title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: In the town, the age distribution of the population shows 25.1% under the age of 18, 6.5% from 18 to 24, 35.3% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.0 males. For every 100 adult females, there were 88.3 adult males.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: The median income for a household in the town was $61,054, and the median income for a family was $71,165. Males had a median income of $50,673 versus $31,640 for females. The per capita income for the city was $30,823. About 3.2% of families and 5.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.3% of those under age 18 and 6.6% of those age 65 or over.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: The Town of Mt. Pleasant is run by an elected mayor–council government. As of August 2021, the town council is composed of the mayor (Will Haynie) and eight at-large council members (Howard R. Chapman, P.E., Brenda Corley, Laura Hyatt, Kathy Landing, Tom O’Rouke, Jake Rambo, Gary Santos, and Guang Ming Whitley). The appointed town administrator is Eric DeMoura.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: The Mount Pleasant Fire Department has provided fire suppression and emergency services since 1837, initially as a volunteer agency, and today as a full-time fire department. Today, the fire department has 118 paid personnel augmented by 15 volunteers. It is internationally accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). The Mt. Pleasant Fire Department was originally accredited in 2001 becoming the first accredited fire department in the state of South Carolina. Firefighters work twenty-four-hour rotating shifts. The corporate area and its surroundings are served by seven strategically located fire stations. The fire department administrative office is located within the City Municipal Complex. Mount Pleasant fire stations are staffed daily by 33 personnel. In 2007, under the supervision of Chief Herb Williams and Captain Robert Wronski, the Mount Pleasant Fire Department established a "Paramedic Engine" program, in which firefighters trained as Paramedics will carry the same equipment on the fire engines as in the ambulances. Currently, all engines in Mt Pleasant are now operating as "Paramedic Engines". This means in the event Charleston County EMS is delayed, the Mount Pleasant Fire Department will be able to provide life-saving procedures until the ambulance arrives.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: The Mount Pleasant Police Department, a 2006 CALEA Flagship Award recipient, employs 132 sworn officers and 43 civilian personnel, serving the entire municipal population. The police department, which is a nationally accredited agency, sanctioned by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, has adopted the problem-oriented policing philosophy of service delivery, which requires officers to work together with citizens to identify community problems, determine the underlying cause, and develop solutions which address these causes in order to resolve the problem. Led by Chief Carl Ritchie, the police response time to the majority of the calls for service beats the national average. Encompassing , the department has split the town into eight patrol neighborhoods. Each patrol neighborhood is assigned to a specific officer on each shift.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: Both Laing Middle School and Moultrie Middle School served as the town's high schools before Wando High School was built in 1973.


title: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

text: The Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC) operates numerous facilities within Charleston County. The following are in Mount Pleasant.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: McComb is a city in Pike County, Mississippi, United States. The city is approximately south of Jackson. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 12,790. It is the principal city of the McComb, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: McComb was founded in 1872 after Henry Simpson McComb of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad, a predecessor of the Illinois Central Railroad (now part of the Canadian National Railway), decided to move the railroad's maintenance shops away from New Orleans, Louisiana, to avoid the attractions of that city's bars.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: The railroad purchased land in Pike County. Three nearby communities, Elizabethtown, Burglund, and Harveytown, agreed to consolidate to form this town. Main Street developed with the downtown's shops, attractions, and business.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: The rail center in McComb was one of flashpoints in the violent Illinois Central shopmen's strike of 1911. Riots took place here that resulted in many injuries, at least three black strikebreakers killed, and authorities bringing in state militia to suppress the emergency soon after the strike started on September 30.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: During the 1960s, McComb and nearby areas were the sites of extreme violence by KKK and other white supremacist opponents to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1961, SNCC conducted its first voter registration project in Mississippi in this city. White officials and local KKK members countered it with violence and intimidation to suppress black voters.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: In 1961, Brenda Travis, Robert Talbert, and Ike Lewis were arrested for staging a sit in at a Greyhound station. They were charged with trespassing and kept in jail for 28 days. Following their release, Travis was expelled from school. In response to the expulsion and the murder of Herbert Lee, 115 students staged a walk out on October 4, 1961 known as the Burglund High School Walk Out. At the walk out, many students were beaten by the police and arrested. Students continued protesting by refusing to return to school until Travis was allowed to reenroll. As a result, they too were expelled. The 16 seniors who participated were unable to graduate. Travis' fate for participating in the march was more serious. Travis was arrested, again, and sent to a state juvenile facility without a trial. After 6 and a half months, Travis was released by the governor and exiled from Mississippi.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: After whites severely beat several staff members, staff members being jailed for their involvement with the walkout, and receiving backlash from the community for putting students on the "frontlines", SNCC pulled out of the region in early 1962. They moved north in Mississippi to work in slightly less dangerous conditions.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: In 1964, civil rights activists began the Mississippi Project and what would be called Freedom Summer, with teams returning to southwest Mississippi. They sang, "We'll Never Turn Back." SNCC members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) returned to McComb in mid-July 1964 to work on voter registration. From late August 1964 through September, after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, McComb was the site of eleven bombings directed against African Americans. Malcolm Boyd took part of COFO's Freedom House as a member of a clerical delegation to assist African-American voter registration.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: The following summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorizing federal oversight and enforcement to enable blacks to register and vote again in the South. In Mississippi, most blacks had been disenfranchised since 1890. Even with enforcement, it took time to overcome local white resistance to black voting.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: On October 20, 1977, a chartered plane carrying members and crew of rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in a swamp near McComb, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, Steve's sister Cassie (a backup singer), road manager Dean Kilpatrick, as well as both pilots.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: In 2018, voters in the city of McComb elected Quordiniah Lockley as mayor, and for the first time elected a city board consisting of an African American majority.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.54%) is water.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, McComb has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 12,413 people, 4,478 households, and 2,210 families residing in the city.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 12,790 people and 5,073 households in the city. The population density was 1,184 people per square mile (424/km). There were 5,825 housing units at an average density of 500.6 per square mile (193.3/km). The racial makeup of the city was 66.29% African American, 31.22% White, 0.91% Asian, 0.17% Native American, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.53% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.41% of the population.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: As of the 2000 census, there were 5,265 households, out of which 33.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.5% were married couples living together, 25.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.2% were non-families. 32.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.13.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 29.0% under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 20.0% from 45 to 64, and 16.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 78.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 71.6 males. The median income for a household in the city was $26,507, and the median income for a family was $31,758. Males had a median income of $27,899 versus $17,402 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,790. About 27.4% of families and 31.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.7% of those under the age of 18 and 21.3% of those 65 and older.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: An annual Earth Day Fest organized by Pike School of Art – Mississippi is celebrated in April on the Saturday of or following Earth Day. The Summit Street Unity Festival is celebrated annually on the third Saturday in October. The Black History Gallery annually celebrates Juneteenth.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: The City of McComb is served by the McComb School District. There are 7 schools in the district, Otken Elementary, Kennedy Early Childhood Center, Higgins Middle School, Denman Jr. High School, McComb High School, Business & Technology Center, and Summit Academy. The McComb and the surrounding Pike County area has three separate school districts, one private school, and a community college in the northern part of the county.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: St. Alphonsus Catholic Church is located in McComb and provided classes kindergarten through seventh grade until the school closed in 2014. McComb is also the location of Parklane Academy, a K4 through 12th grade private college preparatory school. It is the first of its kind in the Pike County Area. It is located in the central McComb region. Southwest Mississippi Community College is located seven miles north of McComb, and northeast of Summit, MS. McComb High School is one of the 100 National Model Schools.


title: McComb, Mississippi

text: Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to McComb. Amtrak trains 58 & 59, the City of New Orleans stop here.


title: Gardena, California

text: Gardena is a city located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 58,829 at the 2010 census, up from 57,746 at the 2000 census. Until 2014, the US census cited the City of Gardena as the place with the highest percentage of Japanese Americans in California. Gardena's Japanese American population contributes to the South Bay region of Los Angeles being home to the largest concentration of Japanese companies within the mainland United States.


title: Gardena, California

text: Based on archaeological findings, the Tongva people hunted and fished in the area of today's Gardena. The Tongva Indians — also known as Gabrielino Indians — are probably descendants of those who crossed from Asia to North America around 10,000 years ago.


title: Gardena, California

text: In 1784, three years after the foundation of Los Angeles, Juan Jose Dominguez (1736–1809), a Spanish soldier who arrived in San Diego, California in 1769 with Fernando Rivera y Moncada, in recognition of his military service, received the roughly Spanish land grant, the Rancho San Pedro. Part of this land contained what became known as Gardena Valley. After the American Civil War veterans bought parts of the land, and soon ranchers and farmers followed suit. Union Army Major General William Starke Rosecrans in 1869 bought . The "Rosecrans Rancho" was bordered by what later was Florence Avenue on the north, Redondo Beach Boulevard on the south, Central Avenue on the east, and Arlington Avenue on the west. The Rosecrans property was subdivided and sold in the early 1870s. One of those became the Amestoy Ranch. Gardena proper began in 1887 when the Pomeroy & Harrison real estate developers subdivided the ranch, anticipating the coming of the Los Angeles and Redondo Railway. Civil War veteran Spencer Roane Thorpe is credited with starting the first settlement in Gardena in 1887. Railroads put Gardena on the map following a real estate boom in the Los Angeles area in the 1880s.


title: Gardena, California

text: Some believe the city was named for its reputation for being the only "green spot" in the dry season between Los Angeles and the sea. Because of its acres of berries, the city was dubbed "Berryland". The Strawberry Day Festival and Parade was held each May. The berry industry suffered at the time of World War I as other crops were supported by the war economy.


