title: Opioid epidemic

text: Following the United States, Canada was identified in 2015 as the second-highest per-capita user of prescription opioids. In Alberta, emergency department visits as a result of opiate overdose, attributable to both prescription and illicit opioids, specifically fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, rose 1,000% in the previous five years. The Canadian Institute for Health Information found that while a third of overdoses were intentional overall, among those ages 15–24 nearly half were intentional. In 2017, there were 3,987 opioid-related deaths in Canada, 92% of these deaths being unintentional. The number of deaths involving fentanyl or fentanyl analogues increased by 17% compared to 2016. Between April and December 2020, there was an 89% increase in opioid related deaths in comparison to 2019. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan experienced a record month in opioid overdoses in May 2020 caused, authorities explained, by a combination of ever-amplifying toxic drugs and the COVID-19 pandemic's quarantine keeping individuals from family and needed mental health services. Over 28,800 Emergency Medical Services (EMS) responded to possible opioid related health crises between January and December 2020 after the COVID-19 Pandemic began. In May 2020 Medavie Health Services provided over 250 ambulance services for overdoses, administering the opioid antagonist nasal spray Narcan (naloxone) in record numbers.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: North America's first safe injection site, Insite, opened in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighborhood of Vancouver in 2003. Safe injection sites are legally sanctioned, medically supervised facilities in which individuals are able to consume illicit recreational drugs, as part of a harm reduction approach towards drug problems which also includes information about drugs and basic health care, counseling, sterile injection equipment, treatment referrals, and access to medical staff, for instance in the event of an overdose. Health Canada has licensed 16 safe injection sites in the country. In Canada, about half of overdoses resulting in hospitalization were accidental, while a third were deliberate overdoses.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: OxyContin was removed from the Canadian drug formulary in 2012 and medical opioid prescription was reduced, but this led to an increase in the illicit supply of stronger and more dangerous opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil. In 2018, there were around 1 million users at risk from these toxic opioid products. In Vancouver Dr. Jane Buxton of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control joined the Take-home naloxone program in 2012 to provide at risk individuals medication that quickly reverses the effects of an overdose from opioids.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Approximately 80 percent of the global pharmaceutical opioid supply is consumed in the United States. It has also become a serious problem outside the U.S., mostly among young adults. The concern not only relates to the drugs themselves, but to the fact that in many countries doctors are less trained about drug addiction, both about its causes or treatment. According to an epidemiologist at Columbia University: "Once pharmaceuticals start targeting other countries and make people feel like opioids are safe, we might see a spike [in opioid abuse]. It worked here. Why wouldn't it work elsewhere?"


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Many deaths worldwide from opioids and prescription drugs are from sexually transmitted infections passed through shared needles. This has led to a global initiative of needle exchange programs and research into the varying needle types carrying STIs. In Europe, prescription opioids account for three‐quarter of overdose deaths, which represent 3.5% of total deaths among 15-39-year-olds. Some worry that the epidemic could become a worldwide pandemic if not curtailed. Prescription drug abuse among teenagers in Canada, Australia, and Europe were comparable to U.S. teenagers. In Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, and in parts of China, surveys found that one in ten students had used prescription painkillers for non-medical purposes. Similar high rates of non-medical use were found among the young throughout Europe, including Spain and the United Kingdom. In 2017, 1049 people had a death related to opioids in Spain


title: Opioid epidemic

text: While strong opiates are heavily regulated within the European Union, there is a "hidden addiction" with codeine. Codeine, though a mild painkiller, is converted into morphine in the liver. "It's a hidden addiction,' said Dr Michael Bergin of Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. 'Codeine abuse affects people with diverse profiles, from children to older people across all social classes."


title: Opioid epidemic

text: On 18 May 2020, Myanmar and the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced that, over the previous three months, police had confiscated illicit drugs with a street value estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. Most was methamphetamine; they also seized 3,750 liters (990 gallons) of liquid methylfentanyl that can be used to manufacture a synthetic opioid.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: From January to August 2017, there were 60 fatal overdoses of fentanyl in the UK. In England, opioid prescribing in general practice mirrors general geographical health inequalities. In July 2019, two Surrey GPs working for a Farnham-based online pharmacy were suspended by the General Medical Council for prescribing opioids online without appropriate safeguards. Public Health England reported in September 2019 that half the patients using strong painkillers, antidepressants and sleeping tablets had been on them for more than a year, which was generally longer than was "clinically" appropriate and where the risks could outweigh the benefits. They found that problems in the UK were less than in most comparable countries, but there were 4,359 deaths related to drug poisoning, largely opioids, in England and Wales in 2018 – the highest number recorded since 1993.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Public Health England reported in September 2019 that 11.5 million adults in England had been prescribed benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, gabapentinoids, opioids, or antidepressants in the year ending March 2018. Half of these had been prescribed for at least a year. About 540,000 had been prescribed opioids continuously for three years or more. Prescribing of opioids and Z-drugs had decreased, but antidepressants and gabapentinoids had increased, gabapentinoids by 19% between 2015 and 2018 to around 1.5 million.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: It was reported that in 2021/2022, 1.80 million patients were prescribed dependency-forming medicines in the most deprived areas in England, 1.66 times more than the number prescribed these medicines in the least deprived areas. This pattern had been consistent since 2015/2016.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The worry surrounding the potential of a worldwide pandemic has affected opioid accessibility in countries around the world. Approximately 25.5 million people per year, including 2.5 million children, die without pain relief worldwide, with many of these cases occurring in low and middle-income countries. The current disparity in accessibility to pain relief in various countries is significant. The U.S. produces or imports 30 times as much pain relief medication as it needs while low-income countries such as Nigeria receive less than 0.2% of what they need, and 90% of all the morphine in the world is used by the world's richest 10%.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: America's opioid epidemic has resulted in an "opiophobia" that is stirring conversations among some Western legislators and philanthropists about adopting a "war on drugs rhetoric" to oppose the idea of increasing opioid accessibility in other countries, in fear of starting similar opioid epidemics abroad. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a monitoring agency established by the U.N. to prevent addiction and ensure appropriate opioid availability for medical use, has written model laws limiting opioid accessibility that it encourages countries to enact. Many of these laws more significantly impact low-income countries; for instance, one model law ruled that only doctors could supply opioids, which limited opioid accessibility in poorer countries that had a scarce number of doctors.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: In 2018, deputy head of China's National Narcotics Commission Liu Yuejin criticized the U.S. market's role in driving opioid demand.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: In 2016, the medical news site "STAT" reported that while Mexican cartels are the main source of heroin smuggled into the U.S., Chinese suppliers provide both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for its production. In British Columbia, police discovered a lab making 100,000 fentanyl pills each month, which they were shipping to Calgary, Alberta. 90 people in Calgary overdosed on the drug in 2015. In Southern California, a home-operated drug lab with six pill presses was uncovered by federal agents; each machine was capable of producing thousands of pills an hour.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: In 2018, a woman died in London after getting a prescription for tramadol from an online doctor based in Prague who had not considered her medical history. Regulators in the UK admitted that there was nothing they could do to stop this from happening again. A reporter from The Times was able to buy opioids from five online pharmacies in September 2019 without any contact with their GP by filling in an online questionnaire and sending a photocopy of their passport.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Alternative drug options for opioids include over the counter pain medication such as Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Aspirin or steroid options. Along with drug alternatives, many other alternatives can provide relief through physical activities. Physical therapy, acupuncture, injections, nerve blocks, massages, and relaxation techniques are physical activities that have been found to help with chronic pain. New pain management drugs like marijuana and cannabinoids have also been found to help treat symptoms of pain. Many treatments like cancer treatments are using these drugs to help manage pain.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: People that are addicted to opioids can have many changes in behavior. Some of the common signs or symptoms of addiction include spending more time alone, losing interest in activities, quickly changing moods, sleeping at odd hours, getting in trouble with the law, and financial hardships. People that notice any of these behaviors in a peer or in oneself, are usually advised to consult a physician.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Opioid use disorder can be treated in a number of different ways: Medication assisted treatment pathways offer methadone, Suboxone (Buprenorphine/naloxone) and Vivitrol (naltrexone).


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Cognitive behavioral therapies and counseling are proven effective, as well as digital care programs to increase abstinence rates.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: A number of methods for the prevention of opioid addiction have been used and suggested. One method is the creation of anti-opioid advertisements. In the 1990s, advertisements depicting drug-seeking people purposefully slamming their arms into doors and crashing their cars, were unsuccessfully targeted at teens.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: These ads were unsuccessful because they emphasized the risk of danger, pain, and death caused by opioids. While this tactic would make adults acknowledge the risks and stop using opioids, teenagers need to see that executives just use them as interchangeable customers. The makers of these ads feel that since the internet allows teenagers to view gruesome things anyway, it is perfectly acceptable to subject them to images of self-mutilation in order to protect their lives. It is felt that thirty seconds of gruesomeness is a small price to pay for sparing a lifetime (however short) of opioid abuse and its accompanying poverty and crime. These advertisements, which started in the 1980s, are continuing to play on television today, utilizing donated advertisement time. The goals of the most recent advertisements are to show teenagers that addiction can begin after only five days and that feeding this addiction can consume a person's entire life.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: The origins of the current flag of Puerto Rico, adopted by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in 1952, can be traced to 1868, when the first Puerto Rican flag, "The Revolutionary Flag of Lares", was conceived by Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances and embroidered by Mariana "Brazos de Oro" Bracetti. This flag was used in the short-lived Puerto Rican revolt against Spanish rule in the island, known as "El Grito de Lares", establishing for the first time a Puerto Rican national consciousness under colonial rule.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Juan de Mata Terreforte, an exiled veteran of "El Grito de Lares" and vice-president of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee, in New York City, adopted with its members the flag of Lares as the flag of Puerto Rico, until 1895, when the current design, modeled after the Cuban flag, was unveiled and adopted by the committee. The new flag, which consisted of five equal horizontal bands of red (top and bottom) alternating with white; a blue isosceles triangle based on the hoist side bears a large, white, five-pointed star in the center, was first flown in Puerto Rico on March 24, 1897, during the "Intentona de Yauco" revolt. (This is contrasted by the usage of "three blue and two white equal horizontal stripes" and a "red equilateral triangle at the hoist with a five-pointed star" in the Cuban flag.) The use and display of the Puerto Rican flag was outlawed and the only flags permitted to be flown in Puerto Rico were the Spanish flag (1492 to 1898) and the American flag (1898 to 1952).


