text: the specific failure modes that could lead to unintended MCAS activation (such as an erroneous high AOA input to the MCAS) were not simulated as part of these functional hazard assessment validation tests. As a result, additional flight deck effects (such as IAS DISAGREE and ALT DISAGREE alerts and stick shaker activation) resulting from the same underlying failure (for example, erroneous AOA) were not simulated and were not in the stabilizer trim safety assessment report reviewed by the NTSB."


title: Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System

text: The NTSB questioned the long-held industry and FAA practice of assuming the nearly instantaneous responses of highly trained test pilots as opposed to pilots of all levels of experience to verify human factors in aircraft safety. The NTSB expressed concerns that the process used to evaluate the original design needs improvement because that process is still in use to certify current and future aircraft and system designs. The FAA could, for example, randomly sample pools from the worldwide pilot community to obtain a more representative assessment of cockpit situations.


text: The updates proposed by Boeing focus mostly on MCAS software. In particular, there have been no public statements regarding reverting the functionality of the stabilizer trim cutout switches to pre-MAX configuration. A veteran software engineer and experienced pilot suggested that software changes may not be enough to counter the 737 MAX's engine placement. The "Seattle Times" noted that while the new software fix Boeing proposed "will likely prevent this situation recurring, if the preliminary investigation confirms that the Ethiopian pilots did cut off the automatic flight-control system, this is still a nightmarish outcome for Boeing and the FAA. It would suggest the emergency procedure laid out by Boeing and passed along by the FAA after the Lion Air crash is wholly inadequate and failed the Ethiopian flight crew."


text: Boeing and the FAA decided that the AoA display and an AoA disagree light, which signals if the sensors give different readings, were not critical features for safe operation. Boeing charged extra for the addition of the AoA indicator to the primary display. In November 2017, Boeing engineers discovered that the standard AoA disagree light cannot independently function without the optional AoA indicator software, a problem affecting 80% of the global fleet that had not ordered the option. The software remedy was scheduled to coincide with the roll out of the elongated 737 MAX 10 in 2020, only to be accelerated by the Lion Air accident. Furthermore, the problem had not been disclosed to the FAA until 13 months after the fact. Although it is unclear whether the indicator could have changed the outcome for the ill-fated flights, American Airlines said the disagree indicator provided the assurance in continued operations of the airplane. "As it turned out, that wasn't true."


text: In February 2016, the EASA certified the MAX with the expectation that pilot procedures and training would clearly explain unusual situations in which the seldom used manual trim wheel would be required to trim the plane, i.e. adjust the angle of the nose; however, the original flight manual did not mention those situations. The EASA certification document referred to simulations whereby the electric thumb switches were ineffective to properly trim the MAX under certain conditions. The EASA document said that after flight testing, because the thumb switches could not always control trim on their own, the FAA was concerned by whether the 737 MAX system complied with regulations. The American Airlines flight manual contains a similar notice regarding the thumb switches but does not specify conditions where the manual wheel may be needed.


text: Boeing's CEO Muilenburg, when asked about the non-disclosure of MCAS, cited the "runaway stabilizer trim" procedure as part of the training manual. He added that Boeing's bulletin pointed to that existing flight procedure. Boeing views the "runaway stabilizer trim" checklist as a memory item for pilots. Mike Sinnett, vice president and general manager for the Boeing New Mid-Market Airplane (NMA) since July 2019, repeatedly described the procedure as a "memory item". However, some airlines view it as an item for the quick reference card. The FAA issued a recommendation about memory items in an Advisory Circular, "Standard Operating Procedures and Pilot Monitoring Duties for Flight Deck Crewmembers": "Memory items should be avoided whenever possible. If the procedure must include memory items, they should be clearly identified, emphasized in training, less than three items, and should not contain conditional decision steps."


text: In November 2018, Boeing told airlines that MCAS could not be overcome by pulling back on the control column to stop a runaway trim as on previous generation 737s. Nevertheless, confusion continued: the safety committee of a major U.S. airline misled its pilots by telling that the MCAS could be overcome by "applying opposite control-column input to activate the column cutout switches". Former pilot and CBS aviation & safety expert Chesley Sullenberger testified, "The logic was that if MCAS activated, it had to be because it was needed, and pulling back on the control wheel shouldn't stop it." In October, Sullenberger wrote, "These emergencies did not present as a classic runaway stabilizer problem, but initially as ambiguous unreliable airspeed and altitude situations, masking MCAS."


text: In a legal complaint against Boeing, the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association states:An MCAS failure is not like a runaway stabilizer. A runaway stabilizer has continuous un-commanded movement of the tail, whereas MCAS is not continuous and pilots (theoretically) can counter the nose-down movement, after which MCAS would move the aircraft tail down again. Moreover, unlike runaway stabilizer, MCAS disables the control column response that 737 pilots have grown accustomed to and relied upon in earlier generations of 737 aircraft.


text: In May 2019, "The Seattle Times" reported that the two stabilizer cutoff switches, located on the center console, operate differently on the MAX than on the earlier 737 NG. On previous aircraft, one cutoff switch deactivates the thumb buttons on the control yoke that pilots use to move the horizontal stabilizer; the other cutoff switch disables automatic control of the horizontal stabilizer by autopilot or /MCAS. On the MAX, both switches are wired in series and perform the same function: they cut off all electric power to the stabilizer, both from the yoke buttons and from an automatic system.


text: Thus, on previous aircraft it is possible to disable automatic control of the stabilizer yet to employ electric power assist by operating the yoke switches. On the MAX, with all power to the stabilizer cut, pilots have no choice but to use the mechanical trim wheel in the center console.


text: However, as pilots pull on the 737 controls to raise the nose of the aircraft, aerodynamic forces on the elevator create an opposing force, effectively paralyzing the jackscrew mechanism that moves the stabilizer. It becomes very difficult for pilots to hand crank the trim wheel. The problem was encountered on earlier 737 versions, and a "roller coaster" emergency technique for handling the flight condition was documented in 1982 for the 737-200 but did not appear in training documentation for later versions (including the MAX).


text: In the early 1980s a problem was found with the 737-200 model. When the elevator operated to raise or lower the nose, it set up a strong force on the trim jackscrew that opposed any corrective force from the control systems. When attempting to correct an unwanted deflection using the manual trim wheel, exerting enough hand force to overcome the force exerted by the elevator became increasingly difficult as speed and deflection increased and the jack screw effectively jammed in place.


text: A workaround was developed called the "roller coaster" technique. Counter-intuitively, to correct an excessive deflection causing a dive the pilot first pushes the nose down further, before easing back to gently raise the nose again. During this easing back period, the elevator deflection reduces or even reverses, its force on the jackscrew does likewise and the manual trim eases up. The workaround was included in the pilot's emergency procedures and in the training schedule.


text: However while the 737 MAX has a similar jackscrew mechanism the "roller coaster" technique has been dropped from the pilot information. During the events leading to the two MAX crashes, the stiffness of the manual trim wheel repeatedly prevented manual trim adjustment to correct the MCAS-induced nose-down pitching. The issue has been brought to the notice of the DoJ criminal inquiry into the 737 MAX crashes.


text: In simulator tests of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 flight scenario, the trim wheel was "impossible" to move when one of the pilots would instinctively pull up from the nosedives. It takes 15 turns to manually trim the aircraft one degree, and up to 40 turns to bring the trim back to neutral from the nose down position caused by MCAS.


text: The horizontal stabilizer is fitted with a conventional elevator for flight control. However, it is itself all-moving about a single pivot and can be trimmed to adjust its angle. The trim is actuated via a jackscrew mechanism.


text: Sylvain Alarie and Gilles Primeau, experts on the horizontal stabilizers, observed anomalies in the data from the aircraft data recorders: a progressive shift of 0.2 degrees of the horizontal stabilizer, before the crash. "It may not seem like much, but it is an order of magnitude higher than what is normally allowed when designing systems like these", says Gilles Primeau. They say that the movements are easily observable, and disallowed according to Regulation 395A. These anomalies raise fundamental questions about this jack screw, which controls the horizontal stabilizer since the beginning of the 737 models, first certified in 1967.


text: These slips are particularly visible on flight ET302: "While there is no MCAS command, and no control of the pilots, we see a movement of the jack screw which controls the horizontal stabilizer, we see a slip. And at the very end of the flight, the jack screw starts to slide again with an increase in the speed of the plane and its dive," says Alarie.


text: Since its original design, the 737 has become 61% heavier, 24% longer, and 40% wider, and its engines twice as powerful.


text: These experts are concerned that the loads on the jack screw have potentially increased since the creation of the 737. By regulations, the controls must be designed for 125% of the foreseeable loads. These experts have raised concerns about the motors possibly overheating in April 2019.