title: Gardena, California

text: Japanese Americans settled in Gardena throughout its history. The only way Gardena could protect itself from a heavy county tax imposed on a planned project at a park site was to incorporate. The City of Gardena became incorporated on September 11, 1930.


title: Gardena, California

text: From 1936 to 1980, Gardena held a local monopoly on legal cardrooms, the taxes from which accounted for nearly a third of its annual budget. As this Los Angeles suburb grew, many Japanese American families moved into the new tract homes being built.


title: Gardena, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , over 99% of which is land. A wetland preserve, the Gardena Willows Wetland Preserve, is located at the southeast corner of Gardena. This is a naturally occurring marshland where water seeps above-ground all year round. It hosts several species of trees and other vegetation.


title: Gardena, California

text: Gardena is bordered by the unincorporated community of Athens on the north, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Harbor Gateway on the east and south, Torrance on the southwest, Alondra Park on the west, and Hawthorne on the northwest.


title: Gardena, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Gardena had a population of 58,829. The population density was . The racial makeup of Gardena was 14,498 (24.6%) White (9.3% Non-Hispanic White), 14,352 (24.4%) African American, 348 (0.6%) Native American, 15,400 (26.2%) Asian, 426 (0.7%) Pacific Islander, 11,136 (18.9%) from other races, and 2,669 (4.5%) from two or more races. There were 22,151 people of Hispanic or Latino origin, of any race (37.7%).


title: Gardena, California

text: The Census reported that 58,035 people (98.7% of the population) lived in households, 122 (0.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 672 (1.1%) were institutionalized.


title: Gardena, California

text: There were 20,558 households, out of which 7,199 (35.0%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 8,782 (42.7%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 3,931 (19.1%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,486 (7.2%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,085 (5.3%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 104 (0.5%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 5,142 households (25.0%) were made up of individuals, and 1,921 (9.3%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.82. There were 14,199 families (69.1% of all households); the average family size was 3.39.


title: Gardena, California

text: The population was spread out, with 13,410 people (22.8%) under the age of 18, 5,353 people (9.1%) aged 18 to 24, 16,656 people (28.3%) aged 25 to 44, 15,086 people (25.6%) aged 45 to 64, and 8,324 people (14.1%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.8 males.


title: Gardena, California

text: There were 21,472 housing units at an average density of , of which 9,852 (47.9%) were owner-occupied, and 10,706 (52.1%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.6%. 28,585 people (48.6% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 29,450 people (50.1%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Gardena, California

text: During 2009–2013, Gardena had a median household income of $48,251, with 15.5% of the population living below the federal poverty line.


title: Gardena, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 57,746 people, 20,324 households, and 14,023 families residing in the city. The population density was 9,921.3 inhabitants per square mile (3,830.9/km). There were 21,041 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 23.82% White, 25.99% Black or African American, 0.64% Native American, 26.82% Asian, 0.73% Pacific Islander, 16.94% from other races, and 5.05% from two or more races. 31.82% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Gardena, California

text: There were 20,324 households, out of which 33.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.5% were married couples living together, 18.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.0% were non-families. 25.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.80 and the average family size was 3.38.


title: Gardena, California

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.8% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 32.3% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.4 males.


title: Gardena, California

text: The median income for a household in the city was $38,988, and the median income for a family was $44,906. Males had a median income of $32,951 versus $29,908 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,263. About 12.3% of families and 15.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.3% of those under age 18 and 10.1% of those age 65 or over.


title: Gardena, California

text: In 1980, about 31% of the population was Anglo white, 23% was black, 21% was Japanese, and 17% was Latino. The remainder included a Korean community that was increasing in size and Chinese, Filipino, and Native American people. The National Planning Data Corp. released projected figures in 1987 estimating that of the 50,000 residents, 26.3% were Anglo, 23% were black, 22.7 were Latino, and 28% were of other racial groups. By 1989, Anglo and Japanese residents tended to live in central and southern Gardena. Middle class black people began to move into the Hollypark area in northern Gardena in the 1960s, so the black population was concentrated there.


title: Gardena, California

text: According to the 1970 U.S. Census, 56% of the population was White. Racial demographic changes occurred until 1978. That year, Mayor Edmond J. Russ declared that, according to a special 1978 census, the racial demographics of Gardena had stabilized.


title: Gardena, California

text: Gardena has a large Japanese-American community. Until 2014, it had the second-highest concentration of Japanese Americans in any U.S. municipality, the first being Honolulu. As of 2014, the nearby city of Torrance holds the highest Japanese-American population in the 48 contiguous states.


title: Gardena, California

text: The Japanese Cultural Institute (JCI) has been is located in Gardena since 1988, and offers cultural and social activities for Japanese Americans. The building used during that year was completed in 1976.


title: Gardena, California

text: Early in Gardena's history, Japanese migrants played a role in the agrarian economy. The Japanese Association founded the Moneta Japanese Institute in 1911, and the Parents' Association founded the Gardena Japanese School in 1916. Beginning in the 1920s, Japanese American organizations, including the "Moneta Gakuen", were established continuously around the current JCI site. The "Moneta Gakuen" operated a school until the World War II internment.


title: Gardena, California

text: In 1966, for the first time, a Nisei, Kiyoto Ken Nakaoka, was seated on the city council. In 1980, the city was 21% Japanese, and , Japanese residents tended to live in the center and south of the city.


title: Gardena, California

text: , about 60% of the Korean population in the South Bay region lived in Gardena and Torrance. By that year, many Korean businesses had been established in Gardena because its commercial land was more affordable than that of Torrance, a middle-class base, and it also had an established Asian population. In 1990, 2,857 ethnic Koreans lived in Gardena, a 209% increase from the 1980 figure of 924 ethnic Koreans.


title: Gardena, California

text: Digital Manga is headquartered in Suite 300 at 1487 West 178th Street. Nissin Foods has its United States headquarters and a plant in Gardena. Nissin Foods (U.S.A.) Co., Inc. opened in Gardena in 1970. Marukai Corporation U.S.A. has its headquarters in Gardena. Nissan's North America headquarters were located in Gardena until they moved to Tennessee in 2006.


title: Gardena, California

text: National Stores Inc., which operates the Factory 2-U and the Fallas Paredes brands, has its headquarters in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles, near Gardena.


title: Gardena, California

text: According to the city's 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Gardena, California

text: In the spring of 1956, the junior high school classes stayed at the old Gardena High School while the high school classes moved into a new building. Up until the opening of the new Gardena High School, high school students held morning shifts, while junior high school students held afternoon shifts.


title: Gardena, California

text: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles operates Catholic schools in Gardena, including Junípero Serra High School, Maria Regina Catholic School (K-8), and St. Anthony of Padua School (K-8). Gardena Valley Christian School, a K-8 non-Catholic private school, is in Gardena. The Gardena Christian Academy, a PreK-2 Christian school, is in Gardena.


title: Gardena, California

text: The Gardena Office of Economic Development is a department of the city government. It aids employers in filling a variety of jobs customized to their specific needs. It also helps potential employers in setting up business enterprises.


title: Gardena, California

text: The Gardena Police Department is the primary law enforcement agency in the city. The department has 93 sworn police officers, 24 full-time support staff, and 33 part-time employees. There are reserve, volunteer, and explorer programs. The current Chief of Police is Edward Medrano, appointed in 2007. Radio communications and the 9-1-1 call center are handled by the South Bay Regional Public Communications Authority.


title: Gardena, California

text: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Curtis Tucker Health Center in Inglewood and the Torrance Health Center in Harbor Gateway, Los Angeles, near Torrance and serving Gardena.


title: Gardena, California

text: The United States Postal Service operates the Gardena Post Office at 1455 West Redondo Beach Boulevard, the South Gardena Post Office at 1103 West Gardena Boulevard, and the Alondra Post Office at 14028 Van Ness Avenue.


title: Gardena, California

text: Gardena Mayme Dear Library, a building located in Gardena, and Masao W. Satow Library, located west of Gardena in Alondra Park (El Camino Village), unincorporated Los Angeles County, are operated by the County of Los Angeles Public Library.


title: Gardena, California

text: Wednesday Progressive Club sponsored the formation of the Gardena Library. In 1913 the Moneta Branch was formed. In 1914 the Gardena Library became a part of the Los Angeles County Free Library system. Due to annexation the library was transferred to the Los Angeles City Library Board. In 1919 the Strawberry Park branch was formed. In August 1951 the Gardena library came back to the county system. In 1958 the Strawberry Park and Moneta branches merged into the West Gardena Branch. The current Gardena library building was dedicated on December 5, 1964. In 1969 a fire forced the West Gardena branch to go to a new location. The current Satow building, dedicated on February 26, 1977, was named after a Japanese American in the community. The Gardena library received its current name on May 30, 1992, and was named after a library volunteer, who had died prior to the renaming.


title: Gardena, California

text: The National Transportation Safety Board operates the Gardena Aviation Field Office in Harbor Gateway, Los Angeles; it is the regional headquarters of the NTSB Aviation Western Region.


title: African cuisine

text: African cuisine is a staple of the continent's culture, and its history is entwined with the story of the people of Africa. The foods that Africans eat have been influenced by their religions, as well as by their climates and lifestyles. The first Africans to inhabit the continent were hunter-gatherers who ate what they could find in nature. As agriculture became more common in Africa, so did agriculture-based diets.


