title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, known in Japan as is the first installment of the "Ultimate Ninja Storm" series, it is a fighting game developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Bandai Namco Games. The game was released for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) across North America, Europe and Australia in November 2008 and in Japan on January 15, 2009. It is based on the popular manga and anime series "Naruto" by Masashi Kishimoto, and the first installment of the on the PS3.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: A sequel titled "" was released in Japan, North America and Europe in October 2010 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Two more sequels, "" and "" were released in 2013 and 2016 respectively.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm" retains many of the gameplay elements from earlier installments of the "Ultimate Ninja" series. However, "Ultimate Ninja Storm" allows players to fight in three-dimensional environments, as opposed to the two-dimensional planes in previous games.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: One of the new features introduced to the series in "Ultimate Ninja Storm" is "Awakening Mode", a transformation that can be activated when a player loses a certain amount of health during a match. The health requirement for each character differs based on how powerful the transformation is. Once activated, the character gains new abilities, speed, and stronger attacks. A few of the characters in the game gain entirely new movesets after transforming. With the d-pad, players can use preset items during a match that either damage the opponent or provide various status effects like increasing attack power, or lowering the opponent's defense. Players are also able to customize their character's jutsu and select two support characters to use in a match. Returning to the game from previous installments is "jutsu clash" mode, which is initiated if both players activate their special attack at the same time. During this mode, both players have to press the corresponding button as fast as possible in order to knock away their opponent. Each character has an "ultimate jutsu". If it hits, both players either input button commands, mash a certain button, or spin the analogue stick the fastest during the time limit. If the attacking player wins, the ultimate will hit, typically taking away around a third to a full bar of the opponent's health. If the defending player wins, they will escape without major damage. Each character also has an "ultimate impact", where if the player holds down the melee button, the character controlled will charge up a very powerful strike. If it hits, it zooms in on the opponent's face taking a heavy blow in a short, cinematic close-up.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: The game includes 25 playable characters, each of which can also be used as a support character during battle. Ten additional support-only characters are available as free downloadable content released over the five-month period that followed the game's release. Additional downloadable content include alternative costumes, and new missions.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: The story mode loosely covers the events of the Part I of the manga and the anime. Players are able to explore the Hidden Leaf Village between missions, which acts as a central hub for the story mode, and access more missions.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: The game was first unveiled in September 2007, under the code name "Naruto PS3 Project". Namco Bandai said the title would start with "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja" and asked fans for suggestions on a suffix consisting of one or two words. In April 2008 the game was officially named "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm", in addition, the developers allowed fans to choose the final front cover for the game out of a possible six.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: The game features cel-shaded graphics that "will break the barrier between anime and video game". Hiroshi Matsuyama, one of the creators of the game, commented that the staff wanted to try to remove the borderline between the anime and actual gameplay. They wanted to reach an effect where people actually look at the scenes as anime rather than a game. The core concept of the game is that of a one on one battle. Though the storyline from the game is based on the first part of the anime series and the manga, the producers picked out key areas within the story, effectively forming a line from the first to the 135th episode.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: A playable demo of the game was released on Sony's PlayStation Network on July 17, 2008. Only Naruto Uzumaki and Kakashi Hatake were playable and only one stage was included. The official North American release date of the game was confirmed in a trailer shown during the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: A limited edition version of "Ultimate Ninja Storm" was available to those who pre-order the game at select retailers. It includes a steel book case with an alternate art plastic slip cover, two exclusive cards for the "Naruto" collectible card game, a CD of the game's soundtrack, and an individually numbered "Laser Cel" depicting Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. The game was first released in North America on November 4, 2008, in Europe, on November 7, 2008, and in Australia on November 20, 2008. The Japanese version of the game was released on January 15, 2009 under the name of .


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: A remastered version of the game was released in "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy" alongside Ninja Storm 2 and 3 Full Burst for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on August 25, 2017, and was released for Nintendo Switch on April 26, 2018.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm" received "generally positive" reception, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: IGN gave the game an 8.4 out of 10, praising it for its "phenomenal visuals" and the variety of things that can be done between missions. It noted that the single-button combat might turn away hardcore gamers, but found the fast-paced action and chakra management system to be redeeming factors. GameSpot gave the game a score of 7.5 out of ten saying it wasn't a bad game but it wasn't a great one either. 1UP.com gave it a B− and praised the game's graphics, but commented that some parts of the game system have issues.


title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

text: As of July 2009, 83,868 units have been sold in Japan. It was the only video game to win the Excellence Prize in the Entertainment Division of the 13th annual Japan Media Arts Festival. As of 2016, the game has sold over two million copies.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Hydra is the largest of the 88 modern constellations, measuring 1303 square degrees, and also the longest at over 100 degrees. Its southern end borders Libra and Centaurus and its northern end borders Cancer. It was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. Commonly represented as a water snake, it straddles the celestial equator.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: The Greek constellation of Hydra is an adaptation of a Babylonian constellation: the MUL.APIN includes a "serpent" constellation (MUL.DINGIR.MUŠ) that loosely corresponds to Hydra. It is one of two Babylonian "serpent" constellations (the other being the origin of the Greek Serpens), a mythological hybrid of serpent, lion and bird.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: The shape of Hydra resembles a twisting snake, and features as such in some Greek myths. One myth associates it with a water snake that a crow served Apollo in a cup when it was sent to fetch water; Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. It is also associated with the monster Hydra, with its many heads, killed by Hercules, represented in another constellation. According to legend, if one of the Hydra's heads was cut off, two more would grow in its place. However, Hercules' nephew, Iolaus, seared the necks with a torch to prevent them from growing back and thus enabled Hercules to overcome the Hydra.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Hydra are located within the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon. The head of Hydra was collectively known as "Min al Az'al," meaning "belonging to the uninhabited spot" in Arabic.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Despite its size, Hydra contains only one moderately bright star, Alphard, designated Alpha Hydrae. It is an orange giant of magnitude 2.0, 177 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name means "the solitary one". Beta Hydrae is a blue-white star of magnitude 4.3, 365 light-years from Earth. Gamma Hydrae is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.0, 132 light-years from Earth.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Hydra has one bright binary star, Epsilon Hydrae, which is difficult to split in amateur telescopes; it has a period of 1000 years and is 135 light-years from Earth. The primary is a yellow star of magnitude 3.4 and the secondary is a blue star of magnitude 6.7. However, there are several dimmer double stars and binary stars in Hydra. 27 Hydrae is a triple star with two components visible in binoculars and three visible in small amateur telescopes. The primary is a white star of magnitude 4.8, 244 light-years from Earth. The secondary, a binary star, appears in binoculars at magnitude 7.0 but is composed of a magnitude 7 and a magnitude 11 star; it is 202 light-years from Earth. 54 Hydrae is a binary star 99 light-years from Earth, easily divisible in small amateur telescopes. The primary is a yellow star of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is a purple star of magnitude 7.4. N Hydrae (N Hya) is a pair of stars of magnitudes 5.8 and 5.9. Struve 1270 (Σ1270) consists of a pair of stars, magnitudes 6.4 and 7.4.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: The other main named star in Hydra is Sigma Hydrae (σ Hydrae), which also has the name of Minchir, from the Arabic for snake's nose. At magnitude 4.54, it is rather dim. The head of the snake corresponds to the Āshleshā Nakshatra, the lunar zodiacal constellation in Indian astronomy. The name of Nakshatra (Ashlesha) became the proper name of Epsilon Hydrae since 1 June 2018 by IAU.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Hydra is also home to several variable stars. R Hydrae is a Mira variable star 2000 light-years from Earth; it is one of the brightest Mira variables at its maximum of magnitude 3.5. It has a minimum magnitude of 10 and a period of 390 days. V Hydrae is an unusually vivid red variable star 20,000 light-years from Earth. It varies in magnitude from a minimum of 9.0 to a maximum of 6.6. Along with its notable color, V Hydrae is also home to at least two exoplanets. U Hydrae is a semi-regular variable star with a deep red color, 528 light-years from Earth. It has a minimum magnitude of 6.6 and a maximum magnitude of 4.2; its period is 115 days.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Hydra includes GJ 357, an M-type main sequence star located only 31 light-years from the Solar System. This star has three confirmed exoplanets in its orbit, one of which, GJ 357 d, is considered to be a "Super-Earth" within the circumstellar habitable zone.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: The constellation also contains the radio source Hydra A galaxy as well as nearby WISE 0855−0714 brown dwarf aka Proxima Hydra being the closest (sub)stellar object of the constellation.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Hydra contains three Messier objects. M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is located on the border of Hydra and Centaurus, M68 is a globular cluster near M83, and M48 is an open star cluster in the western end of the serpent.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: NGC 3242 is a planetary nebula of magnitude 7.5, 1400 light-years from Earth. Discovered in 1785 by William Herschel, it has earned the nickname "Ghost of Jupiter" because of its striking resemblance to the giant planet. Its blue-green disk is visible in small telescopes and its halo is visible in larger instruments.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: M48 (NGC 2548) is an open cluster that is visible to the naked eye under dark skies. Its shape has been described as "triangular"; this 80-star cluster is unusually large, more than half a degree in diameter, larger than the diameter of the full Moon.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: There are several globular clusters in Hydra. M68 (NGC 4590) is a globular cluster visible in binoculars and resolvable in medium amateur telescopes. It is 31,000 light-years from Earth and of the 8th magnitude. NGC 5694 is a globular cluster of magnitude 10.2, 105,000 light-years from Earth. Also called "Tombaugh's Globular Cluster", it is a Shapley class VII cluster; the classification indicates that it has intermediate concentration at its nucleus. Though it was discovered as a non-stellar object in 1784 by William Herschel, its status as a globular cluster was not ascertained until 1932, when Clyde Tombaugh looked at photographic plates taken of the region near Pi Hydrae on 12 May 1931.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: M83 (NGC 5236), the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is an 8th magnitude face-on spiral galaxy. It is easily observed in skies south of 40°N latitude, found by using 1, 2, 3, and 4 Centauri as guide stars. It has been host to six supernovae, more than any Messier object. Large amateur telescopes - above 12 inches aperture - reveal its spiral arms, bar, and small, bright nucleus. In a medium-sized amateur instrument, around 8 inches in aperture, the spiral arms become visible under good conditions. It is not perfectly symmetrical in the eyepiece, rather, the northwest side is flattened and the nucleus has a southwest-to-northeast bar. A smaller sister to the Milky Way, it is a grand design spiral galaxy 40,000 light-years across.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: There are many other galaxies located in Hydra. NGC 3314, usually delineated as NGC 3314a and NGC 3314b, is a pair of galaxies that appear superimposed, despite the fact that they are not related or interacting in any way. The foreground galaxy, NGC 3314a, is at a distance of 140 million light-years, and is a face-on spiral galaxy. The background galaxy, NGC 3314b, is an oblique spiral galaxy, and has a nucleus that appears reddened because of NGC 3314a's dusty disk. ESO 510-G13 is a warped spiral galaxy located 150 million light-years from Earth. Though most galactic disks are flat because of their rate of rotation, their conformation can be changed, as is the case with this galaxy. Astronomers speculate that this is due to interactions with other galaxies. NGC 5068 may be a member of the M83 group, but its identity is disputed. It has a low surface brightness and has a diameter of 4.5 arcminutes. It is not perfectly circular, rather, it is elliptical and oriented on a west-northwest/east-southeast axis. However, it is of fairly uniform brightness throughout.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: Another notable galaxy is NGC 4993, an elliptical galaxy which was the source of events GW170817, GRB 170817A and SSS17a from the merger of two neutron stars.


