title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: The investigations into the Iran–Contra scandal continued after Reagan left office, but were effectively halted when President George H. W. Bush pardoned Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger before his trial began. Investigators did not find conclusive proof that Reagan had known about the aid provided to the Contras, but Walsh's report noted that Reagan had "created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others" and had "knowingly participated or acquiesced in covering up the scandal."


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Three different Soviet leaders died between 1982 and 1985, leaving the Soviets with an unstable leadership until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. Although the Soviet Union had not accelerated military spending during Reagan's military buildup, their large military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the Soviet economy. Gorbachev was less ideologically rigid than his predecessors, and he believed that the Soviet Union urgently needed economic and political reforms. In 1986, he introduced his twin reforms of perestroika and glasnost, which would change the political and economic conditions of the Soviet Union. Seeking to reduce military expenditures and minimize the possibility of nuclear war, he also sought to re-open negotiations with the United States over arms control.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: As his influence on domestic affairs waned during his second term, Reagan increasingly focused on relations with the Soviet Union. Reagan recognized the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. Reagan's personal mission was to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons, which according to Jack F. Matlock Jr., Reagan's ambassador to Moscow, he regarded as "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to meet at the 1985 Geneva Summit, where they issued a joint statement indicating that neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union would "seek to achieve military superiority." The two leaders began a private correspondence after the summit, and each became increasingly optimistic about arms control negotiations. Reagan's willingness to negotiate with the Soviets was opposed by many conservatives, including Weinberger; conservative columnist George Will wrote that Reagan was "elevating wishful thinking to the status of a political philosophy."


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Various issues, including intelligence operations performed by both countries and tensions in Germany and Afghanistan, threatened to forestall the possibility of an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, both Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to continue arms control negotiations at the October 1986 Reykjavík Summit. At the summit, Gorbachev and Reagan closed in on an agreement to greatly reduce or eliminate the nuclear stockpiles of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union over a ten-year period, but the deal collapsed due to disagreements regarding SDI development. Reagan attacked Gorbachev in a 1987 speech delivered in West Berlin, but negotiations continued. Gorbachev and Reagan broke the impasse by agreeing to negotiate separate treaties on intermediate nuclear forces (such as intermediate-range ballistic missiles) and strategic arms (such as intercontinental ballistic missiles).


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: With the framework for an agreement in place, Reagan and Gorbachev met at the 1987 Washington Summit. They signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), which committed both signatories to the total abolition of their respective short-range and medium-range missile stockpiles. The agreement marked the first time that the United States and the Soviet Union had committed to the elimination of a type of nuclear weapon, though it provided for the dismantlement of only about one-twentieth of the worldwide nuclear weapon arsenal. The treaty also established an inspections regime designed to ensure that both parties honored the agreement. In addition to the INF Treaty, Reagan and Gorbachev discussed a potential strategic arms treaty, known as START, but SDI continued to be a major point of contention. In May 1988, the Senate voted 93-to-5 in favor of ratifying the INF Treaty.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Though it was attacked by conservatives like Jesse Helms, the INF Treaty provided a major boost to Reagan's popularity in the aftermath of the Iran–Contra Affair. A new era of trade and openness between the two powers commenced, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union cooperated on international issues such as the Iran–Iraq War. When Reagan visited Moscow for a fourth summit with Gorbachev in 1988, he was viewed as a celebrity by the Soviets. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. "No," he replied, "I was talking about another time, another era." At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at the Moscow State University. In December 1988, Gorbachev effectively renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, paving the way for democratization in Eastern Europe. In November 1989, ten months after Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War was unofficially declared over at the Malta Summit the following month.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Reagan came under much criticism in 1985 when he was accused of honoring Nazi war criminals at a cemetery in West Germany. In February 1985, the administration accepted an invitation for Reagan to visit a German military cemetery in Bitburg and to place a wreath alongside West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Deaver was given assurances by a German head of protocol that no war criminals were buried there. It was later determined that the cemetery held the graves of 49 members of the Waffen-SS. What neither Deaver nor other administration officials initially realized was that many Germans distinguished the regular SS, who typically were composed of Nazi true believers, and the Waffen-SS which were attached to military units and composed of conscripted soldiers.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: As the controversy brewed in April 1985, Reagan issued a statement that called the Nazi soldiers buried in that cemetery as themselves "victims," a designation which ignited a stir over whether Reagan had equated the SS men to victims of the Holocaust. Pat Buchanan, Reagan's Director of Communications, argued that the president did not equate the SS members with the actual Holocaust, but as victims of the ideology of Nazism. Now strongly urged to cancel the visit, the president responded that it would be wrong to back down on a promise he had made to Chancellor Kohl. On May 5, 1985, President Reagan and Chancellor Kohl first visited the site of the former Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then the Bitburg cemetery where, along with two military generals, they did place a wreath.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: A civil war had broken out in Lebanon in 1975, and both Israel and Syria undertook military action within Lebanon in 1982. After Israel invaded Southern Lebanon, Reagan faced domestic and international pressure to oppose the Israeli invasion, but Reagan was reluctant to openly break Israel. Reagan sympathized with Israeli's desire to defeat PLO forces that had struck Israel from Lebanon, but he pressured Israel to end its invasion as casualties mounted and Israeli forces approached the Lebanese capital of Beirut. American diplomat Philip Habib arranged a cease-fire in which Israel, Syria, and the PLO, all agreed to evacuate their forces from Lebanon. As Israel delayed a full withdrawal and violence continued in Lebanon, Reagan arranged for a multinational force, including U.S. Marines, to serve as peacekeepers in Lebanon. In October 1983, two nearly-simultaneous bombings in Beirut killed 241 American soldiers and 58 French soldiers. The international peacekeeping force was withdrawn from Lebanon in 1984. In reaction to the role Israel and the United States played in the Lebanese Civil War, a Shia militant group known as Hezbollah began to take American hostages, holding eight Americans by the middle of 1985. The Reagan administration's attempts to release these hostages would be a major component of the Iran-Contra Scandal. In response to the U.S. intervention in Lebanon, the Defense Department developed the "Powell Doctrine," which stated that the U.S. should intervene militarily as a last resort and should set clear and limited goals in such interventions. Though termed the Powell doctrine, the policy was originally developed by Secretary of Defense Weinberger, who was influenced not only by Lebanon but also by the experience of the Vietnam War.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Relations between Libya and the United States under President Reagan were continually contentious, beginning with the Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981; by 1982, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was considered by the CIA to be, along with USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, part of a group known as the "unholy trinity" and was also labeled as "our international public enemy number one" by a CIA official. These tensions were later revived in early April 1986, when a bomb exploded in a West Berlin discothèque, resulting in the injury of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. Stating that there was "irrefutable proof" that Libya had directed the "terrorist bombing," Reagan authorized the use of force against the country. In the late evening of April 15, 1986, the United States launched a series of airstrikes on ground targets in Libya.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Britain's prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, allowed the U.S. Air Force to use Britain's air bases to launch the attack, on the justification that the UK was supporting America's right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The attack was designed to halt Gaddafi's "ability to export terrorism," offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior." The president addressed the nation from the Oval Office after the attacks had commenced, stating, "When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I'm in this office." The attack was condemned by many countries. By a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against with 33 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 41/38 which "condemns the military attack perpetrated against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on April 15, 1986, which constitutes a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law."


