title: Joe Jonas

text: It was confirmed in April 2013 that the Jonas Brothers would reunite to begin working on their fifth studio album and an upcoming tour. Kevin Jonas later starred in his own E! reality series, "Married to Jonas", which focused on his marriage to new wife Danielle. The show featured appearances from Joe and Nick and documented the band's preparations for their musical comeback. That same year, Jonas participated in Fox's dating game show "The Choice". Jonas began dating model Blanda Eggenschwiler in September 2012, with the two dating until July 2014. Jonas co-wrote the song "Dreams" for the John Legend album "Love in the Future" (2013). The brothers performed in Russia in September 2012, making it their first live performance since their 2010 tour. Their much-anticipated reunion concert, which had been announced in August 2012, took place on October 11, 2012, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The band's fifth studio album, set to be released independently through their own label, was slated for release in 2013. The Jonas Brothers also announced an upcoming North American tour, with tickets going on sale. The album, initially titled V,Live was preceded by the release of the singles "Pom Poms" and "First Time"among other new songs that appear on the album . On October 9, 2013, the group cancelled their upcoming tour days before it was slated to start, citing a "deep rift within the band" over "creative differences". Only days later, it was confirmed that the band had officially ended.


title: Joe Jonas

text: With the band officially broken up, Jonas began working on a new musical project with producers such as Malay and Mattman & Robin. While working on the project, Jonas was unsure whether he wanted to record a second studio album or start a new band. Upon working with Justin Tranter on multiple songs, Jonas decided to form a band with his friends and former touring partners Jack Lawless and JinJoo Lee. Cole Whittle, a member of the alternative rock band Semi Precious Weapons, became the fourth and final member of the group. The group named themselves DNCE, a misspelling of the word dance. DNCE released their debut single, "Cake by the Ocean", in 2015. Their "Swaay" debut extended play was released in October 2015.Their self title DNCE album was later released. It debuted at number seventy-nine on the "Billboard" 200 chart in the United States but peaked at number nine.


title: Joe Jonas

text: In 2018, he joined the Australian version of "The Voice" as a coach, a year after being a mentor on the American version. In June 2018, Jonas and British DJ Jonas Blue released their collaborative track "I See Love", a song for the film "". He also voiced a character called Kraken in the movie.


title: Joe Jonas

text: Starting in late January, rumors were swirling on Twitter and other social media that the three brothers were going to reform the Jonas Brothers. On February 28, 2019, the Jonas Brothers officially announced their return along with a new single, "Sucker", which released the next day, March 1. In April 2019, Joe Jonas appeared at WE Day California, portions of which were aired on ABC in August of the same year.


title: Joe Jonas

text: In January 2021, it was announced that Jonas was among the cast of the Korean War movie "Devotion". During March 2021, the filming took place on Tybee Island, Georgia. The movie, which is expected to premiere in 2022, also had filming on Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina during May 2021. He has called his joining the cast of "Devotion" a "life changing" experience. In September 2022, it was announced that Jonas had co-authored a song titled "Not Alone" for the credits of the movie, calling the song "One of the favorites that I've ever written" and labeling the song as "spiritual".


title: Joe Jonas

text: In February 2022, Jonas announced the return of DNCE along with Lawless and Lee. Jonas announced the return of the band with a new song by Norwegian DJ Kygo, titled Dancing Feet, which was released on February 25, 2022.


title: Joe Jonas

text: Jonas dated AJ Michalka for almost a year after he went on tour with her group Aly & AJ in late 2005 to 2006. Jonas dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for a few months in 2008. Jonas dated actress Camilla Belle, who appeared in the Jonas Brothers' "Lovebug" music video, for a few months mid 2009. Jonas briefly dated singer Demi Lovato in the beginning of 2010. He started dating actress Ashley Greene in summer 2010, but they broke up in March 2011. He then dated graphic designer Blanda Eggenschwiler from 2012 to 2014. Jonas and model Gigi Hadid dated in 2015. She co-directed Jonas' band music video DNCE "Cake by the Ocean".


title: Joe Jonas

text: Jonas started dating English actress Sophie Turner in 2016. They got engaged in October 2017, and married on May 1, 2019, in Las Vegas, Nevada. They held their second wedding in Paris, France on June 29, 2019. The couple have two daughters.


title: Joe Jonas

text: In April 2020, Jonas and his wife donated 100 meals to doctors and frontline health workers who were working during the COVID-19 pandemic in California at a Los Angeles hospital.


title: Joe Jonas

text: In May 2021, Jonas made 250 replicas of his right hand to promote, along with travel agency Expedia Group, the return to travel by Americans who felt uncertainty and were unsure of resuming travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Jonas also promoted donations to frontline health workers and urged mental health care for those affected during the pandemic.


title: Joe Jonas

text: In September 2021, Jonas and wife Turner purchased a mansion in Miami, Florida for $11 million as part of their real estate. The mansion was reportedly inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Prior to moving to Miami, Jonas and Turner sold their house in Encino, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, for $15.2 million. In November 2022, Jonas' real estate agent announced that the Jonases Miami residence had been reformed with a waterfront and that it was now listed in nearly $17 million.


title: Joe Jonas

text: Jonas announced, in June 2022, that he would join an environmental campaign by the Texas Department of Transportation named Don't Mess with Texas, to encourage people against littering while travelling on the road. Jonas also is a spokesperson for STAAR Surgical, a company which implants lenses to replace common and lens glasses.


title: Home Alone

text: Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The first film in the "Home Alone" franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O'Hara. Culkin plays Kevin McCallister, a boy who defends his suburban Chicago home from burglars after his family accidentally leaves him behind on their Christmas vacation to Paris.


title: Home Alone

text: Hughes conceived "Home Alone" while on vacation, with Warner Bros. being originally intended to finance and distribute the film. However, Warner Bros. shut down production after it exceeded its assigned budget. 20th Century Fox assumed responsibilities following secret meetings with Hughes. Columbus and Culkin were hired soon afterwards. Filming took place between February and May 1990 on location across Illinois.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 16, and it received positive reviews, with praise for its cast, humor, and music. "Home Alone" grossed $476.7 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live-action comedy until the release of "The Hangover Part II" (2011), and made Culkin a child star. Moreover, it was the second-highest-grossing film of 1990, behind "Ghost". It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Culkin, and for the Academy Award for Best Original Score for John Williams, and Best Original Song for "Somewhere in My Memory". "Home Alone" has since been considered one of the best Christmas films. A sequel, "", was released in 1992.


title: Home Alone

text: The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Peter and Kate's home in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Peter and Kate's youngest son, Kevin, is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings and cousins. Kevin inadvertently ruins the family dinner after a brief scuffle against his oldest brother Buzz, resulting in Kate sending him up to the attic. Kevin berates his mother for allowing the rest of the family to pick on him and wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds create a power outage, disabling the alarm clocks and causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind (though Kevin’s passport is unknowingly thrown in the bed by Peter).


title: Home Alone

text: Kevin wakes to find the house empty, and the family cars still in the garage, unaware that they had rented vans to take them to the airport. Thinking that his wish has come true, he is overjoyed with his newfound freedom. Later, Kevin becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, "Old Man" Marley, who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family. The McCallister home is soon stalked by the "Wet Bandits", Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to postpone their plans to rob the McCallister house.


title: Home Alone

text: Kate realizes mid-flight that Kevin was left behind, and upon arrival in Paris, the family discovers that all flights for the next two days are booked, and that the phone lines are still down back home in Chicago. Peter and the rest of the family stay in his brother's apartment in Paris, while Kate manages to get a flight back to Scranton, Pennsylvania. She tries to find a flight to Chicago, but all the flights are booked. Kate is overheard by Gus Polinski, the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Chicago in a moving van.


title: Home Alone

text: Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve, Harry and Marv finally realize that only Kevin is in the McCallister home, and Kevin overhears them discussing plans to break into the house that night. Kevin starts to miss his family and asks the local Santa Claus impersonator if he could bring his family back for Christmas. He goes to church and watches a choir perform, and encounters Marley, who proves the rumors about him are false. Marley points out his granddaughter in the choir, and mentions he has never met her since she is the daughter of his estranged son. Kevin suggests to Marley that he should reconcile with his son.


title: Home Alone

text: Kevin returns home and rigs the house with booby traps. Harry and Marv break in, spring the traps, and suffer various injuries. While Harry and Marv pursue Kevin around the house, he calls the police and lures the duo into a vacant neighboring house which they had previously broken into. Harry and Marv ambush Kevin and prepare to get their revenge, but Marley intervenes and knocks them out with his snow shovel. The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to Marv's destructive habit of flooding them.


title: Home Alone

text: On Christmas Day, Kevin is initially disappointed to find that his family is still gone, but Kate arrives home and they reconcile. The rest of the family then return after waiting in Paris until they could obtain a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's knocked-out gold tooth. Kevin then watches Marley reuniting with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.


title: Home Alone

text: Writer and producer John Hughes conceived "Home Alone" while preparing to go on vacation. He said: "I was going away on vacation, and making a list of everything I didn't want to forget. I thought, 'Well, I'd better not forget my kids.' Then I thought, 'What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do? Hughes wrote eight pages of notes that developed into the screenplay. Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was "clandestinely" delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround. Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.


