title: ÷ (album)

text: The album was number one in the United Kingdom, selling 672,000 copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling album by a male solo artist there and the highest opening behind Adele's "25" and Oasis' "Be Here Now". "Divide" topped the charts in over 25 territories across the globe, including the United States, Canada, and Australia. In April 2018, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named "÷" the best-selling album worldwide of the year. In October 2019 it was ranked the fifth best-selling album of the 21st century in the UK.


title: ÷ (album)

text: All the tracks on the album reached the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart in the week of the album's release. The dominance of its tracks on the UK chart led to calls for change on how the single chart is compiled, and the Official Charts Company then introduced new rules limiting tracks eligible for entry in the top 100 to three per the main artist, as well as adjusting the streams-to-sales ratio for older songs. His fourth single from "÷", "Perfect", reached number one in the US, Australia and the UK, where it became the Christmas number one of 2017.


title: ÷ (album)

text: To promote the album, Sheeran embarked on a worldwide concert tour, entitled the ÷ Tour. Comprising 260 shows, it started on 16 March 2017 and ended on 26 August 2019 with the last of four homecoming gigs in Ipswich, Suffolk. By August 2019 it had become the biggest, most attended, and highest-grossing tour of all time.


title: ÷ (album)

text: On 13 December 2015, Sheeran announced a self-imposed hiatus from social media, commenting that he found himself "seeing the world through a screen and not my eyes." He further ensured that some of this time would be spent creating his third album, which he considered "the best thing I have made thus far." Exactly one year after this announcement, on 13 December 2016, Sheeran's various social media platforms posted pictures of a blank blue square to state his imminent return to music. On 1 January 2017, Sheeran officially ended his hiatus by announcing that "new music" would be released on 6 January. On 12 January 2017, Sheeran revealed the tracklist and the release date for the album with its pre-order.


title: ÷ (album)

text: Worldwide, on the day of its release, the tracks of the album achieved a total of 56.73 million streams on Spotify in a single day, breaking the previous record of 29 million for "Starboy" by The Weeknd in November 2016. In total, all tracks by Sheeran were streamed 68.7 million times that day, with the single "Shape of You" receiving 10.12 million streams, both also breaking previous records on Spotify. Both records were broken by Drake's "More Life" 16 days later. By its second day of release, the videos of songs from the album had achieved a cumulative one billion views on YouTube, including figures from "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill" released earlier.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "Castle on the Hill" and "Shape of You", the album's lead singles, were issued on 6 January 2017. Sheeran teased the tracks on social media during the week leading up to their release, posting instrumental extracts and each song's opening lyric.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "Galway Girl" was announced as the third single via Sheeran's Twitter on 17 March 2017. It was added to BBC Radio 2's playlist the following day (18 March 2017).


title: ÷ (album)

text: On 21 August 2017, "Billboard" announced that "Perfect" would be the fourth single from the album. The song was sent to top 40 radio on 26 September 2017.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "How Would You Feel (Paean)" was released on 17 February 2017 as a promotional single with its pre-order.


title: ÷ (album)

text: An extended live acoustic version of "Eraser" debuted on the SB.TV YouTube channel on 28 February 2017; marking the 10th anniversary of SB.TV's involvement with YouTube, and the seventh anniversary of Sheeran's YouTube involvement with SB.TV.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "Supermarket Flowers" was released as a promotional single following Sheeran's performance at the 2018 Brit Awards.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "÷" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It has been given a Metacritic score of 62 based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Maura Johnston of "Rolling Stone" gave a four-star review, commenting that "Ed is still showcasing pop savvy on Divide" and going on to say that he "doubles down on the blend of hip-hop bravado and everyday-bloke songwriting that helped him break out at the turn of the decade." Roisin O'Connor of "The Independent" also gave the album a four-star rating, claiming "[the album] leans on little asides from Sheeran's own talent" and that it was "astonishing for its sheer ambition alone". Jordan Bassett of "NME" described the album as "a collection that, somehow, adheres to his perfect pop template... while also being quietly weird", and that the album is "likeable", "assured but unassuming and sometimes hard to fathom". Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press, after commenting on the album's "missteps", said that it "is certain to add listeners, subtract a few weary of his inconsistency, but definitely multiply his bank account", and ultimately called Sheeran "a special talent".


title: ÷ (album)

text: Some reviews were unfavourable; Harriet Gibsone of "The Guardian" gave the album a two-star rating out of five, calling it "no less calculating than his peers at the very top level of pop stardom". In a negative review of 2.8 out of 10, Laura Snapes of "Pitchfork" stated: "considering he [Sheeran] is among the most successful songwriters in the world, a lot of his lyrics do not even scan." In another negative review, writing for "Drowned in Sound", David Hillier gave "÷" a 3/10 rating, calling it "the most anodyne and bland pop album possible."


title: ÷ (album)

text: The album sold 232,000 physical and digital copies in the UK on its first day of release without the inclusion of streaming data, more than the sales of Sheeran's previous album "x" in its first week. In its three days, the album continued to increase in sales and sold over 432,000 copies, thereby topping the UK Albums Chart with just three days of availability. The album sold 63% in physical format, 31% in digital, and 6% in streaming equivalent sales. The album sold a total of 672,000 copies in the UK during its first week, making it the nation's fastest-selling album by a male artist and the third highest opening overall behind Adele's "25" (which sold 800,307 copies in its first week) and Oasis' "Be Here Now" (which sold 696,000 copies in its first week). In "÷" opening week, Sheeran had his first three albums chart in the top five in the UK. Additionally, it broke the record for the most top 10 songs from a single album on the UK Singles Chart (with nine songs in the top 10 in a single week as well), surpassing a record previously held by Calvin Harris. All 16 songs from the album also entered the top 20. The album reached one million sales in the UK after just 16 days. In the first half of 2017, the album pushed UK music sales up by 11.2% compared to previous year, and it was the best-selling entertainment product of year, ahead of film releases such as "". By July 2017, the album had sold over 2 million units in the UK—1.22 million of these from physical sales and 371,000 copies from downloads, with streaming contributing 415,000 equivalent units. It has since topped the UK Albums Chart for a total of 20 non-consecutive weeks, the longest amount of time since Adele's "21" held the summit in 2011 and 2012. "÷" was the nation's highest selling album of the year with over 2,128,000 copies sold by the end of 2017.


title: ÷ (album)

text: The large number of tracks from the album on the UK Singles Chart led to calls to reconsider how the charts are compiled. In response to the controversy and to help new artists on the chart, the Official Charts Company introduced rules limiting the number of tracks by a lead artist eligible for entry in the top 100 to three, to be introduced for charts published starting 7 July 2017. It also adjusted the streams-to-sales ratio for older tracks that had declined for three consecutive weeks or any record that had charted for ten weeks to accelerate removal of existing songs. On 9 August 2019, "Barcelona" was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, despite not being released as a single.


title: ÷ (album)

text: "÷" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 with 451,000 album-equivalent units, of which 322,000 were pure album sales. The tracks collectively achieved 134.6 million streams in the United States in the album's first week of availability. Ten songs from the album also debuted on the Hot 100 the same week, joining the three songs already on the chart, including "Shape of You" in its seventh week at number one. In its second week, it stayed on top of "Billboard" 200 with 180,000 units (87,000 copies sold), which qualified it for a Gold certification from the RIAA on 22 March 2017. By July 2017, tracks from the album had accumulated over one billion audio streams in the US. "÷" earned 2,764,000 album-equivalent units in the US throughout 2017, finishing as the year's best-selling album in the country, and was its second highest-selling album in pure copies, with 1,102,000 copies sold, behind Taylor Swift's "Reputation".


title: ÷ (album)

text: In Ireland, "÷" opened at number one as fastest-selling album of the decade with 27,600 units (including 21,300 copies), just 2,300 units below the two-times platinum certification disc. All three of Sheeran's albums were in the top five. Furthermore, the entire top 16 of the Irish Singles Chart consisted only of songs from the album. In Australia, the album opened at number one with a double Platinum certification in its first week, selling 97,014 copies. Sheeran also achieved a record with 18 songs in the Australian top 40 in the same week—16 from the album and two from Sheeran's other albums, which were also in the top five of the albums chart. It has since held the nation's summit a total of 25 non-consecutive weeks, the ninth longest total time spent there. "÷" was Australia's highest selling album of 2017 with more than 420,000 copies sold throughout the year. He also topped the charts in the Belgian region of Flanders, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden. In all, it opened at number one in over 14 countries, including 10 European nations.


