title: 'Ndrangheta

text: According to an agreed Statement of Fact filed with the court, "the Locali [local cells] outside of Calabria replicate the structure from Calabria, and are connected to their mother-Locali in Calabria. The authority to start Locali outside Calabria comes from the governing bodies of the organization in Calabria. The Locali outside of Calabria are part of the same 'Ndrangheta organization as in Calabria, and maintain close relationships with the Locali where its members come from." The group's activities in the Greater Toronto Area were controlled by a group known as the 'Camera di Controllo' which "makes all of the final decisions", according to the witness' testimony. It consists of six or seven Toronto-area men, who co-ordinate activities and resolves disputes among Calabrian gangsters in Southern Ontario. In 1962, Racco established a "crimini" or Camera di Controllo in Canada with the help of Giacomo Luppino and Rocco Zito. One of the members was Giuseppe Coluccio, before he was arrested and extradited to Italy. Other members are Vincenzo DeMaria, Carmine Verduci before his death, and Cosimo Stalteri before his death. In August 2015, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) issued a deportation order for Carmelo Bruzzese. Bruzzese appealed the decision to Canada's Federal Court, but it was rejected, and on 2 October 2015, Bruzzese was escorted onto a plane in Toronto, landing in Rome, where he was arrested by Italian police. Major Giuseppe De Felice, a commander with the Carabinieri, told the IRB that Bruzzese "assumed the most important roles and decisions. He gave the orders."


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: After living in Richmond Hill, Ontario for five years until 2010, Antonio Coluccio was one of 29 people named in arrest warrants in Italy in September 2014. Police said they were part of the Commisso 'ndrina ('Ndrangheta) crime family in Siderno. In July 2018, Coluccio was sentenced to 30 years in prison for corruption. His two brothers, including Salvatore and Giuseppe Coluccio, were already in prison due to Mafia-related convictions.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In June 2018, Cosimo Ernesto Commisso, of Woodbridge, Ontario and an unrelated woman were shot and killed in his vehicle whilst outside his home. According to sources contacted by the "Toronto Star", "Commisso was related to Cosimo "The Quail" Commisso of Siderno, Italy, who has had relations in Ontario, is considered by police to be a "'Ndrangheta organized crime boss". The "National Post" reported that Cosimo Ernesto Commisso, while not a known criminal, "shares a name and family ties with a man who has for decades been reputed to be a Mafia leader in the Toronto area". The cousin of "The Quail", Antonio Commisso, was on the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy until his capture on 28 June 2005, in Woodbridge.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In June 2015, RCMP led police raids across the Greater Toronto Area, named Project OPhoenix, which resulted in the arrest of 19 men, allegedly affiliated with the 'Ndrangheta. In March 2018, during the resultant criminal trial north of Toronto, the court heard from a Carabinieri lieutenant-colonel that 'Ndrangheta is active in Germany, Australia and the Greater Toronto Area. "People in Italy have to be responsible for their representatives here but the final word comes from Italy". A member of the Greater Toronto Area's 'Ndrangheta cell, Carmine Guido, who had been a police informant, testified at length in 2018 about the structure and activities of the organization which had been under the control of Italian-born Bradford, Ontario resident, Giuseppe (Pino) Ursino and Romanian-born Cosmin (Chris) Dracea of Toronto. The latter two faced two counts of cocaine trafficking for the benefit of a criminal organization and one charge of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. Guido was paid $2.4 million by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police between 2013 and 2015 to secretly tape dozens of conversations with suspected 'Ndrangheta members. In February 2019, Ursino was sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison on drug trafficking charges, with Dracea sentenced to nine years in prison on cocaine trafficking conspiracy. Neither had a previous criminal record. At the sentencing, the presiding judge made this comment: "Based on the evidence at trial, Giuseppe Ursino is a high-ranking member of the 'Ndrangheta who orchestrated criminal conduct and then stepped back to lessen his potential implication" ... Cosmin Dracea knew he was dealing with members of a criminal organization when he conspired to import cocaine".


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: During the Ursino/Dracea trial, an Italian police expert testified that the 'Ndrangheta operated in the Greater Toronto Area and in Thunder Bay particularly in drug trafficking, extortion, loan sharking, theft of public funds, robbery, fraud, electoral crimes and crimes of violence. After the trial, Tom Andreopoulos, deputy chief federal prosecutor, said that this was the first time in Canada that the 'Ndrangheta was targeted as an organized crime group since 1997, when the Criminal Code was amended to include the offence of criminal organization. He offered this comment about the organization:"We're talking about structured organized crime. We're talking about a political entity, almost; a culture of crime that colonizes across the sea from Italy to Canada. This is one of the most sophisticated criminal organizations in the world."


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In June 2018, a Mafia expert wrote that "A new alliance between Bonanno associates and the Violi family . . . is significant, as it suggests a growing prominence for Calabrian mafia – the 'Ndrangheta – within the New York families and in Canada". Criminologist Anna Sergi of the University of Essex added that drug trafficking was the most active pursuit in North America.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: On 18 July 2019, the York Regional Police announced the largest organized crime bust in Ontario, part of an 18-month long operation called Project Sindicato that was also coordinated with the Italian State Police. York Regional Police had arrested 15 people in Canada, 12 people in Calabria, and seized $35 million worth of homes, sports cars and cash in a major trans-Atlantic probe targeting the most prominent wing of the 'Ndrangheta in Canada headed by Angelo Figliomeni. On 14 and 15 July, approximately 500 officers raided 48 homes and businesses across the GTA, seizing 27 homes worth $24 million, 23 cars, including five Ferraris, and $2 million in cash and jewelry. Nine of the 15 arrests in Canada included major crime figures: Angelo Figliomeni, Vito Sili, Nick Martino, Emilio Zannuti, Erica Quintal, Salvatore Oliveti, Giuseppe Ciurleo, Rafael Lepore and Francesco Vitucci. The charges laid included tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding the government and participating in a criminal organization.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: During a press conference in Vaughan, Ontario, Fausto Lamparelli of the Italian State Police, offered this comment about the relationship between the 'Ndrangheta in Ontario and Calabria:"This investigation allowed us to learn something new. The 'Ndrangheta crime families in Canada are able to operate autonomously, without asking permission or seeking direction from Italy. Traditionally, 'Ndrangheta clans around the world are all subservient to the mother ship in Calabria. It suggests the power and influence the Canadian-based clans have built."


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: On 9 August 2019, as part of the same joint investigation, several former Greater Toronto Area residents were arrested in Calabria, including Giuseppe DeMaria, Francesco Commisso, Rocco Remo Commisso, Antonio Figliomeni and Cosimo Figiomeni. Vincenzo Muià had visited Toronto on 31 March 2019 to meet with Angelo and Cosimo Figliomeni, seeking answers to who had ambushed and killed his brother, Carmelo Muià, in Siderno on 18 January 2018; Muià's smartphone was unwittingly and secretly transmitting his closed-door conversations to authorities in Italy.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In 2020, the charges laid against three individuals as a result of Project Sindicato were "stayed" (the prosecution discontinued), unless the prosecutors could find new evidence and proceeded with the charges again within one year. In January 2021, the charges against the remaining six were also stayed, including that of Angelo Figliomeni, "the head of the 'Ndrangheta in Toronto" according to York Regional Police. The charges were stayed after an investigation "into the use of the privileged conversations" that found "improper use of wiretapping" and "significant breaches of solicitor-client privilege". All property seized by police must now be returned — with the exception of illegal possessions.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: The 'Ndrangheta clans were closely associated with the AUC paramilitary groups led Salvatore Mancuso, a son of Italian immigrants; he surrendered to Álvaro Uribe's government to avoid extradition to the U.S. According to Giuseppe Lumia of the Italian Parliamentary Antimafia Commission, 'Ndrangheta clans are actively involved in the production of cocaine.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: According to a study by the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), 'Ndrangheta groups are using Germany to invest cash from drugs and weapons smuggling. Profits are invested in hotels, restaurants and houses, especially along the Baltic coast and in the eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony. Investigators believe that the mafia's bases in Germany are used primarily for clandestine financial transactions. In 1999, the state Office of Criminal Investigation in Stuttgart investigated an Italian from San Luca who had allegedly laundered millions through a local bank, the Sparkasse Ulm. The man claimed that he managed a profitable car dealership, and authorities were unable to prove that the business was not the source of his money. The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) concluded in 2000 that "the activities of this 'Ndrangheta clan represent a multi-regional criminal phenomenon." In 2009, a confidential report by the BKA said some 229 'Ndrangheta families were living in Germany, and were involved in gun-running, money laundering, drug-dealing, and racketeering, as well as legal businesses. Some 900 people were involved in criminal activity, and were also legal owners of hundreds of restaurants, as well as being major players in the property market in the former East. The most represented 'Ndrangheta family originated from the city of San Luca (Italy), with some 200 members in Germany. A war between the two 'Ndrangheta clans Pelle-Romeo (Pelle-Vottari) and Strangio-Nirta from San Luca that had started in 1991 and resulted in several deaths spilled into Germany in 2007; six men were shot to death in front of an Italian restaurant in Duisburg on 15 August 2007. (See San Luca feud.) According to the head of the German federal police service, Joerg Ziercke, "Half of the criminal groups identified in Germany belong to the 'Ndrangheta. It has been the biggest criminal group since the 1980s. Compared to other groups operating in Germany, the Italians have the strongest organization."