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: In 1952, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico adopted the 1895 flag design as its official standard. The color of the triangle that was used by the administration of Luis Muñoz Marín was the dark blue, to match the blue of the United States flag. In 1995, the government of Puerto Rico issued a regulation regarding the use of the Puerto Rican flag titled: "Regulation on the Use in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico of the Flag of Puerto Rico" (), in which the government specifies the colors to be used but does not specify any official color tones or shades. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see the flag of Puerto Rico with different shades of blue displayed in the commonwealth.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: The introduction of a flag in Puerto Rico can be traced to when Christopher Columbus landed on the island's shore and with the flag appointed to him by the Spanish Crown claimed the island, which he named "San Juan Bautista", in the name of Spain. Columbus wrote in his logbook that on October 12, 1492, he used the Royal Flag, and that his captains used two flags which the Admiral carried in all the ships as ensign, each white with a green cross in the middle and an 'F' and 'Y', both green and crowned with golden, open royal crowns, for Ferdinand II of Aragon and Ysabel (Isabel I). The conquistadores under the command of Juan Ponce de León proceeded to conquer and settle the island. They carried as their military standard the "Spanish Expedition Flag". After the island was conquered and colonized, the flag of Spain was used in Puerto Rico, same as it was used in all of its other colonies.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Once the Spanish armed forces established themselves on the island they began the construction of military fortifications such as La Fortaleza, Fort San Felipe del Morro, Fort San Cristóbal and San Gerónimo. The Spanish Army designed the "Cross of Burgundy Flag" and adopted it as their standard. This flag flew wherever there was a Spanish military installation.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: The independence movement in Puerto Rico gained momentum with the liberation successes of Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín in South America. In 1868, local independence leader Ramón Emeterio Betances urged Mariana Bracetti to knit a revolutionary flag using the flag of the Dominican Republic as an example, promoting the then popular ideal of uniting the three caribbean islands into an Antillean Confederation. The materials for the flag were provided by Eduvigis Beauchamp Sterling, named Treasurer of the revolution by Betances. The flag was divided in the middle by a white Latin cross, the two lower corners were red and the two upper corners were blue with a white star in the upper left blue corner. According to Puerto Rican poet Luis Lloréns Torres the white cross on it stands for the yearning for homeland redemption; the red squares, the blood poured by the heroes of the rebellion and the white star in the blue solitude square, stands for liberty and freedom. The "Revolutionary Flag of Lares" was used in the short-lived rebellion against Spain in what became known as El Grito de Lares (The Cry of Lares). The flag was proclaimed the national flag of the "Republic of Puerto Rico" by Francisco Ramírez Medina, who was sworn in as Puerto Rico's first president, and placed on the high altar of the Catholic Church of Lares, thus becoming the first Puerto Rican Flag. The original Lares flag was taken by a Spanish army officer as a war prize. Many years later it was returned and transferred to the Puerto Rican people. It is now exhibited in the University of Puerto Rico's Museum.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: In 1873, following the abdication of Amadeo I of Spain and with Spain's change from Kingdom to Republic, the Spanish government issued a new colonial flag for Puerto Rico. The new flag, which was used until 1873, resembled the flag of Spain, with the difference that it had the coat of arms of Puerto Rico in the middle. Spain's flag once more flew over Puerto Rico with the restoration of the Spanish kingdom in 1874, until 1898 the year that the island became a possession of the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1898) in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Juan de Mata Terreforte, a leader of the Grito de Lares revolt who fought alongside Manuel Rojas, was exiled to New York City. He joined the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee and was named its vice-president. Terreforte and the members of the Revolutionary Committee adopted the Flag of Lares as their standard. In 1892, the committee was presented with the design of the current flag of Puerto Rico. The new flag's design has been attributed to various Puerto Ricans who were members of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee in New York City.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Some sources document Francisco Gonzalo Marín with presenting a Puerto Rican flag prototype in 1895 for adoption by the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee in New York City. Marín has since been credited by some with the flag's design. There is a letter written by Juan de Mata Terreforte which gives credit to Marin. The original contents of the letter in Spanish are the following:


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: According to other accounts on June 12, 1892, disputed by scholar Armando Martí, Antonio Vélez Alvarado was at his apartment at 219 Twenty-Third Street in Manhattan, when he stared at a Cuban flag for a few minutes, and then took a look at the blank wall in which it was being displayed. Vélez suddenly perceived an optical illusion, in which he perceived the image of the Cuban flag with the colors in the flag's triangle and stripes inverted. Almost immediately he visited a nearby merchant, Domingo Peraza, from whom he bought some crepe paper to build a crude prototype. He later displayed his prototype in a dinner meeting at his neighbor's house, where the owner, Micaela Dalmau vda. de Carreras, had invited José Martí as a guest. Martí was pleasantly impressed by the prototype, and made note of it in a newspaper article published in the Cuban revolutionary newspaper "Patria", published on July 2 of that year. Acceptance of the prototype was slow in coming, but grew with time. Francisco Gonzalo Marín, who decided to have a proper flag sewn based on the prototype, presented the new flag's design in New York's "Chimney Corner Hall" a gathering place of independence advocates two years later. The Puerto Rican Flag (with the light blue triangle) soon came to symbolize the ideals of the Puerto Rican independence movement.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: In a letter written by Maria Manuela (Mima) Besosa, the daughter of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee member Manuel Besosa, she stated that she sewed the flag. This created a belief that her father could have been its designer. In her letter she described the flag as one which consists of five stripes that alternate from red to white. Three of the stripes are red, and the other two are white. To the left of the flag is a light blue triangle that houses one white five-pointed star. Each part of this flag has its own meaning. The three red stripes represent the blood from the brave warriors. The two white stripes represent the victory and peace that they would have after gaining independence. The white star represented the island of Puerto Rico. The blue represents the sky and blue coastal waters. The triangle represents the three branches of government. Finally, it is also believed by some that it was Lola Rodríguez de Tió who suggested that Puerto Ricans use the Cuban flag with its colors reversed as the model for their own standard. The color of the Cuban flag's blue stripes, however, was a darker shade of blue, according to Professor Martí.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Even though the local newspaper "El Imparcial" on January 17, 1948, stated that Vélez Alvarado was the "Prócer Que Creó Bandera Patria" (The Father of the Puerto Rican Flag) it may never be known who really designed the current flag; however, what is known is that on December 22, 1895, the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee officially adopted the design which represents the current flag. In 1897, Antonio Mattei Lluberas visited the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee in New York City to plan an uprising in Yauco. He returned to Puerto Rico with a Puerto Rican flag and on March 24, 1897, a group of men, led by Fidel Vélez, carried the Puerto Rican flag and attacked the barracks of Spanish Civil Guard of the town Yauco during the revolt against Spanish rule which became known as the "Intentona de Yauco" (Attempted Coup of Yauco). The revolt, which was the second and last major attempt against the Spaniards in the island, was the first time that the flag of Puerto Rico was used on Puerto Rican soil.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: From December 10, 1898 (the date of the annexation of Puerto Rico by the United States) up until 1952, it was considered a felony to display the Puerto Rican flag in public; the only flag permitted to be flown on the island was the flag of the United States. However, the Puerto Rican flag was often used in the political assemblies of the pro-independence Liberal Party of Puerto Rico and in defiance by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. In 1932, the Nationalist Party used the flag as its emblem during the elections and in their parades.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist movements on the island. The Senate, controlled by the "Partido Popular Democrático" (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill that day. This bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Act passed in the United States in 1940, was enacted under the name "Ley de la Mordaza" (Gag Law) on June 10, 1948, when signed by the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Under this new law it would be a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. It made it illegal to sing a patriotic song, and reinforced the 1898 law that had made it illegal to display the flag of Puerto Rico, with anyone found guilty of disobeying the law in any way being subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to US$10,000 (), or both. Later that same year Puerto Ricans were permitted to elect a governor and they elected Luis Muñoz Marín. During the Jayuya Uprising of 1950 against United States rule, members of the Nationalist party placed the Puerto Rican flag on top of the town hall; the flag was later taken down by a soldier.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: In 1952, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín and his administration adopted the Puerto Rican flag which was originally designed in 1892, and proclaimed it the official flag of Puerto Rico. The official adaptation of the flag has been interpreted by some as a ploy by Muñoz Marin to neutralize the independence movement in his own party. There were some differences between the original flag of 1892 and the one of 1952 and the meaning of the colors was officially changed. Now the white bars stood for the republican form of government, rather than representing the victory and peace that Puerto Ricans were supposed to have after gaining independence. The sky-blue of the triangle in the original flag was changed to dark blue, resembling that of the flag of the United States, to keep it distanced from its revolutionary roots. For nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos, having the flag represent the government was a desecration, while the independence party accused the government of "corrupting beloved symbols". In 1995, the government of Puerto Rico began to use the sky-blue version once more. The government of Puerto Rico issued a regulation in regard to the use of the Puerto Rican flag titled: "Reglamento sobre el Uso en Puerto Rico de la Bandera del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico; Reglamento Núm. 5282." (Regulations in regard to the use in Puerto Rico of the flag of Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; Regulation No. 5282). In the regulation's "Artículo 2: Definiciones" and "Artículo 2: Descripción y simbolismo" (Article 2: Definitions and Article 2: Description and symbolism) the government specifies the colors to be used but does not specify any official color tones or shades and as such it is not unusual to see the flag with either tone of blue flown in official settings in Puerto Rico.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Among the many occasions in which the flag has been used as a symbol of pride was when the flag arrived in South Korea during the Korean War. On August 13, 1952, while the men of Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Regiment (United States) were being attacked by enemy forces on Hill 346, the regiment unfurled the Puerto Rican Flag for the first time in history in a foreign combat zone. During the ceremony Regimental Chaplain Daniel Wilson stated the following: The Commanding Officer Colonel Juan César Cordero Dávila was quoted as saying:


