title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Humans in every universe are said to have dæmons, although in some universes they are invisible. In our universe, the books suggest, dæmons are integrated within the person. They have a naturally occurring external physical manifestation in Lyra's universe and some others. Dæmons that are already physical, such as Lyra's dæmon Pantalaimon, remain external even when they visit universes with normally-internal dæmons, such as our own. Typically dæmons and their humans are conscious or sleep at the same time. However, the dæmons of witches and shamans, as revealed in "The Amber Spyglass", can remain awake while their humans sleep, and it is implied in "Northern Lights" that cedarwood can have a soporific effect on dæmons that allows them to sleep even if their humans are awake.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: "The worst breach of etiquette imaginable" is for a human to touch another person's dæmon; even in battle, most soldiers would never touch an enemy's dæmon, though there are exceptions (such as between lovers or in particularly violent fights). This was initially presented as a natural taboo that Lyra did not recall ever being told about, but in "La Belle Sauvage", the infant Pantalaimon touches Malcolm Polstead's hand while in the form of a kitten; in context this can be taken as the innocent action of a child seeking comfort from their 'guardian'. The physical handling of a dæmon causes vulnerability and weakness in the person whose dæmon is being touched; Lyra feels violated when doctors manhandle her dæmon into a machine intended to separate them, and later experiences a flush when Pantalaimon licks Will Parry's injuries while in an Irish wolfhound form to comfort him due to Will lacking a dæmon of his own. However, dæmons can touch other dæmons freely; interactions between dæmons usually accentuate and illuminate the relationships between the characters, and can also be used as a means of passing information between humans without being overheard. The sexual element of human/dæmon interaction is also reflected when Pantalaimon and Kirjava assume their final forms, as they officially settle after Will and Lyra stroke the other's dæmon.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: A child's dæmon has no fixed form, and may suddenly change into another animal shape according to whim and circumstance. This shape-shifting ability, and the fact that a dæmon disappears instantly upon its human's death, implies that dæmons are not completely corporeal. However, their bodies are solid, and they can interact fully with people and objects in the material world. In "Northern Lights" and "The Amber Spyglass", it is noted that Pantalaimon has a heartbeat of his own.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: During puberty, children's dæmons "settle" into a form which reflects their mature personality. In "Northern Lights" it is noted that most servants have dog dæmons (although a maid was noted with a hen dæmon), and all witches' dæmons take the form of a bird of some kind. In "La Belle Sauvage" Malcolm and Alice meet a woman they think of as a fairy who has a flock of butterflies rather than a single dæmon. At the beginning of the trilogy, Lord Asriel claims that the act of settling triggers Dust to begin to be attracted to the person.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: A person's dæmon is usually of the opposite sex to its human; however, very occasionally, it may be the same sex as the person. Pullman has admitted that the reason for this is unknown even to himself, and has agreed that it may also indicate some other gift or quality, such as second sight, or that the person is homosexual, adding "There are plenty of things about my worlds I don't know, and that's one of them". The single reference to such individuals is in "Northern Lights", where their rarity is established.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Mary Malone is taught that, with practice, it is possible to see manifestations of dæmons in her universe of people who do not even know that they have them.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: It is revealed in "La Belle Sauvage" that infant dæmons must learn to communicate with their humans. Pantalaimon initially 'talks' to Lyra in a style of pidgin English that the nuns caring for Lyra say both will grow out of. It is also established that dæmons can be injured, at least after settling; the hyena dæmon of Gerard Bonneville is struck in the leg with a stick during a fight, and is later shown with an amputated leg.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Normally, a person and their dæmon must stay within a few yards of each other; Lyra Belacqua shows significant discomfort when her dæmon flies up to the second story window of a tower while she is standing outside the building. Another character expresses surprise when a shaman's dæmon is able to travel over forty feet from him without discomfort. Such separation from one's dæmon – sometimes called "pulling" – causes extreme pain and distress for both human and dæmon, and, given enough distance, results in death.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: The most detailed account in the books shows pulling to be torturous both physically – like ""an iron hand pulling one's heart out between one's ribs"" – and emotionally. To Will – who was also enduring the pain of his dæmon being separated from him for the first time – it felt as bad as if he had, within his mother's earshot, asked for someone who was about to kill him ""instead to kill his mother because he didn't love her"". A permanent separation between human and dæmon kills both and releases a huge burst of energy, which, for instance, is harnessed by Lord Asriel to blast a hole between two overlapping universes at the end of "Northern Lights". The General Oblation Board initially accomplished this separation through simply tearing child and dæmon apart, but this generally resulted in the subject dying of shock.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: It is revealed in "The Amber Spyglass" that certain trained people, particularly witches and human shamans, have achieved the ability to survive separation from their dæmons by undergoing an initial voluntary separation done at a special location. For the witches this is at a canyon underneath the earth in Lyra's world. Shamans endure gruelling ordeals that involve leaving their dæmon as they embark on a spiritual quest, crossing an area of death where nothing may grow or live. After rejoining their dæmon they gain the ability to separate from them to a far greater extent than previously. Both witches and shamans regain their intimate bond with their dæmon, the only change is in the distance they can travel from each other. Lyra and Will achieve the ability to be distant from their dæmons by going through the World of the Dead. It is implied that their allies, the Gallivespians, endured a similar experience, but the Gallivespians died before they could meet their dæmons.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Some humans, for example, Mrs. Coulter, are shown to have the ability to go farther from their dæmons than most others. Mrs. Coulter's dæmon, a golden monkey, goes into Lyra's room when she is staying with Mrs. Coulter to find her alethiometer (truth reader) despite not having undergone intercision, with Mrs. Coulter talking to Lyra perfectly normally at the same time. The reasons Mrs. Coulter can do this are not stated.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: In "La Belle Sauvage", Malcolm is able to leave his dæmon Asta hidden under a boat to guard the infant Lyra while he heads further inland to help Alice against Gerard Bonneville, but the effort leaves him gradually weakened the further away he is. Despite this, Malcolm is able to knock Bonneville down and save Alice before returning to Asta. The two are in pain after their reunion, but otherwise unharmed.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: "The Secret Commonwealth" establishes that others have undergone separation from their dæmons or have pushed the bond past its usual limits. On one occasion, Pantalaimon discovers a woman who has become separated from her dæmon after a boat sank with the dæmon on it, the two having been unable to find each other after this even as the girl's continued survival makes it clear that the dæmon is still alive. In Lyra's search for Pantalaimon, after he leaves her following a conflict, Lyra learns that there are groups of poor in distant countries who actually sell their children's dæmons through an organisation selling dæmons.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: In the trilogy, a special guillotine made of manganese-titanium alloy is used by the General Oblation Board to separate people from their dæmon without killing them (known as "intercision"). However, unlike the distant separation practiced by witches and shamans, the guillotine permanently breaks the bond between person and dæmon, and drastically reduces the person's creativity, intelligence, and willpower: The adults who have survived the process seem blank and lifeless, and their dæmons subdued and incurious. The General Oblation Board continually perfects the process through experimentation, but Lyra encounters a young boy who cannot bear the results of his intercision; he physically and mentally deteriorates until he eventually dies. When Lyra finds dæmons that have been separated from their humans, the creatures are insubstantial and needy: They cluster desperately, held back only by the contact taboo.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: It is uncertain when or how, or into what form, a dæmon is "born", but a baby's dæmon takes the form of a baby animal. When a person dies, their dæmon fades away like "atoms of smoke." Likewise, when a dæmon is killed, its human dies as well. How a dæmon acquires a name is not explained in the books, but clarified by Philip Pullman as being normally given by the parents' dæmons. As Will Parry came from our world, his dæmon was not given a name in this way and was named Kirjava (meaning "mottled" in Finnish) by Serafina Pekkala when she first met the dæmon.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: While the TV series adheres to most of the established rules about dæmons from the novels, some extra quirks are added regarding the dæmons' cultural significance and their relationships with humans. The first episode depicts a gyptian ceremony held to commemorate Tony Costa becoming a man after his dæmon settles in the form of a hawk, which includes him receiving a silver ring. The second episode confirms that Mrs Coulter is able to separate herself from her dæmon by a considerably greater distance than others believe possible, with the monkey sneaking around a network of vents in her apartment to spy on others. In the third episode, when Mrs Coulter and her dæmon fight with a gyptian spy, Mrs Coulter's method of fighting strongly resembles her dæmon's actions in attacking the gyptian's bird dæmon, to the point of pinning the gyptian to the ground in a similar manner to the monkey-dæmon trapping her opponent's bird-dæmon. On a wider note, the series also affirms that many dæmons are uncomfortable when meeting new people for the first time, allowing the series to justify why they do not depict dæmons for every human character every time.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: In the Norwegian, Danish, Serbian, Italian, Swedish and Finnish editions of "His Dark Materials" the word "dæmon" is changed to "daimon". In Polish it is "dajmon". In Icelandic, the name "fylgja" (lit. follower) is used, in reference to the familiar spirits of folk lores. In the Spanish edition, "daimonion" is used. The Catalan edition uses "daimoni". The Portuguese translation renders the word as "génio" in reference to the familiar spirits in Greco-Roman mythology, although Brazilian new versions use "dimon" (older editions used "dæmon"). The Hungarian edition uses "daimón". In the Hebrew edition, the term is translated phonetically, apart from the mock-bible excerpts quoted in chapter 21 of "Northern Lights"; there, the word used for dæmon is "er'el", meaning angel, resembling the biblical Hebrew word for foreign gods – "elil" (lit. small deity). This reminisces the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, in which the word "elil" was made "daimon".


