title: Real ID Act

text: The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, which was established to advise the Department of Homeland Security on privacy-related issues, released a statement regarding the Department of Homeland Security's proposed rules for the standardization of state driver licenses on May 7, 2007. The committee stated that "Given that these issues have not received adequate consideration, the Committee feels it is important that the following comments do not constitute an endorsement of REAL ID or the regulations as workable or appropriate", and "The issues pose serious risks to an individual's privacy and, without amelioration, could undermine the stated goals of the REAL ID Act".


title: Real ID Act

text: The Real ID Act requires that states and territories include an individual's gender on each driver license and identification card issued. As of 2022, all states and territories allowed individuals to change their gender on identification documents to either male or female, and many states also offered the option of gender-neutral marker X. The requirements for changing the recorded gender varied by jurisdiction, from merely a personal request to additional documentation such as a court order or proof of surgery.


title: Real ID Act

text: Some scholars criticized the inclusion of gender markers in identification documents, pointing to the ineffectiveness of gender in confirming a person's identity or due to privacy concerns of transgender individuals.


title: Real ID Act

text: Many immigrant and civil rights advocates felt that the changes related to evidentiary standards and the immigration officers' discretion in asylum cases, contained in the Real ID Act, would prevent many legitimate asylum seekers from obtaining asylum. For example, scholars pointed to how the Real ID Act placed more emphasis on applicant account discrepancies to determine asylum seekers as "incredible" and discretion on additional corroboration requirements, which discounted potential trauma-related psychological and other barriers related to persecution that might affect testimony accounts. Additionally, a 2005 article in LCCR-sponsored "Civil Rights Monitor" stated, "The bill also contained changes to asylum standards, which according to LCCR, would prevent many legitimate asylum seekers from obtaining safe haven in the United States. These changes gave immigration officials broad discretion to demand certain evidence to support an asylum claim, with little regard to whether the evidence can realistically be obtained; as well as the discretion to deny claims based on such subjective factors as 'demeanor'. Critics said the reason for putting such asylum restrictions into what was being sold as an anti terrorism bill was unclear, given that suspected terrorists are already barred from obtaining asylum or any other immigration benefit".


title: Real ID Act

text: Similarly, some immigration and human rights advocacy groups maintained that the Real ID Act provided an overly broad definition of "terrorist activity" that would prevent some deserving categories of applicants from gaining asylum or refugee status in the United States. A November 2007 report by Human Rights Watch raised this criticism specifically in relation to former child soldiers who had been forcibly and illegally recruited to participate in an armed group.


title: Real ID Act

text: In 2020, the section of the Real ID Act waiving laws that could interfere with construction of the border barrier had a negative impact on the natural and cultural environment of the border area. One example was at Quitobaquito Springs in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, one of the only reliable above-ground water sources in the Sonoran Desert and home to the endangered Sonoyta pupfish and Sonora mud turtle. The spring and surrounding lands are also sacred to the Hia C-eḍ Oʼodham and Tohono Oʼodham peoples. Due to construction of the border barrier, the flow of water declined precipitously from March 2020, and threatened the cultural landscape as well as the two endangered species, along with other desert animals and plants that relied on the water.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: Jeremy Griffith (born 1945) is an Australian biologist and author. He first came to public attention for his attempts to find the Tasmanian tiger. He later became noted for his writings on the human condition and theories about human progress. He founded the World Transformation Movement in 1983.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: Griffith was educated at Tudor House School in New South Wales and received a first-class honours degree in biology in 1965 at the Geelong Grammar School in Victoria. He subsequently began a science degree at the University of New England in northern New South Wales. Finally, Griffith completed his BSc degree in zoology at the University of Sydney in 1971.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: He first became known for his search for surviving Tasmanian tigers or thylacines, the last known specimen of which died in captivity in 1936. The search conducted from 1967 to 1973, included exhaustive surveys along Tasmania's west coast; installation of automatic camera stations; prompt investigations of claimed sightings; and, in 1972, the creation of the Thylacine Expeditionary Research Team with Bob Brown, which concluded without finding any evidence of the animal's continuing existence.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: Griffith began writing on the human condition in 1975, publishing the first of his six books on the subject in 1988. "A Species In Denial" (2003) became a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand. His writing includes references to philosopical and religious sources.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: His biological works on the origins of human nature assert that “humans act angrily because of a battle between instinct and intellect.” An article by Griffith published in "The Irish Times" summarised the thesis presented in "Freedom: The End of The Human Condition" (2016) as “Adam & Eve without the guilt: explaining our battle between instinct and intellect”; and "Kirkus Reviews" wrote that “Griffith offers a treatise about the true nature of humanity and about overcoming anxieties about the world.”


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: The Templeton Prize winner and biologist Charles Birch, the New Zealand zoologist John Morton, the former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association Harry Prosen, and Australian Everest mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape have been long-standing proponents of Griffith’s ideas. Birch wrote the Foreword to Griffith’s 2004 book "A Species In Denial". Morton publicly defended Griffith when he and his ideas were attacked in the mid-1990s. In 2021 Prosen wrote “Griffith puts forward a wide-ranging induction-derived synthesis. As Professor Scott Churchill, former Chair of Psychology at the University of Dallas, said in his review of "Freedom", “Griffith’s perspective comes to us not as a simple opinion of one man, but rather as an inductive conclusion drawn from sifting through volumes of data representing what scientists have discovered.” …I have no doubt Griffith’s explanation of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race.”


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: Griffith’s ideas have been criticised based on perceived problems with the empirical veracity of his anthropological writings, an objection that highlights his reliance on the writings of the South African novelist Sir Laurens Van Der Post, and also the work of anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: Griffith has argued throughout his writings that the driving force in human evolution was increased nurturing of offspring, a process he calls “love indoctrination”. He adopts a neo-Lamarckian view in which mothers model pro-social behaviour to offspring, with consequent behavioural changes resulting in 'soft' Lamarckian inheritance. Such behaviours will differentially proliferate if they are performed in the context of a social niche in which co-operative behaviour is favoured. Consequent to this genetic selection will stabilise changes that were initiated at the level of social behaviour. It is this process that he argues gave rise to the human moral sense. Evidence for this view is the reduced sexual dimorphism in the early stages of human evolution, particularly the loss of the aggressive canine morphology evident in other extant primate taxa. The theory postulates an intensification of maternal care, and associated increased pro-social behaviour of offspring, as being the distinguishing feature of the human lineage. His theory echoes that of Adrienne Zihlman, who postulated changes in patterns of sub-adult socialisation may have been important in the early stages of human evolution.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: According to a 2020 article “The fury of the left, explained” by Griffith published in "The Spectator Australia", “honest biological thinking” can explain why the ideology of the political Left represents a threat to human progress: “…the Left has given in to the temptation of relief-hunting and abandoned that all-important search [for understanding of the human condition].” When interviewed by Alan Jones and Graham Richardson on their Richo & Jones Sky News Australia television program, Griffith said “my article in "The Spectator" last week was all about how we can bring rationale, understanding to the danger of the Left, reason versus dogma.”


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: The World Transformation Movement was founded by Griffith in 1983 as the Centre for Humanity’s Adulthood, an organisation dedicated to developing and promoting understanding of the human condition. It was incorporated in 1990 with Griffith and his colleague mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape among its founding directors and became a registered charity in New South Wales in 1990, known as the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood. In 2009, the name changed to World Transformation Movement.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: In 1995, Griffith, Macartney-Snape and the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood (the World Transformation Movement name at the time) were the subject of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation "Four Corners" program and a "Sydney Morning Herald" newspaper article, in which it was alleged that Macartney-Snape used speaking appearances at schools to promote the foundation, which was described as a cult, and that Griffith "publishes work of such a poor standard that it has no support at all from the scientific community". The publications became the subject of defamation actions in the NSW Supreme Court. In 2007, the ABC was ordered to pay Macartney-Snape almost $500,000 in damages, and with costs the payout was expected to exceed $1 million. While the jury found that what the ABC said about Griffith was defamatory (i.e, it would tend to disgrace Griffith or lower public opinion of him), the judge dismissed the case after considering the defences of truth, qualified privilege and comment. Griffith appealed that decision and while the NSW Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on the basis of qualified privilege and comment being upheld, it found that the defamatory allegation the ABC made about Griffith was not justified. The proceedings against the "Herald" were resolved when it published an apology to the foundation in 2009.


title: Jeremy Griffith

text: In 2020, an article by Griffith published in "The Spectator Australia" under the heading ‘The science of bushfires’, about his biological analysis of the dangers of eucalypts in light of the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, resulted in him appearing on Alan Jones' 2GB radio program, and on the Richo & Jones Sky News Australia television program. Griffith’s analysis also generated interest in the UK.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is a city in Siskiyou County, California, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a total population of 2,862, down from 2,967 in 2010. There are several unincorporated communities adjacent to, or just outside, Weed proper, including Edgewood, Carrick, and Lake Shastina. These communities generally have mailing addresses that use Weed or its ZIP code. Weed is about west-northwest of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark, and the second-tallest volcano in the Cascade Range.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed's city motto is "Weed like to welcome you". Weed has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.


title: Weed, California

text: The City of Weed derives its name from the founder of the local lumber mill and pioneer Abner Weed, who discovered that the area's strong winds were helpful in drying lumber. In 1897, Abner Weed bought the Siskiyou Lumber and Mercantile Mill and of land in what is now the City of Weed, for $400. By the 1940s Weed boasted the world's largest sawmill.


