title: OpenStreetMap

text: Software used in the production and presentation of OpenStreetMap data is available from many different projects and each may have its own licensing. The application what users access to edit maps and view changelogs, is powered by Ruby on Rails. The application also uses PostgreSQL for storage of user data and edit metadata. The default map is rendered by Mapnik, stored in PostGIS, and powered by an Apache module called "mod_tile". Certain parts of the software, such as the map editor Potlatch2, have been made available as public domain.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: Some OpenStreetMap data is supplied by companies that choose to freely license either actual street data or satellite imagery sources from which OSM contributors can trace roads and features.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: Notably, Automotive Navigation Data provided a complete road data set for Netherlands and details of trunk roads in China and India. In December 2006, Yahoo! confirmed that OpenStreetMap was able to make use of their vertical aerial imagery and this photography was available within the editing software as an overlay. Contributors could create their vector based maps as a derived work, released with a free and open licence, until the shutdown of the Yahoo! Maps API on 13 September 2011. In November 2010, Microsoft announced that the OpenStreetMap community could use Bing vertical aerial imagery as a backdrop in its editors. For a period from 2009 to 2011, NearMap Pty Ltd made their high-resolution PhotoMaps (of major Australian cities, plus some rural Australian areas) available for deriving OpenStreetMap data under a CC BY-SA licence.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: In June 2018, the Microsoft Bing team announced a major contribution of 125 million U.S. building footprints to the project – four times the number contributed by users and government data imports.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: While OpenStreetMap aims to be a central data source, its map rendering and aesthetics are meant to be only one of many options, some of which highlight different elements of the map or emphasise design and performance.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: OpenStreetMap uses a topological data structure, with four core elements (also known as "data primitives"):


title: OpenStreetMap

text: The main copy of the OSM data is stored in OSM's main database. The main database is a PostgreSQL database, which has one table for each data primitive, with individual objects stored as rows. All edits happen in this database, and all other formats are created from it.


title: OpenStreetMap

text: For data transfer, several database dumps are created, which are available for download. The complete dump is called . These dumps exist in two formats, one using XML and one using the Protocol Buffer Binary Format (PBF).


title: OpenStreetMap

text: A variety of popular services incorporate some sort of geolocation or map-based component. Notable services using OSM for this include:


title: OpenStreetMap

text: Several open collaborative mapping projects integrate with the OpenStreetMap database or are otherwise affiliated with the OpenStreetMap project:


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, situated between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest. It encompasses about 50 square blocks, and is a large wedge/triangle in shape (point faces East). It is historically bounded on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue. The northern boundary with Lower Nob Hill has historically been set at Geary Street. The area has among the highest levels of homelessness and crime in the city.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The terms "Tenderloin Heights" and "The Tendernob" refer to the area around the indefinite boundary between the Upper Tenderloin and Lower Nob Hill. The eastern extent, near Union Square, overlaps with the Theater District.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Part of the western extent of the Tenderloin, Larkin and Hyde Streets between Turk and O'Farrell, was officially named "Little Saigon" by the City of San Francisco.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin took its name from an older neighborhood in New York with similar characteristics. There are several explanations of how that neighborhood was named. Some said it was a reference to the neighborhood as the "soft underbelly" (analogous to the cut of meat) of the city, with allusions to vice and corruption, especially graft. Another popular explanation, probably folklore, attributes the name to a New York City police captain, Alexander S. Williams, who was overheard saying that when he was assigned to another part of the city, he could only afford to eat chuck steak on the salary he was earning, but after he was transferred to this neighborhood he was making so much money on the side soliciting bribes that now he could eat tenderloin instead. Another version of that story says that the officers who worked in the Tenderloin received a "hazard pay" bonus for working in such a violent area, and thus were able to afford the good cut of meat. Yet another story, also likely apocryphal, is that the name is a reference to the "loins" of prostitutes.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin borders the Mission/Market Street corridor, which follows the Spaniards' El Camino Real, which in turn traced an ancient north–south Indian trail. The Tenderloin is sheltered by Nob Hill, and far enough from the bay to be on solid ground. There is evidence that a community resided here several thousand years ago. In the 1960s, the area was excavated to develop the BART/MUNI subway station at Civic Center.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin has been a downtown residential community since shortly after the California Gold Rush in 1849. However, the name "Tenderloin" does not appear on any maps of San Francisco prior to the 1930s; before then, it was labeled as "Downtown", although it was informally referred to as "the Tenderloin" as early as the 1890s. The area had an active nightlife in the late 19th century with many theaters, restaurants and hotels. Notorious madam Tessie Wall opened her first brothel on O'Farrell Street in 1898. Almost all of the buildings in the neighborhood were destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and the backfires that were set by firefighters to contain the devastation. The area was immediately rebuilt with some hotels opening by 1907 and apartment buildings shortly thereafter, including the historic Cadillac Hotel. By the 1920s, the neighborhood was notorious for its gambling, billiard halls, boxing gyms, "speakeasies", theaters, restaurants and other nightlife depicted in the hard boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett, who lived at 891 Post Street, the apartment he gave to Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon". Also around this time, due to Red Light Abatement Act, prostitution and other vice began to be pushed out from the Barbary Coast district to the more southern and less business-occupied Tenderloin.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In the mid-20th century, the Tenderloin provided work for many musicians in the neighborhood's theaters, hotels, burlesque houses, bars and clubs and was the location of the Musician's Union Building on Jones Street. The most famous jazz club was the Black Hawk at Hyde and Turk Streets where Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and other jazz musicians recorded live albums for Fantasy Records in the late 1950s and early 1960s.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: With housing consisting almost entirely of single-room-occupancy hotel rooms, studio and one bedroom apartments, the Tenderloin historically housed single adults and couples. After World War II, with the decline in central cities throughout the United States, the Tenderloin lost population, creating a large amount of vacant housing units by the mid-1970s. Beginning in the late 1970s, after the Vietnam War, the Tenderloin received large numbers of refugees from Southeast Asia—first ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, then Khmer from Cambodia and Hmong from Laos. The low-cost vacant housing, and the proximity to Chinatown through the Stockton Street Tunnel, made the area appealing to refugees and resettlement agencies. Studio apartments became home for families of four and five people and became what a local police officer called "vertical villages." The Tenderloin quickly increased from having just a few children to having over 3,500 and this population has remained. A number of neighborhood Southeast Asian restaurants, bánh mì coffee shops, ethnic grocery stores, video shops, and other stores opened at this time, which still exist.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin has a long history as a center of alternate sexualities, including several historic confrontations with police. The legendary female impersonator Ray Bourbon, a performer during the Pansy Craze, was arrested in 1933 while his show "Boys Will Be Girls" was being broadcast live on the radio from Tait's Cafe at 44 Ellis Street. In the evening of August 13, 1961, 103 gay and lesbian patrons were raided in the Tay-Bush Inn, a café frequently visited by gay and lesbian patrons. As a response to police harassment, S.F. bar owners formed the San Francisco Tavern Guild. A study into prostitution in the Tenderloin found that while trans women face discrimination from certain professions and their sexual partners, sex workers in the Tenderloin area were adept at overcoming some such difficulties.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: On New Year's Day in 1965, police raided a Mardi Gras Ball at California Hall on Polk Street sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, lining up and photographing 600 participants and arresting several prominent citizens. One of the first "gay riots", pre-dating the Stonewall riots in New York, happened at Compton's Cafeteria at Turk and Taylor Streets in August 1966 when the police, attempting to arrest a drag queen, sparked a riot that spilled into the streets. The group ended up smashing the windows of the police car and burned a nearby newspaper stand to the ground; the riot promoted the formation of the Gay Activists Alliance. Prior to the emergence of The Castro as a major gay village, the center of the Tenderloin at Turk and Taylor and the Polk Gulch at the western side of the Tenderloin were two of the city's first gay neighborhoods and a few of these historic gay bars and clubs still exist.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The apartment where Dashiell Hammett wrote "The Maltese Falcon" was once in the boundaries of the Tenderloin at the corner of Hyde and Post. Both the movie and book were based in San Francisco's Tenderloin. There is also an alley in what is now Nob Hill, named for the book's author (Dashiell Hammett). It lies outside the Tenderloin because the boundary was defined with borders different from today's. Some locations, such as Sam Spade's apartment and John's Grill, also no longer lie in the Tenderloin because local economics and real estate have changed the character and labeling of areas over time.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In July 2008, the area was designated as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In 2017, a portion was declared the Compton's Transgender Cultural District commemorating the historic transgender population and culture and in particular, the 1966 transgender and queer uprising, the Compton's Cafeteria riot.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Nestled near the downtown area, the Tenderloin has historically resisted gentrification, maintaining a seedy character and reputation for crime. Squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, illegal drug trade, prostitution, liquor stores, and strip clubs give the neighborhood a seedy reputation.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Part of the neighborhood forms part of the theater district. Prominent theatres include the Geary, the home of the American Conservatory Theater, and the Curran, Golden Gate and Orpheum Theatres operated by the Shorenstein Nederlander Organization. Alternative theaters in the Tenderloin include EXIT Theatre, which operates four storefront theaters and produces the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the New Conservatory Theater, the Phoenix Theater, CounterPulse, PianoFight, the New Music Center and others. Alternate galleries include The Luggage Store, the 509 Cultural Center, and others. The neighborhood had many bars dating to prohibition and before with dive bars, including some left over from when the neighborhood housed large numbers of merchant seamen but most of those have closed or been transformed. One bar is built on the site of a previous speakeasy, Bourbon and Branch, at the corner of Jones and O'Farrell Streets. The original speakeasy was restored in the bar's basement, including many of the original decorations. Many bars have entertainment including the historic drag bar Aunt Charlie's. Larger live music venues include the Great American Music Hall and the Warfield Theatre. Historically, the Tenderloin has had a number of strip clubs, although their number has decreased in recent decades. The best known was the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin is also a hub for the gender diverse community. The categories of LGBTIQ created a new gender politics that helped to distinguish between the different groups; the Tenderloin was heavily populated by the transgender community. Many street activists paved the way for change, such as Anne Ogborn.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In his seminar 'Take Charge of Your Life', Jim Rohn recounted his visits to the Tenderloin to experience the "human tragedy". He described his visit to a bar in the Tenderloin where the bar tender told him about a dancer by the name of Cookie, who was severely crippled and had a child suffering from leukemia.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The position held by policymakers regarding gentrification is often divided, with one side of the debate arguing that it is of benefit to the public economy and revitalization of the built setting, while the other side argues that the huge social costs and displacement of people, especially the poor, outweigh all potential strengths of the process.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin serves as a mecca for the art scene in San Francisco, housing the "White Walls" gallery and "Shooting Gallery". The Tenderloin has been home to mural work by artists such as Johanna Poethig, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee, and Blek le Rat.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The "Book & Job" gallery has become known for hosting skating legends such as Tommy Guerrero and promoting "Zine Weekends."