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: allegedly lived for 10 years in the Netherlands, where he managed his contacts with Colombian cocaine cartels. He was arrested in Amsterdam on 27 October 2005. The seaports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are used to import cocaine. The Giorgi, Nirta and Strangio clans from San Luca have a base in the Netherlands and Brussels (Belgium). In March 2012, the head of the Dutch National Crime Squad ("Dienst Nationale Recherche", DNR) stated that the DNR will team up with the Tax and Customs Administration and the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service to combat the 'Ndrangheta.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: David Gonzi, a son of former Prime Minister of Malta Lawrence Gonzi, was accused of illegal activities by acting as a trustee shareholder in a gaming company. The company in question was operated by a Calabrian associate of the 'Ndrangheta in Malta. His name appeared several times on an investigation document of over 750 pages that was commissioned by the tribunal of the Reggio Calabria. Gonzi called the document unprofessional. A European arrest warrant was published for Gonzi to appear at the tribunal but this never materialised. Gonzi, however, was completely exonerated from the list of potential suspects in the 'Ndrangheta gaming bust.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: After investigation of the presence of the 'Ndrangheta, 21 gaming outlets had their operation license temporarily suspended in Malta due to irregularities in a period of one year.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In a Notice of the Conclusion of the Investigation dated 30 June 2016, criminal action was commenced in Italy against 113 persons originally mentioned in the investigation.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In February 2018, Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was shot dead at his home together with his fiancée. At the time of his murder, Kuciak was working on a report about Slovak connections with the 'Ndrangheta. He had previously reported on organized tax fraud involving businesspeople close to the ruling Smer-SD party. On 28 February, Aktuality.sk published Kuciak's last, unfinished story. The article details the activities of Italian businessmen with ties to organised crime who have settled in eastern Slovakia, and have spent years embezzling European Union funds intended for the development of this relatively poor region, as well as their connections to high-ranking state officials, such as Viliam Jasaň, a deputy and the Secretary of the State Security Council of Slovakia, and Mária Trošková, a former nude model who became Chief Adviser of Prime Minister Robert Fico. Both Jasaň and Trošková took leave of absence on the same day, stating that they would return to their positions once the investigations were concluded.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: The crime syndicate has a significant presence in Switzerland since the early 1970s but has operated there with little scrutiny due to the inconspicuous life styles of their members, the Swiss legal landscape, and solid foundations in local businesses. In the aftermath of the San Luca feud in 2007 and subsequent arrests in Italy (Operation "Crimine"), it became clear that the group had also infiltrated the economically proliferous regions of Switzerland and Southern Germany. In March 2016, Swiss law enforcement in cooperation with Italian state prosecutors arrested a total of 15 individuals, 13 in the city of Frauenfeld, 2 in the canton of Valais, accusing them of active membership to an organized crime syndicate also known as "Operazione Helvetica". Since 2015, the Swiss federal police has conducted undercover surveillance and recorded the group's meetings in a restaurant establishment in a small village just outside of Frauenfeld. The meetings were taking place in a relatively remote location using the now defunct entity the "Wängi Boccia Club" as its cover. According to the Italian prosecutor Antonio De Bernardo, there are several cells operating within the jurisdiction of the Swiss Federation, estimating the number of operatives per cell to about 40, and a couple of 100 in total. All of the arrested persons are Italian citizens, the two men arrested in the Valais have already been extradited to Italy, and as of August 2016, one individual arrested in Frauenfeld has been approved for extradition to Italy.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: In London, the Aracri and Fazzari clans are thought to be active in money laundering, catering and drug trafficking.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: The earliest evidence of 'Ndrangheta activity in the U.S. points to an intimidation scheme run by the syndicate in Pennsylvania mining towns; this scheme was unearthed in 1906. Current 'Ndrangheta activities in the United States mainly involve drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and money laundering. It is known that the 'Ndrangheta branches in North America have been associating with Italian-American organized crime. The Suraci family from Reggio Calabria has moved some of its operations to the U.S. The family was founded by Giuseppe Suraci who has been in the United States since 1962. His younger cousin, Antonio Rogliano


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: runs the family in Calabria. On Tuesday, 11 February 2014, both FBI and Italian Police intercepted the transatlantic network of U.S. and Italian crime families. The raid targeted the Gambino and Bonanno families in the U.S. while in Italy, it targeted the Ursino " 'ndrina" from Gioiosa Jonica. The defendants were charged with drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms offenses, based, in part, on their participation in a transnational heroin and cocaine trafficking conspiracy involving the 'Ndrangheta. The operation began in 2012 when investigators detected a plan by members of the Ursino clan of the 'Ndrangheta to smuggle large amounts of drugs. An undercover agent was dispatched to Italy and was successful in infiltrating the clan. An undercover agent was also involved in the handover of 1.3 kg of heroin in New York as part of the infiltration operation.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: On 24 June 2019, 'Ndrangheta leader Rocco Morabito, dubbed the "cocaine king of Milan", escaped from Central Prison in Montevideo alongside three other inmates, escaping "through a hole in the roof of the building". Morabito was awaiting extradition to Italy for international drug trafficking, having been arrested at a Montevideo hotel in 2017 after living in Punta del Este under a false name for 13 years.


title: 'Ndrangheta

text: Beginning in 2000, music producer released three CD compilations of Italian mafia folk songs over a five-year period. Collectively known as "", these compilations consist mainly of songs written by 'Ndrangheta musicians, often sung in Calabrian and dealing with themes such as vengeance ("Sangu chiama sangu"), betrayal ("I cunfirenti"), justice within the 'Ndrangheta ("Nun c'è pirdunu"), and the ordeal of prison life ("Canto di carcerato"). The 2013 book "ZeroZeroZero" by Roberto Saviano investigates the activities of the 'Ndrangheta in Italy. Stefano Sollima adapted the book into a 2020 TV series of the same name.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have forelegs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with forearms folded, has led to the common name praying mantis.


title: Mantis

text: The closest relatives of mantises are termites and cockroaches (Blattodea), which are all within the superorder Dictyoptera. Mantises are sometimes confused with stick insects (Phasmatodea), other elongated insects such as grasshoppers (Orthoptera), or other more distantly related insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies (Mantispidae). Mantises are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species are found actively pursuing their prey. They normally live for about a year. In cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, then die. The eggs are protected by their hard capsules and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises were considered to have supernatural powers by early civilizations, including Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Assyria. A cultural trope popular in cartoons imagines the female mantis as a "femme fatale". Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets.


title: Mantis

text: Over 2,400 species of mantis in about 430 genera are recognized. They are predominantly found in tropical regions, but some live in temperate areas. The systematics of mantises have long been disputed. Mantises, along with stick insects (Phasmatodea), were once placed in the order Orthoptera with the cockroaches (now Blattodea) and ice crawlers (now Grylloblattodea). Kristensen (1991) combined the Mantodea with the cockroaches and termites into the order Dictyoptera, suborder Mantodea. The name "mantodea" is formed from the Ancient Greek words ("mantis") meaning "prophet", and ("eidos") meaning "form" or "type". It was coined in 1838 by the German entomologist Hermann Burmeister. The order is occasionally called the mantes, using a Latinized plural of Greek "mantis". The name mantid properly refers only to members of the family Mantidae, which was, historically, the only family in the order. The other common name, praying mantis, applied to any species in the order (though in Europe mainly to "Mantis religiosa"), comes from the typical "prayer-like" posture with folded forelimbs. The vernacular plural "mantises" (used in this article) was confined largely to the US, with "mantids" predominantly used as the plural in the UK and elsewhere, until the family Mantidae was further split in 2002.


title: Mantis

text: One of the earliest classifications splitting an all-inclusive Mantidae into multiple families was that proposed by Beier in 1968, recognizing eight families, though it was not until Ehrmann's reclassification into 15 families in 2002 that a multiple-family classification became universally adopted. Klass, in 1997, studied the external male genitalia and postulated that the families Chaeteessidae and Metallyticidae diverged from the other families at an early date. However, as previously configured, the Mantidae and Thespidae especially were considered polyphyletic, so the Mantodea have been revised substantially as of 2019 and now includes 29 families.


title: Mantis

text: The earliest mantis fossils are about 140 million years old, from Siberia. Fossils of the group are rare: by 2022, 37 fossil species are known. Fossil mantises, including one from Japan with spines on the front legs as in modern mantises, have been found in Cretaceous amber. Most fossils in amber are nymphs; compression fossils (in rock) include adults. Fossil mantises from the Crato Formation in Brazil include the long "Santanmantis axelrodi", described in 2003; as in modern mantises, the front legs were adapted for catching prey. Well-preserved specimens yield details as small as 5 μm through X-ray computed tomography. Extinct families and genera include:


title: Mantis

text: Because of the superficially similar raptorial forelegs, mantidflies may be confused with mantises, though they are unrelated. Their similarity is an example of convergent evolution; mantidflies do not have tegmina (leathery forewings) like mantises, their antennae are shorter and less thread-like, and the raptorial tibia is more muscular than that of a similar-sized mantis and bends back farther in preparation for shooting out to grasp prey. Another example of confusion caused by convergent evolution is Titanoptera, an order of insect that lived in the Triassic period and also shared the Raptorial forelegs of a mantis.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises have large, triangular heads with a beak-like snout and mandibles. They have two bulbous compound eyes, three small simple eyes, and a pair of antennae. The articulation of the neck is also remarkably flexible; some species of mantis can rotate their heads nearly 180°.


