title: Claire McCaskill

text: When McCaskill ran for reelection in 2002, the winner of the Republican Party primary was Al Hanson, who had previously been incarcerated for fraud. Hanson said he was qualified to detect fraud because he had committed fraud himself. Because of Hanson's history, the leader of the Missouri Republican Party urged voters not to vote for Hanson in the general election. McCaskill was reelected with 60 percent of the vote.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On August 3, 2004, McCaskill defeated incumbent Governor Bob Holden in the Democratic primary, becoming the first candidate to defeat an incumbent Governor in a primary election in state history.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On November 2, 2004, McCaskill lost to her Republican opponent, then-Secretary of State Matt Blunt in the general election by a margin of 51% to 48%. McCaskill's loss to Blunt was the first defeat in her twenty-year political career.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: Both incumbent Jim Talent and McCaskill easily defeated their opponents in their respective primaries on August 8, 2006. McCaskill and Talent debated each other on "Meet the Press" on October 8, 2006. On November 8, 2006, McCaskill defeated Talent by a margin of 49.6% to 47.3% with two minor-party candidates taking the remainder.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and faced Republican nominee Todd Akin in the general election. Until mid-August, polling showed them running neck and neck. Then, in a television interview on August 12, Akin claimed that women who were the victims of what he described as "legitimate rape" rarely ended up pregnant. His comments caused controversy and he was criticized by members of both parties. He faced calls to withdraw from the race but did not do so, and McCaskill opened up an increasing lead in opinion polls. Akin's comments caused a backlash among voters, particularly women, and McCaskill was re-elected with 54.7% of the vote to his 39.2%.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In August 2015, McCaskill penned a "Politico" article describing how she indirectly helped Akin—who she believed would make a weak general election candidate—win the Republican primary. Specifically, her campaign ran ads during primary season criticizing Akin as being too conservative; McCaskill did this to encourage conservatives (via reverse psychology) to vote for Akin. "Washington Post" contributor Jonathan Adler and others questioned whether McCaskill's indirect coordination with the Akin campaign constituted an unreported and in-kind contribution to Akin's campaign in violation of federal election law.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill announced she was running for her third term. As of January 2018, six declared Democratic opponents, and five Republicans, including poll leader state Attorney General Josh Hawley, were declared candidates for the GOP primary. On July 27, "The Daily Beast" reported that Microsoft had discovered that in September 2017, GRU "Fancy Bear" hackers had attempted spoofing hacks of her staff aides' email in an attempt to target her candidacy efforts, on behalf of the Russian state. Less than three weeks before the November general election, conservative group Project Veritas released secretly recorded video footage of statements by McCaskill and her campaign staff that appeared to differ from their public stances on several issues. In response, McCaskill said she has been "very upfront about all my positions", and called on Republican opponent Hawley to launch an investigation into whether state laws were violated in capturing and publishing the footage. On election day, Hawley received 51.5% of the vote, to McCaskill's 45.5%. She has said that one of the reasons she lost was her party's lack of reach to rural Americans.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill was the first elected woman to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate. Jean Carnahan was appointed to the Senate following her husband's death and posthumous election, but was defeated in a close election by Jim Talent.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: Through 2012, McCaskill was named by the "National Journal" as one of the ten most "moderate" Senators. In 2011, she was ranked 50th on its scale of the 100 senators, from most liberal to most conservative. In 2013, the "National Journal" rated McCaskill's voting record as 53% liberal and 47% conservative. "The Washington Post" reported in 2012 that she was the second-most-likely Democratic Senator to vote against her party. The conservative Americans for Prosperity gave her a 30% score for being in line with their positions in 2016. The progressive Americans for Democratic Action gave her a 65% liberal quotient in 2015. As of 2018, "FiveThirtyEight", which tracks Congressional votes, found that McCaskill voted with President Donald Trump's position 45% of the time.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In January 2008, McCaskill endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, making her one of the first Senators to do so. She was one of the most visible faces for his campaign, and her support was crucial to Obama's narrow victory in the Missouri primary in February 2008. She has credited her daughter Maddie as having persuaded her to publicly endorse Obama. She was frequently mentioned as a possible vice-presidential nominee for Obama, but was never seriously considered. She spoke on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in August 2008.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In 2013, McCaskill announced that she would be supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. During the primaries, McCaskill was among Clinton's top surrogates. She described Bernie Sanders as "too liberal" and "extreme" and saying that the enthusiasm of his supporters was no more impressive than that of Ron Paul's supporters in 2012. On March 21, after Clinton's sweep of Southern primaries, McCaskill called for Sanders to throw his support to Clinton.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In 2013, the "National Journal" gave her a 46% score on "Liberal on Economic Policy" and a 53% score on "Conservative on Economic Policy". In 2016, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth, both of which support lower taxes, gave her ratings of 10% and 15%, respectively.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In November 2017, President Trump visited Missouri to promote his tax bill and said that if McCaskill didn't support his tax plan, she should be voted out of office. She said that she could support a tax bill put together "in a bipartisan way" and that she would support "doubling the standard deduction", "enhancing the child tax credit", and even "some corporate tax relief as long as we were cleaning up some of the loopholes that allow so many corporations to avoid paying their fair share." But she did not support Trump's tax bill, which in Missouri, she said, would mainly help rich St. Louis suburbanites.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: Ahead of an August 7, 2018, Missouri vote on Proposition A on adopting a right-to-work law in Missouri, McCaskill endorsed a "no" vote on the proposition.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In 2010, McCaskill voted for the DREAM Act, which would have given undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children a pathway to citizenship provided that they fulfilled certain conditions.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In January 2018, McCaskill and three other Democratic senators were cosponsors of the Border and Port Security Act, legislation that would mandate that US Customs and Border Protection "hire, train and assign at least 500 officers per year until the number of needed positions the model identifies is filled" in addition to requiring the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection to determine potential equipment and infrastructure improvements that could be used for ports of entry.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill has said that "protecting the DREAMers has to be a very top priority." McCaskill opposed the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant families who illegally crossed the border, and supported legislation to end the family separation policy.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: She co-sponsored the Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act, which sought to improve the processes related to the use of credit cards by government employees.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCaskill has called for nuclear weapons modernization. In June 2017, she voted to support Trump's $350 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On January 14, 2014, she introduced the Victims Protection Act of 2014 (S. 1917; 113th Congress), which seeks to help victims of sexual assault in the military. This bill was a watered down version of a similar sexual assault bill previously introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The latter proposal would have streamlined the prosecution process by removing it from the military chain of command. McCaskills' bill allows victims to give a preference as to whether they would prefer their cases to be tried in the military or in the civilian justice system. The bill passed the Senate on March 10, 2014, by a vote of 97–0.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: As a member of the Senate ad hoc subcommittee on disaster recovery, McCaskill criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency's handling of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In 2017, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund gave her a 100% lifetime rating for her positions on health care. In 2016, the American Public Health Association also gave her a 100% rating for the positions she had taken on health-care issues during the previous year.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as ObamaCare, in December 2009.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In April 2017, McCaskill expressed her opposition to a single-payer healthcare system, saying it is too expensive and not realistic.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In August 2017, she introduced the Health Care Options for All Act, whereby people living in counties with no health-care exchanges "would be able to buy coverage through the D.C. small business exchange, called SHOP", with the U.S. government "contribut[ing] toward the cost of premiums if they meet a certain income threshold." Criticizing Trump's health-care bill in September 2017, she called it "a bait-and-switch, in which they're trying to buy off certain states with promises of more money now, but with no guarantee that healthcare dollars in our state won't ultimately go down." She added that the bill would not help "folks in Missouri who've been sick before and have a pre-existing condition, and older Missourians."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: At each event during her 2018 re-election bid campaign, McCaskill asked attendees with preexisting conditions to stand up, and vowed to keep in place health insurance protections for such individuals.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill received an "F" rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for not supporting their view of Second Amendment rights and opposing all right-to-carry legislation.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: She voted for expanded background checks and co-sponsored the "Feinstein Amendment," a proposal that would have made it illegal for individuals on the terror watchlist to purchase guns. In January 2016, McCaskill was one of eighteen senators to sign a letter to Thad Cochran and Barbara Mikulski requesting that the Labor, Health and Education subcommittee hold a hearing on whether to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fund a study of gun violence and "the annual appropriations rider that some have interpreted as preventing it" with taxpayer dollars. The senators noted their support for taking steps "to fund gun-violence research, because only the United States government is in a position to establish an integrated public-health research agenda to understand the causes of gun violence and identify the most effective strategies for prevention." In June 2016, McCaskill participated in the Chris Murphy gun control filibuster and in a sit-in on the House floor urging votes for gun control.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: During a 2013 congressional hearing, McCaskill asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: "Based on the evidence at this point, is there any difference between Sandy Hook and Boston other than the choice of weapon?" McCaskill then urged Napolitano "to reevaluate when and how the federal government defines a criminal act as terrorism".


