title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra was nominally the sole lawgiver in her kingdom. As proven by the discovery of a papyrus signed by Cleopatra granting tax exemptions to Antony's Roman colleague Quintus Cascellius, she was directly involved in the administrative affairs of her kingdom. The Musaeum and adjacent Library of Alexandria attracted scholars from all over the Hellenistic world, who were also allowed to live in Egypt with total tax exemptions. Cleopatra was also the chief religious authority in the kingdom, carrying out rituals and rites in the ancient Egyptian religion that her native Egyptian subjects viewed as preventing the destruction of the world. Given the largely-Greek presence and multicultural nature of Ptolemaic cities like Alexandria, Cleopatra was also obligated to oversee religious ceremonies honoring the various Greek deities. Ethnic Greeks staffed the upper levels of government administrations, albeit within the framework of the scribal bureaucracy that had existed in Egypt since the Old Kingdom. Many administrators of Cleopatra's royal court had served during her father's reign, although some of them were killed in the civil war between her and Ptolemy XIII. The names of more than twenty regional governors serving under Cleopatra are known from inscriptions and papyri records, indicating some were ethnic Greeks and others were native Egyptians.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Two legally-defined classes divided Ptolemaic Egyptian society: Greeks and Egyptians. Greeks inhabited the city-states of Alexandria, Naukratis, and Ptolemais Hermiou. Considered full citizens of those "poleis", they were forbidden to marry native Egyptians (although Greeks living outside of these municipalities could). Native Egyptians and even Jews could be classified as Greeks if they abandoned their original cultures, received a Greek education, labeled their gods and goddesses with Greek names, and embraced the Greek lifestyle. Native Egyptians had been largely excluded from serving in the military by the reign of Ptolemy II, replaced by Greek and Jewish landholders called cleruchs. By the reign of Ptolemy IV in the late 3rd century BC, they were reintroduced as phalangite soldiers. Large migrations of Greeks to Egypt ceased by the 2nd century BC, so the Greek minority in Ptolemaic Egypt remained demographically small.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Although Egyptian priests were often wealthy landowners who rivaled the wealth of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, the Ptolemaic monarchs technically owned all Egyptian lands as part of their estate. Virtually all aspects of the Egyptian economy were nominally tightly controlled or supervised by the central government headquartered in Alexandria. Most of the population in Ptolemaic Egypt was involved in the agricultural industry, mainly as farmers. The River Nile's annual floods allowed for exceptional yields of crops, most in particular wheat, barley, and olives. Owing to Egypt's impressively fertile soil, there was more often than not a surplus in food, which was stockpiled and shipped to various empires throughout the Mediterranean world. The Ptolemaic rulers exacted high tariffs on imported and exported goods, established price controls for various goods, imposed high exchange rates for foreign currencies, established state monopolies over certain industries such as vegetable oil and textile production, and forced farming peasants to stay in their villages during planting and harvesting periods. However, the effectiveness of these policies and the authority of Ptolemaic rulers, including Cleopatra, to execute them fully were more of an ideal than a reality. Cleopatra and many of her royal predecessors found it necessary to clear all the private debts of their subjects to the government at the start of their reigns, due to widespread financial corruption by local officials abusing the general populace. Abuses often led workers to partake in general strikes until the government agreed to meet their demands. At the beginning of her reign, local officials harassed destitute farmers by collecting taxes during a famine and drought. Cleopatra curtailed these predatory measures and introduced relief efforts such as releasing grain from the royal granary.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Both Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra found it necessary to debase Ptolemaic coinage due to financial troubles. No gold coins are known from Cleopatra's reign, while use of bronze coins was revived (absent since the reign of Ptolemy IX) and silver currency was debased roughly 40% by the end of her reign. Coins struck under Cleopatra's reign came from a wide geographical expanse, including sites in Egypt like Alexandria, but also the island of Cyprus, Antioch, Damascus and Chalcis ad Belum in Syria, Tripolis in Phoenicia, Askalon in Judea, and Cyrenaica in Libya. Surviving coins minted under Cleopatra include those from virtually every year of her reign. They commonly bore an image of her, along with that of the goddess Isis. Some imitate the coinage of her Ptolemaic ancestor Arsinoe II. Coins struck with Mark Antony include Roman "denarii" with dual images of Cleopatra and Antony, the first time that a foreign queen appeared on Roman coins with Latin inscriptions.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In addition to various ancient Greco-Roman works of art and literature depicting the queen, Cleopatra's legacy has partially survived in some of her ambitious building programs in Egypt utilizing Greek, Roman, and Egyptian styles of architecture. She established a Caesareum temple dedicated to the worship of her partner Julius Caesar near the palatial seafront of Alexandria. Its entrance was flanked by 200-ton rose granite obelisks, monuments placed there by Augustus in 13/12 BC. These were later known as Cleopatra's Needles and were relocated to New York and London in the 19th century. In conjunction with renewing a grant of asylum to Jews in Egypt and the pro-Jewish policies of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra also erected a synagogue in Alexandria. The city required extensive rebuilding following the civil war with her brother Ptolemy XIII, including necessary repairs to the Gymnasium and the Lighthouse of Alexandria on the island of Pharos. It is not known if Cleopatra made significant repairs or alterations to the Library of Alexandria or the royal palace, although Lucan hints at the latter. Cleopatra also began construction of her tomb (finished by Augustus) in the same palace precinct as the Tomb of Alexander the Great. Although the exact location of both of these is still unknown, Cleopatra's tomb may have served as the model for the Mausoleum of Augustus and that of later Roman emperors.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Although established earlier, Cleopatra resumed construction of the Dendera Temple complex (near modern Qena, Egypt). Reliefs were made depicting Cleopatra and her son Caesarion presenting offerings to the deities Hathor and Ihy, mirroring images of offerings to Isis and Horus. At the Hathor-Isis temple of Deir el-Medina, Cleopatra erected a large granite stela with dual inscriptions in Ancient Greek and Demotic Egyptian and images depicting her worshiping Montu and her son Caesarion worshiping Amun-Ra. The cult center of Montu at Hermonthis was refashioned with images of Caesarion's divine birth by Julius Caesar, depicted as Amun-Ra. It included an elaborate facade and entrance kiosk with large columns bearing the cartouches of Cleopatra and Caesarion. In the front entrance pylon of the Temple of Edfu, built by her father Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra erected two granite statues of Horus guarding the miniature figure of Caesarion. Construction of a temple dedicated to the goddess Isis at Ptolemais Hermiou was overseen by Cleopatra's regional governor Kallimachos.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: Park Jeong-min (; born March 24, 1987) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for starring in the films "Bleak Night" (2011), "" (2015), "Keys to the Heart" (2018), and "Deliver Us from Evil" (2020). He is also the writer of best-selling book "A Useful Person".


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2005, Park enrolled at the prestigious Korea University and subsequently dropped out with the intention to become a filmmaker. He then majored in film making at Korea National University of Arts, but later switched his major to acting after his military discharge.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2011, Park made his screen debut with the critically acclaimed independent film "Bleak Night", for which he was nominated for Best New Actor at the 20th Buil Film Awards.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: He made his breakthrough in 2016 with his performance in "" as Song Mong-gyu, a cousin of the poet Yun Dong-ju who was known for his resistance writings during the Japanese occupation of Korea. His portrayal garnered him Best New Actor awards at the 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards, the 37th Blue Dragon Film Awards, the 36th Golden Cinema Festival, the Korea Film Actors Association Awards, the 16th Director's Cut Awards, and a Best Supporting Actor award at the 22nd Chunsa Film Art Awards.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2017, Park returned to theater as Romeo in the Korean adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" with Moon Geun-young playing Juliet.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2018, he starred in the comedy-drama film "Keys to the Heart" as a gifted pianist with savant syndrome. The same year, Park appeared in the superhero film "Psychokinesis" and headlined Lee Joon-ik's drama film "Sunset in My Hometown" in which he plays a rapper. With the help of professional rappers, Park practiced rapping for a year, and wrote lyrics for the songs that appeared in the film.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2019, Park starred in mystery thriller "" followed by lead roles in the crime drama film "" and the webtoon-based comedy film "Start-Up".


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2020, Park was part of the main cast of Netflix original film "Time to Hunt" which premiered at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. Later that year, Park acted alongside Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae in the action film "Deliver Us from Evil" as Yui, a transgender woman who wishes to undergo sex reassignment surgery but cannot afford to do so. The film became the second highest-grossing South Korean film of 2020. For his portrayal, Park won Best Supporting Actor at the 41st Blue Dragon Film Awards, Best Supporting Actor (Film) at the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards, Best Supporting Actor at the 40th Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, and Best Supporting Actor at the 26th Chunsa Film Art Awards. Park also wrote and directed a music video for "RECONNECT" as part of a special project in celebration of ELLE Korea's 28th anniversary.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2021, Park starred in the drama film "". He made his directorial debut with short film "Unframed – Vote for Inno" which premiered at the 26th Busan International Film Festival alongside Netflix original series "Hellbound" in which Park made his small screen comeback.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: In 2014, Park became a writer of a monthly column for Topclass magazine and established a following of devoted readers. His column is called “Eonhee,” which means “to make others happy through words.”