title: Mantis

text: The mantis thorax consists of a prothorax, a mesothorax, and a metathorax. In all species apart from the genus "Mantoida", the prothorax, which bears the head and forelegs, is much longer than the other two thoracic segments. The prothorax is also flexibly articulated, allowing for a wide range of movements of the head and fore limbs while the remainder of the body remains more or less immobile. Mantises also are unique to the Dictyoptera in that they have tympanate hearing, with two tympana in an auditory chamber in their metathorax. Most mantises can only hear ultrasound.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises have two spiked, grasping forelegs ("raptorial legs") in which prey items are caught and held securely. In most insect legs, including the posterior four legs of a mantis, the coxa and trochanter combine as an inconspicuous base of the leg; in the raptorial legs, however, the coxa and trochanter combine to form a segment about as long as the femur, which is a spiky part of the grasping apparatus (see illustration). Located at the base of the femur is a set of discoidal spines, usually four in number, but ranging from none to as many as five depending on the species. These spines are preceded by a number of tooth-like tubercles, which, along with a similar series of tubercles along the tibia and the apical claw near its tip, give the foreleg of the mantis its grasp on its prey. The foreleg ends in a delicate tarsus used as a walking appendage, made of four or five segments and ending in a two-toed claw with no arolium.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises can be loosely categorized as being macropterous (long-winged), brachypterous (short-winged), micropterous (vestigial-winged), or apterous (wingless). If not wingless, a mantis has two sets of wings: the outer wings, or tegmina, are usually narrow and leathery. They function as camouflage and as a shield for the hindwings, which are clearer and more delicate.


title: Mantis

text: The abdomen of all mantises consists of 10 tergites, with a corresponding set of nine sternites visible in males and seven visible in females. The abdomen tends to be slimmer in males than females, but ends in a pair of cerci in both sexes.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises have stereo vision. They locate their prey by sight; their compound eyes contain up to 10,000 ommatidia. A small area at the front called the fovea has greater visual acuity than the rest of the eye, and can produce the high resolution necessary to examine potential prey. The peripheral ommatidia are concerned with perceiving motion; when a moving object is noticed, the head is rapidly rotated to bring the object into the visual field of the fovea. Further motions of the prey are then tracked by movements of the mantis's head so as to keep the image centered on the fovea. The eyes are widely spaced and laterally situated, affording a wide binocular field of vision and precise stereoscopic vision at close range. The dark spot on each eye that moves as it rotates its head is a pseudopupil. This occurs because the ommatidia that are viewed "head-on" absorb the incident light, while those to the side reflect it.


title: Mantis

text: As their hunting relies heavily on vision, mantises are primarily diurnal. Many species, however, fly at night, and then may be attracted to artificial lights. Mantises in the family Liturgusidae collected at night have been shown to be predominately males; this is probably true for most mantises. Nocturnal flight is especially important to males in locating less-mobile females by detecting their pheromones. Flying at night exposes mantises to fewer bird predators than diurnal flight would. Many mantises also have an auditory thoracic organ that helps them avoid bats by detecting their echolocation calls and responding evasively.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises are generalist predators of arthropods. The majority of mantises are ambush predators that only feed upon live prey within their reach. They either camouflage themselves and remain stationary, waiting for prey to approach, or stalk their prey with slow, stealthy movements. Larger mantises sometimes eat smaller individuals of their own species, as well as small vertebrates such as lizards, frogs, fish, and particularly small birds.


title: Mantis

text: Most mantises stalk tempting prey if it strays close enough, and will go further when they are especially hungry. Once within reach, mantises strike rapidly to grasp the prey with their spiked raptorial forelegs. Some ground and bark species pursue their prey in a more active way. For example, members of a few genera such as the ground mantises, "Entella", "Ligaria", and "Ligariella" run over dry ground seeking prey, much as tiger beetles do.


title: Mantis

text: The fore gut of some species extends the whole length of the insect and can be used to store prey for digestion later. This may be advantageous in an insect that feeds intermittently. Chinese mantises live longer, grow faster, and produce more young when they are able to eat pollen.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises are preyed on by vertebrates such as frogs, lizards, and birds, and by invertebrates such as spiders, large species of hornets, and ants. Some hunting wasps, such as some species of "Tachytes" also paralyze some species of mantis to feed their young. Generally, mantises protect themselves by camouflage, most species being cryptically colored to resemble foliage or other backgrounds, both to avoid predators and to better snare their prey. Those that live on uniformly colored surfaces such as bare earth or tree bark are dorsoventrally flattened so as to eliminate shadows that might reveal their presence. The species from different families called flower mantises are aggressive mimics: they resemble flowers convincingly enough to attract prey that come to collect pollen and nectar. Some species in Africa and Australia are able to turn black after a molt towards the end of the dry season; at this time of year, bush fires occur and this coloration enables them to blend in with the fire-ravaged landscape (fire melanism).


title: Mantis

text: When directly threatened, many mantis species stand tall and spread their forelegs, with their wings fanning out wide. The fanning of the wings makes the mantis seem larger and more threatening, with some species enhancing this effect with bright colors and patterns on their hindwings and inner surfaces of their front legs. If harassment persists, a mantis may strike with its forelegs and attempt to pinch or bite. As part of the bluffing (deimatic) threat display, some species may also produce a hissing sound by expelling air from the abdominal spiracles. Mantises lack chemical protection, so their displays are largely bluff. When flying at night, at least some mantises are able to detect the echolocation sounds produced by bats; when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, they stop flying horizontally and begin a descending spiral toward the safety of the ground, often preceded by an aerial loop or spin. If caught, they may slash captors with their raptorial legs.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises, like stick insects, show rocking behavior in which the insect makes rhythmic, repetitive side-to-side movements. Functions proposed for this behavior include the enhancement of crypsis by means of the resemblance to vegetation moving in the wind. However, the repetitive swaying movements may be most important in allowing the insects to discriminate objects from the background by their relative movement, a visual mechanism typical of animals with simpler sight systems. Rocking movements by these generally sedentary insects may replace flying or running as a source of relative motion of objects in the visual field. As ants may be predators of mantises, genera such as "Loxomantis", "Orthodera", and "Statilia", like many other arthropods, avoid attacking them. Exploiting this behavior, a variety of arthropods, including some early-instar mantises, mimic ants to evade their predators.


title: Mantis

text: The mating season in temperate climates typically takes place in autumn, while in tropical areas, mating can occur at any time of the year. To mate following courtship, the male usually leaps onto the female's back, clasping her thorax and wing bases with his forelegs. He then arches his abdomen to deposit and store sperm in a special chamber near the tip of the female's abdomen. The female lays between 10 and 400 eggs, depending on the species. Eggs are typically deposited in a froth mass-produced by glands in the abdomen. This froth hardens, creating a protective capsule, which together with the egg mass is called an ootheca. Depending on the species, the ootheca can be attached to a flat surface, wrapped around a plant, or even deposited in the ground. Despite the versatility and durability of the eggs, they are often preyed on, especially by several species of parasitoid wasps. In a few species, mostly ground and bark mantises in the family Tarachodidae, the mother guards the eggs. The cryptic "Tarachodes maurus" positions herself on bark with her abdomen covering her egg capsule, ambushing passing prey and moving very little until the eggs hatch. An unusual reproductive strategy is adopted by Brunner's stick mantis from the southern United States; no males have ever been found in this species, and the females breed parthenogenetically. The ability to reproduce by parthenogenesis has been recorded in at least two other species, "Sphodromantis viridis" and "Miomantis" sp., although these species usually reproduce sexually. In temperate climates, adults do not survive the winter and the eggs undergo a diapause, hatching in the spring.


title: Mantis

text: As in closely related insect groups in the superorder Dictyoptera, mantises go through three life stages: egg, nymph, and adult (mantises are among the hemimetabolous insects). For smaller species, the eggs may hatch in 3–4 weeks as opposed to 4–6 weeks for larger species. The nymphs may be colored differently from the adult, and the early stages are often mimics of ants. A mantis nymph grows bigger as it molts its exoskeleton. Molting can happen five to 10 times before the adult stage is reached, depending on the species. After the final molt, most species have wings, though some species remain wingless or brachypterous ("short-winged"), particularly in the female sex. The lifespan of a mantis depends on the species; smaller ones may live 4–8 weeks, while larger species may live 4–6 months.


title: Mantis

text: Sexual cannibalism is common among most predatory species of mantises in captivity. It has sometimes been observed in natural populations, where about a quarter of male-female encounters result in the male being eaten by the female. Around 90% of the predatory species of mantises exhibit sexual cannibalism. Adult males typically outnumber females at first, but their numbers may be fairly equivalent later in the adult stage, possibly because females selectively eat the smaller males. In "Tenodera sinensis", 83% of males escape cannibalism after an encounter with a female, but since multiple matings occur, the probability of a male's being eaten increases cumulatively.


title: Mantis

text: The female may begin feeding by biting off the male's head (as they do with regular prey), and if mating has begun, the male's movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by a ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male's head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilization while obtaining sustenance. Later, this behavior appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behavior is natural in the field or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual organisms and notice any disturbance in the laboratory or field, such as bright lights or moving scientists. Chinese mantises that had been fed "ad libitum" (so that they were not hungry) actually displayed elaborate courtship behavior when left undisturbed. The male engages the female in a courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating. Under such circumstances, the female has been known to respond with a defensive deimatic display by flashing the colored eyespots on the inside of her front legs.


