title: Josh Hawley

text: Several political donors and companies associated with Hawley have cut off financial ties. David Humphreys, who with his mother and sister donated more than $6 million to Hawley's campaigns, called for him to be censured, having "revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold." On January 7, Simon & Schuster canceled its planned publication of Hawley's book "The Tyranny of Big Tech", saying it "cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat"; the book was later picked up by Regnery Publishing, which frequently publishes books by conservative authors. On January 11, several companies, including Airbnb, American Express, AT&T, Best Buy, Dow Inc., and Mastercard, announced they would end fundraising for all Republicans who objected to Biden's victory, including Hawley; Hallmark Cards, based in Kansas City, said it had asked Hawley and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas to return all contributions. Conversely, the Senate Conservatives Fund, a conservative political action committee, began raising money for Hawley and aggressively supporting him following the riot, raising $700,000 and spending nearly $400,000 to send texts and emails in support of him. A group of former Claire McCaskill staffers created a political action committee aimed at unseating Hawley with the backronym JOSH PAC (Just Oust Seditious Hacks).


title: Josh Hawley

text: On January 21, seven Democratic senators filed a complaint against Hawley and Cruz to the Senate Ethics Committee, arguing that they "lent legitimacy to the mob's cause and made future violence more likely." Hawley called the complaint "a flagrant abuse of the Senate ethics process and a flagrant attempt to exact partisan revenge". In response, Hawley filed an ethics complaint of his own against the seven senators, alleging their complaint was unethical due to potential coordination with Democratic Party leadership and claiming that he was a victim of cancel culture.


title: Josh Hawley

text: After the storming of the Capitol, several people sent disparaging messages intended for Hawley to Representative Josh Harder, a California Democrat, as they had confused the two due to their names' similarity.


title: Josh Hawley

text: On July 21, 2022, the House Select Committee broadcast video footage of Hawley running through the halls of Congress to escape the mob on January 6, contrasting it with his earlier fist-raised encouragement of the crowd. The video provoked laughter in the chamber and commentary on social media that included "Run Josh Run" (Dan Rather) and "Josh Hawley running away to a variety of soundtracks."


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley's political views have been described as nationalist and populist. He has been called a Trump loyalist.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley opposes abortion and has called for the appointment of "constitutionalist, pro-life judges" to the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. He has called "Roe v. Wade" "one of the most unjust decisions" in American judicial history. Missouri's Right to Life PAC endorsed Hawley for Senate. In July 2020, Hawley said he would not support any Supreme Court nominee who did not explicitly say that they would vote to overturn "Roe v. Wade". In October 2020, Hawley voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett, who had not said she would overturn "Roe".


title: Josh Hawley

text: During early negotiations on COVID-19 relief spending, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a partial rebate for around 70 million households with net incomes below about $50,000. His proposal faced "swift bipartisan opposition", including from Hawley, leading the restrictions to be dropped.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In April 2020, Hawley proposed that the U.S. government pay businesses to keep their workers on payroll for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and rehire any workers who had already been laid off. His proposal was similar to programs that various European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK, had implemented.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In December 2020, Hawley teamed up with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, to demand that any new stimulus deal include direct payments of at least $1,200 to American workers. As leverage, Hawley and Sanders used the upcoming Christmas recess and the deadline to pass a new continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In June 2021, Hawley called for Anthony Fauci to resign from his role as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.


title: Josh Hawley

text: As Missouri attorney general, Hawley pushed for the deregulation of environmental protections put in place by President Barack Obama, and filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration in an attempt to expedite that process. Hawley acknowledged the irony in his maneuver, saying "it turns out the best way to help President Trump pursue his agenda of rolling back federal overreach is to sue him."


title: Josh Hawley

text: Some of his former colleagues at St Paul's School claimed Hawley was "very hawkish" in his early 20s, supporting the Iraq War in its early stages and at one point making himself popcorn to eat while watching news coverage of the 2003 invasion. While a 25-year-old law student at Yale University, he wrote supportive blog posts of the war in 2005, as well as nation-building in Iraq. At the time, he supported a proactive democracy promotion foreign policy.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Since entering the U.S. Senate, Hawley reoriented himself as a staunch opponent of U.S. wars in the Middle East. Hawley has advocated for the U.S. to shift its focus away from the Middle East and toward China, which he sees as a grave threat to both democracy and national security. He has criticized the ideas of perpetual war and cosmopolitanism, for which he has blamed both the left and right wings, saying that "the quest to turn the world into a liberal order of democracies was always misguided," as it "depended on unsustainable American sacrifice and force of arms." In addition, Hawley has criticized the World Trade Organization, going so far as to call for it to be abolished, which he called "a start", and suggested that "along with it, the new model global economy" should be abolished as well.


title: Josh Hawley

text: During the Biden administration, Hawley systematically blocked quick confirmation of Biden's nominees for foreign policy and intelligence posts, forcing the Senate to take extra steps to confirm nominees and delaying the filling of posts.


title: Josh Hawley

text: After the 2021 fall of Kabul and the 2021 Kabul airport attack, Hawley was one in "a wave of other Republicans" who called on President Joe Biden to resign.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley is an outspoken critic of China, which he has called "the greatest security threat to this country in this century." He has said the U.S.'s goal should not be "to remake China from within" but rather "to deny Beijing's ability to impose its will without, whether it be upon Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or our allies and partners, or upon us."


title: Josh Hawley

text: In October 2019, Hawley co-sponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Before the bill went to the House of Representatives, he visited Hong Kong to see the protests. He commented on Twitter that Beijing was trying to turn Hong Kong into a "police state". Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam called the comment "irresponsible". On November 19, 2019, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the act.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley has worked to create legislation that would prohibit data transmission to a set of blacklisted nations, including China.


title: Josh Hawley

text: On July 10, 2020, Hawley sent a letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver criticizing the league for allowing players to put messages on their jerseys supporting the Black Lives Matter movement but not the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests or law enforcement officers. To promote the letter, Hawley's press office emailed it along with an announcement to several NBA reporters, including ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski. Wojnarowski responded "Fuck You." Hawley then tweeted a screenshot of Wojnarowski's response; Wojnarowski subsequently apologized to Hawley directly and posted an apology on Twitter. On July 12, ESPN temporarily suspended Wojnarowski over the incident. On September 23, 2020, Hawley once again criticized Silver for the NBA's business in China, tweeting, "Adam Silver just comes right out and says it: NBA's relationship with China involves 'trade offs' but overall is a 'net positive.' And by 'net positive,' he means billions of dollars for the NBA and by 'trade offs,' he means slave labor."


title: Josh Hawley

text: During his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley's press office sent out an email criticizing Claire McCaskill for supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, writing, "We should be standing with President Trump and Israel today. If you aren't, you are standing with the mullahs and John Kerry. Sen. McCaskill needs to make it clear that she stands with President Trump and Israel, and not the mullahs."


title: Josh Hawley

text: On July 16, 2019, at the National Conservatism Conference, organized by Israeli professor Yoram Hazony, Hawley said:


title: Josh Hawley

text: In his address, Hawley also denounced the "cosmopolitan agenda", the "cosmopolitan class", the "cosmopolitan consensus", the "cosmopolitan economy", and the "cosmopolitan elite". His statement was called antisemitic by several political commentators and Jewish leaders, as well as by the Anti-Defamation League, which called for Hawley to apologize. "The Jewish Telegraphic Agency" specifically compared Hawley's reference to "cosmopolitan elites" to the term "rootless cosmopolitan", an antisemitic smear popularized by Joseph Stalin and also used by Nazis. Andrew Silow-Carroll wrote for "J. The Jewish News of Northern California" that Hawley was using his connections with Jewish people as a way to dodge allegations of antisemitism. In response to the allegations, Hawley tweeted, "The liberal language police have lost their minds." Hazony and the Republican Jewish Coalition defended Hawley's remarks.


title: Josh Hawley

text: On October 21, 2019, Hawley attacked Jewish "Washington Post" reporter Greg Sargent as a "smug, rich liberal elitist"; Sargent responded in a column that he was in fact raised in poverty. Mehdi Hasan argued Hawley's attack was antisemitic, though Sargent did not make that claim.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley's views on morality and Christianity's role in government have been criticized as theocratic. Hawley has said that "Scripture teaches that political government is mandated by God for his service and is one means by which the enthroned Christ carries out his rule... Government serves Christ's kingdom rule; this is its purpose. And Christians' purpose in politics should be to advance the kingdom of God—to make it more real, more tangible, more present." He has described as "heresy" the idea that people should be free to "choose your own meaning, define your own values, emancipate yourself from God by creating your own self". Journalist Katherine Stewart argued in "The New York Times" that Hawley was a Christian nationalist, and that his attempts to overturn the election were motivated by a desire to save the country from liberalism and hedonism. An article on Hawley by author Ian Millhiser is titled "the one man most likely to turn the U.S. into a theocracy".


title: Josh Hawley

text: In July 2019, Hawley traveled to McAllen, Texas, along the Mexico–United States border, saying, "the nonstop flow of drugs and human trafficking coming into this country is a crisis, plain and simple. I want to learn more about the challenges our agents face, the problems these local communities are dealing with, and how we can figure out a path forward. We are facing a surge at the southern border like we have never seen before, and Congress needs to get off its backside and act."


title: Josh Hawley

text: On November 6, 2019, Hawley recommend that the U.S. impose sanctions and freeze assets of Mexican officials he did not feel were doing enough to address Mexican drug cartels.


