title: Egyptian mythology

text: The Egyptians' vision of time was influenced by their environment. Each day the sun rose and set, bringing light to the land and regulating human activity; each year the Nile flooded, renewing the fertility of the soil and allowing the highly productive agriculture that sustained Egyptian civilization. These periodic events inspired the Egyptians to see all of time as a series of recurring patterns regulated by "maat", renewing the gods and the universe. Although the Egyptians recognized that different historical eras differ in their particulars, mythic patterns dominate the Egyptian perception of history.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Many Egyptian stories about the gods are characterized as having taken place in a primeval time when the gods were manifest on the earth and ruled over it. After this time, the Egyptians believed, authority on earth passed to human pharaohs. This primeval era seems to predate the start of the sun's journey and the recurring patterns of the present world. At the other end of time is the end of the cycles and the dissolution of the world. Because these distant periods lend themselves to linear narrative better than the cycles of the present, John Baines sees them as the only periods in which true myths take place. Yet, to some extent, the cyclical aspect of time was present in the mythic past as well. Egyptians saw even stories that were set in that time as being perpetually true. The myths were made real every time the events to which they were related occurred. These events were celebrated with rituals, which often evoked myths. Ritual allowed time to periodically return to the mythic past and renew life in the universe.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Some of the most important categories of myths are described below. Because of the fragmentary nature of Egyptian myths, there is little indication in Egyptian sources of a chronological sequence of mythical events. Nevertheless, the categories are arranged in a very loose chronological order.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Among the most important myths were those describing the creation of the world. The Egyptians developed many accounts of the creation, which differ greatly in the events they describe. In particular, the deities credited with creating the world vary in each account. This difference partly reflects the desire of Egypt's cities and priesthoods to exalt their own patron gods by attributing creation to them. Yet the differing accounts were not regarded as contradictory; instead, the Egyptians saw the creation process as having many aspects and involving many divine forces.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: One common feature of the myths is the emergence of the world from the waters of chaos that surround it. This event represents the establishment of "maat" and the origin of life. One fragmentary tradition centers on the eight gods of the Ogdoad, who represent the characteristics of the primeval water itself. Their actions give rise to the sun (represented in creation myths by various gods, especially Ra), whose birth forms a space of light and dryness within the dark water. The sun rises from the first mound of dry land, another common motif in the creation myths, which was likely inspired by the sight of mounds of earth emerging as the Nile flood receded. With the emergence of the sun god, the establisher of "maat", the world has its first ruler. Accounts from the first millennium BC focus on the actions of the creator god in subduing the forces of chaos that threaten the newly ordered world.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Atum, a god closely connected with the sun and the primeval mound, is the focus of a creation myth dating back at least to the Old Kingdom. Atum, who incorporates all the elements of the world, exists within the waters as a potential being. At the time of creation he emerges to produce other gods, resulting in a set of nine deities, the Ennead, which includes Geb, Nut, and other key elements of the world. The Ennead can by extension stand for all the gods, so its creation represents the differentiation of Atum's unified potential being into the multiplicity of elements present within the world.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Over time, the Egyptians developed more abstract perspectives on the creation process. By the time of the "Coffin Texts", they described the formation of the world as the realization of a concept first developed within the mind of the creator god. The force of "heka", or magic, which links things in the divine realm and things in the physical world, is the power that links the creator's original concept with its physical realization. "Heka" itself can be personified as a god, but this intellectual process of creation is not associated with that god alone. An inscription from the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC), whose text may be much older, describes the process in detail and attributes it to the god Ptah, whose close association with craftsmen makes him a suitable deity to give a physical form to the original creative vision. Hymns from the New Kingdom describe the god Amun, a mysterious power that lies behind even the other gods, as the ultimate source of this creative vision.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: The origin of humans is not a major feature of Egyptian creation stories. In some texts the first humans spring from tears that Ra-Atum or his feminine aspect, the Eye of Ra, sheds in a moment of weakness and distress, foreshadowing humans' flawed nature and sorrowful lives. Others say humans are molded from clay by the god Khnum. But overall, the focus of the creation myths is the establishment of cosmic order rather than the special place of humans within it.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: In the period of the mythic past after the creation, Ra dwells on earth as king of the gods and of humans. This period is the closest thing to a golden age in Egyptian tradition, the period of stability that the Egyptians constantly sought to evoke and imitate. Yet the stories about Ra's reign focus on conflicts between him and forces that disrupt his rule, reflecting the king's role in Egyptian ideology as enforcer of "maat".