title: Mantis

text: The reason for sexual cannibalism has been debated; experiments show that females on poor diets are likelier to engage in sexual cannibalism than those on good diets. Some hypothesize that submissive males gain a selective advantage by producing offspring; this is supported by a quantifiable increase in the duration of copulation among males which are cannibalized, in some cases doubling both the duration and the chance of fertilization. This is contrasted by a study where males were seen to approach hungry females with more caution, and were shown to remain mounted on hungry females for a longer time, indicating that males that actively avoid cannibalism may mate with multiple females. The same study also found that hungry females generally attracted fewer males than those that were well fed. The act of dismounting after copulation is dangerous for males, for it is the time that females most frequently cannibalize their mates. An increase in mounting duration appears to indicate that males wait for an opportune time to dismount a hungry female, who would be likely to cannibalize her mate. Experiments have revealed that the sex ratio in an environment determines male copulatory behavior of "Mantis religiosa" which in turn affects the cannibalistic tendencies of the female and support the sperm competition hypothesis because the polyandrous treatment recorded the highest copulation duration time and lowest cannibalism. This further suggests that dismounting the female can make males susceptible to cannibalism.


title: Mantis

text: One of the earliest mantis references is in the ancient Chinese dictionary "Erya", which gives its attributes in poetry, where it represents courage and fearlessness, and a brief description. A later text, the ("Great History of Medical Material Annotated and Arranged by Types, Based upon the Classics and Historical Works") from 1108, gives accurate details of the construction of the egg packages, the development cycle, anatomy, and the function of the antennae.


title: Mantis

text: Although mantises are rarely mentioned in Ancient Greek sources, a female mantis in threat posture is accurately illustrated on a series of fifth-century BC silver coins, including didrachms, from Metapontum in Lucania.


title: Mantis

text: In the 10th century AD, Byzantine era "Adages", Suidas describes an insect resembling a slow-moving green locust with long front legs. He translates Zenobius 2.94 with the words "seriphos" (maybe a mantis) and "graus", an old woman, implying a thin, dried-up stick of a body.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises are a common motif in Luna Polychrome ceramics of pre-Columbian Nicaragua, and are believed to represent a deity or spirit called "Madre Culebra".


title: Mantis

text: Western descriptions of the biology and morphology of the mantises became more accurate in the 18th century. Roesel von Rosenhof illustrated and described mantises and their cannibalistic behavior in the "" ("Insect Entertainments").


title: Mantis

text: Aldous Huxley made philosophical observations about the nature of death while two mantises mated in the sight of two characters in his 1962 novel "Island" (the species was "Gongylus gongylodes"). The naturalist Gerald Durrell's humorously autobiographical 1956 book "My Family and Other Animals" includes a four-page account of an almost evenly matched battle between a mantis and a gecko. Shortly before the fatal "dénouement", Durrell narrates:


title: Mantis

text: M. C. Escher's woodcut "Dream" depicts a human-sized mantis standing on a sleeping bishop. The 1957 film "The Deadly Mantis" features a mantis as a giant monster. In the 1967 film "Son of Godzilla" and other related films, the kaiju called "Kamacuras" are giant mantis monsters.


title: Mantis

text: A cultural trope imagines the female mantis as a "femme fatale". The idea is propagated in cartoons by Cable, Guy and Rodd, LeLievre, T. McCracken, and Mark Parisi, among others. It ends Isabella Rossellini's short film about the life of a praying mantis in her 2008 "Green Porno" season for the Sundance Channel.


title: Mantis

text: Two martial arts separately developed in China have movements and fighting strategies based on those of the mantis. As one of these arts was developed in northern China, and the other in southern parts of the country, the arts are today referred to (both in English and Chinese) as 'Northern Praying Mantis' and 'Southern Praying Mantis'. Both are very popular in China, and have also been exported to the West in recent decades.


title: Mantis

text: According to local beliefs in Africa, this insect brings good luck. The mantis was revered by the southern African Khoi and San in whose cultures man and nature were intertwined; for its praying posture, the mantis was even named "" ("god of the Hottentots") in the Afrikaans language that had developed among the first European settlers. However, at least for the San, the mantis was only one of the manifestations of a trickster-deity, ǀKaggen, who could assume many other forms, such as a snake, hare or vulture. Several ancient civilizations did consider the insect to have supernatural powers; for the Greeks, it had the ability to show lost travelers the way home; in the Ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead", the "bird-fly" is a minor god that leads the souls of the dead to the underworld; in a list of 9th-century BC Nineveh grasshoppers ("buru"), the mantis is named necromancer ("buru-enmeli") and soothsayer ("buru-enmeli-ashaga"). Some pre-Columbian cultures in western Nicaragua have preserved oral traditions of the mantis as "Madre Culebra", a powerful predator and symbol of female symbolic authority.


title: Mantis

text: Mantises are among the insects most widely kept as pets. Because the lifespan of a mantis is only about a year, people who want to keep mantises often breed them. In 2013 at least 31 species were kept and bred in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. In 1996 at least 50 species were known to be kept in captivity by members of the Mantis Study Group. "The Independent" described the "giant Asian praying mantis" as "part stick insect with a touch of Buddhist monk", and stated that they needed a vivarium around 30 cm (12 in) on each side. "The Daily South" argued that a pet insect was no weirder than a pet rat or ferret, and that while a pet mantis was unusual, it would not "bark, shed, [or] need shots or a litter box".


title: Mantis

text: Naturally occurring mantis populations provide plant pest control. Gardeners who prefer to avoid pesticides may encourage mantises in the hope of controlling insect pests. However, mantises do not have key attributes of biological pest control agents; they do not specialize in a single pest insect, and do not multiply rapidly in response to an increase in such a prey species, but are general predators. They eat whatever they can catch, including both harmful and beneficial insects. They therefore have "negligible value" in biological control.


title: Mantis

text: Two species, the Chinese mantis and the European mantis, were deliberately introduced to North America in the hope that they would serve as pest controls for agriculture; they have spread widely in both the United States and Canada.


title: Mantis

text: A prototype robot inspired by the forelegs of the praying mantis has front legs that allow the robot to walk, climb steps, and grasp objects. The multi-jointed leg provides dexterity via a rotatable joint. Future models may include a more spiked foreleg to improve the grip and ability to support more weight.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, author, and former game show contestant. He is the highest-earning American game show contestant, having won money on five different game shows, including $4,522,700 on the U.S. game show "Jeopardy!" which he currently hosts, sharing duties with Mayim Bialik.


title: Ken Jennings

text: He holds the record for the longest winning streak on "Jeopardy!" with 74 consecutive wins. He also holds the record for the highest average correct responses per game in "Jeopardy!" history (for those contestants with at least 300 correct responses) with 35.9 during his original run (no other contestant has exceeded 30) and 33.1 overall, including tournaments and special events. In 2004, he won 74 consecutive "Jeopardy!" games before he was defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg on his 75th appearance. His total earnings on "Jeopardy!" are $4,522,700, consisting of: $2,520,700 over his 74 wins; a $2,000 second-place prize in his 75th appearance; a $500,000 second-place prize in the "Jeopardy!" Ultimate Tournament of Champions (2005); a $300,000 second-place prize in "Jeopardy!"s IBM Challenge (2011), when he lost to the Watson computer but became the first person to beat third-place finisher Brad Rutter; a $100,000 second-place prize in the "Jeopardy!" Battle of the Decades (2014); a $100,000 second-place prize (his share of his team's $300,000 prize) in the "Jeopardy!" All-Star Games (2019); and a $1 million first-place prize in the "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time" (2020).


title: Ken Jennings

text: During his first run of "Jeopardy!" appearances, Jennings earned the record for the highest American game show winnings. His total was surpassed by Rutter, who defeated Jennings in the finals of the "Jeopardy!" Ultimate Tournament of Champions, adding $2 million to Rutter's existing "Jeopardy!" winnings. Jennings regained the record after appearing on several other game shows, culminating with his results on an October 2008 appearance on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", though Rutter retained the record for highest "Jeopardy!" winnings and once again passed Jennings' total after his victory in the "Jeopardy!" "Battle of the Decades" tournament. In 2020, he once again faced off with and won against Rutter, as well as James Holzhauer, in a special primetime series, "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time".