title: ÷ (album)

text: It started at number two in France, selling 40,900 copies. After five months of availability, it was certified three-times platinum there, amounting to 300,000 units (sales and streaming). As of December 2017, it exceeds 334,000 sales in France. By the end of 2017, 387,000 units (physical and downloads) had been sold in France according to Pure Charts. It was ranked second on the year-end album sales chart. It received a diamond certification disc nine months after it was released, due to selling 566,492 units (with streaming). It was ranked first on the year-end album chart (including streaming). As of April 2018, it has sold 600,000 units (including streaming) in France.


title: ÷ (album)

text: As of March 2018, the album has stayed at the top of the Danish Albums Chart for 36 non-consecutive weeks, becoming the album with most weeks at number one in Denmark (since IFPI Denmark and Nielsen started tracking sales in 1993).


title: ÷ (album)

text: "÷" was the best selling album globally of 2017, with 6.1 million copies worldwide according to the IFPI and selling 1.3 million copies in pure sales in 2018.


title: Cromā

text: Cromā is an Indian retail chain of consumer electronics and durables run by Infiniti Retail, a subsidiary of the Tata Group. Its product range covers more than 500 products across the electronics and consumer durable categories.


title: Cromā

text: The stores are spread across the states of Maharashtra (Latur, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Amravati, Aurangabad, Kolhapur), Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Bhuj, Bhavnagar,Bharuch, Jamnagar,Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Nadiad, Surat, Vapi, Vadodara, Anand), Delhi NCR, Karnataka (Bangalore, Mangalore, Hubli, Mysore, Davangere), Punjab (Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Mohali), Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem, Hosur), Haryana (Gurgaon, Faridabad) Uttar Pradesh (Ghaziabad, Noida), Telangana (Hyderabad, Secunderabad), West Bengal (Kolkata, Asansol) Jharkhand (Jamshedpur,Dhanbad), Madhya Pradesh (Gwalior, Indore), and Uttarakhand (Dehradun).


title: Cromā

text: In 2012, Infiniti retail acquired the Indian retail business of Woolworths for A$35 million, or Rs. 200 crore. Woolworths was tied up with Tatas since 2005 for external support in the electronic retail market.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is a platform game developed by Bennett Foddy. The game was released as part of the October 2017 Humble Monthly, on October 6, 2017, where it went on to be played by over 2.7 million players. A Steam version of the game was later released by Foddy on December 6, 2017, with a release on iOS that same day. The Android version was later released on April 25, 2018. The Linux version was available for beta testing in August 2018 and received a stable release in the same year.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: "Getting Over It" revolves around the player-controlled character, residing in a large metal cauldron and named Diogenes in reference to the pot-dwelling philosopher. He wields a Yosemite hammer, which he can use to grip objects and move himself. Using the mouse or trackpad, the player tries to move the man's upper body and sledge hammer in order to climb a steep mountain.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: The game is accompanied by voice-over commentary from Bennett Foddy discussing various philosophical topics. The commentary also provides quotations relating to disappointment and perseverance when significant progress is lost by the player, as well as when the player reaches certain milestones in the game.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: As the player progress up the mountain, they are at a constant risk of losing some or all of their progress; there are no checkpoints. The game concludes when the player reaches the highest point of the map, entering space. Closing credits fade in, where at the conclusion, a message asks players if they are recording the gameplay. If the player indicates that they are not, the game provides access to a chatroom populated by other players who have recently completed the game.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: Foddy had been drawn to difficult games while growing up. Living in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, he was limited to what was brought into the country through imports. Many of these being games lacked any type of save mechanism and required players to be sent back to the start of the game if their character died, such as "Jet Set Willy". Into the 1990s, video game developers in the United States and Japan began adding means to save or have checkpoints, so players would not have to return to the start on death. Foddy said, "The flavor of being sent back gradually disappeared up to the point now where it's this boutique thing. People of a certain age still have that taste, or maybe everyone has it, but it's been written out of the design orthodoxy." In 2018, Foddy stated that the main reason he put his name in the title of "Getting Over It" was due to a culture that doesn't generally "recognize the individuals who make games".


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: "Getting Over It" was aimed towards "a certain kind of person, to hurt them" and took inspiration from "Sexy Hiking", a similar game released by Czech video game designer 'Jazzuo' in 2002. Foddy learned of "Sexy Hiking" around 2007 from a post by Derek Yu on TIGSource, and according to Foddy, the game was 'somewhat of a meme among indie game developers', with Adam Saltsman having described "Sexy Hiking" as "the single worst game I have ever played". While dismissing "Sexy Hiking" at the time, Foddy found the game memorable, and later showed the game to students of his class on game design at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, whereupon he "realized how timeless the design" of "Sexy Hiking" was. Foddy stated that he is a fan of "messy, realtime physics puzzle games", and further expressed that they are "huge area of inspiration in my own work". In a now-deleted tweet from 2014, Foddy asked his followers "would it be wrong if I made a sequel to "Sexy Hiking"? Given that I am not actually Jazzuo (as far as you know)".


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: More recently, Foddy had seen a return of difficult games such as through the "Dark Souls" series. In August 2017, Foddy observed that while there was outcry by players over the saved game mechanism in "", which reportedly would erase the player's save file if they died. Other players readily took to the challenge, showing renewed interest in games that were difficult by design. He said, "whenever you see something that disproves a strongly held design orthodoxy it's extremely exciting because it opens up new avenues for exploration", and considered "Getting Over It" as his exploration of this new development space.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: "Getting Over It"s difficult gameplay was praised by reviewers, including "PC Gamer" writer Austin Wood. "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" listed it as one of the best PC games of 2017, and "GameSpot" said it might have been the "weirdest game" to come out of 2017. "Polygon" ranked it 36th on their list of the 50 best games of 2017.


title: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

text: An Easter egg appears in the game "Just Cause 4". At a point on the game map, the player can guide the protagonist to where a cauldron and hammer are located. Activating them puts the game into a side-view mode, challenging the player to move about scattered obstacles as in "Getting Over It", with Bennett Foddy narrating atop about the folly of the exercise and meta-humor of the Easter egg. Diogenes was added as a playable character to the crossover fighting game "Indie Pogo" in May 2019. Diogenes also appears as an assist character in the upcoming crossover fighting game "Fraymakers".