title: Egyptian mythology

text: In an episode known in different versions from temple texts, some of the gods defy Ra's authority, and he destroys them with the help and advice of other gods like Thoth and Horus the Elder. At one point he faces dissent even from an extension of himself, the Eye of Ra, which can act independently of him in the form of a goddess. The Eye goddess becomes angry with Ra and runs away from him, wandering wild and dangerous in the lands outside Egypt. Weakened by her absence, Ra sends one of the other gods—Shu, Thoth, or Anhur, in different accounts—to retrieve her, by force or persuasion. Because the Eye of Ra is associated with the star Sothis, whose heliacal rising signaled the start of the Nile flood, the return of the Eye goddess to Egypt coincides with the life-giving inundation. Upon her return, the goddess becomes the consort of Ra or of the god who has retrieved her. Her pacification restores order and renews life.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: As Ra grows older and weaker, humanity, too, turns against him. In an episode often called "The Destruction of Mankind", related in "The Book of the Heavenly Cow", Ra discovers that humanity is plotting rebellion against him and sends his Eye to punish them. She slays many people, but Ra apparently decides that he does not want her to destroy all of humanity. He has beer dyed red to resemble blood and spreads it over the field. The Eye goddess drinks the beer, becomes drunk, and ceases her rampage. Ra then withdraws into the sky, weary of ruling on earth, and begins his daily journey through the heavens and the Duat. The surviving humans are dismayed, and they attack the people among them who plotted against Ra. This event is the origin of warfare, death, and humans' constant struggle to protect "maat" from the destructive actions of other people.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: In "The Book of the Heavenly Cow", the results of the destruction of mankind seem to mark the end of the direct reign of the gods and of the linear time of myth. The beginning of Ra's journey is the beginning of the cyclical time of the present. Yet in other sources, mythic time continues after this change. Egyptian accounts give sequences of divine rulers who take the place of the sun god as king on earth, each reigning for many thousands of years. Although accounts differ as to which gods reigned and in what order, the succession from Ra-Atum to his descendants Shu and Geb—in which the kingship passes to the male in each generation of the Ennead—is common. Both of them face revolts that parallel those in the reign of the sun god, but the revolt that receives the most attention in Egyptian sources is the one in the reign of Geb's heir Osiris.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: The collection of episodes surrounding Osiris' death and succession is the most elaborate of all Egyptian myths, and it had the most widespread influence in Egyptian culture. In the first portion of the myth, Osiris, who is associated with both fertility and kingship, is killed and his position usurped by his brother Set. In some versions of the myth, Osiris is actually dismembered and the pieces of his corpse scattered across Egypt. Osiris' sister and wife, Isis, finds her husband's body and restores it to wholeness. She is assisted by funerary deities such as Nephthys and Anubis, and the process of Osiris' restoration reflects Egyptian traditions of embalming and burial. Isis then briefly revives Osiris to conceive an heir with him: the god Horus.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: The next portion of the myth concerns Horus' birth and childhood. Isis gives birth to and raises her son in secluded places, hidden from the menace of Set. The episodes in this phase of the myth concern Isis' efforts to protect her son from Set or other hostile beings, or to heal him from sickness or injury. In these episodes Isis is the epitome of maternal devotion and a powerful practitioner of healing magic.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: In the third phase of the story, Horus competes with Set for the kingship. Their struggle encompasses a great number of separate episodes and ranges in character from violent conflict to a legal judgment by the assembled gods. In one important episode, Set tears out one or both of Horus' eyes, which are later restored by the healing efforts of Thoth or Hathor. For this reason, the Eye of Horus is a prominent symbol of life and well-being in Egyptian iconography. Because Horus is a sky god, with one eye equated with the sun and the other with the moon, the destruction and restoration of the single eye explains why the moon is less bright than the sun.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Texts present two different resolutions for the divine contest: one in which Egypt is divided between the two claimants, and another in which Horus becomes sole ruler. In the latter version, the ascension of Horus, Osiris' rightful heir, symbolizes the reestablishment of "maat" after the unrighteous rule of Set. With order restored, Horus can perform the funerary rites for his father that are his duty as son and heir. Through this service Osiris is given new life in the Duat, whose ruler he becomes. The relationship between Osiris as king of the dead and Horus as king of the living stands for the relationship between every king and his deceased predecessors. Osiris, meanwhile, represents the regeneration of life. On earth he is credited with the annual growth of crops, and in the Duat he is involved in the rebirth of the sun and of deceased human souls.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Although Horus to some extent represents any living pharaoh, he is not the end of the lineage of ruling gods. He is succeeded first by gods and then by spirits that represent dim memories of Egypt's Predynastic rulers, the souls of Nekhen and Pe. They link the entirely mythical rulers to the final part of the sequence, the lineage of Egypt's historical kings.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Several disparate Egyptian texts address a similar theme: the birth of a divinely fathered child who is heir to the kingship. The earliest known appearance of such a story does not appear to be a myth but an entertaining folktale, found in the Middle Kingdom Westcar Papyrus, about the birth of the first three kings of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty. In that story, the three kings are the offspring of Ra and a human woman. The same theme appears in a firmly religious context in the New Kingdom, when the rulers Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, and Ramesses II depicted in temple reliefs their own conception and birth, in which the god Amun is the father and the historical queen the mother. By stating that the king originated among the gods and was deliberately created by the most important god of the period, the story gives a mythical background to the king's coronation, which appears alongside the birth story. The divine connection legitimizes the king's rule and provides a rationale for his role as intercessor between gods and humans.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Similar scenes appear in many post-New Kingdom temples, but this time the events they depict involve the gods alone. In this period, most temples were dedicated to a mythical family of deities, usually a father, mother, and son. In these versions of the story, the birth is that of the son in each triad. Each of these child gods is the heir to the throne, who will restore stability to the country. This shift in focus from the human king to the gods who are associated with him reflects a decline in the status of the pharaoh in the late stages of Egyptian history.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Ra's movements through the sky and the Duat are not fully narrated in Egyptian sources, although funerary texts like the "Amduat", "Book of Gates", and "Book of Caverns" relate the nighttime half of the journey in sequences of vignettes. This journey is key to Ra's nature and to the sustenance of all life.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: In traveling across the sky, Ra brings light to the earth, sustaining all things that live there. He reaches the peak of his strength at noon and then ages and weakens as he moves toward sunset. In the evening, Ra takes the form of Atum, the creator god, oldest of all things in the world. According to early Egyptian texts, at the end of the day he spits out all the other deities, whom he devoured at sunrise. Here they represent the stars, and the story explains why the stars are visible at night and seemingly absent during the day.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: At sunset Ra passes through the "akhet", the horizon, in the west. At times the horizon is described as a gate or door that leads to the Duat. At others, the sky goddess Nut is said to swallow the sun god, so that his journey through the Duat is likened to a journey through her body. In funerary texts, the Duat and the deities in it are portrayed in elaborate, detailed, and widely varying imagery. These images are symbolic of the awesome and enigmatic nature of the Duat, where both the gods and the dead are renewed by contact with the original powers of creation. Indeed, although Egyptian texts avoid saying it explicitly, Ra's entry into the Duat is seen as his death.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Certain themes appear repeatedly in depictions of the journey. Ra overcomes numerous obstacles in his course, representative of the effort necessary to maintain "maat". The greatest challenge is the opposition of Apep, a serpent god who represents the destructive aspect of disorder, and who threatens to destroy the sun god and plunge creation into chaos. In many of the texts, Ra overcomes these obstacles with the assistance of other deities who travel with him; they stand for various powers that are necessary to uphold Ra's authority. In his passage Ra also brings light to the Duat, enlivening the blessed dead who dwell there. In contrast, his enemies—people who have undermined "maat"—are tormented and thrown into dark pits or lakes of fire.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: The key event in the journey is the meeting of Ra and Osiris. In the New Kingdom, this event developed into a complex symbol of the Egyptian conception of life and time. Osiris, relegated to the Duat, is like a mummified body within its tomb. Ra, endlessly moving, is like the "ba", or soul, of a deceased human, which may travel during the day but must return to its body each night. When Ra and Osiris meet, they merge into a single being. Their pairing reflects the Egyptian vision of time as a continuous repeating pattern, with one member (Osiris) being always static and the other (Ra) living in a constant cycle. Once he has united with Osiris' regenerative power, Ra continues on his journey with renewed vitality. This renewal makes possible Ra's emergence at dawn, which is seen as the rebirth of the sun—expressed by a metaphor in which Nut gives birth to Ra after she has swallowed him—and the repetition of the first sunrise at the moment of creation. At this moment, the rising sun god swallows the stars once more, absorbing their power. In this revitalized state, Ra is depicted as a child or as the scarab beetle god Khepri, both of which represent rebirth in Egyptian iconography.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Egyptian texts typically treat the dissolution of the world as a possibility to be avoided, and for that reason they do not often describe it in detail. However, many texts allude to the idea that the world, after countless cycles of renewal, is destined to end. This end is described in a passage in the "Coffin Texts" and a more explicit one in the "Book of the Dead", in which Atum says that he will one day dissolve the ordered world and return to his primeval, inert state within the waters of chaos. All things other than the creator will cease to exist, except Osiris, who will survive along with him. Details about this eschatological prospect are left unclear, including the fate of the dead who are associated with Osiris. Yet with the creator god and the god of renewal together in the waters that gave rise to the orderly world, there is the potential for a new creation to arise in the same manner as the old.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Because the Egyptians rarely described theological ideas explicitly, the implicit ideas of mythology formed much of the basis for Egyptian religion. The purpose of Egyptian religion was the maintenance of "maat", and the concepts that myths express were believed to be essential to "maat". The rituals of Egyptian religion were meant to make the mythic events, and the concepts they represented, real once more, thereby renewing "maat". The rituals were believed to achieve this effect through the force of "heka", the same connection between the physical and divine realms that enabled the original creation.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: For this reason, Egyptian rituals often included actions that symbolized mythical events. Temple rites included the destruction of models representing malign gods like Set or Apophis, private magical spells called upon Isis to heal the sick as she did for Horus, and funerary rites such as the Opening of the mouth ceremony and ritual offerings to the dead evoked the myth of Osiris' resurrection. Yet rituals rarely, if ever, involved dramatic reenactments of myths. There are borderline cases, like a ceremony alluding to the Osiris myth in which two women took on the roles of Isis and Nephthys, but scholars disagree about whether these performances formed sequences of events. Much of Egyptian ritual was focused on more basic activities like giving offerings to the gods, with mythic themes serving as ideological background rather than as the focus of a rite. Nevertheless, myth and ritual strongly influenced each other. Myths could inspire rituals, like the ceremony with Isis and Nephthys; and rituals that did not originally have a mythic meaning could be reinterpreted as having one, as in the case of offering ceremonies, in which food and other items given to the gods or the dead were equated with the Eye of Horus.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Kingship was a key element of Egyptian religion, through the king's role as link between humanity and the gods. Myths explain the background for this connection between royalty and divinity. The myths about the Ennead establish the king as heir to the lineage of rulers reaching back to the creator; the myth of divine birth states that the king is the son and heir of a god; and the myths about Osiris and Horus emphasize that rightful succession to the throne is essential to the maintenance of "maat". Thus, mythology provided the rationale for the very nature of Egyptian government.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Illustrations of gods and mythical events appear extensively alongside religious writing in tombs, temples, and funerary texts. Mythological scenes in Egyptian artwork are rarely placed in sequence as a narrative, but individual scenes, particularly depicting the resurrection of Osiris, do sometimes appear in religious artwork.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Allusions to myth were very widespread in Egyptian art and architecture. In temple design, the central path of the temple axis was likened to the sun god's path across the sky, and the sanctuary at the end of the path represented the place of creation from which he rose. Temple decoration was filled with solar emblems that underscored this relationship. Similarly, the corridors of tombs were linked with the god's journey through the Duat, and the burial chamber with the tomb of Osiris. The pyramid, the best-known of all Egyptian architectural forms, may have been inspired by mythic symbolism, for it represented the mound of creation and the original sunrise, appropriate for a monument intended to assure the owner's rebirth after death. Symbols in Egyptian tradition were frequently reinterpreted, so that the meanings of mythical symbols could change and multiply over time like the myths themselves.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: More ordinary works of art were also designed to evoke mythic themes, like the amulets that Egyptians commonly wore to invoke divine powers. The Eye of Horus, for instance, was a very common shape for protective amulets because it represented Horus' well-being after the restoration of his lost eye. Scarab-shaped amulets symbolized the regeneration of life, referring to the god Khepri, the form that the sun god was said to take at dawn.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: Themes and motifs from mythology appear frequently in Egyptian literature, even outside of religious writings. An early instruction text, the "Teaching for King Merykara" from the Middle Kingdom, contains a brief reference to a myth of some kind, possibly the Destruction of Mankind; the earliest known Egyptian short story, "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor", incorporates ideas about the gods and the eventual dissolution of the world into a story set in the past. Some later stories take much of their plot from mythical events: "Tale of the Two Brothers" adapts parts of the Osiris myth into a fantastic story about ordinary people, and "The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood" transforms the conflict between Horus and Set into an allegory.


