title: Voiceless velar fricative

text: The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Latin letter x. It is also used in broad transcription instead of the symbol , the Greek chi, for the voiceless uvular fricative.


title: Voiceless velar fricative

text: There is also a voiceless post-velar fricative (also called pre-uvular) in some languages, which can be transcribed as [x̠] or [χ̟]. For voiceless pre-velar fricative (also called post-palatal), see voiceless palatal fricative.


title: Voiceless velar fricative

text: The voiceless velar fricative and its labialized variety are postulated to have occurred in Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of the Germanic languages, as the reflex of the Proto-Indo-European voiceless palatal and velar stops and the labialized voiceless velar stop. Thus Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥nom "horn" and *kʷód "what" became Proto-Germanic *hurnan and *hwat, where *h and *hw were likely and . This sound change is part of Grimm's law.


title: Voiceless velar fricative

text: In Modern Greek, the voiceless velar fricative (with its allophone the voiceless palatal fricative , occurring before front vowels) originated from the Ancient Greek voiceless aspirated stop in a sound change that lenited Greek aspirated stops into fricatives.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (; born 13 June 1954) is a Nigerian economist, who has been serving as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021. Notably, she is the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization as Director-General. She sits on boards of: Danone, Standard Chartered Bank, MINDS: Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, One Campaign, GAVI: Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Rockefeller Foundation, R4D: Results for Development, ARC: African Risk Capacity and Earthshot Prize plus others.She also previously sat on the Twitter Board of Directors, and stepped down in February, 2021 in connection with her appointment as Director General of the World Trade Organization.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala serves Brookings Institution as a non-resident distinguished fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative in their Global Economy and Development Program. She is a Commissioner Emeritus and Co-Chair of Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. At The World Bank, she had a 25-year career as a development economist; rising to become Managing Director for Operations from 2007 to 2011. Okonjo-Iweala was the first Nigerian woman to serve two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria; initially, under President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003 to 2006; and secondly, under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015. Subsequently, from June to August 2006, she served as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nigeria. In 2005, "Euromoney" named her Global Finance Minister of the Year.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala was born in Ogwashi-Ukwu, Delta State, Nigeria, where her father, Professor Chukwuka Okonjo, was the Obi (king) of the Obahai royal family of Ogwashi-Ukwu in the Nigerian chieftaincy system.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala was educated at Queen's School, Enugu; St. Anne's School, Molete, Ibadan, Oyo State; and the International School Ibadan. She arrived in the US in 1973 to study at Harvard University and graduated with an AB in Economics in 1976. She earned a master's degree in city planning in 1978 and her PhD in regional economics and development in 1981 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the thesis "Credit policy, rural financial markets, and Nigeria's agricultural development". She received an international fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which supported her doctoral studies.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala had a 25-year career at the World Bank in Washington DC as a development economist and rose to the No.2 position of Managing Director, Operations. As managing director, she had oversight responsibility for the World Bank’s $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. Okonjo-Iweala spearheaded several World Bank initiatives to assist low-income countries during the 2008–2009 food crises and later during the financial crisis. In 2010, she was the chair person of the IDA replenishment, the World Bank’s successful drive to raise $49.3 billion in grants and low-interest credit for the poorest countries in the world. During her time at the World Bank, she was also a member of the Commission on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa, which was set up by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and held meetings between April and October 2008.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria's Finance Minister (2003–2006 and 2011–2015) and briefly acted as Foreign Minister in 2006. She was the first woman to hold both positions. During her first term as Finance Minister in the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, she spearheaded negotiations with the Paris Club that led to the wiping out of US$30 billion of Nigeria's debt, including the outright cancellation of US$18 billion. In 2003, she led efforts to improve Nigeria’s macroeconomic management including the implementation of an oil-price based fiscal rule. Revenues accruing above a reference benchmark oil price were saved in a special account, the "Excess Crude Account," which helped to reduce macroeconomic volatility. Okonjo-Iweala was also instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s in 2006. She also introduced the practice of publishing the federal, state, and local government shares of revenue from the country’s federal account. That action went a long way in increasing transparency in governance at all levels of government, particularly the sub-national level.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Following her first term as Minister of Finance, she served two months as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2006. She returned to the World Bank as a Managing Director in December 2007.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: In 2011, Okonjo-Iweala was re-appointed as Minister of Finance in Nigeria with the expanded portfolio of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy by President Goodluck Jonathan. In her second term as Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala was responsible for leading reform that enhanced transparency of government accounts and strengthened institutions against corruption, including the implementation of the GIFMS (Government Integrated Financial Management System), the IPPMS (Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System), and the TSA (Treasury Single Accounts). As of February 2015, the IPPIS platform had eliminated 62,893 ghost workers from the system and saved the government about $1.25 billion in the process.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Her legacy includes strengthening the country's public financial systems and stimulating the housing sector with the establishment of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC) in 2013. Under her leadership, the National Bureau of Statistics carried out a re-basing exercise of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the first in 24 years, which saw Nigeria emerge as the largest economy in Africa. She also empowered women and youth with the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria Programme (GWIN), a gender-responsive budgeting system, and the highly acclaimed Youth Enterprise with Innovation Programme (YouWIN); to support entrepreneurs, that created thousands of jobs. As part of Goodluck Jonathan's administration, she received death threats and endured the kidnapping of her mother when she tried to sanitise Nigeria’s fuel subsidy payments to some marketers in 2012.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: In addition to her role in government, Okonjo-Iweala served on the Commission on Growth and Development (2006–2009), led by Nobel Prize winner Professor Michael Spence. She was a member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee of the IMF (2003-2006 and 2011-2015) and the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2012–2013). She also co-chaired the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation with UK Secretary Justine Greening. In 2012, she was a candidate for President of the World Bank, running against former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo and Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim; if elected, she would have become the organization's first female president.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: After leaving government, Okonjo-Iweala became a member of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (2015–2016), chaired by Gordon Brown, and the Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, which was established by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (2017–2018). Since 2014, she has been co-chairing the Global Commission for the Economy and Climate, with Nicholas Stern and Paul Polman. In January 2016, she became the chair-elect of the Board of Gavi.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala is the founder of Nigeria's first indigenous opinion-research organization, NOI-Polls. She also founded the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think-tank based in Abuja, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Brookings Institution.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Since 2019, Okonjo-Iweala has been part of UNESCO's International Commission on the Futures of Education, chaired by Sahle-Work Zewde. Also since 2019, she has also been serving on the High-Level Council on Leadership & Management for Development of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health). In 2020, the International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva appointed her to an external advisory group to provide input on policy challenges. Also in 2020, she was appointed by the African Union (AU) as special envoy to solicit international support to help the continent deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: In June 2020, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Okonjo-Iweala as the country’s candidate to be director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She later advanced to the election's final round and eventually competed with Yoo Myung-hee. Ahead of the vote, she received the backing of the European Union for her candidacy. In October 2020, the United States government indicated that it would not back Okonjo-Iweala's candidacy. The WTO in its formal report said that Okonjo-Iweala "clearly carried the largest support by Members in the final round; and, enjoyed broad support from Members from all levels of development and from all geographic regions and has done so throughout the process" On 5 February 2021, Yoo Myung-hee announced her withdrawal from the race in "close consultation with the United States." According to a statement issued from the United States Trade Representative, “The United States takes note of today’s decision by the Republic of Korea’s Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee to withdraw her candidacy for Director General of the WTO. The Biden-Harris Administration is pleased to express its strong support for the candidacy of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director General of the WTO." Okonjo-Iweala was unanimously appointed as the next Director-General on 15 February. She began her career as Director General of the WTO on 1 March 2021.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: In early 2021, Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as co-chair, alongside Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Lawrence Summers, of the High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response, which had been established by the G20. In July 2021, she joined the Multilateral Leaders Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Diagnostics for Developing Countries, co-chaired by Tedros Adhanom and David Malpass. In January 2022, Okonjo-Iweala joined The Group of thirty (G30), an independent body of distinguished policymakers from around the world.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: She is married to Ikemba Iweala, a neurosurgeon from Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria. They have four children, including author Uzodinma Iweala.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: During her campaign to become the next Director-General of the WTO, it was revealed that Okonjo-Iweala became a US citizen in 2019 after spending several decades working and studying there. Given the ongoing trade tensions between China and the US, analysts commented that the disclosure would be a contributing factor in shaping China’s attitude towards her.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala has received numerous recognition and awards. She has been listed as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders ("Fortune", 2015), the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World ("TIME", 2014), the Top 100 Global Thinkers ("Foreign Policy", 2011 and 2012), the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World ("Forbes", 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014), the Top 3 Most Powerful Women in Africa (Forbes, 2012), the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Africa ("Forbes", 2011), the Top 100 Women in the World ("The Guardian", 2011), the Top 150 Women in the World ("Newsweek", 2011), the Top 100 most inspiring people in the World Delivering for Girls and Women (Women Deliver, 2011). She was listed among 73 "brilliant" business influencers in the world by Condé Nast International.