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: Known for his humorous and self-deprecating writing style, Park published his own book of essays in 2016, titled "A Useful Person". The book became a best-seller and had its 12th round of printing as of 2019.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: Park also owns a bookstore and cafe called Book, Night, Day in Hapjeong-dong, Seoul which opened in 2019.


title: Park Jeong-min (actor)

text: At the end of 2020, Park established his own book publishing company, Muze Books, and became the editor of the first book published by the company.


title: 30mm DS30M Mark 2 Automated Small Calibre Gun

text: The 30mm DS30M Mark 2 is a ship-protection system made by MSI-Defence Systems consisting of a 30mm Mark 44 Bushmaster II cannon on an automated mount. It was designed to defend Royal Navy frigates from fast inshore attack craft armed with short-range missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, or explosives.


text: The DS30M Mark 2 system consists of a 30mm Mark 44 Bushmaster II on a fully automated mount or via manual control with an off-mount electro-optical director (EOD). The gun and the EOD can be controlled from a remote operator console elsewhere on the ship. The weapon is a gyro-stabilized, electrically operated, self-contained, single cannon mount featuring a choice of weapon, control mode and sights. It has low magnetic, radar and infrared signatures with good availability, reliability and maintainability (ARM). In theory, the dual feed system of the Bushmaster series allows the operator to select different types of ammunition for use against a variety of targets.


text: In August 2005, the Maritime Gunnery and Missile Systems Integrated Project Team in the UK Ministry of Defence awarded MSI-Defence Systems (part of MS International PLC) a contract to supply a total of 26 Automated Small Calibre Guns (ASCG) systems for retrofit to the 13 Type 23 frigates of the Royal Navy (RN) as part of their littoral Defensive Anti-Surface Warfare upgrade in a contract was worth more than £15 million (US$30.7 million). The system was bought after Fleet Command and the UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) Directorate Equipment Capability identified a gap in capability in the RN's ability to defend itself against swarming fast attack craft threats.


text: MSI undertook land-based trials at Eskmeals Firing Range in Cumbria. In mid-2007, MSI delivered the first two mountings, which were installed on HMS "Somerset" in August 2007, and used in sea trials on gun ranges in the English Channel starting in October 2007.


text: In 2008, the management consultancy company CORDA (part of BAE Systems) was awarded a £300,000 research contract by the UK MoD's Defence Technology and Innovation Centre to assess the level of protection British warships receive from small calibre 30mm guns. CORDA's programme manager said: "What we are doing is looking at the performance of the Royal Navy's 30mm Automated Small Calibre Gun and what can be done to increase the level of protection it provides. [...] The ASCG system has significantly enhanced capability, but we have been asked to look at how improving tactics or integrating further technology could improve the performance of the system." The study used simulator-based operator trials at the Maritime Warfare School to quantify the performance of the weapon system when engaging multiple targets.


text: In 2019, a trial was carried out on board HMS "Sutherland" to test the fitting and operation of Martlet light surface-to-surface missiles on a modified DS30M Mark 2 mount. While the tests were deemed successful, there has been no official confirmation about whether the shipboard mounts would go into operational service.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann Lois Romney ( Davies; born April 16, 1949) is an American author and philanthropist. She is the wife of businessman and politician, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. From 2003 to 2007, Romney was First Lady of Massachusetts, while her husband served as governor.


title: Ann Romney

text: She was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and attended the private Kingswood School there, where she dated Mitt Romney. She converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1966. She attended Brigham Young University (BYU), married Mitt Romney in 1969, and in 1975 received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French.


title: Ann Romney

text: As First Lady of Massachusetts, Romney served as the governor's liaison for federal faith-based initiatives. She was involved in a number of children's charities, including Operation Kids. She was an active participant in her husband's U.S. presidential campaigns in 2008 and again in 2012, when he was the Republican Party nominee.


title: Ann Romney

text: Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and has credited a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments with giving her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. In one activity, equestrianism, she has consequently received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level and competed professionally in Grand Prix as well. In 2014 she opened the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston; it does intersectional research regarding multiple sclerosis and several other brain diseases.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann and Mitt Romney have five sons, born between 1970 and 1981, twenty-four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.


title: Ann Romney

text: Born Ann Lois Davies in Detroit on April 16, 1949, she was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by parents Edward Roderick Davies and Lois (Pottinger) Davies. She has two brothers. Her father, originally from Caerau near Maesteg, Wales, was a self-made businessman who in 1946 co-founded Jered Industries, a maker of heavy machinery for marine use located in Troy, Michigan. He had also held the part-time position of Mayor of Bloomfield Hills. Raised in the Welsh Congregationalists, he had become strongly opposed to all organized religion, although on her request the family very occasionally attended church, and she nominally identified as an Episcopalian. At times, she helped out at her father's plant.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann Davies knew of Mitt Romney since elementary school. She went to the private Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, which was the sister school to the all-boys Cranbrook School that he attended. The two were re-introduced and began dating in March 1965; they informally agreed to marriage after his senior prom in June 1965. He talked of the marriage taking place in the near future, but she insisted that he go on Mormon missionary duty on the grounds that he would regret it later if he did not.


title: Ann Romney

text: Mitt attended Stanford University for a year and then was away starting a -year missionary stint in France. During 1966, she converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, without him having made any request to her that she do so. In the conversion process she accepted the guidance of Mitt's father George Romney, the Governor of Michigan. George included her in Romney family events while Mitt was away; she appreciated his treating her as an equal and picked him to baptize her.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann graduated from high school in 1967 and began attending Brigham Young University (BYU). She spent the second semester of her freshman year abroad, at the University of Grenoble in France, and was there during the 1968 Winter Olympics and met athletes such as skiing star Jean-Claude Killy. The Mormon missionary rules allowed her only two brief visits with Mitt and very rare telephone calls with him. Back at BYU, she involved herself in campus life, spending several days a week as a volunteer in the academic affairs office. While at BYU, she dated future business academic Kim S. Cameron. She sent Mitt a "Dear John letter" of sorts, while Mitt sent letters back imploring her to wait for him.


title: Ann Romney

text: Immediately after Romney's return from France in December 1968, the pair reconnected and agreed to get married as soon as possible. Ann Davies and Mitt Romney were married in a civil ceremony on March 21, 1969, at her Bloomfield Hills home, with a reception afterward at the Bloomfield Hills Country Club. It was presided over by Edwin B. Jones, a banker and Romney family friend then serving as an LDS Church Regional representative of the Twelve. Among the 250–300 guests were U.S. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford and automotive executives such as Semon Knudsen and Edward Cole, and President Richard Nixon sent congratulations. The following day the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple; her parents could not attend since they were non-Mormons, but were present at a subsequent wedding breakfast held for them across the street. (Both her brothers converted to Mormonism within a year of her doing so; her mother converted much later.)


title: Ann Romney

text: The couple's first son was born in 1970 while both were undergraduates at BYU (to where Mitt had transferred based upon her request). After Mitt graduated, the couple moved to Belmont, Massachusetts, so that he could attend Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. Slowed down by parenthood, she later finished her undergraduate work by gaining a semester and half's worth of credits via taking night courses at Harvard University Extension School. Ann Romney received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in French language from BYU in 1975.


title: Ann Romney

text: A stay-at-home mother, Romney raised the family's five sons: Taggart (known as "Tagg", born in 1970), Matthew ("Matt", 1971), Joshua ("Josh", 1975), Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981). She faced criticism from her parents over her decision to marry and start a large family so young. She also felt snubbed by her peers, at a time when the feminist movement was blooming and educated women were establishing careers. She later said, "My parents were questioning my choices, my peers were. But [...] I was pretty resolute, pretty confident in what I was doing." She taught early morning seminary to them and other children while her husband worked, first in business, then in politics. She wanted to go on for a master's degree, perhaps in art history, but first taking care of her children, and later her health issues, forestalled that. She was active in the local PTA and with the League of Women Voters. With a friend, she held local cooking classes for a brief period. Naturally athletic, she began playing tennis and became one of the best players around the local country clubs.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann Romney ran for the position of town meeting representative in Belmont in 1977. She studied local issues and engaged in door-to-door campaigning, and won the election.


title: Ann Romney

text: It was partly due to her urging that her husband entered politics and ran in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts against incumbent Democrat Ted Kennedy. The race constituted her first prolonged public exposure as she campaigned for him on a nightly basis. She was seen as superficial and too deferential to him and some columnists labelled her a "Stepford wife". Late in that campaign, she gave a long interview to "The Boston Globe". Her statement in it that she and her husband had never had a serious argument during their married years came in for ridicule, and her portrayal of the couple's student years as financially impoverished, while they lived off of sales of George Romney's stock and loans, made her seem privileged and naïve and brought a harsh public reaction. Boston University political science professor later said, "She definitely hurt him in that race." Asked following her husband's loss if she would be involved in future campaigns, Ann said, "Never. You couldn't pay me to do this again." She later termed the experience "a real education".


title: Ann Romney

text: During 1997, Ann Romney began experiencing severe numbness, fatigue, and other symptoms, and just before Thanksgiving in 1998, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Mitt Romney described watching her fail a series of neurological tests as the worst day of his life. He later said: "I couldn't operate without Ann. We're a partnership. We've always been a partnership so her being healthy and our being able to be together is essential." She initially experienced a period of severe difficulty with the disease, and later said: "I was very sick in 1998 when I was diagnosed. I was pretty desperate, pretty frightened and very, very sick. It was tough at the beginning, just to think, this is how I'm going to feel for the rest of my life."


title: Ann Romney

text: Since then, she credits a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments with giving her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. She initially used corticosteroids, including intravenously, and credited them with helping stop the progression of the disease. She then dropped them and other medications due to counterproductive side effects. She has partaken of reflexology, acupuncture, and craniosacral therapy, and has said, "There is huge merit in both Eastern and Western medicine, and I've taken a little bit from both." She is a board member for the New England chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.


