title: Romania

text: The 1938 Munich Agreement convinced King Carol II that France and the United Kingdom could not defend Romanian interests. German preparations for a new war required the regular supply of Romanian oil and agricultural products. The two countries concluded a treaty concerning the coordination of their economic policies in 1939, but the King could not persuade Adolf Hitler to guarantee Romania's frontiers. Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union on 26 June 1940, Northern Transylvania to Hungary on 30 August, and Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria in September. After the territorial losses, the King was forced to abdicate in favour of his minor son, Michael I, on 6 September, and Romania was transformed into a national-legionary state under the leadership of General Ion Antonescu. Antonescu signed the Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy and Japan on 23 November. The Iron Guard staged a coup against Antonescu, but he crushed the riot with German support and introduced a military dictatorship in early 1941.


title: Romania

text: Romania entered World War II soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The country regained Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and the Germans placed Transnistria (the territory between the rivers Dniester and Dnieper) under Romanian administration. Romanian and German troops massacred at least 160,000 local Jews in these territories; more than 105,000 Jews and about 11,000 Gypsies died during their deportation from Bessarabia to Transnistria. Most of the Jewish population of Moldavia, Wallachia, Banat and Southern Transylvania survived, but their fundamental rights were limited. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, about 132,000 Jews – mainly Hungarian-speaking – were deported to extermination camps from Northern Transylvania with the Hungarian authorities' support.


title: Romania

text: After the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Iuliu Maniu, a leader of the opposition to Antonescu, entered into secret negotiations with British diplomats who made it clear that Romania had to seek reconciliation with the Soviet Union. To facilitate the coordination of their activities against Antonescu's regime, the National Liberal and National Peasants' parties established the National Democratic Bloc, which also included the Social Democratic and Communist parties. After a successful Soviet offensive, the young King Michael I ordered Antonescu's arrest and appointed politicians from the National Democratic Bloc to form a new government on 23 August 1944. Romania switched sides during the war, and nearly 250,000 Romanian troops joined the Red Army's military campaign against Hungary and Germany, but Joseph Stalin regarded the country as an occupied territory within the Soviet sphere of influence. Stalin's deputy instructed the King to make the Communists' candidate, Petru Groza, the prime minister in March 1945. The Romanian administration in Northern Transylvania was soon restored, and Groza's government carried out an agrarian reform. In February 1947, the Paris Peace Treaties confirmed the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania, but they also legalised the presence of units of the Red Army in the country.


title: Romania

text: During the Soviet occupation of Romania, the communist-dominated government called for new elections in 1946, which they fraudulently won, with a fabricated 70% majority of the vote. Thus, they rapidly established themselves as the dominant political force. Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, a communist party leader imprisoned in 1933, escaped in 1944 to become Romania's first communist leader. In February 1947, he and others forced King Michael I to abdicate and leave the country and proclaimed Romania a people's republic. Romania remained under the direct military occupation and economic control of the USSR until the late 1950s. During this period, Romania's vast natural resources were drained continuously by mixed Soviet-Romanian companies (SovRoms) set up for unilateral exploitative purposes.


title: Romania

text: In 1948, the state began to nationalise private firms and to collectivise agriculture. Until the early 1960s, the government severely curtailed political liberties and vigorously suppressed any dissent with the help of the Securitate—the Romanian secret police. During this period the regime launched several campaigns of purges during which numerous "enemies of the state" and "parasite elements" were targeted for different forms of punishment including: deportation, internal exile, internment in forced labour camps and prisons—sometimes for life—as well as extrajudicial killing. Nevertheless, anti-communist resistance was one of the most long-lasting and strongest in the Eastern Bloc. A 2006 commission estimated the number of direct victims of the Communist repression at two million people.


title: Romania

text: In 1965, Nicolae Ceaușescu came to power and started to conduct the country's foreign policy more independently from the Soviet Union. Thus, communist Romania was the only Warsaw Pact country which refused to participate in the Soviet-led 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Ceaușescu even publicly condemned the action as "a big mistake, [and] a serious danger to peace in Europe and to the fate of Communism in the world". It was the only Communist state to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel after 1967's Six-Day War and established diplomatic relations with West Germany the same year. At the same time, close ties with the Arab countries and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) allowed Romania to play a key role in the Israel–Egypt and Israel–PLO peace talks.


title: Romania

text: As Romania's foreign debt increased sharply between 1977 and 1981 (from US$3 billion to $10 billion), the influence of international financial organisations—such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—grew, gradually conflicting with Ceaușescu's autocratic rule. He eventually initiated a policy of total reimbursement of the foreign debt by imposing austerity steps that impoverished the population and exhausted the economy. The process succeeded in repaying all of Romania's foreign government debt in 1989. At the same time, Ceaușescu greatly extended the authority of the Securitate secret police and imposed a severe cult of personality, which led to a dramatic decrease in the dictator's popularity and culminated in his overthrow in the violent Romanian Revolution of December 1989 in which thousands were killed or injured.


title: Romania

text: After a trial, Ceaușescu and his wife were executed by firing squad at a military base outside Bucharest on December 25, 1989. The charges for which they were executed were, among others, genocide by starvation.


title: Romania

text: After the 1989 revolution, the National Salvation Front (FSN), led by Ion Iliescu, took partial and superficial multi-party democratic and free market measures after seizing power as an ad interim governing body. In April 1990, a sit-in protest contesting the results of that year's legislative elections and accusing the FSN, including Iliescu, of being made up of former Communists and members of the Securitate grew rapidly to become what was called the Golaniad. Peaceful demonstrations degenerated into violence, prompting the intervention of coal miners summoned by Iliescu. This episode has been documented widely by both local and foreign media, and is remembered as the June 1990 Mineriad.


title: Romania

text: The subsequent disintegration of the Front produced several political parties, including most notably the Social Democratic Party (PDSR then PSD) and the Democratic Party (PD and subsequently PDL). The former governed Romania from 1990 until 1996 through several coalitions and governments, with Ion Iliescu as head of state. Since then, there have been several other democratic changes of government: in 1996 Emil Constantinescu was elected president, in 2000 Iliescu returned to power, while Traian Băsescu was elected in 2004 and narrowly re-elected in 2009.


title: Romania

text: In 2009, the country was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund as an aftershock of the Great Recession in Europe.


title: Romania

text: In November 2014, Sibiu () former FDGR/DFDR mayor Klaus Iohannis was elected president, unexpectedly defeating former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who had been previously leading in the opinion polls. This surprise victory was attributed by many analysts to the implication of the Romanian diaspora in the voting process, with almost 50% casting their votes for Klaus Iohannis in the first round, compared to only 16% for Ponta. In 2019, Iohannis was re-elected president in a landslide victory over former Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă.


title: Romania

text: The post–1989 period is also characterised by the fact that most of the former industrial and economic enterprises which were built and operated during the communist period were closed, mainly as a result of the policies of privatisation of the post–1989 regimes.


title: Romania

text: Corruption has also been a major issue in contemporary Romanian politics. In November 2015, massive anti-corruption protests which developed in the wake of the Colectiv nightclub fire led to the resignation of Romania's Prime Minister Victor Ponta. During 2017–2018, in response to measures which were perceived to weaken the fight against corruption, some of the biggest protests since 1989 took place in Romania, with over 500,000 people protesting across the country.


title: Romania

text: Nevertheless, there have been efforts to tackle corruption. A National Anticorruption Directorate was formed in the country in 2002. Relatively recently, in Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, Romania's public sector corruption score deteriorated to 44 out of 100, reversing gains made in previous years.


title: Romania

text: After the end of the Cold War, Romania developed closer ties with Western Europe and the United States, eventually joining NATO in 2004, and hosting the 2008 summit in Bucharest.


title: Romania

text: The country applied in June 1993 for membership in the European Union and became an Associated State of the EU in 1995, an Acceding Country in 2004, and a full member on 1 January 2007.


title: Romania

text: During the 2000s, Romania enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe and has been referred at times as "the Tiger of Eastern Europe". This has been accompanied by a significant improvement in living standards as the country successfully reduced domestic poverty and established a functional democratic state. However, Romania's development suffered a major setback during the late 2000s' recession leading to a large gross domestic product contraction and a budget deficit in 2009. This led to Romania borrowing from the International Monetary Fund. Worsening economic conditions led to unrest and triggered a political crisis in 2012.


title: Romania

text: Romania still faces problems related to infrastructure, medical services, education, and corruption. Near the end of 2013, "The Economist" reported Romania again enjoying "booming" economic growth at 4.1% that year, with wages rising fast and a lower unemployment than in Britain. Economic growth accelerated in the midst of government liberalisations in opening up new sectors to competition and investment—most notably, energy and telecoms. In 2016, the Human Development Index ranked Romania as a nation of "Very High Human Development".


title: Romania

text: Following the experience of economic instability throughout the 1990s, and the implementation of a free travel agreement with the EU, a great number of Romanians emigrated to Western Europe and North America, with particularly large communities in Italy, Germany, and Spain. In 2016, the Romanian diaspora was estimated to be over 3.6 million people, the fifth-highest emigrant population in the world.


title: Romania

text: Romania is the largest country in Southeastern Europe and the twelfth-largest in Europe, having an area of . It lies between latitudes 43° and 49° N and longitudes 20° and 30° E. The terrain is distributed roughly equally between mountains, hills, and plains. The Carpathian Mountains dominate the centre of Romania, with 14 mountain ranges reaching above —the highest is Moldoveanu Peak at . They are surrounded by the Moldavian and Transylvanian plateaus, the Carpathian Basin and the Wallachian plains.