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: The use of the æ ligature (a and e rendered together as one letter) is old-fashioned English usage, sometimes still seen in words such as "mediæval" and "archæology"; in the case of the word "dæmon", it reflects etymologically the original diphthong in Latin "daemon" and ultimately Greek δαίμων "daimōn". This ligature is still used in Scandinavian languages; for example in Danish the word is generally spelled "Dæmon".


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Dæmon as a manifestation of a person's soul was described by American sci-fi writer C. L. Moore in a short story "Dæmon" (1946). Moore's dæmons were human-shaped creatures of various colours, following their master wherever he or she goes. They were invisible to ordinary people, but the protagonist, a boy with an intellectual disability, named Luis O'Bobo, was able to see other people's dæmons. Irish poet W. B. Yeats saw poetic inspiration as being the result of a conflict between the poet and his 'Daemon' (which he considered the disembodied spirits of the dead) in works of occult speculation such as his 1925 work "A Vision". In the 1992 novel Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams, the Aristoi (and some others) can split their minds into daimones, or "limited personalities", all which can operate as independent mental entities guided by the will of the main 'self' of the Aristos. In the 2010 novel "Zoo City" by Lauren Beukes, certain characters are physically and metaphysically linked to animals.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Sarah K. Cantrell in her essay on Philip Pullman's work wrote that the concept of the dæmon, as a clearly fantastic element, epitomizes Bourdieu's "space of the possibles", and that the dæmon is "an animal familiar like Jung's "anima/animus", which acts as an externalized conscience or soul". Maude Hines in her essay <nowiki>"</nowiki>Second Nature: Daemons and Ideology in The Golden Compass<nowiki>"</nowiki> called dæmons "one of the most remarkable aspects" of Pullman's world, and notes that they "function as conceit for playing out questions of the natural" in it.


title: Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

text: Concepts similar to that of the dæmon can be found in the belief systems of several cultures, such as Fylgja from Norse mythology, Naguals and Tonals from Aztec mythology, aku-aku from Easter Island, and familiar spirits from early modern English witchcraft. Elsewhere, a parallel can be seen in the Jungian concept of the anima and animus. However, the most famous dæmon holder was Socrates, who claimed that he could talk to his.


title: Usonia

text: Usonia () is a word that was used by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to the United States in general (in preference to "America"), and more specifically to his vision for the landscape of the country, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. Wright proposed the use of the adjective "Usonian" to describe the particular New World character of the American landscape as distinct and free of previous architectural conventions.


title: Usonia

text: "Usonian" usually refers to a group of approximately 60 middle-income family homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright beginning in 1934 with the Willey House, with most considering the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, 1937, to be the first true "Usonian." The "Usonian Homes" are typically small, single-story dwellings without a garage or much storage. They are often L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace on unusual and inexpensive sites. They are characterized by native materials; flat roofs and large cantilevered overhangs for passive solar heating and natural cooling; natural lighting with clerestory windows; and radiant-floor heating. Another distinctive feature is that they typically have little exposure to the front/'public' side, while the rear/'private' sides are completely open to the outside. A strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces is an important characteristic of all Usonian homes. The word carport was coined by Wright to describe an overhang for sheltering a parked vehicle.


title: Usonia

text: The Usonia Historic District is a planned community in Pleasantville, New York built in the 1950s following this concept. Wright designed 3 of the 47 homes himself.


title: Usonia

text: Variants of the Jacobs House design are still in existence today. The Usonian design is considered among the aesthetic origins of the ranch-style house popular in the American west of the 1950s.


title: Usonia

text: According to plans that Wright created in 1939, Florida Southern College constructed in 2013 the 13th Wright building on their campus. The building includes textile-block construction, colored glass in perforated concrete blocks, Wright photographs, a documentary film about the architect's work at the school, and furniture designed by Wright. Named the "Usonian House", it was originally designed as one of twenty faculty housing units. The building is home to the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center, a visitor center for guests visiting campus to see the collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings known as Child of the Sun.


title: Usonia

text: The word "Usonian" appears to have been coined by James Duff Law, a Scottish writer born in 1865. In a miscellaneous collection, "Here and There in Two Hemispheres" (1903), Law quoted a letter of his own (dated June 18, 1903) that begins "We of the United States, in justice to Canadians and Mexicans, have no right to use the title 'Americans' when referring to matters pertaining exclusively to ourselves." He went on to acknowledge that some author had proposed "Usona", but that he preferred the form "Usonia". Perhaps the earliest published use by Wright was in 1927:


title: Usonia

text: However, this may be a misattribution, as there is as yet no other published evidence that Butler ever used the word.


title: Usonia

text: José F. Buscaglia-Salgado reclaims the term "Usonian" to refer to the peoples, national ideology and neo-imperial tradition of the United States of America.


title: Usonia

text: Miguel Torres-Castro uses the term "Usonian" to refer to the origin of the Atlantic puffin used in the children's book "Jupu the Puffin: A Usonian Story". The bird is a puffin from Maine, US.


title: Usonia

text: The Usonian Automatic houses were made with concrete blocks. An attempt on the part of Wright to further lower the cost of housing, the clients could actually be involved in the creation of the blocks and thus the construction of the building (such as in the Tracy House).


title: Jeana Keough

text: Jeana Ellen Keough (née Myers; formerly Tomasino; born September 18, 1955) is an American television personality, realtor, actress, and model. Keough graduated from Whitnall High School located in Greenfield, Wisconsin in 1972. When she was younger, she worked as a model and actress, including as one of the three beautiful muses in the ZZ Top music videos "Legs", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Gimme All Your Lovin". She was also the Playboy Magazine Playmate of the Month in November 1980.


title: Jeana Keough

text: Keough works as a real estate salesperson in Aliso Viejo, California. She is also a former cast member of the reality show "The Real Housewives of Orange County".


title: Jeana Keough

text: Keough is divorced from her second husband Matt Keough (1955-2020), a second-generation major league baseball player, pitcher for the Oakland Athletics and a special assistant to Oakland A's general manager. The couple have three children: Shane, Kara and Colton. Their oldest son, Shane is a third-generation professional baseball player, having signed as a minor league outfielder in June 2006 with the Class A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Keough was released on July 2, 2010. Daughter Kara married NFL player Kyle Bosworth.


title: Jeana Keough

text: Keough appeared in several movies and television shows in the mid-1980s. As an actress, she has been credited as Jeana Tomasina or Jeana Keough.


title: Jeana Keough

text: Keough was "Playboy" magazine's Playmate of the Month in November 1980. In 1983, she appeared in "Playboy Video Magazine, Vol. 4." and still makes occasional promotional appearances for Playboy.


title: Jeana Keough

text: Along with Danièle Arnaud and fellow Playmate Kymberly Herrin, Keough was one of the three muses in the ZZ Top music videos "Legs", "Sharp Dressed Man", "Gimme All Your Lovin', and "Sleeping Bag".


title: Jeana Keough

text: As Jeana Keough, she is one of the original cast members of the reality show, "The Real Housewives of Orange County", on the Bravo cable network. In season five, she appeared as a regular cast member in three episodes. Since departing as a full-time member, Keough has appeared as a recurring cast member in season six and has made multiple guest appearances in the later seasons.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Charlotte Pence Bond (born Charlotte Rose Pence; June 25, 1993) is an American writer who is the second child and elder daughter of former Vice President of the United States Mike Pence and former Second Lady of the United States, Karen Pence.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence graduated from DePaul University. She wrote articles for "The DePaulia", "Thought Catalog" and "Glamour", fiction articles for "The Isis Magazine", and poems for "Seven Voices" published by University of Oxford. Pence did film production internships while in college, and won a 2014 Emmy Award for the Lower Great Lakes region for a film she co-wrote and for which she was an associate producer.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: She is the author of children's book "Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President", published in 2018. , she is a contributor to the conservative news website "The Daily Wire".


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence grew up with her parents and siblings in Columbus, Indiana. Her father Mike encouraged her to be a writer and "cherished" a biography she wrote of him when she was 7. Her mother Karen said that she was a storyteller since she could talk. Pence described her family as "very, very close" and said that "[they] talk about everything together". She said that she and her siblings could choose how involved in politics they would be; Pence told Ben Shapiro in an interview in 2018 that as children they could be included in an event only if they wanted to. She said that they have political debates in their house and on the phone.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence spent her junior year at DePaul University studying a semester in English and Philosophy abroad at St Catherine's College, Oxford. At DePaul, Pence was involved with the school ministry, a student group that addresses violence in Chicago, and creative writing and film communities; she worked on documentary projects, one of which won nine regional Emmy Awards, and joined the Chi Omega sorority. She graduated with a double major in Digital Cinema – Screenwriting, and English – Creative Writing from DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media in June 2016. In September 2020, Pence was attending her second year at the Harvard Divinity School, for a master's degree.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence did film production internships while in college. In 2013, she interned at WFYI, a public broadcasting station in central Indiana, working in the television production department. Pence was the associate producer and co-writer of the 2013 documentary film "Fleeced: Speaking Out Against Senior Financial Abuse", which highlights "the stories of seniors who have been scammed by financial predators". The film won a 2014 Emmy award for the Lower Great Lakes region. Pence has since worked on several documentary and short film projects. She said in 2016 that she "[wanted] to go into the creative side of film production, looking at stories and books and scripts and real life stories and taking those to the screen". Pence's biography for the documentary film "For the Records" states, "She hopes to pursue a career in writing for film and documentaries after college."


