title: School corporal punishment

text: On 25 January 2000, the Supreme Court of Israel issued the landmark "Plonit" decision ruling that "corporal punishment of children by their parents is never educational", "always causes serious harm to the children" and "is indefensible". This decision repealed section 7 of article 27 of the Civil Wrongs Ordinance 1944, which provided a defence for the use of corporal punishment in childrearing, and stated that "the law imposes an obligation on state authorities to intervene in the family unit and to protect the child when necessary, including from his parents." Soon after, a new Pupils' Rights Law, 5760-2000 established (art. 10) that "it is the right of every pupil that discipline be maintained in the


title: School corporal punishment

text: educational institution in conformity with human dignity and, in that regard, he has the right not to be subjected to corporal or degrading disciplinary measures."


title: School corporal punishment

text: Although banned in 1947, corporal punishment is still commonly found in schools in the 2010s and particularly widespread in school sports clubs. In late 1987, about 60% of junior high school teachers felt it was necessary, with 7% believing it was necessary in all conditions, 59% believing it should be applied sometimes and 32% disapproving of it in all circumstances; while at elementary (primary) schools, 2% supported it unconditionally, 47% felt it was necessary and 49% disapproved. As recently as December 2012, a high school student died by suicide after having been constantly beaten by his basketball coach. An education ministry survey found that more than 10,000 students received illegal corporal punishment from more than 5,000 teachers across Japan in 2012 fiscal year alone.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment in schools was banned in 1845 and became a criminal offence in 1974 (Aggravated Assault on Minors under Authority).


title: School corporal punishment

text: Caning, usually applied to the palm or clothed bottom, is a common form of discipline in Malaysian schools. Although it is legally permitted for boys only, in practice the illegal caning of girls is not unknown. There have been reports of students being caned in front of the class/school for lateness, poor grades, being unable to answer questions correctly or forgetting to bring a textbook. In November 2007, in response to a perceived increase in indiscipline among female students, the National Seminar on Education Regulations (Student Discipline) passed a resolution recommending allowing the caning of girls at school.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Caning is commonly used by teachers as a punishment in schools. The cane is applied on the students' buttocks, calves or palms of the hands in front of the class. Sit-ups with ears pulled and arms crossed, kneeling, and standing on the bench in the classroom are other forms of punishment used in schools. Common reasons for punishment include talking in class, not finishing homework, mistakes made with classwork, fighting, and truancy.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In New Zealand's schools, corporal punishment was used commonly on both girls and boys. This was abolished in practice in 1987. However, teachers in New Zealand schools had the right to use what the law called reasonable force to discipline students, mainly with a strap, cane or ruler, on the bottom or the hand.


title: School corporal punishment

text: This was criminalised on 23 July 1990, when Section 139A of the Education Act 1989 was inserted by the Education Amendment Act 1990. Section 139A prohibits anyone employed by a school or early childhood education (ECE) provider, or anyone supervising or controlling students on the school's behalf, from using force by way of correction or punishment towards any student at or in relation to the school or the student under their supervision or control. Teachers who administer corporal punishment can be found guilty of physical assault, resulting in termination and cancellation of teacher registration, and possibly criminal charges, with a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.


title: School corporal punishment

text: As enacted, the law had a loophole: parents, provided they were not school staff, could still discipline their children on school grounds. In early 2007, a southern Auckland Christian school was found to be using this loophole to discipline students by corporal punishment, by making the student's parents administer the punishment. This loophole was closed in May 2007 by the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007, which enacted a blanket ban on parents administering corporal punishment to their children.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment in Norwegian schools was strongly restricted in 1889, and was banned outright in 1936. Nowadays, it is explicitly prohibited in sections 2.9 and 3.7 of the Education Act 1998,2 amended 2008: "Corporal punishment or other humiliating forms of treatment must not be used."


title: School corporal punishment

text: Article 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code does not prohibit actions, such as corporal punishment, subject to certain conditions (that no "grievous hurt" be caused, that the act should be done in "good faith", the recipient must be under 12 etc.). In 2013, the Pakistan National Assembly unanimously passed a bill that would override article 89 and ban all corporal punishment; however the bill did not pass in the senate. On the provincial level, corporal punishment was partially banned in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by two laws in 2010 and 2012, and banned by Sindh in schools in 2013. Balochistan tried to ban the practice in 2011 and Punjab tried to ban it in 2012, but neither bill passed the respective provincial assembly.


title: School corporal punishment

text: School corporal punishment in Pakistan is not very common in modern educational institutions although it is still used in schools across the rural parts of the country as a means of enforcing student discipline. The method has been criticised by some children's rights activists who claim that many cases of corporal punishment in schools have resulted in physical and mental abuse of schoolchildren. According to one report, corporal punishment is a key reason for school dropouts and subsequently, street children, in Pakistan; as many as 35,000 high school pupils are said to drop out of the education system each year because they have been punished or abused in school.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In 1783, Poland became the first country in the world to prohibit corporal punishment. Peter Newell assumes that perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke's work was highly influential, and may have helped influence Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland's schools in 1783. Today, the ban of corporal punishment in all forms, whether in schools or in the home, is vested in the Constitution of Poland.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment was banned in Soviet (and hence, Russian) schools immediately after the Russian Revolution. In addition, the Article 336 (since 2006) of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that "the use, including a single occurrence, of educational methods involving physical and/or psychological violence against a student or pupil" shall constitute grounds for dismissal of any teaching professional. Article 34 of the Law on Education 2012 states that students have the right to "(9) respect for human dignity, protection from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury personality, the protection of life and health"; article 43(3) states that "discipline in educational activities is provided on the basis of respect for human dignity of students and teachers" and "application of physical and mental violence to students is not allowed."


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment was first explicitly prohibited in schools in article 67 of the Law on Public Schools 1929, passed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was then a part. Other now independent countries which belonged to Yugoslavia then and to which the 1929 Law applied are: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Slovenia. In Serbia, corporal punishment in schools is now unlawful under the Law on Secondary Schools 1992, the Law on Elementary Schools 1992 and the Law on the Foundations of Education and Upbringing 2003/2009.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment of children remains legal in schools, homes, alternative care and day-care centres. Harsh caning of girls and boys remains very common in schools.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment is legal in Singapore schools, for male students only (it is illegal to inflict it on female students) and fully encouraged by the government in order to maintain discipline. Only a light rattan cane may be used. This is administered in a formal ceremony by the school management after due deliberation, not by classroom teachers. Most secondary schools (whether independent, autonomous or government-controlled), and also some primary schools, use caning to deal with misconduct by boys. At the secondary level, the rattan strokes are nearly always delivered to the student's clothed buttocks. The Ministry of Education has stipulated a maximum of three strokes per occasion. In some cases, the punishment is carried out in front of the rest of the school instead of in private.


title: School corporal punishment

text: The use of corporal punishment in schools was prohibited by the South African Schools Act, 1996. According to section 10 of the act:


title: School corporal punishment

text: In the case of "Christian Education South Africa v Minister of Education" the Constitutional Court rejected a claim that the constitutional right to religious freedom entitles private Christian schools to impose corporal punishment.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Liberal regions in South Korea have completely banned all forms of caning beginning with Gyeonggi Province in 2010, followed by Seoul Metropolitan City, Gangwon Province, Gwangju Metropolitan City and North Jeolla Province in 2011. Other more conservative regions are governed by a national law enacted in 2011 which states that while caning is generally forbidden, it can be used indirectly to maintain school discipline.


title: School corporal punishment

text: However, caning is still known to be practised indiscriminately on both boys and girls. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the caning of girls is not particularly unusual, and that they might be as likely to be caned as boys. Mass punishments in front of the class are common, and the large number of corporal punishment scenes in films suggest that caning is an accepted cultural norm in education.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Spain banned school corporal punishment in 1985 under article 6 of the Right to Education (Organization) Act 8/1985. Those who broke this law risked losing job and career; as a result, this historically well-entrenched practice soon disappeared. Eventually, all forms of corporal punishment were banned in Spain in 2007.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment at school has been prohibited in "folkskolestadgan" (the elementary school ordinance) since 1 January 1958. Its use by ordinary teachers in grammar schools had been outlawed in 1928. All forms of corporal punishment of children have been outlawed in Sweden since 1966.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In Tanzania, corporal punishment in schools is widely practised and has led to lasting damage, including the death of a punished pupil. The Education Act of 2002 authorizes the minister in charge of education to issue regulations concerning corporal punishment. The Education (Corporal Punishment) Regulation G.N. 294 of 2002 gives the authority to order corporal punishment to the headmaster of a school, who can delegate to any teacher on a case-by-case basis. The number of strikes must not be more than four for each occurrence. The school should have a register where date, reason, name of pupil and of administering teacher, together with the number of strikes, is to be recorded.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment in schools is officially illegal under the Ministry of Education Regulation on Student Punishment 2005.