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin is a high-crime neighborhood, particularly violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault. Graffiti art and tagging are common in the neighborhood. Dealing and use of illicit drugs occurs on the streets. Property crimes are common, especially theft from parked vehicles. Violent acts occur more often here and are generally related to drugs. The area has been the scene of escalating drug violence in 2007, including brazen daylight shootings, as local gangs from San Francisco, and others from around the Bay Area battle for turf. 14 of the city's 98 homicides took place in the area in 2007. Seven of the top 10 violent crime plots (out of 665 in the entire city as measured by the San Francisco Police Department) are adjacent plots in the Tenderloin and Sixth and Market area.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The first block of Turk Street, between Taylor and Mason, had one of the highest rates of violence and drug activity in San Francisco, according to a survey conducted by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. On January 31, 2014, parking was banned on both sides of the street in an effort to reduce violence and drug activity. Without parked cars to hide illegal activity, there were fewer loiterers, and a decrease in drug activity.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: According to "The New York Times", streets in the Tenderloin are littered with thousands of discarded heroin needles, and the sidewalks "have come to resemble a refugee camp". Public defecation and urination are commonplace, and between 2015 and 2018, more than 300 lampposts were replaced because they had been corroded by urine.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The neighborhood was the origin of a notorious Bahala Na Gang (BNG) imported from the Philippines. In the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, the gang was involved in extortion, drug sales, and murder for hire. Additionally, on April 10, 1984, notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez committed his first known murder in a hotel basement, where he was living, in the Tenderloin district.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: High prevalence of sex work in the Tenderloin area has been associated with a high rate of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, especially among men who have sex with other men and those who inject drugs. Contributing factors include a lack of sex education and safe sex practices, including condom use. In a 2000 survey, 59% of men who performed sex with other men did not report condom use, with higher rates of unsafe sex practices among those who are not engaged in paid sex work.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin has been the home of Raphael House, the first provider in the city of shelter for homeless parents and children, since 1971. It is an ethnically diverse community, consisting of families, young people living in cheap apartments, downtown bohemian artists, and recent immigrants from Latin America and Southeast Asia. It is home to a large population of homeless, those living in extreme poverty, and numerous non-profit social service agencies, soup kitchens, religious rescue missions, homeless shelters and single room occupancy hotels. Many homeless youths in the Tenderloin district are at risk of serious emotional and psychological problems arising from past traumatic experiences. Lack of appropriately targeted options available in the area has meant many youths will have few viable paths to deal effectively with their problems.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin Housing Clinic has offered important social services to the poor of this neighborhood for decades. The Care Through Touch Institute, located between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, offers free seated massage therapy to clients in the Tenderloin community. The founder and director of CTI, Mary Ann Finch, began offering services here in 1997, after being inspired by her volunteer work with Mother Teresa in India.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Religious institutions providing community services to the Tenderloin include Glide Memorial Church, which was reinvigorated by Cecil Williams in 1963, St. Anthony's, a program of the Franciscans and San Francisco City Impact founded in 1984 by Pastor Roger Huang. San Francisco City Impact's K-8 private school, the San Francisco City Academy, was the first K-8 school in the Tenderloin District; founded in 1997. These all provide meals and other social services to poor and homeless residents and others. Glide and the surrounding neighborhood provided much of the setting for the 2006 film "The Pursuit of Happyness". In 2008, The Salvation Army opened the Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center, a multipurpose center featuring a gym, swimming pool and fitness center among other amenities. The funding for this center was made possible by a $1.5 billion bequest from Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald's founder, Ray Kroc. Adjacent to the Kroc center is Railton Place, a 110-unit apartment complex run by the Salvation Army for former foster youth, homeless veterans, and adults recovering from addictions. In 2016, the Tenderloin Community Benefit District (TLCBD) announced the implementation of a new public-private initiative, Operation Leadership, which aims to help strengthen existing street cleaning and beautification services.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: As transgender women often face barriers such as discrimination and stigma when accessing health care, and show reluctance to disclose their gender when seeking health related services, a collaborative project named 'TRANS' was set up near the Tenderloin to appropriately address the multifaceted needs of this diverse population, as well as offering support.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In their study, Sausa, Keatley, Operario (2007) concluded that sex work for transgender women of color must be viewed as a forced consequence of structural barriers that they face, as well as an informed choice for survival as a result of these barriers.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin Senior Organizing Project (TSOP; formerly known as the Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project) was initiated when local university staff realized that many seniors felt afraid of crime, rent increases, and inadequate income. They facilitate interpersonal communication through coffee & refreshments, and groups of elderly people were encouraged to meet each other.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Larkin Street Youth Services is a non-profit organization that offers a continuum of services that inspires youth to move beyond the street. Services run the gamut from street outreach and temporary shelters to transitional living programs, health and wellness services, and comprehensive education and employment programs.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In 1987, residents and others from the Aarti Hotel on Leavenworth Street founded the 509 Cultural Center at 509 Ellis Street. After the 1989 earthquake damaged that facility, artists founded The Luggage Store at 1007 Market, at the intersection of 6th Street, Market, Taylor and Golden Gate Avenue. In 1989 the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center (TREC) spun off from St Anthony foundation and operated a cultural center including dance, music, writing quilting, and other arts workshops in the St. Boniface Neighborhood Center. Artists and activists such as Eric Ehn from the Iowa Writing Workshop and Theatre Artaud; Miya Masoaka, a recording artist with Asian Improv Records; Lucy Jane Bledsoe, published novelist and writer for the East Bay Express; Pearl Ubungen, choreographer; Ben Clarke, Founding Editor of Freedom Voices; and Maketa Groves, poet and published author at Curbstone Press; and Tenderloin resident and Athabaskan poet Mary TallMountain offered numerous free workshops. TREC and its publishing project Freedom Voices continue to offer workshops on an occasional basis at the Public Library, Hospitality House, the Faithful Fools and other locations in the neighborhood. Tender Leaves, the center's literary journal was published from 1987 to 2006.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: From 2006 to 2009, "The Loin's Mouth" – conceived by its editor Rachel M. – was a semi-quarterly publication about life in the Tenderloin and Tendernob areas. Since then, others have come about to fill the gap including the "Tenderloin Reading Series", which is a quarterly literary event in the neighborhood as well as "The Tender", a local journal focusing on the events, food, and politics of the neighborhood.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In 2006, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts was formed to produce, exhibit, and develop creativity with the most contemporary new media technologies. Initially located on Taylor Street in an space, they have since moved across the street to rent space from The Warfield.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In years past, the local Vietnamese Community has hosted the Tết celebration of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year in the Little Saigon section of the Tenderloin.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Historically, the downtown Tenderloin had no parks between Union Square to the East and Civic Center Plaza to the West until a number of activists, who organized the city's Citizens Committee for Open Space, advocated for more open space in the Tenderloin in the 1970s. As a result, a number of parks and playgrounds were created including first Boeddeker Park, a multi-use facility, then the youth-oriented Tenderloin Playground, followed by a number of mini-playgrounds.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Boeddeker Park, located at the corner of Eddy and Jones Streets, is one of the most used parks per square foot in the city. It underwent a renovation, completed in December 2014, which has revitalized the park. YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club occupy the clubhouse, providing programming for youth and seniors. "It's the hub of positive community togetherness", Tenderloin police Capt. Jason Cherniss said of the park. "It's not necessarily police, it's community. It's ripe for that now. We're all getting more connected and sharing information."