title: Home Alone

text: Hughes had asked Patrick Read Johnson to direct, but he was committed to directing "Spaced Invaders". He turned to Chris Columbus, who had left "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" before shooting started because of a personality clash with starring actor Chevy Chase, who Columbus said treated him "like dirt". Hughes gave him the scripts for both "Home Alone" and "Reach the Rock"; Columbus chose to direct "Home Alone", as he found it funnier and liked the Christmas theme. Columbus did an uncredited rewrite of the script, which included the character Old Man Marley. He added the character to give the story a more serious layer, as well as a more emotional, happier ending.


title: Home Alone

text: Hughes suggested to Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, because of his experience while shooting "Uncle Buck". Columbus met with 200 other actors for the part, as he felt it was his "directorial responsibility". John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin after being scouted in a children’s sketch comedy group, but his parents refused the opportunity. Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice.


title: Home Alone

text: After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it. The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer, but was given to Gerry Bamman when Grammer was unavailable.


title: Home Alone

text: Daniel Stern was cast as Marv, but before shooting started, he was told that the production schedule had been extended from six weeks to eight. He dropped out after as he would not be paid more for the extended schedule. Daniel Roebuck was hired to replace him, but after two days of rehearsal, Columbus felt he was lacking chemistry with Pesci and brought back Stern. Roebuck later said that, although he was upset to be fired from the production, he now believed the experience was "a little blip of unimportance". Chris Farley auditioned for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator, but he failed to impress Columbus.


title: Home Alone

text: John Candy was available for only one day to film his scenes, which took 23 hours to shoot. He was paid only $414, since he did the film as a favor to Hughes. In return, he was the only actor Hughes allowed to go off-script; according to Columbus, all his dialogue was improvised.


title: Home Alone

text: Principal photography took place from February 14, 1990, to May 8, 1990, over a course of 83 days. The house exterior scenes were filmed on location at a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue in the North Shore village of Winnetka, Illinois, where Hughes's previous films "Breakfast Club", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", "She's Having a Baby", and "Uncle Buck" had also been shot. The only interiors of the house used for filming in the film were the main staircase, basement, attic and most of the first floor landing, while all the other interiors of the house (including the aforementioned rooms) were duplicated on a sound stage to allow more room for equipment and crew. It was built in the gym and empty swimming pool of the former New Trier High School building, previously used by Hughes for "Uncle Buck" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", where the production company had already set up its offices. The tree house in the back yard was built specifically for the film and dismantled after filming ended. Kevin runs away from Marley in Hubbard Woods Park in Winnetka. The church exteriors were shot at Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, Illinois, while the interiors were shot at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park, Illinois.


title: Home Alone

text: For the film within a film, "Angels with Filthy Souls" (the title of which parodies the 1938 crime film "Angels with Dirty Faces"), shooting took only one day, on the final "test day" prior to the official start of principal photography. To create the illusion that the film was an authentic 1940s gangster film, the scene was filmed on black-and-white negative film, and Johnny's office featured props from that era. Like much of the film, most of the sequence was shot with low, wide angles that, according to journalist Darryn King, "capture the action as if a child were perceiving it".


title: Home Alone

text: Cinematographer Julio Macat recalled that Pesci was more difficult to work with than Culkin. The older actor believed some of the dialogue was not of a quality commensurate with his acting ability. He also resented the early unit calls, since they prevented him from starting his day with nine holes of golf as he preferred to do. After he took the assistant director by the collar one day to complain about this, daily call times were moved back from 7 to 9 a.m. to accommodate his rounds. On the other end of the schedule, the crew had limited time to film the many nighttime scenes, since Culkin could not work any later than 10 p.m. due to his age.


title: Home Alone

text: Pesci said in a 2022 interview with "People" of working with Culkin, "I intentionally limited my interactions with him to preserve the dynamic" and made sure not "to come across on the screen that we were in any way friendly" in order to "maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship."


title: Home Alone

text: On the set, Pesci and Stern both had difficulty refraining from cursing, which became annoying to Pesci, since Culkin was on set as well. In fact, the only curse words that made it into the film was "shit", accidentally said by Daniel Stern when his shoe fell through the pet door, and "hell", which was said by both Pesci and Stern after their characters encounter one another after going through Kevin's booby traps and by Johnny to the character of Snakes in the film within a film, "Angels with Filthy Souls". Pesci's use of "cartoon cursing", or menacing gibberish, garnered comparisons to "Looney Tunes" character Yosemite Sam.


title: Home Alone

text: The film's stunts also created tension for the crew during shooting. Columbus said, "Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn't funny. We'd watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive." Stunts were originally prepared with safety harnesses, but because of their visibility on camera, the film's final stunts were performed without them. Troy Brown and Leon Delaney were stuntmen for Pesci and Stern, respectively. An injury had occurred between Pesci and Culkin during one of the rehearsals for the scene in which Harry tries to bite off Kevin's finger. Culkin still has the scar. The tarantula that walks on Stern's face was real. Pesci said in the "People" interview, "I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry's hat is set on fire."


title: Home Alone

text: Senta Moses, who played Tracy, recalled in 2020 that one of the most difficult scenes to shoot was the family's run through O'Hare International Airport to catch their flight. While it does not last long, it required several days to film. "There were thousands of extras, all expertly choreographed so none of us would be in danger running at full speed through the American Airlines terminal", she told "The Hollywood Reporter". "And we ran at "full speed". Sometimes we’d bump into each other, like a multi-car pileup on the expressway, and just crack up laughing ... There were so many setups and narrowly missed moments of disaster, but to my knowledge, no one got hurt."


title: Home Alone

text: Columbus initially hoped to have Bruce Broughton score the film, and early posters listed him as the composer. However, Broughton was busy with "The Rescuers Down Under", and he had to cancel at the last minute. Columbus was later able to get in touch with Steven Spielberg, who helped him contact John Williams to produce the final score. Traditional Christmas songs, such as "O Holy Night" and "Carol of the Bells", are featured prominently in the film, as well as the film's theme song "Somewhere in My Memory". The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical Records on cassette on December 4, 1990, and on CD on May 27, 2015.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990. It was given a wide release on November 16, 1990.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States on August 22, 1991, their first video to go direct to sell-through rather than to the video rental market first. It sold 11 million copies, generating Fox revenue of $150 million making it, along with "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", the highest-selling video of all time at that point. Due to the sales, the film did not perform as well in the rental market.


title: Home Alone

text: It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999, as a basic package. The film was released on Blu-ray on December 2, 2008, titled "Family Fun Edition", and was released alongside "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" in a collection pack on October 5, 2010. The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all four of its sequels in a box set titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Christmas Edition.


title: Home Alone

text: On September 15, 2020, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment released "Home Alone" on Ultra HD Blu-ray in time for its 30th anniversary in the United States.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" grossed $285.8 million in the United States and Canada and $190.9 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $476.7 million, against a production budget of $18 million. In its opening weekend, "Home Alone" grossed $17 million from 1,202 theaters, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total and added screens over the next six weeks, with a peak screen count of 2,174 during its eighth weekend at the start of January 1991.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" was the number-one film at the box office for 12 consecutive weeks, from its release weekend of November 16–18, 1990 through the weekend of February 1–3, 1991. It was removed from the top spot when "Sleeping with the Enemy" opened with $13 million. It remained in the top ten until the weekend of April 26, well past Easter weekend. It made two more appearances in the top ten (the weekend of May 31 – June 2 and the weekend of June 14–16) before finally falling out of the top ten. After over nine months into its run, the film had earned 16x its debut weekend and ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top-grossing film of its year in North America. The film is listed in the "Guinness World Records" as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever and held the record until it was overtaken by "The Hangover Part II" in 2011.


title: Home Alone

text: By the time the film had run its course in theaters, "Home Alone" was the third-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, as well as in the United States and Canada behind only "Star Wars" ($322 million at the time) and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" ($399 million at the time), according to the home video box. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 67.7 million tickets in the United States. It was also the highest-grossing Christmas film until it was surpassed by "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch" in 2018. The film made Culkin a child star.


title: Home Alone

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Home Alone" uneven but frequently funny premise stretched unreasonably thin is buoyed by Macaulay Culkin's cute performance and strong supporting stars." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Home Alone

text: "Variety" magazine praised the film for its cast. Jeanne Cooper of "The Washington Post" praised the film for its comedic approach. Hal Hinson, also of "The Washington Post", praised Columbus' direction and Culkin's performance. Although Caryn James of "The New York Times" complained that the film's first half is "flat and unsurprising as its cute little premise suggests", she praised the second half for its slapstick humor. She also praised the dialogue between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film's final scenes. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a out of a 4-star rating and 2 thumbs down. He compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg machines, writing "they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people" and criticized the plot as "so implausible that it makes it hard for [him] to really care about the plight of the kid [Kevin]". However, he praised Culkin's performance.


title: Home Alone

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" magazine gave the film a "D" grade, criticizing the film for its "sadistic festival of adult-bashing". Gleiberman said that "[John] Hughes is pulling our strings as though he'd never learn to do anything else". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film three out of five and praised Culkin's "vivid screen presence, almost incandescent with confidence". However, he criticised his acting, calling it "a bit broad and mannered". Ali Barclay of the BBC wrote "Culkin walks a fine line between annoyance and endearment throughout the film." He also called "Home Alone" "a film which manages to capture some of the best qualities of Christmas".


title: Home Alone

text: Naomi Barnwell of "Roobla" said that ""Home Alone" has all the ingredients that make for a great kids’ film". Adrian Turner of Radio Times commented "[Home Alone is] a celebration of enterprise that captured the heart and wickedness of every child on the planet." According to "TV Guide", "["Home Alone"]'s slapstick falls flat and only the pain remains." Marielle Sabbag of "Vocal" wrote "Everything about ["Home Alone"] is beautiful and has a realistic quality." Peter Rainer of the "Los Angeles Times" criticised the fact that "there is a reason why this film plays better as a trailer than as a full-length film."