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In October 2017, in the midst of a flurry of news reports about sexual assaults by politicians and other celebrities, McCaskill said on "Meet the Press" that while serving in the state legislature, she had asked the House Speaker, Bob F. Griffin, to discuss a bill she was sponsoring. "And I explained to him the bill I had, and did he have any advice for me on how I could get it out of committee?" McCaskill said. "And he looked at me, and he paused, and he said, 'Well, did you bring your knee pads?'"


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In November 2015, in a video for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", McCaskill encouraged men to "sometimes just shut the hell up." McCaskill added, "It's not that women don't value your thoughts, it's just that we don't value all of them." She then set forth a variety of topics about which "women no longer need to hear men's opinions." Regarding the topic of "what women do with their bodies", McCaskill advised men to "hush". McCaskill described the video as a joke.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On March 24, 2013, McCaskill posted to Tumblr in support of same-sex marriage: "While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On a November 4, 2020, MSNBC broadcast, McCaskill said that by supporting issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and the rights of transgender people, whom McCaskill referred to as "transsexuals", Democrats "left voters behind and Republicans dove in." McCaskill apologized for using the word transsexuals, which she called a "hurtful term", the next day in a tweet, saying she was "tired" but admitting that is "never a good excuse". She further said that "our party should never leave behind our fight for equality for trans people or anyone else who has been marginalized by hate", adding that "my record reflects that."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In January 2018, McCaskill announced her support for a Senate bill intended to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality; as she was the 30th Senator to support the bill, it was ensured that the bill would reach the floor of the Senate. In October 2017, McCaskill was one of four Democrats who voted to confirm FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who announced the plan to reverse net neutrality rules earlier that year. In explaining her vote, McCaskill said that she disagreed with Pai on net neutrality but voted for Pai because "the president has a right to the chairman because he won the election". According to Ars Technica, "it's common for [FCC] commissioners to get broad bi-partisan support in the Senate even if their policies are opposed by one of the two major parties."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill opposed Trump's trade tariffs, saying they were "hurting Missouri farmers and manufacturing."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In June 2017, McCaskill co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment, for Americans to encourage or participate in internationally sponsored boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In July 2018, McCaskill introduced legislation that would make it illegal to knowingly and intentionally spread false information about an election, such as false information about the time and place of voting, voter qualifications and registration status. She said, "Misinformation campaigns intended only to suppress the vote and disenfranchise Missourians are crimes that run counter to our democratic values."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill also served as the Chairwoman of the Select Committee for the Impeachment of Samuel B. Kent, which was disbanded July 22, 2009, after Judge Kent resigned, and the United States Senate Homeland Security Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, which was disbanded in 2013.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On March 16, 2011, McCaskill told reporters that she was "embarrassed" about revelations that her office had used taxpayer money for the senator's use of a private airplane she co-owned with her husband and friends. According to a government audit, the plane was used for 90 flights taken between Washington, D.C., and her home in suburban St. Louis, as well as to numerous sites around the state of Missouri. According to McCaskill's Senate office, all but 1 of the 90 flights in question were within Senate rules. As soon as the story broke, McCaskill sent a check for $88,000 to the U.S. Treasury as reimbursement for the flights.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: The Missouri Republican Party filed a formal complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on March 16. In response McCaskill said, "The Missouri Republican Party is going to try to ride this horse as long as they can. They're going to try to make this as big a deal as they can. Them filing the ethics complaint is about as surprising as the sun coming up." On March 21, 2011, "Politico" reported that McCaskill and her husband had failed to pay more than $280,000 in property taxes on the plane and were planning to sell it. "I have convinced my husband to sell the damn plane", McCaskill said on a conference call with reporters. "I will never set foot on the plane again". The Ethics Committee dismissed the Missouri GOP's complaint.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: The plane, a 2001 Pilatus PC-12, was sold in October 2011. It was stored at Spirit of St. Louis Airport, McCaskill confirmed, and owned by Timesaver LLC, a Delaware-based limited liability company. McCaskill noted that she had paid $38,800 in sales taxes on the plane, and she had only recently (as of March 2011) become aware that Missouri also imposed a property tax on private aircraft. She said she was "disappointed" in herself for not ensuring that Timesaver LLC paid the property taxes. "Frankly, having the plane owned in Delaware would not negate the necessity of paying the personal property tax in Missouri", she said. "This is a mistake. It should have been reported in Missouri. It was owed in Missouri. It will be paid in Missouri today".


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On March 2, 2017, McCaskill tweeted that she had had "No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever". After her own tweets of January 20, 2013 ("Off to meeting w/Russian Ambassador.") and August 6, 2015 ("Today calls with British, Russian, and German Ambassadors") were exposed, McCaskill recanted her tweet of March 2, blaming Twitter's character limit. McCaskill had been a leading critic of Attorney General Jeff Sessions's meetings with Russian government officials in his capacity as United States senator and had called for Sessions's resignation on this account. McCaskill also said that the nature of her meetings with the Russian ambassador were different to his. PolitiFact rated McCaskill's assertion false, and also noted "though the context for McCaskill's and Sessions' interactions with Kislyak may be very different, she goes too far in saying she didn't 'ever' have that meeting or phone call."


title: Claire McCaskill

text: She was elected Missouri State Auditor in the 1998 Missouri State Auditor election and re-elected in the 2002 Missouri State Auditor election.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On January 15, 2019, McCaskill joined NBC News and MSNBC as a political analyst. McCaskill is featured as a regular guest on "" and "Morning Joe". She also makes frequent appearances on "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" and "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" along with, MSNBC and NBC News Special Event Breaking News Coverage.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In May 2021, McCaskill was reportedly being considered for an ambassadorship in Europe under the Joe Biden administration.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: In October 2022, McCaskill joined the Council for Responsible Social Media project launched by Issue One to address the negative mental, civic, and public health impacts of social media in the United States co-chaired by former House Democratic Caucus Leader Dick Gephardt and former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill was married to David Exposito, with whom she had three children. The couple divorced in 1995, after 11 years of marriage, while McCaskill was Jackson County Prosecutor. David Exposito was found murdered in Kansas City, Kansas on December 12, 2005. Exposito's murder has never been solved.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: On the October 3, 2009, episode of "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" on National Public Radio, McCaskill spoke about a vacation early in her career as a lawyer, where she was a contestant on "High Rollers". McCaskill reigned as champion for four days, and later sold several of her prizes to pay off her student loan debt.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill's mother, Betty Anne McCaskill, died on October 29, 2012, from natural causes at the age of 84. A convert to Roman Catholicism, McCaskill was denied communion for her pro-choice stance on abortion by then-Bishop Raymond Burke, later Cardinal Raymond Burke.


title: Claire McCaskill

text: McCaskill maintains residences in Washington, D.C. and Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. She joined Sheryl Sandberg's movement to encourage young women to be more assertive in professional interactions. On February 22, 2016, McCaskill announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She stated through Tumblr, "It's a little scary, but my prognosis is good and I expect a full recovery."