title: Romania

text: Romania is home to six terrestrial ecoregions: Balkan mixed forests, Central European mixed forests, East European forest steppe, Pannonian mixed forests, Carpathian montane conifer forests, and Pontic steppe. Natural and semi-natural ecosystems cover about 47% of the country's land area. There are almost (about 5% of the total area) of protected areas in Romania covering 13 national parks and three biosphere reserves. The Danube river forms a large part of the border with Serbia and Bulgaria, and flows into the Black Sea, forming the Danube Delta, which is the second-largest and best-preserved delta in Europe, and a biosphere reserve and a biodiversity World Heritage Site. At , the Danube Delta is the largest continuous marshland in Europe, and supports 1,688 different plant species alone.


title: Romania

text: Romania has one of the largest areas of undisturbed forest in Europe, covering almost 27% of its territory. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.95/10, ranking it 90th globally out of 172 countries. Some 3,700 plant species have been identified in the country, from which to date 23 have been declared natural monuments, 74 extinct, 39 endangered, 171 vulnerable, and 1,253 rare.


title: Romania

text: The fauna of Romania consists of 33,792 species of animals, 33,085 invertebrate and 707 vertebrate, with almost 400 unique species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, including about 50% of Europe's (excluding Russia) brown bears and 20% of its wolves.


title: Romania

text: Owing to its distance from open sea and its position on the southeastern portion of the European continent, Romania has a climate that is temperate and continental, with four distinct seasons. The average annual temperature is  in the south and  in the north. In summer, average maximum temperatures in Bucharest rise to , and temperatures over are fairly common in the lower-lying areas of the country. In winter, the average maximum temperature is below . Precipitation is average, with over per year only on the highest western mountains, while around Bucharest it drops to approximately .


title: Romania

text: There are some regional differences: in western sections, such as Banat, the climate is milder and has some Mediterranean influences; the eastern part of the country has a more pronounced continental climate. In Dobruja, the Black Sea also exerts an influence over the region's climate.


title: Romania

text: The Constitution of Romania is based on the constitution of France's Fifth Republic and was approved in a national referendum on 8 December 1991 and amended in October 2003 to bring it into conformity with EU legislation. The country is governed on the basis of a multi-party democratic system and the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. It is a semi-presidential republic where executive functions are held by both the government and the president. The latter is elected by popular vote for a maximum of two terms of five years and appoints the prime minister who in turn appoints the Council of Ministers. The legislative branch of the government, collectively known as the Parliament (residing at the Palace of the Parliament), consists of two chambers (Senate and Chamber of Deputies) whose members are elected every four years by simple plurality.


title: Romania

text: The justice system is independent of the other branches of government and is made up of a hierarchical system of courts with the High Court of Cassation and Justice being the supreme court of Romania. There are also courts of appeal, county courts and local courts. The Romanian judicial system is strongly influenced by the French model, is based on civil law and is inquisitorial in nature. The Constitutional Court ("Curtea Constituțională") is responsible for judging the compliance of laws and other state regulations with the constitution, which is the fundamental law of the country and can only be amended through a public referendum. Romania's 2007 entry into the EU has been a significant influence on its domestic policy, and including judicial reforms, increased judicial cooperation with other member states, and measures to combat corruption.


title: Romania

text: Since December 1989, Romania has pursued a policy of strengthening relations with the West in general, more specifically with the United States and the European Union, albeit with limited relations involving the Russian Federation. It joined the NATO on 29 March 2004, the European Union (EU) on 1 January 2007, while it joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1972, and is a founding member of the World Trade Organization.


title: Romania

text: In the past, recent governments have stated that one of their goals is to strengthen ties with and helping other countries (in particular Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia) with the process of integration with the rest of the West. Romania has also made clear since the late 1990s that it supports NATO and EU membership for the democratic former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Romania also declared its public support for Turkey, and Croatia joining the European Union.


title: Romania

text: Romania opted on 1 January 2007, to accede to the Schengen Area, and its bid to join was approved by the European Parliament in June 2011, but was rejected by the EU Council in September 2011. As of August 2019, its acceptance into the Schengen Area is hampered because the European Council has misgivings about Romania's adherence to the rule of law, a fundamental principle of EU membership.


title: Romania

text: In December 2005, President Traian Băsescu and United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement that would allow a U.S. military presence at several Romanian facilities primarily in the eastern part of the country. In May 2009, Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, declared that "Romania is one of the most trustworthy and respectable partners of the USA."


title: Romania

text: Relations with Moldova are a special case given that the two countries share the same language and a common history. A movement for unification of Romania and Moldova appeared in the early 1990s after both countries achieved emancipation from communist rule but lost ground in the mid-1990s when a new Moldovan government pursued an agenda towards preserving a Moldovan republic independent of Romania. After the 2009 protests in Moldova and the subsequent removal of Communists from power, relations between the two countries have improved considerably.


title: Romania

text: The Romanian Armed Forces consist of land, air, and naval forces led by a Commander-in-chief under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defence, and by the president as the Supreme Commander during wartime. The Armed Forces consist of approximately 15,000 civilians and 75,000 military personnel—45,800 for land, 13,250 for air, 6,800 for naval forces, and 8,800 in other fields. Total defence spending in 2007 accounted for 2.05% of total national GDP, or approximately US$2.9 billion, with a total of $11 billion spent between 2006 and 2011 for modernization and acquisition of new equipment.


title: Romania

text: The Air Force operates modernised Soviet MiG-21 Lancer fighters. The Air Force purchased seven new C-27J Spartan tactical airlifters, while the Naval Forces acquired two modernised Type 22 frigates from the British Royal Navy.


title: Romania

text: Romania contributed troops to the international coalition in Afghanistan beginning in 2002, with a peak deployment of 1,600 troops in 2010 (which was the 4th largest contribution according to the US). Its combat mission in the country concluded in 2014. Romanian troops participated in the occupation of Iraq, reaching a peak of 730 soldiers before being slowly drawn down to 350 soldiers. Romania terminated its mission in Iraq and withdrew its last troops on 24 July 2009, among the last countries to do so. The frigate the "Regele Ferdinand" participated in the 2011 military intervention in Libya.


title: Romania

text: In December 2011, the Romanian Senate unanimously adopted the draft law ratifying the Romania-United States agreement signed in September of the same year that would allow the establishment and operation of a US land-based ballistic missile defence system in Romania as part of NATO's efforts to build a continental missile shield.


title: Romania

text: Romania is divided into 41 counties ("județe", pronounced judetse) and the municipality of Bucharest. Each county is administered by a county council, responsible for local affairs, as well as a prefect responsible for the administration of national affairs at the county level. The prefect is appointed by the central government but cannot be a member of any political party. Each county is subdivided further into cities and communes, which have their own mayor and local council. There are a total of 320 cities and 2,861 communes in Romania. A total of 103 of the larger cities have municipality status, which gives them greater administrative power over local affairs. The municipality of Bucharest is a special case, as it enjoys a status on par to that of a county. It is further divided into six sectors and has a prefect, a general mayor ("primar"), and a general city council.


title: Romania

text: The NUTS-3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) level divisions of the European Union reflect Romania's administrative-territorial structure and correspond to the 41 counties plus Bucharest. The cities and communes correspond to the NUTS-5 level divisions, but there are no current NUTS-4 level divisions. The NUTS-1 (four macroregions) and NUTS-2 (eight development regions) divisions exist but have no administrative capacity and are used instead for coordinating regional development projects and statistical purposes.


title: Romania

text: In 2019, Romania has a GDP (PPP) of around $547 billion and a GDP per capita (PPP) of $28,189. According to the World Bank, Romania is a high-income economy. According to Eurostat, Romania's GDP per capita (PPS) was 70% of the EU average (100%) in 2019, an increase from 44% in 2007 (the year of Romania's accession to the EU), making Romania one of the fastest growing economies in the EU.


title: Romania

text: After 1989 the country experienced a decade of economic instability and decline, led in part by an obsolete industrial base and a lack of structural reform. From 2000 onward, however, the Romanian economy was transformed into one of relative macroeconomic stability, characterised by high growth, low unemployment and declining inflation. In 2006, according to the Romanian Statistics Office, GDP growth in real terms was recorded at 7.7%, one of the highest rates in Europe. However, the Great Recession forced the government to borrow externally, including an IMF €20 billion bailout program. According to The World Bank, GDP per capita in purchasing power parity grew from $13,687 in 2007 to $28,206 in 2018. Romania's net average monthly wage increased to 666 euro as of 2020, and an inflation rate of −1.1% in 2016. Unemployment in Romania was at 4.3% in August 2018, which is low compared to other EU countries.


title: Romania

text: Industrial output growth reached 6.5% year-on-year in February 2013, the highest in the Europe. The largest local companies include car maker Automobile Dacia, Petrom, Rompetrol, Ford Romania, Electrica, Romgaz, RCS & RDS and Banca Transilvania. As of 2020, there are around 6000 exports per month. Romania's main exports are: cars, software, clothing and textiles, industrial machinery, electrical and electronic equipment, metallurgic products, raw materials, military equipment, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agricultural products (fruits, vegetables, and flowers). Trade is mostly centred on the member states of the European Union, with Germany and Italy being the country's single largest trading partners. The account balance in 2012 was estimated to be 4.52% of GDP.