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The Tenderloin Children's Playground, on Ellis Street between Leavenworth and Hyde Streets, was opened in 1995 and has attractive indoor and outdoor recreational facilities and hosts a number of community and family events.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: Sgt. John Macaulay Park, named after a San Francisco police officer who was killed in the adjacent alley while on duty, is a small gated playground at the corner of O'Farrell and Larkin Streets. Although the park is located across the street from a strip club, it is frequented by parents and children from the neighborhood.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: The "Tenderloin National Forest" (a project of the nonprofit organization The Luggage Store/509 Cultural Center) is an unofficial park that was established in 1987 that maintains the park and opening hours. It is located on Cohen Alley just off Ellis Street.


title: Tenderloin, San Francisco

text: In March 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Vice President Tracy Reiman sent Mayor Ed Lee a letter proposing renaming of the neighborhood and suggesting an alternative name like the Tempeh District, claiming "the city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal". The proposal was widely met with ridicule from locals, and Mayor Lee responded that it was more important to improve the lives of the residents than to rename the neighborhood.


title: FIRE movement

text: The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement is a lifestyle movement with the goal of gaining financial independence and retiring early. The model became particularly popular among millennials in the 2010s, gaining traction through online communities via information shared in blogs, podcasts, and online discussion forums.


title: FIRE movement

text: Those seeking to attain FIRE intentionally maximize their savings rate by finding ways to increase income and/or decrease expenses, along with aggressive investments that again increases their wealth and/or income. The objective is to accumulate assets until the resulting passive income provides enough money for living expenses throughout one's retirement years. Many proponents of the FIRE movement suggest the 4% rule as a rough withdrawal guideline, thus setting a goal of at least 25 times one's estimated annual living expenses. Upon reaching financial independence, paid work becomes optional, allowing for retirement from traditional work decades earlier than the standard retirement age.


title: FIRE movement

text: FIRE is achieved through aggressive saving, far more than the standard 10–15% typically recommended by financial planners. Assuming expenses are equal to income minus savings, and neglecting investment returns, observe that:


title: FIRE movement

text: From this example, it can be concluded that the time to retirement decreases significantly as savings rate is increased. For this reason, those pursuing FIRE attempt to save 50% or more of their income. At a 75% savings rate, it would take less than 10 years of work to accumulate 25 times the average annual living expenses suggested by 'the 4% safe withdrawal' rule.


title: FIRE movement

text: There are also two sides to the spectrum of FIRE. Lean FIRE refers to the ability to retire early on a smaller accumulation of retirement income and limited living expenses which will require a frugal lifestyle during retirement. On the other end of this is Fat FIRE, which refers to the ability to retire early due to a large amount of accumulated wealth and passive income with no concerns about living expenses during retirement. A hybrid of these two is known as Barista FIRE, which refers to a semi-retired lifestyle of working part-time for some supplemental income, or retiring fully but with a partner who continues to work.


title: FIRE movement

text: FIRE is viewed as a lifestyle, not simply an investment strategy. A common thread that challenges individuals that subscribe to the FIRE lifestyle is finding partners that share the same fiscal goals. Availability of online resources helps the movement to expand among Millennial high-net-worth individuals.


title: FIRE movement

text: The emergence of social media has brought more attention to worker's sharing about their dissatisfaction. "Social media has made lives appear more glorious and expensive, but also allows others to broadly share about their financial freedom." said Zachary A. Bachner, CFP(r) of Summit Financial.


title: FIRE movement

text: The main ideas behind the FIRE movement originate from the 1992 best-selling book "Your Money or Your Life" written by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, as well as the 2010 book "Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker. These works provide the basic template of combining a lifestyle of simple living with income from investments to achieve financial independence. In particular, the latter book describes the relationship between savings rate and time to retirement, which allows individuals to quickly project their retirement date given an assumed level of income and expenses.


title: FIRE movement

text: The Mr. Money Mustache blog, which started in 2011, is an influential voice that generated interest in the idea of achieving early retirement through frugality and helped popularize the FIRE movement. Other books, blogs, and podcasts continue to refine and promote the FIRE concept. A Notable contributor to this movement includes "Financial Freedom" author Grant Sabatier, who works closely with Vicki Robin and popularized the idea of side hustling as a path to accelerate financial independence. In 2018, the FIRE movement received significant coverage by traditional mainstream media outlets. According to a survey conducted by the Harris Poll later that year, 11% of wealthier Americans aged 45 and older have heard of the FIRE movement by name while another 26% are aware of the concept.


title: FIRE movement

text: 2020 saw the introduction of dating sites and blogs dedicated to bringing partners that share the FIRE lifestyle together.


title: FIRE movement

text: Some critics allege that the FIRE movement "is only for the rich", pointing to the difficulties of achieving the high savings rates needed for FIRE on a low income. Another common criticism is that the FIRE movement is composed only of white "tech bros", a notion that highlights the fact that men are overrepresented in media coverage of the FIRE movement. A "New York Times" story focused on the women and women of color in the FIRE movement. It highlighted Kiersten Saunders and called Tanja Hester, author of the book "Work Optional", "the matriarch of the FIRE women." Paula Pant, host of the "Afford Anything" podcast, and Jamila Souffrant, host of the "Journey to Launch" podcast, are also prominent women of color in the FIRE movement. Some also argue that early retirees are not saving enough for early retirement and the many unknowns that come with a longer time period. Because the retirement phase of FIRE could potentially last 70 years, critics say that it is inappropriate to apply the 4% rule, which was developed for a traditional retirement timeframe of 30 years. For that reason, Hester and economist Karsten Jeske argue for a safer withdrawal rate of 3.5% or less, which means saving 30-40 times one's annual spending instead of 25 times if the goal is to retire completely and never earn money again.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Sean Michael Spicer (born September 23, 1971) is a former American political aide who served as the 30th White House Press Secretary and as White House Communications Director under President Donald Trump in 2017. Spicer was communications director of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017, and its chief strategist from 2015 to 2017.


title: Sean Spicer

text: During his tenure as White House press secretary, Spicer made a number of public statements that were controversial and false, and he developed a contentious relationship with the White House press corps. The first such instance occurred on January 21, 2017, the day following Trump's inauguration. Spicer repeated the claim that crowds at Trump's inauguration ceremony were the largest ever at such an event and that the press had deliberately underestimated the number of spectators. After this statement was widely criticized, Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said that Spicer had presented what she called "alternative facts" regarding the inauguration's attendance numbers.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer resigned as White House Press Secretary on July 21, 2017, although he remained at the White House in an unspecified capacity until August 31. Since leaving the White House, Spicer has published the memoir "", appeared as a contestant on season 28 of "Dancing with the Stars", and started hosting a political talk show on Newsmax TV.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer is the son of Kathryn (née Grossman) and Michael William Spicer (1944–2016). The Spicers were living in Port Washington when Sean was born at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, New York. Spicer grew up in the East Bay area of Rhode Island. His father was an insurance agent and his mother is the department manager in the East Asian studies department at Brown University.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer is of partial Irish descent, and was raised Catholic. From 1985 to 1989, Spicer attended Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic boarding school in Rhode Island. While in high school, he volunteered for local political campaigns in Rhode Island and continued those activities while at college.


title: Sean Spicer

text: He attended Connecticut College from 1989 to 1993 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. In college he was a student senator. In April 1993, an article in the student paper, "The College Voice", referred to Spicer as "Sean Sphincter"; Spicer submitted an angry complaint to the paper and followed up by pushing for college judicial action against the paper, for which he received further ribbing from the campus satirical publication "Blats". The incident was later cited as a precursor of his contentious relationship with the media.


title: Sean Spicer

text: In 2012, he earned a master's degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.


title: Sean Spicer

text: After graduating from college in 1993, Spicer worked on a number of political campaigns. In the late 1990s, he worked for representatives Mike Pappas (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Mark Foley (R-FL), and Clay Shaw (R-FL).


title: Sean Spicer

text: In 1999, Spicer joined the United States Navy Reserve as a public affairs officer; he currently holds the rank of Commander. As of December 2016, he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff's naval reserve contingent in Washington, D.C., and in 2017 was a member of the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Task Force.


title: Sean Spicer

text: From 2000 to 2001, Spicer was the communications director on the House Government Reform Committee, and from 2001 to 2002, he was director of incumbent retention at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).