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence is a writer and has published poems, short stories and articles. In 2014, she wrote an article for "Thought Catalog" about her religious beliefs. In 2015, Pence wrote a column for DePaul University's "The DePaulia" about her studying abroad at Oxford University. In it, she talks about "finding a running path and learning to navigate the pubs". Also in 2015, Pence published several poems for the Oxford blog "Seven Voices" and fiction pieces for "The Isis Magazine", an independent UK student magazine. She wrote an essay for "Glamour" that was released Tuesday ahead of her father's prime time debate as the Republican vice presidential candidate of the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign. In the essay, Pence wrote about the lessons she had learned from her father. She described her lifestyle changes after her father became Trump's running mate in July, writing, "I went from taking public transit in Chicago to riding in a presidential motorcade in the span of just a few months."


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Early August 2016, Pence started travelling around the U.S. with her father on his campaign trail, which included the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Pence's recent graduation gave her time to travel the country and she joked that her role on the campaign trail was to "babysit her parents". Charlotte said that she was the only one of her siblings to be home at the time of the nomination. Pence described herself politically as "more of a moderate or independent" and said that she does not always agree with the policies of her father and Trump, adding "I think I have views that go across the board", which she says has been encouraged by her parents. In 2018, Pence said that her father tells her, regarding the public criticism and protests against him, "That's what freedom looks like."


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Since the inauguration, Pence helped provide a "support system for her parents", without taking official roles, while working full-time in Washington, D.C. at a film production company. In September 2017, Pence started an agent training program at the United Talent Agency.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: In 2013, Pence needed a rabbit for a short film project as a freshman at DePaul, and she bought a black and white rabbit from Craigslist. Pence named the rabbit 'Marlon Bundo' after Marlon Brando, as Pence's friend noticed the similarity between Brando's phrase "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" from "The Godfather" and the rabbit's seller's response "Make me an offer" to a message about the price. Speaking to the "Chicago Tribune" she recalled: "We drove out to the suburbs, my friends and I, and we picked him up. I think he was like $20. He was in the short film, and I just kept him after that." Bundo lived with Pence throughout college for four years, and continued to live with the Pences at Number One Observatory Circle afterwards. Pence created an Instagram account for Bundo "right after [her] dad was inaugurated [Vice President]", "not knowing if anybody would follow it". Pence and her mother thought about creating a children's book, following Bundo's popularity on Instagram and because Karen is a watercolor painter. Pence told "The Denver Post" that she "really [likes] children's literature and middle-grade fiction" and had "always wanted to be a writer". Pence told Andrew Klavan in a 2018 interview that she could also write non-fiction and write for adults.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: On March 19, 2018, the children's picture book "Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President" was released. It was written by Charlotte and illustrated by Karen. The picture book tells the story of Bundo observing the Vice President's daily activities. Pence said that they'd "love to do something for a sequel". Proceeds from the picture book go to benefit art therapy programs, and The A21 Campaign, which works to combat human trafficking; Charlotte Pence picked the latter charity because of her prior experience with the organization.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: As a "jab" at Mike Pence's opposition to LGBT rights in the United States, a parody of the picture book titled "A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo", authored by "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" comedy writer Jill Twiss and illustrated by Gerald Kelley, was published by Chronicle Books a day before. In the parody book, Bundo falls in love with a rabbit named Wesley, but a stink bug resembling Mike Pence decrees that male rabbits cannot marry each other. Proceeds from the parody book go to benefit The Trevor Project, which runs a crisis hotline for members of the LGBTQ community, and AIDS United. The picture book and the parody book reached the fourth and the first spot, respectively, on Amazon's best-selling books list. As of late March 2018, Pence's book and Twiss's book sold approximately 100,000 and 400,000 copies, respectively, and were respectively No. 5 and No. 6 Children's Picture Books on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. Pence reacted positively to the parody book, saying:


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: I think imitation is the most sincere form of flattery in a way. But in all seriousness, his book is contributing to charities that I think we can all get behind. We have two books that are giving to charities that are both about bunnies, so I'm all for it, really.


title: Charlotte Pence Bond

text: Pence became engaged to Navy lieutenant Henry Bond in July 2019, and they married in December of that year.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On May 17, 2015, in Waco, Texas, United States, a shootout erupted at a Twin Peaks restaurant where more than 200 persons, including members from motorcycle clubs that included the Bandidos, Cossacks, and allies, had gathered for a meeting about political rights for motorcyclists. Law enforcement, which included 18 members of the Waco police and four state troopers, had gathered to monitor the restaurant and meeting from outside, and, according to police, "returned fire after being shot at". Nine bikers were killed, 18 others wounded or injured, and 177 individuals were ultimately arrested and initially detained in connection with the shootout, most for alleged participation in organized crime. According to "The New York Times", "the response by prosecutors was widely criticized as brazen overreach". According to the "Waco Tribune-Herald", the shootout led to a "four-year prosecutorial fiasco that resulted in zero convictions."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: In 2014, the Texas Department of Public Safety listed the Bandidos Motorcycle Club as a "Tier 2" threat, the same rating as the Crips, Bloods, and Aryan Brotherhood, but it did not evaluate the Cossacks. That assessment said that the Bandidos Motorcycle Club "conducts their illegal activities as covertly as possible, and avoids high-profile activities such as drive-by shootings that many street gangs tend to commit."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: According to Steve Cook, executive director of the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association, an element of the dispute had to do with the right of Texas outlaw motorcycle clubs to wear jackets decorated with distinctive patches, including a geographic bottom rocker reading "Texas", indicating Texas as the territory of the club. The dominant Bandidos claimed the right to approve all such jacket bottom rocker patches. A police affidavit released June 16 described the source of the conflict in similar terms. Following the shootout, police spokesman Patrick Swanton said a turf war between the rival thugs was a factor in the deadly encounter. It allegedly started following the beating of a Cossack by Bandidos at a Toys for Tots event in Decatur, Texas on December 6, 2014, and the killing of a gang member of the Ghostriders MC the following week in Fort Worth. Skirmishes over the issue continued on March 22, 2015. A police affidavit described fighting between Bandidos and Cossacks going back to November 2013, including brawls resulting in injuries, in Abilene, Palo Pinto County, and Lorena, Texas. Some of those previously-injured bikers were arrested in Waco after the shootout on May 17.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On May 1, 2015, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued an advisory statement to police: "The conflict may stem from Cossacks members refusing to pay Bandidos dues for operating in Texas and for claiming Texas as their territory by wearing the Texas bottom rocker on their vests, or 'cuts.'"


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: The shootout erupted at a regularly scheduled regional meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (COC&I), the statewide biker club coalition, involved in political issues regarding the rights of motorcyclists. Based in Tyler, Texas, the coalition engages in a broad range of activities; for example, it was honored by the city council of Jacksonville, Texas, on May 14 for its involvement in Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: According to the police, most previous meetings of COC&I for that region had been held in Austin, Texas. COC&I has twelve regions, and Waco is in Region 1. The Bandidos are leading members of the COC&I while the Cossacks are not. The police affidavit claims that the Bandidos "wanted to have a show of force and make a statement that Waco was not a Cossacks' town". The police account states that, in response, the Cossacks "threatened that Waco was a 'Cossacks town' and nobody else could ride there" and they made "the decision to take a stand and attend the meeting uninvited".