title: African cuisine

text: Traditionally, the various cuisines of Africa use a combination of plant-and seed-based ingredients, without having food imported. In some parts of the continent, the traditional diet features an abundance of root tuber products.


title: African cuisine

text: Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa each have distinctive dishes, preparation techniques, and consumption modes.


title: African cuisine

text: The roots of African cuisine goes back thousands of years to the Bronze Age in Northeast Africa, when early civilizations began cultivating grains such as barley and wheat. Part of North Africa is in the Fertile Crescent where settled agriculture was practiced by the Ancient Egyptians in this area. Animals such as donkeys and sheep were also domesticated starting the spread agriculture to other parts of Africa, notably West Africa, although most tribes still lived a simple hunter-gather diet.


title: African cuisine

text: Arab explorers Leo Africanus and Ibn Battuta provide accounts of African food ways encountered on their travels through sub-Saharan Africa. Most European travelers stayed close to coastal areas until the 19th century. Many of their diaries also recorded details on foods and crops. Many staples were introduced later when Africa was colonized by the Europeans. Foods that are now important parts of African cuisine such as maize and potatoes were not common until the 19th century.


title: African cuisine

text: The influence of African food on Caribbean, Brazilian, American Lowcountry cuisine, and Cajun cuisine from Louisiana is seen in rice dishes and green stews like the Afro-Caribbean efo, duckanoo and callaloo. The vegetable okra, introduced from Africa, is used in classic Louisiana gumbos, and American rice growing in the Carolina. Lowcountry was influenced by West African techniques of rice cultivation and many slaves hailed from rice growing regions of West Africa. Lowcountry cuisine is still known for its distinctive rice dishes.


title: African cuisine

text: Central Africa expands from the Tibesti Mountains in the north to the vast rainforest basin of the Congo River, the highlands of Kivu and the savannah of Katanga.


title: African cuisine

text: This region has received culinary influence of the Swahilis (culture that evolved via the combination of Bantu, Yemeni, Omani and Indian cultures) during the trans-Saharan slave trade. Swahili culinary influences can be found in dishes such as "mandazi", "pilaf" rice, "kachumbari", "sambusa", and "kuku paka".


title: African cuisine

text: Central African cuisine has also been influenced by the Portuguese, by way of the Kongo and Ndongo Kingdoms. Salt fish was introduced following trade in the late 17th century, and the Kikongo term for salt fish, "makayabu", comes from the term "bacalhau" (ba-cal-ha-u).


title: African cuisine

text: The Portuguese culinary influence is especially prominent in Angola, Sao Tomé and Equatorial Guinea. Central Africa has also been influenced by the cuisine of the regions East, West and Southern Africa because of their close proximity, e.g. "babuté" or "bobotie" is shared with the south, "nyama choma" with the east and "" with West Africa.


title: African cuisine

text: In Central Africa, a variety of crops are grown, including yams, cassava, bananas and plantains, sweet potatoes, and cocoyams. These crops have become staples in the diet of many people in Central Africa. "Fufu"-like starchy foods are usually made from fermented cassava roots, but they can also be made with plantain, corn maize and yam. Fufu is served buffet-style with grilled meat, fish, stews, greens and piment . A variety of local ingredients are used while preparing other dishes, like spinach stew cooked with tomato, peppers, chilies, onions, and peanut butter. Eastern central Africa is also one of the few regions in Africa that uses potatoes as one of its main bases, since potatoes grow easily in the region.


title: African cuisine

text: Cassava plants are also consumed as cooked greens. Groundnut (peanut) stew is also prepared, containing chicken, okra, ginger, and other spices. Beef and chicken are favorite meat dishes, but game meat preparations containing crocodile, elephant, antelope and warthog are also served occasionally.


title: African cuisine

text: Food and nutrition security in East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan) is a significant issue. The region has been plagued by drought, conflict and economic instability since the 1990s. The current situation is characterized by low levels of food availability and high levels of malnutrition among young children. The solution proposed for this problem is to increase local food production. This would be achieved by increasing agricultural productivity by improving soil fertility and water management, which will help farmers grow more crops per year. This will also help reduce poverty in the region by providing more employment opportunities for local people.


title: African cuisine

text: The cuisine of East Africa varies from area to area. In the inland savannah, the traditional cuisine of cattle-keeping peoples is distinctive meaning that meat products are generally absent. Cattle, sheep, pigs and goats were regarded as a form of currency and a store of wealth. They are not generally consumed as food.


title: African cuisine

text: In some areas, traditional East Africans consume the milk and blood of cattle, but rarely the meat. Elsewhere, other peoples are farmers who grow a variety of grains and vegetables. Maize (corn) is the basis of "ugali", the local version of West and Central Africa's "fufu". "Ugali" is a starch dish eaten with meats or stews. In Uganda, steamed green bananas called "matoke" provide the starch filler of many meals.


title: African cuisine

text: Around 1000 years ago, Omani and Yemeni merchants settled on the Swahili Coast. Middle Eastern influences are especially reflected in the Swahili cuisine of the coast—steamed or cooked rice with spices in Persian style; saffron, cloves, cinnamon and several other spices; and pomegranate juice.


title: African cuisine

text: Several centuries later, the British and the Indians came, and both brought with them foods such as Indian spiced vegetable curries, lentil soups, "chapattis" and a variety of pickles which have influenced various local dishes. Some common ingredients used in this region include oranges, lemons, limes, chilies, capsicum peppers, maize, tomatoes, and strawberries.


title: African cuisine

text: In the Horn of Africa, the main traditional dishes in Eritrean cuisine and Ethiopian cuisine are "tsebhis" (stews) served with "injera" (flatbread made from teff, wheat, or sorghum) and "hilbet" (paste made from legumes, mainly lentils and fava beans). Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine (especially in the northern half) are very similar, given the shared history of the two countries.


title: African cuisine

text: Eritrean and Ethiopian food habits vary regionally. In the highlands, "injera" is the staple diet and is eaten daily among the Tigrinya. "Injera" is made out of teff, wheat, barley, sorghum or corn, and resembles a spongy, slightly sour pancake. When eating, diners generally share food from a large tray placed in the center of a low dining table. Many "injera" are layered on this tray and topped with various spicy stews. Diners then break into the section of "injera" in front of them, tearing off pieces and dipping them into the stews.


title: African cuisine

text: In the lowlands, the main dish is "akelet", a porridge-like dish made from wheat flour dough. A ladle is used to scoop out the top, which is filled with "berbere" and butter sauce and surrounded by milk or yoghurt. A small piece of dough is broken and then used to scoop up the sauce.


title: African cuisine

text: The best known Ethiopian/Eritrean cuisine consists of various vegetable or meat side dishes and entrées, usually a "wat", or thick stew, served atop "injera", a large sourdough flatbread made of teff flour. One does not eat with utensils, but instead uses injera to scoop up the entrées and side dishes.


title: African cuisine

text: "Tihlo", prepared from roasted barley flour, is very popular in Amhara, Agame, and Awlaelo (Tigray). Traditional Ethiopian cuisine employs no pork or shellfish of any kind, as they are forbidden in the Jewish and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faiths. It is also very common to eat from the same dish in the center of the table with a group of people.


title: African cuisine

text: Somali cuisine varies from region to region and consists of an exotic mixture of diverse culinary influences. It is the product of Somalia's rich tradition of trade and commerce. Despite the variety, there remains one thing that unites the various regional cuisines: all food is served halal. There are therefore no pork dishes, alcohol is not served, nothing that died on its own is eaten, and no blood is incorporated. "Qaddo" or lunch is often elaborate.


title: African cuisine

text: Varieties of "bariis" (rice), the most popular being basmati, usually serve as the main dish. Spices like cumin, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and sage are used to aromatize these different rice dishes. Somalis serve dinner as late as 9 pm. During Ramadan, dinner is often served after Tarawih prayers, sometimes as late as 11 pm.


title: African cuisine

text: "Xalwo" (halwo) or halva is a popular confection served during special occasions such as Eid celebrations or wedding receptions. It is made from sugar, cornstarch, cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, and ghee. Peanuts are also sometimes added to enhance texture and flavor. After meals, homes are traditionally perfumed using frankincense ("lubaan") or incense ("cuunsi"), which is prepared inside an incense burner referred to as a "dabqaad".


title: African cuisine

text: In a study of food loss and waste in North Africa, researchers found that the region was wasting about 30% of its food, which is likely to increase as the population continues to grow. This waste occurs for a variety of reasons, including lack of refrigeration and storage facilities. to solve that issue the people had to get creative with new dishes and creative new ways of storing food. The more we looked, the more we found that people were using all parts of the plant in some way—the leaves, stems, flowers, fruits and seeds. They also used every edible part of animals as well—from fat to bones for making broth or soup.


title: African cuisine

text: North Africa lies along the Mediterranean Sea and encompasses within its fold several nations, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan. The roots of North African cuisine can be traced back to the ancient empires of North Africa, particularly in Egypt, where many of the country's dishes and culinary traditions date back to African antiquity.


title: African cuisine

text: Over several centuries traders, travelers, invaders, migrants and immigrants all have influenced the cuisine of North Africa. The Phoenicians of the 1st century brought sausages, while the Carthaginians introduced wheat and its by-product, semolina. The Berbers adapted semolina into couscous, one of the main staple foods. Olives and olive oil were introduced before the arrival of the Romans.


title: African cuisine

text: From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs introduced a variety of spices, like saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, which contributed and influenced the culinary culture of North Africa. The Ottoman Turks brought sweet pastries and other bakery products, and from the New World, North Africa got potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini and chili peppers.