title: School corporal punishment

text: The proverb "If you love your cow, tie it up; if you love your child, beat him" is still considered "wisdom" and is held by many Thai parents and teachers. Corporal punishment (especially caning) on students of both genders remains common and accepted in practice. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the caning of girls is not particularly unusual, and that they are just as likely to be caned as boys.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In Uganda, it is common practice for teachers to attempt to control large, overcrowded classes by corporal punishment. There is some movement of changing negative disciplining methods to positive ones (non-corporal), such as teaching students how to improve when they perform badly via verbal positive reinforcement.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In Ukraine, "physical or mental violence" against children is forbidden by the Constitution (Art.52.2) and the Law on Education (Art.51.1, since 1991) which states that students and other learners have the right "to the protection from any form of exploitation, physical and psychological violence, actions of pedagogical and other employees who violate the rights or humiliate their honour and dignity". Standard instructions for teachers provided by the Ministry of Science and Education state that a teacher who has used corporal punishment to a pupil (even once), shall be dismissed.


title: School corporal punishment

text: A federal law was implemented in 1998 which banned school corporal punishment. The law applied to all schools, both public and private. Any teacher who engages in the practice would not only lose their job and teaching license, but will also face criminal prosecution for engaging in violence against minors and will also face child abuse charges.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In state-run schools, and in private schools where at least part of the funding came from government, corporal punishment was outlawed by the British Parliament on 22 July 1986, following a 1982 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that such punishment could not be administered without parental consent, and that a child's "right to education" could not be infringed by suspending children who, with parental approval, refused to submit to corporal punishment. In other private schools, it was banned in 1998 (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland) and 2003 (Northern Ireland).


title: School corporal punishment

text: In 19th-century France, caning was dubbed "The English Vice", probably because of its widespread use in British schools. The regular depiction of caning in British novels about school life from the 19th century onwards, as well as movies such as "If...", which includes a dramatic scene of boys caned by prefects, contributed to the French perception of caning as being central to the British educational system.


title: School corporal punishment

text: The implement used in many state and private schools in England and Wales was often a rattan cane, struck either across the student's hands, legs, or the clothed buttocks. It had been very regularly used on both boys and girls in certain schools for centuries prior to the ban.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Sometimes, a long ruler was used on the bare legs or hands instead of a cane. Striking the buttocks (or sometimes hands) with a rubber-soled gym shoe, or plimsoll shoe (called slippering), was also widely used in many schools.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In Scotland, a leather strap, the tawse (sometimes called a belt), administered to the palms of the hands, was universal in state schools, but some private schools used the cane. This was wielded in primary as well as secondary schools for both trivial and serious offences, and girls got belted as well as boys. Nearly 6 in 10 girls were strapped in school. In a few English cities, a strap was used instead of the cane.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Schools had to keep a record of punishments inflicted, and there are occasional press reports of examples of these "punishment books" having survived.


title: School corporal punishment

text: By the 1970s, in the wake of the protest about school corporal punishment by thousands of school pupils who walked out of school to protest outside the Houses Of Parliament on 17 May 1972, corporal punishment was toned down in many state-run schools, and whilst many only used it as a last resort for misbehaving pupils, some state-run schools banned corporal punishment completely, most notably, London's Primary Schools, who had already began phasing out corporal punishment in the late 1960s.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Prior to the ban in private schools in England, the slippering of a student at an independent boarding school was challenged in 1993 before the European Court of Human Rights. The Court ruled 5–4 in that case that the punishment was not severe enough to infringe the student's "freedom from degrading punishment" under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The dissenting judges argued that the ritualised nature of the punishment, given after several days and without parental consent, should qualify it as "degrading punishment".


title: School corporal punishment

text: "R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment" (2005) was an unsuccessful challenge to the prohibition of corporal punishment contained in the Education Act 1996, by several headmasters of private Christian schools who argued that it was a breach of their religious freedom.


title: School corporal punishment

text: In response to a 2008 poll of 6,162 UK teachers by the "Times Educational Supplement", 22% of secondary school teachers and 16% of primary school teachers supported "the right to use corporal punishment in extreme cases". The National Union of Teachers said that it "could not support the views expressed by those in favour of hitting children".


title: School corporal punishment

text: There is no federal law addressing corporal punishment in public or private schools. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruling in "Ingraham v. Wright" held that the Eighth Amendment clause prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishments" did not apply to school students, and that teachers could punish children without parental permission.


title: School corporal punishment

text: As of 2019, 32 states and the District of Columbia have banned corporal punishment in public schools, though in some of these there is no explicit prohibition. Corporal punishment is also unlawful in private schools in Iowa and New Jersey. In 18 U.S. states, corporal punishment is lawful in both public and private schools. It is still common in some schools in the South, and more than 167,000 students were paddled in the 2011–2012 school year in American public schools. Students can be physically punished from kindergarten to the end of high school, meaning that even legal adults who have reached the age of majority are sometimes spanked by school officials. American legal scholars have argued that school paddling is unconstitutional and can cause lasting physical, emotional, and cognitive harm.


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment in all settings, including schools, was prohibited in Venezuela in 2007. According to the Law for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, "All children and young people have a right to be treated well. This right includes a non-violent education and upbringing... Consequently, all forms of physical and humiliating punishment are prohibited".


title: School corporal punishment

text: Corporal punishment is technically unlawful in schools under article 75 of the Education Law 2005, but there is no clear statement that corporal punishment is prohibited. Such punishment continues to be used, and there are frequent media reports of excessive corporal punishment in schools. The caning of girls is not particularly unusual, and girls are as likely to be caned at school as boys.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer, author, podcaster and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District. According to "The New York Times", Bharara was one of the "nation's most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors of public corruption and Wall Street crime" during his tenure.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Born in Firozpur, India, his family immigrated to New Jersey in 1970. Bharara graduated from Harvard College in 1990 and attended Columbia Law School before joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a litigation associate in 1993. Three years later he moved to Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where he did white-collar defense work. Bharara first entered the public sector as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer, charged with investigating the 2006 presidential dismissal of U.S. attorneys. He transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004 as an assistant U.S. Attorney, launching his career as a federal prosecutor. His office heavily prosecuted the Italian mafia, convicting four out of the Five Families of drug trafficking, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit murder. Bharara similarly headed various counter-terrorism cases, particularly against Al-Qaeda.


title: Preet Bharara

text: His office used a variety of unconventional tactics to close cases such as wiretapping and asset seizure. He prosecuted nearly 100 Wall Street executives for insider trading and securities fraud using these methods. Bharara closed multi-million dollar settlements with the four largest banks in the country, and most notably, shut down multiple high-profile hedge funds. Known for his technocratic approach to prosecution, he routinely convicted both Democratic and Republican politicians on public corruption violations. Bharara occasionally pursued criminals extraterritorially, which after a 2013 Russian money laundering investigation, had him permanently banned from entering Russia. He also strained India–United States diplomatic relations by prosecuting prominent members of the Indian and Indian-American community, most notably high-profile diplomats, chief executives, businessmen, and hedge fund managers.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Upon the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, Bharara was dismissed after refusing to submit his resignation as part of the 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys. After leaving government, he went into academia, joining New York University School of Law's criminal justice faculty. He authored his first book, "Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law", in 2019. He also launched a series of podcasts including "Stay Tuned with Preet", and "Doing Justice".


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara was born in 1968 in Firozpur, Punjab, India, to a Sikh father and Hindu mother. His parents immigrated to the United States in 1970, and Bharara became a U.S. citizen at age 12. He grew up in Eatontown in suburban Monmouth County, New Jersey and attended Ranney School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1986.


title: Preet Bharara

text: He received a Bachelor of Arts degree "magna cum laude" from Harvard College in 1990. He then received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1993, where he was a member of the "Columbia Law Review".


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 1993, Bharara joined the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a litigation associate. In 1996, Bharara joined the firm of Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where he did white-collar defense work. He was an assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan for five years, from 2000 to 2005, bringing criminal cases against the bosses of the Gambino crime family, Colombo crime family and Asian gangs in New York City. Bharara served as the chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer and played a leading role in the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary investigation into the firings of United States attorneys.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara was nominated to become U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2009, and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He was sworn into the position on August 13, 2009. In September 2014, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, Bharara was speculated as being a potential candidate as the next United States Attorney General.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara's office sent out agents to more than 25 countries to investigate suspects of arms and narcotics trafficking and terrorists, and bring them to Manhattan to face charges. One case involved Viktor Bout, an arms trafficker, who lived in Moscow and had a deal involving selling arms to Colombian terrorists. Bharara argued that this aggressive approach is necessary in post 9/11 era. Defense lawyers criticized the stings, calling Bharara's office "the Southern District of the World." They also argued that American citizens would not appreciate other countries' treating them in these ways. Countries have not always rushed to cooperate, according to a review of secret State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On April 13, 2013, Bharara was on a list released by the Russian Federation of Americans banned from entering the country over their alleged human rights violations. The list was a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list revealed by the United States the day before.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2012, Bharara was featured on a cover of "Time" magazine entitled "This Man is Busting Wall Street" for his office's prosecutions of insider trading and other financial fraud on Wall Street. From 2009 to 2012 (and ongoing), Bharara's office oversaw the Galleon Group insider trading investigation against Raj Rajaratnam, Rajat Gupta, Anil Kumar and more than 60 others. Rajaratnam was convicted at trial on 14 counts related to insider trading. Bharara is said to have "reaffirmed his office’s leading role in pursuing corporate crime with this landmark insider trading case, which relied on aggressive prosecutorial methods and unprecedented tactics."