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Police were made aware of the meeting and had at least a dozen local officers plus state officers positioned nearby. The restaurant had agreed to host the meeting. Officers described the restaurant management as uncooperative when confronted with concerns about the meeting. Swanton said Twin Peaks had been unhelpful in helping police officers deal with gangs in the past.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: The conflict began sometime after noon, according to Waco police who had been monitoring motorcycle club activity at the Twin Peaks restaurant. Initial reports say the original conflict began, allegedly over a parking spot where "someone had their foot run over", and the fight escalated from there. At 12:24 p.m., gunfire erupted. Waco Police Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton declined to reveal details regarding how many of the dead and injured were shot by police, though he added it was possible that some of the victims had been shot by officers, stating "They started shooting at our officers and our officers returned fire." In total, nine bikers died and eighteen others were hospitalized with injuries. Later the number of injured was amended to twenty.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Swanton also related that officers invoked the "Active Shooter" protocols, which are rules of engagement newly designed and implemented to give responding law enforcement officers quicker permission to engage mass shooters with deadly force, before a command and control structure is in place. All of the fatalities, as well as the majority of those injured during the melee, suffered gunshot wounds. The shootout was the deadliest and most high-profile event in the Waco area since the Waco siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: In a June 5 bail reduction hearing, prosecutor Michael Jarrett said videotape of the shootout shows "Bandidos executing Cossacks, and Cossacks executing Bandidos". Arguing in favor of the high bonds, Jarrett said, "The facts and circumstances of this case are so extraordinary and so different from anything we have ever dealt with, we believe adequate bonds need to be in place to ensure the safety of this community."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Although all of the deaths were due to gunfire, other weapons seized after the conflict included chains, brass knuckles, knives, clubs, and batons. The knives included pocket knives, trench knives, and combat knives. A police source told CNN preliminary information indicated four of the bikers had been killed by police gunfire, but Swanton said "[t]he autopsies have not been completed and that information may very likely be incorrect". According to six witnesses interviewed by the Associated Press, three of whom were military veterans, the shootout began with a small number of pistol shots, and was then dominated by semiautomatic weapons fire. Only one semiautomatic rifle was confiscated from a biker, which was in a locked car. The police had semiautomatic weapons. Swanton said the bikers fired more shots than the police did, and that it will take months to obtain ballistics reports.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Security footage shown by the Twin Peaks franchisee to the Associated Press showed one man started shooting on the patio, at which time most bikers tried to seek safety inside, first in the bathroom, and when that room filled up, the kitchen. None of those camera angles showed the parking lot.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On June 12, the Waco Police Department announced three officers fired their .223-caliber rifles a total of twelve times. It was later determined that those rounds struck four of the bikers. Forty-four spent casings were recovered at the scene, according to the police.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Vehicle forfeiture documents released June 16 include a detailed affidavit with a description of the police and prosecution's version of the events leading up to the shootout, and what they say happened at the shootout itself. The affidavit says the Cossacks arrived over an hour before the scheduled 1:00 pm meeting, and "took over the patio area, which had been reserved for the COC&I meeting." As a group of Bandidos arrived, several Cossacks and their allies approached and some pulled weapons including pistols. Bandidos member Reginald Weathers testified at a bond reduction hearing that he was part of that group of Bandidos, and that Cossacks members disrespected Dallas Bandidos president David Martinez immediately upon their arrival, arguing about a parking space. When Weathers stepped forward to defend Martinez, he says he was punched in the face, and then shot by a single bullet that passed through his arm and his chest. Since he was leaning over after being punched, he said he did not see who fired the shot.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: One Bandido nearly hit a Cossack with his motorcycle, and another Bandido "punched a Cossack in the face". At that point, "[s]everal Bandidos and Cossacks pulled out their weapons, including handguns, and shot and stabbed each other," and Martinez fired a .32 caliber pistol that he then placed in a parked car, according to the affidavit. Martinez was among those arrested and has since been released on bond. Police gunfire then followed.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: All nine men died of gunshot wounds. According to erroneous initial police statements, eight were Cossacks and one was a Bandido.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: According to his family, Jacob Lee Rhyne, a father of two from Ranger, Texas, had joined the Cossacks six months prior and didn't own a gun. His girlfriend said, "I cannot see Jake going there if he knew there was going to be trouble. Our kids were too important."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Jesus Rodriguez's son said the Vietnam War Marine Corps veteran and father of seven from New Braunfels, Texas was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and didn't carry weapons. He used to carry a pocketknife, but stopped after being told he couldn't bring it into a convention. He was an associate of the Bandidos, but not a patched-in member. Rodriguez received a Navy Commendation Medal for his service in Vietnam, and a Purple Heart for wounds sustained during it.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: As of May 19, seven of the injured remained in a hospital, in stable condition. According to attorney Seth Sutton, who negotiated the first bail, four of the arrested have complained to his office that they were jailed before bullet fragments could be removed from their bodies.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Spokesman Patrick Swanton said police recovered about 320 weapons from the crime scene. Swiss army knives, pocket knives, handguns, and an AK-47-style rifle were among the weapons found. One hundred and ninety-two people were initially arrested in connection with the shootout, with 171 of those charged with participation in organized crime. They were booked at the McLennan County Jail. Per that inmate list, as of May 19, 171 people were arrested under arrest case WPD-15-9146, charged with engaging in organized criminal activity. Of them, 124 were white males, 41 were Hispanic males, three were white females, two were black males, and one was a Native American female. One hundred and six people were indicted by a grand jury in connection with the shootout.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: All suspects had their bonds set at $1 million by Justice of the Peace W.H. "Pete" Peterson, who said it sent a strong message: "We had nine people killed in our community. These people just came in, and most of them were from out of town. Very few of them were from in town." On May 19, three suspects were released after their bonds were mistakenly set at $20,000 and $50,000. McLennan County Judge Ralph Strother issued a warrant to have them rearrested and their bond reset to $2 million. All three arranged to turn themselves in that day. Strother also ruled that no suspect's bond can be reduced without his approval. Judge Matt Johnson made a similar ruling. The first reduction hearing was in June in Strother's court, where 59-year-old Caldwell mechanic Jimmy Don Smith was represented by Bryan lawyer Dan Jones.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Police officers reported receiving several threats after the shooting, which they are investigating. A former Bandidos leader and several experts on outlaw motorcycle clubs questioned whether the reported threats against police were genuine.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On May 22, fifty-year-old factory worker and Bandido Jeff Battey posted bail. The cash amount wasn't disclosed, but is typically 10% in Texas, or $100,000. Afterward, his lawyer and prosecutors argued over whether this meant he could leave jail. He ultimately did, after the district attorney and two district judges negotiated special restrictions for him and any future bailee from this case, including ankle monitoring, surrendering of passports, abstention from drugs and alcohol and no contact with club members or potential victims or witnesses. One other suspect was subsequently bailed out later that day, according to McLennan County Recovery Healthcare Corporation Office Manager Ronnie Marroquin, who attaches the ankle monitors.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: One of the arrested, Martin Lewis, is a retired veteran detective of 32 years from the San Antonio Police Department. At the time, he was a school bus driver. He was consequently fired by the Northside Independent School District.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: As of May 24, 75 suspects had requested a public defender qualified to work first-degree felony charges, of which McLennan County has 29. To make up the rest, Judge Matt Johnson has for the first time called in defenders from nearby counties, including Dallas, Bell, Williamson, Travis, Hill, Coryell, Limestone and Johnson. The district has 26 prosecutors to split the caseload among, and can enlist others from the county, state or federal levels, if needed.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: One of the arrested, San Antonio's Kenneth Carlisle, had just pulled into the parking lot when he was arrested in his wife's car and charged with engaging in organized crime, according to his wife. She says he wasn't wearing any sort of biker clothing, and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She called the ordeal of running her two-child household while working with lawyers to negotiate a lower bond for a husband she has only been allowed to visit by phone "the worst nightmare of my life", and says she's aware of eight other arrested with similar stories.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: The last arrested biker to be released from jail was Marcus Pilkington on October 30, over five months after the shootings. No one had yet been charged with murder or any other additional charges.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Waco police sergeant Patrick Swanton said that the management of the Waco Twin Peaks had been unhelpful in dealing with bikers in the past. On May 18, Twin Peaks announced it had canceled the Waco restaurant's franchise because the management there "chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants." Later that day, Twin Peaks spokeswoman Meghan Hecke announced that the Waco location would not reopen. She said discussions are underway on the future of another Twin Peaks in Harker Heights, owned by the same "relatively new" franchisee, Peakstastic Beverages, LLC. That company released a statement denying it was advised by police or Twin Peaks against holding the event, and contending that the violence began in the parking lot, rather than in the building. It expressed disappointment in Twin Peaks' decision to terminate the franchise before many facts were known, and pledged to assist the ongoing investigation.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Owners of the nearby Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant filed suit against Peakstastic Beverages and Twin Peaks on May 21, alleging financial damages incurred when its uninvolved restaurant was labeled a crime scene and forced to close until May 21, as the result of gross negligence by Twin Peaks. It accuses the franchisee of creating "an extreme degree of risk considering the probability and magnitude of the potential harm to others" by hosting the event, and the franchiser of regularly encouraging franchisees to host such events.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: About 135 motorcycles and 80 cars and pickup trucks from the crime scene were seized through civil forfeiture law and may be auctioned off by the county, regardless of whether or not their owners are convicted.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Juan Garcia, an engineer for the City of Austin since 2009 and one of the men mistakenly released on lessened bail, was placed on paid administrative leave, pending the legal outcome and the city's own internal review. Garcia and three other bikers filed a lawsuit for damages alleging wrongfully arrest against Twin Peaks, the City of Waco, and McLennan County. The suit seeks $1 billion in damages.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On May 29, Clinton Broden, an attorney with Broden & Mickelsen representing arrested biker Matthew Alan Clendennen filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal district court claiming that his client was innocent of all charges and was held on a "fill in the name" warrant without any individual probable cause. The lawsuit was filed against the City of Waco, Texas and McLennan County as defendants, and also one named and 20 unnamed police officers as well as the McLennan County District Attorney, Abelino Reyna, and five unnamed assistant district attorneys. Clendennen is a graduate of Baylor University, a small business owner and has no previous criminal record. He was bailed after posting $100,000. He is member of the Scimitars Motorcycle Club.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Two and a half weeks after the shootout, over 140 of those arrested were still being held on $1 million bail. Law school professor and civil rights lawyer David Kairys characterized the attitude of police as "Let’s arrest them all and sort it out later," comparing the arrests to the Red Scare mass arrests of socialists and communists after World War I and the period of McCarthyism in the early 1950s. According to Kairys, such arrests may have a "chilling effect" on freedom of association and freedom of speech.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Waco police tried to prevent the release of standard information about the shootout, particularly pertaining to arresting officers. The city attorney of Waco requested that the attorney general of Texas give them the power to withhold the public records from the news media. Bill Aleshire, an attorney in Austin, Texas, criticized Waco officials for violating "bedrock open government law."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: By early June, criticism of the lack of accurate information about the incident was increasing in the national news media. Conor Friedersdorf, a reporter for "The Atlantic" described the incarceration of 160 people on $1 million bonds as "self-evidently excessive", and pointed out that the information lacking included "how many of the dead bikers were shot by police officers, how many cops fired their weapons, or how many total rounds they discharged." A reporter for the Houston Press described the response of Waco authorities as "a textbook example of how not to handle an emergency situation".