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, the United States, and Latin America; notably those in the FNIM (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) and Native American communities. Across Latin America, it is estimated that Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately the victims of femicide. According to a report prepared by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, representatives from Canada, Mexico, and the United States have resolved to work together as part of the North American Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls. A mass movement in the US and Canada works to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: MMIW has been described as a Canadian national crisis and a Canadian genocide. In response to repeated calls from Indigenous groups, activists, and non-governmental organizations, the Government of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau established a national public inquiry, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in September 2016. According to the inquiry's backgrounder, between the years 1980 and 2012, Indigenous women and girls represented 16% of all female homicides in Canada, while constituting only 4% of the female population in Canada. The inquiry was completed and presented to the public on June 3, 2019.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A 2014 report by the RCMP, titled "Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview", found that more than 1,000 Indigenous women were murdered over a span of 30 years. From 2001 to 2015, the homicide rate for Indigenous women in Canada was almost six times as high as the homicide rate for other women, representing "4.82 per 100,000 population versus 0.82 per 100,000 population." In Nunavut, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and in the provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, this over-representation of Indigenous women among homicide victims was even higher. The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) has documented 582 cases since the 1960s, with 39% after 2000—though advocacy groups say that many more women have been missing in Canada, with the highest number of cases in British Columbia. Notable cases have included 19 women killed in the Highway of Tears murders, and some of the 49 women from the Vancouver area murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In the US, Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Indigenous women is sexually assaulted during her life, and 67% of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Indigenous perpetrators. The federal "Violence Against Women Act" (VAWA) was reauthorized in 2013, which for the first time gave tribes jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute felony domestic violence offenses involving both Native American offenders as well as non-Native offenders on reservations. In 2019, the House of Representatives, led by the Democratic Party, passed H.R. 1585 ("Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act" of 2019) by a vote of 263–158, which increases tribes' prosecution rights much further. The bill was not taken up by the Senate, which at the time had a Republican majority.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Law enforcement, journalists, and activists in Indigenous communities in both the US and Canada have fought to bring awareness to the connection between sex trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and the women who go missing and are murdered.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: As a group that has been "socially, economically, and politically marginalized", Indigenous women have been frequent targets for hatred and violence. Underlying factors such as poverty and homelessness contribute to their victimization, as do historical factors such as racism, sexism, and the legacy of imperialism. The trauma caused by abuses under Canada's residential school system also plays a role.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Indigenous women are between 3 and 3 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than other women, and the violence they face is often more severe.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In Canada, according to activists, "thousands of cases" of missing and murdered Indigenous women over the last half-century were not properly investigated due to police bias. The 49 women murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton, who was eventually jailed in 2007, are cited as an example; with families claiming that Pickton was able to go on killing for so long because police had not taken the disappearances seriously because most of the women were sex workers and Indigenous.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A 2011 Statistics Canada report estimated that, between 1997 and 2000, the rate of homicides for Aboriginal women and girls was almost seven times higher than that of other female victims. Compared to non-Indigenous women and girls, they were also "disproportionately affected by all forms of violence." They are also significantly over-represented among female Canadian homicide victims, and are far more likely than other women to go missing.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A 2014 report by the RCMP, titled "Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview", found that more than 1,000 Indigenous women were murdered over a span of 30 years. In response to activists, the federal government-funded data collection on missing and murdered women, ending in 2010; the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) has documented 582 cases since the 1960s, with 39% after 2000. Nevertheless, advocacy groups say that many more women have been missing, with the highest number of cases in British Columbia. Notable cases have included 19 women killed in the Highway of Tears murders, and some of the 49 women from the Vancouver area murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2010, Jaime Black started the REDress project to represent the Indigenous women and girls that were missing, and her first dress was displayed in a Museum in Winnipeg. Red Dress Day is now May 5 in both Canada and US. In 2012, Sheila North Wilson, coined the hashtag #MMIW, for missing and murdered Indigenous women, while working for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In response to repeated calls from Indigenous groups, activists, and non-governmental organizations, the Government of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau established the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in September 2016. According to the April 22, 2016 background of the inquiry, between the years 1980 and 2012, Indigenous women and girls represented 16% of all female homicides in Canada, while constituting only 4% of the female population in Canada.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In the United States, Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Indigenous women is sexually assaulted during her life, and 67% of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Native perpetrators. Lisa Brunner, executive director of Sacred Spirits First National Coalition states: What's happened through US Federal law and policy is they created lands of impunity where this is like a playground for serial rapists, batterers, killers, whoever and our children aren't protected at all. The federal "Violence Against Women Act" (VAWA) was reauthorized in 2013, which for the first time gave tribes jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute felony domestic violence offenses involving both Native American offenders on reservations, as well as non-Native offenders. In 2019 the Democratic House passed H.R. 1585 ("Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act" of 2019) by a vote of 263–158, which increases tribes' prosecution rights much further. However, in the Republican Senate, its progress had stalled. Law enforcement, journalists, and activists in Indigenous communities—in both the US and Canada—have fought to bring awareness to this connection between sex trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and the women who go missing and are murdered.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2021, Biden Administration Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the creation of the Missing and Murdered Unit within that department, following her appointment and confirmation, to help for missing and murdered Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Various groups have collected data from different periods of time and using different criteria. Available data suggest that the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women is disproportionately high compared to their percentage of the total population.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: One of the most significant findings of the "National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" report of June 2019 was that there was no "reliable estimate of the numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA persons in Canada." One reason is that Canada did not maintain a database for missing people until 2010, which made it difficult to determine the rate at which Indigenous women are murdered or go missing, or to compare their data to those of other populations.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In Canada, according to activists, "thousands of cases" of missing and murdered Indigenous women over the last half-century were not properly investigated due to alleged police bias. The 49 women murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton, who was eventually jailed in 2007, are cited as an example; with families claiming that Pickton was able to go on killing for so long because police had not taken the disappearances seriously because most of the women were sex workers and Indigenous.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) unit of the RCMP was established in 2010 in response to their investigations of murdered and missing Indigenous women, particularly in relation to what became known as the "Highway of Tears"—an area of intersecting highways around Highway 16 in British Columbia. In order to track a national picture of missing persons across Canada, the RCMP created the Missing Children, Persons and unidentified Remains (MCPIR) unit and developed an algorithm to collect and collate "all missing persons reports and related reports filed by police across Canada" into the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). Since 2010, NCMPUR has published the "NCMPUR Fast Fact Sheet" to provide a "national breakdown of missing persons reports by province, age (child or adult), sex, and probable cause."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A database compiled as part of a 2013 Ph.D. thesis identified 824 missing or murdered Indigenous women between 1946 and 2013. A 2014 report from RCMP said that the "number grew to almost 1,200 between 1980 and 2012."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: From 1980 to 2012, Indigenous women and girls represented 16% of all female homicides in Canada while being only 4% of the female population in Canada. A 2011 Statistics Canada report estimated that between 1997 and 2000, the rate of homicides for Indigenous women was almost seven times higher than other women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: While homicides for non-Indigenous women declined between 1980 and 2015, the number of Indigenous women who were victims of homicide increased from 9% of all female homicide victims in 1980, to 24% in 2015. From 2001 to 2015, the homicide rate for Indigenous women in Canada was almost six times as high as the homicide rate for non-Indigenous women, representing "4.82 per 100,000 population versus 0.82 per 100,000 population". In Nunavut, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and in the provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, this over-representation of Indigenous women among homicide victims was even higher. According to a 2007 study by the Province of Saskatchewan—the only province to have systematically reviewed its missing persons files for cases involving Indigenous women—Indigenous women were found to have made up 6% of the province's population, and 60% of the province's missing women cases.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In the CBC investigative report, "Missing & Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls", an interactive database was created that included more than 300 persons of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women by February 2016. CBC investigated 34 cases in which families disagreed with authorities' determination that no foul play was involved; it found "suspicious circumstances, unexplained bruises and other factors that suggest further investigation is warranted."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In late 2013, the Commissioner of the RCMP initiated a study of reported cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women across all police jurisdictions in Canada. The result of the inquiry was a report ordered by the Stephen Harper administration, entitled "Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview", which was released on May 27, 2014, and dated back to 1951. The report stated that 1,181 Indigenous women were killed or went missing across the country between 1980 and 2012. Moreover, it reported that, over a 33-year period (1980–2012), there were 1,181 incidents and 225 unsolved cases. Among all female homicides (Indigenous and non-Indigenous), 80% were solved. Of the cases analyzed by the RCMP, 67% were murder victims, 20% were missing persons, 4% were suspicious deaths, and 9% were unknown.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2015, the RCMP published an updated report which showed that murder rates and the percentage solved (80%) were essentially unchanged since the 2014 report. The 2015 Update reported 106 unsolved homicide cases, 98 unsolved missing cases, and an overall resolution rate of 9.3% from the prior year: 11.7% for homicides and 6.7% for missing Aboriginal females.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The RCMP study was mostly limited to crimes committed in areas policed by the RCMP as the 2015 Update did not include homicide data from the "over 300 non-RCMP police agencies" that was included in the 2014 Overview.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The Forensic Document Review Project (FDRP) conducted as part of the National Inquiry into MMIWG (2019) found that the 2014 and 2015 RCMP reports identified "narrow and incomplete causes of homicides of Indigenous women and girls in Canada".


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The Harper government, including Bernard Valcourt, who served as federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development from 2013 to 2015, had rejected calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, saying that there had been enough studies undertaken. They said they were addressing the problem "through broad public safety and criminal justice measures." Valcourt said in the fall of 2015, that the "deaths and disappearances came down to a lack of respect among aboriginal men on reserves for aboriginal women, and urged chiefs and councils to take action." During a private meeting between Valcourt and chiefs held on March 20, 2015, in Calgary, Valcourt released the statistics from the 2015 RCMP report. He infuriated the chiefs when he said that "up to 70 per cent of the murdered and missing indigenous women stems from their own communities," basing his claim on the conclusions of the 2015 RCMP report.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In response to Valcourt's statement, Chief Marshall Bernice Marshall sent an official request to the RCMP on March 26, 2015, in which she asked for the 2015 RCMP report, as well as access to data from the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR). In his April 7, 2015 response to Marshall's request, then-RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson said that, while the May 27, 2014 report was online, the RCMP did not have the authority to release NCMPUR data. He added that the RCMP does not disclose statistics on the ethnicity of perpetrators under the "Access to Information Act", to respect their "bias-free policing policy" as publicizing "ethnicity of [offenders] has the potential to stigmatize and marginalize vulnerable populations." Paulson then confirmed the statistics cited by Valcourt, saying: The consolidated data from the nearly 300 contributing police agencies have confirmed that 70% of the offenders were of Aboriginal origin, 25% were non-aboriginal, and 5% were of unknown ethnicity. However, it is not the ethnicity of the offender that is relevant, but rather the relationship between victim and offender that guides our focus with respect to prevention...Aboriginal females were killed by a spouse, family member or intimate relation in 62% of cases; similarly, non-aboriginal females were killed by a spouse, family member or intimate relation in 74% of occurrences. Female homicide across all ethnicities is inextricably linked to familial and spousal violence; it is for this reason that RCMP analysis and prevention efforts have focussed on the relationship between the victim and offender. Paulson copied this letter to Valcourt, then-Premier of Alberta Jim Prentice, Michelle Moody-Itwaru of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), and Lorna Martin of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC).