title: Weed, California

text: On September 15, 2014, the Boles Fire spread through Weed, driven by 40-mph winds. The fire started behind the Boles Creek Apartments in the central part of Weed at approximately 1:30 p.m., and within four hours quickly spread to over . Evacuations were immediately ordered, and a shelter was first set up at College of the Siskiyous, but as fire headed towards the college, the evacuation center was relocated first to the Siskiyou Golden Fairgrounds in Yreka, then to Yreka and Mount Shasta High Schools, then to the armory in Mt. Shasta.


title: Weed, California

text: Over 200 structures were damaged or destroyed, including two churches, the elementary school, high school, and Roseburg mill. The schools and mill sustained only minimal damage to outbuildings. About 7,678 Pacific Power customers in both Weed and Mt. Shasta lost power as a result of the fire.


title: Weed, California

text: The City of Weed gets its water from the Beaughan Spring, with the water being piped directly to homes.


title: Weed, California

text: In September 2016, "The New York Times" reported French billionaire Pierre Papillaud demanded that Weed give up its Beaughan Spring spring water source so that Papillaud's bottle water company could have more water to sell. Disconnecting from Beaughan Spring would leave Weed without public water. In March 2021, it was reported that the parties involved had reached a compromise which will allow Weed to continue to have access to water from Beaughan Spring in perpetuity.


title: Weed, California

text: In early September 2022, the Mill Fire started in or near Weed, burning down the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is off Interstate 5, south of the California–Oregon border. The next large settlement to the north on I-5 is Yreka; to the south is the City of Mount Shasta. U.S. Route 97 runs to the northeast and Klamath Falls, Oregon.


title: Weed, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which 0.10% is covered by water. The closest cities with a population greater than 50,000 are Redding, California (69 miles south) and Medford, Oregon (91 miles north).


title: Weed, California

text: Weed has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate ("Csb" according to the Köppen climate classification system), featuring cool, wet winters with occasional snowfall, and hot, dry summers. Its average annual precipitation is . Its USDA hardiness zone is 7b.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is at the intersection of Interstate 5 and U.S. Route 97. Interstate 5 is the primary north–south transportation corridor for the west coast of the United States running from the Mexico–US border to the Canada–US border. U.S. Route 97 is a major north-south U.S. highway continuing from Weed in a northeasterly direction toward Klamath Falls, Oregon, thence through Oregon and Washington to the Canada–US border. California State Route 265 also runs through the City of Weed, locally known as North Weed Boulevard. Only two blocks long, it is the second-shortest state highway in California.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is served by Siskiyou County's public transportation bus lines, Siskiyou Transit and General Express, commonly called "The STAGE".


title: Weed, California

text: The closest airports for commercial air travel are Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport and Redding Municipal Airport. The Weed Airport serves general aviation and as a base of operations for search and rescue operations on Mount Shasta. Corporate visitors or geological researchers typically use this facility.


title: Weed, California

text: Amtrak trains pass through Weed, but do not stop there. The Amtrak bus/shuttle has one stop in South Weed. The nearest depot for Amtrak train travel is in Dunsmuir, approximately to the south.


title: Weed, California

text: From its founding in 1901, to as late as the 1980s, Weed was home to a thriving lumber industry. Roseburg Forest Products (plywood), International Paper Company, Morgan Products Ltd. (wooden door manufacturing), and J.H. Baxter (wood treatment) were all based in Weed. The historic industrial area at the northeast corner of Weed has been plagued with environmental concerns and clean-up efforts as a result of chemicals used for wood treatment, as well as chemical residue from glue used in the door factory.


title: Weed, California

text: Although historically reliant on logging, wood processing and forest-related products, Weed's economy has become more reliant on tourism as a source of economic activity. Weed's microbrewery, Mt. Shasta Brewing Company, relies on tourists for 92 percent of its business, according to co-owner Vaune Dillman.


title: Weed, California

text: Today, most of the wood-product-related industry has been scaled back or ceased altogether, and new retail and light industrial activity is concentrated in the southeast corner of Weed. Retail at the south end of Weed, in the form of restaurants and hotels, caters primarily to tourist travel on the Interstate 5 corridor. Light manufacturing of bottled water from Crystal Geyser Water Company has also added economic stability to the area.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is part of the Shasta Valley Enterprise Zone which provides tax breaks, fee reductions, and permit fast-tracking for employers locating in the area.


title: Weed, California

text: As a small community with few retail outlets, taxable sales within the city are somewhat limited, totaling $89 million in 2012.


title: Weed, California

text: In the November 2014 General Election, the voters of Weed passed Measure J which raised the city's sales and use tax rate by 0.25 percent.


title: Weed, California

text: Primary education in Weed is conducted at Weed Elementary School (K-8th Grade). Butteville Elementary School (K-8th) is just outside the City of Weed, in the hamlet of Edgewood, and has an enrollment similar to Weed Elementary.


title: Weed, California

text: Secondary-level students are educated at Weed High School, (Grades 9-12) part of the Siskiyou Union High School District. Weed High School is known for its picturesque campus and diverse student body.


title: Weed, California

text: The College of the Siskiyous, located in Weed, provides a steady source of employment for faculty and staff, a source of visitors for the local economy, and offers a two-year junior college education with various associate degree and vocational certificate programs.


title: Weed, California

text: Visitors use Weed as a base to engage in trout fishing in the nearby Klamath, Sacramento and McCloud Rivers, or come to see and climb Mount Shasta, Castle Crags or the Trinity Alps. Visitors also engage in nearby skiing (both alpine and cross-country) and biking, or hike to the waterfalls, streams and lakes in the area, including nearby Mossbrae Falls, Lake Siskiyou, Castle Lake and Shasta Lake.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed is near Castle Crags State Park, Lava Beds National Monument, and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to these state and federal parks, there are numerous local recreation opportunities.


title: Weed, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Weed had a population of 2,967. The population density was . The racial makeup of Weed was 2,221 (74.9 percent) white, 206 (6.9 percent) African-American, 70 (2.4 percent) Native American, 121 (4.1 percent) Asian, 27 (0.9 percent) Pacific Islander, 132 (4.4 percent) from other races, and 190 (6.4 percent) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 475 persons (16.0 percent).


title: Weed, California

text: The census reported that 2,820 people (95.0 percent of the population) lived in households, 101 (3.4 percent) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 46 (1.6%) were institutionalized.


title: Weed, California

text: There were 1,131 households, out of which 385 (34 percent) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 447 (39.5 percent) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 188 (16.6 percent) had a female householder with no husband present, 81 (7.2 percent) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 103 (9.1 percent) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 2 (0.2 percent) same-sex married couples or partnerships. Three hundred-eleven households (27.5 percent) were made up of individuals, and 125 (11.1 percent) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49. There were 716 families (63.3 percent of all households); the average family size was 3.02.


title: Weed, California

text: The population was spread out, with 735 people (24.8 percent) under the age of 18, 460 people (15.5 percent) aged 18 to 24, 660 people (22.2 percent) aged 25 to 44, 698 people (23.5 percent) aged 45 to 64, and 414 people (14 percent) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32.7 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100 males.


title: Weed, California

text: There were 1,273 housing units at an average density of , of which 543 (48 percent) were owner-occupied, and 588 (52 percent) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 3.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 8.8 percent. Forty-three percent of the population (1,275 persons) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 1,545 people (52.1 percent) lived in rental housing units.


title: Weed, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 2,978 people, 1,184 households, and 747 families residing in the city. The population density was 613.4 people per square mile (237.1 km). There were 1,293 housing units at an average density of 266.3 per square mile (102.9 km). The racial makeup of the city was 73.27 percent white, 9.27 percent Black or African American, 1.95 percent Native American, 4.57 percent Asian, 0.47 percent Pacific Islander, 5.51 percent from other races, and 4.97 percent from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race made up 12.76 percent of the population.


title: Weed, California

text: The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in 2003 was 25. The number of murders and homicides was one. The violent crime rate was 8.5 per 1,000 people.


title: Weed, California

text: In the city, age distribution was spread out, with 25.6 percent under the age of 18, 14.4 percent from 18 to 24, 22.6 percent from 25 to 44, 20.2 percent from 45 to 64, and 17.2 percent who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.3 males.


title: Weed, California

text: The median income for a household in the city was $23,333, and the median income for a family was $32,197. Males had a median income of $29,052 versus $21,894 for females. The per capita income for the city was $12,434. Below the poverty line: 23.9 percent of the population and 17.2 percent of families. Of the total population, 30.9 percent of those under the age of 18 and 4.9 percent of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.


title: Weed, California

text: Traffic: The average commute time for Weed workers is 12 minutes, compared with 26 minutes nationwide.


title: Weed, California

text: Housing: Median rent in Weed, at the time of the 2000 Census, was $348. Monthly mortgages were $676. Average monthly rent in all of California is $1341.


title: Weed, California

text: Education: seven percent of Weed residents age 25 and older have a bachelor's or advanced college degree.


title: Weed, California

text: Of the population 84.97 percent spoke English as their primary language, while 15.02 percent did not; of those 9.87 percent speak Spanish, 2.90 speak Italian, and 2.23 percent speak Laotian. One hundred percent of the population speaks English.