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: In response to 37 complaints of inadequate health care, inedible food, degrading treatment, and sanitation issues in the jail, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards conducted a surprise inspection on June 4. The inspector found all conditions met the minimum state standards. Houston lawyer Paul Looney, representing two men who did not file complaints, said both lost almost twenty pounds by avoiding food that had bugs on it or otherwise appeared unsafe.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On June 7, over 500 bikers gathered outside the McLennan County Courthouse to protest the mass incarcerations with about 124 bikers remaining in jail at that time. One protester, Dot Green, commented, "Only an idiot would believe that 176 hardcore criminals all showed up at a restaurant to start a big fight with the cops, and that they all deserve 1 million dollar bails."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On June 10, "The New York Times" observed that bond-reduction hearings are "routine proceedings that are typically heard within seven to 10 days of an arrest." Paul Looney, an attorney for three of the defendants said, "It's the most un-American activity I've seen on American soil."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On June 22, Stephen Stubbs, an attorney for the Bandidos, issued a statement accusing the police of spreading misinformation, and demanding the immediate release of all videos of the shootout, as well as the autopsy reports. Stubbs said the violence "was senseless, completely unnecessary, and wrong." He stated that weapons in possession of the Bandidos were "legally owned and carried" and that the Bandidos "were not aggressors, did not start the altercation, did not strike first, were not the first to pull weapons, and were not the first to use weapons." Stubbs added that "all involvement in the altercation by members of the Bandidos was in self-defense."


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: Also on June 22, attorneys for Matt Clendennen, a member of the Scimitars Motorcycle Club, served Twin Peaks with a subpoena to produce their copy of the surveillance video of the events. The City of Waco moved to quash the subpoena. However, according to Clendennen's attorney, the city did not have standing to do so and only Twin Peaks, the recipient of the subpoena, could move to quash. On June 30, a Waco state district judge denied the city's motion to quash, requiring Twin Peaks to turn over the footage, but he barred the release of the video to the public. At the request of prosecutors, the judge also placed a gag order on the Clendennen case, prohibiting police, attorneys, and witnesses from discussing the case publicly. Clendennen's attorneys filed an emergency appeal of the gag order the next day.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On September 14, 2016, three Waco police officers were cleared of wrongdoing in the shootout by a grand jury. A McLennan county grand jury reviewed the cases and chose not to charge Waco officers Andy O'Neal, Michael Bucher and Heath Jackson.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On November 10, 2015, a Waco grand jury indicted 106 people on felony charges of "engaging in organized criminal activity". Although a gag order was only imposed for attorneys involved in the Clendennen case, District Attorney Abel Reyna was "openly discuss[ing] the indictments after the grand jury action". Five defense attorneys representing arrested bikers issued statements criticizing the "cookie cutter" nature of the indictments, and Reyna's press conference. The "Houston Chronicle" pointed out that six months had passed since the shootings, and that law enforcement had not yet said who specifically was responsible for the shootings, or whether any of those killed or wounded had been hit by police gunfire.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On May 9, 2018, prosecutors filed murder charges against three of the bikers and more than 20 others were re-indicted, this time on new charges.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: The only one of the arrested bikers to be tried was Jake Carrizal, president of the Dallas chapter of the Bandidos motorcycle club. His trial ended in a mistrial on November 10, 2017.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: As of February 28, 2018, 58 of the 154 bikers indicted had had their cases either dismissed or not prosecuted.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: In March 2018, charges against Cody Ledbetter, a member of the Cossack motorcycle club, were dismissed. The McLennan County District Attorney had distributed sexually explicit pictures of Ledbetter and his wife, which had been on Ledbetter's cell phone, to attorneys for the 177 defendants. On March 28, 2018, a judge ordered the district attorney to stop distributing the photos.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: On April 27, 2018, a special prosecutor sought to dismiss all charges against defendant Matthew Clendennen, citing lack of evidence. During a conference regarding the rest of the defendants, the District Attorney's office said that they would likely dismiss most of the other cases, save for about 30.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: As of January 2019, about 26 of the original 155 bikers remain indicted. Their trials were postponed for several months to allow new district attorney Barry Johnson time to review them and decide how to proceed. On April 2, 2019, all of the remaining criminal cases were dismissed.


title: 2015 Waco shootout

text: In 2019, over 130 civil rights lawsuits by the bikers were pending against the former DA, the former Police Chief, city of Waco, McLennan County, and local and state officers involved in the mass arrest.


title: Exascale computing

text: Exascale computing refers to computing systems capable of calculating at least "10 IEEE 754 Double Precision (64-bit) operations (multiplications and/or additions) per second (exaFLOPS)"; it is a measure of supercomputer performance.


title: Exascale computing

text: Exascale computing is a significant achievement in computer engineering: primarily, it allows improved scientific applications and better prediction accuracy in domains such as weather forecasting, climate modeling and personalised medicine. Exascale also reaches the estimated processing power of the human brain at the neural level, a target of the Human Brain Project. There has been a race to be the first country to build an exascale computer, typically ranked in the TOP500 list.


title: Exascale computing

text: In 2022, the world's first public exascale computer, "Frontier", was announced. , it is the world's fastest supercomputer.


title: Exascale computing

text: Floating point operations per second (FLOPS) are one measure of computer performance. FLOPS can be recorded in different measures of precision, however the standard measure (used by the TOP500 supercomputer list) uses 64 bit (double-precision floating-point format) operations per second using the High Performance LINPACK (HPLinpack) benchmark.


title: Exascale computing

text: Whilst a distributed computing system had broken the 1 exaFLOPS barrier before "Frontier", the metric typically refers to single computing systems. Supercomputers had also previously broken the 1 exaFLOPS barrier using alternative precision measures; again these do not meet the criteria for exascale computing using the standard metric. It has been recognised that HPLinpack may not be a good general measure of supercomputer utility in real world application, however it is the common standard for performance measurement.


title: Exascale computing

text: It has been recognized that enabling applications to fully exploit capabilities of exascale computing systems is not straightforward. Developing data-intensive applications over exascale platforms requires the availability of new and effective programming paradigms and runtime systems. The Folding@home project, the first to break this barrier, relied on a network of servers sending pieces of work to hundreds of thousands of clients using a client–server model network architecture.


title: Exascale computing

text: The first petascale (10 FLOPS) computer entered operation in 2008. At a supercomputing conference in 2009, "Computerworld" projected exascale implementation by 2018. In June 2014, the stagnation of the Top500 supercomputer list had observers question the possibility of exascale systems by 2020.


title: Exascale computing

text: Although exascale computing was not achieved by 2018, in the same year the Summit OLCF-4 supercomputer performed 1.8 calculations per second using an alternative metric whilst analysing genomic information. The team performing this won the Gordon Bell Prize at the 2018 ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference.


title: Exascale computing

text: The exaFLOPS barrier was first broken in March 2020 by the distributed computing network Folding@home coronavirus research project.


title: Exascale computing

text: In June 2020 the Japanese supercomputer Fugaku achieved 1.42 exaFLOPS using the alternative HPL-AI benchmark.


title: Exascale computing

text: In 2008, two United States of America governmental organisations within the US Department of Energy, the Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration, provided funding to the Institute for Advanced Architectures for the development of an exascale supercomputer; Sandia National Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory were also to collaborate on exascale designs. The technology was expected to be applied in various computation-intensive research areas, including basic research, engineering, earth science, biology, materials science, energy issues, and national security.


title: Exascale computing

text: In January 2012, Intel purchased the InfiniBand product line from QLogic for US$125 million in order to fulfill its promise of developing exascale technology by 2018.


title: Exascale computing

text: In February 2013, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity started the Cryogenic Computer Complexity (C3) program, which envisions a new generation of superconducting supercomputers that operate at exascale speeds based on superconducting logic. In December 2014 it announced a multi-year contract with IBM, Raytheon BBN Technologies and Northrop Grumman to develop the technologies for the C3 program.


title: Exascale computing

text: On 29 July 2015, Barack Obama signed an executive order creating a National Strategic Computing Initiative calling for the accelerated development of an exascale system and funding research into post-semiconductor computing. The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) hopes to build an exascale computer by 2021.


title: Exascale computing

text: On 18 March 2019, the United States Department of Energy and Intel announced the first exaFLOPS supercomputer would be operational at Argonne National Laboratory by late 2022. The computer, named Aurora is to be delivered to Argonne by Intel and Cray (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise), and is expected to use Intel Xe GPGPUs alongside a future Xeon Scalable CPU, and cost US$600 Million.


title: Exascale computing

text: On 7 May 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a contract with Cray (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise) to build the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Frontier is anticipated to be fully operational in 2022 and, with a performance of greater than 1.5 exaFLOPS, should then be the world's most powerful computer.


title: Exascale computing

text: On 4 March 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a contract with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and AMD to build the El Capitan supercomputer at a cost of US$600 million, to be installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). It is expected to be used primarily (but not exclusively) for nuclear weapons modeling. El Capitan was first announced in August 2019, when the DOE and LLNL revealed the purchase of a Shasta supercomputer from Cray. El Capitan will be operational in early 2023 and have a performance of 2 exaFLOPS. It will use AMD CPUs and GPUs, with 4 Radeon Instinct GPUs per EPYC Zen 4 CPU, to speed up artificial intelligence tasks. El Capitan should consume around 40 MW of electric power.


title: Exascale computing

text: In Japan, in 2013, the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science began planning an exascale system for 2020, intended to consume less than 30 megawatts. In 2014, Fujitsu was awarded a contract by RIKEN to develop a next-generation supercomputer to succeed the K computer. The successor is called Fugaku, and aims to have a performance of at least 1 exaFLOPS, and be fully operational in 2021. In 2015, Fujitsu announced at the International Supercomputing Conference that this supercomputer would use processors implementing the ARMv8 architecture with extensions it was co-designing with ARM Limited. It was partially put into operation in June 2020 and achieved 1.42 exaFLOPS (fp16 with fp64 precision) in HPL-AI benchmark making it the first ever supercomputer that achieved 1 exaFLOPS. Named after Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest peak, Fugaku retained the No. 1 ranking on the Top 500 supercomputer calculation speed ranking announced on November 17 2020, reaching a calculation speed of 442 quadrillion calculations per second, or 0.442 exaFLOPS.