title: Ken Jennings

text: After his success on "Jeopardy!", Jennings wrote about his experience and explored American trivia history and culture in his book "Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs", published in 2006. In September 2020, he signed on as a consulting producer of "Jeopardy!", a job that will include an on-air role reading categories. He held this role until the start of the show's thirty-ninth season.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Following Alex Trebek's death on November 8, 2020, Jennings hosted "Jeopardy!" as the first of a series of guest hosts. His episodes aired from January 11, 2021, to February 19, 2021. Following Mike Richards' exit early in the 2021–22 season, Jennings and Mayim Bialik were both named hosts; Jennings’ hosting duties are exclusive to the daily syndicated series (Bialik hosts syndicated series episodes as well as primetime network specials). Jennings will continue to split hosting duties with Bialik for the 39th season of the series.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings was born on May 23, 1974, in Edmonds, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. His father was a lawyer employed internationally, and Jennings spent 15 years growing up in South Korea and Singapore where his father worked.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Upon returning to the United States, Jennings attended the University of Washington. Following two years as a volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he was assigned to serve in Madrid, Spain, he transferred to Brigham Young University in 1996. One of his roommates at BYU was author Brandon Sanderson. He also played on the school's quizbowl team, at one point serving as captain, and graduated in 2000 with a double major in English and computer science.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Before 2003, "Jeopardy!" contestants were limited to five consecutive wins. At the beginning of the show's 20th season (in 2003), the rules were changed to allow contestants to remain on the show as long as they continued to win. After this rule change, and until Jennings' run, the record winning streak was set by Tom Walsh, who won $186,900 in eight games in January 2004.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings' run began during "Jeopardy!" 20th season with the episode aired on June 2, 2004, in which he unseated two-time returning champion Jerry Harvey, and continued into season 21. In that first episode, Jennings' entire winning streak nearly ended before it even began. The Final Jeopardy answer was, "She's the first female track & field athlete to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics." Jennings responded with "Who is Jones?" using only the last name of Marion Jones (who was not stripped of her medals until December 2007). Host Alex Trebek said, "We will accept that, in terms of female athletes, there aren't that many." If the response had not been accepted, Jennings would have finished in third place, and challenger Julia Lazarus would have won the game. Jennings' run was interrupted by the off-season break (July until September), 2004 Kids' Week, the Tournament of Champions (aired from September 20, 2004, through October 1, 2004), the 2004 United States presidential election (aired on Tuesday, November 2, 2004, pushing his weeks of episodes to air from Wednesday to Saturday) and the College Championship (aired from November 10, 2004, to November 23, 2004). As a result, he went the entire five months without a loss. He did not participate in the Tournament of Champions, as invitations are extended only to champions who have been defeated (with the exception of the winner[s] of the College Championship).


title: Ken Jennings

text: On November 30, 2004, Jennings' reign as "Jeopardy!" champion ended when he lost his 75th game to challenger Nancy Zerg. Jennings responded incorrectly to both Double Jeopardy! Daily Doubles, causing him to lose a combined $10,200 ($5,400 and $4,800, respectively) and leaving him with $14,400 at the end of the round. As a result, for only the tenth time in 75 games, Jennings did not have an insurmountable lead going into the Final Jeopardy! round. Only Jennings and Zerg, who ended Double Jeopardy! with $10,000, were able to play Final Jeopardy! as third-place contestant David Hankins failed to finish with a positive score after Double Jeopardy!


title: Ken Jennings

text: The Final Jeopardy! category was Business & Industry, and the clue was "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year." Jennings appeared perplexed during the time allowed to write a response, while Zerg finished her response quickly. Zerg responded correctly with "What is H&R Block?" and wagered $4,401 of her $10,000, giving her a $1 lead over Jennings with his response still to be revealed. Jennings incorrectly responded with "What is FedEx?" and lost the game with a final score of $8,799 after his $5,601 wager was deducted from his score. After his response was revealed to be incorrect, the audience audibly gasped, and Nancy was shocked after finding out that she won. He was awarded $2,000 for his second-place finish, which gave him a final total of $2,522,700 for his "Jeopardy!" run. Zerg, whom Jennings called a "formidable opponent", finished in third place on the next show. The audience gave a standing ovation in honor of both contestants, and Trebek called Zerg a "giant killer" as Jennings embraced her.


title: Ken Jennings

text: It took a span of 182 calendar days to broadcast Jennings' 75 matches. His losing episode can be seen on the 2005 DVD release of "Jeopardy!: An Inside Look at America's Favorite Quiz Show", released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.


title: Ken Jennings

text: "Jeopardy!" implemented some backstage changes during Jennings' run. Normally, players only get a short time to practice, but more rehearsal time was added so that the new players could get comfortable with the buzzers. Additionally, the person who managed the buzzer system was changed. In his book "Brainiac", Jennings says that the consistency of the original manager's timing had given an increasing advantage to continuing players, and that the change made a noticeable difference in the second season that he was on the show. At one point, announcer Johnny Gilbert stopped announcing Jennings' total wins during the show's opening.


title: Ken Jennings

text: On December 1, 2004, the day after his defeat, Jennings made a guest appearance at the start of the broadcast, during which host Alex Trebek acknowledged his success and enumerated the various game show records he had broken.


title: Ken Jennings

text: According to the Nielsen TV National People Meter, "Jeopardy!" ratings were 22 percent higher during Jennings' run than they were during the same period the previous year. For several weeks of the winnings' streak, "Jeopardy!" was ranked as TV's highest-rated syndicated program. By the end of "Jeopardy!" 20th season several weeks later, the show had surpassed sister program "Wheel of Fortune" in the ratings, though "Wheel" still benefited from the streak in markets where "Jeopardy!" is its lead-in in the common scheduling tactic for both shows.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings has received a good deal of American media coverage. After his 38th win on "Jeopardy!" during the summer break between tapings, Jennings made a guest appearance on "Live with Regis and Kelly". There Jennings revealed that he had failed to qualify for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", once hosted by Regis Philbin. During that guest appearance, Jennings said, ""Jeopardy!" is a man's game... it's not like "Millionaire"." However, he finally made it onto "Millionaire" a few years later during Terry Crews' only year as host.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman" to present Letterman's "Top Ten List" ("Top Ten Ways to Irritate Alex Trebek"). He appeared again on the program on the night his final show was televised, in addition to interview segments airing that night on local late evening news programming and on "Nightline". Barbara Walters selected Jennings as one of the "Ten Most Fascinating People of 2004" for her twelfth annual ABC News special, which aired on December 8, 2004. While on his media tour following his final game, Jennings taped a segment for "Sesame Street". "TV Guide" featured a segment of "The Top Ten TV Moments of 2004", in which Jennings' loss placed third. On December 1, 2004, A&E aired an episode of "Biography" on Jennings and other "Jeopardy!" notables, including Frank Spangenberg and Eddie Timanus.


title: Ken Jennings

text: On December 28, 2004, Sony announced a 15-week, 75-show "Jeopardy!" Ultimate Tournament of Champions. It featured Tournament of Champions, College Championship, and Teen Tournament winners from the show's 21-year run, as well as over 100 five-time champions. "Jeopardy!" executive producer, Harry Friedman, explained, "The 2003 rule change, which allows "Jeopardy!" players to keep playing until they're defeated, raised the question about how other five-time champions might have played under this rule. This tournament is an opportunity to give those past champions another chance to shine." The field totaled 145 players including Jennings, who, unlike the other competitors, was automatically placed in the finals. The Ultimate Tournament of Champions offered substantial cash prizes; with a grand prize of $2 million to the winner, $500,000 for the first runner-up, and $250,000 for the second runner-up. Guaranteed prize money was offered to all contestants.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In the final round of the Ultimate Tournament, Brad Rutter decisively defeated Jennings and Jerome Vered, with respective final scores of $62,000, $34,599, and $20,600. Jennings won the $500,000 prize for second place, but as a result of the Ultimate Tournament, Rutter temporarily displaced him as the highest overall winner of money on game shows. Jennings has said he is still happy with his second-place finish.


title: Ken Jennings

text: From February 14–16, 2011, "Jeopardy"s "IBM Challenge" featured the company's Watson against Jennings and Rutter in two matches played over three days. The winner of the competition was Watson, winning $1 million for two charities, while Jennings was second and Rutter was third, receiving $300,000 and $200,000, respectively. Jennings and Rutter each pledged to donate half of their winnings to charity.


title: Ken Jennings

text: This was the first-ever man-versus-machine competition in the show's history. At the end of the first episode, in which only the first match's "Jeopardy!" round was aired, Rutter was tied with Watson at $5,000, while Jennings was in third with $2,000. After the second episode in which the first game was completed, Jennings remained at third with $4,800 while Rutter at second had $10,400. The competition ended with Watson with $77,147, Jennings with $24,000, and Rutter with $21,600. Below his response during the Final Jeopardy! round, Jennings wrote on his screen "I for one welcome our new computer overlords." It was the first time Rutter had been defeated against any human player, although the defeat is not on Rutter's "Jeopardy!" official record, as the competition was deemed an exhibition.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In 2014, "Jeopardy!" aired a special five-week Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades tournament. Jennings made it to the finals along with Brad Rutter and Roger Craig. Jennings placed second, winning a $100,000 prize, and Rutter won first place, securing a $1-million prize.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In the 2019 "Jeopardy!" All-Star Games, with 18 former champions, Jennings was one of six captains, choosing 2015 "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions runner-up Matt Jackson and 2012 "Jeopardy!" College Champion Monica Thieu (who coincidentally eliminated Jennings in a 2016 episode of "500 Questions") to complete his three-person "Team Ken". Team Ken finished second to the team captained by Rutter, with Jennings winning $100,000, one-third of the $300,000 second-place prize. This brought his lifetime "Jeopardy!"-related winnings to $3,522,700.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In June 2019, Jennings said a future face-off between him and "Jeopardy!" record-holder James Holzhauer would be "irresistible."


title: Ken Jennings

text: A November 18, 2019 announcement by ABC named Jennings, Holzhauer, and Brad Rutter would return to "Jeopardy!" in a tournament to determine who is the "Greatest of All Time" scheduled to air on January 7, 2020. Jennings won the championship to be crowned with the "Greatest of All Time" title and a first-place prize of $1 million.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Taking advantage of the notoriety of Jennings' losing Final Jeopardy! answer, H&R Block offered Jennings free tax planning and financial services for the rest of his life. H&R Block senior vice president David Byers estimated that Jennings owed about $1.04 million in taxes on his winnings. Also, BBDO created an advertisement for FedEx in the "USA Today" newspaper three days after his final game, stating "There's only one time FedEx has ever been the wrong answer" and congratulating Jennings for his streak.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In a 2011 Reddit AMA, Jennings recalled how in 2004 the Democratic politicians Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid unsuccessfully asked Jennings to run for the United States Senate from Utah. He commented, "That was when I realized the Democratic Party was f@#$ed in '04".