title: Weed, California

text: Weed's historic lumber industry and manufacturing facilities made it a magnet for ethnic minority migration, that may not have otherwise been the case in this region of the country. A large number of Italian immigrants migrated to Weed, and other towns in southern Siskiyou County at the turn of the 20th century. While immigrants were a source of labor for the region, they were not always well treated, in fact in 1909 complaints from workers in the lumber industry reached the Italian consul. However, in time the Italian population came to be a cornerstone of Weed civic life. Many streets in the early Italian neighborhood bear names of Italian cities, such as Rome, Genoa, Como, and Venice. Annually since 1954, Weed has held the Weed Italian Carnevale in June or July, although recently dropping "Italian" from its name while maintaining the Italian spelling of carnival and the traditional bocce ball tournaments.


title: Weed, California

text: A large number of black-Americans migrated to Weed as well, to work in Long-Bell Lumber Company's Weed facility after the company closed two mills in Louisiana in 1922. The company promised to advance travel expenses and provide housing for workers relocating to Weed. Immigrants locating in Weed since the 1980s have come primarily from Mexico and Laos. As a result of these migrations, Weed has a much more ethnically diverse population than Siskiyou County as a whole. Netting the Hispanic or Latino population out of Census figures for white race, Weed's white population is 60.6 percent compared to Siskiyou County at 79.5 percent using the same metric.


title: Weed, California

text: The city council of Weed is composed of five members who are elected at large and serve four-year terms. The Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem are elected each year from the five council members and serve a one-year term. Susan Tavalero is currently serving as Mayor of Weed until November 2020, with Stacey Green serving as Mayor Pro Tem.


title: Weed, California

text: In Siskiyou County Supervisoral District 3, in which Weed is the core community, voter registration was 39.6 percent Democrat, 39.1 percent Republican, 16.2 percent decline to state, with remainder split among other political parties such as Green and Libertarian as of 2006.


title: Weed, California

text: John Steinbeck's novella-play "Of Mice and Men" begins with George and Lennie running away from Weed, where they got into trouble.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora Alonso Realonda y Quintos (November 9, 1827 – August 16, 1911) was a wealthy woman in the Spanish colonial Philippines. She was best known as the mother of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal. Realonda was born in Santa Cruz, Manila. She was also known for being a disciplinarian and hard-working mother. Her medical condition inspired Rizal to take up medicine.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora Alonso was the second child of Lorenzo Alberto Alonso, a municipal captain in Biñan, Laguna, and Brijida de Quintos. Her family had adopted additional surname "Realonda" in 1849, after Governor General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish surnames among the Filipinos for census purposes (though they already had Spanish names).


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora's ancestry included Chinese, Japanese, and Tagalog. Her lineage can be traced to the affluent Florentina family of Chinese mestizo families originating in Baliuag, Bulacan. She also had Spanish ancestry from both of her parents. Her maternal grandmother, Regina Ochoa, had mixed Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog blood.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora Alonso was also a representative in the Spanish Courts and a pious Catholic, being a Knight of the Order of Isabella. Quintos was an educated woman, who became a housewife, devoted to caring for her family's needs. Her family adopted “Realonda” after General Governor Narciso Clavería issued a decree in 1849. Realonda came from a financially able family and studied at the Colegio de Santa Rosa in Manila, just like her mother who was well-bred and had an educational background in the subjects of mathematics and literature.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora married Francisco Mercado, a native of Biñan, Laguna, on June 28, 1848, when she was 20 years old. The couple resided in Laguna, particularly in Calamba and built a business from agriculture. She was an industrious and educated woman, managing the family's farm and finances. Teodora used her knowledge to grow the rice, corn, and sugarcane that sustained the family's well-to-do lifestyle. She also expanded the family business into the areas of textiles, flour, and sugar milling, refining these raw materials and selling the finished staples from a small store on the ground floor of the family home.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora had eleven children with Francisco. They are Saturnina, Paciano, Narcisa, Olympia, Lucia, Maria, José, Concepcion, Josefa, Trinidad and Soledad. All her children were sent to study in different colleges in Manila, but only Jose was sent to Europe – as he was inspired to study medicine, particularly ophthalmology, to help his mother due to her failing eyesight.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: José honored his mom in "Memoirs of a Student in Manila", writing, "After God, the mother is everything to man."


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: Teodora’s half-brother, Jose Alberto, wanted to divorce his wife, whom he alleged to be having an affair with another man. Teodora persuaded him to put up with her and preserve their marriage. Since then Jose Alberto went often to Calamba to seek advice from Teodora. This was learned by his wife who then suspected Jose Alberto and Teodora plotting something evil to her. Later Jose’s wife and an officer of the Guardia Civil (presumably the same one who was refused hgorse fodder) then accused Jose Alberto and Teodora of trying to poison Jose Alberto’s wife. Teodora was named as an accomplice. Jose Alberto, the main suspect. Quick like a bolt of lightning, Teodora was hauled to jail, by the mayor, Antonio Vivencio del Rosario, a known yes man of the friars. A judge who did not like the way he was treated at the Mercado-Rizal house, ordered that Teodora be imprisoned in Santa Cruz, the capital of the province. She was made to walk the distance, though usual travel was by boat. She was forbidden to use any vehicle, although her family was willing to pay for it and include her escorts for the ride. She was to suffer humiliation and hardship as prescribed by those her family had offended. On the first night of the journey to Santa Cruz, Teodora and his escorts came to village where there was a festival. Teodora was recognized and invited by one of the prominent families. The judge, upon learning that Teodora was honored in the village, was so enraged. He went to the house she visited. There was a guard there and the judge knocked and broke his cane on the poor man’s head then beat up the owner of the house. This obvious case of prejudice was reported by Teodora’s lawyers. The Supreme Court decided to set her free. The cruel judge respected the decision but then charged Teodora with contempt of court. To this, the Supreme Court was persuaded but since Teodora’s wait in prison was longer than the sentence, ordered her release. Then the lawyer of Jose Alberto charged Teodora with theft. There was rumor that Teodora borrowed money from his brother. The lawyer obviously was interested in recovering the money for himself. This case was heard but dismissed by the court. Teodora was coerced to make a plea of guilty of which she was promised a pardon, immediate freedom and reunion with her family. It as all for naught. Teodora finally regained freedom after two and a half years, as ordered by no less than the Governor General, who was charmed one fiesta day in Laguna by a daring little girl. So charmed was he that he asked the little girl what she would like him to give her. “My mother”, was the reply. The little girl was Soledad, Teodora’s youngest daughter. A quick inquiry, a quick decision, a new trial ended in Teodora’s acquittal.