text: During the groundings, special flights to reposition MAX aircraft to storage locations, as per 14 CFR § 21.197, flew at lower altitude and with flaps extended to circumvent MCAS activation, rather than using the recovery procedure after the fact. Such flights required a certain pilot qualification as well as permission from corresponding regulators, and with no other cabin crew or passengers.<ref name="LII / Legal Information Institute"></ref>


text: As per Boeing technical description: "the Angle of Attack (AoA) is an aerodynamic parameter that is key to understanding the limits of airplane performance. Recent accidents and incidents have resulted in new flight crew training programs, which in turn have raised interest in AoA in commercial aviation. Awareness of AOA is vitally important as the airplane nears stall." Chesley Sullenberger said AoA indicators might have helped in these two crashes. "It is ironic that most modern aircraft measure (angle of attack) and that information is often used in many aircraft systems, but it is not displayed to pilots. Instead, pilots must infer (angle of attack) from other parameters, deducing it indirectly."


text: Though there are two sensors on the MAX only one of them is used at a time to trigger MCAS activation on the 737 MAX. Any fault in this sensor, perhaps due to physical damage, creates a single point failure: the flight control system lacks any basis for rejecting its input as faulty information.


text: Reports of a single point of failure were not always acknowledged by Boeing. Addressing American Airlines pilots, Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett contradicted reports that the MCAS had a single-point failure, because the pilots themselves are the backup. Reporter Useem said in The Atlantic it was "showing both a misunderstanding of the term and a sharp break from Boeing's long-standing practice of having multiple backups for every flight system".


text: Problems with the AoA sensor had been reported in over 200 incident reports submitted to the FAA; however, Boeing did not flight test a scenario in which it malfunctioned.


text: The sensors themselves are under scrutiny. Sensors on the Lion air aircraft were supplied by United Technologies' Rosemount Aerospace.


text: In September 2019, the EASA said it prefers triple-redundant AoA sensors rather than the dual redundancy in Boeing's proposed upgrade to the MAX. Installation of a third sensor could be expensive and take a long time. The change, if mandated, could be extended to thousands of older model 737s in service around the world.


text: A former professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Andrew Kornecki, who is an expert in redundancy systems, said operating with one or two sensors "would be fine if all the pilots were sufficiently trained in how to assess and handle the plane in the event of a problem". But, he would much prefer building the plane with three sensors, as Airbus does.


text: In November 2017, after several months of MAX deliveries, Boeing discovered that the "AoA Disagree" message, which is indicative of potential sensor mismatch on the primary flight display, was unintentionally disabled.


text: Clint Balog, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said after the Lion Air crash: "In retrospect, clearly it would have been wise to include the warning as standard equipment and fully inform and train operators on MCAS". According to Bjorn Fehrm, Aeronautical and Economic Analyst at Leeham News and Analysis, "A major contributor to the ultimate loss of JT610 is the missing AoA DISAGREE display on the pilots' displays."


text: The software depended on the presence of the visual indicator software, a paid option that was not selected by most airlines. For example, Air Canada, American Airlines and Westjet had purchased the disagree alert, while Air Canada and American Airlines also purchased, in addition, the AoA value indicator, and Lion Air had neither. Boeing had determined that the defect was not critical to aircraft safety or operation, and an internal safety review board (SRB) corroborated Boeing's prior assessment and its initial plan to update the aircraft in 2020. Boeing did not disclose the defect to the FAA until November 2018, in the wake of the Lion Air crash. Consequently, Southwest had announced to pilots that its entire fleet of MAX 8 aircraft will receive the optional upgrades. In March 2019, after the second accident of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing representative told "Inc." magazine, "Customers have been informed that AoA Disagree alert will become a standard feature on the 737 MAX. It can be retrofitted on previously delivered airplanes."


text: On May 5, 2019, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Boeing had known of existing problems with the flight control system a year before the Lion Air accident. Boeing defended that "Neither the angle of attack indicator nor the AoA Disagree alert are necessary for the safe operation of the airplane." Boeing recognized that the defective software was not implemented to their specifications as a "standard, standalone feature." Boeing stated, "...MAX production aircraft will have an activated and operable AoA Disagree alert and an optional angle of attack indicator. All customers with previously delivered MAX airplanes will have the ability to activate the AoA Disagree alert." Boeing CEO Muilenburg said the company's communication about the alert "was not consistent. And that's unacceptable."


text: Boeing published an article in "Aero" magazine about AoA systems, "Operational use of Angle of Attack on modern commercial jet planes":


text: Boeing announced a change in policy in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the MAX corrective work, "With the software update, customers are not charged for the AoA Disagree feature or their selection of the AoA indicator option."


text: In 1996, the NTSB issued Safety Recommendation A-96-094. TO THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA): "Require that all transport-category aircraft present pilots with angle-of-attack info in a visual format, and that all air carriers train their pilots to use the info to obtain maximum possible airplane climb performance."


text: The NTSB also stated about another accident in 1997, that "a display of angle of attack on the flight deck would have maintained the flightcrew's awareness of the stall condition and it would have provided direct indication of the pitch attitudes required for recovery throughout the attempted stall recovery sequence." The NTSB also believed that the accident may have been prevented if a direct indication of AoA was presented to the flightcrew (NTSB, 1997)."


text: In early April 2019, Boeing reported a problem with software affecting flaps and other flight-control hardware, unrelated to MCAS; classified as critical to flight safety, the FAA has ordered Boeing to fix the problem correspondingly. In October 2019, the EASA has suggested to conduct more testing on proposed revisions to flight-control computers due to its concerns about portions of proposed fixes to MCAS. The necessary changes to improve redundancy between the two flight control computers have proved more complex and time-consuming than the fixes for the original MCAS issue, delaying any re-introduction to service beyond the date originally envisaged.


text: In January 2020, new software issues were discovered, affecting monitoring of the flight computer start-up process and verifying readiness for flight. In April 2020, Boeing identified new risks where the trim system might unintentionally command nose down during flight or prematurely disconnect the autopilot.


text: The MAX systems are integrated in the "e-cab" test flight deck, a simulator built for developing the MAX. In June 2019, "in a special Boeing simulator that is designed for engineering reviews," FAA pilots performed a stress testing scenarioan abnormal condition identified through FMEA after the MCAS update was implementedfor evaluating the effect of a fault in a microprocessor: as expected from the scenario, the horizontal stabilizer pointed the nose downward. Although the test pilot ultimately recovered control, the system was slow to respond to the proper runaway stabilizer checklist steps. Boeing initially classified this as a "major" hazard, and the FAA upgraded it to a much more severe "catastrophic" rating. Boeing stated that the issue can be fixed in software. The software change will not be ready for evaluation until at least September 2019. EASA director Patrick Ky said that retrofitting additional hardware is an option to be considered.


text: The test scenario simulated an event toggling five bits in the flight control computer. The bits represent status flags such as whether MCAS is active, or whether the tail trim motor is energized. Engineers were able to simulate single event upsets and artificially induce MCAS activation by manipulating these signals. Such a fault occurs when memory bits change from 0 to 1 or vice versa, which is something that can be caused by cosmic rays striking the microprocessor.


text: The failure scenario was known before the MAX entered service in 2017: it had been assessed in a safety analysis when the plane was certified. Boeing had concluded that pilots could perform a procedure to shut off the motor driving the stabilizer to overcome the nose-down movement. The scenario also affects 737NG aircraft, though it presents less risk than on the MAX; on the NG, moving the yoke counters any uncommanded stabilizer input, but this function is bypassed on the MAX to avoid negating the purpose of MCAS. Boeing also said that it agreed with additional requirements that the FAA required it to fulfill, and added that it was working toward resolving the safety risk. It will not offer the MAX for certification until all requirements have been satisfied.


text: Early news reports were inaccurate in attributing the problem to an 80286 microprocessor overwhelmed with data, though as of April 2020 the concern remains that the MCAS software is overloading the 737 MAX's computers.


text: , the two flight control computers of Boeing 737 never cross-checked each other's operations; i.e., each was a single non-redundant channel. This lack of robustness existed since the early implementation and persisted for decades. The updated flight control system will use both flight control computers and compare their outputs. This switch to a fail-safe two-channel redundant system, with each computer using an independent set of sensors, is a radical change from the architecture used on 737s since the introduction on the older model 737-300 in the 1980s. Up to the MAX in its prior-to-grounding-version, the system alternates between computers after each flight. The two computers' architecture allowed switching in-flight if the operating computer failed, thus increasing availability. In the revised architecture, Boeing required the two computers to monitor each other so that each one can vet the other.


text: In January 2020, during flight testing, Boeing discovered a problem with an indicator light; the defect was traced to the "redesign of the two flight computers that control the 737 MAX to make them more resilient to failure". The indicator, which signals a problem with the trim system, can remain on longer than intended by design.


text: In November 2020, an Airworthiness Directive required corrective actions to the airplane's flight control laws (embodied in the Speed Trim System software):


title: Peter Strauss

text: Peter Lawrence Strauss (born February 20, 1947) is an American television and film actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s. He is five-time Golden Globe Awards nominee.


title: Peter Strauss

text: Strauss was born in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, the son of Warren B. Strauss, a German-born wine importer. His family was Jewish. Strauss graduated from the Hackley School in 1965 and Northwestern University in 1969.