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: On various occasions the flag has been used as a symbol of defiance and protest. In the 1954 attack of the United States House of Representatives in a protest against United States rule of the island, Nationalist leader Lolita Lebrón shouted "¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" ("Long live a Free Puerto Rico!") and unfurled the flag of Puerto Rico. On November 5, 2000, Alberto De Jesus Mercado, better known as Tito Kayak, and five other Vieques activists stepped onto the top deck of the Statue of Liberty in New York City, then placed a Puerto Rican flag, with the triangle darker than the light-blue version on the statue's crown, reenacting an earlier protest in the 1970s asking for the release of Puerto Rican prisoners, this time in protest of the United States Navy usage of the island of Vieques as a bombing range.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: On March 15, 2009, several Puerto Rican flags were aboard the Space Shuttle "Discovery" during its flight into outer space. Joseph M. Acaba, the first astronaut of Puerto Rican descent, who was assigned to the crew of STS-119 as a Mission Specialist Educator, carried on his person the flag as a symbol of his Puerto Rican heritage. Acaba presented Governor Luis Fortuño and Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock with two of the flags during his visit in June 2009. Those two flags' triangles had a darker blue hue.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: The flag is also the subject of the song "Qué Bonita Bandera" ("What a beautiful flag") written in 1968 and made popular by Puerto Rican folksinger Florencio "Ramito" Morales Ramos. Astronaut Acaba requested that the crew be awakened on March 19, 2009 (Day 5 in space), with this song, as performed by José González and Banda Criolla.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Since at least 2016 an all-black rendition of the flag of Puerto Rico has been a symbol of Puerto Rican independence, resistance, and civil disobedience. A door at 55 Calle San José, painted with a mural depicting the traditional red, white, and blue Puerto Rican flag, had become a familiar image of Old San Juan. During the early morning of July 4, 2016 a group of women with the group "Artistas Solidarixs y en Resistencia" (Artists in Solidarity and Resistance) repainted the door in stark black and white. The original focus of protest was the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), just signed into law by President Barack Obama. The act created the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico responsible for managing the island's debt. The Board has been criticized by many sectors as an act of colonialism. The black flag has become a common symbol of protest throughout Puerto Rico, and can be found on tourist items.


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: In the 1950s Puerto Rico contacted Norway's Foreign Ministry in an attempt to have Norwegian shipping company Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap stop using a flag that has a significant likeness to Puerto Rico's flag. Norway has not legally challenged the shipping company's position that their flag is older than Puerto Rico's. The shipping company's flag is still in use .


title: Flag of Puerto Rico

text: Some of the flags which have at one time or another flown over Puerto Rican soil prior to Puerto Rico becoming a United States Territory:


title: Joanne (album)

text: Joanne is the fifth studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on October 21, 2016, by Streamline and Interscope Records. Gaga, Mark Ronson and BloodPop handled its production aside variety other collaborators, such as Kevin Parker, Emile Haynie, Jeff Bhasker and Josh Homme. Musically, "Joanne" is a stripped-down, dance-pop, soft rock and Americana record with country elements, aimed to focus on Gaga's vocals. Lyrically, the album delves into the theme of family and life's emotions; the death of Gaga's aunt Joanne Stefani Germanotta deeply influenced the record.


title: Joanne (album)

text: The release and promotion of the album marked a softening of Gaga's image, who took on a more singer-songwriter-oriented look, consisting mainly of a pink, wide-brimmed cowgirl hat, vintage denim and pastel colors, evoking the 1970s. The singer's experience working on the television series "American Horror Story" influenced "Joanne"s creative process. To promote the album, three singles were released: "Perfect Illusion", "Million Reasons" and the title track. "Perfect Illusion" was released as the album's lead single on September 9, 2016, and reached number one in France, while "Million Reasons" reached number four in the United States. A piano version of the title track was released to radio in selected territories as the album's third single. Gaga promoted the album with her Joanne World Tour which began in August 2017 and ended in February 2018.


title: Joanne (album)

text: who praised Gaga's musical direction, vocals, production and lyrical content, but had ambivalent reactions for its lack of cohesiveness. It became Gaga's fourth consecutive album to reach number one in the United States and also topped the charts in Brazil, Mexico, the international charts of Japan and Korea, as well as reached the top ten in over 25 countries. It earned certifications in some of them. "Joanne" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. Two of its singles, "Million Reasons" and "Joanne" were nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance, for which the latter won the award.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga's third studio album "Artpop" was released in November 2013 to mixed reviews. It debuted atop the "Billboard" 200 chart, and had sold 2.5 million copies as of July 2014. Gaga split from her longtime manager Troy Carter in late 2013. By June 2014, she and new manager Bobby Campbell had joined Artist Nation, the artist management division of Live Nation Entertainment. Gaga confessed to "NME" that she had considered quitting music altogether when feeling depressed about herself and "wasn't able to see my own ability or my own talent". The ambivalent reception to "Artpop" led Gaga's management to come up with an image change for her. Along with a more subdued appearance in the media, Gaga emphasized her vocal prowess. A tribute to "The Sound of Music" at the 87th Academy Awards, where she sang a medley of songs from the film, was critically lauded. She and Tony Bennett also released "Cheek to Cheek", an album of jazz duets, in September 2014 to generally favorable reviews. It debuted atop the "Billboard" 200, becoming Gaga's third consecutive number-one album in the United States, and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga also starred in "" (2015–2016), the fifth season of the American anthology television series "American Horror Story", winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. At the awards ceremony the singer confirmed she would be releasing her fifth studio album later in 2016, and was working on the logistics and aspects including the look she would portray for the record. Throughout most of 2015 and 2016, Gaga teased fans about the album's creative and recording processes on her social media accounts. She was seen collaborating with longtime producer RedOne, as well as new collaborators like Giorgio Moroder, Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers.


title: Joanne (album)

text: According to Gaga, she wanted "fans to be surprised [by the album] ... it's a wonderful, soul-searching experience. And it's very unlike ["ARTPOP"] in that way". In an interview with "Billboard", producer RedOne said the singer was mentally in a "cleaner" state of mind, hearkening back to her earlier days, which he felt was beneficial. Gaga and Ronson served as "Joanne"s executive producers. The two grew up within blocks of each another in New York's Upper East Side, and had collaborated on Wale's song "Chillin" (2009). They reunited in late 2015, when Gaga presented the song "Angel Down" to Ronson at a studio in London. Later, the duo worked for six months in Rick Rubin's Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu, while he was between projects. On Gaga and Ronson's first day at Shangri-La, they wrote the song "Joanne". Ronson encouraged Gaga to write lyrics about "whatever was happening in her life or on her mind".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Recording continued until the album's final mastering session. Gaga was deeply involved with the technicalities of the music being recorded. "She loves just sitting at a piano and barking orders at a drummer and she has an incredible voice", Ronson said, adding that they began with the music and then proceeded with the songs. He later said that the music recorded with Gaga was "some of my favorite music I've really ever worked on. It's incredible – I love it. I can't wait until you can hear it because the music speaks for itself". Ronson also hinted at the involvement of Kevin Parker, frontman for the Australian psychedelic rock band Tame Impala, which BBC Music later confirmed to be true.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Many prominent musicians make guest appearances on "Joanne". Gaga invited Father John Misty to play drums on the record. Ronson invited Josh Homme to play guitar on the song "John Wayne" because of his work for the band Queens of the Stone Age; in addition, Homme drummed and was a co-producer. Ronson also invited Beck to collaborate on the album, resulting in the song "Dancin' in Circles". Gaga, a longtime fan of Beck's, was initially starstruck at working with him. Gaga and Florence Welch developed the concept of their duet, "Hey Girl", during a meeting at New York's Electric Lady Studios. According to Gaga, the song's theme demanded a female collaborator. She selected Welch, calling her "if not the best, one of the greatest vocalists in the world".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Ronson crafted the album's organic sound by recruiting musicians he had previously worked with on projects for Rufus Wainwright and Amy Winehouse. He credited producer BloodPop with "[bringing the album] into the modern era". In the meantime, Gaga collaborated with Elton John; their sessions resulted in a song titled "Room in My Heart", that did not make the album's final cut. In 2017, Gaga released her documentary film "", which included scenes of the singer and Ronson shot during the album's recording sessions.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Family is an underlying theme on "Joanne". Gaga explained the album "goes through all of [life]'s emotions". While crafting it, she envisioned a girl in the middle of the country, who would understand the singer's lyrics and find a human connection. To achieve that, Gaga said in an interview with E! she decided to encompass an assortment of genres, including "[crossing] between country and funk, pop, dance, rock, electronic music, folk". The tragic early demise of Joanne Germanotta added to the emotional quotient of the songs, as well as to their lyrics. Along with identity, feelings such as loss, heartbreak, frustration, desire and nostalgia also influenced the album. The singer clarified that with "Joanne" she wanted to go "out into the world ... bringing with me its deepest stories that I have of my life and turning them into songs that I hope will touch people in a deep and meaningful way about their own lives and their own stories."