title: Teodora Alonso Realonda

text: In August 1898, Narcisa got the body of her brother Rizal, and found out that the body was not even laid out in a coffin. Because of this, the government offered a lifetime pension as a token of gratitude, after Rizal was declared the national hero of the Philippines. Teodora even saw the declaration of the monument for Rizal a week before she died. Alonso died in her home in San Fernando Street, San Nicolas, Manila.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: The Russian men's national ice hockey team () is the national men's ice hockey team of Russia, overseen by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia. As of 2021, they were rated third in the IIHF World Ranking. The team has competed internationally from 1992 until a 2022 ban, and is recognized by the IIHF as the successor to the Soviet Union team and CIS team. Russia has been one of the most successful national ice hockey teams in the world and a member of the so-called "Big Six," the unofficial group of the six strongest men's ice hockey nations, along with Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. The European nations of the Big Six participate in the Euro Hockey Tour, which Russia won nine times since 2005. Since September 2021, the head coach is Alexei Zhamnov, who took over from Valeri Bragin.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Since the establishment of the team, Russia has participated in 29 IIHF World Championships tournaments and nine Olympic ice hockey tournaments, winning five world championships and one Olympic gold medal.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Ice Hockey Federation suspended Russia from all levels of competition on February 28, 2022. In April 2022, the Federation banned Russia from participating in the 2023 IIHF World Championship.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: The Allrussian Hockey League was founded by some clubs in the Russian Empire and entered the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) in 1911. However, probably due to misunderstandings ("hockey" was identified with bandy or Russian hockey in Russia, not with the modern ice hockey rules developed in Canada) the Russian team left the organization. There were no matches involving a team from Imperial Russia.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Interest in this sport grew in the Soviet Union in the 2nd half of the 1940s. The first reactions were skeptical; one sports journal, "Physical Culture and Sports", characterized it as such: "The game is quite individual and primitive, with few combinations, not as in bandy. Therefore, Canadian hockey should not be cultivated into our country..." However, Canadian hockey became more and more popular in the Soviet Union.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: The first Soviet Championships League was introduced in 1946. The national team was formed shortly after, playing their first matches in a series of exhibitions against LTC Praha in 1948. In 1952, the Hockey Federation of the USSR joined the International Ice Hockey League, and so received the permission to play in the World Championships and the Olympics. That year is seen as the birth of the Soviet national ice hockey team, the predecessor team of the Russia men's national ice hockey team. The Soviets won the 1954 Ice Hockey World Championships, and two years later they won gold at the 1956 Winter Olympics.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: From then until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the "Red Machine" (; "Krasnaya Mashina") was one of the most dominant teams in international play, winning nearly every World Championship and Olympic tournament, as well as defeating many teams with professional players, such as in the 1974 Summit Series, the Super Series, and the 1981 Canada Cup. Until 1977, professional players were not able to participate in the World Championship, and it was not until 1988 that they could play in the Winter Olympics. The Soviet team was populated with amateur players who were hired by Soviet enterprises (aircraft industry, food workers, tractor industry) or organizations (KGB, Red Army, Soviet Air Force) that sponsored what would be presented as an after-hours social sports society hockey team for their workers but were set-up for the athletes to train full-time. This type of amateur player was contested by Canada and the United States whose best players were participating in professional leagues.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: The Soviet Union dissolved shortly before the 1992 Winter Olympics, so a Unified Team largely consisting of the former Soviet republics competed instead. The CIS national ice hockey team, consisting of 21 Russian players, 1 Lithuanian and 1 Ukrainian, competed as part of this Olympic delegation. The team finished second in its preliminary group, beating co-favorites Canada, 5–4, but losing to Czechoslovakia, 3–4. The CIS team then defeated the Finns and Americans, 6–1 and 5–2, respectively. In the final, they played Canada again, winning 3–1 and claimed the gold medal. The team was coached by the Russian and former Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov. In later years, the IIHF recognized this gold medal as being won by the Russian national team, rather than by the CIS. However, the International Olympic Committee has not recognized Russia as the Olympic champions for this Winter Games.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Russia joined the IIHF as an independent state on 6 May 1992, along with 10 other states, including seven other former Soviet republics. Unlike the others, which applied as new member states and had to begin playing at the bottom tiers of the World Championship, Russia was allowed to replace the Soviet Union in its position and was thus entered into the elite division for the 1992 World Championship. Russia's first actual games after the Soviet dissolution were a series of five friendly games between Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, all taking place in April 1992, the debut game occurring on 12 April 1992 against Sweden and ending in a 2–2 draw. At the 1992 World Championship Russia finished first in its preliminary group but lost to Sweden in the quarterfinals, 2–0. They, however, won the next edition of the tournament, beating Germany, Canada, and Sweden in the playoffs and clinching their first title as Russia.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: As the USSR fell apart, so did Russia's elite hockey program. At the 1994 Winter Olympics they finished fourth overall, losing the bronze medal match to Finland. Russia also competed at the 1996 World Cup, the successor tournament to the Canada Cup, where the team lost in the semi-finals to the eventual winner, the United States. At the 1998 Winter Olympics, Russia won five consecutive games and reached the gold medal match, where they lost to the Czech Republic, 0–1.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: During the drought in 1994, Russian journalist Vsevolod Kukushkin reported that "The people are upset. Russia is a nation of critics." He said the Russian team was struggling with finances to support training, no funding was received from the national level, and professional teams in Russia were struggling to stay afloat. He also reported that the Russian people were upset at losing the nation's best players to the National Hockey League, and not playing on the Russian national team.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: After failing to win the gold medal between 1993 and 2007, the Russians restructured the national league as the KHL and hired the 1993 World Champion, Vyacheslav Bykov, as the head coach. Another 1993 champion, Sergey Fedorov, was named the team captain. Afterwards, Russia won the 2008 and 2009 World Ice Hockey Championships with perfect records, beating Canada in the finals two times in a row. The Russians would make another run in 2010, losing to the Czech Republic in the gold medal game. However, the disastrous 2010 Olympics and 2011 World Championships led to Bykov's removal.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Bykov was replaced with Bilyaletdinov, under whose leadership Russia won the 2012 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships with yet another perfect record, beating Slovakia, 6–2, in the gold medal game. However, as a result of the 2013 Championship and 2014 Olympic performances, Bilyaletdinov was replaced with Oleg Znarok.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Znarok then led the Russians to the gold medal in the 2014 World Ice Hockey Championship after defeating Finland 5–2 in the final, with a perfect record. The 2014 tournament result set the most perfect records in the IIHF World Championships. For this accomplishment, the Russian team was honored in the Kremlin.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Russia earned a medal in each subsequent tournament, including the silver medal in 2015 and the bronze medals in 2016 and 2017. The team also reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, losing to Canada, the eventual winner.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: In 2018, the Russian Olympic Committee was disqualified by the International Olympic Committee for doping, but the Russian players were cleared to participate by the IOC under the Olympic flag as the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) using professional Russian hockey players with no previous drug violations and a consistent history of drug testing. Like the rest of the Olympic hockey teams in 2018, the Russian team could not use NHL players due to the league's prohibiting player participation in the Olympics. As a result, the team relied on players from the KHL (15 from a reigning champion, SKA Saint Petersburg, 8 from CSKA Moscow and 2 from Metallurg Magnitogorsk).


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: After a loss in their first game to Slovakia, the OAR team defeated Slovenia and the United States, qualifying for the quarterfinals. The team then defeated Norway and the Czech Republic to reach the finals. The team won the gold medal after a 4–3 overtime victory over the German team in the final. Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk each won their first gold in their fifth Olympic appearance and together with Slava Voynov, were the only players with prior Olympic experience on the team. In its post-Olympics World Ranking, the IIHF considered the OAR team as the Russian team in its rankings. The IIHF considers this victory to be Russia's second gold medal in the Olympics, as they also attributed the 1992 Unified Team gold medal to Russia, however, the IOC does not attribute either of these results to Russia.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: After the Olympics, Znarok became a consultant for the Russian National Team. He retired as Russia's most decorated modern head coach, with a World Championship, an Olympic gold medal, and a Euro Hockey Tour victory.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Ilya Vorobiev was hired as the interim head coach of the Russian national hockey team in April 2018 for the 2018 IIHF World Championship and the second half of 2017–18 Euro Hockey Tour. In the remainder of Euro Hockey Tour, Vorobiev led the Russian team to a 1–5 record, following the 5–1 record of the Znarok-led team in the first half of 2017–18 Euro Hockey Tour, for the team to finish 6–6 on the season. At the 2018 World Championship, Russia finished second in its group and lost to Canada 4–5 in the quarterfinal, finishing sixth overall.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Next season, Russia went 8–4 in the 2018–19 Euro Hockey Tour, winning the competition and went all the way to the semi-final at the 2019 World Championship, where it lost to Finland before beating the Czech Republic for the bronze. Following the World Championship, Vorobiev was dismissed and replaced with Alexei Kudashov.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Kudashov went 3–6 at the 2019–20 Euro Hockey Tour before the 2020 IIHF World Championship was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kudashov was sacked in June 2020 and replaced with Valeri Bragin, a coach of the Russia men's U20 team.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Bragin proceeded to win the 2020–21 Euro Hockey Tour with a 10–2 record. At the 2021 IIHF World Championship, Russia went 6–1 in the group stage but then lost in the quarter-finals to Canada, which finished with a 3–4 record in the group stage but went on to win the tournament. Bragin was replaced by Alexei Zhamnov in September 2021.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: With Zhamnov the Russian national team participated at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing (under the Russian Olympic Committee flag and the moniker ROC), where they reached the second Olympic final in a row, losing to Finland 1–2 and winning silver medals.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Ice Hockey Federation suspended Russia from all levels of competition. In April 2022, the Federation banned Russia from participating in the 2023 IIHF World Championship.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: Despite the ban, the team will participate in the 2023 Channel One Cup, alongside Kazakhstan and Belarus.


title: Russia men's national ice hockey team

text: The Euro Hockey Tour (EHT) started in 1996 and is held every season between the quartet of European nations of the Big Six nations of ice hockey. The usual format is to have the teams play against each other four times, once in Finland, once in Russia, once in Sweden, and once in the Czech Republic. There are occasional deviations from the format if additional nations, such as Canada, are invited to compete. Russia has won the EHT nine times .


title: Solid South

text: The Solid South or Southern bloc was the electoral voting bloc of the states of the Southern United States for issues that were regarded as particularly important to the interests of Democrats in those states. The Southern bloc existed especially between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party overwhelmingly controlled southern state legislatures, and most local, state and federal officeholders in the South were Democrats. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Southern Democrats disenfranchised blacks in all Southern states, along with a few non-Southern states doing the same as well. This resulted essentially in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting in primaries.


title: Solid South

text: The "Solid South" is a loose term referring to the states that made up the voting bloc at any point in time. The Southern region as defined by U.S. Census comprises sixteen states plus Washington, D.C.—Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The idea of the Solid South shifted over time and did not always necessarily correspond to the census definition. After Reconstruction, all the former slave states were dominated by the Democratic Party for at least two decades. Delaware, the least secessionist slave state, was considered a reliable state for the Democratic Party, as was Missouri, classified as a Midwestern state by the U.S. Census. From the early part of the 20th century on, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and West Virginia ceased to be reliably Democratic (although West Virginia once again became a reliably Democratic state with the New Deal era).


title: Solid South

text: At the start of the American Civil War, there were 34 states in the United States, 15 of which were slave states. Slavery was also legal in the District of Columbia. Eleven of these slave states seceded from the United States to form the Confederacy: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The slave states that stayed in the Union were Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky, and they were referred to as the border states. In 1861, West Virginia was created out of Virginia, and admitted in 1863 and considered a border state. By the time the Emancipation Proclamation was made in 1863, Tennessee was already under Union control. Accordingly, the Proclamation applied only to the 10 remaining Confederate states. Several of the border states abolished slavery before the end of the Civil War—Maryland in 1864, Missouri in 1865, one of the Confederate states, Tennessee in 1865, West Virginia in 1865, and the District of Columbia in 1862. However, slavery persisted in Delaware, Kentucky, and 10 of the 11 former Confederate states, until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery throughout the United States on December 18, 1865.