title: Sean Spicer

text: From 2003 to 2005, Spicer was the communications director and spokesman for the House Budget Committee. He subsequently was the communications director for the Republican Conference of the U.S. House of Representatives, and then, from 2006 to 2009, was the assistant for media and public affairs at the Office of the United States Trade Representative in President George W. Bush's administration. He wore an Easter bunny suit during the White House Easter Egg Rolls.


title: Sean Spicer

text: From 2009 to 2011, Spicer was a partner at Endeavor Global Strategies, a public relations firm he co-founded to represent foreign governments and corporations with business before the U.S. government. His clients included the government of Colombia, which was then seeking a free trade agreement with the U.S. amid public criticism of its human rights record. Spicer worked full-time at the firm until February 2011.


title: Sean Spicer

text: In February 2011, Spicer became the communications director of the Republican National Committee. At the RNC, he enlarged the organization's social media operations, built an in-house TV production team, and created a rapid response program to reply to attacks. In February 2015, he was given an additional role, as chief strategist for the party.


title: Sean Spicer

text: While at the RNC, Spicer was critical of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. In June 2015, after Trump said illegal immigrants from Mexico were involved in crimes in the U.S., Spicer said "painting Mexican Americans with that kind of a brush, I think that's probably something that is not helpful to the cause." In July 2015, he released a public criticism of Trump's comments on U.S. Senator John McCain, saying "there is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably."


title: Sean Spicer

text: On December 22, 2016, Spicer was named the White House press secretary for Donald Trump. On December 24, he was also named the communications director for the Trump administration after the sudden and unexpected resignation of Jason Miller.


title: Sean Spicer

text: An April 2017 "Politico"/Morning Consult poll showed that Spicer had a nationwide name recognition of 60%, much higher than most other White House staffers and previous press secretaries.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On January 21, 2017, which was the day after the inauguration and two days before his first official press conference, Spicer made a statement to the press that was negatively critical of the media; he said that they had underestimated the size of the crowds for President Trump's inaugural ceremony. He claimed that the ceremony had drawn the "largest audience to ever to witness an inauguration, period – both in person and around the globe". But as many sources immediately pointed out, that claim was false.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer stated that the press had altered images of the event to minimize the size of the crowds. He said floor coverings over the grass were to blame for a visual effect that made the audience look smaller, and stated they had never been used before despite the fact that they had been used in 2013 for the preceding second inauguration of Barack Obama. He also used incorrect figures to claim that Metro ridership was higher during Trump's inauguration than during Obama's inauguration, when in fact it was lower than during either of Obama's inaugurations. Spicer took no questions after his statement. Later, Spicer defended his previous statements by saying "sometimes we can disagree with the facts". It was subsequently reported that Spicer had made the statement on direct orders from Trump, who was furious at what he considered unfair press coverage of his inauguration.


title: Sean Spicer

text: In response to the briefing, conservative political analyst Bill Kristol wrote: "It is embarrassing, as an American, to watch this briefing by Sean Spicer from the podium at the White House." "Vanity Fair" described Spicer's statement as "peppered with lies", and "The Atlantic" described Spicer's briefing as "bizarre". The article referred to the "Trump administration's needless lies" and noted that Spicer's statements appeared to involve a "deliberate attempt to mislead". Glenn Kessler of "The Washington Post" gave Spicer's claims four Pinocchios, writing that he was so appalled by the press secretary's performance that he wished he could have given him five Pinocchios instead of the maximum number of four.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Trump's team defended Spicer's statements. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus stated that the purpose of Spicer's conference was to call out what he called "dishonesty in the media" and their "obsession with delegitimizing the president". Trump's campaign strategist and counselor, Kellyanne Conway, told NBC's Chuck Todd that Trump's inauguration crowd numbers could not be proved nor quantified and that the press secretary was simply giving "alternative facts". Todd responded by saying, "Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods."


title: Sean Spicer

text: Two days later on January 23, 2017, Spicer held his first official White House press conference and took questions from reporters. When Spicer was asked about attendance at the inauguration, he said that his definition of a viewing audience also included individuals who watched the event on television as well as on social media online. He claimed that online viewership must have been in the "tens of millions".


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer's argument was based on the reported figure of 16.9 million people who began streaming the inauguration on CNN's website. This argument has been criticized because the 16.9 million streams included people who started the stream and then left.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On February 7, 2017, CNN reported that "President Donald Trump is disappointed in Spicer's performance during the first two weeks of the administration." Trump was also upset at White House chief of staff Reince Priebus for recommending Spicer, the network reported. Trump "regrets it every day and blames Priebus", a White House source told CNN. His role as temporary communications director was filled by Michael Dubke on March 6, 2017.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On April 11, 2017, Spicer issued a statement in reference to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. He said that Russia should not support the Syrian government and also commented that in World War II "You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons."


title: Sean Spicer

text: His remarks were widely criticized, especially given the fact that the timing of the remarks coincided with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Spicer later clarified that he was not trying to deny that Hitler used lethal gas during the Holocaust, instead that he was trying to compare how Assad dropped bombs on population centers to how Hitler used the gas. Amid calls for his resignation, Spicer apologized the next day.


title: Sean Spicer

text: As White House press secretary, Spicer had a contentious relationship with the White House press corps. In February 2017, the White House selectively blocked several news outletsincluding the BBC, CNN, "The New York Times", "Los Angeles Times" and "Politico"from an off-camera briefing (or "gaggle") with Spicer, a move that prompted strong objections from the outlets concerned, as well as by the White House Correspondents' Association. "The Washington Post" wrote that the barring of the outlets was "a rare and surprising move that came amid President Trump's escalating war against the media." Reporters from the Associated Press and "Time" magazine were admitted to the briefing, but chose not to attend in protest of the exclusion of other journalists.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On July 11, 2017, Spicer, along with Donald Trump, and Dan Scavino (the White House director of social media), was sued by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in U.S. federal court in Manhattan. The suit, "Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump", alleges that Trump and the White House officials violated the First Amendment by blocking some users from accessing Trump's Twitter content.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On July 21, 2017, Spicer announced his intention to resign as White House Press Secretary. He made his decision known immediately after President Trump appointed financier Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. In the weeks leading up to the resignation announcement, Spicer had sought "a more strategic communications role" in the White House. Trump had reportedly been dissatisfied for some time with Spicer's performance as White House Press Secretary. According to "The New York Times", Trump asked Spicer to stay on, but Spicer announced his resignation after telling the President he "vehemently disagreed" with the appointment of Scaramucci. In a tweet, Spicer said that it has been "an honor and a privilege" to serve Trump and that he would continue his service in the White House, through August 2017. His new position was not identified. Sarah Sanders was announced as the new White House Press Secretary the same day.


title: Sean Spicer

text: After several low-profile months, Spicer was reportedly refused contracts to be a paid contributor at any of the five major U.S. TV news networks: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News, due to lack of credibility.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On September 17, 2017, Spicer made a cameo appearance at the 2017 Emmy Awards, spoofing his first press conference as Trump's press secretary by saying that the Emmys broadcast would garner "the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period". The following week he gave an interview to "The New York Times" and appeared on "Good Morning America". Also, it was revealed that during his eight-month tenure at the White House he kept copious notes on what he did, saw, and heard, filling numerous notebooks. The revelation provoked speculation that the notebooks would be of interest to the investigation of special prosecutor Robert Mueller.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer announced in December 2017 on "The Sean Hannity Show" that he would release a book, "", in July 2018 about his tenure with the Trump administration.


title: Sean Spicer

text: On July 31, 2019, President Trump announced his intention to appoint Spicer to be a Member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy and later did so. On September 8, 2021, the White House Communications Director confirmed that President Joe Biden sought resignation letters from all 18 former military academy Presidential appointees placed in the final months of the prior administration, which included Spicer, and those who refused would be terminated that evening.


title: Sean Spicer

text: In August 2019, Spicer was announced as a contestant on season 28 of "Dancing with the Stars". This announcement was met with alarm on social media and by many at ABC News. One ABC employee told CNN journalist Oliver Darcy: "It's a slap in the face to those of us who had to deal with his baloney and the consequences of the ongoing lies and disinformation campaign at the White House." Spicer responded by saying that "Dancing" "is an entertainment show. I look forward to having some fun. And if people are looking for news, I suggest they tune into a news program". On the first installment of this edition of the popular celebrity reality competition, Spicer wore a bright lime green shirt with ruffles while his dancing partner's dress prominently featured pineapples as they engaged in a salsa dance, garnering widespread media coverage.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Starting in March 2020, Spicer hosts a political talk show for the channel Newsmax TV called "Spicer & Co."


title: Sean Spicer

text: Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, "Forbes" warned corporations against hiring Spicer and other Trump "propagandists", stating that ""Forbes" will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie."


title: Sean Spicer

text: On November 13, 2004, Spicer married Rebecca Miller, at the time a television producer, at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Spicer and his wife live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have two children. His wife is senior vice president, communications and public affairs, for the National Beer Wholesalers Association. He is Roman Catholic.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Several commentators have compared Spicer to "Baghdad Bob", Information Minister under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.


title: Sean Spicer

text: Spicer's frequently combative press conferences were satirized four times on "Saturday Night Live" in 2017, with actress Melissa McCarthy playing the role of Spicer. Her portrayal was described by a staff writer at "The Atlantic" as "genius", mixing "energy and weaponized hostility". Spicer stated that he found the sketches funny, but suggested that McCarthy "could dial back" a bit. He also portrayed a fictionalized version of himself in "Army of the Dead" along with Donna Brazile.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: The Bad News Bears is a 1976 American sports comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Bill Lancaster. It stars Walter Matthau as an alcoholic ex-baseball pitcher who becomes a coach for a youth baseball team known as the Bears. Alongside Matthau, the film's cast includes Tatum O'Neal, Vic Morrow,


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Joyce Van Patten, Ben Piazza, Jackie Earle Haley, and Alfred W. Lutter. Its score, composed by Jerry Fielding, adapts the principal themes of Bizet's opera "Carmen".