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: During Ronald Reagan's presidency South Africa continued to use a non-democratic system of government based on racial discrimination, known as apartheid, in which the minority of white South Africans exerted nearly complete legal control over the lives of the non-white majority of the citizens. In the early 1980s the issue had moved to the center of international attention as a result of events in the townships and outcry at the death of Stephen Biko. Reagan administration policy called for "constructive engagement" with the apartheid government of South Africa. In opposition to the condemnations issued by the U.S. Congress and public demands for diplomatic or economic sanctions, Reagan made relatively minor criticisms of the regime, which was otherwise internationally isolated, and the U.S. granted recognition to the government. South Africa's military was then engaged in an occupation of Namibia and proxy wars in several neighboring countries, in alliance with Savimbi's UNITA. Reagan administration officials saw the apartheid government as a key anti-communist ally.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Finding the Reagan Administration unresponsive to its calls for more stringent economic sanctions, anti-apartheid activists undertook a divestment campaign, aimed at moving individuals and institutions to sell their holdings in companies doing business in South Africa. By late 1985, facing escalating public and congressional opposition to his administration's tolerant attitude toward the South African government's policy of apartheid, Reagan made an "abrupt reversal" on the issue and proposed sanctions on the South African government, including an arms embargo. However, these sanctions were seen as weak by anti-apartheid activists, and as insufficient by the president's opponents in Congress, including 81 House Republicans. In August 1986, Congress approved the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which included tougher sanctions. Reagan vetoed the act, but this was overridden by a bipartisan effort in Congress. By 1990, under Reagan's successor George H. W. Bush, the new South African government of F. W. de Klerk was introducing widespread reforms, though the Bush administration argued that this was not a result of the tougher sanctions.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: During his 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan proposed the creation of a common market in North America. Once in office, Reagan signed the Trade and Tariff Act of 1984, which granted the president "fast track" authority in negotiating free trade agreements. In 1985, Reagan signed the Israel–United States Free Trade Agreement, the first bilateral free trade agreement in U.S. history. In 1988, Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, which greatly reduced trade barriers between the United States and Canada. This trade pact would serve as the foundation for the North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Canada, and Mexico.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Reagan made 25 international trips to 26 countries on four continents—Europe, Asia, North America, and South America—during his presidency. He made seven trips to continental Europe, three to Asia and one to South America. He is perhaps best remembered for his speeches at the 40th anniversary of the Normandy landings, for his impassioned speech at the Berlin Wall, his summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev, and riding horses with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Park.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: At the time, Reagan was the oldest person to have served as U.S. president. Reagan's health became a concern at times during his presidency. Former White House correspondent Lesley Stahl later wrote that she and other reporters noticed what might have been early symptoms of Reagan's later Alzheimer's disease. She said that on her last day on the beat, Reagan spoke to her for a few moments and did not seem to know who she was before returning to his normal behavior. However, Reagan's primary physician, Dr. John Hutton, has said that Reagan "absolutely" did not "show any signs of dementia or Alzheimer's" during his presidency. His doctors have noted that he began exhibiting Alzheimer's symptoms only after he left the White House.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Early in his presidency, Reagan started wearing a custom-made, technologically advanced hearing aid, first in his right ear and later in his left ear as well. His decision to go public in 1983 regarding his wearing the small, audio-amplifying device boosted their sales.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: On July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery to remove a section of his colon due to colorectal cancer. He relinquished presidential power to the vice president for eight hours in a similar procedure as outlined in the 25th Amendment, which he specifically avoided invoking. The surgery lasted just under three hours and was successful. Reagan resumed the powers of the presidency later that day. In August of that year, he underwent an operation to remove skin cancer cells from his nose. In October, more skin cancer cells were detected on his nose and removed.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: In January 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for an enlarged prostate that caused further worries about his health. No cancerous growths were found, and he was not sedated during the operation. In July of that year, he underwent a third skin cancer operation on his nose.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: On January 7, 1989, Reagan underwent surgery to repair a Dupuytren's contracture of the ring finger of his left hand.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: In the 1982 mid-term elections, Democrats retained a majority of the House while Republicans retained control of the Senate.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Reagan's approval ratings fell after his first year in office, but they bounced back when the United States began to emerge from recession in 1983. The leading candidates in the 1984 Democratic presidential primaries were former Vice President Walter Mondale, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, and African-American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. Though Hart won several primaries, Mondale ultimately won the nomination. Down in the polls, Mondale selected Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in hopes of galvanizing support for his campaign, thus making Ferraro the first female major party vice presidential nominee in U.S. history. In accepting the Democratic nomination, Mondale attacked Reagan's policies regarding the environment, Social Security, nuclear arms, civil rights, and other issues, stating that the Reagan administration was "of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich." He also criticized the federal debt accumulated under Reagan, stating, "...The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up. And anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth to the American people."


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Reagan, meanwhile, generally declined to offer new legislative proposals for his re-election campaign, instead focusing on events like the U.S.-hosted 1984 Summer Olympics and the 40th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Reagan's ability to perform the duties of president for another term was questioned by some observers, especially after a weak performance in the first presidential debate. His apparent confused and forgetful behavior was evident to his supporters; they had previously known him clever and witty. Rumors began to circulate that he had Alzheimer's disease. Reagan rebounded in the second debate, and confronted questions about his age, quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," which generated applause and laughter, even from Mondale himself.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Public opinion polling consistently showed a Reagan lead in the 1984 campaign, and Mondale was unable to shake up the race. In the end, Reagan won re-election, winning 49 of 50 states. Mondale carried only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes, and received 59% of the popular vote to Mondale's 41%. Compared to 1980, Reagan's strongest gains came among white Southern voters, and he also performed particularly well among Catholic voters, voters between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine, and voters over the age of sixty. In the concurrent congressional elections, Republicans retained control of the Senate and Democrats retained control of the House.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: In the 1986 mid-term elections, Democrats retained a majority of the House and won control of the Senate for the first time since the 1980 elections. Reagan campaigned hard for congressional Republicans, and an October 1986 New York Times/CBS News Poll had found that Reagan had a 67 percent approval rating. However, Senate Republicans faced a difficult map that year, as they had to defend 22 of the 34 seats up for election. Republican losses in the Senate were concentrated in the South and in the farm states. The Republican loss of the Senate precluded the possibility of further major conservative legislation during the Reagan administration.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Reagan remained publicly neutral in the 1988 Republican presidential primaries, but privately supported Vice President Bush over Senator Bob Dole. The 1988 Republican National Convention, which nominated Bush for president, also acted as a celebration of Reagan's presidency. Democrats nominated Michael Dukakis, the liberal Governor of Massachusetts. Following the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Dukakis led the polls by seventeen points, but Bush, aided by the INF Treaty and the strong economy, closed the gap as the election neared. Democrats tried to link Bush to the Iran–Contra Scandal, but Bush claimed that he had not been involved. The GOP effectively cast Dukakis as "soft" on crime and foreign policy issues, seizing on Dukakis's pardon of Willie Horton and his dispassionate response to a question regarding the death penalty. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush soundly defeated Dukakis, taking 53.4 percent of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes. The election saw the lowest turnout of eligible voters in any presidential election since 1948. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats retained control of the House and the Senate. In large part due to his handling of relations with the Soviet Union, Reagan left office with an approval rating of sixty-eight percent.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Since Reagan left office in 1989, substantial debate has occurred among scholars, historians, and the general public surrounding his legacy. Supporters have pointed to a more efficient and prosperous economy as a result of Reagan's economic policies, foreign policy triumphs including a peaceful end to the Cold War, and a restoration of American pride and morale. Proponents also argue Reagan restored faith in the American Dream after a decline in American confidence and self-respect under Jimmy Carter's perceived weak leadership, particularly during the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan remains an important symbol of American conservatism, much in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt continued to serve as a symbol of liberalism long after his own death.


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Critics contend that Reagan's economic policies resulted in rising budget deficits, a wider gap in wealth, and an increase in homelessness. Liberals especially disapproved of Reagan's simultaneous tax cuts for the wealthy and benefit cuts for the poor. Some critics assert that the Iran–Contra affair lowered American credibility. In his popular book, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", historian Paul Kennedy argued that Reagan's high level of defense would eventually lead to the decline of the United States as a great power. Reagan's leadership and understanding of issues has also been questioned, and even some members of the administration criticized Reagan's passive demeanor during meetings with staff and cabinet members. Richard Pipes, a member of the National Security Council, criticized Reagan as "really lost, out of his depth, uncomfortable" at NSC meetings. Another NSC member, Colin Powell, criticized Reagan's "passive management style [that] placed a tremendous burden on us."


title: Presidency of Ronald Reagan

text: Despite the continuing debate surrounding his legacy, many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been one of the most influential presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication, dedicated patriotism and pragmatic compromising. Since he left office, historians have reached a consensus, as summarized by British historian M. J. Heale, who finds that scholars now concur that Reagan rehabilitated conservatism, turned the nation to the right, practiced a considerably pragmatic conservatism that balanced ideology and the constraints of politics, revived faith in the presidency and in American exceptionalism, and contributed to victory in the Cold War. Hugh Heclo argues that Reagan himself failed to roll back the welfare state, but that he contributed to a shift in attitudes that led to the defeat of efforts to further expand the welfare state. Heclo further argues that Reagan's presidency made American voters and political leaders more tolerant of deficits and more opposed to taxation. In 2017, a C-SPAN survey of scholars ranked Reagan as the ninth greatest president. A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's presidents and Executive Politics section also ranked Reagan as the ninth greatest president. A 2006 poll of historians ranked the Iran-Contra affair as the ninth-worst mistake made by a sitting American president.


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Josephine Myrtle Corbin (May 12, 1868 – May 6, 1928) was an American sideshow performer born as a dipygus. This referred to the fact that she had two separate pelvises side by side from the waist down, as a result of her body axis splitting as it developed. Each of her smaller inner legs was paired with one of her outer legs. She was said to be able to move her inner legs, but they were too weak for walking.


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Corbin was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Corbin's parents were William H. Corbin, aged 25 at the time of his daughter's birth, and Nancy Corbin (née Sullins), aged 34. Both parents were described by physicians who examined the infant shortly after her birth as being very similar in appearance, "both having auburn hair, blue eyes, and very fair complexion"; in fact, they looked so similar that the physicians felt compelled to point out that they were not "blood kin". The Corbins had four children in total, including a child from Nancy's first marriage.