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings has written several books. "Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs" details his experiences on "Jeopardy!" and his research into trivia culture conducted after the completion of his run. "Ken Jennings' Trivia Almanac: 8,888 Questions in 365 Days", a hardcover book, is a compilation of trivia questions—with 3 categories and about 20 questions per day of the year. "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks" explores the world of map and geography enthusiasts. "Because I Said So!" is a humorous examination of "the myths, tales & warnings every generation passes down to its kids". He also has written five books for his children's series, "Junior Genius Guides."


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings also had a column in "Mental Floss" magazine called "Six Degrees of Ken Jennings", where readers submitted two wildly different things that Jennings had to connect in exactly six steps, in the style of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. The column ran from November 2005 to the September–October 2010 issue.


title: Ken Jennings

text: According to Variety.com, Jennings and television producer Michael Davies teamed up as executive producers on a new game show format for Comedy Central. According to Comedy Central execs, it was planned that Jennings would co-host and participate. The series was planned to premiere late in 2005 or in the first quarter of 2006. As of April 2006, development had stalled, and the show's future remained uncertain. Jennings explained on his website that "Stephen Colbert's show was doing so well in its post-"Daily Show" spot that Comedy Central decided they weren't in the market for a quiz show anymore." As of mid-2006, he was still shopping a potential game show titled "Ken Jennings vs. the Rest of the World".


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on "The Colbert Report" on September 13, 2006. During the interview, Colbert discussed Jennings' book, "Brainiac", and mocked him for not knowing the number of pages in the book. After Colbert coined a word to describe intellectual nerdiness, "poindexterity", Jennings deliberated what the correct noun for "poindexter" was. Jennings noted, as he had done earlier that day on NPR's "Talk of the Nation", that since his streak, people "seem to have an extra-hard trivia question" in case they run into him.


title: Ken Jennings

text: He also appeared twice on NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" program. In his February 25, 2006, appearance on the "Not My Job" segment, he answered all three questions correctly, winning for a listener Carl Kasell's voice on that person's home answering machine. Jennings said, "This is the proudest moment of my game-show life." On June 1, 2013, he made his debut as a panelist on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me".


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings has written and edited literature and mythology questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT), a quiz bowl organization. He has read questions as a moderator at the 2005, 2006, and 2009 NAQT High School National Championship Tournaments in Chicago.


title: Ken Jennings

text: "Entertainment Weekly" put his performance on its end-of-the-decade "best of" list, saying, "Answer: A software engineer from Utah, he dominated the quizfest for a record 74 shows in 2004, amassing $2,520,700. Question: Who is Ken Jennings?"


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings narrated the audiobook version of Alex Trebek's autobiography, "The Answer Is...". His rendition was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 63rd Grammy Awards.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on the first two episodes of the NBC game show "1 vs. 100" on October 13 and 20, 2006, as a mob member. He incorrectly answered the question, "What color is the number 1 space on a standard roulette wheel?" as "black" instead of "red" in his second episode, eliminating him from the game. He left the show with $714.29, his share of a $35,000 prize shared among 49 mob members. He returned to the show for a special "Last Man Standing" episode aired on February 9, 2007. He was eliminated on the final question, which asked which of three people had been married the most times; he answered King Henry VIII, while the correct answer was Larry King. It was the first time Jennings had a chance at a rematch against rival Brad Rutter, who was also part of the mob and was eliminated before Jennings.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In 2007, Jennings was invited to be a contestant on the game show "Grand Slam" hosted by Dennis Miller and Amanda Byram, also a Sony Pictures production. It debuted on Game Show Network (GSN) on August 4, 2007, and featured 16 former game-show winners in a single-elimination tournament. Jennings, seeded second behind Brad Rutter, won the tournament and became the 2007 Grand Slam Champion after defeating Ogi Ogas (a second-round winner against Rutter) in the finals. He earned $100,000 for his victory.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings was a contestant on an episode of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" that aired on October 10, 2008, which held the possibility of exceeding Rutter's total game show winnings. After winning $500,000, enough to surpass Rutter's total, Jennings chose not to attempt the final $1-million question, which would have deducted $475,000 from his winnings if he missed it. As is customary on the show, Jennings was then shown the question to see what would have happened, and he provided the correct answer. Had he risked his winnings and correctly answered the question, he would have become the show's second $1-million winner.


title: Ken Jennings

text: From 2008 to 2009, Jennings appeared on GSN on Fridays for the trivia game "Stump the Master, where" home viewers submitted questions via the GSN website. Four callers were put on hold and Jennings selected from one of the categories. The caller for the category he picked came on the line and read the question. If Jennings didn't answer or was incorrect, the caller won $1,000 or more. When Jennings was right, the jackpot was increased by $1,000. All callers were given a small prize whether they participated on-air or not.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings has appeared on multiple episodes of "Doug Loves Movies", hosted by Doug Benson, and has won a few times.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings also appeared on two other Sony Pictures Television game shows, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," as a frequent expert for the lifeline "Ask the Expert", and also taped a pilot for the proposed 2009 CBS revival of Sony's "The $25,000 Pyramid."


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on "Millionaire" in 2014 as a contestant during Guinness World Records Edition themed week, where he won $100,000 after deciding to walk away on his $250,000 question. If he had gone for it, he would have been right and would have won $250,000.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on the second-season premiere of "500 Questions" on May 26, 2016 and was eliminated on the fourth question by winter 2012 college champion Monica Thieu, leaving with no winnings. Jennings later teamed up with Thieu, along with Matt Jackson, in the "Jeopardy!" All-Star Games in 2019.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings appeared on an episode of "@midnight" aired May 15, 2017, during the fourth season, which he won. As a result, he served as the funniest person on the internet for May 16, 2017.


title: Ken Jennings

text: An announcement in April 2019 named Jennings as one of eight recurring "Trivia Experts" for the new Game Show Network program "Best Ever Trivia Show", hosted by Sherri Shepherd. The show premiered at 4:00 p.m. ET on June 10, 2019. He was also one of the six trivia experts on "Best Ever" successor, "Master Minds", which premiered at 4:00 p.m. ET on April 6, 2020, with Brooke Burns as the host.


title: Ken Jennings

text: In November 2020, it was announced that Jennings would be one of the 3 chasers on the ABC revival of "The Chase", hosted by Sara Haines with Rutter and Holzhauer as the other chasers, joined by Mark Labbett in season 2. Jennings left after the second season.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings won the rookie division of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2006. In his first time competing, Jennings placed 37th overall. He also served as the award's presenter, becoming the first contestant to present an award to himself. He has not competed in the tournament since.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings had a weekly trivia column, Ken"nections," in "Parade" magazine. In it, five questions were posed whose answers were connected to a mystery topic, which the readers had to guess. "Parade" ceased the quiz in early 2015, and removed links to archived quizzes in March 2015. "Kennections" now appears in the online version of "Mental Floss" magazine.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Every Tuesday, beginning July 4, 2006, Jennings sent out an email containing seven questions. The seventh, a question asking what several items have in common, was designed to be Google-resistant. Subscribers responded with the answers to all seven questions and the results are maintained on a scoreboard on Jennings' blog. Every ten weeks, the respondent with the most seventh questions correct was awarded a signed copy of his newest book. After 800 quizzes, as of November 16, 2021, due to an ever-increasing amount of commitments related to "Jeopardy!", book tours, and simply starting to run out of material for the seventh question, Jennings decided to discontinue this email.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings is an active Twitter user, and some of his tweets have been subjects of controversy. On September 22, 2014, he received criticism after tweeting, "Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair." The tweet reignited controversy after resurfacing in 2020, which led to condemnation from noted disability rights activists such as Rebecca Cokley.


title: Ken Jennings

text: On November 10, 2015, he was criticized when he tweeted a joke about the death of Daniel Fleetwood, a lifelong "Star Wars" fan who died of cancer. Fleetwood's dying wish was to see "", fearing he likely would not live to see the film when it opened in theaters in December 2015. An online campaign was started on his behalf and his wish was granted only days before he died. Jennings said, "It can't be a good sign that every fan who has seen the new Star Wars movie died shortly thereafter."