title: Solid South

text: Democratic dominance of the South originated in the struggle of white Southerners during and after Reconstruction (1865–1877) to reestablish white supremacy and disenfranchise black people. The U.S. government under the Republican Party had defeated the Confederacy, abolished slavery, and enfranchised black people. In several states, black voters were a majority or close to it. Republicans supported by black people controlled state governments in these states. Thus the Democratic Party became the vehicle for the white supremacist "Redeemers". The Ku Klux Klan, as well as other insurgent paramilitary groups such as the White League and Red Shirts from 1874, acted as "the military arm of the Democratic party" to disrupt Republican organizing, and intimidate and suppress black voters.


title: Solid South

text: By 1876, "Redeemer" Democrats had taken control of all state governments in the South. From then until the 1960s, state and local government in the South was almost entirely monopolized by Democrats. The Democrats elected all but a handful of U.S. Representatives and Senators, and Democratic presidential candidates regularly swept the region – from 1880 through 1944, winning a cumulative total of 182 of 187 states. The Democrats reinforced the loyalty of white voters by emphasizing the suffering of the South during the war at the hands of "Yankee invaders" under Republican leadership, and the noble service of their white forefathers in "the Lost Cause". This rhetoric was effective with many Southerners. However, this propaganda was totally ineffective in areas that had been loyal to the Union during the war, such as eastern Tennessee. Most of East Tennessee welcomed U.S. troops as liberators, and voted Republican even in the Solid South period.


title: Solid South

text: Even after white Democrats regained control of state legislatures, some black candidates were elected to local offices and state legislatures in the South. Black U.S. Representatives were elected from the South as late as the 1890s, usually from overwhelmingly black areas. Also in the 1890s, the Populists developed a following in the South, among poor white people who resented the Democratic Party establishment. Populists formed alliances with Republicans (including black Republicans) and challenged the Democratic bosses, even defeating them in some cases.


title: Solid South

text: To prevent such coalitions in the future and to end the violence associated with suppressing the black vote during elections, Southern Democrats acted to disfranchise both black people and poor white people. From 1890 to 1910, beginning with Mississippi, Southern states adopted new constitutions and other laws including various devices to restrict voter registration, disfranchising virtually all black and many poor white residents. These devices applied to all citizens; in practice they disfranchised most black citizens and also "would remove [from voter registration rolls] the less educated, less organized, more impoverished whites as well – and that would ensure one-party Democratic rules through most of the 20th century in the South". All the Southern states adopted provisions that restricted voter registration and suffrage, including new requirements for poll taxes, longer residency, and subjective literacy tests. Some also used the device of grandfather clauses, exempting voters who had a grandfather voting by a particular year (usually before the Civil War, when black people could not vote.)


title: Solid South

text: White Democrats also opposed Republican economic policies such as the high tariff and the gold standard, both of which were seen as benefiting Northern industrial interests at the expense of the agrarian South in the 19th century. Nevertheless, holding all political power was at the heart of their resistance. From 1876 through 1944, the national Democratic party opposed any calls for civil rights for black people. In Congress Southern Democrats blocked such efforts whenever Republicans targeted the issue.


title: Solid South

text: White Democrats passed "Jim Crow" laws which reinforced white supremacy through racial segregation. The Fourteenth Amendment provided for apportionment of representation in Congress to be reduced if a state disenfranchised part of its population. However, this clause was never applied to Southern states that disenfranchised black residents. No black candidate was elected to any office in the South for decades after the turn of the century; and they were also excluded from juries and other participation in civil life.


title: Solid South

text: Democratic candidates won by large margins in a majority of Southern states in every presidential election from 1876 to 1948, except for 1928, when the Democratic candidate was Al Smith, a Catholic New Yorker; and even in that election, the divided South provided Smith with nearly three-fourths of his electoral votes. Scholar Richard Valelly credited Woodrow Wilson's 1912 election to the disfranchisement of black people in the South, and also noted far-reaching effects in Congress, where the Democratic South gained "about 25 extra seats in Congress for each decade between 1903 and 1953".


title: Solid South

text: In the Deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana), Democratic dominance was overwhelming, with Democrats routinely receiving 80%–90% of the vote, and only a tiny number of Republicans holding state legislative seats or local offices. Mississippi and South Carolina were the most extreme cases – between 1900 and 1944, only in 1928, when the three subcoastal Mississippi counties of Pearl River, Stone and George went for Hoover, did the Democrats lose even one of these two states' counties in any presidential election. In the remaining states, the German-American Texas counties of Gillespie and Kendall, and a number of counties in Appalachian parts of Alabama and Georgia, would vote Republican in presidential elections through this period. In the Upper South (Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Virginia), Republicans retained a significant presence mainly in these remote Appalachian and Ozark regions which supported the Union during the Civil War, even winning occasional governorships and often drawing over 40% in presidential votes.


title: Solid South

text: By the 1920s, as memories of the Civil War faded, the Solid South cracked slightly. For instance, a Republican was elected U.S. Representative from Texas in 1920, serving until 1932. The Republican national landslides in 1920 and 1928 had some effects. In the 1920 elections, Tennessee elected a Republican governor and five out of 10 Republican U.S. Representatives, and became the first former Confederate state to vote for a Republican candidate for U.S. President since Reconstruction. However, with the Democratic national landslide of 1932, the South again became solidly Democratic.


title: Solid South

text: In the 1930s, black voters outside the South largely switched to the Democrats, and other groups with an interest in civil rights (notably Jews, Catholics, and academic intellectuals) became more powerful in the party. This led to the national Democrats adopting a civil rights plank in 1948. In response, a faction of Deep South Democrats ran their own segregationist "Dixiecrat" presidential ticket, which carried four states: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Even before then, a number of conservative Southern Democrats felt chagrin at the national party's growing friendliness to organized labor during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and began splitting their tickets as early as the 1930s.


title: Solid South

text: Southern demography also began to change. From 1910 through 1970, about 6.5 million black Southerners moved to urban areas in other parts of the country in the Great Migration, and demographics began to change Southern states in other ways. Florida began to expand rapidly, with retirees and other migrants from other regions becoming a majority of the population. Many of these new residents brought their Republican voting habits with them, diluting traditional Southern hostility to the Republicans. The Republican Party began to make gains in the South, building on other cultural conflicts as well. By the mid-1960s, changes had come in many of the southern states. Former Dixiecrat Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina changed parties in 1964; Texas elected a Republican Senator in 1961; Florida and Arkansas elected Republican governors in 1966. In the Upper South, where Republicans had always been a small presence, Republicans gained a few seats in the House and Senate.


title: Solid South

text: Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the South was still overwhelmingly Democratic at the state level, with majorities in all state legislatures and most U.S. House delegations. Over the next thirty years, this gradually changed. Veteran Democratic officeholders retired or died, and older voters who were still rigidly Democratic also died off. There were also increasing numbers of migrants from other areas, especially in Florida, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. As part of the Republican Revolution in the 1994 elections, Republicans captured a majority of the U.S. House's southern seats for the first time. As of 2021, they account for a majority of each Southern state's House delegation apart from Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.


title: Solid South

text: Following the 2016 elections, when Republicans won the Kentucky House of Representatives, every state legislative chamber in the South had a Republican majority for the first time ever. This would remain the case until Democrats regained both Houses of the Virginia Legislature in 2019.


title: Solid South

text: Today, the South is considered a Republican stronghold at the state and federal levels. Some political experts identify a re-Southernization of politics and culture in the Clinton presidency coinciding with House and Senate leading positions held by southerners.


title: Solid South

text: For West Virginia, "reconstruction, in a sense, began in 1861". Unlike the other border states, West Virginia did not send the majority of its soldiers to the Union. The prospect of those returning ex-Confederates prompted the Wheeling state government to implement laws that restricted their right of suffrage, practicing law and teaching, access to the legal system, and subjected them to "war trespass" lawsuits. The lifting of these restrictions in 1871 resulted in the election of John J. Jacob, a Democrat, to the governorship. It also led to the rejection of the war-time constitution by public vote and a new constitution written under the leadership of ex-Confederates such as Samuel Price, Allen T. Caperton and Charles James Faulkner. In 1876 the state Democratic ticket of eight candidates were all elected, seven of whom were Confederate veterans. For nearly a generation West Virginia was part of the Solid South.


title: Solid South

text: However, Republicans returned to power in 1896, controlling the governorship for eight of the next nine terms, and electing 82 of 106 U.S. Representatives. In 1932, as the nation swung to the Democrats, West Virginia became solidly Democratic. It was perhaps the most reliably Democratic state in the nation between 1932 and 1996, being one of just two states (along with Minnesota) to vote for a Republican president as few as three times in that interval. Moreover, unlike Minnesota (or other nearly as reliably Democratic states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island), it usually had a unanimous (or nearly unanimous) congressional delegation and only elected two Republicans as Governor (albeit for a combined 20 years between them). West Virginian voters shifted toward the Republican Party from 2000 onward, as the Democratic Party became more strongly identified with environmental policies anathema to the state's coal industry and with socially liberal policies, and it can now be called a solidly red state.