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The X-Files: I Want to Believe is a 2008 American supernatural thriller film directed by Chris Carter and written by both Carter and Frank Spotnitz. It is the second feature film installment of "The X-Files" franchise created by Carter, following the 1998 film. Three main actors from the television series, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Mitch Pileggi, reappear in the film to reprise their respective roles as Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and Walter Skinner.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Unlike the first film, the plot does not focus on the series' ongoing extraterrestrial-based mytharc themes, but instead works as a standalone thriller horror story, like many of the monster-of-the-week episodes frequently seen in the TV series, as well as focusing on the personal relationship between Mulder and Scully. The story follows Mulder and Scully who have been out of the FBI for several years, with Mulder living in isolation and Scully having become a doctor at a Catholic hospital, where she has formed a bond with a critically ill child patient. When an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped and a former Catholic priest who has been convicted of pedophelia claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, Scully is asked to bring Mulder back to the bureau to consult on the case because of his work with psychics. The narrative goes through the push and pull of his at-first reluctant involvement and Scully's attempts to stay out of it.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The film was first anticipated in November 2001 to follow the conclusion of the ninth season of the television series, but it remained in development hell for six years before entering production in December 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The film premiered on July 23, 2008, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood before opening theatrically two days later on July 25. The worldwide gross was $68.4 million from a $30 million budget. It received generally negative reviews; critics praised the chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson while criticizing the plot.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Dana Scully, a former FBI agent, is now a staff physician at a Catholic hospital; she is treating Christian, a young boy with symptoms similar to Sandhoff disease. FBI agent Mosely Drummy approaches Scully for help in locating her former partner, Fox Mulder, who has been in hiding as a fugitive for several years. Drummy states that the FBI will call off its manhunt for Mulder if he helps investigate the disappearances of several women in West Virginia, the latest of whom is a young FBI agent named Monica Bannan. Scully agrees and convinces a reluctant Mulder to help.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The duo is taken to Washington, D.C., where Agent Dakota Whitney requests Mulder's expertise with the paranormal as they have been led to a clue, a severed human arm, by Father Joseph Fitzpatrick Crissman. He is a former priest defrocked for the molestation of thirty-seven altar boys, and claims God is sending him visions of the crimes. A second woman, driving home after swimming in a natatorium, is run off the road by a truck driven by Janke Dacyshyn, who then abducts her. Father Joe is again recruited for help with the second abducted woman. After a grueling nighttime search in a snow-covered field, he leads the FBI to what turns out to be a frozen burial ground of people and body parts. Analysis of the remains, along with tracking down the recent movements from the second abducted woman's car crash, eventually leads them to Dacyshyn, an organ transporter in Richmond, Virginia, and his husband, Franz Tomczeszyn, who was among the youths Father Joe sexually abused.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: During an FBI raid on the organ donor facility where Dacyshyn works, he escapes, leaving Bannan's severed head at the scene. Mulder, who accompanied Whitney on the raid, chases Dacyshyn to a building construction site. Whitney follows and is killed when Dacyshyn pushes her down an elevator shaft. Scully, seeking a resolution, asks Joe, who has not yet heard of the discovery of Bannan's head, if he senses that she is still alive. He replies that she is. Discouraged but still determined, Mulder decides to investigate the incidents further. He drives Scully's car to Nutter's Feed Store in a small town near the abductions, as the human remains contain acepromazine, an animal tranquilizer. When Dacyshyn coincidentally arrives moments later, Mulder slips out and follows him. Dacyshyn notices him, however, and runs his car off the road. Mulder survives and manages to tail Dacyshyn, who exits his truck after the engine fails, to a small compound in a former barn. Mulder enters, and the commotion caused by a two-headed guard dog brings Dacyshyn out from one of the buildings. The compound is being used by an Eastern European medical team that has been murdering people and stealing their organs for years. The field where Father Joe had earlier discovered the bodies turned out to be their dumping ground. Mulder enters the building to find that the team has been using the organs and body parts to keep Tomczeszyn alive. At that moment, they attempt to place Tomczeszyn's head on the body of the second abducted woman. Mulder tries to save her from the gruesome fate, but a doctor comes from behind and injects him with a tranquilizer. Helpless, Mulder is taken outside to be murdered by Dacyshyn.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Scully, unable to reach Mulder on his cell phone, contacts her old FBI superior, Walter Skinner, for help. They trilaterate the phone's location and find Scully's wrecked car, eventually making their way through the snow to find the compound as Mulder is about to be axed by Dacyshyn. Scully attacks him in an ensuing confrontation, incapacitating him, while Skinner breaks up the medical procedure before the young woman is beheaded. Later, Mulder is at home when Scully tells him Father Joe has died. It happened at the same moment, Mulder notes, that Scully disconnected the life support to Tomczeszyn's severed head. Somehow, he surmises, the two men's fates were linked by more than just visions.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In a post-credits scene, Mulder and Scully head across the sea towards a tropical island in a rowboat, waving to the camera above.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In November 2001, the creators of the TV series "The X-Files" decided to pursue a second feature film adaptation of the series, following the 1998 film. Carter was expected to collaborate with Spotnitz, who had co-written the first film, on a script for the follow-up. Production of the film was slated to begin after the completion of the ninth season of the TV series, with a projected release in December 2003. In April 2002, Carter reiterated his desire and the studio's desire to do a sequel film. He planned to write the script over that summer and begin production in the spring or summer of 2003 for a 2004 release. Carter described the film saying, "We're looking at the movies as stand-alones. They're not necessarily going to have to deal with the mythology." Director Rob Bowman, who had directed episodes of "The X-Files" in the past as well as the 1998 film, expressed an interest in filming the sequel in July 2002.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In April 2004, Duchovny said he was waiting for the film's production to begin, explaining that Carter had signed off on the premise. Duchovny said of the delay, "So now it's just a matter of making sure everybody can get together at the same time and do it." The following November, Carter revealed that the project was in the negotiation stage, explaining, "Because it's a sequel, there are peculiar and specific kinds of negotiations that are holding us up." Duchovny spoke of the premise for the yet-produced film in 2005, "Mulder and Scully investigate one particular case that has nothing to do with alien life. It has to do with supernatural stuff." He also explained, "I think we're going back to the 'monster of the week' type feel, where if you're not an avid fan and don't understand the mythology, you can still come to it and get the movie." Duchovny and Carter planned to begin production in the winter of 2005 to be released in the summer of 2006. The following April, Duchovny admitted to a lack of a script, adding that Carter would have it ready by early next year.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In May 2006, Spotnitz blamed the continued delay on legal matters between Carter and 20th Century Fox. The screenwriter anticipated, "Once the legal issues are over with, we will go on with it. I'm hoping it will get resolved soon." By April 2007, Spotnitz confirmed that a script was finally in development. The following October, the studio officially announced the production of the sequel film, whose premise would be kept under wraps.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Principal photography took place in Vancouver and Pemberton, in British Columbia, Canada. According to Spotnitz, the script was written specifically for these locations. Filming began in December 2007 in Vancouver under the direction of Carter, and shooting finished on March 11, 2008. In a teaser trailer shown at Wondercon on February 23, 2008, the date "July 25, 2008" appeared at the end, and was the only text in the trailer. On March 27, 2008, the horror film site Bloody Disgusting reported a bootleg video of the official trailer uploaded by a user on YouTube. The first public trailer was released after midnight on May 12, 2008, after a period of downtime on the official website.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The decision to shoot in Vancouver, where the first five years of "The X-Files" had been filmed and produced before the series had moved to Los Angeles, was an early idea—one that seemed right to both Chris Carter and David Duchovny. According to Duchovny, "It all makes sense. You know, when Chris and I first talked about doing this movie, we kind of unconsciously both said, 'You know, I guess it should be in Vancouver, it really should be,' and it just felt like you know, almost superstitiously like the right thing to do." Filming in Vancouver also facilitated the return of many former crew members who had previously worked on "The X-Files", as well as individuals who had worked on the other series that Ten Thirteen Productions had created. Frank Spotnitz said that "In terms of making of the movie, we've brought together as many people as we can, not just from "The X-Files" but from all the shows that we did here in Vancouver – "Harsh Realm", "Millennium" and "The Lone Gunmen" – and our crew is populated with all these faces that we'd worked with, over the past fifteen years. And there's even some people from the L.A. crew."


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The exterior of Monica Bannan's house was filmed in Pemberton, a location that Spotnitz found to be beautiful but extremely cold. Although the location is shown in exterior shots incorporated into the scene in which Fox Mulder (Duchovny), Whitney (Amanda Peet), Drummy (Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner), and Father Joe (Billy Connolly) drove to the missing agent's home, the same scene also includes footage of the actors that was filmed on a stage, using a rear projection to show the exterior from inside the car. The latter method was used for all the shots in which any of the travelers appear.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Several of the other locations were filmed in and around Pemberton Valley. Key scenes were also filmed in Riverlands. The interior of Mulder's home was a set in Burnaby, outside of Vancouver. The set was an old roller rink or at least sounded like one, as it was very noisy. During filming, Carter placed a carrot juice bottle on the table of the set, having just finished the drink, as he thought it would be "a nice sort of Mulder touch." Some of the artwork in Mulder's office came from a friend of Carter's who had a gallery in Vancouver and was named Monica Reyes, a name that had previously been used in her honor for a character who features in a recurring role in the series' eighth season and appears as a main character in every episode of the series' ninth season. One of the pictures on the wall of Mulder's office was by Douglas Coupland, who was featured in the real Monica Reyes' gallery and had written a book Carter liked which was called "Hey Nostradamus!", so Carter stuck a Post-it on which he wrote the book's title onto the picture.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The exterior of the dorms for habitual sex offenders where Father Joe lives was actually an apartment complex in Vancouver that was slated for demolition while the production crew were filming there. Snow that can be seen outside the dorms was actually fake snow that was imported by the crew and fabricated by the film's Special Effects Department. Bill Roe and Mark Freeborn worked together to create a creepy green glow on the location using green lights. The production crew also created their own factory smoke for chimneys in the background, as Carter opined that the smoking chimneys made the location look like London. The interior of Joe's apartment was another set and was exactly like the real apartment except that it was slightly bigger. A trans-light was incorporated into the set to resemble daylight visible through a window of the apartment. The set also had a porch that was used for some shots in the scene where Mulder and Scully were outside the apartment. Additional filming was done in Coquitlam, another Vancouver suburb, at Riverview Hospital's Unit 8 building.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The code name "Done One" was used as the film's working title during filming, with location signs labeled as "Done One Productions." The name meant the producers had already done one film. "The Crying Box Productions" was listed as the production company, instead of Carter's usual "Ten Thirteen Productions." "The Hollywood Reporter" posted a series of information sheets regarding upcoming studio films, and the 20th Century Fox fact sheet referred to the film as "The X-Files: Done One".