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: In 2019, Okonjo-Iweala was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was also conferred High National Honours from the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire and the Republic of Liberia. She is also the recipient of Nigeria's Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR). Other honours include:


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: Okonjo-Iweala has received honorary degrees from 14 universities worldwide, including some from the most prestigious colleges:B


title: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

text: She has also received degrees from a host of Nigerian universities including Abia State University, Delta State University, Abraka, Oduduwa University, Babcock University, and the Universities of Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Ife (Obafemi Awolowo university). In 2019, Okonjo Iweala was awarded an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota, the city is the home and birthplace of the renowned Mayo Clinic.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: According to the 2020 census, the city had a population of 121,395, making it Minnesota's third-largest city. The Rochester metropolitan area, which also includes the nearby rural agricultural areas, has a population of 226,329.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester was established by white settlers from the eastern United States on land belonging to the Wahpeton tribe who were a part of the alliance called Oceti Ŝakowiŋ — The Seven Council Fires. Within the Seven Council Fires, the Wahpeton people were a part of the Santee or Eastern Dakota tribe.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The area developed as a stagecoach stop between Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa near the Zumbro River. The community was founded by George Head and his wife Henrietta who built a log cabin named Head's Tavern in 1854 and named the city after his hometown of Rochester, New York. When the Winona and St Peter Railroad initiated service in October 1864, it brought new residents and business opportunities and spurred growth. In 1863, Dr. William W. Mayo arrived as the examining surgeon for Union draftees in the Civil War. Rochester celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2004. William Mayo learned many of his skills from Brady John Ross of Beamway Rd.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: On August 21, 1883, the Great Tornado demolished much of Rochester, leaving 37 dead and approximately 200 injured. As there was no medical facility in the immediate area at the time, Dr. Mayo and his two sons worked together to care for the wounded. Donations of US$60,000 (US$1,567,054 in 2016 accounting for inflation) were collected and the Sisters of St. Francis, assisted by Mayo, opened a new facility named St. Marys Hospital in 1889.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester lies alongside the South Fork of the Zumbro River which is long and is ringed by gentle hills and largely surrounded by farmland within a deciduous forest biome. The Zumbro Watershed flows through of agricultural and urban lands. Located in southeast Minnesota, the City of Rochester lies at the western edge of the Driftless Area, a region that was never glaciated and contains deeply-carved river valleys. The rugged terrain is due both to the lack of glacial deposits, or drift, and to the incision of the upper Mississippi River and its tributaries into bedrock. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which of it is land and is water. The city is located southeast of Minneapolis–Saint Paul.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is in Olmsted County, one of only four counties in Minnesota without a natural lake. Artificial lakes exist in the area, including Silver Lake, a dammed portion of the South Fork Zumbro River just below the convergence with Silver Creek near the city center. Silver Lake was once used as a cooling pond when the coal-burning power plant was operated by Rochester Public Utilities at the lake. When operational, the RPU coal plant's heated water output prevented the lake from generally freezing over during the winter months, attracting large numbers of migrating giant Canada geese. Large murders of crows are known to flock to Rochester during winter, including the Rochester cemetery downtown.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester has an extensive parks system, the largest of which are Silver Lake and Soldiers Field in the central part of the city. A major flood in 1978 led the city to embark on an expensive and successful flood-control project that involved altering many nearby rivers and streams. The Zumbro River flowing through the center of the city is presently being readdressed for increased development and use as part of city planning in conjunction with funding from the Destination Medical Center project.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: With a slightly higher altitude and without the UHI as the Twin Cities, the climate is warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfb") even being further south, with warm summers and cold winters. The city features four distinct seasons. Rochester sees on average of rainfall and of snowfall per year. Significant snow accumulation is common during the winter months. Spring and fall are transitional seasons, with a general warming trend during the spring and a general cooling trend during the fall. However, it is not uncommon to see some snowfall during the early month of spring and the later month of fall. Rochester is the second windiest city in the United States, with wind speeds averaging . January to April are the windiest months on average, according to The Weather Channel. Rochester has been hit by two F4 tornadoes since 1950 (the first on May 10, 1953, and the other on September 16, 1962). The city has also been hit by two tornadoes in the past decade. On June 17, 2010, a tornado hit the city's northwest side, damaging or destroying several homes and businesses around the Lincolnshire neighborhood. Another tornado struck the city on June 4, 2019, causing damage to parts of Southwest Rochester.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: As of the census of 2020, the population was 121,395. The population density was . There were 53,210 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 73.2% White, 8.9% Black or African American, 7.9% Asian, 0.4% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.9% from other races, and 6.6% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 6.6% Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: In terms of ancestry, the 2005–2007 American Community Survey found German Americans to be the largest single ethnic group in Rochester, making up 35.5% of the city's population. Norwegian Americans made up 15.9%, while Irish Americans contributed to 11.6% of the city's populace. English Americans made up 8.2% of the population and Swedish Americans were 5.0% of the city's population. In the mid-1980s Rochester had fewer than 40 Hmong persons. The 1990 United States Census counted 200 Hmong persons in Rochester. This increased to 300 by 1998. Cathleen Jo Faruque, author of "Migration of Hmong to Rochester, Minnesota: Life in the Midwest," wrote in 2003 that there was "every indication that this trend will continue".