title: Hydra (constellation)

text: The Sigma Hydrids peak on December 6 and are a very active shower with an unknown parent body. The Alpha Hydrids are a minor shower that peaks between January 1 and 7.


title: Sammy Shore

text: Sammy Shore (February 7, 1927 – May 18, 2019) was an American actor, stand-up comedian and co-founder of the Comedy Store.


title: Sammy Shore

text: Shore began his career doing stand-up comedy with Shecky Greene in the Catskill Mountains. He was chosen, in 1969, to open for Elvis Presley’s comeback performance at the International Hotel, Las Vegas. He then opened for Elvis’ road shows until 1972. Shore continued to perform comedy, opening for Tony Orlando, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr. and others.


title: Sammy Shore

text: On April 7, 1972, he founded the Comedy Store with his writing partner Rudy De Luca. In 1974, his ex-wife, Mitzi, became the owner of the club. The club launched the careers of many comedians including Rodney Dangerfield, David Letterman, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey and others including his own son, Pauly.


title: Sammy Shore

text: Shore appeared in many films including "The Bellboy" with Jerry Lewis and both "Life Stinks" and "History of the World Part 1" from Mel Brooks. He appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and was on "Sanford and Son."


title: Sammy Shore

text: Shore was voted Best Comedy Act in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors named a day after him on July 24, 1990. He appeared at Harrah's Casinos and hotels more than any other entertainer.


title: Sammy Shore

text: Shore was married to Mitzi for 24 years, and was the father of four, including actor and comedian Pauly Shore. Shore married Suzanne Dennie in 1990. She was Miss Alabama in 1970. They remained together until his death in Las Vegas, Nevada of natural causes at the age of 92.


title: Jak 3

text: Jak 3 is a 2004 action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game is the sequel to "Jak II", the third game in the series and serves as the conclusion of the trilogy. The game picks up after the events of the previous games and the player takes on the dual role of recurring protagonists Jak and Daxter. It adds new weapons, devices and playable areas. The game was followed by "".


title: Jak 3

text: Like its predecessor, the gameplay of "Jak 3" is a blend of platforming, driving, and gun combat. The player is led through the story as they complete missions, assigned by the various characters in the game. Missions can consist of anything from defeating particular enemies, reaching a specific location, or completing a puzzle. With the exception of timed or otherwise linear missions, the player is free to explore the massive game world as they see fit.


title: Jak 3

text: Secrets, made available as the player progresses and collects elusive Precursor orbs, can be purchased and toggled, allowing the player to access "cheats" such as upgraded weapons damage, world mirroring, or invincibility. After the game has been completed, the Hero Mode option is made accessible, which, when purchased, allows the player to replay the game at a higher difficulty level, but with all previously unlocked cheats and extras still available. As the Precursor Orb count is not reset, and the orbs are regenerated at their original locations, the player is able to regather orbs that they had already collected the previous time they played through the game. Collecting all 600 Precursor Orbs has some cosmetic effects on Jak's appearance, but has no effects other than this. In Hero Mode, Jak also keeps all twelve of his weapons but loses his light flight along with two of his dark powers until they are collected in their respective parts of the game.


title: Jak 3

text: There are some differences between "Jak 3" and "Jak II". Most notably are the changes undergone in the Haven City environments. Spargus City, the Wasteland, and Haven City function as the main hubs in "Jak 3", where leaper lizards, buggies, and zoomers respectively are the main sources of transportation. While "Jak II" provided the player with only four different types of guns, "Jak 3" expands on the concept with two additional modifications for each gun giving Jak a powerful loadout of twelve weapons. Also, the "Dark Jak" form, introduced in "Jak II", which allowed the player to transform into a more powerful offensive version of Jak, is countered by a "Light Jak" form that mainly focuses on defensive abilities. The jet-board makes a return appearance from "Jak II" to this game, with some additional upgrades as well.


title: Jak 3

text: Like its predecessors, "Jak 3" takes place in an unnamed fictional universe created by Naughty Dog specially for the games. The game is set a year after the events of "Jak II". "Jak 3" largely focuses on the Wasteland, a large desert only briefly referred to in the previous entry in the series as being completely uninhabited and inhospitable.


title: Jak 3

text: Spargus City, a large settlement within the Wasteland bordering the ocean, is where the game begins, and serves as a hub for the player, where new weapons and upgrades can be earned, and most missions are given out. Later on, the plot shifts focus to Haven City, a sprawling metropolis which was the central locale in "Jak II", though the area is only one-fifth the size of the Wasteland. Some levels from the previous game are radically altered (Haven Forest, Metropolitan area) or removed entirely (like the Bazaar in Haven City), while others are added (New Haven City), branching off from Spargus and the Wasteland and Haven.


title: Jak 3

text: As in the games before it, "Jak 3" two main protagonists are Jak and his best friend Daxter the ottsel, which is a fictional hybrid between an otter and a weasel. Jak is revealed to have the birth name of Mar in this game, named after his ancestor and the original founder of Haven City, Mar. Jak's mechanic friend (and potential love interest) Keira returns in this game. There is also Ashelin, the Governor of Haven City, who was previously involved with Torn, the now-commander of the Freedom League. Daxter's love interest Tess returns as a weapons designer; and Jak's mentor, Samos, also makes appearances throughout the game.


title: Jak 3

text: A new character, Damas, is first introduced here. It is revealed that not only did Damas lose his son, but was the leader of Haven City before being betrayed by Baron Praxis and being banished to the desert. More minor but returning characters include Sig, a spy for Damas back in Haven City who later becomes the new king of Spargus after Damas is killed, Jinx, a former member of the Underground, Vin, whose brain now resides inside a computer and Pecker, Onin's translator from "Jak II" becomes an adviser to Damas in the early parts of the game.


title: Jak 3

text: Few of the original antagonists from "Jak II" reappear in this game. A new secondary villain is Count Veger, a self-absorbed Haven City aristocrat who banishes Jak to the Wasteland at the beginning of the game. The player later finds that Veger attacked the Palace himself, wishing to journey to the core of the planet and gain the power of the Precursors. Even as he attempts this, a species known as the Dark Makers begin to invade the planet, seeking to destroy it. The Dark Makers are Precursors who have been corrupted by Dark Eco, similar to the antagonists of "The Precursor Legacy".


title: Jak 3

text: The main antagonist is the former Krimzon Guard commander Errol, first introduced in "Jak II", renamed Cyber-Errol. He is a cybernetic version of himself, as he was badly wounded in "Jak II" when he crashed into a supply of Eco barrels in an attempt to kill Jak. Sometime before the start of this game, he restarts the manufacturing of Krimzon Guard Deathbots, whose original factory was shut down during the events of the previous game. Errol launches a war against Haven City in tandem with the remaining Metal Head monsters, and later forges an alliance with the Dark Makers. He obtains a massive Dark Maker terraforming robot at the end of the game, with which he attempts to destroy the planet. The Terraformer is destroyed by Jak as it advances through the Wasteland towards Spargus City.


title: Jak 3

text: The game begins with Jak and Daxter being banished into the Wasteland by the tyrannical Count Veger for supposed crimes against Haven City. Ashelin, who opposes the banishment, gives Jak a beacon before she leaves and tells him to "stay alive". As they travel through the desert, flashbacks reveal that Haven City is at war between the Freedom League and the surviving Metal Heads and their allies, the KG Death Bots. The Palace is then destroyed by an unknown force. As Jak, Daxter, and Pecker lose consciousness, they are rescued by a group of desert-dwellers, who take them back to Spargus City.