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Released by Paramount Pictures, "The Bad News Bears" received generally positive reviews. It was followed by two sequels, "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" in 1977 and "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan" in 1978, a short-lived 1979–80 CBS television series, and a 2005 remake.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: In 1976, Morris Buttermaker, an alcoholic pool cleaner and former minor-league baseball pitcher, is recruited to coach "the Bears," a youth baseball league expansion team of misfit players in Southern California, formed as a settlement to a lawsuit brought against the league for excluding such players from other teams. Shunned by the more competitive teams (and competitive parents and coaches), the Bears are the outsiders, and the least talented team in the league. Buttermaker forfeits the opening game after the team allows 26 runs without recording an out.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: With the entire team wanting to quit due to the humiliation of their first loss, Buttermaker recruits two unlikely prospects: sharp-tongued Amanda Wurlitzer, a skilled pitcher (trained by Buttermaker when she was younger) and the 11-year-old daughter of one of Buttermaker's ex-girlfriends; and the local cigarette-smoking, loan-sharking, Harley-Davidson-riding troublemaker, Kelly Leak, who also happens to be the best athlete in the area, but has been excluded from playing in the past by league officials. With Amanda and Kelly on board, the team starts gaining more confidence, and the Bears start winning games. The subplot reveals the strained relationship between Buttermaker and Amanda as the team improves.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Eventually, the Bears make it to the championship game opposite the top-notch Yankees, who are coached by aggressive, competitive Roy Turner. As the game progresses, tensions rise between the teams and the coaches, as Buttermaker and Turner engage in ruthless behavior toward each other and the players in order to win the game. When Turner strikes his son, the pitcher, for ignoring orders by intentionally throwing at another child's head (an action which occasionally occurs in baseball but which is against the rules, frowned upon, and extremely dangerous) Buttermaker realizes that he, too, has placed too much emphasis on winning, and puts in his benchwarmers to allow everyone to play. Despite Buttermaker's move, the Bears nearly win the game. Buttermaker gives the team beer which they spray on each other with a field celebration as if they had won.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: "The Bad News Bears" was filmed in and around Los Angeles, primarily in the San Fernando Valley. The field where they played is in Mason Park on Mason Avenue in Chatsworth. In the film, the Bears were sponsored by an actual local company, "Chico's Bail Bonds." One scene was filmed in the council chamber at Los Angeles City Hall.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Matthau was paid $750,000 plus over 10% of the theatrical rentals. Tatum O'Neal was paid $350,000 plus a percentage of the profits. These were later estimated to be $1.9 million.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 97% based on reviews from 30 critics and an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Bad News Bears" is rude, profane, and cynical, but shot through with honest, unforced humor, and held together by a deft, understated performance from Walter Matthau."


title: The Bad News Bears

text: In his 1976 review, critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and called it "an unblinking, scathing look at competition in American society." Gene Siskel awarded two-and-a-half stars out of four, calling the film's characters "more types than people" and the kids' foul-mouth dialogue "overdone," though he found O'Neal's performance "genuinely affecting." "Variety" called it "the funniest adult-child comedy film since 'Paper Moon'," and lauded the "excellent" script. Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" declared it "the best American screen comedy of the year to date," adding, "Bright, pugnacious and utterly realistic as most children seem to be today, these kids are drawn with much accuracy and are played beautifully." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" found the film only "occasionally funny" but praised screenwriter Bill Lancaster for "the talent and discipline to tell the story of 'The Bad News Bears' almost completely in terms of what happens on the baseball diamond or in the dugout." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" praised it as "a lively, spontaneously funny entertainment" that "could rally a large parallel audience seeking less innocuous and stereotyped pictures with and about children." Tom Milne of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" called it "miraculously funny and entirely delightful."


title: The Bad News Bears

text: Walter Matthau was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy. The screenplay by Bill Lancaster, son of actor Burt Lancaster, was winner of a Writers Guild of America award.


title: The Bad News Bears

text: "Saturday Night Live" did a parody of the film with Matthau as the guest host called "The Bad News Bees" with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and the rest in their recurring bee costumes for what would be their final time. This subtly referenced masturbation which was alluded to as "buzzing-off."


title: Remora

text: The remora (), sometimes called suckerfish, is any of a family (Echeneidae) of ray-finned fish in the order Carangiformes. Depending on species, they grow to long. Their distinctive first dorsal fins take the form of a modified oval, sucker-like organ with slat-like structures that open and close to create suction and take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals. The disk is made up of stout, flexible membranes that can be raised and lowered to generate suction. By sliding backward, the remora can increase the suction, or it can release itself by swimming forward. Remoras sometimes attach to small boats, and have been observed attaching to divers as well. They swim well on their own, with a sinuous, or curved, motion.


title: Remora

text: Remora front dorsal fins have evolved to enable them to adhere by suction to smooth surfaces, and they spend most of their lives clinging to a host animal such as a whale, turtle, shark or ray. It is probably a mutualistic arrangement as the remora can move around on the host, removing ectoparasites and loose flakes of skin, while benefiting from the protection provided by the host and the constant flow of water across its gills. Although it was initially believed that remoras fed off particulate matter from the host's meals, this has been shown to be false; in reality, their diets are composed primarily of host feces.


title: Remora

text: Remoras are tropical open-ocean dwellers, but are occasionally found in temperate or coastal waters if they have attached to large fish that have wandered into these areas. In the mid-Atlantic Ocean, spawning usually takes place in June and July; in the Mediterranean Sea, it occurs in August and September. The sucking disc begins to show when the young fish are about long. When the remora reaches about , the disc is fully formed and the remora can then attach to other animals. The remora's lower jaw projects beyond the upper, and the animal lacks a swim bladder.


title: Remora

text: Some remoras associate with specific host species. They are commonly found attached to sharks, manta rays, whales, turtles, and dugongs, hence the common names "sharksucker" and "whalesucker". Smaller remoras also fasten onto fish such as tuna and swordfish, and some small remoras travel in the mouths or gills of large manta rays, ocean sunfish, swordfish and sailfish.


title: Remora

text: The relationship between a remora and its host is most often taken to be one of commensalism, specifically phoresy.


title: Remora

text: Research into the physiology of the remora has been of significant benefit to the understanding of ventilation costs in fish.


title: Remora

text: Remoras, like many other fishes, have two different modes of ventilation. Ram ventilation is the process in which at higher speeds, the remora uses the force of the water moving past it to create movement of fluid in the gills. Alternatively, at lower speeds the remora will use a form of active ventilation, in which the fish actively moves fluid through its gills. In order to use active ventilation, a fish must actively use energy to move the fluid; however, determining this energy cost is normally complicated due to the movement of the fish when using either method. As a result, the remora has proved invaluable in finding this cost difference (since they will stick to a shark or tube, and hence remain stationary despite the movement or lack thereof of water). Experimental data from studies on remora found that the associated cost for active ventilation created a 3.7–5.1% increased energy consumption in order to maintain the same quantity of fluid flow the fish obtained by using ram ventilation.


title: Remora

text: Other research into the remora's physiology came about as a result of studies across multiple taxa, or using the remora as an out-group for certain evolutionary studies. Concerning the latter case, remoras were used as an outgroup when investigating tetrodotoxin resistance in remoras, pufferfish, and related species, finding remoras (specifically "Echeneis naucrates") had a resistance of 6.1–5.5 M.


title: Remora

text: Some cultures use remoras to catch turtles. A cord or rope is fastened to the remora's tail, and when a turtle is sighted, the fish is released from the boat; it usually heads directly for the turtle and fastens itself to the turtle's shell, and then both remora and turtle are hauled in. Smaller turtles can be pulled completely into the boat by this method, while larger ones are hauled within harpooning range. This practice has been reported throughout the Indian Ocean, especially from eastern Africa near Zanzibar and Mozambique, and from northern Australia near Cape York and Torres Strait.


title: Remora

text: Similar reports come from Japan and from the Americas. Some of the first records of the "fishing fish" in the Western literature come from the accounts of the second voyage of Christopher Columbus. However, Leo Wiener considers the Columbus accounts to be apocryphal: what was taken for accounts of the Americas may have been, in fact, notes Columbus derived from accounts of the East Indies, his desired destination.