title: Egyptian mythology

text: A fragment of a text about the actions of Horus and Set dates to the Middle Kingdom, suggesting that stories about the gods arose in that era. Several texts of this type are known from the New Kingdom, and many more were written in the Late and Greco-Roman periods. Although these texts are more clearly derived from myth than those mentioned above, they still adapt the myths for non-religious purposes. "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", from the New Kingdom, tells the story of the conflict between the two gods, often with a humorous and seemingly irreverent tone. The Roman-era "Myth of the Eye of the Sun" incorporates fables into a framing story taken from myth. The goals of written fiction could also affect the narratives in magical texts, as with the New Kingdom story "Isis, the Rich Woman's Son, and the Fisherman's Wife", which conveys a moral message unconnected to its magical purpose. The variety of ways that these stories treat mythology demonstrates the wide range of purposes that myth could serve in Egyptian culture.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the US.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: 501(c)(3) tax-exemptions apply to entities that are organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes, for testing for public safety, to foster national or international amateur sports competition, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. 501(c)(3) exemption applies also for any non-incorporated community chest, fund, cooperating association or foundation organized and operated exclusively for those purposes. There are also supporting organizations—often referred to in shorthand form as "Friends of" organizations.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Due to the tax deductions associated with donations, loss of 501(c)(3) status can be highly challenging if not fatal to a charity's continued operation, as many foundations and corporate matching funds do not grant funds to a charity without such status, and individual donors often do not donate to such a charity due to the unavailability of tax deduction for contributions.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: The basic requirement of obtaining tax-exempt status is that the organization is specifically limited in powers to purposes that the IRS classifies as tax-exempt purposes. Unlike for-profit corporations that benefit from broad and general purposes, non-profit organizations need to be limited in powers to function with tax-exempt status, but a non-profit corporation is by default not limited in powers until it specifically limits itself in the articles of incorporation or nonprofit corporate bylaws. This limiting of the powers is crucial to obtaining tax exempt status with the IRS and then on the state level. Organizations acquire 501(c)(3) tax exemption by filing IRS Form 1023. , the form must be accompanied by an $850 filing fee if the yearly gross receipts for the organization are expected to average $10,000 or more. If yearly gross receipts are expected to average less than $10,000, the filing fee is reduced to $400. There are some classes of organizations that automatically are treated as tax exempt under 501(c)(3), without the need to file Form 1023:


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: The IRS released a software tool called Cyber Assistant in 2013, which was succeeded by Form 1023-EZ in 2014.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: There is an alternative way for an organization to obtain status if an organization has applied for a determination and either there is an actual controversy regarding a determination or the Internal Revenue Service has failed to make a determination. In these cases, the United States Tax Court, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the United States Court of Federal Claims have concurrent jurisdiction to issue a declaratory judgment of the organization's qualification if the organization has exhausted administrative remedies with the Internal Revenue Service.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Prior to October 9, 1969, nonprofit organizations could declare themselves to be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) without first obtaining Internal Revenue Service recognition by filing Form 1023 and receiving a determination letter. A nonprofit organization that did so prior to that date could still be subject to challenge of its status by the Internal Revenue Service.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Individuals may take a tax deduction on a charitable gift to a 501(c)(3) organization that is organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: An individual may not take a tax deduction on gifts made to a 501(c)(3) organization that is organized and operated exclusively for the testing for public safety.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: In the case of tuition fees paid to a private 501(c)(3) school or a church school, the payments are not tax-deductible charitable contributions because they are payments for services rendered to the payee or the payee's children. The payments are not tax-deductible charitable contributions even if a significant portion of a church school's curriculum is religious education. For a payment to be a tax-deductible charitable contribution, it must be a voluntary transfer of money or other property with no expectation of procuring financial benefit equal to the transfer amount.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Before donating to a 501(c)(3) organization, a donor can consult the searchable online IRS list of charitable organizations to verify that the organization qualifies to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Consumers may file IRS Form 13909, with documentation, to complain about inappropriate or fraudulent (i.e., fundraising, political campaigning, lobbying) activities by any 501(c)(3) organization.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Most 501(c)(3) must disclose the names and addresses of certain large donors to the Internal Revenue Service on their annual returns, but this information is not required to be made available to the public,


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: All 501(c)(3) organizations must make available for public inspection its application for tax-exemption, including its Form 1023 or Form 1023-EZ and any attachments, supporting documents, and follow-up correspondence with the Internal Revenue Service. The same public inspection requirement applies to the organization's annual return, namely its Form 990, Form 990-EZ, Form 990-PF, Form 990-T, and Form 1065, including any attachments, supporting documents, and follow-up correspondence with the Internal Revenue Service, with the exception of the names and addresses of donors on Schedule B. Annual returns must be made publicly available for a three-year period beginning with the due date of the return, including any extension of time for filing.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: The Internal Revenue Service provides information about specific 501(c)(3) organizations through its Tax Exempt Organization Search online.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer provides copies of each organization's Form 990 and, for some organizations, audited financial statements.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: WikiCharities, a nonprofit organization, is a growing global database that allows nonprofits and charities to be searchable by name, location, and topic. WikiCharities also gives each nonprofit a personalized webpage where nonprofits can improve transparency by listing updated contact information, leadership, board members, financials, annual reports, project activities, and more.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Section 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from supporting political candidates, as a result of the Johnson Amendment enacted in 1954. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are subject to limits on lobbying, having a choice between two sets of rules establishing an upper bound for their lobbying activities. Section 501(c)(3) organizations risk loss of their tax-exempt status if these rules are violated. An organization that loses its 501(c)(3) status due to being engaged in political activities cannot subsequently qualify for 501(c)(3) status.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Churches must meet specific requirements to obtain and maintain tax-exempt status; these are outlined in "IRS Publication 1828: Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations". This guide outlines activities allowed and not allowed by churches under the 501(c)(3) designation.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: In 1980, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia recognized a 14-part test in determining whether a religious organization is considered a church for the purposes of the Internal Revenue Code:


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Having an established congregation served by an organized ministry is of central importance. Points 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, and 13 are also especially important. Nevertheless, the 14-point list is a guideline; it is not intended to be all-encompassing, and other relevant facts and circumstances may be factors.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Although there is no definitive definition of a church for Internal Revenue Code purposes, in 1986 the United States Tax Court said that "A church is a coherent group of individuals and families that join together to accomplish the religious purposes of mutually held beliefs. In other words, a church's principal means of accomplishing its religious purposes must be to assemble regularly a group of individuals related by common worship and faith." The United States Tax Court has stated that, while a church can certainly broadcast its religious services by radio, radio broadcasts themselves do not constitute a congregation unless there is a group of people physically attending those religious services. A church can conduct worship services in various specific locations rather than in one official location. A church may have a significant number of people associate themselves with the church on a regular basis, even if the church does not have a traditional established list of individual members.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: In order to qualify as a tax-exempt church, church activities must be a significant part of the organization's operations.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: An organization whose operations include a substantial nonexempt commercial purposes, such as operating restaurants and grocery stores in a manner consistent with a particular religion's religious beliefs does not qualify as a tax-exempt church.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office. The Internal Revenue Service website elaborates on this prohibition:


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Since section 501(c)(3)'s political-activity prohibition was enacted, "commentators and litigants have challenged the provision on numerous constitutional grounds," such as freedom of speech, vagueness, and equal protection and selective prosecution. Historically, Supreme Court decisions, such as "Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington", suggested that the Court, if it were to squarely examine the political-activity prohibition of § 501(c)(3), would uphold it against a constitutional challenge. However, some have suggested that a successful challenge to the political activities prohibition of Section 501(c)(3) might be more plausible in light of "Citizens United v. FEC".


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: In contrast to the prohibition on political campaign interventions by all section 501(c)(3) organizations, public charities (but not private foundations) may conduct a limited amount of lobbying to influence legislation. Although the law states that "no substantial part" of a public charity's activities can go to lobbying, charities with large budgets may lawfully expend a million dollars (under the "expenditure" test) or more (under the "substantial part" test) per year on lobbying.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: To establish a safe harbor for the "substantial part" test, the United States Congress enacted §501(h), called the Conable election after its author, Representative Barber Conable. The section establishes limits based on operating budget that a charity can use to determine if it meets the substantial test. This changes the prohibition against direct intervention in partisan contests only for lobbying. The organization is now presumed in compliance with the substantiality test if they work within the limits. The Conable election requires a charity to file a declaration with the IRS and file a functional distribution of funds spreadsheet with their Form 990. IRS form 5768 is required to make the Conable election.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: A 501(c)(3) organization is allowed to conduct some or all of its charitable activities outside the United States. A 501(c)(3) organization is allowed to award grants to foreign charitable organizations if the grants are intended for charitable purposes and the grant funds are subject to the 501(c)(3) organization's control. Additional procedures are required of 501(c)(3) organizations that are private foundations.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: Donors' contributions to a 501(c)(3) organization are tax-deductible only if the contribution is for the use of the 501(c)(3) organization, and that the 501(c)(3) organization is not merely serving as an agent or conduit of a foreign charitable organization. The 501(c)(3) organization's management should review the grant application from the foreign organization, decide whether to award the grant based on the intended use of the funds, and require continuous oversight based on the use of funds.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: If the donor imposes a restriction or earmark that the contribution must be used for foreign activities, then the contribution is deemed to be for the foreign organization rather than the 501(c)(3) organization, and the contribution is not tax-deductible.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: The purpose of the grant to the foreign organization cannot include endorsing or opposing political candidates for elected office in any country.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: If a 501(c)(3) organization sets up and controls a foreign subsidiary to facilitate charitable work in a foreign country, then donors' contributions to the 501(c)(3) organization are tax-deductible even if intended to fund the foreign charitable activities.


title: 501(c)(3) organization

text: If a foreign organization sets up a 501(c)(3) organization for the sole purpose of raising funds for the foreign organization, and the 501(c)(3) organization sends substantially all contributions to the foreign organization, then donors' contributions to the 501(c)(3) organization are not tax-deductible to the donors.