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Myrtle's birth was not marked by anything "peculiar about the labour or delivery" according to her mother. Doctors who examined the child shortly after her birth noted that a breech presentation "would have proved fatal to the infant, and possibly to the mother." Corbin soon showed herself to be a strong child, weighing three weeks after the birth, and it was reported in a journal published later that year that she "nurses healthily" and was "thriving well".


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Corbin entered the sideshow circuit with the moniker "Four-Legged Girl from Texas" when she was 13 years old; one of her first promotional pamphlets described her as being as "gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long." Her popularity in this industry was such that other showmen turned to exhibiting four-legged gaffs (falsified performances). When Corbin herself was no longer performing, there were several phony four-legged women to whom audiences could turn.


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Teratologists in medical journals and encyclopedias in the 19th century classified Corbin's anomaly using several different, yet equally complex, terms, according to conventions of the time. Some referred to her as a ""dipygus dibrachius tetrapus"", others named her condition posterior dichotomy,' subvariety schizorachis". One doctor, Brooks H. Wells, described her as "female, belonging to the monocephalic, ileadelphic class of monsters by fusion."


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: In the spring of 1887 approximately a year after marrying Bicknell, Corbin became pregnant for the first time: her condition was discovered by Dr. Lewis Whaley, of Blountsville, Alabama, who was sent for after Corbin had experienced pain in her left side, fever, headache, and a decreased appetite. In addition, the physician noted that "vomiting and amenorrhoea had persisted for two months". Whaley wrote up the case for the "Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal", which led to a resurgence of interest in Myrtle throughout the late 1880s, now known in medical journals as 'Mrs. B.'


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: Examining Corbin, Whaley discovered that the duplication of her external sexual organs was mirrored by a similar duplication internally. He determined that it was in her left uterus that Mrs. B. was pregnant. According to Whaley, upon being told that she was pregnant, she replied in disbelief, saying "If it had been in my right side I would come nearer believing you are correct." From this comment, physicians determined that Corbin preferred intercourse in the right side, and this fact was commented upon in several subsequent reports.


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: The pregnancy caused Corbin to become gravely ill, and after consulting with colleagues, Whaley decided to perform an abortion eight weeks after her initial examination. She was, reportedly, between three and four months pregnant at the time. She made a full recovery, and the procedure (as well as her unique anatomy), did not prevent her from successfully carrying subsequent pregnancies to term. As medical journals across the United States and around the world turned renewed attention to a now mature Corbin, details about her personality revealed a sense of the woman: One article noted that "The lady, Mrs. B... the Myrtle Corbin of days gone by, [is] attractive in face, physically well, and able to attend to all her household duties", while she was described elsewhere as being "very intelligent" and "a refined woman, of some musical taste."


title: Myrtle Corbin

text: She died in Cleburne, Texas, on May 6, 1928. Her casket was covered in concrete and various family members kept watch until it was fully cured. This was to prevent grave robbers from stealing her corpse. Several medical practitioners and private collectors offered financial compensation for her corpse.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: Ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) are defined as having a net worth of at least US$30 million in constant 2018 dollars. It is the wealth segment above very-high-net-worth individuals (greater than $5 million) and high-net-worth-individuals (greater than $1 million). Although they constitute only 0.003% of the world's population (less than 1 in 33,000), they hold 13% of the world's total wealth. By 2017, there were 226,450 individuals designated as UHNWI, representing an increase of 3.5%, with their combined total wealth increasing to $27 trillion.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: Ultra-high-net-worth individuals are defined in the report as having a net worth of at least US$30 million in investible assets net of liabilities (after deducting residential and passion investments such as art, planes, yachts and personal real estate). At last count, there were 211,275 UHNW individuals in the world, with a total combined net worth of US$29.7 trillion. Billionaires are a special category of UHNW individuals, having net worth in excess of US$1 billion. According to the Billionaire Census 2014, there were 2,325 billionaires in the world, with a combined net worth of US$7.3 trillion. In 2014, these individuals represented just over 1% of the world's UHNW population and 24% of the world's UHNW total wealth. The June 27, 2017 "World Ultra Wealth Report" analysed the state of the world's ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) population, or those with $30m or more in net worth. The number of UHNW individuals globally grew 3.5% to 226,450 individuals. Their combined total wealth increased by 1.5% to $27 trillion.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: The "World Ultra Wealth Report", on ultra high net worth (UHNW) populations—those with "$30m or more in net worth", which was published on June 27, 2017, "this year revealed global growth of 3.5% to 226,450 individuals and a 1.5% increase of their total combined wealth to $27 trillion."


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: The World Ultra Wealth Report 2013 was co-published by Wealth-X and UBS. The fifth edition of the report was published on June 27, 2017. Previous World Ultra Wealth Reports were published independently by Wealth-X, in 2011 and 2012 respectively.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 2014 Global Wealth Report, shows that liquid wealth of the super-rich, referenced as Ultra-High-Net-Worth households, had increased by 20% in 2013. BCG uses a household definition of UHNW, which places only those with more than $100 million liquid financial wealth into the UHNW-category, more than the usual $30 million, with which the ultra-category had been created in 2007. . They control 5.5% of global financial wealth. 5,000 of them live in the US, followed by China, Britain and Germany. BCG expects the trend toward more concentrated wealth to continue unabated. While financial wealth of the sub-millionaires is expected to increase by 3.7% annually until 2019, the expected growth rate for the super-rich is 9.1%. The share of this group in global financial wealth would thus increase to 6.5% by 2019.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: By 2013, 65% of the world's UHNW population was self-made, as opposed to 19% who had inherited their fortune and 16% who had inherited and grown their wealth. These proportions change dramatically by gender. In the 2013 report, it was revealed that only 12% of the world's UHNW population is female, and of these, only 33% are self-made, as opposed to 70% of male UHNW. According to the same 2013 report, twenty-two percent of self-made UHNW individuals have derived their wealth from finance, banking and investment. Almost 15% of individuals with inherited wealth are engaged in non-profit and social organisations.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: As of 2014, Asia's growth was expected to continue, and this change in demographics has significant impact on the various organizations that target UHNW individuals, such as luxury companies, financial institutions, charities and universities.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: In 2013 for example, the average net worth of the world's billionaire is US$3 billion, with a liquidity on average of 18% of net worth. 60% of the world's billionaires are self-made, 20% have inherited their fortune and 20% have both inherited and grown their wealth. 18% of the world's billionaires have derived their wealth from finance, banking and investment; as opposed to 9% from industrial conglomerates and 7% from the real estate industry. The average billionaire is 62 years old, and 89% of the world's billionaires are male. Approximately 68% of them have a bachelor's degree or higher levels of education.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: UHNW individuals are of crucial importance not only to the finance, banking and investment industry; but also to luxury companies who target UHNW individuals, charities, universities and schools amongst others. UHNW individuals are notable players in the field of philanthropy; many have their own private foundations and support a variety of causes, from education to poverty relief.


title: Ultra high-net-worth individual

text: Financial institutions are known for their targeting of UHNW individuals, having specific parts of their bank designed to manage the wealth of their UHNW clients. In addition, research on the UHNW is particularly important with upcoming intergenerational wealth transfers in the UHNW population. For example, as of 2014, luxury companies typically target UHNW as a separate segment of their clientele. "Daily Finance" in 2014, projected that growth in UHNW population in Asia looked promising for the future of the luxury industry. The India's "Economic Times" said in 2014 that, despite wide report on the luxury industry's troubled year with China's luxury spenders, luxury industry experts continued to be optimistic for their long-term performance, especially from UHNW individuals. According to Savills and Wealth-X, in 2014, UHNW individuals are particularly relevant to the real estate sector, with the total UHNW population's real estate holdings accounting for over US$5 trillion by 2014, or 3% of the world's real estate holdings. This is a huge proportion considering this population is only 0.003% of the world's population.


title: Taal (film)

text: Taal () is a 1999 Indian Hindi musical romantic drama film co written, edited, produced and directed by Subhash Ghai. The film stars Aishwarya Rai, Akshaye Khanna and Anil Kapoor in lead roles, while Amrish Puri and Alok Nath feature in supporting roles. It was also dubbed in Tamil as "Thaalam". "Taal" was premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, the "official selection" at the 2005 , and retrospectively at the 45th IFFI in the Celebrating Dance in Indian cinema section.


title: Taal (film)

text: "Taal" released on 13 August 1999, coinciding with the Indian Independence Day weekend, and proved to be a major commercial success at the domestic and overseas box office, becoming the first Indian film to reach the Top 20 on "Variety"'s box office list. The film received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with major praise directed towards the direction, story, screenplay, dialogues, soundtrack, costumes, choreography and performances of the cast.