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2011 when hedge fund portfolio manager Chip Skowron pleaded guilty to insider trading, Bharara said: "Chip Skowron is the latest example of a portfolio manager willing to pay for proprietary, non-public information that gave him an illegal trading edge over the average investor. The integrity of our market is damaged by people who engage in insider trading..." Skowron was sent to prison for five years. Bharara has often spoken publicly and written an op-ed about the culture surrounding corporate crime and its effect on market confidence and business risk.


title: Preet Bharara

text: After 85 straight convictions for insider-trading cases, he finally lost one on July 17, 2014, when a jury acquitted Rajaratnam's younger brother, Rengan, of such charges.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On October 22, 2015, Bharara dropped seven insider-trading cases two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to a review a lower court decision that would make it harder to pursue wrongful-trading cases. The conviction of Michael S. Steinberg was dropped; Steinberg was the highest-ranking officer of SAC Capital Advisors who had previously been convicted of insider trading.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2013, Bharara announced criminal and civil charges against one of the largest and most successful hedge-fund firms in the United States, SAC Capital Advisors LP, and its founder Steven A. Cohen. At USD$1.8 billion, it was the largest settlement ever for insider trading, and the firm also agreed to close down.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Citibank was charged numerous times by Bharara's office and other federal prosecutors. In 2012, the bank reached a settlement with Bharara's office to pay $158 million for misleading the government into insuring risky loans. Bharara also made a criminal inquiry into Citibank's Mexican unit. In 2014, Citi settled with federal prosecutors for $7 billion for ignoring warnings on risky loans.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Almost as soon as he took office, Bharara began investigating the role of Bernie Madoff's primary banker, JPMorgan Chase, in the fraud. Eventually Bharara and JPMorgan reached a deferred prosecution agreement that called for JPMorgan to forfeit $1.7 billion, the largest forfeiture ever demanded from a bank in American history—to settle charges that it and its predecessors violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to alert authorities about Madoff's actions.


title: Preet Bharara

text: His office also handled the criminal prosecutions of several employees at Madoff’s firm and their associates, who were convicted by a jury on March 24, 2014.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2012, federal prosecutors under Bharara sued Bank of America for $1 billion, accusing the bank of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis. In 2013, the jury found Bank of America liable for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac thousands of defective loans in the first mortgage-fraud case brought by the U.S. government to go to trial. The civil verdict also found the bank’s Countrywide Financial unit and former Countrywide executive Rebecca Mairone liable. However, in 2016 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the finding of fact by the jury that low-quality mortgages were supplied by Countrywide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac supported only "intentional breach of contract," not fraud. The action, for civil fraud, relied on provisions of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. The decision turned on lack of intent to defraud at the time the contract to supply mortgages was made.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2013, Bharara began investigating a money laundering fraud scheme in New York City operated by a Russian criminal organization. The alleged fraud links a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme from 2008 to eleven U.S. real estate corporations. The underlying tax refund fraud was first discovered by whistleblower and Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested under tax evasion charges, and within a year he was found dead in his prison cell—a suspicious circumstance. Bharara and his office stated that some of the illicit proceeds were laundered in the U.S. by purchasing luxury Manhattan and Brooklyn real estate, including a 35-story block that has a pool, roof terrace, Turkish bath and indoor golf course. One of the companies named in the complaint, Prevezon, at the time had assets that included four condo units in the Financial District, each valued close to or in excess of $1 million, a $4.4-million condo at 250 East 49th Street in Turtle Bay, and an unknown amount of funds on deposit in eight separate Bank of America accounts in the name of different limited-liability companies registered in New York.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In April 2013, Bharara gave the authorization to the FBI for the raid on Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov's apartment in Trump Tower.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In April 2013, the case was personal for Bharara after Russia included him on the list 18 U.S. individuals banned from entering Russia in retaliation to the Magnitsky act.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On September 10, 2013, with help from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and Cyrus Vance Jr., the District Attorney for New York County, Bharara's office announced that they had filed a civil forfeiture complaint, freezing $24 million in assets. If the court upholds the complaint, the government will seize the assets.


title: Preet Bharara

text: During his first year in office, Bharara charged 17 managers and employees of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims for defrauding Germany $42.5 million by creating thousands of false benefit applications for people who did not suffer in the Holocaust. The fraud, which had been going on for 16 years, was related to the $400 million that Germany pays out each year to Holocaust survivors.


title: Preet Bharara

text: During his time in office, Bharara oversaw multiple notable art-fraud cases including the $80-million Knoedler Gallery case, which was the largest art-fraud scheme in American history involving forged masterworks of artists Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and others. Bharara brought charges in the $2.5-million case of John Re, a man from East Hampton, New York, who sold forged artwork by Jackson Pollock and others and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Also Bharara charged Eric Spoutz, an American art dealer, with selling hundreds of fake paintings falsely attributed to American masters. Spoutz was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit the $1.45 million he made from the scheme and to pay $154,100 in restitution.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In March 2014, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged Toyota by information with one count of wire fraud for lying to consumers about two safety-related issues in the company’s cars, each of which caused unintended acceleration. Under the terms of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that Toyota entered into the same day the information was filed, Toyota agreed to pay a $1.2-billion financial penalty, the largest criminal penalty ever imposed on an auto manufacturer. The company also admitted the truth of a detailed statement of facts accompanying the DPA, and agreed to submit to a three-year monitorship.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara has said that "there is no prosecutor’s office in the state that takes more seriously the responsibility to root out public corruption in Albany and anywhere else that we might find it, and I think our record speaks for itself." During his tenure, Bharara has charged several current and former elected officials in public corruption cases, including Senator Vincent Leibell, Senator Hiram Monserrate, NYC Councilman Larry Seabrook, and Yonkers City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi. Bharara’s office uncovered an alleged corruption ring involving New York State Senator Carl Kruger. In April 2012, Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison. In February 2011, Bharara announced the indictment of five consultants working on New York City’s electronic payroll and timekeeping project, CityTime, for misappropriating more than $80 million from the project. The investigation has expanded with five additional defendants being charged, including a consultant who allegedly received more than $5 million in illegal kickbacks on the projects.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In early 2013, Bharara oversaw the conviction of New York City Police Department officer Gilberto Valle, who was part of an alleged plot to rape and then cook and eat (cannibalize) women.<ref name="Weiser 3/13/13 N.Y. Times A1"></ref> Bharara and his team argued that Valle had done more than hypothesize, think, or speculate (in online networks where such fantasies are discussed), but had moved on from being a possible danger to others to the criminal planning phase and had even visited the street where one of the women lived, at the behest of another defendant. However, the defense and others who objected to the verdict argued that all he had done was fantasize, not plan, and that such thoughts or online posts, however twisted, were still protected. The defense team (Robert Baum and Julia L. Gatto) may ask the judge to set aside the verdict, or may appeal. If he does keep the felony conviction and is sentenced, Valle would automatically no longer serve in law enforcement.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On April 2, 2013, Bharara unsealed federal corruption charges against New York State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, New York City Councilman Dan Halloran and several other Republican party officials. The federal complaint alleged that Smith attempted to secure a spot on the Republican ballot in the 2013 New York City mayoral election through bribery.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2014, Bharara's office began an inquiry into Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to end the work of the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel. After a "New York Times" report documenting Cuomo's staff's involvement with the commission and subsequent statements by commissioners defending the Governor, Bharara warned of obstruction of justice and witness tampering.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara made national headlines after investigating 11-term Speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver for taking millions of dollars in payoffs, leading to Silver's arrest in January 2015. Silver was subsequently convicted on all counts, triggering his automatic expulsion from the Assembly. Silver was replaced by the first African-American speaker Carl Heastie. During the Silver prosecution, Judge Valerie Caproni criticized Bharara's public statements, writing that "while castigating politicians in Albany for playing fast and loose with the ethical rules that govern their conduct, Bharara strayed so close to the edge of the rules governing his own conduct."


title: Preet Bharara

text: From 2009 to 2014, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has convicted more than 1,000 of approximately 1,300 people charged in 52 large-scale takedowns of street drug and drug trafficking organizations. On lowering violent crime rates, Bharara has said, "You can measure the number of people arrested and the number of shootings, but success is when you lift the sense of intimidation and fear." Bharara also oversaw the largest criminal sweep of gangs in Newburgh, New York, working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement agencies to bring charges against members of the Newburgh Bloods and Newburgh Latin Kings gangs, among others. In 2010, Bharara oversaw the prosecution of eight longshoremen on charges of participation in a multimillion-dollar cocaine trafficking enterprise along the Waterfront, operated by a Panamanian drug organization.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In January 2011, Bharara's office participated in a multi-state organized crime takedown, charging 26 members of the Gambino crime family with racketeering and murder, as well as narcotics and firearms charges. This action was part of a coordinated effort that also involved arrests in Brooklyn; Newark, New Jersey, and Providence, Rhode Island; according to the FBI, this was the largest single-day operation against the Mafia in U.S. history. In August 2016, Bharara's office charged 46 leaders, members, and associates of La Cosa Nostra—including four out of the Five Families (Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, and Bonanno)—in an extensive racketeering conspiracy.