title: Lee Dong-hwi

text: Lee Dong-hwi (born July 22, 1985) is a South Korean actor and singer. He gained recognition through his role in the critically acclaimed television series "Reply 1988" (2015–2016). Lee starred in the film "Extreme Job" (2019), the second highest-grossing South Korean film in history. He is also a member of South Korean supergroup MSG Wannabe.


title: Lee Dong-hwi

text: He is part of a celebrity group of friends known as BYH48 which consists of EXO's Suho, Ryu Jun-yeol, Byun Yo-han, Ji Soo and more. The name was coined by their fans, with BYH referring to Byun Yo-han - the group's leader - and 48 is a parody of Japanese idol group AKB48.


title: Lee Dong-hwi

text: In May 2021, Lee was revealed as one of the MSG Wannabe members who passed on variety show program Hangout with Yoo and debuted as a member of MSG Wannabe and was part of the sub-unit JSDK.


title: Lee Dong-hwi

text: On March 8, 2022, Lee donated million to the Hope Bridge Disaster Relief Association to help those affected by the massive wildfires that started in Uljin, Gyeongbuk. and also spread to Samcheok, Gangwon.


title: Lee Dong-hwi

text: On August 18, 2022, Lee donated to help those affected by the 2022 South Korean floods through the Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born 17 August 1977), known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer, best known as the former lead vocalist of Nightwish. She is a soprano with a three and a half octave range.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen studied singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is a professional classical lied singer, and the former lead vocalist of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which she founded with Tuomas Holopainen and Emppu Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's dramatic, "operatic" lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and performers.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen was fired from the band on 21 October 2005 (just after the performance of the band's "End of an Era" concert) for personal reasons accompanied by an open letter from the band. She started her solo career in 2006 with the release of a Christmas album called "Henkäys ikuisuudesta". In 2007, Turunen released "My Winter Storm", an album featuring various styles including symphonic metal, and started the Storm World Tour. She performed several concerts in Europe, playing in metal festivals including the Graspop Metal Meeting and the Wacken Open Air, before releasing her third album, "What Lies Beneath", supported by a tour, which lasted until April 2012. Her first live DVD "" was filmed during this tour on 30 and 31 March 2012 in Rosario, Argentina. "" was released in August 2012. Turunen started the Colours in the Dark World Tour in October 2013 to promote her new album "Colours in the Dark". Her second live DVD was filmed during the events of "Beauty and the Beat" and was released in May.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In September 2015, Tarja Turunen released her first classical studio album, "Ave Maria – En Plein Air". In August 2016 she released "The Shadow Self" with a prequel EP "The Brightest Void" released on 3 June. Her latest album, "In the Raw", was released on 30 August 2019.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Tarja Turunen was born in the small village of Puhos, near Kitee, Finland. She has an older brother, Timo, and a younger brother, Toni. Her mother Ritva Sisko Marjatta (Hakkarainen) worked in the town administration, and her father Teuvo Turunen is a carpenter. Her talent for music was first noted when she sang the song "Enkeli taivaan" (the Finnish version of "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come") in the Kitee church hall at age three. She joined the church choir and started taking vocal lessons. At age six, she started playing piano.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: At comprehensive school, Turunen performed as a singer for several projects. Her first piano teacher Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen (Tuomas Holopainen's mother), "Tarja was in a school that had some very musical people. Even then she got to perform a lot. I think she sang in every school function there was." Her music teacher, Plamen Dimov, later explained that, "If you gave Tarja just one note, she immediately got it. With the others, you'd have to practice three, four, five times". At school she had a tough time, since some girls bullied her because they envied her voice. To solve that problem, Dimov organized projects outside school. At fifteen, Turunen had her first major appearance as a soloist at a church concert in front of a thousand listeners. In 1993 she attended the Senior Secondary School of Art and Music in Savonlinna.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: For several years Turunen performed various songs including soul music by Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin. Later she listened to songs from the classical crossover singer Sarah Brightman, especially the song "The Phantom of the Opera", and decided to focus on that genre of music. At eighteen, she moved to Kuopio to study at the Sibelius Academy.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In December 1996, former classmate Tuomas Holopainen invited Turunen to join his new acoustic mood music project, and she immediately agreed. At the recording session for the first demo Holopainen discovered that due to her classical singing lessons, Turunen's voice had become much more powerful than he recalled from their school days. At the following band practices, Emppu Vuorinen used an electric guitar instead of an acoustic guitar because he felt that it gave a better accompaniment to her voice. Holopainen later explained that the band members had gradually realised that Turunen's voice had become too dramatic for acoustic mood music and eventually came to the conclusion that the music had to be massive too. Hence Holopainen decided to form Nightwish as a metal band.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Nightwish recorded a second demo with "more bombastic, dramatic" songs in September 1997. Holopainen used this material to convince the Finnish label Spinefarm Records to publish the band's debut album, "Angels Fall First". The success of the first album came as a surprise to the label. As the album hit the top 40 of the Finnish charts, Nightwish started their tour The First Tour of the Angels. That same year, Turunen performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival for the first time, singing songs from Wagner and Verdi.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Due to her commitment to the band, Turunen was not able to concentrate sufficiently on her schoolwork and her academic studies were interrupted. In 1998, Nightwish published their second album, "Oceanborn". This album lacked the earlier elements of folk and ambient music, and instead focused on fast, melodic keyboard and guitar lines and Turunen's dramatic voice. In addition to the Oceanborn Europe Tour (1999), Turunen sang solo in Waltari's rock-themed ballet "Evankeliumi" (also known as "Evangelicum") in several sold-out performances at the Finnish National Opera. In 2000 and 2001, Nightwish recorded "Wishmaster" and "Over the Hills and Far Away" and toured Europe and South America (the Wishmaster World Tour). During the Wishmaster World Tour, Turunen met Argentine businessman Marcelo Cabuli whom she married in 2003.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen enrolled in 2000 at the German music university Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe to gain a professional qualification as a soloist with further specialization in art song. In addition to the good reputation of the university, Turunen chose to go to Karlsruhe because some people at the Finnish university did not take her seriously as a classical singer due to her commitment in a metal band. While there, she recorded vocals for Nightwish's 2002 album "Century Child" and for Beto Vázquez Infinity. As with the other albums, Holopainen wrote the pieces and sent Turunen the lyrics and a demo recording of the prerecorded instrumental tracks by mail. Using the demo, Turunen designed her vocal lines and the choral passages.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In 2002, Turunen toured South America, performing in the classical Lied concert "Noche Escandinava" ("Scandinavian Night") to sold-out houses. Following this and an exhausting world tour in support of "Century Child" (the World Tour of the Century), Nightwish took a hiatus and Turunen returned to Karlsruhe to finish her studies. After the hiatus Nightwish recorded the album "Once"; it was released in May 2004. The album has sold platinum in Finland and Germany and was the best selling album in all of Europe in July 2004. The band performed in the supporting Once Upon a Tour throughout 2004 and 2005.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: For Christmas 2004, Turunen released her first solo single, titled "Yhden enkelin unelma" (One Angel's Dream), which sold gold in her native country of Finland. At Christmas 2005 it made a reentry at position one in the Finnish Charts. In spring 2005 she prepared the duet "Leaving You for Me", a collaboration with Martin Kesici, accompanied by a video.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: The first change in the line up of Nightwish was in September 2001, when bassist Sami Vänskä was fired because Holopainen was no longer able to continue working with him. In the following years the relationship between Holopainen and Turunen's husband and manager Marcelo Cabuli deteriorated. This affected the relationship between Holopainen and Turunen as well. At a band meeting after the concert in Oberhausen in December 2004 Turunen informed the band members that she wanted to leave the band, but agreed to record one more album and to participate in the subsequent tour, planned for 2006/2007. According to her husband, Turunen had further agreed not to make her decision public and to release her first solo album after the new studio album from Nightwish. After the last concert of the "Once Upon a Tour" on 21 October 2005 (which was released on video as "End of an Era"), Holopainen and the other band members informed Turunen in an open letter that the band did not want to work with her any more, accusing her of diva-like behaviour and greed:


title: Tarja Turunen

text: The split and, due to the open letter's allegations, Turunen's character became the subject of close media coverage. Turunen responded through an open letter on her website and through some interviews in which she explained her view. She was upset that after nine years of working together, Holopainen announced the separation via an open letter. Because of the continuing media interest, Marcelo Cabuli posted a message addressing the situation on the website in February 2006. He asked that anyone who had questions should email him. In June 2006, Cabuli posted a lengthy reply to many of the questions he had received. He answered questions related to the greed accusation by explaining that the band had agreed on the distribution of earnings in a contract at the formation of Nightwish. Based on that contract, every band member got a fixed share of 20% of the band's income. Marcelo Cabuli stated that, unlike others, Turunen had never fought for additional songwriter royalties.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Despite the circumstances of the separation, Holopainen's appreciation of Turunen as an artist remained. He explained that he did not search for a similarly trained singer as a successor for Turunen because he considers her to be extraordinarily good in her genre and therefore irreplaceable. Turunen said in an interview that she is very proud of her career with Nightwish. She considers the remaining band members extremely talented and wishes all the best for them and their subsequent lead singer Anette Olzon.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: At the end of 2005, Turunen performed several classical concerts in Finland, Germany, Spain, and Romania. Since she expected to participate in another Nightwish album, several concerts and the release of her Christmas album "Henkäys ikuisuudesta" (officially translated as "Breath from Heaven") were the only activities scheduled for 2006. Turunen again played at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2006, this time as the main act; she sang alongside Finnish tenor Raimo Sirkiä, supported by the Kuopio Symphonic Orchestra. Turunen performed classical arias like "O mio babbino caro" by Puccini, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" by Verdi and some songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber—"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Phantom of the Opera"—among other songs. In November she performed at the charity concert "Tomorrow's Child" with the Tapiola Choir as a benefit for the UNICEF Children's Fund. On 6 December 2006, Turunen performed a big concert at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti, Finland; it was broadcast live by the Finnish channel YLE TV2 for 450,000 viewers. She was nominated for the Finnish Emma Award as Best Soloist of 2006. The following year, Turunen recorded vocals for the track "In the Picture" on the Nuclear Blast All-stars album .