title: Romania

text: After a series of privatizations and reforms in the late 1990s and 2000s, government intervention in the Romanian economy is somewhat less than in other European economies. In 2005, the government replaced Romania's progressive tax system with a flat tax of 16% for both personal income and corporate profit, among the lowest rates in the European Union. The economy is based predominantly on services, which account for 56.2% of the country's total GDP as of 2017, with industry and agriculture accounting for 30% and 4.4% respectively.


title: Romania

text: Approximately 25.8% of the Romanian workforce is employed in agriculture, one of the highest rates in Europe.


title: Romania

text: Romania has attracted increasing amounts of foreign investment following the end of Communism, with the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Romania rising to €83.8 billion in June 2019. Romania's FDI outward stock (an external or foreign business either investing in or purchasing the stock of a local economy) amounted to $745 million in December 2018, the lowest value among the 28 EU member states. Some companies that have invested in Romania include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Procter & Gamble, Citibank, and IBM.


title: Romania

text: According to a 2019 World Bank report, Romania ranks 52nd out of 190 economies in the ease of doing business, one place higher than neighbouring Hungary and one place lower than Italy. The report praised the consistent enforcement of contracts and access to credit in the country, while noting difficulties in access to electricity and dealing with construction permits.


title: Romania

text: Since 1867 the official currency has been the Romanian "leu" ("lion") and following a denomination in 2005. After joining the EU in 2007, Romania is expected to adopt the Euro in 2024.


title: Romania

text: According to the Romania's National Institute of Statistics (INSSE), Romania's total road network was estimated in 2015 at . The World Bank estimates the railway network at of track, the fourth-largest railroad network in Europe. Romania's rail transport experienced a dramatic decline after 1989 and was estimated at 99 million passenger journeys in 2004, but has experienced a recent (2013) revival due to infrastructure improvements and partial privatisation of lines, accounting for 45% of all passenger and freight movements in the country. Bucharest Metro, the only underground railway system, was opened in 1979 and measures with an average ridership in 2007 of 600,000 passengers during the workweek in the country. There are sixteen international commercial airports in service today. Over 12.8 million passengers flew through Bucharest's Henri Coandă International Airport in 2017.


title: Romania

text: Romania is a net exporter of electrical energy and is 52nd worldwide in terms of consumption of electric energy. Around a third of the produced energy comes from renewable sources, mostly as hydroelectric power. In 2015, the main sources were coal (28%), hydroelectric (30%), nuclear (18%), and hydrocarbons (14%). It has one of the largest refining capacities in Eastern Europe, even though oil and natural gas production has been decreasing for more than a decade. With one of the largest reserves of crude oil and shale gas in Europe it is among the most energy-independent countries in the European Union, and is looking to expand its nuclear power plant at Cernavodă further.


title: Romania

text: There were almost 18.3 million connections to the Internet in June 2014. According to Bloomberg, in 2013 Romania ranked fifth in the world, and according to "The Independent", it ranks number one in Europe at Internet speeds, with Timișoara ranked among the highest in the world.


title: Romania

text: Tourism is a significant contributor to the Romanian economy, generating around 5% of GDP. The number of tourists has been rising steadily, reaching 9.33 million foreign tourists in 2016, according to the Worldbank. Tourism in Romania attracted €400 million in investments in 2005. More than 60% of the foreign visitors in 2007 were from other EU countries. The popular summer attractions of Mamaia and other Black Sea Resorts attracted 1.3 million tourists in 2009.


title: Romania

text: Most popular skiing resorts are along the Valea Prahovei and in Poiana Brașov. Castles, fortifications, or strongholds as well as preserved medieval Transylvanian cities or towns such as Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, Brașov, Bistrița, Mediaș, Cisnădie, or Sighișoara also attract a large number of tourists. Bran Castle, near Brașov, is one of the most famous attractions in Romania, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists every year as it is often advertised as being Dracula's Castle.


title: Romania

text: Rural tourism, focusing on folklore and traditions, has become an important alternative, and is targeted to promote such sites as Bran and its Dracula's Castle, the painted churches of northern Moldavia, and the wooden churches of Maramureș, or the villages with fortified churches in Transylvania. Other attractions include the Danube Delta or the Sculptural Ensemble of Constantin Brâncuși at Târgu Jiu.


title: Romania

text: In 2014, Romania had 32,500 companies active in the hotel and restaurant industry, with a total turnover of €2.6 billion. More than 1.9 million foreign tourists visited Romania in 2014, 12% more than in 2013. According to the country's National Statistics Institute, some 77% came from Europe (particularly from Germany, Italy, and France), 12% from Asia, and less than 7% from North America.


title: Romania

text: Historically, Romanian researchers and inventors have made notable contributions to several fields. In the history of flight, Traian Vuia built the first airplane to take off under its own power and Aurel Vlaicu built and flew some of the earliest successful aircraft, while Henri Coandă discovered the Coandă effect of fluidics. Victor Babeș discovered more than 50 types of bacteria; biologist Nicolae Paulescu developed an extract of the pancreas and showed that it lowers blood sugar in diabetic dogs, thus being significant in the history of insulin; while Emil Palade received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to cell biology. Lazăr Edeleanu was the first chemist to synthesise amphetamine, and he also invented the procedure of separating valuable petroleum components with selective solvents.


title: Romania

text: During the 1990s and 2000s, the development of research was hampered by several factors, including: corruption, low funding, and a considerable brain drain. In recent years, Romania has ranked the lowest or second-lowest in the European Union by research and development spending as a percentage of GDP, standing at roughly 0.5% in 2016 and 2017, substantially below the EU average of just over 2%. The country joined the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2011, and CERN in 2016. In 2018, however, Romania lost its voting rights in the ESA due to a failure to pay €56.8 million in membership contributions to the agency.


title: Romania

text: In the early 2010s, the situation for science in Romania was characterised as "rapidly improving" albeit from a low base. In January 2011, Parliament passed a law that enforces "strict quality control on universities and introduces tough rules for funding evaluation and peer review". Romania was ranked 48th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, up from 50th in 2019.


title: Romania

text: The nuclear physics facility of the European Union's proposed Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) laser will be built in Romania. In early 2012, Romania launched its first satellite from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. Starting in December 2014, Romania became a co-owner of the International Space Station.


title: Romania

text: According to the 2011 Romanian census, Romania's population was 20,121,641. Like other countries in the region, its population is expected to decline gradually as a result of sub-replacement fertility rates and negative net migration rate. In October 2011, Romanians made up 88.9% of the population. The largest ethnic minorities are the Hungarians, 6.1% of the population, and the Roma, 3.0% of the population. Hungarians constitute a majority in the counties of Harghita and Covasna. Other minorities include Ukrainians, Germans, Turks, Lipovans, Aromanians, Tatars, and Serbs. In 1930, there were 745,421 Germans living in Romania, but only about 36,000 remained in the country to this day. , there were also approximately 133,000 immigrants living in Romania, primarily from Moldova and China.


title: Romania

text: The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2018 was estimated at 1.36 children born per woman, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1, and one of the lowest in the world, it remains considerably below the high of 5.82 children born per woman in 1912. In 2014, 31.2% of births were to unmarried women.


title: Romania

text: The birth rate (9.49‰, 2012) is much lower than the mortality rate (11.84‰, 2012), resulting in a shrinking (−0.26% per year, 2012) and aging population (median age: 41.6 years, 2018), one of the oldest populations in the world, with approximately 16.8% of total population aged 65 years and over. The life expectancy in 2015 was estimated at 74.92 years (71.46 years male, 78.59 years female).


title: Romania

text: The number of Romanians and individuals with ancestors born in Romania living abroad is estimated at 12 million. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, a significant number of Romanians emigrated to other European countries, North America or Australia. For example, in 1990, 96,919 Romanians permanently settled abroad.


title: Romania

text: The official language is Romanian, a Romance language (the most widely spoken of the Eastern Romance branch), which presents a consistent degree of similarity to Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian, but shares many features equally with the rest of the Western Romance languages, specifically Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. The Romanian alphabet contains the same 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet, as well as five additional ones (namely "ă","â","î","ț", and "ș"), totaling 31.


title: Romania

text: Romanian is spoken as a first language by approximately 90% of the entire population, while Hungarian and Vlax Romani are spoken by 6.2% and 1.2% of the population, respectively. There are also approximately 50,000 native speakers of Ukrainian (concentrated in some compact regions near the border, where they form local majorities), 25,000 native speakers of German, and 32,000 native speakers of Turkish living in Romania.


title: Romania

text: According to the Constitution, local councils ensure linguistic rights to all minorities. In localities with ethnic minorities of over 20%, that minority's language can be used in the public administration, justice system, and education. Foreign citizens and stateless persons who live in Romania have access to justice and education in their own language. English and French are the main foreign languages taught in schools. In 2010, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie identified 4,756,100 French speakers in the country. According to the 2012 Eurobarometer, English is spoken by 31% of Romanians, French is spoken by 17%, and Italian and German, each by 7%.


title: Romania

text: Romania is a secular state and has no state religion. An overwhelming majority of the population identify themselves as Christians. At the country's 2011 census, 81.0% of respondents identified as Orthodox Christians belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church. Other denominations include Protestantism (6.2%), Roman Catholicism (4.3%), and Greek Catholicism (0.8%). From the remaining population, 195,569 people belong to other Christian denominations or have another religion, which includes 64,337 Muslims (mostly of Turkish and Tatar ethnicity) and 3,519 Jewish (Jews once constituted 4% of the Romanian population—728,115 persons in the 1930 census). Moreover, 39,660 people have no religion or are atheist, whilst the religion of the rest is unknown.


