title: Political status of Western Sahara

text: Since 1966, the United Nations request for the celebration of a referendum for enabling the "indigenous population" to exercise freely their right to self-determination. Since 1979, the United Nations has recognized the Polisario Front as the representative of the people of Western Sahara, and considered Morocco as an occupying force.


title: Political status of Western Sahara

text: Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed, in his last report on Western Sahara, to the Security Council:


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Vexatious litigation is legal action which is brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary. It may take the form of a primary frivolous lawsuit or may be the repetitive, burdensome, and unwarranted filing of meritless motions in a matter which is otherwise a meritorious cause of action. Filing vexatious litigation is considered an abuse of the judicial process and may result in sanctions against the offender.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: A single action, even a frivolous one, is usually not enough to raise a litigant to the level of being declared vexatious. Rather, a pattern of frivolous legal actions is typically required to rise to the level of vexatious. Repeated and severe instances by a single lawyer or firm can result in eventual disbarment.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Some jurisdictions have a list of vexatious litigants: people who have repeatedly abused the legal system. Because lawyers could be disbarred for participating in this abuse of the legal process, vexatious litigants are often unable to retain legal counsel, and such litigants, therefore, represent themselves in court. Those on the vexatious litigant list are usually either forbidden from any further legal action or are required to obtain prior permission from a senior judge before taking any legal action. The process by which a person is added to the list varies among jurisdictions. In liberal democratic jurisdictions, declaring someone a vexatious litigant is considered to be a serious measure and rarely occurs, as judges and officials are reluctant to curtail a person's access to the courts.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: These legal actions occur in some countries of the former British Empire, where the common law system still remains: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, and US, which are specified below. The civil (codified/continental) law does not have such a prohibition.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: The concept of vexatious litigation entered into law in 1896 with the Vexatious Actions Act, enacted in England and soon extended to Scotland and Ireland. This was primarily a response to the actions of Alexander Chaffers, a solicitor who filed numerous actions against leading members of Victorian society. When costs were awarded against him, he failed to pay.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: The first such law outside the British Isles, the Supreme Court Act, 1927 was passed in Australia nearly thirty years later. This too was prompted by the behaviour of an individual, Rupert Millane. The first vexatious litigant law in the United States was enacted in California in 1963. By 2007 four more US states had passed similar legislation: Florida, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: The High Court of Australia has declared only four people to be vexatious litigants in its century-old existence, , whereas the Australian Federal Court system, established in 1976, has at least 49 names on its barred registry.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In New South Wales, there were 43 people on the New South Wales Supreme Court's vexatious litigants register.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In Queensland, the process for having someone declared a vexatious litigant is governed by the "Vexatious Proceedings Act 2005", which supplanted an earlier Act. Importantly, the Act defines a vexatious proceeding to include a proceeding brought without merit or any prospect of success, with the consequence that it is not necessary to prove the existence of any improper motive in order to obtain relief under the Act. there were 26 people found to be vexatious litigants.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In South Australia, vexatious litigation laws were enacted in the mid-1930s with the "Supreme Court Act 1935-1936", following similar laws enacted in Victoria. In 2010 the Rann government acted to strengthen the ability of the courts to act against vexatious litigants by "increasing the range of courts and tribunals that can declare people as vexatious". Prior to that date, few people had been banned from bringing litigation to South Australian courts – by 2005, only two people were listed as having been declared as vexatious litigants, the first in 1997 and the second declared during that year. there were 7 people found to be vexatious litigants.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: , 21 people—including convicted mass-murderer Julian Knight—had been declared vexatious litigants since the law was introduced in 1930.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Under the "Constitution Act, 1867", section 92(14), each province is vested with the power to enact and apply laws relating to the administration of justice within its own territory.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In Canada, Section 40 of the "Federal Court Act" and in Ontario Section 140 of the "Courts of Justice Act", restrict the ability to introduce or continue proceedings for those who have instituted vexatious proceedings or conducted proceedings in a vexatious manner.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In Quebec, the Code of Civil Procedure is the principal legislation that sets rules related to civil procedure. Under section 46 of the Code of Civil Procedure, all judicial courts and judges in Quebec are vested with "...all the powers necessary for the exercise of their jurisdiction". Furthermore, they may:


title: Vexatious litigation

text: "…at any time and in all matters, whether in first instance or in appeal, issue orders to safeguard the rights of the parties, for such time and on such conditions as they may determine. As well, they may, in the matters brought before them, even on their own initiative, issue injunctions or reprimands, suppress writings or declare them libellous, and make such orders as are appropriate to deal with cases for which no specific remedy is provided by law."


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Section 46 vests a very broad power on judicial courts and judges to ensure that the administration of justice is conducted according to decorum and according to the remedial nature of justice. As the courts's decisions have shown it, the authority to declare a litigant as vexatious is directly tributary to the power conferred by section 46. Cases illustrating the application of section 46 are numerous. Among them, there are: "Nguiagain v. Commission de la fonction publique", in which the judge rejected the plaintiff's motion for a "mandamus" to enjoin his union to revise the grievance that he had filed on the grounds that the motion was groundless and abusive; "De Niverville c. Descôteaux", where an injunction was rendered declaring the respondent, disbarred lawyer Descôteaux, as a vexatious litigant due to the multiple unfounded and frivolous actions that he had sought against the plaintiff De Niverville; and in "Fabrikant v. Corbin", a motion to declare the plaintiff Valery Fabrikant as a vexatious litigant was granted to the defendant, Dr. Corbin. In all of the above cited cases, a litigant was only declared vexatious following a proceeding instated by the opposite party. Moreover, section 46's scope is limited to judicial courts and judges. Administrative tribunals are legislative creations and they can only exist and function within the limits that are imposed by law. Administrative tribunals in Quebec cannot declare a person a vexatious litigant.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: As per section 90 of the "Rules of Practice of the Superior Court of Québec in Civil Matters", such litigants are now indexed in a registry kept by the Chief Justice in the judiciary district of Montreal. Lawyer and author Claude Duchesnay has reported in May 2003 that a document on the Quebec attorney general's intranet contains the name of 58 persons who must obtain permission prior to instating proceedings before the courts.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In Ireland, a court may, of its own motion or on application, order that no proceedings, either of a certain type or at all, may be issued by a certain person without leave of that court or some other court, for a specified time, or indefinitely. Such an order is referred to in legal circles as an Isaac Wunder order after Isaac Wunder who made several claims against the Hospitals Trust claiming sweepstakes prizes, but the claims were found to be groundless and the case deemed frivolous or vexatious. He was prohibited from taking further High Court proceedings in the action without leave of the court.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In New Zealand a person may be declared a vexatious litigant by a High Court Judge on the application of the Attorney-General. A vexatious litigant must then apply to a High Court Judge for leave to commence any action. A decision by the High Court whether or not to grant leave cannot be appealed.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service maintains a list of vexatious litigants and those subject to a civil restraint order.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Courts in England and Wales have the means of escalating the sanctions against a litigant who makes applications to the court that are "totally without merit". Civil restraint orders allow courts to forbid applications for court hearings without the permission of a judge. There are three types of CRO: limited, extended and general, with different scopes of application. Further applications totally without merit can lead to the withdrawal of the right of appeal. Harassment of the court and court officials can lead to a penal prohibition notice, prohibiting the litigant from contacting or approaching the court without permission.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Section 42 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 provides the High Court with the power to make an order restricting the ability of a person to undertake litigation without leave of the High Court. The High Court may make a civil proceedings order, a criminal proceedings order or an all proceedings order.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: A person subject to a civil proceedings order may not institute or continue civil proceedings in any court (which includes tribunals of a judicial function) without leave of the High Court. A person subject to a criminal proceeding order may not lay information before a justice of the peace or prefer a bill of indictment without leave of the High Court. A person subject to an all proceedings order is subject to the restriction in both a civil proceedings order and a criminal proceedings order.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Such an order can only be made on the application of HM Attorney-General and where the High Court is satisfied that the person has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground—


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In relation to the civil proceedings, the High Court will only grant leave to initiate or continue the proceedings or application where it is satisfied it is not an abuse of the process of the court in question and that there are reasonable grounds for the proceedings or application.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: In relation to criminal proceedings, the High Court will only grant leave for the laying of an information or for an application for leave to prefer a bill of indictment where it is satisfied that the institution of the prosecution is not an abuse of the criminal process and that there are reasonable grounds for the institution of the prosecution by the applicant.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service holds a published list of members of the public who have habitually and persistently instituted vexatious legal proceedings without reasonable ground, and have been declared vexatious litigants under the Vexatious Actions (Scotland) Act 1898. This piece of legislation has been repealed, and replaced by incorporation into section 100 of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. Under this legislation, the Inner House of the Court of Session can make an order to prevent a person accused of vexatious litigation from raising or progressing any civil legal proceedings without permission from a judge of the Outer House of the Court of Session. Such an Order may have a specified time period, or may run indefinitely. The published list of such individuals, as of January 2021, contains eleven names.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: As required by California law, the Judicial Council of California maintains an online Vexatious Litigant List containing the names of several thousand individuals and companies who have been deemed vexatious. Publication of this list began in 1991 and only orders filed from 1991 to the present are included on the list. Unless they are represented by an attorney, persons named on the list are prohibited from filing any new litigation in California without first obtaining permission from the presiding justice or presiding judge of the court where the filing is proposed. Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 391.7(a), any vexatious litigant who disobeys such a prefiling order may be punished for contempt of court.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Under California law a vexatious litigant is someone who does any of the following, most of which require that the litigant be proceeding "pro se", i.e., representing himself:


title: Vexatious litigation

text: The threshold for "repeated" frivolous motions or litigations is quite high. "While there is no bright line rule as to what constitutes 'repeatedly', most cases affirming the vexatious litigant designation involve situations where litigants have filed dozens of motions either during the pendency of an action or relating to the same judgment."