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In August 2006 she started to work on her next solo album, "My Winter Storm", the beginning of her main solo project. It was the first time that Turunen had written songs. She was supported by some professional songwriters. The choir and orchestral arrangements were written by film music composer James Dooley. Turunen released "My Winter Storm", an album featuring various styles, including symphonic metal with classical "operatic" lead vocals, in November 2007. The album took the number one spot on the Finnish charts, and went platinum in Finland double platinum in Russia and gold in Germany.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: She was nominated for an Echo as best newcomer and an Emma for best Finnish artist. On 25 November 2007, Turunen embarked on the Storm World Tour to promote "My Winter Storm". She performed 95 concerts throughout Europe, North and South America and ended the tour in October 2009 at the O2 Academy Islington in London. In December 2008, the EP "The Seer" was released in the UK and the new extended edition of "My Winter Storm" released in January 2009.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: She also contributed three songs to the Finnish charity Christmas album "Maailman kauneimmat joululaulut" (Finnish for "The World's Most Beautiful Christmas Songs") released in November 2009. In December 2009 she recorded her vocal part for the song "The Good Die Young", a duet with Klaus Meine which is included on the final Scorpions album "Sting in the Tail".


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen recorded her third album, "What Lies Beneath", in 2009 and 2010; it was released in September 2010. The album combined metal with classical "operatic" elements in an out of the box approach. She started the What Lies Beneath World Tour performing in several festivals, including the Wacken Open Air and the Graspop Metal Meeting, with special concerts at Miskolc Opera Festival and at the Masters of Rock, when she performed accompanied by a full orchestra. The tour is scheduled to last until April 2012. Also in 2010 she supported Alice Cooper on the German leg of his Theatre of Death Tour. On 17 July 2011, she sang again at the Savonlinna Opera Festival along with José Cura and accompanied by the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In May 2013, Turunen announced the title of her 4th solo album, "Colours in the Dark", which was released on 30 August. On 31 May the song "Never Enough" was released as a teaser. Later this year, in September, it was revealed that Turunen would appear as guest vocalist on the title track and video of Within Temptation's EP "Paradise", released on 27 September.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In January 2014, Turunen revealed through her blog that she would soon return to the studio and record vocals for a couple of songs for her "Outlanders" project together with Torsten Stenzel & Walter Giardino.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In May 2014, it was released the DVD "Beauty and the Beat", providing live footage from 3 concerts as part of the Beauty and the Beat World Tour. The DVD shows Tarja performing live with a symphonic orchestra, choir and Mike Terrana on drums. Songs include Antonín Dvořák's "Song to the Moon" from "Rusalka" and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", and also a live version of the rarely performed song "Swanheart" from the 1998 Nightwish album "Oceanborn". On the same year, in July, "Left in the Dark" was released as an EP containing alternative versions from Tarja's album "Colours in the Dark", as well as a studio version of "Into the Sun".


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On 17 October 2015, Tarja performed two new songs from her forthcoming album, "No Bitter End" and "Goldfinger", which is a cover of the title song of the James Bond film with the same name.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Tarja announced she is to release a new album in the summer of 2016. She explains that "she has been working hard once again with Tim Palmer to create the heaviest sound so far of her career for her fourth rock album". She also explained that the album will follow in the same footsteps as her other albums but with a new soul and growth. A teaser with a snippet of two songs was then released on her official YouTube channel. On 17 February 2016, Tarja also revealed the first letter of the album name to be T. On March 14, 2016, Tarja made public title and cover of her new album, "The Shadow Self".


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On April 7, Tarja announced the release, scheduled for June 3, of "The Brightest Void", the "prequel" of "The Shadow Self"; "The Brightest Void" contains the song "No Bitter End", also included in "The Shadow Self", the duet with Within Temptation "Paradise (What About Us?)" and several covers.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On November 17, 2017, Tarja released "From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)", her second classical and Christmas album. With the album release comes also Tarja Turunen's first graphic novel, "From Spirits and Ghosts (Novel for a Dark Christmas)". The 40-page novel is about the world of dark Christmas scripted by Peter Rogers with accompanying art by Conor Boyle.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On July 27, 2018, Tarja released "Act II", a live album and DVD recorded during the concert on November 29, 2016, at the Teatro della Luna in Milan, during the world tour The Shadow Shows.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On 30 August 2019, Tarja released "In the Raw". For this album Tarja Turunen joined forces with other Heavy Metal vocalists such as Björn Strid, Tommy Karevik, and Cristina Scabbia, thus including in the album vocal collaborations with them.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On 19 June 2021, Tarja announced the release of a book in October 2021, "Singing in My Blood" in which the book would share the story of her life in music.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: At the end of 2021, Tarja launched the ten-year project called "Outlanders" which combines her vocals with electronic beats, and featuring guest artists such as Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin and jazz guitarist Al Di Meola. Tarja confirmed in an interview on 15 August 2022, that not only was she working on two albums for 2023, she stated that there will be a new album at the end of 2022.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On 2 December 2022, Tarja released her first compilation album "Best of: Living the Dream" in many formats to celebrate her 15-year solo career.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Along with visiting the music school in Savonlinna, Turunen began serious classical vocal training at 17. After school, she began studying music (with a specialization in church music) at the Sibelius Academy. Due to her commitment with Nightwish, she had to interrupt her academic studies.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: From 2001 to 2003, she studied at the music academy Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, where she trained as a soloist with further specialization in art songs.<ref name="Metal Hammer 06/2004">"Metal Hammer", July 2004, p. 14</ref> Turunen originally applied to train as a choir singer. At the audition she attracted the attention of professor Mitsuko Shirai, who encouraged Turunen to apply for soloist training.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: As a classical singer, Turunen sings with classical vocal technique. She explained that in the early days of Nightwish, it was difficult to combine classical technique with the metal sound in a way that gave her liberty of action without damaging her vocal cords. Classical techniques helped her to play with her voice, so she decided not to pursue extra training in rock/pop singing.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Towards the turn of the millennium, the combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with classical female lead vocals attracted a great deal of attention in the metal scene. The new music style of Nightwish quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity; this symphonic metal style was soon dubbed "opera metal". Turunen does not see herself as an opera singer. She has sung excerpts from operas at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, but she stresses that singing opera cannot be performed as a side project. She would need special training to perfectly sing an entire opera without a microphone.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: When asked how the association between the opera and metal genres may have arisen, Turunen said that despite the obvious differences, the two music styles have some similarities:


title: Tarja Turunen

text: From the first Nightwish album "Angels Fall First" (1997) on, critics described Turunen's vocals using adjectives such as "angelic" or "valkyrian". The Valkyrie image was later fostered by the second video for the single "Sleeping Sun" in which Turunen walks on a battlefield as if she were guiding the dead warriors.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: On the following albums the singing was technically more complex. On the Nightwish album "Oceanborn" (1998), her classical vocal training was much more noticeable. For the song "Passion and the Opera", Turunen performed a staccato coloratura reminiscent of the aria "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart", sung by the soprano role Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. "Sleeping Sun" required a well-trained breathing technique. Turunen explained in an interview that when they recorded "Oceanborn", she had serious doubts, fearing that she was not yet advanced enough in her studies to have mastered the required techniques.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: A challenge of a different kind was the cover version of Gary Moore's "Over the Hills and Far Away" (2001), as it required a deeper voice, far below the vocal range of an average soprano. In an interview with "Breakout" magazine, she reported that in the studio, the band members were shaken by a paroxysm of laughter as she tried to warm up for the vocal lines. As a side benefit of her efforts, Turunen gradually expanded her vocal range considerably into the lower range, which manifested even more on the following albums.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: For the album "Century Child" (2002), she experimented with a more "rock" sounding voice, where she maintained the classical singing technique, but, for example, sang with less vibrato. Turunen was not satisfied that she had successfully transitioned to this new style until the album "Once" (2004).