title: Joanne (album)

text: The singer's experience working on "American Horror Story" influenced "Joanne"s creative process. Gaga mentioned: "I have returned to something I've believed in so much, which is the art of darkness." Being on the show also impacted her vocals. She explained that she would "listen" more to the music and then write. She added that "Joanne" would talk less about her painful time during the "Artpop" era and would have more clarity; "Now I'm thinking more about what it is I want to say and what I want to leave on Earth. It's less an expression of all my pain", she concluded. The album became an outlet for the singer to relieve herself of the "pain and anguish" she felt from the constant expectations people had of her music.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Other influences came from the men in Gaga's life, from her father Joe Germanotta and ex-fiancé Taylor Kinney. She said that using her "rebellious spirit" she wanted to understand the different relationships she had gone through, saying that "Joanne" was not a "sad album. It's an album that is very revealing of me as a woman". According to Kevin Fallon of "The Daily Beast", "The act of being Lady Gaga had drowned out the brilliant music, and the importance of Lady Gaga had somehow muddied the simple pleasure of being her fan: It was her authenticity, in all of its strangeness and lofty artistic pursuit, that spoke to us. That seemed to have gone missing." He felt that with "Joanne", Gaga was able to eliminate that redundancy and present herself as an "evolved performer", who could lay down bare emotions in the songs, rather than "mask" them in electronic music beats.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga named the album after Joanne Stefani Germanotta, her father's sister. She died on December 18, 1974, at age 19 due to complications arising from lupus. Gaga, whose middle name is Joanne (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), recognized her aunt's death had a profound effect on her family and her work. The booklet in her debut album, "The Fame" (2008), contained a poem titled "For a Moment" written by Joanne.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga credits Joanne with helping her overcome addiction problems, and dedicated The Fame Ball Tour to her. The singer tattooed the date of Joanne's death on her left biceps, between lines of a verse from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. The singer's parents opened a restaurant called Joanne Trattoria in New York in 2012. Gaga has often said that although she never met her, Joanne was "one of the most important figures in my life". After she wrote the song "Joanne" with Ronson, they decided to use the name as the album's title as a tribute to her aunt.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Along with revealing the album's title, Gaga also unveiled the cover artwork. It consists of an image of the singer's left profile, with her wearing a pink, wide-brimmed hat, against a blue background. The hat was designed by milliner Gladys Tamez who revealed it was another source of inspiration behind the overall direction of "Joanne". The milliner explained to "The Daily Beast" that one of the hats was inspired by English singer Marianne Faithfull. She added, "Gaga was the first to ever request this hat in pink, because it's her favorite color". Tamez named it "Lady Joanne" and added that Gaga had her change the shape, color and the ribbon on the hat. While designing the cover and the overall image, Tamez and Gaga spoke of using more pastel colors, inspired by the 1970s.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Dominique Redfearn of "Billboard" noted that the cover appeared simpler compared to those for "Born This Way" and "Artpop". "Billboard"s Andrew Unterberger described it as "thoughtfully composed", adding it was an indication that the album's music was much more straightforward than her earlier work. The standard version of the album contains 11 songs; the deluxe edition includes three additional tracks—two bonus songs and a demo. The booklet includes Gaga and her father's pictures, Joanne's driving license as well as her handwriting. Gaga felt it was "nice to include family heirlooms that carry meaning to me still today ... And a Polaroid of me and [Ronson] in the studio".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Journalists have described "Joanne" as a dance-pop, soft rock, and Americana album, with elements of country music. According to "Rolling Stone", Gaga "didn't give much thought to genre" while creating "Joanne", which ranges from the dance-rock of its lead single, "Perfect Illusion", to the introspective country songwriting of the title track, "Joanne". Gaga stated she professed a fascination with all aspects of country music, which in turn influenced the album. In terms of production and composition, "Joanne" continued the "stripped-down" approach to music Gaga had taken following "Artpop", emphasizing her vocals and the songwriting. Gaga told "Rolling Stone" that the tracks consisted of "stories about my family, my sister, my father and his sister. My mom's family. My relationships with men, my failures".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Joe Lynch of "Billboard" described "Joanne" as "a stylistically eclectic collection of swaggering rock, introspective ballads and soulful, danceable grooves". It opens with the track "Diamond Heart" which sets the album's tone. Hearkening back to her earlier works, this autobiographical song talks about Gaga's time as a go-go dancer in New York. "Diamond Heart" varies from a moody vibe in the verses, to a drum-oriented pre-chorus, and finally a rock-EDM chorus, with Homme playing guitar. The second track, "A-Yo", has touches of country, and is reminiscent of the music played in dive bars, with double hand claps and brass-accentuated beats. Lyrically, it is a metaphor for having sex. The repetition of the same two chords in the song's instrumentation is complemented by BloodPop's background shouts and synth elements. As the title track starts, the general tempo drops. Accompanied by just an acoustic guitar and minimal percussion, Gaga sings "heartfelt" lyrics about her late aunt Joanne. The singer described the track as "the true heart and soul of the record".


title: Joanne (album)

text: The electronic "John Wayne" is more tongue-in-cheek lyrically, with Gaga including cowboy references in the lyrics: "I just love a cowboy, I know it's bad, but I'm, like, can I just hang off the back of your horse and can you go a little faster?". Gaga's vocals are accompanied by Homme's guitar, and the track alludes to her previous relationships, with comparisons to actor John Wayne. The Beck-composed track "Dancin' in Circles" is a pop song, consisting of a dance beat, a spoken-word bridge, and lyrics about having a good time by oneself. It was described by Nicholas Mojica of the "International Business Times" as an "ode to masturbation". It has influences of reggae and ska, hearkening back to Gaga's own "Alejandro" (2010), as well as the music of Gwen Stefani. The lyrics find Gaga, dancing alone late at night, fantasizing about a past lover and masturbating: "I lay around, touch myself to pass the time / I feel down, I wish you were mine".


title: Joanne (album)

text: According to Mark Savage of BBC Music, "Perfect Illusion" is a disco-rock song, composed around a building chord sequence, which he felt leads to a "compelling sense of urgency". The singer's vocals are kept raw and "untreated", eschewing Auto-Tune. The composition consists of "pulsing verses" and a guitar-and-vocal breakdown before the final chorus, where Gaga sings the title multiple times. Around the two-minute mark, there is a key change for the final chorus. In "Million Reasons" Gaga talks about love which does not last, uttering several variations of the title in the verses. The composition consists of a simple, country-oriented piano and guitar instrumentation. In the chorus Gaga sings, "You're giving me a million reasons to let you go / You're giving me a million reasons to quit the show". Tom Rasmussen of "Vice" feels "Million Reasons" has the strongest country music influence of all the songs on "Joanne".


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Sinner's Prayer" consists of instrumentation from bells and whistles, and is a mixture of country music, R&B and pop. The Father John Misty-assisted track finds a vulnerable Gaga wanting her man to love her true self. The lyric, "Her love for him ain't cheap / But it breaks just like a knockoff piece from Fulton Street" references the said street in Manhattan, New York, where cheap trinkets are available. For the ninth track "Come to Mama", Gaga sings in an affected voice, elongating her vowel enunciation. The 1970s-inspired composition has a big chorus, highlighted by a brass section and an upbeat drum rhythm, and talks about accepting one another. The song has biblical references, with Gaga alluding to both the Old and New Testaments. The lyric about "a forty-day flood" references Noah's ark while "stop throwin' stones at your sisters and your brothers" is taken from one of Jesus' aphorisms, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."


title: Joanne (album)

text: In "Hey Girl", BloodPop and Ronson added a downtempo funk production to accompany Gaga and Welch's prominent vocals. The lyrics are an "ode to friendship". The eleventh track, "Angel Down", was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin, who was shot dead by George Zimmerman in 2012. Gaga sings lyrics like "Shots were fired on the street, by the church where we used to meet" in this torch song. Deluxe edition bonus track "Grigio Girls" was written for Sonja Durham, creative coordinator of her team, the Haus of Gaga, who had breast cancer. The song's lyrics include, "I was 23 / She was 35 / I was spiralin' out / And she was so alive". The second bonus track, "Just Another Day" was inspired by glam and the work of David Bowie.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga's manager Bobby Campbell confirmed the album would not be released until the latter half of 2016; Elton John said it would not be released until 2017. In September 2016, Gaga updated her official website announcing the new album and revealed the title of the lead single, "Perfect Illusion". On September 15, the singer appeared on Apple Radio's Beats 1 and announced the album was titled "Joanne" and its release date would be October 21, 2016. She also confirmed that within the next 48 hours, the recording would be finished. Gaga confessed that finally announcing the album's name and release date was a bittersweet moment for her, acknowledging "this isn't the end just the end of this moment. It's also the beginning of this moment."