title: Josh Hawley

text: On January 19, 2021, Hawley blocked the quick confirmation of Department of Homeland Security secretary nominee Alejandro Mayorkas after Mayorkas would not commit to spending $1.4 billion the U.S. government had appropriated for a border wall expansion.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In January 2019, Hawley was one of 11 Republican senators to vote for legislation aimed at blocking Trump's intended lifting of sanctions on three Russian companies.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In July 2020, Hawley said he did not believe news reports about a Russian bounty program funding the Taliban, but still said, "if they so much as think about putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers, there will be punishment."


title: Josh Hawley

text: In January 2022, Hawley called on Biden to drop support of plans for Ukraine to eventually join NATO, on the basis that committing troops to defend Ukraine would undermine America's ability to prevent Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.


title: Josh Hawley

text: During a debate with Claire McCaskill in his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley and McCaskill agreed that if it was confirmed that the Saudi government was behind the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S. should respond severely.


title: Josh Hawley

text: After the 2019 Abqaiq–Khurais attack, Hawley said, "we shouldn't attack anybody on behalf of Saudi Arabia for Saudi Arabia's national interests" and instead should "preserve the security of the American people and the prosperity of our middle class."


title: Josh Hawley

text: In October 2019, Hawley called for an independent investigation into Joe Biden related to alleged dealings with Ukraine. He defended Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and criticized Trump's first impeachment, saying Trump's words were "certainly not a crime". During the impeachment trial, Hawley said if additional witnesses were called and new documents considered, he would attempt to force votes on subpoenas for Michael Atkinson, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Adam Schiff, the anonymous whistleblower and a reported acquaintance of the whistleblower.


title: Josh Hawley

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hawley was one of 11 Republican senators to vote against a $40 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine that the U.S. Senate passed on May 19, 2022. The measure had overwhelming bipartisan approval. Hawley wrote that the bill "is not in America's interests", adding, "It neglects priorities at home (the border), allows Europe to freeload, short changes critical interests abroad and comes w/ no meaningful oversight."


title: Josh Hawley

text: On April 3, 2019, Hawley was part of a group of eight Republicans and seven Democrats to sponsor the Venezuelan Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development (VERDAD) Act, which was aimed at recognizing Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela rather than Nicolás Maduro. The bill would provide $200 million in aid for Venezuela, $200 million in aid for neighboring countries accepting Venezuelan refugees, revoke U.S. visas from sanctioned Venezuelan officials, and remove sanctions on officials not accused of human rights abuses who recognized Guaidó.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley received a 93 percent rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for 2018 and an 86 percent rating for 2016. He does not support an assault weapons ban, but does support some gun-control measures, including strengthening background checks, banning bump stocks, and banning mentally ill people from having guns. During his Senate campaign, Hawley used National Media as a media consultant, the same firm the NRA employs.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley was one of six Republican senators to vote against advancing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would allow the U.S. Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID-19 and establish an online database. He was the sole senator to vote against the passage of an amended version of the act that would help investigate anti-Asian hate crimes, saying, "It's too broad. As a former prosecutor, my view is it's dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents."


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley has criticized the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). As attorney general of Missouri, he joined a lawsuit with 20 other states seeking to have it declared unconstitutional. Hawley said the act "was never constitutional", and spoke proudly of his involvement in the lawsuit. Hawley's 2018 Senate campaign said that he supported protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. He later published an op-ed in the "Springfield News-Leader" saying that he supports protecting those with preexisting conditions by creating a taxpayer subsidy to reimburse insurance companies for covering these high cost patients.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley has said that human trafficking is the result of the American sexual revolution in the 1960s due to the social encouragement of premarital sex and the use of contraception. After being criticized for these statements, he said that Hollywood culture was a major cause of human trafficking. Hawley has said that the appropriate place for sex is "within marriage".


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley supports funding the construction of a wall along the southern border to stop illegal immigration.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley supported the Trump administration's family separation policy, saying "It is an entirely preventable tragedy. Don't cross the border illegally and this won't happen."


title: Josh Hawley

text: In his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley did not take a firm position on right-to-work legislation that was subject to a referendum by Missouri voters at the time. His spokesperson said of right-to-work, which would hamper labor unionizing, that "nobody should be forced to pay union dues."


title: Josh Hawley

text: Also in 2018, Hawley expressed opposition to a raise in the Missouri minimum wage from $7.85/hour to $8.60 in 2019 and $12 by 2023.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In December 2015, Hawley supported exemptions for Missouri "businesses and religious groups from participating in same-sex ... marriage ceremonies".


title: Josh Hawley

text: In June 2020, after the Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Hawley criticized the decision, saying it "represents the end of the conservative legal movement".


title: Josh Hawley

text: In May 2022 Hawley said he would be "shocked" if "Obergefell v. Hodges", the Supreme Court decision ruling same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, were overturned, calling it "settled law". Nevertheless, he stated his opposition to the decision.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley is known for his criticism of Big Tech and social media companies and has often broken with other Republicans in his support for regulation of Internet companies. He cosponsored Do Not Track legislation with Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Mark Warner. His book "The Tyranny of Big Tech" was published in May 2021. According to Gilad Edelman of "Wired", the book "raises valid concerns about the technology industry, and he proposes solutions worth taking seriously. But he embeds these ideas in a broader argument that is so wildly misleading as to call the entire project into question." Edelman writes that Hawley distorts the history of anti-trust in the United States, inaccurately portraying early-20th-century antitrust efforts and completely ignoring conservative opposition to antitrust enforcement since the 1970s.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In August 2019, Hawley introduced the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, which would ban features, such as infinite scrolling and auto-play, that he says encourage internet addiction. Per the bill, users would be unable to use a platform for more than 30 minutes per day unless they manually change the settings once a month.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In March 2020, Hawley and several other senators proposed the "No TikTok on Government Devices Act", which would prevent federal employees from downloading the app. Previously, Hawley had called the app "a Chinese-owned social media platform so popular among teens that Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly spooked".


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley has criticized Section 230, and has proposed legislation that would regard Internet access as a privilege rather than a right. His proposal faced bipartisan criticism as "poorly drafted, imprecise, and fatally vague."


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley supported Trump's imposition of trade tariffs, saying he hoped the tariffs would be temporary, eventually resulting in lower tariffs on U.S. agriculture than before the trade battles. In September 2018, he fully supported Trump's trade actions, saying, "It's a trade war that China started. If we're in a war, I want to be winning it."


title: Josh Hawley

text: On May 5, 2020, Hawley wrote an op-ed in "The New York Times" calling for the abolition of the World Trade Organization, arguing it did not serve American interests and "enabled the rise of China." Shortly afterward, he introduced a resolution to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO.


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley has been characterized as a Trump loyalist. He voted to acquit Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial and accused Democrats of having abused the Constitution by starting the impeachment inquiry, declaring that it was "the first purely partisan impeachment in our history". The day after the Republican-held Senate acquitted Trump, Trump praised Hawley as having played a key role in his acquittal.


title: Josh Hawley

text: The "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" published an editorial blasting Hawley and Senator Roy Blunt for not distancing themselves from the January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and their continued support for Trump. Both senators voted to acquit in Trump's second impeachment trial. During Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate, Hawley was in the Senate gallery rather than at his desk with the rest of the senators on the Senate floor. An NBC News reporter tweeted that Hawley could be seen "sitting up in the gallery with his feet up on the seat in front of him, reviewing paperwork". Later accused of ignoring the proceedings, Hawley called them "a total kangaroo trial".


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley's first commercial in the 2018 Senate campaign focused on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he supported. After Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, Hawley staunchly defended him and said that Democrats had staged an "ambush".


title: Josh Hawley

text: Hawley was sharply critical of Ketanji Brown Jackson's 2022 nomination to the Supreme Court, saying her tenure as a judge and member of the United States Sentencing Commission showed a "pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes". Multiple news media fact-checks disagreed with Hawley's assertions. Conservative former prosecutor and commenter Andrew C. McCarthy wrote, "The allegation appears meritless to the point of demagoguery." Hawley and other Republican senators focused on the charges during Jackson's confirmation hearings, which fueled right-wing conspiracy and QAnon theories.


title: Josh Hawley

text: On September 9, 2020, Trump announced that Hawley, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton were on his shortlist for nominations to the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur. Hawley expressed his appreciation but declined the offer, saying, "Missourians elected me to fight for them in the Senate". After Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, Trump instead nominated Amy Coney Barrett on September 29.


title: Josh Hawley

text: In 2010, Hawley married Erin Morrow, an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri. The couple have three children. Following complaints that, after becoming attorney general, he was not abiding by a statutory requirement that the attorney general must reside within the city limits of the state capital (Jefferson City), Hawley began renting an apartment there, while his family continued to live in Columbia, Missouri. The Hawleys own a house in Vienna, Virginia, which they bought in 2019 after Hawley was elected to the U.S. Senate, after selling their Columbia home. Hawley's voter registration has his sister's address in Ozark, Missouri so that he can be eligible to run again for Missouri's U.S. Senate seat.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Michelle Lynn Shupack, better known as Michelle Visage (born September 20, 1968), is an American singer, television host, actress, radio DJ and producer. She first gained recognition as a member of the musical group Seduction which charted five singles on the "Billboard" Hot 100. She later served as lead vocalist of another group The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. which reached the top of the dance charts with the single "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day" in 1993. In 2011, she joined the American reality competition series "RuPaul's Drag Race", and has served as a permanent judge since season three. She is also a permanent judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars", "RuPaul's Drag Race UK", and "RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under". Visage has won 3 Primetime Emmy Awards as a producer of "RuPaul's Drag Race".