title: Peter Strauss

text: He won an Emmy Award for his role on the 1979 made-for-television movie "The Jericho Mile", and he starred in a television remake of the classic 1946 film "Angel on My Shoulder" in 1980. In 1985, he played Abel Roznovski in the miniseries "Kane & Abel" based on Jeffrey Archer's book. His other noted television miniseries credits include starring roles in "Rich Man, Poor Man", its sequel "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II", and "Masada". Strauss played Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in the 1977 TV movie "Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy". In 1973, he portrayed Stephen Linder, Mary Richards' suave younger boyfriend in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" fourth-season episode, "Angels in the Snow."


title: Peter Strauss

text: Strauss starred in the films "Soldier Blue" (1970) and "" (1983), and has appeared in several others. He portrayed Justin, the Rats of NIMH's captain of the guard, in 1982's "The Secret of NIMH". Strauss starred as an abused husband in the television movie "Men Don't Tell", alongside Judith Light. In 2005, he played the U.S. President in the thriller "" alongside Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Speedman and Willem Dafoe. He was the voice of Moses in the animated series "K10C: Kids' Ten Commandments". He starred in the short-lived series "Body & Soul" as Dr. Isaac Braun in 2002. He provided the voice for Stoker Van Rotten in both the 1990s and 2006 versions of "Biker Mice from Mars".


title: Peter Strauss

text: Strauss married Rachel Ticotin on December 31, 1998. Strauss runs a successful citrus production business and is on the advisory board of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. He sold a ranch property to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The ranch has since been acquired by the National Park Service as the Peter Strauss Ranch.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Shattered Glass is a 2003 biographical drama film about journalist Stephen Glass and his scandal at "The New Republic". Written and directed by Billy Ray, the film is based on a 1998 "Vanity Fair" article of the same name by H. G. Bissinger and chronicles Glass's fall from grace when his stories were discovered to be fabricated. It stars Hayden Christensen as Glass, alongside Peter Sarsgaard, Chloë Sevigny, and Steve Zahn.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: The film premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2003, and received a North American limited release on November 26, 2003. Although a commercial failure, "Shattered Glass" received acclaim from critics, with particular praise for Christensen and Sarsgaard's performances.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: In 1998, Stephen Glass is an associate editor at "The New Republic". Among the youngest of the magazine's staff, Glass enjoys popularity with his colleagues for his entertaining stories. Glass serves under editor Michael Kelly, who holds loyalty with the writers. However, conflict between Kelly and publisher Marty Peretz results in Peretz firing Kelly. Reporter Charles Lane is promoted by Peretz to replace Kelly, despite being disliked by the staff.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Glass writes a story entitled "Hack Heaven" that details a teenage hacker being hired by a large software firm he infiltrated. The story reaches Forbes Digital Tool, where reporter Adam Penenberg finds no corroborating evidence for what Glass described. When contacted by Penenberg about being unable to reach the individuals in his story, Glass provides a number with a Palo Alto area code for the firm. After Lane calls the number, he briefly speaks with an individual identifying as the firm's chairman. Glass and Lane also partake in a conference call with the Forbes staff, which further erodes the story's credibility and prompts Glass to claim he was tricked by his sources.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Lane, looking to protect Glass from the Forbes staff, has Glass take him to a convention center and restaurant where the story took place, but learns that both were closed during the events Glass wrote about. With the story contradicted by this information, Glass tells Lane he had only relied on sources for information and falsified his first-hand experiences to improve the story. Lane decides to suspend Glass instead of firing him due to his popularity, but upon discovering Glass's brother lives in Palo Alto, he realizes Glass had his brother pose as the firm's chairman. After confronting Glass with this knowledge, Lane re-reads Glass's previous stories and comes to the revelation they were also falsified. With his deception exposed, Glass is fired by Lane.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Despite initial pushback, Lane receives support from "The New Republic" staff for bringing Glass's deception to light, while the magazine's attorney questions Glass over which stories of his were fabricated. Closing titles reveal Penenberg's article on Glass was hailed as a breakthrough for internet journalism, "The New Republic" determined that 27 of Glass's 41 stories were either partially or completely fabricated, Kelly was killed while covering the Iraq War, Glass earned a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown and wrote a novel paralleling his own life, and Lane joined "The Washington Post".


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Additionally, Louis Philippe Dandenault, Morgan Kelly, Christian Tessier, James Berlingieri, and Brett Watson appear as the Young Republicans described in one of Glass's stories. In Glass's depiction of "Hack Heaven", Owen Roth plays Ian Restil, Bill Rowat plays George Sims, Michele Scarabelli plays Ian's mother, and Terry Simpson plays Joe Hiert. Alec Shumpert, a fictional associate editor at "George", is played by Andrew Airlie. Mark Camacho appears as Glass's attorney and Lynne Adams appears as a companion of Kelly. Caroline Goodall portrays Highland Park High School teacher Mrs. Duke in the classroom sequences imagined by Glass. Making uncredited appearances are Sean Cullen as "The New Republic"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s attorney and the film's editor Jeffrey Ford as the voice of a security guard at the magazine's office.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Producer Craig Baumgarten, working with HBO executive Gaye Hirsch, optioned H.G. Bissinger's "Vanity Fair" magazine article about Stephen Glass for an HBO original movie. They hired screenwriter Billy Ray based on the script he had written for the TNT film "Legalese". Ray grew up with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as his heroes and studied journalism for a year. It was this love for journalism that motivated him to make "Shattered Glass".


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: A sudden change in management put the film into turnaround and it remained inactive for two years until Cruise/Wagner Productions bought it from HBO. They took it to Lionsgate and Ray asked the studio if he could direct in addition to writing it. The challenge for Ray was to make the subject matter watchable because, according to the filmmaker, "watching people write is deadly dull ... in a film like this, dialogue is what a character is willing to reveal about himself, and the camera is there to capture everything else". The breakthrough for Ray came when he realized that the film's real protagonist was not Glass but Chuck Lane. According to Ray, "as fascinating as Stephen Glass is by the end of the movie people would want to kill themselves – you just can't follow him all the way". He used the Bissinger article as a starting point, which gave him a line of dialogue on which to hook the entire character of Glass: "Are you mad at me?" According to Ray, "you can build an entire character around that notion, and we did".


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: The character of Caitlin Avey is an amalgamation of Glass's friends and "The New Republic" allies Hanna Rosin and Jonathan Chait.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: To prepare for the film, Ray interviewed and re-interviewed key figures for any relevant details. He signed some of them as paid consultants and gave several approval over the script. Early on, he spent a considerable amount of time trying to earn the trust of the people who had worked with Glass and get them to understand that he was going to be objective with the subject matter. The real Michael Kelly was so unhappy about how he was portrayed in Bissinger's article that he threatened to sue when Ray first contacted him about the film and refused for two years to read Ray's script, which he eventually approved. Ray attempted to contact Glass through his lawyers but was unsuccessful. Lionsgate lawyers asked Ray to give them an annotated script where he had to footnote every line of dialogue and every assertion and back them up with corresponding notes.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: The night before principal photography began in Montreal, Ray screened "All the President's Men" for the cast and crew. He shot both halves of the film differently – in the first half, he used hand-held cameras in the scenes that took place in the offices of "The New Republic", but when the "Forbes" editors begin to question Glass, the camerawork was more stable.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Ray's original cut of the film was a much more straightforward account of events but while editing the film he realized that it was not good enough. He raised additional funds to shoot the high school scenes that bookend the film.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: On April 3, 2003, a little more than six months before the film was released, Michael Kelly was killed while reporting on the invasion of Iraq. The film is dedicated to his memory.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: "Shattered Glass" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at the Telluride Film Festival, the Boston Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, and the Austin Film Festival before opening on eight screens in New York City and Los Angeles on October 31, 2003. It grossed $77,540 on its opening weekend. It eventually earned $2,220,008 in North America and $724,744 in other markets for a total worldwide box office of $2,944,752.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: The film received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 168 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The site's consensus states: "A compelling look at Stephen Glass' fall from grace." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 73 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" described the film as "a serious, well-observed examination of the practice of journalism," and "an astute and surprisingly gripping drama." He added, "A more showily ambitious film might have tried to delve into Glass's personal history in search of an explanation for his behavior, or to draw provocative connections between that behavior and the cultural and political climate of the times. Such a movie would also have been conventional, facile and ultimately false. Mr. Ray knows better than to sensationalize a story about the dangers of sensationalism. "Shattered Glass" is good enough to be true". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and felt the film was well-cast and "deserves comparison with "All the President's Men" among movies about journalism". In a dissenting review from "The Village Voice", J. Hoberman dismissed the film as "self-important yet insipid," and asks, ""Shattered Glass" begs a larger question: What sort of culture elevates Glass for his entertainment value, punishes him for being too entertaining, rewards his notoriety, and then resurrects him again as a moral object lesson?"