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The 2016–2019 National Inquiry's Forensic Document Review Project (FDRP) found that the "often-cited statistic that Indigenous men are responsible for 70% of murders of Indigenous women and girls is not factually based"; and that "the statistics relied on in the RCMP's 2015 Report are inaccurate and provide a misleading picture of the relationship between offenders and victims in cases of homicides of Indigenous females. The empirical basis for the claim set out in the 2015 Report is an analysis of the narrow statistical data on 32 homicides of Indigenous women and girls within RCMP jurisdiction in 2013 and 2014."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) database, which was created with federal funding in 2005, reported that from the 1960s to 2010, there were 582 missing and murdered Indigenous women. This was the first time a number had been given based on research. An initiative called Walk 4 Justice collected names of missing and murdered Indigenous women from 2008 to 2011, yielding over 4,000 names that they shared with the NWAC. There was confusion about the data produced by this informal initiative: a Walk 4 Justice activist contacted by CBC News said 'roughly 60 to 70 per cent' of the 4,000 or so people on her list were Indigenous."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In February 2016, Canada's Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Patty Hajdu, acknowledged that good data was lacking to estimate the number of MMIW, but pointed to NWAC data to indicate that the number could be as high as 4,000 MMIW in Canada from 1980 to 2012. The RCMP report estimated the number was 1,200. Hajdu said that historically there had been under-reporting by law enforcement of cases of murdered or missing Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The term "Highway of Tears" refers to the stretch of Highway 16 from Prince George to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, which has been the site of the murder and disappearance of a number of mainly Indigenous women since 1969.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In response to the Highway of Tears crisis, the RCMP in BC launched "Project E-Pana" in 2005. It initiated an investigation of nine murdered women, launching a task force in 2006. In 2007, it added an additional nine cases, which include cases of both murdered and missing women along Highways 16, 97, and 5. The task force consists of more than 50 investigators, and cases include those from the years 1969 to 2006.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Government organizations and Indigenous organizations have different estimates of the number of victims along the highway, with police identifying 18 murders and disappearances, 13 of them teenagers, and other organizations placing the number as closer to 40. A reason for this numerical discrepancy is that for a disappearance or murder to be included in the RCMP's E-Pana project statistics, the RCMP requires for the crime to have happened within a mile of Highway 16, 97, or 5; their count rejects all cases that take place elsewhere along the route.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Many people hitchhike along this stretch of highway because they do not own cars and there is a lack of public transit. The Highway of Tears murders have led to initiatives by the BC government to dissuade women from hitchhiking, such as billboards along the highway warning women of the potential risks. Numerous documentaries have focused on the victims associated with this highway. The Canadian media often refer to the highway in coverage of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people in Canada.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: After the 2015 Canadian federal election, the Liberal Government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau upheld their campaign promise and announced the initiation of a national public inquiry on December 8, 2015.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: From December 2015 through February 2016, the government held pre-inquiry meetings with a variety of people including families, front-line workers, representatives of the provinces and Indigenous organizations, in order to determine how to structure the inquiry.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The mandate and projected length of time of the inquiry were published on August 3, 2016. In addition to the inquiry's estimated cost of CA$53.8 million, the government announced $16.17 million over four years to create family information liaison units in each province and territory.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was officially launched on September 1, 2016. The inquiry was established as independent from the Government of Canada, and five commissioners were appointed to oversee the independent inquiry process: Marion Buller (chief commissioner), Michèle Audette, Qajaq Robinson, Marilyn Poitras, and Brian Eyolfson.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In February 2017, the National Family Advisory Circle, which included family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls from across Canada, was formed to help guide the inquiry.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: An interim report was expected from the Inquiry in November 2017. The initial conclusion date for the inquiry was set as December 31, 2018; however, on June 5, 2018, the federal government announced the extension of the National Inquiry by six months.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: After a pre-formal public hearing (meant as a "truth-gathering" advisory meeting) in April 2017, complaints by observers began to arise about the inquiry's terms of reference, its composition and administration, and a perceived lack of transparency.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Community hearings were the first part of the inquiry's "truth-gathering process" taking place from May 31, 2017, to April 8, 2018, in 15 locations across Canada. Evidence was taken from 50 witnesses during the first hearings over three days in May 2017 at Whitehorse, Yukon.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In July 2017, the Assembly of First Nations asked the federal government to reset the inquiry, revisit its mandate, and extend its timeline to allow more data gathering.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Throughout 2017, a number of key staffers left the inquiry. For instance, executive director Michèle Moreau announced in June that she would leave her position at the end of July. Marilyn Poitras resigned as a commissioner in July as well, saying in her resignation letter to the Prime Minister:


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: It is clear to me that I am unable to perform my duties as a commissioner with the process designed in its current structure ... I believe this opportunity to engage community on the place and treatment of Indigenous women is extremely important and necessary. It is time for Canada to face this relationship and repair it.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: On August 8, 2017, Waneek Horn-Miller, the inquiry's director of community relations, stepped down, and on October 8 that year, "CBC News" reported that the Inquiry's lead lawyer and research director had also resigned.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: On November 1, 2017, the inquiry published its interim report, titled "Our Women and Girls are Sacred". In October 2018, the Inquiry announced the last of its public hearing dates, following which the commissioners would write a final report and submit recommendations to the Canadian government by April 30, 2019.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The final report, entitled "Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls", which consists of volumes 1a and 1b, was released on June 3, 2019. In Volume 1a, Chief Commissioner of the Inquiry Marion Buller said that the high level of violence directed at FNIM women and girls is "caused by state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In preparation for the final report and to fulfill their mandate, the Commission held numerous gatherings and 24 hearings across Canada, collected statements from 750 people, held institutional visits in 8 correctional facilities, led four Guided Dialogues, and held 8 validation meetings. In 15 community hearings, there were 468 family members and survivors of violence and, overall, 2,380 people participated. There were "147 private, or in-camera, sessions" where more than "270 family members and survivors shared their stories." There were 819 people whose creative artistic expressions "became part of the National Inquiry's Legacy Archive". The Inquiry also indicates that "84 Expert Witnesses, Elders and Knowledge Keepers, front-line workers, and officials provided testimony in nine Institutional and Expert and Knowledge Keeper Hearings."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Families who gave testimonies to the National Inquiry expressed overwhelming concern that police investigations were "flawed" and that police services "had failed in their duty to properly investigate the crimes committed against them or their loved ones." In response, the Forensic Document Review Project (FDRP) was established to review "police and other related institutional files." There were two FDRP teams: one for Quebec and one for the rest of Canada. The second team subpoenaed 28 police forces, issued 30 subpoenas, reviewed 35 reports, and obtained and analyzed 174 files consisting of 136,834 documents representing 593,921 pages.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The final report issued 231 "Calls for Justice" to end violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The report stated that these recommendations were legal imperatives under international human rights law. The calls were directed variously at governments, institutions, industry, and all Canadians.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Sections 12.5 to 12.10 of the "Call for Social Workers and Those Implicated in Child Welfare" introduce the themes of financial support, welfare services, access to their culture, and advocacy.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Section 15 calls for participation from all Canadians. Within the eight subsections, it establishes that these are actions that are taken by citizens and not the state. This includes places such as the home, the workplace, and the classroom. Some of the actions listed in Section 15 that can be carried out by Canadians include:


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Chapter seven of The Final Report found that, "There is substantial evidence of a serious problem demonstrated in the correlation between resource extraction and violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Work camps, or 'man camps,' associated with the resource extraction industry are implicated in higher rates of violence against Indigenous women at the camps and in the neighbouring communities." The report also found that Indigenous women did not have equitable access to the economic benefits of resource extraction.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: According to a May 2019 "CBC News" article, the National Inquiry commissioners said in the report and publicly that the MMIWG crisis is "a Canadian genocide". Moreover, the chief commissioner, Marion Buller, said there is an ongoing "deliberate, race, identity and gender-based genocide."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The MMIWG inquiry report cited the work of Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), who coined the term "genocide". Lemkin had explained that genocide does not exclusively mean the "immediate destruction of a nation", but signifies "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." According to a "Global News" article, Canada's "Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act" of 2000 "offers a broader definition, saying genocide can encompass not only acts of commission, but 'omission' as well."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A supplemental report of the "Canadian genocide of Indigenous Peoples according to the legal definition of 'genocide,'" was announced in "Reclaiming Power and Place" by the National Inquiry because of its gravity.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: On June 3, 2019, Luis Almagro, secretary-general of Organization of American States (OAS), asked Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to support the creation of an independent probe into the MMIWG allegation of Canadian 'genocide' since Canada had previously supported "probes of atrocities in other countries" such as Nicaragua in 2018. On June 4, in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that, "Earlier this morning, the national inquiry formally presented their final report, in which they found that the tragic violence that Indigenous women and girls have experienced amounts to genocide."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: On June 9, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer denied the use of the word "genocide", saying, "I believe that the tragedy that has happened to this vulnerable section of our society is its own thing. I don't believe it falls into the category, to the definition of genocide."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The National Crime Information Center reported 5,712 missing Indigenous women and girls in 2016. A study funded by the US Department of Justice found that,National rates of homicide victimization against American Indian and Alaska Native women are second to those of their African American counterparts, but higher than those for white women. However, these national averages hide the extremely high rates of murder against American Indian and Alaska Native women present in some counties consisting primarily of tribal lands. Some counties have rates of murder against American Indian and Alaska Native women that are over ten times the national average.Data on MMIW in the United States has been difficult to gather. The race, citizenship or ethinicity of Native Americans is often mis-identified on death certificates and law enforcement records. Less than half of incidents of violence against women are reported. Many times when Indigenous women and girls go missing, or when Indigenous murder victims are unidentified, forensic evidence has not been accurately collected or preserved by local law enforcement. Cases have been allowed to quickly go "cold", and crucial evidence has been "lost", or never forwarded on from local law enforcement to the appropriate agencies. As these cases go unreported, it allowed violence and murder to be inaccurately represented in statistical data against Indigenous women, but it has also allowed aggressors to go unpunished.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: A 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics report on American Indians and crime did not provide information about missing or murdered Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Incidents of violence on tribal lands are frequently unprosecuted. The Major Crimes Act (1885) limits the jurisdiction of tribal governments to prosecute violent crimes. These crimes must be prosecuted by the federal government. A statement by the US Government Accountability Office reported that US Attorneys Offices (USAOs) received 10,000 cases from Indian country for prosecution between 2005 and 2009. Seventy-seven percent of these were violent crimes. The USAOs declined to prosecute over half of these violent crimes.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The federal Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, which for the first time gave tribes jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute felony domestic violence offenses involving Native American and non-Native offenders on reservations. 26% of Natives live on reservations. In 2019 the House passed H.R. 1585 (Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019) by a vote of 263–158, which increases tribes' prosecution rights much further. However, in the Senate its progress has stalled.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2018, The Urban Indian Health Institute investigated reports of MMIW in 71 urban centers. They found 506 unique cases, with 80% of these cases occurring between 2000 and 2018. Of these cases, 128 (25%) were reported missing, 280 (56%) were murdered, and 98 (19%) were removed from a missing person database with no information as to whether the victim was found safe or deceased. The study found that many cities had poor data collection, and many jurisdictions did not respond to Freedom of Information Act requests for data, or responded with incomplete information; the study concluded that the 506 cases were 'likely an undercount'. The study used law enforcement records, state and national databases, media reports, public social media postings, and community and family member accounts to compile their report. They found that 153 cases did not exist in law enforcement data.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The study also surveyed media coverage of the cases investigated in the report. They found that one-third of the media outlets covering MMIW cases used 'violent language' that reflected 'racism or misogyny or racial stereotyping' in their portrayals of the victims.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Activism and proposed legislation has drawn the issue of MMIW to the attention of some lawmakers. In 2018 and 2019 many US states, including Washington, Minnesota, Arizona, and Wisconsin have begun to take steps toward passing legislation to increase awareness of this issue and to build databases that track missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Currently, the federal laws surrounding violent crimes create difficulties in dealing with non-Native perpetrators on native lands.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: According to the Supreme Court ruling in "Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe" (1978), tribal courts do not hold any jurisdictional powers over non-American Indians and Alaska Natives and therefore cannot prosecute or punish them for their crimes on reservations. Additionally, the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 limits the maximum punishment for any crime to a $5000 fine and up to one year in prison. All violent felonies committed on tribal lands can be prosecuted by the federal government through the FBI, because of the federal government's relationship with the sovereign tribal nations. Outside of Alaska, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Nebraska (States where Public Law 280 applies), state and county authorities do not have criminal jurisdiction on reservations. Bachman believes that this split in authority creates problems as law enforcement departments compete over jurisdictional powers based on the nature of the crime. This lowers the overall effectiveness of law enforcement, and provides enough immunity to non-citizens of the tribes (usually members of the dominant culture) for such crimes to have become commonplace. As noted in the movie, the FBI does not keep data on missing Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The US declared May 5, 2018, as a national day of awareness in order to raise concern for the crisis, and refocus attention on issues affecting Indigenous women. It hopes to improve relations between the federal and tribal governments.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Savanna's Act: The bill known as "Savanna's Act" was initially introduced in Congress in October 2017 by former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, but later reintroduced in January 2019 by Senator Lisa Murkowski. The purpose of Savanna's Act is to increase cooperation and coordination between "Federal, State, Tribal, and local law enforcement agencies" as this has been one of the major barriers to developing an accurate database. This bill would also implement training for Tribal agencies from the Attorney General as well as improve tribal access to databases (including the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System). In addition, data collection will be increased so that statistics more accurately represent missing and murdered Indigenous women. The bill was passed by Congress in September 2020, and signed into law by then U.S. president Donald Trump a month later.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Not Invisible Act: The Not Invisible Act (signed October 2020) requires the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice to form a joint commission on violent crime in Native American communities.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: House of Representatives Bill 1585: On March 7, 2019, Congress introduced this bill in the House of Representatives and this bill was to reauthorize the "Violence Against Women Act" of 1994 and other specific reasons.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Washington State House Bill 2951: Effective May 7, 2018, this bill orders an inquiry into how to increase rates of reporting for missing Native American women in the state of Washington. The Washington State Patrol was given a deadline of June 1, 2019, to report to the legislature its results of the study. This includes analysis and data on the number of missing women in the state, barriers to use state resources, as well as recommendations on how to overcome them.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Arizona State House Bill 2570: On March 11, 2019, the Arizona State Legislature, House of Representatives passed Arizona House Bill 2570 "Establishing a Study Committee on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls". If approved in the Senate, the bill would seek to "establish a study committee to conduct a comprehensive study to determine how the State of Arizona can reduce and end violence against indigenous women and girls." The study committee would establish methods for tracking and collecting data, reviewing policies and procedures, reviewing prosecutorial trends, gather data on violence, identify barriers to providing more state resources, propose measures, as well as propose legislation to address the issues identified.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Wisconsin Assembly Bill 548: On October 14, 2019, Assembly Bill 548 was introduced to the Wisconsin State Assembly. This bill would create a Task Force on Missing and Murdered Tribal Women and Girls. This bill received a public hearing on March 3, 2020, but did not receive a vote and was not enacted into law. As the Legislature did not pass a bill to create this task force, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, on Thursday, July 2, 2020, announced the creation of the Wisconsin Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Task Force within the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Failed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1 on April 1, 2020.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Executive Order 13898, signed by then-U.S. president Donald Trump, formed the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, otherwise known as Operation Lady Justice, in order to address concerns of these communities regarding missing and murdered women and girls in the United States.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The task force was first authorized in November 2019 and strives to improve the criminal justice response to American Indian and Alaska Natives experiencing violence. Operation Lady Justice is co-chaired by Tara Sweeney (designee for the Secretary of the Interior) and Katharine Sullivan (designee for Attorney General). Additional members are Terry Wade, Laura Rogers, Charles Addington, Trent Shores, and Jean Hovland. Executive Director Marcia Good would assist the Operation Lady Justice task force. The Operation Lady Justice Task Force has specific mission objectives and must submit a written report to the President by November 26, 2020, to include accomplishments and recommended future activities.