title: Romania

text: The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church in full communion with other Orthodox churches, with a Patriarch as its leader. It is the third-largest Eastern Orthodox Church in the world, and unlike other Orthodox churches, it functions within a Latin culture and uses a Romance liturgical language. Its canonical jurisdiction covers the territories of Romania and Moldova. Romania has the world's third-largest Eastern Orthodox population.


title: Romania

text: Although 54.0% of the population lived in urban areas in 2011, this percentage has been declining since 1996. Counties with over   urban population are Hunedoara, Brașov and Constanța, while those with less than a third are Dâmbovița (30.06%) and Giurgiu and Teleorman. Bucharest is the capital and the largest city in Romania, with a population of over 1.8 million in 2011. Its larger urban zone has a population of almost 2.2 million, which are planned to be included into a metropolitan area up to 20 times the area of the city proper. Another 19 cities have a population of over 100,000, with Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara of slightly more than 300,000 inhabitants, Iași, Constanța, Craiova, and Brașov with over 250,000 inhabitants, and Galați and Ploiești with over 200,000 inhabitants. Metropolitan areas have been constituted for most of these cities.


title: Romania

text: Since the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the Romanian educational system has been in a continuous process of reform that has received mixed criticism. In 2004, some 4.4 million individuals were enrolled in school. Of these, 650,000 were in kindergarten (three-six years), 3.11 million in primary and secondary level, and 650,000 in tertiary level (universities). In 2018, the adult literacy rate was 98.8%. Kindergarten is optional between three and five years. Since 2020, compulsory schooling starts at age 5 with the last year of kindergarten (grupa mare) and is compulsory until twelfth grade. Primary and secondary education is divided into 12 or 13 grades. There is also a semi-legal, informal private tutoring system used mostly during secondary school, which prospered during the Communist regime.


title: Romania

text: Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, University of Bucharest, and West University of Timișoara have been included in the QS World University Rankings' top 800.


title: Romania

text: Romania ranks fifth in the all-time medal count at the International Mathematical Olympiad with 316 total medals, dating back to 1959. Ciprian Manolescu managed to write a perfect paper (42 points) for a gold medal more times than anybody else in the history of the competition, in 1995, 1996 and 1997. Romania has achieved the highest team score in the competition, after China, Russia, the United States and Hungary. Romania also ranks sixth in the all-time medal count at the International Olympiad in Informatics with 107 total medals, dating back to 1989.


title: Romania

text: Romania has a universal health care system; total health expenditures by the government are roughly 5% of GDP. It covers medical examinations, any surgical operations, and any post-operative medical care, and provides free or subsidised medicine for a range of diseases. The state is obliged to fund public hospitals and clinics. The most common causes of death are cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Transmissible diseases are quite common by European standards. In 2010, Romania had 428 state and 25 private hospitals, with 6.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people, and over 200,000 medical staff, including over 52,000 doctors. , the emigration rate of doctors was 9%, higher than the European average of 2.5%.


title: Romania

text: The topic of the origin of Romanian culture began to be discussed by the end of the 18th century among the Transylvanian School scholars. Several writers rose to prominence in the 19th century, including: George Coșbuc, Ioan Slavici, Mihail Kogălniceanu, Vasile Alecsandri, Nicolae Bălcescu, Ion Luca Caragiale, Ion Creangă, and Mihai Eminescu, the later being considered the greatest and most influential Romanian poet, particularly for the poem "Luceafărul".


title: Romania

text: In the 20th century, a number of Romanian artists and writers achieved international acclaim, including: Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Mircea Eliade, Nicolae Grigorescu, Marin Preda, Liviu Rebreanu, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran, and Constantin Brâncuși. Brâncuși has a sculptural ensemble in Târgu Jiu, while his sculpture "Bird in Space", was auctioned in 2005 for $27.5 million. Romanian-born Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, while Banat Swabian writer Herta Müller received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.


title: Romania

text: Prominent Romanian painters include: Nicolae Grigorescu, Ștefan Luchian, Ion Andreescu Nicolae Tonitza, and Theodor Aman. Notable Romanian classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries include: Ciprian Porumbescu, Anton Pann, Eduard Caudella, Mihail Jora, Dinu Lipatti, and especially George Enescu. The annual George Enescu Festival is held in Bucharest in honour of the 20th-century composer.


title: Romania

text: Contemporary musicians like Angela Gheorghiu, Gheorghe Zamfir, Inna, Alexandra Stan, and many others have achieved various levels of international acclaim. At the Eurovision Song Contest Romanian singers achieved third place in 2005 and 2010.


title: Romania

text: In cinema, several movies of the Romanian New Wave have achieved international acclaim. At the Cannes Film Festival, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" by Cristi Puiu won the "Prix Un Certain Regard" in 2005, while "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" by Cristian Mungiu won the festival's top prize, the "Palme d'Or", in 2007. At the Berlin International Film Festival, "Child's Pose" by Călin Peter Netzer won the Golden Bear in 2013.


title: Romania

text: The list of World Heritage Sites includes six cultural sites located within Romania, including eight painted churches of northern Moldavia, eight wooden churches of Maramureș, seven villages with fortified churches in Transylvania, the Horezu Monastery, and the Historic Centre of Sighișoara. The city of Sibiu, with its Brukenthal National Museum, was selected as the 2007 European Capital of Culture and the 2019 European Region of Gastronomy. Multiple castles exist in Romania, including the popular tourist attractions of Peleș Castle, Corvin Castle, and Bran Castle or "Dracula's Castle".


title: Romania

text: There are 12 non-working public holidays, including the Great Union Day, celebrated on 1 December in commemoration of the 1918 union of Transylvania with Romania. Winter holidays include the Christmas and New Year festivities during which various unique folklore dances and games are common: "plugușorul", "sorcova", "ursul", and "capra". The traditional Romanian dress that otherwise has largely fallen out of use during the 20th century, is a popular ceremonial vestment worn on these festivities, especially in rural areas. There are sacrifices of live pigs during Christmas and lambs during Easter that has required a special exemption from EU law after 2007. In the Easter, traditions such as painting the eggs are very common. On 1 March "mărțișor" gifting is featured, which is a tradition whereby females are gifted with a type of talisman that is given for good luck.


title: Romania

text: Romanian cuisine has been influenced by Austrian and German cuisine (especially in the historical regions that had been formerly administered by the Habsburg Monarchy), but also shares some similarities with other cuisines in the Balkan region such as the Greek, Bulgarian, or Serbian cuisine. "Ciorbă" includes a wide range of sour soups, while "mititei", "mămăligă" (similar to polenta), and "sarmale" are featured commonly in main courses.


title: Romania

text: Pork, chicken, and beef are the preferred types of meat, but lamb and fish are also quite popular. Certain traditional recipes are made in direct connection with the holidays: "chiftele", "tobă" and "tochitură" at Christmas; "drob", "pască" and "cozonac" at Easter and other Romanian holidays. "Țuică" is a strong plum brandy reaching a 70% alcohol content which is the country's traditional alcoholic beverage, taking as much as 75% of the national crop (Romania is one of the largest plum producers in the world). Traditional alcoholic beverages also include wine, "rachiu", "palincă" and "vișinată", but beer consumption has increased dramatically over recent years.


title: Romania

text: Football is the most popular sport in Romania with over 219,000 registered players . The market for professional football in Romania is roughly €740 million according to UEFA.


title: Romania

text: The governing body is the Romanian Football Federation, which belongs to UEFA. The Romania national football team played its first match in 1922 and is one of only four national teams to have taken part in the first three FIFA World Cups, the other three being Brazil, France, and Belgium. Overall, it has played in seven World Cups and had its most successful period during the 1990s, when it finished 6th at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, eventually being ranked 3rd by FIFA in 1997.


title: Romania

text: The core player of this golden generation was Gheorghe Hagi, who was nicknamed "Maradona of the Carpathians". Other successful players include the European Golden Shoe winners: Dudu Georgescu, Dorin Mateuț and Rodion Cămătaru, Nicolae Dobrin, Ilie Balaci, Florea Dumitrache, Mihai Mocanu, Michael Klein, Mircea Rednic, Cornel Dinu, Mircea Lucescu, Costică Ștefănescu, Liță Dumitru, Lajos Sătmăreanu, Ștefan Sameș, Ladislau Bölöni, Anghel Iordănescu, Miodrag Belodedici, Helmuth Duckadam, Marius Lăcătuș, Victor Pițurcă and many others, and most recently Gheorghe Popescu, Florin Răducioiu, Dorinel Munteanu, Dan Petrescu, Adrian Mutu, Cristian Chivu, or Cosmin Contra. Romania's home ground is the Arena Națională in Bucharest.


title: Romania

text: The most successful club is Steaua București, who were the first Eastern European team to win the UEFA Champions League in 1986, and were runners-up in 1989. They were also UEFA Cup semi-finalists in 2006. Dinamo București reached the UEFA Champions League semi-final in 1984 and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup semi-final in 1990. Other important Romanian football clubs are Rapid București, UTA Arad, Universitatea Craiova, Petrolul Ploiești, CFR Cluj, Astra Giurgiu, and Viitorul Constanța (the latter having recently merged with FCV Farul Constanța).