title: Remora

text: In ancient times, the remora was believed to stop a ship from sailing. In Latin, "remora" means "delay", while the genus name "Echeneis" comes from Greek ἔχειν, "echein" ("to hold") and ναῦς, "naus" ("a ship"). In a notable account by Pliny the Elder, the remora is blamed for the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium and, indirectly, for the death of Caligula. A modern version of the story is given by Jorge Luis Borges in "Book of Imaginary Beings" (1957).


title: K League 1

text: The K League 1 (Hangul: K리그1) is the men's top professional football division of the South Korean football league system. The league is contested by twelve clubs.


title: K League 1

text: The South Korean professional football league was founded in 1983 as the "Korean Super League", with five member clubs. The initial five clubs were Hallelujah FC, Yukong Elephants, Pohang Steelworks, Daewoo Royals, Kookmin Bank. Hallelujah FC won the inaugural title, finishing one point ahead of Daewoo Royals to lift the crown.


title: K League 1

text: The Super League was renamed the "Korean Professional Football League", and introduced the home and away system in 1987. It was once again renamed the "K League" in 1998. It had the current format by abolishing the K League Championship and the Korean League Cup after the 2011 season, and being split into two divisions in 2013. The first division was named the "K League Classic" while the newly created second division was named the "K League Challenge" and both are now part of the K League structure. Since its creation, the league has expanded from an initial 5 to 22 clubs. Of the five inaugural clubs, only Yukong, Pohang and Daewoo still compete in the K League; Kookmin Bank dropped out of the league at the end of 1984, and Hallelujah followed the season after.


title: K League 1

text: On 5 October 2011, the league announced a plan to introduce a relegation system from the 2012 season, when two teams were relegated. In 2013, the bottom two teams were directly relegated, while the 12th team played a relegation playoff match against the winner of the newly formed K League Challenge. From the 2013 season, as the number of teams of K League was reduced, only the 12th team is automatically relegated, with the 11th team playing a match against the winner of the K League 2 promotion playoffs.


title: K League 1

text: The league also introduced a split system like the Scottish Premier League in the 2012 season, where each club plays each other three times in the regular round, then the top and bottom six teams are split into Split A and Split B, in which a team plays every other team in the split once, to decide the final standings.


title: K League 1

text: The K League season typically begins around March and runs to late November each year. The number of games, clubs and the systems used have varied through the years.


title: K League 1

text: A number of the member clubs are owned by South Korean major conglomerates "chaebols". Those clubs have adopted local city names in an effort to integrate themselves more with the local communities. All other teams are owned by local governments.


title: K League 1

text: The K League champions, runners-up, and third-placed team gain entry to the AFC Champions League the following season, with the exception of Sangmu FC due to their unique status as a military team. If the winners of Korean FA Cup cannot qualify for the AFC Champions League or already qualified for it, fourth place also can participate.


title: K League 1

text: In the 2009 season, Gangwon FC joined the K League as its 15th member club. As such, the K League had one or more clubs in every provinces of South Korea. This was the first time in domestic South Korean professional sports history that there has been at least one club in each province.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS-related terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, there were smaller explosions at a housing complex in Dematagoda and a guest house in Dehiwala. A total of 269 people were killed, including at least 45 foreign nationals, three police officers, and eight bombers, and at least 500 were injured. The church bombings were carried out during Easter services in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo; the hotels that were bombed were the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury and Tropical Inn. According to the State Intelligence Service, a second wave of attacks was planned, but was stopped as a result of government raids.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: According to Sri Lankan government officials, all eight of the suicide bombers in the attacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated with National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a local militant group with suspected foreign ties, previously known for attacks against Buddhists and Sufis. State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said in parliament on 23 April that the government believed the attack was in retaliation for the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March 2019. The direct linkage between the two attacks was questioned by New Zealand's government and by some experts. The NTJ had been stockpiling explosives at least since January 2019.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 23 April 2019, Amaq News Agency, a propaganda outlet for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), stated that "the perpetrators of the attack targeting the citizens of coalition countries and Christians in Sri Lanka were Islamic State fighters." Sri Lanka was not part of the anti-ISIL coalition, and the overwhelming majority of those killed were Sri Lankan citizens. A man believed to be long-silent ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi praised the attackers during an 18-minute video on a range of topics. The Criminal Investigation Department, however, has stated that there is no evidence of ISIL's direct involvement.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Historically, terrorism in Sri Lanka mostly involved coordinated attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the government and army during the Sri Lankan Civil War, which began in 1983. The LTTE was defeated in 2009 in its effort to violently seize control of the northern and eastern coasts of the island from the Sinhalese ethnic majority to create an independent Tamil state. The Marxist-Leninist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) also held uprisings in 1971 and 1987–89.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The main religions in Sri Lanka are Buddhism (70.3%), Hinduism (12.6%), Islam (9.7%) and Christianity (6.1%), with 82% of the Christians being Roman Catholics. The remaining Christians are evenly split between the Anglican Church of Ceylon and other Protestant denominations.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: During the 2010s, a low but persisting number of attacks and threats were made against Christian congregations and individuals, as well as other religious minorities, by local monks, although they may or may not be actual members of the Buddhist clergy. Anglican Bishop of Colombo, Dhiloraj Canagasabey called for constitutional rights on religion to be protected. In 2018, the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL) reported a large increase in the number of attacks against Christians in the country that year. This coincided with a Supreme Court ruling against a Catholic organisation in August, which deemed that proselytism was not protected by the constitution (though individual freedom of religion remained protected).


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Easter Sunday is Christianity's holiest day and church attendance in Sri Lanka is very high on this day. This was the first time since 2009, the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, that the country had experienced a major terrorist attack.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Sri Lankan government was aware of some foreigners arriving in Sri Lanka to spread what justice minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe called Islamic extremism. In November 2016 he told parliament that 32 Sri Lankan Muslims from "well-educated and elite" families joined the ISIL. On 25 April 2019, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe revealed that the government had known of the Sri Lankan nationals who had joined Islamic State and returned to the country – but they couldn't be arrested, because joining a foreign terrorist organisation is not against the law.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: In the aftermath of the bombings, investigations revealed that school textbooks for Islam published by the government also encouraged the radicalisation of Muslims. The school books since the 1980s called for the death sentence for those who leave Islam.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Vice president of the "Muslim Council of Sri Lanka" Hilmy Ahamed had said about three years ago he warned military intelligence officials about the National Thowheeth Jama'ath, saying "targeting the non-Muslim community is something they encourage – they say you have to kill them in the name of religion".


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Indian intelligence agencies provided specific information to Sri Lankan authorities about the method and target locations for the potential terrorist attacks to Sri Lankan authorities as early as 4 April, and again on the night before, and as close as two hours, before the first attack. This included information about the threat to churches, gathered from interrogation of a suspected ISIL recruit in Indian custody.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: "The New York Times" and AFP reported on a police chief warning security officials in an advisory ten days before the attacks of a threat to prominent churches from a radical Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama'ath. No information in this regard had been passed to the senior politicians of the country; Minister Harin Fernando then tweeted images of an internal memo and report by the police intelligence of a terror attack planned by the founder of National Thowheeth Jama’ath, Mohammed Zahran.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Investigators have said that Rilwan Hashim, brother of Zahran, had built the explosives alongside Mohammad Hasthoon. Zahran had claimed to have been appointed member of the Sri Lankan branch of Islamic State by one of its officials and to be receiving orders directly from Syria, a claim investigators believe to have been fabricated. Zahran held a meeting in early April 2019 with over a dozen people in Panadura, where they decided upon the attack. Some participants however wanted to target the Buddhist festivals