title: Preet Bharara

text: At a news conference on September 7, 2016 following the arrests of Shimen Liebowitz and Aharon Goldberg, 2 rabbis implicated in the Kiryas Joel murder conspiracy, Bharara called it a "chilling plot," wherein the plotters "met repeatedly to plan the kidnapping and to pay more than $55,000 to an individual they believed would carry it out." The rabbis were convicted and sentenced to prison in 2017.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Under Bharara, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York "won a string of major terrorism trials." Bharara was an advocate of trying terrorists in civilian federal courts rather than in the military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; he contrasted his office's record of successfully convicting terrorists with the lengthy, secretive, and inefficient Guantanamo practice. In a 2014 interview, Bharara said the historical record would show that "greater transparency and openness and legitimacy" leads to "more serious and appropriate punishment." Citing his success in terrorism trials, Bharara stated: "These trials have been difficult, but they have been fair and open and prompt...in an American civilian courtroom, the American people and all the victims of terrorism can be vindicated without sacrificing our principles."


title: Preet Bharara

text: Some of the high-profile terrorist figures convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment during Bharara's term include Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law; Khalid al-Fawwaz and Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Osama bin Laden aides who plotted the 1998 United States embassy bombings that killed 224 people; Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, a cleric who masterminded the 1998 kidnappings of 16 American, British and Australian tourists in Yemen; and Faisal Shahzad, the attempted Times Square bomber. Bharara also won a conviction and 25-year sentence for international arms smuggler Viktor Bout.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In June 2012, "The New York Times" published an op-ed written by Bharara about the threat posed to private industry by cybercrime and encouraged corporate leaders to take preventive measures and create contingency plans.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara moved to shut down several of the world's largest Internet poker companies. He prosecuted several payment processors for Internet poker companies, securing guilty pleas for money laundering. In April 2011, Bharara charged 11 founding members of internet gambling companies and their associates involved with pay processing with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The case is "United States v. Scheinberg".


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara and his office came to the limelight again in December 2013 with the arrest of Devyani Khobragade, the Deputy Consul General of India in New York, who was accused by prosecutors of submitting false work visa documents for her housekeeper and paying the housekeeper "far less than the minimum legal wage." The ensuing incident caused protests from the Indian government and a rift in India–United States relations; Indians expressed outrage that Khobragade was strip-searched (a routine practice for all U.S. Marshals Service arrestees) and held in the general inmate population. The Indian government retaliated for what it viewed as the mistreatment of its consular official by revoking the ID cards and other privileges of U.S. consular personnel and their families in India and removing security barriers in front of the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Khobragade was subject to prosecution at the time of her arrest because she had only consular immunity (which gives one immunity from prosecution only for acts committed in connection with official duties) and not the more extensive diplomatic immunity. After her arrest, the Indian government moved Khobragade to the Indian's mission to the United Nations, upgrading her status and conferring diplomatic immunity on her; as a result, the federal indictment against Khobragade was dismissed in March 2014, although the door was left open to refiling of charges. A new indictment was filed against Khobragade, but by that point she had left the country.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Speaking at Harvard Law School during its 2014 Class Day ceremony, Bharara said that it was the U.S. Department of State, rather than his office, which had initiated and investigated proceedings against Khobragade and who asked his office to prosecute.


title: Preet Bharara

text: During Bharara's term, the U.S. Attorney's Office investigated six Internet comments made on the website of "Reason" magazine in which anonymous readers made comments about U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York like "Its [sic] judges like these that should be taken out back and shot" and "Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly." (The comments were made under an article in the magazine of Forrest's sentencing of Silk Road owner Ross William Ulbricht to life in prison without parole.) In June 2015, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to the libertarian magazine, demanding that it provide identifying information for the commenters. Following the issuance of the subpoena, federal prosecutors applied for an order from a U.S. magistrate judge forbidding the magazine from disclosing the existence of the subpoena to the commenters.


title: Preet Bharara

text: The subpoena became public after being obtained by Popehat's Ken White. The nondisclosure order caused controversy, with critics saying that it infringed the constitutional right to free speech and questioning whether the comments were actually serious threats or merely hyperbolic "trolling." Federal prosecutors dropped the matter as moot. "Reason" magazine editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie characterized the subpoena and nondisclosure order as "suppressing the speech of journalistic outlets known to be critical of government overreach."


title: Preet Bharara

text: Following the 2016 election, Bharara met with then-president-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in November 2016. Bharara said that Trump asked him to remain as U.S. Attorney, and he agreed to stay on.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On March 10, 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered all 46 remaining United States Attorneys who were holdovers from the Obama administration, including Bharara, to submit letters of resignation. Bharara declined to resign and was fired the next day. In a statement, Bharara said that serving as U.S. Attorney was "the greatest honor of my professional life" and that "one hallmark of justice is absolute independence and that was my touchstone every day that I served." He was succeeded by his deputy, Joon Kim, as acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.


title: Preet Bharara

text: There were expressions of dismay over the firing from Howard Dean, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren to New York State Republican Assemblymen Steve McLaughlin and Brian Kolb, the Assembly Minority Leader.


title: Preet Bharara

text: It has been reported that in spring 2017, Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz told associates that he had been personally responsible for getting Bharara fired, saying he had warned Trump, "This guy is going to get you." Bharara said a series of conversational phone calls from Trump made him increasingly uncomfortable about the appearance of potential improper contact between his office and Trump's. He claims he finally refused to take a phone call from Trump, and was dismissed 22 hours later.


title: Preet Bharara

text: On April 1, 2017, Bharara joined New York University School of Law as a distinguished scholar in residence. In September 2017 he started a weekly podcast called "Stay Tuned with Preet", which features long-form interviews with prominent guests. In 2018, Bharara started a second podcast with former New Jersey Attorney General and fellow law professor Anne Milgram, "Cafe Insider", which also provides legal commentary on the latest news. After Milgram was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, she was replaced as co-host with former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Joyce Vance.


title: Preet Bharara

text: The Showtime television series "Billions" gives a fictional portrayal of the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York's prosecution of financial crimes. The series is loosely based on the investigation of hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen of S.A.C. Capital Advisors by Bharara's office. The show's fictional SDNY U.S. Attorney Charles "Chuck" Rhoades Jr., played by Paul Giamatti, was partly inspired by Bharara.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara is married to Dalya Bharara, a non-practicing lawyer. They live in Scarsdale, New York with their three children. In interviews, Bharara "has reflected on his family's diverse religious heritage: Sikh (his father), Hindu (his mother), Muslim (his wife's father) and Jewish (his wife's grandmother)."


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara became a naturalized United States citizen in 1980. Bharara is a registered Democrat but "not considered a strong partisan." His nomination to the U.S. Attorney's post in 2009 was welcomed across the political spectrum as Bharara was regarded as an "apolitical and fair-minded" figure.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara's younger brother Vinit "Vinnie" Bharara, also a graduate of Columbia Law School, is an entrepreneur. Vinnie Bharara and Marc Lore co-founded Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, which they sold in 2010 to Amazon.com for $540 million.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara traces his desire to become a lawyer back to the seventh grade, which was when he read the play "Inherit the Wind".


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2012, Bharara was named by "Time" magazine as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World," and by "India Abroad" as its 2011 Person of the Year.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara is a lifelong Bruce Springsteen fan. Springsteen shouted, "This is for Preet Bharara!" before launching into his song "Death to My Hometown" at an October 2012 concert in Hartford, Connecticut.


title: Preet Bharara

text: In 2013, Bharara delivered the commencement address at Fordham Law School in New York and received an honorary Doctor of Laws. Later that week, Bharara delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, Columbia Law School, during his 20th reunion year. In 2014, Bharara delivered the commencement address at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law also in New York and spoke at Harvard Law School's Class Day Ceremony. In 2016, Bharara delivered the commencement address at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. In 2018, Bharara delivered the commencement address at St. John's University School of Law in New York. In 2022, Bharara delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, Columbia Law School.