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Repeated motions must be "so devoid of merit and be so frivolous that they can be described as a flagrant abuse of the system, have no reasonable probability of success, lack reasonable or probable cause or excuse, and are clearly meant to abuse the processes of the courts and to harass the adverse party than other litigants." Evidence that a litigant is a frequent plaintiff or defendant alone is insufficient to support a vexatious litigant designation. The moving party, in addition to demonstrating that the plaintiff is vexatious, must make an affirmative showing based on evidence that the case has little chance of prevailing on the merits. If the plaintiff is so determined, a bond may be required, and if the bond requirement is not met within a specified time period, a judgment of dismissal is ordered. A finding of vexatiousness is not an appealable order, but a dismissal for failure to post a bond requirement based on a judgment of vexatiousness is appealable.


title: Vexatious litigation

text: Habeas petitions do not count towards vexatious litigant determination. Vexatiousness in Probate Actions have a lower standard.


title: Q (magazine)

text: Q was a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1986 by broadcast journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, who were presenters of the BBC television music series "The Old Grey Whistle Test". "Q"'s final issue was published in July 2020.


title: Q (magazine)

text: "Q" was originally published by the EMAP media group and set itself apart from much of the other music press with monthly production and higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called "Cue" (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it would not be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in "Q"s 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In January 2008, EMAP sold its consumer magazine titles, including "Q", to the Bauer Media Group. Bauer put the title up for sale in 2020, alongside "Car Mechanic", "Modern Classics", "Your Horse" and "Sea Angler". However, publication ceased in July 2020 as Kelsey Media decided to buy a number of non-music titles from Bauer ("Sea Angler", "Car Mechanics" and "Your Horse"), making the 28 July 2020 issue (Q415) the last to be published. The end of "Q" was blamed both on lower circulation and advertising revenue caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as being "a symptom of an expert-free internet age."


title: Q (magazine)

text: The magazine had an extensive review section, featuring: new releases, reissues, compilations, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and television reviews. It used a star-rating system from one to five stars; indeed, the rating an album received in "Q" was often added to print and television advertising for the album in the UK and Ireland. While its content was non-free they hosted an archive of all of their magazine covers.


title: Q (magazine)

text: Much of the magazine was devoted to interviews with popular musical artists. It also compiled lists, ranging from "The 100 Greatest Albums" to "The 100 Richest Stars in Rock", with a special edition magazine called "The 150 Greatest Rock Lists Ever" published in July 2004. "Q" also produced a number of special editions devoted to a single act/artist like U2 or Nirvana, but these magazines stopped in 2018, with its sister magazine, "Mojo" (also owned by Bauer) continuing to produce specials devoted to artists like Bob Dylan.


title: Q (magazine)

text: Promotional gifts were given away, such as cover-mounted CDs or books. The January 2006 issue included a free copy of "The Greatest Rock and Pop Miscellany … Ever!", modelled on "Schott's Original Miscellany".


title: Q (magazine)

text: Every issue of "Q" had a different message on the spine. Readers tried to work out what the message had to do with the contents of the magazine. This practice (known as the "spine line") has since become commonplace among British lifestyle magazines, including "Q"s sister publication "Empire" and the football monthly "FourFourTwo".


title: Q (magazine)

text: The magazine had a relationship with the Glastonbury Festival, producing both a free daily newspaper on-site during the festival and a review magazine available at the end of the event. This was first started as a "Select" magazine spin-off, though as "Q" moved its focus away from stadium rock and 'CD-quality' acts of the 1980s (like Dire Straits and Phil Collins) to the Britpop and indie rock stars of the 1990s, it was decided that EMAP did not need two monthly titles (and "Raw" magazine as well) covering the same genre of music; "Select" was shut in late 2000, with "Q" continuing. In January 2008, "Mojo" was launched by EMAP as a rival to "Uncut Magazine" and focused on all the rock stars, now viewed upon as being heritage and classic, that "Q" originally featured in its pages in 1986.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In late 2008, "Q" revamped its image with a smaller amount of text and an increased focus on subjects other than music. This ""Rolling Stone"-isation" led to criticism from much of the traditional "Q" readership, especially given that the total number of pages per issue had by then effectively halved since the earlier years of its publication.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In July 2020, Bauer published a Special Collector's Issue of the magazine (Q414), which it had intended to be the last edition before deciding to attempt to sell the publication to another media group. This issue was more of a 'throwback' publication, similar to what "Mojo" had been doing, and featured articles and acts from 34 years of "Q" magazine. However, with other firms, such as Long Live Vinyl's owner Anthem Publishing, ending the publication of a number of monthly music magazine titles, a buyer could not be found for the title, with editor Ted Kessler announcing that issue Q415 would be the last, on 20 July 2020.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In the early days of publication, the magazine's format was much closer in tone to that of "Rolling Stone" (though with some of the characteristic humour of former "Smash Hits" staff shining through), with Tom Hibbert's "Who The Hell..." feature (including interviews with people like Jeffrey Archer, Robert Maxwell, Ronnie Biggs and Bernard Manning) and film reviews. However, after EMAP started to publish a new magazine called "Empire" in 1989 (the idea being that "Empire" would be 'Q with films'), the movie reviews migrated to the new publication, with "Q" becoming a magazine focused on music (one found for sale alongside "Select" and "Vox" in various magazine racks).


title: Q (magazine)

text: In the 1990s, former "NME" staff writers, such as Andrew Collins, Danny Kelly, Stuart Maconie, and Charles Shaar Murray joined Paul Du Noyer and Adrian Deevoy over at "Q". Music coverage in IPC's 'inkie' indie weekly was becoming more serious after Melody Maker closed down and so names like Maconie felt more at home at a publication that would still run tongue-in-cheek articles such as "40 Celebs About Whom We Only Know One Thing" and "Do I Have To Wear This, Boss?" (Du Noyer's feature about every band having a member who looks out of place in the line-up).


title: Q (magazine)

text: In 2006, "Q" published a readers' survey, "The 100 Greatest Songs Ever", which was topped by Oasis' "Live Forever".


title: Q (magazine)

text: "Q" has a history of associating with charitable organisations, and in 2006 the British anti-poverty charity War on Want was named its official charity.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In the April 2007 issue, "Q" published an article listing "The 100 Greatest Singers", which was topped by Elvis Presley. Lady Gaga posed topless in a shoot for the April 2010 issue of the magazine, which was banned by stores in the United States due to the singer revealing too much of her breasts.


title: Q (magazine)

text: After a few years as a radio jukebox, Q Radio launched in June 2008 as a full-service radio station with a complete roster. Shows and presenters include "Drivetime with Danielle Perry" and "Q the 80s with Matthew Rudd". The station was transmitted on the digital television networks in the UK and online. Coldplay were involved with the launch of the station by giving an exclusive interview on Q's flagship programme "QPM" on the launch day. It was based in Birmingham alongside the now-closed Kerrang! 105.2 after moving from London in 2009. The station was closed in mid-2013 after owners Bauer Media decided to use the station's bandwidth on various platforms (DAB, Digital TV) to launch Kisstory, a spinoff of their Kiss brand. There was a "Q TV" television channel in the UK, which launched on 2 October 2000 and closed on 3 July 2012.


title: Q (magazine)

text: "Q" held a yearly awards ceremony called the Q Awards from 1990 until 2019. The Q Awards came to an end along with the publication itself.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In February 2012 Andrew Harrison was recruited as editor, replacing Paul Rees during a difficult period when on-line publishing had led to a 17% decline in the magazine's circulation in the first half of 2012. It had fallen to 64,596 units; a reduction in volume described by "The Guardian" as "the worst performance of any music magazine in the period". Direct reporting to Publishing Director Rimi Atwal of Bauer Media Group, Harrison's brief was to "refocus" and revive the magazine, and to that end he took on a number of new journalists and launched their iPad edition, but decided against a rebranding. Under his tenure, "Q" was named "Magazine of the Year" at the 2012 "Record of the Day" awards. He left just 14 months later, according to "the Guardian", "as print music magazines continue to endure torrid times" and even free titles were failing to compete against blogs and platforms dependent on online advertising.


title: Q (magazine)

text: According to the global business magazine "Campaign" in 2008, "Q" had been criticised for "playing it safe" with its album reviews and cover mounts.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In a 2001 interview in "Classic Rock", Marillion singer Steve Hogarth criticised "Q"s refusal to cover the band despite publishing some positive reviews:


title: Q (magazine)

text: I don’t understand why "Q" Magazine won't write about us. The most memorable review they gave us was of "Afraid of Sunlight" which said, "If this were by anything other than Marillion it would be hailed as near genius". And they still wouldn't give us a feature. How can they say, "this is an amazing record ... no, we don't want to talk to you"? It's hard to take when they say, "here's a very average record ... we'll put you on the front cover". Why don't they just stop pretending that it's all about music and admit it's really about money? Then put the top-selling five bands on the cover and tell everyone else to fuck off.


title: Q (magazine)

text: In 2005, after winning the Q Legend award at the Q Awards, New Order bassist Peter Hook called the magazine "two-faced cunts who give us bad reviews".