title: Tarja Turunen

text: This deeper "rock"-sounding voice on "Once"—as well as on the song "In the Picture" of the album ""—was welcomed by critics as a refreshing change.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Her first solo album "My Winter Storm" (2007) contains rock and metal songs as well as songs that resemble classical songs. Turunen uses both her classical singing voice and a rock-sounding voice. In many songs she starts with a rock voice, and then switches for widely arching melodies into a distinctly classical singing voice.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In an interview, she explained that "My Winter Storm" was the first album where she had the chance to use her full vocal range.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen's voice type is soprano. Over the course of her career, Turunen has developed a vocal range of three and a half octaves.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Her range is apparent on her album "My Winter Storm", where the lowest note sung is F in the song "The Seer", while in another song, she aimed for D. At the end of the Phantom of the Opera, which she performed both with Nightwish and solo, and both in a metal version and a classical version, she sustains an E6 or Eb6. In the Nightwish's song Devil and the Deep Dark Ocean from Oceanborn she sang a F#6, but in the live performances she would reach a B6 or D7 as exclamations.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen's voice is described by critics as remarkably powerful and emotional. Sometimes it is stated that her voice is too trained or operatic for metal music, but even critics who do not like classical voices admit that her voice suits the kind of metal songs she sings unusually well.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Until the end of their collaboration, Turunen's singing was a trademark of Nightwish. She was known as the face and voice of Nightwish while bandleader Holopainen was the soul. Turunen was seen as a key to Nightwish's success. She is respected by other musicians of the metal genre and is an influence on their work; for instance, Simone Simons of Epica names her as her inspiration to study classical music and apply that vocal style to a metal band.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen receives most of her media attention in Europe, especially in her home of Finland. In December 2003, she was invited by Finnish president Tarja Halonen to celebrate Finnish Independence Day at the Presidential Palace together with other Finnish celebrities. The event is televised annually live by the state-owned broadcaster, the Finnish Broadcasting Company. In December 2007, she performed different versions of the Finnish national anthem "Maamme" (Finnish: "Our country") accompanied by the Tapiola Sinfonietta, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Finnish independence. The concert was televised by the Finnish Broadcasting Company for 2 million Finnish viewers. In December 2013, Turunen was the invited soloist at the Christmas Peace event in the Turku Cathedral, Finland, with the presence of Finnish president Sauli Niinistö. The concert aired on Yle TV1 at the Christmas Eve. During her solo career, Turunen has sold over 100,000 certified records in Finland, which places her among the top 50 of best-selling female soloists.


title: Tarja Turunen

text: In Europe, her popularity is mainly limited to the hard rock and metal scene. She had a broader exposure on 30 November 2007, when she was invited to open the farewell fight of Regina Halmich. Her performance of "I Walk Alone" was televised live by the German television station ZDF for 8.8 million viewers. Turunen was one of the star coaches in the fourth season of "The Voice of Finland" in the spring of 2015 on Nelonen. After the success of the 2015 edition of "The Voice of Finland", Tarja was again chosen to be one of the star coaches for the 2016 edition. In 2016 in honor of the Day of the Finnish Identity, celebrated on May 12, Finland published a new set of official emojis, which symbolizes Finnish culture and history - among other iconic Finnish imagery there were music related emojis, including Tarja Turunen as "The Voice".


title: Tarja Turunen

text: Turunen married Argentine businessman Marcelo Cabuli on 31 December 2002 – their wedding was celebrated in July 2003; they lived in Buenos Aires with their daughter who was born in 2012. In an interview, Tarja explained that in 2016 they had plans to move back to Europe due to her touring schedule and that their daughter was starting school in the coming year. She currently lives in the south of Spain. In October 2021, she revealed that she had a stroke three years earlier after a U.S. tour.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol is a medication used to decrease high blood uric acid levels. It is specifically used to prevent gout, prevent specific types of kidney stones and for the high uric acid levels that can occur with chemotherapy. It is taken by mouth or injected into a vein.


title: Allopurinol

text: Common side effects when used by mouth include itchiness and rash. Common side effects when used by injection include vomiting and kidney problems. While not recommended historically, starting allopurinol during an attack of gout appears to be safe. In those already on the medication, it should be continued even during an acute gout attack. While use during pregnancy does not appear to result in harm, this use has not been well studied. Allopurinol is in the xanthine oxidase inhibitor family of medications.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol was approved for medical use in the United States in 1966. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Allopurinol is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 42nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 15million prescriptions.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol is used to reduce urate formation in conditions where urate deposition has already occurred or is predictable. The specific diseases and conditions where it is used include gouty arthritis, skin tophi, kidney stones, idiopathic gout; uric acid lithiasis; acute uric acid nephropathy; neoplastic disease and myeloproliferative disease with high cell turnover rates, in which high urate levels occur either spontaneously, or after cytotoxic therapy; certain enzyme disorders which lead to overproduction of urate, for example: hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase, including Lesch–Nyhan syndrome; glucose 6-phosphatase including glycogen storage disease; phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate amidotransferase; adenine phosphoribosyltransferase.


title: Allopurinol

text: It is also used to treat kidney stones caused by deficient activity of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol was also commonly used to treat tumor lysis syndrome in chemotherapeutic treatments, as these regimens can rapidly produce severe acute hyperuricemia; however, it has gradually been replaced by urate oxidase therapy. Intravenous formulations are used in this indication when people cannot take medicine by mouth.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol cotherapy is used to improve outcomes for people with inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease who do not respond to thiopurine monotherapy. Cotherapy has also been shown to greatly improve hepatoxicity side effects in treatment of IBD. Cotherapy invariably requires dose reduction of the thiopurine, usually to one-third of the standard dose depending upon the patient's genetic status for thiopurine methyltransferase.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol has been tested as an augmentation strategy for the treatment of mania in bipolar disorder. Meta-analytic evidence showed that adjunctive allopurinol was superior to placebo for acute mania (both with and without mixed features). Its efficacy was not influenced by dosage, follow-up duration, or concurrent standard treatment.


title: Allopurinol

text: There is a correlation between uric acid levels and cardiovascular disease and mortality, and so allopurinol has been explored as a potential treatment to reduce risk of cardiac disease. However, the data is inconsistent and conflicting, and the use of allopurinol for use in cardiovascular disease is controversial. Independently of its effects on uric acid, it may also have effects on oxidative stress and inflammation.


title: Allopurinol

text: Because allopurinol is not a uricosuric, it can be used in people with poor kidney function. However, for people with impaired kidney function, allopurinol has two disadvantages. First, its dosing is complex. Second, some people are hypersensitive to the drug; therefore, its use requires careful monitoring.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol has rare but potentially fatal adverse effects involving the skin. The most serious adverse effect is a hypersensitivity syndrome consisting of fever, skin rash, eosinophilia, hepatitis, and worsened renal function, collectively referred to as DRESS syndrome. Allopurinol is one of the drugs commonly known to cause Stevens–Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis, two life-threatening dermatological conditions. More common is a less-serious rash that leads to discontinuing this drug.


title: Allopurinol

text: More rarely, allopurinol can also result in the depression of bone marrow elements, leading to cytopenias, as well as aplastic anemia. Moreover, allopurinol can also cause peripheral neuritis in some patients, although this is a rare side effect. Another side effect of allopurinol is interstitial nephritis.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol may also increase the activity or half-life of the following drugs, in order of seriousness and certainty of the interaction:


title: Allopurinol

text: A common misconception is that allopurinol is metabolized by its target, xanthine oxidase, but this action is principally carried out by aldehyde oxidase. The active metabolite of allopurinol is oxipurinol, which is also an inhibitor of xanthine oxidase. Allopurinol is almost completely metabolized to oxipurinol within two hours of oral administration, whereas oxipurinol is slowly excreted by the kidneys over 18–30 hours. For this reason, oxipurinol is believed responsible for the majority of allopurinol's effect.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol is a purine analog; it is a structural isomer of hypoxanthine (a naturally occurring purine in the body) and is an inhibitor of the enzyme xanthine oxidase. Xanthine oxidase is responsible for the successive oxidation of hypoxanthine and xanthine, resulting in the production of uric acid, the product of human purine metabolism. In addition to blocking uric acid production, inhibition of xanthine oxidase causes an increase in hypoxanthine and xanthine. While xanthine cannot be converted to purine ribonucleotides, hypoxanthine can be salvaged to the purine ribonucleotides adenosine and guanosine monophosphates. Increased levels of these ribonucleotides may cause feedback inhibition of amidophosphoribosyl transferase, the first and rate-limiting enzyme of purine biosynthesis. Allopurinol, therefore, decreases uric acid formation and may also inhibit purine synthesis.


title: Allopurinol

text: The HLA-B*5801 allele is a genetic marker for allopurinol-induced severe cutaneous adverse reactions, including Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). The frequency of the HLA-B*5801 allele varies between ethnicities: Han Chinese and Thai populations have HLA-B*5801 allele frequencies of around 8%, as compared to European and Japanese populations, who have allele frequencies of around 1.0% and 0.5%, respectively. The increase in risk for developing allopurinol-induced SJS or TEN in individuals with the HLA-B*5801 allele (as compared to those who do not have this allele) is very high, ranging from a 40-fold to a 580-fold increase in risk, depending on ethnicity. As of 2011 the FDA-approved drug label for allopurinol did not contain any information regarding the HLA-B*5801 allele, though FDA scientists did publish a study in 2011 which reported a strong, reproducible and consistent association between the allele and allopurinol-induced SJS and TEN. However, the American College of Rheumatology recommends screening for HLA-B*5801 in high-risk populations ("e.g." Koreans with stage 3 or worse chronic kidney disease and those of Han Chinese and Thai descent), and prescribing patients who are positive for the allele an alternative drug. The Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium guidelines state that allopurinol is contraindicated in known carriers of the HLA-B*5801 allele.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol was first synthesized and reported in 1956 by Roland K. Robins (1926-1992), in a search for antineoplastic agents. Because allopurinol inhibits the breakdown (catabolism) of the thiopurine drug mercaptopurine, and it was later tested by Wayne Rundles, in collaboration with Gertrude Elion's lab at Wellcome Research Laboratories to see if it could improve treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia by enhancing the action of mercaptopurine. However, no improvement in leukemia response was noted with mercaptopurine-allopurinol co-therapy, so that work turned to other compounds and the team then started testing allopurinol as a potential therapeutic for gout. Allopurinol was first marketed as a treatment for gout in 1966.