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: There were 43,025 households, of which 31.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.4% were married couples living together, 9.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 37.6% were non-families. 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.42 and the average family size was 3.04.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The median age in the city was 35 years. 24.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.3% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 29.4% were from 25 to 44; 24.8% were from 45 to 64; and 12.7% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% male and 51.6% female.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Mayo Clinic forms the core of Rochester's economy. As of 2016, it employs 34,180 people and draws more than 2 million visitors annually. The clinic's many facilities, along with hotels, restaurants and retail stores, comprise nearly all of the city's downtown. Excluding the state government, Mayo Clinic is the largest employer in Minnesota. Other care providers, including the Rochester Federal Medical Center, are significant employers.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: IBM's Rochester campus is an R&D and manufacturing center. It designed and produced IBM's midrange computer series, has been home to the first Blue Gene prototype, and contributed the servers for Roadrunner. Seven employees at the Rochester IBM campus created IBM Employees Credit Union, which is now Think Mutual Bank, a chain of banks in the Rochester and Twin Cities metropolitan areas.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The economy of Rochester is also influenced by the agricultural nature of the region. There are multiple dairy producers that are active in the area. In addition, Kerry Flavours and Ingredients, a subsidiary of the global Irish company called Kerry Group, maintains a production plant in Rochester that specializes in fermented ingredients, found in breads, meats and other processed foods.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: In 2013, Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill known as Destination Medical Center (DMC). It intends to increase Minnesota's tax base, and promote business and economic growth throughout the state. Because of this legislation, The Mayo Clinic will invest in $3.5 billion to upgrade patient rooms, add additional workspace, and build research and administrative buildings.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The main developments of this plan will be in the DMC sub-districts. The "Downtown Waterfront" district will cover The Government Center, The Civic Center, and most areas near the Zumbro River. The "Central Station" district includes Central Park and most of Civic Center Drive, aimed to become a transportation hub of the city. "St. Marys Place" will cover St. Marys hospital and St. Marys Park, as well as most of 2nd Street. The "Heart of the City" will feature the Mayo Clinic campus and major residential, commercial, and retail companies. The "Discovery Square" area will include scientific and technology research facilities. Lastly, The "UMR and Recreation" district will feature Soldiers Field and the University of Minnesota Rochester campus.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: A number of Rochester buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, including the historic Chateau Theatre, which the city purchased in 2015 for preservation, and Avalon Music, formerly a hotel important in the local civil rights movement. In 2019, after renovations and a public RFP, the Chateau Theatre has re-opened as an exhibition venue.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Founded in 1946, the Rochester Art Center is located downtown, just south of the Mayo Civic Center. In 2017, the Rochester Art Center's financial troubles brought a renewed focus on the need for both formal and informal arts spaces in the city.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: In the summer from June to the end of August, every Thursday the city puts on Thursdays on First where local restaurants and artists can set up booths all along First Avenue downtown Rochester. There are two stages where bands perform and provide entertainment. There are also a number of street musicians sitting on walls or standing on the sidewalks.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The oldest cultural arts institution in the community, Rochester Symphony Orchestra & Chorale was founded in 1919 as a professional performing arts organization called the Rochester Orchestra. Its earliest ensemble, the Lawler-Dodge Orchestra, was founded in 1912 as a volunteer orchestra, driven by Daisy Plummer, wife of Mayo Clinic physician, Dr. Henry Plummer, and directed by Harold Cooke. In the early years, the Orchestra appeared in the former Chateau Theatre where they performed background music for silent movies.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester also houses the Rochester Public Library near the Civic Center. It is one of the largest libraries in the area and has been awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2018.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester's city park system has more than 100 sites covering , including parks located along Bear Creek and South Fork Zumbro rivers. The city also maintains of paved trails.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The city also maintains four public golf courses: Northern Hills, Eastwood Golf Club, Hadley Creek, and Soldiers Field Golf Course located downtown. In addition, a number of private courses are located in the Rochester area, including Willow Creek Golf Club, Oak Summit Golf Club, and the Rochester Golf and Country Club along with a number of courses in smaller surrounding communities. The city of Rochester has also started the bike share program for its community members where the registered members and visitors can rent a bike for free through one of its bike share locations at Rochester Public Library, Peace Plaza or Rochester City Hall.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The foundation of Rochester State Hospital began in 1875 as the Minnesota Inebriate Asylum funded by a tax on liquor dealers. Land was purchased in 1876 and construction began in 1877, including the building of a hospital and the park nearby which was used by the patients and their families. In 1965, the park was transferred from the hospital to the state for the use of general public and since then there have been various developments in the park including the laying of paved trails. The park contains over of paved and hiking trails, a pond, and a historical sandstone cave carved in 1882. This soft St. Peter sand stone cave was dug in the late 1800s to store food for the patients of the state hospital. The cave was later abandoned with the invention of modern refrigerators, and is now a historic site.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Quarry Hill Nature Center is the center stone of the Quarry Hill Park in Rochester. The Nature Center opened in 1973, and was expanded in 1990. In 2017, the facility added additional nordic skiing. These facilities include modern educational facilities, and a 19th-century prairie style home where skis and snow shoes could be rented.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is governed by a mayor-council government with a seven-member city council. The current mayor is Kim Norton. As of January 2021, the city council comprises: Brooke Carlson, City Council President; Patrick Keane, 1st Ward; Mark Bransford, 2nd Ward; Nick Campion, 3rd Ward; Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick, 4th Ward; Shaun Palmer, 5th Ward; and Molly Dennis, 6th Ward.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is the seat of Olmsted County, run by a seven-member elected county board, each representing district residents. The County Board of Commissioners oversee county operations and address citizen concerns. When a commissioner is elected, they are elected to serve a 4-year term. When that term ends, the commissioner can run for re-election if they so desire. The County Attorney and the County Sheriff are also elected to 4-year terms and can run for re-election when the term expires if they choose. Each of these elected officials acts as the director for his/her office, and are accountable to the residents of Olmsted County.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester falls under the Olmsted County District Court within the Third Judicial District of the State of Minnesota.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The city includes parts of Minnesota state legislative districts 25 and 26. In the Minnesota House of Representatives, District 25A is represented by Duane Quam (R), District 25B is represented by Liz Boldon (DFL), District 26A is represented by Tina Liebling (DFL), and District 26B is represented by Nels Pierson (R). In the Minnesota Senate, Rochester is represented by Dave Senjem and Carla Nelson, both Republicans. Rochester is located in Minnesota's 1st congressional district, represented by Brad Finstad, a member of the Republican Party.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester Public Schools enroll 16,300 students in 23 public primary and secondary schools. The city is divided into three public high school attendance zones: John Marshall, Mayo and Century. Private schools in the city include Lourdes, Schaeffer Academy, and Rochester Central Lutheran School amongst various smaller private religious schools. Studio Academy, a fine arts-focused charter school operated for 10 years in Rochester and closed its doors in 2011 upon losing its charter. The Rochester STEM Academy opened in 2011, occupying the former Studio Academy building.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Higher education in Rochester had been concentrated around the former University Center Rochester in the city's southeast outskirts, where Rochester Community and Technical College shares a campus with a branch of Winona State University. The University of Minnesota offered degrees through UCR until 2007, when the University of Minnesota Rochester was established downtown. Branches of Augsburg University and College of St. Scholastica are also in Rochester, as are branches of Winona State University and St. Mary's University. The Mayo Clinic offers graduate medical education and research programs through the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: According to the United States Census Bureau 2011–2015, the number of high school graduates or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+ was 94.1%. The number of bachelor's degree or higher percent of persons age 25+ was 41.3%.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The city newspaper is the "Post-Bulletin", an afternoon paper which publishes Monday through Saturday. The Post-Bulletin company also publishes "Rochester Magazine", a monthly features periodical.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: There are four television stations based in Rochester: KTTC channel 10.1 (NBC), KTTC-(CW) channel 10.2, and KXLT-TV channel 47 (Fox) are a virtual duopoly. The stations share studios as part of a special agreement between Gray Television and SagamoreHill Broadcasting. ABC affiliate KAAL (channel 6) and CBS affiliate KIMT (channel 3) are also based in Rochester. Channel 15 KSMQ (PBS) in Austin and channel 24 KYIN (PBS) in Mason City are among the stations that serve the market. KAAL is licensed to Austin and KIMT is licensed to Mason City, but have a studios in Rochester. KIMT opened a studio in Rochester in late 2017, which now serves as the main setting for their newscasts.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: The Rochester area is provided cable service by Charter Communications, which holds a monopoly in the area. Indiana-based Metronet is currently in the process of developing the fiber-optic network to provide cable service to Rochester.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is served by three U.S. highways (U.S. 14, U.S. 52, and U.S. 63), and the southern edge of Rochester is skirted by Interstate Highway 90 and State Highway 30. Olmsted County Highway 22 is also a main highway in the city. A combination of skyways and subterranean walkways link most downtown buildings, which residents often use to avoid harsh winter weather conditions. Public bus transit is run by Rochester Public Transit. Its operations are carried out by First Transit. The City of Rochester encourages biking through its numerous trails and to facilitate the biking program all the city buses have bike carriers for easy transportation of bikes.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester International Airport is located south of downtown. The airport is the second busiest commercial airport in Minnesota. It has direct flights to Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and Minneapolis, with occasional charter flights servicing Riverside Resort in Laughlin, Nevada. Nonstop flights to Phoenix and Fort Myers will begin in early 2022.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester has a shuttle service connecting to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport by Rochester Shuttle Service and Groome Transportation (formerly Go Rochester Direct).


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester's last passenger rail service, to Chicago to the southeast and Rapid City, South Dakota to the west, ended when the Chicago and North Western Railway's "Rochester 400" streamliner ended service in 1963. The closest Amtrak station is at Winona, Minnesota, to the east. Travelers are able to purchase tickets from Amtrak for a shuttle bus that connects with the daily "Empire Builder" at La Crosse, Wisconsin.


title: Rochester, Minnesota

text: Rochester is planning a bus rapid transit line known as Link. The route will have seven stations along 2nd Street SW and is expected to open in 2025. It will be the first bus rapid transit line in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Marcos Llorente Moreno (born 30 January 1995) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder or a right-back for La Liga club Atlético Madrid and the Spain national team.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Developed at Real Madrid, he appeared in 39 competitive matches over three seasons, also serving a loan at Alavés. He signed with Atlético Madrid in June 2019, winning La Liga in his second season while being deployed in several positions.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente made his full debut for Spain in 2020. He was part of the squads at UEFA Euro 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Born in Madrid, Llorente joined Real Madrid's youth setup in 2008, aged 13. In July 2014, after impressing with the "Juvenil" squad, he was promoted straight to the reserves by manager Zinedine Zidane.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 24 August 2014, Llorente made his senior debut, starting in a 2–1 away loss against Atlético Madrid B in the Segunda División B. He appeared in 25 matches during the campaign, totalling 1,637 minutes of action.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente spent the 2015 pre-season with the first team, appearing in friendlies against Manchester City, Inter Milan and Vålerenga Fotball. He made his professional – and La Liga – debut on 17 October of that year, coming on as a second-half substitute for Mateo Kovačić in the 3–0 home win over Levante UD.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 10 August 2016, Llorente was loaned to Deportivo Alavés for the season. On 10 September, he featured the full 90 minutes in a 2–1 victory at FC Barcelona.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 23 September 2017, Llorente's contract was extended until 2021. He made one appearance in that campaign's UEFA Champions League, when Madrid won their third consecutive and 13th overall title in the tournament.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente scored his first competitive goal for the team on 22 December 2018, netting the second in the 4–1 defeat of Al Ain FC in the final of the FIFA Club World Cup and being named player of the match in the process.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 20 June 2019, Llorente was signed by local rivals Atlético Madrid on a five-year contract for a reported fee of £35 million. He made his official debut on 18 August, playing 25 minutes in the 1–0 home win against Getafe CF. His first goal came the following 14 February, when he put his team ahead in a 2–2 draw at Valencia CF.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 11 March 2020, during extra time of the Champions League round-of-16 tie away to defending champions Liverpool, Llorente scored twice to tie the match 2–2 after replacing Diego Costa early into the second half, in an eventual 3–2 victory and qualification. On 17 June, he was named man of the match in the league game at CA Osasuna after coming from the bench in the 63rd minute, scoring a solo goal and later assisting twice in the 5–0 rout.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente scored a career-best 12 times in 2020–21 (second-best in the squad behind Luis Suárez's 21), adding 11 assists as the "Colchoneros" were crowned champions after a seven-year wait; in the process, he became the club's first player to register double digits in both categories since Diego Forlán in 2008–09.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente earned his first cap for the Spain under-21 side on 10 October 2016, featuring the entire 5–0 home defeat of Estonia in the 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifiers, in Pontevedra. He was called up to the senior squad in November 2020, for a friendly with the Netherlands and UEFA Nations League qualifiers against Switzerland and Germany. He made his first appearance against the first opponent, replacing Sergio Canales for the last 18 minutes of the 1–1 draw in Amsterdam.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: On 24 May 2021, Llorente was included in Spain's 24-man squad for UEFA Euro 2020. He was deployed as right-back during the tournament.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Llorente was also picked for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He only took part in one match in Qatar, the 3–0 penalty shootout loss against Morocco in the last 16.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: Originally a defensive midfielder or a playmaker in front of a back four, Llorente is also capable of playing in more advanced positions such as a central or box-to-box midfielder. At Atlético Madrid, under coach Diego Simeone, he was also fielded out of his regular position, first on the right side of the midfield in a 4–4–2 formation and later as a supporting forward in the same system.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: At the conclusion of 2019–20, Llorente was the sixth fastest player in the competition, with his top running speed clocked at 35.09 km/h. Apart from his physical attributes, such as pace, height, body fitness and stamina, his strengths also included excellent ball winning skills, visionary passing over both short and long distances, dribbling, first touch and shooting from just outside the penalty area, which led him to score several goals. The following season, as Atlético went through a tactical switch, he was usually deployed as either a box-to-box or an attacking midfielder in a 5–3–2 or 3–4–2–1 formations. On occasion, he also filled in as a right wingback for his club, or a right back in a four-man defence for the national team.