title: Ann Romney

text: Romney is an avid equestrian, crediting her renewed involvement in it while in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home and where they lived when he was in charge of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games), for much of her recovery after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and for her continued ability to deal with the disease. She has said that riding "saved my life", explaining that, "I was losing most of the function of my right side. And I decided I needed to go back and do what I loved before I couldn't do it anymore." At first she could barely stay on a horse without getting tired, but gradually the muscle control required for riding proved directly beneficial, and psychologically, "Riding exhilarated me; it gave me a joy and a purpose. When I was so fatigued that I couldn't move, the excitement of going to the barn and getting my foot in the stirrup would make me crawl out of bed." As a result, she said, "My desire to ride was, and is, so strong that I kept getting healthier and healthier."


title: Ann Romney

text: She has received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level, including earning her 2006 Gold Medal and 2005 Silver Medal at the Grand Prix level from the United States Dressage Federation. She also sometimes competes in professional dressage events and has broken the 60% level at Grand Prix. Romney works with California trainer Jan Ebeling, who schools her and her horses in dressage and works with her importing new stock from Europe. The pair qualified for the Pan-Am games in 2004.


title: Ann Romney

text: By 2011, the horses she owned and kept at Ebeling's Moorpark, California, stables, which she is a partner in, were valued at more than $250,000. The Romneys helped fund Ebeling's aspirations for equestrian competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Ann was present in Gladstone, New Jersey, in June 2012 when Ebeling, riding on the horse Rafalca (co-owned by him and Ann) won a spot on the U.S. dressage team. At the London games in August 2012, she watched the pair place 28th in the competition.


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann Romney has been involved in a number of children's charities, including having been a director of the inner city-oriented Best Friends, which seeks to assist inner-city adolescent girls. She advocated a celibacy-based approach to the prevention of teen pregnancy. She worked extensively with the Ten Point Coalition in Boston and with other groups that promoted better safety and opportunities for urban youths.


title: Ann Romney

text: She was an honorary board member of Families First, a parent education program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was a volunteer instructor of middle-school girls at the multicultural Mother Caroline Academy in Boston.


title: Ann Romney

text: She has said her interest in helping underprivileged children dates back to when she and her five boys saw a vehicle carrying a group of boys to a Massachusetts Department of Youth Services detention center. She began volunteering for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay soon after that, and by 2002 was serving as one of that organization's board members. She was on the Faith in Action Committee for the United Way, working with local religious establishments to assist at-risk children and helping to found United Way Faith and Action. Earlier, by 1996, she was a member of the Massachusetts Advisory Board of Stand for Children.


title: Ann Romney

text: During the 2002 Winter Olympics effort, she co-chaired the Olympic Aid charity, which provides athletic activities and programs for children in war-torn regions.


title: Ann Romney

text: Romney joined in her husband's campaign in the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election from the start, and nominated him at the state party convention. A commercial entitled "Mitt and Ann", highlighting their romance and marriage, began the campaign's television advertising. She avoided media interviews like the one that plagued her in 1994, but was a force behind the scenes during the eventually successful campaign.


title: Ann Romney

text: In January 2003, following his election, Romney became First Lady of Massachusetts, a position she held through January 2007. In that role, she generally kept a low public profile, with by her husband's initial indications no public role in administration or its policies. In 2006, "The Boston Globe" characterized her as "largely invisible" within the state (although by then she was becoming more visible "outside" the state, due to national appearances in connection with her husband's possible presidential campaign). Romney was president of the Doric Docents, the volunteer tour directors who inform visitors to the State House about its architecture and history and the Massachusetts legislative process.


title: Ann Romney

text: While Massachusetts First Lady, she was active in teenage pregnancy prevention efforts. In 2004, she said she was in favor of stem cell research as long as it was done "morally and ethically". One of her rare public appearances at the Massachusetts State House came in 2004 when she lobbied the legislature to raise awareness about multiple sclerosis.


title: Ann Romney

text: In 2005, the governor appointed his wife as head of a new special office whose purpose was to help the state's faith-based groups gain more federal monies in association with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. This came after the state had seen its share of faith-based grants decline over the preceding three years. In this unpaid Governor's Liaison position, Ann Romney was termed a "dynamo" by Jim Towey, director of the White House office.


title: Ann Romney

text: At the conclusion of her time as Massachusetts First Lady, Romney said that the role "doesn't need to change your life at all. I think it's an opportunity for service and an opportunity to see people of all walks of life from across the Commonwealth...It's an enriching part of your life [and one will] treasure it forever." Her health was still a primary factor in family decisions about her husband's career, and Mitt said in 2005 that if her multiple sclerosis flared up, "I wouldn't be involved in politics anymore; that would be over."


title: Ann Romney

text: Ann Romney was an active participant in her husband's 2008 presidential campaign. One past issue that arose involving her was disclosure of her donation of $150 to Planned Parenthood in 1994, when her husband was a pro-choice candidate for the U.S. Senate. She said she did not remember the contribution; her own public stance on abortion has evolved in a similar manner to his, and by this time she was co-chair of the capital campaign for Massachusetts Citizens for Life. By late 2007, she had become an integral part of his campaign, and was doing more trips and appearances on her own, despite the risk that added stress would aggravate her condition.


title: Ann Romney

text: Her political message was often mixed with discussions of her family, her recipes, or managing her condition. Romney's television advertisements in the early primary states prominently featured her and by the close of 2007, she was the most visible of all the Republican candidates' wives in campaigning. Regarding having to witness criticism of her husband, she later acknowledged that she sometimes wanted to "come out of my seat and clock somebody [but] you learn to just take a deep breath." By the time he ended his campaign in February 2008, she had become openly distasteful of the whole process.


title: Ann Romney

text: In late 2008, Romney was diagnosed with mammary ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive type of breast cancer, and had the lump removed via lumpectomy; she subsequently underwent radiation therapy. Her prognosis from this condition was excellent, and she later reflected that "I was really lucky" to have caught it so early. President-elect Barack Obama was among the well-wishers who called her. She has been cancer-free since.


title: Ann Romney

text: In June 2009, due to her husband's request, Ann Romney became the first spouse to be included in the official Massachusetts State House gubernatorial portrait.


title: Ann Romney

text: For many years the couple's primary residence was a house in Belmont, Massachusetts, but this and the Utah home were sold in 2009. They resided in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, along Lake Winnipesaukee, and at an oceanfront home in La Jolla, San Diego, California, that they had bought the year before. Both locations were near some of the Romneys' grandchildren and the La Jolla location was near where she rides horses and was well-situated for her multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her cancer treatments. They also bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010.


title: Ann Romney

text: Regarding another possible run for office by her husband in the 2012 presidential election, Romney said in March 2010 that this time the process would hold no surprises, and that if he decided in favor of doing it, "I'm up to saying, go storm the castle, sweetie." Although still not liking the political process, which she referred to as "a very difficult game", she urged her husband to run again and was one of the few family members to initially support the notion.


title: Ann Romney

text: Once the campaign began, she stumped for her husband in early primary states and criticized the record and ideological direction of the Obama administration. As part of trying to lighten her husband's image, she sometimes participated in comic setup routines with him. Romney said that if she became First Lady of the United States, she would seek to work with at-risk youths and on behalf of those with multiple sclerosis. She expressed admiration for three former first ladies, Mamie Eisenhower, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush.


title: Ann Romney

text: By December 2011, Romney assumed an even more prominent role in the campaign, as she tried to offer a more rounded and compelling portrait of her husband while he fell behind Newt Gingrich for a stretch in polls. Her emphasis on their 42 years of marriage and his steadfastness following the onset of her disease offered an implicit but clear contrast with Gingrich's own personal history. She had long been known within the family as the "Mitt-stabilizer", due to the calming effect she had on her husband, and continued to perform that role during the up-and-down campaign. In particular, she began appearing with him more often during February 2012 as he dueled with Rick Santorum during the Republican presidential primaries. Regarding the couple's net worth, she alluded to her health problems and said, "Look, I don't even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing, it can be here today and gone tomorrow. And how I measure riches is by the friends I have and the loved ones that I have and the people that I care about in my life."


title: Ann Romney

text: In April 2012, Ann Romney was spotlighted when Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen declared Romney to be unfit to address women's economic issues because as a stay-at-home mother, she had "never worked a day in her life". In response, Ann Romney issued her first tweet, saying "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." Rosen apologized the following day. Like all presidential candidates' wives, her fashion choices came under scrutiny, with some critics praising her for a contemporary look that avoided standard campaign appearance clichés, while others said she lacked consistency and did not seem to be using the services of a stylist. On August 28, Romney gave a prime-time speech before the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, in which she stressed her own background and her family experiences, in an appeal to women voters. By early October, she and son Tagg had convinced the campaign to spend more time emphasizing her husband's personal nature and character, rather than simply present issue and record arguments against Obama.


title: Ann Romney

text: In the November 6, 2012, general election, Mitt Romney lost as President Obama was re-elected. The couple, along with the senior campaign staff, had thought they were going to win up until polls closed that evening and returns started coming in. Ann cried as her husband concluded their chances were over, then appeared stricken as she went on stage with him following his concession speech.


title: Ann Romney

text: Following the election, Ann Romney received an offer to appear on the spring 2013 season of "Dancing with the Stars", but although she was a fan of the show, she declined: "I would've loved to have done it, and I am turning 64, and I started thinking about it. I'm not really as flexible as I should be." She still mourned the election loss, perhaps more than her husband did. In October 2013, she published, and made promotional appearances for, "The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes & Favorite Traditions", a cookbook that made the "New York Times" Best Seller list.