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Under U.S. President Joe Biden, in February 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice's Operation Lady Justice website augmented existing pages and added many new ones, in coordination with involved other agencies of the U.S. government and with tribal organizations and tribal governments. On May 4, 2021, the White House issued "A Proclamation on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, 2021" beginning Today, thousands of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Native Americans continue to cry out for justice and healing. On Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember the Indigenous people who we have lost to murder and those who remain missing and commit to working with Tribal Nations to ensure any instance of a missing or murdered person is met with swift and effective action. and detailing the commitments of his administration in this regard, both those already in progress and going forward.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Indigenous activists have been organizing protests and vigils relating to missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit individuals for decades. The Native Women's Association of Canada was one of many organizations that created a database of missing and murdered Indigenous women. The community-based activist groups Families of Sisters in Spirit and No More Silence have also been gathering the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women since 2005. In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action also called for the federal government to establish a public inquiry into the issues of MMIW. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the inquiry in December 2015.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The first Women's Memorial March was on February 14, Valentine's Day, 1992, in Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, an area notable for having numerous missing or murdered Indigenous women. The march was in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman. The annual marches were intended to commemorate Indigenous women who have been murdered or have gone missing in order to build support for a national inquiry and program of response.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2016 the government announced it would undertake such an inquiry. During the annual Vancouver march, the committee and public stop at the sites where the women were last seen or known to have been murdered, holding a moment of silence as a sign of respect. The committee has drawn attention to the issue locally, nationally, and internationally. The committee is made up of family members, front-line workers, close friends, and loved ones who have suffered the losses of Indigenous women during recent decades.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: This event has expanded. As of 2017, it was held annually on Valentine's Day in more than 22 communities across North America. The march intends to break down barriers among populations and raise awareness about the racial stereotypes and stigmas that contribute to the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2002, the Native Women's Association of Canada, Amnesty International Canada, KAIROS, Elizabeth Fry Society, and the Anglican Church of Canada formed the National Coalition for our Stolen Sisters, an initiative designed to raise awareness about the MMIW crisis in Canada. In 2005 Indigenous women founded Sisters in Spirit, a research, education and policy program run by Indigenous women, with a focus on raising awareness about violence against Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit persons. Sisters in Spirit collected the details of almost 600 cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada, including some historical cases that were not accepted by police, and cases where police closed the book on a woman's death despite lingering questions from family members. This was the first database of its kind in Canada in terms of its detail and scope, however the federal government stopped funding the program in 2010. Critics of the cut say it was meant to silence the Native Women's Association of Canada, the group behind the database. However, Sisters in Spirit vigils continue to be held across Canada every year on the 4th of October.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Bridget Tolley founded the Sisters in Spirit vigils in 2005 to honour of the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and two-spirit persons. This annual event is organized in partnership with the NWAC. In 2006, 11 vigils were held across the country and in 2014, there were 216 vigils. The annual Fort St. John, British Columbia vigil has been taking place since 2008, honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in northeast British Columbia. Sisters in Spirit continue to hold an annual, national vigil on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2011 Bridget Tolley cofounded Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS) in response to the funding cuts to Sisters in Spirit. FSIS is a grassroots group led by Indigenous women dedicated to seeking justice for missing Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit persons through public awareness and advocacy. FSIS differs from Sisters in Spirit insofar as FSIS is fully autonomous, all-volunteer, and accepts no government funding. Tolley is Algonquin from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation. Her activism began after her mother, Gladys Tolley, was struck and killed by a Sûreté du Québec police cruiser while walking across a two-lane highway on the Kitigan Zibi-Anishinabeg First Nation on October 5, 2001. A police investigation into her death revealed no wrongdoing and deemed the case an accident. However, Tolley claims police failed to inform her family that her mother's case was closed, and that Montreal police were brought in even though the local Kitigan Zibi police department had jurisdiction over the scene and should have been called to secure it. Bridget Tolley has since campaigned for justice for her mother, demanding her case be reopened and subject to an independent investigation by the Province of Quebec. She remains a committed activist for social justice regarding police violence, education, housing, and child welfare.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2014, the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine was found dumped in the Red River in Manitoba, wrapped in a plastic bag and weighted down with stones. Since then, volunteer teams have gathered in boats to search the Winnipeg waterways for the remains of other missing and murdered women, girls, and men, in hopes of finding justice, or at least closure, for their grieving families and friends. Disposal of victims in water is a common tactic used by assailants, as water often washes away the forensic evidence necessary for a conviction.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Because resource extraction projects create threats to Indigenous women, water protectors and land defenders use red dresses, red handprints, and other references to the MMIW movement at the site of blockades or other direct action to raise awareness about this connection between exploitation of the earth and violence against Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The REDress Project is a public art installation dedicated to the remembrance of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous women. It consists of red dresses, hanging or laid flat in public spaces, with each empty dress symbolizing one of the missing and murdered. Canadian Jaime Black (Métis) began the project in 2000. She told CTV News that "a friend of [hers], who is also an aboriginal, explained that red was the only colour spirits could see.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: "Walking with Our Sisters" is a community-based art installation, commemorating murdered or missing women and children from Indigenous communities. The project is community-led, from the creation of the piece to the facilitation of the exhibit at different sites. The hope is to raise awareness on this issue and create a space for dialogue-based community discussions on this issue. It is a solely volunteer initiative.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The art project is a collection of moccasin vamps. A vamp is the extra layer of leather for the top lip of the moccasin, which is usually decorated with beadwork or quillwork in traditional patterns from the Indigenous woman's culture. The installation has more than 1763 pairs of adult vamps and 108 pairs for children. Each pair is custom made for each individual woman reported missing. The vamps from unfinished moccasins represent the unfinished lives of the missing or murdered women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The project began in 2012, with a call to action issued on Facebook. People were asked to design and create these moccasin tops for their missing and murdered loved ones. By July 2013, the project leaders had received 1,600 vamps, more than tripling their initial goal of 600. Men, women, and children of all backgrounds responded to the call and became active in the project.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: This installation consists of these moccasin vamps ceremonially placed on the floor of a public space in a sacred manner. It travels to select galleries and art exhibition halls. Patrons are asked to take off their shoes and respectfully walk alongside the vamps in the gallery, to ensure that the people they represent are not forgotten, and to show solidarity with the missing or murdered women. Booked until 2019, the installation is scheduled for 25 locations across North America.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Begun by the Native Women's Association of Canada in 2012, the Faceless Dolls Project encourages people to make dolls to represent missing and murdered women, and those affected by violence. The dolls are designed as "a process of reconstructing identity" for women who lose individuality in becoming victims of crime. The first dolls were made to commemorate the 582 MMIW documented by the Association. They are intended as an artistic reminder of the lives and identities of the affected women and girls. NWAC has brought this art project to universities and communities across Canada, where participants join in making dolls as a form of activism and raising awareness of the issue of MMIW.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: At the 2014 Polaris Music Prize ceremony, Inuk musician Tanya Tagaq performed her number in front of a screen featuring a scrolling list of names of missing and murdered Indigenous women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Since late 2015 Kristen Villebrun, a local activist in Hamilton, Ontario, and about ten other Indigenous women have been constructing "inuksuit" stone monuments on the Chedoke Radial Trail. An "inuksuk" (plural "inuksuit") is a human-built stone structure commonly used for navigation or as trail markers. "Inuksuk" translates to "in the likeness of a human". The Chedoke Radial trail connects to the Chedoke Creek, a watercourse in Hamilton.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The women began the project in October 2015 when they noticed that shadows cast by previously constructed "inuksuit" on the trail were lifelike and reminiscent of women. These activists saw an opportunity to use these structures as a way of drawing attention to the issue of the missing women. They have constructed 1,181 "inuksuit", working for six hours a day, four days a week. The project has attracted many questions, with hundreds of people stopping to inquire about the "inuksuit". The women welcomed the questions, and they announced their intention to continue to build the female "inuksuit" until the government undertook an official inquiry into missing Indigenous women. In December 2015 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would initiate such an inquiry.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In February 2016, Lucy Annanack (Nunavik) and a team of women built and placed another 1,200 "inuksuit" in Montreal, Quebec.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In October 2016 journalist Connie Walker and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation launched a podcast titled "Who Killed Alberta Williams?" The eight-part podcast examines the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis in Canada though the lens of a specific case, the murder of Alberta Williams in 1989 along the Highway of Tears in British Columbia. The series was nominated for a Webby Award.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In 2019 the podcast True Consequences covered the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls issues in an interview with Cheyenne Antonio from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: "Big Green Sky" is a play commissioned and produced by Windsor Feminist Theatre (WFT), which debuted in May 2016 in Windsor Ontario. It was prompted by the outrage over the acquittal of Bradley Barton in his trial for the sexual assault and murder of Cindy Gladue. This play is a direct result of reaching out to Muriel Stanley Venne, Chair of the Aboriginal Commission on Human Rights and Justice, and President of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women. Venne's report was submitted to United Nations rapporteur James Anaya. Venne created her report because she wanted to "influence decision-makers who have become very complacent and unconcerned about the lives of Indigenous women in our country."