title: Allopurinol

text: Allopurinol has been marketed in the United States since 19 August 1966, when it was first approved by FDA under the trade name Zyloprim. Allopurinol was marketed at the time by Burroughs Wellcome. Allopurinol is a generic drug sold under a variety of brand names, including Allohexal, Allosig, Milurit, Alloril, Progout, Ürikoliz, Zyloprim, Zyloric, Zyrik, and Aluron.


title: Monsters at Work

text: Monsters at Work is an American computer-animated streaming television series that debuted on Disney+ on July 7, 2021, as part of the "Monsters, Inc." media franchise.


title: Monsters at Work

text: A direct continuation of the original 2001 film, it features the voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman reprising their roles as Mike Wazowski and James P. "Sulley" Sullivan from the original film and the 2013 prequel "Monsters University"; several other voice actors from the films reprise their roles as guests. A second season was announced and is set for release in 2023.


title: Monsters at Work

text: "Monsters at Work" begins the day after Henry J. Waternoose III's arrest, with the Monsters, Incorporated factory making the transition to laugh power. Tylor Tuskmon, a recent Scare Major graduate from Monsters University, having previously received a letter of acceptance from Waternoose to be a scarer at the factory, is excited to work at the same company as his idol Sulley. However, Tylor is devastated to learn that the company is no longer in need of scarers, and he is reassigned to work as a mechanic on the Monsters Inc. Facilities Team (MIFT). Meanwhile, Mike and Sulley encounter the trials and tribulations of running the company.


title: Monsters at Work

text: Other cast members include Bobs Gannaway as Otis, the "Monsters, Incorporated" receptionist, and Roto, Duncan's pet, Gabriel Iglesias as Gary Gibbs, Mike Wazowski's arch-nemesis who appears in "The Big Wazowskis" and "Bad Hair Day", and Dee Bradley Baker as Winchester: the non-verbal member of the "Monsters, Incorporated" Facilities Team, nicknamed "Banana Bread".


title: Monsters at Work

text: Alfred Molina reprises his role as Professor Derek Knight from "Monsters University" (2013) in "Welcome to Monsters, Incorporated". John Ratzenberger reprises his role as Adorable from the original film and "Monsters University" in "Adorable Returns" and "Little Monsters". Ratzenberger also voices Tylor's father, Bernard, who appears in "Adorable Returns".


title: Monsters at Work

text: Aisha Tyler guest stars in "Meet Mift" as Tylor's mother, Millie and John Michael Higgins guest stars as Argus Blinks in "The Cover Up". Bob Uecker guest stars in "The Damaged Room", as a parody of himself named Bob Yucker. Gannaway's daughter, Hadley, guest stars in "Little Monsters" as Ms. Flint's daughter, Thalia. In addition, Devin Bright, Cooper Friedman, Lucian Perez, and Isabella Abiera voice monster children in "Little Monsters".


title: Monsters at Work

text: Additional monster voices include Carlos Alazraqui, Ferrell Barron, Hiromi Dames, Michaela Dietz, and Dave Wittenberg.


title: Monsters at Work

text: During The Walt Disney Company's earnings call, in November 2017, CEO Bob Iger announced that a new series set in the universe of "Monsters, Inc.", was in development for their planned streaming service Disney+. The series is produced by Disney Television Animation. Longtime Disney Television producer Bobs Gannaway served as showrunner for the first season. He was asked to work on the series after development began, due to his experience on both TV animation and films, having directed the "Cars" spin-off "".


title: Monsters at Work

text: During the 2019 D23 Expo, Gannaway and producer Ferrell Barron revealed that employees from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar were also involved in the production, to create a series that Barron described as "unique and special". "Monsters, Inc." filmmakers, including director and Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter, provided the team with both used and unused concept art from the film, with the unused concept art being recycled for the series. Gannaway stated that the creative leaders at Pixar were, "very supportive of the show" and additionally stated, "they were also very much like 'Go out and create new characters and have fun.' So, it wasn't by any means any kind of policing situation. It was go have fun in the world with your new characters."


title: Monsters at Work

text: In February 2020, Stephen J. Anderson revealed that he would serve as one of the directors on the series. Anderson joined the series eight months before Disney Television Animation was temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after being approached personally by Gannaway. In early 2021, Billy Crystal revealed that production had slightly slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that it should be released later that year.


title: Monsters at Work

text: In September 2021, cast member Henry Winkler indicated that a second season is in development. The second season was officially announced at Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2022, with Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers (the "Prep & Landing" shorts, "Olaf's Frozen Adventure") replacing Gannaway and Anderson as showrunner and supervising director, respectively.


title: Monsters at Work

text: According to Anderson, Pixar assisted the producers on the series by providing notes during its writing and early storyboarding process in order to "keep [them] on track as far as the legacy of the project". He also said that the series would differ from the films by further exploring "different areas of Monsters, Inc.", and that the series would further explore the transition in the company from screams to laughs seen at the end of the first film. Anderson also said that the series would feature an overarching story, but certain episodes would focus more on character development than the overall arc.


title: Monsters at Work

text: The series expands the role of the female characters in the original film, with receptionist Celia Mae being promoted to Laugh Floor supervisor in order to "move a female character up into a leadership role", as well as featuring trainer Ms. Flint's reaction to the transition from scares to laughter. The series also features a new character named Roze, who is Roz's twin sister, as the producers felt that, due to the latter being revealed as the head of the "Child Detection Agency" at the end of the first film, "she wouldn't be back outside the laugh floor". In addition, Bob Peterson, story supervisor on "Monsters, Inc.", serves as a creative consultant for the series.


title: Monsters at Work

text: According to Gannaway, it took the producers almost a year to conceive the series' premise. He also compared Tylor's struggles with the transition with the current world status due to the COVID-19 pandemic, feeling that both the character and the audiences had "the universe [throw them] a curveball", which he felt made Tylor a more relatable character by having flaws the audience could connect with. Gannaway also said he wanted the series to have "the sort of feel of a Pixar story" by making the audience care about Tylor and his personal journey.


title: Monsters at Work

text: Gannaway was originally not going to include the characters of Smitty and Needleman out of respect for their voice actor, the late Dan Gerson. However, he eventually incorporated them into the series when he felt Gerson would want the characters to continue even after his death. Gannaway paid an homage to Gerson by including a "Gerson Industries" logo in the trash cans the duo push.


title: Monsters at Work

text: In order to get a sense of what it was like working in a factory, the production team visited two power plants and would interview the workers about their day. Gannaway stated, "You want to tether everything to truth. You can't make a movie about a power plant if you haven't walked one; otherwise you're just making stuff up."


title: Monsters at Work

text: John Goodman and Billy Crystal reprise their roles for the series alongside John Ratzenberger, Jennifer Tilly, and Bob Peterson, with the new cast including Ben Feldman, Kelly Marie Tran, Henry Winkler, Lucas Neff, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Stanton and Aisha Tyler. In February 2020, director Stephen J. Anderson revealed that recording for the series had already begun. In March 2021, Mindy Kaling and Bonnie Hunt joined the cast, with Kaling replacing Tran as Val Little and Hunt reprising her role as Mrs. Flint from the original film. In an interview with "The New York Times", it was confirmed that Boo, the human child that Sulley and Mike befriended in the original film, would not be making an appearance. Bobs Gannaway stated that he had discussions with "Monsters, Inc." director Pete Docter, and they both agreed that they wanted to keep the relationship ambiguous, with Gannaway stating, "Everyone agreed that we wanted to leave it to the world to decide how that relationship continued."


title: Monsters at Work

text: Animation for the series was produced by ICON Creative Studio, in Canada. Animation work on the series began shortly before Disney Television Animation was closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the producers to continue work remotely. According to director Stephen J. Anderson, work on storyboards and layouts for the second and third episodes were done remotely during the pandemic.


title: Monsters at Work

text: British composer Dominic Lewis (who previously scored the 2017 reboot of "DuckTales") was announced as the series composer. Lewis said the score was mainly inspired by Randy Newman's jazzy score from the first film. Lewis also performed the theme song, which is an a cappella rendition of Newman's opening credits music from the first film. The soundtrack album was released digitally and on streaming on July 9, 2021.


title: Monsters at Work

text: A teaser trailer for the series was released on May 18, 2021. The first trailer for the series was released on June 11, 2021.


title: Monsters at Work

text: "Monsters at Work" debuted on July 7, 2021, releasing weekly on Wednesdays, and consists of 10 episodes. It was previously set to release sometime in 2020, but then changed to early 2021, then to July 2, 2021, then finally to its current date, with a two-episode premiere. The series will make its linear premiere on Disney Channel on January 6, 2023.