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage grew up in New Jersey. She was adopted and was aware of this from an early age. She attended South Plainfield High School in South Plainfield, New Jersey, graduating in 1986. When Visage was 16, she won a Madonna lookalike competition. She then moved to New York and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan for two years. Growing up, Visage looked up to Madonna, Belinda Carlisle, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper and Dale Bozzio. Visage's mother died when she was 30. After finishing her studies she stayed in New York City to pursue a career as an actress.


title: Michelle Visage

text: In New York she was active in the club scene and her mother, Arlene, even gave her a fake ID so she could make connections to help further her career. Visage became prominent in the New York drag ball scene and learned voguing from various people including Willi Ninja. She also became involved with Cesar Valentino and the pair appeared voguing together on the television show "The Latin Connection" in 1988, which they said was the first time voguing had appeared on national TV.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Michelle adopted her surname, Visage, after gaining the nickname ""cara"" ("face" in Spanish) from the people she spent time with in the New York ball scene. However, because people pronounced it incorrectly she decided to change it to ""visage"" ("face" in French - a language she studied during middle and high school), a name she has stuck with. Visage also met her future friend and co-star RuPaul for the first time in the late 1980s, when she attended club nights and parties hosted by Susanne Bartsch. In 1989, Visage performed at "The Love Ball", which was organized by Bartsch as a benefit for the Design Industries Foundation For AIDS. It is said that The Love Ball is where Madonna first witnessed voguing, the inspiration for her song "Vogue". During the day she worked as a receptionist at the shop Casablanca and Fundamental Things in the New York garment district.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage auditioned and won a place for Seduction, an R&B and dance vocal trio assembled by Robert Clivilles and David Cole that signed with A&M Records in 1990. The group had several hits, the most famous being "Two to Make It Right". After the group's breakup, Visage collaborated with the freestyle dance act TKA as a guest vocalist on the song "Crash (Have Some Fun)". Visage provided lead vocals and was the recording artist of another dance act assembled by Clivilles and Cole, The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. The song "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day", which was a cover version of the Bill Withers song "Lovely Day", was included on the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard". "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day" became a number-one dance single and peaked at number 34 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in January 1993.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage has also been featured on several of RuPaul's music albums, and appears in the music videos for "New York City Beat" and "From Your Heart", which originally premiered on "RuPaul's Green Screen Christmas Special" (2015), and were later uploaded to World of Wonder's YouTube channel. Visage has also made guest appearances in the videos for RuPaul's songs "Glamazon", "Responsitrannity", "The Beginning" and "Nothing for Christmas".


title: Michelle Visage

text: In February 2021, it was confirmed that Visage had teamed up with Steps on a reworked version of "Heartbreak In This City".


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage was the co-host of the morning show on WKTU in NYC from 1996 to 2002 where she and co-host RuPaul started working together professionally. When RuPaul left radio, Visage continued on to many morning shows including: Hot 92 Jamz (KHHT) in Los Angeles between 2002 and 2005. In 2005, Visage returned to New York City, where she served as co-host of "The Morning Mix" on WNEW-FM until December 2006. She also hosted on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Beat 66 from 2003 to 2006 On March 12, 2007, she became a co-host of the morning show on SUNNY 104.3 in West Palm Beach, Florida. On January 10, 2011, she joined 93.9 MIA in Miami as the host of the new "MIA Morning Show". She left Miami and MIA in December 2011, moving back to Los Angeles.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage started co-hosting the weekly podcast "" on April 9, 2014. The pair interview celebrities and discuss many topics ranging from their personal lives to "RuPaul's Drag Race". The podcast won a 2018 Webby Award. Visage also presented "Michelle Visage's Fabulous Divas" on BBC Radio 2, with episodes broadcast in December 2019 and August 2020. In October and November 2020, she covered for Rylan Clark-Neal on his BBC Radio 2 show and in February 2022 she covered for Dermot O'Leary on his Saturday weekend breakfast show. As of 15 July 2022, she has begun presenting her own show each Friday night from 7 until 9pm on BBC Radio 2.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage has worked with RuPaul on a variety of television shows throughout her career. In 1996, she became the co-host of RuPaul's VH1 talk show "The RuPaul Show". She also co-hosted WKTU's morning show with RuPaul from 1996 to 2002. And when Ru began casting judges for season one of "RuPaul's Drag Race" he invited Visage to become a permanent member of the show. At the time she was on a five-year contract with a CBS radio station in West Palm Beach and after asking her boss if she could join the show he said no, which Visage put down to the show's links with the LGBT community.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Two years later Visage was contacted by RuPaul again and invited to appear on season three of the show. After her boss once again said she was not able to appear, she was persuaded by her friend Leah Remini to contact CBS officials who allowed her to join the show as a judge. So on January 24, 2011, Visage debuted as a permanent judge, along with Santino Rice and Billy B, on season three of "RuPaul's Drag Race", replacing Merle Ginsberg. She has also appeared on all seven seasons of the spin-off show, "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars".


title: Michelle Visage

text: In 2019, she received her first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Program, having been a producer of "Drag Race" since its eleventh season. That same year she became a judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race UK", which airs on BBC Three. In 2021, Visage served as a judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under".


title: Michelle Visage

text: On January 7, 2015, Visage became one of the contestants on the fifteenth series of the British reality series "Celebrity Big Brother" on Channel 5. On February 6, 2015, Visage left the house in fifth place. Since leaving the house she has appeared on some episodes of "Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side", a companion show that airs straight after "Celebrity Big Brother".


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage has made several other TV appearances including hosting VH1's red carpet coverage of the 1998 Grammys and in 2002, "Grease" 25th-anniversary re-release party. On May 13, 2017, she and Ross Mathews were the commentators for Logo TV's coverage of the Live Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. More recently she has appeared as a judge on the first two seasons of "Ireland's Got Talent", the first of which began airing on TV3 in February 2018. And in 2020, Visage joined fellow "Ireland's Got Talent" judge Louis Walsh on the judging panel of teen recycled-fashion competition "Junk Kouture". She appeared on the televised Grand Final in February 2021, after the plans for the original live Grand Final were scuppered by COVID-19.


title: Michelle Visage

text: On August 5, 2019, it was announced that Visage would be taking part in the seventeenth series of "Strictly Come Dancing" in the UK on BBC. On September 7, it was confirmed that she was partnered with Giovanni Pernice.


title: Michelle Visage

text: Visage performed in her West End debut as "Miss Hedge" in "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" between October 18, 2018, and January 26, 2019.


title: Michelle Visage

text: In her early years, Visage suffered from anorexia, an eating disorder which she says began when she was around 13 years old and continued into her adult life. Visage is vegan.


title: Michelle Visage

text: She lives in California with her husband, David Case, and her two daughters. On November 10, 2015, she published her first book, "The Diva Rules".


title: Michelle Visage

text: On Episode 214 of "What's the Tee?", her podcast with RuPaul, Visage said that as an adult, she has had sex with both men and women. "I've been with women; I've had sex with women... But I realized I never wanted to have a relationship [with them]."


title: Michelle Visage

text: In April 2019, Visage revealed she had Hashimoto's disease, which led to getting her trademark breast implants removed.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: The Amazing World of Gumball is an animated sitcom created by Ben Bocquelet for Cartoon Network. The series concerns the lives of 12-year-old Gumball Watterson, an anthropomorphic blue cat, and adoptive goldfish brother Darwin, who attend middle school in the fictional city of Elmore, California. They often find themselves in various shenanigans around the city, during which they interact with fellow family members—younger sister Anais, mother Nicole, and father Richard—and an extended supporting cast of characters.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: Bocquelet based several of the series' characters on rejected characters from his previous commercial work while making its premise a mixture of "family shows and school shows", which Cartoon Network was heavily interested in. After Bocquelet pitched "The Amazing World of Gumball" to the network, Turner Broadcasting executive Daniel Lennard green-lit the production of the series. The show was produced by Cartoon Network Studios Europe, in association with Boulder Media (Ireland; season 1) and Studio Soi (Germany; seasons 2–6).