title: Jak 3

text: Waking up in Spargus, the King, Damas, says that Jak must earn his place in the civilization by proving himself as a warrior in both the Arena challenges and by serving the city, who his "life now belongs to" for being rescued. His missions involve recovering citizens and artifacts during or after sandstorms, racing both buggies and Leaper lizards for upgrades, solving puzzles for Eco crystals, catching Kanga rats upon a Leaper lizard, and several other odd jobs in the oasis city. Most important among these events is that Jak is bestowed Light Eco abilities to balance the darkness within, granted to him at the Precursor temple by an oracle who believes that Jak is the last hope for civilization. His Light powers include time-slowing abilities, healing powers, shield abilities, and even flight. Along the way, Jak befriends the Precursor Monk, Seem, and a buggy garage owner, Kliever—who initially dislikes him until he gains their trust over time. During one of Damas's missions into the desert, Jak is found by Ashelin, who reveals that she knew Damas would find him since she knew he would check his old beacons. She refuses to tell him how she knows Damas and then begs Jak to come back to Haven City to defend it from the Metal Heads and the new Krimzon Guard Deathbots. Still embittered about being exiled, he refuses to return. Ashelin leaves him, but later, after finding out what the evil Count Veger has in store for his friends, Jak changes his mind and makes the journey via transport to Haven City. Jak and Daxter help reunite the resistance in Haven, who were divided due to barriers put up by enemies, and gives them hope that they can beat back the Metal Heads and Deathbots to reclaim their city.


title: Jak 3

text: Partway through the game, Jak and Daxter start to encounter strange creatures. A Precursor telescope in the outskirts of Haven City reveals that the beings are Dark Makers, who were once Precursors, but exposure to Dark Eco transformed them into twisted beings. Jak finds that a purple star in the sky is actually a Dark Maker space ship, and it is nearing the planet. The only way to stop the ship is to activate the planetary defense system situated at the core of the planet, and after defeating the Metal Heads and Deathbots in Haven City, Jak and Daxter begin their trek through the catacombs to the Planet Core.


title: Jak 3

text: Damas joins them as they burst through a destroyed section of the city searching for a way to the core. In the battle, Damas is crushed underneath a buggy and fatally injured. In his last moments, he asks Jak to find his long-lost son, Mar, and gives him an amulet bearing the seal of Mar to identify him. Remembering his younger self from the events of "Jak II", Jak realizes that Damas is his father, but Damas dies before Jak can tell him. Veger arrives and tells Jak that it's true, and he took Jak when he was a small boy away from Damas for his eco powers before Praxis banished Damas and seized control of Haven. Veger then rushes off to the core and Jak follows him, hungry for revenge.


title: Jak 3

text: Once there, they seem to have beaten Veger, and the Precursor entity tells Jak that he has earned the right to evolve into one of them. Veger, however, emerges from the shadows and takes the power for himself. However, it is soon revealed that Precursors are actually ottsels who are simply fluffing up the myth to match their appearance with their abilities. A baffled Veger is transformed into an ottsel, effectively as punishment for his actions. The Precursors send Jak and Daxter to the Dark Maker ship to slow it down while the planetary defense system charges. The mission is a success, but as the ship is breaking apart, a gigantic, spider-legged Dark Maker terraformer commanded by the Deathbot leader, Errol, escapes from the ship and descends to the planet. Jak follows, and after a battle, Errol and the Robot are destroyed.


title: Jak 3

text: Back in Spargus, Sig is put on the throne and Jak departs with the Precursors to see the universe. However, after the ship takes off, he emerges from the shadows and says that there was no way he could leave Daxter behind, not with "all their adventures ahead".


title: Jak 3

text: "Jak 3" was developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation 2. "Jak 3" was first revealed to be in the works by one of "Superplay" writers on January 8, 2004. While browsing the Naughty Dog offices, he saw early work being done with desert environments. It was first announced by Sony Computer Entertainment on February 24, 2004. On April 19, 2004, information was revealed about the plot and gameplay. The voice-acting was jointly recorded in the Los Angeles-based Pop Sound and the New York City-based Howard Schwartz Recording. It was released in North America on November 9, 2004, and in Europe on November 26, 2004.


title: Jak 3

text: The original soundtrack for the game, "Jak 3: Official Soundtrack", composed by Josh Mancell and Larry Hopkins, was released on CD by Sony Computer Entertainment as an exclusive product for the Limited Run Games collector's edition of "Jak 3", on April 26, 2019.


title: Jak 3

text: "Jak 3" received "generally positive reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. "GameSpot" gave it a score of 8.6/10, "Jak 3 is a game with exceptional production values and some of the nicest visuals on the PlayStation 2" and went on to praise the "Solid platforming action with even more weapons and abilities, tons of varied gameplay types, engrossing and well-told storyline, the trademark humor and plenty of unlockable secrets." Other praises have been given to the game for being reasonably easier in difficulty compared to its predecessor—which received common criticism for its insufficient number of checkpoints.


title: Jak 3

text: IGN said: "If you're looking for art and technical achievement, Jak has it…Jak is it. Characters animate so smoothly it actually makes playing other games painful. Painful, I say! And it never stutters, never glitches, never hitches, and never, ever lets up" and gave it a score of 9.6/10. It received a runner-up position in GameSpot's 2004 "Best Platformer" award category across all platforms, losing to "".


title: Jak 3

text: In 2012, "Jak 3" was remastered in the "Jak and Daxter Collection" on the PlayStation 3, with the collection releasing on the PlayStation Vita a year later. In 2017, "Jak 3" was ported to the PlayStation 4.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: The Free Patriotic Movement (, ) is a Lebanese political party. Founded by Michel Aoun in 2005, the party is currently led by Aoun son-in-law Gebran Bassil since 2015.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: For many years, while Aoun was and exiled in Paris and on 14 July 1994, he established the Free Patriotic Movement in what he called "The National Conference". He returned to Lebanon on 7 May 2005 after the Cedar Revolution forced the withdrawal of the Syrian forces, and then contested the legislative elections held in late May in early June although it placed him on the head of the largest Christian group of deputies.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Aoun also contested the Cedar Revolution which itself gave him the opportunity to come back to Lebanon.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In 2006, the FPM signed a memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah organizing their relation and discussing Hezbollah's disarmament, given some conditions. The second and third conditions for disarmament were the return of Lebanese prisoners from Israeli jails and the elaboration of a defense strategy to protect Lebanon from the Israeli threat. The agreement also discussed the importance of having normal diplomatic relations with Syria and the request for information about the Lebanese political prisoners in Syria and the return of all political prisoners and diaspora in Israel.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: On 1 December 2006, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun declared to a crowd of protesters that the current government of Lebanon was unconstitutional, claiming that the government had "made corruption a daily affair" and called for the resignation of the government. Hundred of thousands of supporters of this party, Amal Movement, and Hezbollah, according to the Internal Security Forces (ISF), gathered at Downtown Beirut trying to force Fouad Siniora to resign.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: On 11 July 2008, FPM members, Issam Abu Jamra as deputy-prime minister, Gebran Bassil as minister of telecommunications, and Mario Aoun as minister of social affairs were appointed to the cabinet. It was the Movement's first participation in the Lebanese Government.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Despite the strong media and political war against the Free Patriotic Movement, the results of the 2009 Elections granted the FPM 27 parliamentary seats. The FPM's bloc is the second largest in the Lebanese parliament. The FPM gained 7 more seats than in the 2005 elections, earning at least triple the number of deputies of any other Christian-based bloc in the parliament due to geographical distribution. The total seats won by the March 8 alliance were 57 out of 128, which led to a defeat for the FPM.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In November 2009, the Free Patriotic Movement nominated five ministers to join the first government headed by Saad Hariri. The five ministers included:


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In June 2011, the Change and Reform bloc led by Aoun nominated eleven ministers to join the second government headed by Najib Mikati, gaining more than double the share they had in the former government. The eleven ministers were:


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In February 2014, the Change and Reform bloc led by Michel Aoun nominated four ministers to join the national unity government headed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam. The Free Patriotic Movement had two ministers:


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: On 17 August 2015, Minister Gebran Bassil was chosen by General Michel Aoun as the new leader for the Free Patriotic Movement. No elections were done because it could have possibly led to fracturing the party, and so Alain Aoun stepped down from candidacy in order for Bassil to be assigned as the new leader. On February 28, the party elected his political bureau members:


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea and Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Founder MP Michel Aoun turned a historic page in intra-Christian relations when the former March 14 presidential nominee officially endorsed on Monday Aoun's candidacy for the presidency. "I announce after long consideration, discussions and deliberations between members of the executive body of the Lebanese Forces, our endorsement of the candidacy of [former] General Michel Aoun for the presidency," Geagea said in joint news conference with his March 8 rival. Speaking from the LF's headquarters in Maarab where he had met with Aoun shortly before the news conference, Geagea read a 10-point understanding that summarized the key points of the Declaration of Intent struck between the LF and FPM in June.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: The commitment to the implementation of the Taif Accord, the need to stop the flow of arms and militants across the Lebanese-Syrian border in both directions, the ratification of a new electoral law and compliance with international resolutions were among the key points agreed upon between the LF and FPM, Geagea said. As he read the key points of his understanding with Aoun, Geagea paused for a moment to tell joke. With humor, the LF leader asked Aoun to urge his son-in-law Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil to act in accordance with the sixth point of their agreement. Geagea was referring to his understanding with the Former general over "the need to adopt an independent foreign policy that guarantees Lebanon's interests and complies with international law." For his part, Aoun thanked Geagea for his support and said he would extend his hands to all political parties. Geagea's official endorsement of Aoun's nomination would provide a significant boost for the former general's presidential bid but it remains unclear how the Future Movement would react to this initiative.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Before his arrival to the LF's headquarters, Aoun met with Maronite Patriarch BecharaRai, who has repeatedly voiced his support for initiatives aimed at breaking the presidential deadlock. "We came to inform the patriarch of the agreement," Aoun said from the seat of the Maronite church. Earlier in the day, Rai had met with former Prime Minister and head of the Future Movement parliamentary bloc Fouad Siniora. Following his meeting with the patriarch, Siniora stressed the need to elect a president who enjoys the support of all Lebanese factions. "We have to work hard to elect a person who can unite all Lebanese people from all political affiliations and promote coexistence among them," said Siniora.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Geagea's endorsement of Aoun is the first time the country's two leading Christian parties have come together on such a pivotal issue after decades of animosity. Geagea, the former March 14 presidential candidate, was caught by surprise when his ally Future Movement leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri reportedly nominated Marada Movement Chief Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency. Geagea has staunchly opposed the deal, which stirred up controversy both within the March 8 and 14 camps. Aoun, on the other hand, had shown no signs of giving up his presidential ambitions in favor of Franjieh, a longtime ally of Hezbollah and a member of Aoun's reform and Change parliamentary bloc.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: For weeks Hezbollah remained silent over Hariri's proposed settlement, as Franjieh sought to win the support of its allies. Hezbollah finally broke its media silence Dec. 29, 2015, and reaffirmed its support for Aoun's presidential bid.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In the first official statement since Hariri's initiative emerged, Hezbollah's Politburo Chief Sayyed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed announced from the seat of the Maronite patriarchate that his party is committed to supporting the presidential bid of its ally Aoun. Aoun and Geagea kicked off talks a year ago. The talks culminated in a Declaration of Intent that paved the way for a surprise visit by Geagea to Aoun's residence in Rabieh in June. The Declaration of Intent has since brought Aoun and Geagea closer together, putting an end to the bitter rivalry between the Christian leaders who fought a devastating war in 1990.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: On 31 October 2016, General Michel Aoun was elected by the Lebanese parliament as Lebanon's president, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: in November 6, 2020, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement, member of the Lebanese Parliament, and son-in-law of Lebanese President Michel Aoun. The penalties are due to its role in corruption in Lebanon according to Magnitsky's Global Human Rights Accountability Law. US Secretary of State Stephen T. Munchen: "Systematic corruption in the Lebanese political system represented by Bassil has helped undermine the foundations of an effective government that serves the Lebanese people. This designation also demonstrates that the United States supports the Lebanese people in their continuous calls for reform and accountability."


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: The Free Patriotic Movement launched its own broadcasting channel, Orange TV (OTV) on 20 July 2007, and their own radio station called Sawt Al Mada (English:Voice of Scope) on 1 June 2009.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Tayyar.org is an online news platform established in 2001 to promote the agenda of its former leader and current President of Lebanon, General Michel Aoun.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: At the time of the 2005 elections, the FPM came up with a detailed political program which contained economic and political reform plans and gained the support of many Lebanese Christians. The FPM won 21 seats in the parliament, and formed the second biggest bloc in the Lebanese Parliament. Being the leading Christian bloc after the election, it joined the March 8 Alliance.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: The electoral slogan of the party was 'A Strong [FPM] for a Strong Lebanon'. The party formed a number of local coalitions with a wide array alliance partners around the country. In North III FPM fielded the "Strong North" list, headed by Gebran Bassil, in alliance with the Independence Movement and the Future Movement. In Mount Lebanon I (Byblos–Kesrwan) FPM fielded the "Strong Lebanon" list led by Chamel Roukoz. In Mount Lebanon II (Metn) FPM fielded the "Strong Metn" list together with the SSNP and Tashnaq.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: After the split between the Future Movement and the Lebanese Forces, a joint list for Beirut I of the Free Patriotic Movement, Tashnaq and the Hunchaks was conceived supported by the Future Movement. In Bekaa I FPM, Future, Tashnaq and independents fielded a joint list. In North I (Akkar) and South II (Saida-Jezzine) FPM formed electoral alliances with al-Jamaat al-Islamiyya. In North II FPM fielded a list in alliance with Kamal Kheir. Moreover, whilst FPM and the Amal-Hezbollah coalition parted ways nationally, joint lists were presented in Beirut II, Mount Lebanon III (Baabda), and Bekaa II (West Bekaa-Rachaya).


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In Bekaa III (Baalbek-Hermel) FPM had hoped to form a list together with former speaker Hussein el-Husseini, but the project fell apart as el-Husseini withdrew from the electoral process. In the end, the Free Patriotic Movement candidates joined the list led by the former regional secretary of the Baath Party, Faiz Shukr.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: In South III the Future Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Democratic Party supported a joint list called "The South is Worth It", with two FPM-supported independents.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Following the announcement of results, Gebran Bassil stated that FPM and its Strong Lebanon bloc would form the largest bloc in parliament (a role previously played by the Future Movement). Bassil stated that FPM would gather up to 30 MPs, including Talal Arslan and Tashnaqs.


title: Free Patriotic Movement

text: Free Patriotic Movement lost seats in the 15 May 2022 elections. The Free Patriotic Movement, was no longer the biggest Christian party in the parliament after the election. The Lebanese Forces became the largest Christian party in Parliament.


title: David Valadao

text: David Goncalves Valadao ( ; born April 14, 1977) is an American politician and dairy farmer serving as the U.S. representative for California's 21st congressional district since 2021, a seat he previously held from 2013 to 2019. His district comprises part of the San Joaquin Valley. A member of the Republican Party, Valadao first won his seat in 2020, defeating Democratic incumbent TJ Cox in a rematch of his unsuccessful 2018 congressional run. He was reelected in 2022, defeating Democrat Rudy Salas. Before his election to Congress, Valadao served one term in the California State Assembly, representing the 30th district from 2010 to 2012.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao was one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump during Trump's second impeachment and one of two to be renominated and reelected, along with Dan Newhouse.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao was born and raised in Hanford, California. His parents are Portuguese immigrants (original spelling Gonçalves Valadão); his father grew up on the Azores Islands. In a 2013 interview, Valadao said his parents were initially registered Democrats but later switched to the Republican Party.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao graduated from Hanford High School in 1995. From 1996 to 1998 he attended the College of the Sequoias in Visalia as a part-time student but did not graduate.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao's father established a dairy farm in Kings County, California in 1969. Valadao and his brother became partners in Valadao Dairy in 1992. He has been a member of the California Milk Advisory Board, Western States Dairy Trade Association, and Regional Leadership Council Chairman for Land O' Lakes.


title: David Valadao

text: In March 2018, Valadao, a general partner of Triple V Dairy, was named in two lawsuits against the dairy for defaulting on almost $9 million in loans and failing to pay a supplier. In June 2018, a bank seized the dairy and sold it off to pay its debts. Valadao said, "Like so many family dairy farms across the country, burdensome government regulations made it impossible for the operation to remain open." After a lawsuit in 2019, Valadao agreed to pay $325,000 to former employees who claimed they had been denied breaks, minimum wage, and overtime pay. The settlement was not paid due to Valadao and Triple V Dairy filing for bankruptcy.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao announced his candidacy for California's 30th State Assembly district after the 2010 retirement of Republican Assemblyman Danny Gilmore. He defeated Stephanie Campbell in the Republican primary, 78%–22%. In the general election, he defeated Shafter Mayor Fran Florez, 61%–39%.


title: David Valadao

text: In August 2011, Valadao announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for . The district had previously been the 20th District, represented by four-term Democrat Jim Costa, but redistricting had shifted most of the district's share of Fresno to the new 16th District, and Costa sought reelection there.


title: David Valadao

text: In the June 5 open primary, he ranked first with 57% of the vote, ahead of Democrat John Hernandez – the head of the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce – and Fresno City Councilman Blong Xiong. In the November 6 general election he defeated Hernandez, 58%–42%. A "Wall Street Journal" op-ed cited his victory in a district that had long been held by Democrats as a potential template for the GOP, while other analysts cited his opponent's "weakness as a candidate and a campaigner" as playing a major role.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao ran for reelection in November 2014. His challengers were Democrat Amanda Renteria, a former political aide to Dianne Feinstein and Debbie Stabenow, and John Hernandez, the Democratic nominee Valadao defeated in 2012. In the June 3 primary Valadao finished first once again with 63% of the vote, and received majorities of 60% or higher in every county except for Kern. In the November 4 general election, he was reelected with 58% of the vote.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao ran for reelection to a third term in 2016. His first challenger was Democrat Daniel Parra, the Mayor pro tem of Fowler, California. Another Democratic challenger was Connie Perez, an accountant in Pasadena, California, who grew up in Tulare, but due to issues regarding her residency outside of the district, as well as an alleged recent change in party affiliation, Perez dropped out less than a month after announcing her candidacy. In January 2016 Emilio Huerta, son of United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, announced his candidacy in the race as a Democrat. In the June 7 primary Valadao finished first with 54% of the vote and Huerta finished second with 24.2%. In the general election Valadao was reelected with 56.7% of the vote to Huerta's 43.3%.