title: Ann Romney

text: Most of the couple's time was spent seeing their grandchildren, who by 2018 numbered twenty-three (and then subsequently rose to twenty-four by 2018) (with their first great-grandchild arriving in 2021). They purchased a house in the Deer Valley area of Park City, Utah, in a return to that state, followed by a property capable of equestrian use in Holladay, Utah, where they plan to tear down an existing house and build a new one. The Romneys also gained long-sought permission to replace their La Jolla home with a much bigger one. With the new acquisitions the couple briefly had five homes, located near each of their five sons and respective families. They then sold the condominium in Belmont and decided to make their main residence in Utah, including switching voter registration.


title: Ann Romney

text: In 2014, the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases was opened at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School) in Boston. With a fundraising goal of $50 million, the center was created to focus on research into Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and brain tumors. The center has some 250 scientists and researchers on its staff. Romney holds the position of Global Ambassador there, and she gives inspirational talks based on overcoming the challenges of living with a disease. She has said of this role, "I know what it's like to be desperate. I know what it's like to have no hope. And I don't want people to feel that way anymore. I am going to give people hope." Overall, she sees the center as helping to connect researchers working in different areas and to provide monies for experimental approaches and treatments that are too new or unproven for the National Institute of Health to fund.


title: Ann Romney

text: During 2014, speculation about Mitt Romney staging a third presidential run increased. Ann Romney's reaction was to say it would not happen: "Done. Completely. Not only Mitt and I are done, but the kids are done. Done. Done. Done." However, like her husband, she left open the slight possibility that things could change in this regard, and by January 2015 was reported by Romney advisors to be supporting the possibility as he seriously considered a third presidential bid. In any event, he soon decided against making a run.


title: Ann Romney

text: In March 2015, her book "Whatever You Choose to Be: 8 Tips for the Road Ahead" was published, based upon a commencement address she gave the year before at Southern Utah University. This was followed in September 2015 when her memoir "In This Together: My Story" was published. In it she discussed her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, the different treatments she found beneficial, and the important role her family played. The book became popular among those affected by the disease.


title: Ann Romney

text: During the course of the 2016 election cycle, Romney expressed sympathy toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton since she had also experienced claims of not being relatable. She was also puzzled by Republican front-runner Donald Trump's success despite touting his wealth whereas the Romneys had not, yet still were criticized for not relating to common voters because of theirs. Though highly critical of her husband after he spoke negatively of the Trump candidacy in March 2016, Trump praised Ann Romney as "a lovely woman". Ann Romney earned at least one vote for president when her husband cast a write-in vote for her in November 2016, later saying he voted for "a person who I admire deeply, who I think would be an excellent president".


title: Ann Romney

text: Two years later Romney hit the campaign trail again, this time to support her husband in the 2018 United States Senate election in Utah. It was a run that she encouraged him to make, saying "This is a time when you're needed. You have deep roots in this state. Your family heritage is in this state. And when people are needed you gotta step up." In this case, as in the past, he relied strongly on her advice.


title: Ann Romney

text: During campaign appearances she spoke critically of the political climate in the United States, saying that civility and kindness had been lost, and she noted that she never read comments to her posts on social media due to the anonymous negativity found there.


title: Ann Romney

text: His campaign was successful and he took office in January 2019. In April 2019, the couple's self-help volume "Simple Truths for an Abundant Life: From One Generation to Another" was published. In it they described how their own life experiences illustrated ways for principles for handling different aspects and stages of life.


title: Ann Romney

text: In 2005, Ann Romney received an honorary degree from Mount Ida College. In 2006, she received the MS Society Inspiration Award from the Central New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from Salt Lake City-based Operation Kids. In May 2008, she shared with her husband the Canterbury Medal from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, for "refus[ing] to compromise their principles and faith" during that year's presidential campaign. In 2014, Romney received an honorary degree in public service from Southern Utah University, for "her contributions of time, funding and support on behalf of children and families." In 2019, she received the Public Leadership in Neurology Award from the American Brain Foundation for her work in multiple sclerosis research and awareness.


title: Jack Lew

text: Jacob Joseph Lew (born August 29, 1955) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 76th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as the 25th White House Chief of Staff from 2012 to 2013 and Director of the Office of Management and Budget in both the Clinton administration and Obama administration.


title: Jack Lew

text: Born in New York City, Lew earned his A.B. from Harvard College, then a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He began his legal career as a legislative assistant to Representative Joe Moakley, and as a senior policy adviser to former House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Lew then worked as an attorney in private practice before joining Boston's office of management and budget as a deputy. In 1993, he began work for the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant to the President. In 1994, Lew served as Associate Director for Legislative Affairs and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, then served as the agency's Director, from 1998 to 2001, then, again, from 2010 to 2012. Following his work in the Clinton administration, Lew became executive vice-president of operations at New York University, serving from 2001 to 2006, then the COO at Citigroup, from 2006 to 2008. During 2009 to 2010, Lew served as the first Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.


title: Jack Lew

text: On January 10, 2013, during President Barack Obama's second term, Lew was nominated to replace retiring Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was confirmed by the Senate February 27, 2013, and then sworn in on the following day, serving until the conclusion of the Obama administration, and resigning with the inauguration of Donald Trump. Lew was succeeded as Secretary of the Treasury by Steve Mnuchin. Since 2017, he has been a managing partner at Lindsay Goldberg, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City. He is currently a visiting professor at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University.


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew was born in New York City, the son of Ruth (nee Turoff) and Irving Lew. His family is Jewish. He attended New York City public schools, graduating from Forest Hills High School. His father was a lawyer and rare book dealer who came to the United States from Poland as a child. Lew attended Carleton College in Minnesota for a year, where his faculty adviser was Paul Wellstone, who eventually represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. He graduated from Harvard College in 1978 and the Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.


title: Jack Lew

text: He worked as an aide to Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) from 1974 to 1975. In 1979, he was a senior policy adviser to House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Under O'Neill he served at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as Assistant Director and then Executive Director, and was responsible for work on domestic and economic issues including Social Security, Medicare, budget, tax, trade, appropriations, and energy issues.


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew practiced as an attorney for five years as a partner at Van Ness Feldman and Curtis. His practice dealt primarily with electric power generation. He has also worked as Executive Director of the Center for Middle East Research, Issues Director for the Democratic National Committee's Campaign 88, and Deputy Director of the Office of Program Analysis in the city of Boston's Office of Management and Budget.


title: Jack Lew

text: From February 1993 to 1994, Lew served as Special Assistant to the President under Bill Clinton. Lew was responsible for policy development and the drafting of the national service initiative (AmeriCorps) and health care reform legislation.


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew left the White House in October 1994 to work as OMB's Executive Associate Director and Associate Director for Legislative Affairs. From August 1995 until July 1998, Lew served as Deputy Director of OMB. There, Lew was chief operating officer responsible for day-to-day management of a staff of 500. He had crosscutting responsibilities to coordinate Clinton administration efforts on budget and appropriations matters. He frequently served as a member of the Administration negotiating team, including regarding the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.


title: Jack Lew

text: President Clinton nominated Lew to be Director of the OMB, and the United States Senate confirmed him for that job on July 31, 1998. He served in that capacity until the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001. As OMB Director, Lew had the lead responsibility for the Clinton Administration's policies on budget, management, and appropriations issues. As a member of the Cabinet and senior member of the economic team, he advised the President on a broad range of domestic and international policies. He represented the Administration in budget negotiations with Congress and served as a member of the National Security Council.


title: Jack Lew

text: After leaving public office in the Clinton administration, Lew served as the Executive Vice President for Operations at New York University and was a Clinical Professor of Public Administration at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. While at NYU, Lew aided the university in ending graduate students' collective bargaining rights. The Obama administration has maintained that Lew supports workers' union rights. According to a 2004 report in NYU's student newspaper, the "Washington Square News", Lew was paid $840,339 during the 2002-2003 academic year. In addition, the university forgave several hundred thousand dollars in mortgage loans it made to Lew.


title: Jack Lew

text: In June 2006, Lew was named chief operating officer of Citigroup's Alternative Investments unit, a proprietary trading group. The unit he oversaw invested in a hedge fund "that bet on the housing market to collapse." During his work at Citigroup, Lew had invested heavily in funds in Ugland House while he worked as an investment banker at Citigroup during the 2008 financial meltdown. Lew also had oversight of Citigroup subsidiaries in countries including, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Hong Kong; and during his time at Citigroup, Citigroup subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands increased to 113.