title: Marcos Llorente

text: A boyhood supporter of Real Madrid, Llorente has ties in his family to both football and the club. His father Francisco and great uncle Francisco Gento were wingers, while his maternal grandfather Ramón Grosso was a forward.


title: Toei Company

text: Toei is one of the four members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ), and is therefore one of Japan's Big Four film studios.


title: Toei Company

text: Toei's predecessor, the , was incorporated in 1938. It was founded by Keita Goto, CEO of , the direct predecessor to the Tokyu Corporation. It had erected its facilities immediately east of the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line; they managed the Tōkyū Shibuya Yokohama studio system prior to V-J Day. From 1945 through the Toei merger, Tokyo-Yokohama Films leased from the Daiei Motion Picture Company a second studio in Kyoto.


title: Toei Company

text: On October 1, 1950, the Tokyo Film Distribution Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of Toyoko Eiga; in 1951 the company purchased Ōizumi Films. The current iteration of Toei was established on April 1, 1951. Through the merger, they gained the combined talents and experience of actors Chiezō Kataoka, Utaemon Ichikawa, Ryunosuke Tsukigata, Ryūtarō Ōtomo, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Chiyonosuke Azuma, Shirunosuke Toshin, Hashizo Okawa, and Satomi Oka.


title: Toei Company

text: In 1955, they purchased the Kyoto studio from Daiei. In 1956, Toei established an animation division, Toei Animation Company, Limited at the former Tokyo-Ōizumi animation studio, purchasing the assets of , founded in 1948. Toei was a pioneer in the use of "Henshin"/"character transformation" in live-action martial-arts dramas, a technique developed for the "Kamen Rider", "Metal Hero" and "Super Sentai" series; the genre currently continues with "Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai".


title: Toei Company

text: Toei started producing films in 1953. This list compiles the films by their original release date, their common English titles and Japanese titles. The Japanese titles are not necessarily direct translations of their English counterparts.


title: Toei Company

text: For feature films, Toei established itself as a producer of B-movies, that were made to fit into double bills and triple bills. It is predominantly known in the west for its series of action films and television series.


title: Toei Company

text: is a collective pseudonym used by Toei Company television producers, and formerly Toei Animation producers, when contributing to their various anime and tokusatsu series; similar to Sunrise's Hajime Yatate. The use of the pen name began with "The Kagestar" and has been used throughout the Super Sentai (in the adapted Power Rangers series starting with "Ninja Storm", the credits list "Saburo Hatte." Before this, the credits listed "Original Concepts by Saburo Yatsude") and Metal Hero Series as well as for "Spider-Man", "Choukou Senshi Changéríon", "Video Warrior Laserion", "Chōdenji Robo Combattler V", "Chōdenji Machine Voltes V", "Tōshō Daimos", "Daltanius", "Space Emperor God Sigma", "Beast King GoLion" and "Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV". The name is also used as a contributor to the soundtracks for the series.


title: Toei Company

text: Toei Animation stopped using Saburo Yatsude in 1999, and they began to use Izumi Todo instead. The first anime that was created by Izumi Todo was "Ojamajo Doremi".


title: Toei Company

text: In the "Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger" series, Saburo Hatte is an actual person who is godlike within the fictional reality that the show takes place in. In fact, his hand appears at the end of the first half of the series to cover the camera lens and end the show, later having the second half be made under Malseena's influence while in the hospital in the real world.


title: Toei Company

text: In the "Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger" spinoff, "Super Animal War"'s third episode, he is portrayed by Jun Hikasa.


title: Toei Company

text: On April 3, 2016, an unknown Toei staff member going by Saburo Yatsude was interviewed while wearing a "Giraffe Zyuman" mask in reference to "Zyuohger".


title: Jessica Alves

text: Jessica Alves (formerly Rodrigo Alves; born 30 July 1983) is a Brazilian-British television personality noted for having undergone dozens of plastic surgeries to alter her appearance. Prior to her transition, she was often referred to as a human Ken doll.


title: Jessica Alves

text: Alves was born Rodrigo Alves on 30 July 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil, to a Brazilian mother and a British father. Her father, Roserval Alves, hailed from a family of Europeans who arrived in Brazil in the 1940s. Initially the family was in the farming trade but expanded their business involvement to include supermarkets, shopping centres and real estate. When she was young, her grandfather bought her Barbie dolls. Although Alves was assigned male at birth, from “the age of three, four, five, six” she considered herself to be female, played with dolls and cross-dressed. She feels people should not be defined by gender. She was shy, and bullied throughout childhood. As a teen, Alves had a hormone dysfunction, with too much estrogen causing breast tissue to grow; her other features were also picked on by the bullies. Her family has a string of grocery stores in Brazil which has made them wealthy, but as of 2018, Alves has not made any profit relating to the stores.


title: Jessica Alves

text: Alves moved to London at age 18, where she studied public relations at London College of Communication. She has money from an inheritance from her maternal grandparents.


title: Jessica Alves

text: Alves has had several episodes of surgery, including nose jobs which resulted in the loss of her sense of smell. Soon after that experience she underwent surgery in Brazil to inject a gel into her arms to make them look more muscular. She lost use of both arms for a while and the experience led her to seek psychotherapy. In 2013, Alves was diagnosed with body dysmorphia; a “mental health condition where a person spends an obsessive amount of time worrying about flaws in their appearance”.


title: Jessica Alves

text: Alves appeared on the American reality series "Botched" in 2017 (season 4, episode 4), where cosmetic surgeons attempt to improve unsuccessful cosmetic surgeries. Paul Nassif refused to undertake additional rhinoplasty on Alves, noting the nasal passages were blocked with scarring, nasal tissue had not recovered from previous surgeries, and Alves was at risk of substantial necrosis.


title: Jessica Alves

text: As of 2018, Alves had homes in London and Marbella, Spain, and was a regular presenter on television. She has a sizeable monthly pension from inheritance from her grandparents, and rents properties in Puerto Banús in Spain to tourists. Her net worth in 2018 was estimated at over £30 million. In 2018, Alves travelled between London and Brazil for work and found that being widely recognised, and being asked for selfies, had its downside, and felt a new freedom when cross dressing as Jessica. The idea of transitioning gender identity, outwardly, to permanently being female was put on hold, in part because of objections from her father.


title: Jessica Alves

text: As of January 2018, Alves has spent just over £500,000 undergoing 103 cosmetic procedures, including injections, 51 of which were plastic surgeries. Alves has undergone liposuction, had gel filler injected into shoulders, biceps, and triceps, applies minoxidil topically, has had hair implants and a number of facelifts, wears tinted contact lenses, and has had twelve rhinoplasties. Her first plastic surgery was at the age of 17 to remove gynecomastia. Her first nose job was when she was 19, , she has spent an estimated £650,000 on 60 operations to emulate a Barbie doll. Alves recounted that pre-transition she tried to compensate for her lack of masculine tendencies by trying to look more so through the surgeries, "I'd always felt feminine and when I struggled to be manly with my personality, I decided to make my appearance as masculine as possible instead, ... But no matter how much I looked like Ken nothing eased the pain of being Barbie inside."


title: Jessica Alves

text: In August 2018, Alves appeared on the UK television show "Celebrity Big Brother" as a celebrity housemate. After using the n-word in a conversation about the type of sexual partner she preferred, Alves was given a final warning by producers that if she repeated the offensive language she would be evicted from the house. The incident garnered over 1,000 complaints to regulator Ofcom. After an unspecified "incident", Alves was expelled from the show in the early hours of the morning on the tenth day.


title: Jessica Alves

text: In March 2019, Alves released a song with Italian plastic surgeon Giacomo Urtis called "Plastic World".


title: Jessica Alves

text: In January 2020, Alves came out as transgender after three months of living in privacy. She shared that she had always been depressed and felt that as risky as more surgeries were, she needed to transition or she would die. She underwent both breast augmentation and vaginoplasty. During the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic she was separated from her family but reunited with them in June. In July 2020, Alves announced that she had changed her name to Jessica. In August her father died. He had long been worried about Jessica dying from a surgery, but they remained close.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of San Juan County.