title: Joanne (album)

text: During the same interview, the singer confirmed that, unlike recent releases, the album would not be available exclusively on streaming services like Apple Music or Tidal. "I told my label that if they signed those contracts with Apple Music and Tidal, I'd leak all my own new music," she explained to host Zane Lowe. Gaga's was opposed to these services having exclusive streaming rights to an artist's releases. Before its release, the album was leaked several times. On Amazon, the album was listed for pre-order and the songs were to be made available as and when they were released. However, on Amazon's Echo speaker, fans found that if they instructed it to "play "Joanne" by Lady Gaga", it previewed 30-second snippets of each track. Amazon later disabled previews for the whole album. Three days prior to the official release date of October 21, the album was mistakenly put out for sale in shops in Belgium. This allowed people to post it on the Internet, leading to leaks of songs.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Chris Willman of "Billboard" wrote that the promotional "blitz" for "Joanne" "felt like something from a bygone era" due to the traditional route taken by Gaga and her team, in place of surprise album launches. During her interview on "The Howard Stern Show" Gaga confirmed that she wanted to promote "Joanne" in the "old-school style". The events leading up to the release were described by Willman as "the most culturally ubiquitous rollout since Taylor Swift's "1989" two years ago". He theorized that after the perceived commercial disappointment with "Artpop", Gaga's management wanted to make sure of a comeback with "Joanne". Adding to this was the musical and stylistic change that Gaga underwent with the release, which would have confused her core audience and fans without promotion. Willman concluded that the promo would "provide a pre-Super Bowl primer to Middle America — that somewhere between the meat dress and the Tony Bennett collaboration, Gaga has settled into a middle path".


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Perfect Illusion" was released as the album's first single on September 9, 2016. It received mixed to positive reviews from music critics, many of whom complimented its catchiness, the song's key change and Gaga's vocal delivery. Others deemed it a disappointing choice as a lead single compared to the singer's previous releases. The song debuted at number one in France while reaching a peak of number 15 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Joanne (album)

text: This was followed by the release of two promotional singles—"Million Reasons" on October 6 and "A-Yo" on October 18, 2016. "A-Yo" was initially chosen as the second single of the album, but "Million Reasons" proved to be more successful commercially and was released as a single first. The song debuted at number 76 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, initially peaking at number 54. However, after Gaga's Super Bowl performance, it re-entered the chart at number four, becoming her fourteenth top-ten in the nation. The placement was aided by the song reaching number one on the Digital Songs Chart with sales of 149,000 copies, 7.6 million US streams and 15 million radio airplays. Most critics reacted positively to the song, highlighting its simple nature and the lyrics. It was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). For further promotion, both singles were accompanied by music videos, with the clip for "Million Reasons" being a continuation of "Perfect Illusion". The loose narrative contained in the two clips was continued later in a video for "John Wayne".


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Joanne" was released as the third single from the album in Italy on December 22, 2017, and a piano version of the song as well as its music video (dedicated to her deceased aunt Joanne) was released as a digital download worldwide on January 26, 2018.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Promotional activities for "Joanne" began with the announcement of "Perfect Illusion" as the album's lead single. Gaga performed it live for the first time at Moth Club in London, on September 10, 2016. She featured "Perfect Illusion" in a trailer for "", adding to the anonymous nature around the season's theme. Gaga released a number of commercials for Apple Music featuring the track. She gave interviews to "Good Morning America" and "The New York Times", and appeared at Manhattan's Best Buy shop to purchase "Joanne" for unsuspecting customers.


title: Joanne (album)

text: The singer performed "A-Yo" and "Million Reasons" on "Saturday Night Live" on October 22, 2016, assisted by Ronson and Lindsey. "Paste"s Chris White called her an "incredible performer and vocalist" based on her performance. On October 25, 2016, Gaga appeared on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" in the Carpool Karaoke segment singing her previous singles, along with "Perfect Illusion" and "Million Reasons". Later she sang "A-Yo" on the main stage of "The Late Late Show". The following week Gaga headed to Japan to promote "Joanne". She performed a piano version of "Perfect Illusion" on "Sukkiri", "Joanne" on "News Zero" and a medley of "Million Reasons", "Perfect Illusion" and "A-Yo" on "SMAP×SMAP". Gaga sang "Million Reasons" at the 2016 American Music Awards and the Ali Forney Center, a LGBT pride center. Album tracks "Come to Mama" and "Angel Down" were performed at presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's final campaign stop in Raleigh, North Carolina.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga traveled to Paris where she performed "Million Reasons", "A-Yo" and "John Wayne" at the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Cole Delbyck of "The Huffington Post" felt the "Joanne" tracks were not suitable for the show. In the United Kingdom, Gaga began her promotion of "Joanne" with a surprise gig at London's Shepherd's Bush Westfield shopping center. She later performed "Million Reasons" on the semi-final of the 13th season of "The X Factor", and at the 2016 Royal Variety Performance, attended by Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as well as on "Alan Carr's Happy Hour".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga was the headliner of the Super Bowl LI halftime show, where along with past material, she performed "Million Reasons" on the piano. She was also a main headliner at the 2017 Coachella Festival. Her setlist included "John Wayne", "A-Yo", and "Million Reasons" from the album. Benjamin Lee of "The Guardian" praised her performance, although he noted the tracks from "Joanne" were met with "surprising disinterest" compared to her older hits. In 2018, Gaga performed "Joanne" and "Million Reasons" on the piano at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, where she was joined on stage by Mark Ronson, who played guitar. Writing for "E! News", Vanessa Jackson called the performance "powerful and heartbreaking".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Gaga announced her Dive Bar Tour, sponsored by Bud Light. The 3-date tour saw her visit dive bars in the United States on October 5, 20 and 27, 2016. Her performances were live streamed on Gaga and Bud Light's Facebook pages. In a statement Gaga said: "My first performances were in dive bars in New York City and around the country, so working with Bud Light to go back to my roots to perform songs from my new album "Joanne" is such an exciting way to connect with my fans and share this music with them for the first time". She added the venues would accentuate the "raw Americana vibe" of her then-upcoming album. During the tour, Gaga premiered "A-Yo" and "Million Reasons", with the latter subsequently released for streaming on her Vevo channel.


title: Joanne (album)

text: On February 5, 2017, Gaga announced she would embark on the Joanne World Tour to support the album. It began on August 1, 2017, and ended on February 1, 2018. Gaga postponed the European leg of the tour due to severe pain caused by fibromyalgia and was forced to cancel the last 10 shows. The concert was deemed "more minimalist" compared to the singer's previous tours, but received praise for its visuals, Gaga's singing abilities and her connection with the audience. The tour ultimately grossed $95 million from sales of 842,000 tickets.


title: Joanne (album)

text: AnyDecentMusic? summed up the critical consensus as 6.6 out of 10. British music journalist Neil McCormick gave the album a four-out-of-five-star rating in his review published in "The Daily Telegraph" and complimented the old-fashioned songs on the album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave it a three-and-a-half-out-of-five rating. In a positive review he wrote that unlike Gaga's previous endeavors where she appeared as a "high-wire act", "Joanne" was more "earth-bound" and is a "record made by an artist determined to execute only the stunts she knows how to pull off ... Gaga's feet remain firmly planted in dance-pop even when she brings in a number of collaborators". The same rating was given by "Rolling Stone"s Rob Sheffield, who described the release as an "old-school Nineties soft rock album, heavy on the acoustic guitar". He complimented the understated production by Ronson and the other producers.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Writing for "The A.V. Club", Annie Zaleski commended the "genre fluidity" of "Joanne". Rating it a "B", Zaleski noted that songs like "Diamond Heart", "John Wayne", "Sinner's Prayer" and "Hey Girl" are the album's best tracks and highlighted Gaga's vocal prowess. In a three-out-of-five-star review for "Slant Magazine", Sal Cinquemani criticized the album for its oversung ballads and lack of strong hooks but deemed it more consistent and focused than "Artpop". Maeve McDermott of "USA Today" complimented Gaga for "expanding her artistic vision and toying with different genres [on the album], while still recording the customary pop tracks listeners have come to expect". Andy Gill gave the album three out of five stars in a review for "The Independent". Gill commended the album's rock-leaning tracks, and Homme's work on "A-Yo" and "John Wayne" as highlights, but called "Perfect Illusion" dull.


title: Joanne (album)

text: "The Guardian"s Caroline Sullivan considered "Joanne" a "brave move" for Gaga and rated it three-out-of-five-stars. She explained that "Gaga's huge voice adds a self-protective veneer, as does the presence of the other musicians, but at least she's done the groundwork for future albums that might show her with true transparency". Digital Spy's Lewis Corner wrote: ""Joanne" is clearly Gaga's most personal album, popping aside the synthetic personas for something more honest and, well, human. Mother Monster may be retired for now, but Lady Gaga's sheer musical brilliance still shines through." For Evan Sawdey of "PopMatters", the album—with its "flaws and all"—was a correct musical step for Gaga, which he believed would make "fans and observers once again rethink what they know about the daring diva". Similarly, Amanda Petrusich of "Pitchfork" remarked how Gaga explored an alternative path musically, diverging from "visual provocations" that permeated most of her career.


title: Joanne (album)

text: Mikael Wood of the "Los Angeles Times" felt that most songs on the album "lacked strong stories" and were "mere stylistic exercises" on Gaga's part. Rich Juzwiak, who reviewed "Joanne" for "Spin", did not find the musical evolution that Gaga presented on the album authentic. Rating the album two-out-of-four stars, journalist Greg Kot wrote in the "Chicago Tribune" that "[Gaga] sounds like she's just trying too hard" with "Joanne". He also criticized the social commentary-filled lyrics on songs like "Come to Mama" and "Angel Down". Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" noted the album's elemental sound did not come as a surprise and felt that it was not "daring or radical—it's logical, a rejoinder to her past and also to the candy-striped pop that surrounds her".


title: Joanne (album)

text: In the United States, "Joanne" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200, moving 201,000 album-equivalent units of which 170,000 were pure sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It became Gaga's fourth album to top the chart following "Born This Way" (2011), "Artpop" (2013), and "Cheek to Cheek" (2014). It was 2016's second-highest debut for an album by a woman in the US after Beyoncé's "Lemonade" opened with 653,000 copies. As a result, Gaga became the first woman to have four US number one albums in the 2010s. The album-equivalent units for "Joanne" consisted of 135,000 song sales and 26 million streams along with 170,000 traditional album sales. "Joanne"s debut helped Gaga rise to number one on the "Billboard" Artist 100, which measures artist activity across the publication's most influential charts. The album's sales dropped by 70% to 61,000 units in the second week, with it falling to number five on the "Billboard" 200. Following Gaga's Super Bowl halftime show performance, "Joanne" rose 66–2 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 48,000 copies and 74,000 album-equivalent units. It has sold 649,000 units as of February 2019 in the United States and was certified Platinum in October 2017 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling over a million equivalent units in the country.