title: David Valadao

text: In 2018, Valadao was initially set to face Huerta again in a rematch, with Huerta announcing his bid in May 2017. But in March 2018 Huerta suspended his campaign for lack of funds. After Huerta's withdrawal, engineer TJ Cox of Fresno announced that he would challenge Valadao. Cox had previously announced a challenge to Republican Congressman Jeff Denham in the 10th district before switching to Valadao's seat.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao declared victory on November 6 after the Associated Press initially called the race in his favor, but mail-in ballots gave Cox a very narrow lead. Cox officially won the race on November 28, and Valadao conceded on December 6. The final count showed that Cox won by 862 votes. It was one of the last U.S. House races to be decided in the 2018 cycle.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao ran for and won his former seat in 2020, defeating Cox in a rematch by 1,754 votes, 51% to 49%. This came even as Joe Biden carried the district by ten points.


title: David Valadao

text: In June 2022, Valadao placed second in the open primary for California's redistricted 22nd congressional district, advancing to the November general election. Despite Valadao's vote to impeach President Trump, Trump did not engage in the primary, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed Valadao. According to the "Los Angeles Times", the GOP declined to support a challenger because Valadao holds a seat in a Democratic-leaning district that "can't be won by any other Republican". Far-right Republican Chris Mathys ran in the primary. A Democratic campaign ad criticized Valadao for his impeachment vote, as part of a larger strategy of helping far-right GOP primary candidates such as Mathys to make for easier opponents in the November election.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao faced state assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Democrat, in the November general election. Valadao defeated Salas in the general election. Valadao's victory made him one of just two House Republicans who supported impeaching Donald Trump to remain in Congress after the 2022 election.


title: David Valadao

text: In the 114th United States Congress, Valadao was ranked as the 42nd-most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy.


title: David Valadao

text: After Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in May 2016, Valadao said he would support his candidacy. He rescinded his support in June 2016, declining to endorse Trump and saying he could not support a candidate who "denigrates people based on their ethnicity, religion, or disabilities."


title: David Valadao

text: In February 2017, Valadao voted against a resolution that would have directed the House to request ten years of Trump's tax returns, which would then have been reviewed by the House Ways and Means Committee in a closed session.


title: David Valadao

text: "FiveThirtyEight" found that in the 115th and 117th United States Congresses, Valadao had voted in line with Trump's stated position 96.8% of the time.


title: David Valadao

text: On January 13, 2021, Valadao was one of ten Republicans who voted for the second impeachment of Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Valadao later said that despite misgivings about the process that the Democrats used to send the impeachment article to the floor, he felt he had to "go with my gut and vote my conscience" and vote to impeach. He called Trump a "driving force" behind the riots and concluded that his rhetoric at the rally preceding the riots was "un-American, abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense."


title: David Valadao

text: On May 19, 2021, Valadao was one of 35 Republicans who joined all Democrats in voting to approve legislation to establish the January 6 commission meant to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol.


title: David Valadao

text: In response to President Barack Obama's repeated assertion that the 2011 California drought was caused by global warming, Valadao said that "climate change has nothing to do with the drought" and that Obama administration regulations had worsened the drought.


title: David Valadao

text: In 2017, Valadao was blacklisted by Azerbaijan for taking part in a visit to Armenia and a disputed, breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao favored repealing the Affordable Care Act. On May 4, 2017, he voted to repeal it and to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA). He was one of three co-sponsors of a last-minute amendment that added $8 billion to fund high-risk pools for patients with pre-existing conditions. The revised version of AHCA allowed states to get waivers to allow insurers to charge individuals with preexisting conditions more if the individual has had a gap in insurance coverage.


title: David Valadao

text: In 2017, Valadao introduced H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, "to grant presumptive Agent Orange exposure status to U.S. service members who served in the territorial seas of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. This would enable eligible veterans to receive expedited consideration for Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits if they suffer from any of the diseases the U.S. Government has linked to Agent Orange." In August 2017, Valadao and Representative Joe Courtney sent a letter urging the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans have access to medical care from the VA. That same year, Valadao and Representative Jeff Denham introduced the Assessing Critical Care Efforts to Strengthen Services (ACCESS) Act. It would correct California's Medicaid reimbursement method to encourage physicians to operate in the Central Valley and ensure patient access to doctors and specialists. Also in 2017, Valadao and five other members of Congress introduced the Training the Next Generation of Primary Care Doctors Act of 2017, which would reauthorize the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) Program. It would expand existing programs at health centers and establish new teaching health centers.


title: David Valadao

text: In 2016, Valadao voted for a measure that banned discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors. In 2015, Valadao did not join many other prominent California Republicans in signing a U.S. Supreme Court brief in favor of same-sex marriage.


title: David Valadao

text: On July 19, 2022, Valadao and 46 other Republican U.S. representatives voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the right to same-sex marriage in federal law.


title: David Valadao

text: In August 2014, he broke ranks with the Republican Party and voted against a bill that would have dismantled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.


title: David Valadao

text: On February 23, 2017, Valadao called for a bipartisan solution to the U.S. immigration system. Later in 2017, he and nine other lawmakers wrote to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan asking for legislation to address DACA's future.


title: David Valadao

text: In June 2018, Valadao released a statement about the Department of Justice's "zero tolerance" policy, which involved separating children and parents at the Mexican border. "The substantial increase of minors at our southern border is both a humanitarian and national security crisis," he wrote. "While we must work towards a solution that reduces the occurrence of illegal border crossings, it is unacceptable to separate young children from their parents. This is exactly why passage of a compromise solution, such as that being discussed in Congress right now, is absolutely necessary."


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao has criticized the Trump administration's imposition of tariffs against Chinese steel and aluminum imports, which prompted China to impose retaliatory tariffs on a range of U.S. agriculture products. In May 2018, he sent a letter to United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressing concern over the tariffs' impact on the Central Valley's economy, writing, "Not only do the proposed tariffs fail to adequately remedy China's unfair practices, such tariffs seriously jeopardize our farmers' access to export markets, which accounts for roughly twenty percent of their production."


title: David Valadao

text: In 2013, Valadao was one of 15 House Republicans to vote against a Republican-backed bill to make deep cuts in food stamp spending.


title: David Valadao

text: In August 2014, the United States Chamber of Commerce awarded Valadao its Spirit of Enterprise Award. He won the same award again in 2016.


title: David Valadao

text: Valadao lives in Hanford with his wife Terra and their three children. During his first tenure in the House, Valadao consistently ranked as the poorest member of Congress by net worth, with over $17.5 million in debt in 2018, mainly loans to his family's dairy farm.


title: SSE4

text: SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; more precise details of 47 instructions became available at the Spring 2007 Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, in the presentation. SSE4 is fully compatible with software written for previous generations of Intel 64 and IA-32 architecture microprocessors. All existing software continues to run correctly without modification on microprocessors that incorporate SSE4, as well as in the presence of existing and new applications that incorporate SSE4.


title: SSE4

text: Intel SSE4 consists of 54 instructions. A subset consisting of 47 instructions, referred to as "SSE4.1" in some Intel documentation, is available in Penryn. Additionally, "SSE4.2", a second subset consisting of the 7 remaining instructions, is first available in Nehalem-based Core i7. Intel credits feedback from developers as playing an important role in the development of the instruction set.


title: SSE4

text: Starting with Barcelona-based processors, AMD introduced the "SSE4a" instruction set, which has 4 SSE4 instructions and 4 new SSE instructions. These instructions are not found in Intel's processors supporting SSE4.1 and AMD processors only started supporting Intel's SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 (the full SSE4 instruction set) in the Bulldozer-based FX processors. With SSE4a the misaligned SSE feature was also introduced which meant unaligned load instructions were as fast as aligned versions on aligned addresses. It also allowed disabling the alignment check on non-load SSE operations accessing memory. Intel later introduced similar speed improvements to unaligned SSE in their Nehalem processors, but did not introduce misaligned access by non-load SSE instructions until AVX.


title: SSE4

text: What is now known as SSSE3 (Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3), introduced in the Intel Core 2 processor line, was referred to as SSE4 by some media until Intel came up with the SSSE3 moniker. Internally dubbed Merom New Instructions, Intel originally did not plan to assign a special name to them, which was criticized by some journalists. Intel eventually cleared up the confusion and reserved the SSE4 name for their next instruction set extension.


title: SSE4

text: Unlike all previous iterations of SSE, SSE4 contains instructions that execute operations which are not specific to multimedia applications. It features a number of instructions whose action is determined by a constant field and a set of instructions that take XMM0 as an implicit third operand.


title: SSE4

text: Several of these instructions are enabled by the single-cycle shuffle engine in Penryn. (Shuffle operations reorder bytes within a register.)


title: SSE4

text: These instructions were introduced with Penryn microarchitecture, the 45 nm shrink of Intel's Core microarchitecture. Support is indicated via the CPUID.01H:ECX.SSE41[Bit 19] flag.


title: SSE4

text: SSE4.2 added STTNI (String and Text New Instructions), several new instructions that perform character searches and comparison on two operands of 16 bytes at a time. These were designed (among other things) to speed up the parsing of XML documents. It also added a CRC32 instruction to compute cyclic redundancy checks as used in certain data transfer protocols. These instructions were first implemented in the Nehalem-based Intel Core i7 product line and complete the SSE4 instruction set. Support is indicated via the CPUID.01H:ECX.SSE42[Bit 20] flag.