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" gradually became a Christmas classic. It was praised for its quotable phrases, morals, traps, and main character. Hannah-Rose Yee of Stylist called the ending "very sweet" and praised the score from John Williams, calling it "fantastic". Christopher Hooton of "The Independent" also praised the film, calling the film-within-a-film "Angels with Filthy Souls" "a fond footnote in cinema history". Matt Talbot from "Simcoe.com" said that the Wet Bandits were "fantastic" and "never [got] old" on "repeat viewings". Michael Walsh of "Nerdist" noted the church scene as "One of the best, most touching scenes [in the film]".


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" remains a highly popular Christmas movie in Poland, when it is played on Polsat every Christmas Eve. In 2010, Polsat did not play Home Alone, which caused over 90 thousand people to protest on Facebook. In 2016, over 4.44 million Poles tuned in to Polsat to watch "Home Alone". Since the 2010s, its TV trailers even include a tagline that acknowledges this popularity: ""Christmas without him? It's absolutely impossible!"".


title: Home Alone

text: Julio Macat, the films cinematographer, considers "Home Alone" his favorite film out of all the projects he has shot. It was the favorite film of U.S. President Gerald Ford.


title: Home Alone

text: At the 12th Youth in Film Awards, Macaulay Culkin won Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score, which was written by John Williams, and the other for Best Original Song for "Somewhere in My Memory", music by Williams and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, but lost to "Dances with Wolves" and "Dick Tracy" respectively.


title: Home Alone

text: The 1989 French horror thriller film "3615 code Père Noël", which is about a young boy who is home alone with his elderly grandfather and has to fend off a home invader dressed up as Santa Claus, has been noted for its plot similarities to "Home Alone". "3615 code Père Noël" director René Manzor threatened the producers of "Home Alone" with legal action on the grounds of plagiarism, alleging that "Home Alone" was a remake of his film. "3615 code Père Noël" was not released in the United States during its original theatrical run in January 1990 and did not become widely available there until 2018.


title: Home Alone

text: Films such as "Home Alone" and "Die Hard" are very popular at Christmas time in Poland, because they were some of the first Western movies to be released in Poland since the end of communist rule. However, the Polish premiere of "Home Alone" took place not during the Christmas season, but on May 22, 1992. Three years later, on Christmas Day (December 25), 1995, at 20:10 CET on TVP1, the Polish television premiere of the film took place. Then three times on December 26, 1997 and December 24 and 25, 1999, the film was broadcast on television TVN.


title: Home Alone

text: In 29 December 2000, 8.9 million Poles were watching "Home Alone" on Christmas Eve; At that time, the broadcasting of the film was taken over by the only nationwide TV station, Polsat (TVN was broadcasting terrestrial broadcasts only in larger cities at that time), which continues it every year (with the exception of 2002, when the third part of the film was broadcast on January 1, 2003) to the present It is Polsat that is mainly responsible for the popularity of the film "Home Alone" in Poland. On Polsat from 2000 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2013, the film "Home Alone" was broadcast alternatively both during the Christmas season (for the first time on December 24, 2003) and in the period preceding it (then the sequel of the film, i.e. "" or both films appeared on Polsat in the pre-Christmas or post-Christmas period, but not later than before New Year's Eve.


title: Home Alone

text: In 2010, Telewizja Polsat did not include the film in the Christmas schedule, which was met with a protest of over 90,000 people on Facebook. Under the pressure of public opinion, Polsat changed its mind, however, broadcasting the film on Christmas Day (December 25) at 20:00 CET and additionally on Boxing Day (December 26) at 12:45 CET.


title: Home Alone

text: Starting from 2014 (except for 2015, when the film was broadcast only on Christmas Day, i.e. December 25 at 16:40 CET, the comedy "Home Alone" is shown on Polsat every Christmas Eve (December 24) around 20:00 CET.


title: Home Alone

text: In 2017, about four million people (11.6% of Poland's population) were watching it on Christmas Eve and in 2018 again in Christmas Eve the film recorded the highest viewership with 4.51 million viewers.


title: Home Alone

text: In Polish, the movie is called "Kevin sam w domu" (meaning "Kevin [is] home alone"). In Poland the film "Home Alone" became a phenomenon and part of the Christmas tradition.


title: Home Alone

text: The music video for Snoop Dogg's 1994 song "Gin and Juice" opens with a gag where, after a teenaged Snoop's parents have left him to watch the house in their absence, he places his hands to his face and yells in the manner of Kevin McCallister in the first film, while a title comes on screen reading "Home Boy Alone".


title: Home Alone

text: In December 2015, Culkin reprised his role as an adult Kevin McCallister in the inaugural episode of the Jack Dishel web series, "DRYVRS", where a visibly disturbed Kevin recounts his experience of being left home alone by his family. In response to Culkin's video, Daniel Stern appeared in a short video reprising his role as Marv, released in conjunction with Stern's Reddit AMA, where he pleads for Harry to return to help protect him against Kevin's traps.


title: Home Alone

text: The 2016 Christmas-set horror film "Better Watch Out" includes a scene where a character who is obsessed with the "Home Alone" films demonstrates how, in real life, it would be deadly for someone to be hit in the face with a paint can swung from a distance.


title: Home Alone

text: On December 15, 2018, Culkin made a guest appearance as himself in an episode of "The Angry Video Game Nerd" to review multiple video game adaptations of the first two "Home Alone" films, as well as a gameplay session of "The Pagemaster" with James Rolfe and Mike Matei in the days following that episode's release.


title: Home Alone

text: On December 19, 2018, Culkin would once again reprise his role as an adult Kevin McCallister in a 60-second advertisement for Google Assistant, titled "Home Alone Again." The commercial contains shot for shot remakes of scenes from the film. Google Assistant helps Kevin set up the house to look active by remotely turning on lights, devices, and setting up cutouts of people, to have the thieves parked in a van outside (presumably Harry and Marv) steer clear of the house. Additionally, Joe Pesci also reprised his role as Harry, only for his voice making a small cameo. Pesci later appeared in another ad where he watches the short with his friends and jokes about his brief cameo.


title: Home Alone

text: "Home Alone" () was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1990 to coincide with the film. On October 6, 2015, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie, an illustrated book () by Kim Smith and Quirk Books was released.


title: Home Alone

text: The film was followed by a commercially successful sequel in 1992, "", which brought back most of the first film's cast. Culkin was paid $4.5 million to appear in the sequel, compared to $110,000 for the original. The film within a film, "Angels with Filthy Souls", had a sequel in "Home Alone 2", "Angels with Even Filthier Souls". Both "Angels" meta-films featured character actor Ralph Foody as stereotypical 1930s mobster Johnny. A third film, "Home Alone 3", was released in 1997; it has entirely different actors and characters as well as a different storyline, with Hughes writing the screenplay.


title: Home Alone

text: A fourth made-for-TV film followed in 2002: "Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House". The movie features some of the same characters who were in the first two films, but with a new cast and a storyline. The fifth film, "", premiered during ABC Family's Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas programming event on November 25, 2012. Similarly to the third film, it does not focus on the McCallister family. Chris Columbus later revealed that there had been discussions on a sequel starring Kevin's son: "This was talked about maybe 10 years ago I don’t know, we were just having fun with it and we said, 'What if Kevin is an adult and he has a kid?' But it was still Pesci and Stern Pesci and Stern are still obsessed with this kid. They’re going to get this kid."


title: Home Alone

text: A sixth film was released digitally on Disney+ on November 12, 2021, titled "Home Sweet Home Alone". Devin Ratray, who played Buzz McCallister in the first two films, reprised his role in the film.


title: Home Alone

text: Decades later, the "Home Alone" house on Lincoln Avenue in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, has become a tourist attraction.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: Catherine Anne O'Hara (born March 4, 1954) is a Canadian-American actress. She is known for her comedy work on "Second City Television" (1976–84) and "Schitt's Creek" (2015–2020) and in films such as "After Hours" (1985), "Beetlejuice" (1988), "Home Alone" (1990), "" (1992), and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993). Her other film appearances include the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest; "Waiting for Guffman" (1996), "Best in Show" (2000), "A Mighty Wind" (2003), and "For Your Consideration" (2006).