title: Romania

text: Tennis is the second most popular sport. Romania reached the Davis Cup finals three times in 1969, 1971 and 1972. In singles, Ilie Năstase was the first year-end World Number 1 in the ATP rankings in 1973, winning several Grand Slam titles. Also Virginia Ruzici won the French Open in 1978, and was runner-up in 1980, Simona Halep won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019 after losing her first three Grand Slam finals. She has ended 2017 and 2018 as WTA's World Number 1. And in doubles Horia Tecău won three Grand Slams and the ATP Finals final. He was World Number 2 in 2015.


title: Romania

text: The second most popular team sport is handball. The men's team won the handball world championship in 1961, 1964, 1970, 1974 making them the third most successful nation ever in the tournament. The women's team won the world championship in 1962 and have enjoyed more success than their male counterparts in recent years. In the club competition Romanian teams have won the EHF Champions League a total of three times, Steaua București won in 1968 as well as 1977 and Dinamo București won in 1965. The most notable players include Ștefan Birtalan, Vasile Stîngă (all-time top scorer in the national team) and Gheorghe Gruia who was named the best player ever in 1992. In present-day Cristina Neagu is the most notable player and has a record four IHF World Player of the Year awards. In women's handball, powerhouse CSM București lifted the EHF Champions League trophy in 2016.


title: Romania

text: Popular individual sports include combat sports, martial arts, and swimming. In professional boxing, Romania has produced many world champions across the weight divisions internationally recognised by governing bodies. World champions include Lucian Bute, Leonard Dorin Doroftei, Adrian Diaconu, and Michael Loewe. Another popular combat sport is professional kickboxing, which has produced prominent practitioners including Daniel Ghiță, and Benjamin Adegbuyi.


title: Romania

text: Romania's 306 all-time Summer Olympics medals would rank 12th most among all countries, while its 89 gold medals would be 14th most. The 1984 Summer Olympics was their most successful run, where they won 53 medals in total, 20 of them gold, ultimately placing 2nd to the hosts United States in the medal rankings. Amongst countries who have never hosted the event themselves, they are second in the total number of medals earned.


title: Romania

text: Gymnastics is the country's major medal-producing sport, with Olympic and sport icon Nadia Comăneci becoming the first gymnast ever to score a perfect ten in an Olympic event at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Other Romanian athletes who collected five gold medals like Comăneci are rowers Elisabeta Lipa (1984–2004) and Georgeta Damian (2000–2008). The Romanian competitors have won gold medals in other Olympic sports: athletics, canoeing, wrestling, shooting, fencing, swimming, weightlifting, boxing, and judo.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Armand Douglas Hammer (born August 28, 1986) is an American actor. Hammer began his acting career with guest appearances in several television series. His first leading role was as Billy Graham in the 2008 film "", and he gained wider recognition for his portrayal of the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's biographical drama film "The Social Network" (2010), for which he won the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer portrayed Clyde Tolson in the biopic "J. Edgar" (2011), played the title character in the western "The Lone Ranger" (2013), and starred as Illya Kuryakin in the action film "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (2015). In 2017, he starred in Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama "Call Me by Your Name", for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. The following year, he portrayed Martin D. Ginsburg in the biopic "On the Basis of Sex" (2018). On Broadway, he starred in a production of "Straight White Men" in 2018.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2021, claims of sexual abuse and cannibalistic fetishism were made against Hammer, including rape, physical and emotional abuse, and sexual violence masquerading as BDSM. In March 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department stated that he was the subject of a sexual assault investigation.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer denied the allegations, calling them an "online attack". He later abandoned several future projects and was dropped by his acting agency and publicist.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Armand Douglas Hammer was born on August 28, 1986, in Santa Monica, California. His mother, Dru Ann (née Mobley), is a former bank loan officer, and his father, Michael Armand Hammer, owns several businesses, including Knoedler Publishing and Armand Hammer Productions, a film/television production company. He has a younger brother, Viktor, named after their great-granduncle Victor Hammer.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer has described his background as "half Jewish." His paternal great-grandfather was oil tycoon and philanthropist Armand Hammer, whose parents were Jewish emigrants to the U.S. from the Russian Empire. Armand's father, Julius Hammer, was from Odessa and was an early activist in the U.S. Communist Party in New York. Armie's paternal great-grandmother was the Russian-born actress and singer Olga von Root (from Sevastopol), the daughter of a tsarist general. His paternal grandmother was from Texas, while his mother's family is from Tulsa, Oklahoma.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer resided in Highland Park, Texas, near Dallas, for several years. When he was seven, his family moved to the Cayman Islands, where they lived for five years, and then settled in Los Angeles. While residing in the Cayman Islands, he attended Faulkner's Academy in Governor's Harbour and Grace Christian Academy (a school founded by his father) in West Bay, Grand Cayman. As a teen, he attended Los Angeles Baptist High School in the San Fernando Valley. He dropped out of high school in eleventh grade to pursue an acting career. However, he subsequently took college courses at UCLA. Hammer said his parents disowned him when he decided to leave school and take up acting but later become supportive and proud of his work.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer's professional acting career began with small guest appearances in the television series "Arrested Development", "Veronica Mars", "Gossip Girl", "Reaper" and "Desperate Housewives". His first ventures into film began with a minor role in the 2006 film "Flicka", as well as co-starring in a 2008 psychological thriller, "Blackout". His first leading role in film came with his portrayal of the Christian evangelist Billy Graham in "", which premiered in October 2008. The film garnered Hammer a "Faith and Values Award" nomination in the Grace Award category, which is awarded for the Most Inspiring Performance in Movie or Television by Mediaguide, an organization which provides movie reviews from a Christian perspective.


title: Armie Hammer

text: After a long search, Hammer was hand-picked in 2007 by filmmaker George Miller to star in the planned superhero film "Justice League: Mortal", as Batman/Bruce Wayne. The film, which was to be directed by Miller, was eventually cancelled. The film's cancellation came in large part due to the looming 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as stalled budgetary rebate negotiations with the Australian Government. In 2009, he played Harrison Bergeron in "2081", based on the short story of the same name by author Kurt Vonnegut, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2010 Hammer's breakthrough film role was in David Fincher's "The Social Network", about the creation of Facebook. He portrayed the identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, with actor Josh Pence serving as a body double during filming. The filmmakers utilized computer-generated imagery during post-production to superimpose Hammer's face over Pence's as well as the use of split-screen photography in certain scenes. In preparation for the film, Hammer stated that he had to learn how to row on both sides of a boat in order to play the twins, who are rowing champions. Hammer and Pence also went through 10 months of extensive twin boot camp in preparation for their roles, in order to "drill the subtle movements and speech patterns that the Winklevosses would have developed over two decades of genetic equality." This film earned Hammer his first critical plaudits, with Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine remarking that Hammer's portrayal of the twins was "an astonishingly subtle trompe l'oeil of special effects". For his role in the film, Hammer won Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Armie Hammer

text: His next role was that of the first associate director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson, in Clint Eastwood's 2011 film "J. Edgar". The biographical drama, written by Dustin Lance Black, focused on the expansive career of J. Edgar Hoover, of which the titular role was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. The acting was largely praised, with David Denby of "The New Yorker" calling Hammer's performance "charming", and "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy describing it as "excellent". McCarthy goes on further in his review to particularly praise the chemistry between DiCaprio and Hammer, specifically in their depiction of the often speculated romantic relationship between their characters, pointing out that, "...the way the homoerotic undertones and impulses are handled is one of the best things about the film; the emotional dynamics, given all the social and political factors at play, feel entirely credible, and DiCaprio and Hammer excel during the exchanges of innuendo, covert desire, recriminations and mutual understanding." Despite this, the film received mixed reviews overall, in part due to the direction and writing, as well as pointed criticism of the makeup used to age DiCaprio and Hammer's characters. Both actors received Screen Actors Guild Awards nods.


title: Armie Hammer

text: The following year Hammer co-starred with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins in "Mirror Mirror" (2012), playing Prince Andrew Alcott. In January 2012, he voiced the Winklevoss twins in an episode of "The Simpsons" titled "The D'oh-cial Network". In 2013, Hammer was cast as the title role of Disney's, "The Lone Ranger", alongside Johnny Depp as Tonto, in an adaptation of the radio and film serials Lone Ranger. The film, released theatrically in July 2013, was considered a box office failure, grossing only $260.5 million worldwide on a reported budget of $215 million. In 2015, he starred in director Guy Ritchie's "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", a feature film adaptation of the 1960s TV show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", playing Illya Kuryakin, opposite Henry Cavill.


title: Armie Hammer

text: The following year, Hammer played Sam Turner in the 2016 film "The Birth of a Nation", directed by Nate Parker. The film, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. In January 2016, it was revealed that since 2013, Hammer was in contact with the family of the infamous drug lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal and secured the rights to film the life story of the cartel leader. He then had a role in the ensemble of Tom Ford's psychological thriller "Nocturnal Animals", played Ord in the action film "Free Fire", which was written and directed by Ben Wheatley, and played U.S. Marine Mike Stevens, in "Mine".