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: On April 16, 2008, the official title of the film was announced: "The X-Files: I Want to Believe". Carter referred to the title as a "natural title", saying that it pertained to "a story that involves the difficulties in mediating faith and science. 'I Want to Believe.' It really does suggest Scully's struggle with her faith." Carter also said that he and Spotnitz settled upon the title as soon as they started writing the screenplay. This title is a popular phrase among "X-Files" fans. It is featured on the UFO poster above Mulder's desk.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: After "The X-Files" was cancelled in 2002, Chris Carter and his crew started working with a goal of releasing a second "X-Files" film. In 2003, Carter called Mark Snow, who by that time lived in London, United Kingdom and said he wanted him to return for another film. Snow was positive to the idea, but filming got bogged down by contract issues between Fox and Carter. Once the contract issues were sorted out, Carter re-contacted Snow about the development, and later on sent him the script for the film. Carter and his production crew wanted as much secrecy for the film as possible, forcing Snow to sign a contract when receiving the script. After reading the script three times, Snow started on the "visuals" for the story. Snow initially wrote a couple of demos, with which Carter and Frank Spotnitz were not pleased, but they were eventually accepted when Snow re-recorded them.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: When composing the score for "I Want to Believe", Snow called it "different" from the previous film which followed the shows mytharc storyline about the government conspiracy and aliens. He said it was much "more heart, warmth and tuneful music" since this film was based more around Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully's (Gillian Anderson) relationship.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Snow recorded the score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony in May 2008 at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox in Century City, California. This music was fully written out and orchestrated. When making the music, Snow used such instruments as the "battery of percussion" taiko drums and whistles with live singers among other things. It took four days to record with the orchestra. He used no trumpets and no high woodwinds when recording, but used up to eight french horns, five trombones, two pianos, one harp, thirty-two violins, sixteen violas, twelve cellos and eight basses.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: British performers UNKLE recorded a new version of the theme music for the end credits to the film. Some of the unusual sounds were created by a variation of silly putty and dimes tucked in between and over the strings of the piano. Mark Snow also comments that the fast percussion featured in some tracks was inspired by the track "Prospectors Quartet" from the "There Will Be Blood" soundtrack.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The film grossed $4 million on its opening day in the United States It opened fourth on the U.S. weekend box office chart, with a gross of $10.2 million. By the end of its worldwide theatrical run, it had grossed $20,982,478 domestically and an additional $47,386,956 internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $68,369,434. Among 2008 worldwide releases, it ended up in 78th place. As a domestic release, it finished in 114th place.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: The film's stars both claimed that the timing of the movie's release, a week after the highly popular Batman film "The Dark Knight", negatively affected its box-office return.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on December 2, 2008. The home release included an extended cut that adds an additional four minutes of footage into the movie, including extra violence and character moments. The most recent available data showed it had grossed $16,338,379 from U.S. DVD sales.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 reviews from mainstream film critics, reported that there were "mixed or average" reviews, with an average score of 47 based on 33 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 31% of 165 listed film critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.79/10. The website wrote of the critics' consensus, states: "The chemistry between leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do live up to "The X-Files" televised legacy, but the roving plot and droning routines make it hard to identify just what we're meant to believe in." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" found the film "baggy, draggy, oddly timed and strangely off the mark" and that "Mr. Carter knows how to grab your attention visually, but the amalgam of trashy thriller clichés that he has compiled with Frank Spotnitz, another series regular, creates its own deadening effect". Frank Lovece of "Film Journal International", likewise said, "What plot there is plays like a PG-13 "Se7en": body parts, gruesomeness, gloom and doom, but hey, not too much, and don't worry, there's nothing deeply upsetting", and while praising the cinematography, music and Gillian Anderson's performance, believes, "It seems unlikely that this franchise will reach "The X-Files X"". Jason Anderson of Canada's CBC News called the film "muddled" with a "hurried and half-baked" climax, and said, "Beyond the pleasure of seeing Duchovny and Anderson back in action and back on form," the film "offers little to either the longtime fans or newcomers". Jan Stuart from the "Los Angeles Times" commented, ""The X-Files" was a load of malarkey. But it was thoughtful malarkey and compulsively watchable. One could say the same about the first two-thirds of "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" before it spins out of control and into a delirious plane of awfulness." M. A. Crang, in his book "Denying the Truth: Revisiting The X-Files after 9/11", praised the acting, locations and characterization, but felt that the script was the film's "biggest weakness".


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: Roger Ebert gave a positive review of the film with three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying; "It involved actual questions of morality, just as "The Dark Knight" does. It's not simply about good and evil but about choices". He also felt "the movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings", also calling the film "a skillful thriller". Sandra Hall of the "Sydney Morning Herald" was more equivocal, saying, "... it just about works, thanks to Carter's sense of timing and the script's allegorical enhancements." "Empire" gave the film three stars ("good"), but expressed a desire for Chris Carter to return to the more comedic and "post-modern" elements of the series upon the next revisit. Stephanie Zackarek was mostly positive towards the film, saying; ""I Want to Believe" comes off like a solid if not great episode from one of the show's early seasons, a reasonably suspenseful story made by a director with a sturdy sense of how to tell a story." Mick LaSalle was also positive towards the film, saying that you didn't need to know anything about the previous settings and calling it a "compelling suspense thriller with some tense moments." "TV Guide" reviewer Maitland McDonagh gave the film two and a half stars out of four saying that the film was not "sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting." About the theme and story she said, "such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies."


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In preparation for the miniseries continuation of the series, Keith Uhlich of "The A.V. Club" suggested "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is "much better than its reputation suggests." He continues, saying: "It was never this writer’s opinion that "I Want to Believe"... was some worthless addition to "X-Files" canon. On first view, it seemed a very consciously low-key study of the Mulder/Scully dynamic, filtered, as per usual, through the prism of the latest mystery the agents were called in to solve. If "Fight The Future", which dealt in grandiose fashion with the series’ convoluted alien myth arc, was "The X-Files" in summer blockbuster mode, "I Want to Believe" was its attempt at an intimate chamber drama — more Ingmar Bergman than Michael Bay."


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In several interviews that Carter gave around the time the film came out, he said that if "I Want to Believe" proved financially successful, a third installment would be made going back to the TV series' mythology, focusing specifically on the alien invasion and colonization of Earth foretold in the series finale, due to occur on December 22, 2012. Fox Chairman Tom Rothman, responding to an interview question regarding the possibility of a third "X-Files" movie, said in October 2008, "It's really up to Chris [Carter], David [Duchovny] and Gillian [Anderson]". During an interview at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August 2009, Anderson was asked about a third film and responded, "They talked about maybe doing it in 2012. I think there were discussions about that. I don't know whether that's going to happen or not, but there isn't any reason not to do it." Frank Spotnitz responded to his blog readers' requests for clarification regarding Anderson's comments by denying that any deal was in place, saying, "I'm afraid I have no news to report other than our continuing desire to make a third film if there's an audience for it." In an October 2009 interview, David Duchovny likewise said that he wanted to do a 2012 "X-Files" movie, but still did not know if he would get the chance.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In December 2009, Carter said he could not "ensure" another movie would be made, but thought the international box office for the 2008 film made it at least a theoretical possibility. In an interview published in August 2012, Spotnitz said he was talking up the idea of an "X-Files" movie every chance he got, but that there was still nothing happening on that front, and that time was running very short for a third movie concluding the original "X-Files" franchise to be made at all. He blamed the poor performance of the 2008 film on the fact that it was not about aliens. Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2013, Carter, when asked about a third film, was extremely noncommittal, indicating there was still no forward movement, and saying, "We can get to it later." In August 2013, Carter said, in an interview with "Empire", that "It's really up to 20th Century Fox, whether they have the will to do it. I think all of us are interested in putting the band back together", adding that a third installment would be a return to the mythology and that the colonisation date of the television series would not be ignored.


title: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

text: In March 2015, it was confirmed that there would be a six-episode miniseries on Fox, featuring Duchovny, Anderson, and some other members of the original cast, which would have both standalone and mythology elements. In April 2017, it was announced the series would return with a ten-episode eleventh season which premiered on January 3, 2018.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The agency is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The FTC was established in 1914 with the passage of the Federal Trade Commission Act, signed in response to the 19th-century monopolistic trust crisis. Since its inception, the FTC has enforced the provisions of the Clayton Act, a key antitrust statute, as well as the provisions of the FTC Act, et seq. Over time, the FTC has been delegated with the enforcement of additional business regulation statutes and has promulgated a number of regulations (codified in Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations). The broad statutory authority granted to the FTC provides it with more surveillance and monitoring abilities than it actually uses.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The FTC is composed of five commissioners, who each serve seven-year terms. Members of the commission are nominated by the President and subject to Senate confirmation, and no more than three FTC members can be of the same party. One member of the body serves as FTC Chair at the President's pleasure, with Commissioner Lina Khan having served as chair since June 2021.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Following the Supreme Court decisions against Standard Oil and American Tobacco in May 1911, the first version of a bill to establish a commission to regulate interstate trade was introduced on January 25, 1912, by Oklahoma congressman Dick Thompson Morgan. He would make the first speech on the House floor advocating its creation on February 21, 1912.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Though the initial bill did not pass, the questions of trusts and antitrust dominated the 1912 election. Most political party platforms in 1912 endorsed the establishment of a federal trade commission with its regulatory powers placed in the hands of an administrative board, as an alternative to functions previously and necessarily exercised so slowly through the courts.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: With the 1912 presidential election decided in favor of the Democrats and Woodrow Wilson, Morgan reintroduced a slightly amended version of his bill during the April 1913 special session. The national debate culminated in Wilson's signing of the FTC Act on September 26, 1914, with additional tightening of regulations in the Clayton Antitrust Act three weeks later.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The new FTC would absorb the staff and duties of Bureau of Corporations, previously established under the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. The FTC could additionally challenge "unfair methods of competition" and enforce the Clayton Act's more specific prohibitions against certain price discrimination, vertical arrangements, interlocking directorates, and stock acquisitions.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In 1984, the FTC began to regulate the funeral home industry in order to protect consumers from deceptive practices. The FTC Funeral Rule requires funeral homes to provide all customers (and potential customers) with a General Price List (GPL), specifically outlining goods and services in the funeral industry, as defined by the FTC, and a listing of their prices. By law, the GPL must be presented on request to all individuals, and no one is to be denied a written, retainable copy of the GPL. In 1996, the FTC instituted the Funeral Rule Offenders Program (FROP), under which "funeral homes make a voluntary payment to the U.S. Treasury or appropriate state fund for an amount less than what would likely be sought if the Commission authorized filing a lawsuit for civil penalties. In addition, the funeral homes participate in the NFDA compliance program, which includes a review of the price lists, on-site training of the staff, and follow-up testing and certification on compliance with the Funeral Rule."