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: "Gumball" is noted for its intentional stylistic disunity, with characters designed, filmed, and animated using various styles and techniques, oftentimes within the same scene (stylized traditional animation, puppetry, CGI, stop motion, Flash animation, live-action, etc.). The series has received critical acclaim and developed a cult following, with particular praises for its extensive references to popular culture and internet culture, sarcasm, subtle innuendos, dark humor, and metahumor. Although it is a children's series, "Gumball" comments on topics that are often considered serious or mature, including philosophy, marriage, cyberbullying, political intolerance, mental illness, and the human condition.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On September 6, 2016, Bocquelet announced the series would end after season 6; he reaffirmed his position on Twitter in October 2018. However, Turner Northern Europe was unable to confirm the sixth season to be the show's last, which could make way for future episodes. Following the series finale, two miniseries were released: the six-episode "Darwin's Yearbook" in November 2019 and "The Gumball Chronicles" in October 2020. On February 17, 2021, Cartoon Network revealed that a television film based on the series was in development. On September 21, 2021, it was announced that a new spin-off series, to be a follow-up for both the show and the movie, had been greenlit for Cartoon Network and HBO Max alongside the film. On August 22, 2022, it was reported that the film would no longer be heading to HBO Max, but would be shopped to other outlets instead.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: When Cartoon Network Studios Europe was created in 2007, Ben Bocquelet was hired to help people pitch their projects to the network. However, when the studio decided to have its employees all pitch their own ideas, he decided to take some rejected characters he had created for commercials and put them together in one series set inside of a school. Daniel Lennard, vice president of Original Series and Development at Turner Broadcasting System Europe, was impressed by the premise and approved production of the series in 2009. The first series to be produced by Cartoon Network Studios Europe, making the show a British production, thirty-six episodes were produced for its first season in collaboration with Studio Soi, Dublin-based Boulder Media Limited, and Dandelion Studios. On February 17, 2021, the Cartoon Network Twitter account confirmed that a film based on "The Amazing World of Gumball" is in development.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: The series revolves around the life of a 12-year-old cat named Gumball Watterson and his frequent shenanigans in the fictional American city of Elmore, accompanied by his adopted goldfish brother and best friend Darwin. Gumball's other family members—his intellectual sister Anais and stay-at-home father Richard, both rabbits, and workaholic mother Nicole, a cat—often find themselves involved in Gumball's exploits. Gumball attends school with his siblings at Elmore Junior High, where throughout the series he interacts with his various middle school classmates, most prominently his love interest Penny Fitzgerald.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: One prominent feature of the series since its third season is "The Void", a dimension inside of Elmore where all the universe's mistakes reside. This includes references to aspects of reality as well as in-series elements. Rob is a background character from the first two seasons who became trapped in The Void after becoming "irrelevant". He later escapes in Season 3, after which he becomes Gumball's nemesis and main antagonist. He is shown to be aware of his fictional existence in the Season 4 episode "The Disaster", and his hatred towards Gumball is a result of his role as the protagonist.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On September 17, 2015, series creator Ben Bocquelet announced on his Twitter page that a crossover episode with an unknown show would air as part of the fifth season. This turned out to be the episodes, "The Puppets", which features characters and settings from "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared". Additionally, "The Copycats" featured the characters interacting with ones similar to those from "Miracle Star", a Chinese clone of the show.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: "The Boredom" featured characters from "Clarence", "Regular Show", and "Uncle Grandpa" making cameo appearances.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: Gumball made a cameo appearance on the "Uncle Grandpa" episode "Pizza Eve", along with other Cartoon Network characters from currently running and ended cartoons.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: Gumball made a cameo appearance on the "OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes" episode and Cartoon Network special "Crossover Nexus", along with other Cartoon Network characters from currently running and ended cartoons.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: "Waiting for Gumball" is a series of thirteen shorts based on "The Amazing World of Gumball", or more specifically, "The Puppets".


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: A six-episode miniseries called "Darwin's Yearbook" aired on Cartoon Network from December 14 to December 28, 2019. The miniseries features Darwin attempting to complete Elmore Junior High's yearbook by examining who he thinks should fill up the best spot. The miniseries predominantly consists of recycled clips from previous episodes of the original series presented in a clip show style.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: Another series of clip show episodes titled, The "Gumball Chronicles", premiered on October 5, 2020, with "The Curse of Elmore". On November 2, 2020, four more episodes (each beginning with "Vote Gumball...and") themed around the 2020 United States presidential election were aired back-to-back.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: In an interview with "The Times" newspaper, series creator Ben Bocquelet mentioned plans for a feature film based on the series. However, after Bocquelet announced his departure from the show following the sixth season, he stated that he doubted a film would be made.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: In March 2018, Bocquelet's interest in a "Gumball" film was seemingly revitalized as he stated that he "might have a good idea" for a film. He later added that he had two ideas, one for a potential theatrical film and one for a potential direct-to-video film.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On September 29, 2018, during a Q&A with the series director Mic Graves at Cartoon Network UK's 25th-anniversary screening, he confirmed that a script for "The Amazing World of Gumball" film is in the works. He also said that he hopes for the film to happen. Bocquelet retweeted a tweet which states that the script for a film based on "The Amazing World of Gumball" is being written, however, it was then unknown if the film would actually be made. After the season six finale "The Inquisition", was met with mixed reviews from fans of the series due to its cliffhanger ending, Bocquelet stated it was not his choice to conclude the episode that way, adding that it would be resolved if a film based on the series were produced.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On February 17, 2021, WarnerMedia announced that a television film was in development under the working title "The Amazing World of Gumball Movie". On September 21, 2021, Cartoon Network announced that the upcoming film had been greenlit under the title "The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie!", with original series creator Ben Bocquelet serving as director and executive producer. The film would focus on Gumball's biggest fan finding a missing episode from the television show and accidentally opening a portal that connects Gumball's cartoon world to his own. After meeting the characters, they'll join Gumball, Darwin, Anais, Richard, and Nicole in saving Elmore from a nefarious menace looking to overtake the town. It would act as the "epic conclusion" to the original series and establish the world for a new accompanying show with the working title "The Amazing World of Gumball: The Series". On August 22, 2022, the film was announced as one of six projects that will no longer be debuting on the streamer HBO Max, but will instead be shopped at a different outlet. Bocquelet later said in a September 1, 2022 tweet, that the film's fate is "a bit of a Schrödinger's cat question". He still expressed hope that the film will continue at some point. On December 13, 2022, the LinkedIn page of "The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe" series producer Emma Fernando confirmed that she will be the series producer of "The Amazing World of Gumball"s seventh season.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: The first two seasons were released on Cartoon Network channels in over 126 countries, with the third season rolling out through 2014.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: The show aired on Boomerang from December 1, 2014, to October 23, 2015, its second run from February 1, 2016, to April 2, 2017, and its third run since May 2, 2022.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: "The Amazing World of Gumball" received critical acclaim. In a favorable review, Brian Lowry of "Variety" described the series as "mostly a really clever spin on domestic chaos" and "first-rate silliness." Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" was also positive, writing: "There are few examples of mainstream children's programming as wildly imaginative, as visually and narratively daring, as "The Amazing World of Gumball"."


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: "The A.V. Club"s Noel Murray graded the DVD release of the series' first 12 episodes a B+, writing that "what sets ["The Amazing World of Gumball"] apart from the many other super-silly, semi-anarchic cartoons on cable these days is that it features such a well-developed world, where even with the eclectic character designs, there are recognisable traits and tendencies." "Wired" writer Z noted that the series "manages to have genuine heart even as the plots themselves transition from well-worn TV tropes to all out madness."


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On May 3, 2011, the series premiere of "The Amazing World of Gumball" was watched by 2.120 million viewers in the United States. "The Goons" is currently the highest viewed episode of the series, with 2.72 million viewers. "The Potion" is the lowest viewed episode with only 0.42 million viewers, approximately 15% of its series high.


title: The Amazing World of Gumball

text: On June 18, 2014, Boom! Studios began publishing "The Amazing World of Gumball" comic book series, which would end in 2015 after 8 issues. The series was written by Frank Gibson and illustrated by Tyson Hesse.


title: Darren Barnet

text: Darren Charles Barnet (born April 27, 1991) is an American actor. He is known for playing Paxton Hall-Yoshida in the Netflix series "Never Have I Ever".


title: Darren Barnet

text: Darren Charles Barnet was born on April 27, 1991, in Los Angeles. His mother is of Swedish and Japanese descent, while his father is of German and Cherokee descent. Barnet's grandfather was swing musician Charlie Barnet. Barnet has an older and a younger sister.


title: Darren Barnet

text: Barnet and his mother relocated to the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, when he was 12 years old. He graduated from Dr. Phillips High School in 2009, where he was the lacrosse team captain. He graduated from Berry College with a Bachelor of Arts in 2013, where he acted in plays and short films. Since the age of five, he wanted to be an actor but did not seriously pursue acting until college. In addition to English, he speaks Japanese and conversational Spanish, and has studied French.


title: Darren Barnet

text: After graduating in 2013, Barnet returned to Los Angeles to become an actor. He worked at SoulCycle on Sunset Boulevard as a bike attendant and front desk associate. He got his California real estate license in May 2015. He made his acting debut in 2017.


title: Darren Barnet

text: In 2017, Barnet had episodic roles in the television shows: "This Is Us", "S.W.A.T.", and "Criminal Minds."


title: Darren Barnet

text: In 2018, Barnet starred as Hot Seth in the Brat-produced Facebook Watch limited streaming television series "Turnt". That same year, he appeared in a supporting role in the Lifetime original television movie "Instakiller", which marked his film debut.


title: Darren Barnet

text: In April 2020, Barnet began starring in the Netflix teen comedy-drama streaming television series "Never Have I Ever", as Paxton Hall-Yoshida, the crush of Devi Vishwakumar, the show's lead character, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. Media noted the nearly 11-year age difference between Barnet and Ramakrishnan, with Barnet being 29 at the beginning of the show. Co-creator Lang Fisher talked about Barnet and the audition process. She mentioned for the heartthrob of the show, she imagined him to the guy that you just swoon over. "Darren was so good at the swoon-y stuff-being an aloof, cool guy-but he was actually very good at the comedy stuff in his audition, too." She continued, "You can't ask someone how old they are when they audition. You just have to assume that they're a reasonable age. I don't think we found out what his age was until we were deep in the season and then we were like, 'Oh, OK.' I assumed he was, like, 20. And the other thing I will say, when you see an actual 15-year-old boy, they're just not going to be a heartthrob. They look like a tiny baby." Both "Never Have I Ever" and Barnet's performance received positive reviews, with Netflix reporting that the series had been viewed by 40 million households globally since its release. The following month, he appeared in a brief role as character Wilfred Malick in the seventh season of ABC and Marvel's television series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Later that year, Barnet starred in Universal Pictures' direct-to-video sex comedy film "".