title: African cuisine

text: Most of the North African countries have several similar dishes, sometimes almost the same dish with a different name (the Moroccan "tangia" and the Tunisian "coucha" are both essentially the same dish, a meat stew prepared in an urn and cooked overnight in a public oven), sometimes with a slight change in ingredients and cooking style. To add on, two completely different dishes may also share the same name (for example, a "tajine" dish is a slow-cooked stew in Morocco, whereas the Tunisian "tajine" is a baked omelette/quiche-like dish). There are noticeable differences between the cooking styles of different nations, from the sophisticated, full-bodied flavors of Moroccan palace cookery to the fiery dishes of Tunisian cuisine and the humbler, simpler cuisines of Egypt and Algeria.


title: African cuisine

text: The cooking of the region of Southern Africa (not to be confused with the country of South Africa) is sometimes called "rainbow cuisine", as the food in this region is a blend of many cultures: indigenous African societies, European, and Asian. To understand indigenous African cuisine, it is important to understand the various native peoples of southern Africa. The indigenous Africans of Southern Africa were roughly divided into two groups and several subgroups.


title: African cuisine

text: The largest group consisted of the Bantu-speakers, whose descendants today may identify themselves by various subgroup names such as Ndebele (northern and southern), Shona, Venda, Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Tsonga. They arrived in the region around 2,000 years ago, bringing crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and iron toolmaking with them. Hence the Bantu-speakers grew grain crops extensively and raised cattle, sheep and goats. They also grew and continue to grow pumpkins, beans, and leafy greens as vegetables.


title: African cuisine

text: A smaller group were the primeval residents of the region, the Khoisan, who some archaeologists believe had lived in the region for at least 10,000 years. Many descendants of the Khoisan people have now been incorporated into the population of South Africa. The Khoisan originally were hunter-gatherers (who came to be known as "San" by the Bantu-speakers and as "bushmen" by Europeans). After the arrival of the Bantu-speakers, however, some Khoisan adopted the Bantu-speakers' raising of cattle but did not grow crops. The Khoisan who raised cattle called themselves "Khoi-Khoi" and came to be known by Europeans as "Hottentots."


title: African cuisine

text: People were, in other words, defined to some extent by the kinds of food they ate. The Bantu-speakers ate dishes of grain, meat, milk and vegetables, as well as fermented grain and fermented milk products. While the Khoi-Khoi ate meat and milk and the San hunted wild animals and gathered wild tubers and vegetables. In many ways, the daily food of native South African families can be traced to the indigenous foods that their native African ancestors ate. The Khoisan and Bantu traditionally ate roasted meat, and they also dried meat for later use.


title: African cuisine

text: The influence of their diet is reflected in the universal Southern African love of barbecue (generally called in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, a "braai") and biltong (dried preserved meat). The traditional beer was ubiquitous in the southern African diet, and the fermentation added additional nutrients to the diet. It was a traditional obligation for any family to be able to offer a visitor copious amounts of beer. Beer brewing was done by women, and the status of a housewife in pre-colonial southern Africa depended significantly on her skill at brewing delicious beer.


title: African cuisine

text: Milk was historically one of the most important components of the southern African diet. Cattle were considered a man's most important possession. In order to marry, a man had to compensate his prospective in-laws with a gift of cattle as a dowry for his bride. A married man was expected to provide a generous supply of milk to his wife and children, along with meat whenever he slaughtered cattle, sheep or goats. Because there was no refrigeration, most milks was soured into a kind of yogurt.


title: African cuisine

text: The young men of the family often took care of the cattle far away from the villages at "cattle posts," and they sent a steady stream of yogurt home on behalf of their fathers. Today, many South Africans of African origin enjoy drinking sour milk products that are sold in the supermarket, comparable to American buttermilk, yogurt, and sour cream.


title: African cuisine

text: On weekends they will have a "braai", and the meal usually consists of "pap and vleis", which is maize porridge and grilled meat as has historically been done in the region.


title: African cuisine

text: The basic ingredients include seafood, meat products (including wild game), poultry, as well as grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits include apples, grapes, mangoes, bananas ,papayas, avocado, oranges, peaches and apricots. Desserts may simply be fruit, but there are some more western-style puddings, such as malva pudding, reminiscent of sticky toffee pudding, which was inspired by both British cuisine and Dutch cuisine. Meat products include lamb, and game like venison, ostrich, and impala. The seafood includes crayfish, prawns, tuna, mussels, oysters, calamari, mackerel, and lobster. There are also several types of traditional and modern alcoholic beverages including many European-style beers.


title: African cuisine

text: A typical West African meal is made with starchy items and can contain meat, fish as well as various spices and herbs. A wide array of staples are eaten across the region, including "fufu", "banku", "kenkey" (originating from Ghana), "foutou", "couscous", "tô", and "garri", which are served alongside soups and stews. "Fufu" is often made from starchy root vegetables such as yams, cocoyams, or cassava, but also from cereal grains like millet, sorghum or plantains.


title: African cuisine

text: The staple grain or starch varies between regions and ethnic groups, although corn has gained significant ground as it is cheap, swells to greater volumes and creates a beautiful white final product that is greatly desired. "Banku" and "kenkey" are maize dough staples, and "gari" is made from dried grated cassavas. Rice dishes are also widely eaten in the region, especially in the dry Sahel belt inland. Examples of these include "benachin" from The Gambia and Jollof rice, a pan-West African rice dish similar to Arab "kabsah".


title: African cuisine

text: Seeds of Guinea pepper ("Aframomum melegueta," also called grains of paradise or melegueta pepper), a native West African plant, were used as a spice and even reached Europe, through North African middlemen, during the Middle Ages. Centuries before the influence of Europeans, West Africans were trading with the Arab world and spices like cinnamon, cloves, and mint were not unknown becoming part of the local flavorings. Centuries later, the Portuguese, French and British influenced the regional cuisines, but only to a limited extent.


title: African cuisine

text: The local cuisine and recipes of West Africa continue to remain deeply entrenched in the local customs and traditions, with ingredients like native rice ("Oryza glaberrima"), rice, "fonio", millet, sorghum, Bambara groundnuts and Hausa groundnuts, black-eyed peas, brown beans, and root vegetables such as yams, cocoyams, sweet potatoes, and cassava. Cooking techniques include roasting, baking, boiling, frying, mashing, and spicing. A range of sweets and savories are also prepared.


title: African cuisine

text: Cooking techniques of West Africa are changing. In the past West Africans ate much less meat and used native oils (palm oil on the coast and shea butter in Sahelian regions). Baobob leaf and numerous local greens were everyday staples during certain times of the year. Today the diet is much heavier in meats, salt, and fats. Many dishes combine fish and meat, including dried and fermented fish. Flaked and dried fish is often fried in oil, and sometimes cooked in sauce made up with hot peppers, onions, tomatoes, various spices (such as "soumbala"), and water to prepare a highly flavored stew.


title: African cuisine

text: In some areas beef and mutton are preferred, and goat meat is the dominant red meat. "Suya", a popular grilled spicy meat "kebab" flavored with peanuts and other spices, is sold by street vendors as a snack or evening meal and is typically made with beef or chicken. It is common to have a preponderance of seafood and the seafood, as earlier stated, is sometimes also mixed with other meat products. Guinea fowl eggs, eggs and chicken are also preferred.


title: African cuisine

text: With regard to beverages, water has a very strong ritual significance in many West African nations (particularly in dry areas) and water is often the first thing an African host will offer their guest. Palm wine is also a common beverage made from the fermented sap of various types of palm trees and is usually sold in sweet (less-fermented, retaining more of the sap's sugar) or sour (fermented longer, making it stronger and less sweet) varieties. Millet beer is another common beverage (Millet beer, also known as "Bantu" beer, is an alcoholic beverage made from malted millet.)


title: Bulk density

text: Bulk density, also called apparent density or volumetric density, is a property of powders, granules, and other "divided" solids, especially used in reference to mineral components (soil, gravel), chemical substances, (pharmaceutical) ingredients, foodstuff, or any other masses of corpuscular or particulate matter (particles).


title: Bulk density

text: Bulk density is defined as the mass of the many particles of the material divided by the total volume they occupy. The total volume includes particle volume, inter-particle void volume, and internal pore volume.


title: Bulk density

text: Bulk density is not an intrinsic property of a material; it can change depending on how the material is handled. For example, a powder poured into a cylinder will have a particular bulk density; if the cylinder is disturbed, the powder particles will move and usually settle closer together, resulting in a higher bulk density. For this reason, the bulk density of powders is usually reported both as "freely settled" (or "poured" density) and "tapped" density (where the tapped density refers to the bulk density of the powder after a specified compaction process, usually involving vibration of the container.)


title: Bulk density

text: In contrast, particle density is an intrinsic property of the solid and does not include the volume for voids between particles.


title: Bulk density

text: The bulk density of soil depends greatly on the mineral make up of soil and the degree of compaction. The density of quartz is around but the (dry) bulk density of a mineral soil is normally about half that density, between . In contrast, soils rich in soil organic carbon and some friable clays tend to have lower bulk densities () due to a combination of the low-density of the organic materials themselves and increased porosity. For instance, peat soils have bulk densities from .


title: Bulk density

text: Bulk density of soil is usually determined from a core sample which is taken by driving a metal corer into the soil at the desired depth and horizon. This gives a soil sample of known total volume, . From this sample the wet bulk density and the dry bulk density can be determined.