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In the mid-1990s, the FTC launched the fraud sweeps concept where the agency and its federal, state, and local partners filed simultaneous legal actions against multiple telemarketing fraud targets. The first sweeps operation was "Project Telesweep" in July 1995 which cracked down on 100 business opportunity scams.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In the 2021 United States Supreme Court case, "AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC", the Court found unanimously that the FTC did not have power under of the FTC Act, amended in 1973, to seek equitable relief in courts; it had the power to seek only injunctive relief.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The commission is headed by five commissioners, who each serve seven-year terms. Commissioners are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. No more than three commissioners can be of the same political party. In practice, this means that two Commissions are of the opposition party. However, three members of the FTC throughout its history have been without party affiliation, with the most recent independent, Pamela Jones Harbour, serving from 2003 to 2009.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The Bureau of Consumer Protection's mandate is to protect consumers against unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce. With the written consent of the commission, Bureau attorneys enforce federal laws related to consumer affairs and rules promulgated by the FTC. Its functions include investigations, enforcement actions, and consumer and business education. Areas of principal concern for this bureau are: advertising and marketing, financial products and practices, telemarketing fraud, privacy and identity protection, etc. The bureau also is responsible for the United States National Do Not Call Registry.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Under the FTC Act, the commission has the authority, in most cases, to bring its actions in federal court through its own attorneys. In some consumer protection matters, the FTC appears with, or supports, the U.S. Department of Justice.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The Bureau of Competition is the division of the FTC charged with elimination and prevention of "anticompetitive" business practices. It accomplishes this through the enforcement of antitrust laws, review of proposed mergers, and investigation into other non-merger business practices that may impair competition. Such non-merger practices include horizontal restraints, involving agreements between direct competitors, and vertical restraints, involving agreements among businesses at different levels in the same industry (such as suppliers and commercial buyers).The FTC shares enforcement of antitrust laws with the Department of Justice. However, while the FTC is responsible for civil enforcement of antitrust laws, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has the power to bring both civil and criminal action in antitrust matters.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The Bureau of Economics was established to support the Bureau of Competition and Consumer Protection by providing expert knowledge related to the economic impacts of the FTC's legislation and operation.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The FTC investigates issues raised by reports from consumers and businesses, pre-merger notification filings, congressional inquiries, or reports in the media. These issues include, for instance, false advertising and other forms of fraud. FTC investigations may pertain to a single company or an entire industry. If the results of the investigation reveal unlawful conduct, the FTC may seek voluntary compliance by the offending business through a consent order, file an administrative complaint, or initiate federal litigation. During the course of regulatory activities, the FTC is authorized to collect records, but not on-site inspections.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Traditionally an administrative complaint is heard in front of an independent administrative law judge (ALJ) with FTC staff acting as prosecutors. The case is reviewed "de novo" by the full FTC commission which then may be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals and finally to the Supreme Court.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Under the FTC Act, the federal courts retain their traditional authority to issue equitable relief, including the appointment of receivers, monitors, the imposition of asset freezes to guard against the spoliation of funds, immediate access to business premises to preserve evidence, and other relief including financial disclosures and expedited discovery. In numerous cases, the FTC employs this authority to combat serious consumer deception or fraud. Additionally, the FTC has rulemaking power to address concerns regarding industry-wide practices. Rules promulgated under this authority are known as "Trade Rules".


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: One of the Federal Trade Commission's other major focuses is identity theft. The FTC serves as a federal repository for individual consumer complaints regarding identity theft. Even though the FTC does not resolve individual complaints, it does use the aggregated information to determine where federal action might be taken. The complaint form is available online or by phone (1-877-ID-THEFT).


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The FTC has been involved in the oversight of the online advertising industry and its practice of behavioral targeting for some time. In 2011 the FTC proposed a "Do Not Track" mechanism to allow Internet users to opt-out of behavioral targeting.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The FTC, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice also empowers third-party enforcer-firms to engage in some regulatory oversight, e.g. the FTC requires other energy companies to audit offshore oil platform operators.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In 2013, the FTC issued a comprehensive revision of its Green guides, which set forth standards for environmental marketing.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, grants the FTC power to investigate and prevent "deceptive" trade practices. The statute declares that "unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful."


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Unfairness and deception towards consumers represent two distinct areas of FTC enforcement and authority. The FTC also has authority over unfair methods of competition between businesses.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Courts have identified three main factors that must be considered in consumer unfairness cases: (1) whether the practice injures consumers; (2) whether the practice violates established public policy; and (3) whether it is unethical or unscrupulous.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In a letter to the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the FTC defined the elements of deception cases. First, "there must be a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer." In the case of omissions, the Commission considers the implied representations understood by the consumer.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: A misleading omission occurs when information is not disclosed to correct reasonable consumer expectations. Second, the Commission examines the practice from the perspective of a reasonable consumer being targeted by the practice. Finally the representation or omission must be a material one—that is one that would have changed consumer behavior.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In its Dot Com Disclosures guide, the FTC said that "disclosures that are required to prevent deception or to provide consumers material information about a transaction must be presented clearly and conspicuously." The FTC suggested a number of different factors that would help determine whether the information was "clear and conspicuous" including but not limited to:


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In "F.T.C. v. Cyberspace.com" the FTC found that sending consumers mail that appeared to be a check for $3.50 to the consumer attached to an invoice was deceptive when cashing the check constituted an agreement to pay a monthly fee for internet access. The back of the check, in fine print, disclosed the existence of this agreement to the consumer. The FTC concluded that the practice was misleading to reasonable consumers, especially since there was evidence that less than one percent of the 225,000 individuals and businesses billed for the internet service actually logged on.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In "In re Gateway Learning Corp." the FTC alleged that Gateway committed unfair and deceptive trade practices by making retroactive changes to its privacy policy without informing customers and by violating its own privacy policy by selling customer information when it had said it would not. Gateway settled the complaint by entering into a consent decree with the FTC that required it to surrender some profits and placed restrictions upon Gateway for the following 20 years.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In "In the Matter of Sears Holdings Management Corp.", the FTC alleged that a research software program provided by Sears was deceptive because it collected information about nearly all online behavior, a fact that was only disclosed in legalese, buried within the end user license agreement.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In November 2018 by request of US Senator Maggie Hassan, the FTC decided to investigate whether paid-for loot boxes, virtual items with random benefits in certain video games, were a form of gambling.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In September 2013, a federal court closed an elusive business opportunity scheme on the request of the FTC, namely "Money Now Funding"/"Cash4Businesses". The FTC alleged that the defendants misrepresented potential earnings, violated the National Do Not Call Register, and violated the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule in preventing a fair consumer evaluation of the business. This was one of the first definitive actions taken by any regulator against a company engaging in transaction laundering, where almost US$6 million were processed illicitly.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In December 2018, two defendants, Nikolas Mihilli and Dynasty Merchants, LLC, settled with the FTC. They were banned from processing credit card transactions, though the initial monetary judgment of $5.8 million was suspended due to the defendants’ inability to pay.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In 2016, the FTC launched action against the academic journal publisher OMICS Publishing Group for producing predatory journals and organizing predatory conferences. This action, partly in response to ongoing pressure from the academic community, is the first action taken by the FTC against an academic journal publisher.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: The complaint alleges that the defendants have been "deceiving academics and researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars". It additionally notes that "OMICS regularly advertises conferences featuring academic experts who were never scheduled to appear in order to attract registrants" and that attendees "spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on registration fees and travel costs to attend these scientific conferences." Manuscripts are also sometimes held hostage, with OMICS refusing to allow submissions to be withdrawn and thereby preventing resubmission to another journal for consideration. Library scientist Jeffrey Beall has described OMICS as among the most egregious of predatory publishers. In November 2017, a federal court in the Court for the District of Nevada granted a preliminary injunction that:


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: "prohibits the defendants from making misrepresentations regarding their academic journals and conferences, including that specific persons are editors of their journals or have agreed to participate in their conferences. It also prohibits the defendants from falsely representing that their journals engage in peer review, that their journals are included in any academic journal indexing service, or any measurement of the extent to which their journals are cited. It also requires that the defendants clearly and conspicuously disclose all costs associated with submitting or publishing articles in their journals."