title: Alan Cranston

text: Alan MacGregor Cranston (June 19, 1914 – December 31, 2000) was an American politician and journalist who served as a United States Senator from California from 1969 to 1993, and as a President of the World Federalist Association from 1949 to 1952.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Born in Palo Alto, California, Cranston worked as a journalist after graduating from Stanford University. After serving as California State Controller, he was elected to the Senate in 1968. He served as the Senate Democratic Whip from 1977 to 1991. In 1984, Cranston sought the Democratic presidential nomination, advocating a nuclear freeze during the later stages of the Cold War. He dropped out after the first set of primaries.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded Cranston for his role in the savings and loan crisis as a member of the Keating Five. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, he decided not to run for a fifth term. After his retirement from the Senate, he served as president of the Global Security Institute and advocated for the global abolition of nuclear weapons.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Cranston was born in Palo Alto, California, the son of Carol (née Dixon) and William MacGregor Cranston. He attended Pomona College for one year and studied abroad for a summer at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before graduating from Stanford University in 1936 with a degree in English.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Cranston was a correspondent for the International News Service for two years before World War II. When an abridged English-language translation of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was released, sanitized to exclude some of Hitler's anti-Semitism and militancy, Cranston published a different translation (with annotations) that he believed reflected the contents of the book more accurately. In 1939, Hitler's publisher sued him for copyright violation in Connecticut; a judge ruled in Hitler's favor and publication of the book was halted, but by then a half million copies had been sold, helping inform a wide audience about the threat Hitler posed.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Before enlisting in the armed forces in 1944, Cranston worked as an editor and writer for the magazine "Common Ground", and later in the Office of War Information. Enlisting in the army as a private in 1944, he requested service with a combat unit after completing Infantry basic training, but was instead assigned to be editor of "Army Talk" magazine. While on active duty, he wrote a second book, "The Killing of the Peace", a synopsis of the failed bid to get the United States to join the League of Nations immediately after World War I. Cranston held the rank of sergeant when he was discharged at the end of the war in 1945.


title: Alan Cranston

text: A supporter of world government, Cranston attended the 1945 conference that led to the Dublin Declaration and became president of the World Federalist Association in 1948. He successfully pushed the California legislature to pass the 1949 World Federalist California Resolution, calling on Congress to amend the Constitution to allow U.S. participation in a federal world government. Also in the late 1940s, Cranston began his longstanding opposition to nuclear weapons.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1952, Cranston co-founded the California Democratic Council (CDC), and served as chairman. Since that time, the CDC has served as an unofficial coalition of local Democratic clubs that coordinate electoral activities and activism throughout California. The CDC provided substantial support to Cranston in his bid for State Controller in 1958 and his numerous runs for the U.S. Senate.


title: Alan Cranston

text: A Democrat, Cranston was elected California State Controller in 1958, reelected in 1962, and defeated for reelection in 1966.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1968, Cranston was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Senate, defeating Republican Max Rafferty in the general election after the staunchly conservative Rafferty had defeated the liberal Republican incumbent, Thomas Kuchel, in that party's primary.


title: Alan Cranston

text: The election was marred by mudslinging. A conservative writer, Frank Capell, authored a pamphlet suggesting that Cranston might have had Communist leanings in his youth, and that during his stint at the Office of War Information he helped falsely convince Franklin D. Roosevelt that Nazi Germany had perpetrated the Katyń massacre. Many of the same allegations were recycled in an article that ran in "American Opinion" in 1974 titled "Alan Cranston: The Shadow in the Senate". (The article's title was a reference to Lamont Cranston, the main character in the popular radio program "The Shadow".)


title: Alan Cranston

text: During his first few months in office, Cranston introduced a resolution calling for President Nixon to halt closing 59 Job Corps Centers. He amended the original resolution to include a June 30 deadline that would allow Congress to do a study of the targeted facilities and removed language criticizing the Nixon administration for damaging trainees' lives by closing the facilities. In April 1969, the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee approved the revised Cranston proposal in a vote of 10 to 6. Cranston predicted victory for the resolution when it was taken up for a vote by the entire chamber, but the Senate defeated it on May 13, 1969, by a vote of 52 to 40.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In a September 12, 1971 statement, Cranston disputed the Pentagon's claims that military manpower and national security would be threatened if Congress did not renew Nixon's draft authority and said he would filibuster the draft measure.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In September 1973, Cranston introduced an amendment that would reduce American forces overseas by 20% in the next 18 months and would include naval forces. It was introduced as a fallback amendment to the 40% reduction in American forces overseas Senator Mike Mansfield had offered.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In November 1973, Cranston announced his support for the nomination of Gerald Ford as vice president. He said his support came after consulting "several hundred persons—Democrats and Republicans, business and labor leaders, elected politicians and party functionaries—in his own state of California" and finding little opposition to Ford.


title: Alan Cranston

text: On April 23, 1974, Cranston stated that members of the Veterans Administration had been encouraged to contribute to Nixon's reelection campaign and that head of the Veterans Administration Donald E. Johnson was privy to these activities. Cranston's allegations were corroborated later that day by a former VA employee.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1974, Cranston defeated Republican H.L. "Bill" Richardson, a conservative state senator previously affiliated with the John Birch Society. Cranston polled 3,693,160 votes (60.5%) to Richardson's 2,210,267 (36.2%).


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1979, after 19 senators signed a letter indicating that their support for the SALT II treaty hinged on President Jimmy Carter's response to its impact on U.S. defense posture, Cranston said their concerns were legitimate but mostly did not "relate directly to the text of the SALT II treaty" and it was likely that their reservations about the treaty could be resolved without using killer amendments.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In 1980, Cranston defeated Republican Paul Gann, 4,705,399 (56.5%) to 3,093,426 (37.1%). His campaign was notable for a July 31 benefit that was the last concert The Eagles played at together for 14 years. During the event Cranston's wife thanked Eagles guitarist Don Felder for performing, to which Felder reportedly replied, "You're welcome...I guess." Bandmate Glenn Frey took exception to Felder's comment, leading to onstage bickering and the band's breakup immediately after the concert.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In March 1981, Cranston was one of 24 elected officials to issue a joint statement calling on the Reagan administration to find a peaceful solution to the Ulster conflict.


title: Alan Cranston

text: In April 1981, during a Senate floor speech, Cranston asserted that India and Pakistan had entered the final stages of their preparation for nuclear test sites, speculating that India "will decide to make another test at the Pokaran site in the next few months" and Pakistan "could produce the fissile materials for a similar test, perhaps by the end of this year, most likely by the end of 1982." He did not identify the source of his information, but senior Reagan administration officials verified "the gist of Senator Cranston's information."


title: Alan Cranston

text: On October 2, 1990, Cranston was one of nine senators to vote against the nomination of David Souter for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.


title: Alan Cranston

text: He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination for the 1984 election. He became the first announced candidate on February 1, 1983. Despite his age (69) and appearance that seemed even older (he dyed his little remaining white hair a color that most called orange), Cranston quickly became a recognized candidate. His strong support for a nuclear freeze won him an intense following among anti-nuclear activists, support that translated into campaign donations, committed staff (future Washington Senator Maria Cantwell moved to the state in 1983 to head up Cranston's caucus campaign effort there) and volunteers and straw poll victories in Wisconsin, California, and Alabama. However, the entry of George McGovern into the race in September 1983 cut into Cranston's support. He finished a weak fourth in Iowa in February 1984 and dropped out a week later after finishing seventh out of eight candidates in New Hampshire, with only 2 percent of the vote.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Cranston also faced a campaign debt of $2 million from his 1984 run as he began gearing up for an expensive and tough re-election fight in 1986, when he narrowly defeated the liberal Republican U.S. Representative Ed Zschau, who later left the Republican Party.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Cranston was reprimanded by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics for "improper conduct" on November 20, 1991, after Lincoln Savings head Charles Keating's companies contributed $850,000 to voter registration groups closely affiliated with the senator. Keating had wanted federal regulators to stop "hounding" his savings and loan association. Although the committee found that "no evidence was presented to the Committee that Senator Cranston ever agreed to help Mr. Keating in return for a contribution," the committee deemed Cranston's misconduct the worst among the Keating Five. Cranston decided against running for a fifth term while he battled prostate cancer. He was succeeded as California's senior Senator by Dianne Feinstein, who was elected on the same day as Barbara Boxer, who took over Cranston's seat and became the state's junior Senator.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Throughout his public life, Cranston was notable for practicing and participating in the sport of track and field as a sprinter in special senior races. Many of the events, races for senior sprinters at major track meets, were the early events that became the sport of masters athletics. While on his many political trips, Cranston would spend time sprinting in long hotel hallways to maintain his fitness.


title: Alan Cranston

text: Cranston's family was wealthy, with investments in real estate. He married and divorced twice. His first wife, Geneva McMath, was the mother of his sons, Robin, who died young in an auto accident, and Kim, who survived him. Cranston later married Norma Weintraub.


title: Alan Cranston

text: He dedicated his retirement to the global abolition of nuclear weapons, first through the Nuclear Weapon Elimination Initiative of the State of the World Forum, and then as President of the Global Security Institute, which he founded in 1999.


title: Grady Hendrix

text: Grady Hendrix is an American author, journalist, public speaker, and screenwriter known for his best-selling 2014 novel "Horrorstör". Hendrix lives in Manhattan and was one of the founders of the New York Asian Film Festival.


title: Grady Hendrix

text: Hendrix was born in South Carolina. His parents divorced when he was 13 years old and the author spent much of his time in public libraries. As an adult Hendrix worked in the library of the American Society for Psychical Research before turning to professional writing. Alongside his novels, he has written for numerous media outlets, including "Playboy Magazine", The "New York Post", and, prior to its closure in 2008, as a film critic for The "New York Sun".