title: SSE4

text: These instructions operate on integer rather than SSE registers, because they are not SIMD instructions, but appear at the same time and although introduced by AMD with the SSE4a instruction set, they are counted as separate extensions with their own dedicated CPUID bits to indicate support. Intel implements POPCNT beginning with the Nehalem microarchitecture and LZCNT beginning with the Haswell microarchitecture. AMD implements both beginning with the Barcelona microarchitecture.


title: SSE4

text: The encoding of "lzcnt" is similar enough to "bsr" (bit scan reverse) that if "lzcnt" is performed on a CPU not supporting it such as Intel CPU's prior to Haswell, it will perform the "bsr" operation instead of raising an invalid instruction error despite the different result values of "lzcnt" and "bsr".


title: SSE4

text: The SSE4a instruction group was introduced in AMD's Barcelona microarchitecture. These instructions are not available in Intel processors. Support is indicated via the CPUID.80000001H:ECX.SSE4A[Bit 6] flag.


title: Palmerston (cat)

text: Palmerston is a cat who was the resident Chief Mouser of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) at Whitehall in London. He is a black-and-white bicolour cat and began his role in the position of Chief Mouser on 13 April 2016. Previously, he was from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and is named after the former Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. He was employed at the King Charles Street building.


title: Palmerston (cat)

text: The inception of the position of Chief Mouser at the FCO followed from the position Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, Larry and from visits from George Osborne's cat Freya who made regular visits to the office.


title: Palmerston (cat)

text: Palmerston was in the news on 3 May 2016, as it was reported that he had caught his first mouse. On 11 July 2016, Palmerston was caught on camera in a stand-off between himself and Larry in and around Downing Street. On 26 July 2016, Palmerston was caught sneaking into Number 10, when the black door was left open. He was later evicted by resident police. On 1 August 2016, a journalist caught Palmerston and Larry having a serious cat-fight, which led to Palmerston having damage to his ear and Larry losing his collar.


title: Palmerston (cat)

text: In October 2017, Palmerston "appointed" his first overseas envoys. Lawrence of Abdoun, a rescued black-and-white street tomcat, was given a role at the British Embassy in Amman, Jordan and is named after British military officer T. E. Lawrence and the neighbourhood in Amman where the embassy is located. Leyla Pixie, an orphaned kitten from Turkey, was adopted by the British Consulate General in Istanbul.


title: Palmerston (cat)

text: On 7 August 2020, Palmerston "retired" as the FCO's Chief Mouser, moving to the countryside to "spend more time relaxing away from the limelight"; his "resignation" was announced on Twitter.


title: NBA Coach of the Year Award

text: The National Basketball Association's Coach of the Year is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given since the 1962–63 NBA season. The winner receives the Red Auerbach Trophy, which is named in honor of the head coach who led the Boston Celtics to nine NBA championships from 1956 to 1966. The winner is selected at the end of the regular season by a panel of sportswriters from the United States and Canada, each of whom casts a vote for first, second and third place selections. Each first-place vote is worth five points; each second-place vote is worth three points; and each third-place vote is worth one point. The person with the highest point total, regardless of the number of first-place votes, wins the award.


title: NBA Coach of the Year Award

text: Since its inception, the award has been given to 40 different coaches. The most recent award winner is current Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams. Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson and Pat Riley have each won the award three times, while Hubie Brown, Mike Budenholzer, Mike D'Antoni, Bill Fitch, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Gene Shue, and Tom Thibodeau have each won it twice. No coach has won consecutive Coach of the Year awards. Riley is the only coach to be named Coach of the Year with three franchises. Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, and Lenny Wilkens are the only recipients to have been inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both player and coach. Johnny Kerr is the only person to win the award with a losing record (33–48 with the Chicago Bulls in ). Kerr was honored because he had guided the Bulls to the NBA Playoffs in their first season in the league. Doc Rivers is the only person to win the award despite his team not making the playoffs (41–41 with the Orlando Magic in ). Only five recipients also coached the team that won the championship the same season: Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, Bill Sharman, Phil Jackson, and Gregg Popovich. Popovich is the only NBA Coach of the Year recipient to win the championship in the same season twice, winning the NBA title with the San Antonio Spurs in 2003 and 2014. 2020 winner and current Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse is the only coach to receive this honor in both the NBA and the NBA G League, having received the G League award in 2011.


title: NBA Coach of the Year Award

text: 2015–16 recipient Steve Kerr only coached 39 of the 82 games in the season due to complications from offseason back surgery, though he received credit for all of the Golden State Warriors' 73 wins that season. Assistant coach Luke Walton served as interim head coach for the other 43 games for the Warriors, receiving one second-place vote and two third-place votes. Kerr asked the league to award Walton with the wins accumulated during Kerr's medical recovery time, but the NBA refused to do so because under league rules interim head coaches do not have win-loss records at all.


title: Kiel Martin

text: Kiel Urban Mueller (July 26, 1944 – December 28, 1990), known professionally as Kiel Martin, was an American actor best known for his role as Detective John "J.D." La Rue on the 1980s television drama "Hill Street Blues."


title: Kiel Martin

text: Martin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in Miami. A 1962 graduate of Hialeah High School, he was a drama student at Miami-Dade Junior College and acted in productions at the University of Miami.


title: Kiel Martin

text: Martin's debut as a professional actor came in repertory theatre in Florida. In the 1960s, he moved to New York and worked as a musician, a dockworker, and a stand-up comedian. After signing a contract with Universal Studios in 1967, he broke 15 bones in a motorcycle accident, requiring 2 years recuperation.


title: Kiel Martin

text: Martin appeared in the film "Moonrunners", which was the basis for the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard".


title: Kiel Martin

text: In addition to "Hill Street Blues", Martin made guest appearances on various television shows between the late 1960s and the 1980s, including "Dragnet","The Love Boat", "The Virginian", "Father Dowling Mysteries", and "Murder, She Wrote". He starred in the short-lived 1987 Fox sitcom "Second Chance" until its revamping as "Boys Will Be Boys" resulted in his character being dropped. He also was a regular on the soap opera "The Edge of Night".


title: Kiel Martin

text: He was married three times. In 1969, he married Claudia Martin (1944–2001), who was actor/crooner Dean Martin's daughter. They had a daughter named Jesse. The marriage ended in 1971.


title: Helicopter hieroglyphs

text: The helicopter hieroglyphs is a name given to part of an Egyptian hieroglyph carving from the Temple of Seti I at Abydos. In paleocontact hypothesis circles the hieroglyphs have been interpreted as an out-of-place artifact depicting a helicopter (above the nine short vertical bars) as well as other examples of modern technology.


title: Helicopter hieroglyphs

text: The "helicopter" image is the result of carved stone being re-used over time. The initial carving was made during the reign of Seti I and translates to "He who repulses the nine [enemies of Egypt]". This carving was later filled in with plaster and re-carved during the reign of Ramesses II with the title "He who protects Egypt and overthrows the foreign countries". Over time, the plaster has eroded away, leaving both inscriptions partially visible and creating a palimpsest-like effect of overlapping hieroglyphs. As with all dates in Ancient Egypt, the actual dates of Seti's reign are unclear, and various historians propose different dates, with 1294 BC to 1279 BC and 1290 BC to 1279 BC being the most commonly used by scholars today.


title: International Development Association

text: The International Development Association (IDA) () is an international financial institution which offers concessional loans and grants to the world's poorest developing countries. The IDA is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It was established in 1960 to complement the existing International Bank for Reconstruction and Development by lending to developing countries which suffer from the lowest gross national income, from troubled creditworthiness, or from the lowest per capita income. Together, the International Development Association and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are collectively generally known as the World Bank, as they follow the same executive leadership and operate with the same staff.


title: International Development Association

text: The association shares the World Bank's mission of reducing poverty and aims to provide affordable development financing to countries whose credit risk is so prohibitive that they cannot afford to borrow commercially or from the Bank's other programs. The IDA's stated aim is to assist the poorest nations in growing more quickly, equitably, and sustainably to reduce poverty. The IDA is the single largest provider of funds to economic and human development projects in the world's poorest nations. From 2000 to 2010, it financed projects which recruited and trained 3 million teachers, immunized 310 million children, funded $792 million in loans to 120,000 small and medium enterprises, built or restored 118,000 kilometers of paved roads, built or restored 1,600 bridges, and expanded access to improved water to 113 million people and improved sanitation facilities to 5.8 million people. The IDA has issued a total US$238 billion in loans and grants since its launch in 1960. Thirty-six of the association's borrowing countries have graduated from their eligibility for its concessional lending. However, nine of these countries have relapsed and have not re-graduated.


title: International Development Association

text: During the 1940s and 1950s, low-income developing countries began to realize that they could no longer afford to borrow capital and needed more-favorable lending terms than offered by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). At the onset of his inaugural term in 1949, then-President of the United States Harry S. Truman assembled an advisory group to suggest ways to accomplish his Point Four Program, of which a significant component was an effort to strengthen developing countries, especially those nearest to the Eastern Bloc, to dissuade them from aligning with other communist states. The advisory group recommended an international mechanism that would function somewhere in between providing strictly-loaned and strictly-granted funds. The UN and United States government published reports expressing support for the creation of a multilateral, concessional lending program for the poorest developing countries. However, the United States was largely unresponsive and ultimately distracted by its involvement in the Korean War and unconvinced that development needed greater financial stimulation.