title: Exascale computing

text: As of June 2022, China had two of the Top Ten fastest supercomputers in the world. According to the national plan for the next generation of high performance computers and the head of the school of computing at the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China was supposed to develop an exascale computer during the 13th Five-Year-Plan period (2016–2020) which would enter service in the latter half of 2020. The government of Tianjin Binhai New Area, NUDT and the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin are working on the project. After Tianhe-1 and Tianhe-2, the exascale successor is planned to be named Tianhe-3.


title: Exascale computing

text: In 2011, several projects aiming at developing technologies and software for exascale computing were started in the EU. The CRESTA project (Collaborative Research into Exascale Systemware, Tools and Applications), the DEEP project (Dynamical ExaScale Entry Platform), and the project Mont-Blanc. A major European project based on exascale transition is the MaX (Materials at the Exascale) project. The Energy oriented Centre of Excellence (EoCoE) exploits exascale technologies to support carbon-free energy research and applications.


title: Exascale computing

text: In 2015, the Scalable, Energy-Efficient, Resilient and Transparent Software Adaptation (SERT) project, a major research project between the University of Manchester and the STFC Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, was awarded c. £1million from the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The SERT project was due to start in March 2015. It will be funded by EPSRC under the Software for the Future II programme, and the project will partner with the Numerical Analysis Group (NAG), Cluster Vision and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).


title: Exascale computing

text: On 28 September 2018, the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) was formally established by the EU. The EuroHPC JU aims to build an exascale supercomputer by 2022/2023. The EuroHPC JU will be jointly funded by its public members with a budget of around €1 billion. The EU's financial contribution is €486 million.


title: Exascale computing

text: In June 2017, Taiwan's National Center for High-Performance Computing initiated the effort towards designing and building the first Taiwanese exascale supercomputer by funding construction of a new intermediary supercomputer based on a full technology transfer from Fujitsu corporation of Japan, which is currently building the fastest and most powerful A.I. based supercomputer in Japan.


title: Exascale computing

text: Additionally, numerous other independent efforts have been made in Taiwan with the focus on the rapid development of exascale supercomputing technology, such as Foxconn Corporation which recently designed and built the largest and fastest supercomputer in all of Taiwan. This new Foxconn supercomputer is designed to serve as a stepping stone in research and development towards the design and building of a state of the art exascale supercomputer.


title: Exascale computing

text: In 2012, the Indian Government proposed to commit US$2.5 billion to supercomputing research during the 12th five-year plan period (2012–2017). The project was to be handled by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Additionally, it was later revealed that India plans to develop a supercomputer with processing power in the exaFLOPS range. It will be developed by C-DAC within the subsequent five years of approval. These supercomputers will use indigenously developed microprocessors by C-DAC in India.


title: Benny Binion

text: Lester Ben Binion (November 20, 1904 – December 5, 1989), better known as Benny Binion, was an American gambling icon, career criminal, and convicted murderer who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area. He would later relocate to Nevada, where gambling was legal, and open the successful Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas.


title: Benny Binion

text: Benny Binion was born and raised in Pilot Grove, Texas, north of Dallas. His parents initially kept him out of school due to poor health. His father, a horse trader, let him accompany him on trips. While the outdoor life restored his health, Binion never had any formal education. As he traveled with his father, the young man learned to gamble, a favorite pastime when horse traders met up with farmers and merchants during county fair trade days.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion's FBI file reveals a criminal history dating back to 1924. At age 18 he moved to El Paso, where he began moonshining during the Prohibition Era. A year later Binion moved to Dallas and continued moonshining, for which he was twice convicted. In addition to his moonshining, in 1928, Binion opened up an even more lucrative numbers game.


title: Benny Binion

text: In 1931, Binion was convicted of shooting and killing an African American rum-runner, Frank Bolding, "cowboy style." This was the origin of Binion's "Cowboy" nickname. He received a two-year suspended sentence. In 1936, Binion and an associate killed a numbers operator and competitor, Ben Frieden, emptying their pistols into him. Binion then allegedly shot himself in the shoulder and turned himself in to police, claiming that Frieden had shot him first. Binion was indicted, but the indictment was later dismissed on the grounds that Binion had acted in self-defense. Two years later, Binion and associates allegedly killed Sam Murray, another of his competitors in the gambling rackets. Binion was never indicted for this murder, and charges were dropped against his associates.


title: Benny Binion

text: In the same year as the murder of Frieden, Binion established a network of private dice games at several Dallas hotels, including the Southland Hotel in downtown Dallas. This came to be known as the Southland Syndicate. By the end of 1936, Binion had gained control of most gambling operations in Dallas, with protection from a powerful local politician. By the early 1940s he had become the reigning mob boss of Dallas, and was seeking to take over the gambling rackets in Fort Worth. The local mob boss of that city, Lewis Tindell, was murdered shortly afterwards.


title: Benny Binion

text: With the 1946 election of Steve Guthrie as sheriff of Dallas County, Binion lost his fix with the local government and fled to Las Vegas, Nevada. Shortly afterward a long-running feud between Binion and Herbert Noble, a small-time Dallas gambler, boiled over when Noble refused to increase his payoff to Binion from 25 to 40 percent. Binion posted a reward on Noble's life, which eventually reached $25,000 and control of a Dallas crap game. Noble survived numerous murder attempts, sometimes narrowly escaping with gunshot wounds. In November 1949 his wife was killed in a car bombing intended for him. In retaliation, Noble planned to fly his private plane to Las Vegas to bomb Binion's house, but was restrained by local law enforcement before he could execute his plan. In August 1951, as Noble drove up to his mailbox, a bomb exploded nearby, killing him instantly.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion lost his Nevada gaming license in 1951, and was sentenced to a five-year term in 1953 at Leavenworth federal penitentiary for tax evasion.


title: Benny Binion

text: In Las Vegas, Binion became a partner of the Las Vegas Club casino, but left after a year due to licensing problems. In 1949 he opened the Westerner Gambling House and Saloon, but he soon sold out after conflicts with his casino partners.


title: Benny Binion

text: In 1951, Binion purchased the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel, opening them as Binion's Horseshoe, which immediately became popular because of the high limits on bets. He initially set a table limit of $500 for craps, ten times higher than the limit at his competitors of the time. As a result of outdoing the competition he received death threats, although eventually casinos raised their limits to keep up with him. Additionally, the Horseshoe would allow a bet of any size from a player as long as the bet was no larger than the player's initial bet.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion was in the vanguard of Las Vegas casino innovation. He was the first in the downtown Glitter Gulch to replace sawdust-covered floors with carpeting, the first to dispatch limousines to transport customers to and from the casino, and the first to offer free drinks to players. Although comps were standard for high rollers, Binion gave them to all players. He also shied away from the gaudy performing acts typical of other Las Vegas casinos.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion was known to be generous to patrons, and said he followed a simple philosophy when serving his customers: "Good food, good whiskey cheap, and a good gamble." For many years the Horseshoe had a late night $2 steak special, with most of the meat for the steaks coming from cattle on Binion's ranches in Montana. The Horseshoe is also believed to be the first major casino to offer 100-times-odds at craps (a patron with a bet on the pass or don't-pass lines could take or lay up to 100 times their bet in odds). It was one of the more profitable casinos in town.


title: Benny Binion

text: After his trial and conviction in 1953, to cover back taxes and legal costs, Binion sold a majority share in the Horseshoe to fellow gambler and New Orleans oilman Joe W. Brown. Binion's family regained controlling interest in the Horseshoe in 1957, but did not regain full control until 1964. Binion was never allowed to hold a gaming license afterwards. Instead, his son Jack became the licensee, with Benny assuming the title of Director of Public Relations.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion styled himself a cowboy throughout his life. He almost never wore a necktie and used gold coins as buttons on his cowboy shirts. Despite being technically barred from owning guns, he carried at least one pistol all his life, and kept a sawed-off shotgun close by. His office was a booth in the downstairs restaurant, and he knew many of his customers by name.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion didn't consider himself to be very good at poker, nor did he participate much in competition or private cash games, preferring to organize them. However, in 1990 he was inducted posthumously into the Poker Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion and his wife, Teddy Jane, had five children: two sons, Jack and Ted, and three daughters, Barbara, Brenda and Becky.


title: Benny Binion

text: Jack and Ted took over as president and casino manager, respectively, in 1964. Benny's wife, Teddy Jane, managed the casino cage until her death in 1994. In 1998, Binion's daughter, Becky, took over the presidency after a legal battle, and Jack moved on to other gambling interests. Becky's presidency saw the casino sink into debt. In 2004, federal agents seized $1 million from the Horseshoe's bankroll to satisfy unpaid union benefits, forcing its closure and eventual sale to Harrah's Entertainment. It now operates as Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel under the ownership of TLC Gaming Group.


title: Benny Binion

text: Ted was under nearly constant scrutiny from the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1986 onwards for his involvement in drugs and associating with known organized crime figures. His gaming license was revoked in 1989, and he died in mysterious circumstances about a decade later. Ted's live-in girlfriend, Sandra Murphy, and her lover, Rick Tabish, were charged and convicted of his murder, but the verdict was later overturned. They were retried and acquitted.


title: Benny Binion

text: In January 1949, Binion arranged for Johnny Moss and Nick "The Greek" Dandolos to play a head-to-head poker tournament which ended up lasting five months, with Dandalos ultimately losing a reported two million dollars. The 42-year-old Moss had to take breaks to sleep occasionally, during which Dandalos, then aged 57, went over to the craps table and played. After the final hand, and losing millions of dollars, Dandalos uttered one of the most famous poker quotes of all time: "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go." (This narrative is disputed as fact and is most likely a myth. Binion didn't operate a casino until 1951 in Las Vegas.)


title: Benny Binion

text: In 1970, after years of arranging heads-up matches between high-stakes players, Binion invited six players to compete in a tournament. Playing no-limit Texas Hold'em, the players competed for cash at the table, and later took a vote on who was to be named champion. Moss, then aged 63, was voted champion by his younger competition and received a small trophy. The following year, a freeze-out format was introduced with a $10,000 buy-in, and the World Series of Poker was born. Binion's creation of the World Series helped popularize the game of poker, though he greatly underestimated how popular the World Series would become. In 1973, he speculated that eventually the tournament might have fifty or so entrants. However, by 2006, the tournament's main event (not including all of the other events) would have 8,773 entrants.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion never forgot his Texas roots and was a key player in getting the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) to move to Las Vegas. He never forgot the cowboys after they arrived; he always paid the entry fees for all of the cowboys for their championship event. When the casino closed, Boyd Gaming took up the tradition that Binion started by continuing to pay all the entry fees. Every year during the NFR there is a large rodeo stock auction called "Benny Binion's World Famous Bucking Horse and Bull Sale."