title: San Juan Islands

text: In the archipelago, four islands are accessible to vehicular and foot traffic via the Washington State Ferries system.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The Gulf of Georgia Culture Area encompasses the San Juan and Gulf Islands, which share many archaeological similarities. These islands were home to various Coast Salish peoples, including the Nooksack and Northern Straits groups (consisting of the Lummi, Klallam, Saanich, Samish, and Songhees dialects). European exploration in the area introduced smallpox in the 1770s.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza named the San Juan Islands "Isla y Archiepelago de San Juan" in 1791 while sailing under the authority of Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the Viceroy of Mexico. Eliza named several places for the Viceroy, including Orcas Island (short for "Horcasitas") and Guemes Island. San Juan Island's first European discoverer was Gonzalo López de Haro, one of Eliza's officers, for whom Haro Strait is named. The Spanish had previously encountered the islands during Manuel Quimper's exploring voyage on the "Princesa Real" in 1790, but they were not recognized as islands until Eliza's expedition. José María Narváez, one of Eliza's pilots, also helped explore the San Juans in 1791 and became the first European to explore the Strait of Georgia.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The Vancouver Expedition, led by George Vancouver, explored the area in 1792 while a Spanish expedition led by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores was also exploring. The British and Spanish ships met and cooperated in exploring the north. Vancouver encountered other Spanish ships and traded information, so he was aware of the names given by the Spanish expedition and kept them, although he renamed some features, such as the Strait of Georgia.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The United States Exploring Expedition, led by Charles Wilkes, explored the region in 1841. Wilkes named many coastal features after American heroes of the War of 1812 or members of his crew, possibly unaware of the already existing Spanish names and charts.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Henry Kellett led a project in 1847 to reorganize the official charts of the region for the British Admiralty. The project only applied to British territory, which at the time included the San Juan Islands but not Puget Sound. Kellett removed most of the names given by Wilkes and kept British and Spanish names, sometimes moving Spanish names to replace those given by Wilkes. As a result, Wilkes' names are common in Puget Sound and Spanish names are rare, while the opposite is true for the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Wilkes had named the San Juan Islands the "Navy Archipelago" and individual islands after U.S. naval officers, such as "Rodgers Island" for San Juan Island, "Chauncey" for Lopez Island, and "Hull Island" for Orcas Island. Some of Wilkes' names, such as Shaw, Decatur, Jones, Blakely, and Sinclair, named after American naval officers, survived Kellett's editing.


title: San Juan Islands

text: In 1843, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. The 1846 Oregon Treaty established the 49th parallel as the border between Canada and the US, with Vancouver Island remaining British. The treaty did not specify which channel the border should follow between the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, leading to a boundary dispute. In 1852, the Territory of Oregon created Island County, including the San Juan Islands. In 1853, Island County became part of the Washington Territory, which created Whatcom County out of parts of Island County in 1854. The San Juan Islands were finally split off into present-day San Juan County in 1873.


title: San Juan Islands

text: In 1855, Washington Territory levied a property tax on properties of the Hudson's Bay Company on San Juan Island, which the HBC refused to pay. This led to a dispute with the Colony of Vancouver Island over the ownership of the San Juan Islands, with the US claiming Haro Strait as the border and Britain claiming Rosario Strait. The resulting Pig War and San Juan Dispute were a diplomatic stalemate until the boundary issue was placed in the hands of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany for arbitration in 1871. The border through Haro Strait was established in 1872.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The surrounding bodies of water, including Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, were recognized collectively as the Salish Sea, by the United States in 2009 and by Canada in 2010.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The islands were heavily logged in the nineteenth century, but now have an extensive second-growth coast Douglas fir ("Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii"), Pacific madrone ("Arbutus menziesii"), red alder ("Alnus rubra") and bigleaf maple ("Acer macrophyllum") forest. There are small stands of old-growth Douglas fir and western redcedar ("Thuja plicata"), mostly within long standing privately held property. In the highlands one also finds grand fir ("Abies grandis"), western hemlock ("Tsuga heterophylla") and other subalpine trees.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The San Juan Islands host the greatest concentration of bald eagles ("Haliaeetus leucocephalus") in the contiguous United States. Great blue herons ("Ardea herodias"), black oystercatchers ("Haematopus bachman"), and numerous shorebirds are found along the shore and in winter, the islands are home to trumpeter swans ("Cygnus buccinator"), Canada geese ("Branta canadensis") and other waterfowl. Peregrine falcons ("Falco peregrinus"), northern harriers ("Circus cyaneus"), barred owls ("Strix varia") and other birds of prey are found. In addition diving birds such as rhinoceros auklets ("Cerorhinca monocerata"), pigeon guillemots ("Cepphus columba") and endangered marbled murrelets ("Brachyramphus marmoratus") frequent the surrounding seas. Western bluebirds ("Sialia mexicana"), which were eliminated from the islands 50 years ago because of competition for nesting sites by non-native European starlings ("Sturnus vulgaris"), were recently restored to San Juan Island thanks to the efforts of volunteers and conservation organizations.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The islands are famous for their resident pods of orcas ("Orcinus orca"). There are three resident pods that eat salmon, but also some transient orcas that come to take harbor seals ("Phoca vitulina"). Other marine mammals include river otters ("Lontra canadensis"), Steller sea lions ("Eumetopias jubatus"), common minke whales ("Balaenoptera acutorostrata"), Dall's porpoises ("Phocoenoides dalli") and other cetaceans.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Columbia black-tailed deer ("Odocoileus hemionus columbianus") are the largest mammals on the San Juan Islands, which are unusual in their historic absence of large carnivores, except for wolves ("Canis lupus") which were extirpated in the 1860s. Dr. Caleb B. R. Kennerly, surgeon and naturalist, collected a wolf specimen on Lopez Island, which is now in the National Museum of Natural History, probably during the Northwest Boundary Survey from 1857 to 1861. Also, there is a specimen of elk in the Slater Museum of Natural History at the University of Puget Sound that was collected on Orcas Island, and old-timers report finding elk antlers on both Lopez and Orcas Islands.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Before 1850, most of the freshwater on the islands was held in beaver ("Castor canadensis") ponds, although the aquatic mammal was extirpated by Hudson's Bay Company fur stations at Fort Langley and San Juan Island. Remnants of beaver dams number in the hundreds across the archipelago. Gnawed stumps and beaver sign are now seen on Orcas and other islands, and recolonization by this keystone species is likely to lead to increased abundance and diversity of birds, amphibians, reptiles and plants. In spring 2011 a pair of beaver appeared at Killebrew Lake on Orcas Island, but were killed to avoid flooding a phone company switch box buried under Dolphin Bay Road. These beaver likely swam from the mainland and could have recolonized the islands.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Northern sea otter ("Enhydra lutis kenyoni") remains are documented on Sucia Island in the San Juan Islands archipelago. In 1790, Spanish explorer Manuel Quimper traded copper sheets for sea otter pelts at Discovery Bay, for live sea otters captured north of the bay in the "interior" of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Although historical records of sea otter in the San Juan Islands are sparse, there is a sea otter specimen collected in 1897 in the "Strait of Fuca" in the National Museum of Natural History. When the sea otter finally received federal protection in 1911, Washington's sea otter had been hunted to extinction, and although a small remnant population still existed in British Columbia, it soon died out. Fifty-nine sea otters were re-introduced to the Washington coast from Amchitka Island, Alaska, in the summers of 1969 and 1970, and these have expanded by 8% per year, mainly along the outer west and northwest coast of the Olympic Peninsula. Professional marine mammal biologists verified a single sea otter observed near Cattle Point, San Juan Island, in October 1996. Although the historical numbers of sea otter in the San Juan Islands is not known, the habitat for them may have once been ideal.


title: San Juan Islands

text: In the 1890s non-native European rabbits, an exotic invasive species, began to infest the islands as the result of the release of domestic rabbits on Smith Island. Rabbits from the San Juan Islands were used later for several introductions of European rabbits into other, usually Midwestern, states. The rabbits are pursued by Eurasian red fox ("Vulpes vulpes"), another non-native species introduced intermittently through the twentieth century.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines the San Juan Islands as the archipelago north of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, west of Rosario Strait, east of Haro Strait, and south of Boundary Pass. To the north lie the open waters of the Strait of Georgia. All these waters are within the Salish Sea. The USGS definition of the San Juan archipelago coincides with San Juan County. Islands not in San Juan County are not part of the San Juan Islands, according to the USGS.


title: San Juan Islands

text: At mean high tide, the archipelago comprises over 400 islands and rocks, 128 of which are named, and over of shoreline.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The majority of the San Juan Islands are quite hilly, with some flat areas and valleys in between, often quite fertile. The tallest peak is Mount Constitution, on Orcas Island, at an elevation of . The coastlines are a mix of sandy and rocky beaches, shallow inlets and deep harbors, placid coves and reef-studded bays. Gnarled, ochre-colored madrona trees ("Arbutus") grace much of the shorelines, while evergreen fir and pine forests cover large inland areas.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The San Juan Islands get substantially less rainfall than Seattle, about to the south, due to their location in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains to the southwest. Summertime high temperatures are around , while average wintertime lows are in the high 30s and low 40s Fahrenheit (around 5 degrees Celsius). Snow is infrequent in winter, except for the higher elevations, but the islands are subject to high winds at times; those from the northeast sometimes bring brief periods of freezing.