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew co-chaired the Advisory Board for City Year New York. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution Hamilton Project Advisory Board, and the National Academy of Social Insurance. Lew is also a member of the bar in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.


title: Jack Lew

text: As Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Lew was the State Department's chief operating officer and was primarily responsible for resource issues, while James Steinberg, who also served as Deputy Secretary of State during that period was responsible for policy. Lew was co-leader of the State Department's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.


title: Jack Lew

text: On July 13, 2010, the White House announced that Lew had been chosen to replace Peter Orszag as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), subject to Senate confirmation. During confirmation hearings in the Senate, in response to questioning by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Lew said that he did not believe deregulation was a "proximate cause" of the financial crisis of 2007–2008: Lew told the panel that "the problems in the financial industry preceded deregulation," and after discussing those issues, added that he didn't "personally know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but I don't believe that deregulation was the proximate cause."


title: Jack Lew

text: The $3.7 trillion 2011 budget President Obama unveiled the administration estimated reductions to federal spending deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next decade if adopted and economic assumptions were fully achieved. Two-thirds of that estimated reduction would come from spending cuts through a 5-year freeze in discretionary spending first announced in Obama's 2011 State of the Union address, as well as savings to mandatory programs such as Medicare and lower interest payments on the debt that would result from the lower spending. Tax increases are responsible for the other third of the reduction, including a cap on itemized reductions for wealthier taxpayers and the elimination of tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Economist and former financial fraud investigator William K. Black warned that the OMB budget statement prepared under Lew's direction was "an ode to austerity," and that austerity would force the U.S. economy back into recession.


title: Jack Lew

text: In an op-ed in the "Huffington Post", Lew cited top Administration priorities to achieve deficit reduction; including: $400 billion in savings from non-security discretionary spending freezes, $78 billion in cuts to the Department of Defense, returning to the Clinton-era tax rates for the top 2% of income earners, and lowering the Corporate tax from 35% to 25%.


title: Jack Lew

text: On January 9, 2012, President Obama announced that Lew would replace William M. Daley as White House Chief of Staff. Lew's nomination was followed with criticism after renewed reports that he received over $900,000 in bonuses while working at Citigroup, which had been rescued with $45 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) after losing $27.7 billion, or 90% of its value.


title: Jack Lew

text: During his tenure as chief of staff, Lew was seen as a supporter and top negotiator for a "grand bargain" deal between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, to avoid "Fiscal cliff" sequester cuts and tax increases.


title: Jack Lew

text: On January 10, 2013, President Obama nominated Lew for the position of Secretary of the Treasury. The nomination became the subject of some humorous commentary, due to Lew's unusual loopy signature, which would have appeared on all U.S. paper currency for the duration of his tenure; the signature generated enough media attention that Obama joked at a press conference that he had considered rescinding his nomination when he learned of it. Lew later adopted a more conventional signature for currency. The Senate Finance Committee held confirmation hearings for Lew on February 13, 2013, and approved his nomination 19–5 on February 26, 2013, sending his nomination to the full Senate.


title: Jack Lew

text: During his confirmation hearings before the United States Senate Committee on Finance, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley expressed concern that Lew did not know what Ugland House was, though he had invested in it. Lew had invested heavily in funds in Ugland House while he worked as an investment banker at Citigroup during the 2008 financial meltdown. Lew had taken advantage of current tax law and his financial allocation in the venture resulted in Lew taking roughly a 2.8% loss, a $1,582 decrease in his investment principal.


title: Jack Lew

text: On February 27, 2013, the full Senate voted and approved Lew for Secretary of the Treasury 71–26. He was sworn into office on February 28.


title: Jack Lew

text: In December 2013, Lew said that the government might run out of cash to pay the country's bills by late February or early March 2014. That set up yet another showdown in Congress over raising or suspending the debt limit, a statutory limit on the total amount of United States borrowing, early in the year. "The creditworthiness of the United States is an essential underpinning of our strength as a nation; it is not a bargaining chip to be used for partisan political ends," Mr. Lew said in the letter. "Increasing the debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments. It simply allows the government to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved."


title: Jack Lew

text: In May 2014, Lew received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University and spoke at the first commencement ceremony of the McCourt School of Public Policy.


title: Jack Lew

text: In 2016, a fictionalized version of Lew appeared in the 2016 episodes "eps2.0_unm4sk-pt2.tc" and "eps2.9_pyth0n-pt1.p7z" in Season 2 of the series "Mr. Robot".


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew married his high school sweetheart, Ruth Schwartz. As Chief of Staff, Lew commuted to Washington from the couple's home in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. They have two grown children, one of whom is Shoshana Lew, head of the Colorado Department of Transportation.


title: Jack Lew

text: Lew is an Orthodox Jew who observes the Jewish Sabbath and has attended Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland, TheShul of the Nation's Capital and Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx, New York. Interviewed in a 2010 article, Lew's former boss on the National Security Council, Sandy Berger, commented that "Lew's faith never got in the way of performing his duties." A 2011 press release from the "Religion News Service" noted that Lew also "has extensive connections in the American Jewish community," and that he might be able to help President Obama "build a more friendly rapport" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Maximum Ride is a series of young adult science fantasy novels by the author James Patterson. The series centers on the adventures of Maximum "Max" Ride and her family, called the Flock, who are winged human-avian hybrids created at a lab called The School. The series is a reboot of Patterson's earlier novels "When the Wind Blows" and "The Lake House", which were aimed for older audiences.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel are human-avian hybrids living in hiding. When Angel is abducted, the rest of the Flock searches for her while fighting a number of obstacles including physical ailments, natural disaster, the wolf-human Erasers, and the evil scientists at the experimental lab called "The School".


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Flock travels to Washington, D.C., where they hope to find the answers to their origins. They are taken in by a former FBI agent and placed into a regular school system to live as "normal kids." Erasers attack the school, and the Flock must flee again to find safety. Max meets her murderous clone, Max II, and must battle with her. The Flock learns details about their creators, the Itexicon Corporation.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Flock must stop the Itexicon Corporation, who plan to destroy half of the world's population. The boys and girls split after a disagreement, and work from separate angles to take down Itex and save the world. Max learns that Jeb Batchelder, the scientist with mysterious motivations, is her biological father.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Government officials ask the Flock to help a team of scientists study pollution levels in the oceans around Antarctica. While there, a few members of the Flock are captured by the Uber-Director and taken to Florida. The rest of the group makes their way to rescue them and defeat this new villain in the midst of a hurricane. Max and Fang begin a romantic relationship.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Flock is attacked by a group of bionic robots ("M-Geeks") at environmental awareness shows in Los Angeles and Mexico City. Later, the government enlists their help in finding out what is destroying hundreds of ships and killing millions of fish off the coast of Hawaii. Max's mother also goes missing. Max, Fang and the others make a submarine trip beneath the ocean, rescuing Max's mother and befriending undersea monsters.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Flock travels to Africa where they meet Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen, a former Itex worker, and Dylan, another human-avian hybrid designed to be Max's "perfect other half". Dylan joins the Flock, although they are all wary of his motives. Angel takes over the Flock, kicking out Max and Fang while claiming that they're too focused on their personal relationship. Fang is kidnapped by Dr. Hans and experimented on, and the Flock comes to rescue him. He dies for a moment before Max revives him. After getting back to their home, Fang decides to permanently leave the group and start his own Flock.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Doomsday Group is brainwashing people, affecting Iggy and Max's half-sister Ella. Meanwhile, Fang starts his own gang which includes Max's clone, now called Maya. The two teams join forces in Paris to stop the Doomsday group. Their plan goes awry when Gazzy fails to disarm all the bombs under the gathering spot, and the bombs explode while Fang, Gazzy, and Angel are still in the blast radius. Fang and Gazzy make it out safely, but Angel is missing, leaving everyone heartbroken.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Max and the remaining members of the Flock are attending a normal school, and Max is dating Dylan. Meanwhile, Fang's gang is attacked, some members betray them, and Maya is killed. Fang decides to return to the Flock. Together they learn of Angel's survival and rescue her from the lab where she's being held prisoner. Jeb Batchelder has returned trying to kill Fang, with help from a brainwashed Dylan. They fail, and Dr. Martinez leads the Flock to a remote island where they will be safe from the approaching apocalypse. However, instead of the plague they expect, the world is struck by a meteor. The Flock, along with the people on the island, survive and begin to rebuild.


title: Maximum Ride

text: This was supposed to be the last book in the series, but it was announced later that "Maximum Ride Forever" would be released in 2015.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Flock struggles to survive after the decimation of the planet, with many of their loved ones having died or gone missing. They split up after a tragedy, and Max begins investigating a new enemy called the Remedy and his Horsemen who are working to kill off the remaining population. In a final battle of good and evil, the Flock reunites with an army to defeat the Remedy. Max and Fang have a daughter, Phoenix, and after sheltering during a five-year-long nuclear winter, settle in the ruins of Machu Picchu.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Max and Fang's teenage daughter, who now goes by the name Hawk, lives in the post-apocalyptic "City of the Dead." Having been lost as a small child, she knows nothing about her family until she encounters the Flock while searching for her kidnapped friends. They free Max from the prison where she's been kept, rally the people of the city and defeat the corrupt leaders.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Max and her daughter Hawk team up to save the City of the Dead from a plague. Hawk sees a monster in the nearby forest and she decides to tell Langford, a member of the council. Hawk goes to the forest to investigate. After some failures she finds a hidden base of hybrids. Moke and Hawk get taken captured by the Renegades. Hawk gets away. Moke still captured finds his new ability. Tensions continue to rise with Hawk in the middle. Langford captures Hawk and Calypso and they trap Langford and get out.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Renegades bringing a battery, that raises the temperature for the plague to take hold. The plague makes people turn against one another. Moke is chained to it and powering it with his ability. Hawk gets Pietro and the hybrids to fight the threats eventually beating them.


title: Maximum Ride

text: "" received generally positive reviews. The "School Library Journal" called the book an "exciting SF thriller that's not wholly original but still a compelling read". "Booklist" described it as "an action-packed cross between Gertrude Chandler Warner's "Boxcar Children" and Marvel Comics' "X-Men". John Ritchie of the "ALAN Review" wrote a negative review, saying that Patterson "slips in his attempt to write an action-adventure series for kids". He called the book "filled with every possible comic book/Saturday morning cartoon cliche" and described Patterson's writing style as "uneasy" and Max's dialogue as "horribly fake". In January 2010, the webcomic Penny Arcade poked fun at James Patterson based on the description found on the back of the first book.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The second book, "", was criticized for being "disappointingly anticlimactic and violent," although Total's character was praised for being "sure to entertain." "Booklist" delivered a positive review, praising Patterson's "ability to write page-turning action scenes" and noting that he "leaven[ed] the suspense with some surprising humor." It also mentioned that fans of the first book would be "delighted" with the sequel. Erin Collazo Miller from About.com praised the "fast-paced" novel, "fun characters," and "interesting premise," but criticized the characters and plot lines for "lack of depth and development." The review said that "[a]fter 400+ pages, readers may wish they were a little farther into the plot and that more of their questions had been answered."