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In addition to prospective analysis of the effects of mergers and acquisitions, the FTC has recently resorted to retrospective analysis and monitoring of consolidated hospitals. Thus, it also uses retroactive data to demonstrate that some hospital mergers and acquisitions are hurting consumers, particularly in terms of higher prices. Here are some recent examples of the FTC's success in blocking or unwinding of hospital consolidations or affiliations:


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In 2011, the FTC successfully challenged in court the $195 million acquisition of Palmyra Medical Center by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. The FTC alleged that the transaction would create a monopoly as it would "reduce competition significantly and allow the combined Phoebe/Palmyra to raise prices for general acute-care hospital services charged to commercial health plans, substantially harming patients and local employers and employees". The Supreme Court on February 19, 2013, ruled in favor of the FTC.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: Similarly, court attempts by ProMedica health system in Ohio to overturn an order by the FTC to the company to unwind its 2010 acquisition of St. Luke's hospital were unsuccessful. The FTC claimed that the acquisition would hurt consumers through higher premiums because insurance companies would be required to pay more. In December 2011, an administrative judge upheld the FTC's decision, noting that the behavior of ProMedica health system and St. Luke's was indeed anticompetitive. The court ordered ProMedica to divest St. Luke's to a buyer that would be approved by the FTC within 180 days of the date of the order.


title: Federal Trade Commission

text: In November 2011, the FTC filed a lawsuit alleging that the proposed acquisition of Rockford by OSF would drive up prices for general acute-care inpatient services as OSF would face only one competitor (SwedishAmerican health system) in the Rockford area and would have a market share of 64%. Later in 2012, OSF announced that it had abandoned its plans to acquire Rockford Health System.


title: Vinson Massif

text: Vinson Massif () is a large mountain massif in Antarctica that is long and wide and lies within the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains. It overlooks the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. The massif is located about from the South Pole. Vinson Massif was discovered in January 1958 by U.S. Navy aircraft. In 1961, the Vinson Massif was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN), after Carl G. Vinson, United States congressman from the state of Georgia, for his support for Antarctic exploration. On November 1, 2006, US-ACAN declared Mount Vinson and Vinson Massif to be separate entities. Vinson Massif lies within the Chilean claim under the Antarctic Treaty System.


title: Vinson Massif

text: Mount Vinson is the highest peak in Antarctica, at . It lies in the north part of Vinson Massif's summit plateau in the south portion of the main ridge of the Sentinel Range about north of Hollister Peak. It was first climbed in 1966 by an American team led by Nicholas Clinch. An expedition in 2001 was the first to climb via the Eastern route, and also took GPS measurements of the height of the peak. As of February 2010, 1,400 climbers have attempted to reach the top of Mount Vinson.


title: Vinson Massif

text: The Vinson Massif extends between Goodge Col and Branscomb Glacier to the northwest, Nimitz Glacier and Gildea Glacier to the southwest and south, and Dater Glacier and its tributary Hinkley Glacier to the east. The southeastern part of the massif ends at Hammer Col, which joins it to the Craddock Massif, of which the highest point is Mount Rutford (). The massif comprises both the high central Vinson Plateau with its few peaks rising to over , and several side ridges mostly trending southwest or northeast from the plateau.


title: Vinson Massif

text: The current height () of Mount Vinson was measured by a GPS survey that was conducted by the 2004 Omega Foundation team comprising Damien Gildea of Australia (leader) and Rodrigo Fica and Camilo Rada of Chile. Since 1998 and continuing through 2007, the Omega Foundation has placed a GPS receiver on the summit for a suitable period of time to obtain accurate satellite readings.


title: Vinson Massif

text: Steeply inclined strata known as the Crashsite Group forms Vinson Massif. It consists of of shallow-water, mostly marine, tan, green, and red quartzose sandstones (quartzites) and argillites. In ascending order, the Crashsite Group is subdivided into the Howard Nunataks Formation (), the Mount Liptak Formation (), and the Mount Wyatt Earp Formation (). Erosion-resistant and steeply inclined beds of the Mount Wyatt Earp Formation comprise the crest of the Vinson Massif, including Mount Vinson. The steeply inclined strata of the Crashsite Group are part of the western limb of a major syncline that forms the core of the Sentinel Range within the Ellsworth Mountains. The Mount Wyatt Earp Formation contains Devonian fossils. The transition beds at the base of the Crashsite Group contain Late Cambrian trilobites. The intervening lower parts of the Crashsite Group likely include Ordovician and Silurian strata.


title: Vinson Massif

text: The climate on Mount Vinson is generally controlled by the polar ice cap's high-pressure system, creating predominantly stable conditions but, as in any polar climate, high winds and snowfall are a possibility. Though the annual snowfall on Mount Vinson is low, high winds can cause base camp accumulations up to in a year. During the summer season, November through January, there are 24 hours of sunlight. While the average temperature during these months is , the intense sun will melt snow on dark objects.


title: Vinson Massif

text: Over successive years, the limited amount of snow that falls on Vinson Massif compacts and is transformed into ice, forming glaciers. These glaciers follow the topography and flow down the mountain's valleys. The uppermost glacier occupies Jacobsen Valley on the north face of Mount Vinson, and flows either into Branscomb Glacier to the west or Crosswell Glacier to the east. The Crosswell Glacier flows into the Rutford Ice Stream via Ellen Glacier. The south face of Mount Vinson is drained by Roché Glacier, which flows westwards into Branscomb Glacier, with the latter leaving Vinson Massif to join Nimitz Glacier.


title: Vinson Massif

text: A high mountain, provisionally known as "Vinson", was long suspected to be in this part of West Antarctica, but it was not actually seen until January 1958, when it was spotted by US Navy aircraft from Byrd Station. It was named after Carl Vinson, United States Representative from Georgia who was a key supporter of funding for Antarctic research. The first measurement of the Vinson Massif was established in 1959 at the elevation of .


title: Vinson Massif

text: In 1963, two groups within the American Alpine Club (AAC), one led by Charles D. Hollister and Samuel C. Silverstein, M.D., then in New York, and the other led by Peter Schoening of Seattle, Washington, began lobbying the National Science Foundation to support an expedition to climb Mount Vinson. The two groups merged in spring 1966 at the urging of the National Science Foundation and the AAC and Nicholas Clinch was recruited by the AAC to lead the merged expeditions. Officially named the American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition (AAME) 1966/67, the expedition was sponsored by the AAC and the National Geographic Society, and supported in the field by the U.S. Navy and the National Science Foundation Office of Antarctic Programs. Ten scientists and mountaineers participated in AAME 1966/67. In addition to Clinch they were Barry Corbet, John Evans (University of Minnesota), Eiichi Fukushima (University of Washington, Seattle), Charles Hollister, Ph.D. (Columbia University), William Long, (Alaska Methodist University), Brian Marts, Peter Schoening, Samuel Silverstein, (Rockefeller University) and Richard Wahlstrom.


title: Vinson Massif

text: In the months prior to its departure for Antarctica the expedition received considerable press attention, primarily because of the reports that Woodrow Wilson Sayre was planning to fly in a Piper Apache piloted by Max Conrad, the "flying Grandfather", with four companions into the Sentinel Range to climb the Mount Vinson. Sayre had a reputation for problematic trips as a result of his unauthorized, unsuccessful, and nearly fatal attempt to climb Mount Everest from the North in 1962. His unauthorized incursion into Tibet led China to file an official protest with the U.S. State Department. In the end, the purported race did not materialize as Conrad had difficulties with his plane. According to press reports, he and Sayre were still in Buenos Aires on the day the first four members of AAME 1966/67 reached Mount Vinson's summit.


title: Vinson Massif

text: In December 1966 the Navy transported the expedition and its supplies from Christchurch, New Zealand to the U.S. base at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, and from there in a ski-equipped C-130 Hercules to the Sentinel Range. All members of the expedition reached the summit of Mount Vinson. The first group of four climbers summited on December 18, 1966, four more on December 19, and the last three on December 20.


title: Vinson Massif

text: On August 17, 2006, from nomination by Damien Gildea of the Omega Foundation, US-ACAN approved naming the subsidiary peaks south of Mount Vinson for the AAME 1966/67 members Nicholas Clinch, Barry Corbet, Eiichi Fukushima, Charles Hollister, Brian Marts, Samuel Silverstein, Peter Schoening and Richard Wahlstrom. Other peaks in the Sentinel Range had previously been named for John Evans and William Long.


title: Vinson Massif

text: The climb of Vinson offers little technical difficulty beyond the usual hazards of travel in Antarctica, and as one of the Seven Summits, it has received much attention from well-funded climbers in recent years. Multiple guide companies offer guided expeditions to Mount Vinson, at a typical cost of around US$45,000 per person, including transportation to Antarctica from Chile.


title: Vinson Massif

text: While the vast majority of prior climbs to the summit have used the western side of the massif from the Branscomb Glacier, the first ascent from the east side was successfully completed by an eight-person team sponsored by "NOVA" in January 2001. The team consisted of:


title: Vinson Massif

text: The team not only made the first ascent from the east side but also performed scientific research into snow accumulation at different elevations as well as taking the first ground-based GPS reading from the summit. The GPS reading gave the elevation of the highest point in Antarctica as , eclipsing the earlier established heights recorded in 1959 and 1979.


title: Vinson Massif

text: Another first was the successful aircraft landing of a Twin Otter on the Upper Dater Glacier on the eastern slopes of Mount Vinson.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Nathaniel Parker (born 18 May 1962) is an English stage and screen actor best known for playing the lead in the BBC crime drama series "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries", and Agravaine de Bois in the fourth series of "Merlin".