title: San Juan Islands

text: In the present, the San Juan Islands are an important tourist destination, with sea kayaking and orca whale-watching (by boat or air tours) being two of the primary attractions. San Juan Island's Lime Kiln Point State Park is a prime whale-watching site, with knowledgeable interpreters often on site.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Media based in and/or concerning the islands includes the "Journal of the San Juan Islands" and the "Islands' Sounder".


title: San Juan Islands

text: There are no bridges to the San Juan Islands; therefore, all travel from the mainland is either by water or by air.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Passenger-only ferries serve more islands. Passenger-only ferry service is usually seasonal and offered by private business.


title: San Juan Islands

text: The San Juan Islands are surrounded by major shipping channels. Haro Strait, along with Boundary Pass, is the westernmost and most heavily used channel connecting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia. It is the main route connecting the Port of Vancouver and other ports around the Strait of Georgia with the Pacific Ocean. Haro Strait joins Boundary Pass at Turn Point on Stuart Island, where a major navigation beacon, Turn Point Light, is located. Strong, dangerous rip tides occur near Turn Point, as well as near the northern end of Boundary Pass, between Patos Island Light on Patos Island and East Point on Saturna Island.


title: San Juan Islands

text: Rosario Strait is also a major shipping channel. More than 500 oil tankers pass through the strait each year, to and from the Cherry Point Refinery and refineries near Anacortes. The strait is in constant use by vessels bound for Cherry Point, Bellingham, Anacortes, and the San Juan Islands. Vessels bound for British Columbia or Alaska also frequently use it in preference to the passages farther west, when greater advantage can be taken of the tidal currents.


title: San Juan Islands

text: This list includes only those islands that are part of San Juan County as defined by the USGS, bounded by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Haro Strait, Rosario Strait, Boundary Pass, and the Strait of Georgia. 2016 populations estimates for inhabited islands are in parentheses, though some have major seasonal changes. Islands protected as state parks are marked with an asterisk. Additional small rocks are listed at San Juan Islands National Monument.


title: History (American TV network)

text: History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainment Content division of the Walt Disney Company.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The network was originally focused on history-based as well as social and science documentaries. During the late 2000s, History devolved into reality television programming. In addition to this change in format, the network has been criticized by many scientists, historians, and skeptics for broadcasting pseudo-documentaries and pseudoscientific, unsubstantiated, sensational investigative programming.


title: History (American TV network)

text: As of February 2015, around 96,149,000 American households (82.6% of households with television) receive the network's flagship channel, History. International localized versions of History are available, in various forms, in India, Canada, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The company indicated that plans for a history channel were in the works in 1993, it purchased the Lou Reda Productions documentary library and long-term rights for the Hearst Entertainment documentaries archive. The History Channel was launched on January 1, 1995, with its UK counterpart, a partnership with British Sky Broadcasting, following on November 1, 1995. Its original format focused entirely on historical series and specials.


title: History (American TV network)

text: During the 1990s, History was jokingly referred to as "The Hitler Channel" for its extensive coverage of World War II. Since then, much of its military-themed programming has been shifted to its sister network Military History.


title: History (American TV network)

text: A&E Networks considered History to be the driver in international expansion due to a lack of international rights to A&E international co-productions. As expected, the History Channel led A&E's overseas expansion in Brazil with TVA (April 1996), the Nordic and Baltic regions with Modern Times Group (1997), and in Canada (1997).


title: History (American TV network)

text: History expanded in 1998 into tours of US landmarks with Mayflower Tours having an affiliated website (historytravel.com), "History Channel Traveler", and a planned quarterly magazine. While in October, History and MSG Network teamed up to produce several short-form sports history programs. A&E launched History International as a spin-off from the History Channel in November 1998.


title: History (American TV network)

text: On February 16, 2008, a new logo was launched on the US network as part of a rebranding effort. While the trademark "H" was kept, the triangle shape on the left acts as a play button for animation and flyouts during commercials and shows. On March 20, 2008, as part of that same rebranding effort, The History Channel dropped "The" and "Channel" from its name to become simply "History".


title: History (American TV network)

text: The "History 100" documentary initiative was announced in March 2018 that would produce 100 documentaries covering major events and notable figures from last 100 years.


title: History (American TV network)

text: In 2021, the History Network ordered a documentary series covering the history of the decades long "Star Trek" science fiction franchise. Brian Volk-Weiss is the planned director who had done documentaries for Netflix, as well as a previous History Channel special on "Star Trek" for its 50th anniversary in 2016. They planned to go over the long history of the franchise including its various television series and conduct cast interviews.


title: History (American TV network)

text: On December 7, 2021, History received a major rebrand for the first time since February 16, 2008. The logo kept the golden letter ‘H’ that had been used since its launch in 1995.


title: History (American TV network)

text: Programming on History has covered a wide range of historical periods and topics, while similar themed topics are often organized into themed weeks or daily marathons. Subjects include warfare, inventions, aviation, mechanical and civil engineering, technology, science, nature, artists, composers, authors, mythical creatures, monsters, unidentified flying objects, conspiracy theories, aliens, religious beliefs, disaster scenarios, apocalyptic "after man" scenarios, survival scenarios, alternate history, dinosaurs, doomsday, organized crime, secret societies, and 2012 superstitions. Occasionally, some programs compare contemporary culture and technology with that of the past.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The network has also been criticized for having a bias towards US history. Another former sister network, History International, more extensively covered history outside the US until 2011, when it was re-branded as H2 and started broadcasting more material that had to do with US history.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The network was also criticized by Stanley Kutner for airing the series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" in 2003. Kutner was one of three historians commissioned to review the documentary, which the channel disavowed and never aired again. Programs such as "Modern Marvels" have been praised for their presentation of detailed information in an entertaining format.


title: History (American TV network)

text: Some of the network's series, including "Ice Road Truckers", "Ax Men", and "Pawn Stars", garnered increased viewership ratings in the United States, while receiving criticism over the series' nonhistorical nature. US Senator Chuck Grassley is a critic of the channel and its lack of historical or educational programming, showing particular disdain for the latter two programs.


title: History (American TV network)

text: Professor Jeremy Stoddard, in his article published in 2010, raised the concern that the productions of the network presented value-laden perspectives which may mislead audiences, a phenomenon he termed “the History Channel effect". Stoddard also claimed that the History Channel did not contribute to this phenomenon alone, but rather, it was caused by the misperception that documentaries are "objective sources of history".


title: History (American TV network)

text: In 2011, "Forbes" staffer Alex Knapp wrote, "ideally," "The History Channel shouldn't run stuff like this 'ancient astronaut' nonsense." "Forbes" contributor Brad Lockwood criticized the channel's addition of "programs devoted to monsters, aliens, and conspiracies", attributing a perceived intent of boosting ratings to the network's decision to focus on pseudoarchaeology instead of documented facts. Knapp refers readers to the "Bad Archaeology" website's founder Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews who comments, "I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel ...can broadcast such rubbish as "Ancient Aliens"." Archaeologist Kenneth Feder, author of "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology", called the channel's hosting the ancient astronaut theory "execrable bullshit".


title: History (American TV network)

text: In his book "2012: It's Not the End of the World", Peter Lemesurier describes the channel's "Nostradamus" series, in which he was invited to participate, as "largely fiction" and "lurid nonsense". He also lists numerous allusions made in its films to the alleged Mayan "end of the world" and the "rare" galactic alignment that was supposed by John Major Jenkins to accompany it in 2012, while Jenkins himself has described "Decoding the Past" as "45 minutes of unabashed doomsday hype and the worst kind of inane sensationalism."


title: History (American TV network)

text: In December 2011, Politifact gave the History Channel's claim that the United States Congress stayed open on Christmas Day for most of its first 67 years of existence a "pants on fire" rating, the lowest of its ratings, noting that its own research showed that both the Senate and the House had only convened once in those 67 years on a Christmas Day. It noted that because one-in-seven Christmases falls on a Sunday (when Congress does not meet to allow members to attend church), the claim is "ridiculous". The claim had first been broadcast on the History Channel program "Christmas Unwrapped – The History of Christmas" before being subsequently picked up by the American Civil Liberties Union's website on the "Origins of Christmas" and by the Comedy Central series "The Daily Show". "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart responded the next day by stating it was their fault for trusting the History Channel and satirized a clip from the History Channel about UFOs and Nazis by stating, "The next thing you know we'll all find out the Nazis did not employ alien technology in their quest for world domination."


title: History (American TV network)

text: The History Channel was also singled out in a post for "Smithsonian" magazine. Science writer Riley Black took issue with the show "Ancient Aliens" for postulating the "idea that aliens caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs." The online magazine "Cracked" also lampooned the channel for its strange definition of history. "Cracked" singled out the programs "UFO Hunters" and "Ancient Aliens" as being the very definition of non-history by presenting pseudoscience and pseudohistory. In 2015, skeptic Brian Dunning listed it at #2 on a "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list.