title: Darren Barnet

text: In 2021, Barnet starred alongside an ensemble cast in the horror comedy film "Untitled Horror Movie". The film was released on Prime Video, iTunes, and Vudu; and was positively received by critics and audiences, with praise for the cast's performances. In July 2021, he reprised his role as Paxton Hall-Yoshida in the second season of Netflix's "Never Have I Ever". The season and Barnet's performance were well received. In November 2021, Barnet starred in the Netflix Christmas romantic comedy film "Love Hard", alongside Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang.


title: Darren Barnet

text: In April 2022, Barnet became the first male brand ambassador for Victoria's Secret PINK, and the brand's "Gender Free" collection. Later that month, he starred in the voice role of the protagonist Yuichi Usagi in Netflix's CGI-animated action-comedy series "".


title: Darren Barnet

text: Barnet returned for the third season of "Never Have I Ever"; principal photography began towards the end of November 2021 and wrapped up in late February 2022. It premiered on August 12, 2022, on Netflix.


title: Darren Barnet

text: Barnet is set to star alongside Timothy V. Murphy, Bailey Noble, Zac Weinstein, and Yasmin Wijnaldum and serve as a producer on Michael Leo DeAngelo's upcoming psychological thriller drama film "Apophenia", which is expected to release sometime later in 2022. Barnet has also signed on to voice a series regular in Netflix's upcoming action-adventure anime series "Blue Eye Samurai", which will also star Maya Erskine, George Takei, Masi Oka, Randall Park, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Brenda Song in voice roles.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 1842 10 February 1918) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. The time period which he reigned in the Ottoman Empire is known as the Hamidian Era. He oversaw a period of decline, with rebellions (particularly in the Balkans), and he presided over an unsuccessful war with the Russian Empire (1877–1878) followed by a successful war against the Kingdom of Greece in 1897, though Ottoman gains were tempered by subsequent Western European intervention.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: In accordance with an agreement made with the Republican Young Ottomans, he promulgated the Ottoman Empire's first Constitution, which was a sign of progressive thinking that marked his early rule. However, in 1878, citing disagreements with the Ottoman Parliament, he suspended both the short-lived constitution and the parliament. The modernization of the Ottoman Empire continued during his reign, including reform of the bureaucracy, the extension of the Rumelia Railway and of the Anatolia Railway, and the construction of the Baghdad Railway and of the Hejaz Railway. In addition, systems for population registration and control over the press were established, along with the first local modern law-school in 1898. The most far-reaching of the reforms occurred in education: many professional schools were established for fields including the law, arts, trades, civil engineering, veterinary medicine, customs, farming, and linguistics. Although Abdul Hamid II closed Istanbul University in 1881, it re-opened in 1900, and a network of secondary, primary, and military schools was extended throughout the empire. German firms played a major role in developing the Empire's railway and telegraph-systems. This modernization cost the empire its economic sovereignty, as its finances came under control of the Great Powers through the Ottoman Public Debt Administration.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: During Abdul Hamid's reign the Ottoman Empire became known for the massacres of Armenians and Assyrians of 1894–1896. Many attempts were made on Abdul Hamid's life during his reign. Amongst the many assassination attempts against him, one of the most famous is the Yıldız assassination attempt of 1905 by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Large sections of the Ottoman intelligentsia also sharply criticized and opposed him due to his use of secret police to silence dissent and the Young Turks movement. In 1908, a secret revolutionary Young Turks organization known as the Committee of Union and Progress forced Abdul Hamid II to recall the parliament and reinstate the constitution in the Young Turk Revolution. Abdul Hamid attempted to reassert his absolutism a year later, resulting in his deposition by Unionist forces in an event known as the 31 March Incident in 1909.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid II was born on 21 September 1842 in Çırağan Palace, Ortaköy or at Topkapı Palace, both in Istanbul. He was the son of Sultan Abdulmejid I and Tirimüjgan Kadın (Circassia, 20 August 1819Constantinople, Feriye Palace, 2 November 1853), originally named Virjinia. After the death of his mother, he later became the adoptive son of his father's legal wife, Perestu Kadın. Perestu was also the adoptive mother of Abdul Hamid's half-sister Cemile Sultan, whose mother Düzdidil Kadın had died in 1845 leaving her motherless at the age of two. The two were brought up in the same household where they spend their childhood together.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Unlike many other Ottoman sultans, Abdul Hamid II visited distant countries. Nine years before he took the throne, he accompanied his uncle Sultan Abdülaziz on his visit to Paris (30 June–10 July 1867), London (12–23 July 1867), Vienna (28–30 July 1867) and the capitals or cities of a number of other European countries in the summer of 1867 (they departed from Constantinople on 21 June 1867 and returned on 7 August 1867).