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion was also the owner of a horse named "Nigger" (later referred to as "Benny Binion's Gelding") who was the 1946, 1947 and 1948 National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) World Champion. Bred by Binion, ridden and trained by George Glascock, the solid black 15 hand gelding is the only horse to capture the NCHA World Championship three years in a row.


title: Benny Binion

text: Binion died of heart failure at the age of 85 on December 5, 1989, in Las Vegas. Poker great "Amarillo Slim" Preston suggested as an epitaph, "He was either the gentlest bad guy or the baddest good guy you'd ever seen." He was posthumously inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1990.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik's mother, Kim, whose parents emigrated from Lithuania to Australia after World War II and met in Australia, is of Lithuanian descent. Shaik's father Hanif, who was born in Singapore, is of Pakistani and Saudi Arabian descent. She started modelling when she was eight years old for Myer and appearing in a TV commercial for Hyundai, but stopped when she started high school and got accepted into an accelerated program, graduating a year before her classmates. At the age of fifteen, encouraged by others, she entered the Girlfriend Model Competition. While agents were interested in her, she was too young to move to Sydney, so she went on to participate on the Australian reality show "Make Me A Supermodel", finishing as the runner-up.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik was raised Muslim. Speaking about her upbringing in 2016, Shaik reflected: “I was born and raised Muslim and I lived a very normal lifestyle. My father is very open to my job and understanding and he is grateful for the woman I have become. I'm a very sophisticated and respectful woman. I had a great upbringing and a great lifestyle with my sibling.”" In April 2022, Shaik stated that she "didn’t grow up in a religious family" and she is "more of a spiritual person I’d say, and very focused on my mental health. That is something I have given more time to as I get older".


title: Shanina Shaik

text: In her debut season during the Autumn/Winter 2009 season Shaik walked over 8 shows in New York City. She opened Yeohlee and walked for other designers such as Shipley & Halmos, Abaete, Mara Hoffman, Lorick, Project Runway, Trovata and Richie Rich. In her second season, she scored a show card for the Spring/Summer 2010. Following this she walked for designers Betsey Johnson, Catherine Malandrino, Gerlan Jeans, Nary Manivong, Rachel Antonoff and Susan Woo. During the Autumn/Winter 2010 season Shanina walked for Bebe by Kardashian, Emu Australia, Iodice and Project Runway.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik has appeared in catalogues for Macy's, Alloy, Avon, Intermix, Urban Outfitters, Lovable, Burda Style, Spiegel, Free People, Bloomingdales, J. C. Penney, Seafolly, Otto, Shop Bop, Sasha Samuel and Ann Taylor. Her advertisements include Aéropostale, Cotton On, Olay New Look, Burneo Chocolate, Bath & Body Works 'Dark Kiss' fragrance, Edward Joseph, Imari by Avon, General Pants Co., Bonds, Bauhaus and Matrix Hair Biolage


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shortly after signing with New York Model Management, Shaik appeared in editorials for "Seventeen Magazine" and "Men's Health". Other appearances include "Level Magazine", "Orlando Style Magazine", "2 Wheeler Tuner Magazine", "Philadelphia Style Magazine", "Tu Style" and "Zink Magazine".


title: Shanina Shaik

text: In 2011, she switched to NEXT Model Management, and from Chadwick Model Management to Chic Model Management. She starred in a campaign for Italian lingerie giant Intimissimi and Australian shoe brand RMK. Shaik has worked for other brands such as Macy's, Avon, Bloomingdales, Free People, Olay, Seafolly, Spiegel, J. C. Penney and Sasha Samuel. She also starred at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012 walking for Bless'ed Are The Meek, Guanabana, Karen Neilson, Kirrily Johnston, L.A.M.B., Lisa Blue, Lisa Marie, Miss Unkon, None the Richer, Nookie Beach, Project Runway, Roopa Pemmaraju, Terri Donna, Wonders Cease.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik scored a breakthrough when she was cast to walk in the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, making her the sixth Australian along with Miranda Kerr, Jessica Hart, Elyse Taylor, Sarah Stephens, and Abbey Lee Kershaw to star in the show. Shaik has also walked for Chanel's Pre-Fall 2012 collection at the Grand Palais in Paris.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: In 2012, Shaik appeared in print-work for Victoria's Secret and Bonds. During Fall/Winter 2012 Fashion Week she opened Jason Wu, and also walked for Ruffian, Kevork Kiledjian, Charlotte Ronson, Nanette Lepore, Diesel, Oscar de la Renta, L'Wren Scott, Tom Ford, Blumarine, Atsuro Tayama, Maiyet, Vivienne Westwood, and Stella McCartney. Shaik also did a shoot with "Vogue" Australia. She is also an ambassador for Just Jeans and has modelled alongside rugby star Sonny Bill Williams. In 2016, Shaik became a brand ambassador for Australian swimwear brand Seafolly.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik was featured on the covers of "Cosmopolitan", "Cleo", "Vogue" India, "Harper's Bazaar" Singapore, Arabia, Vietnam and Australia. In 2019, she appeared on the May/June cover of "Maxim".


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik got engaged to her boyfriend of eight months Gregory “DJ Ruckus” Andrews in December 2015. They married in the Bahamas in April 2018. They separated in June 2019, and Shaik filed for divorce a month later after a year of marriage.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: In 2020, she began a relationship with the advertising agent, Matthew Adesuyan, and on May 8, 2022, she announced on Instagram that she is expecting their first child. She gave birth on 19th September 2022.


title: Shanina Shaik

text: Shaik is an ovo-pescetarian who adheres to a heavily plant-based diet. She also eschews soft drinks like soda and fruit juice.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Justin Aldrich Rockefeller (born July 12, 1979) is an American impact investor and financial technology professional. He is a great-great grandson of John D. Rockefeller.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Rockefeller was born on July 12, 1979, in West Virginia, the youngest son of former West Virginia senator, Jay Rockefeller (b. 1937), and his wife, Sharon Percy Rockefeller (b. 1944). Rockefeller's maternal grandfather was former U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy (1919–2011), and his paternal grandparents were Blanchette Ferry Hooker (1909–1992) and John D. Rockefeller III (1906–1978), the eldest son of philanthropists John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Rockefeller is the global director of family offices and foundations at Addepar, a financial technology company.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Rockefeller co-founded and chairs the board of directors of The ImPact a membership network of family enterprises (family offices, foundations, and businesses) that are committed to making investments with measurable social impact.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: From 2009 to 2018, Rockefeller served on the board and the investment committee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; in those capacities, he helped the private foundation align its endowment with its mission. He also serves on the board of Japan Society, and speaks occasionally about impact investing, family offices, and technology, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Milken Institute, and Young Presidents' Organization.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Previously, Justin was venture partner at Richmond Global, LLC, a global venture capital firm focusing on technology-enabled services and mobile technologies in the U.S. and across major emerging markets.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: Justin's previous board memberships include: Voxiva; Rockefeller Family Fund; Population Council; the International Council of The Museum of Modern Art; the Alliance for the Arts; and Generation Engage, which he cofounded in 2004. He also served on the National Leadership Council for GLSEN – the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, and on the NY State Commission on National and Community Service.


title: Justin Rockefeller

text: In 2006, Rockefeller, who lives in New York City, married Indré Vengris, a dancer and fashion executive. Her father, Vitolis Enrikas Vengris, was born in Akademija, Kaunas in Lithuania, and came to Iowa in 1968 as a student. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1973. He resides in New York City and has one daughter.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: The Warlord Chronicles or The Warlord Trilogy is a series of three novels about Arthurian Britain written by Bernard Cornwell. The story is written as a mixture of historical fiction and Arthurian legend. The books were originally published between 1995 and 1997 by Penguin and Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom and by St. Martin's Press in the United States, in hardcover and paperback editions, each with different ISBNs. It is currently being adapted for television as "The Winter King".