title: Maximum Ride

text: Illustrated by Narae Lee and released by Yen Press, the first chapter of the original English-language manga adaptation came out in July 2008 in the magazine "Yen Plus". A free 22-page preview was released on Free Comic Book Day (May 3, 2008). The first volume of the series was released on January 27, 2009, the second volume was released on October 27, 2009, the third volume was released on August 17, 2010, the fourth volume was released on April 26, 2011, the fifth volume was released on December 13, 2011, the sixth volume was released on December 11, 2012, the seventh volume was released on October 29, 2013, the eighth volume was released on July 29, 2014 and the ninth volume released on November 17, 2015. It was on the "Top 25 Manga Properties" list in 2012. No volumes have been released since 2015, leaving the series incomplete.


title: Maximum Ride

text: Plans for a film were first announced in September 2007. However, the film entered development hell with the resignation of director Catherine Hardwicke in 2012 and the death of screenplay writer Don Payne in 2013. In 2014, the series was submitted for adaptation into a web series by Collective Digital Studio. The completed film, starring Allie Marie Evans as Max, was released on Digital HD on August 30, 2016. It adapted the first half of "The Angel Experiment", and was rated poorly by fans and critics alike.


title: Maximum Ride

text: The Marvel Comics adaption "Max Ride: First Flight" debuted April 8, 2015. It featured the talents of Marguerite Bennett and Alex Sanchez. It was followed by "Max Ride: Ultimate Flight" beginning in November 2015, and "Max Ride: Final Flight" beginning in September 2016. Together, the comic series adapted the first three books of the series. There are significant differences from the books. Rather than avian wings, the characters have wings made of a metal alloy.


title: Lawrencium

text: Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. A radioactive metal, lawrencium is the eleventh transuranic element and the last member of the actinide series. Like all elements with atomic number over 100, lawrencium can only be produced in particle accelerators by bombarding lighter elements with charged particles. Fourteen isotopes of lawrencium are currently known; the most stable is Lr with half-life 11 hours, but the shorter-lived Lr (half-life 2.7 minutes) is most commonly used in chemistry because it can be produced on a larger scale.


title: Lawrencium

text: Chemistry experiments confirm that lawrencium behaves as a heavier homolog to lutetium in the periodic table, and is a trivalent element. It thus could also be classified as the first of the 7th-period transition metals: however, its electron configuration is anomalous for its position in the periodic table, having an sp configuration instead of the sd configuration of its homolog lutetium. This means that lawrencium may be more volatile than expected for its position in the periodic table and have a volatility comparable to that of lead.


title: Lawrencium

text: In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, many claims of the synthesis of lawrencium of varying quality were made from laboratories in the Soviet Union and the United States. The priority of the discovery and therefore the name of the element was disputed between Soviet and American scientists, and while the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) initially established "lawrencium" as the official name for the element and gave the American team credit for the discovery, this was reevaluated in 1997, giving both teams shared credit for the discovery but not changing the element's name.


title: Lawrencium

text: In 1958, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory claimed the discovery of element 102, now called nobelium. At the same time, they also tried to synthesize element 103 by bombarding the same curium target used with nitrogen-14 ions. Eighteen tracks were noted, with decay energy around and half-life around 0.25 s; the Berkeley team noted that while the cause could be the production of an isotope of element 103, other possibilities could not be ruled out. While the data agrees reasonably with that later discovered for Lr (alpha decay energy 8.87 MeV, half-life 0.6 s), the evidence obtained in this experiment fell far short of the strength required to conclusively demonstrate synthesis of element 103. A follow-up on this experiment was not done, as the target was destroyed. Later, in 1960, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory attempted to synthesize the element by bombarding Cf with B and B. The results of this experiment were not conclusive.


title: Lawrencium

text: The first important work on element 103 was done at Berkeley by the nuclear-physics team of Albert Ghiorso, Torbjørn Sikkeland, Almon Larsh, Robert M. Latimer, and their co-workers on February 14, 1961. The first atoms of lawrencium were reportedly made by bombarding a three-milligram target consisting of three isotopes of californium with boron-10 and boron-11 nuclei from the Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC). The Berkeley team reported that the isotope 103 was detected in this manner, and that it decayed by emitting an 8.6 MeV alpha particle with a half-life of . This identification was later corrected to 103, as later work proved that Lr did not have the properties detected, but Lr did. This was considered at the time to be convincing proof of synthesis of element 103: while the mass assignment was less certain and proved to be mistaken, it did not affect the arguments in favor of element 103 having been synthesized. Scientists at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna (then in the Soviet Union) raised several criticisms: all but one were answered adequately. The exception was that Cf was the most common isotope in the target, and in the reactions with B, Lr could only have been produced by emitting four neutrons, and emitting three neutrons was expected to be much less likely than emitting four or five. This would lead to a narrow yield curve, not the broad one reported by the Berkeley team. A possible explanation was that there was a low number of events attributed to element 103. This was an important intermediate step to the unquestioned discovery of element 103, although the evidence was not completely convincing. The Berkeley team proposed the name "lawrencium" with symbol "Lw", after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron. The IUPAC Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry accepted the name, but changed the symbol to "Lr". This acceptance of the discovery was later characterized as being hasty by the Dubna team.


title: Lawrencium

text: The first work at Dubna on element 103 came in 1965, when they reported to have made 103 in 1965 by bombarding Am with O, identifying it indirectly from its granddaughter fermium-252. The half-life they reported was somewhat too high, possibly due to background events. Later 1967 work on the same reaction identified two decay energies in the ranges 8.35–8.50 MeV and 8.50–8.60 MeV: these were assigned to 103 and 103. Despite repeat attempts, they were unable to confirm assignment of an alpha emitter with a half-life of 8 seconds to 103. The Russians proposed the name "rutherfordium" for the new element in 1967: this name was later proposed by Berkeley for element 104.


title: Lawrencium

text: Further experiments in 1969 at Dubna and in 1970 at Berkeley demonstrated an actinide chemistry for the new element; so by 1970 it was known that element 103 is the last actinide. In 1970, the Dubna group reported the synthesis of 103 with half-life 20 s and alpha decay energy 8.38 MeV. However, it was not until 1971, when the nuclear physics team at University of California at Berkeley successfully did a whole series of experiments aimed at measuring the nuclear decay properties of the lawrencium isotopes with mass numbers 255 to 260, that all previous results from Berkeley and Dubna were confirmed, apart from the Berkeley's group initial erroneous assignment of their first produced isotope to 103 instead of the probably correct 103. All final doubts were dispelled in 1976 and 1977 when the energies of X-rays emitted from 103 were measured.


title: Lawrencium

text: In 1971, the IUPAC granted the discovery of lawrencium to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, even though they did not have ideal data for the element's existence. But in 1992, the IUPAC Transfermium Working Group (TWG) officially recognized the nuclear physics teams at Dubna and Berkeley as co-discoverers of lawrencium, concluding that while the 1961 Berkeley experiments were an important step to lawrencium's discovery, they were not yet fully convincing; and while the 1965, 1968, and 1970 Dubna experiments came very close to the needed level of confidence taken together, only the 1971 Berkeley experiments, which clarified and confirmed previous observations, finally resulted in complete confidence in the discovery of element 103. Because the name "lawrencium" had been in use for a long time by this point, it was retained by IUPAC, and in August 1997, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) ratified the name lawrencium and the symbol "Lr" during a meeting in Geneva.


title: Lawrencium

text: Lawrencium is the last actinide. Among those who study the matter, it is generally considered a group 3 element, along with scandium, yttrium, and lutetium, as its filled f-shell is expected to make it resemble the 7th-period transition metals; though there has been some dispute on this point. In the periodic table, it is to the right of the actinide nobelium, to the left of the 6d transition metal rutherfordium, and under the lanthanide lutetium with which it shares many physical and chemical properties. Lawrencium is expected to be a solid under normal conditions and have a hexagonal close-packed crystal structure (/ = 1.58), similar to its lighter congener lutetium, though this is not yet known experimentally. The enthalpy of sublimation of lawrencium is estimated at 352 kJ/mol, close to the value of lutetium and strongly suggesting that metallic lawrencium is trivalent with three electrons delocalized, a prediction also supported by a systematic extrapolation of the values of heat of vaporization, bulk modulus, and atomic volume of neighboring elements to lawrencium: this makes it unlike the immediately preceding late actinides which are known to be (fermium and mendelevium) or expected to be (nobelium) divalent. The estimated enthalpies of vaporization show that lawrencium deviates from the trend of the late actinides and instead matches the trend of the succeeding 6d elements rutherfordium and dubnium, consistent with lawrencium's interpretation as a group 3 element. Some scientists prefer to end the actinides with nobelium and consider lawrencium to be the first transition metal of the seventh period.


title: Lawrencium

text: Specifically, lawrencium is expected to be a trivalent, silvery metal, easily oxidized by air, steam, and acids, and having an atomic volume similar to that of lutetium and a trivalent metallic radius of 171 pm. It is expected to be a rather heavy metal with a density of around 14.4 g/cm. It is also predicted to have a melting point of around 1900 K (1627 °C), not far from the value for lutetium (1925 K).