title: Solid South

text: The 1896 election resulted in the first break in the Solid South. Florida politician Marion L. Dawson, writing in the "North American Review", observed: "The victorious party not only held in line those States which are usually relied upon to give Republican majorities ... More significant still, it invaded the Solid South, and bore off West Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky; caused North Carolina to tremble in the balance and reduced Democratic majorities in the following States: Alabama, 39,000; Arkansas, 29,000; Florida, 6,000; Georgia, 49,000; Louisiana, 33,000; South Carolina, 6,000; and Texas, 29,000. These facts, taken together with the great landslide of 1894 and 1895, which swept Missouri and Tennessee, Maryland and Kentucky over into the country of the enemy, have caused Southern statesmen to seriously consider whether the so-called Solid South is not now a thing of past history".


title: Solid South

text: In the 1904 election, Missouri supported Republican Theodore Roosevelt, while Maryland awarded its electors to Democrat Alton Parker, despite Roosevelt's winning by 51 votes.


title: Solid South

text: By the 1916 election, disfranchisement of blacks and many poor whites was complete, and voter rolls had dropped dramatically in the South. Closing out Republican supporters gave a bump to Woodrow Wilson, who took all the electors across the South (apart from Delaware and West Virginia), as the Republican Party was stifled without support by African Americans.


title: Solid South

text: The 1920 election was a referendum on President Wilson's League of Nations. Pro-isolation sentiment in the South benefited Republican Warren G. Harding, who won Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Maryland. In 1924, Republican Calvin Coolidge won Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland; and in 1928, Herbert Hoover, perhaps benefiting from bias against his Democratic opponent Al Smith (who was a Roman Catholic and opposed Prohibition), won not only those Southern states that had been carried by either Harding or Coolidge (Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Maryland), but also won Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, none of which had voted Republican since Reconstruction. He furthermore came within 2.5% of carrying the Deep South state of Alabama. (All of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover carried the two Southern states that had supported Hughes in 1916, West Virginia and Delaware.)


title: Solid South

text: Al Smith had received serious backlash as a Catholic in the largely Protestant South in 1928, losing several states in the Outer South, only managing to hold Arkansas outside the Deep South. Smith had also nearly lost Alabama, which he held by 3%, which had Hoover won, would have physically split the Solid South.


title: Solid South

text: The South appeared "solid" again during the period of Roosevelt's political dominance, as his welfare programs and military buildup invested considerable money in the South, benefiting many of its citizens, including during the Dust Bowl.


title: Solid South

text: Democratic President Harry S. Truman's support of the civil rights movement, combined with the adoption of a civil rights plank in the 1948 Democratic platform, prompted many Southerners to walk out of the Democratic National Convention and form the Dixiecrat Party. This splinter party played a significant role in the 1948 election; the Dixiecrat candidate, Strom Thurmond, carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and his native South Carolina.


title: Solid South

text: In the elections of 1952 and 1956, the popular Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Allied armed forces during World War II, carried several Southern states, with especially strong showings in the new suburbs. Most of the Southern states he carried had voted for at least one of the Republican winners in the 1920s, but in 1956, Eisenhower carried Louisiana, becoming the first Republican to win the state since Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. The rest of the Deep South voted for his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson.


title: Solid South

text: In the 1960 election, the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy, continued his party's tradition of selecting a Southerner as the vice presidential candidate (in this case, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas). Kennedy and Johnson, however, both supported civil rights. In October 1960, when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested at a peaceful sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia, Kennedy placed a sympathetic phone call to King's wife, Coretta Scott King, and Kennedy's brother Robert F. Kennedy helped secure King's release. King expressed his appreciation for these calls. Although King made no endorsement, his father, who had previously endorsed Republican Richard Nixon, switched his support to Kennedy.


title: Solid South

text: Because of these and other events, the Democrats lost ground with white voters in the South, as those same voters increasingly lost control over what was once a whites-only Democratic Party in much of the South. The 1960 election was the first in which a Republican presidential candidate received electoral votes from the former Confederacy while losing nationally. Nixon carried Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida. Though the Democrats also won Alabama and Mississippi, slates of unpledged electors, representing Democratic segregationists, awarded those states' electoral votes to Harry Byrd, rather than Kennedy.


title: Solid South

text: The parties' positions on civil rights continued to evolve in the run up to the 1964 election. The Democratic candidate, Johnson, who had become president after Kennedy's assassination, spared no effort to win passage of a strong Civil Rights Act of 1964. After signing the landmark legislation, Johnson said to his aide, Bill Moyers: "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come." In contrast, Johnson's Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, voted against the Civil Rights Act, believing it enhanced the federal government and infringed on the private property rights of businessmen. Goldwater did support civil rights in general and universal suffrage, and voted for the 1957 Civil Rights Act (though casting no vote on the 1960 Civil Rights Act), as well as voting for the 24th Amendment, which banned poll taxes as a requirement for voting. This was one of the devices that states used to disfranchise African Americans and the poor.


title: Solid South

text: That November, Johnson won a landslide electoral victory, and the Republicans suffered significant losses in Congress. Goldwater, however, besides carrying his home state of Arizona, carried the Deep South: voters in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina had switched parties for the first time since Reconstruction. Goldwater notably won only in Southern states that had voted against Republican Richard Nixon in 1960, while not winning a single Southern state which Nixon had carried. Previous Republican inroads in the South had been concentrated on high-growth suburban areas, often with many transplants, as well as on the periphery of the South.


title: Solid South

text: According to a quantitative analysis for the National Bureau of Economic Research, racism played a central role in the decline in relative white Southern Democratic identification.


title: Solid South

text: In the 1968 election, Richard Nixon saw the cracks in the Solid South as an opportunity to tap into a group of voters who had historically been beyond the reach of the Republican Party. With the aid of Harry Dent and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched to the Republican Party in 1964, Nixon ran his 1968 campaign on states' rights and "law and order". As a key component of this strategy, he selected as his running mate Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew. Liberal Northern Democrats accused Nixon of pandering to Southern whites, especially with regard to his "states' rights" and "law and order" positions, which were widely understood by black leaders to legitimize the status quo of Southern states' discrimination. This tactic was described in 2007 by David Greenberg in "Slate" as "dog-whistle politics". According to an article in "The American Conservative", Nixon adviser and speechwriter Pat Buchanan disputed this characterization.


title: Solid South

text: The independent candidacy of George Wallace, former Democratic governor of Alabama, partially negated Nixon's Southern Strategy. With a much more explicit attack on integration and black civil rights, Wallace won all but two of Goldwater's states (the exceptions being South Carolina and Arizona) as well as Arkansas and one of North Carolina's electoral votes. Nixon picked up Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, and Delaware. The Democrat, Hubert Humphrey, won Texas, heavily unionized West Virginia, and heavily urbanized Maryland. Writer Jeffrey Hart, who worked on the Nixon campaign as a speechwriter, said in 2006 that Nixon did not have a "Southern Strategy", but "Border State Strategy" as he said that the 1968 campaign ceded the Deep South to George Wallace. Hart suggested that the press called it a "Southern Strategy" as they are "very lazy".


title: Solid South

text: The 1968 election had been the first election in which both the Upper South and Deep South bolted from the Democratic party simultaneously. The Upper South had backed Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, as well as Nixon in 1960. The Deep South had backed Goldwater just four years prior. Despite the two regions of the South still backing different candidates, Wallace in the Deep South and Nixon in the Upper South, only Texas, Maryland, and West Virginia had held up against the majority Nixon-Wallace vote for Humphrey. By 1972, Nixon had swept the South altogether, Outer and Deep South alike, marking the first time in American history a Republican won every Southern state.


title: Solid South

text: At the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor, gave Democrats a short-lived comeback in the South, winning every state in the old Confederacy except for Virginia, which was narrowly lost. However, in his unsuccessful 1980 re-election bid, the only Southern states he won were his native state of Georgia, West Virginia, and Maryland. The year 1976 was the last year a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of Southern electoral votes. The Republicans took all the region's electoral votes in the 1984 election and every state except West Virginia in 1988.


title: Solid South

text: In the 1992 election and 1996, when the Democratic ticket consisted of two Southerners, (Bill Clinton and Al Gore), the Democrats and Republicans split the region. In both elections, Clinton won Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, while the Republican won Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Oklahoma. Bill Clinton won Georgia in 1992, but lost it in 1996 to Bob Dole. Conversely, Clinton lost Florida in 1992 to George Bush, but won it in 1996.


title: Solid South

text: In 2000, however, Gore received no electoral votes from the South, even from his home state of Tennessee, apart from heavily urbanized and uncontested Maryland and Delaware. The popular vote in Florida was extraordinarily close in awarding the state's electoral votes to George W. Bush. This pattern continued in the 2004 election; the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards received no electoral votes from the South apart from Maryland and Delaware, even though Edwards was from North Carolina, and was born in South Carolina. However, in the 2008 election, as many areas in the South became more urbanized, liberal, and demographically diverse, Barack Obama won the former Republican strongholds of Virginia and North Carolina as well as Florida; Obama won Virginia and Florida again in 2012 and lost North Carolina by only 2.04 percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won only Virginia while narrowly losing Florida and North Carolina. And in 2020, Joe Biden won Virginia, a growing stronghold for Democrats, narrowly won Georgia, in large part due to the rapidly growing Atlanta metropolitan area, while narrowly losing Florida and North Carolina.


title: Solid South

text: While the South was shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans, the Northeastern United States went the other way. The Northeastern United States is defined by the US Census Bureau as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and the New England States. Well into the 1980s, much of the Northeast--in particular the heavily suburbanized states of New Jersey and Connecticut, and the rural states of northern New England--were strongholds of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party made steady gains there, however, and from 1992 through 2012, all nine Northeastern states, from New Jersey to Maine, voted Democratic, with the exception of New Hampshire's plurality for George W. Bush in 2000.