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The play is centred around an RCMP officer who is new to the area. She goes up North to see the aurora borealis or Northern Lights (the "green sky" of the title). While there, she finds out about the MMIW situation – a crisis that, she is shocked to realize, can be so deeply interwoven into the daily lives of so many (FNIM) people, while remaining almost invisible (or at least ignored) by the mainstream population of the country. The play is being gifted by the WFT to any organization or individual wishing to bring awareness to this issue. It is being distributed without royalty fees, providing that all revenues and fundraising efforts be donated to local First Nations, Inuit or Métis (FNIM) women's initiatives.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: "Wind River" is a 2017 neo-Western murder mystery film starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a white U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and a white FBI agent, respectively, who try to solve the murder of an Indigenous woman on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal, Graham Greene and Kelsey Chow also star.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: In a "High Country News" article titled "Why do white writers keep making films about Indian Country?", Native reviewer Jason Asenap criticizes the film for perpetuating the "dying Indians" motif:


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: at least in Hollywood, the Indians die. To this day, the Indians die, and not just physically, but culturally. Simpson and Sheridan are invested in making us see how America has screwed Native people, but to the point of rubbing it in our faces. Is it so terrible to live in one's own homeland? It may be hard to get out, but it certainly feels condescending for a non-Native to write as much.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The filmmakers were also criticized for casting non-Native actors in some of the Native American roles.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Documentary filmmaker Kim O'Bomsawin released the documentary film "Quiet Killing (Ce silence qui tue)" in 2018. The film won the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social or Political Documentary Program at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The Moose Hide Campaign is a British Columbia-born movement that seeks to encourage both Indigenous, and non-Indigenous men and boys to stand up against violence, particularly violence towards women and children. Statistics indicate that when compared with non-Indigenous women, Indigenous women are three times as likely to suffer from domestic abuse. Additionally, in 2019 it was reported that 4.01% of homicide victims were identified as Indigenous females. The campaign, which started as a grassroots movement in Victoria, British Columbia in 2011, has since become nationally recognized. February 11 has been recognized as Moose Hide Campaign Day, and is dedicated to raising awareness regarding violence against women and children. On this day, a fast takes place as a dedication to ending violence against women and children. The purpose of the fast stems from the belief that change can happen and occur when community members are brought together through a ceremony, shifting behaviours and attitudes, leading to fundamental changes for better outcomes.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: The Moose Hide Campaign was founded by Paul and Raven Lacerte, a father-daughter pair, who gave the moose hide pins to men of the community as a commitment to end violence against Indigenous women and children. The pins are small squares of tanned moose hide, that symbolize ending violence against women. These moose hide pins symbolize one's dedication and vow to protect Indigenous women and children from violence, honouring, respecting and protecting these people, while also working with others to end the cycle of violence. The idea to create the pin came from the two founders, who harvested and tanned the hide of a moose that came from their traditional territory (Nadleh Whut'en (Carrier) First Nation) along Highway 16, known as the Highway of Tears. The hides used to create the pins today typically come from moose hunts, or from animals killed as a result of road accidents.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: Since the organization's beginning in 2011, more than two million moose hide pins have been handed out, and approximately 2000 communities have chosen to engage with the campaign. Throughout the years, various political members have endorsed the campaign, including Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau and British Columbia's 36th and current premier John Horgan. The campaign has sparked numerous conversations regarding the violence women face, including the need for victim support systems, and steps towards creating safer communities for women. The organization behind the campaign also provides workshops and meeting spaces to start conversations. These gatherings provide both men and women with safe spaces to share their experiences, while also pledging to stand up against violence that targets Indigenous women and children. The goal of the Moose Hide Campaign is to break the cycle of violence, that disproportionately targets Indigenous women and children. In order to do this the campaign addresses the impacts of colonization that continue today, such as the Residential School System. The campaign also aims to bring awareness to the racism that is perpetrated towards Indigenous peoples. By actively speaking out against gender-based violence, and pledging to stand up against violence that targets Indigenous women and children, the Moose Hide Campaign promotes healthy relationships that include gender equity, while also combating toxic-masculinity by promoting positive ideas of men.


title: Missing and murdered Indigenous women

text: MMIW: Understanding the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women Crisis in the United States is a graphic essay written by Columbia alumna Samantha Johnston and Ogapah artist and William and Mary alumna Mackenzie Neal. Published in October 2020, this essay focuses on the MMIW crisis and its causes in the United States specifically. It highlights issues of this crisis that are unique to the US, such as overlapping Indian country jurisdiction and the complexity of prosecuting crimes on federally recognized Indigenous land. The essay also addresses topics which contribute to the crisis that are not unique to the United States, including anti-Indigenous racism and stereotypes, increased economic vulnerability of Indigenous women, and the impacts of historical trauma.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their 1993 hit "Runaway Train" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The band was originally called Loud Fast Rules, with a lineup consisting of Dave Pirner, Dan Murphy, Karl Mueller, and Pat Morley. They changed their name to Soul Asylum in 1983. Morley was replaced by Grant Young in 1984. The band recorded three albums with Twin/Tone Records and two with A&M Records, with little commercial success. In 1992, they released the triple-platinum album "Grave Dancers Union", featuring "Runaway Train". The band played at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton early the next year. They also scored a platinum record with the album "Let Your Dim Light Shine" three years later.


title: Soul Asylum

text: In 1998 they recorded "Candy from a Stranger." Mueller was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, and the band organized a benefit concert on his behalf. Mueller died a year later.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The band released four more albums over the next 15 years. Their most recent was "Hurry Up and Wait" in 2020, their twelfth studio release.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The group was an outgrowth of a previous band, Loud Fast Rules, formed in 1981 by drummer and lead vocalist Dave Pirner, guitarist and backing vocalist Dan Murphy, and bassist Karl Mueller. Pirner was moved to rhythm guitar, and Pat Morley took over on drums.


title: Soul Asylum

text: As Loud Fast Rules, two of their songs were released on the 1982 Reflex Records cassette compilation "Barefoot and Pregnant".


title: Soul Asylum

text: On the following Reflex compilation, "Kitten" (recorded live at Goofy's Upper Deck), they were billed as Proud Crass Fools.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Soul Asylum began performing around the Minneapolis–St. Paul area (including the nightclub First Avenue) and quickly developed a core following while becoming known for their powerful, dynamic stage shows.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Their 1984 debut album, "Say What You Will... Everything Can Happen" was originally released on LP and cassette by local record label Twin/Tone as a nine-song EP. It is out of print but was re-released on CD as "Say What You Will, Clarence...Karl Sold the Truck", which includes five additional tracks that were cut from the original album. Between the release of "Say What You Will" and their second album, Grant Young joined the group, taking over the drums from Morley. In 1986, Soul Asylum released three albums, "Made to Be Broken", "Time's Incinerator" (on cassette only) and "While You Were Out".


title: Soul Asylum

text: The band toured relentlessly in its early years, opening for other American touring bands and later performing as a headliner act after gaining exposure on the "Flip Your Wig" tour with the Minneapolis band Hüsker Dü in early 1986. Contrasted with some of the popular underground and alternative styles at the time, audiences were struck by the band's onstage swagger, scruffy Midwestern appearance and extremely loud, frenetic sound, mixing tuneful but unrestrained punk, hardcore, 1970s rock, country and self-effacing kitsch. One early review described their sound as "some unholy mix of Kiss and Hank Williams thrown under the wheels of a runaway train." All elements contributed to the band's being described as a "grunge precursor", a claim often recited in comparisons between pre-Nirvana Minneapolis and Seattle bands. Despite critical acclaim locally and internationally, they remained unknown to a larger U.S. audience and radio market.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The group signed with A&M Records in 1988. Their first offering on that label was "Clam Dip & Other Delights" (1989), the title and cover art being a parody of "Whipped Cream & Other Delights", by A&M Records co-founder Herb Alpert. "Hang Time" was released in 1988, followed by "And the Horse They Rode In On" in 1990 (produced by X-pensive Winos drummer Steve Jordan). Because of poor sales and Pirner's hearing problems, the group considered disbanding.


title: Soul Asylum

text: After playing a series of acoustic shows in the early 1990s, they were picked up by Columbia Records. In 1992 they released "Grave Dancers Union", which became their most popular album. On January 20, 1993, the group performed at the first inauguration of United States President Bill Clinton. Later that year, the band performed "Sexual Healing" for the AIDS benefit album "No Alternative", produced by the Red Hot Organization. The band added keyboard player Joey Huffman in the summer of 1993. He toured with the band until joining Matchbox Twenty in 1998. Huffman played on the albums "Let Your Dim Light Shine", "", and "The Silver Lining". Soul Asylum won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for "Runaway Train". The music video for that song featured photographs and names of missing children, in the style of a public service announcement. At the end of the video, Pirner appeared and said, "If you've seen one of these kids, or you are one of them, please call this number", and then the telephone number of a missing children's help line was shown. For use outside the U.S., the video was edited to include photos and names of missing children from the area where the video would be shown. The video was instrumental in reuniting several children with their families.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Before their next studio album, drummer Grant Young was fired and was replaced by Sterling Campbell. Campbell had been credited as providing percussion on "Grave Dancers Union" (although he had actually done at least half of the drumming on that album). The next release, "Let Your Dim Light Shine", included the track "Misery", which reached the Top 20, but the album was not as successful as the band's previous one. In 1997 Soul Asylum performed a benefit concert for North Dakota students whose prom had been cancelled because of the Red River Flood of 1997. Some of the songs played during the prom were later released on "" in 2004. The group released "Candy from a Stranger" the following year. The album was unsuccessful, and the band was dropped by Columbia Records. Pirner said, "It's sort of sad to say, but you could see the whole grunge-rock-band thing getting totally over-saturated and people were looking for something new." The band took a step back; Pirner explained, "We needed to reassess how far we've gone and how much further we're going to go and which way we want to go and what we do right and what we do wrong. It was kind of time to take inventory."