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara won the 1982 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for "SCTV Network", the Genie Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1999 film "The Life Before This", and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the 2010 television film "Temple Grandin". From 2015 to 2020, she starred as Moira Rose on the CBC sitcom "Schitt's Creek", for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, TCA Award and six consecutive Canadian Screen Awards.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara was born in 1954 and grew up in Toronto, Ontario, the sixth of seven children. She is of Irish descent, and was raised Catholic.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara started her comedy career in 1974 as a cast member of The Second City in her hometown, Toronto. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner until Radner left for "Saturday Night Live". Two years later, this theatre troupe created the sketch comedy show "SCTV", for which O'Hara became a regular performer.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: In the late 1970s, she provided voice-overs for a number of cartoons, work which would continue throughout her career. During a short time in the early 1980s when "SCTV" was in between network deals, she was hired to replace Ann Risley when "Saturday Night Live" was being retooled in 1981. However, she quit the show without ever appearing on air, choosing to go back to "SCTV" when the show signed on with NBC.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara began her career on television, apart from "SCTV", in the mid-1970s. She first appeared on television in a small sketch role as a maid in a 1975 Wayne and Shuster special on CBC. Later, she appeared in the 1976 television film "The Rimshots", the children's television series "Coming Up Rosie" for a season (1976–77), and television specials, such as "Witch's Night Out" and "Intergalactic Thanksgiving". But it was her performances on "SCTV", which began airing locally in Southern Ontario in the fall of 1976, that earned her fame in Canada. The show gradually built up a national and then international following in syndication. O'Hara left "SCTV" for a time, missing the 1980-81 season, but returned to the show in time for its pickup by the NBC television network in the US, when it became known as "SCTV Network 90". O'Hara's work as a writer on the show earned her an Emmy Award for outstanding writing and two Emmy Award nominations. She left "SCTV" again prior to its fifth season in 1982, but did return for occasional guest appearances though the show's end in 1984.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara has appeared in a number of television series and television films and continues to work in television. During the 1990s, she made guest appearances on "Tales from the Crypt", "Oh Baby", "Morton & Hayes" and "The Larry Sanders Show". She served as actress and director on "Dream On" and "The Outer Limits", the revival of the '60s series of the same name. O'Hara has guest-starred on top-rated television series including "Six Feet Under" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In May 2008, it was announced that she had signed on to star in the upcoming ABC dramedy "Good Behavior". Her role in the 2010 television film "Temple Grandin" earned her three award nominations: a Primetime Emmy Award, a Satellite Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara has also had a successful career in film. She made her feature debut in the 1980 film "Double Negative", which also starred her "SCTV" co-stars John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Joe Flaherty. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, O'Hara appeared in many supporting roles, including Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" (1985) and "Heartburn" (1986), with Meryl Streep. She appeared in movies like "Beetlejuice" (1988) and "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (2004), as well as the blockbuster "Home Alone" (1990) and its sequel "" (1992). Also in 1992, O'Hara worked alongside Jeff Daniels in the comedy "There Goes the Neighborhood".


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara continued to appear in many films during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. She received roles in four of Christopher Guest's mockumentary films, three of which earned her awards and nominations: "Waiting for Guffman" (1996), "Best in Show" (2000), "A Mighty Wind" (2003), and "For Your Consideration" (2006). Her role in 1999's "The Life Before This" won her a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. She also appeared in the tenth series of the UK version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" In 2006, she starred with Christina Ricci in the fantasy film "Penelope".


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara has served as a voice artist in a number of animated movies, including "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993), "Bartok the Magnificent" (1999), "Chicken Little" (2005), "Over the Hedge" (2006), "Monster House" (2006), "Brother Bear 2" (2006), "Frankenweenie" (2012), and "The Addams Family" (2019).


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: From 2015 to 2020, O'Hara starred alongside Eugene Levy, whom she met on the set of "Second City Television", as Moira Rose in the CBC sitcom "Schitt's Creek". Her performance earned her six Canadian Screen Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She swept the 5 major tv awards for the 6th and final season, winning a TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: She also appeared as Dr. Georgina Orwell in the first season of the Netflix black comedy drama series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", which premiered in 2017. Two of her episodes were directed by her husband Bo Welch who also served as production designer for the series. She was the only cast member from the 2004 film adaptation to be re-cast in the TV series as well.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: She appears on the revival of another Canadian sketch comedy staple "The Kids in the Hall", in its second episode as Charlene, a Friend of the Kids in the Hall.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: In 1983, O'Hara told "Rolling Stone", "I'm pretty much a good Catholic girl at heart." O'Hara met production designer Bo Welch on the set of "Beetlejuice". They married in 1992 and have two sons, Matthew (born 1994) and Luke (born 1997). Her sister is singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O'Hara; Catherine is a singer-songwriter in her own right, having written and performed songs in Christopher Guest's film "A Mighty Wind". She holds dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship.


title: Catherine O'Hara

text: O'Hara was selected for the inaugural 2021 Forbes 50 Over 50; made up of entrepreneurs, leaders, scientists and creators who are over the age of 50.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Lucy Boynton (born January 17, 1994) is a British-American actress. Raised in London, she made her professional debut as the young Beatrix Potter in "Miss Potter" (2006). She starred in television productions "Ballet Shoes" (2007), "Sense and Sensibility" (2008) and "Mo" (2010), making guest appearances on "Lewis", "Borgia", "Endeavour", and "". Boynton portrayed writer Angelica Garnett on "Life in Squares", which aired on BBC. She appeared as an isolated popular girl in "The Blackcoat's Daughter" (2015) and starred as a bold aspiring model in "Sing Street" (2016), which met with critical acclaim. She appeared in horror films "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House" (2016) and "Don't Knock Twice" (2016), receiving praise for her performance in the latter.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton portrayed J. D. Salinger's wife in "Rebel in the Rye" (2017), which had a negative reception. She played Countess Andrenyi in "Murder on the Orient Express" (2017), which was a commercial success. Boynton portrayed an addict in Netflix's "Gypsy" (2017) and the daughter of a cult leader in "Apostle" (2018). Boynton gained recognition for starring as Mary Austin in the biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018), which received numerous accolades and was a box office success. She appeared in HBO Max's "Locked Down" (2021). Boynton stars as the privileged antagonist Astrid Sloan in the Netflix series "The Politician", appeared in the second season of "Modern Love", and starred in ITV's "The Ipcress File" (2022).


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton was born in New York City to English parents, journalists Graham Boynton and Adrianne Pielou. The younger of two daughters, Boynton was raised in southeast London. She retains dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and the United States. Boynton realized she wanted to act when she was ten, after a drama teacher taught her that "acting was not playing pretend; it was understanding the human mind and why people function as they do." She attended the private Blackheath High School, followed by James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton's made her professional debut at age twelve as young Beatrix Potter in the biographical film "Miss Potter" (2006). She was asked to audition after being spotted by a casting director sitting in on her drama class. Additional scenes were written for her character after a test screening responded positively to her role. Boynton wore corsets and padded clothing to portray a younger Potter. Boynton stated that the first day of filming was "the best day of [her] life". In 2007, she was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Supporting Actress, for "Miss Potter". Boynton starred as Posy Fossil in the BBC film "Ballet Shoes" (2007). A body double was used in some scenes to display her character's "remarkable dancing skill". The film was praised by critics.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton portrayed Margaret Dashwood in the 2008 television adaptation of Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility". The miniseries premiered to high viewership and positive reviews. Boynton has described experiencing a "difficult period" from ages 16 to 17 for being "too old for young roles, but too young to play the leading lady." She played Mo Mowlam's stepdaughter in television film "Mo" (2010). In 2011, She appeared in an episode of the ITV drama "Lewis". In 2013, she starred in Saint Raymond's music video for the lead single from his debut extended play, "Fall At Your Feet". Boynton appeared in period drama "Copperhead" (2013) based on the novel of the same name by Harold Frederic. In 2014, she guest-starred in the television series "Borgia", "Endeavour", and "". She played Angelica Garnett, a member of the Bloomsbury Group, in the BBC miniseries "Life in Squares", which aired in 2015. To prepare for the part, she read Garnett's memoir, "Deceived with Kindness", in which most of her scenes were detailed, which she described as "a dream for any actor". The series was reviewed positively.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton appeared as "sullen mean girl" Rose alongside Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka in "The Blackcoat's Daughter" (2015). She prepared for the film by watching films that dealt with isolation and grief, such as "Rosemary’s Baby" on the recommendation of director Oz Perkins. Chuck Bowen of "Slant Magazine" wrote that Roberts, Shipka, and Boyton were "poignant in their minimalist roles". Boynton starred in the coming-of-age film "Sing Street" (2016) as Raphina, an aspiring model with "huge hair, bright make-up and colorful clothes". Boynton described her role as "the muse character, in a way, but only because she has put herself there". She adopted an Irish accent for the film and was instructed by director John Carney to create a backstory "in much more detail than [she] had before." The film premiered to critical praise at the Sundance Film Festival and garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. She appeared as ghostly bride Polly Parsons in the gothic-horror film "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House" (2016), which opened at the Toronto International Film Festival to mixed reception. Boynton starred alongside Katee Sackhoff in indie-horror "Don't Knock Twice" (2016). Noel Murray of the "Los Angeles Times" praised Sackhoff and Boynton's "volatile chemistry", stating that "they bring so much life to the material that it’s almost like they’ve been tricked into thinking they’re in a better movie."


title: Lucy Boynton

text: She portrayed in J. D. Salinger's second wife, Claire Douglas, in "Rebel in the Rye" (2017). "Rebel in the Rye" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was panned by critics. Boynton played Countess Helena Andrenyi in the 2017 adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express". The film was a box office success and received mixed reviews, though the performances of the cast were praised. In the same year, Boynton starred as Allison Adams, a college student turned drug addict, in the Netflix series "Gypsy" (2017). Boynton empathised with her character's desire to regress into early life while struggling with control. Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" cited Boynton as "splendid-but-underused" and among the "best of the supporting turns". She appeared as Andrea, the daughter of a cult leader, in "Apostle" (2018), which was praised by critics.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton starred opposite Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury's partner Mary Austin in "Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018). She watched Austin's interviews to "gauge what she was happy to be open about" and spoke to Brian May to research the role. The film became the highest-grossing biographical film of all time and met mixed criticism. "Time" praised her for playing the role with "charm and vigor" while the "Irish Independent" wrote that her scenes were the "quietest, most touching moments" of the film. "Bohemian Rhapsody" received four Academy Awards and earned the cast a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton appears opposite Taron Egerton in "Glimpse", a short virtual reality animated film premiering at the Virtual Reality showcase of the Venice Film Festival in 2019.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Since 2019, Boynton has starred in the Netflix series "The Politician", portraying Astrid Sloane, the protagonist's "ruthless" and "hyperbolically privileged" rival. Boynton described the experience "liberating", saying that playing an antagonistic character added depth to the role. "The Hollywood Reporter" praised Boynton's "razor-sharp delivery" but remarked that her written dialogue prevented her from being "spectacular".