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Sarsgaard's performance as Charles Lane was singled out by several critics for praise. "USA Today" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote of him: "Sarsgaard deserves more credit than he'll probably get for his multi-layered performance". "Premiere"s Glenn Kenny wrote, "it's Peter Sarsgaard, as the editor who serves Glass his , who walks away with the picture, metamorphosing his character's stiffness into a moral indignation that's jolting and, finally, invigorating". His performance ended up winning numerous awards, including "Best Supporting Actor" citations from the Boston Society of Film Critics, Kansas City Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, Online Film Critics Society, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, and the Toronto Film Critics Association, as well as nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards and the Golden Globes. "The A.V. Club" placed his portrayal of Chuck Lane at number six on a list of the best performances of the decade.


title: Shattered Glass (film)

text: Stephen Glass saw the film and, when reflecting about the experience, he said, "It was very painful for me. It was like being on a guided tour of the moments of my life I am most ashamed of".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Pornography in the United States has existed since the country's origins and has become more readily accessible in the 21st century. Advanced by technological development, it has gone from a hard-to-find "back alley" item, beginning in 1969 with "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol, the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and home video, to being more available in the country and later, starting in the 1990s, readily accessible to nearly anyone with a computer or other device connected to the Internet. The U.S. has no current plans to block explicit content from children and adolescents, as many other countries have planned or proceeded to do.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Attempts made to suppress it include: outright bans, prohibitions of its sale, censorship or rating schemes that restrict audience numbers, and claims that it is prostitution and thereby subject to regulations governing prostitution. Legal decisions affecting production and consumption of pornography include those relating to its definition, its relationship with prostitution, the definition of obscenity, rulings about personal possession of pornography, and its standing in relation to freedom of expression rights.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: American advocates for pornography often cite the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech; however, under the Miller test established by "Miller v. California", anything lacking "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" is generally not protected. However, the Supreme Court of the United States held in "Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition" (2002) that pornography which involves consenting adults is protected by the First Amendment, even if the models "appear to be" minors but are, in fact of lawful age, and thus has seen to protect the majority of, but not all pornography on the basis of first-amendment law.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Although pornography dates back thousands of years, its existence in the U.S. can be traced to its 18th-century origins and the influx of foreign trade and immigrants. By the end of the 18th century, France had become the leading country regarding the spread of porn pictures. Porn had become the subject of playing-cards, posters, post cards, and cabinet cards. Prior to this printers were previously limited to engravings, woodcuts, and line cuts for illustrations. As trade increased and more people immigrated from countries with less Puritanical and more relaxed attitudes toward human sexuality, the amount of available visual pornography increased.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In 1880, halftone printing was used to reproduce photographs inexpensively for the first time. The invention of halftone printing took pornography and erotica in new directions at the beginning of the 20th century. The new printing processes allowed photographic images to be reproduced easily in black and white.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The first porn daguerreotype appeared in 1850 and with the advent of "moving pictures" by the Lumière brothers the first porn film was made soon after the public exhibition of their creation. Pornographic film production commenced almost immediately after the invention of the motion picture in 1895. Two of the earliest pioneers were Eugène Pirou and Albert Kirchner. Kirchner directed the earliest surviving pornographic film for Pirou under the trade name "Léar". The 1896 film, "Le Coucher de la Marie" showed Louise Willy performing a striptease. Pirou's film inspired a genre of risqué French films showing women disrobing and other filmmakers realized profits could be made from such films. In the United States, one of the Thomas Edison's first efforts using his methods and equipment for making moving pictures was of a nude woman getting up from her bath tub and running away.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In the 20th century, the era of "blue movies" began with the silent films of the 1920s and continued throughout the post-war era as film technology improved and equipment costs were reduced to a consumer affordable level. Particularly with the introduction of the 8mm and super-8 film gauges, popular for the home movie market. Until the advent of electronic and digital video technology, the mass production of pornographic films was tied directly to the mainstream film industry. Beginning in 1969 with "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol, the subsequent Golden Age of Porn and more permissive legislation, a rise of adult theaters in the United States, and many other countries, developed. There was also a proliferation of coin-operated "movie booths" in sex shops that displayed pornographic "loops" (so called because they projected a movie from film arranged in a continuous loop).


title: Pornography in the United States

text: By 1982, pornographic film production had switched to the cheaper and more convenient medium of video tape. Many film directors were hesitant to switch because of the different image quality that video tape produced. Those who did make the change benefited from greater profits since consumers preferred the new format. This change moved the films out of the theaters and into people's private homes. This was the end of the age of big budget productions and the beginning of the mainstreaming of pornography. It soon went back to its earthy roots and expanded to cover every fetish possible since video production was inexpensive. Instead of hundreds of pornographic films being made each year, thousands of videos were including compilations of just the sex scenes from various titles.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In the late 1990s, pornographic films were distributed on DVD. These offered better quality picture and sound than the previous video format and allowed innovations such as "interactive" videos that let users choose such variables as multiple camera angles, multiple endings and computer-only DVD content.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The introduction and widespread availability of the Internet further changed the way pornography was distributed. Previously videos would be rented or purchased through mail-order, but with the Internet people could watch pornographic movies on their computers, and instead of waiting weeks for an order to arrive, a movie could be downloaded within minutes (or, later, within a few seconds).