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2017, Hammer starred as Oliver in "Call Me by Your Name", starring opposite Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg. The film, an adaptation of an André Aciman novel of the same name, was directed by Luca Guadagnino. Production began in May 2016, and the film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. For his performance, Hammer received acclaim and nominations for the Critics' Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Film critic Richard Lawson of "Vanity Fair" asserted that Hammer utilized "his ludicrous proportions and chiseled handsomeness to great, surprisingly witty and sensitive effect." Hammer's acclaim was further echoed by Peter Travers; he wrote for "Rolling Stone" magazine: "a revelation, giving his most complex screen role to date the tightrope thrill of full immersion." Often highlighted was the "ridiculous chemistry" between Hammer and Chalamet, in which Christy Lemire of "RogerEbert.com" found the pairing successful, in part due to Hammer's skill in finding the "tricky balance between the character's swagger and his vulnerability as he gives himself over to this exciting affair." Hammer also narrated the audiobook, which was published by Macmillan Publishers.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In the same year, he voiced Jackson Storm, the main antagonist, in Disney-Pixar's animated film "Cars 3", as well as starred alongside Geoffrey Rush in Stanley Tucci's "Final Portrait". The film premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival and received a theatrical release the following year by Sony Pictures Classics to favorable reviews. Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" magazine praised Hammer's ability to "suggest turbulent eddies of thought beneath the blondish Clark Kent looks and preppie manners." "The Village Voice" critic found the performances "uniformly strong" and cited Hammer's portrayal of American author James Lord as the "comic highlight".


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2018, Hammer co-starred in Boots Riley's dark comedy "Sorry to Bother You" alongside Lakeith Stanfield, Steven Yeun, and Tessa Thompson. "Film Journal International" critic Tomris Laffly described Hammer's character, Steve Lift, as an "irresistibly funny" and "coke-snorting, abominable villain". The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20. The film won the 2019 National Board of Review's award and also won Best Screenplay and Best First Feature at the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards. He then appeared as David in the thriller "Hotel Mumbai", about the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2018. In the same year, Hammer starred alongside Felicity Jones, playing taxation law expert Martin D. Ginsburg, the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in "On the Basis of Sex", a biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Ginsburg, directed by Mimi Leder. It premiered at the AFI Fest on November 8, 2018. In June 2018, Hammer led as Drew in "Straight White Men" at Second Stage Theater on Broadway. For his notable film works from 2017 to 2018, Hammer was awarded "Outstanding Achievement in Cinema" by The SCAD Savannah Film Festival.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2019, Hammer starred in Babak Anvari's psychological horror film "Wounds" along with Dakota Johnson. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26. In 2020, he starred as Maxim de Winter in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance "Rebecca", directed by Ben Wheatley and co-starring Lily James; and in 2021, he appeared with Gary Oldman and Evangeline Lilly in the opioid crisis thriller "Crisis".


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer was part of an ensemble cast in director Kenneth Branagh's 2022 adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2021, Hammer both dropped out of and was dropped from a number of acting productions in development, in the wake of sexual and emotional abuse allegations, including a sexual assault investigation. These included the romantic comedy "Shotgun Wedding", a thriller based on "The Billion Dollar Spy" book by David E. Hoffman, the Broadway play "The Minutes" and the Paramount Plus series "The Offer".


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer is a son of the businessman Michael Armand Hammer and a great-grandson of the oil tycoon Armand Hammer and the singer Baroness Olga von Root.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In May 2010, Hammer married television personality Elizabeth Chambers. The pair were introduced by Hammer's friend, artist Tyler Ramsey. They have two children. On July 10, 2020, Hammer and Chambers announced their separation via Instagram.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2011, Hammer was arrested at a United States Border Patrol checkpoint in West Texas after marijuana was discovered in his car. El Paso's attorney declined to prosecute the case, as the amount of marijuana Hammer had would amount to a misdemeanor. In 2013, Hammer said the arrest "was a misunderstanding of laws and interstate laws versus state laws and apparently federal laws supersede state laws."


title: Armie Hammer

text: In 2022, Hammer was living in the Cayman Islands to be near Chambers and their children; he was said to have a job selling timeshares, after a previous stint working as a manager for an apartment complex.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In January 2021, an anonymous Instagram account released screenshots it claimed were text messages Hammer had sent to various women. He denied the messages were real, and called them an online attack. The messages contained references to sexual fantasies including violence, rape, and cannibalism. A woman who claimed she was in a relationship with Hammer told "The New York Post"s "Page Six" that he subjected her to emotional abuse, saying: "If I had a little cut on my hand, he'd like suck it or lick it. That's about as weird as we got." She said she attended a hospitalization program for PTSD as a result of the relationship. Another woman who claimed to be in a relationship with Hammer for four months in 2020 also told "Page Six" that he wanted to "barbeque and eat her rib", and that he branded her by carving his initial "A" near her pelvis. An attorney for Hammer stated: "These assertions about Mr. Hammer are patently untrue. Any interactions with this person, or any partner of his, were completely consensual in that they were fully discussed, agreed upon, and mutually participatory."


title: Armie Hammer

text: Hammer subsequently dropped out of the upcoming film "Shotgun Wedding". He later dropped out of his leading role in the Paramount+ drama series "The Offer", stepped away from the Starz series "Gaslit" and the Broadway play "The Minutes", and was removed from "Billion Dollar Spy". Talent agency WME dropped Hammer as a client, and it was reported that his publicist would no longer represent him. In December 2021, it was revealed his role in the Taika Waititi film "Next Goal Wins" had been reshot, with Will Arnett taking over Hammer's role.


title: Armie Hammer

text: Also in January, the Grand Cayman police spoke to Hammer about videos leaked from his private Instagram account in which he stated he was having sexual relations with "Miss Cayman" in the Cayman Islands. The actor subsequently issued an apology in an audio message to the "Cayman Compass", clarifying that the woman he referred to in the videos was not associated with the Miss Cayman Islands beauty pageant.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In March 2021, the woman who initially came forward with abuse allegations on Instagram identified herself and accused Hammer of violently raping her in April 2017. The Los Angeles Police Department subsequently confirmed that he was the subject of a sexual assault investigation, which had been set in motion a month prior. Hammer's legal team has denied the allegations. Attorney Gloria Allred stopped representing the woman who accused Armie Hammer of sexual assault. A source told "Us Weekly", “Gloria Allred fired Effie once she wouldn’t sign a declaration under perjury of her accusations.” The LAPD concluded its investigation in December 2021 and sent its findings to L.A. County District Attorney; the case was reportedly weak and unlikely to lead to charges.


title: Armie Hammer

text: In April 2022, "Variety" published an article where Hammer's attorney Andrew Brettler released a statement regarding the abuse allegations:


title: Non-fungible token

text: A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody, and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable assets, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Proponents of NFTs claim that NFTs provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, but the legal rights conveyed by an NFT can be uncertain. The ownership of an NFT as defined by the blockchain has no inherent legal meaning and does not necessarily grant copyright, intellectual property rights, or other legal rights over its associated digital file. An NFT does not restrict the sharing or copying of its associated digital file and does not prevent the creation of NFTs that reference identical files.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The NFT market grew dramatically from 2020–2021: the trading of NFTs in 2021 increased to more than $17 billion, up by 21,000% over 2020's total of $82 million. NFTs have been used as speculative investments, and they have drawn increasing criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with validating blockchain transactions as well as their frequent use in art scams. The NFT market has also been compared to an economic bubble or a Ponzi scheme. By May 2022, the NFT market was seen as beginning to collapse.


title: Non-fungible token

text: An NFT is a unit of data, stored on a type of digital ledger called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular digital or physical asset such as images, art, music, and sport highlights and may confer licensing rights to use the asset for a specified purpose. An NFT (and, if applicable, the associated license to use, copy, or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets. The extralegal nature of NFT trading usually results in an informal exchange of ownership over the asset that has no legal basis for enforcement, and so often confers little more than use as a status symbol.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs function like cryptographic tokens, but unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, NFTs are not mutually interchangeable, and so are not fungible. NFTs are created when blockchains concatenate records containing cryptographic hashes—sets of characters that identify a set of data—onto previous records, creating a chain of identifiable data blocks. This cryptographic transaction process ensures the authentication of each digital by providing a digital signature that tracks NFT ownership. Data links that are part of NFT records, that for example may point to details about where the associated art is stored, can be affected by link rot.


title: Non-fungible token

text: An NFT solely represents a proof of ownership of a blockchain record, and does not necessarily imply that the owner possesses intellectual property rights to the digital asset the NFT purports to represent. Someone may sell an NFT that represents their work, but the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright to that work, and the seller may not be prohibited from creating additional NFT copies of the same work. According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet, "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever the art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred."


title: Non-fungible token

text: Certain NFT projects, such as Bored Apes, explicitly assign intellectual property rights of individual images to their respective owners. The NFT collection CryptoPunks was a project that initially prohibited owners of its NFTs from using the associated digital artwork for commercial use, but later allowed such use upon an acquisition of the collection's parent company.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The first known "NFT", "Quantum", was created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash in May 2014. It consists of a video clip made by McCoy's wife, Jennifer. McCoy registered the video on the Namecoin blockchain and sold it to Dash for $4, during a live presentation for the "Seven on Seven" conferences at the New Museum in New York City. McCoy and Dash referred to the technology as "monetized graphics". This explicitly linked a non-fungible, tradable blockchain marker to a work of art, via on-chain metadata (enabled by Namecoin). This is in contrast to the multi-unit, fungible, metadata-less "colored coins" of other blockchains and Counterparty.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, was launched and demonstrated at DEVCON 1 in London, Ethereum's first developer conference, three months after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain. Most of Etheria's 457 purchasable and tradable hexagonal tiles went unsold for more than five years until March 13, 2021, when renewed interest in NFTs sparked a buying frenzy. Within 24 hours, all tiles of the current version and a prior version, each hardcoded to 1 ETH ( at the time of launch), were sold for a total of million.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The term "NFT" only achieved wider usage with the ERC-721 standard, first proposed in 2017 via the Ethereum GitHub, following the launch of various NFT projects that year. The standard coincided with the launch of several NFT projects, including "Curio Cards", "CryptoPunks" (a project to trade unique cartoon characters, released by the American studio Larva Labs on the Ethereum blockchain), and rare Pepe trading cards.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The 2017 online game CryptoKitties was made profitable by selling tradable cat NFTs, and its success brought public attention to NFTs.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The NFT market experienced rapid growth during 2020, with its value tripling to million. In the first three months of 2021, more than million were spent on NFTs.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In 2020, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office received three trademark applications for NFTs. In 2021, the number of trademark applications jumped to more than 1200. In January 2022, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received 450 NFT-related trademark applications. The growing list of brands being trademarked for NFTs includes the NYSE, Star Trek, Panera, Walmart, Elvis Presley, Sports Illustrated, Ticketmaster, and Yahoo. In the early months of 2021, interest in NFTs increased after a number of high-profile sales and art auctions.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In May 2022, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that the NFT market was "collapsing". Daily sales of NFT tokens had declined 92% from September 2021, and the number of active wallets in the NFT market fell 88% from November 2021. While rising interest rates had impacted risky bets across the financial markets, the "Journal" said "NFTs are among the most speculative."