title: Bulk density

text: For the wet bulk density (total bulk density) this sample is weighed, giving the mass . For the dry bulk density, the sample is oven dried and weighed, giving the mass of soil solids, . The relationship between these two masses is , where is the mass of substances lost on oven drying (often, mostly water). The dry and wet bulk densities are calculated as


title: Bulk density

text: The dry bulk density of a soil is inversely related to the porosity of the same soil: the more pore space in a soil the lower the value for bulk density. Bulk density of a region in the interior of the earth is also related to the seismic velocity of waves travelling through it: for P-waves, this has been quantified with Gardner's relation. The higher the density, the faster the velocity.


title: Motility

text: Motility, the ability of an organism to move independently, using metabolic energy, can be contrasted with sessility, the state of organisms that do not possess a means of self-locomotion and are normally immobile.


title: Motility

text: The term vagility encompasses both motility and mobility; sessile organisms including plants and fungi often have vagile parts such as fruits, seeds, or spores which may be dispersed by other agents such as wind, water, or other organisms.


title: Motility

text: Motility is genetically determined, but may be affected by environmental factors such as toxins. The nervous system and musculoskeletal system provide the majority of mammalian motility.


title: Motility

text: In addition to animal locomotion, most animals are motile, though some are vagile, described as having passive locomotion. Many bacteria and other microorganisms, and multicellular organisms are motile; some mechanisms of fluid flow in multicellular organs and tissue are also considered instances of motility, as with gastrointestinal motility. Motile marine animals are commonly called free-swimming, and motile non-parasitic organisms are called free-living.


title: Motility

text: Motility includes an organism's ability to move food through its digestive tract. There are two types of intestinal motility – peristalsis and segmentation. This motility is brought about by the contraction of smooth muscles in the gastrointestinal tract which mix the luminal contents with various secretions (segmentation) and move contents through the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus (peristalsis).


title: Motility

text: Many cells are not motile, for example "Klebsiella pneumoniae" and "Shigella", or under specific circumstances such as "Yersinia pestis" at 37 °C.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: John Patrick Thomson (born Patrick Francis McAleer; 2 April 1969) is an English comedian, narrator and actor best known for his roles in "The Fast Show", "Men Behaving Badly", "Cold Feet", "24 Hour Party People", "The Brothers Grimsby" and "Coronation Street".


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Thomson was born in 1969 in Walkden, Worsley, Lancashire, to Mary McAleer, who gave him up for adoption six weeks later. He was adopted from the Catholic Children's Rescue Society by Andrew and Marita Thomson, a businessman and a bookseller from Didsbury. He has one younger brother, Ben (born to his adoptive parents). He attended All Hallows Catholic High School near Preston, Lancashire, leaving with three O-levels. He then attended Runshaw College between 1985 and 1987, studying for four A-levels, including theatre studies. He was described as "clearly [having] a talent for comedy".


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Following this, he turned down a scholarship in America, to study drama at Manchester Polytechnic instead.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: While at university, Thomson met Steve Coogan, who secured him a job on "Spitting Image". They would continue to collaborate on such programmes as "The Dead Good Show", a 1993 Granada TV pilot also starring Caroline Aherne, "Coogan's Run", the Paul and Pauline Calf video diaries (where he played 'Fat Bob') and "Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge", which he also contributed to writing. He also appeared in Coogan's live shows as compère Bernard Righton and the two would be reunited in the 2002 film "24 Hour Party People". The two won the Perrier Comedy Award in 1992 for their act at the Edinburgh Fringe.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Thomson also played supporting roles in the first series of the Stewart Lee and Richard Herring vehicle, "Fist of Fun".


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In 1994 Thomson appeared in the BBC sketch series "The Fast Show", remaining with it until it ended in 2001. Thomson played memorable characters such as Chip Cobb, the deaf stuntman, and Roger the Nouveau football fan, but it is as "Jazz Club" host Louis Balfour that he is most remembered, with the catchphrase, "Nice!" He also appeared in "The Fast Show Live" and the spin-off "Ted and Ralph".


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In 1996 he appeared opposite Maureen Lipman as Bob Acres in "The Rivals" at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: He made guest appearances on various series such as Coronation Street, "Soldier Soldier" and "Men Behaving Badly" in the 1990s before being cast as Pete Gifford in the ITV comedy drama "Cold Feet". Thomson was known to the producers, who had previously cast him in a one-off drama called "The Perfect Match". A series was commissioned that ran until 2003 and earned him a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actor at the British Comedy Awards 2001. Granada Television filmed a comedy drama called "Stan the Man" in 2002 in which Thomson starred as Stanley Tully a would-be entrepreneur. Some of the filming was done in south Manchester suburbs.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: After "Cold Feet" wrapped, Thomson appeared in the Royal Exchange's production of "Hobson's Choice" (helped by his acclaimed performance in "The Rivals"). "The Independent" described his performance as Willie as "an extremely well-judged performance. With the slightest physical gesture and merest facial expression he conveys disbelief, reluctance, panic and finally acceptance of his fate at the hands of manipulative Maggie". His performance led to a Manchester Evening News Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: That same year he participated in the BBC series "Comic Relief does Fame Academy", being the fourth "student" to be "expelled". and in 2004, he appeared in the musical drama Blackpool as Tony Corlette.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: He has also lent his voice to the revived BBC children's series "Bill and Ben" and Mr Windfall in "". Another television series, "New Street Law", about a Manchester chambers, started in 2006. Thomson plays "lovable rogue" barrister Charlie Darling alongside co-star John Hannah. The second series began in January 2007.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In February 2007 he played Sir Alan Prentice, in "Kombat Opera Presents... The Applicants", a spoof opera of the BBC series "The Apprentice". The programme attracted 700,000 viewers according to unofficial overnights. In March 2007 he appeared as hypnotherapist Ray Bould in the three-part ITV thriller, "Mobile". The producers had Thomson lined up for the role of DI Fleming, but he wanted to read for Bould because he "was up against a friend for the same part". Later that year he filmed a guest appearance as Nigel Pearson in a second series episode of "Kingdom". He returned as a full-time cast member for the third series.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In October 2008, Thomson filmed a three-episode guest stint on the ITV soap opera "Coronation Street", playing electrician-cum-children's entertainer Jesse, which aired in December. In January 2009, it was announced that he would reprise the role for six months. Jesse returned to "Coronation Street" in June, beginning a relationship with Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver). He left 2010, after his contract was not renewed. Later that same year, he portrayed H.V. Kershaw in "The Road to Coronation Street", a dramatisation of "Coronation Street"s development in the 1960s.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Later in 2011, it was announced that Thomson would be appearing next to the original cast (with the exception of Mark Williams) in six online-only episodes of The Fast Show sponsored by lager brand, Foster's due to launch on 10 November 2011.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In 2015 he joined the cast of "After Hours" as loveable Geoff, reuniting with his old friends Craig Cash and Caroline Aherne, who played his wife Sheila. During filming Thomson was attacked by a swan on set, footage being shown on ITV's This Morning.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Thomson was a contestant in the 2013 series of "Celebrity MasterChef". Since 2015, Thomson has starred in "The Keith Lemon Sketch Show", playing various characters.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: He narrates the Channel 4 series "Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners" and in September 2015, he became the new narrator of "Police Interceptors". He stars in the Sky1 comedy drama "After Hours", directed by Craig Cash.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: From 2016, Thomson began narrating Channel 5 show 'Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun' - a show about British expats who have moved to Spain to begin a new life in the sun.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: On 18 November 2017, Thomson was a contestant in the reboot of The Weakest Link for Children in Need.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In 2021, Thomson participated on the second series of "The Masked Singer", masked as Bush Baby. He finished in 8th place.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: In January 2008 he played Mike (Topaz) in the BBC Radio 4 comedy drama series "Pick Ups". On 12 April 2008, Thomson began hosting the Saturday lunchtime slot on BBC Radio Manchester. His stint ended on 22 November 2008.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Since 2016, Thomson has been a team captain on the BBC Radio 4 panel show "Gaby's Talking Pictures", presented by Gaby Roslin.


title: John Thomson (comedian)

text: Thomson married longtime girlfriend Samantha Sharp in 2005 and they have two daughters; Olivia (born 2002) and Sophia Melody (born 2010). They divorced in 2015.


title: Howard Hewett

text: Howard Hewett Jr. (born October 1, 1955) is an American singer–songwriter. Hewett rose to fame as the lead vocalist of the group Shalamar. In 1985, he left the group to pursue his solo career, but he later returned to the group in 2001. He signed with Elektra Records. In 1986, he released his debut solo album "I Commit to Love". Hewett and his group Shalamar contributed material to the "Beverly Hills Cop" soundtrack. The soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media in 1986.


title: Howard Hewett

text: Raised in Akron, Ohio, Hewett moved to Los Angeles in 1976, where he first met Jeffrey Daniel and Jody Watley at a club in the LA Crenshaw district. Hewett formed a show group called "Beverly Hills" and toured throughout Europe, the UK, Scandinavia and Asia for all of 1977 till the middle of 1978. After returning from overseas, Hewett started recording for Jeffrey Bowen.


title: Howard Hewett

text: In 1978, he got a call from Jeffrey Daniel who was in need of a lead singer and Hewett accepted the offer. Within three days Hewett flew to New Jersey, where he met up with Watley and Daniel and started recording the "Big Fun" LP with their producer, Leon Sylvers. The trio went on to record songs such as "Second Time Around", "Make That Move", "A Night to Remember", "Dancing in the Sheets" and the ballad "This Is for the Lover in You". Hewett was the group's lead singer from 1979 until 1985.