title: Lawrencium

text: In 1949, Glenn T. Seaborg, who devised the actinide concept, predicted that element 103 (lawrencium) should be the last actinide and that the ion should be about as stable as in aqueous solution. It was not until decades later that element 103 was finally conclusively synthesized and this prediction was experimentally confirmed.


title: Lawrencium

text: 1969 studies on the element showed that lawrencium reacts with chlorine to form a product that was most likely the trichloride, . Its volatility was found to be similar to the chlorides of curium, fermium, and nobelium and much less than that of rutherfordium chloride. In 1970, chemical studies were performed on 1500 atoms of Lr, comparing it with divalent (No, Ba, Ra), trivalent (Fm, Cf, Cm, Am, Ac), and tetravalent (Th, Pu) elements. It was found that lawrencium coextracted with the trivalent ions, but the short half-life of Lr precluded a confirmation that it eluted ahead of in the elution sequence. Lawrencium occurs as the trivalent ion in aqueous solution and hence its compounds should be similar to those of the other trivalent actinides: for example, lawrencium(III) fluoride () and hydroxide () should both be insoluble in water. Due to the actinide contraction, the ionic radius of should be smaller than that of , and it should elute ahead of when ammonium α-hydroxyisobutyrate (ammonium α-HIB) is used as an eluant. Later 1987 experiments on the longer-lived isotope Lr confirmed lawrencium's trivalency and that it eluted in roughly the same place as erbium, and found that lawrencium's ionic radius was , larger than would be expected from simple extrapolation from periodic trends. Later 1988 experiments with more lawrencium atoms refined this to and calculated an enthalpy of hydration value of . It was also found that the actinide contraction at the end of the actinides was larger than the analogous lanthanide contraction, with the exception of the last actinide, lawrencium: the cause was speculated to be relativistic effects.


title: Lawrencium

text: It has been speculated that the 7s electrons are relativistically stabilized, so that in reducing conditions, only the 7p electron would be ionized, leading to the monovalent ion. However, all experiments to reduce to or in aqueous solution were unsuccessful, similarly to lutetium. On the basis of this, the standard electrode potential of the "E"°() couple was calculated to be less than −1.56 V, indicating that the existence of ions in aqueous solution was unlikely. The upper limit for the "E"°() couple was predicted to be −0.44 V: the values for "E"°() and "E"°() are predicted to be −2.06 V and +7.9 V. The stability of the group oxidation state in the 6d transition series decreases as Rf > Db > Sg, and lawrencium continues the trend with Lr being more stable than Rf.


title: Lawrencium

text: In the molecule lawrencium dihydride (), which is predicted to be bent, the 6d orbital of lawrencium is not expected to play a role in the bonding, unlike that of lanthanum dihydride (). has La–H bond distances of 2.158 Å, while should have shorter Lr–H bond distances of 2.042 Å due to the relativistic contraction and stabilization of the 7s and 7p orbitals involved in the bonding, in contrast to the core-like 5f subshell and the mostly uninvolved 6d subshell. In general, molecular and LrH are expected to resemble the corresponding thallium species (thallium having a 6s6p valence configuration in the gas phase, like lawrencium's 7s7p) more than the corresponding lanthanide species. The electron configurations of and are expected to be 7s and 7s respectively. However, in species where all three valence electrons of lawrencium are ionized to give at least formally the cation, lawrencium is expected to behave like a typical actinide and the heavier congener of lutetium, especially because the first three ionization potentials of lawrencium are predicted to be similar to those of lutetium. Hence, unlike thallium but like lutetium, lawrencium would prefer to form than LrH, and LrCO is expected to be similar to the also unknown LuCO, both metals having valence configuration σπ in their monocarbonyls. The pπ–dπ bond is expected to be seen in just as it is for and more generally all the . The complex anion is expected to be stable with a configuration of 6d for lawrencium; this 6d orbital would be its highest occupied molecular orbital. This is analogous to the electronic structure of the analogous lutetium compound.


title: Lawrencium

text: Lawrencium has three valence electrons: the 5f electrons are in the atomic core. In 1970, it was predicted that the ground-state electron configuration of lawrencium was [Rn]5f6d7s (ground state term symbol D), per the Aufbau principle and conforming to the [Xe]4f5d6s configuration of lawrencium's lighter homolog lutetium. But the next year, calculations were published that questioned this prediction, instead expecting an anomalous [Rn]5f7s7p configuration. Though early calculations gave conflicting results, more recent studies and calculations confirm the sp suggestion. 1974 relativistic calculations concluded that the energy difference between the two configurations was small and that it was uncertain which was the ground state. Later 1995 calculations concluded that the sp configuration should be energetically favored, because the spherical s and p orbitals are nearest to the atomic nucleus and thus move quickly enough that their relativistic mass increases significantly.


title: Lawrencium

text: In 1988, a team of scientists led by Eichler calculated that lawrencium's enthalpy of adsorption on metal sources would differ enough depending on its electron configuration that it would be feasible to carry out experiments to exploit this fact to measure lawrencium's electron configuration. The sp configuration was expected to be more volatile than the sd configuration, and be more similar to that of the p-block element lead. No evidence for lawrencium being volatile was obtained and the lower limit for the enthalpy of adsorption of lawrencium on quartz or platinum was significantly higher than the estimated value for the sp configuration.


title: Lawrencium

text: In 2015, the first ionization energy of lawrencium was measured, using the isotope Lr. The measured value, , agreed very well with the relativistic theoretical prediction of 4.963(15) eV, and also provided a first step into measuring the first ionization energies of the transactinides. This value is the lowest among all the lanthanides and actinides, and supports the sp configuration as the 7p electron is expected to be only weakly bound. As ionisation energies generally increase left to right in the f-block, this low value suggests that lutetium and lawrencium belong in the d-block (whose trend they follow) and not the f-block, and hence that they are the true heavier congeners of scandium and yttrium rather than lanthanum and actinium. Although some alkali metal-like behaviour has been predicted, adsorption experiments suggest that lawrencium is trivalent like scandium and yttrium, not monovalent like the alkali metals. A lower limit on lawrencium's second ionization energy (>13.3 eV) was experimentally found in 2021.


title: Lawrencium

text: Even though sp is now known to be the ground-state configuration of the lawrencium atom, ds should be a low-lying excited-state configuration, with an excitation energy variously calculated as 0.156 eV, 0.165 eV, or 0.626 eV. As such lawrencium may still be considered to be a d-block element, albeit with an anomalous electron configuration (like chromium or copper), as its chemical behaviour matches expectations for a heavier analogue of lutetium.


title: Lawrencium

text: Fourteen isotopes of lawrencium are known, with mass number 251–262, 264, and 266; all are radioactive. One nuclear isomer is known, with mass number 253. The longest-lived isotope, Lr, has a half-life of about ten hours and is one of the longest lived superheavy isotopes known to date. However, shorter-lived isotopes are usually used in chemical experiments because Lr currently can only be produced as a final decay product of even heavier and harder-to-make elements: it was discovered in 2014 in the decay chain of Ts. Lr (half-life 27 seconds) was used in the first chemical studies on lawrencium: currently, the longer-lived Lr (half-life 2.7 minutes) is usually used for this purpose. After Lr, the longest-lived isotopes are Lr (), Lr (3.6 h), and Lr (44 min). All other known lawrencium isotopes have half-lives under 5 minutes, and the shortest-lived of them (Lr) has a half-life of 27 milliseconds. The half-lives of lawrencium isotopes mostly increase smoothly from Lr to Lr, with a dip from Lr to Lr.


title: Lawrencium

text: While the lightest (Lr to Lr) and heaviest (Lr and Lr) lawrencium isotopes are produced only as alpha decay products of dubnium ("Z" = 105) isotopes, the middle isotopes (Lr to Lr) can be produced by bombarding actinide (americium to einsteinium) targets with light ions (from boron to neon). The two most important isotopes, Lr and Lr, are both in this range. Lr can be produced by bombarding californium-249 with 70 MeV boron-11 ions (producing lawrencium-256 and four neutrons), while Lr can be produced by bombarding berkelium-249 with oxygen-18 (producing lawrencium-260, an alpha particle, and three neutrons).