title: Lucy Boynton

text: In February 2020, it was announced that Boynton would be both executive producer and lead actor in the upcoming Marianne Faithfull biopic, "Faithfull". Production was originally due to begin in October 2020, but was delayed indefinitely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The film will cover Faithfull's rise to fame until the age of 23.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton had a supporting role as Charlotte, a Harrods shop assistant, in "Locked Down" (2021), released on HBO Max. The film received mixed reviews. She guest-starred opposite Kit Harington in the second season of Amazon Video's anthology series "Modern Love" in 2021.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: In 2022, Boynton starred in ITV's six-part miniseries "The Ipcress File" as Jean Courtney, Harry Palmer's colleague, and also stars in the Stephen Williams-directed biographical film "Chevalier" as Marie Antoinette. She plays a leading role in BritBox's three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie's crime novel "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?", and also stars in the Netflix film "The Pale Blue Eye", based on Louis Bayard's Gothic thriller novel of the same name. In August 2022, it was revealed Boynton would star in "The Greatest Hits", written and directed by Ned Benson for Searchlight Pictures, after having dropped out of "Faithfull" owing to creative differences.


title: Lucy Boynton

text: Boynton divides her time between London, New York, and Los Angeles, though she considers herself to be "painfully British". Since 2018, she has been in a relationship with her "Bohemian Rhapsody" co-star Rami Malek. Boynton supports the Black Lives Matter movement and has shared resources for racial justice on her social media pages.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen.


title: Svalbard

text: The islands were first used as a base by the whalers who sailed far north in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which they were abandoned. Coal mining started at the beginning of the 20th century, and several permanent communities were established. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognizes Norwegian sovereignty, and the 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway. They also established Svalbard as a free economic zone and a demilitarized zone. The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol remain the only mining companies in place. Research and tourism have become important supplementary industries, with the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault playing critical roles in the economy. Apart from Longyearbyen, other settlements include the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the research station of Ny-Ålesund, and the mining outpost of Sveagruva. Other settlements are farther north, but are populated only by rotating groups of researchers. No roads connect the settlements; instead snowmobiles, aircraft and boats are used for inter-settlement transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyear serves as the main gateway.


title: Svalbard

text: Approximately 60% of the archipelago is covered with glaciers, and the islands feature many mountains and fjords. The archipelago has an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other areas at the same latitude. The flora is adapted to take advantage of the long period of midnight sun to compensate for the polar night. Svalbard is a breeding ground for many seabirds, and is home to polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox, and certain marine mammals. Seven national parks and 23 nature reserves cover two-thirds of the archipelago, protecting the largely untouched fragile environment.


title: Svalbard

text: While part of the Kingdom of Norway since 1925, Svalbard is not part of geographical Norway; administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area. This means that it is administered directly by the Norwegian government through the appointment of a governor, and is a special jurisdiction subject to the Svalbard Treaty that is outside of the Schengen Area, the Nordic Passport Union, and the European Economic Area. Svalbard and Jan Mayen are collectively assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code "SJ". Both areas are administered by Norway, though they are separated by a distance of over and have very different administrative structures.


title: Svalbard

text: The name "Svalbard" is composed of the well-attested Old Norse words "svalr" ('cold') and "barð" ('edge', 'ridge', 'turf', 'beard'), adapted to Norwegian phonology. The name therefore refers to the mostly grass covering and notable lack of trees or bushes. The meaning edge or ridge is not really relevant here. The term was corrupted in the Icelandic from a neuter term to a masculine term also confusing the meaning and the Norwegian name appears to be based on the later version and there was no reversion in Icelandic as did happen with many other names that had become obscured.


title: Svalbard

text: The name "Spitsbergen" originated with Dutch navigator and explorer Willem Barentsz, who described the "pointed mountains" or, in Dutch, "spitse bergen" that he saw on the west coast of the main island, Spitsbergen. Barentsz did not recognize that he had discovered an archipelago, and consequently the name "Spitsbergen" long remained in use both for the main island and for the archipelago as a whole.


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 defines Svalbard as all islands, islets, and skerries from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The land area is , and dominated by the island of Spitsbergen, which constitutes more than half the archipelago, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. All settlements are on Spitsbergen, except the meteorological outposts on Bjørnøya and Hopen. The Norwegian state took possession of all unclaimed land, or 95.2% of the archipelago, at the time the Svalbard Treaty entered into force; Store Norske, a Norwegian coal mining company, owns 4%, Arktikugol, a Russian coal mining company, owns 0.4%, while other private owners hold 0.4%.


title: Svalbard

text: As Svalbard is north of the Arctic Circle, it experiences midnight sun in summer and polar night in winter. At 74° north, the midnight sun lasts 99 days and polar night 84 days, while the respective figures at 81° north are 141 and 128 days. In Longyearbyen, midnight sun lasts from 20 April until 23 August, and polar night lasts from 26 October to 15 February. In winter, the combination of full moon and reflective snow can give additional light.


title: Svalbard

text: Due to the Earth's tilt and the high latitude, Svalbard has extensive twilights. Longyearbyen sees the first and last day of polar night having seven and a half hours of twilight, whereas the perpetual light lasts for two weeks longer than the midnight sun. On the summer solstice, the sun bottoms out at 12° sun angle in the middle of the night, being much higher during night than in mainland Norway's polar light areas. However, the daytime strength of the sun remains as low as 35°.


title: Svalbard

text: Glacial ice covers or 60% of Svalbard; 30% is barren rock while 10% is vegetated. The largest glacier is Austfonna () on Nordaustlandet, followed by Olav V Land and Vestfonna. During summer, it is possible to ski from Sørkapp in the south to the north of Spitsbergen, with only a short distance not being covered by snow or glacier. Kvitøya is 99.3% covered by glacier.


title: Svalbard

text: The landforms of Svalbard were created through repeated ice ages, when glaciers cut the former plateau into fjords, valleys, and mountains. The tallest peak is Newtontoppen (), followed by Perriertoppen (), Ceresfjellet (), Chadwickryggen (), and Galileotoppen (). The longest fjord is Wijdefjorden (), followed by Isfjorden (), Van Mijenfjorden (), Woodfjorden (), and Wahlenbergfjorden (). Svalbard is part of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province, and experienced Norway's strongest earthquake on 6 March 2009 at magnitude 6.5.


title: Svalbard

text: The Dutchman Willem Barentsz made the first discovery of the archipelago in 1596, when he sighted the coast of the island of Spitsbergen while searching for the Northern Sea Route.


title: Svalbard

text: The first recorded landing on the islands of Svalbard dates to 1604, when an English ship landed at "Bjørnøya", or Bear Island, and started hunting walrus. Annual expeditions soon followed, and Spitsbergen became a base for hunting the bowhead whale from 1611. Because of the lawless nature of the area, English, Danish, Dutch, and French companies and authorities tried to use force to keep out other countries' fleets.


title: Svalbard

text: Smeerenburg was one of the first settlements, established by the Dutch in 1619. Smaller bases were also built by the English, Danish, and French. At first the outposts were merely summer camps, but from the early 1630s, a few individuals started to overwinter. Whaling at Spitsbergen lasted until the 1820s, when the Dutch, British, and Danish whalers moved elsewhere in the Arctic. By the late 17th century, Russian hunters arrived; they overwintered to a greater extent and hunted land mammals such as the polar bear and fox.


title: Svalbard

text: Norwegian hunting—mostly for walrus—started in the 1790s. The first Norwegian citizens to reach Spitsbergen proper were a number of Coast Sámi people from the Hammerfest region, who were hired as part of a Russian crew for an expedition in 1795. After the Anglo-Russian War in 1809, Russian activity on Svalbard diminished, and ceased by the 1820s. Norwegian whaling was abandoned about the same time as the Russians left, but whaling continued around Spitsbergen until the 1830s, and around Bjørnøya until the 1860s.


title: Svalbard

text: By the 1890s, Svalbard had become a destination for Arctic tourism, coal deposits had been found, and the islands were being used as a base for Arctic exploration. The first mining was along Isfjorden by Norwegians in 1899; by 1904, British interests had established themselves in Adventfjorden and started the first year-round operations. Production in Longyearbyen, by US interests, started in 1908; and Store Norske established itself in 1916, as did other Norwegian interests during the first world war, in part by buying US interests.


title: Svalbard

text: Discussions to establish the sovereignty of the archipelago commenced in the 1910s, but were interrupted by World War I. On 9 February 1920, following the Paris Peace Conference, the Svalbard Treaty was signed, granting full sovereignty to Norway. However, all signatory countries were granted non-discriminatory rights to fishing, hunting, and mineral resources. The treaty took effect on 14 August 1925, at the same time as the Svalbard Act regulated the archipelago and the first governor, Johannes Gerckens Bassøe, took office.