title: Grady Hendrix

text: He has also contributed to Katie Crouch's young adult series "The Magnolia League," and his fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Pseudopod.


title: Grady Hendrix

text: In 2012, Hendrix co-wrote "Dirt Candy: A Cookbook", a graphic novel/cookbook/memoir with his wife Amanda Cohen and Ryan Dunlavey. In 2014, Quirk Books published his novel, "Horrorstör", which was subsequently optioned for a television series by FOX. Grady then wrote "My Best Friend's Exorcism" (2016) and the acclaimed non-fiction study "Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction" (2017). He also co-wrote the 2017 motion picture "Mohawk" with director Ted Geoghegan and the spec script for the horror comedy film "Satanic Panic", which was acquired and produced by "Fangoria" during mid 2018. "My Best Friend's Exorcism" and "Horrorstör," have been optioned for film adaptations, while "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires" and "The Final Girl Support Group" are slated for television adaptations. Hendrix created a one-man show for "The Final Girl Support Group" to promote the novel, as he found traditional author events boring.


title: Grady Hendrix

text: From May 2020 to October 2020, Hendrix has also hosted his own podcast called "Super Scary Haunted Homeschool," that talked about the history of vampires to promote his book "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires".


title: Making the Band

text: Making the Band is an ABC/MTV reality television series that exists in separate iterations, each focusing on a specific music act. It spawned musical acts O-Town, Da Band, Danity Kane, Day26, and Donnie Klang. Except for the first iteration of the series featuring O-Town, all seasons of "Making the Band" have been overseen by Diddy, acting as the man of the house who makes the final decision on who will be in the band.


title: Making the Band

text: MTV announced on July 15, 2019, that the series was revived and would premiere in 2020, which was then postponed to 2021 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, this never materialized.


title: Making the Band

text: The first iteration of "Making the Band" started on March 24, 2000, and aired for three seasons, finishing on March 30, 2002. It centered around the musical group O-Town.


title: Making the Band

text: The first season aired on ABC. "Making the Band" was the last new series, and the only series that was not a sitcom, to air during the original run of the TGIF block. The block ended its run upon the end of the series' first season in 2000. "Making the Band" was then relocated to cable television network MTV, where two additional seasons aired. Future iterations of the show also aired on MTV. O-Town's return for additional seasons marked the first time the main cast of a reality show returned for a second season.


title: Making the Band

text: In 1999, Lou Pearlman, the man responsible for the formation of the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, embarked on a nationwide talent search, cutting auditions in eight cities down to 25 young men, and eventually to eight finalists. These eight young men would compete for five spots in Pearlman's newest boy band creation, to be signed to his record label, Transcontinental Records.


title: Making the Band

text: The season chronicled the competition between the men in typical reality-show fashion. It featured on screen choreography by Ramon Del Barrio. Midway through the first season, three of the eight men (Paul Martin, Mike Miller and Bryan Chan) were eliminated, leaving Ashley Parker Angel, Jacob Underwood, Erik-Michael Estrada (not to be confused with American actor Erik Estrada), Trevor Penick, and Ikaika Kahoano. These five were set to become O-Town and the process of producing their first CD began. Several episodes later, however, Kahoano left for reasons that weren't exactly clear. Kahoano later stated that he "did not respect the other members on a musical or personal level" and described the experience as "wack". He later joined "Making the Band" semi-finalist Mike Miller and Bryan Chan to form the boy-band LMNT. Selecting from the original group of 25 semi-finalists, the remaining four members of the band chose Dan Miller to be Kahoano's replacement. With the final member of O-Town in place, the remainder of the first season tracked the development and struggles with the new band.


title: Making the Band

text: The second and third seasons continued to track the development of O-Town as a pop group, following tours, performances, and other seminal events in the band's history. Such events included the development of their second CD, "O2", their transition to a new record label, Clive Davis' J Records, and an ongoing struggle to "prove themselves" as legitimate artists.


title: Making the Band

text: The second iteration of "Making the Band" started on October 19, 2002, and aired for three seasons, finishing on April 29, 2004. It centered around the musical group Da Band and was filmed in various spaces around Manhattan all designed by noted visual artist and designer Ron Norsworthy.


title: Making the Band

text: In 2002, a new talent search had begun, this time by P. Diddy. Diddy sought to find the best rappers and singers from which to assemble a new hip-hop group. After weeks of selection and training P. Diddy chose the members of the band (Sara Rivers, Dylan Dilinjah, Frederick (Freddy P) Watson, Rodney (Chopper) Hill, Lloyd (Ness) Mathis and Lynese (Babs) Wiley) on the first season of "Making the Band 2".


title: Making the Band

text: Orlando (OG) Goodman, Walter (Hammin) Anderson, Kimberly (Mysterious) Bert now known as Misty Blanco, Belinda (Pocahantas) Carter, Damone Coleman, Jamie Huy, Yazmin Mendez, Jonessa Monique, Mina Monroe, Allah Ricks and Jamirah Turner did not make the cut.


title: Making the Band

text: For several weeks, the contestants lived together and were subjected to difficult tasks, including walking from Midtown Manhattan to Brooklyn to purchase cheesecake for Diddy and reciting the Notorious B.I.G.'s Juicy and the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight out loud in the Bad Boy Records office. Many altercations between members also took place throughout the season. The finalists were then named Da Band.


title: Making the Band

text: Their debut album, "Too Hot for TV", was released in September 2003. Their first single was "Bad Boy This, Bad Boy That", and their second was "Tonight". The album was certified gold, selling 600,000 copies.


title: Making the Band

text: Da Band effectively ended its career at the end of the third season of the show, when P. Diddy dissolved the group during the season finale. However, he still wanted to work with Babs and Ness, calling them hip hop's next "Bonnie and Clyde". Babs went on the promote the underground rap battle "Queen of the Ring" featured on YouTube and Ness was able to release a song called "My Hood" under the name E. Ness, though it did not chart. Diddy also kept Chopper, now known as Young City, with the label, who signed with Bad Boy South. Sara Stokes, Frederick and Dylan John were the remaining three members of Da Band to be dropped completely from Bad Boy.


title: Making the Band

text: The third iteration of "Making the Band" started on March 3, 2005, and aired for three seasons, finishing on August 10, 2006. It centered on the musical group Danity Kane. Home base interiors were again designed by Ron Norsworthy.


title: Making the Band

text: After the failure of Bad Boy's Da Band, P. Diddy returned with "Making the Band 3" in 2004. This time, he was on the look for the next girl group. With the help of Laurieann Gibson, Doc and Johnny, he set out on a multi city search to find girls who had everything: a great voice, dancing ability and most importantly the looks. The theme song "Oh La La" was recorded by Bad Boy singer Cheri Dennis.


title: Making the Band

text: The band performed at the Backstreet Boys concert at the Nissan Pavilion on August 6, 2005. There were two groups. Group one, named "SHE (She Has Everything)", included Aubrey, Melissa, Denosh, Jasmine, and Kelli. Group two, named "Chain 6", included Aundrea, Dawn, Shannon, Wanita, Dominique, and Taquita. During dress rehearsal, group one was the favorite according to Dave, Laurie Anne and Doc. However, the first group was booed as they gave their performance because Denosh started off key on the a cappella which led Aubrey to go off key in the beginning of the song. The second group won, as many screaming girls yelled for them.


title: Making the Band

text: The song that each contestant sang in the studio "Tell Me" was actually used by Diddy on his album "Press Play". Instead of one of the members of the group who originally sang the song on the show appearing on the track, the vocals are done by Christina Aguilera.


title: Making the Band

text: The finale took place on Tuesday, November 15, 2005, where the 11 contestants left competed for five spots in the band. The 11 finalists; Aundrea, Aubrey, Dawn, Jasmine, TaQuita Thorns, Denosh, Wanita, Shannon, Melissa, Kelli, and Dominique, were sent home for three months, told to polish up, and return for the final stretch. When the girls returned after their three-month hiatus, they had to perform numerous acts such as radio interviews, a photo shoot, and dance all of their old dance routines. As Diddy's crew chooses the group, all of the girls went on a last dinner.


title: Making the Band

text: They decided on the name Danity Kane. The band's self-titled debut album was released in stores on August 22, 2006 and peaked at #1 on the Billboard charts within its first three weeks of release.


title: Making the Band

text: The fourth iteration of "Making the Band" started on June 18, 2007, and aired for three seasons, finishing on April 23, 2009. It focused on the musical acts Day26 and Donnie Klang. Season 1 was filmed in a midtown Manhattan with interiors designed by noted visual artist and designer Ron Norsworthy.


title: Making the Band

text: Diddy begins his search for an all-male super group. This all-male band is widely believed to be the new version of 112 or New Edition as reported earlier in the season. The season began on June 18, 2007 at 9:00 p.m. The band was finally made on August 26, 2007, consisting of five males from their late teens to their early-to-mid-20s.


title: Making the Band

text: Season 2 showed the "Making the Band 4" winners and Donnie's debut albums along with Danity Kane's second album coming together. There was a "Making the Band" tour with Danity Kane, the "Making the Band 4" winners, and Donnie. They all moved into the same house and record their new albums and got to know each other a lot more. This was the debut of Danity Kane's second album and "Making the Band 4" winners.


title: Making the Band

text: The "Making the Band 4" boys have a song out called "Got Me Going" (lead single off their debut album). Danity Kane has a confirmed lead single called "Damaged". Fans voted between it and another song, "Pretty Boy". Donnie Klang also has out a song called "Take You There". Both "Damaged" and "Got Me Going" were released to all digital music stores on January 29, 2008.