title: Pornography in the United States

text: As of the 2000s, there were hundreds of adult film companies, releasing tens of thousands of productions, recorded directly on video, with minimal sets. Of late, web-cams and web-cam recordings are again expanding the market. Thousands of pornographic actors work in front of the camera to satisfy pornography consumers' demand while often making money per view.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: By the 2010s, the fortunes of the pornography industry had changed. With reliably profitable DVD sales being largely supplanted by streaming media delivery over the Internet, competition from pirate, amateur, and low-cost professional content on the Internet had made the industry substantially less profitable, leading to it shrinking in size.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: American adult magazines which have the widest distribution do not violate the Miller test and can be legally distributed. Adult magazines have been largely put into mainstream by the pioneer "Playboy". However, during the so-called Pubic Wars in the 1960s and 1970s "Penthouse" established itself as a more explicit magazine. "Screw" moved the bar toward hardcore when it first came out in 1968 and with "Hustler" appearing in 1974 the move to hardcore was complete. By the mid-1990s magazines like "Playboy" had become noncompetitive and even hardcore publications like "Penthouse" and "Hustler" struggled. According to Laura Kipnis, a cultural theorist and critic, "the "Hustler" body is an unromanticized body—no vaselined lens or soft focus: this is neither the airbrushed top-heavy fantasy body of "Playboy", nor the ersatz opulence, the lingeried and sensitive crotch shots of "Penthouse", transforming female genitals into "objets d'art". It's a body, not a surface or a suntan: insistently material, defiantly vulgar, corporeal".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Many adult magazines in the United States are usually sold wrapped to avoid incidental viewing by minors and are now highlighted by special features or themes. For instance, a primarily softcore magazine, "Barely Legal", focuses on models between 18 and 23 years of age. "Hustler's Leg World" is focused on the female legs and feet. "Perfect 10" publishes images of women untouched by plastic surgery or airbrushing.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Much of the pornography produced in the United States is in the form of movies and the branch acutely competes with the Internet. The market is very diverse and ranges from the mainstream heterosexual content to the rarefied S/M, BDSM, interracial sex, ethnic, etc. through enduringly popular gay porn.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Early American stag films included "Wonders of the Unseen World" (1927), "An Author's True Story" (1933), "Goodyear" (1950s), "Smart Alec" (1951), and "Playmates" (1956–58). Breakthrough films, such as 1969's "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol, 1972's "Deep Throat", 1973's "The Devil in Miss Jones" and 1976's "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" by Radley Metzger, launched the so-called "porno chic" phenomenon in the United States and enabled the commercialization of the adult film industry. In this period America's most notorious pornographer was Reuben Sturman. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, throughout the 1970s, Sturman controlled most of the pornography circulating in the country.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The country now houses over 40 adult movies studios featuring heterosexual scenes, more than any other country. The branch, according to founder and president of "Adult Video News" Paul Fishbein, involves the manufacturers of adult products, distributors, suppliers, retail store owners, wholesalers, distributors, cable TV buyers, and foreign buyers. The production is concentrated in San Fernando Valley (mainly in Chatsworth, Reseda and Van Nuys) and Las Vegas, where more than 200 adult entertainment companies gather to network and show off their latest wares. The world's largest adult movies studio, Vivid Entertainment, generates an estimated $100 million a year in revenue, distributing 60 films annually and selling them in video stores, hotel rooms, on cable systems, and on the Internet. Vivid's two largest regional competitors are Wicked Pictures and Digital Playground. Boulder Colorado-based New Frontier Media, a leading distributor of adult movies (at NASDAQ since November 2000), is one of the two adult video companies traded publicly, the other one being Spanish Private Media Group.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The industry's decision to embrace VHS in the early 1980s, for example, helped to do away with Sony Betamax, despite the latter format's superior quality. Video rentals soared from just under 80 million in 1985 to half-billion by 1993. Suffering at the hands of video warez tended not be publicly stressed by country's film industry. In 1999 there were 711 million rentals of hardcore films. 11,300 hardcore films were released in 2002.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In the recent years, according to Fishbein, there are well over 800 million rentals of adult videotapes and DVDs in video stores across the country. Digital Playground said it is choosing the Blu-ray Disc for all of its "interactive" films because of its greater capacity.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The female demographic is considered to be the biggest catalyst for pornographic cultural crossover. According to Adella O'Neal, a Digital Playground publicist, in 2000 roughly 9% of the company's consumers were women while four years later that figure has bloomed to 53%.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: American adult pay-per-view television is presently unregulated since it is not technically "broadcasting" as defined in the Federal Communications Act. Cable and satellite television networks host about six main adult-related channels. Most of them (particularly Playboy TV, Penthouse TV, and Hustler TV (there is also a "Hustler Video", a line of raunchy films created by Larry Flynt)) are maintained by three mainstream porn magazines. In 1999 Playboy Enterprises sold to Vivid Entertainment a small channel which was renamed to Hot Network. Since that Vivid launched two more channels—the Hot Zone and Vivid TV. The viewers paid close to $400 million a year to tune into Vivid's hardcore content and the company soon overtook Playboy as operator of the world's largest adult-TV network. However, after passing the 2000 "United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group" case Playboy bought all three networks from Vivid in 2001 and folded them into "Playboy's Spice" brand. Operators then shunned "Playboy's Spice Platinum", a new group of channels with graphic hardcore fare.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Some subsidiaries of major corporations are the largest pornography sellers, like News Corporation's DirecTV. Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, once pulled in $50 million from adult programming. Revenues of companies such as Playboy and Hustler were small by comparison.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Microsoft has long declined to license development software to game makers whose titles include sexual content. Wal-Mart, America's largest distributor of video games, maintains the policy of selling no games with an AO rating. However, in recent years the pornographic content in video games has been promoted particularly by Playboy. "" became the first game built around the "Playboy" license.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: A downloadable mod—"Hot Coffee" for the game "" brought attention to the need to discuss the challenges faced in creating games with pornographic content. Meanwhile, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" was pulled from shelves by Rockstar Games after it became public knowledge that, with the use of a Gameshark cheating device, the scene could be unlocked portraying the protagonist having sex with another character, although in the scene both characters have their clothes on. The game was later sold without the unlockable scene.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: PlayStation 2 video game "God of War" (2005), based on Greek mythology, features an event in the first part of the game where protagonist Kratos can have sex with two topless prostitutes, who reside in a bedroom on his boat. Although no sexual acts are depicted (they occur off-screen and are indicated by sound effects), the women are shown topless. The player interacts by performing button and joystick commands that appear on screen which results in an experience reward for the player. This type of sex mini-game became a prominent feature for the "God of War" series, being included in its sequels "God of War II" (2007), "" (2008), "God of War III" (2010), and "" (2010), with the latter being the final game to feature it.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The adult sections of American comic book stores frequently carry a large number of translations of Japanese hardcore comics, as well as an increasing number of home imitations.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: One of the Japanese animation porn movies, which started the American adult video market, was "Urotsukidoji". The adult animation market exists primarily through direct sales: mail-order to customers, and wholesale to specialty shops which cater to animation and to comic-book fans. The legal framework in both countries regarding the regulation of obscene and pornographic material is overall rather similar.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The Internet maintains a significant part of American adult entertainment, also because the 1997 "Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union" case specified that the term "indecent" has no specific legal meaning in the context of the Internet. More recent federal efforts, such as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 expressly addressed the Internet. On May 1, 2000, American Express announced it would no longer cover transactions from adult sites. According to the committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Internet Content, there are over 100,000 subscription sites with adult content in the United States, with each site having multiple web pages. On average, a paid subscription generates $20 to $40 per month in revenue, however, an in-depth analysis is complicated. If a visitor site connects to a pay site and signs up for content, it receives a conversion fee from the larger site. A successful large operation is often an umbrella company serving many markets with pay sites. Around this core and its affiliates is a system of ad-supported service sites. The so-called portable porn market is in its initial stage in the U.S.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In 2000 the owners and operators of Playgirl.com and scores of other adult sites were charged by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with illegally billing thousands of consumers for services that were advertised as free, and for billing other consumers who never visited the web sites at all. Nevadan Voice Media Incorporated, which ran several adult sites, was also charged by the commission. Sites often suffer from unauthorized, non-paying surfers who use stolen passwords, which can use month's worth of bandwidth in a day, costing the site operator hundreds or thousands of dollars' worth of additional bandwidth fees, all for traffic that returns no money at all. The 2002 "Paragon Electric Co., Inc. v. Buy This Domain" case ruled that linking domain names to pornographic sites is not per se conclusive of bad-faith registration and use, although it does raise that presumption.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: A common occurrence was the use of domain names similar to known ones, such as whitehouse.com (unrelated to whitehouse.gov), which for some period featured explicit content. The use of expired domains is also common, along with typosquatting, which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In 1975, the total retail value of all the hardcore pornography in the U.S. was estimated at $5–10 million. The 1979 Revision of the Federal Criminal Code stated that "in Los Angeles alone, the pornography business does $100 million a year in gross retail volume" while "the average pornography magazine sells for between $6 and $10 each". According to the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, American adult entertainment industry has grown considerably over the past thirty years by continually changing and expanding to appeal to new markets, though the production is considered to be low-profile and clandestine. The total income of modern country's adult entertainment is often rated at $10–13 billion, of which $4–6 billion are legal. The figure is often credited to a study by Forrester Research and was lowered in 1998. In 2007 The Observer newspaper also gave a figure of $13 billion. Other sources, quoted by "Forbes" (Adams Media Research, Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Report, and IVD), even taking into consideration all possible means (video networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, web sites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys, and magazines) mention the $2.6–3.9 billion figure (without the cellphone component). "USA Today" claimed in 2003 that websites such as Danni's Hard Drive and Cybererotica.com generated $2 billion in revenue in that year, which was allegedly about 10% of the overall domestic porn market at the time. The adult movies income (from sale and rent) was once estimated by AVN Publications at $4.3 billion but how this figure was determined is unclear. According to the 2001 Forbes data the annual income distribution is like this:


title: Pornography in the United States

text: "The Online Journalism Review", published by the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, weighed in with an analysis that favored "Forbes"' number. The financial extent of adult films, distributed in hotels, is hard to estimate—hotels keep statistics to themselves or do not keep them at all. A CBS News investigation in November 2003 claimed that 50% of guests at the Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Sheraton, and Holiday Inn hotel chains purchased adult movies, contributing to 70% of in-room profits. The income of cellphone porn is low, when compared with other countries. The absence of V-chip-style parental controls on other equipment has obviated the need for American consumers to use cellphones to access explicit content.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The lawful definition of pornography in the U.S. evolved through decades, from the 1960s. In this period, recognizing ambiguities, the term "sexually explicit content" gained use as one of the pornography's euphemisms, but later it was determined that a distinction between pornographic and sexually explicit content is completely artificial. In "Miller v. California" the Supreme Court used the definition of pornography made by "Webster's Third New International Dictionary" of 1969 ("a depiction (as in a writing or painting) of licentiousness or lewdness: a portrayal of erotic behavior designed to cause sexual excitement"). "Black's Law Dictionary" followed the Miller test and defined pornography as material that taken as a whole the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find appealing to the prurient interest. "Heinle's Newbury House Dictionary of American English" (2003) defined pornography as "obscene writings, pictures, or films intended to arouse sexual desire".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance defined pornography as the "graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words". The ordinance was ruled unconstitutional by the Federal Appeals Court in "American Booksellers v. Hudnut" in Indianapolis (1985). Courts in California and New York have clearly rejected the argument that the making of pornography is prostitution. (See "California v. Freeman" (1988) and "People v. Paulino" (2005).) The Oregon Supreme Court went even further in "State v. Henry" (1987) by abolishing the legal definition of obscenity in that state, ruling it violated freedom of speech as defined in the state constitution.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Pornography as a legal term at the federal level, except the generic terms "hardcore pornography" and "child pornography", has not existed since the 1973 "Miller v. California" case. The United States Supreme Court in "Miller v. California" discussed pornography (which it referred to as "sexually explicit material") in terms of obscenity, which it held did not enjoy First Constitutional Amendment protection, but recognized that individual communities had different values and opinions on obscenity. The Court's definition of obscenity has come to be called the Miller test. Since then several States have passed laws in terms of that test. Relying on the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and under the terms "obscene" and "immoral", the U.S. Customs and Border Protection prohibits the importation of any pornographic material ( "Immoral articles; importation prohibited").