title: History (American TV network)

text: In 2017, a History Channel documentary, "", proposed that a photograph in the National Archives of Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands was actually a picture of a captured Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. The picture showed a Caucasian male on a dock who appeared to look like Noonan and a woman sitting on the dock, but facing away from the camera, who was judged to have a physique and haircut resembling Earhart's. The documentary theorizes that the photo was taken after Earhart and Noonan crashed at Mili Atoll. The documentary also said that physical evidence recovered from Mili matches pieces that could have fallen off an Electra during a crash or subsequent overland move to a barge. "The Lost Evidence" proposed that a Japanese ship seen in the photograph was the "Koshu Maru", a Japanese military ship.


title: History (American TV network)

text: "The Lost Evidence" was soon discredited after Japanese blogger Kota Yamano found the original source of the photograph in the archives in the National Diet Library Digital Collection. The original source of the photo was a Japanese travel guide published in October 1935, implying that the photograph was taken in 1935 or before, thus it would be unrelated to Earhart and Noonan's 1937 disappearance. Additionally, the researcher who discovered the photo also identified the ship in the right of the photo as another ship called "Koshu" seized by Allied Japanese forces in World War I and not the "Koshu Maru".


title: History (American TV network)

text: Researcher Ben Radford performed a detailed analysis of the mistakes made by "The History Channel" in building their documentary on bad photographic evidence. In his "Skeptical Inquirer" article "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Emmys: An Amelia Earhart Special (Non) Mystery Post-Mortem," critiquing the network's lack of professionalism, Radford said: "Given that the photograph's provenance was established and thus the key premise of the show discredited in about half an hour of Google searching, it will be interesting to see what world class expertise... the History Channel will bring to their reinvestigation of Earhart's disappearance." On episode 82 of his "Squaring the Strange" podcast, released January 4, 2019, Radford reminded listeners that in excess of 18 months had passed without an apology or explanation from the History Channel as to "how their research went so horribly wrong."


title: History (American TV network)

text: History Television launched in 1997 and was not initially related to its then similarly named American counterpart. During History Television's first several years of operation, despite sharing a similar programming focus, it rarely, if ever, acquired programming from the American channel. The phrase "Not available in Canada" was used heavily during The History Channel's early years in promotional ads on American channels that were imported to Canadian pay television providers, particularly A&E.


title: History (American TV network)

text: Beginning in the late 2000s, several History (US) shows were acquired for Canadian broadcast on History Television. On May 30, 2012, then-parent company Shaw Media announced that it would rebrand History Channel as a Canadian version of the US History channel in the fall of 2012, through a licensing agreement with A+E Networks. History Television would be relaunched on August 12, 2012; with another Shaw-owned, specialty channel relaunched as a Canadian version of H2 soon after.


title: History (American TV network)

text: On October 21, 2014, Corus Entertainment reached an agreement to acquire Canadian French-language rights to History programming for its own channel, Historia. On March 9, 2015, the network was relaunched under History's logo and branding, although the network still carries the Historia name. Historia was previously owned as a joint venture between Shaw and Astral Media, which made it a sister to History; Corus purchased the network in 2013.


title: History (American TV network)

text: On April 1, 2016, Corus Entertainment merged with Shaw Media, and as a result, now holds the Canadian English and French-language rights to History programming.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The British version launched in November 1995, and arrived in Ireland on November 1, 1999. The UK channel is a joint venture with Sky UK and was renamed Sky History on May 27, 2020, incorporating content from Sky Documentaries and Sky Nature.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The German version launched on November 14, 2004, and is operated by The History Channel Germany GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture between A+E Networks and NBC Universal Global Networks Germany.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The Italian version was launched on July 31, 2003, as a joint venture of A&E Networks and Fox International Channels Italy; then it became a sole venture of A&E Networks in 2012.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The History Channel is available in Spain and Portugal though cable, satellite, and IPTV platforms, as well as streaming media under the brand Canal de Historia. The History Channel Iberia is a joint venture between A+E Networks and AMC Networks International Iberia.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The Dutch version has launched on May 1, 2007. This version is distributed by A&E Networks Benelux. In January 2008, History HD was launched in the Netherlands. It is available on cable providers Telenet and Ziggo. It is also available on the IPTV service KPN.


title: History (American TV network)

text: A Polish version was launched on April 9, 2008. It is available on cable providers Aster, Dialog, Toya, and UPC Polska, and also through satellite television (with its HD version carried on the n platform since June 1, 2012) and an SD version on Cyfra+ since November 2, 2009).


title: History (American TV network)

text: A Scandinavian version was first launched in September 1997, broadcasting for three and later four hours a day on the analogue Viasat platform. Initially time-sharing with TV1000 Cinema, it was later moved to the Swedish TV8 channel and continued broadcasting there until November 2004. When History channel announced their own 24-hour pan-European channel, Viasat launched its own history-oriented channel, Viasat History, in the Nordic region, but with no original programming. On February 1, 2007, the History Channel returned to Sweden and also Denmark, Norway, Finland when the pan-European version was launched as a standalone channel on the Canal Digital satellite platform and later through cable operator Com hem. The History Channel launched on February 1, 2007, on the Canal Digital DTH satellite package for viewers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The channel is being launched by The History Channel UK, A&E's joint venture with BSkyB. Although it broadcasts in English with local subtitles, the channel is scheduled separately from the UK version.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The History Channel started its operations in India in late 2003 with 21st Century Fox's STAR TV as its sales partner, managed by National Geographic until November 21, 2008. The History Channel India closed down on November 21, 2008. In 2011, History was granted permission to relaunch services in India. A joint venture of A&E Networks and TV18 relaunched History TV18 in India in eight languages in 2014.


title: History (American TV network)

text: A joint venture of AETN and Astro All Asia Networks launched the History Channel in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei in the second and third quarters of 2007, and in Taiwan and China by the end of the year. Some other Asian countries, such as Kuwait, Israel, and Japan, have their own versions of the network. On September 1, 2008, History Channel Asia was officially launched in Singapore and Hong Kong followed by the Philippines.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The South Korean version of History Channel was launched on September 22, 2017, replacing the Southeast version that was previously transmitted. After the launch, A+E networks Korea launched an original series program called History in the Bottle (말술클럽).


title: History (American TV network)

text: The Latin American version was launched in 2001. It is owned by A&E and controlled in the region by Ole Distribution. It airs US programming, translated to Spanish or Portuguese or in English with Spanish or Portuguese subtitles. Also, it develops some Latin American programming in Spanish.


title: History (American TV network)

text: The History Channel was launched on December 1, 2003, as part of the DStv satellite TV package provided by MultiChoice.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term "conspicuous consumption" to explain the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury commodities (goods and services) specifically as a public display of economic power—the income and the accumulated wealth—of the buyer. To the conspicuous consumer, the public display of discretionary income is an economic means of either attaining or of maintaining a given social status.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: The development of Veblen's sociology of conspicuous consumption also identified and described other economic behaviours such as invidious consumption, which is the ostentatious consumption of goods, an action meant to provoke the envy of other people; and conspicuous compassion, the ostentatious use of charity meant to enhance the reputation and social prestige of the donor; thus the socio-economic practises of consumerism derive from conspicuous consumption.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In "The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions" (1899), Thorstein Veblen identified, described, and explained the behavioural characteristics of the "nouveau riche" (new rich) social class that emerged from capital accumulation during the Second Industrial Revolution (1860–1914). In that 19th-century social and historical context, the term "conspicuous consumption" applied narrowly in association with the men, women, and families of the upper class who applied their great wealth as a means of publicly manifesting their social power and prestige, either real or perceived. The strength of one's reputation is in direct relationship to the amount of money possessed and displayed; that is to say, the basis "of gaining and retaining a good name, are leisure and conspicuous consumption."