title: Making the Band

text: The group's official name was revealed as Day26 On the February 4, 2008 episode of TRL the boys explained that Day 26 is the band name because August 26, 2007 was the day that they became a band.


title: Making the Band

text: The third season premiered on August 19, 2008, and the series finale aired on April 23, 2009. Season 3 would feature the shows stars on a U.S. Tour, the Making the Band Tour. On August 12, 2008 there was a 1-hour special that aired on MTV called "Making the Band's Greatest Hits". The special was hosted by Aubrey from Danity Kane, Donnie Klang and Robert from Day26, looking back on past events throughout the seasons of Making the Band 3 and 4.


title: Making the Band

text: Instead of "making a band" the show's focus turned into a The Real World-type show, focusing on friendships, relationships, and drama in and out of the studio and the industry.


title: Making the Band

text: Diddy announced that he was searching for musicians for a "Making the Band" spin-off titled "Making His Band", where he would be searching for guitarists, drummers, backup singers, etc. to form his own personal live band. This new season premiered on July 27, 2009.


title: Making the Band

text: On September 2, 2009, this series was placed on hiatus. On September 12, 2009, the show returned and aired the last five episodes on a new Saturday time slot. Reasoning for this included a delay in Diddy's album release date as well as generally low ratings overall for the program.


title: Making the Band

text: In 2010, "Making His Band" was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Reality Program" during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Louis Patrick Gray III (July 18, 1916 – July 6, 2005) was Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from May 3, 1972 to April 27, 1973. During this time, the FBI was in charge of the initial investigation into the burglaries that sparked the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon. Gray was nominated as permanent Director by Nixon on February 15, 1973, but failed to win Senate confirmation. He resigned as Acting FBI director on April 27, 1973, after he admitted to destroying documents that had come from convicted Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt's safe—documents received on June 28, 1972, 11 days after the Watergate burglary, and given to Gray by White House counsel John Dean.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray remained publicly silent about the Watergate scandal for 32 years, speaking to the press only once, near the end of his life; this was shortly after Gray's direct subordinate at the FBI, FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, revealed himself to have been the secret source to "The Washington Post" known as "Deep Throat".


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray was born on July 18, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, the eldest son of Louis Patrick Gray, Jr., a Texas railroad worker. He worked three jobs while attending schools in St. Louis and Houston, Texas, graduating from St. Thomas High School in 1932, at the age of 16 (having skipped two grades). Gray initially attended Rice University; however, his true goal was to be admitted to the United States Naval Academy. He was finally admitted to the Naval Academy in 1936 and he immediately dropped out of Rice University in his senior year so he could attend.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: At the time, however, Gray could not afford the bus or train fare to Annapolis, so he hired on as an apprentice seaman on a tramp steamer out of Galveston. During the journey to Philadelphia (the closest the steamer could get him to Maryland), Gray taught calculus to the ship's captain, a Bulgarian named Frank Solis, in return for basic lessons in navigation. Once in Philadelphia, Gray hitchhiked to Annapolis.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Once at the academy, Gray walked onto the football team as the starting quarterback, played varsity lacrosse and boxed as a light heavyweight. In 1940, Gray received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Naval Academy.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: The United States Navy commissioned Gray as a line officer, and he served through five submarine war patrols in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. He suffered a ruptured appendix at the start of his sixth patrol and was unable to get to a hospital for 17 days, an ordeal that should have killed him. In 1945, Gray visited Beatrice Castle Kirk (1923–2019), the widow of his Naval Academy classmate, Lieutenant Commander Edward Emmet DeGarmo (1917–1945). They were married in 1946. He adopted her two sons, Alan and Ed; and they had two of their own, Patrick and Stephen.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In 1949, Gray received a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School, where he edited the law review and became a member of the Order of the Coif. He was admitted to practice before the Washington, D.C., Bar in 1949; later, he was admitted to practice law by the Connecticut State Bar, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the United States courts of appeals, the United States Court of Claims, and the Supreme Court of the United States.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: By 1960, Gray's achievements in the Navy included commanding the U.S.S. "Tiru" (SS-416) and two other submarines on war patrols during the Korean War; earning the rank of captain two years before he was legally allowed to be paid for it; and serving as congressional liaison officer for the United States Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chief of Naval Operations. He indicated his desire to retire from the Navy, but Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke told him, "If you stay, you'll have my job some day." He did not stay, but joined a Connecticut law firm in 1961.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In 1969, Gray returned to the federal government and worked under the Nixon administration in several different positions. In 1970, President Nixon appointed him as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division in the Department of Justice. In 1972, Gray was nominated to be Deputy Attorney General, but before he could be confirmed by the full United States Senate his nomination was withdrawn.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Instead, President Nixon designated him as Acting Director of the FBI after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Gray served for less than a year. Day-to-day operational command of the Bureau remained with Associate Director Mark Felt.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: On June 17, 1972, just six weeks after Gray took office at the FBI, five men were arrested after breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington, D.C.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray first learned of the Watergate break-ins on June 17 from Wes Grapp, the Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles field office. Gray immediately called Mark Felt, his second in command. At the time, Felt only had limited information, remaining unclear as to whether it was a burglary or bombing attempt.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Felt had more information the next day, when he informed Gray that the burglars had connections to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), that one burglar (McCord) was head of security for the committee, and that at least one listening device had been found. Gray recalled the conversation concluding with the exchange:


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: "Just check it and be absolutely certain," I ordered. "And then investigate it to the hilt with no holds barred."


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: On the same day, June 18, 1972, Gray also met later-identified Watergate conspirator Fred LaRue in California. The two discussed Watergate, according to LaRue, and made arrangements to meet again back in Washington, D.C. In his own memoir, Gray relates the LaRue meeting as a chance encounter at a hotel swimming pool and quotes their entire Watergate-related conversation:


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: For the first six months of the investigation, Gray remained heavily involved. It was only when it became apparent that the White House was involved that Gray recused himself from the investigation and handed control over to Mark Felt.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: On June 23, 1972, White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman and President Nixon held one of the infamous "smoking gun" conversations in which they conspired to use the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to block the FBI investigation into the money trail leading from the Watergate burglars to the Committee to Re-elect the President, which would constitute hard evidence that Committee members were involved in the planning of the burglaries.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: According to Gray, this plan was first put into action when he had a meeting with Vernon Walters, then deputy director of the CIA, in which he quotes Walters as falsely saying, "If the investigation gets pushed further south of the border… it could trespass onto some of our covert projects. Since you've got these five men under arrest, it will be best to taper the matter off here." This conversation implicitly stated that the FBI should not interview Manuel Ogarrio and Kenneth Dahlberg, individuals connected with the money used to fund the Watergate burglars.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: This would later be backed up by the Director of the CIA, Richard Helms, when he specifically told Gray that Karl Wagner and John Caswell should also not be interviewed, as they were, he stated, active CIA agents at the time.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: The basis for such a request came from a long-standing understanding between the CIA and the FBI that they would not reveal each other's informants. This effort by the White House and the CIA succeeded in delaying the interviews of both Ogarrio and Dahlberg for a little more than one week, at which point Gray and his senior FBI staff, including Mark Felt, Charlie Bates, and Bob Kunkel, decided that, due to the increasing importance of these individuals in the investigation, they needed a written request from the CIA not to interview them, which would have to state in greater detail the reasons for not interviewing these individuals. Once the decision was made, Gray called Vernon Walters and demanded that written request the next morning, or he would order the interviews to go forth.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: The next morning, Vernon Walters arrived and delivered a three-page memorandum, marked "SECRET", that did "not" ask the FBI to hold off on the interviews. The meeting concluded with Walters suggesting to Gray that he should warn the President that some members of the White House staff were hindering the FBI's investigation. After the conversation, Gray ordered the interviews to proceed immediately.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: While not active in any Watergate activities per se, Gray was aware through his dealings with John Dean that the White House was concerned about what might be discovered from a full-field FBI investigation and explored what he could do to limit the investigation or shift it away from the Bureau's jurisdiction. As Dean wrote in his Watergate memoir "Blind Ambition," he used Gray as a shill knowing that "we could count on Pat Gray to keep the Hunt material from becoming public, and he did not disappoint us." In fact, even though he thought of this as a political not criminal situation and that he was ultimately serving the President as the "nation's chief law enforcement officer," Gray would come dangerously close to collusion because he chose to be useful to the White House without asking the hard questions. Dean goes on to say, "I met Pat Gray secretly at his home in southwest Washington. We were both apprehensive about the meeting as we walked to a park and sat down on a bench overlooking the Potomac, discussing my request to obtain FBI 302s and AirTels on the Watergate investigation."


