ejaasaari/simplewiki-2025-04-01 huggingface dataset:
The Iowa Supreme Court is the state supreme court and the highest court in the U.S. state of Iowa. The Court has seven judges called "justices" on it: a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. The Court normally meets in Des Moines in the Iowa Judicial Branch Building. The Court. In 1846, Iowa was the 29th state to join the United States. Iowa's government is similar to the federal government of the United States. The government of Iowa has three branches: the legislative branch (the Iowa General Assembly), the executive branch (the Governor of Iowa), and the judicial branch (the Iowa Supreme Court).  The Iowa Supreme Court is an appellate court. An appellate court does not have trials, but reviews the decisions of other state courts. The Court does many things: Justices. Justices are appointed – chosen – by the governor from a list of three people chosen by the State Judicial Nominating Commission. A new justice serves a one-year term after appointment and until January 1 after the next judicial retention election. After the election, a justice serves an eight-year term. At the end of a justice's term, there is a retention election – an election to decide if the justice gets another term. A justice must retire at the age of 72. The justices elect the chief justice.  The Chief Justice and two other justices, were not elected in the November 2, 2010 retention election. Governor Branstad appointed Edward Mansfield, Thomas D. Waterman, and Bruce Zager to replace them in February 2011. While waiting for the new justices, the Court chose Justice Cady as the new Chief Justice. In March 2011, the new Court voted for Justice Cady to stay as Chief Justice. There will be a retention election for the new justices in November 2012.
Merseyrail is a British train operating company owned by Serco-Abellio and overseen by Merseytravel. They provide passenger rail services across Merseyside. They run 59 trains serving 69 stations.  Merseyrail has been using new class 777 trains since January 2023. These are replacing the old class 507 and 508 trains, which were over 40 years old.
Northern Rail was a British train operating company. It ran local passenger services in Northern England from December 2004 to March 2016. Northern Rail's owner was Serco and Abellio. It ran 287 trains to 529 stations.  In 2016, Serco and Abellio lost the franchise to Arriva, who promised to buy new trains.
Lupe Ontiveros (September 17, 1942 - July 26, 2012) was an Mexican-American movie and television actress. Ontiveros acted in a lot of movies and television series. She usually took the role of a maid or a grandmother. Ontiveros has told interviewers that she has played a maid at least 150 times on stage and in movies. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role on "Desperate Housewives". She also was given positive reviews for her role in "Chuck and Buck". She won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Ontiveros took the role as Yolanda Saldivar in the 1997 biographical movie "Selena". Personal life. Ontiveros was born Guadalupe Moreno in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents. Ontiveros and her husband, Elías, have three sons. Elías and their sons live in Pico Rivera, California. Lupe Ontiveros died on July 26, 2012. She died of liver cancer. She was 69 years old.
is a Japanese athlete. He is best known as a gymnast. Career. Kohei Uchimura has won the world championships in gymnastics for three years — 2009, 2010 and 2011. Uchimura was part of a team which won the team silver medal in gymnastics at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He also won the gold medal in the Olympic men’s all-around event in gymnastics.
Edward James Olmos (born February 24, 1947) is an American actor and movie director. He is best known for his roles in "Battlestar Galactica", "Miami Vice", "Stand and Deliver", "Selena", "Blade Runner" and "Zoot Suit". In 1988, Olmos was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the movie "Stand and Deliever". In 1971, Olmos married Katija Keel. She is the daughter of actor Howard Keel. They had two children but divorced in 1992 and later married actress Lorraine Bracco in 1994. However, they filed for divorce in January 2002. He has four adopted children. In the same year of 1994, he married Puerto Rican actress Lymari Nadal.  In 1996, he was awarded the Doctorate of Fine Arts from California State University. In his honor, Asteroid 5608 Olmos was named after him.
Christopher John Matthews (born December 17, 1945) is an American news anchor and political commentator. He is known for as the host of his talk show "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on MSNBC. On weekends he hosted the syndicated ABC News program "The Chris Matthews Show". Early life. Matthews went to La Salle College High School. Matthews served in the United States Peace Corps in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970 as a trade development adviser. Career. Matthews worked with Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House. O'Neill, a Democrat, was a political rival of VHS Republican president Ronald Reagan, but the two remained friends, saying that after 6:00 the two could go out for a drink together. Matthews wrote a book about their relationship. The last episode of "The Chris Matthews Show" was shown on July 21 2013. After he wrote a best selling book about politics called Hardball, Matthews joined MSNBC and hosted a show of the same name. Matthews is a moderate Democrat who has supported Republicans before and said that he is "more conservative than people think I am." However, Matthews has been a long time supporter of Barack Obama. In 2004, following a speech by Obama, Matthews said he had "seen the first black president," a prediction which came true four years later. Matthews once stated that Obama gave him a "thrill up his leg." This quote was widely mocked by many people. He has also been critical of Hillary Clinton, and has said that she got her office by her husband's fame and not on her own ability. As of 2015, Matthews hosts "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on the MSNBC cable channel at 5:00PM on weekdays. He is also a political commentator that appears on other shows. Matthews is married to his wife of thirty five years, Kathleen, a businesswoman who is an executive at Marriott. He is a Roman Catholic.
Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is the senior U.S. Senator from Iowa. He is currently the president pro tempore of the Senate and also had this position from 2019 until 2021. He has been Senator since 1981. He was also in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981. Before that he was in the Iowa state legislature from 1959 to 1974. In January 2019, Grassley became the most senior Republican serving in the United States Senate due to the retirement of Orrin Hatch and the resignation of Thad Cochran. After the Republicans kept control of the Senate in the 2018 elections, Grassley became the 91st Senate President pro tempore. In January 2021, when Republicans lost control of the U.S. Senate, Patrick Leahy became President pro tempore while Grassley became "President pro tempore emeritus". On November 17, 2020, Grassley announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19. In January 2023, with Patrick Leahy's retirement, Grassley became the Dean of the United States Senate. Grassley is also known for his widely reported "feud" with the History channel. He has accused the network multiples times of having little actual history programming. Grassley's net worth was $7,550,075 as of 2018.
The Khojaly Massacre was the murder of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly in Azerbaijan on 25–26 February 1992 by the Armenian armed forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. 613 people were killed, including 424 men, 106 women and 83 children. The massacre was the largest massacre of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
is a Japanese athlete. He is best known as a swimmer who competed at the Summer Olympic Games. Career. He won a bronze medal in the Men's 400m individual medley at the 2012 Summer Olympics. His time of 4:10.01 was an Asian record.
Conrad Burns (January 25, 1935 – April 28, 2016) was a former United States Senator from the state of Montana. He was a member of the U.S. Republican Party. He was the longest serving Republican Senator in the history of Montana. He was born near Gallatin, Missouri. Burns died at his home in Billings, Montana on April 28, 2016 from complications of a stroke, aged 81.
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone (born June 1, 1934 in Jacksonville, Florida) is an American singer, writer and actor. He was a very successful pop musician in the 1950s and 1960s. His many hits were covers of black R&amp;B musicians' songs. At that time black musicians were not played on white radio stations. His daughter Debby is also a singer. According to "Billboard", Boone was the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley. He is a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Boone hosted a half-hour ABC variety television series. There were 115 episodes from 1957 to 1960. Many musical performers, including Edie Adams, Andy Williams, Pearl Bailey and Johnny Mathis were on the show.
is a Japanese athlete. He is best known as a judoka. History. He won a silver medal at the 2009 World Judo Championships and bronze medal at the 2010 World Judo Championships. Hiroka won the silver medal in 2012 Summer Olympics at London, in the men's under 60 kg extra-lightweight judo.
Tom Harkin (born November 19, 1939) is a retired American politician for the Democratic Party. From 1985 to 2015, he served as a junior Senator in Iowa. He also served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 1985. Harkin ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1992, losing to then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. In 2013, Harkin said he would retire from the Senate after completing his fifth term in 2015.
Chuck Hagel ( ; born October 4, 1946) was the 24th Secretary of Defense and the former U.S. Senator from Nebraska. He is a member of the United States Republican Party. He has criticized the Bush Administration on many things, such as the Iraq War. In October 2014, speaking at a meeting of defense ministers in Peru, Hagel highlighted a report’s findings of the global security threats of climate change and global warming; stating “The loss of glaciers will strain water supplies in several areas of our hemisphere,” and “Destruction and devastation from hurricanes can sow the seeds for instability. Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline, and trigger waves of mass migration.” He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 26, 2012 to become Secretary of Defense during Barack Obama's second term replacing Leon Panetta. On November 24, 2014, it was announced that Hagel would resign the position of Secretary of Defense due to job stress and decisions on ISIS/ISIL.
Nancy Travis (born September 21, 1961 in New York City) is a television and movie actress. She is known for her roles in many movies, especially in "Three Men and a Baby" and its sequel "Three Men and a Little Lady". She has also been in many television sitcoms. Early life. Travis was born in New York City, the daughter of Theresa, a social worker, and Gordon Travis, a sales executive. Travis was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and Baltimore, Maryland.
Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri (; born late 1950s) is an Australian Aboriginal artist. He is one of Australia's most well-known indigenous artists. Early life. Warlimpirrnga was born in the late 1950s. He was born near Lake Mackay, east of where Kiwirrkurra is today. He and his family lived a traditional nomadic way of life on the western side of Lake Mackay. They had never come into contact with European society. Warlimpirrnga's father died when he was a young boy. His mother remarried shortly after. Warlimpirrnga himself married his cousin, Yalti, sometime around 1980. He was a hunter, the family's main provider of food. He hunted with spears, mirru (spear-throwers) and boomerangs. In 1984, when he was about 25, he finally came into contact people from outside his family. When he saw a white man for the first time, Warlimpirrnga remembers, "I couldn't believe it. I thought he was a devil, a bad spirit. He was the colour of clouds at sunrise." He and his family were settled at Kiwirrkurra. News of this group living nomadically so far into the modern world made headlines internationally. Painting. Warlimpirrnga started painting in 1987. He did paintings for Papunya Tula. He was taught by the other artists at the company. He finished his first painting for them in April 1987. His first public exhibition was in Melbourne, in 1988. It showed eleven of his paintings. The entire collection was bought for the National Gallery of Victoria. He has since become one of central Australia's most well-known artists. Warlimpirrnga paints abstract images of sacred dreaming stories and songs. The stories focus around the Tingari, the ancestors of the Pintupi, spirit beings who are believed to have created all living things. His stories are about his country and sacred sites like Marruwa and Kanapilya. His work is held in public collections across Australia, such
Pintupi is an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group. Their homeland is in the area west of Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. This is a very remote part of Australian desert. Because of this, the Pintupi were among the last Aboriginals in Australia to leave their traditional way of life. Most of the Pintupi were displaced (forced to leave) their homeland in the middle the 20th century, because of sti testing being done at Woomera. They were moved into settlements to the east and west of their country, such as Papunya, Balgo, Haasts Bluff and even as far away as Hermannsburg. They ended up scattered into different communities. Within a few years, several hundreds of Pintupi had died from foreign disease and infection. Others had problems with alcoholism and violence – having lived in small groups for most of their lives, they found it hard to deal with conflict. During the 1960s, the assimilationist policies of the Menzies government had a major effect on the mentality of many Pintupi. Part of the policy led to hundreds of Pintupi children being taken away from their parents and put into missions or foster care (this is now known as the Stolen Generation).  Beginning in the 1970s, there was a strong push within the Pintupi community at Papunya to return to their historical lands. They moved back west in 1981 to set up Kintore ("Waḻungurru"). Further west, Kiwirrkurra was founded in 1983, close to Lake Mackay. Skin groupings. The Pintupi have a complex kinship system, with eight different skin groups. Males and females have different prefixes ("Tj" for males, "N" for females). These names define kinship relationships. They dictate who can marry whom. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans.
A brick factory or brickworks is a factory for making bricks from mud by humans. There is no modern equipment in traditional style brickmaking. History. The oldest discovered bricks were originally made from shaped mud and dating to before 7500 B.C. They were found at Tell Aswad, and then later in the upper Tigris region and in southeast Anatolia close to Diyarbakir. Other more recent findings, dated between 7,000 and 6,395 B.C., come from Jericho and Catal Hüyük. In the ancient Indus Valley city of Mehrgarh, mud bricks have been found dating to 7000 BCE. (Kenoyer 2005) Ceramic bricks were used as early as 4500 BCE in early Indus Valley cities. Equipment. Most brickworks have some or all of the following: Brick making. In a traditional brickworks, clay is taken from the quarry, and then carried by workers to the yard After the forming or cutting, the bricks must be dried, in the open air, in drying sheds, When the bricks have been dried, they must then be fired or 'burnt' in a kiln, to give them their final hardness and appearance. Iran. There are about 300 traditional brick factories in the suburb of Tehran but most of them closed. Use of the Traditional brick-baking furnace or manually or pressure brick factory is very old in Persia. Persian's most famous ancient brick arch of Anushirvan or Al-Mada'in currently in Iraq. Bricks by hand (pressure) is seven thousand years old, Tehran capital of 220 years, with older homes and historic traditional identity both modern and traditional building are made of traditional bricks. Now, after thousands of years, this custom is coming to an end. Only a few factories are still functioning. Modern factories and modern styles of bricks has substituted the hand bricks. Traditional brick ovens are baking all over Iran, but the largest organizations manually brick kilns in the past two hundred years has always been around Tehran. Other cities with this kind of factory are Isfahan, Yazd, Ahvaz and Gonabad. India. A brick is a block,
Hester Jonas (around 1570 in Monheim am Rhein – December 24, 1635 in Neuss) was a German midwife and cunning woman. She was executed for witchcraft and is known as the so called "Witch of Neuss". Life. Jonas married the miller Peter Meurer. They moved to Neuss. There she suffered severe epileptic seizures. She worked as a midwife and was familiar with herbalism, particularly mandrake. In November 1635 (at the age of about 64 years), she was accused of witchcraft. She was arrested, examined and tortured. The mayor of Neuss accused her of having a deal with the devil. A few years back she already had the reputation of being a witch. In the wake of growing public rumours, the authorities were forced to do something. After hearings on November 15 and 22, Jonas denied the charges. On December 19 and 20 she was put on a chair spiked with sharp nails for three hours. After her torture she confessed falsely. She confessed to having sexual intercourse with a black man named "Hans Beelzebub". She confessed to damaging humans and animals by black magic. On the same night she escaped, but was captured again in a short time. Jonas then said her confession wasn't true, but her resistance was broken after a violent whipping the next day. She again confessed to all charges and the court sentenced her to death by beheading. On December 24 she was beheaded by an executioner. Her body was burnt and the ashes blew away in the wind. The transcripts are still available in the city archive of Neuss.