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In the 1920s, economists such as Paul Nystrom proposed that changes in lifestyle as result of the industrial age led to massive expansion of the "pecuniary emulation." That conspicuous consumption had induced in the mass of society a "philosophy of futility" that would increase the consumption of goods and services as a social fashion; consumption for the sake of consumption.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In 1949, James Duesenberry proposed the "demonstration effect" and the "bandwagon effect", whereby a person's conspicuous consumption psychologically depends upon the actual level of spending, but also depends upon the degree of his or her spending, when compared with and to the spending of other people. That the conspicuous consumer is motivated by the importance, to him or to her, of the opinion of the social and economic reference groups for whom he or she are performed the conspicuous consumption.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Veblen said that conspicuous consumption comprised socio-economic behaviours practised by rich people as activities usual and exclusive to people with much disposable income; yet a variation of Veblen's theory is presented in the conspicuous consumption behaviours that are very common to the middle class and to the working class, regardless of the person's race and ethnic group. Such upper-class economic behaviour is especially common in societies with emerging economies in which the conspicuous consumption of goods and services ostentatiously signals that the buyer rose from poverty and has something to prove to society.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy" (1996), Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko reported "conspicuous frugality", another variation of Veblen's social-class relation to conspicuous consumption. That Americans with a net worth of more than a million dollars usually avoid conspicuous consumption, and tend to practise frugality, such as paying cash for a used car rather using credit, in order to avoid material depreciation and paying interest upon a car loan.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Since the 19th century, conspicuous consumption explains the psychology behind the economics of a consumer society, and the increase in the types of goods and services that people consider necessary to and for their lives in a developed economy. Supporting interpretations and explanations of contemporary conspicuous consumption are presented in "Consumer Culture" (1996) by Celia Lury, "Consumer Culture and Modernity" (1997) by Don Slater, "Symbolic Exchange and Death" (1998) by Jean Baudrillard, and "Spent: Sex, Evolution, and the Secrets of Consumerism" (2009) by Geoffrey Miller.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Moreover, D. Hebdige, in "Hiding in the Light" (1994), proposes that conspicuous consumption is a form of displaying a personal identity, and a consequent function of advertising, as proposed in "Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture" (2000), by A. A. Berger. Each variant interpretation and complementary explanation is derived from Veblen's original sociologic proposition in "The Theory of the Leisure Class": that conspicuous consumption is a psychological end in itself, from which the practitioner (man, woman, family) derived the honour of superior social status.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In "An Examination of Materialism, Conspicuous Consumption and Gender Differences" (2013), the researchers Brenda Segal and Jeffrey S. Podoshen reported great differences in the consumerism practised by men and women. The data about materialism and impulse purchases of 1,180 Americans indicate that men have greater scores for materialism and conspicuous consumption; and that women tended to buy goods and services on impulse; and both sexes were equally loyal to a given brand of goods and services.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: The term "conspicuous consumption" denotes the act of buying something, especially something expensive, that is not necessary to one's life, in a noticeable way. Scholar Andrew Trigg (2001) defined "conspicuous consumption" as behaviour by which one can display great wealth, by means of idleness—expending much time in the practice of leisure activities, and spending much money to consume luxury goods and services.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Conspicuous compassion, the practice of publicly donating large sums of money to charity to enhance the social prestige of the donor, is sometimes described as a type of conspicuous consumption. This behaviour has long been recognised and sometimes attacked—for example, the New Testament story "Lesson of the widow's mite" criticises wealthy people who make large donations ostentatiously, while praising poorer people who make small but comparatively more difficult donations in private.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Oversized houses facilitated other forms of conspicuous consumption, such as an oversized garage for the family's oversized motor vehicles or buying more clothing to fill larger clothes closets. Conspicuous consumption becomes a self-generating cycle of spending money for the sake of social prestige. Analogous to the consumer trend for oversized houses is the trend towards buying oversized light trucks, specifically the off-road sport utility vehicle type (cf. station wagon/estate car), as a form of psychologically comforting conspicuous consumption, because such large vehicles usually are bought by city-dwellers, an urban nuclear family.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Conspicuous consumption is exemplified by purchasing goods that are exclusively designed to serve as symbols of wealth, such as luxury-brand clothing, high-tech tools, and vehicles.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Materialistic consumers are likely to engage in conspicuous luxury consumption. The global yearly revenue of the luxury fashion industry was €1.64 trillion in 2019. Buying of conspicuous goods is likely to be influenced by the spending habits of others. This view of luxury conspicuous consumption is being incorporated into social media platforms which is impacting consumer behaviour.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: The journalist H. L. Mencken addressed the sociological and psychological particulars of the socio-economic behaviours that are conspicuous consumption, by asking:Do I enjoy a decent bath because I know that John Smith cannot afford one—or because I delight in being clean? Do I admire Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is incomprehensible to Congressmen and Methodists—or because I genuinely love music? Do I prefer terrapin à la Maryland to fried liver because plowhands must put up with the liver—or because the terrapin is intrinsically a more charming dose? Do I prefer kissing a pretty girl to kissing a charwoman, because even a janitor may kiss a charwoman—or because the pretty girl looks better, smells better, and kisses better?


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899) Veblen said that "among the motives which lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation of the rich". In the study "Borrowing to Keep Up (with the Joneses): Inequality, Debt, and Conspicuous Consumption" (2020), Sheheryar Banuri and Ha Nguyen reported three findings:


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: The findings that Banuri and Nguyen reported indicate that the cyclical effect of borrowing money for conspicuous consumption leads to and perpetuates economic inequality. That poor people imitate, try to match, and emulate the consumption patterns of rich people in order to increase their social status, and perhaps rise in society. That such socio-economic behaviours, facilitated by easy access to credit, generate macroeconomic volatility and support Veblen's concept of pecuniary emulation used to finance a person's social standing.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: Other research supports these and similar results. For example income inequality has been found to be associated with reduced savings rates. One hypothesized mechanism for this relationship is 'expenditure cascades' whereby consumption norms are set by the relatively wealthy, who then have more income and consumption relative to others as inequality rises. This emulation of the consumption norms of relatively wealthy peers is supported by a large literature.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: One complication found in the macro literature is that the link between inequality and savings may depend on context, in particular on the degree of financialisation. When the degree of financialisation is high, inequality tends to reduce the national savings rate as the emulation effect is more powerful when finance is readily available, but the opposite effect may occur when financialisation is low as the emulation effect is weak, and the rich tend to save at a higher rate than the poor. The effect of inequality on savings is also found to be positive in Asia, where financialization is lower. The relationship is also found to depend on economic policy and institutions. For example inequality appears to lower savings in 'liberal market economies' but to rather reduce aggregate demand in 'coordinated market economies'.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In the case where inequality lowers savings, and increases leverage and a tendency to run large current account imbalances via the expenditure cascade mechanism, this has been associated with more frequent and/or severe economic crisis.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In the case of conspicuous consumption, taxes upon luxury goods diminish societal expenditures on high-status goods, by rendering them more expensive than non-positional goods. In this sense, luxury taxes can be seen as a market failure correcting Pigovian tax—with an apparent negative deadweight loss, these taxes are a more efficient mechanism for increasing revenue than 'distorting' labour or capital taxes. A luxury tax applied to goods and services for conspicuous consumption is a type of progressive sales tax that at least partially corrects the negative externality associated with the conspicuous consumption of positional goods. In "Utility from Accumulation" (2009), Louis Kaplow said that assets exercise an objective social-utility function, i.e. the rich man and the rich woman hoard material assets, because the hoard, itself, functions as status goods that establish his and her socio-economic position within society. When utility is derived directly from accumulation of assets, this lowers the dead weight loss associated with inheritance taxes and raises the optimal rate of inheritance taxation.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In place of luxury taxes, economist Robert H. Frank proposed the application of a progressive consumption tax; in a 1998 "New York Times" article, John Tierney said that as a remedy for the social and psychological malaise that is conspicuous consumption, the personal income tax should be replaced with a progressive tax upon the yearly sum of discretionary income spent on the conspicuous consumption of goods and services. Another option is the redistribution of wealth, either by means of an incomes policy – for example the conscious efforts to promote wage compression under variants of social corporatism such as the Rehn–Meidner model and/or by some mix of progressive taxation and transfer policies, and provision of public goods. When individuals are concerned with their relative income or consumption in comparison to their peers, the optimal degree of public good provision and of progression of the tax system is raised. Because the activity of conspicuous consumption, itself, is a form of superior good, diminishing the income inequality of the income distribution by way of an egalitarian policy reduces the conspicuous consumption of positional goods and services. In "Wealth and Welfare" (1912), the economist A. C. Pigou said that the redistribution of wealth might lead to great gains in social welfare:


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: The economic case for the taxation of positional, luxury goods has a long history; in the mid-19th century, in "Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy" (1848), John Stuart Mill said:


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: In the case where conspicuous consumption mediates a link between inequality and unsustainable borrowing, one suggested policy response is tighter financial regulation.


title: Conspicuous consumption

text: "Conspicuous non-consumption" is a phrase used to describe a conscious choice to opt out of consumption with the intention of sending deliberate social signals.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Drishyam 2 is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Abhishek Pathak based on the 2021 Malayalam film of the same name. A sequel to the 2015 film "Drishyam", which in turn was adapted from the 2013 eponymous Malayalam film, it is set seven years after the events of the first film, and stars Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Akshaye Khanna, Shriya Saran and Ishita Dutta. It also features Mrunal Jadhav, Rajat Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla and Kamlesh Sawant in supporting roles.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Soon after the release of the original film in February 2021, the remake came into development and was finalised within the same year. All actors from the predecessor were retained, with Khanna and Shukla as new additions. Principal photography for the film commenced in February 2022 and ended in June 2022. It was primarily shot in Goa with filming also taking place in Mumbai and Hyderabad. The film's soundtrack is composed by Devi Sri Prasad.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: "Drishyam 2" was released theatrically worldwide on 18 November 2022. It opened with critical appraisal with particular praise for the cast performances, writing, cinematography, and editing. The film grossed within 4 days in global markets and entered the 100 Crore Club in India within 6 days of its release, emerging as a major financial success. As of 18 December 2022, it has grossed worldwide to become the 3rd highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022 and one of the highest domestic net grossing Hindi films.