title: Svalbard

text: The archipelago has traditionally been known as Spitsbergen, and the main island as West Spitsbergen. From the 1920s, Norway renamed the archipelago Svalbard, and the main island became Spitsbergen. Kvitøya, Kong Karls Land, Hopen, and Bjørnøya were not regarded as part of the Spitsbergen archipelago. Russians have traditionally called the archipelago "Grumant" (). The Soviet Union retained the name Spitsbergen () to support undocumented claims that Russians were the first to discover the island.


title: Svalbard

text: In 1928, Italian explorer Umberto Nobile and the crew of the airship "Italia" crashed on the icepack off the coast of Foyn Island. The subsequent rescue attempts were covered extensively in the press and Svalbard received short-lived fame as a result.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard, known to both British and Germans as Spitsbergen, was little affected by the German invasion of Norway in April 1940. The settlements continued to operate as before, mining coal and monitoring the weather.


title: Svalbard

text: In July 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Royal Navy reconnoitered the islands with a view to using them as a base of operations to send supplies to north Russia, but the idea was rejected as impractical. Instead, with the agreement of the Soviets and the Norwegian government in exile, in August 1941 the Norwegian and Soviet settlements on Svalbard were evacuated, and facilities there destroyed, in Operation Gauntlet.


title: Svalbard

text: However the Norwegian government in exile decided it would be important politically to establish a garrison in the islands, which was done in May 1942 during Operation Fritham.


title: Svalbard

text: Meanwhile, the Germans responded to the destruction of the weather station by establishing a reporting station of their own, codenamed "Banso", in October 1941. This was chased away in November by a visit from four British warships, but later returned. A second station, "Knospel", was established at Ny-Ålesund in 1941, remaining until 1942. In May 1942, after the arrival of the Fritham force, the German unit at Banso was evacuated.


title: Svalbard

text: In September 1943 in Operation Zitronella a German task force, which included the battleship "Tirpitz", was sent to attack the garrison and destroy the settlements at Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. This was achieved, but had little long-term effect: after their departure the Norwegians returned and re-established their presence.


title: Svalbard

text: In September 1944, the Germans set up their last weather station, Operation Haudegen in NordOstLand; it functioned until after the German surrender. On 4 September 1945, the soldiers were picked up by a Norwegian seal hunting vessel and surrendered to its captain. This group of men were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War.


title: Svalbard

text: After the war, the Soviet Union proposed common Norwegian and Soviet administration and military defence of Svalbard. This was rejected in 1947 by Norway, which two years later joined NATO. The Soviet Union retained high civilian activity on Svalbard, in part to ensure that the archipelago was not used by NATO.


title: Svalbard

text: After the war, Norway re-established operations at Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, while the Soviet Union established mining in Barentsburg, Pyramiden, and Grumant. The mine at Ny-Ålesund had several fatal accidents, killing 71 people while it was in operation from 1945 to 1954 and from 1960 to 1963. The Kings Bay Affair, caused by the 1962 accident killing 21 workers, forced Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet to resign.


title: Svalbard

text: From 1964, Ny-Ålesund became a research outpost, and a facility for the European Space Research Organisation. Petroleum test drilling was started in 1963 and continued until 1984, but no commercially viable fields were found. From 1960, regular charter flights were made from the mainland to a field at Hotellneset; in 1975, Svalbard Airport, Longyearbyen opened, allowing year-round services.


title: Svalbard

text: During the Cold War, the Soviet Union comprised about two-thirds of the population on the islands (Norwegians making up the remaining third) with the population of the archipelago slightly under 4,000. Russian activity has diminished considerably since then, falling from 2,500 to 450 people from 1990 to 2010. Grumant was closed after it was depleted in 1962.


title: Svalbard

text: Pyramiden was closed in 1998. Coal exports from Barentsburg ceased in 2006 because of a fire, but resumed in 2010. The Russians experienced two air accidents: Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, which killed 141 people, and the Heerodden helicopter accident, which killed three people.


title: Svalbard

text: Longyearbyen remained purely a company town until 1989 when utilities, culture, and education was separated into Svalbard Samfunnsdrift. In 1993, it was sold to the national government and the University Centre was established. Through the 1990s, tourism increased and the town developed an economy independent of Store Norske and mining. Longyearbyen was incorporated on 1 January 2002, adopting a community council.


title: Svalbard

text: In 2016, Svalbard had a population of 2,667 of which 423 were Russian and Ukrainian, 10 Polish, and 322 non-Norwegians living in Norwegian settlements. The largest non-Norwegian groups in Longyearbyen in 2005 were from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Thailand.


title: Svalbard

text: Longyearbyen is the largest settlement on the archipelago, the seat of the governor and the only incorporated town. The town features a hospital, primary and secondary school, university, sports center with a swimming pool, library, culture center, cinema, bus transport, hotels, a bank, and several museums. The newspaper "Svalbardposten" is published weekly. Very little mining activity remains at Longyearbyen; coal mines at Sveagruva and Luckerfjellet suspended operations in 2017 and were closed permanently in 2020.


title: Svalbard

text: Ny-Ålesund is a permanent research settlement in the northwest of Spitsbergen and the northernmost functional civilian settlement in the world. Formerly a mining town, it is still a company town operated by the Norwegian state-owned Kings Bay company. While some tourism to the outpost is permitted, Norwegian authorities limit access to minimize impact on scientific work. Ny-Ålesund has a winter population of 35 and a summer population of 180. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has outposts at Bjørnøya and Hopen, with ten and four inhabitants, respectively. Both can also house temporary research staff. Poland operates the Polish Polar Station at Hornsund, with ten permanent residents.


title: Svalbard

text: The Soviet mining settlement of Pyramiden was abandoned in 1998, leaving Barentsburg as the only permanently inhabited Russian settlement. It is a company town: all facilities are owned by Arktikugol, which operates a coal mine. In addition to the mining facilities, Arktikugol has opened a hotel and souvenir shop, catering to tourists taking day trips or hikes from Longyearbyen.


title: Svalbard

text: The village features a school, library, sports center, community center, swimming pool, farm, and greenhouse. Pyramiden features similar facilities; both are built in typical post-World War II Soviet architectural and planning style and contain the world's two most northerly Lenin statues and other socialist realist art. , a handful of workers are stationed in the largely abandoned Pyramiden to maintain local infrastructure and run its hotel, which has been re-opened to tourism.


title: Svalbard

text: Most of the population is Christian and affiliated with the Church of Norway. Catholics on the archipelago are pastorally served by the Territorial Prelature of Tromsø.


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 established full Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago. The islands are, unlike the Norwegian Antarctic Territory, a part of the Kingdom of Norway and not a dependency. The treaty came into effect in 1925, following the Svalbard Act. All forty-eight signatory countries of the treaty have the right to conduct commercial activities on the archipelago without discrimination, although all activity is subject to Norwegian legislation. The treaty limits Norway's right to collect taxes to that of financing services on Svalbard.


title: Svalbard

text: Therefore, Svalbard has a lower income tax than mainland Norway, and there is no value added tax. There is a separate budget for Svalbard to ensure compliance. Svalbard is a demilitarized zone, as the treaty prohibits the establishment of military installations. Norwegian military activity is limited to fishery surveillance by the Norwegian Coast Guard as the treaty requires Norway to protect the natural environment.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard is not governed by Norway's policies on migration and does not issue visas or residence permits itself. Foreigners do not need a visa or work and residence permits from the Norwegian authorities to travel to Svalbard. However, foreign citizens with a visa requirement for the Schengen Area must have a Schengen visa when travelling to and from Svalbard via mainland Norway.


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard Act established the institution of the Governor of Svalbard (, formerly ), who holds the responsibility as both county governor and chief of police, as well as holding other authority granted from the executive branch. Duties include environmental policy, family law, law enforcement, search and rescue, tourism management, information services, contact with foreign settlements, and judge in some areas of maritime inquiries and judicial examinations—albeit never in the same cases as acting as police. Since 2021, Lars Fause has been governor. The institution is subordinate to the Ministry of Justice and the Police, but reports to other ministries in matters within their portfolio.


title: Svalbard

text: Since 2002, Longyearbyen Community Council has had many of the same responsibilities of a municipality, including utilities, education, cultural facilities, fire department, roads, and ports. No care or nursing services are available, nor are welfare payments available. Norwegian residents retain pension and medical rights through their mainland municipalities. The hospital is part of University Hospital of North Norway, while the airport is operated by state-owned Avinor. Ny-Ålesund and Barentsburg remain company towns with all infrastructure owned by Kings Bay and Arktikugol. Other public offices with presence on Svalbard are the Norwegian Directorate of Mining, the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Norwegian Tax Administration, and the Church of Norway. Svalbard is subordinate to Nord-Troms District Court and Hålogaland Court of Appeal, both in Tromsø.


title: Svalbard

text: Although Norway is part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen Agreement, Svalbard is not part of the Schengen Area or the EEA. Non-EU and non-Nordic Svalbard residents do not need Schengen visas for Svalbard itself, but those travelling via mainland Norway require visas to pass through Norway. People without a source of income can be rejected by the governor.


title: Svalbard

text: No one is required to have a visa or residence permit on Svalbard. Regardless of citizenship, persons can live and work in Svalbard indefinitely. The Svalbard Treaty grants treaty nationals equal right of abode as Norwegian nationals. So far, non-treaty nationals have been admitted visa-free as well. While there is no visa requirement, everyone must meet certain requirements in order to stay in Svalbard. These requirements are governed by a separate policy called “Regulations relating to rejection and expulsion of persons from Svalbard”. Among the requirements is that residents must have the means to be able to reside on Svalbard. These requirements apply to both foreigners and Norwegian citizens, and the Governor of Svalbard may reject persons who do not meet the requirements. Russia retains a consulate in Barentsburg.