title: Preet Bharara

text: Bharara was included in "Bloomberg Markets Magazine"s 2012 "50 Most Influential" list as well as "Vanity Fair"s 2012 and 2013 annual "New Establishment" lists.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: El Dorado is a 1966 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Written by Leigh Brackett and loosely based on the novel "The Stars in Their Courses" by Harry Brown, the film is about a gunfighter who comes to the aid of an old friend who is a drunken sheriff struggling to defend a rancher and his family against another rancher trying to steal their water. The supporting cast features James Caan, Charlene Holt, Paul Fix, Arthur Hunnicutt, Michele Carey, R. G. Armstrong, Ed Asner, Christopher George, Adam Roarke and Jim Davis.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: The film was first released in Japan on December 17, 1966 and then in the United States on June 7, 1967. The film received critical praise and was commercially successful, generating North American rentals of $5,950,000 on box-office receipts of $12 million.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Sheriff J.P. Harrah comes into the town of El Dorado to talk to his old friend, gun-for-hire Cole Thornton, who has just arrived in response to a mysterious job offer from wealthy landowner Bart Jason. Harrah reveals to Thornton that Jason is actually trying to muscle the honest MacDonald family from their land. Thornton agrees to turn down the job and rides out to Jason's ranch to tell him so.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Kevin MacDonald and his family hear about Thornton's arrival and fear the worst. The youngest son Luke is made sentry, but falls asleep at his post. As Thornton returns from his confrontation with Jason, Luke is startled awake and fires. Thornton reflexively fires back and wounds Luke in the stomach, and Luke commits suicide before Thornton can stop him, believing his wound fatal. Feeling guilty, Thornton brings the body to the farmhouse and tells Kevin what happened. The only daughter of the MacDonald clan, Joey, rides off before she can hear the truth, and shoots Thornton on his way back to town. Thornton survives, but the bullet has lodged against his spine. Local medic Doc Miller cannot remove it, so Thornton departs after healing, despite the protests of local saloon owner Maudie, who has feelings for him. Over time, the bullet in his back presses against his spine, causing bouts of temporary paralysis in his right side.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Six months later, Thornton is in a saloon out of town, having avoided El Dorado. He witnesses a naive young man, Alan Bourdillion Traherne (a.k.a. "Mississippi"), confronting and killing Charlie Hagin, who killed Mississippi's foster father, Johnny Diamond, two years earlier. Thornton steps in to save Mississippi from retaliation from Charlie's friends, Milt and Pedro. Their employer, famed gunslinger Nelse McLeod, is impressed, and offers Thornton a job in El Dorado, revealing that he has accepted Bart Jason's job offer and that Harrah became a drunk after a girl ran out on him.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Thornton refuses McLeod, and he and Mississippi return to El Dorado ahead of McLeod. They meet with Maudie and Harrah's deputy, Bull, who confirm Nelse's story. After a fistfight with the drunken Harrah, Thornton agrees to use a sobering concoction made by Mississippi to bring Harrah around, with violently effective results. Harrah, ashamed to be the laughingstock that he has become, agrees to stay sober.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: After three men shoot Jared MacDonald (Kevin MacDonald's son), Thornton, Bull, Mississippi and Harrah hunt the men into an old church and gun them down. One man escapes, leading them straight to Jason, whom Harrah arrests and holds for trial. Mississippi stops Joey from killing Jason on the walk back to the jail, and the two begin a relationship.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Bull officially deputizes Mississippi and Thornton. They patrol the town to keep the peace, stopping an attempted attack by McLeod's gang on the jail, during which Harrah is hobbled by a bullet to the leg. Maudie brings them some supplies while they are holed up in the jail, and McLeod's men start harassing her and her patrons. Thornton and Mississippi go to rescue them, but Thornton suffers an attack of paralysis and is captured by McLeod. Harrah agrees to trade Jason for Thornton and leave town, despite Thornton's protests.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Jason and McLeod's men kidnap Saul MacDonald and demand that Kevin turn over his water rights for the return of his son. Rightly suspecting that Jason will kill both Saul and Kevin once he has the water rights, Thornton rides a wagon up to the front door of Jason's saloon while Harrah, Bull and Mississippi sneak in the back. Once Bull gives a signal, Thornton opens fire, killing McLeod, while the rest free Saul. Joey shoots Jason, saving Thornton from being shot and making amends for her previous mistake. Doc Miller's new assistant Dr. Donovan agrees to operate on Thornton if he stays in town, and Thornton implies that he may stop wandering to stay with Maudie.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Leigh Brackett wrote the original script, which she described as "the best script I had ever done in my life. It wasn't tragic, but it was one of those things where Wayne died at the end." However, she said that as production neared, "the more we got into doing "Rio Bravo" over again the sicker I got, because I hate doing things over again. And I kept saying to Howard I did that, and he'd say it was okay, we could do it over again."


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Mitchum later said: "When Howard called me, I said, 'What's the story?' and he said, 'No story, just characters' and that's the way it was. Did one scene, put it away, did another, put it away."


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Cinematographer Harold Rosson had retired in 1958, but Hawks persuaded him to come back to work. After making the film, Rosson resumed his retirement permanently. "El Dorado" was shot in Technicolor at Old Tucson Studios just west of Tucson, Arizona as well as in and around Kanab, Utah from October 1965 to January 1966.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: The film was Wayne's 138th picture and was filmed before "The War Wagon", but its release was delayed so that Paramount's "Nevada Smith" with Steve McQueen would not have to compete with a John Wayne film at the box office. "El Dorado" finally reached the theatres in June 1967, a month after "The War Wagon" had opened. The film was the only screen pairing between Wayne and Mitchum; though they both appear in "The Longest Day", they share no scenes in that film.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: "El Dorado" is the second of three films directed by Hawks about a sheriff defending his office against belligerent outlaw elements, coming after "Rio Bravo" (1959) and before "Rio Lobo" (1970), both also starring Wayne in similar roles.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: The poem repeated in the film and paraphrased in the theme song is "Eldorado," a ballad poem by Edgar Allan Poe. The paintings in the credits are those of artist Olaf Wieghorst, who makes a brief appearance as Swede Larsen in the film. The musical score was composed by Nelson Riddle.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Footage from "El Dorado" was later incorporated into the opening montage of Wayne's final film, "The Shootist", to illustrate the backstory of Wayne's character.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: In a contemporary review for "The New York Times", critic Howard Thompson praised "El Dorado" as "... a tough, laconic and amusing Western that ambles across the screen as easily as the two veteran stars. ... [T]he barbed, pungent and frequently funny dialogue, plus some murderous gun forays, add up to crisp entertainment."


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half stars, stating: ""El Dorado" is a tightly directed, humorous, altogether successful Western, turned out almost effortlessly, it would seem, by three old pros: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and director Howard Hawks."


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: The film has a 100% approval rating on review compiler Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.78/10.


title: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Members of the Western Writers of America chose the film's theme as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.


title: Bellamy salute

text: The Bellamy salute is a palm-out salute created by James B. Upham as the gesture that was to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which had been written by Francis Bellamy. It was also known as the "flag salute" during the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance. Bellamy promoted the salute and it came to be associated with his name. Both the Pledge and its salute originated in 1892. Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazi Germans adopted a salute which was very similar, attributed to the Roman salute, a gesture that was popularly believed to have been used in ancient Rome. This resulted in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the "Flag Code" on December 22, 1942.


title: Bellamy salute

text: The inventor of the Bellamy salute was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of "The Youth's Companion". Bellamy recalled that Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said, "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say "I pledge allegiance to my flag," I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow."


title: Bellamy salute

text: The Bellamy salute was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892, according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day":


title: Bellamy salute

text: In the 1920s, Italian fascists adopted what has been called the Roman salute to symbolize their claim to have revitalized Italy on the model of ancient Rome. A similar ritual was adopted by the German Nazis, creating the Nazi salute. Controversy grew in the United States on the use of the Bellamy salute given its similarity to the fascist salutes. School boards around the country revised the salute to avoid this similarity. There was a counter-backlash from the United States Flag Association and the Daughters of the American Revolution, who felt it inappropriate for Americans to have to change the traditional salute because foreigners had later adopted a similar gesture.


title: Bellamy salute

text: From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, critics of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations. Among the anti-interventionist Americans was aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh. The pictures of him appearing to do the Nazi salute are actually pictures of him using the Bellamy salute. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography "Lindbergh" (1998), author A. Scott Berg explains that interventionist propagandists would photograph Lindbergh and other isolationists using this salute from an angle that left out the American flag, so it would be indistinguishable to observers from the Nazi salute.


title: Bellamy salute

text: On June 22, 1942, at the urging of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Congress passed , which codified the etiquette used to display and pledge allegiance to the flag. This included the use of a palm-out salute, specifically that the pledge "be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart; extending the right hand, palm upward, toward the flag at the words 'to the flag' and holding this position until the end, when the hand drops to the side." Congress did not discuss or take into account the controversy over use of the salute. Congress later amended the code on December 22, 1942, when it passed , stating among other changes, that the pledge "be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart."


title: Britney (album)

text: Britney is the third studio album by American pop singer Britney Spears. It was released on November 6, 2001, by Jive Records. Looking to transition from the teen pop styles of her first and sophomore studio albums "...Baby One More Time" (1999) and "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000) respectively, Spears began to embrace a significantly more mature sound with "Britney". The record incorporates genres of pop and R&B with influences of electronic dance and occasionally dips into elements of disco, hip hop, rock, and electronica. Its lyrics address the subjects of coming of age, adulthood, control, and sexuality. Contributions to its production came from a variety of collaborators, including Max Martin and Rami Yacoub. Spears herself assumed a more prominent role in the album's development, co-writing six of its tracks.


title: Britney (album)

text: "Britney" received generally mixed reviews from music critics, who complimented Spears's musical progression but criticized her increasingly provocative image. Regardless, the album was a global success, topping the charts in seven countries and reaching the top ten in over 25 territories. It debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 746,000 copies, making Spears the first female artist to have her first three studio albums debut atop the chart, a record she would later break with her subsequent releases. With global sales of 10 million copies, "Britney" is one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. To promote the album, Spears embarked on her fourth concert tour, the Dream Within a Dream Tour, which began in November 2001 and continued until July 2002. The album received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 45th annual ceremony.


