such words tiresome, during his degree course.


title: British Sign Language

text: In 2016 the British Deaf Association (BDA)says that, based on official statistics, it believes there are 151,000 people who use BSL in the UK, and 87,000 of these are deaf. This figure does not include professional BSL users, interpreters, translators, etc. unless they use BSL at home.


title: British Sign Language

text: The British Sign Language Dictionary was compiled for the British Deaf Association by the Deaf Studies Research Unit at the University of Durham. It depicts over 1,800 signs through pictures and diagrams, each sign accompanied by definitions, explanations and usage. The signs are ordered not alphabetically, as a dictionary of the English language, but rather according to the phonological characteristics of the language. For example, signs that are based on the "fist" handshape come before signs based on the "open hand" handshape.


title: British Sign Language

text: The dictionary was edited by David Brien, assisted by a team composed by Mary Brennan, Clark Denmark, Frances Elton, Liz Scoot Gibson, Graham Turner and Dorothy Miles, among others.


title: British Sign Language

text: The Dictionary was published in 1992. The foreword was written by Princess Diana, who was the patron of the BDA.


title: British Sign Language

text: British Sign Language can be learnt from formal institutions throughout the UK and three examination systems exist. Courses are provided by community colleges, local centres for deaf people and private organisations. A teaching qualification program was started by the British Deaf Association in 1984 at the University of Durham, called BSL Tutor Training Course, which closed in 1999.


title: British Sign Language

text: National awarding organisations run training for BSL teachers. Each of these organisations have their own curricula, teaching materials and resources.


title: British Sign Language

text: There are two qualification routes: via post-graduate studies, or via National Vocational Qualifications. Deaf Studies undergraduate courses with specific streams for sign language interpreting exist at several British universities; post-graduate level interpreting diplomas are also on offer from universities and one private company. Course entry requirements vary from no previous knowledge of BSL to NVQ level 6 BSL (or equivalent).


title: British Sign Language

text: The qualification process allows interpreters to register with the National Registers of Communication Professionals with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD), a voluntary regulator. Registrants are asked to self-certify that they have both cleared a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check and are covered by professional indemnity insurance. Completing a level 3 BSL language assessment and enrolling on an approved interpreting course allows applications to register as a TSLI (Trainee Sign Language Interpreter). After completing an approved interpreting course, trainees can then apply to achieve RSLI (Registered Sign Language Interpreter) status. RSLIs are currently required by NRCPD to log Continuous Professional Development activities. Post-qualification, specialist training is still considered necessary to work in specific critical domains.


title: British Sign Language

text: Communication Support Workers (CSWs) are professionals who support the communication of deaf students in education at all ages, and deaf people in many areas of work, using British Sign Language and other communication methods such as Sign Supported English. The qualifications and experience of CSWs varies: some are fully qualified interpreters, others are not.


title: British Sign Language

text: Let Sign Shine is a campaign started by Norfolk teenager Jade Chapman to raise the awareness of British Sign Language (BSL) and attract signatures for a petition for BSL to be taught in schools. The campaign's petition to the Parliament of the United Kingdom has attracted support from over four thousand people.


title: British Sign Language

text: Chapman was nominated for the Bernard Matthews Youth Award 2014 for her work and devotion to raising awareness of the importance of sign language. Chapman won the education award category and was presented with an award by Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington.


title: British Sign Language

text: Chapman was also awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Radio Norwich 99.9 Local Hero Awards on 7 October 2015. The award ceremony featured a performance by Alesha Dixon.


title: British Sign Language

text: Having been donated £1,000 from the Bernard Matthews Youth Award, Let Sign Shine used this to start a British Sign Language course at Dereham Neatherd High School.


title: Ron Masak

text: Ronald Alan Masak (July 1, 1936 – October 20, 2022) was an American actor. He began working as a stage performer, and mostly was involved in theater until transitioning to film and television becoming a familiar character actor. From 1988 to 1996, Masak played the recurring role Sheriff Mort Metzger in the CBS mystery series "Murder, She Wrote" starring Angela Lansbury, who predeceased him by only 9 days.


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak's early television appears includes roles on "The Twilight Zone", "Get Smart", "The Monkees", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Bewitched", and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". From 1970 to 1973 he appeared in the ABC anthology comedy series "Love, American Style". He then starred in another ABC series, "Love Thy Neighbor" (1973). He then earned roles in the NBC crime series "Police Story" (1975-1978), and in the ABC sitcom "Webster" (1983-1989).


title: Ron Masak

text: From 1988 to 1996, Masak portrayed the recurring role of Sheriff Mort Metzger of Cabot Cove in "Murder, She Wrote", taking over for Tom Bosley's Sheriff Amos Tupper. During this time he also guest starred on various shows such as "Rockford Files", "Quincy M.E.", "Magnum P.I.", and "Diff'rent Strokes". He's also known for his film roles in "Ice Station Zebra" (1968), "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970), and "Harper Valley PTA" (1978).