title: Svalbard

text: In September 2010, a treaty was made between Russia and Norway fixing the boundary between the Svalbard archipelago and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Increased interest in petroleum exploration in the Arctic raised interest in a resolution of the dispute. The agreement takes into account the relative positions of the archipelagos, rather than being based simply on northward extension of the continental border of Norway and Russia.


title: Svalbard

text: The three main industries on Svalbard are coal mining, tourism, and research. In 2007, there were 484 people working in the mining sector, 211 people working in the tourism sector, and 111 people working in the education sector. The same year, the mining yielded revenues of 2.008 billion Norwegian kroner (US$227,791,078), tourism 317 million kroner (US$35,967,202), and research 142 million kroner (US$16,098,404).


title: Svalbard

text: In 2006, the average income for economically active people was 494,700 kroner, 23% higher than on the mainland. Almost all housing is owned by the various employers and institutions and rented to their employees; there are only a few privately owned houses, most of which are recreational cabins. Because of this, it is difficult to live on Svalbard without working for an established institution.


title: Svalbard

text: Since the resettlement of Svalbard in the early 20th century, coal mining has been the dominant commercial activity. Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, a subsidiary of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, operates Svea Nord in Sveagruva and Mine 7 in Longyearbyen. The former produced 3.4 million tonnes in 2008, while the latter uses 35% of its output to fuel the Longyearbyen Power Station. Since 2007, there has not been any significant mining by the Russian state-owned Arktikugol in Barentsburg.


title: Svalbard

text: There has been test drilling for petroleum on land, but these did not give satisfactory results for permanent operation. Norwegian authorities do not allow offshore petroleum activities for environmental reasons, and the land formerly test-drilled have been protected as natural reserves or national parks. In 2011, a 20-year plan to develop offshore oil and gas resources around Svalbard was announced.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard has historically been a base for both whaling and fishing. Norway claimed a exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around Svalbard in 1977, with of internal waters and of EEZ. Norway retains a restrictive fisheries policy in the zone, and the claims are disputed by Russia.


title: Svalbard

text: Tourism is focused on the environment and is centered on Longyearbyen. Activities include hiking, kayaking, walks through glacier caves, and snowmobile and dog-sled safari. Cruise ships generate a significant portion of the traffic, including both stops by offshore vessels and expeditionary cruises starting and ending in Svalbard. Traffic is strongly concentrated between March and August; overnight stays have quintupled from 1991 to 2008, when there were 93,000 overnight stays.


title: Svalbard

text: Research on Svalbard centers on Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, the most accessible areas in the high Arctic. The Svalbard Treaty grants permission for any nation to conduct research on Svalbard, resulting in the Polish Polar Station and the Chinese Arctic Yellow River Station, plus Russian facilities in Barentsburg.


title: Svalbard

text: The University Centre in Svalbard in Longyearbyen offers undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate courses to 350 students in various arctic sciences, particularly biology, geology, and geophysics. Courses are provided to supplement studies at mainland universities; there are no tuition fees and courses are held in English, with Norwegian and international students equally represented.


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a seedbank to store seeds from as many of the world's crop varieties and their botanical wild relatives as possible. A cooperation between the government of Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the vault is cut into rock near Longyearbyen, keeping it at a natural and refrigerating the seeds to .


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard Undersea Cable System is a fibre optic line from Svalbard to Harstad, needed for communicating with polar orbiting satellites through Svalbard Satellite Station and installations in Ny-Ålesund.


title: Svalbard

text: The Arctic World Archive, a huge digital archiving concern run by Norwegian private company Piql and the state-owned coal-mining company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, opened in March 2017. In mid-2020, it acquired its biggest customer in the form of GitHub, a subsidiary of Microsoft.


title: Svalbard

text: One source of income for the area was, until 2015, visiting cruise ships. The Norwegian government became concerned about large numbers of cruise ship passengers suddenly landing at small settlements such as Ny-Ålesund, which is conveniently close to the barren-yet-picturesque Magdalena Fjord. With the increasing size of the larger ships, up to 2,000 people can potentially appear in a community that normally numbers less than 40. As a result, the government severely restricted the size of cruise ships that may visit.


title: Svalbard

text: In Longyearbyen, Barentsburg, and Ny-Ålesund, there are road networks, but they do not connect with each other. Off-road motorized transport is prohibited on bare ground in Svalbard, but snowmobiles are used extensively during winter—both for commercial and recreational activities. Transport from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg () and Pyramiden () is possible by snowmobile in winter, or by ship all year round. All settlements have ports and Longyearbyen has a bus system.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard Airport, Longyear, from Longyearbyen, is the only airport offering air transport off the archipelago. Scandinavian Airlines has daily scheduled services to Tromsø and Oslo. Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle also has a service between Oslo and Svalbard, operating three or four times a week; there are also irregular charter services to Russia. Finnair operated service from Helsinki, operating three times per week between June and August 2016, but Norwegian authorities disallowed this route, citing the 1978 bilateral agreement on air traffic between Finland and Norway.


title: Svalbard

text: Lufttransport provides regular corporate charter services from Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben, and Svea Airport for Kings Bay and Store Norske. These flights are generally not available to the public. There are heliports in Barentsburg and Pyramiden, and helicopters are frequently used by the governor and to a lesser extent the mining company Arktikugol.


title: Svalbard

text: The climate of Svalbard is dominated by its high latitude, with the average daily mean summer temperature at (1991-2020 averages), and January averages at (1991-2020). The more southern Bear Island has January mean temperatures as mild as in the 1991-2020 base period.


title: Svalbard

text: The West Spitsbergen Current, the northernmost branch of the North Atlantic Current system, moderates Svalbard's temperatures, particularly during winter. Winter temperatures in Svalbard are up to higher than those at similar latitudes in Russia and Canada. The warm Atlantic water keeps the surrounding waters open and navigable most of the year. The interior fjord areas and valleys, sheltered by the mountains, have larger temperature differences than the coast, giving about warmer summer temperatures and colder winter temperatures.


title: Svalbard

text: On the south of Spitsbergen, the temperature is slightly higher than further north and west. During winter, the temperature difference between south and north is typically , and about in summer. Bear Island has average temperatures even higher than the rest of the archipelago.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard is where cold polar air from the north and mild, wet sea air from the south meet, creating low pressure, changeable weather and strong winds, particularly in winter; in January, a strong breeze is registered 17% of the time at Isfjord Radio, but only 1% of the time in July. In summer, fog is common, particularly off the coast, with visibility under registered 20% of the time in July and 1% of the time in January, at Hopen and Bjørnøya.


title: Svalbard

text: Precipitation is frequent, but falls in small quantities, typically less than per year in western Spitsbergen. More rain falls on the uninhabited east side, where there can be more than . On average, Svalbard has lower humidity than other places in the Arctic Circle. The only places in the Arctic with a lower average are in mainland Norway, Sweden and Finland).


title: Svalbard

text: 2016 was the warmest year on record at Svalbard Airport, with a remarkable mean temperature of , above the 1961–90 average, and more comparable to a location at the arctic circle. The coldest temperature of the year was as high as , warmer than the mean minimum in a normal January, February or March. In the same year, the number of days when there was rainfall equalled the number of days when there was snowfall, a significant deviation from the usual pattern whereby there would be at least twice as many snow days.


title: Svalbard

text: Global warming has resulted in noticeable climatic changes on Svalbard. Between 1970 and 2020, the average temperature on Svalbard rose by 4 degrees Celsius, and in the winter months by 7 degrees. On 25 July 2020, a new record temperature of was measured for the Svalbard archipelago, which is also the highest temperature ever recorded in the European part of the High Arctic; in addition, temperatures of over 20 degrees were measured four days in a row in July 2020.


title: Svalbard

text: As in large parts of the Arctic, the ice–albedo feedback effects can also be noticed on Svalbard: Due to the substantial ice melt, ice surfaces are transformed into open water, the darker surface of which absorbs more solar energy instead of reflecting it back; as a result, these waters heat up and further ice in the area melts faster and faster, creating more open waters, etc. A temperature increase of between 7 and 10 degrees is expected on Svalbard by the end of the century.


title: Svalbard

text: In addition to humans, three primarily terrestrial mammalian species inhabit the archipelago: the Arctic fox, the Svalbard reindeer, and accidentally introduced southern voles, which are found only in Grumant. Attempts to introduce the Arctic hare and the muskox have both failed. There are 15 to 20 types of marine mammals, including: whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, and polar bears.


title: Svalbard

text: Polar bears are the iconic symbol of Svalbard, and one of the main tourist attractions. The animals are protected and people moving outside the settlements are required to have appropriate scare devices to ward off attacks. They are also advised to carry a firearm for use as a last resort. A British schoolboy was killed by a polar bear in 2011. In July 2018, a polar bear was shot dead after it attacked and injured a polar bear guard leading tourists off a cruise ship. In August 2020 a Dutch man was killed by a polar bear at a campsite in Longyearbyen. The polar bear was shot dead. In 2022, a polar bear attacked a French tourist, who suffered injuries to an arm. The bear left after shots had been fired. It was later euthanised following a professional assessment of its injuries.


title: Svalbard

text: As of 2021, Svalbard has around 300 resident polar bears. Svalbard and Franz Joseph Land share a common population of 3,000 polar bears, with Kong Karls Land being the most important breeding ground.