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Nathaniel Parker was born in London, the youngest son of the businessman and one-time British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker and Jillian, a GP and gardener, who wrote "The Purest of Pleasures: Creation of a Romantic Garden". He has two older brothers, Alan, chairman of Brunswick Group, and Oliver Parker, a film director, and a sister, Lucy. Parker joined the National Youth Theatre, and after training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker portrayed Bassanio in Peter Hall's 1989 production of "The Merchant of Venice" in London and on Broadway, co-starring with Dustin Hoffman.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker returned to the stage in 2013 for the production of "The Audience", starring Helen Mirren, written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry. The play ran for four months at the Gielgud Theatre in London. It was also transmitted worldwide via National Theatre Live and was seen by more than 110,000 viewers in the UK and USA.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker played King Henry VIII in "Wolf Hall" (and "Bring up the Bodies") for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2014, earning a 2015 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the London production and appearing in New York City when the show moved on to Broadway, where his performance received a Tony Award nomination. He reprised the role at the Gielgud Theatre in 2021 for "The Mirror and the Light", the third and final part of the trilogy.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker played Jack Weatherill in James Graham's "This House" at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in September 2016 and took the same role to the Garrick Theatre in the West End of London on 19 November 2016.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: In 1989, Parker portrayed Jamie Jasper in the tenth episode of "Inspector Morse". In 1997, he portrayed King David in a made-for-TV film.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker played a variety of television costume drama roles, such as: Martin Jordan in the 1995 TV production of Joanna Trollope's "A Village Affair", Gabriel Oak in the Granada/WGBH-TV co- production of "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1997), and Martin Tanley in the comedy film "Beverly Hills Ninja" (1997) with Chris Farley and Chris Rock. He also played Rawdon Crawley in a BBC version of "Vanity Fair" (1998). "The New York Times" reviewer Caryn James said of his performance: "More than anyone else in the series, Nathaniel Parker brings some complexity to his character." He also played Harold Skimpole in the BAFTA-winning BBC1 dramatisation of "Bleak House" (2005).


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: In a 2007 Radio Times interview, Parker said that his first big television break came in 1988 when he played a Battle of France pilot in ITV's six-part drama "Piece of Cake".


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Another early role was Wilfred Owen in Derek Jarman's "War Requiem", a 1989 film adaptation of Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem." It co-starred Laurence Olivier, in his last screen role, as an old soldier. Four years later, Parker played Edward Rochester in John Duigan's 1993 film adaptation of Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea". Reviewing this 'prequel' to "Jane Eyre", Vincent Canby said in his review that Parker: "is exceptionally good in a difficult, shadowy role".


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: From 2001 to 2007, Parker played the titular character in the long-running BBC1 crime series "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries", perhaps his best-known role. His co-star was Sharon Small as his assistant, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. When the series premiered on PBS in 2002, "The Wall Street Journal" wrote that it was "fully worthy of the "Mystery!" label." At the same time, he played Master Gracey in "The Haunted Mansion",(2003), Albert Speer in the BBC production of 2006 "" and Dunstan Thorn in the fantasy film "Stardust" (2007). Parker also starred briefly in "St Trinian's" (directed by his brother, Oliver).


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: In 2011, Parker joined the cast of "Merlin", to play the character of Agravaine de Bois for all 13 episodes of the fourth series. He also appeared in the independent comedy-drama "The Perfect Host", alongside David Hyde Pierce.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: In 2012, Parker was cast alongside YouTube reviewer Stuart Ashen in the Alienware-sponsored sci-fi thriller series "The Proxy". He also appeared as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec in the film adaptation of Louise Penny's murder mystery novel "Still Life", set in rural Quebec. He also starred in the TV series, "Me and Mrs Jones" broadcast in 2012.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: In July 2015, Parker played the domestic bully Dicky Carmichael in the BBC's two-part television adaptation of Sadie Jones’ debut novel "The Outcast". In June 2015 it was announced that Parker would play the role of King Achish in ABC TVs series "Of Kings and Prophets".


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker is a voiceover artist and has done work on audiobooks, including Eoin Colfer's children's "Artemis Fowl" series, the five books in Charlie Higson's "Young James Bond" series, and "The Gardens of The Dead" by William Brodrick. He read Mark Haddon's novel "A Spot of Bother" for BBC Radio Four's "Book at Bedtime" and played Axel in Jules Verne's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", first broadcast on BBC Radio Four Extra on 20 November 2011 and again on 12 November 2012. He has also voiced numerous video games and made many radio appearances as an interviewee and in radio dramas. A complete listing of Parker's extensive audio work can be found online.


title: Nathaniel Parker

text: Parker is married to actress Anna Patrick. The couple live in Gloucestershire with their two daughters.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus (; Nathaniel Richards) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the future self of Rama-Tut, Scarlet Centurion, Kang the Conqueror, and Iron Lad / Kid Immortus.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus served as inspiration for the character He Who Remains (portrayed by Jonathan Majors), who appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series first season "Loki" (2021) episode "For All Time. Always."


title: Immortus

text: Immortus first appeared in "The Avengers" #10 and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In "The Celestial Madonna Saga", Immortus was retroactively established to be the future self of the time-travelling Pharaoh Rama-Tut and Kang the Conqueror, having turned towards a more peaceful outlook on existence.


title: Immortus

text: At some point in his personal timeline, Pharaoh Rama-Tut (formerly known as Kang) became weary of battle due to frustration and the loss of his son Marcus and consort Ravonna in several timelines. He was approached by the alien Time-Keepers—time travelers from the end of the universe, the last living creatures in existence—to become their agent, preserving timelines rather than conquering them in exchange for immortality. He accepted and reinvented himself again, this time as Immortus, the lord of the other-dimensional realm of Limbo.


title: Immortus

text: He again came into conflict with the Avengers, but under different circumstances. In his first encounter with the Avengers as Immortus, he attempted the destruction of the Avengers through the use of mythological and historical figures (such as Paul Bunyan, Genghis Khan, Goliath) as combatants after trying to join the Masters of Evil, but being told by Baron Zemo he has to defeat one of the Avengers. The Masters attacked the Avengers after Captain America had been taken to the Tower of London in 1760 where Rick Jones was imprisoned. But when he rescued Rick he was returned to his own time and with his help the Masters were defeated at a near-win. This event was apparently erased after the Enchantress turns back time to prevent the Avengers capturing the Masters. He was partially responsible for the creation of the Vision, allegedly creating a temporal copy of the original Human Torch that the android Ultron used to create the Vision.


title: Immortus

text: Later, he even allied with Kang the Conqueror in one of Kang's schemes against the Avengers and Pharaoh Rama-Tut. He was betrayed by Kang, and imprisoned alongside Pharaoh Rama-Tut while Kang used Immortus's advanced technology to create the first Legion of the Unliving, made up of now-dead characters taken milliseconds before their death. He was subsequently freed by the Avengers, and revealed to be the future persona of Pharaoh Rama-Tut and Kang the Conqueror. He offered to aid the Vision in learning his past. The Legion of the Unliving were defeated and sent back to their own times, and Kang fled.


title: Immortus

text: Later, Immortus officiated at the double wedding of the Vision to the Scarlet Witch, and Mantis to the Swordsman. He next traveled to the Old West with Thor and Moondragon in pursuit of Kang, and assisted the Avengers in the defeat of Kang. Some time later, he allied with the Space Phantom and the giant Tempus, and removed the time travel enchantment from Thor's uru hammer with a trick, though Thor can still manipulate time. Later he revealed that he had caused Kang to find his fortress in Limbo, faked his death by leaving what Kang thought were his remains in his fortress, caused the disturbance in the timestream, and had manipulated him into destroying the Kang divergent doubles to stop their effect on the timestream, as they were creating more timelines and duplicates. The Avengers were brought to Limbo by Kang to help him defeat another version. They were captured but escaped. Immortus revealed himself when it appeared only one Kang was left. Immortus also claimed to have mentally manipulated the rescue of Ravonna, who kept his counter-divergency project under observation. When Kang tried to seize a device Immortus held that contained the memories of the slain Kangs and which Immortus claimed made him master of Limbo, he was driven insane and ran into Limbo due to the force of many memories, which all ended in his defeat. Immortus claimed that was Kang's chance to redeem and condemn himself, and was then questioned by the Avengers on the moral issues of what he had done, but he sent the Avengers back to their own time.