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The cohorts of Hashim had stayed in contact through WhatsApp and Telegram. The planning for a future attack may have begun in mid-2018, though the group hadn't selected any target. Investigators believe that the Easter attack plan came into being much later, with roles of perpetrators being decided upon only shortly before Easter. They had communicated through Threema a few weeks before the attack.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: In January 2019 a stockpile of suspicious explosives was discovered near the Wilpattu National Park which contained 100 kilos of high explosives and 100 detonators. The police confirmed that this was from a "newly formed radical Muslim group". On 16 April a parked motorcycle in Kattankudy carrying explosives detonated without casualties during a lightning storm.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Christians were attending Easter Sunday services when the bombings took place, targeting churches and hotels around Sri Lanka. The sequence and coordination of the bombings were planned to cause maximum destruction, targeting Christians during worship services across the island nation, and targeting guests during breakfast in beachfront hotels in the capital. All six of the first set of explosions targeting the churches and hotels were carried out by suicide bombers.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The first blast took place in the Shrine of St. Anthony, a historic Catholic church in the capital, where more than 50 people were killed. The second blast took place in St. Sebastian's Church in the Christian-majority suburb of Negombo, to the north of Colombo and Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. Over 100 people were killed at St. Sebastian's Church. St. Sebastian's is also close to Sri Lanka's main airport, Bandaranaike International Airport, where security was heightened.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On the other side of the island in Batticaloa, a bomb blast 15 minutes later killed 30 people at the Protestant evangelical Zion Church.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Sri Lankan media reported at least 40 people killed in Colombo, between St. Anthony's and the hotels.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Catholic Shrine of St. Anthony in Kotahena, Colombo, was the first to be hit, followed by the Catholic Church of St. Sebastian in Negombo. Sri Lankan news media initially reported at least 93 people killed at St. Sebastian's. In October 2019, the BBC reported that a total of 115 people had died in the St. Sebastian's bombing, including 27 children.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Zion Church in Batticaloa, a Protestant congregation, was also bombed. Local news reported at least 30 killed in Batticaloa, with 9 of these reported by a police official to be tourists. A hospital official in the region said that more than 300 people had been admitted following the explosion. The BBC reported that the suicide bomber had attempted to enter the church under the guise of filming it, but was denied access because of the ongoing service. Instead, he detonated his bomb in the churchyard, killing many children from the attached Sunday school who were taking a break.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Three 5-star hotels on the beachfront in central Colombo were attacked around the same time as the churches: the Shangri-La Hotel, the Cinnamon Grand Colombo and The Kingsbury.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Shangri-La bombers struck at 08:57 hours () during breakfast in the Table One Restaurant on the hotel's third floor, which was reportedly full of foreign tourists who made up the bulk of the hotel's clientele.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The suicide bomber who struck at the Taprobane restaurant in the Cinnamon Grand hotel had checked into the hotel with a false name the night before, claiming to be on a business trip. The bomber entered the queue of the packed restaurant's breakfast buffet the next morning and detonated explosives strapped to his back as he was about to be served. One of the hotel's managers who was welcoming guests was among those killed instantly.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The reception hall of a guest house, the Tropical Inn in Dehiwala, was also attacked later in the day, with two deaths reported. Later on during investigations, It was found that the bomber's original target had been the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo. CCTV footage given to the media by the hotel shows the bomber attempting to detonate his vest three times in the dining area and upon failing, leaving the premises at 8.49 a.m.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Kingsbury hotel management resumed their operations on 24 April 2019 followed by Cinnamon Grand few days later; Shangri-La partially reopened on 12 June 2019.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: A further bombing occurred later in the day when police executed a breach and clear at a suspect's house in the suburbs of Colombo; in Dematagoda killing three police officers and four others at the premises including the suicide bomber. The pregnant suicide bomber, whose three children were killed in the blast, was the wife of Ilham Ibrahim, the Shangri-La suicide bomber, and the sister-in-law of Inshaf Ahmed Ibrahim, the Cinnamon Grand suicide bomber.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The government closed facilities for security; the Defence Ministry issued a police curfew starting at 18:00 local time on the day of the attacks, and imposed a temporary social media ban, whilst the Minister of Education, Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, had all schools closed for the following two days. The Colombo Stock Exchange announced that its operations will be temporarily suspended following the terror attacks, not opening as planned on 22 April 2019.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: An improvised explosive device was found near the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo and was dismantled by the Sri Lankan Air Force.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 22 April, the Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter-terrorism unit of the Sri Lanka Police, located a van belonging to the attackers near St. Anthony's Shrine, the site of one of the prior day's blasts. Upon inspection, the vehicle was found to have been rigged with 3 bombs. After the STF's bomb-defusing unit evacuated the surrounding area, the bombs were detonated simultaneously during a defusing attempt. The same day, police reportedly found 87 items of bomb paraphernalia at the Bastian Mawatha Private Bus Station in Pettah.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 25 April, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) released names and photos of six suspects wanted in connection over the Easter Sunday bombings, seeking public assistance. On 28 April, police confirmed two of the suspects, Mohomed Iwuhaim Saadiq Abdul Haq and Mohomed Iwuhaim Shahid Abdul Haq, who were arrested in Nawalapitiya and would be handed over to the CID.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Since the attacks, any garment covering the face including the burqa and niqab, has been banned in Sri Lanka.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The bombings killed 269 people and injured at least 500. Initially, 359 fatalities were reported; the Ministry of Health later reduced the number by 106 after cross-referencing DNA samples to body parts. The majority of the dead are Sri Lankans, with at least 45 foreigners among those killed.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: At least 45 children, including nine who were foreigners, were killed. On 23 April, the first mass funeral was held at St. Sebastian's Church, Katuwapitiya.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 26 April, the Sri Lanka Army and the STF carried out a search operation in Sainthamaruthu where three explosions and a shootout occurred when they attempted to raid a suspected hideout following a tip-off. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine of their family members, including three women and six children, while three other terrorists were shot dead by the soldiers. One civilian was caught in the crossfire and died, according to police, while a wounded woman and child were taken to hospital.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Another search operation in Sammanthurai based on information received by the State Intelligence Service led to a house where a stock of more than 150 gelignite sticks, IS uniforms and flags, 100,000 metal balls, a drone, a van and a laptop were discovered. An indefinite curfew was imposed in the police areas of Kalmunai, Chawalakade and Sammanthurai.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: As a result of the raids and arrests a second wave of planned attacks targeting several churches, opposing mosques and the Temple of the Tooth were averted.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On the same day, a suspect was arrested and more than 40 swords, kris knives and several uniforms similar to those worn by the army were recovered from a mosque at Palliyaweediya on Slave Island.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 27 April, while conducting house to house raids in the Kalmunai area, evidence recovered linked three suspects to the murders of two police officers, Dinesh Alagaratnam and Niroshan Indika, on 29 November 2018 in Vavunathivu. All three suspects were arrested and "The Daily Mirror" reported that sources confirmed they were part of a "radical Islamist" group.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On the same day, the driver of the main suspect involved in the attacks, Mohamed Sahran, was arrested in Kattankudy. The Negombo Deputy Mayor, Mohomad Anzar, was taken into custody with a sword, a knife and 38 mobile phone batteries.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Following President Sirisena's return to the island from Singapore on 22 April 2019, where he was on a personal visit, the Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency from midnight of 22 April by an extraordinary gazette notification issued by the President under the Public Security Ordinance. This would give the government, police and the armed forces sweeping powers to undertake counter-terrorism activities. The government also announced that it would hold a national day of mourning the following day. On 24 April, the Sri Lankan Parliament passed emergency regulations without a vote after a day-long debate. Emergency regulations give the police and armed forces powers to search, arrest and detain persons for up to 24 hours without a warrant.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 25 August 2019, the government lifted the state of emergency, following the normalising of the security situation.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Since 21 April evening, the government has imposed nightly police curfews effective island-wide, with the hours reduced to 2200 to 0400 hours until 27 April. Indefinite curfews were imposed in several police divisions where incidents such as the Sainthamaruthu shootout took place.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 12 May, a group of people congregated in the town of Chilaw allegedly following a Facebook post that claimed there was a plan to attack the town. An immediate police curfew was imposed and the situation was brought under control without further damage. Two people were later arrested over the incident.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 13 May, sporadic isolated incidents where groups of people vandalised property in the North Western Province caused police to impose curfew across the entire country. Acting Police Chief C.D. Wickramaratne promised an overwhelming police response against any individuals breaking the law by instigating sporadic countrywide riots targeting Muslim-owned property and businesses. In a hard-hitting statement, Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake stated that the security forces had been given broad-ranging powers under emergency laws, and would respond proportionately to the threat, but that they would not hesitate to utilise the full extent of their powers to ensure that the rule of law is maintained.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 14 May, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that all necessary powers to restore peace and stability to the country had been given to security forces and police. He further stated that creating unnecessary disturbances would hinder the ongoing investigations to apprehend terrorists.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The government temporarily blocked major social media networks and messaging services Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat and YouTube within hours of the attack. The blocking included VPN service providers that could be used to circumvent the blocks.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Some commentators condoned the move and viewed it as evidence that social media sites had failed to stop misinformation. Others criticised the block for cutting off Sri Lankans from means of communicating with relatives during a disaster and saw it as counterproductive in reducing fake news.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 30 April, President Sirisena ordered the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) to lift the social media ban. On 13 May, the government blocked social media for the third time following the anti-Muslim riots.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 24 April 2019, a Sri Lankan MP Ashu Marasinghe called for both burqa and niqab to be banned from the country and proposed that a bill be passed in the Parliament during a local parliamentary session in wake of the attacks.