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs have been used to exchange digital tokens that link to a digital file asset. Ownership of an NFT is often associated with a license to use such a linked digital asset, but generally does not confer copyright to the buyer. Some agreements only grant a license for personal, non-commercial use, while other licenses also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Digital art is a common use case for NFTs. High-profile auctions of NFTs linked to digital art have received considerable public attention. The work entitled "Merge" by artist Pak was the most expensive NFT, with an auction price of million and "", by artist Mike Winkelmann (known professionally as Beeple) the second most expensive at million in 2021.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Some NFT collections, including Bored Apes, EtherRocks and CryptoPunks are examples of generative art, where many different images are created by assembling a selection of simple picture components in different combinations.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In March 2021, the blockchain company Injective Protocol bought a $95,000 original screen print entitled "Morons (White)" from English graffiti artist Banksy, and filmed somebody burning it with a cigarette lighter. They uploaded (known as "minting" in the NFT scene) and sold the video as an NFT. The person who destroyed the artwork, who called themselves "Burnt Banksy", described the act as a way to transfer a physical work of art to the NFT space.


title: Non-fungible token

text: American curator and art historian Tina Rivers Ryan, who specializes in digital works, said that art museums are widely not convinced that NFTs have "lasting cultural relevance." Ryan compares NFTs to the net art fad before the dot-com bubble. In July 2022, after the controversial sale of Michelangelo's "Doni Tondo" in Italy, the sale of NFT reproductions of famous artworks was prohibited in Italy. Given the complexity and lack of regulation of the matter, the Ministry of Culture of Italy temporarily requested that its institutions refrain from signing contracts involving NFTs.


title: Non-fungible token

text: No centralized means of authentication exists to prevent stolen and counterfeit digital works from being sold as NFTs, although auction houses like Sotheby's, Christie's, and various museums and galleries worldwide started collaborations and partnerships with digital artists such as Refik Anadol, Dangiuz and Sarah Zucker.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs associated with digital artworks could be sold and bought via NFT platforms. OpenSea, launched in 2017, was one of the first marketplaces to host various types of NFTs. In July 2019, the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs, the creator of CryptoKitties, started a joint venture NBA Top Shot for basketball fans that let users buy NFTs of historic moments in basketball. In 2020, Rarible was found, allowing multiple assets. In 2021, Rarible and Adobe formed a partnership to simplify the verification and security of metadata for digital content, including NFTs. In 2021, a cryptocurrency exchange Binance, launched its NFT marketplace. In 2022, eToro Art by eToro was founded, focusing on supporting NFT collections and emerging creators.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Sotheby's, Christie's auction houses showcase artworks associated with the respective NFTs both in virtual galleries and real life screens, monitors, and TVs.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Mars House, an architectural NFT created in May 2020 by artist Krista Kim, sold in 2021 for 288 Ether (ETH) at that time equivalent to US$524,558.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs can represent in-game assets, such as digital plots of land. Some commentators describe these as being controlled "by the user" instead of the game developer if they can be traded on third-party marketplaces without permission from the game developer. Their reception from game developers, though, have been generally mixed, with some like Ubisoft embracing the technology but Valve and Microsoft formally prohibiting them.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In February 2021, NFTs reportedly generated around million in the music industry, with artists selling artwork and music as NFT tokens. On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3LAU sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of million to commemorate the three-year anniversary of his "Ultraviolet" album. On March 3, 2021, an NFT was made to promote the Kings of Leon album "When You See Yourself." Other musicians who have used NFTs include American rapper Lil Pump, Grimes, visual artist Shepard Fairey in collaboration with record producer Mike Dean, and rapper Eminem.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs representing digital collectables and artworks are a speculative asset. The NFT buying surge was called an economic bubble by experts, who also compared it to the Dot-com bubble. In March 2021 Mike Winkelmann called NFTs an "irrational exuberance bubble". By mid-April 2021, demand subsided, causing prices to fall significantly. Financial theorist William J. Bernstein compared the NFT market to 17th-century tulip mania, saying any speculative bubble requires a technological advance for people to "get excited about", with part of that enthusiasm coming from the extreme predictions being made about the product. For regulatory policy makers, NFT has exacerbated challenges such as speculation, fraud, and high volatility.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs, as with other blockchain securities and with traditional art sales, can potentially be used for money laundering. NFTs are often used to perform Wash Trading by creating several different wallets for one individual, generating several fictitious sales and consequently selling the respective NFT to a third party. According to a report by Chainalysis these types of wash trades are becoming increasingly popular among money launderers especially due to the largely anonymous nature of transactions on NFT marketplaces. "Looksrare", created in early 2022, came to be known for the large sums generated through the sale of NFTs in its earliest days, amounting to on a daily basis. These large sums were generated to large parts through wash trading. As stated in a report by the Royal United Services Institute any risks in relation to money laundering through NFTs could be mitigated through the use of “KYC best practices, strong cyber security measures and a stolen art registry (...) without restricting the growth of this new market”.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Auction platforms for NFT sales may face regulatory pressure to comply with anti-money laundering legislation. Gou Wenjun, the director of the Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Centre for the People's Bank of China, expressed that NFTs could "easily become money-laundering tools." Gou elaborated that there is increasing unlawful exploitation of various new cryptographic technologies, and that illicit actors often self-identify as innovators of the financial technology sector.


title: Non-fungible token

text: A February 2022 study from the United States Treasury assessed that there was "some evidence of money laundering risk in the high-value art market," including through "the emerging digital art market, such as the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)." The study considered how NFT transactions may be a simpler option for laundering money through art by avoiding the transportation or insurance complications in trading physical art. Several NFT exchanges were labeled as virtual asset service providers that may be subject to Financial Crimes Enforcement Network regulations. In March 2022, two people were charged for the execution of a $1,000,000 NFT scheme through wire fraud.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The European Union has yet to establish specific regulations to combat money laundering through NFTs. The European Commission announced in July 2022 that it is planning to draw regulations regarding that issue by 2024.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Specific token standards support various blockchain use-cases. Ethereum was the first blockchain to support NFTs with its ERC-721 standard and this is currently the most widely used. Many other blockchains have added or plan to add support for NFTs.


title: Non-fungible token

text: ERC-721 was the first standard for representing non-fungible digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC-721 is an inheritable Solidity smart contract standard; "inheritable" means that developers can create new ERC-721-compliant contracts by copying from a reference implementation. ERC-721 provides core methods that allow tracking the owner of a unique identifier, as well as for the owner to transfer the asset to others.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The ERC-1155 standard offers "semi-fungibility", as well as providing an analogue to ERC-721 functionality (meaning that an ERC-721 asset can be built using ERC-1155). Unlike ERC-721 where a unique ID represents a single asset, the unique ID of an ERC-1155 token represents a class of assets, and there is an additional quantity field to represent the amount of the class that a particular wallet has. Assets of the same class are interchangeable, and a user can transfer any amount of assets to others.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Because the contents of NFTs are publicly accessible, anybody can easily copy a file referenced by an NFT. Furthermore, the ownership of an NFT on the blockchain does not inherently convey legally enforceable intellectual property rights to the file.


title: Non-fungible token

text: It has become well known that an NFT image can be copied or saved from a web browser by using a right click menu to download the referenced image. NFT supporters disparage this duplication of NFT artwork as "right-clicker mentality". One collector quoted by "Vice" compared the value of a purchased NFT (in contrast to an unpurchased copy of the underlying asset) to that of a status symbol "to show off that they can afford to pay that much".


title: Non-fungible token

text: The "right-clicker mentality" phrase spread virally after its introduction, particularly among those who were critical of the NFT marketplace and who appropriated the term to flaunt their ability to capture digital art backed by NFT with ease. This criticism was promoted by Australian programmer Geoffrey Huntley who created "The NFT Bay", modeled after The Pirate Bay. The NFT Bay advertised a torrent file purported to contain 19 terabytes of digital art NFT images. Huntley compared his work to an art project from Pauline Pantsdown, and hoped the site would help educate users on what NFTs are and are not.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFTs that represent digital art generally do not store the associated artwork file on the blockchain due to the large size of such a file, and the limited processing speed of blockchains. Such a token functions like a certificate of ownership, with a web address that points to the piece of art in question; this however makes the art itself vulnerable to link rot.