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Attempts were made in the United States in the 1970s to close down the pornography industry by prosecuting those in the industry on prostitution charges. The prosecution started in the courts in California in the case of "People v. Freeman". The California Supreme Court acquitted Freeman and distinguished between someone who takes part in a sexual relationship for money (prostitution) versus someone whose role is merely "portraying" a sexual relationship on-screen as part of their acting performance. The State did not appeal to the United States Supreme Court making the decision binding in California, where most pornographic films are made today.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The term "pornography" first appeared in an 1857 British medical dictionary, which defined it as "a description of prostitutes or of prostitution, as a matter of public hygiene", therefore pornography by itself was not a widely used term in nineteenth-century America and the term did not appear in any version of "American Dictionary of the English Language" in its early editions. The dictionary introduced the entry in 1864, defining it primarily as a "treatment of, or a treatise on, the subject of prostitutes or prostitution". Early charges used the term "obscenity" as well as after "Miller v. California", though the term "pornography" remained as a reference entry:


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The censorship of pornographic materials in the United States was enabled by the way courts interpreted the First, and partially Ninth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The legal justification also includes the so-called harm principle, as in Canada and the United Kingdom. The absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment as applied to pornography has never been sustained by the Supreme Court. In the "Investigation of Literature Allegedly Containing Objectionable Material", issued by the U.S. Congress Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials in 1953, it was noted that "perhaps the greatest impediments to the prompt and effective enforcement of existing laws intended to control pornographic materials are the difficulties of establishing a precise interpretation of the word". During the Warren Court (1953–1969), the first notable court to face the cases of such kind, justices Potter Stewart, Byron White, and Arthur Goldberg shared the opinion that only hardcore pornography was not protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. This position was contested notably by U.S. Solicitor General James Lee Rankin (in office 1956–1961), but in Jacobellis v. Ohio Stewart concluded that criminal obscenity laws are constitutionally limited under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to hardcore pornography. Concurring in the 1957 "Roth v. United States" Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote that "even assuming that pornography cannot be deemed ever to cause, in an immediate sense, criminal sexual conduct, other interests within the proper cognizance of the States may be protected by the prohibition placed on such materials."


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The 1967 Public Law 90-100 found the traffic in pornography to be "a matter of national concern", as well as in obscenity. In this period the Court considered pornography to have two major dimensions. The first can be defined as dealing with sexual representations that are offensive to public morality or taste, which concerned the Court notably in the 1966 "Ginzburg v. United States" case. The second centers on the effect of pornography on specific individuals or classes, which is the focus of most public discussions and prior Court pornography decisions. This dimension was mentioned only twice in the array of decisions made in 1966. A frustration was expressed notably by Justice Hugo Black in the 1966 "Mishkin v. New York": "I wish once more to express my objections to saddling this Court with the irksome and inevitably unpopular and unwholesome task of finally deciding by a case-by-case, sight-by-sight personal judgment of the members of this Court what pornography (whatever that means) is too hard core for people to see or read." In the 1974 "Hamling v. United States" decision the Supreme Court said that just because pornographic materials are for sale and purchased around the country, "Mere availability of similar materials by itself means nothing more than that other persons are engaged in similar activities." The 1976 "American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language" defined that pornography consists of "written, graphic, or other forms of communication intended to excite lascivious feelings". Since determining what is pornography and what is "soft core" and "hard core" are subjective questions to judges, juries, and law enforcement officials, it is difficult to define, since the law cases cannot print examples for the courts to follow. The Rehnquist Court further enhanced the power of community controls on pornography. Current Chief Justice John Roberts told at the confirmation hearing on his nomination: "Well, Senator, it's my understanding under the Supreme Court's doctrine that pornographic expression is not protected to the same extent at least as political and core speech, and the difficulty that the Court has addressed in these different areas of course is always defining what is or is not pornography and what is entitled to protection under the First Amendment and what is not".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The famous Indianapolis definition of pornography by Dworkin and MacKinnon paralleled their Minneapolis ordinance. The first was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for several reasons. The ordinance did not use any of the accepted terms that the Supreme Court had developed over time for determining when material is obscene, including "prurient interest", "offensiveness", or "local community standards". Another concern was the way the women were depicted in the work. If women were referred to in the approved fashion stressing equality, the activity involved would be regardless of how sexually explicit it was. The Court also indicated that if women were referred to in a disapproving way depicting them as subversive or as enjoying humiliation, the activity would be unlawful regardless of the "literary, artistic or political qualities of the work taken as a whole". Judge Frank Easterbrook said: "We accept the premises of this legislation. Depictions of subordination tend to perpetuate subordination. The subordinate status of women in turn leads to affront and lower pay at work, insult and injury at home, battery and rape on the streets... Yet this simply demonstrates the power of pornography as speech." "Conceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional Argument: The Case of Pornography Regulation" by Frank Michelman, issued by Tennessee Law Review (vol. 56, no. 291, 1989) partially consented that "pornography is political expression in that it promulgates a certain view of women's natures and thus of women's appropriate relations and treatment in society", but also concluded that the Indianopolis ordinance was precisely designed to suppress that particular view by censoring pornography. Minneapolis ordinance was struck down on the grounds that it was ambiguous and vague, however, despite of its failure the proposal influenced other communities across the United States.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: In May 2005 U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force. The task force, according to a Department of Justice news release on May 5, was "dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court." Under President Bush's and Gonzales' rationales the FBI Adult Obscenity Squad was recruited in August 2005 to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of adult pornography.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: The 1970 Lockhart Commission recommended eliminating all criminal penalties for pornography except for pornographic depictions of minors, or sale of pornography to minors. However, prior to 1977, only two states had laws which prohibited the use of children in the production or distribution of pornographic materials or performances. In 1977, the Department of Justice strongly endorsed legislation which banned the production and dissemination of child pornography. These efforts have been unsuccessfully challenged in the 1982 "New York v. Ferber" case ("The States are entitled to greater leeway in the regulation of pornographic depictions of children..."). Although the states have a different age of consent, in accordance with the Federal Labeling and Record-Keeping Law all models featured in pornographic content should be at least 18 years of age. This kind of material is often labeled as "adult" and the appropriate disclaimers are common. They are based on what "depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: It is a federal crime to possess, distribute, or produce non-fictional child pornography and carries large fines and prison sentences of up to 30 years upon conviction and requirement to register as a sex offender.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: An anti-pornography movement has existed in the United States since before the 1969 Supreme Court decision of "Stanley v. Georgia", which held that people could view whatever they wished in the privacy of their own homes, by establishing an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law. This led President Lyndon B. Johnson, with the backing of Congress, to appoint a commission to study pornography. The anti-pornography movement seeks to maintain or restore restrictions and to increase or create restrictions on the production, sale or dissemination of pornography.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: Jesuit priest Father Morton A. Hill (1917-1985) was a leader of the campaign against pornography in the United States in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was one of the founders of Morality in Media, which was created in 1962 to fight pornography. Morality in Media was launched by an interfaith group of clergy and Hill was president until his death in 1985. Morality in Media continues with Patrick A. Trueman, a registered federal lobbyist, as president.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: So prominent was Hill on the issue, that in 1969 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Father Hill and another clergyman on the commission, Dr. Winfrey C. Link, believed that the commission was stacked with supporters of loosening laws on pornography, and issued the Hill-Link Minority Report rebutting the conclusions of the majority report, which held that pornography should be decriminalized as there were no links between it and criminal behavior. The majority report was widely criticized and rejected by Congress. The Senate rejected the commission's findings and recommendations by a 60–5 vote, with 34 abstentions. President Nixon, who had succeeded Johnson in 1969, also emphatically rejected the majority report. The Hill-Link Minority Report, on the other hand, which recommended maintaining anti-obscenity statutes, was read into the record of both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It was cited by the Burger Court in its 1973 obscenity decisions, including "Miller v. California".


title: Pornography in the United States

text: a In the 1969 "Stanley v. Georgia" case (later followed by the 1971 "United States v. Reidel"), the Supreme Court ruled that private possession of pornography (except child pornography as determined in 1990 by a 6 to 3 decision) in the home was not a crime, nor was it subject to government regulation. Technically why people have a constitutional right to watch hardcore pornography privately has never been explained, but in the 1973 "Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton" Chief Justice Burger wrote: "We categorically disapprove the theory, apparently adopted by the trial judge, that obscene, pornographic films acquire constitutional immunity from state regulation simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only. This holding was properly rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court." "Miller v. California" held 5–4 that the state may outlaw the showing of hardcore pornographic films, even if the "adult theatre" is clearly labeled and warns.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: c. The term "dial-a-porn" was used at the federal level e.g. by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but it was partially voided by federal courts over subsequent years. Another term usage includes the 1996 "Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium v. Federal Communications Commission" certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.


title: Pornography in the United States

text: d The transportation of pornography in interstate commerce was banned in the 1973 case of "United States v. Orito". The Supreme Court upheld zoning restrictions that either quarantine or disperse pornography merchants, leaving it to local officials to determine whether local interests are best served by restricting all porn merchants to a single district. Though the Court has also upheld zoning that prohibits pornographic entertainment within a certain distance of a school, the legitimate primary purpose excludes the preventing of access by minors which can be achieved much more directly by simple restrictions. On May 13, 2002, writing for the majority in "Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union", Justice Clarence Thomas stated that using community standards to identify material that could be harmful to minors does not make the law overly broad and therefore unconstitutional under the First Amendment.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The "Good Parts" Version is a 1973 fantasy romance novel by American writer William Goldman. The book combines elements of comedy, adventure, fantasy, drama, romance, and fairy tale. It is presented as an abridgment of a longer work by the fictional S. Morgenstern, and Goldman's "commentary" asides are constant throughout. It was originally published in the United States by Harcourt Brace, then later by Random House, while in the United Kingdom it was later published by Bloomsbury.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The book was adapted into a 1987 feature film directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay written by Goldman.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: William Goldman said, "I've gotten more responses on "The Princess Bride" than on everything else I've done put together—all kinds of strange outpouring letters. Something in "The Princess Bride" affects people."