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Joanne" debuted at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart with 17,500 album-equivalent units, behind Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker". According to the Canadian SoundScan, the album had the third-highest on-demand streams in the country. On November 4, 2016, the album was certified Gold by Music Canada for shipments of 40,000 copies in the country. Like in the United States, the Super Bowl performance also had an impact in Canada, where "Joanne" vaulted from 54–2 on the album chart, with a 524-percent gain in album-equivalent units.


title: Joanne (album)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Joanne" debuted at number three on the UK Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 26,694 copies, behind Elvis Presley's posthumous release, "The Wonder of You", and Michael Bublé's "Nobody but Me". On the UK Album Downloads Chart, "Joanne" entered the chart at number one. It also reached number two on the Official Albums Streaming Chart and number five on the Official Physical Albums Chart. The following week it dropped to number 14, with sales of 9,602 units. Following the Super Bowl performance, the record rose from number 88 to number 11 on the chart with sales increasing to 5,289 copies. As of June 2020, the album has sold 168,564 copies in the UK and has been certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). "Joanne" debuted at number three on the Irish Albums Chart. The album's debut failed to meet expectations in France, where it entered the album chart at number nine, with sales of just over 8,000 copies. Pure Charts website theorized that the moderate performance of the lead single, "Perfect Illusion", and the absence of Gaga in the media during the album's release week contributed to the album's low debut. By year end, they deemed "Joanne" one of the commercially disappointing albums in France, achieving total sales of only 12,000 copies. Two years after its release, the album racked up a Gold certification for selling 50,000 equivalent units there.


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Joanne" debuted at number two on both the Australian and New Zealand album charts. The Australian Recording Industry Association reported that "Joanne" was Gaga's second consecutive solo album to debut at number two on the chart following "Artpop". In Japan, "Joanne" debuted at number 10 on the Oricon Albums Chart with first week sales of 8,026 copies. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), "Joanne" was the 22nd best-selling album of 2016, selling one million copies that year.


title: Joanne (album)

text: "Joanne" was ranked in several publications' year-end lists. "Billboard" ranked it as the 32nd-best album of 2016, adding that the "kitchen-sink pop album" had an "instant-classic breakup ballad" in "Million Reasons", which enabled Gaga to reclaim "her sweet spot with "Joanne"". "Digital Spy"s Lewis Corner placed the record at number nine, believing that "simplicity" was the key to the album's success. "Joanne" was "NME" magazine's 20th-best album of the year, with the publication highlighting how it hearkened back to the stripped-down sound employed by Gaga in her early years as an artist. For "Rolling Stone", the album was the seventh-best pop release of 2016, with a writer from the magazine feeling that, "Gaga's soft-rock transformation takes the pop star into a new direction without losing her flair for the dramatic and penchant for the kitschy." The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, while "Million Reasons" was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance. "Million Reasons" was one of the award-winning songs at the BMI Awards. The piano version of the title track won Best Pop Solo Performance at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Joanne (album)

text: While reviewing Kesha's third studio album, "Rainbow" (2017), Spencer Kornhaber of "The Atlantic" noted the use of analogue instruments in lieu of electric ones as had been done with the songs on "Joanne". Kesha also tamed down her image like Gaga, but kept her distinct personality. In a "Vanity Fair" article, Josh Duboff wrote that singer Justin Timberlake's "countryfied" musical endeavors with his "Man of the Woods" album era recalled "Joanne". Hugh McIntyre of "Forbes" found singer Harry Styles' debut single, "Sign of the Times" (2017), incorporated glam rock in its composition. Kornhaber and Billy Nilles from "E! News" identified Kylie Minogue's fourteenth studio album "Golden" (2018) and Miley Cyrus's sixth studio album "Younger Now" (2017) as part of a trend of pop singers going through a country phase, which they compared to Gaga's work on "Joanne".


title: Joanne (album)

text: Brittany Spanos of "Rolling Stone" observed, "Joanne" served as singer Noah Cyrus's "muse" and songwriting for her music, incorporating the country-themes of Gaga's endeavor. Gary Trust, in an article for "Billboard", titled "Is Lady Gaga Bringing Back 'The Vocalist Era'?", noted that with the release of "Million Reasons" Gaga had brought her vocal abilities to the forefront. He interviewed radio programmers who theorized that releasing the song was part of a bigger musical picture and believed that the musical scene was "entering a new era of traditional ballads and big vocals".


title: Dan Wootton

text: Daniel John William Wootton (born 2 March 1983) is a New Zealand journalist and broadcaster. He is based in the United Kingdom and holds both New Zealand and British citizenship. He was executive editor of "The Sun" newspaper.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In 2007, he joined the "News of the World". In 2013, he joined "The Sun on Sunday" and became editor of the Bizarre column the following year. In February 2016, he joined "The Sun", under the editorship of Victoria Newton, as associate editor and in March 2018 progressed to executive editor. In 2021 Wootton left News UK to join MailOnline as a columnist and present a show on GB News.


title: Dan Wootton

text: Wootton has made appearances as a show business presenter on the ITV Breakfast shows "Lorraine" and "Daybreak". From 2015 to 2018, he was also a regular contributor and panelist on "Big Brother's Bit on the Side".


title: Dan Wootton

text: Daniel John William Wootton was born in Wellington, New Zealand on 2 March 1983 to two British parents; his mother was born in Basildon, Essex and his father was born on a British army base in Malta. Wootton grew up in Lower Hutt, a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand and attended Naenae College and Victoria University of Wellington, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in media studies and political science.


title: Dan Wootton

text: He started his career as a journalist in his native New Zealand, writing an entertainment column for the Wellington-based broadsheet newspaper "The Dominion Post" and was also a reporter for the daily television show "Good Morning". He moved to the United Kingdom when he was 21, and after a period working for trade magazines, he found a job with "Broadcast" magazine.


title: Dan Wootton

text: Wootton joined the "News of the World" TV team in February 2007, becoming TV editor in November 2007, and show-business editor in November 2008 until its closure in July 2011, when he then became a columnist and feature writer for the "Daily Mail" and editor-at-large for "Now" magazine. He later testified to the Leveson Inquiry in 2012 about the News International phone hacking scandal, where he denied illegally publishing stories collected through phone hacking while editor at the "News of the World."


title: Dan Wootton

text: In 2013, Wootton joined "The Sun" newspaper launching a new column on Sundays. He became editor of the newspaper's Bizarre column in 2014, and was promoted to associate editor (showbiz and TV) in 2016. He was named 'Showbiz reporter of the year' at the 2010, 2013 and 2018 British Press Awards. Wootton also made appearances as a showbiz reporter on ITV's morning show "Lorraine" between 2011 and 2019, and has been a guest on BBC Radio 5 Live.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In 2015, Wootton and "The Sun" received widespread criticism for an article he penned for the newspaper titled "Hollywood HIV Panic". HIV policy adviser Lisa Power called it "vile" and expressed disappointment that Wootton had "lent his name to such a shameful piece", saying that it reinforced stigma against people with HIV. British HIV charity the Terrence Higgins Trust called it "irresponsible", and "The BMJ", a peer-reviewed medical trade journal, also criticised Wootton's article.


title: Dan Wootton

text: Wootton hosted a weekly talkRADIO show called "Dan's Dilemmas" from March 2018 and, in February 2020, he took over as host of the station's drivetime show, replacing Eamonn Holmes.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In July 2020, libel proceedings, brought by Johnny Depp against Wootton and News Group Newspapers, began in the High Court of Justice in the case of "Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd". The action related to an article published in 2018 in "The Sun" describing Depp as a "wife beater". On 2 November 2020, the court ruled in favour of News Group. Mr Justice Nicol found that assaults were proven to the civil standard in 12 of the 14 incidents reported by Amber Heard, and he concluded that "The Sun" article was substantially accurate on the balance of probabilities.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In January 2021, Wootton announced that he would leave "The Sun" and talkRADIO to become a columnist for MailOnline and present a daily show, four days a week, on GB News. In November 2021, his GB News programme, "Tonight Live with Dan Wootton", was rebranded to "Dan Wootton Tonight" and shortened to two hours.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In October 2020, Labour MP Chris Bryant described Wootton as "a nutcase – you're a complete and utter nutcase and you're dangerous as well, a dangerous conspiracy theorist" after Wootton advocated for the Great Barrington Declaration and suggested that herd immunity could be a solution for COVID-19.