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid ascended to the throne following the deposition of his brother Murad on 31 August 1876. At his accession, some commentators were impressed that he rode practically unattended to the Eyüp Sultan Mosque, where he was given the Sword of Osman. Most people expected Abdul Hamid II to support liberal movements, however, he acceded the throne in 1876 in a very difficult and critical period for the Empire. Economic and political turmoil, local wars in the Balkans, and the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) threatened the existence of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid used these difficult war-filled times to recreate the absolutist regime and to dissolve the parliament, usurping all political power until his overthrow.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid worked with the Young Ottomans to realize some form of constitutional arrangement. This new form in its theoretical space could help to realize a liberal transition with Islamic arguments. The Young Ottomans believed that the modern parliamentary system was a restatement of the practice of consultation, or shura, which had existed in early Islam.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: In December 1876, due to the 1875 insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the then-ongoing war with Serbia and Montenegro and the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the cruelty used in stamping out the 1876 Bulgarian rebellion, Abdul Hamid promulgated the constitution and its parliament. The commission to establish a new constitution was headed by Midhat Pasha, and the new constitution was passed by the cabinet on 6 December 1876, giving Abdul Hamid the right to exile anyone he deems a threat to the state and allowed for a bicameral legislature with appointments made by the sultan.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The international Constantinople Conference towards the end of 1876 was surprised by the promulgation of a constitution, but European powers at the conference rejected the constitution as a significant change; they preferred the 1856 constitution ("Islâhat Hatt-ı Hümâyûnu)" or the 1839 Gülhane edict ("Hatt-ı Şerif"), but questioned whether there was need for a parliament to act as an official voice of the people.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: In any event, like many other would-be reforms of the Ottoman Empire's change, it proved to be nearly impossible. Russia continued to mobilize for war. Early in 1877 the Ottoman Empire went to war with the Russian Empire.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid's biggest fear, near dissolution, was realized with the Russian declaration of war on 24 April 1877. In that conflict, the Ottoman Empire fought without help from European allies. Russian chancellor Prince Gorchakov had effectively purchased Austrian neutrality with the Reichstadt Agreement by that time. The British Empire, though still fearing the Russian threat to the British presence in India, did not involve itself in the conflict because of public opinion against the Ottomans, following reports of Ottoman brutality in putting down the Bulgarian uprising. The Russian victory was quickly realized; the conflict ended in February 1878. The Treaty of San Stefano, signed at the end of the war, imposed harsh terms: the Ottoman Empire gave independence to Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro; it granted autonomy to Bulgaria; instituted reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and ceded parts of Dobrudzha to Romania and parts of Armenia to Russia, which was also paid an enormous indemnity. After the war with Russia, Abdul Hamid suspended the constitution in February 1878 and dismissed the parliament after its solitary meeting in March 1877. For the next three decades, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Abdulhamid from Yıldız Palace.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: As Russia could dominate the newly independent states, the country's influence in South-eastern Europe was greatly increased by the Treaty of San Stefano. Due to the insistence of the Great Powers (especially the United Kingdom), the treaty was later revised at the Congress of Berlin so as to reduce the great advantages acquired by Russia. In exchange of these favors, Cyprus was ceded to Britain in 1878. There were troubles in Egypt, where a discredited "khedive" had to be deposed. Abdul Hamid mishandled relations with Urabi Pasha, and as a result Britain gained de facto control over Egypt and Sudan by sending its troops in 1882 to establish control over the two provinces. Cyprus, Egypt, and Sudan remained ostensibly Ottoman provinces until 1914 when Britain officially annexed those territories in response to the Ottoman participation in World War I on the side of the Central Powers.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid's distrust for the reformist admirals of the Ottoman Navy (whom he suspected of plotting against him and trying to bring back the 1876 constitution) and his subsequent decision to lock the Ottoman fleet (which ranked as the third largest fleet in the world during the reign of his predecessor Abdul Aziz) inside the Golden Horn caused the loss of Ottoman overseas territories and islands in North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Aegean Sea during and after his reign.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Financial difficulties forced him to consent to foreign control over the Ottoman national debt. In a decree issued in December 1881, a large portion of the empire's revenues were handed over to the Public Debt Administration for the benefit of (mostly foreign) bondholders.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The union in 1885 of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia was another blow to the Empire. The creation of an independent and powerful Bulgaria was viewed as a serious threat to the Ottoman Empire. For many years Abdul Hamid had to deal with Bulgaria in a way that did not antagonize either Russian or German wishes. There were also key problems regarding the Albanian question resulting from the Albanian League of Prizren and with the Greek and Montenegrin frontiers where the European powers were determined that the decisions of the Berlin Congress should be carried into effect.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Crete was granted 'extended privileges', but these did not satisfy the population, which sought unification with Greece. In early 1897 a Greek expedition sailed to Crete to overthrow Ottoman rule on the island. This act was followed by war, in which the Ottoman Empire defeated Greece (see the Greco-Turkish War (1897)); however as a result of the Treaty of Constantinople, Crete was taken over "en depot" by the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. Prince George of Greece was appointed as ruler and Crete was effectively lost to the Ottoman Empire. The ʿAmmiyya, a revolt in 1889–90 among Druze and other Syrians against excesses of the local sheikhs, similarly led to capitulation to the rebels' demands, as well as concessions to Belgian and French companies to provide Beirut and Damascus with a railroad between them.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Most people expected Abdul Hamid II to have liberal ideas, and some conservatives were inclined to regard him with suspicion as a dangerous reformer. However, despite working with the reformist Young Ottomans while still a crown prince and appearing as a liberal leader, he became increasingly conservative immediately after taking the throne. In a process known as "İstibdad", Abdul Hamid succeeded in reducing his ministers to the position of secretaries, and he concentrated much of the Empire's administration into his own hands at Yıldız Palace. Default in the public funds, an empty treasury, the 1875 insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war with Serbia and Montenegro, the result of Russo-Turkish war and the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the Abdul Hamid government in stamping out the Bulgarian rebellion all contributed to his apprehension for enacting significant changes.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: His push for education resulted in the establishment of 18 professional schools, and in 1900, Darulfunun, now known as Istanbul University, was established. He also created a large system of secondary, primary, and military schools throughout the empire. 51 secondary schools were constructed in a 12-year period (1882–1894). As the goal of the educational reforms in the Hamidian era were to counter foreign influence, these secondary schools utilized European teaching techniques, yet instilled within students a strong sense of Ottoman identity and Islamic morality.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid also reorganized the Ministry of Justice and developed rail and telegraph systems. The telegraph system expanded to incorporate the furthest parts of the Empire. Railways connected Constantinople and Vienna by 1883, and shortly afterward the Orient Express connected Paris to Constantinople. During his rule, railways within the Ottoman Empire expanded to connect Ottoman-controlled Europe and Anatolia with Constantinople as well. The increased ability to travel and communicate within the Ottoman Empire served to strengthen Constantinople's influence over the rest of the Empire.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid took tight measures for his security. The memory of the deposition of Abdul Aziz was on his mind and convinced him that a constitutional government was not a good idea. Because of this, information was tightly controlled and the press was tightly censored. A secret police (Umur-u Hafiye) and a network of informants was present throughout the empire, and many politicians of the Second Constitutional Era and the future Turkish Republic experienced arrest and exile. The curriculum of schools was subject to close inspection to prevent dissidence. Ironically, the schools that Abdul Hamid founded and tried to control became "breeding grounds of discontent" as students and teachers alike chafed at the clumsy restrictions of the censors.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Starting around 1890, Armenians began demanding the implementation of the reforms which were promised to them at the Berlin conference. To prevent such measures, in 1890–91, Sultan Abdul Hamid gave semi-official status to the Kurdish bandits who were already actively mistreating the Armenians in the provinces. Made up of Kurds (as well as other ethnic groups such as Turcomans), and armed by the state, they came to be called the "Hamidiye Alayları" ("Hamidian Regiments"). The Hamidiye and Kurdish brigands were given free rein to attack Armenians, confiscating stores of grain, foodstuffs, and driving off livestock, and confident of escaping punishment as they were subject only to court-martial. In the face of such violence, the Armenians established revolutionary organizations, namely the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak; founded in Switzerland in 1887) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (the ARF or Dashnaktsutiun, founded in 1890 in Tiflis). Clashes ensued and unrest occurred in 1892 at Merzifon and in 1893 at Tokat. Abdul Hamid II did not hesitate to put down these revolts with harsh methods while using the local Muslims (in most cases Kurds) against the Armenians. As a result of such violence, 300,000 Armenians were killed in what became known as the Hamidian massacres. News of the Armenian massacres was widely reported in Europe and the United States and drew strong responses from foreign governments and humanitarian organizations alike. Hence, Abdul Hamid II was referred to as the "Bloody Sultan" or "Red Sultan" in the West. On 21 July 1905, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation attempted to assassinate him with a car bombing during a public appearance, but the Sultan was delayed for a minute and the bomb went off too early, killing 26, wounding 58 (of which four died during their treatment in a hospital) and destroying 17 cars. This continued aggression, along with the handling of the Armenian desire for reforms, led to the western European powers taking a more hands-on approach with the Turks.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Sultan Abdul Hamid II, after being approached by American minister to Turkey, Oscar Straus, sent a letter to the Moros of the Sulu Sultanate telling them not to resist American takeover and to cooperate with the Americans at the start of the Moro Rebellion. The Sulu Moros complied with the order.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: John Hay, the American Secretary of State, asked Straus in 1898 to approach Sultan Abdul Hamid II to request that the Sultan (who was also Caliph) write a letter to the Moro Sulu Muslims of the Sulu Sultanate in the Philippines telling them to submit to American suzerainty and American military rule. The Sultan obliged them and wrote the letter, which was sent to Sulu via Mecca where two Sulu chiefs brought it home to Sulu, and it was successful, since the "Sulu Mohammedans ... refused to join the insurrectionists and had placed themselves under the control of our army, thereby recognizing American sovereignty." The Ottoman Sultan used his position as caliph to order the Sulu Sultan not to resist and not fight the Americans when they became subject to American control. President McKinley did not mention Turkey's role in the pacification of the Sulu Moros in his address to the first session of the Fifty-sixth Congress in December 1899, since the agreement with the Sultan of Sulu was not submitted to the Senate until 18 December. Despite Sultan Abdul Hamid's "pan-Islamic" ideology, he readily acceded to a request by Straus for help in telling the Sulu Muslims to not resist America since he felt no need to cause hostilities between the West and Muslims. Collaboration between the American military and Sulu sultanate was due to the Sulu Sultan being persuaded by the Ottoman Sultan. John P. Finley wrote that:


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid in his position as Caliph was approached by the Americans to help them deal with Muslims during their war in the Philippines, and the Muslim people of the area obeyed the order sent by Abdul Hamid to help the Americans.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The Bates Treaty, which the Americans had signed with the Moro Sulu Sultanate and which guaranteed the Sultanate's autonomy in its internal affairs and governance, was then violated by the Americans, who then invaded Moroland, causing the Moro Rebellion to break out in 1904 with war raging between the Americans and Moro Muslims and atrocities committed against Moro Muslim women and children, such as the Moro Crater Massacre.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The Triple Entente – the United Kingdom, France and Russia – maintained strained relations with the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid and his close advisors believed the Empire should be treated as an equal player by these great powers. In the Sultan's view, the Ottoman Empire was a European empire, distinct for having more Muslims than Christians.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Over time the hostile diplomatic attitudes shown from France (the occupation of Tunisia in 1881) and Great Britain (the 1882 establishment of de facto control in Egypt) caused Abdul Hamid to gravitate towards Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II was twice hosted by Abdul Hamid in Istanbul; first on 21 October 1889, and nine years later, on 5 October 1898. (Wilhelm II later visited Constantinople for a third time, on 15 October 1917, as a guest of Mehmed V). German officers (like Baron von der Goltz and Bodo-Borries von Ditfurth) were employed to oversee the organization of the Ottoman army.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: German government officials were brought in to reorganize the Ottoman government's finances. Additionally, the German Emperor was rumored in counseling Hamid II in his controversial decision to appoint his third son as his successor. Germany's friendship was not altruistic; it had to be fostered with railway and loan concessions. In 1899, a significant German desire, the construction of a Berlin-Baghdad railway, was granted.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany also requested the Sultan's help when having trouble with Chinese Muslim troops. During the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese Muslim Kansu Braves fought against the German Army, routing them, along with the other Eight Nation Alliance forces. The Muslim Kansu Braves and Boxers defeated the Alliance forces led by the German Captain Guido von Usedom at the Battle of Langfang in the Seymour Expedition in 1900 and besieged the trapped Alliance forces during the Siege of the International Legations. It was only on the second attempt in the Gasalee Expedition, that the Alliance forces managed to get through to battle the Chinese Muslim troops at the Battle of Peking. Kaiser Wilhelm was so alarmed by the Chinese Muslim troops that he requested that Abdul Hamid find a way to stop the Muslim troops from fighting. Abdul Hamid agreed to the Kaiser's demands and sent Enver Pasha to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time. Because the Ottomans did not want conflict against the European nations and because the Ottoman Empire was ingratiating itself to gain German assistance, an order imploring Chinese Muslims to avoid assisting the Boxers was issued by the Ottoman Khalifa and reprinted in Egyptian and Muslim Indian newspapers.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The national humiliation of the Macedonian conflict, together with the resentment in the army against the palace spies and informers, at last brought matters to a crisis. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a Young Turks organization that was especially influential in the Rumelian army units undertook the Young Turk Revolution in the summer of 1908. Abdul Hamid, upon learning that the troops in Salonica were marching on Istanbul (23 July), at once capitulated. On 24 July an "irade" announced the restoration of the suspended constitution of 1876; the next day, further "irades" abolished espionage and censorship, and ordered the release of political prisoners.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: On 17 December, Abdul Hamid opened the Ottoman parliament with a speech from the throne in which he said that the first parliament had been "temporarily dissolved until the education of the people had been brought to a sufficiently high level by the extension of instruction throughout the empire."