title: Solid South

text: Although Republicans gradually began doing better in presidential elections in the South starting in 1952, Republicans did not finish taking over Southern politics at the nonpresidential level until the elections of November 2010. Today, the South is dominated by Republicans at both the state and presidential level. Republicans now control 21 of the 22 legislative bodies in the former Confederacy, the sole exception being the Virginia Senate. Between the defeats of Georgia Representative John Barrow, Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu in 2014 and the election of Alabama Senator Doug Jones in 2017, there were no white Democratic members of Congress from the states that voted for George Wallace in 1968. Until November 2010, Democrats had a majority in the Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana Legislatures, a majority in the Kentucky House of Representatives and Virginia Senate, a near majority of the Tennessee House of Representatives, and a majority of the U.S. House delegations from Arkansas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as near-even splits of the Georgia and Alabama U.S. House delegations.


title: Solid South

text: However, during the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans swept the South, successfully reelecting every Senate incumbent, electing freshmen Marco Rubio in Florida and Rand Paul in Kentucky, and defeating Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas for a seat now held by John Boozman. In the House, Republicans reelected every incumbent except for Joseph Cao of New Orleans, defeated several Democratic incumbents, and gained a number of Democratic-held open seats. They won the majority in the congressional delegations of every Southern state. Every Solid South state, with the exceptions of Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia, also elected or reelected Republicans governors. Most significantly, Republicans took control of both houses of the Alabama and North Carolina State Legislatures for the first time since Reconstruction, with Mississippi and Louisiana flipping a year later during their off-year elections. Even in Arkansas, the GOP won three of six statewide down-ballot positions for which they had often not fielded candidates until recently; they also went from eight to 15 out of 35 seats in the State Senate and from 28 to 45 out of 100 in the State House of Representatives. In 2012, the Republicans finally took control of the Arkansas State Legislature and the North Carolina Governorship, leaving West Virginia as the last Solid South state with the Democrats still in control of the state legislature, as well as the governorship. In 2014, though, both houses of the West Virginia legislature were finally taken by the GOP, and most other legislative chambers in the South up for election that year saw increased GOP gains. Arkansas' governorship finally flipped GOP in 2014 when incumbent Mike Beebe was term-limited, as did every other statewide office not previously held by the Republicans. Many analysts believe the so-called "Southern Strategy" that has been employed by Republicans since the 1960s is now virtually complete, with Republicans in firm, almost total, control of political offices in the South. However, the Louisiana governorship was won by John Bel Edwards in 2015, and Jim Hood won a fourth term as Mississippi Attorney General the same year, making them the only Southern Democratic statewide executive officials. Hood retired in 2019 to mount an unsuccessful run for Governor of Mississippi, and was succeeded by Republican Lynn Fitch, while Edwards was reelected as Governor of Louisiana.


title: Solid South

text: The biggest exception to this trend has been the state of Virginia. It got an earlier start in the trend towards the Republican Party than the rest of the region. It voted Republican for president in 13 of the 14 elections between 1952 and 2004, while no other Southern state did so more than nine times (that state, Florida, is the other potential exception to the trend, but to a significantly lesser extent). Moreover, it had a Republican Governor more often than not between 1970 and 2002, and Republicans held at least half the seats in the Virginia congressional delegation from 1968 to 1990 (although the Democrats had a narrow minority throughout the 1990s), while with single-term exceptions (Alabama from 1965–1967, Tennessee from 1973–1975, and South Carolina from 1981–1983) and the exception of Florida (which had its delegation turn majority-Republican in 1989) Democrats held at least half the seats in the delegations of the rest of the Southern states until the Republican Revolution of 1994. However, thanks in large part to massive population growth in Northern Virginia and the orientation of that population with the political ideologies of the solidly Democratic Northeast, the Democratic Party has won most statewide races since 2005, and, in the 2020 presidential election, carried the state by a double digit margin for the first time since 1944..


title: Solid South

text: While Republicans occasionally won southern states in elections in which they won the presidency in the Solid South, it was not until 1960 that a Republican carried one of these states while losing the national election. As such, these states remained a key component of the Democratic coalition until that election.


title: Solid South

text: Officials who acted as governor for less than ninety days are excluded from this chart. This chart is intended to be a visual exposition of party strength in the solid south and the dates listed are not exactly precise. Governors not elected in their own right are listed in italics.


title: Luminescence

text: Luminescence is spontaneous emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; or "cold light".


title: Luminescence

text: It is thus a form of cold-body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions or stress on a crystal. This distinguishes luminescence from incandescence, which is light emitted by a substance as a result of heating. Historically, radioactivity was thought of as a form of "radio-luminescence", although it is today considered to be separate since it involves more than electromagnetic radiation.


title: Luminescence

text: The dials, hands, scales, and signs of aviation and navigational instruments and markings are often coated with luminescent materials in a process known as "luminising".


title: Luminescence

text: Luminescence occurs in some minerals when they are exposed to low-powered sources of ultraviolet or infrared electromagnetic radiation (for example, portable UV lamps), at atmospheric pressure and atmospheric temperatures. This property of these minerals can be used during the process of mineral identification at rock outcrops in the field, or in the laboratory.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: The Owners is a 2020 horror thriller film adapted from the graphic novel "Une nuit de pleine lune" by Hermann and Yves H. Directed and co-written by Julius Berg in his feature film directorial debut, the film stars Maisie Williams, Sylvester McCoy, Rita Tushingham, Jake Curran, Ian Kenny and Andrew Ellis.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: An international co-production of the United States, United Kingdom, and France, "The Owners" was released in the US on September 4, 2020, by RLJE Films.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: Gaz, Nathan, and Terry have decided to break into the home of Dr. Richard Huggins and his wife Ellen, as it's in the countryside and is said to have a very large safe full of cash. Nathan's girlfriend Mary complicates matters when she arrives to retrieve her car to go to work, but she is persuaded to come along. She enters the house after the boys fail to access the safe, as she had been waiting for a long while.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: Once inside, she tells Nathan that she's pregnant. When the Hugginses return, the boys tie the couple up and try to threaten them into opening the safe. In the process Richard recognizes Nathan and Terry from when they were children, causing Nathan to become reluctant to continue the theft. In an attempt to take control Gaz picks a fight with Nathan and stabs him. He then tries to hurt Ellen, only for Mary to kill him with a sledgehammer. As she and Terry untie the couple, Ellen seems to recognize Mary.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: Richard tricks Terry and Mary by offering to operate on Nathan and pretending to call for an ambulance. Ellen then secretly drugs Terry, who hallucinates Mary's twin sister Jane, who went missing a few months back and is presumed to have run away. Mary realizes that they've been tricked. Richard tries to persuade her and Terry to drink tea with them, during which they discuss the untimely death of the couple's daughter, Kate, years prior, as well as the mysterious disappearances of numerous teenage girls in the area. Now aware of the danger the couple poses, Mary tries unsuccessfully to escape. She and Terry make it to the garage, only for Terry to shoot Mary in the back.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: As she bleeds out, Richard taunts Mary about her impending death, despite acknowledging that she saved him and his wife from Gaz. He also tells her that he and his wife have kidnapped and imprisoned several girls in their safe, which is actually a vault where they would dress them up as little girls and call them "Kate". It's insinuated that the girls who didn't work out were killed and disposed of. The most recent girl they kidnapped, however, did fit the role. And when Richard opens the vault it's revealed that Mary's sister, Jane, is inside. Mary finally succumbs to blood loss, with the last thing she sees being her long lost sister in chains. As a reward for helping them, the Hugginses imprison Terry inside the vault with Jane.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: The film ends with Terry's mother discussing her son's disappearance with the Hugginses, unaware of the couple's involvement and the presence of Mary's freshly buried corpse in the garden, presumably alongside Gaz and Nathan.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: In February 2019, it was announced that Maisie Williams had been cast for the film. In May 2019, Jake Curran, Ian Kenny, Andrew Ellis, Sylvester McCoy, Rita Tushingham and Stacha Hicks joined the cast.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: Principal photography began in May 2019. Filming took place in an isolated Victorian mansion in Kent, near London.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: Director and co-writer Julius Berg, speaking of the film's themes, stated that, "in a way, it's a bit of an anti-capitalist movie. When you're poor you have less of a chance to survive."