title: Non-fungible token

text: NFT purchases and sales are enabled by the high energy usage, and consequent greenhouse gas emissions, associated with blockchain transactions. Though all forms of Ethereum transactions have an impact on the environment, the direct impact of transaction is also dependent upon the size of the Ethereum transaction. The proof-of-work protocol required to regulate and verify blockchain transactions on networks such as Ethereum consumes a large amount of electricity. To estimate the carbon footprint of a given NFT transaction requires a variety of assumptions or estimations about the manner in which that transaction is set up on the blockchain, the economic behavior of blockchain miners (and the energy demands of their mining equipment), and the amount of renewable energy being used on these networks. There are also conceptual questions, such as whether the carbon footprint estimate for an NFT purchase should incorporate some portion of the ongoing energy demand of the underlying network, or just the marginal impact of that particular purchase. An analogy might be the carbon footprint associated with an additional passenger on a given airline flight.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Some NFT technologies use validation protocols, such as proof of stake, that use much less energy per validation cycle. Other approaches to reducing electricity include the use of off-chain transactions as part of minting an NFT. A number of NFT art sites hope to address these concerns, and some are moving to technologies and protocols with lower associated footprints. Others now allow the option of buying carbon offsets when making NFT purchases, although the environmental benefits of this have been questioned. In some instances, NFT artists have decided against selling some of their own work to limit carbon emission contributions.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Sales platforms charge artists and buyers fees for minting, listing, claiming, and secondary sales. Analysis of NFT markets in March 2021, in the immediate aftermath of Beeple's "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" selling for million, found that most NFT artworks were selling for less than , with a third selling for less than . Those selling NFTs below $100 were paying platform fees between 72.5% and 157.5% of that amount. On average the fees make 100.5% of the price, meaning that such artists were on average paying more money in fees than they were making in sales.


title: Non-fungible token

text: There have been cases of artists and creators having their work sold by others as an NFT without permission. After the artist Qing Han died in 2020, her identity was assumed by a fraudster and a number of her works became available for purchase as NFTs. Similarly, a seller posing as Banksy succeeded in selling an NFT supposedly made by the artist for $336,000 in 2021; the seller refunded the money after the case drew media attention. In 2022, it was discovered that as part of their NFT marketing campaign, an NFT company that voice actor Troy Baker announced his partnership with had plagiarized voice lines generated from 15.ai, a free AI text-to-speech project.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The anonymity associated with NFTs and the ease with which they can be forged make it difficult to pursue legal action against NFT plagiarists.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Some NFT marketplaces responded to cases of plagiarism by creating "takedown teams" to respond to artist complaints. The NFT marketplace OpenSea has rules against plagiarism and deepfakes (non-consensual intimate imagery). Some artists criticized OpenSea's efforts, saying they are slow to respond to takedown requests and that artists are subject to support scams from users who claim to be representatives from the platform. Others argue that there is no market incentive for NFT marketplaces to crack down on plagiarism.


title: Non-fungible token

text: In January 2022, it was reported that some NFTs were being exploited by sellers to unknowingly gather users’ IP addresses. The "exploit" works via the off-chain nature of NFT, as the user's computer automatically follows a web address in the NFT to display the content. The server at the address can then log the IP address and, in some cases, dynamically alter the returned content to show the result. OpenSea has a particular vulnerability to this loophole because it allows HTML files to be linked.


title: Non-fungible token

text: Critics compare the structure of the NFT market to a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, in which early adopters profit at the expense of those buying in later. In June 2022, Bill Gates stated his belief that NFTs are "100% based on greater fool theory".


title: Non-fungible token

text: A "rug pull" is a scam, similar to an exit scam or a pump and dump scheme, in which the developers of an NFT or other blockchain project hype the value of a project to pump up the price and then suddenly sell all their tokens to lock in massive profits or otherwise abandon the project while removing liquidity, permanently destroying the value of the project. Rug pulls have become an increasingly common hazard when buying NFTs, with the proceeds of some rug pulls being valued at hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Rug pulls accounted for 37 percent of all crypto-related scam revenue in 2021, according to one analysis.


title: Non-fungible token

text: A comedy sketch on the March 27, 2021, episode of "Saturday Night Live" featured characters explaining NFTs through rap to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, as played by Kate McKinnon.


title: Non-fungible token

text: The 2021 Paramount+ television film "" featured an adult version of Butters Stotch in his Professor Chaos persona tricking people into purchasing NFTs in 2061. The film portrays them as a poor investment, and Chaos has grown so adept at selling them that he is locked in a mental institution.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sydney Bernice Sweeney (born September 12, 1997) is an American actress. She first gained attention for appearing in the television series "Everything Sucks!" (2018), "The Handmaid's Tale" (2018), and "Sharp Objects" (2018). In 2019, she featured in Quentin Tarantino's film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood".


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney has starred as Cassie Howard in the HBO teen drama series "Euphoria" since 2019 and played a sardonic teenager in "The White Lotus" in 2021. For her roles in them, Sweeney received two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations in 2022, the former for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and the latter for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney was born on September 12, 1997, in Spokane, Washington, to Lisa ( Mudd) and Steven Sweeney. Her mother is a lawyer and her father works in the medical field. She has a brother, Trent. Sweeney was raised in northwestern Idaho in the state's Panhandle region along the Washington border, at a rural lakeside home that her family has inhabited for five generations. Sweeney has said she has a "religious family".


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney attended Saint George's School in Spokane. She was active in numerous athletics: "I was in every single sport possible", she said. "I was on the soccer team, the baseball team, the snow slalom ski team, I was wakeboarding." Sweeney also studied multiple languages and graduated with top grades. She became interested in acting after auditioning to be an extra in an independent film that was shooting in the Spokane area. To convince her parents to allow her to pursue acting, she presented them with a five-year business plan. Sweeney began to audition and book commercial acting jobs in Seattle and Portland, Oregon, where the family temporarily resided, until choosing to relocate to Los Angeles when she was 14 years old.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney has been engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Chicago-based restaurateur Jonathan Davino, since February 2022. Davino is heir to the city’s storied pizza restaurant Pompei, which opened in Chicago in 1909.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: One of Sweeney’s first feature films was a horror film, "Along Came the Devil". Sweeney has guest starred in TV shows such as "90210", "Criminal Minds", "Grey's Anatomy", "In the Vault", and "Pretty Little Liars".


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney starred as Emaline Addario on the Netflix series "Everything Sucks!", which revolved around two groups of high school students in Oregon in 1996. She then appeared in the HBO miniseries "Sharp Objects", recurring as Alice, a roommate whom Amy Adams's character meets at a psychiatric facility. Her character was originally supposed to have a smaller role, but the director kept bringing her in for more scenes. For the role, Sweeney studied stories of girls who suffered from mental illness and self-harming, and visited hospitals who had patients who self-harmed. She filmed "Everything Sucks!" and "Sharp Objects" concurrently, the former during the week and latter on weekends.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney had a role in the thriller film "Under the Silver Lake" in 2018. She had a recurring role during the second season of the dystopian drama series "The Handmaid's Tale" as Eden Spencer, a pious and obedient girl from the totalitarian Republic of Gilead. She also starred as the heroine in the horror film "Along Came the Devil". The next year, Sweeney appeared in the drama film "Clementine", the coming-of-age film "Big Time Adolescence", and Quentin Tarantino's dramedy "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood".


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Since 2019, Sweeney has portrayed teenager Cassie Howard in the drama series "Euphoria", to widespread acclaim, receiving a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2022. She starred in the TV film "Nocturne" in 2020. In 2021, Sweeney appeared in the first season of Mike White's anthology black comedy series "The White Lotus", receiving critical acclaim for the role. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie in 2022. Her accomplishments earned her a place on the "Time" 100 Next list for 2022.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney will next star in the superhero film "Madame Web", set in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) franchise.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney has promoted various products and featured in numerous advertisements. In May 2020, she became a model for Savage X Fenty. In June 2021, she became a model for Parade Lingerie and in September 2021, she became the face of Guess Originals's Anna Nicole Smith Collection.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: In March 2022, Sweeney became the face of SOL by Jergens. She was announced as the first U.S. celebrity partner of skin care brand Laneige in April 2022. In the same month, Sweeney became the brand ambassador for Tory Burch's handbags and shoes. Previously, she starred in the brand's "Good Luck" holiday campaign. Sweeney embarked on her first project with the brand as an ambassador in June 2022, starring in the brand's campaign "Show Me Your Millers", wearing the brand’s Miller sandals. In May 2022, she became a model of Miu Miu's Miu Wander Bag. In June 2022, she became a model for Jacquemus's Spring/Summer 2022 Collection. In the same month, Sweeney was appointed as the face of Australian retailer Cotton On Body. She modeled for the jewelry brand David Yurman.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney trains in mixed martial arts, and competed in grappling in high school. She has a 1969 Ford Bronco and she started a tiktok account detailing its restoration.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: Sweeney has said she creates separate books for each of her characters, which are "interactive diaries/timelines/memory books/pictures of the character’s entire world" from when the character was born to the first page of the script.


title: Sydney Sweeney

text: In December 2020, "The Spokesman-Review" reported that Sweeney had donated $12,000 to various restaurants in her hometown of Spokane, which used the funds to serve meals at homeless shelters.


title: Fascism

text: Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.


title: Fascism

text: Fascism rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, liberalism, socialism and Marxism, fascism is placed on the far-right wing within the traditional left–right spectrum.