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: The Nixon White House tapes reveal that Bob Haldeman told Nixon that Felt was the source of leaks of confidential information contained in the FBI's investigation to various members of the press, including Bob Woodward of "The Washington Post". Gray claimed that he resisted five separate demands from the White House to fire Felt, stating that he believed Felt's assurances that he was not the source. Eventually, Gray demanded to know who was claiming Felt to be leaking. Attorney general Richard Kleindienst told Gray that Roswell Gilpatric, former deputy secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and now outside general counsel to "Time", had told John Mitchell that Felt was leaking to Sandy Smith of "Time" magazine.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: After Felt admitted in the May 2005 "Vanity Fair" article that he lied to Gray about leaking to the press, Gray claimed that Felt's bitterness at being passed over was the cause of his decision to leak to "Time", "The Washington Post", and others.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In 1973, Gray was nominated as Hoover's permanent successor as head of the FBI. This action by President Nixon confounded many, coming at a time when revelations of involvement by Nixon administration officials in the Watergate scandal were coming to the forefront. Under Gray's direction, the FBI had been accused of mishandling the investigation into the break-in, doing a cursory job and refusing to investigate the possible involvement of administration officials. Gray's Senate confirmation hearing was to become the Senate's first opportunity to ask pertinent questions about the Watergate investigation.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: During the confirmation hearing, Gray defended his bureau's investigation. During questioning, he volunteered that he had provided copies of some of the files on the investigation to White House Counsel John Dean, who had told Gray he was conducting an investigation for the President. Gray testified that before turning over the files to Dean, he had been advised by the FBI's own legal counsel that he was required by law to comply with Dean's order. He confirmed that the FBI investigation supported claims made by "The Washington Post" and other sources, about dirty tricks committed and funded by the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and in particular, activities of questionable legality committed by Donald Segretti. The White House had for months steadfastly denied any involvement in such activities.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: During the hearings, Gray testified that Dean had "probably lied" to the FBI, increasing the suspicions of many of a cover-up. The Nixon administration was so angered by this statement that John Ehrlichman told John Dean that Gray should be left to "twist slowly, slowly in the wind."


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: On June 21, 1972, Gray met with John Dean and John Ehrlichman in Ehrlichman's office. During this meeting, Gray was handed several envelopes full of documents from the personal safe of E. Howard Hunt. Dean instructed Gray, in the presence of John Ehrlichman, that the documents were "national security documents. These should never see the light of day." Dean further repeatedly told Gray that the documents were not Watergate-related.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Six months later, Gray said he finally looked at the papers as he burned them in a Connecticut fireplace. "The first set of papers in there were false top-secret cables indicating that the Kennedy administration had much to do with the assassination of the Vietnamese president (Diem)," Gray said. "The second set of papers in there were letters purportedly written by Senator Kennedy involving some of his peccadilloes, if you will."


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: After learning from Ehrlichman that John Dean was cooperating with the U.S. attorney and would be revealing to him what happened on June 21, Gray told his staunchest congressional supporter, Senator Lowell Weicker, so that he might be prepared for that revelation. As a result, Senator Weicker leaked this revelation to some chosen reporters.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: For the next eight years, Gray defended his actions as Acting Director of the FBI, testifying before five federal grand juries and four committees of Congress.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: On October 7, 1975, the Watergate Special Prosecutor informed Gray that the last Watergate-related investigation of him had been formally closed. Gray was never indicted in relation to Watergate, but the scandal dogged him afterwards.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In 1978, Gray was indicted, along with Assistant Director Edward Miller, for allegedly having approved illegal break-ins during the Nixon administration. Gray vehemently denied the charges, which were dropped in 1980. Felt and Miller, who had approved the illegal break-ins during the tenures of four separate FBI directors, including Hoover, Gray, William Ruckelshaus, and Clarence M. Kelley, were convicted and later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. Exonerated by the Department of Justice after a two-year investigation, Gray returned to his law practice in Connecticut.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: After his time in Washington, Gray returned to practicing law at the firm of Suisman, Shapiro, Wool, Brennan, Gray & Greenberg (SSWBGG) in New London, Connecticut.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In a 2005 "Vanity Fair" article, Deputy Director Mark Felt claimed to be Deep Throat, the infamous source of leaks to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward, Bernstein, and "Post" executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee confirmed the claim. Gray spoke about the Watergate scandal for the first time in 32 years on June 26, 2005, ten days before his death from pancreatic cancer. He told ABC's "This Week" that he was in "total shock, total disbelief" when asked about Felt's claim. "It was like I was hit with a tremendous sledgehammer."


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray died on July 6, 2005. He was working on his memoirs with his stepson Edward Gray, using his extensive and never-released personal Watergate files. His stepson finished the book "In Nixon's Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate", which disputes the claim that Felt was Deep Throat, citing Woodward's own notes and other evidence as proof that Deep Throat was a fictional composite made up of several Woodward sources, only one of whom was Felt.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In 2009, Bob Phelps, a former editor of "The New York Times", and Robert M. Smith, a former reporter for the "Times", claimed that they had received information from Gray that would have allowed the "Times" to break the Watergate story before "The Washington Post", but they failed to act upon it.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: In August 1972, Gray and Smith had lunch. According to Smith, during this lunch Gray mentioned details of Donald Segretti and John Mitchell's involvement in the Watergate burglaries. Smith quotes Gray:


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: And when he intimated over the entrée that the wrongdoing went further, I leaned back against the wall on my inside banquette and looked at him in frank astonishment.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: After the lunch, Smith reportedly rushed to his editor, Phelps, with the story, but it amounted to nothing. Smith left his job the next day for Yale Law School, and Phelps lost track of the story while covering the 1972 Republican Convention.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: However, while only Gray and Smith knew exactly what was said at that lunch, Gray's son, Edward, denies that his father could have implicated either the Attorney General or the President, stating:


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: The truth is that at the time of this luncheon—as my father testified multiple times under oath—neither he nor anyone else in the FBI had any evidence whatsoever that the president was involved.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray goes on to point out that at the time of this lunch the Attorney General was Richard Kleindienst, who was never implicated in any of the Watergate scandals. Even if Smith meant that he was talking about John Mitchell, the former Attorney General, Gray further points out that no one (outside of the conspirators) knew of Mitchell's involvement until the following April, when John Dean admitted as much to special prosecutors.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: Gray was a meticulous record-keeper, which is most easily evidenced by the 40 boxes of personal records he took with him from his year with the FBI. The archive would grow even after Gray left the FBI as a direct result of the legal proceedings in which he was forced to take part in the years to follow.


title: L. Patrick Gray

text: This archive has become what is undoubtedly the "most complete set of Watergate investigative records outside the government."


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: "Cornered" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the American television crime drama series "Breaking Bad", and the 39th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on AMC in the United States on August 21, 2011.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Another Los Pollos Hermanos truck is raided by the cartel. This time, the two guards in the truck are killed and the cartel members find the tubs with blue meth.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Skyler White is worried about Walter White, suspecting that he is in danger due to the death of Gale Boetticher. Walt reacts angrily, claiming that he "is the danger", prompting Skyler to flee the house. She ponders escaping to Colorado with Holly White at the Four Corners Monument, but ultimately reconsiders.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Walter receives the keys to the car wash from Bogdan Wolynetz, and avenges his past insults by making Bogdan leave behind his framed first earned dollar, which Walter uses to buy a soda. Later, Walt gives into Walter Jr.'s pleas for a new car and buys him a Dodge Challenger.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Walter meets Jesse Pinkman at the lab and after they are finished cooking, Jesse gets called away, angering Walt. Walter then bribes 3 laundry workers into helping him clean the lab. Afterward, Tyrus Kitt shows up and tells Walter he is sending the workers back to Honduras. Walter tells him that if Gus Fring is to blame anyone, blame him. Tyrus assures him that he does.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Meanwhile, Jesse and Mike Ehrmantraut scout a house selling the blue meth from the hijacked truck, but Jesse grows impatient and tricks one of the meth users into letting him into the house, where he knocks out the other. Mike notices the words "¿Estás listo para platicar?" written on the stolen container, translating to "Are you ready to talk?". Gus meets with Mike at a diner that night and decides to try and negotiate with the cartel. Outside of the diner, Jesse asks Gus, "Why me?" in reference to him being asked to help Mike during the previous several days. Gus responds by saying "I like to think I see things in people."


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: In the end, Skyler returns home, but tells Walt to return the car because it "directly contradicts their story". She acknowledges that Walter Jr. will resent her, but coldly tells Walt that "someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family".


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: Due to her nomination, Anna Gunn submitted this episode for consideration for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards.


title: Cornered (Breaking Bad)

text: The episode received very positive reviews from critics. Seth Amitin reviewing for "IGN" awarded the episode 9.5 out of 10 calling it an "extraordinary episode from top to bottom". Alan Sepinwall of HitFix said the episode was his "favorite episode of season 4 to date". Donna Bowman of "The A.V. Club" gave the episode a "B+".


title: Will Barton

text: William Denard Barton III (born January 6, 1991) is an American professional basketball player for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Memphis, where he was named the Conference USA Men's Basketball Player of the Year in 2012. He was selected 40th overall in the 2012 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers and played for the Idaho Stampede of the NBA G League before being traded to the Denver Nuggets in 2015, where he eventually became their franchise leader in three-pointers made. He was traded to the Washington Wizards in 2022.


title: Will Barton

text: Barton, the No. 6-rated player in the nation in 2010, attended four schools in five years. He started his basketball career at Baltimore City College, a public college preparatory high school, for two years before reclassing and transferring to National Christian Academy in Fort Washington, Maryland to repeat his sophomore year. Barton then enrolled at Baltimore's Lake Clifton Eastern High School for his junior year. Then as a senior in 2009–10, he attended Brewster Academy. Barton was rated the best shooting guard by Scout.com and ESPN.com in 2010. Barton chose Memphis over Arizona, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Villanova.


title: Will Barton

text: He came to Memphis in 2010 and played every game in his freshman season, leading the Tigers in minutes per game at 30.6 and scoring with 12.3 points per game. Barton had a breakout sophomore season, leading the Tigers in points per game (18.0) and rebounds per game (8.0) en route to winning C-USA Player of the Year. For his career, he averaged 15.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 32.9 minutes per game.