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: A segment of the book was published as "Duel Scene (From "The Princess Bride")" in the anthology "The Best of All Possible Worlds" (1980), which was edited by Spider Robinson. In 2015, a collection of essays on the novel and the film adaptation was published entitled "The Princess Bride and Philosophy".


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In a Renaissance-era world, a young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the country of Florin. She abuses the farm hand, Westley, calling him "farm boy" and demands that he perform chores for her. Westley's response to her demands is always "As you wish." She eventually realizes that what he is saying is, "I love you." After Buttercup realizes that she loves him and confesses her feelings, Westley goes to seek his fortune so they can marry. Buttercup later receives a letter that the Dread Pirate Roberts attacked Westley's ship at sea. Believing that Westley is dead, since the Dread Pirate Roberts is famous for not taking captives, Buttercup sinks into despair. Years later, she reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Before the wedding, a trio of outlaws — the Sicilian criminal genius Vizzini, the Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya, and the enormous and mighty Turkish wrestler Fezzik — kidnap Buttercup. A masked man in black follows them across the sea and up the Cliffs of Insanity, after which Vizzini orders Inigo to stop the pursuer. Before the man in black reaches the top of the cliff, a flashback of Inigo's past reveals that he is seeking revenge on a six-fingered man who had killed Inigo's father. When the man in black arrives, Inigo challenges him to a duel. The man in black wins the duel but leaves the Spaniard alive. Vizzini then orders Fezzik to kill the man in black. A flashback showed Fezzik as a lonely boy who was "accepted" by Vizzini. His conscience compelling him to fair play, Fezzik throws a rock as a warning to the man in black and challenges him to a wrestling match. The man in black accepts the challenge and chokes Fezzik until the giant blacks out. The man in black then catches up with Vizzini and proposes a Battle of the Wits, challenging Vizzini to guess which of two cups of wine is poisoned with iocane powder. They drink, and Vizzini dies. The man in black then explains to Buttercup that he had poisoned both cups, having built up an immunity to iocane powder beforehand.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: With Prince Humperdinck's rescue party in hot pursuit, the man in black flees with Buttercup. He taunts Buttercup, claiming that women cannot be trusted and that she must have felt nothing when her true love and sweetheart died. She shoves him into a gorge, yelling, "You can die, too, for all I care!" and hears him call, "As you wish!" from the bottom of the ravine. She realizes he is Westley and follows him down into the gorge, to find him battered but largely unhurt. They travel through the Fire Swamp to evade Humperdinck's party. At Buttercup's insistence, Westley tells Buttercup about his experience with the Dread Pirate Roberts and how he secretly became the latest in a line of men to use that identity.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The Fire Swamp has many obstacles, such as Snow Sand and Rodents of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S., , ). Westley and Buttercup successfully navigate the Fire Swamp, but they are captured by Prince Humperdinck and his cruel six-fingered assistant, Count Tyrone Rugen. Buttercup negotiates for Westley's release and returns with Humperdinck to the palace to await their wedding. Rugen follows Humperdinck's secret instructions not to release Westley, but to take him to his underground hunting arena, the "Zoo of Death". Here, Rugen tortures and weakens Westley with his life-sucking invention, The Machine.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Meanwhile, Buttercup has nightmares regarding her marriage to the prince. She expresses her unhappiness to Humperdinck, who proposes that he send ships to locate Westley, but that if they fail to find him, Buttercup will marry him. The novel reveals that, to start a war with the neighboring country of Guilder, Humperdinck himself had arranged Buttercup's kidnapping and murder, but that he now believes that Buttercup dying on her wedding night will inspire his subjects to fight more effectively.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: On the day of the wedding, Inigo meets again with Fezzik, who tells him that Count Rugen is the six-fingered man who killed his father. Knowing that Vizzini is dead, they seek out the man in black hoping that his wits will help them plan a successful attack on the castle to find and kill Count Rugen. Buttercup learns that Humperdinck never sent any ships, and taunts him with her enduring love for Westley. Enraged, Humperdinck tortures Westley to death via The Machine. Westley's screams echo across the land, drawing Inigo and Fezzik to the Zoo of Death. Finding Westley's body, they enlist the help of a magician named Miracle Max who had been fired by Humperdinck. Max pronounces Westley to be mere "mostly dead", and returns him to life (out of a desire to get back at Humperdinck), though Westley remains partially paralyzed and weak.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Westley devises a plan to invade the castle during the wedding, and the commotion caused by this prompts Humperdinck to cut the wedding short. Buttercup decides to commit suicide when she reaches the honeymoon suite. Inigo pursues Rugen through the castle and kills him in a sword fight. Westley reaches Buttercup before she commits suicide. Still partially paralyzed, Westley bluffs his way out of a sword fight with Humperdinck, who shows himself as a coward. Instead of killing his rival, Westley decides to leave him alive. The party then rides off into the sunset on four of the prince's purebred white horses. The story ends with a series of mishaps and the prince's men closing in, but the author indicates that he believes that the group got away.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: This novel includes several narrative techniques or literary devices including a fictional frame story about how Goldman came to know about and decided to adapt S. Morgenstern's "The Princess Bride". In Goldman's "footnotes," he describes how his father used to read "The Princess Bride" aloud to him; thus the book became Goldman's favorite without him ever actually reading the text. As a father, Goldman looked forward to sharing the story with his own son, going to great lengths to locate a copy for his son's birthday, only to be crushed when his son stops reading after the first chapter. When Goldman revisits the book himself, he discovers that what he believed was a straightforward adventure novel was in fact a bitter satire of politics in Morgenstern's native Florin, and that his father had been skipping all the political commentary and leaving in only "the good parts." This moves Goldman to abridge the book to a version resembling the one his father had read to him, while adding notes to summarize material he had "removed." Morgenstern and the "original version" are fictitious and used as a literary device to comment on the nature of adaptation and to draw a contrast between the love and adventure of the main story and the mundane aspects of everyday life. The nations of Guilder and Florin are likewise pure fiction.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The narrator of "The Princess Bride", while named William Goldman, is persona or author surrogate that mixes fictional elements with some biographical details that match the author's life. Goldman's personal life, as described in the introduction and commentary in the novel, is fictional. In "The Princess Bride", Goldman claimed to have one son with his wife, Helen, a psychiatrist. In reality, Goldman married Ilene Jones, a photographer, in 1961. They had two daughters named Jenny and Susanna, and they divorced in 1991. Goldman's commentary contains references to his real-life Hollywood career, including the observation that the famous cliff scene in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was likely inspired by the Cliffs of Insanity from "The Princess Bride". While Goldman did write the screenplay for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in 1969, it is unclear if all the career references have a basis in truth. The commentary is extensive, continuing through the text until the end.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The book's actual roots are in stories Goldman told to his daughters (aged 7 and 4), one of whom had requested a story about "princesses" and the other "brides". Goldman describes the earliest character names from the "kid's saga" as "silly names: Buttercup, Humperdinck". The countries are both named after coins. The florin was originally an Italian gold coin minted in Florence, and later the name of various currencies and denominations. The guilder was originally a Dutch gold coin, and later the name of various currencies used mainly in the Netherlands and its territories. The two names are often interchangeable.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Goldman said he wrote the first chapter about Buttercup which ran for about 20 pages. Then, he wrote the second chapter, "The Groom", about the man she was going to marry; Goldman only managed to write four pages before running dry. Then he got the idea to write an abridged novel:


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In the novel's commentary, Goldman writes that he added nothing to the "original" Morgenstern text. He did write one original scene, a loving reunion between Buttercup and Westley, but, he said, his publisher objected to this addition. He invites any reader who wants to read the "Reunion Scene" to write to the publisher (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; now Random House) and request a copy. Many readers wrote in to the publisher and did receive a letter, but instead of an extra scene, the letter detailed the (obviously fictitious) legal problems that Goldman and his publishers encountered with the Morgenstern estate and its lawyer, Kermit Shog. This letter was revised and updated periodically; the 1987 revision mentioned the movie, while the 25th Anniversary Edition published the letter with an addendum about Kermit's lawyer granddaughter Carly. The 30th Anniversary Edition has a footnote that the three pages of the reunion scene were now available online. However, the website itself contained nothing but the text of the original three letters. This website has since been taken down and superseded by the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt product page for the book, which provides the 2003 version of the Reunion Scene letter as a digital download.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The epilogue to some later editions of the novel, notably the 25th anniversary edition, mentions a sequel, "Buttercup's Baby", that was "having trouble getting published because of legal difficulties with S. Morgenstern's estate". Later editions actually reprint Goldman's "sample chapter".


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The chapter consists of a disjointed assemblage of stories about the quartet's escape to "One Tree Island", and the eventual kidnapping of Waverly (Westley and Buttercup's daughter) by a skinless-faced "madman" who eventually throws her off a mountainside. The chapter ends with Fezzik, Waverly's appointed babysitter, leaping off the mountain to save her, and then cradling her to preserve her from the impact that seems certain to spell at least Fezzik's doom. Also noteworthy is a flashback to Inigo's past, his training as a swordsman, and his one-time romantic love interest.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The chapter also continues the author's extensive footnotes after he is outraged to learn that the fiercely protective Morgenstern estate had finally relented to an abridgment of "Buttercup's Baby" done not by Goldman but by author Stephen King. The footnotes detail Goldman's visit to the fictional nation of Florin, which houses a popular museum devoted to the "real" story of "The Princess Bride" and contains such artifacts as Inigo's six-fingered sword.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The 30th anniversary edition of "The Princess Bride" included hints to the sequel's plot, and a promise to have the full version completed before a 50th anniversary edition (2023).