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 28 April 2019, President Sirisena banned any type of face covering that prevents or hinders facial identification, including the burqa or niqāb under an emergency law that will go into force on 29 April 2019. This law does not prevent a Muslim woman from wearing a hijab or chador. Breaching any emergency law is punishable by a maximum penalty of death, a recently reinstated penalty that has not been used for more than four decades. In a press release, the President stated the decision was taken to "further support the ongoing security and help the armed forces to easily identify the identity of any wanted perpetrators". The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulema also told all Muslim women not to wear face veils in public for security reasons.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 10 May 2019, it was mandated that copies of all sermons given inside mosques be submitted to the Ministry of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs, as part of a broader strategic plan to monitor activities inside mosques. The Ministry said mosques must not be used for radicalising congregations.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 8 May 2019, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe announced plans for a centralised platform for the collection, monitoring and storage of intelligence. The system known as the Centralised and Integrated Population Information System will collect biometric data from iris scanning and facial identification at all ports of entry and exit. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, Provincial Councils and local governments were instructed to prepare an action plan for this system in two weeks, to obtain Cabinet approval.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Sri Lanka's Minister of Telecommunication Harin Fernando had tweeted that Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara sent an alert by his Deputy Inspector General Priyalal Dissanayake dated 11 April 2019 relaying an Indian intelligence report from 4 April that suicide bombers affiliated with NTJ planned to attack prominent churches and the Indian embassy in Colombo. The Indian intelligence service reissued the warnings two days and then again two hours before the attacks. Following the attacks, it disclosed that some of the information about the attacks was gleaned from an ISIL suspect arrested in Delhi, who revealed the name of a man, Zahran Hashim, the founder of the NTJ.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: After initial government denials of the alert's authenticity, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that "information was there," about the attacks, and that his government must "look into why adequate precautions were not taken." The Sri Lankan government has acknowledged and apologized for failing to act on warnings received from Indian intelligence before the bombings. The State Defence Minister had earlier requested that the media not publish the names of the attackers, and said the government believes the attacks were carried out by a single group of religious extremists.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: It was later claimed that the Police Terrorism Investigations Division (TID) has been investigating the activities of the chief suspect Zahran, with an arrest warrant issued by the Colombo Magistrate's Court in August 2018 based on a 'B' report dated 2 July 2018 which the TID had submitted. However, the investigation had stopped after the arrest of the head of the TID, DIG Nalaka de Silva in September 2018, on allegations of attempting to assassinate President Sirisena, which ignited the 2018 constitutional crisis.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: This security lapse forms part of a current Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter Sunday bombings. The commission submitted an interim report two weeks after the attack and extension of its term until 31 May to complete the final report.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Based on the interim report of the presidential commission, the Attorney General Dappula de Livera instructed the Criminal Investigation Department to carry out a criminal investigation against former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and IGP Pujith Jayasundera to determine if they failed to act on intelligence warnings about the attack. The final report was presented to President Sirisena by the commission on 10 June 2019.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: In May, a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) was appointed to probe the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks and incidents in its aftermath by the Speaker of the Parliament. The Select committee is headed by the Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri and includes seven MPs. The SLFP and the UPFA decided not to participate in the Select committee.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 7 June 2019, President Sirisena called an emergency Cabinet meeting and protested the PSC probe. He ordered that the PSC be terminated. He was critical of the PSC for summoning intelligence and police officers. He had ordered no public officer to appear for summons issued by the PSC. Following Chief of National Intelligence Sisira Mendis's statement at the PSC to the effect that President Sirisena knew about the warnings of an impending attack, Sirisena sacked Mendis within hours.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith referred to the PSC's report when mentioning suspicion that the Government had in some way colluded with the bombers. "The Parliament Select Committee report makes recommendations against the former President, former inspector general of police, former defence secretary, former chief of intelligence and other top-level officials, for not having prevented the attacks. They knew beforehand from information they had gathered and also from warnings given by the Indian intelligence services, but they did nothing. In fact, the Government seems to have done its best to prevent the arrest of the attackers. There are indications that the authorities wanted the attacks to be carried out”, he stated, further quoting excerpts from the report that indicate that the Government may have been motivated by electoral gain.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The Sri Lankan Police launched an investigation into the incident; it has now transpired into a major transnational investigation led by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Sri Lankan Police to hunt down all the perpetrators involved in this incident. Six foreign police agencies, including Scotland Yard, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Interpol are assisting the Sri Lankan Police.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The bomber at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel was a guest who registered under the name of "Mohamed Azzam Mohamed" and gave a false address. The Shangri-La Hotel bomber was identified by police as Insan Seelavan, a factory owner, nine of whose employees have been arrested.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 23 April 2019, three Sri Lankan government and military sources told Reuters that a Syrian national had been held in custody for questioning over the attacks.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Later on 23 April, the Sri Lankan State Defence Minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, said that initial investigations have revealed that Islamic extremists "carried out the attacks in retaliation for a March attack on two mosques in New Zealand". This has been questioned by New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and by analysts, as the attacks were likely planned before the Christchurch attacks. New Zealand security expert Paul Buchanan said that "Christchurch seems to be a convenient justification for something that was being planned before 15 March". Shortly afterward, Amaq News Agency claimed ISIL inspired the attacks. It released a photo and a video showing eight suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Zahran Hashim of the NTJ was identified as their leader. Amaq's statements emphasised the attacks were against Christians who are war with the organisation. None of them referenced Christchurch.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Investigators believe the bombs were made of acetone peroxide, and are looking into training camps that had been hidden on a remote compound near Wanathavilluwa, on the west coast of the country, and possible links to overseas jihadist networks.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: According to the investigators, the perpetrators were offered military training by a person named Army Mohideen, while weapons training was provided overseas as well as in Nuwara Eliya and Wanathawilluwa in the Eastern Province. The vehicles used in the attack are believed to have been procured from a car sales centre in Kadawata.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: The National Investigation Agency of India confirmed that on 28 April, four homes were raided in Kasaragod, and Palakkad, Kerala as part of the transnational investigation unfolding into the Easter Sunday bombings.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Police arrested eight people living in the Colombo suburb of Dematagoda on the day of the attacks. Five more suspected attackers and accomplices were arrested at a house during the night. Police confirmed on the day after the bombings that 24 people were arrested. By 23 April, the number of people arrested was 40. Three police officers and two civilians were killed by bombs that exploded during the capturing. By 24 April 60 people had been arrested with possible links to the attacks, with 32 in custody. On 26 April, the Sri Lankan Police had more than 70 suspects held on charges of suspicion of terrorism, aiding and abetting terrorism, and conspiracy to commit terrorism. Four high-level suspects are being held by the Terrorism Investigation Department, and 33 are being held by the Criminal Investigation Department. Most of them are friends and family of the suspected suicide bombers. Nine suicide bombers were involved in the attacks, and police have identified all of them.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: A suspected mastermind named Hayathu Mohamed Ahmed Milhan and four others were deported to Sri Lanka from the Middle East. Milhan was expected to become the new leader of NTJ.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 29 March 2020, the main suspect who was also the mastermind behind the Easter bombing in the Zion Church was arrested by police in Mount Lavinia during the curfew imposed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The suspect was identified as a 40 year old resident of Dehiwala/Mount Lavinia and was accused of transporting the suicide bomber to the Zion Church in Batticaloa. The suspect was also accused of handling the suicide bomber who attacked the Kochikade St. Anthony Church.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: In January 2021, the United States Department of Justice charged three Sri Lankans with supporting terrorism for their participation in the bombings.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Nine people were arrested on 22 April 2019 and formally charged with supplying equipment used in connection with an act of terrorism; they appeared in the Colombo Magistrates Court on 6 May 2019. They were released on bail of two sureties of LKR500,000 each (approx. $3,000), as the court found the case against them was weak. The police launched an investigation to determine whether Wellampitiya police had erred. On 9 May 2019, investigators found that Wellampitiya police officers had made several errors, neglecting to put several facts before the court. A police spokesman said that action would be taken against the officers responsible.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: On 15 May, Wellampitiya Police officers hit back against the allegations of negligence and filed a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) alleging Colombo Magistrate Court Judge Priyantha Liyanage was being biased against the police by releasing nine of the ten suspects produced in court. A legal representative appearing on behalf of the suspects stated that the magistrate nor his client needs to wait for the police to complete its investigations for the magistrate to make a decision on the matter, the allegations made by the Wellampitiya Police officers do not have a proper basis in law. A police spokesman said an investigation had been launched into the incident, and that it appears that police may have erred by not filing the case under the Prevention of Terrorism Act because the investigations were yet to be completed. He further stated that action would be taken against any personnel held responsible as soon as the report from the investigation was released. Human Rights Watch urged the Sri Lankan government to ensure that the detained people had access to lawyers.


title: 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings

text: Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne confirmed that all of the bombers were Sri Lankan citizens associated with National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), a local militant radical Islamist group, but foreign links are suspected. There had been no claim of responsibility before 23 April. NTJ's leadership had been condemned by several Sri Lankan Muslim organisations in 2016 for advocating extreme fundamentalist indoctrination of children and for clashes with Buddhist monks, and was linked in 2018 to vandalism of Buddhist statues following anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka. NTJ's leader and "bombing mastermind" Zahran Hashim from Sri Lanka, preached on a pro-ISIL Sri Lankan Facebook account, known as "Al-Ghuraba" media, and on YouTube.