title: Monsters at Work

text: According to Whip Media's viewership tracking app TV Time, "Monsters at Work" was the 3rd most anticipated new television series of July 2021. According to Whip Media, "Monsters at Work" was the top rising show, based on the week-over-week growth in episodes watched for a specific program, during the week of July 11, 2022.


title: Monsters at Work

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 65% approval rating with an average score of 6.20/10 based on 26 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "If "Monsters at Work" doesn't quite capture the magic of the original film, it's charming and silly enough to entertain fans of all ages." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 55 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Monsters at Work

text: Petrana Radulovic of "Polygon" praised the animation of the series, complimented its humor, and found the premise interesting, writing, "With a huge cast of characters and humor that waddles along the line between silliness and sharp societal commentary, "Monsters at Work" balances a whole lot." Brian Lowry of "CNN" gave the show a positive review and said, "The show doesn't deliver belly laughs, but it nimbly slides into the Monsters [Inc.] timeline and cleverly builds on a particularly fertile Pixar concept." Ashley Moulton of "Common Sense Media" rated the series 4 out of 5 stars, praised the depiction of positive messages, citing perseverance and acceptance, and complimented the presence of role models, saying, "Most characters model pro-social behaviors like friendliness and working hard." Alan Sepinwall of "Rolling Stone" rated the show 3.5 out of 5 and stated, "Combine them with some well-executed slapstick set pieces that evoke the two movies without feeling like rehashes, and the early episodes set up the foundation for a solid all-ages comedy." Ben Travers of "Indiewire" gave the show a 'B−' score and stated, "If you love original movies and were expecting a third, "Monsters at Work" might be a bit disappointing. But if you can still appreciate the world-building, [the] series might still hit its laugh quotas." Richard Roeper of "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the show 3 out of 4 and stated, ""Monsters at Work" isn't on the same level as the two feature films, but it's miles ahead of the likes of "The Return of Jafar" or "Kronk's New Groove"."


title: Monsters at Work

text: Scott Bryan of "BBC" gave the show a negative review and stated, "As someone who loves the films, I wonder ... do we need more of it? The films are so well self-contained. This feels like an excess of something we don't really need." Chris Vognar of "San Francisco Chronicle" rated the show 2 out of 4 and wrote, "This is a solid effort, even if it doesn't quite shimmer like your top-of-the-line Pixar favorites." Brian Tallerico of "RogerEbert.com" gave the show a negative review and stated, "Any hope that the Pixar charm would rub off on a Pixar show like "Monsters at Work" doesn't pay off in the first two episodes." Lucy Mangan of "The Guardian" gave the show 2 out of 5 stars and stated, "It feels like a long wait at times. The first two half-hour episodes (the only ones of the 10 that were available for review) are extraordinarily slow." Anita Singh of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the show 2 out of 5 and stated, "Bafflingly, it's a workplace comedy. Note to Disney: children don't go to work."


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South African teams previously from the SANZAR Super Rugby competition. The league is one of the three major professional leagues in Europe (along with the English Premiership and the French Top 14), the most successful teams from which go forward to compete in the European Rugby Champions Cup. Since 2022–23, despite the name, South African teams have been eligible to qualify for European competition, and one South African place is guaranteed.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Beginning with the creation of the Welsh–Scottish League in 1999, the league became known as the Celtic League when it grew to include teams from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The league was sponsored by Irish cider makers Magners from the 2006–07 season until 2010–11. At the start of the 2010–11 season, the league expanded from 10 to 12 teams, adding two Italian teams. Following the end of Magners' sponsorship, the league was sponsored by RaboDirect from 2011–12 through to 2013–14. The Pro12 name was adopted in 2011 to reflect that the league now included teams from outside the Celtic nations. A further expansion to 14 teams (and the subsequent renaming to Pro14) took place from the 2017–18 season, with two South African teams joining the Championship until the 2019–20 season. The recent sponsorship deal with Guinness began at the beginning of the 2014–15 season, and concluded after the Pro14 Rainbow Cup in July 2021. Following the rebranding to the United Rugby Championship or the URC for short, the league formed a new partnership with Roc Nation.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The championship season as of 2021–22 takes place between September and May, with teams split into four regional pools: The Irish Shield pool, the Welsh Shield pool, the South African Shield pool and the Scottish and Italian Shield pool. Teams will also be sorted into a single league table.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Teams will play each of the other teams in their pool twice (home and away) and each team from the other pools once (either home or away). This ensures that Irish, South African and Welsh teams each play six derby matches. For Italy and Scotland, their respective clubs will play their own nations' sides only twice.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: This creates an 18-match regular season before the play-offs. The play-offs are made up of the top eight teams, and consist of a straight knockout tournament. Teams are seeded 1–8 and the lowest-seeded teams receive home advantage. The final will be held in a pre-arranged venue.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Championship points are awarded using the bonus points system; 4 points for a win and 2 for a draw. Bonus points can be earned so long as teams can either score four or more tries in a game and or lose by seven points or less – should a team do both, two bonus points are gained.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: As for European qualification, the South African teams are eligible for European competition. Eight places are allocated for teams competing in the competition, despite the change of format. The Shield winner in each pool will gain qualification into the Champions Cup. The remaining four places are allocated to the next four highest-placed teams in the main table.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: With three fewer regular season fixtures than in the Pro14, but with an extra round of playoffs, the season is truncated slightly to 21 match weeks and thus can still be scheduled to same time period as previous models of the competition. Clashes between league matches and international weekends in November and during the Six Nations Championship have been reduced.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Due to the travelling distance between Europe and South Africa, home South African games will always be played on a Saturday, allowing visiting teams to have a seven-day turnaround between fixtures and includes five "clean days" that do not involve any travel. Should the draw see European teams play both South African teams away, the schedule will see the away team play the two matches back-to-back across two weeks, acting as a "mini-tour".


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 24 September 2021, URC confirmed that the top side in each regional pool after the end of the 18-game regular season would be awarded a trophy, a regional Shield. In Ireland, Wales and South Africa, this shield (the Irish Shield, Welsh Shield and South African Shield respectively) functions as an informal national championship title for the main professional sides, while in Scotland and Italy's shared pool, it will be a joint regional trophy. The concept is comparable to the Divisional Championships in the NFL which are also loosely geographically based. Winning a Shield will also guarantee qualification for the European Rugby Champions Cup, regardless of overall league position.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league has used a play-off structure since the 2009–10 season to determine the champions, similar to that used in the English Premiership. For the first two seasons there were two groups and a knockout to determine a winner. Starting from the 2003–04 season until the 2008–09 season, the champions were determined from league performance, with all the teams in one league. From the 2017–18 season, the regular season employed a conference structure rather than a single round robin league, with 'derby games' between teams from the same nation being protected, and an expanded playoff structure. This allowed the competition to control the calendar, and control the number of games per team.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: League points are awarded using the bonus points system. Until and including the 2008–09 season, the champions were decided solely on the basis of who finished top of the league table, but since the 2009–10 season, the league champion has been decided by a play-off series, in line with other rugby club competitions such as Super Rugby, Top 14, and the English Premiership: at the conclusion of the regular season, the top four placed teams enter the semi-final stage, with the winner of the first vs fourth and second vs third play-offs entering the final (known as the "grand final" in 2010 and 2011).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Two Italian teams – the former National Championship of Excellence team Benetton Treviso, and a new team, Aironi – joined the league starting with the 2010–11 season. Aironi was replaced by Zebre from the 2012–13 season. Through the 2012–13 season, the Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Italian rugby unions used the league as the sole determinant for Heineken Cup qualification, and from 2013–14 they use it as the sole means of qualification for the successor to the Heineken Cup, the European Rugby Champions Cup.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The legal name of the body running the competition is "PRO Rugby Championship DAC", a private company limited by shares based in Ireland. The organisation is responsible for running and operating the URC and is currently owned equally by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) and the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). The Italian Rugby Federation (FIR) may become a shareholder subject to it meeting certain conditions.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The board of Celtic Rugby DAC is made up of representatives from the IRFU, SRU, WRU, ProRugby Wales, the FIR and the South African Rugby Union. The chief executive is Martin Anayi.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In 2020 the championship received an investment from CVC Capital Partners who acquired a 28% share in the championship.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Starting in the 2010–11 season, the League was broadcast live on BBC Two Wales, BBC Two Northern Ireland, RTÉ, the Irish language channel TG4, the Scottish Gaelic channel BBC Alba, the Welsh channel S4C. The BBC Two Wales matches were usually made available to the rest of the United Kingdom via BBC Red Button. Complete match replays were also available on the BBC iPlayer. Each broadcaster provided feeds to the others for matches in their home territory. While this meant that the league was now available free to air in the UK and Ireland, in Italy it was only available on a subscription basis in its first year.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Commencing from the 2014–15 season, Sky Sports became one of the league's broadcast partners, broadcasting 33 live games on a Saturday and also showing both the semi-finals and the final live. Its contract concluded at the end of 2017–18 season.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Also starting in the 2014–15 season, Italy's Nuvolari began broadcasting the games involving the two Italian clubs live on its digital free-to-view channel. Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh matches were also broadcast live on BBC Radio Scotland.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: From the 2018–19 season, coverage of the tournament was taken over by Premier Sports in the UK, EirSport in Ireland, DAZN in Italy, and Supersport in South Africa.