title: International Development Association

text: Developing countries grew increasingly frustrated with not being able to afford IBRD lending and perceived the Marshall Plan as a comparatively generous gift to European nations. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing countries began calling for the United Nations (UN) to create a development agency that would offer technical support and concessional financing, with a particular desire that the agency adhere to other UN bodies' convention of each country having one vote as opposed to a weighted vote. However, the United States ultimately opposed proposals of that nature. As the United States grew more concerned over the growth of the Cold War, it made a concession in 1954 at the behest of its Department of State by backing the conception of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Despite the launch of the IFC in 1956, developing countries persisted in demanding the creation of a new concessional financing mechanism and the idea gained traction within the IBRD. Then-President of the IBRD Eugene R. Black, Sr. began circulating the notion of an International Development Association, as opposed to an idea of a concessional named the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development (SUNFED) governed by the United Nations. Paul Hoffman, the Marshall Plan's former Administrator, proposed the idea of a soft-loan facility within the World Bank, where the US would have a preponderant voice in the allocation of such loans. Democratic Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma supported this idea. As Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on International Finance, Monroney proposed a resolution recommending a study of the potential establishment of an International Development Association to be affiliated with the IBRD. Monroney's proposal was more preferred received within the United States than the SUNFED. The resolution passed the senate in 1958, and then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert B. Anderson encouraged other countries to conduct similar studies. In 1959, the World Bank's Board of Governors approved a U.S.-born resolution calling for the drafting of the articles of agreement. SUNFED later became the Special Fund and merged with the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance to form the United Nations Development Programme.


title: International Development Association

text: By the end of January 1960, fifteen countries signed the articles of agreement which established the International Development Association. The association launched in September of that same year with an initial budget of $913 million ($7.1 billion in 2012 dollars). Over the next eight months following its launch, the IDA grew to 51 member states and loaned $101 million ($784.2 million in 2012 dollars) to four developing countries.


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA is governed by the World Bank's Board of Governors which meets annually and consists of one governor per member country (most often the country's finance minister or treasury secretary). The Board of Governors delegates most of its authority over daily matters such as lending and operations to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors consists of 25 executive directors and is chaired by the President of the World Bank Group. The executive directors collectively represent all 187 member states of the World Bank, although decisions regarding IDA matters concern only the IDA's 172 member states. The president oversees the IDA's overall direction and daily operations. , David Malpass serves as the President of the World Bank Group. The association and IBRD operate with a staff of approximately 10,000 employees.


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA is evaluated by the Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. In 2009, the group identified weaknesses in the set of controls used to protect against fraud and corruption in projects supported by IDA lending. In 2011, the group recommended the Bank provide recognition and incentives to staff and management for implementing activities which implement the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness principles of harmonization and alignment, promote greater use of sector-wide approaches to coordination, and explain the reasons why when a country's financial management system is not used so that the client country may address those shortcomings. It also recommended that the Bank collaborate with development partners to strengthen country-level leadership of development assistance coordination by offering greater financial and technical support. Development economists, such as William Easterly, have conducted research which ranked the IDA as featuring the most transparency and best practices among donors of development aid.


title: International Development Association

text: Researchers from the Center for Global Development expect that the IDA's collection of eligible borrowing countries will decrease by half by the year 2025 (marking the 65th anniversary of the association's establishment) due to graduations and that remaining borrowers will consist primarily of African countries and will face substantial population declines. These changes will imply a need for the association to carefully examine its financial models and business operations to determine an appropriate strategy going forward. The center recommended that the World Bank leadership begin discussing the long-term future of the IDA.


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA has 173 member countries which pay contributions every three years as replenishments of its capital. On December 12, 2008, Samoa joined UNIDO as its 173rd member. The IDA lends to 75 borrowing countries, over half of which (39) are in Africa. Membership in the IDA is available only to countries who are members of the World Bank, particularly the IBRD. Throughout its lifetime, 44 borrowing countries have graduated from the association, although 9 of these countries have relapsed as borrowers after not sustaining their graduate status.


title: International Development Association

text: To be eligible for support from the IDA, countries are assessed by their poverty and their lack of creditworthiness for commercial and IBRD borrowing. The association assesses countries based on their per capita income, lack of access to private capital markets, and policy performance in implementing pro-growth and anti-poverty economic or social reforms. , to borrow from the IDA's concessional lending programs, a country's gross national income (GNI) per capita must not exceed $1,145.


title: International Development Association

text: The following countries have relapsed to their eligibility for IDA lending and have not yet re-graduated or have instead become partially eligible (also referred to as a "blend country").


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA is a unique part of the World Bank as it requires continuous replenishment of its resources. Member countries replenish its funds through contributions in addition to supplementary funds provided by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Whereas the IBRD acquires most of its funds by raising capital on international financial markets, the IDA heavily depends on contributions from its member states. The IDA received 2 billion in special drawing rights ($3 billion USD) from the IBRD and IFC. Approximately half of the IDA's resources come from the 45 donating member countries. In its early years, the IDA received most of its replenishments from the United Kingdom and United States but, because they were not always reliable sources of funding, other developed nations began to step in and fill the economic gaps not met by these two countries. Every three years, member nations that provide funds to the IDA gather together to replenish the IDA's resources. These funds come primarily from well-developed countries including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom with 58% from the US, 22% from France, and 8% from the UK. As of 2016, there have been 18 IDA replenishment rounds. Fifty one member countries participated in the IDA's 16th replenishment of US$49.3 billion. The IDA's loans and grants are usually not paid in full to the borrower at the outset, but rather disbursed incrementally as needed by the project. Most of the donor countries such as the United States commit letters of credit to the IDA which bear no interest and are not able to be transferred or revoked, and which are exchanged for cash as needed for project disbursal. Other countries pay their contributions in full on the date of commitment to the IDA so that it may cover its operating expenses. Donors receive no return of funds and repayments from borrowers are again loaned to future projects such that donors won't need to commit those funds again in the future.


title: International Development Association

text: Although the IDA's funds are now regularly replenished, this does not happen without some financial and political challenges for the donating countries. When donor countries convene to negotiate the replenishments, there is often intense discussion about redefining the association's goals and objectives or even about reforming the IDA. Due to delays in the United States Congress impeding the approval of IDA funding, the association's members implemented a set of policy triggers outlining the commitment threshold necessary for replenishment to take effect. The threshold imposed a requirement that an aggregate share of 85% in voting stock is necessary for executing a replenishment. The threshold was implemented with the aim to compel the United States to participate in replenishment rounds. Though countries intended for the triggers to hold the United States to its commitments, the threshold ultimately provided the United States a de facto veto power over replenishment and capital increase negotiations due to its ability to bring replenishment negotiations to an impasse by threatening to withhold support. The U.S. has used this influence to further its long-term foreign policy objectives and short-term political and economic goals by imposing conditionality on replenishment negotiations.


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA lends to countries with the aim to finance projects that will develop infrastructure and improve education, healthcare, access to clean water and sanitation facilities, and environmental responsibility. It is considered to be the soft lending window of the World Bank, while the IBRD is considered to be the hard lending window. The association offers grants and loans with maturities ranging from 25 to 40 years, grace periods of 5 to 10 years, and interest rates of 2.8% or 1.25% depending on whether the borrower is a blend country and to which degree it is eligible. Regular IDA-eligible borrowers may take advantage of no-interest loans. Financial resources are allocated to eligible countries based on their success at implementing pro-growth and a poverty-reducing domestic policies. The IDA uses the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) development indicator to determine each country's place in a resource allocation index. It then prioritizes its lending to those countries which are indicated to be most promising in terms of favorable policies and aid effectiveness. The IDA adopted the Crisis Response Window in 2007 to enable the rapid provision of emergency financing in response to crises. The association adopted the Immediate Response Mechanism in 2011 to provide IDA borrowers with immediate access to withdraw undisbursed portions of their loans, should a crisis arise that meets the mechanism's criteria.


title: International Development Association

text: The replenishment rounds are typically agreed every three years . The eighteenth was finalised in December 2016, the nineteenth was being discussed in October 2019.


title: International Development Association

text: Because African countries face some of the most severe poverty and underdevelopment, and because 39 of those countries are the IDA's poorest member states, the association allocates approximately half of the IDA's resources toward financing projects in those countries. As a result of its efforts to improve the region, the IDA has helped bring electricity to an additional 66 million Africans since 1997, helped build or restore 240,000 kilometers of paved roads, and helped enroll an additional 15 million African children in school since 2002. The IDA was approved in May 2012 to provide US$50 million worth of credit to the Women Entrepreneur Development Project as part of an effort to help women in Ethiopia participate in business as skilled employees or leaders. Although the positive outcomes of the IDA's efforts in Africa had been historically slow, the large allocation of funding to African countries led to positive outcomes particularly within agriculture and infrastructure development efforts.