title: Soul Asylum

text: Pirner became friends with the film director Kevin Smith, a longtime Soul Asylum fan. Soul Asylum contributed music to three Kevin Smith films, "Clerks", "Clerks II", and 1997's "Chasing Amy" (in which Pirner provided the score). Smith directed the music video for the song "Can't Even Tell," which was featured on the "Clerks" soundtrack.


title: Soul Asylum

text: In May 2004, bassist Mueller was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent treatment. In October 2004, a benefit concert was held for him in Minneapolis at The Quest nightclub, featuring popular local groups and musicians, including Soul Asylum, the Gear Daddies, Paul Westerberg, and former Hüsker Dü bandmates Bob Mould and Grant Hart, who reunited for their first performance together in sixteen years. The benefit raised over $50,000. At the time, Mueller's cancer was in remission, and he played with his bandmates during the show. Mueller later recorded his last Soul Asylum album, "The Silver Lining". However, the cancer returned, and he died at his home on June 17, 2005. Soul Asylum released "The Silver Lining" on July 11, 2006, their first album of new material since "Candy from a Stranger", released eight years earlier.


title: Soul Asylum

text: In late 2005, ex-Replacements bassist (and former Guns N' Roses bassist) Tommy Stinson and former Prince drummer Michael Bland joined Soul Asylum. The band completed its American tour in support of "The Silver Lining" in late 2006. In November and December 2006 they opened for Cheap Trick on that band's American tour. On March 10, 2007, Soul Asylum joined Cyndi Lauper, Mint Condition, and Lifehouse in a concert to benefit Wain McFarlane, the leader of the reggae band Ipso Facto, to help pay for the expenses of a kidney transplant.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Stinson was a permanent member until 2012, but in 2006 and 2007, while he was on tour with Guns N' Roses, his place was temporarily filled by George Scot McKelvey. During the 2010 Guns N' Roses world tour, his fill-in was Pete Donnelly. Soul Asylum released the album "Delayed Reaction" in 2012.


title: Soul Asylum

text: In November 2012, Winston Roye replaced Tommy Stinson on bass and Justin Sharbono replaced Dan Murphy on guitar. In 2016, Ryan Smith replaced Sharbono.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the 2020 tour in support of "Hurry Up and Wait" with a final performance at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on March 11, 2020. Pirner and Smith instead hosted frequent "live" performances during the 2020 shutdown via Facebook and Instagram.


title: Soul Asylum

text: Soul Asylum returned to the stage on June 26, 2021 performing in New Lenox, Illinois as the opening act for the Bodeans.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The band have been described musically as alternative rock, grunge, country rock, punk rock, pop rock, post-grunge, and indie rock.


title: Soul Asylum

text: The band has been honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue, recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue. Receiving a star "might be the most prestigious public honor an artist can receive in Minneapolis," according to journalist Steve Marsh.


"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the second track from their 1987 album "The Joshua Tree" and was released as the album's second single in May 1987. The song was a hit, becoming the band's second consecutive number-one single on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 while peaking at number six on the UK Singles Chart.


The song originated from a demo the band recorded on which drummer Larry Mullen Jr. played a unique rhythm pattern. Like much of "The Joshua Tree", the song was inspired by the group's interest in American music. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" exhibits influences from gospel music and its lyrics describe spiritual yearning. Lead singer Bono's vocals are in high register and lead guitarist the Edge plays a chiming arpeggio. Adding to the gospel qualities of the song are choir-like backing vocals provided by the Edge and producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois.


"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was critically acclaimed and received two nominations at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards in 1988, for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. It has subsequently become one of the group's most well-known songs and has been performed on many of their concert tours. The track has appeared on several of their compilations and concert films. Many critics and publications have ranked "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" among the greatest tracks in music history, including "Rolling Stone" which ranked the song at number 93 of its 2010 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".


"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" originated from a demo variously titled "The Weather Girls" and "Under the Weather" that the band recorded during a jam session. Bassist Adam Clayton called the demo's melody "a bit of a one-note groove", while an unconvinced The Edge, the band's guitarist, compared it to "'Eye of the Tiger' played by a reggae band". However, the band liked the drum part played by drummer Larry Mullen Jr. Co-producer Daniel Lanois said, "It was a very original beat from Larry. We always look for those beats that would qualify as a signature for the song. And that certainly was one of those. It had this tom-tom thing that he does and nobody ever understands. And we just didn't want to let go of that beat, it was so unique." Lanois encouraged Mullen to continue developing the weird drum pattern beyond the demo. Mullen said the beat became even more unusual, and although Lanois eventually mixed most of the pattern out to just keep the basics, the rhythm became the root of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".


title: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

text: The group worked on the track at the studio they had set up at Danesmoate House in Dublin. Lanois compared the creation of the song to constructing a building, first laying down the drums as the foundation, then adding additional layers piece by piece, before finally "putting in furniture". Lead singer Bono was interested in the theme of spiritual doubt, which was fostered by Eno's love for gospel music, and by Bono's listening to songs by The Swan Silvertones, The Staple Singers, and Blind Willie Johnson. After the Edge wrote a chord sequence and played it on acoustic guitar "with a lot of power in the strumming", the group attempted to compose a suitable vocal melody, trying out a variety of ideas. During a jam session, Bono began singing a "classic soul" melody, and it was this addition that made the Edge hear the song's potential. At that point, he remembered a phrase he had written in a notebook that morning as a possible song title, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for". He suggests it was influenced by a line from the Bob Dylan song "Idiot Wind": ""You'll find out when you reach the top you're on the bottom"". He wrote the phrase on a piece of paper and handed it to Bono while he was singing. The Edge called the phrase's fit with the song "like hand in glove". From that point on, the song was the first piece played to visitors during the recording sessions.


text: As recording continued, a number of guitar overdubs were added, including an auto-pan effect and a chiming arpeggio to modernise the old-style "gospel song". While the Edge was improvising guitar parts one day, Bono heard a "chrome bells" guitar hook that he liked. It was added as a counter-melody to the song's "muddy shoes" guitar part, and it is this hook that the Edge plays during live performances of the song. Bono sang in the upper register of his range to add to the feeling of spiritual yearning; in the verses he hits a B-flat note, and an A-flat in the chorus. Background vocals were provided by the Edge, Lanois, and co-producer Brian Eno, their voices being multi-tracked. Lanois suggests that his and Eno's involvement in the track's creation helped their vocals. He stated, "You're not going to get that sound of, 'Oh they brought in some soul singers' if you know what I mean. Our hearts and souls are already there. If we sing it'll sound more real." Lanois also played a percussive guitar part, which is heard in the introduction. The song's writing was completed relatively early during the band's time at Danesmoate House. The mix took longer to complete, though, with most of the production team contributing. The final mix was completed by Lanois and the Edge in a home studio set up at Melbeach, a house purchased by the Edge. They mixed it on top of a previous Steve Lillywhite mix, which gave the song a phasing sound. The final version of the song is composed in the key of D-flat major.


text: Lanois says he is very attached to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and has, on occasion, joined U2 on stage to perform it. The original "Weather Girls" demo, re-titled "Desert of Our Love", was included with the 2007 remastered version of "The Joshua Tree" on a bonus disc of outtakes and B-sides.


text: Initially, "Red Hill Mining Town" was planned for release as the second single. However, Bono was unable to sing the song during pre-tour rehearsals and the band were reportedly unhappy with the video shot by Neil Jordan, so "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" became a late choice for the second single. The single was released in May 1987. On the US "Billboard" Hot 100, the song debuted at number 51 on 13 June 1987. After nearly 2 months on the chart, the song reached number one on 8 August 1987, becoming the band's second consecutive number-one hit in the United States. The song spent two weeks in the top spot, and remained on the chart for 17 weeks. On other "Billboard" charts, the song peaked at number 16 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and number two on the Album Rock Tracks chart. The song also topped the Irish Singles Chart, while peaking at number six on the Canadian "RPM" Top 100 and the UK Singles Chart. In New Zealand, the song peaked at number two on the RIANZ Top 40 Singles Chart, while reaching number six on the Dutch Top 40 and number 11 on the Swedish Singles Chart.