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak was born in Chicago to Floyd Louis Masak and Mildred Alice (Rudy) Masak. His mother was of Irish descent and his father of


title: Ron Masak

text: Czech Bohemian descent. His paternal great-grandfather, Karel Masák (1861-1899), was an immigrant from near Týn nad Vltavou.


title: Ron Masak

text: The Army provided Masak with a platform to display his all-around talents for performing, writing, and directing. In 1960-61, he toured the world doing vocal impressions in the all-Army show entitled "Rolling Along".


title: Ron Masak

text: In 1968, he appeared alongside Vince Lombardi in the short film, "Second Effort". In the same year he had a supporting role in the submarine action film "Ice Station Zebra".


title: Ron Masak

text: In addition to two guest appearances on the sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie", he also had a role in the pilot film for "Jeannie" star Barbara Eden's subsequent series "Harper Valley PTA" and worked again with "Jeannie" co-star Larry Hagman in an episode of the crime series "The Rockford Files".


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak's first screen role was as the Harmonica Man in "The Purple Testament", an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in 1960. He appeared as "Mike the boxer" on "The Flying Nun", season 1, episode 26 ("Where There's a Will"), which first aired March 13, 1968. He appeared as "Officer #2" on "Bewitched", Season 7, Episode 4 ("Samantha's Hot Bedwarmer"), first aired on October 15, 1970, he also appeared in season 5 episode 25 as an ice cream shop manager which aired in 1969, (“Samantha’s Power Failure), and in “Irving Bates, Sr.” in Season 6, Episode 23 (“Just a Kid Again”).


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak had a guest appearance as Beauregard Jackson in the episode "Hurricane" on "Land of the Lost". He appeared in the second season of "Barney Miller" episode of "The Horse Thief" as officer Shriker and was a guest star in the "Welcome Home, Vince" episode of "The Feather and Father Gang" in 1977 and in the episode "The Two-Million-Dollar Stowaway" of "The Eddie Capra Mysteries" in 1978. In 1981, he guest starred on the "Magnum, P.I." episode "Skin Deep". He also guest starred on an episode of "Quincy, M.E.".


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak was perhaps best known for a recurring role on "Murder, She Wrote" as the Cadillac convertible-driving Sheriff, Mort Metzger of Cabot Cove, a role which he played from 1988 to 1996. Masak did make appearances as two other characters in the series, in "Footnote to Murder" as Lt. Lyle Meyer and in "No Accounting for Murder" as Marty Giles. He died just nine days after the passing of the show's main star, Angela Lansbury.


title: Ron Masak

text: In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was dubbed "The King of Commercials" for his many commercials, including voice-over work, most notably for a Vlasic pickles ad. From 1982 to 1983, he voiced "Meatballs" on the CBS cartoon series "Meatballs & Spaghetti". He did the voice for Veteran Holt in the video game "".


title: Ron Masak

text: In 1990, Masak was a panelist on the revival of the television game show, "To Tell the Truth", and appeared on several other game shows as a panelist (including "Match Game", "Password Plus", and "Super Password"). Masak appeared as Eddie Fenelle, a taxi driver, in the "Columbo" episode Ashes to Ashes (1998).


title: Ron Masak

text: Masak married Kay Knebes in September 1961; together they had six children. He was also the first cousin of actor Michael Gross of "Family Ties" and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Mary Gross.


title: Tawanchai P.K. Saenchaimuaythaigym

text: Tawanchai P.K. Saenchai Muaythaigym (; born April 7, 1999) is a Thai Muay Thai fighter. As of December 2021 he is the number 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world according to The Nation. A former Lumpinee Stadium fighter of the year, he competes in the Featherweight division of ONE Championship, where he is the current ONE Muay Thai Featherweight World Champion.


title: Tawanchai P.K. Saenchaimuaythaigym

text: Tawanchai was born in Pattaya, he started his fighting career at Petchrungruang gym under the name Jatukam Petchrungruang when he was 8 years old. He moved to Bangkok and made his debut in Lumpinee Stadium at the age of 14.


title: Tawanchai P.K. Saenchaimuaythaigym

text: He quickly made a name for himself and jumped up multiple weight classes at a time. In 2017 he won the Thailand 126 lbs Title by defeating Wayunoi Petchkiatpetch.