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings again faced controversy when on May 31, 2017, he tweeted a joke involving Barron Trump, the youngest child of U.S. President Donald Trump. After 11-year-old Barron saw an image of Kathy Griffin holding a bloody Trump mask, he believed it was real and screamed. Jennings wrote, "Barron Trump saw a very long necktie on a heap of expired deli meat in a dumpster. He thought it was his dad & his little heart is breaking." After the tweet garnered controversy, Jennings said, "The joke doesn't mock Barron. It mocks using him for political cover." In August 2018, Jennings was criticized for his description of an elderly woman tweeting about her deceased son. When she tweeted about her son's love for the 1980s television character ALF, Jennings responded with "This awful MAGA grandma is my favorite person on Twitter."


title: Ken Jennings

text: In January 2021, Jennings faced controversy again when his friend and podcast co-host John Roderick posted a Twitter thread where he discussed preventing his nine-year-old daughter from eating until she learned to open a can of baked beans using a manual can opener, which he approximated took six hours. The incident caused controversial past tweets to resurface in which Roderick made comments that were seen as using anti-semitic, homophobic, racist, and other derogatory language. Jennings defended Roderick, saying he was "a loving and attentive dad who ... tells heightened-for-effect stories."


title: Ken Jennings

text: "The Wall Street Journal" reported in August 2021 that Jennings was intended to be Alex Trebek's successor, but his social media controversies hurt his standing, with poor ratings from focus groups and Sony executives fearing his selection could cause backlash.


title: Ken Jennings

text: On September 7, 2017, HowStuffWorks unveiled a new show entitled "Omnibus", co-hosted by Jennings and John Roderick, frontman of the indie-rock band The Long Winters. They will pick topics they fear might be lost to history and discuss them.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings has been an active member of the trivia app FleetWit, regularly playing in the live trivia races. As of March 2018, on average, he had answered 89 percent of questions correctly and has won over $2,000.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings competed regularly in LearnedLeague under the name "JenningsK". As of the current season of LearnedLeague (LL95: November 2022), his profile is marked Inactive. Ken's last active season was LL85 (May 2020), where he played in the A Rundle of the Laguna league and finished the season in 5th place. LearnedLeague Season 86 started on August 19, 2020, and Sony announced Ken as the Consulting Producer of Jeopardy on September 3, 2020. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune had halted live taping due to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March 2020 and resumed taping prior to September 2020.


title: Ken Jennings

text: On March 3, 2020, the Washington State Legislature approved Senate Resolution 8704, congratulating Jennings for his achievements on game shows.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings agreed to a deal with Microsoft to promote its "Encarta" encyclopedia software (which was later discontinued). He is also engaged in speaking deals through the Massachusetts-based speakers' agency American Program Bureau. In 2005, Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) featured Jennings in commercials portraying him as having lots of "friends and family" (coming out of the woodwork).


title: Ken Jennings

text: University Games produced a "Can You Beat Ken?" board game, in which players vie against each other and Jennings in an attempt to earn $2.6 million first. Each question in the game was asked to Jennings, and his answers, both correct and incorrect, are recorded on the cards.


title: Ken Jennings

text: Jennings and his wife Mindy have a son, Dylan, born November 22, 2002, and a daughter, Caitlin, born November 13, 2006.


title: Ken Jennings

text: During his "Jeopardy!" winning streak, Jennings was a software engineer for CHG Healthcare Services, a healthcare-placement firm in Holladay, Utah.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: My Cousin Vinny is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Lynn, and written by Dale Launer, who also produced with Paul Schiff. The film stars Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, Mitchell Whitfield, Lane Smith, Bruce McGill, and Fred Gwynne (in his final film appearance). The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox and released on March 13, 1992.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama are arrested and put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and a cousin, Vinny Gambini, a lawyer who had only recently passed the bar exam after five unsuccessful attempts, defends them. Much of the humor comes from the fish-out-of-water interaction between the brash Italian-American New Yorkers (Vinny and his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito) and the more reserved Southern townspeople. The principal location of filming was Monticello, Georgia.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: "My Cousin Vinny" was a critical and financial success, with Pesci, Gwynne, and Tomei praised for their performances. Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Attorneys have also lauded the film for its accurate depiction of criminal procedure and trial strategy.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Driving through Alabama in their metallic mint-green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, college students from New York who just got scholarships to UCLA, shop at a Sac-O-Suds convenience store and accidentally shoplift a can of tuna. After they leave, the store clerk is robbed and killed, and Bill and Stan are arrested for the murder. Due to circumstantial evidence and a confession to the shoplifting that is misconstrued as one to the shooting, Bill is charged with first-degree murder and Stan as an accessory. Bill's mother reminds him there is an attorney in the family: his cousin Vinny Gambini. Vinny travels to Alabama, accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito. Although willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, newly admitted to the bar and with no trial experience.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Vinny manages to fool the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller, that he is experienced enough for the case. His ignorance of basic courtroom procedures and dress code, and his abrasive attitude, cause the judge to repeatedly hold him in contempt. Much to his clients' consternation, Vinny does not cross-examine any of the witnesses in the preliminary hearing. Except for lack of a murder weapon, it appears that the district attorney, Jim Trotter III, has a strong case. After Vinny's poor showing at the hearing, Stan fires him and uses the public defender, John Gibbons, and nearly convinces Bill to do the same. But in questioning the first witness, the public defender turns out to be extremely nervous, with a severe stutter, and his line of questioning actually assists the prosecution's case.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Despite his missteps, Vinny makes up for his inexperience with an aggressive and perceptive questioning style. When he cross-examines the first witness, he uses his newfound knowledge of the cooking time of grits to force him to admit that his perception of time may have been inaccurate, meaning he cannot corroborate the prosecution's timeline, and Bill and Stan's faith is restored. Stan fires the public defender and rehires Vinny, who proceeds to discredit the next two witnesses by questioning their ability to make a positive identification due to obstructions in their sightline and impaired vision.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: On the trial's third day, Trotter produces a surprise witness, FBI analyst George Wilbur. Vinny immediately objects to the witness as Trotter failed to inform him properly ahead of time, but Haller overrules the objection. Wilbur testifies that the pattern and chemical analysis of the tire marks left at the crime scene are identical to the tires on Bill's Buick; in cross-examination Wilbur admits the tires on Bill's car are the most popular tires in America. Haller orders a lunch recess after Wilbur's testimony. Vinny asks for a full day's continuance to properly prepare for cross-examination, but Haller denies the request. With only the lunch recess to prepare and unable to come up with a strong line of questioning, Vinny lashes out at Lisa, but then realizes that one of her photos holds the key to the case: the flat and even tire marks going over the curb reveal that Bill's car could not have been used for the getaway.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: After requesting a records search from the local sheriff, Vinny drags an angry Lisa into court to testify as an expert witness, since she comes from a family of auto mechanics and has an encyclopedic knowledge of cars. During Vinny's questioning, Lisa testifies that only a car with an independent rear suspension and Positraction could have made the tire marks, which rules out Bill's 1964 Buick Skylark. One model of car with these features is the similar-looking 1963 Pontiac Tempest, and because both Buick and Pontiac are owned by GM, the Pontiac Tempest was also available in metallic mint-green. Vinny recalls Wilbur, who confirms this information, effectively discrediting his own testimony. He then recalls the local sheriff, who testifies that two men who fit Bill and Stan's descriptions were just arrested in Georgia for driving a stolen metallic mint green Pontiac Tempest equipped with the same tires as Bill's car, and were in possession of a .357 magnum revolver which was the gun of the same caliber used to kill the clerk. After Vinny rests for the defense, Trotter dismisses all charges. The judge congratulates Vinny and, as they drive away, Vinny and Lisa bicker about their wedding plans.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Screenwriter Dale Launer came up with the idea for "My Cousin Vinny" as a college student, after hearing about a lawyer who had finally passed the bar after their 13th attempt. Launer thought it would be funny to have someone traveling through the Southern United States run into legal trouble and end up being represented by that type of lawyer. Launer did not develop the concept until after he had written a few successful screenplays including "Ruthless People" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels". He was inspired by the comedy of Sam Kinison, particularly his approach with hecklers, in developing Vinny, and he based the relationship between Vinny and his fiancée on two dating friends who would argue frequently. Launer also took a road trip through the south in which he got stuck in the mud and had repairs to fix his car, which became part of the script. He met an assistant district attorney who became the basis of the character of Jim Trotter, including casting Lane Smith for the role. He spent several sessions with an attorney to review the process of legal trials, and learned from him that much of criminal court proceedings aren't taught in law school but come from practice, which worked well to serve for Vinny's character.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: For casting, the studio originally wanted Andrew Dice Clay for Vinny, but this did not work out. Other considerations included Danny DeVito, Peter Falk, Robert De Niro, and Jim Belushi, but save for De Niro, none of these were the Italian American they were looking for. They eventually went with Joe Pesci, who had just finished "Lethal Weapon 2", was finishing filming in "Goodfellas", and was an ideal choice for the role. For Mona Lisa, they had approached Lorraine Bracco and Carole Davis, but both had passed. Director Jonathan Lynn auditioned several other actresses without luck, but found Marisa Tomei when he was invited to the set of "Oscar" by John Landis, where Tomei had a minor part. While Fox wanted an actress with more fame, they agreed to Tomei. Ben Stiller and Will Smith were considered for the roles of Bill and Stan but, in both cases, there was concern related to the incarceration of a Jewish and Black person in the South, and Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield were hired instead.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Exterior filming was done near the town of Greensboro, Georgia, as to keep the film authentic to the South; the exterior shots of the courthouse and the surrounding square were shot in Monticello, Georgia (Jasper County) the courthouse scenes were shot in a set in Covington, Georgia, the same set used for "In the Heat of the Night".