title: Howard Hewett

text: When Shalamar broke up in the mid-1980s, Hewett went on to a successful solo career. However, in 1985 before signing his solo deal with Elektra Records, he was arrested and indicted in Miami with his fiancée Mori Molina for possession with an intent to distribute cocaine. Molina, who was indicted in Tampa as well as Miami, was convicted and served prison time; but after a four-day trial, in which Molina testified that Hewett had nothing to do with the crime, Hewett was acquitted of all charges. In spite of his legal battles, Hewett signed his solo deal with Elektra Records and in 1986, before the Miami trial, released his first solo album "I Commit to Love" (R&B number 12), a solid urban album that yielded two top 10 R&B hits, "I’m for Real" (R&B number 2) and "Stay" (R&B number 8).


title: Howard Hewett

text: In 1988, he released his second album "Forever and Ever", which featured the hits "Strange Relationship" (R&B number 9, and "Once, Twice, Three Times" (R&B number 15).


title: Howard Hewett

text: In 1990, Hewett released his self-titled album, which included the hit "Show Me" (R&B number 2), and "If I Could Only Have That Day Back" (R&B number 14). 1992 saw the release of his 4th album "Allegiance", which was not received as well as his previous albums. He contributed to the second season theme song of "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", which was a remake of Sam & Dave's R&B Top 10 hit "Soul Man". This recording was produced by singer Steve Tyrell. In 1994, Howard Hewett recorded "Christmas Will Return" with Brenda Russell for the Disney holiday film The Santa Clause. After 1995's "It's Time" (released by Caliber Records in the US and Expansion Records in the UK), Hewett spent much of his time providing guest vocals on albums by jazz artists such as Joe Sample, Brian Culbertson, and George Duke, among others. In 2000, The Rippingtons featured Hewett on "I Found Heaven" on their "Life in the Tropics" album. In 2001, Hewett recorded his first full gospel album, "The Journey", followed a year later by "The Journey Live: From the Heart".


title: Howard Hewett

text: In October 2006, Hewett released a new single, "Enough" (with jazz musician George Duke), which received substantial play on urban contemporary and R&B radio stations. Hewett is signed to The Groove Records, an independent label based in Los Angeles. In October 2008, Hewett released his Christmas CD, "Howard Hewett Christmas".


title: Howard Hewett

text: Howard Hewett has been married four times. He and his first wife, Rainey Riley-Cunningham, had two daughters, LaKiva Siani and Rainey Daze; the two divorced in 1983. Hewett and Mari Molina married in 1986; the year of their divorce is unknown. Hewitt and actress/singer Nia Peeples married in 1989 and had a son, Christopher Eugene Howard Hewett in June that same year; Peeples appeared in the music video for his song "Show Me." After their divorce in 1993, Hewett married Angela Bloom-Hewett and had one daughter, Anissa; they divorced in 2012. Howard also has three grandchildren. His son welcomed a boy, Robert Eugene (Bobby Gene) Callans on February 7, 2022. Hewett lives in Los Angeles, California and he is biracial.


title: Howard Hewett

text: According to a DNA analysis, Hewitt is descended mainly from the people of Guinea Bissau and of the Limba of Sierra Leone.


title: Scotch Tape

text: Scotch Tape is a brand name used for pressure-sensitive tapes manufactured by 3M. Their magnetic recording tape products were also sold under the Scotch brand.


title: Scotch Tape

text: In 1930, Richard Drew, a 3M engineer, developed the first transparent sticky tape in St. Paul, Minnesota with material known as cellophane. Drew's inspiration came from watching auto-engineers try to achieve smooth paintings on two-color cars. It was then that he created Scotch masking tape, and later evolved the product to be transparent. In 1932, John A. Borden, also a 3M engineer, built the tape dispenser. During the Great Depression, the versatility and durability of Scotch tape led to a surge in demand, as customers used it to mend household items like books, curtains, clothing, etc. It had industrial applications as well: Goodyear used it to tape the inner supportive ribs of dirigibles to prevent corrosion.


title: Scotch Tape

text: Although it is a trademark and a brand name, "Scotch tape" is sometimes used as a generic term. The Scotch brand includes many different constructions (backings, adhesives, etc.) and colors of tape.


title: Scotch Tape

text: The use of the term "Scotch" in the name was a pejorative meaning "parsimonious" in the 1920s and 1930s. The brand name Scotch came about around 1925 while Richard Drew was testing his first masking tape to determine how much adhesive he needed to add. The bodyshop painter became frustrated with the sample masking tape and exclaimed, "Take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it!" The name was soon applied to the entire line of 3M tapes.


title: Scotch Tape

text: "Scotty McTape", a kilt-wearing cartoon boy, was the brand's mascot for two decades, first appearing in 1944. The familiar tartan design, a take on the well-known Wallace tartan, was introduced in 1945.


title: Scotch Tape

text: The Scotch brand, Scotch Tape and Magic Tape are registered trademarks of 3M. Besides using "Scotch" as a prefix in its brand names (Scotchgard, Scotchlite, and Scotch-Brite), the company also used the Scotch name for its (mainly professional) audiovisual magnetic tape products, until the early 1990s when the tapes were branded solely with the 3M logo. In 1996, 3M exited the magnetic tape business, selling its assets to Quantegy (which is a spin-off of Ampex).


title: Scotch Tape

text: In the late 1960s, the Scotch theme was also applied to 3M's all-weather polyurethane Tartan track and the company's artificial grass, Tartan Turf.


title: Scotch Tape

text: Magic Tape, also known as Magic Transparent Tape, is a brand within the Scotch Tape family of adhesive tapes made by 3M, sold in distinctive plaid packaging.


title: Scotch Tape

text: Invented and introduced in 1961, it is the original matte finish tape. It appears frosty on the roll, yet is invisible on paper. This quality makes it popular for gift-wrapping.


title: Scotch Tape

text: Magic Tape can be written upon with pen, pencil, or marker; comes in permanent and removable varieties; and resists drying out and yellowing.


title: Scotch Tape

text: In Japan, "Magic Tape" is a trademark of Kuraray for a hook-and-loop fastener system similar to Velcro. Instead the katakana version of the word Mending Tape is used, i.e., , along with the familiar green and yellow tartan branding.


title: Scotch Tape

text: In 1953, Soviet scientists showed that triboluminescence caused by peeling a roll of an unidentified Scotch brand tape in a vacuum can produce X-rays. In 2008, American scientists performed an experiment that showed the rays can be strong enough to leave an X-ray image of a finger on photographic paper.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: George Kenneth Butterfield Jr. (born April 27, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 1st congressional district since 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in a special election after the resignation of Frank Ballance.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: His district is in the state's northeastern corner, which includes all or parts of 19 counties. A longtime advocate of civil rights, Butterfield was appointed an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court by Governor Mike Easley in 2001, retaining the position until 2003. He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as its chair from 2015 to 2017.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: G. K. Butterfield was born and raised in the then segregated city of Wilson, North Carolina. Butterfield came from a prominent African-American family with a long history in North Carolina. Both of Butterfield's parents were mixed-race Americans. His maternal grandfather, Joe Davis, was a child of a formerly enslaved person (Judah Davis) and a white man. His mother, Addie, taught elementary school for 48 years in some of North Carolina's poorest communities. She was keenly focused on ensuring that her students learned to read—a right denied to many blacks in the South. Butterfield's father, G. K. Butterfield Sr., was an immigrant from Bermuda. As a graduate of Meharry Medical College, he practiced dentistry for 50 years in the poor, segregated community of East Wilson. In the late 1940s, he helped found the Wilson Branch of the NAACP in order to register black voters in the county. In 1953, he became the first African American elected to the city council in Wilson and the first black elected official in eastern North Carolina since Reconstruction.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield graduated from Charles H. Darden High School in Wilson. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in political science and sociology from North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a historically black university. During his time at NCCU, Butterfield was active in voter registration activism, including coordinating voter registration drives in Durham and organizing a student march from the State Capitol in Raleigh to the Wilson County Courthouse to draw attention to the importance of voter registration. After completing his bachelor's degree, Butterfield attended the NCCU School of Law, receiving a Juris Doctor degree in 1974.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: During his junior year at NCCU, Butterfield was drafted into the United States Army and stationed at Fort Bragg Army installation in Fayetteville. He served from 1968 to 1970 and was honorably discharged, and he returned to NCCU to complete his undergraduate degree.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In describing his racial identity as a black man, he has pointed to his African heritage, as a direct descendant of enslaved people. He grew up in racially segregated North Carolina, living in "East Wilson", where he attended black schools. He spent his childhood as a firsthand witness to the disenfranchisement of his black community originating as part of a targeted campaign to remove his father from the Board of Aldermen. He is the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: After completing law school, Butterfield began a 14-year legal career as a civil rights attorney, practicing across eastern North Carolina. During this time, he developed his reputation, winning several voting-rights cases.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In 1988, Butterfield was elected Resident Superior Court judge in judicial district 7BC. Beginning on January 1, 1989, and for the next 12 years, he presided over civil and criminal court in 46 North Carolina counties. In February 2001, Governor Mike Easley appointed him to the North Carolina Supreme Court. In 2002, Butterfield lost his seat on the Supreme Court, but he returned to the Superior Court bench by special appointment of Governor Easley. He served in that position until his retirement in May 2004 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield was first elected to the House of Representatives in a special election on July 20, 2004, to fill the seat of Frank Ballance, who had resigned after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. He assumed office on July 21, 2004.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield was elected to Congress in a special election on July 20, 2004, to fill the unexpired term of Representative Frank Ballance, who had resigned for health reasons. He defeated Republican nominee Greg Dority and Libertarian Party nominee Tom Eisenmenger. Butterfield was sworn into office on July 21, 2004.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: On July 20, 2004, Butterfield won the Democratic primary, entitling him to run in the November general election. Running against Dority again, he won his first full term with 64% of the popular vote.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and formerly served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee. He is the Region VIII representative on the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Beginning in 2007, in the 110th Congress, Butterfield was chosen to serve as one of eight Chief Deputy Whips for the House Democratic Caucus. Chief Deputy Whips assist in the formulation of Democratic policy and ensure the passage of legislation by maintaining good communication with members. He was appointed to this position by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: As a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Butterfield advocated for the American Clean Energy and Security Act. He supports "a market-based approach to capping carbon emissions" and wants to broaden the United States' sources of energy. On his website, Butterfield stresses the need to find more clean and domestic sources of energy.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: A strong supporter of civil rights, Butterfield advocated renewal of the Voting Rights Act and "introduced a bill calling for the Capitol Visitor's Center to acknowledge the slave labor used to build the Capitol."