Papunya Tula Artists is a co-operative of Aboriginal Australian artists. It is owned and run by Aboriginal people of the Western Desert. It is famous for its development of the Western Desert art movement – widely referred to as "dot painting" – and is often credited with bringing Aboriginal art to the world's attention. The original group of artists started painting in the town of Papunya, but today the company is based in Alice Springs. The origins of the company go back to 1971. Geoffrey Bardon, the school teacher at Papunya, taught the children to paint a mural using the classical style of body and sand art. Historically, paintings and designs are made by Aborigines to depict stories and songs about the dreamtime. The co-operative was formed in 1972 by a group of men from Bardon's classes. They painted spiritual designs used in ceremonial art, but using modern instruments (like acrylic paints on canvas). As this style of art started to become famous, many in the Aboriginal community criticised the artists for revealing too many secrets from their sacred legends. Aborigines of the Western Desert believe that the knowledge of these things is dangerous; usually, a person must be initiated first, and this only happens when they are deemed "ready" by their community. In response, the artists changed or removed all detailed images of sacred symbols. In all works since then, these images have been hidden or left out completely. In the late 1970s, many of the people at Papunya left and moved back to their traditional lands. But the company continued to grow, and it centralised in Alice Springs. In 1987, the National Gallery of Victoria bought eleven paintings by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri. As popularity of this style of art continued to grow, so did their value. In 2007, a single painting by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri set a record at auction for Aboriginal art. It was bought for £1.03 million, more than twice as much as the previous record-holder. The first artists, including all of the company's founders, were men. In the early years, the men didn't like women painting. However, there was also a strong desire amongst many of the women to participate. In the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings.
Stronghold 2 is a real-time strategy computer game. It was released by Firefly Studios in April 2005. Gameplay. In the game, players play as a leader of a medieval castle. They must administer the castle in a good way in order to gain experience points. With his available energy, he should develop his food production, industry, civil, or military buildings and defenses. Military units are directly controlled individually or in groups. There are some semi-independent villages, which can be bought with experience points, and will contribute to the player's available energy. Different play modes are possible, such as Kingmaker, Siege, War Campaign, Peace Campaign, Freeplay, Custom scenario, and Multiplayer. Storyline. Stronghold 2 is set within the Middle Ages. The player plays as Sir Matthew Steele, a page for Sir William. The main storyline begins with Barclay, who wants to become the king of the no-king castle. Sir William is the player's closest ally, King who believes him to be a traitor disgraced him, because he mistakenly sieges Lady Seren’s castle, helps a tyrant escape, and accidentally poisons the King. Sir Grey is an elderly man, whose useful life is nearing end, but he still builds small but powerful castles with tall towers and thick walls. Lady Seren originally appears as an enemy, however, Sir Steele learns that she is in fact an ally, and Sir William mistook her for a witch. Sir Edwin is the weakest enemy, he lacks confidence but he is not as pathetic. Olaf Grimtooth is the Viking warlord. Pascal Devereux, better known as "The Hawk" is Sir William's evil brother. His castles are usually built from stone and feature large, powerful gatehouses, so he’s the most difficult enemy. And your mission is to beat them one by one. War campaign. You are the page of Sir William. Sir William was captured by Lord Barclay but you helped him to managed escape. Afterwards, Sir William and you ride to a nearby boathouse. Then Sir William will guide you how to develop your economically, and Constable Briggs will guide you how to fight with enemy.