title: Lawrencium

text: Both Lr and Lr have half-lives too short to allow a complete chemical purification process. Early experiments with Lr therefore used rapid solvent extraction, with the chelating agent thenoyltrifluoroacetone (TTA) dissolved in methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) as the organic phase, and with the aqueous phase being buffered acetate solutions. Ions of different charge (+2, +3, or +4) will then extract into the organic phase under different pH ranges, but this method will not separate the trivalent actinides and thus Lr must be identified by its emitted 8.24 MeV alpha particles. More recent methods have allowed rapid selective elution with α-HIB to take place in enough time to separate out the longer-lived isotope Lr, which can be removed from the catcher foil with 0.05 M hydrochloric acid.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: Discovery Island is an island in Bay Lake, Florida. It is located on the property of Walt Disney World in the city of Bay Lake. Between 1974 and 1999, it was an attraction open to guests, who could observe its many species of animals and birds. Disney originally named it "Treasure Island", and later renamed it "Discovery Island". It currently sits abandoned, but can be seen by any watercraft in Bay Lake. Discovery Island is now the name of one of the lands in Disney's Animal Kingdom.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: From 1900 to 1937, the island was known as Raz Island, named after the family that lived there. In the late 1930s, it was purchased for $800 by a man named Delmar "Radio Nick" Nicholson, who renamed it "Idle Bay Isle" and lived there for 20 years with his wife and pet crane. It was later sold, renamed "Riles Island," and used as a hunting retreat. Disney bought it in 1965 as part of its strategic property acquisitions before building the Walt Disney World Resort.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: The island opened as "Treasure Island" on April 8, 1974, as a place to observe wildlife, and was later renamed "Discovery Island" when it was recognized as a zoological park.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: The admission cost in 1995 was $10.60 for adults and $5.83 for children aged three through nine. In March 1999, admission was $12.67 for adults and $6.89 for children, including tax. The island's facilities were the home of the last known Dusky Seaside Sparrow before it died in July 1987. In 1989, Disney was accused by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals of mistreating vultures that landed on Discovery Island. Disney confirmed some of them died while being captured by their employees. Following this allegation, State and Federal officials charged Disney with 16 counts of animal cruelty. These charges were ultimately dropped after Disney made improvements, but did not admit to wrongdoings.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: Discovery Island housed approximately 150 birds and small primates. It housed the last surviving specimens of the now extinct dusky seaside sparrow.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: The island was occasionally used as a movie filming location, most notably for the climax of "Treasure of Matecumbe (1976)", in which it doubled for the titular Florida Key.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: Discovery Island closed to the public on April 8, 1999, exactly 25 years after its opening. but continued to operate until July 9, 1999, at which point all of its animals had been relocated to Disney's Animal Kingdom (whose Safari Village hub area was renamed Discovery Island) and other zoos. Although Disney never officially stated its reasons for closing the park, poor attendance and high maintenance costs, combined with the newer and bigger Disney's Animal Kingdom being opened a year before, are the most likely causes.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: Since its closing, the island has sat largely abandoned, with no signs of development. Disney considered teaming up with Cyan Worlds to turn the island into a replica of the titular island from the video game "Myst", where visitors would solve puzzles while exploring. As of 2022, all original buildings and attractions remain on the island, though several have sustained major damage from hurricanes and natural decay.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: Today, the island can easily be seen from Walt Disney World Monorail, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, as well as from boat trips between them. It is adjacent to the former site of Disney's River Country water park, which closed in November 2001 and was ultimately demolished in April 2019.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: In 2009, an account was published of an unauthorized exploration "a couple of years ago" with photographs by Shane Perez. In 2017 a film was published by Matt Sonswa of exploration of the island.


title: Discovery Island (Bay Lake)

text: On April 30, 2020, a man was arrested for camping on Discovery Island. He was removed from the island and banned from Walt Disney property. He called the island a "tropical paradise", and said he did not know the area was off limits to the public.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: "Silence" was published in English in 1969 by Peter Owen Publishers. The novel has been adapted to film three times, a 1971 Japanese film directed by Masahiro Shinoda (for which Endō co-wrote the screenplay), a 1996 Portuguese film directed by João Mário Grilo, and a 2016 American film directed by Martin Scorsese.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: The young Portuguese Jesuit priest Sebastião Rodrigues (based on the historical Italian figure Giuseppe Chiara) travels to Japan to assist the local Church and investigate reports that his mentor, a Jesuit priest in Japan named Ferreira, based on Cristóvão Ferreira, has committed apostasy. Less than half of the book is the written journal of Rodrigues, while the other half of the book is written either in the third person, or in the letters of others associated with the narrative. The novel relates the trials of Christians and the increasing hardship suffered by Rodrigues.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: Rodrigues and his companion Francisco Garrpe (also a Jesuit priest) arrive in Japan in 1639. There they find the local Christian population driven underground. To ferret out hidden Christians, security officials force suspected Christians to trample on a "fumi-e", a carved image of Christ. Those who refuse are imprisoned and killed by "ana-tsurushi", which is by being hung upside down over a pit and slowly bled.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: Rodrigues and Garrpe are eventually captured and forced to swim as Japanese Christians lay down their lives for the faith. There is no glory in these martyrdoms, as Rodrigues had always imagined – only brutality and cruelty. Prior to the arrival of Rodrigues, the authorities had been attempting to force priests to renounce their faith by torturing them. Beginning with Ferreira, they torture other Christians as the priests look on, telling the priests that all they must do is renounce their faith in order to end the suffering of their flock.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: Rodrigues' journal depicts his struggles: he understands suffering for the sake of one's own faith; but he struggles over whether it is self-centered and unmerciful to refuse to recant when doing so will end another's suffering. At the climactic moment, Rodrigues hears the moans of those who have recanted but are to remain in the pit until he tramples the image of Christ. As Rodrigues looks upon a "fumi-e", Christ breaks his silence: "You may trample. You may trample. I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. You may trample. It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men's pain that I carried my cross." Rodrigues puts his foot on the "fumi-e".


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: An official tells Rodrigues, "Father, it was not by us that you were defeated, but by this mudswamp, Japan."


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: "Silence" received the 1966 Tanizaki Prize for the year's best full-length literature. It has also been the subject of extensive analysis. In a review published by "The New Yorker", John Updike called "Silence" "a remarkable work, a sombre, delicate, and startlingly empathetic study of a young Portuguese missionary during the relentless persecution of the Japanese Christians in the early seventeenth century." William Cavanaugh highlights the novel's "deep moral ambiguity" due to the depiction of a God who "has chosen not to eliminate suffering, but to suffer with humanity."


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: "Silence" was not immediately successful among Japanese Catholics, who were among some of the novel's harshest critics. Instead, the novel's popularity was boosted by "left-wing college students" who saw a connection to the plight of Japanese Marxists in the circumstances of Rodrigues. The novel was notably compared to Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory", leading Endo to be referred to as "the Graham Greene of Japan."


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: In 2016, the novel was adapted into a film, also named "Silence", directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Jay Cocks and Scorsese, and starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano and Ciarán Hinds. The film premiered at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome on November 29, 2016.


title: Silence (Endō novel)

text: Composer and poet Teizo Matsumura wrote the libretto and music for an opera with the same title, which was premiered at the New National Theatre in Tokyo in 2000. The novel inspired Symphony no. 3, "Silence", composed in 2002 by Scottish musician James MacMillan.


title: Fokker D.VII

text: The Fokker D.VII was a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. Germany produced around 3,300 D.VII aircraft in the second half of 1918. In service with the "Luftstreitkräfte", the D.VII quickly proved itself to be a formidable aircraft. The Armistice ending the war , that Germany was required to surrender all D.VIIs to the Allies. Surviving aircraft saw much service with many countries in the years after World War I.


title: Fokker D.VII

text: Fokker's chief designer, Reinhold Platz, had been working on a series of experimental V-series aircraft, starting in 1916. The aircraft were notable for the use of cantilever wings. Hugo Junkers and his aviation firm had originated the idea in 1915 with the first practical all-metal aircraft, the Junkers J 1 monoplane, nicknamed "Blechesel" (Sheet Metal Donkey or Tin Donkey). The wings were thick, with a rounded leading edge. The shape of the wings' airfoil gave greater lift, with its relatively "blunt" leading edge (as seen in cross-section) giving it more docile stalling behavior than the thin wings commonly in use.


title: Fokker D.VII

text: Late in 1917, Fokker built the experimental V 11 biplane, fitted with the standard Mercedes D.IIIa engine. In January 1918, "Idflieg" held a fighter competition at Adlershof. For the first time, front line pilots participated in the evaluation and selection of new fighters. Fokker submitted the V 11 along with several other prototypes. Manfred von Richthofen flew the V 11 and found it tricky, unpleasant and directionally unstable in a dive. Platz lengthened the rear fuselage by one structural bay and added a triangular fin in front of the rudder. Richthofen tested the modified V 11 and praised it as the best aircraft of the competition. It offered excellent performance from the outdated Mercedes engine, yet was safe and easy to fly. Richthofen's recommendation virtually decided the competition, but he was not alone in recommending it. Fokker immediately received a provisional order for 400 production aircraft, which were named D.VII by "Idflieg".


title: Fokker D.VII

text: Fokker's factory was not up to the task of meeting all D.VII production orders and "Idflieg" directed Albatros and AEG to build the D.VII under license, though AEG did not ultimately produce any aircraft. Because the Fokker factory did not use detailed plans as part of its production process, Fokker simply sent a D.VII airframe for Albatros to copy. Albatros paid Fokker a five percent royalty for every D.VII it built under license. Albatros Flugzeugwerke and its subsidiary, Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (OAW), built the D.VII at factories in Johannisthal [Fokker D.VII (Alb)] and Schneidemühl [Fokker D.VII (OAW)] respectively. Aircraft markings included the type designation and factory suffix, immediately before the individual serial number.


title: Fokker D.VII

text: Some parts were not interchangeable between aircraft produced at different factories, even between Albatros and OAW. Each manufacturer tended to differ in both nose paint styles and the patterning and layout of their engine compartment cooling louvers on the sides of the nose. OAW produced examples were delivered with distinctive mauve and green splotches on the cowling. All D.VIIs were produced with either the five-color "Fünffarbiger" or less often, the four-color "Vierfarbiger" lozenge camouflage covering, except for early Fokker-produced D.VIIs, which had a streaked green fuselage. Factory camouflage finishes were often overpainted with colorful paint schemes or insignia for the "Jasta" or for a pilot.


title: Fokker D.VII

text: In September 1918, eight D.VIIs were delivered to Bulgaria. Late in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian company "Magyar Általános Gépgyár" ("MÁG", Hungarian General Machine Company) commenced licensed production of the D.VII with Austro-Daimler engines. Production continued after the end of the war, with as many as 50 aircraft completed.