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Originally endorsing John Edwards for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Butterfield endorsed Barack Obama in January 2008.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In 2009, Butterfield introduced the Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act "to assist states in carrying out inspections of lodging facilities, train inspection personnel, contract with a commercial exterminator; educate owners and staff at lodging facilities." He also passed H.R. 4252 "[t]o amend the Small Business Act to change the net worth amount under the small business program for socially and economically disadvantaged individuals from $750,000 to $978,722, and for other purposes."


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield supported the Affordable Care Act, and worked with the Energy and Commerce Committee to help write the legislation. During the discussion of the bill in Congress, he complained about the lack of cooperation from Republicans.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield supports increasing taxes for higher-income families while decreasing taxes for middle- and low-income families. Although he is an advocate for using government stimulus in order to improve the economy, he wants to reduce government regulations on the private sector.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In 2008, Planned Parenthood gave Butterfield an 80% rating. In 2009, Butterfield supported the interests of NARAL Pro-Choice America 100% of the time. He identifies as pro-choice on abortion, and especially supports legalized abortion when the life of the woman is in danger or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. He called the day that the Supreme Court overturned "Roe v. Wade" a "sad day".


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield has repeatedly voted against defining marriage as being between one man and one woman, voting against the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 and constitutional marriage amendments in 2004 and 2006. He has voted to ban job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and in 2010 voted for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield voted in 2008 against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) $700 billion bailout of the financial industry and the $14 billion rescue package for the auto industry.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In 2011, he voted to extend expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act and in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In 2012, Butterfield introduced legislation that would require more input from the public before tolls are introduced on roads. The legislation was in response to the "No toll on I-95" group, a Roanoke Rapids-based group that opposes instating a toll on I-95. Opponents of the toll argue that it leads to double taxation, and say it is the first time that "the federal government has put tolls on an existing interstate."


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: In April 2012, Butterfield accompanied Obama to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to speak about extending the interest rates on federal loan programs for many undergraduate students. Butterfield expressed concern with the pending expiration, saying: "Allowing the current interest rates to expire would burden students with additional debt, prolong their ability to kick start their careers, and send the message that it is more important to cut taxes for the wealthy than educational expenses for our young people."


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: On July 23, 2014, Butterfield introduced House Joint Resolution 120, approving the location of a memorial to commemorate the more than 5,000 slaves and free black persons who fought for independence in the American Revolution.


title: G. K. Butterfield

text: Butterfield is a lifelong member of Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church in Wilson, North Carolina, where he has served as Trustee and Chairman of the Finance Ministry. He also serves on the Board of Visitors for the North Carolina Central University School of Law and as a Trustee of Gallaudet University. He is a member of Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship, Incorporated. In 2017, the City of Greenville named its new transit center, the G.K. Butterfield Transportation Center, in his honor.


title: Erinn Westbrook

text: Erinn Veronica Westbrook is an American actress, singer, dancer and model. She is known for portraying Bree in "Glee", Gabby Richards in the MTV series "Awkward", and Magnolia Barnard in the Netflix series "Insatiable". As of 2022, she stars as Tabitha Tate in The CW series "Riverdale".


title: Erinn Westbrook

text: Westbrook was born on Long Island, New York, and moved to Town and Country, Missouri, when she was six years old. She is the second of three children. She has an elder sister, Lauren and a younger brother, Brent C. Both of her siblings are also Harvard graduates. She attended John Burroughs School, where she was the captain of the cheerleading squad and graduated in 2006.


title: Erinn Westbrook

text: She graduated from Harvard University, the tenth member of her family to do so. She majored in English, American Literature and Language, with a secondary concentration in Dramatic Arts and an advanced certification in Spanish. She wrote for the "Harvard Crimson" and was president of Students Taking on Poverty.


title: Erinn Westbrook

text: After interning for "CNBC", "NBC", and "Oxygen", Westbrook began her career as an on-air personality for MTV. She reported on topics pertinent to young people and hosted several features, including SXSW, mtvU's Movers & Changers, a joint venture between the network and the New York Stock Exchange, and MTV Spring Break. Westbrook served as one of the main hosts of MTV Spring Break 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2012, Westbrook landed a recurring role on "Mr. Box Office", starring alongside Bill Bellamy, Vivica Fox, and Jon Lovitz. She also choreographed two episodes in 2013. Westbrook began her career in Los Angeles as a model with Ford Models, appearing in ads for Nike, Vineyard Vines, Seventeen magazine, Cosmopolitan magazine, and others. In fall 2013, Westbrook was featured as one of "Fashion's Next It Girls" in Hollywood by "Who, What, Wear". Westbrook has guest-starred on "Switched at Birth", "Supernatural", "Bones", "NCIS" and most recently, "Jane the Virgin". She is best known for her role as Bree, the captain of the Cheerios, in the fifth season of "Glee". In spring 2014, Westbrook joined the cast of MTV's drama, "Awkward", and continued with the show through the fifth and final season in 2016. In summer 2014, Westbrook was invited by the U.S. embassies in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia to visit Southeast Asia as an emissary of Culture and the Arts.


title: Cur

text: The breed is now extinct. In the United States a short-haired dog used in hunting and herding is called "cur-tailed", or "cur" for short.


title: Cur

text: In modern speech, the term "cur" is usually used to describe a mongrel dog, particularly if its temperament is unfriendly or aggressive. The term is believed to be derived from the Old Norse "", meaning 'to grumble or growl'.


title: Cur

text: In England the cur, also called the drover's dog, was a distinct breed of dog used by cattle drovers; they are now extinct. The cur was described by Ralph Beilby and Thomas Bewick in their 1790 work "A general history of quadrupeds", as well as by Sydenham Edwards in his 1800 "Cynographia Britannica", as dogs principally used by drovers to drive cattle. Curs were described as heelers, nipping the heels of cattle to make them move and ducking below the subsequent kick, they were said to be common in England, particularly the North of England, but were virtually unknown in the rest of the United Kingdom.


title: Cur

text: The cur was described as being larger, stronger and longer legged than shepherd's collies with shorter and smoother coats; in colour they were generally black, brindled or grizzled with a white neck and legs and occasionally a white face, they had some feathering on their legs and half-pricked ears. A defining characteristic of the cur was many were born with short, stumpy tails, which gave the appearance of their having been docked. Edwards described the breed's ancestry as likely a mixture of collie, lurcher, English Mastiff or Great Dane. Their character was described as cunning, clever, ever busy and restless; it was said they could differentiate their master's cattle from those of strangers and they would separate the strange cattle from their master's herds.


title: Cur

text: It is uncertain when or why the breed became extinct, it likely disappeared in the mid-19th century. Some modern writers believe it was the cur, not the collie, that was crossed with the dingo to create the now-extinct Halls Heeler in Australia, making the cur an ancestor of both the Australian Cattle Dog and the Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog, the latter inheriting the cur's bobtail.


title: Cur

text: In the United States, the term cur is also used to describe a distinctive type of short-haired dog that is used for both hunting and herding that was developed in the Southern United States. When describing these dogs, the term is actually an abbreviation of cur-tailed, as in a dog with a naturally occurring bobtail like that of the extinct English cur; many of the earlier examples of this type had a bobtail and some still do. A number of cur breeds have been standardised within the United States, some have been recognised by the United Kennel Club; these breeds include the Black Mouth Cur, the Blue Lacy, the Catahoula Leopard dog, the Mountain Cur, the Stephens Cur, the Treeing Cur, and the Treeing Tennessee Brindle.