title: International Development Association

text: The IDA's efforts in Asia have been particularly successful. Numerous Asian countries have graduated from the IDA lending program, including the Philippines, China, South Korea, Thailand, and India. Of the association's borrowing countries, approximately 20 are in Asia. The association's efforts in South Asia have focused primarily on projects for education, healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and energy. Due to rapid growth in Asian countries' populations, some pockets of poverty have emerged. To mitigate this effect, the IDA adopted an economic plan of action which established organizations to improve education and healthcare, with a focus on reducing poverty across Asian nations in ways that are compatible with local culture.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: Martial Law is an American action-adventure comedy television series created by Carlton Cuse that aired on CBS from September 26, 1998, to May 13, 2000. The title character, Sammo Law (Sammo Hung), is a Chinese law officer and martial arts expert who comes to Los Angeles in search of a colleague and remains in the United States.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: The show was a surprise hit, making Hung the only East Asian headlining a primetime network series in the United States. At the time, Hung was not fluent in English and worried about the audience's ability to understand him. In many scenes, Hung does not speak at all, making "Martial Law" one of the few United States television series to feature little dialogue from the lead character. The show lasted two seasons, before being cancelled due to high production costs and Hung being unhappy with the writing of season two.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: The basic storyline is that Sammo Law (Sammo Hung), a well-respected Chinese cop, is transferred to America. As he works for the police department, fighting crime in Los Angeles, he is met with a clash in culture. He is also the mentor of Grace "Pei Pei" Chen (Kelly Hu), an undercover officer. When American techniques do not work, Sammo employs some Chinese cop work to get the job done.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: Sammo is sent by the Chinese government to apprehend an old nemesis, Lee Hei (Tzi Ma). He finds out that his disciple, Pei Pei, had infiltrated Lee Hei's criminal empire. His goal is to capture Lee Hei and end his criminal organization. This plot line was unresolved and season one ended in a cliffhanger, although season two's premiere has Sammo alluding to Lee Hei's death (by way of accusing a one-shot villain of trying to avenge it). He is assisted in this by Grace (who joins the LAPD alongside him), Det. Louis Malone (Louis Mandylor) and Lt. Benjamin Winship (Tom Wright). Det. Dana Dixon (Tammy Lauren) is initially part of the team, but leaves after only five episodes; she is explained to have moved to another police force to be closer to her family. Halfway through the season, Lt. Terrell Parker (Arsenio Hall) joins the team and becomes Sammo's official partner.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: Following the events of the previous season finale, and prior to the second-season premiere, Winship retires and Louis transfers to the NYPD, while Law decides to stay in Los Angeles and is now partnered with Grace. The department also gets a new captain, Amy Dylan, who thinks that the Chinese way of police work is not the best way of handling things. In addition, revelations are made of a secret society whose members include Law's long-lost son. While Law decided to return to China in the last episode, a line of dialogue leaves open the possibility of a follow-up.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: "Honor Among Strangers" is part one of a crossover with "Walker, Texas Ranger", wherein Sammo teams up with Cordell Walker to apprehend a hate-mongering former military officer who later escapes Walker's custody in the "Walker, Texas Ranger" episode "The Day of Cleansing" to which he summons Sammo to Dallas to help catch him again.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: The creator, Carlton Cuse, was aware that CBS was in need of a show that would attract young male viewers to its Saturday-night schedule. Stanley Tong suggested a cop show based on "", a movie that he directed and in which Jackie Chan starred. Jackie Chan was contacted by Tong, but declined (Chan was set to appear in episode five "Cop Out", strolling into the background of one scene, but the bit was cut from the final version).


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: Tong then approached Sammo Hung, a good friend and occasional co-star of Chan's. Still eager to fill the 9 pm program slot, CBS agreed very quickly and production began on the series. After the first six episodes had aired, they knew it was a hit. The production, however, was not without complications, as Hung was used to the control over filming he had in Hong Kong and was not fluent in English. Hung was not delighted to be filming in early mornings and late night that American television productions require.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: New executive producers Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin took the helm at the beginning of the second season due to runaway production costs. They more or less pretended that the first season did not exist, retaining only the basic concept of a fish-out-of-water detective. Cast members Louis Mandylor and Tom Wright were dropped. Gretchen Egolf was brought in to play the unit's new leader, Amy Dylan, from the beginning of season two. Additionally, Parker's past in public relations was scrapped. The first season's cliffhanger ending (plus the dropping of Mandylor and Wright's characters) was explained away with a few throwaway lines.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: Law made crossover appearances on episodes of "Early Edition" and "Walker, Texas Ranger", the former preceding it and the latter following it in its Saturday time slot. Chuck Norris's "Walker, Texas Ranger" character, Cordell Walker, also made an appearance as part of the two-part "Martial Law"/"Walker, Texas Ranger" crossover.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: After season two, CBS offered Sammo Hung a third season, but Hung said he would not do it without a final say on scripts, claiming that the new screenwriter CBS assigned to the show for season two made him nothing but a fighting machine. An article in the magazine "Black Belt" mentions that due to the $2 million cost of production per episode, the show was cancelled.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: In the UK and Ireland, the show used to air on Five from 1998 to 2005, then on ITV4 showing replays of the episodes from 2005 to 2007 and then on Bravo from 2009 to 2011. In France, "Martial Law" ("Le Flic de Shanghaï") can be seen on M6 and W9. It was previously broadcast on Britain's Channel 5 at 8 pm on Sundays, scoring high ratings in 98, Australia's Seven Network in 1998, on ATV in Hong Kong, on TV4 in Sweden and on TV3, Sky1, and Channel 4 in New Zealand. It was previously broadcast on Dubai-based MBC 2, but can now be seen on MBC Action. In Germany, the series was broadcast on VOX. In Brazil, the series can be seen on Rede Bandeirantes since November 2007 as "Um Policial da Pesada" ("A heavy-set cop"). In Colombia, the series was broadcast on RCN Television.


title: Martial Law (TV series)

text: On May 4, 2015, it was announced that Visual Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series and will be releasing the complete series on DVD for the first time in the early spring of 2016 in the United States and Canada. According to Visual Entertainment the Boxset was released on August 30, 2016 and also includes the crossover episodes from the shows Early Edition and Walker, Texas Ranger.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Simeon () at the Temple is the "just and devout" man of Jerusalem who, according to , met Mary, Joseph, and Jesus as they entered the Temple to fulfill the requirements of the Law of Moses on the 40th day from Jesus' birth, i. e. the presentation of Jesus at the Temple.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: According to the Biblical account, the Holy Spirit visited Simeon and revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Christ of God. Upon taking Jesus into his arms, he uttered a prayer which is still used liturgically as the Latin in the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, and gave a prophecy alluding to the Crucifixion of Jesus.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Some Christian traditions commemorate this meeting on 2 February as the feast of Candlemas, or, more formally, the Presentation of the Lord, the Meeting of the Lord, or the Purification of the Virgin (Mary). His prophecy is involved in the devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows. Simeon is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. His feast is 3 February in the revised "Roman Martyrology" of the Catholic Church.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Some writers have identified this Simeon with Shimon ben Hillel, although Hillel was not a priest. James F. Driscoll, writing in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" dismisses this as "untrustworthy legends".


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: The Bible is silent about Simeon's age at this point, though he is generally assumed (for example by Howard Marshall, who refers to him as an "old man") to have been elderly.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Sometime between AD 565 and 578, a body believed to be that of Simeon was translated from Syria or Jerusalem to Constantinople. Sometime around the Siege of Constantinople (1203) the relics were seized and shipped to Venice; however, a storm forced the ship to put in to the port of Zadar on the Dalmatian coast. The relics were first placed in the "Velika Gospa" (Church of the Virgin) and then later translated to the Church of St. Stephen, which became known as the Sanctuary of St. Simeon the Godbearer. Simeon is one of the four patron saints of Zadar; his feast day is celebrated on 8 October. In October 2010, Archbishop Želimir Puljić of Zadar conveyed a small silver reliquary containing some of Simeon's relics to Archbishop Theofylactus of Jordan, representing Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the monastery of St. Simeon the Godbearer in Jerusalem.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: The events in the life of Simeon the Righteous are observed on both 2 and 3 February. The observances of the first day memorialize the act of Mary undergoing an act of ritual purification and presenting Jesus, her child, to the Temple, a feast known as the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Because this day focuses on Jesus and Mary, the observation of 3 February is specific to Simeon, who was allowed to die after seeing the Christ born of a virgin.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Under Mosaic law, a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for three and 30 days "in the blood of her purification", for a total of 40 days. The Christian Feast of the Purification therefore corresponds to the day on which Mary, according to Jewish law (see ), should have attended a ceremony of ritual purification. The "Gospel of Luke" relates that Mary was purified according to the religious law, after which Jesus was presented in the Temple in Jerusalem. This explains the formal names of the feast.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: In the liturgy of Evening Prayer in the Anglican Communion, Anglicans recite the or sing it in Evensong in the canticle the Song of Simeon, traditionally every evening. The liturgical hour of Compline of the Catholic Church and of Vespers in Orthodoxy also use it. Many notable composers have set the to music, e. g. the ("All-Night Vigil" of Rachmaninoff).


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: The feast of 2 February is often known as "Candlemas" because, in honor of the ritual purification of the Virgin Mary, candles of beeswax, which will be used for the whole liturgical year, are brought into a church and blessed. In the Catholic Church the Presentation is commemorated as the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. In the Church of England the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a principal feast. In the Eastern Orthodox Church it is one of the twelve Great Feasts.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: Simeon the Righteous is commemorated in his own right on 3 February. In the Anglican Communion Simeon is not venerated with a festal observance, and 3 February is designated to recognize Blaise, Bishop of Sebastea, or in modern calendars, Saint Anskar (801–865), a missionary, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, and the first Bishop in Sweden in 864.


title: Simeon (Gospel of Luke)

text: In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Simeon is commemorated with Anna the Prophetess on 3 February on the Feast of the Holy and Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver and Anna the Prophetess.