title: Dan Wootton

text: In February 2022, Andrew Brady, a former "Apprentice" contestant and ex-fiancé of Caroline Flack, was jailed for four months for harassing Wootton and making false accusations of sexual offences against him.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Beyond Skyline is a 2017 American science fiction action film written, co-produced and directed by Liam O'Donnell in his directorial debut. It stars Frank Grillo, Bojana Novakovic, Jonny Weston, Iko Uwais, Callan Mulvey, Yayan Ruhian, Pamelyn Chee, Betty Gabriel, and Antonio Fargas. It is a sequel to the 2010 film "Skyline", set concurrently with the events of the first film.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: The film was released on December 15, 2017 in the United States by Vertical Entertainment. Unlike its critically panned predecessor, "Beyond Skyline" received mixed reviews, with several critics calling it an improvement over the original.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Taking place at the same time as "Skyline", Mark Corley, a Los Angeles police detective, helps his estranged son, Trent, out of jail just as an alien invasion begins. Much of the population of the city is taken up into various spaceships by a blue light. Mark leads a group of surviving humans through underground subway tunnels to escape, though most of the humans are killed or abducted. The survivors, Mark, Trent, transit operator Audrey, and homeless man "Sarge" (who is immune to the blue light due to his blindness), escape to the marina following the city's nuclear destruction, only to be abducted into the alien flagship.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: On board, Mark tries to find his son and storms his way into various chambers, where he meets up with survivor Elaine and her transformed husband Jarrod (from the first film). Elaine explains that Jarrod retains control of his mind despite being transformed into a bio-mechanical alien soldier. Though Elaine is only three months pregnant, her pregnancy has accelerated and she gives birth to a daughter.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Elaine dies during the delivery, and Mark and Jarrod team up to destroy the ship by setting alien explosives inside the control systems. When Jarrod is killed fighting the alien leader, Mark rescues Audrey but is too late to save his son. Trent has his brain taken and placed in another alien bio-mechanical machine creature. The dying Jarrod destroys the ship, which crashes in rural Laos.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Mark, Audrey, Sarge and the baby escape from the spaceship which starts to repair itself. Sarge dies from his wounds shortly after the group meets Sua and his sister Kanya, who belong to a drug cartel and fight against both aliens and local rogue ex-policemen bandits. While trekking through the jungle, they discover that the human baby grows at an accelerated rate, from an infant into a three-year-old in just one day. Sua and Kanya lead the rest to a hidden human resistance hideout located in local ruins. In addition, the leader of the rogue policemen, Huana, intercepts them but is disarmed and captured by Sua.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Harper, a medical officer and former drug chemist, examines the baby girl and learns about her unique DNA. He believes her blood may be the key to defeating the aliens. Using the child's blood and recovered alien technology, Harper develops the serum that he believes will free the bio-mechanical soldiers from alien control and restore their human personalities.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: While on a patrol, Kanya encounters an alien and sacrifices herself by luring it into an old minefield left over from the Vietnam war. The ensuing explosion destroys the alien, but gives away their location to the ships searching for the baby. They converge on the human base. During the resulting battle, several members of the resistance are killed, including Harper. Mark enters an alien ship and uses his serum to turn the mind-controlling blue light into a red light that frees the mind-controlled soldiers. Before he can deploy it, the aliens attack and rip out the cannon containing the light. Sua frees a jailed Huana so that he can fight for the resistance. Mark, Audrey, Sua and Huana then make a last stand to fight back the aliens.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Trent, his mind restored after encountering his father, also fights back. During the battle, the child fixes the cannon, which Trent uses to kill the alien leader and release the red light, freeing the bio-mechanical soldiers. With Earth saved, Audrey names the girl Rose after Mark's deceased wife.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Ten years later, Rose, now a fully-grown adult, has taken control of an alien ship, and Trent is her second-in-command. Rose leads freed bio-mechanical soldiers and humans in an assault on the other alien ships around the Moon, including the mothership.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: In November 2014, "Variety" announced that Iko Uwais would join the cast, alongside Frank Grillo, Bojana Novakovic, and Yayan Ruhian. Liam O’Donnell wrote the script for the film, also wrote the script for the first film, will now direct as well as produce with Greg and Colin Strause serving as producers also. The Strause Brothers were the directors of the first film, "Skyline". Matthew Chausse will also produce. Uwais and Ruhian will also serve as fight choreographers on the film.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: Principal photography began in December 2014, with shooting in Yogyakarta and Batam, Indonesia. and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The finale of the film was shot in the Indonesian Prambanan temple complex, though the script suggests that it is located in Laos.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: The first film had a PG-13 rating but the sequel was given an R rating by the MPAA. On Alien Day 2017, set photos were released to show what the aliens in "Beyond Skyline" looked like for the sequel. The first trailer was released on August 16, 2017. The film premiered at Sitges Film Festival October 8, 2017. The film went on to screen at several genre film festivals including Toronto After Dark, Trieste Science+Fiction, Austin Other Worlds, Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, Rio Grind Vancouver, and was the closing night film at the inaugural Cinepocalypse in Chicago on November 9. "Beyond Skyline" was released on VOD and Digital on December 15, 2017, and on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 8, 2018.


title: Beyond Skyline

text: , the film holds a 67% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews with an approval rating of 5.50 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Beyond Skyline

text: A third film, "Skylines", again directed by O'Donnell and produced by the Strause brothers, was released on December 18, 2020.


The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance—the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms.


title: United States Agency for International Development

text: Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid. USAID was subsequently established by the executive order of President John F. Kennedy, who sought to unite several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency. USAID became the first U.S. foreign assistance organization whose primary focus was long-term socioeconomic development.


text: USAID's programs are authorized by Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act, which Congress supplements through directions in annual funding appropriation acts and other legislation. As an official component of U.S. foreign policy, USAID operates subject to the guidance of the President, Secretary of State, and the National Security Council. USAID has missions in over 100 countries, primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.


text: USAID's mission statement, adopted in February 2018, is:"On behalf of the American people, we promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.


text: In support of America's foreign policy, the U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. Government's international development and disaster assistance through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, and help people emerge from humanitarian crises and progress beyond assistance."USAID's decentralized network of resident field missions is drawn on to manage U.S. Government (USG) programs in low-income countries for a range of purposes.


text: Some of the U.S. Government's earliest foreign aid programs provided relief in crises created by war. In 1915, USG assistance through the Commission for Relief in Belgium headed by Herbert Hoover prevented starvation in Belgium after the German invasion. After 1945, the European Recovery Program championed by Secretary of State George Marshall (the "Marshall Plan") helped rebuild war-torn Western Europe.


text: USAID manages relief efforts after wars and natural disasters through its Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance which is the lead federal coordinator for international disaster assistance.


text: After 1945, many newly independent countries needed assistance to relieve the chronic deprivation afflicting their low-income populations. USAID and its predecessor agencies have continuously provided poverty relief in many forms, including assistance to public health and education services targeted at the poorest. USAID has also helped manage food aid provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Also, USAID provides funding to NGOs to supplement private donations in relieving chronic poverty.


text: Technical cooperation between nations is essential for addressing a range of cross-border concerns like communicable diseases, environmental issues, trade and investment cooperation, safety standards for traded products, money laundering, and so forth. The USG has specialized agencies dealing with such areas, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency. USAID's special ability to administer programs in low-income countries supports these and other USG agencies international work on global concerns.


text: Among these global interests, environmental issues attract high attention. USAID assists projects that conserve and protect threatened land, water, forests, and wildlife. USAID also assists projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience to the risks associated with global climate change. U.S. environmental regulation laws require that programs sponsored by USAID should be both economically and environmentally sustainable.


text: To support U.S. geopolitical interests, Congress appropriates exceptional financial assistance to allies, largely in the form of "Economic Support Funds" (ESF). USAID is called on to administer the bulk (90%) of ESF and is instructed: "To the maximum extent feasible, [to] provide [ESF] assistance ... consistent with the policy directions, purposes, and programs of [development assistance]."


text: Also, when U.S. troops are in the field, USAID can supplement the "Civil Affairs" programs that the U.S. military conducts to win the friendship of local populations. In these circumstances, USAID may be directed by specially appointed diplomatic officials of the State Department, as has been done in Afghanistan and Pakistan during operations against al-Qaeda.


text: U.S. commercial interests are served by U.S. law's requirement that most goods and services financed by USAID must be sourced from U.S. vendors.


text: To help low-income nations achieve self-sustaining socioeconomic development, USAID assists them in improving the management of their own resources. USAID's assistance for socioeconomic development mainly provides technical advice, training, scholarships, commodities, and financial assistance. Through grants and contracts, USAID mobilizes the technical resources of the private sector, other USG agencies, universities, and NGOs to participate in this assistance.


text: Programs of the various types above frequently reinforce one another. For example, the Foreign Assistance Act requires USAID to use funds appropriated for geopolitical purposes ("Economic Support Funds") to support socioeconomic development to the maximum extent possible.


text: Technical assistance includes technical advice, training, scholarships, construction, and commodities. Technical assistance is contracted or procured by USAID and provided in-kind to recipients. For technical advisory services, USAID draws on experts from the private sector, mainly from the assisted country's own pool of expertise, as well as from specialized USG agencies. Many host-government leaders have drawn on USAID's technical assistance for the development of IT systems and computer hardware procurement to strengthen their institutions.