title: Taal (film)

text: At the 45th Filmfare Awards, "Taal" received 12 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director (Ghai) and Best Actress (Rai), and won 6 awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor), Best Music Director (Rahman) and Best Lyricist ( for "Ishq Bina").


title: Taal (film)

text: Jagmohan Mehta arrives in Chamba, India for a long vacation with his rich and affluent family, including his son Manav. They meet Mansi, the beautiful daughter of poor spiritual singer Tara Shankar Manhuja. As the owner of the Mehta & Mehta Group of Companies, Jagmohan is looking to invest in Chamba with Manav. Over time, Jagmohan and Tara become friendly with each other.


title: Taal (film)

text: Eventually, Mansi and Manav fall in love. Reluctant after knowing this, Jagmohan disapproves of Mansi due to her poor socio-economic background. After learning the same, Tara is earlier angry but later reaches Mumbai to visit his journalist cousin Prabha, and to meet the Mehtas. Unfortunately, the family insults Tara. Deeply hurt, he leaves with Mansi, who breaks up with Manav.


title: Taal (film)

text: Mansi soon meets famous music producer and director Vikrant Kapoor, who happens to be Tara's fan. She signs a 3-year contract with him, and performs dance numbers and remixes of his productions and Tara's songs. She wins awards and becomes a sensation. Slowly, Vikrant begins falling for Mansi. Manav finds out his family was in the wrong when they ill-treated Mansi and Tara.


title: Taal (film)

text: Manav goes to apologise to Mansi for what his family did. She rejects him out of grief for how Tara was treated. Vikrant learns of Mansi's past with Manav. Ignoring it, he proposes to her. She eventually accepts it. After winning an award in Canada, Mansi returns to India to prepare their marriage. Jagmohan and Tara patch things up after the former realises his mistake and apologises.


title: Taal (film)

text: On the wedding day, Vikrant realises Mansi loves Manav. He assures her they can still be friends, and urges her to honour her love to Manav. Jagmohan and Tara also give their blessings; Manav and Mansi finally get married. The Mehtas take a family picture after the wedding, as the film ends...


title: Taal (film)

text: The soundtrack of the film was composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Anand Bakshi. The soundtrack was released on 12 June 1999 and it become a major critical and commercial success. At a press conference, Ghai remarked, "I credit the name of the movie to composer A. R. Rahman. This movie is a romance and I could have called it any thing – "Dil", "Pyaar", "Hum Bhaag Gaye", but it was Rahman's presence in the movie that gave me the confidence to call it "Taal". "Taal" means music and music means "Taal". The whole credit goes to A. R. Rahman and Anand Bakshi. Rahman kept me awake many nights, but after listening to the songs, I felt it was worth all the trouble."


title: Taal (film)

text: The soundtrack became a tremendous success, and was sold more than 1.85million units within a month of its release. It went on to sell 4million units, becoming the best-selling soundtrack for a 1999 Hindi film. The soundtrack made the list of "Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks of All Time", as compiled by "Planet Bollywood".


title: Taal (film)

text: "Taal" was a critical and commercial success in India netting 22 crore in India on a budget of 11.50 crore, and also performed well internationally. In the United States, it became the first Indian film to reach the top 20 on "Variety"'s box office list. The final worldwide gross collection of the film stands at 51.16 crore, making it the 4th highest grossing Bollywood film of 1999. "Taal" was screened at the Chicago International Film Festival and selected by Roger Ebert for his 2005 Overlooked Film Festival.


title: Taal (film)

text: Anil Kapoor won many awards for his role as Vikrant Kapoor (the role went to him after Govinda declined it) including the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Zee Cine Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor. Alka Yagnik won the Best Female Playback Singer for the song "Taal Se Taal Mila". Composer A. R. Rahman also received a number of awards for his work in the film, including the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, the IIFA Award for Best Music Director, and the Zee Cine Award for Best Music Director. Aishwarya Rai was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress and the Screen Award for Best Actress.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Arcadia () refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word "Arcadia" to develop into a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness. Arcadia is a poetic term associated with bountiful natural splendor and harmony. The 'Garden' is often inhabited by shepherds. The concept also figures in Renaissance mythology. Although commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals, Arcadia differs from that tradition in that it is more often specifically regarded as unattainable. Furthermore, it is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, contrasting to the progressive nature of Utopian desires.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The inhabitants were often regarded as having continued to live after the manner of the Golden Age, without the pride and avarice that corrupted other regions. It is also sometimes referred to in English poetry as Arcady. The inhabitants of this region bear an obvious connection to the figure of the noble savage, both being regarded as living close to nature, uncorrupted by civilization, and virtuous.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: According to Greek mythology, Arcadia of Peloponnesus was the domain of Pan, a virgin wilderness home to the god of the forest and his court of dryads, nymphs and other spirits of nature. It was one version of paradise, though only in the sense of being the abode of supernatural entities, not an afterlife for deceased mortals.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In the 3rd century BCE the Greek poet Theocritus wrote idealised views of the lives of peasants in Arcadia for his fellow educated inhabitants of the squalid and disease-ridden city of Alexandria.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Greek mythology inspired the Roman poet Virgil to write his "Eclogues", a series of poems set in Arcadia.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Arcadia has remained a popular artistic subject since antiquity, both in visual arts and literature. Images of beautiful nymphs frolicking in lush forests have been a frequent source of inspiration for painters and sculptors. Because of the influence of Virgil in medieval European literature, e. g. in "Divine Comedy", "Arcadia" became a symbol of pastoral simplicity. European Renaissance writers (for instance, the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega) often revisited the theme, and the name came to apply to any idyllic location or paradise. Unlike "utopia", which Saint Thomas More innovated by authoring his book "Utopia", "Arcadia" connotes not a human civilization, yet rather a spontaneous result of life lived naturally and thus not corrupted by civilization.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Of particular note is "Et in Arcadia Ego" by Nicolas Poussin, which has become famous both in its own right and because of its (possible) connection with the gnostic histories or the Rosicrucians. In 1502 Jacopo Sannazaro published his long poem "Arcadia" that fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyllic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In the 1580s Sir Philip Sidney circulated copies of his influential heroic romance poem "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia", which established Arcadia as an icon of the Renaissance; although the story is plentifully supplied with shepherds and other pastoral characters, the primary characters are all royal visitors of the countryside. In 1598 the Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega published "Arcadia: Prose and Verse", which was a bestseller at the time. In it de Vega writes:


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Though depicted as contemporary, this pastoral form is often connected with the Golden Age. It may be suggested that its inhabitants have merely continued to live as persons did in the Golden Age, and all other nations have less pleasant lives because they have allowed themselves to depart from original simplicity.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The 16th-century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano applied the name "Arcadia" to the entire North American Atlantic coast north of Virginia. In time, this mutated to "Acadia". The "Dictionary of Canadian Biography" says: "Arcadia, the name Verrazzano gave to Maryland or Virginia 'on account of the beauty of the trees', made its first cartographical appearance in the 1548 Gastaldo map and is the only name on that map to survive in Canadian usage. . . . In the 17th century Champlain fixed its present orthography, with the 'r' omitted, and Ganong has shown its gradual progress northwards, in a succession of maps, to its resting place in the Atlantic Provinces".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Revival of Mi'kmaq language has provided strong reason to believe that Verrazzano was informed by the name the Mi'kmaq gave to this place. The name Acadie may be derived from the Mi'kmaq, because in their language the word “cadie” means "place of abundance” and can be found in names such as “Tracadie” and “Shubenacadie”.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In 1848, Judge Samuel Treat, of St. Louis described life of the early settlers in the Midwest with the sentence "Each family produced whatever was necessary for its own consumption, and lived in almost Arcadian simplicity."


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Composer W. S. Gilbert used the concept of Arcadia in his musicals "Happy Arcadia" (1872) and "Iolanthe" (1882).


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Around 1880, the German painter Wilhelm von Kaulbach produced an etching, named "Faust und Helena in Arkadien". Faust and Helena are shown in the Arcadian grove, at the place of cheerful poetry, where they produced a son, Euphorion. He represent the spirit of antiquity married to the Nordic-German spirit, as an allegory of German-Greek poetry.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The American painter Thomas Eakins produced a series of Arcadian works in the 1880´s: His painting "In Arcadia", which was an "unusual venture into mythology, tackled using the most modern of methods: the camera" and a relief with nearly 20 sculptures, paintings and phothographs connected with it. The atmosphere of the relief has been described as "vespertinal mixture of sadness and tranquility", a "sylvan realm far removed from the realities in 1883 Philadelphia". New York magazine critic Mark Stevens wrote "His [Eakins] joy in the natural body rarely made its way into his major paintings, perhaps because the subject was so personally complex for him. Only in his great ""Swimming"", which shows naked young men at a swimming hole, did he create an American Arcadia."