title: Britney (album)

text: Six singles were released from the album. "I'm a Slave 4 U" reached the top ten in several countries but reached only number twenty-seven on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Spears's first lead single not to peak within the top ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Overprotected" and "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" had alternated as the second and third single of the album, respectively, both of which performed similarly internationally by reaching top ten in several countries, while the Darkchild remix of the former peaked at number eighty-six on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman", as well as the following singles "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", "Anticipating" (which was released exclusively in France and Taiwan) and "Boys" did not chart on the US "Billboard" Hot 100; however, all of them except for "Anticipating" reached the top ten in several countries albeit in less than its preceding singles.


title: Britney (album)

text: In May 2000, Spears released her second studio album "Oops!... I Did It Again". Spears collaborated with producers including Rodney Jerkins, David Kreuger, and Max Martin. Following its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" became an international success and peaked at number one on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Britney (album)

text: While recording her follow-up album, Spears wanted an "older generation to pick up on it", adding that she "had to change it up and pray people think that's cool". She stated that she chose to self-title the album because the majority of its content describes who she is. Spears recorded twenty-three tracks for the release, several of which she co-wrote with the assistance of Brian Kierulf and Josh Schwartz. She added that personally writing the album and developing its concept made the project "that much more special", elaborating of her intentions to "get better and grow" as a songwriter.


title: Britney (album)

text: Spears worked with a variety of collaborators, including pop colleagues Martin and her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake. She commented that she initially felt "awkward" and "nervous" working with Timberlake, saying that she was accustomed to the process being "like work". Spears also worked with hip hop producers Rodney Jerkins and the Neptunes, who made the sound "nastier and funkier". She was additionally set to record songs with Missy Elliott and Timbaland, but they never worked with Spears due to scheduling conflicts.


title: Britney (album)

text: "Britney" is a pop and R&B record with dance influences. The album opens with its lead single "I'm a Slave 4 U". The song features an urban influence and Middle Eastern flavor, amid breathy, emotive noises, and it has been compared to "Nasty Girl" by Vanity 6. Spears commented that its lyrics are "about me just wanting to go out and forget who I am and dance and have a good time". "Overprotected" was noted for having Europop styles, and addresses a girl who is tired of being manipulated. Lyrically, "Lonely" sees a girl moving on from a troublesome romance after being lied to and manipulated. It was considered "a teenage version of Janet Jackson's "What About?". The soft rock piano ballad "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman", co-penned by English singer-songwriter Dido, Max Martin and Rami, details the emotional struggles that teenage girls experience during puberty. "Boys" incorporates R&B and hip hop styles, and was criticized by David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" as "cut-rate '80s Janet Jackson". The disco-inspired track "Anticipating" discusses the friendship and camaraderie between women, and it's reminiscent of [Madonna's] 'Holiday' or Kylie in disco mood."


title: Britney (album)

text: Spears's cover of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", made famous by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, infuses pop rock styles into the original hard rock rendition. "Cinderella" reflects on a girl who left her boyfriend after he failed to appreciate her efforts in the relationship. "Let Me Be" sees Spears ask to be trusted as an adult and be afforded her own opinions. "Bombastic Love" discusses a love where Spears feels that the romance will happen "exactly like in a movie". Similarly, the penultimate track "That's Where You Take Me" details the joy she gets from an emotionally fulfilling relationship, amid Middle Eastern chimes and a collage of electronic beats and drum programming. In some editions, "When I Found You" is the penultimate track. On the electronica track, Spears tells she has found her "deepest love" in her soul mate who is essentially a reflection of herself. The album closes with "What It's Like to Be Me", which was co-written and co-produced by Spears's then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake; Spears sings that a guy must "figure [her] out" to "be [her] man".


title: Britney (album)

text: On January 28, 2001, Spears performed at Super Bowl XXXV. Shortly after, she appeared on "Total Request Live" to premiere new material from "Britney". On September 6, Spears premiered "I'm a Slave 4 U" at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards; the performance was criticized for her use of a yellow python as a stage prop. Four days later, she performed "I'm a Slave 4 U" on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show". Spears was scheduled to perform and hold a press conference in Australia on September 13; however, she cancelled the event in light of the September 11 attacks two days prior, saying that holding the conference would have been inappropriate. The following month, Spears performed at "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".


title: Britney (album)

text: "Britney" was first released in Japan on October 31, being released in the United States on November 6, by Jive Records. An accompanying video album, titled "", was released two weeks later. It included a selection of her earlier music videos, behind-the-scenes footage, commercials, and notable live performances. The video peaked atop the US Top Music Videos on December 8.


title: Britney (album)

text: Spears had already begun her Dream Within a Dream Tour in Columbus, Ohio five days before "Britney" was released in the US; the tour ended on July 28, 2002 in Mexico City. Shortly after it began, she performed in her first HBO concert special from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas; Cher was supposed to join Spears onstage for the song "The Beat Goes On", which Spears covered on "...Baby One More Time", but was unable to do so due to scheduling conflicts.


title: Britney (album)

text: On December 4, 2001, Spears performed at the 2001 "Billboard" Music Awards in Las Vegas. On January 9, 2002, she performed "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" at the 2002 American Music Awards. Later that month, Spears gave interviews to "The Frank Skinner Show" in the United Kingdom and "The Saturday Show" in Australia. "Crossroads" premiered in February, allowing Spears to simultaneously promote both the film and her album. On February 2, she was featured as both the host and performer on "Saturday Night Live". A week later, she performed "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" at the NBA All-Star Game and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Spears also appeared on "Live with Regis and Kelly", "The View", and the 44th Annual Grammy Awards, as well as the German talk show "Wetten, dass..?".


title: Britney (album)

text: "I'm a Slave 4 U" was released as the album's lead single on September 25, 2001. Its accompanying music video was directed by Francis Lawrence, and received three nominations at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. The song peaked at number twenty-seven on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, and debuted at number four on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Britney (album)

text: "Overprotected" was released as the album's second single internationally in December 2001 and the third single in the United States in April 2002. Its "Darkchild Remix" peaked at number eighty-six on the "Billboard" Hot 100, while the original version reached number four in the United Kingdom. The song was nominated for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2003 Grammy Awards. Two variations of the music video were released, one for the original and the other for the Darkchild Remix.


title: Britney (album)

text: Staggered to fit the varying release dates of "Crossroads" internationally, "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" was released as the theme song of the film and the second single for "Britney" in the United States. The song charted at number two on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, an extension of the twenty-five songs that failed to make the "Billboard" Hot 100. It was met with more success internationally, peaking at number two in the United Kingdom.


title: Britney (album)

text: Spears's cover of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" was released as the fourth Australian and European single. Consequentially, the song reached number thirteen on the UK Singles Chart. "Boys" served as the fifth single internationally, and it peaked at number twenty-two on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, and reached number seven in the United Kingdom. "Anticipating" was released as the sixth and final single from "Britney" exclusively in France; it reached number thirty-eight on the French Singles Chart.


title: Britney (album)

text: "Britney" received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, "Britney" received an average score of 58, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 13 reviews. David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" found Spears's increasingly provocative image to be unnatural, noting "virginal vamping in an awkward adolescence" and "a few tentative new moves". "PopMatters" Nikki Tranton complimented the production of the songs, but questioned if Spears was ready to establish herself as a grown woman in the music industry. Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" agreed, writing that although ""Britney", [the album], fills her role of guilty pleasure (the disc certainly satiates more than the stunted growth of last year's "Oops!...I Did It Again"), it's time for Spears to quit being such a cock-tease and cook something up that will satisfy the ever-vacillating hype-machine."


title: Britney (album)

text: AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave a positive review, feeling that the album "strives to deepen [Spears's] persona" and proves she "will know what to do when the teen-pop phenomenon of 1999–2001 passes for good". Similarly, a reviewer from "Billboard" commented that the project was "a nicely varied, wholly satisfying collection". Chris Heat of "Dotmusic" praised Britney for "us[ing] this opportunity to take the odd risk and adds a welcome edge to her sound." "NME"s Ted Kessler recognized the release as a "coming of age album" and joked that it "works best when making a good pop cheese and dance sandwich". By contrast, Stephen Thompson of "The A.V. Club" panned the album, opining that the music "just [isn't] catchy" and that "though neither a girl nor a woman, Spears inspires grown-up anger on her own". Craig Seymore of "Spin" recognized that she "sound[s] almost human," but criticized that "the rest of the record is as coldly anthemic as ever."