title: Cur

text: These versatile dogs are used in a number of roles: for herding livestock, as well as trailing and locating lost livestock in thick scrubland; and in hunting a variety of game, including squirrels, opossums, raccoons, feral pigs, cougars, and American black bears, locating game both by sight and scent. While distinctive, American curs vary greatly in size; the various breeds and strains can be from in height, and in weight.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Carrie Pilby is a 2016 American comedy-drama film directed by Susan Johnson and written by Kara Holden and Dean Craig, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Caren Lissner. The film stars Bel Powley, Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne, Jason Ritter, William Moseley, Vanessa Bayer, and Colin O'Donoghue. Principal photography began on December 14, 2015, in New York City.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was given a limited release on March 31, 2017, before being released through video on demand on April 4, 2017, by The Orchard. It debuted on Netflix on September 5, 2017.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Carrie Pilby is a 19-year-old child prodigy living alone in New York City. She is always the smartest person in the room but too unhappy to enjoy it. With difficulty interacting, she has trouble dating and making friends, but she always has something to say. And while she can analyze everything, regardless of the situation, she has more difficulty understanding herself.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Carrie asks her therapist, Dr. Petrov, in a weekly session why so much emphasis is placed on happiness. "There are some brilliant, unhappy people." But the therapist, a longtime friend of Carrie's absent and widowed father, is very aware of how unique she is. Originally from London, Carrie has lived in NYC since she was 12, when her mother passed and now by herself in Manhattan. She skipped three grades, graduating from Harvard University at 18. A year later, she works for a law firm as a proofreader at her dad's insistence, but doesn't really need the job.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Carrie's clearly lonely and feels odd, despite outward appearances. She has spent the past year largely hiding in her apartment and seeing Dr. Petrov. So, he makes her a to-do list to help her emerge from her self-isolation, "Give humanity a chance" and find joy in her life: Get a job. Make a friend. Get a pet. Go on a date. Do something you enjoyed as a child.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Her adventures include a blind date with an engaged guy, friendship with an extroverted but kind co-worker and "the guy next door", whom she meets while he's playing a didgeridoo in the alley behind their apartment building. They eventually get to know each other through a walk-and-talk around the city.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: There are occasional flashbacks to Carrie's abusive relationship with her English professor when she was just 16. These serious scenes help explain her contradictions: intellectual wisdom beyond her years combined with a teen's emotional immaturity.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: As Carrie starts to fulfill the list, her views on sex, romance and the world begin to change as well as how she sees relationships and humanity.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: On June 17, 2013, it was announced that Braveart Films' producer Susan Johnson would make her directorial debut with the adaptation of the coming-of-age novel "Carrie Pilby" written by Caren Lissner, and the film would be produced by Suzanne Farwell and Susan Cartsonis of Storefront Pictures. Hailee Steinfeld was previously attached to play the titular role in the film, whose script was written by Kara Holden and Dean Craig. Steinfeld dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Bel Powley. Similarly, Eddie Izzard was cast as Dr. Petrov, but the role later went to Nathan Lane, while Tom Wilkinson was cast to play Carrie's father, but was later replaced by Gabriel Byrne. Jason Ritter and Vanessa Bayer both joined the cast in April 2015.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: Articles about the film noted its largely female production team, female head writer and female director.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016. In November 2016, The Orchard acquired US distribution rights to the film. The film was given limited release on March 31, 2017, in six theaters, and then became available through video on demand on April 4, 2017. The film was the most-watched iTunes film in the independent films category for the first three weeks of its release, then held third place during the fourth week.


title: Carrie Pilby (film)

text: On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 5.80/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Viral envelope

text: A viral envelope is the outermost layer of many types of viruses. It protects the genetic material in their life cycle when traveling between host cells. Not all viruses have envelopes.


title: Viral envelope

text: Numerous human pathogenic viruses in circulation are encased in lipid bilayers, and they infect their target cells by causing the viral envelope and cell membrane to fuse. Although there are effective vaccines against some of these viruses, there is no preventative or curative medicine for the majority of them. In most cases, the known vaccines operate by inducing antibodies that prevent the pathogen from entering cells. This happens in the case of enveloped viruses when the antibodies bind to the viral envelope proteins. The membrane fusion event that triggers viral entrance is caused by the viral fusion protein. Many enveloped viruses only have one protein visible on the surface of the particle, which is required for both mediating adhesion to the cell surface and for the subsequent membrane fusion process. To create potentially protective vaccines for human pathogenic enveloped viruses for which there is currently no vaccine, it is essential to comprehend how antibodies interact with viral envelope proteins, particularly with the fusion protein, and how antibodies neutralize viruses. Enveloped viruses enter cells by joining a cellular membrane to their lipid bilayer membrane. Priming by proteolytic processing, either of the fusion protein or of a companion protein, is necessary for the majority of viral fusion proteins. The priming stage then gets the fusion protein ready for triggering by the processes that go along with attachment and uptake, which frequently happens during transport of the fusion protein to the cell surface but may also happen extracellularly. So far, structural studies have revealed two kinds of viral fusion proteins. These proteins are believed to catalyze the same mechanism in both situations, resulting in the fusing of two bilayers. In other words, these proteins operate as enzymes, which while having various structural variations catalyze the same chemical reaction.


title: Viral envelope

text: The envelopes are typically derived from portions of the host cell membranes (phospholipids and proteins), but include some viral glycoproteins. One of the main parts of human pathogenic viruses is glycoprotein. They have been shown to play significant roles in immunity and infection. Viral glycoproteins, a new class of cellular inhibitory proteins has been discovered. These include the E3 ubiquitin ligases of the membrane-associated RING-CH (MARCH) family, which among other things, inhibits the expression of cell surface proteins implicated in adaptive immunity. Being made up mostly of host membrane, the viral envelope can also have the proteins associated with the host cell within their membrane after budding. Many enveloped viruses mature by budding at the plasma membrane, which allows them to be discharged from infected cells. During this procedure, viral transmembrane proteins, also known as "spike" proteins, are integrated into membrane vesicles containing viral core components. For a very long time, it was thought that the spike proteins, which are necessary for infectivity, were directly incorporated into the viral core through their cytoplasmic domains. Recent research suggests that while such direct interactions may be what causes the budding of alphaviruses, this may not be the case for retroviruses and negative strand RNA viruses. These viruses can form bud particles even in the absence of spike proteins by relying only on viral core components. The spike proteins can occasionally be produced as virus-like particles without the viral core. Therefore, optimal budding and release may be dependent on a coordinated "push-and-pull" action between core and spike, where oligomerization of both components is essential. They may help viruses avoid the host immune system. TAM receptor tyrosine kinases increase phagocytic clearance of apoptotic cells and inhibit immunological responses brought on by Toll-like receptors and type I interferons when they are activated by the ligands Gas6 and Protein S. (IFNs). The phospholipid phosphatidylserine may be seen on the membranes of several enveloped viruses, which they employ to bind Gas6 and Protein S to activate TAM receptors. Ligand-coated viruses stimulate type I IFN signaling, activate TAM receptors on dendritic cells (DCs), and suppress type II IFN signaling to circumvent host defenses and advance infection. TAM-deficient DCs exhibit type I IFN responses that are more pronounced than those of wild-type cells in response to viral exposure. As a result, flaviviruses and pseudo typed retroviruses have a harder time infecting TAM-deficient DCs, albeit infection can be brought back by type I IFN antibodies. A TAM kinase inhibitor, meanwhile, prevents infection of wild-type DCs. TAM receptors, which are potential targets for therapy, are thereby activated by viruses to reduce type I IFN signaling. Glycoproteins on the surface of the envelope serve to identify and bind to receptor sites on the host's membrane. The particular set of viral proteins are engaged in a series of structural changes. When these changes are set/finished, there is then and only then, fusion with the host membrane. These glycoproteins mediate the interaction between virion and host cell, typically initiating the fusion between the viral envelope and the host's cellular membrane. In some cases, the virus with an envelope will form an endosome within the host cell. There are three main types of viral glycoproteins: Envelope proteins, membrane proteins, and spike proteins (E, M, and S). The viral envelope then fuses with the host's membrane, allowing the capsid and viral genome to enter and infect the host.


title: Viral envelope

text: All enveloped viruses also have a capsid, another protein layer, between the envelope and the genome. The virus wraps its delicate nucleic acid with a protein shell known as the capsid, from the Latin capsa, meaning "box," in order to shield it from this hostile environment. Similar to how numerous bricks come together to form a wall, the capsid is made up of one or more distinct protein types that repeatedly repeat to form the whole capsid. This repetitive pattern creates a robust but rather flexible capsid. The nucleic acid inside the capsid is appropriately protected by its modest size and physical difficulty in opening it. The nucleocapsid of the virion is made up of the nucleic acid and the capsid. Remember that the genomes of most viruses are very small. Genes code for instructions to make proteins, so small genomes cannot code for many proteins. Therefore, the virion capsid consists of one or only a few proteins that repeat over and over  to form the structure. The viral nucleic acid  would be physically too large to fit inside the capsid if it consisted of more than  a few proteins.The capsid, having a focused role of protecting the genome in addition to immune recognition evasion. The viral capsid is known for its protection of RNA before it is inserted into the host cell, unlike the viral envelope which protects the protein capsid.


title: Viral envelope

text: The cell from which a virus buds often dies or is weakened, and sheds more viral particles for an extended period. The lipid bilayer envelope of these viruses is relatively sensitive to desiccation, heat, and amphiphiles such as soap and detergents, therefore these viruses are easier to sterilize than non-enveloped viruses, have limited survival outside host environments, and typically must transfer directly from host to host. Viral envelope persistence, wither it be enveloped or naked, are a factor in determining longevity of a virus on inanimate surfaces. Enveloped viruses possess great adaptability and can change in a short time in order to evade the immune system. Enveloped viruses can cause persistent infections.


title: Viral envelope

text: Vaccination against enveloped viruses can function by neutralizing the glycoprotein activity with antibodies.


title: Gajanan Maharaj

text: Gajanan Maharaj was an Indian Hindu guru, saint and mystic. His origins remain uncertain. He first appeared at Shegaon, a village in Buldhana district, Maharashtra as a young man at age of 30 probably during 23 February 1878. He attained "Sanjeevana Samadhi" on September 8, 1910; which is thought to be a process of voluntary withdrawal from one's physical body. This date of his "Samadhi" is commemorated every year as part of the "Shree Punyatithi Utsav". The date of his first appearance is considered an auspicious day and is celebrated as "Prakat Din Sohla".