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The new attitude of the sultan did not save himself from the suspicion of intriguing with the powerful reactionary elements in the state, a suspicion confirmed by his attitude towards the counter-revolution of 13 April 1909 known as the 31 March Incident, when an insurrection of the soldiers backed by a conservative upheaval in some parts of the military in the capital overthrew Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha's government. With the Young Turks driven out of the capital, Abdul Hamid appointed ahmet Tevfik Pasha in his place, and once again suspended the Constitution and shuttered the parliament. However the Sultan was only in control of Constantinople while the Young Turks were still influential in the rest of the Army and provinces. The CUP appealed to Mahmud Shevket Pasha to restore the status quo, who organized an "ad hoc" formation known as the Action Army which marched on Constantinople. Şevket Pasha's Chief of Staff was captain Mustafa Kemal. The Action Army stopped by first in Aya Stefanos, and negotiated with the rival government established by deputies who escaped from the capital, led by Mehmed Talat. It was secretly decided there that Abdul Hamid had to be deposed. When the Action Army entered Istanbul, a Fatwa was issued condemning Abdul Hamid, and the parliament voted to dethrone him. On 27 April Abdul Hamid's half-brother Reshad Efendi was proclaimed as Sultan Mehmed V.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The Sultan's countercoup, which had appealed to conservative Islamists against the Young Turks' liberal reforms, resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Christian Armenians in the Adana province, known as the Adana massacre.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: The ex-sultan was conveyed into captivity at Salonica (now Thessaloniki), mostly at the Villa Allatini in the city’s southern outskirts. In 1912, when Salonica fell to Greece, he was returned to captivity in Constantinople. He spent his last days studying, practicing carpentry and writing his memoirs in custody at Beylerbeyi Palace in the Bosphorus, in the company of his wives and children, where he died on 10 February 1918, just a few months before his brother, Mehmed V, the Sultan. He was buried in Istanbul.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: In 1930, his nine widows and thirteen children were granted US$50 million from his estate, following a lawsuit that lasted five years. His estate was worth US$1.5 billion.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid was the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to hold absolute power. He presided over 33 years of decline, during which other European countries regarded the empire as the "sick man of Europe."


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid believed that the ideas of Tanzimat could not bring the disparate peoples of the empire to a common identity, such as Ottomanism. He adopted a new ideological principle, Pan-Islamism; since Ottoman sultans beginning with 1517 were also nominally Caliphs, he wanted to promote that fact and emphasized the Ottoman Caliphate. He saw the huge diversity of ethnicities in the Ottoman Empire and believed that Islam was the only way to unite his Muslim people.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: He encouraged Pan-Islamism, telling Muslims living under European powers to unite into one polity. This threatened several European countries, namely Austria through Albanian Muslims, Russia through Tatars and Kurds, France through Moroccan Muslims, and Britain through Indian Muslims. The privileges of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire, which were an obstacle to an effective government, were curtailed. At the very end of his reign, he finally provided funds to start construction of the strategically important Constantinople-Baghdad Railway and the Constantinople-Medina Railway, making the trip to Mecca for Hajj more efficient. After he was deposed, the construction of both railways was accelerated and completed by the Young Turks. Missionaries were sent to distant countries preaching Islam and the Caliph's supremacy. During his rule, Abdul Hamid refused Theodor Herzl's offers to pay down a substantial portion of the Ottoman debt (150 million pounds sterling in gold) in exchange for a charter allowing the Zionists to settle in Palestine. He is famously quoted as telling Herzl's Emissary that "as long as I am alive, I will not have our body divided, only our corpse they can divide."


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Pan-Islamism was a considerable success. After the Greco-Ottoman war, many Muslims celebrated the victory and saw the Ottoman victory as Muslims' victory. Uprisings, lockouts, and objections against European colonization in newspapers were reported in Muslim regions after the war. However, Abdul Hamid's appeals to Muslim sentiment were not always very effective due to widespread disaffection within the Empire. In Mesopotamia and Yemen disturbance was endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained in the army and among the Muslim population only by a system of deflation and espionage.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid II was a skilled carpenter and personally crafted some high-quality furniture, which can be seen today at the Yıldız Palace, Şale Köşkü and Beylerbeyi Palace in Istanbul. He was also interested in opera and personally wrote the first-ever Turkish translations of many opera classics. He also composed several opera pieces for the "Mızıka-yı Hümâyun" (Ottoman Imperial Band/Orchestra, which was established by his grandfather Mahmud II who had appointed Donizetti Pasha as its Instructor General in 1828), and hosted the famous performers of Europe at the Opera House of Yıldız Palace, which was restored in the 1990s and featured in the 1999 film "Harem Suare" (the film begins with the scene of Abdul Hamid II watching a performance). One of his guests included the world renowned French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt who performed for audiences.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: He was also a good wrestler of Yağlı güreş and a 'patron saint' of the wrestlers. He organized wrestling tournaments in the empire and selected wrestlers were invited to the palace. Abdul Hamid personally tried the sportsmen and good ones remained in the palace. He was also a skilled drawer, having drawn the sole known portrait of his fourth wife Bidar Kadın. He was extremely fond of Sherlock Holmes novels, and awarded its author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the Order of the Medjidie 2nd Class in 1907.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Sultan Abdul Hamid II was a practitioner of traditional Islamic Sufism. He was influenced by Libyan Shadhili Madani Sheikh, Muhammad Zafir al-Madani whose lessons he would attend in disguise in Unkapani before he became Sultan. Abdul Hamid II asked Sheikh al-Madani to return to Istanbul after he ascended the throne. The sheik initiated Shadhili gatherings of remembrance (dhikr) in the newly commissioned Yıldız Hamidiye Mosque; on Thursday evenings he would accompany Sufi masters in reciting dhikr. He also became a close religious and political confidant of the Sultan. In 1879, the Sultan excused the taxes of all of the Caliphate's Madani Sufi lodges (also known as zawiyas and tekkes). In 1888, he even established a Sufi lodge for the Madani order of Shadhili Sufism in Istanbul, which he commissioned as part of the Ertuğrul Tekke mosque. The relationship of the Sultan and the sheik lasted for thirty years until the latter's death in 1903.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdul Hamid wrote poetry, following on the footsteps of many other Ottoman sultans. One of his poems translates thus:


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Abdülhamid II had numerous consorts, but to none of them allowed, by his explicit will, to have political influence, at the same way he did not allow to his adoptive mother, Rahime Perestu Sultan, for whom he also had the utmost respect, and to the other female members of his family, although some of then still had some degree of power in private or in the daily life of the harem. This is because Abdülhamid was convinced that the reign of his predecessors, especially those of his uncle Abdülaziz and his father Abdülmecid I, had been ruined by the excessive meddling of the women of the imperial family in the affairs of state. The only partial exception was Cemile Sultan, his half-sister and adoptive sister.


title: Abdul Hamid II

text: Threatened by several assassination attempts, Abdul Hamid II did not travel often (though still more than many previous rulers). Photographs provided visual evidence of what was taking place in his realm. He commissioned thousands of photographs of his empire including from the Constantinople studio of Jean Pascal Sébah. The Sultan presented large gift albums of photographs to various governments and heads of state, including the United States and Great Britain. The American collection is housed in the Library of Congress and has been digitized.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Murder, She Wrote is an American crime drama television series, created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link, starring Angela Lansbury, and produced and distributed by Universal Television for the CBS network. The series focuses on the life of Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer and amateur detective, who finds herself becoming involved in solving a series of murders that take place in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, as well as across the United States and abroad. The program ran for 12 seasons from September 30, 1984, to May 19, 1996, for a total of 264 episodes, and included amongst its recurring cast Tom Bosley, William Windom and Ron Masak, as well as a vast array of guest cast members including Michael Horton, Keith Michell and Julie Adams.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The series proved a ratings hit during its broadcast, becoming a staple of CBS Sunday night TV schedule for around a decade, while achieving distinction as one of the most successful and longest-running television shows in history, averaging 25 million viewers per week in its prime. In syndication, the series is still highly successful and popular throughout the world. For her role on the program, Lansbury was nominated for ten Golden Globes, winning four, along with nominations for 12 Emmy Awards, earning her the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for Best Actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The series itself also received three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, as well as six Golden Globe nominations in the same category, with two major wins.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: After the series finished in 1996, four television films were released between 1997 and 2003, with two point-and-click video games released for PC: one in 2009, and a sequel in 2012. A spin-off book series continues publication at present.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Series producers Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link developed the lead role for actress Jean Stapleton, who was initially somewhat interested but eventually turned it down, threatening the project.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Scrambling to find another major star, the producers thought Angela Lansbury would be perfect for the part of Jessica Fletcher but did not think that she would be interested in a television series. Earlier, she had acted in two film adaptations of Agatha Christie's mystery novels: as Salome Otterbourne in "Death on the Nile" (1978) and as Miss Marple in "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980). When the latter film did poorly—despite an all-star cast including Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, and Tony Curtis—the offer for Lansbury to reprise Miss Marple in three more films never materialized.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: When she made it known she would be available if the right project came along, the three creators sent her the script and almost immediately, Lansbury felt she could do something with the role of Jessica Fletcher. With "Murder, She Wrote" debuting on Sunday, September 30, 1984, the producers were able to parlay their "mystery writer/amateur detective" premise into a 12-year hit for CBS. It also made Lansbury, known previously for her motion picture and Broadway stage work, a household name for millions of television viewers. The title comes from "Murder, She Said", which was the title of a 1961 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel "".