title: Britney (album)

text: "Britney" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 745,750 copies, which was the second highest first week sales by a female artist at the time behind Spears' own "Oops!... I Did It Again" which sold 1.3 million copies in its first week. In doing so, Spears became the first woman to have her first three studio albums debut atop that chart. She also held the second-highest debut album sales of 2001, behind "Celebrity" by NSYNC with 1.88 million units moved and was the highest debut-week sales by a female artist of the year. After fluctuating within the top 20 of the chart in the following weeks, "Britney" sold 3.3 million copies by March 2002. As of March 2015, "Britney" has sold 4.4 million units in the United States alone and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Britney (album)

text: Internationally, "Britney" debuted atop the Canadian Albums Chart with first-week sales of 44,550 copies. It later sold 316,944 copies in the country, a significant decline in relation to the sales of "...Baby One More Time" (1999) and "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000). The album peaked at number four on both the Oricon Albums Chart in Japan and the UK Albums Chart. In the latter, it was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipments of 300,000 copies to retailers. Across the rest of Europe, "Britney" debuted at number one in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In 2002, it was certified double platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for shipments of two million copies throughout Europe. The album also peaked at number four in Australia, and was certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). "Britney" was the fifth best-selling album of 2001 globally, selling seven million copies. As of January 2003, the album has sold ten million copies worldwide.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor. He had a long career in the theatre but achieved his highest profile for his television comedy roles starring as Rupert Rigsby in the ITV series "Rising Damp" from 1974 to 1978, and Reginald Perrin in the BBC's "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" from 1976 to 1979.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter was born on 21 October 1926 in Wavertree, Liverpool, the second son of John and Elizabeth (née Howell) Rossiter. The family lived over the barber shop owned by his father. He was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate School (1939–46). In September 1939, when the Second World War began, Rossiter was evacuated, along with his schoolmates, to Bangor in north Wales, where he stayed for 18 months. While at school, his ambition was to go to university to read modern languages and become a teacher; however, his father, who served as a voluntary ambulanceman during the war, was killed in the May Blitz air raid in 1941. Rossiter then had to support his mother, therefore he could not take up the place he had been offered at the University of Liverpool. Instead, he completed his National Service as a sergeant, initially in the Intelligence Corps, then in the Army Education Corps, spending much of the time in Germany writing letters home for other soldiers. After being demobbed he worked for six years as an insurance clerk in the claims and accident departments of the Commercial Union Insurance Company.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter started acting after his actress girlfriend challenged him to try it, after he had scoffed at the performances of the amateur group she was in. He joined the Wavertree Community Centre Drama Group and made his first appearance with the Adastra Players in Terence Rattigan's "Flare Path". The local critic said that he "was particularly outstanding, his one fault being a tendency to speak too fast on one or two occasions". He gave up his insurance job to enrol in Preston repertory theatre and became a professional actor at the age of 27. He made his professional stage debut in Joseph Colton's "The Gay Dog" in Preston on 6 September 1954.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: He later became assistant stage manager there, and then went on to Wolverhampton and Salisbury repertory companies. In his first 19 months in the business he played some 75 roles. He said later: "There was no time to discuss the finer points of interpretation. You studied the part, you did it and then you studied the next part. I developed a frightening capacity for learning lines. The plays became like Elastoplast, which you just stuck on and then tore off. It was the perfect preparation for rehearsing situation comedy on television at the rate of one episode a week."


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In 1957–58, he played in the musical "Free as Air" and then toured in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh". He joined the Bristol Old Vic and was there for two years, from 1959 to 1961, a time he described as "the bedrock of his career", followed by other stage work, in, among other plays, "The Strange Case of Martin Richter", "Disabled", "The Heretic", "The Caretaker" and "Semi-Detached" (in New York). His performance in the premiere of Michael Blakemore's stage production of Bertolt Brecht's "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" in 1969 met with critical acclaim.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter soon established himself as a character actor in films and television, as well as on stage. He stated: "I think I sensed fairly early on that I was not physically or facially built in the way that would ever fit even remotely into heroic or what used to be called juvenile parts. I always played character parts - right from the start." His first film role was in "A Kind of Loving" (1962). In "Billy Liar" (1963) he played the title character's boss. His first major television role was as Detective-Inspector Bamber in the long-running police television series "Z-Cars". He also had guest roles in series as diverse as "The Avengers" ("Dressed to Kill", 1963) and "Steptoe and Son" ("The Lead Man Cometh", 1964; "The Desperate Hours", 1972). Among his early film credits were four films directed by Bryan Forbes, namely "King Rat" (1965), "The Wrong Box" (1966), "The Whisperers" (1967), and "Deadfall" (1968).


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In 1968, he played Mr Sowerberry in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!" and took one of the few speaking supporting roles in "" as the Russian scientist Smyslov. He worked with Stanley Kubrick again in "Barry Lyndon" (1975), in the role of Captain John Quin. He appeared opposite Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976) as Superintendent Quinlan. In 1968, he appeared in Nigel Kneale's television play "The Year of the Sex Olympics", an episode of BBC 2's "Theatre 625", one of his four appearances in the series.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In "Rising Damp", on ITV, Rossiter played Rupert Rigsby, the lecherous landlord of a house converted into shabby bedsits, reprising the role from the successful stage version, "The Banana Box". While he was in "Rising Damp" he also took the lead role in "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", adapted by David Nobbs from his own comic novels and broadcast on the BBC. Rossiter was given a surprise tribute on "This Is Your Life" in 1975. He appeared in "I Tell You It’s Burt Reynolds", an episode of the 1977 Yorkshire Television series "The Galton & Simpson Playhouse", as well as the short films "The Waterloo Bridge Handicap" (1978), and the Galton and Simpson-scripted "Le Pétomane" (1979). After his portrayal of Reginald Perrin, Rossiter's non-comedy roles on television became less frequent, although there were exceptions, such as a debt collector in the one-off HTV thriller "Machinegunner" (1976), and Frank Harris in "Fearless Frank, or Tit-bits from the Life of an Adventurer" (1978), a BBC "Play of the Week".


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: From 1978 to 1983, Rossiter performed in ten commercials for Cinzano. The series of adverts was created by film director Alan Parker and, at Rossiter's suggestion, used an old music hall joke where he spills a drink over his wife, played by Joan Collins. In the Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest TV Ads" (2000) Terry Lovelock, the director of two of the commercials, said that Rossiter used to refer jokingly to Collins as "The Prop".


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter reprised Rigsby for a film version of "Rising Damp" in 1980, thus achieving the distinction of playing the same role on stage, television, and film. He continued to make a steady stream of film appearances, including a role in Lindsay Anderson's "Britannia Hospital" (1982). His last television role was as the supermarket manager in another ITV sitcom, "Tripper's Day" (1984).


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: He performed comic monologues in "The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog", which was recorded 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter also played the title role in the "BBC Television Shakespeare" production of "The Life and Death of King John" (1984). His last film appearance was in "Water" (1985).


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In the animated adaptation of "The Perishers" (1979), Rossiter provided the voice for Boot the dog. He narrated an abridged version of the Charles Dickens book "A Christmas Carol", which was released on cassette in 1979. He appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show "Desert Island Discs" in 1980. In 1981, he hosted an episode of the BBC Radio 4 show "With Great Pleasure" in which he recited some of his favorite poetry and prose alongside his wife, Gillian Raine, and his friend, the actor James Grout. Also in 1981, he narrated a seven-part series of satirical five-minute monologues, written by Barry Pilton for BBC Radio 3, titled "In a Nutshell", followed in 1982 by a second series, also written by Barry Pilton, this time comprising 8 five-minute monologues. Rossiter narrated a three-part series of the children's story "Harlequin and Columbine" for "Story Teller" magazine in 1984. He voiced the King of Hearts in two episodes of Anglia Television's version of "Alice In Wonderland", which was broadcast in April 1985, six months after Rossiter's death.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter displayed his acid wit in two books: "The Devil's Bedside Book" (1980), a collection of cynical dictionary definitions in the style of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary", and "The Lowest Form of Wit", (1981), a collection of biting bons mots, stinging retorts, insults and sarcasm illustrated with cartoons by Martin Honeysett. He also wrote the introduction to cook Keith Floyd's 1981 book "Floyd's Food".


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter's first marriage was to the actress Josephine Tewson, with whom he had worked many times in repertory theatre in the 1950s. The marriage ended in divorce in 1961. His second wife was the actress Gillian Raine, with whom he had a daughter, Camilla, and to whom he was still married at the time of his death. Rossiter had met Raine when he played the lead role of Fred Midway in David Turner's play "Semi-Detached", in a production directed by Tony Richardson. The play opened on 8 June 1962 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and ran for a week. During the play's second run at the Belgrade, in September 1963, the couple fell in love and moved in together, but they did not marry until 1972.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter was an Everton fan. He was also a wine connoisseur, and converted his attic into a sort of wine cellar.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: After his death, it was revealed that during the early 1980s Rossiter had had a five-year relationship with the broadcaster Sue MacGregor. His wife had not been aware of the affair until she received a letter from MacGregor breaking the news that her memoirs, which were about to be published, would include an account of the affair.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Since his childhood, Rossiter had been an enthusiastic and capable sportsman in football, cricket, tennis and later squash.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: On 5 October 1984, Rossiter died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy while waiting to go onstage at the Lyric Theatre, London, where he was performing in Joe Orton's play, "Loot". His funeral took place at St. Mary's Church, The Boltons, London. A memorial service was held on 15 November 1984 at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Attendees included Rossiter's "Loot" castmates, as well as Derek Nimmo, Fulton Mackay, and Ned Sherrin. "Loot" director, Jonathan Lynn, gave a eulogy in which he said of Rossiter: "Now that Leonard is up there, things had better be properly managed: I hope that the Heavenly Gates opened on cue and that the Choir of Angels is singing in tune. They had better be professional in Paradise. Because, if not, they'll certainly hear about it from Leonard."