text: To build indigenous expertise and leadership, USAID finances scholarships to U.S. universities and assists the strengthening of developing countries' own universities. Local universities' programs in developmentally important sectors are assisted directly and through USAID support for forming partnerships with U.S. universities.


text: The various forms of technical assistance are frequently coordinated as capacity-building packages for the development of local institutions.


text: Financial assistance supplies cash to developing country organizations to supplement their budgets. USAID also provides financial assistance to local and international NGOs who in turn give technical assistance in developing countries. Although USAID formerly provided loans, all financial assistance is now provided in the form of non-reimbursable grants.


text: In recent years, the USG has increased its emphasis on financial rather than technical assistance. In 2004, the Bush Administration created the Millennium Challenge Corporation as a new foreign aid agency that is mainly restricted to providing financial assistance. In 2009, the Obama Administration initiated a major realignment of USAID's own programs to emphasize financial assistance, referring to it as "government-to-government" or "G2G" assistance.


text: USAID is organized around country development programs managed by resident USAID offices in developing countries ("USAID missions"), supported by USAID's global headquarters in Washington, DC.


text: USAID plans its work in each country around an individual country development program managed by a resident office called a "mission." The USAID mission and its U.S. staff are guests in the country, with a status that is usually defined by a "framework bilateral agreement" between the USG and the host government. Framework bilaterals give the mission and its U.S. staff privileges similar to (but not necessarily the same as) those accorded to the U.S. embassy and diplomats by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.


text: USAID missions work in over fifty countries, consulting with their governments and non-governmental organizations to identify programs that will receive USAID's assistance. As part of this process, USAID missions conduct socio-economic analysis, discuss projects with host-country leaders, design assistance to those projects, award contracts and grants, administer assistance (including evaluation and reporting), and manage flows of funds.


text: As countries develop and need less assistance, USAID shrinks and ultimately closes its resident missions. USAID has closed missions in a number of countries that had achieved a substantial level of prosperity, including South Korea, Turkey, and Costa Rica.


text: USAID also closes missions when requested by host countries for political reasons. In September 2012, the U.S. closed USAID/Russia at that country's request. Its mission in Moscow had been in operation for two decades. On May 1, 2013, the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, asked USAID to close its mission, which had worked in the country for 49 years. The closure was completed on September 20, 2013.


text: USAID missions are led by Mission Directors and are staffed both by USAID Foreign Service Officers and by development professionals from the country itself, with the host-country professionals forming the majority of the staff. The length of a Foreign Service Officer's "tour" in most countries is four years, to provide enough time to develop in-depth knowledge about the country. (Shorter tours of one or two years are usual in countries of exceptional hardship or danger.)


text: The Mission Director is a member of the U.S. Embassy's "Country Team" under the direction of the U.S. Ambassador. As a USAID mission works in an unclassified environment with relative frequent public interaction, most missions were initially located in independent offices in the business districts of capital cities. Since the passage of the Foreign Affairs Agencies Consolidation Act in 1998 and the bombings of U.S. Embassy chanceries in east Africa in the same year, missions have gradually been moved into U.S. Embassy chancery compounds.


text: The country programs are supported by USAID's headquarters in Washington, D.C., "USAID/Washington," where about half of USAID's Foreign Service Officers work on rotation from foreign assignments, alongside USAID's Civil Service staff and top leadership.


text: USAID is headed by an Administrator. The current Administrator, Samantha Power, was sworn in on May 3, 2021. Under the Biden administration, the Administrator became a regular attendee of the National Security Council.


text: USAID/Washington helps define overall USG civilian foreign assistance policy and budgets, working with the State Department, Congress, and other U.S. government agencies. It is organized into "Bureaus" covering geographical areas, development subject areas, and administrative functions. Each Bureau is headed by an Assistant Administrator appointed by the President.


text: Independent oversight of USAID activities is provided by its Office of Inspector General, U.S. Agency for International Development, which conducts criminal and civil investigations, financial and performance audits, reviews, and inspections of USAID activities around the world.


text: USAID's staffing reported to Congress in June 2016 totaled 10,235, including both field missions "overseas" (7,176) and the Washington DC headquarters (3,059).


text: Of this total, 1,850 were USAID Foreign Service Officers who spend their careers mostly residing overseas (1,586 overseas in June 2016) and partly on rotation in Washington DC (264). The Foreign Service Officers stationed overseas worked alongside the 4,935 local staff of USAID's field missions.


text: Host-country staff normally work under one-year contracts that are renewed annually. Formerly, host-country staff could be recruited as "direct hires" in career positions and at present many host-country staff continue working with USAID missions for full careers on a series of one-year contracts. In USAID's management approach, local staff may fill highly responsible, professional roles in program design and management.


text: U.S. citizens can apply to become USAID Foreign Service Officers by competing for specific job openings based on academic qualifications and experience in development programs. Within five years of recruitment, most Foreign Service Officers receive tenure for an additional 20+ years of employment before mandatory retirement. Some are promoted to the Senior Foreign Service with extended tenure, subject to the Foreign Service's mandatory retirement age of 65.


text: In 2008, USAID launched the "Development Leadership Initiative" to reverse the decline in USAID's Foreign Service Officer staffing, which had fallen to a total of about 1,200 worldwide. Although USAID's goal was to double the number of Foreign Service Officers to about 2,400 in 2012, actual recruitment net of attrition reached only 820 by the end of 2012. USAID's 2016 total of 1,850 Foreign Service Officers compared with 13,000 in the State Department.


text: While USAID can have as little presence in a country as a single person assigned to the U.S. Embassy, a full USAID mission in a larger country may have twenty or more USAID Foreign Service Officers and a hundred or more professional and administrative employees from the country itself.


text: The USAID mission's staff is divided into specialized offices in three groups: (1) assistance management offices; (2) the Mission Director's and the Program office; and (3) the contracting, financial management, and facilities offices.


text: Called "technical" offices by USAID staff, these offices design and manage the technical and financial assistance that USAID provides to their local counterparts' projects. The technical offices that are frequently found in USAID missions include Health and Family Planning, Education, Environment, Democracy, and Economic Growth.


text: Examples of projects assisted by missions' Health and Family Planning offices are projects for eradication of communicable diseases, strengthening of public health systems focusing on maternal-child health including family planning services, HIV-AIDS monitoring, delivery of medical supplies including contraceptives and HIV vaccines, and coordination of Demographic and Health Surveys. This assistance is primarily targeted to the poor majority of the population and corresponds to USAID's poverty relief objective, as well as strengthening the basis for socio-economic development.


text: USAID's Education offices mainly assist the national school system, emphasizing broadening coverage of quality basic education to reach the entire population. Examples of projects often assisted by Education offices are projects for curriculum development, teacher training, and provision of improved textbooks and materials. Larger programs have included school construction. Education offices often manage scholarship programs for training in the U.S., while assistance to the country's universities and professional education institutions may be provided by Economic Growth and Health offices. The Education office's emphasis on school access for the poor majority of the population corresponds to USAID's poverty relief objective, as well as to the socioeconomic development objective in the long term.


text: Examples of projects assisted by Environment offices are projects for tropical forest conservation, protection of indigenous people's lands, regulation of marine fishing industries, pollution control, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and helping communities adapt to climate change. Environment assistance corresponds to USAID's objective of technical cooperation on global issues, as well as laying a sustainable basis for USAID's socioeconomic development objective in the long term.


text: Examples of projects assisted by Democracy offices are projects for the country's political institutions, including elections, political parties, legislatures, and human rights organizations. Counterparts include the judicial sector and civil society organizations that monitor government performance. Democracy assistance received its greatest impetus at the time of the creation of the successor states to the USSR starting in about 1990, corresponding both to USAID's objective of supporting U.S. bilateral interests and to USAID's socioeconomic development objective.


text: Examples of projects often assisted by Economic Growth offices are projects for improvements in agricultural techniques and marketing (the mission may have a specialized "Agriculture" office), development of microfinance industries, streamlining of Customs administrations (to accelerate the growth of exporting industries), and modernization of government regulatory frameworks for the industry in various sectors (telecommunications, agriculture, and so forth). In USAID's early years and some larger programs, Economic Growth offices have financed economic infrastructure like roads and electrical power plants. Economic Growth assistance is thus quite diverse in terms of the range of sectors where it may work. It corresponds to USAID's socioeconomic development objective and is the source of sustainable poverty reduction. Economic Growth offices also occasionally manage assistance to poverty relief projects, such as to government programs that provide "cash transfer" payments to low-income families.


text: Some USAID missions have specialized technical offices for areas like counter-narcotics assistance or assistance in conflict zones.


text: Disaster assistance on a large scale is provided through USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. Rather than having a permanent presence in country missions, this office has supplies pre-positioned in strategic locations to respond quickly to disasters when and where they occur.


text: The Mission Director's signature authorizes technical offices to assist according to the designs and budgets they propose. With the help of the Program Office, the Mission Director ensures that designs are consistent with USAID policy for the country, including budgetary earmarks by which Washington directs that funds be used for certain general purposes such as public health or environmental conservation. The Program Office compiles combined reports to Washington to support budget requests to Congress and to verify that budgets were used as planned.


text: While the Mission Director is the public face and key decision-maker for an impressive array of USAID technical capabilities, arguably the offices that make USAID preeminent among U.S. government agencies in the ability to follow through on assistance agreements in low-income countries are the "support" offices.


text: Commitments of U.S. government funds to NGOs and firms that implement USAID's assistance programs can only be made in compliance with carefully designed contracts and grant agreements executed by warranted Contracting and Agreement Officers. The Mission Director is authorized to commit financial assistance directly to the country's government agencies.