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Easkins student Thomas Pollock Anshutz (1851-1912) had a long preoccupation painting "Arcadian subjects".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In 1945, Evelyn Waugh sub-titled the first part of his novel "Brideshead Revisited" "Et in Arcadia ego".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude", the founder and patriarch of the Macondo community bears the name José Arcadio Buendía. Over the course of the novel, Arcadio becomes a multigenerational patronym that resonates with many of the other utopian tropes explored elsewhere in the text.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In the anime series "Captain Harlock", the ship in which he travels is known as the "Arcadia". He calls it the place "to fight and live for our freedom [and dreams]".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In the 1985 novel "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, the character of Judge Holden names his rifle "Et in Arcadia ego".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The 1985 Arcadia (band) were a spin-off musical group formed by three members of the band Duran Duran.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In 1988, experimental / industrial / post punk / psychedelic art and music collective Psychic TV released the song "Just Like Arcadia."


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In 1993, Tom Stoppard wrote "Arcadia" (originally to have been titled "Et in Arcadia ego"), a play involving themes of classical beauty and order in nature.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Rock band The Libertines have referenced Arcadia as the destination their imaginary ship "Albion" sails towards.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In fantasy literature, Arcadia has been used as a magical realm, respective to the fictional universe in which the story occurs. Arcadia Darell is the name of a character in "Second Foundation" by Isaac Asimov.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In the movie "", the characters seek to travel to Arcadia, Alaska, which is promised to be free of zombies.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In "", it is revealed that Arcadia refers to the USS "Arcadia", a ship that collects survivors for Human subject research.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: A number of role-playing games have adopted the idea, either using it as a separate realm within the multiverse (à la the Arcadia of the Dungeons & Dragons universe), or even using it as the central focus of an entire game system (as in White Wolf's game). In , Arcadia is presented as a hellish realm, where humans abducted by the True Fae are subject to unimaginable torment and torture, in sharp contrast to its usual utopian description. "Dragonhaven", a young adult fantasy novel by Robin McKinley, ends with the phrase "Arcadiae vias peregrinentur," which the author has stated roughly translates to "May they walk in Arcadia". According to the best-selling PC-game "The Longest Journey", Arcadia was divided from the primordial original world, and represents fantasy, dreams and magic, while our world, Stark, is the world of science and technology. In the game "BioShock", Arcadia is a level in which the protagonist has to navigate through an artificial forest. Arcadia was created by Dr. Julie Langford. This forest provides the oxygen for the rest of the underwater city of Rapture, and was used as a peaceful retreat for the citizens. Arcadia is the name of the world in the Sega Dreamcast game "Skies of Arcadia" in which the inhabitants live on floating islands and continents, and fly through the skies in airships. "Neo Arcadia" is the name given to the now center-of-the-world paradise city in the post-apocalyptic world of the "Mega Man Zero" series, as a place where humans and reploids live together side by side, though the Neo Arcadian government proves to be overbearing & ruthless in the fight against mavericks, going so far as to unjustly condemn innocent reploids to retirement(i.e. death). As such, they are the main antagonistic force throughout the majority of the "Zero" series.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: In "The Longest Journey" and "Dreamfall" PC games, Arcadia is a realm of magic which the player is transported to.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The name has been connected with the pseudo-history of the Freemasons - in particular the Latin motto "Et in Arcadia ego" ("Even in Arcadia, I [Death] exist.")


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: The phrase is used frequently in conspiracy fiction and lore, such as the pseudo-historical work "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and the novel "The Da Vinci Code", where it is interpreted as an anagram of "I! Tego Arcana Dei" ("Begone! I know the secrets of God").


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Arcadia is the name given to the second-city of the Time Lord's home-planet Gallifrey in the British sci-fi TV series "Doctor Who".


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: "The Gods of Arcadia" is a sci-mythology series by Andrea Stehle. It is a world in mankind's future controlled by the gods of ancient Greece.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Arcadia is used in title the last two episodes of of "", "Et In Arcadi Ego", "In Arcadia I am," referencing the synthezoids' planet Coppelius.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Arcadia is released as one of the singles from Lana Del Rey's Blue Banisters, possibly referring to the Californian city of the same name.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: Divergence of Darkness, the alternate history mod for the grand strategy video game Victoria 2, uses the name Arcadia for that universe’s USA equivalent.


title: Arcadia (utopia)

text: "Lawrence of Arcadia" is the first song on the album "Strip Me Bare", released by David Keenan in 2018.


title: Culture war

text: A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values.


title: Culture war

text: Its contemporary use refers to a social phenomenon in which multiple social groups, holding distinct values and ideologies, attempt to steer public policy in opposition to each other, thus a culture war now describes "hot button" or "polarizing" social issues in politics and public policy.


title: Culture war

text: Contemporary wedge issues include abortion, homosexuality, transgender rights, pornography, multiculturalism, racism and other cultural conflicts based on values, morality, and lifestyle which are described as the major political cleavage.


title: Culture war

text: The term "culture war" is a loan translation (calque) of the German "Kulturkampf" ('culture struggle'). In German, "Kulturkampf", a term coined by Rudolf Virchow, refers to the clash between cultural and religious groups in the campaign from 1871 to 1878 under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of the German Empire against the influence of the Catholic Church. The translation was printed in some American newspapers at the time.


title: Culture war

text: In American usage, "culture war" may imply a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal. This usage originated in the 1920s when urban and rural American values came into closer conflict. This followed several decades of immigration to the States by people who earlier European immigrants considered 'alien'. It was also a result of the cultural shifts and modernizing trends of the Roaring '20s, culminating in the presidential campaign of Al Smith in 1928. In subsequent decades during the 20th century, the term was published occasionally in American newspapers.


title: Culture war

text: James Davison Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, introduced the expression again in his 1991 publication, "". Hunter described what he saw as a dramatic realignment and polarization that had transformed American politics and culture.


title: Culture war

text: He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issues—abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, censorship—there existed two definable polarities. Furthermore, not only were there a number of divisive issues, but society had divided along essentially the same lines on these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological world-views.


title: Culture war

text: Hunter characterized this polarity as stemming from opposite impulses, toward what he referred to as "Progressivism" and as "Orthodoxy". Others have adopted the dichotomy with varying labels. For example, Bill O'Reilly, a conservative political commentator and former host of the Fox News Channel talk show "The O'Reilly Factor", emphasizes differences between "Secular-Progressives" and "Traditionalists" in his 2006 book "Culture Warrior".


title: Culture war

text: Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez attributes the 1990s emergence of culture wars to the end of the Cold War in 1991. She writes that Evangelical Christians viewed a particular Christian masculine gender role as the only defense of America against the threat of communism. When this threat ended upon the close of the Cold War, Evangelical leaders transferred the perceived source of threat from foreign communism to domestic changes in gender roles and sexuality.


title: Culture war

text: During the 1992 presidential election, commentator Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for president against incumbent George H. W. Bush. In a prime-time slot at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Buchanan gave his speech on the culture war. He argued: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself." In addition to criticizing environmentalists and feminism, he portrayed public morality as a defining issue:


title: Culture war

text: The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America—abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units—that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country.


title: Culture war

text: A month later, Buchanan characterized the conflict as about power over society's definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation and popular culture as major fronts—and mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the Confederate flag, Christmas, and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his "culture war" speech received was itself evidence of America's polarization.


title: Culture war

text: The culture war had significant impact on national politics in the 1990s. The rhetoric of the Christian Coalition of America may have weakened president George H. W. Bush's chances for re-election in 1992 and helped his successor, Bill Clinton, win reelection in 1996. On the other hand, the rhetoric of conservative cultural warriors helped Republicans gain control of Congress in 1994.


title: Culture war

text: The culture wars influenced the debate over state-school history curricula in the United States in the 1990s. In particular, debates over the development of national educational standards in 1994 revolved around whether the study of American history should be a "celebratory" or "critical" undertaking and involved such prominent public figures as Lynne Cheney, the late Rush Limbaugh, and historian Gary Nash.


title: Culture war

text: A political view called neoconservatism shifted the terms of the debate in the early 2000s. Neoconservatives differed from their opponents in that they interpreted problems facing the nation as moral issues rather than economic or political issues. For example, neoconservatives saw the decline of the traditional family structure as a spiritual crisis that required a spiritual response. Critics accused neoconservatives of confusing cause and effect.


title: Culture war

text: During the 2000s, voting for Republicans began to correlate heavily with traditionalist or orthodox religious belief across diverse religious sects. Voting for Democrats became more correlated to liberal or modernist religious belief, and to being nonreligious. Belief in scientific conclusions, such as climate change, also became tightly coupled to political party affiliation in this era, causing climate scholar Andrew Hoffman to observe that climate change had "become enmeshed in the so-called culture wars."


title: Culture war

text: Topics traditionally associated with culture war were not prominent in media coverage of the 2008 election season, with the exception of coverage of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who drew attention to her conservative religion and created a performative climate change denialism brand for herself. Palin's defeat in the election and subsequent resignation as governor of Alaska caused the Center for American Progress to predict "the coming end of the culture wars," which they attributed to demographic change, particularly high rates of acceptance of same-sex marriage among millennials.