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: The story is written as if it took place in Dark Age Britain as described in the original Welsh legends, with appropriate types of technology, culture, warfare, and attitudes. Cornwell also weaves later additions such as Merlin and Lancelot into the plot.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: Like other "historical" takes on the Arthurian legends, the series postulates that Post-Roman Britain was a difficult time for the native Britons, being threatened by invasion from the Anglo-Saxons in the East and raids from the Irish in the West. At the same time, they suffered internal power struggles between their petty kingdoms. Like Marion Zimmer Bradley in her novel "The Mists of Avalon", Cornwell also presumes friction occurred between the old Druidic religion and Christianity.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: The protagonist of the series is Derfel Cadarn (pronounced Derv-el), based on the part-legendary Saint Derfel and on Bedivere. Cornwell's Derfel is a Saxon brought up as a Briton by Merlin, the greatest of all Druids. In the course of the story, he becomes a great warrior and one of Arthur's warlords in his war against the Saxons. Derfel is one of Arthur's closest advisers and friends, is one-handed, and casts Excalibur into the sea after the Battle of Camlann. Merlin, meanwhile, concerns himself with trying to restore the old gods of Britain.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: Other characters from the Arthurian mythos are given significant twists. For example, Lancelot, always portrayed as the most virtuous and the mightiest of Arthur's knights, here is depicted as an arrogant, cowardly, and self-serving petty prince, whose legendary feats and martial prowess are crafted through the songs of the bards and a fictional reputation that he himself carefully cultivates. Sagramor is a Hungarian prince in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, but is depicted here as a Numidian veteran of the old Roman Army who joined Arthur's service after the collapse of the Empire.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: Cornwell portrays Merlin as a lecherous, driven, mischievous, and irreverent druid. His solution to the problem of integrating the magic of the Arthurian mythos in the context of historical fiction is to leave room for the reader to take the "magic" depicted in the story at face value or to interpret it as a mixture of coincidence, psychology, primitive technology, and illusion, which preys on the superstitions, religious fundamentalism, and intolerance of the time.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: "The Warlord Chronicles" has been acclaimed for both its storytelling qualities and its accuracy in portraying contemporary life. Cornwell himself has said, "I have to confess that of all the books I have written these three are my favourites."


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: Isis Audio Books and HarperCollins have published unabridged audiobook recordings of all three novels, read by Edmund Dehn and Jonathan Keeble respectively. Penguin Audiobooks have also published abridged versions of the three novels, read by Tim Pigott-Smith.


title: The Warlord Chronicles

text: In 2020, Epix announced that a live-action television adaptation of the series, entitled "The Winter King", was in development with One Big Picture and Bad Wolf. On April 4, 2022, Bad Wolf announced that Kate Brooke and Ed Whitmore would be the showrunners of the series, that filming would begin in late 2022 in Wales, and that the series would no longer air on Epix. It will be premiere on ITV's new streaming platform ITVX in the United Kingdom.


title: Trump tariffs

text: The Trump tariffs are a series of United States tariffs imposed during the presidency of Donald Trump as part of his "America First" economic policy to reduce the United States trade deficit by shifting American trade policy from multilateral free trade agreements to bilateral trade deals. In January 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels and washing machines of 30 to 50 percent. In March 2018, he imposed tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) from most countries, which, according to Morgan Stanley, covered an estimated 4.1 percent of U.S. imports. In June 2018, this was extended to the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. The Trump administration separately set and escalated tariffs on goods imported from China, leading to a trade war.


title: Trump tariffs

text: The tariffs angered trading partners, who implemented retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. In June 2018, India planned to recoup trade penalties of $241 million on $1.2 billion worth of Indian steel and aluminum, but attempted talks delayed these until June 2019 when India imposed retaliatory tariffs on $240 million worth of U.S. goods. Canada imposed matching retaliatory tariffs on July 1, 2018. China implemented retaliatory tariffs equivalent to the $34 billion tariff imposed on it by the U.S. In July 2018, the Trump administration announced it would use a Great Depression-era program, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), to pay farmers up to $12 billion, increasing the aid to $28 billion in May 2019. The USDA estimated that aid payments constituted more one than one-third of total farm income in 2019 and 2020.


title: Trump tariffs

text: Tariff negotiations in North America were relatively more successful, with the U.S. lifting the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico on May 20, 2019, joining Australia and Argentina in being the only nations exempted from the regulations. However, on May 30, Trump unilaterally announced his intention to impose a five percent tariff on all imports from Mexico beginning on June 10, with tariffs increasing to ten percent on July1, and by another five percent each month for three months, "until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP," adding illegal immigration as a condition for U.S.-Mexico tariff negotiations. The move was seen as threatening the ratification of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the North American trade deal set to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The tariffs were averted on June 7 after negotiations.


title: Trump tariffs

text: A May 2019 analysis conducted by CNBC found Trump's tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in the U.S. in decades. Studies have found that Trump's tariffs reduced real income in the United States, as well as adversely affecting U.S. GDP. Some studies also concluded that the tariffs adversely affected Republican candidates in elections.


title: Trump tariffs

text: Trump adopted his current views on trade issues in the 1980s, saying Japan and other nations were taking advantage of the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly favored policy proposals that renegotiate trade agreements for the United States. During a meeting with the New York Times Editorial Board in January 2016, Trump said he would tax Chinese imports into the United States by 45%. Trump frequently criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement calling it "the worst trade deal the U.S. has ever signed". He also called Trans-Pacific Partnership "the death blow for American manufacturing" and said it would "put the interests of foreign countries above our own".


title: Trump tariffs

text: On November 21, 2016, in a video message, Trump introduced an economic strategy of "putting America first", saying he would negotiate "fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores". On January 23, 2017, three days after becoming president, Trump withdrew the United States from the politically divisive Trans-Pacific Partnership believing the agreement would "undermine" the U.S. economy and sovereignty.


title: Trump tariffs

text: Trump has also indicated a desire to end the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. His administration has renegotiated the terms of the agreement. Trump had threatened to withdraw from it if negotiations fail. He has specifically criticized the Ford Motor Co., Carrier Corporation, and Mondelez International for having operations based in Mexico. In August 2015, in response to Oreo maker Mondelez International's announcement that it would move manufacturing to Mexico, Trump said he would boycott Oreos. The new deal increases the percentage of parts and manufacturing that must be done in North America for domestic automobiles, sets a minimum wage for some workers on auto parts, and expands access for U.S. dairy sales to Canada.


title: Trump tariffs

text: Similar to his approach to trade deals, Trump also pledged, as part of the Contract with the American Voter, to impose tariffs to discourage companies from laying off workers or relocating to other countries, through an "End the Offshoring Act". No such act has been introduced in Congress, but Trump has moved to impose tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, steel, and aluminum. The enforcement of the tariffs falls primarily within the purview of the Department of Commerce and Office of the United States Trade Representative.


title: Trump tariffs

text: Trump has repeatedly promised to lower America's trade deficit, and has argued for a renegotiation of trade deals and imposition of tariffs to that end. These efforts notwithstanding, during 2018 the trade deficit continued to increase.


title: Trump tariffs

text: In November 2018, Trump argued that the tariffs enriched the United States. He said the United States was gaining "Billions of Dollars" from "Tariffs being charged to China". He added, "If companies don't want to pay Tariffs, build in the U.S.A. Otherwise, let's just make our Country richer than ever before!" Fact-checkers and economists described the assertions made by Trump as false, with the Associated Press writing "Almost all economists say the president is wrong. That's because tariffs are taxes on imports. They can cause higher prices, reduce trade among countries and hurt overall economic growth as a result."


title: Trump tariffs

text: Article1, Section8 of the Constitution: ""Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises."" But Congress has repeatedly shifted its powers regarding tariffs to the president. Beginning in 1917 with the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 the president can impose any tariff while the nation is at war. The affected trade does not have to be connected to the ongoing war. Since 1974 the Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose a 15% tariff for 150 days if there is "an adverse impact on national security from imports." After 150 days the tariff expires unless extended by Congress. In 1977 the International Emergency Economic Powers Act shifted powers even more towards the White House. The Trump administration claims that it gives the President the authority to raise tariffs without any limits during a national emergency of any kind. Legal scholars disagree because the IEEPA does not mention tariffs at all and transfers no authority of tariffs towards the President.


title: Trump tariffs

text: On January 23, 2018, news outlets announced that Trump had imposed tariffs on solar panels produced outside the United States. The tariffs initially start at 30% and will gradually fall to 15% in four years. The first 2.5 gigawatts of solar cells imported each year will be exempted from the tariff.


title: Trump tariffs

text: China is currently the world leader in solar panel manufacture, and has decried the tariffs. Zhong Shan, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said, "With regard to the wrong measures taken by the United States, China will work with other W.T.O. members to resolutely defend our legitimate interests."


title: Trump tariffs

text: On January 23, 2018, in conjunction with the tariffs placed on solar panels, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced tariffs on washing machines. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), imports of large residential washers increased "steadily" from 2012 to 2016, and domestic producers' financial performance "declined precipitously". In the first year, the tariffs start at 20% for the first 1.2 million units of imported finished washers, and all subsequent washers within that year will have a 50% tariff. By the third year initial tariff will go down to 16–40%, following the same pattern.


title: Trump tariffs

text: The tariffs came after a petition was filed by Whirlpool, a U.S.-based washing machine manufacturer facing tough competition from LG Electronics and Samsung, which are both based in South Korea.


title: Trump tariffs

text: In 2016, China exported $425 million worth of washers to the United States, followed by Mexico with $240 million, and South Korean companies $130 million. Samsung and LG are among the top exporters of washers to the United States. Two weeks before the tariff announcement, Samsung had moved its production of washing machines to a new plant in South Carolina. In response Samsung said U.S. consumers will "pay more, with fewer choices". Mexican officials said they would respond to the tariffs during the ongoing NAFTA renegotiations.