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: In April 2020, RLJE Films acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released in the United States on September 4, 2020.


title: The Owners (2020 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: ""The Owners" will prove excessively mean-spirited and over the top for some, but should be just pulpy enough for genre enthusiasts up for some home-invasion thrillers." Metacritic reports a score of 53 out of 100 based on four critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Mark Villar

text: Mark Aguilar Villar (, born August 14, 1978) is a Filipino politician and businessman serving as a Senator since 2022. He served in President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet as the Secretary of Public Works and Highways from 2016 to 2021, and was the COVID-19 pandemic isolation czar from 2020 to 2021. A member of the Nacionalista Party, he was the Representative of Las Piñas from 2010 to 2016. Villar has also previously held executive positions in his family's businesses.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar hails from a political dynasty based in Las Piñas. His mother, Cynthia, is his colleague in the Senate, while his father, Manny, is a billionaire businessman and former Senate President. His sister, Camille, is a congresswoman, and his wife Emmeline is also a politician.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar was born on August 14, 1978, to businesspersons Manny Villar and Cynthia Villar. He is the second of three children, with an older brother, Manuel Paolo, and younger sister, Camille Lydia. He attended the International School Manila in Makati, Metro Manila before moving to the United States to pursue higher education. He earned his bachelor's degree in Economics, Political Science and Philosophy from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also finished his master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.


title: Mark Villar

text: On his return to the Philippines, he worked for 10 years in the family's real estate business. He was President of Crown Asia Corporation before becoming managing director of Vista Land & Lifescapes.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar was first elected to public office in 2010 as congressman of the lone district of Las Piñas, succeeding his mother, Cynthia Villar, a three-term representative who later became senator. During his term, he served as Chairman of the House Committee on Trade and Industry, as well as Vice Chairman of the House Committees on Overseas Workers Affairs, Labor and Employment, and Science and Technology.


title: Mark Villar

text: As a member of the 15th and 16th Congress, he authored several bills on education, health and livelihood, including the Negosyo Act promoting micro finance and the Lemon Law protecting buyers of motor vehicles. He was also one of the proponents of the Co-Loading Act which opened domestic transport and shipping to foreign vessels.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar ran for a third term during the 2016 elections and won. A special election was supposed to be held to replace Villar who joined the Cabinet of President Rodrigo Duterte as Secretary of Public Works and Highways on August 1, 2016. Pending the special election to be held in Las Piñas to fill in Villar's seat in the lower house, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has designated his wife, Emmeline Aglipay-Villar, as interim representative. Aglipay-Villar later became an undersecretary of the Department of Justice and was part of the team that reviewed the water concession agreements of Maynilad Water Services and Manila Water. However, the special election was never held up to the end of the 17th Congress.


title: Mark Villar

text: During his time as secretary, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) completed a total of of roads, 5,950 bridges, 11,340 flood control projects, 222 evacuation centers, 133 Tatag ng Imprastraktura Para sa Kapayapaan at Seguridad (Tikas) projects, and 150,149 classrooms, while generating 6.5 million jobs. These projects were also part of the Build! Build! Build! program of the Duterte administration. The department faced controversy when Senator Panfilo Lacson flagged worth of DPWH infrastructure projects that had already been financed by the government for implementation in 2020 but were funded again for 2021. Duterte defended Villar for not being involved in the issue, saying that he is already rich. Villar formed a task force that led to relieving 14 personnel due to corruption.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar resigned as Secretary of Public Works and Highways effective October 6, 2021. On the same day, he filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) to run for senator in 2022. His candidacy is endorsed by President Duterte. He was named to the senatorial slate of UniTeam Alliance, having been endorsed by the tandem of Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte. He won in his first senatorial bid, ranking 6th out of the 12 winning senatorial bets with more than 19 million votes. He and his mother Cynthia Villar became the first mother-and-son tandem as incumbent senators since Loi Ejercito and Jinggoy Estrada in the 13th Congress (2004–2007). Villar was elected as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies and the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship.


title: Mark Villar

text: Villar is married to a fellow lawmaker, Emmeline Yan Aglipay, daughter of Edgar Aglipay and former Department of Justice Undersecretary whom he met during the 15th Congress. They have a daughter, Emma Therese.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Twelver Shīʿīsm (; '), also known as Imāmīyyah"' (), is the largest branch of Shīʿa Islam, comprising about 85 percent of all Shīʿa Muslims. The term "Twelver" refers to its adherents' belief in twelve divinely ordained leaders, known as the Twelve Imams, and their belief that the last Imam, Imam al-Mahdi, lives in Occultation and will reappear as "The promised Mahdi" (). According to the Shīʿa tradition, the Mahdi's tenure will coincide with the Second Coming of Jesus (ʿĪsā), who, along with Mahdi, would kill the Dajjal.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Twelvers believe that the Twelve Imams are the spiritual and political successors to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to the theology of Twelvers, the Twelve Imams are exemplary human individuals who not only rule over the Muslim community ("Ummah") with justice, but are also able to preserve and interpret the Islamic law ("sharīʿa") and the esoteric meaning of the Quran. The words and deeds ("sunnah") of Muhammad and the Imams are a guide and model for the Muslim community to follow; as a result, Muhammad and the Imams must be free from error and sin, a doctrine known as "Ismah" or infallibility, and must be chosen by divine decree, or "nass", through Muhammad.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: There are approximately 150 million to 200 million Twelvers in the world today, making the majority of the total populations of Iran, Iraq, and Azerbaijan. Twelvers represent a sizable minority in Bahrain, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Nigeria, Chad, and Tanzania. Iran is the only country where Twelver Shi'ism is the state religion.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Twelvers share many tenets with other Shīʿīte sects, such as the belief in the Imamate, but the Ismāʿīlī and Nizārī branches believe in a different number of Imams and, for the most part, a different path of succession regarding the Imamate. They also differ in the role and overall definition of an Imam. Twelvers are also distinguished from Ismāʿīlīs by their belief in Muhammad's status as the "Seal of the Prophets" ("Khatam an-Nabiyyin"), in rejecting the possibility of abrogation of "sharīʿa" laws, and in considering both esoteric and exoteric aspects of the Quran. Alevis in Turkey and Albania, and Alawites in Syria and Lebanon, share belief in the Twelve Imams with Twelvers, but their theological doctrines are markedly different.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: The term "Twelver" is based on the belief that twelve male descendants from the family of Muhammad, starting with ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and ending with Muhammad al-Mahdi, are Imams who have religious and political authority.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: In 610, when Muhammad received the first revelation, Ali was 10 years old. At the time of Muhammad, some of the supporters of Ali, particularly Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, Salman the Persian, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, and Ammar ibn Yasir were called the Shiites of Ali.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: The division of Islam into Shia and Sunni traces back to the crisis of the succession to Muhammad. The followers of Ali fought with some of the Quraysh and some of the companions of Muhammad like Talhah and Zubayr. As most of his supporters were in Iraq, Ali moved the capital of Islam to Kufa and there began to fight against Mu'awiyah, who rejected giving allegiance to Ali.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: The death of Husayn played an important role in the spread of Shi'ism in the regions of Iraq, Yemen and Persia. At the end of the first century, the influential leaders in the government established the city of Qom for the settlement of the Shia.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Muhammad Al-Baqir was teacher of law for 20 years and a reporter of hadith. He also introduced the principle of Taqiyya. Al-Baqir narrated many a hadith about Jurisprudence and other religious sciences which based the foundations for the Shia instructions. With change in political situations and a suitable conditions for the development of religious activities and the time of elaborating the religious sciences, Ja'far al-Sadiq had an important role in forming the Shia Jurisprudence. Ja'far al-Sadiq and al-Baqir are the founders of the Imami Shiite school of religious law. Al-Sadiq acquired a noteworthy group of scholars around himself, comprising some of the most eminent jurists, traditionists, and theologians of the time. During his time, Shia developed in the theological and legal issues.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Both Muhammad al-Baqir and Ja'far al-Sadiq improved the position of the Shia and elaborated the intellectual basis of the interpretation and practice of Shiite Islam. Their teachings were the basis for the development of Shiite spirituality and religious rituals.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: At the beginning of the third/ninth century once again Shia flourished and it was due to the translation of scientific and philosophical books from other languages to Arabic, Al-Ma'mun giving freedom to the propagation of different religious views and his interest in intellectual debates. Under the rule of al-Ma'mun, Shia was free from the political pressures and was somehow at liberty. In the fourth/tenth century, the weaknesses in the Abbasid government and coming up the Buyid rulers caused the spread, strength and open propagation of the Shi'ism. From the fifth/eleventh to the ninth century many Shia kings appeared in the Islamic world who propagated the Shi'ism.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: During tenth century and Buyid era, Baghdad was the center of Mu'tazila theologians. Their ideas about attribute and justice of God and human free will affected Shia theologians. Bani Nawbakht, particularly Abu Sahl Al-Nawbakhti (d. 923–924), fuzed Mu'tazili theology with Imami system of thought. On the other hand, Imami traditionists of Qom, particularly Ibn Babawayh(d. 991), react to their theological ideas based on Twelve Imams' Hadiths. He tried to defend Imami ideas against Mu'tazili criticism regarding Anthropomorphism(Tashbih).


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: The three prominent figures of Baghdad school were Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid (d. 1022 CE), Sharif al-Murtaza (d. 1044) and Shaykh al-Tusi (d. 1067).


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Al-Mufid was a Twelver theologian, Muhaddith and Fiqih who used Bani Nawbakht as well as Baghdadi Mu'tazila ideas to form his theology while trying to adapt theological ideas with Twelve Imams' Hadith. While the Mu'tazila was dominant in Baghdad, he tries to distinguish Shia and Mu'tazila ideas and assert reason needs


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: Shaykh Tusi, founder of Shia Ijtihad, was the first to establish the bases of reasoning in Shia Jurisprudence. His book al-Mabsut is the first book of Ijtihad which derives the subordinates from the principles. Tusi bought the Shia religious law to a new period. The main point is that he recognized the needs of the community and preserved the principles.


title: Twelver Shi'ism

text: By his debates and books, Al-Mufid, Sayyid-al Murtada and Shaykh al-Tusi in Iraq were the first to introduce the Usul of the Jurisprudence under the influence of the Shafe'i and Mu'tazili doctrines. Al- Kulayni and al-Sadduq, in Qom and Ray, were concerned with traditionalist approach.