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: Rossiter was posthumously nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for "Comedy Performance of the Year," for his role as Inspector Truscott in "Loot".


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In 1985, the book "Leonard Rossiter" by author Robert Tanitch was published. The book featured a collection of rare photos and reminiscences from friends and colleagues of Rossiter's.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: In 2000, the ITV biography series "The Unforgettable" broadcast an episode about Rossiter's life. His wife and daughter were interviewed, as well as former colleagues, including Don Warrington, Joan Collins, and Sue Nicholls.


title: Leonard Rossiter

text: A biography of Rossiter, titled "Leonard Rossiter: Character Driven" was published in 2010 by author Guy Adams.


title: Capital Steez

text: Courtney Everald "Jamal" Dewar Jr. (July 7, 1993 – December 23, 2012), better known by his stage name Capital Steez (stylized as Capital STEEZ), was an American rapper and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. He was a founder of the Brooklyn-based rap collective Pro Era, along with childhood friend Joey Bada$$. Capital Steez was also a co-founder of the Beast Coast movement, which consists of three main groups based in Flatbush: Pro Era, Flatbush Zombies, and The Underachievers. Capital Steez died by suicide on December 23, 2012, after jumping from the roof of the Cinematic Music Group headquarters aged 19. Both Pro Era and Beast Coast went on to gain international success in the years following his death.


title: Capital Steez

text: Courtney Everald Dewar Jr. was born in New York City to Jamaican parents. His father died when he was three years old. Dewar attended Public School 222 Elementary School in Brooklyn, New York and he formed his first rap group with close friend Jakk the Rhymer (real name Jahkari Jack) in the fourth grade.


title: Capital Steez

text: Dewar attended Edward R. Murrow High School and fellow classmates remembered him as a "smiling kid with a short afro and skinny jeans" who made friends quickly, skated, smoked cannabis frequently and was a sneakerhead.


title: Capital Steez

text: Raised as a Christian, Dewar abandoned those beliefs during high school, instead beginning to favor Rastafari which would later come to be a core part of his life. Dewar's beliefs changed once again as he began watching Spirit Science: a popular YouTube series dealing with metaphysical and spiritual theories.


title: Capital Steez

text: Jamal Dewar began rapping in 2008, Alongside with Jakk the Rhymer, Dewar formed a group called The 3rd Kind. The duo released their first mixtape, titled "The Yellow Tape", in the same year.


title: Capital Steez

text: In the spring of 2011, while still a student at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York, Capital STEEZ and record producer, Powers Pleasant, formed Pro Era on their way home from a performance STEEZ had at a local Brooklyn cafe, which a number of friends including Joey Bada$$ and Dirty Sanchez also attended to show support.


title: Capital Steez

text: Capital STEEZ is credited with being the person who coined the term "Beast Coast Movement", a name for the rise in popularity of East Coast hip-hop groups such as Pro Era, The Underachievers, and Flatbush Zombies. The three groups all come from Brooklyn and frequently use the phrase Beast Coast in songs and on concert flyers.


title: Capital Steez

text: On February 23, 2012, Joey Bada$$ and Capital STEEZ uploaded "Survival Tactics" to YouTube. He was listed in "The 25 Best Rap Lines of 2012" by "Spin".


title: Capital Steez

text: Capital STEEZ released his first solo mixtape, "AmeriKKKan Korruption", on April 7, 2012, with 14 tracks. The mixtape has received universal acclaim since its release. A "reloaded" version with seven additional tracks was released on October 10, 2012. The tape now runs 21 tracks in total and features many of his Pro Era teammates, such as CJ Fly, Chuck Strangers, Joey Bada$$, Dirty Sanchez, and Jakk the Rhymer. The mixtape contains production from Madlib, MF DOOM, Free the Robots, DJ Premier, Knxwledge, Ant of Atmosphere (music group), J. Rawls, Tommy Mas, the Entreproducers, and also contains production from fellow Pro Era members, Joey Bada$$, Kirk Knight, and Bruce Leekix.


title: Capital Steez

text: On the night of December 23, 2012, Capital Steez made his way to the rooftop of the Cinematic Music Group headquarters in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, where he texted a few of his closest friends to tell them that he loved them, and at 11:59 p.m. EST, posted a tweet saying, "The end." He died by suicide by jumping off the rooftop of the Cinematic Music Group building later that night.


title: Capital Steez

text: In late April 2013, Joey Badass announced that a Capital Steez album entitled "King Capital" would soon be released. On July 7, 2013, Pro Era released the song "King Steelo" from the upcoming posthumous album.


title: Capital Steez

text: On December 24, 2013, the first anniversary of his death, Pro Era released a music video for his song, "47 Piiirates". On August 26, 2016, the official Pro Era YouTube channel released an animated music video for his song, "Herban Legend", which premiered at the second annual Steez Day Concert in Los Angeles, California on July 7, 2016.


title: Capital Steez

text: On June 12, 2017, Capital Steez's Twitter account posted for the first time since his death tweeting: "The Beginning". Fans immediately realized the tweet was referencing Steez's "The End" tweet, which he tweeted moments before jumping to his death on December 23, 2012. This tweet caused fans and music journalists to speculate the release date for Steez's posthumous album "King Capital". It was announced by Joey Bada$$ and Capital Steez's family members at the 2017 Steez Day Concert in July that the album would be released on December 23, 2017, the fifth anniversary of the rapper's death. However, Joey Bada$$ took to Instagram to tell fans that the album would be delayed yet again due to "business legalities and sample clearances."


title: Capital Steez

text: On January 2, 2018, Joey Bada$$ replied to various fans' tweets about Pro Era's release schedule for the year. Among his tweets, Bada$$ assured fans he is working on putting Capital Steez's "AmeriKKKan Korruption" mixtape on Spotify (and potentially other streaming services) and hoping to finally release the "King Capital" album later in the year.


title: Capital Steez

text: Steez's spiritual outlook included elements of Egyptian mysticism, numerology, astral projection and the Indian chakra system. He considered himself one of the Indigo children and allegedly believed he was a being of a higher dimension. Steez was infatuated with the number 47 and what it meant spiritually. He believed the number 47 was the "perfect expression of balance in the world", representing the tension between the heart and the brain (the fourth and seventh chakra, respectively.)


title: Capital Steez

text: In May 2015, Joey Bada$$ announced that Pro Era would hold a "STEEZ Day Festival" to be held annually on July 7, Capital STEEZ's birthday, with all proceeds going to the late rapper's family. The inaugural festival was held in Central Park in New York City, while the 2016 festival took place in Los Angeles, California.


title: Capital Steez

text: In December 2017, Joey Bada$$ unveiled a customized chain depicting Capital STEEZ's face in a similar vein of a Jesus Piece. The piece was dubbed the "Steezus Piece" chain and was custom made by Greg Yuna.


title: Capital Steez

text: On July 7th 2022, which would have been Steez's 29th birthday, Joey released the song "Survivors Guilt" as a tribute to Steez and his cousin Junior B, the song was later included on his album 2000


title: Capital Steez

text: On March 2, 2016, fellow Brooklyn rapper Troy Ave, in the midst an ongoing feud with Joey Bada$$, made displeasing comments about the suicidal death of Capital Steez on "Sway in the Morning", stating: "He didn't pass away; he killed himself. There's a difference. He took his own life. God gave you life, it ain't your right to take that. That's a fact. I got niggas in jail who got life sentences, they might as well be dead. They could've traded their life for his." Troy Ave then received heavy criticism from both fans and fellow artists, including A$AP Ant, A$AP Twelvyy and Styles P who wrote, amongst a series of other tweets: "If you never experienced a family [member] committing suicide you have no fukn [sic] idea about that pain. NONE." Troy Ave then replied to Styles P's comments and apologized to his fans on Twitter. In an interview on VladTV, another Brooklyn rapper, Maino, stated that mentioning Capital Steez's suicide in the song was "a bit much".


title: Suicide of Megan Meier

text: Megan Taylor Meier (November 6, 1992 – October 17, 2006) was an American teenager who died by suicide by hanging herself three weeks before her 14th birthday. A year later, Meier's parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyberbullying through the social networking website MySpace. Lori Drew, the mother of a classmate of Meier, was found guilty of cyberbullying in the 2009 case "United States v. Drew". However, her conviction was overturned by the judge.


title: Suicide of Megan Meier

text: Megan Taylor Meier was born on November 6, 1992, to Christina "Tina" Meier and Ronald Meier in O'Fallon, Missouri.


title: Suicide of Megan Meier

text: From the third grade in 2001–02, after she had told her mother she had wanted to kill herself, Megan had been under the care of a psychiatrist. She had been prescribed citalopram (an antidepressant that has a possible side effect of increasing suicide risk in young people), methylphenidate, and the atypical antipsychotic ziprasidone. She had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, depression, and self-esteem issues regarding her weight. She was described by her parents as a "bubbly, goofy" girl who enjoyed spending time with her friends and family.


title: Suicide of Megan Meier

text: Meier attended Fort Zumwalt public schools, including Pheasant Point Elementary School and Fort Zumwalt West Middle School in nearby O'Fallon, Missouri.