title: Svalbard

text: The Svalbard reindeer ("R. tarandus platyrhynchus") is a distinct subspecies; although it was previously almost extinct, it can be legally hunted (as can Arctic fox). There are limited numbers of domesticated animals in the Russian settlements.


title: Svalbard

text: About eighty species of bird are found on Svalbard, most of which are migratory. The Barents Sea is among the areas in the world with most seabirds, with about 20 million individuals during late summer. The most common are: little auk, northern fulmar, thick-billed murre, and black-legged kittiwake. Sixteen species are on the IUCN Red List. Particularly Bjørnøya, Storfjorden, Nordvest-Spitsbergen, and Hopen are important breeding ground for seabirds. The Arctic tern has the furthest migration, all the way to Antarctica.


title: Svalbard

text: Two songbirds migrate to Svalbard to breed: the snow bunting and the northern wheatear. Rock ptarmigan is the only bird to overwinter. Remains of Predator X ("Pliosaurus funkei") from the Jurassic period were discovered here. It is one of the largest dinosaur-era marine reptiles ever found.


title: Svalbard

text: Svalbard has permafrost and tundra, including low, middle, and high Arctic vegetation. One hundred and sixty-five species of plants have been found on the archipelago. Only those areas which defrost in the summer are vegetated, which accounts for about 10% of the archipelago. Vegetation is most abundant in Nordenskiöld Land, around Isfjorden and where affected by guano. While there is little precipitation, giving the archipelago a steppe climate, plants still have good access to water because the cold climate reduces evaporation. The growing season is very short, and may last only a few weeks. The Svalbard poppy ("Papaver dahlianum") is the symbolic flower of Svalbard.


title: Svalbard

text: There are seven national parks in Svalbard: Forlandet, Indre Wijdefjorden, Nordenskiöld Land, Nordre Isfjorden Land, Nordvest-Spitsbergen, Sassen-Bünsow Land and Sør-Spitsbergen. The archipelago has fifteen bird sanctuaries, one geotopic protected area and six nature reserves—with Nordaust-Svalbard and Søraust-Svalbard both being larger than any of the national parks. Most of the nature reserves and three of the national parks were created in 1973, with the remaining areas gaining protection in the 2000s. All human traces dating from before 1946 are automatically protected. The protected areas make up 65% of the archipelago. Svalbard is on Norway's tentative list for nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Svalbard

text: The total solar eclipse of 20 March 2015 included only Svalbard and the Faroe Islands in the band of totality.


title: Svalbard

text: Longyearbyen School serves ages 6–18. It is the primary/secondary school in the northernmost location on Earth. Once pupils reach ages 16 or 17, most families move to mainland Norway. Barentsburg has its own school serving the Russian community; by 2014 it had three teachers, and its welfare funds had declined. A primary school served the community of Pyramiden in the pre-1998 period.


title: Svalbard

text: There is a non-degree offering tertiary educational institution in Longyearbyen, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), the northernmost tertiary school on Earth.


title: Svalbard

text: Association football is the most popular sport in Svalbard. There are three football pitches (one at Barentsburg), but no stadiums because of the small population. There is also an indoor hall adopted for multiple sports including indoor football.


title: Pickleball

text: Pickleball is an indoor or outdoor racket/paddle sport where two players (singles), or four players (doubles), hit a perforated hollow polymer ball over a net using solid-faced paddles. Opponents on either side of the net hit the ball back and forth until one side commits a rule infraction. Pickleball was invented in 1965 as a children's backyard game on Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA. In 2022, pickleball was adopted as the official state sport of Washington.


title: Pickleball

text: The appearance of a pickleball court, and the manner of play, resemble tennis, but the court is the size of a doubles badminton court, less than a third the size of a tennis court. Court lines and rules are specific to pickleball and include two on either side of the net known as the "non-volley zones", where the ball cannot be hit with the paddle unless the ball bounces first. The official rules specify side-out scoring, where only the serving team can score a point. All serves are made with an underhand stroke. The hard polymer ball used in pickleball produces significantly less bounce than softer flexible balls, such as a tennis ball. The minimal bounce combined with the non-volley zone and underhand serve resulted in a dynamic pace and strategy ranging from soft "dink" shots that stay within the two non-volley zones to powerful "drive shots" and "overhead smash" shots. To minimize any advantage the serving or receiving side might have at the beginning of the game, the ball must bounce once on each side of the net before either team may "volley" the ball, which is to hit the ball in the air before it bounces.


title: Pickleball

text: Between 1965 and 2020, it became a popular sport in the US Pacific Northwest, and in the meantime began to grow elsewhere. In 2021 and 2022, the sport was named the fastest-growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, with over 4.8 million players. A growing interest in the sport is attributed to several factors, including a short learning curve, appeal to a wide range of ages and fitness levels, and low startup costs. There are now thousands of pickleball tournaments throughout the United States, including the US National Championships and the U.S. Open Tournament, along with two professional tours and one professional league. Pickleball is also experiencing growth outside the United States with several other national and international competitions.


title: Pickleball

text: The game was created in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, who later served in the United States Congress and as Washington's lieutenant governor. Pritchard and two of his friends, Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, are credited with devising the game and establishing the rules.


title: Pickleball

text: According to Joan Pritchard, Joel Pritchard's wife, "The name of the game became Pickle Ball after I said it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats." Other sources state that the name "pickleball" was derived from the name of the Pritchard's family dog, "Pickles". The Pritchards stated that the dog came along after the game had already been named, and it was the dog that was named for the game of pickleball. They said the confusion arose when a reporter interviewing the Pritchards in the early 1970s decided it would be easier for readers to relate to the dog rather than a pickle boat. USA Pickleball claims research on their part confirms that the dog Pickles was born after the game had already been named.


title: Pickleball

text: Jennifer Lucore and Beverly Youngren, authors of the book, "History of Pickleball; More than 50 Years of Fun!", could not conclusively determine whether the game was named for the dog or the dog was named for the game. They did, however, discover a third possibility. Bill Bell had claimed he named the game because he enjoyed hitting the ball in a way that would put his opponent in a pickle.


title: Pickleball

text: Shortly after the game was invented, some founders and their friends brought pickleball to Hawaii, where the game became known as pukaball. "Puka", meaning hole in Hawaiian, initially was used to refer to the ball since pickleballs are covered in holes, but eventually became synonymous with the game itself.


title: Pickleball

text: When Pritchard and Bell returned from golf one Saturday afternoon in 1965, they found their families bored. They had attempted to set up badminton, but no one could find the shuttlecock. Pritchard and Bell challenged their kids to devise their own game. The adults and kids ended up at the badminton court and began experimenting with different balls and rackets, including table tennis paddles. The badminton net was eventually lowered to hip level to accommodate driving the ball.


title: Pickleball

text: Initially, a Wiffle ball was thought to be the ideal ball, but later the Cosom Fun Ball was found to be more durable and provided a better playing experience. The table tennis paddles were quickly replaced with larger, more durable plywood paddles fabricated in a nearby shed. McCallum continued to experiment with various paddle designs in his father's Seattle basement workshop. One paddle, he called the “M2”, or McCallum 2, became the paddle of choice for most early players of the game.


title: Pickleball

text: Soon after its creation, pickleball became popular with local neighbors and relatives of the inventors. In 1968 Pritchard, along with McCallum's son David and two other friends, formed "Pickle Ball, Inc." The company filed its first annual report in 1972, around the same time they trademarked the name "Pickle-ball". The company manufactured wooden paddles and pickleball kits to satisfy the demand for the sport. Interest in pickleball continued to grow, and spread from the Pacific Northwest into warmer areas as "snowbirds" brought the sport south to Arizona, California, Hawaii and Florida. In 2016 Pickle Ball, Inc. was purchased by PickleballCentral.com, which operates under the corporate name Olla, LLC.


title: Pickleball

text: A 1976 tournament held at the Southcenter Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington is credited with being the first formal pickleball tournament. It was billed as "The World's First Pickleball Championship" by Joel Pritchard and received a mention in the July 1976 edition of "Tennis" magazine. The United States Amateur Pickleball Association (U.S.A.P.A.) was formed in 1984, which is when they published the first official rulebook for the sport and held the first National Doubles Championships in Tacoma, Washington. By 1990 the sport was being played in all 50 states. In 2001 pickleball was included as a demonstration sport in the Arizona Senior Olympics (ASO) with 100 participants. The pickleball tournament was held at the Happy Trails RV Resort in Surprise, Arizona and, within five years, included 275 participants. The inclusion of pickleball in the ASO was seen as a significant contributor to the growth of tournaments in the United States.


title: Pickleball

text: The U.S. Pickleball National Championships are held near Palm Springs, California and co-hosted by Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle and owner of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, where they have been played since 2018. They had been previously played in Arizona, from 2009 to 2017. The tournament has the oversight of the U.S.A Pickleball Association; itself reincorporated with an updated rule book in 2005 after its foundation in 1984. The U.S. Open Pickleball Championships are played in another hub of pickleball, Naples, Florida, and started in 2016. Estimates for active players grew to 3.3 million in 2019 up 10% from 2016. As of 2021, there were 58 member countries overseen by the International Federation of Pickleball. Currently, there are over 8000 pickleball locations in the United States.


title: Pickleball

text: State Senator John Lovick proposed a bill making pickleball the official sport of Washington state in 2021. Pickleball was then named the official state sport of Washington in 2022 by the state legislature. On March 2022, the legislation was signed by Governor Jay Inslee on the original Pritchard family court where the sport was invented.