title: Culture war

text: While traditional culture war issues, notably abortion, continue to be a focal point, the issues identified with culture war broadened and intensified in the mid-late 2010s. Journalist Michael Grunwald says that "President Donald Trump has pioneered a new politics of perpetual culture war" and lists the Black Lives Matter movement, U.S. national anthem protests, climate change, education policy, healthcare policy including Obamacare, and infrastructure policy as culture war issues in 2018. The rights of transgender people and the role of religion in lawmaking were identified as "new fronts in the culture war" by political scientist Jeremiah Castle, as the polarization of public opinion on these two topics resemble that of previous culture war issues. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum described opposition to wearing face masks as a "senseless" culture war issue that jeopardizes human safety.


title: Culture war

text: This broader understanding of culture war issues in the mid-late 2010s and 2020s is associated with a political strategy called "owning the libs." Conservative media figures employing this strategy, emphasize and expand upon culture war issues with the goal of upsetting liberal people. According to Nicole Hemmer of Columbia University, this strategy is a substitute for the cohesive conservative ideology that existed during the Cold War. It holds a conservative voting bloc together in the absence of shared policy preferences among the bloc's members.


title: Culture war

text: A number of conflicts about diversity in popular culture occurring in the 2010s, such as the Gamergate harassment campaign, Comicsgate and the Sad Puppies science fiction voting campaign, were identified in the media as being examples of the culture war. Journalist Caitlin Dewey described Gamergate as a "proxy war" for a larger culture war between those who want greater inclusion of women and minorities in cultural institutions versus anti-feminists and traditionalists who do not. The perception that culture war conflict had been demoted from electoral politics to popular culture led writer Jack Meserve to call popular movies, games, and writing the "last front in the culture war" in 2015.


title: Culture war

text: These conflicts about representation in popular culture re-emerged into electoral politics via the alt-right and alt-lite movements. According to media scholar Whitney Phillips, Gamergate "prototyped" strategies of harassment and controversy-stoking that proved useful in political strategy. For example, Republican political strategist Steve Bannon publicized pop-culture conflicts during the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump, encouraging a young audience to "come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump."


title: Culture war

text: Since the time that James Davison Hunter first applied the concept of culture wars to American life, the idea has been subject to questions about whether "culture wars" names a real phenomenon, and if so, whether the phenomenon it describes is a cause of, or merely a result of, membership in groups like political parties and religions. Culture wars have also been subject to the criticism of being artificial, imposed, or asymmetric conflicts, rather than a result of authentic differences between cultures.


title: Culture war

text: Researchers have differed about the scientific validity of the notion of culture war. Some claim it does not describe real behavior, or that it describes only the behavior of a small political elite. Others claim culture war is real and widespread, and even that it is fundamental to explaining Americans' political behavior and beliefs.


title: Culture war

text: Political scientist Alan Wolfe participated in a series of scholarly debates in the 1990s and 2000s against Hunter, claiming that Hunter's concept of culture wars did not accurately describe the opinions or behavior of Americans, which Wolfe claimed were more united than polarized.


title: Culture war

text: A meta-analysis of opinion data from 1992 to 2012 published in the "American Political Science Review" concluded that, in contrast to a common belief that political party and religious membership shape opinion on culture war topics, instead opinions on culture war topics lead people to revise their political party and religious orientations. The researchers view culture war attitudes as "foundational elements in the political and religious belief systems of ordinary citizens."


title: Culture war

text: Some writers and scholars have said that culture wars are created or perpetuated by political special interest groups, by reactionary social movements, by dynamics within the Republican party, or by electoral politics as a whole. These authors view culture war not as an unavoidable result of widespread cultural differences, but as a technique used to create in-groups and out-groups for a political purpose.


title: Culture war

text: Political commentator E. J. Dionne has written that culture war is an electoral technique to exploit differences and grievances, remarking that the real cultural division is "between those who want to have a culture war and those who don't."


title: Culture war

text: Sociologist Scott Melzer says that culture wars are created by conservative, reactive organizations and movements. Members of these movements possess a "sense of victimization at the hands of a liberal culture run amok. In their eyes, immigrants, gays, women, the poor, and other groups are (undeservedly) granted special rights and privileges." Melzer writes about the example of the National Rifle Association of America, which he says intentionally created a culture war in order to unite conservative groups, particularly groups of white men, against a common perceived threat.


title: Culture war

text: Similarly, religion scholar Susan B. Ridgely has written that culture wars were made possible by Focus on the Family. This organization produced conservative Christian "alternative news" that began to bifurcate American media consumption, promoting a particular "traditional family" archetype to one part of the population, particularly conservative religious women. Ridgely says that this tradition was depicted as under liberal attack, seeming to necessitate a culture war to defend the tradition.


title: Culture war

text: Political scientists Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins have written about an asymmetry between the US's two major political parties, saying the Republican party should be understood as an ideological movement built to wage political conflict, and the Democratic party as a coalition of social groups with less ability to impose ideological discipline on members. This encourages Republicans to perpetuate and to draw new issues into culture wars, because Republicans are well equipped to fight such wars.


title: Culture war

text: According to "The Guardian", "many on the left have argued that such [culture war] battles [a]re 'distractions' from the real fight over class and economic issues."


title: Culture war

text: Some observers in Canada have used the term "culture war" to refer to differing values between Western versus Eastern Canada, urban versus rural Canada, as well as conservatism versus liberalism and progressivism.


title: Culture war

text: Nevertheless, Canadian society is generally not dramatically polarized over immigration, gun control, drug legality, sexual morality, or government involvement in healthcare: the main issues at play in the United States. In all of those cases, the majority of Canadians, including Conservatives would support the "progressive" position in the United States. In Canada a different set of issues create a clash of values. Chief among these are language policy in Canada, minority religious rights, pipeline politics, indigenous land rights, climate policy, and federal-provincial disputes.


title: Culture war

text: It is a relatively new phrase in Canadian political commentary. It can still be used to describe historical events in Canada, such as the Rebellions of 1837, Western Alienation, the Quebec sovereignty movement, and any ; but is more relevant to current events such as the Grand River land dispute and the increasing hostility between conservative and liberal Canadians. The phrase has also been used to describe the Harper government's attitude towards the arts community. Andrew Coyne termed this negative policy towards the arts community as "class warfare."


title: Culture war

text: During the tenure of the Liberal–National Coalition government of 1996 to 2007, interpretations of Aboriginal history became a part of a wider political debate regarding Australian national pride and symbolism occasionally called the "culture wars", more often the "history wars".<ref name="Manne11/08"></ref> This debate extended into a controversy over the presentation of history in the National Museum of Australia and in high-school history curricula. It also migrated into the general Australian media, with major broadsheets such as "The Australian", "The Sydney Morning Herald" and "The Age" regularly publishing opinion pieces on the topic. Marcia Langton has referred to much of this wider debate as "war porn" and as an "intellectual dead end".


title: Culture war

text: Two Australian Prime Ministers, Paul Keating (in office 1991–1996) and John Howard (in office 1996–2007), became major participants in the "wars". According to Mark McKenna's analysis for the Australian Parliamentary Library, John Howard believed that Paul Keating portrayed Australia pre-Whitlam (Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975) in an unduly negative light; while Keating sought to distance the modern Labor movement from its historical support for the monarchy and for the White Australia policy by arguing that it was the conservative Australian parties which had been barriers to national progress. He accused Britain of having abandoned Australia during the Second World War. Keating staunchly supported a symbolic apology to Australian Aboriginals for their mistreatment at the hands of previous administrations, and outlined his view of the origins and potential solutions to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage in his Redfern Park Speech of 10 December 1992 (drafted with the assistance of historian Don Watson). In 1999, following the release of the 1998 "Bringing Them Home" Report, Howard passed a Parliamentary Motion of Reconciliation describing treatment of Aborigines as the "most blemished chapter" in Australian history, but he refused to issue an official apology. Howard saw an apology as inappropriate as it would imply "intergeneration guilt"; he said that "practical" measures were a better response to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage. Keating has argued for the eradication of remaining symbols linked to colonial origins: including deference for ANZAC Day, for the Australian flag and for the monarchy in Australia, while Howard supported these institutions. Unlike fellow Labor leaders and contemporaries, Bob Hawke (Prime Minister 1983–1991) and Kim Beazley (Labor Party leader 2005–2006), Keating never traveled to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day ceremonies. In 2008 he described those who gathered there as "misguided".


title: Culture war

text: In 2006 John Howard said in a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of "Quadrant" that "Political Correctness" was dead in Australia but: "we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft-left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia's universities". Also in 2006, "Sydney Morning Herald" political editor Peter Hartcher reported that Opposition foreign-affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd was entering the philosophical debate by arguing in response that "John Howard, is guilty of perpetrating 'a fraud' in his so-called culture wars ... designed not to make real change but to mask the damage inflicted by the Government's economic policies".