title: Immortus

text: Much later, he was revealed to have a long-term plot for the manipulation of the Avengers. He deleted various time-line universes as part of this plan. His plot to use the Scarlet Witch to become the "absolute master of time" was revealed, and he sent the third Legion of the Unliving to destroy the Avengers. He was rendered catatonic for a time by the Time-Keepers as punishment for his attempt to overthrow their rule. At this time, the original Human Torch was revealed not to be the progenitor of the Vision, though this discovery was later itself claimed to be a deception created by a Space Phantom. Manipulating beliefs regarding the relationship between the Torch and the Vision have been a priority for Immortus due to the Vision's connections to the Scarlet Witch, a 'nexus being' who may have been powerful enough to give birth to children who could threaten some of the most powerful cosmic entities in the universe; disrupting the Witch's relationship with the Vision limited the possibility that she would pass on her potential.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus was also responsible for manipulating Iron Man to turn against the Avengers by driving him insane, which resulted in Iron Man's death until he was resurrected by Franklin Richards later.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus also came into conflict with his younger self, who was unable to see the reasoning behind Immortus's and Rama-Tut's actions. Kang's conflict with Immortus was dubbed the "Destiny War", with Kang aiding a group of temporally-displaced Avengers from multiple time periods in competing against Immortus's schemes, Kang now determined to defy his and Rama-Tut's destiny to become Immortus and become the servant of the Time Keepers.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus faked his death several times before ultimately turning on the Time-Keepers to assist the Avengers and, as punishment, was truly killed. He was resurrected minutes later as temporal energies from the Time-Keepers' attempts to turn Kang directly into Immortus earlier than Rama-Tut had and thus fulfill the time loop caused a backlash—partially due to Kang's will and partly due to the complex temporal energies of the current conflict—that created Rama-Tut, Kang, and Immortus as separate beings, freeing Kang from what he saw as a destiny as a "doddering old scholar".


title: Immortus

text: When the rash actions of Kang caused the timestream to become critically unbalanced, Immortus allied himself with the Next Avengers and future versions of Iron Man and the Hulk in an attempt to undo the damage. Disguising himself as a younger version of Kang, Immortus traveled back to the 21st century and convinced the Avengers to come to the future so that they could understand what had happened. Once the Avengers had successfully restored the timeline, Immortus turned on his allies and killed Iron Man and the Hulk before the youthful Avengers apparently killed him.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus has no superpowers, but he does possess a genius-level intellect and amassed an extensive knowledge of chronophysics. It is known that he was tutored by the Time-Keepers themselves, due to him being virtually immortal.


title: Immortus

text: In 2022, "Screen Rant" included Immortus in their "10 Most Powerful Hercules Villains In Marvel Comics" list.


title: Immortus

text: Immortus appears in the alternate timeline seen in the miniseries "Earth X", as Pope of the Church of Immortus. The Church of Immortus's goals are to destroy Reed Richards' Human Torches, allowing mankind to keep their mutations. Upon completing this goal, the Church of Immortus would then leave the Earth to colonize the stars. Immortus is advised in his role by a mysterious man known as Mr. Church, who is Mephisto attempting to lead mankind into its own demise.


title: Immortus

text: Initially, Immortus was able to travel into and out of Limbo at his own will, through use of a time machine. Mephisto would eventually use this to get past his inability to travel into Limbo directly, and would lock Immortus out of Limbo. Eventually, Immortus would be mutated into Kang by the Terrigen Mists, and destroys his time machine in a rage after Mephisto refers to him as Kang, cursing Mephisto for making him Kang again. In his final appearance in the series, he has come to grips with his being Kang, and vows to help Reed Richards undo the damage his Church of Immortus has caused.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: The Mongol conquests of the 13th century resulted in widespread and well-documented destruction. The Mongol army conquered hundreds of cities and villages and killed millions of people. One estimate is that about 11% of the world's population was killed either during or immediately after the Mongol invasions, around 37.75–60 million people in Eurasia. These events are regarded as some of the most deadly acts of mass killing in human history.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Oliver Chancellor's research found that the Mongol invasions induced population displacement "on a scale never seen before", particularly in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and that "the impending arrival of the Mongol hordes spread terror and panic".


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: To avoid war, Genghis Khan and his generals preferred to offer their enemies a chance to surrender without resistance. These enemies would then become vassals by sending tribute, accepting Mongol residents, and/or contributing troops. In return, the Khan would guarantee their protection, but only if those who submitted to Mongol rule were obedient.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: If the enemy offered any resistance, what followed was massive destruction, terror and death. David Nicole notes in "The Mongol Warlords" that "terror and mass extermination of anyone opposing them was a well-tested Mongol tactic". If an enemy refused to submit, the Mongols would employ a strategy of total war; with Mongol leaders ordering the collective slaughter of populations and the destruction of property. Such was the fate of resisting Muslim communities during the invasions of the Khwarezmid Empire.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: The success of Mongol tactics hinged on fear to induce capitulation of enemy populations. From the perspective of modern theories of international relations, Quester suggested, "Perhaps terrorism produced a fear that immobilised and incapacitated the forces that would have resisted."


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: As Mongol conquests spread, that form of psychological warfare proved effective at suppressing resistance to Mongol rule. There were tales of lone Mongol soldiers riding into surrendered villages and executing peasants at random as a test of loyalty. It was widely known that a single act of resistance would bring the entire Mongol army onto a town to obliterate its occupants. Thus, they ensured obedience through fear. Peasants frequently appear to have joined Mongol troops or to have readily accepted their demands.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Ancient sources described Genghis Khan's conquests as wholesale destruction on an unprecedented scale in certain geographical regions, causing great demographic changes in Asia. According to the works of the Iranian historian Rashid al-Din (1247–1318), the Mongols killed more than 1,300,000 people in Merv and more than 1,747,000 in Nishapur. The total population of Persia may have dropped from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine. Population exchanges also sometimes occurred.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: China suffered a drastic decline in population in the 13th and the 14th centuries. Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest had been completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people. While it is tempting to attribute the major decline solely to Mongol ferocity, scholars now have mixed sentiments on the subject. The South Chinese might account for 40 million unregistered persons who, without passports, would not have appeared in the census. Entire peasant populations joining or enlisted for labor could result in a large population reduction because of food shortages. Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure of records, rather than a "de facto" decrease, but others, such as Timothy Brook, argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment of a huge portion of the Chinese populace, causing many to disappear from the census altogether. Other historians, like William McNeill and David Morgan, argue that the Black Death, spread by the Mongols, was the main factor behind the demographic decline in that period. The plague also spread into areas of Western Europe and Africa that the Mongols never reached. The Mongols practiced biological warfare by catapulting diseased cadavers into the cities they besieged. It is believed that fleas remaining on the bodies of the cadavers may have acted as vectors to spread the Black Death.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: About half the population of Kievan Rus' may have died during the Mongol invasion of Rus. The figure refers to the area roughly corresponding to modern Ukraine. Colin McEvedy ("Atlas of World Population History, 1978") estimates the population of European Russia dropped from 7.5 million prior to the invasion to 7 million after it.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's population of two million were victims of the Mongol invasion of Europe.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Mongol campaigns in Northern China, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East caused extensive destruction, but there are no exact figures available for that time. The cities of Balkh, Bamiyan, Herat, Kyiv, Baghdad, Nishapur, Merv, Konye-Urgench, Lahore, Ryazan, Chernigov, Vladimir and Samarkand suffered serious devastation by the Mongol armies. For example, there is a noticeable lack of Chinese literature from the Jin dynasty, predating the Mongol conquest, and in the Siege of Baghdad (1258), libraries, books, literature, and hospitals were burned: some of the books were thrown into the river in quantities sufficient to turn the Tigris black with ink for several months, according to legend; further, "in one week, libraries and their treasures that had been accumulated over hundreds of years were burned or otherwise destroyed. So many books were thrown into the Tigris River, according to one writer, that they formed a bridge that would support a man on horseback."


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Genghis Khan was largely tolerant of multiple religions, but there are many cases of him and other Mongols engaging in religious war even if the populations were obedient. He passed a decree charging all Taoist followers to pay more taxes. All campaigns involved deliberately destroying places of worship.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: The Mongols' destruction of the irrigation systems of Iran and Iraq turned back millennia of effort in building irrigation and drainage infrastructure in these regions. The loss of available food as a result may have led to the death of more people from starvation in this area than the actual battle did. The Islamic civilization of the Persian Gulf region did not recover until after the Middle Ages.


title: Destruction under the Mongol Empire

text: Mongols were known to burn farmland. When they were trying to take the Ganghwa Island palaces during the at least six separate invasions of Korea under the Goryeo Dynasty, crops were burned to starve the populace. Other tactics included diverting rivers into and from cities and towns and catapulting diseased corpses over city walls to infect the population. The use of such infected bodies during the siege of Caffa is alleged by some sources to have brought the Black Death to Europe.