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: With a budget of $11 million, "My Cousin Vinny" was more successful than anticipated, grossing $52,929,168 domestically and $11,159,384 internationally, bringing its overall worldwide total to $64,088,552.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 87%, based on 60 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "The deft comic interplay between Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei helps to elevate "My Cousin Vinny" predictable script, and the result is a sharp, hilarious courtroom comedy." On Metacritic the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Roger Ebert of "The Chicago-Sun Times" gave "My Cousin Vinny" 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. He declared that despite Macchio's co-star billing the actor was given little to do, and the film seemed adrift until "lightning strikes" with the final courtroom scenes when Gwynne, Pesci and Tomei all gave humorous performances. Ebert's television partner, Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune", liked the film more, singling out Dale Launer's screenplay for praise.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Despite the good-but-not-great initial reviews, "My Cousin Vinny" is generally considered to have held up as one of the most remembered and watched movies of 1992. The movie performed well in home video sales and rentals (originally VHS, and eventually DVD) and received frequent play on cable television. The film's catchier quotes became well-known as well.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: One element that aged somewhat awkwardly was Austin Pendleton's role as a stuttering and ineffective public defender. Pendleton suffered from stuttering in his childhood before overcoming it; during filming he did not enjoy dredging up bad memories from his teenage years and, afterward, he was not pleased to be publicly associated with the character. In a 2022 interview, he said that he felt the role nearly ended his career, and, after receiving angry letters from stutterers, said he regretted agreeing to perform the role at all. Casting director David Rubin said that Pendleton's scenes, while funny, probably would have been changed significantly in a newer movie.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and lawyers have praised the accuracy of "My Cousin Vinny"s depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy, with one stating that "[t]he movie is close to reality even in its details. Part of why the film has such staying power among lawyers is because, unlike, say, "A Few Good Men", everything that happens in the movie "could" happen—and often "does" happen—at trial". One legal textbook discusses the film in detail as an "entertaining [and] extremely helpful introduction to the art of presenting expert witnesses at trial for both beginning experts and litigators"; furthermore, criminal defenders, law professors, and other lawyers use the film to demonstrate rules of evidence, voir dire, relevance, and cross examination.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: In "Ten Things Every Trial Lawyer Could Learn From Vincent La Guardia Gambini", District of South Carolina judge Joseph F. Anderson praised Vinny's courtroom methods as "a textbook example" of Irving Younger's "Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination", and wrote that the film predicted the 1999 "Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael" ruling on the "Daubert" standard. He concluded that Lynn and scriptwriter Dale Launer "have given our profession a wonderful teaching tool while producing a gem of a movie that gives the public at large renewed faith in the common law trial and the adversarial system as the best way to determine the truth and achieve justice". In a 2019 decision, Merrick Garland, then the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, wrote "In 1992, Vincent Gambini taught a master class in cross-examination.", and further extensively quoted from a cross-examination scene in the film.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: John Marshall Law School professor Alberto Bernabe wrote that "Vinny is terrible at the things we do teach in law school, but very good at the things we don't":


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited "My Cousin Vinny" as an example of the principle that a client can choose his own lawyer, but United States Senator John Kennedy told District Court nominee Matthew S. Petersen that having seen the film did not qualify one to be a federal judge during his failed 2017 confirmation hearing. The authors of "Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies" (2006) gave the film its highest rating along with several films based on real trials, such as "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "Breaker Morant". In 2008 the "ABA Journal" ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies", and in 2010 ranked Pesci's character as #12 on its list of "The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)".


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Lynn, an opponent of capital punishment, believes that the film expresses an anti-death penalty message without "preaching to people", and demonstrates the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Lawyers find the film appealing, according to the director, because "there aren't any bad guys", with the judge, prosecutor, and Vinny all seeking justice. Lynn stated that both he and Launer attempted to accurately depict the legal process in "Vinny", favorably comparing it to "Trial and Error", for which he could not make what he believed were necessary changes.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: In an interview on March 14, 2012, the film's screenwriter, Dale Launer, talked about a sequel he had written involving Vinny Gambini practicing law in England. Marisa Tomei dropped out. The studio hired another screenwriter to rework the script without Tomei's character. Eventually, the project was shelved.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: In 2017, author Lawrence Kelter began a "My Cousin Vinny" novel series with "Back to Brooklyn", which is intended to be in the spirit of "The Thin Man" series. With the setting updated to contemporary times, the series depicts the further cases of Vinny Gambini with Mona Lisa operating as his investigator. After additionally writing a novelization of "My Cousin Vinny" alongside the first sequel, a third book, titled "Wing and a Prayer", was published in August 2020.


title: My Cousin Vinny

text: Pesci reprised the Vinny Gambini character for his 1998 album "Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You", which contains the song "Yo, Cousin Vinny". The album cover portrays Pesci in a red suit similar to the usher suit he wore in the film.


title: Times Square

text: Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square, Times Square is a bowtie-shaped space five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.


title: Times Square

text: Brightly lit at all hours by numerous digital billboards and advertisements as well as businesses offering 24/7 service, Times Square is sometimes referred to as "the Crossroads of the World", "the Center of the Universe", "the heart of the Great White Way", “the Center of the Entertainment Universe”, and "the heart of the world".


title: Times Square

text: One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days. The Times Square-42nd Street station has consistently ranked as the busiest in the New York City Subway system, transporting more than 200,000 passengers daily.


title: Times Square

text: Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after "The New York Times" moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year, in addition to a worldwide audience of one billion or more on various digital media platforms.


title: Times Square

text: Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is also the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States for motorized vehicles.


title: Times Square

text: Times Square functions as a town square, but is not geometrically a square; it is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway. The area is bounded by West 42nd street, West 47th street, 7th Avenue, and Broadway. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and that intersection creates the "bowtie" shape of Times Square.


title: Times Square

text: Times Square is the official name of the southern triangle, below 45th Street, but the northern triangle is officially Duffy Square. It was dedicated in 1937 to World War I chaplain Father Francis P. Duffy of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment, and is the site of a memorial to him. There is also a statue of composer and entertainer George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount ticket booth for Broadway and off-Broadway theaters.


title: Times Square

text: When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch colonists, three small streams united near what is now the intersection of 10th Avenue and 40th Street. These three streams formed the "Great Kill" (Dutch: "Grote Kil"). From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl, and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.


title: Times Square

text: Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.


title: Times Square

text: By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's horse carriage industry. The locality had not previously been given a name, and city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the horse and carriage trade was centered in that city. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there. In 1910, it became the Winter Garden Theatre.


title: Times Square

text: As more profitable commerce and industrialization of Lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Longacre Square became nicknamed the "Thieves Lair" for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. According to "Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898", "By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons."


title: Times Square

text: In 1904, "New York Times" publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Longacre Square, on the site of the former Pabst Hotel, which had existed on the site for less than a decade since it opened in November 1899. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The north end later became Duffy Square, and the former Horse Exchange became the Winter Garden Theatre, constructed in 1911.


title: Times Square

text: "The New York Times" moved to more spacious offices one block west of the square in 1913 and sold the building in 1961. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building in 1963. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Year's Eve.


title: Times Square

text: In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway (at the southeast corner of Times Square) to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway. This was the first road across the United States, which originally ran coast to coast through 13 states to its western terminus in Lincoln Park in San Francisco.


title: Times Square

text: Times Square grew dramatically after World War I. It became a cultural hub full of theatres, music halls, and upscale hotels.


title: Times Square

text: Advertising also grew significantly in the 1920s, growing from $25 million to $85 million over the decade. For example, the Wrigley Spearmint Gum sign, possibly the biggest electric sign "in the world," cost $9,000 per month to rent. Some contemporary critics, such as Thorstein Veblen and G. K. Chesterton, disliked the advertising at Times Square. Fritz Lang, after seeing Times Square in 1923, used it as inspiration for his dark industrial film "Metropolis".


title: Times Square

text: Entertainment icons such as Irving Berlin, Charlie Chaplin, and Fred Astaire were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. However, it was also during this period that the area began to be besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.


title: Times Square

text: The general atmosphere of Times Square changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s. City residents moved uptown to cheaper neighborhoods, and many popular theaters closed, replaced by saloons, brothels, "burlesque halls, vaudeville stages, and dime houses". The area acquired a reputation as a dangerous and seedy neighborhood in the following decades.


title: Times Square

text: Nevertheless, Times Square continued to be the site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve. The ball drop was placed on hiatus for New Year's Eve in 1942 and 1943 due to lighting restrictions during World War II. Instead, a moment of silence was observed at midnight in Times Square, accompanied by the sound of chimes played from sound trucks.


title: Times Square

text: On May 8, 1945, a massive crowd celebrated Victory in Europe Day in Times Square; and on August 15, 1945, the largest crowd in the history of Times Square gathered to celebrate Victory over Japan Day. The victory itself was announced by a headline on the "zipper" news ticker at One Times Square, which read "OFFICIAL *** TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER ***


title: Times Square

text: From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the seediness of the area, especially due to its go-go bars, sex shops, peep shows, and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline. As early as 1960, 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues was described by "The New York Times" as "the 'worst' [block] in town". Later that decade, Times Square was depicted in "Midnight Cowboy" as gritty, depraved, and desperate. Conditions only worsened in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the crime in the rest of the city. In the mid-1980s, the area bounded by 40th and 50th Streets and Seventh and Ninth Avenues saw over 15,000 crime complaints per year. The block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues had 2,300 crimes per year in 1984, of which one-fifth were felonies.


title: Times Square

text: In this era, formerly elegant movie theaters began to show porn, and hustlers were common. The area was so abandoned at one point during the time that the entire Times Square area paid the city only $6 million in property taxes (about $ million in ).