title: Culture war

text: The defeat of the Howard government in the Australian Federal election of 2007 and its replacement by the Rudd Labor government altered the dynamic of the debate. Rudd made an official apology to the Aboriginal "Stolen Generation" with bi-partisan support. Like Keating, Rudd supported an Australian republic, but in contrast to Keating, Rudd declared support for the Australian flag and supported the commemoration of ANZAC Day; he also expressed admiration for Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies.


title: Culture war

text: Subsequent to the 2007 change of government, and prior to the passage, with support from all parties, of the Parliamentary apology to indigenous Australians, Professor of Australian Studies Richard Nile argued: "the culture and history wars are over and with them should also go the adversarial nature of intellectual debate", a view contested by others, including conservative commentator Janet Albrechtsen.


title: Culture war

text: Climate change in Australia is also considered a highly divisive or politically controversial topic, to the point it is sometimes called a "culture war".


title: Culture war

text: According to political scientist Constance G. Anthony, American culture war perspectives on human sexuality were exported to Africa as a form of neocolonialism. In his view, this began during the AIDS epidemic in Africa, with the United States government first tying HIV/AIDS assistance money to evangelical leadership and the Christian right during the Bush administration, then to LGBTQ tolerance during the administration of Barack Obama. This stoked a culture war that resulted in (among others) the "Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act" of 2014.


title: Culture war

text: Zambian scholar Kapya Kaoma notes that because "the demographic center of Christianity is shifting from the global North to the global South" Africa's influence on Christianity worldwide is increasing. American conservatives export their culture wars to Africa, Kaoma says, particularly when they realize they may be losing the battle back home. US Christians have framed their anti-LGBT initiatives in Africa as standing in opposition to a "Western gay agenda", a framing which Kaoma finds ironic.


title: Culture war

text: North American and European conspiracy theories have become widespread in West Africa via social media, according to 2021 survey by "First Draft News". COVID-19 misinformation, New World Order conspiracy thinking, Qanon and other conspiracy theories associated with culture war topics are spread by American, Pro-Russian, French-language, and local disinformation websites and social media accounts, including prominent politicians in Nigeria. This has contributed to vaccine hesitancy in West Africa, with 60 percent of survey respondents saying they were unlikely to try to get vaccinated, and an erosion of trust in institutions in the region.


title: Culture war

text: The Chinese Civil War and Chinese Communist Revolution resulted in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949. Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 with the aim to attack the Four Olds - Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs. Between 1966 and 1976, the Red Guards destroyed the old society and killed the enemies of communism.


title: Culture war

text: A 2021 report from King’s College London argued that many people’s views on cultural issues in Britain have become tied up with the side of the Brexit debate with which they identify, while the public party-political identities, although not as strong, show similar alignments and that around half the country held relatively strong views on “culture war” issues such as debates on Britain’s colonial history or Black Lives Matter. However, the report concluded Britain's cultural and political divide was not as stark as the Republican-Democratic divide in the US and that a sizeable section of the public can be categorised as having either moderate views or as being disengaged from social debates. It also found that The Guardian as opposed to the centre-right newspapers were more likely to talk about the culture wars. The Conservative Party have been described as attempting to ignite culture wars in regard to "conservative values" under the tenure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, others argue that it is the left who are engaging in “culture wars” particularly against liberal values, accepted words and British institutions. Other observers, such as Johns Hopkins University professor Yascha Mounk and journalist Louise Perry have argued that a collapse in support for the Labour Party during the 2019 United Kingdom general election came as a result of both a public perception and a deliberate strategy of Labour of pursuing messages and policy ideas based on cultural issues that resonated with grassroots activists on the left of the party but alienated Labour's traditional working class voters. An April 2022 survey found evidence that Britons are less divided on "culture war" issues than has often been portrayed in the media. The greatest predictor of opinion was how people voted in the Uk's referendum on membership of the European Union, Brexit, yet even among those who voted 'Leave', 75% agreed "it is important to be attentive to issues of race and social justice". Similarly, even among Remainers and those who last voted for the Labour party, there was moderately strong support for several socially conservative positions.


title: Culture war

text: Several media outlets have described the Law and Justice party in Poland, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, and Janez Janša in Slovenia as igniting culture wars in their respective countries by encouraging fights over LGBT rights, legal abortion, and other topics. According to "The National Interest", there is a cultural war in Ukraine.


title: Culture war

text: After 2017, Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) government destroyed most of the Soviet War Memorials in Poland.


title: Culture war

text: In early 2018, both chambers of the Polish parliament (the Sejm and Senate) adopted an Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, criminalizing the ascription to Poles collectively of complicity in World War II Jewish-Holocaust-related or other war crimes committed by the Axis powers, and condemning use of the expression, "Polish death camp". The law sparked a crisis in Israel–Poland relations. The Amendment's passage worsened Poland–Ukraine relations, already contentious on the questions of the prewar Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the wartime and postwar Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose leaders Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych have been considered Ukrainian national heroes in Ukraine, and war criminals in Poland. Historical issues regarding the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and their massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia remain a contested topic. Ukrainian memory laws (the Ukrainian decommunization laws) passed in 2015, honoring UPA, related organizations and its members, were criticized in Poland.


title: Culture war

text: In June 2020, the Polish President Andrzej Duda said that he would not allow gay couples to marry or adopt children, while describing the LGBT movement as "a foreign ideology" and comparing it to the communist indoctrination in Polish schools during the PRL period.


title: Culture war

text: In 2022 Princeton sociologist Kim Scheppele stated to NPR that culture wars has been used to disguise democratic backsliding in Victor Orbán led Hungary.


title: Business analyst

text: A business analyst (BA) is a person who processes, interprets and documents business processes, products, services and software through analysis of data. The role of a business analyst is to ensure business efficiency increases through their knowledge of both IT and business function.


title: Business analyst

text: Some tasks of a business analyst include creating detailed business analysis, budgeting and forecasting, planning and monitoring, variance analysis, pricing, reporting and defining business requirements for stakeholders. The business analyst role is applicable to four key areas/levels of business functions – operational, project, enterprise and competitive focuses. Each of these areas of business analysis have a significant impact on business performance, and assist in enhancing profitability and efficiency in all stages of the business process, and across all business functions.


title: Business analyst

text: Business analysis is defined by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIAB) as "a disciplined approach for introducing change to organisation" through management, processing, and interpretation of data in order to "identify and define the solution that will maximise the value delivered by an organisation to its stakeholders".


title: Business analyst

text: A business analyst's job description tends to include "creating detailed business analysis, outlining problems, opportunities and solutions for a business, budgeting and forecasting, planning and monitoring, variance and analysis, pricing, reporting, and defining business requirements and reporting back to stakeholders".


title: Business analyst

text: There are many business activities which the business analyst is involved in. Some areas in which business analysts can have an important role are in financial analysis, quality assurance, training, business policy and procedures, organisational development and solution testing. More specifically, business analysts are required to use the data which is gathered for the purpose of analysis and interpret greater meaning for the business. This can then be used to improve business performance through identifying areas for potential growth, cost reduction, understanding customer behaviour, and observing economic trends and forecasts, and then reacting appropriately.


title: Business analyst

text: Successful business analysts should influence the business environment by providing reliable guidance in decision making for the future through observing data which reflects the behaviour of the business in the past. Business analysts are essential at all levels of a business, as both tactical and strategic planning require analysts who help with "incremental improvements to products, business processes, and application".


title: Business analyst

text: Business analysts have an increasing need to provide a business with sustainable solutions. The Business Analyst "plays a key role in making sustainable choices, providing direction to business and influencing demand for specific technologies". Business analysis practices have the opportunity to use business data in a positive way, which can lead to the transition of a sustainable world.


title: Business analyst

text: Due to the range of applications a business analyst can have, there are specific areas in which they can function. Kathleen B. Haas describes the requirement of business analysts in four areas of business – operations focus, project focus, enterprise focus, and competitive focus.


title: Business analyst

text: Business analyst skills can be applied to a variety of roles within business processes. The IIBA describes a large number of job titles which business analysts can work in, which include:


title: Business analyst

text: Business analysts can also work in areas relating to project management, product management, software development, quality assurance and interaction design.


title: Business analyst

text: These skills are a combination of hard skills and soft skills. A business analyst should have knowledge in IT and/or business, but the combination of both of these fields is what makes a business analyst such a valuable asset to the business environment. As a minimum standard, a business analyst should have a "general understanding of how systems, products and tools work" in the business environment.


title: Business analyst

text: Some IT employees may transfer from the area of IT into a business analyst role, as their skills are often applicable in both.