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In a January 2007 interview, Goldman admitted he was having difficulty coming up with ideas for the story:


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In 1982 Ray Harryhausen was approached by British producer Milton Subotsky, who had written a script based on the novel. Harryhausen liked the book, but found too many problems with the screenplay. He and Subotsky worked together in an attempt to create a new script, but eventually gave up.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: The book was adapted into a 1987 feature film directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay written by Goldman himself.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Goldman partnered with Adam Guettel to create a musical version of the story with Goldman writing the book and Guettel writing the music, but the two parted ways on the project when Goldman demanded 75% of the author's royalties, though Guettel was writing both the music and the lyrics. Guettel's score was nearly complete, but it is unlikely to be heard beyond an orchestral suite performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 2006.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In November 2013, Disney Theatrical announced that it will be staging a new stage musical version, based on the novel and film screenplay.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In 2008, Toy Vault, Inc. announced it was working on a "Princess Bride"–based card game due for release in the second quarter of 2008. It also announced that it is working on a board game, the second ever produced for this movie, after a simple board game included with some VHS releases.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: Also in 2008, the production company Worldwide Biggies released a computer game, "The Princess Bride Game". Several actors from the movie provided voices for their video game counterparts, including Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, Wallace Shawn as Vizzini, and Robin Wright as Buttercup.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In 2014, Game Salute licensed the tabletop game adaptation publishing rights to the Princess Bride; a series of board and card games were released later that year.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: On September 13, 2020, the surviving members of the original cast participated in a live script reading that was a fundraiser for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.


title: The Princess Bride (novel)

text: In 2021, BBC Radio 4 produced a two-part radio adaptation by Stephen Keyworth (referred to as "The Best Bits of the Good Parts Version"), with the first part broadcast on Christmas Day 2021 and the second on New Year's Day 2022. During the week of 26 December 2021, five mini-episodes, "Bitesize Backstories", dealing with the backstories of the book itself and four of the main characters "which can be enjoyed as stand-alone stories or to enhance [the listener's] experience of the drama", were also broadcast on BBC Radio 4.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: The Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV)—official designation AAVP-7A1 (formerly known as Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel-7 abbr. LVTP-7)—is a fully tracked amphibious landing vehicle manufactured by U.S. Combat Systems (previously by United Defense, a former division of FMC Corporation).


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: The AAV-P7/A1 is the current amphibious troop transport of the United States Marine Corps. It is used by U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Assault Battalions to land the surface assault elements of the landing force and their equipment in a single lift from assault shipping during amphibious operations to inland objectives and to conduct mechanized operations and related combat support in subsequent mechanized operations ashore. It is also operated by other forces. Marines call them "amtracs", a shortening of their original designation, "amphibious tractor".


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: In June 2018, the Marine Corps announced they had selected the BAE Systems/Iveco wheeled SuperAV for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) program to supplement and ultimately replace the AAV.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: The LVTP-7 was first introduced in 1972 as a replacement for the LVTP-5. In 1982, FMC was contracted to conduct the LVTP-7 Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), which converted the LVT-7 vehicles to the improved AAV-7A1 vehicle by adding an improved engine, transmission, and weapons system and improving the overall maintainability of the vehicle. The Cummins VT400 diesel engine replaced the GM 8V53T, and this was driven through FMC's HS-400-3A1 transmission. The hydraulic traverse and elevation of the weapon station was replaced by electric motors, which eliminated the danger from hydraulic fluid fires. The suspension and shock absorbers were strengthened as well. The fuel tank was made safer, and a fuel-burning smoke generator system was added. Eight smoke grenade launchers were also placed around the armament station. The headlight clusters were housed in a square recess instead of the earlier round type. The driver was provided with an improved instrument panel and a night vision device, and a new ventilation system was installed. These upgraded vehicles were originally called LVT-7A1, but the Marine Corps renamed the LVTP-7A1 to AAV-7A1 in 1984.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Another improvement was added starting in 1987 in the form of a Cadillac Gage weapon station or Up-Gunned Weapon Station (UGWS) which was armed with both a .50 cal (12.7 mm) M2HB machine gun and a Mk-19 40 mm grenade launcher.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Enhanced Applique Armor Kits (EAAK) were developed for the AAV-7A1 in 1989 and fitted by 1993, and the added weight of the new armor necessitated the addition of a bow plane kit when operating afloat.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: The Assault Amphibious Vehicle Reliability, Availability, Maintainability/Rebuild to Standard (AAV RAM/RS) Program was approved in 1997. It encompassed all AAV systems and components to return the AAV to the original vehicle's performance specifications and ensure acceptable readiness until the EFV should become operational. The program replaced both the AAV engine and suspension with US Army M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) components modified for the AAV. Ground clearance returned to and the horsepower to ton ratio increased from 13 to 1 to its original 17 to 1. The introduction of the BFV components and the rebuild to standard effort was expected to reduce maintenance costs for the expected remaining life of the AAV through the year 2013.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: In March 2015, SAIC was awarded a contract to perform an AAV Survivability Upgrade (SU). Marine Corps and SAIC officials unveiled the AAV SU prototype in January 2016, with survivability enhancements including replacing the angled EAAK with 49 advanced buoyant ceramic armor panels, a bonded spall liner, armor-protected external fuel tanks, an aluminum armor underbelly providing Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)-equivalent blast protection, and blast mitigating seats as well as a more powerful engine, new suspension system, and increased reserve buoyancy. The AAV SU program was intended to upgrade 392 out of the some 1,000-vehicle fleet to keep them operational through 2035 as the ACV gradually entered service. However, in August 2018 the Marine Corps terminated the AAV upgrade program, instead opting for increased procurement of the ACV.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Twenty U.S.-built LVTP-7s were used by Argentina during the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands with most returning to the Argentine mainland before the war ended.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: From 1982 to 1984, LVTP-7s were deployed with U.S. Marines as part of the multi-national peacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon. As Marines became increasingly involved in hostilities, several vehicles sustained minor damage from shrapnel and small arms fire.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: On October 25, 1983 U.S. Marine LVTP-7s conducted a highly successful amphibious landing on the island of Grenada as part of Operation Urgent Fury.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AAV-7A1s were criticized for providing poor protection for the crew and passengers compared with other vehicles, such as the M2 Bradley. Eight were disabled or destroyed during the Battle of Nasiriyah, where they faced RPG, mortar, tank and artillery fire. At least one vehicle was destroyed by fire from friendly A-10 Warthog aircraft.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: On 3 August 2005, 14 U.S. Marines and their Iraqi interpreter were killed when their AAV struck a roadside bomb in the city of Haditha in the Euphrates river valley in western Iraq.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Eight U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy sailor died on 30 July 2020, when their AAV sank in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Clemente Island, California, during a training exercise, ahead of an upcoming deployment. As a result of the incident, on 15 December 2021 the U.S. Marine Corps announced that it has banned its fleet of amphibious armored personnel carriers from maritime operations except in emergencies.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Renamed from the Advanced Assault Amphibious Vehicle in late 2003, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) was designed to replace the aging AAV. Able to transport a full Marine rifle squad to shore from an amphibious assault ship beyond the horizon with three times the speed in water and about twice the armor of the AAV, and superior firepower as well it was the Marine Corps' number one priority ground weapon system acquisition. The EFV was intended for deployment in 2015. However, in January 2011, United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to cancel the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. In 2012, the USMC dropped the EFV and cancelled the program.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: Many P7s have been modified to carry the Mk 154 MCLC, or Mine Clearance Line Charge. The MCLC kit can fire three linear demolition charges to breach a lane through a minefield. MCLCs were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and again in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: In the 1970s, the U.S. Army used an LVTP-7 as the basis for their Mobile Test Unit (MTU), a ground-based high-energy anti-aircraft laser. After several successful test firings at Redstone Army Arsenal, the laser was reportedly transferred to NASA.


title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle

text: The Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the Virtual Training and Environments (VIRTE) program, led by then LCDR Dylan Schmorrow, developed a prototype training system called the AAV Turret Trainer. The system consists of an actual surplus turret mounted with ISMT (Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer) weapons firing on a projected screen displaying the VIRTE Virtual Environment. A total of 15 systems were produced for the USMC and one system for Taiwan.


title: Emma Willis

text: Emma Louise Willis (née Griffiths; born 18 March 1976) is an English broadcaster. She is known for her television and radio work with Channel 5, BBC, ITV, and Heart FM. Willis has presented "Big Brother" and "Celebrity Big Brother" (2013–2018), as well as the spin-off series "Big Brother's Bit on the Side" (2011–2015). Since 2014, she has presented "The Voice UK." In 2019 and 2021, Willis presented the second and third series of "The Circle".