title: Will Barton

text: In March 2012, Barton decided to forgo his final two years of eligibility and declare for the 2012 NBA draft. He was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 40th overall pick. On December 7, 2012, he was assigned to the Idaho Stampede of the NBA Development League. He was recalled on December 9, reassigned on January 6, and recalled again on January 9. He made his first NBA start on April 10, 2013 against the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Will Barton

text: On February 26, 2014, Barton recorded a season-high 20 points and a career-high 11 rebounds in 124–80 win over the Brooklyn Nets. In a televised interview following the game, when asked by a reporter about a spontaneous "Will Barton" chant that had broken out late in the contest, the guard replied, "I like to think I'm the people's champ," thereby instantly giving birth to a new nickname and a Trail Blazers meme. He went on to record 17 points and six rebounds on May 12 to help Portland win Game 4 of their semi-final match-up against the San Antonio Spurs.


title: Will Barton

text: On February 19, 2015, Barton was traded, along with Víctor Claver, Thomas Robinson and a lottery-protected 2016 first-round pick, to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee.


title: Will Barton

text: On August 7, 2015, Barton re-signed with the Nuggets. On November 13, 2015, he scored a career-high 26 points in a 107–98 win over the Houston Rockets. He topped that mark on December 20 with 32 points against the New Orleans Pelicans. Barton's strong pre-Christmas play earned him recognition as a possible contender for the 2015–16 Sixth Man of the Year award. Over the Nuggets' first 29 games of the season, Barton averaged 15.7 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals in 29.0 minutes per game off the bench.


title: Will Barton

text: Barton appeared in just six of the Nuggets' first 18 games of the 2016–17 season. He played in the first three games before missing the next nine after spraining his left ankle. He then returned for three before missing another for personal reasons, and then a further two with another left ankle complaint. On January 17, 2017, he had season highs of 26 points and eight assists in a 127–121 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 6, 2017, he scored a then season-high 31 points and hit five three-pointers in a 110–87 win over the Dallas Mavericks. On March 13, 2017, in a 129–101 win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Barton scored 22 points and went 3 of 4 behind the arc and 6 of 9 overall in his most productive outing since the All-Star break. Prior to the game against the Lakers, Barton had made just five of his previous 21 three-point tries. On March 16, 2017, he scored a career-high 35 points in a 129–114 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.


title: Will Barton

text: On November 11, 2017, Barton had season highs with 26 points and nine rebounds in a 125–107 win over the Orlando Magic. On November 30, 2017, Barton capped a career-high 37 points with a driving layup with 3.2 seconds left to lift the Nuggets to a 111–110 win over the Chicago Bulls. On February 3, 2018, he scored a team-high 25 points in a 115–108 win over the Golden State Warriors.


title: Will Barton

text: On July 9, 2018, Barton re-signed with the Nuggets. On October 20, 2018, in just the second game of the season, Barton injured his right hip on a reverse layup in the third quarter of Denver's 119–91 win over the Phoenix Suns. He was subsequently ruled out for five to six weeks after undergoing surgery on October 23. He missed longer than expected, returning to action on January 12, 2019 against the Suns after missing 38 games; in 16 minutes, he scored six points on 2-of-10 shooting. On February 28, he recorded 21 points and 13 rebounds in a 111–104 loss to the Utah Jazz.


title: Will Barton

text: On March 4, 2022, Barton made his 769th career three-pointer, surpassing J. R. Smith as the Denver Nuggets’ all-time leader in made three-pointers in a 116–101 victory over the Houston Rockets. On April 16, during Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs, Barton logged 24 points and five assists in a 107–123 loss to the Golden State Warriors.


title: Will Barton

text: On July 6, 2022, Barton was traded, alongside Monté Morris, to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The Saffarid dynasty () was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Greater Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Islamic conquest, the Saffarid dynasty was part of the Iranian Intermezzo. The dynasty's founder was Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, who was born in 840 in a small town called Karnin (Qarnin), which was located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan. A native of Sistan and a local "ayyār", Ya'qub worked as a coppersmith ("ṣaffār") before becoming a warlord. He seized control of the Sistan region and began conquering most of Iran and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The Saffarids used their capital Zaranj as a base for an aggressive expansion eastward and westward. They first invaded the areas south of the Hindu Kush, and then overthrew the Tahirid dynasty, annexing Khorasan in 873. By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Sindh, Tocharistan, Makran (Balochistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reached Baghdad but then suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The Saffarid dynasty did not last long after Ya'qub's death. His brother and successor, Amr bin Laith, was defeated at the Battle of Balkh against Ismail Samani in 900. Amr bin Laith was forced to surrender most of his territories to the new rulers. The Saffarids were confined to their heartland of Sistan, and with time, their role was reduced to that of vassals of the Samanids and their successors.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The dynasty began with Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (Ya'qub, son of Layth, the Coppersmith), a coppersmith of eastern Iranian origins, who moved to the city of Zaranj. He left work to become an Ayyar and eventually got the power to act as an independent ruler. From his capital Zaranj he moved east into al-Rukhkhadj (Arachosia), Zamindawar and ultimately Kabul, vanquishing the Zunbils and the Hindu Shahis by 865. He then invaded Bamyan, Balkh, Badghis, and Ghor. In the name of Islam, he conquered these territories which were predominantly ruled by Buddhist tribal chiefs. He took vast amounts of plunder and slaves from this campaign.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The Tahirid city of Herat was captured in 870, and his campaign in the Badghis region led to the capture of Kharidjites which later formed the "Djash al-Shurat" contingent in his army. Ya'qub then turned his focus to the west and began attacks on Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kerman (Southeastern Iran) and Fars (southwestern Iran). The Saffarids then seized Khuzestan (southwestern Iran) and parts of southern Iraq, and in 876 came close to overthrowing the Abbasids, whose army was able to turn them back only within a few days' march from Baghdad. From silver mines in the Panjshir Valley, the Saffarids were able to mint silver coins.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: These incursions, however, forced the Abbasid caliphate to recognize Ya'qub as governor of Sistan, Fars and Kerman, and Saffarids were even offered key posts in Baghdad. Despite Ya'qub's military successes, he was not an empire builder since he had no concept of a centralized government.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: In 901, Amr Saffari was defeated at the battle of Balkh by the Samanids, and they lost Khorasan to them. The Saffarids were reduced to the provinces of Fars, Kerman and Sistan. Under Tahir ibn Muhammad ibn Amr (901–908), the dynasty fought the Abbasids for the possession of Fars to maintain its control over the province. However, in 908, a civil war erupted between Tahir and the pretender al-Laith b. 'Ali in Sistan. In the next years, the governor of Fars, Sebük-eri defected to the Abbasids. In 912, the Samanids finally expelled the Saffarids from Sistan. Sistan passed briefly to Abbasid control, but become independent again under the Saffarid Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad; but now the dynasty was a minor power isolated in Sistan.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The Saffarids patronized Persian language in the form of court poetry and established Persianate culture. Under their rule, the eastern Islamic world witnessed the emergence of prominent Persian poets such as Fayrouz Mashriqi, Abu Salik al-Jirjani, and Muhammad ibn Wasif, who was a court poet.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: In the later 9th century, the Saffarids gave impetus to a renaissance of New Persian literature and culture. Following Ya'qub's conquest of Herat, some poets chose to celebrate his victory in Arabic, whereupon Ya'qub requested his secretary, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, to compose those verses in Persian.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: The religion of the Saffarid's founder, Ya'qub, has been a topic of debate. Most of the primary sources were written during or after the fall of the Samanid dynasty and view the Saffarids through Samanid eyes. These primary sources depict Ya'qub either as a religious rascal or a volunteer Sunni warrior - a "mutatawwi". The Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk, obsessed with the integrity of the Seljuk Empire, depicts Ya'qub as an Ismaili convert.


title: Saffarid dynasty

text: According to C.E. Bosworth, early Saffarid emirs did not appear to have significant religious beliefs. Since Kharijism prospered in Sistan longer than anywhere else in eastern Iran, it was believed the Saffarids held Kharijite sympathies. Archeologist Barry Cunliffe, states the Saffarids were Shia Muslim.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi Racing (formerly Venturi Formula E Team) is a Monegasque motor racing team controlled by Scott Swid (Chairman and principal owner) and José M Aznar Botella. The team competes in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. Venturi Racing competes with a single-make chassis built by Spark and initially built its own powertrains, before partnering with Mercedes for the 2019–20 season.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi was founded by Gildo Pallanca Pastor and became one of Formula E's founding teams by committing to the championship in December 2013. For the series' inaugural season, it was announced that the team had signed Nick Heidfeld and Stéphane Sarrazin as its drivers, with Franck Baldet as team coordinator.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In Formula E's debut race at the Beijing ePrix, Heidfeld was running in second place and attempted to overtake Nicolas Prost for the lead on the final lap. In the last corner, the pair collided and both failed to finish, with the accident causing Heidfeld's car to alarmingly fly through the air and land on the roll hoop. This handed the win to Lucas di Grassi. Prost was given a 10-place grid penalty for the next round in Putrajaya.


title: Venturi Racing

text: At the Buenos Aires ePrix, Venturi was again in contention for victory with Heidfeld. With three laps to go, Heidfeld received a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. This handed António Félix da Costa his maiden Formula E victory.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi took its largest points haul of the season at the Berlin ePrix. Heidfeld took the team's only podium finish of the season at the Moscow ePrix, taking third behind eventual champion Nelson Piquet Jr. and di Grassi.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Sarrazin won the final race of the season from pole position but was penalised for exceeding the maximum energy usage, dropping him to 15th. Heidfeld ended the season in 12th position in the Drivers' Championship with 31 points while Sarrazin was 14th on 22 points, leaving the team ninth in the standings. Heidfeld left the team at the end of the season to join Mahindra.