title: Business analyst

text: There are a number of qualifications that can lead to a career as a business analyst. For example, the 'BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis qualification' provides an internationally recognised qualification. The IIBA also identifies three other key certifications as an association:


title: Business analyst

text: The combination of all these skills and qualifications provides the business environment with deeper understanding into the behaviour of markets, products, competitors, economies, and operations within and around a business.


title: Business analyst

text: A successful business analyst requires access to large amounts of data, and in the process of using this data they must be aware of challenges relating to data privacy, careful management of analytical resources, team success, and effective communication of results to external parties. Considering all these factors into their tasks reduces the risk of irregular and inaccurate conclusions being drawn.


title: Business analyst

text: Data privacy is an increasingly common issue, as social media and Big Data are becoming more prominent, and hence it is important for businesses to ensure that they handle and distribute only the necessary data to the appropriate employees.


title: Business analyst

text: Management of analytical resources is necessary for business analysts to consider, as there are many ways in which a business can implement high initial costs in the process of analysis of data, and hence resources should be carefully managed so as to not lose business profits.


title: Business analyst

text: Team functionality and success is important in all areas of business, and business analytics is no different. Business analysts work best in environments where group dynamics are balanced and teamwork is maximised to ensure the best conclusions are drawn from the data.


title: Business analyst

text: Effectively communicating to external parties is an important challenge for business analysts. The language a business analyst uses in their every-day job is likely to be difficult for other groups within and beyond the business to understand. Hence, it is essential that the business considers how they communicate their conclusions to others.


title: Business analyst

text: The IIBA is the international association for business analysts. Through this, business analysts can connect within their industry, learn about further qualifications they can access, and participate in events and programs globally.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: What's New, Scooby-Doo? is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation for Kids' WB. It is the ninth incarnation of the "Scooby-Doo" franchise that began with Hanna-Barbera's "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" and the first "Scooby-Doo" series in a decade, since "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" ended in 1991 and the first since both the foreclosure of Hanna-Barbera studios and William Hanna's death in 2001.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The show follows the format of "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!", in which Scooby-Doo, and his companions Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy, travel to varying locations solving mysteries; this format is modernized for "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", in which the characters utilize technology that did not exist at the time "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" first aired. It is the first television series in the franchise in which Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle and Mindy Cohn respectively portrayed the voices of Scooby-Doo, Daphne, and Velma, and where Casey Kasem made his comeback as Shaggy after five years of not voicing the character. This would also be the final "Scooby-Doo" series where Casey Kasem voices the character before his retirement in 2013 and his death in 2014, though he would still have voice work in the two following incarnations, "Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!" and "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated".


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The series premiered on September 14, 2002, and ran for three seasons before ending on July 21, 2006. The title song was performed by Canadian band Simple Plan. Reruns of the series have aired on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States. It also aired on Teletoon in Canada, and CBBC in the UK, then CITV.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The series first aired on Boomerang from January 9, 2006, until October 31, 2010. It returned to Boomerang's line-up on August 11, 2014, and left the schedule again on June 26, 2016. It returned again on February 6, 2017, replacing "The Smurfs", and left the schedule again on April 2, 2017.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: In 2019, the show was made available to stream on Netflix in the US. In 2021, the rights were turned over to HBO Max.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: For this incarnation of the franchise, Frank Welker, the voice of Fred, took over as the voice of Scooby (replacing both Don Messick, the original voice of Scooby who died in 1997, and Scott Innes, the second voice of the character in the made-for-video films released between 1998 and 2001). Casey Kasem returned as Shaggy, making his comeback as the character in 2002 after the production team decided to make Shaggy a vegetarian. This would also be the final series Kasem voiced the character, continuing to voice Shaggy in the direct-to-video "Scooby-Doo" films until retiring from the role in 2009; Grey DeLisle returned as the role of Daphne (having previously voiced the character in "Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase"). Actress Mindy Cohn took over for B. J. Ward as the role of Velma.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The series itself is a modernized version of the original "Where Are You!" series. It takes place in the 21st century and is more "realistic" than the previous, more cartoony incarnations, and features music from contemporary genres and all-new, original sound effects to replace the classic Hanna-Barbera sound effects. Even a distinctive thunderclap sound that was used frequently on older Scooby-Doo TV series was very rarely used on the series. A laugh track was only used for the Halloween special. The classic formula was also frequently parodied throughout (in a manner similar to "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo"), including the line "And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids." As such, it returns to the formulaic version of humans in monster disguises, rather than the real monsters and ghosts of the prior four direct-to-video films (or the 1980s versions that preceded them).


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The show was produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons which was the studio famous for bringing the "Looney Tunes"/"Merrie Melodies" to life, which had by this time absorbed Hanna-Barbera Productions in 2001, after being bought by Time Warner from Turner Broadcasting System since their merger on October 10, 1996. As is the standard for other classic Hanna-Barbera properties ("Yogi Bear", "The Flintstones", "Wacky Races", etc.), the studio is still credited as the copyright owner, and Joseph Barbera, co-founder and co-chairman of the Hanna-Barbera studios, served as an executive producer alongside Sander Schwartz. William Hanna, longtime partner of Barbera, had died the year before. Wang Film Productions, DongWoo Animation Co. Ltd, and Lotto Animation contributed some of the animation for this series.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: It is the first Scooby-Doo series to be produced in 16:9 widescreen, although it was cropped in 4:3 when broadcast.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: The band Simple Plan is strongly connected to "What's New, Scooby-Doo?". They perform the theme song (written by Rich Dickerson), and appeared as themselves in the episode "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman". Two of their songs appeared in chase scenes: "I'd Do Anything" in the episode "It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine" and "You Don't Mean Anything" in "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman", which also had the song "The Worst Day Ever" serve as the song the band plays during a scene where they practice, and a scene where they are in concert. Also, they contributed to the theatrical movie "".


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: Each season included one holiday-themed special along with the other 13 regular episodes. The first season's special was "A Scooby-Doo Christmas" (2002), followed by "A Scooby-Doo Halloween" (2003) and "A Scooby-Doo Valentine" (2005).


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: "What's New" aired for three seasons on The WB Television Network's "Kids' WB" programming block as a half-hour program, before being put on an indefinite hiatus in 2005, although the last episode, "E-Scream", was aired on Cartoon Network. Reruns have been shown on both Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang. It also debuted on Boomerang and Cartoon Network in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the United Kingdom, it aired on CBBC from September 2003 until November 2015., and aired on CITV in 2016. Since the 9th of July 2021, What's New Scooby Doo aired reruns on Cartoon Network UK.


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: Common Sense Media gave the series a three out of five stars, writing, "Parents need to know that while there aren't many life lessons to be learned from an episode of this show, kids will enjoy the antics of the Scooby gang as they stumble upon and solve mysteries. Only very young children might find the show's puzzles and monsters frightening."


title: What's New, Scooby-Doo?

text: Warner Home Video has released the entire series on DVD in Region 1. The series was initially released in ten volumes of four or five episodes between 2003 and 2006, as well as in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2006 and later re-released, in the United States, in season sets in 2007–2008. In the UK, the volumes were released in a two disc set on May 30, 2011. A box set was released on October 29, 2007 in the UK containing all ten volumes in a complete disc set.


title: Hubei

text: Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The provincial capital, Wuhan, serves as a major transportation hub and the political, cultural, and economic hub of central China.


title: Hubei

text: Hubei's name is officially abbreviated to "" (), an ancient name associated with the eastern part of the province since the State of E of the Western Zhou dynasty of –771 BCE; a popular name for Hubei is "" () (suggested by that of the powerful State of Chu, which existed in the area during the Eastern Zhou dynasty of 770 – 256 BCE). Hubei borders the provinces of Henan to the north, Anhui to the east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, and Shaanxi to the northwest. The high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang, in the west of the province.


title: Hubei

text: Hubei is the 7th-largest provincial economy of China, the second largest in the Central China region, the third largest in the South Central China region and the third largest among inland provinces. , Hubei's nominal GDP was US$ 787 billion (CNY 5 trillion) and its GDP (nominal) per capita exceeded US$13,000, making it the richest landlocked province, the richest province in the Central China region, and 2nd richest province in South Central China region after Guangdong.


title: Hubei

text: The Hubei region was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures. By the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC), the territory of today's Hubei formed part of the powerful State of Chu. Chu, nominally a tributary state of the Zhou dynasty, was itself an extension of the Chinese civilization that had emerged some centuries before in the north; but it was also a culturally unique blend of northern and southern culture, and developed into a powerful state that controlled much of the middle and lower Yangtze River, with power extending northwards into the North China Plain.


title: Hubei

text: During the Warring States period (475–221 BC) Chu became the major adversary of the upstart State of Qin to the northwest (in present-day Guanzhong, Shaanxi province), which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land: first its dominance over the Sichuan Basin, then (in 278 BC) its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, which had fled eastwards during Qin's wars of uniting China.