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: "Murder, She Wrote" was mostly filmed on sound stages at Universal Studios in Universal City, California (near Los Angeles). The series also filmed exterior shots and some episodes on location in the Northern California town of Mendocino, which stood in for the fictional Maine town of Cabot Cove.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The show revolves around the day-to-day life of Jessica Fletcher (née MacGill), a widowed and retired English teacher, who becomes a successful mystery writer.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Despite fame and fortune, Jessica remains a resident of Cabot Cove, a small coastal community in Maine, and maintains her links with all of her old friends, never letting her success go to her head.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The show usually starts with a preview of the episode's events, with Jessica stating: "Tonight on "Murder, She Wrote"..." Jessica invariably proves more perceptive than the official investigators of a case, who are almost always willing to arrest the most likely suspect. By carefully piecing the clues together and asking astute questions, she leads the authorities to arrest the real murderer. Murder occurred with such regularity in her vicinity that the term "Cabot Cove syndrome" was coined to describe the constant appearance of dead bodies in remote locations. Indeed, if Cabot Cove existed in real life, it would top the FBI's national crime statistics in numerous categories, with some analysis suggesting that the homicide rate in Cabot Cove exceeds even that of the real-life murder capital of the world.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Jessica's relationship with law enforcement officials varies from place to place. Both sheriffs of Cabot Cove resign themselves to having her meddle in their cases. However, most detectives and police officers do not want her anywhere near their crime scenes, until her accurate deductions convince them to listen to her. Some are happy to have her assistance from the start, often because they are fans of her books. With time, she makes friends in many police departments across the U.S., as well as with a British police officer attached to Scotland Yard. At the start of season eight, more of the stories were set in New York City with Jessica moving into an apartment there part-time in order to teach criminology.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: In August 1988, Lansbury expressed weariness of her commitment to the series as she was not sure, at 63, that she could continue at the pace now required of her; she specifically cited the change from seven to eight days to shoot each episode. Thus, "Murder, She Wrote" went into its fifth season that autumn with the distinct possibility that it would cease production at the end of it and the series finale would air in May 1989.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: A solution was worked on, however, which enabled Lansbury to continue but also give her time to rest. This also enabled some secondary characters to get significant stories. For the next two seasons, Lansbury reduced her appearances in several episodes, only appearing at the beginning and the end, to introduce stories starring several friends of Jessica, such as private investigator Harry McGraw, reformed thief Dennis Stanton or MI5 agent Michael Hagarty. The "experiment" ended in 1991. In 1992, Lansbury took on a more extensive role in production as she became the show's executive producer.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: "Murder, She Wrote" was renewed for a twelfth season after finishing the 1994-95 season as the eighth-most watched program on television, tied with NBC’s new sitcom "Friends" for the spot. Despite the continued popularity of the program, Lansbury was considering retirement again after the upcoming season as she would be nearing seventy years of age at its conclusion. The decision, ultimately, would not be left up to her as CBS would make a decision regarding the series that would prove problematic for the network on two separate nights of programming.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: "Murder, She Wrote" was, at the time, CBS' most popular scripted series; in fact, it had been one of only two series on the network to garner a rating in the top ten ("60 Minutes" was the other). Meanwhile, over at NBC, their Thursday night Must See TV lineup had been a ratings powerhouse for years and CBS decided to use "Murder, She Wrote" in an effort to cut into their viewership. So, after eleven years on Sunday night, the series moved to Thursday for the 1995-96 season. It would keep the same 8 PM timeslot on its new night, leading off a lineup that included the new drama "New York News" and the long-running newsmagazine "48 Hours".


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The move was met with protests from fans, and the entire Thursday night lineup for CBS proved to be no match for NBC's lineup. Going up against "Friends" and a pair of freshman comedies in its time slot, "Murder, She Wrote" saw its ratings drop significantly on Thursday; in fact, the series dropped below a 10.0 rating when the final season ratings were tabulated. (Its follow-up, "New York News", continued the downward trend and did even lower ratings, with CBS cancelling the new drama before December 1995.)


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Meanwhile, CBS decided to go with a new Sunday lineup which consisted of the sophomore sitcom "Cybill" and the new comedy "Almost Perfect" replacing "Murder, She Wrote" in the 8 PM hour. The former fell nearly out of the top 50 in the ratings while the latter was moved to Mondays at midseason and replaced with "The Bonnie Hunt Show" in an unsuccessful effort to lift that show's ratings and prevent its cancellation.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Ultimately, "Murder, She Wrote" finished in 58th place in the final ratings and CBS opted not to renew the series for a thirteenth season. The network did, however, eventually reverse itself on the scheduling. After CBS aired a new episode of "Murder, She Wrote" on February 25, 1996 that drew nearly 20 million viewers, the show went on a month long hiatus for CBS’ coverage of March Madness. Following two episodes that aired on Thursdays on March 28 and April 4, 1996, "Murder, She Wrote" was moved back to its original Sunday night airtime for the remaining episodes of the series. The show returned to Sunday on April 25, and the final episode aired on May 19. Three of these episodes drew over 16 million viewers and the finale finished in the top 20 programs for the week.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The network also agreed to commission four "Murder, She Wrote" movies over the next few years. The first was "South by Southwest" (1997), with three more following as "A Story to Die For" (2000), "The Last Free Man" (2001), and "The Celtic Riddle" (2003).


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Lansbury stated in May 2011 that she would like to make a comeback appearance as Jessica Fletcher. However, in a 2015 interview, she quashed the idea of reprising the much beloved character, stating, "I think it would be a downer. In some way, we’d have to show her as a much older woman, and I think it’s better to maintain that picture we have in our mind’s eye of her as a vigorous person. I’m still pretty vigorous, especially in the garden … but if I wanted to transform myself back into the woman I looked like then, it would be ridiculous. And I can't do that." Lansbury died on October 11, 2022, five days before her 97th birthday.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The third-season episode of "Murder, She Wrote" entitled "Magnum on Ice" concludes a crossover that began on the seventh-season "Magnum, P.I." episode "Novel Connection". In the episode's plot, Jessica comes to Hawaii to investigate an attempt to murder Robin Masters' guests, and then tries to clear Magnum when he's accused of killing the hitman. The "Magnum, P.I." episode originally aired on November 19, 1986, with the concluding "Murder, She Wrote" episode following four days later on November 23.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: The "Magnum, P.I." episode of the crossover is included on the "Murder, She Wrote" Season 3 DVD set, as well as the Complete Series Set. The "Magnum, P.I." Season 7 DVD set, as well as its Complete Series set, includes the "Murder, She Wrote" episode.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Over its twelve-year run "Murder, She Wrote" received numerous award nominations. Lansbury herself holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for outstanding lead actress in a drama series with twelve, one for each season. She never won, which is also a record. Mary Dodson, the art director for 102 of the series' 264 episodes, received three Emmy nominations for her work on "Murder, She Wrote". In total, the show was nominated for 41 Emmys.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: "Murder, She Wrote" maintained extremely high ratings, finishing in the top 15 of shows for eleven of its 12 seasons (eight of which it was in the top 10), even well into its late seasons. By its 11th season, "Murder, She Wrote" was still averaging 25 million viewers per week. At its very peak, the show even hit above 40 million US viewers. However, at the beginning of its 12th season in 1995, CBS moved the show from its extremely popular Sunday night time slot to Thursday night forcing it to compete with NBC's Must See TV line up, and as a result the ratings plummeted, during Season 11 and 12 CBS lost affiliates during the television realignment, meaning major markets could not find the network. The show rated as the following:


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: "Deadline Hollywood" reported in October 2013 that NBC was planning a reboot of the series, starring Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer as a "hospital administrator and amateur sleuth who self-publishes her first mystery novel."


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: Lansbury commented that she was not a fan of using the title, saying "I think it's a mistake to call it 'Murder, She Wrote,' because 'Murder, She Wrote' will always be about Cabot Cove and this wonderful little group of people who told those lovely stories and enjoyed a piece of that place, and also enjoyed Jessica Fletcher, who is a rare and very individual kind of person." Early on it was decided by producers that Spencer's character would not be named Jessica Fletcher, for only Lansbury could play Jessica Fletcher. It was announced on January 21, 2014, that the reboot would not be going forward.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: In 1985, Warren Company released a "Murder, She Wrote" board game. In the game, one player takes the hidden role of a killer and the other players try to determine which player is the killer through deduction. The killer wins for killing five of the characters on the game-board and escaping, while the detective players win by correctly deducing the identity of the killer.


title: Murder, She Wrote

text: In December 2009, casual game developer and publisher Legacy Interactive, under license with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group (UPDPG), announced the release a PC and Macintosh video game, "Murder, She Wrote", based on the television series. In the game, players help Jessica Fletcher to solve five unusual murders. A sequel, "Murder She Wrote 2", was launched by Legacy Interactive in November 2012.


title: US Open (tennis)

text: The US Open Tennis Championships is a hardcourt tennis tournament held annually in Queens, New York. Since 1987, the US Open has been chronologically the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament of the year. The other three, in chronological order, are the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. The US Open starts on the last Monday of August and continues for two weeks, with the middle weekend coinciding with the US Labor Day holiday. The tournament is of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, originally known as the U.S. National Championship, for which men's singles and men's doubles were first played in August 1881. It is the only Grand Slam that was not affected by cancellation of World War I and World War II or interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.


title: US Open (tennis)

text: The tournament consists of five primary championships: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles. The tournament also includes events for senior, junior, and wheelchair players. Since 1978, the tournament has been played on acrylic hardcourts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, New York City. The US Open is owned and organized by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), a non-profit organization, and the chairperson of the US Open is Patrick Galbraith. Revenue from ticket sales, sponsorships, and television contracts is used to develop tennis in the United States.