title: Venturi Racing

text: For the 2015-16 season, Venturi supplied powertrains to customer team Dragon Racing and signed 1997 Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve as a teammate to Sarrazin. After the Punta del Este ePrix, however, the Canadian left after 'disagreeing on the direction of the team'. He was replaced by Mike Conway.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Sarrazin outperformed both drivers over the season, scoring points at every race and finishing second behind di Grassi in Long Beach, which was also the scene of Conway's first points finish of the season in 10th place.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi finished in sixth position in the Teams’ Championship with 77 points. Sarrazin claimed 70 of these to also rank sixth in the Drivers’ Standings while Conway claimed the remaining seven points to rank 16th. Villeneuve ranked 20th with zero points.


title: Venturi Racing

text: With a run of 10 points-scoring races, Sarrazin became the first driver in Formula E to record points at every round in one season.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Sarrazin was retained for a third consecutive season by Venturi and was partnered by FIA GT World Cup driver Maro Engel who replaced Conway at the team.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi commenced the campaign with a double points finish at the 2016 Hong Kong ePrix, however, an uncompetitive car resulted in a difficult season. The team's best result came in Monaco, where Engel recorded fifth position.


title: Venturi Racing

text: For the 2017 Paris ePrix, Formula V8 3.5 Series champion Tom Dillmann filled in for Engel who was racing in the 2017 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters round at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz. One race later in Berlin, Dillmann replaced Sarrazin who moved to Techeetah to replace Esteban Gutiérrez for the final six races.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi recorded 30 points to finish ninth in the Teams’ Championship. Engel recorded 16 of these points to take 17th in the Drivers’ Standings while Dillmann recorded 12 for 19th and Sarrazin, 2.


title: Venturi Racing

text: For the fourth season of Formula E, Venturi re-signed Engel and hired seven time Macau World Cup winner Edoardo Mortara.


title: Venturi Racing

text: On his debut weekend in Formula E in Hong Kong, Mortara claimed the team's first podium since the 2016 Long Beach ePrix. The Swiss-Italian driver led for most of the race, however, span out of first position with three laps to go when trying to set the fastest lap. Mortara finished third but was promoted to second following the disqualification of race winner Daniel Abt.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Due to commitments in the DTM championship with Mercedes, Dillmann filled in for Mortara at the Berlin and New York City races.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Mortara's podium in the season-opener marked Venturi's highest finish in Formula E's fourth season in which the team recorded 72 points to rank seventh in the Teams’ Championship. Engel finished 12th in the Drivers’ Standings with 31 points while Mortara was 13th with 29. Dillmann notched 12 points in his three race appearances to finish 18th.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In May 2018, Venturi signed a three-year deal with 11-time Formula One race winner Felipe Massa and rehired Mortara for a second season. Norman Nato was named as the team's Reserve Driver. Former professional racing driver Susie Wolff became the Team Principal while Franck Baldet became Technical Director.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi supplied powertrains to the Mercedes-affiliated HWA Racelab team over the 2018–19 season, with the outfit preparing for the official entry of the Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team in the 2019-20 season.


title: Venturi Racing

text: At Formula E's landmark 50th race at the 2019 Hong Kong ePrix, Mortara recorded Venturi's maiden victory.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi took further podiums at the Mexico City E-Prix and Monaco E-Prix which was also the site of Massa's first podium finish in Formula E. With 88 points, the team took eighth in the championship. Mortara finished 14th in the Drivers’ Standings with 52 points while Massa was 15th with 36 points.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In October 2019, Venturi confirmed that Mortara would again partner Massa while the team entered a powertrain partnership with Mercedes-Benz.


title: Venturi Racing

text: On the eve of the 2019-20 season opener, the team announced a three-year title sponsorship with telecommunications company ROKiT, and also confirmed the retention of Norman Nato as Reserve Driver and the appointment of Arthur Leclerc, brother of Ferrari Formula One driver Charles Leclerc, as Test Driver.


title: Venturi Racing

text: The team recorded five consecutive points finishes in the first five races, prior to the season's five-month suspension as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Venturi Racing

text: After the season resumed in August with six races at the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit in Berlin, Mortara took 14th in the Drivers' Championship with 41 points while Massa was 22nd with 3 points. Venturi finished in 10th in the Teams' Standings with 44 points. At the final race of the season, it was announced that Massa would be retiring from Formula E.


title: Venturi Racing

text: For Formula E's seventh season and first as a World Championship, Venturi re-signed Mortara and promoted Norman Nato to a full-time race seat, with the Frenchman replacing Massa. Jake Hughes, in turn, joined the team as Reserve Driver while Jérôme d'Ambrosio was appointed as Deputy Team Principal after deciding to retire from professional competition at the end of Season 6.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In December 2020, Venturi announced a take over in ownership, with a US investor group led by Scott Swid and Jose M Aznar Botella purchasing the team. Susie Wolff remained as Team Principal and retained an interest in Venturi alongside Founder Gildo Pallanca Pastor.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Mortara commenced the season with a podium at the 2021 Diriyah ePrix in which he secured second place behind Nyck de Vries. One day later, the Swiss-Italian driver was involved in a high-speed frontal collision during practice for Race 2 when an incorrect software parameter caused a brake failure. Although Mortara was released from hospital, he did not take part in the second leg of the season opener.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Mortara returned to the cockpit one race later in Rome and scored a further three podiums over the remainder of the season, including a second career victory at the inaugural Puebla ePrix – Venturi’s first win since the Season 5 Hong Kong ePrix, 834 days earlier.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Amassing 92 points, Mortara was a key championship protagonist in the season’s finale in Berlin, however, was removed from contention following a collision with Mitch Evans on the opening lap of the final race of the year in which he sustained a microfracture of his fourth vertebra.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Mercedes’ de Vries went on to win the Season 7 championship while Mortara became Formula E’s first vice-World Champion by claiming second place in the Drivers’ Standings.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In his rookie campaign, Nato steadily improved and won the final race of the season in Berlin, standing on the Formula E podium for the first time after being stripped of a second and third-placed finish in Valencia and Rome. With this result, and outside of Formula E's inaugural campaign, Nato became only the third driver to win a race in their rookie season. The Frenchman ended the season as Venturi’s most successful rookie on record, amassing 54 points and finishing 18th in the Drivers’ Championship.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Venturi finished in seventh position in the Teams’ Standings with 146 points, completing its most successful season in Formula E to date in terms of points scored.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In September 2021, Venturi re-signed Mortara for a fifth successive season while Season 3 champion Lucas di Grassi joined the team, replacing Nato who, in turn, joined Jaguar Racing as Reserve Driver. Susie Wolff, meanwhile, was promoted to the position of CEO while Jérôme D'Ambrosio took over as Team Principal.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In Race Two of the 2022 Diriyah ePrix, Venturi scored its first double podium in Formula E, with Mortara taking his third victory while di Grassi secured his first podium for the team. Mortara later secured his first Formula E pole position at the 2022 Berlin ePrix – a result that marked Venturi Racing's first pole position since the 2015 London ePrix, 2,512 days earlier.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Mortara went on to win Race 1 in Berlin to commence a four-race podium run, taking second in Race 2 in Berlin, third in Jakarta and winning in Marrakesh. This stint ended in New York, although di Grassi returned to the podium by finishing third in Race 1. Di Grassi secured his 13th Formula E win at the 2022 London ePrix one weekend later.


title: Venturi Racing

text: Di Grassi became the first driver in Formula E to score his 1,000th point in the series in Race One of the 2022 Seoul ePrix. Mortara secured his fourth win of the season in the final race, which also marked Formula E's landmark 100th race.


title: Venturi Racing

text: As a result, Venturi completed its most successful season to date, amassing 295 points to finish second in the World Teams' Championship behind Mercedes-EQ. Mortara finished third in the World Drivers' Championship with 169 points while di Grassi was fifth with 129 points.


title: Venturi Racing

text: At the close of the season, Venturi confirmed the departure of Wolff and D'Ambrosio from its senior management team, ahead of its transition to Maserati MSG Racing in Season 9.


title: Venturi Racing

text: In March 2018, Venturi became the first Formula E team to establish a junior programme. There were eight drivers in the programme:


title: Seraphim Falls

text: Seraphim Falls is a 2006 American revisionist Western film directed by television producer and director David Von Ancken in his only feature film. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Von Ancken and Abby Everett Jaques. The fictional story focuses on a bounty hunt for a Union soldier by a Confederate colonel following the American Civil War in the late 1860s. Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Michael Wincott, Tom Noonan, and Ed Lauter star in principal roles. "Seraphim Falls" explores civil topics, such as violence, human survival and war.


title: Seraphim Falls

text: The film was produced by the motion picture studio of Icon Productions. It was commercially distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Destination Films theatrically, and by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for home media. The film score was composed by musician Harry Gregson-Williams, although a soundtrack version for the motion picture was not released to the public.


title: Seraphim Falls

text: "Seraphim Falls" premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and was released to theatres in limited release in the United States on January 26, 2007, grossing $418,296 in domestic ticket sales. It earned an additional $801,762 in box office business overseas for a combined worldwide total of $1,220,058 in revenue. The film generally received positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. The widescreen DVD edition of the film featuring scene selections and a bonus featurette, was released in the United States on May 15, 2007.


title: Seraphim Falls

text: Notable similarities have been found between the film and the 1976 revisionist western, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" directed by Clint Eastwood.